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dog spa saturday

August 28th, 2010 @ 8:13 pm

You know it is time to give your dogs a bath when you wonder “Why does it smell like pee in the house? Did someone pee on the carpet?” and then you realize it’s the DOG that smells like a hobo. Considering last week Jinx was all about the throwing up for two days straight, after Annie was all about it from a tomato binge… (and that Jinx threw up ON Annie one morning… so much fun!) – it was time. The weather will be turning soon and since we have a lovely warm (but not TOO warm) weekend ahead of us, I thought – let’s wash the dogs before I send them to live with the hobos on the streets of Montreal!

I also want to vacuum my house because it currently looks like we have 73 dogs living here and not just two. So I put the leash on Annie and walked her into the kitchen where I proceeded to torture her for a good 45 minutes, the aftermath of which was this:

It does rather look like we tortured her, doesn’t it? Poor thing. I didn’t even know she had that much fur left on her to come off! She was matted like hell. Shawn had to help hold her head because she is old and crotchety and kept trying to snap at me. But in the end she looked MUCH better (and younger!):

We told her she was now as awesome as The Magical Mr. Mistoffelees from CATS. You’d never know she was 12.5 years old!

Jinx took it upon himself to hide upstairs in the bedroom while we groomed Annie, but Shawn got him down and then we tackled him. His brushing was NOTHING like it was two months ago, but I still trimmed his tail and pantaloons and feet. He doesn’t like that.

After we got all the dead fur off the pups we stole one at a time, put them on the patio table and washed them! They were thrilled as you can imagine!

Annie shook right before I took this which is sad because she really looked much goofier right before. Heh. Can’t you see the unconditional love in her eyes?

Completely forgot to take a photo of Jinx while he was on the table looking miserable. It’s rare he doesn’t look happy and being hosed and/or brushed is one of those times. He tried to show us his paws to distract us, but we weren’t fooled!

It was nice enough today that I could leave them outside to dry. Not too hot for Annie so no fear for heat stroke (which Lappies are very prone to being an Arctic breed and all) and it was nice and shady on the deck. A little fresh air is good for them! I could have hung them on the line like we did with the clothes we wore while washing them. They should be thankful!

I might have to do one more washing before the winter really sets in, but that will be in the bathtub. I sort of like being able to bathe them outside in the summer.

They each need one more brushing (tomorrow!) before I can clean the rest of my house. We got most of the dead fur off of them before the bath, but there’s more to take off now that they have dried. Poor Annie is a matted mess again only I’m scared that if I take off any more fur she’ll be bald come winter!

finnish lapphund, life with dogs     3 comments  

destruction chronicles – paved with good intentions

August 27th, 2010 @ 8:15 pm

I am curious as to how long I will get to appreciate all the shiny new streets and sidewalks and driveways before the snow starts. I am very ready for all of this to be over now, please. It’s almost done, it has to be.

On Monday I was home sick but I did happen to get out of bed in time to see a man slice up our driveway with a very powerful handsaw.

I’m sort of glad I staggered out of bed when I did Monday afternoon because I was able to close the windows in the living room to keep out the huge amount of dust that thing kicked up. Also it was loud. Not the sort of thing one wants to hear with a migraine so bad it’s causing vertigo and nausea. Luckily most of the driveways had been done the week before – no idea why they waited until I was home sick. Oh! Maybe they wanted to be sure I could capture it on film for my chronicles! How nice of them!

Today we were woken up at the crack of dawn by the sounds of someone trying to tear down our house.

Or…

Perhaps it was this here tractor pulling up our asphalt and the men with pickaxes helping them. I tell you what, at 7AM, with your open window right above the driveway? It sure sounds like someone is trying to tear down your house, or at least break through the front walls. Yeesh. I leaped out of bed and woke up Shawn and said “I think we need to move the car NOW or we’ll be on the bus!”

And may I take a moment here to tell you all how ticked off I am that even with my earplugs in this wakes me up and yet Shawn sleeps through the whole bloody thing? REALLY! What the hell!? This is so unfair! Gah!

But I digress, or as a lovely blog friend of mine says, I’m tigressing.

Since the line was so close to where the car was the men had to help the tractor pull up some of the driveway. I am sort of baffled that they didn’t want us to move the car (Shawn ran out and asked them). How do you explain “A tractor dropped asphalt on it” to your insurance company?

Then it took about 5 men to figure out what to do with some tough roots and weeds under the patio stones. I kid you not.

They pondered this a while actually, it was funny to watch. Best was the two older men with big burly mustaches tried to poke at the weeds a little and seemed to have been thrown off by their toughness because the gestured at each other as if to say “Unh, huh, huh huh (french person noise) dis is impossible, eh? We cannot dig up dis weed!” Only in French. So they left them for the younger (Young Cousin John) guy to do and they walked away and smoked cigarettes. This is NOT a joke!

