I don’t know where the puppy is. I mean, there’s no noise or anything, which means he doesn’t have a cat bailed up somewhere; so unless he’s flooding the kitchen or chewing the weatherboards off the side of the house or something, I guess we’re good. Let’s work under that assumption, shall we?
I am a complete angel and have no idea what you might mean.
I have played around with the theme here again so apologies if the feed has gone awry and re-published hundreds of posts. I don’t think it has, but again, I’ll work under the assumption it may have. I finally got the phantasmagoria category in order, which involved creating them all as posts. Because this website was Kickin’ It Old Skool for so long, with its quaint html heritage, there are all sorts of little hanging chads like that.
Cleaning, eh? I understand.
I mean, there’s always so MUCH to do.
That puppy is really stirring up the dust around here.
My god, you guys, having a puppy is HARD. And tiring. I do the late-night shift, and Mr. T does the early morning shift (which has been as early as 5.30am, not that I am awake for this). However, Brown Pup remains very cute and – surprisingly – super-good. He knows to walk outside to go to the toilet, and you may remember we have carpet. This alone makes him Awesome. He hasn’t had all his vaccinations yet which means we can’t take him for a walk (and anyway, he’s like a tiny bear with stumpy legs and can’t walk all that well anyway). So we’ve been taking him down to the beach at very low tide, where no other dogs have been. Mr T carries him, we walk miles out to the sandbars and let him loose. Behold the 10-second wonder below:
The grace! The co-ordination! The way my husband runs to check on his welfare! The way I just keep filming! We’re all at our best here, clearly.
Thanks for everyone’s nice comments – much appreciated. I would have preferred not to mention it on here, but I think you’d notice. Less photos, for one thing. But I feel like all that’s happening around here is Animal Death, All The Time. I’m a bit sick of my pets dying, to be frank. STOP IT. STEP AWAY FROM THE LIGHT. Anyway, the two remaining cats are both hale and healthy (although Ginger Cat keeps being sick on the carpet, very loudly might I add, please STOP THAT TOO) and so I’ve got a New Year’s resolution: No Death Posts in 2010! Catchy, I think. Feel free to follow it yourself.
As well as all your condolences, we received many more – I think I alluded to the fact my dog has something of a Presence in his breed. He was a stud dog, the duties of which he performed admirably, indeed one might say eagerly. And so over time he had puppies and lo, they were good and bred from in their turn. (I feel all biblical over here. Verily.) (And it wasn’t us doing the breeding and such-like, by the way; we were his pet home, meaning he lived a life of sloth with us and occasionally we would get a phonecall requesting him for Stud Duty.) So his face and personality is well known in the small community of Brown Dog Owners, and upon his death we received multiple phonecalls and texts and literally dozens of emails of condolence. One of those emails, a few days ago, was from a woman we once knew well, and who knew Brown Dog well. She now breeds Brown Dogs, currently has a litter of puppies (unusual in itself, as there would only be about 3 litters a year in Australia) and wanted to offer one of the pups to us. We have been talking it over. We have checked out their backgrounds. We go to see the pups on Saturday.
A new pup will not replace our Brown Dog, and I didn’t want one of his offspring (the comparisons would be very unfair on any new dog). Our discussions have not been whether to get another dog – that is a given. Mostly they’ve been about whether to get a Brown Dog, or a Black Dog. I miss my Black Dog hugely, but for various reasons we think another Brown Dog is the right thing at this time. So… Saturday. We’ll see.
I know. It sucks to be me. This is the Queen Charlotte Sounds, at the top of the South Island in New Zealand. Mr. T’s grandmother has a bach here (a holiday house, a crib, a shack, whatever your parlance may be) since about the 40s or 50s:
And we decamped with his family for a few weeks, including his ratbag twin nephews, as per below:
If you ever get the chance to go to the Sounds, do so. This particular bay is only accessible by boat, so you’re pretty much stuck doing nothing. I know, it’s terrible. There was wildlife everywhere, particularly wekas and other similarly unafraid ground birds:
I know that’s not a very good photo of the weka, and that’s because if I zoom out a bit you can see The Twinado approaching it at a very high speed:
We had fun. It was a good break. Well, maybe not for that weka.
I have just written a post about our holiday but really couldn’t find a good way to add this into it. I’m hoping that the quicker the better, right? Then I won’t have to speak about it again.
