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81405 421, originally uploaded by ransomz.
This pic perfectly represents why I love Beagles so much. I love how expressive a Beagle’s face can be and I can never be in a bad mood being around a Beagle.
Happy Fourth of July from Minnie!
Photo by Spencer J. Perry
Here’s the picture of the grasshopper that was clinging to my Happy Bee antenna topper. 
This is what Minnie looked like when we first adopted her on September 30, 2003. She weighed 16 pounds and was very thin.
Nature really can teach us great lessons to live by. I was walking around to the driver’s side of my car yesterday morning when I noticed my little rubber yellow bee antenna topper had some strange whisker-like thing sticking onto its face. It looked weird and caught my attention. What the hell?
There was a big green grasshopper attached to the face of the bee. I thought it was pretty odd that it chose my antenna topper as its resting place, but I didn’t think too much more about it.
I drove to work which is about 30 miles away in Framingham going my usual 70mph on the highway. As I walking away from the car, I noticed the damned cricket was still perched there on my antenna topper. How did it do that? How come it didn’t blow off in the wind? I was amazed! So I grabbed my digital camera and snapped a few pictures for posterity. (I must have looked a little odd to people pulling into spaces next to me considering all they could see was a woman taking digital pics of her car’s radio antenna.)
So I walked away with this philosophic thought-we should try to be like my little green friend. Hang on for dear life and don’t let the wind blow us off course.
Spencer was walking Minnie today when he noticed she was acting funny. She just stopped walking and was sitting on the ground looking odd. So he tugs at her chain a little bit to get her to start moving and as she started walking forward, she took one of her back hind legs and stretched it out underneath her so that it was sticking up in the air. Guess what? Poor little Minnie stepped in dog poo and had it on her back paws. Ewwwww….
When he told me about it tonight, I really started to laugh. Just the thought of how dogs thoughtlessly shit all over the place only to have someone step in it later on is kinda funny to me. We’re responsible pet owners and always pick up after our dog ( see Blog entry ‘Watch Out Thomas Edison” from June 2nd ), but I still find it deplorable that people let their dogs roam the neighborhood freely pooping away on streets, sidewalks or anywhere there’s a good scent.
unfortunately for my dog Minnie, she stepped in it. Pretty funny, huh?
I just came back inside from walking Minnie. But before I came inside to put away the groceries, I sat out on my front steps with her. Nothing special about my porch-granite steps leading up to the front door. I was just sitting on my top stair relaxing alongside the evening breeze. I was thinking that I don’t do this often enough-this sitting and staring.
I listened to the crickets and the anonymous frogs making their night sounds and I started counting to 100 looking at the leaves on the tree in my front yard. I had to pace my counting because I thought that as soon as I reached 100 then it was time to step inside. I guess that just shows how uncomfortable I am sitting still with nothing happening.
I watched Minnie shift around beside me looking to me as if to say, “Well, what next?” It was interesting to watch her ears perk up at the littlest sound in the night air. At one point someone whistled off in the distance and we both heard it together. I kept waiting to hear the sound of Spencer’s car in the distance because he was out on an errand with his sister and wanted to surprise him by seeing us waiting for him on the porch. But see? That’s just me trying to come up with a purpose for just sitting still.
Slowly I counted to 100 and went inside to start putting the groceries away.
Spencer told me tonight that there was a bat in our kitchen. I was watching a movie high on Nyquil so it took me a few beats to completely grasp that we had a live bat in our kitchen.
I crept quietly into the kitchen and the bat was hanging upside down near our Tiffany lamp apparently sleeping. (Spencer later said he first thought it was one of my toy’s hanging up there)
I phoned the Worcester Police, but they couldn’t help me because they said an officer was already on a bat call across town on Salisbury Street. Great. So now what am I supposed to do? He suggested I call Animal Control.
Animal Control at least answered their phone, but happily told me that I was out of luck because they didn’t provide emergency response service in the evening which leads me to wonder if all animal emergencies happen during the daytime? They were useless and essentially told me to keep the doors open in house so that perhaps the bat would fly out. But my bat is sleeping!
I opened the Yellow Pages and turned to the ‘Pest’ headings. I called the first four companies with the largest ads and all of them had answering machines. The fourth call was to a guy with an Auburn telephone number with a company name of Critter Control. Wayne answered his phone and I explained my dilemma.
