Showing posts with label venting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label venting. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

Domestic Demons from Hell

A few posts ago I was waxing lyrical about the vacuum cleaner I had planned to buy. Signed, sealed and delivered, it lasted 20 minutes before something died. Lovely. $300.00 (including ferry costs to get off the Island) and the damned thing had to be emptied rather a lot, and then the carpet spinning brush thingy choked. And so did I.

Mercifully, it still had great suction, which allowed me to attach one of the spiffy attachments for bare floors and also to deal with the frighteneing great billows of cobwebs. BUT NOT THE CARPETS. No. The main place where dog hair sticks and builds up...

After some investigation (really, this machine is completely disassemleable -not a real word, I know, but so what - and all the parts are totally washable. Very cool.) I discovered the belt had broken. Strange.... I had envisioned the building of a solid and long term relationship here, and this gave me pause. But I'm trying hard to be positive about all things. So I gave it the benefit of the doubt.

All sweetness and Light, I called (long distance) to the retailer and told them my dilemma, telling them that the belt had snapped after 20 minutes use. I suggested that they send me two as a courtesy, but only one arrived in the mail today.

Very excited, I swivelled locks and clicked bits apart, and put the belt on. Clicked, swivveled, put everything back together, Voila! simple as pie. Turn it on. Suction but no spin.

Give me strength. I'll have to go off Island again (another Ferry fee) and exchange it.

Is this a conspiracy?

Saturday, April 14, 2007

Off to See the Wizard, the Wonderful Wizard of Oz.....

Greetings fellow blogsters! Long time no write. I've been remiss, and have little time right now but am going to give you a quick update. Aren't you thrilled?

Its been a month of dragging my heels fighting a not-flu flu which migrated from body region to body region. Not sick enough to be sick and not well enough to be well. Exhaustion. One week I was intestinally challenged, the next week I was coughing all night with a weird dry cough that had nothing to do with congestion in my lungs. Post nasal drip sucks.( Oh, I'm just so hilarious.) Then I felt okay for a day or two and then I'd relapse. I wont bore you with all the gory details. Suffice it to say, after being ill for so long I might have expected my body to have shed a few pounds, as a slender silver lining, but no such luck. My appetite didn't get sick. It was voracious, my body demanding fuel to fight the lurgy.

A side effect was that I've been depressed. I don't think I've felt actual sadness, as such, but I've been a slob and a sloth, lethargic and unmotivated. Bursts of misdirected anger. Feelings of huge resistance to everything. The inner judge has been loud. All symptoms of depression (or adolescence, and we can have a dialogue about that if you like, so long as its funny...it might make a good conversation.)

Tomorrow we have an exciting plan. (I hear the song in my head, dippy and silly, "We're OFF to see the WIZARD..." I'm SO excited!) We are going off island to buy a vacuum cleaner. Now this might sound slightly mundane, if not in fact inane, but you have to put things in context. For one thing, we hardly ever leave the Island (why would we?!) And for another,my ancient (20 + years) vacuum has bit the proverbial dust, pun intended. The sound effects were amazing: Rhuuuur! Rhuuur! Rhuuur...ppppthththtthpt! Huuuuhghghghg. Ugh. Pthththtt. Nothing.....The smell was frightening. Charred plastic and slow roasted dust, marinated in worn out parts, or vice versa. Poor thing died a slow and choking death, over a matter of years to be sure, but the last few weeks it went downhill fast. A familiar story.... not unlike Vaudeville. With 2 cats and 4 dogs, all of whom shed like they invented it, the sheer amount of animal hair in my house could be woven and knitted quite literally into dog hair blankets that might warm the population of a middling sized community in the Himalayas, or Siberia, even. Cobwebs hang from the ceilings in waving swathes, quite rude, if you ask me... Dust bunnies the size of hyenas, with a similar malevolent presence gather like their proverbial pack in the corners of the hallways, the rooms, under the bed, behind the couches (dont for Godsakes look back there!) and they move softly too and fro in the breeze when a door opens, quite like a stalking predator. I worry that one (or the lot of them) will take it into their hairy heads to choke me in my sleep. Visions of being suffocated by a van sized dust bunny.. it sits on the end of the bed, watching me sleep, biding its time until it senses the right moment to strike.

