Monday, September 03, 2012
Last memories of home
This is the last picture I ever took of Max, alive. The timestamp is 1:48 p.m., which would be about an hour before he died, within 10-15 minutes or so. He was a good lookin' guy. It's striking how many of my family and friends made that remark hearing he had cancer or was gone.
That's a year
Well, if I couldn't technically say it before, I can today. I've been an entire year now without a drink. I guess I've demonstrated I can do it. Been around it, watched friends have a few, had a couple of cats pass away on me and I still didn't sink into it or take the edge off.
Now what?
Except for five cans of beer I had a year ago today when a friend visited from New England, which I "built into" the project, I haven't been drinking socially since, as I recall, Dec. 18, 2010, or had liquor or beer at home since two years ago this month. But now that I've achieved this arbitrary goal, I'm not sure where I go. I didn't really have to face this while I was keeping an eye on the date.
I miss it. Not hugely, but I do miss it. Thing is, what I really miss is the feeling of being drunk. That kind of soft, mellow, relaxing sense of really sinking into the chair. There was something to be said for a Saturday afternoon with old movies and five or six Cuba Libres. I never really quite get to that sense of release anymore... that feeling you're just chewing soft bubblegum with your brain. And I do missing giving that to myself, or promising it to myself as something to look forward to.
But I sure don't miss the expense of it. I don't miss wondering if I'm really okay to drive. I don't miss the pigging out I tended to do and then feel bad about later, and things like that. Or how common it was getting in my life for a while a few years ago.
I didn't set out to become tea-totaling [edit: teetotaling?]. But given how easy it would be to just ease back into the comfortable old ways, I guess I've decided to just move forward with it. Save the money, save the worry. Reserve to myself the privilege of having a drink now and then when there's an occasion, rather than making occasions to drink, which is kind of what I was doing those six months or so I didn't have it around the house and only drank when I was out with folks. I've made my year. Now let's see about just treating it as the new normal.
Now what?
Except for five cans of beer I had a year ago today when a friend visited from New England, which I "built into" the project, I haven't been drinking socially since, as I recall, Dec. 18, 2010, or had liquor or beer at home since two years ago this month. But now that I've achieved this arbitrary goal, I'm not sure where I go. I didn't really have to face this while I was keeping an eye on the date.
I miss it. Not hugely, but I do miss it. Thing is, what I really miss is the feeling of being drunk. That kind of soft, mellow, relaxing sense of really sinking into the chair. There was something to be said for a Saturday afternoon with old movies and five or six Cuba Libres. I never really quite get to that sense of release anymore... that feeling you're just chewing soft bubblegum with your brain. And I do missing giving that to myself, or promising it to myself as something to look forward to.
But I sure don't miss the expense of it. I don't miss wondering if I'm really okay to drive. I don't miss the pigging out I tended to do and then feel bad about later, and things like that. Or how common it was getting in my life for a while a few years ago.
I didn't set out to become tea-totaling [edit: teetotaling?]. But given how easy it would be to just ease back into the comfortable old ways, I guess I've decided to just move forward with it. Save the money, save the worry. Reserve to myself the privilege of having a drink now and then when there's an occasion, rather than making occasions to drink, which is kind of what I was doing those six months or so I didn't have it around the house and only drank when I was out with folks. I've made my year. Now let's see about just treating it as the new normal.
Saturday, September 01, 2012
Who was Morris Davidson?
Max, apparently.
I was putting together the paperwork for an insurance claim for Max's treatment and cremation last night, and I found myself wandering through the paperwork they gave me when I got him in October, 2002. I suppose I glanced at it back then; not really much since. As with Twinkle when she died and I wandered through the notes and remarks about her life before me, I found myself wondering about Max's.
His vet was in Thornhill, a little north of here, which would explain why he was at the PetSmart in Markham when I got him. It records his birth as being in November, 1999, not some time in 2000 as I'd imagined. His first visit to the vet was Nov. 17th. He was neutered right around his first birthday (happy birthday, kid); the paperwork records Nov. 17 again, this time in 2000.
All of this stuff gives his name as "Morris". It's crossed out and replaced with "Max" once we get to records put together by the adoption agency. So he was actually just shy of three years old when I got him, and would have been 13 in a few more months.
But that means he was "someone else" for nearly three years. What was his life like? Why in the world did anyone give him up? With Twinkle, it was less of a mystery. She was feisty and more than any other cat I had, peed and crapped on anything and everything. But Max was never anything but a good ol' guy; hardly a lick of trouble out of him in ten years. Clearly, he wasn't given up because of any behavioural problem. I wonder if perhaps his owner—whoever loved him as "Morris"—passed away and orphaned him. I really wish I knew. Living alone as I do, that worry haunts me too, I figure there'll come a time in my life when I just stop adopting cats for fear of what will happen to them when they survive me.
Well, whoever he may once have been in the springtime of his life, he lived and died as Max to me... and to himself, since he almost unfailingly came when I called his name. And now he's home again, for good, though not in the way I would have wished a few weeks ago.
I was putting together the paperwork for an insurance claim for Max's treatment and cremation last night, and I found myself wandering through the paperwork they gave me when I got him in October, 2002. I suppose I glanced at it back then; not really much since. As with Twinkle when she died and I wandered through the notes and remarks about her life before me, I found myself wondering about Max's.
His vet was in Thornhill, a little north of here, which would explain why he was at the PetSmart in Markham when I got him. It records his birth as being in November, 1999, not some time in 2000 as I'd imagined. His first visit to the vet was Nov. 17th. He was neutered right around his first birthday (happy birthday, kid); the paperwork records Nov. 17 again, this time in 2000.
All of this stuff gives his name as "Morris". It's crossed out and replaced with "Max" once we get to records put together by the adoption agency. So he was actually just shy of three years old when I got him, and would have been 13 in a few more months.
But that means he was "someone else" for nearly three years. What was his life like? Why in the world did anyone give him up? With Twinkle, it was less of a mystery. She was feisty and more than any other cat I had, peed and crapped on anything and everything. But Max was never anything but a good ol' guy; hardly a lick of trouble out of him in ten years. Clearly, he wasn't given up because of any behavioural problem. I wonder if perhaps his owner—whoever loved him as "Morris"—passed away and orphaned him. I really wish I knew. Living alone as I do, that worry haunts me too, I figure there'll come a time in my life when I just stop adopting cats for fear of what will happen to them when they survive me.
Well, whoever he may once have been in the springtime of his life, he lived and died as Max to me... and to himself, since he almost unfailingly came when I called his name. And now he's home again, for good, though not in the way I would have wished a few weeks ago.
Friday, August 31, 2012
"I know what you're thinking..."
Sadly, Mr. Eastwood, I don't think you do.
I've just seen Clint Eastwood's address to the GOP. Now, setting aside for the moment that, politically speaking, this isn't my crowd, I have to say that I was saddened and embarrassed by the performance. I like Clint Eastwood. I think he's been an epic actor and he's demonstrated himself to be, in my opinion, a top-notch director as well. I understood he was politically conservative; that's fine. More to the point, it's his country, and his president. not mine. So I can't sit here and fault him for holding the views he does.
But it was genuinely hard to watch. What I saw was an elderly man trotted out on stage, essentially as a name with a suit on, talking to an empty chair. I know it's meant to be funny. It wasn't. Watching an old man ramble through a one-sided conversation with an imaginary man, putting words in his mouth like a scene out of Cast Away, where at least Tom Hanks was playing opposite a face painted on a volleyball, had a disquieting air of something much darker, and not at all humourous. I'm not just saying this because it's the Republicans. I would have found this episode distasteful even if, say, Ed Asner had been babbling at an empty chair supposedly seating Dubya. I wouldn't want to see that. I'm kind of sorry I saw this.
And frankly, it was far beneath Clint Eastwood's dignity to put into the mouth of a sitting President of the United States the words "he can go fuck himself". What did that have to do with the issues? What did that do but make this man look like he's lost his sense of propriety, and make the Republican Party look mean, juvenile, and grasping at straws? I don't doubt there were a lot of people who got a big kick out of it. But as far as I'm concerned, it, and they, just did a big disservice to the GOP and political discourse in the United States in general.
I've just seen Clint Eastwood's address to the GOP. Now, setting aside for the moment that, politically speaking, this isn't my crowd, I have to say that I was saddened and embarrassed by the performance. I like Clint Eastwood. I think he's been an epic actor and he's demonstrated himself to be, in my opinion, a top-notch director as well. I understood he was politically conservative; that's fine. More to the point, it's his country, and his president. not mine. So I can't sit here and fault him for holding the views he does.
But it was genuinely hard to watch. What I saw was an elderly man trotted out on stage, essentially as a name with a suit on, talking to an empty chair. I know it's meant to be funny. It wasn't. Watching an old man ramble through a one-sided conversation with an imaginary man, putting words in his mouth like a scene out of Cast Away, where at least Tom Hanks was playing opposite a face painted on a volleyball, had a disquieting air of something much darker, and not at all humourous. I'm not just saying this because it's the Republicans. I would have found this episode distasteful even if, say, Ed Asner had been babbling at an empty chair supposedly seating Dubya. I wouldn't want to see that. I'm kind of sorry I saw this.
And frankly, it was far beneath Clint Eastwood's dignity to put into the mouth of a sitting President of the United States the words "he can go fuck himself". What did that have to do with the issues? What did that do but make this man look like he's lost his sense of propriety, and make the Republican Party look mean, juvenile, and grasping at straws? I don't doubt there were a lot of people who got a big kick out of it. But as far as I'm concerned, it, and they, just did a big disservice to the GOP and political discourse in the United States in general.
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Esoterica
So I look at the clock now and I think back that a week ago, this was the morning I was in here gathering stuff to work from home to keep an eye on Max, who was clearly hurting, at least from time to time, and waiting for the results of his biopsy. I also notice that it was three weeks ago this morning I opened a can of tuna for him and was pleased to see him chow down. That was the last time, I think, I really had the luxury of telling myself his recent picky appetite wasn't anything major. When he wouldn't eat tuna the next day, I really couldn't pretend anymore. That blog post is on here, a few back, if you're interested.
