It Wasn’t My Fault!

“I ran out of gas! I got a flat tire! I didn’t have change for cab fare! I lost my tux at the cleaners! I locked my keys in the car! An old friend came in from out of town! Someone stole my car! There was an earthquake! A terrible flood! Locusts! IT WASN’T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD!”

Jake Blues (aka John Belushi)

So this weekend a fate almost worse than death happened to our family:  our internet service went out!  This near disastrous event was mitigated only by the fact that most of our devices can access the web via LTE but not our Macbook – which just so happens to be what the scribe uses for posting my insights into life (this blog).

Now I know where a lot of you have already gone in your head:  What did Tempi get into this time?   Well, unlike Jake Blues of The Blues Brothers, my excuses are legitimate.  Namely:

1. The router for our services is in the basement – to which I am no longer offered access.
2. The utilities enter our house outside the back gate – again no where I am allowed without “adult” supervision.

So, why am I going on and on about my lack of culpability in the internet issues we experienced?  Is it paranoia on my part as I so often get blamed for such things?  Or is it the FACT that the problem was caused by some small creature chewing the cables entering our house?  No fake new here folks!  IF I had been allowed access to all the above locations, the wires would not have been  gnawed by varmints and the router thing would not have gotten water on it and our internet would have been in pristine shape all weekend so I could have blogged so many (far more interesting) stories because I am always ON THE JOB!

But alas, my services were once again left un-exercised and Sammy and I had to suffer through many hours of our lives without wifi access!  Boy am I looking forward to visiting my grandparents in New Mexico!  They always have internet.  Even on the mountain – did I tell you how great that place is?

Thankfully, the good people at AT&T were Johnny on the spot (or in this case Jacob – our service rep) and they had us up and running in no time…once my parents took action that is.

Hope everyone out there had a great weekend – the weather here was cool and sunny which is perfect for those of us in fur coats! 🙂

The Tempest

 

P.S. I can absolutely promise that I was a perfect girl all weekend.  Yep!  Yes I was.  I did not take out the hydrangea.  I did not almost get feisty at other dogs on jogs with Mom.  I did not jump on people.  I did not tear out chunks of sod.  I did not jump on my brother’s head.  And certainly not repeatedly.  I love me!

On Guard

Or en garde.   Take your pick Mr. Squirrel.  Either way you better be on alert.  The Tempest is on the job!

So, before I show you the video, I probably should give you a little background to set the stage.  My parents have a cherry tree which is loving the life in the southwest corner of our yard…which the tree guy said is in the wrong spot “but nobody told the tree.”  Anyhow, year after year it has beautiful smelling flowers in the spring and fruit in the late June to early July time frame.  However, for one reason or another, my parents rarely reap the rewards of the bounty the tree puts forth.  Why?  What reasons could there be?  Well first of all, this is my first go around with this process so I can not be accountable for any of the prior failures in the collection of said crops.  Secondly, this might just be some fanciful recreation of Sammy’s imagination – one can’t trust the memories of elderly centenarian pups like him.  So with those caveats out of the way here is what has happened in the past:

1. Trip to New Mexico and on return no cherries – no video documentation or oral history accounts for this one.
2. Blue Jays – and/or other birds.  Stripped the whole thing clean over the course of a few days while my parents were at work.
3. Squirrels – last year my parents were sitting in the backyard and there was a kerfuffle in the back and all these little rodent like things were hanging in the trees whooping it up and spinning around the branches.  Apparently they had just feasted on the cherries and seemed to have gotten a bit out of their minds.  Sammy has no idea why as he assures me they had not started fermenting as they had not even fully ripened.

This year, based on this input I decided to dedicate myself to protecting the fruits of this tree’s labors.  Not to say that Sammy and Montana didn’t care or that I am better than them in performing my guard duties…but I am also not saying that I am not saying that.

Here is what I determined I was charged with protecting:

Here is some evidence that someone has started pilfering the cherries (obviously when I was confined to my crate – definitely not sleeping on the job):

Here I am standing guard (and if you think I am not looking at the cherry tree but the neighbor’s backyard, let me tell you that is where the little devils often appear from – and I had the tree totally covered with my peripheral vision):

And the rewards of my efforts!

The proverbial bowl of cherries!  Life is grand!

By the way, they tasted fine even though they might not be completely ripe – but my parents didn’t act loopy after ingesting them.  After watching them pick these cherries I realized I could help them by not only guarding the crop but also by harvesting them!  Luckily I am a tree-climbing hound so the fact that dad put away the ladder won’t stop me from getting the fruit at the top of the tree.

So with that prelude, I give you the movie:

So there you have it.  I’d be interested in hearing your opinion on what ending you liked the best.  At our house, we are generally into noir films…but not this one – too dark to appreciate my work (for which I blame the cinematographer!).

