Put up your doggie dukes!!!!

Just got back from my evening walk with the dog. She has now been attacked by 7 dogs, 5 of which were
dogs that their owners swore were friendly. I don't know what it is. She just met the cutest cocker spaniel.
The woman said he was absolutely friendly. They went nose to nose for a few seconds and then whammo,
he went at my poor Lacey. The woman was so sorry. She couldn't believe it. I told the folks that kenneled
Lacey back in April that I did not want her around any other dogs off leash because of this. They told me that it might be because she is so submissive and the other dogs bully her because of it. Both me and Tim think it's because she is so darn cute, the other dogs are jealous. Either way, I think my dog needs self defense classes
and I am getting more and more nervous when folks don't leash their dogs. Liv and I walked her last night
and a little dog rushed at her from its own property. I quickly picked up Lacey(no easy feat as she is trying to
meet this little dog and squirmed like crazy, scratching up my arms, trying to get down.) I walked off the sidewalk into the street to get off the dog's property and the dog followed us into the road. Then I walked back onto the sidewalk to keep the dumb dog from getting hit by a car. The people ran out of their house when they heard all its barking and caught their dog, apologizing like crazy. I got the impression the dog was not supposed to
be out alone or it was not friendly and might have bitten, or both, judging by the way they raced to catch her
and the way they kept apologizing. The thing is, my dog wants to meet other dogs and met several great ones
on Saturday but I am really getting nervous about it now, especially with the dogs that are off leash 'cause once they go at her, you can't get them off. We just recently had a case just a few miles from my house where 2 pitbulls got out of their yard and killed a spaniel being walked by its mom. It's crazy. You go out for a relaxing walk with your doggie and it's kill or be killed out there. I wish Lacey was just a little more assertive. I may have to go buy myself some darn mace though. I've got an 80 some odd year old woman who walks a 90 some odd pound pit in this neighborhood and she carries a tiny stick with her to keep her dog in line. It scares me to death. There is no way she could hold that dog back and that's exactly how Tim's uncle saw his poodle killed 2 years ago. I don't want my doggie hurt. I don't feel like getting my arse handed to me either after kicking someone's vicious mutt off my puppy(though I think I can take the old lady). Maybe I can borrow a cat to use as Lacey's bodyguard.

Late addition to this story. Our employee, Alan, lives just a few blocks from us. The other night, he was standing in his driveway with his fiance when a couple of teens came by asking nervously if they'd seen a dog. They said no. The teens continued down the street.  A few minutes later, they were rushed by a pit and had to jump in the car to save themselves, while the dog jumped at the windows snarling, trying to get at them. CUJO!!The teens came back and tried in vain to catch the dog, begging Alan not to call the cops because they would kill their dog. I don't think mace or a cat is going to cut it. I think I need to walk with a pistol. I know there are plenty of pits that are super dogs, BUD included, but I'm starting to really worry about happening upon a lose one during our walks. We had a woman around here killed by one 5 years ago. Frightening.

