Weekend at Bernie’s

I feel very strongly about the importance of voting.  Especially if I know you’ll be voting for my candidate.  Fortunately, for the sake of a peaceful household, Dad and I share the same political views.  I tried to get him to take advantage of early voting.  Not only for the sake of convenience, but just in case he died before Election Day. 

I know, the votes of dead people aren’t supposed to be counted.  But the odds were that no one would bother to match up death certificates to early ballots.  It promised to be a close race and every vote would make a difference.

Dad didn’t want to vote early.  He wanted to vote on Election Day.  His appointment at the VA hospital in Richmond was scheduled for Election Day, but since it wasn’t until 1 p.m., he planned to vote first and then head for Richmond.  That being the case, I was surprised when he still wasn’t up when Dillon and I returned from our walk.

Whenever he isn’t up by the usual time, I always think the worst.  This time I was going to be really pissed if he’d died overnight without having voted.  I was quite relieved to open his bedroom door and see that he was still breathing.  I shook him awake and went to take a shower.

I told him later that it was a good thing he’d still been among the living because if he was dead, I was planning on strapping him into a wheelchair, rolling him to the poles, and “helping him” vote.  It was going to be Election Day at Bernie’s.  Dad just laughed.

I voted during my lunch hour.  The ladies manning the poles informed me that my father had already voted.  When I told them my plan, they laughed nervously exclaiming, “You wouldn’t!”  “You didn’t!”  “I would and I did,” I assured them.

Dad left a note on the kitchen counter for me.  “I voted.  Won’t need wheelchair.”  I told him that night that the next time he went to vote, the poll workers would probably insist on taking his pulse before they gave him a ballot.  It’s good that he still has a sense of humor.

Loves dogs, hates leaves

I’m beginning to seriously consider handing over the leaf raking to someone else, at Dad’s expense of course.  Two Sundays ago, I cranked up the lawnmower to mulch the leaves in the backyard.  I hate to rake, so last fall I just kept mowing over the leaves and it worked for the most part.

Dad had already done his part; I mean that sarcastically, by raking the two small squares of sod he put down last summer.  I refuse to touch them because he asked me if I’d raise the lawnmower setting when I did those two areas so as not to stress his grass.  My answer was that I’d simply stay away from his precious sod and I haven’t reconsidered my position. 

Of course, he didn’t take the leaves he raked to the curb or the power line right of way.  He simply left the piles for me to deal with.  Exactly the way he treats all of his dirty dishes.  Therefore, there were a couple of areas where the leaves were so deep that I couldn’t see if one of Dillon’s tennis balls was nestled among them.  Until I hit it and heard the clunking noise.  I just kept mowing, thinking that the worst that would happen is I’d need to buy Dillon another ball.

I was wrong.  The worst that would happen was a trip to the emergency vet in Wilson after I spied Dillon chewing on the remains of the tennis ball.  He was in the act of trying to swallow.  I took the mangled ball away from him and calculated that there was less than half the ball there.  I immediately began searching unsuccessfully for the rest.  I kicked leaves, I peered intently at the ground, I asked Dillon why on earth he’d want to eat a tennis ball to begin with.

Then I started worrying that if he had eaten the ball, it probably wouldn’t come out as easily as it had gone down.  Stories of dogs that had died due to intestinal blockages started running through my brain.  I did a quick internet search that said within 30 minutes to 2 hours of ingestion, there was a chance that inducing vomiting would bring the foreign object back up.  Unfortunately, if the pieces were too big, there was a risk that the dog would choke.  I called the emergency vet’s office and they confirmed that was the case. 

Time for a road trip.  I loaded Dillon into the car and headed for Wilson.  It’s about 45 minutes away via I-95.  Dillon doesn’t particularly like to ride in the car and he has a tendency to get carsick.  Around town, he lies quietly in the back seat.  He started out that way, but a few miles down I-95, he thought that perhaps he’d prefer the front passenger seat. 

I wasn’t crazy about the balancing act he was performing which placed his butt perilously close to the gear shift.  It got worse however when he tried to climb behind me in the driver’s seat.  I was driving 75 miles an hour down a busy interstate, trying to persuade him to get out of my seat, and thinking that if he threw up on me, I’d probably crash, we’d both die, and it wouldn’t matter whether or not he’d eaten a tennis ball.

Dillon finally returned to the back seat and we made it to Wilson.  The vet took x-rays, which revealed the raw peanuts complete with hulls that Dillon had raided from Dad’s stash in the garage before we left.  The results were inconclusive as to whether or not he’d eaten the missing part of the tennis ball.  They induced vomiting, but no tennis ball pieces came up with the peanuts. 

Thankfully, Dillon is fine.  The money I spent on the vet bill could have paid a lawn service to rake all of my leaves for the rest of leaf season.  Not wanting to repeat the same mistake, this Sunday I decided I’d rake the yard. 

I grabbed my gardening gloves off the porch table and started putting them on as I walked down the yard to where I planned to begin.  I suddenly felt a sharp pain in the pinky finger of my right hand.  I quickly pulled the glove off and dropped both gloves to the ground.  A yellow jacket exited the left hand glove as I dropped it.  The right hand glove was still buzzing.  I kicked at it a couple of times to confirm that a bee was still inside it. 

Then I went into the house to ask Dad where his reacher tool was.  No way was I touching those gloves with my bare hands and I needed to move them to rake the yard.  Which I still planned to do despite my throbbing finger.  Dad wanted to know what on earth I had been doing kicking at the ground.  I explained the situation and he looked at me like I was crazy.  Then he headed for the basement to get the reacher.

While in the basement, he asked if I needed another pair of gloves.  I said yes.  He handed me a pair of gloves that were lying on the brick partition.  “Your mother used these when she was working in the yard.”  I took them from him, dropped them on the cement floor, and stomped on them a couple of times. 

“What are you doing?” he asked incredulously.  “I’m making sure that any insects inside them are dead before I put my hands in them,” I replied.  “They’ve just been lying there for a couple of years,” he said as if I had lost my mind.  “Well, my gloves had just been lying on the table for a couple of weeks,” I answered.

I got the yard raked without further injury.  But I really think that after my experiences the last two Sundays, someone is trying to send me a sign that I should leave the raking to the professionals.