NoodleDog

The NoodleDog had his “final” agility class last week. I say “final” because it was not at all “final”, in that Tammy the Teacher offered to keep teaching if we, the students, would keep paying her on a per-class basis ($15/class, which I suppose is not bad, and since it is entertaining, I could classify it as “entertainment” in my little personal budget).

It was fun. Tammy the Teacher had set up the course so that the dogs could run all the way through. We started out with the Weave Poles, which is like a slalom for the doggies. They have to weave through this set of poles. I taught the NoodleDog “this side” and “other side” during our normal walks since he would get tangled around trees and whatnot, so I took him off the leash last night and walked him through it a large number of times, saying “this side, other side, this side… No, this side. This one. This side! This side! Good boy. Now other side, other side, this side, thiiiiiisss siiiiiiide…” and tempting him with a treat in my hand. It took a while, but by the end of the evening, he was doing alright at it.

I have apparently been making a mistake with the NoodleDog. I have been saying his name when I want him to do something so he knows I’m talking to him. Apparently, you are not supposed to do this. You are just supposed to tell the dog “sit” or “stay” or “down” or “go weave!” and he’s supposed to know you mean him just by your voice. So at the last class, Tammy the Teacher told me to stop calling his name every three seconds (hee! I was totally doing that…) and to just try to get him to pay attention to me anyway.

Last night, we were not doing well at the course because the NoodleDog had no idea I meant him when I kept yelling “go weave! Go weave! WEAVE, DAMN YOU!!!”. He looked blankly at me, and then wandered off into the corner to look for feathers or mice or other neat stuff you can find in a barn. As we went through the course, ever so slowly, I began to curse him quietly. “OK, that’s it, jump (you non-listening dog). Jump! Ok, walk. Walk, buddy, walk (dog-who-is-not-listening-to-me), walk! Walk, walk, walk!! Ok, now tunnel! Yay tunnel! Tunnel (you freakishly long obtuse dog)…” and so on. And then one of my more experienced classmates told me that I could talk to him by calling him not by his name, but by something else. Like a nickname. Hee!

Then it was “Go weave, Noodles. Noodles, Noodles, Noodles, weave!! You! Oofus! Oodle, Noodle, Poodle jump! Yoodle, walk! Woodle, Tunnel! Foodle, Teeter!” and so on. I got a red star at the end of class for not using his name.

He was not at all impressed with the teeter-totter last week. He could go up to the middle, but as soon as that sucker would start to tip, I’d have to drag him across to the other side. So our main hitches are the weave poles, which he is learning slowly, and the teeter-totter, which he knows and doesn’t like. For some reason (possibly because it nearly killed him last week), he balks at the giant walking-platform as well. Other than that, he does just great on the whole course! I think we might go back a few more times, and it would be nice if we could get some stuff to practice on. I think Rob, since he is so handy, and I can probably build most of it. I asked Tammy the Teacher, and she said I’m welcome to bring Cooter, Rob’s dog, and teach him some new tricks, too!

Speaking of Rob, I have to say, I was a little disappointed with his reaction to the nice, nice things I bought last week. I am recovering from my financial setbacks from vacation-time this year, and was given (oy, by my parents, which is disquieting enough) a gift card to a lingerie shop. Normally, I just go to Sears and get whatever is on sale when my stuff starts getting worn-out or gets wrecked in the wash. Nothing too fancy. But with this gift card being for a fancier shop, I had my pick of fancy, fancy stuff. So I got three nice, fancy hand-wash-only bras to supplement my collection, and a fancy negligee. Ok, maybe not that fancy, but it is nicer than the stuff I usually wear (long t-shirts). And you know, the first time I was wearing this fancy stuff, Rob did not even notice. I have mixed feelings about this – in that it could be a good thing that he wasn’t being superficial and bla bla cares about me not because of how I look bla bla bla. However, it could also be a bad thing that he didn’t notice, because you’d think he’d notice something like that. The thing created CLEAVAGE, people!

And today, an update on my new office construction project. It seems that some contractors or trades just don’t want to work, even for money, which we are paying them LOTS of. So my carpet installer got to the space this morning, and maybe because it is overcast and cool here, he thought it would be better if he went home to hide or something, because he called my flooring supervisor, and told him a story, which went something along the lines of the mean, mean building operator and equally mean property manager told him to go away. So then the flooring supervisor tells me, and I, quite naturally, need to be scraped off the ceiling. I question this whole thing, and state that my drywallers PROMISED on their LIVES that the space would be ready for flooring, because I had threatened them repeatedly that if it was not, I would snap and kill someone. Actually, I didn’t do that yesterday at all, I just went in to the space, all morose and depressed, and looked at it in a state of general despair, and asked quietly if they thought it would be ready for flooring today, and I think they felt really sorry for me, because they said it would, really, it’d be OK, they promised, please don‘t cry. I replied very gently “whatever…” and left, my head hanging and my feet scraping the floor as I left.

That must have worked, because when I flew over to the space this morning in response to the distressing flooring situation, it was in FINE shape for flooring to be installed. Ok, there was a little dust around, and the odd blob of drywall mud stuck to the floors here and there, but (and correct me if I’m totally wrong here) we are paying the flooring people an obscene amount of money to obtain and install the carpet and tiles, and I have always been told that prep is part of their job. Scraping the odd blob of mud off is, in my honest opinion, PREP!!!! I gritted my teeth, and looked around for someone to kill, and finding no one, I called the building operator, and asked him who he thought he was to send my flooring guy away. He replied with complete shock “you mean the flooring guy who came up to me and the property manager this morning, and told us he couldn’t possibly put flooring in the seventh floor because it wasn’t ready?”

Oh. So it’s the flooring guy, eh? It’s HIS fault? Well, let me just then call his supervisor, and ask him to FIND ME A NEW INSTALLER NOW NOW NOW!!! So I did. Actually, I asked whether the supervisor thought the installer wanted to work and be paid, and that if he did not, we should find someone ELSE to take our money. And I’m not quite sure I was even that nice about it. I also PERSONALLY swept out the south end of the floor, so there is no reasonable excuse for them not to start installing carpet today.

Presumably, the drywallers are back in there now, sanding, and the flooring guy whose ass I hope has been kicked is in there installing SOME carpet at least, and the cabling guys are also pulling cable for our furniture, which is due to arrive October 12th. If all goes well, the trades will all participate in a carefully choreographed ballet of construction goodness, and I won’t have that aneurysm that threatens me whenever I start to worry enough that my face turns red and I have to start screaming at sub-trades. Hee! If not, however, then you may abruptly stop hearing from me.

The NoodleDog struck last night, with all the fury of a crafty, neglected puppy. I feel bad, now, because in retrospect, I should have been more understanding of his personal needs for attention and hugs, and I should have been more aware of his feelings. However, at 3:30a, I wasn’t exactly thinking about the NoodleDog’s feelings, I was thinking about how little sleep I was getting.

The story goes that since I had a meeting in town last night, we stayed over at Rob’s place, which is close to where the meeting was. I rushed home yesterday afternoon to feed the kitties and collect the NoodleDog, and then dropped him off at Rob’s and had a quick bite to eat. I got back from the meeting not too late, we watched a little TV, and then just went to bed. Tired people, here. We had a rough weekend what with the extra drinking and all.

But at around 3:30a, the NoodleDog woke up. Emitting a toxic stench in small puffs of air from his behind, he stood by the door in the room, staring intently at it, which I surmised meant he had to pee. Rob kindly took him out for me. However, when he brought the NoodleDog back, the intense stink had not subsided. We cracked the window, which didn’t help. I thought well, maybe he has to poop. Poor guy. I’ll just let him out back so he can do his business, and I’ll go back to sleep.

I let him out, and how does he repay me? He exacts a carefully crafted vengeance to rob me of my sleep by creating as much noise as a NoodleDog can without being too obvious about it. See, the noises were just little playing noises, since he was playing with Cooter. They got onto the tarp in the back yard, which crinkled. Crinkle-crinkle-crinkle.

Rob: What’s that?
Me: I have no idea.
Rob: I better check. [goes to window to look] Hey. You. Yeah, you dogs. Get off the tarp! Don’t give me that look. Get outta there. Hey! [NoodleDog]! Cooter! Come! You’re fine, just stay off the damn tarp.
Me: Arrrg.

Then, about five minutes later, when it’s been just enough time for me to try to relax, the NoodleDog barks. A single bark, just loud enough for me to start worrying that he’s going to wake up the neighborhood if he does it again, which he does not. I try to relax. Several moments later, there is the distinct sound of thrashing around outside the window. Thrash-thrash-thrash.

Me: Mmrrrrggg!! [into the pillow]
Rob: snores lightly

I try desperately to ignore the trashing, which eventually stops. Then, another single bark. Then silence. Then the sound of someone crashing full-speed into a lawn chair. Then more silence. Then more thrashing, the occasional running across the tarp, the odd bark here and there, until finally, I say to myself “If I hear ONE MORE NOISE, I’m gonna SNAP!!!”

And then I waited.

And I waited.

