Carol Ann, watching an older student practice en pointe.

(photo credit: a friend of my parents.)

Most disturbing? The wee tyke playing “Hit Girl” reminds me so much of Carol Ann that I basically just spent two hours watching my baby sister annihilating a bunch of scumbags. What. The. Fuck. They have the same hair, the same shape face, similar features… luckily, the vocabulary is a little different. Carol Ann actually DID want a puppy.

Some of the dances were fantastic — was particularly enthralled with the lyrical dance number to Flight of the Conchords. A MUCH better musical selection, and freaking hysterical to have the two (female) dancers dressed up like Jermaine & Bret.

Anyway, the not so good part was … well, both earlier & later. So I headed straight out to Surrey from work, and got a phone call from Nick on my way… it seems that Justice’s mild tummy upset from the day before had gotten infinitely worse, and she had had a touch of diarrhea. And by “a touch” I mean “Everything that was on the floor is covered in liquid poop”. Including Nicks armor, armor bag, our new camping chairs, my toy bag, her bedding…

Yeah, Justice’s belly is not a happy belly. I think she tried to spread it all over the stuff because she didn’t want to poop on the floor — a valiant, if misguided attempt. Nick thinks she was trying to get out the balcony door — this stuff usually lives next to the door (well, it’s not supposed to — I think this is karmic payback for not putting things away). Either way, the poop is plentiful, and the washing machine has been running a LOT…

But diarrhea, while unpleasant, is something to keep an eye on for a day or so, not to panic about unnecessarily. She’s still drinking which is the most important thing, and acting otherwise pretty normal (if a little subdued) so I wasn’t going to race out to the vet immediately, and would wait a day or two to see if it went away on its own.

Until about 5am this morning, she wakes us up by barking at us — also unusual. Justice barks, but at STUFF, not at us. This was definitely a “You need to get up and take me out NOW!” sort of frantic’ness. In our time honored tradition of solving problems, scissors triumphed over paper, and Nick got up.

When he came back in, he reported back that she’s not only still liquid, but she’s added vomiting to her array of ailments. Ok, THAT’S more serious.

Sadly, my vet can’t take her today, so they recommended a few other places… one of which I’ve taken her to before, but don’t much like, and another which is my old ferret vet. Perfect, let’s go there. So at noon today, we’ll be out in Kitsilano to find out why Justice is expelling liquid from both ends.

Dog ownership is so pleasant, eh?

So Nick started his new contract today. Woo! It’s an open-ended “You tell us when you’re done” sort of thing, at the company he very much wants to be with, so … yay! He’s so excited about it he felt the need to wake me up at midnight to describe how he’s going to design the cameras to work on the new game he’s being brought in for. And then got up at 5am to write it all down lest he forget his fantastic ideas. I love the boy, even if he’s a bit crazy sometimes.

So if I’m tired today, I can blame him, right? Nah, I’m super-proud of him, and even if I don’t always get exactly what the hell he’s talking about, I love listening to him talk when he’s passionate about something. Even at midnight.

Completely different topic: This weekend, I visited the Vancouver Aquarium.

This was a rather momentous occasion. For one, I haven’t been to the aquarium since I was very small. For another, I’ve actively boycotted the aquarium for the past 17 years. My grade seven class field trip was supposed to be to the aquarium… but I refused to go. I’m not comfortable with wild animals in captivity used for public entertainment. I’m not really interested in debating that, but there it is. I’m not crazy about it, and due to that, I have purposely avoided going.

So why now? Well, a few reasons. One, Nick really likes the aquarium. Two, I figured if I’m going to dislike something on principle, it’s not a bad idea to actually VISIT and see if my opinions still hold up. They do. Three, Carol Ann was staying with me for the day, and I thought it’d be fun to take her.

Anyway. Ethics aside, I had a really great time. It’s a cool place, and there is a ton of really cool things to look at… and take pictures of. I have a particular fondness for jellyfish.

I think Carol Ann enjoyed herself, too. (On a related note: My sister? She’s 7. SEVEN. She’s self sufficient, has opinions, thoughts, ideas… she’s a regular person, and a pretty awesome one at that. How did THAT happen?)

Hello?

Who else is as shocked as I am at that? Seven? SEVEN? How’d THAT happen?

Happy birthday, little girl.

Ok, I know marketing works, but… isn’t it supposed to be a LITTLE more subtle than that?

I didn’t start using Flickr until Carol Ann was a few years old, what with it not existing when she was born. So, while there are a few pictures from her younger years (because you know, she’s Sooo old now at 6) … I need more!

This is a set from her first birthday, in which Carol Ann encounters a delicious ice cream cake and brain freeze on the same day.

I’m obviously worried about her, and rather stressed out, and so Carol Ann says “Don’t worry, if she doesn’t come back, we’ll always have this Justice!” and shows me the stuffed lab puppy I bought her.

This is much funnier in retrospect than it was at the time. At the time, I was trying to figure how I could throttle her in a way I wouldn’t regret later. I settled on a sharp, “Carol Ann, you cannot replace my BELOVED PET with a TOY.” I tried to tell her that it wasn’t funny, but it really was.

At least, once Justice came back (a few minutes later — she hadn’t gone far, and her recall is pretty good these days) it was.

I chose this picture for this post, because the sleepy “pleh” of her sticking her tongue out is roughly her attitude towards stressing me out and worrying me over her little unsupervised trips around the neighbourhood. Also, because it’s cute.

Yeah. I’m really not the good daughter.

In other news, Carol Ann got her report card today. The verdict? She’s doing fine in just about everything, except… she talks too much. More specifically, will. not. shut. the fuck. up. I laughed. Hard. Evidently “verbal diarrhea” is genetic.

Sort of. My sister’s school had a “Mardi Gras” night. Less tits, but lots of beads, masks, costumes, etc. And more games and carnival style things, like a bouncy house and slushies.

The fun part, for me, is that Carol Ann’s elementary (grades K-7) school used to be a junior high school. Specifically, my junior high school. I went there in the ’92/’93 school year for grade 8, the last year it ran — it converted to an elementary school afterwards.

I got completely lost. Bizarre. I hadn’t realized how SMALL this school was — no wonder they had to replace it. The high school that replaced it had a lot more students (being an 8-12, vs. an 8-10 like the junior high was) but was easily 4x the size, if not more.

Still, very bizarre. I peeked in a few windows, and it’s odd seeing what used to be a woodworking shop with cubbies and kiddie desks…

Half the students were bigger than me. Huh. I was always one of the smaller kids, but even I’ve grown a few inches since I was in grade 7. I swear kids are bigger now than they were when I was in school. For one, I remember being in grade 12 and thinking all the grade 8s were so tiny and adorable, and how could they possibly all be bigger than me now? I swear they’re all full of growth hormones or something.

At one point, Carol Ann & I are standing in a line. The little girl in front of us (probably 9ish or so) is chatting with us animatedly, letting us know what the delay was in the line (making ice for slushies) and she all of a sudden turns to me and asks, “Do you go here?”

Just as a reminder — this is a K-7 school. As in, the oldest kids there are 12. There might be a few who JUST turned 13. And for those of you playing at home… I’m 28.

I … didn’t know how to respond. Do I GO here? What? No, no I don’t go there. I haven’t been in elementary school in over fifteen years. I definitely don’t go there. I sort of stuttered a bit, not even sure if she had actually asked that or not, but Carol Ann to the rescue: “No, she’s been out of school for ages!” Thanks, Carol Ann. I feel good and old now.