Buzzrite

Last week a mysterious package came in the mail from Victoria, BC. We weren't expecting anything and had no idea what it could be. We got it home and opened it, and OMG...

Is that what I think it is...


... A GIANT bag

of Certified Organic...

Certified Fair Trade...

Shade Grown...

... Buzzrite Blend Coffee Beans from Creekmore's Coffee!!


Creekmore's Coffee is a gourmet west-coast coffee company, and it just so happens that we are friends with a Creekmore. Not only that; Mark did him a favour recently. I think this might be a 'thank you'.

The bag must be at least five pounds. This is an epic mail surprise.


Awesomeness.

A Good Weekend

We had such a good weekend. The weather was amazing and sunny and warm, and even though we really didn't plan to do anything over the weekend, lots of fun stuff happened anyway.

The local high school was putting on a production of Alice in Wonderland on Saturday, so we decided to ask our friend Chani if she wanted to go see it with us. Her husband has been out of town for the week and I think she was feeling a bit lonely. We made plans to have her over for dinner and then go to the show.

Around mid-day on Saturday our friends Nay and Jay who run the local dog boarding/grooming facility called and asked us if we wanted to go to the beach for a walk with all the dogs. You have to go over "the mountain" to get there - the beach is gorgeous, uncrowded, and only about 20 minutes away from here. We took off with all the dogs in the truck, windows rolled down to enjoy the glorious weather. We reached the first switch-back of "the mountain" and Mark took the curve at a sort of high rate of speed in order to keep up with Jay, Nay, and Chani, who were all driving ahead of us. He slowed ever so slightly as the truck veered around the curve, and we all found ourselves leaning to the right from the centrifugal force. Mark's sunglasses suddenly skittered to the right as well, danced across the dashboard, and then they popped right out the window.

Mark stepped on the brakes for a moment, but then glanced in the rear-view mirror at the curve in the road, looked at the narrow shoulder, and thought better of stopping. He sped up again to catch up with our friends, and I felt bad. He really liked those sunglasses.


We got to the beach and had a really nice walk with everyone. The air was pleasant and warm and smelled like the ocean. The Atlantic Ocean smells different than the Pacific - isn't that weird? The dogs had fun and wore themselves out jumping on each other and smelling all the smells. It was good times.


On the way back home I convinced Mark to stop at the curve where we had lost his sunglasses. He was reluctant, thinking they would be scratched or broken even if we could find them, but stopped the truck just to make me happy. I hopped out and only had to search the side of the road for about five seconds before I spotted the sunglasses. I scooped them up and we examined the damage in the truck: they were pristine. There was not a scratch to be had. They're only cheap-ish sunglasses too, but they fit him well and are polarized, so recovering them was a major victory for the day.

We got home and had Chani over for dinner before the show. You know, it's hard to have a professional chef to dinner when you have no talent in the kitchen. She didn't complain though. The high school play was entertaining, and even the few bad actors were good for a laugh. It had been a good day.

We had beautiful weather again on Sunday, and took the dogs for a long lazy walk around town, then went home to do a little bit of nothing. I was just finishing my morning cup of coffee when there was a knock at the door - it was our friends Nay and Jay again! They had stopped by unannounced, and I was flattered that they were comfortable enough to do so.

They came in, sat down, and fought over who got to hold Oliver. We talked a bit about our foster dog Oland. Nay and Jay are in our animal rescue group and often take foster dogs at their boarding kennel, so we're kind of kindred spirits.

After about ten minutes of small talk, Nay's expression became serious and she announced that they had stopped by for a specific reason. Jay, who is a massage therapist in addition to working at their pet care facility, was planning on returning to his lucrative seasonal job soon. Nay would be left to run the booming family business alone. Would I be interested in coming to work for them at the boarding kennel?

SCORE!

I am so happy! Who would have thought that I would get the opportunity to get paid to work with dogs again, after moving to this tiny little rural community? Of course I said yes, and I think we'll work out the details sometime this week.

Mark has been the sole breadwinner ever since we left British Columbia, and even though I'm writing a book there are no guarantees that it will actually get published and make us any money. Now I feel like I'm going to be contributing something concrete, and since it's just a seasonal job, the book will not fall to the wayside.

The job offer kept a smile on my face all day.

We went out after Nay and Jay left and tried our lawn mower that we'd bought at an auction a couple of months ago, and IT WORKED. That was an event, because there was not any sort of guarantee for it. Mark mowed the lawn and seemed to thoroughly enjoy himself. I picked up the remainder of the garbage hidden in our woods, and I didn't even catch swine flu from all the rotten litter and dirt.


What a great weekend!

Legend of the Beagle

Mark and I are having a debate about Oland, our new foster dog. Mark thinks his bark sounds like "BORT", and I think it sounds like "ROOOO". Either way it's a classic Beagle bay - you know what I mean if you've ever heard one in action.


It's only been three days and Oland definitely does not know the rules yet, nor should he be expected to after such a short period of time. I sure wish he did, though.

