The photo-bomber strikes again!

Okay, these made me laugh. This is the kind of comedy relief I have always appreciated in my life. At the best of times, but most of all.... at the worst of times. It reminds me that without laughter and humour, I am not truly living a balanced life.

Here's what happened:

I got the camera out after calling and making the euthanasia appointment with the vets. They were due in a couple of hours. I hardly left Pepper's side that morning and just lay with her.

Our dear dog, Jazz - not to be outdone (as it is with all little sisters, no?) and being true to photo-bombing form - muscled in on the very last photos I was taking of Pepper just before the vets arrived at home.

She couldn't help herself. Take this photo below, for example:

All very innocent, very cute. Right? Hmmmm. Let me now put it into context for you:

Lucky she is a funny, cute little shit or I would have been right upset.

Thanks for the comedy relief, Jazz, you narc!

"Cheeeeeeeese!"

The elephant in the womb: Why I'm glad I'm not an elephant

In July, 2006, I looked like this:

A very early capture of our little Photobomber, Jazz, refining her art

My ribs being positioned where they are (right on top of my hips with nary a centimetre between bone structures), there is nowhere to go but out, baby! So the LGBB was hovering out over nothing. A bit like walking the Eureka Skydeck88, I imagine. I only know what it was like from the building's perspective: damn uncomfortable and actually painful (I tried not to complain at the time, grateful as I was, but man.... my body was not happy and I had to increasingly manage the unexpected pain as I got bigger).

Around the time the photo above was taken, I mused the following to Steve (lifted from my old, now private, blog). He had no end of these sorts of musings thrown at him and, thankfully - or not - I recorded them on my blog as they happened. He's a funny guy. Most of the time. This time, I wanted to stab him. But I couldn't move.

Please excuse me, but there's an expletive involved:

Me: Imagine being a pregnant elephant. And gestating for two years. WITH AN ELEPHANT.

He: *daring to speak after thinking a moment* Hey... imagine if YOU were pregnant for two years. With.... an elephant.

*****respectful pause*****

Me: Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.


I had forgotten all about this until tonight when I heard on the news that Melbourne Zoo's Asian elephant, Num-Oi, is expecting her first calf. Already four months along, it is considered very early and there is a risk of miscarriage, as with any, and I felt a pang of hope mixed with trepidation. I don't know why.

Then the news presenter said the expected due date was sometime in January..... 2013.

January 2013!?!

And of course, me being me, I got to thinking how utterly, utterly stressful that would be for an elephant if it had lost its first calf in infancy. They remember, you know. Don't they? Elephants, I mean. What the hell would go through an elephant mother's mind, I wonder. Waiting and gestating that, er... little 100kg precious bubba.

The day we took the LGBB to the zoo last year, I admit to shedding a happy tear seeing this gorgeous little three-month-old healthy girl:

Baby Mali on a family outing in April 2010:

"Are we THERE yet?"

I am SO glad I am not an elephant. Respect to the mamas. Major respect.

The forlorn photobomber

(this is a post kinda especially for Jodie from Mummy Mayhem - I know she hearts the idiotic antics of my photobombing dog)

Today, I bring you.....

Pensive Jazz

Regular readers will recall that our little Waggedy-Ann loves a good old-fashioned photo-bomb. The tricky trickster that she is. Please see here (for Exhibit A) and here (when she returned). These are by far not the only times she's done it, but they are the most recent. Over time, perhaps I'll dig out some others.

I'm starting to wonder if Jazz thinks there's not enough attention on he...... BWAAAAAAHAHAHA I can't even finish that sentence without guffawing. This has got to be the most attention-seeking (and getting) dog I have ever come across, although I hazard a guess there are plenty of others out there. Do you know one?

It all happened today when I decided to take a photo of the LGBB in her under-desk cubby hole. Eating a lollipop and listening to Shirley Barber's Fairy Stories on her headphones ("when you hear this tinkly sound, turn the page"... didn't you just LOVE those as a kid?).

Except.... Jazz caught on straight away. One "click" of the DSLR and she was over by my side in a flash, practically sitting on me so that I couldn't not take her photo, like this one time - last week - when I was trying to take a photo for posterity of my dear Pepper and Jazz actually did sit on me in a most passive-aggressive display. Don't believe me? Here, look at the evidence:

Ahh, a slumbering old lady...

Oh... you have camera? You want to snap MEEEEE! Yes?

Story. Of. My. Elderly. Life *woeful Eeyore look - Peppy's so good at those*

Oh don't yell at me and tell me to get out of the... here I'll just lie at your knee...

No, wait, I'll SIT ON your knee - you shuddup, you, over there *grrr-woof*

There. Isn't that better? I We got what we wanted. Yes? *Arooof*

Jazz is sorry. Very, very sorry. But she can't stop doing it. When she sees me with a camera, she has to come and be in the frame.

Strike a pose.

You will tell me when you think it's time for an intervention on her, won't you, dear reader(s)?

I am grateful to my dear dog, Jazz, who herself is not getting any younger (she's 7 now but acts like a pup, always), for helping me smile after the post about our elderly matron earlier this week. No change in old Pepper, but still very much here and sticking to my side.... perhaps frustratingly so, as I can't seem to move in any direction without her being there and I have to be careful not to kick her over. Yes. That close.

