Bootsie and Murphy and What You Don't Know about Your Friends

Bootsie was our first dog. She was a Boston Bull and she moved with us from the house pictured here (in Overland, MO) to our house in Florissant. We had a fenced in back yard, but a big dog jumped the fence and, well, you know what happened. Bootsie was five or six years old by then, had never had puppies, and the vet said that delivering the pups would be a big risk to her. We all decided that we wanted Bootsie to be safe. So the vet aborted the puppies. The sad thing was that Bootsie died on the operating table. We were so upset. I remember mom telling us when we came home from school that day. I walked down to the end of the street and sat on the curb, crying for a long time. Funny, as I'm telling the story, it's the first time I've wondered why I left the house to go cry on the curb.

I was relating this story to my good college friend and comedy partner, Kris, and she disclosed that she, too, had a Boston Bull Terrier when she was a child. We have known each other now for close to 40 years, have laughed and cried together, been roommates for a time, even did some amateur detective work to bring to justice the man who slammed his car into the side of my car and fled. Once we took a trip to Riverside, California to visit Kris's mom and dad. I saw the Pacific Ocean for the first time and nearly drown in it as Kris stood on the shore laughing at me. We have both always been dog lovers and when we graduated from college, we shared a little apartment in Abilene, TX with her beautiful Irish Setter, Shawn. And yet, we were amazed to find out that we did not know that we both had Boston Bulls as our first family pet. Here's a picture of Kris with her dog, Murphy. Cute, huh? I'm thinking it's Eastertime and Kris is going to have to fight Murphy off from her basket with that big lollipop in her hand.

Yard Work - Day Three

Today we cleaned up and mulched the rock ledge area directly across the driveway from our front door. It looks great. We plan to extend the mulched area back about six more feet, but that will have to wait until we recover from today's work. Fran says we are too old for this!

Welcome, Seth!

My niece, Leanna, and her husband, Dave,

are now the proud parents of Seth Matthew Johnson.

Congratulations!

Their blog is http://djohnson-family.blogspot.com/

Anyone Want a Dog? - Part 2

So then, a few days later (read Anyone Want a Dog - Part 1) my brother drove in for a very short visit, less than 24 hours. He had driven from his home in Orlando, Florida to drop off his wife, Carol at my niece's home in Nashville, to babysit my niece's children while she and her husband travelled to China to adopt their new son, Seth.

As you can see, his phone charger won't be working any time soon. Good dog.

Darryl's phone charger...ooops...

Darryl strangling Smudge

Anyone Want a Dog? - Part 1

So this is what my dog, Smudge, did to my glasses. For some reason, Smudge is fascinated with the top of my nightstand, so I am careful to take anything of value off when I first get up the morning. She particularly likes my earphones and glasses and little alarm clock. I had just the day before commented to myself that I was doing a mighty fine job keeping one step ahead of her. Well, you know what they say: pride cometh before a fall. I think the glasses are beyond repair.

Yard Work - Day Two

Sweet Spire (Itea) Bye Bye

House minus Sweet Spire (was in front of window on left)

This is Spring Break week. I always complain that our Spring Break comes at a time when the weather is lousy...either too cold, or too rainy, or too cold and rainy. Then I use that as an excuse for not getting started on yard work. So, now, here we are, and the weather has been ideal! Not too cold, not too hot, very little wind and clear skies.

So now what shall I complain about? Well, my back hurts and my sides ache! Yesterday Fran and I pulled up several plants (itea) that had decided that they wanted the whole garden to themselves. Talk about invasive plants. After we (Fran) pulled up the plants, we spent the next hour pulling up the runners from the plants. It was unbelievable how many runners there were, and I'm sure we've missed many more that are still underground, just waiting to rear their ugly heads.

We raked out leaves, transplanted a few day lily clumps and then mulched half of the garden. Today, after church we continued with the rest of the area and still have two or three days of work remaining. It sure feels good to get that going, and although my back and sides do hurt, I am mostly thankful for the beautiful weather God has provided these last few days!

Good News!

My lovely niece, Leanna, and her wonderful husband, Dave, are on their way this week to China to receive and bring back their new son, Seth! Couldn't be happier for them. And the added benefit for the St. Louis relatives is that after my brother, Darryl, drops off my sister-in-law at Dave and Leanna's home (babysitting Seth's soon-to-be brother and sisters) he will drive on up to St. Louis to spend a day with us! Safe travels, everyone!

Dave and Leanna will be blogging their experiences to China and back on their new blog:
http://djohnson-family.blogspot.com/

Working in the School Library

I have the privilege of working with many fine people at my school...from the cafeteria ladies to the teachers and even our mighty fine principal. But two of the finest people I work with are the teacher assistants who help in the library each day. Brownie works in the morning and Fish Stixs works in the afternoon. They both are the kind of people who know what to do and do it without being asked. Self-starters,God love 'em!!! I am honored to work with them and hope they stay for a long time.

Let's Hear It for Old Dogs!

Great story at http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090211/ap_on_sp_ot/dog_show

Eileen and Fish

My friend Eileen has a running joke with me. She loves fish and everything in her life revolves around fish. That's all. You can imagine how boring it is to be around her. I wrote this because she didn't believe I had a blog.