Broken Spirit and Splintered Dream

 
Broken Spirit and Splintered Dream
sucked air through sagging skin.
They rattled around between cold bones
searching for a spot to call their home.

 
"Over here," Spirit cried out.
"This might start a good nest."
He plucked a sturdy silver hair,
Dream grabbed another, to make a pair.

 
"How dare that heart cast us out?"
Dream grabbed another hair.
"Worn out doesn't mean obsolete,
just makes us a little harder to see."

 
"Oh, pay him no mind," Spirit replied.
"What does that old fool know?
He thumps his chest, then takes a rest
snuggled behind a nice warm breast."

 
Dream nodded and braided the hair,
worked up quite a frisk.
She batted her eyes, bit her lip,
suggested they take an unplanned trip.

 
"If we join forces one more time
we'll lick that old ticker.
Penis is only a few feet south,
I'll bet we can entice him out."

 
Spirit forgot his broken state
and turned a somersault.
He said, "That won't be my only trick,
if you can wake up that lazy prick."

 
Dream threw on her favorite costume,
spruced up to fantasy.
Spirit consulted backbone,
in case he couldn't do it alone.

 
Together, they tracked Adreneline
oiled the rusty joints,
Spirit drove life into the muscles,
and Dream outlined new goals

 
Proud of all they'd accomplished,
the pair sat down to rest.
He took her hand and squeezed it tight.
She said, "I think that's enough for tonight"

 
Sandy Knauer

 

 





 

Please, Stop the Stupid (Cable/Fox Chapter) Edited to include FOX lies

Years ago, one of the cable providers drove me crazy with daily (sometimes more than one a day) solicitation calls. No matter how many times I told them I wasn't interested in switching, they kept on calling. When I complained to the company, they were reluctant to confirm what I knew – that they had no idea how many people were calling, how often they called, or what those people were saying when they called because they had offered 'fake jobs' to people who would not be employees but would get a commission for the accounts they brought in. The callers used robo dialers, (which will be a stop the stupid chapter on its own soon) that apparently didn't know that a dozen other callers had already left messages and the company could sidestep responsibility since the annoying callers were not their employees. 

Since I have way too much time to spare, and enjoy (tremendously) annoying telephone solicitors and door-to-door religion pushers (stop the stupid chapter coming soon) as much as they annoy me, I decided to play. I answered their calls, acted super excited when they told me how many hundreds of channels I could get, and asked them to list the channels. Most of them listed a few of the most popular, hoping that would please me. I interrupted, frequently, to voice my opinions and ask questions. How often do they replay the movies? I am forever falling asleep twenty minutes before the end of a movie, so can they promise I will be able to catch them again soon to see how the story ended? Are they all in color because I don't like black and white movies, except for Bette Davis movies? Does their package include Bette Davis movies? I'm not a sports fan but might be interested in ESPN if it runs movies about athletes, like Bryans' Song. How long would it take the caller to run and ask someone who did know the answer to that question and why wouldn't he just put me on hold and check it out?

When I wasn't satisfied with the few most popular channels, most huffed and told me I was crazy if I thought they would read the entire list to me. I asked, "How will you react if the next time you go the grocery, an employee meets you at the door with a fully loaded cart and says you have to pay for chicken liver, rutabaga, white shoe polish, brown bananas, and potatoes with three-inch eyes if you want the milk and eggs? One guy told me that was crazy and I agree, saying that's what he was trying to do to me and I'm not crazy enough to fall for it. 

Another told me I didn't have to watch channels I didn't like. "Like you wouldn't have to eat the groceries you didn't like?" I asked. He hung up on me. 

One very patient caller read the entire list to me. I felt mean when I told him it sounded great – if he would just remove FOX, the religious channels, sports channels, and cartoon channels - and adjust the bill to reflect that I was only getting a small portion of what they offered. That wasn't possible and he couldn't believe I was not going to sign up after he read that whole list to me.

Anybody else old enough to remember when we first got cable? The selling point was that we could pay for television and not have to watch commercials. How did we get from that to not being able to watch television at all if we don't pay for it, and having thirty and sixty minute infomercials on some channels? 

Why did we allow this to happen?

Tonight, I ran across a link to this on Facebook. Sadly, many misunderstood the reason DISH dropped FOX and gave them credit they didn't deserve. If they had made a conscious decision to stop airing the station that consistently pumps out misinformation and promotes racism and ignorance, I would have seriously considered switching. As you can see by Comcast's responses to letters they received asking could they, too, drop FOX, they aren't in the business (pun intended) of making socially conscious decisions to stop airing the station that consistently pumps out misinformation and promotes racism and ignorance, either. 

