Category Archives: funny stories

First Offense

24 Replies

OldPaintDuckieSoulRed

First Offense

He took a cursory look at the damage. Just a paint scratch, really—one that could probably be removed from his back bumper with a little turpentine. Taking a look at the vehicle that had rear-ended him at the street light, he doubted that it had insurance, so it was a good thing that he’d already decided that there was no need to file a claim or to persecute the offender. It would make a good yarn once he got to the office and a perfect excuse for his being late. 

“Better stay on the sidewalk after this,” he yelled at the back of the toddler pedaling his toy car quickly away from the scene of the crime, his little friend in the toy patrol car pedaling down the sidewalk after him in pursuit, red light blinking, siren wailing as they rounded the corner.

 

The prompts for today are yarn, being, cursory, and persecute.

https://ragtagcommunity.wordpress.com/2018/08/21/rdp-82-yarn/

https://fivedotoh.com/2018/08/21/fowc-with-fandango-being/

https://wordofthedaychallenge.wordpress.com/2018/08/21/cursory/

https://dailyaddictions542855004.wordpress.com/ persecute

Judy and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day!!!

18 Replies

Judy and Annie and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day!!!

The plans: Get up early, feed the kids, have a swim in the pool, since it was raining last night when I wanted to go in, do my blog, have a shower and wash my hair, drive to Guad, shop in Costco for Xmas gifts and groceries, stop by Home Depot to get more solar stick-in lights for around the pool, then take the car in at 2 for its first check-up, as scheduled. They’d called and I’d made the appointment a week ago and I’d cleared the day so everything should have gone fine.

What really happened: Got up early  to feed the kids, but it was raining, so—no pool. One-third of the doggie domain closest to the open door was flooded due to the rain. Mopped up the floor and set a big towel in doorway to capture further flooding. Fed the dogs. Fed the 3 youngster cats who appeared at the kitchen door. Put their food out in the kitchen rather than outside due to the rain. Called for Ollie. Not like him to miss a meal. Still no Ollie.

Took Annie’s meal into her bathroom hideout, away from the irritating youngsters. Shut the door. Went back to call for Ollie, who finally appeared and put out more food for him. The other three cats immediately swarmed around the food. Rain had stopped, so I put them out, grabbing them one at a time and ushering them out the back door. Ollie ate his food and then jumped up on his favorite chair. Rain started up again so I let the other three in again. Blew my hair dry, dressed for warmer weather in sandals, cut off jeans and a light sweater with vest. At about 10:30, I cornered all four cats again, one by one, gauging their weight as I hefted them up. Ollie and Roo, my two roly polies, seemed lighter, perhaps due to the new feeding regime. Good.

Locked up, went to the car and realized it had gotten colder again. Checked the glove box for my car maintenance book. Checked the trunk, under all the seats, in all the drawers of the garage. No book. Came back in the house. Realized it had started to rain again, so I grabbed an umbrella and set it on the kitchen table so I wouldn’t forget it. Carefully put the car keys next to it so I wouldn’t misplace them. Went in and changed clothes—heavier sweater, long pants, socks and warmer shoes. Looked for car maintenance book. Everywhere!!! Every drawer, every file, every stack of books. Nowhere to be found. Decided to go without it. Collected umbrella and keys. Glasses. Where were my glasses?  I had them on when I left the first time. Looked in both bathrooms, closet, bedside tables, anywhere they could possibly be. Finally got a box of old glasses out of the closet and found a pair of ugly far-vision glasses that would do.

Glanced at the clock. Now 11:30!  If it took an hour to get to Guad, would I have time to shop at Costco and Home Depot and still get to the car dealership at 2? Suddenly, with a sense of foreboding, it occurred to me that it was Saturday. Didn’t most businesses close at 2 on Saturday? Reclaimed my computer from where I’d hidden it and looked on my calendar to find my appointment was at noon! No way I could get there in time. Looked up Honda dealers in Guad., called Dalton Motors. Five minutes as they located someone who spoke English. Indeed, they closed at 2. Rescheduled my car check appointment.

Went out to close garage door and reclaim my purse, book and cell phone. Decided to reorganize the glove box while I was there. Found three measuring tapes, six ball point pens, two tire pressure gauges, two bottles of NoDoz along with the usual assortment of things, including THE CAR MAINTENANCE BOOK!! Picked up my purse to stuff the duplicates into it to bring them back to the house and found MY GLASSES under the purse!!!

