Crush Your Cat's Head Friday-T and A

Wide load!

Kitty Cleavage

An Apt Analogy For Blogging

This is me on the blogging treadmill. Don't have much to talk about right this second. Busy with lots of appointments and errands. This is good but not that amusing for you. Maybe the funny will come back by tomorrow.

Crush Your Cat's Head Friday-To Kill a Mockingturd

Why do I bother trying to enhance her sleeping comfort when she throws it back in my face like this?
Little shit!

A Guest Post From Opera Gal

I am lending my blog to WHFROpera (Opera Gal) for her meme results. I asked the hard questions and she stepped up and provided fantastic answers. The chain continues and Yoshi's head remains intact.

1. Which would you choose for a treat and why?

-a mani/pedi
I actually had a dream last night I got one...does that mean I'm overdue?
-a chocolate buffet
Who is lying naked in the steam table? (Just asking y'know..for a *friend*)
-shopping for a new pair of shoes
Damn - I just bought the world's ugliest utilitarian shoes 2 weekends ago.

Survey says....#2, but only if Chris Chelios is on the steam table.

2. Tell us all about an embarrassing thing you have done after a few drinks?

ok, this may not be entertaining enough...I am one of those people who actually keeps their composure after a few (although my verbal volume may go up a few decibels - it's all that *opera* training, y'know ! )

- but I vaguely remember a cast party that I threw at my apartment where I ran downstairs to answer the door, and fell UP the stairs on my way back, twisted around, and landed on the top stair, WITH MY DRINK INTACT.

3. If you could travel anywhere in the world tomorrow where would you go and why?

http://www.portoelounda.com/

Click on Six Senses spas

Why? Um...I haven't had a day off in who knows how long, and why Greece? See answer to number 1.

4. Would you shave off all your hair for a $10,000 donation to your favourite charity? How about lick a public washroom door handle? Would you eat 20 maggots?

yes, yikes, and possibly - how drunk am at the time?

5. What is your favourite work of art and why?

damn, I was afraid of this question...

Filmed work of art - The Third Man - starring Orson Welles. Its beautiful to look at and brilliant. Lawrence of Arabia is a close second.

Painted piece of art - Erte, although technically, not paintings, but lithos. So sue me.

Sketched piece of art - the entire Sandman series by Neil Gaiman and a whole slew of artists - these are *brilliant* comic books, people

Recorded piece of music, classical - Beethoven's "Waldstein" piano sonata as performed by Alfred Brendel.

Recorded piece of music, opera - Don Giovanni, Mozart/DaPonte, Harnoncourt conducting, and America's hottest baritone as the Don - Thomas Hampson.

Recorded piece of music, rock - Every damn thing REM recorded up to and including "Automatic for The People", everything Bowie recorded before Tin Machine, and every Tom Waits album, no exceptions. I also like Dead Can Dance.

Sculpted work of art - I really like "found" pieces. Ones that aren't really sculptures, but become that way over time. One of the most amazing things I ever saw was a burned-out car that over time really and truly became a sculpture as it decomposed.

Written work of art - the entire canon of Charles Dickens
Raymond Chandler is a close second.

Digital piece of art - Diablo II - a really good video game, and for its time, very beautiful to listen to and look at.

****Stop by MRTL's place and check out her contest. I can't wait to see the submissions.****

Don't Break The Chain or Yoshi's Head Will Explode

I was hanging out at Eclectic's Place and she posted a meme where she had to answer questions another blogger had asked her. It was cool. So I signed up to be given questions by her to answer too. Check it out below and see if you want to become part of the meme chain.

1. Which book or movie has captured you the most as an adult, and why?

Probably the book AND movie that has captured me the most as an adult is ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ by Harper Lee. I have honestly lost track of how many times I have read it and just recently got a replacement book as my poor paperback had disintegrated with use. It is such a fantastic story about a little piece of the south and the way things were. The good and the bad. Each character is so rich and interesting. It is one of the few times the movie has lived up to the excellence of the book. And Gregory Peck playing Atticus Finch makes me all gooey inside.

Now after sounding all high falutin’ with literary pretense and such I also have to admit that I recently saw ‘Borat’ and nearly suffocated myself from laughing so hard. I can’t get various parts out of my mind (like a certain fight scene) and I often find myself chuckling out loud in weird places like the shower or in line at the bank.

2. You're at the ocean. You'd rather: a) sleep alone in the sun; b) swim, sail or body surf; or c) picnic with friends?

The very first answer that popped into my mind was a) sleep alone in the sun because I am totally antisocial that way. But then the thought of a nice picnic with friends sounded great too. Then going sailing seemed like a nice idea as well. However, swimming and body surfing is totally out of the question as I am afraid of being in the ocean. Being near or on the ocean is ok but entering the water is terrifying for me. I don’t know why. One of those weirdo phobia thingies. And I don’t actually wear bathing suits either. It is unkind to those who have to look at me.

