chicken loves you.

Just got home from a whirlwind trip to Calgary. We went for the football game, but we stayed for a friend. The game, unfortunately, was absolutely brutal. My heart broke for our buddy. It was good to see him though.

It's incredible to me how fast sports fans turn on someone. For the first three games, my friend was being hailed as the new team star. And he deserved it. On Thursday he had a very bad game, and while I feel like most are being fairly forgiving, there's a lot of calls for his head.

The most basic thing about team sports, that some fans oddly seem to forget, is that a player can't have a great game (or a bad one) singlehandedly. Quarterbacks need protection. Receivers need a quarterback. Running backs need an O-line. The O-line needs good coaching.

Fans have singled out two players for the brunt of their ire. And both of them had too many individual mistakes. At the same time, even to a football newbie like me it was obvious enough that the entire team was imploding, and as a result it would have been pretty difficult for either of the people in the line of fire to get back on their feet.

Frustrating. I also learned that watching football games is No Fun when you have any sort of emotional investment into the performance of the players. Every time our friend got near the ball, I thought I was going to throw up from the tension.

In other news, Calgary will never be a city I have much love for. I'm glad to be home.

Coren and I just spent $41.64 on jelly beans.

I think this is a sign that we need to learn better money management and impulse control.

On the plus side, we now have about five pounds of jelly beans in many exciting flavours. I wish I had gotten more root beer, though. I foresee a terrible stomach ache in the near future for me.

Before I stepped into the shower this morning, I must have accidentally scratched a tiny scab or something off the tip of my nose.

That was two hours ago, and it's still gushing blood.

Perhaps "gushing" is a strong word. It's more like a steady dribble. I've gone through several feet of toilet paper trying to stop it. I've tried putting pressure on it. I've tried leaving it alone. I've tried everything. And still, as soon as I daub away the massive bead of blood oozing from it, another one rapidly takes its place.

What the hell?

Why won't my nose stop bleeding?

I have to go out and... do things, but I certainly can't while there's blood running down my face.

Relevant facts:

+ I have no blood clotting issues
+ The little scratch from whence the bleeding emerges is teeny tiny and very shallow. It's not like a deep cut.
+ WHAT THE HELL?

I have just lit a cigarette from Bangladesh. The pack was a gift from one of Coren's coworkers, a native Bangaldeshi who just returned from a trip there to see his family.

On the package runs a strange and beautiful script that I can't read. Coren asked his coworker what it meant. "Oh, just that smoking will kill you, that sort of thing," he said.

It's refreshing to know that no matter where I go, cigarettes will still kill me and packaging will still alert me to this fact. One can never be too lost in the world with that assurance.

In other news, the cigarette itself doesn't taste as exciting or exotic as I would have hoped. Sort of like a slightly sweeter American cigarette. I'd butt the thing right now, but I have run out of my own brand, and due to losing my keys (again), I can't leave to get any more.

While Winnipeg drinks itself into a Brier stupor, I'm sitting at home catching up on work.

( Oh, you know, stuff like... )

At least I got to go out last night -- Ainsley and I decided to head down to Blush to visit Coren and get our dance on.

The night was puntcuated by two atrociously drunk dudes from Thompson, in town for the Brier, who decided that we were to go back to their hotel with them.

It started with them trying to "grind" with us. We spent five minutes trying to move away from them, before heading for outside. They followed us, begging to buy us a drink. When we refused... four times... they pulled out a couple $5 bills from their wallet and shoved them at us. Classy!

After following us outside, they started insisting we go back to their hotel room for a drink. After refusing multiple times and mostly trying to ignore them, they started trying to bargain with us.

And then suddenly, Coren appeared. I ran up and gave him a smooch, and the greaseballs disappeared bolted for the door so fast they left a cartoonish trail of smoke in their wake.Overall, unpleasant experience that nonetheless made for good comedy.

What's sad is -- I wore my wedding ring specifically to avoid an encounter like that. But apparently, spending copious amounts of time scratching your nose with your ring finger while some greaseball is staring at you, and examining your wedding ring for about five minutes straight, polishing it, and basically doing everything possible to draw attention to the fact that it exists is not enough to cue losers in that you are, in fact, taken.

Quick random thoughts:

+ The woman whose mat leave I was taking over for started having her baby today! So I am already on my own. And I love it -- it's the perfect environment for me. There's only two of us in the office, it's very laid back, and I can switch projects rather often to keep things feeling fresh.

+ I'm exhausted. I started the morning off with an interview (Martina McBride), went to work, then went to another interview for a feature I'm doing on spa treatments. This ended up being a very long day for me.

