Pink!

Do You...

• Summer was heralded by the frantic scribbling of pencils on paper, scented with aroma of eraser debris and the heady smells of mimeographed exams?
• Parents didn't scramble to find something to occupy their children during the weeks of summer vacation, they just made sure that the hosepipes were functional and the locks sturdy?
• Three bowls of sugar-laden cereal didn't seem all that excessive, and in fact were considered a well-balanced breakfast?
• Scabby knees were badges of honor, regardless of gender? Their protrusion between the hems of shorts and the tops of tube socks were a sign that trees had been climbed, hills had been conquered and bicycles tamed.
• Speaking of bicycles - do you remember wearing helmets? Me neither.
• Bologna sandwiches were excellent lunches? 
• Barbie and Ken broke up because Barbie had the hots for G.I. Joe? Or was that just at my house?
• Bottle-rockets were fired from one end of the street to the other as a part of the on-going war that was Camellia Lane? And somehow, no one lost an eye or a thumb?
• The street lights went on and everyone started running, calling out see-you-laters and same-time-tomorrows?

I do. I remember it like it was yesterday. I remember the street and the people on it. I remember the red rubber ball that we played four-square with. I remember calling out "CAR!" and moving out of the way. I remember my white bike with the banana seat and the white plastic basket on the front that was covered with plastic daisies.

I don't remember what my mother did. I assume she was around, but she had her own friends and her own things to do. I guess she was running errands and taking care of my little sister and gardening. And making bologna sandwiches. Sometimes they even had fried bologna on them, but only when we were being particularly good.

I wonder what my children will remember. Likely, it will be all the time spent in the car to get to this thing or that thing. They'll remember time spent hitting tennis balls and time at the neighborhood pool. But they won't remember the freedom that they had, because kids just don't have that any more. Even when I send them out to explore and ride their bikes and have a great time, they come back...there aren't any other kids out exploring. We go to the pool and it's just us and the toddlers until 4 or 5 in the afternoon, when the parents are off work and the kids can finally come out to play.

All the other kids are at day camps and day cares and math tutoring sessions and art classes and music intensives. Because summer is the time to get ahead and make up lost ground and pushpushpush so we don't get behind.

And I'm sorry for them. I'm sorry that they never shot a bottle-rocket at their friend and watched in horror as it hit the bill of his ball cap and flew straight up in the air. I'm sorry that they haven't perfected the art of manufacturing fake blood out of Karo syrup and food coloring and scaring their mom half to death with it. I'm sorry that they never got lost in the woods behind the neighborhood and worried they'd never find their way home but then realized that they were only three houses away. I'm sorry they never played kickball in the street with the four-square ball and had to quit when Jason's mom called him home early and he had to take the ball with him. 

I'm sorry they never picked up the hose when they were thirsty and just drank out of the end of it instead of coming in the house and getting water from the fridge. Because that burst of cool water, after all the hot water that had been sitting in the hose all day ran out...that was the stuff of legend - the nectar of the summer gods. And once you had your fill, you gently placed your thumb over the end and sprayed all your friends and the droplets of water hung in the afternoon heat and created prisms of light. 

And nothing was more perfect than that.

Ego Trip

Last week, when the Smarty came home from DC, we headed south to see his folks in Alabama. We hadn't seen them since Thanksgiving, and so even though my folks are just another hour and a half farther down the road, we had decided to keep this trip about his mom and dad. I saw my mom a couple of weeks ago, and she and my niece are coming back very soon, so at first glance, that seemed to be the right thing to do.

But, with everything going on with my grandmother, once we got to Birmingham I decided to head on down and pay a quick surprise visit. I severely underestimated the reaction I would get. Let's just say I made my mom cry, I made my dad cry, I made my sister cry, and I made my niece cry.

I was only able to stay a few hours, but it was long enough to have lunch with my parents, visit with my grandmother (who smiled and smiled and smiled) and be with my mom as she met with the home healthcare providers that are going to be helping with my grandmother on weekends. It was long enough to reminisce over photo albums with my sister. It was long enough to watch my niece's dance routine that she used to try out for the high school dance squad. It was long enough to sit and drink a cup of coffee and just listen to my mom talk.

