Captain D's Birthday

It was Captain D's birthday last week, and to celebrate we had a canoe expedition up the Annapolis River.


After getting slightly swamped and almost tipping in some minor rapids, we were on our way.


I rode with Laurie and Ernest, and Mark was in with hot ladies Shannon and Mickie.


Nay, Jay, and Chani piled into the last canoe.


Captain D, the man of the day, was the lone wolf in his kayak.


It seemed that my boat was both the coolest and the fastest by far, so after about an hour we decided we'd pull up on a rocky little beach to celebrate happy hour and give the slowpokes a chance to catch up. We drank our beers and watched the other canoes float by across the river.


After happy hour, we launched again. As we rounded a bend in the river, I saw the property Mark and I had bought this past spring! Sadly, we still haven't named it. Here it is, as seen from the river.


As the coolest and fastest canoe, we managed to overtake the other slow boats and land first at our ultimate destination, even though we had stopped for drinks and the others hadn't.

There was just one problem, though. We'd originally launched from a pre-arranged dock, but we hadn't really thought about where we would land. We pulled up onto a random little beach in the correct general area only to discover that the ground was not solid, but squelching, sucking, sinking mud. Ernest hopped over a little brook and landed in even squelchier mud. Then he discovered that he couldn't get back. He was stranded!


Jay bravely decided he would rescue Ernest in his canoe.


Then Jay got stuck in the shallows.


Chani waded out to rescue Jay. Meanwhile, Ernest got away. We never did rescue him.


After some minor chaos wherein many canoes went in different directions and people hauled themselves up the river bank at various different points, we all reconvened at Chani and Captain D's place for a birthday supper of tacos and pie!




Good times. Happy birthday, Captain D. You are older than I am, and that's the important part.

Hurricane Mark

So we're trying to figure out what to have for lunch when I notice that Buddy, the latest foster dog, is chewing on something under the kitchen table. Because I am an EXPERT at this, I immediately know that he is not chewing on a dog toy.

I shoo him away and find the cut-off end of one of those infuriating molded plastic packages that make new purchases so very difficult to access. The rest of the package, empty of its treasure, is on the kitchen table and has been since yesterday.

I leave the end of the package on the floor. Am I being passive-aggressive? I don't know. When Mark re-enters the kitchen, I ask him to put his trash from the previous day in the recycling. I ask nicely, but even by voicing the request, the overtones of an oft-repeated-in-many-different-moods conversation are present. This is one of our 'things' that we have fightscussions about. We don't have many of these 'things', and the ones we do have are not bad, and this is one of them.

By this point in time, the kitten has found the plastic end of the package and scooted off into the living room with it. Mark follows her out to get it, returns, and makes funny faces at me until he feels that I am happy again.

I contemplate my role in this household, and wonder whether it would be better to be a silent maid or a nagging equal. I work less hours than him; should I just clean this crap up? On the other hand, I'm neater than him; why should his messes be my responsibility?

I ask him if there's any way I can get him to stop dropping things all over the house mid-stride. He ponders this for a moment but has no solution.

We make our lunches - a bagel for me and a sandwich for him. He takes the last sub bun from the bag and fills it with all sorts of fun vegetables. The empty bag remains on the counter.

We eat lunch, and because there is a client emergency this weekend, Mark goes upstairs to work for a while. The empty bag remains on the counter.

I rip up our bathroom floor for a while. I go back into the kitchen. The empty bag is staring at me.

I put it in the recycling.

Meeting my relatives

So I'm back from visiting my sister and her family. I met her new kids and neither of them screamed or cried when they saw me, so I count that as a success.

The baby, Bhutan*, is chubby and hilarious. He pretty much never cries and ALWAYS WANTS TO EAT. In fact, the only time he really gets upset is when he hears the spoon scraping the bottom of his bowl of formless vegetable slop.


We went swimming and he learned about splashing. Unfortunately, he learned by splashing himself.



The little girl, Sophia*, is smart and personable and active. She LOVES to read and be read to, and will ask for the same book to be read to her over and over. She's only three, but her attention span for books is really long.

A girl after my own heart!


We did lots of stuff with them while we were there. We did a lot of firsts, like going to the pool and playing in the sprinkler. Sophia was very cautious about the water, but slowly got more and more comfortable with both the pool and the sprinkler.


The public kiddie pool we went to was very shallow. It was also warm - like swimming in a gigantic bathtub.

And full of filthy children.

We pretty much all got sick.


In spite of losing my voice for three days, I really enjoyed my trip and had fun meeting the kids. My sister and her husband are routine-nazis, which is cause for two thumbs up in my opinion. Kids are nicer when there's consistency.

Now I'm back home and things have been crazy. The population of our house rose to an all-time high right after I got back, as we were sheltering seven dogs and six cats for a short while. Fortunately, two dogs got adopted, my parents collected their dog, and today Mark's mother collected her two cats. Between fostering and pet-sitting for vacationing family members, it got a bit ridiculous.

