Toilet Humor

I have written a "song" for Ryder, set to the music of The Barney Song. I think it explains itself fairly clearly, and the sort of day I've had.

Ode to Ryder

I love you, you love me, but outside is where I think that you should pee
And poo-ing too can you do it out of doors?
It’s not that far when you have four paws

I love you, you love me, it’s just a matter of symmetry
For what goes in, must eventually come out,
But why indoors instead of out?

I love you, you love me, but I am losing my sanity
A kilo today is how much food you ate,
When it comes back out, use the toilet, mate!

I love you, you love me, this started with the Tsunami
Counseling, therapy or absorbent underwear?
If they make them big enough I’ll buy you a pair

I love you, you love me, why are you doing this to me?
Dog training and behavior, I know a lot about
But not enough to sort this out

I love you, you love me, but I hate stepping in your wee
At least I’m lucky that I have no sense of smell
I wish I ‘d no imagination as well.

The End (literally)

All Better Now, mostly

Well, several days lying around feeling miserable has done something for me. I found the most amazing blog in the bloggiverse. I'm a big fan of Derren Brown, I love his TV shows and I just think he's so clever. His blog (written by someone who isn't him) has usually about three posts a day on things you'd never see elsewhere. It's brilliant.

Check out this post, how beautiful is that snowflake? I could get all poetic and liken us humans to snowflakes, since we're all unique and beautiful etc, but every time I try something like that, I come off lamer than a lame thing in lame land on lame day, also, wearing lamé. So instead, I'll just say, go see the pretty snowflake guys!

Two days of sickness (and no matter what DJ might say, I was not malingering) and Ryder was getting pretty fed up. He spent the time perfecting his "Oh I am so pathetic" look, stealing stuff from the pantry and sighing meaningfully while staring at his rope toy (in hopes of making me throw it).

When I finally perked up tonight, his first reaction was to run to the rope toy and encourage me with all his might to throw it for him. As I mentioned in the recent post about photo taking, when Ryder wants something right now, he does the latest trick he's learned in hopes that will bend you to his will. His latest trick is to shake hands. Yes, I know most people teach their dogs that trick first, but I've never done things the right way round and I'm not about to start now.

Anyhoo, he's spent much of the last two days sitting on the bed next to me, whacking me in the face with his paw hoping that somehow it's going to do the trick and make me throw a toy for him. It did not. What it did do was make me decide to get better faster because being sick with Ryder around is, quite frankly, sick making. I think he could be on to something here. He may not be an actual medicine, but he certainly motivates you to get better fast.

Taking a Short Break

Just a very quick post today, to let you all know, I'm feeling a bit under the weather and I'm going to give myself a couple of days off. So I'll be back by the weekend, probably much earlier.

I hope you're all being terribly good and working on your competition entries! I am.

An Odd Sort of Success

It was our end of year breakup Annual Family Fun Day at my dog club today.

Suffice to say there was alcohol. I didn't drink it but it still had the usual effect.

We were preparing for the "fastest recall" game and it was our turn. I walked Ryder down the other end of the field and left him with complete strangers while I walked all the way back again. This leaving him with strangers bit really helps in his desire to get back to me.

I would have made it back sooner except I wasn't watching where I was going, actually I'm not sure what I was watching, and wandered into the stacks of horse jumps stored in our field. I was a bit sheepish when I emerged and walked as quickly as I could in the right direction to call Ryder.

He came as fast as he could but still got laughed at because his limbs go in all sorts of weird configurations when he runs that inevitably ends up drawing comparisons to new-born foals and epileptic donkeys. When he eventually got his limbs working in a co-ordinated enough fashion to make it all the way to me, he ran right past me to where DJ was sitting with Phlee and wouldn't come back.

We were second last.

Luckily, we redeemed ourselves in the Rally-O for fun competition. Of course, I did set up the course and was the only person there who had actually done Rally-O before, except for my friend who was the judge. I got second place and although I probably should have refused my ribbon and passed it on to those behind me - well it's probably the only ribbon Ryder will ever win for anything except the "goofiest looking oddity in German Shepherd disguise" class. So we're very proud of our ribbon and will display it somewhere prominent.

By the time we got done for the day, we were exhausted. I was meant to go visiting and instead, fell asleep. I didn't drink anything stronger than fizzy water and yet, I felt like... well DJ drove home.

We have another fun day to attend for another dog club we go to on Thursday. Christmas is hard work and I am tired.

Sticky Fingers

Apart from dyeing my hair, I don't indulge in many girlie activities. Considering my lifestyle consists of wandering about in forests with big hairy dogs, that's not too surprising.

Most of my girlie-type endeavors have ended badly for me, so that's a bit of a deterrent as well.

Take the whole acrylic nails thing. Now, being a Kiwi, I'm a firm believer in do-it-yourselfing. So, I don't go to hairdressers, I cut and color my own hair (this is painfully obvious). I don't take my car to the mechanic until I've exhausted all my and my sons knowledge on how to fix it. I don't get pedicures (because people touching my feet totally weirds me out). I don't go to nail salons, I do my own. Or, did my own. Now I am perfectly happy with my hands just the way they are.

Acrylic nails are a bit of a pain when you love to play the guitar as much as I do. That's not why I gave them up though. You see, I discovered that acrylic nails use a type of super glue to adhere to your fingers. Fair enough, i understand the logic behind this. Trouble is, me and things involving superglue were never going to get along.

