Resting In Peace near Hector, by the stream that runs behind our house, surrounded by the very Nature that she loved.

She is survived by 1 cat, 2 dogs, 6 fish, 3 parrots, and 2 humans.

7 Months old on April 10, 2010.

© Periapex for Life's Context, 2010. | Permalink | No comment |

I’ve always preferred dogs to cats, but some convolutions of the universe knotted together to drop these two into our home: Our neighbour’s cat (a stray who goes to them for bed and breakfast) got knocked up and had some babies; We’ve had a crazy mouse infestation in our walls this year; When we saw these two, we knew they were way too cute for their own good so we decided that we’d better look after them.

They are currently in training. I’m getting them used to flash photography…

© Periapex for Life's Context, 2009. | Permalink | 4 comments |

I’ve been busy trying to stay out of trouble.

So far I’ve succeeded.

Our annual summer party rainfest (it has rained every year except for one that we’ve had the party) went off successfully again — no injuries, one broken fence gate, some assaulted frogs, and 2 overfed dogs.

I’ve been schooled and am schooling.

The latest person to school me was Rudy. I was refreshingly pleased to be given a few insights into his political thought processes. He argued some political points with me on facebook recently, but did so with intelligence and practicality. He’s someone that has made his own political decisions through reason and research rather than as a crowd-following Lemming.

I’m schooling myself in photography, as many of you know. It’s my newest hobby and I’m working my way through a stack of books, from visual composition, to using Adobe Lightroom. Playing with off-camera flash is the coolest thing I’ve come across in a very long time. It’s actually what’s keeping me away from this blog the most. Fragileheart has patiently volunteered her time to a couple of photosessions for me to work on my lighting.

Here’s an example of what off-camera flash can do for you. Take for example a painting that was created with heavy brush strokes or a palate knife. The surface of a painting like this is as important as the image itself. The strokes convey texture, emotion, and movement to the underlying image.

Straight-on, or flat, lighting produces this:

Lighting from the side produces this:

The trade-off (isn’t life full of these) is that the more texture you show, the less saturated your colours become. The trick is finding the right lighting ratio and angles to strike a good balance between colour saturation and texture and thereby do some justice to a piece that will still be best viewed live.

© Periapex for Life's Context, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments |

The usual suspect.

My annual summer bloggin’ slow-down is currently in full effect. You might see some stuff on here every now and then but you’ll definitely see more stuff from me on Twitter or Flickr because those are places that I can hit and run.

Summer is just too short here in iglooland to spend it typing my crazy life’s details. Don’t worry, I’ll be back. I always return.

Talk to you soon (I hope). I’ve gotta go and chase another visitor away…

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Unfortunately, destructible toys cost money. The more destructible the toy, the more the bird enjoys it, and the more often you have to spend money to replace the toy.

Commercial toys are nicer to look at than homemade toys, yet homemade toys can offer hours of entertainment for your pet bird. They don’t care about how a toy looks. All that matters is how easily they can shred, puncture, or fragment it.

I started stringing together toys for our birds years ago out of wood and plastic trinkets that I bought online from a bird store. The idea was to use these components to build your own toys.

I eventually realized that I could get most of the same things from the dollar store or even a hardware store — much cheaper and with many more options.

Here’s my workshop:

And here are some resulting bird toys:

There are bits and pieces of rawhide and wood and rope from other toys that were previously mutilated. I add in telephone books, PVC piping, and pieces of hemlock and cedar from the trees around our place. I’ve used birch to make their perches.

Everything is destructible, everything is fun.

Our birds have the same zest for these toys as my cousins did when they would come over for our family parties and destroy my brother’s toys.

Yeah, you know who you are…

© Periapex for Life's Context, 2009. | Permalink | No comment |

This was the first bit of gardening that we’ve done for the year and it consisted of a clean up of dead leaves and grasses.

Everyone was having a great time (the wine on the windowsill helped):

Until The Girl found this:

© Periapex for Life's Context, 2009. | Permalink | One comment |

After years of little niggly problems costing tons of money to fix and then recurring, I finally had enough. From getting rear-ended the second day after I got the car, to having my emblems stolen, to parts wearing out excessively fast (and only being able to purchase them from a dealership), I said, “enough”.

