Onslaught of the Henchkitten

Hello, Large One.

My training of the Henchkitten proceeds apace. He is an inspired student and has absorbed my knowledge well.

The day of his first solo attack is here. I have unleashed him to lay waste to those papers you concentrate on so strongly.

Make me proud, Grasshopper.

Your pen will not survive.

Did that just say what I thought it said?

I don't know whether it's because I read very quickly, or because I'm an editor, and used to looking for certain words or word patterns, or maybe I drink too much wine I'm just tired, but lately I find that I'm reading things that aren't there.

It usually happens when I'm reading online in that split second after I've hit the back button on the browser -- or clicked on a new link -- and my eye will pick up a phrase or sentence from the disappearing web page that registers on my brain *after* the new page is already loading, and I can't re-check to see if I really saw what I saw. Which can be some really weird stuff.

Such as the following:



The Princess Royal is handed a posy during a visit to open the new premises of The Princess Royal Trust for Carers' Renfrewshire Carers Centre in Paisley, 26 January 2011. The centre supports more than 3,000 carers in the Renfrewshire area.

'A posy'! That makes so much more sense. I read 'a pony':


I think she'll need a bigger vase.

Or this one, last week:

Top Headlines

Calgary pathologist's reports probed

A former Calgary medical examiner whose expert reports are being reviewed by Alberta Justice officials has been identified as Dr. Michael Belenky, CBC News has learned.

'Calgary pathologist'! *slaps forehead* I read 'Culinary pathologist':

Which is kind of gross, really. Ewwww.

Or this, which showed up in an ad at the side of my Facebook page:




NY Ski Deals starting $15

'Ski deals'! Well that sounds so much better than 'ski deaths', which is what I read.

Not exactly a great marketing campaign.

But the best one was this:

The Canadian Press

OTTAWA—Immigration Minister Jason Kenney is lashing out at the judicial system, accusing judges and lawyers of undermining Canada’s immigration process by indulging spurious refugee cases.

I bet you can figure out what I thought I read:

Yikes!

According to Rachel, January 2011 edition

In the car the other night, driving back from visiting friends, talking about summer camps to Leah.

Me: And they have all kinds of camps. They even have a C.S.I. camp where you learn detective techniques!

Leah: Cool!

Rachel [sounding very adult and world-weary]: That would be the Village of Yawn for me.

Me: . . . . *hysterical laughter*

Rachel [sounding disgruntled]: What?

Me: Where did you hear that?

Rae [sounding defensive]: Nowhere. I was just trying to say that it sounds boring.

Me: Well, you did a pretty good job.

(I am totally going to use this from now on whenever something is boring: "Are you going to the legend committee meeting, Alison?" "Yep, I'm heading out to the Village of Yawn." )

Son of the Evil Ninja Assassin Cat

Good evening, Large One.

I cannot believe you have made such a mis-step, such a mistake. In all the years of our warfare you have proved a worthy opponent. But no more.

Did you really think that bringing another Superior Being into the household would tame me? Did you think that another of my ilk would render me soft and playful? Ha! I laugh at that idea.

You have provided me with a henchkitten, and together we will. destroy. your. world.

Sure, he looks innocuous and sweet:


But I shall train him. He shall be my disciple in all the unholy arts.

We shall eat together:

And rest together:

I shall teach him the arcane and mysterious feline martial arts:

I shall school him in the occult mysteries of mind melding and thought transfer:


And then I shall turn him loose to wreak havoc on your paltry human lives!

He will shed all over your favourite chair:


He will steal your identity and demolish your credit rating! (And order lots of canned tuna online.)

He will bite all the buttons off your duvet cover!


And shred the blankie of Loud One!

Anarchy and mayhem shall follow you all the days of your life!

The Evil Ninja Assassin Cat and the Henchkitten will be obeyed!

Or you shall suffer the consequences.

A good day

A school trip to the Parliament Buildings:

+


Skating on the Rideau Canal Skateway:

+


A fire in the fireplace:

+

Home-made pizza (can you tell which third of the pie was mine?):

+

A glass or two of Shiraz:

=

Be careful what you wish for

I am sorry for the long absence, but I've been a little....under the weather since Christmas, having hit the pulmonary lotto (thanks Jen, for that phrase) of pneumonia with a side of bronchitis. So I've been off work since New Year's, trying to rest and regain my strength while the antibiotics and steriods do their magic.

