- bits of roofing from the house
- half of a tennis ball
- a rock
- a caterpillar
- my Stuart Weitzman pump
- Verdell’s head (still attached to his body, don’t worry)
- my mortgage payment
- a golf ball
- a bbq skewer
- a bottlecap
- soap
- my latest knitting project

I remember reading that labs were ‘mouthy’ - but I had no idea.

This email exchange happened today between about five of us (and I might not get it exactly right so bear with me):

Friend 1:  Check out these “buzzwords” or guide for women from day’s past! YIKES!

Friend 2:  Several of these are true words to live by:

Greet him with a warm smile and show sincerity in your desire to please him
Let him talk first – remember, his topics of conversation are more important than yours
Remember, he is the master of the house and as such will always exercise his will with fairness and truthfulness. You have no right to question him.

Can we get everybody to start treating me this way?

Friend 3:  I think I will start tying ribbons in my hair and fixing cool drinks for random dudes on the el....

Friend 2:  Don’t forget to speak in a soft and soothing voice.

Friend 4:  Your mom speaks soft in a soothing voice

Friend 2:  Is that before or after she calls the cops on you?

Friend 4:  She’s the one drinking malt liquor not me

I’m working on another post about something that happened over the weekend, but it might take a few more days to finish up…

I know you get tired of me bitching… I know you do… I feel for ya… but it’s not gonna stop.  Its what I DO.  It’s why I have this damned thing - so that I can use it as a forum where I vent.

Before I get started here is a picture of 16 week old Sharkey

Yes, he’s big.  Yes, his paws are the size of my fists… Yes, he goes through 30 lbs of pup food every two weeks, PLUS a case of wet food.  However, he is one of the smartest, easiest going dogs that I have ever owned.  When I say ‘No!’, he doesn’t question it.  He may not like it, but he stops doing whatever the offending action is.  I’m very proud of his attitude and how I can take him anywhere and know he’s not going to act out.  I credit a lot of that to his older sister, who, in his first few weeks at this house, was all “Awww, hellz no.  You don’t bring that sh|t into my house.” Trust me… Mags laid down the rules and enforced them with a few body slams.

When I say this next part, I don’t mean to sound all self-righteous.  BUT - because I have taken the time and effort to make sure that my dogs are fairly well behaved - not to mention invested money into at least Shark’s education, I’ve grown intolerant of those that just think they should have ‘instadog’ or think that their animal’s obnoxious behavior is cute to me or anyone other than themselves.

I have a few examples:

#1 - Taking Sharkey up to PetSmart to get his food.  We walk in - he’s got his new head collar on.  Because Sharkey has started to pull and jump at people, I got one of these a few weeks ago. This collar yanks his head down every time he pulls ahead and makes him pay attention to me as the lead.  If I could rave about any one product that I’ve bought for Sharkey since we got him, it would be this little set-up.  It’s so much more effective than the pinch or choke (both collars that I feel dogs eventually grow immune to).

I digress..

I go to the food aisle.  Lug a bag of his food into the cart and move on to the treat section to pick up some chews.  Round the corner and there’s this HUGE pit bull.  Now, I’m not afraid of pit bulls - but when your dog suddenly starts lunging at mine and frothing at the mouth - I freak out.  I mean the dog had EASILY 30 pounds on Shark and probably more when I think about how the dog was SOLID muscle. 

Sharkey reads the pit wrong at first and thinks he wants to play - I yank him back and say to the owner “You really should think about bringing your dog into places like this when he reacts to others in this way.”

He laughs as he struggles with pulling the beast back and says “Oh naw… he don’t mean nothin’.  He’s fine.”

Right… I suppose the saliva and the baring of teeth are just his way of saying ‘hi’.

#2 Neighbors dog.  A miniature Schnauzer named Elvis.  Elvis barks like this:  YIP YIP YIP YIP YIP YIP over and over and over and over.  Elvis does this all times of the day.  Evidently, neighbors are not bothered by Elvis’s constant yipping.  Not sure how this is possible, as I have been unable to find anything to drown out Elvis and his yips.  So I see the neighbors out in their front yard one day, pull over in my car, and introduce myself.

“I hate to bring this up...” I start out.  “But, your dog… barks… a lot.”

The lady smiles and laughs and sort of waves her hand around.  “Oh yes… Elvis… he just gets so excited!”

Uh-huh…

“Yeah… but you know, last night he was really excited at about 10 o’clock and I’m trying to get my son to go to bed...”

“Oh yes - that’s when he goes outside for the last time.”

