Thursday, January 20, 2005
Cats, cats, wonderful cats!
I called my father, The Grumpaw, yesterday. I had wanted to ask if my mother needed anything in particular for her birthday, which is rapidly approaching. My mother is notoriously difficult to shop for because, well, she has everything. We’ve been given instructions that “no more nick-nacks” are to be purchased. This leaves me wondering what the hell I’m going to get her.
So I had called to ask him how things were, see what’s going on, ask about the cats… when I got to the cats, he told me to get them out of his house. So I asked “What’s the problem”, expecting a tale of betrayal and tears, possibly about a roast being stolen off the kitchen counter…
No, it was that the cats “prevent [them] from doing things!”. “Like what?” I ask, innocently enough, knowing that when they were living with me, they were fantastic cats who never interfered with my daily life.
I was informed that the cats prevent them from:
- Reading the newspaper
- Knitting
- Using the computer
- Using the Grumpaw’s office
- Going up and down the stairs to the basement
- Going in and out of the house
Cats enjoy a good, spread-out newspaper. They believe it is an invitation for them, and specifically laid out for them, to lie down upon so you can pay them some overdue attention. Young cats in particular view moving yarn as a game and plaything, so they like to pounce from various positions (above, beneath, behind, beside). My cats are allowed outside as long as they stay inside the yard, which they usually do, so they really enjoy getting out any open doors. And, of course, cats really like to be where the people are and they enjoy exploring, so basements are a really neat area for them to get into, especially if the door is usually closed.
Apparently, however, my cats have been elevated to god-like status and are not to be interfered-with or disturbed in any way. Tobey in particular really enjoys sleeping in the chair in the Grumpaw’s office, and if he is sitting there, my father is unable to pick him up and relocate him to any chair (say, the one that is adjacent to the one he is sitting in). When they try to use the computer in the other room, the cats spot a wasted lap and immediately proceed to sit in it, which can interfere with typing, and occasionally they’ll walk across the keyboard. When this used to happen at my house, I would pick them up and put them on the floor, or blow at their faces, which horrified them and would cause them to leave on their own. My parents are apparently incapable of doing this. Maybe it’s their diminished lung capacity from being old.
The older cats remember the house from when they lived there with me at periodic intervals before I grew up and got my own place. They used to be able to go outside and roam the yard at their leisure. They expect the same privileges now, and my parents indulge their whims. They are let out, and monitored, and then let in when they want to eat some food or get some attention. Smudge is thrilled beyond belief that she has a yard to play in and routinely engages my mother in a game she finds irresistible. When it’s time to come in, she’ll run away, and when my mother catches up to her, she’ll run to the next spot, and wait for my poor mother to catch up. This continues until Smudge is either caught or gets bored with the game, unless it’s dinnertime, when she really wants to come in and be fed extra food and treats.
Caspar has them trained that it’s “Treat Time” right around 9:00 p.m. He comes to each of my parents, and pats them on the leg, and meows his squeaky little meow, and they are supposed to dole out treats. It’s very interesting, because he NEVER did that at my house.
I visited them the other day and observed some strange parental behaviour. I had taken the dogs with me, and Cooter, as you know, loooooves Smudge. He follows her around staring at her. He was instructed, by the Grumpaw, to “quit chasing the cats!”. Now Smudge is well-aware of Cooter’s intentions (that he follows her but at least knows his boundaries), and is able to let him know when he steps out of line by bopping him on the head with her little, tiny, white, furry paw. He will then back off, lie down and engage her in the “play” stance, which she ignores and goes about her business ignoring. He’ll continue following her, and she’ll continue on.
However, it seems she interpreted this command by the Grumpaw as instruction for her to tease the poor animal, which she then proceeded to do. She ran under his nose a couple of times. When we all sat down to dinner, she jumped right over his head and looked down at him. I should note that she jumped ONTO the dinner table, which has always been forbidden, but under this strange new god-like status, the cats are apparently allowed on the dinner table now.
She was also allowed to stay up there, watching us eat, and when she approached the Grumpaw’s dinner plate, he simply told her “You’re not getting my dinner.” And then he just watched as she got closer and closer, and when she was within reach of a morsel, he took his plate away. He thought the better of it when he reached the kitchen, though, and said that he was sure the cats would enjoy the gravy he had left… so he put the plate on the ground, and it was immediately cleaned up by the dogs. Not his intention! He admonished them, and then told my mother and me to save our gravy for the cats.
Smudge also approached the butter to try to get it, but he took that away, too, so I guess her privileges do have some limits. My mother, as well, cut her last piece of dinner into four small slices, which she then fed to the cats in turn. Each one gets a piece! No one may be left out! Of course not, because their feelings would be hurt.
The Grumpaw was instructed to feed the dogs some dog biscuits while my mother and I went out. He only gave them one biscuit each! When we got home, my mother, upon discovery of this, proceeded to feed them as many as they could stuff into their greedy little mouths.
I’m starting to think my parents need a pet of their own to spoil. When I get the cats over to our house, Rob is probably not going to be too keen on the fact that they’ll want to come in and take over. At least we’ll have the cat police on our side in that the dogs seem to know when the cats are doing stuff they’re not supposed to, and that grants them permission to chase them a little. I think now that the cats are in a dog-free environment, they realize it and are running rampant.
My parents are so lucky they get to spend time with my cats. I envy them, and can’t wait for the cats to come to our new home. It may be a while longer than we thought, but I guess all that means is they’ll get a little fatter where they are and enjoy a few more days of “extra privileges”. It’s nice to know they’re being well looked-after, though.
So I had called to ask him how things were, see what’s going on, ask about the cats… when I got to the cats, he told me to get them out of his house. So I asked “What’s the problem”, expecting a tale of betrayal and tears, possibly about a roast being stolen off the kitchen counter…
No, it was that the cats “prevent [them] from doing things!”. “Like what?” I ask, innocently enough, knowing that when they were living with me, they were fantastic cats who never interfered with my daily life.
I was informed that the cats prevent them from:
- Reading the newspaper
- Knitting
- Using the computer
- Using the Grumpaw’s office
- Going up and down the stairs to the basement
- Going in and out of the house
Cats enjoy a good, spread-out newspaper. They believe it is an invitation for them, and specifically laid out for them, to lie down upon so you can pay them some overdue attention. Young cats in particular view moving yarn as a game and plaything, so they like to pounce from various positions (above, beneath, behind, beside). My cats are allowed outside as long as they stay inside the yard, which they usually do, so they really enjoy getting out any open doors. And, of course, cats really like to be where the people are and they enjoy exploring, so basements are a really neat area for them to get into, especially if the door is usually closed.
Apparently, however, my cats have been elevated to god-like status and are not to be interfered-with or disturbed in any way. Tobey in particular really enjoys sleeping in the chair in the Grumpaw’s office, and if he is sitting there, my father is unable to pick him up and relocate him to any chair (say, the one that is adjacent to the one he is sitting in). When they try to use the computer in the other room, the cats spot a wasted lap and immediately proceed to sit in it, which can interfere with typing, and occasionally they’ll walk across the keyboard. When this used to happen at my house, I would pick them up and put them on the floor, or blow at their faces, which horrified them and would cause them to leave on their own. My parents are apparently incapable of doing this. Maybe it’s their diminished lung capacity from being old.
The older cats remember the house from when they lived there with me at periodic intervals before I grew up and got my own place. They used to be able to go outside and roam the yard at their leisure. They expect the same privileges now, and my parents indulge their whims. They are let out, and monitored, and then let in when they want to eat some food or get some attention. Smudge is thrilled beyond belief that she has a yard to play in and routinely engages my mother in a game she finds irresistible. When it’s time to come in, she’ll run away, and when my mother catches up to her, she’ll run to the next spot, and wait for my poor mother to catch up. This continues until Smudge is either caught or gets bored with the game, unless it’s dinnertime, when she really wants to come in and be fed extra food and treats.
