IQ: Sinking

This is what happens at the end of the pregnancy. You're really not at your most mobile.

I'd just sat down, and the computer started to complain that the battery was low. And I just couldn't get up again. Turner thought my futile attempts to use The Force to will the cord closer to my hand basically summed up the pregnant lady at this point in the baby-building process: helpless and stupid.

Categories: Pregnancy

Comments [11]

Ash At 37 Weeks: Fricken Huuuuuuge!

So... 37 weeks is considered "term". That means if the baby were born today, it wouldn't be labelled 'premature'. Most pregnancies go to 40 or 41 weeks, so it's likely we have a ways to go, yet. The official due date is supposedly March 15th, but enh, basically anytime could be Showtime at this stage.

Now, the belly is impressive, but in my opinion the best part of this photo is the unintentional little background detail near the door: y'see that mini baseball bat leaning on the doorjamb? That's thanks to my Grampa, a big believer in DIY home defense. (What you can't see is the golf driver on the other side of the door, and the even-bigger baseball bat at the back of the house - all courtesy of Grampa.) I think my dad said it best years ago when he came upon my grandfather presenting Brother John with yet another switchblade or bullwhip or crossbow... something ...I forget exactly what weapon, that time. But Dad's line was superb, mainly because it was so true: "Alec, you've been trying to arm my children for years!"

Bless him, I know Grampa rests easier in the knowledge that I faithfully keep what he calls his 'persuaders' in easy reach to protect us from people coming to the door: the local kids who used to walk the dog, pizza delivery folks, and Brother John wandering over to visit from three doors down. Particularly with a baby on the way - you can never be too careful!

Categories: Family | Pregnancy

Comments [13]

A Question For The Universe To Ponder

Why, Pray Tell, Why: ...why so much with the peeing at this stage? I mean, I've seen the diagram, I know the bladder is squished down under the baby and has the capacity of a teaspoon.

But really, why so much with the peeing?

Here's the dilemma: it's evening. I'm thirsty. Like - I'm thirsty all day, but in the daytime it's easier because I'm awake and able to fit bathroom time into my busy schedule of sitting on the couch, doing email and watching crappy movies on dvd. (Ah, maternity leave.) But in the evening when I'm thirsty and it's time for bed, I don't want to drink anything because then I'll just have to get up to pee right when I'm falling asleep. So I try not to drink anything before bed.

Into bed I go. Turner comes to tuck me in. We lie down. I try to get comfortable. I weeble back and forth, shoving pillows every which-way. Just when I think I've found some position that'll do me for falling asleep, I'm newly thirsty and this time it's serious. I'm not going to be able to sleep unless I have a sip of water, immediately: the thirst is all-consuming. Since I've got the good sleeping position and the necessary pillow arrangements all worked out, I break down and have a sip of water, thinking I can get to sleep before the 10mL I've just ingested sprints through my digestive system and down the nephron network and arrives in my bladder.

One sip, down it goes. And I turn to try to fall asleep. Everything's going fine, until five minutes later, when I'm just on the edge of sleep, or perhaps in fact asleep, and it's time to get up to pee. Now.

Okay. But I'm drowsy, right? It'll be fine. I'll go pee and then be able to snuggle back into bed and fall asleep again in no time. So I haul myself up and off I go, waddle-waddle. But upon returning to the bedroom, it's obvious the pillows are all out of whack again. And that position that was fine before? It's not going to do it for me, now. So back we go to the shifting around and grunting under my own weight and tossing and turning and pulling at blankets.

And then with the thirsty again, and of course some vital thing strikes me to note down or tell Turner, or the baby wakes up and decides that it's Kick Mum In The Kidney Time, and before you know it, it's time to pee again.

And again, and again, and again.

Categories: Pregnancy

Comments [0]

Wash The Dishes! (2)

Yesterday was our official Second Install Day of the Spiller Road dishwasher saga.

First up, the Available-On-Two-Hours'-Notice electrician Turner found in the yellow pages. Cheers to a friendly stranger who had us all wired up in no time! (Mr. Not-Available-Local-Guy-Who-Charged-Us-7.5 Hours-Labour-On-The-Bathroom-Fan-Install? You are fired.)

