Twelve years ago mom and Gerry moved in together, and they were 77 and 87 years of age respectively.  After a year Gerry said they should get a dog, so mom said okay and they got a puppy.  This was quite miraculous as mom has always loathed pets, so it was weird to vist there and have a pup greet me.

Schwarzie was raised as Gerry and mom’s child, so she meant the world to them.  In the early years Gerry would put her on the leash and take her for walks.  One day when they returned mom and whoever was with her started screaming.  Gerry, who had macular degeneration had no idea why.

As it turned out, the dog had picked up a dead bull snake on the walk.  I guess it’d been slashed by the farm equipment and she’d found it as they’d wandered through the old apple orchard.

Another adorable thing she did was beat the hell out of Gerry.  Because the dog was at the top of the pack, if the three of them were watching TV and Gerry decided to get up for something, she’d race over and bite him hard.

She was there every minute last year when Gerry was in his bed, dying.  After that, she consoled mom and then all of a sudden last spring she became very sick with diabetes.  Mom tried giving her shots but found it too hard, so decided to just put her on a raw meat diet and try the herb Gaba which is supposed to be good for regulating blood sugars.

It didn’t work, and sadly the dog was euthanized by the vet yesterday and naturally we’re all heart broken, given all the poodle meant to everyone.  But as we know, if we own dogs we have to be prepared for their ridiculously early demises.

Another thing to accept is adult children and their frightening whims.  Luke said he can go and work on oil rigs in Azerbaijan and wants to do that as then he’s closer to Thailand and Jan.  I can understand the latter, but working in a terrorism-ridden country doesn’t sound good to me.

Just thinking about countries like that, or Russia and the Olympic Games and the amount of corruption to get them off the ground, makes me so glad to be a Canadian.  And I hate to say it, but as I live in the best region in the best country in the world, I’m smug.

But as usual, I look out my kitchen window feeling ashamed of my immediate environs.  I think I’ve mentioned the 32 tires stacked in the yard, as well as the dozens of large cardboard boxes in which the kids’ electronics are delivered on a regular basis.

Because of the intermittent wind storms, there’s a thick layer of pine needles everywhere.  Step one in getting a handle on this mess is calling a rubbish removal company, closely followed by a landscape labourer.  Maybe Nicky’s pal Taylor’s got time to haul a dump truck or two’s worth of pine needles off this property.

A poor faithful customer tried to order two fruitcakes only to be told there aren’t any, so I really do have to get with the program and bake a bit.  Life carries on, after all.

My dreams are so wonderful and vivid, and before I woke up this morning I dreamt about a young lion.  I checked out the meaning of lions in dreams, and one site suggests “the appearance of a lion in a dream may signal that new power or passion my awaken within you.”

It’s funny, as one of the topics I want to explore for my January newsletter is passion, or the lack thereof in many people.  To have passion about something can move mountains, as witnessed by people like Martin Luther King Jr.  As you well know, I’ve never really lacked in this area.

Of course it’s wearing, as witnessed by those who had to live through the early days of the fruitcake business about which I was aflame.  Then there’ve been the convictions a bee hive will save the planet, a xeriscape garden’s the only moral way to go and my letters to the editor decrying development on Agriculture Land Reserve land.

This past week I’ve experienced the usual highs and lows of all of our lives.  One of the dear women from elementary school who I’ll be meeting in May for our big 60th birthday celebration let me know her younger sister died.  Then my friend Petra e mailed to say their dog Buddy became extremely ill and was euthanized.

On the positive side I had the great pleasure of being visited by people I’ve known all of my life.  Eve and Angie (formerly Baillie) are the daughers of my mom’s deceased best friend, Liz.  Eve spent a couple of nights and Angie spent one and it was tremendous fun.

Nicky asked me how I knew them and I explained.  I said to him it’s like the Lynch’s girls and you remaining in touch all of your lives; or Alison’s boys who’ve known Nicky and Luke since they were all small.  It’s not necessarily that these people are friends, they become almost like cousins.

Angie has three adult kids and I like the way she never refers to them by name, only as The Big Girl, The Little Girl and The Boy.  Isn’t that adorable?  At one point I said I’m sorry to have to ask but I forgot their names and she had to remind me.

Remember how happy I was to get Netflix plus through that box I was able to see the last 8 episodes of Breaking Bad, thanks to Nicky’s stealth on the Internet.  However after the visitors had gone, I saw down and was ready for another episode of Nip/Tuck only to find the box dead.

I mean dead as in nothing happened whatsoever when I pointed the flipper at it.  Changed the batteries in the flipper, and still nothing, so called Nicky.  He checked it and declared the box pooched, so drove to Future Shop for a new box.

He installed it and went downstairs.  After an hour or so the screen went black and then a loud whining sound started coming out of the speakers.  I asked Nicky to check it, and at first he was blase but when he heard the noise, he was like, “Holy F”

It was fixed, but not before he declared the sound was very, very rare and hence quite interesting. 

