Look Out Michael Phelps....

Sorry to be silent over the weekend, but we were camping. I’d like to justify my lack of on-line activity by explaining that we hiked uphill ten miles with our sleeping bags, a two-man pup tent, freeze-dried rations, and fishing poles for survival, but the sad fact is that we took the motor home to a lake about 20 miles from home and forgot the cable hookup for the t.v. and laptop. The way I was raised, that is NOT camping.

But camping the old fashioned way is no longer an option for me. The problem is the two-man pup tent. Whoever named the dang thing a “pup” tent didn’t have whippets. In fact, I’m pretty darn certain that Tara and Nike take up enough bed space between them that they wouldn’t fit in the “pup” tent.

We had a great time though. We even borrowed a friend’s boat and toodled around the lake for a bit. (Note to self, need to purchase PWC for summer lake adventures). The lake cruise was a delightful way to spend a 90 degree Saturday. Until the motor quit.

Now, granted, we were only about 15 yards from the dock when the motor quit. And we had an oar. That we couldn’t get unhooked. Since I have been working out with Helga for three weeks now, and I am the fearless saver of lives in bat attacks, I selflessly volunteer myself up to dive off the bow and swim, towing said boat, to the dock.

Firstly, I don’t dive. Period. I do not go head first anywhere I can’t see where I’m going. That’s just plain dumb. Like eating mushrooms, it’s just one of those things you cannot convince me is a good idea. Mushrooms are poisonous, and diving head first without looking where you are going has got to be unhealthy. I’m a careful weigher of risk, and these are just two things that my cerebral actuary says “nope”, “nada”, “not going there”.

So, in reality, I gingerly slid feet first off the bow clinging to the bowline. I got the boat turned around and swam to the dock, arriving not quite half-drowned. While I cling to the dock gasping for air, Saint Rob, in the boat, points out a slight problem. The boat moors on the other side of the dock and there are too many other boats in the way for him to tow it by walking on the dock. So bowline in teeth, I strike out again around the dock, trying not to get run over by the boat, shoved under the dock, and also trying not to run the boat into any of the other boats bobbing cheerfully in their moorings.

We did finally make it in. I have a bruise on my knee from being run over by the boat, but no other real damage. I got my cardio for the day. Helga will be proud.

Next dog is gonna be a Lab. First, they can swim and pull the damn boat. Second, they probably fit in a pup-tent.

Helga

Have I ever mentioned that Saint Rob does the cooking? I, who love to cook, have darn near forgotten how. We get banana pancakes for breakfast, and all sorts of yummy concoctions for dinner. He is the king of the barbeque, and even better at creating a three course meal from the dregs of the fridge. Where I see Tabasco sauce, pickle relish, and a lonely pita pocket, he somehow makes quesadillas and a salad.

While this is a fabulous skill, much appreciated by me generally, it is not so appreciated by my skinny jeans. While I’ve been eating, my skinny jeans have simultaneously been embracing Adkins, South Beach, Nutrisystem, and Jenny Craig.

What began as a minor difference of opinion between my tummy and the snap on the skinny jeans post-dryer, has become over the summer, an all out war between my favorite Lucky Brands and my hips, thighs and posterior region.

About three weeks ago, with the battle raging out of hand, I decided to call for back-up. Enter Helga. The fitness center about five miles from our house retains the services of a personal trainer who specializes in working with out of shape, middle-aged blobs. Helga is a Nordic looking blue-eyed blond who could almost be called cute except she weighs about as much as my pinkie, and bench presses her jeep Wrangler for warm-ups.

So, three times per week I go spend an hour with Helga. At the beginning of the hour, I like Helga. She’s the perfect trainer, very knowledgeable, always changing the exercises, explaining that soon, if I work hard, I will be able to bench press my bicycle. By the end of the hour, I find that Helga is not so cute, and I wanna see her do 45 seconds of Desert Lizards across the gym floor after first doing medicine ball lunges for two minutes. For the fourth time.

I hadn’t really noticed much change yet. The scale hasn’t really budged. But I must say that in my recent overwhelmed, stressed out state, I DO feel better mentally after my hour with Helga. So if nothing else, exercise does help depression and anxiety. Make me the poster child for the gym! The before picture can show me in my post-work coma. The after picture can show me with sweat trickling into my eyes sucking on a G2 and doubled over panting, too busy trying to breathe to worry about any other paltry inconveniences.

And then, today, the Lucky Brands went on without argument. Snug, yes, but no need for the Pants Dance to get them buttoned! Hooray!

Helga’s real name is Kim. Guess I’m going to have to start being nicer.

