Getting An Earful

A couple of weeks ago, Atlas started shaking his head violently and scratching at his ears. We’d been down this road before so we took him to the vet right away–it was an ear infection. Two hundred dollars, eardrops, and a dose of antibiotics later, he was right as rain in a couple of days. And it reminded me of the first time it happened…

When Atlas was about two years old, Ken was looking inside his ears, as one does, and he noticed that they looked dirty. He cleaned them but it didn’t seem to help. On Friday, when Kate came home from school where she was studying to be a veterinary technician, we asked her to examine him.

“MY ears!” he proclaimed, wriggling around.

“Hold still,” she said. “Hmm. It looks like either ear mites or an infection. Better take him to the vet.”

So we did. Atlas, of course, goes mental with excitement if you ask him if he wants to go for a car ride, but the bloom was soon off THAT rose when he realized that it wasn’t a fun trip.

“MY EARS! MINE!” he insisted, shaking and peeing all over the examining table when the vet took a look, but he calmed down when he realized she wasn’t going to do to his ears what she did to his testicles. Yes, it was some kind of yeast infection. And after two weeks of ear drops, and two subsequent visits to our vet (free-of-charge follow-ups), it still hadn’t cleared up. The verdict was in. “No table scraps or treats for at least a week. He’s only allowed to eat his kibble. That way we can rule out food allergies.”

“Liver treat now,” he told her.

“Sorry, buddy. Not today.”

When Kate and Ken brought him home, I was aghast. “How am I supposed to go a whole week without giving him treats?!”

Because I am the WORST dog mom in the world, and I spoil him completely. He immediately recognizes “cookie”, “treat”, “Krispie”, “special”, “yogurt”, “chewy”, “strip”, “stick”, “delicious” and numerous other words that denote foods that NOW he was unable to have, and which I was unable to give him. At lunch that day, I poured out his kibble, and he came running in the kitchen and stared at the refrigerator.

Me: Eat your lunch, sweetie.
Atlas: Special, please.
Me: No special today. Ooh, look. Yummy kibble.
Atlas: Meh.

So the food stayed in the bowl until dinnertime. Atlas sat where he always does, kitty corner between me and Kate, hoping that someone would give him “summadis”.

Me: Can I give him just a little bit of salmon skin?
Kate: Mom. He can’t have anything but his kibble.
Me: But his kibble is ‘salmon and potato’ flavour. This is just like his kibble.
Kate: Here’s a rule. Every time you want to give him something, ask yourself, “Is it his kibble?” If the answer is No, then you can’t give it to him.
Me: What about a potato?
Kate: IS IT HIS KIBBLE?
Atlas: Kate is mean.
Me: Yes, she is.
Kate: Do you want him to get better or not? Hey! Did you just give him something?!
Me: No! I was wiping his drool off my pants!
Kate: You BETTER have been wiping his drool off your pants, Mother.

And it was the worst week. At first, he went on a hunger strike, leaving his dinner in his bowl overnight and refusing to touch it in the morning. When he realized that wasn’t working, he started to play on my emotions:

Atlas: Ma. Some yogurt for me?
Me: I’m sorry, baby. I can’t give you any.
Atlas: Was I bad? Don’t you love me anymore?
Me: You can lick the cup. Don’t tell Kate.

But then I realized that if I didn’t abide by the vet’s advice, not only would I face the wrath of Katelyn, but his ears wouldn’t get any better. I started hiding in the bathroom to eat breakfast, and at dinner, we were steadfast. After a few days, he was eating his kibble regularly but he was still mopey, so we went out and bought him some stuffies—a hedgehog, a fish, and an alligator that was advertised as a “tough toy”. He doesn’t normally get things like this because he immediately rips them apart and tries to eat the stuffing out of them, but this time, he was so overjoyed at being given SOME kind of treat that he carried the hedgehog around with him for a couple of days like it was his baby before attacking it and shredding it. Same with the fish. But by the time he’d massacred the alligator (tough toy, my *ss), the week was up. Kate and Ken brought him back from the vet appointment with the joyous news that his ears were all cleared up, and that he could have some treats, but nothing processed, no chicken, and no wheat. I don’t know who was happier:

Me: I put the salmon skin in the freezer for you. You want some?
Atlas: Special!!
Me: You certainly are.

Clocked Again

The story this week begins and ends with a clock. Oh no! I hear you say. Did Mydangblog buy ANOTHER CLOCK?! Indeed, I did, and stop judging me. It wasn’t my fault, and the saga is complex and convoluted to say the least…

On Friday, Ken and I went to the antique market to stock my booth. I wanted to look around a bit, and Ken was tired from being awake, so he went to nap in the SUV while I had a browse. I was just about to leave when one of my former co-workers said, “Oh hey—Buddy on third has a clock he wants to show you.” I knew Ken was waiting in a hot car without water or treats, but it was a CLOCK. I booted it up to the third floor, where ‘Buddy’ (not his real name, obvs.), who also works there, was wandering around. When he saw me, his eyes lit up like a drug dealer when his favourite meth head comes around the corner. “Good to see you. I have something I want to show you,” he said, mysteriously, not realizing that I’d been given the “meth heads” up.