Next up, Cousin Jay showed up with a huge bag of impressive tools and set to work on the plumbing and final attachments.

Jay lets Turner think he's helping: "Yeah... why don't you take a look at these 'instructions' and lemme know what you think." [i.e. here, read this and stay out of the way.]

And finally, the angst and agony payoff: humming away beautifully, our new Danby dishwasher!

Sometime next week Neighbour Steve will come by and build a kind of wood encasing around the appliance so that things look 'finished'. But in essence, we're all set to go. Bottle sterilization mechanism? Check! Assistance with the basic housework? For dishes, check! ...Alright, bring on the baby!

Categories: House

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Suck It, Baby! (Breastfeeding Class)

December 2001: Ji Hong eyeballs the probable triangulated location of Turner's nipple.

A few days ago Turner and I headed down to the Rockyview for our one breastfeeding class. Thrown by the Calgary Public Health Region, this party is provided gratis with your registration in one of the other birth preparation classes also offered by the Region.

As we came off the ramp from Glenmore onto 14th en route to the hospital, the Calgary's ever-stellar road planning treated us to yet another of those badly-signed need-to-cross-three-lanes-in-200-metres situations. This city is the only one in the country where the municipal government finds it necessary to actively teach the driving populace how to merge, using step-by-step instructions placed at troublesome merge sites around the city. This is because people here have a tendency to slow down and stop dead, yielding to traffic in the thick of a merge lane; or better yet just slow down, slower and slower, blinker flashing, blink blink blink, while traffic all around the idiot makes room and space and starts to honk to spur them into action (only terrifying the asshole further: "Whyyyyy are they honking at meeeeeeeee?") and things get weird and frustrating and you do have your moments as a spectator when road rage is completely understandable. It needs to be noted that more than half of everyone in Calgary are economic migrants from Ontario and Quebec... upon arrival in Alberta people are clearly struck down by dum-dee-doo Prairie Brain and forget everything they ever learned at the hands of the take-no-prisoners 401. Something. In any case, the City's Planning department has been run by dead-eyed typewriting monkeys for much longer than I've been alive, and they've certainly done no favours for the cogency or rationality of the roads. Combine shitty infrastructure with the aforementioned drivers, and you end up as we did, stuck behind a thickening pack of SUVs slowing and honking at a meek Camry trying to cross the 3-lane width of the roadway to make the hospital exit. At 25km/h. In a 80km/h zone.

It was our fate to end up following this car, now at 10km/h, through the hospital grounds and into the underground visitor parking. I don't think they'd ever seen electric lighting at night, before: everything about the parking lot confused them. They had trouble taking the ticket at the down-folded gate arm. Creeping along behind them now at 2km/h, we couldn't see the driver above the steering wheel. It's only natural that when you're in a hospital parking lot you're a lot more restrained than if you were downtown or at a strip mall. All the bleeding heart stuff goes through your head: ...Maybe they're visiting a sick relative? ...Maybe someone just died? ...Maybe they're coming in to receive bad news? Who knows. So you're willing to suck up a bit of bad driving or careless pedestrian behaviour near the Emerg doors or whatever and put on the Patience Hat for the interim. But even under the circumstances, it finally got to the point where I was ready to get out of the car and - despite my eight-months-pregnant state - overtake them at a walking clip and kick in their headlights for being such BRAIN DEAD IMBICILES. (It should be said that Turner was FAR more patient than I ever would have been, shooing away my repeated reaching attempts to hit the horn and blast out their eardrums.)

It was terrible. And on and on it went. You could see free spaces in the lot, three or four rows away, all along the wall. But the driver of the Camry was clearly so nearsighted that they couldn't fathom looking up or going that far. First they tried to park in the four-foot space between another car and a cement piling (involving an in-out-in-out 12-point turn and finally giving up), and then ANOTHER such space, exactly the same, one row down. By this point I was livid and yelling at Turner: Go around them! Go around them! GO AROUND THEM! JESUS CHRIST GO AROUND THEM!!! We'd been stuck behind this Camry for a full five minutes, and that's just counting the time inside the parking garage. Finally – finally – there was a break and Turner zoomed through the hole as I gave my best hairy eyeball to what turned out to be a tiny 70 year old man and his befuddled wife. The most charitable assessment of the situation I could muster was the thought that perhaps they were both outpatients, soon to be stripped of their driving privileges. We roared to the end of the hall and parked, and I used my only recourse: yelling "You SUCK!!" into the echo chamber as I stomped toward the elevator. Third trimester pregnancy has done wonders for my love of my fellow man.

