As some of you know, our cat "Robocop" is a special animal who can't walk in a straight line and frequently fails to land on his feet like any other normal cat. In addition to having some general balance issues, he has also developed another problem that causes him to leak what we affectionately refer to as "ass juice" when he's sleeping or cuddled up with me in bed (never with Sean though...I am the sole recipient of ass juice deposits brought on by snuggling). The vet calls this leakage "inappropriate anal expression". I call it "disgusting", yet I still let him cuddle under the covers with me.
Despite his inability to walk in a straight line and land on his feet, sometimes Robo does amazing things that seem to defy gravity, like the following two videos in which he defies the laws of physics.
Robo loves to roll all over warm concrete and he discovered that the one windowsill in our back yard gets nice and warm in the sun, so he did what anyone would do. He rolled all over it. If cats could moan, I'm sure he'd be moaning while soaking up all that precious heat from the ledge.
I can not figure out how the cat that can't keep from sliding off a lap and landing on his skull doesn't fall off a narrow window ledge while rolling all over it.
Here's another video for good measure where he did fall, but miraculously didn't land on his head.
He was totally stoned on catnip in that video, man. Totally...do you know what I love? Brown sauce, man. Yeah. It's so...brown. Yeah. What were we talking about? Oh, yeah. Brown. It's like all the colours combined into one, supercolour. Like if all the people on the earth made one colour, it would be Brown man. Yeah. Brown.
I always thought that in order to be elite, you needed to come from good breeding...
own a bluetooth headset...
and be a total jerk...
I've learned that this is not the case. You only need two of the three attributes I listed - plus a crapload of aeroplan points. Luckily I have a bluetooth headset (no, I do not wear it constantly, but doing that would ensure that you understand how in demand I am), I am a total jerk (only to those who deserve it) and according to aeroplan I have enough points to be considered "elite" under their rewards program. You are probably saying to yourself, "so what...you just get a luggage tag that makes you better than everyone else on the plane. What's so great about that?" Well, let me tell you. As a member of aeroplan with "Elite" status, I get a bunch of upgrade coupons that I'll never use. Seriously - who buys an upgradable ticket? Also - I get 8 of them and they expire on Feb 28, 2010. Will I really be buying that many upgradeable tickets before then? I may be elite, but I'm no Thurston Howell III. Perhaps I'll buy a bus ticket and attempt to use 4 of the coupons to upgrade to air travel or I'll go all out and use all 8 to upgrade to time travel.
I also get a few Air Canada lounge guest passes that I'll never use because I travel solo and guests have to be with someone who has a lounge membership in order to use the pass.
Now that I'm elite, I plan to stop tolerating the Gilligans of the world and I will use my elite connections and stealthy business acumen to get me out of all sorts of trouble - like perhaps breaking out of a jail made of bamboo.
Would I get one phone call on the coconut phone while in bamboo jail? I think I would call "The Professor".
I decided to split our trip to Nidya Lake into two entries, because the original was getting long and boring a la Lord of the Rings. Lake of fire this, from whence it came that. Ugh - epic. Speaking of epics, we had a Harry Potter moment at the camp.
We found a Sorting Hat.
You remember the Sorting Hat from Harry Potter.
Sean tried to sort us into our various houses, but failed because we were all too busy fighting over who got to be the Quidditch captain. If you're unsure of what Quidditch is, watch this video.
I found this news piece to be exceptionally entertaining because it takes a rare combination of nerdiness and athleticism to pull together a Quidditch team. I'm actually surprised that a group of jocks with absolutely no interest in the mythology behind the game hasn't pulled a team together in order to dominate the nerds - just because they could. And man...it would be so easy. Did you see that team from McGill? It's easy to find the square root of their dorkiness.
We saw some interesting bug-life (no, not Thug Life) at camp, including this weird lobster-tailed bee and lots of GIGANTIC dragonflies.
The dragonflies were feasting on the mosquitoes and black flies. I saw a dragonfly land on a nearby branch (less than a foot away from me) and it was devouring what looked like a huge house fly. I tried to get some video of the carnage, but it flew away. Luckily, I caught a snap of this dragon on a log. It's body was at least four inches long.
Sadly, there weren't enough dragonflies to keep the black flies and mosquitoes away from Jamie's delicious legs. He got eaten alive when he ran to the neighbor's place to say hi. His legs looked like some sprightly elves had inserted halved ping-pong balls under his skin the night before. I think he was outside for only 5 mins or so.
The weekend wasn't all about bug bites and wizard houses though. We got some sun and exploring in.
Naked love. We're not actually naked - it's all camera tricks.
Anna found a log to climb.
Hoisting Climbing Conquered
There was a delicious bass hanging out by the dock. We thought it was protecting its clutch of eggs or something (and by "something" I mean, protecting jewels or other fish-riches).
Tube-top-tacular
Look up. Look waaaaaaaaaaaaay up. The Friendly Giant is going to tell you how Diabetes works.
As with most of the birthdays for people/things in my life that I love, I forgot to wish Lake Superiority Complex a very happy first birthday in August '09.
If you're looking for gift ideas, Lake Sup-Com (much like "J-Lo", everything needs a good contraction) likes movies, music, forwarded links, youtube, common sense, sarcasm and expensive cologne.
Thanks to everyone who reads the blog and a special thanks to those who comment on the blog. Your words of wisdom and/or ridicule are greatly appreciated and/or categorically dismissed.
So what have we done over the year?