Yegads! Move over Stephen King! :)

Tomorrow we'll go to Canadian Tire and get "The Shark" vacuum, which seems to be a Dyson knock-off. (I'm a big believer in knock off's these days. I got myself some pretty purple knock off Crock clogs the other day for 7 dollars. I call them my 'Crock offs'). This hoover is highly recommended for animal hair. I am sure I could write a testimonial and get myself my own very personal (and probaby embarassing) tv commercial. I just cant wait. Have you ever been excited about getting a cleaning implement? Its weird. Gross almost. Kind of surreal. And utterly uncharacteristic of me, but that only underscores the point of how desperate I am.

I cant even remember what a clean house looks or feels like. But I will know soon. Woo-hoo!

Meanwhile, the faux finishing goes well. The owner lost one of her little dogs to a car the other week and when I arrived on Tuesday, after having been away sick for so long, I brought her a dwarf red rose bush in Ruby's memory, and a card. As soon as she saw it her face crumpled and I just threw my arms around her. She cried. We both did. That was a fine little dog. She was. You cant understand what it feels like unless you have a dog. They live in your heart, you see, almost as deeply as a child, and when they go, a piece of your heart goes with them. Having your heart torn out hurts....You cant understand how people dont get it that when you experience a loss like that it is very real. I have a feeling that she hadnt gotten a lot of understanding lately for her sadness, and I just cried with her, knowing what I will one day feel when I lose my own dogs.

Meanwhile, the garden is waking up, but late. Things are filling out with green, but its still quite unseasonably cold and I worry about the crops and the bees. The fruit trees are all bursting into bloom and hardly anyone has seen a single solitary bee. Its been too cold and wet. I worry that the crops wont be pollinated before the blooms are blown to bits by the mercurial weather (WHY is Winter hanging on so hard this year?) and that our produce will be damned to an infertile season.

In other news, back to the off-island obsession, I have been scouring the SPCA's online photo galleries and have set my sights on a young boy cat. He is named Tommy and is 6 months old, orange and white with a look that says, "I am here!" and which makes you take notice. I'd like a very wee baby, frankly...oh, wait a minnit...What's that? You have something to say? You think I have too many animals and that I am certifiably, completely and unquestionably crazy?! Nuts to that. Huh, took you long enough to figure that out. And might I just ask, what is your point? All of the beasties are getting on, you know. The youngest, Dolly, is 5 and I'm hankering for a baby. Zeus was my last baby and he's seven. Its time, okay? Pushkin is 13 now and when he goes, Dolly will need to have a friend by her side. So we need to think about that.

I havent decided if Tommy is our cat or not, but my hidden agenda is to convince B to take a swing by the SPCA so we can have a looksee. Dont know yet if they are open on a Sunday. Or if B will be convinced. He says he'll come with me to the local SPCA on Tuesday, but I dont know that thewy have any kittens....

Meanwhile, B is taking the dogs to the ravine as I write and I have to get ready because we are going to Dad and Kathleen's for dinner. He's been ill and has walking pneumonia, which is rather a serious concern at his age ( he's 82 and kickes the ass out of any statistic you might care to throw out), so why he thinks hosting us is a good idea right now, I dont know. But he says he's much better since I brought him a basket of food and home-made chicken soup early in the week. Kathleen was away in Oregon and he wasnt eating. Gods, my heart nearly dropped out when I heard. And there's nothing worse than cooking for yourself when you feel like shit, is there? Anyway, Dad says he's on the mend and we'll have his famous pot-roast and chat and play crib, no doubt. A nice evening.

Thanks for listening. Its been a while since I vented and having your ears does me good. Hope all of you are well out there in blogland.

Love, Bird.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Sunny day...

