I had this really great idea. It involved the weekend and sleeping in.

I was wrong.

My weekend is going to be full of working flat-out to meet a deadline, as failure to do so would result in my gonads being carved out with a rusty spoon.

Good times, good times.

Image borrowed from Maple Music.

I froze up.

F-No and I went to see The Dears w/Pilate at the Powerplant tonight. We really didn't know what to expect, since I decided to get tickets rather on a lark.

As it turns out, both bands are mind-blowingly good. Pilate was great, and The Dears are totally out of this world. Murray Lightburn is an unreal live performer who owns the stage and pulls the audience in. He's like a musical hurricane. (I will be adding him to my harem at a future date.)

As if that wasn't enough, Murray announces that the band has the next two days off and that they want to party with the audience. They got revved up with a few shots on stage, and then the last song Murray walks down off the stage into the audience, singing as he goes. He drapes himself over some girl in the audience in an exhausted sweaty hug which he stays in for the last 2 minutes of the song. Bizarre, hilarious and totally fantastic.

After the encore, the audience is welcomed to mingle with the band. That's when I froze. Murray was hugging people who came up to talk to him, including F-No who got a CD signed by him. I was standing right behind F-No, but all I could do was grin. My feet were rooted in place and I couldn't move. A voice in my head was saying that I really ought to fucking relax, but after two Cokes it was more than a bit challenging.

Then F-No starts asking me why I didn't hug Murray. He insists that I go back and talk to him, and starts taking things out of my hands and pushing me to go over there. But I can't move. I feel like a deer in headlights. Something keeps telling me, "Don't say anything lame! Say something intelligent!", thereby rendering my mind completely blank. I'm blithering near-gibberish to F-No. I can't do it.

By this time F-No is looking at me like a pod from Invasion of the Body Snatchers. "Who is this timid weirdo, and what has she done with my girlfriend?" I plead that it was in fact the fault of the Coke, and that I am not responsible for any bizarre timid behaviour displayed this evening.

That being said, however, I really suck for not having hugged him. I'm a major fucking wanker, actually. So Murray, if you're listening, you blew my fucking mind. I'm glad that at least I didn't say anything dumb to you. You guys were amazing. I love you, man.

Pics of Robbie, the lost dog formerly known as "him" or "the dog":

He had the cutest little trot ~sigh~

This is what he and Nari usually looked like . . . her entangled in my legs, him sniffing her butt.

Aw, what a cute bunch!

Look like anyone you know?

I don't know what rock I've been living under for the last 25 years, but I've finally managed to start crawling out from under it.

My musical world is expanding exponentially. Several months ago, F-No and I wandered into A&B Sound and discovered Tegan and Sara. We got their album and lost our minds over it. We soon discovered that they were playing at Dinwoodie. So off we went. Not only did we have the time of our lives, we also discovered another band, Metric, who opened for Tegan and Sara. I wouldn't know how to describe their music, except to say that its exceptional.

Last night, when we finally got Metric's album Old World Underground, Where Are You Now?, the girl at the cash register mentioned Broken Social Scene, who Metric have collaborated with in the past. As it turns out, they'll be playing The Powerplant on November 9th with Stars and Jason Collett. I haven't had a chance to listen to the last two, but I do know that Broken Social Scene has taken control of my brain. I'm looking forward to discovering the last two when we go to the concert.

As I was looking at the concert listings on Ticketmaster, I noticed that a band called The Dears is playing The Powerplant tomorrow night. I haven't quite decided about them, but their opening act, Pilate, is definitely worth seeing. So, again, off we go.

I think we've become music whores. I'm not really sure how, but its a damn sight better than living under that rock.

-----------------------------

I would also like to add that to those who believe that music piracy is hurting the industry, I have to say that until the advent of mp3's and the Internet, I never bought or listened to this much music. Money is pouring out of my pockets and into record companies. If that's not a good thing, I don't know what is.

Here's the first picture ever taken of the little duffer that ran away with our hearts:

My mind is looking more and more like someone's unattended laundry basket.

My life is moving at such an astronomical rate, I rarely have time to write anything down anymore. Before, life seemed chaotic and yet I ought to have had all sorts of time on my hands. Now, life is chaotic and I have NO time.

I grab food on the run, I sleep when I can (which doesn't seem to be much), and when I'm not running to my tai chi or wushu class, I'm either feeding, medicating or pooping one animal or another. If I budgeted right, I could probably hire someone to clean up animal poop on a full-time basis.

If I have somehow managed to weather all of this while looking like I actually have my shit together, it's a miracle.

Not that I would trade my life for anything. It's fantastic really. But everything seems to be flying past me and I don't know where the time has gone.

At the end of August, things were pretty mellow. Then F-No and I signed up for tai chi, push hands and wushu classes in the hopes of saving ourselves from a pathetically sedentary lifestyle. A dream of one day having some coordination and being able to do something cool was another motivating factor. Wushu has been an intriguingly humbling experience, being in class full of children and trying to fold our bloated, aged bodies in half.

