NoodleDog

This time of year is always busy. Busy with social stuff, but also busy with work. We have a bunch of projects that all year-end at December 31, so there is a ton of work associated with that, and it’s Annual General Meeting time at my commercial properties, so I’ve been trying to set those up and get them over with. Being busy is not a bad thing, necessarily, but it’s busy. It means I’m worried about more things than usual, and I have a lot on my mind.

Add to that the fundraiser that I’m working on for 1atatime, and the general family and friends obligations that come with Christmas time, and it makes for a tensed-up sort of feeling.

I love Christmas, I really do. I look forward to it as soon as October hits. I try and push it to the back of my mind through Hallowe’en, and through Remembrance Day, when I’m trying to be somber. By December, usually, I’m shopping and having fun and meeting people for drinks and food and good times. This year, though, I feel I really haven’t had the chance to get into the Christmas spirit at all.

We put our Christmas tree up on Sunday evening. I’ve wanted to get to it for the past couple of weeks, but there was never a good time. On Sunday, we hauled out some boxes of Christmas decorations, and put up the tree. Rob is sort of particular about his tree – he likes the fake tree, says it’s saving a real tree, which I can see. I, myself, prefer a live tree, and by that, I don’t mean a cut one, I mean a potted tree that will last year after year. I had a Norfolk Pine for a lot of years that I’d decorate every year, so my decorations tend to be small and light so they wouldn’t break or bend the branches too much. We put the tree up without much fanfare, and decorating it was a little stressful because I was worried about Rob’s preferences and thought that my decorations wouldn’t fit in with his concept of a properly-decorated tree.

My family always had a nice big star, a home-made cardboard star covered in tinfoil – it seemed to emanate love, you know? Or the feeling of family, anyway. In later years, after the cardboard star had endured numerous Christmas batterings, we retired it in favour of a shiny plastic sort of star/snowflake sort of thing. I never liked the star/snowflake as much. We also had home-made ornaments in with the fancy ones, the sorts of things kids will make in craft classes that are sort of ugly, but sort of pretty and heart-warming.
Rob is strictly an Angel man. He likes an Angel at the top of the tree. To me, it suggests a little too much religiosity, but I can live with it. It doesn’t bother me at all, but it’s different. And the fake tree is different. His decorations are all very nice and matching. Mine are more of a higgeldy-piggedly sort of grouping of small silk Christmas balls, little white snowflakes, little maché apples, some coloured glass balls that have survived the cats over a period of eleven years (originally a package of twelve, I think five or six remain), and various ribbons I bought in an effort to class up my tree. Oh, and candy canes – you can’t have a tree without candy canes.

We have a mix on the tree this year – some of his, some of mine. And last year, during the post-Christmas sales, we bought a package of silver balls and some plastic snowflake thingies (the snowflakes, I think, I rationalized because they weren’t breakable, but the balls are another matter entirely).

Smudge sees the Christmas tree as a large toy, purchased and set up entirely for her own amusement. The first day, she was content to just bat the ornaments off the lower branches, but the second morning, she was halfway up the tree, nesting in it and chewing on nearby ornaments. My little snowflakes seem to bear the brunt of her fascination, and she also knocked off one of the silver balls and broke it. She is a little devil, but oh-so pretty. She even looks like an ornament, herself, so I’m actually a little charmed when she nests in the tree.

It drives Cooter bananas, though. We blocked the tree off from the dogs with the feared and hated vacuum cleaner and the two sofas so they wouldn’t try to eat or destroy it, and he can’t get at her when she’s under or in the tree. He can see her, and he can see evidence that she is there, what with the tree shaking like it’s possessed, but he can’t get at her. And it doesn’t help when I yell “Smudge! No!! Get out of there!!” and he can’t do anything about it. Usually, if one of the cats is doing something untoward, I say “NO!” and the dogs take that as a sign to “get” them. They never really do anything to the cats, but they sort of pounce at them, and Cooter will nudge them with his nose, and he thinks that’s performing the biggest duty in the house ever. He’s confounded by the tree, though. Even if he could get near the tree, he wouldn’t be able to reach her unless he sort of stood up to get her.

