» Accidental animal cruelty

My family are mostly dog lovers
only initial surprise then that my mum ended up leaving a pretty high paid job in which she was regularly head-hunted to run all the big projects, to become a dog groomer- for whom people travel from miles around. But those are stories for another day.

They have had dogs since I was about 8 and have had many an adventure, but a few instances of accidental cruelty stick in my mind.

* The time that their dopey doberman became interested in stones thrown into the sea. This was a fine game indeed, find a pebble, call her name, chuck it into the sea and watch her furiously try and sniff it out (spluttering if she timed dunking her snout underwater wrong) before spotting that you have another and instantly losing interest and running back to try and catch that one...only the game evolved, to ever bigger stones, and on this fateful day a large rock about the size of a hand was being thrown, and unfortunately the poor girl spotted it before she was supposed to, resulting in a doberman intercepting a large and heavy rock straight in the smacker.

She knocked out all of her front teeth, but that was only discovered when getting back to the car as she hadn't even flinched, just proudly jumped around her catch, seemingly oblivious to the fresh gap in her gums.
She was (of course) taken to the vets, but the teeth had been knocked pretty cleanly out so not much could be done really and she was absolutely fine, never seemed to bother the eejit :)

* My dog, not the smartest in the world, not the stupidest...but also has his Dope Award moments. We used to play the classic game of 'catch your tail', which he'd humour us with briefly then move on. Until the fateful day my mum decided to hold his tail for him, trying to eek a few more minutes of tail chasing out of him. He happily chased it around a bit, my mum moving with him, but then all of a sudden he had a burst of enthusiasm and leaping forward he grabbed for his tail.

That yelp made me feel like the shittest owner ever, and the hurt expression he gave us was heart breaking. He'd managed to dislocate his own damn tail and it was crooked for weeks :/

* My dog again. He's a very well behaved dog, though not rigidly trained, there's some debate about the level of training dogs need but I must admit that I'm quite happy with his, he knows his place and when you call him on something he knows when to stop fucking about and take you seriously, but he has a real mischievous streak and a whole lot of personality for a dog. One thing he learned pretty early on is that food isn't his until it's given to him, you can drop the tastiest thing ever in front of him and he'll just stare rigidly at it, occasionally glancing at you to find out its fate and only going for it if you tell him 'ok'. Though it was never tested too thoroughly with us out the room the boy knew not to steal food either so we were pretty much covered on all bases.
The accidental cruelty came one night when we were having a bit of a late snack, none of us being hungry enough for a full meal. we went through to the utility where the big fridge is and loaded our arms up with a few choice bits, cheese, tasty condiments/pickles, left over meats (you get the picture) and retired to the living room to consume them. The dog followed us in to check it out but soon left again, knowing that he wouldn't get ANYthing if he sat and watched, we all assumed he had retired to his basket to wait for any left overs we might be inclined to share...only he hadn't, not quite. Periodically he kept wandering in to the room and staring at us, kind of hopefully, noticing the looks of 'out!' and wandering out again, but he kept coming back! ever more desperate look in his eyes each time. The last few times I could hear quiet whimpers as he approached and left.
There was nothing noticably wrong with him, and eventually he retired to his basket and stayed there, not quite settled but at least not upset, and we locked him in the utility where he sleeps and all went to bed ourselves.

When I came down the next morning I was met at the door by a large, frantic and ecstatic canine! as I turned the corner with him bounding around me I finally found out why...there on the floor, underneath the fridge and not two feet from his basket, was a large chunk of ham. Untouched.

Remembering his doggy lessons he had resisted snatching that succulent treat, right from when it had been dropped unseen from our late feast, through the hours of us sat downstairs ignoring his pleas, right through the night as he tried to ignore its tempting aroma right by his nose.

Needless to say, serious praise was inflicted on him and the tortorous ham became his own private feast, fusses were aplenty that day :)
Since then we have become aware of his 'Lassie' actions and come to understand what it means when he comes to find us out with that hopeful look in his eyes and meaningful whimper, if you follow him he will show you exactly what he's asking for, and though he doesn't always get it it's certainly a useful communication for us.

/about 6 by 4" and honey-mustard glazed
(Thu 6th Dec 2007, 13:37, More)

» Political Correctness Gone Mad

I have recently been subject to a suspension over allegations of 'racial conduct'
I worked with the woman for a month and a half after the alleged incident, no problems between us, nothing mentioned, then for another month after the allegation was made, frosty attitude but still no mention of a problem from her (and I decided it was best not to bring it up at work and muddy the investigation with more accusations against me).
Then out of the blue I was yanked into the office at 7am rather than going for my shift and told that the incident was now 'officially' being investigated and because racist conduct is gross misconduct I was automatically suspended until it was resolved.
I was out of the workplace officially to protect me, but in reality it's basically keeping me away from the other person so they don't have to deal with any grief from me and so I can't gossip (I was also banned from talking to any of my colleagues whilst suspended, a fair few of which are friends!)...which is a little odd given the two and a half months I've already worked with her since the incident, and the fact that I've never uttered a peep about the goings on because I was trying to be fair, yet all the gossip I was hearing filtering back from her. Still, rules are rules and that's how it was done.

