Rupa chastised me the other day because I'm not writing enough. It's true. I'm not. I now realize how badly my job is impacting my goofing off time and that my audience, all three of you, are horribly neglected. I'm sorry. I would quit my job, but we need the money. So, to make up for my lack of regular entries, here's an entry fraught with peril! Yippee!
It starts off innocently enough...
Baby Ben day on Friday was great. Geoff came and loves playing with Ben and loves Dan's Nintendo 64 even more. Dan has all the game systems. He has Dreamcast, Game Cube, X box... you name it. But Geoff totally prefers the N64 scene. I think it has a lot to do with his vision. We went to an after-camp suare at Jessica's camp. She's not overnighting, but most kids are. So Fridays are pick-up days and they do an award ceremony and a special candlelight/fire ring ceremony.
Geoff dripped hot wax on his hand when holding his candle, and ran screaming into the woods. Doug and I laughed at him. He's emotionally scarred for life and swears he will never ever ever got to that camp in the future.
But that isn't the peril of which I spoke at the opening of this entry. Do read on...
| Saturday we went and picked up Doug's new used car. It's a VW Passat, and it needs a name. We've come up with a couple. I had suggested the name Dieter to a journalspace user who got a flashy new BMW, Dieter and the "Sprockets" theme music from Saturday night live seemed to fit his ubermobile. So Dieter is out of the picture. We are looking for suggestions... feel free to send them to me. Jah, das ist sehr gut! |  |
Some that have come up in conversation are obviously Simpsons inspired. There's:
- Uter (did I spell that right?) the foreign exchange student who runs through the locker room screaming "Nein! Don't chase me, I'm full of cho-co-late!"
- McBain for Ranier Wolfcastle.
- Oh, and Wolfcastle was one as well.
- "Die Bart, Die!" was one I brought up because Sideshow Bob has it tattooed on his back and he convinces the parole board that it is German for "The Bart, The!" and the parole board says "No one who speaks German could be evil!"
- Baron von Kissalott
- Baron von Mach Schnell
- Schlegman, with nods and homage to Aaron for telling us the name Schlegman. There's a back story there... not to be shared at this time for lack of reason and space.
So if you'd like to throw some fuel in, please do. We'd love to hear from you.
It's a cool little car, feels like our old Saturn, Rudy, only a tad smaller and with much smaller sideview mirrors. Doug got it for a song. Phat, baby. Superphat. No peril there, right? Indeed.
But read on...
Saturday night I kept myself up until almost 2am reading Harry Potter. I don't know what kind of hex JK Rowling puts on these books but darn, I could not put the thing down! I had to force myself to go to sleep because day was quickly approaching! And the book isn't even THAT well written. I just have to know what is going to happen here! Gah! I'm freaking out right now that I'm not reading and I must stop myself so I can write.
Sunday I overslept church. Which many overzealous and ridiculous evangelicals would clearly blame on my indulgence in Harry Potter, witchcraft and evil. But that's just bung and they are total gits. I've done the same thing with many a book, from Tolkein to CS Lewis. Rowling is not bewitching me. Not in the least. Stop praying for my soul.
Anyway.
I heard the bells ringing at 9:14 and Jack was barking his fool head off, and I couldn't figure out what he'd be barking at. I realized my error. I went back to sleep for another hour.
So there may be peril there for my immortal soul, depending on whether or not you feel Satan has prevented me from going to church, but I don't think that's the peril of which I speak.
Read on...
We eventually got our acts together and went out Geocaching, as is our wont on bright sunny days. We did this geocache, it was a .77 mile hike to the site. We were all in excellent form and made it right close, within 300 feet, in no time.
Doug, using the GPS, once again took us off the trail bushwhacking to the actual cache site, whereas if we'd stayed on the trail and walked an extra 300 feet on top of the distance that we were from the location, we'd have come up to the big rock just underneath it.
Instead, we were up on top of this hugeassed rock, and Doug was walking around the left as I approached the peak of the rock to take a look down, with the dogs by my side.
Now, mind you -- I've never been afraid of having the dogs up on top of a big rock. We've gone to some very ledgy, very high up places with them, and they always stay with. So what happened next was an absolute total shock to me.
Kinger spotted a small pool of water off to the right of the rock, and he immediately wanted in, so he started
| Jack started right after him, knowing that a cool dip in the fresh pond was deserved after a 3/4 mile hike. I yelled at Kinger to stop, grabbed at Jack's tail and caught only a little fur. They kept going, and I watched Kinger slide right off the side of this: Now, it's hard to tell from this angle, but, if I were standing directly underneath the ledge, the rock would still be at least 3 feet higher than my head. No lie. We figure, he fell down 12 feet. Straight down. Head first. And he hit bottom with a horrifyingly sickening thud. And my heart broke into a billion pieces. Panic. Controlled panic, urgency, panic, Holy Shit they did NOT just do that! |  |
Jack landed on top of him. Kinger broke his fall for sure. And Kinger howled and cried. And we couldn't see him, and didn't quite know how to get to him. Holy God's Tonight. Shit. Oh my God.
