Oh, Hey, I'm Really Here!

I know my postings have been a tad...um...sketchy lately, mostly because I've been off my normal schedule. Buzz's car has been in the shop so I've been playing chauffeur to him...I've been hitting the gym for double workouts and this week I've been attending workshops at the local college in preparation of returning to teaching in a week or so. So yeah, very busy...that's me!

Yesterday's session "Orientation for New Employees" was a bit of a melange of topics - everything from benefits offered (only to full time employees - oops, not me) to results from the employee engagement survey (only full time employees get to take this survey, again, not me) to ISO Quality 9001: 2008. I nodded off through this session...it was something about ensuring the institution maintains their "quality" rating. Frankly, after being told earlier in the week that a student's "effort" was good enough to get a passing grade (but you know, no real requirement for ACTUALLY getting the work right) I really didn't think the college had a lot of credibility in the "quality" department.

So, I spent the day sort of half-listening to a bunch of topics that had little or nothing to do with my employment. And just when I thought the day had been a total waste of my time, the guy that heads up the Facilities department took the stage and began talking about "Lockdown." Holy shit..."Lockdown." Like Columbine lockdown. Like Virginia Tech lockdown. Like Montreal Polytechnique lockdown.

I had honestly never really thought that trying to teach first year college students how to write a business document could actually put me in a position where I could be in lockdown. With lots of statistic ("Don't think it can't happen here, because it happened here, and here, and here and here and here and don't think that the incidents are decreasing because you know in the last 10 years only 10 people have lost their lives to fire, but 62 have lost their lives to gunshots in North American schools") - was enough to keep my attention and of course to set my imagination into spin mode. I now know how to assess my line of sight in my classroom and should an incident occur I know where the safe zone is. I now know that I need to keep myself and my students low to the ground and silent...just like the room was unoccupied. I now know that if it can happen there, there and there...there is no reason it can't happen here.

Funny, those things seem so far away when they happen in Montreal, Virginia or Colorado. But after yesterday's presentation, those places don't seem so far away after all.

Random Immaterial List of Stuff

Because I have been racking my brain for the last 4 hours trying to come up with something blog-worthy, I have FINALLY decided to just jot down some random thoughts and um...stuff that has occurred to me lately:

• Autumn should not begin in August. Summer this year got here late (July 11th) and has evidently left early (August 23rd) - leaving us with daily high temps of 16-degrees.
• One of my dog's feet smell like Fritos. Odd that I know this. Odder still that they smell that way when they've never been near a bag of Fritos insomuch as I can tell.
• The summer story line of the Young and the Restless is getting on my last nerve. Sharon needs to pick a man - or better yet...DON'T. Victor needs acting lessons. Ashley cannot possibly be dumb enough to believe she's still pregnant? And those two fools Gloria & what's his name - enough already! Perhaps I need to take a break for a while and pick it up again next year. Not that much will have changed, but, clearly, I'm getting way too emotionally involved here.
• Number of tomato sandwiches I've eaten since returning from vacation 1.5 weeks ago: 14.
• Number of laps I can swim in a half hour: 50.
• Number of laps I thought I could swim: 15. So, clearly, I am better then I gave myself credit for.
• Did you know that you should NEVER put baking soda on wet carpet? Trust me on this one.
• School starts in less than 2 weeks and I'm pretty sure it will give me plenty of blog-fodder, which is a good thing considering "Buzz" has been decidedly short of material for me lately.

Buzz comes home early tonight. Perhaps he'll do something blog-worthy for tomorrow's entry!

Only on The Island

Oh there are LOTS of things I could write about with a headline like that...such as ONLY on The Island do you sell your vehicle from your front lawn instead of trading it in for a new one. ONLY on The Island is the busiest restaurant on a Sunday night your mother-in-law's kitchen table. ONLY on The Island is the healthcare for animals superior to that available for people.

But, it's Monday and that seems like such a negative way to start the week, so instead I'll tell you about what happened here yesterday.