For a change. :)

People get giddy this time of year when the sun comes out. Understandable when we've had nearly non-stop rain since November. Everyone was cheerful at work and I tried valiantly to meet cheerful with happy, and although I'm not unhappy, as such, I am trying to hold The Lurgy at bay. So far moderately successfully, downing massive amounts of vitamins, but I can feel it creeping in. Ugh. I DONT want to get sick!

I should be taking advantage of the longer days and today's sunshine to take the dogs to the ravine this evening, but after a long day at work, and feeling kind of crappy and dizzy, I hardly have the energy. I spent the last three days on the couch, except for running the dogs yesterday ( when they had a great run and had squillions of fun, snarfing around, bareling full till up hill and down dale, jumping over logs and swimming in the creek, digging great wholloping holes in the path for which I had to reprimand them, and generally carrying on like happy wolves in dogs clothing, which of course they are, at heart), so I expect they will forgive me. They are playing outside in the yard now. Enjoying the late afternoon sun.

I dont know if it is the bug I am fighting or the change in climate/daylight but I've been lethargic lately. Physically and emotionally. And I cannot say either that I've been depressed, but the 'internal dialogue' which we all have in our heads has been particularly loud of late, and that wears me down. Sometimes the noise is such a cacophany that I become overwhelmed. Hearing voices? Maybe I'm crazy.....

I rationalise this by telling myself that I have many aspects to my Self, and right now they are all trying to be heard all at once, so I cant hear a damned thing, let alone hear myself think. Sometimes I shout at them, "Who are you?! What do you want from me?! What do you want me to do?!" Sometimes I talk to them softly, and say, "Just give me some space, please, so I can get this and that done, and then you can have the last word".

I've often wondered what it would be like to have multiple personalities. I think we all have a touch of this. Some of us are more border-line than others. It would make my life so much easier if I could identify the conversations, the running commentary and be able to label them, put them in a safe box and hear them out, one by one. Name them. Understand the bits of myself that need to be heard, that need to be understood or that need to come out of the shadows into the light. It would help to be able to confidently say: This opinion comes from the 'observer', this one comes from the 'judgmental bitch' that one comes from the one who worries all the time; this one is a frightened person, young, and she's lonely, while that one over there, very quiet today, says that things always work out, there IS a Plan at work, and we are moving forward in our evolution as a species, and there is beauty and HOPE everywhere, if we look for it. Probably HER name is Pollyanna...

Mental health is so fragile. We can be on top of the world one minute and slip off the edge in another, hardly knowing how it happened. I'm not falling off the edge, but feel rather like I'm sitting right on it, at the moment, with the sharp edge staring me in the face. And I dont know why. Is it because things are okay? Too okay? Is that it? Am I so used to drama, trauma, and struggle that coasting for a while, and the euphoria I feel, the well-being I experience with a daily rhythm which makes sense and works well doesnt give my brain the "I'm terrified' chemicals it is used to, so I somehow manufacture anxiety to feed that addiction?

Comfort, constancy and normalcy, the sense that all is unfolding gently as it should is a foreign experience to me. I fear complacency. Because usually, in my experience, just when you get settled, all hell breaks loose and the excrement hits the rotating blades. I mistrust happiness. How warped is that?! And yet I am reminded of what my step father used to say, bless him, he said, "Let the shit hit the fan... it makes good fertilizer". yeah, thanks dad! :)

I have been having heart palpitations and shortness of breath. It isnt my heart, I'm pretty sure of that. Could be I've been smoking less (a lot less as I am not 100% well), and my body is going, "Hey, where's my fix?" and offering symptoms to indicate its temper tantrum. It feels like the onset of an anxiety attack, but never goes there. Which might help, even, since after the horrible and frightening experience of freaking out (and inevitably there is the point where one feels for absolute certain that one is going to die - you will know this is true if you've ever experinced it, and if you havent, let me tell you, it ain't fun) . Usually I crash afterward, and dont worry about anything anymore. I'm too tired to. The calm after the storm. I havent had a full blown anxiety attack in years, but this feeling, this sense of anxiousness, these days this can last hours at a time.

