Your dog wants these

We are a family that loves dogs: we have three.  We would have more, but, um, yeah...we already have three.  But don't come to our house with a puppy, 'cause you probably won't get it back. 

Dogs need toys.  They are intelligent animals who need both physical and mental stimulation in order to be happy.  Toys are one way owners can help fulfill those needs.  There are a gabillion dog toys on the market, the quality and usefulness of which vary wildly from "we couldn't live without this" to "total waste of money and unsafe to boot"; we've experimented with dozens and now have a few tried-tested-and-true items we strongly recommend to any dog people:

The Cuz (JW Pet Company) - Good Cuz, Bad Cuz, it doesn't matter...these are tough little buggers and if you can stand the squeeeeeeeeeksqueeeeeeeek  of your enamoured dog, you're golden.  Made of soft, colourful rubber, they come in a range of shapes and sizes.  Great for fetch or just toting around (dogs seem to love the "mouth feel" of this one). 

AirDog Football (Kong Company)- the AirDog line offers many sizes and shapes (doughnuts, standard balls, football) .  Feels substantial in the hand, tough, squeeky, and the outer fabric won't damage teeth (it's non-abrasive) like most regular tennis-ball-type toys.   Also a great way to practice your mad spiral skills.

Kong Flyer (Kong Company) - OMG I love this frisbee, it's our newest addition to the toy collection.  Typical toughness of Kong products (small mugsly dogs can hang from it without causing damage), made of soft rubber, but with enough weight to really get some serious distance when you throw it.   A close runner-up would be our old Hurl-a-Squirrel frisbee (Fat Cat, Inc.), which was finally retired this fall after almost a full year of abuse.  Althought it's fabric, it proved to be quite durable.  Plus it's called "Hurl-a-Squirrel", which is reason enough to buy it.

Nylabone - dogs need to chew.  They should be chewing these instead of your shoes.  Made of safe and durable nylon, they feature different levels of hardness, textures, and flavours.  They give your dog a satisfying jaw workout and provide some dental benefits as well...right now we have about 6 lying around the house, in about 4 different styles.   An absolute must-have.

Wubba (Kong Company) - it bounces!  It squeeks!  It's shaped like an octopus!  What fun!!!  Great for fetch or for tug games.  The dangly leg bits are particularly fun for the terrier-types who do the ol' death shake with their toys - it fights back! (whapwhapwhap on the schnozz)

Tuffy's T-rex (VIP Products) - we almost NEVER buy stuffies.  Our dogs are maimers and gutters of anything stuffed, which is not only dangerous (if unsupervised) but also expensive.  I picked up the T-rex one day after spotting it at half price (they're not cheap)...partially because I thought it looked strong enough to withstand at least one day of abuse, but also because ZOMG IT'S A T-REX and I'm a huge dino geek.   It turned out to be worth every penny - this is a serious toy.  Just shy of 2 feet tall, it's constructed from 3 layers of fabric and gazillions of layers of stitching.  It is SOLID.  Our girls tried their damnedest to kill this thing.  A year later, after hours upon hours being gnawed on and surviving an entire puppyhood of teething, the dogs finally got the best of it through an open seam in one arm.  But man, did they ever  have to work at it!

So there you go: our top picks for the pup(s) in your life.  The mugsly one, the yellow one and the three-legged one approve.

Saturday chores - OMGSHINY

Saturday morning in the country means "time for chores".  On the menu today was:

Our main source of heat in the chillier months is our woodstove.  As much as we looooove heating this way (the cozy warmth, the smoky smell) it takes a lot of work.  Twice a year we haul wood:  once in the spring, when two trailer-loads of cut logs are dumped unceremoniously on our front lawn - these we stack neatly between our shed and a lean-to we built a few summers ago; and again in the fall, to move the sun-dried logs to their winter storage.   In the past, we have simply moved them into the shed.  This year we decided to store our wood in the basement...no more trudging out to the shed in deep snow during the dark days of January.  This means we load up our trusty wheelbarrow, run it around to the far side of the house and chuck logs through an opened basement window. 

I really don't mind this chore - it's a good workout and and gives me an excuse to play outside.   I'm not particularly efficient though, because I tend to get all OMGSHINY every time I pick up a new log.  Wood and crevaces = bugs in hidey-holes trying to overwinter.   So each and every log gets a quick inspection before being tossed in the 'barrow.  A few of today's finds:

From top (species IDs are tentative - I am microscope-less): Flat bark beetle (Coleoptera: Sylvanidae: Uleiota sp.); ant (Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Formicinae); mosquito (Diptera: Anopheles punctipennis); woodlouse  (Isopoda: Porcellio spinicornis)

Poor critters were all, "wtf?" and slowly roused themselves as the sun warmed them, eventually dragging their sleepy butts to a darker, less-intruded-upon nook. 

