Our Week in the Sun

We got back from VA Beach two days ago, and I still feel behind on everything. I did manage to get all the laundry done by last night (with Bennie's help), and I read all 63 emails. But TV. That's another story. I set our recorder to record all my usual shows as well as some new shows I wanted to try watching to see if I liked them. And of course this was season premiere week. So, and this is awful, I have about 25 hours of TV to watch. AND they are all coming back on this week too.

Okay, as for the beach. We had a GREAT time. The weather was perfect!. The sky was a crystal clear blue most of the time with a few wisps of clouds once in a while. On Thursday it sprinkled for about five minutes, barely getting us wet, then it stopped. We rode our bikes a lot and walked all over the place. I bought a body board and "rode the waves" a few times. After the last time I felt like I had been beat up by the ocean. But it was fun. And I ate. All the foods I try not to eat, like fried foods, pizza, ice cream, etc. On Tuesday we went to Yorktown and Jamestown. On Thursday we took the dolphin-watching cruise. I loved that. We saw a BUNCH of dolphins! They would get right next to the boat and swim along with us, jumping up out of the water now and then. It was cool. And the jets were flying all over the place. And we watched all the big ships going and coming.

Also every year VA Beach has a "Neptune Festival", and on Wednesday there were around 12-15 people building sand castles, or sand sculptures I guess. This was amazing to watch. It took them three days to finish, and we actually had to leave before they were done, but you could see what it would look like for the most part. I took a bunch of pictures and will try to post them next time.

And then yesterday Bennie and I went to the Dixie Classic Fair. I love the fair! We brought home some maple flavored cotton candy. It was a good week, well except for today when the Panthers lost to Tampa Bay. Oh well.

Just a Piece

I heard just a piece of a conversation yesterday as I was walking by the US Cellular stand in the Mayberry Mall. There was a guy with his son looking at a particular cell phone.

1st Salesgirl: "You can get that cheaper on the internet."

2nd Salesgirl: "Don't tell him that!"

Customer: "I thought they were free anyway with the plan."

1st Salesgirl: "Oh yeah."

Monster Mouse

Another mouse in the house story.

Since we have the occasional mouse come in I just always keep those small black glue traps around. I have two in the laundry room against opposite walls, and I check them every morning. For months there has been no change. Then last Saturday I walked in to do some laundry and I looked down at the trap, but it wasn't there. So I looked at the other one, AND IT WASN'T THERE EITHER. They were both just gone. So, I went back and asked Bennie if he had moved them for some reason, and no, he hadn't. So we went back to look for them. One was lying on its side up between the freezer and ironing board, and the other one was inside the little closest that has our air compresser - both still intact and still with the dollop of peanut butter in the middle. So, that was just strange. So, thinking that maybe they were just old and not sticky anymore I threw them away and got new glue traps. I put new peanut butter on them and placed them back in the same places. I also put one in our closet just for good measure and one under our bed against the wall. So then yesterday morning, first thing, I go look at the traps. As I was walking into the laundry room I saw a strange site. Where the trap had been there was now just an area of tiny black particles, about a foot in diameter. As I looked around for the trap I saw it lying a couple feet away with a big chunk of the plastic gone. Stranger and stranger. This time, though, some of the peanut butter had been eaten. And then this morning when I opened our closet door, the trap in there was gone. When I looked around I found it about three feet away - perfectly intact, PB and everything. Today we are getting WOODEN TRAPS, and just for good measure a larger one for rats. I just shiver thinking that it might actually be a huge rat. Who knows what is going on at this point.

Morning Neighborhood Drama (Thanks, Michael Vick)

This morning started off pretty usual. I got up, got dressed, ran my 20 minutes (and walked 10) on the treadmill, then I went out on the front porch to sit on the swing and cool off for a few minutes. As I opened the door there was a stray dog on our front porch. His tail was wagging, so I figured he was okay. Actually I had seen this dog a couple other times in the last two days, just hanging around. He wasn't wearing a collar, and I didn't know who he belonged to. But, as I said, his tail was wagging. So I went on out to sit on the swing. Now this was a big dog (later I learned it was part pit bull and part chow). As I walked over to the swing I noticed the kid from next door was out with his dalmation, who is a house dog, but they bring him out to walk him and let him "use the yard". I was sort of talking to this boy, who is about 12 maybe, and was asking him if he knew anything about this other dog who was on my porch. He didn't, and then the stray dog left my porch and ran over to him and his dog. He started playing with the dalmation, kind of wrestling at first. Then it became something more. The boy was trying to shoo him away from his dog, which seemed to aggravate the situation. AND THEN the stray starts growling loudly and starts actually attacking this dalmation. I couldn't believe it when I saw him take the dalmation's head in his mouth - his whole head! I was just frozen watching this play out. And the boy was trying his best to get them apart the whole time. So then the mom comes out yelling and trying to get them apart, but no luck. THEN the dad comes out - with a 45. So he starts shooting. He shot the back of the stray, and it finally let go of the dalmation. So the mom, the kid, and the dad get the dalmation in the house, and the stray runs off. I went in to get Bennie, and we both came out on the porch, but then here comes the stray back to our porch. So now I'm kind of scared of this dog. So Bennie called the animal control people, who btw waited for a couple of hours before actually coming out. Then I went over to tell our neighbor that we had called and to see if they were okay. He told me that his wife and son had left to take the dog to the animal hospital, and his arm had two long scratches on it from the dog. So, to make a pretty long story somewhat shorter, I went on in to take a shower. When I came out the neighbor had shot the dog, who wouldn't die. So he went and traded the 45 for a 22 rifle and shot it again a few times, this time killing it.

So Bennie and I had to leave for Winston, but when we got back our neighbor was out with the dalmation (who had a big gash in his neck but was otherwise okay) walking him down the road, and he came into our driveway and told us the rest of the story. The animal control guy finally got there, but someone from the newspaper got there first, and she was asking demanding questions like why it took so long for the animal control people to respond. Anyway, the guy said that for the last month they have had a lot of instances with these kinds of dogs being set loose, fallout from the MV fiasco. Apparently this dog had been trained to fight, and the AC guy actually praised our neighbor for killing it.