Kennel Kerfuffle

Warning - Do NOT read this unless you are a dog lover!  Otherwise you will think I am a total whack job for having gone through all the trouble I did recently just to put my pooch in a good kennel, while I went on a 12 day trip outside the country.

My usual kennel man, Bob, could not take Vimy for the entire 12 days, so I scrambled to find another reputable one that could take him for the entire time.  I did find one, with one drawback. This K-9 Castle was an hour away by car.  I thought "What the heck!  I have time. I will take him up the day before my flight." I checked out the kennel beforehand, approved it, made a reservation, and foolishly thought that I was all set.

The morning I am to drive Vimy to the kennel, I call Sue to double check what exactly I need to bring for his 13 day stay. She gives me the list and reminds me that she needs proof of all his shots, especially the Lubron and some other one of which I didn't catch the name.  "Yes, yes, I have all that".  Heavens, how was I to know that NOT all kennels are the same, when it comes to which shots your pooch has to have? I assumed, and you know what "ASSUME" does.  It makes an ass of you and me. In this case, it was totally me!

I arrive with Vimy and all his paraphernalia.  Sue immediately asks for his papers.  My hands are full, Vimy is sniffing all over the place, my cell phone is pinging texts, and it is absolute bedlam in that kennel! There is a dog grooming place on one side, where three different dogs are in various stages of grooming.  They are all little yappers, wouldn't you know. I hand over Vimy's papers, which Sue peruses with a fine tooth comb, only to turn around and tell me that she doesn't see where Vimy has to the two shots she specifically mentionned by name. I tell her that he has all his shots.  I have been taking him to his regular kennel for the last eight months, and there has never been a problem with his papers.  She doesn't see what she requires, so I ask her to call my vet.  The line is busy. Meanwhile,  I am trying to call my regular kennel guy on my cell, to ask him why Vimy can go to HIS kennel, but not this one, and I am receiving and trying to answer texts. Wouldn't you know it - no cell phone reception.  Flustered, I decide to go out and check in the car, thinking maybe some of Vimy's papers have fallen out of his ziplock bag. 

I turn around and almost step on this huge BOMB that Vimy has dropped, while I have been trying to get him checked into this Hilton! He has NEVER, EVER DONE THIS.  Sue is not the least perturbed, and tells me to leave it. I can't! I am embarrassed! I run out to the car, get some empty grocery bags, and quickly scoop up most of the offending pile of poop.  I tell Sue what's in the bag, double knot it and dump it on the floor. Sue, who has finished perusing his papers,  reiterates that she definitely cannot take Vimy if I don't have proof of those two shots.  WTH? Now I am starting to get frazzled.

Sue tries the vet's line again, and thankfully, it is finally free. The vet isn't there, and the secretary advises us, as I end up talking to her, that she does not have the documentation there showing what shots Vimy has.  She tells me that my vet is in the SAME town I am in, at her main office,and we can check there. Wow, we cut a break!

I hang up, ask Sue to call the vet's main office, and decide to run out to my car to check for missing documents.  I had been on my way to do that, when I almost stepped in Vimy's bomb. In my haste, I almost run into an elderly man entering the dog kennel. A light bulb goes on in my head - "Oh no, there are still big streaks of poop on the floor, that I couldn't clean up properly with grocery bags! This man could slip and fall!"  I babble to him in English; he looks blankly at me.  I babble in French; still no real response.  Oh the hell with it!  I hold up my hand as if it were a STOP sign, run back in, pick up the bag of poop and drop it on top of the streaks. Surely, this man will NOT step on a bag in the middle of the floor.  I run back out, tell him he can go in, and search my car (to no avail) for those documents.

Back inside, it is still TOTAL bedlam. Six dogs who were outside in the yard, are now in the dog grooming area with the other three and everyone is having a great time! Vimy wants in on the fun, and has his two front legs propped up on the half door, barking and his tail wagging a mile a minute.