Balancing living with paying the bills

One of the hardest things about MM entering our lives 20+ years earlier than the average is that we are still
in our "wage earning" years. Translated: while we would just LOVE to make the most out of every day and
do the whole "live like you were dyin' ' thing, we have a mortgage, daughter who has not been through college yet, and bills to pay and no way to retire and afford living in northern NJ and keep medical insurance. Every summer, we have the same problem. Our daughter is off school and we would like to hit the open road, but Tim is too busy.
I have always wanted to show Tim and Olivia some of the places I saw in '77 when we trekked across
this beautiful country in an RV. Unfortunately, summer is Tim's crazy time. Many people want to get their wood floors done when they, the kids, and the animals are out of the house, so they purposely book the
jobs on their summer vacations. Almost 100% of Tim's work is referrals from his customers so blocking out
4 to 6 weeks of the busy season has a snowball effect. He has turned down about 4 jobs in the last month
or so because he is overbooked. The problem is the jobs you lose because of those 4 you didn't do. And then the jobs you lose from those recommendations too. Every summer, we go to Cape May, NJ with my folks and then spend a week in VT with his folks. I've squeezed in a few days here and there to other locations within those 2 weeks but Tim always winds up pretty depresssed at the end of the summer that all he did was work and not spend enough time with Olivia and not nearly enough time on vacation. How the heck do you change this? Our employee needs rotator cuff surgery. This summer would be the perfect time to take off.
Alan could recover and collect short term disability and we could travel the country. Problem is, Tim is booked
like crazy and we just can't lose the momentum because we might wind up haivng his business slow down markedly because of it. He has been very fortunate to stay busy during this whole economic downturn. He hoped to hire someone else so he could step back some but it's not easy. We hired a nice kid but he kept coming in hung over and we had to let him go. Lots of flooring companies have gone belly-up and a friend of ours sits home most days wondering why Tim is so swamped when his business has pretty much dried up.I guess being swamped with work is a nice problem to have but with Tim's health, the bucket list can't be put off indefinitely. I think I'm gonna sit down with him tonight and ask outright if he wants to take a month off and do this thing. I don't know how far we can make it but we can see a lot in a few weeks. I'd be happy with making it to the Grand Tetons and back, seeing a bunch of stuff on the way out and back. Ya know, if fate was gonna send cancer into your life, at the very least, it could include a winning lottery ticket with it so you can concentrate on what's important in life instead of worrying about money. Is that too much to ask?

Shameless bragging part deux

Last night was our final softball game. We played the same team we played on Monday as a make-up for a game they had to cancel a week or so ago.The coaches of this team stink. It's a woman and a man. When they start losing, they start making complaints and trying to say pitchers are not pitching legally and they disrupt the whole game. They argued with Monday's umpire and did not want to obey his rulings and turned the whole end of the game into a circus.
Now, the fact is, our 2- 9th grade pitchers do take a hop off the rubber and this is not legal. This is usually not called by coaches or the umpires in recreation ball unless it is a large hop toward home plate. In high school, or on travelling teams, yes they call hops as illegal pitches. BUT Olivia does not do this. In the 5 years she has been pitching, she just never developed that habit.  She pitches legal and has never had a problem with ANY coach or umpire. Now, the kicker of this is that ALL of their pitchers take their foot off the rubber when they pitch but WE would never complain about such a thing. There is almost no way to keep your push-off foot glued to a 5 inch piece of rubber when you have all that forward motion going on in your pitch unless you nail your foot to the ground. These are 12-14 year old girls and windmill
pitching is the most difficult form of pitching there is. Let the kids play ball for Heaven's sake. But there is a reason these coaches do this. On Monday, they rattled our 9th grade pitcher so badly when they stopped the game  to complain, and she got so nervous, she could not pitch at all. She walked in 7 runs which tied up
