Kennels and Connections

Our upcoming road trip in April has transformed itself yet again. Our friend's husband can't get the time off work to go, so his brother isn't going either, so now we're down to Mark and I and our close friends Kristie and Tanya, who are sisters.

Tanya had previously decided to drive her own car rather than renting a vehicle. Rental prices seem to have skyrocketed recently, and the rental companies also like to gauge people by piling on super huge mileage charges. So Tanya is driving her own car, and now there are only four people in our group. Seems a shame to take two vehicles, so NOBODY is renting ANY cars or vans or anything, and we are all going together in Tanya's car.

Let's see then... room for four people: check.

Room for our luggage: check.

Room for two small dogs: check.

Room for one large dog: ...

Uh oh. Sorry Arlo!

So I called the local boarding kennel - it has a good reputation. As I was talking to the woman on the phone, she said "is your dog white?" I said yes. She said, "do you also have a Miniature Pinscher?" I said yes.

It turns out we'd already met her earlier that week in the waiting room of the local vet clinic. I TOLD YOU THIS TOWN WAS SMALL.

She's also a member of the animal rescue group we are fostering the cats for, so we'll be seeing her tonight at the monthly meeting. I'm kind of excited about this meeting. It's the first CAPS meeting we'll have attended, and it's going to be the best potential place to meet people who will become our friends. Animal nuts don't like everybody, and not everyone appreciates an animal nut. We've got to stick together.

Jake the Peg

Another weekend has passed, and another storm has coated the province with snow, ice, rain, and slush. The temperature, however, is slowly rising and spring will come soon enough.


As an afternoon project over the weekend we decided to get rid of the tasteless and ripped up wallpaper border on the walls in Mark's office. His office, by the way, is pale pink and white. Every week or so I wander in and quietly ask if he knows what colour he might want it painted.

He doesn't know and doesn't care.

The border in that room is white and honestly looks exactly like some sort of wedding pattern, which doesn't make any sense at all. Also, when we bought this house that border was already ripped to shreds and looked run-down and awful.


So we got some rags and hot water and took the sucker down. His office is still pale pink and white, but at least the ripped up shreds of wedding-style border is gone now.


On the weekend our town held some sort of Winterfest again. We missed some of the fun stuff on Friday night because we were busy driving to the nearest big town to buy a new microwave (which works wonderfully and doesn't make the other appliances act up).

They had a bonfire Friday evening, but it was really kind of windy out. According to the neighbours, they lit their huge fire and then it blew smaller bits of fire and burning debris all over the park and people had to run around trying not to be lit on fire, and a good time was had by all.

They had a variety show on Saturday night and we did go to that. I could post pictures but... well they just didn't capture the magic. The Lions Club got up on stage to sing some songs, except they'd forgot to rehearse very much and had failed to learn the songs. So the Lions Club started singing and then the song kind of faded to a bunch of mumbling, and then the audience started laughing, and then all the people on stage started laughing. At one point they ended the 'song' early because it completely fell apart, and then they all suddenly went running away off the stage in shame while the audience continued to laugh.

The most important thing about the Variety Show was that they were selling home made fudge at the door. For cheeeeaaaap. We bought four bags. I would have bought more, but I was scared the lady would comment on how much I was buying and I couldn't think up an excuse to explain why I needed so much fudge. (Remember: half of these people probably know who I am and where I live because this town is so small. They know I don't have any kids or crap like that. If I lied they MIGHT KNOW.)

So we got four bags and it was good. Some of the acts in the variety show weren't bad at all, but some were bizarre. One guy got up on stage wearing a trenchcoat, nose glasses, a fedora, a fake third leg, and a fake Hasidic Jew's beard completely with long ringletted sideburns.


My jaw dropped. He bobbed around and sang a song about how he was "Jake the Peg" (deedle deedle deedle dee) "with an extra leg" (deedle deedle deedle dee) and how it was so hard to be disabled and stuff, because a large number of comical things happen to him all the time.

What?

With the who?

Was it racist? Was it discriminatory? I don't think so. But maybe? But probably not? Am I reading too much into things? I don't even know what was going on.