Suffice it to say that we walked into class a little late.

We wobbled to the front, clatteringly got chairs arranged, pinned on the nametags, and sat down. Things had started off with the men doing introductions of themselves and their pregnant partners – I suppose to give the poor bastards something to do in the breastfeeding class. I'm sure the same conversation had been had in every one of our homes in the half hour before departing:

As it turned out, of the twenty five or thirty couples there was one woman sitting alone without a male companion. When it came time for her introduction, she said (no word of a lie, I swear), "Um, well... my husband got a new drum set today... so... he's at home playing those."

The women's consensus (official): What an asshole.

The men's (official): Yeah, what an asshole.

The men's (unofficial): I wish I was at home playing a new drum set.

It was a pretty straightforward class – statistics, troubleshooting, a discussion of proper "latching" technique. But there was no shortage of slight-but-visible freakout-dom going on among the men. My favourite though was the dude in the tucked-down baseball cap seated across the circle from us. Some serious time and energy had gone into the labour of love that was that cap's curved bill. He spent a good portion of the class holding the plastic practice baby, periodically going into these weird glassy-eyed reveries complete with resentful sneer-lipped stares down at the doll. I just dunno if he was quite ready to be a dad, if you get my meaning.

But it wasn't all "oh god, my youth is gone... GONE I TELL YOU!!" on display. Turner was great, for one. Three cheers for T, who did all the undressing-of-baby (the dolls being anatomically endowed, we were told to figure out what we'd gotten) and notetaking, and nametag-making, and chair-arranging, not to mention the driving, even if the arrival was a disaster. In short he made himself entirely as useful as could possibly have been expected and didn't roll his eyes or shudder even once (that I saw).

Oh, I'm making it sound so much more a parade of gender stereotypes and wistful husband-idealization than it really was; in truth we went because we've known a few folks who'd had some trouble with mastitis and getting a good early latch with their babies, and since we're committed to breastfeeding we wanted to be as prepared as possible. Plus, like I say, it was free. There was some cool info – for example: they told us that if a child is placed on the mother's stomach immediately after a normal birth and left undisturbed, it will eventually find its own way to mom's nipple and latch on correctly, every time. Frankly, that's sounds almost too amazing to be true. Go genetics!

In the end we'll try our best and refer to the handouts, keep in mind that list of baby's nonverbal hunger signals and wait until the baby opens reeeeaaally wide before mashing in the boob. But I tell you, the nipple prep is no fun, and in truth the less said about it, the better. Awful, awful. YOU try taking a bristle brush or a rough washcloth (the recommended implements) to that area daily and see how you like it. Yeah.

But otherwise... sure, shouldn't be so bad. I figger it can't be as bad as the drive to the class, anyway.

Categories: City Planning | Pregnancy

Comments [0]

Fifty Canadian Tracks

CBC Radio's doing this "pick the best/most important/definitive Canadian songs since 1950" thing on Sounds Like Canada these days (50 Tracks, mornings @ 11am, on CBC Radio One). In essence it's yet another opportunity to trot out all the usual pundits for another round of honorarium disbursement while the general public listens to these "experts" pick songs they've never heard of and leave out classics that everyone loves. That's the cynical view, of course - though I defy anyone who has worked at the CBC to be anything but cynical about how our national broadcaster runs its programming. But I digress... Turner had to listen to me rant in the car all the way across the country and back again last summer as CBC Radio trudged its way through some kind of similar Most Influential/Important Songs of the Last Fifty Years, me frothing at the mouth about how Canada culturally panders to and willingly-swallows-whole American culture as our own time and time and time again, without question. The whole series was sickening on this count, and I couldn't help but get worked into a terrible lather over this question: "Why does Canada's public broadcaster spend ANY time, money or energy playing and promoting American music to Canadians? Do we not get enough foreign content through the open market? ...Why not a CANADIAN list, hmmm?" Well, I got my rant's wish and I must report I'm still a sour asshole on the subject.

