October 30, 2005

October 30, 2005

Nanaimo, B.C.

YEAR 2 DAY 135

 

Today was cold and raining.

Because of the unpleasant weather, I spent the entire morning cuddled under a blanket on the sofa with Teddy and Bo, watching medical procedures on The Learning Channel. Just before noon, Joanne went off to do some laundry, and I went outside to do today's preventive maintenance. I took care of a couple of inside jobs. I tested the smoke alarm by placing a paper towel on an aluminum pie plate, lighting it on fire, and holding it under the smoke alarm. Yup ... works fine ! I cleaned Teddy's ears. He hates having his ears cleaned. When we got him as a kitten about 13 years ago, he had ear mites. The ear mite treatment seemed to traumatize him for life, in terms of having his ears handled or cleaned. He's convinced that handling his ears in any way is going to result in pain. Poor baby Teddy. As soon as I finished cleaning his ears, he had to rush off to use the litter box. So traumatic he had to shit !

We've run out of dog food. We don't want to buy a fresh 10 pound bag of dog food, just to be forced to discard it when we cross the border on Tuesday, so we're feeding cat food to Bo for a couple of days. A couple of days of cat food won't be harmful to him, although the higher levels of proteins and fats in cat food results in him producing more waste. I hope his tummy isn't upset by the change in diet.

We had lunch, then I read for awhile, and napped. When I woke up, Joanne was bored and had decided we were going shopping for a dog rain coat. We drove to the shopping mall area, and shopped for a dog rain coat at Bosley's and at Petcetera. Bosley's is a regional chain of smaller pet supply stores, originated in Vancouver. They've been in business since before we went into the pet supply business in 1990. Their stores are very much like PET VALU's. Smaller stores, very knowledgeable staff, high level of service. We enjoyed our shopping trip there, even though we didn't get a rain coat for Bo. Bo really enjoyed shopping there as well. The staff gave him biscuits, and attention, and he got to visit with Bubba the resident store cat. We drove across the street to Petcetera. Petcetera is a national chain of larger "big box" type stores, originated in Kelowna in the late 1990's. Large store, lots of inventory, no service. Again we didn't find a suitable rain coat for Bo. We arrived back at the trailer justas it was dusk, at 5:00 P.M.. The change last night from daylight saving time to standard time certainly shortens the day.

I'm somewhat surprised and disappointed that my friend Pam who lives up island in Union Bay didn't phone us back this weekend to arrange a visit. Before supper Joanne did some trip planning, figuring out what route to take, and what sights to see, on our way to the Grand Canyon in northern Arizona. That inspired me to take the laptop to the clubhouse and do a Google search on Las Vegas shows. Oh, boy, I found a perfect gift for Joanne for Christmas. Tickets to see Paul McCartney perform. Woo-Hoo ! And the tickets only cost ... WHAT ? ! ? ! ? $1800 ! ! ! Oh, I don't think so !

DSK