And I waited about one more minute, and then there was a bark, and that was it. Furiously, I threw off the covers and got out of bed, dressed and told a slightly stunned and freshly-awoken Rob that was it, I couldn’t sleep and had to leave that minute at quarter to five in the morning. I harnessed the NoodleDog, who didn’t want to go, strapped him into the car, and didn’t talk to him at all the whole way home, which is about a 25-minute drive. He could tell I was mad at him by the time we got home, and he was very hesitant about getting onto the bed, which of course just made me feel bad about the whole incident, because it’s not his fault that he’s a dopey dog instead of a clever, quiet cat. That, in turn, made me angry that I was feeling bad and unable to sleep, so I suppressed my rage into a tiny ball in the pit of my stomach, told the NoodleDog it was OK, he could get up and sleep, and then tried desperately to get back to sleep before the alarm rang at 7a.

Perhaps I overreacted. Perhaps I did not. Perhaps that was the only way I could salvage an hour of precious, precious sleep. Sleep is a hot commodity in my newly Robified world, and if I don’t get enough sleep, I tense up even more than I usually do, which is probably a lot. Oh, I worry quietly enough, but eventually, all that tension is going to tarnish my otherwise sparkling personality, and I’m going to come off all morose and freaky. Ha! “Going to”.

Today, I worry about the NoodleDog, who is apparently stinky for some reason, and feeling neglected, and who I have possibly been underfeeding for about eight or nine months now, since I read the back of the dog food bag yesterday and it said I should be giving him about two cups more of food per day than I have been. Poor NoodleDog! But then again, maybe the stink last night was because I overfed him. I’m not a vet! I don’t know these things! How can such a relatively small dog produce such a horrible, horrible smell? I’ve smelled skunks that smelled better. Seriously.

Yeah? It’s not gonna matter what the cause is if he keeps me up tonight.

So I tell Rob that apparently, we have to go back and actually spend some time with my parents wherein they will be able to speak with him to assess him. Luckily enough, he agreed without even thinking too much about it, so we went and had lunch with them on the weekend. I will make the one comment that traffic in this town has gotten so horrible that I’m thinking of buying some sort of flying device so I can get places on time without being trapped on the road for hours at a time.

However, during our various conversations prior to the lunch, I asked Rob why he had been single when we met (!), and he answered (with a good answer) and threw the question right back at me. I glibly replied that if he had six or seven hours, I could probably tell him, but that did set me to thinking about it. Why was I single? What had happened? Should I shake my fist at the sky and scream “why?!!”?

The answer is no, it’s all OK. But I can chronicle my romantic life, which has been far from romantic at all, and there might be some clues here:

Boyfriend No. 1 – The Skid
When The Mac and I were chatting the other day, he said that all of the guys I brought home were instantly assessed by himself and my father to earn the inglorious badge of “wimp”, I did not remind him of Adrian. The relationship was short-lived (good thing, too), and as I actually remember the end of it before I went off on summer vacation, I recall he broke down crying more than once, so it wouldn’t have done any good to try to use him in my defense. But I was young (17), rebelling against my parents, and selected one of the shadier characters I could find at my high school to go out with. He probably dealt drugs. He smoked. He wore very torn clothing. After about two months of that, I was sorely disenchanted with him.

Boyfriend No. 2 – The Wimp
The original one, the one who probably initiated the term in my father’s and brother’s minds forever after, Craig was a very sensitive guy. He was nice. He was kind. He was gentle. He was responsible. He was everything that Adrian was not. But again, this was right around the time I left to go to University, so the relationship was short-lived. He probably had more potential than some of the others, though.

Boyfriend No. 3 – The First Serious One
Ah. This one. Darren. I met Darren in University, at Carleton. He was great. We got along well, had the same sort of sense of humour, and hit it off, despite the fact that Darren had dated my best friend at the time. Girls aren’t like boys, in that even if they don’t want you to date their exes, they won’t freak out about it, they’ll just trash-talk you behind your back and then get over it. Anyway, things with Darren went well for about a year or so, but fell completely apart when his parents moved back to the country from an extended period of service in Mexico (his father was a diplomat of some sort). When they moved back, Darren moved into the house with them, and we saw less and less of one another. In a completely self-defeating move, he agreed to move in with me for the summer nearly a year after he have moved in with his parents, but neglected to tell his parents. Torn between two sets of very high expectations (partially my fault), he was unable to deal with it, and presumably broke down at some point. His parents sent him off to Toronto, and I never saw him again. It was, at the time, a fairly devastating blow, but as you can see I survived and am totally better off for it. I mean, come on. You don’t want to end up with a Momma’s boy…

Boyfriend No. 4 & 5 – The Pair Who, Together, Would Have Made One Fine Guy
Ok. This is going to sound totally bad. I had just moved back to town after the horrible summer of despair after Boyfriend No. 3. I was working as a receptionist for an aerospace engineering firm, and there were two guys there interested in me. Yes, I know, it sounds completely absurd, but there were two of them. I dated one (Brian). We broke up. I dated the other (Frank). We broke up. I dated the first one again. We broke up again. I moved in with the other. Everyone was confused. It was terrible. As it turned out, I picked the wrong horse, and Frank turned out to be still married to his not-so-ex, and I moved out as quickly as I could.

Boyfriend No. 6 – The Lesson I Refused to Learn
So a couple of months after Boyfriend No. 5, I met this guy who was a friend of my cousin (the dope-smokin’ hippie). I was told how great he was, and how misunderstood he was, and I was wooed. Seriously, people, I was wooed, and I totally fell for it. There was even a midnight drive, and a gentle doe walked up to the car when we stopped to look at the freakin' stars... Again, in my defense, I can only say that I was young, and apparently completely stupid. This guy was married. Not divorced, not separated, not even just moving out for a few weeks to think about it. He was married. However, that didn’t stop anything, and we moved, he and I, to Toronto so he could pursue a career in disc-jockeying. Oh yeah. We got to The Big City, and he had no job, so I found something that would pay the rent (have I mentioned how stupid I am?) and paid all our bills. The first two weeks in our (MY – I was paying for it! It was MINE!) apartment were the toughest, because we had spent MY SAVINGS to get to Toronto (again, I am soooo stupid). We were down to our last two dollars (my last two dollars), which I gave to him with the instructions to buy bread and milk so we could survive until I got paid at the end of the week. However, when I returned to the basement suite at the end of the day, I found no bread, no milk, but an EMPTY BAG OF DORITOS AND A HALF-DRUNK PEPSI. His wife showed up about a month later, and he left (thank goodness). Sure, I was sad. I was still stupid. After she ditched him another month later, I let him move back into the place, and even gave up my job in The Big City to move BACK to Calgary with him so I could temp, yet again. The relationship ended very badly with me moving myself back into my parents’ house after he spent a weekend on an LSD bender with my cousin (the dope-smokin’ hippie).

Boyfriends Numbers 7 through 10
Yeah, yeah, I realize they’re adding up here, but I’m trying to be honest. After Boyfriend No. 6, I moved back into my parents’ house and went back to University. I was 23. I was good for a short while, and then it all sort of fell apart, which I blame entirely on being involved in PC Youth Politics. The conventions were bad. Take a large group of youth, shove them all into hotel rooms, set up HOSPITALITY SUITES (where free alcohol is foisted upon them at all hours of the night) and then see what they do. They smoke. They drink. They carouse. They have sex. That’s the way it goes. None of the guys I fostered relationships with during this time are worth detailing, except possibly the one who shaved his chest (McAllister). I really liked McAllister, for some reason. But I shook it off, and moved on.

Boyfriend No. 11 – The Mud Man
And after moving on from McAllister, I went to a bar one evening with a friend, and picked up this guy. Yes, probably a stupid thing to do. Yes, probably also dangerous. Yes, I would never do it again. I get it. But The Mud Man turned out to be really, really nice. We dated for about six months. His job prevented the relationship from progressing any further. How can you get things going with a guy who is never there? You can’t, is the short answer.

Boyfriend No. 12 – The Jackass
So I go to this party being thrown by one of my old political friends, and The Jackass is there. At the time, I did not realize he was a jackass, he was, in fact, quite charming and pretty nice to me. We laughed a lot, we talked for hours. I was on hiatus from drinking at the time, so I ended up driving everyone around that evening, including The Jackass. It’s right around Christmastime, so everyone is in a festive mood, and I give this guy my phone number. He calls me a couple of weeks later, and we spent about a month in a sleep-deprived haze of late nights. When the fog lifted, he became possessive, driven, jealous, conceited and generally unpleasant to be around. There were instructions issued at every turn. I was “not allowed” to go out with friends. I was discouraged from talking to others, especially about him. It deteriorated from there, and eventually, things got so bad that he went back to his ex-wife (anyone seeing a trend here?). That was not the end of it, though, because he stalked me for about three months after that, driving by my place late at night. You’d think that would be tough to do because there was one alley that went by my place, and I could see his car coming from about five blocks away. There were late-night phone calls. The phone would ring as soon I turned the lights on in my place after just getting home. He didn’t do anything, but it was enough to be irksome. After that, I swore off men for a while.

