On Monday morning, I woke up 7am, to the sound of Terry swearing and muttering to himself in the hall, and to a REALLY strong smell pervading the house.
No, this isn’t an action replay of my last post: don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with a million photos of rubber ducks and rollers again. This was Monday. And it turns out that my whole, “Oh, yeah, Rubin hardly EVER has his ‘accidents’ in the house now! Is a proper little angel, in fact!” thing? Well, famous last words.
Because this time the smell pervading the house wasn’t onion bhajis.
It wasn’t even pee.
RUBIN POOPED ON MY SHOE SHELVES, PEOPLE.
Yes, he did.
And also all over himself and his bed.
So I spent the early hours of Monday morning showering a strangely excited dog, who seemed to think he was in line for some kind of REWARD for his performance. Terry, meanwhile, spent those same early hours scrubbing the floor, the shelves and Rubin’s bed down with bleach. Then scrubbing himself. Then spraying air-freshner throughout the house, and by “air-freshner” I mean “we didn’t actually have any air freshener, so he used deodorant instead.” Thanks, Rubin.
Thankfully, Rubin’s aim isn’t the greatest, so he missed all of the shoes. The intent was there, though, I’m sure of it.
And that’s why Rubin doesn’t get to sleep in the office any more. And why our house now smells very strongly of men’s deodorant.
It’s been a horrendously stressful couple of weeks. This is the kind of thing that’s been helping us get through it:
Well, that and the wine. Oh, and watching my parents and Terry slide down Arthur’s Seat on their butts yesterday helped too, although maybe not at the time. I mean, when Terry fell, he was clutching Rubin in one hand and our brand new, hideously expensive camera in the other. He raised both of them above his head as he coasted gently down the hillside. My mum, meanwhile, fell once, fell twice, and then couldn’t stop laughing for the rest of the day. Then, when we looked back at the photos of the day we discovered that Rubin had been Up to Stuff we hadn’t even noticed at the time:
(We didn’t write that message, we just stood next to it and claimed credit for it. Which actually reminds me of something else that’s going on in my life right now, I just can’t remember what it is…)
Do you see what he did there?
He is totally standing on my shoulders, OMG! And I had to carry him like that aaaaalllll day.
Wolves. You can always depend on them to put a smile on your face.
(Just one of the hills we’ve had to climb this month. At least this one was our choice…)
(P.S. There are more photos from our Arthur’s Seat expedition over at Shoeperwoman.)
Tagged laura blake, rubin
(Dress, ASOS; boots, River Island; cardigan, used to belong to my friend Stephanie, but I asked to borrow it so many times she finally told me just to keep it. Thanks, Steph!)
“Christmas Day”. I think that has to be my most inspired post title ever, no? Can you tell I lay awake all night thinking up that one, folks? Why I’m not a world famous writer by now I will never know…
Anyway, we’re still at my parents’ house, awaiting day two of our annual Food Fest 2010 (Apparently my parents bought so much food they decided they’d have to split it between two dinners. If anyone who lives in their town is reading this, that’s why there’s no food left in the supermarkets right now: sorry.), so I thought I’d just quickly upload my Dressember photos from yesterday, which was, of course, Christmas Day. As you can see, I decided to celebrate in the traditional way: by wearing an ASOS dress, in this case the camel version of the blue one I wore a couple of days ago. That’s why they call me “Amber of the Twist Front Dress” now.
We spent Christmas Eve at my parents’ house, then exchanged gifts with them in the morning (No pony AGAIN, but lots of great stuff all the same) before heading to Terry’s mum’s to spend some time with that side of the family. When we got there we found that Terry’s brother John (he of “kidney” fame) and his girlfriend Jolene had gotten engaged that morning, which was such a nice surprise and gave us all even more reason to celebrate. Also, my sister-in-law, Lila, got Rubin a Snuggie:
What could be better than that? Other than ponies, obviously?
