The Sock

The sock has resurfaced! Last night at about 2am, I heard the gagging coming from the end of my bed. I peeked into Charlie’s kennel in time to see the sock dropping out of his mouth, covered in some kind of disgusting goo. I grabbed a plastic bag and scooped it up! Hurrah! What really amazes me is the fact that the sock sat in his stomach all that time.

Food came in, food went out. The sock did not budge.

Thank whoever that it’s out of him and now I don’t have to agonize at work about the poor little guy.

That’s all.

Changed the Format

I was getting bored of the old one, plus, I don't write much about the office anymore...

Losing It

My husband is at a conference all week so it’s just me and the animals. The problem with this is that I have one very hyper puppy who is in his crate all day (I do let him out at lunch time) and then a complete spaz when I get home. Last night was not too bad, but those of you who have ever had a puppy will know that you really don’t have time for much else other than the dog. I have gotten used to eating my dinner over the sink, this usually consists of a can of green beans followed by a can of salmon. Yesterday was day 3 of not washing my hair because I have NO TIME in the morning and definitely none at night. The house is a complete disaster. I get a few moments here and there and try to tidy up but it never amounts to anything. I refuse to crate Charlie after he’s been crated all day. By the time I get home from work, we go for our two hour walk (believe me he could go for longer), I get us both some dinner and settle him down it’s close to 8pm. Then I usually give him a chewie thing so I can do a load of laundry or whatever.

I’m loading the dishwasher in the kitchen and cursing the fact that I neglected to buy more detergent and now cannot run the frigging dishwasher, when I decide to peak around the corner to see what Charlie is up to and I am just in time to see him swallow a sock. Whole. WTF!?!?!?

I race over to him to pry open his mouth and jam my fingers in there but to no avail – the sock is gone. So I start freaking out while he is happily wagging his tail and thinking the whole thing is just great. I decide to call my husband, figuring that he might know what to do. He answers his cell phone and I can barely hear him. I ask him where he is and he tells me he is at a bar and heading out to dinner with the guys. Bit of a background: It’s a firefighter convention, so you can imagine what goes on there. Obviously there is some partying going on. I feel rage. He’s off drinking and whooping it up and here I am ONCE AGAIN dealing with everything (barely).

He tells me that the dog will barf it up or poop it out and there is nothing I can do. He has to get off the phone because the guys are leaving for dinner. I am now in tears. I feel like a bad mother.

I called the emergency vet clinic and they tell me that labs have a bad habit of doing things like this and that he will most likely be fine. I am supposed to monitor him and make sure he is pooping. I felt sooo guilty this morning when I left the house. I can’t stop worrying about him now.

After all this, I feel like I am losing my grip. I hate coming home to a messy house, with no one there to help me, with animals all over the place and a million things to do and no time to take care of myself. I just want to go to Shoppers Drug Mart, buy a bunch of magazines, have a bath and eat chips and read all night.

Oh yeah, and the period started today. Cramp city. Perfect.

The Wedding

So, it’s all over. Finally.

My husband and I woke up the morning of the wedding, still pretty much in the dark about what was going on and what we would have to do. We spoke to my brother in law and were told that we would be meeting up with the bride to be at her parent’s house because they would need us to take some things over to the hall. So we took Charlie to the babysitter’s house and came back home with just enough time to shower, drink some coffee and pack our stuff.

We arrived at the house on time and were told by her parents that the bride would be late. She was really late. She finally got to the house and started loading our car with stuff to take over. I’ll be as brief as possible: basically, my husband and I were responsible for setting everything up. I got some instructions from her and we took off. When we arrived at the hall, the room was not set up (tables, etc) because there was a meeting taking place in the room. So we dumped as much stuff as we could there in a locked office and went to the hotel to check in. We quickly got changed and raced back to the reception hall only to find that it still wasn’t ready. We were finally able to go in and set up with only an hour before the ceremony. Luckily, we made it work and everything got set up. This is when the real problems began…

