Treats and Rewards

If you've never met me, you'll perhaps be unaware of the fact (but unsurprised to learn) that I am a person of fatness. And not, like, regular muffin-top fatness, but actual proper fatness.

Long story short, I'm embarked on the process of doing something about it, for what I swear is going to be the last time. Three weeks into this current effort and everything is going fine, except that my counsellor (I would say "diet lady", but I'm trying to think of the way I eat now as basically the way I will eat for all time, because that's how you do it, really) has set me a task that I'm finding quite difficult.

"List ten non-food, non-booze rewards or treats."

Why is that hard? Because I get as far as this:

1) Have a nap.
2) Daydream about telly people I have crushes on.

And then I get no further. I know what's expected here. What's expected is a list like this:

1) Have a nap.
2) Have the daydreaming.
3) Get a manicure/pedicure.
4) Get someone in the beauty industry to smear gunk on some ungunked part of me.
5) Have my hair done.
6) Buy a new book.
7) Buy some new shoes.
8) Have a massage.
9) Light a scented candle.
10) Have a bath.

And that was the list I was going to go with until I started giving this some serious consideration, just to keep the counsellor happy (I know that's not how counselling works, but sometimes doing it any other way creates too much anxiety, which makes me want to eat). Nevertheless, that is a crap list for someone like me. I don't like being rubbed or gunked or handled except for medical or conjugal purposes, so that's all out. And I don't like baths, they are boring. And I was hoping that this new, healthier eating lifestyle would result in me buying less crap, not more, different crap.

So what are my treats and rewards?  This was the list I finally came up with, after some careful consideration.

Everyday treats:

•  Have a nap.
•  Put on McAlmont & Butler's "Yes" and sing along.
•  Lie on the bed, put "Hoppipolla" on the headphones and make a little daydream video.
•  Give away one thing I can't stand but have been keeping because someone I like gave it to me.
•  Re-read my favourite passages in books I've already read (this reduces the risk that the book might be crap). 

Big treats:

•  Have the car valeted, and don't clean it out beforehand or anything.
•  Get a dogwalker to walk the dogs, and do not use the time to read animal rescue message boards or do any housework.
•  Buy a bubble machine and some bacon-flavour bubbles and watch the dogs play with it.

That's all the things I can think of for now that could be considered equivalent to things like eating half a packet of Viscounts, or getting a Chinese in and having chips instead of rice, or the other things that I have always considered treats but which, let's face it, haven't turned out to be such treats in the end. Obviously there are bigger things, like going places for the weekend and so on. But I'm pleased with that start. It gets me away from the traditional "women be shoppin' and smearin'" idea, and that's important.

And now I've done my homework, I deserve a little treat. So do you, if you've read this far.

You're welcome.

Pupdate!

As you can see, we still have the puppies.

In the last day or so, though, they've come on hugely in the independence stakes. They're playing with each other a lot more and are a lot less dependent on cuddling up to a human for comfort. This is good news, because it means I don't have to wait for them to be fast asleep in order to leave them and go off to do other things, such as showering and doing actual work for which I get paid.

They do still like a lap to lie on when they're actually ready to go to sleep, though, and will cry for one of us to come in and sit with them for a few minutes while they drop off. That's fine.

Worms appear to be abating as well. Everyone's belly, including Widger's, seems to be taking on a more normal shape, and everyone's got more energy.

They'll be starting tiny puppy vaccinations this week, which basically means getting teeny tiny doses of parvo vax in order to ensue they don't get accidentally infected before they are old enough to have their proper vaccinations. This will necessitate many visits to the rescue's vet, who is 45 minutes away from here. Oh well. There goes this weekend as well.

They are so lovely though, and it's lovely to see them getting stronger and more confident every day. I'm glad we took them on. Puppies were always such a mystery to me before, and I'm glad we had a relatively easy and healthy litter in first to practice on.

Puppywatch-day three

We now have four puppies.

When the rescue was originally contacted about the wee yokes, they were told that the puppies were between eight and ten weeks old, which is a good age to start separating them. So one of the other volunteers agreed to take one, and I would take the others. But the mistake was discovered and rectified, and now we have all the puppies together with us.