Then Young Cousin John used the “ba-dump-a-dump” machine (as I called it) to flatten down the gravel they raked into place. Then he left it behind our car and went on to the next driveway. They promised we’d be able to get the car out by 8:30 but then they sort of left their heavy (had to be moved by tractor) ba-dump-a-dump machine behind our car. *tsk* So I said to Shawn we should go back outside and start to get into the car to see if they’ll remember us.

They did.

And when we got home today -

WOOHOO! Paved driveway! Half of it anyhow. Was really hoping for the entire thing since there wasn’t much left to add to it.

But they did do this…

Not entirely sure why. I mean, they didn’t fill the grooves in all the way and the car wasn’t even in the driveway today! Not sure what this deal is but they did it on my neighbour’s driveway, too. Maybe there was a gap between the new pavement and where the grooves were in the old? Maybe it levels it out? But it still drops down at the end.

And it LOOKS STUPID. I am way too OCD to have my driveway look like this. ARGH!

Not to mention they didn’t put our patio stones back either. So it’s sort of hazardous right now.

We don’t even have a cone this time to note the hazard.  You’d think we would. And it’s not a very straight line now is it? I mean, even if we put our own stones back (which I refuse to do, they took them up, they can put them back, yo!) it won’t line up very well. Plus we’re down two full squares that they broke and took away with the trash. So we’re OWED two patio stones. Hmm.

And we have this pipe/drain THING sticking up and in our way. Yet another hazard! And there’s this gap thing now and a drop and I could break something! Knowing me it’s more than possible!

But I am trying to focus on the GOOD things, like,

  • our street is paved
  • we’re getting mail at the house (and today I got a boxalope from Penguin Canada! It’s not quite an envelope or a box, it’s a BOXALOPE!)
  • our driveway is paved
  • it’s the weekend and I shouldn’t be woken up by trucks and tractors beeping at 7 in the morning
  • our street and driveway are paved
  • I AM GETTING MAIL AT MY HOUSE!

These are all very important and happy things. I can almost see the end… of course even when we think we see the end it just keeps on going and going and going. Sort of like some really long and born English literature book you were forced to read in high school for 90% of your final mark.

things that aggravate me     3 comments  

destruction chronicles – you’ve got mail!

August 26th, 2010 @ 5:59 pm

This is a photo-less post but it’s a happy update – sure my drive still isn’t paved, but my street is and that means…

I’m getting mail at my house!

This is the most wonderful feeling! I feel like the mail system was just invented and I am experiencing the miracle of mail delivery!

The first bit of mail we got yesterday wasn’t even bills (which really would have sucked). I got bills today, but that’s fine because I also got our new cheques. It’s like a present in the mail, even though they are used to give other people our hard-earned money. Heh.

Many of the driveways on our street have been paved and they stopped a driveway away this evening. I guess we’re up next. So far no one has asked us about doing the entire driveway so I am slightly concerned about that. Looks like a couple of people on the other street had their entire driveways done and they didn’t even have more than half of it dug up like we did.

Hopefully we’ll get asked tomorrow. I won’t hold my breath but it would be nice.

things that aggravate me     Leave a comment  

cat the singular

August 22nd, 2010 @ 12:37 pm

Oh, my friends, do I have a story to tell! I bit the bullet and bought us some CATS tickets earlier in the week because I was running out of time and not winning any of the contests  I had entered. I could not live with myself had I let this weekend’s run of CATS go by without getting to see them in all their graceful and furry musical glory. Money is tight these days and I wasn’t going to buy tickets, but this was the most phenomenal thing I had ever seen when I was 12 and just knowing those dancing creatures were right near me and I wouldn’t be able to see them made me twitch.

So I went to Place des Arts armed with my credit card and I justified that this will be paid off by the fall. Hell, I spent a crap load of money on my eyes in February and they aren’t bringing me much joy, I thought for a mere pittance of that price I could at least have SOME joy. And my husband graciously said he would go with me. I love him. And he wasn’t bored out of his mind, either. Woohoo!

So we dressed up:

And we got in the car and attempted to drive to the theatre… then our adventure began!

The show started at 8PM and we decided to leave at 6:45 just in case we had any trouble finding parking. Little did we know it wasn’t the parking we had to worry about. We decided to take the Victoria Bridge for many reasons, most of which were we take it normally, there’s little traffic and it was closer to where we wanted to go. So we drive there only to notice – it’s CLOSED to inbound traffic. What?! Gah! Now it was closer to 7PM and we had to turn around, go in the opposite direction back to the Champlain. (Yes, we could have taken the Jacques Cartier, but neither of us are all that familiar with where to get ON it from our end and Shawn had already turned the opposite way.) We thought we were in luck because our exit for the Champlain wasn’t backed up. Easy as pie, right? Until we merged onto the bridge and everyone stopped. I read the sign on the bride “Electrical Work – CAUTION”. They had the outbound side of the bridge completely closed and one lane with outbound traffic on the inbound side. Argh! It took us a while to get over and take the exit for downtown – only to be stuck behind TWO CARS GOING HALF THE SPEED LIMIT! Argh!

