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.

Musings, Meandering & Holy Crap Exciting!

So, it may sound a bit narcissistic, but I did a Google search this morning on my blog's name Musings & Meandering because, frankly I was curious about how visible my blog is on the internet.  AND GUESS WHAT???  My blog (Musings & Meanderings) is ranked number 6 in the Google search box for (wait for it) Musings & Meanderings!

I'm slowly (oh so slowly) figuring out this whole internet visibility thing and SEO thing (that's search engine optimization thing) and I think I've finally figured out that the more I update my blog, the greater visibility it has and the greater visibility it has, the bigger my audience will become.

And that audience is now up to 11!  That's right, people!  I have now gone DOUBLE DIGIT!  Ah, it makes me feel so validated that there are at least 11 (yes 11!!) people that read this blog!

I will update later with something more interesting for my 11 readers to peruse, but there are STARVING DOGS who can TELL TIME that need to be fed.  Have a great day and thank you for reading Musings & Meanderings!

Examples of The Previously Mentioned Starving Dog Kryptonite Stare

The Daily Dance

The dance I refer to is not to be confused with the "Pull-ups Potty Dance" - the most insipid of all insipid TV commercials.  You know the one I'm talking about?  "Put your left hand out, put the right on top, shake 'em together and do the potty dance - whoop whoop!" - AS IF doing this stupid dance to the most insipid tune ever will somehow entice a small child to ask to go potty. I've never toilet trained a small child, but I'm just saying - I don't think this song & dance number is the way to go.

No, the dance I'm talking about is the nightly jig that starts somewhere between 4:30 and 6:00.  EVERY NIGHT.  I have no idea how my big, brown, beastly boy knows what time it is, but he does somehow.  He's very clever that way.  Not that he wears a watch or reads digital numbers from the stove or anything.  But every night between the prescribed hours of 4:30 & 6:00 he starts his dance.  The first act of this three part number is a little random pacing back and forth between wherever I am and his dinner bowl.   "I'm just checking to see if you realize that there are starving dogs on PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND?"  

 

Sometimes the bowl and I are in the same room, but often we're not, resulting in the incessant tap-tap-tapping of dog claws on hardwood and/or ceramic tile.  Back and forth.  BACK.  AND.  FORTH.  There is nothing quite so nerve-grating as that tap-tap-tap, unless of course it's the mini tap-tap-tapping of his canine sibling, who has now joined the gig and is tap-tap-tapping alongside him.

A brief respite while he relaxes between sets in his bed - where he has been instructed to go - BED!  NOW!  And I mean brief respite - maybe 1, 1.5 minutes.  And then it begins all over again. The second set of his act has a creative flair to it.  I call it the I Will Bore Holes in the Side of Your Head with My Kryptonite Stare Until There is Food in My Dish! part of the act.  Honest to God, this dog can stare without blinking for 10 minutes straight.  It's a wonder he isn't walleyed.

Act three starts with a fake-out request to go outside - "PSYCH!  Didn't need to go outside at all, but when I come in the magic food fairy will have visited my bowl - I JUST KNOW IT!"  Clearly by act three he is famished beyond all recognition, having shed 48 of his 50 lbs in the mere act of dancing for his dinner.  I know, I am a hateful dog owner and should not be allowed to keep one, let alone two animals. 

But here's the thing.  My big brown beastly boy was a rescue dog.  His first owner starved him - daily.  The trauma of spending his first 10 months of life never knowing if he would ever be fed again has scarred him in ways I couldn't imagine when I brought him home 10 years ago.   We've survived 10 years together where he has been fed two meals a day, plus anything he could steal  from kitchen counters, garbage cans and tables, not to mention countless bags of Snausages monthly and STILL he doesn't remember that in our home there will always be food for a big brown beastly boy.   Some would say he has issues, and I'd be the first one to agree.  But even with all his neurosis (and there are many) I wouldn't trade him for all the little Australian Silkies in the world.

Musings

I wonder how big the sweater would be that I would knit from all the hair you leave on my floor.

The Quest

As an under-employed resident of high-quality-career-lacking Prince Edward Island, I have tried my hand at a variety of contract work over the past year.  I've written before of the number of different things I'm doing, but what strikes me as most interesting is thus:   the things I like to do best, I am not getting paid to do.

