Faith Alone!

Look, the little book is out.
When I saw this on Amazon

today I was amazed. I didn't

know they were even going

to sell it.

Faith Alone: Stories of an Amazing Dog (ISBN: 142573678-5) is a little book, only 124 pages, but it is completely relating to my dog Faith because so many people wrote to me after reading With a Little Faith and they wanted a book more or less about Faith, not my family. I loved one reviewer - he said, "Could you stop whining and just get on with your life? Tell us about the dog!" OK - but I never said the first book was about the DOG in the first place - the big, fat, ugly, publicist did that, thank you!

Faith Alone is overpriced in my opinion too. I wouldn't pay the price Amazon has set for it, or the price that Xlibris has set for it either. I'm cheap I guess - but it's cool to see that it is available. The reason behind the shorter manuscript was simple: I wanted kids to be able to pick up a copy in their school libraries and read it in just a couple of sittings. It meets every scholastic criteria for a report - I saw to that! Being an educator I thought about it long and hard - and wanted dozens if not thousands of kids writing about a little dog that has the guts and courage to stand up for herself. Maybe it would rub off on them! That's the plan.

So, if you're out there on Amazon and you decide to look up a fun, adventureous little book that can make you laugh, cry, shout, and roll over to pet your own dog or cat - you should like this one. Faith tends to bring out the best and the beast in all of us. She's the fiestiest little girl I've ever raised - well, maybe not as fiesty as Caity, but in dog-terms...she's the one! Hope you enjoy it, I'm just thrilled to see it's available. I apologize in advance for the cost. Believe me, if it were up to me, I'd probably give it away.

What Kind of Cheese are YOU?

Remember the Sniper Quiz? (I love quiz taking) My good friend suggested that I go on line and look up "What Kind of Cheese Are You?" in Google - so I did. There's a quiz! You too, can find out in only 6 questions what kind of cheese best suits your personality - I think it has more to do with your favorite color. I'm a BLEU Cheese. They didn't have BROWN as one of the colors, and brown has always been my favorite. It says something about me don't you think? If you look up what it means when someone chooses brown as their favorite color - you will find that I am very mysterious, earthy, determined, founded in truth, and above all I am honest. This is true - more so than the cheese quiz if you ask me. Nevertheless - I am proud to say that I am a big, fat, hunk of the BLEU. Here's is the verbatim on it. Good luck! Google it for yourself and see.

QUOTE:
"You are blue cheese!You are a soft, crumbly white blue-streaked cheese. You are very cool and mellow. You are very knowledgeable and wise and people come to you for advice and help.Blue cheese is a white cheese with blue veins and a sometimes crumbly interior. This cheese usually has tangy, piquant, spicy and peppery flavor. Use in salad dressings with cream cheese for spreads. [Texture: hard, semi-soft ]"

I do agree actually - I am very tangy and spicy too. I'm pretty sure at my age the crumbly interior is going on too! Dang it!

Vacancy!

VACANCY!

There is nothing full about

this place! JESUS has left

the building! He is ALIVE

and that has to be the best

news ever. Happy Easter.

The world celebrates very few holidays together. We all have separate thoughts about Christmas, about New Years, about our various independence day, or the days that symbolize the marking of historical events, people, places, and in all of this - we are liberally tolerant of each other. EASTER is the one holiday that is soley symbolic of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. There is NO OTHER holiday like it. There is no reason for a substitute - He is no longer in the grave. He arose that very first Easter morning, and even though our religious leaders throughout the centuries have celebrated this day differently, adding lent, adding candles, adding incense, adding prayers, adding this or that - the empty tomb is still the most rewarding sight (and site), because without the tomb's mouth shouting full-out that HE IS NOT HERE, HE IS GONE! We would have very little to celebrate - we would be doomed.

Nothing funny or cute about this particular blog - just a way for me to demonstrate that without Christ in my life I would be dead myself, and without hope. If He is not yet in your life - I pray, and I pray, that you will find Him. He's not far from you now - e-mail me if you need any help finding Him, there's nothing shy about my opinions. I will tell you the truth.

