Well to tell you the truth

January 16, 2008 by Chris

I will have to come straight out and tell you good readership that I have had my hands more then full these past 2 months. Our little puppy has taken more of my time then I have expect it to. I really LOVE having this blog and putting entries in it, but my energy has been focused on the health of our little one!

After we picked her out of the litter and brought her home with us, she seemed to be a normal rambunctious, little ball of endless energy! Then shortly after that our priceless addition to our family started to show cracks in her health.

She kept passing what seemed to be these strange fibrous objects in her stool. Her appetite was not bad and her unbridled enthusiasm to eat and gnaw at anything in front of her started to fade. So we took her to our neighbourhood vet to see what the problem could be.

He viewed a present that she/we gave to him and he thought that there was wood chips present in her stool. We both thought that that was it as well, but we couldn’t be sure. Remember, we are first time puppy/dog owners. The bedding in the stall that she was held in was indeed pine shavings and as anyone who has had a Labrador Retriever knows, they WILL EAT ANYTHING THAT IS RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM!

We also had advance blood work done on her and it revealed that she had round worms and bacterial infection in her blood stream. She also had eye and ear infections to boot. The round worms in concert with her bacterial infections slowed down her eating. The round worms also used the food in her stomach as a source of their own nourishment.

The eye infection made her look like she had some neurological issues (similar to one who has just had a stroke, we seem them all the time at work) and her ear issues made her ears smell off, to say the least!

Now fast forward to today and things are looking a lot better. The only problems that we have with her from time to time are loose bowel movements (that we are treating with some Pepto Bisomal in her food) and for her eyes we use topical antibiotics.

As she gets better so does our increased time for blogging! Her walks around the neighbourhood are getting wider in area and the obedience classes that we all attend seem to be paying off. So wish us all luck and you WILL see more of this page in the near distant future!

Keep on Jammin’ and watch your step outside on our front lawn!

Let it snow, let it snow let it snow

December 2, 2007 by Chris

Well we broke down and got a puppy the other day, a black Labrador Retriever and she is 3 months old.

Her name is Midnight for now. She was named this because we picked her out at midnight.

We got her from a farmer near Woodstock Ontario. She was from a litter of 8 and we thought that we knew what to look for when getting her and it all went out the window when all of them were together at our feet attacking our shoes and pant legs. The onslaught knocked the common sense out of us.

So fast forward today and let the story begin!

We received around 5-6 inches of fresh snow this morning when I woke up and it was great to look at. I got Midnight ready for her morning constitution and opened the front door. She then looked outside at the first step and jumped onto it which was covered in snow, oh this was her first encounter with snow by the way.

She was up to below her neck in snow and she was stuck with noway out. She tried to lift her legs to no avail and then started to shake her head in a frantic manner. Midnight started to lightly wine and looked up at me with a sigh. I felt bad, but I started to laugh uncontrollably and so did my neighbours who were all over the place shoveling their snow.

Since the snow was so high and she wasn’t going anywhere fast, so I had to get the shovel to make room her on the lower steps. Then I had to make a pathway down to the sidewalk. Midnight had never seen a shovel either and started to bark at it and the snow that was flying around from it. I wish that I had the video camera out to get it on film!

Keep on Jammin'(or shoveling)

The great Massey Hall in Toronto

November 11, 2007 by Chris

Massey Hall is certainly a place that you have to go and see once in your lifetime! It’s a large but intimate venue to see a show. Here are some of the greats who have ventured and visited the grand lady, Frank Zappa, Winston Churchill, Enrico Caruso, Luciano Pavarotti, Sir Edward Elgar, Toscanini, George Gershwin, Oscar Peterson, Glenn Gould, the Dalai Lama and Maria Callas.

The first concert I saw there was with my older brother Tim and we saw Devo. Yes, that is correct Devo and what a show it was but I’ll tell you all later about that one!

I use to work directly across the street on the third floor. I was a jeweller back then and boy some of the things that I saw crawl out after a show was hilarious. Our shop was directly facing the outside fire escape of Massey Hall and one day some lovers started to go at it, right in front of our eyes! We all decided to get some hastily hand made score cards and you should have seen them fly down the fire escape, priceless!

One day around noon, I looked out the window and saw the regular, everyday activities. Then 5 minutes later I saw a few people with red hats and jackets coming out of Massey Hall. Nothing out of the ordinary there. Then it grew and grew and grew till it looked like little worker ants walking around the street, everywhere. It was a convention of the Salvation Army workers and this picture comes to mind every time I walk by it.

It was built in 1894 for the Massey family and has seen many fabulous acts inside the hallowed hall. It was the site of the worlds best live jazz album ever recorded in many jazz lovers eyes! It was the Charlie Parker-Dizzy Gillespie concert May 1953. The album recorded was called Jazz at Massey Hall. The thing was that hardly anyone was in attendance. That same night there was a boxing show in another legendary venue down the street called Maple Leaf Gardens so everyone went there in stead, silly idiots!

So if you are just walking around Yonge at Shutter street, look down Shutter until you see the great gal and tip your hat to her!

Keep on Jammin’

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