Around about a month ago (okay, it was September 19th, but who's counting) we were going to wushu class and as I stepped out of the car, a little cat came running up to me out of an abandoned building. Not knowing what else to do, I put the cat in the car and went to class. After class, we took the cat to the emergency vet clinic to see what his health was like. He was a bit thin and scraggly, so if he wasn't homeless he was certainly a long way from home.

When we got there, the people at the clinic said that they have arrangements with the pound to take stray animals for the pound to pick up later. They offerred to take our phone number in case the cat went unclaimed, so we left the cat and our number with them.

Several days go by, and we haven't heard anything. We have no intention of adopting another cat, but we start to wonder if they've lost our number. So I call. Someone at the pound tells me that its up to the vet from the SPCA to decide whether an animal is suitable for adoption or not. If they're not suitable, well, that's the end of the road.

At this point I'm getting worried. I start wondering, "Did I save him from the streets so he could die in the pound?"

A week later, a stray dog tries to run into the car. F-No comes home and tells me he wants to show me something. He walks up to the door with a dog in his arms. I think I'm hallucinating.

That same day, the pound calls to tell us that if we want the cat, we can adopt him from the SPCA. He's still a kitten, and he has an upper respiratory infection, but he's ours if we'll take him.

While we're running around trying to get a leash and collar to keep the stray dog under control, we're trying to figure out what to do about the kitten. So the next day I call the vet at the SPCA.

The vet explains the situation. I ask if the SPCA can take him. She says that because he's ill, he's not adoptable. So I ask if they would be able to take him if we nursed him back to health. She says they're at capacity when it comes to cats, but if we were to adopt him and surrender him, then they would have to take him. I mull it over. I mention my concern about having declawed cats with a clawed cat. She says it shouldn't be an issue if we keep his claws trimmed.

So F-No and I talk it over. We're not about to leave him to die at the pound, and we're not about to pay $90 to adopt him, only to turn around and give him up again. So we adopt him.

Really, though, it's not a hard conclusion to come to. He's just about the most beautiful creature I've ever seen, gunky eyes and all. He has the most angelic disposition and absolutely melts your heart. Not falling in love with him at first sight was a bigger challenge.

At this point, the zoo is bursting. We had already decided to hang onto the dog, lest he get put to sleep at the pound due to an error in paperwork. Nari and the dog (at this point, referred to as "the little guy" or "him") are frollicking in the yard together. The kitten is being nursed back to health in the bathroom. The cats are hanging from the rafters because there's a little Sheltie running around and a stinky little kitten in their bathroom.

The following Saturday we get a stack of "found dog" signs made up. We're even armed with stakes for large signs to put at the main intersection near where he was found. We pile the dogs into the car and set off to put up signs. Just as we're pulling into the neighbourhood, we see a sign for a lost dog. F-No grabs one off a mailbox and holds it up next to the little guy. "Look like anyone you know?"

We call the owners and drive over to their house. Two girls, the mother and the grandmother are standing in the driveway when we roll up. When they spot the dog, they become absolutely ecstatic. Although we try to refuse, they insist on giving us the reward money, $200. It turns out the dog's name is Robbie, and is like a son to the mother. It's a very happy reunion for all of them.

Meanwhile, the kitten, now named Saba, is still living in the bathroom. He has rather vile smelling poo, which necessitates his first bathing experience. He handles it like a pro. It isn't long before we move him into the bedroom so he can sleep with us. It isn't long after that that he busts his way out of the bedroom and introduces himself to the other cats. We're relieved to see that no one is bleeding or missing any limbs.

As it turns out, he loves being around the other cats and handles social interactions with ease. As luck would have it, no one catches his infection either, so he lives among them as if he's been doing this for years. He manages to sidestep confrontations while still being lively and playful.

So a month after finding him, Saba the stray kitten is a permanent fixture in our lives. He's about 6 months old and a Ragdoll, a breed of cat I've fancied since I was 11 or 12. How a Ragdoll ends up living in an abandoned building I'll probably never know, but I sure am glad he came out to say hello. He's managed to bring a surprising amount of mellowness to our cat population, keeping Dusty too off-balance to harrass Aki. Everyone seems to be getting used to his antics, and ultimately I think he has balanced all the cats out. He's a little ball of mischief, and yet he manages to harrass the other cats so good-naturedly that even they seem to shrug things off more.

Now that things are settling down in the zoo department, it's only right that our godchild be entering the world in 16 days. That's Murphy's Law, right? So now it's a race against the baby to get our house straightened up and get the baby's room at the parents' house set up for his/her arrival. We obviously don't have enough to do.

Now how about that vacation time I have coming to me?

Wishes for the guy who makes it his life's work to create roadblocks for projects that would ultimately benefit him and the organization he works for:

- I hope rabid mice crawl up your anus and die


- I hope you get sodomized by a large hairy man


- I hope your genitals shrivel up and fall off, thereby preventing any further contamination of gene pool


- I hope you contract hookworm

To everyone else: have a lovely day.

A life is messy

I've spilled my dreams ev'rywhere

hand me a mop, please.