Dueling Psychos

Mother and Son Yesterday - Now We see Where He Gets His Eyes Closed Approach From

Yesterday, being Wednesday, meant lunch with the newly engaged son.  As a treat, we were joined by his mother who made her belated way to my office so we could join our son for the weekly ritual.  The conversation related almost exclusively about the upcoming nuptials which the engineer son is already trying to reduce to a spread sheet.  Luckily the MEF will handle the important, creative details.  It was cool to see him still percolating with an extremely happy vibe after finally popping the question.  I am so happy for those two and their future.

The Final Shock Straining Load

When I got home from work I finally drove a stake through the heart of the garden project.  Trying to beat the latest series of thunderstorms I raided Home Depot for a healthy stock of capstones and the final wall stones needed.  An elderly guy watched me leave the store dragging a fully laden cart.  He later came over to say he never thought I would be able to get the entire load in the car without breaking a shock or two.  I amazed both of us by getting home shocks intact.

Buddy Maintaining Security While We Worked
Literally the Calm Before the Storm

Buddy maintained overwatch while I finished the garden wall.  My wife was planting the last of her flowers while simultaneously carrying on several phone conversations, luckily the garden is within range of the house phone.  Buddy nervously glanced at the horizon where the storms were forming up.  I even got the garden covered in mulch before we all headed in just ahead of the first rain drops.  So the garden is officially done!

Wife Multi-Tasking, Gardening While Talking on Phone

The Finished Garden

Since the Red Sox decided to stop hitting again I popped in a movie about Hitchcock and his film Psycho.  When the storms arrived I was dealing with a psycho of my own as Buddy just lost it.  He seems to be getting worse about storms as he gets older.  We’ve tried everything and even have a “thundershirt” en-route courtesy of the joint recommendation of son in law and underappreciated older sister.

We can’t leave Buddy in his cage with the music blaring anymore because he tries to gnaw his way out of the cage, potentially injuring himself.  If we let him run free he tries to burrow into beds upstairs or behind the furnace – neither of them viable options. I’ve taken to putting him on a leash and turning up the television volume.

Buddy Waiting Out the Storm

Unfortunately last night the storms were particularly ferocious and the lightning flashes very visible in our many windowed family room.  Buddy finally “lost it” and tried to burrow underneath the couch, to the point he forced the sectional apart.  I had to tie him up to the basement stairs where he couldn’t see the flashes and could do minimal damage.

When he finally realized he couldn’t burrow through the floor.  He settled for getting his head and shoulders underneath the stairs and listened to the latest in modern jazz blaring at high volume.  It was an entertaining evening (not).  I stayed up until the storms passed around midnight and then ushered him outside so he could see it was over and then we both went to bed.  The thundershirt cannot arrive soon enough.

As Far As He Could Get Under the Stairs