The Ruby Rose Report: Who Moved My Cheese

 

Except for when the Christmas tree was put up, our house remains laid out the same way, which I like, because I am not a fan of change.

I like my beds and blankets in front of the TV, so I don’t miss an episode of my favorite program “Femu and Doug.” It was the perfect setup.

Then Daddy busted his recliner. The back part broke away from the front part. It was now just a cleaner.

First, my parents switched the cleaner with the lift chair. They got it years ago in case one of them can’t easily get out of their recliner. I imagine they left the broken chair in the living room as a warning to the other pieces.

Shortly after using it, Daddy realized the lift chair must have been for people more crippled than him; folks with no feeling in their butts, because the chair put his maximus to sleep, which was a shame because it was the liveliest part of his physique. It was like sitting on two metal bars that occasionally vibrated, which made for a fun Saturday night and a shameful Thursday.

 My parents, both of whom had twisted spines from trying to type on a laptop in a reclined position, creating the first two tummy tops, decided to get a small computer chair and table.

These fit in nicely where the lift chair from hell was. But once humans move one thing, it breaks the fung shui ice they couldn’t stop rearranging like they were in charge of seat assignments on the Titanic

First, my bed was moved to in front of the chest of drawers, and my Tornado and snuffle mats were put by the computer table. After a couple of days, they moved an end table from next to Mommy’s chair to next to the loveseat. I wouldn’t have minded but my favorite hideout, Pocket’s kitty condo, where I go to hide when I get stressed was under there, and, because moving furniture makes me nervous, I had to pad around the living room before I found it. Then they moved my snuffle mats and Tornado in between Mommy’s chair and the very slow and painful electric chair.

My parents have stopped moving things for now. As for me, I need to use the PAWZ app to use the GPS to get from the bedroom to the living room.

Hopefully the moving furniture, and touching my belongings with permission is over.

And if anyone sees Pocket’s kitty condo message me. 

Foley's Tails From Rainbow Bridge - Molly the Relunctant Angel

 

I have been at the Bridge, performing my duties as a judge, including swearing in new members, for 13 years. You would think a dog transitioning to the Bridge would not surprise me, but when Molly the Airedale passed I was stunned.

I knew our friend was suffering from dementia, which manifested itself by causing her to chew her paws, to the point that they were bloody and raw. My last contact with her was last Tuesday when she helped her Mommy make something delicious, and then, after a period with no paw chewing, Molly began again.

I planned on checking with Molly with a group of angels the next morning to try and encourage her not to chew, but only one angel appeared, Molly’s brother Mitch, and when I saw him, I knew Molly was on her way.

Molly, appeared, on the ghost side of the River of Life, near the Bridge, which she had to cross, or be sentenced to an eternity on the mortal side, where she would appear as a ghost, but never know love again, which is why Mitch ran over to the other side, and brought his sister to the immortal side.

We could both tell that Molly for the first time in months that she could think clearly and wanted to go back, even if it meant taking back all the pain and going back to existing in the fog that had plagued her in the final days.

“I pledged to my mom that I would never leave her,” a teary-eyed Molly insisted. “For richer and poorer, through sickness and in health.”

“You are forgetting the words added to the pet version, first to death do us part, followed by ‘and after that,” I explained. This was just a pause in the mother and dog relationship, and when they are reunited the worries and illnesses that had plagued them would be gone, and there is nothing ahead but joy.

Molly nodded, but her thoughts were on her mom, who had lost much more than a dog: A friend, a therapist, a companion, a soul mate, and the one constant in her life, always home, waiting to see her, exploding with joy each time she got home, and keeping the love flowing between them. Without Molly, that love, which always needs to move, stagnates in her, causing crippling pain.

It was Mitch who told Molly why she had to go to the Bridge. “If Mom only had one dog in her life, it wouldn’t be either of us, and we would have lived sad, long lives. But, by cutting down our life spans, we give other dogs the chance to love our mom. It is our gift to other dogs.”

Molly nodded, understanding her situation, and slowly accepting it. Mitch told her there were two important duties before her: One was to find a new dog for their mom so that the love stuck inside her could move again, and the other was to play like puppies.

They began zooming together like they had when they were kids.

For every passing, there is a reunion, which is as happy as the passing is sad.

Their running together was a sign of better days to come.

