Holiday Hijinx

So Mark went over to a friend's house today to help her set up a new computer. She's a woman 'of a certain age', recently separated and soon to be divorced. While he was there, her estranged husband phoned.

She promptly told him she was busy; she had a man in her bedroom.

Thankfully, Mark made it out alive.

And now for something completely different - we had a dinner party last night and deep-fried everything we could think of. Our friends showed up with lots of different ingredients and even brought an extra deep fryer.

Today, after cleaning up the fallout, I looked on top of the fridge and noticed something wonderful. Somewhere between the deep fried bananas with vanilla ice cream and the deep fried Mars Bars that accidentally got thrown under the couch a little bit, we had forgotten about a bunch of Christmas goodies that other people had brought for dessert.

Mmm... Opera Cake, some sort of Scotcheroo-type squares, authentic Italian baked goods, fudge, and truffles.

Wow, what a score. We couldn't help but have a bit, but we'll bring all those goodies along to the New Years celebration tomorrow, and reunite them with their proper owners. And then hopefully eat some more of them.

She Sees You When You're Sleeping...

Well it's Christmas eve, and we've been going nuts with all the usual holiday stuff - lots of visiting and socializing, which is sometimes enjoyable (ahem, Mel, our friend from university, and her husband Dave) and sometimes throws me into an anti-social panic (ahem, neighbourhood Christmas party).


Tonight there are presents to wrap, parties to attend, and friends to visit. There were also biscuits to ruin, but I already did that.


Virginia Melinda requested updated pics of Minerva - here she is playing with Zelda, who is her best friend.


Happy holidays to everyone. Yay Christmas!

Triumphant Return

Well Mark and Jay got back safe and sound and tired yesterday. They had driven pretty much non-stop and had made it to Philadelphia around noon on Saturday. The dogs that they were transporting were very nice and well-behaved in the car and both of the boys liked them quite a bit.

After about 20 hours of being in the car, when they were about three blocks from their home in Pennsylvania, the dogs got restless and excited. They knew they were home. At last they arrived, and the dogs' owner was absolutely overcome with joy. She was happy to have her dogs safely back home, and extremely grateful to the boys for bringing them so far and doing such a nice deed for a total stranger.


Mark and Jay visited with them for a few hours and were treated to all the best types of food that Philadelphia had to offer. It was a really pleasant visit, but there was a storm on the horizon, so the boys said goodbye and started on the long trip home again.

Along the way they worked out how to solve a few of the world's problems, drove, slept, and asked a lot of total strangers what the capital of West Virginia is. I think naming all the state capitals was their little way of staying awake and alert, and that one stumped them. When they were stopped in traffic, they would roll down the window and start a conversation about state capitals with people on the street or in other cars near them. Silly Canadians!

They drove for something like 17 more hours, crossed the border again, and made it to the ferry terminal in New Brunswick with a whole hour to spare before the ferry left. Then, after a three hour ferry ride and one more hour of driving, the heroes returned triumphantly!

They made it through a magic window of (almost completely) good weather, with storms here while they were gone, and storms in New England chasing after them as they drove home again.

3,700 kilometres on the road.

52 hours of traveling.

2 provinces.

2 countries.

7 states.

1 feel-good Christmas story.

PS - The capital of West Virginia is Charleston. Who knew?

Mark's Hitting the Road!

Much to his surprise, Mark will be on his way to Philadelphia tomorrow.

It's a long, convoluted story. I will tell you the parts that I know.

There was this lady from Philadelphia, I don't know her name. She was in Cape Breton helping out a sick relative. She had her two dogs with her. She took very ill (I know no details) and had to be flown back to the U.S. and admitted to a hospital. I think she is still in the hospital. Her dogs are still in Canada though!

Side note - Cape Breton is in the middle of nowhere. No, actually, it can be more accurately stated that Cape Breton is on the very edge of the middle of nowhere. If you drive to the eastern edge of this country, and then drive across a long bridge to a seemingly uninhabited land mass that can be seen off in the distance, you end up in Prince Edward Island Cape Breton (which is actually even further off the beaten track than P.E.I.). Then, just keep driving for another couple of hours. That's where the woman's dogs are, in a boarding kennel.