The Tempest

What the…who was responsible for reviewing that movie!?!?!  The title is partially out of the frame!

Oh wait.  I remember now.  That was part of my original artistic vision – as the whole squirrel thing is a bit out of bounds. 🙂

Also, in case you were wondering, guarding the cherry tree is almost as taxing as being a parent!  Toni is still asleep from her escapade into reality; not sure how she will adapt to being independent…sleeping…zzzz…

Happy Father’s Day!

 

A Life of Leisure

..is OVER for my daughter Toni.

As you might remember, I picked out Toni from my menagerie and adopted her as my very own.  However, she has been loafing around the house far too long.  So, the PARTY is OVER for her.  And as such, I decided it was time to have her look for a job.  Before you go judging me, be reassured that I am not some unfeeling or unjust mom that would just fling her only child out of the nest without some training.  So tonight, since I think she would be good in food service, I had her practice her customer service and waitressing skills during my evening repast with Sammy.

Her customer service was fine with us, although a bit raw, but the previous fellow with the yellowish crop of hair and orange-ish complexion, was not treated so well by Toni.  In fact, he was tossed aside after a thorough thrashing that – to be honest – gave me a rush of pride.

Figure 1: the Fellow when he walked into her “restaurant”:

Figure 2: The Fellow in the background awaiting emergency service rather than eating at the five star Chez Tempest :):

The Fellow seems rather familiar but I don’t think he’ll be coming back any time soon.

Eventually, Toni stepped up her game and I think is ready to get a real job.  I am thinking of having my parents see if Bluegrass or Norton’s has any openings – figuring they could give her a ride to work when they went for their frequent meals at both establishments.  OR they could let me drive one of their cars.  Just sayin’

If she doesn’t get hired, I am thinking the least she could do is start cleaning up the mess that she makes around the house.  Just look at those walls behind her!  Disgraceful!  Of course, it may have stemmed from her thrashing of the Fellow who preceded us in trying to get service.

One thing I can tell you though, is parenting is god-awful tiring and definitely a FULL time job!

The Tempest

The Tooth Is Mightier Than The (Toe) Nail

That is one of my favorite adages that I have yet to hear.  And interestingly, it became a reality just the other day when my Dad tried to kick one of my toys just as I made my lunge for the thing.  Needless to say I won that race…hands down!  Of course it came at a substantial cost.  You may think getting kicked in the face is something you’d want to avoid and in general I’d have to agree with you.  However, if the kick is administered by an old guy with a bare foot and the blow lands not on my nose or cheek but instead on one of my sharp canine teeth then the “kicker” is the one temporarily hopping and hobbling around the house uttering things I dare not repeat.  After a short respite in which he consoled himself and had his little self-pity party, he was back in the game – which included some good tosses of the old squeaky pig in the backyard.  Despite all his ravings he was able to take us for our evening and morning walks with apparently no ill effects.   However, as I think this picture captures, the adage is more than accurate:

The Tooth rules!

And BTW – you people have some ugly looking toes! 🙂

The Tempest

PS – just googled the adage and was unable to locate it anywhere.  And here I thought the Google was the ultimate search engine available from the people down at The Internet.  Apparently they forgot to index this phrase – or whatever they do in order to search the 10^x websites and documents out there.

All they came up with was:

“the pen is mightier than the sword” – not sure I get that one as I personally have chewed up a bunch of pens but never messed with a sword.  Knives, scissors, razor blades, etc. I have conquered but swords still scare me.

“the threat is stronger than the execution” – this comes from some guy Kasparov who is apparently a master player in chess of drawers… which I assume is some sort of dress up game of which I am not a big fan.  Sammy endures the donning of clothes with what our Mother thinks is his disgusted face (she really does not like that photo of poor Sammy).  Me?  I eat the clothes that they try and dress me up in…except my Michigan T-shirt!  Aside from that, I still don’t get what this guy is talking about.

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

Oh, and when the Cubs win a World Series of course I behaved when they dressed me in that shirt…but next time, no guarantees.

“fight tooth and nail” – now this is something I can relate to!  And to be honest, although I do favor using my teeth, I am not opposed to throwing in a nail or two when the situation warrants it!

 

Waterworld

Recently, our street has undergone a number of changes.  I’ll tell you more about that in a future post.  But for now, I have a short-ish video I’d like to share.

