Did I Ever Mention How Much I Loathe Technology?

Mrs. Hillbilly Mom is angry tonight, my friends. Angry, like an old man trying to send back soup in a deli. Like a humpty dumpty with a melon head who doesn't have hand. Like the biggest seller at The Jerk Store, out of stock.

I'm having computer issues. All because I tried to access the Newmentia page with my teacher password to change one little grade by five points, because I was too busy in class, and didn't click on it right when I saw the error. Seems that we can no longer launch our program from home unless we have Java. So I go to download Java, and infect myself with a virus. But thank the Gummi Mary, Mrs. Hillbilly Mom has a BFF spelled G O O G L E. After some crafty searching, and some fine-toothed-comb going-over, I found a cure for my ailment. Even The Pony, laying on his hooves, could not solve my complete problem. BUT I DID!

The Pony got my home page back. Not an easy feat in this newest Firefox. Not nearly as simple as it used to be. Then the problem was the new tabs. They wouldn't open up blank for nothin'. Always with a dang search something-or-other. So I finally found out the real name of my problem, and uninstalled it. Then I had to uninstall a not-so-active version of its accomplice.

So there, #1 son! Read it and weep. Mom fixed her own problem. You didn't have to be all Nick Burns, company computer guy, elbowing me out of the way, sneering "MOVE!" and rattling across my unloved keyboard with your long alien fingers in a manner that made sure I could not keep up and eventually catch fish for myself. Toss me the head, tail, and bones, and take off. I did it on my own. I am HM, hear me roar.

Of course, I still can't access my grades to correct that five-point error, and I've wasted an hour. But my New Delly is whole again.

Like An Elephant, Mrs. Hillbilly Mom Never Forgets

I saw a bunch of cousins today at a funeral. One scooted over the pew to greet me in the middle of a conversation with my favorite gambling aunt from the other side of the family.

"Oh, I haven't seen you in so long!"

"Well, I remember the exact moment I last say YOU! There I was, changing a flat tire in the middle of nowhere, ten miles out of one town, twenty miles from the next, and you zoomed by on your way home from work, and WAVED to me. Uh huh. With a big ol' smile on your face, so happy to see me, your own flesh and blood, waving like the Queen all hopped up on tea and crumpets, flying past, never to return."

"What? I didn't stop? I do remember seeing you there beside that little store that was closed."

"Yes. Darkness was falling. I had my tiny spare, lifting it on, tightening the lug nuts."

"You knew how to do that?"

"Yes. My daddy taught me when I learned to drive. Don't you know how to change a tire?"

"No. But I have emergency supplies in my car. So I could have stayed warm and hydrated. See? I woudn't have been any help to you."

"Well, if you had stopped, may you could have stood along the road, and a man might have pulled over and helped. I hope you're pleased with yourself."

"Maybe I should learn how to change a tire."

"Maybe you should. Because I won't be stopping if I see you along the road."

Family. There is no substitute.

It's All Fun And Games Until Somebody Loses An Eyepiece

We got home late this evening due to The Pony's practice with the Smartypants team. He bore everything inside like a good draft animal while I lagged behind, cuddling with my sweet, sweet Juno. Darn that dastardly Ann. She saw Juno head for me. I thought it was going to be a repeat of yesterday, when Ann body-checked Juno on her good three legs, trying to send her over the abyss of the side porch, and onto the concrete sidewalk three feet below. But no. Today Ann saw Juno nuzzle up under my chin, and she turned tail and ran. Ran in the opposite direction, thus the tail viewing. Oh, she was not afraid of the mother and dog reunion, the love which dares to speak its name. Ann darted into Juno's house. Became a squatter. Left Juno out in the cold, looking in, wondering how it all went so horribly wrong. Ann is kind of smart for a dumb dog. I did not hear a scuffle, so I think Juno joined her in the squatter cottage.

Once I entered the kitchen, I heard The Pony snort, "Look what just happened." He rounded the corner, holding out his glasses. Great. One more thing we need to deal with, repair, and pay for. The right lens was in one hand, the frames in the other. This is a big deal. The Pony absolutely cannot see without his glasses. "Oh, well. I can still see with my left eye." Such a cockeyed optimist, our Pony.

Straight from The Pony's mouth, he had done absolutely nothing except set down his burden, take off his shoes, and catch the lens as it fell. The tiny screw was still in the frame. He put the whole kit 'n' caboodle on the kitchen counter, and went off to seek a small screwdriver. A task that might sound easy enough, for one with acceptable vision. He came up from the basement, and commenced tightening that screw. Farmer H chose that opportune time to enter the Mansion.

Farmer H: "Do you need me to fix it?"

Pony: "No. I'm fixing it."

HM: "You might want to put the lens in before you tighten it too far."

Pony: "It's fine."

HM: "Snap it in."

Pony: "Hmm. Won't go."

HM: "Loosen the screw."

Pony: "I am."

