Munch

The only thing that keeps me sane when I have the respiratory flu is to eat as often as I feel like it. Some people, such as my D. who gave me this virus (thanks, D.!), lose all appetite when they are sick; I am the opposite: I am positively ravenous, every three hours. I cannot eat giant portions (luckily), but all I can think about besides the coughing and the headache and the chills is what I am going to eat next. I mean, my body is craving so I'm listening. I don't need to add self-restraint to the agony of dealing with influenza, therefore I just give in. Luckily my D. was feeling up to a quick car ride to the grocery store yesterday in the late afternoon, because I had devoured almost everything in the house in two days. He returned with pizza, sushi, cookies, orange juice, a dream! Thanks, D., you rock!
My being home and eating all the time is driving the poor dog bonkers. She is restless from few walkies and drooling all the time from the excess food flying through the house. Poor thing, I felt so bad for her today that I bundled up and trudged to the park. She blasted around in the snow as though she had never seen the stuff before, poor housebound pupster!
But after that exertion, you guessed it, I'm hungry again. This blog post was meant to be longer, and yet my stomach is assailing me, gotta go eat. Thanks for tuning in, and stay well; I wouldn't wish this flu on my worst enemy.

To garden or not to garden

This year I chose not to garden; after a couple debacles with the dog in the backyard -- see my post about one incident -- I had already determined that buying plants for the back was a waste of money. I did transplant a giant overgrown sedum to the front yard, to save my dog from her fetish for snapping at stinging insects because flowering sedum really attracts bees.
I also shared some overgrown plants with a friend, and I trimmed back the overly enthusiastic grapevine once or twice, but now I've given up. Maybe it's just too hot this week, or maybe I'm sick of trying to rewind the water hose that bends the opposite way no matter which way I turn or twist it, or maybe I'm just supremely lazy (likely that option), but this summer I had no real desire to excavate an area and try a new planting. I have many perennials that are doing all right, so they've filled in the available areas. If I had wanted to garden this year, I would have had to dig out an area covered in thick knotted grass, and I must be the weakest person in Canada, because excavating one little spot takes me all afternoon. I saved some money with my lack of interest in gardening this year, but I do sort of miss the adventure of picking something at the garden gallery store, planting it and tending it and watching what it turns into ... or watching it get shredded by the dog or eaten by slugs. Yes, I made the right choice this year; now, I just have to accept that choice and move on.
One thing I did learn this year, while tending my perennials, is that I must remind myself while doing a clipping project or weeding, or watering, or raking, or trimming, that I must leave energy for the cleanup part of the project. That has been an important lesson for me; not leaving detritus from a project lying around is crucial for my self-respect. Last fall I clipped a huge section of the grapevine away from the fence, and was so exhausted that I left the pile of vines in the middle of the yard until snow fell; then I was too darn lazy to pick them up and try to bind them and tie them into a manageable bale. Luckily, my long-suffering husband helped me with them this spring and a helpful neighbour took them to the transfer station in his truck for us. He's so nice! That pile of vines and its six-month sojourn in my backyard was an important lesson for me: I remembered it every time I started a project, and I have not left a pile behind yet this year. Yet, I say "yet" because I'm sure if I get any crazy ideas about working in the garden in this heat that I'll run out of gas and leave another mound of weeds or clippings lying about until the temperature changes.

A friend's vegetable garden makes me yearn to be ambitious, and hearing my parents talk about their wondrous food-growing landscape in their backyard almost inspires me to try something modest; but I remember the dog and my absence of fence-building ability, and my general lack of wanting to work hard at anything lately, and I resign myself to begging for excess zucchini or tomatoes from people I know who have gardens. I did that today, actually, while talking to someone about her garden, maybe that conversation will bear fruit/veg. Just call me the punster.

