I'm bad at cell phones

So the new contact list for my flyball team was sent out and this time I was not going to be without vital phone numbers. So I pulled out my phone to enter them and then while I was checking my contacts list here is what I found at the bottom:

No name 852838#1*

Go ahead, read it out loud, I did.

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Teal Ceilings

So, as some of you already know, I am moving in to a new rental. I was about to say "new house" but that would be a lie. Yes it is a house, but it is a very old house. So old in fact that it does not have wired in phone jacks, it has added in as an afterthought phone jacks. Yes, my new rental is so old that it predates the home phone.

Anyway, the previous tenant was a smoker so I asked my landlady if I could paint. I'd hoped this would serve two purposes. The first to get rid of the smoke smell, and the second to make the place look cleaner and less... um... teal.

Someone had a thing for teal, and neon green, and fucsia, and electric blue, and just to balance it all out I guess, this really pale kind of sick looking yellow... oh and the bathroom is orange, sort of.

Happily my landlady said yes, and that she would pay for the paint (hurrah). So here's where things started to fall apart a little bit. I decided I better paint before I move my stuff in, but then I had flyball and then I booked a million clients, and so now I am painting in whatever free waking moments I have, none of my stuff is moved, and I have to be all done by sunday morning when my brother is coming to help me move the furniture. Minor panic attack there, but I bring these things on myself.

Anyway, I selected colours, bought paint, and decided to start in the bird room because it was small, and that's the one that can't have any odour when I complete my move. Following the painting for dummies directions I started with that teal ceiling. I painted, and then I painted some more, and I had to keep bloody well painting because my brush and roller took OFF more paint than it was putting on. I got one ugly coat up, decided I hated painting, and regretted ever starting.

But you can't return tinted paint.

Also, once I start something like this I have to finish it otherwise when my parents say "you're stretching yourself too thin" they'll be right and I hate that.

So the next day I came back, put on a second horrible coat and then moved on full of dread to the living room. The paint went on to that ceiling fine, then it went up without a problem in the foyer and the bedroom too. All only need one coat, no problems, the bedroom didn't even take a full half hour to do I was so well practiced by then. I came back to the bird room and looked at the horrible mess on the ceiling. What was wrong? Why wasn't it working?

The answer came while I was laying on the floor having a break in the kitchen and I spotted the old paint cans in the basement stairwell.
Apparently the same genius who decided the ceiling in that room should be teal also decided that OIL BASED paints were an excellent choice.

No wonder my latex paint wasn't going on! When I left last night my third and final coat was bubbling off the ceiling. Bubble bubble.

No painting today, I don't have time, will get a load of things into the car instead that can be stored in the shed, outside, and in the cupboards in the bird room. Walls Friday, trim Saturday, done by Sunday is the plan. Kitchen and bathroom can be done after I move in.

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My new car! Augh!

Someone today was a jerk.

Someone today, I don't know who, came and got their dogs out of the kennel and let them go running off leash to the parking lot. Whoever it was let their dogs run up to the wrong car, plant their paws on the driver's side and SCRATCH MY NEW CAR with their toenails!

I found the paw prints and the scratches when I left work. It was a big dog. There are several culprits.

Mandy the chocolate lab
Maddie and Smokey the worst dogs ever
or Lucy the ancient border collie


I highly suspect it was Smokey and Maddie the worst dogs ever. Why? Well, first of all, they're the worst dogs ever, and more importantly so, their owner is not a nice lady.

I am really really really really mad.

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People who don't have answering machines

What is wrong with you?

How do you function in this world without voice mail?

Ok, sure, maybe you figure that if something is important enough someone will call you back (I did, five times). That is perfectly fair. Unless you are the one who initiated contact!
If you call me, and leave me a message (indication that you do indeed know that voice mail exists) and your message asks me to call you back then you need to either have voice mail or the tape deck equivalent, or you need to be home when I call you back (five times).

You don't then get to call me four days later and complain that I never called you back.
If you had voice mail, you'd know that's a lie.

Get voice mail, or get off the phone.

Thank you

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First time for everything

Today I was going through my pictures and discovered that I have records of an awful lot of firsts. Here are some of them.

This was my first doll, recently Badger devoured her face then got diarrhea. He received no sympathy from me, the horrible creature!
Her name was Dolly. Look, she has a little dog. Our early childhood really does shape our future.





This was my first friend. Friendships are based on things we have in common with others.




I like to think this was the first time I flashed leg at a camera. Saucy.




My first time on a motorbike.




The first time I fell out of a kayak.




My first speeding ticket.




My first dog.




My first time playing soccer with a baby elephant. (I firmly believe there will be a second)




The first time I locked my keys in my car (and the only!)




My first wild grizzly.





There, now you all know a little bit more about me than you needed to.

You’re welcome!


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It is those we live with and love and should know...

You were the person that lit me up.



I shared the big moments of my life with you.




You made even the blurry pictures worth keeping.






With you I took joy in the little adventures.








Rainy days didn't matter.



Waking with the sun was worth it.



You were the only person that I felt ok playing games with, even though we were both too old for them.













This trip ended with the beginning of a distance between us, the gradual realization that we had nothing left to talk about.






I look back on it with a deep feeling of hurt that I know will never truly go away.
The silent drive across the Rockies should have been my big clue that it was over. I wonder if I'd realized it then, if I could have spared myself a lot of pain.

At the beginning of the summer, a few years later, I told myself it would be the best summer yet. We would see each other every week. We would find new adventures. We would get back what we had been missing since I had to go away.

We had our first argument that summer. It was our last. You never spoke to me again, not even to say goodbye.

I hope you never know how much you hurt me.

I hope you know that I am better off without you now.

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I am a planet

That is all.

In other news

Badger's ears pricked fully this week.
Pictures coming when I can WALK AGAIN!

it's all about symmetry

The human body is based on a symetrical design, for the most part we have two of everything one on each side (some internal organs and obviously centralized components excused) and these two of everything are generally meant to share their tasks more or less equally.

Like my feet for example. They are supposed to take the same length of step, bear the same load, and work together as a team to keep me mobile. A few weeks ago I severely messed with that symmetry by going down hard in a gopher hole. My right foot all of a sudden had it easy, I was limping around, putting all the weight on my left side, taking shorter strides, giving massages to the right side, while still managing to go about my daily routine of running around on concrete floors, trekking through feilds, and kicking training dogs.

Then, come Canada Day, with an overbooked kennel to take care of I started to feel a little twinge in my left foot. By friday it was a definate ache, it was a little minor bother over the weekend and it didn't seem any worse by Tuesday, but come wednesday morning, after having it slept on for a few hours by my dear red dog, I could barely walk on it.

Apparently, when you mess with your body's symmetry it decides on its own how it wants to restore that symmetry. My left foot, seeing how well my right was being treated, complained to the right foot, who said "Hang on a minute, mate" Because my feet are Australian (Haha. Get it?) and then went on to horrendously injure my left foot so that it could be treated well too! Wasn't that nice?

Doctor calls it a transfer injury. I call it unreasonable.

So I'm still limping on the right foot (which keeps getting re-rolled and will never be better at this rate) but you can't tell, because I'm limping on the left too. It just looks like I'm taking teenie tiny little baby steps.

I need to learn to walk on my hands, but then I'd probably sprain a wrist (oh wait! Already did that!)

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PS: being unusually flexible for your size isn't that great, when you are as big as I am riggity rigidity of the joints is probably your ally not your enemy. I could use more riggity rigidity in my life.

Monika, words are boring.

Show us some pictures!

Walk like a border collie





Stalk like a border collie