HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS! (Canine Related)

OH MY DOG!

You know how I've been nagging Andrew to get a second dog (to the point that I gave him a PowerPoint presentation) ?

IT MIGHT HAVE ACTUALLY WORKED!

After dogsitting the Devil, Andrew has mentioned getting a second dog twice. Twice, people.

Everyother day, I email Andrew a dozen ads for puppies and dogs for adoption. Okay, so more like 3-4 ads.  I tend to exagerate, ok?

But last night, we were sitting in the living room when Andrew called for my attention. He was showing me his computer screen, which was displaying this:

It's okay to squeal. I squealed too.

Me: Andrew, don't be such a dick.

Andrew: What? 

Me: Don't be all "Oh, look at the puppies THAT YOU'LL NEVER HAVE!"

Andrew: ... I never said we wouldn't have any...

Me: WE CAN HAVE A PUPPY????

Then I'm pretty sure I danced.

And today, Andrew asked me to go out with him, but I told him I would have to stay at home with Lucy since it was dark outside. Because Lucy is genuinely afraid of being in the dark alone. Its kinda cute but mostly pathetic.
Then Andrew said "Maybe she wouldn't be so scared of the dark if she had a friend to stay home with her."

I thought for a second that he might mean hiring a dog prostitute to keep Lucy company. But then I thought that dog hookers must be pretty rare and therefore expensive, so Andrew probably meant something else.

Me: ARE WE GETTING ANOTHER DOG? 

Andrew: Maybe. Soon. Maybe.

Andrew says he didn't say soon, but I'm pretty sure he did. Because I have a better memory. And I also want to believe that he said soon.

PUPPY PUPPY PUPPY!

There's Gotta be an Idiots Anonymous Group that I can Join.

Hi. My name is Christine and I am an idiot.

(Hi Christine.)

It's been 12 hours since I've done something stupid.


Don't be fooled by her cuteness. She will eat your dangly bits for lunch.

(*Awkward silence, followed by a slow clap*)

It all started when I agreed to watch my parent's dog for five days. Her name is Tazz, short for Tasmanian Devil; like the character she was named after, she will eat through anything and leave a trail of destruction everywhere she goes. Things I have found in her mouth this week: leaves, a roll of electrical tape, a used Q-tip, kleenex, receipts, cat toys and one of Andrew's winter glove. She also constantly had to be tied up when put outside, because otherwise she'd just fuck off and run away to do whatever she felt like doing. There's a lot of personality packed into that 10 pound ball of fur. 

It wasn't until the last day of dogsitting that I had my great idea: since Tazz doesn't have very far to run when tied to a post, I thought it would be great if I would tie the rope between the two dogs (since Lucy doesn't run away). And I thought it would be genius if I got them to run by having them chase me.

Do you see what's coming?

After sprinting, I stopped and watched them run by me. I also watched the nylon rope stretched between them get closer and closer to my legs. And then I saw a beautiful blue sky.

Because I was laying flat on my back on my front lawn.

Because I set myself up to get clotheslined by a 60 and 10 lbs dog.

Although it didn't actually hurt at the time, after 24 hours I ended up with this giant bitch of a bruise:

Apologies for the shitty photo quality, but my camera is dead
and I'm too lazy to find more batteries, so I took the photo
with my cell. Also, it's fucking hard to take a picture of the
 back of your own leg.



 

I am now forced to wear leggings under all of my dresses or people will think that Andrew goes after me with a baseball bat when I burn his supper.

 

HA! Like I would ever cook.



An Exciting Night Filled with Chaos and Fire

Last night was quite special. I don't know if something got dumped in the water or if it was a full moon or something but weird shit went on in Dreamland.

Firstly, I dreamt my cat Tika had superpowers (awesome) and that Andrew proposed (actually not a good thing; the dreamring he got me was absolutely hideous), but that was nothing compared to what happened later. I was the tamest one in our room that night.


Squares are furniture. Yes, I sleep in a Spiderman
 position, while Andrew looks like a drowning man.

Let's start with Lucy.



