Yesterday I was walking outside with Hayley and Breanna, taking the dog for a walk. I had been singing little pieces of a song all day and I couldn’t remember who sang it or where I had even heard it, but it was catchy, even though I only knew the chorus, and I was enjoying it. I was singing it under my breath outside and making a mental note to Google the lyrics when I got home so I could see what the hell it was.

All of a sudden I sang one of the lines loud enough for Hayley to hear.

“Mommy! You’re singing Hannah Montana!”

Oh, crap. I’m 15 again. Or maybe I’m just embracing today’s music despite being more than twice Miley Cyrus’ age. Yes, that’s it. I’m old but I’m still hip! Wait, do the hip kids still say “hip”? Hmmm.

(The truth is I actually do like Miley Cyrus. I particularly love “See You Again” and “If We Were A Movie”. It’s the Jonas Brothers that I don’t get at all. They suck. I know, I’m not exactly in their demographic but it doesn’t change anything.)

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Since getting a dog, I’ve found myself irritated by things. Not things Pearl does herself (though I could write a book about all the things she does that annoy me too), other people.

For one thing, there’s such a huge social aspect to walking dogs. Other people want to talk to you. Other people with dogs chat with you while your dogs sniff each other’s butts and try to dominate each other. People who love animals want to stop and ask you how old your puppy is and is that really a purebred Beagle, wow! It’s nice. I don’t usually mind. But when it’s pouring rain or freezing cold, I don’t always want to stand around making small talk. Small talk is not easy for me anyway, doing it when I really want my damn dog to just pee and let me go back inside is not fun.

Then there was the couple who walked past and were amused by Pearl who was trying to drag me down the front walk so she could jump on them. I’m trying to work on her jumping because – and I swear not everyone gets this – not every person likes having a dog jump on them. I immediately pulled the leash back to correct her, then got in between her and the two people. I crouched down to tell her to sit, and then started telling her to stay. Every time she started trying to go jump on them, I said no, and repeated the process. The girl started laughing and said, “oh it’s okay! It’s okay, let her come up, I love dogs!” I had to tell her, no it isn’t okay because I don’t want my dog jumping unless she’s asked to. While I appreciated her friendly nature, it was really annoying to have someone interfere with my training.

The worst thing though is the dog owners who don’t pick up after their dogs. That’s annoying anyway, I hate seeing dog crap on the side of the grass anyway. It’s doubly annoying now that I have a dog too. I am constantly paranoid that someone will see a big pile on the grass just after I’ve gone by and automatically assume that it was my dog and I just couldn’t be bothered (I nearly said “couldn’t be arsed” but that sounds like I’m trying to be Faux British) to pick it up. See, I’m the person who will carry a bag every single time and will not leave any dog crap behind. Once she went a second time and I had no bag – we were right out front so I ran in and ripped the plastic bag off someone’s Sears catalog and used that. Another time I actually used a wad of tissues in my pocket. I just can’t in good conscience leave it behind. It drives me nuts to think someone might lump me in with the lazy dog owners. Sometimes I worry someone will yell at me for a pile that doesn’t even belong to my dog.

(That may sound paranoid but I did once have someone on their porch snottily ask me, “aren’t you going to pick up after him?!” after Pearl had squatted on their lawn. I looked at her and said, “my dog’s a female. She just peed. If you have something to pick that up, let me know.”)

The dog ownership extras I had forgotten since I last had a dog, ahh.

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Last week we called the superintendent of our building because our hot water tap in the tub had been leaking. It dripped a bit. Then all of a sudden it was more like constantly running, to the point that we had to shut the water off in the wall because it made the bathroom too humid. The guy came up, looked at it, and told us the pipes were shot and they’d have to redo most of the bathroom.

Uh?

So on Friday we had a new tub, tiles, insulation, and more sitting in the hall outside our front door. On Monday morning a contractor arrived at our apartment and began demolition. Do you know how loud it is when someone takes a crowbar to ceramic tiles? It was awesome. I can’t tell you how much I wish I could have asked for a turn, it must be so satisfying.

On Monday night it looked like this:

That was an adventure, especially when you only have one bathroom. Luckily, by Wednesday night it looked like this:

Then today we were finally able to have showers and baths again instead of sponge baths. Technically, the tub was ready yesterday but I know how much my kids splash, the tiles would have been soaked in the first five minutes.

It’s nice to have something new in this freakin’ old and outdated apartment. Maybe I can figure out some way to convince them to update our kitchen next!