Simian Farmer

Be thou virtuous

There is a list of 13 virtues by which Benjamin Franklin strove to live his life, and which he tracked on a daily basis in a journal in order that he may eventually live, by his account, a morally perfect life.

While I don't strive for moral perfection, at least not actively, I do refer to these on a regular basis.

And I might argue slightly with the wording of No. 12.  (ie - replace the word 'rarely'.)  But otherwise I think it's a fabulously simple and easily referenced guideline for walkin' the talk.

For the inquisitive masses, let it be known that I have to work hardest on numbers 4 and 11.  They jumped out at me right away.  Like, RIGHT away.

1. TEMPERANCE.
    Eat not to dullness; drink not to elevation.

2. SILENCE.
    Speak not but what may benefit others or yourself; avoid trifling conversation.

3. ORDER.
    Let all your things have their places; let each part of your business have its time.

4. RESOLUTION.
    Resolve to perform what you ought; perform without fail what you resolve.

5. FRUGALITY.
    Make no expense but to do good to others or yourself; i. e., waste nothing.

6. INDUSTRY.
    Lose no time; be always employ’d in something useful; cut off all unnecessary actions.

7. SINCERITY.
    Use no hurtful deceit; think innocently and justly, and, if you speak, speak accordingly.

8. JUSTICE.
    Wrong none by doing injuries, or omitting the benefits that are your duty.

9. MODERATION.
    Avoid extreams; forbear resenting injuries so much as you think they deserve.

10. CLEANLINESS.
    Tolerate no uncleanliness in body, cloaths, or habitation.

11. TRANQUILLITY.
    Be not disturbed at trifles, or at accidents common or unavoidable.

12. CHASTITY.
    Rarely use venery but for health or offspring, never to dulness, weakness, or the injury of your own or another’s peace or reputation.

13. HUMILITY.
    Imitate Jesus and Socrates.

So help me, Dog!

The unfortunate truth of the matter is, and there's a part of me that's almost ashamed to admit this, that I would give our boxer dog back to the breeder today.

I wanted a bigger dog than the over-sized white rat masquerading as our jack russell.  It took a long time for him to grow on me.  He was companion therapy for Amy while I was working eighty percent of each month 500 kilometres away from home.  So that was good.

Finally coming home full time created the need for some hierarchic readjustments in the Fraser household before I went the route that would have resulted in a mangled dog, divorce and jail time.

That's all water under the bridge and we've moved on.

We have not, however, learned.

When you want a second child in the family, and you have a walking toddler and a spastic jack russell terrier with obsessive compulsive disorder (or so suspects the vet, seriously), I don't recommend getting a new boxer puppy to add to the fray.  Especially considering how debilitating both the first and now the second pregnancies have been on Amy.

An ill-trained boxer pup, catalysing the situation and energy already inherent in a household containing a vigourous toddler and a neurotic jack russell (is that a redundant phrase?), and overseen by a mother who varies between somnolence and expectoration in her current state, is not a terribly welcome addition from the perspective of the father who comes home to the maelstrom that this scenario engenders.

I have come to terms with the fact that this makes me both a cad and a hypocrite.  And I have finally stopped suggesting, at every chance both opportune and inopportune, to my amazingly tolerant wife that we return the dog.  That has degenerated to steely glares exchanged between my wife and I when 'the puppy' has done something that would previously have spurred one of those suggestions.

I don't doubt that I will, in time and as she matures, probably come to appreciate the presence of our second dog.  In the meantime, I will stick by my conviction that we'd be better off RIGHT NOW without her.

And I am vastly amused at the fact that when the pup is sleeping peacefully during the day, Amy will take most of those opportunities to sit on, poke, prod, nudge, shake and just generally harass the dog:

"Were you sleeping?  Am I buggin' you?  Hey, Hey?  Can I poke you in the eye?  How do you like it, eh?"

I should have added another stanza to my poem of a couple days ago:

If doggie poo were kangaroo
We'd have to move down under;
For all that jumping in our yard
Would tear the fence asunder.

Uh, which bone is that?

Took the boy and the dogs out for a walk last night after dinner to invigourate the circulation and aid in digestion and all that.

Amy's getting a little frustrated by her breathlessness; the simple act of crossing the school field pushing the stroller elicited a response of mild exhaustion before we reached the paved path.  Her pelvic bones also seem to be doing some uncomfortable shifting in anticipation of the oversized package they will have to accommodate in the spring.

[about to walk down a hill] "Damn, Si, I've got a sharp pain in my pelvis when I walk, like, right here."

"Where?"

[pointing] "Here.  Like if it were on you it would be right behind where your penis is.  I've got a pain in my penis bone, Simon."

[supportively] "Wow, that sucks."

Berating the simians

We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true.