It was long enough to just love my people a little bit and let them know that even though I'm not there in the midst of their trial and turmoil on a daily basis, my heart is there. 

My heart is theirs.

Having a Ball

School is winding down for the year, and we are rather frantically working to make sure we've completed all the work required.

And by "we," I mean me, of course.

There's no frantic in my boys. There's a lot of eye rolling and Dear-God-WhyAren't-We-Finished-Already-ing. If they could just figure out a way to harness all the energy required to keep up the constant sighing, we'd be done already.

One of my children is the most amazing procrastinator I've ever seen in all my life. Please bear in mind that I'm an outstanding procrastinator. World-renowned, even.

He tops me by a mile.

One day last week, he spent five and a half hours doing his schoolwork.

And completed nothing.

NOTHING.

Then, in one three hour session on Friday, completed five science lessons, a vocabulary test and a grammar lesson.

Crazy-making, is what that is.

The other one just gets done what needs getting done. He chips away at it every day, little by little, and has actually completed the required lessons in all but one subject, two weeks ahead of schedule.

We've always said that if we could combine them, they'd make one amazing super-human.

Rain

It's been a soggy few days - but the benefits are outstanding!

Overlook

The light was so pretty that I didn't even notice the red pickup truck through the window.

Until now.

Dang it.

Zombies Play Tennis?

We spent the weekend as we often do - at a tennis tournament. Dr. SmartyPants was not here, so much of my time was spent texting game scores to him, my heart racing, my stomach churning.

It's one of those great joys in life to witness your child living up to his potential, demonstrating the mastery of skills for which you've paid the equivalent of a small island nation's GDP, and getting a win over his opponent. 

It's another thing entirely to witness your child living up to his potential, demonstrating the mastery of skills for which you've paid the equivalent of a small island nations's GDP, and getting his butt kicked in 35 minutes flat.

It is, however, the nature of the game - and of life, quite honestly. So many times, regardless of how hard we've prepared, how mentally ready we are to take on a task, we end up defeated, and how we handle that defeat is what defines us in the end.

My children handle defeat very differently...they handle pretty much everything very differently. Derek walked off the court after his first round loss and said "Well, I played as well as I could have. That guy was just better than I was." 

He was right. He did all the things that he's worked so hard on over the past couple weeks - things that had been problems - things he hadn't been doing well. And he did them well. The boy he played was just better. He was bigger, he was stronger, he was older and he had more experience. Derek could see that and move on.

Joshua won his first round match, although he lost the first set. He buckled down, won the second and the deciding tiebreak and then had to go on to the second round. His opponent was the #2 seed in the tournament, the #11 ranked boy in Tennessee. Joshua actually started out playing really well. He won a few games, lost a few really close ones. But here's where Derek and Joshua diverge - Joshua started getting angry.

He actually started angry. That's his default setting. 

After the match, which he lost, I said something to him about being angry and how it shuts his feet down - shuts his game down, really. (This isn't the first conversation about it that we've had...) I could see the tears in his eyes as he said to me, "You tell me that it is okay to get angry, but then tell me that I shouldn't be angry! I don't get it!"

He's right. I've said both things to him. And I'm right, but he wasn't getting it. I told him to go take a shower, cry it out and come back and we'd talk about it.

I really just needed a few minutes to try and figure out how to explain it. Here's what I came up with:

Anger is an emotion, just like joy or sadness. There's nothing wrong with anger - it just is. But here's the thing...every time you get angry, it's like creating a one-pound brick. There's nothing wrong with that brick - it just is. But once you've created the brick, you have to decide what to do with it.

Ideally, you learn to put it down, out of your way, where it can't trip you up. Better yet, realize that it's just a brick of sand, blow on it really hard and scatter all the grains.