Caspar has them trained that it’s “Treat Time” right around 9:00 p.m. He comes to each of my parents, and pats them on the leg, and meows his squeaky little meow, and they are supposed to dole out treats. It’s very interesting, because he NEVER did that at my house.
I visited them the other day and observed some strange parental behaviour. I had taken the dogs with me, and Cooter, as you know, loooooves Smudge. He follows her around staring at her. He was instructed, by the Grumpaw, to “quit chasing the cats!”. Now Smudge is well-aware of Cooter’s intentions (that he follows her but at least knows his boundaries), and is able to let him know when he steps out of line by bopping him on the head with her little, tiny, white, furry paw. He will then back off, lie down and engage her in the “play” stance, which she ignores and goes about her business ignoring. He’ll continue following her, and she’ll continue on.
However, it seems she interpreted this command by the Grumpaw as instruction for her to tease the poor animal, which she then proceeded to do. She ran under his nose a couple of times. When we all sat down to dinner, she jumped right over his head and looked down at him. I should note that she jumped ONTO the dinner table, which has always been forbidden, but under this strange new god-like status, the cats are apparently allowed on the dinner table now.
She was also allowed to stay up there, watching us eat, and when she approached the Grumpaw’s dinner plate, he simply told her “You’re not getting my dinner.” And then he just watched as she got closer and closer, and when she was within reach of a morsel, he took his plate away. He thought the better of it when he reached the kitchen, though, and said that he was sure the cats would enjoy the gravy he had left… so he put the plate on the ground, and it was immediately cleaned up by the dogs. Not his intention! He admonished them, and then told my mother and me to save our gravy for the cats.
Smudge also approached the butter to try to get it, but he took that away, too, so I guess her privileges do have some limits. My mother, as well, cut her last piece of dinner into four small slices, which she then fed to the cats in turn. Each one gets a piece! No one may be left out! Of course not, because their feelings would be hurt.
The Grumpaw was instructed to feed the dogs some dog biscuits while my mother and I went out. He only gave them one biscuit each! When we got home, my mother, upon discovery of this, proceeded to feed them as many as they could stuff into their greedy little mouths.
I’m starting to think my parents need a pet of their own to spoil. When I get the cats over to our house, Rob is probably not going to be too keen on the fact that they’ll want to come in and take over. At least we’ll have the cat police on our side in that the dogs seem to know when the cats are doing stuff they’re not supposed to, and that grants them permission to chase them a little. I think now that the cats are in a dog-free environment, they realize it and are running rampant.
My parents are so lucky they get to spend time with my cats. I envy them, and can’t wait for the cats to come to our new home. It may be a while longer than we thought, but I guess all that means is they’ll get a little fatter where they are and enjoy a few more days of “extra privileges”. It’s nice to know they’re being well looked-after, though.
Friday, January 14, 2005
Cooter the Destroyer
Rob’s dog, Cooter, is a nice little dog. OK, not exactly “little”, but not huge or anything. He’s manageable. He’s a border collie-regular collie cross. He is very, very cute, and has these folded-over ears and bright eyes, and when he cocks his head to look at you like you’re nuts, you can’t help but feel all your anger dissolve instantly into absolute and total love for the little creature.
However, Cooter is a little devil, and I think he knows he’s cute, and I think he uses it to his advantage. Where the NoodleDog likes all things food (pretty much anything, as I’m sure I’ve detailed here before), Cooter loves to chew up stuff that he’s not supposed to get. The list included many things up until this week: 1 roll drywall tape, 1 Christmas Picture (the good one from the Mobility Christmas party - he left the other two which were not as good), 1 bottle of Lysol (which he emptied onto the living room carpet before chewing up), 3 dog beds (completely shredded), 1 string Christmas lights (unplugged, thank god), 1 case cat food (minus the 3 salmon-flavoured cans which he didn't like for some reason and only chewed up rather than actually ate), 1 10-kg bag of sugar, 1 Atari, 2 Atari paddles, and 1 Intellivision.
This week, Cooter has outdone himself. The other evening, when I got home (they’re lucky I get home before Rob does, or there would be severe punishments), Cooter darted out the door before I could even look at the kitchen to see what he had managed to destroy. We had taken pretty much everything out of the kitchen, which is where the dogs are confined during the day so Cooter doesn’t demolish the house, but I like to leave a dog bed for the NoodleDog to lie on (man, that dog likes his comfort). Cooter is really quite active and doesn’t seem to have much time to lie around, but the NoodleDog likes to have somewhere soft to lie down. Either way, the NoodleDog seems powerless to stop the destruction, and Cooter likes to chew stuff, so the only thing available nowadays is the NoodleDog’s dog bed. Which was shredded when I got home that afternoon. The stuffing was everywhere, literally, in the kitchen, and the NoodleDog was trying to lie on the largest remaining intact piece of fluff from inside the bed.
So Cooter, knowing he had done wrong, but apparently being completely unable to stop himself, ran outside before I could tell him “BAD CHEWY!!! BAD!!!”, and when I tried to get him to come inside, he wouldn’t. He just looked at me from across the yard, tilting his head, trying to figure out what his chances of escaping punishment were (slim, but not non-existent). I had to leave him outside when I left to pick up Smudge from the vet and take her over to my parents’ place for recuperation time (she had been in to get spayed). Cooter was very lucky that is wasn’t that cold out that afternoon, because the next day, the temperature plummeted to –30C with a severe windchill. It has been too cold to leave him outside for even just half a day for three days now. Poor guy. His ears would freeze, and he gets these little balls of ice built-up between his toes when he stays outside for any prolonged period now that there is snow everywhere. Rob has walked them in the mornings for the past few days (thanks!), but they’ve been short walks, and I think the NoodleDog gets really cold. He has bare skin on his tummy and under his arms! He can’t stay out in this weather. And it’s not like Cooter is a husky or anything, with a thick layer of insulation under his top-coat of fur – he’s just got a lot of hair, really.
At any rate, the following day, we kept on taking everything out of the kitchen, or we put it up where we thought he couldn’t get it. Cooter then learned to jump up onto the kitchen table and get stuff off to chew on and destroy, and in addition to that, he turned his attention to shoes (one of mine, the demise of which greatly saddens me) and sandals (Rob’s – he’s the only person who would have sandals lying around this time of year!). He got a box with a sweater in it off the kitchen table, and the repair manual for the Jeep, and as if that wasn’t enough, he chewed the kitchen table leg to smithereens. SMITHEREENS!
So, again, they were lucky I got home first. I cleaned up most of the mess, and then I called Rob to let him know we were gonna need that crate I lent to Buzz… we can’t continue to lose things to the dog! Even if he is so damned cute! So we got the crate, and I think both of us felt guilty about putting him in there, so we have tried an alternate route: We have put cayenne pepper on everything in the kitchen. We cayanned the table & chair legs. We cayanned the shoes that he had chewed. We cayanned rags and left them around as bait to see if he’ll chew them.
So far, it has worked. He didn’t destroy too much yesterday, and I was impressed when I got home in the afternoon – only the dog bed was destroyed, and there were a few forbidden things lying on the floor, but they were intact. I did notice that the water dish contained a few clumps of cayenne pepper, so presumably, he gave it a try and didn’t like the cayenne, and then had to go and drink some water to wash out his mouth. We have left him un-crated again today in the hopes that he proves we don’t have to crate him, but at least we have the option now.
