The Pitbull "Incident"

This past weekend, Tölpel and I were attacked by 2 pitbulls. In my front yard. It was a horrifying experience. Jake was out of town, and we were going to the farmer's market. I had my hands full, and the leash wrapped around my wrist when these two pitbulls came from nowhere and started sniffing Tölpel. I got pretty scared and started to try to walk away. At this point, both dogs jumped on Tölpel and started biting his neck. Tölpel began to try to fight back, while screaming (you know, that awful high pitched noise they make when they're hurt)... and I cannot drop the leash. He can't get away.

I'm screaming "GET OFF MY DOG GET OFF MY DOG" at the top of my lungs and against everything I know that I'm supposed to be doing in this situation, I reach behind the head of the more agressive pitbull and pull him off of my dog. I quickly grab Tölpel and hold him. The pitbulls are surrounding me, trying to nip at Tölpel's feet, and the neighbors are all looking.

My neighbor from 3 houses down, Neil, has come running at this point with some sort of pitchfork/shovel thing and he tells me to take the dog inside. "I can't" I said through tears. "This one is following me." He comes and waves his pitchfork at the dog. The dog doesn't run away, but it distracts him enough that I bolt for my front door. I found my keys and got a bleeding Tölpel inside the house. By this point, the pitbulls have scattered. Neil comes and makes sure that I've gotten in the house ok, and tells me to make sure that Tölpel is ok.

I start checking Tölpel all over, but I can't find where he's bleeding from. It's not bad, and surprisingly none of the skin on his neck is broken (where most of the biting was). I called Jacob and my dad, and they tell me to call animal control. At this point, the doorbell rings. Neil had called the police.

The police officers informed me that they had caught the dogs, found the owners, and animal control was going through the vaccination records of the pitbulls. They realized that the blood was coming from Tölpel's ear, so they had me turn it over for them, and then they took my statement and ran my id and sat with me until animal control came. She informed me that the pitbulls were from responsible pet owners who had thankfully had the dogs vaccinated. We looked at Tölpel and decided he didn't need stitches, and a small scrape on my arm and determined it wasn't broken skin. She let me know what to do if either of our conditions changed, and she filed her own report on the whole situation.

We're both fine - Tölpel's ear is almost healed. And he seems to have forgotten about the incident - although he was certainly upset and behaved a little strangely the rest of that day. He got a big bone for being such a brave boy. I have been really struggling with fear though. Fear of going in my own yard. Fear that the dogs will be back in my yard when I get home at night. I've talked to Jake about it, and he put things in pretty good perspective - "For a girl that's been through a tornado and a pitbull attack in the last month, you're remarkably unscathed."

And after hearing some other horrible dog stories lately, I realized that the owners weren't lying when they said "They really are sweet dogs; we can't believe this happened." Of course, I didn't know that at the time, but in hindsight - they didn't bite me. They didn't break the skin where they were biting Tölpel. They didn't attack me when I picked Tölpel up. No one required stitches or plastic surgery.

Jake came home early and he and my brother in law repaired our fence, so that I could feel safe at least in the backyard. And I'm making Neil a cheesecake.

Guest Post: Train Up a Cuke in the Way it Should Grow

As many of you know, Mary Beth and I began our foray into vegetable gardening last summer. It was an experience, indeed. We both brought a good deal of knowledge to the bed, the result of good parenting I guess. Nevertheless, we made a few blunders.

One in particular concerns the effective utilization of support when growing cucumbers. "Wait. Do you mean to tell me that a vine which produces, on average, 5 1-2lb fully mature cucumbers needs something to grow on?" Well, it wasn't quite like that.

Last year we were convinced that running a string from the fence to the deck, which had multiple strings running vertically, would suffice. Suffice it to say, it didn't. Before we were able to train the tendrils to grow up the hanging strings, they had already spread themselves out and started producing cucumbers. Ever try lifting 10lbs of cucumbers while untangling the vine from 5 other cucumber vines without destroying vine, leaf or cucumber? Had you happened to mosey on by the Diva household (I guess since I am guest blogging I must accept the terminology) on this occasion, you might have wondered if an anthropological explanation for the Diva and her man playing twister in their garden exists.

I digress. Much like a child we have learned that it is easier to beat the cucumber into submission early on...I mean carefully train... This enables each plant to soak up the sun, not crowd one another out, and produce lots of tasty treats.

I write this somewhat tongue in cheek. As the picture indicates to the observant gardener, we may have planted too many too close. But, in the case of my parents, sometimes it takes two attempts before the third turns out perfect.

When is it really too late for cookies?

Last night, around 10:30pm, I saw a friend on facebook post how she really just wanted a homemade chocolate chip cookie and to read a book.

Me: Jacob, is 10:30pm too late too make a batch of chocolate chip cookies?
Jacob: It is if you want to go to the gym tomorrow.

Me: ...

Diva Beauty Products

Who cares what makeup can do for you if you have 3 hours to get ready in the morning? What I want to know is, what can I do quickly, when I overslept but I have a big meeting, or the (future) baby kept me up all night, or I have a meeting at church and I just spent 8 exhausting hours in the office... What are the magic products that can make a huge difference in a short period of time. To me, this is the very definition of a diva beauty product.

So let me tell you about some of my favorites. (And as per usual, no one is paying me to do so. But I would gladly accept any and all forms of bribery and payment.)

Studio Gear Eye Primer.

This little tube of eye primer goes for about $15 bucks at my local Ulta, but is pure magic. And a little dab will do ya. I originally purchased at the suggestion of my (then future) sister-in-law for my wedding, but every time I wear it, people comment how nice I look. No one can ever quite put their finger on it, but to go from tired to complimented in about .2 seconds, it is well worth your money. Your eye shadow stays on longer, but more importantly it is smoother and you don't look tired anymore! I have found this makes the biggest difference of all my makeup. This is the tool of a true diva.