But you can also decide to strap that brick to your leg and hang on to it. Now - one brick that weighs one pound probably won't hinder you all that much, but consider this: It takes losing 24 points, minimum, to lose a tennis set. That's 24 opportunities to create an anger brick. If you strap all 24 of those bricks to your legs, you'd find it hard to move. 

Imagine playing your best game with the equivalent of 24 pounds strapped to your legs. It just can't happen. You have to practice laying your bricks down, pulverizing them and blowing them away.

He thought about it for a few minutes. I asked him if he understood.

"Yes. I get it. It's kind of like in Minecraft? When there are zombies? And if you don't kill the zombie, they spawn more zombies and then you're completely overrun with zombies and you can't do anything."

"Exactly. I think. I have no idea what you're talking about."

"That's okay, Mom. I do."

How Does Your Garden Grow?

I've never been a fan of gardening. My mom was a gardener - all my people are gardeners. My earliest memories of gardening are picking the weeds out between the rows of okra and eggplant that my mom decided to plant one year, the whole time thinking, "I HATE okra. I HATE eggplant. Why do I have to pick out these stupid weeds. I don't even LIKE gardening."

Thanks Mom. Happy times, there.

I have another memory about gardening, but it involves chicken manure and a game of king of the hill. You'll thank me for not repeating it.

Anyway - as I've grown older, I've found that I miss the taste of fresh-out-of-the-garden tomatoes and peppers. I miss the smell of fresh vegetables sitting on the counter ready for preparation. So I planted some tomatoes in pots on my deck at the last house - it's not gardening! There aren't any weeds! All I have to do is walk out onto my deck and pick my glorious tomatoes!

Except it never worked all that well. The containers dried out too quickly and the tomatoes suffered and all it did for me is make me want more. MORE, I tell you.

So, last year, as we were examining our acre of land and marveling at the fact that the previous owners of this house cut down all the trees except the five scraggly, ugly cedars and left the patches of bare, scorched earth that used to be shaded by said trees, I thought maybe I'd plant a garden. I wasn't brave enough to till up the soil, yet, so I bought a raised bed kit at the local hardware store and filled it with gorgeous garden soil.

I planted four tomato plants, one cucumber, a yellow squash and one zucchini. ONE zucchini.

People - this garden produced like crazy. I had so much zucchini, I couldn't keep track of it all - as a matter of fact, I would lose zucchini in the giant leaves of the plant so that they ended up growing bigger than my dog. The picture above shows the zucchini plant at about half its eventual size. It completely crowded out my squash and my cucumber. The tomatoes held their ground, but it was pretty clear that a) zucchini plants are insane and b) zucchini plants need more space.

When the garden was done, I removed the raised bed, mixed the garden soil into the bare scorched earth area, planted crepe myrtles, daylilies and oriental lilies and turned it into a beautiful little flowery oasis. I'll take a picture of it as soon as everything blooms.

Yesterday, I took my raised bed to a different bare, scorched earth section of the yard. I found another raised bed at the hardware store and added it so that the zucchini will have its own space, although I did give it a spaghetti squash and a watermelon friend to hang out with. Hopefully, they'll play nicely together.

I gave the tomatoes their own bed, with a border of marigolds and a lone bell pepper friend to grow with. My mom always planted marigolds with her tomatoes to keep the bugs away. Guess she taught me something after all.

Thanks Mom. Happy times, indeed.

Anticipation

Have you ever watched something unfolding in front of you and just ached for it to finish already? 

Have you ever wondered at the patience of nature?

Have you ever mourned the time spent straining and becoming and simply longed for the finish?

Have you ever gasped at the first sign?



Have you ever seen miracles take over and do what you could never hope for?

Have you ever grown weary of the battle?

Have you ever been humbled by your own lack of power?



Have you ever watched as those precious hearts for whom you've been given responsibility exceed every expectation?

Have you ever wept as those same hearts are crushed by failure?



Parenting is not for the faint of heart.

Every Day

In order to reconnect with my habit of blogging, I'm planning a post every day in May. It may be a drawing, like the crow above.

It may be a photo.

It may be a rant against society.

