Things I've learned

I meant to post this last month, after my birthday, to celebrate all the things I've learned in the last year but that didn't happen. So here it is now, only a month late.

• If you rearrange the bedroom furniture after 19 years, expect to run into the wall at least once when you get up in the middle of the night.

• If you feed eight cats out of the same big pan, they all eat quietly and don’t fuss because someone else might get their food. If you feed two cats out of the same big pan, neither one of them will eat because they’ll be too busy squabbling with each other about whose food it is.

• If your health insurance company says they will call back within 48 hours regarding a billing matter, it will take about three months to get settled.

• The dog who can (and will) eat grass, dirt, green tomatoes, wood chips, buttons and the bird he caught — including feet, feathers and beak — with no digestive upset whatsoever will throw up on the dining room carpet for no apparent reason.

• Pantyhose are out. Bare legs are in. I was feeling guilty about not having any hose to wear with a skirt at a summer wedding until someone told me I was right in style. I didn’t tell her the only way I would ever be right in style would be by accident.

• Digging up a plant and moving it to a spot where you think it will “do better” means it won’t come up at all next spring.

• Digging up any plant that bumblebees are crawling around on is a bad idea.

• Only in America will a physician's clinic schedule you for two appointments with two specialists in the same week, then tell you insurance won't pay for one of them because the appointments are too close together.

• The words “We think someone is using your credit card illegally” can take at least 10 years off your life. This may cause you to need yet another appointment with the cardiologist.

• When in doubt, hug the dogs, kiss your partner and eat chocolate.

• It is possible for a Kong to become so embedded in the inner workings of a La-Z-Boy you will never get it out again. In fact, you will not even be able to see it.

• A lot of things that sound like a good idea at the time, aren’t.

• Throwing a ball for a malinois in the house is not a good idea at any time.

• If you try to act like an authority, something will inevitably happen to make you look like an idiot.

• It doesn’t really matter what happens in your life — what matters is how you react to it.

• Do not buy groceries while wearing your sunglasses. You’ll come home with all sorts of things that aren’t quite what you thought you were getting.

• It is possible to get clean in a two-minute shower.

• Two-minute showers suck.

• Gas prices will always drop right after you’ve fill the tank.

• Plants labeled “dwarf” frequently end up being four feet high after you have planted them in the front of the flowerbed.

• Dogs love to go digging after moles.

• There is a big difference between “digging” and “catching.”

• Storing clothing in closets for too long causes them to shrink. This has been proven time and time again.

• There’s nothing wrong with eating cake for breakfast. Pie is good too.

• Let the malinois win.

• If you start with the KCRG early morning news about 5:40 a.m., you can watch three different weather forecasts within six minutes. I know this because it makes early morning treadmill time go faster.

• Seeing a big spider run under the treadmill makes you walk faster.