Recently in Church of the Porch Category

About this time last Sunday I was out in the back yard with the dogs. They were sniffing around the corner of the back fence. Then Max barked (oddly) a couple of times, so I called the dogs to the porch. Within minutes I noticed Max's swollen lip. And it got bigger, and he started to drip blood from his mouth.

I put Hudson in his crate, and took Max to the emergency vet. He was obedient getting in and out of the car, but moving very slowly. His face and neck continued to swell. As soon as we walked in, the vet tech said it looked like a snake bite. The vet confirmed it - Max had two puncture wounds on his snout.

Likely a copperhead, she said. They had a treatment plan for him, and would keep him overnight.

I got home, only let Hudson out on a leash, and then for only as long as necessary.

I called the vet at about 9:30 Sunday night. Max was responding well to the treatment, and was eating. Positive signs.

So I was happy to hear that, at the same time liking my back yard less and less.

Monday morning I brought Max home with two prescriptions. His face and neck were still quite swollen. I kept him away from Hudson too, knowing Hudson's tendency to play rough. All the while still afraid of my back yard.

I called Animal Control, and while the lady was nice enough, she had no advice for me other than to kill the snake.

Granted, I had hoped to do just that, but could have used a few more details. I looked online for help, and snake traps, and gave Max his medicine in peanut butter, and rotated the dogs from their crates to the yard, then quickly to the house.

Tuesday I let the dogs be together for a bit, and the instant Hudson got too close to Max, Max made a sound that then kept Hudson at the proper distance for the next two days.

Max continued to get better, and by Wednesday night had some spring back in his step.

Thursday morning I let them out to pee, off leash, and the obsessive sniffing of a patch of ground started. So I immediately called them in the house, put on boots, grabbed a shovel that was handy, and went out to see what they were sniffing.

And it was a copperhead. Two feet long or so. The adrenaline started pumping.

Fight or flight.

There really wasn't any question I was going to try to kill it. The only thing I questioned was whether I could do it with the shovel I had in my hand. I didn't think I could. But if I went to get something else, it might get away. My bypass pruning shears were just right there on the deck. They would certainly do the job.

Thus, I flighted back to the deck, grabbed the pruning shears, went back, and fighted the snakes head off.

I checked the dogs and made sure neither of them had been bit. And they had not. So the challenge had been met. The only thing left to do was to dispose of it, and, well, that was just nasty. In the big scheme of things, it was infinitely better than burying one of my dogs though.

So he was unceremoniously dumped into a trash bag and put in the bin.

But not before tweeting a picture of his decapitated copper head.

Sometimes, the words beg to come out. In my head I try to organize them, and then I get stuck. Stuck with the trying to put things in order. At that point I just have to let them come how they are going to come.

This is one of those times.

First, an article from the New York Times from this past week. The author wrote, "The Federal Aviation Administration recorded 18 collisions between aircraft and diamondback terrapins between 1997 and 2007... None caused damage to the aircraft."

A diamondback terrapin is a turtle. Considering the largest on record, a female (which grow larger than the males) was nine inches long, collision seemed an odd word choice - no matter how small the aircraft, or how fast that terrapin was barreling toward it.

Another article I read this past week, this one from the Christian Science Monitor said that Malaysia Airlines had taken the step of banning babies from its first class cabin.

Apparently they have solved the problem of sound carrying through the mesh curtain that separates the last row of one cabin from the first row in the other.

But how will they tell someone who wants to pay for first class seats (as opposed to being upgraded) they cannot, if they have an infant with them.

Not that it matters to me. I learned long ago how to quiet my mind, such that sounds (and self-absorbed seatmates in first class) do not keep me from sleeping when I wish to sleep.

In other news, I don't recall when I started watching the Dog Whisperer (on Hulu), but I've seen all the episodes now. And not once did I ever have the thought that any of the dogs on the show were being hurt. So the other day when I Googled Cesar Millan, I was surprised to find sites that think what he does is horrible. (But their "evidence" was so illogical that it was laughable.)

I've practiced what he teaches, and without an e-collar, without any choke chains, and really with nothing more than a wave of my hand, I now have two well-behaved dogs.

I came to the conclusion that the animal behaviorists watch Fox News.

I'll stay team Cesar.

I have no one thing in mind. So let's just see where this goes.

In Sheaness news, she seems to have stopped growing at just over the 5' 9" mark. And has inherited her dad's ability to ruin electronic devices at a rapid pace. Otherwise, she's mini-me. She knows it, and I know it, and it makes our relationship the greatest thing ever in my life.

We've talked about things - you know the things - since she was young. Now's she's a teen. And has a boyfriend. And will be driving within a year. The talks continue, and after all these years, I have to say, we're good at it. Boys, drugs, driving, peer pressure, tolerance, prioritization, trust, religion, being a good tipper.

