NoodleDog

This weekend was a doozie. Saturday, we got up and went out to this area where Rob’s family goes camping - it's about 45 minutes North of where I live. So we go out there, park the car, and wander around looking at the place. It's nice - mostly woods, some poplar and spruce, hills and fences. So we're walking along, up to this cut line to walk along some more, and the dogs run up ahead barking like crazy at something, and I see a shape cross the path we're walking, only I can't see it well, so I say "Oh! The dogs are chasing... another... big? Brown? Dog?" And Rob totally makes up this story that there are people that live nearby and it might be their dog. And unbeknownst to me, he takes the bear scare flare out of his pocket.

So we keep on wandering. We walk all around the property in this big loop, and come around the opposite side, and down a fence line, and again, the dogs go nuts, run up ahead and start barking their little heads off. It's over this rise, so we can't see what they're after, so I run up the hill, and I see a big brown shape as I crest the hill, and immediately scream and start to turn around. See, I figured it was a bear. And Rob keeps going and stops at the top of the hill, calling the dogs, and by then, I've turned around to see if this bear is going to chase him, only it's not so much a bear as it is a big mama moose. How can I tell the gender of a moose standing about 50 feet from me? Because her baby moose, the poor little guy, was all caught up in the barbed-wire fence. And the dogs were going crazy, barking and barking, and Rob was yelling, and I was yelling for the dogs to COME HERE RIGHT NOW!! I MEAN IT, DON'T YOU MAKE ME COME DOWN THERE!!!

Eventually, the dogs came back over, and that was good. I clamped down on the NoodleDog’s collar, and Rob did the same to Cooter, and we looked at the scene. The poor baby moose had caught his front feet on the top wire of the fence, but his back legs had cleared the bottom wires, and he'd managed to flip around, and, as Rob put it, the fence had WWF-ed his legs. So he was good and trapped. The mama moose had just been hanging around, trying her best to be supportive, I'm sure, but was completely unable to help.

I hung onto the dogs, and Rob went in for a closer look, but Mama wasn't having any of that, so she kind of came towards him, and he had to back off. She went over the fence, and back around, so he was able to check it out a bit better, but then the baby started to wail, so she came right back, and he had to back off again. He suggested we go for help, and I said I wasn't going to leave the little guy like that, so he could go if he wanted, but I'd just stay there making sure nothing ate the baby moose. I asked if we could cut the wires, and he happened to have his leatherman on him, so he approached, but Mama ran him off again. There was no real way of getting close enough without having her freak out and charge, although for the life of me, I can't figure out how she didn't totally kill our dogs when they first came on the scene, because they were RIGHT near the baby moose, and although she was defending him, she didn't trample them or anything.

So Rob shot the bear scare flare at her. Well, above her. It went off above her, kind of, and she looked up as it exploded, and then kind of shook her head, as if to say "what the fuck else am I going to have to contend with today?" and then kind of sauntered off into the forest, giving Rob enough time to clip the wires that were pinning the baby's legs. Once he was free, he managed to get up, and then try half-heartedly to charge Rob. Heh.

So as the baby was getting up, wailing the entire time because he was freaked, the mama was coming back around, and I was yelling "She's coming back around, Rob!!", and he made it back up the hill as the two moose took off into the forest. Yay! He's my hero.

So there was that. Afterwards, he admitted to me that he thought the first thing I had seen was a bear, and that even though he'd never seen a bear at that property, it probably would have been one, just because I was there, and the self-fulfilling prophecy of me and bears would have held up. But it wasn't - it was the moose, most likely, and they had probably been wandering the property the entire time we were there. We looked at the area where the baby was caught up afterwards, and he had been cut up a little by the fence, and had probably been trapped for about 20-30 minutes or so. He would have died for sure - if we hadn't come by, then coyotes would have eventually come upon them, and the mama wouldn't have been able to do anything about it. So we really did save the baby moose's life. When he was crying, though, it was a very sad sound. Poor guy. I'll never eat a moose as long as I live. Well, unless I'm totally starving, and I happen upon an already-dead one.

