More pet pics

C is coming home day after tomorrow! Hoo-hoo! I've been in touch with her via email and chat and she says she really loves the pictures of the pets. So, before she jumps on a jet and heads back to Regina, I thought I'd post a few more pictures of the furballs for her.

A well-deserved post-fetch session rest

"What's for dinner?"

"Give me another... and make it a double."

"When are you coming home? Don't you love us any more?"

Moxie playing 'Sweet Face.'

It'll be good to have you back home, C. We miss you somethin' awful!

Travel safe!
R-

Word from C in Finland

Some of you have asked if I've heard from C since she's been in Finland. The answer is yes! She's been able to email every other day, which is more challenging than you might imagine as all of the computers are in Finnish.

C has started a cool online production journal which I'm sure she'll post all of this stuff and more to. But I wanted to share some of what she's written so far. Here's one email she sent me:

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Well, I am up'n' at 'em. I always wake up at 6 am here, which is great because it gives me time to shower and sort out my stuff for the day. What do I need, do I feel safe leaving the video camera behind, how can I lighten my load for the day, all that stuff. When I leave my room in the morning I don't come home until dark, so I want to make sure my daypack has everything I need in it: art supplies, camera (still -- haven't used the video camera yet), maps, Lonely Planet Finland Guide, sweatshirt, cash, credit cards, iPod, Room key, Leatherman...

Then I go for breakfast and am always the first one there. This is great because I get first dibs on all of the stacks of salami and cured meats, the incredible cheeses and everything else. I always pig way out at breakfast since it's my one free meal of the day. This morning I had two small sandwiches and a rye cracker with lox, three cups of coffee and a glass of juice, AND a fresh-baked bun with butter and homemade delicious jam, maybe lingonberry. THEN i even made another small sandwich and packed it in one of those INDISPENSIBLE ziplock bags. Luckily I am walking a LOT these days or I am sure all of this food would be a bad idea.

What my breakfast usually looks like (the first course anyhow)

Since I last wrote a big email from Kuhmo, I have had a great time. I told you I think about the artist lady and her boyfriend who were at Juminkeko to set up her show. I didn't get to see much of her work because it was all still in boxes by the time I wanted to head to the bus 'station' (more of a 'stop' really), but she said she'd email me pictures if I email her, so we exchanged cards and that will be cool to see. Then the old guy, Markku (who has the most amazing eyebrows I have ever seen -- they protrude from his brow bone a good inch and a half of wavy blonde bristle -- and ear tufts to match), who runs Jumikeko with his wife, Sirpa, made a couple of calls to Helsinki for me, arranging to get me access to the Helsinki Film Archive where I can view The Story of Sampo, an animated version of the Kalevala from the 70's, as well as meet with an old guy who made a documentary about the Kalevala, maybe at the festival next week.They were both very kind and Markku said that the next time I come they will make arrangements for me to visit the REAL Karelian villages in Russian Viena Karelia, where the people still retain their old customs and some of the old people still remember the Kalevala verses by heart and can still sing them. Gosh, that would be amazing. Then Sirpa kindly drove me to the bus and gave me what must be a Finnish hug, that is, she put her hand on my shoulder and smiled at me and told me to email anytime if I have any further questions, then thanked me for my lovely visit and said she wants to hear how things go.

The bus ride was nothing special, hours and hours along stretches of road that all look the same; trees, trees, trees (pretty birches and firs), then a clearing, a field, a Finnish farm (generally yellow houses and old red barns with STONE FOUNDATIONS, just as I surmised Sukanen built his buildings, based on the ruins left behind, but I had never SEEN a building like the ones I imagined he built until I got here), then trees, trees, trees.

At one point when we slowed down, I heard, or thought I heard, a dog whimpering. As we came to a stop to pick someone up (there are these stops along the highway where people wait, standing next to trees, trees, alone on the highway, weird) the whining got louder. There was definitely a dog on the bus. As we'd pick up speed it would get quiet but each time we slowed down and stopped, and until we were back at speed, it would cry. I got to really missing Moxie, even at her most annoying.

Yesterday when I got to Joensuu I had to take a cab to the FinnHostel. My pack is great, but it was a couple of kilometers to the hostel from the bus station. Joensuu is MUCH bigger than Kajaani or Kuhmo, which are pretty much towns; this place has a University and a lot of other stuff going on.

Be careful where you shop in Finland...

Juminkeko in Kuhmo was awesome for the Kalevala studies, but there is a whole museum here that is totally about the Karelian culture, and after the lady from Karelian Expert tourist service kindly asked the ticket lady if she could give me a quick free tour yesterday (as the museum and Karelian Expert are in the same building, and as she is not working today), I can't wait to get back in there and really spend some time sketching, painting, and taking pictures. There is so much to see! Lots of displays and photos, archives and artifacts, all of which are giving me a much better sense of the aesthetics of the Kalevala and the general feeling of the Karelian culture.