The worst thing is that Cooter now expects me to be mad at him when I get home after work. I feel terrible, because the poor little fellow looked so sad when I got home yesterday, and he kind of shrank away from me petting him and telling him he was good for not destroying more in the kitchen (I figure the dog bed shredding is a par for the course with leaving him inside for the day when he’s used to being outside chewing on whatever he can get his little teeth on). He really knows when he’s in trouble, but I don’t think he really understands why we’re so upset. I would hate for him to associate my coming home with bad things. I love how he brings me his toys as soon as I get home, hoping I’ll play with him (which I usually do), and he’s the most adorable hug-y dog – he puts his front paws on my shoulders and leans in to me for hugs!
So if you know of effective methods of teaching dogs not to chew your stuff, let me know. With the NoodleDog, he chewed a couple of things, but I showed him the items, told him he was Very Bad, and then imprisoned him in his crate for a little while so he could think about what he had done, and he pretty much stopped chewing. I had thought he would be a lot harder to train because everyone told me Labs have a propensity to chew everything, especially furniture, but so far, he hasn’t show any interest in chewing much that isn’t food. Sure, he gets into chocolate chips and cakes and cheezies from the counter, but that’s edible, and I can’t really blame him for that because he’s only following his instinct to EAT. With Cooter, he just chews anything. He gets bored, I’m sure, because the NoodleDog won’t play with him during naptime, and he’s really used to being able to do whatever he wants. With the cats moving in at the end of February, I can’t see us locking everyone in the kitchen for long. The cats won’t like that at all.
Anyway, here’s hoping that when I get home, the kitchen is intact, and that Cooter doesn’t shun me. And that the weather gets a WHOLE LOT BETTER. –30C is TOO COLD.
However, Cooter is a little devil, and I think he knows he’s cute, and I think he uses it to his advantage. Where the NoodleDog likes all things food (pretty much anything, as I’m sure I’ve detailed here before), Cooter loves to chew up stuff that he’s not supposed to get. The list included many things up until this week: 1 roll drywall tape, 1 Christmas Picture (the good one from the Mobility Christmas party - he left the other two which were not as good), 1 bottle of Lysol (which he emptied onto the living room carpet before chewing up), 3 dog beds (completely shredded), 1 string Christmas lights (unplugged, thank god), 1 case cat food (minus the 3 salmon-flavoured cans which he didn't like for some reason and only chewed up rather than actually ate), 1 10-kg bag of sugar, 1 Atari, 2 Atari paddles, and 1 Intellivision.
This week, Cooter has outdone himself. The other evening, when I got home (they’re lucky I get home before Rob does, or there would be severe punishments), Cooter darted out the door before I could even look at the kitchen to see what he had managed to destroy. We had taken pretty much everything out of the kitchen, which is where the dogs are confined during the day so Cooter doesn’t demolish the house, but I like to leave a dog bed for the NoodleDog to lie on (man, that dog likes his comfort). Cooter is really quite active and doesn’t seem to have much time to lie around, but the NoodleDog likes to have somewhere soft to lie down. Either way, the NoodleDog seems powerless to stop the destruction, and Cooter likes to chew stuff, so the only thing available nowadays is the NoodleDog’s dog bed. Which was shredded when I got home that afternoon. The stuffing was everywhere, literally, in the kitchen, and the NoodleDog was trying to lie on the largest remaining intact piece of fluff from inside the bed.
So Cooter, knowing he had done wrong, but apparently being completely unable to stop himself, ran outside before I could tell him “BAD CHEWY!!! BAD!!!”, and when I tried to get him to come inside, he wouldn’t. He just looked at me from across the yard, tilting his head, trying to figure out what his chances of escaping punishment were (slim, but not non-existent). I had to leave him outside when I left to pick up Smudge from the vet and take her over to my parents’ place for recuperation time (she had been in to get spayed). Cooter was very lucky that is wasn’t that cold out that afternoon, because the next day, the temperature plummeted to –30C with a severe windchill. It has been too cold to leave him outside for even just half a day for three days now. Poor guy. His ears would freeze, and he gets these little balls of ice built-up between his toes when he stays outside for any prolonged period now that there is snow everywhere. Rob has walked them in the mornings for the past few days (thanks!), but they’ve been short walks, and I think the NoodleDog gets really cold. He has bare skin on his tummy and under his arms! He can’t stay out in this weather. And it’s not like Cooter is a husky or anything, with a thick layer of insulation under his top-coat of fur – he’s just got a lot of hair, really.
At any rate, the following day, we kept on taking everything out of the kitchen, or we put it up where we thought he couldn’t get it. Cooter then learned to jump up onto the kitchen table and get stuff off to chew on and destroy, and in addition to that, he turned his attention to shoes (one of mine, the demise of which greatly saddens me) and sandals (Rob’s – he’s the only person who would have sandals lying around this time of year!). He got a box with a sweater in it off the kitchen table, and the repair manual for the Jeep, and as if that wasn’t enough, he chewed the kitchen table leg to smithereens. SMITHEREENS!
So, again, they were lucky I got home first. I cleaned up most of the mess, and then I called Rob to let him know we were gonna need that crate I lent to Buzz… we can’t continue to lose things to the dog! Even if he is so damned cute! So we got the crate, and I think both of us felt guilty about putting him in there, so we have tried an alternate route: We have put cayenne pepper on everything in the kitchen. We cayanned the table & chair legs. We cayanned the shoes that he had chewed. We cayanned rags and left them around as bait to see if he’ll chew them.
So far, it has worked. He didn’t destroy too much yesterday, and I was impressed when I got home in the afternoon – only the dog bed was destroyed, and there were a few forbidden things lying on the floor, but they were intact. I did notice that the water dish contained a few clumps of cayenne pepper, so presumably, he gave it a try and didn’t like the cayenne, and then had to go and drink some water to wash out his mouth. We have left him un-crated again today in the hopes that he proves we don’t have to crate him, but at least we have the option now.
The worst thing is that Cooter now expects me to be mad at him when I get home after work. I feel terrible, because the poor little fellow looked so sad when I got home yesterday, and he kind of shrank away from me petting him and telling him he was good for not destroying more in the kitchen (I figure the dog bed shredding is a par for the course with leaving him inside for the day when he’s used to being outside chewing on whatever he can get his little teeth on). He really knows when he’s in trouble, but I don’t think he really understands why we’re so upset. I would hate for him to associate my coming home with bad things. I love how he brings me his toys as soon as I get home, hoping I’ll play with him (which I usually do), and he’s the most adorable hug-y dog – he puts his front paws on my shoulders and leans in to me for hugs!
So if you know of effective methods of teaching dogs not to chew your stuff, let me know. With the NoodleDog, he chewed a couple of things, but I showed him the items, told him he was Very Bad, and then imprisoned him in his crate for a little while so he could think about what he had done, and he pretty much stopped chewing. I had thought he would be a lot harder to train because everyone told me Labs have a propensity to chew everything, especially furniture, but so far, he hasn’t show any interest in chewing much that isn’t food. Sure, he gets into chocolate chips and cakes and cheezies from the counter, but that’s edible, and I can’t really blame him for that because he’s only following his instinct to EAT. With Cooter, he just chews anything. He gets bored, I’m sure, because the NoodleDog won’t play with him during naptime, and he’s really used to being able to do whatever he wants. With the cats moving in at the end of February, I can’t see us locking everyone in the kitchen for long. The cats won’t like that at all.
Anyway, here’s hoping that when I get home, the kitchen is intact, and that Cooter doesn’t shun me. And that the weather gets a WHOLE LOT BETTER. –30C is TOO COLD.