And Sunday, we were working on my car - we were going to replace the O2 sensor, and it seemed to be alright, except when we tried to put the new one in, it wouldn't go. And so for about three hours, Rob fought with it, and I fought with it, and it totally wouldn't go in, and we were getting VERY discouraged, and it looked like I wouldn't be able to drive my car home. But we went to Canadian Tire to see if they had a tap, which they didn't, or a healy-coil, which they didn't, but they did have this "thread repair" kit which was some sort of compound that you mix, put in the hole, have it set with the bolt in it, and then leave it for 30 minutes until it cures, and it's supposed to be very solid. And Rob got an extra bit for his dremel so we could grind out the hole. We went home, and I started dinner, and Rob ground out the hole a little, and as soon as he did that, the new sensor went right in. We didn't need the thread repair stuff at all. Stupid sensor. My car is fixed now, which is good.

What a weekend! That’s more activity than I’ve seen in a while. And it didn’t stop there, either, because after dinner on Sunday, Rob checked out a Jeep he may possibly buy. It’s older, but in reasonable shape, and is actually probably a pretty good deal. He spent a good hour and a half checking it over last night. It needs some work, but the guy is offering it for a good price. It’s nice that Rob is handy – he can do most of these things himself. Well, it looked kind of grim yesterday with that sensor not going back where it should, but eventually, he fixed it alright.

The NoodleDog isn’t feeling well today. In fact, he hasn’t really been feeling all that great since maybe Friday. He was well enough to run through the woods at top speed and bark at a moose on Saturday, but yesterday he just slept pretty much all day, and even when I took him for a walk this morning, he didn’t seem very into it. As soon as we got home, he crashed right out on the bed, and didn’t really seem to care that I was leaving. Usually, when I go to work, he hangs around in the kitchen waiting for me to get him a “goodbye biscuit” (I give him a biscuit when I leave so he’s not too depressed and I’m not too depressed, and everyone wins). I got him one anyway, and took it to him, but he didn’t seem thrilled about it. Usually, that dog is thrilled about any sort of food. The cats were more excited about me being there than he was. Little Smudge ran all over the place, pouncing on invisible things and running away from other invisible things. It’s a good thing the NoodleDog goes in to the vet tomorrow for his checkup – hopefully if there’s anything wrong with him, they’ll know all about it and will be able to help.

At least it is nice out today, relatively, thanks to the Chinooks we keep getting. November has turned out to be nicer than October so far – with less rain and snow all around. It could turn, of course, but we’ll have to see about that.

Ok! It’s Friday today! I have the entire day to devote to blogging (unless my boss is reading this, in which case, I whipped this off yesterday when I wasn't working), so this is gonna be good, and if it isn’t, I’ll just erase this part before I post.

First off, yesterday was Remembrance Day. I know the Yanks call it Veteran’s Day. I have no idea if it has the same symbolic meaning down there as it does here (perhaps The Mac could shed some light on that), but even up here in Canada, people don’t treat it with the sort of respect I would expect. I would hope that yesterday, most Canadians took the day off to reflect on the sacrifices that were made to put us where we are today. I know a lot of businesses now offer their employees a choice between Remembrance Day and an extra day off at Christmas, which is probably the most disrespectful and selfish idea I’ve heard in a long time. Maybe ever. It’s hard to measure selfish ideas, though, because there are so many of them, and yeah, I can be as selfish as the next guy – I totally admit that. But there are some things you just do not do. You do not punch out the guy who shoves his way into line in front of you at the coffee shop. You cannot haul off and smack the parent who’s screaming at her kids who, in turn, are screaming back in the middle of the grocery store. Selfish ideas that just need to be filed under “think, do not do”. Of course it would be nice to have a day to spend shopping or cavorting or sleeping or out skiing in the middle of November.

One of the things you do not do is spend Remembrance Day frivolously. I was never in a war. I was never called on to shoot at people on the other side of a line. I never lost a relative in my time to a war. But I can imagine what it feels like, and should, every year, at least once a year on Remembrance Day, and try, just try to feel even a little bit appreciative of the freedoms I enjoy every day and take for granted, because of the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.

The idea of war strikes me as particularly horrendous. Who ever thought of that? I mean, great – let’s line up our best, strongest, most vital citizens and get them to kill and/or be killed by the best, strongest, most vital citizens of our opponents over there. I understand that there are conflicts between groups of people. I get it. What I don’t get is how in the world either side of any conflict could possibly think sacrificing its (again) most vital citizens would be a good idea - even if that side won, it would be without a very integral portion of its population. I don’t know if leaders delude themselves and think “well, our guys will probably not get killed – we’ll win!” and are then able to commit hundreds or even thousands of lives to a bad plan, or what. A better idea might be an arm-wrestling match, or chess or some sort of contest between the leaders of the groups in conflict. Then, everyone would vie for the best, smartest, strongest leader, which is probably something we should all be doing anyway. Although I really can’t see Paul Martin (our Prime Minister) doing all that well in an arm-wrestling match with, say, anyone else. Heh. We would even have been worse off if we still had Chretien in office.