I was also really pleased to find that my parents had maintained the tradition of decorating the house using some of the “amazing” hand-made decorations I carefully crafted from cereal boxes and the like when I was a child. Here, for instance, is my attempt at a Christmas wreath:
They don’t make ‘em like that any more, do they? And thank Gaga for that, I hear you say! I made this when I was, I dunno, six? Seven? Twenty-four? I’ve no idea. I was obviously encouraged by my parent’s enthusiastic reception of it, though (I mean, that IS their front door it’s hanging on, although on the inside…), so I moved on to fashioning “candles” out of toilet rolls and tinfoil:
(Because most flames are purple. Are too. SHUT UP.)
Having been reacquainted with this masterpiece of mine, I’ve decided to go into production with them next year and start selling them in my “shop”. For MONEY. Get your orders in quick, though, people: these bad boys will sell out fast!
So, that was Christmas. I hope everyone had a fabulous day, whatever you were doing!
(Dress: Dorothy Perkins; Boots: River Island)
Yesterday I showed you the omgsnow at the front of our house, so today I figured I may as well show you the slightly less dramatic view at the back. With these two shots, I’ve now pretty much exhausted my range of photo locations, though, because did I mention we’ve had a bit of snow recently and can’t actually go anywhere? No? I was sure I’d mentioned it in passing…
Three things about this image:
1. That’s not the same long-sleeved sweater I was wearing under my dress in yesterday’s photo: in fact, I have an entire shelf full of these under-the-dress sweaters. I just can’t do short sleeved dresses. Not even in summer, most of the time.
2. No, I didn’t actually go anywhere in those boots, they’re just what I would have worn if I had gone anywhere. Which I didn’t because… did I mention we’d had a bit of snow?
3. Some of you were disturbed by my lack of coat, hat, gloves etc in yesterday’s photo. It’s OK, though, I haven’t fallen prey to the uniquely Scottish disease of Weather Denial, in which people walk around in t-shirts in the snow: these photos are all taken just a few steps from the house, and I’m basically just running out for long enough to snap a couple of photos, so no jacket required, as Phil Collins would say. To prove it, here’s what yesterday’s outfit looked like when we went out to let Rubin run around a bit before bed:
We will fight them on the beaches! We will fight them on the giant hills of snow! We will fight them with a shovel in one hand and a small fluffy dog in the other!
And here’s what Rubin looked like after plunging his face repeatedly into those snow hills, because he has no brain:
As for today’s Dressember outfit, well, this is totally not what I’d planned to wear, but sadly, the dress I was intending to wear is currently sitting at Parcelforce’s Edinburgh depot, where it seems destined to remain for the foreseeable future because the depot is closed because of the you-know-what. Poor dress. It’s not the only thing, either: in fact, gazing hopefully out of the window for the postman has been the story of my life this week. Because it’s hard to buy out-of-season stuff in the shops right now, I had to order a bunch of stuff for my holiday online (including my favourite sunscreen, which I can only find online: boo!): I placed the orders before the snow came, thinking that would give them plenty of time to get here, but so far not one single thing has turned up, which means I’ve basically spent a load of money on things that will be of no earthly use to me if they don’t get here by Monday. Gah.
I think this is the thing that people who don’t have snow (or who do have snow, but who live in a country that’s better equipped to deal with it) struggle to understand. Life has completely ground to a halt here this week. The schools are closed, many stores and businesses are closed (and I’m not talking about small businesses either: the Asda-Walmart in our town is one of the largest supermarkets in Europe and it’s been having to close some days because its staff can’t make it in to work.) The stores that ARE open, meanwhile, are sold out of stuff like bread and milk, because people are panic-buying and stockpiling food. There’s no public transport running, no mail deliveries, and the hospitals and doctor’s surgeries are having to cancel appointments because their staff can’t get into work either. (In fact, I’m supposed to be at the dentist right now, but needless to say, I’m not…) Many roads are closed, and people have died because of the conditions on the ones that are open. And still it continues to fall: almost three feet now, and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight.
I. Am. So. Sick. Of. This. In fact, one of my Facebook friends yesterday suggested building a snowman just so we could have some way to beat the crap out of the snow. That’s starting to sound really good to me round about now…
Rubin, meanwhile, doesn’t care about the snow, as long as he can still sneak into my photos while I’m looking the other way:
Tagged dorothy perkins grey military dress, i ahet snow, outfits, river island grey boots
 A guest post, by Rubinman….