Boyfriend No. 13 – The Very Unlucky Number
Bear with me, folks, we’re coming to the end here. No. 13 was a bad one. I had been single for, oh, about three years after The Jackass. No men at all. I had been doing so well! But I worked with this guy, and developed feelings for him (yuck!), and sure enough, eventually I couldn’t resist asking him out. He was strange about it. He was all “Oh, you don’t want me…” and that should have been the first clue. Because if he says that, then he’s probably right, girls. Did I listen? NO. I thought he was nice. I thought he was cute. I thought he was great, at the time. He had two little girls he was raising by himself. Oh, how responsible! How endearing! Oy. I’ll continue. We started seeing each other, on the down-low, because he didn’t want people to know he was in a relationship (ANOTHER CLUE!!). After a few months, I started asking questions like “why don’t you want people to know?” and he stonewalled me (“if you love me, you’ll leave that alone…”). After about six months (look, I’m a really slow learner, here), I asked if he ever thought he’d want me to meet his family (including his two children), and he said he didn’t think he could do that. So we broke up. I’m not THAT stupid. But apparently, neither am I that smart, because about five months later, I ran into him again, and things sparked back up, and I said “I’ll do this if you can tell me that eventually, you’ll share the other parts of your life with me…” and he acquiesced. Only not really, because I only met the kids about seven months into it, and by then, I was disenchanted again, and stressed-out, and not enjoying things with him at all. He did not respect me one iota, and eventually, that’ll get to a person. It wasn’t just the thing with his family (although he did say that his parents never wanted to meet me because they were hoping he’d just get back together with the ex, who had abandoned her children, so maybe it wasn’t just him, maybe he was raised improperly by bad people), it was that he disrespected me with everything he did. He would be late, and not call. He would fail to show up entirely, and not call. I stuck with the whole horrible mess until one time, he just didn’t call or answer my increasingly worried calls for a week. That about did it for me. You know, if you don’t want to see someone any more, just tell them. There's no need to make stuff up about being committed to the mental hospital...

And that brings us to where I was about a year ago. I had many a conversation with The Mac about whether it was even feasible for me to find someone I could stand, let alone fall in love with. I have poor judgment, I admit it. I do stupid things, I admit it. I fall for guys and then ignore all of the gigantic, neon-arrow signs pointing out the fact that the relationships are not going to work. However, I am also very glad I have done so in my life, because it has gotten me to where I am now. I’m happy to have found Rob or that he found me – however that works out. I’m amazed by him each day. Bla bla bla mushy, mushy, mushy. I reel, just thinking about how NOT-terrible he is. He has never tried to hit me with a chair, and I don’t think that he would. He doesn’t seem to be secretly married (from what I can tell – hey, I’ve been wrong before…). He isn’t jealous and overly possessive. He is not controlled by his family, but rather seems to have a healthy relationship with them. I realize all of these are probably baseline acceptable to most of you, but coming from where I’ve come from, this is all gravy!!

The moral of this story is: be happy. You are where you are today because of what you did yesterday.

Sooo…. From the recent posts, actually dating all the way back to nearly the VERY beginning of my little blog here, you can all tell that I have this new boyfriend guy. Whose name is Rob. Who I obviously think is pretty fantastic. And in thinking he’s so fantastic, I was understandably nervous about having him meet any of my family members, not because I was worried about what they’d think of him, but mostly because of what he’d think of them. My family is weird, y’all (see how I put in a “y’all” in honor of Miss Doxie, the idealized woman my brother The Mac has put on some sort of pedestal and to whom he has written a letter professing his undying love – see his post on same).

I talk to The Mac whenever I can, which is less frequently than pre-Rob times, of course, but last night I had a window of opportunity, so I called the bugger.

Me: So how’s it going?
Mac: ‘K.
Me: What are you doing?
Mac: Watching the end of Rescue Me.
Me: Good! How’s our boy doing? [because I do not GET Rescue Me because it is on some weird American network the Canadian people have not seen fit to add to our programming schedule]
Mac: This show is not as good as I had hoped. It’s good, but it’s not as funny as I would want it to be, and Dennis Leary’s character is kind of an asshole.
Me: Well, he does have that song “I’m an asshole”.
Mac: Yes, which is a good song. The show is funny in a serious way, but not funny in a funny way.
Me: That will be its downfall, although we’re told that’s how firefighters actually feel post-911.
Mac: He needs to get over it.
Me: So have you talked to the family lately? [and this is where it gets stressful]
Mac: Yes. The parents called me yesterday. [The Grumpaw] actually talked to me.
Me: Really? I love it when he does that.
Mac: Well, usually he calls and says “[Mac]. It’s your father here. Let me put your mother on the phone…” and that’s all you get out of him. But this time, it was Mother who called and she said “Your father has had too much to drink to talk to you.”
Me: Really?! How much?
Mac: Well I asked that. I said “what, did he polish off a bottle of wine?” and she said “Yes. [Grumpaw] when did you start that bottle of wine?” And he said “Saturday”. So it wasn’t like he had drunk the whole thing that night or anything.
Me: He’s better to talk to when he’s had some wine.
Mac: Then he got on the line, and he chatted! For, like, half an hour. It’s like he forgets who he’s talking to and gets all chatty. He told me about work, and all sorts of things. He said that he hadn’t heard from Laura since the weekend, and that they don’t talk to you much any more now that you have a new social life and the boyfriend…
Me: Yeeeesssss… and what did he say about Rob?
Mac: I’m getting to that. I asked about him specifically, about what they thought when they met this dude last weekend. And you know what he said?
Me: WHAT!
Mac: Boy, you get defensive. It’s fun poking people in the brain with needles. He said that Rob seemed normal. Seemed like a “nice enough fellow, but quiet”. Said that Rob didn’t say much when he got to the table, and that he ordered his drink, and drank his drink, and that Shane was the one who had talked to him most.
Me: Okaay…No, wait. He mentioned that Rob ordered and drank a drink? He got into that level of detail? But he couldn’t think of anything else to say? Besides, he was sitting at the end of the table, and Shane was at that end, and it was good that they were talking…
Mac: You need to relax. He also noted that Rob shaves his head. The impression was not negative. Neither was it positive, though, it was more of a draw.
Me: Well, I’d put that in the win column.
Mac: You didn’t expend much in the way of risk, and you didn’t gain anything. How is that a win?
Me: It’s not a loss. Therefore, in my books, it’s a win. Although we’re probably going to have to make another appearance sooner or later so they can talk to him.
Mac: I suppose it’s better than the rating the other guys you’ve brought home to meet the family have gotten.
Me: Huh?
Mac: Come on! You know that every time you’ve brought one of these hapless fellows home to meet us, [The Grumpaw] and I have looked at each other, and said one word.
Me: WHAT?!!
Mac: You don’t know this? You’ve been there when we’ve discussed them.
Me: No I haven’t! What’s this ONE WORD?!!
Mac: Heh. You know what it is. Wimp.
Me: WHAT?!! What-what-what?!! No way. I mean, I can see it with Craig, but…
Mac: Craig was a nice guy. He was a wimp, totally, but he was a really nice guy, so I liked him.
Me: Yes, yes he was. And yeah, I can appreciate the whole wimp connection there, but the others?
Mac: Seriously. Frank? Wimp.
Me: No! Ok, well, maybe a little.
Mac: Darren? Wimp.
Me: Um… I guess I can sorta see that. Maybe. But there were others! Like… like…
Mac: All of them.
Me: Hey! I dated that Jeff Thomas. He wasn’t a wimp. He was a jackass, but not a wimp.
Mac: I have no memory of that. I don’t know who you’re talking about.
Me: Jeff Thomas. He was friends with Dave Ryan. Well, he was friends with Dave’s friend Sean, who I dated for a while and was also not much of a wimp.
Mac: Who?
Me: Sean Hoffstetter. Big guy. Like, 300 lbs big, and not all of it was fat. He was a football player. Friends with Dave Ryan. From University.
Mac: Ok. Ryan was the political guy, and he was relatively nice, but he was political and therefore slimy.
Me: But I didn’t date him. I dated Thomas and Hoffstetter.
Mac: Plus both those guys have strangely bland names.
Me: Hoffstetter?
Mac: At least Jeff Thomas. You should have said to him you wouldn’t see him because his name was too bland.
Me: And there was McAllister…
Mac: Who was both a wimp and effeminate.
Me: He did shave his chest once.
Mac: Exactly my point.
Me: Look, there were others, you know. There was that mud man.
Mac: The rig pig?
Me: He was really nice!
Mac: I didn’t meet him. I’m talking about the ones you brought home to meet the family. Even the Ian guy, who I didn’t meet but talked to on the phone was a wimp.
Me: Well, the ones that weren’t wimps were kind of rude. And Rob is definitely NOT a wimp in any way.
Mac: I’m not saying he is. I’m saying he got a good rating on that scale and has not been classified as such.
Me: Good.
Mac: Boy, you sure get defensive about this sort of thing. You’re difficult to talk to now that you’re… “coupled”.
Me: No I’m not!
Mac: You’re different.
Me: I’m the same! If we were talking about TV, we wouldn’t have this problem. We need to change the subject. What are you watching these days?
Mac: Nothing network.
Me: So, no Law & Order?
Mac: No. Mostly FX, really.
Me: I don’t get FX. I watched mostly stuff on Space last year, but this year they have crap. I mean, come on. Mutant X? That’s fine for Saturday mornings, but prime time? The hell?
Mac: No, that’s no good. You should watch this MegaStructures show they have on the National Geographic channel.
Me: But I don’t get the National Geographic Channel.
Mac: You don’t?
Me: No, man, I have cable. Good cable, but nothing like satellite…
Mac: Well, then do you get Discovery?
Me: Yeah.
Mac: It might be on that. This one I watched was all about the building of the Chunnel. Did you know that’s the largest privately-funded tunnel ever built?
Me: No.
Mac: It is. And you’d think they would start at one side, and tunnel to the other, but they didn’t. Guess how they built it.
Me: I have no idea.
Mac: No, you do not. They each started out on their side, and met in the middle. They were 14 inches out when they met. They even raced. The French side started racing against the British side.
Me: Who won?
Mac: The British. And after they built it, they scrapped the building machines.
Me: What? What if we want to tunnel across another body of water sometime? What will we use?
Mac: We’ll have to build new machines. And they couldn’t just drive through one another – they had to tunnel beneath the tunnel, and that’s where they scrapped the British one.
Me: So it’s just trapped down there forever?
Mac: Yes. And the French one, they couldn’t back it out so they just drove it over to the other side and scrapped it in Britain.
Me: I don’t think that’s good – that they scrapped them. What if we want to chunnel somewhere to Finland? Or Newfoundland?
Mac: Who'd want to chunnel to Newfoundland? It was the most expensive tunnel ever built. 18 Billion dollars.
Me: That’s expensive.
Mac: Yes. It was all funded by private banks.
Me: So that’s it then?
Mac: What do you mean?
Me: You’re just watching TV? Are you not teaching? Socializing at all?
Mac: I went for dinner at the neighbors’ parents’ place the other day.
Me: Good for you!
Mac: Yes, they had their hardwood floors redone upstairs, so they had to move all of their stuff while it was being done.
Me: And you helped them put it back?
Mac: Yes. And in return, they fed us.
Me: What did you have?
Mac: Turkey dinner. They cooked TWO turkeys.
Me: Score!
Mac: And the best part is that they gave me some to take home because a lot of the people who were supposed to help failed to show up. I now have five pounds of turkey in the fridge to eat.
Me: Wow. That’s a lot of turkey. What are you going to do with it all?
Mac: I dunno. Make sandwiches. Maybe an omelette.
Me: I’d stick with the sandwiches. Omelettes are not for your best stuff.
Mac: A turkey omelette would be great!
Me: I’m just sayin’ that you’d want to actually have the turkey in something you can really appreciate, like a sandwich. An omelette is for less-optimal stuff. Like if you have ham that’s about to turn, you can put it in an omelette. You should freeze some of the turkey so you can eat it later.
Mac: You know I have this thing about making food last.
Me: Yes, I know. Which is why you should freeze some of that turkey before it goes bad.
Mac: You remember the ham.
Me: Yes, I do remember the ham. That was scary.
Mac: The 99 cents/pound ham.
Me: Right.
Mac: But I had to buy ten pounds.
Me: I remember.
Mac: And then I had to eat it all.
Me: Dude, freeze the turkey.
Mac: It’s like living on the edge.
Me: Eating bad food is not living on the edge.
Mac: It’s like an extreme hobby.
Me: Eating bad food is NOT an extreme hobby! It’s insanity! You get this from Mother. “Oh, that milk’s alright, it hasn’t gone bad, yet…”
Mac: Yeah, but that’s more from her growing up on a farm. My thing is like trying to cheat fate.
Me: Which you do entirely enough of. Hey! Did you know they have a new Lays ad out with Mark Messier? It’s the dill pickle one. Where there’s this guy all laid out on the ice, and then Messier says something, and opens the bag of dill pickle Lays, and then it cuts to info about the chip, and when it cuts back to the hockey scene, ALL the players are laid out on the ice.
Mac: Don’t tell [The Grumpaw]. It sounds weird.
Me: Yes, well I was just watching it without sound while I’m talking to you. So it probably makes more sense when you can hear what they’re saying.
Mac: Hmm.
Me: I may tape it and send it to you.
Mac: That’s probably not necessary.
Me: Ok. I have to go then. We’re going to watch The Tick.
Mac: Later.