The good news is that I live right next to the ocean so sleeping and picnicking and sailing are distinct possibilities. Yay!

3. Describe the perfect employment opportunity:

Marrying rich…just kidding.

I’d like to be my own boss and still be able to do creative things as well as work with animals. I never want to work for a boss again. Especially an insane boss. I’d like to have the freedom to tell a rude and nasty customer to fuck off. I’d like the freedom to fire an employee who was completely inept and terrible to work with. I’d like to be able to offer products and services that I felt good about and believed in.

Basically I am totally delusional.

4. If you had the option of living forever without one of the following, which would it be, and why: a) dust bunnies; b) shaving; or c) taking out the trash?

DEFINITELY b) shaving. But only if it meant I was no longer furry opposed to just somehow it becoming magically socially acceptable to let it all grow out. Without getting into great detail the reason why I chose shaving is because hair removal takes up a fair amount of time for me. I am part ape.

5. What's the first thing you notice about a potential romantic interest?

I like a guy who is smart. Not necessarily book smart (which is nice too) but street smart with good common sense. A guy with an opinion who has the facts to back it up. I like clever. A sense of humour is a must too. He has got to make me laugh.

Obviously I would only ever find this out about a guy if I got to know them beyond first impressions. I don’t have a ‘type’ of guy I am attracted to and if you lined up my past boyfriends you would laugh over how different they all were. I honestly don’t know what it is specifically that attracts me to a person right away. Just some sort of spark or something. It very rarely happens so I haven’t really figured it out yet. Often this spark has not lasted past that first impression once the guy opens his mouth and I hear what he has to say. More often than not they fizzle. I could probably tell you more about what I don’t like in a guy than what I do like.

Can you tell I am almost always single?

Thanks for the great questions, Eclectic.

This is how this meme works.

1. Leave me a comment saying that you would like to be interviewed. Include your email address if I can’t get it through your blog.

2. I will email you five questions that you HAVE to answer. I get to pick the questions. You don’t get to opt out if you don’t like the questions I give you so think twice before asking me for an interview. Don’t worry, I won’t ask you anything I wouldn’t be willing to answer myself.

3. You must post your answers to the questions on your blog. If you don’t have a blog I will post your answers on my blog under your name.

4. You have to include this explanation and an offer to interview someone else in the same post.

5. When other commenters ask to be interviewed, you will ask them five questions.

And so on and so on…

Crush Your Cat's Head Friday-An Evening With Lulu

I had my Almost Dog Lulu over for a play date the other day. Her new mom has been busy teaching her new tricks. Check it out!

Too Much of a Good Thing

Can there be too many raisins in your raisin bran?

Yes. Yes, there can.

Crush Your Cat's Head Friday-Special Easter Sunday Edition

Because Here Today, Gone Tomorrow asked about a Yoshi Bunny I stuck more shit to Yoshi's head. Mwahahahah!!

Yoshi plotting her revenge.
Watch out Here Today, Gone Tomorrow. If she poops on my pillow I'll be sending it to you.

Crush Your Cat's Head Friday-Better Than Chocolate

Who needs an Easter Bunny with something this cute hopping around your house?

An Unsanitary Truth

The ever lovely Miss Kula posted on her blog her conflict over taking public transit to work with upcoming construction delays versus driving to work and paying hefty parking fees. I related very much to her post as I go through some serious car guilt at times. Yes, only at times. For instance after watching ‘An Inconvenient Truth' or when I have to fill up my gas tank with very pricy Canadian gas (as of today priced at $3.82 USD per gallon). However when I am driving in my sweet heated car with tunes blasting and passing all the buses stopping to pick up the masses I don’t feel that bad at all. Not one little bit. Especially when it is pouring rain out like it does the majority of the time in Vancouver. We have a little term used to describe public transit – Loser Cruiser.

I didn’t make that up. Don’t kill the messenger!

I didn’t actually own a car until I was 22 years old and took the bus to and from high school and college as well as to my crappy retail job and to the bars on the weekends. I didn’t have any friends with cars so I didn’t get to carpool with them either. I’ve certainly served my time on transit.

This sucked. My city has an appallingly bad public transportation infrastructure for its size. There is rapid transit (like a subway) that goes to and through various suburbs but that is very limited and rarely does it comprise your whole journey. Almost everybody needs to get a bus to the Skytrain station (yes, that is the suck-ass name of it) and a bus from the closest stop to their final destination. And because busses are lame you probably have a long walk in there as well. Getting pretty much anywhere is a long and convoluted ordeal. And you are almost guaranteed to be late.