OK. I wasn’t going to say anything, because I didn’t really think it was my bizniss, but here’s the thing: Amber tells lies. Yes, she does. I mean, she’s not actually some red haired “blogger” girl, like claims. She’s an old, fat, bald guy from Essex. In fact, her name isn’t even Amber: it’s Clive.
Most of the time, I just let Clive get on with it. I’m like, “Whatevs, dude, yoo just keep on wearin’ the shoos and the ginger wig if it makes yoos happy, and we’ll see how long yoos get away with it.” Like I says, not my bizniss. But then, sometimes Amber Clive goes and MAKES it my bizniss, by writing about me in her “blawg”, and when that happens, well, the Rubinman gets MAD. Yoos won’t like it when the Rubinman is MAD, trust me.
So, just to set the record straight: that ” ooh, Rubin was sooooo scared of Terry’s costume, he ran away and hid like a big scaredy cat !” post? Yeah, like THAT would happen. Seriously, NUTHING scares the Rubinman. NUTHING. And Terry doesn’t scare ANYWUN. I mean, dude’s creepy and all, but he’s no Michael Flately, if you know what I mean, and I think yoos do:
 Oh, hai, I'm Michael Flately. Fear me.
When I ran and got onto Clive’s knee that day, I was totally protecting her. Because Clive is a wuss, you know? So I was just like, “Don’t worry, Clive, your trusty woolf is here to save the day!” And what thanks do I get? LIES. That’s whut I get.
Also, the whole “Rubin totally wore a blonde wig this one time” thing? Uh-uh. Let’s just say Photoshop is an amazing thing, OK? Actually, let’s not: let’s just say that was a totally different dog in them piktures. Because it was. In fact, it wasn’t a dog at all, it was a WOOLF. It was this woolf, aktually:
 Oh, hai, I'm a woolf. I look just like Rubin, no?
It was in sheep’s clothing at the time. They totally do that sumtimes. I got it to sign a statement, though, saying it was the wun in the wig. Here it is:
“Hello, it’s a big scary woolf here. I’m writing this just to let yoos know it was me in the wig that time, not Rubin. Rubin is too tuff to wear a wig. We woolfs are all scared of him, we wear wigs to disguise ourselves. Also, Clive tells lies.
love,
A Woolf”
So, there yoos go, case closed. Don’t listen to Clive. Rubin is the only wun yoos can trust.
Smell yas,
RUBIN
Oh, Clive. Like you could ever catch the Rubinman…
Because I know that, deep down, you care:
It’s still there. And as you may have noticed, there are four of us living in it now:
This is actually the first time Terry and I have bothered to buy a pumpkin. We’re not really down with the whole “getting involved in seasonal holidays” thing. We’re just too lazy. This year, however, Terry ordered a pumpkin, and, much to my excitement, it’s no ordinary pumpkin, either:
It’s an OMG MUTANT PUMPKIN! From OUTER SPACE! I mean, I know it’s been a while since I did a supermarket shop, but I had NO IDEA they were getting their produce from so far afield these days. Modern life, eh? It really is amazing.
In other news (which is actually not news at all to those of you who follow me on Twitter), last night Terry tried on his Halloween costume for this weekend, and Rubin was so frightened by it that he actually ran away in terror, although don’t tell him I told you that, obviously. I kid you not. He came running to me and scrambled up on to my knee, from where he sat and stared at Terry in deep suspicion, turning to look up at me every so often as if to say, “Are you seeing this?!” Afterwards, he tried to say he’d just been “trying to protect me”, and he actually got a bit pissy about it when I tried to suggest he’d been frightened, but let’s just say no one would really blame him if he had been. And, once again, I can only apologise in advance to the friends we’ll be seeing on Saturday night while Terry’s dressed like that. I’m so sorry, guys.
In other other news, meanwhile, I’ve discovered that it’s actually impossible for me to take photos of Rubin without at least one of them turning out like this:
I’m talking about the tongue-on-nose, thing, by the way, not the mutant hand, because that’s actually mine. There’s only one mutant in this house right now, and it’s not Rubin.
(It’s Terry.)
(I’m kidding.)
(No, it’s Terry.)
