The craziest thing I have ever seen

This place I'm house sitting is adorable. It's a custom made cabin in the woods with an acreage. Two dogs, Rufus and Bristol and two cats, Princess and Beaumont. I met this woman through a friend. I don't really know her very well but I went over and met her, her two children and their animals about a week before they went on vacation. When I first met them, the bigger lab Rufus stuck to my side the entire time and I could tell he was the alpha dog between the two. The other dog Bristol is a little smaller but still a full grown lab. She was very hyper when I first met her and she just kept dropping her ball at my feet. The cat princess has some definite "cattitude".  The chubby tabby runs around the house like it is all hers and yells at you until you pet her and while you pet her. Beaumont was no where to be seen when I was over there the first time. So the first thing I do when I arrive to start the job is play with the animals. Rufus was sad, I could tell. He came over to greet me them immediately went to go lie at the end of the driveway. He was waiting for his family to come home. Bristol went and found a ball and I found the Chuck-it (the greatest invention in the dog world) and we played for about a half hour. Then I went inside, left the door open and I finally saw Beaumont and I completely understood his name. He is gorgeous. I think he is some sort of Siamese mix. He is dark brown and tan with blue eyes. He was friendly and I pet him but he went outside. I went to go pet Princess and sat on the couch. She jumped (waddled) onto my lap. While petting her, Bristol came in the room and dropped her ball at my feet. Princess hissed and swiped at her. Then in slow motion it happened: Bristol backed away a few feet then this brown blur streaked across the room and wrapped himself around Bristol attacked her in a split second. It was Beaumont! Princess also started taking swings at the full grown lab but then ran away. Beaumont was still attacking Bristol and she jumped on my vacated lap. Beau then just stood his ground on the floor next to the couch, growling the lowest, most vicious sound I have ever heard. Bristol cowered on the couch. I just sat there with my mouth open trying to believe what I had just seen. I have never seen a cat full-out attack a large dog before. Beaumont eventually left in disgust. I checked Bristol for wounds and found none. I felt bad for her so we went back outside to play with her ball. Both cats were out and staying in there own area on the porch. Rufus was still at the end of the driveway waiting (he is much better now and has decided they aren't coming home for a while and has perked up quite a bit). I started throwing the ball for Bristol and again Beaumont came out from under the porch and started chasing her. It was insane. He is one bad ass cat. In the last couple of days I have noticed that Bristol will not go anywhere near the cats but that Rufus and the cats have no problem with each other. It is so strange, wonder if the cats can feel Bristol's energy or something? She is very hyper and Rufus, Princess and Beaumont are all very relaxed. I will never forget that one moment though it was so crazy.

I don't have enough time to write on here because I'm busy doing nothing

Although not completely true, I feel that the title of this post best describes why I haven't posted in four weeks. I have started to write three separate drafts but I got distracted by my job and now I can't remember what I was going to say in most of them. Since I last wrote I have done a ton of stuff. I had a mediocre 4th of July. The weekend after was much more exciting. My neighbor had his annual party at his house and I had to literally drag my parents away in the early hours of the morning. I went out on the Sea Doos with my friends and then we celebrated my best friend's mom's 60th birthday. The next weekend of the 14th, I went to an old friend's house for her birthday party which I enjoyed even though I was kicked out of my tent for a couple minutes while people defiled it. The next weekend of the 21st, I did absolutely nothing and thoroughly enjoyed it. This weekend, I started my busy season of house sitting. I am currently watching two houses, staying at one with two dogs and two cats. The other house is just a cat and a guinea pig. They both come back on Friday and I start two new houses. Then in another week I start another house while babysitting my nephew. It should be interesting. Also this weekend I went over to my friend, Milly's sister-in-laws house and had an awful dreadful time while I watched everyone get ridiculously drunk. I don't understand why they thought they were having a good time when everyone was just fighting but hey, it's just not my lifestyle. One thing I saw this week was the oddest, coolest thing I have ever seen.

This deserves it's own post:

http://theluxuryoflunacy.blogspot.com/2012/07/the-craziest-thing-i-have-ever-seen.html

Random Thought #12

Where did the expression "Balls to the wall" come from. I might be naive here but I get the impression "balls" means testicles, but to the wall? Hmm... I have to look this up.
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Shit! You learn something new every day people, for example:

Borrowed from Wordorigins.org

Balls to the wall

Dave Wilton, Saturday, April 08, 2006


The phrase balls to the wall, meaning an all-out effort, comes from the world of aviation. On an airplane, the handles controlling the throttle and the fuel mixture are often topped with ball-shaped grips, referred to by pilots as (what else?) balls. Pushing the balls forward, close to the front wall of the cockpit increases the amount of fuel going to the engines and results in the highest possible speed.
The earliest written citation is from 1967, appearing in Frank Harvey’s Air War—Vietnam:

You know what happened on that first Doomsday Mission (as the boys call a big balls-to-the-wall raid) against Hanoi oil.¹

And:

You’re in good hands with Gen. Disosway as long as you go in on those targets balls to the wall. Never mind the brownie points.²

Several Korean War-era veterans have written me noting their use of the term during their service. The phrase may very well date to this earlier war, although we have no written evidence for it.
There are two common misconceptions about the phrase. The first is that it is a reference to a part of the male anatomy.
The second is that it arose in railroad work. A speed governor on train engines would have round, metal weights at the end of arms. As the speed increased, the spinning balls would rise--being perpendicular to the walls at maximum speed. But there is no evidence to support either of these two stories. No use of the phrase is known to exist prior to the mid-1960s, and all the early cites are from military aviation.

¹Frank Harvey, Air War--Vietnam (New York: Bantam Books, 1967), 144.
²Ibid., 150.

Copyright 1997-2012, by David Wilton
Word Origins please don't sue me for posting this!