Monday, January 10, 2005
Sickness, dog-related destruction, and general stupidity
I think Rob’s subconscious might hate me.
I have been noticing a few little things off and on now for the past couple of months that might possibly indicate that Rob’s subconscious might hate me. Oh, just a few little things here or there that you can probably laugh off and say “ha ha, that’s funny, in hindsight…”, but that, at the time, really bug you and make you wonder why someone you care about, who claims to care so much about you, too, would want to torture you so. There are no overt actions against me, no. Nothing obvious. But little sneaking things that suggest that either he has no idea that what he’s doing would bother you, or that it’s a carefully planned strategy to drive you insane and take all your stuff and your pets once you are committed.
For instance, last week, Rob’s subconscious gave me the ‘flu. Oh sure, you say, it might just have been coincidence, and you contracted the ‘flu at around the same time from the same source as Rob, or just accidentally from Rob himself with no malice aforethought. But no, I discount that, and say it was his subconscious that did it, and did it knowingly. I might even think, if I were paranoid (and I am, but only a little), that he contracted the ‘flu on purpose just so he could give it to me.
So last weekend, he was ill and didn’t have to miss much in the way of work. We had already come back from camping, so he wasn’t missing that, either. He recuperated on Monday (which was a holiday here) and Tuesday (which wasn’t), and by Tuesday noon, I was starting to feel unwell and had to leave work. I made it back to my parents’ place just in time to hit the bathroom there, and then collected the NoodleDog and made my way home, chanting to myself “I can make it, I can make it…” After that, it all gets a little hazy, and I vaguely remember lying at various points on my bed, in my bed, on the floor in the bathroom, and on the sofa for a couple of days. I drank some ginger ale, some water, and some soup broth (after I was feeling a bit better). Tuesday afternoon and most of Wednesday were complete write-offs, but by Thursday, I finally felt well enough to lie around listening to the radio.
There was a small blizzard on Thursday, enough to cause snow to accumulate and temperatures to plummet, and to cause the Powers That Be to decide to close the highway after a 60-car pileup occurred a short distance North of where I lived. I say “lived”, because as soon as I heard on the radio that the highway was going to be closed, I decided there was no way in hell I was going to be trapped in Airdrie, and immediately jumped out of bed and into the shower, and then packed up the cats and the dogs and some essential belongings, and headed South into the city. I dropped the cats off at my parents’ place (so they can enjoy their grandcats for a while until Rob’s roommate moves out, which is supposed to be February 1, now) and then headed down to Rob’s place, which will now be referred to as “the house” or “home”.
The weekend then began inauspiciously, when I arrived home on Friday and found complete and utter destruction. We had, again, left the NoodleDog and Cooter in the kitchen, although we penned ‘em in pretty good. We mistakenly thought that we had removed the destructible items from the room. We were very wrong.
When I got into the house, the dogs greeted me cheerfully. They were so happy someone had come to let them out of their prison! After I had petted them and told them how nice it was to have someone greet me with love and furry attention, I looked up into the kitchen. I had to look twice, because I wasn’t sure it was the same kitchen I had left them in earlier that day. It was really covered in a sea of green fluff, which Cooter had expertly extracted from his dog bed, which we had left him for his COMFORT but he had unzippered and then chewed the zipper off, the better to get at the yummy contents inside! The green fluff was everywhere.
In and around and underneath the green fluff were little pieces of paper, and bits of tin can, and other debris. We had (again, mistakenly) left a small case of cat food (12 cans of ocean flavour delights!) on the kitchen floor. It met its demise and the cardboard outside had been shredded and chewed, and the cans had also met a similar fate. The only theory at this point is that Cooter, in a fit of complete and utter boredom, had chewed up the cardboard and had accidentally punctured one of the cans, whereupon the NoodleDog recognized the contents as food and set about destroying all of the other cans (with Cooter’s help). These are the little tins with the pull-top lids, and they were completed decimated. The only survivors were the salmon-flavoured ones, which for some reason, the dogs only chewed up enough so retained their rough shape, but had to be thrown-out due to the numerous punctures.
I sent the dogs outside immediately, in spite of the absolute frickin’ cold, and started to clean the kitchen in a hurry, lest Rob come home and see the destruction. I went to the corner of the kitchen to get a better look at the disaster area so I could try to figure out where to begin, and then noticed the 10kg bag of sugar that had once been on the kitchen table, and was now on the floor, with a large hole chewed right out of the middle of it, and started to laugh. I laughed and laughed at the absurdity. I called Rob and advised him of the situation, since now there was no way he couldn’t find out. I called my mother to detail the hilarity, so that at least SOMEone would appreciate the funniness of the scene. I also took digital pictures, so I could show Rob after I cleaned it up and it wasn’t quite so overwhelming, but funny in hindsight. And then I cleaned it all up.
However, the kitchen smelled strongly of cat food. Cat food isn’t a smell you want lingering around, and if you have a cat, you know what I’m talking about. Especially when the cat food is the Ocean Flavours Delights! variety pack. Presumably, during the Hurricane Cooter, the cat food cans, being pierced by sharp little doggie teeth, spilled their yummy juices all over the floor (and, by the by, the dogs, getting stuck in all their fur), which is where they dried and became intractable. The kitchen had to be washed that evening, which was the highlight of Friday.
Saturday was a brighter day. A colder day, mind you, but a brighter one. We got up, ate breakfast and lounged around a bit. We mapped out our weekend, making lists of things to do and accomplish. It looked fairly favourable. We set out to my old place to pack stuff up in the truck and haul it down to the house. And the roads completely sucked and were icy, and Rob had to drive slowly in the truck so it wouldn’t go off the road. I did see a poor lone bald eagle near the river, and wished him well, and wondered what the hell he was still doing up here since it was obviously so fricking cold out that nothing he could want to eat would be out roaming around ready to get picked-off.
And when we got to my old place, we packed and carried (well, mostly Rob carried, but I helped occasionally), and we accomplished a lot more than I thought we would that day. We hauled all the stuff down to Rob’s place and got it into his house. It was good. I was pleased with the amount of stuff that had been done. Sure, it’s not exactly where I had planned to be by now (I thought I would have had more time over Christmas to get this stuff done so I could be cleaning the place by now and listing it this week, which is definitely not the case at all), but taking the day into consideration, and the weather, and the sicknesses we had endured, we’re not too far behind schedule.
Saturday late afternoon/early evening, we ran errands. We visited the cats and left my parents with the NoodleDog and Cooter for their entertainment, a purely selfless gesture on our part. We ran our errands in the area and picked up our dogs, wished the cats and my parents a good evening, and went out for dinner. We ate a fantastic dinner! It was great. I was pleased with the day. But the day was not at all pleased with me, and my dinner did not agree with me, and by the time we had returned home, my stomach was starting to rumble with discontent, and I spent another evening hanging around the bathroom, making sure it was accessible when I needed it. I have to say, with the Crohn’s thing I have going on, I should probably be used to this sort of thing, but after being sick last week and this recent dinner-related activity, that is just about enough of that for the rest of the year. I do not want to be sick at all any more. Ever.
By Sunday, though, both Rob and I were a little tired-out. All that activity the day before had taken its toll. Weekends are supposed to be for frivolity and fun, people, not moving stuff around endlessly. But, there we were, faced with a whole house’s worth of stuff to get moved, and no movers hired for the job. So we drove BACK up to Airdrie, and packed MORE stuff into the truck, and lifted MORE heavy things, and it was even COLDER than the day before. I mean, it was stupidly cold. It was so cold that your lungs started to freeze because the air failed to warm up in your nose on the way down. There are these little bones in your nose, over which blood-enriched skin is stretched, the aim of which is to warm air coming into your body. It was too cold for that system to function adequately, and the air that was being sucked into my lungs was so cold that my lungs rejected it in favour of suffocation.