I'm still taking my happy pills, but havent taken any anti-anxiety pills in over a month, and nor have I taken sleeping pills in 6 months (which I only ever took as a last ditch desperate resort anyway, prefering Nyquill,or gravol, limiting myself to two or at most three, of any of the above, nights a month). Time for a chat with Dr. wonderful, perhaps?

I'm not sleeping well. I've mentioned that already, I know. I'm repeating myself, sorry. Sleep deprivation is something I dont deal with in a good way. It just makes me totally crazy. Quite literally. Emotional, wobbly and irritable. Paranoid even. So maybe I'm just run down and sleep deprived. Maybe the noise in my head is about some stuff, inner garbage, old baggage that is rearing its ugly head so it can be released. It has to come out somehowm, Goddammit. I know that right now I'm relatively stable ( reality being relative) so its an opportunity for the crap to come out. Maybe its an old anniversary I've forgotten.... I was sent to an Aunt in Newfoundland for temporary fostering probably close to this time of year when I was about 4 and 1/2 or 5, or maybe its a miscarriage. One of the three. I cant remember when they happened... Blocked them out... but last night I dreamt I had a miscarriage. I just know something's going on and I cant connect to it, give it a NAME, reason through it, or rationalise it away. It is happening and I just have to trust the process and ride the wave. There is something percolating, bubbles rising, and when they burst at the surface, I expect a word, or a picture/memory or a REASON to be born into the air, to be expressed into consciousness... something, tangible, on the lips of the mouth that whispers in my ear, "Something is going on...". But no....

Meanwhile. Spring is making herself known day by day and warming the earth. Softly softly. The baby little plants are beginning to stick their fragile tiny fronds gently out of the ground, so tentatively, and buds are forming on trees, unfurling just ever so slightly to make that inimitable Springtime green peach-fuzz haze... almost there, but not quite yet. My forsythia is blooming and the crocuses are up; daffodils are putting up their long, spiky leaves, but not ready to bloom. Like me maybe? The clematis didnt die after all but is putting out a huge cluster of shoots, as is the honeysuckle, prolific and mad with winding up the wire fence surrounding the veggie garden; although it seems the trumpet vine went the way of Vaudeville..... sadly. The deer didnt help with their brutal 'pruning' last summer.

The idea though, the dream of green, is at hand, and we all know by now that ideas make our reality. Our thoughts can and do shape our reality. We know this. That which we hold in our thoughts and dreams, is that which we manifest....

Are the trees thinking of Spring? Are my poppies thinking, "Right, days are longer so its time to send up those leaves"...? Are the wild roses, still asleep, dreaming of sunny days as the nutrients slowly are drawn through their roots, into their sap, bringing the message that its time to wake up and make flower buds? Do we all grow instinctively, like this? Maybe that is what sets us apart from plants and animals, ultimately.... the need to understand the process and to know why. The need to measure it, to mark it. To know, be aware of HOW to do it. To choose how to do it.

Frankly, I dont know how.

In shaping my own reality I know my attention to things, and my perspective is everything. I can chose what colour my lenses are. I can chose rose coloured glasses, or not. I can choose green or grey or black. I am noticing more and more that when I do that, when I look at things a certain way and set/choose my 'intent' my life opens up. 'Coincidental' events seem to bring opportunities to make me happy. 'Coincidence' seems to conspire with sweet Serendipity and I make connections, with people, with events, with my conversation with Life. 'When I change the way I look at things, the things I look at change....' I know all these things in my head and am working with them consciously, and with a lot of attention and effort. Why then do I feel like a bag is over my head and I am walking blind?

I went into the studio the other day, and left soon after, noticing the mess, and feeling resentful about it. Not all of it is my mess. Some of it belongs to the renovation and its materials being stored there. Not using the space for that reason is a pitiful excuse. Maybe that is what this flatline feeling is about. Guilt. Every day I don't do something in the studio, I feel guilty. (AHA! THAT'S the internal judge, jury and executioner, right there! That's good. I named that one.)