Me: Is it a clock?
Buddy: Yeah. It’s really nice. Look.
Me: Ooh, that IS nice. But if I bring another clock home, Ken will kill me.
Buddy: I’m only asking ten bucks.
Me: Sold.

Fortunately, the current clock in my bathroom had just stopped working, so when I crept out to the parking lot, carefully opened the door and slid the clock in the back, I had a ready excuse for Ken once we got home. “It’s nice,” he said. “But couldn’t you use one of your other, several many clocks instead of buying this one?”

“Very few of my 64 clocks work,” I reminded him.

So I put it on the shelf in my bathroom. It had a battery in it already and seemed to be keeping good time. On Saturday morning, I was getting ready for work and I looked up at the clock. “9:05,” I said to myself. “It’s keeping perfect time.” Then I squinted. And tilted my head. Then put on my reading glasses. What had at first seemed to be an abstract floral background turned out to be an English garden with a Romanesque folly…And then I did what any normal person would do—I called Ken (he was out walking the dog). “When you get back, come upstairs—I want to show you something funny. A few minutes later:

Ken: What is it?
Me: You know that clock I bought yesterday?
Ken: Yeah, it looks good up there on the shelf. The time looks right…
Me: Take a closer look. What’s wrong with it?
Ken (also squints): Uh, is it sideways?
Me: Yep.

Instead of it being 9:05, it was twenty after twelve. The clock was a quarter turn sideways. But even at a quarter turn sideways, it LOOKED like the right time. I guess Buddy looked at it, decided not to worry about it being completely sideways, set the time and figured “Meh—for ten bucks, no one’s gonna notice.” And he was almost right.

Ken: Huh. Do you want me to rotate it?
Me: Sure.

So he popped the clock face out of the case and put it to rights. I left for work. I got home a few hours later, and went up to my bathroom to retrieve a part-bottle of wine that I’d hidden there on Friday night (that’s another story), and I looked at the clock. It now said 6:05. Which would have been fine, except it was 4:05. I took it down off the shelf—the hour hand was now loosey-goosey, having fallen off the stem when Ken took the face out. And the whole thing was encased in plastic. There was no conceivable way to fix it, despite my best efforts, which involved looking at it questioningly and shaking it. Then I had a brainstorm—I had recently purchased an antique mantel clock that someone had converted into a battery-operated one, but the battery pack was broken. If I could only get the hands out of THIS clock, I could put the whole contraption in the antique one. But how? I would need a hammer. But if you know anything about me at all, you know that I keep a hammer in almost every room of the house. So I got out my bathroom hammer and broke the plastic casing—carefully of course, because I needed the hands intact.

And after some fiddling, I managed to recreate the entire assemblage in my antique mantel clock, so I am officially a clockematician, or whatever you call someone who cleverly combines two clocks into one, like a ticking Venn diagram, and I can say that with confidence because I am a clockematician. When I fixed my mantel clock on Saturday afternoon, which also involved finding a new second hand, which was red and I had to colour it black with a Sharpie to match, it was 4:30. I’ve been writing this post for a little over 40 minutes, so my mantel clock should say 5:12. Only time will tell…

P.S. It says 5:11. Close enough.

The Butler Did It

Big news first! A few days ago, I finished my new manuscript, the one I got the grant to write. It’s called Murder Most Novel, and it’s a humorous murder mystery. All I need now are some good blurbs and a publisher, so if you know anyone who likes funny books about people getting killed, let me know! Oh, and the title of this post has nothing to do with MY book—there wouldn’t be much point in writing a whodunnit and then telling everyone who did it!

And now onto something completely different. A while ago, our air conditioning unit in the attic leaked and ruined the ceiling in our upper hallway and landing. Ken decided to repair it himself, which meant clearing all the furniture and accessories out. We have a very large flat-to-wall cupboard up there where we’ve kept some of Kate’s favourite childhood books. Ken finally finished the renos and we thought it might be a good time to cull some of the stuff that we had in the landing area. I started going through the books, reminiscing about Molly and her new washing machine, and the hours we spent playing I Spy, which was a popular series of books when Kate was little. And then I found a book called Dinosaur Bob And His Adventures With The Family Lazardo. I couldn’t remember ever buying it or even reading it to Kate when she was little, so I started flipping through it. Here’s the gist of the story: An American family named Lazardo goes on safari and finds a dinosaur which they bring back to the States and it causes a lot of issues but in the end, (spoiler alert), the dinosaur helps their town baseball team win a big game. And that explanation is only slightly longer than the title of the book. But that’s not the weird part. The fact that they go on an AFRICAN SAFARI with their small children and find a dinosaur isn’t even the weird part. No, the thing that absolutely confounds me is this. On the cover of this book (which was written in 1988 by the way) and on almost every page, there is a man wearing a regimental uniform and a turban. He is briefly described on the first page, when the family initially encounters the dinosaur, thusly: “Jumbu, their bodyguard, said nothing.”

