And when did we stop calling them "thongs?"

When we remodeled our kitchen several years ago, we wondered if it was overkill to have a big double sided sink as well as a smaller prep sink just feet away. A few folks even advised against it, saying the counter space was more important than having yet another sink in a not-so-huge kitchen.

Obviously, they don’t have to hide their tasty flip flops from bulldogs.

I guess their feet just aren't as scrumpdillyicious as mine.

A thought.

I bet the saying "A picture is worth a thousand words" is just part of an elaborate PR campaign by an illiterate caricature artist.

Peaches & Herb. Only, there's no Herb.

Autumn in Colorado is about the most fantastic thing you could imagine. Perfectly warm days with no bugs, cool nights with great sleeping weather, pretty gold leaves falling on still-green grass. Nirvana. But to just make it even greater, there are peaches. The western slope of Colorado yields some of the juiciest, yummiest big wonderful fruit you could imagine. Denverites and front range dwellers place their orders in August and get back big boxes of fuzzy yumminess in mid-September. It's a ritual.

Now. Let's pretend you are a smooshy-faced, round-eyed dog. Let's say a nice lady brought a big bag of fuzzy round things up to your house. What would you do?

You would go nutty because there's 1/2 a crate of tennis balls sitting on the table, oh my god, tennis balls, right there, there they are, tennis balls, do you see them, give me one, tasty lovely tennis balls yum yum yum! That's what you'd do.

Only it's just a bag of peaches. A bag of peaches that an 8 year old moves off of the counter because he needs the space for something else, and very wonderfully, a gigantic, perfect peach rolls across the floor. No one is looking.

Pretend you are a smooshy-faced, round-eyed dog. What would you do?

I'll tell you. You would skulk across the floor very carefully, and smoosh your smooshy face against the tennis ball looking object and ever so slightly wrap your raw-steak-like lips around it and sneak into another room, carefully...quietly...can you even believe you just scored the biggest tennis ball ever created, and man, aren't those labradors gonna be jealous? That's what you'd do.

Then, after biting into said tennis ball and discovering its peachy goodness, you'd practically die and go to heaven. You'd tenderly devour the most delicious tennis ball on the planet, its juice staining your big lips as well as the tops of your stumpy wide feet where you held your bounty, until there was nothing left but a little stone, a hard pit. No fun, and not bouncy, nothing left to chew on, so you'd just quietly spit it on the couch so that feeder-lady would clean it up.

A postscript from the smooshy faced one:
Oh delightful juicy peachy tennis ball. You surprised me. I expected the dependable rubbery friend I've come to know, but you were something different, weren't you? Will you surprise me again later and cause me to soil rugs and keep feeder-lady up scrubbing bulldog processed peach goo? Will my sensitive belly reject you at 2am? Actually, no. For we are soul-mates. We are round and we are lovely and we are ever so fuzzy. I sit, at the edge of the counter, using every bit of my bulldog determination to will one of your soft, friendly co-horts to escape the fruit bowl and lavish itself against my furry lips. I can smell the sunsets of a thousand summer nights wafting from high above my reach. I smack the ever present slobber that just thinking of you creates, and swallow hard. Come to me, peachy ball, come to me now.

I'll wait for you always.

Camouflage and Neon Lights.

Every fall, the guy I live with, aka: Big Dude Little Glasses, takes off for a week of what he calls “Elk Hunting.” He leaves with a bunch of food, camoflauge fleece pants and a bow. As in bow-and-arrow. Like Cupid. This is what he says he is going to aim at the elk when he comes across it. Most folks we know in our completely white collar neighborhood are very relieved to know he only takes skinny little arrows to kill a 1000 pound animal, because it “gives the elk a fair chance,” but after several years and many thousands of dollars, it is obviously not fair at all. THE ELK HAVE A DISTINCT ADVANTAGE. I have taken to whispering in his ear while he sleeps, “You will know untold husbandly pleasures if you will just once, for the love of all that’s holy, use a frickin’ rifle.”

I say this because not one time has my sweet betrothed returned with a dead elk. Not even a little piece of a dead elk. Not even an elk steak purchased from a meat market, unwrapped and stuck in dirt to trick me. I would very much like 1000 pounds of high mountain grass-fed organic meat in the freezer after the investment that we’ve made. It would be like if you went to Hawaii five times and didn’t take any pictures, pick up any shells, get a lei, or pay $9 for a Big Mac. Why the hell go?