To help with Lucy's story, I've included a horrible (as usual) map of our room. Everyone was peacefully sleeping away, when all of a sudden, Andrew and I woke up to what sounded like a mosh pit in a gift shop. Complete pandemonium. I immediately assumed Super Tika lost control of her flying abilities or her super powerful laser eyes and was destroying the house; my rational thinking may or may not have been functioning at that point.





It turns out Lucy was running full tilt and crashing into everything. Why? I think she might have been sleeprunning. Here's what her trajectory looked like:


Lucy's sleeping warpath.

That shit isn't normal.

She didn't stop crashing into things until Andrew yelled out her name. At that point, she stopped dead in her tracks and stared at Andrew like "how the hell did I get here?" I then made Andrew take her for a little walk to make sure she didn't have a brain tumor, a seizure or was possessed by the devil. Cause its a well known fact that exercise treats cancer and demonic possession.

Eventually Andrew convinced me that she wouldn't die in the next 48 hours, so we all went back to sleep. The quiet only lasted for about an hour or two.

Andrew started tossing and turning, sounding really stressed/frustrated/upset. He was dreaming again. So I asked him what was wrong, knowing I was probably going to get an interesting answer.

"*mutter mutter* the ankle thingy, before she went in the fire..."

 

 

I was not prepared for that answer. What ankle thingy? Was someone wearing an ankle monitor? Did they have cankles? I don't know what else could be related to ankles. And I won't even take the time to question what the hell is up with some chick going into a fire.

 

After I asked him to elaborate, he seemed to wake up a little, because he looked at me like I was stupid and said "Nevermind." As usual, he has absolutely no recollection of the conversation and unfortunately doesn't remember his dream.

 

Feel free to share your theories on the nature of his dream.

-------------------------------

P.S. I'm still looking for more question to ask Andrew in my Drunk Hick Interview. I've had awesome ones so far, so keep them coming!

Canadian Feature Friday: Kanata - How the Country was named

Here's a quick history of the origin of Canada's name. It's also not 100% accurate. It's probably like 85% accurate. Although the part talking about the Backstreet Boys is totally true.

"I do me, you do you."

The country was named Canada after French explorer Jacques Cartier talked to Iroquois natives who described their land as "kanata". Turns out kanata only means village or settlement, and not "yeah, we're just one native tribe out of hundreds - Micmacs, Inuits, Cree, Hurons, etc. -  spread across the second largest land mass in the world. We all have different languages and we don't have an alphabet, but we still somehow all gathered together to form a Native Empire Committee, which then decided that this giant chunk of land should be called Kanata. We played Rock-Paper-Scissors to decide the winning name." But good ol' JC took it as the latter and started using the word Canada to describe the whole region.

 

Soooo, basically the entire country started on a fuckup. Maybe Jacques was a nice guy and it was all just a huge misunderstanding, or maybe he was just a know-it-all douchebag. I'm thinking he was a douche and was all "Of course I understand these peoples' language! Sure, they may be pointing at a village down the river, but I'm sure it's a metaphor for this giant magical land full of strange animals. I'm cultured."

So once he started calling the area surrounding Quebec City "Canada", everyone started calling all the different parts of Northern North America the same. Cause I guess even if he was a jerk, Jacques Cartier was still a trendsetter. Kinda like Kanye West pre-Kim Kardashian.

Jacques Cartier is apparently such a D-bag that he speaks from his crotch.

Completely True Fact: Jacques Cartier is french for Jack Carter, which means he was Nick Carter from the Backstreet Boys' ancestor.

Ok, I made that last fact up.

Now you know.

When Andrew won't String more than Four words in a Row (Also Known as Every Single Day of his Life)

It's been a few months now that I've wanted to interview Andrew for a blog post. With all of things he says and does, I was sure that I'd get some really interesting answers to some of the questions. Unfortunately, I've quickly come to realize that his interview skills are less than up to par.

Interview attempt number one:

Me: Andrew, as a kid, what did you want to be when you grew up? 

Andrew: I dunno.

Me: Ok, well, how do you feel about the fact that you may be distantly related to Sarah Palin? (I am not making this shit up.)

