Thursday, July 26, 2012

Back for the Pooch

Everyone who has met me has heard tales about my beloved dog. I can't help it; I don't have kids to brag about and it's too sad to talk about nieces and nephews who live far away or with whom we don't have much contact.

For my sweetie and me, all the leftover love in our lives, the stuff we would spend on our nonexistent children, gets showered our very receptive and delightful Weimaraner, Emma.

Which is why when she was tentatively diagnosed with a weird neurological condition more often associated with horses, we freaked out. Wobbler's Syndrome is a defect in the spine whose effects don't show up until later in life, so it can't be bred out of the animals. So far, Emma's case is mild, but eventually our lanky runner will be crippled. I'm not ready to contemplate a wee wheeled cart for her arse end, but you never know.

To push back the inevitable, I took our girl to the delightful Dr. Anglea King in Meaford yesterday, a kind and seemingly talented chiropractor whose ministrations appear to me to have already reaped rewards.

Now, I have always had a healthy back, so I haven't taken chiropractic treatment myself, but my sweetheart swears by it, and so do dozens of other people I know. Clearly, my insurance company agrees there's something to it, so why not for doggies, too?

It was deeply heartwarming to see the competence and compassion from the good doctor, as she held Emma firmly and gently manipulated her back. It was odd to be sure to see some of Emma's muscles jump while the manipulation was happening and equally strange to see surprise at the sensation pass across the face of my pampered pooch.

One of the symptoms of Wobbler's Syndrome is that the doggie or horse loses some control over their hind feet - imagine Bambi on the frozen river with Thumper if you need a visual. Her back feet seem not to be stuck to the ground and when she wags her tail, her feet pivot around.

But not last night after her first treatment. My Emma is on solid ground after day one! It's not a cure, but if we can have her as healthy as possible for as long as possible, we'll continue to have a repository for all our extra affection. Yes, she's a terrible bed hog, but she's OUR bed hog and we don't want to think about our life without her.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Spoiler

I got in trouble from a listener this week. Well, a former listener, apparently, who says she has switched away from my station, 97.7 after I gave away the ending of the first of the 50 Shades of Grey books.

I have apologised and assured her that there are two more books in the series, so I didn't really wreck it. I don't know if she's back with us but I hope so.

I'm in good company in the spoiler world, apparently, as David Letterman seems to have given away the ending of the new Batman movie that opens tonight. Earlier this week, Letterman joked with Anne Hathaway after giving out the spoiler, that he'll wait to see whether what he revealed will have an impact on ticket sales.

I'm pretty sure it won't. It's not like it's the Sixth Sense, where the whole point of the movie hinged on one key fact not revealed until the end. I would give it away but I've learned my lesson.

Here's the thing - would you stay away from the theatre if knew what Letterman said? I doubt it. Just like I doubt my upset listener put away her copy of Fifty Shades when I gave away a piece of the plot.

I would be willing to bet that finding out what happens to Batman at the end of this series won't affect even one movie-goer.

Fifty shades isn't about the ending- it's about the sex scenes. Batman isn't about whether Bruce Wayne lives or dies, it's about blowin' stuff up, the gadgets and holding on for the ride.

And even if you find out how this Batman ends, there will be another one someday soon, and movie industry experts are estimating about a billion reasons to make it.

Friday, July 13, 2012

Book Review: Fifty Harlequins


I've been reading romance novels since I was about ten, at first, pilfering them from my mother, who would sometimes sneak off in the middle of an afternoon to have a wee read and a break from her quarrelsome kids. Now, I download one to my iPod periodically, so no one knows I'm reading such silly stuff.

My mom preferred the white-covered 'Harlequin Presents', I think. There was a fair amount of sex in the ones I stole, nothing too steamy and very rarely anything resembling violence. Certainly, there was no spanking or bondage. 'Bulging thrust of his manhood' is one of the phrases I remember with a giggle about the sometimes hapless writing.

I'm pretty sure those books made a mess of my romantic life as a teen and into my twenties as I looked for the handsome and rich stranger to sweep me off my feet.
In these escapist fantasies, the guy is always rich, always handsome, always damaged in some way. He also always warns the goodhearted girl away but she is drawn to his charisma and looks and while he sweeps her off her feet, she's rescuing him from his damage. There's a formula to it, and I'm not just saying that; the writing guidelines are right there on Harlequin's website.

It appears the author who's raking it in with Fifty Shades of Grey might have read those guidelines.

