Apples & Earrings

I am up in Northern-ish British Columbia right now, visiting my folks.

Just for the record, we are NOT buried in snow. My parents do not live in an igloo, yes WE DO have electricity, and no I DON'T KNOW YOUR DAD'S FRIEND BOB.

No I don't.

That may sound like an old joke, but you would be surprised at how often I get asked some version of that question. I don't mind being asked that question, but let me assure you: I DON'T KNOW BOB (unless you mean THAT Bob. Everyone knows THAT Bob).

I took this photo last night in the front yard just as the sun was starting to set:

Look at that! PROOF that we are not buried in snow and PROOF that it rocks up here.

And here is some more proof that it rocks up here:

I got these earrings ON SALE for $5! 5 BUCKS! Just TRY to contain your excitement guys!

So, what we have here are free apples and $5 earrings, which is basically a hallmark day in my world.

See what I mean? Visiting the folks rocks.

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White in New York

This is my favourite belt:

I am conflicted. This is an Ed Hardy belt. I bought it exactly 1 year and 6 months ago in New York when I had NO IDEA who/what Ed Hardy was. I learned on the blog Stuff White People Like that I should not like Ed Hardy stuff because "white people hate these clothes unilaterally." As you can see, I AM WHITE.

YOU CAN SEE MY CONUNDRUM.

I'm not sure how much I should freak out about this.

Am I'm ok as long as I don't wear the hightops, truckers cap, t-shirt AND belt at the same time? Can I keep it if I stop making "East side, West side" signs to unsuspecting passerby? It'll be hard to quit my gang of Freaky Chicks Who Wear Too Much Ed Hardy and Snap Their Gum, but I'll do it if it means I can KEEP MY WICKED BELT.

Have MERCY on a white chick who found a cool belt on sale, people.

Who knew this would be such a minefield.

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Scary Stuff

Here are my turkeys waiting for dinner. As you can see, Kayloo is very close to perishing. Try as she might, she has not yet mastered making food magically appear (you can see her try here).

From this photo you might actually think my dogs are good. DON'T BE FOOLED! I have ABSOLUTELY NO CONTROL, appetites are destroyed ALL THE TIME and there are NO REGULAR BEDTIMES IN THIS HOUSEHOLD. Ever. I've even been known to rot my mind with television. And Cosmopolitan magazines. And YouTube.

Hello, my name is Shauna. I may have been given an extra dose of crazy somewhere along the line.

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Photo Booth

If Kayloo and I were teenage girls (yes, I realize that I am not in my teens. Thanks. Fer that) and we were in a mall, and Kayloo was allowed in malls, and we went to one of those photo booth things, this is what we would look like:




Except I wouldn't be the only one making stupid faces. And we'd actually be in a photo booth.

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I Suck as a Reviewer (and Bocce and Lightsabers)

So.

I've come to the conclusion that I would never EVER make it as a critic if that was my profession. If I was a critic and depended on people caring about my critiques and I had to wait for a pay cheque to come of it... I would starve. Completely and totally to death.

I had a glass of wine recently and it kind of tasted like juice. Juice with an edge I suppose, but that was just because it had alcohol in it. I'd say what Tang is to juice, this "wine" is to wine.

In any case, as much as I can go on about me thinking it was crap... I can't bring myself to tell you what vineyard the wine comes from because it makes me feel bad to say: And hereto forth, I bequeath, Wine Blah Blah blows (my "reviews" so far: Cono Sur is "good," Barefoot "rocked" and for Lotusland "I liked it").

Let's blame my mother for this one. She's on holiday right now. She won't know.

What else do I suck at?

Bocce apparently. I went to go play last Friday and I came THIS close to hitting a duck and landing my bocce ball in a pond. WELL PLAYED!

Something I don't suck at: those reenactment games where you get all dressed up and play fight with your buddies in parks. I don't suck at it because I don't do it. But I DID see some people playing their game in the park where we were playing bocce! And they were DRESSED UP AND EVERYTHING. One guy even had all the make-up on and they had swords, pardon me, lightsabers and they LIT UP. I'm not sure if they made "whoomp, whoomp" sound because I wasn't close enough (would YOU have gotten very close to people in black capes and knee high army boots... and LIGHTSABERS?), but I could definitely see that they lit up and they were blue and those slow motion action moves were kick ass.

