Happy anniversary...

On January 11, 1997, Sheryl and I got married.

In Las Vegas.

And no, not by an Elvis impersonator. It was in a small chapel. Within Treasure Island. It was surprisingly tasteful. Well, perhaps except for the beginning of our wedding video where pirates are storming a ship, firing cannons, buckling their swashes and saying, "Aaaaarrrrgh!"

Once again, I digress.

That makes today our anniversary.

We've been together for a while; first of all living in two houses and then downsizing to one - and no, not the better house, but rather the better neighbourhood.

Our paths first crossed in 1991. My marketing and advertising company moved into the top floor (fifth) of an old brewery in Toronto's historic Corktown District. Great space; exposed brick walls, original beams - even today, there is still a "wow" factor attached to the space. Sheryl's company, a design firm, was located on the ground floor.

Back then my company did not have its own graphics studio. Shortly after moving in, I decided to check out this design firm since we had an urgent need for a newspaper advertisement to be built and they were a great deal more convenient than our present supplier.

I walked through the door. Seated at art tables or desks were six people. Three women. Maeve. Lenore. And Sheryl. I was “drawn” to Sheryl. Introductions were made and my project was reviewed. Hours later, proofs were approved and the ad made its way to the Toronto Star for insertion.

Every one in the company was very pleasant - especially the three women. All were smart and, of course, very attractive. Maeve and Lenore were a bit younger than me. But there was "something" between Sheryl and me - except, neither one of us really new it.

Within a few days, I called Sheryl and asked if she would like to go to dinner. The last time I had heard this much hemming, hawing and stuttering was listening to Mel Tillis being interviewed. Talk about painful. Finally I said, "Look... we both have to eat. Do you like Thai? What about tomorrow evening at 7.30pm?" I had not been used to this type of treatment from a woman. "OK, tomorrow at 7.30 it is."

In the weeks that followed, we went out several times. For reasons that frankly escape me now, we did not let on to anyone what we were doing. Especially her co-workers. That led to an almost embarrassing situation when we all went out for dinner one evening - but that, too, is another story.

Everything continued to go well between us - professionally and personally. One Friday evening, Sheryl came to my house and I made dinner. No idea what I made. All I really remember are two things; we talked for hours (truly) and Sheryl left late that night. We did not have a chance to eat dessert. No, not for reasons that you may be thinking, dear reader, but truly because we talked. I do remember it was fresh fruit salad.

The following morning, I was going about my business, puttering around my house and there was a knock on the door. Sheryl stood there with a tub of Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream and said it was time for dessert. A fresh pot of coffee was made and we sat in my back garden, talking some more, drinking steaming mugs of coffee topped with ice cream.

Sheryl had never been married. Me, once before. Over the years neither one of us felt a "need" to marry one another. We really enjoyed what we had. One hot summer afternoon, sitting by the pool, we started talking about marriage. Sheryl's parents were getting older. She was the eldest of three and the only daughter. Her two brothers were married. We decided then and there we were going to marry. Yes, for us, but primarily for her parents, her father, Joe, especially. His health had not been great.

We made arrangements to go to Las Vegas. Strange but true. This was exactly what Sheryl wanted to do. It was actually a dream of hers. To marry in Las Vegas. The other, I found out years later, was to marry a red-headed writer.

In keeping with our past subterfuge, we told no-one what we were doing - except for my brother, Ross and two very dear friends, Deb and Frank Nash from Detroit, Michigan. The Nash's were to be part of our wedding party. Actually, they were the wedding party.

As far as everyone was concerned, we were going to Aruba for one week. On holiday. If anyone had checked, our flight and a flight to Aruba left on the same day, from the same terminal, with the same airline, within 15 minutes.

We were married on the Saturday and on Sunday morning, from our suite at the Mirage, we started calling family and friends.

That was then.

This evening, there will be no battle of wills over dinner. We will be picking up Indian food from our favourite Indian restaurant - Shafiq's Taste of India.

Happy anniversary, Sheryl. Thanks for putting up with me all these years. Love you.

Hair raising static...

TLATO, like most women I know, occasionally has "issues" with her hair.

