Long Weekend Audio: What Made Me Choose A Guide Dog

Here comes another one. This one will be quick. Ceci asked me what made me decide to get a guide dog...so I started talking.

I hope something in here makes some sense. Sometimes I feel like my thoughts are a bit disorganized and confusing. But I think my main points are walk with some guide dog teams and if you can, spend a little time with one, so you can really get a feel for it. And, ask lots and lots of questions.

I wrote some of this down in this ADBC post from a while back but here it is in audio form. Enjoy. This one's only 15 minutes.

Dear Cleveland:

Hi there. I’ve heard a lot about you. It’s Trixie. You don’t know me, but I’m old enough to be your grandma, or at least your aunt. I want to tell you a few things to get you ready for what’s ahead, so sit down and listen. Sit your wagging butt down and listen. You know how to settle. Good boy!

First, the good news. I know you’re scared. You’ve had a lot of change in your life. But you’ll come to find out that this is the new normal, and you’re headed for a lot of fun. All that weird stuff about
showing people poles and obstacles and stopping at curbs and watching for cars is all going to start making sense. That guy at the end of the leash? He *really* can’t see! I know you saw people slap things over their eyes so they couldn’t see while you walked around with them, but this guy doesn’t need a thing over his eyes. They don’t work. So you have to tell him about stuff or he’ll fall down or get hurt. I know how much you seem to like him, and he’s the one between you and the food bowl, so you don’t want that to happen, right? Right.

But pssst, let me tell you a secret. For a little while, you can use that non-working eyes thing to your advantage! At first, you can trick him a bit, like staying quiet when you really don’t want to go on tie-down, or trying to be sneaky. He’ll figure you out, but until he does…oh boy! Plus, people who don’t know the don’t pet the dog rule will get more chances to get their pets in because he won’t know what to feel for. Oh boy oh boy! Those were the days, and they’re all yours!

Oh. I’ve heard a little bit about where you’re headed. There’s another man there. I don’t know if he has nice balls like the fat man they call Steve does, but his eyes don’t work either. So, once you get taken off the leash, don’t sleep in the middle of the floor, or if you do, be ready to mooooove at a moment’s notice!

Oh yeah, another thing. When you have to pee, staring at the door isn’t going to work. Remember, his eyes don’t work. So, walk over and tap him and walk back to the door, or whine, or do something to tell him you have to pee. Otherwise, you might go pee where you shouldn’t, and if you’re like me, that’s just bad bad bad.

Oh yeah, just a little word of warning. Your human might be a little crazy worried about you. So, while he’s figuring you out, if you hack or do anything weird, you might end up at the vet. Don’t worry, this will get better. Be patient.

Where did you grow up? I know where I grew up, I wasn’t ready for the way the weather knob moves around up here. The first time it got c-c-c-c-c-c-cold up here, I thought this was the new normal, and that made me pretty sad. And it didn’t just get c-c-c-c-cold, the ground was covered in white stuff! There was the crunchy fluffy white stuff, and the slippery slidey white stuff. Go slow on the slippery slidey white stuff, or your human will fall down.

Anyway, it’s going to get c-c-c-c-c-cold and white, and all the rules are going to change. Sometimes, you have to climb over white stuff to get to the street, but some white stuff isn’t for climbing. And the humans are so mean. They take all the white stuff away from the places where people drive, and leave it where you and your human have to walk.

But the white stuff isn’t all bad. It’s fun to play in. *roll roll roll snort snort shukh shukh roll!* And your feet sink into it and you can see foot marks from where you’ve been. It’s neat!

I think I heard you have boots. I hate boots. I can’t think straight with boots on. What do you think of boots? Maybe you can get your human to get you the goo Carin puts on me. Mushers something. It’s nice goo. I don’t like it much when she’s putting it on, but it does a good job, and then I don’t have to where those prancy horsey boots! Yuck!

But let me tell you. The white stuff will go away, and you’ll get the nice grass back. I know you won’t believe me, but it will.

Hmmm. I think that’s most of the tips I can pass on to you. You have a lot to learn. You need to figure out how to talk to your human. He speaks human and tries to speak dog. You speak dog and try to understand human and get the message through. Sometimes it works, sometimes, not so much. Some days it feels like you can’t get anything right and you’d rather sniff a bush. But sometimes, you just feel so darn good you want to wag so hard your puppy raisers can feel the breeze off your tail. Eventually, it will be more good than bad, but you two have a lot to learn, so expect some not so good. But you’re a good boy and a smart boy, and he’s a good human and a smart human. You’ll figure it out.

I can show you more tricks if we get to meet in person. Then we can really wiggle noses and share secrets, but until then, this will have to do. I hear you just got off a flying car bus thing, and you’re probably huuuuungry. Everything is fine. Try and relax.

With licks, wags, shukhs and snorts of hello,

Trixie

Long Weekend Audio: Caboom!Cast

The urge struck us to do some more audio, so here we are. We had a lot of fun doing this one.

It started with me not saying go at the right moment. Woops. Welcome to me not being a good record button-pusher. Then we just rambled about the awesome weather, the Blue Jays winning again, and the coolness that is our balcony.

I don't know if you can hear what happened next, but somebody's car alarm similar to the one I described in this old post started going off, so Steve started imitating it...at which point, Trix brought us back to the reason we decided to do this audio in the first place.

Unfortunately you can't hear it, but Trix started circling us, puffing furiously. We put the mic in her face, but she did not puff hello. I described some new behaviour Trix does when there are fireworks or thunder storms, or our new term, thunderworks! The fear has been with her all along, but it has changed recently. Oh yeah? and I meant 1 a.m. not p.m. woops.

And as we finished up our thunderworks discussion, we came up with another term. Nicky Nicky Blind door: the act of a blind person knocking on the wrong door, realizing it's the wrong house, and getting the hell out of dodge, leading the person who lives in the wrong house to believe they've been a victim of Nicky Nicky 9 Door. And here's the link to the story of that blind guy getting shot in the face when he entered the wrong house. Oh yeah, and here's the story of the drunk unintentional houseguest we had one night. Before we move on, here's that car alarm bit I was talking about, a super detailed account of Shoe's surprise 40th birthday party, and a picture of the yes please burger. Holy crap, how many things did we have to mention in that short stint?

Moving on, we talked some more about the hot weather, and the plants a friend and I are planting in the Enabling Garden. Hey, anybody know where the reference "fuck this cat, and fuck this door!" came from? Go ahead and take a guess. At this point, we came up with our third invented word, Friedo (pronounced "fried o"): dog left in a hot car. We also made up some new lyrics to what would be the Frido song. And you know what? We should have stuck to that song...because I proceeded to ruin the next song we attempted. Even these people did a better job.

This led to an awesome story of how, in his CFRU days, Steve unintentionally insulted electronica. R2D2, a television and a vacuum having a threesome, you say? What a description.

Wow. This thing goes everywhere. We went from how you can't please everybody on the radio and on websites to me apologizing for not realizing that the Jonathan Sory story was more tragic than it seemed on the surface.

...which somehow led in a long and winding way to things taking on a totally different meaning if you're just listening to them, which then led to talking about screen reader users who just go by the way words sound and don't check the spelling, which can lead to some rather creative typos. Man, if you're bored, I understand.

Before we signed off, I made fun of Steve's loud phone text message noises, and Trix reappeared, looking all scared all over again.

And that about does it for another one. I think coining 3 new terms is pretty good. We enjoyed putting it together, hope you enjoy listening. Go get it in all its 1 hour and 7 minute glory.

Long Weekend Audio: The First Of Many Casts

Well...our first audio is up. We had hoped to have it up last night, but we kind of fell over after we finished recording it. The file got uploaded to the server, but hell if I was going to write the post around it. So I'm writing it this morning.

Poor Steve had to start it alone, because Trix had to take care of business. But I figured I'd make my presence known. If you wondered why Steve suddenly made some yelling noise in the middle of his sentence, no, he hasn't lost his mind. I was down below, making the Tugboat noise at him. I hoped the mic would pick it up, but it didn't. The Tugboat noise? Yes, the Tugboat noise. It's about 6 minutes in, but there it is. Probably if I hadn't seen it, I wouldn't believe it either.
If you don't feel like waiting 6 minutes for 16 seconds of Tugboaty goodness, you can download his promo right here. Eeeeeee!

After I distract him with randomly-placed Tugboat noises, Steve manages to get his groove back, and talks about our new website, and how it's awesome to have audio capabilities back. He then moves on to baseball, and how certain Blue Jays are doing really well while others were awesome, but need some help.

When I got back, we talked about wrestling, and I finally sort of mention Tugboat, but we really couldn't do him justice. That moved us on to how much wrestling has changed over the years, and how hard it is to be a new fan today.

Next up, I gave a brief update on me, and how Trix gave me a little bit of a scare. This led us to talking about how awesome it is to move over from Blogger to a place where we actually have some server space, and the awesome that is Skynet Communications. We also got to rag on Blogger importer for screwing up who wrote what, and being just a wee bit bizarre.

