Numb-assedness requires short post

I did promise myself at least three posts while Himself was away. I reckoned without the lure of True Blood Series 2, which I couldn't possibly watch while he's here.

It's not The Wire, or Dexter or Hung, so why would I watch it?

Why indeed, dear, certainly not because of Eric the Vampire.

At all, at all.

However, I managed two, and tonight I have a numb ass because I got a gignormous injection in my right buttock this afternoon and the pain has made everything between my hip bone and my knee numb.

So sitting down is a challenge.

Which of course was good for Shannon, who is currently lying on the wet deck in the moonlight absolutely POOPED.

Due to all the FUN ACTIVITIES we had because Queenie needed to stretch her legs.

And Series 2 is over.

So despite that, this will have to be short, and then I will get back to Bored to Death, which showing on HBO Canada at the moment and is fun in a silly way, not least because Ted Danson plays an old lech in it.

A Mr. Big for Real Women who like to have fun. Not silly women like Carrie. Who wouldn't know fun if it bit them in the numb buttock.

Also, I now want to go to Brooklyn on my holidays.

Anyways, I have been home alone for a week now, Himself having gone to NB to work. And there's no point in posting about work, even if I would, so it'll have to be a post about the dog.

I know, I'm sorry.

Although, I must say I find her endlessly interesting.

Things I find interesting and amusing about my dog

1. We have a game called the saucepan game, where I chase her round the house banging a saucepan lid against the bottom of the saucepan. We have an open plan-ish type place, with no doors downstairs, so it's round and round and round the stairwell through three room until one of us collapses. (tonight I win, for a change)

Although there is a lot of ridiculous running around, the real object of the game is for one of us to sneak up on the other one and FRIGHTEN THE BEJAYSUS OUT OF HER! The interesting thing is that she's so good at it, I actually enjoy the game. There's lots of sidling up along the sitting room wall without breathing and trying to figure out where the other player is. Or hiding in the washroom. Or nipping up the stairs and jumping down at just the right moment. Or changing direction without making a sound (which she's really good at).

Tonight she hid under the dining room table and it took me five minutes to find her. Totally silent.

The other interesting thing is that for such a rough game, she has never broken anything, despite her route through the sitting room being under the coffee table and under the tv table.

2. Tonight she opened the coat closet, which has a round knob, tugged down my smelly old blue camping sleeveless jacket which she just loves because she spent so much time wrapped in it as a puppy, spread it on the ground, put all her bedtime toys on it and scratched the kitchen door until I went in and took a photo of it (see above).

Unfortunately, I will never be able to guilt trip her into putting all the stuff away.

3. She sniffs exactly the same bushes/ plants/ rocks/ bins/ trees every night on our poop walk.

How does she remember?

How do I know this?

4. Although she makes a good show when I get home at night, I know that she will be as excited to see the oilman when he delivers oil tomorrow. She's remarkably self-contained for a being that's dependent on me for pretty much everything. I am never quite sure if she gives a shit about me. Those eyes of hers are freaky too. Bizarrely, the blue one is the softer, more expressive of the two, and the brown one is the one that you can't see jack in.

When she needs fun, it's all 'me me me, talk to me, no get off the phone, me me me', but when I need some canine company it's 'so long sucker.... gotta go kill millers on the deck'.

5. I have never seen a dog spend so long chasing moths around a deck. The bluejays come and pick at her food all day every day and she just ignores them. But come nightfall, there isn't a miller safe on this property.

6. She hasn't peed in the house since Himself went away. Which proves my theory that it was his way of dealing with it that was the problem.

Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa.... I win this dog argument.... Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa.

Of course he will say that his way dealt with the problem JUST BEFORE he left, and I am merely reaping the benefits.

In reality, now that she has my undivided, her routine is rock solid and probably she can relax and not worry about it. So we're both ini the wrong.

7. I was playing God Speed You Black Emperor very loudly tonight and she stretched up onto the countertop and turned the volume down on the stereo.

Coincidence?

Surely!!

I won't have a dog that doesn't like GSYBE.

8. She has figured out that if she doesn't poop on the post-dinner poop stroll, she gets another one later.

Go figure.

9. She has figured out exactly the distance between us that she needs to maintain when she's off-leash. Any more and I get anxious and start trying to trick her back onto her leash. Any less and I can catch her and put her on her leash.

