I have something to have fun with – not to be good at necessarily, but to have a good time learning maybe a wee bit. Makes my brain feel good and lifts my spirits.

Der Bingle’s birthday is toward the end of this month and LZP is, I think, trying to soften the blow of him waking up and hitting his head on the big number 63. (I’ll make it bold but I’m not going to fool around actually making it

BIG

because that usually fouls up the post.  Oh, well, never mind.)

So, LZP, put together a treat package for Der Bingle that included a John’s grocery shirt and hat and glass and a bottle of mead from said store.

Now, there was a potential problem: Two Moo took a real shining to everything:

She declared the mead would hit the spot:

But her sense of right and wrong prompted her to let Der Bingle head back to the Ohio Redoubt with everything.
But that wasn’t all that was in the box. No, other stuff too:

Yeah, Two Moon just realized she should have gone with him for the week.

I have started the clock – put my little ear right up to the darn thing to make certain it was ticking – and now . . . I wait. You are waiting with me.

Here we go:
16 chimes.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine . . . . YES!!!!!

I can rest more easily now, knowing that had this been something to do with a spaceship and controls gone bad, I would have managed to get the ship to slingshot around the moon and head back to earth. Of course, then there would be the landing part. Okay, let me think of another analogy . . . It may take awhile.

I have this clock that belonged to my grandmother; it chimes – big bongs on the hour and 4 little ones on the quarter hour, 8 on the half hour, 12 on the three quarter hour and 16 on the hour. At noon and midnight, 12 big bongs follow 16 little chimes.

Of late the bongs don’t match the hour and so after a couple of weeks of avoiding spending time manually rotating the minute hand and waiting through much chiming and bonging, I stopped the clock just before it would hit 9 bongs at midnight. Now I have this task of remembering to start it up in about 20 minutes.

I am going to try and just keep it at the front of my mind, but already my thoughts want to go off and think about writing a book because Nine Bongs at Midnight seems like a title begging for a book and the movie, of course.

I didn’t think about the sound of Nine Bongs at Midnight until it just slipped out via my fingers onto the computer screen. It’s a sign, isn’t it?

Oh, something is happening!!!!!! A black hole is developing and look! – Shane’s nose is already being sucked in.

Ninety – 90- yes, hot. For us. I don’t believe the humidity is predicted to be too high, though.

Of course, I am sitting in air-conditioning. That is because pretty much everyone has AC today, which, in turn, means that for the most part, the outside has a lot fewer trees. It also means that in my lifetime, people have gone from greeting one another with a ‘Whoa, it’s going to be another scorcher’ to waiting until they have made it from car to mall (or Wal-Mart)  to acknowledge anyone.

I remember when we used to wait minute by minute, hour by hour, for the heat to ‘break’ – ah, that cool air that moved in after a storm. It was an Alka-Seltzer weather moment.

I just rubbed my nose and would not have really been aware of doing it had not the smell of ONION triggered my brain into thinking FOOD. Yesterday I sauteed a bit of onion (Vidalia) to put on part of a cheese pizza from Little Caesar’s. It turned out to be tasty, although the pieces were weighty – I had to eat by sliding the piece to the edge of the plate and taking a bite. Definitely not restaurant manners, but effective.

I have washed my hands many, many times since then, and still the aroma of cooked onions clings to my fingers. In fact, I keep interrupting this typing to take a sniff.

SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF SNIFF

Hmmmm, hungry . . . on my way to the kitchen.

I came across a picture of Newfie – Who is “Newfie?” you ask. Well, here she is:

Here’s the last part of the above linked post:

Newfie is a Raggedy Ann type of d__l. Technically, she is from the Noo branch of the family, the Woos being from China, the Foos sweet and a little funloving, the Spoofs are beach girls who use Val Speak, the Spiffies have good heads on their shoulders and are quiet and demure. The list could go on.

Noo has always been a pleasant little thing, but sometimes it seems she is a little quirky, like a clock that keeps its own time. Sort of like the Newfoundland Time Zone that is 30 minutes “off” – that is, right smack in the middle of Atlantic Time and Eastern Time.

That is how we realized that we had misunderstood: she was not a Noofie, but a Newfie. Actually, I have a friend who lived a great deal of her life in Canada and she used to smile and say the folks in Quebec and Ontario referred the the Newfoundland folks as “Newfies” and her smile turned rather impish.

But to get to this morning’s occurrence, driving back form taking my daughter-in-law to work, I spied a cute little copperish-orange mini SUV (or would that be suv) in front of me and the license plate said “NEWFIE 6”. As we came to an intersection, the NEWFIE vehicle number 6 went on through the yellow light and left me sitting at the red. I guess she was on to me.

So, maybe Newfie is not what she seems; maybe she travels in a big fancy RV licensed “NEWFIE 1” and the little cars run around doing her errands – like getting early morning doughnuts. And just because I saw “6” doesn’t mean there are only that many in the fleet . . . She could have an empire.

Gosh, maybe Newfie is from Manitoba . . . Nah, not our little Newf.

Well, the content of this post is not what I wrote originally because when I clicked publish it only published the title – and nowhere could I find auto-saved versions. I don’t know what happened, but my vision was blurring and my throat tight and perhaps I clicked the wrong area.

I won’t try to rewrite it; I will write it anew.

Sydney died last night but he is not gone; he can’t be-he will always be in our hearts. Yes, he was a dog – sometimes people say “just a dog” – but he was part of our humanity. Most of us here tend to keep feelings inside and shed tears in private, but Sydney was one who was always allowed to be with us at our saddest. Maybe it was a burden on him – but I think it was a part of his being loved unconditionally and I think he knew that.

He had a long life and we are grateful for that. He went quickly and did not languish in  pain or disability that could not be explained. From the moment the attack began, people who loved him were with him; I think he knew that and felt comforted.

He will rest with Mother – he always stayed with her when I had to be gone.

Sydney is in the ICU area at the vet’s; we rushed him over yesterday just about noon when he had a seizure; the vet was about ready to close but waited for us. He worked on him for a good hour and 20 minutes – valium, IV fluid, medicine to reduce swelling in the brain and lidocaine to control the PVC’s his heart was throwing. He had several EKG’s, two X-rays and blood draws.

The vet had been scheduled to make a farm call and after Sydney seemed to stabilize, he left for about 45 minutes while we sat with Sydney.

His first question when he returned was to ask if Sydney had started to come round and tried to sit up; he had not. He was still rigid and trembling. More lidocaine, valium and then lidocaine introduced into the fluid bag.

We think he is in no  pain and we are waiting and watching. There was no change today so far and if he does not come around by Tuesday morning, well, we will do what we feel is best.

We are thankful that Sydney was in Der Bingle’s arms from just after the seizure started until we reached the vet’s.