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ShinyHappy - Thoughts for July 4th - 13th
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07/13/05 'Sluggardly' is a word that means 'lazily inactive'!
It is very stormy outside. It's been storming for hours and hours and hours. Andrew and I were watching some television tonight just after ten or so and had been aware that there was a storm going on for a while. Suddenly the power flickered majorly. The television was cutting out and back on and the lights were dimming and flickering. I looked out the window and saw the weirdest thing. The whole area of sky to the west of us was lit up with a bizarre green glow that was kind of pulsing and flickering. It lasted a long, long time and it wasn't like lightning. We turned off all the lights and electronics in the room and watched out the window. The green glow went away, but there was a pretty intense lightning show for a very long time afterward so we sat in the dark and watched it and listened to the thunder.
I'm glad that neither of us is frightened by electrical storms. Mong wasn't especially thrilled with it, but he wasn't very scared either. He just seemed a little cautious about it.
Earlier today I suddenly craved a Nutella toast sandwich. I don't often crave Nutella sandwiches, but when I do I really, really do. I knew that we had a full jar of Nutella in the cupboard, so I mentioned to Andrew on my way into the kitchen that I was about to prepare myself a delicious snack of Nutella on toast. He called after me that there was still a jar in the cupboard that had Nutella in it and that I should use it up before opening the new jar. I am not an unreasonable person, so I explored this sensible-sounding option. Please look at the Nutella jar in question:
Being not unreasonable does not mean that I refrained from expressing my incredulity over the pathetic scrapings left in the jar and Andrew's apparent assumption that I should spend half an hour with a knife trying to winkle them out so that I could put every tiny atom of Nutella to use. I expressed it. Extensively. Then I presented Andrew with the empty jar and a spoon so that he could be the one to enjoy the pathetic scrapings, after which I opened the fresh new jar of Nutella and enjoyed the abundance of Nutella therein. Mmmm. Andrew mentioned that he wishes there was a Nutella chocolate bar. You know; like a Caramilk bar but with Nutella instead of caramel. That sounds pretty good to me, too, but I think that caramel should also be included.
Otherwise not a heck of a lot else happened that's weblog-worthy today. Andrew and I were going to go to the Bluesfest tonight since his dad had given us some tickets to it, but it was so ridiculously hot out and we were both so sluggardly as a result that we didn't go. I'm kind of amazed at how hot it is. It's so very, very hot. Mong at least seems to be getting a bit more used to the heat and while he still lies around a lot, he also still plays with us and his toys. He hasn't yet managed to get himself entirely inside the Coca Cola box but it might have been too hot for that today, honestly. Not too hot to attack many ankles and sleep on dining room tables, fortunately:
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07/12/05 Yes, I'm jealous. It is so small and white!
One of the big reasons we had to go to Toronto this weekend was because Andrew had to buy a computer. Not just any computer. He had to buy an iBook. For work, you understand. Ahem.
Seriously, his boss said he had to have a laptop so she cut him a cheque to go off and buy a shiny new small white computer for doing work on. The deal is that when Andrew's contract is up he'll buy it back from her less the cost of the use he's gotten out of it. It's very small and white and shiny and Mongkut has already tried to lay claim to it:
See how cool, sophisticated and laid-back he looks lounging on the expensive new
toypiece of equipment? Well, here he is just a few hours later proving that he barely has two brain cells to rub together:
His fat ass will not fit in this box without something giving way, and I'm betting it won't be his ass.
Sadly, I must report that we've lost the Battle of the Dining Room Table. Not that it was much of a battle to begin with, but since all the art and school stuff has been cleared away Mong has really made it his turf and I've quit trying to chase him down from it all the time, hence the first picture of the night depicting him comfortably lounging with the new addition to the family. The last picture for today is of Mong looking fat and contented on 'his' dining room table:
Tonight we went to see Batman Begins with Colin and Jen. I'd been wanting to see it for quite a while and I'm glad to report that I wasn't disappointed at all. It wasn't totally true to the comic book stories, but it was close enough. One actor in it caught my attention. Not in what I'd call a 'good way', but in a way that the actor might appreciate. He was really creepy and disturbing, much like Elijah Wood in Sin City. This actor's name is Cillian Murphy and he had the same blue-eyed, black-haired moppet/serial killer vibe. Ugh. Good job, since that's what the character was definitely supposed to do. Thanks for going out with us, Colin and Jen!
