Springtime Activities and the Sneaky Manipulations of a Sausage Dog

I'm blogging just a little later than normal today but at least I'm blogging. When I take a day off, it always feels like a tiny, vital part of my weekday is missing. Sometimes I can't even put my finger on what it is that's missing until I really think about it. Blogging has become part of my routine and, as I've mentioned before, Captain Monkeypants likes routine.

I actually took the day off work today so, technically, I'm still on my Easter Break. It's been a great weekend; very relaxing, fun and down-to-earth. I'm actually writing this from my parent's house and I currently have a Sausage dog staring mournfully up at me. He's actually upside down, lying on his back and craning his neck to make eye contact. His ears are skewered to the side and he's making these awful pining sounds. He does that a lot. Since I am often swayed by the pitiful cries he makes for attention, he expects attention at all times while I'm here. I'm trying to ignore him but those big brown eyes are making me feel guilty because I'm daring to ignore him. He'll probably start to bark in a minute. He has a very deep, melodious bark that's as mournful sounding as he looks. When he barks, I imagine he's saying, "I'm RIGHT here, I need you to pet me and rub my nose because otherwise I shall cry and cry and never be happy again." I'm being strong today and ignoring him. It's not easy.

Aside from spending too much time paying attention to Sausage, I've been up to all sorts of Springlike activities. I did, in fact, colour Easter eggs. I didn't have to do it in the microwave which meant there were no casualties. I did, however, buy one of those kits with the cups, dye tablets and wax crayon. The wax-crayon and I didn't get along well. When I took it out of the package, the top completely snapped off and went flying across the room. My mother, who was assisting me in the Great Egg Dying of 2009, was a good sport and used the blunted crayon. Then, later when I managed to snap the bloody thing accidentally with my avid attempt to draw flowers on my egg, we both ended up with half a wax-crayon each. I pretended I did it on purpose but I know mum wasn't fooled. I'd like to think that the flimsy wax crayon had an affect on both our artistic endeavors. The problem with a wax crayon is that it's white. So is the egg. Thus, drawing on an egg is not an easy feat and our attempts to be creative turned out to be slightly off-kilter and bizarre looking when the dye of the egg revealed our designs. I also ended up with pink and blue fingers because I'm rather a messy creature and even when I tried not to dye my fingers, I did anyway.

Easter Sunday turned out to be a beautiful sunny, spring day. I spent a good part of the day in my mum's garden. Now is the time of year to clear away the old and let the new plants breathe. Clearing away the winter debris seemed quite a fitting activity for Easter Sunday. I also discovered that I enjoy chopping things down. My father actually trusted me with a saw so I could cut away the dead wisteria and honeysuckle vines that were choking the archway to my mother's garden and threatening to topple it down. I must confess, I was rather surprised when my dad handed me the saw with minimal argument. I'm not known for my grace and care with sharp objects but you'll be happy to know that I had absolutely no accidents with the saw. I did, however, have a few incidents with the vine. It pinged me in the head a few times and gave me some splinters but, in the end, I did triumph. My biggest issue was with the windchimes that were hanging from the arch. I keep forgetting they were there and they kept hitting me in the head. It only occured to me afterwards that I could probably have taken them down for the duration of my vine-slaying. Still, it's not a good gardening experience if you don't learn anything. For example, yesterday, I learned the following: 1)Take down windchimes if they keep hitting you in the head. 2) Gardening gloves help reduce splinters, keep your hands free from dirt and prevent hard-to-clean nails. Naturally, I did not have any gloves and thus, after much scrubbing, there's still a layer of dirt ground into my hands. 3) Weeding is not considered successful if you just turn the dirt in which the weeds are growing upside down to hide the weeds from your mother so she thinks you weeded. It's actually much easier to just weed anyway.

Today, the sun has gone away again and we're left with a gloomy, drizzly, dark April morning. While I'd enjoy a walk around the garden to see what changed overnight- which actually does seem to happen this time of year- I also love the constantly changing weather. It reminds me that I've put those ham sandwich days behind me and that I'm back in a place that doesn't allow for predictability in weather unless the predictability is the lack of predictability itself.

It seems on this rainy Spring morning, that Sausage has reached his tolerance for being ignored and is being rather obnoxious. His head is practically on my lap and he's staring up at me like some horribly cliche Hollywood dog that's been trained to be adorable. Naturally, I fall for it every time, just like I'm doing now. Thus I must pay attention to him before he starts to whimper. I hate that I'm being manipulated by an 22 inch long dog that stands about 12 inches of the ground but I let him do it anyway.

I can't help it. I'm a sucker.

Happy Monday.