Speaking of alive and not (yet) kicking...

...in my last post I mentioned that changes to my job have robbed me of almost all of my creativity, but to be honest, I'm creating on a daily basis. Why, I recently made ears. And genitals, too, although I don't know what kind. That's right, dear readers, as scary as it may seem, Scott and I are becoming parents. At 16 weeks along, it's too early for me to feel any fetal movement, but we did hear the heartbeat recently and we have seen the little cutie via ultrasound. My clothes are getting tight, I've been puking for weeks and I can't take much medication for the wretched cold that I'm suffering, but I'm told that it's all worth it. Oh, I'm a bit moody, too. When I was just two months pregnant Scott remarked that I was "showing" already. I nearly killed my child's father.

Since I work in the child welfare industry (although not with children), I read and hear about dreadful parenting every day. When I listen to friends talk about their kids, I realize that there are also plenty of supermoms out there. As unsure of myself as I am, I can only expect to be somewhere in between. Let's hope that I'm up to this task, because I'm told that it's the hardest job I'll ever have.

Scott thinks s/he resembles Howard the Duck

Alive, if not kicking

It's been a while. Again. A long while. Has Facebook killed the blog? Rather, has Facebook killed my blog? Now that I have befriended (excuse me, "friended") many of my loyal blog readers on Facebook, my attention to blogs in general has waned. It could be due to the fact that I now can see how most of my favourite bloggers are doing just by reading their Facebook status updates. Or perhaps it is because Scott and I, sadly, have both become hooked on playing Mafia Wars and we are constantly wrestling over negotiating computer time. It might also be the winter blues that have been plaguing me over the past few months. Or it could be that recent changes to my job description have turned me from a writer into a redacting robot, robbing me of almost all creativity and inspiration. I plan to correct my errant blogging ways, I'm just not sure when. Stay tuned, if you're so inclined.

Damages: The cost of unconditional love

Oooooo, sounds ominous, doesn't it? Fear not; I'm merely talking about damage to inanimate objects, and the unconditional love that some of us have for our pets.

Puppies chew things. Cats scratch things. Every pet owner knows this. As long as one has lots of appropriate toys and scratching posts around, there shouldn't be a problem, right? If you enthusiastically replied, "Right!" well, I hate to say it, but you're awfully naive.

When Ferris was just a pup, he chose some odd things to sink his teeth into, such as our floor,

our baseboard,

our newel post,

and even our wall.

Ferris' claws have been almost as destructive as his teeth. He sleeps on the second-floor landing at night, and this is what the baseboard looks like where he rests his feet.

Montana hasn't been completely innocent, either. He races around and skids across the floor, which has wreaked havoc on the finish.

Speaking of the floor, both dogs have a habit of leaving their water dish with their mouths half-full and dribbling, drenching the floor as they walk away. No matter how large a plastic mat we place on the floor to catch the spillage, the hardwood gets soaked and has begun to rot.

And then we have the cats. We suspect that it is Trooper who has been sharpening his claws on the corner of a plaster wall.

Trooper also took a liking to the wooden stringer on our old basement stairs.

Now that our basement renovations are almost complete, we aren't sure how we're going to keep Trooper away from our fresh new wood staircase. Scott and I find declawing cats to be cruel, so we might just have to amputate Trooper's feet. While we're at it, we might chop off Cayman's feet, too, since he has learned from Trooper that the posts on our four-poster bed are just as good as any scratching post.

I give the cats very loud heck if I ever catch them in the act, and they respond by dashing under the bed to hide. If I ever had any illusions that they were crouching there in shame, thinking about the naughty thing they just did, those illusions were dispelled the first time I looked under the bed and discovered what they had done to the bottom of our boxspring.

All this damage, not a lick of remorse (even from the dogs!)... and yet we love these guys anyway. It makes me wonder what is wrong with us.

Why no, I don't feel guilty at all. Why do you ask?

The newest Nooglet

A belated happy holidays to one and all. I'm not sure where my blogging muse went, but I'm sure that she apologizes for my absence.

If any of my long-time readers are still out there, you may remember me mentioning the Noogles once or twice or thrice. The team nickname is taken from the official name, No Glove, No Love. (The name makes great sense when the team plays softball, and no sense when we play floor hockey.)

Click to enlarge

No Glove, No Love is a misnomer, since seven of the players pictured above have become parents since the photo was taken over three years ago. The newest little Nooglet (baby Noogle) was born early this morning. Although his arrival was a few weeks earlier than expected, mommy and baby are doing well. Congratulations to Libby and Martin!

By the seat of my pants

By nature, I am not a risk taker. I am an overly cautious, neurotically prepared worrywart. That said, contrary to my usual character, I occasionally find myself flying by the increasingly large seat of my pants. It's not a conscious decision; somehow I simply forget my usual hypervigilance and wing it.

