I Love Daisies

"Hello darlin' nice to see you, it's been a long time. You're just as lovely as you used to be. How's your new love? Are you happy? Hope you're doing fine - just to know this means so much to me. What's that darlin'? How'm I doing? Guess I'm doing all right, except I can't sleep and I cry all night 'til dawn. What I'm trying to say is I love you and I miss you and I'm so sorry that I did you wrong." (George Jones)

Check it out here: http://youtu.be/ht7PmRXvbvs

What I'm trying to say is that I've missed you and I'm kinda sorry that I haven't written in so long. Life has been passing me by. It's like a whirlwind of activity all the time, it seems. Since I was raised by country-folk and spent the first 12 years of my life listening to music that was created between the years 1900-1979 as long as it was country/Elvis/Beatles, and the next 20+ years listening to everything else, I thought I might serenade you with my best old-school 'I miss you' song. I know other songs that I'm sure no one in the world listened to except my family and the original artist.

Things have been happening!

Before Easter/Spring Break, I assigned a piece of work to my grade 10 English class. We are reading the controversial novel, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (I LOVE HUCK!! If anyone is reading this who is in a position to do so, please direct a new version of Huck Finn... yes, controversial, but a good time for it. Don't be afraid. Don't whitewash the truth about history! Racism & slavery are STILL problems!). Anyway, the assignment was to choose a portion of the text to illustrate cartoon-style.

At one point in the novel, Huck's father, Pap tells Huck that he didn't want to see Huck putting on any frills (i.e., becoming educated and moving upward in the world), as Pap considered 'frills' to be demeaning to him (Pap). In a panel on one assignment, a student had drawn Pap and Huck in the bedroom with Pap yelling, and Huck with a thought balloon over his head. In the thought balloon, Huck was completely befuddled, thinking of himself in a frilly dress, with the word "Frills??" added just in case I missed noticing his word confusion. Getting that assignment before I left for break was such a treat - we had a great laugh about it. Students finding humour in Twain's book while they are being taught the satirical background is fantastic. And they're reminding me that even the smallest things can have a bit of humour, too. Class act.

During the break, I started taking Harlequin on longer walks. We walked along the boulevard, down along the river, and eventually through Birchwood Trails. Before branching out onto the trails, I took him for a walk on our street. Last fall, I walked him on this route all the time. We were once nearly attacked by an angry black and brown striped dog that looked kind of like the one shown here. It was brought up short by the heavy chain around its neck, which secured it firmly to the tree in the front yard where it lived. There was also a lady in the yard who promptly yelled at the dog, and the dog watched us for awhile, and then Tiger Dog settled down. Scary stuff.

This time around, though, the Angry Striped-like-a-Tiger Dog was not firmly secured to anything except its own four legs. And those four short legs moved FAST. When I got near the corner of the street, I noticed that the guy ahead of us crossed the street before getting to her house. ALERT ALERT. So I tried to look at the tree to see if the heavy chain was moving around, but there was nothing near the tree except the lady who yelled at the dog on the day he tried to run out to 'play' the other time.

Tiger Tiger Burning Bright saw me at the same time I saw him. It was like in a movie, in a super slo-mo scene. He walked out from behind the tree just as I looked in that direction, and for a split second we just looked at each other, and then Mr Harlequin Fluffy-Chew-Toy must have caught the Angry Dog's eye.

And that bad boy came barreling across his lawn as fast as those legs could carry him. He might have barked once, maybe not. It seemed kind of like I was underwater, but I just kind of crouched down, scooped up Harley, and stood back up. It actually happened pretty quickly. It's a good thing H was right next to me. I didn't break eye contact once with the Tiger, and I was beyond terrified.

I've always heard that you should not fight an animal to save your pet, or something to that effect. I remember thinking that exact thought, but my body didn't do that, and my brain didn't agree anyway. I actually remember thinking that. I think maybe crouching and then standing, and staring him down, maybe made the dog think I was on a savage rampage (?), I don't know. He did turn away and put his head down just a little when he couldn't get H, but he didn't leave until the lady yelled at him a couple of times.