Yesterday I noticed I was in a vile mood, and wonder if it’s just the January doldrums.  I think that’s why a lot of lucky Canadians who can afford it go someplace hot and sunny for a week or two.  Not that it’s cold here, but it’s just so damned boring.

I’m now working my way through the old series Nip/Tuck on Netflix, and I’m happy to see there are 100 episodes so that should keep me going for a while.  I’m shocked that Downton Abbey is comprised of maybe 12 episodes for two seasons.  What’s up with that?

A bit of fun was had in Osoyoos last week as mom had a dinner party for Jerralynn’s birthday.  Of course Louie accompanied me because everyone’s crazy over that little dog.  Or else they should be if they’re not as he’s very, very cute.

Sadly mom’s poodle Schwarzie has diabetes so only weighs a pound or two and one of Louie’s favourite things to do is to bowl the dog over.  He’s not trying to be mean, but he gets all excited and happy and decides knocking down a one-pound dog is fun.

So perhaps even he’s suffering from the January doldrums, so maybe if I see a thin person I’ll have to run over to them and knock them down.  Not sure how well that’ll go over, or if it’ll relieve boredom.

In a couple of weeks school tours start again at the art gallery, and thankfully there’s a new exhibit.  As I mentioned before, I simply couldn’t understand the one we toured the kids through in the fall.  I just hate that kind of stuff, you know, a pile of sand with shards of glass in it.  This is art?

I’ve been indulging in a bit of my favourite thrift store browsing, but I have to stop buying lamps.  I don’t know why I do it, but when I see a nice lamp, even though I do not need any lamps, I buy it.  Again last week at Value Village there was a cute lamp for $6 which I bought.

That engenders hours of re-arranging because how to incorporate something like that into a fully decorated house?  First there’s just walking around, holding the lamp, then finally an object is removed, and the lamp has a new home.

Then the object that was removed has to be carried around, and when it’s placed into a new spot, the object it replaced has to be carried about for hours.  This domino effect goes on for a long time, and finally something makes its way to the storage room downstairs.

Today it was 11 degrees and windy, so besides being unseasonably warm which melted all the snow and ice, the yard’s a debris field of pine needles.  With 50 Ponderosa pines one gets an awful lot of needles in a windstorm.  This usually occurs in the spring, not January, so I’ll have to get Nicky out there with a leaf blower before the next snowfall.

He drove to Osoyoos on Sunday to spend the day with his gramma, so he’s also in need of a bit of external stimulation.  Maybe something of great importance and excitement will occur.  If so I’ll let you know the moment it does.

You may recall somewhere around 2010 or 2011 I got a parking ticket in Penticton, paid the $10 fine, but my cheque arrived one day late, so the City of Penticton put me over to a collection agency for the $25 they alleged was owing.

I refused to pay, so had dozens, if not a hundred calls, from a company named Wiggins Adjustments.  Whenever the phone rings, I look at it, and if it says Wiggins Adjustments, I don’t answer it.  I notice they’ve stopped, so maybe that’s that for them and the illustrious City of Penticton.

Then in October I parked a bit outside the lines in an Impark lot across from the art gallery during the docent training.  I had bought a ticket and put it on my dash, but they didn’t care, sending me a bill for $62 for being an ‘obstruction’ in an almost-empty lot!

In the letter it said I was being put over to a collection agency, and I wrote them back and said I didn’t even know the money was owing as nothing was on my car when I left the gallery to drive home.  Obviously, they don’t care, and now I’ll have two or three years of staring at the phone and seeing a new collection agency’s name.

I wonder how collection companies manage to collect anything with call display.  Who’d answer their calls?  As well, I don’t even have to listen to the message as I just hit erase instantly.  I notice in the letter it says civil action may be taken, which I welcome, as I want to tell my story to a judge.

I suppose I’m lucky to have these types of things, as we know adrenalin’s a good boost to the nervous system.  If my life was without conflict it’d be quite boring.

The new gym opened, and I went on Saturday and today.  It’s quite a noisy place with open warehouse-like ceilings, so I’d never be able to spend more than my hour working out there.  I mentioned this in the change room and one of the women said she just loves din, and I said I meditate and want silence.  To each his own.

I bought a little hyacinth today and am hoping for spring already.  Not that I want all the gardening work that goes with it, but I love seeing spring flowers in the stores in January.  I’m off to Osoyoos this afternoon for a dinner party at mom’s for Jerralynn’s birthday, so will give her the plant as part of her gift.

Luke’s working in minus 44 degrees temperature in southern Saskatchewan but as he works inside he’ll be cozy and warm in his trailer.  I happened to be speaking to a young man the other day who works as a roughneck on the rigs, and when I told him about Luke’s job he said he’s so lucky to be working inside.

Are you ga ga with excitement about 2014?  I am.  Not sure why, but I think a lot of good changes and things are coming my way.  If nothing else, I have my big 60th birthday reunion with the women I went to elementary school with in May in Palm Springs.

Until then I have to remain focused on some goals, one of which is to have the house exterior re-painted and also to get bees again, both of which will occur in the spring.  And as well, there’ll be the many phone calls from some hapless collection agency to ignore.