Take driving. I'm still a novice, or a n00b as the kids call it nowadays. Now that I've got the whole gas pedal versus brake pedal thing down pat, however, I've really relaxed. This is in spite of the fact that the extent of my practicing is a 30-minute drive to or from my parents' house once every couple of weeks. The same route, over and over again. I could do it in my sleep. Sometimes I nearly do. Yes, I've become that relaxed.

I remember my mother trying to get me to relax when I was a stressed-out high-school student. She would ask me what was the worst thing that could happen if I didn't finish cramming for a test, and she even suggested that I might try taking a test without studying at all just to see how I would do. It must have been hard for her to witness my anxiety attacks whenever I felt that the amount of studying I had to do far exceeded the amount of time in which I had to complete it. And yet, there was that one time in university when I quite enjoyed taking an exam for which I had not studied.

I once risked very public embarrassment by failing to prepare. I had a bit part in the play "Rebel Without A Cause" in high school. Even if you've seen the movie a few times, you are still unlikely to remember that the role of the planetarium lecturer ("There was a planetarium lecturer?" you're thinking) was played by a man of about 60. Uh-huh. I had tried out for Natalie Wood's role but instead I won the role originally portrayed by a man born in the late 1800s. At the time I had no idea what a terrible actor I was. Anyhow, I was also assigned the part of understudy to the main female character. I had never heard of an understudy for an amateur high-school production. Much later it dawned on me that the two drama club teachers were simply being kind to me. They both had cougar crushes on my brother, who was also in the drama club, and I suspect that they wanted to curry favour with him by pretending that his little sister hadn't completely sucked during the auditions.

Rachel Stroud. I believe that was the name of the girl who played Natalie Wood's role in our high-school play. Thank goodness she didn't lose her voice or break a bone or find herself otherwise unable to perform, because I never bothered to learn her lines. I have no idea why.

Me, in my planetarium lecturer finery, bottom right.

I'm going to live dangerously now and post this without proofreading it a third time.

A lack of interests

All my life I have suffered from a lack of interests (plural). Oh, I had a couple of passions for a while, namely volunteering and fostering animals. However, after I was hired by the organization for which I had volunteered, and after I adopted my foster pets, my passions became my day-to-day reality. That's nothing to complain about, of course, but I have been feeling the need to replace those passions and my lack of interests has made that next to impossible.

Many people have more interests than they can count. Some of those interests are simple, quiet hobbies, while others involve travel and adventure. None of these myriad pastimes appeals to me. I don't want to cook, knit, play chess or partake in physical exercise, grueling or otherwise. I do enjoy a good book, but reading is what I do on the bus to and from work every day; reading in the comfort of my own home just puts me to sleep. I feel as though I've surfed the entire world wide web twice over. I don't have the money for expensive courses or trips, and even if I did I'm not sure that I would have the desire to sign up. So little piques my interest.

So, dear readers, what shall I do with my two-week vacation, which begins tomorrow? Scott will still be working, so I'm on my own. I won't even have the pleasures of sleeping in and relaxing in front of the TV, as we have men arriving early each morning with jackhammers, a radio and tone-deaf singing voices. (We are undergoing the noisy, dusty process of waterproofing and underpinning the basement. Oh joy.) I welcome your suggestions. I'm just so bored of being bored.

One year plus a day

No, that's not a jail sentence, it's how long Scott and I have been married. What a joy it was to be able to enjoy the autumn colours this year without fearing that the leaves would fall too soon. Scott and I celebrated our anniversary yesterday by taking the dogs to the conservation centre where we were wed. It was a beautiful day.

After our walk we went out to dinner, then came home to champagne and to wedding cake that we had frozen. Apparently it is traditional to save a bit of wedding cake to eat on one's first anniversary. We got that part of the tradition right. It is also traditional to give paper as a first-anniversary gift. Ironically, Scott and I sent each other e-cards. Hey, it fits with our green wedding.

Thanks to everyone who helped us to commemorate our special day!

Street View

When Google Maps' Street View feature was launched in my area a few days ago, my very first thought was "Cool!" My second thought was "Creepy!" Then I saw the poorly-stitched Street View image below and thought, "Ai yi yi..."

Twin Towers in Toronto?

On a completely unrelated note, happy Thanksgiving to my fellow Canadians!

Have I mentioned that my parents are American?

And that they're Democrats? Perhaps that's why I enjoy posting things like this:

Protect Insurance Companies PSA from Will Ferrell

P.S. If anyone can tell me how to stop cutting off the right side of embedded videos, I'd appreciate it. I tried reducing the object and embed width, but to no avail.

Seriously?

Is this necessary?

As if I'm not feeling old enough these days, here are the targeted ads with which Facebook has decided to grace my home page:

DO NOT LIKE!