A Dinner Party

When we lived in Victoria we had the cutest little dining room table - a funky round two-seater that fit nicely into our little basement apartment. When the two of us ate at it our knees almost touched. I liked it very much.

Of course when we moved and gave everything away, we had to say goodbye to our cute little round table. We're here now, and we sit at a larger table that was donated to our household by my parents, who didn't have room for it any more when they moved. Our new table is still round, but now we can seat four people instead of two.

I thought that would suit us fine. Our little two-seater in Victoria served us well and I never felt we needed anything bigger. The four-seater we have now is nice, but surprisingly, I feel the need for a bigger table. It's not that we're more social (well, okay, maybe we are a bit but that's not the point). It's that, in Victoria, we usually went out with friends. We went merrily to brewpubs, bistros, cafés, diners, and restaurants. Here, everyone goes to everyone elses' houses. People host each other. We can host two comfortably for a meal, and that's not enough. Going out is a feeble option. We can go to the pub and be gawked at by the locals who will all gossip about us the next day, or we can go to the restaurant at the local hotel, but for lunch only and not supper, and not on Saturdays. And that's only if we have cash, because no credit/debit cards are taken there.

Our dining room is roomy, but the table, shockingly, is not. That, on top of my lack of talent in the kitchen, is putting us at a distinct disadvantage - I mean, how often can I eat at other people's houses before they start thinking to themselves: "Gee, Mark and Julie never invite me over. They must

- be snobs
- not like me
- be weirdos."

I'll have you know that only the last option is true.

So, that having been said, we went to Chani's house for supper on Friday. She was out in her vegetable garden when we arrived, so we meandered into the back yard to see her, but got side-tracked saying hello to Emmylou Hairless instead.


Chani's husband, the intrepid Captain D., got home soon after and we got down to business.


On the menu that night was polenta and sun-dried tomato cutlets. I can never guess what Chani will whip up next in the kitchen, but it's always good. This was no exception!


We were happy to see Nay arrive exactly when dinner was ready. She filled her plate, sat down, and promptly got a call from a client wanting to pick up their dog from the kennel, so had to go back home within five minutes of entering Chani's house. We all groaned - Nay had had a very long and frustrating day already, and it looked like it wasn't going to end any time soon. She reappeared twenty minutes later, frowning. She couldn't find the keys to the dog kennel and had had to send the client away empty-handed!

She searched Chani's house and driveway briefly and left again with a plan to call her husband to come home from work and help her get into the kennel. The last I heard, they had to break in. We all felt really bad - it was a crappy end to what had been a long, disheartening day for her.

The evening was very pleasant aside from Nay's misadventures. The food was great and the weather was mild. We wandered around outside looking at trees, flowers, and the river, and Captain D. decided to climb up onto his roof.


Mark went up there too. Whatever, boys.

Update: Our Week

We've been so busy - it's nice to have a little time to breathe today.

On the weekend, CAPS held its annual dinner and auction. We helped with food preparation late last week, and helped to set up on the weekend, and also brought Neville the cat to the dinner to display him for potential adopters.

Oh, and also? My parents and Mark's mom came to town for the dinner. And they all stayed at our house. And they brought their dogs.

It was a bit of a wild weekend. We had five adults, five dogs, and five cats squashed into our house for the weekend. The dinner went great and we all won various things in the silent auction. Neville the cat did not get adopted, but a few days later Cooper the Foxhound did! He went to his new home on Tuesday, and we foolishly believed we might be able to rest easy with only our own two dogs for at least 24 hours.


That didn't happen, of course. We don't have a new foster dog, but we do have Mark's mother's dog Robbie for a week. Robbie is a reasonably easy dog but is keenly aware of what rules will be enforced if he pushes limits, and which ones he can get away with ignoring.