Adding to the stress is a sadness this year that eventually, someone will want to come and adopt Beau, my foster dog. I have gotten way too attached, and love him like I would love a child of my own. It absolutely breaks my heart to think that he wouldn’t be in my life any more. He is a funny little fellow… and is learning the rules of the house. He was so good yesterday – no destruction in the house at all, and he was quiet and well-behaved in the evening. We played ball yesterday, and he managed to get the ball from the NoodleDog and Cooter once, and he ran around with it in his mouth, trying to get the others to chase him all over the back field. He loved the attention and the game, and had a great time. He’s cute and cuddly and pays attention to me – the other dogs just listen to Rob and would prefer to snuggle with him. But Beau, my baby Beau, is really mine. Rob’s been trying to steal him, but I think Beau is still loyal to me.

I don’t know what I’ll do if someone actually takes him… he has just stolen my heart completely. I want to buy him Christmas presents, and take him to obedience school, and teach him to track, which I think he would just love. And I want to play with him, and snuggle him and tell him he’s loved more than he could ever imagine. I want to keep him close to me, and pet him all the time, and give him toys and treats and take care of him. I don’t know if it’s that I can imagine that the other dogs don’t really need me much – they really look to Rob for more of the care, and like his games better, and like his style better, or whatever – or if it’s just that he’s new and different and funny. I still love our dogs tons and tons, but Beau… I don’t know. Just the thought of losing him crushes me.

I didn’t really expect to get this attached to him. I knew he was a foster dog, and wanted him to find a happy home where he could be loved and have his own place. I figured we’d get him out of that wretched kennel and into a home situation where he could be happier until someone would adopt him, and I’d be glad to see him move on in his life and be someone else’s dog. But now, after having been around him for over a month, I love him more and more every day! He’s fitting in well with our dogs and cats, and he doesn’t cause too much trouble – no more than you’d expect from a dog his age with his energy level and attention span – and he’s easy to take care of when I’m already taking care of two other dogs anyway… it doesn’t cost much more to feed him, and he doesn’t take up too much room… and he’s smart and is learning all the rules, and, well, he just fits.

Rob, though, says that three dogs is too many. It’s “too hard” to go places with them, or “too hard” to travel if there are three of them to find someone to take care of them, or he can’t walk all three at once (I can walk all three at once – it’s a challenge, but it’s fun), or it’s a lot of trouble training another young dog, or it’s too much fur, or dirt, or dust or whatever. Or he just doesn’t want three. Two is better? I don’t see it, myself. I just don’t understand, I guess, how you could trade love for stuff like that. From my perspective, you deal with things if you have love motivating you. You vacuum more often. You arrange for friends to take care of them, or you board them if you have to go away. You figure out a way to take them with you if you can. You walk them separately if you have to.

Rob would like to have only two cats and only two dogs. I don’t know why two of each. Why not none? Why have any if they’re troublesome? You don’t NOT have pets because they’re troublesome… you have pets because you want them and you love them and can take care of them, and everyone’s lives are enriched by the experience. Yes, you have to cap it when you can’t take care of them at a certain standard. Two is an arbitrary number, though, and doesn’t fit with the standard of care model. One cat is a lonely number, two is better, and if you have two, you wouldn’t really notice a third, and if you have three, four is no problem. Yes, after four, you start getting into territoriality, and some cats don’t get along with the other animals in the house, and you certainly have to clean more. But really, if all the cats get along and you can care for them, four shouldn’t be a problem. Neither should five, if they all get along. I’m not asking for five cats, of course – I know better. There are some kittens on the shelter websites that could use homes, but I don’t ask for that…

With the dogs, you have one, and he’s alright by himself and he probably gets a lot of attention, and maybe a little spoiled. You have two, and they can play. And sure, you have two hands, so they’re easy to walk and you can deal with them. You add a third, and it gets a little more logistical when you’re thinking about leashes and walking and stuff, but really, it’s not that bad. Four, I’ll agree, depending on the dogs, can be too many. It’s pretty tricky to walk four dogs. It’s a little tricky walking three, I’ll agree, but it’s manageable, and will only get easier as the third dog learns how to walk properly and learns to “heel”. A third and fourth dog, well-trained, would probably not be much more trouble at all, though.

