You know, sometimes I really miss the days before I had a cell phone. The truth is, I never really wanted one. Okay, there was that one time my car broke down in the middle of an intersection during rush hour and I had my two kids in the backseat, but I didn't have one then, and I made do.
My husband had a phone through work and he loved it. He loved it so much in fact that he would often call me while I was trying to make dinner to tell me he had just left work. Then he would call to tell me that he was on his way...it was a long drive (15 minutes) and he got bored. Then he would call me to tell me that he was at the end of our street....
He often told me that I should get a cell phone, but I resisted. Then one day his company upgraded all of their employee cell phones and gave them the option of passing their old phone on to a spouse at their corporate rate. "I don't need a cell phone" I told him, but he wore me down and before much time had passed, I had a phone of my very own. It was actually kind of cool and I happily programmed the calender and various other features.
A few weeks had gone by and I had just come in from grocery shopping. "I tried to call you but your phone wasn't on" he said accusingly as I set the grocery bags down on the counter.
"I know" I replied. Somehow this answer did not satisfy him.
"Why wasn't your phone on?" he tried again.
"Because I didn't need to call anyone" I answered, opening the fridge to put the milk in.
He looked exasperated.
"You are missing the point of having a cell", he said. "I needed to call you and I couldn't because your phone was off".
"Why did you need to call me?"
"To tell you we were out of milk."
I looked from him to the bag of milk in my hand but before I could open my mouth, he had walked away muttering under his breath.
It became a constant source of annoyance for him that my phone was seldom on. I tried to explain to him that no one ever called me so it just sat in my purse until the battery wore down if I left it on, and then it wouldn't work if I really did need to call someone. Every time we had one of these conversations, he ended up walking away and muttering.
I did eventually get better at leaving it on. One day though it stopped working so we went to the store to get a new one. I tried in vain again to say I didn't really need one, but I ended up with it anyway. The store was having a promotion. Buy one phone, get another for free. My daughter happened to be with us at the time and at this news her eyes lit up like it was Christmas and her birthday all at the same time. I thought about it for a few minutes and finally came to the conclusion that she was getting older and starting to take the bus with her friends to the mall and such and it probably would be a good idea for her to have a means of calling home if she needed. Not to mention that I could track her down too. So we got two new phones and went on a "family plan". Then, in the interests of fairness, we got our son a phone for Christmas and he too went on our family plan.
In the very beginning, before the novelty wore off, there were some hefty charges for over usage, and downloading of ring tones, but once they realized that I would really make them pay for any extras, they reigned it in.
And while I liked the idea of being able to phone them and see where they were, it also seemed to work the other way. My son has gone away to school and will often call my cell when I am at work to talk to me. The problem of course is that if I am not actually in my office at the time, I don't hear my phone and miss the call. The other day I came back from making a cup of tea to see the light flashing to tell me that I had two missed calls from him. I called him back.
"Where were you, I called you twice!" (In the space of about 90 seconds).
"I was in the kitchen making tea. Is something wrong?"
"No, I just wanted to say hi."
Because I love my son and want him to call me up just to say hi, I bit my tongue.
This afternoon my daughter texted me to ask if I could pick her up from school since she was staying late for a Yearbook meeting and would miss the bus. I texted back: 'OK. See you 4:45'.
I left work at 4:30 and it takes me about 15 minutes to get to the school.
I had just pulled out into the street when my phone started ringing. Today is the first day of the new no cell phone while driving law so I decided I might as well get the precedent started. After all, she knew I was coming and what time I would be there.
About a minute later, my phone rang again. Then again. Then a text message.
I smiled to myself as I drove and continued to NOT answer my phone, imaging the messages:
'Where r u?'
'R u on ur way?'
'R u coming?'
In my head I thought about the lesson I was teaching her about patience!
At exactly 4:45 I pulled in front of the school and looked for my daughter. I didn't see her. I put the car in park and picked up my phone and read her last text message.
