Tough as Nails / Smarter Than Expected

For those of you who aren't aware, my family went missing this week in the Louisiana Flood. It was a gut wrenching 24 hours before I, along with my niece, finally found my brother-in-law only to find that when he went in a rescuer's boat to get my mom, she was not home! We spent Monday thinking that she had been rescued with neighbors and trying helplessly to find which of the many shelters she had been taken to...Red Cross' Safe and Well Website is a freaking joke!

To make matters worse, I started my new job teaching in an emotionally disturbed classroom and could not work the phones during the day. By Monday afternoon, I found out Mom was rescued...but not on Sunday as I had thought. We still have no idea where she was when my brother-in-law and the Cajun Navy went to look for her! But Monday, a deputy from another parish was volunteering on his day off and Mom stopped them to ask if they could boat down to the back of her property where the water was waist deep to get her trash can that floated away...she needed to clean now that the 2' in her house was receding! They made her leave the house.

She spent a cold night in the Centroplex River Center (concert hall) and by this morning, she had someone find my number and they were begging me to get my brother -in-law to come get her. (His truck was still trapped at his house.) My little cousin was already on the way and the lady on the phone seemed relieved!

Mom is safe and sound and anxious to get to to work on rebuilding her house! Not bad for 93!

Here she is on her river boat cruise down her street:

Mom is just amazing... and one tough broad! 
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With me being in teacher training and driving to school 3 hours a day all summer (12 hours a day away from home! UGH!) Macy Blue has been getting the short end of the stick!

With the stress of so many friends and family losing homes this week and the search for Mom and the brother in law and starting a new job...I was just spent when I walked Macy last night. I had taken her to a park over the mountain about six miles because the ocean breezes flow up that canyon. It was 90 something at 6:30 on my porch and I swear it was around 80 there!

My feet were killing me as well as my back and knees. I cut our walk short by about 2/3.  It was still blazing hot tonight and I decided a repeat was in order.

We arrived at the park and I started toward the gate where we always start. Only Macy would NOT budge. No... she wanted to go the way we usually come out of the park! Wha????

I realized, she was making certain that she got her WHOLE hike...not the short version she got the night before!

That, my friends, is the smartest thing Miss Blue has ever done!

It's My Barkday Tomorrow!!!

We gone pawty, like it's my barkday!!! Oh HI good pups and peeps of Blogville! Macy Blue here!

My momma has had her nose the computer for weeks working on taxes but... tomorrow is my barkday and Mom said we should celebrate a bit early cause all our peeps n pups aren't available at the same time! But that's ok.... more time for meeeee!

      Don't I look Happy!!???

This morning, I went out to breakie with my mom and my Auntie Rottrover. I gots pancakes and bacons!

Then, I got to go to SmartPet and pick out my barkday giffs! I got a smaller toy with the fantastic loud squeakers I loves!!! They are pawfect for when Momma talks on the phone!!! Teeeheee!! And Momma did not wrap it - she knows I don't like wrapped pressies! Good job Mom!!

I got some barkday cookies and Mom picked out a puzzle toy that I solved in like three minutes...but hey, whatever makes you feel good about leaving me Mom.... Seriously, any excuse for cookies is fine by me!

Later, we'll hike with Otto Rotto or, as Siri calls him: Auto Rado. He's getting a bath today so we probably won't get a swimmie...

Tomorrow, we are taking my pal Buster to the dog park. Bussie can't be off leash cause he won't come back for hours... silly boy. So, his mom wants to have us show her what the dog park is all about in hopes he can have some off leash time where he can't climb up a mountain!

Then, Mom is taking me out for ice cream! And later, I'll go for a swimmie hike with my buddy Barticus.

So...busy celebrations around here. Mom's doing her level best to make it pawsome but apparently she forgot what I really wanted: access to her Chewy.com account! That mean old Mom changed her password on me! Grumph!

GRRRRRR Bittids

That sums up our week. So sorry I haven't been reading blogs...there's just no time! I hate this time of year when our government has the audacity to make us sit down and analyze our financial lives to prove we can actually keep the fair share of the money we earned.  And like the ED boys I teach... I spend more time dreading it than the time it takes to actually DO the taxes!

