Stupid Freaking Halloween Preparation

So, I can't do a proper post tonight because I have to work on my stupid, freaking Halloween costume (as you know, I don't really like dressing up for Halloween (I complain about it here)).

That's right: "Stupid." And "freaking."

The actual costume isn't stupid, the actual costume is pretty darn kick ass. My friend is a whiz-bang seamstress and when I said to her, "Friend, you have a bunch of dirndl's (see here for what the heck a dirndl is), do you have something that will fit this particular character I am supposed to stupid, freaking be?"And she said, "No, but HOW ABOUT I MAKE YOU ONE?"

Can you believe she offered to MAKE ME A COSTUME? From scratch??? How amazing do you have to be to be able to make a WHOLE ENTIRE OUTFIT in a couple of days? She is incredible! I think the only thing I could make would be a toga, and I'm fairly certain there would still be blood (ooh, look! More sewing that drew blood!).

So, she did. She even spiffed it up because she didn't think it was short enough. SHORT ENOUGH? Can we make this whole Halloween thing worse?

Stay tuned for pics, I'll probably post them this weekend. If I'm going to do this, YOU may as well get a stupid, freaking laugh out of it, right?

That'll teach me for having blonde hair.*

* Pssst! That was a clue!!!

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Being a Teenager: I Would NEVER Do-Over

The other night I was standing outside my front door to let my dogs out and I overheard two boys, probably about 15 years old, having a chat as they shuffled down the street. They were so excited and trying so hard to be cool I thought they were going to burst into flames.

Let me set the stage for you:

They were floppy in the way horribly uncomfortable teenage boys are floppy. Their pants were floppy, their hair was floppy, their posture was floppy, even their knees were floppy and their zinging, raging and exhausting hormones WERE MESSING UP THEIR ABILITY TO WALK STRAIGHT. After watching them (oh my GOD, am I now that weird adult who PEERS at people walking by??? ACK!), I know why some teenagers seem like they are going to fall asleep when they are talking to you... when they are standing up... in the middle of eating a sandwich:

THEY DON'T HAVE THE ENERGY.

Would you be able to pick up your feet if you were accosted EVERY MINUTE by enough hormones to fuel populating a small country?

This was their conversation:

Gangly Kid #1: "Oh my god. That was so cool."

Gangly Kid #2: "Yeah."

Gangly Kid #1: "Seriously, we have GOT to go to more protests." (Editors note: I believe there was an arts protest going on in the area. ARTS. Please keep that in mind with the next couple of lines.)

Gangly Kid #2: "Yeah."

Gangly Kid #1: "Dude, there were just, there were just so many HOT CHICKS, dude! THAT is where you find them!"

And I stopped listening right there, because really, what else was there to hear? Really? Males completely disregarding the context of a situation and using it to SCOUT OUT BABES?

HOW ORIGINAL. And they start out so YOUNG!

I've got to give it to you, teenage girls of the world: I would never ever ever ever evereverevereverever want to have a do-over with high school! Braces with that god-awful wax packed into the spokes, and glasses I didn't want to wear because I thought they looked dorky so I walked around BLIND most of the time- BEGONE! Ugh. And the zits. And having to go to gym class (WHY did I hate that so much? I go to the gym now more or less (mostly less) willingly now, WHAT was my problem?). And the angst? OH the angst. I believe I once wrote a poem (or 50) that went something like this:

Oh it was so horrible and bad.
So, horrible oh the suffering- whoa!
Pain, pain, pain... I feel like my guts are pouring out of my heart,
My only answer will be in the pain and how much my parents are trying to destroy my life.

Or something like that.

I read somewhere that if you want to make it in the poetry biz you've got to do it in your teens/early 20's. Apparently those years are the only ones that produce enough AGONY to be marketable. Fair enough! "...my guts are pouring out of my heart..." that's some good stuff right there.

Poetry publishing houses of the world? I've got REAMS of tortured foolscap for your selling pleasure!

