A CRACK IN MY WHEEL BARROW

The birds were squawking at me as soon as I let the dogs out at 6am. They wanted to be fed. That meant I needed to go get 60lbs of bird seed out of the trunk of my car. I debated whether or not to go get dressed first because it had rained in the night and trudging through the wet grass and cleaning out the feeders would probably get messy. But I opted to stay as is and get wet. Getting wet is always fun. Right?

Part way through the task, two of my dogs wanted to go back in the house because they do not like the humidity. The other dog seems resistant to the presence of humidity and will stay outside all day with me.  He's my little helper! It's a shame I can't teach him how to prune shrubbery and do other outside tasks. We have detailed conversations about the plants, the birds and other happenings in the yard. After finishing up with the birds, I decided I'm going to start working on my next rock statue. In order to do this, I need to make a trip to Lowe's to purchase a new wheel barrow. My old one has had a nervous breakdown. It's been fixed so many times, it's gotten way beyond repair and can't haul heavy rocks in it. I could carry them, but I'd rather save my back and let a wheel barrow do the work.

I went in the house to clean up a bit and to ask my son to accompany me to Lowe's.  I knew which wheel barrow I wanted so the trip would be a short one. They have them lined up right outside the front of the store so all I needed to do is go inside and pay for one and a clerk will come out and unlock the chain and I can get my wheelbarrow and we can go. When we first got there, we looked at the wheel barrow I wanted and we discussed whether or not we thought it would fit in the car. We both thought it would, so off we went to purchase it. The line wasn't too brutal...everyone was wearing masks. The sun was out and Sunday looked like it was going to be a wonderful day.

I finally get up to the register, I pay for the wheel barrow, the clerk meets us outside and we can't get it in the car. Nope! It's not going to fit anyway we try it. I asked my son to go inside to see if they have one unassembled we can bring home and put together ourselves. While he's inside I'm standing there looking at the wheel barrow and this gentleman walks over to me and asks me if I need help putting the wheel barrow in my car. I look up at him and I almost fell over. There before me is this tall, handsome older man with the bluest eyes I've ever seen. I smiled at him and told him that my son and I had already tried numerous ways to get it in the car and it wouldn't fit. He asked me how far I lived from Lowe's. I told him that I only lived about 5 minutes away. He then offered the use of his truck if we trusted him. He said we could take a photo of his tag on his truck. I couldn't believe that people still helped one another out like that. He almost renewed my faith in humanity just in that small gesture of kindness.

Okay now, that I have your attention! All that really did happen except it wasn't a tall, good-looking older gentlemen who came over to me. In my dreams!!! SIGH!!! It was a couple and they were so nice. I really was amazed at their generosity. They put my wheel barrow on the back of their truck and brought it to my house. My son tried to pay them, but they refused. To pay it forward, we figured we would find some charity and donate some money to it. I think I'd like to donate to an animal charity. Maybe I'll ask my vet when I bring my Shih Tzu for blood work this week if they know of a local rescue place or something that needs a donation. I just hate giving money to places that don't use the money for the cause.

Anyway, so as soon as we get the wheel barrow unloaded, we load it up with the rocks I'm going to use for my statue and take the load to the spot in the backyard I want to build the statue. Then we go get the other load. In the process of doing this I find a two huge colonies of fire ants. I had my yard treated about 3 weeks ago for fire ants and it's supposed to be good for one year. I make a mental note to call Florida Pest Control in the morning and get them back out here.  After all, the treatment was rather pricey and it's guaranteed for one year. The wheel barrow I chose was one of those wheel barrows with two wheels and the bed is made of some kind of hard durable plastic.  I figured for what I would be using it for in my yard it would be fine. Oh Mildred, you need to just stop thinking and when you do think, do the complete opposite.

My son started tossing the rocks (some of them are really large) into the wheel barrow before I could tell him to take it easy that it isn't made of metal. The next thing I know the base of the wheel barrow had a large crack in it. Oops! I ended up having to call Lowe's and had to set up a date to have them come pick up this wheel barrow and have them issue me a refund, then I had to buy a new wheel barrow that is made of metal and pay a hefty delivery fee that is as much as what the wheel barrow costs. So when they come to pick up the the "old" wheel barrow, they'll bring me my new wheel barrow and all this is supposed to happen on the 30th.