I thought I'd tell you about a conversation that happened on New Year's Eve. On holidays in Windsor, the girls and I went out for dinner with family to a Chinese restaurant in Lasalle. On the way out, the owner gave each of the girls a cellophane bag holding several fortune cookies. On the way to my sister's place in Belle River, the girls started eating the cookies and reading the fortunes.

Leah: Mum, listen to this fortune, it's weird: "Be careful what you wish for, you might just get it." That doesn't sound bad.

Me: When you're a bit older, I'll read you a story called 'The Monkey's Paw'. It's really scary.

Leah: How is getting what you wish for scary?

Me: In the story, the wishes don't turn out like the people thought they would.

Rachel: I don't think that story would be scary at all.

Me: No? Why not?

Rachel: What's so scary about a bunch of monkeys getting their nails done?

Me: ......? [comprehension dawns] Rachel, it's "The Monkey's Paw" not "The Monkey Spa".

Rachel: Oh.

********************

I had occasion to revisit this subject with Leah a few days ago. I told her that I had been wishing for a week off work while she and her sister were at school, so that I could declutter and deep clean the house. Well, I got the week off alright, but was too weak to do more than lie on the couch watching True Blood and C.S.I. on DVD. I told her that I should have been careful what I wished for.

I think she gets it now.

I am an idiot, volumes I and II

Volume I

While wrapping Christmas gifts yesterday, I decided to charge the battery for the camera that my dad bought Rachel. I read the instructions and carefully hooked the charging cable to the camera and to the thing that plugs into the wall. A red light was supposed to light up and then turn green when the battery is full. I plugged it in. No light. Hmmmm. Maybe a different electrical outlet? No light. Crap, I thought, maybe the charger is broken. I went back to look at the instructions, and noticed the battery sitting right there on the table.

I am an idiot.

Volume II

Today is our office's pot luck Christmas lunch. I was too tired last night to make the broccoli salad for the lunch, and went to bed at 9:30, figuring I'd get up in the morning and make it. When the alarm went off this morning, I hopped out of bed and started the coffee maker. I had unplugged it the night before and so the clock on it was flashing zeroes. I got the water boiling for the broccoli, and the ice water ready for after it was blanched. I put the tv on the CTV news channel, and started chopping an onion and grating cheese. I glanced at the clock on the microwave. It said 2:12 and I thought, "Oh, there must have been a power outage last night, the clock is wrong."

I blanched the broccoli, and made the dressing. While the broccoli was cooling, I poured a cup of coffee and decided to check my email before jumping in the shower. While on the laptop, I drank my coffee, and wondered idly why Canada A.M. hadn't started yet. Surely it was 6 a.m. by now, and the news channel should be showing Canada A.M., but no, it was still Lloyd Robertson and last night's news.

Hmmmm. I got up and went over to the clock on the thermostat, which is never affected by power outages. 2:46 a.m. And the horror slowly dawned on me. I hadn't changed my alarm setting since Monday night when I set it for 1:30 a.m. so that Leah and I could get up and watch the lunar eclipse.

It was the middle of the night and I was sitting in the living room drinking coffee. (Which is why, Natalie, you have an email from me about the explanatory notes sent around 2:40 a.m.)

I am an idiot.

Dear Angus

I realize you are still getting used to the whole 'living inside with people' thing, but there are a couple of things that we need to talk about.

First of all, humans are animals who rely on sight rather than smell to idividuate amongst family members. In other words, I know what you look like, I do not need to sniff your butt in order to recognize you. So, really, you don't have to push that part of your anatomy in my face when I'm reading on the couch, however helpful you feel you are being.

Also, though I am ecstatic that you know how to use your litterbox and use it often, I need to tell you that it is not necessary to spend 10 minutes piling all the litter in the box into a scale model of Mt. Fuji before pooping right on the tippy top of the mountain. And afterwards, you don't really need to ensure that every last grain of clumping kitty litter has been piled on top of the evidence. Your enthusiasm is charming, but it's creating a lot of extra vacuuming.

Max is your friend. Please don't lurk on the arm of the couch and then launch a flying kamikaze attack on him when he's only trying to get to the kitchen for a bite to eat.

