Oy vey! Busy day!

0615 – Awaken to the sounds of Gene Autry gaily singing his Christmas standard, Here Comes Santa Claus. You may download it right here to play as you read this post (right click and choose “save as…” to download the 3.52mb MP3). We were up early to prepare Moosh for surgery to remove a cyst on her eye. She wasn’t allowed to eat anything at all so she was rather unhappy this morning. We did manage to hold her down to take a photo of her cyst for posterity. Illustration below:

Merry f’ing Christmas! Here’s a giant vet’s bill. Good thing we love the dog or it’d be off to the woods for one of those, “Go on! Get! Shoo!” scenes from horrifically sad movies. Just kidding. I was so worried about old Moosh going under the knife today I hardly slept at all.

0715 – Leave Burnaby with a hungry, pissed off dog in the car driving against rush hour traffic to the veterinarian in Maple Ridge. Only one lane on that stupid Pitt River Bridge at that hour as the counterflow lane is in. Fun… not! Yes , we still use the vet in MR as Dr Loff is great with Moosh and specializes in senior canines. Moosh, the half-blind, half-deaf, warty and arthritic 14 year old Springer Spaniel definitely fits that bill. Did I mention we love our dog?

0820 – Arrive ten minutes early at the animal hospital and have to wait ten minutes to hand Moosh the trembling drama queen over to the vet’s assistant.

0840 – Arrive at Ye Olde Butcher Shoppe in MR (still the best butcher’s shop for us) to beg for an unordered Christmas turkey and meat for stuffing. I guess they saw me coming because they had a 16 pounder for me. Luckily I went early enoough in the day that th extra birds they ordered were still there. Thanks guys!

0855 – Back on the road going with rush hour traffic through high mall density neighbourhoods frought with people in a huge hurry. I said a little thank you to the universe for my having finished Xmas shopping earlier in the week.

0930 – Arrive home to message on voicemail from Sears Canada about our new stove. The message wasn’t the clearest and I had to play it at least 4 times to get the number to return the call. Thanks to the technolgy of VoIP by Vonage, you too can listen to the message right here (right click and choose “save as…” to download the 128 kb MP3). It says we’re getting a fridge on the message. News to us.

Here’s the perfect opportunity to tell a bit about the old stove. bear with me. It’s worth it. The bake element wouldn’t work properly without the timers which were tough to figure out as the symbols used on the oven had gone the way of the dodo bird as had the manual. Art, a retired electrician, tried his damndest to fix the stove and Jo-ann even took photos to prove it:

Here he is tinkering. Boy that looks like a lot of fun! but the whole ordeal drove poor Art to distraction:

Note to self: When a project makes you insane to the point of putting orange tights on your head it is probably tme to throw in the towel and move north to Endako. That’s just what Art and Jo did. Thus the house was free for us to move into.

The story of the stove continues, but long story short – Called appliance fix-it guy. Fix-it guy ‘fixes’ stove bypassing timers. Stove blows fuse. Carol and Mike buy more fuses. Stove blows more fuses. Carol begs for new stove. Art and Jo offer new one without a murmur of complaint. Bye bye old stove… hello new one.

0940 – Back to today. Call the vocally encrypted number back. Thought I heard a woman’s voice and almost hung up thinking it was a wrong number. Nope. Was the right one. Was asked if I was Mr Brownie, said yes not wanting to bother with that crap today, but corrected delivery guy as to the appliance being a range rather than a fridge. I thought they would know these things. Anyway, apparently it is being delivered early. Yay!

0945 – Begin writing this post. Forget to save in drafts and upon publishing lose the entire thing. F#$k! This version is far more interesting anyway.

1012 – I start writing this post again. This time I save every few seconds. Something but an ounce of prevention hammers in my head…

1100 – Stove arrives. Old one goes away. Need to wait one half hour to plug stove in as “elements are cold”. Whatever the hell that means.

1136 – I begin the process of prepping the stove for plugging in. Clean up where old stove was. Remove packing from new stove. Wipe new stove down. Plug it in. Pray. Yay! It works. Set the clock on the stove and move on to the next project.

Thanks Art and Jo! You guys are the greatest landlords ever. Now we can have freshly baked cookies and place to cook our turkey for the big day.

1156 – Repair of closet door in foyer commences. It needs the post at the bottom reinstalled.

1207 – That didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would. Just a little fiddling and voila – closet doors that work. Must have a quick shower before Pauly arrives. He’s in town for Christmas and too be rink announcer for the Canadian World Jr Hockey games that are taking place at the Pacific Coliseum this week. You may have heard him already on TSN blah-blah-blahing behind the TSN goofs. I wished they’d shut up so I could hear him.

1208 – Shit. Doorbell. He’s here. Shower will have to wait.

1225 – Into the shower. Pauly’s watching the first few minutes of Saving Private Ryan on our big TV. Come on, I have to show it off.

1310 – Cockney Kings for fish and chips with Pauly. Holy shit I ate too much. Was great though.

1350 – Back home to watch two episodes of Trailer Park Boys with Pauly that he hasn’t seen.

1504 – Just called the vet. Moosh did well in surgery and is able to stand, but barely. Pick up time is 1630.

The day’s still not over. Oy!