The Great Marble Caper

This entry has nothing to do with the adoption. It's just a story that has unfolded during the past few days which has completely occupied my thoughts.

The weather is finally beautiful here. It went from winter to summer weather overnight and our 4 feet of snow has melted in less than a week. The dogs are thrilled and they naturally want to be outside all of the time. They have their own fenced in yard and get to it through the back door on which I have hung a screen from the top of the door frame so they can run in and out as they please when the door is open.

That all good an well, but this week there has been some sort of a mind-twisting, movie-like scenario freaking me out. You see, for the past several days, little blue marbles have been appearing on the floor just inside the door. At first I thought it was some stray marble that Brody had brought in from one of his explorations outside. After all, he is a digger and has been known to bring some random things into the house. But then, another one appeared. I thought, how weird? And really began to wonder what this was all about because the people who lived here before me didn't have any kids either.

So I went on a search of the backyard. I showed the latest marble to Gunnar and Brody and said, "Where's the marble? Show me the marbles." They both sniffed the marble and went about their business completely dismissing me. No Lassie's in this house. So, I scoured the backyard looking for marbles. Nothing. But they kept appearing. And I started to get freaked out. I was thinking of scary movies like "Hide and Seek" or "Kiss the Girls" and began to wonder if I was being terrorized by some wacko living in the woods behind my house. When I asked my mom she said, "OH!!! I saw a couple of those when I was at your house last week. Maybe it's a leprechaun!" She's Irish, so most everything out of the ordinary is usually the fault of a leprechaun in her eyes. I was hoping she was going to tell me she planted some thing in a pot with some marbles. I don't know why should would do that, but still.

And so I continued to wind myself up. I examined the marbles. No, they haven't been dug up. They are clean and not scuffed. And so I went out back again and examined the backyard. By this time, Gunnar and Brody are thinking the mama is a loonie. So, I finally broke down and had a little chat with St. Anthony. "Dear St. Anthony, please come down and help me figure out what's going on with these freaking marbles". And not five minutes later when I came through the hanging screen it occurred to me - The screen! Sure enough, it turns out that the bottom of the screen is weighed down by.... clean new marbles. The corner of the bottom sometimes gets stuck in the door and a little hole has formed allowing for the marbles to come shooting out when the dogs come running through the screen from being outside.

So... all is well... no boogie men, uni bombers or leprechauns, just a slightly neurotic mama to be who has apparently watched too many scary movies. The hole is patched and from now on I will know where to look when little blue marbles appear from the heavens.

I wonder what life's next caper will have in store for me?

Happy spring!