Some of you may know that I'm not very much of a pushover. I don't fight many battles, but I always plan on winning the ones I choose to engage in. In the words of the immortal Gunnery Sergeant Hartman, "I am hard but I am fair". Robbie can sleep on my couch, or my bed. He can rip his toys apart and spread the bits from one end of the house to another. He does not have to heel on walks, but pulling is not acceptable. Robbie likes to bark a lot and loudly when he's excited, jump up on people, and go on like a baby when left home alone. The barking and jumping up has greatly diminished in the two days since he landed here, and he is dealing with the separation anxiety he seems to have. I definitely wouldn't call it extreme, but it won't disappear in the week that he's here, and he'll fall back into familiar habits a bit when he returns to his own home and interacts with his owner's energy levels. For now though, we leave him home alone whenever we have somewhere to be, and it's as simple as that, and the world will not end. Because I believe this, Robbie will be much more likely to believe this.


Ah, but wait, I've left out some of the most important details: Robbie is here because Mark's mother needs to deal with her mother. Her mother (Mark's Gran) is in the hospital. She had a heart attack over the weekend, and a number of Angina attacks which have ranged from mild to severe. Being 88, there's not a lot they can do for her other than changing her medication. She's been in the hospital for a number of days but we expect her to be released tomorrow. It's not great news. It kind of seems to me that this Angina thing is not going to go away.

I think Gran is ready for whatever may happen. I don't think anyone else is, though.

Nighttime Noises

My eyes snapped open at about 11:30 last night when someone started up what sounded like a lawn mower quite close to our house. I thought to myself how odd it was that someone was testing out a lawn mower so late at night. I assumed it was only a test - how could anyone possibly mow the lawn in the dark?

But the sound of the motor did not go away. I could even hear the difference in pitch from the machine being moved and turned repeatedly. It just kept going and going. Was someone really mowing the lawn at 11:30 at night?

I couldn't stand it - I had to go check. I got up and peeked out our bedroom window and saw a man in a safety vest holding a little flag. He was standing in the middle of the road in front of my house, staring at the crosswalk, which was in the process of being painted by another guy in a safety vest. The painting machine was my mystery lawn mower.

Weird.

Last week I had been awakened at 5am by what sounded like a long convoy of trucks driving past my house. It was not a great night - the power had gone out around 4am, which was a bad thing for two reasons.

Reason 1: The next day was my very first day of work, and my alarm clock needed to wake me up on time, which it could not do if the power was out.

Reason 2: Mark's work computer has an Uninterruptable Power Supply, which is a fancy name for a backup battery that keeps running for maybe 10 minutes in the event of a power outage. It allows you to save your work and safely turn off your computer. It also emits a loud beep every five seconds when the power goes out.

So there I was at about 4am last Monday morning, staring at my blank alarm clock and listening to the loud beeps from Mark's office. He was out of town, so I had to drag myself out of bed and go turn his computer off.

Maybe a half an hour later, the power came back on. I reset my alarm and went back to sleep. Another half hour after that, and it suddenly sounded like a convoy of trucks was driving past my house. Our street is very quiet normally, and doesn't really lead to anywhere that a convoy of trucks would need to go. After a while my curiosity won and I got out of bed to look out the window.

It was not, in fact, a convoy of trucks. It was a street sweeper. He was sweeping the street. Over. And over. And over again.

I guess he wanted it to be really clean.

Sick but Busy

I'm sick.


I spent most of yesterday sleeping, which is a shame because we had planned on going up to the farm (CAPS headquarters) and volunteering to sort a shipment of cat and dog food.

I had to stay home and sleep, so Mark went by himself. It turns out that a bunch of our friends were all there, and the shipment didn't arrive, so Mark sat around socializing and eating cheesecake. Even if I had known that that was the plan, I still think I would have stayed home - I was totally zonked. I'm feeling a bit better today though.

So Fezzik got adopted! Well, almost. Our rescue group sends dogs out on a one-week trial run as a rule, which in my experience is unusual, but that's how it works around here. So Fezzik's new owner signed all the paperwork and paid her fee, but was told that everything can be reversed for up to one week if things aren't working out.