And then the Mac just hung up on me without letting me say goodbye. After a conversation like that, you need a “goodbye” to let it all go. But with no goodbye, then you get a post like this the next day.

I love my brother. We talk on the phone about nothing. Occasionally, our father inquires as to what we talked about, and there is no way I could accurately describe the conversations The Mac and I have without transcribing it (see below), and even then, it’s not going to make much sense to people who are not us. But these conversations we have can be endless and entertaining. I can spend an entire evening talking with The Mac on the phone.

Me “Mac!”
Mac “What do YOU want?”
Me “Is that any way to greet your sister?”
Mac “Oh, I see, you’re bored and you have found the time to call your long-ignored brother.”
Me “Yes.”
Mac “Well then.”
Me “What are you doing?”
Mac “Watching the STARZ Movie channel free preview weekend.”
Me “Whee! Sounds like fun! What’s on right now?”
Mac “Lots of things. There’s Troy. And The Hulk.”
Me “The Hulk? That’s a bad movie.”
Mac “Yes, yes it is. It was hard for me to tell when I was watching it because I was drunk, and making fun of it, but I couldn’t quite tell if I was enjoying it because I was drunk and making fun of it, or if it really was that terrible.”
Me “No, it was terrible. I didn’t see it.”
Mac “Then how can you comment on the terrible-ness of it?”
Me “I’m using my preconceived notions. I could tell from the previews.”
Mac “I don’t think that counts. I think you might have to watch it.”
Me “No way. I don’t want to sit through it.”
Mac “Then you can’t comment on it.”
Me “Oh, I can comment. What was the name of the guy in it?”
Mac “The Hulk?”
Me “Yeah, was it David Banner?”
Mac “No, David Banner was in the series. Bruce Banner was the guy in the movie.”
Me “Yeah, I remember that, because when we used to watch it when we were young, we’d always call the guy “David Banner Man”. Remember?”
Mac “No. This Bruce Banner was a relative. His son.”
Me “Ok then, but I still don’t want to see it.”
Mac “Do you know who’s in it?”
Me “No.”
Mac “Nick Nolte. Nick Nolte is in The Hulk.”
Me “No way!”
Mac “Yes. And so is Sam Elliott.”
Me “Sam Elliott of “Shakedown” fame?”
Mac ??“ “Shakedown” fame?”
Me “Yeah, you know. Shakedown. From the Midnight Run previews. You remember.”
Mac “I remember the previews. You’re an idiot. That’s the best you can come up with for Sam Elliott?”
Me “Well, what else was he in?”
Mac “Lots of things.”
Me “Such as?”
Mac “Well, there was Lonesome Dove…”
Me “And Roadhouse, with Patrick Swayze. He was good in that.”
Mac “I guess. But there has to be something more famous than “Shakedown” for Sam Elliot to have been in.”
Me “I just don’t know.”
Mac “Guess what other preview was on the Midnight Run tape?”
Me “I don’t remember.”
Mac “Into the Night”
Me “Oooh, I love that one. Right.”
Mac “You have no idea.”
Me “Who plays The Hulk?”
Mac “You mean, who is the guy who plays the Bruce character?”
Me “Yeah – is there an actual guy, or is the character entirely CGI?”
Mac “What? No. There’s a guy. His name is Eric Bana.”
Me “Doesn’t help me. I have no reference to him in my memory at all. What else was he in?”
Mac “He was in Black Hawk Down.”
Me “Didn’t see it.”
Mac “You see nothing.”
Me “Who else was in Black Hawk Down? Someone I remember?”
Mac “Josh Hartnett?”
Me “Who? Wasn’t that Colin guy in Black Hawk Down?”
Mac “Which Colin Guy? Colin Firth?”
Me “Is he Wolverine?”
Mac “No! Wolverine is Hugh Jackman. We've been over this before.”
Me “Oh. I thought that a Colin guy was Wolverine. Colin Farrell? The one who was in Phone Booth?”
Mac “No, you’re thinking Colin Firth, who was in all those girl movies, like Bridget Jones’s Diary. Colin Farrell was more known for that… that one. You know.”
Me “Obviously not.”
Mac “That Tom Cruise fuckety-fuck fuck.”
Me “…”
Mac “Minority Report!”
Me “Oh, because that’s so obvious with “fuckety-fuck fuck”.”
Mac “You have no idea.”
Me “I don’t any more.”
Mac “I have to go. My show is on, and you’re not helping.”
Me “I see. Well…”
Mac “’Bye!”

I’d be lost without The Mac’s guidance on movies and other entertainment-industry-related trivial crap. He can keep the Colin guys straight, and I cannot. He also knows the difference between all the actors I mix up. There are a couple who look the same (like, for instance, Billy Dee Williams and Carl Weathers, because those two guys look the same – they’re almost interchangeable, at least in my mind. The Mac’s trick for keeping them straight? Billy Dee Williams was Lando Calrisian, and Carl Weathers was Apollo Creed. See? He’s a magician. I would never have come up with that on my own…), and we’ve had long conversations about who, in Hollywood, is interchangeable. I gather there’s an entire website dedicated to that sort of thing (www.fametracker.com). And while I could probably just look these guys up (although I’d have to know their names first), it’s far more entertaining to ask The Mac.

