My Mom, The Embellisher!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

I talk to my mom on the phone almost every single day and most of the time she likes to mention that the ladies she eats dinner with got the biggest kick out of some story she told about my dogs and me.  It is getting so I can’t tell her anything about Fudge or Vern or she turns it into a comedy routine for the table she sits with at dinner.  I really think her main goal is to make me sound nuts to get a good laugh. Who does that at their daughter’s expense? 

 

Fudge and Vern have had the same dog sitter since the day I brought them home.  I lucked out with our dog sitter when we had our other dog, Honey, who had separation anxiety. 

After we lost our Hershey, I searched high and low for another Lab, but I was always sure to click off on any dog that had separation anxiety.  I have never been good about leaving our dogs and having a dog that was terrible at being left was not going to be a good combination for me.  Then I came across Honey at a Lab rescue. She was ten and seemed like a great fit right up until the first time we left her for two hours and came home to find our beautiful wood door chewed and scratched to smithereens.  Talk about second thoughts. I kicked myself for days about having to have another dog and somehow ending up with the exact opposite of what I had been looking for in the dog world. We all know that even the most neurotic dog can find a way into our hearts and Honey did just that within a few days. She was a hard dog for our family, but I loved her like crazy and knew that in order to survive with her I had to find a solution to being able to leave her and still come home to an intact house. Crating her caused almost as much stress as not crating her.  She hated doggie daycare and I don’t think the old yellow dog that wouldn’t stop barking all day was ever a favorite of the staff. They probably had a party the day I stopped bringing her.

 

Luckily, at about the same time I was looking for a dog sitter, our dog sitter was starting up her new business.  I interviewed her and she said she would be happy to come and let Honey out during the day.  I said I must not have explained myself clearly and she obviously misunderstood my sobs and pleading for someone to help me, because I was far more desperate than I was acting and I needed someone to take Honey to their house and keep her when I had to leave the house.  I don’t remember if she tried to escape my house at that point, but I think she could sense that it would be a fight to reach her car unharmed and agreed and the rest as they say is history.  She was our wonderful pet sitter for Honey and has been with Fudge and Vern since I brought them home.  Our dogs love her and we have had a great pet sitting arrangement up until December when she informed me she was giving her business to one of her assistants and getting a job with insurance benefits.  I am a little ashamed to say that all the while she was telling me about how tired she was of the long hours, having to work holidays, early mornings, late nights, and no benefits, I was thinking, “what about Fudge and Vern?”

Sure, she is still available to take the Doodles for overnight stays, although I have not had her do that yet and I fear after one night with Vern she will tell me she is tired of the long nights, early mornings, and bathroom habits of a rather large Doodle. 

 

It has been over a month and I miss her so badly and I really think the Doodles do, too. Vern has been moping around the house and was not eating very much and the day she was available to take them last week he knocked over a table in his exuberance when he saw who was at the door and gobbled down his dinner that night. I was telling my mother all this and the next day on the phone she mentioned that my dogs and I were the main topic of conversation at her dinner the night before and as she was telling her lady friends about my dog sitter, one of the women got very excited and said, “You mean to tell me, your daughter has a babysitter for her dogs?” She said they couldn’t stop laughing and one thing led to another and I said, “tell your nosy friend that if she had taken better care of her pet dinosaur when she was younger they probably wouldn’t all be extinct by now.” I then went on to explain that she was called a pet sitter, not a babysitter, but my mom kept laughing and said she couldn’t wait until dinner to tell her friends that there was a difference.

 

It is getting so I can’t tell that woman one thing about my dogs or she rushes right back to tell those other women what I said.  One word about Fudge and Vern getting Christmas sweaters or me lifting Fudge up and down off of our bed because she doesn’t like to jump up or down from there or that Vern wants to say hi to grandma on the phone and I can just tell she is writing it all down so she doesn’t forget a single word I said. 

I have even had her say, “Vivian is going to love this story,” or “Florence won’t believe this one.”  Those lady friends of hers get on my nerves.  They’re like a gang of oldies dispensing judgment about my dogs and cackling at my expense and my mom is the instigator. 