The Pony had to loosen the screw enough that the top part of the frame came loose from the bottom part again. As if no progress had been made at all.

HM: "Now pop it in."

Pony: "I am."

HM: "Let me hold it."

Pony: "I can do it."

Farmer H: "Do you need me to fix it?"

Pony and HM: "NO!"

HM: "Here. I'll hold the two parts of the frame together while you screw it in."

Pony: "Okay."

I swear. Some days that Pony has a little horse-donkey in him. And a lot of his father.

I Think I've Bitten Off More Than I Was Chewing

Don't give Mrs. Hillbilly Mom any lip. She has enough lip of her own. A plethora of lip, one might say, if one was wont to use the word plethora, and refer to oneself as "one."

I have a fat lip. A lip that could have its own show, My 600 Pound Lip. As lips go, mine needs to go on The Biggest Loser. I need to lose this inverted, lower-lip, last-trimester sextuplet-baby bump that appeared over the weekend. Oh, I'm sure this bump behemoth did not simply appear. I have a hunch that I had a little something to do with it sprouting full-bloat from just off-center, stage right.

For the life of me I cannot remember what I was up to, what I was chowing down on so overzealously that I bit my own lip like a crocodile chomping a divot out of a hippopotamus butt. Sure, maybe you've tried to masticate the inside of your cheek during a bout of gluttony. That's not pleasant, but it's not nearly so painful as biting a bit of tender flesh from your own bottom lip. INADVERTENTLY!

It's not like I go through my chewing life daintily nibbling the kernels off an inch-long ear of baby corn, like Tom Hanks in his white tux at the fancy buffet in BIG. I don't know why my incisors took it upon themselves to slice and dice a mouthful of food, rather than leave that undesignated task to the bicuspids. You'd think Mrs. HM has teeth like Bugs Bunny, gnashing her horizontal inner bottom lip like a crisp carrot pulled out of his furry invisible pocket.

I thought the wound was winding down, healing from the inside out, receding gradually each day. This morning, the raw, raised, pencil-eraser-size nodule was a mere shadow of itself. Until lunch. When I chewed through it while mincing a mouthful of leftover pizza.

It feels like this thing has its own zip code.

Like Brother, Like Pony

Perhaps I've mentioned that The Pony needs an IQ test. It's not so much that he needs the test. We all know that he has an IQ. What The Pony needs is an IQ test SCORE, to send in with his application for that Mizzou smart kids summer symposium thingy that will be held for three weeks in June. He's been chomping at the bit to get over this hurdle. Besides, he just really likes tests.

The last time his IQ test was scheduled, the person who dropped it off at Newmentia forgot to include the scoring sheets. So it was postponed until the next day. Except that the next day, there was snow, and we missed school. The day after that was practice day for the Smartypants team. And the day after that was a Smartypants competition. And the day after that was a basketball make-up date marathon of four games. So...the IQ test was tentatively scheduled for today. We assumed it would be after school, as planned in the past.

In the halls of Newmentia this morning, I encountered the would-be test-giver. "Hey, I'm looking for The Pony. Our certified test-giver called, and says she can give The Pony his IQ test this morning at Basementia. I can run him over there." I told him of The Pony's schedule, and while I was in class introducing my students to Sciencebuddies, The Pony was whisked away to have his brain picked.

I saw the young fellow kicking up his heels in the lower hall after strapping on the feedbag. "How was your test?"

"Easy. At least it seemed that way to me."

After school, The Pony revealed that he had been called out of first hour to the office. "Did you think you were in trouble?"

"Not at all. In fact, I told the people sitting by me, 'It's probably about my IQ test.' I found out that's what it was, and went back to get my stuff. Then I got driven over to Basementia in a sportscar. Boy, was it low to the ground!"

It seems that a parent meeting suddenly came up, so The Pony was pawned off on another, who most likely volunteered in order to grab a quick smoke on the way back to Newmentia from Basementia. I suppose those with a habit abhor the smoke-free workplace, and long for the olden days of smoke-filled rooms where teachers lounged between classes.

I know nothing of IQ tests, but have heard names bandied about. I asked The Pony if he knew what kind of test he had, perhaps a Wechsler, or a Stanford-Binet. He said he was pretty sure it was a Wechsler. The more he described it, the more in the dark I was. All I remember of testing from the one-room schoolhouse was when the schoolmarm gave us an "achievement test" every spring, and it was the Stanford-Binet, and it was a written entity. The Pony said his whole thing was responding to what the Tester showed him, or asked him. Huh.

"I think I did pretty well. There were only three of the vocabulary that I didn't know. And one of them, garrulous, was in Short Stories class, that Mark Twain jumping frog story, when I got back from testing! So NOW I know what it means. And another one sounded like abhor, so I said to strongly dislike, but it wasn't abhor, but I don't know what it was. Then there were sequences like where the letters go in alphabetical order, but the numbers are reversed. That was okay until they got to around eight in a sequence. And there were block designs, which I knew all of them except the last one. I can't wait to see how I did."

