The last month has been really tough so I was in danger of having my own system shutdown besides our computer (or better said, all technological devices in our house). So Gregor decided to take me and The Waffle for a short break in Bovec. There we wandered around, enjoyed the fresh air and most of all, unburdened from our everyday lives and worries. Sambo got better too – last week Sambo had some digestion problems for a couple of days and didn't want to eat almost anything, so he nearly slimmed to his former body weight – he got to 25,6 kg and was almost as skinny as until three years ago. In Bovec the situation got back to normal again, which meant that his spirits were also high and above again (before it showed that he wasn't his 100% self, even though he was still hyper compared to the majority of the doggie population). Yesterday we went for a slightly uphill walk near water-storage lake and Sambo decided to assimilate to the mountain environment and pose for a chamois. We were walking on a path cca 1m wide, there was a rock wall on our right and on our left… well, nothing for two metres and then a steep slope, half rocky, half with trees. Sambo zoomed back and forth with his twiggly legs and explored the terrain.

When we finally turned back the Geriatric Waffle ran ahead merrily in his TM working trot and I started explaining something to Gregor. Sambo looked back at us right in the moment when I swinged with my arm through the air, which he apparently translated to himself in agility terms, meaning that he should move left. The thing is that we were on a narrow track that about 20 m ahead of us lifted up and joined the above mentioned path, so there was a practically vertical wall a bit over 150 cm high on our left. But he didn't bother too much with it, a dog's gotta do what a dog's gotta do. If you have to go left, you go left. While I was talking I saw Sambo trotting steadily in front of us. Then I saw a piece of moss, flying off from the middle of the wall. Then I saw Sambo, running at the same speed on the walking path above us. Not even 200 m further on a narrow trail appeared on the right of the paved path and lowered onto the slope beneath us. Sambo went down it, of course, finding himself two metres below us and sniffing the ground happily. For a minute or so he was really enjoying it, but then he didn't find it as amusing as before; he wasn't beside us, so he started whining and looking how could he get back to us again. I saw that the slope lifts a bit 20 m further on and that he could get up to us there. So I told him to go (on ahead of us). He interpreted it as if he had to go to us (upwards). This time he wasn't even running – from the same spot, standing on a slope, he pushed off, came with his front feet over the edge and pulled himself up on the path. A shake of the coat, a smile towards us and he was good to go. I don't know why I even wonder anymore…

There you have it, this was our trip to Bovec and now we're off for a walk (and by the way I'll take a look if he's hiding a blue and red cape in his kennel…).

Bird styling VS Spitting cobra

I have to admit that a hairstylist hasn't had the chance to operate on me, but I do get a treatment from my bird stylist every now and then. The last few years I've managed to civilize myself to such an extent that I comb my hair almost every day, but I live my enormous combing ambitions through Sambo. I'm the type of person that can easily spend a few hours a day working with a dog, taking him on walks, teaching him tricks etc, but if I would have to comb him 15 min a day… No way Jose. Except for the month, month and a half when he sheds I can confess that the closest thing that comes to me combing Sambo is when I walk across the living room with a fork in my hand, trip and go through Sambo's coat twice while trying to regain my balance. Anywho, I manage to somehow take care at least of my hair, with which our bird loves to help me, as he likes to go through my hair with his beak when he's on my shoulder. My bird stylist, what can I say. And now that you know all this I'd like to proudly announce that Sambo was comben on Sunday! Don't ask me why, but I felt like combing him and I did. Yes, with bravoury and courage beyond all praise I engaged into this daring activity and successfully dealt with it. And so, 4 min and 27 sec later Sambo was looking fine and as good as new, but even though our spirits were high after such a great success we both needed to relax, so we went to Kurešček, where the black monster ran and ran and yes, you know it, ran some more. Sometimes I look at him and wonder how does he manage to keep his legs attached to him, how come they don't just unbuckle and fall off, I really can't understand how he manages to run around tirelessly for such a long time (and most of all, where does he find the will to do it), not to mention that I haven't seen such a quick paced trot even in Standardbred horses…

