Zork! Best Cat Toy Ever

First, buy a bottle of wine with a zork closure. Apparently, zork is the revolutionary new alternative to cork, with the convenience of a screw cap and pop of a cork!


What they don't tell you about zork is that after you unravel it, you end up with the best cat toy ever.


You can even attach a tail to it if you want.


Unfortunately, Little Bit is a little bit camera shy. So her zork excitement is toned down here. When unwatched, her zork excitement is many magnitudes higher. Notice the size of her tail.

Halloween 2009

Last year, we had a difficult time getting the trick-or-treaters to come to our place. Half way through the night, we put up Christmas lights on the bushes and the came. This year, we made very convincing jack-o-lanterns.



We placed them strategically and propped our gate open. It worked! We didn't have to chase the trick-or-treaters down the street to give them candy. They came to us ... and we seemed less crazy to the neighbors.


Later, a Private Jane and a Dame in Trouble went to a Halloween party thrown by a Jungian couple we met last fall at a restaurant. Before telling you about the party, you should know that this dame really had troubles.


During the party, we were given slips of papers with letters. We then had to team up with others with the same letter and act out a skit. The Private Jane determined that the butler did it and took care of matters. The Dame in Trouble was given a hope by an elf. The elf and the jester wanted her to find meaning, the jester didn't do a very good job and the dame in trouble got all the money that she hoped for. In the end, the Dame's skit won the best skit award and she went home with a marzipan jack-o-lantern.

Thanks Mom!

For the baby gifts!

(something to keep the baby warm)

(and fashionable, like me)

(a little self promotion never hurts)

(First cheer .... I-L-L ... I-N-I!)

(Lesson learned .... when shipping gifts to someone in Canada, never assign a value over $50 ... or else the recipients will get to pay duty ... got to love Canada!)

We Heart Vermont II

We had planned to meet my mom in Vermont last weekend. But bad weather, delayed flights, and airlines over-selling their flights resulted in mom staying home. While we were sad, we decided Vermont is too good to pass on. We were reminded why we ♥ Vermont.

The festive signage...


The artistic gardens ....


the quaint barns ...


and, the busy streets ...


Oh yes, we still ♥ Vermont.

Really, Our Cats Love Us

Larger than Life

This Stop the World tour is making Dicey and Paprika famous again. They were covered in the Pittsburgh Post Gazette this week.

I just hope it doesn't go to their heads again!

Big News!

They're back!

Saturday, September 26, 2009
Your Inner Vagbond
4130 Butler Street, Pittsburgh (Lawrenceville)

See their facebook site for more info.

I just can't believe that I will miss this!
Maybe the Montreal show just hasn't been announced yet.

Good Behavior Ticket

As you may recall, I recieved a courtesy "bad behavior" ticket at the airport last year for not locking my car doors. Last weekend, we parked at the train station and recieved a "thank you for thinking of me" ticket ... worded as if it were from our car. Apparently, we successfully took our keys out of the ignition, put our windows up, put away our valuables, and locked our doors.

With all these tickets, you would think Montreal had a property crime problem. Here's how it compares to cities that we have lived in as an adult. Higest property crime rate in Columbus, lowest in Montreal.

Steelers fans...

They're everywhere!

Trees and Shrubs of Hawaii

Hawaii, as it turns out, is beautiful. Pretty much everywhere. But, we especially enjoyed seeing the (largely introduced) flora on display at the Hawaii Tropical Botanical Garden.




For us, the sad part was that with all of these beautiful flowers, we expected a rush of tropical birds everywhere you went. And that was pretty much not the case.

We did see these guys (introduced in the 1960s),


an egret (introduced) perched on a cow, and were even able to catch a few native species in the mountains. But we did see a whole lot of (cute, bird-egg-eating) mongoose, and even a rat, and a whole lot of feral cats and dogs - all enemies of the birds of Hawaii.

Cirque du Soleil ... for free?

Cirque du Soleil had a free, weird, great show in Quebec City.

Goats in Quebec

We went to Quebec City with Taylor and S's mom. We saw the changing of the guard there, too. S liked it better, Donna liked it a lot, Sam and I enjoyed listening to it from the parking lot, and Taylor thought the one in Ottawa was better.
Sure, but they didn't have goats.

Ottawa

On our way back from Parc d'Aiguebelle, we stopped by Ottawa and ended up spending the night in jail. One of us enjoyed it more than the others.


It was the Carlton County Gaol ... now it is a hostel. While I cannot give it any stars, it was a fun experience (once.)

We checked out Parliament Hill, where we saw the changing of the guard.


We walked along the locks on the Rideau Canal - the oldest continuously operated canal in North America.


We spent quite sometime watching local fauna ... groundhogs.

The real hit was the Canadian War Museum. All males age 2 and older were beside themselves. All mothers were alarmed.

Parc national d'Aiguebelle

Our nephew visited us for two weeks in July. One of the highlights was Parc national d'Aiguebelle, a national park about 8 hours from Montreal. It has a series of 80 connected lakes.

We stayed in a secluded little cabin on a lake. Our cabin was the only one on the lake. It was named L'Amiral after the butterflies that called the lake home.


We all saw a fox - who posed for us. We watched the busy beavers ... and, wow, are they destructive.K saw a black bear and an unidentifiable animal - neither stuck around long enough for her to get the camera out. And, while the park has a very high concentration of moose, we did not manage to see one. Next time.


We very much enjoyed the hikes, overlooks, suspension bridge, rabaska, and kayaking. Pictures can't quite capture how majestic the park was - but here's a try.

We will definitely be back!

No dogs

Montreal can be a tough town for quadrapeds. Once, we were stopped by a police officer for walking Sam through a park... on leash. She let us off with a warning - and informed us that all the parks have well labeled signs at every entrance. We're not sure we agree, but we did see this sign a few weeks ago.
As you can see, Outremont has its fine priorities in order - $50 seems like plenty of incentive for not driving a car through the park and $100 was enough for us not to walk a dog head through the park. But this scofflaw risked a $100 fine and rode his bike anyway.

Outremont may be the only place that bans dog heads, but other places ban other kinds of dogs.

On Esplanade, they ban pooping dogs.And in a schoolyard up the street, they ban big (trained killer Doberman) dogs.

La Fête nationale du Québec / Saint-Jean-Baptiste

Today is la Fête nationale du Québec (Québec's national holiday), which is also referred to as la Fête de la Saint-Jean-Baptiste. We went to the parade - which was SO much better than Montreal's Saint Patrick's Day parade.

The parade consisted of huge, rolling tent-people giants preceded by signs declaring their identity and surrounded by interpretative dancers/artists clarifying their historical significance.

There were a variety of generals, priests and nuns - even Jeanne Mance (our street's namesake) - and some generalized weird stuff. Some pictures:



Unfortunately, we missed the names of most of the giants - here are two that we caught.

Fanfreuleuche - had a children's television show and fixed up classic fairy tales to her liking.
Felix Leclerc was a famous folk singer and and Quebec nationalist.