Christmas 2008!

Well, here we are already in the middle of our third Regina winter. So far this month we've seen our thermometer drop to under -30 degrees, and with the windchill factor we've had temperatures well below -45. So as you can see, the above picture was taken on a rather balmy day.

Regina in December.

The biggest hills in Regina are the mounds of plowed snow in parking lots.
Oh, and it's only about 5:30 pm in this picture.

The other night I went to pick R up from work on a cold and icy afternoon (it gets dark at about 5pm in December, so although it's afternoon it really feels like 7 or 8 at night). I got stuck in a very unusual traffic jam on the Ring Road (the only freeway in town, which circles the city) because a train had hit a semi truck which hadn't been able to stop before crossing the tracks, presumably because of the icy road conditions. When I finally got to Global I had to wait for a snowplow to clear the way into the parking lot. Ah, Regina in the winter! Click the play button below to see the film version:

So this Christmas we decided to focus more on dinner than presents. We didn't document this year's meal as well as we usually do, but this time we got the lamb marinating the day before, which made it even more awesome.

The maestro and his tools: garlic and a paring knife.

Get in there, you garlic.

Marinate!!

Supper was lamb roast in Port Wine sauce, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and homemade sourdough bread. My sourdough pot is getting really mellow and flavorful and this is probably my best loaf so far. For dessert we had sourdough chocolate cake, my favorite kind of cake, and an old childhood favorite that I've never tried to make before. It turned out great! Even R, who doesn't usually like desserts, liked it.

Then it was time to open the box of gifts from Auntie Sarah. She always sends the pets the greatest gifts. Django loves opening presents! Click on the play button below to see the movie.

Dogs got them some BLING!

They also got puppets: Moxie got a pig and Django got a duck. Click on the play button to watch:

"Get off my mom's hand, you!"

"Death for pig puppets should be quick, painless, and often."

Django loves him some duck...


...and the aftermath...

"What? I didn't do nothin'."

A small addition to Christmas Eve this year was a tiny crisis where Moxie almost completely tore off one of her claws right where it comes out of the pad. We're not sure how she did it but it bled like crazy. The claw was dangling, being still held on by the nerve, and you could tell it really hurt. We went online and learned that the thing to do was remove the dangling claw by snipping through the nerve with a pair of scissors -- certain to cause terrible pain. We were stuck, it was Wednesday night, Christmas Eve, and because of Boxing Day on Friday, Canada and its vets wouldn't be back at work until Monday.

After we talked it over for awhile, R had a brilliant idea: it was 1:30 am and nearly -40 outside, so he took the dogs out to play in the snow while I stayed in and prepared for the surgery. When they came back in, Moxie's foot was hopefully somewhat numb from the cold. We got her on her back and chipped off the bloody ball of ice around her claw, got the scissors on it, and snipped it through. Poor Mox screamed and grabbed her toy, chewing on it like a soldier biting a bullet. R later said that was probably the worst pain she ever felt. We put antibiotics on it, bandaged her up with a sock and medical tape, and she's on the mend now.


The injury didn't slow her down, though! On Boxing Day it's traditional to take the kids skating or sledding, but the dogs are terrible at skating and there aren't any hills in Regina for sledding, so R and the dogs stayed in the front yard and played their favorite year-round game, fetch.

"Focus, Django, fo-o-o-o-ocus....!"

So now Christmas is over. R gets another four-day weekend at the end of the year and we have a whole duck for our New Year's Eve dinner. We've never made duck before -- any recipe ideas?

After that it's back to Global for R, and as for me, I am back at it, aiming to finish the film for a hard deadline of February 9th. There's much to do and it'll take working long hours and 7-day weeks to pull it off. My defense is in March and hopefully I'll be awarded my Master's of Fine Arts degree. After that, R and I will hopefully get to take a couple of weeks off and go somewhere together, ideally with the dogs. He's racking up vacation time and it'll be the first time I can truly relax since we got here in August of 2006. Luckily R is a very good relaxer and will be able to help me remember how to do it!

So we humans will be busy through the remaining dark cold months of winter. In the meantime, the smarter members of our family know the best thing to do is cuddle up, keep warm, take a nap, and wait for spring.


Until next time, adventure!