Yesterday was a cloudy threatening-to-but-never-really-did-rain Sunday so Buzz decided to run to town to rent a carpet cleaner to steam clean our basement carpet which recently took a brutal beating as a direct result of too much 'shine and not enough common sense. Anyway...so I was sitting at my computer, face unwashed, hair all astray, stains from breakfast smeared across my white tee-shirt when the doorbell rang.

Now, I don't know what happens in your house when the doorbell rings, but here in the OBB a ringing doorbell results in the following dialogue from Snickers and Gidget:

THE DOORBELLLLLLLLL! THE DOORBELLLLLL! SOMEONE IS RINGING THE DOORBELLLLL! PEOPLE!!!! PEOPLE!!!! PAY ATTENTION!!!! INTRUDERS ON OUR PORCH!!!!! THEY ARE RINGING THE DOORBELL!!!!!! ANSWER THE DOOR!!!!! THERE ARE PEOPLE HERE!!!! HERE!!! RIGHT HERE!!!!! AT THE DOOR!!!! RINGING THE BELL!!!!!

All said at the top of their very barky lungs. You'd think they were killer watch dogs instead of two lazy ass pooches who spend their day rotating from one bed to the next.

Once I finally wrangled the beasts back into the kitchen I opened the door to a bright eyed and shiney faced young lady and her boyfriend. Now you know we've had people die in our house (you can read all about Frieda here), but this young gal...she was BORN in our house!

She and her boyfriend were vacationing from Nova Scotia and were driving past our house when she convinced him to pull in and knock on our door. She said to him "Hey, it's PEI, of COURSE if someone's home they'll let us in." And she was right. It didn't matter that I looked like the wreck of the Hesperas, of course I let her in.

She was so excited to tour the house, reliving flashbacks from her childhood - like the time her mom got locked out in the middle of the night so climbed the roof of our porch and knocked on her sister's bedroom window in order to be let in. Or, the time she smashed a porcelain baby-doll by accident and her grandmother sat her on our kitchen counter and comforted her with raw cookie dough. Or, the fact that what is my office used to be her bedroom and in our bedroom was where she and her two sisters would climb into their parents bed to watch the Care Bears.

She was surprised to see hardwood floors in our living room - when it was her living room it was covered in wall-to-wall carpet. When she was having a bad day she used to play hide-out in the crawl space under our staircase. She used to climb in our apple trees and the one tree that we thought was a pear tree is actually a hybrid of some sort with pears growing on one side and apples on the other...at least that's what she recollected.

It was nice to see someone so excited to visit their childhood home. It was her parents that bought our house and restored it after years of neglect and abandonment. They put in the basement, added the mud room, installed the wrap-around porch. They renovated every square inch of the place. They started before she was born and finished when she was about five...just before they sold it and moved away.

We will always have great memories of our time in this house - the first house we owned together, the first place we've knowingly lived with a ghost, the house where we were married. But it was nice to see the light in someone else's eye who lived her life here too. Only on PEI would a perfect stranger knock on your door like that.

Brad vs Julia

Last night was Date Night in the Cameron-Donnelly household. You know, just to keep the sparks lit, now that we've passed the one year point on our marital calendar, we like to keep things fresh and spend quality time doing things that we enjoy. So every couple of weeks or so, we find some activity to do. It need not be a big fancy deal, it can be something as simple as an after-dinner walk along the beach, a nice dinner out or in, or just a Sunday afternoon drive to the other side of the island.

Last night it was decided our Date Night would be a trip to our local multi-plex. Just like a real date, I got all gussied up...I even put on some perfume and right on the dot of after work o'clock I picked up my man and off we headed to the theatre. I had pre-purchased our tickets so we could bypass the lines and head right to the concession stand where Buzz filled up on an all you can eat bucket of corn with free! refills. I tell you, that man has an endless capacity for popcorn! A couple of squirts of artificial butter flavouring (on his) later, handing our tickets to the thug at the door, we quickly smooched as he went to Theatre 4 to see Inglorious Basterds and I headed to Theatre 5 for a date with Julie & Julia.

Hard to tell we're an old married couple now, isn't it?

'mmmm-mmmm 'Maters!

I could have titled this Ode to the Simple Tomato such is my love for this sweet, succulent fruit.

