loglog

O joy.

One of the many uses of a chihuahua.

I’m painting the hallway bright yellow. Together with the new lights the corridor looks and feels much bigger. The actual painting is fun, but prepping the walls, filling holes and repairing blemishes is a tedious process and took way more time than I like.

After this I only have to do the living and dining room, then the house is totally painted, for the first time since Alison moved here about 13 years ago. The paint that is on the walls now is put there by her predecessors and only one, not completely covering, coat in an ugly brown. A job long overdue.

But before I start that I first want to built some bookcases, so my books can leave the boxes I’ve put them in, more than 3 years ago.

Being a landlord is not always fun. Two of our tennants had pumbing problems this week, so I spent quite some time with my head in the under-the-sink cabinet.

I replaced one sink strainer, two kitchen taps, a couple of rubber washers and I unclogged one bath tub.

I also installed a new baseboard heater and a thermostat to control it. Now we certainly have to raise the rents!

O, how Poupoune hates it when we put these doggy socks on her feet. She growls and tries to bite me, but most of the time Alison holds her tight so she can only growl harder.

When the socks are on, she often refuses to walk, and stretches one of her legs in the air. I understand they are uncomfortable, but they’re the first doggy socks that she actually doesn’t lose and that protect her from the snow, the salt and the gravel. Unfortunately I can’t explain that to her, and she has a hard time seeing the connection. When she leaves the house and runs in the snow everything is fine, but getting those things on is a major hassle and requires two persons. So Poupoune doesn’t get the amount of walks she wants.

The other day I took her outside without the socks on and the salt on the sidewalk hurt her so much that she stopped in her tracks with both paws in the air, sitting on her hind legs, and softly whimpering. Genuine Pepe behaviour, not typical for Poupoune. I had to pick her up and carry her home, stared at by passers-by.

Target marketing gone bad:

1) we buy a lot of diapers because Pepe… has a little problem with peeing outside when it is so cold.
2) we buy them at Jean Coutu and show our Airmiles card.
3) we must have an incontinency problem.

So today we got a special offer from Jean Coutu/Airmiles for extra Airmiles if we buy Tena adult diapers. We asked Pepe if he’d like that, but he immediately hid in his dogbed. He’s a bit ashamed about his problem, I guess.

The second time this year I stand on my cross country skis. The first time was the day before I was felled with a brochitis (probably related), and the second time, today, almost three weeks later. I went with my friend Paul, my lungs held out okay and we covered quite some ground. It was fun.

Part of the reason for this lack of skiing, is the weather. There is just not enough snow. It was barely enough today and every day one centimetre of snow evaporates because the air is cold and dry (the process is actually sublimation).

We really need a couple of feet more snow.

The metro stopped at Berri-UQAM and the doors didn’t close. After a couple of minutes a voice announced something on the intercom, but because these intercoms are of “1965″-quality I couldn’t decipher what they said. Fortunately the other passengers around us could, and left the metro car. An accident caused an interruption for 1 hour. A metro euphemism for a suicide. We went up to the street and were one of the first to stand in line for the bus. Behind us the line went around the block.

If you want to kill yourself, please don’t jump in front of a metro. It’s awful for the bystanders to witness, the metro driver gets nightmares and you piss off a whole lot of metro passengers.