OMG! Remember me?

Well, as a friend said to me earlier in the semester, "You are usually the busiest person I know, but you have really outdone yourself this semester." Man, she wasn't kidding. After having to quit my tutoring gig that I LOVED and pry myself away from the Press, I hunkered down and did A LOT of work for my 4 classes. Teaching Spanish 4 days a week didn't free up much time. Ugh!

Paul and I had an excellent Thanksgiving Weekend with the 'rents, but I am not going to blog about that. yet. First things first. I am going to start with September. Here goes:

So our "weekend friends" Maggi and Fer invited us to their mountain house (ok, ok, it's Maggi's parents' place) over the summer and we had the BEST time and so did the dogs. I have no idea how, but we got invited back the last week in September and looked forward to the trip for weeks and weeks.

Friday afternoon we set out for the mountains (and remember the incredible heat wave we were having so we were super excited to be CHILLY for a day or two) with not a care in the world. After stopping at Smithfield's for BBQ sandwiches (duh) I drove for a bit so P could grade. Just about out of Winston-Salem the car starts making a very interesting noise. It sounded just like the sound your car makes when the muffler is about to fall off...

I stopped at one of the scenic overlooks near Pilot Mountain and we looked at our dangling muffler, shrugged our shoulders (damn determined to have a fun weekend) and kept going.

When we got off the interstate P was driving and I was navigator. I read the directions: "go on 86 for 12 or so miles...." I looked at the odometer and the last two digits were ...82. So I'm thinking about ...92 we should start looking for our turn onto the Parkway. Chatty chatty, la la we're going to the mountains, more chatty and 10 or 12 minutes later I look down at the odometer again and it says ...82. Still. wtf? The odometer is broken - and who knows how long it has been like this but now that I think about it I thought we should have hit 200,000 miles by now. Foiled! We'll be perpetually stuck at 196,000. Argh!

Luckily we did not miss our turn and made it to the mountain house, dangling muffler and all.

The weather was spectacularly chilly and we had a great time relaxing and sharing education (read: war) stories with each other all night. The next day we got up "early" to go to the Highlands Festival. The Festival was great fun - sunny and chilly again. We bought souvenirs, lots of jams, ate excellent food, and listened to music. On our way back down the mountain, we happened to notice this church sign:

Needless to say, we were giggling pretty hard and Paul wanted to take a picture so Fer turned the car around and on our way back we see the other side of the sign:



Now we are all in convulsive laughter as P takes the photos. A youth group prank? Innocent Biblical quotations? Sexually regressive church? How much Freewill does Grace have? You decide. Either way, it is a funny diptic. We were all very bummed that the church was so far from the mountain house and P and I had to get back to Chapel Hill fairly early on Sunday so we didn't get to go to Sunday service at the church. Darnnit anyway!

We had BBQ for dinner that night and then relaxed by a nice fire all night. Here are the dogs enjoying the mountain house:


On the way home P ingeniously tied the muffler up with Masha's leash (she has a new one now) and off we were. I can't tell you how many miles we drove, but it was a good trip. Maybe we'll even get invited back!

P.S. The muffler is fixed but the odometer is not yet.

October installment coming soon...

The Closer: Valley Park Edition

Monday evenings at 10pm, or whenever a murder is discovered.

This week: Mr. Frog has no legs! Who dunnit?

Story: The lovely Deputy Chief Melissa Leigh Johnson is on the case again. This time Mr. Frog is found in the bedroom and the crime scene is exceptionally gorey. Mr. Frog, the beloved pet of both Masha and Lucas, is found dismembered, gutted, partially eaten, and all in all, well, dead.

The suspects are these:

1. Agent Paul Howard. He claims he has an alibi - studying in the study (as that is what one does in the study), no candlestick, a mere 15 feet away from the awful crime scene. He heard nothing.

2. Det. Masha Gabriel. She claims that she and Mr. Frog were good friends and although she admits she does have a temper and has killed before, her method is much more sucking the life out of stuffed animals than dismembering them and throwing their guts all over the bedroom. She is more of a "go for the jugular" and pull out the voice box kind of girl. Plus, she states in her own defense, she was sleeping in her bed in the living room at the time of the crime, a mere 17 feet away. She heard nothing.

3. Lt. Lucas Provenza. Usually a loving, sweet, and gentle-natured pup, Lucas admits his rough-and-tumble "I was only PLAYING with the bunny wabbit and it stopped playing" side. Although he denies involvement in the crime, he does admit that he and Mr. Frog were not getting along around the time of the murder. Lucas states that Froggy asked about Monkey and what happened to him (Last week's crime) and Lucas became upset becasue it was outed quite quickly that Lucas gutted Monkey and then chewed his voice box into ITTY BITTY WEENSY PIECES. However, anger aside, Lucas denies all involvement in the crime and professes his innocence. He adds that during the time of the crime he was nowhere near the bedroom and was probably in Agent Paul Howard's chair, somewhere he is not supposed to be in the first place.

The lovely Deputy Chief Melissa Leigh Johnson interviews Det. Masha Gabriel secretly (on the deck) to find out if she can corroborate Lucas's "I was sleeping on the couch" story. Masha wanted to know if cookies were involved in the interview and if so, she would happily say whatever needed to be said to get Lt. Lucas Provenza arrested for the crime. Cookies were eaten, but stories were not corroborated.