I hope for Molly’s mom the better days come quickly and ease the greatest pain of all.

It is dark now, but light and happiness always win.

At least on the immortal side.

Poetry Thursday

Once again, Angel Sammys and Teddys Pawetaton have provided us with a photo for Poetry Thursday.

At one point in his 25-year career

Klondike was a big star.

But he couldn’t stop sniffing camera people’s rear.

Which leads to big problems with HR.

 

Klondike was a very proud bear on the day he was hired.

Being a coco-cola spokesbear brought him great enjoyment.

But last week poor Klondike was fired.

And had to go into the city to file for unemployment.

 

First Klondike went to sensitivity training.

At a clinic behind the zoo

But the staff would not stop complaining.

And Klondike became a victim of #Metoo

 

His agent tried to save Klondike’s career.

And Klondike giving a press conference was his wish.

But the beat admitted he smelled woman’s rear.

Because it smelled like fish.

 

Klondike realized his career was over.

And was left with nothing be despair.

He thought he would be in clover.

If the woman had just used Lume.

 

At unemployment Klondike was denied

He didn’t have a prayer.

It wasn’t because of charges both made and implied

He couldn’t collect because he was a bear.

 

Undeterred Klondike swore he would get work.

But he had to return to Alaska after he did something disconcerting.

And forever label him an unprofessional jerk

He got caught on the subway his head in a dress and his nose upskirting.

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

Monday Question

 What is the oldest thing in your house that has been used by pets long before you moved into the house, and do you still use it?

 Ruby's answer: As you may have gussed it is Foley's Leopard skin vagina condo. It has been in our house for 14 years and Foley, Pocket, River and I have all used it

The Ruby Rose Report: A Garden of Worry

I am very worried about my garden.

Every spring, we venture out to work on the yard, which attracts all our elderly neighbors, who comment on how beautiful the property is. The good thing about living in an incontinent and older park is that everyone reacts to the gardens like they are new because the people who lived in their houses died over the winter and were replaced or slipped further into senility.

April is one of the most important months when it comes to landscaping. While there is little in bloom and looks sparse, it is the time when Mommy and her dogs, now me, plan the year’s work.

But, Mommy’s back, and knees, are making it impossible for her to work outside, at least for now, and my dad, who is more laborer than thinker has begun the work in the gardens.

We have told Daddy what needs to be done, but he is tired, and is as sharp as the eraser end of a pencil,

Plus, he is gullible, which usually works for me, and leads to me getting three treats whenever he goes into the kitchen to get a cookie. But there are new players involved, ones I cannot trust.

Mrs. Haversham and Dora, the feral cats, have made e their presence known under the house. The other night, just before light was out, one of them jumped on the outdoor rocker, slamming it into the house, and causing everyone to lose sleep, because I ran around and barked at them to be quiet for an hour.

I can smell mother and child cat watching my dad work and whispering in a manner that causes simple people to think they are having original thoughts. I am sure they are influencing him, and our gardens.

I discovered that cat like odd plants like Irish Moss and Ice Plants. We already have Rose of Sharon and Phlox. How long have then been planning this garden takeover?

I know they would live lots of mulch to poop in, and bird baths they can drink from. If I hear Dad is buying catnip I may have to put my paw down.

First, the cats take over your yard, then your house.

They are an especially tricky species.

And I will remain forever vigilant: Inside and out.

Foley's Tales From Rainbow Bridge : Lightning Strikes

 

This week, at Rainbow Bridge, a place that always has good weather, Lightning lit the sky. It wasn’t from a storm but because my bestie Lightning had arrived.

If the only reason for passing over is running out of heartbeats then Lightning would have stayed mortal for years because no one has a bigger, or more reliable heart.

If only his other muscles and bones had been as strong.

We all owe, from out first breaths, a trip to the Bridge, and when one, like Lightning, refuses to leave his mortal family and exists on a backlog of heartbeats, they take away his ability to move, which happened to Lightning, the once athletic, activity loving dog was reduced to lying in his bed, sometimes not having the strength to stand and relieve himself.

His parents knew how much Lightning wanted to be with them. He would have sacrificed everything to stay in his normal spot under the table, but because he is strongly loved, his parents made the hardest decision, to take on all the pain and sadness that Lightning was suffering from themselves and free him to be a strong, healthy puppy albert away from them, at the Bridge.

