Me & JP, M is for Man Parts and Mailboxes…
JP is our youngest grandson who turned five in September. He and his mom and dad 
lived with us while they were building their house a year ago. Though they’ve moved into their new house now, we still get to pick him up from preschool on Tuesdays and Thursdays and spend the afternoon with him. Next year he’ll be in kindergarten all day. He’s so full of fun and remarkably wise for his years!
For Blogging A to Z, I’ll be sharing some of our many conversations over the last few years. I hope you enjoy.
Today is a two-fer. This is the first post I made about Me & JP, back when he was just three years old…
JP: Nana, do you have man parts?
Me: No, I have lady parts like mommy. You know, girl parts.
JP: Do you have a butt?
Me: Yes, everybody does. Even animals do. Like Chief and Inga and Tank (our dogs.)
JP: They have tails, too, Nana, right?
Me: Right, and bunnies have tails (glad for the subject change.)
JP: And horses have tails and bunnies have little tiny fluffy tails, right? (In that high-pitched, squeaky voice)
Me: Right.
JP: And I have man parts, right, Nana?
Me: Yes, you do.
JP: Right here (grabbing himself proudly, ala Michael Jackson…)
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And this is from one of my favorite days when you have to turn away before laughing…
Me: Guess what? Before Mommy left for work I saw a skunk crossing the street in front of our house this morning.
JP: What was he doing?
Me: He just came across the street and sat by the neighbors’ driveway. Then I went to tell Papa and the skunk was sitting right by our mailbox. And a minute later, he went behind Papa’s car!
JP: But, Nana, why was the skunk by the mailbox? Was he checking the mail?
An Early Weekend Update…
Wanted to give you an update on Inga, my Norwegian Elkhound, and her recent run-in with a skunk. Now that she is an older lady of 12, she apparently thought it was a good idea to chase a skunk out of our backyard a few weeks ago. The skunk did not take kindly to being chased. Some background — I was supposed to see one of my favorite authors, Kristan Higgins, at a local bookstore signing, but hubby ended up in a hospital 30 mile away that day. My oldest son was out of town on business (he and DDIL, our 3-year-old grandson and Tank, their English bulldog, are staying with us while building a house) and my younger son was home with our dogs.
I got home from the hospital at about 8 p.m., let the dogs out and a few minutes later let Chief in. He’s our Chow terrier mix (I know, weird mix, but sweet) and then Inga ran to the door like the hounds of hell (or a little skunk) were behind her. The smell hit my nose the minute I opened the door for her, so I grabbed her collar and pulled her through the house into the garage before she rubbed on anything, but believe you me, that smell lingers! Why didn’t I just leave her in the backyard? I have no idea…
I immediately texted DDIL, who was picking up Tank and Dear Grandson from the other grandparents who were babysitting, telling her when you get here, do not open the garage door, Inga is in there and smells awful!
As soon as they got in the house, we put Dear Grandson to bed, with him complaining the whole time, “But I want to see the skunk,” and corralled Tank in the sunroom and Chief in the living room. Long story short, DDIL went out and bought a quart of hydrogen peroxide to mix with baking soda and dish soap which we scrubbed on Inga in the driveway in the dark at 9 p.m., let it sit for ten minutes then hefted her (she weighs about 60 pounds on a slim day!) upstairs into the hall bathtub to rinse and repeat. All the directions I found online said don’t get it in the dog’s eyes, so I didn’t — but that also meant I didn’t really get the smell off her muzzle, either. And so, the smell lingered…
The next day my brother said, “Put out dishes of vinegar to absorb the odor, that’s what we did when our dog got skunked.” So I did. And I sprinkled baking soda on the rugs and vacuumed and revacuumed and still the smell lingered. And it now smelled a little like a skunk dyeing Easter eggs…
I finally hit on what I thought was an ingenious idea — use my Neutrogena make-up remover sheets (which safely take off my eye make-up) so they should be safe for the dog, to scrub Inga’s face. Well, it took a few days, but it finally seemed to help. Or maybe just enough time passed that the smell faded on its own..
And now we’re back to what passes as normal for us. (And Neutrogena people, if you’re reading, Inga might be available for an endorsement if the price were right.)
Original Inga post Monday Musings…
Monday Musings…
Did you ever notice how words, even though they are just a relatively short group of letters, have such power over us? This past week some of my least favorite words were biopsy, tumor, surgery, specialist – well, you get the idea. My stomach churned with fear, time kind of stopped and everything was bleak.
Then just as suddenly all was right again as we heard all clear, extremely lucky and laparoscopic! We were on a roller coaster of emotion, with the diagnosis changing from possible Stage 4 to not even a tumor. Leaving hubby to rest, I triumphantly drove home from the hospital 30 miles away to eat and let the dogs out and just as quickly my least favorite words changed to dog and skunk and spray!
After the peroxide, baking soda and dish soap sudsing, followed by another bath with pet shampoo, my Norwegian Elkhound, Inga, kind of resembles a cotton ball. Hubby is home from the hospital, not fully recovered but well on his way to feeling better.
I’ve been cleaning with a vengeance to rid the place of any lingering smell — vacuuming, mopping and setting out small dishes of vinegar to absorb the odors. So now my house smells only faintly like a skunk dyeing Easter eggs <grin>
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