Anyway, on another subject, it also occurs to me to comment on how long there can be an unplugged hole in your knowledge of something you thought you knew well. I've been using Adobe Illustrator, at least semi-regularly, since 1996, and yet it's only this week that found the answer to a long-standing complaint of mine... how to close a path in Illustrator without affecting the initial curve you drew starting out (the answer is to hold the ALT key—Option key on the Mac, I expect—down when you click on the starting anchor point to close the path). The down side of this is that it unlinks the control handles of the point so that they swivel independently instead of being locked so they control the shape of the curve on either side of the anchor as a unit. But I guess you can't have everything, and I'd rather be able to preserve the initial path. The practical solution, I suppose, is simply to make sure you start any path on a corner point, wherever possible; in which case, you'd naturally want the anchor's handles to be independent of each other. It's one of those things that seems obviously, once it's been shown to you.
Anyway, on another subject, it also occurs to me to comment on how long there can be an unplugged hole in your knowledge of something you thought you knew well. I've been using Adobe Illustrator, at least semi-regularly, since 1996, and yet it's only this week that found the answer to a long-standing complaint of mine... how to close a path in Illustrator without affecting the initial curve you drew starting out (the answer is to hold the ALT key—Option key on the Mac, I expect—down when you click on the starting anchor point to close the path). The down side of this is that it unlinks the control handles of the point so that they swivel independently instead of being locked so they control the shape of the curve on either side of the anchor as a unit. But I guess you can't have everything, and I'd rather be able to preserve the initial path. The practical solution, I suppose, is simply to make sure you start any path on a corner point, wherever possible; in which case, you'd naturally want the anchor's handles to be independent of each other. It's one of those things that seems obviously, once it's been shown to you.
Wednesday, August 29, 2012
Dying with dignity
A couple of months ago, British Columbia’s Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional provisions in the Criminal Code dating from 1892 making doctor-assisted suicide illegal, on the basis that they violated the equality provisions of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Strictly speaking, the ruling
applies only to British Columbia, but it’s still a precedent and has
implications for other jurisdictions in Canada, and potentially beyond. It’s
unclear yet whether the federal government, which is responsible for the
Criminal Code, will appeal the decision to the Supreme Court of Canada.
The cat is among the pigeons, and judging from the response,
it’s about time.
Recently, a doctor chimed in with an opinion piece in The
Globe and Mail that was not well received in terms of the comments it garnered.
If the response is representative, then it seems that most Canadians, like me,
feel that this is a matter of personal choice and that compassionate medical
assistance with this undertaking, far from being a criminal act, ought to be a
human right.
My comment on the article, and a response to a couple of
rebuttals made to my stance.
God damn it, why is this still even an issue this late in
history? A person's life is his or her own. INEVITABLY, IT MUST END. If the
time comes that he or she wishes a peaceful, dignified, and merciful closure, I
feel it is arrogant, insensitive, and a willful failure of compassion to deny a
human being that right. To insist he or she writhe in pain until the last ounce
of strength has been wrung out by the tender mercies of nature, and his or her
debasement is utter and complete, is medieval in its conception. It does not
belong in a modern age where we have skills and knowledge that mean it doesn't
have to be so.
To present doctors solely as "healers" is to blithely abdicate what every human being ought to be, even more fundamentally: compassionate. If human beings were immortal, there might be something to this position. But we're not. At some point, for each of us, "healing" becomes an unrealistic goal beyond the reach of our knowledge and technology. At that point, to make a fetish of the "healer" role is to sentence those entrusted to one's care to real, literal torture. This is not to wash one's hands like a surgeon. This is to wash one's hands like Pontius Pilate.
Not even a week ago, I faced the awful decision of having to euthanize a cat who'd been part of my life for ten years. He had inoperable cancer of the larynx, and he had reached the point where he could no longer hide the pain he was in. There were two options: consign him to death by slow starvation and the torture of his own body until his heart finally gave out because I didn't have to guts to face the inevitability of what was happening to him, or else to have the courage and humanity to give him a quick, easy, graceful end to his life and spare him the agony now closing in on it without relent. I did the latter. And while I was there and watching him pass away so easily, I wondered about my own end, and why my government and my society are too squeamish to allow me, or anyone else, to have what even a cat or a dog can have: human mercy and deliverance.
If it's a sin, that's between me and God. You let me worry about it. But don't condemn me to pointless horror because you can't face reality, or admit your limitations. Let's grow up, and bravely end the foolish taboo on this topic; put some provisions, procedures, and safeguards in place, and start making it possible for the inevitable to take place with dignity and meaning.
To present doctors solely as "healers" is to blithely abdicate what every human being ought to be, even more fundamentally: compassionate. If human beings were immortal, there might be something to this position. But we're not. At some point, for each of us, "healing" becomes an unrealistic goal beyond the reach of our knowledge and technology. At that point, to make a fetish of the "healer" role is to sentence those entrusted to one's care to real, literal torture. This is not to wash one's hands like a surgeon. This is to wash one's hands like Pontius Pilate.
Not even a week ago, I faced the awful decision of having to euthanize a cat who'd been part of my life for ten years. He had inoperable cancer of the larynx, and he had reached the point where he could no longer hide the pain he was in. There were two options: consign him to death by slow starvation and the torture of his own body until his heart finally gave out because I didn't have to guts to face the inevitability of what was happening to him, or else to have the courage and humanity to give him a quick, easy, graceful end to his life and spare him the agony now closing in on it without relent. I did the latter. And while I was there and watching him pass away so easily, I wondered about my own end, and why my government and my society are too squeamish to allow me, or anyone else, to have what even a cat or a dog can have: human mercy and deliverance.
If it's a sin, that's between me and God. You let me worry about it. But don't condemn me to pointless horror because you can't face reality, or admit your limitations. Let's grow up, and bravely end the foolish taboo on this topic; put some provisions, procedures, and safeguards in place, and start making it possible for the inevitable to take place with dignity and meaning.
The responses here of Ailina and Ann Ig Norant reflect, I
think, the attitudes that have held sway for too long. On the surface of it,
they sound reasonable. But they're not thought out. What are the practical
upshots of this "DIY" attitude to death? How exactly does a human
being facing his or her own demise undertake the research to do it properly?
Gunshot to the head? Drink drain cleaner? Hit the streets and try to score a
sufficient amount of heroin to overdose? This attitude also opens the door to
just anyone showing up to "help", and some of those people just might
be self-interested... like those who stand to inherit; and let's not kid
ourselves. That's been going on for thousands of years. Please, people. Think.
Show some compassion, and really think about what you're saying.
I had a friend down in Texas who died in his mid-20s about ten years back of a horrible connective tissue cancer. But he held onto hope and fought it till the day he died, finally poisoned by his own liver. That was his choice to make, and I certainly respected and admired his courage. But he was young, and he had his whole life ahead of him. His father, substantially older, died two years later of throat cancer. His attitude was different. He was at the other end of his life, and once he knew there was no stopping it, he refused further treatment as pointless. His death came fairly quickly, but it was also needlessly ugly. He wished for, and ought to have had, the ability to choose his time, and to be able to say his good-byes on his own terms, with dignity. But people like Ailina and Ann saw to it that was an impossibility. The bills piled up, and he died miserably. And for what?
This needs to be job of professional people who understand pharmacology, know how bodies and brains react, understand dosages, and have experience with what chemicals have what effect in the body. The people chosen to administer, or, if a relative is chosen to perform the act, advise the administration of lethal agents, should be trained and licensed. There needs to be oversight, and it needs to be transparent and done in the light of day, not in dark corners.
It also needs to be said that murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, done against his or her will, just as the act of lovemaking becomes rape when done without consent. The key word here is consent. It's not murder if someone is asking for help to end his or her own suffering. It's merciful assistance. Getting hung up on abstract labels and ignoring the realities of what we're really talking about here has ruled the roost for far too long, and millions of human beings have suffered slow, torturous, lingering deaths at the whims of healthy people who put their own philosophical verities before the actualities of human suffering.
I had a friend down in Texas who died in his mid-20s about ten years back of a horrible connective tissue cancer. But he held onto hope and fought it till the day he died, finally poisoned by his own liver. That was his choice to make, and I certainly respected and admired his courage. But he was young, and he had his whole life ahead of him. His father, substantially older, died two years later of throat cancer. His attitude was different. He was at the other end of his life, and once he knew there was no stopping it, he refused further treatment as pointless. His death came fairly quickly, but it was also needlessly ugly. He wished for, and ought to have had, the ability to choose his time, and to be able to say his good-byes on his own terms, with dignity. But people like Ailina and Ann saw to it that was an impossibility. The bills piled up, and he died miserably. And for what?
This needs to be job of professional people who understand pharmacology, know how bodies and brains react, understand dosages, and have experience with what chemicals have what effect in the body. The people chosen to administer, or, if a relative is chosen to perform the act, advise the administration of lethal agents, should be trained and licensed. There needs to be oversight, and it needs to be transparent and done in the light of day, not in dark corners.
It also needs to be said that murder is the unlawful killing of a human being, done against his or her will, just as the act of lovemaking becomes rape when done without consent. The key word here is consent. It's not murder if someone is asking for help to end his or her own suffering. It's merciful assistance. Getting hung up on abstract labels and ignoring the realities of what we're really talking about here has ruled the roost for far too long, and millions of human beings have suffered slow, torturous, lingering deaths at the whims of healthy people who put their own philosophical verities before the actualities of human suffering.
People Like Us
Something of a minor triumph last night. One of the long-standing hobbies of my life, unintentionally, has been tracking down "lost" songs. Some of them were so obscure I didn't know the artist or even have the right title... sometimes just a haunting snippet of melody. I think my two biggest wins on that score were "You Didn't Have to Be So Nice" by The Lovin' Spoonful and "The Circle Is Small" by Gordon Lightfoot. Honourable mention goes to "Wear Your Love Like Heaven" by Donovan, "Something Better to Do" by Olivia Newton-John, and "Heavenly Blue", which I knew I knew I knew just from the voice was by Burton Cummings -- who else sounds like him? -- but could not for the life of me find any reference to for years (the album it was on, Woman Love, was out of print for a long time, as I recall).
Nothing like that at all this time. Knew the band, knew the writer, knew the singer. Just couldn't get hold of the thing. The song is "People Like Us" by Talking Heads... but it's the version sung by John Goodman, who played Louis Fyne in the movie True Stories, where he sings a shorter, different version of the song. I had this song in the late 1980s accidentally, as the B side of a 45 featuring some other song (oddly enough, I don't remember which, despite the fact it would have been the song I bought the record for). But it immediately struck a chord with me. It was one of the songs I listened to on the way to school on my Walkman... and I'm not talking USB-rechargeable, solid state digital Walkman here... I'm talking AA-powered, mechanical drive, chromium-dioxide cassette tape-playing first generation portable music here.
