Up to Milan…

Hi Everyone!!!

Sorry about the lack of videos, we’ve been having a lack of internet in our last few cities…

We left Florence and got to Venice a’OK. No getting lost on the way to the garage, parked our car and headed out for the water bus around 9pm, record driving time of 299kms in 3 hours. Then we got lost…

We ended up wandering the very confusing streets of Venice in and around buildings and over bridges until finally, around midnight we arrived at our hotel doors soaked in sweat and ready to pass out. Unfortunately there was a note on these doors telling us to go back down the street and at a building on the right (another hotel) we could check in, get our keys and then head back to our hotel. Venice is a very confusing place! So we did just that and after unpacking etc. we arrived in our room and passed out! Ziad did have to completely dismantle the air conditioning before it would work but then we had it on full blast all night until we froze. What a nice feeling (and I’m being serious here people).

The next day we woke up just as breakfast ended but the lovely lady who ran the hotel graciously allowed us to have breakfast anyways YUM! Hard boiled eggs, croissants, meat, cheese, yogurt, cereal, COFFEE, orange juice and buns. What a great breakfast!

That day we did a little exploring and a lot of getting lost. Although it was confusing, I have to say I really really enjoyed meandering around the city. We also bought some clothes for me (so I didn’t look so hillbilly amongst the resident Europeans) and we did laundry at a tiny little Laundromat. (Cost us 11 EUROS!)

After a nice snack (although I lost the gelato stand where they had KINDER SUPRISE flavoured gelato) we headed to the Venice Jazz Club where we bought tickets for the show that night. Then we wandered home, getting lost several times along the way, had a quick shower, changed and then hit the road (so to speak…Venice has no roads) and began our return to the club. We realised we were going to be very late so we snuck a ride onto the water bus (saved ourselves 13 Euros in the process) and hopped off, walked super fast and were only half an hour late for the show. After a glass of wine, one bottle sent back (gone bad…a trip first!) and many great jazz tunes later our night was complete. We snuck back home (a la free water bus…) and went to sleep. What an AWESOME day in Venice!!!

The next day didn’t go nearly as smoothly…we were woken up at around 7 AM (after getting home and to sleep after 2AM) by a screaming child. And when I say screaming, picture a 2 year old sitting directly outside your door screaming at the top of their lungs. Not pleasant? Thats not even the half of it, now add a splitting wine headache and make the screaming continue for over an hour DIRECTLY outside your door in a hotel with paper thin walls and intersperse all this noise with two women yelling back. Not pleasant in the least. Definitely NOT a good way to start out your day.

We got up shortly after the screaming was dragged away and had our lovely hotel breakfast again and then we headed out on the road, going to San Marco Square without getting lost en route (another Venice FIRST) where we hopped a water taxi (we paid this time) and got back in our car and headed for Milan.

We have arrived in Milan and are hanging around until we head out to this local bar called “Bar Magenta” thats supposed to be spectacular. Fingers crossed!!

Day 7 leaving Firenze for Venice

DAY 4

Wow! What an incredible journey so far!!! Currently I am sitting in an internet cafe whilst Ziad tours the Uffici Museum (think Renaissance Paintings). I unfortunately am all burnt out when it comes to museums, especially paintings…

This is technically our third day in Florence and our first day in Venice, but I have a small feeling we’ll be spending most of our time here.

Florence has been absolutely glorious, if not a bit stifling. Its extremely hot here, but they have drinkeable and easy to access fountains throughout the city. Nevertheless I find myself extremely dehydrated today. (There is a 2 litre water bottle hanging out here at the computer terminal with me…)

Let me start with Day 5. We left Borgo San Luigi in the heartland of grape country and headed up a highway called, guess what? the Sienna-Firenze Autostrade. Much less complicated now that we understand it all (think subway lines).

After driving for only an hour, we made it to Firenze and then began to navigate the intensely convoluted streets that make up this city. We were lost for about half an hour before stopping to buy a map. We actually found a great parking spot about 1 street over from our b&b so that was absolutely perfect. We left the car there for 3 days and two nights with no problems! Amazed.

