ADRIENNE'S HIV BLOG – Hivine's Weblog
HIVINE is written by HIV positive women but still with a sense of humourArchive for April, 2011
Lady Google
Woof – She’s back. Took her woofin long enough I must say. Said she had to get away from me for a while so her sore arm and dizzy head would have a chance to get better. She’s been suffering from something called vertigo – kept toppling over like a skittle. Ha! It was really easy to knock her over. She blamed it on those ‘bloody meds’ as she calls them – and me of course. Well, I am prepared to take some responsibility for her sore arm, but her dizzy head? She had that long before I came along I’m sure – all her life, according to her nearest and dearest. She is after all what you humans refer to as a dizzy blonde.
Good news though, she brought Tio Luis back with her. I haven’t seen Tio since Christmas when I was a young pup. I’m still technically a pup but you would never think so, the size of me. I’m as tall as Tio now when I jump up and I can still knock pack mistress over no problem, because she’s come back as dizzy as ever and can’t even bend down to pick her socks up off the floor, so I have to do it for her. The thing is she gets mad when I wont give them back.
Tio was so pleased to see me he kept tugging my newly formed beard and kissing me with his toothless chops – he would be useless with a bone, so no competition there. He says I look like a bien venidos, which apparently is a doormat in Spanish. I take exception to being likened to a doormat – well wouldn’t you? Doormats are for chewing, or for weeing on when its raining and you can’t be bothered to make it to the grass, well, what grass that’s left after I’ve done my sixty daily laps around our pitiful excuse for a garden.
Here’s the list of things I chewed up whilst she was away – the long yellow python that spurts water and lives in the garden, the rotary clothes dryer (it was getting on my nerves flapping round in the wind so I knocked it over and chewed up the wires for good measure), three wicker baskets – the dirty linen basket, the clean sock basket, the basket that sat at the bottom of stairs which had no use whatsoever as far as I could see. Then I moved on to the stair carpet. I found that if I unloosened a tuft or two with my new gnashers I could unravel it like a woolly jumper. I don’t know what she was so mad about, she can soon get her knitting needles out and knit it back together again, give her something to do aside from sitting in the conservatory (my kennel) smoking her dirty duty free Camels.
Tio Luis never gets mad at me, he just calls me a gwappa in his macho Spanish growl and tells me I’m very well behaved and a google. Now Pack mistress is back I expect she’ll spend all day a googling, like she normally does, typing in her own name, then looking at this website to see how many hits she’s had since she’s been away. Anyway s’pose I’ll have to be a google all the time now pack mistress is back so she won’t live up to her name – pack her bag and woof off again.
One woof for now – Lady Google a.k.a. Doodle.
Deedoodled
Lazy Pack Mistress left her vitamin D tablets on the table.
Easy pickings. They were quite tasty have to say.
Am now Lady vitamindeedoodled!
Doodle Blog
Woof – Lady Doodle (or Doody to my mates) from the Blackburn hood here. Thought it was about time I had a woofin say. She’s always doggy blogging about me but that’s only her version of events and there are some matters that need setting straight just for the record, especially in regard to what she describes as the doggy training fiasco. Huh! Calling me an ASBO puppy!
For short I will refer to her as PM – which stands for Pack Mistress, although she has yet to qualify for that esteemed leadership title. I believe that the United Kingdom has a newly elected PM but from what I can make out he doesn’t deserve the title either.
Guess what she, my stoopid PM, was doing today? She was shopping and I don’t mean retail therapy, she can’t afford that. I mean editing the photos of her wrinkly mug from the Gilead photo shoot on something called adobe. First she blew herself up, (not literally although I have to say there are times when I wish she would – especially when she stops me from digging up the garden) then she used something called a blur tool and magically made her wrinkles disappear. You should have seen her staring at her image in wonderment on the computer screen gloating with satisfaction and tittering away to herself. But then she pressed the undo button and all her wrinkles came back. Ha! That sent her into a depression and was accompanied by a bout of heavy sighing and that word beginning with an ‘f’ which she uses when I’ve pulled her pony tail bobble out, or run off with her only remaining pair of knickers that sport any elastic – that is until I’ve had a tug of war with them!
Depressing yourself like this is no way to entertain yourself now, is it? It’s much more fun having a chew on the toilet brush or biting the ends off coat hangers. I keep offering her the toilet brush to have a chew on, but she grabs it off me then shakes it in the air using that ‘f’ word again.