That fudge sure was good.

A Cold Cup of Tea

We have a giant retro microwave that came with all the nice donated furniture (thanks Deb!) when we moved into this house. It takes two people to lift this sucker. Also, it's shy. It's completely silent - no beeps, so you have to keep an eye on it or else you'll wander away and forget that you put something in to heat up, because it doesn't tell you when it's done. It has its quirks, but we kept it, figuring we could use our money on other things as long as the microwave actually worked.


Lately it's been acting a bit strange. It's been slowly taking longer and longer to heat things up, to the point where a plate of rice now takes upwards of six minutes. Then, two days ago, I tried to re-heat a cold cup of tea and the microwave started for a half a second, and then lost all power for a second or so. Hmm. I started it again and it lost all power again, only this time it didn't come back. I immediately tried turning on the range hood light because I know they're on the same circuit, and that didn't come on either. Crap!

I put on my winter boots, slogged through the snow to the door to the basement, and went down to have a peek at the breakers. Nothing was awry so I gave a little push on all the breaker switches with my finger just to make sure, and went back outside and into the civilized part of the house again.

The microwave had power once more -- was it something I did? I'll never know. I turned it on for a third time and it got a little scary. It whirred to life, made a slow little dying noise as the interior light dimmed, and the swooped back to full power and started making grumbly noises as it heated my tea.

I don't like scary noises coming out of my radiation-spewing appliances, nor do I like one appliance to drain all the power from the others. It's time for the silent and ancient microwave to be retired.

After Mark was done working we decided to go microwave shopping. There is one store that sells microwaves in town here - Home Hardware. It turns out that Home Hardware only had one microwave for sale, and it was a dubious cheap-looking thing called "Goldstar 500" or some similar name.

No thanks.

Let's start a new thread in the story. Neville the foster cat arrived in our house a few weeks ago nursing the tail end of a kitty cold. His cold has come back and we've needed to re-start his medication. The problem is, the vet in the neighbouring town only had a little bit of the medicine so we need to drive 40 kilometres to the next nearest big town to get more medicine now that it has been prepared for us.

There was a snowstorm today so we couldn't make it to the other vet. We also haven't been able to get to any sort of store that sells microwaves with recognizable brand names. This is the new reality for us: we just can't have everything instantly. This is how rural life works! I see it as a good thing. If we want to buy new crap, we have to really want it because it takes prior planning to make most purchases when you live this far from any sort of concentration of stores. There are no spur-of-the-moment purchases. We don't waste money constantly on Indian food and sushi any more either because there is none.

The weather is not supposed to be great again tomorrow, so I really don't know when we'll be able to get the medicine and microwave.

I like rural living though, and we'll get our stuff sooner or later. Would you rather be a city mouse or a country mouse?

Hurry up, Spring!

In spite of the cold weather and piles of snow, we're still managing to roam around this little town and discover nooks and crannies - beautiful views, hidden parks, rural paths - it really is turning out to be a charming place to live.

With these walks around our area we are concentrating on keeping the dogs adequately exercised. We originally solidified our efforts when we thought we'd be adding a difficult third dog to the household, but we've continued even after finding out that Dexter could not come to live with us. If we can do this in February, I'm certain we'll be able to pull it off all year round.

It's making me really want a third dog though. I need more! I'm addicted! Someone save me from myself! (Preferably by giving me a dog - mwah ha ha!)

I think we're both getting antsy in general. This is the time of year that the world should be waking up, shaking itself off, and renewing its energy for spring. We are feeling the vibe and want to start fixing things up around here. I think we've decided on new colours to paint the trim of the house once the concrete fibre siding and new windows are installed. We're also planning and doing small repair jobs to the inside of the house, but the glaring problems need to wait for nice weather and it's frustrating!

Soon. Soon. And then I'll probably complain about all the commotion.

Irritants

Here is the exact quote from Environment Canada regarding tomorrow's weather: "Flurries ending near noon then cloudy with 40 percent chance of flurries."