a game we were winning easily. Luckily, we were last at bat and our first girl got on base and stole 2 bases, 2nd girl struck out, and then this poor pitcher, who now felt so awful about her performance, knocked in the winning run. Cut to last night. Our starter pitched 3 innings. They complained about her hop. The umpire, who was deaf by the way but did a fantastic job calling this game, has to call the pitch illegal and he did not. Olivia was slated to pitch in the 4th and 5th, which were our final innings due to time limits on games. Liv is thin and small for a pitcher and people don't expect her to throw as well as she does. As soon as the inning started, (she was throwing well),  they tried to say that she
was sliding her right foot slightly off the rubber. Now, NOBODY calls this illegal. She does not hop and replant her right foot forward of the rubber, lose contact with the ground with her pivot foot, or wind up closer to home plate, giving the batter less reaction time. If anything, because there is always a hole in front of the rubber because of girls digging their push-off foot in, her foot tips off the front of the rubber into the hole but her heal is either on the rubber or right in front of it with no hop whatsoever and no gained advantage of being closer to home plate. You cannot avoid this and everybody does it, which is why that hole is there to begin with. They were just seeing if they could rattle her
and it dawned on me afterward that they were complaining about her to try to get Victoria put on the mound in hopes she would walk in a batch of runs like she did on Monday. NOT cool. The coach was being an arse. Tells Timmy to come watch from 1st base. He said, "I can see from here, she is fine." I was upset. She pitches totally legally and this guy was trying to make something out of nothing. I was so afraid Liv would not be able to pitch. This has never happened to her. She is our youngest pitcher and has not pitched all that much this season. We only got 10 games in and she missed 3 of them. Well she struck out 2 batters and fielded a grounder and threw the girl out at first. TAKE THAT Woodcliff Lake coach! HA!!!! The next and final inning, mind you, we are creaming them and they are being outplayed in all aspects, they try to rattle her again. They never call time out, they just walk onto the field and start complaining. I was having palpitations by this time. Well, their coach charged toward the mound from coaching first base. You NEVER approach someone else's player and you NEVER go to the pitching mound when it's not your pitcher up there. I said, "WHOA!" Dave, our head coach, who hates confrontation and any ugliness at all, charged out there. I had to grab Tim who was ready to go toe-to-toe with this guy for approaching Liv like that. You cannot
have more than one coach on the mound so Tim had to stay with me. The guy showed the umpire what he was
complaining about. Dave said, "Get away from my pitcher!" A few pitches later, the umpire stopped and said that her foot did look like it might be just off the front edge of the rubber but Liv had no idea what was going on. We thought he was complaining that a girl on 1st base left the base too early on her lead. Why in the world would he allow our starter to take a small hop and call Liv, when she doesn't pick her foot up at all.  Well, because this coach was complaining, he felt he had to make a warning to appease him. My poor kid was like a deer
in the headlights. This man could not speak well and used arm motions alot so she was confused. Me and Tim just kept telling her
to shake it off and just pitch. Our head coach's daughter ran for a short pop up from first base and caught it, and then Liv ended the game with 2 strike outs. We won 20 to 5. Olivia made 5 out of the 6 outs in the 2 innings she pitched and I could not be prouder that this 13 year old kid kept her head after all these disruptions from a grown man trying to intimidate her and yet, she triumphed like that. It was a good way to end the season. Our girls played well. I was on a high all night after seeing Liv do that. The girl rocks!
Coaches need to let the girls play their game. It's about them, not your ego. Our team is not a "killer instinct" type of team and we always show good sportsmanship. I felt bad for their own girls too because they were a good group of kids (I even complimented their catcher on a great catch) whose coaches ruin this for them.
Let the kids play and have a good time. If someone is cheating or playing unfairly, by all means, talk to the umpire and get it taken care of but otherwise, do your best and show your players that you are a good sport too. Kudos to Liv!!! What a brave kid she is.