Our B&B I should mention is nothing of the sort. Really its just a room in an apartment building that you can rent. The entire 3rd floor is composed of rooms such as this, run by two Italian women. It’s very basic, check in, check out and contrary to the ideas the name gives you, there’s not breakfast. However, the location was very convenient for access to the rest of the city as well as for people watching in the evenings. You’d be surprised how late Italians (especially Florentines I’m told) will stay out at night. For instance, last night I could still hear kids playing and screaming at their parents around 2am!!!

Everything seems to happen later here. Ziad and I went to dinner yesterday after really not eating all day (we were starving) and were the only people in the place from 7:30 until 8:30 when we left, and this was a guide book reccommended place to eat (it was amazing!!! videos to follow soon, promise.) However, the day before we had cruised by the place around 10 pm and it was packed to the gills. Apparently, we just haven’t adjusted to the Italian way of life yet.

On our first day we stared at the long lineups to Museums etc, and mostly stuck to wandering the city, making a brief run through the open air markets. They’re viscious! But a very exciting time as long as you keep your hands on your valuables… We didn’t buy anyting that day and today I was hoping to go back to it, but alas I cannot seem to locate anything of the sort. Perhaps its because its Sunday, the entire thing may be closed down, as it is with practically everything else here in Florence on a Sunday.

The evening of our first day we headed down to the Arno/Fiume (a river) and stumbled upon a leather shop with the nicest man. He has been selling leather in Florence for over 50 years, owning his own shop for 30 and his own factory for 25. Obviously he loves his profession. He was very helpful and we ended up walking out each with a leather coat. They were extremely well made compared with the crap being sold in the market. According to our friend, the market went extremely down hill about 3 or 4 years ago when many immigrants took it over and weren’t as well informed about what quality of leather and manufacturing was expected, so although you may here its the best leather in the world, you can’t be too sure. Even though I know nothing about leather, I could tell the difference between Mr. J. L.’s goods and the similar looking garments in the market…

The next day Ziad and I slept in for the first time during this entire breakfast (we didn’t have a free breakfast we needed to attend). We got up around 11 and began to tour the city! Our first stop was for beverages and then we hit the lineup for the Galleria dei Academia. And when I say lineup, I mean it. We stood there for 2 hours, Ziad in the baking hot sun, me on the other side of the street in the shade…I would have stood with him, however, he didn’t want to have to deal with me passing out from the heat and us missing our turn to go into the museum. I instead became the gopher, going back to our room to get sunscreen and periodically buying ice cream and drinks for my roasting companion.

The museum was well worth the wait, there were galleries of magnificent paintings, but what was most awe-inpiring were the statues. They had an entire gallery dedicated to Buonaroti which was very impressive. I think we saw over 500 sculptures!!! AND THEN we entered the gallery and saw the David. He was amazing. I’m not going to try to describe it here, because it’s impossible. Suffice to say we lingered there for over and hour just looking at him.

When we left, we headed out to wander the streets running into various churches, piazzas and locally held events including a professional soccer game set up on a huge bed of sand in Piazza San Croce. There were even grandstands set up around the square for spectators to watch!! We had a lovely afternoon people watching nearby and drinking wine.

Today we woke up early! We had to check out and make it over to the Musei/Galleria dei Uffici where Ziad would likely spend the next hour or so in line. Hoping it doesn’t go too badly for him. He’s actually very very excited to see all the renaissance paintings that the galleria has to offer. I think he’ll really enjoy himself. I on the other hand, really  can’t do another museum, so I’m going to continue to walk around the city looking for the market…and then head back in an hour and a half to meet up with Ziad and hit the road.

I promise that I will upload some more films very soon, we’ve had a really busy couple of days so far, but I plan on doing them during our 3 hour car ride this afternoon, that should be enough time, don’t you think?

We’re having a truly amazing time here, really enjoying all the sites and aruonds, but I think that after our adventure in Venice, we’re going to take a nice relaxing ride down the coast with no plans, just waiting to see what we see. (Not that our trip hasn’t been relaxing, for the most part it has…)

Anyways, thats it for now! Hope everyone is having a great time back in Canada! We’ll try to give you as many updates as we can!!

Love Sair and Ziad

Day 4: Borgo San Luigi Resort in Tuscany

BEFORE I BEGIN, LET ME POST THE MOST RECENT VIDEOS FOR

DAY 2

DAY 3

DAY 4 took way to long to try upload…better luck tomorrow…

 

What a lovely relaxing day. Literally spent all of it lying on a sun chair reading a book. Just the rest and relaxation Ziad and I were seeking.

