Life in the Slow Lane

Life in the Slow Lane

Friday, December 28, 2007

Crush Your Cat's Head Friday-Trollie Goodness

Hope everybody had a great Christmas and is ready to take on 2008 and kick ass! Yoshi and I sure am.

I've been blogging for almost 3 years and until the other day have never had any significant troll action. Lo! 2007 would not be complete without breaking that little charmed era and this lovely ANONYMOUS comment showed up in my Inbox relating to a past Crush Your Cat's Head Friday post:
you are all very sick fucks, i would love to crush your fucking heads and see how you like it

Well...crack my shit up!

First of all that video was 'banned' ages ago because me lovingly poking my cat was deemed inappropriate. Let's just talk a little bit about inappropriate behavior, shall we? In the last couple weeks Yoshi has farted on me numerous times, copiously vomited on my TV remote controls, wrecked shit, deposited some seriously stinky poos, hissed at my dad, bossed me around and turned her nose up at tasty offerings.

Don't see anybody protecting me from her, do you?

Anyway, I thought about how sick a fuck I was (I cannot speak for the rest of you) and decided to re-enact the offending video and was reassured that, yes, there is no doubt that Yoshi LOVES being poked. If only I had hooked her up to a throat mike for maximum purrocity there would have been no question about who is actually the sick fuck in the equation. Clearly not me. Yoshi loves the gentle abuse. I could also hypothetically add she loves being spanked and having her fat rolls manhandled.

Admitting that will probably get me arrested...


Dude. Chillax.

Friday, December 21, 2007

Crush Your Cat's Head Friday-Santa's Watching


BUSTED! She thinks it is helping while I know it means little white hairs all over my freshly laundered navy top.

Fleeing the scene of the laundry crime.


BUSTED! Being told off for biting. She thinks it is merely justice for making her get off my lap. I know it is spite and sheer badness from a 9 lb dictator.


Fleeing that crime too.


If she keeps this up this year Santa will put a dog in her stocking.

Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Can You Fear Me Now?

My mom, at the age of 74, just got her first cell phone on Monday.

Me-I guess this means you'll be calling me a million times a day.
Mom- NO! Why would I do that?
Me-Because you can.
Mom- *evil giggle*

Kalki wrote a while back about things that make her feel like an adult. I asked my mom and she said using her new phone made her feel that way. I guess this means you are never too old to feel like a grown-up.

Tuesday, December 11, 2007

Crush Kranki's Empty Head Tuesday + A Plug For a Cool Thing

I am thinking I should rename ‘Crush Your Cat’s Head Friday’ into ‘Crush Your Cat’s Head Whenever You Remember and Haven’t Fallen Asleep On The Couch Tuesday.’

Ahem…

So a few weeks ago the fabulous Leigh-Ann who runs The Blog Pound as well as Wee Paws sent me a cool little item that would make an excellent gift for the holidays. Or for anytime, really. It is called ‘Messages From Your Animal Companions’ and it is a oracle deck of cards based on getting into the complex minds of the animals you love. Basically what you do is think of a question for or ask for information about any animal you know, like your cat or your sister’s dog or even your neighbour’s python. We are not talking about the human animal types like ex-husbands or crazy first dates. You think about what you want to learn about the animal from this deck of cards and shuffle them up. You then pick a couple cards and see what they say.

The cool thing is this oracle deck is made up of cards that cover many thoughts and concerns an animal might have. There are cards for being sad, being scared, being happy, being sick and other variations. It is very well thought out and covers many scenarios.

The first time I used the deck I asked how Yoshi was feeling about the calendar and dressing up for it. The card I got was that she was feeling either under or over worked. Since I have been the one glued to my computer and running all over town as she sleeps the day away I decided to take the card as meaning she would like to do more Yoshi photo-shoots. The next question I asked was why Yoshi didn’t like Lulu my Almost Dog and the card that came up was ‘Conflict.’ Need I say more?

I then took the cards over to a friend's house (the one who adopted Lulu) and pulled some cards about her cat, Winston, the Catnip Thief. The first card that came up was ‘Ears’ and the spooky part is that his ears have been very infected over the last few days. So out of 55 cards the exact health issue bothering the cat was chosen. Cool, huh? One of the cards picked for Lulu was something about her feeling safe and cared for which made me all veklempt. And Xiola, well, her card said she liked things just the way they were which pretty much sums up Xiola; she is a happy and content doggy.

I few days later I did a little session about Yoshi and the cards didn’t make any sense at all. Perhaps my ‘vibe’ was off or I didn’t ask the right question. Or Yoshi was playing with my mind.

So, while I wouldn’t advocate using these cards to diagnose health issues instead of visiting your vet they are quite fun in a light-hearted way. Overall the results were eerily bang-on.

Leigh-Ann sells these cards to raise funds for her animal rescue. You know how I feel about getting money to the poor beasties so if you need a gift for an animal owner and lover these would make an original and interesting choice.

So thanks, Leigh-Ann, for passing this cool deck of cards my way. Perhaps, over time, I can slowly unravel the enigma that is Yoshi and finally begin to understand what makes that little cat tick.