And I started to get frustrated because I was still not feeling good, and my stomach was again making rumbly noises and I was sad that I hadn’t just hired another set of movers and packed up all my stuff in December like I had originally planned. So I started to get a little snappy, and as soon as I said anything snappy, I felt terrible, because Rob is so patient and good and he never gets snappy with me. Why is that? Because his subconscious hates me and wants to make me feel guilty, that’s why.
We did not get as much accomplished on Sunday. We got some things accomplished, which is good, but not as much as Saturday, so the glaring difference between the two days glared at me and made me feel even worse, and by the time we got home on Sunday, I was in quite a state. I felt sick all the time, I was tired, and fed up with the idea of moving, since it’s been over a month now that we’ve been contemplating it and the idea is pretty oppressive, really, when you think about it for that long. Sunday evening, we just organized stuff. We set up television to watch (presumably, Rob now understands that when the TV is on, my brain shuts mostly off, which is probably a good thing sometimes) and moved stuff around during the commercials. It was much better that way. By the time we actually went to bed (we stayed up to watch “Changing Lanes”, which has a totally stupid ending, by the way, if, like me, you haven’t seen it yet because it looked alright, but not good enough to run out and rent), I was pretty tired.
This week, the goal is to get as much finished with the moving as possible. Sure, there will have to be at least one more big load with the truck, but I think that, for the most part, I can move stuff around with the use of my parents’ minivan, in spite of this damn cold snap. And I heard someone say last week that “January is supposed to be unseasonably cold”. What season, exactly, is colder than January? How is cold, in January, “unseasonable”? When it is even colder than you realized it could get. So let this be a lesson to you all: NEVER, EVER PLAN TO MOVE IN THE WINTER TIME unless you are stupid. I have never claimed to be brilliant. I have never really even claimed to be all that clever, although I sometimes try to be. However, I have never pictured myself as someone truly stupid, but apparently, I am. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
And cold. Stay warm out there, everyone.
I have been noticing a few little things off and on now for the past couple of months that might possibly indicate that Rob’s subconscious might hate me. Oh, just a few little things here or there that you can probably laugh off and say “ha ha, that’s funny, in hindsight…”, but that, at the time, really bug you and make you wonder why someone you care about, who claims to care so much about you, too, would want to torture you so. There are no overt actions against me, no. Nothing obvious. But little sneaking things that suggest that either he has no idea that what he’s doing would bother you, or that it’s a carefully planned strategy to drive you insane and take all your stuff and your pets once you are committed.
For instance, last week, Rob’s subconscious gave me the ‘flu. Oh sure, you say, it might just have been coincidence, and you contracted the ‘flu at around the same time from the same source as Rob, or just accidentally from Rob himself with no malice aforethought. But no, I discount that, and say it was his subconscious that did it, and did it knowingly. I might even think, if I were paranoid (and I am, but only a little), that he contracted the ‘flu on purpose just so he could give it to me.
So last weekend, he was ill and didn’t have to miss much in the way of work. We had already come back from camping, so he wasn’t missing that, either. He recuperated on Monday (which was a holiday here) and Tuesday (which wasn’t), and by Tuesday noon, I was starting to feel unwell and had to leave work. I made it back to my parents’ place just in time to hit the bathroom there, and then collected the NoodleDog and made my way home, chanting to myself “I can make it, I can make it…” After that, it all gets a little hazy, and I vaguely remember lying at various points on my bed, in my bed, on the floor in the bathroom, and on the sofa for a couple of days. I drank some ginger ale, some water, and some soup broth (after I was feeling a bit better). Tuesday afternoon and most of Wednesday were complete write-offs, but by Thursday, I finally felt well enough to lie around listening to the radio.
There was a small blizzard on Thursday, enough to cause snow to accumulate and temperatures to plummet, and to cause the Powers That Be to decide to close the highway after a 60-car pileup occurred a short distance North of where I lived. I say “lived”, because as soon as I heard on the radio that the highway was going to be closed, I decided there was no way in hell I was going to be trapped in Airdrie, and immediately jumped out of bed and into the shower, and then packed up the cats and the dogs and some essential belongings, and headed South into the city. I dropped the cats off at my parents’ place (so they can enjoy their grandcats for a while until Rob’s roommate moves out, which is supposed to be February 1, now) and then headed down to Rob’s place, which will now be referred to as “the house” or “home”.
The weekend then began inauspiciously, when I arrived home on Friday and found complete and utter destruction. We had, again, left the NoodleDog and Cooter in the kitchen, although we penned ‘em in pretty good. We mistakenly thought that we had removed the destructible items from the room. We were very wrong.
When I got into the house, the dogs greeted me cheerfully. They were so happy someone had come to let them out of their prison! After I had petted them and told them how nice it was to have someone greet me with love and furry attention, I looked up into the kitchen. I had to look twice, because I wasn’t sure it was the same kitchen I had left them in earlier that day. It was really covered in a sea of green fluff, which Cooter had expertly extracted from his dog bed, which we had left him for his COMFORT but he had unzippered and then chewed the zipper off, the better to get at the yummy contents inside! The green fluff was everywhere.
In and around and underneath the green fluff were little pieces of paper, and bits of tin can, and other debris. We had (again, mistakenly) left a small case of cat food (12 cans of ocean flavour delights!) on the kitchen floor. It met its demise and the cardboard outside had been shredded and chewed, and the cans had also met a similar fate. The only theory at this point is that Cooter, in a fit of complete and utter boredom, had chewed up the cardboard and had accidentally punctured one of the cans, whereupon the NoodleDog recognized the contents as food and set about destroying all of the other cans (with Cooter’s help). These are the little tins with the pull-top lids, and they were completed decimated. The only survivors were the salmon-flavoured ones, which for some reason, the dogs only chewed up enough so retained their rough shape, but had to be thrown-out due to the numerous punctures.
I sent the dogs outside immediately, in spite of the absolute frickin’ cold, and started to clean the kitchen in a hurry, lest Rob come home and see the destruction. I went to the corner of the kitchen to get a better look at the disaster area so I could try to figure out where to begin, and then noticed the 10kg bag of sugar that had once been on the kitchen table, and was now on the floor, with a large hole chewed right out of the middle of it, and started to laugh. I laughed and laughed at the absurdity. I called Rob and advised him of the situation, since now there was no way he couldn’t find out. I called my mother to detail the hilarity, so that at least SOMEone would appreciate the funniness of the scene. I also took digital pictures, so I could show Rob after I cleaned it up and it wasn’t quite so overwhelming, but funny in hindsight. And then I cleaned it all up.
However, the kitchen smelled strongly of cat food. Cat food isn’t a smell you want lingering around, and if you have a cat, you know what I’m talking about. Especially when the cat food is the Ocean Flavours Delights! variety pack. Presumably, during the Hurricane Cooter, the cat food cans, being pierced by sharp little doggie teeth, spilled their yummy juices all over the floor (and, by the by, the dogs, getting stuck in all their fur), which is where they dried and became intractable. The kitchen had to be washed that evening, which was the highlight of Friday.
Saturday was a brighter day. A colder day, mind you, but a brighter one. We got up, ate breakfast and lounged around a bit. We mapped out our weekend, making lists of things to do and accomplish. It looked fairly favourable. We set out to my old place to pack stuff up in the truck and haul it down to the house. And the roads completely sucked and were icy, and Rob had to drive slowly in the truck so it wouldn’t go off the road. I did see a poor lone bald eagle near the river, and wished him well, and wondered what the hell he was still doing up here since it was obviously so fricking cold out that nothing he could want to eat would be out roaming around ready to get picked-off.