They're visibly growing every day, if not in size, in health and confidence. We had them out the back yard this morning for about five minutes and they ran around barking excitedly and trying to eat weeds, which is a far cry from the three terrified mites I got on Friday. They're also separating into two separate groups to sleep, or even napping by themselves, which they wouldn't do unless they felt safe.

We have named them.

L-R: Dobby (male), Widger (male, formerly Runty) and Bunty (female).

We've called the other one Tarka, but I don't have a picture of her yet. She's very collie-looking.

Because you asked for them

More puppy pictures!

Here's littlest pup calling the others back to bed because he's sleepy now.

Here's biggest pup investigating her middle brother.

Here's littlest pup all asleep.

And here's biggest pup stridin' out.

Eventful Day

So much for today's plans. My intention was to make the most of my manager's absence from work today (I am going to work tomorrow instead) to do my supermarket shopping and visit my friend in the hospital. She has had some fairly serious oral surgery and is going to be in hospital for at least a week, so I wanted to go. I was all set. Walk the dogs, come home, have a shower, take the bus to Dublin.

Then Trixie vanished halfway through the walk. Figuring she'd gone down a rabbit hole again, I waited around for her, but she didn't emerge. So I walked back to where I'd last seen her. No sign. To cut a very long and panicky story short (in which our heroine dashes about the sand dunes clutching at strangers and begging them for news of her feeble one-eyed dog) I eventually drove all the other dogs home in order to get them out of the heat and headed back out to retrace my steps yet again. Ten minutes of walking along calling out her name produced the desired result. Like the Shopkeeper, Trixie appeared. She must have been exhausted, poor yoke, because as soon as she got over beside me she flopped down in the shade of a clump of grass and pretty much fell asleep.

There may have been crying, but to protect Trixie's dignity I won't say who shed the tears.

Texted our rescue coordinator to say "found her!" She said, "great. Do you know anyone who could take some puppies that have been dumped in a box in Termonfeckin?"

Seratonin levels were high, plus I'd never been in charge of puppies before. I volunteered to take them. They were eight or ten weeks old, I was given to understand. It would be jolly.

Turns out, they're actually only about five or six weeks old, and strictly speaking too young to be away from their mammy. One of them is bold as brass, one is middling, and the runt is, well, a bit runty. He didn't eat anything at the vets. "Keep an eye on him," I was told. I worried immediately. I looked at them in their box on the kitchen floor. They cowered and trembled. Well, you would, wouldn't you?

A little while has passed now, all the adult dogs have solidly inspected the box of delights and proclaimed it less interesting than the boxes that come from Zooplus, the puppies are all fed, even Runty, and everyone's asleep. I've got a free hour before it's time to start walking and feeding all over again. The hospital visit will have to wait till another day.

Sorry the photos aren't better. The puppies won't come out of their clump. 

The adventures of Trixie down the rabbit hole

New dog Trixie has some typical terrier traits. She doesn't like cats much (which makes her a bit of a stressful presence round these parts in the evenings, when cats and dogs usually come together to flop around the living room and snooze) and she likes to dig A BIG HOLE.

Yesterday she found an existing big hole while we were having our usual mid-walk rest up on Wet Bum Point near the golf course. Off she went to dig around in this deep rabbit hole, and I left her to it. When I got up to leave about five minutes later though, I realised she was stuck in the hole. She seemed pretty firmly wedged, in fact. I wondered for a second whether I should try to pull her out, but her back legs can be a bit peculiar sometimes, and I didn't want to hurt her. Besides, she was digging away in the sand and would get herself free eventually. So I sat back down and waited. Read a bit of Moby Dick on my phone.

It took about ten minutes for her to wriggle her way out. She shook all the sand off herself and then triumphantly dived straight back down the hole.

In all I spent about half an hour trying to get her out of the rabbit hole. I might go a different route today.

Hotel for Dogs

It's been a busy week here at Waggy Towers.