I admit that a week in a cabin with beer and three men sounds mighty appealing – but could we pretty please have an elk? I’ve been patient, but after many years of this, evidence seems to be building that he’s not even going hunting at all.

I suspect he’s actually just going on a week-long bender to Vegas with his buddies.

Consider the facts:
1. Well this one’s a biggie…there’s no elk. Not even a picture of an elk. There are good stories about elk, but he could have easily gotten those by watching the hunting channel. IN VEGAS.

2. He leaves clean shaven and showered and he comes home with six days of beard, a duffle of dirty underwear and smelling of elk cow urine. An obvious cover up so the scent of smoky casinos and hookers doesn’t linger on his camo. Have you ever been on a return flight from Vegas? Everyone on there looks tired, needs a shave and smells like piss.

3. He mails $500 to his friend in early summer and gives him another $500 when he leaves. Why? So there’s no receipt to the Bellagio IN VEGAS, I’m guessing. The first payment is a hotel deposit, the second an installment for blackjack. His single friend handles it so none of the wives figure it out. It’s the same concept as strip clubs who have their visa receipts say “Glory Be To Him Christian Bookstore” instead of “Dirty Merle’s Nekkid Cheerleaders.”

4. He leaves with a bunch of canned goods and groceries…and returns with…almost all of them. He claims it’s because all of the guys brought too much…I contend he’s too full of $2.99 all-you-can-eat prime rib buffet to eat canned stew and granola bars.

It’s all just so…well, obvious.

Pookie – if you want to continue the charade, I’ll play along. You work hard and you certainly deserve a week off now and then to wear fleece pants and drink beer with the fellas. Go ahead, call it “elk hunting.” I’m all for it. If you could just do me the favor of showering at the airport it’d be super. Oh, and you should know…I’m considering joining a “book club.”

Flip-flops must be completely out of the question.

If you think about it, elephants have REALLY small feet. Relative to their leg size, that is.

I bet it’s a bitch to keep their socks on.

It would more kind to call them "special."

Listen, I make fun of my kids as much as the next person...neither of them is going to get a spelling scholarship, if you know what I’m saying. But putting a sign out on the street telling the world they’re slow? That's just plain mean. Thanks for the warning, though - I'll be sure not to yell algebra problems out the window as I pass your house.

Say, here’s a thought: maybe if you didn’t dress them in those creepy “See Dick” outfits they’d be a little more with it. Perhaps it's the lederhosen holding them back.

M-I-C...See ya real soon...NOT.

My friend Scotty emailed to see how the mouse hunting was going.

As much as I hate to admit it, the mice won a round. ONE round.

My delightfully and tastefully adorned trap, previously mentioned on this here blog, did no good, because these are the teeniest little rodents you've ever seen. Apparently they can climb on top of a trap, eat until they're ready to burst and then waddle away unharmed, stopping only to poop in my kitchen. While I'm not the kind of person who jumps on a chair and screams when they see a mouse, I'm also not the kind to think gerbils are house pets and prairie dogs should be relocated. They're all basically rats, and I see no reason for them anywhere near me. (If you have a reason that they somehow help the eco-system in some manner other than that they provide a home for fleas, please feel free to let me in on it.)

So...I stopped using traps. I went for the slightly less humane, slow, hideous death of a glue trap. And not an ordinary glue trap, either. I purchased a metric ton of extra sticky peanut butter scented glue traps and put greasy bulldog nuggets in the center of each one.

Did they work? Mwah ha ha. Did they EVER. My children now call me Mouse Vader. Mice all over the block are madly running their little miniature mimeograph machines to print itty-bitty posters warning of my singular evil.

Does it bother me to hear their tiny screams in the night as they struggle for their lives, each movement only further insuring their doom? Eh, not really. Not nearly as much as it bothers me to see mouse poop in my house, anyway. Scream away, Mickey. See you in hell.

(Oh, and Scotty - for your benefit - the picture is my two-day tally posted on the refrigerator, to frighten and intimidate potential newcomers.)