Swimming with Hogan and Abraham Lincoln

Well, if I haven't mentioned it before, Hogan loves swimming, which is awesome!  The bad thing is that he especially loves swimming in JD and Lisa's swimming pool.  At first it started with him falling in, but now he is going Air Jordan style into that thing.  Because of his love for the pool I now owe Rachel, JD and Lisa's daughter, a new boogie board and a 7ft. killer whale.  Hogan was freaked out by the whale because he thought it was always looking at him, so he bit a huge hole in it's tail.  Anyway, I took Hogan out today and stayed with him to keep a close watch so he wouldn't go all BayWatch on me again.  Just when I got distracted by a rollie polie, Hogan darts into the pool!  Now I'm just watching him taunt me. He swims over to the edge and right when I lean over to get him he splashes away, leaving me soaked and pissed.  I promise sometimes I can hear him laughing at me.  So today, I take off the shirt and shoes and jump in after him.  I lift him out and he jumps back in.  We did that little routine...I don't know...five or six times.  Again, I can just hear him laughing.  When I finally got him out, I'm walking him up to the house and I noticed someone looking at me.  I look over and it's Abraham Lincoln, on my five dollar bill, just sitting at the bottom of the pool.  As I was swimming down to get it I could hear Hogan laughing again. 

Entertained by Hogan

So, two weeks ago Ashley came to visit.  We decided we wanted to grill out.  JD (the guy who owns the house I live in) let me use his nice grill.  So Ashley is whippin' up some side items and I'm focusing on the chicken.  Once JD's grill gets nice and hot, I start making my way out there. Now between my house and the grill is a huge pool that Hogan is not suppose to be in.  As I'm walking, Hogan is right by my side, stride for stride, drooling over the chicken.  He is focusing on nothing but the chicken.  We get about half way to the grill when Hogan pulls a Jesus and tries walking on water.  SPLASH!  My dog was in such awe of the chicken that he walked straight into a swimming pool!  I was trippin' out trying to pull him out of the water.  Immediately I was reminded of the ol' saying my great grand pappy would say, "If you focus too much on chicken, you'll fall in a swimming pool".  I thought grand pappy was crazy when he would say that, but now I see it as golden words of wisdom.

Quality convo with 1st grader

 You ever find yourself experiencing a random day and then stopping and saying "what is going on in my life right now"?  Well yesterday I had one of those days.  I spend most of my days working between two jobs, one at a golf course and one at my church.  Yesterday, I had the whole day free because I didn't have to work at the golf course until 4pm.  So far, in my new city of Acworth, it has been my experience that when I have the day off, I realize that I don't know many people because I usually find myself hanging at the house with Hogan, my dog.   Yesterday I woke up around 9, surfed the web for a while, I watched tv, took Hogan outside, anything to fill time.  At about 2pm, I was outside with Hogan and I realized that I had yet to see another human all day. Right about that time my landlords daughter walked outside.  Her name is Rachel and she is 8. She played with Hogan, and when I say play I mean held her nose and covered her eyes while he pooped and covered her mouth while he licked her face and coated it with slobber.  Anyway, next thing I know I'm sitting with an 8 year old girl, side by side, in matching swings, her feet barely touching the ground and my legs folded backwards just so I can sit.  We talked about life.  You know, important stuff like, "why do we have to clean our rooms".  I mean if you think about it, why do we make up our beds if we're just gonna mess them up again in 12 hrs!  Anyway, after we hung out for a while, I had the thought, "You are 28 and you've only talked to one person today, an 8 year old."  I was tripping out.  Rachel is pretty funny, and the hilarious thing is that she actually thinks Hogan is somewhat trained!  The other day he accidentally dropped the ball right as she said "drop the ball Hogan".  She immediately said "Hogan is such a good listener"!  I was cracking up after that as I was trying to bribe him into the house with an imaginary treat.  So, I tell you all this to prep you for this story, the house that I live in is right behind Rachel's house and her backyard is my front yard. Make sense?  Anyway, they have a pool in the backyard and I was swimming one day with Ashley. Rachel is out there too with one of her cousins and we are all swimming.  All of a sudden, Rachel looks over at me but held her hand up as if to keep from seeing me.  She keeps saying, "I'm not even gonna look at you.  I'm not even gonna look at you."  Finally, I asked why and she said, "Because you don't have on a shirt and your boobs are huge!"  Needless to say I was flattered, or offended.  Ha ha ha, nah, I was dying laughing though.  Never knew my boobs were so big!