We have an uneasy truce right now. Trying to get her off the highway was a nightmare, but she hasn't run out there since. Ideally, I would like her to be one of those dogs who trots ahead a little, but will come back.

We have 'trot ahead a little' down pat.

Babysteps.

10. She has wormed her way so completely into my heart now that when I think of vacation all I can think of is her in some awful kennel having a miserable time.

Which is horseshit of course because she's going to puppy heaven.

Never mind, Himself will be home on Thursday and the house dynamic will be back to normal.

If there's one drop of pee..... he's cleaning it.

All Soul's Day - getting set to live in the dark

Today was such a beautiful day it was difficult to believe it was 1st November.

Positively balmy here on the Eastern Shore.

I got bitten by a mosquito.

The last time I got bitten by a mosquito in November, I was in Venezuela.

But of course the year has turned slightly and it got dark at 5.25pm so it is November.

Shannon and I went down to Lawrencetown beach to watch the sunset. Our sunset walks will be curtailed for a few months now, as I won't be home in time to walk her in the daylight, so I was happy our last one for a while was a beauty.

The surf was pounding the shore and about a dozen surfers were out bobbing on their boards like seals on driftwood.

Although there are generally at least two people out in the water when I am on the beach, I rarely see anyone actually stand up and surf in. They just bob around on their boards. Nova Scotian surfing I suppose! Not too much effort, just hanging out in the cold water for kicks.

The sun went down over Halifax Harbour and the nearly full moon rose simultaneously so we had half a sky of rose pink and slate blue clouds, and half a sky of luminous light filtered through the gauzy cloud the moon was veiled in.

Shannon picked around and sniffed stones (in the absence of trees) and I walked the shore and thought about my grandmothers and Jim and Eileen and Paddy Egan and Geraldine and Himself's Uncle Glen and all the other wonderful people I know who have passed over to the other side of the hallowed gate and wished them peace wherever they are.

Then we came home and I went downstairs to find something for supper and when I came back Shannon had an enormous block of Gouda (left on the worktop) in her mouth and a guilty look on her face.

Pulling expensive food off the worktop is the new chewing.

Anyways, we had a little row and she got put out on her line and sulked for a bit and so did I but we eventually made up and went for a moonlight gander around the neighbourhood.

It's too bright to let her out by herself when the moon is full. One of my well-meaning neighbours always spots her and brings her home.

Now it's about nine and cloudless: so bright out you can pick out individual trees in our wood.

The temperature has dropped substantially. I harvested the last of the garden today, probably in good time. I got a fair-sized bucket of onions - Spanish, red and 'normal' - and the last of the tomatoes and cabbage.

We had a middling garden this year, mostly because it was our first year and so the earth was not well composted or fertilized. I bagged four big sacks of leaves today for spring compost, and as soon as it gets cold enough I will start a proper compost bin.

We had plenty of radishes (of course), tomatoes and zucchini, and our corn was pretty good and our squash. Everything else was a little late, so our leeks and beets were small and our cucumbers never even tried.

Himself being an Aquarian loves beginnings. He loves getting the earth ready and planting. Tomatoes mostly, but he'll plant anything if you get him interested in the idea.

Then apart from watering, which is a manly chore that gets him out of cooking supper, that's it for him.

Unfortunately, that's not it. But fortunately, I don't mind weeding, thinning, weeding, thinning, weeding, thinning, harvesting and finally pulling and cleaning up. Usually it's up to me to remember to do it, and he is pretty good at helping.

If he can't think of anything to begin instead.

I got him and Littl'Un to help me clean up the main garden a couple of weeks ago, but I have been on the road a lot recently due to work commitments so when I went in the greenhouse today it was the first time in over a month.

It was a tomato plant mausoleum. Tall, rotting tomatoes groaned under the weight of their fruit and leaned against each other in an orgy of decay.

It took over an hour to clean out.

GRRRR.

I think I need to hire a garden help who's a Capricorn. They're good at detail. Or another Cancerian... even better... the plants are their children.

Anyway, we have successfully completed one cycle. Hopefully it will be the first (and worst) of many. I am kind of annoyed (in a bizarre gardner way) that I am going away because the next three weeks present the cleaning up and readying for winter tasks that I like the best in the garden (it's cool, there aren't many bugs, you can't really mess it up). Hopefully we'll have a really mild November and I can get some work done when I get back.