But first the good news....
Macy Blue PLAYED!!! With a toy!!! AND with her Auntie! I haven't mentioned it here but, Macy got skunked last week...that's a whole 'nother Creekhiker! But I gave her a toy skunk for her Barkday...just rolled in tissue. NO tape; No string! I didn't want to terrorize her again!

She was confounded...

but finally opened it.

She moved it around the house...but never when I could see her do it. So I picked it up and made her jealous! Yes, folks! The Baby Game LIVES! I told her what a nice stuffie she was and how much I loved her and that it made me so happy to rub her tum and kiss her. Miss Macy was watching with those big roving eyes!

I came back into the living room a bit later and the stuffie was being tossed about, partially disemboweled. Squeaker eaten!!!

Then her Auntie came over and was rough housing with her. I  fussed at my friend... "You can't do that! You're scaring her!!!! She runs away from Auntie Rottrover for doing that!"

To which my friend kept right on scaring Macy! She would allow her to run away, then call her back... and Macy CAME! She would rough house with her... and Macy would run...but not as far. Call her back and she came... tail wagging!!! Macy figured out this rough housing was a GAME!!! And I learned not to be so afraid of my frightened dog!

And then the weird... I got punched this week! One of my boys was having a tantrum and my face almost got in the way, but I ducked... Still processing the potentially violent part of my new job! But still, I've never had a teaching gig I love more! Weird huh??

Lawsuit city...
I was home for Macy's Barkday because I'm suing my tenants of 17 years at my condo. It seems they've stopped paying rent, which is my primary source of income! Thank goodness for the teaching gig. What makes it harder for me is... I only got my first flat screen tv about two years ago... every other tv is a big ole tube style that works just fine, thank you! My car is 17 years old. I don't take vacations and I don't have nice parties...

But my tenants have at least four flat screens that I know of. He drives a Mercedes and had a new Harley just a few years ago (the result of Manopause!) She left a good job to start a MLM business and now has no car "for her daughter to live in!"  But the one she did have was newer than mine. They threw a blow out party for the daughter's birthday and just went on a nine day cruise to the Caribbean...but they can't pay rent???  The first bill I pay is MY rent... I can do without everything else...but the rent will get paid.

And after taking a day off... making the same boy who hit me on Tuesday cry when he learned I would be gone... and losing a pay bump that would come in three more days of consecutive work, my tenant did not show up to court... and the cycle resets! It's a delay tactic! GRRRRRR.

And don't get me started on the fire they caused...

And the creepy.... 
I don't water my front yard... drought and all. I have a catch basin in the sink and use the gray water to take care of my roses and my lemon tree. I tossed a bowl of water on the tree and noticed my neighbor's daughter in law yelling. I thought that unusual...she's a quiet girl!  Suddenly my neighbor was running up my walk with a bag!

Turns out when I tossed that water, if frightened a man lying under my dwarf tree, picking my lemons and the DIL had seen him... but not me and that's why she was screaming!

I went flying down the street, barefoot still in my nightie! I confronted this asshat, who has stopped to size up my other neighbor's fruit trees!

 "I'm sowwy. I don't speaka da English!" was all he would say. I proceed to scream at him, calling him a liar and a thief. "I'm sowwy. I don't speaka da English!" I then asked him if he understood a very blue word that is not favored by the Armenian culture, turned on my heels and came home.

Thinking of him being four feet away from me and not knowing it.... just scared the crap out of me. I wanted to know more about him. I got some shoes and pants and the dog and we jumped in the car... we followed him around the block about as stealthily as a thunderstorm and finally realized he was parked on the corner by my house...the trip around the block was a ruse!

I took photos and even followed him until he was speeding down a mountain road. Of course the cops will do nothing... but if I knew who he was I would take him to small claims for a new mature dwarf lemon tree for my back yard!

My old tree is strewn all over the front yard. The remaining lemons are at the bestie's and various neighbors. He had taken 1/3 of my crop and had another bag to fill but got interrupted. I'm working on the root ball. I'm fed up with getting around 3 lemons a year and I really don't ever want to be that close to someone robbing me and not know it!

Here's is license plate if you happen to be a neighbor:

 So now that I've got all this out of my system... maybe I can think about taxes... see ya on the flip side or the 15th...whichever comes first!