Mainetta Kuinniia Hold 'Em, anyone?

The camera is GREAT, by the way! I have had to charge it a couple of times but haven�t run out of battery juice. I still seem to have room for more pictures. I tried to download the ones i have onto a flash stick but can�t understand the Finnish dialogue boxes that come up when I plug in the camera, so may have to wait until I get to Helsinki for help with that. Hopefully I don't run out of memory!!!!

What all old guys look like here and how they get around until they're too old for bikes
and have to graduate to these skateboards for seniors (I'll explain that one later; it's hilarious)

I have sadly finished my novel, Pride and Prejudice. I should have brought a second one. Not sure if I'll find a bookstore here that sells English books, but my first stop this morning is at a used bookstore, so hopefully I will find something. The train tomorrow is a 5-hour ride, most likely through the same sort of terrain I've seen on all of the bus and train trips I've taken so far: trees, trees, trees, clearing, farm, trees, trees trees... Still, I have to work out my paper and the two workshops so maybe it's better if I don't have a book. When I get to Helsinki I would like to know what I am doing, as the ladies from the festival are taking me out tomorrow afternoon/evening for supper or coffee or drinks; it will be nice to finally meet them. They have been so sweet and helpful. I think I will meet at least Anna-Maija and Heidi, and maybe Tuula too.

OH! I am going to be interviewed on the radio on Monday! Hahaha! They want to interview me and talk about my work in the film industry (ulp, that was getting to be a long time ago now)and about Sisu, which I can talk about forever of course. I think it's an hour long radio interview! Hahaha! I asked if I could have a copy of it, it will be fun to listen to later.

By the way the Finns I have talked to so far seem to think that Sisu is a good name for the film, so that's cool.

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I'll post more of C's reports later. Knock 'em dead in your radio interview, C! Tell 'em the one where two Swedes and a Finn walk into a bar. That one always kills. I miss you, baby!

Until next time... adventure!
R-

Poop bag shortage is over

One of the many crisises we deal with here at The Ranch is keeping up our supply of plastic doggie poop bags. C and I made the mistake after seeing the movie, An Inconvenient Truth, of being overly environmentally conscious and returned a big, fat, bag of plastic grocery bags to be recycled last Fall. A few months later, with the pups insisting they take two separate dumps each morning and one in the afternoon every day, our regular supply of plastic grocery bags became depleted.

The situation got so bad this last week that I had to... gulp... use a bag twice. Believe me, it ain't pretty and it takes a lot of finesse. Having two energetic dingos climbing on you wanting to play fetch doesn't help either. I even had to go out to the garage and empty out a couple bags we were using for our plastic bottle recycling. Yes, the situation was dire.

Well today when I went over to Safeway to get some chicken for dinner ("Yes, can you please quadruple bag that package of chicken breasts?") I noticed stacks and stacks of ready to use plastic bags hanging on the wall behind the cashier, whose nametag simply read "Tricia". So I said, "Hey would it be cool if I take one of these?" and the cashier said, "Whu?" and I said, "Can I take a stack of these? I have two dogs at home and we're completely out of plastic bags." She kind of looked at me funny. She may not have been a dog owner and did not make the connection between owning two dogs and needing a stack of new plastic grocery bags. So I said, "Can I just have one?" and she said, "I could care less." She didn't say it like she was being rude, it was more like, "Mister, I could care less if you burned this whole god-forsaken sh*t hole down." Fist pump.

There's gotta be at least 100 bags in there!

So you can all rest easy now knowing that we're fully stocked with plastic grocery bags. At least for a few weeks. I'd like to thank the Safeway Corporation and "Tricia" for their generous donation.

"Yaaaay! It makes me want to poo!"

Until next time... adventure!
R-
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Dog Park

These are more pictures of the dogs playing ball for C to look at while she's in Finland. The high today is going to be +17° celsius which is gonna be great. The sky is clear and there's a pleasant breeze, what a perfect day. At 10:00 this morning the temperature was already at +8! Holy cow! "Come on, little doggies, we're goin' to dog park!"

"Get it get it get it get it!"

As you might expect on the first gorgeous Saturday morning in over 4 months, the park was full of dogs so we couldn't play a lot of long-throw fetch. Django and Moxie are still too nervous around other dogs. If they see one coming at them while they're chasing the ball, they'll break off and come running back to me, leaving the ball to roll off in the distance. So we mostly played Catch The Bouncy Ball, but I got some pretty good action shots.

Use the Force, Django!

Django's vertical leap tops out at about 4" however Moxie can really soar. It was tricky working the ball launcher in one hand while trying to take pictures with the other.

Don't you think Mox needs a cape?

Django: "I can fly!"
Moxie: "Huh."

