Last night, around the time I first though about going to bed, the phone rang. An emergency, last-minute communications piece was in the process of being written and could I please, please, please, do the graphics for it? Well, heck. That's what I'm here for, right? So, several phonecalls later, and me taking copious notes over the phone, I sat down at my computer to bang this thing into life. Now, a couple of hours after that first thought of bed, I sent it off for approvals and did, in fact climb into bed. The first thing I did when I got up was to turn on Natasha and check to see what changes needed making. So, I did so and was about to send it on down the chain of 'getting done' when I get a stop-the-presses sort of email. Several phonecalls later, with much too much effort having been expended on several fronts, the project was put on hold.

They're not even in government, yet, and it all feels sort of small-time West Wing. Oh well, I signed up for this.

I got an email from Richard, today, that cuts my data entry shift and the shifts of both Tony and Aman as well for next week. Oh. Yay. At least we saw this coming. There just isn't enough for us to do in the office at the moment. Memberships, just like the attendence, have fallen off. Did they really thing membership wouldn't suffer as the ROM began the lengthy process of demolition and construction? Yes, it's staying open, but they big-wigs, in their infinite wisdom, closed one of the largest draws to the museum, the children's hands-on Discovery Gallery. It's only one of the most successful children's galleries in the world that draws other major institutions to study its unparalleled popularity. Anyway, the long and the short of it is, we aren't selling enough memberships to warrant three of us coming in a couple times a week.

The cats... I know my mother enjoys reading my cat logs, so I'll give a brief update. Pork Chop has reached the stage in socialising that has her trying to bite Stinky's bum as she runs by, and invades my bedroom to try and entice Stinky to play (well, not always, but those pricked-up ears and arched tail speak volumes). To be quite frank, Stinky wants nothing to do with the other, and these invasions of her space really tick her off. Sometimes they get out of hand, too, when Tobe lands on Willi and fur flies. Tobe also has no idea how to play, with cat or human, with her claws retracted. Okay, it took Willi a long time to learn to stop, so there's hope. Anyway, to make a long story short, the Chop needed some time out after a particularly unpleasant, unwarranted attack on the Stink, and I wrestled her and her talons to the floor, grabbed her up, and chucked her into Stew's room, slamming the door. While I did this to give Willi a chance to eat her dinner, I can't really feel too sorry for my cat because this is how she behaved at my mother's house when she first came out to visit.

Tonight, despite the very cold, wet weather, I barbequed a couple of steaks. Stew baked some potatoes (that was a bit of an adventure) and I made asparagus. Stew has fed me several times since arriving and so I felt it was necessary to do the same for him. Also, it was really time for the asparagus to be eaten. Our tummies are happy this eve.

Hotmail is poopy today. Work is sloooooooooooow. Had Kim not come to the rescue with some returned mail for me to play with, I was considering going home early.

BIG, FANTASTIC NEWS ! Dave Gahan will be playing at the Kool Haus on Wednesday, July 30th ! There's no sale date for tickets yet. He'll be in Montreal on the 29th. Stacey is heartbroken as she's not going to be in town when he's here. Poor Stacey, I feel for her.

The volunteers are here at the ROM today. So far, they haven't mentioned the Second World Wa- wait, does discussing The Pianist at length count? Well, SARS, the dollar, mayoral candidates have been done to death and they're not done yet. Beyond that, one of them is wearing so strong a perfume that I can smell it over top that which I'm wearing. I'm thinking that I should put on my earphones.

Tuesday night was informal meeting night at the Black Horse pub and lots of people came out, including a girl with whom I went to highschool and we had a number of friends in common. I also got to meet Olivia Chow, who came out, and she's delightful. She's very funny and, though I'd never say this in ear shot for fear of being smacked down, cute. Jack Layton is a lucky man. It was an evening of political discussion and debate, and when that got tiresome, I pulled out the amazing fifteen dollar shoes (marked down from $30 !) that I bought on my way there from the ROM. Brendan said, when I showed them to him, "Hey, those are nice. They're such girl shoes !" My answer: "Brendan, I -am- a girl." Sometimes I just have to wonder at the things men say.

I had a bit of bad sour cream at the pub, I think, because when I got home around midnight, my stomach started to tie itself in knots and cramp up in that special way that screams something isn't agreeing. I filled a plastic water bottle with very hot water and held that on my stomach for most of the night and that eased the cramping. Interestingly, the bottle was still warm at least four hours later. I ate very lightly yesterday as my stomach was still very sore, heating up some of the chicken stew that Stew made the day prior. That was tasty and full of good things that were easily digested.

