The Diaries of a Fat Chick

The other night we invited the boy child to have dinner with us.  After picking me up from work, the three of us were driving home when the conversation took an unpleasant turn.

Ben:  We don’t have any water at home.

Me:  Yes we do.

Ben:  No we don’t.  There isn’t any bottled water and we still don’t have a new filter for the Brita.

Me:  It’s called a tap.  Turn it on and you get water.

Ben:  Ugh.

Me:  Don’t be so picky.   You drank plenty of tap water before these new fangled Brita’s and bad-for-the-environment bottles of water came out.

Boy Child:  Ever since his bout with crypto a few years ago, he’s been a little leery of the tap water, haven’t you Dad?

Me:  I guess shitting your pants changes a man huh?

Ben:  Eh, not so much the pants.  It’s the socks and shoes that really shakes a guy.

Me:  *laughs hysterically*

Comments(3)

What happens when you take this:

and drop it off at the Pet and Poodle Parlour for a few hours?

You pick this up:

Behold the awesome transformation from winter Cuda to summer Cuda.

I like to think of Cuda’s summer cut as his secret identity.  Ben calls it the “dork” cut and laments the fact that every summer our dog turns from a ferocious wolfhound cross to Canada’s tallest, longest-legged, skinniest shih’tzu.

That seems slightly rude (even if it sort of applies) don’t you think?

The summer Cuda stems from a few different things - his dislike for being brushed, my laziness for brushing him, and a thick fur coat in a smoking hot summer.  His mother Hannah blows out her coat every June like clock work.  I spend the next few weeks pulling large tufts of hair from her coat while she stands on the deck.  By the time I’m finished we could construct another dog from the amount of hair that blows about our deck and yard.  But Cuda?  Never seems to shed his thick coat so he goes for the summer cut.

But the biggest reason for the summer cut?  Looking at him in his new haircut makes me giggle every single damn time.  And I could use a fucking giggle right now.

Comments(2)

Fragile Circle

We who choose to surround ourselves with lives even more temporary than our own,
live within a fragile circle, easily and often breached.
Unable to accept its awful gaps, we still would live no other way.
We cherish memory as the only certain immortality, never fully understanding the necessary plan.

We said goodbye to Cassie today.  Before we took her to the clinic for the last time, we brought her to the small park right next door where we sat on the grass in the warm sun and Cassie ate an ice cream cone. 

In the clinic Dr. Kathy sedated her and she fell quickly asleep; her snores reverberating through the room like they always did.   She fell aleep on her pillow and left us quietly and peacefully.

It’s a good way to die isn’t it?  To just fall asleep with the memory of the soft grass under your feet, your skin still warm from the sun and a belly full of ice cream.

Comments(3)

Don’t know if you’ve heard or not but my little part of the world?  Is currently on fire.  We’ve got three wildfires burning at the moment, two of them are not close but the third one is close enough to make me more than a little nervous.  We were this close to moving out a bunch of the critters today (again, I must give a big shout out to my vet clinic, we were out yesterday afternoon - I’ll get back to that later - and the fire had only been going for maybe three hours by the time we got home and already there was a message waiting for us from the office manager, Laura, letting us know that we could, of course, take any and all of our animals to the clinic if we were evacuated.  How freaking nice is that?) but in the end, have decided to wait.  We’ve got everyone packed and ready to go but so far the fire seems to be moving away from us, and, in the horrible event that the wind changes and the fire starts to head our way it’s still far enough away that we have time to get the critters out.  We’re being smothered with ash and smoke but no fire yet.  Yay!

It’s a terrible feeling though; not knowing if you should just pack the fuzzies up and get them out or take a wait and see attitude.

Yesterday Ben’s brother got married, his and his new wife’s house is right in the middle of the worse fire and while we were at the ceremony, their area was evacuated.  The reception was in a small town 45 minutes away and after the ceremony, the guests began to leave for the reception.  Most of them anyway.  Luckily for Ben and I, we had forgotten the wedding present and had to go back into town to get it.  By the time we started back to the reception they had closed the highway and we couldn’t get through.  Which was very lucky for us indeed.  Ben’s parents and sister and his brother and his new wife, as well as about 20 of the wedding guests made it to the reception hall and ended up being stuck there for the night.  We had to go to Ben’s parents place (which was now on alert) and collect their dog and their valuables and take them back to our house.  Peanut the wonder poodle spent the evening and most of today with us until Ben’s parents arrived, after 13 hours of driving,to get back to our burning city.

 They’re very thankful to be home and everyone’s keeping their fingers crossed that the rest of us aren’t evacuated.  Cause that, in a word, would suck.