Of course I liked her before this, but of her own accord she started liking Dave Matthews after their last album. I'd hear "Funny the Way It Is" playing in her room and just smile. Pretty soon she started asking to borrow my CDs, and now she knows which track numbers in the car are her favorites.

She took quite a liking to "Too Much." When she was little I would turn the volume down for the parts with bad words.

Now I turn it up.

And we laugh.

So speaking of Dave, the Atlanta show was awesome. Gov't Mule opened. They sang "Soulshine." It was wonderful.

On deck are the two shows at Wrigley in September, plus any others I can work into my schedule.

In other news, in the Twitter vs. Facebook thing, I have a definite preference for Twitter.

Maybe because there is less maintenance and admin involved.

But probably it's because of the fellow Dave Matthews Band fans there.

I don't have a care in the world about Twitter being occasionally unavailable. It happens. Demanding uptime and reliability from a free service seems a little self-indulgent to me anyway.

So I check Facebook every now and then, but TweetDeck stays open most of the time. One of these days I will get my Twitter feed back over there in the right-hand column. Probably not today.

Work continues to be primarily online. I have, in fact, denounced my road warrior title. I can't say I'm totally normal now, but I do shop for groceries, and drive my car to places other than the airport. I didn't mind at all my printer ink cartridges drying up from lack of printing boarding passes every week.

My house sits in the landing path of the airport, and several times a day, from my throne on the screened-in-porch I look up and a) wish them all safe travels, and b) give thanks for not being on that plane. Or any plane.

This week I'm learning an add-on application. Which is going to be easy in all regards. First, it's a relaunch of something we had years ago. Second, the application's function is something that is so ingrained in me that I don't even have to think about it. So all I got to do is learn the fields and actions. Third, it's self-paced. Best, like all the work I do at home, I do it from the porch, while watching the birds and other backyard creatures.

It's a real-life tweet deck.

It's a great thing that I have to look at my calendar to see when the last time I had to fly to work was. A couple of years ago, I thought the only thing that could make my already awesome job more awesome, would be if I could teach from home. Thanks to online training, I now get to teach from home more often than not.

Which means that on the days I work, I launch some software about 30 minutes before class starts, plug in a headset and microphone, and have a seat, usually at my table on the screened-in porch. When class is done, I close a browser window, take off my headset, and that's that.

There is no traffic either way, I don't have to worry about what I'm going to wear, and there is never a concern that the place I'm teaching at won't have coffee. Or half and half. Or a perfect view of a busy bird bath.

This also means that my wallet is lighter by three pieces of plastic - my Hertz President's Circle card, my Hilton VIP card, and my Delta Platinum Medallion card. I think that makes me officially not a road warrior anymore.

Twenty years seems like a good place to stop. So I totally got it when Dave Matthews announced the band was taking next summer off after touring for 20 years. My first thought when I saw the tweet was, "Well shit. They are probably beat." I certainly wasn't thinking, "Oh, woe is me." More like, "Let's get five shows in then this summer."

And let's make the last two shows in my home town, right before my birthday, at one of the greatest ball parks in the country. Please and thank you.

I don't give a rat's ass what the setlist is. As I said previously, DMB could play nothing but covers on broken instruments, and I'd stay for the whole show and be happy for the chance. It was a tweet, so I ran out of characters, but I could have added any number of other qualifiers. Fortunately there is a whole group of folks on Twitter that support and encourage my habit.

Obviously I haven't figured out how to get my tweets back here since the upgrade. Granted, it hasn't been my primary focus of late.

See, Sheaness has a boyfriend. I was laughing out loud to myself last night thinking about what the graph of Jalepeno's mileage B.B (before boyfriend) and since would look like. A near-vertical spike that has sustained itself at the top of the paper for a month.

Really, I couldn't be happier with her choice. He's setting a pretty high bar for future boyfriends, I have to say.

So Sheaness took a boat load of honors classes this year, her freshman year in high school.

And finished the year with all A's. And was Cadet of the Year in ROTC. And had the highest GPA of any freshman cadet. And was the color guard commander most of the year. And made a ton of friends. (Who know that if they have a question regarding Spanish, or military history, Sheaness will have the answer.)

We're calling it a success.

I don't know what I did in life to deserve her. But the other day, during one of our ice-cream chats, my 14 1/2 year old daughter looked me in the eye and said, "Mommy you have had a huge impact on my life."

Cried right into my ice cream. Tasted infinitely better with those few salty tears.

In other news, 40 days to Dave in DC. Still dateless. But I am confident Karma is on the clock.

I gave up on the Cupid thing. But kudos to people who have the fortitude to stick it out. Not for me.