The Matrix Reloaded opens today, but I'm not going. I'm not sure when I'll go, but probably not this weekend. I was going to attend Anime North on Saturday before D&D, but now I have to have a design meeting with the communication people, instead. I don't mind, I guess, as attending the convention was rather last minute, anyway. Obviously, the Development Plan is way more important than seeing boys dressed as Sailor Scouts, though arguably less fun. Anyway, I guess the movie can wait. I never did see the original movie in theatres on its first run, so if I see this one when my tax refund comes, so be it.

I was early to work today, though not of my own choosing. I like to get to work on time, but the Dufferin bus usually conspires to either get me there late, or later than that. Today, due to its unfailingly bad schedule, there were tons of people at every stop and the bus reached capacity shortly after I got on allowing us to rocket down the street, not picking up any more passengers. So, I got to work early, but not early enough to get my muffin and coffee before starting.

I just did something strange, which is not in and of itself particularly unusual; I wrote Leonard Cohen some fan mail. His website makes it pretty easy with a contact form and everything, and goodness knows, he probably doesn't even read his own mail, but whatever. I am feeling kind of wacky today and just decided to do it on a whim. My mom knew the guy back in Montreal, and I've sort of been surrounded by him through his poetry on her shelf and stories and whatnot, and sometime ago, I went out and bought an album. And then another. And I was talking about him with Liz, the intern, and discussing Nancy White's very amusing song, Leonard Cohen's never gonna take my groceries in, all because I'm listening to a live album of his out of Liz's collection. Gah. I'm such a dork.

Briefly, on the subject of music, I just thought of a band name that I might like to have, were I ever to have a band: Inconnu. I did a very quick google search and it seems there might already be a band of that name, but the sites are in German. Odd, with a French name. Of course, my all-time favourite were-I-to-have-a-band name is Pinstripe Truck. Don't ask, I never did come up with a reason why.

Rick came over last night and we made a tasty beef stirfry full of delicious things like red pepper, snowpeas, mushroom and green onions. I find I get very territorial over his using my kitchen for cooking and I do try not to give him too many 'helpful' hints, but you know, he's got his cooking style and I've got mine. Neither are bad, neither are wrong, but they aren't the same and in my kitchen, it bugs me that he's not doing as I would have him do. Anyway, all was well and dinner was nummy and CSI is a good show and was on last night, though it's not the normal night, and we had fun.

The cats continue to do their cat thing, though they can share room space now. Pork Chop comes into my room to look out the window and Willi doesn't freak. They can sit by each other at an arm's distance so long as they pretend they can't see one another. It's pretty amusing. But, one toe across the invisible line and it's spit'n'hiss, claws out. Stinky guards my bed when I first get into it, stationing herself at its foot in order to watch my door. Tobe is not allowed to come near the bed when I'm in it. All this observing of cats makes me feel like something of a naturalist, my childhood dreams of growing up to be Gerald Durrell coming true. Well, not really, but I do have one other amusing cat story to add.

Currently, in the bathroom, both litterboxes (Willi's and Tobe's) are set up. I'm not sure why this is, or for how much longer this will go on, but for now, that's the situation. We had thought that they tended to stick to their own boxes, and mostly this holds true, until last night. I turned to go into the bathroom in order to get a cup of water for bed and stopped because Tobe was in Willi's box having a pee. I waited, for what purpose I don't know since I could have gone into the kitchen, but I was set on getting water in the bathroom. When Pork Chop was done, her pee sufficiently burried, she hopped out... only to hop into the other box. I looked at Rick and laughed, thinking it was pretty silly, but then when I realised that she had switched boxes in order to have a poop, I couldn't believe it. One box for pee? The other for poop? You have got to be kidding, I thought, but indeed, Tobe went out of her way to use both boxes.

Cats are so weird.

Well, I ate the pickle but opted to work on a crossword rather than draw. A crossword either gets done or frustrating, meaning it gets put down, whereas starting a drawing could have me at it for hours and two in the morning is not the time for that. I didn't get very far in the puzzle, mind you, as suddenly my brain kicked out for the night.

I've done a tiny update to my homepage.