Speaking of suck.  In the suckiest of suckage - our 13 year old bulldog Cassie is very ill.  She stopped eating on Thursday and still won’t eat.  Correction, she’ll eat human food like chicken and rice but usually throws it back up.  She has a host of problems, including but not limited to, bad skin, spine and hip issues, a tumour somewhere in her body (either her head or her abdomen - hell maybe both at this point), senility and other general age related problems.  Dr. Mike said we should give her the weekend to improve but that if she didn’t by Monday, it was probably time to say goodbye.  He said something over the phone on Friday which has really stuck with me this entire weekend.  He said that she usually had a curious, somewhat goofy attitude towards life and now she just looks tired and confused.

He’s right of course.  It’s difficult for me to admit that; I don’t want to say goodbye to her, I want her to live at least a few more years but if I look at it from a more “neutral” point of view, I can see what he’s saying.  She has spent the entire weekend either lying on her pillow and while she was always a bit lazy, this is totally not her.   The essential her, the thing that makes her who she is, is gone.   What’s left is a sad little girl who doesn’t want her bum scratched, who doesn’t want to lay in the hot sun on the deck, and who doesn’t jump up eagerly when she hears the rattle of her food dish.  They seem like such small little things but they are the core of who she is and if she no longer loves those things, is no longer capable of loving them - it doesn’t seem right to force her to go on.

But God, does it fucking blow big hairy monkey balls.

Everyone we’ve talked to says we’re making the right choice and in my head I agree.  But the heart, the heart says something entirely different.   The heart is selfish and needy and wants desperately to hang on to the sweet old girl currently lying on her pillow in the living room.  Even if she is only a shell of what she used to be.

But I will remind myself that animals do not fear death, only pain.  And tomorrow, when we take her to the vet one last time and go back home to an empty house and with even emptier hearts, I hope that the memory of her, of when she was happy and really her, will be enough.

Comments(2)

“It could be carried by an African swallow!

Oh, yeah, an African swallow maybe, but not a European swallow.  That’s my point.”

Last night after working my day job I went to the clinic to work, like I do every Tuesday.  It was a crazy night; I didn’t leave the clinic until close to 8pm even though we close at 6.

I walked in the door, carrying a box and sat it on the counter.

Ben:  Hi honey, what’s in the box?

Me:  Bird.

Ben:  A what now?

Me:  A bird.  More specifically, a baby swallow.

Ben:  I see.

Me:  A client brought it into the clinic tonight and I need to feed it every hour or so.  Isn’t it cute?

Ben:  Yup, it’s pretty cute.  Looks like it might have some brain damage.

Me:  It’s possible.

Ben:  Why do you always bring the brain damaged ones home?

Me:  Not always honey.  Not always.  Besides, it most likely won’t live through the night; it won’t actually eat, I have to pry it’s beak open to feed it.  But we decided we at least needed to try.

The next morning, Ben woke me at 5:30.

Ben:  Honey, wake up, it’s 5:30, you need to feed the baby bird.

Me:  Mmph, snuffle, snort.

Ben:  Honey, c’mon get up, you need to feed the baby bird.

Me:  The bird won’t have made it through the night.  Let me sleep another half hour.  Dammit man.

Ben:  The baby bird is still alive.

Me:  What?  It is not.

Ben:  Yes it is, it’s alive.

Me:  How do you know?

Ben:  I just checked on it; it’s breathing and looking at me - rather hungrily I might add.

Me:  Dammit.  *climbs out of bed*  Stupid baby bird living through the night.

Ben:  I won’t tell the rescue groups you work with about this.

Me:  Cork it.

So yeah, the baby made it through the night.  I dropped it off at the clinic this morning and they fed it every hour throughout the day.  Dr. Mike also took an xray of it because he thought it might have a broken wing but everything looks okay.  There could still be some neurological damage but because it was looking better than it did last night we’ve decided to keep trying to feed him.  He’s still not eating on his own but when you open his beak and put his mix of moistened puppy food and apple sauce into his mouth he swallows it willingly.

The baby is back with me tonight, I’ve been feeding him every hour and he’s been eating and pooping.  He’s a cute little thing and I’m hoping he makes it, despite the 5:30 morning feedings.

On a side note, as we were laying in bed last night I remarked to Ben how amazing it was that as a child and teenager I often dreamed about doing stuff like this.  I wanted to be that person who took in orphaned baby animals and did what they could to successfully raise them.  I never actually dreamed I would though and I have to say, it’s better than I thought it could ever be.  When I look back at my life I know I’ll be thrilled with what I’ve accomplished when it comes to animal rescue.

Hand raise orphan kittens?  Check.

Hand raise orphan baby bunnies?  Check.

Foster a dog and her 8 puppies?  Check.

Foster a rat and her 16 babies?  Check.

Help hand raise a baby crow?  Check.

Help hand raise a baby swallow?  Check.

I love my life.

Oh, and 10 points to you if you can identify the movie from whence the beginning quotes come from!

And some pictures…

Comments(3)