Ewwwwwwww
I had a bad night last night, worrying about driving my little collection of billets doux to the lab this morning. My vet, who also suffers from Doing Too Much Syndrome*, hadn’t sent me the directions, as he was supposed to, so I was going to be forked into Monday morning not having had a chance to accustom myself gently to the prospective adventure. I have never been to the town in question, it’s better than an hour from here on the south of England’s hell-and-damnation road**, and I’m one of those people with a negative sense of direction: guessing which way when I’m lost, I’m always more than fifty per cent wrong.***
Oh gods. Oh help. Oh dear.
And it was going to be hot. † I don’t like driving and I don’t like heat, and I especially don’t like performing the one in the presence of the other. Also I was developing that weird ME headache that says ‘your body, mind and will are about to be riven asunder to a greater or lesser degree for an arbitrary period of time, have fun’ which was not the best prospect for what-counts-in-my-life-as long distance driving. So I sprang lightly out of bed (crunch, thud), threw on the bare minimum of clothing appropriate to the meteorological circumstances, bundled hellhounds into the car††, and a certain styrofoam cool box into the boot†††, and at 8:30 am set out for my vet’s clinic. Before he’d come up with this clever plan about my driving the radioactive core to the lab myself, I was going to get it to him Monday morning, and he’d courier it on. He’s only about forty minutes from me, as well as being somewhere I can find.‡
And I did find it, despite a certain amount of input from the ME, and the weather. And Mark’s assistant and I were cheerfully labelling plastic bags when Mark reappeared from ringing the courier and said, no, no, it all has to come out of the bags and be put into pots, two pots, one per dog. I know he’d said jam jars, but I didn’t realise these were actual instructions. I didn’t have any jam jars I felt like losing forever. I stood there rigid with horror and Mark told his poor assistant to take the bags upstairs, open all the windows, and . . .
And I, like the candy-ass poltroon that I am, turned and fled. But I also sent her flowers the minute we got home.
* * *
* Who among us does not? Note, however, that he always returns clients’ phone calls. If you’re desperate, you ring his service, he rings back. Except he goes on holidays, the ratbag. What is this with holidays? I don’t take holidays, I don’t see why anyone else needs to. Especially long ones. The occasional three or four day weekend I would allow. He’s going to be gone two weeks. I could have run away and joined the circus by then.
** You can’t go east-west. You can only go north-south. Maine was like this. It’s one of the things I’m not nostalgic for. Although, of course, I don’t have to be, because it’s here too.
*** This is what I mean, but for mathematicians and purists, okay, I’m wrong more often than fifty percent of the time.
† True. It was hot today. The mercury in the big thermometer on my garden wall was beating its tiny fists against the top of the glass, crying, Let me out! Let me out!, except for the fact that this is a boring modern thermometer and there is no mercury involved. It’s still pretty sultry now, although the ambient temperature feels a lot better after an hour and a half locked up in a bell tower with seven other people, no fans and a window that doesn’t open. Gah. This is the tower that only holds practise once a month and is kept going by us visitors. Only one local ever comes, and she wasn’t there tonight. Our ringing master is a fearless young woman who likes to ring fast so she does what she calls ‘pushing it along a bit’. However we rang Stedman twice and I got to ring treble for Cambridge^ so I’m happy^^. Hot, but happy.
^ Cambridge is usually the first of the ‘surprise’ methods anyone learns. At least around here. + Surprise is the really complicated stuff. ++ The first step toward surprise is learning to treble bob. As with ordinary methods the treble in surprise also has the simplest line, but simple is relative. And treble bobbing requires a lot of . . . well, bobbing, or dodging, so you’re yanking your bell around faster or slower nearly every stroke, as well as counting places+++ like mad so you know which yank to be giving it. And I don’t get a chance to do this very often.
+ Wild Robert has a fondness for Kent, but that’s because it’s easier to hold together when only two of the six of you know what they’re doing.
++ Opinions differ, I believe, about whether Stedman belongs in this category. It’s not surprise, but it’s certainly complicated. One of these days I’m going to write out Stedman and post it here for your edification and dismay, but Stedman, like surprise methods, has lots of jiggy bits.
+++ Ie your place in the method, which changes every stroke
^^ The ME, having made the afternoon a non-event, said, okay, okay, go bell ringing, we don’t care.