Somehow we got from here to talking about the new Guelph Central Station, AKA the land of confusion where our city buses live now. We talked about how eventually we hope it will be easier to navigate, but right now, it's a total zoo, and we're all confused, which is really fun when transfer times are next to 0. We also talked about how it's kind of dumb to have a heap of bus platforms and no real shelter, since the inside of the building won't be functional until 2013. Also, we mentioned that that light at St. George's Square is no longer an all-way stop, so don't die, everybody.

As we talked about the crappy decision that was changing routes in January, we some how wandered into describing our creepy landlord from the old apartment building.

Next up, Steve gave his opinions on foreign music. What more can I say about that little piece. Oh, I can link to the video I mentioned as part of the conversation.



While Steve went to get a beer, I talked about how awesome Shane's podcasts are, and how they brought back memories of training.

Things begin winding down with another plug for Skynet Communications. Somehow that led into a talk about how the "underline" key is now called "underscore" and wondering how that happened.

We wrap things up by reminding people that they can send us questions and we will answer them in an audio mailbag, but we need more questions, so keep sending them in.

And that does it for our first 53 minutes of chaos. If you feel so inclined, go get it. Enjoy, and there will be more to come, I'm sure.

An Interview With Carin And I All About Adjusting To Guide Dog Life

We should have been all over this like fat kids on candies last week, but since late to the party should almost be our next header slogan nowadays, let's just go ahead and do this now, shall we?

Shane, one of the lovely and talented folks responsible for the new home our website has now, is off getting himself a guide dog from Guide Dogs for the Blind. That's the same place Carinw ent to get the Trixter, in case you've forgotten or are new. He's not at the same campus she was, but the training ideals and apparently the food are the same.

Since he appears to be some kind of machine that will sleep when he's dead, he's been blogging and podcasting his adventure like a friggin madman. He's taken us on his trip to the school, on a bunch of training routes and is even finding time to interview people about their experiences with dogs and getting them to answer questions for folks who may want to go down a similar road in the future.

One of those interviews, as it happens, is with both myself and Carin. Ok Steve, we understand Carin, you're saying. She's got the dog. But you're just the fat man with the nice balls, as Trixie would say. What wisdom could you possibly have to impart? Well, if you'd like to find out, you can truck yourselves on over here and have a listen. And if you'd like to follow along with Shane's dog saga, all the posts you're looking for should live here.

Thanks to Shane for having us. Hopefully something we had to say will be valuable and helpful to somebody.

A Musical Reminder To Carin As She Gets Ready To Take Trixie For Her Physical

This will only make complete sense to two people, and we both live here. The rest of you can feel free to enjoy the music, though.

Spring Ahead...Into My Thought Pool

Now that I've got my email fixed, it's ramblin' time!

I'm so happy that winter was not too bad to us, but I'm even happier that spring just might be on its way. It'll take me a long time to truly believe it's here since winter never really got going, but whatever this weather is, I'm enjoying it.

I've noticed lately that Trix has this new bizarre morning ritual. She comes out, heads for Steve, snorts, and spits all over him! She never does this to me, just poor Steve! And I swear she makes sure to maximize how much of him gets the snort shower. What the hell does that mean?

The other day Steve and I were watching Investigation Discovery, a channel all about looking into violent crimes, forensics, all that sort of stuff. There are lots of stories about dismembered corpses and such. There's this commercial for St. Ives lotion that plays all the damn time on there. Here's the commercial. What does it sing about? Body parts! That would be perfectly innocent, except for what most of the content of the channel is? Hands, shoulders knees and toes...some in the river, some in concrete. Thighs and heels...in a dumpster. Ankles and elbows...in a bag. You get the idea. If I ever bought that lotion, I wouldn't be able to stop thinking about gory murders.

A long time ago, I talked about how when Trix was new, I would do stupid things like tell my friends to come and heel. Well, I did it again the other day, to the huppy! At least I had half an excuse that day. He was wearing one of those kid leashes and I was holding it. His mom had to go to the ER and didn't know how she'd manage the Huppy too. I said I'd help but he had to wear his little harness dealy. I had to hold onto it when they had a look at her, and I wanted him right beside me. Without thinking I said "heel!" Then I laughed out loud.

The other day, I had it brought home to me how we truly are spoiled by technology. Our internet broke down. That sounds like an odd sentence next to talking about being spoiled, but just wait. I had some things that really needed doing, so Steve and I decided screw waiting for the internet. We'd just go to a restaurant that has free Wifi and get things done. And so...off to the Baker Street Station we went, ate some yummy food, and I clickity typety sent my emails.

Seriously, how cool is that? Years ago, we would have been waiting for our internet. But the other day we just picked up the office and took it elsewhere. When we got our stuff done, we came back home, and hey, would ya look at that? Internet! We really are sitting in a chair in the sky.

I mentioned a while ago that I found myself a dentist. Thankfully I doubt she'll be a scary dentist. She's actually pretty cool. She loves dogs, and after we're done, I take Trix's harness off and let her pet the ol' boodog. By consequence, Trix loves the dentist's office. There's a small part of me that wonders if she enjoys taking me in there because they do things to me in there, not her, but she still gets lots of love. But oh man does she love going to the door. It makes people laugh who see it. I was also relieved that the high pitched noises of the equipment didn't bother her. She just lies still and is a perfect pooch.

And I think that's all I've got for this installment of Carin bores the bejeebers out of readers, then disappears. Get out and enjoy today, it's supposed to be awesome.

It's Brain Splatter Time

Well, I might be able to babble a while. That last post was kind of lame.

The other day, Honey by Bobby Goldsboro came on the radio. My memories of that song were that it was a kinda sappy song that made me all sad. But listening to it now, again I notice myself turning into quite the jaded individual. When I heard it again now, I thought gees what a needy woman! I think I'd go mad if I were him! Crying because he wasn't home just at the right time? It sounded like she was more like his kid than his wife for Pete's sake! He really enjoyed having someone so dependent and so...well...kinda dumb? What's wrong with him? I wonder does he miss her, or now can he actually live his life? So is it me, or is it the song? Maybe it's a little bit of both.

Man the huppy's growing up. He can talk in sentences, he can count to at least 5, knows his full name and you can almost have a whole conversation with him. He's always trying to help me, and the other day he tried to tell me my boot had come untied. All he could manage was "Carin! Your brown boots!" But the way he said it I knew he was trying to tell me something. And he was just an itty bitty baby not too long ago. He hasn't even turned 3 yet.

Back a while ago, I mentioned that wicked cold. Well, now it's left a bit of a legacy. I still have a bit of a cough and can't seem to get enough air. But my chest x-ray is clean. I'll be going back to the doctor hopefully Monday so we can try and figure this out. I hope it's an easy fix. Something similar happened to me years ago and all we had to do was change a medicine, so hopefully that's the case this time. It's not a comfortable feeling having to take huge deep breaths just to get a normal amount of oxygen. A couple of times, I've wondered if I should get my buns to the ER. Hopefully it won't come to that.

Here's a commercial I don't get. It's for the cheesy bites pizza from Pizza hut. I can't find it, damn it, but you hear this woman say "I love what you've done to the place." and then you hear the kid say "I told you this would be fun." and then you hear the adults sound like they're about to hurl going, "Yeah, real fun." and then it ends with a guy telling us to make dinner time fun time with the cheesy bites pizza, with 28 fun cheesy-filled bites.

Whaaa?

Even if I don't pay attention to the weird dialog, what's so fun about some cheese on a pizza? And cheesy-filled? Makes me think there's no cheese in there at all. At any rate, I really don't want to try one.

Now on to some Trixter talk. I have discovered she's very picky about her water! Either that, or she just hates the water cooler at work. I would always fill up her bowl, and she would never drink out of it. Then she would come home, tank up like mad, and need extra pee breaks. I thought it probably wasn't healthy for her to drink like that, and Steve thought maybe she didn't like the water out of the cooler. So I started bringing water bottles filled up from the tap from home, and she definitely drinks more of that water than the water cooler stuff. Trix, you're odd. But at least you're not drinking all your water at night.

I've noticed the last little while that if we walk a long way, she will need extra chances to pee than she used to. She used to only maybe pee once, and maybe poop once if we went really long. Now, she pees at least twice mid walk, once at the beginning and once at the end. Is this just an older dog thing? She doesn't seem to need extra relieving times when at rest, but there are definitely more pee breaks on walks.

This winter, or near lack of it, has had Trix all confused. By January, she was acting as if spring had sprung. Silly pooch. I'm sure she was very disappointed when more snow came.

Man, Trix was mad about the new bus locations. Well, it was more that she couldn't go on autopilot after a long walk. She knows where the old bus to go home was. Unfortunately, that's nowhere near where the bus pulls in now. So when I asked her to go to the new location, she pretty much threw a fit! She thought we weren't going home, and she wasn't having it! Ah Trix, you've forgotten. We get on the bus over *here* to go home now.

I don't know what it is, but lately I've had more fears about Trixie retiring. It's a scary thought that she's almost 7, and the average dog's working career lasts until they are 8 or so. So when I see things that are of concern, they really play into my fears. It's probably unnecessary, but I'm a worry wart, it's going to happen.

