Cub's Bad Day

One of the reasons I find it hard to blog is due to our dialup internet. It's like being back in the dark ages. Blogger takes a long time to load on dialup so I sometimes get impatient and just leave before dazzling you all with my posts.
But this story will tug at your heartstrings because every time I think of it, I feel bad for my little Cub.
Cub is the white puffy puppy dropped on our doorstep in January. She got mange, infected us with it, and then got better. Now she is vibrant, healthy and devastatingly adorable - we keep telling ourselves we have to get rid of her before we become attached. (I think it's a little late for that.)
I was subbing for grade ones on Monday (humiliating story, that. I probably won't share it here.) On Tuesday I subbed for Grade Three, my favourite class. Bryan and I have made a habit of closing all the bedroom doors before we leave for school, to cut down on the mess.
It was about 4:30 on Thursday afternoon when we finally got home from school. We could hear something wrong inside the house. Cub was howling and howling, making Kaylee and Annie bark louder and louder. We opened the door and Anne and Kaylee ran out, but there was no sign of Cub. We could still hear her crying and crying and crying.
So we checked to see if she jumped the board that keeps them from getting into the basement. Nope, she wasn't there. We opened the door to the computer room, she wasn't there. Finally, Bryan opened the bathroom door and there she was.
She had been locked in the tiny bathroom in the dark for the entire day.
In the dark.
She tore the place apart. We quickly got her outside and she cowered by my legs, trembling and crying. She'd take a couple steps, then rush back to my legs.
Just the thought of my precious little puppy confined forever in a dark bathroom, no light, no water, no food, it broke my heart. Remember that dogs have no sense of time. The day probably truly felt like forever to her.
You see, we try to fix our puppies' abandonment issues. This is not the way. She has been super-clingy ever since, making it even harder for us to give her up.
But we're going to!
Any day now!
But don't be surprised if you guys all get to meet her at Eastertime...

Farewell to Paks

Our brown puppy Paks has been relocated. As fun as it is to have up to five dogs in the house at once things have been getting hectic. I'm writing articles for the North Battleford News Optimist, and I am now subbing on a pretty regular basis (last Friday, today and tomorrow). There was never any doubt in our minds that it would have to be Paks. Anne is fused to Bryan with super-super glue, and Kaylee stresses out when I stay in the bathroom longer than sixty seconds (she has some abandonment issues).
So Paks was given to Dad and Mom Andrews, to be a companion for their dog Ianthe. She is settling in nicely and the dynamic in our household has certainly changed! Anne is a lot more playful now because of it.
I'm really glad Paks is staying in the family - I do miss her.
Today and tomorrow I'm "Mrs. Jimmy, the grade three teacher". I have enjoyed myself tremendously and I think my kids are fabulous. In fact, I have been having so much fun I am very tempted to go back to University for an Education degree. Near impossible right now with our budget the way it is, but we'll see. At least I get to sub.

Important Family Survey

For many years we have used Joc's term to describe a gift being given for no special reason. It is a word that has become famous not only in our family, but to our friends and coworkers. I believe it is high time that we decide, once and for all, how to spell it.
So every single member of the family should vote, with the majority winning: which spelling is correct to you? (It may help you to remember that Janna asked for a surprise, and then Joc asked for two prises. She was young and beet-faced back then...)
A. Twoprise
B. Too-prize
C. Two-prize
If you believe there is yet another spelling, let me know and it will be entered into the survey. Winners get nothing except the satisfaction of finally settling this family mystery!

Subbing!

I apologize for not updating the blog sooner; our internet connection at home has been weird again. You'd think we live in Nepal with all the troubles we have with our internet!

Good news: Teal'c has been adopted. One week ago today, Teal'c was off to his new family here on the reserve. We are a bit worried though: we have already seen him at the school two times (but he finds his way to his new home). If they aren't treating him well, I may have to do something about it.

Cub is feeling much better and her hair is growing in beautifully. We'll miss her, but we are going to find a family soon for her. I was thinking we may even put posters up in town; she's adorable!

On Monday of this week I put in an application to become a substitute teacher here at Thunderchild. I did it more as a larf than anything else (larf, a Pinky and the Brain word). But on Tuesday I got a call that I was needed on Wednesday.

So on Wednesday I nervously entered the grade three classroom of Mrs. Jimmy and began to teach plurals, planets, phonics, handwriting, math and art. I have new depth of respect and appreciation for teachers: I did only one day and it floored me. I don't know how they can go on day after day! But I did enjoy it and I would like the opportunity to sub again.

Busy weekend for me: World Day of Prayer service I just went to, Telemiracle function tonight in Mervin, CanSkate championships tomorrow morning along with a Snowmobile Rally and the first game of conference playoffs for Thunderchild. More pics are coming!

The Insanity Continues

It's all Jen's fault!

Yes, the rumour is true. We are now on to our fourth rescued puppy here on the reserve. The first, if friends recall, was Boyo. We found him at the school with a limp, freezing in the cold. We sheltered him and fed him for a few days, then took him to Lloydminster. In checking up with him on the Lloyd SPCA web page we discovered that his mistreatment was severe. His back leg was broken and he was shot. They are fundraising for the operation to fix the leg and remove the shotgun pellets. Please support them if you can: www.lloydminsterspca.org (they renamed him Oscar).

