Four

Warning: like most 3d objects I am unfortunately not an entirely one-sided only funny person. If you only wish to laugh, wait until next week, mmmk?

A little under five years ago two balls-to-the-walls nutjobs decided to procreate. Much like the completely insane blending of Jack Russell and Pitbull that made Kevin Costner into the brilliant dog he is today, but still doesn't sound like a great idea on paper, this was a dash of crazy mixed with a pinch of psychotic that made a beautiful redheaded mini-genius.

A few months into this I sat down with my midwife and she tried to figure out my due date. There was a lot of asking me about schedules and bullshit, to which i responded only in my head Who knows that shit? Really people know that?" Apparently a lot of you women do, and whoopity freaking do to you! Cheers you weirdos, way to pencil that shit in.

So we narrowed things down and she came to the due date of Sept.11.09. Well I spent the last 3 months of looking like a narwhal with a digestive problem talking to my little belly like a little league coach. I had no idea what he or she was going to be, because I elected to be surprised. As a side note, parenthood is pretty fucking shocking as is, so if you want to find out what sex your baby is don't worry, there will still be a shit-ton of other surprises waiting for you. So, since I had no idea who I was talking to, I settled on the name Cheeseborn of course, because really that could be a girls or boys name.

I pleaded with Cheeseborn to come early, two days early to be specific. Not only did I want my little human to come into the world on 09.09.09 but I just really really did not want her to come into the world on one of the most tragic days of my time here on earth. Now for all of you who want to mention that there are many more tragedies since, or that there were many before, I get it. I do. But this was a very in-my-face neighbourly tragedy.

I have definitely been accused of being too sensitive, too sad, to deep, thinking too much.  With good reason. It sucks honestly. I spend hours upon hours trying to rescue every dog, crying about people I don't know who suffer all over the world, reading about things that I honestly cannot change but sure as shit wish I could. Sam actually put a stop to me reading the obituaries about two years ago because he thought it was just ridiculous to find me weeping while reading the morning paper. Seriously. What a dork I am! A very cynical human with a very crusty outer shell, but inside a heart of very soft cheese.

So today as I read all the posts about people who are still trying to understand what happened on 9/11, or what is for that matter happening right now, I got up from my chair and I ran. I ran like hell. I have to share my little bit of wisdom that I found on my run this morning, in the hope that it will help you as it helped me.

Focus on what you can, instead of what you can't. If you can no longer stand that people are being cruel to one another in countries you can't help, focus on helping one person today where you live. If you hate that there is still animal poaching going on in countries you can't reach and nobody seems to give a shit, put your time into protecting the wildlife right in your own.

And if the weight of cruelty that people have inflicted in our lifetime on one another is too much to bear for you right now, then look at someone who has no cruelty in them at all and put all of your effort into making sure that they stay that way. Right now I have a human in my life who just turned four, and who makes every.single.person she meets -from the store clerk down the street to the 8 kids she goes to daycare with -into her best friend. If you are a parent make it your responsibility to make sure that your tiny humans grow up with this kind of easy open love, protected and encouraged. Maybe we can make sure the next generation of humans corrects the seriously large fuckups of the last. I know how bleak the planet, the world and human nature can seem but not if you look right in your own backyard.

I don't want to ignore those without kids, because I genuinely see them doing this very thing. Donating to projects that are being created to fix the mess we've made. Protesting resorts that are just more useless bullshit we are going to regret later. "Well, we don't have any bears anymore but look at this fantastic fucking hotel! I know it looks like every other hotel, but this one is great because we destroyed an amazing eco system for it!" If you are looking for the good in the sea of badness that is Syria, and 9/11 and etc etc, you only have to look as far as your beautiful friends. When my sister got cancer last year they came out of the woodwork in a way that changed me forever. It's not an entirely bad planet is the point to my very long-winded rant on this fine day in the woods. It is a beautiful place, and it needs to be taken over by acts of good instead of given up on in times of trial.

End rant. Funny next week, I promise.

You are a stinky bastard

I am going to try to add artwork to at least 50% of these. This particular bit of history needed it.

Once upon a time I bought a car. It was a magnificent and decrepit hunk of metal on it's way to car heaven with a brief stop with us, like many of our vehicles, but it was a steal of a deal and Sam can fix anything pre-2000, and he has a soft spot for Volvos. So I found this particular model in Vernon, a grey hatchback with burgundy interior. Apparently the previous owner was a metalsmith and used the car to transport metal. The end result being that the inside of my new car looked like it had been used to host a very long and painful badger fight. Maybe it had been a portable badger fighting arena.

So I picked some wicked zebra print fabric and we went to town on this car, transforming it instantly from a piece of shit with torn fabric everywhere, to a piece of shit that looked like a pimp owned it in any eighties movie. From then on it was called Ron Burgundy.

Our family is one of those stupid ones that owns not one or two but three dogs. They range from small to medium to large, and they wreak havoc on any furniture we own. Not this time I swore! This time I was going to keep the dogs in the hatchback. So I got one of those dog-jail devices and it worked for all of 12 minutes before our Jack Russell figured out he could dislocate all his bones and Houdini his ass out of there every time I went into a store. This would inspire the Swissy to use his massive girth to collapse the dog jail, leaving only one very pathetic Pitbull crying alone in the back of a hatchback with  disabled dog jail parts at his feet.

I gave this a real go for about 3 weeks before just giving up. Molly was clearly unaware of my decision to allow the dogs to begin re-wrecking my newly zebrafied car because as we were driving around one day I heard in a very loud and clear voice "Oliver! Mom says you are not allowed to sit here! Get back in the trunk!!" followed by, in a voice clearly only intended for her four legged audience; "And besides, you are a stinky bastard..."