At the end of the day, I suppose, the best thing to do is accept that there is a process at work here, an internal process that has no words to offer me, and one that I cannot name. No explanation. I have to trust that the Process itself knows, like a tree waking up, what it is doing, and it is going about its business as it is meant to.

I feel strongly that I need to have a conversation with Life. A dialogue. A living, breathing give-and-take. I need to know why. And likewise, I need to have words so I can box up an experience and tell myself, "This is what this thing is" and make it safe for myself. Or at least understood. Contain it.

I am not getting the feedback I need here, and I'm feeling lost and afraid. I have no words to rationalise this. Maybe that's why my head is so full of them, clamouring, tumbling over each other, like a river of words, tumbling over stones, rushing over me. Its not that I am not listening, is it? Are all of the scattered bits of me, floating out on the ethers, buffeted by the winds, lost in some vortex of Gods know what, crying to be called back to me, to come back Home? I miss them, need them as I know they need me, to be whole. I'm trying, I am, but I dont know how to contain them, how to hold them, protect them, hear them all.

But just maybe, perhaps, the words jangling around inside my head ARE the conversation this process is trying to have with me, to tell me that the lost pieces of my Self are finding their way back to me, back Home, bit by bit, little by little; and they all have something to say about it, but I cant decipher their feelings and thoughts. I cant understand what they are saying...... not....

Yet.

Soon. Maybe.

I hope.....

Friday, February 2, 2007

Business as Usual....

Hey All, I'm sitting here not sure what to write. Dont feel like there is a lot to say, but I'll give it a whirl.....Things are okay. Home is good. Simple and basic. Work is fine, although I've been moved to another part of the store which is dead boring, and I try not to go nuts with ennuie. I put my hands on the counters on either side of me, do leg lifts, push ups (not many!) and debate flashing the cameras by pulling up my shirt and exposing my red bra, but pull silly faces at it instead. I straighten the shelves. And, Gods help me.... I dust. Hope that someone will catch me at it, just so that a conversation might happen, but so far no joy.

A few weeks ago, to provide some comic relief for myself, I set up a display on the top of my monitor which consisted of two white plastic doves, arching one over another, seeminlgy in an effort to reach the perfection of an August Rodin sculpture, depicting lovers embracing. Then I put some Christmas ornaments, white feather puffs on long stalks around it, framing the 'lovers' and put a plastic red heart in the middle. White fluffy stuffing, pretending to be snow, with sparkles, as a foundation. White trash tacky at its best. It gave me SUCH a giggle. I was hoping to provide the manager a laugh, but no one noticed! Not even the customers. Now I have a webkinz kitty on my monitor in the hopes that it will soothe the poltergeist that lives within the system, and inevitably follows me to whatever till I am stationed at. So far, its working. A little technical mojo, feng shui, or magic. Call it what you will, but the charm seems to be having the desired effect. Don't argue with me, okay?! There are Ghosts in the Machine, I tell you three times!

A few days later I bought a garland, you know the kind you put on a Christmas tree, like a string of popcorn, or pearls, only in this case it was lavender and purple beads which went off on straggly strings like branches off a tree. I wore it like a very long necklace which fell to nearly my thighs. I though of Coco Chanel, laughing in her grave. She'd have been proud of me. I wonder how many of her designs arose out of mind boggling boredom?

Meanwhile, boredom requires drastic measures to generate some kind of way to break the desperate tedium. What else can I do? Humour is the best medicine. As it turned out, I got a load of compliments on my 'necklace' last Saturday, at B's dad's B-day party, which was a smashing success, B's dad having told me a few days later that the cold he had coming on that night was wiped out by all the fun and excitement and he felt like a million bucks. 83 and going strong, bless him!