Sue has reached the vet's main office. She hands me the phone.  This secretary checks Vimy's file, and tells me that Vimy doesn't have those two shots. How can that be?  What am I do?  I am leaving tomorrow. I need a place for Vimy.  The secretary says "Bring him into the office right now.  Dr. T can give him what he is missing." Wow- I cut another break but by now...

I am really frazzled and wound up like a rubber ball.  I hang up, saying I will be bringing Vimy immediately.  I use Sue's phone to call my friend Jane, who lives close by. She will gladly accompany me.  Sue asks if I know where the vet's office is, and I snap "I don't know where anything is in this town!" I grab Vimy, all his paraphernalia, and out the door we go.  I pick up Jane, she directs me to the vet's and we bring in Vimy.  I have no leash, so we drag him by the collar, him squirming all the way, so we end up having to scoop him up in our arms. He weighs thirty pounds, and he is long.  Definitely NOT easy to carry.

Thankfully, my vet takes him right away, gives him his shot, and I cough up $25.  We are back in the car, when I get the bright idea to call the kennel and make sure I have the right shots now, and the right stickers.  That is what they put on your pooch's immunization card - these different coloured stickers!  Sue's assistant, who answered the phone, says "Yup, if you have the purple sticker, and he got a mouth spray, you are all set".  WHAT MOUTH SPRAY? This is the first I hear of mouth spray! Back into the vet's I run, where the secretary assures me I have the two missing stickers needed, and that he had the mouth spray one.  I ask her to please swear an affidavit to that effect, but she refuses. She says I can use her name though!

This long story ends with Vimy finally being admitted into the kennel, two hours later.  You know, it is easier to cross the border into another country, than to get your dog into this kennel!  (A good thing, I guess. Sue is only looking out for the welfare of her charges!) 

My wonderful baby bro and sis-in-law drive up and bring Vimy home, the day before my flight gets in at midnight.  How sweet to save me a two hour drive! 

However, Vimy came home minus his collar.  They can't find it anywhere at the kennel. It is even suggested that maybe Vimy was brought in without a collar. Well, he might not have had all those damn stickers on his card, but he HAD his collar, by golly! That I know. And I will swear an affidavit to that effect. 
I

Badass Golf!

I like to golf.  I am not good at it, but I like walking around in the sunshine, and whacking a ball. It is really good for getting out your frustrations.  Think of something or someone who has ticked you off, and go "Whack!" to that small white ball on the tee. Very therapeutic!

With my new friends Bob and Sue, we book a tee time of 5:00 to play nine holes this week. We get there early enough to go to the driving range and hit a bucket of balls each.  I have to admit the forecast was less than conducive to a great game of golf. Actually, severe thunderstorm alerts had been the order of the day. Did we listen? Nope! We figured it might just blow by.  Well, as it turns out, those storm clouds didn't move on down the road without a bang.

We had to wait until 5 o'clock to tee off, because of a tournament.  The sky turned dark, and the wind picked up, while we were waiting for the last golfers to finish up on the last hole.  We decide to have a beer in the clubhouse, on the outdoor patio. No sooner had we sat down than it started to rain, with thunder rumbling in the background. So, after fifteen minutes, we decided to pack it in. Since we had paid, and I had forgotten my receipt in the car, Bob, ever the gentleman, went back to get the car to pick me and Sue up. It was pouring rain after all!

He dropped me off at my car, and I promptly proceed to back up, while he was walking behind my car.  He had gone to see Sue off in her car.  Of course I didn't see him. I only heard him as he WHACKED the back of my car.  OMG - I almost ran over one of my future golfing partners!

I drive towards the clubhouse, to go get reimbursed, when ahead of me, slightly to the right of the clubhouse, I see a man next to his golf cart.  Well, looks to me like he is going to have a leak. I can tell from the furtive glance over his shoulder, with his back to the road, that this is what  he intends to do. I think, " You animal! The clubhouse is right there in front of you, on your left. It has a perfectly good, functionin working toilet! You don't have to use the great outdoors!" 