~Robert Wilensky

The first rule of Blog Club is "Don't blog about Blog Club."

Religious education

Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from a religious conviction.

~Blaise Pascal

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

~Robert Frost

Underwhelming, eh?

I got tagged by some Dixie chick. Here's the assignment:

1. Go into your archive.
2. Find your 23rd post.
3. Find the fifth sentence (or closest to).
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions.
5. Tag five other people to do the same.

The post was titled: Star Wars banner

The fourth and final sentence of the post was:

I'm getting very excited.

Incentive, I suppose, to add a little more poignancy to whatever tripe I type here.  Something I've gotten a little better at since then, almost a year ago.

And not to be a spoil sport, but I'm going to ignore the final instruction.  No tagging.  Do it if you want to; or not if you don't.  I'm still grumpy from being woken up at 6 this morning by a persistent and very NOT SLEEPY 5 month old boxer puppy whom I then took out walking for two hours.  Did I say that it was 6 AM when she woke me up?  Yes, it was 6 AM when she woke me up on a SUNDAY!

The first hour or so was spent resisting the urge to return home sans chien. 

I must be strong...

Weekend in review

Mostly just another post in pictures.

But before that, a couple more things that our son has taught us this weekend:

Once discovered, the gag reflex is a whole new toy unto itself.  The boy accidently stuck his finger too far down his throat at the tail end of breakfast one morning, digging out something or other from the depths of his gums, and the resulting convulsive reflex was a delightful new experience!  He spent the next couple minutes experimenting with the fascinating involuntary reaction.  Try it!  You'll like it!

Also, we have likened the same son to a dog in some of his eating habits.  Currently lacking anything resembling molars, he will gum what soft food he can before swallowing.  Anything firmer than, say, canned peaches has to be cut up almost small enough for him to swallow since he'll not waste too much time chewing.

Saturday night's dinner was tortellini and meat sauce.  They're not quite small enough.  Amy and I were caught right smack dab in the middle of angst and belly laughs as Declan would suck the sauce off his tortellini, gum it a few times and attempt to swallow.  Gag.  Gum it.  Swallow?  Gag.  Gum it.  Swallow?  Gag.  Gum it.  SWALLOW!!

We're looking forward to when he can better masticate some of his food.  (It's not like we're feeding him steak or anything just for entertainment value.  We use lemon wedges if we want our son to entertain us at the dinner table.)

*****

And by the way, we rented The Iron Giant to watch Saturday night.  Never seen it before.  I'm not giving anything away, but at the end, when the IG is flying and says, "I'm Superman..."  I totally had to increase my rate of blinking by at least a factor of ten, lest my wife see an unwonted emotional outpouring.  That movie fcukin' rox.  I am so going to buy it.

And now a few pics before Monday.

It's pronounced 'zed', okay?

In an effort to shock Little Man in a Toque with my indulgence, I am going to type out the alphabet on my computer screen and do a word association thingy to each letter that somehow relates to my country.

Instead of my native Kreblachistan, for which I have sworn an unswervingly loyal oath of secrecy (under threat of being taunted and ridiculed while standing naked in front of all of my ex-girlfriends... both of them), I will arbitrarily choose, umm, Canadia as a surrogate.

In a staggering leap of mental fluency, I will call it:

Canadian Word Association (of death!!)

A. - Alberta beef
B. - Beer
C. - Chretien
D. - Doughnut (I have ever spelt it thus, LMiaT)
E. - Edmonton Oilers
F. - Frost heaving
G. - Gretzky
H. - Hockey Night in Canada
I. - Inept politicians
J. - Jonathon Power, squash supah-star
K. - Kitchener-Waterloo General Hospital
L. - Lucy Maud Montgomery
M. - Manitoba Bison
N. - Navy?  What navy?
O. - Okanagan Valley
P. - Portage and Main, 50 below
Q. - Quoi?
R. - Redneck
S. - Sod only refers to grass
T. - Trees don't grow in the Arctic
U. - United States neighboUr
V. - Veterans, lest we forget
W. - World Wars
X. - Xylophones are not made here
Y. - Yellowknife
Z. - Zed, okay?  It really is pronounced zed.  Zed.

NOTE:
Frost heaving (the entry for F.) can refer either to a common surficial geological event caused by the expansion of water as it freezes in the first two metres or so of exposed earth in winter, or to a similarly frequent phenomenon as seen outside Edmonton's Whyte Avenue bars in February during the university's Reading Week.

And to aid in proliferation, feel free to copy and modify to suit the country of your choice.  But if you too are from Kreblachistan, remember your oath!

I will officially tag a few that I think may do it, and who may read this:

Penny of Fresh cup... move down
Tina of Ride along with me
Jaquandor of Byzantium's Shores

That'll do for now.  I'm too bloody lazy to link any more when I really ought to be in bed.