I'd be surprised if we saw him again - she's experienced with Pit Bulls and Fezzik is a pretty good dog. So since he's gone, they sent Mark home from the farm with another foster dog named Cooper. He's a Foxhound and has never been in a house before. He has NO IDEA what to do, and doesn't even have an inkling that there might be things to learn from us. He reminds me of a Greyhound fresh off the track in his total cluelessness about being a pet.


Lots of dogs lately, huh? It's a needed thing. Fezzik might be dead now if we hadn't agreed to quarantine him here. Instead, he has a new home and a bright future.


Our house has been measured and we ordered our new siding. I'm guessing it'll be about a month before it arrives. We're going to measure the yard for the fence sometime soon, but we'll still be holding off putting it up until Santa Claus our neighbour arrives home for the summer.

Now, the goal this week is to not still be sick by the time I have to go to work on Tuesday.

New Job, New Cats

I worked three days this week and my new job and it went great. I'm not going to go into lots of details and specifics - I need to respect my boss' privacy, and that of her clients too. The Kennel is not in the same town that I live in... or is it? I've also modified Nay's name (it's not really "Nay".)


I will tell you vague things though - how could I disappoint my audience?

It was really different from working at the SPCA. Working at a shelter is emotionally draining in a lot of different ways. The animals aren't in the best situation, the people we see are often neglectful idiots, and dealing with disease prevention among stressed out animals while a million crazy (and sometimes heartbreaking) things are going on each days is just... well, it is what it is. I loved working at the shelter. I would have stayed there forever if we hadn't moved away from Victoria.

As it is, we are getting deeply involved with the animal rescue group here, and Nay is very involved as well. So I still get to work with animals in need, and she does too, so we understand each other in that respect.

The Kennel is a nice place to work at. There are dogs that go there for the day, and some that stay for a week or so, and often at least one CAPS dog who stays there until he is adopted.

I'm not focused on that aspect of the job as much as I thought I would be - Nay mainly needs help with the dogs and cats who come in for grooming. I've been brushing/bathing/cleaning dogs and that is basically the majority of the job. It's pretty cool. She might start teaching me to groom dogs after I get the hang of everything else. I was tired at the end of my first week, but I love working with the animals and it's very nice to have a somewhat physical job.

I feel like a bumbling fool at times though. Now that I am working for a friend, I feel like I've contracted Asperger's Syndrome, and I'm not sure if anything that comes out of my mouth is appropriate any more. There are parts of the job that I know I'll need to practice at, and things that I did that I wish I had done better. Hopefully I will feel less stupid soon, and hopefully she's happy with my progress so far.

Alright, so I also wanted to give you an update on the new cats in our house - the ones we inherited when Mark's Gran went to live at an assisted living place early this week.

They were previously named Toby and Puff. I have issues with both of those names. We will call them Stogie and Snuff instead. (NOTE: We will not be telling Gran we changed the cats' names. There are people who read this who also speak to Gran - please don't tell her. I think it will make her sad.)

Here's Mr. Stogie, a quiet and stoic sort of guy:


And Snuff, who is normally a friendly and affectionate girl, but is still a bit out of sorts from the move:


They are slowly settling into life here in Bridgetown. It takes cats a really long time to adapt to change, and these two are no exception. We've done this a few times before though, and they're actually adapting at a pretty normal pace. It's going well - they've met the other cats and I don't think there are going to be any problems. They've met our dogs before, so I already know they are capable of dealing with those two brats.


Man, it's been an eventful week! Hopefully there will be one more happy event - Fezzik the foster dog is likely getting adopted today - EEEEK! Wish him luck.

Missions

Update: Fezzik got three staples in his leg. I'm not entirely sure if he's noticed he's injured yet, or would care even if he did notice.

We were gardening on the weekend before Fezzik's big adventure and noticed a man cutting the lawn at the house next door to ours. This is news because that house has been unoccupied, yet well kept up, since we moved here in mid-November.

