Monthly Archives: April 2004

A Weekend House-Sitting

Thumbnail: The house
Thumbnail: Spike shakes on my lap
Home theatre

Spent the week­end house sit­ting for my boss (on a trip to watch his daugh­ter per­form in New York) with Trolley, Nick, and two Eric’s. We spent most of the week­end hang­ing out, play­ing some Gamecube, watch­ing movies on the 100″ pro­jec­tion screen, and mak­ing runs to Timmy Ho’s.


My boss and his fam­i­ly has three dogs, two cats, a few tur­tles, and some guinea pigs. One of the dogs, named Spike, is a tiny ter­ri­er but is like a lit­tle light­ning bolt. He’s still a pup, but won’t be get­ting any big­ger than he already is.

The two cats, Boots and Puffy, are well behaved and friend­ly.


I got the chance to hang out with Eric, the one who’s not Trolley’s broth­er. He can appre­ci­ate a glass of Appleton Estate as much as a copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, as much as a well designed com­put­er game. And I mean real­ly appre­ci­ate, as a per­son who almost com­plete­ly under­stands what he likes, instead of the super­fi­cial tastes that so many have nowa­days. I can light up with him, talk to him on an unbe­liev­able num­ber of lev­els, play games with him, or just hang out. He rarely speaks, but when he does his speech has weight, it has mean­ing with so much insight. I hope to hang out with him some more if he does­n’t go back home to Toronto. There should be more Eric’s in the world.

25% Just Right

Well, it’s offi­cial; Dolly is approx­i­mate­ly 25% over­weight, with a mass of 12.6 pounds. The gut-pok­ing and bel­ly-teas­ing has­n’t been based on noth­ing. Sometimes I wish she could talk so that I could know whether she would rather live a life of glut­tony and go out like Chris Farley sans the cocaine, or whether she would rather live health­ily and restrain her eat­ing. I always leave a dish of food out and it’s obvi­ous that she does­n’t know how to con­trol her eat­ing habits. My deci­sion will prob­a­bly be to make sure that she’s a healthy weight, instead of spoil­ing her and let­ting her eat as much as she wants. That way there’s less chance of dia­betes, heart dis­ease, or oth­er health com­pli­ca­tions down the road. I could start cut­ting back on the amount of food I give her, or start buy­ing diet food, but for now I’ll just mon­i­tor her weight. 25% I can live with, but any more and I’ll have to take action. After all, I like hav­ing a kit­ty that has a bit of a paunch. I’ve come to iden­ti­fy the bel­ly sway­ing walk with her now. And as Aaron says, “A fat cat is a hap­py cat.”

Non-Stop Life

It’s been non-stop for the last two weeks. Exams, mov­ing, vet appoint­ments, unpack­ing, clean­ing, errands, etc. I don’t think I’ve ever been this busy or sleep deprived. I’m so tired that I can bare­ly stay awake on the bus rides home. I can’t even think long enough to come up with a decent entry, and writ­ing and read­ing have fall­en on my pri­or­i­ty list. Hopefully I’ll be set­tled in by the week­end so that I can enjoy it, hous­esit­ting for my boss. Lost my bus pass this morn­ing.