So ask him, people, ask him (www.merlinator.blogspot.com).

Ok, as a departure from my normal happy detailing of the NoodleDog’s and my life, I’m going to take a different tack today and tell you all about my work.

Once upon a time, I worked at a telecommunications firm as a “Facilities Manager”, which is just a fancy way of saying I moved people around and change the office to suit their ever-changing needs. It included coordinating the moving of modular furniture, supervising the building of walls and the tearing down of walls (mostly the latter), dealing with cabling contractors/electricians and the like. All of the trades I had to deal with were reasonable – some more than others, obviously, but all certainly people I could deal with in one way or another. The job was, I’d say, even fun. And so, of course, whenever I go to a new job and they decide to redo their offices, I volunteer to help out, having been through it a million times before. My current company is moving in October, and we have secured the seventh floor of a rather nice building in the Beltline (which is just outside of downtown, but still “downtown” enough to be lacking in parking). When I started here, I was aware that this project would be coming, and volunteered enthusiastically. I did the office for the last company I was at with excellent results (except for the carpet, which I hear they cleaned with some sort of chemical treatment resulting in horrible patches of yuck everywhere, which is hardly my fault).

When I started this project, I was happy, excited and pleased to be working at something I enjoyed again rather than managing condos, which (and don’t get me wrong here, it’s really not that bad) isn’t exactly FUN stuff. However, office plans can be pretty fun, and I deal well with most of the trades, and although I try really hard to be nice, sometimes if I have to be a bitch to get stuff done, I can do that, too. Sometimes in today’s world, even though we’re in the 21st Century, construction trades, which are generally run by men, treat women as second-class citizens. I know, I know, you’re thinking “what? How can they do that in today’s day and age?”. But it happens. And the only way to get them to do what you need them to do without totally fleecing you is to either joke with them and make them WANT to help you out (and this is totally bad, but sometimes you flirt with them and make them think you might sleep with them if they finish the job in a timely fashion for 25% less than their competitors even though you probably wouldn’t touch them with a ten-foot pole if you were blind drunk…), or you can be a total bitch to them and make them fear dealing with you. I find the former to be far more effective in most cases, although the latter is useful for the odd situation. As long as you have leverage. Never be a bitch if you don’t have leverage.

Now, for this project, my boss had sort of recommended a General Contractor, Evil Todd, stating that we’d probably just use this guy. When we met with him on-site, I asked a couple of innocent questions:

Me “So, [Evil] Todd, I’m trying to plan things out, coordinate the arrival of our furniture, stuff like that. How long do you think the walls will take?”
Evil Todd “Ha! Look now, little lady, these things take time. Best leave it to the menfolk to take care of these things and don’t you worry your pretty head about it.”
Me “Ha ha, Buster. I need to know.”
Evil Todd “Well, if you MUST know, things like this take at least ten days, ten WORKING days, mind you, and there will be other elements you probably aren’t aware of to consider. We do this sort of work all the time, so just leave it to us.”
Me ?? “Ten days?”
Evil Todd [smiling smugly]
Me “Okaaaay… Now, correct me if I’m wrong here, but I’ve done this before, a lot, and the people I have used in the past can put up steel stud drywall in about three to five days. Framing, boarding, taping, ready to paint in three to five days. And most of ‘em work the weekend if we need them to.”
Evil Todd [now frowning, and speaking directly to my boss, Dave] “That’s not gonna work for me.”
Me “Ten days is out of the question unless you can start yesterday. I need pricing by Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest, and I need construction to begin by next Thursday. I need these walls done by the 20th.”
Evil Todd “I’ll get back to you on that.”

Plus, we also met with this designer chick. Now, I have nothing against her, personally, but she looked expensive (really expensive), and the price for her to put together a colour board and make useless recommendations on stuff I wouldn’t go with anyway was exorbitant (although most designers like her tend to be way overpriced, so I had kind of expected that). We will NOT be using her for our part of the project (selecting colours, “helping” place the reception station, give me a break…). As it turns out, this chick is Evil Todd’s girlfriend.

Evil Todd was evidently pissed because I’m not a vacuous bimbo he can rook, and I didn’t approve paying his expensive girlfriend’s bills (she obviously has bad taste anyway since she’s with him). He said he’d get us pricing by last Tuesday, which he did not do. I spoke to him on the phone last week, and he was even ruder than in person, and although I let it go, I was not happy about working with him. My boss kind of intimated that we’d be using this guy, so I had it in my head that I would get alternate pricing to compare to, and just deal with him. He did not provide pricing by the deadline(s) last week, which seriously set us back, causing my stress-levels to rise and the muscles in my shoulder to tense all the way up to the level of “Fuck, man, this is bad…”, although he did call my boss this week to say he’d send us something. He single-handedly delayed us by a week, and with timelines this tight, a week is not something we can really afford (although I do provide a week’s leeway in my overall plan for contingencies just like this – it’s unfortunate that it’s been used up on ONE phase of the project). I didn’t even care to SEE a bid from this asshole by that point.

Because we had been set back, I had to scramble and find new sub-trades to do this work. Getting another General Contractor would have delayed me even more, so I’m stepping up to the plate to manage this entire project myself. I’m not sure if you know this, but I’m not a construction professional. Sure, I can spot obvious errors (“hey, that wall looks like it leans a bit…” or “shouldn’t there be a door there?” or “Ouch! I’m pretty sure that switch shouldn’t spark when you touch it…”), but spotting the difference between the different weights of drywall or framing materials is not my forte. I can usually rely on my friend, Tom, to help me out, but Tom has been sick for a couple of weeks and is already way, way behind on a lot of jobs, so I can’t ask him to fly in and save the day. I will be risking it here pretty big, and hoping things turn out OK.

Luckily, as I was detailing my story of woe to the landlord, he mentioned that he has a drywaller he uses with a fair amount of success and low prices to boot. So I jumped at the opportunity and called the guy up, met with him, gave him my specs and voila! He’s starting the drywalling! As I’ve stated before, the Universe tends to want to balance everything out, and apparently has a sense of humour, so this new drywaller’s name is Good Todd.

I also went to the City and filed for a Building Permit, which (according to the landlord) practically no one does in our situation because we’re not changing much. I wanted to be covered, though, and know you should really have one even if it’s a mere formality. So now we have an application number, which is more than enough to proceed (especially since all the demolition work has already taken place!).

I secured an electrician, a mechanical contractor, flooring (it’s going to look REALLY nice) and am coordinating the furniture plan. It all sounds very exciting, doesn’t it? Well, I received a price from Evil Todd on PARTS of the work (that I have already priced out in their entirety). His pricing, which wouldn’t have included all the things that I have coordinated, was approximately 50% more than what the costs actually have come to from the sub-trades. So Evil Todd was hoping to make more than 50% on a this job? If I went with him, at the end of the project, I’d get a bill for twice what I should have? For what? Riiiight. Ok. Dear Evil Todd: Good God, NO.

His price wouldn’t even have included filing the building permit, which as far as I can tell was the most annoying part of the job (so far). I had to take my plans to the City, fill out a form, get a number and wait for a Customer Service Agent to help me. It took about a half-hour. I didn’t even get a parking ticket. I had expected at least a parking ticket for my troubles.

But so it goes. The project is back on schedule, the tension in my shoulders has diminished somewhat (although I suspect it will pick back up next week when I start to have problems with the furniture people and the installers), and I feel great that it’s finally rolling. You all have a great weekend and try to stay out of trouble.

I know this is going to sound all girly and everything, but Rob can do the most amazing thing ever (well, he can do many amazing things, but I’m speaking of one in particular…). He can do a “Loon call”, so it sounds like there’s an actual loon calling. And he knows The Cremation of Sam McGee, by Robert Service, one of the best poems ever! He’s so cool. But, as you’ll see, there is a dark undercurrent here that has me concerned.

The NoodleDog and I went to Rob and Cooter’s supposed puppy graduation the other day. Cooter’s young (only four and a half months), but he did pretty well for a little guy. He didn’t quite make the “sit-stay” command, so he didn’t pass, but he can go back to the classes next time around and try again. He’s pretty sharp, so I think if Rob had time to work with him more on the commands, he’d pass no problem. Lord knows the NoodleDog wouldn’t have passed – he’s pretty distracted most of the time, and although he knows what “stay” means, he probably wouldn’t do it unless there was something in it for him or I really meant it when I told him.

Anyway, the classes Cooter was taking were given by a friend of Rob’s. Rob has a lot of friends. Have I mentioned that before? Rob seems to come from this exceedingly large, tight-knit group of close friends who all seem to know what’s going on with one another, and regularly get together to do things. I’m sure this is probably “normal”, but not having such a group myself, it’s a little intimidating to be thrown in to this sort of mix so quickly. As I find out more and more about each of the friends and their interrelations and how long they’ve all known one another, I feel more and more… I guess maybe nervous about ensuring I don’t offend them by ramming my foot into my mouth at inappropriate times. I can be… socially awkward occasionally, I guess. Rob says that it’s all OK, but he has no idea. No, no, of course not, there’s NO pressure at all trying to fit in with such a tight group, especially since they’re all very important to him.

