Monday: Wild animals are cute but not in that good way

Lately, the proliferation of adorable animal videos saturating Facebook, Twitter, and the internet has reached epic proportions. It used to be sweet little kittens and puppies, but now it’s every animal you can think of, being filmed doing something that makes people go “Awwww”. And I have a real worry about this—I worry that we are raising a generation of children who will ultimately end up getting mauled by something because they don’t understand that wild animals aren’t “adorable”, they are f*cking dangerous. The escalation of anthropomorphizing animals (isn’t that a fancy term? It means pretending that animals act just like humans, like all intellectual and emotional and sh*t) seemed to begin with the shooting of Cecil, the “beloved” lion from Zimbabwe who was killed by an American dentist. Now, I am in no way condoning ANY dentist shooting stuff just for fun, or doctors, or lawyers, or anyone else who has to replace his penis with an animal head on his wall (newsflash, fellas—it’s cheaper to just stuff a sock down your pants. Or buy a Hummer), but the rhetoric about Cecil himself was interesting. He was famous, a star attraction, a favourite among tourists, and a celebrity in the lion world. And that was all true—until you messed with his lady, or tried to pet his cubs. Then he would probably have killed you, or at least maimed you. Because that’s what lions do, being wild animals and all. And it’s not Cecil’s fault—it just is what it is. But ever since then, I’ve been seeing videos about other wild animals acting all cuddly and human, like the grizzly bear that decided to take a swim in someone’s swimming pool, then relax in their hot tub. “So adorable,” people commented. “Look at him just LOUNGING there!” and “That bear was having a blast!”. But if you google “bear in hot tub”, you also get a link to a news story from a couple of days ago where a bear attacked a man in HIS hot tub. The bear was probably like, “Look at him just LOUNGING there! So adorable!! Adorable enough to EAT!!” And this is the ultimate problem–wild animals LOOK sweet and loving if they’re edited properly and set to charming music, but they are actually pretty mean. Case in point: the raccoon who decided to start a family in our attic. It was all hunky dory, with her looking so peaceful while she fed her babies, until we had to relocate her because she was pooping all over the attic floor, which was not very lady-like. Then she turned into a hissing, schizoid banshee and almost took Ken’s hand off through the live trap, even though we TOLD her that her babies were safe in a box downstairs. Damn raccoons never listen to a word you say.

Yesterday, the national news ran a story about polar bears “frolicking” in fireweed up North. FROLICKING. And gosh, they looked adorable as they cavorted in the pretty flowers. Feel free to approach one and try to pet it. See what happens. It will eat your legs. The fact is that wild animals are dangerous, kids. Never forget that, no matter what they look like. Bears, lions, tigers, sharks, raccoons, skunks, badgers, squirrels, hyenas—they will ALL tear a chunk out of you if you try to talk to them like they’re kitties and puppies. Do you know why? Because they DON’T SPEAK ENGLISH. So instead of putting them in diapers, respect their ferocity. Don’t cut off their heads to use as wall ornaments. And please stop making your dog jog with you. Dogs f*cking HATE jogging. Titus told me so.

Wednesday: Ken loses one of his books

I was upstairs the other day, and Ken was in his office. He called me in, and asked, “Have you seen my little book?”
Me: What book?
Ken: The book that I keep the list of jobs you want me to do in.
Me: You keep a list of the jobs I want you to do!? What does the book look like!?
Ken: Like this one.
Me: That’s a tiny notepad, not a book. But if it looks like that one, and that one isn’t the one you’re looking for, then what IS that one?
Ken: This is a list of websites that I really like.
Me: A list of–ok…well what’s that one then?
Ken: That one is a list of objects that I want to make using different mediums. See, it’s alphabetized. “A” for antique, “B” for barnboard, “C” for cardboard, “D” for door–
Me: I see. But you can’t find the book that has the list of jobs that I want you to do in it?
Ken: No. Did you take it?
Me: Why the hell would I take a book that lists jobs you’re going to do for ME? The fact that you have such a book means that ONE DAY, you might eventually get around to them. Is the kitchen island you promised to make me last May in that book?
Ken: Oh yeah, the kitchen island…
Me: Here’s a thought—instead of making lists about the things you need to do, why don’t you tidy up your desk so you can find your little books?
Ken: Tidying up my desk is in THIS book. It’s called “Chores I Need To Do”…
Me: Sigh.

Friday: Math. I give up.

On Friday, Ken and I were having a discussion about the newest educational fad: Growth Mindset. This is another fancy term, based on “brain research”, that people can learn to do things if they BELIEVE they can do them. So you can see why it’s so fancy and all—pretty complex stuff. And you can also see why Boards of Education are spending money like crazy to teach people how to implement it in the classroom. I’m sure there’s nothing more motivating to a struggling student than telling them “If you can see it, you can be it!” (Growth Mindset sounds suspiciously like the lyrics to an R. Kelly song. He believed he could fly, although I don’t think it worked out for him, kind of like math for me). I wish my high school math teacher had quoted Boyz to Men to me—for sure, I’d be a quantum physicist now, instead of a smartass who can’t figure out what half of ¾ of a cup of flour is (I just eyeball it). Anyway, I was like, “So after years of NOT being able to do complicated math, if I only BELIEVE hard enough that I can do it, I’ll be able to learn it?” Ken assured me that it was true. But that night I had a nightmare where I was trying to do math, and f*cking it up royally. Then suddenly, the numbers all turned into little roasting chickens in their own casserole dishes, and instead of doing math, I was basting them with a red wine sauce that I had made, and worrying that they were going to dry out in the oven. Even my subconscious knows where my strengths are.

 

In a continuation of our Spanish adventure, I’m dedicating this week’s blog to the modes of transportation that I had to endure in order to a) get to Spain b) get around Spain c) get home from Spain:

Planes

I hate the airport. All airports. They’re chaotic, noisy, and there are people there who can strip-search you if they overhear you making a little joke about terrorists. The last time I was flying out of Toronto, I got into trouble because I had a small manicure kit in my purse, and it was confiscated by a very surly security guard. I really wanted to say, “What kind of dumbass terrorist would I have to be to think I could bring down a plane by brandishing a nail clipper?!”, but I didn’t. Strip-search fear, y’all. I guess the paranoia is understandable, given today’s international political climate, but things are still very extreme eg: having to put all your liquids (in no more than 100 ml. quantities) in a clear plastic bag so they can be viewed easily. I would dearly love to know what kind of bomb I could possibly make with shampoo, conditioner, and hand sanitizer. You’ve heard of dirty bombs? I guess this would be a “clean” bomb. It would spray all over you and make you more hygienic than you were before you got on the plane (which is good because planes are gross). Except I have no idea how something like that could be detonated. Mostly because I’m NOT A TERRORIST! And water? God forbid you might want to bring some water through security instead of paying $5 for a bottle once you get into the “duty-free area” (which in Canada, means you’re paying pretty much the same as you would in a convenience store). Personally, I think the easiest way to determine if someone has water or gel explosive (is that even a thing? I have no actual knowledge of bomb stuff) would be to just make the person drink it in front of you. I’m pretty sure that would separate the merely thirsty from the blood-thirsty. Who the hell would swallow something that could blow people up? In the line ahead of us, there was a poor young girl who was having her bag thoroughly searched. Finally, the security guard help up in triumph a small box. He opened it and produced a tiny brooch, which he immediately confiscated. Sorry, Grandma—the souvenir pin I got you in Canada was considered a lethal weapon. Here’s a $5 bottle of water instead.

So, in order to get to Spain, Ken, T, and I had to go through security. I immediately set off the scanner. The female security guard was unimpressed, and demanded that I take off my belt and my rings. I went through again, and it went off again. “It’s that bangle you’re wearing,” she sighed.
“It can’t be that,” I said. “It’s sterling silver. It’s from Tiffany’s.”
“Fine,” she rolled her eyes. “Try again.” The scanner went off again. “Gimme the bangle,” she sighed more heavily.
I gave her the bracelet and this time, sure enough, I made it through.
“I TOLD you it was the bangle,” she said smugly. “You might want to talk to Tiffany’s about that.”