Time passed and my turntable died and I handed all my vinyl over to a friend's brother. I had moved on to CDs like everyone else in the universe and didn't think I'd miss what I couldn't even play. And to be honest, by and large, that's been true. Pretty much anything I've had a hankering for has been online, or on YouTube, or re-released on CD, or sold for a buck to download.
I was pretty fond of the stuff Talking Heads did in the 80s... still am... and I wanted to hear that song again. So I bit the bullet and went out and bought the True Stories album. One of the biggest musical disappointments ever. The version of People Like Us on the album isn't Goodman's lively and compelling version. It's David Byrne's version. Now, I like David Byrne. A lot of his Talking Heads lyrics really punch my buttons. But his version of People Like Us sounds like it's sung by a guy just waking up from a heroin coma. Sorry, Dave, but it doesn't hold a candle, a lighter, or a matchstick to John Goodman's version. And that's the one I wanted.
A few years ago Talking Heads released a CD called Bonus Rarities and Outtakes, and it does feature the version I've been looking for for, what, about 20 years now? But it's been remarkably difficult to get hold of. Every time I find it online, they'll let you listen to a snippet of the song, but when you go to buy it... to BUY it, kids; you know, hand over your money? -- you always get this "oh, sorry, we can only sell this in the US" bullshit. What the hell is that all about? Hollywood's been dumping its product all over the planet for 70 years, but I can't buy a song in Canada today I bought in Canada 25 years ago? Piracy isn't always about saving 99¢, you idiots. Wake up.
Fortunately, another portal was willing to sell in Canada, and for $14 I bought and downloaded the album (along with another I've been trying to get on CD for a long time, the soundtrack of 1984 by The Eurhythmics; $9). So finally, for the first time in decades, I was able to listen to John Goodman testifying last night, and it all came back... the lyrics, the feelings, the memories of "yeah, I get this" and the gratifying and relieving realization that "yeah, I STILL get this". David Byrne just cannot carry this song. Delegating it to John Goodman was 100% the right call, and it should be the version on the True Stories album, too.
I'm quoting from memory here, so forgive me if I blow a line. Sing along if you know it.
In 1950, when I was born
Papa couldn't afford to buy us much
He said be proud of what you are
There's something special 'bout people like us
People like us
Who will answer the telephone
People like us
Growin' big as a house
People like us
We're gonna make it because
We don't want freedom
We don't want justice
We just want someone to love.
I was called upon in my third grade class
I gave my answer and it caused a fuss
I'm not the same as everyone else
And times were hard for people like us
People like us
Who will answer the telephone
People like us
Growin' big as a house
People like us
We're gonna make it because
We don't want freedom
We don't want justice
We just want someone to love.
Well now
What good is freedom?
God laughs at people like us
I see it comin'
Like a light comin' down from above
The clouds roll by and the moon comes up
How long must we live in the heat of the sun?
Millions of people are waiting on love
And this is a song about people like us
People like us
Who will answer the telephone
People like us
Growin' big as a house
People like us
We're gonna make it because
We don't want freedom
We don't want justice
We just want someone to love.
Someone to love.
Someone to love.
Someone to love.
Nothing like that at all this time. Knew the band, knew the writer, knew the singer. Just couldn't get hold of the thing. The song is "People Like Us" by Talking Heads... but it's the version sung by John Goodman, who played Louis Fyne in the movie True Stories, where he sings a shorter, different version of the song. I had this song in the late 1980s accidentally, as the B side of a 45 featuring some other song (oddly enough, I don't remember which, despite the fact it would have been the song I bought the record for). But it immediately struck a chord with me. It was one of the songs I listened to on the way to school on my Walkman... and I'm not talking USB-rechargeable, solid state digital Walkman here... I'm talking AA-powered, mechanical drive, chromium-dioxide cassette tape-playing first generation portable music here.
Time passed and my turntable died and I handed all my vinyl over to a friend's brother. I had moved on to CDs like everyone else in the universe and didn't think I'd miss what I couldn't even play. And to be honest, by and large, that's been true. Pretty much anything I've had a hankering for has been online, or on YouTube, or re-released on CD, or sold for a buck to download.
I was pretty fond of the stuff Talking Heads did in the 80s... still am... and I wanted to hear that song again. So I bit the bullet and went out and bought the True Stories album. One of the biggest musical disappointments ever. The version of People Like Us on the album isn't Goodman's lively and compelling version. It's David Byrne's version. Now, I like David Byrne. A lot of his Talking Heads lyrics really punch my buttons. But his version of People Like Us sounds like it's sung by a guy just waking up from a heroin coma. Sorry, Dave, but it doesn't hold a candle, a lighter, or a matchstick to John Goodman's version. And that's the one I wanted.
A few years ago Talking Heads released a CD called Bonus Rarities and Outtakes, and it does feature the version I've been looking for for, what, about 20 years now? But it's been remarkably difficult to get hold of. Every time I find it online, they'll let you listen to a snippet of the song, but when you go to buy it... to BUY it, kids; you know, hand over your money? -- you always get this "oh, sorry, we can only sell this in the US" bullshit. What the hell is that all about? Hollywood's been dumping its product all over the planet for 70 years, but I can't buy a song in Canada today I bought in Canada 25 years ago? Piracy isn't always about saving 99¢, you idiots. Wake up.
Fortunately, another portal was willing to sell in Canada, and for $14 I bought and downloaded the album (along with another I've been trying to get on CD for a long time, the soundtrack of 1984 by The Eurhythmics; $9). So finally, for the first time in decades, I was able to listen to John Goodman testifying last night, and it all came back... the lyrics, the feelings, the memories of "yeah, I get this" and the gratifying and relieving realization that "yeah, I STILL get this". David Byrne just cannot carry this song. Delegating it to John Goodman was 100% the right call, and it should be the version on the True Stories album, too.
I'm quoting from memory here, so forgive me if I blow a line. Sing along if you know it.
In 1950, when I was born
Papa couldn't afford to buy us much
He said be proud of what you are
There's something special 'bout people like us
People like us
Who will answer the telephone
People like us
Growin' big as a house
People like us
We're gonna make it because
We don't want freedom
We don't want justice
We just want someone to love.
I was called upon in my third grade class
I gave my answer and it caused a fuss
I'm not the same as everyone else
And times were hard for people like us
People like us
Who will answer the telephone
People like us
Growin' big as a house
People like us
We're gonna make it because
We don't want freedom
We don't want justice
We just want someone to love.
Well now
What good is freedom?
God laughs at people like us
I see it comin'
Like a light comin' down from above
The clouds roll by and the moon comes up
How long must we live in the heat of the sun?
Millions of people are waiting on love
And this is a song about people like us
People like us
Who will answer the telephone
People like us
Growin' big as a house
People like us
We're gonna make it because
We don't want freedom
We don't want justice
We just want someone to love.
Someone to love.
Someone to love.
Someone to love.
Sunday, August 26, 2012
How it all comes together
Yesterday was like one of those long ago days, back in 2005 or 2006, when P-Doug and I really just started our wanders. It was close to home and about exploring.
He picked me up about 2 and we headed over to Satay On the Road on Bayview Avenue. It has a good, inexpensive lunch menu. As usual I had the green chicken curry with rice. From there we wandered up the street a bit to an antique shop whose name I can never remember where he picked up a couple of framed prints and I bought an autobiography I'd seen the last time I was there, that of Melvin Belli, a well-known American lawyer whose varied career included defending Jack Ruby, having a guest starring role in an episode of ST:TNG [edit: oops, TOS, I meant to say], and being contacted by the serial killer Zodiac (and no, I don't mean that's how and why his career ended).
We then did the main the thrust of the day... a trail hike in south Scarborough, not too far from where he lives. We parked in pretty much the wrong spot and were puzzled not to be able to find the trail. He did find an ad hoc trail into the woods down a steep embankment, and as in years before, not slipping and breaking my neck on the way down was my excuse to take off my sandals, and thus to keep them off for most of the walk afterward. It seemed to be a new trail. The asphalt was smooth and not pitted under my feet. The bridge we came to that crossed Taylor-Massey Creek looked as though it had been in place for a year or less.
We made it about half way and turned around because there was a movie P-Doug hoped to see downtown. We called G, his wife, but she seemed to be still sleeping so we headed downtown on the subway from his neighbourhood. The movie we went to see was Easy Money (which I'm intending to write about later). By the time we got out, it was about 9, so we crossed Yonge Street and dined on burgers at Fran's. It was there, when we were on our way out, that P-Doug stopped me and directed my attention to the screens, which told the news that Neil Armstrong had passed away. I couldn't believe it. One of the few genuine heroes in my life was gone, and with him, an era that had defined my whole life so far, aside from the first year or so. It was a kind of sad ending to an otherwise bright, enjoyable day in Max's wake.
He picked me up about 2 and we headed over to Satay On the Road on Bayview Avenue. It has a good, inexpensive lunch menu. As usual I had the green chicken curry with rice. From there we wandered up the street a bit to an antique shop whose name I can never remember where he picked up a couple of framed prints and I bought an autobiography I'd seen the last time I was there, that of Melvin Belli, a well-known American lawyer whose varied career included defending Jack Ruby, having a guest starring role in an episode of ST:TNG [edit: oops, TOS, I meant to say], and being contacted by the serial killer Zodiac (and no, I don't mean that's how and why his career ended).
We then did the main the thrust of the day... a trail hike in south Scarborough, not too far from where he lives. We parked in pretty much the wrong spot and were puzzled not to be able to find the trail. He did find an ad hoc trail into the woods down a steep embankment, and as in years before, not slipping and breaking my neck on the way down was my excuse to take off my sandals, and thus to keep them off for most of the walk afterward. It seemed to be a new trail. The asphalt was smooth and not pitted under my feet. The bridge we came to that crossed Taylor-Massey Creek looked as though it had been in place for a year or less.
