tidbits for a friday

 

To the best of my knowledge, Denton owns a time machine.

To the best of my knowledge, Chad has accumulated a massive fanbase in Regina and will be continuing towards his end goal of Total and Complete World Domination. I’m sure this is why he hasn’t updated his blog since he moved to Regina.

To the best of my knowledge, The Dog is playing video games whenever I come to work and leave her loose in the house.

And why does my MSN web messenger always kack out in the afternoon? How can I avoid working if I am not able to freely discuss with Diamond D the custody schedules for future book purchases?!?

And why won’t someone write a novel that centers around me and my dog and our adventures travelling across Canada on the rails? (while leaving out the part where I’m such a clutz that I’ll probably fall and be decapitated the first time I try to jump into a train car)

I can’t believe I didn’t find this two weeks ago when I could have *followed* these directions!!!

Our December was cold and snowy and more snowy, then some more snowy.  It has since begun to melt.

I regret that I did not see this video until yesterday.

How to build an igloo, starring two people whose names I cannot spell

And does anyone else miss these National Film Board short documentaries just appearing between television shows?

I’m so goth

I’m trying a new theme here at Gypyhick. Wordpress hosting translates to being unable to design my own blog  (other than by purchase of a custom CSS package) so I am left to pick from a plethora of preset colour, columns and styles to overlay when the whim hits.

There were pink, green, dancing and banana-flavoured themes but I just had to go with this red and black gothy look in memory of the 5-10 years of my life where my closet was composed of two colors: black and burgundy.

Ode to my chain smoking, boysroom-using, artiste, belly laughing, card playing 21 year old self!

thwarted

I’m going to show you a disturbing photo. You should sit down before viewing this horrifying image:

Pair of Degus photographed by JSx

Terrifying, isn’t it? (shudder)

I was standing at the SPCA with cell phone to ear, looking through the glass into one of the Bunny Rooms and there this little creature sat, whispering violent threats in my direction. Or maybe he was just scratching his face. Whatever it was, my stomach was tingling.

My very persuasive friend was trying to talk me through finding appealing characteristics within these rodents. I can usually find the silver lining, and he can talk me into damn near anything, so this seemed like a promising exercise that would surely result in a love affair with all forms of rodentia that would last a lifetime. I was picturing a D-isney scene, singing bunnies and flowers as we frolicked about in dance. My friend, with his girlfriends calming voice in the background, kept telling me that these “degus” (if that is in fact their real name) are furry and happy, always a bunnies’ best friend and a harmless tropical squirrel. I studied them and tried to see that ”squirrel” part – I like squirrels. I used to feed them and visit them and laugh at their antics in the park. But alas, I couldn’t see past the scuttling movements of a giant mouse-creature, long tail, urge to kill humans apparent on its face. If you crossed a mouse with a rat, you’d get this… thing.  I stood there for a very very long time trying to find something appealing, something that would make me eager to handle these furry prospective pets. It still made me feel anxious as I watched them dash around the little room.

The persuasive friend and his gf (the Amazing Dark Lightning) have a minilop that I can’t get enough of but sadly they live Far Away. In order to satisfy my Bunny Mania between visits to their home, I thought to volunteer as a “Bunny Exerciser“. Everything was fine until the volunteer coordinator asked me if there were any animals I wasn’t particularly fond of. I practically shouted “MICE!” before she’d even finished her sentence.

The rodents all live together at the SPCA. In order to exercise and cuddle the bunnies, I have to exercise and cuddle the rodents. The MICE. RATS. DEGUS. The deadly rodents that are plotting our violent deaths in their tiny little heads.

No bloody way is the SPCA going to be a safe and loving environment while I’m squealing, trying not to drop the bunnies as I do that “ew ew ew” dance qhe less cute and deadly rodents come towards us.

I shouldn’t have been honest – I’m banned from the Bunny Rooms until I can be at peace with all the rodents.

Stupid degus.

neglectful

I’ve been neglecting my online home. There are towels on the floor, dead plants in the corners, a good inch of dust laying about on everything and I’m beginning to fear that I’d better come in and make it livable before appendage-less creatures and mice take it over as their own.

The plague is still lingering in our offline home, congested chests and feverish humans curling into thick blankets on any available soft surface near the television. We’ve watched more partial CSI episodes than I could ever imagine existed, gently tossing cold medications to one another between trips to the kitchen to retrieve hot toddies and cold treats. Erotic sighs stem from frozen fruit bars and hot hot water sliding down our inflamed throats. The house temperature is so cold then really really hot then icey cold again but never for the same two people at the same time and the thermostat wars ended in futility on day two. It’s been nearly three weeks and although the fevers have died down and the sinus pain is manageable without pharmaceutical assistance, the phlegmy coughing is our new Symptom Of The Week.

The Dog, she is some worried. She wanders from couch to couch nosing the humans, often curling up beside the least healthy among us. Late at night when we’re finally awake enough to discover that a bed would be a nicer place to spend the night, she curls up so close so she can feel our breathing throughout the night.

