Category Archives: dogs

Nov29

Ivy and Stewie (Emma) have been Brushed!

Posted on by
Standard

Okay, are we ready with the drumroll, please?

My first ‘professional’ drawing!

This lovely, cuddly pair are Ivy (canine) and Stewie (feline). Stewie is short for Emma. No, I don’t know why, maybe Bean will tell us. They live with Kim, a good friend of Nadbugs’ Bean. (Don’t say a word on Bugs’ site yet, though – this picture is a surprise! We can’t spoil it.) I hear that pretty Ivy is under the weather; please send good thoughts her way.

20111129-234410.jpg
I can’t wait to hear what Kim says when she gets her early Christmas present! I feel I know two of her furry kids quite well now, and I wish them all the best.

Nov29

Me n the dog have dodgy bellies

Posted on by
Standard

Ugh, something is wrong with the dog. Her stomach is gurgling and making loud squirty noises, but she doesn’t want to eat her food. She has free-choice kibble all the time, and her only t-r-e… oh for fucks’ sake, I don’t have to spell it out in type! Treat! Nyah-nah, they can’t hear me! Her only treat is a carrot a day. We’ve learned not to give her something special like the carrot when she gets like this though. Listening to the racket coming out of her belly is better than cleaning up copious amounts of puke. She’s got colitis, apparently, and I guess the few snacks she got over the last couple of days were too much for her. No Thanksgiving for dogs next year, sorry pup.

So! I am working on getting my ‘show’ together. Need to do a lot of printing. Of course I’m trying to do it on the cheap; iDJ has a nice color printer at work so he’s going to print what he can for me there. I’m 80% done with my little flyer, and have a list of what needs print-checked and what just needs printed high-quality.

I’ve also finished my first commissioned work! I’ve only just now sent it to Nadbugs. Sure hope she likes it! I’ve got another commission, for a Persian kitten that made me laugh like a loon when I saw the picture. It’s a tiny, furry, Jabba the Hutt! Looking forward to attempting him, going to be a challenge for sure. When I’m done, I’ll post both the pic and the drawing so you can laugh, too.

Oh man, I’m nervous! Hahah. It’s a good picture. She’ll like it. And if she doesn’t, I can always edit this post and say how terrible it was…

Nov27

From pies to skies

Posted on by
Standard

Right! Turkey is stuffed and in the oven, the pies are done, the whipped cream has been beaten within a micron of its life. I’m ensconced in front of a fire with both cats vying for lap space and my rum n Pepsi close to hand. iDJ is playing his Thanksgiving special in the kitchen and the tunes are good. I could get to like this Thanksgiving thing. Even if it’s a few days late.

Huh. I just realised that I’ve managed to teach my iPad the difference between it’s and its, for the most part (it added an apostrophe to the second one just then). I hope I don’t start to trust its opinion. It got it right that time, too! Now, if it will only stop capitalising white I’ll be happy… and it just didn’t. Yay!

My pie filling looks lumpy. I’m sure it will taste fine, but they aren’t all shiny and smooth like I expected. The pumpkins weren’t pie pumpkins, and I didn’t purée them before freezing, and they were too wet. Oh well, something is better than nothing, and I’m sure they won’t be fed to the dog!

20111127-181643.jpg

I uploaded a few pics from the proper camera onto the iPad. Here’s my girl Neko about to drink the extremely nasty looking water in our town square’s sculpture/fountain.

20111127-181805.jpg
Them’s my legs. Just before this was taken, we had someone get out of their car to ask about her. We gave him a short lesson about the difference between American Akitas and Japanese Akitas. The easy answer is that if the dog’s face is black, it’s an American. If not, you have to register your dog on the dangerous breeds list in Ireland and walk her with a muzzle. I also told him the official name for her coat coloration is ‘pinto.’ cool, eh? I have an American dog named the Japanese word for cat with the markings of a horse. No wonder she’s a bit neurotic. You can tell she’s worried all the time just from this picture.

Here’s Lokii looking confused. He looks like this quite often. Compared to his ginormous butt, his head is too small, so I don’t think there’s a lot of room for brains in there. Poor Lokes, someone has to be the dumbest in the house, and it is you. Love you anyway.

20111127-183155.jpg
I took a couple pics of our sunset tonight, too. The color is wrong, I think it looked more purple and yellow than the camera shows. Rats. In any case, that’s the view out the front of our house.

20111127-183522.jpg
A little bit of sappiness, if you don’t mind? I’m thankful for every funny, smart, kind, artistic person I’ve met through my blog. X

Nov27

Avoidance baking

Posted on by
Standard

I should be doing ‘stuff.’ I was, in fact, doing stuff a few minutes ago. Now I’m sitting in the sun and writing. It’s too nice out here and I don’t want to go in and cook.

I’m doing Thanksgiving today. We got a turkey for €5 and saved it for the occasion. Turkeys are easy, I’m not worried about it, or the mashed potatoes, or the sweet potatoes.

What I’m not looking forward to is making pumpkin pies.