 

The day I told her I had to take in Vern’s urine sample to the vet and getting a good one had been a tedious task, I think all the laughing she did probably caused her to make her own involuntary urine sample.  When I told her I tried to catch the sample in a plastic cup, but Vern kept getting spooked when I showed up with the cup and subsequently peed all over my hand twice and I hoped the vet could wring the sample from my hand and coat sleeve, she said something like, “this one is going to bring down the house.”   The other morning I almost didn’t tell her that the dogs got me up in the middle of a snowy night and wouldn’t go down the back steps until I stood outside in the cold and said in a sing songy voice, “go get the squirrel!”  One of these days I will learn, but on that day there was a lull in the conversation and when I told her my clever squirrel trick, she said, “oh for heaven sakes, you have a screw loose.”  Then a couple days later she told me she had told that story at dinner and she thinks one of the women, a tender hearted 100 plus old lady, didn’t like the part where she said her daughter had a screw loose and she hopes she wasn’t offended.  So I said, “god forbid you offend an acquaintance when you were just calling your daughter bad names and making fun of her,” and she said, “I know, right? It just doesn't make sense to me.” It seemed like the irony of my statement went right over her head.

 

Then as quick as she finished telling me I was nutty, she started talking about getting out to see her cemetery plot one of these days and making sure she was going to be in the same spot. Well, I said the one thing that always makes her laugh, “make sure you are still on the corner lot, next to the road, so we can just drive slowly by and throw the flowers out the window without having to get out of the car.” Of course, in between her loud guffaws, she said she couldn’t wait to tell her dinner friends what I had said and then added that she had told that story once at one of her bridge clubs and most of the woman had been appalled.  In between laughing, we both agreed she had made the right decision when she quit that club and it was important to make friends who understood a good joke. 

 

Today, I spoke with her on the phone and as we were finishing our conversation, I told her Vern was laying on top of me in John’s recliner and Fudge was on the floor right next to us biding her time until Vern got off.  I told her I knew she wished she had a Vern or a Fudge to cuddle with and she said all the women she eats dinner with had already discussed that if they ever got a dog it would be a Bichon Frise.  Apparently, someone has one in her complex and she had the nerve to say that dog was the best dog she had ever, ever, ever seen. It was all the “evers” that really irked me and I reminded her she has seen Fudge and Vern.  With that comment, she said she was a good Missouri Synod Lutheran and she could not tell a lie.  Well, who could blame me when I said, “mom, just remember what I said about getting that corner plot,” and we hung up with her still laughing into the receiver.

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

 No Joke, I do, do Drive Bys at my father's grave.  Opps.

It just happens to be on my way to some of my favorite places.  I never like the spot my sister picked out so I just drive by and wave

My mother also makes fun of me.  She said once I should have had more dogs instead of children. Gasp. 

[Miss Ellie]

I would love to be a mouse in the wall...listening to the stories your mother tells Laurie...if they are only half as funny as yours are...I'd never stop laughing:)

[Lonnie & Libby Lu]

There is that saying "at one point we all turn into our mothers" and in this case it is a GOOD thing!  Love your Mother stories and sounds like we know where Laurie gets her humor from!  It would be fun to sit at your Mom's table one night with all her lady friends and their conversations!  

[F, Calla & Luca]

Of course : ) and you know how fond I am of your mom and it travels down the line.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

F, And my daughter is a much younger version of the both of us :) LOL

[F, Calla & Luca]

What a great insight about you and my favorite LOL, you mom. In this instance LOL stands for little old lady : )

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Karen, LOL...I am sure I could get you an invitation :)

Nancy, I know you like my mom stories :) Thank you!

Cheryl, It scares me sometimes how much I can be like my mom. I am not sure a visit from Fudge and Vern would make my case stronger about Doodles versus a Bichon Frise. LOL

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Laurie, I wish I could have dinner with your mom and her friends, I would set the record straight for you! 
And have a lot of laughs doing it! 

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

I love when you tattle on your mom.  Turn about is fair play!

[Cheryl and Finnegan]

Still laughing!  How's that saying go?  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree?  I think it's time you take Fudge and Vern to meet the ladies : )