In any case, today I was driving home from prenatal yoga class and heard one caller requesting that "Home For A Rest" by Spirit of the West be included on this new list of Best Canadian Songs. And okay: Hear hear. Spectacular. I'm blown out on it, myself, and Home For A Rest is one of those for-special-occasions-only tunes at this stage. But it's a hell of a song and of course I can't hear it without glancing around for Sean Monkman to take me on a jive turn 'round the Clark Hall Pub dance floor. A few days ago I also heard that "Try" by Blue Rodeo was unanimously voted onto the list - another excellent choice. So although I'm a bit cranky on the subject of CBC and Canadian content, I will grudgingly concede that this week's Sounds Like Canada 'Fifty Tracks' content hasn't been entirely scandalous.

Of course, contests/serieses like this one on CBC generally just bring forth the stuff that everyone's heard, and far be it for me to claim an informed opinion on music, Canadian or otherwise. There's this one song by the Wyrd Sisters out of Winnipeg, "Our Own Fears", which is absolutely true and awesome and I've never heard it on the radio or anywhere other than at the one concert of theirs I attended years ago (and subsequently on the tape I bought at selfsame gig). But other than that song and a few done by local Calgary bands - the Plaid Tongued Devils, Kris Demeanor, etc... oh, and Wendy McNeill from Edmonton... and cheers to Aengus Finnan, and to the well-known-well-loved Lowest Of The Low of Ontario - but other than these folks and my own niche knowledge and interest, I'm basically a know-nothing when it comes to Canadian music and I like what I like and that's all.

But boy, that sure doesn't stop me from getting my back up when I hear these music "experts" and Laurie Brown from Fashion Television getting to decide whether Home For A Rest, or one-of-the-better rather than one-of-the-duller Tragically Hip songs, does or does not end up on the list of the Best Canadian Songs of the last half-century. Because, really, let's get serious. This isn't a list of the best songs. As we grow closer to the present day in the list's timeline, this becomes a list of the most popular songs. So if we instead take the word "best" and we use it to mean "the songs which best evoke this particular decade" - which is what I think 'Best Canadian Songs of the 1990s' should mean, in this context - then we can get somewhere and come up with a list that actually has something to do with the time it's trying to represent.

And sure, sure - you can call in and vote. But that's just a fancy way for the CBC to get its demographic listener polling done on the cheap, and I seriously doubt it actually affects the outcomes. I want Home For A Rest on that list, I want k.d. lang on that list, I want something by Alanis other than "You Oughta Know" on that list, and I want a good Barenaked Ladies song on that list; "Pinch Me" would do. Cowboy Junkies, "Androgynous". Leslie Spit Treeo, "Angel From Mongomery" (I know it's a cover. They did it best). And yes, Sarah McLachlan with "Possession" - because although we've all heard it to death, when it first hit the airwaves it was the most beautiful and haunting love song ever. And though it would be a big conflict of interest for Mr. Ghomeshi to do so himself, someone else on that damn panel should have the good sense to stand up and nominate something by Moxy Fruvous.

But after it's all said and done, the real issue is the original one: the best Canadian songs? Ask most Canadians to list a bunch of their favourite songs and it's mostly American and British music that comes to mind. When the baby boomer US-centric culturati running things here Canada finally have the good manners to die off and/or retire, I sit here bomb-building and praying that this next generation will allow being Canadian to encompass an unquestioned reality of life here north of the 49the parallel, rather than something perpetually second-place or considered a grant-worthy cause.

Can't wait!

Categories: Canadiana

Comments [3]

Presents From Margo And John!

A big package arrived on our front porch today stuffed full of gifts from Margo and John! Among them, this set of quilted baby things - a blanket, a pillow, and a diaper bag, made for us by one of Margo's co-workers. And we've spiked our sugar levels all day, gorging on the Valentine's candy packed inside.

The gifts went directly to the baby's room, aka Turner's old office (he's down the basement in his new uber-office, now). The baby's room, in progress... shown here in boxes: the crib, the crib mattress, the infant car seat, and the suitable-for-bouncing-through-the-dog-park (even-though-we-won't-be-at-the-dog-park-much;-we-bought-it-before-the-whole-Pony-incident) stroller.

