When I met Todd, he had a Red-Nosed Staffordshire Terrier named Moses.  Moses was the most well-behaved dog and was just plain awesome in every way!  Moses has always been much more than a dog to Todd, he has been like a child.  Todd picked him out right after he was born, helped wean him and everything.  Once we had been dating a while and were living together, Moses became my steady running partner.  He would run 3 to 5 miles everyday with me and I never needed a leash.  When he saw me put my running shoes on he would go berserk and wait panting at the front door.

One morning, after we got back from running, I let Moses stay in the back yard for a few minutes, while I ran upstairs to get some water.  When I came back down, Moses was gone.  I looked all over the yard for him and called his name like a million times, but he did not respond.  I started to panic.  I spent 45 minutes running through the neighborhood calling for him – this was so not like him and I was really getting scared.  Finally I broke down and decided it was time to wake up Todd and tell him.  I was crying so hard and I went into our bedroom, he woke up immediately and asked what the hell was wrong.

I started crying even harder and could barely talk, I said “I can’t find Moses” – before I could even finish my sentence, Todd was up and running towards his truck, he didn’t even realize that he was completely naked till he was half way there.  He jumped into his truck (after putting on some clothes of course - get your minds out of the gutter) and took off and I continued running through the neighborhood on foot, crying the whole time.  Todd drove up behind me and said he could not find him and to get in the truck and we would go call the local animal shelter.

We got back to the house and went upstairs.  I was still crying like a basket case, cause I had lost Moses, who meant more to Todd than anything.  Cliff (our roommate) heard all the commotion and came out of his room wiping his eyes, muttering “What the hell is going on?”  Before Todd or I could say a word, Moses came out of Cliff’s room yawning.  That damn dog had gone up the back deck stairs, scratched on Cliff’s door and climbed in bed with him.  We had spent two hours freaking out for nothing.  If you could have seen the look on that dog’s face, like “what’s up guys?  what’s wrong” – Ugggghhhhh!  I could have killed him – but was SO DAMN thankful that I had not lost him.  Todd and I may have never ended up getting married if I had!

Moses is almost 11 years old now and is still a big ham.  I read an article this morning about a Pit Bull attack that actually made me smile, because for once it wasn’t the Pit Bull that was being blamed.  It made me think about wonderful Mr. Moses!

In a muddy field just off Salter’s Creek Road in Hampton, Edward Alexander was attacked by three pit bulls. The attack has left him with deep gash wounds on his back, legs, and shoulder.

Alexander is blaming the dogs owner for the attack that occurred last week.But the dogs owner says Alexander was trespassing on private property and that Alexander provoked the attack.

Animal Control agrees with the dog’s owner and says that Alexander provoked the attack.

The health department is making the dogs owner keep the dogs inside for 10 days…as a precaution for rabies. That standard whenever a dog attacks someone.

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When I was growing up, my favorite thing to do was have sleepovers.  It is hard to remember one weekend where I did not sleepover a friend’s house, or have someone sleep over at my house.  Once I was a teenager, the sleepovers became much more devious.  We would plot ways to sneak out of the house to go see whatever boys we were interested in at the time.

On one particular night, my girlfriend Kristen was spending the night and we had been on the phone all night with a group of guys that were all spending the night together at a house where the parents were out of town.  They had asked us if we could sneak out and come over, and if so, they would send one of the guys over to pick us up (someone we did not know – but obviously safety was not something we were thinking about).

Once we knew my parents were asleep, we called the guys and told then we were ready.  We then went out onto my front porch and sat on the porch swing waiting.  About ten minutes later, a car pulled up and stopped in front of the house.  Without even flinching, we jumped up, ran down to the car and both jumped in without even looking to see who the driver was.  Well, once we were in the car and looked at the driver, it took us about ten seconds to realize that it was a 60 year old man (a 60 year old scared man), and not a teenager coming to pick us up to party.

The man started screaming and waving his arms, shouting “What do you want?  Take whatever you want and please don’t hurt me!”  He was throwing stuff from inside his car at us.  We started screaming and jumped out of the car and ran back up to the front porch.  He sped off down the road, squealing around the corner.

We sat there, breathing heavily and then busted out into hysterical laughter - I mean the uncontrollable kind, where snorting is involved.  “What the hell just happened?”  Why would that guy have completely stopped his car right in front of my house, on the least busy residential street in America?” “I cannot believe he thought we were going to rob him – two teenage, blonde headed girls.” 

It took us about five minutes to stop laughing and finally, our ride showed up.  We were a little more cautious this time before jumping into another stranger’s car, we actually looked to make sure it was a teenage boy before jumping in!

When we were growing up, we always had soda in the house.  My mom would keep the soda on top of the refrigerator, so that it wouldn’t be so easy for us to grab, forcing us to have to ask for some.  When I was older and could reach the soda myself, I developed a really bad habit of grabbing a bottle and swigging directly out of it, instead of pouring myself a glass.  My mom HATED this, and would yell at me all the time to stop swigging from the bottle.

One day, I came in from playing outside and ran over to the fridge.  I reached up and grabbed for one of the soda bottles so that I could take a quick swig and get back outside.  I happened to grab a 7-Up bottle.  I unscrewed the cap, put the 2-litre to my mouth, tilted my head back and started swigging.  It took me a couple seconds to realize that what I was swigging was NOT 7-Up.

Apparently, the last time my mom had made Fried Chicken for dinner, she funneled the old, nasty, used chicken grease into an empty 7-Up bottle and instead of throwing it away; she put it on top of the fridge with the rest of the 2-litre soda bottles. 

Words cannot describe how disgusting that grease tasted.  It was thick and smelled like chicken.  I could feel all kinds of floaty chicken things in my mouth.  I immediately threw up all over the kitchen floor.  It was days before the queasy feeling left my stomach, and the memory of the taste will never completely be gone.  My mom had NO sympathy for me, she simply said, “Guess you won’t be swigging out of the bottles anymore, will you?”

NO – I WOULD NOT BE!!!

Kaiden likes to go with my father up to the church he works at.  While he is signing checks and setting up for events, she plays in the nursery and in various other rooms in the church.  She is always bringing something home with her.  Stuff that was someone else’s junk that was given to the church, because they did not want it.  Now it comes home with my daughter and becomes our junk.  I have begged and pleaded with my dad to stop letting her bring the stuff home, but he cannot seem to comprehend my requests.

The last item she brought home was this old fisher price children’s tape player, complete with built-in microphone, so that you can sing along with whatever tape you are playing.  We do not own tapes anymore, so my father stepped up to the plate like the “pop-pop” hero that he is and donated his old “Ace of Base – The Sign” tape for Kaiden’s listening enjoyment.

I swear to god I think I am going to lose my mind.  My daughter has been walking around the house for weeks with this damn tape player, like some old-school break dancing/rapper with it up on her shoulder, blaring Ace of Base at intolerable levels.  I did not like this band in 1993 and I REALLY do not like them now!  She brings it in the bathroom with her, in her bedroom, downstairs, in the car and she is constantly in my bedroom, in front of my full length mirror, so she can watch herself dance to it.

Somehow, I must destroy this thing, without her knowing!  I must get the words “All that she wants is another baby” out of my head, before I am sent to the state mental hospital!!!