Shortly before our moment of domestic violence.

Rum usually likes the vet – lots of cookies and dog butt to sniff. We usually haul him in once a week to put him on the scale, so when we walked up to the door he dragged me right in. He did start looking nervous though, when we bypassed the scale and associated cookies and went straight into an exam room.

After a few minutes, the vet came in – very nice lady who knows her stuff. Short version: more antibiotics, we’ll have to wash Rumble’s feet every day and she has to trim the hair between his paws.

That’s where it all hit the fan.

Rum’s a fireplug – 20 pounds of dog in a small, pretty muscular package. He also has a head that’s as hard and dense as a bowling ball. This will come up in a sec. So, I haul the little guy up on the stainless steel table and hold him steady while the doc takes out a pair of electric clippers and starts trimming the hair between his toes.

If you’d been standing outside the door you might have thought we were branding a mountain lion or something. The ruckus was insane. Even so, he held relatively still in my arms while the vet did his back paws. When we did his front paws, though, not so much. More noise from Rumble about how the world was coming to an end, and then when I bent down to reassure him that everything was going to be okay, he whips his little furry bowling-ball head up and cracks me really, really hard, right smack in the jaw.

I have a glass jaw from when I was in a fight as a teenager and had it broken for me. So I’m not even kidding when I say I saw stars and everything went black for a second. I didn’t fall down or lose my grip on him, but damn if Rumble didn’t almost lay me out on the floor of the vet’s office.

The vet jumped pretty good when she heard the crack of Rum’s hard little skull meeting my jaw, but she didn’t miss a beat, and we were done almost right afterward. She made sure I was okay, and then gave me the bill and an appointment to bring the damn dog back for a follow-up in two weeks.

So, today I got to pay for the pleasure of my dog knocking me around, and now have to look forward to another chance for it to happen again.

I’m bringing a sparring helmet next time. I swear after I caught it on the chin, when the stars cleared I saw a little doggie grin on the furry bugger’s face.

Anyhoo. I haven’t posted in so very long for a pretty good reason- I got a new job, and have been so busy and tired and overwhelmed you have no idea… For the nitty gritty soap-opera details of why I changed jobs, stay tuned and I will dish shortly, it’s a pretty good story. How it turns out is going to be determined shortly. The bottom line though is that I left Fido on December 3rd and after a solid week of applications and resumés (thank you, Jeff) I was invited to join Intrahealth, a tech company whose product handles electronic medical records and such for doctors’ offices and the like.

It’s incredibly intricate and one of the most complicated computer programs I’ve ever had to learn and extremely daunting. For the first week I sat at my desk looking out across Burrard Inlet (oh my GOD what an amazing view these offices have) thinking I was way over my head and maybe I should go for lunch one day and scuttle, weeping, to the SeaBus. I haven’t so far, and the temptation to do so is fading every day I learn something new. It’s the old battle between id and superego- id is all “I DUNNO NOT SMERT ENUF GOT TO GO NOW”, and superego is quietly reasoning “it’s okay, shh, you’re picking this up slowly but surely” and id comes back with “DON’T CALL MUH SHIRLEY”. So far, superego is winning the battle. Mostly by using big words and pointing to shiny things.

So there we be. Hopefully I’ll have some better news in the coming days regarding Fido, and if not, you’ll still get the whole scoop on what happened.  It’s a good story, I’m just waiting for the end of it before I start to tell it. I promise you won’t have to wait a whole month for that either. In the meantime, here’s a picture of Jeff & Rumble, shortly after Rum was sprung from the groomer:

I'm getting Rum's attention by holding a cookie over the camera...

I couldn’t get to sleep tonight.  We went to bed at a relatively reasonable 11:00, but after tossing and turning for a couple of hours I finally got up so Jeff could get some sleep.

That was when the bad things happened.

I have consumed, in the last hour, the following:

1) giant bowl of Life cereal covered in honey, with the last of the milk.

2) couple of lactaid pills.  That wasn’t so much food as being considerate of Jeff & the dog.

3) half a crate of Mandarin oranges.

4) three cans of Diet Dr. Pepper.

5) President’s Choice no-name protein meal supplement.

6) a whole box of rice crackers.

7) peanut butter on a spoon.

8 ) the last of the chocolate Chip-Its Jeff thought he was hiding from me.

9) a whole bunch of Pepto-Bismol.

I haven’t done this since high-school, and am in a bit of a shame spiral right now.  I’d be worried about the result (ie eating more food) but we’re pretty much out at this point.  I already checked and the only thing left is a single pack of plain oatmeal, and Jeff can have that for breakfast when he gets up in 90 minutes.  After all the sleep he’s currently getting he better not bitch about it, either…

So, now I’m watching Big Bang Theory and chewing on Tums.  Somebody remind me of the events of what is now this early morning the next time I mention not being able to sleep.

I ain’t quiet.

It’s just the way things go with me- I share.   A lot.  I’m pretty loud, like when Peter Griffin gets nervous.   I laugh a lot, because I’m a cheerful bastard.  When I laugh, by Christ, you’ll know it. To my eternal shame, I’m also the guy from Family Guy, from that time where the guy hears a joke and turns to the person next to him and goes “Huh?  Funny!  Huuuuh?”