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We are home from our fabulous visit to Toronto. I love going to that city. When we drive there we take highway 7 and it's a beautiful drive at this time of year. Lots of the hay fields are full of round bales right now and they look so picturesque, especially when the fields are kind of rolling and asymmetrical. Around the Peterborough area it's gorgeous. On our way home today I saw a gallery I'd like to visit, so Andrew suggested that in the (hopefully near) future we take an entire day to drive to Toronto sometime and just stop in at some of the many little places that look interesting. I think it'd be fun.
Seeing our friends was also lovely. We got to see even more of Marcus than we'd expected! On Saturday May and I were helping Shannon look around my old neighbourhood for likely apartment locations since she's moving to TO in the fall, and Marcus met us while we wandered around. That was a lot of fun. Marcus and I ended up getting ice cream cones at Dutch Dreams and everything was fun and happy and good. I miss my old neighbourhood like crazy and we plan to move back there when we return to Toronto again, so I'll be able to have Dutch Dreams every day! No matter the flavour you get they top it with whipped cream and fresh fruit (kiwi, strawberries, blueberries and pineapple) and it was rather odd with my chocolate peanut butter, let me tell you. Marcus had the grape ice cream. Not grape sherbet; grape ice cream. Apparently there's a difference, and it's an important one. We were given spoons and I used my spoon to eat my ice cream, then I suddenly realized when I finshed my cone that I no longer had my spoon. I was perplexed by this because I had no recollection of throwing it away or putting it anywhere. Then Marcus asked if I'd accidentally eaten the spoon. Har har. Although I did kind of wonder ...
Saturday night we went to see Marcus performing with his band (one of his bands, anyhow) at the Corso Italia Toronto Fiesta. Finding parking was kind of difficult, but we managed to get there. While Andrew and I were wandering around trying to locate where on the street Marcus was performing I saw a wee, tiny bird suddenly flutter down to the ground near where we were. It was brown and white and very scared and helpless looking. I've looked at this page of North American Birds to see if I can find one that looked like it, but haven't looked at every picture yet. Anyhow, I went back to where the bird was crouching down among all the feet (of which there were many) and bent down to see if it would hop on my hand. It almost had a 'pet bird' kind of look to it. It didn't fly away, but it didn't hop on my hand, either. Some other people stopped to look too, and then suddenly one man tried to grab it. Not gently. The bird tried to get away from him and he kept trying to grab it, so I just left. I didn't want to see this poor bird have a heart attack and die because of this guy. I think it was either a pet bird that had gotten loose, or a wild bird that was somehow hurt. Poor thing. :(
Soon after this we saw Marcus arrive for his gig and we talked to him for a couple of minutes, then he had to go perform. We watched him for a while until we saw Dan and May and Noah and Shannon on the other side of the bandstand so went and joined them. Marcus rocked of course. It was the first time I'd seen him perform and he was awesome. Go, Marcus! We had to leave before he was finished so didn't get to say a proper goodbye, but he came over to Dan and May's on Sunday and we all had a big old barbeque, made even nicer by the arrival of Jen F. and getting to watch Noah frolic in the backyard with the pool and sprinkler and water table.
Coming home today was blechy, weather-wise. It was really just stupidly hot and the car does not have air conditioning, so we had to keep the windows wide open for the entire four-hour ride. I'm not the carsick type at all, but this trip made me nauseous. By the time we got home I had a nasty headache and all I wanted was some air conditioning, a cold beverage and some purrs from my Mongokitty. On the way to pick up Andrew's dad we passed a little entrepreneur selling lemonade in his front yard. I seriously could have grabbed the jug and downed the whole thing, but we didn't have time to stop. Sigh. If we'd had the time we would have. It's nice to see that kind of thing still going on in this crazy world. I did get all the three things I wanted when we got home and even though Mong did get up on the mantlepiece in the living room and knock everything down behind the television while we were gone I still love him and was happy to get lots of purrs and kitty boogers from him.
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07/07/05 It's illegal to possess brightly coloured balloons in toronto.