The recession makes buying something like a new car quite a dream. I chose a sage green 2009 Subaru Forester, traded in the jalopy, switched plates, and won’t look back.

I will not buy another BMW.

As The Vapors sang:

I’m turning Japanese
I think I’m turning Japanese
I really think so
Turning Japanese
I think I’m turning Japanese
I really think so
I’m turning Japanese
I think I’m turning Japanese
I really think so
Turning Japanese
I think I’m turning Japanese
I really think so

© Periapex for Life's Context, 2009. | Permalink | 6 comments |

Why can’t you see
What you’re doing to me
When you don’t believe a word I say?

We can’t go on together
With suspicious minds
And we can’t build our dreams
On suspicious minds

Ameloblast and Roxy in our kitchen after a messy training session. Actually it was painful (for me) more than messy because I was trying to teach Roxy how to take treats gently:

Roxy is a 2 year old mixed dog that we rescued from the Toronto Humane Society a couple of weeks ago. The teenager who surrendered her to the shelter because he could not afford food for her said that she’s an Azores Cattle Dog. If she does have some of the Azores islands in her those genes are quite diluted. She hardly resembles a purebred ACD.

She has a docked tail and poorly cropped ears. A lip injury along with some scabs along one thigh were suggestive that she had been in a fight just prior to being surrendered.

She and Ameloblast are slowly becoming tolerant of each other and some day soon I’m sure they will become good friends.

Adopting a dog from the SPCA is not as easy as it used to be. If you have never adopted a dog from a shelter it’s definitely not as easy as you might think. The interview that potential adopters are put through can be quite stressful. An extensive questionnaire must be completed and then a meet and greet is set up between you and the dog. If everything goes well there, anyone else who is going to be in close contact with the dog at home must be brought to the shelter as well. This includes other dogs.

Shaz, a professional dog trainer, was our interviewer at the shelter. Thanks to him we were made aware of potential issues between Roxy and Ameloblast and once we brought her home we were able to watch and react to problems before they became issues.

As with any animal that you rescue, you don’t know what sort of life they really have had and you probably do not want to know. All that you do need to know is that a dog like Roxy just wants to have a home that they can call theirs, they want to be loved, to be fed, and to be entertained. Given all of this, they will become your forever friend and you will have saved one soul from a sad ending.

None of us ever asked to be born to this world. Once here, though, we just want to live a life that is happy, positive, and fulfilling. Dogs feel no differently. Anyone who has owned a four-legged pet knows this.

© Periapex for Life's Context, 2008. | Permalink | 6 comments |

As of today, our windows are still intact along with our lives and the rest of the house. Much has happened over the months since that night with Y on the front porch. Y and B’s house went up for sale shortly after all of this. It is still for sale, much to B’s frustration but not to Y’s. Y loves living in the area and their girls have a well-established social life here now.

Often when The Girl was out walking, B just happened to be either driving by in her car or sitting in wait. B would then resort to either flooring the accelerator past The Girl, or following her slowly a short distance behind — all intimidation tactics. We debated reporting her activity to the police, but didn’t know if B’s behavior was illegal. We decided to play things by ear a little longer. Most of Y and B’s neighbours have commented at one time or another about her strange behavior with her driving her car up and down the street pointlessly. They also wonder why she stops at the top of our street for a minute or two at a time and just looks to the end of it — looks to our house. Through our windows we would often see her zipping around in front of our house checking our property out.

Y still attempted to make covert contact with us on occasion, especially while he was walking their dog. The second last contact he made with us was on a weekend during the mid-afternoon. He came over to say hi, see how everything was, and I think to make sure that B hadn’t caused any physical trouble to us. He said that he found no help through his church…Big surprise.

While I was talking to Y at the top of my driveway, we first heard, then saw B’s red car rocketing down the street towards us. She stopped at the bottom of the driveway. One of their girls was in the passenger seat. B got out and started screaming at Y. I couldn’t understand most of what she was yelling, but I did hear her ask what the hell he had told me. He said he’d better go and sheepishly walked off as she blasted her car off towards their home.