Came back to house to find, sitting in Ollie’s favorite chair, was Kukla!!! How could there possibly be a cat in the house other than Annie? I knew I’d put four of them out. Then, with a sense of foreboding, I started looking for Annie. I mean, I looked EVERYWHERE!  Then I moved to the yard. I called. I pleaded. I cajoled. This is a cat who was on death’s door six months ago and hadn’t stirred out of the house once since then. A cat who hated the young cats and who, due to arthritis, could barely walk, let alone jump up on walls or escape enemies outside. But, she was nowhere to be found. In my hurry, I’d scooped her up instead of the fourth kitten/cat and put her outside!!!!

An hour later, I went out to search again. Then searched the house again. No Annie.

An hour later, I went out to look again, calling, looking everywhere. Then my eyes fell on this scene. What a wild tangle, but where could she find a nice warm spot away from the rain?

 

I crawled up in the planter a bit, looking in corners, behind plants,

IMG_5017

Closer

IMG_5018

Pitch black in there.  I went into the house for a flashlight.

IMG_5014
IMG_5015

Would she come out? No. Has she come out yet? No. The jug is too big to lift and the minute I came close, she turned her back to me and I couldn’t get my hands around her to pull her out. The ground is uneven and my balance bad. Called Pasiano. Called Juan Pablo. No one home.

It’s 6:47. I’ve been out trying to lure Annie out of the jar with dinner.

bHqRe

Maybe if I put food out near her, she’ll come out of her cave?

gdd0k

Hmm. Not biting yet.

svfST

Still playing it cool.

eJC2c

Aha. I detect interest?

R733g

But, Mexican cat standoff!

QBXvv

I put the food a bit further away and leave her alone, then return in fifteen minutes. No luck. This from the cat who wakes me up at 4:30 in the morning to be fed and hounds me for bites four or five more times a day?

ccqs8

7:30 p.m. Still holding out. Meanwhile, the other cats are clamoring to be let out to eat her food. Such is honor among cats.

 
IMG_5045

7:45 I go out to find she’s eaten most of the food I put out. If you look closely, you can see the leaf cutter ants honing in on the rest. I look in the big pot, and she’s gone but nowhere to be seen! I consider stuffing something in it so she can’t reenter as I go around the side of the house to look for her, but I don’t. When I return:

IMG_5046

She’s baaaa-ack!

7:50  Juan Pablo calls. I consider not having him come out into the dark and cold. He lives about 2 miles away and is just home from work. But he insists. Perhaps Annie will sleep in familiar territory tonight. Fingers crossed.

Oh Man! Juan Pablo and Yolanda arrive around 8. They lift the big jar up and Annie’s on the run!!! After 15 minutes of bushwhacking through the jungle, the fugitive is finally apprehended!! Now resting well in her own bed, but howling to be fed. Things entirely back to normal, it seems. This was a stinker of a day!!!!!

IMG_5047

And here are its heroes!!!!

If you want to see the happy ending, the morning after, go HERE.

In the Catbird Seat

3 Replies

 

Art Studio
My view to the side, overlooking the spare lot and lake.

jdbphotos. Click on first photo to enlarge all and read captions.

If you aren’t familiar with the term, “in the catbird seat,” it means to be in a position above the action or perhaps in control.  This is what I am when I’m in my studio, which has one wall entirely comprised of windows looking out on my garden and another window to my right that looks out over my spare lot down below and ultimately at the lake spread out on a lower plane with Mount Garcia and Colima Volcano behind it on the other shore.

In the Catbird Seat

After a year of no time at all in the studio, I’ve spent 4 days there in the past few weeks. It feels wonderful, even though the last day I spent there was entirely spent organizing, sorting, putting away, reorganizing.

My studio is a separate small building I had built in the garden below my house. My dogs, unaccustomed as they are to my being there, followed me down, no doubt remembering I keep a bag of dog biscuits down there. Fortified, they wandered off, but eventually returned to spend the morning outside my door––Morrie plastered horizontally across the base of the locked screen door, Diego perpendicular to him, stretched out along the brick walkway.

The kittens, relegated to the front yard and house, have seen neither the back yard nor my studio. I fear what my dogs, intent on doing away with every soft fuzzy creature that enters my yard, would do to them, even though they’ve been seeing them for almost four months now through the glass, bars and screens that form most of the walls of every room in my house.