Whatever – war happened. It still happens. We need to, every single one of us, stop and think about it for a minute each year, at the very least out of respect for those who willingly, voluntarily, gave up their lives and well-being for freedom.

The war I choose to remember is the American Civil War (for a lot of reasons I won’t go into here). This isn’t to suggest that I prefer it in any way over other wars – it was a particularly brutal, harsh war in which a nation’s most essential population was completely sacrificed by both sides. Not that any of the great and terrible wars weren’t – WWI and WWII were equally brutal and horrible – the just seem a little further away from me. The World Wars were fought on foreign soil, places I’ve never been and will never see, against enemies that seem even more foreign. The Civil War was fought close to home, for freedom against a portion of America that thought slavery was acceptable and necessary to their economy. Atrocities against people THE SAME AS those who committed them were heralded as acts of war. Family members would end up on opposing sides of the conflict. Can you imagine shooting your brother or father or uncle because of that? I can’t. Well, I can, but I don’t like it. The freedoms gained in that war are a cornerstone of what we now take for granted in our daily lives. (This isn’t to say that I don’t understand or appreciate the freedoms fought for in WWI & WWII.)

Anyway, every year, on Remembrance Day, I remember. My heart breaks for all of the brave, beautiful men who were thrown into the machinery of war and never came out the other side. My soul aches for the families who lost a part of themselves. And I hope never to see this happen in my day to my family. I could never imagine a world in which, say, my father or brother or boyfriend, or even sister were sacrificed for anything – I’d prefer to die myself before I saw that happen. It shouldn’t happen to any family at all, really, and I guess I don’t understand how it does. How can we not resolve our disputes some other way? How can just the mere threat of war not dissuade conflict from proceeding? There simply isn’t anything worse than that.

Now I’m not saying I wear a shroud of despair every day and mope around – I live freely, I love my life, I’m happy. In fact, a part of me chooses to forget about it for a good deal of the year, or to leave it buried beneath the surface – I can get at it if I need it, but hopefully, I won’t need it and I can just live my life, happily, not thinking about it every day. In fact, this brings me to the second part here.

Second blog topic: Man, is Rob ever a fantastic cook. Rob routinely cooks us dinner. I don’t know if this is because I’m lazy about dinner – whatever’s in the freezer will usually do, and most of the time, I don’t really have the time to devote to trying to cook a gourmet meal – but Rob can whip up the best-tasting meal in under an hour and he makes it seem fairly effortless. Yesterday, for instance, he did up a fantastic little roast on the rotisserie in the barbecue, along with this potato dish he does that is quite amazing (probably due in no small part to the amount of butter it contains…). Afterwards “we” made soup – I boiled the water. He also made chocolate chip muffins. From a mix, sure, but he made ‘em, which is probably more than I would have done. I would have thought about them, wondered if I had the ingredients, figured I didn’t, and left it at that.

Things Rob has cooked me to date: Steaks, potatoes, beer can chicken, chili, pork chops, hamburgers, roast beef, pasta, and muffins. Oh, and bacon. We have a lot of bacon. Usually out camping, but sometimes not. Rob is a great cook.

However…the dark cloud to go with this silver lining is that I have managed to gain a little bit of weight through all of this. I suppose eating more regularly is probably part of it. Eating more food in general is another likely culprit. Eating more fattening food is definitely to blame. In an effort to cut back, I am really trying to eliminate snacking from my repertoire. No more cheezies. No chips or chocolate bars. Even the muffins are iffy, unless I use them as part of a meal’s worth of food – I can snack on the muffins if I have a smaller breakfast or lunch. Stupid regulating food intake – it’s making me hungry. And knowing I’m not supposed to snack seems to make me want to do it even more. You’d think that with walking the dogs twice a day, I’d be in better shape. Christmas is coming, and Christmas parties, and that means Christmas Party Dresses… Oh, and Christmas food – and Christmas deserts, and candy, and all that snacking…

May you all remember well, eat well, exercise well and be healthy.

Wow. I realize that my last report indicated I’d let you all know if I survived the “trial run” over two weekends ago. And if you were an imaginative reader, you might think that in fact, I had not at all survived the “trial run” and had been devoured by a pack of seriously irked cats. Not so, my friends, not so.