Tagged halloween, The Box
 Alternative title: ‘How to Ruin Amber’s Outfit Shots: a dog’s guide’. This is a guest post by Rubin: enjoy!
Yo, homies, it’s Rubin here. Amber told me some of yoos was missing my “blawg”, and I was like, “Yoos better believe they’ll be missing my blawg. It’s not every day yoos get to hear from a real live WOOLF.” So here I am, live an’ unleashed. (Do you see what I did there? I, like, totally WAS unleashed in these photos. I crack myself up, I really do.)
Anyways, last week I took Them for a walk. They were all, like, takin stupid piktures and stuff for Amber’s shoo blawg (if there’s something more pointless than a blawg about shoos, by the way, I don’t know what it is. Shoos are just big chew toys, get over it.)? And I was all, “I wonder if there’s a way I could make this all about me?” And there WAS a way. And I found it.
Note: Some of yoos may find the following images disturbing, as they all show a really scary woolfman. Parental discretion is advised. Norma and John, don’t yoos look either, it’ll scare the pants off yoos.
Continue reading →
Last time, on ‘Oh My Holy Hell, Will Amber Ever Learn to Write Concisely?’:
1. I had gone to the optician to find out whether or not I had a brain tumour
2. Terry had gone to visit a friend
3. Rubin was being a bit of an ass, to be completely honest
Well, as you all know by now, I went to see the optician, and was given a clean bill of health. Unusually for me, I managed to resist the lure of the mall after my appointment, and drove straight home. It was at this point that things began to go horribly, horribly wrong.
Upon entering Rubin’s lair, I noticed that while Rubin greeted me with his usual exuberance, he was moving kind of strangely. In fact, rather than continuing to turn in circles for 20 minutes, going “AMBER’S HOME! AMBER’S HOME!”, he bounced around for a mere quarter of this time before lowering himself to the ground in an awkward, three-step fashion: first his back legs, then his belly, then the rest of him.
Hmmm.
I offered him some doggie treats, just to be sure that he was OK, and he gobbled them up as if he hadn’t eaten in weeks, and then begged for more. So far, so good. My attempt to get him to chase after one of his toys, however, met with complete failure: Rubin did stand up, and took a few steps towards the unfortunate “White Pup”, but I noticed that his body was hunched over, in the canine equivalent of someone with a really bad stomach ache trying to walk while clutching his stomach.
Hmmm, again.
Rubin had already passed the Food Test, so I decided to put him to the Ultimate Health Test.
“Rubin,” I said, standing up. “Would you like to go for a WALK?”
Now, ordinarily, these words are met with utter hysteria. Rubin will bust into a volley of barking, and will run downstairs to stand by the door, where he will spin around in circles until his harness and leash are attached, barking the whole time. On this occasion, however, he merely gave a high pitched yelp, and ran silently downstairs. Following behind him, I found him crouched at the door, in a posture which, if he were human, I could only have described as “doubled up in pain.”
I tried to coax him to move, but there was nothing doing. Rubin remained crouched at the door, staring up at me mournfully. I had a good look at him: checked his paws, gently felt his belly etc, to see if there was anything obvious causing him distress… then, when I hadn’t found anything, and he still seemed reluctant to move, I ran upstairs and called Terry’s mobile with one hand while Googling the vet’s number with the other.
Luckily, Terry apparently learned more from my whole “lost in the woods” episode than I did: not only did he have his phone with him, it was actually switched on. AND HE ANSWERED IT. (Sorry for the caps lock, by the way: it was the first time this had ever happened in my living memory.)
“TERRY!” I shrieked as soon as he picked up. “COME HOME! DOG SICK! CALLING VET! FREAKING THE HELL OUT! HOME! COME!”
Then I hung up without waiting for him to answer, just like a person in a soap opera, and went back downstairs, where I carefully picked up Rubin and carried him back to the office with me. I’d just resumed my search for the vet’s phone number, when a car suddenly drove into the street outside, and Rubin reacted in his usual manner: by running downstairs, barking his head off.
