There are tentative plans for us to dogsit for Mason's parents this winter when they go away on vacation for a couple of weeks. In very advance preparation for temporarily have a dog in our home, I thought it would be best that before we introduce the pup to our house, we should introduce him to our cat.

I can't really say it went good or bad, since after only sixty seconds of skirting around the edges of the living room with his hair standing on end, Iroh dove underneath the sofa and refused to have anything at all to do with Arnie the happy schnauzer pup. Couldn't get him out until after the dog had left, and the entire time he was in hiding he made these long, pitiful little growling noises. =_=; I don't honestly think Arnie would hurt the cat, but at the same time I can't have Iroh reduced to cowering under the couch for two whole weeks.

A second cat-dog introduction may have to be arranged, but we will have the foresight to block off entry to under any furniture this time.

*Kitty growls can be heard from the next room*

I've been lazy with blogging over the last week or two, so I'll try to keep these all short and sweet!

• Edmonton Pride Parade
  
  Awesome! Went with Sister and friend and walked in the parade along with the Grant MacEwan GLBT group. I was originally assigned the task of enthusiastically giving out temporary tattoos to the crowd, but I'm too shy and am not a huge people person so that fell flat pretty quick; so instead I got to blow bubbles~ X3 Much more fun. By the end of that parade I had some proper bubble blowing technique down, I tell you. *Smug*
  
  It was a great turn out for both the parade parties and the crowds watching. This was the first time I've ever actually walked in the parade, and only the second time I'd ever been to it at all. Every year I mean to go, and then something always comes up and it's always the same old "okay, well maybe next year." I enjoy going out and showing my support, and I really love the atmosphere and watching all of the different people laughing and smiling and just being with each other -- some unfortunately whom I'm sure don't usually feel the same easy comfort in walking hand-in-hand down the street any other day as they probably do during pride day. I wish everyone could feel as confident, open, and happy all the time as some of the people I saw today. What a thought.


• Homeland by R. A. Salvatore
  
  A race of dark elves called the Drow live underground and are feared by all for their vicousness and single-minded drive for power no matter the cost, least of all when it comes to killing their own, which is practically encouraged. The newborn Drizzt is born and grows up to be not quite as malicious as his family and culture would prefer him to be...
  
  I don't know what to think about this book. I guess it was okay, I made it through to the end fast enough, but it was just too... evil? As in a complete over-abundance of. Usually I'm a sucker for the villain. I have a long, sordid history of always rooting for the bad guy, and almost every one of my favorite characters from any fandom has been the the villain; but my biff is that evil is not interesting unless it's dished out with some good alongside for the ride. All this story had was Evil Smiles and Evil Plotting and Evil Ambitions, where mothers kill sons and sisters kill mothers and brothers want to kill sisters and all it is is a giant clusterfuck of hate and assassination and EVIL. It made the villainous aspect of any potentially interesting character really boring and redundant. I think Homeland had potential, but fell flat.


• The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark Haddon
  
  A boy with Asperger's finds his neighbor's dog dead, impaled with a garden fork in the yard; despite his father's demands otherwise, brilliant young Christopher begins his own super-sleuth story to discover who killed the dog and ends up finding out more than he bargained for.
  
  This one's been on my to-read list for a while, and I was more eager to read it after finishing off House Rules recently by Jodi Picoult. The Curious Incident (etc) itself was good and an interesting read. The thing that struck me the most between this book and Picoult's was how very different the first-person PoV narrative was. Picoult's character is very aware of his Asperger's and why and how it affects aspects of his life and those around him the way it does; yet his inner dialogue was for the most part precise, articulate, thought out and -- for lack of a better word -- "normal." Haddon's character, on the other hand, is a whirlwind of thoughts and stories and descriptions and feelings, served up by the way of simplified language, many run-on sentences and topic derailments. It made it a bit exhausting to follow what the character was thinking some times, but in a way I think that's the point. Different books with different takes, though both very interesting in separate ways.


• Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging by Louise Rennison
  
  This one was a light read with lots of laughs. Think Bridget Jones but for teens. Basically it chronicles diary-style a school year in the life of fourteen-year-old Georgia Nicolson, and predictably all manner of teenage girl drama and hyjinks ensue. There were some pretty funny bits, mostly because I remembered thinking some of the same things and using the same ridiculously silly logic at points back in my teenage days; and also because the narrator is British and uses lots of fabulously amusing English slang, terms like "nuddy-pants" and "jimjams" which are automatically hilarious to anyone who is not British.