Pets are the only souls who, while facing the end, will gaze at the person who is bringing his transition, and look at them with all the love in the world, which Lightning did, in his final seconds, swearing to his parents his eternal love.

Inside his former home, the silence of his paw falls, barks, and breathing have drowned out any comforting sounds nature had to soothe his parents’, and siblings, Misty and Timber’s pain. But the silence slowly fades, as does their pain, and, while recovering is too tall an order, they get used to the pain, and can accept healing love again.

Meanwhile, although he misses his family, and wishes he was with them, he is running free with those from his pack who preceded him, Dakota, Phantom, Thunder, and Ciara. He visits his pack members, Misty, and Timber, in their dreams, which seem, for now, to confuse them, but soon will comfort them.

He visits his parents too, but they don’t recall the dream, someday, when they awaken, his passing won’t be the first thing they think of, and that is the morning after their mind accepts the dream visits and knows they will be together again.

When the Bridge gets a new angel there is a fresh star in the sky, but Lightning will be represented by the flashing bolts that light up the night sky.

From now on don’t look at Lightning as being scary.

It is just a treasured dog telling his parents he loves them.

 

 

Poetry Thursday

   

Once again, Angel Sammys and Teddys Pawetaton have provided us with a photo for Poetry Thursday.

Toby knew it was his last day

And by next morning he would away

So he vowed to live the day to the fullest

And complete what he had listed on his bucket list

The first was morning snuggle time with his mom

It was quiet but a lot of fun

“It’s time to go,” his mom did say

On the morning of his final day

They took a long walk in the woods

The one that surround their neighborhood

Then they went to a lunch buffet

A fitting meal for one’s final day.

They went to the pond for a swim.

Then to the groomers for a blowout and trim

Then he added a boat race to his resume

On this his final day

Finally there was one final thing

To go to the park and be pushed on the swing

He sat there for an hour swinging white the children cid play

On this his final day

Soon the sun was setting

And his mom could not stop petting

Then she took him home and put him on the couch to lay

And Toby said to death “not today.”

All dogs live the day like it is their last

Because you never know what the future has forecast

If Toby could speak he would say

“Live life to the fullest and enjoy every second of the day.’”

  

Wordless Wednesday

 

Beat This Caption

 

Explain this one more time. I get my Mom to kiss you, then you turn into a prince and make us all rich. Frankly, I'm not seeing it

Monday Question

 Where are your favorite spots in the house?

I love both my parent's chair, my bed and blanket by the TV, the little rug in the bedroom, and the big bed.

The Ruby Rose Report: The Broken Recliner

 

I love sitting in my reclining chairs. I can either lean against the back of it or lie at the foot. I even do it alone, something I believe is called masterchairin.

Last week I lost one of my reclining chairs.

Daddy was sitting in it, when there was a crack, and the back of the chair, on one side, became loose, almost swallowing him up, like a lazy Jonah watching The Good Doctor.

Let me stress it did not break because he is overweight, it broke because he has a fat ass.

First, he tried to fix it, reminding me of a child trying to staunch his father’s belly wound. There were no survivors.

My parents don’t have a basement, so they propped the broken chair in the corner, thinking no one would notice like the Buckets thought no one noticed the grandparents in bed in the living room performing a manage a four.

The sensible thing to do would be to go to a furniture shop and buy a chair, but my parents think they are smart, which makes no room for sense. So, they ordered a chair online.

Clothes, furniture, wine, and brides are four things you shouldn’t order online: But they did.

In the two days it took the chair to arrive my Dad sat in the electric chair recliner. I think it was made for mass murderers who want to be executed in repose. It is not that comfortable, but it does go up and down on its own, and vibrates so to my almost shut-in parents it’s like a ride at a Hooters located at Universal Studios. After sitting in it for a day he said what my mom said when he proposed: “It’s not what I want, but it will do.”

They could not cancel the chair, so it arrived in a huge box. I regretted we would not be able to see him put it together the 87,000-piece unit failing so often he would spend the night curled up on the hard floor.

It’s more comfortable than the electric recliner.

It was good that it was easily returnable, just bring it into Nat King Kohl. Nat will take anything.