I agree that a letter-writing, and phone-calling, and tweet-bombing, and every other way we can hold-their-feet-to-the-fire campaign is in order. It will take everyone doing it, and everyone doing it as individuals, not copying and pasting the same letter or reading a script into the phone. Maybe, if enough people get involved? Think it's possible?

Who's in? I'm seriously tired of paying for white shoe polish I'll never use and chicken liver I won't eat. 

Fox Has Absolutely NO Journalistic Ethics, And Here’s A LONG List Of Their Lies (VIDEOS)

Stop the Stupid Lawn Chapter 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Please, Stop the Stupid (Lawn Chapter)

When I moved into this apartment complex, the managing company told me that no one is allowed to drive on the lawn. Ever. For any reason. That meant we would have to park the moving van in the parking lot and carry everything (including the heavy furniture) the ninety-four-long-strides from the parking lot to my door. Seemed a bit cruel but those were the rules and I agreed to follow them. 

Example of daily maintenance cart rut

Soon, the Monday after the weekend move, I learned that those

Rodent hole fix

rules didn't really apply to everyone. The maintenance crew drive golf carts all over the lawn. Daily. Way more than necessary, actually, since, even though they have work orders, they never come prepared for the job. They drive up to the door, come in to assess the situation as though resident reports are not reliable, and then have to return to the cart--and usually the garage--for tools and parts. They actually drive every inch of the ground, almost daily, to pick up trash and fill in holes the rodents leave. 

It almost made sense to me for them to drive those carts on the grass. It might still seem to make sense, except for the insistence that no one would ever be allowed to drive on the grass for any reason because they don't want ruts in the grassy areas. In my mind, ruts are ruts are ruts. And these are some rather obvious, substantial but acceptable ruts, since they were not caused by residents.

The painter (who had hit the ceilings in every one of my rooms with the wall-color roller) came to touch up. (Totally going off track to say that when he touched up, he hit the wall color with the ceiling brush, and used white paint which made it obvious that I was correct when I insisted that no one had painted the ceilings and management swore I was wrong. After he finished attempting to fix the mess, I had three paint colors instead of two.) He pulled his van right up to the door because – I suppose – it is much harder for a young, healthy, guy to carry a ladder, a brush, and a bucket of paint ninety-four-long-strides than it is for an old lady to carry every single freaking thing she owns the same distance. Or, maybe his van wouldn't leave the same ruts as my moving van would since he wasn't carrying much.

The floor guy-- who did not come to refinish my floors as promised before I moved in--came to finish the hardwood in the apartment above me. He carried even less than the painter--one electric sander--and drove right up to the door. I guess his toddlers—who, like every child who sees wide open space, ran, jumped, and screamed, louder and louder when they discovered the echo--were his free pass. Since he had no control over his children, he surely couldn't be expected to corral them and carry his sander ninety-four-long-strides in an area where no one is allowed to drive – ever. 

For years, I've watched carpet cleaners, exterminators, utility workers, even a house-call dry-cleaning service drive on the lawn. Far as I know, the only people who absolutely followed the no driving on the grass rule were me, and the ambulance drivers who came to get me when I had the brain hemorrhage. Fortunately, I was conscious and mobile when they took me out because this building isn't designed for stretchers. Once I made it out the front door, they wheeled me on a stretcher the ninety-four-long-strides to the parking lot, carefully staying on the sidewalk and leaving no ruts behind. 

I won't try to pretend that I'm a big enough person to not be annoyed the first day I looked out my front window and saw this. I'm not that person at all, obviously. I grabbed my camera and snapped this photo through blinds and dirty windows because I wasn't ready to let the world know how petty I was. 

At that point, I snickered, texted the picture to a daughter or two with a snide remark about the beloved grass – and maybe management having heart attacks or something. I'm past petty now - shameless and ready to scream this story from rooftops. 

My ability to snicker left town when the workers started dropping equipment in the parking lot where we are already a few spaces short of what we need. Seriously? Their heavy equipment and trucks can be on the grass, and they've dug trenches, but the pipes that are going into those trenches need to sit in parking spaces instead of on grass? Republicans have to be in charge of this decision. There's simply no other plausible explanation for this level of stupidity. 