In the meantime, however, T had also set off the scanner and was the lucky recipient of a full body scan. Which, three times in a row, showed that he had something adjacent to his right thigh that was causing a problem. He’d already emptied out his pockets, and they couldn’t figure out what it was. “Sometimes, if there’s something that’s just bigger than everything else, it’ll set off the alarm,” said the male security guard. Ken and I were initially all like “Hells yeah! That’s our son!”, but then the guard said to T, “But I’m going to have to pat you down. Come with me.” At which point, I got really upset at the whole ridiculous thing and said, “You can’t just take him away with you—he’s a minor!” (which is hilarious because he’s 6’1” and has a full beard), so they let Ken go with him. It all ended up OK though—according to Ken, the security guard gave him a few karate chop style pats to the groin area, then winked and said, “You’re good, buddy.” Hells yeah.

Once we were through security though, the real fun began. Our plane was delayed because of lightning, and Air Canada switched our gate 4 times. Without announcing it. Every so often, T would go up to the display board and say, “We’re back to Gate 79” or “They’ve changed us to 81 again.” It was a great distraction though—we never knew when we were going to have to run the length of the airport, dragging our luggage behind us, with all the other passengers on our plane trying to lap us—it should be a new Pan Am sport: The 500 meter Airport Dash. We finally got ONTO the plane well after midnight, but wait—we still couldn’t take off because one of the other passengers was drunk and the flight crew had to make him and his wife get off the plane on the grounds that “we don’t know how you’ll react in the air”, which I assumed to mean “we don’t want you puking up your guts in this sealed metal tube”. But how the hell do you even GET hammered at the airport? I had one glass of wine and it was $15 f*cking dollars! I can’t AFFORD to get hammered at the airport. I just hold out for the free wine on the plane and make Ken get another one that I can drink later. Of course, he gets all whiny like “But I want apple juice. I don’t even like wine,” so I wait until he’s asleep and order FOR him.

The flight itself was extremely turbulent, which made me realize I should NEVER have started re-watching Lost a few days before, and that kicking out that drunk guy was a REALLY good idea, but we finally arrived. Getting INTO a country is pretty easy—well, it is in Spain anyway. No one gave us a second look, and suddenly, we were on our way.

Automobiles

We rented a car, and while the Enterprise rep was going over the details with us, he asked if we wanted a GPS for 6 Euros a day. Ken immediately said no, but I overrode him on the grounds that he regularly gets lost on the way to the cottage, and I wasn’t taking any chances in a foreign country of ending up on some unpaved back road (which happened anyway but that’s another story). The GPS was fantastic in terms of telling us how to get to places, but it had its quirks. First, it was programmed with an extremely posh female British accent. It was comforting and authoritative at first, but we soon realized that although its English was perfect, it couldn’t speak any Spanish, and pronounced the names of streets in a robotic, phonetical way that made no sense:

GPS: At the next roundabout, take the third exit to YO QUIERO TACO BELL! WHEE!
Me: I think that means Calle del Fernandes. Don’t quote me though. Just take the third exit.

Ken drove like a boss, up and down narrow cobble-stone streets and major highways. The car was a standard, which I was incapable of driving, having had an early, scarring experience trying to learn standard on my Dad’s Pinto (“First gear! FIRST GEAR! Ach, you’ve stalled it again!”), so Ken did all the driving. Our only problem was the second day, when we had to back up to get out of a parking space, and Ken realized that he didn’t know how to put the gearshift into Reverse. We tried all the regular, human ways of doing it, but ended up having to call Enterprise, after trying to translate the car’s Spanish user guide, and were told (after waiting for them to find someone who spoke English) that there was a ring on the gearshift that you had to pull up to make the car go backwards. Obviously.

Trains

I already talked about the train we took last week, so I won’t get into it too much again, except to say that the train station was even more chaotic than the airport. You know it’s a problem when there are information booths everywhere, and the line-ups at each one have at least 50 people in them. No one seemed to have a clue where to go, not even the Spanish people. We were finally able to ask an attendant where we should go to buy a ticket, because even THAT was not apparent, and he said what sounded like, “Go past the tropical garden.” But we were inside a train station, and it made no sense so we kept walking to the next information office, where I was required to take a number to be served. My number was B554. The counter was currently serving B778. I’ve never been good at math, but it didn’t seem that I would be getting served anytime soon judging by the number of people who were sitting on the floor since all the chairs were taken. In the meantime though, Ken and T had found machines where you could buy a ticket, and we finally found the place where they keep the trains, which meant another round of bag x-rays and body scanners. We tried to ask the female security guard which platform our train would be at, but she kept looking away from us, mumbling something, and pointing at her eye, which I interpreted as “I can’t see you. You’re not really here. Stop haunting me.”

After a great day in Toledo, we got back on the train and arrived at the Madrid train station. As we were taking the escalator down to the subway level, I suddenly saw a grove of huge palm trees up ahead. Tropical garden indeed.

Planes again

The Madrid airport is a bit quieter and smaller than Toronto, which is weird because Madrid is a much bigger city than Toronto. The biggest difference though was the presence of civilian guards carrying machine guns and questioning people. There was very limited seating, so Ken, T, and I found spots by a gate two down from Air Canada. When we realized the armed guards were confronting people and asking to see their passports, we realized that we were at the gate for somewhere in the Middle East, and I thought it would be better to just stand by the Canadian gate than sit down anywhere else. When I pointed this out to Ken, he accused me of “stereotyping” but I was like “Hey—I’m not the one with the machine gun and the paranoia.” Never a good combination.

It was supposed to be my lucky day–at least that’s what the security guard cheerfully told me as she pulled me aside for a pat-down: “You’ve been randomly selected–it’s your lucky day!” but things didn’t go very smoothly. After a series of bizarre delays—another plane was late so ours couldn’t leave Madrid on time, our luggage was taking a long time to load because of unspecified “issues”, the plane waiting to take off from our spot at the Toronto airport had a “missing passenger” and had to wait until he was found, the bridge which attaches the plane to the airport wasn’t working—I thought I was going to lose my mind. It was probably a 12 hour trip from beginning to end (mostly because Ken insisted that we get to the airport three hours ahead of time, two hours of which constituted trying to find a place to sit and then listening to a very large and overenthusiastic group of twenty-something “camp leaders” discussing their Spanish exploits–“Dude!” “Dude, really?” “Dude! No way!”– the majority of which had less to do with camping or children, and more to do with getting wasted and surfing–turns out they were heading back to British Columbia. They don’t call it the  California of the North for nothing, y’all).

The highlight of the return trip home, however, was when we went through customs and the young guy in the booth looked at our passports, then asked, “What’s the reason for you being here in Canada?” How do you even respond to that kind of stupidity? He’s looking AT my passport, which shows I’m a Canadian citizen, and it shows my address is in CANADA. Why the hell do you THINK I’m here?! But I just politely said, “We’re going home. We live here.” No strip-searches for this lady.

 

Sorry about the delay in this post, but I’ve been on vacation. So the theme of this week’s blog is “Spain And All The Crazy Sh*t We Learned About It”.