First, Rollo went home. His real name is Sammy, and he lives on a small farm. Sadly his owner has gone into a nursing home, and the family are trying to make plans for his future, but while they do, he's a bit all over the place. Poor Sammy. As I was giving him back, I told them that we'd be able to find him a home if they needed us, but they want to sort something out themselves. They gave us a nice donation. Good for them.

Then, literally ten minutes later (that's actual literally there, not the new kind that means figuratively) I got a call from one of my dog-walking pals to say that one of his neighbours had just been told that her dog has to go. They live in the local mobile home park, and the little dog has been getting loose and causing a nuisance in the park, so the family was told that the warden would be called if something wasn't done.

So Trixie is here with us now. She is a feisty little terrier lady who, despite having spent most of her time outside in a little yard by herself in her former home, is happy to sit up on sofas and laps in our house. She loves her walks, she chases the cats a bit (but not in an alarming way) and she leaps right up at your face when you come downstairs in the morning. That's the good news.

The bad news is that she's a senior girl, at least eight years old, which means nobody will insure her. She also has just the one eye, which might put some people off. And she has the beginnings of a heart murmur, which could become expensive in the future.

But everyone does just think she's the cutest thing ever. And she really is. I should also point out that in an estate filled with bichon frises, cavaliers, and little poms, I'm proud to trot about with a slightly raggy, home-made looking dog on the end of my lead. We look a bit like a witch with her familar, though I'm not sure which of us is which.

New collie

Today I went and collected the new foster dog. He doesn't have a name. He was picked up with no collar on, and is friendly with people and other animals.

He's very much an outside dog, though. He keeps trying to cock his leg in the house and he walked into the patio doors not long after he arrived. But I've had him up to the vet and he seems fine. He can hear and see and walk, all of which is a good start.

Now we just have to hope someone is missing him and that they want him back. He's asleep in the kitchen at the moment.

Edited next day to add: I know dogs can be very clingy when they first come to a new house, but man, this is one laid-back, person-focused dog. He has had a sniff around the other dogs and cats, decided that they're fine, and left it at that. He just wants to lie at the feet of whoever's around. Me or mrmonkey, he's not bothered.

Yesterday he wouldn't eat his food, but today I put some baked bean juice on it and he larruped it. Now he's asleep again. Sometimes older dogs really are the business.

Ha ha, rasher feet

It turns out, right, that if you're planning on catching a ferry at 2am on a Saturday and following that up with a 6.5 hour drive across and down a good chunk of England, then the very best thing you can do on the Thursday night is to go out and see some comedy, then go drinking till three in the morning. It is also important that you get no nap on the Friday at all, so that your driving ozzyssey across England is filled with the kind of unfitness to drive that they make road safety ads about.

Nevertheless, this is what we did.

Last Thursday we went to see Dara Ó Briain in Vicar St during his current round of gigs there. It's quite a while since we last saw him here (can it possibly be this long ago? This seems too long ago. I must have just not blogged the last time, surely) on his own, but we did see him in December at the Console gig, so we hadn't completely forgotten the fast talking (mrmonkey's American colleague found it difficult to understand him every now and again), the manic hand gestures (in fact, his show has become more physical, and is all the better for it. He's got a gift for a bit of physical comedy), and the audience interaction, which is sometimes disastrous but actually worked really well last week. In the audience were not one, but two people who had saved the lives of others. There was also a woman who had gone through a period of having slightly predictive dreams that foretold entirely inconsequential events, but she hadn't had one since the mid 1990s.

One of the things I really enjoy about Dara's gigs is the fact that I can relax, knowing that he's not going to pull out a load of material about fat chicks or how women be shoppin'. He's not going to take the piss out of the old ball and chain, (indeed, most of the stories involving his missus are highly complimentary) or even shite on about football (even though he loves it). Of course, I'm in a privileged position here. If I was a homeopath wearing a badge saying "Let Us Drive Out Blasphemy As St. Patrick Drove Out The Snakes" I might feel differently. But even then, Dara has a way of arguing against the action rather than the person. He does have a section where he talks about old midwives' tales, but even then, he's very clear that it's only the "don't let the surgeons get you, with their knives" part he has a problem with, not the "hey, let's get you squared away and get a healthy baby out of you" part.