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Trouble x2

Don't be fooled by the innocent looks on their faces, THESE GUYS ARE TROUBLE! If Mickey isn't being a terror when we're around other people (like here), Kayloo is ignoring me completely (like here).

Turkeys.

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Criminal

I always knew she was a criminal.

Quick note: Kayloo is sitting at the top of the stairs. The rest of us are in the living room. She is getting impatient because she is trying to magically transport through the banister to join us and it is taking TOO LONG. If Kayloo was human I'm thinking she probably wouldn't be Einstein.

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Happy Birthday and I Miss You

Five and a half months ago a good friend of mine died and today would have been her birthday. Today should have been her birthday.

She was goofy. She didn't let me wimp out of getting a tattoo at a dodgy tattoo parlor in Japan. She could play piano and when she was a teenager she had the kind of hair that made a perfect poof. You know when you clip your hair up with a barrette? Her hair did that perfectly. We were brats in dance class and our teacher never did catch us red-handed. When I freaked out in university she brought me home and we had sleepovers until I felt better. She always seemed to call at the right time. She was a trooper and we traded clothes and sometimes she talked like a trucker and it just made you like her more. When we got older we saw each other about once a year and we'd get hammered on red wine and talk until we`d solved all the worlds` problems and our throats were sore. She stayed with me in my bridal suite the night before my wedding and we got ready together the next morning. After she was diagnosed it was like all of her vibrancy concentrated and she shimmered. She looked amazing in every single wig she owned and totally pulled off being bald. She had a fantastic smile. Everyone loved her. She is my definition of `brave.`

She's the reason I started this blog. I started it after she died. At her funeral we were all talking about her vigor and her passion for dance and the organization she co-founded. John and I were talking a few days later and we asked that weird question that always comes around sooner or later: What would they say at my funeral?

All I could think of was: Damn, that Shauna was ORGANIZED!

For reasons I hope are obvious I didn't think that was enough so I started to write here because I needed a space of my own to just, BE I guess. A place to figure out some shit. I haven't been able to really write about her directly until now, although some of the posts have been about her I guess (like this one, and this one).

I`m not sure how much I`ve figured out and I know I'm not changing the world just yet, but it feels good to be writing.

I don't usually feel angry anymore. The shock seems to have mostly worn off and I don't dream about her as much. I know more about the services available to people actively dying than I care to know. I know what it feels like for a close friend to die and I DID NOT WANT TO KNOW THAT.

Sometimes when I least expect it I`ll feel like I`ve fallen into a hole and the only way I can breathe is through tears. And then sometimes I`ll hear her say, `Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck,` and I`ll get a bit of a laugh. I think I`m always going to fall into that hole every now and then, I don`t think that when it hurts, it is ever going to hurt less.

I do however, know that I am going to continually smile more. I`m glad she helped convince my parents to let me move to Toronto after high school. I`m glad I got a chance to cat sit for her and entertain her brother when he came to visit and I`m glad that when she needed some help I could be there for her. Holy shit I miss her.

The pink card above was sitting on my chair at her funeral. Her aunt made them and there was one for every chair, plus extras because her service had so many people in attendance there weren`t enough seats. I have no idea who Kobi Yamada is/was, but I think it`s good advice:

Leave your comfort zone. Go stretch yourself for a good cause.

That sounds like a pretty good idea to me. And, right now I am going to pick up some organic red wine and raise a toast to a vivacious, brave, kind, fierce princess (that`s what she was known as,`fierce`as in `slammin`` or `spectacular`or what have you). And I am going to stop being so doom and gloomy. And I`m going to give my husband a hug and my dogs a belly rub... and then maybe have some more wine.

Love you, Miss Lovely.

F*ck cancer. Live life.

Editors note: I just wanted to write to say thank you all so very much for your support. It is so comforting to know you guys are out there. Thank you for being kind.