I consider it a bit of a failing; I’d love to be the enigmatic cool guy in the back of the room. “Who’s that mysterious enigmatic cool guy,” they’d say, chin on knuckle, trying to suss out my bad-ass mysteriousness.  I of course would remain silent, being cool and enigmatic as frigging ever.  And my mystique would be renowned across the globe.

Alas, that isn’t my lot.  I try to do the enigmatic thing, but I have a short attention span and forget, and go back to being not-quite-as-funny-as-I-think-I-am, or talking too loudly, or having something in my teeth that I don’t know about.  That last one isn’t related to being loud, but it’s not in any way related to being cool or enigmatic, so I thought I’d throw it in.

The point is, I’m one of those people who just isn’t quiet, pretty much ever.  And my husband Jeff, who is the sweetest, quietest guy you ever met, has thus far put up with;

• baby-talking at the dog
• random singing where I only know half the lyrics to the song, but spending an hour doing it over and over
• playing Wii Goldeneye and screaming obscenities at the pimply 12-year-old in Finland who just fragged my ass for the millionth time (and where are his fucking parents, this kid is on Wii ALL THE TIME, it’s like 4am over there)
• howling at my laptop when I read something funny on the internet

It’s the last one I really feel bad about, because in this house of laptops and iPhones and internet-enabled television, I’m on the Internet a lot.  If they discover ten years from now that the Internet gives you cancer, I’m just completely fucked.

So because of my Internet thing, I hesitate to call it an addiction because I can totally quit any time I want to, Jeff has to put up with random events like this:

SCENE: Interior, our apartment.  JEFF & CHRIS are sitting on the sofa, looking at their laptops.  CHRIS is being unproductive.  JEFF is coding for his website.  The DOG is in his chair, looking confused as per usual.

Chris: “HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA OH MY GOD THIS IS SO FUNNY STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND LOOK AT / READ / LISTEN TO THIS FUNNY THING ON THE INTERNET IT’S THE BEST THING EVER HEHEHEHEHEHEHE.”

Jeff: “Oh, ha, yeah, that’s pretty good.”

Chris: *soundlessly weeping with laughter and scaring the dog*

Jeff: *Goes back to coding*

Chris: *Looks back at random blog posting, has seizure, howls with laughter some more, hyperventilates, passes out*

Jeff: *Still coding* “Sigh.”

It sounds much more dramatic than it actually was, really.

We were under the overpass at Carrall St. by the time Rumble did his “bidness” and on our way back when the two upstanding citizens walked into us – they were trying in a sad way to do the whole “let’s pertend ta be jus’ walking by and then rush ‘im when we gets close an’ takes his stuff” thing.

At six in the morning in late September it’s very dark so the streetlights there are on, and since we live next door to The Meth-iest Place On Earth™ Jeff and I are always on red alert. So I saw them coming a mile away and yes, I felt like a big man when I knocked them down and went “RRAAAWRRR!” at them and made them run away. The fact that they each were 90 pounds soaking wet kind of mitigates my heroism though.

Rumble was impressed though, he was dancing around and barking during our three-second throwdown. He was less impressed when I accidentally stepped on his foot, and added to the farewell “RRAAAWRRR!”

So, in conclusion; living on the corner of Substance Abuse Blvd and Gimme Your Money Ave. is always exciting but rarely dangerous. I’ll start worrying when the meth-monkeys start shooting steroids.

Really quick, to set the back story: Rum’s on a diet so he can get on the plane with us to Ontario next month. He’s getting rice cake bits as treats, which he loves. We were out of rice cakes yesterday, so he got a bit of Rice Krispies in with his dog food. Because of this, he’s had the Tijuana Squitters for the last 18 hours. No more Rice Krispies for Rumble, and everyone’s up to speed now.

Because of his iffy stomach, Rumble slept on the bed last night, and I’m glad he did- he jumped on us at 3am or so because he really needed to go out. Jeff was wrecked and walks him 80% of the time so I hauled on my shorts and a hoodie and grabbed his leash while Rum danced around nervously.

Right away, things were sideways from the usual. When the elevator doors opened to take us down, there were three people already on, drunk out of their skulls, just kind of standing there. The buttons were all dark, so I pressed the G and we headed towards the lobby. One of the Drunkies was confused and said they were headed up, and when I explained how someone’s gotta buzz you in, he just said, “bah!” The other Drunkies were leaning on each other and ignoring our conversation, and when the dog and I exited at the lobby, the three of them stayed in the elevator, which stayed on the ground floor.

That was the weird thing – they didn’t say anything to each other, they didn’t exit the elevator, which wasn’t going anywhere, and they didn’t press any buttons; they just stood there, silently, not doing anything. It was immensely creepy.

When we left the lobby and went outside, there was a gaggle of drunk kids huddled in a little group, hollering, shoving each other around and generally being obnoxious – I think that’s why the dog woke up, more from the noise than anything. These kids weren’t actually saying anything specific, just kind of hooting and stumbling into each other, which when you’re smashed enough is apparently a really good time..