The first problem was that the bride and groom were going to have the wedding march played on a little ghetto blaster. First of all, they never bothered to pick a person to do this; secondly, the bride forgot to bring the ghetto blaster. They assigned one of the guests last minute to stand up at the front and push play when she started walking down the isle. Of course, he was not overly happy about this but agreed to do it. Then, she called her brother in law to turn around (he was halfway to the place) and get the boom box from the house. Well, the brother in law was bringing the ring bearer. So the ceremony started 45 minutes late. In the meantime, everyone is freezing their asses off because the ceremony is in a tent in the parking lot and it is raining and cold. They had to turn off the heaters because they were too loud to hear anything so it got cold in there pretty fast. Finally, the ceremony starts. Of course, the music doesn’t work and the bride comes down the aisle to a skipping CD that plays part of the song and then finally cuts out. Halfway through the ceremony, a bus pulled up beside the tent and flooded the tent with diesel fumes. They had to stop the wedding and have someone run out to tell him to shut off the engine. It was so loud that no one could hear anything. Instead of shutting off the engine, the bus driver decided to back up all the way out of the parking lot. So we all had to wait until the beeping stopped. It was brutal.

Eventually, after what seemed like endless prayers and vows that ran on and on, we all made it inside. Because the pictures took so long and god knows what else was happening, dinner was not served until 8:30pm, two hours late.

The rest of the night went well, and the whole thing is finally over, thank god. Charlie had a good time at the babysitters and now things are back to normal, sort of. My husband had to leave for a conference last night so I’m alone all week with the animals and will be busy as hell. Luckily he’s back on Friday and I have the day off so hopefully I’ll get some rest.

What a nightmare this month has been. I have never been this busy in my life. I don’t even have time to do laundry anymore. Our bedroom is a disaster and the bathrooms need to be cleaned. The puppy is in his crate all day because I’m at work so I can’t lock him up when I get home to get some stuff done. Ugh. I just need to get through this week.

Office Girl

Randomness

So, tomorrow is the big day. Thank jeebus it’s not my big day. I no longer have to take pictures of the bride when she is getting ready, I guess they found someone else, I didn’t even ask – I was just happy that I don’t have to. All we have to do now is pick up some flowers from the florist and take them to the hall to set them up.

Nice.

Charlie will be at the babysitters in the morning so I might actually get to enjoy breakfast and a shower without constant interruptions. Hopefully, everything is going to go well. I think my brother in law is sleeping at our house tonight (they want to keep the tradition of not seeing the bride before the wedding). I think that is hilarious. She is Catholic, he is not. She agreed to have the ceremony outside of a Catholic church, and the ceremony is now being conducted by a Presbyterian minister. I am not a religious person, so I don’t see the difference (though my family is/was Irish Catholic we never went to church, so basically, we were your standard Catholics. Actually, now that I think of it my Catholic grandmother now goes to a United church because she got fed up with all the bullshit. I digress). However, her parents insisted on incorporating some Catholic ceremony stuff into the service. So whatever; now we can all be happy.

Right now I am sitting at my desk listening to the woman three offices down from me tell some other woman in Finance all about her life. Everyone is either in a cubicle or they keep their office door open, so you can hear everything. Everyone else keeps this in mind when speaking so as not to disturb everyone else. This woman is a loud talker. From day one here, I began hearing about her divorce (keep in mind she has never spoken to me), her abusive husband, her philandering brother in law, her recent trip to New York, her constipation, her three year old daughter, her sick mother, her alcoholic father, the shitty neighborhood she lives in, then the purchase of her new house in the country (which includes a fire pit, pool, and fenced in yard which is great because she is thinking about getting a dog), her fart jokes, who she told off and when about what they said behind her back about the way she raises her kid…I could go on. OH WAIT! She literally THIS SECOND said AD VERBATIM “She knows I’m a Christian, she knows how much I love God.” Hold on, I can’t quite hear what they are talking about. Oh, she’s talking about her trip to New York again, and how much she loves Will Smith. Okay, I’m tuning out.

Something like that would have bothered me at my old job, but now because I love this place so much, I could care less. People are weird. I can deal with that.

Anyways, I’ll write all about the wedding. Here’s to hoping it works out and everyone is happy.

Office Girl.

Don't Do It!!!

My husband and I went to Mexico to get married. By ourselves. It was beautiful, romantic and stress-free, not to mention cheap. There was a reason we did this, and I was reminded of it last night at the dinner rehearsal for my husband’s brother’s wedding.

I rushed home so that I could walk the puppy and my husband could finish up a few things (he’s finishing our basement). I raced back home, started the BBQ and threw on a couple of sausages that we had to wolf down in five minutes because we had to leave for the rehearsal dinner early, as it was an hour away. Why did we eat sausages when we were going to a dinner? Well, lets just say that based on how disorganized this whole thing has been so far, we assumed that there might not be a dinner.

