Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Heat, Twitter, Spaniel-Dog & Punctuation

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It is sooo hot and humid, lately. Summer's here, with a vengeance. It'll probably be a few months before I spend any truly enjoyable time outside. ;o) I may exaggerate a bit. . .

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I guess Twitter is another of those places where people try to build up some sort of reputation for themselves. That's the only thing that would explain why random strangers (seemingly with little or nothing in common with me) suddenly decide to "follow" my twitterings-- or why, when I look at their profiles, I see that they're following thousands of other people. (One person is following over a hundred thousand twitterers!)

I don't necessarily mind if they "follow" me; I simply don't understand why they do it. They can't actually be reading all those twitters. I can barely keep up with the few people I'm following! ;o)

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My lovely psycho spaniel-dog decided this morning to go into the jungle behind the shed-- and stay there for a while. (She does try my patience, sometimes.)

I'd just come home from a quick errand. Even though it wasn't yet 10 a.m., it was already hot and steamy, and I figured Molly would want to come inside with me. I called her and soon heard her barking from behind the shed, but she refused to come.

My first thought was, "Oh great. She's found a snake!" That would be bad news at any time, but for her to find one now would be particularly bad timing, as it would be hard for me to get someone to come help quickly, today. (We really need to get a gun appropriate for shooting snakes. . . If I could even manage to get my crazy dog far enough away from the snake for me to try shooting it!)

Anyway, she soon stopped barking-- which made a snake seem unlikely. (She barks herself hoarse at snakes.) So then my pessimistic brain presented me with images of her lying in a stupor after being bitten-- or (even weirder) being constricted by someone's former pet python. (I think the heat was getting to me at that point.)

Peeking through the dense growth, I finally glimpsed her. She seemed fine, from what I could see, so I decided that she was either being obstinate (she has an admirable single-mindedness that is sometimes mistaken for pure stubbornness) or had become tangled in briars and was unwilling to pull herself loose.

After much fruitless finagling (with a squeaky toy and treats), I decided that I'd have to clear a path to reach her. Fortunately, her dominance proven ;o), she came out on her own before I had to get very deep into the jungle. I didn't see the big moment, as I was focused on cutting a path with a machete (or maybe something not quite that extreme), but she wasn't trailing briars, so I'm inclined to think she may have just been stubborn!

That settles it! The jungle behind the shed must be cleared. It hasn't been "pretty" for quite some time, but I honestly didn't realize it was that bad, as I tend to avoid that part of the yard. Things can spring up so fast, this time of year! And with a dog lacking the sense to stay out of jungles, something has to be done. . .

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I used to have a serious addiction to dashes (--), but now that seems to be overshadowed by my newer over-dependence on parenthetical statements (like this one).

. . . I mention this merely in passing, as I have no serious intentions of cutting back. Hyphens-- and now parentheses (what an odd word!)-- are some of the cheapest luxuries in my life, so I refuse to skimp. ;o) (Emoticons fall into this category, too, as you may have noticed. Only I do feel a bit ashamed of my addition to the smiley, the wink, and the "(g)". . . I fear I'm too far gone to be helped, though.)

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