Yay! We are going to Toronto! I want to go to Toronto! We leave tomorrow and are coming back on Monday at some point. This way we also get to see Marcus, who May has assured us is going to be visiting them on Sunday. If that doesn't happen I'll just lay a guilt trip on Marcus at a later date and make him feel bad. It's nice to have a plan.
So, yes. Going to Toronto. Which means that poor Mongie will be here all by his lonesome. Jen will be dropping in on him to make sure he's not incredibly lonely and to scare away any prospective burglars. I bet Mong hopes Colin will be coming over as well since he seems quite fond of him. I'll have to store his rubber ball somewhere safe and tell Jen where it is so she can roll it around in the dining room for him. He loves his rubber ball a lot but loses it pretty easily. We wonder where it is for a while, then find it tucked somewhere random. And sometimes we have no idea where it's been but Mong finds it and starts playing with it again. The nice thing about it is that it's kind of interactive. I'm not sure if Mong thinks it's alive or not, but since it's so bouncy it does unexpected things sometimes. It's also taught us how very uneven our floors are.
Today I went out and did a bit of shopping. When I got home I tossed my purse and sunglasses on the dining room table, but the glasses fell on the floor. I was about to pick them up when Mong ran over and sat down with them. Not on them; just with them. He stuck a paw underneath one of the legs and proceeded to try and look really quite cool. See:
I think he looks like a cool guy, don't you?
I also took off my sandals beside the dining room table and just left them there instead of putting them somewhere sensible like the hall closet or even closer to a wall rather than out in the middle of the room. Mong loves sandals, though, and was probably pleased to have them out and accessible for chewing and lounging on. He once again did one of his most adorable things and combined two playthings that he enjoys for maximum fun:
I think that shows a lot of imagination for a cat. He must be a super-genius or something.
When I got up today one of the first things I found out about was the news of the bombings in London. When the World Trade Center was bombed I woke up for some reason that morning (I was working nights so it was really odd for me to wake up in the morning) and turned on the television because I couldn't sleep. That didn't happen this time, but I spent most of the afternoon reading news online about it. It's so sad that such a positive thing happened for London (hosting the 2012 Olympic Games) and then this. The world; she is messed up.
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07/06/05 That lovable thief. And this time, it's not Mong!
I discovered late last night that the mouse hadn't entirely run off with the ant trap. I went into the kitchen again and saw that now both the traps were now missing from where they'd been. As it turns out there's a spot where the rodent is getting in and out that we did not know about. There's a space between the wall and floor behind the kitchen radiator and the mouse had tried to drag the ant traps in there. They wouldn't fit, and so were kind of wedged there uselessly. I pried them out and set them back where I'd had them in the first place, kind of squeamishly wondering if the mouse had managed to lick any of the poison out.
As of this morning the traps had not been touched, so I began to think that perhaps yes, the mouse had indeed successfully offed itself with peanut butter poison. Later on, though, I found one of the traps again wedged into the crack behind the radiator. Argh. I just left it this time. The ants already seem to be gone, but where it is it can still kill new ants. And maybe, eventually, a wee mouse. I really don't want the mouse to die that way. If Mong caught it and ate it we wouldn't have to dispose of the body or smell it rotting anywhere. Do cats eat the entire mouse when they catch one? I don't really know.
There is also the possibility that more than one mouse is invading our kitchen area, since there seems to be about a million of them downstairs. Anyhow, the mouse/mice still doesn't/don't get into our food, surprisingly enough. It seems that there isn't a way for it/them to climb up to our shelves. Hooray for small blessings, right?
Today I received a lovely package in the mail from my dear friend Jerome. He sent me a book that he appears to have stolen from the school that he teaches at.
It's a Macdonald Starters book. Do you know what these books are? Here's a blurb from the inside of it:
"Macdonald Starters are vocabulary controlled information books for young children. More than ninety per cent of the words in the text will be in the reading vocabulary of the vast majority of young readers. Word and sentence length have also been carefully controlled."
This one was first published in 1971. The topic? Hair. Yes, it's all about hair. It's hilariously funny and I giggled all the way through it. Jen has got to read this! Some of the Hair Vocabulary words listed in the back of the book are: judge, England, pop singer and rhinoceros. Yes, they were all mentioned in the book, funnily enough. Thank you, Jerome!