B's ex comes into the store. A stalker by nature and a freak of nature, if you ask me. Don't get me wrong, I am a big believer in all kinds of other-worldly things, but when my man's ex gives him her card to offer to ME and says she'd love to do an 'Angel Reading' for me.... Can I just say: Eeugh! And/or Eew! Tell me people, doesn't that seem odd to you? We are not friends. Neither B nor I like or approve of her. Her poor son works at the Store now and he looks so unhappy, even apologised to the manager for his mother being 'such a loser'... He is actually a great kid.

The thing is, she gets fixated on men. Mostly men very much her junior, as in 20 years her junior. Now B isn't THAT much younger than her and they dated a couple of months, until he wised up and managed, though it took a while, to extricate himself; silly sod. Then he met me, months after he had 'let her down easy' and she STILL had not let go. She sent him letters, showed up at his job sites, offered to FIX HIS JEANS.... and she comes into the shop nearly every day. I have to smile and be nice. At first I wanted to kill her. Decapitate her and eviscerate her. Tear her hair out and scratch out her eyes... pull off her fingernails one at a time. Very. sSowly. Because she still wont let go. My gods, woman, you were a blip on the radar screen, get over it!

I know a number of B's exes. Its a small Island. He has good taste. They are nice and lovely women, the few I know, but this one, she STILL wants his energy. She still makes barbed comments to him, she STILL wants something from him, and still tries to engage him and that's what irks me. He's in love with me. We are solid. We are coming onto 4 years of being together, and you'd think by now she'd get it...but no.

Its just really eew. I feel sorry for her but now and again I get angry at her attempts to connect with him. Thank goodness she has found a new object of desire and obsession..... The aforementioned 20 years junior person. Poor young man... he has the grace to be polite to everyone. Including her. Gods, she pisses me off.

Xena's foot which was quite savagely bitten by Zeus (did I mention this?) over a bone presumably, is healing, finally. When she was a year and a 1/2 I got Zeus, at 3 and a 1/2 months old. She bit him when he ran upstairs, within the first hour of them meeting, and after two hours they were in love. They have never been separated......Seriously, to the point that, in tears, I begged a baggage handler to make sure that they were loaded in their crates, in the hold of the plane side by side when we moved out west. "PLEASE DONT SEPARATE THEM!" He looked at me, the handler, through the plate glass window of the waiting area, and gave me a thumbs up sign. I cried. I'm such a wuss. But I was leaving my erstwhile husband at the time so I had an excuse for being wobbly over sentimental shit....

Anyway. Zeus bit Xena, and she had a couple of punctures on her head, and a really nasty laceration on her left fore paw. The vet said not to run her for at least 3 weeks. Bummer. She's been limping and cries when I clean it with antiseptic using the syringe the vet gave me. Today she seems better and the wound is beginning to close as it heals. Thank goodness.

I guess I had a few things to say after all. :)

Hope everyone in blogland is well.

Friday, January 12, 2007

Another Day in the Life....

So, you've heard this before, but seriously, B hardly ever went over to P's place to hang out, for ages it seems, and recently, perhaps once a month or maybe twice a month, there has been a reconnection. Coinciding with the hockey season, which isn't part of B's life or interests, but is part of P's, the life-long friend, and it calls for company, apparently. So the upshot is that I've a night on my own with the beasties and blogland. Which is fine by me. Romantic nights with the world covered in a winter wonderland are not uppermost on my mind as I am feeling tired and cranky.

Not that I'm not appreciative. Don't get me wrong. Since mum left B has reclaimed the kitchen and cooks every other day, almost, at least. He's become rather anal about dishes. Who are you and what have you done with my spouse?! I love it. I compete with him by trying to get on top of the laundry, but fail miserably, most of the time...