And when we got to my old place, we packed and carried (well, mostly Rob carried, but I helped occasionally), and we accomplished a lot more than I thought we would that day. We hauled all the stuff down to Rob’s place and got it into his house. It was good. I was pleased with the amount of stuff that had been done. Sure, it’s not exactly where I had planned to be by now (I thought I would have had more time over Christmas to get this stuff done so I could be cleaning the place by now and listing it this week, which is definitely not the case at all), but taking the day into consideration, and the weather, and the sicknesses we had endured, we’re not too far behind schedule.
Saturday late afternoon/early evening, we ran errands. We visited the cats and left my parents with the NoodleDog and Cooter for their entertainment, a purely selfless gesture on our part. We ran our errands in the area and picked up our dogs, wished the cats and my parents a good evening, and went out for dinner. We ate a fantastic dinner! It was great. I was pleased with the day. But the day was not at all pleased with me, and my dinner did not agree with me, and by the time we had returned home, my stomach was starting to rumble with discontent, and I spent another evening hanging around the bathroom, making sure it was accessible when I needed it. I have to say, with the Crohn’s thing I have going on, I should probably be used to this sort of thing, but after being sick last week and this recent dinner-related activity, that is just about enough of that for the rest of the year. I do not want to be sick at all any more. Ever.
By Sunday, though, both Rob and I were a little tired-out. All that activity the day before had taken its toll. Weekends are supposed to be for frivolity and fun, people, not moving stuff around endlessly. But, there we were, faced with a whole house’s worth of stuff to get moved, and no movers hired for the job. So we drove BACK up to Airdrie, and packed MORE stuff into the truck, and lifted MORE heavy things, and it was even COLDER than the day before. I mean, it was stupidly cold. It was so cold that your lungs started to freeze because the air failed to warm up in your nose on the way down. There are these little bones in your nose, over which blood-enriched skin is stretched, the aim of which is to warm air coming into your body. It was too cold for that system to function adequately, and the air that was being sucked into my lungs was so cold that my lungs rejected it in favour of suffocation.
And I started to get frustrated because I was still not feeling good, and my stomach was again making rumbly noises and I was sad that I hadn’t just hired another set of movers and packed up all my stuff in December like I had originally planned. So I started to get a little snappy, and as soon as I said anything snappy, I felt terrible, because Rob is so patient and good and he never gets snappy with me. Why is that? Because his subconscious hates me and wants to make me feel guilty, that’s why.
We did not get as much accomplished on Sunday. We got some things accomplished, which is good, but not as much as Saturday, so the glaring difference between the two days glared at me and made me feel even worse, and by the time we got home on Sunday, I was in quite a state. I felt sick all the time, I was tired, and fed up with the idea of moving, since it’s been over a month now that we’ve been contemplating it and the idea is pretty oppressive, really, when you think about it for that long. Sunday evening, we just organized stuff. We set up television to watch (presumably, Rob now understands that when the TV is on, my brain shuts mostly off, which is probably a good thing sometimes) and moved stuff around during the commercials. It was much better that way. By the time we actually went to bed (we stayed up to watch “Changing Lanes”, which has a totally stupid ending, by the way, if, like me, you haven’t seen it yet because it looked alright, but not good enough to run out and rent), I was pretty tired.
This week, the goal is to get as much finished with the moving as possible. Sure, there will have to be at least one more big load with the truck, but I think that, for the most part, I can move stuff around with the use of my parents’ minivan, in spite of this damn cold snap. And I heard someone say last week that “January is supposed to be unseasonably cold”. What season, exactly, is colder than January? How is cold, in January, “unseasonable”? When it is even colder than you realized it could get. So let this be a lesson to you all: NEVER, EVER PLAN TO MOVE IN THE WINTER TIME unless you are stupid. I have never claimed to be brilliant. I have never really even claimed to be all that clever, although I sometimes try to be. However, I have never pictured myself as someone truly stupid, but apparently, I am. Stupid, stupid, stupid.
And cold. Stay warm out there, everyone.
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
Unfrozen Fun!
Hi everyone! I have not frozen to death! I am alive, and, well, I’m somewhat warm but the cold I’m feeling today is more a function of my workplace’s faulty thermostats than anything else. It is brutally cold out (-25C) when I got up this morning, but the camping trip was a success.
When I arrived at the campsite on Friday afternoon, I was grouchy and irritable and it was cold outside. I’m afraid I wasn’t very forgiving about the whole idea, and it took a bit of convincing by Rob that I wasn’t going to freeze my ass off, but when I finally smartened up and went back outside clad in my winter-proof suits (fleece jump-suit beneath, winter-proof “big brown” style outerwear outside), I was fine.
The campsite was north of Waiporous in the Forestry Area. It only took me about an hour and a half to get there from my house, which was fine. I did get stuck in the snow when I got to the site for a few minutes, but got pushed out and managed to park the car. The NoodleDog wasn’t about to wait around for me to get parked, so he jumped out the window to play with all the other dogs. He took a particular liking to poor Sancho and followed him around the entire time we were there. I think it might be loooove.
New Year’s Eve dinner consisted of hot dogs, because it was too much of a pain to cook the pork chops we had brought. I didn’t care – hot dogs were fine by me. I was hungry by then. And it was cold, so drinking was commenced immediately. The action was centered in a cook-shelter that was at the site – it was an octagonal structure about 70 feet in diameter with three picnic tables and a fireplace opposite the door. There was, indeed, a propane heater set up inside the structure, although I’m informed it was all perfectly safe.
Installing myself in front of the fire, I ate dinner and chatted with the other seemingly insane campers. The fire was Very Hot. It was so hot, in fact, that Rob burned the seat out of his pants just by standing in front of it. No lesson was learned from that, and the next day, while I was warming my ass up (because no one tells you this, but your ass is the part of you that is most susceptible to cold by being sat on all the time) the Very Hot fire melted the inside of my winter-proof suit. The inside of my winter-proof suit is/was nylon. It is also weather-proof, and keeps out both the cold AND the heat, so in some ways, it is counter-productive. However, the melting wasn’t severe, and it didn’t adhere to much (except the suit I had on underneath that one, which didn’t melt, so that was OK). When another camper noticed I was steaming, I moved away. I went to sit down, and burned my poor ass, which was quite confused by then, and it cooled right down after that again. The extent of the melting wasn’t discovered until we went home.
However, back to New Year’s Eve. Drinking. Lots of rye. Rob was pouring my drinks and mixing them pretty lightly, so I wasn’t at all sure there was any rye in them, so I just had to drink them faster and faster. I had purchased, for the expedition, a gallon of rye. Yes, folks, you can get rye in gallon containers if you know where to shop! And not just bargain-basement rye, either, this stuff was pretty nice. At any rate, the only measure of consumption was the gallon jug, and by the end of the evening, I figure I had consumed about a third of it, although Rob had a rye, too, before he switched to beer and Black Russians (ugh!).
So by around 8p, I was slowing down. We had eaten dinner, and had been sitting around for about three hours by then, and that’s tiring stuff. So in a blatant attempt to keep me interested, Rob brought out the flaming cheese. We had arranged to make flaming cheese for the party, and it takes some coordination to achieve. Basically, you fry a wedge of cheese in butter, pour brandy over it, light it and then put out the ensuing fire with lemon juice (freshly-squeezed, if possible). So he fried the cheese, with my commentary, and I poured the brandy over it. He lit it and we both served it up. It was a hit! Even the lone lactose-intolerant member of the party ate the cheese. The one exception? Jones, who refused the tasty, tempting cheese at all costs.
