Celebrity Author at Pawsway

Well, Mortie, Bob and I spent the day at Pawsway Pet Discovery Centre. What did we learn from this event?
You need to bring your dog to get any attention at all. A lady who was talking about Border Collies did not bring
any of her Border Collies. No one visited her to talk. They all stopped at the therapy dogs, cute shitzus, mini greyhounds and one longhaired Dashund. One therapy dog was missing eyes, they had been surgically removed due to disease. So the therapy dog needed a guide dog. He seemed to manage pretty well though.

Mortie got some personal physiotherapy for his back right trick knee. He fell in love with many dogs and enjoyed socializing with so many canines, he's still conked out on the couch. His normal energy level is renowned so that's saying a lot.

The dancing dogs, golden retrievers had a whole corner full of brightly coloured nylon "crates" that looked more like mini tents.
I think Mortie needs one of those.

One chiuaua showed up in a mini skirt. Her owner said she liked dressing up because she knew that meant she was going somewhere.

Mortie scored some new kind of Purina dentibones. I sold under ten books but met some really nice people and neat kids.
Maybe later they'll all go to the bookstore and buy more. I know we'll be back to Pawsway. It's a fun place.

Meet me at Pawsway

Tomorrow Mortie and I head to Pawsway at Harbourfront. This is the one and only Pet Discovery Centre and they're celebrating working dogs and people who work with dogs. Because I write about dog guides, I will be there. I'll talk about Bringing Up Beauty, A Different Kind of Beauty as well as the final book in the series, Beauty Returns. Also my husband Bob, photographer extraordinaire, will be there and those who wish can have their photos taking with me and my inspiration dog, Mortie. Now Mortie is not guide dog material. Actually his amazing fly catching efforts, leaping up into the air as high as a building and as fast as a bullet, have been captured in a similar dog, Finnigan, in the historical fiction I'm writing about the 1912 flycatching contest.

Hope to see some of you there.

The Sandcastle Competition

August 23rd proved to be a hot sunny day, perfect for the beach! There were 14 competitors, two in the adult, about four in the children's section and the rest in the family division. What talent! Many beautiful and detailed castles were sculpted. A mermaid and sea serpent took awards. In this photo, you see the second place winners. They showed wonderful team work and excellent use of space. Next year August 15, 2009 will prove even better. There will be a workshop in the morning and a demonstration. Then in the afternoon--the competition!

Lots of time to practise.

Mortie's new swimming hole

This year we bought a Provincial Park Pass for Hunter, thinking we could take him everyday after school to the play barn at Bronte Creek. Turns out during the year the playbarn closes at 4:00 and while Hunter's class finishes around 3:15 by the time he surfaces it's often 3:45.

No matter, we're taking advantage of it now in the summer. We went to a "spirit night" where Hunter met some historical ghosts. We visited Spruce Lane Farm and he and some buddies tried out some old fashioned toys and wove.

The big plus turned out to be the dog park. No fence and just lots of free roaming area. Today someone told us about another leash free area in the camping zone. We had to drive in by another entrance. Then we could hike through fields and forest and more importantly through the actual creek. Lots of dogs were swimming in the fast moving water and Mortie joined in.

We also saw a dog named Cohoe who could pass for the wolf hybrid Paris in my novel Last Chance for Paris. Perhaps for book two we can shoot the cover in that exact spot.

Building Sandcastles

Next Saturday, August 23, from 10 to 2, I will be judging sandsculptures along with Sandi Castle Stirling, shown creating this marvelous castle, yesterday. She also gave out tips but I came to late to get any. I thought I'd bone up with some books from the library. Well, there are none on this topic except for Robert Munsch's Sandcastle story. Everyone knows you can't build a breathing barking sanddog, or?

In any case, I intend to google technique on the internet so that I can better judge this contest. I love sandsculptures anyway.

Mortie gets groomed for the wedding

We like Mortie fluffy but some dog owners suggested that since he had poodle in him he needed to be "groomed" read shaved.
So we thought we'd try. It's hot out, he'd at least be cooler. My friend Carol Bryant owns a grooming shop and only charged me "cat rates". How embarassing for Mortie. She shaved every part of his body and trimmed the hair around his ears.

What do you think? Should Mortie grow back the fluff or should he continue to visit Carol?

Big Day

What began as a beautiful day turned into the monsoons as the white stretch limo pulled up to the bride's house. Umbrella to umbrella, everyone's finery was shielded. At Geraldos at Lasalle Park, all arrangements required switching. No getting married in the terrace, too dangerous with the thunder, lightening and huge puddles so Eireann and Craig were piped down the aisle of the reception room.

However, everything else was perfect. Delicious food, great friends and dancing. Eireann and Craig performed some fancy steps and dips. Now they're off in Greece enjoying their honeymooning. Congratulations. Phew!

Karaokee Shower

My friends Cathy and Lynda have hosted a lot of parties and showers on my or my children's behalf. So for Eireann and Craig we were stumped for about five seconds. "What do they like to do?" Cathy asked. "They love to sing karaokee," I answered. So bestman Adam whipped up an Elvis e-invite and I rented a machine and Cathy and Lynda supplied the most delicious food imaginable and a home decorated Elvis style.