Ken and I decided to take a trip for our 25^th anniversary, and we had a family meeting. “Where do we want to go?” we asked. K immediately suggested Spain, because she’s taking Spanish in school and wanted to practice speaking to real Spanish people instead of other teenagers who were equally limited in their ability to converse in another language. Ken and I had no real preference, and since we’d never been to Spain, we thought it was a good idea. In retrospect, it was an INTERESTING idea. Mostly because Spain is a very strange place. Don’t get me wrong—it’s a gorgeous country with lovely people, but it certainly has its quirks. So here are some of the more annoying things about Spain, from a Canadian’s point of view. And let me just qualify this first by saying that a) I HAVE actually been to other countries b) we were in 8 different cities across Spain so I’m not just making a sweeping generalization based on one place and c) I realize that foreign tourists to Canada probably think we’re weird too:

1) Everyone in Spain speaks Spanish

While this might seem like an obvious statement to make, what I mean is that very few people speak anything OTHER than Spanish. In a country renowned for its tourist industry, I was expecting that people who regularly worked WITH tourists, like waiters, hotel staff, and souvenir shop owners might be capable of speaking a teeny bit of English, or French, or anything else for that matter. But out of 8 cities, which were all tourist-y destinations, it was amazing how few people were able to say or understand the most simple English words. Like the cab driver in Madrid, who regularly takes people to the airport, but who was unable to tell us the cost of the trip or ask what terminal we were going to in English. I’m not Anglo-centric by any stretch, and I certainly don’t assume that everyone in the world should all speak English just for my convenience, but it struck me as odd that people who rely so heavily on tourists make so little effort to communicate with them. It worked to our advantage though—by the end of the trip, I knew more Spanish than most Spaniards know English, and I could say all the important stuff, like Uno vino blanco, por favor (one white wine please), Uno mas (one more), Quande questo… (how much…), Donde esta el bagno? (where’s the bathroom), and several other handy phrases. Spanish isn’t that hard actually, and once you realize that Spanish people don’t pronounce words even REMOTELY like our phrase book told us to, we were all good, saying Grathias instead of Gracias, and substituting “th” every time a word had a “c” or other random letters like “z” in it. Our phrase book wasn’t much help at all, actually—it seemed like more of a joke book, or like the guy who wrote it, Rick Steves, just enjoys f*cking with tourists. For example, under the “Ordering Food” section, the last entry was “Solo como insectos”, which means “I only eat insects”. In what possible world, or restaurant, would you EVER say that?! He also gave translations for things like “This is better than sex” (when a waiter asks you how the food was, which didn’t happen very often because they really don’t seem to care), “Can I buy your hat?” (to a police officer who has pulled you over for speeding, and who will most certainly find you endearing and charming when you say THAT), and many other bizarre statements and responses that might just get you thrown in a Spanish jail. The best part was that the word for “pickpocket” was in almost every section of the book, and I had to wonder if maybe Rick Steves was all pissed because he got his wallet stolen in Spain and this book was his revenge.

2) The Spanish schedule is insane

As I said before, for a country that relies so heavily on tourists for its income, Spanish people seem to have very little interest in accommodating them. In fact, the Spanish schedule seems deliberately designed to discourage tourists. In every city we visited, this was the typical day: nothing opened until 10 or 10:30 in the morning, everything closed down for “siesta time” at 2:00 pm until around 5:30 (or until people FELT like re-opening), and even then, the vast majority of restaurants wouldn’t serve FOOD until 9 pm. People eat dinner in Spain at 10 o’clock at night! Thousands of tourists roaming around, and everything locked up tight. I don’t know how they get anything done, or make any money, but they seem very happy sleeping and drinking all afternoon while the rest of us wander around, starving and lonely. We spent our first two days in Toledo, an absolutely beautiful place, but it’s a ghost town until at least 8 o’clock at night. We couldn’t buy food on the first day because the grocery stores were closed, and the vast majority of restaurants (like LITERALLY hundreds because it’s a tourist town) don’t serve food after 2 in the afternoon. I discovered that Doritos and pistachio nuts really ARE the breakfast of champions—and quite often, also the lunch of champions.

3) The Spanish Diet. Whut?

I can’t believe that Spanish people aren’t regularly dropping dead in the streets—they’re like heart attacks waiting to happen, based on the stuff they eat. Cured meat, eggs, and fried potatoes—I could feel my arteries hardening after three days, and after 6 days, I started craving broccoli. Seriously. I have never seen so much meat in my life—every city we went to had an even more bizarre kind. In Toledo, every restaurant had a deer leg propped on the bar. If you wanted cured venison, a guy would slice you off some. From the deer leg. On the bar. WITH A HOOF. As we got further north, it was like each city was trying to outdo each other in terms of what disgusting things were on the menu. There was a phrase in our Rick Steve’s Guide to Spain that at first seemed like a joke—“I don’t want anything with eyeballs”—but no, it was actually legit. Suckling Lamb. Suckling Pig. Tripe. Pork Cheeks. Whole Rabbit. Bull Testicles. Fried Cow Foot. In Avila, I ordered “Plate of cold assorted cured meats and cheeses”, just to try it, thinking it would be chorizo, or prosciutto—something normal. After eating one of the two meats on the plate (neither cold NOR assorted), I realized I was eating someone’s brain. (Ken said I wasnt, but it tasted and had the texture of what I imagine a brain to be, and then I started to worry about mad cow disease, or becoming a zombie). Of course, the big thing in Spain is something called “Tapas”, which apparently means “small dishes of animal parts with maybe some cheese from a sheep”. It was rare that there were any actual vegetables on the menu, and if it said “vegetables”, you had to be careful, because it didn’t always mean ACTUAL vegetables—the menus were very loosely translated into a pseudo-English, and the servers mostly didn’t know what you were ordering unless you pointed at the English and tried to find the corresponding item on the Spanish menu. In Segovia, I ordered a dish that came with “steamed vegetables”—by this time I was seriously in need a carrot, or SOMETHING without feet or eyeballs, but when it came, it was just a limp mound of shredded onion and cabbage. So I ended up eating a lot of fried potatoes, or tortilla, which isn’t actually a tortilla, but a kind of quiche with eggs and more potatoes. We DID have some really good meals though, but mostly in Italian style restaurants, or places that specialized in grilled beef. Plus, the wine was either super-cheap, or actually came WITH the meal, so after a while, you didn’t really care what you were eating and the eyeballs started to look rather friendly.

4) Spanish Tourist Sites

The one thing we noticed about a LOT of tourist sites was that, although the admission prices to everything were WAY cheaper than Canada (7 Euros to get in to the Royal Palace, which is absolutely stunning, was built in the late 1700s and houses some of the most priceless Spanish treasures, versus $30 to get into Ripley’s Aquarium in Toronto, which has fish) there was incredibly high security that you had to go through in order to see them. It was bad enough that we had to ALL show our passports to every hotel concierge in order to register for a room, but the museums and art galleries were all really heavily guarded. To get into a lot of them, you had to have your bag x-rayed, then go through a body scanner. It was especially bad at the Museo del Prado in Madrid, where there were cops and army guys on the streets all around it, carrying machine guns. Yes. F*cking MACHINE GUNS. For an ART GALLERY. Did it make me feel safer? No. It did not. Of course, most of the artwork is very heavily religious, with a multitude of depictions of Jesus—baby Jesus, crucified Jesus, haloed Jesus, and of course our personal favourite, Giant Badass Jesus (from the Toledo Cathedral)—but also some very weird paintings of the Virgin Mary, who apparently had tremendous aim and could launch her breast milk across a room at people, according to several paintings we saw. I don’t know if that’s a legitimate superpower, but I could totally see her in The Avengers.

5) Spanish Toilets

All I’m going to say is “Newsflash, Spanish Ladies. The rest of us learned a long time ago that you can’t actually catch diseases from toilet seats. If you REALLY don’t want to sit directly on it, please just line it with toilet paper like the rest of us, rather than crouching above it and peeing all over it, which just makes things nasty for everyone, or putting the seat up and peeing right into the bowl, which means now I have to touch the seat WITH MY HANDS to put it back down.” Enough about that topic. Public bathrooms are gross no matter where you live.

Overall, it was a fantastic trip—we saw some amazing things, met some great people, ate weird food, learned to function in a foreign language, and it all made us appreciate being home so much more. And at 2:15 today, I’m going grocery shopping. Just because I can. I love you, Canada.

