Calamity Jan

Marcus: Why have you been sitting there so long staring so intently out the door? 

Percy:  I'm looking for Jan's calamity.

Marcus:  When did she lose it?  Come to think of it, what is it?

Percy:  I'm not sure  and I'm quite confused as to whether she lost it or she's expecting it.

Marcus:  What brought it to your attention?

Percy:  I was just reading some old comments and I came across one from the last time Jan flew across the room and crashed.  It read, "Oh Jan, do we need to add an "e" to the end of your name and start calling you "Calamity Jane"? LOL! Furniture is evil. You can't fight furniture. Furniture always wins. Love & Biscuits, Dogs Luv Us and We Luv Them"

Marcus:  Did you search the internet to see what a calamity is?

Percy:  Yes.  Evidently it can be anything from an inevitable accident to a hangnail.

Marcus:  You're waiting for a hangnail to walk through the door?

Percy:  Don't be silly!  I'm waiting for Jan to walk through the door so I can see if she is okay.

Marcus:  Well, I'd suggest we move the basket and box so she doesn't trip coming in the door.  I don't think we really need to worry about her.  She's already had her calamity quota for the rest of this week.

Percy:  She has?  How?

Marcus:  Remember when Jan was brushing Rusty Sunday morning and Rusty turned to give her a love nip like he always does and her forearm collided with his fangs?

Percy:  That was an accident, and fortunately, Rusty didn't lose his teeth in that accident.

Marcus:  Two holes in her arm count as a cat bite.  And the same day she sliced her finger open with the lid on a can of tomato sauce.

Percy:  Oh, that's right.  She's thankful both injuries are healing so quickly since she still hasn't been able to find the new box of bandages.

Marcus:  Now that you know Jan is okay, come with me.  I can use some help filching a dog biscuit from the open package.  That's it.  Just push the box off the cat tree and -

CRRRRAAAASH!

Percy:  Uh-oh, we forgot to move the basket and the box out of the doorway before Jan came in.

From all of us:  Don't worry, the story is true but the ending is sprinkled with fairy dust.


We're joining Pepi Smart Dog for today's Thankful Thursday blog hop.

Forget the Goat, Marcus

Cyndi:  Here I am reporting from inside my space ship.

Percy:  You are not.  You're sitting in a basket inside a plastic storage bin.

Cyndi:  You didn't need to tell everybody.  I was trying to add a little spice to our post.

Percy:  You've been reading too many of Marcus's posts, only he calls it "fairy dust".

Marcus:  Hey, aren't you guys going to tell everyone what a good job I did snoopervising Jan cutting that new grass by hand again?

Percy:  There's nothing to brag about.  You watched her work.

Cyndi:  She wasn't going to let it get over knee high again, so she went out Monday and cut a strip down the inside of the sidewalk with those grass shears.  Then she went back to the property line and started cutting the rest with the grass whip.

Marcus:  It was hard work.  She was huffing and puffing and-

Percy:  She thought she was going to have to quit because she could barely breathe and had a lot of pain.

Marcus:  And a knight rode up on a big white horse wearing a suit of armor.

Cyndi:  Are you on something, Marcus?  A guy rolled up in a white truck, jumped out, and came around the back of it waving his arms and saying, "Stop.  You can stop now.  I'll come back in the morning and finish this."

Marcus:  Jan fainted. 

Percy:  She did not.  She stared at him.  Then she took a second look at the truck.  Yep, there was the city logo on the side.  The city doesn't mow private property, not even a strip.  They do, however, send a county jail crew around occasionally to cut the curb side of the sidewalk, which they own. 

Cyndi:  The guy said, "Here, I'll give you a card with my cell number.  You call me tomorrow to remind me and I'll have this taken care of.   They (meaning the contract company installing the new water lines) used too much fertilizer."

Marcus:  Early Tuesday morning there was a man on a riding mower that cut the curb side of this block and then went across the street.  Jan was so relieved she wouldn't have to cut it all by hand she called the cell number to say thank you and said she'd finish our side.

Percy:  "No, no, I'll give the guy (on the riding mower) a call and he'll take care of it."  And he did.  "Someone will be along to blow it off the sidewalk,"  the mower guy said.  And after a while, here came the work crew down both sides of the street.

Cyndi:  She learned after the first grass cutting adventure that she is very allergic so she is grateful for being rescued again.