Of course he likes to show off with his trot, especially when we go running and I'm ready to be plugged onto a respirator after half an hour. At that time he usually runs to me and runs by my side a few metres, looking at me with the biggest smile possible. Then he figures out that I'm too slow and uninteresting, so he continues his journey, leaving me behind again. The other day I decided to try and variegate my running expeditions; I often see runners with headphones on so I wated to try it out myself. I borrowed an mp3 player from my darling and hoped to have a very pleasant run since I knew he has some Hammerfalls on, so I expected a good portion of metal rock to stimulate me. You can only imagine my face when I raised the volume at the end of our street to figure out which Hammerfall song comes with weird drums and heard a kind of oriental bleating. It is fruitless to argue about different tastes in music (and other things, of course), but the fact is that oriental music is certainly not what I prefer to listen to, whereas Gregor's fascination over Tunis left other, less pleasant side effects for me. One of them is certainly that I expected some Swedish metal rockers and got Turkish serenaders. I was already too far from home to turn back and leave the mp3 player at home and I didn't feel like carrying it without making some use of it, so I let Mr. Turkey carry on with his act. I managed to somehow ignore the music, which served as only a very mild background anyway, and after half an hour it grew upon me so much so that I added some elements of oriental dancing to my running. I tripped over a root when running throgh the woods, so I performed a sequence with the elements Lif your arms up to your side – shake your booty – wave your arms in front of you – spin your head while looking for balance – leap ahead and land in a perfect Telmark with your hands in a Walk like an Egyptian position in the middle of my marathon. In front of a public, what else, because it wouldn't be half as interesting if three runners wouldn't be passing by in that same moment…

Besides the interdisciplinarity and including elements of other sports and arts into my running episodes I have to admit another, less apetising habit that contributes to the second part of today's title. When I run all bodily functions that excrete any kind of facial secret start working with full power from a reason unknown to me. To put it plainly, when I'm running I have to blow my nose and rub my eyes all the time and also spit every now and then. And so it happened that in this session I spat precisely the instant that Sambo was passing me on my right (now you know why you always have to pass people on their left). Luckily the projectile only touched him slightly, but since it was so cold he came home with gel on his hair tips and visible decorative crystals. And that was the beginning of Sambo Swarowski… anyhow, I have to mention that I grew so much attached to my Turkish jingling friends that after half an hour I was almost disappointed to hear Billy and be left out without their pleasant company. Almost! Dancing with myself, Rebel yell and Shock to the system are a wonderful background accompaniment for more dynamic running sessions, I tell you. Thus I came home totally exhausted (it would be wise to change the order next time since the Turkish buddies are quite calmer and slower, much more suitable for the second part of the session, when the batteries aren't as full) and in a kind of pirate state. Because of the before mentioned trip over a root my ankle was hurting, so on the upwards slope right before home I dragged my foot behind me as if it were wooden and because of the wind and the cold my left eye watered so much that I almost washed out the contact lense a few times – towards the end I didn't have to worry about it anymore because it froze to my eye which converted into glass…

To the ones that are still reading – good news, my webmaster has finally updated the page, welcome to www.sambo.si , where you can find some new pics and links while the latest news are always here anyway.

And to end, here are a few pics of our trip to Kurešček. Take care!

Sambo in the wind



Running through the forest





Marching: left...



... and right



Spriiiiiiiiiiint!







Karate Kid :)

Multitasking

The last few days have been quite variegated here in Groenenland. More for me than the Black Death, I confess. Dad's on a business trip, cut off from civilisation, without a car, a computer… Wait a minute, thinking it well, we're in the same situation??? Yeah, it's true, the system shutdown hasn't ended yet. First his car broke down, then 'mine' (in joint use with my mom), then his computer… Of course this happened now, when there's much to be done about his business and also other stuff, which is on the verge of possibility without a comp and a vehicle. Meanwhile my dear Kia is already safely at home, but the rest is still on hold. So now, besides my regular duties as a student and instructor, I'm functioning also as an economist, a translator, a secretary, a diplomat and a delivery boy, to mention just a few. Bored I am not, that I can say. With all this work I had to give myself a treat – so I did, yesterday my mom and I went to see Champions on ice, an ice-skating show where we cheered for the skaters in person for the first time. yes, for him too. The first minute of the act wasn't that spectacular at all, but then Plushenko got animated and did a really good show. To tell the truth, I think Plushenko could come on the ice with a nail clipper and have his nails done and still get a big applause. To get things straight, he is not my favourite skater, he shares the throne with three other skaters that alternately get to the top position, but one simply cannot deny his talent and incredible achievements.