When to do it though...

... why do they put the clocks back anyway? I hate gardening in the dark. I hate walking the dog in the dark. I hate cooking supper and not being able to watch the sun set. I hate wanting to go to bed at 8.30pm because it's been dark for so long.

GRRR.

Lucky I have a fortnight to prepare myself for what's coming.

So yeah, the wedding ...

... it was a good wedding.

Apart from the incident with the hair stylist.

And the fact that it rained.

Which didn't do a whole pile for my hair either.

We got up at 5.45am and got our shit together and Himself went to get Dukie our Yugoslavian friend and pig roaster, and I tore the house apart and put it back together again so it would accommodate forty people.

My nearly husband and I bumped into each other again about 8.45am as I was going to the hairdressers with the Queen Mother and Tina my MOH and he was drilling holes in the timber frame we had built to cover the pig roast because the forecast was for rain and it had already started and he needed to get the tarp. up.

So he was wet at that stage. But I was still in bride mode and had a jacket on.

Status to date: no food.

At the beauty salon, the door of which I will never darken again in my life even though it is the nearest Aveda spa to me (Pure Energy, Cole Harbour, if you're interested), I got my nails done by a girl who talked about her immigrant boyfriend who couldn't get a visa and what did I think.

Well, I thought it was my wedding day so could we talk about that please, but I didn't say it of course because I am Canadian now, so I did the spiel. Yadda yadda do this don't do that call your MP don't call too often I think you missed a finger there love....

Then I got my hair done.

I should've gotten Gabriel to do my hair. But I just couldn't afford to. Either the time or the money. So I went the cheap/ fast route.


Stupid wench that I am.

Anyways two hours later, Tina my MOH's hair had been immaculately curled and then put in a ballerina bun, the QM had had a blow dry she could've done herself, and I looked like EmmyLou on a bad day in 1976.

Finally we got out of the place and got back in the car (in the rain) and I undid my hair.

I cannot begin to describe how FUCKED OFF I was. I'm a girl who likes a good hairdo.

Suffice it to say that I described the incident in work a few days later, and when I mimed the bit where I tore my hair out of the ridiculous clip she had it in, I actually tore a handful of my hair out.

I could have spent two hours in bed. I could have spent the money on starving children in Africa.

That kind of pissed off.

Status. Still no food and no coffee for two hours.

Back at the house, it was pouring, just pouring, and the pig was being turned on the spit by the first of a number of volunteers who are the real heroes of our wedding day. But it was looking a little pale for 11.20am.

I mentioned the paleness.

Ready at 5.

Supposed to be ready at 3.

Hyperventilation ensued.

The MOH gave me the second of many lectures on how it was my day and I wasn't to worry.

It's not my day. It's never the bride's day. It's everyone else's day. When are we going to just say it like it is.

Did I mention the pig was turned by hand?

The squeaking sounded like a mediaeval instrument of torture.

It was relentless. For six hours. Christ, I could've spent the hairdressing money on an automatic spit!

Although, in hindsight, I really like the fact that the entire day had a sound track reminiscent of a 60s B-movie about Torquemanda.

I bumped into my nearly husband again. He was soaked to the skin.

Have you eaten? no. Eat. I haven't got time. EAT!!!!!!!!!!!!

When I got back into organizational mode I realised the liquor was in the shed and had to be moved to the house and the pig needed all the men in the house to focus on it (of course), so Kathlene who is my guardian angel forever and I moved the booze and that was the absolute end of my hair.

Time to eat. I did. Not Himself.

Then upstairs to dress.

I was wearing a backless dress.

Could I find the expensive boob things I bought to give me a bit of a lift?

CIF!

Could I find the pashmina I spent a fortune on because it matched the underlying gold in the dress so perfectly?

CIF!

It's 1.30, the house is full of people, thirty minutes before I plighted my troth to my beloved forever I'm wandering around upstairs in my knickers looking for my lifters and someone to iron my dress.

The QM was downstairs being the hostess.

The MOH was downstairs writing the best man's speech.

Kathlene was on the phone to her fiancee trying to organize a lift for Dukie's wife who was home baking bread for the wedding party.

It's not about the bride, it's about everyone else.

I screeched for help!

My beloved happened along, soaked to the skin and still fasting from the night before, trying to find somewhere to have a shower and change, grasped the seriousness of the situation and proceeded to try to iron my dress for me.