The saving grace is that the people in the group are about the nicest people you’d ever want to meet. I haven’t met one person I even think I’d ever not like. However, in a way, it’s like having a guest spot on Friends, knowing that you’re the addition to the core cast for that episode rather than being a star of the show. (Speaking of which, I hope Joey does alright on his own little show now that all the other friends have gone away and he has to create a new group dynamic with, well, not much at this point, but let’s give him a chance, ok?)

Rob’s statement, when I told him that, of the friends I have met so far (yes, there are more to go), there were none that I didn’t like, was to the effect that: the people I wouldn’t have liked seem to have opted themselves out of the group and disappeared over the years they have been together.

Now, you wouldn’t think there was anything overtly panic-causing in that statement, but for some reason, it struck deep terror to the root of my soul. In fact, I started to hyper-ventilate, and could only think “what if I get ‘weeded’?” I said to him, I sez “Baby, your friends haven’t said anything… say, negative? About me? Yet?”

He laughed. And then he said the most terrible thing ever.

Rob “We have an audit board coming up this weekend for you.”
Me [gulp] “A what? Huh?”
Rob “A hearing. You know.”
Me “Can I retain counsel?”
Rob “Counsel will be provided”
Me “What if I want really good representation?”
Rob “You’ll get your say…”
Me “Because I’d hire Jackie.”
Rob “Jackie from Seinfeld?”
Me “Yeah. That Jackie. But for some reason, I wanted to say ‘Jackie Chan’.”
Rob “Hee. That would be good.”
Me “Yeah. I’ll call him up. “Jackie, you have to come to town to defend me”, and he’d get it all wrong, and beat everyone up with chairs and lamps and rugs and stuff.”
Rob “There’s no hearing, you know.”
Me “There isn’t? I was kind of looking forward to it after all.”
Rob “Yeah, if we turf you, you just get a pink slip.”
Me [Gasp! In abject horror.]
Rob “You’ll come home one afternoon, and there it’ll be, taped to your screen door.”
Me [hyper-ventilating again] “That’s not (wheeze) at all funny, Sweetie, (wheeze) stop…at my expense…(wheeze)…”
Rob “Hee hee hee! A pink slip! Ha!”
Me “You suck.”

But basically, there is that level of pressure associated with fitting in with The Group Belonging To Rob. They’re all very cool in very different ways. They’ve all been very welcoming, so far, but I worry (because it is in my nature and my genetics to worry – ask The Mac. Ask him about The Grumpaw’s negative influence over both our genetics and environment/upbringing), and in worrying, I probably create more problems than are realistically possible in the first place.

MY friends are not at all like his. I have a few good friends and a bunch of people I know well enough to go out for a drink with, but not to really hang out with them on a regular basis. I have one friend from high school I will always be friends with, who is married to a really great guy and has a one-year old daughter (turning one next weekend! Happy Birthday Ayla Rose!). I have another friend from high school I don’t really talk to, but if he called me up and needed something, I’d help out no questions asked, everything else on hold. Luckily, he does very well for himself and probably wouldn’t ever need my help.

I have a friend from when I was five, and in Grade One in Elementary school. Her name is Heather, and although we did lose touch for about fifteen years first when she moved away in Grade Three (it totally broke my heart to have my best friend leave, especially since I then had to make new friends with people who were already paired/grouped up by then), and after she came back to Canada in Junior High, she went to a different school. We’re good friends now, though, and I’d do anything for her, too. I think I’m proudest of her – she’s a speech therapist now and works with children. She’s a very cool person.

I have a newer friend, Rose, who is Very Cool in the strictest sense of the word. Dresses cool, talks cool, acts cool, like the new kid at school who just moved here, and is so cool everyone wants to be her friend, but everyone is a little scared to talk to her. She has a dog, and when I got the NoodleDog, she and I would go for walks on Sunday mornings at the dog park with our dogs, drinking coffees, talking about men and life and family and work and everything there is to talk about.

I count my cousin, Scott, among my friends. He’s family, but he’s more of a friend than most family members. And as with all of my true friends, I’d do anything for him, no matter what.

But they’re all very separate, and I don’t think I’ve ever put them all in the same place at the same time. So it’s a very different structure from this extensive friend network where they all know each other and do things together all the time. If I screw up with one friend, the others don’t know about it.

So, to all of you potential friends out there (because I’m pretty sure Rob’s given out this site address to some of you…), really, if I say something horribly stupid, please just forget it happened.

Rob recently took me to see a band called The Broken Toyz (note the “z” in the title, it’s relevant).

It was, to say the least, an experience. We met up at his place so I could drive, not being a heavy drinker (any more). We then proceeded to the bar, about an hour ahead of when the band was scheduled to start playing, so we could get in. Now, maybe it’s just me, but I hadn’t really been out much in the past few years – maybe a beer here or there, maybe a couple of drinks or an hour or two after work – but the evening crowd is NOT the same as the “after work” crowd. The “after work” people are just on their way home, they’re not getting rowdy, they’re not there to cause trouble. The evening people? Are there for show, and to cause trouble. I think it may even be a prerequisite that they either show something off or try to start something, or, alternatively, pick up.

We met up with some of Rob’s friends, who all seemed like fine folks (really, he knows a lot of people, that guy, and they all seem cool). Everyone was laughing, everyone was chatting, everyone was having a good time. And this was long before the band started. A lineup formed outside. Minor tragedy - some of the friends who hadn’t planned ahead got left outside and couldn’t get in. But we were OK, we had good seats. We sat right by the pool tables.

Sitting by the pool tables might sound like a good idea until the foolish pool players try to start playing pool DURING the band. Then it’s all getting elbowed, or being shoved by an errant player, or having a stick whack you in the eye. One of the freaky pool players, a very tall individual with poorly maintained hair, tried to start a fight with one of Rob’s friends. Imagine! He actually shoved. He did not come off looking at all good during the altercation – he ended up looking like a pouty twelve-year-old. Rob’s friends all looked incredulously at the guy because no one could believe anyone who was there to see Broken Toyz would start something that stupid.

We ignored the pool players, and as the evening wore on, the place got more and more packed. By the time the band was set to go on, there wasn’t much in the way of room left, standing or otherwise. The endless sound checks finally stopped, and the band made their way out onto the floor.

The band consisted of a Lead Singer/guitar, Bass Player, Guitar Player and one helluva Drummer.

If you hadn’t guessed from their name, they’re an ‘80s cover band leaning more towards the metal side of the fence. I knew we were in trouble when their opening number was Van Halen. They played some Guns ‘n Roses, Def Leppard, Metallica, Alice Cooper and a bunch of other stuff I remember but have no idea who originally did the songs. Rob was hilarious. He was smiling, and laughing, and rockin’ out. The band was hilarious, as well – they put on an amazing show.

The best entertainment, by far, was the drummer. He was, of course, all decked-out in ‘80s garb, complete with hair that was either real or a reasonable facsimile. He would stand up to drum, stand up ON the drumset, stand up on his chair, leap from whatever he was standing on and crash into the drumset in a spectacular display of drumming expertise. He would twirl the drumsticks, repeatedly and often, and would also toss them up into the air between beats. The best was when he didn’t catch them, he’d just whip out a new drumstick from a cache of drumsticks beside his seat. It was pure hilarity and entertainment. They should play at least once a month, and the place would be packed.

After the first set, a bunch of the friends left. I can totally, totally understand why (what with it being a weeknight and all), but we did not leave. It was too much fun to be had. We remained, throughout the break chatting and drinking and generally having a good time.

The second set started up again and it was even rowdier than the first. By then, a good deal of the crowd was either totally drunk or well on their way, as evidenced by the two crazy drunken bitches (who must not have been in even grade school during the ‘80s, but there you go, I guess) who lurched their way over to the bar to a) order drinks, b) crash wildly and drunkenly into other people, c) spew, and finally d) lurch away afterwards, leaving a trail of destruction in their wake.

At that point, also, I had to pee, so I excused myself and went to the ladies’ room. Let me say this about that: it shouldn’t have been called a “ladies’ room”, it was most definitely a can, and not a really nice one at that. There were two stalls, and as I entered the room, two “girls” went into one, and two “girls” went into another. I believe the first set of girls were just in there saving time and space or whatever and might just have been really comfortable with one another, but the second set of “girls” were not in there to pee at all. They were in there for an entirely different purpose, and I had to stand there, waiting and unfortunately hearing everything that went on. You know, if you’re in a crowded bar, and you want to fool around with your same-sex lover, please go home or at the very, very least go outside to your car or even just a dark corner, because those of us that are in there who have to pee probably have to pee pretty badly, and/or are drunk (like the girls who came in after me looking relatively unstable, probably hoping for a nice can to spew in and were sorely disappointed by the extended wait time). When the first set of “girls” exited the stall, I made my visit a short as humanely possible and went back to the table in a kind of disgusted awe. I did get a good look at their shoes, however, and spent the rest of the evening trying to get a good look at their faces.