Warning: Shameless bragging about our kid

Last night, we were invited to the 7th grade awards ceremony. They don't tell you what award your kid is getting, just that they are getting one or more. So we dressed up a bit and went. Olivia got TWO awards.
She recieved the first award of the evening for having her motto selected as the new school motto(they just re-vamped our school system and we have a "middle" school again.) Her idea, "Learn today-soar tomorrow" will be used in this school for now on. She then received the president's silver award for having all A's with no more than 1 or 2 B's for the whole school year. Obama himself signed it(read, intern stamped his autograph). We were very proud. I sat there and had to stop myself from tearing up because this kid
gets dealt this rotten hand at 8 years old by having her Dad diagnosed with cancer and yet, she muddles
through and does this well in school. Pretty impressive to me that she handles this as well as she does.
For Liv, she was most jazzed about her motto being used and that she had another excuse to
work this into a trip to our local ice cream parlor. That kid would eat ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and
dinner, if we let her. So, enough bragging, is it just me? or is there some problem with the blog sites. I had
trouble leaving comments on other blogs but could sign on to my own. I changed my password and it was OK for a day or 2 and now it's happening again. I'm stumped. Maybe I should ask "tech support" AKA-
my 13 year-old. Just maybe Miss Smartypants can figure it out.

Geriatric softball

Last night, we had our second annual coaches' charity softball game. We raise money for a scholarship fund
in memory of a beloved elementary school teacher from our town that passed away a few years ago. Her
husband got on the microphone after we played the national anthem to thank everyone for remembering his
wife and broke down after only one sentence. VERY sad. He threw out the first pitch. The young girls we
coach, coach us(hysterical hearing a crowd of young girls YELL at grown men, "I TOLD YOU TO RUN THROUGH THE BASE"), and we go out there and learn the hard way that we are not teenagers anymore. I pulled my groin muscle so badly, I can hardly walk on my left leg. I hit the ball  well everytime I got up but they let every coach who signed up, play and there were no holes out there( they had 13 or 14 people on the field) so I
only got on base once(got thrown out at first twice) and scored that time around despite being in significant pain. Guys offered to run for me but I came to play so I sucked it up. The other team wound up with
more players(some latecomers jumped on their team), and more younger guys, so they beat us. I was one of only 3 women who played and I have to
say, it was frustrating. I can play, catch pop flies,hard thrown balls and throw and twice I had guys run to cover me in the field and screw me up. I played second on the first inning and went to catch a throw from
Tim(at short stop) to make an out when a guy ran over and almost blasted me right off the base just as the ball came in and we both missed the throw. His head wound up right where the ball went and I couldn't catch it
without punching him with my mitt and he didn't have his glove up there to get it. He realized he messed up the play and didn't do it again but then I went to catch a pop fly a few innings later that was in my area when I was playing "short center field" and another guy cut over and ran for it and slipped in the grass, falling right in front of me when I was just 2 or 3 feet from the ball and about to make the catch.  I almost wound up on top of him in a compromising position. I guess it's just the way things are that men think women can't play sports,
but it was irritating. Anyway, one guy hit a homerun and after running all the bases(he's a smoker) was
so out of breath he had to sit down for a few minutes to recover. By the end of the game, we were feeling our age, every darn year of it. I was
holding an ice pack on my groin muscle and I have never had a pull be this painful. It feels like my muscle
tore in half. But it was a lot of fun. Our mayor was the umpire and the jokes were flying. The local papers
were there taking photos and Tim and I are in several. I LOVE playing softball but I'm gonna be feeling this for a few days though.

Doctors who make your heart go pitter pat

I got the results of my sonagram this morning. They found nothing out of sorts. Now, I suppose this is good news, but I am still having pain in my gut and around my back and the "green apple two-step" is a dance I
have gotten really tired of doing these last 2 weeks. Looks like I'm headed for the gastroenterologist and
a possible colonoscopy. Sweet. Then I had to run to an appt. with the pulmonologist who I had to see after
my sleep apnea study. He is trying to solve this chronic cough I've had for years. Part of it is sinus related.
Part may be a cough variant type of asthma. I got there a little late. There was a detour and then a bunch of
folks running a torch for something with a police escort in my lane of the street. It was crazy trying to get there.
I had this older man behind me beeping his horn, like I can do anything about the row of cars, 5 cop cars
with lights on driving 5 mph,. and the fifty joggers in our lane. If he blew that horn one more time, I was gonna get outta my car and make a suggestion. I get there late and frazzled and the nurse slaps a blood pressure cuff on me to start the appointment. I said, "you're kidding right?". She said, "it's great, 120 over 70." This nurse obviously can't take BP readings. It's only 120 over 70 when I'm asleep. Then the doc comes in. What a hunk. Green eyes and no stranger to weight machines. Holy cow. He's checking my lungs with a stethoscope and then went to listen
to my heartbeat and I swear I had to be blushing and I'll bet ya big time my heart rate was just a little fast.
A few times I got just a little lost in those green eyes and had to force myself to pay attention to what he
was saying. Luckily, I was headed to a church meeting after this appt. cause I'm pretty sure I needed forgiveness by this time. My heart was still going pitter pat when I got to the meeting and
a few of the ladies I was meeting at church  think they may be having breathing problems now!
Dr. V, the pulmonologist who makes women breathless. So Apparently, I have a slight bit of small airway
disease. It may be just irritation or imflammation from the chronic cough, or I guess it could be damage. He
said it's mild but something I don't want to get worse so inhaled steroids it is for me now. Gotta go back in
3 months to do the lung function tests again and see if there is improvement. As always, I guess it could have
been worse. I'd sure like to see my gut clear up though. It's a real nuisance not being able to eat normally and
running to the powder room all the time. And don't ask me how, but I still have not lost a single pound. How is that? I'm eating half as much as I usually do for 2 weeks and NOTHING. Rats.