Okay, first, why the hell does this family need a bodyguard?! And why is he some kind of Sikh warrior? But then things get even weirder because based on the illustrations, it turns out that he’s not really their bodyguard—he’s actually their MANSERVANT, and on the second page, the Lazardos are lounging on the dinosaur’s back in their swimsuits while Jumbu is in some kind of ceremonial beachwear and he’s SERVING THEM ALL DRINKS. This book was published by Scholastic and can you imagine the pitch meeting?

Author: So there’s this white family and they find a dinosaur…
Scholastic: Like, dinosaur bones?
Author: No. A real dinosaur. And they bring it back to the United States to play baseball for their hometown team.
Scholastic: Interesting. Are there any quirky unexpected characters?
Author: Well, they have an East Indian manservant–
Scholastic: Manservant? That might be perceived as racist. This IS 1988 after all. Better call him a bodyguard.
Author: Oh, okay.

Throughout the entire book, no one talks to him, no one mentions him, even though he’s on almost every single page serving drinks to the family, playing catch with the kids and whatnot, and no one even thinks to ask “Hey Jumbu, you’re a bodyguard, right? Do you think it’s safe to bring a dinosaur back to the Unites States to play baseball?” Because I’m sure all the chaos could have been avoided by letting Jumbu do his damn job. The only time we hear about Jumbu again is on the last page where the family is celebrating the big baseball game win and “Jumbu brought out the musical instruments” so the family could sing and dance. But then it felt like there was some ominous foreshadowing because right at the very end, it says, “Jumbu smiled.” I’ll bet he did. And the sequel to this book is called, Jumbu Gets Even.

Over Rated

Ken and I began doing jigsaw puzzles during the pandemic when we were super bored and found one in a cupboard that belonged to Kate. It was Niagara Falls, all lit up, and by the time we were finished, we were hooked. Up to that point, I’d never done a jigsaw puzzle in my life and scoffed at the whole notion. Now, it’s rare not to see the puzzle board set up on our kitchen island. But good puzzles can be pricey, so we quite often get them second hand, and do swaps with my parents, who are masters at the puzzle game.

Last week, they came over with a stack, which I tucked in the closet until I was done with my latest, a 1000 piece Ravensburger that’s no longer available but that I was obsessed with. It’s called The Sanctuary of Knowledge and I’d been looking for it for ages. I finally found it on Facebook marketplace and drove quite a way to get it. I put it together, only to discover that it was missing FOUR PIECES. All that effort and no payoff. So I went to the closet and pulled out a nice 300 piece that I could do for a quick dopamine hit. I opened the box, dumped out the pieces, and saw this:

And there are so many things to unpack here. First, “Ken and June” (and I feel even more salty about the dude being named Ken because MY Ken would never do this), you two BOUGHT the puzzle. “Too short”?! Did you not see the GIANT “300 PIECES” written on the box? How long did you THINK it was going to take?

Second, who exactly are you rating this for? You gave it to a THRIFT STORE—was your intention to convey to random strangers who will never meet you that you are sophisticated and world-weary puzzle aficionados? “Ah, yes, you plebians at Goodwill might be satisfied with a mere 300 pieces, but to us, it was a waste of our precious time. We crave the chaos of frustration; give us not the ease of rapidity.”

Also, the rating was on the INSIDE of the box, so it wouldn’t even help a potential puzzler make a decision.

And what kind of rating system IS this anyway? You docked the puzzle THREE WHOLE POINTS for taking exactly as long as a 300 piece puzzle should take? That’s like me getting a 1-star review for my first novel, which very clearly states on the cover that it’s about a sixteen-year-old girl, from a 70-year-old man who didn’t like it because it was about a sixteen-year-old girl. SERIOUSLY.

But despite the terrible rating from “Ken and June”, I did the puzzle anyway, and really enjoyed it. Then I got to the end and no, there weren’t any pieces missing this time; in fact, there was one EXTRA piece that didn’t even belong to this “short” puzzle. I just hope Ken and June didn’t give the puzzle it belonged to a 10 out of 10, because they’ve lost the little credibility they had left:

Puzzle person: Ooh, I can’t wait to do this 2000 piece puzzle…what’s this written inside the box? “A masterful creation, complex and time-consuming, but well worth the Herculean effort. 10 out of 10”, signed “Ken and June”. What a ringing endorsement!

Four days later…

Puzzle person (staring at completed 2000 piece puzzle with one piece missing): Curse you, Ken and June! Curse you straight to hell!