Nuttin Much and Everything Bittids

I haven't been posting much. Nothing is really wrong but everything sorta is... So I'm posting a Bittids to hopefully make me snap out of it!

The reasons I'm not blogging:

• Some of my commenters are SO prolific! When I take a few days off and I go to your blogs, I'm overwhelmed.  I want to be polite and comment on the blogs that are written by the folks that comment here, but some of you blog every day. And some of you are long winded...adding to my sense of being behind.
•  My Iphone screwed up my pictures. For some reason, it started renumbering photos shortly after I got Macy and places new ones in random spots in the folder. So I have to scroll through tons of Mabel pictures to get to Macy ones and then Macy's pics are scattered randomly here and there. It's all very confusing! And I should just take Mabel's pics out of my phone. But I'm not ready for that it's too soon I just can't won't... But it makes looking for pics of the little black dog really hard. sigh....

•  I've been making A LOT of beads! I had the stupid idea that with school starting last week, I would have a paying job. With sales on Facebook being good, I had the urge to build up my inventory for when I was working. It's been a week and... when do teachers EVER miss the first week of school? Month of school???  So I'm still making beads as it's my only source of income and the coffers are getting low without sub work!
• Training Macy is time consuming - I would really like to get her a Canine Good Citizen and we work on something every single day. And go to class once a week.  She has rattlesnake training next weekend. I'm so afraid for her...she's so tender hearted. But her interest in reptilian things tells me it must be done! 

• It's been a terribly sad year for our pack -  This year has SUCKED dog - wise / pack - wise! I was talking with my hiking buddy the other night and tallying up the dogs we've lost this year and well, it feels like everyone we know has lost someone!  From our immediate pack: Mabel, her buddy Hank and now our friend Chloe has bone cancer. Extended pack: Twinkie, her sister Linguini and two more goldens we sometimes hiked with: Millie and Max. That's a lot of dogs and a lot of loss. I feel like I've been beat up and the licks keep on coming.
• No hikes = unexciting non-adventures - I'm not really going to the creek. Macy is only in the beginning stages of being off leash ready and between her lack of rattlesnake training, no water in the creek and, well, our pack is never there...it's lonely out there! Funny, but I used to go there because I saw no one. Now, I hate to go there and see no one! And neighborhood walkies, while good for training, are pretty boring. I could tell you about my Alzheimer's neighbor who asks me the same questions every time I see her, or the lesbian dog walking team...but you probably have the same in your neighborhood. 

And that's all that's going on in our little world.

Needed Reminder

You Were Warned, Mabel Lou!

Most Californians are unnerved by the sound of glass doors rattling. It often sets off an ingrained fear response leftover from some earthquake and invokes a flight or fight (mostly flight) emotion. The sound of mirrored closet doors rattling is frequently the first warning sound that something is geologically amiss. I can give myself the heebie jeebies simply looking for something to wear! I have to remind myself that it is ME making those sounds.

The worst is when the shower doors rattle. That primal fear wells up and is made worse by the knowledge that I am cold, wet and naked and therefore in no condition to run for my life lest I scare the life out of the hundreds of school children across the street! I HATE that sound.

And yet, I've heard it almost daily for weeks now. No, we aren't having earthquakes. But my senior dog is having issues. She used to happily sun bake while I showered. Or jump onto my bed and wait where she could see into the bathroom. Since getting on the bed on her own is no longer possible (yet she can do it when I'm NOT at home...), she started waiting on her dog bed... a mere tail and a half's length from my bathroom door. But a few weeks ago that all changed...

About two minutes into my shower, she "knocks" on my shower door. Repeatedly. Since it doesn't stop, my fear wells up and I hurriedly rinse my hair or the soap only to realize that NO, we are NOT having an earthquake. My senior dog is having a senior moment.

It's even worse if I bathe at night... she knocks and knocks and knocks until I open the shower door and pet her, reassure her. I leave the door cracked so that she can make sure this shower has not become some magic disappearing mommy device... and she will stick her dang head under the shower to be close to me!! OMD!

If I can calm her down, do you think she would take the mere three steps to her comfy doggie bed??? NO... she waits right outside the miniscule bathroom door.