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Making Faces at Toronto Airport Without Coffee

This is me waiting at the Toronto Airport on the way to the wedding (here's a few pics from the wedding). I'm Making A Face. That morning John and I were THIS close to missing our flight. So we didn't get our coffee. And we didn't get to sit beside each other. And I was sitting IN THE VERY VERY VERY BACK ROW (I'm not entirely sure who I ticked off to get that honour, but I'M SORRY AIRPLANE SEATING GOD PEOPLE!!!). And I started to watch My Sister's Keeper but I turned it off 20 minutes in because it is the MOST DEPRESSING MOVIE IN THE HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE and I was already getting all sobby and weepy and it was ONLY 20 MINUTES IN!

Seriously depressing. OH. MY. GOD.

But, the whole experience wasn't half bad at all. We stood outside, waited for our ride, and made stupid jokes about things like Making Faces and bad coffee and crying 5 seconds into movies.

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Things Even More Scary Than Freddy Krueger

Started this post on Monday, September 14, 2009

I have a weird looking mole on my right side, right on my ribs. It didn’t always look weird. Now it does.

I AM FREAKED OUT.

Ew. Mole. Gross. Yes, gross… I’m nervous. Actually, not just nervous. At this precise moment I’m a bit scared. Five minutes ago I was distracted, now I’m not distracted. I liked it better when I was distracted.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Fear is a funny thing. Not funny “ha ha,” more like funny “cock-your-head-at-a-weird-angle-and-squint-your-eyes-and-see-if-you-can-sort-out-a-way-to-process-this.” That kind of “funny.”

When I was 16 years old I went camping with my friend Kelly and we decided, in our infinite wisdom, to go for a walk when it was pitch black out. We were walking along and then we saw a flashlight bobbing through the forest and then SUDDENLY THE BOBBING FLASHLIGHT DISAPPEARED. Which naturally meant that a serial killer was on his way to murder us and was trying to conceal his location. I was terrified, I-Am-Positive-I-Am-Going-To-Die-A-Horrible-Gruesome-Death terrified. As my friend and I scurried the long way around the campsite back to our tent (because “the long way” is SURE FIRE PROTECTION against serial killers) I distinctly remember saying to myself: If I get murdered by a psychopath my Dad is going to KILL ME. Because my dad would be SO MAD that I would do something SO STUPID as to walk around at night in the forest with Freddy Krueger. Such was the logic of my 16 year old self.

So, that was me pretty scared.

This is a different kind of scared. This is like a quiet, niggling fear that is hanging out in the back of my mind. I can get my work done, chat with John, take the dogs for a walk , make dinner, email my girlfriends, go to the gym, roll my eyes at Kayne’s stupid antics and bitch about the BONEHEADED KID THAT SKATEBOARDS UP AND DOWN MY STREET AT 3 O’CLOCK IN THE MORNING. I’d say that stuff takes up about 90% of my brain capacity. 5% of me wants to march over to the doctors’ office RIGHT NOW and frantically demand that he tell me what is going on so I can know one way or the other. 3% of me feels a weird sort of peace about the whole thing. 2% of me wishes I hadn’t even noticed the offending weirdness in the first place. That is bad, I know. But it’s true.

I have an appointment at 2:50pm tomorrow. I made the appointment yesterday. I noticed the little anomaly on Sunday. I just have to wait. There is no sense in worrying, that doesn’t help at all. But I’m still worried. 18 hours from now I will be staring at my doctor waiting for him to react in EXACTLY THE PERFECT WAY so that all my worries can drift away into silly, nervous, nothingness.

I just googled “skin cancer mole.” Right. Let’s file that one under “Really, Shauna?!!! REALLY?!!!” No more google searches for me today. Alrighty then.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

My appointment is today. John just assured me, again, that everything is going to be a-ok, and it totally worked because I really do feel much better (OH MY GOD, I THINK MY WEIRD MOLE SIDE IS ACTUALLY PARALYZED. HAS IT ALWAYS BEEN LIKE THAT???). I’m in a really good mood today too (SERIOUSLY, MY SIDE HURTS. AND MY SHOULDER HURTS. AND MY THROAT HURTS).

