Boiling Weekend

Buddy:  You won't guess how we spent our weekend!

Cyndi:  Yes, I will.  I was here.

Buddy:  I wasn't talking to you.  I was talking to our friends reading this.

Cyndi:  Does that mean I can't tell them?  I mean, you asked the question; I should get to answer.

Buddy:  Oh, go ahead. 

Cyndi:  We spent the weekend watching Jan boil water and pour it into containers when it cooled.  We have water bowls and pitchers in the fridge, on the table, and even in the bathroom so Jan can brush her teeth and take sponge baths.

Buddy:  She "washed" her hair Saturday night with boiled (not boiling) water and apple cider vinegar - no shampoo.  Dishwater gets a few drops of bleach and dish soap and are rinsed with boiling water poured from a teakettle.

Cyndi:  So far Jan has managed to rinse the dishes and not her fingers.

Buddy:  A boil water notice for this area was put out by the city Friday morning because of a leaking water main but Jan learned of it by accident on Facebook Friday night.  So she boiled water and hoped our water wasn't affected since we had all been drinking it.

Cyndi:  Saturday morning a boil water notice was put in her door.  Soon she saw a man taking a water sample from the new fire hydrant.  He said they were sending in samples hoping for a one day turn around so the boil water could be lifted Sunday afternoon.  Yeah!

Buddy:  But wait!  Sunday morning the same line broke in a different place and was repaired. 

Cyndi:  It's hot and humid here.  Pots of boiling water make the house hotter and more humid.  This makes all of us more thirsty.  Thus, Jan has to boil more water to fill our bowls.

Buddy:  She's not complaining, though.  Not as long as there is any potential for contaminated water that could make us ill.

Cyndi:  You'd think she would build a fire in the dog pen, since there's no grass to catch fire, and boil the water outside.

Buddy:  That sounds like a great idea.  Let's suggest it to her!

Late Sunday night update -
Cyndi:  Whoo hoo.  Jan just saw on FB that the Mayor posted a message lifting the boil water notice.  The bacteriological survey showed our water is safe.

Buddy:  She'd do the happy dance but she's so tired she'd probably have to do it face-down on the floor. 

Cyndi:  That sounds like a good idea to me.  She can do the happy dance on the floor.  We'll take the bed.

Marcus Saves A Broken Nose

Marcus:  Today I'd like to tell you the story of how I saved Jan's broken nose.

Percy:  Did I miss something?  I'm not aware Jan has a broken nose.

Marcus:  We wrote some posts on the 2016 saga of our new city water pipes - the explosion, the flood, the dry pipes, the midnight dig by flashlight, the knee-high flesh-eating grass -

Cyndi:  Marcus, I think you're exaggerating a bit.

Marcus:  The pipe connection blew, it flooded our dog pen, we had no water in the house and a guy from the water company was digging in our yard just before midnight one Saturday ... Need I continue?

Percy:  I hate to ask, but where does the flesh -eating grass come in?

Marcus:  Well, I might have exaggerated just a teeny bit there, but it was knee-high.  The guys left behind a mess of uneven rocky ground and a deep hole where the old meter used to be.  Jan could have stepped in it and broken her nose and then who would feed us?

Cyndi:  Wait a minute.  Jan would break an ankle if she stepped in the hole.  How is she going to break her nose?

Marcus:  You know Jan.  Whenever she falls, she flies and crashes.

Percy:  So the city sent this huge machine to fix the hole?

Marcus:  No.  I just think it's the neatest thing since the pocketknife with all the gadgets.  This toy can dig the hole, haul away the dirt and then brush up the mess it made in the street.  I want one.

Marcus:  As we started our Friday afternoon walk, a guy stopped to admire the mess they'd made.  I U-turned and dragged Jan back to ask him if he could please fill in the hole before someone gets hurt.

Buddy:  I know.  I was poised to take a poop near the curb and suddenly I was being dragged down the sidewalk in a semi-sitting position.

Marcus:  When we got home, the rocks and an empty plastic can were in the hole.

Percy:  I saw the guys came by early Monday morning to finish filling in the hole.

Cyndi:  It looks like they did a pretty good job.   

Marcus:  And that is the story of how I saved Jan's broken nose.

Percy:  It sounds more like you're patting yourself on the back with a front paw.

Buddy:  So this week we are thankful Jan didn't fall into a hole and break her nose?

Marcus:   Would you be thankful if she had?


PS - Please excuse us if we are kind of quiet.  Jan is on a house cleaning, clearing, rearranging binge again and it eats up our time and wears us all out!  