Today, I told her, "If you intererupt my shower, I'm going to take a picture of you and tell Blogville what a big baby you are!"

Don't even get me started on how hard it is to take a dang iphone pic in the shower... why doesn't that thing have a trigger button??? But here's my proof. My rottenweiler is a big ole baby!

You were warned Mabel Lou....

Spying on Her Sun Bake

Mabel Lou here, posting for busy Mom again...

She's quite proud of herself for sneaking up on me while enjoying my morning sun bake to snap this pic:

As IF I didn't know she was over there creeping about in the grapevines! Silly Momma!

She's still a busy bee... her Trunk thingy went well and I will have more foodables! Thank you if any of you popped by to like or comment... apparently that helps stuff show up on stupid Facebook!

And she wants the neighborhood peeps who check in here to know that this coming Sunday, she will be selling her stuffs at the Back Door Bakery. She's gonna take jewelry there so come on by!

She's also wanted me to show off a pendant she sold. She says this bead is a symbol for something called autism and lots of special people suffer with it. The lady who bought it asked Momma to make it ready to wear so she did. Momma says this is close to her heart. Not as close as me...but close!

Busy Doing Nothing - Mom's Trunk is Full

Mabel Lou here. Curled up in the sun in Mom's flower bed. Yeah, I know I'm not supposed to but it's freaking COLD here! And that's the sunniest spot in the yard.

Mom's busy ignoring me cause she's made a bunch of stuffs for a trunk show and for a show in da hood...at my favorite bakery where I go with Ruby for our old lady brunch! And get this Mom says I can't even go to the bakery that day cause she's gotta have her trunk! GRRR!

Anyway, she asked me to tell you guys about it but I can't be bothered to get out of the sun so I'm gonna paste some pics and text from her stupid bead blog!

Mom just saw what I wrote and pointed out that the green papers she  gets from the trunk are used to buy me kibble!!! So please consider buying a holiday gift or 37 from Mom cause I like my foodables!!!

Oh and Mom will turn any bead you fancy into a pendant!!!

This Snow man mini is a 99 cent auction today!!!

Even a hammered silver focal!!!

Sets:

Including lots and lots of Bellflowers:

 

Finished jewelry (I made three necklaces and one bracelet just this morning! 

including several pairs of earrings ready for wearing or gifting! (These are MY fave!)

I have some really elaborate pieces as well as some simple pendants:

I have lots of glass bead gifts...in addition to all the wine stoppers and bottle openers I've shared, I've photographed some of my fusing plates!

 

There will be plenty of focals too: 

This will be one of the 99 cent auctions:

Come on over and do some holiday shopping!

How Did She Get So Spoiled?

Last night after hiking, I decided to run to Trader Joe's a few towns away. I like this store because they still give me shopping bags for my groceries! On the way, I decided to stop an eat at a strip mall on the way. I love to eat at this particular strip mall because it has all my favorite eateries in one place. There is a Chipotle, Panera, Habit Burger and a Blaze Pizza.  Some of you may remember that Habit Burger is where I took Mabel, Bart, Pip and Puddles for cheeseburgers on Pip's World Tour...

I had been craving pizza, so Blaze it was. I ate inside as it was chilly, leaving Ms. M in the car. I gathered up my leftover pizza and salad and went to Panera for a sweet treat for later. I went to the car and as I placed things inside, Miss Mabel growled her displeasure. I was confused. I thought she may have to go potty but...we had just been hiking. Hmmm. As I rounded to my side of the car, I saw my poor girl staring longingly, hungrily at Habit Burger!

OMD! When we parked there, "someone" apparently thought we were going for burgers. She is accustomed to waiting patiently tied to one of the outside tables while I order and get our food, including a patty for her. As I was getting in the car with nothing for her, Ms. Mabel was NOT one bit happy with her mom!

So you know I HAD to do it. I got in another line and ordered that girl her patty.

Yeah, I know she's spoiled... but I really don't know how she got that way!