'Ur not picking up. Took later bus home. C u there'
I guess the joke's on me.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Tuesday, October 6, 2009
Rascal the Amazing Wonder Dog, Part One.
Anyone who may have read about our history with pets (See: Where Goldfish Go To Die), might be somewhat amazed that we ever ventured so far as to get a dog, but venture we did.
It was not a new idea. At various times in the past either myself or one of the kids had suggested getting a dog, but to no avail. When my husband and I were first married, I said I thought we needed a little dog and his reaction was basically, “Over my dead body!”
My son tried his best too. My husband listened to his reasons for wanting a dog and then replied, “I’m not getting you a dog. You don’t play with the pet you already have!”
Joseph looked puzzled.
“I have a goldfish! You can’t play with a goldfish!”
“Of course you can”, his father answered. “You can tap on the glass can’t you?”
When Kate was small she could get her Dad to do just about anything she wanted.
One day she gave him the full effect of her big brown eyes and said “Daddy, can we get a puppy?”
“You don’t need a dog. Go play with your brother’s fish!”
And so it went.
In October 2006, my Mom passed away. She had been sick, but it still happened rather suddenly and it was a difficult time. She was 63. One thing that it got me thinking about was that life was indeed too short! A few weeks had gone by and Kate and I were in the pet store buying crickets for Joseph’s lizard. Actually, I was buying crickets – she was mooning over the puppies behind the glass! I looked at her, and I looked at the puppies jumping at her hand and thought, ‘we need a dog!’ On the drive home I told her I thought it was time we got a dog. She looked at me and said “Dad will never go for it”, but I thought I saw a flicker of hope in her eyes. “Just leave it with me” I said.
Over the next couple of weeks I came up with several ideas, but rejected them all. I knew it would not be right just to spring a dog on my husband. I needed a plan. We were heading into the Christmas holidays, planning dinners and parties, and then it hit me. It was so simple, it was brilliant!
The next weekend I invited Mike and Jo over for drinks. As we were sitting around the kitchen table talking, I brought the conversation around to the holidays.
“So”, I said, maybe a little too casually, “are you still planning on taking the kids and spending the holidays with your family in Winnipeg?”
They were.
“Who is going to look after Jake?” I asked, and silently held my breath.
Jake is their adorable little spaniel. He is not only very sweet, but also very well behaved.
You see, it had occurred to me that for all these years my husband had been saying he hated dogs, but in actual fact, he had never been around one. So my plan was to show him that a dog could be fun, and good company and not necessarily destroy your home. (This last thought would come back to haunt me!)
Joanne and Mike exchanged glances and Jo said, “Well, we don’t know yet. I guess we’ll have to put him in a kennel.”
“Don’t be silly. You can’t do that. We’re happy to look after him while you’re away!”
I may have said all of that a little too quickly.
Jo and Mike looked from me to Mel and back to me. If Mel could have kicked me under the table he would have, but I’d thought of that and made sure I was out of range.
“Are you sure?” Jo asked hesitantly. She was giving me the friend stare that I interpreted to mean ‘you know Mel would kick you under the table right now if he could reach you’.
“Of course we’re sure", I said. "Don’t give it another thought”. And then I changed the subject.
Later on when Mike and Jo had left, Mel cornered me as I was heading up to bed.
“What was that all about?” he asked.
I thought about playing dumb but decided against it.
“What, you mean offering to look after Jake?”
“Yes I mean offering to look after Jake! Why did you do that?” he said, non-too pleased.
“Because they are our friends and they need our help. What kind of friends would we be if we didn’t help them out when they needed it?”
He just stared at me for a minute. He wasn’t quite buying it, but he let it go.
The next morning I told the kids that we would be looking after Jake for a week over the holidays. Kate looked up and said, “Is this your plan? Is this how we are getting a dog?”
I didn't look either of them in the eye as I replied that all this meant was that we were helping out our friends by taking care of their dog while they were away. They weren’t buying it either. I suggested to them that it might be in their best interest to make sure that they were diligent about feeding, walking and cleaning up after Jake while he was here! They nodded happily.