Andrew: *shrugs*

Suffice to say, the interview was about as successful as my attempt to eat as much sugar as possible after Lent.

I've tried to ask him poignant/ridiculous questions a few times since then, but I've only received shrugs, monosyllabic replies, and the ever popular "I dunno". So I began brainstorming ways I could make him more talkative.

 "A bird may love a fish, signore, but where will they live?"
"Then I shall have to make you wings." Sucker gets me
every time.

1. Using hand puppets. Must save hand puppet communication for serious relationship issues, like geting Andrew to play Rockband.
2. Pretend to be a scary ghost that will haunt him eternally unless he answers a few simple questions. I'd probably accidentally scare myself instead.
3. Torture him into speaking. Will have to research jail sentence for torture.
4. Threaten that if he doesn't answer the questions, we'll watch Ever After over and over again every night for a week. He'll just go hunting every night instead.
5. Get him drunk. Yep, that'll work.

Yes, my current plan is to feed him liquor until he starts rambling. He can't argue with the plan because he lacks the ability to turn down a beer and it'll be the only time he can drink without hearing me say "Andrew, two beers a night makes you an alcoholic. YOU NEED TREATMENT OR YOU'LL GET LIVER FAILURE!" every five seconds.

So, with a plan in mind, I would like your help in finding questions to ask him during the interview. Examples of possible topics include his hickness, beer, his constant delay in proposing to me (even though I'm clearly awesome), hunting and why he doesn't consider taxidermy to be creepy as fuck.

Please refrain from asking questions pertaining to current events (since he lives under a rock), unless asking about country music, Ice Road Truckers, or Gwyneth Paltrow .


The only woman that could possibly come between us.
That is, if she suddenly left her husband and developped
a love for young, Canadian hicks. Possibility of
occurence: 0.5%. Andrew says the chance is still there.

Ready, set, ASK AWAY! :)

Hick = Connections to al-Qaeda?

After purchasing more camo hunting gear (as if he doesn't already have enough), Andrew proceeded to drive home looking like this:

During our half hour on the road, I am shocked that no one called in for a SWAT Team to take down the "suspected terrorist driving a Ford truck".

Giving Drunken Directions Does Not Constitute “Learning How To Stick Shift”

It seems that whenever Andrew drinks, I get pulled into some small adventure.

In this case, Andrew was drinking at his work party during our first summer together. He had invited me, probably thinking that I would make friends with everyone. That was the day he learned that I sucked at making friends.

Sidenote: I went to the same school from daycare at two years old until my High School graduation; meeting new people was a mostly pointless skill.

Technically its "bear spray", because you're not allowed to
carry any weapon in Canadaland.

Because of my lack of social proficiency, my night mostly consisted of :

• Avoiding one of the staff members that I went to school with. (He lived in my neighbourhood and creeped me out enough that I bought some pepper spray).
• Woefully watching the employees' children have the time of their lives in a rented bouncy castle that would only take children under 12.
• Eating multiple plates of Andrew's mother's famous macaroni salad. You haven't tasted macaroni salad until you've tasted her macaroni salad. (I kind of feel like that sounds like a sexual innuendo.)

Sidenote: Andrew got the job in part because his boss wanted to sleep with his mom. Andrew's mom, that is. Not his own mother. Ew.

While I didn't particularly have a blast, Andrew was really enjoying the night, which made me happy. Sometimes, you just gotta let hicks do their hick shit. That way, he can get it out of his system, so that we don't end up with crap like this at home:

Ok, I'm not going to lie, this acually looks like fun. As long as no one pees in the tub. 

Finally, the night was at an end. We were staying the night at Andrew's friend's house nearby, so I asked Andrew how we were getting there. He looked at me (most likely with unfocused eyes) like I was asking him to ride a unicorn. Utterly confused and unprepared.

Andrew:..Well, Corey already went home.  

Me: .......

Andrew: ...So...I guess I'm driving?

Me: No way in hell.

After a long discussion about all of our options, we decided that I would drive Andrew's truck down, as I had only had one drink at 7pm, and it was now 2am.