I planned to make the best of the situation. I always do most of my running during daytime hours, so I would just be more conscious about making it home before the 9-5ers, so I'd have a parking space. 

The second notable slip in my patience came the day I saw the orthopedic doctor. Last time, I had been in excruciating pain for six months, I used ice, heat, TENS, and weeks of physical therapy to no avail. I finally found this doctor and after one cortisone injection I was pain free. I was excited about returning to have the other side done and looked forward to coming home and breezing through chores I had put off because of the pain. 

The good news is that I got home in time to have a parking space. The bad news is that soon after I got inside, an attack of dizziness, sweating, and nausea made me fear I might be having a reaction. And, I was still in pain, actually worse pain than before the injection. I got an ice pack, sat in the recliner with my feet up and head back, and hoped this would pass quickly. As soon as I had settled in and almost found a little relief, a maintenance man knocked at the door to ask if I could please move my car so trench-diggers and heavy-equipment operators could drive onto the grass. I wanted desperately to hand him my keys and ask him to do it himself but grumbled something not too terribly hateful, put my shoes and coat on, grabbed my keys, and walked ninety-four-long-painful-strides to my car. 

As I was unlocking my car door, nowhere near the space that the work crew had marked off with cones to claim as their personal drive-way, even during the twenty hours a day and weekends that they are not on site, the maintenance man waved me down to apologize. He thought I owned the car at the end of the row. Never mind. He didn't need me to move my car after all.

I couldn't waste a bad emotion. Seriously, I'm not that big a person. I stopped him before he could escape to find the correct owner of the car that needed to move and asked where management thought we were supposed to park, and why they didn't ask the workers to put their supplies in the grassy area where we don't need to park or walk – just a few feet beyond where it was sitting. He said they have no control over where those people put their equipment and supplies and, I guess, didn't think it was appropriate to even ask them to move the cones that they leave behind. Since they have no control over the work crew but they do have the ability to waive rules for residents, I demonstrated my resistance to stupidity by asking if it would be okay for residents to park on the grass when the lot filled up. 

Absolutely not. No parking on the grass. Ever. 

Silly me.

IF I were that bigger person that I've already admitted I'm not, I might have decided to never leave home again. That way, I could avoid being in the terrible position of having to choose between searching the neighborhood for a parking space and breaking the rule. But I'm really not that person. Not anymore. My patience and bigger-person-ness decrease in direct proportion to the expansion of the stupidity epidemic, meaning they are as close to none existence as they can possibly get. When invited to have dinner and paint Christmas ornaments with my daughters and their families, I said screw the grass and accepted, and I stayed out until after 9 p.m. 

When I got home, the closest available parking space was three blocks away. My shoulder still hurt because that injection did not work. My hip was slightly dislocated, screaming with pain, and weak, because that's what it does when I drive ten miles. My knees hurt, it was cold, I had things to carry, and I was tired – and annoyed. I drove around the complex once more, to make sure I didn't miss a closer space. When I found nothing, I pulled my car onto a grassy area between a sidewalk and the road. A space that was already rutted by maintenance carts. A space that people walk on constantly, that dogs poop on, that squirrels and groundhogs and rabbits and hawks romp on. I used the same ramp that maintenance uses to pull their carts onto the lawn, and parked, not blocking the road or the sidewalk. I went inside, texted the kids to have bail money ready because I wasn't sure what might happen if they towed my car before morning.

I set an alarm to get up and walk one-hundred-four-long-painful-stiff-morning-strides and move my car off the grassy area as soon as others left for work and vacated space for me in the lot. When I got out there, the maintenance man caught me and told me I knew I wasn't allowed to park on the grass. I explained that I had come in late, the closest available space was three blocks away, I didn't feel well . . . Didn't matter. He was trying to protect me because if I left ruts on the lawn, the property owners (whose names I am not allowed to know) would charge me to repair them. 

That's when I lost what little was left of my patience. I reminded him that he leaves ruts in the grass

every day, that there were TRENCHES in the brown, winter grass, that huge, HUGE trucks were driving all over the property. He had a hard time hearing me because those huge trucks were loud. I promise that is the only reason I had to scream. And the tears – only because it was so freaking cold and windy. 

I got a designated handicapped parking space within the hour, something I hadn't requested before because it seemed pointless when I had to walk ninety-four-long-strides from my car to my door. Sadly – maybe, jury's still out on the exact emotion – the other change in me is that, for the first time ever, I didn't say what came naturally. That fixes my problem but what about my neighbors?