First there are the wee little things. Stuff like the amount of stretching she does when she gets up. She used to give it one good stretch. Now, she has to stretch one way, then another, then stretch again, and then she's ready to go. That's probably just her getting older, but I notice it. I also notice her doing the full body shake, like she's shaking off water, more often. I've heard that can be a stress thing, and I worry that all this zooming to Kitchener and back is stressing her out, even though I don't think so because I've done my best to keep her actual schedule close to what it was.

Then there are the bigger things. For a while it seemed like she didn't like jumping into the truck with me. As we headed to the elevator, she would walk all slow. I also noticed that sometimes, when navigating my work space, she didn't seem to know what to do. Going around the pole seemed like an impossible task. And once, recently, she got really confused at a complicated intersection and targeted the island in the middle of the road. This floored me because she knows not to hit that island and to go all the way across. I'm hoping that was just a freak occurrence. But other days she is just fine.

Then yesterday, after we had done a big walk downtown, when we set off to Dairy Queen, she fought me all the way. It could have just been that she didn't like to walk in the falling snow and sensed it would get worse, but it scared me.

One day, she stepped on something that bothered her paw. But she didn't lift the paw like she usually does. She dug all four paws in and wouldn't move. I could not for the life of me figure out what was wrong. She wouldn't even heel, and we were headed towards home! It was at this point that I felt panic set in. Was she telling me she was done? Out of desperation, I rubbed each paw, and once I fixed the one that was bothering her, she took off like normal, but I didn't like the way that putting on the brakes made me feel.

Then other days she's awesome. It scares the hell out of me to think that that awful day is looming far sooner than I expected. Hopefully not, but only time will tell. I was hoping Trix could work until she was at least 9 or so. Hopefully I get my wish.

And I think that's all I can think of. I hate to end things on a downer like that, but I'm all out of ideas.

The Guide Dog Obstacle Course

Holy crap where is time going? It's carnival time again. And I was an extra big loser and didn't post the link to the October carnival when it came out. I'll blame having a brand spankin' new job for that little slip-up. Ah well, I'll do better this time.

The subject of this carnival is obstacles. Amazingly, when I saw this topic, I knew instantly what I was going to talk about. Now, the trick is getting it into something comprehensible. I warn you right now, this one is probably going to be long, winding, confusing, and huge.

Something neat they did at GDB for each class was set up an obstacle course that we all had to pass through to get from our dorm to the training buses, or vice versa. The dogs had been through this obstacle course and knew it like the back of their paws, but it was to get used to following your dog and to get to know what it felt like for them to dodge obstacles. But when you think about it, going through the process of getting an assistance dog of any type, and learning how to be a team, is a great big obstacle course, and the obstacles are slightly different for each person. If you're going to make it from contemplating having a service dog to having one and being a seasoned team, you have to navigate the obstacle course that lies between A and B. Let's talk about that course, what it was for me, and what it can possibly look like for others too.

My first obstacle was uncertainty. I'd heard how much people liked having guide dogs and how awesome they were, but I just wasn't sure if I was ready for it all. Could I handle all the responsibility? Even if I could handle the every day things, what on earth would I do if that dog had a huge vet expense? Was I a good enough traveller that a. a school would consider me a good candidate, and b. the pooch would get enough work? I had heard that getting a guide dog was a bit of a gamble because not all teams worked out. Could I handle the heartbreak if it didn't work out? Would I be able to do it again? On the other end, I felt that once I had decided yes, barring the team being a total fail, this dog would be with me for 8 or 9 years. Was I ready to make such a commitment? Then I think about the people who have to pay thousands of dollars for a service dog outright. If I'd had to do that, it would have been game over.

I spent a lot of time in that phase, because I didn't know anybody with a guide dog well enough to just ask them question after question after question. I think this is the reason lots of people stay in that phase, along with the misinformation out there about whether you would need a guide or service dog. For example, I've heard stories of lots of people who are legally, but not totally, blind, walking around thinking they had too much sight to get a guide dog. They would hit things their cane couldn't find or struggle along, all the while saying they had too much vision. Meanwhile, they would probably qualify for, and benefit from, a guide dog.

Or, I hear about people who have a second disability along with the main one that makes them think about a dog getting the idea that they wouldn't be able to manage a dog. In fact, lots of people who have trouble hearing or have bad joints or other disabilities do just fine with a guide dog. It's all about finding the right school and the right help.

Plus, while I was in university, I didn't think I could spend a month in guide dog training because most summers I was taking courses as well. So in a sense, not feeling like I had the time to dedicate to this was another obstacle. When I hear about people getting guide dogs in the middle of a school semester, or getting a guide dog right before heading off to school, and then I see them succeed, I feel like they are a far better person than I am. I personally feel like I need time to digest things, and don't need to be doing course work during my down time at guide dog training, or learning a whole new place as well as how to work with a guide dog. To me, that just sounds like a recipe for disaster. But it works for some, so all the more power to 'em.

But as I was getting close to the end of my degree, I gave it more serious thought. After finally figuring out what questions I needed to ask, I started talking to people. Some of those fears and uncertainties started not to seem like such a big deal.

And then, once I decided to do it, came the difficult task of choosing what schools to apply to. Yeesh. There are so many things to consider. What kind of follow-up do you get? What about help with vet bills if you need it? What is the training like? Can you find grads from each school to talk to? Can you get a general sense from people about what schools have a good reputation and which ones aren't so good? If you get accepted to two schools, what on earth do you do? Do you just take the first class that comes along, or do you decide that you only go to school b if school a doesn't want you? So this wasn't so much an obstacle as it was a slippery spot.

Ok, schools decided. Now comes the application process. Don't get me wrong, all those forms are probably very helpful to the schools, but jeebers hell that alone felt like an obstacle. Plus, depending on what school I applied to, the forms weren't always accessible right off the bat. So, suddenly I had all this material dropped in my lap, and didn't know what to do with it. And not all these forms were to be filled out by me! I had to get doctors, ophthalmologists, and other people to fill some of them out. It was a small obstacle of sorts, but I figure it's worth mentioning.

And it's at this point along the way that you might start finding out how people around you feel about this whole dog thing. Some people might have misgivings about it, for lots of reasons. What if someone you live with or visit is alergic to dogs? How will they, or you, know if your guide dog will cause a reaction? With most people, it's as simple as if they don't touch the dog, they'll be all good, and you might have to make sure the dog doesn't come over and try and make friends with them if you're visiting them. If it's someone you live with, you'll have to start thinking about ways to make things manageable, if that's possible. But all this planning and negotiating could test how ready you are for this lifestyle change. In a way, it's a warm-up for when you come home with the dog and have to start being assertive and say "Yes, this dog can come in your restaurant or store."

The documentation is in, now it's time for the home interview. I hate to call the home interview an obstacle, because they're not out to make it hard for you. But it can delay your progress to having a guide dog because they see things that need work, or they say something that makes you start to rethink the whole thing. You're probably beyond that point once you've gotten here, but hey, anything's possible. So what could they see that could slow things down for you? Sometimes it's your level of ability to travel on your own. Sometimes it's where you're living. Sometimes it's something else. At any rate, if something looks off, that may slow you down, or make you reconsider.

So you make it through the application process and are accepted. You head off to class. You may think it's over, but it is just beginning. Only then do some people truly realize how much work goes into having a guide dog, and that no matter what time of day or night, that guide dog is your responsibility. Sometimes, this can be an obstacle for people who didn't ask enough questions or watch enough teams or whatever. Suddenly, they're back to the uncertainty phase of "Am I really ready for this? Do I want this at all? Maybe I don't mind my cane. My cane doesn't yelp when I fold it in four and throw it in a corner."

So you make it through training and you graduate and come home with your new partner. Unfortunately, for the first little while, life may seem full of obstacles. First, I don't know if this happens to everybody, but I was tired as hell for the first month or two. I felt like my life was completely rearranged, and now I had to think of all these things to do with the dog, and just when would I have time for my normal life again? Of course, that went away once I figured it out, but that can seem like one hell of a trial, if not an obstacle.

On top of that, depending on who you live with and how they are with respecting what you need to do to keep your dog working for you, you may have a battle on your hands. It's even more tiring when you have to fend off people in your own home from feeding your dog things or trying to play with him or her or constantly saying "Do we really have to bring the dog?" Hopefully this won't take too long, but it isn't easy when you're so new and unsure and all that stuff.

If that isn't enough, depending on where you live, you may run into lots of "You can't bring that dog in here!" and you may have to get very good at educating people on the laws in your area. Thankfully, I was very lucky and really didn't deal with a lot of that. But when it happens, it can be stressful.

And then there's the ultimate obstacle...when the team doesn't work out and you have to decide. Do I do this all over again, or do I just go back to life without a dog? Did the good outweigh the bad? If so, what would I do differently next time? I had to do this after Babs didn't work out, and god that was painful. But I think I knew in my heart that when she was showing me the positive aspects of having a dog, I wanted that again.

Sheesh! I think we made it through the obstacle course! I'm sure there are other possibilities I haven't thought of, but those were the ones that came to mind. Please don't think that I'm saying that getting a guide or service dog is more trouble than its worth, or something equally negative. All I'm saying is someone really has to want it to follow it all the way to the end. Plus, sometimes obstacles are a good thing. I have seen lots of people run headlong into getting a dog, crawl through class gripping the dream of having a dog with white knuckles, failing to see the warning signs that maybe this isn't a good idea, and then get coughed out the other end and want to give up at the first little hitch they encounter. Obstacles, despite their negative connotation, give you time to think things through. They make sure that you really want this, or I would hope they do.

