I met a moron yesterday.
I was meeting my friend and her family at her son's soccer game so I brought Buddy along. He was a bit nervous at first because it was a new situation and there were a lot of people, but he settled down after a few minutes. No sooner had I gotten him settled down, when this woman turns to me and tells me she doesn't like dogs, that she felt they belonged in the country were they could run free. I was a bit taken aback, but I offered to leave. I think she realized her tactlessness so then started saying that she didn't really mind dogs that much, that she had had a guard dog when she was a child that ripped an ankle off an intruder. Okay...
Then she says that what she REALLY hates is cats! She HATES them so much! They are sneaky and dirty and arrogant and she couldn't understand why anyone would want them in the house. And that's why she doesn't want dogs either. You always have to clean up after them, and do stuff for them, they are so NEEDY! I thought I'd shut her up by saying "Ya, that's why I don't like kids." (I DO like kids, I was just trying to shut her up!)
But that didn't work either. Then I had to listen to her go on and on and on about how great her 12 year old son was. He cleans the house, makes her breakfast, does her laundry, shovels the neighbours snow, takes out everybody's garbage blah-dee-blah-dee-blah. It was on the tip of my tongue to say that it sounded like she had her own little slave, but as she was Afro-Canadian I thought that would be in really poor taste.
Thankfully my friend suggested we go for a walk and when we returned, she was gone.
What a moron.

Adventures in Dogwalking

Greg and I have an agreement that the last one out of the house has to take Buddy for a walk around the block before heading off to work. It's usually me. You'd think that this would be a fairly simple task, but apparently for me, it's not.
Yesterday morning I had this great idea that I would enjoy a cup of coffee while I walked Buddykins. I had Buddy on a short leash, poo-bag and coffee in hand. We set out and shortly thereafter I noticed that Mr. Mao was also coming on the walk with us. I smiled to myself thinking "oh, how cute...Mao wants to come along!" Three houses down Buddy took a big poo. No problem. I put the coffee cup on the sidewalk, held on to Buddy's leash, deftly picked up the big load, and tied my one bag in a knot. Surely he was done.
Nope, next house another poo. Okay...a little trickier as I only had the one bag. Coffee cup on the sidewalk, reopen bag, juggle old poo but do manage to get it all in the bag. Mao watched curiously from a distance, probably wondering why I never clean the litter box every time after he and Dutchie use it.
Back to the poo. I thought he was done, but nooooo...he had to squeeze a little more out. Coffee cup on sidewalk, this time even trickier with the poo so I had to let go of the leash. Which is when Buddy saw Mao and the chase was on! First Mao, then Buddy, then me (with my 2lb bag of poo) racing down the street, and of course witnessed by the mailman.
I managed to get Buddy in the house, then had to go back and retrieve my coffee cup which was still sitting on the sidewalk at this point cold and being stepped over by the kids on their way to school.
On my way home from work last night I bought a Bright Red flexi-leash with a 16 foot lead. Paid $40 for it, but figured it would be worth it. It would give Buddy a little more freedom and maybe I could handle the poo situation better.
We set out this morning but I decided not to bring the coffee.
We made it halfway around the block on his new leash before he got tangled up around a hydro pole. Stupid me let go of the leash and the automatic recoil set in motion. It recoiled all right, and scared the shit out of Buddy! He started running but the handle just kept following him. He was terrified so ran even faster! The handle followed him faster! That dog can run like the wind! So can the flexi-leash handle. I ran too, although not like the wind...
I passed a man I had said hello to three minutes earlier while he admired my new puppy. He now shook his head and tried not to laugh.
Buddy was sitting on the front lawn out of breath. The brand new Bright Red flexi-leash also looked tired. It also looked like I've had it for ten years.

I can only thank god that the mailman didn't witness this.

Buddy and I discovered a gorgeous place where we could walk and he could be off-leash. It is located on top of the Scarborough Bluffs and overlooks Lake Ontario. There were a few other dog walkers there but really was quite isolated.

The only critter that made me a bit nervous was this fox that we met on our travels! I think if you click on the pic you might be able to see it better.

