Tina Mitchell Wilkins
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Ranger the Lizard Wrangler

7/17/2021

1 Comment

 
Our dog Ranger is the best dog in the world. I know.. those are fightin’ words.. but he is. He is part Standard Poodle and part Llewellen Setter. (I know... I never heard of a Llewellen Setter either until Ranger) (crazy that that word has 4 L’s) There really isn’t a particular breed name for him, like Goldendoodle or Labradoodle. When people ask what kind of dog he is I say he is a Spoodle. (spoiled Poodle) He was gifted to us by Sawndra Worrell and Bill Worrell, after Sawndra’s dogs, June and Cash, fell in love and had puppies, on July 4th, 2011.
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Side note: If you think that you want a puppy, but your significant other is on the fence, whatever you do, do NOT look up poodle mixes on the internet. You will actually melt into a big blob of gooey mush from the overload of cuteness. I j u s t looked at a St. Berdoodle. No joke.. the snuggliest, largest animal on earth. Like a big character on HR Puf-n-stuff. (retro throwback) (that was a wackadoo show) ( I can’t believe it actually was labeled a kid’s show) (no wonder we are all messed up) (sorry for all of the parenthesis)

ANYway.. back to the most wonderful dog in the world, Ranger. I love this quote.. “Everyone thinks they have the best dog, and none of them are wrong.” -W.R. Purche
Ranger is family. I didn’t know that he would be family when we picked him up, but it was pretty clear that life was going to be a lot different, fluffier & lovelier from here on out. He is now 10 years old, loyal & true and still acts like a puppy. He recently had a major operation, so it slowed him down for a bit. But now, two months later, he is healed and rockin’ again.
One of his favorite things to do is to wrangle lizards. It’s like his special calling (other than taking care of us). He will find the tiniest of space, head and front paws down, nose in the drain or flowerbed or rock pile, hind end in the air, tail wagging profusely... living his best dog life. Even when he was healing, he still would do his best to save us from those evil lizards who were planning world domination. If he saw a lizard, let’s say, last week on our walk around the elementary school, he would drag me to the same exact place to look for it again.

Lizards are super cool. They are hard to see on trees, so they will wait for Ranger to spot them, hang out just long enough to torture him, wait until the right moment and then scurry on up. They know he cannot jump that high and they know that he can’t really see them, but Ranger can most definitely hear them. He looks up in the tree and barks in superhero dog speak... “You fooled me this time Evil Lizard, but next time you will not be so lucky”.

His lizard bark is different from his squirrel bark. His "HEY THERE’S A CAT IN THE BACKYARD” bark is very very loud and kind of squeal-y. His opossum bark is just flat scary. I think he is genuinely afraid of opossums, but truly... wouldn’t you be too with those red eyes looking at you in the pitch dark? It’s like a “What in all things holy ARE you?” kind of bark.

All this good stuff being said about the best dog in the world, he can be a bit of a bossy boss sometimes. Especially if there is a fence involved. He is the boss of all of the fences and everything barking behind it in the neighborhood. He will size up who is behind the fence and if it seems like it’s a dog bigger than him, he will start the fight. If it’s a small dog, he doesn’t bother. Like ‘eh... not worth the barking effort. He’s kind of a fence bully and that’s not cool. It’s also not cool to drag me into the fence as a part of his game. I remind him that I am at the other end of the leash, but he rarely listens when he’s defending his Fencedom.

Ranger’s favorite place in the world is where he was born. New Art, Texas. I love watching him run free at our friend, Bill Worrell’s home. (now the Worrell Family Compound) He covers the yard in seconds flat. He runs across the dirt road to check out the scene. He runs like wild past the gigantic shaman sculptures. It’s a gorgeous sight, watching a dog run free. His ultimate adventure in New Art is going down to the Llano River. The rocks are such that he can jump from them with ease. He loves to stand in the water too and try to catch fish. He looks like a puppy when he is at Worrell’s. I guess when we are aligned with what resonates with us, we feel our happiest. That’s ol’ Ranger. Looking like he did when we picked him up that late September in 2011. Just a little bigger version.
Our dear friend Bill Worrell recently left this earthly plane, but I know he will smile big when he sees Ranger running around his favorite place again. He used to say Raaaaaaanger.. such a good dog.
Such a good dog. indeed. The best dog in the world.
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1 Comment

Sometimes

7/9/2021

4 Comments

 
Sometimes you don’t feel like taking your walk. Sometimes it’s just too hot and you just took the pup for a walk and you are sweaty and just want to take a shower and then drink all the wine and watch Ted Lasso. Sometimes your husband can see that you really need to take a walk to perhaps help you stay on track or adjust an attitude or after all the years he deeply knows that walking always makes you feel better about everything. Sometimes you begrudgingly go...