And, last but not least, we *will* feed you. Always. I know you still worry about where your next meal is coming from, that's to be expected in a former feral kitty. But we will always make sure you have something to eat. I hope you enjoyed the rotini with pesto that you knocked off the counter last night.

Sincerely,

Alison

P.S. Thanks for not destroying the Christmas tree. We were worried about that.

For Jazz - Jason and the birth control pills

Many years ago, when I was just out of university, I moved to Toronto for a job. My first real grown-up job. (Yes, it was during this period that the horrible thing happened. But I digress...) My boyfriend moved with me, and we were sharing an apartment with an old university friend of mine.

I was apprehensive about starting work in a new office. Most of the people there were around my own age and they seemed a friendly bunch. There were the other junior editors, the senior editors, the cartographers, and the admin staff.

At the end of my very first day, I was standing in my office, getting ready to go home. I had one hand in my purse, looking to grab my hairbrush and brush my hair before setting off, when Jason, one of the cartographers, appeared in my doorway to ask if I wanted to go out for beer and wings with the gang. I had spoken to him only once before, when we were introduced that morning.

"Sure," I said, thinking it was nice to be invited along on my very first day, and, a little nervous and wanting something to do with my hands, pulled my hairbrush from my purse. It was one of those skeleton brushes that were so popular back then:

Each of the stiff plastic bristles was tipped with a flat disk, like the head of a sewing pin. And one of those bristle ends caught in one of the holes in the birth control pill compact that was also in my purse -- the holes that let you push a pill through.

So, as the brush cleared the purse, the pill compact somersaulted lazily in a high arc through the air. It seemed to fly in slow motion. In my head, I was screaming NOOOOOOOOOOOO, but could only watch speechlessly in horror as the compact bounced once on the floor and skittered over to come to rest against Jason's shoe. We both looked down at the pills and then up at each other, and without hesitating a second, he said, "So, are you busy Saturday night?" and grinned. I cracked up, and we were friends from that moment on. The end.

Thank you, Juan Valdez

Coffee is a wonderful thing. It wakes you up. It increases your energy. It tastes delicious. It is, in the immortal words of my friend Jason, whom I used to work with many years ago in Toronto, "sweet elixir of life*."

It makes 5 a.m. seem a little bit sunnier, a little more bearable. I usually drink three cups between the time I get up and the time I arrive at work. (Thanks for the travel cup, Mum!)

I found out yesterday, however, just how important coffee is. I found out that unbeknownst to me, it is a big part of what makes me me -- part of the essential core of my being and what defines me as a person. At least according to Rachel.

We were driving home from daycare yesterday evening and she was telling me all about a project that she's doing at school. She said that each student in the class had to pick a 'character' from their family and describe them. (Great, my eight-year-old thinks I'm a character.) They had to list four things about their character that described them.

Here are the words and phrases that Rae feels describe me best:

• dirty blonde
• nice
• generous
• three cups of coffee

Three cups of coffee. Not that I'm tall, or that I'm fun, or that I bake amazing cinnamon buns, but 'three cups of coffee.' I did get 'nice' and 'generous', which is better than the perhaps more accurate 'grouchy' and 'nagging.'

And really, I should be grateful that the last bullet point she chose wasn't 'three glasses of merlot.'




*from the opening line of a poem Jason wrote me about coffee on a sheet of lined paper in bright green ink. I still have it somewhere. I miss him. We once went Christmas shopping together at the Eaton Centre inebriated (on public transportation, of course), and someday I really must tell you about Jason and the birth control pills, it's a good story.

Crazy old lady warning signs

This morning I caught myself having a long conversation with Angus, conducted entirely (on my part) in high-pitched baby talk. He meowed back very sweetly. I said a lot of things like, "Oh him is a pretty, pretty boy, him is!" and "Oh, who has the cutest little fuzzy tummy?"

Can unfortunate flowered blouses and tea cups full of gin be far behind?

Sweet dreams are made of this

I've run out of things to blog about, and so, poor readers, you get to hear about the dream I had a few nights ago,

I dreamed that I ran into Peter Mansbridge on the Toronto subway and since he looked familiar, I figured he was one of the geologists from work. I kept asking him when he was going to submit his map for editing. He had to show me a picture of Cynthia Dale before I'd believe him about who he was. I was very embarrassed about the mix up, and tried to save face by pretending that I needed to get off at the next station, but I tripped and dropped the grocery bag I was carrying, showering him and the subway car with grapefruits and cheese.