Then to my total surprise and disgust, he doesn't merely whip out the old pecker!  He DROPS HIS PANTS TO HIS ANKLES, and HOISTS UP HIS SHIRT!  So, I was MOONED, TOTALLY MOONED!  I had a front row seat of his BIG, HAIRY AND UGLY ASS!  I was gobsmacked!! No one else was a witness to this display. I was the only one around, because everyone else in the tournament is already in the Clubhouse, and no one is going to tee off, because it is storming.  I should be thankful I didn't get the FULL MONTY. 

I am a little upset about this. I park in front of the Clubhouse, dash in, and ring the bell for service, because all the employees are over on the restaurant side, getting ready for the BBQ. Well, who comes to the counter but the same little Miss Cutie Pie with the "IGNORANCE IS BLISS'' tattoo running up her inner left arm; the one who didn't have any large bucket of balls to sell for the driving range, because she hadn't bothered to refill them in her spare time, from the bigger bucket sitting on the floor. What does that tell you?  That she has the RIGHT tattoo for her?  I proceed to tell her what I just witnessed.  She draws a total blank on her face, (surprise!) and goes to get her supervisor (I assume, or the Clubhouse Manager). They make appropriate tut! tut! sounds but don't really say much.  I gesture and point outside, saying 'The guy is right there! What kind of place is this, where your patrons MOON other patrons?"  I receive more non-commital answers, and more TUT! TUT! noises, so I drop it. Of course, Miss "Ignorance is Bliss" doesn't know how to credit me on my card, so she gives me back the cash. Not a problem, in the grand scheme of things, because what the heck, after all, I have just been mooned! This man just committed an act of public nudity. Can't you be fined or arrested for that%

I leave the Clubhouse, jump into my car, and proceed to drive out. Who is just backing out of the little lane, next to the little white picket fence, in his golf cart, looking as innocent and nonchalant as can be? None other than MR. BIGHAIRYUGLY ASS!

I so want to roll down my window and give him a piece of my mind, but you know what? I didn't! I actually can't believe that I didn't tear a piece off him. If I had, I might have been as ugly in my words, as he was in his behaviour.  I didn't want that.  As my morning quote on Facebook read this morning - "I don't like to think before I speak.  I like to be just as surprised as everyone else, by what comes out of my mouth!"  I might have surprised myself TOO MUCH!

I had to call the cops!

Our tropical storm is over, the debris has settled, and we are all on vacation. Awesome! So we all go out for breakfast at the new bistro. Lovely, ...except for the service. The waitress is so enamored with how beautiful my mother is, that her jaw falls to her knees when I tell her Mamacita is 80 years old! She is so flabbergasted, that she promptly throws our breakfast order in the garbage, (we find this out later);delivers three plates to our table of six people, then tries to give us two orders of French toast that belong to another table, all the while telling us that panini bread is ciabbata!  Sweet lady, but .... not cut out for this job! I consider myself lucky we got to eat at all.  Three ate at one time, and we three who had our order thrown in the garbage, got to eat twenty minutes later. We laughed, and told her "Get another job, quick!"  No, just kidding! 