Hallelujah! I'm having a Wheel Barrow Party on the 30th. I'm going to get drunk and sleep in my new wheel barrow or better yet, I'm going to get stoned and sleep in my new wheel barrow.  Or maybe I'll get drunk and stoned and maybe some tall, handsome older gentleman will wheel me off somewhere...but, ONLY if he has a toolbelt and a truck and he knows how to use his tools! The S.O.B. better know how to use his tools or else he's outta here... Mildred isn't fooling around!

THE NON-BELIEVER'S SUNDAY SERMON

To err is human, but creativity is divine...

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

Lynne and I stuck our thumbs out to hitch a ride home. We had a small walk-up flat on the fifth floor located on Commonwealth Avenue several buildings up from the Public Gardens in Boston. We'd been at the Sizzleboard in Kenmore Square just to hangout for a while. The first time I ever walked in the Sizzleboard and saw Panama Red and Acapulco Gold listed as two flavors on their ice cream menu I knew Boston was where I belonged. No, they didn't have marijuana in their ice cream. They just borrowed various names of marijuana to put on the menu as flavors. To say it was a popular idea was an understatement. After all Boston and vicinity is a huge college city and so was marijuana in 1971.

Ordinarily, we might walk home, but it had just started to snow. You know, it was that kind of huge, lacy snowflakes that stick to your eyelashes and the end of your nose before melting. A VW bug pulled over and we quickly got in the back. It wasn't until that moment that our real adventure of the evening began. Immediately both of us were handed a thin piece of rope and were told to pull them back and forth. Sure thing! We did as instructed and lo and behold the windshield wipers worked and kept the flourishing accumulation of snow off the windshield.

It seems we weren't in the car more than a minute before a joint was lit. The next thing I know we were pulling up in front of their place to do a little partying, but I had no idea where we were because I hadn't paid attention to where the driver had taken us.  Lynne gave me the nod to let me know that it was cool, so we all piled out of the car and went upstairs to their apartment. Their living room was all the way in the back of the building. Lynne and I settled into spots next to each other on the floor in front of a homemade chunky wooden coffee table adorned with a large bowl of Fritos corn chips and various drug paraphernalia. I had the munchies so I immediately started eating the Fritos and one guy lit a joint and started passing it around while the other guy put some music on the stereo.

Yes, I was only 15, but I was already very well-versed in drugs by that age. I knew my way around as well as someone much older than me so when I started noticing that I was much higher than I should be I got a little concerned. At first, I didn't do anything, but sit back and observe what was going on around me to see if I could make any sense out of the situation. The two guys seemed to be talking in a language I didn't understand. No, it wasn't a foreign language. It was one I'd never heard before. It was a non-sensical one. One that only they understood, but as I looked at Lynne, she didn't seem concerned at all by this so I assumed this was just me. This was just in my mind. Oh goodie! I'm fucked up and don't know why!  Then all my senses seemed to fade away into a psychedelic haze. Was I tripping? Wait a minute! All I had done was smoke a little dope. How could I be tripping? Everyone else seemed fine. This just didn't make any sense to me.

At this point I stood up and asked if I could use their bathroom. Lynne seemed to sense something was wrong so she tagged along with me. As soon as we were out of ear shot, she started quizzing me about what was going on. I'm not one who is prone to paranoia, but in this case, it started to rear its ugly head. All I could think of was getting the hell out of Dodge. I told her what was going on and that I needed to leave. NOW! She went back in and grabbed our jackets and we immediately left.

The cold winter air had a momentary sobering effect on both of us and then holy shit! We realized neither of us knew where the hell we were. Boston is a big place and generally, we knew our way around, but it was the middle of the night by then and we were both high as hell so we had to take a moment to regroup. We usually used the Prudential Building as a beacon or landmark because it was the tallest building and we always seemed to be able to see it wherever we were. But it wasn't anywhere in sight. Where the hell were we? Why hadn't we paid attention to where these guys took us?

As we walked and talked, I told Lynne how I felt and as best I could figure I was the only one of the four who ate any of the Fritos. They had to have been laced with some hallucinogenic drug. What a cheap trick to pick up two females and try to drug them. I wonder what else they planned for us that night. I'm so glad we got out of there when we did.

