Dogs Eye View Two

I lied, I’m not ready to tackle the kitchen just yet.  Saving the best for last I guess.  Mixed in with all the incredibly old stuff, (the things that people are always sighing dramatically about and threatening to get rid of once and for all),  there are some rather surprising and often strange new things.  Like this piece of driftwood, circa 2009.

Not sure if my little black and white buddy here has chosen to ignore these guys, or felt it prudent to remain very still to avoid detection, or is just oblivious to their presence.  Who knows.  Maybe he’s thrilled to have company, and doesn’t care that it’s the grim reaper and his apprentice sharing his lamp base.   Hmmm.  Think I’ll stick with my shelf and the chickens.

On to a couple of things  just a tad less frightening, although both mildly alarming in a completely different way.  The duck jar’s bottom is lined with stuck on gumdrops of indeterminate age.  There are plain gummy ones and some sugar coated ones, but they’re all hard little globs.  No one can remember exactly who put them there, and no one is willing to insult that mystery person by pitching them out.  The peanut butter jar holds an assortment of toffees which are hard enough to crack human teeth and then permanently glue your gums together.  Small children have asked to taste what’s in there, but wise adults have told them no, those things could kill you. 

This is a very popular spot.  And I know a funny story about it!  The first bottle of spiced rum (which was smaller than this one) went empty in about three days.  Grandpa picked it up and shook his head and tsk tsk’d to grandma, Look at that!  The girls drank all your rum!  Then off he went to buy this heavy duty super sized spiced rum for her.  Just between you and me and grandmalin, neither of the girls can stand the stuff, but there was no good reason to relay that information to grandpa, was there?  This is the place where Caesars are made, and lemon and lime are splashed over ice, and the pepsi can gets drained and crushed and recycled and replaced.  Busy place.   

HAHA!! Splenda!  Another joke!  Sitting up here looking down on the chips and the truly gag worthy lemon sugar cookies and the Munchies bag, knowing that all of those things will be long gone before anyone even thinks of touching him!  Except maybe to move him out of the way to get to the butter tarts.

 

Okay, one last stop.  The medicine cabinet, stocked with enigmas and conundrums and various mind boggling oddities.  The Velveta box on the very top holds old brushes and combs which no one will use because they look really icky.  There is a metal box containg four bandaids.  A half roll of adhesive tape.  A bottle of asprin which expired in the 1970’s.  A very very large jar of vaseline, in case all of us want to get totally greasy all at once on the same day.  A jar of loose powder, and a gigantic mishapen powder puff, which doesn’t look all that clean.  Some nasal spray, expiry date unreadable.  Four more bandaids, probably not quite as old as the first four, because these are in a much more modern cardboard box.  A little black film container which is half full of what looks to be more vaseline.  In case an extra person shows up for grease day.  A little jar of dried up noxema.  You never know when THAT might come in handy.  Some Vicks Vapo Rub.   Some hand lotion, a couple of razors.  An old shaving bowl and lather brush and hundred year old Rolaids and deodorant that stinks worse than the absolute worst underarm on the face of the earth.  And a couple of shampoo and lotion bottles and a little paper wrapped soap from some hotel or other, from some year or other.  Whew!  I think I missed a few things, but you get the picture.  So why doesn’t all this get thrown in the garbage you might ask?  Once again it’s the fault of that damned mystery person, and the fear that his feelings will be hurt if his things suddenly go missing.  No one wants the guilt trip that would surely follow.  So sorry, but the noxema stays.

Dogs Eye View

I’ve lived on a shelf at Camp Erika for about a thousand dog years.  The shelf is older than dirt too.  The eagle feathers (or sheds) in a jar behind me are relatively new, because eagles did not always nest here.  So they tell me.  What would I know, I never get to go anywhere.

But today that’s gonna change!  That’s me on the left beside my chicken buddies.  I think my paws are over my mouth so I’ll speak no evil.  One of my brothers sees no evil.  Or anything else.  That guy lazing around on the ground is a mystery to both of us.  The sign says “Remember, as far as anyone knows, we are a Nice Normal Family.”  I think that’s supposed to be a joke.  Because really, there is no such thing.

Today I am beginning my great cabin adventure.  I will start by going all the way to the other end of the shelf.  Well, that was exhausting, but nothing a suddenly adventurous dog can’t handle.  There are discoveries to be made, many strange places and stranger things to see and explore in my little world.  I think the startled, gasping-in-shock type expression I have on my face will serve me well on this tour.  Mafia fishing lady is not amused.

Aha!  The first place I land is a perfect spot for taking a peek  into the black medicine bowl.  Mineral oil, peroxide, bug spray, baby powder, sunscreen in every known SPF increment from 15 to 60, lid care, loofa, brushes, combs, mirror, lip balm, reactin, decongestants, pain killers, eye drops, tweezers, and the almighty AFTER BITE.  It’s a mess.  Whatever you’re looking for is on the bottom of the bowl somewhere, or more likely somebody else took it already and forgot to put it back.  Normal people have medicine cabinets.  And there IS one around here somewhere, but it’s full.  More on that later.  Prepare to be amazed.