Uh-huh…

“Well yeah… but so can you make sure he doesn’t bark at that time...”

She looked confused for a moment and then replied “Yeah I guess...”

Umm… you guess?  No you will.  Because if you don’t then I will call the cops.  I’m not kidding.  I don’t let my dogs sit out in the backyard and yap yap yap incessantly at a leaf that is blowing across the street.  Give me the same consideration.  Sweet Jesus.

#3 Walking Mags and Sharkey.  Got my poop bags ready.  Walking along the lake.  See another dog approaching - other dog stops about twenty feet from us and decides to take a load off.  The owner watches him, and then proceeds to just walk away after the dog is finished. 

Are you fuckin’ kidding me?

Dude, pick up your dogs doo.  It’s not hard.  Plus there’s a garbage can at the lake that you can conveniently dump it in when you are finished.  What about the other dogs that come to the lake?  What if we just let them all take their dumps and not pick it up?  Especially right now in the middle of 90 degree heat.  Want to see how much fun that could turn into? 

Ugh.. it just makes me mad.  I don’t blame the animals - but the people, yeah… you suck.

Let’s go from talking dog crap to shrimp quesadillas.

This weekend I decided that instead of dropping close to $50 at the local Mexican place, I would attempt to make the dilla’s at home. 

Here’s what we did:

Mix up your shrimp with the chile, cilantro, green onions and lime juice.  We marinated for about 20 minutes.

Shred your cheese (we used Chihuahua cheese).

Heat up your tortillas in some oil and flip it a few times. 

Top with your shrimp and cheese and fold the tortilla over and flip a few more times.

T-man and I enjoyed these so much.  They had so much more flavor than the ones we get at the restaurant.  Now, if only I could perfect my margarita.

I’m going to rethink my Mondays tv routine.... I mean there is Charm School but I’m not too impressed with Ricki Lake.  Seriously… who has three girls walk out in one week? 

So because there’s no good television, I got the bright idea to cook corn chowder.  But I needed to go to my ghetto Wal-Mart before attempting for some Old Bay seasoning.  Walk in, start looking around in the spices, some sixty year old red neck walks past me, gives me the once over, then winks at me.  Umm… no thanks.

Let’s get on with the chowder.

If you follow my recipe, you are going to need corn and shrimp - as evidenced below:

Thaw some shrimp and husk, desilk, and slice off the kernels of 6 ears of corn.

Fry up 4 slices of bacon, then set aside.

Put your onion and potatoes into the bacon grease and let cook for about three minutes.  Add your flour and cook for about a minute.  Then add milk, seafood seasoning, water and thyme.

Bring to a boil.  Lower the heat and then add corn and shrimp and cook for another three minutes.

Serve topped with bacon.

I added some kosher salt and some pepper to the soup to season.  I know I promised no more food blogs, but I’m going to have to go back on that… This recipe was too good not to share.

The above is a one-liner popular amongst us Mississippi Deltans - and roughly it means to make the best of any given situation, turn it into a joy filled event even if the circumstances are not joyous.

Lately, I’ve been trying to channel the strengths of the women that are and have been in my family.  We are a gritty bunch, and not ones to sit back or on the sidelines.  “It’s rainin...” was a favorite of my grandmother and I can definitely say that she could take a boring Friday night and turn it into a ‘cake decorating party’ or a ‘crunch n munch movie fest.’ These are the things that I remember about my childhood.

I’ve found in the past year that I’ve grown away from the things that I love - golf matches with my brother, lavish Oscar parties with Bea, lunches with JDubs and Em, nursery trips on Sunday with my mom… and tons others including writing on this blog.

Smizzo and Friglet have made a commitment to try to get back into blogging again.  Since I no longer write about work and I’m not ready to start blogging about dating again, I had thought that the only things I had to share were either recipes, or tales about the dogs and Turtle. 

But I went back to posts here and in my old blog and I realized that another thing I’ve lost in the past year was the ability to see the humor in the most mundane of situations - overheard conversations in the grocery store, a person’s eating habits, the way my dishwasher complains every time I start it up.

I want to get back to that person - I need to find her again.

In the future, I might reinstate my old domain name Snidget.  After the move, I never felt the same about this particular blog and never felt like I could be as candid as I once had been.  I also suppose that I never got over the feeling that that site, and all the relationships I had made with those that read and commented were unfairly jerked away from me and my only recourse was to go underground and resurface somewhere else.

And afterall, Wad still does call me Snidgey.

So here’s to getting back to writing and creativity and humor.  Three things that I need right now.