Clearly my rational side is doing battle with my overly dramatic, paranoid side (THERE IS NOTHING PARANOID ABOUT FEELING PAIN. THE DOCTOR IS GOING TO GASP WHEN HE SEES ME. WHAT IF HE ADMITS ME RIGHT ON THE SPOT? WHAT IF HE TOLD ME THAT TIME WAS RUNNING OUT? WHAT IF HE TELLS ME THAT MY WHOLE RIGHT SIDE HAS TO BE AMPUTATED? CAN THEY DO THAT? WOULD THEY HAVE TO AMPUTATE MY ARM? HOW WOULD I TYPE? I’D HAVE TO GET A BIONIC ARM. DO THEY HAVE THOSE? WOULD I HAVE METAL FINGERS? I’D HAVE TO PUT PADS ON THE TIPS SO THEY DIDN’T CLICK ON THE KEYBOARD BECAUSE CONSTANT CLICKING WOULD DRIVE ME INSANE. COULD MY BIONIC ARM GET WET? THE DOGS ARE GOING TO CHEW ON IT AND I’M NOT GOING TO NOTICE. I’M GOING TO HAVE A RATTY BIONIC ARM THAT CLICKS. OMG).

I think it’s a good sign that I’m making jokes.

Holy crap, I hope the next bit I write is about me making fun of how ridiculous I am.

After my appointment…

My doctor said he wasn’t “too concerned.” I think that is pretty good. I am happy with that prognosis.

He took a look, cut it off (EWWWWW! Yes, yes, blecht, gross I know, but that is what they do) and is sending it to the lab. In 7-10 days I will be able to completely rest easy and have a good ol’ laugh at my insane, hyperactive-imagination self.

A mere 7-10 days.

7-10.

No problem.

Wednesday, September 30^th, 2009 aka Exactly 10 Business Days Later

My doctor is on holidays and the woman who answered the phone is not “trained” to read “these kinds of tests.”

#1 What the hell was he thinking going on holidays? Does he not know it is now 7-10 DAYS LATER?!!!

#2 I’ve got some whizz bang employee training ideas for the clinic: TEACH EVERYONE HOW TO READ “THOSE KINDS OF TESTS” SO THAT “THOSE KINDS OF PATIENTS” DON’T LOSE IT.

I’m pretty sure if there was anything to worry about the lab would have covered my file in fluorescent highlighter or underlined the part where it said OH MY GOD SHE'S GONNA NEED A HALF BODY AMPUTATION!!! so things are mostly likely fine. But still, it would be nice to know for sure.

I now have an appointment for Oct 16^th. A mere 12 business days away.

I am also getting a haircut on that Friday. So, this could either be a very GOOD day or a very BAD day because NOTHING IS WORSE THAN A BAD HAIRCUT.

Friday, October 16^th, 2009 aka 10 + 12 Business Days Later

All is fine. SEE! Of course everything is fine. Everything is fine. And I am SUPER HAPPY WITH MY HAIR, my hair could NOT BE BETTER, it is a GOOD HAIR DAY. I'll post a pic later.

All fine. Hmmm. Guess I'm more relieved than I thought I would be about this!

Today

I'm not sure how cancer survivors do it. I can't imagine how scary the whole process must be. I kind of knew that things had to be more or less okay, but my mind still got carried away ("carried away?" Ha! Maybe try something more along the lines of a one of those super-bouncy bouncy balls going boing, boing, BOING, BOING! BOING! BOING! BOING! back and forth, back and forth with annoying, but impressively consistent regularity. But "carried away" is cute too).

If you are a cancer survivor/you're kicking cancers' ass right now/you are touched in some way by cancer KEEP GOING! Good for you! Holy shit, I am so inspired by your strength and your courage and your chutzpah and your general KICK ASSED-NESS.

