Here it is Christmas Day and I am here all alone, excepting for my pooch, Addler.  The folks here apparently had a change of mind and are spending the entire day at a friend's house not far away.  Considering it's 3:16 pm, I am decidely not going to cook that roast today.  They are likely eating over there and I am not going to cook that big of a feast just for myself.  It will go back into the refrigerator and cook it tomorrow or Sunday.

However, if I had known this, I would have changed my plans considerably.  I'm not necessarily wanting to spend Christmas alone.  I'm not feeling sorry for myself nor having a pity party, I'm just a people oriented person and Christmas is my favorite holiday of the entire year, it kinda sucks that I am sitting home, alone.  John Wayne movies on all day, though, that's a plus.

I'm seriously considering treating myself and pup to a La Quinta Inn overnight stay.  Yup, they take any size dog.  I know this because I have a friend that breeds Danes and she stays at La Quinta all the time, including taking a Dane to the pool!  I don't think she lets it swim, just you usually cannot leave a dog in a room unattended.  I haven't decided.

Meanwhile, I found a doggy park both here where I live and a much larger one in Longview.  I really want to get Addler off the leash onto a large plot of land where he can run freely.  No longer living on 36 acres, which I do miss but certainly not the "company" that went along with it, he is a very active dog and I would like to give him opportunity to have some free running range - that is fenced.  When I figure I can trust him to come back to me without having to chase him, then I can just take him out to public land where he can run as free as the wind.

__________________________________________________

8 hours later. lol
They came home.  Are you still going to make dinner?  Umm, well I thought you
guys would have already eaten.  It will be 7 to 8 before we eat. We'll be up. lol
Okay.  I got everything out and prepared a pretty darn good meal if I do say so myself.
After that, I went out on the front porch to enjoy beautiful weather.  That's when I was invited
over to the next door neighbor's - the Sheriff's house.  Okay, I could use some company in the
midst of gentlemen.  Sure enough, there were 3 of them out there and they were all very cool
people.

I sat out there for 3 hours cutting the bull with them and laughing it up, ended up being a
much better day in the socialization department than I could have imagined.  Well actually it was longer than that cause' it's past midnight, wayyyy past my bedtime!  No biggies, don't have to get up early tomorrow and allegedly rain's a coming.

I learned quite a bit about law enforcement social life, never really been exposed to that before.  They were smoking expensive cigars and drinking high dollar liquor.  I had a few drinks, but I stopped after a couple.  I don't need or want to drink all night long. They were drinking and drinking and drinking, but they weren't drunk.  They must drink a lot ot have that kind of tolerance.  I'm not judging them, I was happy to be in the company of some cool people having good conversation.  I just guess I didn't expect to see that.

Well, Turned into a very pleasant day.  I still like the idea of spending a day/night at La Quinta though : )

The Night before Christmas.
Not a lot going on here.
Got up late, went to several stores, got my haircut and came home.
Was messing around with Addler and the other dogs when the next
door neighbor kids come up to the fence.  Addler was getting agitated
by one of the puppies that simply won't leave him alone - until he deals
with it.  The puppy attacks him, bites him and that's when Addler digs
into the dog.  I mean, gets on top of it, pounds his paw down on it, flings
it to the ground and lets it know who's boss.  The puppy decided to try to
bite him anyway, which is when Addler - gave it right back to him.  No blood drawn, but I am not going to fault him for defending himself against a stupid dog that doesn't seem
to understand that Addler is at least 5 times bigger than the puppy and the puppy
needs to stop.

The puppy - it's not a small, it's about 50 pounds now - started howling carrying on
in fear and went whimpering off.

I gave Addler a cowhide chew bone which is when he went crazy!  I don't know WHAT
gets into that dog's mind! He started jumping and throwing it around, picking it up, jumping
- we're talking at least 5 feet up in the air - playing with this chew bone.