With his eyes closed so he couldn't see it.

This is why I married him, readers.

A few minutes later, Kathlene and the QM made it upstairs and did it properly.

My mother looked so beautiful it made me want to cry.

She popped the dress over my head and I slapped on a bit of make-up and I was ready to go.

Fay, one of the servers the PFW hired to save me from a meltdown came up with a glass of wine and made me neck it.

The Queen Dad came upstairs and gave me a hug that said goodbye and good luck and all that stuff, and that was it.

I cried, readers.

I cried in the bedroom.

I cried going downstairs.

I cried during the opening ceremony.

I cried when Swampy read his piece. And added in his own comments about vehement independence.

I cried when Elizabeth the JP told us to look at each other and Himself was staring in the distance worrying about the pig and I had to poke him with my elbow and say 'focus, dude' and everyone fell around laughing.

I cried during the vows.

I cried during the exchange of rings.

I cried while I signed the papers.

I cried when Noel read He wishes for the heaven's embroidered cloths

My voice wobbled the whole way through and Himself's was clear as a bell. And I'm the professional communicator. Which was vaguely irritating.

And all the while in the background was the 'eeetch, eeeetch, eeetch' of the pig spit.

And then Elizabeth said it was done and we were married to each other.

But not forever. Because it's Canada and they don't make outrageous commitments.

But as everyone there said, it is of course forever.

Lucky I do love a good cry. It was great. I loved getting married.

Then it was over and time to mingle and make sure everyone got fed.

It was a blur.

An hour into it, there was two bottles of red wine left and the Queen Dad had to reassure me that it was all going to be okay and there was enough white and beer left.

The servers started getting anxious to me about the food.

It's not the bride's day. It's everyone else's day.

It was 3.15, the appetisers were well gone and everyone was getting a little peckish, so I went out to Dukie on the off-chance that 5pm was the outside forecast.

Nope.

5pm.

Maybe.

Luckily, we had bought a turkey boiler so we did a turkey in twenty minutes.

It involves twelve litres of burning peanut oil, so a turkey boil is a guy thing.

After fifteen minutes Fay started hopping up and down, so I trundled out to the shed in the rain in my velvet Simon Chang ball gown.

We figured it was ready.

The guys brought it in and proudly presented it to Fay and the Queen Mother.

It's not done.

Yes it is.

No it's not.

The guys looked at me.

It's my mother and Fay, dudes, put it back in the boiler.

Fifteen minutes later they pronounced it done and we had food.

Twenty five minutes later we had no food left.

Apart from the pig.

The pig became the main focus of the day.

It's not about the bride, it's about the pig.

The wedding separated into two groups - the pig-roasters, and the people watching the pig-roasters.

It was generally felt that the pig-roasters deserved their own tv show.

During a lull in the tv show, we decided to cut the cake.

Mostly because I was sick of wandering around in the rain in a velvet ball gown and I wanted to be like my husband who had already put his jeans back on.

The Queen Dad made me cry again, with his beautiful speech.

Himself gave all kinds of hostages to fortune with his adamant promises that he would look after me forever.

I was sitting there thinking... .mostly I look after myself dudes, but whatever...

Then I went upstairs and put my jeans on and suddenly I felt like it was my party and I could relax.

Time passed.

The pig was roasted, Gordie who had a previous career in the meat industry took out the sharpest knife I've ever seen in a domestic situation, butchered a 55lb pig in fifteen minutes and everyone dug in.

Shannon the husky positioned herself under the deck and looked extraordinarily hungry and did very well I thought.

There was one small plate of pig left for the day after.

Thankfully we don't have 'afters' here.

We lit a bonfire and sat in its glow and enjoyed the conversation.

The neighbours came round, better late than never and some late guests turned up and replaced the early leavers.

It was a great wedding.

I think next time I do a pig roast for forty, I'll do it in August.

Postscript.

I forgot the absolute best part of the day. The music, which we'd argued over for months, it being the most important part of the day for us, didn't work during the ceremony, because I had forgotten to tune in the speakers.

This was something that Littl'Un knew that we missed. Him being thirteen and knowing all about how important music is to an event.

Also, he'd been around for most of the arguing.

