Meandering

The exhaustion continues.  I was so tired yesterday I didn't have the energy to write about the pictures I posted.  Hence the invention of Wordless Wednesday, my "get out of writing" free card that I can invoke whenever the exhaustion becomes more than bone-crushing (like yesterday) or days when the words just won't come.  

For those of you wondering, the pictures I posted were taken in April 2007, during what we lovingly refer to as our "trip of a lifetime".  It really was with stops in such incredible places as Monte Carlo, Florence, Rome & Paris - the romance capitals of Europe!   

We took lots and lots of photos while overseas, as is evidenced in the 3 CDs, 4 flash drives and 1 hard drive that house all these photos.  Typical tourists, we snapped pictures of monuments, landmarks, landscapes and each other.  What we don't have in the 1,298 pictures of that trip are very many pictures of the two of us together.  Seems we're shy tourists and didn't want to ask anyone to touch our camera and take our pictures.  So, many of the shots we do have of us together are taken by one of us, arm outstretched, hoping like hell that the lens is actually focused on us and not at the top of our heads.

Looking back at these photos makes me realize just how much we love to travel together.  You know you've met the perfect mate if you can travel with him.  And if you can travel internationally together without killing each other or getting arrested and thrown into one of those scary "Midnight Express" jails, well - all the better.   It really was one of the litmus tests I used in evaluating my relationship with the man I would eventually marry.  Was he able to navigate foreign train timetables?  Could he find me a bathroom on a moment's notice when he doesn't speak the language?  Was he willing to immerse himself in the local culture?  You know, the ahem "when in Rome" clause (pun intended).    Thankfully, he passed with more than flying colours; he even managed to overlook my Parisian temper tantrum and I eventually got over whatever the big deal was that so chapped my fanny so we could continue our stay in the city of lights.

We've got itchy feet these days...it's what happens to us when we're ready to make a break for the border and explore some foreign soil.  Passports have been renewed.  Map books have been purchased.  GPS systems are being programmed.  Dog-sitters are being sought.    Soon we're leaving on vacation and it really can't come a moment too soon.  We haven't really had a true vacation since that trip of a lifetime 2 years ago.  Not even a honeymoon.  No, the 3-hour deep-sea fishing trip does not count as our honeymoon cruise!   

The countdown is on...T-minus 24 and counting! 

Wordless Wednesday

As Tired as a Bull Elk at the End of the Rut

Oh.  My.  God.  I cannot remember a time when I've been as tired as I have been the last month.  Do you think it's coincidence that my level of exhaustion escalated right at the same time I began teaching?  Me thinks not.

I'm not talking, oh, gee, I could use a brief nap tired.  I'm talking aching in my bones, complete and utter exhaustion.  T.I.R.E.D.  So tired that I can sit down to write and start to doze off with my fingers on the keyboard.  So tired that no amount of sleeping in will make up for the level of tired I feel.  So tired that I feel like a bull elk at the end of the rut.  Say it with me now...T.I.R.E.D!

When we lived in the Rockies we could measure the changing of seasons with the habits of the local wildlife:  newborn elk and wapiti deer calves in the spring, golfing with Grizzleys in the early summer, the call of the wolves and coyotes all summer long.  Most memorable for me, however,  was the 6-8 week period between late August and early October when the male elk enjoyed the ungulate version of Spring Break in Fort Lauderdale.  That's right - for 6-8 weeks these big boys lived with the singleminded goal of getting laid as often as possible.   No beer required.

Anyway, this time of year is known as "the rut".  It's an apt description really - big racked bulls roaming the park, lookin' for love in all the wrong places.  Yes, those stupid bulls have been known to try to mount just about any object that doesn't mount them first, including pick-up trucks, trees, and the occasional tourist that got too close with their digital camera!  

They'd roam the park shepherding their herd of cows from one love shack to the next.  Not only is a male's virility judged by the size of his antler rack, but also by the number of ladies he has in his harem.   So those big boys would roam the park with their harem in tow, gettin' it on as often as they can.    A bull elk's pick-up line:  a series of shrill bugles - that's right - bugles.  A sound so indescribable, my words won't do it justice, but imagine someone calling reveille every morning, except they do it out of tune without a melody and they do it all day and all night.  An ear-piercing bleating cry that, when sounded outside your bedroom window at 3am, is enough to scare the living crap out of you - but I digress.

You can only imagine the physical and mental state of  a bull at the end of the rut.  He's just spent 8 weeks rounding up his women, keeping them in line, warding off all rivals, getting some nooky as often as he can, as many times a day as possible with as many cows as possible.  All the while keeping the herd on the move.  By the end they are DONE, just DONE.  Except that just like 18-year old boys in Fort Lauderdale in March, they don't know it's 3 a.m. and the bar is closed and it's time to go home.  Those damn bulls keep going...one excruciating step at a time.  So hoarse they can hardly make a sound, let alone bugle for babes.  So exhausted that, even if they round up a willing partner, they're too exhausted to do anything about it.  So done.  Say it with me now - D.O.N.E.

This, dear internet, is how I feel today.  

Another Day in the O.B.B.

That gunshot you just heard was me, taking aim at the flying rodents that are attempting to take up residence in the soffits of our front porch.  Just another day in the O.B.B.  

