Stay out of my air space

Gibby does what all dogs do, she barks at squirrels, other dogs, people walking in our neighbourhood. My husband gets angry with her and tells her to stop but I always tell him that she’s only doing what a dog is supposed to do – warn us of others on our property.  I usually then remind him that Gibby was the one who alerted us to a neighbourhood fire in the middle of the night three years ago and if she didn’t bark, we wouldn’t know about someone who shouldn’t be in our yard or when the mail gets here or when those annoying door-to-door energy sales people are in the hood.

One afternoon something made Gibby look up.  Likely it was a bird she was chasing out of her space.  Stupid bird.  Gibby looked up and found a whole new space to patrol. Birds, planes and helicopters are now forbidden to enter Gibby’s space.  She runs from one end of the yard to the other barking ferociously, protecting us from these overhead threats.  Luckily for us, helicopters fly over Niagara many times each day and Gibby never fails to alert us to their presence.  Like we could miss them.  But she believes she’s doing her job and she always returns to us after raising the alarm for a ‘good girl’ and scratch behind the ear.  And we can rest assured that nothing will ever invade Gibby’s air space without her sounding the doggy alarm.

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O. M. G.

WTH??  I just spent an hour trying to drop an online course I signed up for at a local college.  I signed up for Writing for Publication I thinking that it might provide some important information on how to go about getting my writing published.  Logical conclusion? No, apparently not.  For my $400 course fee, I get to troll the internet to see what I can find out on my own about the world of publishing.  WTH?  And not only that, I get to post what I find out for other people in my class to use as well.  OMG! I get it that you learn by doing, but I was under the impression that I might also get taught something or that my instructor, who claims to be a published writer, might share some of her experiences and insights into navigating the publishing world.  If I have to find out how to get my children’s story published on my own, I can do so without giving away $400 to the local Coconut College.  Thanks for your help.  

Puttering

So it’s another beautiful spring day and we’re spending as much time outside as possible to make up for the last six months of greyness.  Gibby, our six-year-old retriever mix is barking at birds, squirrels, helicopters, the neighbour’s dog, who we call “Slappy”, and my husband is puttering.  Merriam-Webster defines putter as “one who putts” and is probably referring to golf, though it sounds more like “putz” and that’s more descriptive of what’s currently going on in my backyard.  He’s moving stones.  Not large, heavy, backhoe-needing stones, no, these are small hand-sized, painted stones that our daughter created when she was 10.  Why?  So he doesn’t have to trim the grass growing near the air-conditioner.  He’s laying out weed-barrier fabric and pouring gravel over top like it’s a major landscaping project.  At least he’s saving our daughter’s creativity for posterity’s sake.

Out comes the leaf blower. One of hubby’s favourite tools.  He loves the power and noise it creates..cue the Tim Allen grunting.  Gibby hates it.  So he fires up the blower and blows all the leaves out from behind the air conditioner while Gibby jumps around barking to protect me from the leaves…they’re leaves Gibby, chill…and annoy any of our retired neighbours who are watching morning TV games shows.  Then he proceeds to blow the leaves across and out of our yard through the chain-link fence…yes, chain link…with holes in it….leaf-sized holes…all over it. I could understand the leaf-blowing concept if hubby picked up said blown leaves and put them in an organic recycling bag. However, he just blew them through a fence…those leaves are totally coming back later today.  And hubby will be back outside tomorrow blowing the same leaves through the same fence…should I say something?  Naw, it’ll keep him busy for a while and one of these days I’ll pick them up and bag them when he’s not here.  Then he’ll feel superior because he conquered the leaves.  The things we women do for our men.