Sometimes you take a different route, because it’s going to rain and you do not not want to die today from the lighting strikes that might just happen. You almost turn around and go back home, but you go to the school instead and begin to trudge around the grounds. Trudge. What a great word. It sounds like it means. An onomatopoeia, if you will. You continue to trudge until your feet finally get sick of you dragging them and they pick up speed for you. You walk a little lighter with each step. Next thing you know you are kind of liking it. You feel better moving. Then you decided to listen to Oprah, because that’s what you do on long walks. Oprah.. my friend that makes the miles breeze by.


In this particular podcast episode, she is talking about crying uncontrollably & feeling sorry for herself. She said that Maya Angelou was consoling her on the phone and she said to her firmly... “Stop it.. stop it right now and say Thank You”. “You don’t understand”..said Oprah. ‘What am I saying Thank You for?”  Maya A said, “You are saying Thank You, because Your Faith is so strong ...you will get through it and even in the eye of the storm, God has put a rainbow in the clouds.”


At that very moment, listening to the wisdom & walking, I looked up from my feet and saw a rainbow over the schoolyard. No lightening, no thunder.. a few dark clouds, light rain and a gorgeous rainbow. Then TWO rainbows. It made me shout out loud.... THANK YOU!!! THANK YOU!!! I threw my hands in up in the air, danced around in the rain a little and laughed-cried. Sometimes you scare the people in the car that pulled over to show their kids the double rainbow too, but you just keep dancing anyway.


Sometimes things align at the Divine and Perfect time.

​Walk on.
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4 Comments

Fairy Garden Party

7/2/2021

3 Comments

 


I had the wonderful opportunity to hang out (babysit) with my dearest friend’s granddaughter last week. I was super excited because I hadn’t seen her in about 2 years. Last time I saw her, she was a wild child that loved to climb, run, race, swing and cling to me like a spider monkey.

