For those who are Spam fans and as a warning for those who are not:

I got a little busy yesterday and the day before, yesterday itself being Summer’s birthday. She is now 18. I was going to post a bit about the event but yesterday I got the scooter back from the service dealer and later rode and it and, uh, went over the handlebars once and then rode unsuspectingly onto fresh thick gravel and just flopped.

See me jumping up and down on the page, announcing, I’m okay; I’m okay! It is true, just scraped elbows and knees and my ankle is a teeny bit sore. I’m going to put on a long sleeve shirt and jeans and go back out at least one more time – getting back on the horse, dontcha know. (Better wear new underwear, just in case. (Maybe just clean underwear because I think the ER nurses cut it off.)

But, anyway, since Summer’s birthday was on a nondescript Thursday, I declared all this week her Birthday Week, and have been showing up with really crummy presents, Elmo Helium balloons, an Elmo cookie cutter, 15 absolutely horror movies that cost me $5. It that cool, or what? I’ll have to include a picture tomorrow of her snack and drink cup combo, her necklace fan, and if we can find it, the inflatable parrot. I know kids out there are just so upset I’m not their grandmother . . .

Okay, I just have to get this day started. I got up first at 6 am and then thought better of it and snuggled down. Maybe by tonight I’ll wish I stayed snuggled, but massive housework awaits . . . and, of course, that getting back on the horse thing.

I heard shrieks coming from the living room a couple of days ago and wandered in to see people watching an episode of Hoarding: Buried Alive. Only the subject of the show was not wading through heirlooms, garage sale bargains, sentimental matchbooks, or stacks of National Geographic. This woman was sitting in a chair surrounded by real garbage: empty soda bottles, pizza boxes, used syringes from insulin shots, rotten food and cockroaches everywhere. Her two children live with her. I would not call this hoarding; I would call it not over the top, but under the bottom.

Now, I know I am not a neat housekeeper. (I would be neater if I could use a gun or whip on the people who live with me.) And I have kept old pizza boxes – tore in half and rolled to help get fires going. Yes, I have collars from deceased dogs in my drawers. I have saved other things that could bring me close to classification in some sort of nutcase state, but while I may trip over the occasionally not-supposed-to-be-in-the-middle-of-the-floor item, I have not had to wade through two feet of garbage with my own two feet, while stepping on many multi-footed scurrying creatures.

I sense a tingle of feeling bad about remarking on this because I have always been vocal about people whose houses look like model homes. I do feel bad for this woman because she is more than quirky; I think she is mentally ill because living in filth voluntarily is, well, not right. I don’t think she should be on a show that investigates hoarding.

In the small town where my mother grew up, there was a school teacher who was a hoarder. She was very intelligent and kept herself very clean, but her house, at the time of her death, was nothing more than paths through stacks of stuff. When men came to clean it out, they just grabbed stuff – until one book opened up and a couple of $20 bills floated out. Then they went from toting out junk to looking for buried treasure and they got quite a haul.

I realize that I watched the first few shows on hoarding because, like many others, I am a gawker at the unusual. It was a look not only at an extreme form of housekeeping, but a peek into someone’s mind and the thin line that separates us at times. As someone who can make up a story about just any object and tie it up with some heartfelt tugging string, I can see how someone could keep a hell of a lot of stuff.

The shock value of the actual garbage house captured my attention for a while, but it was really more like staring at a three-headed bunny. You can’t believe it. When you do realize what you are seeing and you believe it, it’s time to look away.

But I know myself and who knows what I will gawk at next and that’s why the networks put on the shows they do.

Yesterday, after having used the willpower of a commando war dog, Shane fought the effects of sedation. When he came home, he collapsed for the day, eating a small meal late in the day.

This morning I thought he might be hungry and had Cameron give him some dog food with his side order of shredded cheese. Soon afterward, Shane showed up and indicated he wanted me to follow him. He led me to a box of special dog food and I gave him some, along with the cheese, on a paper plate.

I thought that would be it. But no. He started to munch and then jumped away from the plate, only approaching it again for a few sniffs. He took the plate in his mouth and emptied it on the floor, only then eating the rest of the food.

