Posts Tagged ‘Uncategorized’

Maggie for the holidays

The dog in this ad by Iams looks like a more terrier-ish Maggie, don’t you think?

Compare:

The part that they forget to tell you in the video is that before the dog starts acting like a normal dog, it destroys your kitchen floor and needs to be on anti-anxiety drugs. Maggie never fetches a ball, but she will bring you her rope toy (“rope-rope”) to play tug-of-war with. She’ll pay with Bender’s ball, throwing it around and chasing it, and keeping it from him when he really wants it. The first things she ever played with for us was a tea towel, which was cute, but little did we know it was an indication of her love for shredding fabric and paper. And the kitchen floor. And a foam mattress.  And…well, lots of other stuff.

But still, it’s true: when your adopted pet finally realizes that your home is her home, and she feels like a part of the family, it’s a pretty awesome feeling. Especially when you know she’s been through hell, like Maggie surviving Hurricane Katrina, a crowded animal shelter (where she would have been euthanized if she hadn’t have been shipped up to our pet clinic) a day-long plane ride while very pregnant, and a caesarian section.

It’s been three years since Maggie came into our lives, and really, I don’t know if we’d have this house or Bender without the changes we had to make to keep her (namely, buying a house!).

snowpocapse!

So we woke up this morning to nearly 30cm of snow, and it’s still coming down. Our driveway is at the back of our house, and it’s at a weird angle (the people who lived here before us moved it over – the guy had a backhoe – but it’s too steep up from the curb) so we weren’t able to get the car back in, so we “parked” in front of the house. By “parked” I mean we got stuck, pushed the car out and somewhat into a parked position and made sure we an appropriate distance from the road. I think we might not be able to get it out tomorrow, and I am absolutely shattered at the prospect of having to stay home for a snow day.

Because we are idiot Vancouverites, we don’t own a snow shovel. We went out looking for one, and the helpful and gracious staff at Home Depot and Wal-Mart laughed at us when we asked if they had any in stock. Now come on; sure we’re woefully unprepared for the snowpocapse (I don’t even have a toque anymore because Maggie ate it), but so are they! It’s like friggin’ clockwork: first snow of the season, and everyone runs in to buy snow shovels, boots, and car-scraper-thingers. And within 10 minutes, every store is sold out of them. Maybe stores should consider stocking more than 5. The Wal-Mart still has a lot of Wiis in stock, but no snow removing implements.

Darkness is falling now, with the snow. Hopefully the power doesn’t go out. The lights are flickering…

Favorite song: Matthew Good Band: Fearless

For reals

Since our last installment I’ve realized that it’s going to be a long time before we get the server back up and running…at least not until after we move. We adopted a dog, even though we can’t have one where we live. So, Paul and I bought a house. And I mean a *house*, not a townhouse. As in a real yard, no adjoining neighbours, and more money than we thought we were going to spend.

We broke down the numbers on this house versus the townhouse we liked well enough to put an offer on as well. Even though there is a $20,000 difference in the house prices the monthly payment is the same when you factor in the monthly strata fee. It’s worth it to have land that we actually own.

Our closing date is currently May 31st, but the buyers have asked if they can change it to April 30th, depending on an offer that they’re making.

All of this grown up stuff is probably the reason I stood in front of the haircolour aisle this afternoon, contemplating dying my hair back to gothic black-purple. Fuck this adult shit.

*sigh*

Smoke gets in my lungs

Luckily even though the Burns Bog fire is fairly close to where I live, the smoke at home hasn’t been too bad. It was much worse out in Surrey and Langley today. Paul and I were driving around in a mostly fruitless attempt to look at houses. Well, at least we know what we don’t like, and where we don’t want to live. Langley is out. It’s just too far of a commute for both of us.

We liked South Surrey and Panorama Ridge, so I think we’re going to concentrate there. We definitely need the help of a Realtor to go any farther…and also a pre-approved mortgage shortly after that…but I’m not sure how prepared we are to buy a house. We’ve been talking about it for a while. If you asked me what our time line is, I really couldn’t tell you.

Anyways: smoke out there was very thick. It hurt my eyes, throat and lungs. Probably because there is an advisory for people with respiratory problems to stay inside. Especially people with respiratory problems who do not know where their rescue inhaler might be (or even if it’s still good).

My perpetual catchphrase is: “that would make a good dog name!”

new puppy

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Grissom12
We went to meet my Mom’s new puppy “Grissom” yesterday. Here are some pictures of him.

happy birthday Digger!

Digger MacTavish is 10 years old today!

… continue reading this entry.

note to self:

  • You don’t need to make up for all the years you wore all the black in the world in high school by wearing all the pink in the world now.
  • Though it does suit your negative-melanin coloured skintone better.
  • If you see your dream wedding dress (twice!) in one day, there is no need to gush to your boyfriend about it.
  • When you’re tired at work, it’s much harder to stop the sarcasm from creeping into your voice. Watch it.
  • It’s also much harder to feign interest in your client’s seemingly endless and pointless stories.