I could never be one of those reenactment game people. There are many reasons really, but a couple of them are 1) I don't think I could pull off slow motion action moves and 2) I hate getting dressed up. Halloween makes me want to pull my eyelashes out.

I hate finding a costume, spending money on crap that I'm only going to wear once, calling my friends to see if anyone ANYONE has a purple, sparkly mullet I can borrow (has to be purple!) because, darn it, I went and threw mine out last week.

Let's blame this on my mother too. Why? Just cuz. She's on holidays.

Back to my point. I suck at reviewing. I'm going to try not to lose any sleep over this one. I will not come on here and say, OMG THIS WINE WAS SO BAD, BLEH, BLECHT, THE HORROR, in the same way that I will not put a collar on the dog and say: Check this out? Ugly, hey? WHAT WERE THEY THINKING?

Ok then. I think I'll go get dressed up and play some bocce.

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Lazy Sunday Afternoon

A perfect end, to a perfectly lazy, sunny Sunday afternoon.

Poor turkey has a tendency to crash out (here's another pic).

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Tight Ship

The dogs aren't allowed on the tile while we're making dinner.

I took this picture while I was making dinner.

As you can see, we run a pretty tight ship around here.

Every now and then I get advice on the best way to control my dogs (whadya mean you don't like to have a dog snout planted firmly in your nether regions? Bit of a prude then, aren't ya?).

Sometimes I'm accused of being too lax. Sometimes I'm being too tough (or maybe that was "Hangin' Tough"... HELLO 90's taking over my sentence). And sometimes I'm being too blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

I can only IMAGINE what it must be like having kids. Feed them like this, educate them like that, beat them with a stick this way.

Before my cell starts ringing off the hook, that was NOT a hint (mother). I will NOT be beating any kiddies with sticks any time soon. Not mine anyway.

(Someone is going to call the authorities on me at some point, aren't they?)


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Yin and Yangin' It

I've mentioned in earlier posts that I'm trying to get a bit more zen in my life (like here and here).

Here are my dogs doing their part, wrapped up in a little yin and yang.

Best not to be fooled. This is what they are really like.

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Stuff My Dogs Have Wrecked: Shoes

Kayloo was the kingpin behind the Cushion Fiasco. Here we have the mastermind behind the Shoe Wrecking Incident:


A bit of back story: My mom and I have decided that we want to start this annual "Chick's Only Weekend" (from this point forward known as PROJECT C.O.W.). 2009 was the first annual event. We gabbed. We shopped. We shopped. We shopped.

The 109th store my mother dragged me to was the Shoe Store from Hell. And there was a sale. So, it was the Shoe Store from Hell jacked up on triple shot, sugar-free Vanilla Americano's and hairspray. About one million of us voluntarily filed down into the depths of this gigantic, cave of a store with no natural light and only fluorescent yellow CHECK IT OUT YOU CRAZY LADIES SALE!!! signs to light our way.

And I found these shoes. The perfect shoes. They looked decent. They were comfortable. A bit of a heel, but not too much. They didn't click when I walked. They were summery. They were perfect.

Enter Mickey. As you can see from the picture above, he is quite evil and this was a calculated attack.

The little strappy thing that keeps the sandal on my foot is now GONE. GONE I TELL YOU! All the shopping and walking and jostling and wrestling (I don't care how old she was, I FOUND THEM FIRST and she had to go DOWN)... all for NOTHING.


These are my favourite cowboy boots:


Actually, they are my only cowboy boots. They are so favourite, I haven't even worn them yet. If anything happens to these boots, I'm telling you right now I'm making purses out of both of those dogs.

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Gladiator Biker Chick

I bought this bottle of Cycles Gladiator solely because it was banned by Alabama. Banned in Alabama! Apparently the Alabama Beverage Control Board figured it was "pornographic." I think one would normally see more boob at a Super Bowl halftime show, but whatever. It's a nice table wine and they are getting a bunch of press, so good for them!

