Me of the Day

General mood: Slightly anxious, slightly tired, slightly in a rut from which I cannot excavate myself, but at the same time aware that my rut is not really that big of a rut, and hardly worth complaining about, which makes the whole experience of being in the rut all the more frustrating…This is bound to continue until the inevitable day I wake up in my own asshole.

I am amazing: This Earth Day (today!), at a staff meeting, I successfully sold the concept of building a Barn Owl House as a natural means of combating the rat problem in our back alley (Barn Owls are an endangered species that loves to eat rats and can only live in man-made boxes, apparently.) Avoiding poison and cruelty! Saving owls! Preserving habitat! Go me! (we'll see if this plan actually pans out, of course)

I am a failure: I promised to bring my two excessively fluffy puppies to my friend’s residence program. She works in a first year residence for university students, who are currently in the middle of exams - she thought that having puppies to play with in their sunny courtyard would be a great stress relieving activity. I have puppies, and they like attention - win, win, yes?

Yes, except through a series of small inconveniences, I arrived about an hour late (there is no excuse, so I won’t bother with excuses…FAIL), while my tiny friend had been forced to deal with approximately twenty five excited first years desperate for puppy love…ach…

We eventually arrived, and the puppies were loved (though they had to overcome their initial shyness, triggered by the sound of twenty girls simultaneously squeaking ‘awwwww!’), and my friend’s program was a great success. I still, however, feel like the shitty friend who shows up an hour late and wastes twenty five cumulative hours of people’s time.

Wait, no, I am an even Bigger Failure: After the program was finished and my puppies were galloping freely about my friend’s courtyard, a student with a seeing eye dog appeared suddenly from behind a bush (exiting the cafeteria), and my dogs, being oblivious to the concerns of the disabled, began acting like assholes and barking loudly and running to meet their new puppy friend. I called them away, but my one dog proceeded to sniff out of sheer excitement (the blind student was at this point yelling at my dog, which of course did nothing to quell his curiosity and barking instinct). He came away the third time I called (this entire incident lasted all of ten seconds, maybe), at which point the blind student proceeded to yell at me (well, actually, he yelled at everyone, because he could not see where I was) that THAT’S WHY THERE’S LEASHES, WHY DON’T YOU KEEP YOUR DOG ON A LEASH?! (The capitals are to contain the vehemence and the volume, if that was not implied).

I held my puppies and felt terrible and terribly ashamed.

(I feel a bit of a need to defend myself - 80% of Vancouver’s dog owners feel comfortable letting their trained animals go off-leash in controlled situations, like on an abandoned field of a park, or an area with a couple of people who are okay with the dog’s presence. The university grounds function as a large public park, sort of, and of all of the dogs I have encountered there, the majority have been off-leash. We were in an area surrounded by buildings where I thought my dogs could not possibly be causing problems or endanger themselves - and my dogs are both approximately a foot tall and terrified of anything that moves, so unlikely to cause anyone harm...and neither even came within a foot of the other dog? And if I’d only been able to see the kid coming, I of course would have gotten my dogs out of the way- Ach. I still feel terrible. I know it was a mistake, and that if anything the yelled criticism was an overreaction, but I still feel like a girl who let her dog run up and bark at a seeing eye dog.)