Thank you Jesus, Thank you God!

Even so, come quickly.

Chicago Condo!

Searching! Searching! Anyone out there with a little insight, please give me an e-mail or comment - I'm in the market for a nice condo in Chicago without the realtor's BS about not being able to tell me where to spend my money.

Funny, you can tell a realtor you want to be in a safe neighborhood without much crime (she laughs, because it's like saying you want a quiet neighborhood in NYC) and you can tell the realtor that you want to be close to the bustle without the noise of the EL train, but they can't tell you what area to buy in. That would be illegal. I have $300K to spend and they can't tell me where to spend it. I don't get that.

In Oklahoma $300K will get you a 4300 sq ft house in an area with less crime than the local Lutheran Church. It'll be the best dang hood in the city for sure, and if you want the outskirts - just ask. Oh, but don't ask a licensed realtor - they won't even flinch for fear that you'll turn them in for favortism - backlash advice, or something they call "unethical practice" because they can't reveal the stats to you regarding the murders, rapes, arson, robberies and/or assaults in the area - that would be UNFAIR to YOU they say! No, really - it's not. I want to spend the $300K knowing I'm going to LIVE to enjoy it.

That same $300K in Chicago (and NYC) will get you a condo, which is what I want - in a highrise, which is what I want, and it may (just may) get you a gym membership. (Those cost $275.00 a year here, by the way, and come with a private trainer for an extra $150.00 annual fee) I don't want to be pushy and ask for a garage space - one of my freedom acts is to be without a car for about a year to see if I can do it. Heck, I just want to see if I can survive a week or two of the winter weather before taking off for Panama City, Florida - I doubt I make 2 full weeks anyway.

So...here's what I expect from you: Write me - tell me where to move to, and I know from others it's suppose to be north of 20th and East of Wicker - cool - what do you think about Sheridan Street vs. Kenmore vs. Marine? Did you know there isn't a Starbucks within winter walking distance from 5000 N. Marine, Chicago? Big, gorgeous building, but I will not spend the $300K there if I can't walk to a Starbucks! Forget about it - not happening! Oh, and I will have Faith, and I have my perfect dog Matrix too - so parks are nice. I'm planning on paying a service in the winter to walk the dogs - I'm such a weenie...and I'm buying a DeLonghi Magnifica model expresso machine for the hard-winter months as well. I can always put on a green apron and pretend I work at as a barista!

Love to you all who know what I'm searching for!! It's the writer in me I guess, but I think it's time to suffer for the cause. (Hahahaha...right, I'm just getting the heck out of Dodge!)

Good Friday to You!

ONLY God Almighty can make it snow in Oklahoma with the temperature being 40-44 degrees farenheit! I woke up this morning to the thought that the pollen must be outrageous! I saw white flakes falling, twisting, spinning in the air - and when I let the dogs out - the pollen was frozen! It was hitting my face and I looked up laughing - ONLY YOU GOD! Only You!

The entire day represents of course, the first full day and night that our Savior Jesus Christ was separated from us, while he was laid in the tomb - alone, cold, dead - no wonder the weather patterns become confused. No wonder the skies cry. Here, in Oklahoma, if you check the weather patterns for this particular day - no, not April 6, but the day of Good Friday - you will be utterly amazed at the way He, and yes, HE ALONE, can do what He does with our weather - getting our attention every single time. Sometimes it rains non-stop, other times it is so gray and so dark that we swear it's Saturday before it's actually noon on Friday. Today - snow!

Was it a good day? Oh, I don't know - my dogs got out. I had to chase them down with the car and assure Laura that they had to feel a bit uneasy about the weather themselves...they will return home. They just wanted a bit of really fresh air. About an hour later I went to comfort a friend who lost his father this week - and I couldnt' cry for him. He wasn't crying either. We realized that THIS Easter his father will be with OUR Father, and DANG that makes me so very jealous. Everytime someone that I know is a Christian dies - I get a knot of sheer envy throbbing in my stomach. He'll get to be there! He'll get to celebrate there! I'm stuck here, and no matter how great here is today - it isn't there.

