I read this Post Secret today and it's making me wonder if the boy sent it in.



Even if he didn't, I'm sort afraid this is how he's going to feel one day.

This here is George Michael. He is the homeless not quite full grown cat that showed up several weeks ago and I have been feeding him ever since.



I will absolutely positively under no circumstances whatsoever be adopting him when the bitter cold winter hits.

No way.

No how.

Nuh uh.

Ain't gonna happen.

Ever.

I mean it.

Seriously.

Stop looking at me like that.

A few years ago when the kid was still just a puppy I told him that Wynton Marsalis was going to be playing in Montreal at Place des Arts and asked him if he'd like to go. He'd just taken up the trumpet (the kid, not Wynton Marsalis) and he didn't know who Wynton Marsalis was (the kid, not Wynton Marsalis), but he said yes he'd like to go hear this 'new guy' play trumpet so I got the cheapest tickets you can get but the theatre is acoustic perfection so if you close your eyes, you actually can't get a lousy seat in the place.

Anyway, we show up for the concert and we hand over our tickets and I'm asked to step over to the courtesy desk and I do and the woman there tells me the balcony where our seats are is closed and gives me some replacement tickets and I say thanks and we make our way in and we're walking along looking for the right entrance and I have no idea how this happened but

we end up in the ninth row centre stage.

Sweet.

So a few weeks ago during dinner, the more grown up kid and I are talking about the upcoming Jazz Festival and he says that David Brubeck will be playing at Place des Arts and how this is probably going to be the last chance he's ever going to get to see the guy because Brubeck is not getting any younger and he says he'd like to see that show only he doesn't know who he'd ask to go with him because he doesn't know very many 19 year olds that listen to octogenarian jazz pianists. And actually, he knows exactly zero of them.

A little later on I tell the kid that I have finally had a chance to really listen intently to an album he loaded onto my iPod and I tell him how much I love it and he asks me which one it is and I say I don't know the name of the album but the London Symphony Orchestra is accompanying a pianist and he says,

'That would be David Brubeck.'

I get to feeling really sorry for this kid so the next day I text him at work and tell him that if he wants me to, I'll buy two tickets to the show and he can try to find a friend to go and if he comes up dry then I'll go with him. I tell him to call with his decision but for some strange reason he texts me which he has never done before and because I ignore my cell phone unless it's actually in my hand, I never get the text that tells me to YES BUY TICKETS PLEASE!!!

It just so happens that that evening was his convocation ceremony (he graduated College with First Class Honours. Which. Of course he did.) and he and I and his father drove together to Place des Arts where the ceremony was being held in one of the smaller theatres, and in the car the kid asks me if I bought the tickets for the Brubeck show and I tell him he never called me back so no, I didn't buy tickets on-line during the day.

We decide that we'll buy the tickets straight from the theatre and when we get there, the kid goes off to prepare for the ceremony and the ex and I go to buy the tickets and the agent tells us the show is pretty much sold out and that there's a few crappy seats left way in the back against the wall and then my ex looks over my shoulder and points at the monitor and asks about what looks like two seats available at centre stage in the ninth row and why yes, yes they are available and I feel as though I am Moses and the Red Sea has just been parted for me.

I still really feel as though there is something very wrong with these tickets, like maybe the show is being filmed and there will be cameras completely obstructing our view or something because you just don't get fabulous seats at an all but sold out show.

We'll find out on Saturday.

Not only do we Canadians (Happy Birthday!) consider 0 degrees farenheight a heat wave, we were willing, three hundred thousand of us, to stand in heavy rain to see Stevie Wonder open the Montreal Jazz Festival last night.

I have this thing about stains on fabrics, I can't stand the thought of them winning and when I took out SHOUT today it made me wonder why Billy never pitched that stuff.

I realized it may very well be because SHOUT doesn't work and then I went out and bought OXI CLEAN Baby and

HOLY SHIT YOU GUYS THIS STUFF REALLY REALLY WORKS RIGHT BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES!!!

COME HERE AND GIVE ME A HUG BILLY!!!

Oh yeah...

Someone around here, without prompting, put soap crystals in the dishwasher and turned the dial, thereby activating a wash cycle. Clearly, I am in the wrong house living with imposters.

In other news Robert got a camera yesterday, a late Father's Day gift. Someone spent way too much money and was told that this thing covers any and all gift-giving holidays and/or occassions for the next two years.

I'm not saying that the quality of my photos is going to improve in any way, but this thing takes better closeups than my old piece of crap did.

After killing myself over painting the kitchen and laying a new floor I thought I'd kill myself some more and completely redo the bathroom on the main level so I started tearing it up at 6:00 AM and finished up around 6:00 PM and I ended my day crippled and unable to move my head without stabbing pain shooting up and down my neck and when the kid came in for supper I told him to go check out the New And Improved Bathroom and he did that and came out immediately and said to me,

'There is a scratch on the switch plate.'

There is.

There is no doubt this kid is mine because if I had been in his place, I may not have said that out loud, but it would have been my very first thought.