The Crazy Drunken Bitches from the bar (who were probably no more than 23, really) had lurched their way over to the stage by then, and were whoopin’ it up pretty good. There was a scuffle, and a couple of badly thrown punches, one well-thrown punch and a guy with a possibly broken nose. All hell broke loose, bouncers were called in, and the Crazy Drunken Bitches had increased in number. Calls of “cat fight” were bandied about, and sure enough, each of the Crazy Drunken Bitches were individually hauled away. Two were sequestered in the kitchen, and in the process of sequestering, one of the Crazy Drunken Bitches’ tube tops popped right off her tops, and everyone was treated to an eyeful. The band must have heard about it because very shortly thereafter, they offered some sort of prize to the first girl who’d run up onstage and show everyone her tits, for which I understand there was a race complete with pushing and shoving. Man, these people get a little wild. I must be old, because I certainly don’t remember any of this happening when I was a kid. (Either that, or I was really out of it…)

As the second set came to a close, all the available drinks on the table were rapidly consumed, and Rob and I made our way to the door. Outside on the street, a scene to be seen was unfolding as not one, not two but five cop cars and two paddy wagons were there to corral the Crazy Drunken Bitches. Seriously? Seven City Police vehicles necessary to capture and detain no more than three or possibly four women, at least two of whom would probably be let go with a stern finger-wagged warning?

We had to laugh. And laugh we did, all the way home. All in all? A glorious evening of mayhem and fun. You say they’re back in town around Christmas?

So Rob says to me a couple weeks ago:
Rob “I’m going to the cabin for about ten days…”
Me “Yeah? Sounds like fun.”
Rob “Yeah, it’s always a good time. You want to come out over the long weekend?
Me “Of course! You’ll be there, so of course.”
Rob “Really? Alright!”
Me “Wait. What? I mean, what’s it like?”
Rob “Oh, it’s great.” Gets out picture book. “You can see pictures…”
Me “Hee! You had hair! You were so cute…”
Rob “There’s the cabin, see?” There is a picture of a cabin in the woods.
Me “And there you are, looking kinda half-cut.”
Rob “Yeah, good times. See, here’s another one. There’s a sandy beach.”
Me “Very nice.”
Rob “And here are my friends, all having a good time, drinking.”
Me “Are there bears?”
Rob “…”
Me “Dude, are there bears?”
Rob “Uh… there are bears in the general vicinity…”
Me “So, the likelihood of me getting eaten is?”
Rob “VERY small. No one has ever been eaten there.”
Me “And the NoodleDog?”
Rob “He won’t get eaten either.”
Me “Okaaaay… I’m sold. Sign me up. I’ll see you there after work on Thursday.”

After a drive that took way longer than it should have and was very frustrating due to the idiots who tend to occupy the TransCanada, I made it.

One word about the traffic to and from the cabin: SUCKED! The people who are driving on the TransCanada drive like myopic donkey cart drivers UNTIL they get to a passing lane and/or a passing area. Then it’s the fucking Indy 500 and everyone speeds up to prevent you from passing them, as though to be passed would cause them great dishonor and force them to commit hari-kari from the shame. We had everything from semis to Tauruses, Acadians to friggin’ Yugos slamming the pedal to the metal desperately trying to prevent me from passing them. Hello? It’s the Tiny Car. It’s fast. It doesn’t LIKE to go slow. It’s natural state is somewhere between 120-160 km/hr (depending on weather conditions). The way out was mostly rainy, so we had to keep it low around 120 km/hr. However, the way back was dry, so I had it pinned around 140 km/hr except when I’d come up the ass end of a whatever that was doing 80 km/hr, and then I’d have to slow way down until I could pass again. Then, the “whatever” would speed up just to frustrate me. Bastards, all of ‘em.

But I made it to the general vicinity Thursday night just after dark. The NoodleDog was VERY good in that he didn’t complain that I didn’t stop at all the entire way there except to get fuel. Rob met me in town, and I left my car with a very nice couple that is somehow related to one of his friends. We took a logging road (that I think the Tiny Car could totally have handled) in to the cabin and that was where fantasy and reality diverged.

Rob “OK, so get all your stuff, we have to hike in now…”
Me “Huh?”
Rob “You know, walk to the cabin.”
Me “Huh wha?”
Rob “I told you there would be a little walk in to the cabin.”
Me “No you never…”
Rob “I must have.”
Me “Nuh uh. I’d remember something like that.”
Rob “Well, I think I did.”
Me “Was I asleep when you told me? Were my eyes closed? Was I lightly snoring when you leaned over
and said “by the way, Sweetie, we have to hike in to the cabin so be prepared”?”
Rob laughs
Me “Because if you had told me, I would have remembered.”

It wasn’t far at all, and not much of a hike, although we did have to go through the beach to get to the cabin area. I kind of figured there was no point to worrying about the sand in my shoes, since they were just going to get all sandy over the weekend anyway. It was around midnight when we got in and dark, of course, but Rob still showed me around a little. There were little buildings around the cabin (sheds, shower, outhouse, etc.) – good to know about for future reference. Then it was bedtime. The NoodleDog and Rob’s dog, Cooter, and his brother’s dog, Bailey, all slept in the cabin with us. The NoodleDog didn’t understand about not getting onto the bed, but he learned pretty quickly. I think he was just glad to be out of the car.

The next day (Friday) it rained. And rained and rained and rained. We went down to the beach to meet up with Rob’s friends, Aron and Terra, and no one seemed impressed that it was raining. Breakfast was made and eaten, cards were played, and it seemed like that was about all the action we’d see. Back at Rob’s cabin, he gave me a puzzle to do – a little rubik’s cube type of puzzle with a storm trooper on one side and Boba Fett on the other, all mixed up. The idea was to get them to all line up right. So I’m working away on the puzzle, and Rob and his dad are wandering around doing stuff… I wasn’t paying much attention. Rob brought all the dogs inside and then went back outside. Then he came in, and called me over to the window.

Rob “You better come here and see this.”
Me “What? I’m doing a puzzle.”
Rob “Now! Come here and look!!”
Me “Ok, ok. I’m coming. Yeesh.”
Rob “Now, you’d find out about this sooner or later, so I thought it was better that you see for yourself.”
Me “What am I looking at?”
Rob “There’s just a little bear. He was out by the outhouse.”
Me “…”
Rob “He’s little.”
Me “?”
Rob “Are you ok?”
Me "You…a bear…here… You did NOT SAY THERE WOULD BE BEARS AT THE CABIN!!!!”
Rob “I did so.”
Me “Definitely not.”
Rob “I said there would be bears.”
Me “Yes, you said there might be bears “around”, but not AT the cabin.”
Rob “Well, he wasn’t at the cabin. He was at the outhouse. And he’s run away now, so everything is fine.”
Me “Eeeee!”
Rob “Really, he’s probably miles away by now. My dad shot a bear-scare at him.”
Me “That’s hardly reassuring…” [as I started to hyper-ventilate]
Rob “Are you alright?”
Me “What about the NoodleDog? What if it comes back and eats him?”
Rob “It was a very small bear.”
Me “That doesn’t make me feel good at all. What if its parent is somewhere out there.”
Rob “It was probably a couple of years old.”
Me “You never said there would be bears AT the cabin. This is a startling turn of events.”

The bear did not come back to my knowledge, although if he had come back, he probably would have been scared away by my anti-bear chant of “No bears, bears go away, no bears, no bears, no bears, I don’t even want to know you exist…” every time I went to the outhouse after that.

Late Friday afternoon, we went to the little store on the lake, which you have to get to by boat. The NoodleDog sat on the dock and barked his head off as I disappeared from his sight in the boat. Trina, one of the girls, went water-skiing, and Rob and I looked after picking up her spare water ski after she ditched it to do fancy tricks. There was some splashing of water that I didn’t quite understand, and a bit of a challenge, and after we had gotten to the store and were on our way out, somehow, Rob got pushed into the lake (hee – not by me). The boat ride back was cold, of course, because he was quite soaked. Then after we got back (and quieted the NoodleDog – he’s very loud), Rob went water-skiing since he was already wet. I opted not to go because, well, it was frickin’ cold, and the NoodleDog was happy that I was on dry land. It’s probably better that I didn’t go because Rob performed some spectacular wipe-out that might have worried me more to see it than the reports did. He actually ended up not feeling well that evening, so it was an early night for us.

Saturday was equally rainy, although more people had shown up by then, so there was more partying. On Saturday, we went canoeing in a “tippy” canoe. Personally, I don’t see how you can unintentionally tip a canoe unless you really don’t know what you’re doing and are thrashing around a lot, but our trip was cut short by the NoodleDog. He watched me get into the canoe, and started barking. He objects to me traveling on the water without him, apparently. He barked and barked, and then waded out to the canoe, and as we pushed off, I thought he’d just go back to shore. He did not. He kept wading out further and further until he was actually swimming – a first for the NoodleDog! He swam after us as we canoed. The people on shore managed to coax him over, but he’s a strong little dog what with his low center of gravity and short little legs, so he managed to break loose and chase after us. He ran after us on shore for a while and when he had caught up to sort of where we were, he sprang back into the water and started swimming again. That, of course, worried me because the NoodleDog had never been swimming before, so I thought he might exhaust himself, so we had to canoe in to the shallows to pick him up. Rob managed to haul him into the canoe, where he sat until we got back to the dock. It was a short canoe trip, and I’m quite glad we didn’t tip over. If it had been at all warmer, I might have suggested we try it again with the NoodleDog as an intentional passenger. But it remained quite cold for most of the weekend.