Working in the film industry doesn’t lend itself to using mass transit with early call times, late finishing times, strange out of the way locations and the fact that it is part of the job to travel with a huge amount of stuff. On top of that it may be in your job description to run errands and the bus just won’t cut it. It is wasteful but that is the type of work it is. Can’t be helped. So I enjoyed the luxury of driving to and from work and was thankful not to have to wait for busses after a 16 hour work day.

I live right in the city core so I can walk to do most of my everyday errands and only drive when I have to go a significant distance which is not very often these days. But with all this extra attention on greenhouse gasses I’ve thought about whether I would give up my car if I could take public transport to a job.

Sadly, I probably would not. It is not that I don’t want to but it is that I have been so severely traumatized by many terrible incidents on public transit that I plead Post Traumatic Transit Stress Disorder.

Seriously.

Let me tell you a few stories:

-I’ve been on a bus where somebody puked copiously right in front of me.

-Have you ever sat next to a person who was whispering to himself that he shouldn’t hurt you? I have.

-Once I was on a bus and a guy pulled a knife on the bus driver. Fortunately a police car was driving right by and the bus driver honked and the guy ran off.

-I’ve been totally sexually harassed on the bus both verbally (several times) and physically (more than once) with a guy jamming his hand up under my skirt.

-I can also tell you how scary it is when a guy follows you off the bus and tails you to your destination because that has happened to me quite a few times.

-There is also a little phenomenon that a lot of us ladies are familiar with and that is when you sit in the aisle seat and pervy guys who are standing next to your seat use the oh-so convenient jolting of the bus to grind their pelvis into your shoulder. GROOOOOOSSSSS!

-I was taking the bus out of a very affluent suburb when a police car pulled the bus over. A detective wearing a rumpled trench coat walked on the bus and snapped a pair of handcuffs on this guy sitting across from me and then hauled him off.

-Not to mention the B.O. and other nasty smells. And the disgusting steamy germs on every surface. *vomit* I HATE being surrounded by sneezing and hacking people. I feel like I need a peroxide bath after every trip.

There is one particular public transit instance that I don’t like to talk about that really sealed my future as a unrepentant smog belching car driver and that is when I was peed on while riding the bus. Yes, a guy urinated on me.

When I used to take the bus to high school I had to go through a very dodgy neighbourhood. I got fairly immune to the grubby state of people I sat next to because if one got picky about such things one would never get on the bus in the first place. EVER!! So I didn’t really pay much attention to the fact that the guy sitting next to me was looking pretty rough. In fact he looked like somebody had kicked the shit out of him. As I said, not an unusual happening in this neighbourhood. You know, covered in bruises and small cuts stitched with that nasty black thread. I also noticed this guy was wearing a hospital bracelet but sat next to him anyway because I was so used to it by then. Well, I got very unused to it when the guy’s bladder let lose and he very quietly and peacefully peed his pants. And yes, there was overflow which soaked the side of my pant leg. I don’t think I had ever moved so fast in my life as I did jumping up from that seat. He looked up at me and quietly said, “Ooops.” He sat in his own piss for another couple stops and then casually walked off the bus leaving me to silently freak THE FUCK OUT!!!

I had to transfer onto another bus to get home and everybody was looking at my lovely wet spot as well as judgmentally sniffing the air. It was HORRIBLE.

At that moment I vowed that as soon as I could afford a car I would never ride the bus again and once I got my car I have, for the most part, stayed true to my vow.

So that is my dilemma. What would you do in my position?

More Rant For Your Buck

Part 2 of Thursday’s Rant.

So here a little story about what happened to me when I went to the local health food store for a bottle of acidophilus pills.

Several months before I was diagnosed with cancer I decided to visit the health food store as my stomach had been giving me some trouble. Certain foods seemed to make me feel bloated and out of sorts. I thought a simple little bottle of acidophilus might get my gut bacteria back on track again. Nothing else major was going on with me health-wise to cause me concern. The lady who ran the store was very helpful and started asking me all sorts of questions while looking my symptoms up in a very well thumbed reference book she had behind the counter. With such vague symptoms like bloating and strange pooping issues and burping she told me that I needed digestive enzymes as well as the acidophilus. Then she said I needed activated charcoal as well. Then she said I needed a colon cleansing kit as well. That means a special diet and many pills over a 10 day period to literally clean your bowels out.

I told her that I had done a digestive cleanse twice in my life and with the second one I had to stop within just a couple days because I got such bad abdominal cramps. Like so bad I couldn’t stand up kind of cramps. She then went on to say that maybe I needed a liver cleanse as well. So many ‘as wells’ that had upped my potential bill to well over $200. I told her I didn’t think my liver was an issue and that I thought I’d just stick with my original plan to do acidophilus pills.

