enfinblue's Bluey (credit to Fifi for the nickname!) Diaryland Diary

"I am seeking, I am striving, I am in it with all my heart." -Vinc3nt V@n Gogh

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And the beat goes on...Plus: puppy talk

I am simply fascinated by my new layout picture.

Of course, it is me.

I'm a narcissist, as we already know.

But what I'm fascinated by is that I can just imagine myself labouring away on that little flower bed, carrying water back and forth. It's the same sort of intensity currently applied to my data work. People often walk by my office and ask me if I'm OK - bent over to the side, brow furrowed, or leaning in as though I want to leap into my screen whilst scratching my head - and of course I better than OK. I am in relative bliss!

I do like puzzles and "projects." I do best when I have a project on the go.

And that I was doing the one above in a rad red outfit with a cool pink poncho overlaid gives me more delight than you can know. :)

Wowee!

So I must admit that meeting that woman yesterday had me thinking how much I want more of a social life here in Ottawa. It's my own damn fault - I haven't cultivated one. I've mostly wanted to be alone on the weekends in the last year and a half. I never call N., D., A. or K. I never go out with those old Stats agency friends who (used to, at least) meet for Friday beers. I never go to the movies with that other movie group that has taken me off their distribution list.

Last week a girl in my broader division asked me to meet her for dinner before the ballet but I didn't feel like it so I met up with C. instead.

I must try harder. I must go, I think, even when I do not feel like going. I will then have slightly more developed of these nascent friendships here when I actually yearn for them.

I never followed up last year with my cycling teacher, after she invited me to go to the movies with her.

I'm rotten. I'm quite rotten at making new friends. People have to pursue me and nail me down.

Hey, that sounds kind of like fun! (If the mysterious journalist is at all handsome and into that sort of thing!)

Just joking.

I wish that I had something funny to say. I haven't observed anything particularly funny lately. I work in a decidedly unfunny environment.

On my way home from work today I did see a guy riding a bicycle with a giant cardboard box cutout over it, attempting to look like a rather shaky car. I think it must have been a refrigerator box. I regret that I asked C. "Why the heck did he do that?" which tells me - now that I think of it - just how unfunny I've become.

Why do anything, anyhow?

There's a little crack of orange light between clouds that look like torn tissues. I can see this orange band through the corner of my right eye, which periodically glances rightward, to the window.

It's nice. It's calm and nice here. I wore my winter coat to work this morning and now it has warmed up sufficiently that when I was walking home through my neighbourhood there were girls in skanky (excuse my rudeness!) tops walking down the street to one of the patios on the "cool" main drag of my "quartier."

It's also very, very quiet in my house. My house has many deficiencies, but I relish the quirks, quiet, location, and size for the price. I used to cherish my beloved though sometimes irksome (like an older but loved relative, irksome) landlord, whom I still miss even though it has now been nearly five months since he died.

Chief among the deficiencies of my apartment is that as much as I want a Golden Retriever puppy I would worry nonstop that my apartment was suffocating it in the summer. I have mentioned this before, but it is important to note that my apartment is under the eaves of an old house. I loathe air conditioning, but really the apartment requires it. One should not need to disrobe down to panties in order to sit around in it in summer. Though that could make for good dinner party conversation! ;-)

I get so depressed though when the charming old round floor-to-ceiling window in my bedroom gets taken out and a frame put in with a rattling air conditioner in it! I weep for the visual appeal of this quirky bachelorette pad!

So in the summers I lie in bed in a wet t-shirt, hoping that I will be able to fall asleep - and not suffocate myself - before the t-shirt dries. No small feat!

I suppose that this year I will submit to having the air conditioner. Frown! Frown! Frown! Because I honestly want to get a puppy after I get home from Italia. (Of course it will take time to get a puppy, since I will have to find a reputable breeder...hmmm...)

The air conditioner that my landlord has in the basement for my apartment is rather small and old, however, so it does not cool the apartment very much. I can imagine a little Golden Retriever puppy panting in here. That would be horrible! I could not concentrate at work! I would be sitting in meetings thinking about its little tongue lolling out.

When I was a little girl I had the WORST experience with puppies. I think I mentioned that my dad was a veterinarian, so in fact I saw lots of sick and dying and even dead animals when I was a little girl. No shock there.

But when I was older, my mom had purchased or been given two labrador retriever puppies that she was planning to raise and split up. One was to go to my grandfather. We called them Thunder and Lightning, because one was dark and one was light.

Anyhow. So one day we came home from school (my mom from work) and could not find one of the puppies (little Lightning). The other one was mewling.

I went down into the basement where the puppies had their food, I believe, only to find that one of them had gone into the laundry room, managed to pry the cap off the drain in the floor, and STUCK ITS HEAD DOWN THERE.

In fact, it had gotten its HEAD COMPLETELY STUCK in the drain.

SO you can imagine the scene.

My mom and I were standing at the door of the laundry room (it was large), calling to the puppies, and suddenly we saw what appeared to be a DECAPITATED puppy on the floor. OMG. I might tell you that I have rarely been as frightened in my life, before or since. It was awful.

In the end, we did get the puppy free. With oil. We poured vegetable oil all over its fur and managed to yank it out. My mom and I laughed over the incident years later because she had REALLY freaked out and had been ready to take a sledge hammer to the floor. I had managed to convince her that since the puppy's head had gone in, it would probably...come out.

So...all was well. We gave that little puppy to my grandfather. It died of cancer a few years later and my mother gave the other dog (I was heartbroken!) to my grandparents.

Hmm...Not sure what precipitated that story. Oh yes - suffocating Golden Retrievers. Not something you want to do. I will always love my Golden Retriever Brodi3 the best of all dogs I have had - he had the sweetest temperament - but methinks that Goldens and Labs are not that smart. They want to be smart, but they are not. And they tend to be very impulsive as puppies. (Of course that goes against accepted wisdom, since they are working dogs and are trained to be guide dogs. I suppose that they are smart, but with an edge that must be trained out of them.) For me I think that having a puppy would be almost like a baby - I would not want to leave it and go to work.

OK. Should do something like a normal human being. I'm not even sure what that means.

7:12 p.m. - 2009-04-24

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