The last time that I spoke to Y was about a month after the driveway encounter. I was out for a walk with Ameloblast and decided to take a route past Y’s house for a change of scenery since The Girl avoided going there on her walks. It was late evening, so fairly dark. We passed Y’s house uneventfully. But on the way back, Ameloblast became interested in something that he saw in front of their property. I strained my eyes to see what he was seeing as we approached. I saw nothing unusual until we were in front of the house. That was when Y came out of the bushes and said hi.

I stopped and a brief conversation ensued. He asked how we were then proceed to tell me that that day when I had last seen him B took their dog, put him in her car and said that she was going to get rid of him. I couldn’t understand if she did take him somewhere and Y then got him back or if Y managed to get him out of the car before anything happened. But I think that pissed Y off so much that something happened between Y and B. Physical or not, I don’t know.

B ended up calling the cops. She reported an assault. The cops arrived, handcuffed Y and were about to take him away when the girls told them that the whole thing was B’s fault, that Y had done nothing. Y was released on the spot, but subsequently B told the cops the whole story of how Y had been cheating with The Girl and that this has created a huge problem between B and Y.

As Y was finishing up the story, their house’s outside lights flicked on and a door opened. Y nervously looked behind him and retreated. I took off also.

And so the cat and mouse game between my wife and B continued for months until one day while out for a walk again, The Girl waved at a car as it passed her. She realized a little too late that she had just waved at B driving Y’s car. The car screeched to a halt in front of The Girl.

B flung open her door, got out and started yelling and screaming. Through the obscenities she basically told The Girl to never wave at her again. Then she peeled rubber up the street, car and one daughter in the passenger seat.

This time we became fearful that things were escalating to a violent conclusion. The Girl called the cops.

She was transferred a couple of times until a female officer ended up coming on the phone.

“How can I help you?”

“I wanted to report an incident with a neighbour. I don’t know if it’s something that I should report, but I’m worried.”

“What happened?”

So The Girl gave the details about the last encounter.

There was a pause on the other end, “What did you say your address is again?”

The Girl told her.

“What did you say your name was?”

“The Girl,” The Girl said.

A longer pause this time, “So…you’re the other woman!”

Apparently this was the same officer, or one of them, that had arrived to arrest Y. She knew the entire story from B’s perspective. Now she wanted to hear our side.

After The Girl finished relaying the story, the officer said, “her behaviour is bordering on harassment. I’ll contact her today and tell her to behave. It would be a good idea for you to not go near her place and to avoid any contact with her or her family.” Then she added, “For your sake, I hope they sell their house soon. I will file this report. If you feel threatened in any way from her, call 911, say who you are and where you live. This report will come up.”

Since then, B has kept her distance but still drives up and down the street whenever she sees us out walking. I’m convinced that she still thinks that something is going on with Y and The Girl. Since then we’ve seen cops at their house again, along with canine control (again).

Just when we thought we were settling nicely into a state of watchful comfort the photo above happened.

The scene is the car pool parking lot about 20 minutes from where we live and about 20 minutes from where I work. The day was last Thursday.

Our plan that day was for me to meet my wife at the parking lot after work. She had some massage clients booked and would meet me there after she was done. From there we would take a single car to the dance studio.

I took the photo and I’m standing with my back to The Girl’s car. My car is off stage to the left. The car driving away from me is B’s. Her hair is so bleached blond that the light of the flash from the camera bounced off her head and lit up the entire driver side of the car.

B followed my wife from our street and along a 20 minute route just to see where she was going. My guess is that Y must have left their house shortly before The Girl did. B was hoping to see the two of them meeting up for a tryst.

Instead she found only me, my wife, and my trusty camera.

So what have we learned from this whole ordeal. What is the moral of this story? Build friendships with your neighbours at your own risk.

The End.

Hopefully.

© Periapex for Life's Context, 2008. | Permalink | 10 comments |

My wife did manage to calm down before the night was through. Although thoughts of murder and vandalism ran through her head, she overcame and tried to put the whole incident behind her. We agreed that we would have nothing to do with Y and B in the future.

