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

not about knitting, wine, or anything else for that matter

Yeah, well, I'm busy and this whole blog thing is getting left by the wayside, huh.



I'll include a funny pic of what happens if you let your dog drink beer and a funny (if you're not us) story about Mash.



So Wed night Mash was acting sort of not herself (i.e. she was quiet and restful). Anyway we took note she was a bit too relaxed and went to bed. The next morning she was being weird some more and she would not walk. Well, that freaked us (read: me) out. We got her to walk a bit but she looked funny scrunching her backside all up and the whole situation was all around alarming. So over-protective mom takes Mash to the vet. Yada yada yada some tests more yada and $350.00 later, the damn dog has gas. She let them rip all the way home. Not so bad you might say? Well, may I remind you that the windows in my car DO NOT roll down. I had to open the car door at a stoplight just to keep from passing out. And we did bloodwork! The little punk had GAS and we did bloodwork! Ugh. She is such a faker.



Oh yeah, here's the beer pic I promised. Welcome to the fiasco that is my life. And school hasn't even started yet! Agghhhhhhhh!