Thanks for popping by if you've come from Maxabella's lovely place, I hope to visit you at yours if you've linked up there this weekend:

The Photo-Bomber returns

This is a chair. 

It's a very deep-seated, comfy chair. I won it on Ebay the other week. It needs a good scrub and a change of cushion cover and then it will be good as new. Well, as close to good as new as a forty-year-old chair can get.

This.... *sigh*..... is Jazz.
Jazz doesn't like camera flashes. Obviously. However, she does
love herself a good photo shoot. 

If you have ever met Jazz, you will know the reason for my sigh. Even our builder, who was onsite here for about six months during the extensions, got to the stage of greeting her with an exasperated yet affectionate, "Oh yes, hello, JAZZZZ." Because as annoying as she is, you can't help loving her. She shits me to tears. I still adore her. The time that builder accidentally let her escape (which you can read about here) proved it to me: I do love her enough to know I would desperately miss her joyous energy around the place.

Still, she can't help herself. Whenever she sees a camera, she owns it *snaps fingers in imaginary lightning bolt shape* And don't let this photo of her fool you. She is NOT old, decrepid, slow or docile. By any stretch. She is the most boisterous, bouncy, belligerent seven year-old dog I have ever come across. I blame it on the Labrador in her. And the me-me-me's she's got about her? I blame her jealous Kelpie streak.

Below is what happened when I tried to take a photo - just one, that's all I wanted! - of my Ebay score to show you the fabric I'm planning to use for the new cushion.

How do you think I went with that one then? Eh? I'll let you decide.

You get the picture.

But can you see the fabric?

Sometimes, a girl's just gotta...

...focus some attention on herself and know when to have some time out. Some real time out.


Take, for instance:


Exhibit A:  Jazz. 

"Oh, don't look at me with those awful cow eyes" - All hail Basil Fawlty

She might be overly manipulating your emotions with her doleful stare, but let's face it:

She knows how to put herself in the picture. 

Literally, every picture (the ones I try to take of Pepper, anyway). She knows when she might be missing out. And she makes sure she goes first. Her waggy tail comes a banging second. To everyone and everything else.

So, taking a slightly less forceful leaf out of Jazz's book, I am going to attempt to step back from online life for a while and put myself back In The Picture.

Exhibit B:  a little just-turned-2 year-old LGBB 

The last musk stick

When in doubt, let it out.

If ever there was a better reason to cry - the ugly kind - it's to relieve some tension. It's to remind yourself you're alive and that you feel. And that you don't have to share the last bit of candy just to "be good." Take it for yourself every now and then. It won't hurt you as much as continual denial of anything good will. Go'orn, do it! Or at the very least, have that cry you've been holding in.


Exhibit C:  Pepper's shut-out tactics 

"Oh please don't let her be there when I turn around..."

I can't hear you, I can't hear you, I can't hear yoooooo

There comes a time in every blogger's life when they have to stop criticising their own blog, their own writing, just because of all the brilliance and shining lights they see around them. This is always amplified when the blogs they read and comment on don't reciprocate. So much of this dance is "chance". There are fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants readers with no regularity to their visits or comments - I know this. I am one of those. There are also diligent, read-every-post-you-write because they adore you readers - I know this as well. I am also one of those. I have my favourites I never miss, my favourites I always try to keep up with but often fall abysmally short of visiting with any regularity until it becomes habit.

I adore finding those bloggers whose voices are so unique, so real, so consistent because of where they are writing from: their blinkered hearts. These are often bloggers with scarce "followers", no Fan Page on Facebook and no Twitter account. They don't seem to follow a large number of blogs. They are quality over quantity. They're rather rare gems. But find the ones that speak to you and you will discover you are mulling over things they say in their posts, smiling at words remembered, waiting for their next entry.

You can't be liked by everyone, you cannot make everyone a "friend" (especially not on Facebook, in fact it's recommended you don't...), regardless of how many blogs are in your Reader (I still don't use mine, shhhhh). But don't forget, you too are a Light. There is no other You. Hold your own torch up high and light your own way forward. Those who feel good in your Light will come find you. Don't worry!

- - - -

There is nothing quite so stifling to me as a writer than reading more than I write. And that is what I have been doing. I realised it last night.

For the next while (it could be a day, I hope it's not as long as a month) I am putting some breathing space between me and my blog. I will be creating, you can be sure of it. Writing, not blogging. Living, not reading. I am in a purging stage at home - our Ebay sales are about a quarter of the way towards my goal already! - and I can't hold onto all this as well as let go all of that. It's counter-productive.

So, off I go. Please promise you'll swing back past every now and then - why not play a game of Roulette and pick an archive post at random and give it a read while I'm gone? Better still, dip in or share the Infertility/Loss posts I have recently categorized. If you want to be super-ace, you can up my vote count with a single click just to make me feel warm and fuzzy... it won't help me win anything, that horse has long bolted... but oh, how I love a round number. Thank you if you are one of the lovely people who helped me tip the triple figure mark (allllmost)!

Guaranteed, I'll be unable to stay away too long. I hope to read you all soon.

.....Oh, and have the last musk stick. That's an order.

xx

p.s. How cool is this: I added a favicon to my blog. See it? Up there? A little tiny sunrise on your page tab!