So when everyone was gone, and it was just family again and everything and everyone that matters to me was together in the one place for one beautiful moment in my life, he lit some candles and arranged them around the sitting room and turned off all the lights, and set up the playlist, and the three of us slow danced to our wedding music.

Snowpatrol: Crashing Cars
Kathleen Edwards: Sure as Shit
The Waterboys: Fisherman's Blues

Thanks Little'Un. Guess now you're thirteen I'll have to negotiate a new name for you.

The day before the day the gate opens

So tomorrow is Hallowe'en.

First one in the forever house.

Hopefully, tomorrow I'll get to hand out treats to a generation of kids that we will watch grow up. There are a lot of kids in our area, and they're mostly very small yet, so we will have at least twelve years of them before they grow up and leave.

I say I because I'm home alone again, Himself is in New Brunswick decontaminating a pulp mill or some equally necessary but truly gross activity. I am never quite sure.

It's kind of annoying because we had a date for Hallowe'en.

We don't have many dates.

Also, I've pointed out that we are going on our honeymoon in seven days so to make sure to come home before next Friday to get a ride to the airport.

Several times.

It's not that I think he'll forget, he's as excited about our first 'doing nothing' vacation in four years as I am. (As opposed to Ireland/ camping which are 'doing too much' vacations).

I just feel that pointing it out twice a day on the phone while they're all listening makes it easier for him to stand up to the company if/ when they decide he needs to stay in NB.

"She'll kill all of us."

They all know me.

So it works.

My codename is Grumpy, apparently.

Which is good.

Better than Pushover, anyways.

So tonight is three nights before the full moon. The moon is bright and the sky is clear. The temperature dropped twelve degrees when the sun went down and the omens are good for the gates opening tomorrow night.

We shall find out if the house is haunted.

We..

I mean me..

Whoooooooo...

On acquairing a Consort

Queenie has a Consort.

It's Himself of course.

He was always her Consort, even before she knew him, but it's official now.

Elizabeth the JP sent the paperwork in.

We wrote our own vows and neither of us said 'till death us do part', I am not sure why.

Too much like tempting Fate I suppose.

Tonight, though, I am Consortless, Himselfless, as He has gone to the island to visit his parents.

Shannon the Husky has gone for a little wander in the woods by herself (because she is a big girl now), and so for the first time in about three months, I am the only being in the house on a Saturday night.

The only other thing using oxygen is a candle.

I have a glass of wine on the go.

The Radio 2 jazz show is on in the background (although I haven't heard any actual jazz yet), and the only other sound is the odd POP as the pickle jars seal themselves.

Zucchini pickle, chow chow, pickled beets.

Only two more batches to do, but I have run out of jars.

I am still trying to come to terms with being married.

I was trying to work it out today while the dentist wrestled with my inability to feel no pain while he drilled. And again while I was pickling (they should make pickling mandatory in prisons, it is the most soothing occupation in the world, you figure everything out while you're watching your beets simmer).

I always thought I would be the Elizabeth 1 of the Queenie world.

There are some advantages to being married though.

When somebody tried to talk me into spending $100 an hour on getting Shannon to be better behaved, I said I'd have to talk to my husband about it and they backed right off.

Then I told my husband to get a rolled up newspaper and smack Shannon on her pert little ass for chewing on my arm.

Unfortunately, it all went Pete Tong at that point, because my husband pointed out that he was already the Alpha in the house, so I would have to do the smacking if I wanted to achieve the deputy Alpha position.

I can't smack my dog without intense trauma on both sides. Himself waves a newspaper at her and gets instant model dog behaviour.

When I do that, she tries to chew the newspaper.

I smacked her once with a paper on her ass, when she shat in my brand new shoe while I was telling her not to, and it was so traumatic for the pair of us we have not gone back there again.

In any sense of the word.

Is there anything more mortifying than being ignored by a being who depends on you because YOU FAILED HER EMOTIONALLY?

I'd be a terrible mother....

I figure she'll just stop doing all the annoying things eventually. Thereby saving me hundreds of dollars in dog whispering fees.

Also, she's going to Chris at the kennels for a fortnight soon.

Chris takes no shit from any dog and yet they all adore her.

So Chris'll put manners on her and then she'll be so happy to see me when she gets home, she'll be good.

Kinda like me after I got out of Colaiste na Leanai, or 'the prison camp in Ring' as we called it.