But it was a Good Friday. My Girly-Girl Cop decided to come home and let her mark be made. She decided not to play the game that the Oklahoma Highway Patrol wanted her to play - they tried their damnest to humiliate her, to push her to greater limits than any of the men that made the academy - and JUST because she's a woman they thought it was OK to single her out, and to make her do things that they would NEVER ask a man to do - so she nodded, politely declined to continue, and she'll never be outdone - I bet NO OTHER woman over 40 makes it as far as she did, and if they do - they will probably succumb to the bullies - she stood up....and...and..she's going to write a book about it to express her willingness to help other women who refuse to be made to feel less of a person just because she wanted to serve in a boys club. She won!

I am not, am not, am not a male-basher - but I won't stand for a man (or in her case a bunch of men) to try and break the spirit of a woman. It will not happen without a fight - and she fought! What a great way to celebrate a Good Friday! Raise your hands and say thank you to any and every WOMAN who was strong enough to be a woman....when you needed one! Thanks Niki! You're my hero today!

Happy Easter to the World and to my God.

It Comes Naturally For Me!

Happy 72nd MOMMY! This is my Mom, she's the funny looking one on the right. The handsome man next to her is her first cousin, famous baseball player Calvin Julius Caesar Tuskahoma McLish!

When I tell you that my good looks and talent come naturally I mean it. Before I was born my mom was scheming and dreaming, meeting famous actors such as James Garner, Dale Robertson, James Cagney and others - mainly because she, like me, put herself in the situation or the location to meet people of interest. Like me, Mom was never star-struck or really all that personally impressed by a persona - why should she be? People are people - right?

If ever there was a dame to be celebrated for bravo, intuition and sheer gutsy-go it would be Rebecca Ruth Edwards. Let me tell you a little something about Miss Sneakypants - that way you'll know that what I do isn't altogether my fault - it's in the GENES. (You should have met her father, she didn't stand a chance either!)

The Sunday following Labor Day 1955 - think about the weather, think about the time of day - it was 10 minutes past the start of the weekly sermon at 40th Street Baptist Church, so if every Baptist church starts at 9 :30 then it must have been aroun 9:40 a.m. when my poor father lost his license to remain a single man. Mom (at that time Miss Becky Edwards, unmarried and oh-so-cute in her little new bobbed hairdo and clean pressed wool skirt and button-down jacket to match) walked into the back of the church, into the entrance, and promptly sat beside her little sister Naomi who was instructed to save my mother a seat should she be late - and late she was. Everyone turned around, everyone saw her coming into the back of the auditorium, everyone looked at her new suit - it was worth the $15.00 price tag JUST for that reason. She wasn't late - she was making an entrance.

Mom giggled a bit, shyly lowered her head as she ducked into her pew beside her equally mischievious sister and waved off her onlookers with a dainty gloved hand as if to say "Nothing to see, turn around please." One face did not completely turn around to face the minister - that was his first mistake. Dad was always a little slow now that I think about it. LOST! GOTCHA! Caught! The man was seen - the eyes were held - the plot began to capture the U.S. Naval sailor, the new boy sitting just ahead of the two giggling girls.

"Naomi, I'm going to marry that man", she said softly between the 2nd and 4th stanza of Amazing Grace (Baptists never sing the 3rd stanza of any old hymn. Not true Baptists anyway!) "I'm going to marry him, and you can have his brother if he's got one." That promise being made - my father made an attempt to get away as fast as he could - perhaps he saw the look in her green eyes, perhaps he sensed his collar tightening when he once again turned to look her over before trying to exit the building.