As we walked I didn't want to walk too close to the buildings and the alleyways because I was afraid of being grabbed so I walked close to the street and Lynne didn't want to walk close to the street because she was afraid of being grabbed by someone in a car even though there wasn't any traffic. And she wasn't high like I was. Weren't we a pair? The longer we walked the worse I got and nothing looked familiar. Lynne kept assuring me she knew where she was, but I knew she was lying to me. I knew she was just trying to make me feel better because I was right on the verge on losing it. We came upon a car repair garage named Hampden Automotive Repairs and we both stopped dead in our tracks. My eyes filled with tears as I looked at Lynne and quizzically asked her if we had walked that far. You see, Hampden is a small town next to Bangor where we are both from in Maine. How could we have walked that far? It was another holy shit moment. Bangor was about a 6 hour drive from Boston.

Lynne finally gave up and walked close to the street with me because she saw I was starting to really unravel. As we slowly trucked along a cop car pulled over and asked us if we needed a ride. Lynne and I just looked at each other for a second. I took a deep breath because I knew this wasn't the good time to get busted and sent home.  Actually, no time was the good time to get busted and sent home but I was high as hell and I really didn't want to get hassled by the man while I was high.  We both knew there was no way around not getting in the cop car, so we eased our way into the back seat expecting the interrogation to begin.  We were surprised when it didn't. When I noticed the two "cops" didn't look like cops at all, but two scruffy-looking hippies instead, I started wondering what was going on.  Undercover, perhaps?  Had two young yahoos stolen a cop car and gone on a joy ride?  Tonight, anything was possible!

When we weren't asked for identification or asked where we live, we knew something was wrong, but we just looked at it like a gift from the Bostonian gods from old. They did, however, ask what we were doing walking at that time of night. We got a lecture about it not being a good thing to do because women can get raped doing stuff like that. Of course, we made up some bullshit story about being at a friend's house and getting lost when we left. I guess that wasn't too far from the truth except they weren't friends. They were assholes!

When asked where we were going, we chimed in and both said we were going to Stanetsky Memorial Chapels. The two hippie-looking cops gave each other a weird look when we said that, but then said to us that they couldn't take us all the way there because it's in a different district, but they could drop us off at the foot of the bridge. We knew that was a weird place to go in the middle of the night or anytime for that matter because it was a funeral parlor.  Lynne explained that we had a close friend that worked there on the weekends and that he'd make sure we'd get home safely and he did exactly that, but only after being subjected to hearing us ramble on about yet another one of our BIG adventures.  Thank you, Kenny Goldstein for being a lifesaver!

THE FACE OF A KILLER

My little 12 lb. doodle (dachshund/poodle mix) is a total love bug. The first thing he does whenever anyone comes to my house is brings them one of his toys so they can play with him. He loves to play fetch. Now, if the person doesn't follow his lead then he starts coaxing the person by "talking" to them by making his cute noises until the person pays attention. Hey, wake up! You're in my house and there's certain rules one must abide by in this house and playing with the doodle is one of them. It's mandatory.

His name is B.A. which doesn't mean anything. B. A. = Be Anything, but after the other night I think it needs to stand for BADASS.  My Shih Tzu, Fenway is the Queen and the alpha dog of the house. She runs the roost.  Fenway weighs about 16 lbs. Libby is a Dandie Dinmont Terrier and she weighs about 16 lbs. Although Fenway runs the roosts, she doesn't have what I would say is an aggressive personality. She's just bossy! Libby is generally pretty laid back until she's provoked or agitated and then she becomes very aggressive. 

One of the first things a person notices when they come here is the amount of toys my dogs have, but the toys aren't for my dogs. They belong to B.A.!!! You see, if B.A. didn't have those toys to chew on, we wouldn't have a house. When he was younger, he chewed everything! And when I say everything. I mean EVERYTHING! He ate my box spring to my bed. He ate the living room carpet. He ate countless comforters on my bed. He ate eyeglasses. He ate my mother's false teeth. He ate furniture like he was a beaver. The question should be what didn't he eat?  He doesn't do that stuff now, but he has his toys to chew on and he "husks" his toys.  By husking them I mean he pulls all the stuffing and the squeakers out of them. And once he husks them we can't throw them away. So we have a toy box filled with toys in various stages of being destroyed, but to B.A. they're still great. He still drags them around like they're brand new.