Uh, okay guys. Snow, then maybe some snow. It's a bit redundant, but we get it. It's really too bad that the weather is cooling off again because we had a thaw today and half of the ice in our driveway has melted. When the temperature drops tomorrow, those puddles will simply re-freeze into a sheet of ice much like the sheet of ice we had on the driveway yesterday, except that the new sheet of ice will be much newer and smoother and more slippery. There's not much to be done about it except being extra careful. So if you come visit us, that's fine, but watch your step!

We have a mantle in our living room. There is no fireplace there, but the beautiful woodwork of the original mantle remains. The place where the fireplace part used to be has been plastered over and wallpapered, and Mark is becoming obsessed with "doing something" with that flat square that covers the spot were a fire used to go.


He wants to put some sort of picture there. I'm not morally opposed to the idea, but I'm pretty sure that there's a 99.9% chance that it will look TACKY.

He went looking for pictures online the other day and every one of them made me cringe. I mean, it's just blank now. It's relatively benign and you can focus on the beautiful carved wood if you want to look over there. Putting a picture in the middle kind of reminds me of that gross artsy wallpaper from the 80s - you know the kind I'm talking about. It's a forest scene, or maybe a beach, and it's wallpaper, and it takes up one entire wall in a room.

AND IT'S TACKY.

I don't know. If he could find a picture that I could imagine putting in that spot without gritting my teeth, I'd do it. It's not that I particularly don't want to do it. I just can't imagine what would possibly look good there.

Okay, since we've just covered one of my recent pet peeves in this post, I thought I'd share one of Mark's with you as well.

Now, I have to say that Mark is a master of ambivalence. If he had a super power, his name would be Ambivalent Man. His favourite gesture is a shrug, and he never gets angry, and I mean never. I used to think that he was repressing everything, but over the years I slowly learned that he just doesn't mind things. That's just Mark.

That all changed recently when the world was introduced to Nadya Suleman. She's that lady in California who gave birth to a litter of eight babies (via in vitro fertilization), but oops, she already has six young children at home (also via in vitro fertilization), and oops, she's a single mom and oops, she couldn't even afford to feed the kids that she had before this latest little incident occurred.

She makes Mark angry. The fact that she was so incredibly selfish, crazy, and irresponsible makes him angry. The fact that she is getting international attention also makes him angry. Every day or so I'll find a new news story about her and tell him about it, just to see his reaction. Today Ms. Suleman launched her very own website to ask for donations from the public. I told Mark and he immediately started spouting a long series of vitriolic statements about what a stupid woman she is. I completely agree, but I'm surprised and amused by this display of emotion from him. I'm sure he'll comment on this post to say how stupid that woman is.

And he'd be right.

A Sunny Snowy Hike

I feel better today than yesterday. We will always remember Dexter - he was almost a part of our family. I am sad we couldn't help him, but we will try all the harder to help other animals in need in the future.


The weather was beautiful here today. The sun was shining, the near constant snowfall we've had for about a week stopped yesterday, and the temperature was slightly above freezing today.

We went for a hike on the trail behind our house and the dogs are now exhausted. The trail is also used by snowmobiles so we had to take the dogs off to the side a few times to let the skidoos go by. I waved at every one of them as they drove past us - there must have been about eight in total - and every single one of them waved back at me. That made me happy.


As we were coming back home, we noticed an elderly man with a cane plodding along the path. I immediately felt like a giant wimp. The deep snow is not packed down on the trail - all the snowmobiles churn it up and send it flying, so it was kind of like walking on really loose uneven sand. Our feet sank and slipped with every step. I was a bit tired; we'd been walking on it for an hour and I was carrying Oliver because he'd finally wimped out after snow got into the tops of his little boots.

We approached the man and I noticed he was wearing rubber boots. He also looked to be in his late eighties at least. He stopped to pet Arlo and we chatted about the weather for a moment before continuing on our way. I was sweating and my jacket was unzipped. Every step sank deeply into the messy snow and I was looking forward to getting back to town. I thought about the old man. Would he still be alive if he didn't go pounding about through the snow all winter?

I think I'll try to get onto the trails as much as possible.

