We faced two great mysteries this weekend. Hubby came up with a solution for one, and I devloped a plausible explanation for the other. Could you have solved them?

Mystery #1

I needed to call my uncle Dave, who lives just a little bit down the road. He has a cell phone and I was reasonably sure he had given me the number although I had never yet had occasion to call the number.

I opened my phone and looked him up. As I expected, I found him filed under Brown, David. I file all my contacts by last name, first name. That way I don’t have to remember if I listed Uncle Dave in the U’s, D’s, or by his last name.

I hit the Call button and a woman answered – not Uncle Dave’s wife. I was a little surprised, but Uncle Dave does finish carpentry so I assumed a customer had picked up his phone for him. “Can I talk to Dave Brown? This is his niece.”

She sounded a bit surprised, but quickly put Dave on the phone. He sounded surprised too, especially when I asked to borrow his Dremel. He also sounded young. I decided to double check: “Is this Dave Brown?” It was, but he still didn’t sound right. “Is this Steve Brown’s brother?” No. “So I reached Dave Brown, but you’re the wrong Dave Brown? OK, I’m sorry.” I’m guessing he was a little less puzzled than I was, because he didn’t know that I found his number in my cellphone address book.

I was flummoxed, but hubby quickly figured out what was going on. He had a good laugh and called David’s father to explain.

To my knowledge, I have never met, heard of, or spoken to another Dave (or David) Brown. Can you guess how this happened?

It looked for all the world like someone had tried to set up an email account using my name, and had given my own secondary email address – the one I use on the web – as their secondary email address.

This was strange enough, but just 2 hours later I received another mysterious email at my firstnamelastname address (this time without the dot). It was an automated confirmation link for my new facebook account. I had not been on the facebook website or set up a new account, but the account referenced in the email had my name, first and last. My husband had not tried to access my email, reset my password, or interacted in any way with facebook.

What was going on? This one is not officially solved, but I think I dug up a plausible and innocent explanation. Can you? Or do you hear nothing but alarm bells?

Maybe I’ve mentioned this in the past, but I think it means the tattling has gone too far when

1. The children tattle on the dog – and the dog understands and responds: “Mo-o-o-o-om!  Lady won’t let go of the – never mind…”
2. The Boy (not yet 17mo) tattles on everyone: “Momma!  Hit!”

This morning, I got up at 6 AM and stumbled groggily toward the bathroom. The light was already on, and I swung the door shut behind myself. As I sat there yawning, I glanced toward the door, and our eyes met – that is, my two eyes met her eight.

She was standing there, motionless, on a damp rag on the floor. I think she was watching me, wondering if I had seen her. She was standing in front of the bathroom cabinet. If she had been 6 inches closer to the door or 6 inches farther into the bathroom, we both would have had a far less pleasant morning. As it is, I am unspeakably thankful to my dad who constantly barked at me to “pick up your feet when you walk.”

I called Lydia (who was awake) to get Kaitlyn while I stood watch. I mostly resisted the urge to scream when the hairy little beast try to make a dash for freedom as Kaitlyn scooped her into her old home.

Then I crawled back into bed with hubby, shuddered, and told him what had happened. I tried not to think about all the things that almost happened, or could have happened. Instead, I wondered where she had been for the last 2 months and how long it had taken her to make her way from one end of the house to the other. I wondered how many times she made that trip back and forth, and how many times I had stepped over her in the dark – or in the light. How many times did she freeze and stand there hoping we hadn’t seen her?

Now our eyes meet through the plastic walls of her prison. I like it that way.

Something crazy happened!

Monday we were getting ready to  go  somewhere,  and all three of our dogs started to bark at the same time. So I went to see what they were barking at … I saw a horse! I ran in and said,  “Mom! There is a horse in our yard!” I ran back out and another horse walked out  from behind some trees!

The horses’ names are Troy and Dusty.  Their owner is one of our neighbors and a few months ago she let us come over and ride them a few times.  She told us that Dusty is head shy so we shouldn’t pet him on the face.

When I saw both Troy and Dusty, then I slowly walked down and started calling them and they followed me up until they were in front of the house (they are good horses). My mom got a dog leash and put it on one of the the horses’ necks but it would not come, so she made it like a halter.  I told Mom how Dusty is head shy and she put the leash on Troy. He still wouldn’t come so she gave it a little slap on the shoulder and it startled it so it came.  After a little while, the other horse followed.