I just had time to think, “Well, THAT has to be a good sign…” when suddenly things turned Very Bad Indeed. Halfway down the stairs, Rubin’s barks turned into high-pitched yelps of pain. Rather than just the single, short yelp he’d made the day before, however, the yelping went on and on and on: it sounded like he was screaming in pain. His momentum carried him down to the bottom of the stairs and into the living room, where he instantly dropped into an awkward sitting position, and continued yelping. I’d jumped up and ran after him as soon as the yelping stared, and I got down on the floor to try and comfort him, but he just couldn’t seem to stop.
It. Was. Horrible. It was one of the most horrible things I’ve ever seen: he was so obviously in a lot of pain, and I had absolutely no idea what to do to help him. I guess the yelping probably lasted for thirty seconds or so, but it felt like an absolute eternity, and when it was over, Rubin continued to crouch on the rug, huddled over in obvious distress. Well, once again, I checked him over, and once again I could find nothing to explain what was actually causing the problem. I knew Terry would be arriving at any second, and I was scared that when Rubin heard the car he would jump up to greet him and hurt himself again, so I picked him up carefully and held him in my arms, trying to soothe him while I waited.
Luckily I didn’t have long to wait. Terry arrived about a minute later, and, of course, as soon as I set Rubin down on the ground to demonstrate how ill he was… Rubin behaved absolutely normally. “Um, he doesn’t really seem THAT ill,” Terry pointed out, while he took his turn at examining every inch of Rubin’s body, and I desperately tried to explain that “No! He was SCREAMING!” complete with my impersonation of the aforementioned “screaming”.
“I really don’t think he needs to see a vet,” said Terry. “I mean, sure, he’s a little subdued, but I think he probably just ate something that disagreed with him.” (Rubin eats a lot of stuff that isn’t sanctioned by Terry or I, so this is always a possibility.) At this, he rolled Rubin gently onto his back, to check his belly properly… and instantly Rubin exploded into another bout of the terrible yelping. By the time he stopped, I was in tears, and Terry was holding his hand out for the phone. “Get the vet’s number,” he said, “He’s definitely going to the vet’s…”
Well, we called the vet (who seemed pretty sure from our description of the problem that Rubin had probably hurt himself on something while on his walk the day before) and got an appointment in an hour’s time. We tried to keep Rubin as quiet as possible during that time, reluctant to do anything that might provoke the “screaming” again, but Terry did manage to get a closer look at his, er, undercarriage, and found a small graze that didn’t LOOK like it could be the cause of so much pain, but which we pinned our hopes on, because any alternative explanation we could come up with seemed so much worse. During that hour, Rubin barely moved: he had obviously learned that movement = pain, and he seemed terrified to move unless he hurt himself again. He also, however, became super-clingy, and wanted to be as close as possible to us at all times, so Terry and I spent most of that hour sitting on the floor with him, until it was time to head to the vet’s.
By this point, I was feeling sick with fear. Clearly something was very, very wrong with Rubin, and I just couldn’t bear it. And I was reminded of all of the times I’d had to take Chico to the vet: times which had almost always resulted in Bad News. This visit, I thought, would surely be the same. Even Terry was grim-faced as he carried Rubin into the consulting room and placed him on the examination table.
The vet was absolutely meticulous in her examination of Rubin. Every bone in his body was checked, as were his paws, ears, eyes and every other part of him. He was poked and prodded in places he previously hadn’t even known existed. The graze we’d noticed was closely examined, and the vet agreed that it probably wasn’t something that would be causing Rubin a huge amount of pain. Finally, she rolled him over onto his back, and felt his belly and groin so thoroughly that even the toughest dog around would have had a little whimper.
Not Rubin, though.
During the time we’d spent waiting for the appointment, Terry and I had done everything we could to avoid making Rubin yelp again. The vet, on the other hand, did everything she could to try and provoke exactly that reaction, so she could try and establish what it was that was hurting him. Nothing she did seemed to bother him, however: Rubin simply stared up at her placidly, enjoying the attention, but slightly puzzled by it. Eventually, she placed him on the floor, where he bounced around in excitement, the very picture of a healthy animal.
“There’s absolutely nothing wrong with this dog,” said the vet. “That’ll be £28 please.”
