The gift

As we mentioned yesterday, guilt of leaving us (the power of the sad eyes from afar) forced our Lady to get us a gift. 

This is what we got:

Lady tried to make videos of us with it, but they suck, so she is not putting them here.

Hailey solved it in about 20 seconds.

Emma solved it in 53 seconds.

Phod figured it out in about 35 seconds.

Lady was impressed with all of us!

Aside: Thank you for sharing your stories about businesses etc that hire "disabled" people. I don't even really like that term because all of the individuals I work work with who have autism are way smarter then me and they see the world in such amazing ways. It is often communication or a behaviour we would see as "weird" that stops them from participating fully. As we are learning, all the cool people who change the world (Einstein, Steve Jobs etc etc) likely were on the spectrum. 

Here is a video I love about a young man in Edmonton who has started his own business (with some support). To learn about Anthony, click on his name.

Have a great day and we look forward to reading your blogs today!

Catch Up

Today Lady says she has her head screwed on better so we can catch up.

Lady you are boring me with your stories.
Talk more about me!

Lady left last Tuesday for Calgary, Alberta. She went to a conference there and then went to Banff for the weekend. She had a great time.

The conference was a vocational training for adults with autism. Lady is sad that 80% of individuals with autism right now don't have jobs. Many can work or be taught to work, but people don't want to hire them. People with autism are not alone - all disabilities are under employed. There have been some studies that show that when you employ people with disabilities absenteeism decreases, productivity increases, turn over decreases and safety either stays the same or improves. There are some really cool programs in Canada and the US right now. Lady would like to ask all our American friends to shop at Mejers because they have AWESOME programs for hiring people with disabilities and are improving it all the time (some of their distribution centres workforce is 50% individuals with disabilities). Plus they are sharing their model with other big companies like Colgate, P and G, Clarks, Lowes, Best Buy . . . . so there is hope.  If you can, consider employing someone with a disability.

Ok, now we have pushed Lady off her soapbox, she did some cool things while she was away. She went bobsledding. The pilot of the sled was Australia's Heath Spence. Lady wishes him luck at the Olympics in 2014. She said it was fun and not scary although her brain got rattled around a lot.

She also road the gondola in Banff, did a huge hike at Lake Louise (the picture from yesterday was taken half way up the hike) and generally enjoyed the mountains. Lady loves mountains. This is why she lives far away from everything in the closest thing we have here, the Gatineau Hills (which are part of the Laurentian Mountains).

While Lady was gone, we had an ok time with Man. We don't have him as well trained as Lady and he doesn't fall for sad eyes as well. [Also, he would NEVER FaceTime to talk to us like Lady did when she was away]. He did feed us, and brush Phod some, and we got to go swimming 2 times, and he took us for walks in the evening. He did us a huge favour and didn't make us brush our teeth every night. He didn't take us on morning walks (he is not as cheery as Lady in the morning) and he didn't play ball with Phod every time we went out. We give him a C in care.

Overall we were good and didn't cause much mischief. We were so good Lady brought us home a present. We will talk about that tomorrow, cause we think this post is too long.  Have a great day and thanks for stopping by and enjoy some more pictures from the trip.

More Mountains

One of the few flowers Lady saw

Looking down from Sulphur Mountain in near Banff - Lady took the gondola up

A fun mountain picture taken from the car. Lady loves mountains and clouds

On her hike up the mountain at Lake Louise - it was cold and rainy!

Near the top of the mountain at Lake Louise. It was snowing! 

A Hoodoo just outside of Banff. Lady didn't know what a Hoodoo was! 

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Our Lady is back. We are so excited. She got home yesterday afternoon. We all have so much to tell you and we can't wait to catch up on your adventures.

Until tomorrow!

Lake Louise

He wasn't my prince

Lady: Lee, the Man says you may have killed a frog. He doesn't have proof it was you, all he knows that you were with what was left of a frog.

Lee: I won't say if he was alive or dead when I found him. All I will say is he was not my prince.

Lady: O Lee!


Today the Lady is leaving for one week. She doesn't know if she is taking her computer she will decide at the end of the day. She will not be posting blogs while she is away and if she doesn't take her computer, she won't be reading either. If that is the case, see you all next week! We will miss you!

Mischief Monday

The new leashes. Lady bought 4, to have extra ones on
hand incase someone needs to eat them again. 

We had a tiny bit of mischief this week.


Hailey caused mischief 2 times.

Time one:  She may have chewed through all the leashes forcing Lady to get new ones. [Lady forgot to take a picture of that sorry!]