Indeed, not only did everyone survive the “trial run”, Rumble, who I had expected to sulk and possibly bite me over the weekend, enjoyed the house quite a bit, and was more irked when I took him home. Predictably enough, Tobey was skittish and spent about 60% of the time in hiding. Caspar was, well, friendly as is his habit. Smudge was indomitable and enjoyed herself, exploring as much of Rob’s house as she could get into. I think the dogs were entertained to have the cats at Rob’s house, and Cooter was very polite, in that he did not really chase the cats so much as just amble up to them periodically with varying results (Tobey ran away, Caspar meowed and rubbed up against him, Rumble hissed and swatted, and Smudge capered in the most charming fashion).

Rob, himself, did not, as I had worried, explode in a fury of allergies, so that’s good news.

Much has happened over the past couple of weeks. We went for an evening quad ride in the cold and dark. It was dark, and what I would consider “cold”, but was informed was actually only “cool”. We built a fire in the woods and I drank as much rye as we brought with us to stave off the cool. And a word about the “cool” – it included snow, so don’t be all thinking I’m wussing out because it was just cool out, it was actually about –3C, with snow everywhere, and what was not snow was tricky pools of cold water disguised as snow. Luckily, when we got back to the vehicles, I passed right out. By the time we made it back to civilization, I had to pee so badly, I really thought I might actually die.

Notice how I’m not dead.

The weeks go by pretty quickly these days, what with work, and scheduling the evenings, and trying to jam everything in. Last weekend was Hallowe’en weekend, and because Hallowe’en fell on a Sunday this year, Rob had a party on the Saturday night. My coup for the evening was to keep my costume a secret. Rob had planned to go as a friar for about a month before the date, so he could grow his hair out enough to have it properly tonsured. His friend comically suggested I go as a pregnant nun, and seeing the humour in this, I did. It turned out fairly well, all things considered, although wearing the pillow in my costume for the entire evening has convinced me I’m going to have a very difficult time if I ever actually get pregnant and am forced to carry a child to term. If a very light pillow can cause the sort of discomfort I experienced, then I cannot possibly fathom how women carry actual children around inside of them without completely freaking out. Every day. All day.

This week, I have not felt all that well, unfortunately. And I’d like to say a bit about sick days, for all the employers out there, or even employees who speak with their employers. Let’s consider the following: One person is sick. They take a half-day off to try to recuperate, and miserably enough, the next morning, they are back at work. They hack and spew, and breathe germs all over the unsick people working with them, and two or three days later, you have five people sick. By then, the original sick person is so sick they can’t stand, and are wheeling themselves around the office in their chairs, the better to spread germs far and wide, and the four incidental victims of the sickness are also forced, or choose, to stay at work after taking minimal time off to moan softly into their pillows, coming in contact with even more victims. You must see where I’m going with this.

Employers MUST be forced to implement a policy whereby sick individuals are barred from the workplace. I, personally, intend to start sueing when someone sick infects me with their illness, intentionally or otherwise. And not only will I sue the sick person, I will sue the employer who has not immediately sent-home the sick individual. It’s a matter of a “safe workplace”. Contracting virulent diseases is not “safe” in my books. Especially for me, because I take an immunosupressant, which dumbs-down my immune system to keep it from attacking my colon. Now it’s all well and good for the rest of you people to catch a cold or get the ‘flu. For me, if I contract a particularly stubborn cold, or even the ‘flu, I’m at much higher risk of being hospitalized due to that cold or ‘flu spreading into my lungs, and inflaming the tissue around my heart. Not fun at all!

So be warned, if you’re sick, and you see me, try to stay away from me. In fact, if you’re sick at all, and are sniffling, coughing, hacking, wheezing or otherwise spreading airborne contaminants, please stay home for the good of the world and your own safety. Recuperate. Take the prescribed amount of time to get better. Visit your doctor, get the antibiotics necessary, or be told that it’s a virus and you’ll have to wait it out, and then stay home until you’re no longer contagious. It only makes sense for everyone involved. If you are that indispensable at work that you cannot take a sick day, you need to find another job because they’re probably overworking you, thus contributing to the likelihood you’ll get sick because you’re run down. See how everything ties together? We’re in the 21st Century here, and should be well-aware of how illness affects man-hours and productivity.

There. That’s my rant for the day, because I have a sore throat. See? Aren’t you all glad I survived the “trial run”?