+ I secured Blair to be our commissioner. He was extremely understanding of the reasons we're hurrying the legal aspect of the wedding, and promised it'll take four questions and three minutes.

As of next Tuesday, I should be legally married. This does not mean that everyone should not come to my actual wedding in June 2009 in Oregon. It'll be at a winery, and we're all going to basically bathe ourselves in the casks until we're too drunk to get out.

+ I feel very, very good, and the first hint of a potential spring in Winnipeg is always pretty energizing.

I'm holding a marriage license. Crazy! Who woulda thunk I'd ever have willingly paid a hundred smackers for one of these pieces of paper? It's nuts I tell you, just nuts.

We're working on finding a commissioner. Of course, it being Winnipeg, while I was browsing the list of marriage commissioners in Winnipeg, of course I stumbled on a guy who plays in a pub band I've written a lot of articles on and wrote a band biography for once. So I emailed him, because that seems more my style than "MAGICAL MOMENTS WEDDINGS BY CRYSTAL" and soforth.

Hello winnipeg.

Does anyone know anyone who works at the Exchange Event Centre? Or know the number there? I lost my cellphone there tonight at that 80s party thing, and didn't realize til I was back home. Unfortunately, all of their listed numbers are out of service, and I have no idea when they'll be open again. Plus, I desperately need my phone.

Help?

First -- I went to interview an antiques dealer for an article. While touring his shop, I found the November 29, 1963 edition of LIFE Magazine... yeah, you get where I'm going. The issue that came out six days after Kennedy's assassination. You can see it on eBay here.

Not worth money, but worth major nostalgia: I picked it up for my dad, since the Kennedy assassination was a massively difficult event for him, and one he has incredibly clear memories of. He'd probably remember this exact magazine, and it's in great condition. I thought it would make a neat little gift.

ETA: I just gave him the magazine and he loved it! He got all nostalgic right away (reading the birth and death date on the cover: "He would have been 90 today. If he had lived. That's a little spooky to me honestly... I keep thinking, he's just a young guy, like us.") It was pretty sweet actually... I'm really glad I found it, it was obviously really meaningful for him.

--

Also, I just spoke to the loveliest man at Revenue Canada. Seeing that I'm extremely tax impaired, my filing record is... spotty at best. I just got my '06 tax return in November; and I haven't even filed for 2002, 2003, or 2005.

Realizing that on an average refund of about $1000 (I got much more in 2006 and 2004 -- 2001's was closer to $900), I'm missing out on a massive chunk of money (plus back-owed GST to the tune of... well, almost another grand I'd guess), I set about collecting my old T4s today.

Long story short, expecting to be totally humiliated with the Revenue folks when I called to get said T4s shipped to me, I instead spoke to the most charming gentleman who was not only not judgmental, but downright encouraging.

"I'm so sorry, I'm terribly tax impaired," I said, after he informed me about 2002's non-filing (which was a surprise to me) in addition to the other two.

"Hey, no problem!" he said. "A lot of people are! It's no worries here, just glad you're on your way to getting your return done now!" (I didn't mention that Revenue sent me a very threatening letter about my 2005 return.)

He then asked what I did for CBC, said it sounded really neat, and chatted amicably while he ordered up my files. Totally made my day.

I just spent ten minutes Googling "how to bake a potato."

Because truthfully, I don't really know. And I burnt half of one trying to bake it in my toaster oven.

Will I be forever hopeless when it comes to food and food preparation? Stay tuned!

...is sitting on my head, as she does from time to time. Only today, she's drooling, and every few minutes I feel this giant drop of cat drool splash onto my arm.

Remove her? I could. But if you've never had a cat positioned exactly on the top of your head and sitting there quite comfortably, with her claws dug into your scalp for balance, then believe me when I say that removing her is one of the most painful, awkward, and time-consuming processes I've ever experienced.

I've been checking up on some laws, and I'm vaguely annoyed at the fact that I could have automatically obtained American citizenship (and, thus, become a dual citizen) if we had applied for it before I turned 18.

At the time, of course, I never thought I'd need it (neither, I suppose, did my parents)... or even want it. But now that Coren and I are vaguely trying to keep the option of moving to Oregon in play (not soon, probably not ever, but there as an option), it seems a piss-off that I never got it.

I know there's still some way to fast-track a US resident visa if your parents are natural-born citizens, so in the end it's not a huge deal. But so many of our problems could be solved right now by me saying "fuck it, let's move to Oregon."

Oh well. Live and learn? I'll make damn sure our kids get both citizenships.

It seems so quiet without Coren around.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't being dependent. It's nice to have the alone time, even though we are fairly often out of each other's space anyway.