Hmmm.  I really need a new macro lens.  Xmas is coming, yes?  Hear that darling wife?  Xmas?  Lens?

I also need to remember that cut logs=sawdust, and not every speck of shavings I see warrants an automatic "OOH, FRASS!!" response *rolls eyes at own geekiness*.

Lunch Ho--

When it comes to jobs, there are a few basic tenets I tend to adhere to:

1. Do excellent work.
2. Get it done on time.

As much as I am disenchanted with my current employ this is still my modus operandi. 

I also abide by the notion that as long these two things are happening, if you work an extra 30 minutes one day and don't claim overtime, then that time is yours to take another day.  It saves paperwork.  It helps maintain a sense of autonomy and self-direction.  Many would argue that this kind of workplace flexibility (the trendiest form of which is probably teleworking) also makes for happier, more productive employees.

On that note, there are few things that burn my butt more than Office Police.  You know the type: they're like gophers, popping their heads over the walls of their cubicles to see whowhatwherewhenwhy at the slightest indication of movement beyond their beige, fabric-covered dens.    These are the coworkers who have a photographic memory for clocks and can tell you what time you arrived, when you had lunch, when you left at the end of the day, and how long it took you to go take a piss.  And if the time in between doesn't add up to your daily 7.5, god help you 'cause they'll rat you out. 

So I don't know which Office Police squad member got their knickers in a knot and started stirring things up, but the Sheriff of Officetown (i.e., our boss) had a huge hissy fit today.   All employees were told the following: lunch is 30 minutes.  Breaks are 15 minutes x 2.  Breaks include the time spent getting water from the fountain and trips to the bathroom.  Lunch and breaks are not to be combined into a one-hour lunch.  If you want a one-hour lunch, you make up the time at the end of the day.

My lunch hour is no more.  It's half a lunch.  It's a lunch ho. 

I'm sorry, but this pisses me off.

If I really needed someone to dictate and monitor my every move, breath and fart in order to ensure that I had a productive work day, I would be a piss-poor employee.  If I was THAT incapable of managing my time and ensuring that the powers that be got their money's worth out of me, I never should have been hired in the first place.  

This is not day care, it's a workplace.  And rather than improve productivity, these kinds of edicts do nothing but piss people off (thereby making them extremely UNproductive).   It's such a back-asswards and archaic mentality...gosh, no WONDER it's so prevalent in the public service. 

Sigh.

Is my letter here yet?

Lunch Hour and Loonies

There was no damn letter in the mail last night.  Trying to stay "meh" about it...it should come eventually...but I need the damn letter so I can start applying for other funding opportunities, many of which have deadlines of, oh, NEXT WEEK.  Whatever.

It snowed today, like, really truly snowed.  I wanted to walk in it, so I escaped my desk at lunch.  Grey, damp, chilly, forgot my mitts and returned with numb, red hands (glee).

Sometimes I forget how lovely it is downtown.  When you see something every day for years you often lose your appreciation for it.  Guilty as charged.  I know nothing about architechture, but I do love the stone, sweeping archways and oxidized copper rooftops.  There are all kinds of wonderful, carved, fairy-tale-esque details hiding in unexpected nooks:

I love the fact that you can walk right up onto Parliament Hill and no one bats an eye.  

 

There are two guarantees in life: death and taxes.  Oh, and also that there will be a protest downtown at any given moment.  Today it was the museum workers:

Oh yeah.  And THIS lovely display, right in front of the Eternal Flame:

Good thing he brought all his supporters so he could REALLY make a statement *insert eye roll here*.  What a loon.

I usually am the type of person who will calmly and rationally try to educate people about this sort of thing, but someone like this?  Impossible.  It's a waste of energy and oxygen.   Just once though, JUST ONCE, I'd like to hear an argument for why my marriage is so gosh-darn offensive which DOESN'T involve the word "god", "bible", or any some variation thereof.   Blarg.

Speaking of loonies.  There's a rather poignant sculpture outside St. Andrew's church on Wellington, of a homeless person.  His bowed head and hunched shoulders are covered by a blanket.

His right hand is outstretched: a silent, universally-understood request. The sculptor had incorporated an actual one-dollar coin into the piece. Sadly:

I hope that, at least, it was someone who really needed it.

I can haz letter now plz?