But enough about my weird taste for sports. Sambo… it still Sambo, still hyper-neurotic, but unlike the last two weeks he spends a little less time in a floating state. But he still spends most of his time with his denture outside, showing it to practically everybody, hopping aorund, running, herding his favourite sheep (his friend Klark) whom he blocks from the front, the back, attacks him from an ambush like a well-trained guerilla, wrestles with him and is all in all so bouncy that one cannot look at him without smiling. Moreover, we made good use of the last week, which was mostly rainy, to start learning three new tricks with which we're making good progress – he already more or less knows two of them so I'm only refining them and we're only shaping the last one, but it's going well too. What else could one expect from such a talented stuednt and such a fine instructor. Speaking of – my second pupil, the neighbour, has successfuly passed the test and avoided a summer school of English. But she managed to give me a good laugh the other day when we were doing some word formation - making different words from a same root. She didn't have any problems with the example 'I value your (friend) very much', she immediately said that the correct answer is 'friendship'. The next example was something like ''This invention contributed to (man) and its future.' She scratched her head for about 15 seconds, then turned to me with a victorious look on her face and said 'MANURE!' At first I managed to contain myself, but then I couldn't help myself anymore and bursted in laughter that lasted for about two minutes. Oh well, I never said we're planning on getting a straight A… (But I sure have to give her credit for originality!).

Belgians, ants and pants

You know how they say that lively, fidgety dogs have ants in the pants? Well, I said a while ago that I would refor that statement a bit, because as far as I'm concerned the really lively ants have Belgians in their pants.
You probably read how I kept Sambo entertained last week. But he still didn't have enough, I think I can honestly say that Sambo spent the last week more time as a biped than a quadruped. Half of the time he was hopping around me, bouncing from me, the furniture, the floor, the walls and the ceiling, not to mention the fact that he was showing off his set of teeth the whole time. With Belgians the thing goes something like this: a look toward your handler – you check if she's watching you and sees you – you move closer, just in case, so that your handler can have an 'up, close & personal' experience – if necessary, you let out a Woof or two to draw her attention to you – when you see that your handler is looking at you it's action time: ears back to your shoulder blades, head a bit down, set of teeth out and then, with such a wonderful personification of the Chupacabra you leap upon your handler's face. The course of events that follow can be different; you can crash into your handler's nose with your teeth, you can experience a head-on collision or, in the best of cases, you handler gets away with just a juicy Belgian kiss (the French don't get even close to the Belgians, yuck – if you are really lucky and have good reflexes you may get away with a Belgian kiss to the nose or the eye). The chance of avoiding the toothed torpedo is equal to zero so to speak, so I won't even mention it between the realistic options.

And how does the moment before the attack look like? Check it out:



Yes, it's true, it's difficult to escape a hyper Belgian and you can consider yourselves lucky if you manage to get away without any injuries most of the time. to be honest, I rarely do. The last such case was two days ago when we took a frisbee to our doggie walk after a long while. Because there's no real action and adrenalin in only throwing the frisbee I wanted to expand our repertoire with a jump over my leg. Big mistake. When the black monster was about 5 m away I called him, put my right foot into position and waved the frisbee at him. I could have known by now that if I show him the frisbee (or anything else that I can throw and he can catch), he will see the frisbee. And only the frisbee. He threw himself at it as the best rugby players there are, without remembering, of course, that it might be a good idea ti lift his legs. So he didn't. Now I have a nice bruise the size of a baseball over my right knee… But I'm sure it'll get better, maybe someday I get to the point that I'll be aware at least most of the time that I have a Belgian and what that means. If nothing else, I'm never bored :). Oh, and while youtubing a few days ago I found out that Bryan Adams is probably never bored either! I knew the guy had a good taste…

ps: and here's the link to Saturday's hikeing : http://myspace.agility-slo.net/

It's a well-known fact that technology clearly doesn't like me. But that's ok, I don't care much about it either. But what's been going on the last week has really been too much. First the internet resigned its cooperation with me for two days; the next to break down was the webcam, through which Sambek and I waved to Gregor, who went skiing for a week. To top it all, the keyboard failed on me too. Ok, actually… well, this time the keyboard itself wasn't really the one to blame, truth me told it was sabotaged. How and by whom you can read in my previous post.