• Sex and the City 2
  
  Awful. :c It started off well enough for the first half hour or so and geared up by introducing the new life hurdles that were going to be addressed for each character -- and then they all promptly jumped on a plane to Abu Dhabi and the remaining hour and half of the whole movie was a giant boring vacation slide show. Look, here we are on a camel! Look, here we are sipping cocktails by the pool! Look, here we are singing karaoke! What? Plot, where did you go? Did you accidentally miss the plane to the Middle East that your leading ladies were on? *Story plot sits sadly alone, abandoned completely in airport waiting lounge* So very very disappointing. My sad face was very sad indeed.


• Splice
  
  I have no words for this movie. We all left the theatre exchanging equal WTF expressions of "Ngggwha...?" Seriously. Here's the movie: Scientist couple create crazy human/mult-animal hybrid creature. Man wants to kill it, woman wants to raise it like a adorable monster-like puppy. Man is weary, woman loves it as a daughter. Man loves it like a daughter, woman preforms crazy mutilating experiments on it in the name of science. Man mates with it, woman is horrified and hates man. Man confronts woman. Woman loves creature! Woman hates creature! Man hates creature! Man loves creature! Man and woman go to kill creature! Creature dies, man and woman love creature, cry over loss of creature! Creature rises from the dead and swaps gender, so now she's a he who kills everything! Man and woman hate creature! Creature rapes woman and kills man! Creature is killed and woman is left impregnated with creature's own incesty, double-hybrid spawn.
  
  Potential sequel...? I hope not. o_O

In other news, I'm a horrible kitty mother and I forgot that everything including pet stores close freakishly early on Saturdays and now I have no breakfast for Iroh tomorrow morning. Bugger. I fear much drama and kitty woe (of the loud, especially obnoxious variety) shall occur when he notices the complete lack of tasty kibble in his bowl. :x

I just spent the last half hour in a slow building panic thinking Iroh had eaten a AAA battery. I caught him playing with a pair that I took out of the TV remote this morning, and when I went to take them away from him I could only find one of the original two. Iroh has a horrible habit of chewing on random tiny things he finds on the floor, so after a mad search of the immediate area and peeking under all of the low furniture with a flashlight with no luck, I did some Googling; upon the online recommendations I found, I fought with a very angry kitty to check for marks inside his mouth and gave him a small amount of precautionary milk to dilute any potentially corrosive fluid he may have ingested. (I think he was less bitter with me after this surprise "treat" of milk.) Fretting about whether or not to call the vet, I went downstairs again and tried a second time by myself to actually lug the couch aside for a better look underneath and this time actually managed to get it away from the wall -- and there it was! YAY! BATTERY RECOVERED!

*Clings to (by now extremely irritated) kitty in joyous relief.*

I am very happy that Iroh didn't swallow a battery. I may, however, end up finding that I have by result given him a slight case of diarrhea from the milk. *Sweatdrop* It was done with good intentions though, and I figure a slight case of the runs is preferable to painful internal acid burns. ^^; Lesson learned: save myself the heart attack and make doubly sure all small odds and ends are out of sight from curious kitty.

My Christmas shopping is officially finished, with a whole day to spare. Go me! Wrapping presents last night was a whole new adventure with the cat intent on trying to steal my tape, borrow through gift bags, and tear up my tissue paper. If my wrapping this year seems more shoddy than usual, blame Iroh.

I'm extremely sad that I still don't have any new boots yet. They originally arrived last week but unfortunately in a size that was slightly too small -- and I had them for all of twelve glorious hours before I finally relented and returned them and asking to re-order a half size larger. Hopefully the 9's they're sending me will fit perfectly. This is why I don't ever buy clothes or shoes online, I hate purchasing stuff before I have a chance to try them on. :P Boot fail.