The second was Kaylee, my birthday present who was unceremoniously dumped inside my house by Manny, a friend of ours. When we got her she was the size of Paks' head. Now she is a monster. We have a few nicknames for her, the Mouth (because she eats everything in sight, edible or not...), and the Monkey (because she climbs furniture, tables, anything!). Hopefully she is almost full grown as she is almost the size of Anne. She was named for a super character on the series Firefly.

The third is Cub. When we got her she had white fluffy hair and looked just like a miniature polar bear. As friends recall in an earlier post, Cub got mange and Bryan and I are still itching. My family doesn't believe we're actually going to give Cub away - she's been with us for six weeks now - but we're just waiting until her skin heals. She is getting much better but still looks a little pathetic.


And our newest addition is Teal'c. He's a guy which means we are definitely not keeping him. Our girls are having enough problems putting up with him for the short term. He has a deformed paw which means he has trouble walking and finding food. We rescued him from the school parking lot and we're waiting until Friday to see if anyone claims him. If not, he's adorable and he's adoptable. He'll be going to the Lloydminster SPCA. (Yes, his name is in honour of a terrific character from Stargate, and the name suits him!)

Our friends think it's hilarious that we have two "white" dogs and three "indian" dogs. The sad thing is that Annie and Paks are still racist. We're trying to teach them, but they have a problem with Native guys who come to visit. Horrifying, but two days ago they actually bit one. So I'm really going to try and train that out of them and, in the meantime, shut them up in a room when anyone rings the doorbell.

Here are pictures of our white dogs:

This is Annie. She's five now, turning six in September. We got her in Weyburn at their SPCA to be a companion for our late and missed dog Shelby. She has slowly become a rock in our family and is one of the kindest and most loving dogs I have ever known. She is definitely daddy's little girl, latching onto Bryan from the very beginning. She actually likes having puppies around the house because it means Paks is leaving her alone!

And finally Paks. We honestly don't know what to do with her sometimes. She can be adorable and she plays really well with the other dogs. Most of the time. She is also a bully to every canine in the house, is disobedient, occasionally poops in the basement and barks in the middle of the night. But we still love her.

My dad phoned a few days ago. He said, "All you need is one good dog." Yep, and that's all we have. One good one. The rest are insane.

Support the SPCA! Keep in touch with our rescues at www.lloydminsterspca.org.

Sabbath Day Ponderings

I love it when something comes along on Sabbath Day and it suddenly makes more sense than ever before. There were two things that struck me yesterday, both about my dismal health.

Warriors do not pray for lighter burdens, they build stronger backs. How true this is! When I am feeling burdened by my constant sickness it helps to remember that I always have enough strength to deal with it. Margin gets tight sometimes, but that’s okay.

Do not run faster than you have strength. I admit that in the past I have used this saying to justify not running, not walking, not even crawling. Just plain ole laziness. It never means that instead of running you lie upon the couch and criticize everyone else. Do not run faster than you have strength means to push that boundary always, to always give it your every effort, for the grace of Jesus Christ will always cover the rest. What a comforting thought.

Madness and mites and mange, oh my!

We love our Cub. She’s a little white puppy with puffy fur and her ears fold over so she looks like a polar bear cub (hence the name). Her appearance at our doorstep is totally MY fault (not Rob’s, not Sandra’s…) because I could not stand to see another frozen dead puppy by the roadside. So one day a month ago Rob noticed the puppy, told Sandra to take it to my house and I took her in.
Bryan and I decided to foster the cub until we could find a home for her. Every time we got too enamoured of her we would remind ourselves what one of her parents looks like (enormously tall white dog). She was so adorable we knew we could find a home for her very quickly.
Until the mange.
I thought mange was eradicated, like smallpox. I remember reading about it in the Laura Ingalls Wilder books, and hearing about how sheep used to get dipped for mange. Well, our adorable white puppy has it. And now, so do we.
As I understand it (so parts of this may not be entirely correct) all dogs have common mites who do good works of sloughing off dead skin and never cause any problems. These mites are only visible at the microscopic level. However, both Cub and Kaylee have had problems with mites. For Kaylee it was only an allergic reaction. For poor Cub, it was much worse. She was incredibly malnourished before coming to us and thus her immune system was shot. So the mites multiplied and before we knew it her hair was falling off and her entire body was getting scabbed over.
A trip to the vet revealed she had the lesser form of mange and she got a shot for it. We’ll have to take her back in two weeks for another shot. Until then she has to let her lesions and scabs heal (which is difficult because she is always itching).
Bryan and I have to put up with itching, too. We aren’t nearly as affected as the dog, and Bryan is even less infected than I, but we both scratch and complain.
Don’t worry, family. We should be all healed up before our fabulous Easter vacation in St. Wahlburg.

The day it all went wrong!

