10

He was funny looking and dirty.
I'd just lost a bird to cancer, and wasn't ready for a new pet yet.

But they told me at the shelter that he'd come in a week ago with his litter,
and was the last to find a home.
They told me that since nobody seemed to want him, he'd probably be put down the next day.

I had to work that night, but was there the next morning when those doors opened.

He's been with me ever since.

(Mr February, 2003 SPCA calendar)

(Mr November, SPCA Calendar)
Kind of amazing, considering the quality of the pictures, eh?







Being an SPCA special, I don't know Winter's real birthday.
The SPCA guessed that it was about Aug 25, so that's what I go with.

That makes Winter 10 years old today.

The Monkshood That Could

Four years ago, I walked past a house near my work and noticed a tall, purple flower blooming. Tall, shady and blooms at the end of the summer? I decided then and there that I needed it for my own gardens.

I managed to figure out what it was (Monkshood) and track down a 6" seedling in an end of season sale. I planted it in a place of importance, beside the front steps. I watered it, I fertilized it, and then - oh - I stood on it. The plant withered, and I thought it was a gonner.

The next year, I was happy to see it growing again. Except, sometime around late June, I accidentally grabbed hold of it while weeding and yanked it out of the ground. I planted it back into place right away; but once again, it shrivelled up and disappeared.

The third year (last year), when that monkshood started to grow again, I realized that this is one seriously hardy plant.

However, last year was the year that I had a front porch built onto the house, directly over where the front garden used to be. I dug up the plants to transplant them, but it took over a month for the porch to be built and then the garden to be dug in around it. That poor monkshood sat in an old salad bowl and was ignored all that time. Finally, the new garden was ready, and I planted the much-abused monkshood in a new place of importance, beside the front gate.

Oh, and then I stood on it again.

This year, I was careful. I haven't stood on the monkshood, yanked it out of the ground, or otherwise abused it. And this is what happened:

(psst! The monkshood is the tall purple plant on the left side of the photo.)

From the garden

I've been neglecting my gardens this year. After I finished digging in the new garden along the side of the house, I barely looked at them. Then, last night a storm blew in and blew over the sweet peas that I hadn't bothered to stake.

I went out tonight to tie them up, and promptly remembered something else that I haven't been doing this year. Most summers, I've got two or three bouquets of flowers from the garden in the kitchen all the time. This year, I hadn't thought to cut any flowers until tonight.

Granted, it's not the most artistically arranged bouquet; but it smells sooo good.

And check out the carnations. I never thought I'd be able to grow carnations around here. I only planted them because they were on the "we practically killed these plants so if you think you can revive them, they're yours" table at the Peavy Mart. I figured they might add some green to the garden, but had no expectations that they'd bloom. Turns out, I've got about 8 plants outside, chalk full of blooms that are about to burst.


I brought something else in from the gardens tonight too.


He likes to help me weed... and apparently eat dirt too.

Look Ma - no eyes!

As much fun as it is, lately I've been thinking that I need to cut off Tallulah's topknot. This dog has a lot of hair on her head. It's thick and unruly; and it all wants to flow forward to cover her eyes.

If I put her hair in a pony tail, it ends up pointing forward so that she looks like a unicorn. Big heavy barrettes flop forward and render her almost completely blind. Heck - I even tried french braiding the poor dog's hair, but it isn't quite long enough for that.

Finally, I found a clip that does a pretty good job of holding her hair back - but that was right about the time that her eyebrows finally started to grow in; and dang it, they aren't long enough to pull into the clip yet.

This is about 30 seconds after I've put the clip in her hair.
This is what it looks like after a few hours:




Tula's got a grooming appointment in a few weeks. If those eyebrows don't start growing PDQ, methinks it may be time to say goodbye to the topknot.




And, as an aside, I tried to take pictures of Tula earlier, but gave up because she wasn't feeling very cooperative. Before deleting all the bloopers, I had a look.

This one is a perfect representation of my life.


There's cat hairs everywhere. Nothing and nobody can escape them.

The next project

Happy, Happy, Happy

I love a good DYI Project. Even better, I love doing it on the cheap.

I've got some vacation time coming up, and wasn't sure what I'd do. I've got a bunch of work that needs to be done around the house, but I wanted something fun too. Today, I found it.

My master bathroom is very builder's basic. It's also the last room in the house that I haven't yet redone to my taste. I've been eyeballing some ideas, but haven't had the budget or the time until now.

Today I found a discontinued sale on the things that I want. They're a little scratched up, but I planned to paint them to suit me anyway; so I took advantage of the further "damage" discounts. I got a tall, thin cabinet that I want to put on the wall to the side of the sink. I've seen those priced as high as $170... The one I got today was $20. Then, I got a framed mirror to replace the huge rectangular wall of mirror. The frame (and attached shelf below) are a different colour than the new cabinet, and have some more scratches; but when I paint them up they'll be great. Regularly $80... I got it for $40.

I've already got the paint I need, and found the linens (and TP basket) on sale a few weeks ago. If I manage to find a good light fixture at a reasonable price, I might be able to do the entire room for under $150.

Other things to do

My nephew is boy-genius when it comes to dinosaurs. If that kid doesn't become a paleontologist, I'll eat my shorts. He's been spouting off the five-syllable names of every dinosaur that ever walked the face of this earth since he was about 4 or 5, and he knows darned near everything that there is to know about them. Seriously, when that kid starts talking dinosaurs, everybody in the room - adults and kids - just sits back in awe to listen.

He's turning 10 this year, and my sister decided that it was time for him to try going to summer camp. Instead of a dude ranch or a sports camp, she decided to send him to the camp run at the dinosaur museum in Drumheller. (For the non-Albertans reading this, Drumheller is an area of Alberta that is chalk full of dinosaur fossils.)

His dad dropped him off a week ago. Despite some second guessing on the way down (maybe he didn't want to spend a week away from his parents and pesky brother... maybe he might get lonely) we're told that he hopped out of the van, gave a brief wave goodbye and then disappeared before his dad even finished signing him in.

A week later, my sister drove down to pick him up, and barely survived the ride home. He hadn't showered or changed clothes since they'd dropped him off.

Same pants

Same shirt

Same socks

Same underwear.

The kid hadn't even bothered to change into pajamas at night. The counsellors said that he went from camp activity to camp activity throughout the day until he crashed in his bunk each night. Somebody would cover him up with a blanket, and he'd wake up the next morning and start again.

One week

Tomorrow will be one week since Cotton's meds were doubled. I've been hesitant to say anything because it seems to me that anytime I declare him improved, he goes back into a state of extreme terror. I'm feeling more confident, though. It's been almost a week since he has had a panic attack. It's a big improvement, but there's a pretty big side affect.







Cotton is stoned.










Like, stoned to the gills... 'somebody get me some more wacky weed'... 'who's got my bong' stoned.
(Doesn't that statement expose me as the true gangsta that I am?)

The dude ain't feelin no pain.

I'm supposed to wait 10-14 days for the meds to settle in before we'll get an idea of their impact... 2-3 months before we know for sure. For now, though, I'm enjoying the break from the constant stress; and I am sure he is too. I do need to talk to the vet about decreasing his dose, and bringing him closer to reality. Then again, maybe I don't. As a friend of mine pointed out - It's not like he's got to get up and go to work, or think through complicated equations. Given a choice between the terror he's been living with and being stoned, maybe being stoned isn't such a bad thing.