I was really hoping we could get to the PDA parking lot, and we did – behind a line up of cars waiting to get in. But we managed to get there with 15 minutes to spare before the show. I was agitated though. I tell you!

But then I picked up my program and my excitement quickly distracted me from the road rage. When we got to our seats I was happy as a cat on a roof!

The program was pretty chincy – back in the day (read 1988) I am sure they had cast photos next to their names, but whatever. Did I mention I know the guy who knows Rumpleteazer? He’s a student in my Faculty and he grew up with her. I was totally hoping for a shout-out before her song, but alas, I was not recognized!

I wish I remembered from my 1988 experience that I wanted to be on the FLOOR of the show. I would have gotten to meet and see the CATS up close as they wandered through the audience a couple of times and even at intermission. Drat my lack of 22 years ago memories! We were still happy up in our 3rd balcony box seats though (the cheaper ones). Had I bought the tickets when I first heard it advertised I would have had closer seats. Oh, well, next time! (if there IS a next time! I mean the last time they were here was 1988 (I think!) hence my justification for these tickets, it’s a once (twice) in a lifetime deal!)

The show was breath taking, even from our vantage point. We were a little too high up to hear the words very clearly in some songs, but I do know most of them by heart so it was ok. ;) Shawn was also in awe of the grace and ease with which these actors moved. Not a sound was made as they leapt and fell and jumped. Such grace. I think that’s one of the things that filled me with such wonder when I was 12. I still have that wonder today. I still want to be in CATS (and sing the Mcavity song!)

I am so happy I went and I got to share it with Shawn. He even found the same parts boring or exciting as I did. I knew he was perfect for me somehow!

Thoughts:

  • Mr. Mistoffellees was a FANTASTIC dancer. His spins were awe-dropping to watch. I don’t even think figure skaters could do a better job.
  • Sadly Rum Tum Tugger wasn’t as awesome as normal. We didn’t feel the voice of the actor playing him, but his personality was hilarious. He made up for his less rugged voice with his actions.
  • The woman playing Grizzabella made me WEEP with her version of Memories. When she fell to the ground I just started crying. Shawn even said “all of a sudden her voice was IN OUR BOX” when she hit the climax of the song. Brilliant performance.
  • Old Deuteronomy wasn’t as large and deep voiced as I would have liked. He was ok, but I am used to my Old Deuteronomies sounding and seeming like large black men!
  • Every time they make that train in Skimbleshanks I tear up and get totally giddy. I don’t know why, maybe because I love trains and the musical? It’s just so EXCITING!
  • The guy playing Munkustrap had a fantastic voice and I realized his costume resembles this stunning grey cat that’s in a ton of tv commercials these days. (the costume has been around longer, but the resemblance is uncanny – or is that uncatty? heh)

This is one of those shows I think I could watch over and over again and never tire of. I remember I used to sing along with the Original Broadway Soundtrack from the 80s’ in my room and dance around. The music and songs are just so thrilling to me.

I just need to lose about 50 pounds, regain my flexibility and learn to dance and I think I would be a perfect CAT!

I have the 1920s glamour down, does that count?

(When I am an official rock star, I am totally making a music video with the cats of CATS! I don’t know what the song will be yet, but I swear I will be in CATS regalia and dance around with the cast in one of my videos. Mark my words!)

music, the anomaly that is me     10 comments  

under construction

August 20th, 2010 @ 11:22 am

If you happen to stop by on a whim and not from a google reader you might notice that today my blog looks like crap and is all over the place. I have been playing with the theme to get it to look like something I want it to look like but it’s not going so well.

Grr and argh is what I have to say.

When I get tired of trying to figure this out I’ll just put my old theme back and then pick up where I left off tomorrow. This is the weekend I will get both of my blogs updated and changed, darn it! Especially the book blog because I have wanted it to be a 3 colum theme for a long time and I am tired of the blog themes I have been using for so long.

So, there is no need to email me that my blog is broken, because as of the time of this post – I have not broken it… yet.

UPDATE 8:20 pm: I think I am done for now. Good heavens. Stupid CSS. I can’t get the comments to format the way I want and I  can’t seem to figure out where to change the bullet style in the options. I’m tired now though. I’m at least fairly happy with how things look for now and with the easy to customize header and colours I can update the blog nicely when the seasons change! (So tempted to put up an autumn theme now but I am trying to enjoy what summer remains!)

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