One of the kids came over the fence which is when Addler started misbehaving.  He has this
habit of "biting" a person's arm - taking it into his mouth and applying a little pressure to it.
It's not even close to drawing blood but it definitely got that kid running for his life!  He jumped
up on the 4 wheeler - but I got a hold of Addler by then and got it stopped.  I like messing around
with the dog but some things I just can't allow him to do for if he does it to someone else, they
are going to be terrified.  He's definitely a rough houser - when I came up to him today he jumped
up, hit me square in the chest with his right paw and just about knocked me on my @$$.

I like playing around with dogs, but I have to think about what would happen if he did that to
someone else.

Then the kids started asking to ride the 4 wheeler.  Don't care, really, but you need parent's
permission.  Dad is a county sheriff, if he says it's okay to ride around the neighborhood on a
4 wheeler then I have no problem with it. They already let them do it on a smaller one, but still.
Well, it turned into it's own event.  Neighborhood kids came over, landlady had asked them to kill
the squirrels - the dogs just bark and bark and bark at them - so, I guess for riding the 4 wheeler
they decided to take care of the squirrel population. Turns out the neighborhood kids are avid,
experienced and good hunters, having had killed both deer and pigs, but also kill squirrels.

They skin them and get the meat off of them, freeze it and wait until they have enough to feed
the entire family a meal of squirrel meat, proclaiming it tastes just like chicken.  I kinda have
a problem with just killing animals to kill them, but if they actually eat them, another story entirely.
It is an interesting place, out here.  Those kids are going hunting tonight.  Out in someone's property.
They get dropped off there and spend the entire night out there waiting on pigs.  The property owner
doesn't want the pigs around, just the deer.  They're pretty destructive animals, farmers hate them - pigs that is.

Well, after all of that was over with, I decided to try and make a cheese dip recipe I found on AllRecipes.com.  The ingredients looked like it wold make an excellent dish, however, it turned out mediocre at best.  Just not that good for what was in it.  Yes, I can follow a recipe and yes I made it exactly as the directions said to, it just didn't taste that good.  A large waste of Monterrey Jack, cream cheese and other ingredients. Oh well.  Some recipes turn out great, others you remember very well so you don't ever make it again!

Ate it anyway - well enough to satisfy my desire for some cheese dip anyway - the rest is going into
'the trash can.  Oh, and I tried to get Addler in to the vet today, but, they were closed.  His right eye is tomato red and has been for a while. I want to get whatever is needed to get that done and over with.

And then I was asked a question today. The landlady sees Valerie twice a week at her work.  That relationship has cooled considerably since the divorce.  What messages is Valerie talking about? she asks me.  No clue, what are you talking about?  She says she has gotten messages since you got divorced about something you are doing.  Ummm, not from me.  I don't talk to her at all. She is spreading some more poison about me, which isn't unexpected.  I have no connection with her at all at this point, whatever messages she is saying she is receiving? Probably total BS just designed to try and continue to get my landlady to evict me.  It's whatever.

I then got a Facebook message from a lady I have known since the 80's asking if I were going to be seeing Val for Christmas? Ummm, no, we are divorced.  Ohhh, she replies, I didn't know, she blocked me on Facebook and I don't know what's going on.  Well, she blocked just about everyone on Facebook that has anything to do with me and asked her friends and family to unfriend/block me as well.  Another non-surprising move on her part.  Which is why I have decided against giving Nathan the 4 wheeler.  I'm not giving a thousand dollars worth of a motorized toy to a person I can't even talk to.  It is still perplexing to me that her best friend still hasn't unfriended/blocked me.  I continue to "like" things on her Facebook wall to see if she just forgot.  But Val wouldn't have let her forget.  I have no idea.  Just strange to me.

So, tomorrow - a few hours from now - is Christmas and first time I'll not be spending it with any loved ones in quite a long time  I could have gone home, though, I just didn't want to go until Caleb returns from Portland.  I will have used up a large amount of vacation hours after this week's vacation and time I took last month off, so, need to keep some available to see him.  But, Wanna Get Away fare, round trip from Dallas to Phoenix - $81.  I doubt that will last long but I can't just make plans to go back without having a definitive return date for Caleb.