And I just kept staring him down.

I couldn't say a word. There were no words, no coherent thought - not one word.

Much to Harley's credit, he is as dense as a bag of hammers, so he didn't realize anything was happening. He sat in my arms like a fluffy teddy bear as I pulled him up and away from the Tiger Dog who would like to toss him around like a chew toy. Ol' Stuffing-for-Brains didn't know that, though. All he cared about was being outside.

The dog went back to his yard, and I went back on my route, but I didn't let H down until we were well on our way. I didn't need any sneak attacks. I bet Tiger Tiger Burning Bright was wondering why he didn't get the white fluffy teddy bear toy since he was such a good boy.

After that, Harley Barley and I stuck to the river walk and then we started in on Birchwood Trails. Harley prances when there is mud on the ground, so he needs to get used to being in the dirt more. The trails are good for him.

We have met quite the characters on the Snye. One day, one guy introduced himself and asked if Harley would bite. "I can't say for sure," I told him, "Harley does what he wants." I didn't lie. To this, he said, "Well, I have a pitbull. He's a nice dog. I take good care of him. You take good care of your guy, too." And I said, "Yeah, Harley's been chased by a pitbull once or twice in his little life." *sigh*

Another guy, when passing by, said, "Hey girls, you're out walking Fluffy, eh?" Poor dog, it's hard to get any respect when you look like a furry marshmallow.

In that respect, Harley kind of looks rather girly, and his habit of putting his entire penis inside his own belly by accident does not help matters. Yes, he did it again. I took Cookie Monster away from him. He got mad. I put it on the bathroom sink, so he couldn't get it. He sat by the counter and stared at Cookie. I told him off and threw Cookie in the bathtub. Harley went over, stood up and peered into the tub until I turned the light off in the bathroom and he couldn't see anymore. Now, if I say 'Cookie Monster' his head whips around to see where Cookie is. He is obsessed.

In addition to trying to get rid of the monster, I also started 'de-hoarding' my house. Over break, I sold 6 boxes of books and donated 3 bags of clothes, and threw away 3 more that were absolutely useless. I then managed to get rid of about 4 bags of trash. And that's just scratching the surface. I've accumulated a lot of stuff. I'm going minimalist. I'm claustrophobic in my own life.

I haven't worked out since Monday of this week but I did go 3 times last week. Monday was one of the hardest times I have ever worked out. I thought I was going to pass out but I kept at it. Spin is now officially over for TriClub, but we are going to join Holly's class on Tuesday nights so we can keep doing it. We can't just stop going on our little trips that easily!!

Speaking of, Jenny and I still have to plan our trip to LA. We have been so busy with our upcoming production that we hardly have time to do anything else. It's work, extracurricular, TryClub, sleep, repeat. Throw in some food, and there you have our lives. With the exception of writing, coffee/tea, incessant b!tching (whether at us :P or to each other :D ), grading, and sometimes going out for supper or shows with friends, life is pretty hectic with our work/volunteer schedules.

I received some mail by FedEx yesterday. Before getting it, I wasn't sure exactly what it was because I couldn't remember buying anything. I half hoped someone sent me a pair of Louboutins for a surprise. That would have been fantastic. One can only hope. But this piece of mail did not contain shoes.

However, I did in fact order a present for Mother's Day, which will have to be written about after my mother gets it. While my mother is not a net junkie, she may receive news via friends who are in the know. Sorry, Mom-Friends, you are in the dark until she receives it.

And as for daisies, I just love 'em. Any day on this side of the daisies is a good one, I guess. No real reason to say it, just givin' you somethin' to talk about. As long as my name is on the tip of your tongue, my popularity is on the rise. ;)

"You don't get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies." (the social network)