The bathrobe collection: Mom warned that I'd basically want to live in bathrobes for the first long while. And I'm down with taking all the advice I can get, so I'm all tricked out, all set, in that department.

Categories:

Comments [2]

Pssssttt: You Wanna Buy A Fridge?

When I first toured our Spiller Road house way back in October 2004, the kitchen was a huge draw. It's a big ol' custom-built kitchen with some spectacular 60s-era touches. In particular, the Philco fridge catches the eye. Our real estate agent estimated that just having it plugged in would probably cost us $20-30 per month, so when Turner came to see the property, I suggested that we might move it to the basement in favour of a more efficient fridge. His words were, and I quote, "You'll pry that fridge out of my cold, dead hands." Um, okay. So the fridge stayed put.

Initially, I had it plugged in and was using it as a regular fridge (there was another, newer, 80s-era fridge in the back hallway that stored most of the condiments and vegetables) for everyday items. It smelled a bit like 'old fridge', but it whirred to life under the power of electricity and after a few hours seemed much cooler inside, so I put it into use to try it out for a month and see how much it would cost us to run. However, when, on Day 3, I poured chunky sour milk into my cereal, it was clear that we had to face the fact that the Philco was not much more than a quaint and atmospheric energy sucker. But we still loved the look of it. So the freezer compartment became our tea cupboard, and the main body of the fridge held the eleven leftover bottles of tonic water from our wedding (turned out people weren't as keen on gin n' tonic as we'd been lead to believe).

Fast forward to November, 2004. Dad decided out of the blue to replace the fridge and water softening unit out at Chez JRB in Douglasdale. I think Brother John originally had dibs on Dad's fridge (under an "if and when you replace that thing, I want it" clause)... But Bro. J had a functional and semi-newish fridge, whereas Turner and I had one 800 lbs. showpiece antique plus one piss-yellow broken-down shelves-held-together-with-duct-tape mouldy refrigerator in the back hallway. Out of our earshot there was some switcheroo of allocative priorities to which none of us were privy, and somehow Turner and I landed Dad's old fridge. For the record, John got the water softener. I think he likes the water softener, but I can't help but be reminded of Ferris Bueller's Day Off: Ferris asked for a car and got a computer, and Jenny gets the car. Not that "Jenny", in this case, is complaining.

ANYhoo, our new fridge is one inch too tall for the alcove of the back hallway, and about two inches too big for the alcove where the Philco presently stands, so it's hogging half the dining area as we work towards a solution. A few months full of book tour and Christmas kept us busy enough to procrastinate deciding what to do. But now it's February and the kid's about to arrive. We finally decided we needed to get real about the old Philco fridge - was it really so important to keep it? Sure, everyone needs a tea cupboard, but with a bit of reticulating saw work we could mash the new fridge into the old hole and the kitchen would really kick ass in time for baby. Turner came around on the cold dead hands thing and saw the rational sense in perhaps selling it off, beautiful though it may be. Which is where we are today.

So then! Hear ye hear ye: antique fridge in excellent superficial condition, for sale. (Not recommended for use as a fridge, if to you a "fridge" is meant to keep food colder than your basic unheated basement.) Would be great for film sets, hiding bodies, or storing tea.

Categories: House

Comments [3]

Rapid Deployment Of The Troops

Mom's coming to help around the pre-birth/labour/postnatal period - we heard today that she'll be stampeding into Calgary sometime around March 15th.

Nothing like having your mom around. Everything's under control!

Categories: Family | Nakusp | Pregnancy

Comments [11]

Wash The Dishes! Dry The Dishes! Turn The Dishes Ooooooo-Verrr!

When Turner and I realized last year that we'd succeeded in making a baby, I asked for one thing: a dishwasher. I don't mind doing dishes, and neither does T. We've always been good about doing the washing up. But I'd read and heard that if you did nothing else before the kid arrived, installing a dishwasher should take priority because boy oh boy you'd be sorry later if you gave it a pass. Something about sterilizing bottles and being too sleep deprived in the first few months to manage the basic household tasks.