Karaoke was brought out, and people sang. It was fantastic! But again, by around 10:30p, I was tired and wanted to go to bed. We had also agreed to provide “Sugar-on-Snow” for the party, which involves boiling maple syrup until it is thick enough (“soft-ball stage” on candy thermometers, for those of you that have them…), whereupon you drizzle it over packed snow. It hardens slightly, and you end up with maple taffy which you pick at with forks and eat until it is gone.
I was left in charge of boiling the syrup. There were several problems with this scenario. One, I was totally, totally drunk. Two, the pot I had been instructed to use was very large. Three, the thermometer I was using was not long enough to reach the syrup at the bottom of the pot, so I had to keep dipping it in with my gloves on (so I wouldn’t burn my hand on the steam) to check the temperature. You can see how the complicating factors might result in burned syrup? Well, they did. The syrup burned ever-so-slightly, and we poured it on the snow, and it was fine. I ate a bunch of it anyway. So did the dogs. Hopefully, people enjoyed it, but I couldn’t tell – I was totally drunk!
Soon enough, midnight rolled around. I had also procured rosé champagne for the outing, and left that in Rob’s capable, less drunken hands to open. However, as midnight rolled around (we could tell because we turned the radio on), Rob was nowhere to be seen! Where was he? I wandered around the cook-shelter, looking for him in case I just couldn’t see him because I was too drunk. No, he was definitely not in the shelter (there were very few places one could hide in the shelter). He was outside, peeing. Nice. Nice way to start the New Year. Looking for my guy, who was outside, peeing.
He was found, champagne was distributed, and after that, I was done. I went to bed. I am informed that I went to bed and passed right out, and that no amount of cajoling or light shaking could get me to move, so Rob rejoined the party, seeing that no action in the camper was available. I’m fine with that. I was sleeping. It was warm in the camper – it was suitably cold-proofed. There was the furnace running, a 3000-BTU heater running, a winter-weight sleeping bag beneath us above the mattress, a comforter above that, and a feather duvet above that, and another, thicker duvet to sleep beneath, as well as an electric blanket which wasn’t quite functional (thanks to Cooter, who has not learned the LESSON OF INEDIBLE THINGS).
The next day, we did not get up early. We got up very late. We slept in, and were warm. It was cold outside. When we finally did get up, Rob made croissants for breakfast, along with, as you’ve already guessed, BACON! Yay! I also had some cheese, because I like cheese.
We ate in the cook-shelter (since it was freezing cold outside, of course). We sat around the fire. The cook-shelter was a bit stinky, so one of the other girls and I looked all around for the source of the bad smell, which we couldn’t find. We played cribbage with Mark & Jen, who had just learned and were very keen on playing. It was fun. By the afternoon, I was ready to leave because the shelter had cooled-off somewhat and my ass was, again, cold (this was after the ass-melting incident). Rob had kindly started both my car and his truck to ensure we would be set to leave when we wanted to, so the car was warmed-up by then. Everything was packed-up and the NoodleDog and Cooter were loaded, and we were off to my house. Where we have a furnace and television and a stove and an oven to cook things.
We did not use the oven or the stove, we ordered pizza instead. Rob wasn’t feeling well by that night, and by the morning, he had a full-on case of the ‘flu. So it was a good thing we left when we did, because he was pretty sick. I opened my birthday presents anyway, and they were fantastic! I’m so lucky!!
That day, Rob did not make it far from the bed, so I walked the doggies, who were fine with that and weren’t even all that cold. I had on my winter-proof outfit (melted ass notwithstanding), so I wasn’t too cold. The one drawback to the winter-proof outfit is that it has no face protection. I have to get a scarf or some sort of wind-proof barrier I can put on over my neck and chin.
I also went for dinner with my family – we fondued. We have done this before, so you’d think we’d know what we’re doing, but we obviously do not. First off, my siblings were late to dinner, and since I had an ailing patient at home, I didn’t want to have to hang around too late. Secondly, the fondue pot I was at wasn’t functioning properly. It hadn’t been plugged-in properly, and wasn’t full enough of oil, so cooking the meat was an issue. Once we got everything going, though, it was a good time.
However, the post-dinner conversation degenerated once my father started talking about Alicia Silverstone, the Great Actress of Our Time. Apparently, he used to watch Miss Match, and has been a fan of Alicia’s since her Clueless days (which, by all accounts, have not ended). He even liked that one she did with Benicio Del Toro, which I can’t really argue with because I kind of laughed at it, too, since he was pretty cute as the hapless kidnapper-victim… Great acting, it was not, though. My father apparently believes that Alicia Silverstone “isn’t great-looking, but does a good job acting no matter what role she has”. Anyway, this statement started an argument with my brother, who countered with Meryl Streep as the Great Actress of Our Time, whereupon my father pooh-poohed her acting talents. His quote was “The only thing Meryl Streep is famous for is never doing two movies with the same accent. Hell, the only movie I can think of that she actually did in English was Bridges of Madison County…”
The entire table started yelling (not that they weren’t before) about actresses and acting ability, and Ashley Judd, Julianne Moore, and many others were brought up. I took this as a sign that I could leave, and did. I packed up my dogs and headed home to find Rob on the sofa, having tired of the bed. We sat and watched True Lies, the Movie That Never Ends. Seriously – we had gone to bed, after transferring to the upstairs TV to finish off the dumb movie, and it went on for 45 more minutes. It was painful, and I kind of hoped Arnie’s kid would fall off the stupid Harrier Jet.
And that was the weekend. I didn’t work yesterday, in case you were worried I had frozen to death in the wilderness. I hacked around. We drove to Rob’s place (the truck and camper needed to be brought home), and I went to Wal Mart on a relatively fruitless expedition in search of cat food. It was $0.40/can at Wal Mart, which I felt was too much. I then tried the Petcetera nearby, and found it there for $0.55/can, which was outrageous, so now I have to go BACK to Wal Mart again and battle the stupid crowds just to get cat food. Yeesh.
Maybe it’s a good thing I’m at work today.
When I arrived at the campsite on Friday afternoon, I was grouchy and irritable and it was cold outside. I’m afraid I wasn’t very forgiving about the whole idea, and it took a bit of convincing by Rob that I wasn’t going to freeze my ass off, but when I finally smartened up and went back outside clad in my winter-proof suits (fleece jump-suit beneath, winter-proof “big brown” style outerwear outside), I was fine.
The campsite was north of Waiporous in the Forestry Area. It only took me about an hour and a half to get there from my house, which was fine. I did get stuck in the snow when I got to the site for a few minutes, but got pushed out and managed to park the car. The NoodleDog wasn’t about to wait around for me to get parked, so he jumped out the window to play with all the other dogs. He took a particular liking to poor Sancho and followed him around the entire time we were there. I think it might be loooove.
New Year’s Eve dinner consisted of hot dogs, because it was too much of a pain to cook the pork chops we had brought. I didn’t care – hot dogs were fine by me. I was hungry by then. And it was cold, so drinking was commenced immediately. The action was centered in a cook-shelter that was at the site – it was an octagonal structure about 70 feet in diameter with three picnic tables and a fireplace opposite the door. There was, indeed, a propane heater set up inside the structure, although I’m informed it was all perfectly safe.
