The DA in the TPA

A recent meme floating around on social media platforms stated:  "I'm using lettuce for toilet paper.  Today was the tip of the iceberg, tomorrow romaines to be seen."  Yes, it's a bit gross, but funny none the less.  The recent pandemic in the toilet paper industry is a real mystery.  No  one seems to have the exact answer as to why the shelves, in stores across the nation, have been wiped (no pun intended) clean of all toilet paper and anything papery that may be considered a facsimile of said coveted white roll. Maybe there is some new craft idea, floating around the web, that is making coffee and end tables out of the mega packs of toilet paper.  My mother-in-law, God rest her soul, would have never been caught up in this toilet paper madness.  The stairwell in her house, that led to the second story, which was rarely used after her children left the nest, was so full of toilet paper that one could have easily been buried by a TP avalanche at any given time of the year.  Every time I inquired as to why she had so much of it, she would always reply, "It was on sale!"  Smart lady.

One of the items people like to swap for toilet paper are the wet wipes.  This incredible feat of mankind started out for use on babies but soon became popular with people of all ages.  They have also become unpopular with a certain sector of the public, the plumber.  Why?  Because people flush them down the toilet....BUT, it is printed right on the side of the package, 'flushable', so what seems to be the problem?

Playing the devil's advocate, yes, they are flushable.  So are fish, small hamsters, jewelry, Matchbox cars, other small toys, socks, disposable diapers and money.  Indeed, if it will swirl round and round and then go down, it's flushable.  What many do not understand is that just because it can no longer be seen in the bowl, does not mean its sailing happily down the sewer system.  What can happen, using this flushing logic, is that these things, that do not disintegrate quickly, if ever, get lodged in the sewer pipe and can then cause all that flushing madness to come back to haunt the flusher.  Nothing better than to see it again, in the bowl, or better yet, on the bathroom floor, making it's way to the next room....usually in the middle of the night. 

Let's give the plumbers a break.  Let's not play the Devil's Advocate in this Toilet Paper Apocalypse and use some common sense.  Not only will the plumbers be happy, so will the front lawn that didn't need to be dug up from the house to the street.  

The Reset Button

Many electronic devices have a reset button.  It is usually a very tiny apparatus, located in some extremely obscure place on the device and can only be pressed with something tiny, like the end of a straightened paperclip.  Probably the most recognizable reset button is the little square that sits quietly between the two electrical ports on a GFI outlet.  Those are the outlets located closest to areas that are wet, like kitchens and bathrooms.

Pressing a reset button does just what its name implies.  It puts whatever the device is back to its original starting place.  In theory, it makes it just like it was, before ever being used.

Life has a way of hitting our reset buttons.  Recently, my better half and I had the opportunity to leave the city of Raleigh, North Carolina, a place we had called 'home' for four years.  Things were changing.  The apartment complex had been sold and when that reset button was pressed, nothing was as it was before.  Familiar faces and co-workers disappeared, tenants were leaving en masse and the place literally came to a grinding halt.  

A new opportunity arose.  A job offer.  The offer was from a place I call the "Beautiful Land of Pike".  Home.  Another reset button had been pushed.  We scrambled our belongings together, shoved them into a Uhaul truck and 18 hours later, we were home.  We arrived just in time to celebrate the end of the year holidays with family and friends.

Right before we bid Raleigh, NC farewell and during his last week of employment there, my husband hurt his back at work.  He and a refrigerator did not see eye to eye, while one moved the other, from  the back of a truck, down a ramp, in the rain.  Thinking it was just a wrenched back, he went to the chiropractor.  For a reason, unbeknownst to us at the time, the pain in his back did not go away and began to radiate around his ribs and across his stomach.  

Another reset button was about to be pushed.  The result of this was not going to be setting us back to normal because in the first week of February, we found out he has multiple myeloma, a blood cancer that likes to eat bones.  As of yet, this is not a curable disease, but treatable.  Its prognosis though, for a man who has worked with his hands and tools all of his adult life, was rather bleak.  Nothing heavier than 5 pounds can be lifted and, among other things, ladders are off limits.  