Borgo San Luigi is a gorgeous resort with immaculate grounds situated in an Old Renaissance residence. They’ve obviously changed a few things since then, such as adding an olympic sized swimming pool, tennis court, large dining area and bar. These things just add to its perfection.

Last night Ziad and I left Rome after spending the entire day in and around the central bus terminal or “Termini” as the station is called. Our original goal was to take a train from there to the airport to look into renting a car. Luckily we missed our train and had 45 minutes to wait (and for Ziad to explore the rest of the station in search of a much-needed coffee). He found several car rental stations! No airport trip necessary!

While he stood in the extremely long (and popular) Eurocar lineup, I went around to every single other rental agency inquiring about the possibility of procuring an automatic car. A very rare thing indeed. Only one agency had an automatic. Not only was it an automatic, it was a SMARTCAR! All trip I have been peering through the windows of various smart cars commenting on their cuteness and dreaming about having the chance to drive one. This was my chance.

After renting the car Ziad and I walked around the shopping mall located in the terminal (well, really the just share one extremely monumental building) where we bought some books and a bathing suit for me.

At 6pm we set out for Tuscany and Borgo San Luigi. We arrived at 11:30pm. The drive took slightly longer than we had anticipated, mostly because we kept getting lost… On occasion I feel the impulse to curse googlemaps for their convoluted instructions and roundabout means of getting to your desired location. It took us almost 6 hours to drive 297kms. Our little smart car held up extremely well, especially since we were driving through mountains the entire time. Let me just add that smart cars are practically all window and front seat, so there was no chance for carsickness, something which I was extremely thankful for.

We got a lovely view of the Tuscan countryside and then the sun went down and it was all squinting at signs in the dark and driving round and round roundabouts trying to decide which exit to take. We got lost about 7 times and almost drove into the centre of the Casttele de Monteriggioni, something the citizens of it’s tiny town probably wouldn’t have thanked us for. Fortunately we met two Italian women outside a bar in a nearby town who gave us directions to the hotel. We arrived exhausted but happy.

Breakfast this morning was a lovely affair. They serve it all, eggs, bacon, hard boiled eggs, bread rolls, toast, croissants, freshly squeezed green juice (not really sure what was squeezed to make it haha), yogurt, cereal, salami and cheese, and likely more but I can’t remember.

We ate to our hearts content and then got bathing suited and went down to the pool which was a very popular spot today. I find that the Italian sun is much easier on my skin than in Canada. At home, I wear 45 UVA/B sunscreen and still get burnt after being in the sun for about half an hour. Here I’ve worn 30 UVA/B and today for the first time since winter, showed my belly and back to the sun and didn’t get even slightly burnt. In fact I didn’t tan very much there at all, although my arms are a lovely dark brown.

We had lunch in our bathing suits which was weird but not altogether unpleasant. I had a lovely macchiarone (macaroni but cooler, big tubes of pasta) with bolognese sauce, which in this region means extremely tender ground beef and herbs cooked in there natural juices (no tomatoes) it’s probably a heart attack on a plate but it was so good! Ziad had fettucini with carpet mussels which I have learned are salt water mussels, they’re so cute! So his pasta looked very seashell-y which I’m not sure he liked too much because he had to take all the shells out in order to eat it. However, it was extremely tasty!

I’m currently in our hotel anxious to get back to my post-apocalyptic Zombie novel while Ziad is likely lost somewhere in the countryside. He left shortly after 3pm to a nearby town to get some snacks and something else (can’t remember now). He did leave equipped with a map, but we learned that yesterday that doesn’t always work. I’m anxious for him to get back, mostly so that we can eat dinner.

I think tonight we’ll sit by the bar and taste a bunch of wines (they have an incredibly good selections here) and then I’ll probably end up trying to catch the little lizards that run all about the place (likely while Ziad films my efforts and laughs).

 

Apologies for not posting our daily updates for the past several days. Getting an internet connections can sometimes be quite difficult. Fortunately, all we had to do was drive to the middle of nowhere to find it

ITALY: Day 1 Airport, Getting Lost, Eating Food!!!