Monday: I realize that my daughter is the best daughter in the world

On Monday, Ken, T, and I decided to take the high speed train from Madrid to Toledo for a day trip. Anyone who knows me well knows that I always plan for the worst case scenario, and because I’ve heard of instances where high speed trains derail and kill everyone on board, I spent the first few minutes on board coming up with a solution.

Me: I have to tell you something.
K: What?
Me: If the train starts to derail, you need to turn around in your seat, wrap your arms around the headrest, and brace your feet against something. That way you won’t be thrown around the train car, which is how most people die.
K (looks up at the headrest): OK.
Me: Aren’t you going to make fun of me for worrying about it?
K: Why would I do that? It’s good to have a plan for everything.

Yep. I raised her right.

Thursday: Raven goes to the vet

On Thursday morning, around 10:00 am, Ken suddenly said to me, “Have you seen Raven? I haven’t seen her all morning.” And it was weird because I hadn’t either, and normally, she’s around doing her usual routine, eating, pooping, then sleeping in a sunny spot on a chair, or jumping into your lap when you least expect it or have shorts on. So we started going around the house, calling for her in the high-pitched soft voice that she likes. Normally, she answers right away, and comes to see what we want, but this time we went all over the house, and there was no sign of her anywhere. Ken wondered if she could have gotten outside, and he reminded me that I might have left the door open very early that morning when I went to get my shoes from the middle of the front lawn (I may or may not have had a couple of drinks), but I reminded HIM that there’s a screen door that swings shut, so no. Plus Raven HATES the outdoors. The only time she ever accidentally got out, I found her sitting on the front step looking longingly back at the door, and when I opened it, she ran right back in. Regardless, I threw on some clothes and started walking around the neighbourhood, calling for her and looking under bushes. To the untrained eye, I probably seemed a little unhinged, but I was starting to panic. What if she got out of the house, and some random stranger saw her and took her? While the joke would be on him—two litter boxes and a tendency to pee on bathmats and antique rugs—she’s a beautiful purebred Persian, and would tempt anyone. But worse, what if someone kidnapped her and held her for ransom? Ken would never agree to pay—as we all know, according to Ken, paying kidnappers just encourages them.

When I got back to the house, I was initially relieved when Ken said he’d found her. But he found her hiding under the bed in the guest room, and she wouldn’t come out. When we finally managed to pull her out to make sure she was OK, she took off downstairs and hid under the piano. One of her eyes looked weepy, and she wouldn’t go near anyone. She spent the rest of the day under OUR bed, and wouldn’t eat or drink anything. She also didn’t use the litter box all day, which, for little Miss Poopy Pants, is highly unusual. So at 6 o’clock, I insisted that Ken call the vet. We took her in a little while later and guess what? Absolutely nothing wrong with her. So when we got home, we had a somewhat heated conversation. Raven and me, that is.

Me: What the hell was that all about?
Raven: Don’t even get me started.
Me: I thought you were sick!
Raven: More fool you, then. Did it ever occur to you that maybe I was a little pissed about the way you acted this morning?
Me: This morning..? You mean when I caught you drinking out of Mishima’s tank?
Raven: You yelled at me.
Me: You were drinking out of the FISH TANK! It’s disgusting!
Raven: Disgusting? I’m a CAT! Everything I DO is disgusting. I poo in a box, I throw up hairballs, I lick my own ass. Suddenly we’re drawing the line at drinking out of the fish tank? Give me a break!
Me: Well, you were scaring the fish.
Raven: Bullsh*t. That fish isn’t scared of anything. You should hear the way he talks. He was in ‘Nam.
Me: No, he wasn’t “in ‘Nam”! God, I wish he would stop telling people that! I looked all over the neighbourhood for you—people thought I was nuts.
Raven: Serves you right. Besides, my day was no walk in the park. How would you like to have a thermometer shoved up your ass? And “subcutaneous fluids”? Did you know that means a needle in the vein? I thought for a second that it was the end. I was so freaked out that I peed all over the table! It was very undignified.
Me: I can’t believe that I just spent $229.00 at the vet’s because you were sulking…
Raven: Now we’re putting a price on love? You could at least thank me for the free urine test.
Me: You’re a jerk.
Raven: Come here and give me a cuddle.
Me: Screw you….oh, all right.

She’s fine today, back to her old diva-ish self. And from now on, if she wants to drink out of the fish tank, I’ll let Mishima deal with her. Apparently he has combat experience.

Friday: The neighbours go crazy and the cops don’t mind

Last night, Ken came in from walking Titus around 11 o’clock and said, “Some of the neighbours across the corner on main street are having a screaming match. It’s been going on for a while and it sounds pretty serious.” T and I had been watching Aliens (with Sigourney Weaver), and there’s a LOT of screaming and explosions in that movie—about half an hour too many to be honest—so we hadn’t heard anything, but sure enough, when I turned off the TV, I could hear a lot of commotion, and by commotion, I mean people screaming F*ck at each other A LOT. So we did what any reasonable people would do—we watched and listened out the windows. We couldn’t really see much, the two houses involved being a good 200 feet away and partially blocked by trees, but we could see there was a bit of a crowd. And we could DEFINITELY hear what was going on. Namely two guys (we know who they are, but you won’t, so we’ll call them Gas Station Kid and Restaurant Daughter’s Husband) going at it in grand style, while onlookers (mostly female from the sound of it) screamed at each of them, thusly:

Kid: This is why your f*ing wife left you!
Husband: Get the f*ck off my property!
Kid: You’re a f*ing asshole!
Husband: Bring it on, mother*cker!
Woman: You shut the f*ck up!

And so on. It was kind of amusing at first, but then it got a little scary, as things started to get more heated and seemed to be moving from posturing to actual violence, at which point, I said to Ken, “Do you think we should call 911?” Just as I said it though, there was a tussle, a girl screamed, someone was yelling Help!, a child started crying, and one of the onlookers yelled, “Call 911! Call 911!” so I figured THAT was taken care of. While we waited for the police to arrive, we gleaned from the continued screaming that one of the men, not sure which, had hit one of the female bystanders who, according to the guy, had come at him and hit him first, so it was technically self-defence, and that he had “never done anything like that in his f*ing life” (hit a woman? hit anyone? annoyed his neighbours? It wasn’t clear). Then we saw lights coming, and were initially relieved, but the light was green and mounted on the dashboard of a pick-up truck, which means only one thing.

“WTF!” I said to Ken. “They’ve dispatched a VOLUNTEER FIREFIGHTER to this mess?!”

I could only imagine the poor schlub behind the wheel, thinking he was going to check out a potential accident or fire, and arriving at THAT scene. Needless to say, he stayed in the truck—who could blame him? It was definitely above his pay grade, being a volunteer who didn’t actually GET paid and all—and his presence had no effect AT ALL on the street war. After about ten minutes of more screaming, door slamming, and threats like, “How’d you like it if one hundred f*cking Harley Davidsons pulled up to your door?!” (was it a noise threat? because those things are LOUD), we saw more lights. Could it finally be the police? But no. This time it was a firetruck. A single firetruck, a tanker truck to be more specific, which drove past the scene, past our house, then turned around and parked at the corner of the main street. “What do you think the plan is?” asked Ken. “Are they going to water cannon them?”

The firetruck seemed to be a little more intimidating though—and I say FIRETRUCK as opposed to FIREFIGHTERS, because, just like the volunteer vehicle, no one got out of it and it was just SITTING there—the crowd began to disperse, and people started to disappear into their respective houses. Within a few minutes, the street was silent, the only movement the flashing red lights of the fire truck. After another ten minutes, during which Ken and I had gone to bed, we could hear the firetruck leaving, so Ken went to see if that meant the police had finally shown up. Nope. Now don’t get me wrong—I have tremendous respect for the police and what they do, but in a case like this—two hours of screaming and swearing, at least one assault, children crying, and threats being made— I would have hoped the cops would be the FIRST to be dispatched to the scene, not a volunteer firefighter from town whose job is most definitely NOT breaking up mobs of angry, violent people. This morning, everything is calm, mainly because it’s early and no one is up yet, but who knows what the day will bring. One hundred f*cking Harley Davidsons, maybe.