Terry and I were absolutely amazed by this. We KNEW there was something wrong with Rubin. We’d SEEN the pain he was so obviously in, and the entire sequence of events was related once again to the vet, in meticulous detail. She said that while she had no doubt this would all have been very distressing, both for Rubin and for us, there was definitely no serious cause for it: her best guess was that he’d pulled a muscle, or had perhaps picked up a wasp sting, or some other minor injury that we couldn’t see because of his fur, and which was hurting him occasionally when he moved. “There’s definitely no internal problem,” she reassured us, “So really the best thing you can do is just keep an eye on him. In fact, maybe try taking him for a walk, and if it happens again, bring him back and we’ll perhaps give him some painkillers.”
There happens to be a huge park right behind the vet’s office, so after I’d ponied up the cash for the appointment, we took Rubin out there… where he proceeded to run around like a racehorse, leaping over obstacles, whirling around in excitement, and generally behaving ABSOLUTELY NORMALLY.
Huh.
He did yelp another couple of times that afternoon, always when he was trying to jump up onto things, but by dinner time, he seemed to have completely forgotten his ordeal, and was simply basking in all of the extra attention and treats he was getting. Since then, he’s been absolutely fine. We, of course, have watched him like hawks, but there’s been no more yelping, no strange movements, and no sign at all that Rubin feels anything other than in the best of health. In fact, if anything, he’s been even more hyperactive than usual over the past few days.
We did, however, buy him a walking stick:
And, well, he ate it:
(Note: Actually a rawhide chew, known in our house as ‘Rubin’s Great Big Chew’. He loves it.)
In conclusion: as far as we can tell, Rubin is absolutely fine. Terry and I, on the other hand? Well, let’s just say we’ve had better weekends…
So, on Friday night Terry and I are getting ready for bed. I come out of the bathroom, only to find Terry standing at the bedroom window, scanning the street, and sniffing the air like a bloodhound. “Someone in the street’s having a party,” he told me, with an anxious look in his eyes. “But it’s OK! There’s no music! Just… shouting.”
Now, as regular readers will know, I have no tolerance whatsoever for noise, especially when I’m trying to sleep, hence Terry’s anxiety. “Christ,” he was probably thinking, “I’m going to have to listen to her rant about this for hours now. And then I’ll probably have to read her ranting about it again on her stupid blog.” He was only partly right, though, because I actually handled the news better than you would think. You see, I was absolutely exhausted. And while a thumping baseline would have driven me straight to Insanity City, I figured a bit of shouting was nothing I couldn’t block out with my earplugs.
But I was wrong.
Not twenty minutes later, Terry was back at the window. Because it wasn’t some neighbours having a party. No, it was a marauding gang of teenagers, moving up and down the street in a pack. And they were drunk. As skunks. (Why do people say that, by the way? DO skunks drink a lot? Because you never seem to see them buying booze?) You know the sound a crowd at a football match makes? It was like that, only worse. There were about twenty of them, and they’d obviously decided that the Best! Thing! Ever! to do on a Friday night would be to stand around my street, shouting at the tops of their voices.
This went on for at least an hour. The crowd would move from one end of the street to the other, always making sure to stay within our earshot. Then they’d move into the forest opposite the house – also within our earshot – and we’d think they were leaving, only for them all to crowd back out again five minutes later, like, “SURPRISE! It’s us, your drunken teenage friends!” They were so loud that there was no way to block out the sound. All we could do was lie there and listen to the screaming, and you know what? After the first forty minutes, some of the screaming was coming from ME.
Midnight turned to 1am, and still the pack was in action in the street. Terry was still pacing at the window. I was curled up in a ball on the bed, rocking back and forth and muttering, “Why, God, why? Why are you doing this to me? All I wanted was some sleeeeep!” Eventually, Terry snapped. “I’m going out there!” he announced, throwing off his dressing gown dramatically. “NOOOOOO!” I shrieked in horror. “They’re teenagers! They’ll kill you! And also… you’re not wearing anything under your dressing gown!”
Terry was adamant that he could face up to 20 teenagers, and they’d be so terrified they all run straight home to mummy. I was adamant that this would not be happening. So Terry did the next best thing. Throwing open the window, he leaned out and shouted at the top of his voice:
“HEY! YOU LOT! WOULD YOU SHUT THE $%&^^& UP!”