Join Pepi Smart Dog and friends for the Thankful Thursday blog hop. 

A Gushing Stream

Cyndi:  Marcus, stop yelling and banging your food dish on the bars!

Marcus:  Guard, let me out of here!  This is supposed to be my private dining car.  That means you're supposed to serve me food.  What part of dining don't you understand?

Buddy:  It's going to be a while before you're sprung, Marcus.  Jan isn't here.

Marcus:  She isn't here?  Does anyone know where she keeps the key?

Cyndi:  Yes, she ate it.

Buddy:  She what?

Cyndi:  *whispers*  She didn't really, Buddy.  You know there isn't a key to Marcus's PDC.  In fact, it shouldn't be that hard to open the door from outside the crate.  We could probably spring him if we want to.

Buddy:  You didn't say that.  I didn't hear it.  And don't you ever dare think of it again!  The the only peace we ever get around here is when he's temporarily confined to his crate, or his PDC as he calls it.

Marcus:  What are you two whispering about?  Do you have a plan to spring me?

Buddy:  Sorry.  We were just saying how sad we feel to see you confined to your private dining car instead of running around the house terrorizing ... I mean, snoopervising all of us.

Cyndi:  I know what will take your mind off your circumstances.  Tell me what happened on your walk Saturday afternoon.

Marcus:  Nothing happened.  Oh, wait!  There was a raging stream running down the street.  We had to swim uphill through deep water to finish our walk.

Buddy:  We did not!  We weren't even on that side of the road.

Marcus:  Well, I'm bored, so if I want to remember it as a raging stream, it was a raging stream and we nearly drowned getting past it.

Buddy:  It was a gushing stream.  We could hear it and water was pouring in waves from under a big metal plate the contract company had used to cover a hole we'd watched them dig Friday.

Cyndi:  Oh, that's what Jan meant when she said she'd just seen our flood up the street.

Buddy:  Yes, she meant the flood through our back yard/dog pen when the new coupling blew on our water line.  (In Your Dreams)  She never wanted to see anything like it again.

Marcus:  She ignored us and talked to herself all the way home.

Buddy:  That was so she wouldn't forget to call it in when she got home to drop off Merci and me before your second walk.

Cyndi:  She left a message on the cell phone of the contract company's project coordinator and emailed the mayor so the city could follow up on it.

Gushing water and waves. Click to enlarge. :)

Marcus:  They made good time, arriving back up the hill before we did.  We watched them set up a hose to a generator and start pumping water out of the hole that was filling as fast as it was emptying.

Buddy:  Too bad it was fixed when we walked by there today.  I kind of enjoyed the excitement of watching the flood.

Marcus:  I didn't.  We could have drowned!

Cyndi:  Marcus, don't be melodramatic.  You didn't even get your toenail damp.

Marcus:  I like my version better.  As Merci said, some things are better with A Little Fairy Dust sprinkled on them.

Off Center Mowhawk

MERCI:  Okay, we can't not do this post.  The irony is too much.

TAYLOR:  If you remember, Jan worked herself half to death last week cutting some grass with shears and after the rest was mowed, hauling wet grass to the dog pen for mulch.

RUSTY:  Monday she went out to pick up poop in the dog pen, heard doors slamming, turned and -  Yep, you guessed it.  It was the jail work crew.

MERCI:  They zipped along with their mower and weed eaters, leveling everything on the curb side of the sidewalk.

TAYLOR:  The guys stared and weren't sure what to do when they reached the neighbor with the now hip-high-to-Jan grass. 

RUSTY:  This is what it looked like when they finished.  They cut the grass on both sides of the sidewalk, but they don't cut grass on private property, so the neighbor's lawn now has an off center mowhawk cut.

MERCI:  Just as Jan snapped the picture, a car with a choking exhaust problem passed.  (See the cloud on the left?)

TAYLOR:  She tried again after the "toxic cloud" evaporated.

MERCI:  We took her for a walk later and when she saw all that beautiful, healthy mulch-to-be, she wanted so badly to go get a container and steal ... I mean clean up the loose grass to add to our dog pen.

RUSTY:  She wants that mulch!  It's just going to waste.  She restrained herself.  Fortunately, last week's mulching pain is too fresh in her short memory.

MERCI:  We know we tease her a lot but today we comment her for showing restraint.

RUSTY:  After all, if she gets laid up again, who is going to feed us?

TAYLOR:  There's a church across the highway with a community soup kitchen.  Do you suppose they would deliver to starving furries?