Monday: I start the day as a computer expert and end it trapped in a dress

I got back to work on Monday after having been on a mini-vacation for over a week. In the meantime, someone from IT had moved my computer to my new workstation, and had set it up for me. I went to a meeting about writing a report first (which was the reason I went back in the first place), and it was weird because I realized that I didn’t know half of the people there even though they all seemed like they’d been coming to meetings with me for years the way we were all making small talk, kidding my director about the baking he did on the weekend, and giving each other knowing looks. Then suddenly my director asked me if I knew everyone, so I had no choice but to do what I always do in a case like that—I just smiled and said “Yes, sure,” because it’s so awkward to be like, “No, I have no clue” when you’ve been joking around and laughing with total strangers for the last five minutes. But one of my colleagues looked at me and was like, “No, I don’t actually know you,” which I thought was pretty much throwing me under the bus in a very verbally blunt and highly accented way, and then everyone introduced each other. Which would have been fine, except they just said their names, not what they did, not their “rank” or whatever, so I’d know who to defer to—in fact, it was even worse because one woman, after introducing herself, said “I’m the new Michael”, and then I had to also pretend that I knew who the hell Michael was, which I obviously didn’t. So I said, “Oh, that must be why I haven’t met you yet—I’ve been away for over a week,” to which she replied, “I’ve been here for three months.” Long awkward pause. Finally the meeting started, and ended, and I could get down to the report writing. Except I couldn’t, because when I turned on my computer, it said it couldn’t connect something or other and to “contact my system administrator”. I thought for a minute that maybe THAT’S who Michael was, and this was my colleague’s revenge on me for not paying attention when she started working with us, but no, it was just my computer being a dick. Then the computer screen went completely white, so I did what any reasonable person would do—I shut it off, then turned it back on. Because if you ever have computer issues, or cell phone issues, or air conditioning issues, or even toaster issues, the first thing any expert will tell you to do is to shut it off/unplug it, then restart it. Which doesn’t seem very expert-like to me, and I don’t think you need a lot of schooling to give out those instructions, but then when my computer came back on, it said the same thing, and this time the computer screen went completely black, with only the cursor shivering in a corner, so I figured I should contact IT (which technically stands for Information Technology, but basically means a person who is an expert with computers. And also toner cartridges). But I had to find another computer first, because apparently, it’s faster to email IT than to walk down and try to find them in the maze of cubicles on the floor below where I work (I tried to actually find them once, but I got totally lost and I had to ask someone, who said, “They’re over by the kitchen”, and I was like “Kitchen?! We have a KITCHEN?” so I gave up, having neglected to leave a trail of breadcrumbs to find my way back). Sure enough, after about ½ an hour, a very nice young tech came up to look at it. The first thing he said was, “Hmmm. It shouldn’t be doing that”, and I was like “Really?! That’s what I thought too!” Then it occurred to me that maybe, without even knowing it, I was also an IT tech person, because not only did I instinctively know that my computer shouldn’t be doing what it was doing, I also was able to turn my computer on and off LIKE A BOSS. But then he sat down and started fiddling with it, so I thought he probably had some post-graduate training that I had opted not to unknowingly take, and I started using the computer at the next station while I waited. When I turned around to see if he’d made any progress, he was standing there with my tower under his arm. We looked at each other and he shrugged sympathetically and said, “It’s broken. I’ll get you another one”, and I realized that I MUST be an IT tech because not only did I understand his fancy jargon, he and I were totally on the same wavelength there.

But while I might have mad computer skills and knowledge, I discovered later that I’m not so good at doing things like judging what might fit me, or how to get in and out of clothing. I went shopping after work with my sister-in-law, because we’re all going on vacation to Spain together, and she was insistent that I get “comfortable walking shoes”, which I said begs the questions “If I’m on vacation, why the hell am I walking?” because to me, vacation means lying on my back and doing nothing more strenuous than signalling the waiter for another drink. But she has travelled the world and knows what she’s talking about, so I totally trust her. I dropped a sh*tload of money on a pair of shoes that didn’t look like much, but she assured me “they’ll go with anything and you’ll be able to walk for HOURS”. Whut?! Then we tried on hats, and I discovered also that I’m not a “hat person”, judging by the way she giggled at me whenever I tried anything on that I thought was cute. “A little too floppy”, she would say, and I wasn’t sure if she meant the hat or my head. Spain is supposed to be hot—in fact, whenever I tell ANYONE I’m going to Spain, the first thing they say is “Ooh, it’s going to be hot.” So we decided to buy sundresses. I tried one on and quite liked it, and as I was paying for it, the schmoozy sales guy, who had previously told me how good the sundress looked on me, which I would have taken as a compliment but I think he works on commission, told us that they were having a “buy one get one half price sale” and that I should get another one. I was running out of energy, so I grabbed another style in my size, figuring that it would surely fit, and paid for both. When I got back to my condo, I decided to try it on and see what it looked like with my new “comfortable” shoes, which were apparently guaranteed to go with anything, even sundresses. I put on the shoes, then I got the dress over my head—it was a little snug, but I managed to pull it down. It didn’t take more than a few seconds to realize that the stretchy elastic at the back was nowhere NEAR stretchy enough, and that I was having trouble breathing. I started to take the dress off, and realized that “off” was going to be WAY more of an issue than “on”. I grabbed the bottom hem and started pulling upwards—the waistband shimmied up towards my armpits so I put my arms over my head to keep pulling from the bottom. That’s when everything went to hell, and the dress turned into a straitjacket. My arms were ensnared in a tight band of fabric, my face was covered with the skirt, and the bottom half of me was blowing in the wind. I tugged. I struggled. I contorted, bending over from the waist and hoping that gravity would help me. It didn’t. Exhausted, I stood in the middle of my bedroom and wondered if someone would eventually find me if I didn’t show up to work the next day, trussed up in rayon like a Thanksgiving turkey. It occurred to me that I could always cut the dress off, that is, if I could get my arms free. Which I couldn’t. Finally, I’d had enough, and gave it one last, Herculean pull. I heard a slight ripping sound, and the dress flew up over my head and across the room, taking my bra with it, leaving me standing there half-naked, wearing only underwear and shoes, panting with exertion. But my feet were comfortable.

Wednesday: I compare Kanye West to Dave Grohl and also to my Dad

So the other day, I was watching the Pan Am games and they announced that Kanye West was going to be performing at the Pan Am Closing Ceremonies, that he would be the big closing act. My first reaction was “Did every other musician on the planet say No?” because frankly, I think it’s a lousy choice. Not because I don’t like rap music—while it’s a bit of a niche market in Canada, and not completely to my taste, there are a lot of fantastic rap artists out there. In fact, I spent a lot of time the other night downloading a group called Die Antwoord, a South African rap group who are absolutely insane, but fascinating all at the same time (if you want a good scare, check out “Ugly Boy”). I’ve always had very diverse musical tastes, even at my age, and will listen to just about anything, even COUNTRY MUSIC (time for my favourite country music joke of all time: what happens when you play a country music record backwards? You get your truck back, your job back, your dog back, and your wife back. But you don’t hear Satan cuz God’s on your side).