We could be infecting each other over and over, the probability of three different sicknesses brought into the Townhouse of Love and exchanged on hand towels and door knobs. I just started working with a new company in health care and my first week’s training occurred at the hospital and could have seen me tracking home some terrifyingly named viruses and bacteria. I was the happy recipient of the flu shot and I’m some upset that whatever we’ve got isn’t being defeated by the antibodies I drove across town to get via intramuscular injection.

Mostly we’re just plain quietly miserable here at the Townhouse. The piling up of housework and Lists Of Things That Must Be Done grows while all of us spend each day with our reasonably new employers pretending that we’re happy and healthy and fantastically enthusiastic while downing symptom-hiding medications and existing on willpower alone.  Each of us enters the house in the evening, exchanging outer wear and work clothes for sweat pants and flannel to collapse and suffer until the next morning calls us back to our new jobs as actors.

We tiredly fight a battle against this plague but orange juice just isn’t shielding us from devastation. We have been sending the dishes through the heavy super-heated dishwashing cycle. Multivitamins are inhaled like oxygen. The scents of eucalyptus and lemon is strong and our love affair with bleach has been kindled out of desperation.

Send penicillin. Send it quickly.

a day off

I’m off today. A whole long day with no work and the house to myself and nothing urgent to take care of.

Ah, yeah.

So far, I’ve sworn I will do no menial things that will turn this into a “work day”. Today shall be a day OFF. I shall enjoy it. I will knit mittens or cunning hats. I will shop for new work clothes including jeans that make this ass look as amazing as it should. I hope to mail a very late birthday present. I could bead my name onto my new pottery apron to personalize it and so that, just maybe, my new instructor will stop calling me “Jane”. I will take a leisurely walk at the dog park with The Dog. I may have a long hot shower. I will enjoy this coffee while surfing the internet and enjoying the sun streaming into the living room.

Then I noticed the husband’s dirty socks in the corner of the living room. Since I was heading into the basement anyway, I grabbed them and took them with me to the laundry room. While I was grabbing some clean clothing in the laundry room I noticed some of the recycling was falling out of the storage closet so I went in and just… straightened up a bit. When I came back upstairs to feed the dog and repour a new cup of coffee since my original was a bit chilly, the lack of spoons had me noting that the dishwasher was full of sparkly clean dishes. Since I was in there anyway, I just grabbed the contents and put it away and then, to get the job completed, I filled it back up, wondering who the heck is using so many cookie sheets and piling them on top of the stove? Who does that? And are there cookies somewhere that I should be aware of. Finally, a cup of hot coffee again poured and as I made my way into the living room to check my email, the overwhelming filth of the carpet tried to trip me on my way to the couch. So I just did a quick vacuum while noting that the Coffee Table of Cluttery Doom had really become far too doomy and empty water bottles were actually overflowing onto the floor I was trying to just quickly neaten. So I just grabbed them quickly and went to the recycle closet where I discovered that SOMEONE has been just throwing their poptart boxes on top of the bins rather than putting them into the correct one. While taking care of that AND pondering how someone in this house is eating poptarts (and cookies – where are the cookies that are the result of all the dirty cookie sheets?!?) without sharing their breakfast candy with me, the can bin mentioned it was a bit full and could probably use a bagging and storing. After I told the can bin that I was busy enjoying my day off, but sure, just this once, I returned with the bagged cans to the earlier-straightened recycling storage, delighted in how lovely it looked. With a smile, I returned to the kitchen to notice that two hours have passed and I still haven’t had a whole cup of coffee.

The whole time, the dog watched me and went about her normal morning business: sitting on the back of the loveseat, gazing out the window, monitoring the neighborhood.

(NOte: I did have that long hot shower after scrubbing those rings off the side of the tub and doing just a bit of an attempt to get the scum from between the tiles. And we did get to the park and walked twice as far as usual, chatting with nice people and rubbing lots of friendly fur. Now, to resist the giant pile of stuff in the living room we refer to as “The Yarn Pile”…)

we’re so pretty

This is what we’d look like if we were Modigliani paintings:

Wow, I’m so glad I’m a real person rather than what this painter would make me out to be. And double ditto on that for The Husband.

Ok, now YOU do it! Face transformer

things i’m afraid of

As inspired by the lovely and talented schmutzie:

Things I’m Afraid of In No Specific Order:

1. Mold
2. Slugs
3. the Crohn’s Disease that’s taken up residence in my gut
4. Our art room
5. Snakes
6. Losing more babies
7. Meaninglessness
8. Mirrors at night
9. Regrets
10. Losing The Husband
11. Escalators
12. George W. Bush
13. Finding dead bodies on nature walks
14. Betrayal
15. High speed car accidents
16. Fear
17. Falling to addiction
18. Fast moving mice
19. Dying
20. The All Blacks Rugby Team and their intimidatory dancing (The Husband mightily agrees after this afternoon’s match. Wowsahs.)

How about you?

salting the earth

This:

is my personal saviour.