The dogs can't be flown this time of year, and I don't think there's anybody that the woman could even ask to buy dog crates, get the dogs to the airport, et cetera. My friends and I all got an email about this sad situation forwarded from our rescue group. I read it and closed it, thinking "too bad; nothing I can do". Our friend Jay is obviously much more kind-hearted than I am, because he promptly decided that he would drive to Cape Breton (which is off the edge of the middle of nowhere), get the dogs, and then drive to Pennsylvania with them for a magical Christmas reunion with their sick mama.

Mark is going to be his co-pilot.

Those two are gonna have A TONNE OF FUNNE together. All I can say is, they'd better not get stopped by bad weather, because there are only so many days in a row that I feel like going to work (yes, I am working this week) and then coming home alone to take care of our three dogs, six cats, and the foster dog, who has to be walked separately from our own dogs because she has Whipworm and Hookworm.

What's that about a foster dog? I forgot to tell you guys - the little fluffy puppy is adopted, and a beautiful black dog is sitting in quarantine in my mudroom. She's VERY sweet, and her name is M.J.


She is fabulous and I expect her to get adopted very quickly once the holidays are over.

Wish the boys luck on their trip.

Winter Weather

The Annapolis River froze over briefly this week. I don't know why I was so surprised to see it as I rounded the bend by the riverbank. I mean, the river froze last winter. I guess I'm just not used to being back in a cold-weather climate. There's been snow off and on for the last week and the temperature has taken a definite plunge.

Remember when I mentioned the house next door to us, many months ago, and I said that Santa Claus lives there? Well, now that it's December, he seems to have taken a little trip, and has asked us to feed his cats for him. This is more evidence. He is Santa Claus! I will report any further Santa-Claus-like activity as it occurs.

The dogs (except for Oliver) have been enjoying bouncing around in the snow. Arlo and Zelda chase each other all around the yard, and Zelda barks these shrill barks that sound like she's being murdered, the entire time.




We got a Christmas tree yesterday, but the decorations aren't up yet. We also went out and did the last little bits of our Christmas shopping yesterday, and it wasn't a moment too soon. The stores were all crazy-busy-insane. Since being in crowds pretty much makes me have a heart attack, it was a tiny bit stressful. Oh well. All done.

Small Dog People Rant

Although she has Swine Flu, Chani has scraped together the energy to whine about the length of time between posts around here.

It's about quality, not quantity.

But, to make her happy, here is a post. While we're at it, congratulations Chani and Captain D. on their new dog, the Earl of Doozer:


Alrighty. On the weekend, Nay and I attended a party for the small dog rescue group we recently started volunteering for. Now, all dogs deserve good homes, regardless of size, but I really get frustrated with the small dog rescue groups I've encountered so far. It's like they're immune to actual knowledge about dogs, to the point that someone on a mailing list recently pointed out that Chihuahuas that live in Canada should not be taken outside AT ALL during the winter because their lungs are too small. Nobody on the mailing list refuted this claim. I didn't either, I admit it, but it's because I try not to communicate with these people beyond saying whatever needs to be said to foster the dogs.

So my thought, when I read about this cold weather claim, was 'Uhh, what?' Our Oliver, who is the same size as - but has less fur than - the average Chihuaua, went to the Yukon and back with us in an unheated travel trailer, and he survived. He thrived, even. He also goes outside multiple times, every single day, even in the winter. We are clearly neglectful parents.


This begs the question: where do the small dogs, er, use the bathroom? Well, if they're not doing it outside, it's safe to say that they're doing it inside. I'll just let you think about that.


So.

We went to the small dog party, where there was a towel by the door for the dogs to do their business on. Other than that, it was actually not too bad. By some fortunate alignment of the planets, the Nova Scotia people who participate in this rescue group seem to have brains for the most part. (The Ontario people, one of whom made the infamous Chihuahua lung claim, make me mad. Too bad they make ALL of the decisions regarding dogs in foster homes.)


We brought our foster dog Remi, and left him there to be handed off to his new owners, who are officially adopting him within the next few days.

Nay and I sat down and watched all 14 dogs run maniacally around the house and had pretty pleasant conversations with the other people who attended. It was festive, so that was fun.


Disclaimer: I do own small dogs. I expect them to behave themselves, and I don't pretend that they are human infants. They are small, yes, but that does not mean that they can't eat the same food other dogs eat, and go on walks like other dogs. Even in the winter.

