It's better on top

So if you were a middle-aged, washed-up wannabe-rich-guy, walking through a cornfield in the moonlight trying to find an old woman with a failing mind who has wandered away from home, and you come across a couple of hooligans who are trying to burn down the abandoned farmhouse that you were hoping to sell to a bunch of urban investors looking for a hunting lodge, what would you do?

That's the question I have been trying to answer all afternoon, sitting here at my desk while Tycho makes wheezy noises in the armchair and my thesis deadline prances closer with every wasted minute.

Guys? It turns out that writing is HARD.

It's at least as hard as scrambling through fifty feet of snow to get to the top of Mt. Royal which, like writing, requires a stuck-out tongue if any kind of progress is going to be made (look closely):

Had Jen, Mark, and Maggie here for the weekend, and when we weren't eating, laughing, or doing acrobatics on my bed (NOT WHAT YOU THINK), we were taking turns being human toboggans, which is what necessitated our wilderness climb on the mountain. Why Maggie is awesome, in a nutshell:

Jen: Oh no. Three girls and a Mark. One small toboggan.
Megan: Does not compute!!!
Mark: We will have to take turns.
Meanwhile, Maggie has already climbed on, and is gesturing for us to quit our unnecessary hen-pecking and just get the heck on board. So we did! Minus Mark, who stayed behind as the generous pusher-offer and picture-taker.

The Before shot:
And, inevitably, the After:

As if having Maggie around to entertain us wasn't enough, we got tickets to go see a taping of the CBC comedy show The Debaters, which was gut-bustingly hilarious. Listen to CBC this Saturday at 6:30pm and you'll hear the four of us trying to make as many unique laughing noises as we can in order to be distinguishable on the radio.


As is usual for me, the experience of being "close" to CBC was thrilling. We got there early enough to get a table at the front of the bar, snug against the stage, and who should be sitting right next to me, holding up signs for Debaters host Steve Patterson to interpret as he ran the show, but Dagmar Kaffanke-Nunn!!! If that means something to you then please let me hug you - we belong together. I guess it's mostly nostalgia, but I get this nerdy little spine-tingle whenever I spy the CBC Montreal tower on my way downtown. Maybe one day I'll be able to tell them that during a job interview! "You guys make me feel all warm and fuzzy! Please, please, pleeeeease hire me!" Groveling always works for situations like that, right?

As for Mix-master T, he is glad to have the apartment to himself again. When there are too many people around he develops this worried look on his face, like he's afraid that someone might leave with his favourite sleepin' chair, or that we might forget to constantly pet him and goo over his cuteness. He's also the kind of guy who hates having his busy routine disrupted. Luckily order has been restored, and he can get right back on schedule:


-- Off to kindle some flames