Besides technology my main interest these days is sweating. Since Gregor is not around I have a considerable surplus of time and energy (which I otherwise spend with different artistic, acting, Ukranian-singing and other acts) and what better than sport activities to spend this energy. So Sambo and I went running 5 times this week, I did weight-lifting every day and to finish myself off I went on a hike with some agility buddies yesterday. And the result? Well, I did burn some energy, but most of all I gained myself a superiorly strained latissimus (the upper back muscle) and the muscle on my, well, behind. You can imagine by its dimensions that the pain cannot possibly be negligible. But it's slowly wearing off so it shouldn't take long before I can sit on the whole surface of my, khm, toosh again. And Sambo? I don't even know what to say. I think that growing up near a nuclear power station left some longrange consequences on him that will obviously mark him for life. Maybe I can lay some of the blame to the full moon, but the fact is that this week he has been totally hyper. In spite of all the running, walking, tricks and obedience he came to me every day, putting his head on my lap and looked me with a 'mom-why-aren't-you-doing-anything-with-me' look, brought me toys, woofed towards the door to show me how it is absolutely urgent and necessary for us to go outside and butn some energy… Anyways, on Saturday we had a 10 min break after two hours of hiking (the last hour of which was through relatively deep snow); two dogs started wrestling with each other, Sambo started herding them and in the moment we moved forward he galloped uphill (through whole snow, of course), saw the little snowballs that started rolling downhill after him, chased them for about 200m, set out uphill again, repeated the chasing action… If anyone has a clue how a geriatric dog can go on a hike, walk for two hours and still find the energy to chase around snowballs after a whole week of running and action, please let me know. For the time being let's say that I still have the energy, I'm in enough good shape myself and I most of all can afford to take the time and run around like this, but I fear that the years will catch up on me sooner than Sambo… The other option is that I'll simply be the fittest 100-year-old the world has ever seen :).

We wish you happy and active days!

Runs with wolves (dances with birds, studies with rabbits)

Lucky I don't belong to any indian tribe because all the parents would envy mine and all the kids would think I'm a show-off. But that's how it goes when people remember you by so many things. To my primary school classmates I'm still (and probably always will be) 'the one with the bird'. To my vet I'll probably always be 'the one that's allergic to rabbits but has now saved the second one from his culinary destiny and has been happily poking her eyes and sneezing the last 12 years'. And the last few days I'm best know as Dances with wolves.

People around me find it quite peculiar that such a running mania has obsessed me in the middle of December and that I'm continuing with it in January. So it shouldn't be hard to believe that I can't find a partner to go running together. The other day I told a friend of mine that I'll have to stop the chat with him cause the Death and I are going running (at 7 p.m.) – and he said 'What??? Now? But it's dark outside!' Yeah, so? So I should move my 'evening' doggie walks to 2 p.m. from November to March or what…? I got accustomed to night walks a long time ago, when I had Latin in my first year in the University on Mondays from 18.40 to 21.00, which means that I had to take Sambo for a walk at 21.30 when I got back if I didn't want Sambo to miss his evening walk. So I got used to walk in the dark and since then I have no trouble at all with it.

'But… It's cold now!' And we won't go on any doggie walks because of the cold? Well, I myself have been a bit worried about breething the cold air while running, but the first time I went (at minus 6 degrees) I saw there was no problem. But still, even though I refuted any doubts anyone has served me I stil haven't found a jogging partner. Lucky I've got Sambo. For him it's never too cold, too dark or too wet; the moment he sees me in my running equipment he starts roaring and walking on air from the excitement. That's what I'm talking about!