I don't know how much longer I can bear to try to cooperate with these small dog groups. These people, aside from their interesting philosophy on small dogs versus real dogs, don't seem to operate with the same basic rules that other dog rescue groups use. Rules that were designed to keep the dog's welfare in the forefront. It's a lot of "industry talk", so I won't get into it, but suffice it to say I'm a bit frustrated. I'll try to hang on though, simply because it makes for good reading.

Lilac Wood

A Lilac tree fell down in our yard, so Jay came over with a brand new chainsaw, and he and Mark made us some Lilac firewood.

Smells niiiice. Also, I noticed when I was stacking it that the inside of the tree is naturally stained with purple. I've never seen this before. I think it's kind of cool.


Anyway, life goes on here. Our current foster dog, Remi, has an adoption pending, but is still here.


On Saturday I'm taking him to a puppy party hosted by the Tiny Paws people. There are apparently going to be about a dozen little dogs running around at this party. They also said that there would be a "big dog" there, and other big dogs are welcome, but I strongly suspect that the "big dog" they are talking about is a Beagle.

I had made up my mind that I would bring Arlo and see if anyone panicked (and then laugh if they did; come on, it's ARLO), but then I thought about how much all the little dogs would bug him, and I couldn't do it. Zelda the Dachshund, our newest permanent dog, is not ready for an event of this caliber. Oliver, now. I can just pick Oliver up if the other dogs are brats, so he's coming too. We bought him an awesome new winter hoodie to wear.

I'll try to take pictures for y'all. Should be fun.

Getting Festive

So it's December 1st, and we're all gearing up into Christmas mode. Which means, in reality, we're getting stressed out, power-shopping for presents, wearing toques on walks because it's finally cold, and juggling travel plans and social events.

We were grocery shopping last week in the far-away town that has a big grocery store, and they had Soy Egg Nog in the hippie section. Against my better judgment, I picked up a carton. There was no way it would be any good, but I couldn't not try it. I really do like Egg Nog, but we try not to buy a lot of milk products so I didn't want to buy any of the real stuff.

So we we had a little dinner party with our friends the next day. Right before the company arrived I brought out the Soy Nog and tried it and... it is effing delicious. I promptly poured a shot of rum in it and it became the drink of the evening. Chani had some and loved it too. This is too exciting for words! I have to go back to the grocery store now and buy like five cartons of that stuff. With my luck they will be sold out.


The dinner party was pretty cool - it was the usual group (Mark, me, Chani, Nay, and Jay) minus Captain D., who is always working, and plus Chani's mother, who got tipsy off wine and wandered into the living room after dinner and slept on our couch.


Earlier that day the house was clean, the food fixings were mostly ready, and I was power cleaning our new kitchen table, which we had salvaged from Chani's barn. I had baking soda and vinegar all over my hands when I was done cleaning the table, and so I went to wash them.

Turned on the tap.

Nothing came out.

It was t-minus two hours til party time, and our house had no water. This was nothing new. We'd lost water the previous week for about three hours, and a few days before, our power had decided to permanently go on "halfsies" power. Which meant, our stove lights turned on when you turned the dial, but the elements did not heat up. The microwave went full power for two seconds when it was turned on, but then did a really creepy half-power slow-down. The overhead light in the living room flickered randomly between bright and dim. Then out. Then dim again. Then we woke up the next morning and our electric heat, which is what heats our entire house, was no longer working. The house was coooold.

Yay for the holidays! What a perfect time to lose power and water!


So we called in an electrician, who told us to unplug all major appliances and call the utility company. I called the utility company, and through a magical holiday miracle, they had their giant elevator-basket truck out to our house about a half hour later. Then they replaced a whole bunch of crap - actually pretty much everything - in the power pole we are connected to and told us that it had been in very bad shape. It's been almost a week, and the halfsies power seems to be gone for good.

I was feeling a bit manic, so I called the power company back and waited on hold. A tired-sounding operator took my call and looked up my file, noting in an emotionless montone that I'd called them an hour ago. I said that yes, I had, and the problem was already fixed, and I wanted to say thank you, thank you, thank you for doing it so quickly. She let out a startled giggle and voiced her surprise that I'd called again. I told her that I figured everyone always called when they took too long to fix a problem, so I wanted to call because they'd been so very quick about it. Her voice lost the monotone and she seemed genuinely pleased. She asked if she could send my comment to her supervisors. I think I made her like her job that day.