And here's a message for all the people who say "Why doesn't x person have a dog?" As you can see from this long, winding post, deciding to pair up with a dog isn't an easy one, and for some, it may not be the right one. At the end of it all, each person has to know whether having a service dog is right for them. We can just hope that people considering it get all the information to help make that decision.

No! Person, down! Good Person!

The other day I came to a realization that I just had to right down.

Ok, everybody who has a dog knows this. If they've been working to train a dog, and the dog's getting the message that a certain behaviour, like counter surfing or picking stuff up off the floor or chewing on stuff that isn't toys, isn't so good. But they'll still try. I always joke that they say "Maybe today it wont' be bad. Maybe today they'll think it's great that I ate that piece of steak or chewed that shoe." When you catch them at it, they look all sad, as if to say "I know better, you told me I wasn't supposed to do that. I was just hopin', you know, a dog can dream, can't they?"

It's always floored me that people, even if they know better, will still try and pet a service dog. When they get told not to, they say "I know," and get all sad. But I think I've figured it out. People who know they shouldn't but do it anyway must feel especially connected to dogs. Why? Their behaviour is exactly like that puppy in training. "Maybe this one won't care. Maybe today it'll be ok. Maybe this one will thank me...oh I've been busted."

I'm not talking about the ones who don't know, or are confused. I'm talking about all the ones who say "I know I'm not supposed to pet you but..."

I don't know why I didn't think of it sooner! As much as it still bugs me, I think now I might have to chuckle to myself next time it happens, as I picture this person as a dog. Maybe one will be a St. Bernard. Maybe one will be a poodle. Please, next time you see me, don't make me imagine you as a dog! If you know better, do the right thing. Always ask to pet a service animal, ok?

Trixie Scoop

I think Trix needs a little bit of chatter. It's been a long time since I've devoted a post just to Trix and only Trix.

Trix got her new tag, or doggy bling as some call it. It's funny. Every year, for a while, she sounds different with her new tag on. I put the old one in the drawer, and gasped. I held in my hand 5 tags. Yes, this April will be five years together. Um, that's just amazing. And she'll be 7 years old. Holy crap.

It dawned on me the other day that when that dreaded time for retirement comes, I probably won't be able to keep Trix because hopefully I'll still have my awesome job. This, although it is awesome, means I won't be around to take care of Trix's needs all day, and I'll probably be too tired to take care of two dogs at night. So, I've actually had to contemplate who would get Trix in retirement. That is a painful thing to think about, kind of like watching your parents and grandparents talk about how their stuff will be divided up after they die. You know they are just being practical, but you just want to plug your ears and go "la la la I don't hear that la la la la." Hopefully this is something I won't have to think about for a long time, but the fact is the average retirement age for a guide dog these days is 8 or so, so since she's turning 7 this year...well...

You know how I said a while ago that Trix likes to go into her new vet? Well, she's gotten a little silly, just like she did near her old vet. Time to step up the treats, even though they give her some too. I guess you just really don't like vets, eh Trixeroo?

But I friggin love this vet. Thanks to a couple of supplements that Trix takes now, she licks herself a lot less, and her skin looks a lot better. Also, on her suggestion of adding a bit of pure pumpkin to her food, her anal glands don't get nearly as full! Plus, this woman connected me with a clinic in Kitchener that isn't far from work, just in case, God forbid, something happens to Trix while I'm in Kitchener. I do not want to be googling out vets during an emergency. That's not how I roll.

And Trix has developed an even bigger hate for the bathing place, which makes me super sad. Last time, she even started shaking. That broke my heart in a million little pieces.

I'll probably still try to go there, and just treat her lots, but thanks to Trix's best bud Ruby's person, I now own a dog-bathing attachment for my own tub, which turns any faucet into the right nozzle for bathing a pooch. Yea! And it looks pretty easy to put on. Double woo! So, if she reeeeally hates that place and it's actually traumatizing her, then at least I have something for home. Plus, there are times when you have to give your pooch a touch-up, like after they've had to lay in icky gross things or after your clumsy friend spills beer all over them.

I guess like us humans have food-related quirks, dogs can have them too. I discovered one with Trix this holiday.

Like I said, she takes a couple of supplements on her food. She takes a fish oil capsule in the morning and powder at night. So, I put out her morning food like normal. She was happily chomping away, when Steve's sister said something weird. "Um, is Trix eating an advill?" I laughed and said no, it was probably her fish oil capsule. She then said that Trix was trying to hide the capsule under the cupboard, so she fed it to her by hand.

This surprised me, since she's never pushed away those capsules and just gobbles them up. Plus, if she doesn't want to eat something, she won't just take it out of your hand, you have to make her take it.

So, the next day, I watched what was going on...and apparently she has to eat some of the food first, and *then* the capsule. But since she had a smaller dish, when she was trying to root around the capsule to eat more food, she knocked it out. Then she tried to track it down, but the more she pushed it, the more it rolled. Poor dog. But who knew she had to eat the capsule only after eating some of the food?

I sent the present off to Trix's raisers. I really hope they like it. After I know they've received it, I can talk about it more. And when we were home at Steve's place, Steve's mom got a potentially really cute picture of Trix. One night, the night the power went off, I guess Trix got really tired but didn't want to go to her bed I had set up in the other room. Under their tree, they have a tree skirt. I guess this looked like a perfect bed to Trix, so she somehow rooted out enough of it so she could lie down, and didn't screw up the tree! So there Trix was, lying under the tree, in the tree skirt. Everybody laughed, so I guess it looked pretty cute. I'll have to wait for that pic since Steve's mom has it on the camera, but when I get it, I'll put it up.

I guess that's all the Trix updates for now. I'll try and do better this year, but no promises. I've become a pretty crumby blogger lately.

Thought Explosions About #SpikeMobileCCC and other things.

Here comes another monster o thoughts. While I'm doing the laundry, I might as well write a blog post.

This whole being out of town part time thing has taught me that I suck at time-management. I was always able to get by since I had lots of flexibility to get stuff done. I didn't get to that today? Oh well I'll do it tomorrow. Now, I have to think ahead to make sure I get everything done on my off days.

Even laundry has become slightly more of a pain since our building has those inaccessible laundry card-filler-uppers. So, if I'm getting low on laundry money, I have to either a. coordinate like hell to be there when the huppy's mom is doing laundry, or b. pray to the lord above that someone will be down there to help me fill the damn card. I'm seriously thinking about rounding up an apartment-sized washer/dryer set. Seriously I am.

Since I don't have as much time/energy to look at Twitter as I did before, I've started organizing the people I follow into lists. As a result, I'm uber behind on the news, people's retweets and random folks I decided to follow. I really need to fix that giant news Twitter hole I've created though. That's just shameful.

And because I'm behind on people's retweets, I didn't notice in enough time that The guys who did Twittereen were at it again, with another contest, Countdown2Christmas.

I suck, and have missed out on two days of the contest, but I don't care. I'm still going to try. I mean, look at the prizes! They wrote 'em out. Yeah yeah yeah I would like a leak-proof travel mug and a Timmy's card. Sure I would.

So wish me good luck in what's left of this here contest, There aren't any iThings, but the contest is still cool.

Edit: looks like I didn't need the luck, since before I posted this, I won the prize I wanted. Yea! Gimme gimme gimme my Timmy Timmy Timmy's stuff!

Another sign that I obviously don't have this whole time-management thing down: I didn't get a happy birthday Steve post up like I try to do. Failbox! Well I guess I did pay for his dinner at Smokin' Tony's. Maybe that makes up for it.

By the way...Smokin' Tony's? Om nom nom! Check out their menu. They really give you a lot of food, and it's good. Mmm sweet potato casserole! When I first walked in I was afraid you could only take your food and go...but then I remembered. They serve beer, they must intend for people to sit down. And they did, and they were great.

Even though Steve and I are doing Christmas together, we figured for the sake of not lugging each other's gifts on the road, we'd exchange our gifts on Steve's birthday. That's probably a good idea, since I can't keep a secret at all. Out of the 6 things I got Steve, he knew what 3 of them were, and had guessed at a fourth. It kind of kills the surprise element when he knew what half the stuff was already. And he didn't snoop, it's because I can't keep a secret worth a damn...and an email came in which had the name of one of his gifts in the subject line..which just happened to read as he walked in the room. Damn JAWS, ya busted me. can't win for losin'.

But I'm happy to say that I own all the Austin Lounge Lizards CD's to date, and their concert DVD! Oooo that one's gonna be fun! Will have to review those when I get some time...so considering my big pile of comments about my lack of ability to time-manage...could be a while.

It is really hard to believe it's Christmas. I'm happy there's no snow, but it's hard to remember to wish people a merry Christmas and stuff when I'm not trompling through the snow. Christmas is going to be here and gone before I know what hit me.

And I think I've found the song that is as irritating to me as it's the most wonderful time of the year is to Steve. It's Do They Know It's Christmas.
I know it was a song raising money for people in Africa, but the line about "Do they know it's Christmas time" kinda bugs me. Maybe they don't care. What if they celebrate something else? And don't they need the money the rest of the year too? I don't know, there's something about that song that bugs me.

