Friday, May 27, 2011

A Forced Smile!

Today has been great and full of nice surprises. This morning our first nice surprise was seeing June, Ellen, Eileen, Lisa and Jim, our incredibly great volunteers, outside walking our dogs and grooming them for us.
Because I love our volunteers I stopped what I was doing (returning e-mails and phone calls) and went outside to visit with them and to thank them for coming out.

After howdies and hugs these women had me laughing non stop as we caught up with each others news, while Jim was out on the ranch walking Layla and Little Girl down by the creek. When our hilarious hen party ended Ellen took off to go groom Rufus and Roxanne, in my writing cabin's front yard and June, Eileen and Lisa started walking our dogs, who were excited to see them because they could not wait to go on a walk with them, so I tagged along so I could continue visiting with them, because they are so much fun to be around.

Before the women took off to go eat lunch in Medina, we came up to the trailer so Lisa could take a picture of Belle playing with her new toy that Eileen had given to her when they arrived this morning. And to say the least, "It is now Belle's favorite toy." And here is a picture that I took of her playing with it this afternoon.

Today around three-thirty I decided to play beauty shop with Mama and groom her in our bedroom because it was so hot outside. And she loved it because she slept non stop on our bed, while I gave her a pretty manicure with our battery operated Pedi-Pet.

Mama woke up when I turned off the Pedi-Pet. After she had admired her lovely nails, she went back to sleep as I began trimming her thick, long locks of white hair that had grown back since we had her shaved down because of her skunk meeting.

When I was nearly done with Mama's haircut, around five-forty, there was a knock on the door—it was Donna Schloss! OMG! I love Donna dearly and was glad that she had dropped by, but our bedroom was a total wreck, because Mama's fur was all over our quilt and on the floor and one of our old timer dogs had just soiled a pet pee pad. 

Trying to act nonchalant I said, "Hi, Donna! What a nice surprise! Please forgive the way our bedroom looks right now—I'm playing beauty shop with Mama right now and she's..." Donna started laughing.

"Don't worry about it. I just dropped Marcie off, after taking her shopping in Kerrville for the day and when I saw your gate open—I just had to come by and say hello and to invite y'all to come over for dinner, at my house, with Marcie and I'm also inviting Sandy & Jon to join us. I want to do it before she has to go back to..."

"We'd love to come, Donna," I said, as I tried to wipe Mama's long, white, Great Pyrenees hair, off of my black t-shirt. What can we bring?..." Then we started visiting in the kitchen and the big room as Tony put Mama and Abbie outside and brought B.S.-S. inside to meet the famous Donna "The Drummer" Schloss.

As our sweet, little, out-of-control Bellerina happily pounced on Donna and kept jumping up on her, while trying to nibble on her fingers, using her sharp puppy teeth, Donna smiled, which I think was a forced smile as she said, "Belle's cute." Which of course made all of us laugh.

"Yeah, when she's asleep," I quickly quipped. "Stop it Belle. Tony?" As T. handed Belle Starr-Simons Eileen's new toy to settle her down I said, "How are Cathie and Robert doing? You know that Cathie and I are e-mail buddies and..." After Donna told us they were doing fine I said, "The next time they come down I hope they will come out and see us and our mutual friend Steve, who lives just on the other side of that mountain.

After Donna and I had talked about our fun ukulele class, that we took together last year and her exciting upcoming trip I told her about needing to read, The Art of Racing In The Rain, which is now one of my all-time favorite books. And before Donna left to go home I told her that I would bring her a copy of the book because I had ordered a few more copies to give to friends and that I was expecting them to arrive real soon.

As our just washed quilt, that I earlier groomed Mama on, tumbles around inside Airy Queen, our Speed Queen dryer, it is now time for me to stop writing for tonight, because I need to vacuum up Mama's hair. 

Y'all have a great evening!

2 comments:

Fay said...

What a great story Nancy. It's amazing how our dogs weave themselves into the fabrics of our lives, hair.. and otherwise LOL Kris Kristofferson is being especially annoying at night as of late, I think he's regressing into his puppy stage ; )) That said, I wouldn't have it any other way. He's so fun, and funny, and handsome. Love him bunches, don't know what I would do without him and his funny ways!
Take care & have a great weekend,
Fay xoxoox

cousin nancy said...

Hi, Fay! Thank you for your comment. I agree it is amazing how our dogs weave themselves into the fabrics of our lives. I am thinking of taking a yarn spinning class, so I can spin Mama's hair and then weave it into a white furry bookmark or headband.

On second thought, I should only weave a bookmark out of her hair, because a headband would blend in with my white hair and it would make me look dumber than I already am. Have a great weekend, too.