If you have some kind of freaky skin anomaly, just go and get it checked out. Please? It's better to know, and (you know this) EARLY DETECTION IS KEY. Here is a link to the Canadian Cancer Society and here is a link to the American Cancer Society.

Another thing- if you know someone who is using Super Human Strength to get through something, maybe go and get them a gift certificate for a massage, or take them to a movie... or PERHAPS YOU COULD GET THEM A GOOFY HAT WITH A PROPELLER ON TOP- whatever, ANYTHING! It must be hard to be Super Human everyday.

Who hasn't wanted to see a real, live propeller hat in action?

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Petrified Crab

I took this photo on the same walk as this one.

I'm not sure how it happened, but my dogs totally get along. Here they are gnawing on a petrified crab, I think. How much more bonded can you be than SHARING PETRIFIED CRAB?

Mickey kind of hated Kayloo at first. But no one can hate Kayloo for long, even when she farts on you.

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Weddings are Nice

John and I went to our friends' wedding a couple of weekends ago. Weddings are nice. Beautiful candles and flowers and music and people. Weddings are ESPECIALLY nice when you're not the one planning it.

Don't get me wrong- my wedding ROCKED. It was beautiful, it (amazingly) didn't rain, almost every single person we knew and loved were all in the same room, I got to wear a SPARKLY PRETTY DRESS, someone else did my hair, even though I mistook the horseradish for mashed potatoes and almost burned a hole through my septum the food was awesome, AND I didn't have to make my bed the next day.

All in all it was fab.

However, SHOWING UP to a wedding is also fab and you don't have to worry about ceremonies without tents when you thought there was going to be a tent but it turns out there WILL NOT be a tent so let's cross our fingers and hope for the best otherwise we may end up having the ceremony in the hallway right beside the hotel convenience store under the appreciative stare of Vern the Weird Guy who hangs out at the hotel convenience store.


Will ya just LOOK at those flowers! So gorgeous... could make a girlie-girl out of pretty much anyone!

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Stuff My Dogs Have Wrecked: My Book (Dalai Lama vs. Obama)

They look harmless enough, don't they? Oh CONTRAIRE.

I have mentioned in past posts that I am doing what I can do be more zen (like here and here). I am certain that if I could get a couple days away from crap-free carpet, non-bitchy chicks in red and more wino, I would TOTALLY be able to kick Buddha's ass in an arm wrestle.

The situation in the photo below is NOT HELPING.


When I came home the other day, my Dalai Lama book was ripped to smithereens. Yeah. How the hell am I supposed to be zen if my chilled out monk book IS TORN TO PIECES?!! Sure, I haven't read it in like, 5 years, but whatever. Maybe I would have read it again THAT DAY and this kind of thing wouldn't have made me want to go all Tonya Harding on the nearest stuffed pig and THE TOP OF MY HEAD WOULDN'T HAVE HAD TO BLOW OFF. Did you know that it is possible for a person's head to pop off from sheer frustration? It is. And it did. And it wasn't pretty, lemme tell ya.

Breathe in. Breathe out.

As a quick aside: The Barack Obama book below was sitting RIGHT BESIDE the Dalai Lama book and, as you can see, it was left completely and totally alone. I have absolutely nothing against Barack- he seems like a fab-o guy- BUT OBAMA IS NOT GOING TO MAKE ME MORE ZEN. I'm Canadian for heaven's sake. Why couldn't the dogs have totaled the Audacity book? I've read it, I'm not going to read it again, the people who were going to borrow it did... now it's just hanging around CONTRIBUTING NOTHING TO MY OVERALL SANITY.

If you get a kick out of all the stuff my dogs destroy and watching me go mental you might also like:

• Stuff My Dogs Have Wrecked: Cushion
• Stuff My Dogs Have Wrecked: Cushion II
  
• Stuff My Dogs Have Wrecked: Shoes

Good times.