29 Again....

The Dark Night

I am an experienced whippet owner. Fourteen years of life with efficient killing machines capable of decapitating a plastic bag at 35 miles per hour without a second thought. They’ve dug to china for a mole, climbed fruit trees to get squirrels, one actually jumped out of a boat to get a frog, and the close encounters with possums and bunnies are too numerous to mention. The frenzied game of “Hey, Lets Kill Kitty” a few years ago left two dogs, the cat AND me all in emergency clinics. The only dog unscathed in that fiasco was the one wearing a funnel collar due to injuries sustained in a round of “Lets Get The Border Collie” the previous week.

Most of these incidents that call on my carcass removal skills and the occasional need to manually assist Thumper to a better place have been, mercifully, outside. Travis did try to bring a live possum in through the dog door one night in Bellingham, but it was, thankfully, too big and he couldn’t make it fit sideways.

So I actually laughed at Rob when he wanted to keep the dog door closed at night so “creatures” can’t come in. The dog door, I condescendingly pointed out, leads to a chain link kennel. With a cover. Nothing is coming in the dog door besides our dogs and our cats. Besides, I’ve lived for almost 13 ½ years with a dog door without any kind of wildlife raiding the fridge for beer, or tuning in to HBO at 3a.m. (I conveniently left out the bit about the possum. No sense borrowing trouble). Besides, closing the dog door at night defeated half the purpose for the dog door in the first place – Nike’s getting to be an old guy, and he likes to make a 2am trip out to inspect the fence. I conveyed politely to Rob that we could close the dog door at night only if HE wanted to supervise fence inspecting. If I’m living in a house with a dog door, I ain’t getting up with the dogs.

So, the dog door has stayed open at night without incident until a few weeks ago. Frankly, I think the whole affair was a publicity stunt, timed with the release of the new movie.

3:36 a.m. – All is quiet. Not a creature is stirring, except the cats are making quite racket running around the living room. This is not particularly unusual. But it does wake me up.
3:38 a.m. – “Dad” I wasn’t sure I really heard Nick, so I didn’t wake up Rob and waited to see if I heard him again.
3:39 a.m. – “Dad” Nick is now outside the bedroom door. “Dad, there’s a bat in my room.” “What?” Rob is somewhat awake. “There’s a bat in my room. The cats are chasing it around.” Nick bails for the bathroom.
3:40 a.m. “How does Nick know there’s a bat in the house, he’s supposed to be in bed asleep.” I am sitting up in bed waiting to see how the crisis will be handled. Clearly with all this testosterone in the house I am surely exempt from dealing with garbage, light bulbs, and fruit bats.
3:45 a.m. – Nick and Rob continue to argue about the presence of the bat. Rob settles on denial as the best defense “There’s no bat, so shut your door and go sleep on the couch” Nick continues to argue that he’s not, er, batty. The cat scuffling is getting more frantic.
3:47a.m. – Apparently my gender exemption ends at light bulbs. I put on my Joker make-up and my bathrobe and get up to help Nick. Rob is clearly useless. I poke my head in Nick’s room and watch the poor bat flutter helplessly against the wall. WHOOSH – I duck as the bat nearly dive bombs me heading for the living room.

“Get the cats and lock them in your room.” I tell Nick. We finally corral the cats so I can open the front door. Note that Nike hasn’t even bothered to get out of bed. Rob ventures out just once to witness a fly-by and half-pikes back into the bedroom slamming the door behind him.

3:55a.m. – The badly confused and frightened bat makes several laps of the house. The skylight is somehow particularly confusing. Finally, he lucks out and finds the open door and escapes into the night.

The discussion about how the bat got in is brief. One of the cats had to have caught him and brought him in through the dog door. The whippets, I point out, have no interest in bats. Nike never got out of bed, remember? The only other possibility is that we have a whole attic full of bats.

We’ll never know, because Rob won’t look, and I don’t climb ladders. That’s too much like changing a light bulb.

Return of The Blog...

It was a dark and stormy night. Week. Okay, month and a half.

But I am happy to report that as of today, the blog is back. It was curled up on the doorstep when I woke up this morning, rather rusty, and looking a bit like a drowned rat, but there it was.

For the last six weeks I've felt a bit like this at work:

On top of being attacked by 52 different projects at the office, I've been assigned to write an article for "Dogs In Canada" magazine, for which they will actually pay me. That's a good thing, but it will take some time, of which I have none.

Besides having no time for the article or the blog, I also have a book that I've been trying to write for the past ten years or so.

So I'm following my White Rabbit. We'll see what adventure he takes me on. Twenty hours a week I'll still be Jenn and The City. The rest of the time I'll be trying to build up my freelance writing career, and writing Death At First Sight. I am probably crazy. But wish me luck anyway...

And check back tomorrow. I gotta tell you about the bats.