 

I Want Barack Obama for My Spades Partner

Years ago, I wrote a Spades analogy to defend a decision President Obama made, illustrating how he was bound by house rules. Unfortunately, whether he liked or approved of the house rules, when playing at their table he had two choices: he could give them the game, or he could beat them at their own game and change the rules when he was host.

After watching fair-weather friends say ridiculously incorrect and very damaging things about President Obama and the people who supported him yesterday, late last night a Spades game provided another perfect analogy to represent the critics again.

In case anyone is in doubt, I'm as hard, if not harder, on terrible Spades partners as I am on political opponents. I own my competitiveness and lack of patience for ignorance and cheating as a huge part of who I am. My grandchildren probably learned every cuss word they know from listening to me play Spades with strangers on the internet. Their aunt will tell you she lost sleep over my late night Spades addiction.

Still, I keep on playing, often asking myself why. A few nights ago, a stranger on the internet reminded me why. He said he had honestly experienced an aha! moment and learned from watching me play. It was almost as gratifying as the time a friend changed his voter registration from Republican to Democrat after my response to his making fun of our candidates--who he said were nothing alike--was to explain to him how much I appreciated the wide range of great candidates I had to choose from while he only had a large group of ignorant clones on his ballot. There are some people willing to think and try, and I continue to seek them out.

Last night, I was in a game from hell with the perfect example of the stupid partner who makes me have to play three against one and growl every cuss word I know. (And be a bad influence on grandchildren, and keep daughters awake at night.)

The score was close enough that either side could have ended the game with a six bid. Our opponents 

had nine bags and we had two. I'm quite sure a third-grader could have looked at the score and determined that in order to win, we either had to bid and take seven, or give the other team an extra trick. Or, hope that we had eight or better and they had nothing. But not everyone is willing to look at the score and consider options and all possible outcomes or strategies. Not in Spades or politics. 

The player to my right was first bid and he chose nil. I might possibly have been able to take two but a one bid left room to bag the opponents. I chose one since I didn't know who was loaded, my partner or the nil's partner.

The opponent to my left bid two, also. My partner, last bidder, went four. Our total bid was not enough to win the game and there were six bags out. SIX. Should have been easy to either set the nil or bag his partner – or both. They would go back one hundred and eighty points if we did both, and we would only need one trick the next hand to win the game. Great position to be in.

First-bid, nil guy, led with a nine of clubs. I played an eight. The opponent to my left, who should have been covering the nil, played a three. And my partner took it with an ace. Damn. What rotten luck that he didn't have anything lower than a nine.

But he did. He led the two after taking that trick with an ace. The nil played his ace of hearts on that two of clubs, his partner took it with a king, and led a two of hearts. My partner took that one with a king of hearts and the nil played a ten. My partner proceeded to cover the nil and take the bags. When I asked him why he did that, he said he had to get his bid.

This happens often, with people who could really be five years old using adult faces for their profile pictures. Sadly, I doubt any of them are children. They are idiots who can't be bothered with thinking.

Just like the people who refuse to think about why the Democrats had to take the CRomnibus deal. Their short-sightedness will be accompanied by in-the-moment forgetfulness next campaign season when they don't remember that the comments they are making today set the stage for another round of 'both parties suck' and 'nobody cares so why vote' defeat.

Looking for a good Spades partner.

 

Hallmark It Ain’t

 
Bruiser was a unique creature, born with half a mind,
the son of Sheila the skunk and Paul the porcupine.
With stinky dispositions and shortsighted hearts of their own,
they expected he'd learn no different and prepared him for the blows

 
"If ever someone's down," they said, "Roll in for the prick."
They filled his trifling head with hatred and rhetoric.
"You can't ever trust anyone, so turn your misery into fun,
make believe it's clever to leave your stink on everyone.

 
Bruiser met Amy Butterfly beneath a park bench.
She fluttered hopelessly in the dust. He reveled in her pinch.
"Help me, please," she cried. "I think I broke a wing,
Hauling worms for birds all day. They've had a dreadful spring."

 
Bruiser stamped a foot, flipped his tail, and sprayed with all his worth.
"You're asking me, you crazy bug? I was privileged by birth."
Strutting a wide circle, he mocked her while she cried.
"Should've made wiser choices, let those squawking birds die."

 
"You ain't mine to keep," he said, lining up for the kill.
"Plan ahead next time." With that he poked her with a quill.
Amy caught her breath and rolled slowly to the side.
Finally, she gasped, and cried. "One thing I will not choose is to be like you.