And now a quick explanation of the second and third part of my hypothetical indian name – before you go any further and start imagining something really weird I have to say that our bird (the Amazon warrior) has a very expressed artistic side, especially when it comes to music. Whenever he hears something he likes, he gets in the mood right away and starts singing, whistling… So it happened a few times that I was in the garden listening to the radio and when the bird heard a song he liked he started singing, which of course lead to a super duo, dancing and singing our behinds off (me with my must-have Ukrainian accent, what else).

And the third part – the other day I was copying my notes from my Swedish class and since I had some problems I decided to enrol a local to help me out. So I went to get Olaf. He came to my room after quite a while and was really excited about it – he hopped around merrily, poked me with his nose and jumped on the table from the top of his cage and helped me find the right words in the dictionary. We studied together in such a manner for a few days (passing over to Chomsky's generative and transformational grammar), whereupon I got a bit bored without music and I moved our study group to this room, which has a computer. Thus we studied together in perfect harmony with the accompaniment of my favourite radio through the internet, when after about three days I thought to myself how lucky I am since Olaf is the only rodent (from mice, rats, rabbits and guinea pigs) that I know of that has never in his life decided to have a nice cable snack, which is quite on the top list of the favourite menus of the above mentioned furry critters. Meanwhile he jumped into my lap and stretched comfortably over my legs and I studied for about 10 more minutes, after which I decided to have a little break to reply to a few e-mails. I turned on the screen, started writing – and nothing happened. I tapped on the letters, nothing. I started cursing myself, thinking I pressed something that disabled my keyboard. Anyways, after about two minutes I got a bad hunch… I decided to check, juuuuuust in case, if my saint decided to leap into action for the first time in my honour. Of course he did. The cable of the keyboard was professionally cut into so that he just cut through the inside wire, leaving the plastic on the other side intact. Truly a masterful work. The furry monster is now on a forced leave and in the meantime the problem with the keyboard has been solved, so that I can type this message. And the moral of the story is – yeah, I know. Next time I'll think twice before praising publicly any representative of the opposite sex cause these kind of things usually explode right into my face with great pleasure. I hope I learned my lesson…

Ok, time to go now, it's almost 19.00.

I have spoken, howgh!

On having something with the neighbour

Having something with the neighbour can be very tricky. We have to be aware that by doing it we can hurt the ones we love most and often even ourselves. People do it from different reasons – some feel they simply need that in their life; others think that the grass is always greener on the other side; and then there are some that may even have some profit out of it, material profit, to make things worse. I confess, I'm one of them. The last couple of weeks I've been sneeking to the neighbours in the safe embrace of the night. But the other day I was caught red handed. I can still see the despair in his eyes and feel his broken heart…

It's true, I thought I could make it this time too, but things went wrong. Sambo came running from around the corner in the very moment I was riding the fence. A few more seconds and I would be in the safety of the porch were he wouldn't see me at all, but he caught me right in the act. He spent the next hour and a half howling and wailing on our garden while I was trying to concentrate on the english lessons with the neighbour. And believe me, it's mighty difficult to explain the difference in the use of Present simple and continuous if you have a wolf with a broken heart singing you serenades outside the window… However, it was worth it. The neighbour successfully passed the exam. And I almost plumped onto our lettuce harvest when I bumped my leg against the pillar of the fence in the dark on my way home. Life can be difficult if your legs are so short they barely reach to the ground…
And that is leaving aside the great irony and bizarrity of the fact that I'm too lazy to walk 15m along our street to get to the neighbour's door, so I prefer to climbe over the fence from our garden to their backyard, but after our lessons I go running with the Black Death for half an hour. Well, the most important thing is that the neighbour passed the exam and won't fail the subject, that I earn some money and afterwards go get fit. You have to know that if you have something with the neighbour and jump over fences to do so it can't hurt if you can run really fast (even more so if your intentions aren't as noble as mine and the neighbours have an ill-tempered heacy-weight dog…).

Anyhow – I wish you have as few messing around with the neighbours as possible. And if you do, make sure you don't get caught…