Doug raced to the bottom with me on his heels, and we saw that Jack was running around just fine like nothing had happened. Jessica, who had a clearer view of the dog after he fell, but not the actual fall itself, told me as she was on her way up to the top that she saw him writhing around on his back howling. So we had no idea what was hurt or how bad, whether or not he landed on his back, or his side, or his feet.
He had limped into the cool water. He didn't want to come out of the pool.
And my kids were now up on the top of the huge motherfargin' rock in the exact location the dogs were when they took a flying leap...
I leashed Jack, and scrambled back up to the top to get the bi-ped children to sit in a safe place, which was, ironically, within site of the cache we came to seek.
Kinger had limped out of the water a little bit right before I went up to stop the plummet of my other two charges, so I could see his right leg was hurting him. I had to get up top and secure the kids, so Doug dealt with Kinger.
Doug let him walk around a bit, I pulled the cache box out, signed the log, put a swag in there, let Geoff pick one, and we came down the rock, Jessica and Doug went ahead with the dogs while I frustratedly dealt with Geoff, who insisted HE was the one injured because he stubbed his toe on the couch this morning.
We eventually caught up to Doug, Jess and the dogs, Kinger was walking but limping badly and panting. I was wondering if we'd have to carry him over our shoulders like a herdsman carries a lamb, but he kept going fine.I desperately wanted to encounter an ATV rider on the trail (we had seen a trio of riders who had gone off not too far away from us, and I wanted them to come back...) to ask if a ride for the dog and Doug back to the truck could possibly be arranged, but Kinger was hanging in there. We made it back to the truck and called the same animal hospital we went to with Jackie back in May. We rushed down there...
They took us right in, examined Kinger, and it turns out he's fine. Well as fine as can be for a dog that did what he did (if you're squicked you, the short version is Kinger jumped off a big rock. Got hurt. Vet visit. Okay).
He's probably got some soft tissue damage, and some bruising, which we can't see, of course, because of the fur. His right leg, which we thought was broken, seems to be fine. He's walking on it and is able to get around. He's sleeping now, they gave him a huge painkiller shot and some anesthetic for when they X-rayed him.
He's to have no physical activity other than going out for business for the next 5-7 days and we are to monitor him closely for any signs of blood anywhere there shouldn't be (coughing, waste products etc...)
He's very lucky, as is Jack. As are we.
 | I mean honestly. What the fuck? Really. How did he manage to do this. What the hell was he thinking? What were THEY thinking. Kinger's confidence and experience on high rock ledges got the best of him. Jack's "I'm with Stupid" philosophy almost cost him his life too. Jack doesn't have any problems. You'd never know he too fell off a huge assed mofo cliff. Lucky lucky little dog. |
Kids usually act like they are indestructible and my dogs have the spirits of skater punks sometimes.
I love them. Stupid shits. I love Kinger dearly, and I really am relieved and happy that he didn't sustain any injuries more than time and patience can heal. I was so sure the doctor would come back with broken ribs, broken this, inner damage to this, irreversible damage to...
"Praise the Lord, ye bright angelic choirs in holy songs of praise!" To quote Handel. Who quotes scripture.
In other news, our cable is gone. They changed over to digital recently and our cable got turned off. So instead of calling the cable company and subscribing we have decided that we are going to get the Dish Network and NFL Sunday Ticket for the fall. I'll be a true football widow. Our tenant has the dish, we just need to subscribe on his and it's like 6 bucks extra a month. So we'll do that. Get the installer guy to come put the dual receiver thingy in there and run the line down. And I think after a few more Doug paychecks it is time for us to switch to DSL, now that it's offered here. Finally.
I am entering the 21st century
So in the absence of cable and with our penchant towards sloth we've been either watching videos, of which we have millions of kid videos and some good Britcoms (Black Adder and Fawlty Towers' full collection) so Jessica has been enjoying the genius of Rowan Atkinson and John Cleese, and laughing her ass off. Nice to see that my girl finds this funny. The boy is disinterested and groans "not Fawlty Towers AGAIN!" and slinks off to bed early.
We say "Not Pokemon First movie AGAIN!" when he selects his viewing choice. So I guess we're even. Right now though, they are watching "Brave Little Toaster" which is one of my very favorite movies and I'm so glad to see both my kids love it too.
Have you seen it? Really? Well... you should. Anyway. How was your weekend?
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