He said, “Are you alone?” I’m thinking why does he need to know that? Have I somehow managed to contact a professional pervert? “No,” I reply. “My husbands home with me and our dog.” (Why I mentioned the dog was beyond me, but remember–I had great doses of Niquil in my system) “So why doesn’t he take care of the bat?” asks Wayne of Critter Control. “I don’t want my husband to get bitten by the bat.” “Oh, so it’s ok if ‘ole Wayne gets bit then?” he laughs.
Without missing a beat, “Look Wayne, I’m paying you good money to come out to my house tonight to get this bat out of my kitchen so I guess that’s the risk you gotta take.”
Wayne shows up a half hour later in the batmobile. Seriously. His white pick-up truck had a bug guard with the saying, “Batman” stenciled across it. He walked in with a pair of leather gloves that our nations American Eagle could land on, an empty bottle of Gatorade and a big flashlight.
It took Wayne all of 5 seconds to pick the bat off the wall and deftly deposit the squeaking rodent into the empty bottle. Cost of service? Now get ready because this blows my mind.
$135.00
I was so freaked out by the whole experience that I wrote him the check for $1, 350.00. “Wow, that’s some tip.” jokes Wayne. Huh? I’m not tipping this guy for 5 seconds of bat wrangling. He hands the check back to me and it sinks in that I wrote the check out incorrectly. So my bat guy was honest, too. What a superhero.
Aside from not having a butterfly net and all this 20/20 hindsight, next time there’s a bat in my house I’m taking my friend Deb’s advice and putting a paperbag over it. At least that’s the plan.
Right this very instant my next door neighbor is standing across the street from his house whistling for something. I noticed him doing it while I was sweeping my driveway. (It’s my little way of physically recovering from mowing the lawn. Sweeping a broom in a repetitious manner really just helps me decompress from the physical exertion required to mow.)
Anyways…He’s still out there doing it. It’s like he’s calling for someone in the neighborhood and I just know it’s not his dogs because they’re chained up out back. So the only conclusion I can draw is that he’s calling for that young girl I see him with every so often. The blonde skinny one with the dead stare and the cigarettes. And this makes we wonder what kind of girl would come running beckoned by a man’s whistle? Where’s her dignity? Doesn’t women’s liberation mean anything to her generation? It’s one thing to be whistled at, but quite another to be whistled for. It lets the man be in the one-up position and it’s like the girl must supplicate herself to his whistle. Shameful.
Perhaps I shouldn’t be so cynical. Maybe…just maybe they’re secret lovers. Yes, that feels better, doesn’t it? He’s older, she’s younger. Maybe her parents don’t approve so they secretly came up with this caveman-like way to communicate. Or maybe they just want to get together to smoke pot and make out. Who can tell?
Oh! He just stopped whistling. By my watch, that was just about 8 minutes of whistling. I wonder. Did she every show up? I have no idea, but it’s social observances like these that make me think I’ve got to get back to watching General Hospital rather than watching my neighbors.
Ever watch a TV show called “Invent This!” on TechTV? It’s a show dedicated to inventors and each segment features a re-enactment of how the idea for the invention originated.
I’ve got one. Why doesn’t Purina or Iams invent glow-in-the-dark pet food? That way, when the dog poops outside in the evening, you’ll see this brilliantly green glowing mound of poo and it won’t be so hard to pick up in the dark and deposit into your Stop & Shop plastic baggy.
It’s a struggle being a responsible dog owner. Our beagle Minnie is housetrained and always poops outside. Our walks are equipped with flashlight and plastic baggy. Our precious little Minnie is a very discerning pooper. She’ll only go in certain spots and frequently seeks out patches of musky-smelling leaves or overgrown weeds to do her business. Try gathering dog poop in the dark. That shit’s like camouflage.Picking up after her in the daytime is easy…it’s when the sun goes down that presents the challenge.
Minnie’s poo sure is elusive. And essentially this is where the idea comes in. Scooping up glow-in-the-dark poop would be so easy. I’m no chemist, but I’ve got to be thinking that if the Trojan folks can come up with glow-in-the-dark condoms…well, then digestible friendly dog food can’t be too far behind. Y’think?
