Once again I’ve been on one of those mental treadmills when I thought about being here but ran out of energy before I did. Since I am going to try to be a very good piglet kid and get back into some kind of writing routine that would do Tango proud, I’m hitting the keyboard tonight.

I just got a glass of wine, that’s always fun, me and wine go hand in glass, once across the lips, if I have a brain fart or life feels unbearably overwhelming, it just fades into a distant pile of dust only to be disturbed when the wind blows.

I’m trying to be on a massive yard project but it’s been so hot outside, it feels like the devil is breathing down my neck and fanning the fires of hell hoping it will ignite some part of my being and pull me further into the heat of time. BTW, there’s no escape from the heat of time; avoid it at all costs.

This last few weeks the sun has dropped behind the mountains a little earlier each day until we’ve lost almost an hour of daylight – that’s evening, the sun is coming up later also. Soon it will be yard working weather again. One half of my place has a 6′ high chain link fence around it. Thank you Monte. What a huge effort and job well done, my nephew Chad got roped into helping with it because he’s sis’s son, staying at their place right now and that completely seals off any escape hatch he may have planned. I hope within the next 6 months to arrange some sort of bribery to get Monte to finish up the rest of it, since they want to redo the field run fence between their property and mine, I think I have a pretty good shot at it – then the front would be the only piece that would need possible bribery. Anyway, the fence looks great, classes up the whole place rather than that shakey, creepy field run fence that was here before – and it’s set on the property line, not 5 feet over onto someone else’s vacant land.

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Las Vegas had frog-strangling rains a few days ago, at least one person drowned in the flooding and probably plenty of others had issues with cars floating away and more. It’s sick. This story – and the video – give you a brief glimpse of how dangerous the water is when it storms here in the desert. Anniversary Narrows and washes in Red Rock had to be completely out of control. The flood control system around Las Vegas is very much improved over the last 10-15 years but it’s still scary. Scroll through a few of these photos to get the feel of it.

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Nevada set a first – or was it South Point Casino that did it? Nevada has awarded an online poker license to South Point Casino in a ‘first-ever’ in the United States. Umnhhhhh! I shudder at intrastate poker, too many years of dealing limits where the same players came in to feed off of each other every day I guess. I’m hoping it’s the catalyst that knocks loose the log in the log jam and the US government picks it up and floats runs with it.

Let’s talk about this realistically. Each state has their own idea of what would be good for John Q public and gaming. Each state is basically skewed in their reasoning since most of the lawmakers don’t know enough about poker to figure out that a herd of wild clubs can trample over a set of aces in a heart beat. But that’s just a small point. They don’t realize that if fresh money isn’t continually coming into the game, you have no game eventually.

In a perfect world I would win the World Series of Poker Main Event. In a non-perfect world, I would try to grind out a few $ a month from the same 5,000 member player pools that frequent the same games I do. Yes, 5,000 sounds like a lot doesn’t it? There won’t be that many a year from now if we don’t have a continually refreshing run of new players.

Let’s go Nevada…do it right!

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The Riot came out to spend a week with me before he starts school. It was a daily refresher course on why I’m happy I live alone…well…with Miss Scout. It was a toss up some days who was more needy, Scout or Riot. I did have fun but while we were pounding Super Mario on the Wii, I got the continual ‘disk read’ error. FK! I had a few downloaded games and we played some of those but little Mr. I’m-the-best-at-everything-I-do did not want to play with me sometimes. Turd butt! We played Dragon fighting matches before the disk read errors started and I beat him twice in combat. He couldn’t believe it!!!!!

Neither could I really. I think it was my dragon choice to start the game with but I won’t tell him that. He is good. He’s so much better than me at most of the games that he can walk circles around me. Not a problem, I always compliment him and congratulate on good moves. He doesn’t do the same for me though…we’re working on that. If I happen to snag the (costume as he calls it) helicopter, or ice, or fire, or anything that is a bonus when we are playing – even as a team – he tries to kill me in the game because he’s irritated. I’ve just stopped playing with him before for that idiotic behavior on his part. Sometimes I just try harder to snag the ‘costume’ and listen to him steam. Damn…being a kid is tough!

So the Wii went to Nintendo on Friday for repair, they said they would restore my downloaded games and fix it – and if they couldn’t they’d send me a new one. I got a discount on the repair after bitching to them. The long and short of it is that the money I spent on the Wii about 5 years ago is some of the best money I ever spent. I love it!

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I ordered and received “Thundershirt” – google if you don’t know what it is. The jury is still out in my home. Scout has a horrible issue with thunder, gunshots, fireworks, and separation anxiety. Having 85 pounds of wheezing, gasping, wide-eyed, ears back dog stomping through the house at 4 a.m. due to a thunderstorm is just UN-FUN!

I have a dog scrip for her from the vet. I really hate it. Her eyes water, she sneezes and whuffles off and on after receiving a very bare minimum dose of it (they recommend 2-3 tablets and she takes 1). I did some more research on it and it appears that Acepromazine may not be as great of an idea as vets like to think it is.

If we are out for a walk and we hear gunfire or fireworks when we are out in the desert, her nose is glued to the back of my knee. When thunder starts, it’s like watching something trying to spin in circles until it disintegrates.

So a friend recommended Thunder Shirt. It’s not a ‘must have’ at this point. We are on our third day of trials – put it on for 15 minutes each session, patting, “Good girl, Scout!” scratching and petting the ears and head as the ears become glued to the head and eyes look like the head will explode. Yippeeeee!

It could have been so easy, it isn’t. But we aren’t giving up. She followed me with her nose glued to the back of my knee. Once I almost ran over her as I turned and accidently hit her with my knee into her body. All it did was push her to the side, it wasn’t a blow.

I can hear her now, “Ridiculous BITCH! I’m wearing an idiotic shirt that she wouldn’t be caught dead in, she won’t take it off of me even when my nose is shoved up her ass, and then she tries to knee me through the damned wall!”

I think by being persistent, (me, idiot, not her), that she will eventually give in to wearing it without any dog-body-language. Will it help her anxieties? Who the hell knows?

On that note, I’m out.