"They" say (them, those people) that for a happy career you should find something you love and then figure out a way to get paid for it.  Well, "they" (them, those people) must be much smarter then I am, because I for the life of me cannot find a way to get paid to:

Read - I love to read.  Current readings include the archives of a completely inappropriate, but hilariously funny website whose url I am not going to post here for fear my mother or aunts may actually look it up and realize the kind of not so nice, potty-mouth stuff I read in a day.   But it's a really good website, honest.  The author was profiled recently on Oprah so it has to be good, right?  Actually it is very good, and very well written if you can overlook the potty-mouth trash talking.  The website started in 2001 and in the last week I've read daily archives through to August 2004.  Three years down and five more to go!  

I once read about a job that was posted by the producer Brian Glazer (Ron Howard's producing partner)  that would pay someone $100,000 annually to read on-line and off-line about current events, pop culture AND also to watch television and listen to radio!  Said job posting required the consumption of these materials so that the successful job applicant could then summarize a report to Brian Glazer on a daily basis all that is going on in the world so that he could "keep current".  Now there's a job I could do!  I love to read and I'm a fairly good writer (in my mind anyway).  And who could turn down a job at $100,000 annually to do this??  Alas, no such producer lives on PEI and no such job exists here - but a gal can always dream, can't she?

Publish - Since I purchased my new MacBook 45 days ago I have lost countless days to the evil thing known as I-Photo.  This wonderful, beautiful software application gives you tools to edit your photos and make extraordinary creations.  Creations like my own portfolio book of black and white winter photography.  Creations like a "complete with maps" photo album of our Trip of a Lifetime.  Creations like cards and calendars that I have populated with my photos of PEI - who wants a 2010 calendar full of island shots entitled 12 months, 4 seasons, 1 island?  I'm taking orders now people!  

Since I discovered the joys of on-line publishing where you edit your photos, upload onto a series of templates and then press the "send" button to order a printed copy of your work I have discovered I have a knack for photo publishing.  At least I think I do.  Of course I know just enough to be dangerous and am of no real value to anyone that might hire a photo editor, but again I say, a gal can always dream, can't she?

Cook -   Again with the countless hours lost.  Overall, I'm a very good cook.  I can follow a recipe with the best of them.  But where my creativity really shines is in the making of soups, sauces, stews and one-pot meals.  I make a mean soup.  You need a soup, a stew, a one pot meal - I am DEFINITELY for hire.  It is amazing to me the variety of ways you can take the same first 4 ingredients (onion, carrots, celery & garlic) and transform them into savoury soups and scarily delicious sauces.    They're really good - honestly - my husband says so.  

I don't think I'd want to be a cook every day, but certainly there are many days when the hours fly by while I play around in the pantry, figuring out which flavours will combine to make a simple pot of vegetables into an extraordinary dish of goodness.  

Write - Ah writing...Since starting this blog I have written almost every day (except for the days when those college students suck the life out of me).  I do not lack for material.  In fact, while doing other things in my day I often think "oh that would make a good blog subject" and I think about writing it down, but somehow I can't find a pen when I'm flying 80 km/hour down Rustico Road and then before I can find a pen - whoosh - the big idea is gone.  So every day I sit down at this computer and think, think, think "what do I write about today?"  It's not as easy as it looks people!  But the Gemini in me is silently screaming "yes it is!  it's easy to write!  it just flows from your fingertips with nary a stop in your brain for processing".  So occasionally you'll see ramblings on this blog and that's when the fingers have taken over and the brain has become disinterested (like now).

But I digress.  The whole reason I started this blog in the first place was to have an outlet with which to write about something every day.  I have long dreamed of being a writer.  And for much of my career I did a lot of writing (being a marketing type person and all).  But I've never figured out how to take the first step in becoming a writer full time.  Well, maybe this little blog is that first step.  "They" say (them, those people) that the best writers write everyday.  They don't necessarily like what they write, but they sit down and have the discipline everyday to write something (I imagine those writers do not have college kids sucking the life out of them 4 or 5 days a week).  

So that's what I'm doing.  Writing every day.  Often about nothing.  Sometimes about something.  I hope you find it interesting enough to keep checking back here.   Maybe someday I'll figure out my next career and maybe it will involve being a writer.  A gal can always dream, can't she?