The Ghost Messes with My Car?!

So, when I got home from work, it was raining. I parked in the yard for reasons that don’t matter. Just that I was parked in the yard. I was yakking to the Butcher on the phone, while I went and shut the shed door, which had come open in the wind. Then, I popped the trunk, got one load out, put it in the house, got the dog, got the other load, shut the trunk and went in the house.

When I went out with the dog just now, five hours later, the dome light in the car was on.  All the doors were shut. So, the switch had been flipped. Could it have been kids digging through the car while I was in the house? I guess. But I didn’t see any evidence and I’m not going back out there to look too closely in the dark. And I didn’t hear anything.

I don’t know. Freaked me out, though. Still shaking a little. I’m trying to convince myself that I could have somehow hit the switch on the dome light getting out of the car. The car started right up. So, I’m not sure it really could have been on this whole time. I’m trying to talk myself into ne’re do wells.

But just in case, when I got in, I said that folks needed to not freak me out. We can all live peacefully together, whoever in the back yard; me in the house as long as whoever’s in the back yard is courteous about not scaring the shit out of me.

Cheese

I had to get some cheese for this event, which is always very stressful for me because I know people really like cheese and that I don’t know shit about it. It’s like wine, but different in that people’s tastes in wine vary enough that, even if you pick out a wine that ends up being bad, someone might be like “Oh my god, the oak undertones are exquisite, even if the fruity notes are way too harsh.”

You don’t have to know what an oak undertone is or a fruity note, but it seems like you’ve at least bought a wine that, though not good, challenges the pallet.

With cheese, though? I don’t know.

So, I was all worried.

But I went to the Bordeaux Kroger, which apparently means that your choices of non-slice cheese are whatever Laughing Cow is and cheddar. So… that was easy enough.

Hurray for Friends

I have been a little down, lately. Um, as you may have noticed. But dang, have I felt well-cared for. Thanks again, mystery flower person/people. The Corporate Shill, who I have known since we were very young adults, is swinging by for a few hours tomorrow.

This is part of the reason it’s good to have old friends. I said, “Please come. I am so bummed and I can barely leave the house and it’s covered in dog hair and there are dishes in the sink, though,” and she said, “Hey, I have two young kids. If everything isn’t covered in a sticky sheen of milk and juice, you’re a step ahead of me most days.”

It’s good to have friends you can see even when you don’t have it completely together. Who understand that you need to see them even when you’re not completely together.

I’m really lucky. Really lucky to know you guys.

The Dog and the Boy

For a long while, the dog and the nephews did not get along so well. Since my cousin hit her in the head with a bone, she has had a distrust of small children, especially boys. Which is too bad because she also really loves small children. They just wig her out and when she’s around them, you need to keep everyone very closely supervised (though, really, you should keep all dogs and children closely supervised when they are together).

I know I had this conversation with Say Uncle a while ago. I thought it was in the comments here but I can’t find it, so it may have been in the comments there, about how there’s something about the size of five and six year old kids that seems to be kind of difficult for the dog to navigate, in terms of figuring out how to treat them. Mrs. W. is pretty good with kids at the “okay, everybody be very careful” stage, but has trouble with the “they will be loud and uncareful but we still have to be careful” stage.

So, my nephew is now almost thirteen, as I’ve said repeatedly because I just can’t believe it. And he says, “Mrs. Wigglebottom is a lot nicer now than she used to be. I’m not even afraid of her.”

Well, people, my dog has not become better around kids. She’d be a terrible dog for a family of small children. But my nephew is big enough now that the dog clearly feels at ease around him. I don’t even know how to explain it. But her whole body language when it comes to him is different. If you’re sitting on the couch with him, instead of her constantly trying to get on the couch to make sure she’s getting your attention and not him, she was getting up on the couch to sit next to him and put her head in his lap and basically just hang out with her buddy.

They played some great, rousing games of tug-of-war throughout the house. And, when he left, I’m told, she tried to get in the van to go with him.

Of course, she may also have been trying to get in the van because she thought that missing my flower garden with the van was so easy even a dog could do it, so she was angling to drive. Who knows?

Still, it’s been with great interest and pleasure that I’ve watched the dog take to the boy and the boy take to the dog in return.