We are trying to conserve gas, which can go up to $1.20 a litre, and I know they pay way more than that in Europe, but dammit, we have our own wells for Christ sake, so this isn't on.... and having the luxury of the use of my mother's ancient Toyota 4WD station wagon, we've opted for using that, because it will go through any snow or weather, and so B drives me to work and picks me up. I don't trust my geriatric Buick in the newly fallen snow nor my own snow-driving skills. Especially as the barometric pressure swings and the roads become iced over. We've had more snow this winter, since I moved here, and okay, its only been 4 1/2 years, but that's still a baseline to make the eyes go 'pop' at the amount of snow that fell in the last few days.

Jeeze. I'm from Ontario. This is child's-play to me. Or so I think it should be, but mark my words. Snow that falls at sea level is different that any other snow.

Okay, I'm being a drama queen... Whatever. I reserve that right... always.

I'm being vibed-out by someone at work who was formerly kind, helpful and protective. Actually he's been an arse and quite rude. To the point that I've been stranded with customers needing assistance and have not known where to turn to help them. I don't know what to make of it. I think my feelings are a bit hurt. I'm just way too sensitive... its made things a bit icky. I have asked him questions and asked for assistance (which is his job) and been ignored for two days. Shit-le-merde. I totally do not understand what is going on.

Outside it is cold. Not like Ontario cold with a wind-chill factors of minus 27 or 35, but cold to my western adjusted sensibilities... It is only minus 6 or so... That's Celsius for our cousins to the south, and that means is it minus 32 Fahrenheit....something. Freezing, in other words. WAY TOO COLD. Okay go ahead and laugh, but frankly I hate the cold and am obsessed by the weather. All year round. Read my blog and get used to it.

For once the cats wont go outside to do their business. We have icicles and 8 inches of snow; pure and white on the railings of the deck, and on the roads;the trees are all weighed down with their burden of winter wonderland. Fir and Cedar and Balsam, all the conifers are a Christmas trees in a belated white Christmas. Heavy laden. I worry about the hydro lines, frankly. What this means is power outages, again. We ourselves have been lucky so far.

Meanwhile, with B away, Willy has once again gone on walkabout, the little terror. With the acute sensory apparatus of the psychic canine, he determines that his 'very own human' is not here tonight, and he's simply absconded. Bloody hell. Elvis has left the building...again. Plus ca change, plus c'est le meme chose.

Little bugger. I am now in my pyjamas and soft cushy socks, and settled for the night and I am DAMNED if I will go intrepidly into that good night, bundling up with inadequate insulation, to look for a stubborn errant dawg. Thick long johns, or leggings, as you please. Woolen sweaters, the extra socks to combat the holes in boots, the over-coat, the hats and scarf and gloves. Dammit. WHY DOES HE DO THIS TO ME?!

I have on my new jammies, which mum gave me for Christmas. Not that you really want to know, but they are a soft light blue with sparkled metallic threads throughout in a criss-cross pattern. Flannel. Lovely and soft and comfy. Not quite sexy, but nice. Attractive flannels, if there is such a thing. I will damned well not go out into a freezing night of utter cold and arctic snow to look for an errant stubborn, MIA dawg.

How can I be so hard-hearted and why do I say that, I hear you ask? Experience, that's why. Within the hour, I'll have you a bet, he'll be at the gate looking all bashful, forsaken, shamefaced and forlorn, not to mention freezing cold, as though I had bloody-well deliberately abandoned him on an arctic ice floe. As though he had a very good reason to abscond, and just looking me in the eye would let me know...IT WAS MY FAULT.

B's away. William goes on walkabout. You can bank in it. He'll be back when he wants to come back.

Right, okay, you know me too well. If W doesnt turn up soon you know I will be strapping on the boots and over-coat to look for him.... in my gum boots with the holes that will let in the snow and freeze my feet in a wet misery. Little rat-bastard. God love him, if anything happened to him I dont know what I'd do.

Meanwhile...hope all is well with all of you in Blogland.

Sleep well my Chickadees.... :) (Even as I am tramping though the snowy woods looking for a dawg who thinks he might hunt deer, or something, and at his age, ha-bloody-ha - on a Godforsaken, freezing-arse cold night - but who actually knows better... or damned well should!)

Huh!