But when I heard the Kanye West announcement, I was perturbed for a wide variety of reasons. For example, why not have a Canadian closing act? The Pan Am games are all about showcasing Canadian culture, especially in preparation for a bid for the 2024 Olympic Games, and instead of someone like Shad or Classified, they choose a foreign bit player in a reality show who already gets so much media exposure that the Pan Am games would be nothing to him. Then I made my peace with the idea of an out of country act—why not show the world how Canada embraces internationality?—but I still had problems with Kanye. I know that a lot of people like him, first and foremost Kanye himself, and maybe that’s the ultimate issue: his ego is disproportionate to his musical talent, and as my brother pointed out, “his antics and tantrums are the antithesis of respect and sportsmanlike behaviour “(He posted that on Facebook. My brother is a lawyer and actually talks like that all the time because he has a Ph. D. from Oxford, so he knows his shit. Unlike me, who would have used swear words.) One of the things that Kanye West is currently very well known for occurred recently at the Glastonbury music festival, where he ended his set by butchering “Bohemian Rhapsody”, one of the best songs ever written, and then proclaimed that he was “the world’s greatest living rock star”. I didn’t know that rap counted as rock, but whatever; it’s still a pretty big claim to make. So I did a little research on the topic of Kanye West, but I thought it would only be fair if I put it into some context. I pondered for a while: Who do I think really IS the greatest living rock star so I could compare the two, and the choice was instantly clear: Dave Grohl, lead singer of the Foo Fighters, and former drummer of Nirvana. And now, for your reading pleasure, I have created a comparison chart to prove that Dave Grohl is, if not THE greatest living rock star, at least a GREATER living rock star than Kanye West:

Dave Grohl	Kanye West
Can sing – the main criteria for being a rock star in my opinion	Can’t sing – as evidenced by his crap rendition of Bohemian Rhapsody, and relying on the audience to hit the high notes for him.
Doesn’t rap, but probably could if he wanted to, and respects rappers	Is a decent rapper, but he’s no Tupac
Plays several instruments, including drums and a variety of guitars	I saw him play a few chords on a piano once, but he messed up the ending. I’m sure if he wanted to though, he could learn to play every instrument on the planet in two hours because he’s Kanye and he’s that smart.
Created a documentary series called ”Sound City” where he recorded songs in several American cities with local musicians and producers, then celebrated the musical history of each city, proving that not only is he an amazing musician but a historian as well.	Thinks Coldplay are better than the Beatles. Said in an interview that he’s too busy writing history to read it—or worry about it, based on his subsequent statement that he “likes to create against the past…Michaelangelo, Picasso, and you know, the pyramids”.
When you Google “Things Dave Grohl says”, the first few hits are Brainyquotes, “The Silver Tongue of Dave Grohl”, “Reasons Why Dave Grohl Is Awesome”, and “Inspirational Dave Grohl Quotes”.	When you Google “Things Kanye West says”, the first few hits are “Kanye West Quotes That Completely Baffled Us”, “14 Increasingly Stupid Things Kanye West Has Said”, “Top Dumb Kanye West Quotes Compilation”, and “Shit Kanye Says”.
Recently started his latest tour with The Foo Fighters by falling off the stage and badly breaking his leg. Instead of calling off the show, he reappeared in a a wheelchair with a temporary cast on, and continued the set. The tour has gone on, renamed as The Broken Leg Tour.	Recently stopped a show dead to yell at two audience members for not standing up and dancing. A roadie had to tell him that they were both in wheelchairs and couldn’t get up.
He named his children Harper, Violet, and Ophelia	He named his daughter North. NORTH WEST. Yes, Kanye, we get it.
Builds up and has tremendous respect for other musicians; in fact, when The Foo Fighters had to cancel their headlining show at Glastonbury because of his broken leg and he was asked about Kanye West replacing him, he said that it could be the greatest gig of all time.	Consistently interrupts other musicians receiving awards to tear them down, self-promote, and embarrass the musicians HE thinks should have won.

Sure, maybe I’m picking and choosing a little, but if you spend any time at all investigating these two guys, it becomes patently obvious that Dave Grohl cares more about music and musicianship than Kanye West. Which makes him, hands down, the GREATER living rock star. In fact, MOST people are greater than Kanye West. Case in point—my own dad. Like Dave Grohl, he’s a better singer than Kanye, although he prefers opera. He can also rap—well, it sounds like rap when he’s had a few scotches and starts to talk really fast with that Scottish accent. Kanye says he “rocks a bespoke suit” and is a “tastemaker”? Well, my dad looks pretty natty in his tuxedo, which he brings out for special occasions like dining with the Captain on a cruise ship. That’s right, Kanye—THE CAPTAIN. And maybe my dad doesn’t play an instrument either, but he can whistle REALLY well. He’s super smart—truth—and not just because he SAYS he is. He always gets the answers right on Jeopardy, and wins so fast at Trivial Pursuit that we all get mad at him. Kanye admittedly doesn’t read books, and “wouldn’t want a book’s autograph”, which doesn’t even make any sense, while my dad is an avid reader. And a shout-out to my mom—she’s also smart and can sing, and she hasn’t had any work done like Kim Kardashian, but she looks great and could probably balance a martini glass on her ass if you asked her to. But you wouldn’t. Because she’s a respectable English lady like the Queen, and you wouldn’t ask the Queen to balance a martini glass on HER ass, would you?! Dave Grohl wouldn’t. But I’ll bet Kanye would.

Thursday: I have key misadventures

On Thursday, my mom and I went to the cottage. We were planning a very cool “girl’s night”, even though technically neither of us are girls anymore. It was an hour’s drive to get there, and we had loaded up on snack food, wine, and other “girl’s night” things, like more wine. We pulled into the driveway, and I reached into the back seat to pull the cottage keys from my purse. But they weren’t IN my purse. They weren’t in any part of my purse, and they weren’t in the glove compartment. WTF?! I asked my mom if she had a key to our cottage and she said, “Yes…”, and I was so happy for a minute, then she said, “…in our car. Back home with your dad.” I stood there for a minute considering options. I knew that there were several people who had an extra key to our place. First call—my brother, whose cottage was just down the road and who I was sure had a key. No answer. Mom and I drove down to his place while we waited, Mom sure that he had a key to HIS place in the BBQ so that we could get in. She also had a key to his place, but guess where it was? In their car back at home with Dad. We wandered around my brother’s place for a while, but no luck—the bbq was empty, and all rocks overturned had nothing under them. Then he called back and verified that No, he didn’t have one. In the meantime, though, we had discovered that his front door was wide open, although the screen door was latched. But I didn’t have a key to HIS place so that I could go in and shut the front door because it was on MY key chain. Which was missing. When I asked him if he wanted me to cut a hole in the screen and unhook the screen door, he was like, “NO!!! GOD NO!!”. Ok, maybe not that freaked out, but pretty adamant that he didn’t want me to do that. Then he said his electrician had a key, and to call him to come over. I realized that Lloyd also had a key to my place. Eureka! But he didn’t answer his phone. Neither did the local contractor, who also had a key that he kept for convenience. For CONVENIENCE—like when it’s convenient to give it to me! My aunt had a key, but she was out of town. I called her anyway, but she didn’t have a key to HER place hidden outside anywhere so that I could get in her house to get MY key. End result—I was keyless and cottageless. We had no choice but to come back home, where I was terrified that I was going to find the lanyard with my keys hanging on a hook by the door. But no. I scoured the house, but there was no sign of them. The next day, I went back to the cottage with Ken’s keys, certain that I must have accidentally locked them inside, but they weren’t there either. It’s four days later, and the keys have yet to appear. I realize that this blog entry isn’t very funny, but it’s true to life, and sometimes life isn’t funny, it’s just kind of absurd. So to make up for the lack of humour, here’s the conversation that Ken, Kate, and I had today:

Ken: Hey Kate—your mom and I are going to compete in the 2024 Pan Am Senior Games!
Me: What the hell, Ken! I told you that was going to be my blog topic this week. How am I supposed to blog about that now, when you’ve already told everyone about it?! You posted it on Facebook yesterday, and then you’re telling HER now? That’s like EVERYONE who even reads my blog!
Ken: You can still write about it…I’m sure not everyone who reads your blog saw it.
Me: What would I say? You attached a link to all the sports. You spoiled the surprise. Stop stealing my ideas. Now I know how all those guys felt when Shakespeare took their poems and turned them into plays.
Ken: *sighs and rolls eyes* OK, honey.