With an absence of any of our usual big trips this past year, I took advantage of all of my saved up vacation days and am looking forward to a nice, extended Christmas holiday this season. During this time in between all of much tasty turkey gorging and shameless post stomach-full-of-turkey lounging, I am determined to:

• See Avatar (who wants to go with me? SOMEONE GO WITH ME!)
• Finally go and get my H1N1 shot so as to avoid dying of dreaded piggy flu.
• Play more Guild Wars. My warrior needs some loving.
• Sit back and finally get a chance to do some drawing. ;_; I miss drawing so much, I can't believe I haven't managed to get anything new done in almost a year. I had all of these wonderful intentions to draw a bunch of art pieces as gifts this year for Christmas, but as it is now nearing the end of December that plan has obviously flown out the window. Art fail. :x

OOH OOH OOH and there is a very strong possibility that I may have in my possession a shiny new iPhone by the end of the holidays~ However, this is still sort of teetering on the knifes edge considering the rational and very frugal part of my brain is overcome by guilt about such a frivolous purchase and the thought of a $20+ increase in my monthly phone bill. Inner turmoil, INNER TURMOIL!

Another one of our infamous Alberta winters officially arrived this weekend and has royally kicked our ass. My usual 45 minute transit ride home on Friday evening took an hour and a half, and there were some particularly tense moments each time our bus tried to pull away from a stop with its tires spinning frantically in the curbside snow drifts. I have to admit that one thing I really miss from condo living is waking up after a big snowfall and POOF! the walkway and parking lot had already been cleared by some unseen entity. Shoveling snow sucks. The fact that our driveway is freakishly long compounds on the suckage factor. *Pout pout pout* Where are all the tiny children who are supposed to ring our doorbell and offer to shovel our driveway? What a bunch of slackers.

On the upside from the past week, I finally got my (temporary) engagement ring! I still have to wait a few weeks for my custom-sized one so the one they gave me for now is like two sizes too large, but it has a little sizing bar bit that snugs it up to my finger enough that it doesn't fall off. Either way, it's pretty and sparkly and is something to show to people that says "Look look! I really am engaged, it's not a giant sham!" *Loves her new ring*

I finally sucked it up and ordered a pair of actual winter boots, as my kiss ass little dress boots that I somehow managed to wear all through last winter provide neither traction nor warmth of any kind to speak of. While it was a $100 I wasn't really inclined to spend right now, they're very cute and I'm excited for them to arrive (and I know my toes for one will be eternally grateful.)

Sigh. I can't believe how fast this month is going. December is so busy. It's dawning on me much slower this year that I really need to get a move on a buy some Christmas gifts. :x (0/6 gifts purchased... EEP.) It's going to have to be a very small Christmas gift-wise, what with mounting monthly bills, credit cards with some big purchases on them, and now we're saving for weddings and cruises; all the while with Mason back to school in his final year of school starting in March. *Must save save save save* :x

Ther33e was something else I'm sure I wanted to include in this post, butzzsssssaaaaaaa kitttttttasaaAAAATY HAS chosen thisppppppp mom ent to insist on trying to find a comfortable spot to lay directly upon my keyboarrrrrr55rrffvvvv-- /....... WTF kitty. I am giving up on any more of this,6ti

I just finished watching an amazing documentary on Kevin Richardson, an animal behaviorist for a private reserve in South Africa, and nicknamed "the lion whisperer" by the media for the uncanny ability he has to bond with lions and other wild animals. So good~ It both blows my mind and makes me green with envy the way he's able to interact with these lions and hyenas to the point where he's been completely and fully accepted as one of them.


(More videos on http://www.lionwhisperer.co.za and YouTube; and the aforementioned documentary, "Dangerous Companions", is easily found on Google.)

He reminds me of Timothy Treadwell only way better and smarter, without the apparent crazy vibe and the fact that he, you know... hasn't gotten himself eaten. The interviews and YouTube clips of him are all extremely interesting, and I'd love to get my hands on a copy of his book.

He makes me strongly regret, not for the first time in my life, that I never followed through with my original longing to work with animals. :c I think sometimes that if I could go back to see myself in high school, I'd give myself a firm slap upside the head: "Buck up! Who cares if you're rubbish at science? You could hug a lion some day!" *Whappa whappa whappa!* Stupid fear of science. Stupid fear of giant African bugs. Sometimes I'm just the stupid one. The only possible chance I have now is if I ever get the chance to travel to Africa; or if the fates are extra cruel they'll give me cancer and I will then be in a position to grotesquely take advantage of the Make A Wish Foundation. ("You want what?") In the mean time I shall continue to hug my kitten, who however lacks in considerable size and majesticness *Iroh runs into smack into a wall* makes up for it in 100% pure adorableness.