We went back to New Zealand over Christmas and while we were there, our Brown Dog died suddenly. They think it was a heart attack as the staff in the kennels found him lying on his mat, seemingly asleep. He would be 8 years old this week.
This is particularly hard as that bloody dog was fine when we left. There were no warning signs, so it was completely unexpected. And he died on his own, when we weren’t there. I don’t think there’s any way that it could be easy but that is the part I just can’t let go.
Hmmm, this updating thing is just not happening. Can I blame winter? Because it’s bloody FREEZING. I feel I can also blame the fact I’ve just worked twelve straight days in a row, including all three days of a long weekend, which: SUCK. I mean, it’s my job and I knew it was coming and I’ll get days in lieu, but still. And it was freezing then as well, to boot. Anyway, I’m still waiting on my co-worker’s photos of our overseas trip (which are way better than mine, given that he had no qualms about winding down the car window and taking photos of people, which I felt a bit Colonial Imperialist about) so no photos of that yet. Instead, look at Some Things I Bought:
No, I don’t have a maltese. This cost me 20c and I paid 50c at a sort of giant garage sale/market, and the nice man running the stall then followed me round the hall to try to return 30c to me, bless him. I should have bought the other wine glasses that were “Best of Breed, Canberra KCC” but I’ve never been to Canberra. I’ve never had a maltese either, come to think of it, but that didn’t stop me buying this one. I like the angry little expression on his angry little face.
Speaking of angry little dogs (or… not), here is the Brown Dog in his new dog bed. A week ago, Mr. T was seized by the notion that the Brown Dog was cold at night, and nothing would do but that I buy him a dog bed on ebay. Putting aside the fact this dog has never been cold in his life (he lies down on snow – SNOW – and then licks his bollocks) he also does not take well to beds or mats, preferring instead to sprawl out all over the floor. However, most mornings when we’ve woken up we’ve found him curled up in the bed; so maybe he’s onto something. Next thing, he’ll be wanting to get him a little coat. Might as well get a maltese, then.
Well not that I’m discontented in any way, but it IS winter. OMG is it winter. I went up the road this afternoon and the wind was BITTER. I would have been even colder, except I was wearing my awesome green boiled wool jacket. (I don’t know what that means; I just like to say “boiled wool”. I don’t think any of my other clothes have been boiled, but I couldn’t swear to it. I mean, I haven’t boiled them MYSELF.)
I am trying to take more photos again – you know, now that the light is failing and it is bitterly cold. Timing is everything people! And I DO NOT HAS IT. Well, it is YOU who have to suffer through poorly-lit photos, so stop encouraging me. Jeez.
Here is Mr. T at the Anzac day football match (no, not THAT football match, the other one). They were handing out free ponchos at the gate. Ah, but we’re undercover! we crowed. First row of the covered stands… clearly we will not need your poncho! Well, no, not if the rain played fair. Instead, it swirled around and hit us from the BACK. The first five rows of undercover seating were all sporting their ponchos double-quick. Did I mention winter? Welcome! We have been expecting you!
And… awwwww! Here is my poor brave dog, sporting the latest in canine fashion. Yes it is purple. Light purple. With paw prints on it. Mr T was devastated when he bought him home from the vet. “It isn’t even BLUE! Or black!” he whimpered. To the dog: “Quick, act more manly! Roll over and show your gigantic testicles!” I wish this sort of sentence was a one-off in our household, but sadly EVERYONE shows me their gigantic testicles. I’m sort of inured to them at this point.
I return! Thanks for your kind wishes; they are much appreciated. I told my family about the engagement rather offhandedly, thinking it was such an obvious step that nobody would be surprised – turns out everyone is WILDLY EXCITED and treating it like a huge event. Thinking about it, it’s probably because everyone thought we would never get around to it at all. And they would not be wrong. But here we are, and there are millions of bookmarks on my computer for things that I never even knew existed a month ago. Actually I’m quite glad people are excited as we’re having the wedding in New Zealand, which means that others need to do all my running around for me. Apparently they’re enjoying doing it, so it’s win-win. As for the planning. let’s get it all down here. Skip to the next part for dogs if that’s your preference.
Date: Narrowed to two (09/09 and 10/10; it’s a family tradition for me and yes 09/09/09 is a Wednesday. Your point?)