Well! After a very exciting 24 hours we are finally going to bed here in Italy….

We had a most excellent first day here!

We started out at the airport after cutting it pretty close time-wise (we just didn’t want to leave our friends!) and stood in line to check in with about 200 other people for an hour. After getting our boarding passes we hurried to the nearest convenience store and bought a plethora of junk food including m&ms, snickers, doritos, lays and mrs. vickies chips. We also indulged in some very expensive airport food; turkey bacon sandwiches, mine minus the tomatoes and lettuce…obviously.

We boarded our plane and began our journey. The flight was incredibly smooth and our French Canadian pilot got us there in 8 hrs rather than 9, needless to say we were very impressed and recommend AIR TRANSAT! Although it needs to be mentioned that the food on the flight was typical plane food….

After our arrival at the Fumicino airport we spent about 45 minutes waiting to go through customs which was a breeze. Actually. It was. (Amazed) then we got very confused and whatnot.

We spent about half an hour at the bus area trying to figure out how to get to our hotel. After loading (and unloading) our baggage from one bus onto another we finally made it to the city centre bus and train terminal where we spend a very confuddled (and frustrating) hour and a half trying to figure out how to get the heck outta there!!! Eventually we just took a cab and may have had a little too scenic of a route, but alas it was much better than waiting in the sun for a bus that would never arrive…

After checking in at our hotel and taking a much-needed snooze we headed out into the city. The main (and closest) sights were seen including Piazza San Pietro, Castle San Angelo (and the market beside it) and finally Piazza Navona where we ended up having dinner.

Our stumble home (Italian wine is GOOD!) had us arriving back at about 12:30am Italian time. Ziad is currently asleep in his clothes haha.(I resent that:ziad)

Please enjoy this short video of our first day and check out facebook for our photos (taken with the new camera I bought the day we left!!!)

Missing all our friends and family but having an excess of matrimonial bliss and travel thrill.

Love Sair and Ziad

 

Ziad: Let me add a few important details that Sair overlooked. 1. she is a hero for figuring out how to buy bus tickets. In Italy (or at least its capital) one cannot just hop on a bus and figure out payment afterwards. One has to purchase a 1-time use flimsy bus ticket to present to the bus driver upon entering his or her (usually his) bus. 2. We almost expired on our taxi ride across the city. I say expired because there was a vast assortment of ways we could have, lets say, misplaced our lives. The most prevalent of those being out of fear (at least for myself). After having lived in Canada for 5 years; and for the past year having not left the sanctuary that is the Canadian automobile system, this taxi ride was a shock to my system that nearly scared the bejesus out of me. Oh god! I shouldn’t say that while looking out towards the Vatican, which i can see from our bed in the Emmaus hotel room. So to cut a long story to a slightly shorter form, we drove around at approximated 80 km an hour in a small hatchback Fiat on uneven cobblestone roads more suited for ATVs and mountain bikes than automobiles, darting through traffic, dodging cars while countering oncoming traffic (in the oncoming traffics’ designated lane). We had to avoid other hatchback Fiats and their corresponding fearless operators, fearless pedestrians, fearless bus operators, flying nukes, shitting birds, hurricane winds, a sea of locusts. But, to be fair, our driver thwarted those disasters and ushered us to the promised land like when Moses parted my Red Sea and “let [his] people [eat tacos]” 3. Piazza Navona is riddled with Indian street merchants selling “lazzzers” (thank you Mike Myers). The night was beautiful if it weren’t for these parties touting mind melting, sanity compromising, incredibly out of place “lazzzers”. I wonder how they make a living selling those things. But alas, that isnt for me to worry about. What I need to focus on is finding a way to get my right eye to un-cock itself. Which is in turn a result of me trying to comprehend (with a confused Molson-patented “head tip”) the patterned radiation beams emitted from their good for nothing Indian lasers of morbidity and hereticism. There is a place in hell for those Piazza Navona sleaze balls. (all love intended). 4. 16 year old kids love to make out on the “rose trail” (AKA the road that leads to the Vatican. We saw some pretty public and raunchy stuff. Long live western sexual liberalism. 5. And yes i would have been more than glad to sleep the whole night in those day clothes.

The Wild Goose Chase

Let me begin by saying that not all people who live in the boonies are idiots. However, those about whom I will be writing in this blog are.