We've seen Sean off to school together
We've gone on trips to Illinois, Washington State, Minnesota and British Columbia together
We've gone sightseeing at ski hills and natural geographic wonders together
We've gotten a taste of Northern life together
We've moved across the province together
We've made fun of countless things together
And so much more...
As I click "Publish Post" on my Blogger toolbar, I'm humming the "Family Ties" song, thinking fondly of all my friends and family. Lake Superiority Complex is singing harmony. Sha la-la-la.
A couple of months ago Sean and I accompanied some friends (Anna, Jamie, Tobey & Nick) to Anna's camp on Nidya lake. "Camp" = "Cottage", for you southerners. Also, "May Long" = "May 2-4 weekend" and "Shag" = "Stag & Doe". "Near" = "more than 100km" and "Far" = "Winnipeg". Now that you're up to speed on the T-Bay lingo, on with the story.
Nidya lake is about 2.5 hours out of Thunder Bay (classified as "near"). Anna was bored by the conversation during the ride there, so she tuned us out and took a nappy nap.
Of course, as soon as we got there the boys were put to work preparing the camp for our stay.
The girls, on the other hand, cracked out the beer and simultaneously the bucks cracked out our fleshy bodies. We were feasted on. I've never seen so many mosquitoes in my life. You can't see it in this photo, but I had mosquitoes all over me. That's why Anna's laughing.
I think this photo of Anna is fit for a National Geographic cover.
These two are huddling in order to escape the bugs. When it comes to bugs, there's safety in numbers. If you huddle with friends they can help you scratch those hard-to-reach bites.
Fishes ho!! Nick led an expedition to the fish mines, but the boys came back empty-handed. The look so legit in the pictures. Standing in the boat and everything. Total pros.
The thing that made that weekend at camp bloggable was a new northern experience for me: a Finnish Sauna. The GTBA (Greater Thunder Bay Area) has a large Finnish population. More specifically, it has the highest concentration of people of Finnish origin per capita in Canada, ergo, the GTBA has a the highest concentration of saunas per capita in Canada. By my count, that's about a million saunas per person north of Wawa. Math! Fact! There's a piece of local folklore that says every time a sauna is mentioned in a blog, the number of saunas in the GTBA increases by the power of a jillion. For the record, I have only been in one of those bajillion saunas, and that sauna was at Anna's camp.
The basic premise of a Finnish sauna is that you get all steamed up in the sauna, then you jump in a freezing cold lake. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. So, true to tradition, that's what we did.
We got the sauna piping hot by stoking the fire in the stove for a couple of hours. Once the stove was good and hot, the sauna-ing began.
This is a shot of the inside of the sauna. The pic is pretty crappy because it was pitch black and when you brought the camera into the sauna the lens immediately fogged up and the picture turned into a hazy LizTaylor movie. The solution - open the door and really quickly take a flashed-out crappy photo.
You can see the stove pipe and the rocks. We'd pour water on them to make steam. Here are some steamy shots from inside the sauna.
Once the heat in the sauna got unbearable, we'd fly out the door and jump in the lake.
Ahhh...thank goodness for the lake. Anyone who knows me well knows that I hate swimming in cold water, but I found that being overheated in a claustrophobic space motivates me to jump into cold water.
Check out these bathing beauties.
I tried to get a photo of all of us post-dip, but there's someone messing up the photo in every picture (usually Sean). We'll turn this into a Where's Waldo search. Find the following things in the three photos below:
Sean being too tall
Sean doing his best "Edward" from Twilight impression (hint - look for the teeth)
Nick looking disgusted
Jamie giving the evil eye
Anna giving the death glare
My head bent at a very strange angle
Tobey is missing in one photo
Sean giving kissy lips
We partook of the Finnish Sauna the next night as well, but it's just more of the same. More sweating, more swimming, more bad photography.
PS - did you hear that Shakira came out of the closet? It's true. She's actually a wolf. And she wins the award for 2009's most frightening dancer. She should be a guest judge on the first season of "So, You Think You Can Dance Frighteningly Canada". It will be sweeping the nation this fall. It will be filmed in my back yard. Consider this your formal invitation, Shakira!!
I took a picture of my first-ever black fly bite. It bled. Fascinating.
I was the recipient of a number of bites during the weekend the picture above was taken. They all bled, but I didn't take pictures of all of them. Ok, I did take pictures of all of them, but I didn't post them all on the internet. Ok, I did post them on the blackflybitehotties.com, but I blurred out my face. Ok, I didn't blur out my face, and I included my phone number and measurements. It's a niche market and they pay well. Don't Judge!! I live by the words of 2Pac.
To augment this post, I tried to find a clip or even a picture that referenced the Canadian TV show "Blackfly", but I couldn't find anything worthwhile. It's like the CRTC scrubbed it from the public record. The show was very controversial so I can understand why the government wouldn't want it to fall into the wrong hands. You'll have to settle for a picture of Ron James, star of "Blackfly" and a Wikipedia reference to black flies.
We're going to Minnesota tomorrow. I hope this happens:
On second thought, I actually hope this happens:
In reality, I think this is what will happen (at least on the way there):
oh - and watch this ovulation machine in action. If you attempt to concieve within 48 hours of watching this video, you will become pregnant with a litter of kittens. It's true - I read it on the internet:
You don't want to know what happens if you attempt to concieve within 48 hours of watching "Snakes on a Plane". You have a litter of Samuel L. Jacksons!!!
"YES I DID KILL THEM AND THEY DESERVED TO DIE!" He came out of the womb yelling that.
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