We made it about half way and turned around because there was a movie P-Doug hoped to see downtown. We called G, his wife, but she seemed to be still sleeping so we headed downtown on the subway from his neighbourhood. The movie we went to see was Easy Money (which I'm intending to write about later). By the time we got out, it was about 9, so we crossed Yonge Street and dined on burgers at Fran's. It was there, when we were on our way out, that P-Doug stopped me and directed my attention to the screens, which told the news that Neil Armstrong had passed away. I couldn't believe it. One of the few genuine heroes in my life was gone, and with him, an era that had defined my whole life so far, aside from the first year or so. It was a kind of sad ending to an otherwise bright, enjoyable day in Max's wake.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Thinking about Max in perspective
It's been nearly two days now since Max drew his last breath. I've been thinking today about my feelings.
I'm not as affected as I expected to be. I don't know if I'm sublimating or if I'm just actually okay with things. I mean, I miss him. I look over at the empty cat bed at my knee that, most of the time, he'd be spawled out in, and my eyes keep flicking to the corner of the couch he ought to be coming around at any moment since he's NOT sitting here beside me. My home doesn't really feel like home just at the moment. There is a hole, yes. But at the same time, I'm not finding myself aching and unable to think of anything else. He comes to mind, I feel sad, but it's not all-consuming, and in a way, I feel bad about that. It feels like I'm cheaping his life and what he meant to me. It feels wrong not to be shattered.
But I kind of had a realization this morning, getting into the shower. I've heard others say the same thing: I seem to do my best thinking in the shower ("wrote" most of yesterday's post ruminating in the warm spray). A cat's life is a pretty simple thing. They eat, sleep most of the time, and when they're awake, they like to interact a little with the other beings in their lives. They're company. Max was a happy presence who, for ten years, kept me from feeling lonely and often delighted me with his attention and his antics. No one lives forever and cats live a nice while, but not really all that long, in human terms. He wasn't going to live forever. Twelve years wasn't enough, but I thought, you know, the average is, what, 15 these days? He got short-changed, but not colossally so. I don't know about his first two years but his last ten were full of a safe, warm place with food constantly available, several litter boxes, umpteen places to sack out and catch sun beams, and the company of (over the course of it) three other cats and two other humans, as well as various occasional visitors, something Max, as the kind of cat he was, always welcomed with happiness and curiosity. There really wasn't all that much more that could have made life better for him, other than maybe having his 'nads and getting to use them a bunch, and me indulging him as a lap cat more often than I did. But I let him crawl all over me at night most of the time he wanted to so I don't feel too bad, I guess. And, when the time came that his life was irreversibly ending, he was in the care of beings who were willing and capable to relieve him of the lingering torture of death by the final exhaustion of unimaginable pain over weeks or months. He had a few bad weeks at the end, but could still eat, still sleep, still get around the day he died. So, really, I think the only regret I can realistically have is that he's not here with me anymore. It's the realization that that was the time we were going to have together, and it was probably written in his genes the day I brought him home nearly ten years ago. We had our time, and it was good, and that was due in large part to me. I got him out of that cage and into a comfortable loving home, where he didn't want for much. Not even a quick, easy, dignified passing from life. Nature would not have been anywhere near so kind.
So here I am, on the second day without him, and to be honest, I haven't cried or lost too much sleep. I did the right things, and I did all I could, and he lived well while he lived. All that's left is the loneliness that's the real, genuine tribute to my friend.
Okay, NOW my eyes are wet. :)
I'm not as affected as I expected to be. I don't know if I'm sublimating or if I'm just actually okay with things. I mean, I miss him. I look over at the empty cat bed at my knee that, most of the time, he'd be spawled out in, and my eyes keep flicking to the corner of the couch he ought to be coming around at any moment since he's NOT sitting here beside me. My home doesn't really feel like home just at the moment. There is a hole, yes. But at the same time, I'm not finding myself aching and unable to think of anything else. He comes to mind, I feel sad, but it's not all-consuming, and in a way, I feel bad about that. It feels like I'm cheaping his life and what he meant to me. It feels wrong not to be shattered.
But I kind of had a realization this morning, getting into the shower. I've heard others say the same thing: I seem to do my best thinking in the shower ("wrote" most of yesterday's post ruminating in the warm spray). A cat's life is a pretty simple thing. They eat, sleep most of the time, and when they're awake, they like to interact a little with the other beings in their lives. They're company. Max was a happy presence who, for ten years, kept me from feeling lonely and often delighted me with his attention and his antics. No one lives forever and cats live a nice while, but not really all that long, in human terms. He wasn't going to live forever. Twelve years wasn't enough, but I thought, you know, the average is, what, 15 these days? He got short-changed, but not colossally so. I don't know about his first two years but his last ten were full of a safe, warm place with food constantly available, several litter boxes, umpteen places to sack out and catch sun beams, and the company of (over the course of it) three other cats and two other humans, as well as various occasional visitors, something Max, as the kind of cat he was, always welcomed with happiness and curiosity. There really wasn't all that much more that could have made life better for him, other than maybe having his 'nads and getting to use them a bunch, and me indulging him as a lap cat more often than I did. But I let him crawl all over me at night most of the time he wanted to so I don't feel too bad, I guess. And, when the time came that his life was irreversibly ending, he was in the care of beings who were willing and capable to relieve him of the lingering torture of death by the final exhaustion of unimaginable pain over weeks or months. He had a few bad weeks at the end, but could still eat, still sleep, still get around the day he died. So, really, I think the only regret I can realistically have is that he's not here with me anymore. It's the realization that that was the time we were going to have together, and it was probably written in his genes the day I brought him home nearly ten years ago. We had our time, and it was good, and that was due in large part to me. I got him out of that cage and into a comfortable loving home, where he didn't want for much. Not even a quick, easy, dignified passing from life. Nature would not have been anywhere near so kind.
So here I am, on the second day without him, and to be honest, I haven't cried or lost too much sleep. I did the right things, and I did all I could, and he lived well while he lived. All that's left is the loneliness that's the real, genuine tribute to my friend.
Okay, NOW my eyes are wet. :)
Friday, August 24, 2012
Giving it a try
I've always been impressed with the dedication Jim over at Down the Road has for his blog; the discipline of posting twice weekly. I'm not sure I have much to say but I suppose I should just try and say something so the years don't just slip away and leave me wondering what I was doing all that time. The years 2005-2009 or so are fairly nicely laid out here... more recent years, not so much... cat deaths notwithstanding.
So speaking of which, this being the first full day since Max died (right about exactly now yesterday, as I look up at the clock), and one of my last summer Fridays off, I didn't want to just sit around doing nothing and sitting next to the empty cat bed beside my chair... which, of course, is what I'm doing right now. Just before 11 I got out and headed down to the city archives. I took a new route this time, down the Don Valley Parkway to Rosedale Ravine Road and along to Davenport. Probably no faster, but it was change from creeping down the last quarter mile of the Allen.
When I got there, they'd moved everything around. The light table for viewing slides was right out in the open (so much for sneaking close-up photos of them) and completely lit. Does this seem like a good idea when the idea is too look at something dimly bottom-lit? Not to me.
Also, all the glorious old aerial photos from the 50s on up have been scanned at last and put away, because they were falling apart. Sensible, I agree, but it really takes all the fun out of going down there, hauling them out, looking back in time across a 4'x4' image. Now you have to go on their site, there in the building, and view the photos in a browser. They're nice enough to make it possible for you to make screen caps and email them to yourself, gratis, which is some consolation... but it's just not the same. All the charm of spending a few hours down there has just bled away.
I wandered over to their book section and just kind of browsed. One thing I found was the memoirs of Leslie Saunders, a guy who was mayor of Toronto briefly in the 1950s. I knew he was an Orangeman, and it was kind of a big deal to him, but I had no idea how big. The book is called An Orangeman in Public Life, and its cover is a crudely-done Union Jack. Since it's a reference book (as, it turns out, are all the copies held by the Toronto Public Library), I couldn't borrow it. I flipped through it and was just appalled. The man seemed consumed with Catholicism. I knew he blew his chance at re-election by blowing off some speech about how the Battle of the Boyne was the most important thing to democracy ever, alienating even the voters in 1955 and opening the door for, of all things, Toronto's first Jewish mayor, Nathan Phillips... but that seems to be mostly what Leslie Saunders was all about. The book was published in 1980 or so, and includes a 1978 clipping from The Toronto Sun in which Claire Hoy pours scorn all over then-Mayor David Crombie for not attending the Orange Parade, and asking why it's okay for everyone else to celebrate their heritage but not WASPs. It seems to have escaped Hoy that when Chinese guys are doing dragon dances, or black people are dancing in Caribana, or Italians are in procession with the Virgin Mary, what they're NOT celebrating is the subjugation of another group and the transplantation of those sentiments to the New World. I can see why a mayor in the last quarter of the 20th century might want to stay home from something like that. Hoy and Saunders, not so much. There were photos in the book of Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis accepting a ring from a cardinal in the 1950s. How obsessed was this guy? Well, Nathan Phillips was "mayor of all the people", and has the square in front of City Hall named after him. Saunders was mayor of the Orange folk. Don't know if there's anything named after him.
This is not to say I don't understand and appreciate the importance of the Reformation. To put it in perspective... my own immediate heritage, technically speaking, is Catholic. My parents are each the product of "mixed" marriages of Protestant men and Catholic women, and each was raised Catholic, and so I was baptized Catholic. I went through adult catechism about ten years ago, partly out of spiritual yearnings and mostly out of cultural interest. For a while I attended Mass. But there were a lot of things I didn't like about the Catholic Church. The sacrament of confession, for one... I don't see why God should be unwilling to forgive a contrite person, and even send that person to Hell, on the basis that he or she didn't actually express it to some other mortal human being, designated though he (and it must be "he") may be. I don't like that the clergy can't marry. I don't like that priests must be male. I don't agree with the Church on issues like abortion or same-sex marriage, and when they pressured us during the liturgy to sign a petition in the foyer to demand Parliament use the notwithstanding clause to overrule the Supreme Court's ruling striking down the opposite-sex provision of the federal definition of marriage, that crossed a line for me. In fact, at that point, I believe that the Catholic Church technically disqualified itself from tax exemption in this country. I've rarely attended Mass since then.