I don’t know. I’m trying to justify it, and there’s no point to trying. We simply won’t agree on this, and I’m not sure what will come of it. I’ll be very sad if/when someone adopts Beau.

The Jeep is still out of commission. Rob has been driving around in his truck with the camper on it for the past couple of weeks. We didn’t take the camper off the truck because we’re supposed to go camping for New Year’s, and the yard wasn’t set up to unload the camper, and we really ran out of time to do it to make it worthwhile. And the Jeep isn’t done yet. Rob is doing all of this body-work himself on the Jeep, and with the cost of the accidents (stress, time, aggravation, injury value, pain, etc.) and the additional time it’s taking to do the repairs, I have personally decided that doing things ourselves is no longer worthwhile. Fun, side-jobs that have no impact on our lives may be alright, as long as there are no artificial deadlines associated with them that would add any stress. But jobs that are necessary, like getting a daily driving car back on the road, are probably better left to professionals who have safety protocols and worker’s compensation and more than one person to do the work. It gets done faster, you pay the money you earn so you can live your life, and it’s over. You get your car back and it’s fixed. I don’t see the problem with this. You want to build a truck in the garage as a fun project? Fine. That has little impact on everyone’s day-to-day life. You get to do something you enjoy for fun as a hobby. Hobbies are good. And if you actually get a working truck out of the deal, even better. But if you’re talking about repairing a vehicle that you need, to try and do it at home when there’s no guarantee the repair will work, and it takes a lot longer than you expect, it seems like there’s a problem with that. You outlay the time and money for the repair, and possibly injure yourself in the process, and it just seems like some sort of law of diminishing return, or a negative labour productivity rate, and the opportunity cost is too high (I have been reading economics stuff today). I don’t understand, again.

Maybe I’m dense. Maybe, possibly, I’m extremely stupid. I have no idea. But from my perspective, you make the money at your job where you get paid so you can trade for goods and services. Repairing a car is a service. You can pay for it. They have people out there whose entire jobs are repairing cars. Just think of the impact to the economy if we all repaired our own cars!! Economic terms define waste as: “When the relative value of a good is different from that goods marginal cost of production, waste occurs. Goods or resources are wasted when they are allocated to uses which are not the most valuable.”

Gah.

So it doesn’t feel all that Christmas-y. I did a little shopping last weekend, and enjoyed that alright. I have a lot more shopping to do, of course, but we’ll see how that goes. I prefer to stay out of the malls when they’re crowded so that pretty much lets me out of shopping until Christmas. I will have to go one morning when the malls are a little quieter, hopefully.

I am also dreading a certain number of Christmas-related things, like the family gathering, because invariably, every single year, there is an argument, and I can’t stand the fighting at Christmas.

Maybe I don’t like Christmas as much as I thought. Maybe it’s just a big scam. Maybe, this year, I should just stay home in bed for Christmas, or spend it with the critters, who don’t fight about silly things, and don’t insult one another (at least that I know of or can hear). Maybe I should just forget about all the things I could hope for, and just be content not to be horribly, horribly injured, or witness anyone I care about being horribly, horribly injured this year in a back-yard or garage accident. I can tell I’m not in a great mood about all of this – what with the Beau situation and the stupid car repairs going on and the being too busy. It does not feel very Christmas-y at all this year. It’s busy and stressful and sad.