I left there to go pick up some ribs on sale at the grocery store. The day was showing promise of being another hot and muggy one.  I park, and in the car next to me is a little pooch, barking away.  Right away I notice that all the windows are rolled up tight. That bothers me...a lot!  Would you leave a child in a car in the same situation?   I say to myself "Self, when you come out again, if that dog is still there, you are going to HAVE to call the police!"  So of course, the dog was still there, and now he's panting, the poor little thing.  He is one of those tiny poodle doggies.  I march right back into the grocery store and ask the cashier for the phone book. I tell them I am going  to call the police,and they look at me real scared! I go out with my cell,  and
call.  I am told they will send an officer immediately.  I was also told I could leave, that I didn't have to stick around, but I just COULDN'T. That dog has now been in that car for over half an hour.  I walk around in circles, watching everyone who comes out of the store like a hawk, ready to pounce on them if they happen to be the unfortunate owner of that poor pooch! Still no owner, and no police.  Then a light bulb comes on in my head! Maybe the car doors aren't locked! They are NOT! I grab the little doggie, put one of Vimy's leashes on him and proceed to walk around the parking lot with him. Another five minutes go by.  Who shows up at the same time? The owner of the dog out the doors of the grocery store, and the police car turning off the main drag. The tall blond woman was speechless, as I lectured her kindly (I think!) about the dangers of leaving a dog in a car on a HOT day, with the windows up, while I am giving her her dog back, and removing my leash..  Then I told her I had called the cops and he was coming, to see her,and that was him right there! When I left, the officer ( a hunka hunka burning love, by the way!) had his notebook out, as he was talking to her, and hopefully, he was giving her a lecture too!  If it only makes her think twice before doing such a stupid thing, it will have been worth turning a five minute quick stop at the grocery store, into a 45 minute STRESS-OUT for me! 

Tropical Storm Arthur - the second twelve hours

July 7,2014

Well, we went to bed late Saturday night, after a great hen party on the stormy shores of the Bay. The rain hasn't let up much.  It is really beating down hard, and the winds are fierce.  I fall asleep thinking that water will leak in the trailer tonight, for sure!

The next morning when we get up, we start getting ready to hit the road again. Cece has to go back home.  I have arranged with a friend for her to be picked up half way, which is a two hour drive through the woods. 

We are running around getting things done, when I notice that the two yellow lights are on above the fridge/freezer of the trailer. Baby Bro had told me that would mean the breaker had blown or the electrical current from the utility cord, and I need to fix it, or my food will go bad. So out I go in my pjs, to fix the problem.  I see that I need to press the reset button on the outlet outside the garage, so I unplug the big utility cord, press the reset button, and then plug the cord back in.  WHOOSH! BIG BANG! OMG! I turn around, and see that the grass, or the cord, is on fire!  Not a good idea to plug the cord back in after all, I  think! So I quickly unplug it, run over to the fire and stamp it out.  Then I see that the cord plug, where it was plugged into the other one going to the trailer, is SMOKING!  So I run over to the trailer, unplug the cord attached to it, and run back, gingerly pick up the two extension cords where they were attached, and unplug them.  Whew!  One emergency dealt with.
Then I think, " I need to turn everything off in the trailer.  I am not taking any chances!"

I am NOT going to call Baby Bro.  Poor man, everytime he goes away, something happens. And this isn't the half of it.  I notice in my running around that his truck looks a little lopsided.  Of course, his front driver's side tire is FLAT! 

I decide to call Mid Bro, who is also out of town.  He guides me through shutting everything off; all electricity, propane, you name it, I shut it off.  Actually, where the cord blew and caught fire, was in a few inches of water, and about 8 feet from the propane tanks! That is all I would have needed, for the trailer blow to bits after I have left to take Cece home.

Next I run around getting all the food out of my fridge and freezer in the trailer, and transfering it all to Baby Bro's big beer fridge in the garage. Another thing done!

So it is time to get Cece home.  We set out to take the road through the resources, straight across one side of the province to the other.  I see a few fallen trees here and there, on the other side of the airport, and shades of yesterday's roadblocks pop into my head.  I brush them off, thinking, "No, I am going to be fine!" Twenty-five clicks onto the Resources Road, and I had no sooner thought that, then a sign up ahead says "ROAD CLOSED!"  Maudit! Other cars stop behind me, and we debate whether to turn around or not.  Well, to make a long story short, we all turn around.  Can't take any chances. So here we are, DOUBLING BACK ONCE AGAIN!  I have no cell reception cause we are in the woods, so I have to wait until we are closer to town, to text/call my friend, and let her know we will be going all around the northern part of the province, rather than cutting through. I had tried waving my cell around at the turn around point, but it didn't work. Thank goodness mi amiga hadn't left home yet.