It's Tomato Season here on the Island. We returned from vacation to a garden bursting with Mother Nature's perfect food. Roma, Beefsteak, Scotias, Yellow, Cherry, Grape, you name it, I have it growing in my garden right now.

They'd just started to ripen, so I quickly whipped through the rows and extracted every single one that was ready to be eaten and then I set about gorging myself on the candy-like grape tomatoes.

Last year, our first year in the OBB, I spent September making endless batches of applesauce with apples from our orchard. This year, if I don't eat the tomatoes all right out of the garden I'm going to be making stewed tomatoes, spaghetti sauce, chili sauce and salsa.

And I can't wait.

It All Makes Sense Now...

Have you ever wondered how or why your life turned out the way it has?

I do. A lot.

What I wonder most about is why the fates conspired against my having any children.

I now know the answer to this question that has been burning in the back of my mind for almost 30 years.

It's because I would have SUCKED AT IT!

Oh sure, you've all seen me with kids and generally speaking, I'm very good with them. I can get right down to their level, play their games, colour in between the lines, make a mess and park myself in front of a Scooby Doo marathon 'til the cows come home... you bet. In fact, I'm "Auntie" Kim to so many children (some of whom are now adults) you'd think I come from a large Mormon family. Which I don't.

It's the other stuff of parenting that apparently I'm not so good at.

Things like medical care.

I guess it's a basic right to expect that if one is in charge of another being's health and welfare that you would, you know, have a clear understanding of what to expect.

My case in point?

Last month I took The Beast and The Barker to the vet for their annual physical...both came out with a bill of clean health, except that each has tartar build-up on their teeth and so needed to return for a cleaning. Gidget (The Barker) has one tooth that has severe decay, so her appointment was made first and so yesterday off we toddled to the AVC for the procedure.

Knowing that she'd be under anesthetic I held back any food from her, so by our 11am appointment I know she was a hungry puppy as she had not been eating regularly since we left on vacation two weeks ago. Side note, due to her picky-ness of what she would and would not eat while on vacation she dropped the 4 lbs she picked up last year - so now she's back to her fighting weight. I should be so lucky to drop all of my excess weight so easily!

Anyhoo....So, no food for Gidge and off we go to the AVC where, while chatting with some former Vancouverites in the AVC lobby Gidget snuck off to the corner and had a GINORMOUS crap right on the floor - this dog has no shame and me? Well, I apparently am full of shame for being the type of animal parent that lets their pet shit wherever they happen to hike it up. Side-side note: she probably lost 2 of the 4 pounds right there in the lobby of the AVC...her crap was almost as big as she is. Sadly, I am not making this up.

Finally the vet is ready to see us, and after scooping said poop and scrubbing the floor we joined the vet for our consult, where we learned that Gidget would not be having her teeth cleaned that day. No, day one of teeth cleaning involves her hanging out at the AVC and having blood work done, dining on vet-approved wet dog food and basically playing with all the other dogs. If the blood work comes back okay (which it did) , she'll have her dentistry done today. And if that all works out okay she can come home tomorrow.

For those that are counting that's 3 days and 2 nights later.

And I had no clue that it wouldn't be done as an out-patient in one day.

See why I wasn't allowed to raise children?

They Came From Away

Freshly back from vacation, I was going to regale you all with stories of our trip to Ontario and the fun we had, the food we ate, the parties we attended and the storms we outran. That was my plan before I read yesterday's newspapers where I came across this little article:

http://www.theguardian.pe.ca/index.cfm?sid=280172&sc=98

Click on the link when you have a moment and read all the way through the comments section.

We spent a lot of time on vacation in Upper Canada (an islander term!) trying to explain to our friends and family why we occasionally feel like we're living in the twilight zone here on the island. For a long time, I thought it was just us. But you know, Buzz and I have lived in a lot of different places in the last 20+ years and in each and every place have managed to assimilate into the local population, put down roots, make great, long-lasting friendships and really enjoy ourselves.

Anyway...not to get all soap-box-ey, or anything...just thought the article was an interesting illustration of the ying and yang of living here.

I'll be back with a more entertaining blog tomorrow!