Installing myself in front of the fire, I ate dinner and chatted with the other seemingly insane campers. The fire was Very Hot. It was so hot, in fact, that Rob burned the seat out of his pants just by standing in front of it. No lesson was learned from that, and the next day, while I was warming my ass up (because no one tells you this, but your ass is the part of you that is most susceptible to cold by being sat on all the time) the Very Hot fire melted the inside of my winter-proof suit. The inside of my winter-proof suit is/was nylon. It is also weather-proof, and keeps out both the cold AND the heat, so in some ways, it is counter-productive. However, the melting wasn’t severe, and it didn’t adhere to much (except the suit I had on underneath that one, which didn’t melt, so that was OK). When another camper noticed I was steaming, I moved away. I went to sit down, and burned my poor ass, which was quite confused by then, and it cooled right down after that again. The extent of the melting wasn’t discovered until we went home.
However, back to New Year’s Eve. Drinking. Lots of rye. Rob was pouring my drinks and mixing them pretty lightly, so I wasn’t at all sure there was any rye in them, so I just had to drink them faster and faster. I had purchased, for the expedition, a gallon of rye. Yes, folks, you can get rye in gallon containers if you know where to shop! And not just bargain-basement rye, either, this stuff was pretty nice. At any rate, the only measure of consumption was the gallon jug, and by the end of the evening, I figure I had consumed about a third of it, although Rob had a rye, too, before he switched to beer and Black Russians (ugh!).
So by around 8p, I was slowing down. We had eaten dinner, and had been sitting around for about three hours by then, and that’s tiring stuff. So in a blatant attempt to keep me interested, Rob brought out the flaming cheese. We had arranged to make flaming cheese for the party, and it takes some coordination to achieve. Basically, you fry a wedge of cheese in butter, pour brandy over it, light it and then put out the ensuing fire with lemon juice (freshly-squeezed, if possible). So he fried the cheese, with my commentary, and I poured the brandy over it. He lit it and we both served it up. It was a hit! Even the lone lactose-intolerant member of the party ate the cheese. The one exception? Jones, who refused the tasty, tempting cheese at all costs.
Karaoke was brought out, and people sang. It was fantastic! But again, by around 10:30p, I was tired and wanted to go to bed. We had also agreed to provide “Sugar-on-Snow” for the party, which involves boiling maple syrup until it is thick enough (“soft-ball stage” on candy thermometers, for those of you that have them…), whereupon you drizzle it over packed snow. It hardens slightly, and you end up with maple taffy which you pick at with forks and eat until it is gone.
I was left in charge of boiling the syrup. There were several problems with this scenario. One, I was totally, totally drunk. Two, the pot I had been instructed to use was very large. Three, the thermometer I was using was not long enough to reach the syrup at the bottom of the pot, so I had to keep dipping it in with my gloves on (so I wouldn’t burn my hand on the steam) to check the temperature. You can see how the complicating factors might result in burned syrup? Well, they did. The syrup burned ever-so-slightly, and we poured it on the snow, and it was fine. I ate a bunch of it anyway. So did the dogs. Hopefully, people enjoyed it, but I couldn’t tell – I was totally drunk!
Soon enough, midnight rolled around. I had also procured rosé champagne for the outing, and left that in Rob’s capable, less drunken hands to open. However, as midnight rolled around (we could tell because we turned the radio on), Rob was nowhere to be seen! Where was he? I wandered around the cook-shelter, looking for him in case I just couldn’t see him because I was too drunk. No, he was definitely not in the shelter (there were very few places one could hide in the shelter). He was outside, peeing. Nice. Nice way to start the New Year. Looking for my guy, who was outside, peeing.
He was found, champagne was distributed, and after that, I was done. I went to bed. I am informed that I went to bed and passed right out, and that no amount of cajoling or light shaking could get me to move, so Rob rejoined the party, seeing that no action in the camper was available. I’m fine with that. I was sleeping. It was warm in the camper – it was suitably cold-proofed. There was the furnace running, a 3000-BTU heater running, a winter-weight sleeping bag beneath us above the mattress, a comforter above that, and a feather duvet above that, and another, thicker duvet to sleep beneath, as well as an electric blanket which wasn’t quite functional (thanks to Cooter, who has not learned the LESSON OF INEDIBLE THINGS).
The next day, we did not get up early. We got up very late. We slept in, and were warm. It was cold outside. When we finally did get up, Rob made croissants for breakfast, along with, as you’ve already guessed, BACON! Yay! I also had some cheese, because I like cheese.
We ate in the cook-shelter (since it was freezing cold outside, of course). We sat around the fire. The cook-shelter was a bit stinky, so one of the other girls and I looked all around for the source of the bad smell, which we couldn’t find. We played cribbage with Mark & Jen, who had just learned and were very keen on playing. It was fun. By the afternoon, I was ready to leave because the shelter had cooled-off somewhat and my ass was, again, cold (this was after the ass-melting incident). Rob had kindly started both my car and his truck to ensure we would be set to leave when we wanted to, so the car was warmed-up by then. Everything was packed-up and the NoodleDog and Cooter were loaded, and we were off to my house. Where we have a furnace and television and a stove and an oven to cook things.
We did not use the oven or the stove, we ordered pizza instead. Rob wasn’t feeling well by that night, and by the morning, he had a full-on case of the ‘flu. So it was a good thing we left when we did, because he was pretty sick. I opened my birthday presents anyway, and they were fantastic! I’m so lucky!!
That day, Rob did not make it far from the bed, so I walked the doggies, who were fine with that and weren’t even all that cold. I had on my winter-proof outfit (melted ass notwithstanding), so I wasn’t too cold. The one drawback to the winter-proof outfit is that it has no face protection. I have to get a scarf or some sort of wind-proof barrier I can put on over my neck and chin.
I also went for dinner with my family – we fondued. We have done this before, so you’d think we’d know what we’re doing, but we obviously do not. First off, my siblings were late to dinner, and since I had an ailing patient at home, I didn’t want to have to hang around too late. Secondly, the fondue pot I was at wasn’t functioning properly. It hadn’t been plugged-in properly, and wasn’t full enough of oil, so cooking the meat was an issue. Once we got everything going, though, it was a good time.
However, the post-dinner conversation degenerated once my father started talking about Alicia Silverstone, the Great Actress of Our Time. Apparently, he used to watch Miss Match, and has been a fan of Alicia’s since her Clueless days (which, by all accounts, have not ended). He even liked that one she did with Benicio Del Toro, which I can’t really argue with because I kind of laughed at it, too, since he was pretty cute as the hapless kidnapper-victim… Great acting, it was not, though. My father apparently believes that Alicia Silverstone “isn’t great-looking, but does a good job acting no matter what role she has”. Anyway, this statement started an argument with my brother, who countered with Meryl Streep as the Great Actress of Our Time, whereupon my father pooh-poohed her acting talents. His quote was “The only thing Meryl Streep is famous for is never doing two movies with the same accent. Hell, the only movie I can think of that she actually did in English was Bridges of Madison County…”
The entire table started yelling (not that they weren’t before) about actresses and acting ability, and Ashley Judd, Julianne Moore, and many others were brought up. I took this as a sign that I could leave, and did. I packed up my dogs and headed home to find Rob on the sofa, having tired of the bed. We sat and watched True Lies, the Movie That Never Ends. Seriously – we had gone to bed, after transferring to the upstairs TV to finish off the dumb movie, and it went on for 45 more minutes. It was painful, and I kind of hoped Arnie’s kid would fall off the stupid Harrier Jet.
And that was the weekend. I didn’t work yesterday, in case you were worried I had frozen to death in the wilderness. I hacked around. We drove to Rob’s place (the truck and camper needed to be brought home), and I went to Wal Mart on a relatively fruitless expedition in search of cat food. It was $0.40/can at Wal Mart, which I felt was too much. I then tried the Petcetera nearby, and found it there for $0.55/can, which was outrageous, so now I have to go BACK to Wal Mart again and battle the stupid crowds just to get cat food. Yeesh.
Maybe it’s a good thing I’m at work today.
