Dot`sThoughts

Thursday, April 10th, 2008

Spider, mouse, guns, etc.

Today there was a little excitement at the Hospital Wellness Clinic where I go to use the exercise equipment.
I had finished the 15 minutes on the tread mill, the 15 minutes on the nu step and about 20 minutes in the back room with the weights and wall exercise bands and then went back in the other room and was doing the 15 minutes on the arm exerciser and the room was so quiet except for the noise of all the working machines. Suddenly one of the trainers let out a sharp yell which had all of us looking to see what was wrong. Turned out one of the women working on a nu-step machine saw a spider hanging from the ceiling right over where the younger trainer was standing. The spider was small and slowly climbing down lower and lower. The woman told the trainer and when she saw the tiny spider she let out that loud scream. LOL. A man working on a bike near her went over, reached up and broke the web so the spider fell to the floor and he stepped on it. At this time, the trainer was half way across the room and when the man started walking back that way to get back on the bike, she backed up further asking him if he had the spider. He picked up his foot and looked on the sole of his shoe and told her " no, he don`t have the spider with me". Haa Haa. It was hard not laughing out loud while this was going on. I just kept my smiling face hid behind the arm exerciser machine and kept working. She is probably in her late 20`s or early 30`s. I did another 15 minutes on the recumbent bike and left for home. I managed to get the front yard half raked before lunch. Now the wind is lightly blowing making it hard to rake the leaves, so will have to wait till another nice day to finish the raking. Hope the wind doesn`t blow the leaves off the un-raked side and onto the side that is cleared.
So nice outside I hated to come inside. So, I took my drill and moved the shutter on my small shed so the latch fit better over the ring where the lock hangs. I was getting tired of using a hammer to tap it shut every time it was unlocked. My son put it there and said he would redo it later. Figured that was one thing I could do myself. Expecting rain the next few days, so won`t get more done outside for a while.

This spider reminded me of the time one of my sisters lived about a mile from me and had a little mouse. When I stopped to visit her I saw a couple of neighbors teenaged boys taking turns sitting in a chair with a pellet gun watching a tiny hole in the wall , just waiting for the mouse to show it`s head again. I kiddingly asked my sister whose idea that was- hers or theirs? I told them all, that I thought they were all going crazy. So she agreed with me and told them to put the gun away.

Another time, we were still living in the first house we had built out back while we were building the larger home I still live in. I was sitting sewing clothes for the kids using one of those old style treadle sewing machines, My husband was in the front room watching TV and the kids were all sleeping in their bedrooms. Suddenly I heard what sounded like a gunshot. Hubby asked me what was that and I told him what it sounded like to me. So, we carefully went out the door to see what was going on. The neighbor who lived on our left was standing in his yard looking towards the neighbors yard on the right of us. When I looked that way I saw their dog lying on the ground. That neighbor had shot his hunting rifle across our property, right in front of our house and killed the other neighbors dog that was still tied up to a tree on it`s own property. Boy, was I angry , thinking what if my husband or I had walked out the back door to our car in the driveway just as he shot that gun. When I told him that, he just told me that dog had bitten his oldest son and that`s why he killed it. His son was a paperboy and delivered a paper to that house. But where the dog was tied up, there was no reason for his son to go anywhere near the tree where the dog was tied. So, I blamed the boy, not the dog. It wasn`t a mean dog, but that kid wasn`t nice to animals and his father knew that. When we saw the police car coming down the street, we went back inside so we wouldn`t get caught in the middle of the neighbors fight. The neighbor had the man arrested, but before they went to trial, his wife talked him into dropping the charges. The mans wife was expecting and the other neighbor`s wife felt he shouldn`t be sent to jail when his wife might need him. So, he got away with his dangerous shooting. I am so glad no one came out of any of the houses while he was shooting his rifle, or he might have gone to prison for murder instead of getting away with shooting a neighbors pet.

Another time a man who lived on the next road was walking drunk with his hunting rifle four streets above us. He shot of the rifle into a house and just missed hitting someone. The teenager bent down to pick up her little sister and just as she did, the bullet came thru the window flew over her and into the wall on the other side of the room. It would have hit her if she hadn`t bent over at just that second. He ended up doing time in jail.
Then about 10 years ago right after we had all gone to bed we heard something hit our picture window in the dining room. When I came out to check, the window had a small circle the size of a bullet in it and the cracks went off in all directions. Never did find out where that one came from. It was just before Christmas, so I figured someone was probably trying out a gun before buying it for someone's Christmas gift. Probably came from a couple street above us. People sure do crazy dangerous things sometimes. Our home Insurance replaced the window. Another time I saw a drunk husband stand on his front porch and shoot his gun up in the air. Who knows where that bullet ever landed. Boy, am I ever glad the ones living around us are better today. We still have one who gets drunk and you can hear his big mouth all up and down our street. They are a younger couple with kids. I feel sorry for the kids to live that way. His wife is always calling the police on him.

Yesterday I visited one of my sons to see his new garage. Him and his friends did a very good job building it. It is a little larger than a normal 2 car garage. He is pretty proud of his first construction job. I ended up spending the whole afternoon playing cards with him. He had a shoulder operated on and is out of work and like me he hates when he isn`t able to do much. Having been thru the therapy he is now facing, I do feel for him as I know how painful the therapy is.