That is why I was so distressed when I heard the plaintive meow of one of the kittens coming from the wrong direction. Not from the side of the house where they have a walled-off outside run all their own, but seemingly from the street behind the studio or from the empty lot down below me. I listened closely, hoping it was just my one hearing-impaired ear that was misdirecting the direction from which the sound was coming; but, when I stepped out into the yard, I could hear it clearly.

I called out to Pasiano, telling him I thought one of the kittens had made its way out of its safe zone.

“No, senora,” he insisted.

“Yes! Listen,” I insisted as the loud meow came again––several times.

He shook his head, laughing, and gestured up into the pistachio tree, from which one bird was cawing an insistent bird call, another creature mewing back an insistent interspecies reply. It was a bird, he told me. He led me closer to the tree and as he did, a black bird flew down from that tree to a large castor bean plant in the spare lot. The bird in the tree cawed and chirped. The bird below in the spare lot meowed back,

It was a magpie that had evidently been hanging around the kittens for too long. A mother knows her kids’ voices and this was a perfect replica of my kittens’ bossy demands to be fed.

When I told Yolanda about this strange occurrence, she laughed and said she had done exactly the same thing two days earlier, sure one of the kittens had escaped.

Now this story, as unbelievable as you might find it, has a precedent in my family. When my 11-year-older sister was a tiny girl, she was in the habit of coming to the back door and calling out, “Mommy, Mommy! This occurred so many times during the day that my mother had told her that unless it was an emergency, she should come into the house to find her instead of expecting her to drop whatever household task she was doing to come to the door. Betty heeded this request perhaps one time out of three, which was an improvement, at least.

One day, my mother heard he calling out to her, but when she came to the door, no Betty! She went back to her work on the other side of the house, only to hear he call out again. Once again, she went to the door, but no Betty. This time she called her in from her play, gave her a scolding and told her not to do it again. But Mommy, she hadn’t done it, my sister insisted, but in that way Mommy’s develop, my mom just shook her head and said, well, not to do it again.

Barely had she gotten back to the kitchen however, when she heard my sister demanding her presence again. This time really angry, she stamped back across the house to the screened-in porch to see—absolutely no one standing on the front door stoop. This time, however, the mystery was quickly solved. In a large cage on that screened in porch was a magpie with a damaged wing that my father had brought in from the ranch. Even as my mother entered the porch, he had called out once more in my sister’s voice, demanding her presence.

Most mimics only get themselves in trouble due to inappropriate material. This mimic was most adept at passing the blame. True story, as is the more recent magpie story above.

 

 

Little Duck’s Almost Novel Adventure

29 Replies

img_6740

One day Little Duck was bored, and although Big Duck was not bored at all, Little Duck decided he needed to be educated in the art of flying. “Just stretch your left wing out like this,” he instructed Big Duck. Of course, Big Duck had neither left wing nor right wing, so he stretched his left arm out as far as he could.

img_6734

“Very good,” said Little Duck. Then, “Stretch out your right wing!” he quacked like a drill sergeant, in a very bossy tone. And so Big Duck stretched his right arm out as far as he could.

img_6734

“Now, spread out your wing tip feathers and flap both wings at the same time,” demanded Little Duck; but try as he might, Big Duck just couldn’t do it.

img_6743

Upon further investigation, Little Duck decided that aside from a failure to coordinate wing movements, there was a further complication that foretold that for Big Duck, flying lessons would never come to fruition,

img_6737

for it seemed that in addition to malformed wings, Big Duck also lacked the webbed feet necessary for landing and propelling himself through water as well as the tail to serve as a rudder.

img_6738

“Very strange indeed!” shouted Little Duck from waaaaay down on the floor, where he had gone to investigate the matter. “In fact, in spite of your name and the color of your feet, you seem to resemble this palefoot human standing right over here to my right more than you do a duck.”

img_6736

“But I love you anyway,” Little Duck quacked at Big Duck, as he winged up to his shoulder to give him a reassuring peck on the cheek.

And, never one to give up on chances for adventure, Little Duck put on his thinking cap and tried to think of something Big Duck might be better able to accomplish. It was important after his last big failure that he give him a simple task more suited to his talents than flying seemed to be.