The Christmas holidays eventually came and so did Jake. As I’d hoped, he was no trouble at all and I actually caught Mel rubbing his belly a couple of times when he thought no one was looking. Everything went really well with Jake, right up until we tried to kill him. Jake’s family was due to fly in on December 30th and would pick him up sometime that evening.
Not unusually for that time of year, there was weather, and their flight was delayed until the following day – New Year’s Eve. No big deal. They were coming to our place anyway that night, so they could just get him then. That day we were busy getting ready for the party: I was in the kitchen and the kids were helping out by doing chores when suddenly Joe yelled to me that Jake was sick! I went downstairs to find the poor little guy heaving over a large puddle on the floor. As I approached him, I could smell it – chocolate! Fear gripped my heart. They had trusted us with their little dog and we had killed him! I started having lizard flashbacks.
“How did he get chocolate?” I yelled. The kids both shook their heads that they didn’t know. They were as worried as I was. Poor Jake just kept yakking around my feet.
Have I mentioned that my husband never had a dog? Ever? Well, he had apparently put out a plate of chocolate truffles on the coffee table, it having never occurred to him that Jake might eat the whole plate, or that they might kill him if he did! He felt just terrible!
Just as I wondering what to do, Michael called to give me their latest arrival time.
“How are things?” he asked. “Bet Mel will be glad to get rid of Jake.” Um. “Funny you should mention that…” I explained the situation to him. He didn’t seem nearly as concerned as I was. He said Jake had eaten lots of things he shouldn’t and seemed to have a cast iron stomach. I felt a little better. Neither Joe nor Kate left his side the rest of the day, and although he got sick a couple more times, he seemed okay, even looking for his dinner right on schedule.
And so the holidays came and went. It was hard without my Mom but I had kept myself so busy that I didn't have a lot of time to dwell on how much I was missing her. Once everything settled back into a routine though, I realized I was having trouble climbing out of the hole I was wallowing in. I started searching for a dog online. Somehow I had convinced myself that getting a dog would make things better. I checked out the local SPCA site but they only seemed to have large dogs and I knew Mel would never go for that. I went further a field. A Google search brought me to a site that rescued dogs who would otherwise have been put down and found them homes.
I thought about it and realized that in a way, I was really looking for a dog to rescue me, so rescuing him in return seemed only fair! It didn’t take long before I found him.
His “bio” said he was a beagle mix, about 8 months old, and already house-trained. He was adorable and looked small enough that Mel couldn’t really complain.
I printed it out. That afternoon Mel was watching football on TV and when it went to commercial, I sat beside him and said I found a dog for adoption online and I really wanted him. I showed him the picture. He just stared at it for a while and I couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. Then he sighed. Heavily. He handed the picture back to me. I knew what that sigh meant. It meant the last thing he wanted was a dog but he knew that I was missing my Mom and feeling sad and he hoped that at least this would cheer me up.
“Understand this,” he said, “It is your dog. I will not feed it, I will not walk it and I will not clean up after it. And I better not ever find him on the hardwood floors or leather furniture!”
I ran upstairs and hit the send button on the adoption application that I had already filled out.
They called the next day and we arranged for a meeting to see if we “clicked”. If everything went well, I could bring him home with me. We had two days to get organized. Kate asked her friend David to go to the pet store with us to make sure we got everything we needed, since he has a dog. He was very helpful, and we came home with a bed, a crate, two dishes, a blanket, some toys, and a bag of food.
Wednesday after work I drove to the shelter in Hamilton. I met with the couple that runs it and we chatted for a while (while they sized me up). They gave me the little history they had on him and then said that they had taken him to the vet and he was up to date with his shots, but that he had not been fixed. Then they went to get him. Rascal walked into the room and looked at me. My first thought was that he was at least twice the size I’d thought, and that Mel was going to kill me. The second though was that he was absolutely adorable. The woman said that he was quite shy so not to be upset if he didn't take to me immediately - they thought he might have been abused at some point. I called him and he walked over to me. He put his head on my knee and looked up at me. I had found my dog.