For the last several weeks I have noticed men in my neighbour’s field (take this to mean someone who lives on the same road as me… not necessarily someone who lives next to me) with dummies of geese all around them, and hunting dogs…AND GUNS.

Over the weeks that they were there I began to notice that not all of the geese were dummies and that they were in fact shooting CANADIAN GEESE! (is that even legal!?)

Me, being the brave soul that I am said absolutely nothing to them, or to my neighbours, who were allowing this shooting to take place. However, I did have some concern for Stella, because I was worried that someone might mistake her white fur and large body for that of a wolf. My concern might seem exaggerated, until you see how close we do actually live to these people:

We’re not that far apart, and Stella has been known to wander much further in the past.

I’m happy to say that I think their goose shooting rendezvous have ended, as I haven’t seen them out there for about 10 days, and a week ago, the goose dummies that had been there 24/7 since the goose stakeouts began have disappeared.

Unfortunately, my goose troubles are far from over. What I hadn’t realised about our irresponsible hunters was that they were much much worse than I had thought.

Two days ago, Stella brought evidence of their stupidity to our doorstep, literally. This came in the form form of a goose carcass. Awesome.

Needless to say, all the dogs took turns guarding the carcass from one another, not realising that it was only a carcass!

There was no head, no legs, and no insides. These “hunters” had graciously left the bird skeleton (feathers and all…odd) behind. I’m sure it was something they though the wildlife around here would enjoy. What they didn’t think of were two very important things:

1) Being dog people themselves, they must have realised that canine-like animals aren’t exceptionally bright or choosy when it comes to eating. They take what they can get. And what the hunters so generously left is comparable to giving a toddler a bunch of candy-flavoured toothpicks to swallow. Not only would the splintered bones of the goose carcass slice open an oesophagus, it would do much much  more damage to the canine stomach and intestines on the way out…

2) If Stella thinks the empty body is worth dragging all the way home, then I’m sure the numerous coyotes, foxes, wolves and raccoons also think so. By leaving the dead bird bodies lying around, they’ve invited every carnivorous animal in 5 miles to come to the buffet. Not exactly a good idea, especially when many of these carnivorous varieties are territorial. And guess who’s encroaching on their newfound food sources? BINGO! The local dogs. Not only do I have three, but every neighbour on our road has at least one. Including those very kind neighbours who allowed the hunters to leave the bird bodies about. I hope they are not particularly attached to their black lab as he’ll be in the centre of the action.

My hats off to the idiots who let people poach (or hunt…if it is indeed legal to kill a Canadian Goose) on their property and then leave “dangerous” things lying around for each and every carnivore to enjoy.

Perhaps as an excuse for their behaviour we can site the short time that they have been my neighbours. They only moved to Newtonville about 5 years ago, so I suppose the grace period for city morons still isn’t up.

Let’s just hope that the newly invited predators also eat the feral cat they’ve been feeding, as I’d be willing to bet that it’s the one that keeps having litter after litter of kittens with the other wild cats that live about these parts. That would save us a lot of trouble with cat attacks to our pets and poultry in the future.

I suppose at this time I should hope for the best, expect the worst, and keep the vet’s number handy at all times.

By the way: I got rid of the carcass no chocking deaths for my dogs. At least not over this dead body.

Referees…the morons

Hey there sports-fans!! Sometimes I wonder how referee’s become refs. Don’t get me wrong, I know there’s a rigorous set of courses designed to create an objective and fair individual, but who knows if said individual is ever truly what they were supposed to be. Now I’ve become muddled. Let me explain:

A week or so ago my fiancé Ziad and I attended a Raptors basketball game vs. the Hawks (sorry, don’t know where they’re from) my father and his friend Pat were also in attendance. Obviously, I am not a basketball fan. I know the basics, and have been to many Raptors games in the past with  my family but I could never be considered an expert on the sport. Nevertheless, I seemed to grasp what many audience members as well as several radio experts on the sport discovered to be amiss at the game. The Refs. Not only were they unfair, (they were biased), but they were obviously so!

Even from a statistical point of view, it is clear that these men weren’t doing the job very well. The Hawks shot more than twice the number of foul shots than the Raptors, often being awarded 3 foul shots, as opposed to the customary 2.

