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I know these little critters are considered a pest, and are regularly classified as rats, but at least they are busy and beautiful rats.

This one literally dropped dead in front of our house. She didn’t seem to be ill and had a gorgeous coat and tail. Since I found her straight under a transformer in the electricity pole my guess is that she was electrocuted while touching the high voltage while grounded. Or maybe she just missed when she jumped from one tree to another. Even circus trapeze artists sometimes miss.

I picked her up, put her in a bag (”See, Buy, Fly”, from the Dutch airport tax free shops; I thought that was appropriate) and walked towards the passing garbage truck and put her in there myself. She was very stiff, and heavier than I expected.

Invariably one of the first things people ask me when I tell them I’m from the Netherlands is if I smoke. I tell them I smoke cigars, but that wasn’t what they were interested in. They wanted to know if I smoked marijuana or hashish.

Well, I did. But not very often, and ever after I was kicked out of art school I smoked maybe 2 joints (and that was in the strict sense of the word, with others) a year. And I didn’t inhale. Okay that’s a lie, but when I inhaled I started to cough loudly, and that never went away, not even when I blowed (that’s the term used in the Netherlands for smoking softdrugs) regularly at art school. It always made people laugh, but I hated it since it prevented me from keeping the smoke in and getting high. Maybe I should have built a water pipe but that was just too much of a hassle.
So no, I’m not a pothead exactly. And I don’t know many people in the Netherlands that are, even though you can buy the stuff at almost every corner “coffee shop”.

To give an example, this joint we recived from Alison’s brother (the other brother, not the one that has pot-induced schizophrenia) as a Christmas gift, has still not been smoked, a year-and-a-halve later.

I figured I’m still not yet assimilated to Canada, when I read the following:

Marijuana use in Canada is the highest in the industrialized world, far higher than in the Netherlands where it’s legal, and more than four times the global rate, a report by the United Nations has found.

So it’s about time we smoke that joint.

Hushhush. We’ve started running. Alison and I follow this “couch-potatoe to 5K”-schedule and so far it goes pretty well.

I’ll let you know when we’re going to run a marathon. Alison’s father just did that and also her cousin Lucy, who had never ran before, managed to finish the New York City Marathon after only a couple of months of preparation.

But it’s not our intention to run that far, it’s just to get us a bit into shape. Doing it together helps, we’re less likely to skip a scheduled run. Okay, we’re a bit behind the schedule already, but that’s not a big problem. Is it?

It’s hot today. About 34 °C and a high humidity so it feels more like 40 degrees.
Nevertheless I went for a walk to the park with the dogs.

Pepe is watching from the hill, Poupoune makes some runs after the ball, but then they settle down and lie next to me while I smoke a cigar and make a contribution to the smog alert.

Just after Alison left for work, a cat sneaked into our kitchen through the backyard door. Poupoune saw her first and chased after her, followed by a fierce Pepe, who isn’t so fast with his short legs.

They gave the cat a good workout across the garden and then came back into the kitchen. Poupoune was still panting from all the excitement. Pepe however, left a trail of blood behind him. Not a big trail, but enough to make a mess. I picked him up and inspected him. Fortunately it was rather minor, he probably hit his foot onto something. No cat scratches, which is good because Chihuahuas are easily blinded by cats hitting those big bulging eyes.

But now what? I had to bandage him, so his blood wouldn’t be all over the house. So out came my first aid kit, that I keep in my workshop for when I cut of my fingers. I also took some high friction tape, a rubberized tape that sticks only to itself. I use that on tools to make them less slippery. I noticed they used something like that on Poupoune when she was hospitalized, and it seemed handy to keep the gauze in place.

After some fidgeting with the gauze ó Pepe didn’t exactly sit still ló I wrapped it up with the tape. But of course Pepe immediately went for it with his mouth, and notwithstanding having only a few teeth, he rid himself of the bandage in no time.

I had to make a Elizabethan collar. So I grabbed a piece of Tupperware (well actually it was from IKEA), cut a hole in the bottom and cut one corner open and fitted it around Pepe’s head. A perfect fit in one try! I’m so good.

After that is was an easy task to re-apply the bandage and after I took this picture he’s now sleeping in his basket, under a blanket. There is no use fighting Elizabethan Tupperware.

While walking in a shopping mall in Winnipeg I encountered this shop. First I thought it was a porn theatre but then I found out that they just sold tobacco products. No advertising of any sorts, blinded store and a big age restricted warning sign: Apparently tobacco is the true source of evil in Manitoba, the first step towards crack-cocaine and chrystal meth use.

On the other hand in Québec you can buy cigarettes at every depanneur, magazine store and supermarket.

[I'm too lazy to translate this. Try

for a computer translation.]

Vannacht in m’n slaap gestoken door een wesp die de slaapkamer was binnengeslopen.

Dat is niet leuk wakker worden. En het jeukt als de neten. O nee, dat zijn andere beestjes…

[I'm too lazy to translate this. Try

for a computer translation.]

Alleen zalm is goed genoeg voor onze honden.

(ik was vergeten hondenvoer te kopen, en ze waren erg hongerig…)

Update: geen zalm meer voor Poupoune, ze heeft de hele keuken ondergescheten, en daarna ook nog overgegeven. Er lag bijna een heel blik onverteerde zalm op de bank…

[I'm too lazy to translate this. Try

for a computer translation.]

Tijd voor mijn maandelijkse afspraak met m’n psychiater. Die zetelt in dit oude ziekenhuis, het Queen Elizabeth, of Queen-E.

Het bleek trouwens dat mijn afspraak donderdag was, maar ze kon me toch zien, want de persoon die eigenlijk een afspraak had, die kwam niet opdagen. Of hij durfde niet binnen te komen/aan te kloppen…