Fun Monday # 10

Our host for this week's Fun Monday is a Southern Doll

Here is what she wants to know:

• What have you done in your life that was worth doing? I want to know the moments in your life that you hope will be the ones to pass through your mind when your time comes. I hope that doesn't sound too morbid. This doesn't necessarily have to be items you have checked off your Bucket List, it can be those small moments that made you smile, or the time you got that huge promotion you deserved, or the first time your baby smiled at you out of pure joy. I want to know all the moments, big and small, that make life sweet! If you don't already have a running list of these in your mind, you should! These moments help you remember how much your life is worth living, and we all deserve to enjoy it.
  

Oh, ugh. I don't mean ugh to the idea or assignment. Just, oh, ugh.

I used to ride horses. I used to live and breathe horses. The moment that the first foal that was born into my excited, frightened, incredulous arms will be with me always. I named her Naughty Marietta for my mom, who had died years before. (And for Gilbert and Sullivan, of course.) Actually, thinking about it now, I realize that I can close my eyes and bring back the birth of every foal. The smell of the deep nights after the nervous, exhausted, repeated walk out to the barn alone. Every two hours for a week or more. And sometimes I would wrap up in a cooler - a type of thick wool horse blanket - and sleep the rest of the night in the stall. The sounds, the same in every stable in the world, and the heart scents, and the expectant peace. I will take that all with me. I had some fun wins in competition, but when I remember what I loved, it's those quiet times in the barns.

[Stay with me.]

What I value most in my life are the friendships. My most intimate friendship is with Bill. That he values me, knowing all he knows about my shortcomings, doesn't make a lick of sense to me, but he does and oh Lordy am I lucky! I invest a great deal in my friendships. My adult son is a terrific friend. I've enjoyed the transformation of the parental role into less of a see-saw relationship. When I had to move away from my friends - Bill's daughters, Jake's old ponies, and the women who were closer to me than siblings - I floundered. See? Now this is already getting all maudlin; I knew it would.

Ugh.

OK. What I'm really proud of is the mastery I've accomplished at the wielding of the pooper scooper. This was not always so. Until Jim and Sue visited in the fall of '06, I owned no such instrument. I picked up my yard via the Baggie Method. Jim said this would not do, and trundled me down to the pet supply store and found me just the right rake and scoop. And two white five gallon buckets with lids. And I was set. Only for months I flicked poop everywhere but in the scoop. "It's all in the wrist," Jim tutored. I watched him deftly flick a turd, plink, right in the dead center of the scoop. I watched me flick one over the scoop and bonk down my pants leg. And they would get stuck between the tines of the rake. It would take me six, seven, ten flicks per poop, and there I'd be, in my city yard, in my red flannel paws and bones print jammies for all the world and folks driving to work to see, flicking turds here, there and everywhere but the damned thing at which I uselessly aimed.

No more, dear readers, no more! I now can execute ca-ca cleanup with my eyes closed. I've added flourishes for fun. I twirl around my scoop, clicking my heels, a Gene Kelly, singing in the shit and sometimes in the rain, too! Then I use my rake as a jaunty Three Musketeers type of sword. (Why did the Three Musketeers have sword fights, anyway? Shouldn't they have had musket fights?) Take that, poo poo! Into the scooper with you! "What a glorious feeling, I'm happy as spit!"

In one smooth motion, I do an overhead double back spin, catching the crap with the scoop behind my back, and wave to the stupified Trolley driver with the rake as he pulls away from the stop at our corner. Then, wanting to top that for the Mail Lady, I do a flying camel followed by a triple toe loop and plop goes the poop in the scooper. I scoop in evening gowns, just because I can. When I smile as I scoop, a sparkle flies off my tooth, like in a cartoon, and you hear a little "ding!" People come from miles around, to marvel at the poop free yard which houses nine whippet feces factories. Occasionally, I fly out of the back door, crying "Hi Ho, Scooper, away!" and zoom the poop is scooped, and bewildered passersby cry, "Who was that masked dooer of good deeds?"

I am the Queen of Poo.

Top that.

(See if anyone did at Southern Doll's blog.)

hug your hounds