Back from the Falls

Two nights and almost two days in Niagara Falls (aka "mini-me Las Vegas") flew by so quickly that I barely had time to blink. My D. golfed in a friendly tournament at the Legends course. Mulligan and I went along for the ride to NF, in order to spend the last couple days of vacay with our dude, and to avoid worrying about him driving on the highway after a full-day of golfing (two rounds). This was our first time with the dog in a hotel, so we booked a pet-friendly place: Best Western Fallsview. For an extra $25 per night, which included kennelling if you're out for the day visiting the Niagara attractions, they give you a treat bag on arrival and many smiles for your family pet. I put the dog in the kennel for a half-hour on Saturday morning so that I could go get something to eat, and she seemed even perkier when I picked her up! Mulligan is a champion traveller, and except for the occasional BOOF! when peeplz in the hall were making noizes, she was perfect.
We ate Antica Pizzeria pizza on Friday, recommended by a friend, and it was delicious! A+ for sure. I had their signature Antica Pizza, with onions and sauce and parmesan cheese (no mozzarella), and I think that might be my new favourite topping combo. Friday was so unbearably hot + high humidity that my brain started to melt, and I turned into cranky-monster with swirling eyes who frightens my D. He said, "Oh, I remember where I saw this version of you before: when we were in Mexico!" We booked a trip to Mexico in September, the tail-end BUT not the end of hurricane season (H-Ivan swamped our beach for a whole day), and we went to the tropical rainforest part of Mexico in SUMMER, not bright am I? I spent the first two days prostrate on the bed from the humidity, and the rest of the week I only ventured out after noon, and always had to stay in the shade, or MY BRAIN WOULD MELT. I inherited this condition from my mother: unable to stand high-humidity plus heat is a genetic defect apparently. Note to self, always book desert vacations if you want to travel in the summer months.
Back in the air-conditioned Niagara Falls hotel room, I was less of a grizzly bear, but I was content to rent a movie on the tv so we stayed in and watched "Hot Tub Time Machine." Except for the soundtrack, don't bother; oooh, and parts of it are really really gross! That guy from the story in the link to the grizzly bear attack certainly has the right to HATE that mo-fo bear, but he doesn't ... maybe I could print out this article and show it to my D. when I have one of my g-bear, brain-melting attacks, and he won't "bear" a grudge against me, like that scientist, who must have a brain disorder to HATE NOT that mo-fo bear!

We walked down the steep hill to the Falls, and luckily the dog pulled me all the way back up because she thought she heard an animal squeaking behind the wall lining the sidewalk. The Falls are beautiful at night, but so think thousands of other people: it was busy for fireworks night, which meant we left before the booming started (goggie is very scared of fireworks!). The mist columned up twice as high as the Falls that night too, which meant we couldn't really see much of the Canadian side.
Saturday I lazed around = heaven! Read a new book (more on that later), napped, walked goggie three times, ate bacon, watched trash tv; it was bliss. That night, we got Thai Express takeout, and if you haven't had it yet, you are seriously deprived! I recommend their food, especially the green curry. The nearest location for local-bros is Lime Ridge Mall: worth the trip!
This morning, Sunday, we came home early, and now I'm blogging. Almost two days without my computer didn't kill me, but now I've been on it for two hours ... catching up I guess. Thanks to Lady Buttons for including me on her list of fav blogs -- yours is my absolute fav, Lady B.!

In the garden with Mulligan

Now, I adore my Mulligan (see her pic at the top of my blog), my sweet pupster, but sometimes her doggie behaviours irk me. Take this week, for instance, when I was beginning to think about gardening, after a long cold winter followed by a very lazy spring. A new plant I stuck in the ground last year tried its darndest to peek out from under the giant peony bush, so I cut back the peony and wished and hoped that this new (read "expensive") plant would find the sun and not drown in the excessive rain of late April and early May and would make a go of it in my backyard. A few new leaves appeared; I thought it might struggle into glorious burgundy "flame" (the name on the tag included "flaming" something or other to describe the colour). The very next day, while I was out in the yard on scooper duty, I noticed that my beloved pooch had started a new hole, right where my new plant was had been trying to survive. Struggle no more, little plant, now in two pieces and completely extruded from its nice warm bed of mother-earth. I think the dog was trying to get to the other side of the world, by the looks of that gaping maw she excavated. I said goodbye to my little plant and vowed to never buy a new plant for the backyard again, especially after inspecting my new hostas, which were showing signs of shredding from repeated "there's a raccoon! there's a raccoon!" stompings at 5.30 am.
Update on the hole: I allow Mulligan two spots for holes in the fence-hugging garden beds because (1) she's a dog, (2) it's really her yard, and (3) we have too many rabbits in this neighbourhood to expect a dog not to dig near a fence when she espies a rabbit. However, I may have to watch her a little more carefully when digging is in the offing, as her second excavation of the new hole resulted in an injury that could have been terrible: she skinned her carpal pad (that pad about two inches above her foot on the back of her front legs) so badly that it bled. She is an enthusiastic digger! It seems to be healing fine today, after a worrisome yesterday. So, not only does she irk me sometimes, but she worries me often; not entirely her fault since I am a worrywart.

And then I get to enjoy the cuteness; man, my dog is cute. She was resting in the warm grass on the front lawn, under our baby-tree, sniffing up the neighbourhood while I pruned the euonymous shrubbery at the front of the house. No leash, no rope, just my periodic vocal reminders that I was watching her. And her second-favourite place is looking out our upstairs window, which she sits at right now while I'm typing. When the light is right, the neighbours can see her, surveying her kingdom: they always tell me that they wave at her, so they think she's pretty cute too. This pic is of her with the badminton gear; Dan taught her to come get a birdie from him and bring it over to me while we were playing badminton in the backyard.
Enough gushing about my dog; I just wanted to write it down somewhere, how much I enjoy my pupster, even when she's irksome or worrisome, she's still actually pretty cute -- you should see her dig that hole!