Andrew's truck was a manual. I had never driven a manual before in my life, and I certainly didn't want to start learning on a late saturday night with a drunken crowd to witness the disaster. Unfortunately, that's exactly what happened.

For those who were taught how to drive by a horrible teacher, think of me in the same situation, with the added fact that the teacher was also completely drunk. It was like I was taught to drive by Ozzy Osbourne. I stalled at least four times in the driveway before I was even able to start moving, and instead of pushing the left turn signal, I ended up flashing the highbeams in the faces of all the partygoers. If I didn't have their attention before, I certainly did now.



Picture this X10, but minus the fur, and add camo clothing, work
 boots and a beer in everyone's hands.

With my lovely audience entranced like deer in the headlights (litterally in headlights), I drove away in first gear with the motor doing some noises that previous experience tells me were extremely unnatural.

I then proceeded down multiple roads in the middle of the woods. I had no idea if Andrew even knew where we were going, because he kept yelling "TURN LEFT!", even though there was nothing but a ditch and trees on the lefthand side.

You'd think you can't take a wrong turn while driving 10 km/h (6 mph), but it turns out you can. When I found out that Andrew's left was really right all along (right as in the direction, not as in being correct), I had to do a few slow-motion 180+ spins. I thank God the streets were deserted that night, cause I'm pretty sure I was driving like I was under the influence. The cops would have thought I had taken a new drug made of weed and sloth blood. (I tried to find a funny name for the drug, but it turns out I would be horrible at marketing illegal drugs. Scratch that off my list of potential careers.)

After fifteen minutes of driving 40km (25mi) below the speed limit, we finally made it to what I hoped was his friend's house. I wasn't sure it was actually his place since I had never been there before - the clarity of Andrew's thinking was suspect. We walked in with my fingers crossed that we wouldn't get charged with home invasion.

Thankfully, although Andrew's ability to comprehend relative direction is hindered when completely trashed, his sense of overall direction is fine. This makes absolutely no sense to me, but Andrew has never made much sense. He can hunt, gut and clean any animal, but he gets grossed out when I show half-chewed food in my mouth.

I'm happy to report that Andrew actually got the house right, so no one was arrested. Well, we weren't arrested; who knows who was arrested at the party.

But no matter how hungover Andrew was the next morning, I made him drive the truck home.

Canadian Feature Friday: Weekly Culture Shock

I've been trying to think of a fun themed weekly post that I could start, like Wordless Wednesday or Flashback Friday. But hopefully more original. I feel like the structure will help me keep posting on the blog.

Like my boobs, I need structure in my life. No, wait. Boobs need support, not structure. My brain must have just wanted to subconsciously mention my boobs.

Boobs.

Anyways, I decided to do weekly posts about different parts of my identity. It'll either be about Canada in general (like today) or more specific, like the East Coat, New-Brunswick, being French Canadian,  etc. I'll be posting facts, photos, links, videos, whatever the hell else I find that's interesting and that others may not know. Cause it's my blog and I can do whatever I want.

To start this traditon, here's some facts about the land of the Maple Leaf:

• Canada was invaded by the US two times, in 1775 and 1812. But we got even with the help of the British, who were pissed that the US was bullying us. They sent troops and burned down the White House in 1812. Take that, Bully Ancient Americans.
• If you're beyond badass and actually downright fucked-up, you should go to Dawson City in Yukon (which is not even near where I live. There's no way you can associate this weird-ass shit with me.) There, you can join the “Sourtoe Cocktail Club”.  Requirement: you must finish a drink that has a dehydrated and severed human toe in it. I am not making this shit up. “You can drink it fast, you can drink it slow — but the lips have gotta touch the toe.”
• If you want to hear about the toes donated to this "cause", click here. I'll let you go vomit now.



Mike Myers at a NY Fashion Show walking the runway in a kilt,
dog-eared hat and a Canadian hockey jersey. This is why I love him.

• Jim Carrey is Canadian, but Canadians don't care, because he pretends he isn't. Mike Myers (aka Austin Powers) on the other hand is proud of his nationality, and we therefore love him.
• We're also the home of Pamela Anderson and Justin Beiber, but let's ignore what I just said out of shame.