Marcus:  And thanks to a very sweet blogger who wanted to help Jan purchase a weed eater so she wouldn't have to cut that fast growing grass by hand again, but after this second "adventure", Jan realized she couldn't handle one with a cord.  (And she remembered the fiasco when she borrowed a power tool and accidentally cut the cord.)

Percy:  The only electric one someone recommended was too expensive and Jan isn't sure her shoulder could handle a cordless.

Cyndi: So she'll continue to entertain us.  And probably the neighbors.  She  liked the idea made in several comments earlier this month, but she doesn't think the city would be too happy to see a goat grazing in the yard.

Marcus:  I think that would be such fun.  I could chase it and we could play fetch and soccer.  I could have him for lunch and - 

Percy:  Forget about lunch, Marcus.  We're not getting a goat.

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.

Pre-Promenade

PERCY:  Jan always gets excited when she sees the daffodils coming up each February.

MERCI:  Yes, she does a wild dance in the dog pen and all the neighbors come over to take photos.

PERCY:  I can't believe you just said that, Merci.  You never lie!

MERCI;  I wasn't lying.  I was sprinkling fairy dust on the story to make it more interesting.  (A Little Fairy Dust.)

PERCY:  You're right.  That does make a better story.  Let's leave it in.

MERCI:  Our daffodils are on the neighbor's property line and when their privacy fence was installed on top of them,, Jan thought they were lost forever.

PERCY:  Oh, she of little faith.  They don't grow straight, though.  They crowd close to the fence and lean forward.

MERCI:  These were the first buds of the season last month. 

PERCY:  They are the hardware of spring at our house. 

MERCI:  I believe you mean the harbinger of spring.

PERCY:  No, I actually meant hardware.  You don't have a working computer without hardware and spring can't arrive without a pre-promenade of daffodils.

MERCI:  You're making that up.  There's no such word as pre-promenade.

PERCY:  Perhaps there wasn't.  There is now.

A Little Fairy Dust

TAYLOR:  I'm a bit confused about our blogging stories. Why did Cyndi and Percy fib in our last post?  (Missing Pet Poop Bags)

MERCI:  You mean about Jan losing things, or about losing her stash of pet poop bags?

TAYLOR:  Oh, Jan is always losing things, but I thought we are supposed to be honest and always tell the truth.

MERCI:  We do.  But sometimes we have to take a little poetic license -

TAYLOR:  We write poetry too?

MERCI:  Not that I know of.  Maybe I can explain it this way.  Our stories are true, or at least based on truth. We do write the occasional totally imaginative post, but they are clearly fiction.  Sometimes we sprinkle some fairy dust on a true story for a little humor.

TAYLOR:  Jan gets very upset about the amount of mud and dirt tracked inside from the dog pen.  Doesn't she get upset when you sprinkle fairy dust?

MERCI:  It isn't messy dust.  It means we mainly tell the truth.  For example, that post originated because Jan lost the calendar she uses to keep track of when she pays bills and other important facts.  She wanted to jot a couple of notes but one of you kitties (I won't mention Rusty's name) had knocked everything off the desk and she couldn't find it.  Who wants to read some boring story about Jan spending 45 minutes searching for a calendar?

TAYLOR:  But it was funny to watch her move furniture, crawl around the floor, open and close drawers, and wander through the house in case she had left it somewhere.  About the fourth time she went through that routine, she even checked inside the refrigerator.  It would have made a funny post.

MERCI:   Yes, it was fun to watch her believe she was losing more marbles.  She did finally stand in the right spot to notice a corner of the calendar peeking out from under a chair that had a blanket hanging over the back.  The calendar had sailed in the opposite direction from where all the other items go when you kitties clear the desk.

TAYLOR:  So why didn't Cyndi and Percy write that story?  They were sure snickering behind their paws the whole time Jan searched.

MERCI:  When you've been blogging with us a bit longer, Taylor, you'll understand that some occasional fairy dust  makes others smile.   Cyndi and Percy had fun posting about Jan losing our poop bags instead of a calendar.  Their story isn't so far-fetched.  Jan can lose anything!

TAYLOR:  *scratches head*  I'd like to try a post one day.  Where can I find some of that fairy dust?

MERCI:  Amazon.com.  They sell everything.