It was a tremendously fun evening and Ian Garden, Eireann's brother won the academy award, you didn't know there was one?, for Karaokee.

On the way home

One good thing about this trip is that Mortie has conquered his fear of car trips. He looks pretty comfortable, doesn't he?
Now we arrive just in time for Eireanne and Craig's Karaokee shower!

Beach time

The way I read it, our cottage was supposed to have a view of the ocean and I thought it was situated right at the beach.
But no. We saw a glimpse of ocean from across the highway. It was partially obstructed by herring smoking plants. Cap Pelee
is the smoked herring capital of Canada. If there had been a large herring monument, you know we would have been so there!
So we had to drive to a rather weedy shallow beach that sometimes smelled of herring, or seaweed. Lots of sea creatures scuttled around on the ocean floor so I didn't frolic as much as I'd hoped in the water.

The cliche New Brunswick Experience: Hopewell Rock

The list of things we had to do on our vacation was pretty small, eat Lobster, go to the beach a lot and visit Hopewell Rocks.
We arrived at high tide, took photos, ate ice cream and played on the equipment, well Hunter did, I just said "Good one!" "Go for it!" and such and walked Mortie around. Then at 2:00 in the afternoon we headed down and walked the length of the beach admiring the flower pot formations. The picture of me was taken by Hunter, otherwise I don't usually get to appear in my blog much.

The Lobster Experience

Some people asked me why I chose Cap Pelee for my cottage rental. It looked like a kid friendly cottage complete with a playground and toyroom and it was supposed to be on the beach. But it was close to the lobster capital of Canada. Of course we had to take pictures in front of the largest lobster and then we brought the smaller already cooked version home to try.

How can something so ugly and difficult to get at taste so delicious?

Research Part of Holiday

A few hours out of our way, the Pointe au Pere Sea Museum feature the Empress of Ireland. I wanted to really understand the deck system for my third class passenger/character ten-year-old William Alton. I'll have to compare my photos of models to the book I have at home. It's a lot of work for a few sentences in a book that's largely about flycatching.

Quebec City

This is the amazing fountain given as a 400th year birthday present from a department store owner to Quebec City. Originally, it won a prize at a world fair back in the 1800's. At the bottom there are frogs either spitting water to the next layer or projectile vomiting it right to the top.

Quebec is crowded with tourists and people celebrating the summer festival. The old town is quaint and filled with shops and cafes, still not a lot to entertain a seven year old. We did watch a juggler who climbed and balanced the ladder and then juggled torches from the top.

Pet Friendly travelling

Our first hotel provided a lovely two room suite, a kitchen sink but no microwave or fridge or more importantly pool.
That was all fine, however, they charged an additional $25 for our dog. Didn't matter that he wasn't a Great Dane or that
he never so much as woofed or shed a hair.

At the Quebec tourism board we asked about dining in outdoor cafe "avec notre petit chien". "Si il est calme" you can eat with your dog.

Naha. We couldn't eat with Mortie. So we shared an ice cream cone overlooking the old harbour and later snuck in Mortie to our next hotel. With the $25 we saved we enjoyed a Hawaiian pizza togther.

On the Road again...

We're very excited to be on the road to our rented cottage in Shediac. Mortie's not usually a good car traveller.
In fact he's the only dog I know who hates the car. But we loaded up his bed on top of a suitcase and snuggling with Hunter
in the back he slept most of the way.

Nothing exciting has happened so far but the trip has been good. We stopped in Montreal, did nothing but eat.
Today we're hoping for some historic scenery in Quebec City.

Owen's Christening

We ditched the dogs for a day to see Owen's Christening. Wow, once the church gets you in you have to kneel, pray, kneel, pray, kneel, pray..sing.

Still it was a lovely chance to visit with Kelly and Joey and baby Owen. The food was delicious. Owen was cute.
A happy day.

Mortie Has a sleepover friend

Some days when we know we're going to be away a long time we send Mortie to friend's place: Niles.
He's an older, slightly bigger, apricot coloured poodle who is very good natured. Mortie and Niles have
been running through the park together and wrestling.

The downside is that Niles has become too attached to me, emitting the most ungodly highpitched yelp when I return from say taking the paper in. Also he's not perfectly house trained.

Craig and Eireann are getting married

We attended the first shower for Eireann, my future daughter in law. Craig and Eireann announced they were getting married in April. The wedding will be August 9 and is going to be beautiful. How can it fail with such a beautiful bride! Eireann and Craig make a great couple and I love when they try to cheer a crying baby, singing songs and making faces together. Of course we don't have any crying babies around any more. Yet... Jen will have a baby December so that will change again

Mortie Gets to Go On a Press Junket

Mortie doesn't get invited to a lot of events but when PawsWay opened he not only got to go but ended up on television and in the newspaper all because he's cute. He also ignored some lovely biscuits, got weighed (11.5 pounds) and enjoyed watching other dogs go through obstacle courses. While he's super smart, he didn't do well on the pet intelligence test because it was all about retrieving a biscuit from under a big plastic cup. Remember those biscuits he didn't like? So he never bothered flipping the cup which would have made him a genius. Well he's smart enough to know what he doesn't like