Happy St. Pat's from the pets

*This post is not for the faint of heart...or stomach.

I woke this morning to the sound of retching coming from the dog's crate. That didn't surprise me given that he had scarfed a pile of old Italian Beef that my BiL dumped behind the barn on Saturday and who knows what he's eaten since then. But if I had been wise, I would have stayed in bed. For that was only the beginning.

I cleaned up the mess and continued with the rest of my day, which was supposed to include menu planning and grocery shopping, school work and St. Patrick's day fun with the girls.

But while we were watching Darby O'Gill and the Little People, one of the cats had an accident in the laundry room and then proceeded to wander around the house, upstairs and down, with a huge, goopy, green glob hanging from her tail. Do you remember the Family Circus comics where they would show the path that one of the kids had taken while doing something? That's what I found when the movie was done. Only it wasn't a neat little dashed line that showed Moppett's progress through the laundry, bathroom, kitchen, foyer, stairs, hallway, upstairs bath...

The rest of my afternoon has been a sequence of recovery. After locking the still offensive party in the upstairs bathroom (the one with the tub with the showerhead!), I cleaned up the smears so that we could get through lunch without gagging. Then I sent the girls up to their rooms with some fun assignments while I bathed the cat (have you ever tried giving a cat a bath? I think it would be easier to put nylons on a chicken!), hosed out the dog crate, wiped up the floor and sinks, vacuumed the entire downstairs and then mopped every inch of the hardwood.

In the process of washing the floor before lunch, I also reinjured my knee, which is now throbbing and on fire. Not to mention the claw marks on both arms. I would dearly love to go get in the hot tub, but I still have to clean it out after the cat's bath.

It was not my intention to celebrate St. Patrick's Day with green cat poop.

If anyone needs me, I'll be under the covers.

Use it or Lose it!

Any talent or ability that we have needs to be exercised regularly or we risk losing the capacity to perform it. If you sing~and I'm talking more than just in the shower~you must use your voice to maintain your range and volume. Stop exercising and first the triathalon goes out the window, followed by the "skinny" pants. When was the last time you went rollerskating? (Oops. Sorry. I'm dating myself. It's rollerblading now.) If it's been more than a couple of years, then your knees are probably as afraid as mine are.

I fear that the younger people on this planet are losing their ability to speak. You might think I'm crazy since alot of them seem to go around with a cel phone permanently attached to their heads, but I submit that in a matter of only a couple of generations, human beings will no longer communicate vocally.

They'll text everything.

I know it's the most current fad, but I am tired of it already. I'm tired of young people who can't even look you in the eye because they are so distracted by the need to text their friends some ridiculously trite drivel--when their friends are only 6 feet away. I'm tired of parents who let their kids avoid real social interaction with people of different age groups in order to live in the pseudo reality that texting creates. I'll quit ranting now because I think you get the picture.

If text messaging was used in an appropriate way, it could be a good thing. But it hasn't. It has crept into daily speech, email and other online communication, and even English essays. I thought for a very short while that I should try to find an online dictionary of some of the more common texting abbreviations. I changed my mind though. If someone wants to communicate with me badly enough, they will have to use real words.

For some of them, that might mean having to learn to speak.