Pet therapy is a good thing. So is a two and half hour nature walk!

A Little Overdue...

...for a post!


I think the medication is starting to work. I'm no longer crying for no reason and the tennis ball in my sternum has dislodged itself, for the most part. Buddy has been a great distraction and we've all been going on long walks which is great because it gets us out doing things. He is really good off-leash, he stays close and comes when he is called. I think this is pretty good for a 6 month old puppy that we've only had for three weeks. Mr. Mao is slowly getting used to him, he must have realized that Buddy is here to stay. Dutchie couldn't give a crap, she's happy as long as she gets fed.


We've opted not to crate train him, mainly because we don't have a crate for him, but also because he's pretty good at playing with his toys and hasn't wrecked anything. I did catch him chewing on the fringes of one of my carpets, so I just rolled it up and put it in the closet for now. When we go to work, we leave him in our bedroom with the door closed. My brother (38 and retired for the past 12 years) has a little extra time on his hands so he has become our dog-walker. Which breaks up both of their days. The only glitch I've made with leaving Buddy in the bedroom, is that twice I've also inadvertently left Mr. Mao in the room with him, too! Poor Mao!


Speaking of Mr. Mao, he was almost abducted at the trailer park by a couple of well-meaning cat lovers! For the past 5 summers we've let him wander about, but he always stays close by, and our trailer-neighbours know him well. In fact, they always tell us how much they enjoy his little visits. It's never been problematic, and if it were, I'd make sure he stayed inside. One Sunday night, we decided that we would extend our weekend and leave the next morning instead. We were making dinner and a woman stopped by to tell us that someone had found a Siamese cat, was ours missing? Sure enough, when we called him he didn't come running like he usually does. We were told the cat was at the office but when we got there, they gave us two site numbers and advised us to check there. The first trailer site was literally two sites away, but it was across a little road. The site was empty. So, we made our way to try to find the other site. Jesus! It was all the way down by the lake! No wonder Mao didn't hear me call him. Turns out, that the people at the trailer closest to us 'found' him and decided to show him off to their friends down by the lake. He was wrapped up in a red blanket but you should have seen him jump to me when he saw me! The couple was just getting ready to leave for their home in Cambridge which is 45 minutes West of the park. They had a big German Sheppard in the car, and Mao had already scratched the woman's chest to shreds. Their intentions were good, I guess, and they had already called Greg's cell to let them know they had Mao, but I couldn't help thinking that I wouldn't have reacted the same way had I found a cat. He had a collar and tags on, and honestly, did they think we had gone home and left him behind? Seriously, he was missing for less than an hour. When I found him, the people were concerned because he had this red mark on his forehead. They thought it was blood. They asked me if I knew what it was. Uhhh...yep...it's lipstick, I had kissed him not long ago. MYSTERY SOLVED!


Well, this has turned into a Pet Post, but seriously, that is the most interesting thing going on in my life.
Oh, I did turn 42 ten days ago. Buddy was my gift from Greg. Did I mention that before? It was otherwise a very low-key birthday, which was how I wanted it.


I've lost 18 lbs since January, so I actually weigh less now than I did on our wedding day. My size 16 clothes are all too big for me. Yay!

Here's a pic of Mama, and Mama's Boy:

Buddy's Weekend at the Trailer

Little Buddy had a funderful time last weekend. He raced around with the Australian Sheppard and Border Collie who live next door and was having a ball!

He socializes very well with other dogs which I'm very happy to see.

Being a pup he tends to take little cat naps throughout the day and he claimed this Hosta as his very own personal "Palm Tree."

At night we were all a little konked out and cozied up in bed. Needless to say there was very little room left over for Greg, but he did manage to squeeze in too.

Not much of a post, but things are slowly getting better.

