question of the day

people often ask me "Lori, how do you keep your house so clean?"

okay, not really, but sometimes i wake up at 4am dreaming that people ask me that question. then i get up and go to the bathroom and wipe the dog hair off my feet before i get back in to bed.

but here's the catch. it's CLEAN dog hair.

so, grab a cup of coffee ... i'm about to share with you an underappreciated method to keep your house neat and tidy even when you live with dogs.

because this part is formal and all, i'm going to break down and use the CAPS key. here ya go ...

Step 1: Get Yourself a Labrador Retriever. Actually, I find an AKC registered Labrador Retriever that looks, acts and bays like a Bloodhound works best. You can name her "Aunt Bea" if you're so inclined.

Step 2: Move your frozen behind to the subtropical regions of Texas and be sure you buy yourself a house with a pool. This is a must.

Step 3: Get yourself the niftiest ball-throwing device since the invention of the slingshot ... it's called a "Chuckit". The "Chuckit" makes Tony Romo's throwing arm look like a girly-man. I can easily get close to 100 yards on that thing with a tennis ball. Okay, so I haven't actually measured that but I can get the ball over the neighbor's driveway without throwing my back out.

Step 4: Have a little agreement with your dog ... I will chuck the ball (get it? get it? "Chuckit" ... CHUCK IT ... those crazy ball throwing inventors sure knew how give it a name) ... and you, my beloved dog ... will go get it.

Step 5: CAUTION: This is a "multi-step" step ...

Me: Bend Over, Chuck the ball.

DOG: Run Run Run Get The Ball Run Run Run Bring It Back.

Me: Bend Over, Chuck the ball.

DOG: Run Run Run Get The Ball Run Run Run Bring It Back.

Me: Bend Over, Chuck the ball.

DOG: Run Run Run Get The Ball Run Run Run Bring It Back.

Step 6: Repeat Step 5 until your dog's legs begin to shake and they're too exhausted to even open their jaws wide enough to let go of the ball. THIS is when you strike.

Step 7: Turn the quivering mass of overheated dog out in to the backyard and soon they will be paddling around the pool, even when the temperature dips below freezing. They will exit the pool and attempt to shake their water all over you before returning to the pool for another go 'round. This is a good time to hide behind the grill.

Step 8: Repeat Steps 5 and 6 and 7 several times a day.

We find that the laps around the pool not only serve to clean off the dog's hair, but to also loosen it up nicely so that when the dog is allowed back in the house to roll around on the brand new carpeting in order to dry off, the nice, clean hair sheds off nicely.

plus, nothing says "Clean House" like the smell of a wet dog.

least that's how we do it it 'round here.

would it be wrong to have my dog stuffed?

i'm just wondering 'cause aunt bea is in "killer bea" mode right now.

she's chewing up the backyard at a rate of about $100 a day.

today it was the brand new grill cover and the hose to the "creepy crawly" pool cleaner.

so, i'm wondering, really, if the kids would notice if i took her down to the taxidermist and had her stuffed and mounted on wheels.

the kids could roll her around the neighborhood.

riley wouldn't have to pick up poop.

wyatt could still ride her around.

i love the dog. i really do. but the chewing thing ... well, if she survives the night i'm considering one of those hannibal lector masks from silence of the lambs. 'cause i suspect she could chew a standard dog muzzle right off her face.

i guess that's what 11 month old lab puppies do.

john went out this morning and yelled at her when he discovered she'd targeted his grill.

now, it's personal. a man and his grill.

then he stomped back in to the kitchen with wet feet and proceeded to slip and fall on his butt right there on the tile floor.

bad dog karma.

i love you john for yelling at our dog and taking the fall for me 'cause i was in more of a mindset of "wanna eat the grill cover? really? well, let's just see you eat the entire grill cover right here. right now. go on you big tough grill-cover-eatin' dog."

speaking of taxidermists ... my stepbrother once went on a "corporate hunting trip" down at the king ranch (that's the kind of thing you do when you work for a big oil company).

he shot a turkey and as part of the boondoggle trip his hosts offered to have it mounted for him and shipped to chicago, where he was living at the time.

about a month later a freight delivery truck shows up with an enormous crate.

yep, it's the turkey. he'd failed to realize as it was laying there dead on the ground that it had a wingspan of, like, 8 feet and the taxidermist had mounted it in full flight.

it was HUGE and being a man and all, he actually hung that thing from his ceiling. obviously, this happened back in his bachelor days when it was actually an option to display dead stuff in his house without getting divorced.

oh, another taxidermy thought ... grandma cox once got riley a cute little stuffed kitty to put on her bed.