Things have been very different round here in the Blackburn hood of late. Instead of the usual stream of water that falls constantly from above, a big hot ball rose up in the sky and stayed there shining brightly all day. Because of this she said we didn’t need to go to dog training today, which was a huge relief as she is a total embarrassment as a Pack Mistress, getting herself all wound up like she does, dropping sausage all over the floor and even resorting to pathetic snivelly girly tear tactics at times. Instead she rolled up her track suit bottoms and lounged motionless on the swinging seat all day. Then a very strange thing happened. She started to change colour in front of my very eyes and turned bright red, especially her nose. I can hardly recognize her.
Just to please her, when it cooled down a bit, I let her lead me along the road wearing that Halti muzzle thing (me not her) she bought from Pets4Homes and walked beside her very sedately at her old lady pace without tugging her over. Boring as hell but what can you do. She was so pleased with herself, showing off what she thought were her PM skills to passers by, repeating ‘heel heel’ in a silly high voice when there was absolutely no need.
I put her lack of PM skills and general lack of coordination down to her age and those funny things she swallows every night that look like sweets, but she wont let me have any.
“Snozzles off,” she shouts at me, “These are extremely toxic. You dogs are lucky, you can’t catch HIV.”
Huh, I can catch anything – balls, sticks, you name it.
“But you still love me anyway, regardless, don’t you,” she pats my head fondly.
It’s true, I do love her, I don’t care what she’s got as long as it includes doggy food in the cupboard – and I’m not prejudiced, nor am I misinformed. I’ll drink out of her cup any day, or lick her plate and even take the food out of her mouth if she’ll let me. She’s got some other strange habits too which I don’t quite get. Every morn as soon as she gets up, she puts a stick in mouth then sets fire to it. She repeats this at regular intervals throughout the day. I know I’m obsessed with sticks and I’ll put one in my mouth any chance I get, but I don’t see the need to set fire to it.
I’m pleased to announce that she has finally butched up enough to let me off the lead on the field (it was either that or having her arm pulled out of its socket) so I can now chase birds to my heart’s content. Talking of birds as well as blogging I think I might have a go at tweeting. One of PM’s Twitter followers who describes herself as ‘Diva with AIDS’ @raelt has given her dog Sophie baby its very own twitter page @Sophie_RLT – so watch out for me on the twittershere as opposed to the doglittersphere.
Up to now I’ve only managed one tweet or woof but you can follow me @LadyDoodledog and I will follow you – even if you haven’t got any chopped up sausage.
HIV Support
(Burt Bacharach / Hal David)
A chair is still a chair
Even though there’s no-one sitting there
But a chair is not a house
And a house is not a home
When there’s no-one there to hold you tight
And no-one there you can kiss goodnight
A room is still a room
Even though there’s nothing there but gloom………
Don’t be alone – Thrivine supporting people living with and affected by HIV in the east Lancs and surrounding areas.
Dogs Behaving Badly
La Doody was the naughtiest girl in class again. Oh, the shame and the embarrassment. Felt like I was a bad ‘parent’ the owner of an asbo puppy with behavioural issues.
The head trainer brought her a special muzzle in this week but Doody soon made short work of that, then she was off haring round the horse/dog training ring like a gazelle, sniffing bottoms and disrupting the more refined, dignified, obedient, scholastic pupils.
One of the male trainers manages to catch her. “She is a very spirited young lady, you have to be firmer with her, like this” he advises gruffly, nearly yanking her head off her neck. I try but I don’t like being gruff and I don’t approve of yanking either, especially in public places, or for that matter yankers like him!
“Allow me to show you the correct training procedure madam,” off Doody trots at yanker’s heels. He hands her back with a superior look on his smug mug. “She is getting too strong for me,” I snivel pathetically. “She’s not strong,” yanker denies, “You are weak.”
He reeks of cheap aftershave powerful enough to succumb any dog or woman into submission. His scathing words resound in my weary ears, but I am too tired to argue, rope burn on hands, tennis elbow playing up. Even Dennis (the other Labradoodle in the class) is starting to behave himself, but he is smaller than Lady Dood. Should have got a miniature Labradoodle think ruefully to myself. Obviously that’s why some women go for smaller men.. easier to yank!
“Trainers and dogs forward,” shrieks the head trainer, “ Heel – Heel….” everyone echoes in high pitched voices. “Heel,” I squawk at Doody, but she too busy eating horse poo. “Faster,” orders the trainer and everyone starts running. “STOP – HEEL – SIT – TREAT – DOWN – STAY -TREAT -STAND – STOP.