Yes, I read the damn thing. The first one only and I was relieved (SPOILER ALERT!) that Ana the protagonist left the bastard after he hit her too hard. Yes, the sex scenes are hot hot hot. Yes, they give you a tingle in your naughty bits. But steamy sex scenes are in a lot of books, and so I'm not sure what's causing such a frenzy.

As for the spanking and tying up, it's actually kind of tame stuff, and yet, wow, what breathless excitement from most of my girlfriends!

Here's my happy theory on it: it's testimony to the massive changes in our society in the last few decades. A woman being 'smacked around' by a romantic partner was fairly normal at one time and now it's a crime. And now, it's also erotic, to read about, anyway. But if you've read and were titillated by Fifty Shades of Grey, ask yourself this: if you were cleaning out your bookshelves, would you even consider donating your copy to My Friends House?

Thursday, July 12, 2012

Ending the Bedroom Adventure

I'm clinging to hope that our bedroom adventure will end tomorrow. Or maybe the next day.

It's been cute and all, camping out in the spare bedroom, sleeping on a mattress on the floor, but I'm about done.

Actually, my part of the adventure IS done, as in, complete.

Our ancient old subfloor made of four inch wide pine boards had been bare in spots, brown paint in others and harvest gold in still others. Now it's a handsome solid dark green, somewhere between kelly and forest. For once, a paint colour in my home does not have a cutsey Martha Stewart name.

The old wooden headboard, the kind that is also a bookshelf, is a Martha Stewart colour, though: Ironstone, a colour which now has to be specially mixed since there seems to be some rule about changing the formulations of paint every two or three years.

We decided to buy an actual bedframe upon which to put the new mattress, but while we got the mattress in town(great service and price at Home Furniture...), we couldn't find the frame we wanted at a price we were willing to pay, and thus, Sweetie moves tonight into a town many of us dread. Allen Key City. (no!) You see, while I'm in charge of storage and decorating, he's the master of killng winged creatures and spiders, lifting heavy objects and assembling flat-packed European furniture. It's an arrangement that has worked well for us thus far.

The illustrated cartoon critters in the instruction .pdf I downloaded look like they're having fun, but I expect a lot of cursing, perhaps enough to melt the new paint on the bedroom floor.

Anyone want to take bets on how devilishly difficult the Swedish puzzle will be and how long it will take until we're finally ensconced in our own room once more?

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

The Bad Sister

How late is too late to admit you've forgotten someone's birthday?

At what point do you just pretend no birthday took place?

What about when the forgotten person is your brother? Your big brother?

I talked to my 'big' brother two days before his birthday last week. We don't talk all that often, but on this particular afternoon, we had a lovely long rambling conversation, the kind that only takes place when one of the people involved is driving and killing time on the 'phone. I was the one on the land line, and while I had lots of other things to do, I didn't mind a bit that I was helping him through his commute.

But as I hung up, I didn't think to say, "And Happy Birthday, if I'm not talking to you on Friday."

Friday morning, as I made my daily to-do list, I put, Call Brother right there at the top, and several times through the day, thought to myself, "I'll just do this one last thing, and then I'll call Brother." But I never did. And I didn't remember on Saturday until I was tucking into my supper, but I wasn't about to delay my steak and lobster for a 'phone call, and after dinner, of course I promptly forgot again. It came to me again as my mind rambled on Sunday during the sermon,(boring!), but disappeared until the cold knot of dread hardened at the bottom of my stomach on Monday morning as I was making my yet another to-do list.

So, I did what any normal, rational person would do: I procrastinated. Because really, he wouldn't want me calling him at 4 am, especially to offer belated wishes for many happy returns of the day, two, now three days ago.

And then, my mind went the other place most normal, rational minds would go: The Rationalisation, and I started adding up all the crummy things he had done to me over the years so that he didn't deserve my 'phone call anyway, right back to the time he kidnapped my Barbie dolls, some 35 years ago.

Boy, that sure worked, and now I don't feel guilty at all, no sireee, not me!

I should just pick up the bloody 'phone, eh? Fine.

Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Reason, Season, Lifetime

A girlfriend of mine has a phrase that makes me squirm a little bit for its dead-on bloodless accuracy. Phasing Out.

It's the girlfriend equivalent of breaking up, but slowly and with a fair degree of subtlety.

Over the years, this girlfriend has 'phased out' several women friends and made not very much of a secret of what she was up to. I find the honesty refreshing.

