Hot Chocolate

I have sustained two dog walking injuries in the last two weeks. The first involved an excitable dog freaking my dog out causing me to get tripped over by the lead (leash dear North Americans). The most remarkable factor in this fall was that even though it was a bit dramatic and I wailed very loudly, it didn't end up hurting. The excitable dog-owner seemed to be kind of relieved I wasn't going to sue him or something. Helpfully he gave me his own assessment of the situation to encourage me not to get litigious 'You are ok. You are strong.' I am? Oh, thank you. Perhaps you should consider a dog lead of your own.

The second fall was just me slipping comically on the frosted street. One moment I was admiring the way the frost sparkles in the morning sun and the next I was slammed into the road. Ow. This one still hurts.

Right afterwards I overheard two women chatting outside the school and passed by just as one asked the other 'So do you think hot chocolate is out of the question?'.

I spent the rest of my limpy walk racking my brains to imagine circumstances in which hot chocolate might indeed be out of the question. It seems so unlikely. I couldn't come up with anything. Hot chocolate is always a great idea, especially with the addition of tuaca.

Mix Tape Memories

I miss mix tapes.

They were such a labour of love. Making tapes for people, or even for myself, I was always obsessive over pressing stop on the tape recorder at the end of a song at exactly the right moment. The transition had to be clean. It wasn't until I met NME (his pseudonym, after the magazine), who became one of my greatest friends, that I realised there was even more to consider; like the notes one song ends on and the chords the next song begins with. The tapes NME made for me during our sweet and hidden courtship (it was that long ago that seems the appropriate word) are some of the best compilations of songs ever to grace my ears.

On this nostaglic note, I have to go. The cat is retching.

Bodyguard

As well as chief cook and bottle-washer, another of my roles in this job is 'bodyguard'. This does not involve singing that song where each word has about ten syllables, and I almost never think about Kevin Costner anymore (although I had a long, involved fantasy about him after he appeared in Dances With Wolves, which came out when I was 9, and lasted until Jordan Catalano came into my life 4 years later).

I have to take the dog with me when I do the school run. And the ipod, otherwise I would be at risk of enjoying the silence of nature. Then I wait on a patch of grass while the dog rolls around slobbering. After a while (about four or five songs) the Little One comes up the steps from school accompanied by her rather worldly classmate. I put the ipod away, greet the girls and they tell me little bits about their day at school. Then we proceed to walk home. I walk behind with the dog, and the two girls walk in front of me chatting about their substitute teacher, the boy who has a foster mum, whether they like Amanda (usually), how much candy they won during class for answering questions correctly (yes, really!) and possibly a trillion other inanities of school life. I don't know any more because by the time we have reached the pedestrian crossing I am fully immersed in my role as bodyguard and start wondering why I left my mirrored shades at home.

The classmate would be walking home alone, if it wasn't for me being provided as courtesy escort. So every day I get the overwhelming feeling, as I follow these two giggling pre-teens, that I am nothing more than a bodyguard. One who walks at a discreet distance while trying to keep up, having to stop to pick up poop once in a while.

Having to take the dog really ruins my image.

Where am I? Why am here?

This might be the fifth blog I have started and while the other 4 are languishing somewhere in cyper-purgatory, I think I can do this.

I have enough free time, a computer, and many things to complain about. Plus, I occasionally drink at home (thanks Jack Kerouac) so my ideas and plots should be forthcoming.

In my earlier blog incarnation I wanted to Explore Issues Important To Me, which is probably why it got stuck as all the socio-political concepts and thoughts whirled around in my head. This time I just want to figure out why I have voluntarily moved to a place that is making me so frustrated and miserable I just ate 3 caramel Mars bars in one day for lack of anything better to do. (And due to a nearby WallMart.)

Why aren't I blaming my lack of self control? Might be the first question. Well usually my self control is very highly evolved - I take pleasure in my willpower like Frog in 'Frog and Toad'.

Perhaps it is because in my new role as domestic wench I have just been asked to 'do a daily vomit check' on each floor of this 3 story house (for the aging cat's splendiferous hair ball churning), and 'occasionally check for poop' in the back garden (for the witless yet lovable dog). Perhaps I wanted to drown out the fact that I am in fact stupid enough to accept a position which includes monitoring of all feline and canine excretions, or because it never occurred to me in the first place that such things would be necessary. Ever, anywhere. I grew up in an environment blessedly free of vomit and poop (I'm the youngest child so all the vomit and poop was mine and I never had to clean it up). Also animal bodily functions are much grosser than human ones, in if you ask me. They're stinkier, and harder to anticipate.

Yes, I wanted to drown it all out. Drown it out in caramel.