I try to make sense of the Pan Am Opening Ceremonies

On Friday night, Ken and I were all excited about watching the opening ceremonies of the Pan Am games. It’s a huge moment for Canadian culture and sports, and everyone was talking about how amazing it was going to be. Amazing yes, but also very random and confusing. I knew it was going to be a weird night when the flag was carried in by Mounties, and the pianist, who was described as “adlibbing” his accompaniment was wearing a bathrobe and slippers. I know that Canadians love “Casual Friday”, but really? Then the athletes started to come in. It made sense for a minute, then after Ecuador, the United States team entered. I have a pretty good grasp of the order of letters in the alphabet, and Ken and I were initially very confused, until we realized that, while the announcers were calling the team names in English, they were in FRENCH alphabetical order. I can only imagine how bewildered the athletes were at this, since out of 41 participating countries, Canada (and maybe Haiti—were they even there?) is the only country where French is an official language. I can just see the Americans shaking their heads and saying, “Don’t even ask. It’s Canada, remember? They don’t like guns and let gay people get married—their alphabet is probably f*cked up too.” Then the Canadian team came in—I was really proud, but also a little curious about their uniforms, because the pants looked like they’d been designed by MC Hammer. But it was great and patriotic, and the athletes, when they weren’t texting, tweeting, and taking selfies, seemed really happy to be there. But if I thought things had been a little random up to now, just wait. It was time for the Cirque du Soleil, or as I like to call them, “Cirque du WTF?!” Here, in some semblance of order, is what I think I saw. I’m still not really sure.

• Hundreds of small children enter with Ikea floor lamps. “Ikea” is Swedish for “common sense”. Is this irony? They are accompanied by a ballerina called The Guardian of the Javelin. She has a javelin—that’s how I know that she is the guardian OF it. Otherwise, she just pirouettes around while the children dance with their lamps. The announcer says they are “learning to overcome obstacles”. With Ikea floor lamps. I pour a drink.
• The children disappear, and a group of lacrosse players arrive. They do some crazy ass version of the Haka, while a guy wearing what looks like a meat mask does gymnastics. Also, a woman at the side of the stage spins a flaming hula hoop. This is “the origin of sport in Canada”. I pour another drink.
• A group of shiny faced robot men dance around the stage. One of them freaks out over a giant radio, while another opens a golf umbrella. The announcer tells us that this is “Canada’s tribute to love songs”.
• Giant shower curtains rise above the stage. A group of people who seem to be wearing gospel robes emerges from them. No, wait—the gospel robes are actually shower curtains which they are wearing like capes. Underneath, they are wearing towels. The announcer mutters something about “Hearts in Bloom”. He sounds dubious. I pour another drink.
• A character who looks like he just came out of a Mad Max movie arrives and starts glaring at everyone. The announcer states, without snickering, that this scene “represents the storm of both doubt and possibility, while the sky rains confessions.” The shower people continue to dance, while men on giant ladders swing around them. The shower people find piles of clothes and start throwing them in the air.
• Mad Max looks like he just found out that his water tanker is full of sand i.e.: very pissed off. The announcer says, “Reality approaches…” while the shower people find shoes and put them on.
• A Santa’s Village train comes on stage. The announcer says, “The Train of Life—like a thread from coast to coast…the arduous path…” I lose track because the train is so cute. Suddenly the lacrosse players are back. They look really sad. The announcer says something about “costumes underscore athletic vocation…” He sounds like he has no idea what he’s saying. I pour another drink.
• The “Guardian of the Discus appears to “inspire them to build a strong country and stable future”. He looks like the Riddler from Batman and is carrying a bar tray.

At this point, things get really random: BMX bikers start riding around wearing construction hard hats; two Michael Jackson look-alikes bounce on bungee cords while directing air traffic; the lacrosse players look like they are auditioning for So You Think You Can Dance. Suddenly, the announcer calls out, “The Moment of Truth approaches!” We’re on Yonge Street, “the final destination—the birth of unity and the realization of a dream!” He sounds really happy, especially about the “final destination” part. Then there’s a flurry of activity—shower people and lacrosse players dance; guys on treadmills atop Skyjacks run; a woman dressed like a Barbie Princess twirls; male strippers pole dance; there’s a giant lollipop tree; finally, Zoltar the Invincible appears wearing a helmet and cape and looks on as the torch is finally passed to Steve Nash, who lights the cauldron. I wonder if the people in the audience had the privilege of hearing the voice-over narration or were they just sitting there completely unaware that this represented the “Canadian Journey”. Because if you didn’t know that, you could never have made sense of any of it.

After that, it was pretty downhill, as the speeches progressed (even the announcer said things were “starting to lag”). One man informed the audience that Toronto was “in the heart of the Americas and the Carribean”. I suggested to Ken that perhaps he should have consulted a map first. There were two sign language interpreters, and at first Ken and I both thought one of them might be fake, because they were NOT signing the same things, but then we realized that one (the woman super-enthusiastically waving her hands around) must be French and the other (who looked bored) was English. Then a lovely, very old man came to the microphone. I think Spanish was his first language, but whatever it was, his English was a little spotty. He started speaking English first, and at some point, he seemed to be thanking the media, and said something about “the relentless fight against doping”. But he went on for quite a while, and Ken and I had this conversation:

Me: Who IS this guy?
Ken: I don’t actually know.
Me: What language is he speaking right now?
Ken: Uh…English?
Me (a few minutes later): Is he still speaking English?
Ken: No, I think he switched to…Spanish?
Me: The interpreters look confused. I’m telling you, I think they’re just making shit up right now. Deaf people all over Canada are getting the season summary of Game of Thrones. “Then Jon Snow brought a group of wildlings back to Castle Black…”

He finally finished speaking. At some point, the CN tower exploded in a shower of fireworks—I’m not sure when, because I may or may not have had several glasses of wine. At any rate, it was a spectacle, and something to be proud of, no doubt about it, even if no one understood it. But that’s Canada for you—anti-gun laws, gay marriage, and subtle symbolism.

