Watch out, they're adorable!

One of my favourite people in the cast of characters I've been introduced to since moving to the small town, is Karl the egg man.
Karl comes in to the newspaper office every Friday to deliver fresh eggs from his farm.

Along with the eggs, Karl always brings his special brand of charming friendliness and gentle comedy. He bowlegged-shuffles his way through the office and says hello to all the "girls." He's so sweet and unnassuming that I can't even be offended that he refers to me as "Darling," it would be like being annoyed at a happy little gnome.

If his perpetually sweet disposition wasn't enough to make me part of the Karl the egg man fanclub, today I learned, that along with chickens, Karl has a family of llamas living on his farm.

AND last week, the female llama had a baby.

I don't know about you, but a baby llama is something I always consider newsworthy.

So, to that end, meet Peaches, the baby llama. She is the softest thing in the entire world.


Her one-year-old brother likes to give kisses.


Unfortunately, in all the excitement, I forgot to turn the flash off while photographing the white llamas, which is why they look like ghosts here, but you get the idea.

In other news...

From what I can tell from the two times I've had to cover dog shows, people who own show dogs may die early due to ridiculous amounts of stress.

I heard one woman whose standard poodle had just picked up a blue ribbon complaining in near hysterical tones that "He didn't look very good!" (which I'm pretty sure is always true, due to the fact that the poor creatures are given such preposterous haircuts). Meanwhile, another be-blazered dog owner was fit to be tied when she heard the distant sound of a ringing cel phone, which was apparently driving her dog insane. He had all the symptoms: sitting quietly, tongue lolling, tail waging. Just terrible.

Although, pets are supposed to make you live longer, so maybe it evens out.

Fortunately Sparta pointed out this oasis containing enough tiny adorability in the middle of it all to compensate for the crazy:



(I'm really jealous of that little girl's butterfly tights and pink headband)


Also, today I learned that small white dogs can fly.

It's even worse than I imagined

I gave Sparta this Anne Taintor card to celebrate our first week of living together sans killing each other. While it maybe wasn't a typical week, what with the mid-week Canada Day celebration and sleepover in my hometown, I still feel like we deserve a pat on the back for not immediately getting all up in each other's space.

It's definitely going to take some getting used to having someone to consult about what to eat/watch/listen to in the evenings, but the clever fella has already set himself up with rugby two nights a week and I'll be off to dance at least once a week, so I think we'll survive.

One major plus to the end of this long-distance thing is that when I tell him all about my day, I don't feel the urge to fly into a rage when he greets some anecdote by nodding silently because I can SEE him and know that he's not watching TV on mute or something.

And so far? No horrifying discoveries. Although I did notice one new little curiosity.

Despite being all over wiping down the counters and the stovetop and doing the dishes, he is bizarrely strongly against drying or letting me dry said dishes. He likes to pile as many items as possible on the dish rack and then leave them to air dry. Apparently that's how you know the dishes are done: when nothing more will fit on the rack.

All these years I had been labouring under the misapprehension that the dishes are done when they are all clean, dry and in the cupboards. Nice try, mom and dad.

I, meanwhile, continue to be delightful and charming and completely quirk-free.

This weekend we had a chat about how long we've been "dating seriously." It turns out he has a very organized hierarchy for dating, and apparently was not aware that we have been in a "serious" relationship for as long as we have been. After trying to set him straight, I gave up and asked in exasperation if we are at least in a "serious" relationship now.

"It's even WORSE than that," he said. "We live together."

It's even worse.

He does know just what to say to a girl.