I’m a pretty poor baker. I always think it will be so easy and fun. Instead I end up with a huge mess, no counter space to work in, and cat hair liberally distributed through the either burned or undercooked dessert. It’s like sewing or knitting: I really want to do it, but some part of me just isn’t up to the challenge. It’s time I accept my limitations, everyone in the house will be happier without hearing me screaming curses at inanimate objects.

The dog leaves the kitchen entirely when I start rattling pans, the poor neurotic girl. Can’t imagine why.

Anyhoo, I have 14 cups of pumpkin frozen from my Halloween jack-o-lanterns. A pie only uses two cups, so I can make seven pies! Yay for me! I’m not making seven today, just two. And I doubt I’ll share with anyone but the hubby because I love pumpkin pie and it is rare to get the gourd here at all.

Wish me luck, I’m going in…unless I can think of a few more things in the garden that need tidying up.

Oh! How crazy is this: one of my blueberry bushes has flowers. This is not good! I hope I still get fruit next summer.

20111127-131653.jpg

Nov18

Fergus has been brushed!

Posted on by
Standard

This is Fergus. He is no longer with his loving owners, sadly. What a cutie he was: his favorite thing to do was to clean the cat’s ears! 🙂

20111118-233016.jpg

Nov10

Bean has been Brushed!

Posted on by
Standard

This is Beanie, a very lucky dog! She belongs to the ever-fabulous Socks and her hubby Bear. Bean, like my dog Neko, is a thinker. An over-thinker. She makes up stuff to get worked up about, but she’s learned that when life gets rough, a pair of comfy pyjamas makes it all better.

20111110-180811.jpg

You probably notice something different in this picture…a background! I was having a divil of a time separating the white fur from the black, and decided I’d have to have a background color. I’d intended to cut Bean out of the background, but I decided I like it the way it is. She looks like an illustration in a children’s book. Much less true to life than the other drawings I’ve done, but perhaps more fun to look at. She makes me smile : )

Nov9

Rua has been Brushed!

Posted on by
Standard

This is Rua, my sister’s greyhound.

20111109-211539.jpg
I’m not very happy with this drawing, it looks like those paint-by-numbers kits I did as a kid. Oh well! Every day I learn something new, and attempting brindle colouring was always going to be a challenge!

Nov7

Some days I love to sit and listen

Posted on by
Standard

I have sunshine again, after the hiatus it took yesterday. It’s a bit breezier today, so I doubt I’ll see any reverse-base-jumping spiders.

It’s a noisier day, too. The kids are back in school this week, and while we don’t live that close it, they are loud. They are apparently at recess, or whatever it’s called here. Lots of screams and shouts, and the occasional thwack of foot on ball. Or head on ball, if they play team sports like I did.

My washing machine is on, too. Doesn’t sound good when it spins, clunk whump rattle. I might have a look next spin cycle and hope it is just all the crap we piled on top rattling around, and not an imbalance. I hate trying to figure those out.

I also hear the ever-present rooks, ravens and crows chattering away to themselves and each other. Sometimes one will perch on top of our chimney and giggle to itself. Imagine a dirty old man telling jokes in a dark corner of a pub, and snickering at every line. Sounds quite creepy coming down the flue.

No cow calls today, nor donkeys, nor chickens. Too late in the morning for them, I suppose. Perhaps they are all too happy with the sunshine to complain.

We need to cut the grass. Its been wet for so long the task is a difficult one. The garden is small, and we have limited storage space, and we try to be green – so our mower is one of those old fashioned rotary push mowers. Fuel is expensive, too, but both of us have plenty of calories to burn! It works great when it is dry, not so much when your lawn is a thin layer of grass floating on very slippery mud. We need to borrow someone’s petrol (gas) mower desperately. It would be nice to have the last cut of the year be an even one. Currently it looks like hell, and the dog doesn’t like to poop in tall grass. I hate sweeping the floor to clear the little loose bits that follow us inside, too – Spot eats them, then of course barfs them up again. I rake, but my back doesn’t like it, and our compost bin is full.

I also need to ask Himself if he’ll help me winterize my potted plants. I don’t want to leave them sitting in trays full of water when the frost starts. It’s difficult to pick a day to do this, however. A sunny day is a good one for working, but also makes winter seem so far away. It’s such a mess out here, though. You’d never believe I pressure washed the lot back in April. In any case, the blueberry bushes are in big pots and I shouldn’t be trying to lift them. Then I’ll have to wash and store the trays somewhere. That’s the part I’m really not looking forward to, our tiny shed is unbearably cramped since the Weber grill iDJ lusted after was found on sale and moved in.

The kids have gone to lunch. I hear a high flying jet, and a truck beepily backing up somewhere in the distance. And my washer, which sounds much better now. Maybe it was just a hairball.

Nov6

Portrait of a jealous dog

Posted on by
Standard

It was cold last night. So cold that Spot didn’t budge all night from his place on the couch documented in the first pic of the previous post. He didn’t get up until about a half hour ago. Of course, he’s now full of stored energy and takes it out on us by going into what I call ‘Super Love-Me Mode.’ This involves lots of head butting, leg rubbing, dog annoying, lap jumping, and purring that can be heard from the next room. Only two things satisfy him when he’s this wound up – a good brushing, or a car trip.