Sometimes Django just looks ridiculous.

After about half an hour of that, we took a short break then took a walk around the perimeter of the park to meet some other dogs.

"Pant pant pant pant pant pant pant pant pant pant pant pant pant pant pant pant pant."

Both Django and Moxie were acting a little weird today. They barked and snapped at other dogs more than usual. I don't know what their problem was. Maybe it was the warm air.

"Watch it! I'm walkin' here, I'm walkin' here."

"Keep your distance, you drooling circa 1970's shag carpet."

Moxie likes to scout ahead a little while Django pretty much walks at my side. The dog park is big, about half a kilometre long by about a fifth of a kilometre wide. Wascana Creek makes up its southern border which gives the retrievers and labs a place to swim (when it isn't frozen). It also attracts some Canada geese which Moxie loves to bark at.

Get along little doggies.

We had a good walk and the dogs got to sniff a lot of stuff along the way. We played a little more fetch, but by that point the dogs were pretty tired. You can tell by the way they only trot after the ball and how they come back with it, drop it at your feet, then plop down on their stomachs for some well earned panting. "Okay, let's go home."

Allis was there to let us in as usual.

"What's the password?"

After the pets got their lunch, the dogs slipped into 'I'm stuck to the floor' mode.

A tired dog is a good dog.

Hope everyone's having a great weekend! We miss you, C!

R-

Skip this post!

As promised, I told C I'd post some pictures of the pups and cat while she was in Finland. I know how pathetic it is when people put pictures of their pets online, but at least we don't put knitted sweaters or caps on them, or put adorable sunglasses on their furry heads with captions like "Too cool for school." And if any of you have done that --I apologize for making fun of you. Anyhow, for everyone NOT named C, please move along to the next post, this one is only full of adorable pictures of dogs playing fetch in their front yard while desperately missing their mom.

Does anyone here want to play ball?

The weather was wonderfully mild today, with a high of +5° celsius. After this last winter, +5 feels like a warm Spring day in the Bay Area, so we took a break here at the Ranch to do a little work. Some ball chasin' work, that is.

I could tell the pups were getting a little stir crazy, they had been playing their 'let's chase each other around the house until one of us catches the other then we'll gnaw on each others' furry faces while making crazy dingo sounds' game for a couple hours straight.

It's rare that Moxie ever loses track of a ball with these two radar dishes.

"You can run, Mr. Ball, but you can't hide."

Happy dog, happy dog.

As any dog will tell you, fetch is 10% physical and 90% mental.

"You don't know it yet, but you are goin' DOWN, Mr. Ball."

Moxie gets some pretty good air when you bounce the ball high. Much higher than Django who sort of just lunges at the ball as it comes down.

Zoink!

Hey C, you'll love this one. It's the face that Django makes that gets us laughing hysterically every time. Ha ha ha ha ha ha.

"Ruh?"

Our yard is much smaller than the park down the street, and even smaller still compared to the off-leash dog park across 13th, so I thought it'd take a couple hours to tire these guys out. But after about 40 minutes of 'Catch Da Wabbit' and 'Snag Me a Goose', they were beat.

Woooooooooooooooooooosh!

It was getting too dark for them to see the ball anyway. So we headed inside for a refreshing bowl of tap water. Aaaaah. Except I had a Rickard's Red. Mmmmmmm.

I meant to put the harness on the cat and bring Allis outside too, but we were just about done by the time I remembered. Darn. Maybe tomorrow. It didn't look like she was too interested in playing ball with us anyway.

"Rowr."

We all miss you and love you an awful lot, C. We can't wait until you come home and our pack will be whole again. But until then, keep on having fun and adventures!

R-

"Come home now."

She's on her way

C left for Finland today. She'll be gone a little over two weeks, speaking at the European student film festival and traveling up to Kuhmo to do research for her thesis project. It'll be a long two weeks for me and the furballs back here in Regina. Sniff.

Check out this cool map she made of the different cities and towns she's gonna be visiting.

(not to scale)

We got a few centimetres of snow early that morning. It was the first time it had snowed in a few weeks, which was too bad because most of what was on the ground already had pretty much melted all away.

"Come on, take me to the airport! Finland can't be as cold as Regina."

The snowy conditions delayed her flight a little after she boarded because they had to de-ice the wings. Cool. I've never seen that done before. I mean, I've heard stories and all.

"Hey buddy, ya missed a spot! Hello! ... hey... hey come back!"

Anyway, the next couple weeks I'll be posting a lot of pictures of the pets (I apologize in advance), per C's request. Here are the first couple which I took the night before she left. She was training for wearing her backpack.

"Giddy-up, little doggies!"

Whenever I look at these I'm amazed at the miracles of spine surgery.

Have fun C! We miss you a bunch! Can't wait to hear about your adventure!

R