I was reorganizing the cleaning supplies/animal supplies closet today to put a box of Oland's donated dented canned dog food away. I kept a few out for immediate use and emptied half the closet out in order to make room for the box in the back and at the bottom. Oland kept coming around and getting into everything I had pulled out, and then got hyper and thought it was a game whenever I sent him away. Suddenly, in a big crunchy wave, he sent his entire 35 pound bag of dry dog food spilling across the hallway floor.

Ugh.

I got it cleaned up, put the box of canned food in the back of the closet, put a bunch of boxes neatly on top of it, put the remainder of stuff back in front of the pile of boxes, and went to the kitchen to put away the few cans I had kept out.

On top of one of the cans was a fresh drip of wet dog food. I had none opened at the moment.

Crap.

I went back to the closet, hauled out the stuff at the front, lifted all the boxes off of the canned dog food box, and pulled off the lid. I inspected every dented can and finally found the leaking one. It smelled bad. I then put the lid back on the box, piled a bunch of the other boxes on top of it AGAIN, put the rest of the stuff back in front of the boxes AGAIN, and walked away from the hall closet with my blood pressure rising.

I left the dogs in the living room and went to our mudroom to do some re-arranging and spring cleaning. I was putting away our scarves and mittens to make room for spring things and could hear Oland snuffling around the closed mudroom door. After a minute he stopped snuffling, and I started hauling out gardening gear.

Then I heard dishes rattling on the kitchen counter. I walked swiftly but quietly to the kitchen and caught the foolish Beagle red-handed with his front paws up on the counter inspecting our dishes with his nose.

I immediately beat him to within an inch of his life, hog-tied him, and stuck him in a sack in the corner.

JUST KIDDING.

I took him down to the river and threw him in.

I'M STILL KIDDING.


It sure will be nice when he learns some rules.

Change is Hard

It's been longer than usual since I've updated - sorry y'all. We've been busy.


In the past week, we have:

• installed 14 new windows in our house
• gone out of town visiting relatives
  
• made gourmet pizzas with new Bridgetown friends
• called 911
• brought a brand-new foster dog into our house

... and lots of other stuff too.

We hung out at Mark's mom Deb's house this past weekend and played cards with Mark's Gran. Our little dog Oliver was chilling out in Gran's arms, which put a big smile on her face. She loves all living creatures - the animal obsession is obviously in Mark's blood.

Halfway through the card game, though, Gran frowned, closed her eyes, and put her hand to her forehead. She's 88 so we got a bit concerned. Mark took the dog from her arms and suddenly Gran's eyes rolled sideways and then up, and she slumped slowly back in her chair. Her body shook and her eyes closed completely. Mark and his mom jumped to her side to keep her from sliding completely out of her chair, and we all called her name.

There was no response. Her eyes remained closed; her mouth slack.


Mark called 911 as I grabbed the three barking dogs and hauled them off to another room. Gran did regain consciousness and the ambulances came, stayed for a while, and then left. She would not go with them.

Like so many families, Deb and her mother have been having an ongoing debate about Gran's level of independence. She lives alone, does not have enough short-term memory left to remember whether she's eaten anything at all on any given day, is supposed to take a mountain of pretty hard-core pills each day (but often forgets to) and is highly resistant to moving into a care facility.

Change is hard.

Gran is quite miffed that we all "caught her" fainting, but her daughter is horrified at the thought that she may pass out again when she is alone in her home. She could break a bone or hit her head, Deb tells her. Gran doesn't really care, and says as much. She just wants to stay in her own home, and refuses to have care workers into her house.

Change is hard.

A few months ago they toured a high-end assisted living facility together, and Gran admitted to liking it. She refused to move into it back then and Deb relented, but it seems that the time has come. We'll see what happens.


We left them after extracting promises of constant updates on Gran's situation, and on Deb's new dog Robbie, who completely fell to the sidelines in this post with all the drama going on around him. He's perfect - that's all you need to know right now.

We also got a new foster dog this weekend, who is not so perfect. He's a Beagle, which is not so great to start off with. It's not that Beagles are inherently bad; it's just that they're not our style of dog at all. They tend to be high-energy dogs who prefer not to use their brains. That describes our Oland perfectly, but really he has a very sweet personality.


His greatest failings are not his fault. He's young - the head of our rescue group said he was probably two, but I think he is younger than that. He has no house manners and jumps on counters, tables, windows, people, and other dogs. That's not his fault. Nobody bothered to show him how to behave politely. He pulls mightily on his leash when he's walked. That's not his fault. Again, nobody bothered. He acts like a puppy but is a lanky, full grown dog. We'll work with him and I think he will respond well.

It will take time, though.

Change is hard.

spring cleaning

We got to bed late last night, then I woke up this morning and sliced my finger open on a can of cat food.

I felt exhausted all day - I think our recent travels around the country last week and around Nova Scotia this past weekend have belatedly caught up with me. Then Mark told me that he'd brewed decaf coffee instead of real stuff, and that was what I drank this morning.

That didn't help.

So I've felt a bit unproductive all day.