OUT went her foot into the aisle , AS SHE PRAYED, and DOWN went the noble sailor who must have had his eyes on the back door! BAM! To the floor in all his glory, noise has always been my dad's enemy - he absolutely hates a scene. Banking on this male instinct Mom quickly threw her glove to the ground - and YES, being the very Southern gentleman that my dad is, he retrieved it and then he returned it. THAT was mistake number 2. If he wasn't hooked before, he was in the pail at this point.

"My name is Becky" she began. "Wayne" was his return. "Well, Reuben Wayne, but they call me Wayne." She smiled - pirates smile at times like this. We (did I say we?) get a little information, and we store it - storing it requires the break of a slight smile to seal the door on the compartment of the storage space in our brains. "Wayne, I have a problem. I don't have a date to the picnic after church. It's just in a few minutes, and well, I don't have a single opportunity to find a boy to take me - I came in late, and all the boys are taken." THIS is where my dear sweet dad made his third and final mistake - they went to the picnic together - ONLY there wasn't a picnic! It was just mom's little mean and manipulating way to keep him a little longer - and alone.

Her plan was simple - walk to the park, and on the way pick up a basket of this and that from her house which, if you walked straight down 40th street would be just perfectly situated between the church and the park. They did this of course, and being home, and able to change clothes in a flash, the little petite gal went from buttoned up Miss Priss to a jeans-clad 50's girl complete with her brother's white polo, delicate scarf about the neck, and even - yes, the vanilla perfume from her mother's cabinet just behind the ears. Ears you could now see and smell since her waist length hair had been cut only days before to reveal the new womanly sprite - her new and true self. For his part - dad just stood there with his mouth opened and nodded as he passed four of her five brothers and a couple of her sisters who knew absolutely NOTHING of a picnic following the service, but certainly knew their little Becky!

On December 3, 1955 - less than 2 months later, my mom and my dad married. MARRIED. He fell literally for the woman with the pretty little waistline, the thick auburn curls, and that...smile, that wicked, twisted little curved up smile - and he's been smiling ever since.

Happy Birthday She-Devil! Love ya more than you'll know.

Your Hard-Earned Tax Dollars at Work!

Photo Credit: Someone other than me. It wasn't listed. Did you know that our government is into spending our money in ways that MIGHT not meet with every one of our expectations? Oh, you knew that? Well then, this won't surprise you at all.

My son, my beautiful, directionally-challenged U.S. Army soldier son Reuben called me to inform me that he had once again "stepped in it" and that meant that he and his battle buddies had to make restitution for his faux-paux...if I had, oh I don't know, a dime for every folly, flub, boo-boo, or oopsy that my baby boy created for me during the first 21 years of his life - there wouldn't be a need to write for a living - we'll say that. I love the kid - but really - a navigator in a multi-million dollar tank should be able to tell the difference between East and West at 6:45 p.m. ... the sun usually has something to do with it - wouldnt' you think? He wasn't driving the tank, he was navigating - and the top was open! The top was open! (Of course they were outside, someone asked me if they were performing the manuever outside when this happened today - yes, they drive tanks outside most of the time!)

My Baby Boy misguided his team - and the only excuse he gave when they came in dead last place was that he didn't know which direction the sun was going to be setting - TODAY! Do you or do you not feel safe knowing that MY SON will be protecting you? You'll feel a lot better when I tell you that he's an expert shooter, has the highest ranks in hand-to-hand, pistol, grenade (that makes me happy) and in DRIVING the tank - it's the navigation that tripped him up. You should also know that he can't be beat at NCAA Playstation gaming and has over 38 straight seasons of being the National Championship Head Coach and that includes his personal designing and redesigning of plays that haven't hit the gridiron yet because he's saving them for when he becomes a high school coach. He was on one of Oklahoma's BEST high school football teams, and he was the leader year after year - but THANK GOD no one ever asked him to take the ball to the East goal, or to the West goal - he just had the kill whoever had the ball in their hands! (Reggie White taught him that much. Reuben played ironman lineman.)