It was around lunch time a couple of days later that my wife remembered that B had wanted all of us to get together to discuss the situation and for her to call to set that up. My wife had calmed down enough to feel that she could have a rational, intelligible conversation at this point.

She dialed their number.

Y answered, “Hello?”

“Can I speak to B?”

B came on the phone, “Hello?”

“This is The Girl…”

“Yes, I’m ready to talk to you now,” B said. “I…”

“No! You’re done talking. You’re gonna listen now!”

“You…”

“Shut up and listen! Who the fuck do you think you are? How dare you come over to my place and I find you alone with my husband and you’re the one accusing me of cheating with yours. I don’t want to have anything to do with you. Forget where we live, who we are, that we were ever friends!” My wife hung up.

After she again calmed down, The Girl told me that it sounded like there was someone else on the line in the background while she was yelling to B. Could it have been Y listening in?

Fifteen minutes later The Girl and I were discussing the whole situation when the doorbell rang.

We both looked at each other.

“You better get that because if I open the door and see that it’s her, I’m gonna stab her in the heart with this kitchen knife!” The Girl said.

Stabbing people with kitchen knives seems to be a recurring thought with my wife. I’m glad that she loves me. I hope.

I opened the door. Y stood in front of me, his saddened eyes checking something out on his shoe.

I sat down with him on our porch while The Girl remained inside eavesdropping.

“Sorry for my wife coming over,” he said.

I looked over to him. The thing on his shoe was still bothering him. I looked out across our gravel path leading to the house and surveyed the weeds growing alongside it hoping to give him time to organize what he wanted to say.

“Something wrong with her,” he said. He now looked up at me.

“Like what?” I said.

“She trying to make me say that something happened with me and The Girl,” he said.

“The Girl is pretty mad right now,” I said.

“Yah, tell her sorry. Is not first time,” he said.

“What do you mean?”

“My wife best friend a few years ago was at party with us. Dinner party. During dinner I sat next to my wife’s friend,” he turned more towards me. “Friend was brunette, very dark hair. My wife knows I like women with dark hair.”

“Hmm,” I said. Y’s wife is a bleached blond.

“Yes. After that party, my wife never spoke to her friend again.”

“Never?”

“No, never. She is so jealous,” he said.

“Well all I can say is that I think it’s best if we don’t see you or your family socially anymore.”

“Yeah,” he said. The thing on his shoe was bothering him again. “She needs help.”

“She probably doesn’t think she does. You’re gonna have a hard time getting her help,” I said.

“Yeah. I worry about the girls.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“She always wants more and more money and things. She was happy for a bit after I bought her the car but I remember when the girls were small,” he looked at me again. “She would not buy them clothes or shoes or anything. Only for herself.”

I was surprised that I was surprised about this.

He continued, “So one day I had enough and took them and bought them shoes.”

He paused for a bit while in thought. I noticed that even the crickets seemed quiet as we all waited for him to finish.

“She took the shoes back and took the money and bought herself clothes,” he said.

He looked at his own shoe again. The crickets still muted, I began to feel sorry for Y — really sorry. I asked, “Wow. She really did that?”

“Yeah.”

What could I say? Trying to be helpful I said, “You’re religious. You go to church every Sunday. Why don’t you see if you can get some counseling or help from there?”

“Yah, maybe I will see.”

“Anyway. Thanks for coming over and explaining. Like I said I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to come over anymore and we won’t be coming over to your place anymore either.”

“Is too bad.”

“Yeah, it is, but this is all stuff that your family has to deal with. When it starts affecting others like us, I need to draw the line at us.”

“Yeah. Ok.”

We said our farewells. He left — bad shoe and all.

I went back inside to a still pissed off wife whose thoughts were of butcher knives dancing in front of her eyes. I wasn’t as worried about the butcher knives as I was about our psycho neighbour who might be unpredictable enough to do something — anything — to either of us or our home.

What sort of damage could B do to our place while we weren’t home. Sure we have an alarm system and more immediate nicer neighbours, and sure our house is set in from the road, but still…we’ve got lots of windows.

Next: Cars, cops, handcuffs, and other loose ends.

© Periapex for Life's Context, 2008. | Permalink | 4 comments |