†† Yes, I took them along. (a) I keep them with me whenever I can, because that’s what dogs are for; (b) because I drive as little as I can get away with, and because I won’t leave them in the car, they don’t have a lot of experience in car rides that last more than ten minutes and some day when All of This Is Past and Done, I am going have the occasional overnight in other good footpath country, and take them^ with me; (c) I would walk them, speaking of walking, on the way back, somewhere new and strange. To make up for the walk we didn’t have on the first hat-buying expedition. -And we did this, including walking through this fantastically beautiful ex-mill that’s been turned into its own little private estate–barring the fact that it has a public footpath running through it–with old mellow brick and yellow thatch and roses on the wall and the peacock on the lawn. . . . Darkness saw it before I did. He was behaving strangely even for a hellhound, and I was trying to drag him along and it was like what people tell me trying to put a cat in a carrier is like: they suddenly have eight limbs, all with spikes on the ends of them, which sink into the ground and then expand at the tips, like the nails they use for wallboard. It’s amazing how immobile a fifty-pound hellhound can be when he concentrates. And then an enormous peacock stalked across the drive behind us and I saw it too. Conceive, if you will, the thoughts of a bird-mad hellhound on sight of his first peacock.
^ And my laptop
††† Note that it was, in fact, still cool. Modern technology, as well as a mile-deep well that exhales cold, are wonderful things. I’m trying to decide if I can reuse any of this stuff, however, despite the number of innocent plastic bags I sacrificed to my diabolical purpose. I guess I’ll keep the well.
‡ The first two appointments I had there, with the previous canine generation, I dragged Peter along to navigate. Also the map on the clinic’s flyer bears no resemblance to the actual roads and local geography, which seems to me a trifle unkind. Maybe it’s some kind of test.
comments
Please join the discussion at Robin McKinley's Web Forum.
******** And I, like the candy-ass poltroon that I am, turned and fled. But I also sent her flowers the minute we got home.
But this sounds eminently reasonable to me! I’m sure Mark’s assistant didn’t mind you absconding, and I doubt that they get many bunches of flowers in such “fragrant” circumstances lol
******** they suddenly have eight limbs, all with spikes on the ends of them, which sink into the ground and then expand at the tips, like the nails they use for wallboard. It’s amazing how immobile a fifty-pound hellhound can be when he concentrates. And then an enormous peacock stalked across the drive behind us and I saw it too. Conceive, if you will, the thoughts of a bird-mad hellhound on sight of his first peacock.
This just reminds me how much I love your descriptions :) I am still conceiving the thoughts of a bird mad hellhound on seeing his first peacock ROFL
ROFL
***********YOu laugh too much. You must hang out with bullies or something. :)
(Comments won't nest below this level)
I hope you have a lovely lesson on that nice mare tomorrow to make up for some of the last few days.
Not funny, but very nice, here’s a horse doing something along the lines of what you’re aiming for with the hellhounds!
http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=5XAlfM- OI94
and wishing you some nice fat chuckles :) Yes, They DO make me smile, even when I want to be cross – bless their little cotton socks!
I’m having a Bad Link evening . . . this one won’t work either.
I think the gaps that appeared between some of the symbols put the kibosh on it…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XAlfM-OI94 (competition for Chaos & Darkness?)
and this is too cheer you up!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_9UNdHH-Gk
Seding more Green & Blacks’ – I’ll even share my butterscotch (my favourite at the moment!)
I’ve never done clicker training–first I need an animal that responds to food cues–and I’m interested that she’s apparently lengthening or complex-ifying the routine from the middle out, so to speak. The horse is only getting a ‘yes’ every several moves.
And the other one is just SILLY. :)
Silly is good :) (One reason I get on with Bullies so well – great* minds think alike lol)
* no need to make rude comments, whatever they are I know it’s true already ;p
[whistling innocently]
OH MY!!!! What a day. Are you feeling like the bell you rang this evening – trying to lead while the pattern keeps changing?
I can imagine you, the hellhounds and the peacock all taking flight at one — oh my.
A plenteousness of chocolate to you.
…and you get to start ALL OVER on collecting the needed samples for testing? :(
Any jumble sales/local dumps/… you might find disposable, cheat (free?) jam jars needed? I hope so.
I HOPE they will FIND SOMETHING and I will NOT have to collect more samples!!!!!
(Comments won't nest below this level)
At least you got there . . .
My theory of driving somewhere is that there’s probably someone else driving that going to a place near where you want to go. I just find a car that looks like its driving confidently in a direction and follow it.
This has strangely worked most of the time.
I hope you find out what’s going on with the hellhounds soon!