Not a lot else is going on around here right now. We've got a busy month, weekend-wise. We're trying to work out going to Toronto this weekend if we can. Mimi is going to have her baby this month, too. Well, her due date is the 22nd, so who knows when exactly it's going to happen, right? Whenever she has it, we'll be off to Kingston as soon as possible. Then the last weekend of this month is the big cottage weekend at Colin's family cottage. So, busy weekends but rather boring weekdays.
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07/05/05 Life is never boring.
Over the weekend I suffered from something that I don't usually suffer from: Mosquito bites. Bug bites in general never seem to bother me much. It stings when the bug actually bites me, but I never seem to have any real itching or discomfort after the fact. Except this time I got a couple of mosquito bites in the arch of my foot while we were watching the fireworks on Canada Day and they itched like crazy the entire weekend.
Maysie had been worried about the number of mosquito bites she was getting, too. She suffers from them a lot more than I do, and she told me about a nifty device that she'd heard of and was considering buying that is supposed to help with the itching and stinging of bug bites. I think it's this thing; the ItchZapper. If it's not exactly that, it's the same concept. It works by zapping the bite with heat, which is supposed to break down the proteins in the bug saliva and stop the itching. Apparently until the saliva proteins are broken down the spot will itch no matter what.
My foot was tormenting me. The arch of your foot is a horrid place for itchy bug bites. I kept scratching it and since my foot is very ticklish and sensitive to begin with it made it that much worse for me. Bleah. I recalled the little device that May had been talking about and decided to try the concept. Relief was required! What I did was take a washcloth, fold it twice and run a corner of it under hot water at the bathroom sink. I used it to apply heat to the bite a few times, and voila! The itch went away immediately and never came back! I was kind of amazed, but more relieved than anything. I think it would probably make sense to buy the gadget, however. It's not like I can carry a hot washcloth around with me on canoe trips and whatnot.
In other pest news we have had a rather major ant invasion in our kitchen. Mongkut's food dish has attracted an army of teeny weeny red ants that have been marching briskly to and fro from his bowl to wherever their queen is shacked up. While I don't think it'll kill Mong to eat ants, I still don't like them being in our kitchen so today we went off to buy ant traps. We got the kind that smell like peanut butter and I placed them by the radiator in the kitchen; one underneath it and one in the spot where his food dish sits. I relocated a bowl of food into the hallway where we don't have any ants (so far).
That was all good. I checked the traps and saw ants now marching in and out of them, happily poisoning themselves and running some back to their queen, too. Good little ants. We carried on with life this evening, secure in the knowledge that the ants will die. We were playing some ball with Mong in the dining room when suddenly Andrew shot out of his chair and into the kitchen, holding up a hand for silence when I asked him what was up. He looked very alert and hunter-like and I knew that he'd heard a noise. A mouse noise, perhaps. Mong did not look alert and hunter-like at all as he lazed around playfully in the dining room.
After a few moments of listening and flinging open the lower cupboard doors to see if he could catch the mouse in the act Andrew gave up and returned to the dining room. It wasn't until much later when I went to peek at the ant traps again that I realized the one below the radiator was no longer there. I asked Andrew if he'd relocated it and he said that he had not. So, it seems that our little rodent friend has nicked itself a little deadly treat and we may very well end up with the refreshing aroma of DEAD MOUSE wafting out from some little hidey-hole that we can't get into. I'm not terribly pleased with this development. My only hope is that the mouse will not be able to penetrate the plastic trap. Sigh.
The useless mouse hunter has a way of trying to get our attention when he's really bored. It never fails to make us mad (which doesn't seem to bother him much). He just does it to see what we'll do, I suspect. What he does is he starts trying to pull Andrew's papers and files off the bookshelves. One shelf in particular bears the brunt of this attention. Check him out doing this just a few minutes ago, right before Andrew heaved a sheepskin slipper at his head:
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07/04/05 I think the B.U.M. box is indestructible!
