Tickled Pink

Taylor:  When did Jan turn pink?

Micah:  What?

Taylor:  She's been wandering around since yesterday saying she is tickled pink. She doesn't look pink to me. 

Micah:  That's a human expression.  It means she is very happy about something.  And if you hadn't been in hiding from the two strangers in the house yesterday, you would know why she thinks she's pink.

Taylor:  But I thought bad things were happening to her.  Why would she be happy?

Micah:  Oh, you mean things like Thursday morning she was bitten on the back of the hand by something, possibly a spider, and the itching and burning has been driving her crazy?  And Sunday morning at 6 a.m. she rolled over and tried to sit up but she was on the very edge of the bed and fell off, scraping her forehead as she hit the corner of the bureau and slid down  And when her head hit the floor, the rest of her rolled off the bed twisting her back?

Taylor:  Exactly.  And then first thing Monday morning she was petting you, when you turned around, slipped on some papers, and left claw marks just below Jan's eye.  

 Micah:  That was an accident, just as the knob popping off the front door a week and a half ago was an accident.  She asked her landlord for help..  His nephew and another guy came over yesterday to replace it.  Such a change from the ugly old brown set.

Micah:  And while they were here, the outdoor bulb under the roof was replaced so she can see inside the dog pen when she has to go out at night, the toilet valve was replaced, the heaters were blown out with compressed air so they can be turned on when the weather gets colder - and a most welcome surprise.

Micah:  They built her a sturdy railing for the back steps.
 

Taylor:  Is that why Jan thinks she is pink?

Micah:  Yes!  Put on your rose colored glasses and let Jan be pink for the day.

Taylor: I don't have any rose colored glasses.

Micah:  That's okay.  A little pink nail polish on a pair of Jan's reading glasses will do the trick.

We are participating in Happy Tuesday blog hop. Stop by Comedy Plus to see other posts or to join the fun.

Long Distance Internet Epidemic

Percy: This is Rusty.  He's a bit daffy.

Rusty:  I am not daffy.

Percy:  Than why were you licking water off the windows this morning?  By the time Jan grabbed the camera, you were making biscuits in your bed.

Rusty:  It was freezing cold outside.  It was somewhat warmer inside.  Therefore, there was water on the windows in front of the desk.  The window was closer than the water bowl in the kitchen.

Percy:  As I said, Rusty is a bit daffy, but that does make sense. 

Merci:  We've been absent quite a bit this week.  First the t-storm on Monday, then our internet went out Wednesday afternoon till Thursday morning.

Cyndi:  And then our internet went out again from Saturday afternoon until Sunday morning.  Mr. Doug's internet went out too.  There was an epidemic.

Merci:  An epidemic is an outbreak of disease.

Cyndi:  Well, there were a lot of humans breaking out in dis-ease over the lack of internet! 

Percy:  And worse.

Rusty:  What could be worse?

Percy:  There was no long distance service either.  Local only.  Landlines and cell phones.  Not that we have a cell. 

Merci:  It's been strange around here this past week and it hasn't just been our phone / DSL provider having problems.  Our internet came back on yesterday morning but Mr. Don from Jan's church lost his until the afternoon. 

Cyndi:  So if we disappear again, we hope we will be able to return before spring.  Or tomorrow.  Whichever comes first.

Rusty:  Tomorrow will come first.

Cyndi:   But when Jan called support, she was told this might persist intermittently until the problem is fixed, so if the problem returns, spring might arrive sooner than tomorrow.

Percy:  This confusion is giving me a headache.  Why can't we just say we'll be here unless we aren't?

Merci:  You just said that.

Percy:  Good.  My brain needs a nap. 

Cyndi:  There's a rivulet of water running down the bottom right window pane if you're still thirsty, Rusty.

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.

Your Check Is In The Mail

MERCI:  I thought we were going to post on what has been going on around here this week.

BUDDY:  Make up your mind, Marcus.  Are you going to play ball or help us post?

MARCUS:  Oh, sorry.  You know how I forget everything when I have a ball or two.

MERCI:  It's been a busy week around here.  Noisy, too.

MARCUS:  Yes, Tuesday morning Jan set down our dog food bowls and there was a knock at the front door.  I left my breakfast unattended to escort Jan in case she got lost on the way.  The nice man who came by last year to patch a leak said, "Hi, I'm your roofer.  We want to start in the back.  Could you unlock the gate for us?"   

BUDDY:  Our landlord forgot to let us know when to expect the roofer, but we were finally on the schedule.

MARCUS: You can afford to be happy about it.  When I, the working guard dog, returned to the kitchen, you were licking the crumbs from my breakfast dish.  Faint from hunger, I staggered through the rest of the day.