Venue: One of the many beachside restaurants of Auckland. Mr T’s only request is to have the ceremony on a beach in bare feet, which is fine by me. I don’t want or need a huge dedicated reception venue as the guest list is just…
Guest List: Approx 50, plus about 8 children (I wanted smaller but am not fretting about it)
Broidesmaid: My sister
Best Man: Mr T’s oldest school friend, for whom he was best man a few years ago
Dress: Liking a tea length, Audrey Hepburn style in my head. However I am yet to try one on; will no doubt find out I look nothing like AH and weep overwrought tears… “BUT OI’M THE BROIDE!”
Hair: Scrunched up into a bun thing with a flower. An old family friend will do my hair and makeup, such as it is. Tick.
Flowers: Either my aunt or someone’s 92-year old grandmother will do the flowers. Low on my priority list so this suits me fine. Please don’t ask any more details on the grandmother as I’m hazy myself.
Ring: Looking tomorrow, but I am notoriously fussy and can’t find anything I like. Almost all diamond solitaires do nothing for me, which leaves me with much less to choose from.
OK that’s as far as I’ve got. You may all open your eyes now and look at this photo of My Dog:
Can you see? It’s not very clear in the photo, unfortunately, but his left leg (on the right of the photo) is about twice the size of his right (on the left). The vet said it’s either a ligament thing, or a sprain, or a fracture, or, you know, bone cancer. Ah. Good. Here, have $500 to have a closer look with x-rays. They didn’t knock him out for the x-rays (my good placid dog) and have ruled out cancer (big relief) and any fracture, but we still don’t know what it is. Hey, haven’t I just HAD a really sick dog? I’m pretty sure I don’t need another one, thanks. So far our treatment strategy consists of grabbing his head, pulling his face really close and saying firmly, “DON’T HAVE CANCER.” It seems to be working.
Well, I quite like my new digs. It’s cozy, I like my new dashboard where I can see if people have linked to me (I had to go into stats to see that in Blogger! Do you know how often I look at my stats? Pretty much never) and I like that comments turn up there too. I like the plugins and although I am sorry to lose my fish-footman pic, I will find a way to put him back in. Having said that, I never had a problem with Blogger; it’s just the comments thing. I don’t care about your damn machine embroidery! And I am extrememly unlikely to consider buying a commercial machine, good sir! I delete you! (I am hearing this in a John Cleese type voice, I’m not sure about you.) Speaking of, I have the Monty Python page-a-day desk calendar thing at work, and it is highly amusing to revisit Monty Python. I have to say, it has gone missing several times as co-workers have taken off with it to read. Curse them! I shall send the Hell’s Grannies after them!
Other than that, things here are fine. We took the Brown Dog for a walk around the local lake on Sunday, since it was a bit cooler and he was unlikely to overheat and, you know, die on us. He’s quite a big dog and neither of us want to lug his heavy corpse back to the car, so we tend not to take him out on blisteringly hot days. So, as we were wandering round the lake, we saw another big dog on the path coming in the opposite direction towards us; part of a family on bikes. Mr. T and the Brown Dog were half off the path anyway, deeply interested in some trees (although I doubt it was Mr. T so much) so they just kept going into the brush. As the family barrelled along, ringing their bells madly (that safety message has got through loud and clear, I tell you) the father called out “Thanks so much!” He was riding his bike with one hand and hanging on to a Great Dane puppy with the other, and she was very lovely – jet black and pricked ears and gangly legs – and she was VERY interested in where the Brown Dog had gone. Ah, the joy of puppies. I don’t know how she went with the waterbirds on the other side of the lake, but if she’s anything like the Brown Dog, that guy would have come very close to a swim.
Reading:
Stephen King, "Everything's Eventual". I found this abandoned in a suitcase.
Listening:
The snores of the Little Dog, who sadly seems just as loud and snorty at night as the Brown Dog.
Watching:
Endless episodes of UFC, which is some sort of fighting... thing. Do not want.
Eating:
I'm having a bit of an avocado binge. The Little Dog likes them too.
Liking:
Renovations! Apart from the cost of said renovations. Let's not think about that part.
Pondering:
If there is dirty washing in the basket, the cats ignore it... but if it is CLEAN, one of them has made a nest in there within 10 minutes. Five minutes, if it's black clothes.