In the evening, Rob and his dad built a little fire in the wood stove in the cabin. There’s a loft above the kitchen area that warms right up, so I crawled up there to nap (foiled by a noisy NoodleDog who was NOT being let in to the cabin). It got up to near +30C up in that loft – nice and warm.

Saturday night, we played Trivial Pursuit. Only, see, they don’t really play it according to the rules. You just sit around and ask the questions. It was kinda fun. Normally, I do OK at Trivial Pursuit, but it was the 20th Anniversary Edition, and what do I know about ‘70s and ‘80s literature?

And on Sunday, it finally warmed up a little and the sun broke free of the clouds for a few minutes at a time. It was still fairly cool, but at least we could see better and it brightened the whole experience. We boated over to a really cool waterfall and hiked up to see it, and then Rob took me over to this rock face where there are supposed Indian pictographs. There were, indeed, drawings on the rock face, but I have no supporting documentation as to their authenticity. They were neat, but we didn’t spend a lot of time there (due to the cold). That afternoon I was so cold I suspended my “no drinking” rules and started drinking. By the time I was half-finished my first rye & Diet Coke with Lime, I did not care at all how cold it was or that it was raining, and was introduced to a game called “Frisnock”

Frisnock is a Frisbee game. You get two stakes and put them in the sand about 25 feet apart. Upon each stake is placed an empty beer can filled partway with sand (for stability and weight to make it fall faster, apparently). In teams of two, you try to throw the Frisbee so that it will knock the other team’s can off the stake (which is harder than it sounds). If both the Frisbee and the can are not caught, your team wins two points. If either the Frisbee or the can are caught, you only get one. If you miss catching the Frisbee, whether it hits the stake or not, you have to drink. If you throw an “uncatchable” throw, then you have to drink. There are more rules, I think, but I’m not sure I remember all of them. I was drinking heavily at that point. I’m not very good at Frisbee.

It was a fantastic evening. Frisnock was played. Drinks were drunk. I yelled from the sidelines after Rob and I lost (big surprise there) and the next team took on the champs. We watched some ducks catch a fish and then fight over it, which was funny. There was a fire built on the beach for us to sit around, and the dinner we had that evening was pretty amazing – Rob is a great cook. The NoodleDog was the best dog ever in that he didn’t even interfere with the frisnock game, although I thought he might want to chase the Frisbee. He stuck pretty close to me – I think he was worried I’d try and boat off without him again.

Sunday night, after it got dark, we could hear something maybe in the water, maybe the beaver that lives in the area that comes out at night to eat the water lilies, so we went walking with a flashlight to see if we could find it. We didn’t find any wildlife at all, but it was still nice to be out on the beach with Rob and the dogs. Except, of course, that it eventually got too cold.

Yesterday, Monday, was beautiful. The sun was shining, there were very few clouds, and the sand started to dry out on the beach. We finished off as much as we could for breakfast, then Rob and I took as much stuff as we could to the car, and he and his dad packed up what was left at the cabin. It was terrible to leave, especially because it was so nice out for a change. We stuffed everything into his dad’s car and hit the road around 2p. I was home by just before 10p, and was told over the phone that my cats had not been on their best behaviour while I was gone (apparently, Tobey meowed a lot, and Smudge managed to get tangled up outside). The trip was over, and now I’m back here at work.

So. When can we leave to go again?

Good lord.

The NoodleDog was rated a “Tropical Storm” class Natural Disaster last night. I had intended to make a family recipe of brownies to take to the cabin with me this weekend for when I see Rob (yay!). I bought all the ingredients a couple of days ago on an overblown shopping trip I now regret (but only slightly). I did a “brownie ingredient inventory” on the counter by the fridge, and foolishly left the ingredients out in a mistaken attempt to “be prepared”. I was not at all prepared for the NoodleDog.

These brownies take a package of chocolate chips, which was left on the counter along with everything else. When I got home yesterday, I fed the cats and the NoodleDog, and went into the living room (as usual) to sit down for about ten minutes before our afternoon/evening walk. What was lying in the middle of the living room floor, totally empty? The chocolate chip bag (along with an unopened bag of pecans, which I rescued immediately). DAMN YOU, NOODLEDOG!!!

Well, his initial disobedience was the least of my worries, because the dog had ingested chocolate. Chocolate is bad for dogs for a number of reasons and can poison them. So I had to worry about him all evening, and as it turned out, it didn’t poison him at all, he was “fine” in that he didn’t die or suffer any pain. It was ME who suffered, though, because the dog was being a brat for the whole rest of the evening. He pestered me. He jumped up on me incessantly and in an aggressive manner. He barked for no reason, a lot. Unwarranted, he chased the cats and pinned poor little Smudge a couple of times, causing her to squeak in protest. He threw his toys all over the place. He got up onto the sofa with his chewy and a bone repeatedly after I had told him not to (he knows that chewies are only allowed on the floor). He also got up onto the counter twice after he had been explicitly instructed NOT to do so, and he knows that is a VERY BAD thing as well. I started to trick him by leaving something tempting at the edge of the counter, then hiding in wait until he tried to get it and then locking him in the bathroom, but it didn’t work. He was too “hopped-up” for the lesson to take.

He basically drove me nuts all evening. My “bad neighbor” (there’s a story to that, too) returned my anti-bark collar which he had borrowed for his barking dog, so I slapped that on the NoodleDog around 9:00p or soand it subdued him somewhat. I locked him in the bathroom twice (usually, I put him in his crate for a “time out”, but Buzz has borrowed the crate for her puppy, Harley). I was completely losing my mind until I called my mother.

Now, when I first got the NoodleDog, I had never had a dog before. I got him last September, and he was five months old. He was a rambunctious puppy large enough to cause some trouble. He would sit in the middle of the living room floor and bark at me for no discernible reason. When I had exhausted all of the little tricks I knew to manage dogs (i.e. leashing him to the sofa, holding his mouth shut to stop the barking, taking away all his toys, giving him one or two toys to play with, giving him chewies as “chewy stops the chatter”, lying with him, petting him, ignoring him, turning my back on him to indicate displeasure, etc. At one point, I even bit him on the ear in the hopes that the Snowdogs movie might have been on to something, to no avail) and was about to cry in frustration, I’d call my parents. Usually, when I need advice, I contact my father (The Grumpaw), but since the NoodleDog is one of his least favourite topics of discussion and he probably wouldn’t have any salient advice to give on dogs anyway, I turned to my mother (“Granny”, to the NoodleDog).

My mother grew up on a farm and had dogs all her life until she met my father, at which time a “pet moratorium” was issued until we kids bugged him enough to get our family cat, Pepper. Pepper was a Devon Rex Cat, with only one coat of fur like a poodle so that our hyper-allergic sister, Laura, could survive his presence. The Grumpaw was against the idea of any pet at all, but was eventually persuaded to allow Pepper to come live with us. Eventually, too, he became Pepper’s best friend, and got up early to feed the cat, talk to the cat, monitor the cat. Pepper was allowed out in the yard, and if he was outside (or even if he wasn’t), The Grumpaw would periodically inquire “Where’s the cat? Anyone seen the cat?” With The Grumpaw, that’s about as good as it gets.

But with my mother’s supposed knowledge of dogs, I though I’d have a source of information I could rely upon. Most often, though, her “advice” would be to put the NoodleDog into obedience classes. Obedience classes are a) expensive (and, due to the universe conspiring against me or balancing luck, I never have money for luxury items) and b) time-consuming (and up until about three months ago, I was not available when the classes were on in the evenings). My mother would also offer tidbits from “Dr. Stanley”, a guy who runs a show on early in the mornings that she would occasionally watch. “Dr. Stanley says to spray him with water.” Or “Dr. Stanley says to shake a can at him…” or “Dr. Stanley says to pick him up and take him outside…”.

Until I spoke with her, I had thought the NoodleDog might just be being totally defiant because he knew his crate was gone and thought he had the run of the place. She suggested the sugar and caffeine might have had something to do with it (duh, I guess I’m not that bright), and it all fell into place. He must have gotten the chips not that long before I got home and was just hitting his sugar/caffeine high in the evening. Possibly, chocolate affects dogs differently as well. Either way, it was a disaster and very frustrating to me.

Well, “Dr. Stanley” said to booby-trap the countertop so that when the NoodleDog gets up there to steal stuff, he encounters something “unpleasant”, like noisy tin cans full or rocks that can startle him when he knocks them down. Not being MacGuyver, I’m not sure I can set up a booby-trap that elaborate.

By the end of the evening, the NoodleDog became more subdued and I started to worry about his heart. What if the chocolate poisoning doesn’t get him for a while? What if he’s sick? What if he’s in pain? What if it stops his heart, gives him a heart attack? So by bedtime, I was watching him like a hawk, listening to his heart (which he hates) and trying to see if he was breathing. I think he probably thought I was a little crazy.

While the NoodleDog was confined to the bathroom (during one of his punishments), I made the brownies. I will bake them tonight after the NoodleDog’s class. I hope they turn out – they’ve become costly in the sense of mental anguish. What is the universe paying me back for this time?