We've gleaned a few little details about the house's owner from our neighbours over the months. It's an older gentleman with a white beard. It's his summer home, because he works in the winter. He's from "up north". He's apparently really nice. There's a fanciful, bright red upholstered chair in his entryway that's got to be at least ten fee tall.

I'M SURE IT'S SANTA CLAUS.

I can't wait to meet him.

So anyway, we knew he had a caretaker because that's what the neighbours said. We're planning to build a fence along the property line but we want to speak with him before we do it, so I waved down the caretaker and he came over with a smile and chatted with us for a while. I found out that Santa Claus our neighbour will be arriving in about one month. We mentioned the fence plans and gave him our contact info to pass along, and tried very hard to seem friendly and normal. I think the caretaker liked us, so that's good I guess.

Mark and I had very different missions today. His mission was to help his mother bung his Gran off into an assisted living facility. My mission was to go to my first day of work at the dog grooming and boarding kennel.

We both succeeded and we are both tired tonight. A side-effect of the successful bunging of Gran off into a home is that we now own her two cats.

I'd go into more detail but it's getting late; we're tired; and there are chores to do before the day is done.

Gardening Gone Awry

The weather has been strange today. It was cloudy yet sunny this morning while we were walking dogs, but as I got back to the house with Fezzik the foster dog, the sun dimmed and the clouds took over. Five minutes later the skies opened up in a thunderstorm that lasted about ten minutes.

Another ten minutes after the storm stopped, the clouds were gone and the sun was back, brighter than ever. It has stayed that way all day now, and I decided to get some gardening done. I tied Fezzik out with me and he settled comfortably on the lawn to watch the world go by.

Mark came home from running errands and joined me on the front steps with an offering of Tim Hortons muffins. We weren't halfway through them when the neighbour's dog, a bouncy German Shepherd mix, suddenly came zooming into our yard and pounced playfully on Fezzik. So much for the quarantine.

I could see our neighbour and her daughter making their way over to retrieve their dog. Meanwhile, the two dogs jumped around and played and ran, and Fezzik succeeded in smashing himself into a giant oak tree and knocking down the little neighbour girl by clotheslining her with his rope as he ran past chasing her dog. The little girl and her mother finally corraled their dog and headed home. Fezzik collapsed contentedly on the lawn once more.

It was another couple of minutes before Mark suddenly said "hey, what's that on Fezzik's leg?"

We both looked. It was not good. Fezzik had somehow ripped an ugly gaping gash in his leg. As he lay peacefully on his side in the grass, we could see the meat of his leg in the open wound.

Fezzik didn't seem to mind.

Mark took him into the mudroom while I made rapid phone calls to the rescue group and then to the veterinary hospital. Then the boys bundled into the truck and were on their way to the vet, and as I type I am sitting here at home, with our own two calm dogs, thinking about poor foolish bull-in-a-china-shop Fezzik, who will probably need stitches and (ugh) a cone around his neck.

Send him good thoughts!

Fezzik

It's way easier to have a Pit Bull than a Beagle hanging around the house.

Waaaay easier.


Our rescue group pulled Fezzik from the pound Monday morning and took him to the vet for shots, a bath, a behaviour assessment, and basically the whole nine yards. We picked him up on Monday evening. I was on edge all weekend - nobody knew anything about this dog. It wasn't that I was worried about him being one of those mythical "evil Pit Bulls" that I've heard about in the news and yet have never EVER seen in person - it was just so... unknown.

Was he housebroken? Would he be scared of us? Good with cats? Good with dogs? We have to keep him separate from us for ten days - would he destroy the room we put him in? Would he bark incessantly for the entire ten days? Would there be some disaster we hadn't even considered?

We showed up at the vet's office with high hopes. They brought him out to the front, and within one and a half seconds of seeing him, almost all of my trepidation melted away.

He came bouncing goofily out at a high speed, smiling and slobbering at everyone. The vet tech let his leash drop and he went flying past the office cat, acknowledging him with the merest of glances. He wanted to be petted by everyone, but could not bring himself to hold still long enough for this to happen.