Wednesday: Wearable technology for pets

On Wednesday morning, I was watching Canada AM. I never get the chance to do this normally, and believe me, it wasn’t by choice, but I’m on a mini-holiday, and of course, thanks to Ken and Titus getting up, running around, then jumping back onto the bed—yes, both of them—I woke up WAY earlier than I had intended to. I tried to get back to sleep, but then Titus suddenly disappeared, and I heard the distinct sound of him knocking things over and eating. And since it was coming from the office, and Ken showed absolutely no interest in what was happening, that left it up to me to find out what the monster dog was up to. Sure enough, he had found K’s leftover Hungry Man container from the night before and was dragging it, and its contents, around the office floor. To make matters worse, as I was trying to get the container away from Titus, I stepped in cold, mushy corn, and just about lost my sh*t, because it was kind of like stepping in cat puke, which I have also had the misfortune of doing on more than one occasion. So there was no chance in hell that I was getting back to sleep any time soon. After I washed the corn off my foot, I decided to go downstairs and watch TV, but there’s nothing decent on at that time of the morning, except for uber-cheery morning show hosts who run through the usual assortment of even more ecstatic guests, like the guy who shows you how to “grill” portobello mushrooms (to the rest of us, this means barbeque), the woman who excitedly talks about the latest fall fashions (because obviously it’s the beginning of July, so who WOULDN’T want to talk about the impending onslaught of cold weather?), and other random but equally happy people who obviously have no night life if they’re up this early and not pissed about it, like I was. Anyway, to make a long story short, I was grumpily watching Canada AM, and the host started interviewing this guy who was hawking “Wearable Tech For Your Dog”. She was as flummoxed as me, and we both said, kind of simultaneously, “What exactly is that?!” Except she said it in a really happy, interested way, and I may or may not have included one or more F words in my query. It turns out that wearable tech for your dog is the kind of thing you might find in the Hammacher Schlemmer catalogue, in among the heated outdoor cathouses and giant celebrity robots—in other words, something that a person with more money than brains would buy. For example, for the low cost of $119.00, you can buy the equivalent of a Fitbit for your canine pal, so that you can track the number of steps it takes in a day. I don’t need to spend ANY money to know that Titus puts in a lot of steps running between the door, the supper dish, and every garbage can in the house looking for food, and I have no interest in knowing the exact number—in fact, it would probably scare me how much energy he puts into doing that. In addition, for $149.00 plus an additional monthly fee to access the app that you need to use it, you can buy a health monitor that attaches to your dog’s collar and measures heartrate, respiration, blood pressure, and so on. Why the hell would you want to do this? Well, the techie guy explained that if your dog got sick, you would already have important information to help the vet make a diagnosis. Call me a little mercenary if you want, but doesn’t the vet get PAID to do all that? Do you really think the vet is going to be like, “Thanks so much for the extra, helpful information—I’m going to reduce your bill by 20%?” Just like I expect the cashier to bag my groceries if I have to buy the plastic bag, I expect the vet to work for his fee. Plus, I already worry enough about Titus (two nights ago, I was convinced for about ten seconds that he was actually dead until he finally opened one eye, looked at me dismissively, and went back to sleep), so I would probably spend way more time than I should obsessing about the monitor, which ironically, for 150 bucks could have clarified the whole “Titus is dead!” incident a lot more quickly than me poking him and screaming “Titus!!” at him for several terrible moments. Finally, for $199, you can get a GPS tracker for your dog. This, explained the techie, is the ideal way to locate your dog if it goes missing. I have something similar for Titus—it’s called “his name”. If I can’t see him anywhere, I say it loudly, and he miraculously reappears. Personally, I think it would be better to have a GPS tracker for your cat, judging by the number of missing cats on various local buy and sell sites. It makes absolutely no sense to me that people let their cats outside in the first place—why would you let an animal that exhibits absolutely no loyalty to you wander around the neighbourhood, then act shocked when it doesn’t come home? So a Cat GPS would at least give you some peace of mind, like “Where’s Tinker?! Oh wait…the GPS shows she’s down the street, sucking up to Mrs. Smith for a bowl of milk—AGAIN.” The only piece of wearable tech I would ever want to see on a dog is something that could translate its thoughts, although if most dogs are anything like mine, it would pretty much just always say “This is the best day EVER!!”, every day. Either that, or “Sorry for eating the garbage.”

Friday: Wedding vows you didn’t make but should have

Sometimes I make notes on my Iphone about things during the week that interest me or amuse me so that I have something to write about on the weekend. Yesterday, I was looking at my phone and it said, “Wedding vows you should have made but didn’t: I won’t puke on your hand”. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember the context for that. I mean, it makes total sense, and I remember it coming up in conversation, but still, I had no idea what it was about and neither did Ken, since neither of us have EVER puked on each other, either deliberately or by accident. Still, with our 25th wedding anniversary coming up this week, I thought it might be appropriate to consider OTHER vows that in retrospect, we could have made to each other, instead of the boring, traditional sh*t.

Ken: I promise to love and honour you. I also promise not to make fun of you every time you see a hawk on a hydro line and yell out, “Look, Ken—an owl!”, even though I’ve told you a hundred times that owls are nocturnal and don’t roost on power lines. I promise to always straighten up throw pillows, rugs, and to always smooth out the comforter after you’ve “just made the bed” when I then sit on it to put on my socks. I promise not to move ornaments out of place. I promise to eat quinoa, or whatever you tell me to, because it’s “good for me”. Finally, I promise to appreciate your slightly obsessive nature, because I know it just means you care about EVERYTHING, even if it’s sometimes nitpicky and annoying.

Me: I promise to love and honour you, too. I also promise not to make too much fun of your weird taste in music, even though no one in their right mind puts Stomping Tom Connors and Nine Inch Nails on the same mixed CD. I promise to make sure you dress appropriately, that you don’t wear pink and red together, and that I will look up words on your T-shirts on Urbandictionary.com to make sure they don’t have alternative, dirty meanings. I promise to take your decorating ideas into consideration, and when I dismiss them, I promise to do it nicely. I promise to always hold the ladder so you don’t fall off, even when you’re only up a few steps, or at least to keep asking you if you’re OK. Finally, I promise to always appreciate your wonderful sense of whimsy and your immense creativity, even when it distracts you from cleaning up the closet in your office.

Happy Anniversary, honey:-)

Monday: The lengths lonely men will go to

Earlier this week, I posted on Facebook that I thought there was nothing creepier than men who hung out in the women’s underwear section at Marshall’s. There were a lot of funny comments, especially from people who assumed I meant Ken. But he defended himself staunchly and the scandal soon abated. The bigger issue, though, is how I came to be in the underwear section at Marshall’s. Not that shopping for underwear is unusual, but I normally do it once a year, buy 25 pairs of the same thing in different colours, then I’m good to go for a while (ie technically, I would only have to do laundry 15 times a year). But now that I’m dividing my time between home and Toronto, I’ve had to also divide my lady wear. I keep them in two wooden boxes in my walk-in closet—one for upper garments and one for lower. When I first moved in, I just kept them on an open shelf, but then I had some friends from work over who wanted a tour (my condo is 624 square feet so it didn’t take very long). As they passed the walk-in closet, the door of which was wide open, I realized to my horror that if anyone looked inside, my “intimates” would no longer be fit to be called by that name. So I hastily shut the closet door—nothing to see here, folks!—and got the wooden boxes for storage. The problem is, the boxes are on the top shelf and I can’t actually see into them, so I just feel around and grab what I need. Unfortunately, on Monday morning, I reached into the box, rummaged around, and discovered that the box was empty. Apparently, I had miscalculated the ratio of underwear to days in the week. I had 10 minutes to get dressed and get to work, so I was stuck and my options were severely limited, as you can well imagine. I won’t tell you the decision I ultimately made—I leave that up to you and what you would do in similar circumstances. Which leads me, literally, to the underwear section at Marshall’s, having decided that some back-up items were an absolute necessity. I went through the racks, but the trouble with places like Marshall’s and Winners is that the selection is sometimes pretty sparse. I know I’d have better luck in a big mall, but I can’t stand the Eaton Centre with its noise, and all the crazy people who stand outside trying to sell you things, get money from you, or try to convert you to their cults (yes, I’m talking to YOU, Scientologists). At any rate, as I was perusing the limited goods, I realized that there were at least two men just HANGING OUT around the racks, one on one side, and the other near the window. Now, the lingerie area at Marshall’s is in the far corner, so it’s not like these guys got lost on their way to power tools or something, and the only other woman there was very elderly, and obviously not married to either, or both, of them. And it got me thinking—is this, like, the new pick-up spot? It makes sense, I suppose—you can tell a lot about a woman based on the type of underwear she buys: thongs, for those who might be a little adventurous, or just can’t stand too many layers of fabric on their posteriors (I once had a friend who said she wore thongs because her underwear “always ended up in her butt crack anyway, so why not just minimize the bunching?”), boy briefs for the sporty sisters, regular briefs for the traditionalists, and of course, granny panties for those who prefer comfort to style, or are actually grannies. So maybe these guys were playing the smart game, looking for someone compatible in a kind of weird, psychologically astute way. Or maybe they were just lonely creeps, fantasizing that someday, a woman would hold up a pair of frilly panties and ask, “Hey there, hot stuff–what do you think of these?”, and it would be the start of a beautiful relationship. Can you imagine 10 years down the road, when the kids ask, “So how did you and Mommy meet?” Who’s to say? All I know is that it made me really uncomfortable, like every time I started to reach for something, I imagined an intake of anticipatory breath and shifty eyes following my hand to see where it went. Ick. Next time I’m going to Victoria’s Secret, where the guys who hang out there actually work there, wear eyeliner, and help you find stuff in a “not looking for a hook-up” kind of way.