Next . . . (More on Bush Adm. War Crimes)

 
 

 
Moving right along. Fallujah is down. Potential terrorists litter the streets in neat piles and the real fighters fled to other areas. We have successfully blocked the Iraqi Red Crescent's convoy of relief and guaranteed the survivors will not recover their missing limbs and grow into able suicide bombers. Mission accomplished.

 
Currently, dogs and cats assist in the clean up, dining on the bodies our liberated friends didn't have the decency to cross the blockades and bury. Halliburton will arrive soon to begin a one hundred eighty million dollar repair project, and we will install a new government, complete with a mayor, police chief, and thousands of police. Did I mention we may have shot down Satan in this raid and the real bonus is that nobody is paying attention to the election fraud in the United States?

 
Here at home, we are reminded there "haven't been many" civilian deaths in Iraq (latest estimate between fourteen and sixteen thousand) so we can move on to the war on Arlen Spector. Yes, another new war for the war president. A hostile group gathered to call Senator Spector a child killer and demand that the war president only endorse the killing of live babies in foreign lands, and prenatal killings if the mother is killed along with them in the name of liberation. Rabbi Vehuda Levin warned the war president he would not tolerate double standards; the people who gave him the mandate demand he uphold their particular version of killing values.

 
A tired activist demanded a litmus test in return for the six weeks he generously donated to the war president's campaign, and threatened the wrath of fifty thousands Catholics and millions of evangels who were on his side. Christian soldiers march on. Joseph Starrs claimed he spoke for the majority of the American people when he said Spector can't be trusted to kill only already born babies, but I suspect he failed to poll the majority.

 
No circus like this would be complete without an angry Jane LaRue, and a confused Mary Ann Kreitzer, to fuel emotion. No, they didn't suggest the group break to look at the latest flood of pictures of wounded Iraqi children. They would much rather refer to pictures of fetuses, which miraculously come with toe rings and tattoos at the six week stage. They repeated the same propaganda that has been debunked repeatedly. The war on truth rages on, even as we fight the wars on Afghanistan, Iraq, and Arlen Spector.

 
Don't forget, Rabbi Levin will not tolerate double standards.

 
While this group inks the final details on the roadmap to their litmus test, across the world we move on to secure Mosul. Security is so comforting in this troubled world.

 
Sandy Knauer, author of six published novels, bringing politics and social issues to fiction, and heart to political and social issue articles.

Morality and Liberals

 

First, hold on to your seats. I'm ready to admit that I believe the Bush team has succeeded at one thing. Not only that, it is an overwhelming success that has been tested and proven. They dumbed their base down to total cult mentality, and tested it by putting the dumbest of the pack in charge and watching the others praise him. Their dumbing down was genius. This truly is not morality, at least by my standards.

 
 

When the liberals made great strides toward ending the racial divide, the other side quickly enacted a socio-economic divide. When that stopped working in their favor, they organized a cult and turned it into a religious divide. Notice how they bloat their empty people with scripts that assume superiority (mention welfare and immediately they spout something about blacks and Hispanics, offer to help someone and they spew misinformation about their hard-earned tax pennies going to welfare moms), designed to put others in their place? That place where they tell their blind followers that liberals want to keep people in need?

 
 

Call them on their hypocrisy and they puke up a bible quote that supports bigotry and hatred. That is NOT morality.

 
 

The ironic, least sensitive but perhaps most creative, move on their part was including the 'dumbing down' portion of the script. Their obedient Christian soldiers chant the evils of dumbing down at the "intellectual elite," without realizing they've been duped. That is not morality.

 
 

Calling things as they are is not hatred, in my opinion. Calling a liar a liar, a killer a killer, a cheat a cheat, is moral, if your silence allows the liars, killers, and cheats to continue abusing others. Morality has nothing to do with political parties, religious organizations, or Christianity. It is what a person lives, regardless of those affiliations.