Straight from the Pacific

We were on our way back to the car from the ponds on Monday night and standing in the river bed when I spotted this weather phenomenon:

I was so excited it actually showed up with the zoom on my phone! Having lived here for just shy of 13 years, I had often wondered why I could be in my warm and sunny yard on a weekend morning, decide to take Mabel out to breakfast, only to arrive just over that ridge there to find it cold and and drizzly at my favorite dog-friendly restaurant! I've even wrapped my freezing body in muddy dog blankies to be able to get my breakfast down! For years it was just one of those things that make me go Hmmmmm.

Just over that ridge is the area of Northern Glendale known as Montrose. Years later I would realize that, if you are there on a clear and often breezy day, say sitting on the patio at Coffee Bean on the corner of Ocean View and Honolulu, you can actually see the glistening Pacific! It turns out, there really is an ocean view on Ocean View!! But I never really thought of that in terms of weather...

Twice this past year, when I was driving with the bestie (a witness!!!), just as we dropped down the mountain into the Crescenta Valley, there was that smokey look in the air. We slowed, peered all around, rolled down the windows to smell, turned down the radio to listen. But there was no flames to see, no smokey smell, and no helicopters.  This was NOT a fire... and then we smelled it... Ocean!

Suddenly, it all made sense... when the fog rolls in from the ocean, it takes the path of least resistance. While it can make it over our mountains, more often, we see it come from due west in our little valley. But the foggy fingers have a straight shot to Glendale from the ocean via that corridor, even though it's some 20 miles away. That's why the climate is so different just a few miles away! Plants that grow there, don't grow here. And it's the source of those drizzly mornings over there. And it sometimes helps cool our little valley down as it did Monday night: high of 98, low of 55!

The Look of Love

I have seen this man and this woman constantly since I moved to this town 13 years ago. Her health as always been bad. She has always seemed an invalid although she has moved from sitting up in a wheelchair to a chair with raised legs to the reclined version she is in now.

I do not know them but I love them. I love how he loves her. Every single day, before sunset, he takes her out. He will stop and wipe her hair off her face or the slobber from her cheek. Sometimes he will point to something in the sky for her to look at... a bird? a cloud?? If she understands, it never shows in her face. In winter, he wraps her tight in blankets and scarves. In summer, he will carry her blanket on the last part of their journey if she overheats.

I love seeing them. I worry when I miss them by changing my hiking time or venue. I feared this would always be another picture in my head until I saw them coming the other day and actually had my cell phone handy. I didn't want to embarrass them so I pretended to be talking. And I've blurred their faces for their own privacy.

I'm sorry it's not all in one pic...one of her and one of him. Just thinking of them warms my heart!

Pictures In My Head

I have so many pictures in my head that I would love to share with you but for one reason or another...they are impossible to get.  So I hope you will humor me on this wordy journey.

Dogs in Cars: I can't put this photo essay together because I'm driving when the photo ops occur but, there are SO many dogs in cars in this neighborhood. People take their dogs everywhere! There are big dogs in small cars and little dogs in big trucks. Dogs are always on the move around here. It's an unusal drive when I DON'T see a dog in a car! And the piece de resistance??? The time I saw a family driving with their parakeet! At first, I thought the bird was in the car by mistake...until he landed on the driver's head and got NO reaction!

The Handicapped Dog Walkers: Dogs aren't just on the move in cars... No. We had a lady who would come to the creek in her golf cart with her poodle riding shotgun. She would park and let him roam in the nearby wilds. We have another lady with a walker and her dogs ride on the seat. And an overweight basset whose owner is in a wheelchair but is seen out with his dog every night. Rottrover tells me the basset rides sitting on the owners feet but I've only seen him walking beside. Either way...that's dedication.

The Human / Rottweiler Bitey Face Game: So maybe this would be a video but I'm camera shy and I hate selfies! But Mabel Lou refuses to get off the sofa to go potty and then to bed without a game of bitey face! This mostly entails the two of us cheek to cheek, or forehead to forehead, growling at one another! I growl, she growls, lather, rinse repeat for a few minutes. When she wants it to be over, she kisses me and we're done. If I try to end it and she is not ready, she wraps her paw around the back of my head and pulls my face next to hers for another round! The photo would be of the back of my head with her paw there. I would love to have that photo.


I tell you all of this because this week, I finally got a crap version of one of the photos in my head - not one of the above; a different one. It's been there for 13 years! But you'll have to visit tomorrow for that one.