The last time I used acrylic nails, I was just about finished the sticking them on bit, when a friend I'd been wanting to catch up with turned up on msn. I was right in the middle of the holding-your-fingers-up-in-the-air-while-they-dry phase and started shaking my hands madly to dry them faster so I could talk to my friend.

This sent showers of tiny superglue droplets all over the place. One of which landed on the tip of an eyelash, gluing it to my brow when I opened my eyes. Luckily, I didn't have a webcam at the time, so my one-sided look of perpetual surprise was seen only by me.

The msn window started flashing:

Long Lost Friend: Wendy? You there?
Me: *shouting* just drying my nails, hang on! (Will I ever learn that people on the computer can't hear me shouting?)
LLF: Wendy? I have to go in a second, are you there somewhere?
Me: Argh!
LLF: Oh well then...
Me: *races over and begins to type* Hello, LLF, I've missed you!
LLF: Hey there! Hows things?

Well, from then on in things became a bit more tricky. For one thing, the superglue stuff had leaked down the length of my fingers while my hands were in the air and my index and middle finger of my right hand had become as fused as Edward and Bella's hearts before Jacob turned up.

This was inconvenient, yes. But not as inconvenient as what happened next. Moving my hands from the sticking up in the air position to the typing position meant the rest of the glue moved toward my fingertips and the keys of my laptop.

LLF: Hows the art going, are you selling any paintings?
Me: yy fibgers are stucl to tye keyboard.
LLF: What?
Me: yy fibgers are stucl to tye keyboard@#$@
LLF: Your fibers are still to be keyboard?
Me: yo, byy fubgers are stuke ti o tke jeyibayird,$
LLF: I thought you didn't drink?
Me: I d ibbt drubk ny...

About then, with much pulling, I got my fingers free of the keyboard. Unfortunately the "Y" and "U" keys came too. This helped my typing considerably, not enough to touch type or spell every word, but hey, it was an improvement.

LLF: Erm, I guess I better go, you seem like you need some rest.
Me: No! Wait! I stick me fingers to the keiboard with sipergloo and I now have two of the kee's stick to me fingers. I am not drink.
LLF: I think it'd be easier to explain if you were.

So, while do-it-yourself might be a kiwi national pastime, I've decided to stick (pardon the pun) to safe things like cutting my hair (with sharp implements) and dying my hair (with assorted, probably poisonous, chemicals), I mean, it's not like anything can go wrong? Is it?

Movie Stuff

Absolutely love this video, it's from the NZ Book Council. Mind you, I haven't seen it anywhere related to New Zealand, I found a link to this on an English blog. Oh well, wherever I found it, it's amazing to watch!

Also, I went to see the Time Traveler's Wife movie yesterday, less than a week after finishing the book. I'm torn. I loved both, but they're both quite different. Same story, yeah, but not the same in some ways. I liked the movies version of the ending better and a lot of it was surprisingly close to how I imagined things. But, I think I prefer the book. After all, a movie based on a book is more like a synopsis of a book, that the actual book. Especially when the book in question is as big as TTTW.

I did enjoy the movie though, it was really lovely and I'll probably see it again. Not least of all because Eric Bana spends a great deal of time without any clothes on. The movie made me cry too, but not as much as the book did!

Anyway, I loved them both, just for different reasons. After all, you can't really have Eric Bana's bootie in a book can you? Although, I really think someone should figure out how.

A Day in the Life - captured on camera

Photo 1.
My post for today is a little early. Just past midnight type early, but hey, I'm inspired.

Today, I decided to get DJ to take some photo's of me. My friend Kathy has been sending me regular photo's of her haircuts and each time, I promise I'll show her what mine looks like since I dyed it supposedly golden brown.

I know, it doesn't look golden brown, but it is. It was overcast, okay? I also brushed the bird nest's out of it and flattened all my curls in the process. I may have to do this whole thing all over again since I wanted to show my curls. I'm a girl, hair is important.

So that's the story of photo 1. Things were going quite well, and really, I should have stopped there.


Photo 2.
As afraid of everything as Ryder is, he adores camera's. He loves to pose, loves to get his picture taken and if there's a camera out, he's trying to pose for it. Photo 2 shows the immediate aftermath of him leaping into my arms and dragging us both to the floor. You can now tell that I was posing in my kitchen between the fridge and the stove. Unfortunately, you can also see that I was still in my pajama's because I was on strike today.

Had I not been wearing socks, I might have managed to stay standing. You live and learn (the hard way in my case).

DJ says that it looks like I'm swearing in the photo. Point of fact, well, I am. Wouldn't you?

Also, my butt hurt from sliding down the wall with an armful of dog.

Photo 3.
Photo 3 is of Ryder settling in for the pose, while I indicate to DJ what I think of her taking photo's of her mother in such an undignified position.











Photo 4.
This is the quite charming pose that we settled on. Who needs a photo of me when you can have one of me, half hidden by a massive dog ear?















Photo 5.

Photo 5 shows what happens when we attempt to push Ryder out of the way and take photo's of anything other than him. He has his paw raised, ala Lassie, as that is part of the trick he's just learned called "big." For the trick, he sits and holds his paw "endearingly" in the air and looks as cute as possible while doing so.

He's very proud of mastering this one, and so whenever he's trying to get a treat, convince us to throw a toy, or hijack a photo session - he starts doing "big" everywhere.

This time, he was doing the trick in the hopes DJ would be enchanted enough to want to capture the moment. As you can see, she was.

Suckered again.

Note who isn't in photo 5? The person who the photo session was actually for, that's who. Maybe if I learn to wave my paw in the air and make cutesie faces, someone might take my photo?