So they're starting a Go Train service out of Guelph. Right now it's designed to shuttle people to Toronto, but I hope some day it will go to Kitchener, giving me more options for travel to my awesome job. But as a preview, they gave everyone a free trip to Kitchener, and because a friend was also going, she asked me if I wanted to. Sure, what the heck!

So we headed for the train. She's a far bigger Go guru (goru?) than I am, so told me all about the accessible car, and how if I'm going to take the train, I'd be best to get on there. For one, there's always a person there watching for folks. For another, it always pulls up in the same spot, and third, it opens at every stop! Yup, sounds like a deal to me.

We got on, and actually got to talk to our MPP Liz Sandals. She was surprised that the bus service from Guelph to KW had deteriorated so badly. We talked for a little while to her about how awesome this whole Go service thing would be, because really it's the only truly accessible public transit service there is for folks in wheelchairs. Greyhound? Yeah right. Via? pfffft! Go Bus? Maybe if the drivers remember to do the fancy dancin' with a strip of seats. But with Go Trains, it's cool. A ramp comes out to close the gap between platform and train, and folks in wheelchairs just wheely wheely wheel onboard, and there's an area that's designated as accessible seating...although women with strollers think that means they're entitled, even though there are seniors with walkers and people with wheelchairs in plain sight. May you develop a disability making that seat necessary for you later in life and encounter a stroller-wheeling woman just like you. That is all. But the point is Go is really the only way to go for folks in wheelchairs, so let's start Go-ing in more directions.

The trip was wicked fast, like 20 minutes. Yup, I could deal with that. It's too bad poor Go got stuck behind a broken down freight train, which delayed their exit by an hour. But the trip itself was pretty cool.

In this rambling winding post of crazy, I have to give two gigantic woo's to a couple of folks in a couple of businesses. Let's start with Portions Canada. I heard about them through Twitter, the way I seem to hear about most things these days, and they were talking about having gluten-free food and prepared meals for folks with diabetes and stuff. I knew the shoe thief was kind of run ragged by a bunch of stuff, so I decided to get him a couple of frozen meals and some cookies. So off I went on a crazy adventure.

Can I say again that Google Transit is the worst thing known to man? Unless I'm an epic fail at using it, it always tells me the exactly wrong bus to get on to get to a given destination. I saw a link to it on the Portions Canada's Google map, so I thought I'd try it. "Take the 1 Woodlawn," it said. So I called Guelph Transit to get more details, and their response? "Um? 1 Woodlawn? To get there? Um, erm, not even close! You have to take the 22!"

But that's beside the point. I just couldn't miss the opportunity to rag on Google Transit. After going on a wild adventure through the city, being dumped on a giant grassy sidewalkless zone and being escorted across a busy parking lot to the store, the people *in* the store were nothing short of awesome. They told me next time, just call before I come and they'll come meet me at the bus stop! Not only that, but they went through things until I found the perfect combo of stuff. And to top it off, they delivered it to the shoe thief for me! Like, um, holy crap?

So if you're in the market for gluten-free goodies, stuff for folks with Diabetes or kidney disease, and I'm sure lots of other things, pop in there and see what you will find. But I have learned that if you're alergic to garlic, you should definitely not pop in there. All their meals and stuff have garlic in 'em. Ah well, how else are you going to flavour it without salt?

I have to also give a gigantic thankya to a very cool employee at Wind Mobile. Long story time. I have a blind friend who has been searching for a phone that he could at least possibly operate a little bit. Every phone he gets, he has been promised it talks, but all it has is voice recognition, i.e. "please say a command." That works to an extent, but you can't enter your own contacts, or operate most of the phone's functions. So, eventually, in frustration, he asked me to go with him to the store to see what we could see.

I first went in hoping they had something that could have the Nokia Screen Reader installed on it. I know it's free and kind of preliminary, but CodeFactory had their hand in it, I thought it would get us by. But they had nothing that would take that screen reader. So the woman from Wind Mobile toiled, talked to Samsung tech support, and twisted that phone into halfway working to the point that he might be able to at least get to voice command on his own.

This was no easy feat, but she did it. Not only that, but she taught me a few things about his phone, so I could continue helping him. Adrien from Wind Mobile in Old Quebec Street Mall in Guelph, you are the most awesome of awesome, and we appreciate all your hard work. Thanks to you, I was able to show him a couple more things. You deserve to get promoted yesterday.

You know, I have been buzzed by several colds and flus, and as each one zooms by, I thank my lucky stars. I did not want to be sick and need time off when I'm just starting work. But now, just before Christmas, I've got this wicked cough. Sometimes, when I cough, I sound like I'm pulling a Carl Barron. I can't find a damn clip of him doing it, but maybe others have heard him do that bit with the loud dry sounding cough. I'm hoping to beat it into submission before Friday when we head for Steve's family.

This got me to thinking. Why is it perfectly ok to come home for Christmas with your own family when you have a cold, but if you're going to someone else's family, that's just wrong? Why is it ok to infect your own family? Yup, we're weird.

I've been told by several people that Trixie has a lot more white around her muzzle. Um, eek? I don't like the physical reminders that she is getting older. I know she's still young, but well, it's just another reminder, like the pile of her city tags in the drawer, that time marches on.

I'm making a little something for Trixie's raisers this Christmas. I still don't know if they read here, so can't say what it is yet, but I hope they enjoy it. It'll have to arrive late this year, because I lost their address in the hard drive crash of doom in May, and I've emailed them but haven't heard back yet.

I got some very sad news yesterday. Don't worry, noone died, but it kind of feels like someone did. I just found out that the Fresh at Home program has suddenly been discontinued. You know what that means? No more easy to get local and awesome food. It's back to the grocery store for us, which is one big boo. It was cool that it was delivered, but the cooler part was how amazing it was. It truly was amazing. I don't know what happened to it, but one day, there was a program and the next it was gondo. It makes Steve and I very sad pandas.

And I think this monster has gone for quite long enough. I should be snoring, 6 a.m. comes early. So...I will post, fall down, and finish the thoughts I had left over in another post. Yes, I have more, and other posts that need a place up here. But I have to stop or I'll be no good to anyone tomorrow.

Sploosh Splosh Swimmin' In A Thought Pool

It's random thought splatter time. Put on your rubber boots, this thought puddle's a doozer.

Like every year, I have to get my silly Christmas shopping talk in there. When December started, I was flipping out, I'd hardly bought anything, and it was...what was Steve's word? De-fucking-cember? I can't find it, but ya know. Anyway, in one whirlwind trip around the mall, thanks to Steve's mom, I had nearly everything bought. I'm on the hunt for a couple things, but for the most part, I'm all set.

But one crappy side-effect of that is I noticed just how much money I was spending. It was so bad that my brain was envisioning trails of money being left in my wake. But really I'm not that nuts. It just feels that way because I don't usually luck out that huge/do it all at once.

Maybe the reason I was done so fast is I bought a lot of gift cards this year. But I tried to pick ones from stores that I thought the recipients would like. But one particularly hard gift card to get was the Red Lobster one. I'm pretty sure the person who I bought it for doesn't read here, but if they do, well, there goes the element of surprise.

I went to Red Lobster's website, and got all excited. They had gift cards! Then I was stopped dead in my tracks by the fact that the "state/province" box only had states in it. Grrr!

So, I called the closest restaurant, which was in Kitchener, and I was told that the site didn't sell them to Canada, you had to come to the restaurant. Um, not gonna happen.

Luckily for me, I have smart friends on Twitter *coughcough* @MELISSAandRUBY *coughcough*. She linked me to the FAQ that told me where I could call and order a card...which I did. I'm still waiting for it to arrive, but it's been ordered.

We're starting our new traddition of spending Christmas together. This year, we're off to Steve's family. It should be an interesting experience going to 4 or something Christmas thingamabobs so close together. But it'll be so nice to spend Christmas together.

Remember back when I talked about the person I picked to donate to his Movember campaign? Well, who knew I'd end up getting thanked for it? He made a cheesecake, brought it in and said everybody who donated to him would be guaranteed a piece. How awesome is that? Damn it was a good cheesecake, and I needed it that morning since I didn't sleep worth shit the night before.

If anyone's curious, I'm making huuuuge progress getting around our new floor. That whole reference points from upstairs plan kinda got blown straight to hell since it's shaped just differently enough that I don't make the connection. But that's ok, I'm figuring it out. Thanks to my coworkers being extremely patient, and repeatedly pointing out the same landmarks, it started to click. In fact, on Thursday, I zooped around the second floor with very little help.

Trix puts me to shame. She had the damn place mastered in a day. I took about four days before things started to happen. But they're happening, so that's all that matters.

Our new floor is apparently gorgeous. It definitely has some very cool things about it. One thing I have to get used to, though, is that there's no sink nearby for me to dump Trix's water. But I have learned that there's usually a solution to every common problem, and I now own a pretty spill-proof water bowl. This means I can carry it from my desk to the bathroom, probably sloshing all the way, and not spill. Yeah!

