Still The Same Beeping Life

I was heartened to see that yesterday's post had ten views. Ten people are still interested in my blatherings. (Is that a word?)

Or maybe they glanced, saw my gray roots picture and were blinded by the light reflecting off my silver hair and couldn't actually read my post.

(Can you tell this whole I'm-growing-out-my-gray-hair thing is pretty much an obsession for me right now?)

Anyway...heartened. So I'm pressing on with my blatherings.



Our smoke detectors started beeping their low-battery warnings in the middle of the night again. (ALWAYS in the middle of the night - what's up with that anyway?) That's always a delightful experience, because our dogs completely freak out whenever that happens.

Casey, a black lab, just stands there and trembles, which is heart-breaking. Prince, a chihuahua and Fred's pride and joy, barks, then runs under the bed. (I feel I need to reacquaint you with all our animals because it's been two years).

But Gypsy, a Chinese Crested mix, (she's new since I last wrote and how we acquired her is a long story for another time) has the most annoying reaction of all. It's not just barking, it's crazed, wide-eyed barking that does. not. stop. And in fact, gets worse as Fred brings the ladder in, yanks the detector off the ceiling, and buries it in the nearest covered container in the garage he can find (because they continue to beep warnings even after you take the battery out) until the next day when he's more awake and can locate and install batteries and put it back up.

Because we're all about safety over here.

Besides her barking, the other annoying thing Gypsy does is blame the guy with the ladder who is trying to remedy the situation, for the unpleasant and scary interruption of her slumber. And by "blame" I mean she aggressively goes after him and bites his ankles.

So that's pleasant for Fred.

And for our neighbor, for that matter, who no doubt hears all the ruckus in the middle of the night and who has no pets and gee, I wonder why someone would choose not to have any pets?

That's the same neighbor I mentioned here, who was less than enthusiastic about our Christmas crackers the year we moved in. No doubt he feels he dodged a bullet by not becoming friends with us.

Anyway...back to the smoke detectors. They gave their low-battery warnings, but we had just changed the batteries a month before and they were brand new batteries, so something was amiss.

We're renting so I let the property manager know and they sent out a guy yesterday. I knew that would mean beeps and ladders (not to be confused with Chutes and Ladders) and very freaked out dogs again. So I put the mongrels outside and blocked the doggie door until the smoke detector guy was finished.

This is Gypsy. She always has a frantic look about her.

This went over very well, as you can imagine. They could still hear the beeps outside and every time one sounded, Gypsy frantically barked and clawed at the doggie door, Casey trembled, and Prince ran off into the yard, looking for a bed to crawl under.

We were all relieved when the smoke detector guy left and I'm sure the feeling was mutual.

Turns out, smoke detectors have an expiration date. They have to be replaced about every seven years. Although our smoke detector guy (is there a word for such a person?) said really, they recommend every five years but being in the smoke detector replacing business, he probably has a vested interest in folks doing it sooner.

So that was my day yesterday. Riveting, I know.

Today I have to go through some crap in the garage because I'm doing a yard sale with my sister-in-law this weekend and I need to get the crap ready and make signs and do all that stuff that is so annoying and time consuming about having a beeping yard sale.

See what I did there?

So I better go.

But first I leave you with a picture of what I see when I walk into my kitchen, at any given time of the day, even after I've cleaned it up.

Dog food everywhere. Always.

And dog toys. And dogs.

The number and types of dogs may have changed, but the fact that my life revolves around dogs has not.

Still the beeping same,
Lori