The lovely Deputy Chief Melissa Leigh Johnson has no other option but to gather her crime scene photos and go over them one more time to try to gleen any new details of the crime. The photos are as follows:

After reviewing the photos, the lovely Deputy Chief Melissa Leigh Johnson backs Lt. Lucas Provenza into a corner and tells him he is VERY, VERY BAAD, to which Lucas wags his tail and licks his chops. Lucas was given his last cookie as a free man, uh pup, and he ate it in one snarf. He was then sent to puppy prison, aka, the fenced yard for at least 15 minutes at which time he wanted to be let in and Agent Paul Howard let him in.

Case Closed.

**This case is dedicated to all of the Mr. Frogs at the Target Dollar Spot that have, or certainly will, meet the same end. May the days (or in our case, hours) of joy you bring to the pup(s) in your family before they rip you to shreds, gut you, disembowel you, decapitate you, and dismember you all together be worth the terrible end you will surely meet. Best of luck Mr. Frogs!

Ooooh! I am so fancy!

I made P do some work on his birthday while his parents and grandma were here installing these fancy contraptions! I had been having to carry the step ladder out to water the boston ferns, but no more! Now I just pull down the chain, water, and push 'em back up! I didn't really know what I was doing at first and I got a little wet because the pots were still dripping when I pushed them back up but I watered them again today with success and did not have to change clothes after! Woohoo! Hope your Labor Day was as successful!

Speaking of leaving Luke out at night, that kid is going to be banned from indoors during sleepy, sleepy time if he pulls what he did last night again. I'll try to set the scene.

A very tired Paul and Melissa (P from giving the ESL placements tests and grading ALL of them and M for going through a week of orientation, still working part-time, and having to teach Spanish in front of her peers) go to bed exhausted Monday night both having to teach the next morning and then both having to finish the placement and exams and then M has to tutor, so a long day ahead. K. with me?
4:29am - All quiet on the valley park front. P and M fast asleep (P because he can naturally, M with eye mask and ear plugs, I'm just that way). K.
4:30 Luke starts barking like some kind of crazy, freak out.
4:31 am P yells at Luke that if he doesn't stop, he's a dead dog.
4:32am (I mean, I'm guessing here) Luke weighs his option, looks over to his big sister who snarls at him *again* (he woke her up too) at which time Luke decides to throw caution to the wind and barks again. and again. and again.
4:34am P yells again, M (get ready) takes out an ear plug (just one), tells Luke to shut the uhhum up, puts ear plug back in and then lays in bed awake until her alarm goes off at 5:45am. Hate that dog. Dammit Lucas.

Anyhow, I taught at 8, made lesson plans for the rest of the week, went to 2 classes, met up with P to finish the placement exams which were done around 5 and then walked home and got ready for tutoring at 7 and now it is 8:40pm and M is going to bed and Luke is sleeping in the living room. His voice box removal surgery is scheduled for August 27th. Goodnight!!

Duh! of course I'm kidding about that!
Sweet dreams. M

Here's a photo of the bunny damage. Not sure why I felt like it needed to be documented. I guess I was feeling like you weren't believing me...

I tried Cayenne Pepper because we had this big jar that is a bit old anyhow. If these rabbits keep eating my caladium we WILL be buying a bb-gun very, very soon. I suppose we could also just leave Luke out at night since he has experience killing rabbits - 2 thus far to be exact. I actually felt BAD for those 2 that died. And then! P and I saved 4 eastern cottontails from certain death from Shiloh, the neighbor's former beagle, and took them to the wildlife center and PAID for them to be REHABILITATED. And these little punks multiply and thank me by eating my prettiest plant. Seriously? You couldn't munch on, oh, I don't know, poison ivy, kudzu, mint? other dog's poop in our yard?

So far (2 days) the pepper is working... I'll keep you informed.

%&#@ the Heck!

Big Dog Shiners

So I woke up Sunday morning all snuggly warm and sleeped-in and I'm all happy and about to make me some tea and Mash jumps on the bed and basically socks me in the eye with her paw. Ok, ok, I might be exagerating a smidge on how it all happened and it might have been a smidge my fault but the point is my dog nearly gave me a black eye! And Paul doesn't believe me when I say she's out to knock me off so she can be queen of the household!

Luckily, as I was just in severe pain for a couple of hours (read: medium pain for a couple of minutes), no blackness resulted, of (?) which P was glad because he rightly pointed out that "no one is going to believe your dog gave you a shiner."

Anyhow, I must have looked quite overcome with shock and it must have been really believable because P in a very serious voice says to me, "Can I make you some tea?" And in this household, if you don't know already, Tea heals all wounds.**

So I hope your Sunday started off better than mine.

Today was my last full day at UNCPress :( Alas, the summer is over and I must return to the humble grumblings of being a grad student. I have moved up in the lowly grad student ranks tho - I'm a big fancy PhD student (I hate the word 'candidate' almost as much as I hate 'fiance'), so LA-TI-DA to you! I'm pretty sure this just means that I am so far removed from the real world that I can never return to it and GASP work summers! ACK!

Oh! I should give props to my homegirl K for inspiring this post. She has a new blog -Yay, more blogs to check when I should be studying!

I guess I'll leave out of here without a pic this time. More to come soon - school starts next week and I'll be procrasting quite a ton!

**Time does NOT heal all wounds in the South. In fact, Time makes someone wronging you fester uncontrollably until you about burst with disgust and growly noises when thinking of said person who wronged you in a cauldron of tongues of fire. In the Mid-West we just tell you you're an asshole and move on, but here - oh no! Bitterness is like a good wine...

MB