Wow! You have a lot more faith in your karma than I do!! :)
(Comments won't nest below this level)
I just find a car that looks like its driving confidently in a direction and follow it.
I do that too!
Mostly just to get out of confusing parking lots and stuff, but I’ve been known to do it in town, too. “Oh, they look like they might be going to the post office. Let’s hope so…”
(Comments won't nest below this level)
Yeeek. I’m obviously performing oblations to the wrong gods.
Have you all been reading Douglas Adams’ “The Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul”? The main character, Dirk Gently, navigates that way.
I do that too! It either works spectacularly well, (Hurrah!) or you find yourself half a mile down a dead end road too narrow to turn in with muddy ditches/masses of parked cars on either side. Yeeeps!
(Comments won't nest below this level)
Have you thought about getting a GPS navigation unit? They talk to your destination.
I’ve thought of it, but it’s one more techno toy to mess me over. And I’ve heard a few too many stories about their taking you twenty miles to cross the park. That and our little town is on some kind of rat-run from point A to B that all the bloody great truckers’ satnavs send them on, which means we spend half our lives piled up in the log jam while the latest bloody great truck tries to get round the corner at the T intersection at the top of the hill in the middle of town. . . .
(Comments won't nest below this level)
The dog poo story completes my day. I was on the phone with a friend earlier, and we discussed cat boxes, and then I had a phone call with my sister, in which we discussed her child’s diaper habits. (And actually, I was on the phone three-way with my mom *and* sister, so I got to listen to my mom discuss my habits from when I was a baby.)
Fun times.
Actually, I should probably go see my mother-in-law and see if she has any stories to tell. Just to make it *really* complete. :D
(My life was supposed to be more glamor by now. Where did I go wrong?)
Ahem. Anyway, I’m glad you were able to give the hellhounds’ samples away. :D
What? No ferret crap stories? What’s the MATTER with you?
Glamour??? Overrated. (Like I would *know.* :))
(Comments won't nest below this level)
Well, SINCE YOU ASKED…
I just darted over to the other side of the room (it’s always the other side of the room) to move Suzi into a Designated Pooping Place. Just in time! Earlier I missed Stewie because I was on the phone and, furthermore, spinning, so my hands were very full at this point. I got him when he was about halfway done, and when I went to get a paper towel, he was in the corner, admiring his work.
Here’s a video from today to get over all the poop talk. :D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMM_Ih3pp1E
YOUR FERRETS ARE NUTS. Except the second one doesn’t get it, he’s supposed to run around BACKWARDS if he gets in that box.
I thought your ferrets are supposed to USE A LITTER BOX. And my hellhounds don’t ADMIRE. They stare at me pityingly when we’re in town and I have to pick it up. They’re RELIEVED that my strange fixation this last few days seems to have ebbed however. :)
They *are* supposed to. I think it’s the thrill of having the whole room most of the time. And sometimes I think they’re just being jerks, because they *do* know better. It’s getting better. Two are always good, and three will kind of edge into a box if I glare at them. The other two are still Problems. I’ve started scruffing them so they’ll know I’m serious. (‘Cause really. I have better things to do. But that’s why my floor is always so clean.)
The ferrets *are* nuts! And they have too much fun in that tiny box! They’re like puppies, but without the growing up part. :D
Well my puppies are declining to be grown ups! When we meet people they usually say, oh, they’re puppies, aren’t they?
But that’s why my floor is always so clean.)
******* This really makes me laugh (hollowly). Dog vomit is the reason why MY kitchen floor is so clean . . . and upstairs there is a pile of newspapers next to the dog box and you never saw a striking snake move faster than me when a hellhound starts heaving!!!!!
There’s a cartoon (don’t ask me where) which has one dog asking another how his human is doing? “Well, they still have this strange compulsion to collect every poo I do and carry it home, A dog wouldn’t do that!” says the 2nd hound.
Take it HOME? More dedicated dog crap bins is what this country needs!!!
Is relieved really the necessary word choice here”?
you never saw a striking snake move faster than me when a hellhound starts heaving!!!!
Gosh, YES. I am laughing so hard I’m nearly weeping with sympathy for you. I know EXACTLY what you mean. I’ve gotten to the point where I can tell what they’re about to do by the way their nails scratch on the floor. (There’s lots of backing up and positioning involved when a ferret is about to go. It’s…okay, it’s really cute. Despite it being about poop.)