But before I do, let me give you a bit of background.   Aside from fixing up our street, the village did some major damage to the grass on our extensions.  As I always say, you got to break up some grass if you are going to make an omelet…or something like that.  Anyhow, the good folks at A-Lamp (not to be confused with U-Haul) – the contractors on this project – installed some new sod along the new road side.   Unfortunately for them, the storms that were forecasted by the the weather-guessers never happened and thus the new grasses went from a nice greenish appearance to something closer to straw – at least for those neighbors not watering themselves.   Since I was on the job, as foredog, there was no forgetting to water on our property!  Therefore, despite high temps (which for complete transparency is another one of my nicknames…when my parents are too lazy for the extra syllable of Temp-e or Temp-est).  Anyhow, one day this week they were in the process of watering the front garden and grass when these events unfolded:

Now for those of you who watched the preceding video you might be asking yourself what dog doesn’t like the smell of a portal bathroom.  You would be correct.  We do love sniffing around that thing.  In fact, Sammy claimed it as ours just the other day as he sent of stream of his marking material all over the back of it.  But for those careful observers, what I actually said was who wants such a thing to get bigger.  This is for the simple, practical reason that if it got any bigger we couldn’t fit it in our dog room!

On another note, seeing that car get a bath reminded me of a couple of things.  First being, Sam really needs a bath.  He hasn’t had one for close to a year!  Pee-you!

Secondly, I feel this is not fair since both Khaleesi and I have had more than one bath during this time span.   And if you doubt me, here is some photographic evidence!

K:

Me:

More stories from The Tempest soon!

Take care.

Live and Let Die

This afternoon, my parents tried to distract Sammy and I with some treats.

Well, to be honest, Mom did distract us with the best treats in the world: Scooby Snacks!  For those of you unaware of the spoils of Scooby Doo, I am here to relate the beauty of these morsels of goodness.  AND you can get them from Amazon.  No jokes, folks – delivered right to your front door!

But first, I have an historic note to tell you.  It starts way back in the dark ages…or so I assume, since there was no internet or blogging…but then again there was no Twitter either so who knows what was going on.  As I always say, technology is what you make of it!

Anyhow, back to my initial point about the dark ages in which my parents were raised.  Not only did they not have an internet connection they didn’t even have a TV remote control…or for that matter a TV that had a color display.  Now, for us dogs, total color is not our forte but we can definitely tell you that a monitor in B&W is not realistic.   With that said, some of our favorite movies take advantage of this color palate (or lack there of) to create a certain mes-en-scene.  The masters of film noir being among our favorite directors…even the Coen Brothers (one of our contemporary favs) did a B&W film with Mr. Billy Bob that caught our attention.

Uh… where did that rant come from?

My whole point was supposed to be about how my Dad (scribe) only had a black and white TV with no remote control (except his toes) so on Saturday mornings he would shuffle over to the neighbors house in his PJ’s with the footies to watch Scooby Doo mysteries in full color!  That would be at “Mrs. Buddy’s” house – and apparently the little guy (since he was still in his early days) didn’t care that Mrs. Ruddy’s three teenage daughters might be trying to sleep in.   But the mysteries that unraveled on those mornings was critical to his development as a research scientist – despite the background obviously being on a repeat cartoon cycle.

So, yeah, my parents decided that Mom would distract me with the Scooby Snacks.  What do you expect?  They got Shaggy every time and he was one of those meddling kids!

So while, we were distracted, the scribe apparently was not focusing on his children but abetting the enemy…the Spy Bot…of whom I thought I had already dispensed.

Best Served Cold

That darn Amazon!  Ready to meet your needs before you know you need it (and, no, we do not get compensation for mentioning their company despite my Parent’s apparent repeat business).

Like other Bond enemies, it takes a dedicated eye on the villains to totally get rid of them as they tend to keep coming back.  Fortunately, unlike most Bond flicks, I was not left to die – or if I was, Sammy rapidly rescued me from such peril…I can’t recall as I was focused 100% on the Spy Bot.  Somehow, the thing was still creeping on us even after I thought I had dispelled the punk over a week ago!

So if I was to assess this situation, given my viewings of many B&W Noir flicks, my scribe is actually a… is really an… I am having a hard time saying this but the evidence is insurmountable…he is a femme fatale!

Lucky for Sammy and I, we are always aware of our surroundings as is evident from this short video!

The Tempest (aka Sam Spade)

 

WATER BORING

Before I start… best wishes to TJ!  I hope all goes well, my good friend!

Back to water boring?  Hardly!

First off, I have yet to find water EVER boring…especially when it is in motion.

This is typical for us in the Canine Nation.  For instance:

So I bet it isn’t hard for you to imagine what adventures I had when my parents put out the sprinkler to water the sod that they tried to install in our backyard to patch certain patches that had…well…become less grassy for some reason.  For those of you without such an active imagination I put together a little clip to show you.

Guess I really don’t have a secondly other than it was another beautiful weekend day here in northern IL complete with mini rainbows!!

Too bad we do not have more grass or our yard would be just lovely right now!  I really do wonder why it is gone… and why it is on the path… and on my brother’s bed…

The Tempest

-In case I don’t get my scribes attention again before Monday night, Happy Birthday FarFar!  92?!?!?!  So glad you and Sammy our powering on through your dotage :).