Who knows? The point of it is that I miss being here. I miss writing. I miss the connections I've made through the past few years of hanging out in this space.

Feel free to join me - I could use the company.

What the What?

The Smarty was home this weekend. It was a short visit, but just having him around for a couple of days feels like a cause for celebration. 

We miss him like crazy.

He had some bonus dollars to a local big box electronics store, so he decided he'd take the boys and buy them a new game for their XBox. The only reason they got an XBox was so they could play Minecraft with their nerds friends and talk to them at the same time. Before that, they had to play Minecraft on the computer (which they still do) and talk to their friends on the phone.

So. Very. Lame.

Anyhow... Saturday morning we went to breakfast and to buy some groceries, then ran to the electronics store to shop for XBox games. This is the XBox aisle in the store. There were tons of options to choose from.

Well. There were tons of games. And as long as you are a big fan of shooting people, there were tons of options to choose from.

People. I realize my boys are growing up, and that one of them is technically a teenager, but when I started reading the descriptions on the backs of the cases marked "T" for "Teen", all I could think was, "No."

Here's what I saw...there was a basketball game, a football game and a tennis game. Fine. No problem. My boys just aren't into basketball, football or virtual tennis.

Then there was the chainsaw massacre by a half-naked, busty woman game. And the heavily tattooed and scarred ex-military man with an AK-47 game. And the stealing cars and running drugs game. 

How about the skateboard game? Well, the advisory panel states, "Blood, drug use, crude humor, offensive language." So, no.

But there's a racing game! "Crude humor, offensive language, suggestive topics, nudity."

I don't understand what's happened. I realize that times have changed since I had my Intellivision, folks, but is this really what we've become? A bunch of crude-talking, drug-using, gratuitous-violence-wielding people? Over 100 games on the shelf, and more than 90% involved shooting up either guns or heroin. The other 10% were sports, which would be awesome, except apparently no one plays sports without suggestive overtones or foul language.

We ended up with a Lego Star Wars game (which they already have for the Wii) and an Avengers game, in which the characters fight each other, but there's evidently no blood or naked women. These were the only two games on that entire aisle that I could even consider.

And it just made me sad. 

It made me sad that our children are exposed to so much violence, at such a young age, that it isn't shocking to them. I don't believe that video games cause violence any more than I believe guns kill people. 

People cause violence. People kill people, with guns and without.

But when it's clear that we've turned a corner to a world where the graphic and realistic-looking killing of "people" has become commonplace, it makes me hurt. The world is a violent and scary enough place for kids without adding this on top of it.

I realize that I'm in the minority, and that all my kids' friends have these games and play them. I realize that those kids are most likely not going to grow up and become the kinds of people those games portray. But I just can't do it. I'm sorry, guys...I just can't.

I would rather you miss out on what all your friends are doing. I would rather you be mad at me for making you miss it. I would rather you grow up completely shocked and horrified at what people will do to people instead of blasé and jaded when a bomber sets a backpack full of explosives down at the finish line of a marathon, or when you hear a news story about a murder downtown.

I want you to be disturbed when you hear of a robbery at the local drugstore. I want you to be disgusted when women are objectified. I want you to be dismayed to see what illicit drugs really do to individuals. I want you to be devastated by the evil that people can subject upon other people.

I want you to be like your father, who agrees with me.

I want you to grow up, understanding that life is a precious gift and that there are no second chances at it. 

Ebb, Flow

Life is a strange thing, sometimes. We rise and fall, ebb and flow throughout it. We stress out over things that are completely pointless and shrug our shoulders and laugh off important things. We work so hard to control every aspect of it - some of us, anyway. Some of us act as if we have no control over anything, and we allow ourselves to be swept along with the tide.

I fall into the first category, generally. I am fairly sure I could stop the tide from turning if I applied myself. The world would stop turning if I didn't get up in the morning and start it going - you can thank me for that.

You're welcome.