And… nothing. Because the gang were making so much noise themselves that Terry was totally drowned out. He had no choice but to slink back to bed defeated and join me in wondering what we could possibly have done in a past life to justify being tortured like this. Eventually, though, after another twenty minutes or so of yelling, the teenagers melted away into the night. Silence reigned. Except it didn’t, because no sooner had we settled down to FINALLY get to sleep, but:
“WUFF!”
Rubin had slept soundly throughout the shouting (he sleeps on the other side of the house), but apparently now the silence had awakened him. And was annoying him. We gave it a few minutes to see if he’d settle down.
“WUFF!”
Another few minutes, in case he was just jerkin’ us.
“WUFF!”
With a deep sigh, Terry got up and went to see if Rubin needed to go out. Rubin, however, had other plans. Skillfully evading Terry, he ran at top speed through to the bedroom, and hid under the bed. And he would. not. come. out. Normally the words, “Do you want to go out?” are enough to send Rubin careering downstairs, to slam his body against the back door in excitement. Not this time. No, this time Rubin didn’t WANT to go out. This time, Rubin wanted to sleep in The Big Basket. And he was gonna. Accepting defeat on this issue, and also accepting that it was now approaching 2am, Terry coaxed him out from underneath the bed, and placed him on top of it, where Rubin proceeded to get absolutely hysterical with excitement. “OMG, AMBER!” he seemed to say. “OMG! TERRY! SO EXCITING! SO! EXCITING!”
Usually if Rubin is permitted to sleep in The Big Basket, he will settle down after a minute or so and go straight to sleep. Not this time. This time the hysteria went on, and on, and on, with Rubin trying to lick both our faces repeatedly, and lying down only to jump straight back up and start up the hysteria again. Eventually, however, he found a area of the bed that was to his liking (it was the area my legs normally occupy, but by then I’d have let him sleep on my head if it meant actually getting some sleep), and we all FINALLY settled down to sleep.
Silence reigned for five minutes.
Then Rubin stood up, jumped off the bed and came to place his paws on the edge of it, next to my face. “I need to go out, now,” he said. AAARRGH!
By this point, a headache had settled itself behind my right eye, and was steadily drilling into my brain. There was no way I was budging. “Terry,” I said. “I don’t feel well. I have a really sore head. I think it’s a brain tumour. Also, Rubin needs to go out.”
So poor Terry got up once more and opened the bedroom door. “Come on then, Rubin,” he said resignedly. “Let’s go out.”
“Let’s not,” said Rubin. “Let’s hide under the bed again!”
And he did.
Terry tried to bribe him with everything, but nope, Rubin was not for moving. “Leave him,” I muttered, my hand clamped over my throbbing head. “Just let him sleep there if he wants. He’ll make a nest out of my dressing gown and he’ll be fine. And we’ll get some sleep.”
Terry got back into bed. Silence descended. I was just drifting off to sleep, when:
“HIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Rubin was back at the side of the bed, his face thrust into mine. “LET’S PLAY!” said Rubin. “PLAY! PLAY! PLAY!” I reached out to pick him up and place him on the bed…
… and he ran and hid underneath it.
GAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
I decided to ignore this move and let him sleep there if he wanted. He’d only been sleeping (or doing whatever else he was doing under there) for a few minutes, however, when he suddenly let out a high pitched shriek: the kind of noise dogs make if something has hurt them. This was the third such shriek Rubin had made that day: first, while on his walk and rummaging through undergrowth, he had jumped back and yelped. Then later, while jumping onto the couch, he’d done it again. Both times, I’d examined him, but been unable to find out what was wrong, or why he’d yelped, and he’d seemed perfectly fine, so I’d forgotten about it. And now he’d yelped again.
Well, I reached down and picked him up (And he HAD made a nest out of my dressing gown, by the way) and got him onto the bed. Terry checked him over, but couldn’t find anything wrong with him, so we let him lie down at the bottom of the bed and - wonder of wonders! – this time he actually went to sleep! Aaaaah! Peace!
Or not.
3am came. I was WIDE AWAKE. My head felt like someone was drilling through my eye. And my brain WOULD NOT STOP TALKING TO ME.