So we set out for the two hour drive, AGAIN!  On our way to our meeting point, about 250 km away, and in the middle of nowhere, I see a bright, new, shiny Acadian flag sign on the lawn of a humble little house. It is so cute! What is even cuter is the name written on the flag. These lawn flag boards are iconic around here this summer, with the Acadian National Congress being held in August.  You see all the old Acadian family names on these flags. What did this one say?  SMITH!! OMG - I laughed so hard!  And across the street, another flag with a good Acadian name I had never heard of - Mannelo!  Sounds Italian to me!  Last time I checked, there were no Smiths or Mannelos on the Expulsion List of 1755!

Cece gets picked up and I turn around for the 200 km drive back.  I decide to do a quick beer run over in to Québec, but of course, you know me with my luck. It is the Salmon Festival, so I deal with a detour going across the bridge into Québec, and a traffic jam to the Midway, through town.  I hit the road, and am home by 4, after having left at 10 that morning.

I no sooner exit my car, then my sista rolls in. She jumps out, and right away says - OMG, look at that tree! Well, the tree was a 30 foot aspen that was totally uprooted and lying behind my Baby Bro's brand new garage!  How it never touched the garage at all, is a freakin' miracle! At it's narrowest point, it is only 8 inches from touching the garage.  My sista starts asking me why I hadn't noticed the tree before? Well, excuse me, but I was busy PUTTING OUT FIRES and preventing the whole place from being BLOWN TO BITS!  Who had time to notice a big, fallen tree?  

So now I start to freak out about the pool. The water level is way too high, so sista calls Baby Bro real calm like, and explains the pool situation. He tells her how to do a backwash, and I stay right out of the whole thing. My Karma is bad, I figure!

I am sitting in his house right now.  I can't sit in my trailer.There is absolutely nothing connected.  I am waiting for him to get home from his getaway weekend with his family.  I am beginning to think that his bad luck has something to do with me, since I seem to be around when it happens. What do you think?  I don't know how many more of these misadventures I can take.  Although truth be told, we have all escaped Tropical Arthur's fury very lightly!   

My friends have started to call me "Only you!", meaning these things only happen to me. Never a dull moment, that is for sure.  My food is the garage, my bed in the trailer, my clothes here and there, but water and bathrooms in Baby Bro's house.  I am not homeless. Yet!

New trailer should be arriving soon.  Stay tuned to read about what kind of misadventures I have with that.

Tropical Storm Arthur-the first twelve hours

 Chapter 2 - Tropical Storm Arthur - First Twelve Hours

Horrific wind and rain start Friday night. I think to myself, "Rain could get into this trailer (RV) again. It already did and that was melting snow and ice. Imagine what a tropical storm could do?" I fall asleep thinking as long as my feet are not in water when I get up tomorrow morning, I am good! And CeCe and I were. Off we went before noon Saturday, to man a Red Cross Information booth at the Pabineau First Nations Annual Two Day PowWow. For three days, all we heard about was Hurricane Arthur, and then Tropical Storm Arthur, and how high the winds were going to be, along with the 80 to 100 mm of rain forecast for this area. I kept waiting to hear that the PowWow was cancelled, at least for Saturday. Nope! So we drive there in the middle of the storm, wind and rain like I haven't seen in a long time. We get soaked just running into the building. Well, they weren't ready for this, we are told. READY? We are the Red Cross; we inform people how to be ready for emergencies like this! There is no room for our booth in the main lodge room, so we are tucked away in an adjoining room, to set up our kiosque. Again, we are told, they were NOT expecting this. WTH? What planet have they been on the last few days? Did I mention that we now realize that there is no power, no water, no food, and no flushing toilets? They are dumping big bottles of water into the toilets! So we sit there for three hours, in the semi-darkness, but what the heck, it was fun! We met lots of wonderful people and got to listen to all the different drums. I even danced in one of the dances, me in my Red Cross vest, and the First Nations in their beautiful headresses and traditional garb. It was awesome. I loved it!