“Eureka!” he thought, and hopped up to share his idea with Big Duck, who at first looked somewhat dubious.

img_6742

But, in his usual inimitable fashion, Little Duck persevered. “As a team, we are unbeatable,” he insisted. “With my creativity and great mind and your mutated feathers capable of maneuvering a keyboard, we could write great literature!” And so, after a great deal of quacking and what passed for quacking on Big Duck’s part, the two settled into a collaboration.
img_6740

“It was a dark and stormy night,” lisped Little Duck.

“That sounds a bit trite to me,” countered Big Duck.

“Once upon a time,” quacked the littler of the two.

“Been done already,” Big Duck fired back.

“Duck!!!!!” shouted little Duck as he saw a wasp zeroing in on Big Duck’s ear.

“That sounds a bit better,” enthused Big Duck, and typed the first word of their document, complete with five exclamation marks and an ending quotation mark.

Knowing there was very little time for action, Little Duck soared through the air to Big Duck’s shoulder just in time to snap up the angry wasp in his martyred and heroic beak.

img_6735

“What comes next?” asked Big Duck, totally unaware that he’d just been saved from his biggest fear by Little Duck.”Did you notice that I remembered the closing parenthesis?” He asked, pointing proudly at their first completed sentence. “Do you have an idea for the second sentence?”

“There was a wasp about to sting you on the ear and I saved you by catching it in my beak!” shouted Little Duck.

img_6743

“Now who in the world is ever going to believe that?” protested Big Duck, and threw up his hand in defeat.

And that is how Little Duck’s Big Adventure never came to be written and why Big Duck’s name has not gone down in the history of literature, or even at the very least, in the blogger’s hall of fame.

THE END

img_6740-1

What to do with leftover Little Duck photos on the way between St. Paul and St. Louis with Big Duck doing all the driving.  I hit the publish button just as we arrived at the motel!  Now that is timing.

Crave more Little Duck adventures? https://judydykstrabrown.com/2016/09/25/travels-with-ducks-the-continuing-saga-of-little-duck-episode-5/

Red-faced in Reflection

Leave a reply

JudyRed jpg (1)
I can remember telling two “most embarrassing” stories in past prompts.  Here is one: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2014/10/10/coffee-with-no-ceremony/
and here is another: https://judydykstrabrown.com/2015/09/09/that-sinking-feeling/

 

 

 

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/embarrassing/

Extra Service: Cee’s Odd Ball Photo Challenge 2016, Week 23

18 Replies

IMG_1020

The Customer is Always Right

This photo would not be oddball except for the story that goes with it.  I was in the same store that had the life-sized horse lamp with the lampshade on its head.  Remember that? (A party horse, I surmise.)  I could get through a year of oddballs on just photos from that store, but this particular photo is more about the subjects than the photo itself.  I saw a woman who had been carrying her somewhat heavy and fussy child around the store for some time.  Finally, as I waited in line to make a rather large purchase, (not the horse) she walked up and held the sleeping child out to this man, who had been helping me to buy the table and chairs and who did not look any too pleased to be taking charge of his son. His stance was awkward and his arms extended in a manner that showed very little connection to the child.

“Is this your son?”  I asked, smiling fondly at the child who was cherubic in his sleeping state.
“No,” he answered.
“Do you know the mother at all?”
“No,” he answered, “I just work here.”

The mother, hearing our interchange, broke into the conversation. “I have been holding my son for a long time and my arms are tired, so I gave him to this man to hold for me.”

This may not be as funny in the telling as it was in the viewing, but this man in no way volunteered for babysitting duty and neither did he look at all adept at it or interested in continuing to serve as “baby-check” boy. It struck me as funny, and still does. How much of this story can you see in the photo?

https://ceenphotography.com/2016/06/05/cees-odd-ball-photo-challenge-2016-week-23/

Where is Magic When You Need It??

14 Replies

IMG_6866The bricks under the window arch will be removed after the bricks forming the arch are placed over it and the mortar dries  The top of the arch you see here will actually be the bottom of the window arch.  Think backwards!

                                 Where is Magic When You Need It?

Oh dear.  I could have used a bit of magic in dealing with one very irate plumber who came up to the kitchen waving his knapsack and pulling at a big chewed spot in the small pocket in front.  Reaching in, he drew out a half-eaten lonche (sandwich made out of shredded pork in a bolillo–a small crusty loaf of delicious Mexican Bread.)

“Su perro, su perro! ” he exclaimed and I understood at once that he had left his knapsack down where any one of three inquisitive and always-hungry dogs could investigate (and open) it.  It was the small one, he sputtered.

