We started the day with a plumber's visit to attend to seriously sluggish drains and for a routine water heater flush and check. Of course, this ended in estimates given for a new water heater which we will most likely need to have installed (living in an old house seems to automatically infer numerous visits from various workmen and constant litanies of new expenses - then we get the extra visits, like tomorrow's scheduled appointment to have our cracked window replaced, yippee).
After ushering the plumber out the door, I rushed the boys to their afternoon school and returned home for a walk with the dog. It is far easier to walk without the dog, but I feel guilty leaving him in the house, in desperate need of the energy-release of a walk.
Of course, we never really take a walk. I say he takes me for a drag. He is convinced it is a race and I am always the loser. Yesterday, it was a typical start to our walk. Minus the requisite choke chain, I spend the first three blocks or so forcing Harley to sit and giving the command of "Walk." My husband cannot understand why this doesn't work for me. He says he merely jerks back on the lead and firmly says "Walk," and Harley walks. Too bad it doesn't work for me.
When I walk the dog (since we live in the country and it wouldn't be safe to walk along the busy country road), I walk a space up the road to a retirement/golfing community nearby. Lately, it has been bursting with beauty. I took this picture last week:
We had only gone a few blocks into the neighborhood when I was approached by a woman. She asked if she could interact with my dog. I tried to explain that I don't have very good control of him. Harley seemed to instinctively wish to give her a demonstration. He bolted right out of his collar and ran off, loping back towards us over and over. She helped me reign him back in and attempted to tighten his collar. I think she could tell that I am totally overwhelmed with this dog. She even offered to check around and see if someone she knows might be able to take Harley. I've gotten my hopes up for that before, so I inwardly reminded myself of reality.
As we finished the walk, walking along the edge of our property back to the house, I decided to take care of the most recent episode of country-bumpkin-trash-dumping. I have mentioned before how much this irritates me. Yesterday, I was beyond irritated. In fact, I stewed about it all day long and for a few hours of wakefulness in the middle of the night. I imagined the perfect purgatorial punishment for such offenders.
Someone, with an astounding lack of class or consideration, had chucked an entire Budweiser box out of their vehicle onto the grass along our oak orchard. Every single bottle (about 18, I'm guessing) had come out of the box and many of them had broken into tiny shards of glass. In addition, there were probably six or seven empty beer cans littering the same space.
Since the box was intact, I decided to pick up the glass shards and carry the mess back in the box to the curb for trash pickup. It was especially tedious work, given the fact that I still had Harley on his leash (John wondered aloud why I hadn't walked all the way back to the house, deposited him there and then returned to do the job). Holding the box from the underside, I began to walk back to our driveway, but mid-way there, the dog yanked on the leash and the box toppled over, spilling beer all down my sweats and requiring a second pick-up maneuver. I was fuming. I imagined attaching a motion-detecting device to take photos (of course, I do realize that it would snap a photo of every car that races by on this road, so that would be futile).
After showering, I attended Trevor's parent-teacher conference and picked the little boys up from school. I believed that Bryce had asked me to pick him up from wrestling practice at 4:10, so we departed around 4 p.m. We waited and waited and waited. They finally finished up at 5:10. By this point, Trevor and Sean had gotten to the bursting point and I had allowed them to get out and run up and down a nearby hill. Just as Bryce finally came out, Sean declared a need for the bathroom (just figures, doesn't it?).
We arrived home about the same time as Daddy and he offered to go outside to watch Trevor ride his bike for a bit. Not ten minutes later, Trevor came running in, quite upset. Apparently, his pants had gotten caught on the bike's chain. Unable to stop and not knowing what to do, he shot across the street and landed on the neighbor's meadow. John was in a state, as well, explaining that he could have been hit by a car (cars generally go about 50 mph on this road). The recognition of this fact registered with Trevor and he dissolved into a fit of tears.
The only thing that salvaged the day in any way was the fact that the parent-teacher conference had gone so well that I promised Trevor a Wendy's frosty as a reward. Once we got over the trauma of thinking about how this day could have ended our Trevor's life, I decided I would take all the boys for dinner at Wendy's while John exercised.
I'm so thankful for the guardian angels that work overtime on behalf of my boys!
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