Last Days of Summer on the Eastern Shore

Tonight is the last night of summer here in Nova Scotia. It has been a beautiful seven weeks or so (July was a wet, foggy write-off) and today was no exception, 22 degrees in the afternoon and yet another beautiful starry, windless, still night tonight.

There are only two downsides to a windless night here on the Eastern Shore. You can't hear the surf roaring against the beach. Which is why we live out here.

And the mosquitoes have free rein.

Yes we still have mossies. On 21st September. I think I will enter ours in the mossie equivalent of the round the world race, they are that hardcore. They have to leave soon, btw, I hope they realise this.

Last weekend was the Eastern Shore yard sale extravanganza. It didn't stretch up the shore as far as I thought it would; when we hit Musquodoboit Harbour there were no sales, but the road from Gaetz Brook to Lawrencetown was pretty good.

We spent sixty dollars. We got:

- a pair of barely used Rossignol cross country skis and poles for me
- a brown leather handbag for me
- a hand-tooled leather tool belt for Himself
- Bill Clinton's My Life
- Dog training for Dummies (which include sad people who own huskies that are totally spoilt and think they are the alpha of the pack)
- an enormous box of camping equipment including a stylish kettle, numerous plates, cups, bowls, one of those plastic egg holding devices, an egg poacher, two saucepans, etc etc
- and a framing nailer (which is well hardcore I am told)

Not a bad little haul.

Last yard sale of the year...

Then we went home and painted the deck and the steps to the deck, and the other steps, and the steps up to the front door, and I hid the disaster of a side garden that I started deconstructing and got bored with, and cut down rag weed and trimmed bushes and we ignored the flower garden which needs to be sorted out (the Queen Mother has tonight stepped up to the plate on this one)

And hung the new curtains and the framed pictures we had sitting in the spare room for seven months.

And started cleaning the house.

So busy, you say....

We are getting married in the house soon.

Thanksgiving weekend to be exact.

So it has to be clean.

The house, I mean.

Normally it is tidy. Tidy is not clean, but it is enough for me as I am immune to my germs, Himself's germs and now Shannon's germs. But there will be foreigners and children and older people at this event, so clean is necessary.

That's a lot of cleaning, though.... And as I talked with the Queen Mother on the phone this evening, while watching the beautiful glow of the sunset light on the 'beginning to turn' trees and while realising I live in a wonderful house and how lucky I am (yet again), I also noticed that the dog has licked all the windows in a not even pattern, up to a height of about two feet so they will have to be cleaned too.

FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

No I am not stressed. I did the stress and told everyone but nobody felt it was special, so I gave it up because it was giving me indigestion with no positive outcomes! Also I decided against a hen party, which relieved me of all my stress immediately.

Really, I am not stressed. I am very happy and excited and looking forward to our beautiful day and if we have invited too many people and they all turn up and it rains and there is no room in the house, well then we will all just have to pile into the basement to party, and hey, it won't matter if anyone drops their plate of roasted pork down there.

We are having a pig roast.

Our friend Dukie is organizing it.

And Elizabeth is marrying us. And there will be music on the iPod. And maybe a few carved pumpkins.

And then we will be married.

How about that!!

And then it will be back to routine, which now includes puppy school.

I already hate puppy school.

I have been to one class.

But that's a whole other post.

Which may come tomorrow, as I had quite the chunk of the top of my big toe (left) cut off today as I cut it in a bizarre argument with a door frame, then didn't look after it, then went camping in the woods with it, then yadda yadda, so it was 'gone septic' and needed to be removed. So what with the antibiotics and the anaesthetic and the glass of wine to give them a little edge, and the pain and the blood that won't stop and the need for copious amounts of epsom salts and polysporin and clean gauze, I may have to keep my toe home tomorrow for a little rest.

I would prefer not to have to wear flip flops to my autumn country wedding. It would remind me too much of the fact that I was supposed to wear flip flops to my Carribbean beach wedding.

Maybe I'll just wear my comfy slippers.

Much love to all the sick puppies/ kittens/ cats in Laytown and other places!!

Critter attack at 1am

In true Canadian fashion, at 1am this morning I was standing in my peejays throwing garden furniture at a raccoon on my deck that wanted to get in the crate to eat my puppy, or at least give her rabies.

The raccoon ignored the garden furniture so eventually I had to sidle up to it and beat it off the deck with a broom. Which took a while. Then I took a completely frazzled dog out of the crate and had to let her pee all over the deck to reassert her dominance. Which also took a while.