Oh right.

I was talking about a dinner party, and water.

That was actually not such a big deal. They dug a hole down the street from our house and had water running again about an hour after it had stopped. I finally washed the crusty baking soda from my hands and the rest of the night was a rousing success.


So. Christmas will be here in less than a month. It sure would be nice to get some nice pots for plants, or even some nice house plants. Or a sturdy cookie jar for the dogs. Or a Fiskars splitting axe with a 4 pound head for Mark.

Ahem.

From The Heart

Okay, so apparently, my last entry was cryptic and kinda misleading. I went back and re-read it, and it really is.

We had a good vacation.

We had a lot of fun with our friends from Victoria, who were kind enough to put us up in their houses and feed us DELICIOUS food.

I just, I just... I didn't want to make a big shopping list of all our activities, but I didn't know what else to write about it without going too far into detail about the personal lives of our friends. You guys hear personal details about my life here, because I choose to write and publish them. My friends didn't make that choice, and thusly deserve a measure of privacy, which is why I started using fake names when writing about our new friends here in Bridgetown. I still don't write very personal things about our friends here - for instance, if one of them had a set of "magic wishing nipples", would I blog about it? Well, apparently I might mention it, but you still don't know details and don't know who it is. We see or talk to our friends here almost every single day, but I'd say you guys have heard about less than ten percent of the interesting things that happen with them. In fact, there are a few people who we socialize with quite often who've never even been mentioned here. They didn't choose to have their lives published on the internet, so I try to keep a big privacy barrier there. There have been some pretty controversial things that have happened with our friends and family, but it wouldn't be nice for me to go writing about all the sensitive things going on in other peoples' lives here, so I don't.


I guess I screwed this thing up concerning our trip though. It was such a strange mix of emotions, going back to visit a place that we had loved living in, because we'd decided with a good deal of finality and surety that we didn't want to live there any more. This vacation was kind of handed to us by Mark's work, and before we knew it someone else had made the decision that we would be visiting Victoria again for the first time since we'd moved away.

When Mark told me that his work wanted to fly us out there, I was instantly stressed out. (You guys know how I get.) We didn't have a lot of notice, and there were contractors working on our house, racing the clock to get siding on before the weather turned too wintery. How would we deal with that if we were not here? As it was, we had to hand someone else an envelope with thousands of dollars in cash in it, and ask them to please inspect the new siding and give the money to the contractors when they were done (thank you Nay and Jay). Also, the sheer number of cats and dogs that now inhabit the house makes travelling more difficult. Minerva the kitten is finally weaned and big enough to manage by herself most of the time, but she's not big enough to be unsupervised in the house for nine days. Chani was kind enough to babysit her for us. Then there's the weather around these parts. As you already know, we ended up leaving for our trip by driving to the airport in a snow storm.

I am happy that Mark's work paid for us to go out to the west coast. It was nice of them to do and we had a lot of fun, but by dictating our travel details they took some of the control away from us, and that made travelling just a bit weird. I'm not used to 'business trips'.

Thus, it was a lot harder for me to write about than I thought it would be. When we were in Tofino, I just blathered on about the beaches and the weather and such. I went to write about the days we spent in Victoria with our friends and I. Couldn't. Do. It.


Victoria, we broke up with you. You're a nice city - it wasn't your fault. It was strange going out with you again last week. Yes, Nova Scotia treats us well. We're sorry you got custody of our friends, Victoria. Now, when we want to see them, there you are too, and it's a bit awkward. We miss them, Victoria. Be good to them.


So thank you Megan. You took time out of your hectic life to host us, and you don't have a spare bedroom so you gave up your living room so we could camp out at your house. You put up with me getting sick and being a zombie, and didn't even make fun of me too much for it. We like your new boyfriend and hope that all the huge plans you have for the next couple of years work out for you. You deserve it.


Thank you Kristina. You went with me to my favourite sushi dive, and mourned with me when I found out that the sunomono lady was no longer working there. You even became a spy and told me where she works now. You drove around downtown with me, and you hate driving as much as I do. You are cool.


