Life is FULL of OUCH and AWE moments!

What are some of my OUCHES?   Snow on my favourite walking trails in mid-May.  Having to wear a winter coat in MID-MAY.  Scraping my car windshield in mid-May.  Notice how ALL these ouches are weather related?

OUCH: Vimy dropping a boom in my living room. It wasn't his fault. He wasn't able to get out on one of our long hikes, to do his business, because of the rainy weather.  We all know dogs prefer to do their business elsewhere.

AWE:  Well, kind of.  I sat not six feet away from the bomb, and ate my dinner.  I only noticed it on my way to close the window curtains later on.  Sometimes it IS okay to have very little sense of smell. 

OUCH:  I had a very bad tooth infection recently, which lead to three days of popping tylenol, then getting heavy duty antibiotics, and being told my options were an extraction, or a root canal and crown.  Approximate cost, out of my pocket, since I don't have dental insurance?  $1,500.00

AWE:  Being able to AFFORD that root canal and crown, and NOT having to opt for the extraction, as my only choice.   

OUCH: Going out for a drink with a friend, to a pub that has a reputation for being a bit of a dive.  I didn't even want to take Jiminy, since my car can be seen a mile away, and I didn't want anyone to know I was in that pub.  Isn't that terrible? 

AWE: Finding it to be a cosy, friendly place where having put $5.00 into a gaming machine, I won $90.00 right away! Plus walking away with that money in my pocket. :)

OUCH: Doing a twelve kilometre hike in the pouring rain.  

AWE:  Hiking in that rain with my eighty year old dear uncle, doing only a thirteen kilometre segment of his 335 km pilgrimage.

AWE: Receiving a long hand written letter from an old friend.  

AWE: Receiving regular long distance phone calls from an old boyfriend from your university days, thereby keeping in touch the old-fashioned way... 

AWE!!!  In my neighbourhood, seeing three bright gold helium birthday balloons, tied to a front entrance railing.  One was the number ONE and the other two.  TWO zeroes that is.  Someone is celebrating 100 years on this earth!  How awesome is that? That person was born barely six months after the end of WW1.  

Fortunately, for me, life has been a series of many, many AWE moments.  I think if we look hard enough, we can take many of those OUCH moments, and make them AWE ones. Here is wishing you many, many of those AWE moments.  

Why is it that...

we Canadians are SOOOOO polite?  After two months with an infected finger, I decided to go to an after-hours clinic.  I apologized to the young physician for taking up valuable time with such a banal issue and she replied, "We are paid to do this. YOU are the third one to apologize for coming here tonight".  Since they only take 15 patients, I guess that means 20% of us are typical Canadians, that is to say, polite AND apologetic? 

Vimy, after he has dropped a bomb on someone's lawn, feels he has to aerate the lawn as well?  The front paws are fast and furious, as he digs up the grass, e-v-e-r-y SINGLE time.

Vimy has to bark at every little sound in the street, especially when Sophie is just going down for a nap, so we both get banished to the basement? :)


people will stoop to scoop their dog’s poop, but leave the bag behind on the ground?  If you can do that, why can’t you take it with you, until you come upon a garbage can?  FRANCHEMENT!

you can always manage to find something to break, or if NOT break, screw up in some way, when you are visiting family or friends?  Somehow, I managed to get the cover of the Magic Bullet into the receptacle, but in my usual klutzy way and without realizing it, notched it in incorrectly.  I have NO idea how that happened.  My daughter was able to remove the capsule type cup cover, AFTER fiddling with a knife for half an hour.  It works, but I broke a notch on the rim, so you have to keep your hand on the cover, it so it doesn't pop out.  Only me!!

babysitting nowadays involves so much technology? A baby monitor that is a camera, a machine that makes white noise, another machine that warms up baby bottles, to name a few?  Technology is great when it works well, but NOT when you spend a half hour trying to figure out why you can't see your granddaughter sleeping in her crib. Well, in this case, it wasn't my usual bungling when it comes to gadgets of any kind.  The camera had been perched on a pile of books that had toppled over, and the video camera ended up upside DOWN on the far side of the dresser.  That explains why I kept seeing what looked like an upside down closet.  IT WAS!!  I crept into her room, found a less precarious perch for the robot camera, which I managed to do without tripping over anything, and also without waking up a VERY light sleeper. 

As a postscript to my mug shot with a bottle of French's ketchup, which was spread all over the national news online, the Saturday before Easter - here are a few comments from friends that made me laugh out loud!  Merci mes amis! Je vous aime.

💖💖💖💖💖💖

"Did you know that Heinz ketchup has a CONTRACT out on you? Yeah, death by stoning!  STONING BY TOMATOES. That is, if they can KETCHUP to you!!!