In honour of the artwork I took this pic in front of my super tough biker jacket. I do not own a motorcycle. I am not tough. I have no idea what the characters on the back say. Please don't write to me and tell me it says something like "The wearer of this jacket is a bonehead." It won't stop me from wearing it, but I firmly believe that ignorance is bliss with these kinds of things.

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Professional Dog Walker

As you can see, something has gone awry with the dog training.

Mickey (the brown dog) thinks it's his job to walk Kayloo (the black and white one).

I'm no pro, but I'm fairly certain this is a bad sign.


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Pinot: A Nice Firm Handshake

After all the hullabaloo (that's right, hullabaloo) of the last post (A Letter to the Asshole Who Abandoned My Dog) I thought I would take this time to address another Very Important Subject:

Wine.

That's right, folks. Hold onto your shorts cuz there's gonna to be controversy.

Now, I am a cabernet sauvignon person, much like I am a dog person, and a jeans person and a Britney Spears person (whatever people, don't judge. Don't even try to tell me you don't do a little shoulder waggle when her songs come on). I decided to give a pinot a try. Obviously I've had pinots before, but this time I wanted to pay attention to the experience a little more. I am a Cono Sur fan so I grabbed their pinot (thank you to Alan from The Amateur Wino for the suggestion!)... and I won't lie, it's going to take a bit of getting used to.

It is exceptionally aromatic... I'm not saying I didn't like it. I'm just saying that between Cono Sur's cab sauv and pinot I might lean towards marrying the cab sauv and having it's children and with the pinot... I'd give it a handshake. Not one of those annoying limp wristed handshakes at all, it would be a nice solid handshake with eye contact and everything... but it would just be a handshake all the same.

I'll keep trying to broaden my horizons.

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A Letter to the Asshole Who Abandoned My Dog

This is a letter to the asshole who abandoned my dog at the dump when she was 4 weeks old.

I have been writing this letter in my head for a few months now and I've considered writing it from a few different vantage points:

1. You're an Evil Monster
2. You're Too Dumb to Bother With
3. I'm Trying to Be More Zen So I Love You Anyway

All these let you off the hook more than I would like, so I'm going to go with this:

You're a grown up, you most certainly DID know better and karma's a bitch (I AM trying to get a bit more zen).

This is my dog Kayloo*:


She is about 10 months old now. She is gentle and loving, she farts like a trucker and she likes nothing more than to chill out on her cushion knowing that the rest of her pack is a few steps away.

A bit on how Kayloo's life started out:

She was born. 3 or 4 weeks later the human (or one of the humans) associated with her life picked her up, took her to the dump and left her to fend for herself. In October. In Canada. She was there for a few days until someone found her and brought her to the vet clinic. This is what she looked like.

I am trying to be level-headed and keep myself from saying things like WHAT THE HELL KIND OF ASSHOLE LEAVES A PUPPY AT A DUMP!!! Seriously, what BRAND of asshole to you have to drink to go and pull something so incredibly horrible?

Level-headed, level-headed...

EVERYONE within a 100 kilometer radius would have had a better idea on what to do with a puppy than you did. I have taken the liberty of coming up with a (much shortened) list. You could have:

• given her to a 3 year old child. Even a kid would have known what to do;
• put her in a box and randomly choose any doorstep, any doorstep at all and they would have been less asshole-ic than you;
• I dunno, maybe you could have dropped her at any one of the 50 vet clinics we have in the area?

You could have even done any one of these incognito since clearly you did not have the BALLS** to own up to the fact that you didn't want to take care of YOUR RESPONSIBILITY in the first place (and YEAH, she WAS your responsibility. Maybe if you were a little more conscientious about your dog and you got her fixed this wouldn't have happened in the first place. Oh, but I guess that would mess with your side job BREEDING AND SELLING dogs that you pass off as PURE BREEDS. Heaven forbid you should have to deal with a mutt).

Ever hear of a guy named Gandhi? He said, "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated." GANDHI IS NOT IMPRESSED.

To give an indication of what we are dealing with here, the American Humane Association estimates that 9.6 million animals are "destroyed" in the US EVERY YEAR (The Humane Society of the US estimates 3-4 million). That is the cumulative effort of thousands of careless individuals such as yourself. Do you know what "destroyed" means? It means killed. Based on these numbers, thousands of dogs that aren't even a year old and are PERFECTLY HEALTHY could die every day because YOU ARE AN ASSHOLE.