One of B.A.'s duties is to protect the house and the yard and he takes that job very seriously. He has no idea that he's only a 12 pound lean mean fighting machine. Each time he goes outside he patrols the backyard and the inside of the garage. It's really funny to watch him follow the same route each time.  He goes in back of each bush and sniffs everything all over. Nothing happens in the yard that he doesn't know about. He's on top of everything! Once he killed a mole and brought it inside for us to praise him. When we tried to take it away from him he took it under the bed. Yuck! He doesn't bother the birds or squirrels and that surprises me. But I think that may be because he sees me interact with them. Libby chases the squirrels, but they're too quick for her to catch. Fenway wouldn't care if an elephant was standing in the middle of the yard, but she will bark if she hears a dog down the street barking. She wants them to know where the queen lives. I suppose in their own way they do their jobs and that's what they're supposed to do.

The other evening after dinner I took all three dogs. I go out with them even though I do have a large fenced backyard. Before we knew it Libby and B.A. had cornered a raccoon, and then B. A. got it and killed it. I tried my best to intercede and tried to get B.A. to release the raccoon, but he wouldn't let go of it. He had a death grip on it and kept shaking it. By the time he did let go, it was dead. The other racoon kept trying to crawl up my pant leg because it was terrorized. I finally got it to leave before Libby noticed it and I hope it got scared enough to not come back in the yard again.

What freaked me out was how ferocious B.A. was. He's only 12 pounds...he kills rats, he kills moles. Who knows what else he kills. I know he runs off feral cats, but I think he'd have his hands full with a feral cat if he got in a fight with one. I realized once I started feeding the birds, the birdseed would attract other creatures, but I don't want a whole zoo in my yard and I definitely don't want my dogs fighting with wild animals. Sigh! I guess I need to start paying closer attention to what's happening outside in the menagerie before I let the killer hounds outside at dusk.

And I still feel horrible about the raccoon...
I'm an animal lover
Well, I don't love rats and stuff like that, but raccoons are cute.
And I know B.A. was only doing what his instinct told him to do, but it still made me feel bad...

Is There A Contractor In The House?

I was just sitting here scanning over my adult life in respect to the serious relationships I've had and well...it didn't paint a very pretty picture. It probably most resembled a Jackson Pollack masterpiece "Male and Female."  Understand that and you might understand the jumbled mess inside my head. I can't say I've ever had a healthy, intimate relationship with the opposite sex.  Once sex got thrown into the picture all bets came off the table.  Why that is I most likely can come up with a fairly accurate answer, but at this stage in my life I'm wondering how much does it really matter. Don't we all have baggage? Some suitcases just weigh more than others.

When my last relationship ended, I put myself in what I called "time out."   I guess for most people after a break up, they need time to adjust before they get back out there and throw their line back in the water to do some fishing again, but my time out has lasted 15+ years. Oh yes, you read that right. I have been celibate for 15+ years and I'll go a step further...I haven't even been on a date in that time period. Before all of you scream "WHY?" in unison, I'll give you my five cent explanation. It's rather hard to go on a date or to meet anyone if you've become a hermit. I had a rather cozy cave.

I jokingly referred to myself as a hermit on my blog over the years, but I don't know how many people actually took me seriously or knew to what extent my being an actual hermit had become a reality.  I think I was really on the verge of developing agoraphobia. When someone once called me a troglodyte as an insult, I adopted the word because I liked it better than the word 'hermit". Hermit sounded too common and who likes being thought of as being common or ordinary...or normal? Certainly, not me!

Anyway, in January of 2019 my hermit days abruptly came to an end. A childhood friend, came for a visit and ended up moving in right next door to me. Martha (Linda) was the little red-headed girl who lived next door to me in Maine and we grew up together. We've known each other since we were 4 years old and did typical Mildred and Martha secret, naughty things growing up.  Having Martha back in my life was a much needed wake up call. It was one that I hadn't fully realized I needed until now.