We've had this problem ever since we moved here.  Funny that the previous owners never mentioned it as a problem.  Yup.  Funny, that.  But we fight on valiantly trying to extricate those damn dirty birds and keeping them from building a nest right over the stairs we use to access the porch.  Here me now people - you cannot enter our house (or front porch for that matter) without the risk of a pigeon crapping on your head!  I'm so not kidding.

Last year we thought we had licked the problem.  My handy hubby shoved a fake owl up there to hoot, hoot, hoot anytime something moved within the vicinity of the roof.  Evidently this is supposed to frighten birds into never coming back to the neighborhood for fear that a vicious great hoot owl will swoop down upon them and snack on their little squabby bellies.  That battery operated owl would hoot, hoot, hoot anytime the wind blew, whenever the dogs strolled by, whenever it rained,  but never, I REPEAT NEVER when there was an attack of pigeon power.  

The second phase of Project Pound the Pigeon was simple.  If we couldn't scare them away with our friend Hootie, we'd have to make their target neighbourhood inaccessible for future nest building, squab-birthing activities.  So we invested a not so small sum of money in bird netting.  Designed to repel anything with wings, we set up the net directly in front of the soffits, stapled 'er down and wiped our hands in what we thought was utter victory over our avian adversaries.  We are so SMART.  We showed those BIRDS.  Take that you little rats with WINGS.  You're not welcome here anymore!  Woo HOO.

Ya, um, that worked for about...oh, I'd say...um...MAYBE A MINUTE.  As soon as we went back in the house those little rodents were back doing their fly by, checking out the new netting, assessing it's flaws, plotting their great migration back to their beautifully restored island  summer house.  

We actually thought they gave up.  For a few months anyway.  Turns out, our poopy pigeons hadn't given up entirely.  They were just biding their time until winter was over and they could return triumphantly to their summer home, a lovely 85-year old farmhouse near the north shore of PEI.  They've returned this week.  And although they cannot climb into last summer's hideaway, they are giving it the old college try, by roosting on the soffits directly above the steps.

So, dear Internet.  You've been warned.  If you visit us this summer, keep your eyes out for flying pigeon poop to greet you at our front door.  Until such time as we buy a gun and I master my target practice, that is.

When my Mom lived in Suwanee, Georgia she used to have a b.b. gun to shoot squirrels.  I'd like one to shoot the damn pigeons.  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree I guess.

Love at First Sight

There are better reasons to buy a house, really.   I bought a house in order to get a dog.

When I moved to Hawaii I sold one house in Atlanta and began renting another one on Maui.  I knew when I signed the lease that they didn't allow pets of any kind (there must have been a proviso in the rental agreement however, that allowed for 5000 geckos to live under my porch - but that's another story).   I figured once I moved in I'd approach the landlord and, seeing as I was such a responsible pay the rent on-time kinda tenant, I was sure they'd let me have a pet.

But no.  The landlords were the kind of heartless, animal-of-any-kind hating type of people.  They were afraid of fleas.  As if any dog of mine would have the nerve to have fleas.  After much cajoling and even coercing, they would not relent.  So no dog for me at 158 Hiwalani Place - no way, no how.

When my lease was up for renewal I opted to give notice and went on a house hunt.  I was living alone on an island in the middle of the Pacific, 5,000 miles from my closest family and without hardly any friends.  I wanted a dog DAMMIT and if I had to buy a house to get a dog, then that's what I was going to do.

I closed on my little Haiku plantation house on a Thursday and on Friday, before I was completely unpacked and moved in, I was at the Maui Humane Society searching for a little dog to adopt, to help make my house a home.  The pound was jammed packed with dogs and  I peeked into each pen for a little puppy to take home, thoroughly expecting a large selection to choose from.  But not on that day.  On that Friday they only had large dogs available and I was hell bent that I was bringing home a dog, and with nary a second thought I switched my plan to bring home a dog that day, regardless of size or breed.

I turned a corner and there he was - a beautiful brown dog, a Lab or?  He was in a pen with his partner in crime.  They had been caught wandering up-country, not the first time the dynamic duo escaped their owner's yard, but it was the last time the Humane Society would return the dogs to this house of neglect.   The two dogs had been at the pound for about a month when I happened upon them.

I stopped for a moment outside their pen and spoke to them briefly.  One came right up to the fence, sniffing my outstretched hands (looking for treats no doubt) and quietly wagging his tail.  I was still of the mind that I wanted a small dog, so I moved on.  But as I toured the rest of the pens I could sense someone watching me.  Turning around, it was the brown dog...following me with his big golden eyes.  Every step I took, he watched.  Every dog I spoke to, he was looking on, as if he were saying:  I've picked you and as soon as you've finished window shopping you'll come back here and take me right home where I belong. 

I have often said over the 9 years since that fateful day that it was his eyes that got me.  He followed me with his eyes, imploring me to come back to him, to take him home, to give him a better life.  Every day I look into those soulful eyes and think there was more than a dog rescued that day...

How to Annoy Me

Be belligerent and insubordinate and then expect me to improve your grade.  Oh ya, that'll work.

Musings

If I hadn't had the very life sucked from me yesterday & today I could actually write something interesting, intelligent and/or amusing.  Alas, Internet you will be deeply disappointed.  Instead, I will simply leave you with this week's sale fliers to thumb through.  Enjoy.  I hope to have some life back tomorrow.