Then there were the plays in review. I don’t know how many times I’ve ever seen a play in basketball in review in my life! Probably two, and both times took place at the game last week. The refs called the first review several minutes after the play had taken place which was disastrous as it automatically awarded the Hawks points over something the disgruntled audience had managed to forget in the last five minutes. Needless to say, we weren’t happy with the call.

As the game continued to progress it was noted by me that the refs were receiving more boo’s by the Raptor’s audience than Vince Carter. It did little to fuel their abilities the way it seems to do for Mr. Carter. Instead they became less and less official and more and more biased.

Offensive fouls that are almost never called were piling up on Bargiani (who I might add was more than frustrated by the end of it all) who was simply planting his feel and allowing players to run into him repeatedly, face-first I might add. Although this is considered to be a foul, I’ve been told by numerous people that this is one that’s not normally called. My sympathies to Bargniani.

My final upset comes from the game turner. Thanks to the refs we lost the game. The raptors were up 101-95 in the last few minutes when foul after foul is called on the Raptors (including one of those offensive fouls I mentioned before) putting the Hawks ahead of the Raps, 102-101. Then, in the last ten seconds of play, Calderone pitches head first off the court into the media, after what seemed like it would have been a slam dunk or at least a layup by, him misses the net. Confused, the spectators watch as the refs call an officials time out to review the play (the second review I’ve ever seen). After much deliberation, they determine that Calderone has fouled himself!!! Because of course, every major player in the NBA purposefully trips himself and then crashes into the media! Possession is awarded to the Hawks who score two points and call a time out with two seconds to go.

The Raps tried hard, and Bargniani almost sunk a three pointer in the last second that would have evened it up. After a very exciting game that the Raps should have won (we were up for the last two quarters after all) the fan’s went home feeling confused and cheated. All thanks to the moronic refs.

Some people would accuse me here of talking about things I don’t understand. My hats off to you, I do know very little about basketball, however, I did have my ear glued to the radio the entire hour-long drive back home and the “experts” on the matter (the Fan 590 AM) felt exactly the same way I did. They did make a few comments on the lack of defence (which is common at Raps games anyways) but generally found consensus when they talked about the utter bias of the refs.

It appears that professional refs just aren’t what they used to be.

Let me site one other, small example, which, although it did not lead to any game changing events, certainly had the crowd going at this game:

The night before last I found myself at an Oshawa Generals game (OHL) in which they were playing against the Ottawa 67s. A very exciting and fast game in which both teams played hard! It appears that the refs had had a few too many beers and jelly donuts before the game though, because they just couldn’t seem to move fast enough.

Over and over, players would find referee’s in their way as well as in front of shots, other players, pucks etc. Many times, I saw players crash to the ice, into the boards and into other players to avoid hitting the refs.

Then there was the ref who deflected a shot off his skate by accident. This didn’t hurt us too much since we gained possession from the 67s as a result however, I’m sure they weren’t too happy about that slow-footed official.

Finally there’s the ref who I’m sure is jogging or working on his agility after his little almost-incident with the puck. Being sort of behind the net is a bad place to be when you and the goalie are the only ones who pucks are being fired at. I understand if there are a lot of players around, a ref might want to make sure fights don’t break out or people don’t become too overbearing in front of the goalie etc. etc. But in no way is it a good idea to be hanging around behind the net when none of this is happening, unless you happen to be wearing the extensive padding that makes up a goalie’s equipment. Our ref, however, found himself in exactly this predicament when a puck came hurtling off the stick of a General’s player in search of netting. Unfortunately, it didn’t find its mark and almost caused the ref in question to receive a double knee replacement. Thank goodness he was an inch or so out of the way. Just imagine if the puck had been a little higher and he could have kissed away any hope of having children in the future. This is a slap shot I’m talking about people, not something to stand in the way of, unless you are a very very brave and dedicated defenseman.

Perhaps if the ref had been a little closer the entire body would have learned a lesson, which he might have, in turn, passed onto his fellow officials so that they would get their butts the hell out of the way next time. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Congrats to the Gennies who won that night 6-5, and to the Ottawa players who did such a good job of embarrassing themselves after they lost by trying to fight the other team after the game was over. Thank goodness they had their coach with them who come out onto the ice to leash them and drag their miscreant bodies away.