But, the box wouldn’t fit in the car, so Daddy, took it apart, jammed it in with the collapsed box, drove to Nat’s place, took it out of the car, piled it into shopping carts, and then decided to check on how to return it, and saw that by no means should it be returned to Nat’s house, but should be left in the box, and it will be picked up.

So, Daddy returned home, took the box out of the car, put 87,000 strips of tape on the box, and then put it all back in the box, then left it to be picked up

Daddy went inside and fell asleep in the electric recliner.

At least he learned what you have to do to make it comfortable.

Foley's Tails from Rainbow Bridge: About that eclipse

 

All I wanted was a new bench for my chambers.

I ordered it from Judges’r’us and paid a premium to have it delivered. My mistake was hiring three bears movers without reading their motto: “You pack it, we break it and blame someone else.”

Luckily, they did not break my new bench. They just used their wings to bring it to the roof and left it there.

We were working late. I had my old bench removed that morning and I was facing being like the 1984 Cincinnatti Reds without their recently retired Hall of Fame catcher: Benchless.

The only way to get my bench to my courtroom was to have Pocket and River move it. They both balked, saying it was too heavy, but nothing is too heavy fan an angel, except eating a half dozen chocolate donuts before bed.

I told them to put it on their backs and slowly fly down to my office window where I would wait. They complained it was too bulky to move, but I told them they could do it.

I ran down to my office, looked out the window, and saw they couldn’t do it. They had lost control of the bench, which was rising, with them on top of it, to the sun.

Then I got a call from Ruby saying her Dallas friends told her that it suddenly became dark in the middle of the day, and I realized my sister had moved the bench in front of the sun.

Slowly, spreading across the heartland of America, my sisters, and my bench were causing an eclipse. The humans, not willing to accept two smallish dog angels, moving another one’s judge’s bench, could turn day to night.

Then over the Atlantic, my sisters dropped my desk into the ocean, and then tried to blame me, saying I should have known what would happen.

I ordered another bench and made sure neither bears nor dogs were allowed to move it.

The good news was that all the cases before me the next day were contested by angels too consumed with the eclipse to notice I was making my rulings behind a pool table.

Another in my long line of judicial embarrassments,

 

Poetry Thursday

Angel Sammys and Teddys Pawetaton gave us a picture for inspiration

Daddy said get the kids together we are going to the beach.

I grabbed my flip flops, my towel, anything I could reach.

But when we arrived I was left without speech

The only fish who could survive in this water would be a leach.

 

Mama said: “I thought we were going to someplace nice,

Not a patch of sand being watched by police vice.”

“There is nothing wrong,” Papa said “push away the grease.

And don’t drink the water or your dysentery will never cease.”

 

They stepped between the broken bottles and a discarded flat tire.

And tried not to hear the sound of sporadic gunfire.

But wading into the water they saw the quagmire.

Because the water lapping the beach was on fire.

 

“Let’s all go for a swim,”

Daddy said, most dim.

His son was texting cousin left-handed Tim

To tell him he recognized, floating by, his missing limb.

 

“I don’t understand, you all wanted to go to the beach,” Papa said.

His wife answered sharply “we wanted to go somewhere that we didn’t have to share a blanket with the dead.”

Papa reminded her they conceived their son on this beach the night they were wed.

She answered “that is why he has three nipples, one testicle, half a kidney and a thumb growing out of his forehead.”

 

She told the kids they would not be swimming there today

The beach had been closed by the EPA.

From the beach they quickly drove away

And three days later they needed their privates to receive an x-ray.

 

The family never returned to that part of the shore

And the mother lived the rest of her life indoor.

One daughter became a nun, the other a whore

While the son grew to resemble a minotaur

Wordless Wednesday

 

Beat This Caption

 "You listen to me Henry, I am tied of you going out alley catting all night, the litter box needs to be clean, we are low on mice, and the only thing in the ice box is your catnip. Are you listening to mel? Henry? Henry?"

Henry's plan to get away for a few hours worked to perfection. 

Beat This Caption

 What are you told not to do most frequently?

I am told not to get on the kitchen chairs and eat my parents meal as soon as they stand up

The Ruby Rose Report: Where is spring?

 

I have been waiting for April since the days became shorter and colder. I could put up with the frigid temperatures, and conditions which made a dog (Pocket’s editor’s note: “A fragile dog”) stay inside.