The drive home was uneventful (if a bit slobbery), and he has been in quarantine in our mudroom for two days now. Eight more to go! We can walk him and spend time with him out in his room, but he's not allowed to interact with our dogs until his quarantine is up. It's haaard to keep him separated. He knows we're on the other side of the door and he's been crying quite a bit to be let in. These are the rules though, so we'll stick it out.

He's been surprisingly undestructive out there by himself. He peed a little bit once, but ever since he realized that he gets multiple walks a day, he's been fine. There's been no chewing, very little barking, and no scratching at the door. Even if he destroyed the room, though, we'd get by. He doesn't deserve to be given up on again.


Once his quarantine is done, he'll be officially up for adoption. I don't have a good sense of the timing of adoptions around here yet, but I would think he'll go pretty fast. He's young, friendly, and very handsome. Oh, also, I have to mention that he's one of the biggest Pit Bulls I've ever seen. I don't think you can tell from the pictures, but he's a wopping 77 pounds of muscle!


Our friend Nay and Jay took Oland the Beagle so that we could rescue Fezzik. They run a boarding kennel and obviously cannot quarantine dogs effectively since there are always ten or twenty dogs there, but they can take dogs like Oland that are done with quarantining. We would have stuck with the admittedly sweet-natured Oland as long as it took for him to get adopted, but I much prefer the Pit Bull.


He's so smooshy and cute.

Action Jax!

Who would ever have guessed...


that there was a well-kept and highly entertaining little amusement park...


... only 20 minutes from our house?! We're not near any sort of large population base - this is quite unexpected.


Mark's cousin was in the province on family business (the second funeral of Grampa), so after that was done with we brought him up to Bridgetown for a visit. Mark's been sort of talking about going to see this little amusement park for a while now, so with Jamie visiting it was the perfect opportunity.


Some of our friends met up with us there for a while, and y'know what?


It was a lot of fun.

Two Goodbyes

A few years back Mark's grandfather died of old age. He was cremated and his ashes were buried on family land in Quebec. The acreage had been given to Mark's cousin Dean by their grandmother, who wanted to see it remain in the family. She planned to be buried next to her husband when she died.

Dean, the guardian of the family property, also happens to be some sort of Mormon priest, so he officiated the ceremony. Things seemed to just fall right into place.

Last year Dean's mother happened to drive past the acreage and to her horror, discovered a 'sold' sign in the yard. Dean had sold the property he had been given without telling anyone in the family, and had left the province, the property, and his grandfather's grave behind without a backward glance.

Poor old Gran was incredibly upset. Her husband was now buried on someone else's private property, and she could not rejoin him there when her day came, or even potentially visit his grave without a stranger's permission.

And the family land does not belong to the family any more.

Even though she had given it outright, she would have paid Dean to get it back had she known what he was going to do.

Mark's grandpa's ashes were dug up and brought back to Nova Scotia, and we all attended his second funeral and burial this past weekend. It's been a long saga for Mark's Gran and her two daughters, but now it's over with.


Dean did not attend the second burial. Nobody knows where he lives now.

In other news, our intrepid foster dog Oland (ROOO! BORT!) is going to a new foster home on Monday. We're switching him up for a new model!

Our rescue group takes dogs out of the local pound, and there's a dog at the pound in danger of being euthanized. The dogs are normally taken from the pound and placed in quarantine at the farm of one of the group co-ordinators. The dog in question is an 80-pound pit bull though, and the co-ordinator is a tiny little gentle-mannered retired school teacher. She does not have the strength to walk the large and strong pit bull, so cannot take him at the farm.

You all know the soft spot I have for this underdog breed. When I heard that the pound had a pit bull, I offered our house as a last resort. We are NOT set up well to quarantine a dog, and nobody knows if he's good with cats, dogs, or even people. He would die otherwise though, so we'll make it work, with the help of the other group members of course.

It should be an adventure! We'll get him on Monday if all goes well.