Two years later, she is a super kind, well behaved, lovely, elegant 5 almost 6 year old. She takes her slippers off at the front door (instead of flip flops, she was raised to call them slippers). She says thank you, please, yes ma’am and is pure delight. She was pure delight the first time I met her too...but she is a more mellow delight now.
Well.. seeing that I live in a house of boys, I was super excited to have a fun girly day ahead! I woke up early and went to Walmart to stock up on all things Fairy Garden. Pink things, sparkly things, sweet things. Glittery things, fluffy things, shiny things. Cakey things, donut-y things and a couple of rainbow tutus. I had so much fun and was kind of distracted... because when I finally checked out, I had about 150 bucks worth of Fairy Garden Party stuff in my basket. OH and a sprinkler. It wasn’t pink, but it would do for now.
I got home, unpacked all of the pink and began to set up. I got out a nice table cloth, fancy glasses, beautiful plates, fancy napkins and fresh flowers. I dug up fluffy things to sit on and fabric-y things to hang above the Fairyland I have in our front yard. Yes.. I even had cloud cutouts for our sandwiches. (you know.. to make your turkey sammies look like a fluffy cumulus summer cloud) I. Was. Ready.
My little friend arrived at 10am. We sat and talked and ate cute mini donuts rolled in rainbow sprinkles with pickle forks (because they are tiny and that’s what a fairy would use to eat donuts). We drank milk in fancy tiny fruit glasses that were passed down from Walt’s mom. I had to fill them up about 5 times each, but so what, they were elegant.
We ate blueberries with our pickle fork too. That was a challenge, but super funny. We ate strawberries dipped in sugar. It was kind of a high sugar day, but hey.. you know.. fairies.
We went outside to play Fairy Garden. It was a lovely morning. T h e n.. I had the idea to invite my next door neighbor girls to the party. They are sweet, fun and lovely too. The girls joined us for the party. It was like Pinterest meets Martha Stewart meets my friend JoAnne Box (who throws fabulous girl parties with wine. For big girls, of course) This was photo gold... for about 3 minutes. Then the sugar, the adrenaline & the excitement of new friends kicked in.
Fairies started flying all over the yard. The 9 year old was climbing the tree..the younger neighbor started chasing my little friend. They started screaming like, well, little girls. They ran into the house. My dog (who is older) started chasing them. He thinks he is a puppy, so the louder they screamed, the more fun he thought he was having. He was barking, the younger girls were screaming, the older girl was still in the tree. I had a flashback to the 2nd grade class I subbed one year when all hell broke loose and a little girl asked why I was smiling. Apparently I smile when I am stressed. Resting smile face, I think they call it. I told her, in my favorite Elf-like-movie-way, that “I like smiling, smiling’s my favorite.” She said... “Well you look kind of creepy”. Flash forward to the cute food that was on the table flying all over the place and kids running with food in their mouth. One kid is coughing.. like the food went down the wrong pipe, like I said it would...like all of our parents said it would. And it did. Cough Cough spit. The dog is still chasing the other child. The older child is now in the house. Thank the Lord.. because she wrangles her sister and I wrangle my friend.
We live next to a park. Yes. The park will save me. The park THEN the school playground. Perfect idea. Except that it’s 103 outside. We need snacks, my littlest neighbor says. So we pack the cute snacks (out of the cute bowls into the baggies) and water. Not soda, for the love of all things sugar. And toys. We need to bring many, many toys to the park, because that’s what we do when we are little girls. A boy is happy with a ball and a stick. Girls need a lot of accessories.
We all and I mean all, run to the park. We are there for approximately 1 minute. Then we run to the playground. We all arrive at the playground safely. I am, of course, the pack mule. I have sticky snacks, half waters, toys and toys. The second we get there, someone loses a toy. Not like a big toy, but the tiniest barbie doll tiny. Not like Skipper (remember Skipper?) But like the mini Barbie series that came out in the 70’s. So, we lost one and had to venture back so we could find him. All I could remember is that the mini doll has on yellow shorts. We looked and looked and moped and moped. We never found him. My guess is that I will come across him on one of my walks, take a photo and post it. (I post items that I see on my walk on my Instagram) Then I will find out that the mini boy doll actually jumped out of the bag, as to have a fun adventure with the fairies we left behind, but that is another blog post and perhaps my wackadoo brain.
We get back to the playground at 107 degrees now. We start to have fun and then someone has to pee. We pack up every last thing we just dumped out and head on back to my house. Quickly, but not running. Running would have brought on a different challenge.
We get to the house and everyone decides that after one uses the restroom, we need to have lunch. Our cute lunch that I planned for my little friend with the pretty dishes and the elegant glassware and the tiniest of pickle forks... is slowly fading. My Martha Stewart badge is now out of reach. I couldn’t even take a photo for JoAnne. She would have shuttered at the way I quickly threw a box pizza in the oven, cut up some already cut up watermelon and hid the donuts. It was madness. Now, I have to tell you... all 3 of ladies are awesome. Kind, loving, mostly mindful and sweet to each other. It’s just that when you have 3 kids together...who have been sequestered away from other kids for a year, it is beautiful and messy. And loud as shit. Loud. As. Shit.
We were quiet while we ate. For a minute. Then, of course, we need to watch a show. This was suggested and thus voted on by all 3 girls. They like Johnny Danger or Micky Danger or Ranger Danger...hell, whatever it was. I kind of loved it...because for a spilt second, it brought me back. I remember that we, who have the smallest house in the neighborhood, would often have the biggest pack of kids over when Luke was a kid. They would play wiffleball, frisbee, slip n slide, running games and an occasion or two, when I could figure out the Wii... Mario Brothers. When I couldn’t figure out the electronics, we would find a Disney show. All Disney shows were he same. Smart aleck-y, cute, kids with not a lot of supervision, getting into all kinds of hijinks. There was always one odd-ball kid, mostly clueless parents, and kids with extremely good vocabularies living in huge homes. The episodes would have slapstick fun, a kid-like troubling problem, a problem solved, canned laughter and lots of colorful everything. And commercials. A shit ton of commercials. Mostly about food and food.
Fast forward 10 years, it’s the same thing.. in my house... right now. My heart was happy. Then I found in my delighted, dream state (insert the Disney flashback fluffy cumulus cloud above my head) that no one was sitting in the living room. They had all gone outside to attach the new sprinkler.
The next several hours were filled with gd running, I mean running. It was also filled with water, playing in the neighbor’s backyard, chasing chickens & dogs. Finally, my friend and I needed to call it a day with the neighbor girls.
These girls were all so kind to each other. They had never met before, found common ground, had no judgements and created a lot of fun in one hot summer day in the suburbs of Texas. Lessons noted. My prayer that evening was to thank God for a great day, my little friend, the neighbor girls, my disheveled dream of a Fairy Garden Day...  and for all of the mothers, fathers & caregivers of more than one child. You all deserve a donut. Not just a mini donut with sprinkles, but an adult sized donut dipped in whiskey. With a side of whiskey.

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    TMW
    Observing things and hopefully writing about them. 

    The War of Art is my go=to book.  If you are a creator of things.. I recommend it highly. 

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