99

I should have some stuff to post tonight, but today is a special day of sorts. It's my grandmother's birthday, and were she alive today, she would 99. We called her, "Granny."

Unlike a lot of my posts on this subject, I'd rather stay focused on how great and funny she was.

My dad was working on his master's at KSU back in the '60's, and we would travel there, staying the weekend at the basement apartment he'd rented. At some touristy place, I bought some things to booby trap cigarettes. (My folks and Granny all smoked back then.) I still get a chuckle when she lit up one of her cigarettes that I'd loaded, and the look on her face as the thing began to "snow." (I have another trip for rigging the bread wrapper so it won't open, but that's another post.)

One story she would tell was from her elementary school days. Way back when it was in a one-room school. And before lawnmowers. Back then to trim the grass, they would run sheep in to graze and keep the grass down. But when you have sheep, there will also be "sheep dip."(If you don't know what that is, I'm not explaining it.)

During lunch time, she and a friend would sit under a tree at the school and eat lunch. There was a boy named, "Grover," who would consume his lunch, only to proceed to beg from the other kids for what ever extra they might have. A bit of a glutton.

One day, Granny and her friend had a watermelon. They cut out a big slice, picked all the seeds out and replaced them with sheep dip. And when Grover came by, they offered him some watermelon. He didn't just eat it, from her description, but inhaled it. He never knew, and she never told. And I hope none of Grover's heirs are out there to read this. Awkward.

LAST NIGHT'S ADVENTURE!--I was painting on my "girlfriend" last night(that's code for painting at the Oceans of Fun booth to get it sealed up for the winter. Sorry. Nothing more racy than that.) There were a couple of coons trapped in a dumpster close by the stand. I thought one was dead, but the other one was crying out. I really hate raccoons. They are nothing but diseased ridden vermin, but even I don't have a heart to turn off the tugging at the heart of hearing an animal crying.

I put a drop cloth over the edge thinking he would climb out, but he just pulled the cloth into the dumpster. I wasn't going in after it. He'd already hissed at me a few times. So I finished the primer coat and was considering going to the Wood 'n' Leather shop at Worlds of Fun to find a plank to see if that would help him escape.

I'd also made the mistake of contacting a couple of female types--my wife and Taryn--asking what to do, as I had thought of just leaving them. But got the, "Aww, can't you do something?"

Before I could leave, WF security was buzzing through and came to see what was going on, and heard the noises coming from the dumpster. So we were in the process of trying to see what could be done when Amanda, one of the security guards, notice that one of the coons, the one I thought dead, wasn't, but had its head stuck in the dumpster drain pipe. It was sticking out from the front.

We found a plank, put it in the dumpster, and the non-stuck raccoon crawled up and out of the dumpster, Proceeding, as it were, to crawl onto one of the tikis flanking Trader Nick's. Security prodded it from there and he scampered off to the woods. But the other one was still stuck.

We tried covering the head with a dropcloth to shove the head back through. Dicey, because that end had teeth. One of the security guys, normally a tough hombre, said he couldn't euthanize it without crying. Funny and touching, as none of us wanted the option of killing the animal.

I suggested lubing the head and neck to see if that might help. Amanda drove us to a food stand and we found some liquid shortening, brought it back and coated the beast's head and neck to see if that would do the trick. Couldn't pull it back through.

It was suffering and had struggled to the point of having ruptured both eyes, blinding itself.

It didn't make it. And while I did take pictures before hand, showing our stages of rescue, it wouldn't be right to post them now with the outcome as it is.

On a brighter note, I tipped the scales this morning at 255! On my way from obesity to just fatness! Yeah, baby!!!

Shalom!