Sandy Knauer

Let Me Cry

 

 
 

Reality erases expectations

leaving a trail of broken truths

tears threaten internal drowning

if I don't release them soon

 
 

Doubt displaces security

uprooting years of peace

fear promises suffocation

unless I start to breathe

 
 

Frustration ousts comfort

tramples core beliefs

exhaustion finds my heart

bruises it with a squeeze

 
 

A single realization

tears my world apart

let me scream, cry, and grieve

embrace a new version of me

 
 

Sandy Knauer, 2005

 

 
 
 

I Can’t – 2005 Ode to Bush/Cheney Administration

I Can't 

 
 

I feel your pain

Cry your tears

Walk in your rain

But I can't release you

 
 

I pay your debt

Carry your guilt

Bury your dead

But I can't save you

 
 

I hear your prayers

Read your excuses

Watch your tracks

Live your lies

Slip in your blood

Watch my back

 
 

I can't forgive you

I wonder who will

 
 

Sandy Knauer 2005

 
 

Get Out

Get Out (previously posted on Gather)

 
I won't suggest that anyone who doesn't share my religion or political beliefs get out of my country. First of all, no other country deserves our broken citizens. More importantly, I haven't reached the point of delusion necessary to believe I am the boss of the country, nor do I don't subscribe to the Christian value system that promotes such hypocritical ranting.

Instead of asking them to leave, I'd like to make a proposal. If they agree to live by what they wish on others, I'll leave when they say the plan is working well enough for them that they want to keep it forever.
 
I wish them twelve-hour lines at the polls next election, and four-hour lines at their banks.

I wish them bank statements that are as accurate as the voting machines in Ohio and Florida.
 
I wish them a spouse with Tom Delay's integrity, Mitch McConnell's warmth, and Dick Cheney's sex appeal.

I wish them a false arrest, an attorney with George Bush's respect for the law, and a judge with Donald Rumsfeld's idea of fairness.
 
I wish them children who respect them as much as George Bush respects the truth.
 
I wish them the same drinking water the people in Iraq and Afghanistan are drinking today.
 
I wish them an angry, jobless, hungry, desperate next-door neighbor with an assault riffle and a George Bush attitude.
 
I wish them no health care plan, surgery with no anesthesia, and a shortage of despicable trial lawyers available to defile the system in their name.
 
I hope everyone they meet treats them with the same respect George Bush has for the constitution, and another year of life for every word of the constitution he can repeat with his eyes closed and no box on his back.

 I wish them everything they honestly believe George Bush wishes for the man holding the will work for food sign.
 
I wish them a post-op nurse with a Bush twin level of responsibility, sobriety, and compassion.
 
I wish them a face as beautiful as Barbara Bush's mind, and a daughter as beautiful as her face.
 
I wish them employees who work George Bush's schedule. On the mean side, I wish them a toothache every day he's on vacation and a migraine each time he lies.
 
I wish them the right to preach about their God, loudly, in public, as long as they agree to accept a sleepless night each time their actions or thoughts defy what he is supposed to represent.
 
I wish them joy in posting those commandments that they can't seem to remember or obey, as soon as they stop killing people in my name so they won't look like hypocrites.
 
I wish them a long, all expenses paid vacation at Abu Graib.
 
Something tells me I'll hear from some very confused people who think I'm cruel.
 
Sandy Knauer



 

Aunt Jackie’s Gift

 



Aunt Jackie was the most thoughtful gift giver. She decided what would be the perfect gift for each person and set out to find that exact thing. Once, Jessica complained that stuffed animals were ridiculous because they were all pastel colors instead of the actual colors of animals. That Christmas, Aunt Jackie searched (this was before internet and Google) until she found a brown and black striped stuffed cat for her Christmas gift that year. Jessica returned the favor by naming her gift Methane, since Aunt Jackie was a chemist whose real cats were all named after chemicals. 

On Briana's second Christmas, Aunt Jackie apologized ahead of time. She wasn't sure what to get her and was so worried she hadn't guessed correctly. I felt sad for her because Briana was too young to really care much either way. It ended up being a wonderful experience for Aunt Jackie and everyone who observed.

Briana was happy about 99% of the time. She was happy 100% of the time that she was tearing into a package, no matter what was inside. Odds were definitely on Aunt Jackie's side.

 The gift-distributor called Briana's name and she got excited. He handed her the package and she beamed as she tore in. When she had uncovered the box that contained the dancing dog, someone took it from her, wound it up, and placed it on the floor. She squealed, put her little hands on her face, jumped up and down, laughed, squealed and laughed some more, and was so uncontrollably delighted that everyone in the room was in tears – especially Aunt Jackie.


Even the little kids weren't overly anxious to move on (we open one gift at a time in our family). Dancing doggie went through several rewinds before Briana's excitement showed any sign of waning. 

She did open other gifts that night but promptly put them aside to return to her dancing dog. So, even when Aunt Jackie was unsure what to get, she still found the perfect gift.