“Hi, Amber!” my brain said. “‘S’up? I was just thinking… that was some strange behaviour from Rubin tonight, wasn’t it? He doesn’t normally act like that at bedtime, does he? And you know, he was kinda quiet tonight, don’t you think? Like, when you and Terry were watching TV, and dogs came on, he only got up to stare at the screen a few times. The rest of the time he just lay there with his nose between his paws. He looked a bit depressed to me, actually. And what was with all of the yelping? Seems like something is wrong with him. I bet something is wrong with him! OMG! What could it be! It sounds like something REALLY SERIOUS!”
By now I was even more wide awake. I nudged Rubin’s sleeping form with my toe, which he happened to be lying on at the time. He didn’t move. I nudged him again. Nothing. Oh my God! He was dead! He was surely dead! I raised my foot up in the air, with his body draped over it, and… Rubin woke up and stared at me like I was a lunatic. “PLAY?” he said. Whoops. I lowered him, and tried to settle down.
“Hi, Amber!” said my brain. “I wouldn’t be convinced by that little performance, by the way. I mean, can YOU see him breathing?”
I raised myself up on my elbow and looked at Rubin. Sure enough, his sides weren’t moving. I leaned closer.
“HE. IS. FINE.” hissed Terry, from beside me. “For God’ sake, go to sleep.”
So I lay back down, but by now my head was absolutely THROBBING. The room was stuffy, and Rubin was lying on my legs, so I got up and opened the window. When I came back to the bed, Rubin was lying in my space, so I squeezed myself into the small area he’d left me, and lay down.
“Hi Amber!” said my brain. “SO! Wonder what the sore head’s all about? Pretty painful, no? Remember that migraine you had last week? That was the second one this month. Been a long time since you had two migraines in a month. Probably not ACTUALLY a migraine, then. Probably a brain tumour. Actually? DEFINITELY a brain tumour.”
“Shut up, brain,” I said. “Is not a brain tumour. Have spoken to doctor about migraines. He said not tumour, just crazy.”
Twenty minutes passed, during which Terry and Rubin sunk into blissful, deep sleeps, and I almost fell off my small corner of the bed.
“HI!” said my brain. “You know how you have that appointment with the optician tomorrow? For your contact lens checkup? Well, two things about that: 1) when he shines those lights into your eyes, he is totally going to see a tumour lurking behind one. Probably the right one. 2) Man, you’re going to feel like CRAP tomorrow if you don’t get some sleep. Look! It’s light outside!”
And it WAS light outside. And I DID feel like crap. I guess I must have slept at some point, because when I woke up, Rubin was next to my head, and I don’t remember how he got there, but it was one of those nights where I felt like I just lay awake ALL NIGHT. When I finally decided to give sleep up as a bad job and got up, my headache was even worse than it had been the night before. It took two large coffees, two paracetamol and two ibuprofen to get me out the door. I went to my optician’s appointment, and discovered that I did NOT have a brain tumour. Or not one that was detectable to an eye doctor, anyway, although it’s amazing he could see ANYTHING in my eyes given how bloodshot they were.
As for Rubin… well, Rubin had some other surprises in store for us that day, but that, my friends, is another story for another time…
[To be continued...]
Tagged noise, rubin, Terry
Rubin and I just heard the best joke ever:
We’re totally not going to tell you what it was though. Sorry.
Today I decided, in my infinite wisdom, that I would start up a Tumblr. Well, all the cool kids were doing it, and you know, me, if there’s a bandwagon in town, I’ll… well, I’ll probably wait a year or so and then I’ll jump right on it. Slowly. (Also, it bothered me that there was a blogging platform I hadn’t used. )
So I got me a Tumblr. Five minutes after I published my first post, I got my first spam comment.
Seven minutes after I published my first post, I got my first piece of personal abuse, from someone telling me I “look so much better when I don’t show my face.”
I deleted the Tumblr. I figure people have enough ways to abuse me on the Internet already.
(Seriously, though, maybe I was just unlucky, but worst blogging experience ever. I’d been wondering for ages why it was so popular and… I’m still wondering. Anyone?)
p.s. Nominate TheFashionPolice.net in the Cosmo Blog Awards? Or Shoeperwoman.com? Or hey-dollface.com? Pretty please?
Tagged rubin, trolls
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