In my best ( worst at best) Spanish I said, “You can’t leave your lunch on the ground with three dogs present.”  But it was zippered into his bag, he said.  I had to laugh.  You’ve seen Morrie’s past exploits, right? If not, suffice it to say that in one week he consumed thirty rolls of toilet paper, two rolls of paper towels, a rubber duck, three doggie toys, a box of crayons, one shoe, five books and the handles off an antique chiffarobe. When I bought him one of those indestructible hard rubber toys in an hourglass shape–the ones you put a dog biscuit or peanut butter into to encourage chewing?  Guaranteed forever?  He bit it in two in fifteen minutes.  This is why I laughed.

“I’ll make you a delicious pork loin sandwich,” I told him.

But the knapsack! he whined.

“I’ll buy you a new bag.  Tell me what it costs and I’ll replace it.”  He looked somewhat happier.  He returned to my studio, where they were fixing a burst pipe.  I returned to the kitchen where I cut a  half inch slab of pork loin, covered it with au jus and slivered carrots cooked in the juice, made a sandwich, put celery sticks and dipping dressing in a bag, made guacamole and sandwiched  it between four crisp tortillas, added a Coca Cola and carried the bag with his new lunch down to the studio.  Inside the studio were all three dogs and three piles of poop–all Morrie’s.  I know it so well. Piled around were various bags and boxes of valuables used to make retablos that my robber dogs had had free access to.

“You can’t let the dogs into the studio,” I directed, and shut the door.  I leaned down to remove Morrie’s markers and by the time I arose, one plumber had gone to retrieve something from the garage, the door was open again and all three dogs were inside.

“I’ll put the dogs in the garage,” I said in my creative Spanish, and went to the house to fortify my demands with dog biscuits.  But when we arrived at the garage, there was a very large plastic pipe they’d drained the aljibe (cistern) with in order to clean it, so no go with dogs in the garage. Morrie could have that pipe deconstructed in minutes! Where else? Men were carrying concrete around the side of the house and so I couldn’t close the front yard off from the back.  Finally, I enclosed them all within the 20 foot long “pen” I’d created to isolate Morrie while he recuperated from his earlier neutering. The room builders were off in the street, eating lunch under the neighbor’s trees.  (More of a vacation than eating under my trees.) The plumbers were in my gazebo, having their lunch.  I went down to tell them the dogs were removed from their company at least for now.

The one plumber didn’t look ecstatic over my balanced meal provided, but perhaps he hadn’t tasted it yet.  The pork is delicious, I know.  I’ve been eating it every day for three days now.  The last time I cooked one of these marinated pork tenderloins, I made one meal of it before  Diego snatched the rest off the counter where Yolanda had placed it while she cleaned the fridge.  This time I was looking forward to more than one meal of it, but I’m very happy to share it with the plumber.

Yesterday, I finally dealt with a three day bout of terrible allergies by taking an antihistamine.  As a result, I slept all afternoon, awakening at 7:30 at night.  After feeding the dogs, I suddenly had a terrific burst of energy during which I cleaned out and reorganized the entire garage, Scoured out a 20 year old Rubbermaid garbage can so we can use it to store dog food in, washed dishes and straightened the kitchen and dining room.  I then reorganized my bathroom storage, hung up all my clothes discarded in hurried changes of costume over the past few days, had the silliest of conversations with my Missouri friend and went out for an after-midnight photo session, the results of which you can see on Cee’s Flower of the Day Challenge on this morning’s blog posting.  I then watched an episode of “Castle,” played three games of computer solitaire and finally looked at the clock.  Five A.M.?  I had an English lesson to teach in a few hours and workmen coming at 8.  Loud workmen!!!  Off went the lights and five minutes later, Yolanda arrived with a cup of coffee.  Looks like three hours sleep was going to have to do.

So, another day and another magical progression of events that let me know I’m alive.  The weather is perfect.  Slight breeze moving the trees.  Pasiano accomplished most of the list of “to do’s” I thought up for him to do while experiencing my own all-night energy spurt. The builders are back from lunch and I’m looking out on the beautiful arched window they are in the process of constructing that I’ll be able to see every day from my desk for the rest of my life.  My kids are happily at rest in their prison and hot volcanic water is streaming into my swimming pool.

Where is magic when I need it?  All around me.

https://dailypost.wordpress.com/dp_prompt/do-you-believe-in-magic/