I watched Joshua play a finals match in a tournament this weekend. He played beautifully, but he lost. He basically lost because of a double fault, and it just broke his heart. It broke mine, too. I sat in my chair, on top of a hill and two courts away from him, and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it. I talked him through it, even though he couldn't hear me.

"C'mon, baby - stay with it. Good boy. Topspin. That's it. Aaaarrgh."

I was absolutely no help at all.

It made me realize how often I strive to control things and have just as little influence as I did over Joshua's tennis match. It made me realize how much undue stress I place on myself. It made me want to learn to let go a little.

But it is so hard to let go. So hard to give up. So difficult to lay it down.

My mom was here visiting this weekend. She needed to get away for a couple of days. Her mom, my dear grandmother, is almost 93 years old. She's far into dementia, her body is failing and it is nearly time for her to go. Her mind has been gone a long time, now, but her body just hasn't realized it's time to stop. My mom is the only daughter - she has two brothers that are younger than she is. Her time here, away from it all, was punctuated by telephone calls from both brothers. Calls from doctors, nurses, caregivers. She's trying to keep everyone informed, plugged in, advised. 

When she left, I told her to call her pastor. To keep communicating with her brothers. To give up some of the responsibility that she's carrying so that she doesn't get ill from the stress. To let go of some of the control. She knows. And I know how impossible that is.

My grandfather, almost 95, is still trying to control what happens - after 72 years of marriage, he's not sure how to let go and he's exhausted from the effort. My grandmother's doctor has called in Hospice to help care for her - to relieve some of the stresses that my sister, who is my grandmother's caregiver, faces.

To help everyone learn to let go.

National Haiku Poetry Day

Today is National Haiku Poetry Day. I felt inspired by certain events of yesterday to write a few (incredibly bad) Haiku poems of my own.

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Streak across the yard

Green trees, a flash of black, white

Smells like that don't die

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Jasper wants to play

Hi! Lovely forest creature

That really smells bad

*********************************

Jasper is a dog

He likes to chase animals

Well, not anymore

*********************************

What is that odor?

Oh, dear Lord, it's my dumb dog

Some things never fade

*********************************

What is that odor?

The skunk is in my nose

IN MY NOSE, PEOPLE

*********************************

A day at the vet

Cleaning, cleaning, two skunk baths

The scent still lingers

*********************************

Go write your own Haiku poem - they're quite cathartic. Feel free to post some in the comments - I'd love to read yours! Just please, please, please...make them better than mine. 

Don't Make Me Hunt You Down

This is how I spend most of my days. No - not perched on a log, enjoying the sunshine, although I would, given the opportunity. I spend my days on a razor's edge of alert focus, watching for dangers to my cubs. With the Smarty gone 90% of the time, I feel like this cheetah - poised to spring at any moment.

***Do cheetahs have cubs? Or are they kits or something? Okay - looks like they are cubs, and holy moley - how stinking cute are they?***

The flip side of that is I spend most of my days completely exhausted. When the Smarty comes home, it takes me about two full days to recover from the relaxation that hits my body, knowing that I'm not the only parent in town. That makes for some serious quality time with my sweetheart. Sigh.

My word, I don't see how you single parents do it. I can only hope that you have a network of trusted friends and family that step in and prop you up on the days that you've been sucked completely dry of all energy and reason. Because that's what I've noticed above all else - when my energy hits the bottom of the reservoir, my reason flees right along with it. I look at the bowl sitting next to the sink, encrusted with the remains of someone's lunch and I just want to throw it across the room. 

"Why doesn't ANYONE in this house do ANYTHING except for ME? As soon as I get one thing cleaned, FIVE HUNDRED OTHER THINGS ARE DIRTY. Has ANYONE EVER put up a pair of SHOES in this house?"

When the fact is, other people actually do things here. Just yesterday morning, I heard the boys taking out the trash and recycling, even though I hadn't actually asked them to do it. They help feed the dogs, put up dishes from the dishwasher, take their clothes upstairs and put them away. Well, I assume they put them away. I don't look. They are quite possible sitting in heaps on the floors of their closets. I honestly don't care - as long as I can't see them.

