This is it

I hate to say it folks but this is going to be it for Jimmy's Opinion.

Everything is going good in our lives right now, but the stresses of everyday life is a hand full right now. I just wanted you all to know that life is good and that we are happy. We both wish you a Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays whichever is appropriate, and hope the coming New Year is the greatest ever for you.

I have really enjoyed my time with each of you and want you to know that your advice, understanding, concern, sense of humor, and most of all your friendship has been greatly appreciated, heck when I started this I thought for sure that I would be my only reader.

So for now I want to say Thank You for being who you are, and please don't ever change a thing about yourselves. I can't say if I will be coming back or not but for now I will just leave the answer as this...

Parking in a real driveway

Some people love apartments and city living with all of the hustle and bustle and noise, and others love a nice house with a real driveway, mailbox on the curb, and the peace and quiet of a rural area. I am one of the latter. And against everything that we raised our kids around, my daughter loves living in the city with parking on the street or in a parking garage. I didn’t raise her this way, just saying.

I like stepping out my front door and seeing my truck right there in the driveway, or at worse having to open a garage door and back the car out. At my daughter’s apartment I open her front door and see miles and miles of duplicate doors down a long hallway with elevators somewhere down the line, I can’t ever remember which way they are located, yeah I know, the old country boy coming to the city situation…

Every time she has moved from one location to another I have strongly suggested that she find a place with a real driveway, I hate parking garages! I don’t like forgetting where I left my car, it’s not like I actually forgot where I left my car it’s just that all those cars stuck inside a parking structure kind of blend together.

This is why I can't find my car...

Then when you have two structures side by side with several levels serving the same place, man I get lost just thinking about it! Now throw in "Resident Parking" behind a gate that opens with a sensor, separating the cars that belong from the ones belonging to visitors of the residents, or shoppers for the surrounding businesses, yes these cars are caged in where they can't escape. I've only been inside that cage once…without my car!

My daughter lives in a very secure building, she has a sensor to open the gate to park her car, and one that opens the gate to gain entry into the building, and it also signals the elevator buttons to work, without that sensor you can push those buttons from now until doomsday and that elevator will not work.

I once followed a man through the gate and strolled over to that elevator thinking that we could surprise the daughter by showing up at her door, only to find myself essentially trapped on the first floor because without a sensor I was stuck, I couldn’t even take the stairs because guess what? Yep those doors were for residents only too. Our daughter just smiled when the elevator doors opened when she finally showed up downstairs to save us.

Her building to me looks like miles of concrete hallways where everything is the same; I can't get my bearings when nothing appears different. Upon leaving from a visit once, Cindy and I went down to the parking garage without supervision from our daughter, she did open the elevator door for us to get on, now she told us that all we had to do was push a button for the parking garage and step out and walk to our car, easy enough…Right?

We did just that and stepped out of the elevator and began the search for our car, when we finally found it the only problem was it was on the other side of a chain link fence that went from floor to ceiling. We were trapped inside the residents parking area with no sensor to open the elevators, doors, gates or anything, I laughed and asked Cindy to call our daughter to come down and save us for the second time that day, but on this level of the parking garage we found that there was no cell service. Cindy and I were seriously trapped, we had accidentally pushed the wrong button in the elevator, we later found out there is one for the parking garage and one for residents parking.

It took about forty five minutes of walking, checking doors, and pushing buttons before we found a gate that was unlocked, (where is a security  officer when you need them?) this unlocked gate took us to the other side, where we began a long walk back in the direction we just came from in search of our car.

Recently our daughter got a job offer in another town a couple hours away from where she now lives, this is a good thing in my opinion with what she has just been through, this will give her a fresh start I'm  hoping. As soon as she finds a place to live, the company that hired her is going to move her stuff up there and we will be able to take the grand dogs home to her, yes we are babysitting until she gets a place…

The other day she sent Cindy pictures of a place she had applied to rent, “it's really nice” Cindy was telling me, and they are charging a reasonable deposit for the pets too. After Cindy got finished oohing and ahhing over the pictures she passed her phone over for me to take a look, a tear rolled down my cheek when I saw that our daughter is going to rent a small house with a real driveway and everything.

A real mailbox next to a real driveway!

I think when we go to visit I'm going to just sit on her front porch and admire that piece of concrete that most of us call a driveway, because after all this is her first real driveway with a mailbox and everything!

Have you ever been lost in a parking structure? What type of place do you call home?

Things that dogs do

Mmmmm that sure smells good she said as she walked up to the smorgasbord of goodies they found laid out in front of them, he agreed with her but before he could say anything he found himself diving in for a taste just as she raised her head with a large steaming bite in her mouth.

Our Granddog Zyla sampling a fresh pile.

My question is, Why do dogs love eating horse poop? I know there are a lot of arguments on the safety of eating horse poop, and of course the smell, and most important is why does your dog run straight to you and give you a kiss right in the face after you call them off of a steaming pile of fresh manure?

You have to admit that horse poop is only as good as the horses diet. With our horse Flash, the dogs are simply eating recycled alfalfa with a little bit of weed thrown in, not the illegal in most states weed, but the grows everywhere you don't want them to grow weeds. Dogs look at it like this, just who can resist a freshly and naturally baked pile of number one alfalfa and weed all squished together in a pile of #2.

Some people say that dogs eat horse poop to cover the human taste in their mouth, if this is true then why do dogs jump into your lap with that old horse manure aroma on their breath and invariably “slip you the tongue“, nothing like a dog tongue sliding into your mouth after they have been munching on road apples!

Dixie giving Cindy a kiss

And speaking of taste I am not sure which is better, eating poop to cover my scent, or slipping me the tongue to rid the taste of horse poop in the dogs mouth?...

A lot of dogs are natural turd hounds anyways, they eat any old turd including their own, but other dogs with more refined taste limit themselves to only indulging in a good pile of horse manure, you know eat a while then roll in it.

And speaking of rolling! What is up with rolling on the most disgusting thing you can find?

To mask their own scent I have been  told. An instinct that comes from way back when dogs were wild and had to sneak up on dinner, you know roll in the antelope poop to mask your scent from the herd before you attack. I don't understand how rolling on a dead bird is going to help a dog sneak up on a bowl of Mighty Dog today, but whatever it takes I suppose. The only thing I have seen gained by rolling on a dead bird is that the dog gains himself a bath! Then after the bath he immediately goes outside and rolls in the dirt, go figure...

Photo Source

And what about their bladder voiding practices? Just how in the world can a dog pee that much? Take a male dog for a walk and he will hike his leg and pee on everything in his path, and add another dog into the mix and you have Dueling Pee-Pee’s being played out to the tune of Dueling Banjos. One dog pees and the other comes by and takes a squirt right on top of it, then moves on to the next trail of yellow liquid rolling down the back of your favorite garden gnome.

This game of covering one another’s pee continues it seems until everything in the area has been properly marked and marked again, it is then that the dog with the fullest bladder has been declared the leader of the pack.

We once had this little game of Dueling Pee Pee's going on in our yard and the ending spray of pee came when our female poodle walked up to the tree a male dog had just marked, hiked her leg and accurately covered his latest pee marking attempt with one of her own, she was immediately declared the winner.

Has your dog ever farted and then jumped around to bark at the squeak that just came from behind? Our let one slip out and then moved away from you like you did it? And one more question, Just how many times have you falsely blamed one on the dog?

We love our little dog Dixie, yeah I love Cindy too...

You just have to love a good dog though, set aside their farting, peeing, pooping, and culinary habits and what is left is a pretty loveable character. Kind of sounds like someone you know, doesn't it?

What kind of things does your dog do?