Our Fur Family

I've struggled this weekend with feelings of anxiousness and opted not to go to the trailer and hid out at home instead bonding with little Buddy. No doubt, Two-Four is upset with us, but her intrusiveness was part of my issue. We are giving serious thoughts to selling the trailer as I think it's too much work handling both properties. As I've mentioned in the past, weekends at the trailer are really just more work for me. So, the issue at hand is, that we decided to give Greg's sister first dibs on the trailer, in case she was interested. We gave her a ballpark figure, which believe me, was a steal. In a casual conversation she had with her mother asking questions about park fees etc the price of offer came up. Well! Two-four left a nasty message on Greg's machine saying that she thought it was deplorable that we were even going to ask money from Lou, that he should be disgusted trying to make a buck off his own sister! Lou, had no idea of this, and she herself certainly has no thoughts akin to her mother's. But, I just didn't want to deal with it this weekend, not even a smidgen of conversation about it. It just stresses me out. And I don't want to deal with it right now.

My mother has made some secret promise to herself never to step foot in my home again. So, once a week, I will visit with her for an hour at her home, until she smartens up. She likes the dog, but doesn't like his name, was trying to get him to bark (which I'm trying to prevent) and was ready to feed him a leftover pork chop, which again, I'm trying to prevent. Thankfully the puppy was tired and there was my excuse to leave.

So yesterday, instead of going to the trailer, I finished my gardening here at the house all the while with the Ball of Dread growing bigger and bigger in my chest. I must admit, my pets (and of course Greg) are the shining stars in my family life. Buddy is so anxious to play with the cats, but they really don't want much to do with him. Dutchess has lived with dogs before, but she is really not interested in starting up a new friendship. She basically ignores him as much as she can. Mao is particularly nervous, but he will spend time in the same room and I've noticed that he lets Buddy come a little closer each time. The orange chair that Buddy is sleeping on has a special memory attached to it as it was the dog's chair when I was growing up. When I moved out, I needed a computer chair so I took this from my mom's house. Buddy decided yesterday to adopt this chair, so we moved it into the bedroom with us.We were going to have to buy a new bed for Buddy as he picked apart the foam of the first one that Greg bought. We don't have a crate for him yet, but someone from work has one for us if we need it. I'm not quite sure what I think about crating a dog. The first day we had him we left him in the bedroom while we were at work. He was alone for 5 hours and the only damage he did was to eat his bed. No other accidents. We've managed to potty train him this weekend, he sits on command, and shakes paws. He knows NO, and he does not bark at the cats. I think that this is all pretty good for a four month old pup, I'm impressed. He has also gotten us out and on walks. Today we went down to the bluffs and had him off-leash most of the time. He stayed right near us and not once did he run away, or even chase after the geese. We were down at the lake and as it was quite a windy day the waves were quite noisy and he was a little afraid. The world is a whole new big place for him, and he is very tired at the end of the day! He starts puppy-classes on June 18th.

I did capture a cute little shot of Mr. Mao, the Caterpillar Killer. Well, he thought he killed it, but I think the caterpillar outwitted him by playing dead. As soon as Mao was out of the way, caterpillar hurried off. I like how Mao's ears look like big moths in this picture.

That's all for now.

Thank you Everyone. I did go to the doctor yesterday and things are starting to get sorted out. A lot of this is hormonal peri-menopausal stuff but my coping skills are not the best lately. Ordinary day-to-day things feel like huge obligations and when I don't get around to them, I feel guilty and get this feeling of dread in my chest that makes me feel like it's hard to breathe. I start one thing, then another, then another, and nothing really gets done. Then, to make the dread go away, I have a glass, or two, or five of wine. Which works for a short time, but then the next morning it starts all over again. This is where the lack of coping skills really comes in to play, and why I knew I needed to do something about it. For the time being I'm starting a low-dose medication to get myself back on track.

Now, whether it's a good time for this or not, Kross-Eyed Kitty also has a big announcement! Yesterday we adopted a 4 month old puppy from a Rescue Centre. Introducing Buddy Ha**ett (rhymes with Racket)

We have been talking about getting a dog since we moved into the house and decided to wait until after our trip. Buddy is half border collie and half terrier and is a happy little guy. Mao is curious about him, but does get his hackles up when the pup gets too close. Dutchie couldn't care less as she is more comfortable around dogs.

Be prepared: you'll be seeing plenty of pics of our newest family member!