It was not a new idea. At various times in the past either myself or one of the kids had suggested getting a dog, but to no avail. When my husband and I were first married, I said I thought we needed a little dog and his reaction was basically, “Over my dead body!”
My son tried his best too. My husband listened to his reasons for wanting a dog and then replied, “I’m not getting you a dog. You don’t play with the pet you already have!”
Joseph looked puzzled.
“I have a goldfish! You can’t play with a goldfish!”
“Of course you can”, his father answered. “You can tap on the glass can’t you?”
When Kate was small she could get her Dad to do just about anything she wanted.
One day she gave him the full effect of her big brown eyes and said “Daddy, can we get a puppy?”
“You don’t need a dog. Go play with your brother’s fish!”
And so it went.
In October 2006, my Mom passed away. She had been sick, but it still happened rather suddenly and it was a difficult time. She was 63. One thing that it got me thinking about was that life was indeed too short! A few weeks had gone by and Kate and I were in the pet store buying crickets for Joseph’s lizard. Actually, I was buying crickets – she was mooning over the puppies behind the glass! I looked at her, and I looked at the puppies jumping at her hand and thought, ‘we need a dog!’ On the drive home I told her I thought it was time we got a dog. She looked at me and said “Dad will never go for it”, but I thought I saw a flicker of hope in her eyes. “Just leave it with me” I said.
Over the next couple of weeks I came up with several ideas, but rejected them all. I knew it would not be right just to spring a dog on my husband. I needed a plan. We were heading into the Christmas holidays, planning dinners and parties, and then it hit me. It was so simple, it was brilliant!
The next weekend I invited Mike and Jo over for drinks. As we were sitting around the kitchen table talking, I brought the conversation around to the holidays.
“So”, I said, maybe a little too casually, “are you still planning on taking the kids and spending the holidays with your family in Winnipeg?”
They were.
“Who is going to look after Jake?” I asked, and silently held my breath.
Jake is their adorable little spaniel. He is not only very sweet, but also very well behaved.
You see, it had occurred to me that for all these years my husband had been saying he hated dogs, but in actual fact, he had never been around one. So my plan was to show him that a dog could be fun, and good company and not necessarily destroy your home. (This last thought would come back to haunt me!)
Joanne and Mike exchanged glances and Jo said, “Well, we don’t know yet. I guess we’ll have to put him in a kennel.”
“Don’t be silly. You can’t do that. We’re happy to look after him while you’re away!”
I may have said all of that a little too quickly.
Jo and Mike looked from me to Mel and back to me. If Mel could have kicked me under the table he would have, but I’d thought of that and made sure I was out of range.
“Are you sure?” Jo asked hesitantly. She was giving me the friend stare that I interpreted to mean ‘you know Mel would kick you under the table right now if he could reach you’.
“Of course we’re sure", I said. "Don’t give it another thought”. And then I changed the subject.
Later on when Mike and Jo had left, Mel cornered me as I was heading up to bed.
“What was that all about?” he asked.
I thought about playing dumb but decided against it.
“What, you mean offering to look after Jake?”
“Yes I mean offering to look after Jake! Why did you do that?” he said, non-too pleased.
“Because they are our friends and they need our help. What kind of friends would we be if we didn’t help them out when they needed it?”
He just stared at me for a minute. He wasn’t quite buying it, but he let it go.
The next morning I told the kids that we would be looking after Jake for a week over the holidays. Kate looked up and said, “Is this your plan? Is this how we are getting a dog?”
I didn't look either of them in the eye as I replied that all this meant was that we were helping out our friends by taking care of their dog while they were away. They weren’t buying it either. I suggested to them that it might be in their best interest to make sure that they were diligent about feeding, walking and cleaning up after Jake while he was here! They nodded happily.