Maybe I should feel left out for not being a gamer, but even his section on computer games, which has the potential to be alienating to non-gamers, is put together in a way that includes everyone, because he creates a lovely fiction around first-person shooters that opens the routine up to anyone who's watched films.

So, to recap. If you are into blasphemy laws, you fear modern medicine and women, you don't watch films or play computer games, and you want to hear a lot about football, I recommend you go elsewhere for your comedy. For anyone else, I recommend you get a hold of some tickets to see Dara if you can.

The Ozzysey

At the very beginning of the year, some people in England who know ComedyB because they have a comedy family member of their own contacted me because they'd seen Ozzie's windy day picture online. They wanted to give her a home.

They filled out the adoption form for our rescue and everyone agreed they seemed like a great home. If only they weren't in England, said everyone. We don't rehome directly to homes in England, said the rescue committee. If it doesn't work out, we have no way of getting the dog back. The people were very disappointed. I was very disappointed. Ozzie continued about her life, totally unaffected by all the fuss.

When she came to us in August last year, Ozzie was very ill, you see. Her condition turned out to be pancreatic insufficiency, not uncommon in dogs at all. It means her pancreas doesn't make the enzymes she needs to digest her food, so her food just passes through her, irritating her insides as it goes. Untreated, the condition eventually leads animals to starve to death. Luckily, it's very easy to treat. You just sprinkle enzyme powder on her food at mealtimes, feed her a high quality food, and leave it at that. In the months that we had her, she went from being 17kg down to 14.5kg at her lightest, and back up to 18.65kg again. She went from being a bag of bones who only just trundled along behind you when you walked to being a sleek, black powerhouse of energy with a high-gloss coat who never left a bird unchased, a dog ungreeted, a thing on the floor unchewed, or a lap empty.

Despite the fact that her condition is easy to treat, though, nobody wanted her. A few forms came in asking about her, because she was said to be good with both kids and cats, as well as other dogs. But every time we mentioned her condition, the enquiries stopped.

Still the family in England asked about her, admired her photos, and chatted back and forth with us about her. They didn't care that she had a condition, or that she would be expensive to feed, or that it would be expensive to get her to them. They just wanted her. We sent emails back and forth. They promised they would send her back if it didn't work out. They swore they would take care of her.

So last weekend, we brought her. Mrmonkey and I took her on the ferry to Holyhead and drove her down to where the family lives. We were prepared for the people to really take to her immediately, because she's that kind of dog. But even their number one dog, a three-year-old labrador called Maddy, wanted to be her pal instantly. She ran all around the house with her, licking her face jumping on her, and bringing her toys for Ozzie to play with.

Ozzie knew something was going on. She had been separated from our other dogs, shut into the car inside a scary loud box for some hours, driven for ages on a very long road by two very, very tired people, and finally had her bed and blankets left in someone else's kitchen for her. She was a bit clingy and she wasn't sure about this new dog.

Even still, despite some tears from me on parting from her, she only sat by the front foor for a short while after we left her behind with her new family. She then did the classic first-day-of-school maneuver and just bloody got on with it. Sat on laps, played with Maddy, ate the cheese she was offered, went for walks, and settled down to sleep.

So she will be very happy. A wee dog who was dumped in a box a year ago, and now she's in a perfect home with people who just love her.

Bye bye Ozzie. Happy life.

Two new dogs coming tomorrow.

Bobbykins

Here he is.

Bobby was surrendered to the rescue just before Christmas, his lovely home with his nice Eastern European owner pulled out from under him because of the recession. His owner had to go home and couldn't afford to take the dog with him. So Bobby went to a local foster, where he's been for the last two months.

We've been minding him over the weekend while his regular fosters are away. He's a complete sweetheart. Loves cuddles, comes when you call him, falls over a lot in a cute puppy way, and is happy to be around other dogs and around cats. Today a nice family from Mullingar came to view him. They loved him straight away. He just sat there and let all three kids hug and cuddle him at once, and actually seemed to enjoy it instead of just tolerating it. The family has been home-checked and found suitable, so Bobby will be going there at the end of the month.

