phew!

Did my exam for my course, got 100% like I usually do (I could teach the freaking thing), and off I came home early. Worked a bit, did dishes, slept, and this evening I spent alot of time with my lovely little bunny girl (I haven't decided on a name yet, I might keep the one she had at the SPCA, can't think yet, I need to know her personality a bit better). She nips when she wants your attention. Cute.

Then I cleaned her cage, she's funny, she is litter trained however is pooping in her cage to let me know it's her area. Going to take her a bit to get used to being here. Bunnies are very territorial. The cat could care less, as could the bunny which is rather funny, they sort of ignore each other.

Cleaned the hammie cages....and now everyone is happy. Except maybe the new hammie Brandy, she's just a baby and was rather traumatized by the changing of the bedding....hasn't gone in her little shelter yet as a result. And is terrified of any move I might make. Funny little thing.

The dogs are pleased that I've been home more than usual during a week day (2 of them actually) and teh turtles, well, they are sunning themselves, I don't much figure into their day except when I clean the tank out (which they hate, because I leave them temporarily with very little water) and when I feed them every second day. The big one is currently falling every time she tries to get on the sunning rock. I shouldn't be amused, but it keeps her busy.

Hammie wheels, hammie wheels hammie wheels.

Jam night last night. Jam flirt very concerned and attentive when he saw my lovely and stylish leg brace. I ran (well, not really) out to the car to get something and he gave me hell and said to ask next time.....what he doesn't know is that I'm a very "I'll do it myself person".

We chatted for a while, mostly about music, he had asked for a song list of mine, so he could pick a few tunes I do to learn, but like I warned him, my taste is eclectic and a bit weird, but he said that he respects my musical tastes and actually thinks my choices/tastes are quite amazing.

He also knew all about my knee already. He reads my Facebook page. How etrange.

No addiction to the phoning or texting, he still looks a titch sad, wonder what's up on that front.

I'm just being friendly and flirty. What else can ya do?

Anyhoodles, I need to do a bit of rehearsing....I'm starting to worry, which he told me I shouldn't do. Next week is his night at the place I'm playing (one of them) and then he's at the other place the day after. Will I look like a groupie if I turn up at both? The Friday is great for photography....the next, not so much, but it's his originals band, so I'll check it out.

And on that note. Off I go. Enjoy all.

I need help

When I started volunteering at the SPCA, in the exotic animal area, I knew that I may end up falling in love a few times. But you know, with the count at the time at 3 dogs, 1 cat, 2 turtles and 2 hamsters, I figured, I don't have room for anyone else really....

Yeah. Sure.

The first week I volunteered, there was a 2 month old hamster. I didn't even look at her except a cursory exam, she came home with me. She's adorable, but afraid, does the hammie flip when I go near her. But she took a treat from my hand the other day and didn't run away when I spoke to her (she was even afraid of my voice) so I'm feeling a bit more positive.

I've gotten used to the two older ones, who are completely adorable....as is this new critter. I could have a million hamsters, they're easy, clean their cage once and week and you're all good.

Now one of the animals we have alot of at the SPCA are rabbits, the easter gift that kids get bored of (I hate people, have I mentioned that before?). But I've never had the urge to have a bunny ever, some of them aren't well mannered (ie - they bite) poop everywhere when they're out of the cage (they are trainable to use a litter box, it just takes about a month and people aren't patient enough)

Until I met Plumette. She is the most adorable thing ever. She snuggles closer when you hold her, she follows you around like a dog, and she uses a litter box (or at a minimum only goes in her cage). She is the sweetest little thing.

And now she's mine.

She sleeps in bed with me. Seriously. Adorable, affectionate, but I have to keep her upstairs which upsets me a bit, she's afraid of dogs, even my teeensy ones, they freak her out. I figure I'll work her into it....but I can't let her out around my dogs anyway, their prey drive is too high. But she's a great companion for my cat....in fact, the cat is rather pleased to have herself a rabbit.

I'm nuts. I know. But someone has to snuggle up to me in bed at night, better that I give a home to some unwanted pet then some man I'll have to argue with.

Some say I'll never get a boyfriend because of this, and trully? I don't give a crap. Love me, love my pets...end of story, it's a no brainer.

And on that note, I need to give my leetle guys some dried fruit, and maybe a carrot....and I'll see if I can get a shot of Brandy (the little newbie hammie) who comes out to grab the carrot, gets in her little house in her cage and eats the carrot from inside the house....too funny!

taking a bow

So.

I know I've told you all that I'm an incredible klutz, and if you were around about this time last year, then you know I broke my tailbone in February slipping on ice on my way out of my house last.

Well, not to be outdone, I've gone and done it again.