except that cute little stuffed kitty caused the same allergic reaction as the cute little live kitty we'd had to get rid of when riley's face swelled shut the day we brought the cat home. that and the cute little stuffed kitty was actually mounted on a board and looked so lifelife riley's babysitter wouldn't go into her bedroom 'cause it gave her the "creeps".

so, i ask grandma "where'd ya get the cute little stuffed kitty?" and she proceeds to tell me she found the greatest store that had all these stuffed animals that were "so incredibly lifelike".

ewwwwwwwwwww.

yep, we've already owned a stuffed cat ... a stuffed dog can't be too far behind.

like beans in the yard, baby

did i mention, out here in septic land, that our garbage disposal is "off limits"?

we have one. nicely installed, and all, in a beautiful 4 foot designer sink. but septic rules dictate that we do not, in fact, actually put said garbage disposal to use.

something about egg shells and coffee grounds and baked beans mucking up the system.

so the other night we attended a 'back to school fish fry" put on by the neighborhood. 112 homes reside in our little gated community so we decided to take a big batch of beans, knowing they can sit out by the pool for a little while before turning bad, like potato salad.

being new here and all, i DID NOT want to be the one responsible for the homicidal potato salad at the back to school fish fry.

so we show up with about 10 gallons of beans, as does everyone else in the neighborhood, and we came home with about 9.75 gallons of beans.

i put some in the fridge and then set the bowl on the counter.

and it sat there. and it sat there. and it sat there.

a couple of days later, john asked me what the "bean plan" was.

"bean plan"?

"bean plan?"

truth is, HONEY, i don't know what to DO with the beans.

can't throw them in the trash. they'll leak and smell before the trash is picked up.

can't put 'em down the garbage disposal 'cause, as i said before, we CAN'T ACTUALLY USE OUR GARBAGE DISPOSAL.

at this point, i'm tempted to just walk the big giant bowl of fermenting beans out to the back, back yard and start flinging them in to the nuclear-fertilized grass with a big giant ladle.

after all, if i actually USED MY GARBAGE DISPOSAL that's where they'd wind up anyway. so, really, i'm just bypassing the system. i'm just accelerating the process.

john, however, thought that might be a bad idea. might ruin all the good will we've built up with our neighbors. the beans are now sitting in his workshop.

Does My Yard Smell Like "Asparagus"?

so this is a conversation about bodily functions.

if the word “pee” offends you, stop reading right now.

you see, when we moved to the texas hill country, the operative term there being “country”, we moved in to a whole new world when it comes to sewage disposal.

we’d always lived on a city sewer system.

flush it and it goes bye bye, without another thought as to what happens from that point forward.

but out here in the country, we bought ourselves a house with a SEPTIC SYSTEM.

which means that after you flush it, it’s still yours to keep.

now, we have an aerobic septic system, which basically turns our sewage into gray water that is then shot out of sprinkler heads and irrigates our backyard.

the way-far-back part of our backyard.

not the swimming in the pool, playing ball, grilling or drinking margaritas part of the backyard.

but the wild and wooly back acre.

which is cool as some summers it gets rather dry down here and i love the fact that we’re actually using our, um, "resources" to keep our yard alive.

it’s very “green” as opposed to using potable drinking water to irrigate a yard.

plus, i like to believe that human urine is a natural snake repellent thereby keeping them far, far away from my backyard.

so my “city” brother from dallas was down to visit a couple of weeks ago and we were explaining the aerobic sprinklers in the backyard.

steven then looked at me and declared “congratulations, you're officially a redneck”.

and then we got on a roll and this is what we concluded:

“If you can fertilize your own yard by pee-ing in the shower, you just might be a redneck.”

so yesterday we had a break in the torrential rains we’ve been experiencing as the result of some tropical depression down in the gulf of mexico.

i was out in the way-far-back part of our backyard watching the water rush through.

we could have kayaked from the front of our property to the back property line.

behind us is “elmer’s place”. rumor has it he’s a crotchety old man who doesn’t like anyone encroaching on his ranch.

which, of course, just makes it all the more tempting to hop the fence and check it out.

15 feet behind our property line, on elmer’s place, this torrent of water disappears over a small ridge into what sounds like a waterfall.

i like waterfalls.

i wanted to see elmer’s waterfall created by the river in my yard.

so as i’m navigating the high spots in the yard, hopping on rocks and logs and working my way back to the fence, the aerobic sprinklers go off.

now, that's something that usually only happens in the middle of the night.

"they" tell me the water coming out is like 98% pure.

but what about the other 2%?

what exactly is that made up of?

‘cause if it’s still got remnants of the asparagus we ate a couple of days ago i certainly don’t want to be hosed down with THAT.

my neighbors happened to be watching as i dodged sprinklers and gullies of waist deep water in my attempt to get back to dry land without getting peed on by my own backyard.

i wasn't successful. so remember, always, always be grateful when you don't smell like asparagus.