Oh, the nerves of diagnostic testing

I have to leave in a little while to have an upper abdominal ultrasound. I go to all my doctor's appts.
alone now. Tim is too busy with work and even though this is a radiology place, I feel wrong about
putting Tim around sick people(when visiting doctors) so despite the fact that I get so darn nervous,
I go it alone. I have the scariest of scenerios going through my head. I was told at 27 that my pancreas was
swollen and it might be cancer and I have never gotten over the fear of docs and testing since. I had
a very severe reaction to the drug they used to do the test to see if it was cancer and then they had trouble
doing the test so it was really not definitive. They told me to come back in 3 months for a cat scan and I waited 6, due to fear, but the pain in my side had left and I had not gone to heaven so I figured it wasn't that.
I am hoping that this is my gall bladder or something pretty minor. I have been running to the loo for 2 weeks
and despite not eating much, have yet to lose a pound. Immodium is my new best friend but even that is not
foolproof. I have never had surgery but if they tell me my gall bladder is kaput, I hope to have the courage to
have it removed. I think it has possibly been the culprit in a lot of my gut issues over the years but has never
shown stones in a scan. I was scanned 2 years ago and all they found was a small cyst on my liver. I was supposed to have that rechecked in 6 months and didn't. FEAR is the true F-word. I worry about that too.
What if that doctor was wrong and it wasn't benign? I've said it before, hypochondria goes through the roof
when your hubby has cancer and you have a young kid. Anyhoo, hopefully, this is just one more scare to add
to my graying hair and nothing serious. BTW, I have been unable to leave comments on other blogs. Don't know why. I can sign on to my own but can't sign on to leave comments on others. So, I am still tuned in folks and reading. And Lorna, I wish you and Mike a magical day and can't wait to see the pictures!!!!
Sending you best wishes and love from across the pond!

Back to the grind, and not happily, I might add.

