Interesting financial times we’re in, I must say. It’s not what I was thinking when I shot the famous Honest Ed’s sign at Bathurst and Bloor last night, but maybe the concept of honesty in business sat at the subconscious level when I chose to shoot only part of the sign. I happened to be around the Annex because I was selling my October metropass to an Italian couchsurfer who’s here on a working visa, and when I met up with him at Starbucks I recognised another CSer there and we got to chatting about the Naomi Klein talk they’d just attended on her latest book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism.

Tonight I joked about the markets over dinner (because it’s otherwise rather depressing) and how it’s a good time to be too poor to hold any stocks and too young to worry overly much about the state of one’s pension.

(And would you believe I was joking about it over a flaming grill filled with meat… yes, I was at the Korean Grill House for the second time in TWO DAYS! The waiter even recognised me! Vegetarians can skewer me now.)

If the thought of market upheavals and the retreat of summer has got you down and feeling grey, here’s a bit of colour I found around along Bathurst Street across from the Honest Ed’s sign:

And if you’re still feeling rather lacklustre, here’s a dose of kitty love, or at least kitty sucking-up:

A rather long title, yes, and not quite the story of my morning. A SKUNK was smelling the roses, and I was watching the skunk!

Just before 6 o’clock I was walking along Burrard Street to Georgia to catch the 250 Horseshoe Bay bus when I spotted a skunk milling around the front of St. Paul’s Hospital. Being an observant sort, I stopped to watch it at a safe distance — no camera shots, though, it was still pretty dark — when I realised I had better make a run for the bus! If you’ve ever worn a skirt while carrying a backpack and a long jacket you’ll know skirts tend to ride up in these situations and this morning was no exception… between the bags, holding the skirt down, and a blister forming on the top of my left foot I must’ve been an odd sight lumbering lopsided along Burrard Street.

I got as far as the intersection at Georgia when I saw the 250 pass by, but I had to wait for traffic and the bus loaded up before I could cross the street. I was no more than 20 metres behind it, waving like a madwoman when it pulled away! I grabbed the first taxi I could find and asked if he could outrun the bus and drop me off at a stop, but I remembered I didn’t have a note smaller than $20 and it would take a while to pay the driver, get change, and I’d likely miss the bus again. So I asked him to take me to Park Royal, where I could catch the 257 Horseshoe Bay Express instead.

Ah, you win some you lose some. The rest of the morning went peachy, and the weather is GORGEOUS.

Anyway, the glamourpuss you see here is (Mad) Max, whose photos I took last night while I went over some final wedding details with Fancy and Rod who are getting hitched THIS WEEKEND! Exciting!

There was enough sitting around in rush hour traffic to record some vocal displeasure from The Old Bean for taking him to the vet and holding him prisoner. He gets louder than this and bangs on the cage with his paws, but the wailing is what makes me wish sometimes that the vet’s office was closer to us. But I do like the vets and everyone there knows both Xena and Beano and their medical histories, so I’m willing to do this drive when necessary. Hopefully it will be a LONG WHILE before it’s time to head back.

I’m happy to report that Beano’s expensive cardio ultrasound, which I booked months and months ago, shows no serious issues. He has a weakened heart valve that’s causing the murmur discovered in January, but it’s a ‘monitor’ situation rather than ‘must treat’ condition. I also had Beano’s kidney levels checked, but I haven’t got those results yet.

Xena even matches my bathroom!

I should’ve known the baby gates were no match for a persistent kitty. Not this one, anyway. You can practically see the calculations and computations going on in his head: “Hmmm… will it hold me if I jump from here?”

Xena would’ve figured it out eventually, given time. She’s pretty clever: she’ll just kick back and leave the plotting and scheming to Beano and copy whatever solution he’s found. Why reinvent the wheel?

It was pathetic the way they’d stick their paws through the fence gaps, like I’d shoved them into a carrier and took them to the vet. It was also getting a little absurd: I had to line the top of the landing with tall objects to stop them from jumping up to a launching point for the stairs, but one time when I was taking out the rubbish I heard a thump and knew Beano had jumped up and knocked something over to get down.

‘So much for that,’ I thought to myself.

It wasn’t until very recently that Beano got bold enough to test out the sturdiness of the gates, which is something I’m sure he’d done with the drying racks, only to arrive at the conclusion that they were wobbly and as stable as a pile of wire hangers.

But Beano somehow managed to find the time in his busy schedule of catnapping and litterbox excavations to conduct a weight-and-balance test on the second gate:

more…

Remember how I was saying a couple of weeks ago that Max, Fancy and Rod’s cat, eats Tim Horton’s doughnuts? Well, he doesn’t just eat them, he doesn’t just go mad for them (beyond Thunderdome, haha), Max turns into a rabid feral beast at the very smell of one lingering in his presence.

I’ll show you in three frames:

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If Jerry were a cat, he’d be bored with this game by morning.

As seen on my Best of YouTube podcast.

I arrived back in Toronto today, to find that Beano really does like to wrap himself up like a burrito. It’s cooler in the back room, but still — wouldn’t it be too hot??

“I will hypnotise you with my penetrating stare. You are getting SLEEEEEPY… you will give me doughnuts!”

I swear, Fancy and Rod’s cat Max eats Tim Horton’s doughnuts. I have evidence, I just need to upload it… click on the pic for comments.

[Update: I changed the title -- this one is much more fitting!]

I couldn’t resist sharing these photos the catsitter took this morning and emailed to me.

Hi Gail,

After being out this morning, I came in and found Beano snuggled up in one of the blankets you left for me. He couldn’t have gotten in from the other side; he must have gone in head first. I ran around trying to figure out how I might take a picture and realized that the webcam on my laptop takes stills. Fortunately, it didn’t upset him as I waved a laptop at him, although his eyes wiggled in his head as he watched it. Anyway, I got these three.

Kim.

Awww, look at the Old Bean!