April came on a Monday.

I had a less satisfactory day than her.

Despite it being the beginning of April, it was cold, raw, and unpleasant. Like underwear from TEMU it did not arrive as advertised.

In fact, it has not arrived at all leaving me stranded in an endless winter of despair.

I visited Angel River in my dreams and asked her if she knew where spring was. She told me spring was as unreliable as a 16-year-old cheerleader working the drive thru at Dunkin’ Donuts to pay for camp. 

Like a child watching the sun rise on Christmas morning without a Santa visit I was worried that spring had passed us over like Fredo.

I began looking around the house for it, but there was no sign of spring. I asked Mrs. Haversham and Dora, my downstairs at borders if they had chased away spring. “I sleep on old insulation near your HVAC unit while the rain puddles around us,” Mrs. Haversham said. “If I saw spring approaching I would greet it with a big kiss.”

I decided not to remark that kissing everyone she saw was what led her to being an unwed mother sleeping under a house.

I asked my friends around the country, and they have not seen spring. The southwest has an eternal heatwave, not the 65-degree sunny day that was promised.

I have issued an Equinox Alert for spring. I asked if it’s put on the back of milk cartons, but I guess because of the environment they are obsolete.

I am worried it is part of a plan to rob us of spring, which schemed with the climate to do away with milk cartons, the most reliable way to find souls who wish to stay hidden.

We must act together. If anyone sees any signs of spring like rabbit droppings, dew on the grass, budding flower, and people watching baseball games not dressed for the bleacher seats at the Iditarod please contact me so we can bring the shy spring to show itself before the broiling heat of summer burns the grass before it had a chance to grow.

Together we can make American warm again.

 

                                                                                                                                         

  

 

 

Foley's Tales from Rainbow Bridge: King

 

A brief time before Easter the King arrived at Rainbow Bridge.

He left behind a devastated family, where he served as protector, best friend, child, clown, and the one soul who never let anyone down.

As a mortal dog King was perfect.

And now he will be a perfect angel.

His mom, Emilia, took from him all his pain, and suffering, before letting him go, so he could be met by his predecessors, and play with them liake a puppy.

The more you love a soul that went to the Bridge the more you hurt, and Momma Emilia is facing her greatest pain. She knows King is young again, that he is happy, and they will meet again, but it doesn’t mitigate the pain. Sadly, it is possible to feel good for, and mourn someone at the same time.

Now Momma Emilia has a most powerful angel looking over her. She may not notice, the speeding car she barely avoids, the house spared in bd weather, the illnesses not contracted. King will keep his move safe from all, except the pain caused by this transition.

But, over time King will fix this too.

It is overwhelming work.

But Momma Emiliana will get it done.

Because she has the Angel King on her side.

 

 

Poetry Thursday

 

Angel Sammys and Teddys Pawetaton gave us a picture for inspiration

It was a very sad day.

When Humpy Dumpty fell off the wall

Mournes lined up for hours, they say.

And toasted his memory at the drinking halls.

 

Humpy was an amicable chap.

And all the town folk could speak of was the horrible accident.

He never considered being an egg in the human world a handicap.

And now he was a yellow stain on the cement.

 

Humpy was born in a strange circumstance.

His dad fertilized his mom’s egg.

And what were the chances?

He stayed that way when he was born, a mystifying segue.

 

But soon Humpy was treated the same.

He got a job got married and had a child.

Becky Sue was her name.

And she was quite wild.

 

She was born a normal child but emulated her father.

She dressed in a shell and yelled at townsfolk from the wall.

Her mother asked Humpy if it wouldn’t be a bother.

To sit with Becky Sue and keep her from insulting people starting a brawl.

 

Their afternoons on the wall brought father and daughter together.

They would talk, laugh and share a wise crack.

But that day she did something she would never forgive herself altogher.

Because after a cutting remark Becky Sue slapped Humpy on the back.

 

Becky Sue hoped the authorities would be satisfied,

That, with for an answer she did provide

That she had nothing to hide

But they still charged her with patricide.

 

 

 

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

Beat This Caption

 Don't worry, they won't find us, I framed the dingo

Monday Question

 How large a trip hazard are you?

I am a very high trip hazard.

I closely follow my parents. When they turn around they often tip over me.