Turner and I talked it all through, did a bunch of research, looked at various models and styles on the internet, toured appliance stores, talked to real people, and received a great deal of solicited and unsolicited advice on the subject of the purchase and installation of a dishwasher.

In the process of all this, we realized that our custom-built-in-1961-by-a-long-deceased-previous-owner kitchen counters were two inches too low for a standard dishwasher, and the people at Trail Appliances told us that the smaller European models we found on the internet weren't available in Calgary. So we started thinking about putting in an island, something that seemed a do-able solution since we sure have the room. Dad stepped up and bought us a spectacular Bosch. But then Cousin Jay, our man-in-the-plumbing-field, figured that we'd have all sorts of code violations and a possible sewer backup-difficulty if we put the dishwasher more than six feet from the main water line... something like that. Short of totally pulling out the whole kitchen and replacing the counters and cabinetry ($10,000 +), we couldn't put a regular-sized dishwasher into the kitchen as it presently stood. The Bosch was sent back.

Now, Turner was the front man on this job. I thought he was going to have a nervous breakdown in mid-January over what he lovingly called "This Fucking-Fucking Dishwasher Situation... FUCK!!" After a great deal of agonizing, we finally decided that we wouldn't get a dishwasher after all. We'd get a countertop bottle sterilizer and tell visitors to get bent if they complained about un-done dishes in the sink. We didn't need to bow to mommieblog pressure! Dishwasher be damned, we said.

But then Turner found a place that sold the wee European-style dishwashers. I guess he was giving the whole dishwasher thing a last-ditch denoement effort and ran across some obscure website. "Those lying liarpants Trail Appliance bastards!" we cried (while secretly kicking ourselves for not doing a better job our original homework). And off we roared to Coast Appliances, where we became the proud owners of a mini Danby dishwasher.

Tomorrow Cousin Jay will be coming over to rough in the plumbing (all 'To Code' now, no problem!); on Sunday our fab neighbour and finishing carpenter, Steve, came by to cut the hole for the dishwasher:

The original floor: actually a sort of pre-plasticked linoleum, it looks like carefully painted chipboard.

Turner surveys the destruction

The new Danby, installed! Well, almost - sans plumbing and electricity, but otherwise we're all set.

Categories: House | Married Life

Comments [0]

Gummy

Ashley and Jenna, driving over the Monashee Pass in central British Columbia en route to a conference in Kelowna. Taken from the 15th of June, 2002, we join the conversation already in progress:

A: [Turning a corner, coming across a vista] Ah. Y'see this? This is what Nova Scotia looks like.
J: [Looking out the windows, all around] This?
A: Yeah.
J: ...Except with an ocean.
A: Oh no - there's lots of interior in Nova Scotia where there's no ocean.
J: And it looks like this.
A: Yeah. You know: forest, high-high rolling hills, super-windey little roads, periodic dumpy little farms, falling apart. [They pass just such a farm. Pointing.] Like that one.
J: Hey! I like those farms! [Pondering] ...Actually, this is what parts of Australia look like. Except with gum trees everywhere. Like, the same as this, except different trees.
A: What are gum trees like?
J: So great. The greatest trees ever.
A: [Putting on the Irish accent] Ah yuss, so you're saying they're basically The Greatest Trees.
J: [Also putting on the Irish accent] Thass right, Turlock.
A: [Getting wistful] These gum trees... yuss... the best trees in the whole world.
J: Thass it.
A: Ah... ah yuss, the gum trees all over the landscape... I have a piccher of it in m' mind. Aye, they're lovely trees, Robbo.
J: That they are.
A: Yuss... yuss. I can see them... the gum trees, a lovely canopy...
J: Yuss...
A: ...All the packs of gum dangling down... yuss, the Trident green kind...
J: Ah, no...
A: ...Oh, a wealth of gum on each tree, fluttering in the wind, those wrappers...
J: [Interrupting] No. No gum. There's no gum wrappers.
A: [Bouncing out of reverie] Eh? Robbo?
J: No. You've got it wrong. I'm going to have to stop you there.
A: Eh?
J: I just have to stop you.

(With thanks to Father Ted!)