Time now to get moving. Much to do today. Birthday to celebrate. Buttons to push. Dave tonight from Bonnaroo.

in the church of the porch of the queen this morning, I'm thankful.

For my incredible Sheaness.
For my beautiful family.
For Dave Matthews.
For vampires.

It's not actually posted, but the sentiments are true enough.

On the other hand, I never know when my auto-pilot is going to show up. She doesn't even knock. She got here about an hour ago. Did a load of laundry, made the bed, and started separating toiletries into allowed and not allowed.

She was here when we left for Rome, but apart from that, since I haven't had to fly to work for 10 weeks, she's been scarce.

(Yes. Ten. Weeks. Hello, on-line training.)

I've had time to do lots of things.

Fix up my yard.

Use Visio for evil. (That's the software I drew the flowchart in, Mom. It's sarcasm. I'm not evil. Weird, yes. Evil, hardly.)

Get every electronic document I have onto one hard drive.

Read the urban dictionary.

Spend hours listening to new music.

Build outdoor furniture.

Invent toe bowling.

Which, naturally, is played with a baseball.

And a friend.

I did it with my first house. Looked at it and saw what it might be. The thought of what it was going to take to get it there didn't discourage me, because I was an idiot and had no clue just how much work I was facing.

In retrospect, it worked out well.

My house in Milwaukee was far from a fixer-upper. It just had paint colors I couldn't tolerate. And some ugly light fixtures. I didn't like my job, and I didn't like it up there. The house never felt like home, and I find myself skpping the whole time up there in my head.

When I think of "my last house," it's actually two houses ago. The one that needed fixing up.

This house. Well.

It's two miles from my parents. Less than that to Bill's. Ten minutes to the airport. And blocks from a gas station that sells actual half and half.

Perfect size. Garage. Fireplace. Big closets. Attached garage plus a huge building out back.

But, oh, so very aesthetically displeasing when I bought it.

Just like the first house, I looked beyond. Just like the first house, I was not discouraged about what it was going to take to get from here to there.

Unlike the first house, I now knew precisely what it was going to take.

To get it from here...

... to something other than that.

Like maybe this.

My initiation into the world of Facebook coincided with a lack of updates to pondring.

(XM Radio is playing "Angie.")

(And welcome new readers Kevin and Soo.) (Soo - get on FB.)

For a while I had them linked together. Anything posted here got updated there, except the pictures didn't carry over. I didn't know the reason, and I still don't know the reason. I only know that I disabled the automatic update.

So if you're not clicking on a link somewhere, or already know this is here, then you're not getting updates.

And that's alright with me. I mean I like FB. Really I do. I've caught up with friends from many years gone by. But pondring. Come on. Around much longer than Facebook, and without the annoying ads telling me how I can meet other singles.

I went out and read dooce this morning. She's made a new page of just her hate mail.

Further reinforcing my decision to not allow comments on pondring.

Come to think of it, I might have disabled the email link as well because I was having trouble with spam.

The bags are ready to pack. Sheaness is still sleeping. I'm enjoying a little quiet coffee on the porch time before I need to wake her up.

We've been talking about this trip for a year, and started making plans many months ago. As of yesterday, all the shopping was done, by last night every piece of clothing in the house except for one stray (Geek in the) pink dress shirt of mine was washed and either put away or put next to a suitcase. Toiletries have been packed into allowed or not allowed bags. There is a large line of gadgets and chargers on the kitchen counter.

Fortunately for me I have done this so much that there is no stress in the packing for me. Doesn't matter where I'm going or for how long. Open closet, count, stack, roll up, zip into bag.

The first time I flew on a plane I was 16. And it was to go to Spain with my high school class. I found my wanderlust in Toledo. And have traveled ever since.

Shea has flown many times, and has been out of the country several times. But on much shorter trips. I was looking at her passport yesterday, and the face in the picture was that of a little girl.

It's a beautiful thing for me this morning to ponder that I'm going out of town, and taking her with me. I don't have to kiss her goodbye. And I'm not going to Indianapolis, no offense. Or to Kansas City. Also, no offense.

The folks at security at the airport aren't going to recognize me with a 5' 9" appendage. (So I'll just flash my tattoo. They don't all know my name, but they know my Firedancer.)

I can't give or project my hopes for the trip to Sheaness. She'll have to define and find her own.

In the church of the den of the screened-in-porch this morning I am thankful.

For my beautiful daughter. For being able to share something that is such a part of me, with her.

For having a good job and a great boss that gave me the time off to go.

For all previous road warrior trips that gave me the miles and hotel points for us to go first-class, for almost free.

For the change jar that paid for all the new clothes and shoes.

And for friends and family that have shared our excitement.

In the church of the porch of the queen, I am oh so very thankful.

And now we are off to Italy.