That's right. Every single dog that is euthanized in the ENTIRE WORLD is now your fault. That's what happens when you do stupid shit.

To summarize:

You're a grown up
It makes me sad to think of how horrible your parents, grandparents and/or teachers must have been to teach you that something so deplorable was an ok thing to do... Whoa, hang on! This isn't your kindergarten teacher's fault! This is YOUR fault. If you're old enough to get in your van and DECIDE to head over to the dump, you're old enough to make a better choice.

You knew better
Don't even think of trying to blame this on rap music or video games.

Karma's a bitch
The next time you stub your toe, or have a bad dream or open up your Ikea box and realize that you are missing a CRUCIAL bolt, but you are already half way through building it so you have to take it all apart (which is impossible) and drive 2 hours back to Ikea to get the bolt and then 2 hours back home only to realize that you've put one of the panels on backwards... remember this: You deserve it.

You deserve it.

Stick that in your pipe and smoke it.

Kayloo just came into the room looking for Mickey because she likes to do everything that he does. She is doing her best to swallow a Kong whole and every now and then she drops the Kong on his head to keep him interested in the game.

Dogs don't care what happened a year ago... let's be realistic, dogs don't care what happened 20 minutes ago. So, she's ok. But I really do believe what Gandhi said about the relationship between a nation and its animals. And we can do better. We WILL do better.

I would like to finish off this post with one last message to my Boneheaded Puppy Abandoner:

Na, na, na, na, naaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa! All of your future Ikea projects are going to look stupid and you are probably going to get slivers and stub your toes while you're at it!!!

I didn't say the message was a mature one.


* Kudos to John on his fabulous photographic skills!
** I use "balls" here in the male or female "balls" sense. This is an equal opportunity rant. I would be happy to crush the male or female who did this.

Follow up: I have received a lot of feedback about this post. First of all, thank you for your passion and for sharing your stories. If you haven't already checked out the comments section, I would highly recommend it. For better or worse I have learned about "burn piles," dogs left on the side of the road and in dumpsters, and caring for dogs discarded after fights and experiments. I have been shocked more than a few times today, and I've been googling like mad! Thank you for educating me and for engaging in this discussion. I look forward to many more chats to come!

I've started Kayloo & Friends to collect your stories. I hope you'll check it out and join our pack!

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1,000? 1,000!!!

Oh. My. Gad.

Over 1,000 people have come to Fido & Wino to check it out! The 1,000 milestone actually came last week and now we're at 1,100 and counting (happy dance... happy dance!)!

I am excited, ecstatic and so incredibly pleased that you guys are coming by the site... and then coming back for more (all together you've visited over 2,000 times and viewed 4,000 pages in 2 months and 2 days)!

So, THANK YOU!

Thank you for bookmarking the site, coming back each day and sharing it with your friends. Sorry to gush, but I love doing this and it makes me happy that you like to come along for the ride!

Here are a few posts of note:

1. Most viewed: Stuff My Dogs Have Wrecked: Cushion
2. Post that got the most comments: Secret Hiding Place for My Winter Underwear
3. Most popular Mickey post: Camping: Mickey Crashing Out I
   
4. Most popular Kayloo post: Camping: Kayloo and the Thong
5. Most popular wine post: Dodgy Little Penguin
   
6. Most commented on wine post: Connoisseur Only Different
7. My favourite Fido post: 16lbs of Holy Terror
8. My favourite Wino post (cuz I like the photo): A Gold Medal White
9. My favourite "other" post (again, like the photo): Tough Little Purple Flowers
   
10. First post: Our Carpet Would Never Be the Same Again

You have made my DAY... actually SUMMER. Holy crap this is exciting!

I've got a good feeling about this folks. I'll let ya know when we hit 10,000...

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That'll Do

The dogs just got back from chasing John around the track for around an hour and are waiting for dinner.

The grand master plan was to pose them ever so cleverly with a bottle of pinot John and I had just finished. Turns out they weren't at all into my photo shoot plan and would prefer to practically play dead.

Mickey is almost falling asleep sitting up. They're so cute when they're tired...

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