I asked iDJ to take him for a drive, as I needed smokes. He grumbled but agreed, as long as I gave him the last of the coffee. Deal! Spot had to be carried around the house as iDJ got dressed, because otherwise, he leaps into iDJ’s arms or stands on his hind legs and paws at tender places…neither action one that makes it easy to get anything done. Spot knew well he was going for a drive! (I should explain something to my US readers. I carefully avoid the word ‘ride’ because that word has a totally different meaning in Ireland. I’ve been conditioned not to use it due to the snickers and giggles I heard when I first moved here.)

Off they went. Lokii couldn’t care less, for him the world on the other side of window glass doesn’t even exist. Neko, however, was jealous. She watched them leave, and then waited at the front window for their return.

20111106-121023.jpg
How…why…I wanted to go, too…

20111106-121128.jpg
They’re home! Why aren’t they coming in? Why wasn’t I invited?

20111106-121204.jpg
Hurry UP!

20111106-121234.jpg
Hi! You’re home! Now come inside. Is that bacon in your pocket?

20111106-121347.jpg
Poor dogeen. We torture her so.

Nov2

Job hunting in the wild, wild whest of Ireland

Posted on by
Standard

Wow, total panic there for a bit! My WordPress app crashed on opening my blog. Restart the iPad, no. Check for updates, yes there was one, update, crash. Update a lot of other shite since I’d already entered my iTunes password, restart, WordPress crash. Check forums, nothing. Panic. Will I lose all my crap if I delete the app and reinstall? Bite the bullet and delete and reinstall, restart.

Working! All my crap is still smelling as rosy as it ever did. Whew. An iPad shouldn’t need restarting so much, but I live with an IT manager so I’ve learned good habits. Hell, I need a nap every now and again, too. I drive this thing hard, poor Shiny Happy (from the engraving iDJ had put on the back).

Interesting, though, to find myself actually worried and jonesing for my writing fix. Am I showing my age and slightly dodgy history with the term ‘jonesing?’ I can explain it. Really. Anyhoo, I’m pleased to learn that when I want to write, nothing else will do. I considered giving up and doing a Brushes painting instead, but I’ve not had a good subject since Usyaka, so I’m less than inspired. Despite doing a post earlier today, I really felt a need to blurt out my random thoughts and the schtuff that happened today.

So! Job interview! It went really well, I think. I liked yer man, and I think he took me seriously. When I said things that might come off ‘wrong,’ he understood and agreed with me. He wasn’t up his own hole, he was a real person and even cursed a few times. He mentioned doing so later, so an ‘oh yes, I’ve a potty-mouth, too’ bonding occasion was born. I think I’m in – but I felt that about the last job and was way wrong. That interview was about 10 minutes long and felt like 20, this one was 45 and felt like 10. I do take the length of the interview as a good sign, too.

Unfortunately, I won’t know for a while if I’m hired. Fortunately, he explained why it will take time, and it is a valid reason.

I also did another interview, of a sort, today. Go, me! This one is for a call centre customer support job at a company that makes computer and platform games. A possible nightmare for me, as I’m not good at bending over and taking one for the team. At least the customers are all nerds and I totally speak nerd. I decided to apply because I’m a Yank, and we Yanks know the customer service rules, don’t we? I might hate myself at the end of every shift, but I’d give good CS nonetheless.

The fun part about the application process is that it has been entirely on-line so far. I registered, uploaded my CV (résumé), and my ‘first interview’ was also online, in the form of a questionnaire.

Not so much fun. I could tell they are US-based when The Dreaded Question popped up: Where Do You See Yourself In Five Years?

Really?

Really?

I’d even joked in my ‘real’ interview about that very question, and the one where they ask If You Were A Vegetable, What Would You Be? So, I might have been a little sarcastic in my response. But not nearly as sarcastic as I’d have liked to be. I did say “I’m not as young as I was yesterday” which is a thickly-veiled hint that I’m too fucking old to answer stupid questions. Or perhaps they are too up their own arses to see that?

Maybe I was just trying to say that I’d kiss the customer’s arse, but not theirs. I donno. The pay starts higher than the ‘real’ interview, but it is much further away (if you think gas in the US is expensive, I’ll tell you what we pay) and would be nights and weekends, oh joy. I’m also too old for that shit, and have been for a while. I’ll suck it up, though, to not lose my house.

Sheeeeit, I feel like I’m on a downer note now! I’m not, really. I’m over the moon to have had not one but two chances at employment today, after so long without a response or even anything I could apply for. Yay!

Right, I should wrap this up as dinner is almost ready. I still feel like I’m leaving on a low note, so here is my dawg being adorable:

20111102-221506.jpg
That’s my foot she’s holding on to, and still is:

20111102-221548.jpg
What I like best about this is that she lay down, then reached out and grabbed me. It reminds me of my Bengal, Spot, who has to, has to, touch my face if he can reach it. I have successfully created a dog-cat. Or a cat-dog… Love my furry kids.