They hug me and kiss me, even when I'm angry and unreasonable. They say "Please" and "Thank you." They tell me I'm a good cook.

Liars.

Cute, adorable, sweet little liars.

Thoughtful

I wonder what she's thinking...

Blossoming

We spent the end of last week in DC, seeing the sights and prolonging the time we got to spend with Dr. SmartyPants. We were hoping that the cherry blossoms would cooperate with our visit, but they didn't. We found one lone blossoming tree on the National Mall that had opened - a precursor to the spectacle that surrounds the tidal basin every spring.

It's so interesting being back in the city after nearly 3 years. When we first moved up there, the boys were 7 and 9 and I can remember so vividly the first time I took them on the Metro without the Smarty. We only rode two stops, as a test run, and I squeezed their little baby fingers so hard, terrified I would inadvertently leave one of them behind. After two years of depending on the Metro for the majority of our transportation needs, I became more and more comfortable, but I'm pretty sure I still held their hands pretty tightly.

Fast forward to last weekend and they've become young men - 11 and 13 - who don't need their Mama quite so much. They carry their own Smart Cards in the back pockets of their skinny jeans. They walk ahead of me, two or three paces, completely confident of where they are going and how to get there. Derek turns to me and says, "We need to head toward Vienna, Mom. Do you think we should get off at Clarendon, or Virginia Square?"

"Virginia Square."

"Got it."

We step off the train, heading to eat at an old favorite barbeque place, and they sprint ahead, through the toll gate and up the escalator as fast as they can - racing to be the first one to the top. Dr. SmartyPants and I follow, laughing at how much things have changed since we left. We catch up to them at the crosswalk and wait for the light to change, talking about how the Cozi is still on the same street corner, next to the 7-11 and that Starbucks has added outdoor seating, but everything else looks exactly like we remember it.

The light changes and we all step out into the crosswalk. We're staggered - boy, parent, boy, parent. As we cross Fairfax, I feel hands creep into mine - slowly - one on each side and I smile. I look over and see that we're all holding hands as we cross the street - just like we used to. I squeeze - they squeeze back.

Three squeezes...three back...

We step onto the sidewalk on the other side and my hands are released as the sidewalk narrows and the boys run ahead. The Smarty and I walk closer together and hold hands with each other as we watch them.

As we watch them.

You Say It's Your Birthday?

In honor of Dr. SmartyPants' 74th birthday, I got him this.

Picture.

I got him this picture. Of a Ferrari. Not the actual Ferrari.

 Just the picture.

And he's not really 74. Because that's older than my dad. (Hi, Dad.) I just like to transpose his age because it makes him seem a lot older than I am.

Like right now - I can transpose my age, and I become 44. Yay me! After August, there will be no more transposing. Until I turn 05.

Anyway - however old you are, my wicked smart love - I'm glad you're spending it at home with us.
I love you more than words can say...

Swing Away

This is one of my darling children. He's the oldest. He's the sweetest (sorry, Joshua.) He's the weirdest. But I mean that in a good way. No, really. He's unlike any other child I've ever met.

Some days, that brings me great joy.

Some days, that brings me great angst.

We've been having a battle of wills over the past few months. Derek tests me far more often than Joshua does. He always has. When he was about three and realized that he could start making some decisions on his own, he started fighting me for control.

It's been a long decade.

I can remember when Dr. SmartyPants and I were celebrating our fifth wedding anniversary, and we decided to hold a vow renewal service. I wore my wedding dress and we decided that all the boys would get matching tuxes, ohmygoshwon'tthatbesocute.

We were at the church, getting dressed and beautiful, when my monther-in-law came in.

"We have a little problem. Derek won't get dressed in his tux," she told me.

I went to the room where he and Joshua and Dr. SmartyPants were getting ready. Derek was sitting in his skivvies, refusing to budge.

"What's up, bud?" I asked.

"I'm not wearing that. I don't like those shoes. Those aren't my shoes."