Categories: Family

Comments [0]

C'mon Music Industry, Don't Fail Us Now

A lazy Saturday afternoon. We join Ashley and Turner watching Much Music; on comes the new Nelly video (f. Christina Aguilera), 'Tilt Ya Head Back':

[C.A. in a high-cut but pretty dress, blond hair, riding in a car and blowing kisses to people on the sidewalk]

A: ...It's nice to see that Christina has abandoned her total-skank look [as per the mud wrestling lesbian shakin-that-scary-ass video that had midgets, fire eaters, etc. a few years ago, made famous in our house by the Ed The Sock's Fromage 2002 awesome roast of same].
T: Oh, I dunno... I think she's probably one of yer skank-for-all-seasons gals. She can make her skankiness work in whatever era you want -- 'you want me to look like a 20s slut? I'll look like a 20s slut...'
A: [seeing the video actually progress C.A.'s character towards exactly this prediction] Uhh... huh. Genius.

Categories: Married Life

Comments [0]

An Open Reply

The amount of well-wishes, feedback, and general support from you out there in internetland has been absolutely monumental and amazing. Thank you so much for all your love and stories! Things are going well for us: Turner had his stitches out today, and is feeling well. I'm in British Columbia visiting my mother in this last window of opportunity before the "DO NOT TRAVEL" period of the last bit of the pregnancy. I went to see some local puppies yesterday - just to look, just to be around dogs. Not to adopt. Not yet. I think we need a few months to heal, not to mention to get the hang of parenting an infant human come mid-March! But it was good to see puppies yesterday, yes. It was good.

Like I say, we've had a lot of feedback. We never ever expected the explosion of interest in this story when it was first sent out to a bunch of family and friends.

Amongst the overwhelming flood of awesome letters to our email box, we've received a handful of critical messages from people who thought we should have had an autopsy done, should have had her checked for a brain tumour, should have had her thyroid biopsied. This weblog entry addresses the double-post comment from "Name Withheld" in the Goodbye, Pony entry, and addresses a few issues that people have asked us about - was Pony seen by a vet? What was with this "broker"? What was Pony's pedigree? etc. The "Name Withheld" reader noticed and questioned why I recently made a few changes to the text of the Pony story:

Dear "Name Withheld",

When I first wrote this story it was for our family and friends. The questions I posed in that email were ones that honestly occurred to us at the time: why was Pony adopted to us at such a low cost? (Many people have since explained that adopting a dog out for the cost of their spaying is commonplace and not something to raise a flag.) Did the breeder and the local people who helped us meet her know about something they weren't telling us? These were legitimate and natural questions and we certainly didn't know the answers. The telephone number I had for the breeder had changed and did not have any attached forwarding information. The reason I spoke to the mother of the local woman on Saturday was because I finally contacted the vet clinic where Pony had had her ovariohysterectomy done in October 2003. I hoped they would put me in touch with the breeder or the local woman who helped me meet her. They didn't have contact information for these two ladies and instead put me in touch with the mother I mention in the narrative. This mother was very clear on the phone that she would pass the message of the incident with Pony on to the breeder - not me. She is a breeder herself, and I felt brushed off, but in the context of the situation I felt I'd done the best I could - I didn't want to overstep my bounds and I'd never been in this situation before. We've been asked repeatedly by people online why we didn't try harder to contact the breeder -- let me be clear that I would have LOVED to speak to the breeder on Saturday: I had an incorrect email address for her, and she had moved so her telephone number had changed. I called directory assistance in her home state and called every person with the same last name in her old town. No one knew her. I'd been told she'd receive the message from the local mother. I had to accept that as my only avenue of communication.

But let me also make it clear: we really liked the breeder and the local folks when we met them; they seemed like good people and reputable dog lovers. I do not wish to mallign anyone's reputation whatsoever, and certainly don't mean to "slam" anyone, as is posited by your comment.

The minor content changes in the site you refer to came about as a result of me being contacted by the mother mentioned in this story. She was very upset about a phone call she claims she received from someone who yelled at her for giving us a dog with a bad temperment. She accused me of slandering her and spreading her name around the dog breeding world. I didn't know this woman's name until I got the email - she was known to me as the mother of the local woman who knew our breeder, and I never addressed her by name. However, she was clearly very upset and used a lot of exclamation points in her email to me. I question whether she actually got a telephone call from anyone, since I never used her name (again, I didn't know it) and I never gave any identifying information about she or her daughter.