So, with the loss came a challenge - a well known, in-your-face challenge that allowed every other member of the unit at least a 30-40 minute headstart marching their way back to the bunker. The LOSERS had to find out scientifically - through hard work and concentration - exactly how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Toosie Pop! My son lucked out and volunteered to be the counter rather than on the licking team. The answer - 4,233 unless you count Pvt. Simmons' attempt to bite through the last thinning layers - and - they were not allowed to just lick one side - had to be all the way around until the chocolate was exposed on all sides.

Now you know! Hooah!

Hiding In Plain Sight!

It can't be easy being a two-legged dog in a four-legged world. Poor Faith, I can't take her anywhere without curious questions, people stopping us every 10-15 seconds to ask the same questions that the last group of on-lookers just asked. She's good with all the attention - sometimes it's me that has to take a breather - Faith just sticks out her tongue and smiles!

We live in a suburb of Oklahoma City, the city is named Edmond, and we're doing our best to help the state celebrate our 100th year anniversary this year - really cool things happened in Edmond in the past 100 years. Recently Edmond has been making news because of a little dog that just happens to live in the neighborhood - we've been here quite a while, but I guess she's just now being seen. They call that hiding in plain sight. Faith probably doesn't even know she's been in hiding. With winter weather, storms, traveling, (getting lost on airplanes and having the media tell the world you live in Orlando could have something to do with it) and of course just chilling under the bed - Faith's been noticed more recently than she has been in the past, that's all.

This afternoon (74 degrees and sunny) a few boys in the hood were playing hide-n-go-seek in the various yards that surround our little cul de sac street - one bouncing, long haired kid took his refuge behind my refuge...our garbage can, one of those big green dumpsters that the city gives you and then demands that you find a way to hide it out of sight so that the homeowners association doesn't come down on you - when did we agree that they could anyway? Whatever - the kid was hiding behind a dumpster in my yard when Faith, who had been visiting another neighbor (to her great surprise), decided to out the boy by skipping her 37 inch frame over to him at warp speed...barking! He was freaked!

The kid was torn between turning himself in, and possibly losing the game, or staying and getting an up close and personal view of my kanga-dog now rapidly approaching him; tongue out, barking voice, no arms - walking upright - yes, he HAD seen the dog on Montel and Ripleys, but he NEVER expected to see her in ....her own yard, just two doors down from his! OUT! He's out! The other boys got to the central tree first, and called him out! Hahahha...the dog won! When the boy called back to his friends that it was unfair they just laughed at him - "She's on our team!" they shouted back - "She's always lived there, we knew that". Well, now he does.

I took Faith to the post office a couple of days ago where she's always meeting new people. It's always the same: "Have I seen that dog on Oprah? You live here?" They ask me if I live in Edmond because I have a post office box and I guess they realize you have to live in the immediate area to rent one - I do live here - and have! No, we're not from California. We're not from NYC - which is the first choice of most passersby because of the 10 trips we've taken I suppose - and we're not from Florida...which so far has seen more of our sunny faces than any other state in the union besides our own Sooner State.

Yes, you've seen her on Oprah. You've seen her on Ripleys. She's been on Montel, Maury, David, Ricki, in magazines, newspapers, on stage with over a dozen rock bands - she's been in circus performances both in person and on television, she's been on Animal Planet, Animal Radio, Animal Attractions, PBS, AOL, CNN, MSNBC, and every local station known to men - but she lives in plain sight - and I might add, not too glamorously - she spends 90% of her time under the bed! That's right people - the World's Most Photographed Dog is a cave animal after all.

Who knew she was so .....normal? (God did!)

There Was This Woman ---

OH, don't you know that EVERY time a man gets in trouble his reason, no, his excuse begins with "There was this woman". Adam used that same line on God in the Garden of Eden - it didn't work then, and it doesn't work now - own up!