We were right.

I don’t know why they called it a dinner. I know that traditionally, there is a rehearsal and then everyone goes out to eat, say a few nice things to everyone, thank people, and then leave. Not here.

We got to the hall early, met the preacher or whatever he is (I’m not a big religious person) and then waited for everyone else. The place was pretty. There were big pillars everywhere, lots of flowers and everything was perfect. This was not going to be where they were getting married.

First let me tell you that they are spending around $15,000 for this wedding. The ceremony will be in one of those plastic tents beside the main parking lot; actually it’s in the parking lot. The aisle has pillars running down the centre of it for some reason. I have no idea why they would set up the tent there if they knew this. So basically, if people are walking down the aisle hand in hand, they’ll have to let go every couple of feet and then rejoin. The reception is in a room that could probably hold maximum 50 people. There are over 130 attending. The staff at this place told my brother in law that it would be tight. It will be so tight in fact that they are losing the dance floor because all the tables will not fit in.

At this point, I just started to feel bad for my brother in law. He was so stressed. I asked him about what he needed us to do and he couldn’t even tell us. He started fighting with his fiancé and told us that she keeps changing all the plans so we should ask her what we need to do. When I asked her she had no idea. Then my brother in law got in a fight with his mother.

The whole thing was chaos. They couldn’t even tell us if they would have an emcee for the day, so no one knows when they need to make their speeches. I really hope everything works out for them but I can’t understand why they are not being more proactive about the whole thing when they are paying so much money. They’ve both just thrown up their hands. At the end of the rehearsal the bride to be turned to me and said: “I wish we’d just gone away to do this. I can’t take all this stress anymore.” So what the hell is the point? I don’t understand who they are doing this for. They had to borrow money from us because they can’t afford this wedding. I really do not understand their motivation.

I hope the whole thing goes off without a hitch but I have a terrible feeling that it won’t. I have already booked hotel rooms for some people and last night the bride-to-be casually tells me that there will probably be more people staying over. I was like HELLO!?! Don’t you think you should have either told me this before hand or booked them a room yourself??? So I figured fuck it, those people are on their own. When they call the hotels in the area and realize that everything is booked up they’ll see why things like that need to be done ahead of time.

People need to stop acting like irresponsible children and man up. I’ve had enough!

Office Girl.

Sucking it Up and Skating it Off

I think I must be passive-aggressive.

How many times have I complained about this wedding and yet I am always doing things for the people involved in it? I guess I need to either shut up and do it, or tell everyone to piss off and hide myself away until the wedding. I’ve decided to do the former.

The shower seemed to go well enough, though only a handful of people showed up. The only person there with a camera was me. I just happened to bring our video camera at the last minute. Not even the bride’s parents or her maid of honour had a camera. This is how supremely disorganized the whole thing is. Unfortunately, I am a dolt and did not rewind the tape after I transferred my old stuff onto my computer at home and got only about 8 minutes of tape from the shower. Luckily, I got the surprise entrance (she did not know about the party), the cake cutting, and most of the gift opening – it was a small shower. They have asked me to take pictures of her getting ready on the day of now. Of course I said yes. I felt bad. They only booked their photographer for a certain block of time and failed to think about the “traditional” bride getting ready photos.

Anyway, I have no idea how this is going to work out on the day of. We have to get up early, take Charlie to his babysitter (luckily I have found a wonderful woman to take care of him at her home through a girl I work with so I can now be guilt-free at the event), drive to the flower shop, pick up the flowers, bring them to the hall, check into our hotel room, then I have to race back to her house to take the pictures. I have to find some time in all of this to get myself ready. I still don’t have a bra to wear. My boobs have been shrinking at an enormous rate and I bought the dress when I was pregnant and had huge knockers. So now I need some kind of a push-up bra. That’s where I’m going tonight.

So another busy week; things never seem to slow down. My husband is going away to a conference for a week after the wedding so I am running the house by myself again. I’m thinking I might put Charlie in doggie daycare on those days so he doesn’t have to sit in his crate all day and then have a tired mom coming home to him and not being able to run him enough. I guess I’ll have to figure that out soon. Really, I would just like to be able to get a load of laundry done, clean a bathroom or two, and have some time to shave my legs.