Here we are at the first truly historical site. Behold the infamous jar of spoons.  Every person who has ever helped with the dishes in this place always ponders the dilemna of where the hell the spoons go.  And then they ask why the hell do they go here?  And then someone old helpfully explains that that’s where they’ve always gone so just put them there and shut up about it.  It all started many many dog years ago when old Swedish people could not be bothered to get up off their asses to walk across the room and open the spoon drawer.  When old Swedish people want to stir sugar into their coffee, they want to do it NOW.  Never mind that they brewed the damned stuff for two hours, a wait which for some reason or other was perfectly acceptable.  Even if by today’s standards the coffee was not.  They also tried disolving these spoons in strong tea, but by some miracle or other they all survived.  The spoon jar has evolved from unsanitary convenience to treasured tradition.  Not to mention colossal annoyance.   No one has been brave or foolish enough over the years to end the spoon insanity.  Don’t look at me!  I’m saying a little prayer to the Spoon Gods.  Please, please, don’t make me push this stupid jar off the table…. !

My last stop today will be on the window sill to gasp in horror at the leaning tower of Lamp.  I know it’s name is Lamp, because a child has written that word with a helpful little arrow on a popsicle stick at my feet. Looks as if one of  Lamp’s appendages would like to escape out the window.  Or perhaps this is how Lamp gazes longingly at the outside world remembering how loved he was when he was new.  Never mind buddy, you narrowly escaped the dump when you left home and ended up here.  A lot of us in this place are in the same boat,  living on borrowed time.   When’s the last time anyone turned you on?  If I may be so bold.  There’s been a lot of junk clearing going on in the last few years, and being cute is probably all that saved me.  You I’m kinda worried about, because cute is not exactly your thing. So stand up straight, man!  Get back in your corner!  Keep yourself plugged in and pretend you like your life of uselessness.  Take a lesson from me and the spoons – we’re survivors.    

Well, that’s enough for today.  I’m dog tired.  Stay tuned for part two.  In which I venture into the kitchen and other scary places.

I should probably blog about something….

Holy CRAP I haven’t been here for a long time.  Every time I start feeling ambitious and chatty I get interrupted by something.  And yeah, this has been going on for almost two months.  Doesn’t help that I am being consumed alive by Farm Town and Farm Ville.  WHY those two stupid games are so addictive I have no clue.  I just know that for an addictive personality like mine they are deadly time wasters. 

We spent from the 20th of July to the 16th of August at Camp Erika.  W. left a bit earlier than that to take in the Spencer picnic. I flew with Kenzie Kale and Omayja to Winnipeg where he picked us up.  What incredible little people my grandchildren are!  Several people, including two flight attendants, remarked on how good they all were, and how very polite.  Of course I was happy to take all the credit for that at the time.  They have incredible parents, so what can I say.  The rest of the crew, three adults, two more children and three dogs arrived the following week.  And then the rains came.  I’m trying to remember if we had five or maybe six days of nothing but sunshine.  I know we had twice that many with nothing but rain.  The rest of the days were a mixed up crap shoot weather wise.  Hot and sunny one minute, downpour the next.  We all had a bit of cabin fever I think.  There are lots of great pictures, and I’ll get around to posting some here one of these days.  They’re all on facebook, so I’ll just be picking a few favourites and gabbing about each one incessantly.  It’s what I do best.

W. and I had a whole ten days stretching out in front of the two of us after the families left.  Wow.  I guess that’s what retired life together will be like.  Hmmm.  He puttered around outside as much as the weather would allow, and I put together a 1000 piece puzzle.  Then I did a 750 piece one and then three more that were smaller.  That’s a lot of puzzle hours.  I started doing them in my dreams.  My DS game finally broke from over use.  I cleaned and rearranged stuff.  We ate left overs and tried to clean up the fridge.  We did a big sheets and towels laundry.  We decided to leave a day earlier than we had anticipated, mostly because both of us had totally run out of things to do.  It rained all the way home.

As much as the last few days at camp were fairly mind numbing, I still didn’t want to go back to work.  Although it was nice to catch up with everybody once I got there.  For the next three Wednesdays I’ll be working across the city fitting contact lenses at another store.  Been there once already.  Really hated the travel and the stress of  it all, figuring out how they do things and where stuff is and how things work.  Unlocking the big sliding folding doors and finding light switches was challenging.  Had many brain dead moments, including being unable to remember my home phone number for the paper I had to fill out for personnel.  It’s okay, it came to me eventually.  This is why old people give up working.    

I’m going away again!  Trip to the east coast with Ann and Murray!  THANK GAWD she is doing most of the planning.  W. doesn’t have much to contribute, will just be happy to be along for the ride.  Can’t think of two other people I’d rather travel with.  Makes me think of the fun trips mom and dad took with different couples.  She used to keep little travel logs, so I’m going to do that too.  Hers had lists of many many things.  Including what they ate for breakfast and how much it cost.  I’m going to write down some equally useless random information for future generations.  I hope they like it.