Three Journal Entries

Jon

Jon
My Grandma
Apr. 25/08

I had a great time with Grandma last night. Mommy and daddy went to a play. While I waited for the supper I was watching a Regional Forecast videotape. After that I had chinese food. I ate dinner very well. After that I went back to the tape. Grandma was finishing her supper. I watched videos with Grandma for the rest of the evening. At nine o’clock I got ready for bed. After I was asleep mommy and daddy got back from the play.

VIDEO PREVIEW SECTION
Tonight I’m going to watch a DVD. It is called Looney Toones.

Jon

Thursday
May 1/08

Today I had music class and a birthday party. Nicholas broght a cake and Mrs. Gallo put some candles on the cake. Everybody sang HAPPY Birthday. After they sang they were blowing out the candles. I used my new computer system to write my journal. I had a great time at school.

VIDEO PREVIEW SECTION
Tonight I’m going to watch Save the Goldfish episode of The Wonder Pets.

Friday
May 2/08

Today I have gym class. I like to see Tamara. I like to do some Bowling. I also like T-ball and to play hocky too. I am going to go for a walk in my walker. Im gym class I like doing stretches. I did a good job in gym today.

VIDEO PREVIEW SECTION
Tonight I’m going to watch A Bug’s Life

Want Mustelid on your dog?

Family Life, Photon

aka

My Owners Filed Their Taxes But I’m the One That Got Otter-ded

PeterDateline, 11:30 Saturday evening, Georgian Bay. Photon is out on the darkened beach for a quick pee before bed, Peter at the base of the steps of the deck. As Photon starts her return, a sleek black blur darts across the beach, making a break for its home in the far rocks. Photon, being a herding dog, immediately swerves and accelerates to intercept, heading into the darkness. Silence. Peter calls Photon two or three times. Then back into the light slinks Photon, slower and decidedly less chipper, smacking her lips as she starts to foam at the mouth…and smelly.

I knew she’d been hit, and I immediately assumed skunk, but it wasn’t long before I was started to doubt it. A skunk had hit our the side of our house a few years ago and the immediate drift from that hit me like a truck, stinging my eyes and lungs from a room away. The smell on Photon wasn’t “skunk classic” (it was more like pure burnt rubber), and Photon was still standing after getting blasted in the mouth.

Laura and my parents and I all went into high gear. Laura got the deskunking recipe—not tomato juice!—and I did my best to scrub her down, though our mix didn’t have much hydrogen peroxide, and it was old to boot. Luckily, it wasn’t critical, as the smell wasn’t nearly as bad as a skunk. It dissipated quickly outside (though it did linger in parts of the cottage for a while).

As to what it was, we have some river otters living in the rocks near our beach, and there isn’t much doubt that it was one of them. They’re in the Mustelid family (weasels, ferrets, wolverines, minks, badgers, etc.) and all of that family, except for sea otters (I have learned in the past 24 hours), have scent glands. River otters only use them in situations of anger or fear. And they’re nocturnal. Proximity, means and motive. Case closed.

It made for a quieter dog for the rest of the weekend, though I don’t think Photon learned any big life lessons. But for us, it was a big reminder to use a leash at night, and stock up on the H2O2 for next time.

Tantrums & Nosebleeds

Family Life, Jon

Peter Ug. Over the past three of four weeks, Jon has descended into another series of tantrums, no doubt as hormones start coursing through his body, and his brain can express some of his physical frustration. These are always related to frustrating activities (reading or video games), but 1) they come out of nowhere and 2) since he is apparently part pit-bull, Jon refuses to give up what is causing the problem. Even if it’s homework.

This is not really new, it’s just that we haven’t seen any tantrums in the past few months, so we got complacent. But they’re back with an added twist.

As a kid, Jon used to get the occasional bout of nosebleeds. I say “bout” because, as with most kids, the cause and recurring of nosebleeds at that age, may be due to, well, mining opportunities in the area, shall we say.

But this new batch doesn’t fall under that umbrella. While neither I nor Laura had bad nosebleeds growing up, it turns out that some of our siblings and parents (on both sides) did. And apparently Jon hit the genetic jackpot—but that ain’t coins pouring out.

The worst thing is, these two storms have hit at the same time. Heck, maybe they’re related. In any case, it’s quite something to be sitting there happily with Jon and suddenly, with no external intervention, suddenly he starts howling at the top of his lungs and seconds later, blood starts pouring out of his nose, straight out of a Hollywood horror flick. When it happened this weekend, I came forward to help staunch the bloodflow and he lunged forward and bit me!

Never a dull moment.

Incidentally, this is special for us. No one else ever sees this side of him. Which is, of course, the lot of the parent.

Doing the Necronomicon

Cool Stuff

Laura On Thursday we managed to get out on the town (thanks for babysitting, Grandma!) and checked out Evil Dead: The Musical playing at the Diesel Playhouse (formerly the Second City theatre).

I am not a horror movie fan, and the clips I’ve seen of the three Evil Dead movies have left me fairly unmoved, but I like musicals, and camp, and it’s gotten great reviews, so off we went. It was as enjoyably silly as I thought it would be—lots of catchy music and clever lyrics (when you could hear them over the unbalanced sound system, that is), interesting staging (just about every object in the cabin set moves) and fine performances all around. Unfortunately Ryan Ward, who originated the role of Ash in Toronto and Off-Broadway, was not there that night, but his replacement Kristian Bruun was excellent (as was Tim Porter, who understudies Bruun’s usual role of Scott. It’s quite the game of musical chairs when someone’s off in that play!). We were not in the famous “splatter zone”, the two rows closest to the stage who get soaked with whatever blood is spraying around the vicinity, but it was pretty hilarious to see the actors simply dump Dixie cups of fake blood right on top of the patrons at stage right. We wondered if the actors knew those people; the local theatre critic got drenched by the bucketful when he dared to brave the splatter zone.

Even though I wasn’t too impressed with the movie clips, I was glad I saw them prior to the show—quite a few of the play’s funnier lines were lifted straight from the films, most memorably Ash’s speech about his “boomstick”. You don’t really have to have seen the movies to appreciate the play; it just adds to the enjoyment to get the in-jokes.

It was interesting to see the play’s audience: Much younger than, say, your average Mirvish theatre-goer—some people our age (the ones who might have seen the movies when they first came out); the rest younger. It was especially telling when we told our mothers (both avid theatre buffs) what play we were going to; they looked at us like we had just announced we were going to a Def Leppard concert.