Goodbye Dexter

I finally got news about Dexter, the Boston Terrier we've been looking into adopting. Unfortunately he has continued to deteriorate after a bad reaction to some medication.

The medication was an anti-anxiety drug, and although I don't think it was fair or entirely appropriate to put him on it, it was the best option for him in an imperfect world. Dexter is young, high energy, and previously untrained and undisciplined. His foster parent, who took him in because there was nowhere else for him to go, seems not to have had the greatest relationship with him. My interpretation was that she tolerated him (he was not her type of dog) and tried to help train him. She tried her best.

She has two other dogs of her own who both recently experienced pretty major medical issues. She lives alone and works full time. Dexter is in a crate nine hours a day, and when she gets home the foster mum must divide her time between him and her two other needy dogs. She has been, understandably, pretty stressed out and was made more so by Dexter's energy levels. The solution that they tried was to mellow Dexter out by putting him on anti-anxiety drugs. Yes, exercising him would have been better, but like I said the world isn't perfect. Nobody had the time to do this, least of all his overburdened foster mother.

He reacted very badly to the medication. He became anxious, afraid, and aggressive. They stopped the medication but his skitzy behaviour has continued and recently he bit one of his foster family's dogs badly enough that stitches were required.

The rescue group has told me that Dexter is no longer a safe or workable dog. I would argue, but I can't expose my own dogs to harm. I am devastated. I've never met this dog, but here I sit, crying, thinking of what could have been.

The world never gave him a chance.

Slowly Going Crazy

It's been over a week since I've heard from the rescue group about the dog we are trying to adopt. The nice lady sent me LOTS of emails before that and had approved our application. She also said she'd keep us updated on his recovery.

I'm worried! I've sent her two emails this week and she has not responded. The last one was two days ago. Why the lack of communication? All sorts of weird things are going through my head - maybe her computer crashed and she doesn't know how to contact us. Maybe they interpreted something on our application strangely and decided they don't like us after all. Maybe the dog ran away and they don't want to tell us. Maybe he died. Maybe I'm paranoid and crazy.

I'm going to go send another email.

Investment Rant!

My parents, who are both semi-retired, have lost a good chunk of their "low-risk" investments in the current recession that we're having. (Will we hear the word "depression" in a year? I think that's a distinct possibility.) Mark's mother, who is self-employed, has been extremely hard hit. Her investments are her retirement pension.

When we lived in Victoria we were saving money like mad and keeping it in a savings account at our bank where it collected interest for us. We were aware that we could invest it but we knew we'd be using most of it to buy a house within five years, so we left it where it was. Everyone we spoke to who worked in the investment industry tried to pressure us to play financial games with our money but we resisted. If we had done so, we could not have bought our house in cash.

I am therefore not sure what the purpose of a financial consultant is. We pay them to know what to do with our money, but when we lose money by following their recommendations, these people are somehow not penalized. They're all saying "don't worry; the market will go up again", but that doesn't help my parents or Mark's mother. They will never make back what they lost because they are already at the age where they should be retiring. They don't have another decade to let it sit in the hopes that what was lost will come back.

This past week I got around to doing something that I've been procrastinating on. When we started looking for a house last spring, we met with an advisor from a major investment company and set up - among other things - a life insurance policy. Our logic at the time was that we were about to go into debt (didn't happen - you all know the sordid land-buying story). If one of us died, it would leave the other person to shoulder the mortgage alone, so life insurance would have protected us against that sort of financial disaster. Things didn't go as planned and we are not currently in debt so I called to cancel our life insurance policy. We don't need it and we don't want the monthly bill for it. Who cares if we win the jackpot when one of us dies? One of us will still be dead and winning a prize for that just seems kind of sick.

Today our investment advisor from the major firm sent me an email for the first time in months, telling me why it was in my best interest to keep the policy. Why on earth would I believe her advice to be valuable? Six or eight months ago she wanted us to start putting money into investments regularly, and actually told me that my stance on financial risk was too conservative. We were a breath away from a giant economic downturn and she had no idea. Isn't that her job?

Anyway I emailed her back but didn't rip her head off, and we're cancelling the policy. Just wanted to get that off my chest. Thanks for listening.