Years ago, while she started to prematurely gray, she decided to add a rinse. This would be OK, until a couple of weeks in and her hair would take on the hue of an anemic eggplant and did not look at all "normal". Unless you were called Elvira and auditioned for a position on the local cable TV station to host less than B movies in the wee small hours of the evening.

I digress.

A while before we finally married (another story for another time) she cut her hair off. OK, she did not do it, but she had it cut very short, professionally. Personally, as much as I love long, clean hair on a woman, I really liked this not-quite brush cut. It was, I thought, very attractive. Not just the hair, you understand, but the whole "package".

This, too did not last since Sheryl did not like contending with bed head.

So it grew. And was trimmed. And it grew some more.

She never coloured it again and today has wonderful silver-coloured hair that many women comment favorably, "Who colours your hair?"

For many months of the year, TLATO's hair is rarely a point of conversation. Where we live, there are actually some months during the year when extreme cold temperatures do not wreak havoc with her fine, silver tresses. Winter months? Totally different story.

We returned from a vacation in Florida a few days ago.

Yesterday, the hair comments started.

"I'm going to cut my hair! Where’s Soultana's number?"

You see, it's quite cold where we live in Ontario. The temperatures and dryness do not react well with Sheryl's hair. You've seen examples of static electricity charges in science centres, etc. before? Well during the winter months, her hair acts as if it has a mind of its own. And wearing a hat exacerbates the situation to the power of, oh, 100.

I had to go into town and asked if she wanted to come with.

On the way home, I needed to stop at the drug store. While I had a prescription filled, TLATO was engaged in a serious conversation with one of the "advisors" that work in the cosmetics department.

I walked over to find an effusive and beaming Sheryl. Apparently her problem, fly-away hair issue had been taken care of thanks to this young woman. There was no "beauty product" solution. The helpful young woman recommended another, completely different product for her hair. One which neither one of us would have considered. One which many of you have seen commercials on television. Available at drug stores and supermarkets everywhere. Just not in the cosmetics, beauty or hair care sections.

Static Guard.

From Sheryl's personal viewpoint, this was on par with the discovery of penicillin.

A true miracle. Her hair looked great! All was well in Sheryl-land.

This morning, I found TLATO going through kitchen drawers and rubber-banded stacks of business cards.

"What's up?"

"I'm looking for a number."

"Oh... For what?"

"Soultana."

Twelve hours previous there had been a hallelujah revelation. Today, things were back to normal. And yes, Static Guard does work.

Say what?... part one

The English language is one of some subtlety and a source of frustration. Full of words spelled the same way yet, depending on the sentence context and pronunciation, presents a different meaning. Heteronyms. And, homographs. Is it any wonder then that Strother Martin's character in Cool Hand Luke spoke the immortal words, "What we have here is a failure to communicate?"

Combine that with the attention span of most people and varying accents and there is a recipe for further confusion.

I'm reminded of a situation a few years back with our vet, Dr. Jeff. We were in with Ozzie, our first Bernese Mountain Dog and for some reason, we started discussing "scooting" and "expressing anal sacs". Oz never had this issue and why we got to talking about it, I have no idea. TLATO started talking about something else, completely unrelated. But Jeff, as he is wont to do, started off on one of his medical soliloquies. He kept using the phrase "anal sex", at least, that's very much what it sounded like to me and Sheryl. His conversation even started to make some sense around this particular phrase. He described how working in the veterinary practice he would need to be involved with it almost daily. In fact, he almost boasted that there were a couple of female vet techs who “worked in back” that had apparent expertise with handling anal sex. How he would know this made us both wonder in an "Eeeeeew!" way.

After a few moments of this, I swear, all we continued to hear were those two words. Anal. Sex.

Each to their own we thought, independent of one another, left and then got in the car. A few moments of absolute silence passed before we looked at one another. "What the hell was that all about?" We consider Jeff our vet and a friend, however, neither one of us had any knowledge of the relationship careening into what some might consider taboo territory.

We went over the highlights of the conversation (as I alluded, pretty much one-sided with the occasional, "Really?" or "Uh-huh!" muttered uncomfortably from one us), we slowly but surely and practically simultaneously realized that we were not part of an anal sex "back door" discussion, rather a medical one - as it related to animals and their anal sacs.