I'm not religious, not really. I never really was a sincere believer, though I did sincerely go looking. I did enjoy the fellowship of the Mass, and the liturgy, and singing and the recitations. That was all moving, and it's probably the only thing I really miss about church. But something changed in me. I suppose I went from being a "cultural Catholic" to a "cultural Protestant" like my non-observing grandfathers. In this culture, most of us grow up at cultural Christians in a general sense; we hear about Jesus and pick up the broader strokes of the Bible, at least the good things in it. Those things resonate with me and they always will; they're in the bone. But if I felt compelled to begin attending services again, I think I'd either be Anglican or United Church (my dad's dad was UC). I kind of like Anglicanism because its worship is similar to what I was used to as a Catholic, but I think at heart I'd be a little closer to the line of the United Church. But in either case, those are progressive churches whose stands I agree with. I think a guy like Leslie Saunders would have found them a little soft, though.
...Wow, did this really start off as just a short, do-it-to-do-it post about how bored I was going to the city archives? Maybe I should write about being bored more often.
So speaking of which, this being the first full day since Max died (right about exactly now yesterday, as I look up at the clock), and one of my last summer Fridays off, I didn't want to just sit around doing nothing and sitting next to the empty cat bed beside my chair... which, of course, is what I'm doing right now. Just before 11 I got out and headed down to the city archives. I took a new route this time, down the Don Valley Parkway to Rosedale Ravine Road and along to Davenport. Probably no faster, but it was change from creeping down the last quarter mile of the Allen.
When I got there, they'd moved everything around. The light table for viewing slides was right out in the open (so much for sneaking close-up photos of them) and completely lit. Does this seem like a good idea when the idea is too look at something dimly bottom-lit? Not to me.
Also, all the glorious old aerial photos from the 50s on up have been scanned at last and put away, because they were falling apart. Sensible, I agree, but it really takes all the fun out of going down there, hauling them out, looking back in time across a 4'x4' image. Now you have to go on their site, there in the building, and view the photos in a browser. They're nice enough to make it possible for you to make screen caps and email them to yourself, gratis, which is some consolation... but it's just not the same. All the charm of spending a few hours down there has just bled away.
I wandered over to their book section and just kind of browsed. One thing I found was the memoirs of Leslie Saunders, a guy who was mayor of Toronto briefly in the 1950s. I knew he was an Orangeman, and it was kind of a big deal to him, but I had no idea how big. The book is called An Orangeman in Public Life, and its cover is a crudely-done Union Jack. Since it's a reference book (as, it turns out, are all the copies held by the Toronto Public Library), I couldn't borrow it. I flipped through it and was just appalled. The man seemed consumed with Catholicism. I knew he blew his chance at re-election by blowing off some speech about how the Battle of the Boyne was the most important thing to democracy ever, alienating even the voters in 1955 and opening the door for, of all things, Toronto's first Jewish mayor, Nathan Phillips... but that seems to be mostly what Leslie Saunders was all about. The book was published in 1980 or so, and includes a 1978 clipping from The Toronto Sun in which Claire Hoy pours scorn all over then-Mayor David Crombie for not attending the Orange Parade, and asking why it's okay for everyone else to celebrate their heritage but not WASPs. It seems to have escaped Hoy that when Chinese guys are doing dragon dances, or black people are dancing in Caribana, or Italians are in procession with the Virgin Mary, what they're NOT celebrating is the subjugation of another group and the transplantation of those sentiments to the New World. I can see why a mayor in the last quarter of the 20th century might want to stay home from something like that. Hoy and Saunders, not so much. There were photos in the book of Quebec Premier Maurice Duplessis accepting a ring from a cardinal in the 1950s. How obsessed was this guy? Well, Nathan Phillips was "mayor of all the people", and has the square in front of City Hall named after him. Saunders was mayor of the Orange folk. Don't know if there's anything named after him.
This is not to say I don't understand and appreciate the importance of the Reformation. To put it in perspective... my own immediate heritage, technically speaking, is Catholic. My parents are each the product of "mixed" marriages of Protestant men and Catholic women, and each was raised Catholic, and so I was baptized Catholic. I went through adult catechism about ten years ago, partly out of spiritual yearnings and mostly out of cultural interest. For a while I attended Mass. But there were a lot of things I didn't like about the Catholic Church. The sacrament of confession, for one... I don't see why God should be unwilling to forgive a contrite person, and even send that person to Hell, on the basis that he or she didn't actually express it to some other mortal human being, designated though he (and it must be "he") may be. I don't like that the clergy can't marry. I don't like that priests must be male. I don't agree with the Church on issues like abortion or same-sex marriage, and when they pressured us during the liturgy to sign a petition in the foyer to demand Parliament use the notwithstanding clause to overrule the Supreme Court's ruling striking down the opposite-sex provision of the federal definition of marriage, that crossed a line for me. In fact, at that point, I believe that the Catholic Church technically disqualified itself from tax exemption in this country. I've rarely attended Mass since then.
I'm not religious, not really. I never really was a sincere believer, though I did sincerely go looking. I did enjoy the fellowship of the Mass, and the liturgy, and singing and the recitations. That was all moving, and it's probably the only thing I really miss about church. But something changed in me. I suppose I went from being a "cultural Catholic" to a "cultural Protestant" like my non-observing grandfathers. In this culture, most of us grow up at cultural Christians in a general sense; we hear about Jesus and pick up the broader strokes of the Bible, at least the good things in it. Those things resonate with me and they always will; they're in the bone. But if I felt compelled to begin attending services again, I think I'd either be Anglican or United Church (my dad's dad was UC). I kind of like Anglicanism because its worship is similar to what I was used to as a Catholic, but I think at heart I'd be a little closer to the line of the United Church. But in either case, those are progressive churches whose stands I agree with. I think a guy like Leslie Saunders would have found them a little soft, though.
...Wow, did this really start off as just a short, do-it-to-do-it post about how bored I was going to the city archives? Maybe I should write about being bored more often.
Thursday, August 23, 2012
Max is gone
Well, Max is gone now. My dad came in and went with me. Max had been suffering; I could see it. I read the biopsy report that came in and it sounded ugly. Very fast, very aggressive. He was probably fine just a month or so ago. It came on that fast. And where it was, operating really wasn't an option; he would have lost half his jaw, and there was no way of knowing that would have gotten it all.
So, we took him in at 2:45. They gave him a sedative that made him nauseous and he threw up a couple of times. After he got settled, they laid him down, and he and I stared into each other's eyes while they gave him the needle. I have no idea at exactly what moment he died, but I watched him relaxing almost from the moment the doctor started to inject him. My guess is he was gone before the shot was over.
I'll get his ashes back sometime in a week or two. Right now, I feel pretty even about it. I didn't lose composure during all this... I feel a little guilty about that, like I owed it to him... but the reality is there was nothing else to be done and giving in to desperation and wailing wouldn't have helped any of us. So, now I just have to get used to his not being here after ten years. No more climbing over me at night when he's sure I'm not really asleep. No more kneading me. No more of his little "oowww" of a meow. He was a wonderful cat, almost more like an old hound dog. Loved people. Laid back. Never cross. Never sick, till now. Just about perfect. I could have done with seven or eight more years of perfect, though.
I just had a quick, brave look at his adoption papers. "Morris", crossed out, replaced with "Max". I adopted him October 19, 2002. So right around now, ten years ago, is when I lost Jenny. Ten years between their deaths. They never knew each other. Bonnie knew them both. I wonder what Bonnie's thinking. I think Bonnie and Ally both knew something was wrong with Max. Ally's been picking on him, trying to chase him out of my bedroom when he tries... tried... to come in. I guess she won't have to do that anymore.
And now I just get on with things, I guess. Thank you, Max. You were a wonderful little pal, and no one will ever replace you. You were unique.
So, we took him in at 2:45. They gave him a sedative that made him nauseous and he threw up a couple of times. After he got settled, they laid him down, and he and I stared into each other's eyes while they gave him the needle. I have no idea at exactly what moment he died, but I watched him relaxing almost from the moment the doctor started to inject him. My guess is he was gone before the shot was over.
I'll get his ashes back sometime in a week or two. Right now, I feel pretty even about it. I didn't lose composure during all this... I feel a little guilty about that, like I owed it to him... but the reality is there was nothing else to be done and giving in to desperation and wailing wouldn't have helped any of us. So, now I just have to get used to his not being here after ten years. No more climbing over me at night when he's sure I'm not really asleep. No more kneading me. No more of his little "oowww" of a meow. He was a wonderful cat, almost more like an old hound dog. Loved people. Laid back. Never cross. Never sick, till now. Just about perfect. I could have done with seven or eight more years of perfect, though.
I just had a quick, brave look at his adoption papers. "Morris", crossed out, replaced with "Max". I adopted him October 19, 2002. So right around now, ten years ago, is when I lost Jenny. Ten years between their deaths. They never knew each other. Bonnie knew them both. I wonder what Bonnie's thinking. I think Bonnie and Ally both knew something was wrong with Max. Ally's been picking on him, trying to chase him out of my bedroom when he tries... tried... to come in. I guess she won't have to do that anymore.
And now I just get on with things, I guess. Thank you, Max. You were a wonderful little pal, and no one will ever replace you. You were unique.
It's cancer
Max was in for tissue samples on Monday and I just got the results. A very aggressive cancer. He's been showing signs of real discomfort and actually pain on and off since last night, so I realize the only responsible thing to do is to end this. I've made an appointment to take him in at 2:30. By three, he'll be gone. My poor little wee fellah. You deserve so much better than this.
Tuesday, August 21, 2012
Max again
It's been a week of fighting this antibiotic pill into Max, and he's not really any better for it. He hasn't really been eating. His eye has been less weepy, but that's about it. I took him in again last night and two doctors are reasonably sure he has cancer. He's lost nearly half a pound in the last week and a half due to not eating. They took some actually tissue samples this time instead of just a swab, and now I'm waiting for results again, but, like last time, not really hopefully.
To be honest, I think, soon, I'm going to have to take him in and, you know, not bring him back. Can I actually say it? Have him put to sleep. Maybe as soon as this weekend. I don't know.
The one bright spot was they gave him an appetite stimulant last night that was like Popeye eating spinach. Max was all over me when I got back from the store about an hour after we got home. Over the course of a couple of hours, he ate just about two cans of tuna. He really perked up. He even stood his ground when Ally was trying to pick on him and put the run on her. I don't remember him doing that even when she came to live with us. So I've asked for more of that. If I can keep him eating well, so much the longer he'll be with me.