I know your son doesn't call you at 2:00 in the morning to tell you he's bored and that he wishes he was in Iraq but mine does. He's training at his duty station (Army) in Fairbanks, Alaska and he's bored - too much snow. After complaining about not having enough to do, after complaining about the food, the trek to town just to get a beer, the fact that he and his unit had to stay several nights in a one-room bunker because someone lost a scope to a weapon -- he finally came clean as to why - for the past 3 nights - my son, my one and only boy, has been calling me nearly every other hour to talk. "Mom, there's this woman."

OK...he's in love. I get that. CALL HER!

When he drove the car through the house (not to it, through it) he was thinking about a girl he liked at school. When he broke the arm of his own team's quarterback - he was thinking about a girl he wanted to ask out. When he failed to stop at a stop sign clearly marked, and yes, it even came with blinking lights overhead --- THERE WAS THIS WOMAN was the beginning of the sentence that ended weakly, and probably really pathetically as well. She was in front of him, in a cute little car, and she smiled - he had to follow.

Tonight - I drove my two daughters to the mall so they could see a movie. I walked around the mammoth shell of the closed shops, dreaming, thinking, wishing, and looking at the clothes, the shoes, the tiny little pink, hi-cut panties with a matching hot laced bra in the window at Victoria Secret that I knew would actually never come off the rack and actually make it into my own bag - but I looked anyway - why? Well, there was ....this woman....I remember her. She was pretty hot. She had legs that went way way up to her short shorts and she walked, no she would glide, like a queen or - maybe like an angel - and she had an attitude on her, girl, she could tell anyone where to go, what to do, when to do it, and if they couldn't somehow tell from the shape of her lip, the stare of her eyes, and the way she tossed her head back almost immediately following a "look" - well, they certainly needed help.

There was this woman - they say being narcisistic is a bad thing, but you know - a little bit helps now and then. I miss her sometimes. I do.

Mr. Handsome! (My 2nd Favorite Boss)

Before I had the honor of training my Mr. Edward H. Moler, I went around bragging to anyone and everyone that my favorite boss was none other than James Scott Garner, or Bumgarner if you're from Oklahoma - and you like to pretend you're in the know.

My Mr. Handsome - see picture please, is the epitome of gorgeous both inside and out, and I have to tell you Jim, Moler rivals you in every way - but I do give you the edge in the looks department if only for the way you tip your hat, Sir.

In less than a week Mr. Handsome, Jim Garner, turns 79 and with the soul of the lion that he has always been - I'm sure we'll hear a few more roars out of this guy before too terribly long. I won't give up many of his secrets by telling you that what you saw on television and in the early films was exactly what we saw as his employees, co-workers, friends. He simply is Jim: grits-eating, golf-swinging, eyebrow-lifting-innocent Jim, and there really wasn't much acting going on - well, maybe there was in a few films, the ones where he had to play the bad guy - no one believes that role -- not in a million years. Clever, tricky, sneaky, off-the-cuff, and off-the-edge of the cliff yes, but never a bad guy...maybe just a little bad?

When I left Hollywood for the Plains and pains of Oklahoma, I made the right decision - but I left an incredibly awesome man when I did. One I could have used over and over and over again to gain knowledge compounded upon knowledge - it's just a damn good thing I walked into Mr. Moler's life when I did. It was a great trade guys - and to be honest, Edward H. Moler needed a little spicing up too! I was happy to oblige. Best boss in the world - it was a difficult decision, and the ONLY reason Jim that I had to give the title to Moler was simply that he put up with me as long as he did....I wish you would have begged. I would have been in writer's Heaven by now, instead I'm in Purgatory - waiting..writing..waiting. But the adventures were worth it.

In your words Mr. Handsome (may I borrow them for this?) "Oh Hell! You knew what you were gettin' your own self into!" Big Smile! Big Smile! Big...Big...Big...I love you so much smile. You're simply amazing. You know, if I were born a boy my Mom would have called me James? Well, Matthew James, after Matt Dillon and James Arnez, but I can fudge a little - Thanks for the lessons.