Like I say, I'm not looking to blame anyone for what happened last Saturday. Pony was a dog. Dogs are animals, and animals' behaviour can be unpredictable no matter what the breed standard says. We regard what happened as a terrible stroke of bad luck and point no fingers at anyone but Pony. However, her pedigree line is obviously now the natural point of question and I think nothing but good can come of keeping a close watch on other animals with similar ancestors to hers.

For the record, and since so many people have asked: Pony's AKC name is "Astraea's Leap of Faith". Her dam was Quantum Leap and her sire was Set'r Ridge Select Gold.

In any case, the mother used legal language in her email to me and I found that to be rather hostile. My husband is the injured party in this situation and we have told the simple truth in the form of a narrative on a personal website. My intention in putting this story online was to tell our friends and family about this violent and unexpected development in our lives; secondarily it acted as a cautionary example to doglovers and breeders. That said, I have no investment in maintaining content online that might be damaging (in perception or in reality) to anyone's reputation, pride or feelings - whether they are actually receiving critical telephone calls or not.

As such, I took out the questions; I clarified the relationship with the local woman (previously referred to as a "broker", I used this term for simple convenience of phrase so as not to have to go into any big explanation of her role, and not in any sort of official sense. She introduced me to her friend and helped us in the early period of Pony's life with us) because a number of people who wrote to us questioned this terminology; and I made it more clear that we don't blame anyone - not the breeder, not the local woman and her mother, not ourselves, no one - for what happened.

The tale of what happened to us and how the events unfolded on Saturday January 29th, 2005 remains the same and cannot be changed; the truth is the truth.

To answer your other questions, we did not take Pony to a vet after the first incident - we spoke to one on the telephone and talked to several trainers and other dog lovers about it. However, I should stress that the first incident was minor - it involved some barking and a mild swipe with a paw at a three-year-old who was climbing on top of her. Although it was alarming, there were a lot of unknowns in the situation (had the child accidentally pinched her underneath her belly while on top of her? Was Pony feeling threatened by the child because we were on vacation at a country home she'd never been to before and there was another dog, a jack russell, in the environment? etc.) that made it somewhat understandable, and the people we talked to all agreed that her reaction wasn't out of the ordinary. The second incident involved our nephew, who is an energetic kid, at Christmastime. We didn't see exactly what happened but Pony was sleeping and we think that he may have woken her with jumping towards her and shouting her name. Again it involved barking and a swipe with a paw. In this case it was again alarming but again understandable given the circumstances.

So, no - we didn't have her seen by a vet in the period since August 2004 when the first incident occurred. She was in good clear health as per vet visits in June (Calgary) and in early August (Toronto). Many theories have been floated since this story hit the internet - perhaps a thyroid problem. Perhaps a tumour. Perhaps unilateral deafness. All plausible, though we can't confirm any of them.

Hope that clarifies things. All the best, today.

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A Tribute To Pony

We remember Pony as a darling. Thanks again for all the emails and support, people!  

Categories: Pony

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Hello, English Setter Lovers

Welcome to those of you referred to this website by the DogChat webboard and the English Setter community in Canada and the States.

I just wanted to thank you all so much for the many, many wonderful emails we've received today about the story I posted about Pony and Saturday's events. It has been so fantastic to hear from so many fellow doglovers and to hear your stories and receive your greetings and sympathies. May you never have to go through what we did this weekend. Thank you, thank you for all your support. Please feel free to post comments to this website (below, at the bottom of each date's posting, just click on “Comments“) so that they can be read by other people. But if you prefer you can email us at abristowe@yahoo.com.

Turner is doing so much better - his lips, while bruised and lacerated and a bit painful, are looking SO much better than we ever, ever expected, given what he looked like after the attack. Three cheers to Dr. F. Sutton, the on-call plastic surgeon at Calgary's Rockyview Hospital, who did an extraordinary job of putting Turner's face back together. We feel truly blessed and lucky.

Take care, all.

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