But look at it this way: he's been here since August. I work primarily from home. He likes going everywhere with me that he can, including to the store to pick up milk.

So, except for occasional meetings and soforth, we have been in each other's company for almost five months. And one of those months we were in Oregon, where we were quite literally never apart.

Why this worked for us, I have no idea. With most people, I would have gone insane. With him, I actually feel great. We don't really get on each other's nerves, we always have fun, we're comfortable.

So to have him be gone at work for seven hours is... not bad. Just very quiet and sort of weird. I'll get used to it soon enough, but in the meantime I almost don't know what to do with myself.

Today, we all give thanks to mattsturbater.

Truly, mattsturbater is the pinnacle of all that is awesome and good in the world. Without mattsturbater, Winnipeg would be a cold(er) and lonely place.

ALL HAIL mattsturbater!

Stolen from wellreadmenace: the story of 2007, compressed into easy to read point format.

( Onwards! )

As if losing all of our luggage wasn't enough (and no, all of my boots... all $1000 of totally unique-in-Winnipeg, irreplaceable boots has not yet been found), the recent flooding in southwest Washington means we're stuck in Oregon for at least another couple of days, maybe even until after the weekend.

It's been a great trip, but I really wanted to go home.

Nope.

Fuck you, nature. Fuck you.

After a bit more than eighteen and a half years on this earth, Kyro passed away in his sleep last night.

I got the call this morning.

That dog was my life for so long. I wish we had seen each other one last time, but, the last time I visited I made sure to say all the goodbyes I had to say. I did every time I went over to see him.

My dog was happy in his last months, but he was tired, and just very, very old. He was deaf and blind from cataracts, his arthritis bothered him, and any movement was a struggle.

Still, he was as comfortable as possible. He was in the best home he could have been. The "dogsitter" that turned into a permanent caregiver was phenomenal with him. More than gentle and caring, she really loved him.

I've spent the morning crying, but... it's okay. I'm sad and I love him and it hurts but it's okay. It was his time. He had a wonderful life and spent his last hours warm, comfortable, happy, and in a safe and loving environment. I couldn't ask for anything more.

So, the other week we moved the litter box from the corner it was stashed in into a lower cupboard in the kitchen that has been empty the entire 3.5 years I've lived in this apartment.

We originally thought we'd just leave the door open and they could wander in and out; but amazingly, the cats actually open and close the door when they're coming and going.

It's hilarious to watch. Cat walks up to the cupboard, opens the door, climbs in, a wee little paw snakes out and closes the door. Two minutes and some scuffling later, the door opens and the cat emerges, knocking it closed with her back paw.

It is hysterical to me that they love their privacy that much. It's a little kitty bathroom. This is brilliance and, I should add, has the wonderful side-effect of both keeping the box out of site AND cutting down on the "oh no, Avie just pooped" aroma.

To get my dude a fucking job.

We went down to the Immigration Canada office today. The (very nice, very apologetic) woman at the desk said, and I quote, "it is very, very hard to get a work permit in Canada."

Oh, okay.

She was kind enough to give us one little trick -- if we can get a job offer and a positive Labour Market Opinion declaring that the job can be filled by a foreign worker, instead of mailing in the application, we can drive to the US border, turn around, come back in, and they can give us the work permit at the border, thus shaving at least 2.5 months off the process.

This is a good thing.

However, she said that only fairly skilled jobs are likely to get a positive LMO. This is a bad thing, since he was really just hoping for a run'o'the'mill job doing... whatever.

The good news is I may have landed a great extra gig, but supporting both of us is still a big strain on my finances and there's no end in sight.

Does anyone have any other brilliant advice or ideas? Feel free to email me at born_afire@yahoo.com if you don't want to reply here.

Heartwarming story from today's Free Press about cops from Victoria Beach who raised $10,000 for little Tyler (who presumably, as per CWF guidelines, has a life-threatening illness) to go to Disneyland courtesy of the Children's Wish Foundation.

Heartwarming stories, mind you, normally don't interest me; but I jumped about five feet in the air when I read this one, and again when I saw the video that confirmed my first reaction: I worked with the child's mother for two years at a little kid's clothing store called Please Mum.

We lost touch ages ago, and I haven't seen hide nor hair of her for maybe five years, but I always looked up to her so much and loved her like a sister. She was such a beautiful and funny girl, who didn't believe in herself nearly enough. But to me, she was awesome.

I wrote Michelle to ask her to give Vanessa my contact info, if possible. I'm so happy to hear they are the recipients of a Wish and I can't wait to get in touch with her. It's been too long.