Saturday, while there was a gentleman here to buy my old winter tires & rims, I fell. Slipped on dog pee (it's been very cold and one of them decided if they didn't tell me they needed to go then it wouldn't involved being outdoors in the cold sooooo), fell hard on my left knee. Luxated my patella (which in english means that my kneecap went travelling where it should NOT have been) and no idea what else I did. Can't bend the leg without great pain, can't move it certain directions, so it's immobilized in what's called a Zimmer brace, and I see the orthopedic surgeon next week when the swelling has hopefully gone down considerably.

Only me. Apparently walking in a straight line is not my thing. Go figure.

Called my boss this morning and his response was "what did you do to yourself now?"

Sigh.

Funny thing happened at the hospital though (which was a bloody short wait for that hospital, 4 hours and I was done, 1 nurse, 2 docs and 1 session of x-rays - lucky to be the only ortho case that night). The "normal" (non-ortho) doctor that saw me, I've not had him before, but I've seen him before, he's cute, blonde, blue eyed, glasses and short (oh well can't have 'em all). I remember thinking this before.

Anyway, my sister and one of her nursing school mates had been discussing their single siblings and had wanted to fix me up with her doctor brother. Yeah, my doctor from Saturday. Don't think he'd want to go out with me at this point though, because I think he was secretly laughing at my klutz factor on Saturday, while trying to be very serious....

Small world.

Anyway. It had been a decent weekend until then, but my friends and I would like the bad luck thing to cease, and seeing as it's chinese new year, let the good luck begin k?

Yeah, sounds good to me!

lalalalalaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Actually I didn't sing last night. Not once. They tried. Oh Jam Flirt tried. But no.....not last night, lost my voice AGAIN (I'm starting to panic a bit for my 2 gigs because of it), and just wasn't in the mood, I was enjoying watching everyone.

We had a good time though. Felt like a right old lady, young 20 year old dude, just a bit chubby, short (don't know why I end up with guys shorter then me), just the cutest thing....if I was 20 years younger....

Where are those guys that are now my age, but were like that back then?

Sigh.

Anyway, was up til 4 am....yeah, I'm nuts, I've lost it. Jam ended about 2, and one of the guys invited us to go to La Belle Province with them, which at that very moment sounded like a fantastic idea (just fyi, there are 3 guys, all friends, one is Jam Flirt, his friend Ya Man, and the friend Goof, yeah that just about describes 'em all). Goof asked my friend S and I.

So there we were, the 5 of us, had a good time eating our dogs and poutine (although I will admit I mostly ate only the top layer of fries, but dug out all the cheese with gravy).

I also discovered a few things. Jam Flirt, still flirting with me. Jam Flirt, keeps an eye on my FB page apparently, asking me questions about my statuses (like the cold #2 and was I feeling better?). He keeps an eye on it..hrmmm...this is a man with 300-500 friends....keeping track of me means actually having to go looking at my page. Very interesting.

But I'm not going to worry about it. What will be will be.

But dammitall he's hot. In his not-so-hot way. Sigh.

I'm so tired today though. But I managed to get us an interview with a big client. Woot!

Ok gotta go make dinner, I'm freaking starving.

this 'n that...'n this?

So...good news, my friend was allowed into her apartment last night for 5 mins to gather some stuff (clothing and things she doesn't really want to lose). The engineers haven't decided what they'll be tearing down yet, so the rest of the furniture etc hasn't been removed, but the insurance company is at the ready to do what they need to do with it, assess etc. I'm fairly certain that they'll be rebuilding her part of the building at a minimum, it was a year and a half old, when this happened.

Miss the hamster is still pissed off, although this doesn't stop her from accepting treats from me, however, I'm not her mom, so she's displeased and probably pretty much confused. But FREAKING ADORABLE!

It's jam night tonight, I guess I'll go, my friend S is supposed to turn up. That should be good. Or not. I have no idea. The whole FB thing creeps me out in respect that I can see what Jam Flirts little girlfriend is up to on mutual friend's walls etc, and that makes me a bit uncomfy. Truly, I want to know nothing about this woman, first off because I don't much like dim witted people (yes that was mean, but omg she can't even spell, and her grammatical errors get written, that drives me insane, I might say "sammich" for example, but I'll usually type it "sandwich" unless I'm trying to be cute for some reason), and truly, I don't want to be too friendly because I believe her days are numbered.

And it irritates me to no end that she exists anyway.

Workwise, doing all sorts of official crap for various governmental agencies and my company, and want to tear my hair out. You dudes down in the US have so messed with everything up here, the government agencies want us to be ridiculously secure to the point of stupidity, just like it's supposed to be down there. Let's face facts, considering it's not THAT secure at your airports etc....it's all a whole bunch of hooey for which I am wasting my time...seriously, save me from the bullshit.

