Christmas Crinkle

December 16, 2015. 5:10 pm.

Dark. Black dark.  Dropped by my girlfriend’s to help him with his gigantic, 12 year old, tank-sized “Toshiba” TV which has just been replaced by a light-as-air 48 inch “Samsung” “flat-screen” purchased at “London Drugs”. This is product placement on a massive scale.

The Toshiba is the heaviest TV I’ve ever encountered.  I mean it weighed a ton.  It had made it to the front porch at the house up there in old Point Grey.  My girlfriend’s daughter’s boyfriend, somehow, all by himself, got it that far a few days ago.  But he’s a mover.

My girlfriend and I struggled to get it down the front stairs. Then he had the brilliant idea of getting the wheelbarrow. We did it. He was taking the TV to the car to take it to London Drugs who recycle old TVs (and old Christmas lights) as well as sell new ones.  True.  We maneuvered it onto the back deck of the hatchback and pushed it in.  It just fit, like it belonged in there.

The Same Old Bubble Lights Year After Year
The Same Old Bubble Lights Year After Year

December 17, 2015. 4:25 pm.

Back up into old Point Grey this morning to the house to organize “Finnegan” for his journey to his new home. It goes well in the cold, slashing rain and sleet.

We’ve perfected the method of getting him into the travel/cat cage carrier.
You’ve got to put the thing up on end, your assistant steadies it and you pick Finnegan up behind his front legs so his massive body is hanging down vertical and lower him into the cage like a big hairy sausage. Then you gently close the cage door and lay the cage back down flat on the living-room carpet.

As he really doesn’t get what’s going on he puts up no resistance.  The first time we tried the carrier we couldn’t get him to go in head-first.  He wasn’t willing to go in there and he’s a strong Coon Cat.  No means no.  He never gets aggressive or tries to scratch. He just wasn’t going in that way.

So we fooled him. And it’s worked well on the few trips to the vet recently where Finnegan had a little dental work and got his nails clipped.  And now this.  A drive to Burnaby ten or so blocks in along Rumble Avenue then south a bit. That area. His new home.

The lady has been in cat re-home and rescue 27 years.  It’s hard to say goodbye to a cat you’ve really only gotten to know well the last little while. But not that hard.  Finnegan’s gone to a fine, large Burnaby-style home with modern, up-to-date kind of bourgeois furnishings and wall-to-wall.  And he’ll have friends.

He quieted right down when we got there, because on the way out he was protesting occasionally.  Yeah, he was crying out as traveling cats do. But he was observing from the open door of the travel cage now and he was staying in there for the time being as we were talking things over in the lady’s living room.

His owner has gone to a new home and now so has he.  That’s how it works.  The best solution is the one you come up with.  It’s tough though.  Poignancy might not be the right word, but but but….  …. ….  some people….

But But But
But But But

Boredom

It comes out of the night. Especially the night before it’s December 10, 2015 and you’re due to buy a Christmas tree.  And you wonder. Hopefully, it’ll go okay.

Remember when scholars of the Queen’s English derided “hopefully”? As a way of vocalizing and expressing the idea of hope?  That it wasn’t good enough?  It wasn’t British?  That the proper way of speaking is, “It is to be hoped”?  Remember?  Let’s forget it then.  But “hopefully” has made huge strides in the last several decades.  It means what it says.

DSCN3570Nobody’s tried to contact us about this.  We’re here.  Go ahead.  It’s when ‘you’re struggling in the moment’ that clichés ‘come home to roost’.

4:25 pm.  Lord Byng’s not a bad lord.  From what we see from the “Staff Parking Lot Do Not Enter”.  We ignore that forbidding sign and drive right in.  All you teachers, we don’t much care about your rules.  We’re here to obtain a Christmas tree.  Hopefully.

I was looking up at the great edifice of Lord Byng high school.  It’s been here a long time.  A fine gentleman, a couple of them, actually, that I had the pleasure and privilege of knowing and who have died, but they were very old, attended Lord Byng in the 1930s.  Exact same school in the exact same place.DSCN3573Their lives are forfeit and their skins are stuffed but if that was your sailing ship and if that was your grizzly bear you might revise your opinion of taxidermy, mister.

The taxidermy shop is gone and so is the taxidermist.  For years, years ago, I remember driving past the place.  It used to be right across the street from “Central Park”.  I never knew either why they called it “Central Park”.  Central to what?  The park’s on the extreme keening edge of the western extremity of the City of Burnaby.  A lot of things make no sense.

The students attending the Christmas tree lot were friendly and helpful.  They were professional, but not professional students.  They were the real thing.  One fine young gentleman packed our preferred, usual, semi-scrawny selection to the trunk of our vehicle.  Big trunk and with one of the back seats down it disappeared right in there and we dropped the trunk-lid with a satisfying ka-thunk.

DSCN3578Don’t just walk away, Renée.  It’s taxidermy time.  Lost Sunday.  It’s dead.  Not interested.  Or something poignant, something out of Satie.  Mystery moments.

100

samoyeddogs is 100 posts old today.  I mean yesterday.  A century.  A c-note.  What’s it mean?  I’ve no idea, Jock.   ‘A mystery wrapped in an enigma…’  That sounds accurate.  About as accurate as anything else going on around here.  So little has changed I hardly know where to begin.

One thing at the site we’ve wanted to accomplish is to expose clichés for what they are.  100 per-cent gold.  We strive for cliché and I know you’ll want to join me in saying one thing.  There’s little doubt the best stuff on the site is 100 per-cent cliché.  Okay, that’s a couple of things.  Not as easy as it sounds either.  I appreciate that.

I’ve noticed a more serious tone creeping into the site.  Not sure what that’s about, and not sure anybody around here knows either, or that much of anything can be done about it.  I doubt it’ll last.  Some of us are half-thinking it might be a good time to pack things up around here.  Surely you’re joking, Mr. Folderol.  A world without samoyeddogs?  Yip yip, bark howl.  Don’t do it, buddy.  I will sit up nice.

So here comes a big muchas gracias to all the followers of samoyeddogs human, bot, spam, mistake.  All are welcome.  Lost track after 100,000 of you kind things and please keep the love flowing.  It feels good.  Love, as you know, is one of the pillars holding up this massive undertaking.

I don’t know.  I just don’t know.  It could be that I don’t want to know, but, in any event, I’m just not sure.  Not sure at all.  And between not being sure, and not knowing, well, there has to be somebody out there who can figure this out for us.  I’m always looking to make that connection.

That’s what I’m counting on.  One thing I do know.  There’s no substitute for vacuousness. And the goal remains the same.  Keep it coming.  An oasis of inanity in a sea of insanity.  Maybe we’ll just mix in here and double down on that.

Nov2015More to come…  taxidermy