Hair Snood (Bow)

I'm sure all the truely fashionable people of the world are cringing over this, but for the rest of us mere mortals, this is my favorite diva tool. I can go from still damp, not really curly not really straight hair, throw it up in a pony tail and tuck it in this snood bow and I get compliments on how classy I look every time I wear this. So either I look super classy or people don't know what else to say about my awkward bow, and they go, "Oh Mary Beth you look so...... um.... classy! (but I really mean weird and old fashioned." Ah well, I choose to believe that I'm one classy lady! My favorite place to find these is the GirlsAreUs etsy.com shop (in case you are unfamiliar, this is a website that allows people to sell handmade crafts.) And you can't have the one in the picture, because I just bought it.

Bragging on Hubby!

I don't know if anyone here follows Dr. David Allen Black's blog, (who is one of Jacob's former professors from Southeastern Baptist Seminary, where Jake just received his Masters of Divinity) but Jacob got bragging rights today by winning a contest. (See June 7th, 2011 at 4:18pm) He also got one of Dr. Black's books and a shout out for his own blog, including a recent piece he did about religious education entitled "Has Christian Education Failed Us?"

Husband, you have grown so much as a teacher, a preacher, and a blogger in the last few years, and I am *so* proud of you. :)

A Sort of Guest Post: Wisdom from my Mom

My mom sent me an encouraging email concerning one of my previous posts about learning (at least 1 of the 7 remaining hours of the day.) I tried to cut it down, but there were just too many delightful bits, so here it is for everyone to benefit from:

My dearest daughter, of course you are learning something in the 7 hours you have left. You are learning whatever you are watching on TV -- that may be comedic timing or cultural awareness or the narrative structure of science fiction. When you play a video game, you are developing problem solving and fine motor skills, strategies for engaging learners, and the nuances of games other computer nerds of your generation obsess over -- which is sort of like learning to play golf in your profession. If you want to network professionally, you have to have social skills (albeit rather asocial ones) and credibility as a proficient in defeating the powers of darkness with your superdy-duper nanosonic lazerblastofistomacator. And if one of those does not exist yet, you are learning that it does not exist yet, which is important for when you develop your own game app for those little toys you guys carry on your belt clip, pretending that it's a phone. When you try out Martha Stewart's latest tips for your kitchen, you are learning what you should or should not try to pull off for an important luncheon with your future daughter-in-law's parents. When you gravitate toward learning things that you love, you are learning what you love -- which is a valuable thing to know.

When you were a wee bit younger and still unaware of the world beyond my womb, I read War and Peace and Charlotte Bronte's Shirley and her Villette and Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildefell Hall -- because I wanted to and I could and I didn't have to apologize for sitting around the house doing what I loved to do, which is read. Of course, I did feel somewhat guilty for wasting my days, but over 25 years later, when I was taking a Victorian literature course for the master's degree I had finally decided I had time to go after, we had to read Charlotte Bronte's Villette and Anne Bronte's The Tenant of Wildefell Hall -- and even though I didn't remember much from either book, they began to come back to me as I re-read them and loved them all the more for the skills I had developed through years of doing all kinds of other things -- and I have been constantly amazed at how the little nothings of my life have turned into valuable bits and pieces that begin to come together in my middle age (or is that already gone?) in very rich ways.

So learn a new programming language because that is what you love to do and give yourself permission to garden and try a new recipe and decorate your home -- and if you discover that you are better at some of those things than others or that you love some of those things more than others -- so what? I am still very proud of the fact that I can make a beautiful ice ring with pansies in it and that I once took pink cream cheese rosebud mints on a silver tray with a white lace doily underneath to a church social, and someone said, "Oh, I knew you made those. You are just the sort of person who would bring something classy like that." (Of course, I'm actually just the sort of person who would bring a bag of BBQ Lays and a Diet soda, but it was a moment of triumph to seem otherwise for one brief shining moment.)

Well, I know you well, my dear, so I'm fairly certain that you won't read to the end of this message, so I can end with confidence admonishing you as I should. Mary Beth, what are you doing with your life? Get your butt out of the computer chair and go do something, for crying out loud. Why haven't you learned Russian and Serbian yet? You could meet someone in Germany who speaks those languages, and it could be very valuable to be able to communicate with them, and if you don't, you will lose a valuable networking connection. 97 indeed....you always did hang out with friends who had no aspirations. I always knew that Jessica ------- girl was trouble....

Have a great week. I love you.

Mom

So I decided to spend an hour studying the the narrative structure of a multi-episode story arch of Dr. Who.

Diva Garden Year 2

I haven't really blogged about the garden this year - mostly because it started out as an utter failure. All our seed pods rotted, we had to buy some plants at the farmer's market, and then the tornado hit, and it's been so hot that everything is dying... and yet...

The flower garden in the front yard looks great, and our butterfly bush is working. There were easily 20 butterflies on it this past weekend.

The garden is really starting to look good. It looks like we'll have potatoes, red onions, cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers, cayenne peppers and maybe a handful of bush beans. I'm really glad we decided to space the plants out this year. We're having a lot higher success rate.

My lettuce mixture is also doing nicely and i think I'll be able to start using the greens soon in salads, yum.

Even the composter that Jake and I designed and built is going really well. Look at all those worms and all that black gold! (I'm hoping Jake will write a guest post with our design plans for this compost along with what we learned.)

But most importantly are the blackberries. Now, you should know that blackberries, while being one of my favorite foods are a rare delicacy in the Domestic Diva household. They are just too darn expensive! But look at this gorgeous bush we planted last year. It is completely taking over. So please little birds and vermin, please do not eat my blackberries.