The Christmas holidays eventually came and so did Jake. As I’d hoped, he was no trouble at all and I actually caught Mel rubbing his belly a couple of times when he thought no one was looking. Everything went really well with Jake, right up until we tried to kill him. Jake’s family was due to fly in on December 30th and would pick him up sometime that evening.
Not unusually for that time of year, there was weather, and their flight was delayed until the following day – New Year’s Eve. No big deal. They were coming to our place anyway that night, so they could just get him then. That day we were busy getting ready for the party: I was in the kitchen and the kids were helping out by doing chores when suddenly Joe yelled to me that Jake was sick! I went downstairs to find the poor little guy heaving over a large puddle on the floor. As I approached him, I could smell it – chocolate! Fear gripped my heart. They had trusted us with their little dog and we had killed him! I started having lizard flashbacks.
“How did he get chocolate?” I yelled. The kids both shook their heads that they didn’t know. They were as worried as I was. Poor Jake just kept yakking around my feet.
Have I mentioned that my husband never had a dog? Ever? Well, he had apparently put out a plate of chocolate truffles on the coffee table, it having never occurred to him that Jake might eat the whole plate, or that they might kill him if he did! He felt just terrible!
Just as I wondering what to do, Michael called to give me their latest arrival time.
“How are things?” he asked. “Bet Mel will be glad to get rid of Jake.” Um. “Funny you should mention that…” I explained the situation to him. He didn’t seem nearly as concerned as I was. He said Jake had eaten lots of things he shouldn’t and seemed to have a cast iron stomach. I felt a little better. Neither Joe nor Kate left his side the rest of the day, and although he got sick a couple more times, he seemed okay, even looking for his dinner right on schedule.
And so the holidays came and went. It was hard without my Mom but I had kept myself so busy that I didn't have a lot of time to dwell on how much I was missing her. Once everything settled back into a routine though, I realized I was having trouble climbing out of the hole I was wallowing in. I started searching for a dog online. Somehow I had convinced myself that getting a dog would make things better. I checked out the local SPCA site but they only seemed to have large dogs and I knew Mel would never go for that. I went further a field. A Google search brought me to a site that rescued dogs who would otherwise have been put down and found them homes.
I thought about it and realized that in a way, I was really looking for a dog to rescue me, so rescuing him in return seemed only fair! It didn’t take long before I found him.
His “bio” said he was a beagle mix, about 8 months old, and already house-trained. He was adorable and looked small enough that Mel couldn’t really complain.
I printed it out. That afternoon Mel was watching football on TV and when it went to commercial, I sat beside him and said I found a dog for adoption online and I really wanted him. I showed him the picture. He just stared at it for a while and I couldn’t figure out what he was thinking. Then he sighed. Heavily. He handed the picture back to me. I knew what that sigh meant. It meant the last thing he wanted was a dog but he knew that I was missing my Mom and feeling sad and he hoped that at least this would cheer me up.
“Understand this,” he said, “It is your dog. I will not feed it, I will not walk it and I will not clean up after it. And I better not ever find him on the hardwood floors or leather furniture!”
I ran upstairs and hit the send button on the adoption application that I had already filled out.
They called the next day and we arranged for a meeting to see if we “clicked”. If everything went well, I could bring him home with me. We had two days to get organized. Kate asked her friend David to go to the pet store with us to make sure we got everything we needed, since he has a dog. He was very helpful, and we came home with a bed, a crate, two dishes, a blanket, some toys, and a bag of food.
Wednesday after work I drove to the shelter in Hamilton. I met with the couple that runs it and we chatted for a while (while they sized me up). They gave me the little history they had on him and then said that they had taken him to the vet and he was up to date with his shots, but that he had not been fixed. Then they went to get him. Rascal walked into the room and looked at me. My first thought was that he was at least twice the size I’d thought, and that Mel was going to kill me. The second though was that he was absolutely adorable. The woman said that he was quite shy so not to be upset if he didn't take to me immediately - they thought he might have been abused at some point. I called him and he walked over to me. He put his head on my knee and looked up at me. I had found my dog.
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