I'm reminded of dear Emily Patella (for those who have no idea, a character of the late Gilda Radner)...

"What's wrong with sax and violins on television? I think there should be more sax and violins."

"Emily, that's sex and violence, not sax and violins."

"Oh. Never mind."

And on that note, please see video below...

Stanley Steemer Toby's New Trick

Wee Wally's willie was wedged while whizzing...

Normally the Brits are a sensible lot, not likely to get "bogged down" in general silliness, but an article in today's Toronto Star certainly got my attention.

I would ask you to please refrain from laughing out loud - as I did earlier this morning. I actually made Rice Krispies appear out of each nostril - a feat unto itself since one has been blocked thanks to a rugby incident in the early '70's.

Dr. Joe Philip of Leighton Hospital warns that parents should be extra vigilant during the holidays. "As Christmas approaches, many families will be visiting relatives and friends and their recently toilet-trained toddlers will be keen to show how grown up they are by going to the toilet on their own."

It would seem that there has been a rash of small boys who have sustained injuries to their tadger by way of falling toilet seats. There is, by all accounts, a major risk of "penis crush" from heavy wooden, ceramic and ornamental toilet seats.

I am not making this up.

So it begs the question? Why now? Growing up as a lad in Scotland, I never heard of any of my friends being caught short by American Standard's best. Rhetorical question; is there something wrong with the youth of today that would cause certain unwitting and likely well-developed male children (imagine the whole process of "an accident" and you'll "see" what I mean) to suffer such embarrassment and potential physical and mental scarring?

Unbelievable. And to think that money was actually spent on this study - and it was delivered with a straight face.

I do, however have first hand knowledge of an incident with an older gentlemen who, one Christmas morning many years ago, bleary eyed and hung-over, helped with the annual Christmas morning breakfast. This fellow was the only male in a household of women. There was his wife and his five daughters. This poor fellow treasured any time he could get in their one washroom

I digress.

So hung-over to beat the band, the excitement of Christmas morning and the crescendo of six twittering women - removing a ham from the oven, this poor fellow somehow managed to catch the drawstring of his PJ bottoms in the oven door as it closed, drawing him inexorably closer to the diminishing opening as the door closed - rapidly.

The drawstring was not the only wayward object that got caught in the door that morning.

By all accounts, this fellow's member resembled a piece of flank steak for many days after.

Needless to say, ham has not been on the Christmas morning menu for some years now.

Kitty update...

The Dude continues to improve.

We will not be releasing him into the general population today, after all.

Since we are still monitoring food and liquid intake and it's subsequent "release", it's so much easier to do it when the beast in question is segregated. Remember, there are five cats and at this point in their evolutionary cycle, have not managed to make their litter box deposits with unique ID attached.

So The Dude remains in our bedroom in solitary. Earlier today, we let Ben in to see him. Ben initially ignored Zack; there were way too many new scents for him to discover all at once. However, once the initial scent foray was completed, the two buds nuzzled one another and Zack decided to clean Ben's large face as he dropped his head and leaned in towards The Dude.

Cute moment. Would have been a Kodak moment, except nary a cell phone or camera was to be found.

We spoke at length with Dr. Jeff and we all agreed to keep The Dude in isolation -- not that he's contagious or infectious, but...

So likely Friday or Saturday, we'll "release the hound", so to speak.

We're all doing so much better with administering his meds and that regimen too should also be completed by Friday. Zack now sees me approaching with a syringe full of his medication and he jumps onto our bed and prepares himself for the inevitable dosing.

Sheryl and I pretty much do the same.

Our Christmas cat...

As many of you are aware, our kids are our pets. Currently we have five cats, all Maine Coons and one dog, Ben, a Bernese Mountain Dog.

Last May we made an effort to reduce some household expenses. One of those items deleted from the budget was insurance for the cats. You see, our cats, being indoor felines, are not exposed to some of the nasty things lurking outside - including country wildlife, such as wolves, coyotes, black bears, foxes and the like. They are also unlikely to contract any weird diseases. They all see our vet, Dr. Jeff Simmons, once a year for a check up and shots. In all the years we have owned cats, we have not experienced any major health issues. So, we cancelled the cats' policies and doubled up the insurance on Ben.