I have no idea what was going on, other than that I later noticed I had put the plate down on a runner run that was on top of berber carpeting and between them was the vacuum cleaner cord. It wasn’t plugged in, however, so my theory of electric energy sensitivity went out the window, unless some electrons stayed in the cord to play instead of running home when the vacuum was turned off.

It’s overcast and sprinkling. My muscles are aching and the aspirin bottle is nearby. It has to be a sign: Sit comfy and read. At least that’s how I choose to interpret it.

So, after oral sedation and a sedative shot, Shane stayed awake to grumble during his exam. Then when he was home and felt he could relax, this is what happened:

While we were there at the Tri-State Veterinary Clinic waiting for the medicine to take effect, we met Dolly who is a teeny tiny Yorkie. She stares big dogs down; I think her name should be Rambo, or Rambette. Gregg (Dr. Gregg Barnard) is a reader, so we talked about books while we waited and that was nice. We also got an official Furminator instead of our knock-off one, and it works so much better.

Not only does it work great, but I love the name.

I am trying out the unlimited reading program offerred by Amazon’s Kindle and I am going to claim that Amazon has played the role of enabler in my compulsion to avoid housework and chores in general. That may not be accurate, but it’s what I’m saying.

I am staring at a dotted red line in the first line of this post; the spelling Nazi wants me to remove the fourth “r” from offerred. I know that is the new computer spelling policy, but I always liked that “r” and I feel I owe it some loyalty. Of course, if the world runs short of “r’s” I guess I will have to take some of the responsibility. I can live with that.

But back to the unlimited reading. I am going to read now, but I must vow to stop early and go to sleep because Shane has his appointment tomorrow morning and we have to give him some early  pre-appointment medicine. It is going to be difficult because he has decided that he does not want anything squirted into his mouth. Why, I don’t know. Well, maybe I do; it could be because he is obstinate. Those jaws just clamp right down. He seems to get new quirks regularly, which worries me as to what might be coming next.

An increasingly eccentric AmeliaJake and an increasingly eccentric Shane may achieve critical mass. We’ll just need to time it for New Year’s Eve or the Fourth of July.

I had a nightmare last night, not the monster kind, but the type in which the scenario is edgy, to say the least. I woke up in this dream, thinking, Oh, I was dreaming, only to realize I had gone to sleep in the dream and awoken in it. If I had been unsettled before by the odd goings-on, including being in California in August and finding it snowing, the fake wake-up was really scary. Dead relatives were in it, including an aunt who had a large topless and bottomless Campbell’s  soup can on her foot because a doctor had prescribed it for a crooked foot.

Then there was the unknown toddler thing: A girl wandering around on unsteady legs. I was supposed to go to a school, but I couldn’t get the administration to acknowledge my presence. (That segment has been in my dreams before.) And, on top of everything – literally as well figuratively –  the curtains were failing down all over the place as the snow blew around outside.

I did not believe when I went to sleep last night I would be so glad to truly wake up to a request for help from the guy who badly sprained/possible re-injured his totally screwed-up bone and metal formerly broken lower leg/ankle just two days ago.

Monday Shane goes to the vet again; then in the afternoon, Mother’s cat has an appointment. My grass isn’t growing, but the weeds are . . . GRUMBLE; and this is not my year for tomato production: DRAT. It’s all better than the unknown toddler, the snow, and the school that was a deaf Horton who could not hear this AmeliaJake Who.

Watch this at  your own discretion.

Well, folks, here we are in August –  unless you are an Eastern DeKalb student/teacher/admin/ bus driver and so forth, then you are in August and doing school things.

Yesterday we took the scooter to the repair shop for a check-up and whatever all they do. It has to be kick started and wants to stall at a slow speed, so I had the idea of having someone ride it on the sidewalk to the big Honda store. One someone started and another someone finished. And the someone who finished caught his foot on concrete and after a while it hurt too much to walk on. Last night was X-ray time in the ER. It is not broken, only sprained. To help time pass while there, I loaded DOORS 4 on my phone and worked my way through 38 of the 40 before we left. Sigh. Perhaps instead of going through the normal ER procedure, I should have taken a hint from my game and looked around for a bookcase to move or a ball to roll to reveal the secret of the way out the door.

It is going to be an aspirin day.