I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that it's cancer, though I still hold out some faint hope it isn't. I don't know how long I have with him and that's what's got me anxious. I mean, if I already knew there was a set date, I could at least enjoy the time till then. But really, now it's down to watching him for signs of chronic discomfort, or the day when even appetite stimulants don't do the trick. It's no way to enjoy a pet, but on the other hand, I can't bring myself to hustle him off the planet any earlier than compassion requires just so I don't have to deal with it. Ten years together, not quite, just seems like awfully short change, especially in a cat who was never sick a day in his life before.
To be honest, I think, soon, I'm going to have to take him in and, you know, not bring him back. Can I actually say it? Have him put to sleep. Maybe as soon as this weekend. I don't know.
The one bright spot was they gave him an appetite stimulant last night that was like Popeye eating spinach. Max was all over me when I got back from the store about an hour after we got home. Over the course of a couple of hours, he ate just about two cans of tuna. He really perked up. He even stood his ground when Ally was trying to pick on him and put the run on her. I don't remember him doing that even when she came to live with us. So I've asked for more of that. If I can keep him eating well, so much the longer he'll be with me.
I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that it's cancer, though I still hold out some faint hope it isn't. I don't know how long I have with him and that's what's got me anxious. I mean, if I already knew there was a set date, I could at least enjoy the time till then. But really, now it's down to watching him for signs of chronic discomfort, or the day when even appetite stimulants don't do the trick. It's no way to enjoy a pet, but on the other hand, I can't bring myself to hustle him off the planet any earlier than compassion requires just so I don't have to deal with it. Ten years together, not quite, just seems like awfully short change, especially in a cat who was never sick a day in his life before.
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
More Max
Maybe.
The results of Max's tumor swab came back on Monday and it turns out they didn't confirm cancer. Now that doesn't mean it isn't cancer... but it does mean, at least, they didn't confirm it is. The report suggested infection, and so my vet, while still professing to have "a bad feeling", put Max on a 20-day regimen of Baytril.
I got the news at work. The funny thing is, when the vet told me he thought Max had cancer, I was quietly horrified and very sad, but I managed to hold onto it. When the news came it might be just an infection and they were going to treat it, for now, as such, it nearly overwhelmed me. I felt weak and I had to struggle to maintain my composure in the office. A co-worker suggested I work from home that afternoon, which I did, after picking up Max's pills.
I also got Pill Pockets, in which you hide the pill. I got a bonus first pill free down the hatch from Max. Afterward, he's suddenly decided he's not interested in treats anymore. After repeated attempts to pill him by stealth during the day, I had to fight the second one into him last night. No dice tricking him this morning, either, even ground up in salmon (wasted salmon, wasted pill). I'm so not looking forward to giving him this pill. I'm thinking of biting the bullet and calling the vet for some oral liquid. He might manage to spit some of it out, but at least some of it'll have to go down, too. If it's an infection strong enough to make a vet think it's cancer, it's not going to get better on its own. It's going to be chronic unless we knock it out. And the little bastard is not cooperating.
None of them are. Bonnie doesn't like tuna. Bonnie doesn't like salmon. Bonnie likes the crappy goo off Friskies canned cat food. I've got umpteen opened cans on the go now. A month ago, I opened a can of Friskies, made three meals out of it twice a day, and boom, I was done. This weekend I was using the Magic Bullet to puree tuna so Max could eat it, having to open a can of something else because Bonnie wouldn't, and having to chase Ally away before she sucked up the food Max needed to stay alive.
Things are a little better now. Max's appetite seems more reliable; he's been showing up again in the kitchen at breakfast time and I don't have to puree things. If it weren't for the fact he favours the right side chewing and sometimes shakes his head while eating, at the moment I honestly wouldn't know there were anything up with him. Even if we get no further than this, it's pretty good. If only he'd make life easy and eat the Pill Pockets with the Baytril in them...
I'm not sure what to think but after a weekend of expecting I should number my days with Max on my fingers and toes, or even just my fingers, I'm honestly grateful to have the luxury of thinking that fighting pills down his gullet might mean our time together opens up considerably again. Who knows? But no matter what happens, just having that has been pretty sweet.
The results of Max's tumor swab came back on Monday and it turns out they didn't confirm cancer. Now that doesn't mean it isn't cancer... but it does mean, at least, they didn't confirm it is. The report suggested infection, and so my vet, while still professing to have "a bad feeling", put Max on a 20-day regimen of Baytril.
I got the news at work. The funny thing is, when the vet told me he thought Max had cancer, I was quietly horrified and very sad, but I managed to hold onto it. When the news came it might be just an infection and they were going to treat it, for now, as such, it nearly overwhelmed me. I felt weak and I had to struggle to maintain my composure in the office. A co-worker suggested I work from home that afternoon, which I did, after picking up Max's pills.
I also got Pill Pockets, in which you hide the pill. I got a bonus first pill free down the hatch from Max. Afterward, he's suddenly decided he's not interested in treats anymore. After repeated attempts to pill him by stealth during the day, I had to fight the second one into him last night. No dice tricking him this morning, either, even ground up in salmon (wasted salmon, wasted pill). I'm so not looking forward to giving him this pill. I'm thinking of biting the bullet and calling the vet for some oral liquid. He might manage to spit some of it out, but at least some of it'll have to go down, too. If it's an infection strong enough to make a vet think it's cancer, it's not going to get better on its own. It's going to be chronic unless we knock it out. And the little bastard is not cooperating.
None of them are. Bonnie doesn't like tuna. Bonnie doesn't like salmon. Bonnie likes the crappy goo off Friskies canned cat food. I've got umpteen opened cans on the go now. A month ago, I opened a can of Friskies, made three meals out of it twice a day, and boom, I was done. This weekend I was using the Magic Bullet to puree tuna so Max could eat it, having to open a can of something else because Bonnie wouldn't, and having to chase Ally away before she sucked up the food Max needed to stay alive.
Things are a little better now. Max's appetite seems more reliable; he's been showing up again in the kitchen at breakfast time and I don't have to puree things. If it weren't for the fact he favours the right side chewing and sometimes shakes his head while eating, at the moment I honestly wouldn't know there were anything up with him. Even if we get no further than this, it's pretty good. If only he'd make life easy and eat the Pill Pockets with the Baytril in them...
I'm not sure what to think but after a weekend of expecting I should number my days with Max on my fingers and toes, or even just my fingers, I'm honestly grateful to have the luxury of thinking that fighting pills down his gullet might mean our time together opens up considerably again. Who knows? But no matter what happens, just having that has been pretty sweet.
Friday, August 10, 2012
Max
Doesn't seem like I'm around here much these days. I guess I'm busy elsewhere. Funny how central the blog used to be to my life. I hardly stepped outside without coming back here to record it. Now it's just things get real.
Max, my grey and white male cat, has cancer. They're virtually sure of it. I knew something was off with him, though he's been largely normal. He's been losing weight and unenthusiastic about food. This morning even tuna didn't jazz him so I figured time to take him in. I was hoping it was just a bad tooth. Turns out it's a tumor in the back of his mouth. There's really nothing they can do. The doctor says two months.
I got Max just about ten years ago. It was two months after Jenny died, just about ten years ago right now. By their reckoning, he was two at the time, which makes him about 12 now. While I've been reminding myself that he and Bonnie are getting on, still, 12 seems too early by three or four years to me. Jenny, for all the trouble she had with her thyroid, made it to 13.
Max has for a long time been "my little wee fella". He's never been sick. He was never the cat to pee on furniture. I don't think he's ever gotten mad at me and lashed out, not ever. He was fairly quiet, calm, tolerant of being held and cuddled, gentle, and a lap cat... something I'm sorry now I rarely indulged him in. He's been far more like an old dog than he ever was a young (or old) cat. It's strange to think that soon he won't be bothering me if I make the mistake of waking up briefly during the night, wanting to purr at me, drool on me, sit on me and knead me. Even now, with the tumor, he's largely the same guy he's always been. Still gets around, jumps up on things, still interested in some kinds of food, still calm and happy to swap blinks with me. How can it be that soon, all that will be gone?
But, at least for now, he's still here, isn't in discomfort, and seems to be just riding it out. That's his right and his due, like anyone else. I'll have to watch and if there's just no more interest in food, or he's clearly in pain, well, that'll be when I'll have to put my feelings aside in favour of his. I dread having to make that call. I've never had to. Jenny passed away one morning before I woke. Twinkle, well, died very suddenly on me while we were fighting to bring her back to health. I don't think Max has any real hope. And that means, sometime in the next couple of months, deciding to take him out of this suite and not bring him home. Except, later on, in a third urn to sit beside Jenny's and Twinkle's.
But not just yet, thankfully. I can still look over at him in that chair and just for a minute, pretend it's all normal, and everything's alright.
Max, my grey and white male cat, has cancer. They're virtually sure of it. I knew something was off with him, though he's been largely normal. He's been losing weight and unenthusiastic about food. This morning even tuna didn't jazz him so I figured time to take him in. I was hoping it was just a bad tooth. Turns out it's a tumor in the back of his mouth. There's really nothing they can do. The doctor says two months.
I got Max just about ten years ago. It was two months after Jenny died, just about ten years ago right now. By their reckoning, he was two at the time, which makes him about 12 now. While I've been reminding myself that he and Bonnie are getting on, still, 12 seems too early by three or four years to me. Jenny, for all the trouble she had with her thyroid, made it to 13.
Max has for a long time been "my little wee fella". He's never been sick. He was never the cat to pee on furniture. I don't think he's ever gotten mad at me and lashed out, not ever. He was fairly quiet, calm, tolerant of being held and cuddled, gentle, and a lap cat... something I'm sorry now I rarely indulged him in. He's been far more like an old dog than he ever was a young (or old) cat. It's strange to think that soon he won't be bothering me if I make the mistake of waking up briefly during the night, wanting to purr at me, drool on me, sit on me and knead me. Even now, with the tumor, he's largely the same guy he's always been. Still gets around, jumps up on things, still interested in some kinds of food, still calm and happy to swap blinks with me. How can it be that soon, all that will be gone?
But, at least for now, he's still here, isn't in discomfort, and seems to be just riding it out. That's his right and his due, like anyone else. I'll have to watch and if there's just no more interest in food, or he's clearly in pain, well, that'll be when I'll have to put my feelings aside in favour of his. I dread having to make that call. I've never had to. Jenny passed away one morning before I woke. Twinkle, well, died very suddenly on me while we were fighting to bring her back to health. I don't think Max has any real hope. And that means, sometime in the next couple of months, deciding to take him out of this suite and not bring him home. Except, later on, in a third urn to sit beside Jenny's and Twinkle's.