Yoshi Being Overworked and Underpaid

Wednesday, December 05, 2007

There is so much I could post about. Usually I am frantically shuffling through my brain to try to find something glamorous or even slightly interesting in my boring day to day life to relay to you. However there has been a fairly decent amount of mildly interesting stuff going on. Not glamorous but not heinously dull either.

I could rant about the absolutely appalling customer service situation I recently found myself in but things are not quite resolved and I can feel a story of high drama possibly in the making so I’ll save that for when things pan out-either in a fizzle or in a bang. Only time will tell.

I could also tell you all about my parents celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary last Friday. It was also my mom’s birthday and my sister-in-law and I cooked a Mexican themed dinner for the family. It worked out pretty good. Since my dad is still not able to get around on his healing-but-still-not-strong broken hip we are planning a fabulous summer garden party in 2008. I can guarantee there will be some outrageous photos from that. We are doing a theme and that is all I am going to tell you about it now.

What I am going to post about today is about actually experiencing huge moment in my life that I have pictured happening over a million times in my brain but like most epic life experiences didn’t exactly turn out like I hoped. Not extra bad or extra good but just different.

At the end of October I went to see my boyfriend, Henry Rollins, at one of his spoken word performances. I don’t think I’ve missed one of these in over 10 years. I’ve been a big fan of his for a long time and I have consistently found spooky and odd little coincidences in many of his shows.

I risk sounding like a psychopathic stalker but there have been so many similarities in rant topics, words and phrases and even books read or music listened to between us it is always interesting to go to his show and see what ‘thing’ we happen to have in common this year. For instance he’ll talk about some obscure band he recently hung out with and I will have just heard that same band out of the blue the week before. Stuff like that. Stuff that ultimately means nothing but that I stubbornly and intentionally misconstrue to mean that we are wildly compatible.

*gack*

Anyway, I have always wanted to meet him. I tell people I just want to shake his hand but in my sad, lonely, fantasy dreamscape what I really want to happen is to shake his hand and for him to gaze into my eyes and find me captivating, fascinating, infinitely intelligent and an all ‘round gorgeous gal (all this occurs to him in the split second our hands touch, mind you). We then fall into scintillating conversation where he finds my witty remarks and quirky outlook precious and endearing. I dazzle him with my insights and ironic life observances and we enter an exciting, fulfilling relationship where the fact he is tortured, on the road constantly, an aging rock icon and a US citizen and that I have no real job, constant panic attacks, a jiggly bum and freakishly scarred boobies only enhances our eerie sexual and intellectual connection.

TOTALLY deluded, I know but I never claimed to be logical. Or sane.

So here is what happened. In one of his newsletters or on his radio show he mentioned he would be very happy to meet with fans and sign autographs outside his tour bus at each venue. This announcement spun me into conflicting emotions-a desire to meet him and loathing the thought of anybody possibly mistaking me for a groupie. I decided to see how things looked after the show and decide then if I would be willing to debase myself to lurk around a rock-star’s bus to fulfill my dreams.

I waited outside the venue where his bus was conveniently parked with my sis-in-law for a few minutes freezing our asses off seeing if he would come out. Pretty soon a small crowd began to gather which consisted of a few very young street-punky looking teenage girls who were loudly talking about whether they would make it to the last bus running to their suburb. Then some young guys with posters, CDs and books to be signed started trickling over and my 38 year old fogey self bailed out and decided to leave. I was simply embarrassed to be there.

I walked to my parked car and found myself having to drive past the venue to get onto the main thoroughfare to get home and lo’ there he was, in the middle of a small crowd, in all his glory. AND lo’ there was a parking spot (the only one in this very busy area) which I quickly turned in to thinking, It is FATE! The universe really does work. I got out, fluffed my hair, gummed off any possible lipstick on my teeth and joined the group.

And I was obviously and very clearly the oldest one there. By a lot.

I also don’t ever think about getting an autograph so I had nothing for him to sign either.

After waiting for a few minutes I tapped him on the shoulder and stuck out my hand which he shook.

Me: Thank you for coming.
Him: Thank you for having me.

He looked at me in such a way I suddenly realized that he was possibly thinking I might be affiliated with the theatre and maybe was going to hand him a cheque or paperwork or something.

My mouth got very dry and with a grimace of excruciating shyness I blurted out something about how I enjoyed his radio show. He was very kind and talked about that for a few sentences and then somebody else tapped him on the shoulder and he turned away.

I walked to my car and drove home hardly believing it all happened.

He is much slighter than I thought he’d be. I am taller than he is. His hand was small in mine. I didn’t dazzle him. I didn’t stand out in any way. Our souls didn’t meld in a cosmic explosion of perfection. I’ll never cross his mind again.

It was still pretty cool.

Saturday, December 01, 2007

Crush Your Cat's Head Friday-Last of the November Sunshine


When I wake up in the morning it is often the result of Yoshi walking all over my head and poking me in the face. Before I even open my eyes I can guess whether the sun is shining based on the amount of attention Yoshi lavishes on me. The sunnier it is the more persistently she pokes and prods. After I give in to the pressure and get out of bed I walk over to my living room window, rubbing the sleep from my eyes, and raise the blinds. If it is bright and sunny out Yoshi will run across the room and leap onto the sill emitting this excited growling noise deep from her throat. Pure joy.



When I get up from my computer after the kettle has boiled to make my morning tea I more often than not return to find my seat taken.