LOL! Yes, when we’re in town, which means I have to get the plastic bags out even when I’m NOT collecting samples, I can tell when the butt-shimmy changes to getting ready for a–!
I hear you on the vomit-diversion impulse. The coworker who sits nearest to me tends to sneeze in very quick series that sound like nothing so much as a dog throwing up, and when I first started here I seriously had to suppress the impulse to jump up and hurry her outside. Luckily she understands, as she’s got four cats and says the department microwave sounds like a cat throwing up.
Yes… relieved… it’s what happens when you stop trying to hold it ;p
*sorry*
Poo stories. Vomit stories. Fun. I could tell you about my cat with the boomerang stomach, but… then this blog might explode from Too Much Icky Information In One Place. So, I won’t. (and saying anything about my daughter would count as cruelty to children, so, I won’t do that either :)
Sorry you had such a vomitrocious time, Robin. And sending flowers was the very kindest thing to do… because, that very same assistant was going to be adding disgusting-smelling mixtures to those vials of poo later… and wondering if she had gotten into the right business. (I tried working in a vet’s office for two weeks. It didn’t work out very well)
People should send more flowers to their vets’ assistants. :)
LOL There is something about having pets or children that enables conversation about excrement. The fascination of bodily functions….. ;)
I really do hope that the lab is able to nail down a reason for the hellish squirts. The *not knowing* part is always the worst. :(
Congratulations also on successfully beating the ME back into the corner for the rest of the day enabling the Holy Bell Ringing to take place. :) Yay Robin!
The *not knowing* part is always the worst. :(
******** Including the way that, as a result, it jumps out at you from corners.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
***And Mark’s assistant and I were cheerfully labelling plastic bags when Mark reappeared from ringing the courier and said, no, no, it all has to come out of the bags and be put into pots, two pots, one per dog. I know he’d said jam jars, but I didn’t realise these were actual instructions. I didn’t have any jam jars I felt like losing forever. I stood there rigid with horror and Mark told his poor assistant to take the bags upstairs, open all the windows, and . . .
And I, like the candy-ass poltroon that I am, turned and fled. But I also sent her flowers the minute we got home.***
I would’ve fled, too. I think you did a heroic job of collection and delivery, and it was their turn to deal with the results. Nice of you to send flowers, though.
***Conceive, if you will, the thoughts of a bird-mad hellhound on sight of his first peacock.***
I can imagine. He’s taken his first step into a larger world… Not unlike Shadow (my tortiemese cat) on sight of her first squirrel. “What is that? I want one of those! Lemme at it!”
I think she had nightmares after her first crow sighting, though – she kept waking up crying and having to be comforted. I suspect that in her dreams, the Big Black Bird was stalking her.
And yes, I know that cats dream – Shadow nitters and twitches and growls in her sleep. There’s definitely something going on in that little pointy head. Dogs, I have been told, do the same thing.
Dogs, I have been told, do the same thing.
****** They sure do. They chase dragons in their sleep. :)
(Comments won't nest below this level)
****** They sure do. They chase dragons in their sleep. :)
And hellhounds catch them. :)
I share your sense of direction. If I am with anyone else when I get lost, I defer to their ideas about which way we should go. I read a bit of research a while back that said that, in general, women use landmarks to navigate and men use their sense of direction. I DEFINITELY need landmarks.
Yes, I read the same article. And unlike most social research, it chimes with what I see. Even before I married Peter, who has a sense of direction. And I’ve always been a landmarks person.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
I’m an ‘as the crow flies’ navigator. I know what direction I need to go to get to my destination, so I just find a road that goes the approximate right way and follow it… but going new places is horrible. I give myself lots of extra time to get lost, unlost, and go the wrong way twice before I’m due at my destination.
I love walking dogs. If only it were possible to borrow other people’s dogs for walks. That would be perfect.
Good heavens, it IS possible. There must be a dog-walking service in your area. Usually they’re, ahem, panting for more walkers. Also there are things like volunteering to dog walk for someone who’s got too old or ill to do it themselves. There’ll be a be-nice-to-little-old-people society in your area too.
And shelters! I can’t bring myself to volunteer at a shelter because I know I would get too attached, but they’re always looking for people to walk and socialize dogs.
That’s pleasant.
Good job successfully passing off the samples. And good work in the tower. In spite of the heat, it sounds like you came out on top of things.
I can readily imagine the sorts of thoughts going through Darkness’ mind. They would be going through the mind of 130 pounds of Great Dane if I rounded the corner with the Alpha Bitch and she spotted something like a peacock. I’m sure you absolutely made the hellhounds’ day by taking them on that walk.
