Rob and I are both kind of sick so I was asleep by 8:30 last night (woke up at 9 this morning). He’s still in bed right now. So far this morning I’ve had breakfast (cashews and grapes – probably not the most balanced meal), done some laundry, and cleaned out the medicine chest (no need for those prenatal vitamins I bought last year in a fit of hopefulness… also no need for the extra-super-expired box of prophylactics that someone gave us as a joke at our wedding shower. Please do not think about any of this). Right now I’m pondering whether I should go for a nap (very tempting, although it’s only 11 am) or over to my Mom’s to bring her her birthday gift. These dogs and their snuggling are making the nap look very, very tempting:

In response to yesterday’s post, I have received 6 spam comments for hormonal acne cures. Yeah. I think I might be hormonal enough. I bawled all the way through the Olympic opening ceremonies last night (it sort of miffed me that people were referring to the totem poles as giant penises. ). This morning I woke up and came downstairs, put the dogs out, did whatever… then next thing Rob knew I was crawling back into bed with him, crying for about half an hour. He just hugged me and tried to figure out what was wrong and just went with it when I said I didn’t know. Once I’d cried myself out, I slept for a few hours and woke up feeling cold-and-flu-ish so that is probably that.

Now I must go – Rob is looking at the TV guide listings and is pointing out that there’s a movie being billed as “Cloudy with Meat”. I know it’s not a porno, but the title sure sounds… meaty.

I’ve been complaining for ages on this blog about how I’m getting wrinkles and zits at the same time and how it’s unfair. Seriously 100% unfair. One or the other, or maybe, hopefully, once in awhile, neither. Not both at once. Both at once is NOT FAIR.
It turns out that posting about this stuff isn’t a good idea when the spambots are about. Between yesterday and today, I have received 19 comments on various whiny posts singing the praises of tretinoin cream (apparently it gets rid of pimples and wrinkles all at once). I haven’t let those comments through my comment moderation (and I pretty much let EVERY comment through… I get so few that I have very low standards) because they’re all from people named “xfodfijjkeafdx” and “nepaboiaejfkd”.

I’m not racist or anything but those dudes are not invited to my pizza party.

I am writing this during my break because I had to get it written down before I forgot it.

This week is Winter Carnival week at my school. All week they’ve been having lunchtime activities (soccer against the teachers, an “odd couple” contest where the girl dresses as a boy and the boy dresses as a girl, today is the “duct tape a class member to the wall” competition).

Tomorrow is a full day of outdoor activities – skiing, tobogganing, etc. There’s also indoor stuff like swimming and bowling. For people who aren’t “sporty”, we’ll be showing a movie here in the library and they can go sit there all day. Every kid at school has to be signed up for an activity.

One of the girls in my class broke her arm earlier this week. So she can’t do the skiing, she can’t do the swimming, she basically can’t do any of the activities aside from sit in the library and watch that movie where Nicolas Cage runs around and looks for something. She told me this morning “I signed up for the movie but I think I’m going to stay home. My mom said it was okay. I can watch a movie at home, and at home I have my couch and my Snuggie.”
“That’s certainly an option, N.”

“Madame, you know how people think that Snuggies are dumb? And they say that they’re just a backwards bathrobe?”

“Uh huh…”

“I don’t think that’s true. Snuggies are the world’s best invention! It’s more than just a blanket… I can’t live without it! It’s a relationship!”

I love 13-year-olds. SO much.

Good Lord, bring on the weekend.
Rob and I haven’t had a conversation that lasted more than 25 minutes all this week. Don’t worry, it’s not like he’s leaving me and has been out looking for apartments for rent. He’s working. I leave for work in the morning at 7:30 am. I get home no earlier than 4 pm. He leaves for work at 3 pm – meaning we don’t see each other until I go to pick him up at 9:30 pm. By which point I’m fairly sleepy, so we chat for a couple of minutes and I go to bed. He can’t go to sleep right after work (too wired) so he comes to bed at around midnight or 1. In the morning, I wake up, shower, and get ready, then I go talk to him while he’s still in bed. We exchange emails through the day, once he wakes up, and that’s about all the contact we have.
Yesterday was his day off, but I had parent-teacher interviews so I was at school from the usual time in the morning until a little past 9 last night. Got home, was exhausted, same old grind. Rob will be working all day on Saturday, which kinda sucks, but he’s out at 5:30 so we at least get to hang out from then til bedtime.

