The Canadian Sportsman
October 23, 2009
Face it, my harness racing friends, we’re all going to die — soon
For the sixth straight fantastic year my friends at CBC are predicting this will, definitely, without a doubt, be THE YEAR we will all die a gruesome death in a flu pandemic.
The secret to being right about apocalyptic predictions is to apply a little fortitude and good-old CBC perseverance. Keep carrying that World Will End in 7 Days sign and you’re bound to be right one of these days.
In the latest round of breathless reporting about how it is inevitable all of us will be bleeding through our eyeballs, there has been a particular focus on which demographic is most susceptible to get the Piggy Flu first and get the honour of experiencing their excruciating death the soonest.
The conversation then turned to that fun parlour game about which person in the lifeboat should be the first to be eaten when times get desperate — priest, cop, baker, candlestick maker, porn star? Namely, which people should get the Piggy Flu vaccine first and thus live to inherit the earth. Health officials and medical responders made the list, of course. Balloon Dad, did not. No surprise there.
Now, as a harness racing trade journalist, with no real value to society, I find such hierarchal rankings distasteful to the extreme.
But, it also got me thinking about which of us in the harness racing business should get the Piggy Flu vaccine first. What exactly is our triage protocol for the industry? Which of us needs to live to repopulate the earth with harness racing folks?
Discuss amongst yourselves. While you still can.
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September 30, 2009
My husband and I are dildos, or so I’ve been told.
It’s the latest in a series of clever acronyms used to describe one’s socioeconomic position. Remember yuppies? Well, that apparently wasn’t specific enough. Now we’ve got people who are DINKs (double income, no kids), OINKs (one income, no kids) or even SINBADs (single income, no boyfriend, absolutely desperate).
But we’re DILDOs — Double Income Little Dogs Only — and happily so. Our family is quite complete with little Briscoe and Ebert, two miniature wiener dogs, who have been part of our lives for the last nine years. However, with these 10-pound money traps, it’s a good thing that they are adorable and that there is double income in play.
Our smug friends with kids think we’ve taken the easy way out and simplified our lives by ‘just having dogs’, but I double-dare them to complain about the cost of diapers.
Our dogs have had so many weirdo afflictions and ailments that we have often joked that the P.A.S, or Puppies’ Aid Society, would soon be called in to investigate the home environment.
Ebert, our youngest, has had three surgeries at the Ontario Veterinary College (OVC) in Guelph to repair slipped discs in his back — a not uncommon reality for many dachshunds due to their elongated spines.
Despite our best efforts to protect our delicate boy — my husband even hand-made ramps so there would be no jumping on or off the couches — Ebert’s back gave out on three different occasions, threatening paralysis. Like a trooper, he’s bounced back each time, saving himself the indignity of having to wheel himself around in one of those makeshift doggie carts.
He was the first-ever dog to take OVC’s brand new MRI machine for a test drive a few years back. You might be on a waiting list for two years to get your hip or knee scanned, but show up with the cash and your beloved weenie is zapped within the hour. He’s had two.
He also has a regular appointment with his doggie ophthalmologist (yes, that exists), who proclaimed him to be the first dachshund he’s ever seen with an eye condition previously only associated with shelties. The doctor was much more excited about making veterinary history than we were.
Did I mention that he was also poisoned by a dog-food manufacturing error? As luck would have it, both dogs eat the same food so it was not one, but two poisoned dogs in the household.
Aside from his poisoning, Briscoe, the more robust of the two, went spontaneously deaf last year, leading to his first MRI. He was subsequently diagnosed as not deaf, but rather ‘a little slow’. According to the Montreal-based veterinarian who gave us the news in broken English, “How do you say?... If he was a boy, he wouldn’t have gone very far in school.”
Alas, you do what you’ve got to do for your loved ones, whether you’re a dink, oink, dildo or, gasp, nuclear family.
As for the Sinbads, they stick with cats.
September 11, 2009
Ever played host to a wedding in your backyard? It’s completely nerve-racking.
Recently, my husband and I were in charge of providing the location for his little sister’s big day. Just a small, family affair, that’s all. However, with just over a month’s notice, there was still a lot to be done.
We planned, we landscaped, we complained, and we tried to think of every conceivable thing that could possibly go wrong just so we could stamp it out before it became an issue.
Your mind starts working overtime — Do we have enough food/booze? Is it going to rain? What the hell are we going to do if it rains? Is the tent structurally sound? Why does the lawn look worse after we fertilized? Should we go get some more booze? Is someone going to break their neck on our poorly-lit patio stairs? How do we keep the squirrels out of the beautiful mums we just planted? Would our neighbours decide to have an obnoxiously loud pool party the same day?
So we systematically went about solving our problems. We bought enough food and booze for three weddings. We developed a rain contingency plan. We reinforced the tent, lit the stairs, distracted the squirrels, and found out that the neighbours were out of town.
Things were going swimmingly — the pouring rain subsided at 2 o’clock, giving way to the sun and the go-ahead for an outdoor affair. The bride looked beautiful, the groom was handsome, the guests were accounted for and we all assembled at 6 p.m. sharp for the ceremony to begin. Not only were there no disasters, but we were perfectly on schedule as well.
The officiant had just begun to tell us all about lifelong commitments and everlasting love when the other shoe dropped.
Behind our secluded property there is an access pathway to the small park that is located next door. The park is a hot spot for both babysitters and dog walkers. At this moment in time, two dogs were having more than a friendly disagreement.
The bride stared deeply into the groom’s eyes, took his hands into her own and presumably vowed to love and honour him forever.
Presumably, because the only thing to be heard at that moment was what is best described as two of Mike Vick’s cujos engaged in a heavyweight title fight 50 yards away.
Dog fight, eh? Should’ve known.
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