New dog, new car, and a photo
We got a new dog - god help us - on Saturday morning, and a new van on Saturday evening. Not too bad. On Saturday morning we went to Sunset park, which was frankly an Interesting experience. I hate Geese of all kinds with a passion. After arousing their hunger, they took it upon themselves to mob both mob us and chase us around the lake until some other poor bastard decided to feed them. We saw, I kid you not, this blancmange with a pair of limbs sticking out of it, failing desperately.
We survived, made our appointed rendezvous, and came home with Spenser, a chipper little Poodle/Terrier mix. He’s Mariah’s pet, and you can ask her if you’d like to know more.
On Saturday evening, we bought a new van. I can’t help but somehow feeling vaguely screwed over by the dealership. I’ve spent years around retail financing, and I don’t know…some of the terms seemed onerous or just strange to me. It’s a tidy little van, and I don’t doubt that we’re going to put it to good use in years coming.
Lastly, we went up to Mount Charleston on Sunday and spent the evening dodging drivers who’ve never been in anything but a five-lane freeway in their lives. It was frightening and exhilarating all at once, watching asshole dodge and weave in and out of their lanes, randomly slam on their breaks and generally make the trip Interesting. I didn’t shoot much except for a really beautiful tree stump behind the local primary school:
Mazie Canyon
Christmassy goodness!
IMG_4378
Children are magical. Precious.
We got home from Mariah’s parents about 40 minutes ago, and set about cleaning up the house after this morning’s excitement. Mariah and I were in our room sorting through finished laundry. We assumed that Caira was with Marilyn in the bathroom as we get glimpses of her in the bathroom, through the ajar door. The lights are on, and Caira is shrieking and laughing like someone is tickling her, so we pay it no mind until we hear a tremendous crash.
We run in there to find Caira sitting in the wash basin, shrieking, laughing, and hurling anything at hand at Princess. The poor cat is huddled in the corner and looking absolutely terrified.
Caira Clanton, aged 17 months.
It’s funny
I can sit down and bash out a few pages for my story (I will get the latest manuscript out to you, I promise!) without a moment of hesitation, but I draw a blank whenever it comes to talking about me. The trouble therein is that one of the central characters of my story is based (very loosely) around me, as who’s head is supposed to easier to get into than your own?
Right, my arse it is.
I have all the scars and issues that comes with both an occasionally bad childhood, and previous emotionally fraught relationships. Should I use the character to attack those people I don’t like?
In my defence, we’re all sick with the flu. It hasn’t been conductive to bright thoughts, as we’re tired and cranky, and very much wanting to be well again. Mariah took Tuesday off work sick, I was sent home from work, and Caira had to go to the doctor yesterday evening. I pity the baby as she’s in a bad way, and doing anything right now hurts her. She’s not sleeping well, and spent last night trying to give Mariah a sound trashing as she kept crawling onto her face.
Bleh. :[
Christmas has come a little early for all of us. Caira’s grandparents came up from California at the start of the week and pretty much spoiled Caira rotten for the entire time that they were here. Some magnificent gifts were given, and the brat came away very happy.
Mariah bought me an electric scooter that promptly died on the first day I used it to go to work, stranding me at Las Vegas Boulevard. I was two hours late for work and had to spend another three that night pushing it home. We think we know what the problem with the scooter is, and how we might go about fixing it, but we need to find the time to go and buy replacement parts.
Merry Christmas?
We’re fit to strangle Caira here. In the past two weeks she’s hit both the crazy twos and her “mine” phase - on one hand it’s impressive that she’s reached this stage at 17 months, and on the other…well… A 17 month old hyperactive screaming “mine mine!” at everything and generally bouncing off the walls inspires thoughts of
to think something is to give it form, right?
Any of you with children know what I’m talking about. We just wish Caira picked a better time; if she’s not swinging out of Mariah, she’s chasing the cats or trying to climb onto our Christmas presents. Generally we’re taking a lot of deep breaths and trying to beat down the urge to strangle Caira.
-_-
It’s not all bad, brat. On the chance that you’ll read this post years from now I’ll add that in the last two weeks you’ve really expanded on both your vocabulary and use of said vocabulary. When you were in the bath yesterday we had an excellent conversation. The topic of it eludes me, but it involved much deep thought and many uses of “yes!” or “no!” on your part.
Last night, I asked you to stop jumping on our bed. You looked me straight in the eye and up came the wagging finger that coincided with a loud chorus of “no no no no!” It was sickeningly cute, brat. You’re lucky you secretly melt our hearts. We’d have skinned and cooked you for dinner long before now, elsewise.
Me, elsewhere