BUDDY:  You mean you whined about it until dinner.

MERCI:  The men were on the roof until sundown, then back the next two mornings at 7:15.  Wednesday they worked a 12 hour day.  

MARCUS: Jan said I was good because I soon stopped barking at the noise.

BUDDY:  No, Jan said we were good.  You don't get all the credit.

MARCUS:  Well, I'm going to get all the paycheck.

BUDDY:  What paycheck?

MARCUS:  The guy in charge said I did such a great job of snoopervising that I deserved a raise.

MERCI:  I doubt that, but if he did, he was pulling your leg.  A raise from zero is still zero.

BUDDY:  Let's get back on track.  Here are a few pictures of the roofing project from the past three days.

MERCI:  And, finally, our new roof.  We thought the guys would leave a mess of nails in the yard - and you know how accident -prone Jan is - but the guys did a good job of cleaning up after themselves.

MARCUS:  That's because I did an excellent job of snoopervising.

BUDDY:  *rolls eyes*  I'm sure your check is in the mail.


We are joining the Pet Parade blog hop with hosts Rascal and Rocco,  Bionic Basil, Barking From the Bayou and Owned by a Husky.

In Your Dreams

Cyndi opens a muddy post.

CYNDI:  We hope you got a chuckle out of our Friday post (I Have A Leak, Yes...No).  But if you think that was the end of the story - in your dreams!

MICAH:  Friday morning began without water again.  We waited forever.  Finally, Jan walked 5 blocks to find two guys from the contract crew.  They said they hadn't turned off any water.  They walked Jan home, looked in both meter holes, searched for a leak, made a phone call, and suggested she call the local water company to see if they had shut off the water.

PERCY:  This is what the yard looked like then.  The old and new water meters to the left of the dirt mound.  The connection point close to the smaller dirt mound at the corner of the house.  The water company said the contract crew working in the area had turned off the water.

MARCUS:  I suggested a walk to kill time.  We set off and up the road we ran into a man who was working his way toward the water tower turning on valves.  He had not turned off any water. (Funny, no one turned it off but it sure wasn't working.)  Ten minutes after we got home we had water.  A half hour later he knocked on our door to check on us. Whoever you were, thanks.

MERCI:  About 8 PM Saturday Jan added water to our dinner bowls.  At 10, she went into the kitchen to wash dishes and we didn't have a drop of water again.  She spent 20 minutes searching for the cordless phone she had left on the desk.   The helpful man at the water company contacted the guy on call.

BUDDY:  Devon Slayton arrived.  The meter was spinning!  He soon found the problem.  Inside, we were dry.  Outside we were flooded, clear through and out the other side of the dog pen..  He dug in the mud at the connection site. Miss Uncoordinated held a flashlight in one hand and used the other hand to snap photos.  We're actually surprised any of them turned out.

TAYLOR:  I'm new here, but I understand Marcus loves mud and he is upset Jan let someone bail out buckets of water and shovel mud without letting him roll in it first.  He is jealous Devon gets to dig in mud for a paycheck.  Jan thinks Devon would gladly have let Marcus do the digging had he known there was a volunteer handy.

RUSTY:  About 11:30, Devon offered to bring Jan some water from his home to get us through the night.  He returned with Jan's container plus three bottles of drinking water.  She thinks this was such a wonderful thing for a stranger to do so I guess she has forgotten all the nice things we Funny Farmers have done for her.  For example, just Saturday night she had a pile of jumk on the desk and I cleared the desk off for her.

CYNDI:  Pssst, Rusty, stop talking before Jan realizes you're the reason she spent 20 minutes looking for the phone to call the water company.

MICAH:  Eerie picture, isn't this!  Those are the water lines that blew apart.  The old one (only 2 - 3 years old) is buried deeper than the 5" the new line is. 

MARCUS:  Sunday morning Buddy and I (Merci didn't want to go) took Jan for a walk and when we returned, Devon and Sean Ellington were just finishing. 

PERCY:  The old meter hole was still full of water and the new meter hole was still half full of water.  No one has been able to explain that. As we write this Sunday evening, we have water,

BUDDY:  Despite the leak-no leak-no water confusion of the last few days, the contract workers and the city water employees have been kind and helpful. 

RUSTY:  Jan was so happy Devon and Sean helped us get water again she promised she was going to say something nice about them in a post.  You know how forgetful she is.  She forgot this isn't her blog.

MERCI:: So we'll say something nice about them for her.  Hey, local water department, you have some courteous, helpful people working there.

TAYLOR:  If Marcus wasn't such a wild child, he could do well there.  Playing in mud is his dream job.