Happy Waters

Mabel Lou here. My mom has been acting really strange lately. She drives our car to the levy where we used to hike before the water went away. She parks and walks over to the levy, looks around and comes back all sad.

Now we do have our wonderful ponds, but Mom and the aunties only go there when we can go as a large pack.  If the pack is not available, we go to Dirty Creek. And if that stinky black and white kitty is there, I don't get to swim at all!

I was most concerned the today when we left our little town and drove into the mountains. Hmmm... we used to hike here years ago until I figured out there was a horse farm across the highway! Mom apparently still has nightmares of scaling boulders to find all the traffic in both directions stopped as I went from car to car greeting all the dogs! For some reason, she doesn't like me to sociable like that. Pftt!

Anyway, she parked and left me in the car! She disappeared behind a tree and down a hill. Finally I could see her again and I noticed she was walking toward trees.... GREEN TREES! Green trees mean water! Suddenly, she turned on her heel and ran toward the car. She was laughing like a little kid and she was squeeling, "Creek! Let's go creeking!" I know what that means!!!!

She rolled up the car windows and got my leash and we both took off running! And just look what we found:

This is a few miles above where we hike but the water is flowing strong! We're hoping it comes down to our spot soon but, in the meantime, it's nice to have options!

Lost and Found

We've been hiking at our spring fed ponds out of necessity. Our little creek is bone dry!  And a dang skunk has taken up residence at Dirty Creek in the early evening when most of us can hike.  Still, the humans (females) of our pack don't seem to feel safe at the ponds alone. As a country girl who loved nothing more to walk in the wooded area of my grandfather's farm or to wander the woods around the rivers I loved the swim in, I only share their trepidations to a certain degree. I have a dog that NEEDS to roll in a river every day or she's not happy. In this house, if Mabel ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!!!

So Mabel and I found ourselves without hiking buddies on Saturday night and decided to take the opportunity to find another entrance to our ponds. We've been there before with Bart's mom. As there are only three parking spaces to our regular entry and our pack needs 4 - 6, I thought it would be a good find!

This other entrance provides much more parking but is "hilly." We shimmied down the hillside beside the golf course, under the busy street and in another 50 yards were under the freeway. And that's where it all went wrong.  I knew the ponds sat near the freeway so we turned and climbed a steep hill. I realized this was probably wrong...but was thrilled to see a sign on the top of the trail that read "trail to the ponds."  And that's when we found something... a big something!

Last year, all the news in town was about  a homeless camp that was found by the police. Three men had actually built some sort of house and even used rocks to "lay a tile floor."  The only description as to location was "by the ponds."  Nice and vague! All of us hikers  who know many of the wooded trails over there - and I know more of the back woodsy trails than others -  were dumbfounded! No wonder this camp had become so elaborate! Even the regular hikers couldn't find it!

Those are bunk beds behind the picnic table... I was shaking taking these! 

 As Mabel and I rounded the bushes by the trail sign, I couldn't help but think we had stumbled onto the camp! It had three rooms... a dining room, a bedroom and a library / pantry / supply room. It was disguised by camo cover and old plastic Christmas tree branches! I gave a shout out before exploring it and taking a few photos. I'm still not certain we found the house from last summer as there was no "rock tile patio" and... I thought the police destroyed that one! But still... the ingenuity!

Mabel and I shimmied down another mountainside, me guarding my bad knees and clinging to the freeway fence,  and finally were near the ponds... except there was a downed fence and lots of briars and a steep hillside to go down. Sensing we were close, Mabel tried to run ahead but was slowed by the over growth. I knew we had to turn back. We were too close to the freeway and too far from the ponds! I had to climb that mountain again...grrr. And then I realized Mabel was not with me! I called, I yelled... and I finally realized she had gone into the homeless camp..."There might be foodables Mom!"

By the time we found the right trail, my knees were too shot to scale another hillside...this one had nothing to hang on to. Realizing we were too hot, too tired and too lost to continue, we gave up, returned to the car and drove the 1/3 mile to our regular spot. And finally, we found our little slice of heaven!

May Photos - Something I Adore

I adore my neighborhood... and that I see these guys on the way home! These were taken the same evening...just blocks / seconds apart!