What the Heck is Under That Taxi?

No job promotion for me and no new dog to talk about. Sorry. My post for the day is somewhat less exciting but it does have a happy ending.....I hope. My desk at work is on the fourth floor and I face out onto O'Connor Street. In front of the building across from us is a taxi stand. There are usually four taxis lined up waiting for the many civil servants to climb aboard and zoom off to important meetings and inquiries about scandals and such. There's also a police parking spot, as there are at least two embassies in the building (the Australian and the Israeli).

Around lunch time I noticed people gathered around one of the taxis bending down and looking at something under the taxi. Two of the drivers were busy pointing and discussing and assorted passersby were stopping and watching for a few moments then moving on. Two RCMP officers wandered over to see what was going on. They discussed and pointed and discussed a bit more, one of the taxi drivers got his ice scraper out of his car and reached under the car. Finally one of the drivers got in the taxi and, while the other guided, slowly drove forward. A lady standing on the curb reached under and pulled out a small cat. How and where a cat came from in downtown Ottawa I don't know [actually I do know, there is a colony of them on Parliament Hill] but anyway the lady who pulled the cat out from under the taxi sat and held it until the Ottawa Humane Society rescue van arrived and took it away to the shelter. Downtown Ottawa = non-stop action!

Promotion

I gots me a promotion yesterday. WOOOHOOOO! When I arrived at work and checked my mail on Friday (I only work Friday, Saturday and Sunday at my full time job) I found that there was a position open for the job that is one step up for me. I thought "Hey! I would much rather be doing that". I threw my name in the hat and an interview was scheduled for 2pm on Tuesday.

The interview went very well and I was informed that there was a 'technical' interview on Wednesday which ended up being a person giving me 3 scenario's and I had 30 minutes to 'resolve' the 3 problems. Mine was the last of the interviews and I found when I arrived for mine that those had gone before me were stressed out and had used every second of the time alloted. Me, well, I rock!! I finished early and when I went and chatted with my coworkers that had also applied for the job, I found that I was the only one that was able to resovle the last scenario. I was feeling confident but was still really surprised when I was notified that in fact, I was the lucky recipient of the job promotion.

Soon I'll no longer be working 2 jobs 6 days a week and I'll have weekends off with Mitch again. I can't wait!

New addition to the Ironside household

I'll try and post this again. The first one went - who knows where.

We've adopted another doggie. His name is Reggie and he's a 5 year old Bassethound. He's very cute www.reddeerspca.com and was in need of a new loving home. He has been at the shelter for 20 days and no one was interested in him. He's very, very thin and has some dental problems too. We went to see him yesterday and we all fell in love with his beautiful face. Spike seems to like him too, so far. Reggie sees the vet this afternoon, so we're hoping the dental work won't be too extensive. We'll also ask the vet for the quickest, healthiest way to put some weight on. His coat is so nice and clean and soft, but when you pet him all of his bones stick out so much. It's just the saddest thing. Poor guy was stray before, so we don't know much about him.

After one night we've learned he doesn't enjoy a squeaky ball (Spike's glad about that), and he's learned about Spike's tender toes. He's also claimed one of the big fleecy floor pillows, so he had a comfortable first night. He's a very energetic dog and loves to run and play. He and Spike wore each other out yesterday afternoon. No more trips to the shelter for us now. I'll update everyone after his first vet check. We're hoping all will go well and he'll only need one tooth pulled. We aren't sure if his teeth are causing him pain, but it could explain how thin he is.

What happens when we say ?Cheese!? 

Pictures from Wolseley

Happy Easter!

Katie here, on Grandma's username. ( I messed up my blog invite.. whoops..)

Here are some pictures of Grandma, Mom, Andrew, and Laura playing scrabble. I had a bit of trouble getting the flash to cooperate, and when I turned it off, it was too dark! Oh well, you can still see who everyone is.

The last picture is with our "muppet smiles", because muppets smile with their mouths wide open. Grandpa carved those masks.









Laura says hi. Right now, she's in the living room with Grandpa, and knitting a scarf.

Mom also says hi. She's in the kitchen, knitting a scarf, too.

I say hi, too. If I wasn't on the computer, I'd probably be knitting a scarf.

Grandma says hi, but she's a rebel. She's knitting mitts.

Andrew, the self-named Scrabblemaster (yes, that's one word), and Grandpa, the Whittling Wonder, refuse to knit. They're such party poopers!!

Since we've arrived in Wolseley, we've visited Bizzare William's, and Laura built Fort Sprague, which has mostly melted.

I'd better go. There's another scrabble game starting!!

Happy Easter!

We took a three day weekend to celebrate! Yahoo! We went to Sunday brunch today with some friends from here, friends from Calgary that drove down as a surprise, and Steve's mom. It was lovely. They had these mini creme brulees in tiny ramekins...Yum! And eggs benny. oh god. so good.

And.......*drumroll*....we are the proud new owners of a '94 Toyota Camry! That's pretty exciting too. The Hyundai was doing some strange things this past while. I'm not sure what we'll do with it.

Now we have two more days off, what to do? We are certainly going to make the most of them, because there aren't any other holidays like this we can take advantage of before our holiday in November.

I hope everyone else's Easter is spent the way ours is! Relaxed and taking it easy in Blairmore.. :)

Spring Has Arrived in the Nation's Capital!!

Not to rub it in or anything but I think we've crossed the line from winter to spring. The temperatures are just above zero and the snow has begun a serious melt. The other sure sign of spring in Ottawa: the annual blasting of the ice on the Rideau River has begun!! I'll see if I can get some photos when they reach the Cummings Bridge. It's supposed to go up to 7°C this Friday so I think the bikes will have to come out of hibernation and hit the road.

Nice house 

Maybe I should save this for Dawn, but...........

Dawn and David put an offer in on a house in Blairmore! I'll see if I can post a picture...

Crisis Averted

Only a few [read:many] dollars later and we now have tickets on an Air Canada flight instead of Jetsgo. I'm thinking we need to check the ownership of the airline next time before we purchase tickets.

Jetsgo? Not So Fast.

Guess who bought tickets on Jetsgo to fly out West this summer.

Happy Birthday Steve!!!!

Happy Birthday Steve!! I hope you get to spend part of it eating cake, part of it riding your bike, and part of it with a celebratory pint of your favourite beverage!!

What's new?

Not much here...the cute house sold! The realtor told me today that the people buying will likely use it as a revenue property. I guess essentially that what D and D would have ended up doing, but for parents! Aw. Too bad.

Tomorrow is Steve's birthday and he is excited about entering his early 30s. Not much exciting planned for tomorrow, but probably dinner out.

We had Mook out yesterday on a hike with us and encountered 3 moose. She was very well behaved and didn't take off after them. We were happy she listened to us instead of the call of the wild! She's really good with the bikes too. We had her out on Saturday and Steve pedalled as fast as he could go and she just ran her butt off to keep up. She had a big happy panting grin on her face after that!