This reset certainly was not what we were looking forward to, but, it has made us reset our own thought process.  We have discovered that even though somethings are out of the picture, activity wise, others can be learned.  He can take a walk, with the ever so entertaining Jack Russell Terrier, Runtly, and they do so daily.  In fact, I've nearly lost my "he's my dog" status because Runtly rarely leaves his side.  He can read a book, run the sweeper and a dust mop, fix his own breakfast and learn Sudoku.  This last accomplishment is a work in progress.  It has given reason to rise early in the morning, to beat the next puzzle, or tearing the sheet out of the book, telling it what he thinks of it and slam dunking it into the trash.

Our lives, like the lives of so many others who face one of the many varieties of this disease, have changed.  It will not be exactly the way it was and we can only do one day at a time.  It has a weird comparison to what is going on in the world today.  There is a disease spreading around the globe.  It has put the entire population at a near standstill.  People are perplexed and some are afraid.  Perhaps planet Earth has hit the reset button.  Maybe it's a time for change, to not take things for granted, to learn new things, to take one day at a time. 

From The Desk of The Dog

Hello everyone!  It's Runtly, the ever so entertaining Jack Russell Terrier....JRT for short!  It has been so long since I have shared my adventures and boy howdy, do I have some adventures to share!

First, me and Mom and Dad have moved!  Mom says I'm not supposed to list myself first or use so many 'ands'.  I don't know what she is talking about, it's pretty clear than I'm #1 in the family AND what's the big deal with AND?  Anyway, we have moved to what Mom calls the Wonderful Land of Pike, I just call it home.  We used a great big truck to come back and I sat in the front seat, on Mom's lap.  We didn't stop, except when I needed to, and I stayed awake almost the whole trip!  Mom finally gave me a treat that has hemp in it.  I don't know much about that, but Mom says I said "far out" a lot for the remainder of the trip.  

I live in the country now and I LOVE it!  I can run and run and run and run!  I be looking pretty fit too, cos' all that runnin' makes for some mighty fine looking muscles.  I can bark all I want too!  I bark in the morning, afternoon, nighttime and at 3o'clock in the morning.  That last one usually gets me in trouble, but I'm sure there might be something out there in the dark that needs a good barking.

I have a new friend too.  I've known him for awhile, but this is the first time we have got to spend lots of time together.  His name is Max and he is a giant German Shepard.  He makes about 10 of me, but he is a gentle giant....until that time he put his giant paw on me to try to slow me down.  I let him know that was not acceptable in my book.  We have only had one fight.  I sorta came out on the short end of the bone too.  It was over a whiffle ball.  Max had it, I wanted it.  The next thing I knew, my head was in Max's mouth.  I even have a boo boo on my nose, right between my eyes, for proof.  Max's mom and my mom say we can't play whiffle ball anymore.

I live by some water now.  It's way bigger than the puddle we lived next to in the big city.  Mom says this water is called a lake.  Me and Mom walked down to the water the other day.  Mom says she likes to go there to ponder.  I don't know what that means, I just like to go to sniff new smells and perhaps find something delightful to roll in.  Mom makes me wear my shock collar when we go.  See, I hear just find, but everyone says I don't listen.  Humans are so confusing at times.  So, we went to the big water and as usual, I went off to explore, ahead of Mom.  When Mom got to the edge of the water, I was no where to be seen.  Mom said she listened for the sound of rustling leaves and there was no noise.  Mom called me and she pressed the button on the remote for the shock collar, still nothing.  Umm, that's another thing about humans, they think we canines don't know why sometimes the shock collar just makes a noise or sometimes it bites.  I could hear Mom calling me and I could see her.  Every once in awhile, when I was close enough, I could even hear the collar make a noise.  See, it had been really cold for a few days, before this adventure and all the water had turned white.  It was white and cold and slippery and made for some great new territory to explore.  Mom says the water was frozen.  She says that she caught something moving out of the corner of her eye and it was me.  Way out on the frozen lake, just emerging from the fog that was beginning to rise off the ice.  We had to go back to the house after that, Mom said I ruined her ponder time.  The next time she went, I didn't get to go.  Mom is mean.

Mom says enough adventure sharing for the time being.  Besides, there's a leaf moving outside in the breeze and I'm sure it needs a barking!  Woof!