But the process of learning a new floor has made me quite fascinated with my own brain. I have noticed that in the beginning stages of learning a place, I am incapable of noticing random details that usually end up being helpful. I'm so focused on listening to where I'm supposed to turn that I notice nothing else.

Then, gradually, I will notice things like the colour of a wall, the way a certain hallway feels, or the smell of coffee. But all these obvious details went completely unnoticed until I reached a certain point in my learning. It's so bizarre.

But I'm really disturbed by the flipside of all this new learning. I am noticing that more and more, I am getting lost in familiar areas. I'm making stupid mistakes, turning too soon, and once, I crossed a street, then turned and crossed the other way when I only intended to cross one way. The scary part about this is I have no conscious memory of making the second crossing. This is my memory of events the other day: walk up to pedestrian pole, push button to cross street, cross, continue to bus stop...bus stop? Hey? Bus stop? Where are you? They don't just tear down a shelter...or do they?

What really happened was after I crossed the first time, I turned and crossed the other way. I did it safely, but I have no memory of doing this and had to deduce what I had done based on playing that old hotter colder game with Trix where she goes faster as we approach familiar areas. This scared me so bad that I nearly stopped, pulled out my phone and scheduled an appointment to see my doctor because I wondered if I may have had some kind of bizarre seizure.

I'm starting to think that no, my brain has just been so busy absorbing so much knowledge that something had to give. I know that as it adapts, I will stop having these brain burps. But if I don't, the doc and I are going to have a long talk. Crossing streets and having no memory of doing so could get me and/or Trix killed, and I don't want to die anytime soon.

And I'm sad to report that my hopes of reviving my GPS didn't pan out so well. I got the new part, it was the right part, but it has the same sloppy connection problem the other one does...so I can only think that maybe something bent in the actual unit. I'm not going to give up until I have to. I might bring it to work and let someone who is the right kind of genius have a boo at it. There are enough different kinds of geniuses around there, someone might have an idea or six.

I watched the dumbest movie ever. If someone comes up to you and says "Let's watch 'The Happening'," tell them you'd rather not waste an hour and a half or so of your life. Believe me, watching that movie is...just dumb.

Ok, the premise is that this weird toxen is circulating through the air that's causing people to find funky ways to kill themselves. Freaky idea, but well, the ending totally suuucks. It couldn't be any more anticlimactic. And along the way, you could put a jeep down some of the plot holes in this movie. Oy. Just...why?

But I have run into a whole pack of people this weekend that have made me wonder if instead of there being a toxen out there turning people suicidal, there's one out there stealing people's ability to think...at all.

Let's back up to a couple of days ago. I went into the liquor store to pick up a gift card there. The woman who served me, after seeing someone show me to the counter, pointed at the gift cards. "We have that one, or that one, or that one." I had to tell her that I couldn't see anything, so she'd have to tell me what she was pointing at. Then, she proceeded to freak out, wondering how to put through a gift card. A manager had to walk her through every step of the process. In a final move of duh, she nearly swiped my gift card, which would have probably used it up before I'd even paid for it. Thankfully the supervisor stopped her.

Ok, whatever, a frazzled worker at a store. No big deal, right? Let's move on to yesterday. Trix needed another bath. For some reason her skin and coat got really oily really fast. I don't know if fish oil will do that or what. Since it was so cold out, I took a cab from the bathing place since I didn't want her to stand out in the cold, and even if I put a coat on her, it was her face I was worried about.

So, I paid debit for the cab. He swiped the card, pushed some buttons and waited. I asked him please give me the pin pad. "No," he says, "It's just waiting to go through." Um, hello? I need to specify the account and, um, enter my PIN. It took me a couple of attempts to get him to look at the screen, realize that I did in fact have to press some buttons, and give me the damn pad.

"Yeah," you say, "Whatever. Maybe he'd had a long day." But the parade continued this morning. I went to that Tim Hortons I talked about a little while ago. I had a craving for apple cider, so decided to get Steve and I some breakfast sandwiches and drinks. I arrived, and started to make my order. Before I finished, the girl started madly calling for a manager. I don't even know why. I think she thought they didn't sell cider or something. When someone could finally convince her that they did, she then said "Is that everything?" I asked her what she had heard, and basically she said nothing. So, how could that be everything if she doesn't remember a damn thing I ordered?

I went to pay with debit, since I can now, put the card in and punched the buttons. She then said she couldn't figure out if it had worked or not. She had to call someone over, and neither of them could figure it out. I had to actually call my bank and check that it had gone through.

Whatever, it's a new Tim's, they're a little frazzled. But while I was in the same store, a woman was very kind and offered to help me with my stuff. I told her what I had ordered and she handed me a bag and said that's everything. I said I had ordered a few sandwiches and a couple of drinks. She said "Yup." I knew the drinks weren't there because I didn't have a tray. Finally someone pointed out that the drinks were still sitting on the counter. She then said "Oh, I thought they were in the bag!" Um, what would have happened if they put the drinks in the bag with other things? They would have fallen over! Gaaaa!

The stupid virus wasn't confined to Guelph. I came home to my email, and found an email saying that a person had left a comment on this post about a USB stick. Just look at my first comment, and then Lilly's. Hello, did you actually think I was being completely serious? For real?

I ventured back out, and the stupid continued. As I was crossing the street, someone shot by and said "Is your dog doing better?" Huh? What is she even talking about? And why not stay around for the answer? Another person asked me what all Trix does for me, and then said "I have to run." Asking me what Trix does is a pretty complicated question. If you don't have the time, don't ask the question.

As I tried to find a place I'd never found before, I ran into a guy and thought I'd ask him. I was standing at the corner of two streets, let's call them Smith and Jones. I was looking for something on Jones. I asked him about the place, and said it was on Jones. His response? "I don't even know where Jones Street is." Uh, chief, take a gander at that there sign. He did, and still didn't know, so walked up to a woman and asked her where the place was. The response she gave him was a shriek that sounded like the woman a. didn't understand English and/or b. thought this man was out to rob or rape her. Instead of realizing this woman was not going to be of any help, he pressed on! I had to persuade him to leave her be, she was confused, and seemed scared.

At last, I was about to get on the bus and get home, hoping I wouldn't breathe in the stupid gas and start doing dumb things. An older fellow walked up to me and this is all he said. "Do you remember my voice? I met you on the bus." Well...that narrows it down in a hurry. He then told me he helped me find some place where an old theatre used to be. I still have no idea to what he was referring, nor do I remember him.

Ack. That is just too much weird in two days. I know if I show up at work tomorrow and people are acting stupid, I have something to fear.

I think that's about it for now. Hope you enjoyed the trip across my river of thoughts.

It's The Occupy VC Cast

Update: The audio hasn't worked for a while here. Thank you Blind File Sharing for hosing us. So now, for all things cast, pop on over to our new site. There, you'll find audio that works!

Well, it is here. The Occupy VC Cast, the Occucast, whatever you want to call it, it's here...and it's about to occupy about 2 hours of your time. It would be awesome if you found it 99% funny.

We divided it into 4 parts. It would have been only 3, but well, ya see, I'm a giant moron and caused us to need to make a bonus part.

Part one lasts for about 25 minutes or so. In it, we spend some time on the whole Occupy VC thing, and how the Occupy movement has invaded my subconscious, because when I hear 1% or 99% from the computer as it's loading something, I immediately think of Occupy-related stuff. We mention Lunchupguelph, and ramble a while about the work Christmas party we went to, some about the odd weather, the Baker Street Station, and then we set off on our first major rant. Steve got very creative in making fun of the reasons people come up with for petting guide dogs when they know they shouldn't, and Trix got excited by his silly tone. I also did my best to describe the drink I tried at Baker Street Station, man that was awesome. Then after Steve talked in a funny voice, a joke next to noone will get, we brought this part of things to a sudden end.

In part two, which lasts about 42 minutes, Steve made me a drink and we talked about its ability to smack me around six ways from Sunday. We also talked about how Steve knows what drinks I'd like and has a pretty good track record. the story of the recent time where one of our Twitter buddies jokingly called Steve a douchebag came up, as well as the fact that someone seriously calls themselves Magnificent Douchebag as their Twitter name. We asked a question about something someone said who has gone lots of times to the Occupy Toronto movement, and Steve scared the hell out of me by mentioning this video. We lament the fact that BlindFileSharing's front end went splat, cutting off access to the files. Other topics talked about are the Occupy Movement's biggest curse, the stupidity of news media working people into a frenzy over nothing, Black Friday insanity, The mumbly new Tim Horton's slogan and general suckiness of Tim Hortons commercials, especially the use of the words "whipped topping". And before we break again, Steve talks about how much he loves the Grey Cup finals, and a few recent Grey Cup party memories.

And then, we really get silly in Part three, which goes about 50 minutes. This was the other half of our inspiration for audio. The story goes that the police in our area step up their efforts to watch out for impaired drivers. So, they pull everybody over on a stretch of road, ask them if they've had anything to drink, and if they think they have, they test them and deal with them. This is called the RIDE program (Reduce Impaired Driving Everywhere). But at Christmas, they call it the festive RIDE program. This always gave us an image of singing cops jingling bells and being full of jolly cheer while making people walk the line and blow into the breathalizer. We then wondered what sort of songs they would sing at the festive RIDE program...and that's what we spend the majority of the time doing. Part of the way through, I suddenly realize we need bells, and go off in search of something that would serve as bells. Since I can't find them, we have to settle for jingling our keys. At the very end, we wrap up by laughing at someone for thinking the Foo Fighters were called the Food Fighters, and there's a little joke in there for a fellow known on Twitter as @thedangillis.