"Well, I guess they'll tell you your score. Or they might tell me. Or they might just send it in with your application. I'll check on it tomorrow."

Yeah. Sometimes The Pony is totally like his brother. The one who bounced out of bed one morning in his early elementary years, and declared, "I can't believe the moment I've been waiting for my whole life is finally here! I get to take the MAP Test!"

The Mending-Heel Case Here

My sweet, sweet Juno came out of her house today to greet me. I think that's a sign that she's feeling better.

Of course, the heartless Mansion-dwellers who accuse my four-legged soulmate of nosing into the groceries, eating eggs on the sly, chasing chickens, eating cat food without permission, peeing on the SIDE of the house on the garage end of the porch, and deny her entrance into our home have declared that she comes out of the house and performs her dogly duties as normal. Sure. Sure she does. To hear them tell it, she runs after the Gator down to the creekside cabin a couple of times per weekend day, and sprawls in the front yard soaking up sun, and accompanies the other two fleabags on their midnight barking tour. I don't see it.

For the last week, Juno has been in her house every time I open the kitchen door. With great effort, she hops out to gobble up special treats that I save for her, treats that I don't want to put inside her house because she might eat some cedar shavings while licking them up. Sometimes, she grabs her treat and runs back inside her house, growling to discourage any furry ne'er-do-wells who would have her treat as their own. I know she loves her warm house in its prime location. Her big fat foot makes it hard to step over the board Farmer H nailed on her threshold to keep those cedar shavings inside.

Every time I go out, I reach my hand in to pet my sweet doggie. I hear her tail thump the side of her shingled house. She's a black dog in a dark interior, so I can't always see what's going on. I DID see that Farmer H had indeed given her the special snack of deli ham that was left over from last week's Pony lunch fodder. I could see that he'd given it to her, because he set the entire plastic tray thingy inside. Seriously? How hard would it be to grab that wad of ham and hand it to her mouth? So Juno had laid in her home with a clear plastic ham tray in her foyer all night. I'm surprised she didn't eat the plastic. She's a busy one, that Juno. Until now.

Today I went outside around noon, on the way to town to give my mom the used tabloids and some leftover fried rice and sweet-and-sour sauce (sorry, Juno). I spoke to Juno. AND SHE HOPPED OUT OF HER HOUSE! She did not put weight on her right front foot, but it was almost normal size. I guess she's on the mend. She wobbled all the way around to the side porch, and stood for our forgotten lovefest. My sweet, sweet Juno, smelling of cedar, warm black silky fur, loving hazel eyes, and...dry black nose. I didn't have to taste it to know she's not 100% yet. At least her nose was cold, not warm like it was the last couple of days.

Farmer H said he tried to look at her foot again this afternoon. "She didn't want to come to me, because she knew what I was up to. I got ahold of her, and felt her toes. She didn't seem to mind that very much, but when I pressed here, on the heel part of her palm, she pulled away like that hurt her. I didn't see any cuts or anything in it. I think she's getting better."

So sayeth Farmer H, Dog Doctor.

Every Ga-rage Has Its Pooper

Farmer H spent several minutes yesterday afternoon fiddling with my broken garage door spring. Instead of removing it and letting me go get a replacement made this morning. At least he manipulated that door into full openage. Then he drove T-Hoe inside. I don't know what he's been doing every time he pulls his $1000 Caravan in there each evening that makes him so oblivious, but he came into the Mansion all a-flutter.

"Something has been pooping in the garage!"

"Yes. It's been like that for about a week now. Right along the wall by where I get out. At first I thought it was just a pile of leaves that blew in. Then I stepped in it one day when I got out. What do you think it is?"

"It's them cats!"

"No. They haven't done it before. They just vomit. Besides, you put in that new cat door for them. And it doesn't smell like cat poop. That's very distinctive."

"It's them cats."

"I don't think so. I rented a house one summer with five girls. One had a cat that had kittens. She couldn't get them out from behind the sectional couch. They crapped all over the wood floor. It stank like...well...like...um...crap! I'll never forget the smell of cat crap. That's not it."

"What else would it be?"

"I don't know. A possum? A raccoon? You said a raccoon came in through the cat door. I've seen a possum on the porch eating out of the dog pans."

"I don't know what it was, but it wasn't just one pile under those leaves. There were turds all down that wall! I'd say there were five piles!"

"Huh. It just looked like leaves to me. Did you shovel them out?"

"Yeah I shoveled them out! It was them cats."

"No. I don't think so. You need to pour some bleach out there on each spot where the poop was. That'll keep whatever it was from pooping there again. I would do it, but I don't want to splash bleach on my clothes."

Heh, heh. Shoveling poop is a man's domain. Besides, he pays for a uniform service. Too bad, so sad, if his clothes get blotchy.