Thank you Jeff. (Where's my magic trick??!) You are Mark's secret non-biological twin. You two think all the same insanely obscure thoughts, and like all the same insanely strange jokes. The one thing I hate about not living in Victoria is that we don't get to see you so often any more, and we've been apart so long that you think it might be possible that we don't have fun when we're with you.

We did.

I should have said so even if I didn't know how to say it. We hope you had fun too!

Not My Style (of dog!)

Well we had a great time in Tofino and headed down to Victoria for another few days of vacation before flying back to Halifax.

And, try as I might, I haven't been able to expand on that sentence all week.


You guys want a synopsis of our vacation? We went to BLANK restaurants, the weather was BLANK, and we saw all our old friends BLANK, BLANK and BLANK.


Y'know? As much fun as all that stuff was (and it really was), I think it makes for boring reading.


So...

We came back to this little pile of rags.


He's the latest foster dog, Remi.

He arrived a few days before we were set to leave on our trip. A new group we are fostering for, Tiny Paws, asked if we could take a ten-week-old Shih Tzu / Lhasa Apso cross in. Those of you who know me well know that this is not my favourite kinda dog. Little wussy puppies? With buggly eyes and smooshy noses? And prissy little haircuts with bows on top of their heads? Uhh, no. I HAVE met Shih Tzus I like before. Precisely three, and two were owned by the same people (must have been how they were raised).

So very smugly, I told the rescue group "oh we'd LOVE to help you out, but you see, we're leaving town for nine days, otherwise we could do it, but oh well" and I thought that was the end of the story. Didn't the sneaky people ask Nay and Jay if they would babysit the puppy for us while we were gone! And they AGREED!

So we're stuck with a puppy who jumps on Oliver's head and makes him growl, and pees on the carpet, and runs directly at your feet while you're walking so you either fall down or step on the dog and break it's spine. To add insult to injury, EVERYONE ELSE LOVES HIM. We go out walking and all our neighbours coo and go on. The contractors who are working on our siding all smile when we walk past with him, and say "he's some cute!"

I just don't get it. Yeah, he's a puppy, and some people go in for puppies, but he's just so bleh.

The good news is, he has an adoption pending. His new family can't adopt him for another week or so, but they are coming to meet him tomorrow. We will smile politely when they say how cute his brown-streaked tear-stained face is.

Tofino to Victoria

We spent a few beautiful days in Tofino. The weather was as nice as I've ever seen it there, which means it only hailed once for five minutes, and it only rained a leetle teensy bit each day.


I spent the time quietly, wandering the beaches and going to bed early. Mark? Mark got drunk off Tequila with his co-workers and spent the final full day with "self-inflicted flu".


The rest of the time I think he had as much fun as I did.




After the first night, we had all moved to a quiet lodge on the Middle Beach Resort property. There was a beautiful staircase leading from the deck of the lodge directly to the tidal pools below.


That staircase was one of my favourite parts of the area - the thought of it was just so comforting to me; I don't know why.

This was the view from our room at the lodge:


We left Tofino this morning and had a leisurely drive back to Victoria, where we met up with Megan and promptly went out for sushi. I have to make myself sick of sushi before we leave so that I don't crave it for a while when we get back to Nova Scotia.

I'm going to go to work with Megan tomorrow and walk dogs - should be fun.

Chillin' at Middle Beach

The nerd conference is ramping up into high gear. We spent the first day here in Tofino helping Mark’s boss prepare everything, and now every employee and a number of selected clients have arrived and we have taken up residence in a secluded lodge at the Middle Beach Resort.

It’s a strange mix of computer talk, real estate talk, poker, and drinking. There’s lots of free time to lounge around or walk on the beach though, so apart from some internet connectivity problems it’s all very pleasant here.


Mark's co-worker's 16 year old daughter Haley has set up her room as a refuge from nerd talk. There's an open invitation to all the non-nerd girls to crash there when we have to get away - she even made a sign. It says "Princess Room - Girls only. Males will be shot if caught entering room."


The weather has been surprisingly pleasant and we've had a few long and relaxing walks on the beaches already. We discovered some great tidal pools so I'll have to take my camera down there later.


For now, though, it's time to call our friends who are taking care of our dogs, and then go laze around somewhere.