Also, it wouldn't surprise me if he walked in with an unscratched switch plate tonight because it bothers him that much and the only reason I wouldn't have beat him to it and put a new one up already is because I'm stoned on codeine and unwilling to go fetch one but it's killing me to know that down the hall from me is a completely made over pristine bathroom featuring a switch plate which bears a slight imperfection.

When my computer died a few weeks ago, I lost all my spectacularly craptastic shots of Stuff Whut Old Peoples Hang On Their Doors, so yesterday, I went back and took some more photos while I was visiting the parents.

I felt a twinge of guilt when my mother asked me what in tarnation I was going off to do with that camera as I left to get some shots and the standard answer you give when you are up to no good is 'Nothing!' so that's what I said.

Anyway, what with it being Father's Day After and all, I thought I'd share some manly man ( portes des Pères. )

I am so in love with these shoes that I paid a whole eight dollars for yesterday that I want to hug them. I'm thinking that I need to install some shelves in the living room to display all my fabulous shoes and I can go over and pet them and squeeze them and fondle them and call them George any time I feel like it. I feel as though they need their own journal.

'I am feeling very sad today because lindapendant hasn't worn me in what seems like a month. I can't live like this, I need to feel loved again god damn it! Is that too much to ask? I'm thinking I need to see a therapist and I know I have to work on my insecurities because I am deadly jealous just thinking of her wearing other shoes and it's blatantly obvious that I have abandonment issues. In a passive aggressive move, I hid the slutty black peep toes yesterday - they were asking for it sitting there exposing their whorish heels. Fucking bitches.'

This morning as I sat drinking coffee and chatting with that guy who lives here, I somehow got onto the topic of these friends of mine who send me postcards from wherever they travel (I'm so very appreciative of that you guys!).

So I take out these postcards and mention this one particular friend who seems to travel to exotic places more than he's actually home and I'm speculating that he must be secretly stinking rich or something as I thumb through Egypt and Ireland and China and Switzerland and Morocco and Aland and I'm realizing that he did these trips within just a year and he seems to have forgotten to send a postcard from where was that? Cambodia? Or something? And there's probably a few other places he's been to within the year that I don't have recorded on little cardboard photos with pretty stamps affixed on the other side.

Then I find a card from Gdansk and I flip it over and it's from a different friend who lives in London, England, and I don't recall reading it when I received it but on the back, he wrote,

'Greetings from, er, Central London. Bid I did get this card in Gdansk - honest!'

And for a minute there, I didn't know if the coffee was going to go down my throat or end up spattered on my new floor.

Then I find this greeting card and it's got one of those black and white photos of a couple from years gone by that's been 'painted' with muted colour and it says,

'Christmas is so close you can almost smell the relatives.'

It's from I Was In Gdansk And Mailed Your Postcard From Central London guy. It figures.

I decided I either had to drink my coffee or look at the postcards because it was getting too risky to do both at the same time.

Tom: Cheaper by the inch.
Kate: ( Impulse buyer )

I laid down a faux ceramic tile floor in the kitchen because my mother said I wasn't capable of doing it and I've got to admit I was apprehensive about her being right.

So it looks awesome and I may never leave the kitchen again. I will keep my bitch ass in there and bake some pie.

I called Robert at work late yesterday afternoon to see if he could come home early to move the fridge and stove out of my way and he said no, I'd have to wait until he got here at 6:30 and he told me not to attempt it on my own so I hung up and immediately moved the fridge and stove by myself and continued laying the floor.

I would like to thank my brother for completely fucking up the old flooring when he helped me paint on Tuesday and got primer that has got to contain some sort of glue in it all over the linoleum, because without him, this new floor would have never been necessary in the first place.

I learned my lesson. Whenever anything is looking shabby around here, I have to ask him to come help me work on something unrelated that's in the vicinity.

How hard can it be to install countertops? I have a fully stocked carpentry shop downstairs.

I just don't know sometimes. This guy I live with decided to dust off the years of grime that accumulated on a portable radio he listens to while he shaves and I walk in to see him cleaning it off with my facecloth and I say, 'That? Is my facecloth. I use it to wash my face.'

The one and only time this man sees fit to clean anything around here, he rubs it in my face.

I was out doing that garage sale thing I love so much with Robert this morning and we wandered around this very chatty high pressure saleswoman's yard looking at her stuff and things and she followed us around and gave us a running commentary (do shut up) on every last thing we laid eyes on and every last thing we didn't lay eyes on and she would say stuff like, 'These are really great hand knit sleeves for take-out coffee cups! You'll never burn your hand using these!' and 'That lamp isn't working but I bet you could find someone to fix it!' and then we're leaving and she says,

'If you know anyone who needs a baby crib, you tell them to come see me because I have one that was only used for three months when my grand-daughter was here.' and we said, 'We don't know anyone who'd be needing one.' and then she said,

she said.

to me.

she said to me.

'I thought maybe you could make use of it, you know, if you're pregnant.'

Yes, for the first time in my life I got the pregnant comment. Not even when I was pregnant did I get the pregnant comment.

I made Robert take my picture as soon as we got home so I could show y'all my pregnant ( self. )