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Bad Ass Biker Dog

This is Kayloo's Harley Davidson dog tag. She wears it because she is a bad ass biker chick, just like her mom (you can see examples of just how bad ass I am here and... oh what the hell, let's laugh at me again: here).

Mickey has one too (although it's not a heart, duh, he's a boy), but now it just looks like nothing because Kayloo gnaws on it whenever she gets the chance.

Look at that! It looks like I took a photo of a dog tag on a cow!

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Pet Eliminator

Know what would be a miracle? Not needing this "PET ODOR" ELIMINATOR CRAP ANYMORE!!!

What is going on? I thought we were OVER THIS BULLSH*T!!! If my dogs aren't fighting they're wrecking stuff, if they aren't wrecking stuff they are generally being a pain in the butt. *

*For those of you reading my blog for the first time, the truth is, I am hopelessly in love with my dogs. It's just... you just DON'T EVEN WANT TO KNOW what I have been doing for the last hour. Trust me. Not cool, not cool... shudder... not cool.

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Too Cute For School

Okay. This is just a super cute picture of Kayloo. She was playing, and she was running, and was crashing into stuff and then she got tired and sat on her toy box (here's another cute picture... and OH MY GOD ANOTHER ONE).

Yes, I do realize I need to get a grip. Thank you.

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Thanksgiving Wine: I Blame Canada

Thanksgiving is coming up. Food mmm. Wine mmm. The first glass of wine I can remember tasting was in my first year of university. It was Thanksgiving, and one of my friends had organized a potluck.

The cozy (read: cramped) house was filled with the homey aroma of turkey roasting in the oven, stove top dressing warming on the stove top (we were students, GIVE US A BREAK) and the distinctly musty smell of burnt cat hair (the hosts’ cat walked past a beeswax candle and narrowly missed bursting into flames). So much to be thankful for (an important one being NO ROAST CAT).

The first glass of wine I was to enjoy on that Thanksgiving Day, was a blend of red (I am fairly certain “red” and “white” were the only kinds of wine that existed when I was in first year uni)… generously mixed with the fizzy sweet goodness of… I’m sure you will all recognize this name… 7up.

7up. Well, I suppose my VERY first tipple was sans the 7up but I thought it was so disgusting and was THIS close to pouring it out (a deplorable crime for ANY university student to commit), before my almost cat-less friend had the brilliant idea to mix it with something that I DID like. And who doesn’t like 7up? I mean, come on.

To be honest with you, the wine didn’t even taste very good masked by the 7Up. Thinking back on it: OF COURSE IT TASTED HORRIBLE! Wine and 7up?! There were at least a dozen people in that house and NOT ONE person stopped me. Zero. You’d think that in a group of 12 people over the age of 12 there would be at least ONE PERSON who would have the wherewithal to say: “Hey, I think that the combination of soda pop and wine might be a bad plan.” I am from a small town in Northern British Columbia. I can’t possibly be expected to know the finer points of consuming wine, let alone what kind of pop one should mix with it.

Really what I am getting at is this: What on earth is going on in Canadian universities? Do you think this travesty would have occurred in Italy? Chile? France? I am VERY STRONGLY DOUBTING IT.

Chantal: Mais non! Take this vin away, vin is grotesque! Horrible, horrible, horrible (pronounced “horeeeble”)!

Nicholette: Oh mon dieu! Moi can’t believe you do not like wine. What to do, what to do? I know, let’s BASTARDIZE IT BY MIXING IT WITH SOMETHING CARBONATED.

Do you see? I can’t even translate the scenario into half-French because IT WOULD NEVER HAPPEN. It’s not even in the half-French vocabulary. The French have been drinking wine with their croissants since they were 3 years old… and what exactly are the Canadians doing? Drinking maple syrup? Drinking snow? Losing hockey games?