Bryan and I had been selected to escort two Thunderchild youth to the FSIN (Federation of Saskatchewan Indian Nations) Youth Legislative Assembly to be held in Regina from Sunday, February 4 until Tuesday, February 6. It is a five hour drive to Regina, so it was decided that we would leave on Saturday because the registration would take place promptly Sunday morning and none of us relished the idea of a 4 am drive.
To that end, Bryan pulled in mucho overtime at the school on Friday and didn’t come home until 10. At which point he didn’t have the van. Like he was supposed to. (The school van is covered for insurance and even though it chugged gas it was to be our vehicle of choice.) Someone else had taken the van. It was too late to fix anything and we waited for morning.
Saturday. The day it all went wrong. Like some weird voodoo curse (or hoodoo curse or curse of the ugly gypsy woman, it’s all the same…) everything we touched seemed to go bad. The principal, Rob, who is also our next-door neighbor, gave us the keys to a van. Later on that day the van was delivered. But we didn’t have the right keys. So Rob spent an hour on the phone and discovered that the keys to the van went to Glaslyn with the boys basketball team in their van. Uh oh.
We finally got a spare set of keys for the van. It was nearing one and that was when we were supposed to leave. Our two students dutifully arrived and we ran around, trying to finish packing our goodies (like our new Nintendo GameCube), leaving instructions for the dogs (I maundered on the subject for an incredible six pages in my notebook) who were going to be watched by our new neighbor, Sandra Payne. Finally the van is packed, the kids have their permission slips and I slip into the drivers seat.
Van won’t start. So I give it a tap or two of gas and it still won’t budge. Then I floor it and it just chugs and chugs and won’t turn over. Our Rob is pulled out of his house to see what he can do. (Remember it’s a flipping freaking freezing minus twenty something outside with nothing but a few caribou to block the wind between us and the arctic.) I use the time to get to know Alanna and Jordan (our students) better. Bryan leaves with Rob to find another van. Oh, but isn’t the other van in Glaslyn? Look, we have their keys!
Almost two o’clock in the afternoon and Bryan and Rob get back from their scouting. Rob half-heartedly tries the engine and it starts without a hitch. He pulls on his best ‘doctor’ expression and pronounces that it must have been water in the gas line or something. We all get in and leave for Regina, stopping at the local Coop to get gasline antifreeze.
Our first stop is North Battleford where we all get sick at McDonalds and Bryan takes out a sizeable wad of cash to cover the expenses for the trip. I do most of the buying, so the wad goes into my purse.
Off to Saskatoon, then and my stomach was still roiling so we stop at Tim Hortons. Bryan and I have to switch off again and again; we were both so tired. We want to take the kids out for a nice dinner but we hit Regina at quarter to nine at night; we still had to get our hotel rooms. We ended up at McDonalds for dinner, and then sped to the Ramada to get the kids tucked in. They got to stay at the conference hotel, but we didn’t. The Band has direct billing with Travelodge, so we had our rooms there.
Exhausted at our crazy day we were grateful to think that we could get the kids luggage and set them up and leave ‘em. Too bad their rooms WEREN’T BOOKED! And the hotel was full. Despairing, we called the Travelodge. Thank goodness our room was still there. The concierge found a small room for Alanna at the Ramada and poor, poor Jordan had to come back to our hotel and stay in the room with us.
Ten o’clock and we’d finally struggled into our hotel room in the Travelodge, me having bumped the back fender a couple times because the van is enormous! Going through all our stuff Bryan asked for some money for some reason – I don’t remember why.
My purse was missing.
My purse was missing.
My whole body seemed to freeze. We had taken out a wad of cash for the expenses and my purse was missing. We frantically searched the room and the van. No sign of it. I called the McDonalds we stopped at. They scoured the lobby and the restaurant, but it wasn’t there. I called the Ramada. They hadn’t seen it.
Oh, to have faith! We said a little prayer and I phoned McDonald’s again and asked them to check the parking lot. And there it was. It had fallen off my shoulder and was still sitting there and not a penny was missing.
It still meant that I had to drive all the way across the city at eleven to go get it. I swear, if anything else had happened that day, I would have screamed insanity.
That was the day it all went wrong.
Oh, and by the way, the rest of the conference was peachy and nothing else bad happened at all. Thank goodness.

Welcome to the Madness

If you ever thought that we were weird before...

Now we live in the middle of nowhere (Saskatchewan)
We are the only white people for miles (actually, there's two across the street, but that's it!)
We are surrounded by savage reserve dogs (well, sometimes savage...)
We live in the house that drunks built (mostly built, it's not finished and probably won't be)
We have no internet (um, very occasional dialup)
We have no water (well, occasionally we have no water, for real!)
We have no fun (zero fun, sir!)

We do have hundreds of movie titles (and dozens of TV shows on DVD!)
We have a Nintendo GameCube (thanks to Mom and Dad Hill)
We have five computer systems (but we use only three)
We have four dogs (three really, we're just fostering one)
(Really)
(We mean it)
(We're gonna kick her out any day now)
(Even though she's cute)
(Well, not now, more on that later!)

If all these reasons aren't enough to make us crazy, then consider this:
We actually LIKE IT HERE!