Wordless Wednesday:That's one big dust bunny

Or is it an Ewok? Who put the Ewok head under my couch? Isn't my mom's dog the cutest?
Seriously.

Moving beyond regret: "Gourmet" food and office visits

Maggie's recent dietary misadventure is a good example of how, in
life, suffering is inevitable, but misery is optional.

Her digestive tract is still pretty enflamed. At least,she keeps her food down now, but each meal is followed by a bout of gagging. Lovely.

But, she's never looked better. Look at her in that photo, showing off her now somewhat perceptible cheekbones after 48 hours on the supermodel diet. Although in her case it was paper towel that was (likely) consumed and not toilet paper and heroin. Careful, Maggie those bones could cut glass. Her coat is all soft and shiny now too. Bitch.

So, Maggie made a mistake (or ate a mistake). Who hasn't? But she's
still wagging that little Aussie butt of hers. For her there wasn't
exactly a fallout from this, more of a spray out, but she's not
suffering. Not her. She's moved on--right into my office, where:

• I can feed her several home pre-cooked meals a day, along with a king's ransom worth of gut-soothing medication, and
• She can be admired by all and sundry who stop by for a visit.

What's the lesson here? I guess that even if things seem to suck at
first, there can be an upside. Either that or Scott towels are yummy.

Me soooo sorry

Maggie deeply regrets her lack of control around paper towel the other day. Doesn't she look contrite?

Here I am complaining about the cost, but she must have been deeply uncomfortable. She added much vegetation to her paper indulgence. Interestingly, her vegetation of choice was the dessicated mint plants growing in the backyard. How do I know this? Guess. Mint is an herb known for improving digestion. Didn't work though.

Maggie doesn't look like her bouncy self in this picture. In fact, she kinda looks like me when I eat the WHOLE bag of Doritos and then feel like I'm going to go into labour (which would be miraculous because I'm not pregnant. I just have a LOOOOOONG memory).

But my whiskers are much darker.

Sparkling snow and dog vomit: Taking the bad with the good

Bright sun and a 20-cm snow base--it was a perfect morning to ski, so I did.

My husband dug out my skis and waxed them up for me. Not well enough to go out himself, he was determined to send me out to enjoy an hour of sun and snow. He’s wonderful that way.

Out the door Maggie and I went. I skied along the river parkway where an earlier skier put down perfectly straight tracks, which eventually gave way to a lumpy walking trail. But I didn’t care.

It was -10C, with a wind chill factor that supposedly made it feel like -16C and I was warm and happy.

In the past, if a cross-country ski wasn’t at least 90 minutes of significant effort on groomed trails, it didn’t count. Of course, that was before children and before THE SHIT happened. (For my other thoughts on shit, go here or here.)

Today, I was thrilled just to be out and ski alongside the sparkling river with its growing patches of ice that bobbed on its wind-ruffled surface. Maggie chased squirrels and collected burrs in her fur.

When I got home, I had coffee and laughed and chatted with my little family.

Then Maggie vomited and vomited all over the place.

Looking for shit in all the wrong places

Watching my dog run and jump and chase the ball makes me very happy. At the risk of anthropomorphizing my little Australian Shepherd, Maggie: she looks so joyful when she’s outside.

And that makes me joyful.

But when I’m bending down to the ground, trying to locate her brown shiny turds on the brown shiny leaves of late autumn, I get frustrated.

Here I am trying to scoop her poop like a responsible pet owner and I can’t find it. I’m being thwarted by the frickin’ environment.

Then I get philosophical and start thinking about “shit” in existential terms.

When we look for shit (in the form of offense or things that piss us off--like lice), we often find it. It’s a the-glass-ain’t-just-half-empty-it-has exploded-into-tiny-shards-on-the-tile-floor-and-a-piece-just-got-stuck-in-my-foot kinda thinking.

My grandmother called it fault finding. You may have forgiven someone their trespasses against you, but you’ve always got your hairy eyeball out for the next transgression.

And most of the time, we get offended because we’re so egotistical that we think that a person’s sole motivation was to hurt our feelings in some way. More often than not, people are just doing what they’re doing to get by, but we misread the situation completely.

I like to say that if you walk around with your head in the toilet, you’ll always find shit.

But, when you’re looking on the brown shiny ground for the remains of last night’s Alpo, it’s nowhere to be found.

Sometimes, you just have to let things go.

After I resolve to locate it next time, I call Maggie and take that first step on our return journey. Then, there’s that squishy, sinking feeling under my shoe and the smell hits me in the nose.

There are two ways to interpret this situation:

1. Sometimes even when you let go, the shit finds you, or
2. When you surrender, you find what you’re looking for…sort of.