My first experience with wine could have been a beautiful memory. I could have stood out on the balcony to get away from the cat smell, drowned in the intoxicating bouquet of “red” and let that first sip of my true adulthood mingle with the bloated feeling of eating far too much on a very special Thanksgiving Day.

Instead, I had some really bad 7up.

And I blame Canada.

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1 Yr Olds- Baby 1: Dog 0

John and I babysat our friends' little girl on Friday night. Little Munchkin (LM) is about 1 1/2 years old. Mickey is about 1 1/2 years old. LM was pretty darn good. Mickey was a pain in the ass.

Let's compare, shall we?

When I arrived LM had a wee bit of a breakdown once she realized that her dad was about to leave. Shortly after that all the tears were gone and she helped me prepare the family dogs' dinner, we inspected her sock and puttered around the house. We read a couple books- actually, we read one book eight times- and then we went in the back, ran around in circles and threw the ball for the dog. Fun indeed.

An hour and a half later John and my dogs arrived. Mickey promptly stole LM's teddy bear and started to chow down on its ear. LM's eyes got as big as saucers as she watched the demise of her security blanket and I somehow managed to divert a Full Scale Waterworks Attack by diving after the dog and returning the teddy bear to its rightful owner. A LITTLE GIRL. At which point Mickey snatched it back. At which point I pulled an Incredible Hulk, puffed up to my Super Scary Crazy Mom height of 12 feet, 4 inches and made it VERY CLEAR that Mickey was NEVER TO TOUCH THE DAMN TEDDY BEAR AGAIN.

And so Mickey tried one more time and then we were done with that.

During dinner LM tried to feed her dog half of her dinner. I shook my head. She stopped.

After dinner Mickey stole LM's soother and ran to the other room (RUN! RUN! I'VE GOT IT! HAHAHAHAHA!), ears flat back and ready to go. And then he did it again when LM's parents got home, which was VERY embarrassing because I'm sure I've gone and bragged about how we are getting better at bossing our dogs around. DAMN DOG MADE ME LOOK BAD.

Once the parents were home, LM curled up onto dad's lap, nuzzled up quiet as a mouse and listened as dad read her a story.

Mickey jumped up on to everyone's fancy clothes (which he doesn't normally do), found Kayloo sleeping on the floor and woke her up with a Love Pounce and karate kick to the head, and managed to nudge his way out the front door and went tearing down the street like a bat outta hell: YAHOO! LOOK AT ME! I'M RUNNING, YA YA YA YA YA!!!

Once all that was done we headed back home. And then I had the joy of cleaning up 1 book, 1 journal and 1 bra that had been shredded into 8 trillion little pieces.

By 11pm Friday evening 1 1/2 year old babies were winning over 1 1/2 year old dogs. HANDS DOWN.

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CIBC Run for the Cure 2009

Mickey and I walked the CIBC Run for the Cure again this year (check out a photo of us from 2008).

I'm honoured to have joined thousands of Canadians across the country in support of raising funds for breast cancer research. My heart goes out to the individuals and families touched by this horrible disease. Keep fighting, keep running, keep dancing... keep laughing and crying and just doing whatever the heck it is you need to do to keep doing it. We're here for you.

A huge thank you to the volunteers for coordinating this country-wide day of fundraising- well done!


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Happy October! (or How to Train a Cat to Sit)

Happy October, everyone!

Mmmm... I love the fall. When I was a kid there was a cat that adopted the street that my family lived on. He was a really cool cat. He liked ice cream. He was orange, so naturally his name was Tigger. He knew how to 'sit,' and 'stay,' and when my brother would rake up all the leaves in the backyard Tigger would wait patiently until my brother was done and then he would dash into the leaves and scatter them everywhere.

I think of that every time Fall comes around.

I also think of it when my dogs aren't listening to me and I ponder: FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WOMAN you managed to get a CAT to sit ON COMMAND. You had better hope your influence over animals did not peak when you were 9 YEARS OLD.

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