Ozzie's due to leave us at the end of this week, and it'll be back to three dogs again. The sofa will seem so empty.

Battle of wills in Tesco

Last night I was picking up a few necessities in Tesco when I ran into the woman from this blog post. Remember her?

Well, we looked each other up and down very quickly, and of course had a judgemental look over each other's baskets to see what the other one was buying. I had milk and juice and toothpaste and eggs in mine: normal stuff. My arch nemesis, on the other hand, was clutching an enormous box of Thornton's chocolates, which she pressed more tightly to her as I passed.

From the way she looked at me, she knew that I knew that she was planning to scoff the entire box herself.

And so I win round two.

Jimmy Kimmel laying into Jay Leno

Now this is a presenter thinking on his feet. I can't believe Leno couldn't come up with a single riposte to any of Kimmel's remarks here.

I don't like that thing you like

British people seem to have gone a bit mad lately about television, especially the BBC, and what should or shouldn't be on it. People don't want to have to pay the salaries of Jonathan Ross or Frankie Boyle. They don't want subscription channels to get their precious sporting events. Even the comedian and New Statesman columnist Mark Watson, himself on the receiving end of "we shouldn't have to pay for this" complaints about his BBC 4 show We Need Answers, and a great fan of programming related to football (which I personally would rather nobody wanted to watch), would prefer it if there were fewer dance-related shows on the television and has (in jest, of course) asked for the number to be reduced.

I can't help thinking that everyone needs to calm down and stop wanting the stuff they don't like to be taken off the telly. Your telly is fine, believe me. You have no idea what it's like out there in other countries where they don't have the BBC. You really don't. Complaining about having to pay the license fee to pay the salaries of entertainers you don't like is a little like complaining about having to pay tax for a health service when you never get sick, or a school system when you don't have any children.

But it's easy for me to say, I don't pay for the BBC. Except I do, because I buy DVDs and I pay a Sky+ subscription which funds all those second-run channels that the BBC sells its shows into after they've run on the main channels. So I'm a customer as well. And I like dancing. And Jonathan Ross. Sometimes.

And, to add insult to injury, I, through my license fee, am required to pay the salary of this monstrosity. So you have nothing to moan about.

Roll on February

Okay, the first two weeks look like being a bit crap. Mrmonkey will be away, visiting the mothership and renewing his acquaintance with the endless ad breaks of U.S. television, and I will be here on my own.

But then will come the first gigs of spring, peeping out of the calendar like bright crocuses and acting like beacons to steer me through the rocky weeks of the mister's absence.

On February 14th we will be going to Vicar St. to see Midlake, one of our two favourite bands of the last ten years (yes, the Arcade Fire is the other one). To demonstrate how hotly I'm anticipating it, let me tell you that I am actually hoping they play tracks off their forthcoming album, because I could do with some new Midlake about the place.

Then, a mere four days later, we'll be going back to Vicar St. to see Dara Ó Briain. His gigs are a treat for people who (like me) love their comedy but get a bit fed up of the usual stand-up topics--women, eh? fat people, eh? chavs, eh? airlines, eh? Big Brother, eh?--and would like something just a little bit different and, yes, perhaps just a little bit nerdier. Reading the interview with Dara from yesterday's Irish Times (although the interview is a bit peculiarly written) whets the appetite, as does reminding myself of previous times we saw him in Vicar St.

All we need now is for the snow and ice to EFF OFF back up to the Arctic, and we can get on with getting through January and watching the crocuses come out.

Bored Slippy

Minister for Education Batt O'Keeffe (yes, that is his name) has decreed that our schools will remain closed until next Thursday. This is partly because of burst pipes, knackered heating systems, and the fact that many of our schools are in prefabs, which you couldn't possibly expect salaried members of the teachers' union, sorry, the precious children to use in this weather. Also, nobody can get to school because the roads and paths are all too slidey. Buses can't run, and nobody can walk anywhere without being afraid that they're going to fall over.

In a not unrelated development, the senior civil servant who has been appointed as our Bad Weather Czar (whose name I currently cannot find on Google) was on the radio this morning defending the fact that the Republic of Ireland's National Roads Authority buys the same amount of grit every year as does Northern Ireland's roads authority, despite the fact that NI has a quarter the road mileage that we have. He said that the government's priority was to ensure that "primary national routes" were kept clear.