"But these shoes go with the suit! It's okay that they aren't your shoes - we're just borrowing them for a little while. You never have to wear them again after tonight. And they match Daddy's and Joshua's!" I explained in my happy happy cheerleader voice.

"No. I don't like those shoes."

He had tears in his eyes, and his sweet little mouth was puckered up and his hands were clenched. It was very important to him to have some control over this outfit, I could see.

"How about you wear the suit, but you wear your own shoes? Would that work?" We were on a timeline, after all.

His eyes lit up. "I can do that?"

"Yes. If it is really important to you to wear your own shoes, that's fine. It's really important to me that you wear the suit."

"Okay!"

It was, all in all, a fair compromise. I got what I wanted - two adorable little monkeys in their monkey suits. He got to wear his sneakers. (Please note, for the record, that Joshua is wearing the rental shoes.) I think you can see, in this picture, how he feels about the whole thing.

And so, nearly a decade later, it continues...I press - he pushes back. I insist...he digs in. I talk...he stares.

But sometimes - every now and again - we reach this place where it works for us both. He gets enough of his way and I get enough of mine that we can live together and not be angry all the time. In those moments, I believe we're going to make it. 

Honestly, when it's not completely infuriating, I find myself a little envious of his individuality. When I step back and look with dispassionate eyes, I wonder what I would have been able to do had I been so self-possessed at his age. It's taken me over 40 years to get to the point where I almost don't care what everyone else is doing and saying and wearing. If my mother had told me to put on the shoes, I wouldn't have even considered that there might have been other options.

He figured it out before he was four. He's still got it. 

And I hope that never changes.

Hallelujah, Amen.

It's SPRING, people!

Honey Bear

This face - there's a story behind this face...

When Dr. SmartyPants and I first got married, we lived in a nice apartment complex near The University of Alabama. We were on the second floor and the guy who never woke up to his alarm clock lived directly underneath us, but that's not relevant to this story. We're still traumatized by him, though - just so you know.

Anyhow - in the next building over, just across a small green space - was a student who had an ancient Yorkshire Terrier by the name of Honey Bear. Honey Bear, as his name indicates, was a mean, mean whirling dervish of a dog with three teeth and the attitude of a wolverine. 

We had a dog, as well - a strange little thing I brought into the marriage. Her name was Molly and she was completely and utterly insane, which is also not relevant to the story. We're still traumatized by her, as well.

So - in the mornings, we would hook Molly up to her leash (because we are law-abiding citizens) and head down the stairs to take her for a walk. It never failed that as soon as we got to the bottom of the stairs, the girl with the Yorkie would open her door and let out her little devil dog...no leash...no owner...just go do your business...

So Honey Bear would come careening down the stairs, full-tilt, barking his fool head off at Molly, who would cower and wimper and whine and refuse to do anything. Honey Bear's owner (funny how I can remember the dog's name, but not hers, isn't it?) would go back inside and do whatever she was doing while we tried to extract ourselves from evil incarnate. A few minutes later, she'd reappear, wondering where her precious shmoopsie was.

She would walk out into the open stairwell and (being in Alabama) holler in the most amazingly shrill voice I've ever heard, "HONEY BAAAAAAAAAAAAYERRRRRRRR! HONEY BAAAAAAAAAYERRRRRR!

HUUUUUUUUUUUNEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE BAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYEEERRRRRRRR!"

And eventually, Honey Bear would tire of tormenting Molly and go flying back up the stairs and into his owner's loving arms. His owner would wave and say something like, "HEY Y'ALL! AH AYUM SO SORRY. HE'S ONLY GOT THREE TEETH IN HIS WHOLE HEY-ED." Because apparently that was just her speaking voice.

Honestly.

Fourteen years later, and we still laugh about that girl and her evil dog. We wonder if she got married. We wonder if her husband went deaf. We figure a dog that mean is probably still alive, even though he'd be about 25 by now.

What is the point of this story, again? Oh. Yes. Jasper. Up there - that adorable face?

That's what he looks like when we say (very quietly) "Honey Bear" to him.