Vacation went well. The weather was better than it was supposed to be, though we had some wicked storms
and possibly a small funnel cloud as soon as we got there. We had another storm the next night that turned the sky coal black in 5 minutes and I thought for sure we were going to have a full blown tornado. But the days were mostly nice. The dog had a blast. She swam for the first time at the lake and met lots of animals. Got stared down by a llama. She jumped back from that. She also ran across the yard back by the house when the heifers across the street mooed loudly. Got attacked by another darn Chihuahua though. Made best friends with one on the ride up at our lunch stop but she gets attacked by the next one she meets. Go figure. Some of them are just nasty.  By Monday night, Lacey hit the wall, she was so exhausted from all her puppy fun. Then we got home yesterday and I have to say, it's been a rough trip back to reality.  I found out from my cell phone on the way home that I have to go for an ultrasound. Been having gall bladder-like pain and my blood tests showed slightly elevated bilirubin. Of course, I am worried and catastrophising, as always. We got home at 5 and had to be at Olivia's induction ceremony for the National Junior Honor Society by 6:30. (Tim always says she has my brains. I'm glad to know where the hell they went anyway.) It was a mad rush of trying to get ready to go and start getting our air conditioners in. The house was an oven when we got home.
Apparently, a facebook announcement must have gone out in the "antworld" that there was a party at our house too because we came home to ants all over the 1st floor. I guess the heat wave had them looking for cover. They picked the wrong house 'cause it was HOT in here too. We get to the ceremony and then come home to finish the upstairs a/c's and continue our offensive on the ants. This morning, Tim did not want to go back to work. He was tired and just not feeling right. The dog was not right either. Would not go to the bathroom, was laying around mopey, and had not eaten at all, not even yesterday. Then, I procede to flood the basement. I took something out of the basement sink( it was the area rug the dog PEED on before we left for VT), and hit the hose from the washer out unknowingly. I then started my wash and the wash water emptied all over the basement floor. Tim came down and got so ticked at things going wrong ever since we got home, that he threw his hands up muttering the he just couldn't deal with this now. I said, "I'll take care of it, don't worry." Well his mutterings
must have gotten pretty colorful with cuss words cuz when I came upstairs, Liv, who was getting ready for school and tries to get us to pay her a quarter for every curse word, said, "Daddy owes me like TEN BUCKS!!!" And no, we do not pay her for curse words..... usually. I've got a bad habit with the sh** word and can't afford to. When we were going to Lancaster, I was catching up with Tim in the car and telling him about something frustrating that had happened that week. Liv admonished me several times for cussing and I handed her a $10.00 bill and said, "here, let it ride!" So, I get most of the flood sopped up, move our dehumidifier over to that area and turn it on high. I go mow the lawn at the rental and come back dripping in sweat. Tim wound up being home because the customer he had to do was sick as heck. He then found a tick on the floor in the kitchen. We don't know if it came off Lacey or me from mowing the grass. GREAT!!!  We then had a softball game tonight. I did not want to play this team again. Their girls
are all in professional pitching lessons, like Liv, but these girls are hardcore. Every year, they beat every town
they play and they beat us once already 2 weeks ago. We get to the game. It is hotter than H- E- double ski poles. I wished for it to be rained out but the bad storm we were expecting stayed south. Well, a bunch of girls blew off the game for other sports they're in and their parents never notified us. Others, still, are so afraid of facing
these pitchers(they throw crazy hard and fast) that they bailed out of playing and didn't show. Liv was our only pitcher and she was hot, tired and stil having problems with her knees. She did not pitch her best, and we had to borrow
3 girls from the other team to even play because we only had 7 out of 15 girls show up. Then, the girls on our team were ridiculous. Our head coach is SO laid back, I swear he's on something, and these girls fool around so much, and he just lets them. Tim and I try to stop some of it but they don't listen. Well,
they got their butts handed to them tonight. They didn't pay attention and clowned around and made errors
all night. It was nuts and downright embaressing. I am friends with the coach from the other town and he was going as easy on us as he could but our girls looked worse than the "bad news bears" out there. They just didn't care and they are irritated with me for pointing that out. Our other coaches started getting pretty ticked too. Liv and 2 other girls were the only ones that were trying at all. It's hard when the adults are tired, dealing with health issues, a few
are serious, and we work like crazy with them and then these girls put no effort into things. Out of 15  girls on this team, we're lucky if we have 5 who even care about what they're doing enough to pay attention during a game. What a waste. I don't care that we lose a game. I knew we were going to get pasted tonight. What I hate is these girls putting no effort into it and clowning around to the point
that other teams are actually laughing at their foolish antics. I had a talk with the head coach tonight. Tim talked to
him a week or so ago. These girls have got to get their heads in the game. Their ridiculous behavior is an embaressment and they wind up totally unprepared to make plays because they are goofing off. It's not fair to the coaches, who volunteer SO much of their time, or the girls who come to play.
Some of the girls on this team are ones I have avoided coaching for several years because of their goofing off. I'd rather have a team full of kids with less talent but more heart than these girls, some of whom do have talent but don't care about the game
and come just to cut up with their friends. Oh well, gotta get my mind off this. I've got WAY too busy a week to obsess about it. What a shame though. There is one girl on our team that is SO great at sports that her mother actually put her in boy's leagues when she was younger because they were serious about playing ball. Too many times, the girls are in it just for social reasons and couldn't care less about winning or improving.
She switched her daughter into girls sports when she was in about 4th or 5th grade though for social reasons but I totally get her reasoning. She is so above all these girls and she caught for Liv tonight and I really felt like they were the only 2 girls in the game tonight. The others did more for the OTHER team than their own.
Tonight was one of those nights when I hate coaching and if Liv said she didn't want to play softball anymore,
I couldn't blame her. Oh well, off to bed. Tomorrow's another day. Gonna put a smile on my face and make the best of it.