In the end I was off for over 7 weeks whilst people were interviewed, I was grilled, more people were interviewed, I was all but called a liar because I'd said that I got on with the woman fine as far as I knew and she obviously had disagreed, reports were sent off, reports were sent back and I was asked to 'clarify' stuff I'd already answered twice...and all about events that were about 3 months in the past and hadn't struck me as particularly memorable even at the time!

Eventually I was cleared and told I could return to work because they had found absolutely no evidence that I had acted in a racist manner, but it was still presented to me as if it was all a learning curve so I could learn from my mistakes.

What did I do? I didn't buy her a drink at a party. When she had purposefully sat herself away from the group and out of line of sight. Oh, and she's African.
No. Seriously. I realise you're going to be assuming there must be more to it than that, but there wasn't, she said that the only person who didn't get a drink was African.

It's now been about two and a half months since I've been back at work and she's still never mentioned it to me. I was promised a meeting with her to sort it out, and in the mean time I decided to just be professional and be polite when I had to be around her, but I recently found out that the company now sees the issue as resolved, and my manager has no intention of getting us to meet in the forseeable future as 'it would be too emotive'. He knows that she gets defensive and shouts lots, and it's a fair point because that's not very productive...but where are the warning signs there?
I got suspended for 7 weeks, suffered with uncertainty emotionally and for my career, was cleared but recieved no(and apparently aren't entitled to an)apology, all because this woman never communicates her problems until it's at bursting stage at which point she over reacts and no-one can deal with her...yet she's never been asked to deal with that or the fact that everytime she's angry at someone outside her clique the racism card gets thrown (this is just the first time it's been taken to disciplinary).

Racism is a fucking sick thing, and I'd be (and often are) the first to point it out as unacceptable, but it's also a political buzzword at the minute.
I suffer racism every day at work but because I'm white it's acceptable. I do my job and refuse to treat anyone differently, I think positive discrimination can be just as harmful, and for my troubles I now face the daily fear that it's only a matter of time before that kind of wild accusation gets held up and I can never work in the care industry again.

It's madness, and I'm not going to be there much longer :)

/take it all
(Thu 22nd Nov 2007, 13:46, More)

» Petty Sabotage

Childish yes
But when my ex was finished with destroying every ounce of my self-respect and making me feel like the biggest bitch in existence (not to mention telling somewhat biased versions of events, read 'lies', to all my friends) when I finally ended it between us, he then had the gall to ask me to finish inputting all the joey data he needed for a website he was designing and getting paid for (and I wasn't). I'd spent hours slaving over that crap. So I taught myself a bit of basic Dreamweaver that night and added some quite subtle 'extras' when he left me alone with his laptop. The highlight to my mind was 'Buses will run regularly every half hour' that had alt text when you hovered saying 'assuming prunes are in season' and linked to a decidedly NSFW site depicting decidedly 'irregular' bowel movements very similar to the dear Tubgirl.

No, I'm not proud. Infact I'm quite ashamed because they all got through to the penultimate version, but I didn't let them actually go live and I even escaped blame since he thought me incapable of even basic programming.

If I want to, I learn fast.
(Wed 4th May 2005, 11:25, More)

» Stuff I've found

My great grandmother's ring

Being the 3rd eldest of the 'kids' in my family, and not a bit like the other two, my 18th birthday was an interesting time. My brother is the eldest and he wanted to use the opportunity of the whole family wishing to club together and get him something 'memorable' to score himself an expensive watch (fuck knows why, he didn't have a watch at all at that point due to a well deserved reputation he had for dismantling them without remembering how to put them back together again). My cousin being the second eldest decided to follow suit, and so by the time it got to my turn the family had already decided to get me the same. It was very last minute when I caught onto this plan, due to my grandma's involuntary lack of discretion over what was supposed to be secret, but handy as I had absolutely no desire or use for a watch of that value. Lots of annoyed mutterings in the family despite them not actually having bought the present yet and then my mum approached me to ask what I'd actually like. I hadn't thought about it really, I'd not realised they were wanting to get me anything significant (foolishness on my part, the precedent was set) so I had a quick think and decided that I'd get most use out of jewellery. Not something I'd go out and spend much money on but I do tend to wear something durable or not at all (much of the reason for me setting up my jewellery making business, but that's another story) so this was a great opportunity to get something I could treasure.