Ok back to work, and then lunch during which I go over tunes for my gigs. I'm learning, I hope. New song for me, suggestion of S, "Kiss Me" by Sixpence None the Richer, easy tune, I'm thrilled.....

fire!

One thing that scares the shit out of me is the idea of my house burning down.

Unfortunately that came true for a friend of mine today.

Got up, feeling a bit like hell (migraine, and another cold starting NOOOOOOOOOOO) and essentially considering going to work for a bit and coming home. In the morning after I take the 4 leggeds out, I usually look at the local news online, and did so, seeing that there was a huge apartment fire in the town next to me.

I'm looking at the address and thinking "geez that's familiar". And then I realize it's my friend M's apartment building.

So I call her cell, she doesn't answer. Then immediately calls me back, yes it was her building and yes, for now, she's homeless.

She got out with the clothes on her back, her computer, her purse, but because they have quite a few people pulling the alarm as a joke (or whatever reason someone would do that) she figured taking her hamster out into the cold wasn't a good idea. So, when she realized that it wasn't a false alarm she couldn't get back in the building to get her. I didn't know this at the time, so I of course asked how her hamster was...and she started to cry.

I told her I would take care of it for her.

So I went to work, got them to fix my VPN (so I can remotely get on the network), called my boss and told him my friend lost her home and I was going to try to get her pet so I was taking a vacation day, and started calling the police and fire departments to get info and get news there was a pet in the building (she's not supposed to have any, even small rodents - so I wanted to make sure they knew there was one inside). Police gave me a number that I called and I got the North fire department (for the northern part of the island of Montreal - again with the geography lesson) - it bounced there from the South, because it was a 5 alarm fire, they were all at the apartment building.

He was super helpful, called the commander of the fire, who said that they would go up and look, but someone needed to be on site. I had given my cell to the north fire department dude, but I had a feeling when he hadn't called me back that either he took it down wrong or I gave it to him wrong, called him back and sure enough....

The police didn't want to let me near the area, until I explained that I was going to collect an animal from the fire, had been in contact with the fire department, let me park illegally within the perimeter and off I went on foot (quite a hike I had today).

The North shore fireman had said to look for the site commander, or PC as they call him, so I got to speak to a whole whack of tired firemen, who directed me to the two guys in the white helmets. I explained, could see M's apartment, pointed to it (her part of the building only had slight fire damage, but the smoke and the water and broken out windows because the roof had been on fire and they had to, poor hammie would have died), so he sent some guys in to look, got a transmission back and another 2 firefighters took me up to her apartment.

We get there and I hear "we have her but she's biting us, what do we do?"

I get ushered to the door of the apartment, to see 3 big firemen kneeling down with grins on their faces trying to get this hamster out of her cage, to which I tell them "just give me the whole thing and that'll make it easier?".

They were thrilled that they saved something (a cat died in the bad part of the building, and unbeknownst to them, the man in the apartment that had exploded around 1:30 in the morning causing the fire) and asked what her name was (the hamster, not my friend) and off I went down the ice covered stairs back outside and to get the poor little confused thing to my place and change all her bedding/food/water etc before it killed her.

I called my friend and she started bawling. Been up all night and the stress of the situation....

My friend S and I went up to see her, S gave her a couple hundred dollars to go get some clothes etc that she needs. She was happy to hear her car was probably alright (there's a third part to the building that was unaffected and she parks near that), and I think personally that 80-90% of her stuff in her apartment will be ok after the insurance does their thing cleaning it. Water & smoke damage for the most part, but she's a caterer on the side from her real job, and has alot of expensive cooking implements, all that stuff from what I saw will be just fine, probably most of her furniture also.

She just won't have a home for quite a while. Time to find a new apartment.

So happy she's ok. And so happy I was able to be the pitt bull I tend to be and get her beloved pet for her (it's her first pet ever and she was having guilt because she left her behind). She went and got her car, unfortunately the windshield is broken, but the police on site wrote up a report saying it was due to the fire, so she won't have any problems with insurance.

I have to say, between the police and the fire department, we have some great guys in Montreal, I don't care what anyone says, they were ALL helpful, and all very kind, even when I told them that it was a hamster (I expected they wouldn't make any effort).

I was standing with wet feet for a while (feet of water everywhere and me in my little pull on running shoe boots), I smell like a fire still (can't use the tub until all the hamster cage is finished soaking), and I think inhaling it while in the building made me a bit ill....but she's happy and I hear the hamster in the cage, she is doing JUST fine, and that makes me happy.

And yeah. That's a photo of the fire itself. Scary shit. This time I stole it from CBC :)

busy busy busy

I know it's no excuse but I have no time for anything right now.

Too much to do, too little time.

I'll be checking in later and reading the stuff from you all asap....probably during work time (hehehehe)

Muah all.