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| Tallinn |
I blame the dogs.
I have said it before but having two dogs is not like having one dog twice. There is a multiplication factor and it is exponential. The problem is of course that it is too cold for me to leave them outside for very long lest they freeze to death and I am sure I signed something saying that I would not do that.
So they are inside a lot of the time and stick to me like velcro. I do not mind this if I am doing something in the kitchen because they just hang about but when I sit at my computer they both sit next to me and look at me mournfully. Georgia sometimes rests here head on my knee and stares up at me. I know just what she is thinking.
'Oh I am so sad. I have a wrangler who does not love me. I am treated so badly in this house it makes me want to vomit on the carpet. There - I did it. See what you made me do!'
So it is difficult to blog - or do anything much on my PC. Others would cope but I cannot function with dogs staring at me and infecting my brain with their negative thoughts.
Of course the only advantage with the cold is that the dog poo gets frozen and is easier to deal with. I have a small pick axe to separate it from the snow.
Anyway - PK and Gwenyth arrived on time and we immediately set about demolishing the 6 dozen bottles of Austrian wine that I had bought. I got the wine shop’s last stocks of Gruner Veltliner. Nectar of the gods.
For Christmas Cate wanted some of the usual unfindable stuff - I am talking pomegranate molasses - but I got it from Amazon and produced it triumphantly. Cate and Gwenyth said oh we made that dish yesterday we don't need that now.
What a surprise.
I doubt that we will ever need pomegranate molasses again so will store it in the basement along with the crushed butterfly antennae, the smoked goose toenails, the grilled eel ears and the peanut butter flavored smoked maple syrup.
Christmas dinner was a complete disaster. The turkey was inedible. And that was the best bit.
We left to go to Tallinn in Estonia and got to Indy airport bright and early. Up until 20 minutes before the flight was due to leave it was shown on our United app as being on time. Then we are got a message telling us that our flight is 100 minutes late. WTF!
Of course it got even later so we got to Newark well after our flight to Frankfurt had left.
We engaged in hand to hand combat with the United service counter at Newark to get new flights. It seems from what we went through that this is the first time this had ever happened. Oh my goodness I am not sure how we fix this. Let me look at the computer - oh is is not working very well today (surprise).
We got hotel and food vouchers to stay at a gruesome hotel at least a half hour away by shuttle. We drove through a ruined landscape that appeared to have been carpet bombed.
The hotel should have been called 'Grizzly Towers’ or 'Bog Hollow’. There was no bar, no restaurant and no room service. But there was a bar in the hotel next door - and it closed in 5 minutes - so we ran there and bought 3 bottles of warm wine.
We got a pizza delivered and washed it down with plastic tumblers of warm wine. Not exactly what we had planned but it got the job done.
We had a day to spend in Newark while we waited for our evening flight. So we asked what we should do in Newark for a day.
'Go to New York' was the answer.
To be continued.
Good to see you back in blogging action. Concerning your dogs, Badger, I assure you that they would not be disturbed in any way whatsoever by the cold weather in Indianapolis. Of course they would need a comfortable kennel, but I'm sure you already have one in the garden. All you have to do is invent some kind of standard command such as "Come on outside, dogs. Gotta guard the house." Then you simply turn away and let them stare at you for a while. They'll work out for themselves the best way to spend the night. As for you, simply ignore them. In the morning, call them: "Hey dogs, come inside." Maybe you could start the training by allowing only one of the two dogs to sleep outside. I advise you to verify my suggestions with better dog specialists than me. I merely wanted to tell you firmly that the idea of a dog suffering from the cold is crazy. That's humans trying to persuade themselves that dogs are fellow humans. No, dogs are dogs. Full stop.
ReplyDeleteA huge error in your blog post was the bit about Georgia resting her head on your knee and thinking in despair that you're a wrangler who does not love her. If she then vomited on the carpet, that means nothing. You have to realize that vomiting is a very elementary gesture for a dog. Dogs vomit in much the same way that humans sneeze or fart. Out in the garden, in the middle of the night, if she were to vomit, she would probably take advantage of the situation immediately by lapping up all the warm stuff. Haven't you ever seen a dog lapping up its own vomit? They do this all the time. For God's sake (for Dog's sake) Badger, stop comparing dogs with humans. They're far smarter than humans! You should ask Amazon to send you a good technical book on canine behavior and psychology. Or maybe go to some kind of a veterinary class for humans. As you should know by now, in a typical relationship between a dog and its owner, it's the human being, not the dog, who needs some serious in-depth training. Dogs work out everything for themselves, whereas human are so backwards that they need to be taught, educated and trained...
ReplyDeleteDear Badger: You're going to hate me for what I'm about to say. Clearly, one of the reasons why you're having so many problems in blogging is your heavy drinking. You're on a suicide path, mate. Why don't you simply say that enough's enough? You're young enough and intelligent enough to halt this self-destructive madness. Would you suffer greatly if you were to give yourself a break and avoid wine for a while? Replace the drinking by a period of good old-fashioned blogging. Why not? Why does it take a Franco-Australian friend on the other side of the planet to suggest that you're acting crazily? Don't you have any close family members or friends who dare to declare that you're heading in a bad direction? I don't see anything from any of them as blog comments. Why have they abandoned you? In any case, mate, I certainly don't intend to abandon you... which is why I've dared to write the present comment. I nevertheless apologize for talking like a shocked silly old bugger.
ReplyDeleteWarm wine is poison. It's like sipping arsenic. As a fellow-Australian, Badger, you should recall how we always joked about Brits drinking warm beer. And here you are telling us about how you've been sipping warm wine. Badger, you're crazy. You're too young to end up in a hospital or an asylum. It's so fucking simple to be sensible. Try it, mate...
ReplyDeleteBadger has left a new comment on your post "I blame the dogs":
ReplyDeleteAh William you take my writing much too seriously. I understand my dogs very well and am not persuaded by their over the top performances. I have dog books up to my ears and am an expert in the theory of dog behavior. As for drinking - I write about it a lot and drink very little. I blog not often because I have so much else to do.
I persist in feeling that you should make an effort to communicate a little with your old group of followers, who seem to have disappeared into thin air. Maybe you'll tell me that they're all following you over on Facebook. If so, I would not know... because I've never joined that body, nor have I joined LinkedIn or WordPress... or voted for Trump. This is an Australia Day message from one NSWelshman to another. I hope we'll see an Aussie blog post from you tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteQuite right Willam. I will try to do better. But you really should try Facebook - it is lots of fun.
ReplyDelete