Mummy of a different name...

Let me start this by stating I am not an animal person. It's not that I don't like animals, it's just that animals and I have never really bonded.

My animal ownership is very limited. When we were little we had a English Settler x Sheep Dog. A lovely black and white puppy that liked to share lemonade ice blocks and chew my barbies to pieces. She also loved to chase us around. And because she was so big, and we were so small, she bowled us over and the "games" always ended in tears. In the end (when my sister was born) we gave her to a farmer. No she didn't "go to the farm" but yes, she did go to the farm. We visited her. She loved it.

The next pets I remember are in no particular order because they all ranked equally boring in my outlook. There was a few budgies, some peach faced loved birds, gold fish, a cat called Sandy and various chickens.

The cat called Sandy "belonged" to my sister. As did the birds. I think of all our pets I liked Sandy the best. I get cats. They love a cuddle but are cool enough to do their own thing. And they seem sneaky which is cool. Sandy was run over on Christmas Eve when we were out visiting friends.

The chickens were practical. We had a number of them over the years. They ate our scraps and gave us eggs. Winning. But they ran at me while I tried to collect the eggs and threatened to peck me, so I didn't like them much. Also, my chicken died in the Great Flood. That is, the great flood of our chook pen.

Since moving out of home I've had a number of fighting fish. They were pretty cool and seemed to have a good life innings. Until one died on my birthday. That was the end of fish ownership.
  
The kids ask for a puppy all the time but I just know it will be me looking after it, and frankly I can't be bothered. I'm sure if given the chance though, I'd be quite the animal person... actually I doubt that.

But this blog wasn't intended to be a boring run down of my tragic pet history. It was intended to be about the crazy dog lady I've seen recently and the subject of "Fur Mummies".

I don't get fur mummies. I understand people having pets and treating them a their "children" until they have human babies. These pets tend to receive the affection a human baby would get until a human baby comes along. I understand people who choose not to have children and have pets instead, and I understand people who sadly can't have children and opt have pets instead.

But I don't understand people treating their pets exactly as you would a human baby. I have friends who buy their pets Christmas presents. That's cool. Pets need things. But don't go to extreme. It's the people (like the lady in my neighbourhood) who pushes her ugly, squashed up pug dog in a baby's pram and takes him for walks. Seriously, if your dog can't walk, why push it around in a pram? If someone can explain it to me that would be great.

Until then I'm going to continue to be amazed and somewhat disturbed by this crazy lady.

Technology fail

Me: "Fuck, fuck, fuckity fucking stupid piece of fucking shit"
Patrick: "Is everything ok?" He knows me so well
Me: "Isn't this supposed to be easy? This isn't easy. Why isn't this stupid thing connecting? Or downloading? Where's my fucking download?!"

Oops - Language warning: This blog contains language unsuitable for children or ladies.

I've blogged before about generations and where I fit in. Technically I should fit into the so-called 'technology generation' but today, and against all my best attempts, technology beat me.

I resisted getting an in car navigation system for ages. I didn't need one, I had a street directory. I could read maps and drive and find my way anywhere. Anywhere. And if the place I wanted to go wasn't in my street directory, well it could go to hell. My lovely husband Patrick was keen to get a sat nav system. He researched them, spent hours looking at them, and generally annoyed the crap out of me talking about them. I avoided buying him one for Christmas only to have him give me on for my birthday in January. Gee, thanks babe.

I resisted using it. I still had my trusty old street directory so I was sweet. Until the day I borrowed my mums car and used her sat nav. Life changing day. Well, not quite life changing but it got me thinking about my new birthday sat nav. I did like that there was someone in the car who directed me to where I had to be, but I didn't like the feeling of generally having no clue where I was or how to get home. It was on this occasion that I was traveling over the other side of town, in an area I could get to with my brilliant written down directions as long as I saw the landmarks (there's the church with the weird tree, there's the strawberry farm, there's the BP, we're here!)

So to Patricks gloating glory I started using my sat nav on journeys I would have previously checked the street directory. And I liked it. It was easy. I could just press a few buttons and I knew how long it would take and which was the quickest way to get there. Things had been going fine with me and the sat nav.

Until today. Today I decided that it was time to fancy up my lovely little sat nav. Now being somewhat part of the technology generation I figured this wouldn't be too difficult. Just plug it in and click download. But no. The program didn't like that both Patrick and I have accounts, it didn't like that we have 2 different versions because our sat nav systems required different ones, and it didn't like me. I'm positive that plays a big part, the computer and sat nav system ganged up on me and threw a technology hissy fit. So I threw one back.

I uninstalled, reactivated, reset and did everything I could think of to beat this f*%king system. And I made some headway. I downloaded successfully. I downloaded to Patricks account successfully. I installed new programs successfully. Things seemed good. Until I turned on the sat nav to select the new fancy voice over I'd downloaded. Nothing. Nada. Just the same old voices from yesterday. Where was my Snoop Dogg???

It took a fair more amount of time, and plenty of swearing, until I found the words I'd dreaded. "Premium voice services are not available on the following systems:...XXX.... Mine.... XXX"  

Well fuck it.

And after all this swearing and carrying on, guess who's sat nav now has Snoop Dogg directing them? Fo shizzle my pizzle. Yeah, Patrick.

Side note: Mum if you read this, sorry xx