But not just yet, thankfully. I can still look over at him in that chair and just for a minute, pretend it's all normal, and everything's alright.
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
Prometheus
Warning: spoilers.
I’ve been a fan of Alien
for a long, long time. The movie came out when I was a kid, a little kid, and I
recall I wasn’t able to see it in the theatres. Either I couldn’t interest my
folks or else they thought it was too extreme for me. I think I was nine at the
time and had only recently mustered the guts to confront my mother as to my long-held
but silent doubts that Santa existed, so maybe they were on to something there.
Anyway, my grandmother came to visit and I remember us going to mall in the
upscale part of town, and talking her into buying me the thick, magazine-size
photonovel of the movie. I traded it to a friend a few years later and to the
best of my knowledge, he still has it. (Hey, Dig, do you?)
I saw Alien as
intended, as a movie, a few years later on TV. It breathed life into the
familiar still images. I was impressed then and I still am. To me, Alien is one of a handful of nearly
flawless movies. The experience of the ship was authentic in its boredom and
grottiness. The petty concerns of the crew, just a bunch of ordinary people
trucking ore around, made them completely believable. The cast was small, tight,
and there wasn’t a single superfluous character. I liked something about every
single one of them. They were all people I wouldn’t have minded knowing, for
their cleverness, wit, and even their annoying quirks. They never got obsessed
with dates, the science of the picture, or the politics of the Earth... they
just laid it out, take it or leave it: interstellar flight is ordinary.
International crews reporting to “Antarctica Control”. Fill in the blanks
yourself if you must; the film’s moving on. Trust your audience and give them
some credit. Brilliant. Almost a lost art these days. When shit finally hit the
fan, they didn’t have The Wall of Guns™ to turn to. They used the tools they
had on hand and improvised.
The franchise went downhill from there. Aliens was nothing but Zulu
set in space, or a cowboys and Indians movie from the 50s with the antagonists
equally anonymous and interchangeable. I didn’t hate it, but I’d rather not
associate it with Alien; that movie
was a whole arc in itself. As for the ones that followed, well... the less
said, the better.
Prometheus hedges
its bets. Is it about Alien? Is it
not? They try to have it both ways. Unfortunately for them they lean way, way
too hard on the Alien horn for me to
buy that. It tries hard to restart the franchise with the option of going
another way, and I just think that’s cheap.
It’s a new generation of movie-goers, I guess, and for me
the movie was a series of groaners. Neat idea about messages recorded in
different cultures at different times was intriguing. But the nature of the
message was, well, stupid. Consider this: they say it’s a constellation so far
away that ancient people couldn’t have independent knowledge of it... it had to
be from aliens. Fine. So these people who clearly don’t give a shit about us
show up several times and invite us to, what... the Christmas party at a biological
weapons lab? Secondly, stars move relative to each other, and at different
speeds. No constellation is going to be recorded with its stars in the same
position separated by millennia. And the combinations of six or seven stars
that would look vaguely like the pattern on a cave wall, when extrapolated from
the billions of stars beyond those visible to the naked eye, would easily be in
the thousands, and exponentiate the further you looked. Picking “the” system
out of all the possibilities is absurd. Finally, if aliens used constellations
the same way we do, they’d be drawn from THEIR perspective, not ours. Do these
people think the constellation Orion looks anything like it does to us to an
observer around Alpha Centauri, or Tau Ceti, or Sirius? So all that was dopey
to me and I would have preferred something like, say, a radio signal. It would
tell you someone was there, and which way to go, without any question, even if
you didn’t understand it. And it wouldn’t take the first half hour to set up
and explain. Seriously, did somebody on the crew own land in Skye or something?
I’m old enough now that most space movies that tie events
solidly to dates weary me. It’s 2012. Weren’t we supposed to have been orbiting
Jupiter with sentient computers eleven years ago? Well, that’s what 2001 told us in 1968. So unless you’re
willing to pick a date so remote that even your great-great-grandchildren won’t
blush, my advice is: don’t. Alien
didn’t. Prometheus did. 2089. Come on.
Is there anyone out there gullible enough to expect that interstellar flight is
going to be possible, much less small-time and commonplace, less than seventy
years from now? It’s been forty years since the last man stepped off the moon,
and we haven’t even been to Mars yet. 2389, maybe. Even then I’d call it
optimistic.
The worst science boner in the movie is the suggestion
humanity came as-is from “out there”. Only someone entirely and completely
ignorant of even tabloid journalism biology could suspend their disbelieve and
buy that premise. No one with even a junior high school education in this day
and age should be capable of swallowing that without choking at least a little.
It flies I the face of centuries of fossil evidence, our demonstrated biological
relatedness to all other forms of life on Earth, and the lack of any life based
on a wholly different paradigm, that all tie us and our origins to the Earth.
And to what end? Why do “the Engineers” have to be related to us, or our progenitors?
Why can’t they simply be an advanced species from another world, who don’t look
human at all (much less giant albino versions of Woody Harrelson)?
Now, I’m not a woman (though I did deliver Blanche Dubois’s lines
in my grade twelve English class one day when the teacher was in a jocular mood),
I’ve never been pregnant, and I’ve never had a Caesarian section. And even with
imaginary future medicine, I’m still gonna cry bullshit at the suggestion you
can cut yourself open, haul a creature connected to your circulatory system out
of your uterus (and lose less blood doing it than I typically do shaving in the
morning), slam two dozen staples across an 18” wide, 6” deep slice across your
abdomen, and be up and running down a hall 90 seconds later, and outside in a
space suit hopping across chasms and dodging falling space ships within the
hour. I don’t care how good the drugs are; you’d simply exsanguinate in less
time than it takes to sing the national anthem if you tried that.
One of the few moments in Alien where my eyebrows knit is where Ripley says that the
computer, Mother, has determined that the signal is “a warning”. How would a
human-made computer discern that? I’m dubious, but it’s innocuous enough that I’m
willing to give it a pass. But that’s how subtle Alien was. Compare that to Prometheus.
Our heroes are inside the alien ship, and all of a sudden the electronic ghosts
show up and start rehearsing their deaths like Lady Macbeth washing her hands.
WHY WOULD THIS HAPPEN? What mechanism got triggered, and why would there even
be such a mechanism? All it shows is Keystone Kops in pressure suits running
around, falling down, and being decapitated. No doubt the height of comedy
if you’re a Roman sitting in the Coliseum,
but what the hell would it tell anyone else? The guy’s lying dead in the
doorway with his head cut off. Odds are he didn’t just pick a bad place for a
nap. That people run around in a disaster is pretty much de rigeur, so why
record it and play it back? And why for a bunch of tiny people who don’t even
have the keys to the kingdom? Even an airliner's black box recorder doesn’t come
with a PLAY button and a knob that goes to 11 for the convenience of any
metalhead who happens by. The only reason they showed all that stuff is because
A) they could these days (thank you, CGI, for being ubiquitous and unrelenting),
and B) because they know there’s no other way human beings could conveniently
figure out how to fly an alien ship in 20 minutes otherwise (so maybe that
shouldn’t have been possible, like in reality???).
Another thing. Why did the infection David introduced into
Holloway’s drink make him ill and effectively kill him, but not Shaw? They had
sex. Aside from an organ transplant, it’s hard to be more biologically intimate
with another human being than that. The notion that something would kill him
but leave her pregnant with an alien being makes about as much sense as
screwing someone with Ebola and instead of dying, giving birth to a wombat.
Why did Fifield turn into a zombie instead of Purina Alien
Chow? That was entirely, entirely stupid. It did nothing to advance the plot, and
was simply an way to grease the red shirts who were in the movie for no other
reason to eventually be greased by Fifield. If you can remove a scene from a
movie and it doesn’t change the plot and arc in any important respect, IT
SHOULDN’T BE IN THE MOVIE. It was insulting to anyone who sees cinema as anything
more than just a video game on autopilot.
And then there’s the ending. Picture the scene. You’re the
sole survivor of a train that’s just delivered victims to Buchenwald. You
escape with the severed head of Amelia Earhart who can help you fly the
abandoned Me 109 you’ve found. And what do you do? Fly away to London so you
can bring evidence and warn the world? No! Of course not! You fly straight to the
Reich Chancellery in the hopes of a sit-down with Hitler so you can ask, “Nu,
Adolf, vot gives? Why make with the holocausting? Me, I’m vundering...”
Ridiculous? Yeah, you don’t say. But if you’ve watched Prometheus, that’s just what you saw.
There were some things I liked about the movie. I thought
the character of David was interesting and really well-played. There was a
faint superiority and belligerence towards humans about him that didn’t exist
in either Ash or Bishop, the franchise’s previous androids, who were either
just dispassionately doing their jobs or humbly knuckling under, respectively.
I also liked how the crew stoically used the ship and sacrificed themselves to
save the world... I’d like to think I could be that brave if faced with no
other choice. It was meaningful and genuinely ennobling, like the end of Deep Impact.
And I guess that was about it. It was a lot of macaroni and
a lot of glue but the collage didn’t amount to much. I’ve seen worse movies;
this one has its moments; but all in all I’d say rent it some rainy Saturday afternoon
when you’re slightly drunk and you’ve got nothing better to do.
P.S. Oh, yeah, I forgot... why were the aliens just assholes? If I were woken up from a 2000-year nap by a bunch of tiny people, I think I'd be a little grateful to them, and immensely curious about them. I don't think I'd be inclined to just grab the first one I could and rip his head off. Maybe later, if I found out they were monsters themselves or something, but not before I've even had my wake-up cup o' Joe, for crissakes. Honestly, how could any species that bloodthirsty have held together long enough to have created an integrated society capable of spaceflight?
P.S. Oh, yeah, I forgot... why were the aliens just assholes? If I were woken up from a 2000-year nap by a bunch of tiny people, I think I'd be a little grateful to them, and immensely curious about them. I don't think I'd be inclined to just grab the first one I could and rip his head off. Maybe later, if I found out they were monsters themselves or something, but not before I've even had my wake-up cup o' Joe, for crissakes. Honestly, how could any species that bloodthirsty have held together long enough to have created an integrated society capable of spaceflight?