There is good news on the Cat Front. Willi and Tobe are sorting things out. Stew and I clipped their nails today, Tobe being the bigger problem (and not just because she's rotund) and required Stew to don oven mitts for holding her while I gingerly attacked her talonous claws. Last night, after he'd left for work, Tobe spent much of the evening looking out the sliding door in my room while Willi slept on my bed. They were aware of each other, but there was not hissing until they both came to offer me some love at the same time. Willi got a bit territorial over me and Tobe left. It seems Stew found them both sitting on the stairs, which means that they're definitely learning to share space. Huzzah ! Beyond this, Willi has been getting up to her typical antics. Today, while I was going through the job classifieds, she dug herself under some discarded newspaper as though it was a little army tent, or something, with her nose peeking out on one side. I just kept discarding pages onto her as I went and she kicked at them and wrapped herself up in them like an hors d'oeuvre.

I got a fair amount of work done for Booboo last night and I think he's pleased with it. We're having a little trouble witht he photographs he's sent me, however; as they're of terrible quality. It's not even worth trying to encorporate them into the package because they will detract from the overall design simply by being a pixel soup. Anyway, he assures me that new photos can come in about a week's time. Also, B______ has got me doing a leaflet for a South Asian event that's happening next week. I have to have it done by Wednesday at 5pm. It is a single-pager so it should not be too difficult, barring unusual circumstances.

Rick's coming over tonight and we're going to make dinner. I've got to go out and pick up some veggies and some meat for a stirfry. This is the only reason I'm going to brave the out-of-doors today as the weather took a dramatic and unpleasant turn. It's cold and wet, the kind you just want to sleep through. But, since I have all my work done, I can kill the day with lounging and maybe working on that drawing I avoided last night. I've got a couple of hours before I absolutely must go out to get food and have nothing but a shower planned. It feels like a Sunday - how lovely !

It's nearing two o'clock in the morning. Why, then, when I should be thinking about sleep, am I thinking about eating a pickle and sitting down to draw?

On Friday, Rick took me out to dinner at Red Rose, our favourite Indian restaurant, and then to the Carlton Cinemas for The Pianist. I'd been told to bring tissues, but I hardly needed them. It wasn't a sob film like Schindler's List is, though I did cry. The latter was a life-changing film for me, but this work was something very different. Roman Polanski has given us a film not about the Holocaust per se, nor of heroism in the face of adversity. This is a story of personal survival, and Szpilman is a hero simply for surviving. I grew up surrounded by the stories of my mother's family during the Second World War, their participation in the Resistance movement, and the many moments of sheer 'dumb' luck that saved them from capture and execution. Szpilman, too, survives, in part through this same luck, of near capture, so much so it would seem to be impossible. Yet, I know from the stories my mother told me, that this is exactly what made the survival possible in so many cases.

This film blurs the lines of good and evil, throwing the audience off balance with its sympathetic Nazi officer, the cruelty of the Jewish ghetto police, the desperation that makes people behave the way they do. It feels distant at many moments, especially through the first half, but it becomes clear that it is Szpilman that is distant, putting space between us and his story. The audience are allowed to view his existence, but at the arm's length that he forces. The film does not demand that we love it, nor does it preach to us as so many Holocaust and Second World War films do, but it causes us to think, to investigate our own emotional responses. Polanski, love him or hate him, has created a masterpiece of a film. If he never makes another movie, his reputation can stand by The Pianist and he will be remembered for its power and beauty and honesty.

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The battle between Willi and Tobe continues, domination shifting as often as I go to the washroom in a day (a few times). Currently, it's a draw, but around six-thirty in the morning, a viscious fight occurred. I don't know the details, but it was loud and angry enough to wake me out of a sound sleep. On a positive note, both cats are peeing in the litterboxes, rather than my bedroom vent. I've started giving Willi her food in the kitchen again, as well, so that she doesn't view my room as a security blanket. This decision was brought about partially because I've noticed her licking out Tobe's plate, which is at the kitchen door, and Stew actually saw her steal food. Brave little Stinky Bee.

It's a muggy day today. It also happens to be Mothers' Day: Happy Mothers' Day, Mom !!! I'm not in Peterborough as I have had to work this weekend, but the majority of this day is going to be spent working on Booboo's stuff. Rick's out in Hamilton helping his father and brother build a deck for Darlene, his mother. I had aspirations of going to the gym today, but I'm a little too sore from my work-out yesterday. I'm making a concerted effort to go as often as time allows, no excuses. Also, I finally did my pathetic verigated, leafy something-or-other a favour. This plant used to have a name, but I have forgotten it, and perhaps that why it hasn't recovered from the two times it nearly died. Anyway, I gave it a soil change, pruned it in the hope that it will regain its will to live, and we'll see how it goes.