Well that's all well and good for the people who live on "primary national routes" (which is almost nobody, except the elves who live in IKEA), but what about the rest of us mugs who live in glass-road housing estates and at the ends of little boreens halfway up hills? We can all just go and shite, can we?

Everyone's bored with this now. The weather isn't even all that bad. It's just that even a tiny fall of snow can break a crappy infrastructure.

And everywhere is sold out of Yaktrax. This winter is stupid. Roll on spring. When I will be going to London and Stockholm, assuming the ice age hasn't begun. If it has, I'm going to Rio.

Easterly

It's very windy out and about here today. In this photo, Ozzie is not shaking or moving her head at all. That's the wind, that is.

Looks like the weather will turn icy again tomorrow, so it's time to order my Yak Trax so that at least the dogs don't pull me off my feet when we're walking.

Did you have a lovely Christmas? I did. I seem to have cornered the market in Burt's Bees lip salve, though, so if anyone needs any, do let me know. No exaggeration, I think I have ten sticks of it. I did also get a pile of Lush stuff from youngest Byrne, which included a fantastically bracing salt and vodka facial scrub. Almost as good as a long walk on a very windy day by the sea.

Oh, did you have best-laid plans, did you?

Well, now they have changed.

To get the new year off to a rollicking start (all the extra two seconds of it, or whatever it was we actually got today), Lulu gashed the pad of her paw on a piece of glass or something on the beach. Not the part of her paw she actually walks on, more the ankle bit. But she sliced that pad pretty good. So off to the vet on the frozen road we went, where she got sedated and stitched and bandaged.

She's fine, but she has to have two kinds of medication for several days, and the medication might make her sick. And she has to come in on Christmas Eve to have her dressing changed and a new bandage put on. So it means she won't be going to kennels with the others tomorrow. I feel bad for poor Ozzie that her very best playmate won't be around to do kennels with her over the next week, but in another way I feel like Lulu's time has come. After all, she did have to spend two weeks in kennels, alone, when we went to Derbyshire in June. Now she gets to hang out at the parents' house with us in comfort over Christmas Day and Stephenses Day while the others are all in kennels, freezing their asses off.

In other news, two of my photos were chosen for the vets' calendar this year. And Blakey is the only cat on the calendar.

SUCK IT, OTHER PET OWNERS.

Happy new year

Today is the winter solstice. Which means that tomorrow is the new year, astronomically speaking. And astronomically speaking is good enough for me.

While out walking the dogs today--I saw the sun come up at about 8.45 and was out again when it got dark at about 16.30--I had that feeling you get when you are at the very bottom, or the very middle, of a very long tunnel. You feel stifled, and then you feel that lift as the carriage or the car starts to move out of the tunnel and you find yourself leaning forwards in the hope it'll get you out faster.

Not that I'm particularly going anywhere. Next year might just be the same as this one. For me, that's pretty much okay. (Your experience might be different, in which case I wish radical change for you.) Although I do wish I could have stayed in abstracting. I miss spending my work days finding out what was going on in the world.

Anyway, when I get up on the dunes with the dogs tomorrow morning, there will be that delicious, childish, primeval holding of my breath while I discover whether the sun is going to struggle up over the horizon or not. I don't know what we'll do if it doesn't. Go back to bed and wait to see what happens next, I suppose.

Good thing Mrmonkey isn't going to work tomorrow. We can wait and see together.

Is nice system, but please, where is heat?

We recently spent over €4,000 on a new heating system for our house. It's a very clever system that adjusts itself in line with the temperature outside and can be set to heat just your water or just your radiators and no water, whichever you prefer. However, it turns out that you can't just turn it ON when it's cold out. You have to fiddle with the settings to reprogramme its start and stop times. There's no "boost" setting that turns the heat on for an hour and then turns it off again.

There is NO BLOODY ON button that just turns the effing heat ON.

So stupid. See, that's what happens when you don't ask anyone for feedback before you start production on something.