We head back home around 4:30, to check on the dogs, and be at my sister's sweet little beach house, ( aka a cottage) for supper at 6 and a hen party. The storm is still furious - bits of debris (nothing big!) flying everywhere. The closer to the water, the bigger the fury. Baby Bro's, where I am staying in his RV, is in the woods, so I figure it won't be so bad there, but it is. I see flashing lights further ahead of me, before I turn left to go towards home. I wonder what they are. The pooches are fine, so we change out of our wet clothes, get our stuff and leave for the beach house. I get to the end of road, see that to my left, there are STILL flashing lights, in the distance. Normally I would go that way. However, I would have to double back on the 134 to get to my sista's. Plus I don't know why those lights are flashing. They aren't traffic lights. So, I think, "Nope, I am not going that way. I am not going back towards where I came either, which I would do by turning right. It is too far. I am going to take that short cut my sis-in-law #2 told me about. I will cut through the middle of the woods. I won't have to double back at all, and will come out near sista's cottage. So off we go down this new road.  Well, you guessed it. 2K from my destination, what do I see ahead.? Friggin' flashing lights! Firetruck blocking the road, transformer down and wires on the road, the fireman tells me. Turn around, go back by Laplante. I tell him there are flashing lights down that road too. For a minute I think, OMG, we are stuck here! Happily, we weren't. I just had to turn around and go back and take the road I SHOULD have taken in the first place. Karma bit me in the ass again!

How many men does it take to boost a battery?

I have had some excellent adventures with my 13 year old adopted (UNOFFICIALLY) granddaughter  Cece, these past twenty four hours. We went to the Big D Drive-In for supper last night, before heading to the movies. Remember those drive-in restaurants, like A & W?  Well, DUFUS here, left Proclivity's lights on, AFTER being served, and I also left the radio on, so guess what? Proclivity got ticked off at me, and the end result was, a dead battery. The first guy, (I will call him Man 1) I asked to give me a boost, was ...less than enthusiastic. And I had the CABLES! He proceeded to tell me that he didn't know where the battery was. Hello? What man doesn't know where a car battery is? I told him where it was, but he didn't believe me. He proceeded to tell me it was in the trunk. The TRUNK! He said his girlfriend had a Chevy and that's where the battery was. It was only after I had snapped off the handle of the floorboard in the trunk,(read - BROKE!) trying to lift it to show him there was NO battery there, that he agreed. We are still at square one, when the waitress shows up and says," We have a portable battery charger inside. I will send the guy out. So Man 2, in his Big D uniform, comes out and tries to boost my car. After debating with Man 1 how to do it, and after many tries, with no success, they determine that the machine has no more juice. By this time, I have figured that out, and I have gone in search of Man 3. He was an older gentleman, eating his supper alone, and I figured he would know what to do. WELL, as it turns out, he didn't know either, and Man 1, who is by now eating his dinner, is sticking his fork out the window, and pointing underneath the hood of my car, trying to tell Man 3 how to boost my battery. Can you believe this? Anyway, after many tries, Man 3 succeeds in boosting my car. He rolls down his window as he driving away, to remind me to turn my lights off! Man 2 has disappeared back inside, and Man 1 has happily gone back to enjoying his drive-in dinner, glad to be rid of me, I am sure! We made it to the movies on time. "Tammy" the movie, is very funny, by the way.  Stay tuned for my  adventures with tropical storm Arthur, next!

Beach Boat

First for me and scared me half to death today! I stepped out on my deck with a cup of tea, and three police officers were on the beach RIGHT there in front of me. OMG! Right away I thought of the escaped convicts from Québec! Thank goodness they weren't there for that reason. There was a boat adrift. Seriously! Someone phoned it in. I had seen it previously and thought, "Ah, someone is just floating on the bay,enjoying the sunshine." Well my neighbour jumped in in his fishing waders and retrieved the boat for the police officers, who weren't dressed to jump into the Bay. The boat was empty. Hopefully there is no one missing!