BUT... we did a little bit of work on the inside of the house, so that's something. Also, late last week I started some major yard cleaning - I got an entire garbage bag full of litter from the treed part of our property. That's good, except that I only made it through about a quarter of the trees. By my estimate, that means there are three more entire garbage bags worth of chip bags, styrofoam cups, grocery bags, and candy wrappers rotting out in my yard right now. The density of the trash in my woods is absolutely amazing. I would have gone out again to get more but lately we've had snow, rain, freezing rain, and generally cold miserable weather.

Tomorrow it's supposed to be back to spring again, which means that maybe, just maybe, our new windows will be put in. If it stays warm, I can also get the rest of the litter out of the woods and start digging out our vegetable garden.

I feel too tired to really think about that in detail right now though, so I'm off to bed.

There & Back Again

Living in a small town is nice most of the time, but all-you-can-eat sushi becomes a magical, mythical event when you live in an area that does not offer sushi, period. No sushi restaurants. No little plastic containers of take-away California Rolls sold anywhere. And if we want to make our own, do you think my local grocery store sells nori, or rice vinegar? My local grocery store doesn't even sell refried beans.

That's why this was so amazing:


We ate, and ate, and ate some more and finally all the sushi disappeared.


One time when I was in one of the famous Las Vegas buffets, I went to the washroom. There were two other girls in there too, and one of them said to the other one: "I ate so much! Can you hold my hair back so I can puke?"

... three cheers for Bulimia. (We ate so much we felt sick, which reminded me of the Vegas Bulimia Girls, but unlike them we did not puke. Just in case you're wondering.)

Have I mentioned that Kingston, Ontario, is a really cool little city? It has very pretty old buildings everywhere and is a big enough city to have a million cool stores downtown, but at the same time it's small enough that everything's in walking distance.

We left town after my sister's wedding and started the long drive east again. We kicked around in Montreal and Quebec City to go shopping for things that are either scarce, expensive, or non-existent in stores in Nova Scotia, and when we got back to Nova Scotia we all decided to stay the night at Kristie and Tanya's parents' place. We played Wii all evening and then the next morning Kristie fed me Triscuits and peanut butter for breakfast because they had cereal, but no milk, and peanut butter, but no bread.

We are finally home. We grabbed Arlo from the boarding kennel that our friends own and found out that he'd had a blast the entire time we were gone. The cats are fine, my plants are thriving, the house did not implode in our absence, and it's just nice to be in our own space again.

a family wedding

So my sister's wedding on Saturday was nice. They held it in an art gallery in downtown Kingston and the ceremony was less than ten minutes long. I thought the Justice of the Peace that deejayed/oversaw/whatever did a good job, but I found out later that Dr. Justin had to ask her to take a hard candy out of her mouth as the ceremony was beginning.

As far as I know, though, that was the biggest disaster of the day, so at least there was that. There were no drunk relatives acting up in public, no lost cameras, no fights, and nothing got broken. I'm pretty sure Dr. Justin had a much bigger case of nerves that day than my sister, though. He had no reason to worry - the day was a success. He looked nice, Kim looked beautiful, and everyone seemed to have fun. The guests danced the night away in the gallery and cupcakes were had by all.


We showed up at the art gallery the next day to help clean up. We ended up hanging out with the gallery owner for a bit, and when she started dismantling a $4,500 piece of art, we HAD to get in on it.


Mark and Kristie helped her take the art apart while I documented the event for posterity. My brother and his girlfriend looked on.


All was well with the world.

On Vacation!

We spent Wednesday night at a hotel in Northern New Brunswick. I can't believe the amount of snow that parts of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick still have! It's April, and the snow banks are over my head.


Tanya and Kristie wanted to go to Walmart the night we were in New Brunswick so I went along with them for something to do. They each bought a couple of things. At the check-out, Kristie went first and the lady started ringing her things through and put the first one in a plastic bag.

"I don't need a bag", Kristie said politely. We're all about saving the planet, people.

The lady looked at her, gave her a tight-lipped smile, put the second item in the bag and said "you can just use this until you get to your car then."

Um, what? Ah, NO.

Kristie looked her in the eyes and said again, "I don't need a bag." The lady's smile faded and she informed us that the greeter at the door would give us a hard time if our things were not in plastic bags.

"That's fine; I'll hold my receipt in my hand", Kristie said in a calm but determined tone of voice. She paid, picked up her purchases, and turned her back to the crabby cashier while her sister paid for her things.

"...I don't need a bag", Tanya said with a little smirk.

The cashier grasped a new tactic, and asked Tanya if she'd like to buy a re-usable bag. Tanya declined, stating that she already had some but had left them in the car.

The lady would not drop it. "We have policies, you know..." she said weakly.

Tanya told her it should be a customer's choice whether they needed a bag or not but the cashier snarked at us until we walked away - bag free, by the way.

The greeter at the door didn't pay the slightest attention to us.

We woke up the next morning to find that it had snowed again overnight. In April. The roads were still okay so we got going and drove west. Soon we were in Quebec - and as we all know, the French are amazing at making cheese, so we HAD to stop for fresh Cheese curds.

Mmm, squeaky.


Since we'd all done the Trans-Canada drive before we decided not to stop for any touristy things (besides the cheese) so we kept driving and got to Kingston, Ontario on day two.

The wedding is on Saturday. We are hoping it doesn't pour rain. Should be fun either way, though!