I walked Rumble down Expo to the park, where he proceeded to have the evilest of evil calls of nature, and gave him a few extra minutes to make sure it was all out of his system. Andy Livingstone Park has a bunch of signs saying the park’s closed at night and that it’s patrolled by a guard and a guard dog at night, but nobody even bothers to laugh at that joke anymore. There were people on the benches smoking weed, and a guy was sitting on the kids’ jungle gym shooting up. Nobody was saying anything that I could hear, just a general grunting and muttering.

I shave my head and have numerous visible tattoos, and I’ve been, in a half-assed way, working out for a long time now. While I try to be generally positive, open and friendly to people, I can with a little effort look like someone with whom you’d not care to fuck mess, (Grammar! Love it!) And when needed, I can exude the “try anything and I’ll rip your arm off and beat you to death with it” pheromone. I think that’s the only reason Rum and I got home unmolested at 3:20am this morning. Rumble wasn’t helping, doing his whole “ooh, that guy over there just barfed, I’m sure it smells interesting, let’s go there!” thing.

Long story short, when I was young I hung out with friends, drinking until the early hours and generally making a fool of myself, which is standard behaviour for most people until you grow up and give your head a shake. The thing is, I live on the corner of Behavioural Issues Street & Substance Abuse Boulevard, where the people who like to shoot up, get drunk and/or stab each other tend to congregate. Even the relatively “normal” people who live in my building can do stuff that will, in the early hours of Sunday morning, cause them to turn into extras from Night Of The Living (I’m Gonna Have Such A Hangover Tomorrow I’ll Wish I was) Dead.

I got Rumble back to our building unscathed and barked at the idiots doing their drunken Zombie Mob thing outside the door to get the hell out of our way and got us back into our house with no further incident. The dog was asleep again as soon as his furry lil’ head hit the bed, but I stayed up for another half hour or so, doing seller searches on eBay for Tasers and wondering when I became the crotchety old guy who, if he had a lawn would tell these punks to get off of it…

PS: The fact that we saw Resident Evil: Apocalypse earlier that night has nothing to do with colouring my perceptions here. Just coincidence. Honest.

PPS: Resident Evil: Apocalypse is one of the shittiest crappiest movies you’ll ever have the misfortune of seeing. Go see the remake of Dawn Of The Dead. Huge difference.

BTW, the whole “strikeover” thing you see here and there? It’s because my mom yelled at me for all the profanity in my posts. I know, the irony hasn’t eluded me either.

Bad dog!

It’s an awkward conversation with the owner of the dog that Rumble climbs on for a cheerful hump:

“Oh, uh, sorry about that.  Rumble doesn’t usually poke other dogs…”

“No no – Chauncy was being all flirty.  He needed a bath anyway.”

You see where I’m going with this.

Last night we crashed a little early – it’s been a long week, everyone’s been a bit fried and speaking personally I’ve been freebasing caffeine and needed to recuperate a bit.  We chucked the dog on the bed, grabbed a book (me) and a laptop (Jeff) and attempted to relax.  We discovered in a hurry that our immediate neighbours to the right of us were doing the same thing with a bong full of Cabo Wabo, because it wasn’t just coming in the open window, but also a bit through the electrical outlets in our bedroom.  We’re thinking they were hotboxing in their bedroom for maximum efficiency.

Even after closing our window we were getting a bit of a contact high, which wasn’t fun for either of us, and got one of those room freshener candles to drown out the smell of weed.  I was really hungry and got something to eat but we pretty much turned in at that point.

This is where it gets weird.

It was a very long and restless night – if you’re wondering about my accuracy here, it’s because I was writing stuff down every time I woke up (which was A LOT).

I had dreams:

a) Of chasing the dog through a Bell Mobility store and getting screamed at by the staff because Rumble works for Fido (?),

b) That I was Chase in an episode of House (wishful thinking),

c) Being in a Kendo match against Pat Morita,

d) Jeff and I living in a yard with no house, just surrounded by boxes of our stuff and our furniture,

e) Being chased by the Hulk while driving a Hummer against traffic down the Queensway in Ottawa,

f) And sharing a hotel room with Paris Hilton and Chloe Sevigny who was dressed up as Lady Gaga.  Chloe was very nice, but Paris was smoking in the bed (which I was sharing with her, ew) and in retaliation I threw her dog’s CD across the room and she burned me with her cigarette.  I went to smack her and:

sat up and accidentally slapped Rumble on the ass, who jumped up and hopped around for a minute, wondering what was going on.  He’d been sleeping on my leg, stradling it with his head on my foot, and when I looked Jeff was still dead to the world.  When we got up this morning all three of us had a bit of a hangover.

I’m going to seal up the outlet backings today so this doesn’t happen again – again, no judging the folks who like to get high, it’s just that I don’t think my subconscious can handle it.  Plus, I got up three times in the night to go raid the fridge.

By the way, for the record?  I friggin’ HATE Lady Gaga.