According to my calculations

today should be the day that I get the letter. *

After I get home from a long, painful thrilling day of drafting a Best Practices Handbook (ZOMG lookit the pretty Org Charts! excuse me while I throw up in my mouth), and it's pitch black because I was held up at the office to accomodate some last-minute meeting request (again) and there was construction on the bridge (again) which prolonged my commute by a sublimely aggravating additional half hour, and there's still dinner to be cooked and dogs to be fed, and dangitall I forgot to pick up bread for tomorrow's lunch on the way home, all of which amounts to me being tired and cranky and feeling sorry for myself......

after all that my lovely wife will greet me at the door and say, "Here's the mail you've been waiting for!" And we will open the letter together and then toast my success and then exhale because the bulk of my funding/ scholarships will be secured.


* O.k., so I admittedly have no actual evidence to support this theory, but dammit I better get that freaking letter soon before I lose my freaking mind.

Wherein the protagonist attempts to redeem herself musically and discovers inter-sibling psychic connection.

I could listen to this over and over and over again x infinite.


Oh wait. I just did. Emily Haines' voice makes me all swoony.  *swoon*

I randomly emailed my little brother to express my unwavering love for the epic-ness that is Metric.  His reply:

Holy Fuck guess what I'm listening to right now? AAAHHHHHH

Holy Fuck indeed, how wooooooooo.

MMMWWWAH!

I ignored the little flashy red light on my phone for a few minutes after I returned to my desk (usually it signals that someone annoying is wanting me to do something stupid, and history tends to repeat itself, sooo)...but it was in fact a message from the elder nephew:

"Hi Aunt Fiss-ow! Hiiiii! I love you! MMMMWWWAH (big ol' juicy kid-kiss)! 'Byeee!"

*click*

Apparently I am forgiven for allowing the yellow dog to steal his toast. Rainbows and tadpoles and cotton candy in that boy. Love him.

Babysitting and the protagonists' questionable taste in music

Two of the nephews were dropped off at our place last weekend. One is nearing 3, the other is about 6 months. Both are ridonculously cute.

Being the good aunties we are, they were entertained, fed, watered, and sleeping by the time we got them back to mum and dad several hours later. (Although the elder, having been allowed to play with his dump truck in a pile of mud in our front yard, was substantially dirtier - and he had experienced significant emotional trauma due to an incident involving an unguarded piece of peanut butter toast and a yellow dog and a sudden and startling absence of said toast. The rage of a de-toasted-almost-three-year-old is something to behold. The younger survived unscathed despite having been subjected to a number of salivary facial anointments by the canine crew. *shrugs* It's good for the immune system.)

The elder was fighting sleep ("No nap, Aunt K...WAKE UP...NO nap") on the car ride home so we popped one of his mum's CDs in the disk player: a Sesame Street compilation. The kid was out like a light before you could say "Suuuuuuuuunny days".

We smiled and patted ourselves on the backs for being the BEST AUNTS EVAR. And left the CD running. And then turned up the volume a notch. Then a little more. Before long we were belting out "Rubber Duckie", "'C' is for Cookie" and "Doin' the Pigeon" and grinning like a couple of idiots (thank maude kids can sleep through anything, including tone-deafness). There's something about hanging out with little ones that gives you free reign to unabashedly enjoy some of the fun stuff from your own childhood. I'm grateful for having that in our lives, despite the spectacular failure of Project Baby.

I came this close to asking if I could borrow the CD.

My pretties

Ah, yet another mind-numbing and soul-squelching enthralling and fulfilling day in my own personal hell cubicle.

Lord help me.

I really shouldn't complain. a) as much as I hate my job, I HAVE a job and therefore should be thankful, b) I only have to put up with this shit for another two months and then I get to go do something I love.

Fuck that shit, I'm complaining anyways. It's completely demoralizing when, after 7 years of post-secondary education and 4 more years in the workforce, your "superiors" (term applied loosely in this context) think that you should pucker up and kiss their asses for granting you the "privilege" of typing up their asinine memos. Blarg.

So today I cheer myself up with a photo of some of my pretties:

Any self-respecting entomologist would be ashamed of this display: only a handful of specimens have proper identification labels.

This isn't a scientific collection though, it's just my own little grab-bag of "beetles I think are pretty", which my wife helps me put together. Beetles are my far my fave insect group. The diversity is astonishing, and man alive, once you get them under a microscope...unless the ol' cones and rods are malfunctioning...you HAVE to be impressed with the incredible range of form, function and colour.
Sigh. Only a couple of months to go.

I wonder if there's buprestid beetles way up in The Land of Moving Water? Time will tell.

Any "ewwww, gross"-type comments directed at these gorgeous critters will result in a swift e-kick in the e-ass.

NaBloPoMo

I'm committed: NaBloPoMo