Bugger, all my bits of sausage have fallen on the floor and are now mixed in with the horse and dog poo. Doody doesn’t mind, she has field day. Am now sausage less, not a good state to be in. Other dogs are behaving why wont she? I look at the other owners enviously – smug b******s . Am exhausted by time the hour is over. I chuck Doody in the back of the car, “You is one naughty, naughty girl,” I tell her driving home eyes clouded by tears of futility and shame. She definitely asbo dog. Me failure as parent/pack mistress and as with unruly children everything is blamed on the parents.
“Typical of breed,” snorted trainer, when I asked for her expert advice before leaving, “Daft as brushes.”
How dare she? She daft as brush if you ask me. Daft as a brush is a typical northern expression. The art of brushing up north is a lot more complex than you may have hitherto believed. Apparently, when you poke with a wet brush, you ‘dab’ and when you poke with a dry brush, you ‘daff’. Not a lot of people know that. When a brush has been daffed a great deal, its bristles splay out in all directions. The brush is then called “daft” and becomes practically useless.
All my brushes have been daffed by Doody who considers them (and the mop who she thinks is one of her deceased relatives on a stick) her deadly enemies. Someone who is daft as a brush is unable to direct their concentration properly to the matter in hand. In the days of chimney sweeps children were often held upside down inside the chimney and accidents frequently ensued resulting in brain injury. Hence the other explanation of the word “daft” which means silly, unable to concentrate.
Doody is definitely not daft (although I have considered sticking her up the chimney!) she’s too clever for her own good and devises cunning ruses to entertain herself, like pulling my pony tail bobble out when I’m least expecting it. No wonder my hair is a mess. Lady Doodle’s baby hair is falling out all over the place and floats around the house like balls of ginger tumbleweed. Her new hair is quite shaggy and she is growing a tiny beard, but like any lady she doesn’t like it when her facial hair is drawn attention to, or if you say good morning beardy, or worse call her beardy Branson. Neither does she like it when jokes are made about her having an orange perm like an ageing bingo player.
I do hope she does turn out to be a shaggy Rastafarian dog. My dad used to tell me shaggy dog stories when I was a little girl. A shaggy dog story is a lengthy, improbable and ultimately pointless story, often told in an attempt at humour – like some of my blogs you may be thinking!
During my research into the origin of the shaggy dog story, which had quite a grizzly end, and if you are a dog lover I wouldn’t advise googling it, I came across the following article in Psychologies Magazine –
Can shaggy dog stories make us happier?
“In times of stress and uncertainty, nothing lifts the spirits like a good shaggy dog story. Psychological research points to the fact that owning a pet can have a positive impact on both mental and physical health, raising the spirits and lowering cholesterol.”
Well, that’s good news for dog owners, especially if you are taking medication, which is renowned for raising cholesterol. But they can also help send you to sleep with boredom, at least the ones my dad used to tell me, which went on and on and on. Wonder if a long shaggy story before I went to bed would help me sleep better? No rude comments please.
This is an example of a shaggy joke, if you’ll pardon the expression.
A piece of string enters a pub and orders a beer. The barman says “Look pal, it’s nothing personal but we don’t serve string in here, we had some trouble with some twine last year”
(Maybe he was from Lancashire talking about tut wine!)
“Fair enough” says the string and leaves. Next day the string comes back in and the barman says “I told you yesterday, we don’t serve string – now get out!” The piece of string promptly leaves but returns the next day, and the next. Every time the barman throws him out. Finally the barman has enough and threatens the string. “You’re pushing your luck!” he says, “If you come in here tomorrow, you’ll be sorry!”.
Sure enough, next day, the string comes in. The barman loses his cool, snatches the string, whacks it on the bar, ties it in a knot, swings it around his head and throws it at the wall. Finally he gives it to his dog, which chews it up and spits it out. The barman finally throws the string out of the door and says, “There, let that be a lesson to you – WE DON’T SERVE STRING!”
Next day, the string comes in, still tied up and all tatty. “Oh for goodness sake!”, says the barman, “Look, we don’t serve string and you are, are you not, a piece of string?”
“No,” says the string, “I’m a frayed knot!”
I’m like a frayed not when I’ve finished dog training. Will Doody ever calm down and be a good girl I ask myself?
I’m a frayed not.
I still love her to bits and will continue to tie myself in knots both physically and mentally until she is trained – and at least hopefully she is lowering my cholesterol if not my blood pressure.
A question you could ask your HIV specialist.
Doc Is there a chance my HIV test could be wrong?
I’m a frayed knot.
ADRIENNE'S HIV BLOG - Hivine's Weblog 