Monday, May 28, 2012
If this is a personalized plate, I'm impressed
I'm surprised the province didn't nix this as one of the words they'd automatically issue on a plate, but then maybe they're just giving us all too much credit for being mature. :)
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Stan Rogers
His name was Stan Rogers. I didn't even know about him till long after he died. He was brought to my attention seven or eight years ago by P-Doug (and, ironically, a friend in New England), who was astonished and dismayed that I had never heard of the man. Ever since then, so have I been.
The United States is stuffed to the gills with people who sing about it, unabashedly, unreservedly. There seems to be no impediment at all to picking a city or a state or an event, or even the country itself, and just letting loose with your feelings in verse. That's something that's been so rare, nearly entirely absent in Canada. The few examples a Canadian was prone to hear at all seemed either so forced or so trivial as to make one blush and deepen the conviction there was nothing to say about this country. Certainly nothing to sing. There have been so few exceptions. Gordon Lightfoot and Stompin' Tom Connors are only a handful of examples that spring to mind when I think of English Canadians who can, and do, sing about this country and make it stick in an enduring way.
But there was also Stan Rogers.
Stan Rogers was kind of the opposite of me. He was born in Hamilton, Ontario to parents from the Maritimes and considered Halifax, Nova Scotia his home. I, on the other hand, was born in Halifax to parents from central Canada, and moved to Hamilton as a boy, to the province where my roots were and with which I've come to identify. We swapped birthrights, it seems. But we're both Canadians.
Stan took accessible, real-life things about Canada and wrote beautiful, singable songs about them. Most of what I know of his work comes from a live album, Home in Halifax. This is an album where he writes sobering but hopeful lyrics about a farmer watching his friends fall away as he struggles on; about the farm wife facing "beauty's finish, like Rodin's Belle Heaulmière", only to find herself forever beautiful in her husband's eyes at the the long-awaited Legion dance. Jocular songs about a rodeo rider made good fighting off cattle rustlers, or the Halifax privateer telling of his misadventures preying on Yankee shipping during the Revolutionary War. Frank but proud songs about easterners heading out west for work, either from factories in Ontario or the decimated fisheries of Newfoundland. On other albums, a paean to the other hero of the Battle of Queenston Heights, Brock's forgotten lieutenant and successor, John MacDonnell, whose brave (and personally fatal) charge leading the redcoats "set the heights aflame" and arguably saved the country from annexation in the War of 1812. Or the beautiful song I first heard by Rogers, long before I knew who he was: Northwest Passage, about the lost Franklin Expedition, as well as all the other explorers who opened up the country centuries ago. Who else writes songs like this? Who else could, without forcing a blush to the cheek of the average sanguine anglo Canadian? No one I can think of. But Stan Rogers did.
It bothers me he's not better known. That I could grow up and not have heard of him well into my 30s. What's wrong with this country that this man isn't mentioned in conversation on a nearly daily basis, his songs heard at every public function, sporting event, and cottage weekend?
Stan Rogers died, far, far too soon and too young, at just 33, in an airplane fire on the runway at a Cincinnati area airport in June, 1983, coming back from an event in Texas. He was on his way home. Five days before he died, a recording was made of the last song he performed in public. This is that song... Down the Road. For this, and everything else you gave us and never got the chance to, Stan... thank you.
Lies
MacDonnell on the Heights
Night Guard
The Idiot
Free in the Harbour
The Field Behind the Plow
Bluenose
Northwest Passage
MacDonnell on the Heights
Night Guard
The Idiot
Free in the Harbour
The Field Behind the Plow
Bluenose
Northwest Passage
Monday, March 26, 2012
Gee, I haven't written anything here in a while. Feel like I should.
What's happened in the past month? Well, we did okay last year at work, both me and the company, and I got a very nice bonus. My plan was to spend a little over half of it on a new computer, and put the rest on my Twinkle tab. Well, I managed the computer, but the rest got rendered unto Caesar (nominally, Her Majesty, I suppose). Oh, well. Free computer, essentially. I really wanted to upgrade. The other is five years old, easily the longest I've gone without upgrading, and I was two operating systems behind. The thing is 32-bit only and there's increasingly a lot of stuff it simply can't run. Not can't run well, but can't run at all. I ordered one that wasn't the cheapest, nor the most expensive, but expensive compared to what I've paid in the past. A nice machine, that should be good for two or three years. Mind you, it showed up with first one, then finally both, of the USB 3.0 ports in the front not working, which meant I took it to the shop, where they also talked me into replacing my 5-year-old antivirus solution, as well as an associated resource manager. More money. But hey, I want the thing to run, and run well, while I have it. Now it's a matter of slowly transferring over to the new machine, finally moving it to Nerd Central (the Archie Bunker-esque La-Z Boy and shelving combo in the living room facing the TV that was originally just the temporary set-up spot two computers ago), and figuring out where to put the old one, which will run the printers for which no 64-bit drivers exist.
I have new glasses, too, as of last Friday. Last year when I was taking the bus I was doing a lot of reading and around the time I moved, I was reading a biography of LBJ and I was starting to notice I had to keep the book in my lap to read it easily. I can remember my dad having to borrow Plastic Man's arms to read the phone book, and I realized the time was coming where I'd need bifocals. Well, a coupon from Lenscrafters came last week, and I haven't had my eyes checked in about three years, so, seemed like the time had come. So Friday was interesting. I dropped the computer off about 10 to 11 in the morning, but they guy was answering phones and doing this and doing that and my eye appointment was at 11:40 across town. I finally had to beg off. He wanted me to pay up front. I hadn't transferred the money. Finally I said I could be back in two hours, and he agreed to write up the work order but not do anything. Fine. Head to eye exam. Optometrist has moved clear to other end of mall. Great. Get examined. Pick glasses. Oh, won't be ready for a couple of hours. Can you wait? Nope. Off across town again. Pay for work on computer. Then back to the mall again. Hang around Walmart. No call. Finally pop in. Glasses ready? Oh, sorry, yup! Yay. Get fitted. Leave. Drive home using old glasses, then settle into the new ones.
I didn't do much Saturday but pick up cat treats and food and stuff, and wait for the newest episode of MLP:FiM to show up on YouTube (yes, to my own utter amazement, I've been roped into it and I've found myself a brony... it's well-written and fun to watch, sue me!).
Sunday--and this is the bit that got me writing so I don't know why it's last--I decided I ought to do something with the weekend so I took off to see if the closed bridge on Kirkham Road's been torn down yet. Nope. But for the first time I walked the whole length of Kirkham Road, which really used to be the leg of Meadowvale that crossed the Rouge River till around the early 70s when they moved the Metro Zoo there and really built Meadowvale northward to service it. In the process, I noticed that leaves were already appearing on some of the trees there, and I was just astounded. Leaves on March 25th! I can remember a May not too many years ago where the trees weren't in leaf yet. Mind you, it's supposed to hit -7C tonight, so I hope those little leaves do okay. Then back to 18 by Wednesday. The weather's been all over the place lately, but mostly in impressively positive numbers. A green, leafy April would be fantastic.
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What's happened in the past month? Well, we did okay last year at work, both me and the company, and I got a very nice bonus. My plan was to spend a little over half of it on a new computer, and put the rest on my Twinkle tab. Well, I managed the computer, but the rest got rendered unto Caesar (nominally, Her Majesty, I suppose). Oh, well. Free computer, essentially. I really wanted to upgrade. The other is five years old, easily the longest I've gone without upgrading, and I was two operating systems behind. The thing is 32-bit only and there's increasingly a lot of stuff it simply can't run. Not can't run well, but can't run at all. I ordered one that wasn't the cheapest, nor the most expensive, but expensive compared to what I've paid in the past. A nice machine, that should be good for two or three years. Mind you, it showed up with first one, then finally both, of the USB 3.0 ports in the front not working, which meant I took it to the shop, where they also talked me into replacing my 5-year-old antivirus solution, as well as an associated resource manager. More money. But hey, I want the thing to run, and run well, while I have it. Now it's a matter of slowly transferring over to the new machine, finally moving it to Nerd Central (the Archie Bunker-esque La-Z Boy and shelving combo in the living room facing the TV that was originally just the temporary set-up spot two computers ago), and figuring out where to put the old one, which will run the printers for which no 64-bit drivers exist.
I have new glasses, too, as of last Friday. Last year when I was taking the bus I was doing a lot of reading and around the time I moved, I was reading a biography of LBJ and I was starting to notice I had to keep the book in my lap to read it easily. I can remember my dad having to borrow Plastic Man's arms to read the phone book, and I realized the time was coming where I'd need bifocals. Well, a coupon from Lenscrafters came last week, and I haven't had my eyes checked in about three years, so, seemed like the time had come. So Friday was interesting. I dropped the computer off about 10 to 11 in the morning, but they guy was answering phones and doing this and doing that and my eye appointment was at 11:40 across town. I finally had to beg off. He wanted me to pay up front. I hadn't transferred the money. Finally I said I could be back in two hours, and he agreed to write up the work order but not do anything. Fine. Head to eye exam. Optometrist has moved clear to other end of mall. Great. Get examined. Pick glasses. Oh, won't be ready for a couple of hours. Can you wait? Nope. Off across town again. Pay for work on computer. Then back to the mall again. Hang around Walmart. No call. Finally pop in. Glasses ready? Oh, sorry, yup! Yay. Get fitted. Leave. Drive home using old glasses, then settle into the new ones.
I didn't do much Saturday but pick up cat treats and food and stuff, and wait for the newest episode of MLP:FiM to show up on YouTube (yes, to my own utter amazement, I've been roped into it and I've found myself a brony... it's well-written and fun to watch, sue me!).
Sunday--and this is the bit that got me writing so I don't know why it's last--I decided I ought to do something with the weekend so I took off to see if the closed bridge on Kirkham Road's been torn down yet. Nope. But for the first time I walked the whole length of Kirkham Road, which really used to be the leg of Meadowvale that crossed the Rouge River till around the early 70s when they moved the Metro Zoo there and really built Meadowvale northward to service it. In the process, I noticed that leaves were already appearing on some of the trees there, and I was just astounded. Leaves on March 25th! I can remember a May not too many years ago where the trees weren't in leaf yet. Mind you, it's supposed to hit -7C tonight, so I hope those little leaves do okay. Then back to 18 by Wednesday. The weather's been all over the place lately, but mostly in impressively positive numbers. A green, leafy April would be fantastic.
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