A very entertaining ending to say the least. We definitely left with a smug sense of superiority…

The Primary Post

I supposed this blog should begin with an account of my life thus far. However, I find the historical details of my life to be extremely boring and one-sided, and I would therefore like to instead, melt your brains with the other insignificant details of my life at the present time. Hoorah.

At this moment I am currently at my parent’s house with far too  much time on my hands. (Although, I must admit that this time could be filled with the psychology course I am taking in which several assignments will be due in the not too distant future.) My two dogs, Whiskey and Molson are also here, sleeping on 3/4 of the bed which they consider to  be theirs.

After several moments spent in my company most  people realise that a great deal of my time and energy is focused upon my dogs. Yes, I am one of those people. In my defense, I am NOT one of those fawning owners who refuses to take “Foofie” out when it rains etc. etc. However, I have been know on occasion to buy a raincoat or winter coat for my dogs. Function over fashion in each case, but perhaps a little frivolous considering my dogs couldn’t care less. (Except in weather colder than –6 when Whiskey begins to shiver.)

Which leads me to my exciting story of the day. Today, Whiskey and Stella (my mother’s Siberian Husky) caught (or rather cornered) a coyote. Now for those of you who haven’t been to Canada, I will inform you that the coyote’s here can be quite large. Whiskey is considered to be a medium sized dog.  A little taller than your average beagle, he weighs in at about 31 lbs. The coyote was larger than him, however, Whiskey had his wolf-ish looking companion as ‘ferocious’ backup and together they managed to corner the poor thing. My mother upon hearing the commotion (if you’ve ever heard a chorus of coyotes at night, you know what I mean. If you haven’t, check out this link, it’ll fill you in)

What a bunch of coyotes sounds like.

photo courtesy of neighborhoodnotes.com

rushed out into the forest and tracked the dogs to where they had cornered a single coyote against some bushes. The dogs were heedless of my mothers calls to them and each time she approached the group, the coyote would become hysterical and attempt to run away, wherein the dogs would corner it again. I should mention that the property my family owns is quite sizeable and covered in forest (except for the portion where our house and pond stand, which is lush green grass in the summer and skating rink and frozen wasteland in the winter).

My mother, after having tracked the dogs into the middle of the woods, realised she was quite lost and had to follow her footsteps back through the forest until she arrived at our house once again. She grabbed two leashed and ducked back into the fray, finding the dogs in relatively the same place she had left them. My Whiskey, being a short-haired dog rescued from Ohio is not well equipped for our frigid Canadian winters, and, after being outdoors in –10C weather was chilled to the bone. As other dog owners may realise, dogs eat snow in order to keep themselves hydrated. Whiskey has an affinity for snow quite unlike any other dog I’ve ever met. Whiskey absolutely adores snow. In fact, he can’t seem to get enough of it, and after two hours of running after coyotes, you can rest assured that he had eaten more than his fare share of the stuff. The snow-eating, in combination with the freezing weather had made Whiskey more than willing to follow my mother straight home where he made many many attempts to get warm, including climbing up on her lap, looking pathetic from the ground and when all else failed, moaning. He’s a very special and unique character.

Stella, who is much more equipped for weather such as this would have continued her chase, but without her partner was unsuccessful at cornering any other coyotes and before long she gave up and returned home as well.

This entire story was relayed to me by my mother upon arrival home from work. Needless to say, I immediately took the dogs outside, to see if anything resembling their earlier encounter would occur. (I however, did my observation from the hot tub in the front yard as I, like Whiskey, find Canadian winters near-unbearable.) As I had gone out with them, my dogs (Whiskey and Molson) decided not to venture too far, lest they be punished for running off into the forest (time out in the bathroom. very effective). I did however, hear what sounded like a bloody battle happening between a coyote and what I can only assume was our neighbour’s beagle. Sadly I must report that it sounded like someone lost. I can only hope it was the coyote, as there are many many more of them to be found in the surrounding countryside, but only one neighbour’s beagle.

And now you have it, a brain-melting account of what I find most interesting about my day. Hopefully this little insight into my life has not scared you off completely, and you will return again and again to hear more about my dogs, my family, my work and of course Star Trek another axis around which  my life pivots.

Pleasant evening and Happy New Year.

Sair