Physically, I was barely living when she arrived. I couldn't stand up for more than a few minutes without the pain being too intense for me to bear.  In fact, I struggled to stand up from a sitting position and sitting was uncomfortable. Doing anything seemed like a struggle.  I had fallen down the stairs and fractured my vertebrae and the recovery was very slow.  Sometimes I wondered if I was ever going to recover. My legs and feet were swollen to the size of tree trunks, but not from the fall. I didn't find out until later that I had fluid around my heart. Before Martha moved here I went days without getting out of bed and I just didn't care about myself anymore. I had given up and no one was getting on my ass about it.  Nobody wanted to deal with the wrath of Mildred so my family just left me alone unless it dealt with my safety like when my adult children banded together and moved my bedroom downstairs after I fell. They banded together because they expected me to give them a real hard time about it, but I fooled them when I never said a word.  I knew I couldn't walk up and down the stairs and they were doing the right thing. I would have been a real bitch if I had given them a hard time about being concerned about my well-being. I'm a lot of things, but being a real bitch isn't one of them. All you assholes out there who think I'm a real bitch better keep your opinions to yourself or else Mildred will have her way with you! lol 

After Martha got here, I started doing more physical things and now I can work outside all day long in the heat and humidity of Florida like I did when I was younger. In fact, I'm in better shape now than I have been in 20 or 25 years. I've lost a ton of weight and I feel good physically and mentally most of the time.  And when I don't, I smoke some weed and then I feel better. When my back hurts, the weed comes out.  When I have trouble sleeping, you know the drill. And when I just feel like kicking back and getting stoned, well I kick back and get stoned. What can I say? I'm a hedonist!

When a person becomes a hermit they forsake their need for other people.  When I went into "time out" I went into time out all the way. I wanted to cushion myself from the world and I did a great job of it for 15+ years. Nobody came knocking until Martha rapped on my door. You see, I thought it was just going to be a visit and then she left to move to South Florida. but when she left I knew she was going to move back here even though she didn't know it at the time. It was just a feeling I had and I was okay with that feeling. It didn't put me in a panic to think about not being a hermit anymore. 

And I was right! She moved here shortly after she left for South Florida. Who wants to live in South Florida with all those people anyway? (There goes that hermit in me talking!) When the house next door to me came up for rent, Martha jumped on it and moved in. What I discovered is that I'm not a hermit after all. I enjoyed having a friend to do stuff with and even when we weren't doing anything, but goofing off doing nothing we still had a good time doing it. You know why? Because we're Mildred and Martha and Martha and Mildred, that's why! We're one hell of a team!

Unfortunately, Martha moved back to Maine about a week ago.  Sometimes things happen and make it so we have to make difficult decisions.  Doing the right thing is rarely easy.  Right now, we all live in difficult times.

I'm empty now and I'm scared. I definitely know how to be a hermit, but I don't want to be a hermit again.  Is it wrong that I want someone? That I need someone?  Oh, I know we're in a pandemic...blah, blah...BLAH and social distancing and all that hoopla and I have to be a hermit to some extent and yeah, I can do that. I'm good excellent at it, remember? I did it for a very long time! Geez! I thought something was wrong with me when I kept reading on other people's blogs about how blue they were about being locked down during the coronavirus. I was afraid to tell anyone that I was okay with it because I had been doing it for so long that it was just second nature to me. It was no big deal. But now, what?

My grand plan that Martha and I used laugh about was that when the pandemic was over and I felt I was back to my old running shape I was going to start hanging out....not in bars...fuck that! but I'd go to Lowe's or Home Depot in the Contractor's section and pick-up a contractor so I could get someone to help me to fix my house (you know we could work something out in trade...). I'd say, "Baby, show me your tool belt, your tools and your truck...and definitely your financial statement!"  He'd probably call security on me and have me kicked out of the store.  Hey, it's been awhile since I've picked someone up, but I bet I can still do it.  My daughter gets aggravated whenever we go anywhere together and men flirt with me and not with her. ha! I think it's hysterical.  My pheromones must be stronger than hers.

Anyway, I miss my Martha. I talk to my dogs. I talk to the birds and of course, Cecil. I talk to all the plants I planted in my backyard. I talk to myself. That's a trip. Damn it! I need a person. Maybe I should buy a mannequin or a blow-up doll. What do you think?  Does anyone want to volunteer to be my person?  Mildred does not bite! Much :)

My Rut Deepens

Trust me, this has nothing to do with the coronavirus. I think if it did, solving it would be simple. Everyone is blue these days, but my blue seems to be changing colors. Fuck, no! I'm not turning red! Except when I get mad and then I turn a nice bright shade of red. I just have something I need to work through and process. I'm attempting to write about it, but it's difficult. So far what I've written makes absolutely no sense. I'm sad and I don't do sad very well. I never have. Sad usually gets me in trouble. Imagine that! Mildred in trouble??? Help! Lassie go get a rope! Mildred has fallen in a well...