(the) Jebbica

First up, we have my three-year-old nephew, Zeke, playing his new drum set in a suit on Christmas morning.  Is there anything more adorable? Of course, he broke the drum set probably about a minute after this video cuts, but the memories are priceless.

Next are some photos some of the new owners have taken of Leo and Buffy’s adorable little spawn, the Maltese puppies.

This is Liberty, who has been renamed Phoebe by her new family.  She is the one we always thought had the cutest face, but she was quite rambunctious! But seriously, how could she not get away with murder with that face?

She went to such a beautiful family!

Of course, I was always partial to Spinner, who was the calmest of the bunch, because he looked and acted the most like Leo.  Leo was always kind of skiddish around them until the last couple of weeks we had them, but he didn’t mind Spinner…he even let Spinner sleep on him once!

We went to see Spinner yesterday, who has now been named Cooper.  His new mommy drives a Mini Cooper…I love it! He seemed to like his mommy very much, and he looked so cute in that little sweater!  His mom and the girl who got Manny Macy are related, so they will get to play together!  So we have solace in knowing that three of our puppies went to good homes, and hopefully the last new set of doggy parents will get back in touch with me soon.  Christmas is over and it’s time for all those New Year’s Resolutions, but I think my main resolution for this year will be to have a better one than last. And so far, it’s shaping up that way.

 That’s Manny, who has now been named Macy by her new owner.  The guy in this picture got her for his girlfriend for Christmas, but I knew these two would wind up bonding! (read: she is going to be spoiled absolutely rotten, thanks to this guy)

 Two of our puppies are gone, one is leaving this weekend, and that means we only have one left.  We have been fortunate to find great homes for our babies (sorry, people who came and looked but fed their dogs Krystal and sweet tea!), and I hope we will be able to find a great home for Spinner, too.  The guy who came and got Jimmy today had gone to a certain nearby puppy mill today that we had also visited on our quest to find Buffy (one of the most horrible experiences of my life), and he mentioned that their ten-week-old pups, the same age as our puppies, were at least twice as big and not half as cute.  He also said that they told him “state law prevented him from going to the back to see the parents”.  WTF?  I’m pretty sure “state law” wouldn’t allow for that place to be in business at all.  Either way, I’m glad that guy didn’t have to see the things I saw when I was there.

 
Is it possible that I have never had kids and yet I’m feeling empty nest syndrome already?  The house will be quiet again soon, and our office can be our office again instead of the puppy room.  It’s impossible to keep this place organized when 1/4 of our space belongs to four little furballs!  Even so, I will definitely miss them, and watching them go has definitely been bittersweet!

But seriously.  Someone come and get Spinner.  Two dogs are all I can handle.

Any time my neck of the woods makes national headlines, it’s always for something horrible.  More than likely, when I tell people I’m from Small Town, North Georgia, they generally have no idea where it is.  Such was the case when meeting lots of people from all over American on our high school senior band trip to Disney World.  But when we said, “hey, did you hear about the Noble Crematory Scandal? That’s less than ten minutes away from our school.”  Every single person was like, “oh yeah!  Oh….”

I’ve had to describe my place of residency as “10 minutes from the Noble Crematory Scandal” for years now.  Don’t know that one?  How about the famed Battle of Chickamauga, the most significant defeat by the South on the Union?  Well, that’s where I work! And no, we’re still not over it.  Most people ’round these parts still totally think we’re gonna RISE AGIYUN!

But now, I can describe my whereabouts as being “where that drunk four-year-old in a dress was stealing neighborhood Christmas presents.”

“He runs away trying to find his father,” [April Wright said of her 4-year-old son, Hayden]. “He wants to get in trouble so he can go to jail because that’s where his daddy is.”

The Hamilton County Sheriff’s Office report says Hayden rang the doorbell a few houses down and the neighbor answered, finding the child holding a partially consumeed 12-ounce beer.

Wright said, “He got it out of my father’s cooler in the back and how he got it open I don’t understand because it was one of those tab beers.”

But it doesn’t stop there. The report said Hayden then snuck into a neighbor’s house through an unlocked front door, and stole five wrapped Christmas gifts.  One was a girl’s brown dress which Hayden was wearing when police found him.

If this were happening in a movie, I’d probably laugh. And maybe if it was something I’d heard on national news about a place far from here, I might grimace at how sad it was, but probably still smile a little.  But this is here in my back yard, and it’s horrible.  I don’t have any children of my own, but I know what they can be capable of.  My three-year-old nephew, Zeke, was just at my house yesterday, and he totally succeeded in tackling me, making my head thwack against the kitchen tile and then kicked me right in the lady parts.  A couple of visits ago, he locked us out of the house.  Children are smart, and they’re going to get into stuff.  And what they see grown-ups do, that’s what they are going to do.  I mean, if you tell a child, “Don’t say shit!”, what’s he going to say?  So, does the blame lie with Hayden’s mother, who is only 21 and not too far from being a child herself?  The story said she had “childproof” locks on the doors, so it seemed she was taking some sort of precaution.  This is a child who is going to have to have therapy and a lot of it, maybe for the rest of his life.  I would love some more insight on this.  Thoughts? Comments?

So, if you ever need to look me up, I’m thirty minutes from the drunk four-year-old in a dress.  Also, have you seen Squidbillies?  I’m pretty sure that’s my town.

See, who needs Mapquest?