I told them that I never wear gold*, I just don't like it aesthetically, so something silver would be perfect, and that amethyst would be really lovely as I adore purple. What though? well...a ring would be nice?

Odd glances between my mum and grandma.
'eh?

Birthday rolls around and I find out that infact there has been a ring in my family for a good few years, an amethyst one! it belonged to my great-grandmother and was promised to my mum when she was a girl. But when my great-grandmother passed away the ring became a point of dispute as my grandma liked it too and thought it should be hers, as it couldn't be decided the ring just sat, probably for about 18 years in fact as she passed away just before I was born as far as I can tell. It was decided that this ring should now be passed a generation further down, that I would appreciate it and at last it would have a proper home.

People of b3ta- it's gorgeous. It's gold, but worn and weathered so it's virtually white. It has a large pale stone in it sat in a handmade setting, so slightly askew if you look really closely. It doesn't look like anything I would go out and choose but I love it so much that I never take it off, it's swapped fingers as I've put on weight, lost weight and put it back on. I play with it absent-mindedly when I'm bored, excited or nervous, with each finger change I've had a period of readjustment where I've had moments of pure terror as I've felt for the ring and not found it where expected so panicked briefly that it is gone...and then once, it actually was.

I'd swapped it to another finger briefly to take a silly photo, a Borat moustache on my hand**, in honour of the very first showing of the film I was going to see that day! I forgot to move it back as I rushed around getting ready. I had a bath, got dressed and ran out knowing it was going to be tight if I made it to the cinema on time. I did, but on the way back out I noticed my hand was bare and my ring was nowhere to be seen, I felt sick to my stomach.

I went back inside and checked the cinema, tracing my steps back and forth over and over. I left my number with the cinema staff despite knowing they probably would just pocket it if they found it anyway. I traced my steps carefully back to the car, pulled everything out the car, looked in every nook and crannie. Drove home, traced my steps back up to the flat, grabbed a flashlight and checked the car again. I went around the whole flat, everywhere I might have been, ANYwhere it could have fallen. Nothing. Then it dawned on me, where had I seen it last? right before my bath. Shit. The plughole looked unreassuringly roomy, I grabbed another of my rings to check and sure enough it just fit through. SHIT.
I had all the pipes out, desperately hoping it had been caught before being washed out, but it wasn't there and finally I had to consider that I'd lost it for good.
I know it's just a possesion but I could have cried, for weeks afterwards as my hand slipped unwittingly to feel for where it should sit I remembered again and again that it was gone. Thinking about how much I'd loved it, thinking about how I could ever explain to my family that it was lost.

Then about 6 months later my flat mate was pulling some stuff away from one of our external pipes in the bathroom and she found something, she had this annoying habit of giving a running commentary on whatever she was doing, loud, in the hopes you'd react to some of it. Mostly I'd learned to tune it out, but I could hear her muttering about this find next door "looks like a ring". It took a second to sink in, then barely daring to hope I ran to join her and look for myself, and sure enough- there was my ring. God. I could have cried all over again, the relief was like a warm duvet pulled around you on a cold night, instant, beautiful. I put the ring back on and though I'm actually pretty ridiculously paranoid about taking it off, even briefly, now, was determined not to lose it again.

I mean, I did, but that wasn't my fault and this is waaay long enough ;)

Apologies for length, it is niiiice.

* The rest of the family feeling guilty at what was actually spent on me in the end got me a thick gold link necklace and bracelet set that ungrateful as I feel, I've never worn. It's hideous.
** I'll find the photo out if you like, it's even more hideous than the gold set
(Mon 10th Nov 2008, 15:44, More)

» That's me on TV!

I was 'unwitting baby victim of terrorists in crowd'
There was a documentary on television about 10 years ago that discussed a bombing of a shopping centre that happened about 15 years before that.

Wanting to be authentic they nabbed some generic CCTV footage of shoppers from round about that time to use, and there I was! being pushed around in my pram by a (I can only presume) unconcious-of-the-tragedy-about-to-befall-us-all mummy, staring into a nearby shop window.

The highlight had to be when they later superimposed some terribly (un)realistic flames onto the same footage, just to emphasise their point.
I burned beautifully, even if I do say so myself.

So realistic was my unwitting performance that apparently my grandma even called that night to make sure we were okay.
Despite the bad photoshopping.
And the fact the documentary was about something that happened 15 years before. And we were both 10 years younger in the film.

And she'd seen us that afternoon.
(Fri 12th Jun 2009, 17:44, More)