Round 1 - FIGHT!

That

Sucked

Ass.

I ain' even gonna lie.

Round 1 is done.  Three more to go, but none should be as bad as this.  The woman kept asking if I wanted a break.  You could tell she didn't like my answer.  I could see the shots - they were the viscosity of rubber cement - there were three full to the brim syringes.  There was a beginning and an end.  I told her it wasn't like pregnancy - a nine month unending hangover.  This was childbirth and there was an end.  An end I could see sitting on the table next to me.  Plod on, my friend.  And so she did, but I made her laugh and she pressed the plunger too hard, too fast.  Such is my life, although in hindsight it was just as terrible as the rest.

So, sports fans, it's done.  The rest of the rounds are just shots in the arm. 

Good news, this morning we caught a cat.  The wrong cat, but a cat.  The animal control called my cell around 3 and said they were at the house getting the cat.  They reset the trap and by 5 we caught the right cat.  He's in the trap caterwaling now.  I'd be pissed, too.  I can't believe it was that easy to get him.

I keep playing in my mind how grateful I am that he came after me and not one of the children.  We were all three of us standing there together.  He had his pickings.  He picked me.  Thank God.

The morning comes early, and all will be and is well.
Amen.

Raise Your Hands!

Come on, everybody!  Raise your hands in the air if you love, love, LOVE rabies shots!!  Woohooooo!!! Par-tay!  Go, Ribbit.  It's your birthday.  Go, Ribbit.  It's your birthday.

Ok, it's not my birthday.  That would make this suck all the more worse.

Rabies shots start tomorrow.  Animal control was wonderful and came out to set a trap.  They're being very helpful.  The Dr. at the clinic I went to yesterday was seemingly unconcerned about rabies, but I called my regular dr today just to make sure the bite was in my file along with getting the tetanus shot and she's 150% convinced that rabies is an immediate risk and I need to start treatments tomorrow.

You can't make this stuff up.
I wonder if there's a rabies awareness color I can start for Keychains for a Cause.....  :)  Hey, if I don't laugh, I'm going to cry....which I did - right in the middle of class after I got the innitial phone call.  Then, as I was walking back to the classroom a magnificent senior asked if I'd be his escort for the baseball team's senior night - their last home game.  After school, I ran to animal control, back to the house for them to set the trap and then back to work to fetch the kids.  We got the student a candy bar 'flower' arangement, the kids and me a pizza and went back to my school to eat so I could get some work done and then went to the ball field.  While we were standing in the middle of the field, the second call from the dr. came through.  I had to leave the field to take the phone call.  I felt bad for the kid, but since he was in the class where I teared up, he understood, but I still think it looked bad.

I'm telling you, you can't make this stuff up.

At least I'll have a better chance of surviving a zombie attack.

The morning comes early.  Damn that cat.  Sweet gardening dreams.

Really? I Mean, Really?

Y'all don't even know the half of it. 

Before I get to the totally unbelieveable non-gardening aspect of this post, let me take a moment to tell you that the garden is growing in leaps and bounds.  I'm trying my fourth position for the peppers and they seem to be doing well.  I planted all of my tomatoes out today - six in a box and then six in pots.  As always, it was interesting since this year, even though I didn't forget to label them like last year, I think the kids got out there and moved my labels around.  The only ones I could correctly identify were the Brandywine.  The rest will be an adventure.

We're eating lettuce and radishes like they're going out of style and the beans and cucumbers are sprouting and broccoli headding and I've only pulled three cabbages with worms.  The rest seem okay for now. 

The squash in beds is doing fantastically and I couldn't bring myself to throw out some squash seedlings so I put them directly in the ground on the side of the house.  We'll see what becomes of them.  We do have some volunteers in the burn pit.  I can't believe they survived even after we fired it, but this is where we threw the pumpkins out and they look like they'll now be staking their claim to the burn pit.

They won't get any sun now that the trees are filling in, but I think it's funny how the seeds know just what they're supposed to do and get the job done regardless.

On to the non gardening portion of our show - but you've got to wait for the good stuff.

On our way to St. Louis for spring break we stopped in Metropolis, Il.  We got a guide book and went to see the antique fire truck at the station and wound up getting a very indepth tour of the facility.  They were FANTASTIC to the children.

Now, no town can be named Metropolis without it being dubbed the home of Superman and no town tauting itself as the home of Superman would be complete without a giant Superman statue in the middle of town.

And now I've seen it all my friends.

But there are times where you just look at your life and go, "Really?  .....Really?"  Such a day, for me, was yesterday.  There has been a feral cat roaming the neighborhood for a few weeks.  Around 8:00 yesterday morning, the kids saw the cat on our pool deck and asked if they could go outside to see it.  We went on the upper deck to look and when the cat started to come closer, I said to them, "You can look, but don't touch that cat.  You don't know what it will do." 

The cat was a love bug.  It was meowing, rubbing itself on the wood, grill and house, rolling over so we could see its belly.  I then said again, "You can look, but don't touch that cat."  The cat apparently took exception to that, popped up to his feet and began slow, low to the ground, stalking me.  I was able to say twice, "The cat is stalking me - get away, " when that rotten cat pounced at me like a jack-in-the-box.  That nefarious fiend turned his body in mid air so its jaws were on either side of my shin, clung on with teeth and claws and then pushed off just as swiftly as he pounced.  I'm afraid I spouted a few unladylike words as I herded the kids inside. 

It surely hurt, but I didn't think he had gotten to do much damage because I had on sweat pants.
Right.

Those would be nice puncture marks.  I look like I got into a fight with a vampire and lost. 
Let's run this down:
Feral cat that attacks unprovoked
Cats have FILTHY mouths and claws
Feral cat
Rabies
Last time I had a tetanus shot: before I went to college - and for the sake of arguing, let's just say that was a long, long time ago.

It took me hours to find a clinic that was open, and of course both kids were unwilling to let me out of their sight, so they came with me.  The Dr. was about to go to lunch, so I took the kids for some themselves, only to return to hear that she couldn't help me since it was an animal bite and she sent me somewhere else.

We sat at this somewhere else for about two hours.  Both kids were fantastic with the exception that the girl was convinced all would be well if I put my leg up which meant her kneeling on the ground assuming the position of someone giving an offering and then me placing my leg in her outstretched arms while we were in the waiting room with God and everyone else.

Four hours, a tetanus shot and antibiotics later, I barely had time to shower before I had to leave to chaperone Prom, and as I wrote in an email to a friend earlier, I didn't get home until around 12:00 Am and couldn't fall asleep because the residual beats inside my head said 'dance on, fool!' However, being that I was not in danger falling out of my dress from either the front or the back from by dress being seven sizes too small, my sense of adventure rapidly dissipated and I achieved Dreamland which even so proved more difficult than I thought since I couldn't rest on my left because of my leg and my right arm hurt from the tetanus shot.  I'm not begruding the kids tears anymore when they get shots.

Then, that rotten cat stalked me again this morning while I was in the garden.  It followed me from the side yard, under the fence and then to the back door as I ran in the house.  The man turned the hose on it, but it came back later.  That cat had better not be rabid.  I need to call my dr. in the morning to follow up with her and see if I need to worry about that.

And yes, because I know you're dying to know, we did have one dress burst, tears in the bathroom, and blood spilled. It was A PROM, BABY!!!

The morning comes early.  I hate that cat.  Sweet gardening dreams.