Sooooo tired.

Office Girl

The Money Pit

They certainly are piling on the work at my new job now. I’m actually finding things a little stressful today, but this could be because of a combination of things. Running home at lunch to let Charlie out and then worrying about him in his crate all alone all day is no fun. It’s a good thing he only has to do this four days a month. He actually has a cold. He woke us up around 5:00am the other morning coughing his little lungs out. I assumed he was choking on something and proceeded to freak out but my husband took a look down his throat and didn’t see anything. It’s nice having an emergency services worker around the house. Anyway, I took the morning off of work and took him to the vet. A virus and a small infection in his eyes, hence the green goo coming out of them. Lovely. So he has eye drops now and I don’t have to worry about him. Apparently he picked up the bug from puppy class. I swear he is just like a kid some days.

As for the wedding shower fiasco, I ended up not doing anything. One of the bride-to-be’s friends finally stepped up to do something. Unfortunately, I have to attend this little function which means I have to get a gift for her. It is absolutely hilarious because I do not know a thing about her. This wedding is costing us a fortune. My husband had to drop $650 on a new suit (though he does look extremely yummy in it), we have to pay for doggy daycare, a hotel room, new shoes for me, a wedding gift, a shower gift (grrrr) and to top it all off, they had to borrow $5000 from us to help fund this matrimonial monster. Yeah, I was not too impressed with that. But hey, it’s family right? You would assume that we would get a thank you from her. No. She has not even called to say thanks. My brother in law has told us he will pay us back in the next week as soon as he gets his line of credit. My husband tells me not to worry because he knows we’ll get the money back. I figure, if you can’t afford it, you shouldn’t have it. Obviously this wedding is too expensive for them, and they haven’t even paid for a honeymoon yet.

Weddings are nothing but an inconvenience for everyone involved. This is why my husband and I ran off to Mexico alone to do it. It was beautiful, romantic and CHEAP! Instead of blowing stupid amounts of money on a wedding, we bought a house. I wouldn’t have done a thing differently.

Alright, enough about that. I’ll worry about the impending nuclear war for a little while instead.

Office Girl

Puppy = Baby

I can’t tell you how many parents I have offended by comparing my puppy Charlie to their baby. You always hear new parents talk about their sleepless nights, lack of a social life, general frustration and stress, lack of a sex life…

When I hear a new mum in my neighborhood talk to me about these things I nod my head and say “I know exactly how you feel. Why just the other day my husband and I were reminiscing about when we used to sleep past 6:30am on weekends.” Or something like that.

Well, people think I’m ridiculous. But I tell you people- a puppy is like a baby, except you can put it in a cage (though they do have playpens for that). The sleepless nights, the whining and crying, the constant need for attention, the running around after the puppy to keep him out of trouble; and the latest: my husband and I are going to his brother’s wedding at the end of this month and we need to find a babysitter.

Sounds simple enough right?

You cannot leave a puppy for more than 4 hours in his crate. Our baby only spends 4 days a month in his crate all day because, though I work five days a week, my husband works shifts and is home much of the time for Charlie. On those days, because I am so close to home now, I go home and let him out and feed him his lunch. Also, I work flex hours so I can be home earlier in the afternoons. So our life revolves around Charlie. Which is the way it should be, I think, otherwise why get a dog? But anyway.

Thinking about leaving Charlie for a night in the care of someone else brings tears to my eyes, literally. I know this must sound ridiculous to non-dog people. This is the dog that has become a terrorist in our house; destroying our shoes, keeping us up at night, waking us up early, preventing us from having a life. But I love him and I am so in love with him that even though he chews on my arm while I “cuddle” with him, I cannot bear the thought of leaving him for a night.

So I am going to visit a small doggie farm near our house that boards dogs and lets them “roam free the way dogs should” instead of putting them all in little crates. My only concern being that Charlie is still little and not neutered and I don’t want him getting into trouble with other older dogs. My husband and I have an interview with the owner who also meets Charlie to see how well she thinks he will adjust there. All this for one night. But if I like the place, at least I will be able to have a few drinks and enjoy myself at the wedding – and it will be the first morning my husband and I get to sleep in. Though I imagine we’ll wake up early to rush home and get my little bean (that’s what I call him).

So there you have it. I do have a baby after all. And I think he is good for training us for when the human kind finally joins our family.