I have a little problem with beastly things that lack appendages. If it ain’t got armpits, I’m not interested in sharing space, air, or a glance back and forth (house mice are an exception. I hate them too even with their little quick-moving appendages). While the lesser offenders are earth worms and escargot, the greatest of all evil is the slug. It leaves a slick trail of goo as it travels through my garden destroying all it can get it’s slimy eyeballs on. It serves no purpose that I know of other than to glisten in the night sky and give me the serious heebie jeebies.

In Vancouver, giant banana slugs as well as teensy black inch long slugs invaded my yard and I set slug traps in our ongoing war. The Husband had to check the traps because even being a foot away from dead slugs had me jumping from foot to foot and gagging, but still, I fought the… things daily. I kept a large bag of salt next to the door and my mother in law would watch, considerably worried, when I danced throughout the yard, yelling at the ground and sprawling salt with violent obsession. She, like many, thought that I loved all creatures, big and small, and that I believed we should all hold hands and sing kumbaya around a campfire. Hell, the little slimy buggers even like beer – and ya know how I like beer so you’d think we’d be compatible.

But no. No appendages, thus no love. I hadn’t seen a slug since we came to Cowtown. Until tonight. In my backyard. By the dozens.

I’ve salted the earth in the darkness while The Dog watched curiously. If nothing grows back, I’ll be content as long as the slugs have been successfully murdered, turned to mush, and unable to multiply.

Thanks for the peace of mind, Sifto.

Importanter Things

It’s Wednesday and I have much important work that I should be muttering over and making important calls about, however, I Just. Don’t. Want. To.

Instead, let’s look at some of the things in my cubicle.

1. See my pretty toes? Ha ha – it’s FILTHY under that nail but you cannot, able-eyed viewer, confirm this fact because it is painted pink. Yes, I am still amazed at this camouflage technique. I plan to shove my entire garden under that nail later this evening and then see if the children next door notice the plantlife blooming from underneath. They’re very honest children. They’ll tell me if my toes remain deceptively pretty.

2. This gargoyle is wearing my tiara. When I’m in a snit and have decided that Negotiation Is Futile, I don the tiara and kick some arse. It’s only happened twice in two years, and once was during a tug-o-war competition, so all’s pretty peaceful around here.

3. The Husband just avoided a collision with a badger. He is also not wearing his safety sandals as, once safely away from the scene, he flicked open his cell phone while driving to advise me that he just avoided a car accident. With a badger. Which is odd because we were just yesterday discussing badgers as The Creature That Freak Us Out. The Husband was once trapped on the roof of a car in the middle of a city by a very pissed off badger. Although, even if you knew him, you’d be surprised at the amount of times he’s found himself trapped on the roof of a car.

4. Speaking of Creatures That Freak Us Out (and I was, just above), we are not a brave people. We pretend to be brave. We volunteer for things that would require bravery. Many people actually think we are brave but they are WRONG. It is hard to admit this weakness even when trapped in one’s backyard at midnight with The Husband, The Dog, and Oneself and realizing the only thing barring entrance into the house is a KITTEN…

Sure, that kitten was hissing and spitting and really really pissed off and got even more freaky if we came within three feet. It *really* freaked out if the dog even looked in her direction. However. It was a KITTEN. They represent soft tissue and cuddliness. And there we were, confused and plotting to find a way back into our domicile without coming within attack radius of the wee furry animal. We eventually found a towel (yay for not cleaning up the backyard!), threw it over the cat, ran the bundle across the courtyard, then ran quickly away from the pile of towel kitty.

That didn’t have anything to do with my cubicle here at work except that the original badger call came in while I was sitting in this cube, and that started the whole digression.

5. I wrote another miffy letter from my work PC. I do that quite a bit. The Husband rolls his eyes and inquires who I’ve been wronged by now that I must express myself. I’ve written to candy makers, pork producers, political candidates. Behold, an exerp from my latest communication:

“Dear Foreign Vehicle Import Lobby Group;

I just wanted to advise that I spotted your lobby sticker “Like My Ride? Why doesn’t the Government?” on the back of an interesting looking vehicle. I have since been to your website as indicated on the sticker, and understand that your group would like the government to allow foreign vehicles older than 15 years imported into Canada.

I’m unsure if your message was appreciated by those caught behind your vehicle as it was difficult to breath, much less read your sticker, through the THE BLACK CLOUDS OF SMOKE pouring out of the vehicle’s tail pipe.

All I could think while being bathed in stanky oil smoke was “NO – I don’t like your filthy ride!” Possibly you should reconsider your advertising technique? Or was this some sort of complex work of sarcasm and irony?

Yours truly;

Environment (and nifty vehicle) Loving Gypsyhick”

6. I tried to hold out but I find this entertaining thus have decided that you will find it entertaining as well. Here’s a dog thing:

While in Yellowknife, we ran across a family of dog-mushers. They race sled dogs. REALLY. They have 30+ dogs that they raise and train for endurance-testing races such as the Iditarod. I was so impressed that I picked up a pack of their Dog Trading Cards. Each card has the dog’s parentage, role in the race, personality and race statistics. Denton even went back and got me their (the HUMANS) autographs on their respective cards.

And with that, Wednesday is over and it’s time to go home and see if The Dogs have destroyed the kitchen while I’ve been here not working.