Warning: The following deals with the topic of poopsicles, which probably is an offensive topic to most. If you fall under that category, you may want to not read the following entry. Thanks!
-nwtnatalie
I am having a major love/hate relationship with Springtime up here in the Arctic. I LOVE it for the obvious reason: it is plus 5C, the sun is shining and my nostrils no longer freeze together when I frolic amongst nature. Life is good, great in fact. This actually makes me so happy I want to run outside and kiss the ground while exclaiming to the heavens above, "THANK YOU! Thank you Baby J, thank you Caucasian bearded J, I feared this day would never come, thank you, thank you, thank you oh wonderful Mother Nature lady!" Never in my life have I felt so over abundantly happy for Spring to arrive.
However, two things prevent me from running around and kissing the ground like a freshly escaped prisoner from jail and they would be: puddles and poopsicles. The street that I live on now is a half pavement/ half rocky crater filled, snowy, slushy, poopy, gravely, puddley mess. I have never seen the likes y'all.
Since the weather has improved so dramatically I now can start walking my children aka dogs again. This is a very exciting thing in my household, the kids LOVE car rides and walks. Where we lived in Southern BC, it was warm all the time, and there were only a few weeks of the year that we couldn't walk the dogs. Now that we live in the Arctic, that obviously has changed.
Yesterday we went for the first walk. I was so very happy to be outside and not freezing off various important bodily parts, it was a great moment. The kids were trotting along joyously when all of a sudden upon leaving the driveway they saw the array of puddles, craters, slush, snow and ice mess ahead of them on our street. I had to carry Olivia through the battlefield of our street, as she strongly dislikes dirtying herself (she's a diva and I love it) and she had put on the brakes. After jumping a huge lake like puddle at the end of the street, we made it to the sidewalk. Initially I felt relief as the next few sidewalk squares in front of us were dry. Then I realized for every 3 squares dry sidewalk there were 5 squares of drowned, lake like sidewalk to maneuver. That was fine, I am Maritimer, clearly tough as nuts, however I imagine the townsfolk got a kick out of seeing Olivia and myself walk a few feet, see me pick her up, jump the puddle, put her down and so on.
Very quickly amidst puddle jumping, I began to notice the poopsicle situation of my neighborhood. And I wanted to BARF ALL OVER THE SIDEWALK. A poopsicle, for those who have been wondering if I simply misspelled "popsicle", is a frozen or once frozen piece of canine excrement that is found in highly unsavory public places. It is especially sickening in it's melted form it has a shiny, melty, runny look that in some cases may trigger mouth barfing. In my case they seem to be found every two paces along my neighborhood walking route. Some are squashed with a foot imprint (Oh Grissom would be in heaven!) some are long and just THERE, some are broken up, they come in all shapes and sizes.
For the record, I have visited la belle ville de Paris en France and let me assure you, they have got nothing on YK for sheer amount of canine excrement on the sidewalks.
Pick up the poop fellow YKers, the poopsicle situation in town right now is absolutely filthy and sickening. Stoop and scoop. Have some respect! I am certain that most small birds emit more excrement then my doggies, however I still clean up after them. In YK it is also a bylaw, so there is even more incentive fer ya.
Puddles and poopsicles friends, puddles and poopsicles.
Spring has arrived in the glorious metropolis of YK. I love it.
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6 comments:
Good luck with that fight.
As sickening as it is in the spring, at least you can SEE the turds. In the winter I always want to go make snow castles, snow men, snow sculptures, snow caves, snow balls... But I don't because you never know what might be lurking anywhere under the latest layer of snow. Even sinking into soft snow when walking creeps me out.
After a while you develop a kind of turd-vision where you see them just enough to avoid stepping in them and hopefully not enough to throw up in your mouth.
And this is exactly why I hate melting season.
It truly is vile. I cannot fathom a dog owner allowing it's dog to drop a gigantic pile of turds ON THE SIDEWALK and then think, "Great, that is where it will stay." What is wrong with these people? In the words of Stephanie Tanner, "HOW RUDE!"
I swear I'm not a creepy stalker, but I saw you guys out last night and thought that it was probably the dogs' first walk. They must go nuts cooped up in the house all winter.
Megan, a few of Elliott's coworkers told him at work last night that they saw us as well! It was fantastic getting them outdoors once again.
In Paris, by the way, they have little icons painted on the sidewalks, of a dachshund with its tail turned into an arrow that points into the gutter. To try and suggest to people that the dog should crap in the gutter rather than on the sidewalk. And then they pay people to drive around on little converted motorbikes with a vacuum hose and a tank, vacuuming up the turds. The French think it's gross to pick up turds. Unless you get paid for it, I guess.
Vive la France! I do not remember the dachshunds at all, but it has been 10 years since I have been. In Nelson, B.C. they had such a problem with dog excrement that the city banned the walking of dogs (even leashed)on most of the city streets. As a visitor, I had no idea, it was a hot day, so we had to spend our time sight seeing and shopping carrying our dogs around! They had spray painted dogs on the sidewalks with a circled around them and a line slashed through the circle. Very bizarre. But I would still go back. :-)
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