You're still vomiting thinking about the toe drink, aren't you?

Bonus Fact: The Moosehead Brewery in Saint John, New Brunswick, produces 1,642 bottles of beer per minute. This makes Andrew a very happy man. 

That's it for this week. Hopefully I'll actually keep this up. Unless no one likes these posts, then I'll stop doing it. After crying for hours.



Will you be my Brideschicken?

You can probably guess why Andrew and his
parents like him so much.

Today, I expressed to Andrew my desire to go visit his parent's chickens, especially the two little red hens named Red and Green. If you don't know who Red Green is, it's ok. He's a character from an old Canadian comedy show. And I'd rather not know who he is either. If you do know who he is, I'm sorry (And if you know who he is and like him, you're a hick.) Regardless, Red and Green are much cuter than Red Green.

Me: I love those chickens so much, they will be bridesmaids at my wedding!

Andrew: Ooooookay then.

Me: Chances are, a Chicken of Honour has happened before somewhere in the world.

Andrew could not argue.

And lo and behold, look what I found:



Those chickens are like the Freddy Mercury of chickens! MAMA MIA, LET ME GO!

Ok, so it turns out that these are just random chickens held during a bridal photoshoot (which is a new one for me. I had no idea that there was such a thing as a bridal photoshoot. I thought weddings were about the couple, and not just the bride, but I wouldn't know. I HAVEN'T BEEN PROPOSED TO YET.) I really hope that this shoot was done after the actual wedding, because I imagine it would be extremely difficult to clean chicken shit out of a wedding gown. Not that a chicken has ever shit on my blue boho/prairie summer dress before...

Okay, I may have scared Red shitless by hugging her and talking to her excitedly (aka, very loud and high-pitched). 

Note to others: don't treat chickens like puppies. You will be shit on. 

10 Hints that you Might be a Hypochondriac

As some readers know, I'm totally a hypochondriac.

Sidenote: I always forget the word, and constantly say kleptomaniac instead. Even though I've never stolen anything in my life. Well, except for a finger puppet from the bloodwork unit at the hospital. They're for the kids, but I deserved one too, Goddamnit.

Anyways, I thought I could use my experience of being paranoid about the state of my own health and that of those around me. So without further ado, here's a list that may help you to identify whether or not you are a hypochondriac.

• A cold is never just a cold. Its probably West Nile Virus. Or Ricin poisoning. The odds of it is like .001%. The chance is still there.
• You know the signs and symptoms of every major illnesses and a few rare ones too. Early warning signs of MS: tingling, numbness, blurred vision, lack of balance.  ... Shit, I have all those symptoms...
• When someone around you is sleeping, you have to periodically make sure they're still breathing. Just in case they suddenly died for no reason whatsoever.  This check might range from watching to see if their chest rises, to throwing things at them to make sure they wake up.
• You constantly ask others to check your vitals, like if your forehead is warm, or your tongue is red. And the bitches never get it right.
• If more than one symptom is showing up at the same time, it definitely means you have some sort of major illness. You have a fever and a bruise? It's Leukemia. You should call your doctor and get that shit checked out.
• You watch medical shows like Mystery Diagnosis that present case studies of rare disorders and diseases. You then check to make sure that you don't have the illness too. Or maybe you just skip the checkup and automatically think to yourself "Oh God, I have that."

• You always seem to have some sort of physical or mental symptom. In fact, you can hardly remember a time when you didn't feel some sort of symptom. Wait, it might have been a Tuesday in February...
• You have a cabinet filled with every single legal drug you can find. You never know when you're going to need Aleve, Benzocain, Pepto Bismol, or Ketoprofen. You might even have shit you don't need, like Claritin and Sudafed when you don't have any allergies whatsoever. But you might suddenly develop allergies. So better safe than sorry.
• WebMD Symptom Checker is bookmarked on your computer. Hell, it might even be your homepage.

• If you just read all of these hints and thought to yourself "Oh my God, I think I have that!", you definitely have hypochondria. Welcome to the club. Membership includes monogramed surgical masks.

I now have to go get reassured by Andrew that I'm not dying of a terminal illness.