And then I had to clean all the critter waste off the deck.

Did I mention that it was 1am while I was doing this?

Goddamn critters.

Break in the Indian summer

It rained last night and this morning.

I nearly didn't remember what it was, this mysterious water falling from the sky, but I'm not so formerly Irish that I didn't figure it out eventually.

It has been a pretty good four weeks weather-wise.

And a good six weeks company-wise.

Haven't posted for a while, but then a hot happening August is something to be lived rather than written about.



Also, puppies take up a lot of time. So no blogging time. Or putting on make-up in the morning time. Or lying on the couch in the evening time. Or faffing around reading other blogs time. Or putting up photos time. Or all the dozens of little things I spent my evenings doing, like the one acre garden (now jungle) I have.

No me time in other words.

Christ, at this rate, I could've had a kid and gotten some presents at least ....

Yes I know having a kid is more time in the long term... it just feels like all the time right now.

Myself and my neighbour commiserate each other daily, as we are haulin' one puppy away from the other in either garden.



Having being begged and begged and begged and promised and promised etc for a puppy by men and kids, they're off doing manly things and we are the sole proprietor of the chewy, poopy little flght risks for the foreseeable.

It's like having a baby in the house she says.

And she should know, with two young boys.

Her puppy is a Bassett Hound called Simon who arrived on our street the day before Shannon.



Simon's ears are longer than his legs but he can still haul ass down the street faster than either of us.



As for Shannon, well, Shannon's a Husky, born to run. And like the airport she appears to be named after, she's always taking off. And I always know when she's about to do it, because I get 'the look'.

Some people reading this now will laugh that the girl with THE LOOK is now, finally gettin' some karma from her dogma.



The photo above encapsulates the look, as explained by a friend who also owns a husky. It says 'hmmm, I'm thinking about running away now, and I'm looking behind at you to make sure you know, because I don't care if you do, because we both know I can run faster than you. And even though I recognise my name when there's a treat bag in your hand, I would prefer to run than have a treat right now, so um.. ahm.. I forget my name (lalalalalaa, can't hear you ca-a-a-lllin' me...).... until you catch me of course .... get ready, sucker.'

Having said that, it's a lot of fun too.

And she won't break out of the house to go into town to meet boys with cider bottles and then fall on her face drunk and get brought home by the cops when she's sixteen.

She'll be old and incontinent and farty instead.

Haulin' ass involves ignoring the puppy rules

Worked from home today - beginning of a long weekend - in the hope that four straight days home will bring some order to the chaos.

I have a 'daily routine for puppy' that someone gave me. It involves bringing puppy outside for a pee 13 times a day.

This puppy's puppy likes to take about 20 minutes to decide if/when/where the deed will be done.

So 13 x 20 = 260 minutes = 4 hours 20 minutes = I don't friggin' think so.

Plus two x one hour walks = 6 hours 20 minutes.

Which is the total time I have in the day when I'm not sleeping or working or commuting.

This is my problem. Trying to follow the correct raising of a puppy rules.

The correct raising of a puppy rules are for people who have time to follow them.

Like many people who have dogs I have to go to work (or work from home) plus run the house plus do the shopping plus spend time on FaceBook plus sleep plus eat plus converse with lovedd ones plus plus plus.

Himself has had to work 13 hour shifts all week including an all-nighter tonight and on Sunday night, so he hasn't been able to help.

How do other people do the 'daily puppy routine'?

Me, I've decided puppy's daily routine is whatever the hell Queenie decides it is.

And she better learn to pee around it.

So there.

Ass-hauling has begun.

Now.... ignoring dirty house.... can someone give me a manual for that that I can tear up and scatter around the slightly chewed acacia wood coffee table?

Murakami's well, Queenie not so much

What do you do when you can feel your fingernails slipping and you yourself sliding headfirst down Murakami's well, even though there is no earthly reason for it to happen right now because, according to everyone, you have reached the personal nirvana for which you have strived for so long?

Do you give in to the pull and let yourself slide down a little bit? Making it that bit harder to get up.

Do you haul yourself out again? Knowing the struggle that entails.

Do you ask someone to pull you out? Who can ask that of someone else?

Chemicals don't work.

I guess it's time to start haulin' ass.