But that's another post.


It was good to get to know Sophia and Bhutan.


I will enjoy watching them grow up.

Zelda

It's hard to believe that we haven't had Zelda for a year yet. She's crazy, but I'm so glad we found her.


She loves running around in the yard - but since her legs are so very short and her body is so very long, she almost does a sort of rocking-horse motion when she runs.



I still keep in touch with Angel, the man who rescued her. I think he misses her and I'm glad I can tell him that she's happy and fits in so well around here.


Speaking of happy...


... that is all.

Brothers & Sisters

I'm flying out to Ontario pretty soon to visit my sister and brother-in-law and meet their two new children for the first time.


My mom has been going a bit nuts over her first grandkids. I think she sends them 'care packages' weekly. My parents have been up to visit once already, and they're coming too when I go there this week.

My mom called me late in the evening a couple of weeks ago to get advice on attaching pictures to email messages. According to her, she couldn't do it because the computer kept telling her "she didn't have the right stuff". Hmm. That's not really the most helpful description. Seeing as how we were already in bed, I chatted with her for a couple of minutes and told her we'd try to help her with her computer problems in the morning. Instead, I woke up the next morning to find I had received about six emails from my mom. Most of them had one or two pictures attached. One email had 126 pictures attached.

Oh mom.



Since I'm leaving town for about a week, I've been holding off on taking new foster dogs into the house and had put the word out that we would not be able to take in new dogs until after I got back. Of course, there was an urgent case that cropped up. There's always an urgent case that crops up. I got a phone call asking if we could help out, so I handed the phone to Mark and left the decision with him, since he'll be the one who has to deal with it while I'm gone.



Consequently, we now have two VERY adorable Chihuahua / Papillon crosses - a brother and sister pair - in our house. Yay! Mark is as crazy as I am!

Glasses in the Mail

I've recently become addicted to buying glasses off the internet. I found reviews to this website, Zenni, on a forum I read, and since the internet people said it was good, it had to be true. Either that or I was out a grand total of $20, so whatever.

I went for a peek and browsed the ginormous selection of frames. I found a pair I liked and ordered it, and the checked my mailbox at the post office every three hours for the next week and a half.

This is what I got.


I was ecstatic and quite honestly, probably a little bit obsessed. I think I still am.

I ordered another pair of glasses and some sunglasses, both in my prescription, and they arrived as promised too, and I STILL WANT MORE. Mark told me that I could order one pair every month.



Then again, he spilled boiling oil on me today and then laughed when I said 'ouch'. I'm not talking about a sheepish giggle, either. He was gut-laughing and knee slapping and not at all concerned about my well being. I got mad at him and pointed out that he'd just spilled boiling oil on my hand, and he laughed again and said it was funny. I don't think I have to listen to his opinion on glasses in light of this traumatic abusive episode.*


* Calm down there buddy; no actual abuse occurred.

Bright Blue

Everyone's been whining about the lack of updates around here. I don't leave you hanging very often now, do I? SUCK IT UP. Naw, I don't mean that. Thanks for being loyal fans. I've been working more hours than usual, and Mark's been working more hours than usual, and there have been a million projects to do around here, and non-stop foster dogs until yesterday. Writing has just not happened, until now.


We said goodbye to Hope, the formerly feral dog, on the weekend. Her new family was so excited to take her home that her dad forgot her medication, then his wallet, and then his car keys in our house before he finally made it to the car with her.

The trim finally got painted on the house! Here's what it looks like now.


No, wait, this is what it looks like except the roof is half-ripped-off right now. WHEN WILL IT END??!


The weather has been fabulous lately and lots of things in the yard are blooming. Arlo tried to play with this guy in the picture below, but I shooed him away.



We LOVE our yard this year. It's fully fenced now, so all the dogs hang out with us as we dig in the garden, paint things, eat at the picnic table, and just relax while listening to birds during the day, and peepers in the evening.

Poo-Tee-Weet.

Happy Goodbyes

After more than a year living in our house as a foster cat, Neville has been adopted! Yes, Neville. I KNOW.


There was a woman who was actually looking for a 'rebel' of a cat, and as soon as she met Neville she was in love. She understood him and his attitude. In fact, she was so happy to meet him that she cried.

The next day we got a phone call from her. My heart skipped a beat - had he bitten her? (Maybe.) Was he being mean? (Almost certainly.) Did she want to bring him back? (Hopefully not!)

There was, however, suddenly twice the cause for celebration in our house because she told us that she also wanted to adopt Betty - one of our other foster cats whom she had met while she was here - so that Neville would always have a friend with him. We already knew that Betty was not scared of Neville, and the two cats seemed happy enough together, so we were overjoyed to hear her request.


Now Neville is gone to a home that understands him, and Betty the sweet, sweet little tabby girl has a forever home too, which she very much deserves.

It's so quiet without Neville here!