And spoiled it again with my usual vicelike grip on the ends of the leads. :)
(Comments won't nest below this level)
can I place my bet on giardia? (please)
“And then an enormous peacock stalked across the drive behind us and I saw it too. Conceive, if you will, the thoughts of a bird-mad hellhound on sight of his first peacock.”
Peacocks are big strong birds! Darkness might find it was an effective defender of its person, if he ever got that close to one. :) We helped friends move seven young-but-adult-size peacocks out of a barn, into a van, and then out into their new home place, a few years ago. I still twitch nervously whenever I hear a peacock squawk… And apparently the hotel just outside Shrewsbury where I will be staying on Wednesday night has two that patrol the lawns…! I may come back a nervous wreck.
I SO don’t envy you the sample collecting! (And isn’t it always the way that it turns hot when you have a box full of dog crap to deal with?) I’ll be crossing my fingers that you don’t have to have a second go round of sample collecting!
On a totally different subject, I read something today, on a book forum I belong to, about a proposal to put age bandings on children’s books, and how unpopular the idea is with many authors, and I wondered if you’d heard anything about it, and if so what your thoughts on the subject would be?
(The initial post about it is here – http://www.middlescommonroom.co.uk/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=825&highlight= – and has links to various articles )
I have such mixed feelings . . . I tend to have to rip this thing *off* to get it done every day (since I seem to be blogging every day at the moment) which doesn’t give much op for balance and consideration. But I’m saved for the moment because this link won’t link for me.
(Comments won't nest below this level)
*pokes link with sharp stick to try and make it work*
The link for the index page of the site is – http://www.middlescommonroom.co.uk/phpBB/index.php – and it’s in the section ‘Cross Genre Discussions’ if you wanted to follow it up if/when time/inclination/hellhound digestions permit. But no pressure, I was just curious as to whether you’d come across the proposal.
Um . . . well, the link works, but I don’t see a heading about age ranges.
I know about it. I’m not happy about it. There’s something to be said on both sides, but as someone who gets regularly bashed with letters and emails saying my books are too hard for children–I don’t WRITE for children, for _)()*&^%$£”!!!!!!!!–if they’re going to do it I wish they’d do a better JOB.
Can’t quite imagine trying to get anywhere by following someone else who may be going there too, but probably isn’t. Can get quite lost enough on my own, and do.
Lovely to get to the end of a day (or four) and think, Well, at least I’m not collecting and storing pet poo. (NB: Computer spell-check does not recognize “poo” as a word.)
Remember to eat. I find that in very hot weather (it’s about 100 here) that fruit and protein powder and juice in blender will sustain me until I can face eating/preparing real food.
Long may you wave. Ring. Write. Whatever. (My brain is melted: historic museum I work in does not have air conditioning on account of it’s not historically correct.)
Is there a patron saint of airplanes? Whoever it is should look after Peter, please.
Is there a patron saint of airplanes? Whoever it is should look after Peter, please.
************* I hope so. I read in some peculiar New Age thing somewhere that Archangel Michael hangs out giving support and sustenance and is a particular deep shade of blue. (I have no idea.) Peter likes blue. So I asked Old Blue to look after him . . .
(Comments won't nest below this level)
St Claire is the patron saint of television. But that doesn’t help you much, unless Peter’s watching the in-flight movie at the time.
I’ll suggest this for the return. :)
I’m glad the ME didn’t give you too much of a hassle. Your description of the headache is apt and I know exactly the feeling you mean (or at least the equivalent that I get with my fibro).
I’m going to join in with the disgusting stories since I just can’t get over how disgusting this was. Yesterday, I was at the house we’re buying doing some measurements and stuff and was letting my 14-month-old just do his thing. What can a kid get into in an empty house, right? Well…he found one of the toilets which the guy who owns the house apparently used during renovation without turning the water on so he could flush it. The kid fished out toilet paper from the bowl and was blithely carrying it around in his mouth when I found him.
I just cannot get over how disgusting the whole thing was. I’d gladly take your dog poop samples over offspring eating other people’s waste!
OKAY. I’M GROSSED OUT. Do you have to take him for rabies shots or anything???
(Comments won't nest below this level)
Uh, I don’t know. He seems to be okay so far. My husband and I just figured we’ d know what the cause was if he gets sick. He’s got a pretty dang good immune system though. I wonder why? :P
You win!
(Comments won't nest below this level)