Well, the nice lady put down her book and took out a quartz crystal on a chain and proceeded to ask the crystal what kind of treatment I really needed.

!

I have to admit that when I was very much younger my friends and I would use this pendulum fortune telling trick when asking excruciatingly important questions about boys but I had never thought to use it for diagnosing health problems. Yeah, I used such bizarre diagnostic tools like doctors and blood tests and such. If I’d known that a crystal could have done the same trick I might have saved myself all those pesky appointments.

Anyhoo…

So The Crystal told this nice lady that it was indeed my liver and that I needed a liver cleanse and other liver type supplements. And PRONTO!

While I was pretty much secretly snickering into my sleeve and faintly embarrassed over the situation I found myself in I told the nice lady I wasn’t going to buy all the stuff she wanted me to but I would do a cleanse and then come back for some acidophilus later. So the lady and her crystal recommended an extra gentle cleanse that would benefit my digestive tract AND my liver. Kill two birds blah blah blah…

Normally I would have just walked out and gone somewhere else so I could just buy my goddamned bacterial culture tablets in peace but I had been reading on a few blogs that other people had been doing cleanses as well and I thought, “What the heck?” Let’s try a cleanse as it might just do the trick.

So I got home and took my first course of pills and settled in for a night of laundry and TV watching. Within a few hours it was time to take my second course of pills which I did with a very simple veggie and rice dinner. So far so good.

I was feeling a bit queasy and unsettled by bedtime but I was feeling that way before I started the cleanse and that was why I wanted the acidophilus in the first place. So I didn’t really think much of it.

I woke at 2 am with a most terrible headache. I took a couple Tylenol but the pain got worse and worse very quickly. Really awful pain which made me rock in bed with a pillow over my face while crying. Like really bad. Now I’ve had migraines several times in my life and this was worse and very different from a migraine. This felt like my whole head was going to explode. For reals.

Then I got nauseous. Brutally nauseous. Then I started barfing. Barfing is not pleasant at the best of times but when your head is exploding it takes on a new level of hellishness. I felt absolutely vile.

Then the diarrhea started…and I officially entered a trifecta of physical nastiness.

I don’t remember much detail of that night but I do vividly recall washing my face in cool water in my bathroom and looking up into the mirror. What I saw shocked and, frankly, fascinated me. My skin colour was grey. Literally grey. A dark bluish grey. With a lovely tinge of green. I had never seen skin that colour ever. Well, that is not entirely true. I had seen corpses that colour on TV detective shows. You know the ones that have been left outside for a couple days? That colour. And it was now my very own personal colour. It was totally surreal.

It was at this time I thought that maybe I should go to the emergency room. What I did instead was take a shwack of codeine painkillers and pass out from sheer exhaustion.

The next day I did go to my doctor and he told me what had likely happened. He believed that I had a severe reaction to an herb in the cleanse, likely the burdock root, which made my blood pressure go up. Not just a little bit but dangerously high. I could have very easily had a stroke. Probably my young age and general good health saved me. Even 12 hours later my blood pressure was VERY high. And my doc was VERY upset. I didn’t dare tell him that I had done the cleanse on the advice of a crystal.

I returned the unused portion to the health food store and told the nice lady (and her crystal) what had happened. She started to cry. Maybe she thought I’d sue her. I just wanted my money back. I still wanted my acidophilus pills.

With this experience under my belt you can imagine how annoyed I get when people tell me (like my neighbour) that I should take ‘harmless’ herbal remedies for whatever ails me. People who look stuff up on the internet and consider themselves experts. Like the internet is a reliable source of information. HA! Very, very dangerous. There is also this belief that herbs and natural supplements are “safer” than Western medicine medications which is very untrue and a very dangerous assumption as well. I could have died from my ‘safe’ herbal remedy and I wouldn’t have been the first. People die from taking or mixing drugs both natural and ‘manufactured’ all the time. One must remember that herbal supplements are not tested or regulated by the FDA. Anybody can say that an herbal medication can do anything and do not have to prove it through tests and trials. Herbal supplements are also not quality controlled for potency or dosage like FDA regulated medications are.

So did I find a point to my tale? Yes, I did. Several points in fact. My points are these. Be smart. Don’t assume. Get your info from reputable sources and that DOESN’T include the internet. Anybody can post anything on the internet. When you read reference books check their sources and read those books as well. Don’t get lulled into a false sense of safety. Educate yourself and keep an open mind while doing it. And don’t listen to crystals no matter what they tell you.