And just when you think it's over, we make Part four, all because I found those pesky bells! This one only goes about 4 minutes or so.

We had a lot of fun doing this audio, so I hope you enjoy. Here's Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and finally, Part 4.

Enjoy, or something.

Weekend Audio: Lunchless Lunches, Shattered Bowls And Talking Beer Koozies

At longish last, audio is back!

This piece should have gone up last week, but due to the small matter of it not being recorded until right now, that didn't happen.

On this here 18.5 minute adventure into something or other, we touch on such topics as the good and bad of the #LunchUpGuelph event Carin went to today, why you should never, ever break anything made by Corelle and my talking Maple Leafs beer koozie with Joe Bowen's voice on it that was the main reason for recording this thing. Yes RO, you finally get to hear it. There's also a bit of Trixie, who plays some tug, runs around a bit and gets quite interested in the microphone.

If this sounds interesting or if you're the type to listen to stuff just because it's here, have at it.

And when you're done having at it, enjoy game 7 tonight. Even if you don't like baseball, you maybe should watch. Last night's game was one of the best games I've ever seen, the kind of game that makes fans out of people who never gave a damn about baseball before.

Amanda may hate me for this, but I'm going with the Cards. their run has been amazing and for some reason I'd kind of like to see them win. On second thought, Amanda may love me considering how well some of my previous baseball predictions have gone.

Whatever happens, I'll be watching and hoping for another fun one. Back and forths are great when you have no true cheering interest.

Figuring Each Other Out Is An Achievement

I should probably write this before I do anything else, since it kind of needs to be done by tonight if I want it to make it into the fifth assistance dog blog carnival. Yup, it's time again. Geesh, I feel like I just wrote for July's. Come to think of it, I kinda need to visit all the posts in that one. I fail.

So, the subject of this carnival is achievement. That should be an easy one. I mean, we're always trying to achieve something. But I had a hard time coming up with something to put into words.

Then I was out walking with Trix, and she indicated the entrance to a building we go to a lot. Then she showed me that she could really use a chance to relieve. I got thinking of all the little signals we send and receive, and about how the communication between a guide dog team is a real achievement. It's amazing that we get so far at all.

When new teams start off, we only have a basic understanding of what each of us is trying to say. The handler says "I want to go left, I want to go right, don't sniff that pole." The dog says "You can't go left, you might want to stick your foot out, I'm excited about something but you can't figure out what." Then, with practice, both of you understand each other and it's a little spooky. You know the difference between a purposeful sped up walk and an excited one, and you even start to figure out which kind of excited it is. I'm sure it looks like mind-reading sometimes.

I'm still amazed when I think about the first time Trix showed me she had figured out that she couldn't give me visual cues to tell me what she wanted. So, for example, if she needed to go pee, she would have to tap me, then walk to the door. I didn't teach her anything about that. She just figured it out all by herself.

Or there was the time that I realized Trixie knew the shortcut I was afraid to take from our apartment building to the road, so let her take it to see what happened. It was amazing to achieve that level of trust, to the point where I only had a rough idea of the path we should take, and let her make her own way.

Then there were the times she figured out ways to tell me things that weren't so clear, like the time she told me it was too windy and dangerous to walk all the way to the drug store, but she'd walk to this closer corner store, or the time she told me which way was home by walking slow in one direction and fast in the other. How cool is that?

Every time it's confirmed that I got the message she was trying to tell me, I think about just how far we've come from those days where I was taking guesses at everything she was trying to say.

Here's an excerpt of an old post I wrote almost 3 years ago, talking about the amazing things you can achieve with practice and perceptiveness. Holy crap, has it been that long?

Trix never stopped amazing me all day. We went to the mall. We had to navigate a solid crowd of what I call Christmas zombies. All they're thinking about is "next stop...what else do I need to get...must...find...shirt." they'll bowl you over as they think about what they need to still buy. They were everywhere. There were little ones, older folks with walkers, people running every which way. I think I bumped one handbag the whole time. When people were directing me, they were saying they were having trouble manoeuvring. I wasn't having much trouble at all, and the whole time, Trixie's tail was wagging, wagging, wagging. You go girl.

Next I went to the food court while I was getting one of my santa prints converted to a 5X7 and got some fries and a drink, but the silly folk who were helping me get to the table never got me a straw! So I got up, listened for the guy's voice who ran the fry booth, and we went for it. With the cane, I probably wouldn't have tried because there were too many people, tables, obstacles, and other assorted goo. Within about 30 seconds, I had my straw and was heading back to my table, which she stopped at. I love you, you awesome fuzzball you.

As we left the food court, I asked someone to set me on the right path for the photo place. We got there, and Trixie got me through that narrow space at the door between two poles and marched me straight back through the people and the clutter to the counter we'd been at before. Yeah!

Her awesomeness reached a crescendo of woo when we went to leave the mall. Someone helped me find the hall that led to the buses. she said just go straight and you'll get there. There must have been a turn, because I could feel the draft from the bus exit, and then it was gone. So I stopped and said "Trixie, outside." She wheeled me around in a 180 and booked it in her determined guide dog fashion straight for the exit. When someone said the bus came in, We went out and I said "bus!" and she found it! god damn I love this dog. She gives me that warm fuzzy feeling. She can be a handful, but she's really turned
on the guide dog juice. she is incredible.

Her snow travel doesn't show signs of failing either. She knows that ice means slow down, and is really careful about climbing over icy lumps and ruts in the sidewalk. ...

Sure, some of that she might have been able to do right out of training, but certainly not all, and I wouldn't have understood so many of her subtle little signals.

Some people don't understand what all goes into working with a guide dog. They don't get the concept that the team's learning doesn't stop when they leave training. But truly, the life of a team is a great big string of achievements.

Updates, Random Thoughts, And Assorted Stuff

I guess I should probably update folks, since last Saturday I was all full of "help me! Help me!"

I have myself a steady ride! Yeah baby! It's hard to explain how stressful it is wondering if you'll have rides to work, or wondering which days you should say you're available based on who says they can drive you, along with getting used to the new job and everything. I kept picturing those primitive hunter-gatherers, foraging, hoping that if they just looked in the right places, they'd find the jackpot that would keep everybody fed for the next little while. Sure I wasn't hunting for food, but it was sort of the same feeling of stress. Will I have rides for the next week? Where should I look next? When? In what bit of spare time should I start hunting again? What group of people should I ask next who might be a good resource?

Luckily, I have awesome coworkers who were totally flexible and willing to work with me, which took the stress down several notches. Then, one of them helped me find my ride, and for that, I will be eternally grateful.

This job is totally going to rock my socks off. There is a boat load of stuff to do, but it all has the potential for awesome all over it. Plus, the people I work with are all kinds of amazing. I just hope I can do everything they're looking for. I know one thing. I'm going to learn a whole lot of cool things.

I get impressed by simple things. I made Steve laugh when I came home from work and said "Steve, come here! Look at this! It's a card that opens doors!" I know that doesn't sound like much, but whenever I would do stuff for them before, I would have a visitor's pass that didn't have any door-opening power. Don't get me wrong, I didn't need it since there was always someone going with me to meetings etc. so it was no big deal. But now I'm officially one of the crew! Yeah, I know, I'm a goof.

I still come home tired, but I'm sure that will get easier. But until I can zoom about the office without having to concentrate uber hard, I'll probably be a little brain squishy. Oh well, it means my brain is getting a workout. Thankfully Steve's helping me out a bunch. He makes my lunches and stuff. That sounds like a small thing, but it's appreciated.

I think my coworkers must think I'm weird. As they're showing me how to get from a to b to c, I'll mutter to myself about "There's that buzzing thing again. Where should the buzzing thing be?" No, I'm not crazy. I'm trying to use whatever is buzzing as some kind of orientation clue. If I can remember which way the buzzing thing should go, that will tell me later that I'm on the right track. Then I found out the buzzing thing isn't always on! Damn it!

Trix is getting familiar with the place too. She's funny. She basically knows how to find my desk and the lunch room. The funny part is she can find the lunch room on the way to lunch, which involves navigating this snakey crazy turny section of the hall. But when I come back through, she always goes straight and doesn't try to automatically do the turns to get back to the desk. I can only guess that we have gone a couple of directions after lunch a few times, so she just thinks "duh...boss, I don't know where you want me to go, so I'll just go straight." Oh well, that's why we'll get a couple lessons on how to get around, so I'll know those finer points. But I might need a couple more lessons later on, since we're apparently moving to another floor of the building in a month or so. Ah well, it's all good.

There isn't much else new, I'm just getting used to all this new jobby stuff. Wish me luck, this is a pretty huuuuge opportunity. I hope I don't mess it up. And some day soon, I will have enough brain cells left to write stuff for here again on a more regular basis.

Long Time, No Trix Talk!