The long weekend was quite long, but it was good. We kept busy and did fun stuff with family and friends. Friday was Canada Day and Andrew's dad's birthday, so we went to his grandparents' place for the annual holiday family get-together and birthday bash. I was incredibly ill last year for this event which wasn't great since it was when we were announcing to all of the family members that didn't know we were engaged that we were engaged. So I basically sat around and tried not to look like I was dying. This year I managed to be much healthier, thankfully, and a good time seemed to be had by all. Jenny brought wedding photos in which she looked incredibly lovely, and Emily brought photos from her trip to Ghana which I unfortunately didn't get a chance to see. I'll just have to harass her until I do, I suppose.
That evening we headed to the arboretum so that we could watch the Canada Day fireworks with our friends. Andrew went with Gav so he could give him directions and I drove over with Colin and Jen. We met Dan and May and Noah there and it was wonderful to see them. Our friends happen to rock. I was kind of nervous that the fireworks weren't going to happen since it was fairly windy out, but they did eventually start and were just as good as the ones last year had been. Jen is especially fun to watch fireworks with since she comments on them and their quality.
The fireworks were followed by hanging out and relaxing back at Colin and Jen's place. We all seemed to be pretty tired, though, so Andrew and I went home a while after midnight. Colin and Jen especially needed their rest since Saturday was their housewarming party. Saturday was also the Live 8 concert which Andrew was really looking forward to seeing at least some of. So, he got up to watch it in the living room on Saturday morning with Mong while I snoozed in the comfy bed. He was really looking forward to seeing Pink Floyd perform, but alas; it was not to be. We had to head over to Colin and Jen's place to celebrate their new home and eat lots of goodies. But mostly to celebrate their new home. So Andrew missed the Pink Floyd performance. Luckily he got to watch the entire thing later on the internet. Multiple times.
The housewarming party was awesome. We brought some wine in a neato wine bag as a housewarming gift. We also brought some vodka coolers since I love me some vodka coolers. I guess we arrived at near four or so and stayed until the very wee hours. It was awesome to meet a lot of the people that Jen and Colin talk about (in the nicest way possible, of course). I was a bit disturbed because there was one woman there whose cat had recently been in a horrible, horrible accident and she talked about to a lot of people who were curious about what had happened and how the cat was doing, so after the first couple of times I tried to avoid hearing about it any more. I am such a wuss when it comes to hearing about animal suffering, whether accidental or through human cruelty. The cat is recovering, thankfully, but I don't even like to think about what happened to the poor thing.
Anyhow, Dan had mentioned to me that he and May wanted to get So Good for dinner. Colin and Jen had bought 84 hot dogs for the party and while hot dogs are delicious (in my opinion), we really, really wanted some So Good later in the day. So despite being stuffed full of party food we did get our wonderful meal and I thought perhaps I might die from overeating of the incredibly good food. So Good is the best Chinese food I've ever eaten. Ever. Seriously. It's So Good.
On Sunday Jenny was still in town so she came over and we went out for dinner with her to Feleena's for Mexican food, then to Bridgehead for some organic beverages. I got cold iced green tea and after sipping it thought that cold green tea needs a little sweetness. I regretted it, though. The sugar made it taste weird and unhealthy. It was lovely to sit and hang out and have a long, leisurely conversation with Jenny which is something that the three of us don't often get to do. She had to rush off to catch a bus back to Montreal after Bridgehead. Andrew walked her to the station where the wait for the bus was apparently kind of crazy. We nearly ended up driving her to Montreal instead, but a couple of extra buses arrived and she was able to get on one.
All in all it was a lovely weekend. I'd kind of hoped to get to Kingston too, but since Mimi is probably going to have her baby this month we're waiting until then to see everyone since we're also hoping to hit Toronto at some point and then we have the cottage long weekend at the end of the month. Phew! That's a lot of plans for such a little month.
Mong has been his usual self, of course. The B.U.M. box continues to be a beloved toy and I caught him trying to lie down in it the other day. Falling into it proved to him that it is possible for his body to contort enough to get in there, so here's the picture I got of his continuing efforts:
You can kind of tell that his back legs are pretty cramped up in there. He got out almost immediately after I'd taken the picture, and he hasn't really tried it again since.
We also got this awesome picture of him the other night. He'd been lazing around on the dining room floor as he often does, artistically stretching himself out and draping his limbs in various positions. Then Andrew noticed this particular configuration and so we proceeded to take a few shots of it. This is the one that turned out best:
He is weird and we love him.
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