Facebook hasn’t notified me of anything so far. Could it be that nothing about me in 2013 was particularly good, bad, funny or worth remembering?
After spending New Year’s Eve in Kennedy Bowl and literally bowling our way into 2013, I came home and true to tradition, I opened the back door (balcony door) to let 2012 out and then opened the front door to let 2013 in.
January
The year got off to a bad start when I learned that a friend’s beloved cat, Zorro, had suddenly passed away. While it’s infinitely better for an animal to die in his sleep versus suffering from an illness and having to be euthanized, it’s still a shock.
February saw massive snow fall. A simple walk became a major workout for legs. Not to mention that the ground became slippery in places, causing folks to fall. I was one of them. Not that I hurt myself, on the contrary, I made a very soft landing.
At the end of March, Rocking Horse Publishing http://www.rockinghorsepublishing.com/ released my children’s book ‘Debbie’. If you’ll allow me a little sales pitch, please find below the synopsis and two reviews for the book.
Synopsis
Debbie is a wonderful tale of a ferret who comes to live with Andrew and Charlie, the cat. Approximately 60 pages, with adorable illustrations, this a fantastic book for children - or anyone who wants to learn about having a ferret as a pet!
Reviews
"I must admit that I never considered that a ferret would have a secret life. Even more surprising, that the ferret in question, delightful Debbie, would be able to communicate with a super savvy feline. Through Ms. Manero's creativity, the reader is pleasantly transported into the inner life of two animals that would never be friends in the wild. Read the story to your preschooler or let your grade school children or grandchildren read it to you. You're guaranteed to delight in Debbie's educational curve while she adjusts to her new world."
Diane Quinn
"Author Conny Manero cleverly takes the reader on a journey into the very minds of her characters Debbie, a pet ferret, and Charlie, the resident cat. Debbie and Charlie become best friends when Andrew (a human) brings Debbie home from the pet shop. This eye-catching, brightly-colored children’s book is an attractive soft-cover print book that includes cute
illustrations by Nancy Matson.
"Debbie the ferret learns all about her new life in a condo 15 floors up as her new friend Charlie the cat carefully guides her along and teaches her amazing things about life, humans, and life in a condo. The reader equally learns many interesting facts about ferrets; their care, their habits, what they do best, (which is mostly sleeping and borrowing things) –and, happily, what fascinating pets ferrets can be.
“Debbie” includes humour and well-written dialogue that will be easily understood and enjoyed by children and adults alike. Debbie knows how to tell her story. What the reader may not expect is that Debbie the ferret is also smart and has plans—well, we don’t want to give the rest of the story away, so you’ll have to read about that yourself!
"The reader will not be disappointed with this delightful storybook. Well done, Conny Manero!"
Raymond Alexander Kukkee
Should you want to surprise your child with a copy, the book can be ordered here http://www.rockinghorsepublishing.com/debbie.html
April saw the arrival of a Dutch dwarf bunny. Initially we called the little fellow Kiki, but that name was later changed to Zippy as the bunny had a way of zipping through the room. At first we held him in a cage, then in a big run, but when Zippy bit his way to freedom, we let him have the run of the condo and balcony. He was a sweet little guy and very fond of carrots and lettuce. Every time he heard the door of the fridge opening, he came racing from wherever to get a little snack. Unfortunately, he was also very fond of petunias and ate his way through at least three containers of flowers on the balcony.
The earlier mentioned friend who lost her beloved cat Zorro in January, opened her heart and her home to another cat in May. She didn’t go for a kitten though, or for a pedigree cat, nope, she adopted a five year old, ‘normal’ cat from her vet’s office. The cat came with the name Bam Bam, which she promptly changed to Rocky. Much better of course. Rocky became the companion of resident cat Zoe, and the two immediately hit it off.
June saw a chain reaction of events. We replaced the taps of the bathroom sink. This led to installing a whole new bathroom and floor. Now that the bathroom had a beautiful floor, we decided to do the rest of the floor in the condo as well and bought 40 packs of hardwood. Dieter was going to do the installation himself, but Dieter messed up and we ended up having the job done professionally. Labor cost us more than the floor itself. Next we did the kitchen floor and finally we stripped the wallpaper and painted the whole place. What started in June was completed earlier this month.
July
July was a good month for ‘Debbie’. After a successful book signing, ‘Debbie’ got shelf space and window space.
Other than that not much happened as I can’t find any blog post that tell an interesting story.
August was not a good month as Zippy passed away. It was quite sudden. I couldn’t find him in the morning, which was a clear sign that something was wrong. His morning routine was going to the fridge when he saw me for his early bird carrot. I searched for him, called for him and eventually opened the fridge, but Zippy didn’t make an appearance. That’s when I knew that something was wrong. No way would Zip ignore the fridge.
I found him eventually hidden in the coat closet, tucked into a ball. He didn’t look good. A short time later he died.
September saw the start of a new bowling season. Christine left our team and Peter joined for the classic trios. We called our team “The Birdies” as we go by the names of: Raven (Dieter) – Eagle (Peter) and Condor (me).
September also saw a series of break-ins in our condo building. In some units valuables were stolen, others were missing nothing more than a pair of prescription reading glasses. The break-ins stopped just as sudden as they had started.
We briefly considered installing an alarm system, but later decided against it and merely invested in two extra locks with a deadbolt. Whenever we went out, we left the lights on as well as the TV. Whether the burglars were fooled or we were just lucky we’ll never know, but nobody tried to break into our unit.
In September I also had a bit of a health scare and my doctor recommended a CT-Scan to get a better understanding of the problem. I did some research on CT-Scan machines and when I discovered their radiation factor thought better of it. Instead I opted for an ultrasound and a blood test, which told the doctor all she needed to know.
In October a box of kittens was dumped on the ground floor balcony of our condo building. The owner of the unit took the kittens in and handed them over to president of the board of directors, Barbara. Barbara in turn set out to find good homes for the kittens. I took one, Barbara kept one, and the rest found homes within the building.
We named our kitten Holly and she is thriving. She even has her own blog. When you get a chance, hope over to Kitten to Cat http://kittentocat.weebly.com/ to read about her adventures and see her growing up with numerous pictures and videos.
In November I took a break from blogging. Other than Dieter’s birthday, nothing happened worth mentioning.
December
And so now it’s December, a month when plenty happened.
For starters, I landed a job with a small law firm. After doing numerous temporary jobs, I was happy finally to have found a permanent job. My happiness didn’t last long though. As it turned out my boss was a bully who seemed to think it was allowed to verbally abuse me every single day.
On the seventh day, after being repeated told that I was pissing him off and being called a fucking idiot for no good reason, I called it quits.
If you think that’s the end of it and I’m taking this lying down, think again, I reported the abusive lawyer to The Law Society of Upper Canada.
And of course the blackout happened after Toronto suffered an ice storm.
Christmas celebrations were sad to say the least. Instead of celebrating with a three course meal, we were reduced to frozen fries, frozen peas and beer battered fish for our Christmas Eve dinner, pizza for Christmas lunch, and frozen fries with bacon and egg omelet for dinner.
Let hope that the New Year brings a few nice surprises.