Ya know, you all need to convince Carin that I need to talk more. She doesn't let me talk nearly enough. I mean seriously, I only spoke for part of a post when this place won an award, and I'm sure I'm the reason we won the award anyway. What else could it be? I'm just so cute.

This has been a kind of weird year for me. It all started back when I stopped wanting to play tug. I used to love tug. Give me a toy that I can grab an end of and I'll go at it. Tugga tugga rar rar snort snort tugga tugga shakeshake tugga tugga roar! So, much, fun! But once I was playing tug and something didn't feel write to me, so I said yeep! Carin stopped, and ever since, it just hasn't been the same for me.

Then I wasn't the happiest going up and down those weird stairs at that big house that used to have the cat. Come on, you can see right through to the back, and if you're not careful, you can slide right on through them. But I got over that. But Carin was still worried about the whole no tug thing. So eventually she took me to the vet.

They had a good look at me, even put me on this thing that could take pictures of my insides. But they told Carin they couldn't find anything. But they must have told her some weird stuff, because for a little while there, she gave me these yucky pills. Then she wouldn't take me out with her to go anywhere except to pee, and even then, I had to wear a special collar. I could have told her that whatever made me yeep was gone, but she wouldn't have listened. Plus she'd do other weird things like more obedience sessions and playing weird games of find the fat man and taking me to see the huppy and family without a leash at all. Hmm. No leash? Really?

Then I started to think maybe she didn't like walking with me anymore. Maybe she liked that white stick thing, like the fat man uses. Was that it? I wasn't going to work anymore? I tried to ask the fat man, but of course he doesn't speak dog. He'd just tell me that she would be back. Every time she came back, I would sniff her. I was mad. I could tell she had been to places we used to go. To the drug store. In that nice lady's car that always drives us to that City Hall place. To that other place where she meets up with that other guy with the white stick. Just what was this? I wasn't sad anymore, I was mad! How dare she cheat me out of seeing all the people and places I love?

Then one day, as if nothing was wrong, she put my gear back on and we headed out. But she insisted on making me heel while she used the stick thing. Just what was this?

The first place we went was to the vet. The vet? That's my first trip out? You are mean, Carin, really you are. But the vet must have said happy things, because after we left there, she let me work normally! They must have talked some sense into her, telling her it wasn't right to take me away from all the people and things I love so much.

After that, I thought I'd be extra good. I would do everything I was taught, to the letter. I would show her that working with me was good. Really, I would show her how her white stick thing doesn't know how to avoid the ice. It doesn't know how to use the path. See all the things that thing can't do that I can? See? See? Well I guess it worked, because she hasn't left me at home ever since.

But after all that bad stuff happened, something reeeeally goood came out of it. I met my bestest friend in the whole wide world. I have a doggy friend, and she's perfect!

Don't get me wrong, I've had a few dog friends over the years. There's Rosamae, and Luther, although I've not seen Luther in a long while, and Lars, who I only saw once, but thought he was pretty hot. But this dog, Ruby, tops 'em all! For one thing, I get to see her all the time. Sometimes we've even gone over to her house so we can play! And Ruby never jumps on me and goes up and down, up and down. She just licks my face and talks to me. She chases me around the room, and squeaks her squeaky toy at me. I love her so much that if we see each other and we don't get to walk at least a bit together, I pitch a fit. Roooooo-beeeeee! Rooooo-beeeee! Come back here Roooo-beeeee! And she does the same. Ruby, just where have you been all my life? Don't ever go. You hear that, Roooo-beeee?

And because of Ruby and Ruby's person, I met a new vet! And I like everything about this place. The other vet, well, I liked the people, but if I could avoid going in there, I would. I would pretend I didn't know where the door was, and Carin would get mad. But if we don't go into this place, I get really upset. You don't take me close to this place and not go in. That's just not cool, and I'll make my thoughts known. The people at this place are really nice to me. One of them even gives me snuggles and belly scratches if the other one is looking at me! Hey, I'm always up for a snuggle and a belly scratch. And a treat. And a snuggle and a belly scratch. Another belly scratch? Yeah. And they look at me right in front of Carin. They don't take me away to some other place. That makes me feel soooo much better.

Hmmm what else is new? Oh yeah. The huppy's gotten so much bigger, and he finally walks. He started walking a bit after the last time Carin let me talk to you guys. Now he walks so much that we don't always bring the huppy car. And he can go faaaast! And he can talk. He can say my name, and Carin's name, but for a while, it sounded really weird. But he says it like Carin now. Can you believe he's had another one of those parties to mark another 7 doggy years? I sure can't.

But he likes to try and pull my tail and smack me. I think he's trying to go pat pat pat like Carin does, but it's more like slap slap slap. Carin and the huppy's mom are trying to teach him to be nice to me, but he's sneaky. Carin, you promised me you'd protect me. You'd better get at it. I don't say anything, but pulling on my tail is just no good. You usually catch him, but that huppy is sneaky and fast!

Usually Carin knows what I'm trying to say to her. I come over to her and bonk bonk her on the arm with my nose? It means follow me, I have something to show you. Probably the door because I have to pee. I jump around at food o'clock and food o'clock? It means feed me. I start running back and forth when things go boom outside? It means I don't like this at all, fix it. But the other day, she totally didn't get it!

It wasn't quite bedtime pee o'clock. I came over to her. I had to tell her. There was a bad storm coming. I licked her. I licked her ear. I bumped her with my nose.

"Do you have to pee?" she said.

No! No no no! You're not listening! I jumped! I snorted! I licked frantically.

"Oh! You must really have to pee," she said.

No no no! She still doesn't get it! She put the harness on. Hmmm. Maybe we're going to warn the huppy's family. Maybe? We get in the elevator. We get out. Oh no, we're going to go out. Out in this! I started to walk slowly. Now she was confused. Well, what took her so long? But she kept going outside. As soon as we got out there, I heard a great big boom! One of those booms in the sky that sometimes happens after a flash! That was what I was trying to tell her. I didn't have to pee at all! I wanted to tell her about the boom!

So what did I do wrong? I mean, when she asked if I had to pee, I was trying to tell her no with my jumping and snorting. Hmmm. I do jump around when I do have to pee. Hmmm. I guess she didn't know the difference between a yes jump and a no jump. I guess she needs more training in dog speak.

So we took a big walk down to that place where she says sometimes Christmas presents get picked up. We got a little box. But what was in that box? A present for me! Ooo!

I loooove this little present. It's fuzzy. It's squeaky. It's easy to push around. It makes me go grrr at it. But it confuses me. I should be able to rippa rippa rip in there and get the squeaker out. But it won't let me in! Come on, you look so, so, so easy to break! But you won't break! Oh well, one day, I will win. Just give me time.

Hmmm I think that's about it. You'd think I'd have more to say since it's been so long. But I think that's all the big news. Hopefully talk to you sooner than later!

Long Weekend Audio: She Likes It!

A while back, I bid on an item In an auction L_Squared was running to try and raise money to sponsor a puppy. After looking through the cool items, I settled on something called a "Snuggle Juggle" toy by Nylabone. It was a stuffed toy with a squeaker designed to be durable! Aa, this I gotta see!

Well, it arrived in the mail, and I went to get it yesterday. Today, we opened the box and introduced Trixie to the toy. Judging from the resulting audio, Trixie was very impressed with my choice.

And even after she put it through that, all it is is a little slimy! Cool!

I think this toy will be appreciated for a while.

Do I Have To Shriek About This?

I heard about these weird devices called the mosquito. They're supposed to emit a high-pitched sound that is irritating to teenagers, but the rest of us have had our hearing naturally degrade so we don't even notice. I thought it was kinda weird, and if I were a teenager, I'd probably feel offended that some store owners were choosing to repel me like some kind of unwanted rodent, but never really gave it any thought. Now I hear that somebody in Guelph has chosen to install one of these, but is too cowardly to admit who they are. There's something about that whole thing that seems wrong. If teens are such a problem for you that you went and spent money installing a device to keep them away, you might as well stand up and say who you are. Plus, they're going to figure it out when it starts squealing.

But I got thinking. If this sound is painful or annoying to teenagers, what will it do to dogs' ears? If it is extremely distracting to my dog, could it end up being dangerous for me? If it's in an alley near an intersection, will the sound reach Trix's ears while we're trying to cross nearby?

Hell, what will it do to me, and other people whose hearing is more sensitive? I notice high-pitched noises more than your average bear.

And they keep saying that really, they're not trying to stop teens, they're trying to stop loitering. Well, I've got news for ya. Have you ever walked around downtown Guelph and noticed how many adults hang about aimlessly there? Is it going to stop the weird Italian guy who hangs around down there yelling "Free Pizza?" I don't think so. Something tells me his hearing has sufficiently degraded. I've heard that his teeth have. Is it going to stop the fully-grown dude who came up to me after I bought something from the LCBO, chased me down the street, constantly insisting that that bag was tooo heavy for me, let me carry it? I don't think so. He creeped me out so much that I took a cab home...which was two blocks away at the time.

Don't get me wrong, I feel pretty safe in Guelph. But what I'm trying to say is I'm afraid this sonic teen-repellent thing may not solve the problem, and have unintended consequences for completely innocent people that don't fit the demographic. Plus, it might discriminate against completely innocent teens too!