Oh! And I got home last night to find a dozen roses waiting for me. No wonder I want to spend more time with him!

It was -33C today.

We had no students today; instead it was PD in the morning and parent-teacher interviews in the afternoon. The morning’s PD was really interesting. We did all this testing to find out what kind of personality each of us was. It was this new (to me) system; instead of the Myers-Briggs testing that I’ve done in the past (INFP represent!) they used colours. It turns out I’m Blue. Like, very, very blue. And an introvert. But we all knew that.

Now some number stuff:

Number of parent-teacher interviews I had today: 12 (not bad… I got to come home earlier than I usually do from these things). Number of people who blamed the ps3 for their kids’ poor performance in school: 4.

Number of minutes I was outside with the dogs before they started begging to come inside because it’s -33friggindegreesCelsiusholycrap: .005.
Number of minutes it took before they actually managed to poop: 5.

Number of dogs I had to carry back home inside my coat because he was so cold and I am too softhearted: 1.

Number of dogs snuggling me right now: 2.

Number of hours until I can go pick up Rob from work: 1 and 3/4.

Okay that’s all!

It’s friggin cold. We went and got the dogs’ hair cut on Sunday. PROPERLY this time, by a groomer who actually knew what she was doing and ACTUALLY CUT BOTH DOGS’ HAIR. Wait. Let me start this again.

Last groomer:
Both dogs got a bath.
Doozer got some half-assed haircut where he had all these little bits of long fur that she missed sticking out everywhere and I had to go over him again and snip off those little pieces and she didn’t get the fur out of his eyes at all.
Sprocket got his “mustache” and topknot hacked at. And that’s all. Well. Look here. Although he was supposed to get an all-over haircut, she just said “Oh I couldn’t, he has such beautiful long fur!”. Yeah, he had long fur. And it was nice. But it was also matting underneath from being in the snow and if she had cut it then it would have been manageable.
Did she cut either of their nails? No, she did not.
Did she even cut the hair on Sprocket’s butt so that his poops wouldn’t stick to it? NO SHE DID NOT.
Did the dogs leave there traumatized and acting as though they’d been beaten with a barcode scanner? Yes they did. And when I picked them up, did she give me a long list of things that were wrong with my dogs (they’re too wiggly! Doozer barked! Sprocket whined when I was trimming his face!) to make up for the absolutely terrible job she did on their grooming? Oh, yes. Yes she did.

Did I pay her $100 because I was a n00b and can’t handle confrontation? Oh, what do you think? Yeah, you know I did.

It got to the point that no matter how much we brushed him, Sprocket was getting totally knotted on his belly and under his legs, and I’m sure it was becoming painful for him. We definitely didn’t want to take them back to the same person, for obvious reasons. I noticed that their breeder had become a Facebook fan of a certain groomer, so I went over and checked out her website. It turns out that she’d just started her own business, although she’d been grooming her own special-needs dogs for years, and was accepting new clients. I took a look at some of her before and after pictures and they looked good, so Rob went ahead and made an appointment.
The first thing the dogs did when we got there was pee on her floor (Doozer later had an unfortunate pooping incident which he does not wish for me to detail here) and she was fine with it (the other lady tsk’ed at me) saying that it was because of the smell of other dogs, not because they were badly trained.

It took her about 4 hours to finish up both dogs, because she takes her time and lets them have “breaks” to make sure they’re not getting fed up or overstimulated. She had to completely shave down Sprocket (his belly was *really* badly matted) and only did a little trimming on Doozer (face and butt and feet) because that’s what we asked her to do. They both got their nails cut and their uh, “sanitary area” clipped (again, Doozer wishes for no details to be given on this, but Sprocket says “Dude, it’s the truth – when you shave it it does look bigger!”), their ears cleaned, as well as a bath and a blueberry facial (yeah I don’t even know). And for both dogs, even *with* Sprocket’s extra shaving needs, it cost $25 less than the other lady ($30 for Doozer and $45 for Sprocket). Which is really, really good. And they weren’t traumatized when they left. And the lady gave them each a report card (apparently they were “very well behaved little angels”) and some free cookies.

So, all in all this was a very positive experience compared to the last time. Of course now we have wind chill warnings in effect and Sprocket is not happy going outside because he’s totally nude. I put two sweaters on him and he tries to deal but he is always very glad to get back in the house.

Oh, and Doozer? He wants you to know that he’s 100% brave of the coldness, unlike his “wussy” brother. His words, not mine.