Would You Like A Frog With Your Coffee?

I had the surprise of my life this morning, and because of it, absolutely no caffeine of any sort was needed to get my heart beating. When I wake up, Brutus (our lab) wakes up. He jumps off the bed, stretches, and heads down the stairs to go outside to take care of his "business". Same routine, every day.

This morning I decided to use the downstairs bathroom while he was outside. I rarely use this bathroom anymore, and actually, it rarely gets used at all since all of the kids moved out. I opened the lid and sleepily got ready to sit down when I heard a splash. I jumped back, looked down and saw THIS.

THIS is not cool!! What the heck? How on earth would a frog get in my toilet? I quickly closed the lid, called my husband to tell him about it and went back to bed to start my day over. Then I started feeling bad.

The animal lover in me came out. What if the poor little guy had been sitting in that water for a week? What if he hadn't had anything to eat? He knows that I know he's sitting in there, and all I did was walk away. Oh brother!! I knew I wasn't going to be able to live with myself for leaving him in the toilet all day until my husband got home, so it was time to gear up and get him out.

I started out by finding my rubber gloves. I'm sorry, but I don't touch slimy things. Just can't do it, especially when they jump! Then I figured I better get a plastic bag, because chances are he would slip right out of my hands, and then I would have the dog and three cats chasing after him, and that would be an absolute circus. I lowered the baggy over him, tipped it to the side a little and he walked right in. He actually seemed quite relieved to be out of there. I can't say that I blame him.

I took the baggy outside, and after resting for a few minutes, he hopped away to freedom, and probably to find some breakfast. Now I just have to figure out how he possibly could have gotten in there, and how to keep it from happening again. I can honestly say that I don't think I will be going to the bathroom in the dark again any time soon!!

City Mouse....Country Mouse???



Photo from Amazon.com

I have found lately that I am a little bit city and a little bit country. It's times like this that I wish there really were a parallel universe going on at the same time, and I could just jump between them whenever I wanted to without having to drive for two hours!! Or, that I could merge my two worlds in to one. I love them both. And for you science lovers out there, I'm not saying that there aren't parallel universes out there, I just haven't personally seen them.

The country house (lake) offers incredible peace and quiet, warm friends (freaking amazing) and a life without a schedule. We see a lot of our family and friends at the lake that we don't get to see in the city, which can be a little crazy sometimes, but it's always a good thing. And, Brutus, our Golden Lab is beside himself giddy at the lake. He runs from the lake to the woods to his purple plastic pool (not always sure why) and back to the lake. He is so incredibly happy. He gets his little bum in trouble sometimes when he can't control his urge to go after chipmunks, and that always makes me feel bad, but for the most part his life is great! I never feel bad for him, it's always the recipient on the end of his naughtiness that I feel bad for. I have always gotten really embarrassed when one of my own does something naughty that hurts or offends someone else.

The city offers amazing diversity (which has always meant so much to me), great walking paths (we can't walk at the lake in the summer because of the deer flies) and I get to see Don every day. I love having all of the shopping I need just five minutes away, and pizza delivery and great Chinese food!

If I could just figure out how to merge the two. I don't think that the Lai Inn and Pizza Hut want to move out in the boonies with me!!

I guess that for the time being I will just be incredibly thankful that I am lucky enough to get to enjoy both. And, if you have little ones at home, I highly recommend this book. It's adorable. :)

And We Rocked It Baby!!

Cheap Trick

Photo by Chad Olson

Remember Cheap Trick?  I think I was about fourteen or fifteen years old when they became really famous, and we used to put their album on the record player and turn up the volume. In my head, I was really cool. On the exterior, I was really NOT!! But jump ahead about thirty-two years and stick me in the middle of a Cheap Trick concert, and honey, I still might not be cool, but I didn't look any worse than anyone else there!!

First, let me just say that these guys can still rock it like it was the 70s. I was impressed. For ninety minutes straight they entertained us without so much as an off key note, and there was no lip syncing taking place. The venue was small, only 750 people, so there was no way to fake it. They had people standing right next to the small stage up next to them. Rick, the main guitar player danced across the stage with his various guitars the entire time, constantly throwing his guitar pics out to the audience. The lead singer was amazing, and could definitely teach something to some of today's young singers that rely on the studio to "make" them sound good. These guys sounded as good in person as they did on their albums. Absolutely amazing.

Now lets get to the people. Oh the people! Honestly, that was almost the best part. I actually half expected there to be some younger people there, and there might have been a couple twenty-five year olds, but I would put the audience age between 45-70. Yep, that's right, 70. And the one guy that I'm pretty sure was seventy was one of the people that stood up in front dancing the entire time. He was feeling the music. It just made me wonder what he was like so many years ago. Was he a head banger? A nerd who can finally let it all out? A really cool guy who just happens to look like a sweet grandpa? Who knows, but he was having a great time. Another character that stood out to me was a guy to my left. He kind of looked like Humpty Dumpty, but very very tall. He stood up and shook his arms in the air for most of the concert, and kept holding a lighter up in the air, even though the security guys would come over every time and tell him to STOP. And the funniest of all was a woman who forgot that she was middle aged completely. She was in the middle of the aisle dancing FOR the band. Her high waisted Lee jeans were shaking more than my chicken in a shake-n-bake bag!! The security guys finally made her go to the back of the room to dance because she was so wild. She actually gave the guard the finger and stomped to the back before she went right back to dancing. Other than that, all of us oldies but goodies managed to really enjoy the show.

Gary and Bonnie

Gary and Pam

The best part of all was the road trip we had with our friends. We went with two couples, Pam and Gary, and Bonnie and Gary. We left early in the day, and the girls went in one car and the guys in another. It was a three hour drive to the concert, so we stopped for breakfast, and a little shopping on the way to the hotel. Once we got to the hotel we had just enough time for some cocktails and appetizers in our room before the show. Since we're all young at heart (and the band is just as old, lol!) the show started at 5:00 PM, and was done in plenty of time for us to go out for a nice long dinner. We found a great place with a screened in porch on the lake. It ended up being a super nice long dinner because our waitress seemed to keep forgetting about us. Thankfully we all had a great sense of humor about it, and managed to have more fun with it than anything.

So, cheers to an awesome weekend my friends!! It was great!