Time two: She helped the cats finish their breakfast.

Hailey helping the cats finish breakfast.
Lady took a picture before stopping her:)

Zaphod caused mischief Saturday night.  Auntie K and her boy [aka her boyfriend] were over as was Uncle Chris. The boy had been to visit but had not been to the lake. The Lady and Auntie K and the boy decided to go for a walk to the lake without any of the dogs. The Lady left Lee tied to a post, and Emma and Zaphod free and under the supervision of Uncle Chris and the Man [who were building the bonfire] while she went for her walk. While standing on the beach who suddenly comes tearing down the hill into the lake, while Zaphod of course. He was not going to miss out on a swim. He went for his swim and Uncle Chris arrived with a leash to walk him home. Zaphod would like to argue that it is really the Lady who caused the mischief by not taking him to the lake in the first place!

Emma caused mischief last night. While outside she and Hailey got tangled. When Lady tried to untangle them, a scared Emma tried to bite her. Because of this Lady had to untangle her in a less then dignified way.

Let's see what mischief we cause this week with Emma here and the Lady away! Happy Monday!

Black and White Sunday - She's Back!

Emma

For the next 2 months and a few days, while my brother-in-law Chris is on exercise for his job in the military, Emma will be staying with us.

She arrived yesterday afternoon and had her best first night here. She did throw up at 5 am - hard to tell if this is because she is stressed or because of all the grass and sticks she was eating when they were playing outside yesterday.

My first task as dog sitter is going to be to try and squeeze a trip to the vet tomorrow because even though I reminded him and reminded him, Chris forgot to go get heart worm and tick treatment for her. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but I am getting on an airplane on Tuesday afternoon for a week, so to make the Man's life easier, I have to try and do this.

Let the adventures of a full house begin!

I will see you in my dreams

I have been blessed (and cursed) with the ability to have amazingly clear dreams. The blessing is that the good dreams are so good and real and enjoyable; the curse is the bad dreams are also so  clear and vivid and can stay with me for days and weeks. In my dreams I see colour, I smell things, I taste things and I feel things.

Occasionally I have dreams with Loki and Gemini and this week I had a dream with our little Loki in it.
My crazy dream went something like this.

Loki was still alive but our Gemini was not [which made me mad because I should at least be able to save her in my dreams, but I guess my guilt prevents this]. He was alive but he was having a 3rd serious health problem. [Loki had an autoimmune disorder and he had 2 'crisis' before dying]. He was at the vet. Our vet had called and talked to the Man and said they needed to keep him for another day.

I decided to walk to the clinic and get cat food [FYI we live 60 km from the clinic I would not walk there]. I arrive and the reception area is more like an airport, there are like 50 people waiting in line. I manage to race to the front of a new line as they open it and order my food. While I am waiting for them to get it, it occurs to me that I could visit Loki while I was here. So I ask if I can do that and they say no, it is too busy. Then I decide I will do something unfair. I ask to speak to the vet. I say I have questions about Loki and I know he is here and I can wait. I know if I ask him if I can see Loki I will get to. [The joys of having a friend who is a vet! I do have some post dream guilt for manipulating this relationship to see my dog, but I think all true dog lovers would].

This picture was taken of Loki in July of 2009 shortly after his liver biopsy. Loki was always an amazing sport at the vet,  I believe in all the tests, blood work (at times bi-weekly) he only growled 1 time and everyone was shocked. He loved the vet and the clinic. However, what he didn't love was me dressing him up and taking pictures of him, so this is why he was very unhappy with me.  I think in the context of my dream he is thinking, you couldn't even dream me healthy, thanks!

While I was waiting they bring Loki out in our cats crate with a big stack of meds to take. I was now very confused because I thought he had to stay. The receptionist said they got the test done and he could go home. They explain that he will need a lot of medication and are worried that we won't be able to handle it. I laugh because in Loki's last year of life he was on as many as 15 pills a day and we had charts and pill storage containers and pill cutters to keep it all straight, so we had done this before. Of course I have walked so I call the Man to come and get me. While I was waiting the vet comes out and I ask why he didn't let us know Loki was ready to come home. He said he sent a new "plasma" email and he guessed it wasn't compatible with our email so we didn't get it. At any rate, he was ready to go with all this medication.

While I never got to hold Loki in this dream because he was in the crate, I got to see his big bug brown eyes and his soft puppy fur (a side effect from the drugs he took when he was dying). It was nice to have that time with him, even if it was only in my dreams . . . . . .

Have a happy Saturday