What's Next?

Hellhound

While I've been away from home with work this week, Luna has decided to reside at Chez Le Pound.

The timeline:  I left home Sunday, Hellhound bolted from the kids on Monday, the kids finally grew the balls to tell me she was missing on Thursday and we phoned the local SPCA to find her today (Friday).  I return home tomorrow with my flight landing roughly fifteen minutes before late check out at the Chez.  I'm thinking of rounding her stay out to a full week.

I'm not a bad pet owner, The Ex is.  This dog is his dog.  However, while he lives the glorious life a world traveler, I get to feed her, pick up her crap, brush her and, now, post her bail.  While The Ex is in the country, he takes Hellhound for visitations and treats her like her place is somewhere above The Thirteen Goddesses of Greek Mythology.  Nice for her; major behaviour problems for me when I get her back.

Naturally I have handled this in my usual reactive fashion and fired off an email to The Ex filled with reprisal and loathing.  Because that's worked so well for me in the past.

Squish

I really want to be a Warning Sign Designer when I grow up.

Thanks for posting this, Sarah Z.

Shaking My Head

The biggest story in the News this morning was about the investigation into whether or not an athlete has used performance enhancing drugs.

He is defending himself at a Congressional Hearing with the House of Representatives Oversight Committee and everything; all over whether or not an athlete has used steroids.

And, how much is this costing, exactly?

Movies for Valentine's Day - Contains Spoilers

With that fateful day representing love and passion quickly approaching, there has been a grand resurgence of lists on the internet stating what we should and should not do / wear / say / buy / watch to ensure that we exude the appropriate amount of romance to that special someone.  So much pressure.

I'm not going to get into my cynical opinion on how commercialism preys upon our insecurities surrounding social acceptance.  Not today anyway.

I do, however, feel a need, no, a compulsion to share a list of movies that are romantic enough to satisfy the requirements yet are tolerable.  The lists I have read on the internet are wrong.  They are filled with films that are old, cheezy, predictable and boring.

Here's the reel <pun intended> shit, in no particular order:

1. The Princess Bride - The best kiss ever and, a man who says "As you wish."
2. Practical Magic - A young witch casts a spell wishing for a man so perfect he couldn't possibly exist, so to never have her heart broken.  Midnight Margaritas; the best idea.
3. Ladyhawke - A curse keeps the two apart; she is a hawk by day and he is a wolf by night. Great action.
4. The Notebook - In the first 5 minutes, the now elderly man says, "I've lived as glorious a life as any other for I have loved another with all of my heart and soul; my life has been a success."  Dab a tear and toss him (or her) a loving glance after that line and you will get laid for sure.  And, you don't need to watch the whole movie.
5. Donny Darko - The ultimate unrequited love; after knowing the future, he allows himself to die before meeting her in order to save her life.  May need to watch it twice; it's a little complicated.
6. Labyrinth - Though David Bowie is an evil stalker, baby-snatcher from the Underworld, you have to melt a little when he sings, "Everything I've done, I've done for you. I move the stars for no one."

So, my apologies to Pretty Woman, Gone with the Wind, When Harry Met Sally and every other movie that makes my eyes roll until they hurt.

I choose to be awake at the end of the film to enjoy the spoils of my good selections.

My New Favourite Song

If He Would Just Wear His Boots....

Some misadventures can start with the best of intentions that go terribly awry.  A chain of events that flows down a dark path filled with wrong turns and growing lies.

Liam-the-thirteen-year-old-boy owns a pair of great winter boots; like new, rarely been worn.  We have ..... oh..... let's call it 3 feet of snow everywhere.  Liam wears his running shoes, always, and they are therefore always wet and in some state of putrid molding.  Since I choose to pick my battles and I have long since decided that I don't have a hope in hell of winning the boot one, I tell him that he must dry his shoes or they will most assuredly rot his feet off at the ankles.

Good intention:  he put his god-forsaken, disgusting shoes in the dryer.  Good intention:  he attempted to wipe the dirt and grit out of the dryer when he was finished.

At that point a poor decision was made.  Liam thought that he would be more successful in gathering all of the dirt in one area if he manually turned the drum of the dryer so that it would all fall into one place.  Of course, being a mini-man, the resistance he felt when trying to turn the drum only made him push harder, forcing the drum to turn rather than consider that maybe said resistance meant that it should really not be turned.

The drum finally gave with a large metallic klang and Liam, then satisfied, continued to contentedly wipe out the dryer.

Me, then at the top of the stairs, "Liam, what was that noise?"

You all know the response to that one.

Liam, "What noise?"

Me, "That loud klang noise that came from right where you are..... right now."

Liam, "I'm really not sure."

Me, "Well, what were you doing when the noise happened?"

Liam explained to me how he had turned the drum to clean out the dryer, of course.

Me, "I don't think that was the right noise for the dryer to make.  Can you see if it's still working?"

Liam, shrugged, "Sure."

He turned it on, the motor ran, he turned it off and yelled up that it was working fine.

After a couple of days had passed and I had enough time to do a load of laundry, I walked down the stairs towards the washer only to be met with numerous articles of clothing hanging like ghouls from every protuberance along my path.

Suspicious, I thought to myself.  I suspected that perhaps the dryer was, in fact, not working and neither of my darling spawn wanted to be the one to get me up to speed.  What a surprise.

My powers of deduction had not failed me.  Though the dryer motor would run, that loud klang probably belonged to something that needed to be functioning to make the drum turn.

It occurred to me that Liam should possibly be reprimanded for breaking the dryer but, how many teenaged boys would have attempted to clean it out at all.  He should have told me that it was broken but, he said that he really didn't know why his clothes weren't drying since the dryer was still making noise.  I believe him.

So, I did what any exasperated parent would do.  I threw the shoes in the garbage and headed downstairs with a screwdriver and a socket set.

Yet Another Conversation with a Thirteen Year Old Boy

Me, "If we move to Den Haag, you will be able to go surfing in the North Sea.  There's a surf school there."

Liam, "I'm not going surfing where there are sharks."

Me, "There are no sharks in the North Sea."

Liam, "You're trying to tell me that in the 94,000 miles of water that is the North Sea, there isn't one single shark."

Note to self: he is obviously on the Internet at this point in the conversation so I had better get my facts straight.

Me, "Well, only if someone dropped one in there."

Liam, "So, it could happen."

Me, "No."

Liam, "Well, how big does an Atlantic Cod get."

Me, "Not big enough to be a threat."

Liam, "What's a porpoise?"

Me, "It's like a dolphin." (My apologies to the marine zoologists out there.)

Liam, "With teeth."

Me, "I think they all have teeth."

Liam, "Might as well be a shark then.  I'm not surfing.  Can I go to the hockey game?"