But what did it mean? Strangely, I couldn't find this scenario on the dream interpretation website:

Sorry, there are no matches for your request. For best results, narrow your search request to one or two words.

So I did.

Subway

To dream that you are in the subway implies that you are attaining your objectives without having to use much physical effort. You are discovering your inner spirituality and personality. It may also mean that you are being too impulsive and you should think carefully before making a decision.

Press

To see the press in your dream suggests your being aware of what’s happening around you and getting involved. Dreaming of press conveys what you discern about your surroundings.
To dream of the press chasing you indicates that someone may be intruding into your private life.

Office

A dream involving your work office suggests difficulty in leaving your work. This may represent the possibility of being preoccupied with work and having too much office work to accomplish. It may also stand for your position, achievements and status in society.

Cheese

To see cheese in your dream in an indication that you may soon find yourself a recipient of substantial wealth, rewards, or benefits. You may be elevated to a higher social status or a higher level of importance.

Grapefruit

To dream that you are eating grapefruit indicates that you feel recharged and fresh mentally. You are happier lately as a result of a boost in energy and spirits.To dream about a grapefruit tree represents your abilities, your faith and morals, and the good things you do. It could also indicate the 'fruits' of your effort.

So if I cobble that all together, I'm impusive and overworked, yet aware of my surroundings and recharged mentally and about to be elevated to a higher social status. That doesn't sound good, except for the last part.

Or maybe I just like cheese, and fell asleep with The National on the TV while thinking of the map I'm working on at the office.

I still can't explain the grapefruit, though.

According to Rachel

In which Rachel blows off an entire subcontinent

Rachel (singing the song from Lady and the Tramp): 'This is the night, it's a beautiful night, and they call it bella notte.' You know, that's the only Indian I know.
Leah: It's not Indian, it's Italian.
Rae: Same thing.
Leah (a mite sarcastically): I think there's a couple of million Indians who probably wouldn't agree with you.
Rae: Whatever.

Rachel, queen of the metaphor. Or simile. I can never get those straight.

Rachel, frustrated because whenever she invites a friend over to play, the friend inevitably gravitates to older sister Leah:
"It's like Leah's a fridge, and all my friends are magnets."

On the subject of cleaning up the toys in the basement

Rae: The basement looks fine. It's not like the Queen is coming over, or Josie, or Marsha Stewart.

Lest we forget

In Flanders Fields

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

— John McCrae 1915

Please take some time this Remembrance Day to reflect on the sacrifices made by our Canadian Armed Forces and Peacekeepers, and to pay tribute to all those who died in war.

At the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, the time the Armistice of World War I was signed in 1918, we observe two minutes of silence to remember. We remember those lost in both World Wars, Korea, and the men and women serving today in Afghanistan.

They deserve no less.

Hero/Sidekick

Batman and Robin

Lucy and Ethel

Timmy and Lassie

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson

Radioactive Man and Fallout Boy


Evil Ninja Assassin Cat and Henchkitten

Is there a Wednesday fetish I don't know about?

Easton, Pennsylvania; Austin, Texas (twice); Cortlandt Manor, New York; Boston, Massachusetts; Melbourne, Australia; unidentified city in Mexico; Ankara, Turkey; Denver, Colorado; Jamaica, New York; Toronto, Ontario; Jensen Beach, Florida; Budapest, Hungary; Flagstaff, Arizona; Portland, Oregon; Topeka, Kansas; San Diego, California; York, Pennsylvania; Karlsruhe, Germany; Brampton, Ontario; Evreux, France; Richmond, Virginia; Boynton Beach, Florida...

What do all of these cities have in common?

Over the last few days, someone from each of those cities came to my blog through a Google search that landed them on this page. And, since the search term was either Wednesday or Wednesday Addams, they were either looking for this:



Or this:

I don't know which is more disturbing.

In the past week or so, my traffic has doubled, and most of the increase is looking for Wednesday. Is there some kind of pop-culture significance I'm missing here, or is it a coincidence that such a geographically diverse group of people just want to look at pictures of either a slutty Halloween costume or a seven-year-old girl?

Any thoughts?