Monday, July 25, 2011

The Trickster & Dog Poo



You may remember me mentioning coyotes and how I keep seeing them hanging around where we live. It is not unusual at certain times of the year to hear them literally in our backyard. It drives Lucy crazy, especially when they find prey and all start yelping at once.

You may also remember me mentioning that I ordered a set of Medicine Cards. Here is an excerpt on the coyote:

"There are thousands of myths and stories about Coyote, the great trickster. Many Native cultures call Coyote the "Medicine Dog." If you have pulled the card, you can be sure that some kind of medicine is on its way - and it may or may not be to your liking. Whatever the medicine is, good or bad, you can be sure it will make you laugh, maybe even painfully. You can be sure that Coyote will teach you a lesson about yourself."


We've been spending plenty of time at Lake Tahoe this summer. It cuts down on the use of air conditioning in Reno, as most places at the Lake don't even have air conditioning, and it adds only an extra 20 minutes to my husband's commute time. I have a perch in my bedroom where I can view the creek, and all that is going on behind the condo. The other day a coyote came loping by, heading upstream. He was all by himself and being home alone, I was the only one to see him.

So now is probably the time to admit to one of my idiosyncrasies. I have a tendency to blame others when I can't find something. I know, I know, not an admirable trait.

Anyway, since seeing the coyote loping by, I have lost two sets of glasses. One set were reading glasses and they just disappeared! I was using them one minute, and the next they were gone. I have looked everywhere. This is a small place - not many places to hide, but they are no where to be found. The next set were my sunglasses. My husband and I have the same ones - his are black, and mine are very dark brown. I always put them in the same place, and was astonished to find they were not there when I was ready for my walk the other day. My first thought was that my husband confused them, and picked up mine instead. In fact, I will admit to accusing him of stealing my sunglasses when he called.

I know - you can see where this is going...

It seems that my sunglasses were not stolen by my husband. In fact they were safe and sound in the paper bag my husband keeps at the bottom of the outside stairs for dog poo. I must have been in such a snit about picking up the stuff that when I dropped it in the bag - I also discarded whatever else was in my hand - which was my sunglasses. My husband found my sunglasses in the bag with dog poo! Luckily, it was in little plastic bags. Thank heavens for bacterial soap.

The Trickster taught me a lesson about myself. If you are going to blame others for taking your stuff, you just might be full of, well, need I say more?

24 comments:

Gemel said...

Oh bless, that was a delightful post, made me giggle....I have the same tricksters in my house too I think ;)

Deborah said...

Very funny, Nancy! That has to be the most unlikely spot for sunglasses I've ever heard of. Do let us know if you find your reading glasses - and where.
I lost my expensive prescription pair of readers once - accidentally recycled them along with the tin cans.

Natalie said...

Doooo tell us some more of your stories!
My phone charger has never turned up. Hmmm......

Brian Miller said...

hehe...oh that trickster has a way of teaching us eh?

Leah J. Utas said...

Amusing, and a good lesson for all. How 'bout those 'yotes?

DJan said...

Did you find the reading glasses, too? I think you're lucky to have EVER found those sunglasses.

California Girl said...

Nancy, that's gross. I'm reading this to the spousal unit, however, as he does exactly the same thing: blame everybody else for his missing car keys, glasses, etc.

Pat said...

This made me laugh. Hard lesson learned. I guess praying to St. Anthony is not a given? That's what I always do when I lose something. And I ALWAYS find the lost item.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the laugh. I probably would have bought new sunglasses rather than clean the dog poo off of them, but that's just me. I buy the cheap $2.00 pairs from the drugstore, since mine tend to walk away on their own pretty frequently.

We get a lot of coyotes in our back yard. They drive the dog nuts, and are a bit of a danger to the cats, but they (the cats) are smart enough to keep their distance.

T said...

HYSTERICAL! You got to love the trickster, right?

Nancy said...

DJan - Guess what? My husband found the reading glasses under the automan where I had been sitting. Now here is the catch - I MOVED that automan to look under it and they were not there when I looked!

karen said...

Very funny Nancy....I find myself blaming my kids when stuff turns up missing...but haven't been fortunate enough to find the missing items. For me... I smell something fishy. I wonder what the fish medicine card says. I have those medicine cards thanks to your suggestion...and I'll have to check it out. Very cute post....glad you found your glasses.
Hope your week is off to a great start.

karen said...

Funny...just clicked back to my blog and see that Mike at 67 and not out has a post titled...'the voice of the fish coincidence'! ha! I'm definitely off to find my medicine cards!!

Kathy's Klothesline said...

I hate it when He is the oe to find my lost item! Hate it! Cause, as you know ..... I am NEVER wrong.

Amanda Summer said...

wow — that hit a chord. i do the same thing - assume someone else has taken something that i eventually found i misplaced myself. seems the coyote is teaching a lesson - but the dog poo is a tough way to learn it!

T.Allen said...

Ha! Great post, thanks for sharing!

I saw your comment on Kala Pohl's blog, you have a warm space here, I hope you comntinue to write in it.

Best,
T.

Michelle Wells Grant said...

I'm constantly doing the same thing ... blaming my husband for misplacing something, when 9 times out of 10 it's me! Naughty!

Green with envy that you are at Tahoe! We've rented houses there a couple of times in the past few years. Enjoy, enjoy! Beware of bears though; my friends who live there have seen bears on their property a few times this summer! eek!

GYPSYWOMAN said...

what a story, lady! i cannot even begin to count the number of times i have done the same exact thing - blaming everyone within sight and hearing distance - accusing each one of them individually and/or collectively, all the while having put something where i wouldn't "forget where it was" and never ever finding it again - loved the fox touch! what fun!

ellen abbott said...

I'm always the finder. Of my stuff and his stuff. Usually I'm looking for my glasses which are often only head and sometimes even on my face.

Coyotes are very cool though. They have even moved into one of the biggest'wild parks in Houston.

ds said...

Wonderful post, Nancy! Too funny. I laugh also because I have a tendency to do the same thing (i.e., blame others when I've misplaced my glasses, or keys, or wallet...). So I really really hope I don't run into a coyote any time soon.

Anonymous said...

You ARE such an original. A lovely lesson to be learned from such an unlikely place...

Leilani Tresise said...

LOLOLOL! Love it! LOLOL!

Jenny Woolf said...

A good story! Made me laugh.

It is strange how things disappear, though. I have known socks disappear between going in the laundry basket and coming out of the washer. AND THEY NEVER TURN UP AGAIN!

Hilary said...

That tricksy litte coyote.. he sure does have lessons worth learning. Funny story, Nancy.. though I suppose not so much at the moment.