It appears her honesty doesn't hurt her social life at all since her coterie of friends and acquaintances is vast and ever-changing; each year, she squeezes about 100 people into her 900-square foot loft downtown for a party.

I was surprised recently, though, when I asked about a woman she'd introduced me to, and the breezy answer I got was, "Oh, she's phasing me out." The girlfriend in question is recently married and appears to be busy dumping pretty much all of her former life, becoming immersed in her hubby and his life, so my friend wasn't taking it personally.

Starting a new romance generally does mean changes when it comes to the rest of our relationships. Having a child does the same thing. I generally expect any friend who becomes a mother to disappear from the lunch and party scene, and am immensely surprised by mothers who manage to have any social life at all. Frankly, I would be suspect of their mothering if they did have enough time for me.

While I'm not a mother, I admit I've 'phased out' my fair share of women friends, but I generally do it in dramatic fashion after a 'final straw' incident informs me that a person I once held dear was never really a friend in the first place. For some reason, I seem to be fascinated by drama queens and then am terribly disappointed when they behave like, well, drama queens. It's a lesson I like to think I've finally learned after at least five such incidents over the years.

But when my friend 'the phaser' told me she was being phased, I realized just how often we let people slide out of our lives without deliberate phasing or dramatic dumping. In the last year, I have lost touch with three terrific women whose lives have dramatically changed because of boyfriends or children, husbands or commutes.

I'm happy I knew them and we had great times together, but upon reflection, I realize I'm not doing a whole lot to track them down or make plans. Would that be considered a "mutual phase", then? I'll have to ask my friend who came up with the term to better define it.

Friday, July 6, 2012

Bedroom Adventure

It all started with a sore back, and now I'm in the midst of a summer project that has taken over most of my house and left me camped out in the spare room.

My sweetie and I have finally replaced the mattress he thinks he bought at least 15 years ago. We're not sure of the exact vintage of the thing, but it certainly owed us nothing. Since buying a mattress is supposed to be a once-a-decade adventure, we made the most of it, shopping at every store in town and making lists and doing a lot of musing over how to maximize our sleep and storage while minimizing expenses.

We decided on a minor paint job and a new mattress and bedframe, but the same old headboard, also refreshed with paint. It's amazing how involved a little job like painting a floor can become.

Here's the order of operations from day one:

disassemble digital piano in office, store in office closet
disassemble spare bed, move to space where piano sat
curse
install bandaid on fingers pinched by hammer when removing sides of antique bedframe

discover four containers of stored clothes, wrapping paper and off-season shoes under spare bed
try on clothes in clothing container
shriek at discovery of long-lost dress worn in photo with Eddie Cibrian and Josh Morrow in 1995
shriek at discovery long-lost dress actually fits
gloat
move spare room furniture to accommodate newly purchased mattress on floor
greet mattress delivery people two minutes before their expected time
remove bedding from old mattress so delivery guys can become takeaway guys
disassemble bed
shudder at scary amounts of dust behind and under bed
vacuum
shudder some more at thought of terrible housekeeping and dust mites
vacuum some more
store pieces of bed in hallway
move dresser to hallway
move nighttables to hallway
remove Sweetie's clothes from armoire
attempt to move armoire from bedroom
fail to move armoire from bedroom
get armoire caught in doorframe of bedroom
curse
squish toe under armoire while moving it within bedroom
curse some more
vacuum
vacuum
vacuum
open paint purchased at Restore
wince at smell
paint area where blasted armoire will reside, tape off quarter-round
paint half of floor with brush
wince at sore arm
clean brush
wince at smell of cleaner
take Tylenol for headache caused by smell of ancient oil paint
install sheets on newly purchased mattress on spare room floor
sigh deeply at comfort of newly purchased mattress
nap
the next day, proudly wear lost and found dress to work

Tuesday, July 3, 2012

Footy Explained

My favourite moment from a terrific long weekend:

Sweetie and I watched the first half of the EuroCup final. We gave up after the second goal since Spain was dominating so completely and my honey was only being nice by deigning to watch a game he considers so vastly inferior to hockey.

It was after that first spectacular Spanish goal, but before the second. An Italian player slammed into a Spanish player who had been making his way toward the net, expertly moving the ball past several other players.

Here's the dialogue:

Me: Oh, that's going to be a penalty...

Sweetie: Why? He had the ball...

And that, my friends, is why football will never be Canada's game. Never mind the athleticism, the thrill of the bend, the fact that The Beautiful Game is the most popular sport on the planet, where's the fun if you can't hit the guy who's got the ball?