Last week, our youngest cat, Zack began to exhibit odd behaviour. He became lethargic and stopped eating. He also puked a couple of times. Zack or as we refer to him, The Dude, has always had a voracious appetite and, in spite of being neutered, he never developed a hanging belly, so common in fixed felines. If anything, he was always on the slim side and was full of energy and mischief from the get go.

Not last week.

We took him in to see Dr. Jeff Simmons at the Peterborough Pet Hospital. Zack will be two years old in February, just like his "brother", Ben. These two are practically inseparable. The Dude thinks he's a dog; Ben believes he's a cat (a cat the size of a mountain lion!). Initially Jeff was a little concerned about The Dude's weight; seems although he had grown from his last visit, his weight had barely changed. Blood samples were taken and sent to Guelph for analysis. Seems these days just about everything can now be ascertained from these tests at one time. Jeff was looking for thyroid issues, pancreatitis, diabetes and cancer. OK, so he was not looking for them; he wanted to rule them out.

Meanwhile, The Dude returned home with us. We kept him segregated from our general population - much to Ben's dismay. He sat outside our bedroom door, waiting for his buddy to come out and play.

That did not occur.

Meanwhile Jeff had "given" us some special food which was quite dense and loaded with calories. We were to force feed him. Ever attempted to force feed a cat? In spite of his general malaise and weakness, we discovered that there was nothing wrong with The Dude's adrenal glands. We had to practically hog-tie him and wrap him in a blanket to attempt feeding. Limited success - but we both still had all our fingers.

Over the next 12 hours The Dude’s condition declined. He was still throwing up and he did not look good. We could see that he was fading before our eyes. The next morning, Jeff gave us 90% of the results. Everything was normal. We were still, however, waiting for the pancreas and thyroid results - they were expected the following morning.

The previous evening after many calls to our friend and Maine Coon breeder, Sharon, we had decided that even if all came back negative, we wanted The Dude to be x-rayed - hopefully to see if there was any blockage of any kind within.

TLATO drove back to the vet's with our friend, Val, who offered to assist since I was out of town that day.

Zack was hooked up to an IV and pumped with fluids and antibiotics then sedated for the first of a series of x-rays. At this point, the cat appeared to have gas and feces in his system that, for some reason, was not moving. Young Zack was given the first of several enemas to flush out his system. Naturally, this made him even weaker. After each "flush", a further x-ray was taken. Eventually, everyone was satisfied that all was clear and there had been no evidence of foreign bodies in the flushed waste. An exhausted cat was then made comfortable and continued to be hydrated as he rested overnight.

The following morning, Jeff called to report. The last two tests were clear. Zack was being fed and they would be taking additional pictures to ensure that the processed meal cleared his system. He would, all being well, be released at the end of the day.

That Friday evening we drove into town and spent some time talking with Jeff. At this point, Zack was doing very well. However, the diagnosis was a little shaky. Perhaps there had been an infection in his bowel that caused his system to slowly shut down as he poisoned himself? Regardless, he was responding to the three medications he was on and our skinny kitty came home.

The Dude's been home two days now and he is back to his old self. His personality has returned as has his appetite. We have to medicate him for the next week or so, liquid meds taken orally - syringes and cats with sharp teeth - we are becoming more adept with each treatment.

We plan on releasing The Dude to gen. pop. tomorrow. Ben misses his buddy, and the other cats, Merlin, Rocky, Elvis and Xena know that something is amiss. Rocky has attempted to break into the room too many times - we have taken make-shift security measures - bungee cords attached to two door handles, otherwise Rocky would be in with Zack as I write. Not that Rocky would do anything; we just want Zack to get his strength back before he resorts to his usual routine.

So, it would appear that The Dude is well on his way to perfect health.

At a cost.

Sheryl and I had decided weeks ago we were not going to exchange gifts this season since we're off to Florida in a week or so. Just as well. We'd be looking for refunds to pay The Dude's vet bill.

Wow! Hindsight being 20/20, we should never have cancelled the damn insurance.

Who knew?