Dogs vs Cats

The dogs versus cats debate is a classic. Here's a story to add to the brew.

After a disabled woman's cat started a house fire, her specially trained dog came to the rescue, then died trying to help the cat still in the house.

ABC News: Dog Saves Owner, Dies Trying to Save Cat

Befitting A Princesss

Being the pampered pet that she is (not suprising given her heritage), I've always suspected that Fifi lived a fairly posh previous life. Today those predictions seemed to be confirmed, when, upon arriving home, I discovered a pillow complete with tassles and pink sequens spelling out "Fifi" stuffed into our mailbox. Below is a picture of Fifi's honourary spot in her basket atop the fridge, now with her brand new pillow.

Fifi's New Pillow

A New Place

One of the reasons for my general busyness as of late, has been adjusting to the bachelor life. For those of you who haven't met my new roommates, I'll introduce you.

They are:

Ed

and

Adrian

I couldn't have asked for two better roommates and for the few moments that we are in our place together during the day, we are usually distracted from doing anything useful by joking around and having an all out good time. As evidenced by last night's impromptu techno mix down session (think Strongbad's "The System Is Down" times ten).

To inaugurate our place, we had a little house warming party. We were truly honoured to have as many of our good friends as we did come out. Thanks to all of you, it made for a good night. Adrian, Ed and I have officially stopped accepting any more friendships until we can find a bigger place or build an extension to our balcony.

Our Spacious Abode

A Packed Landing

I left my camera lying around at the party so that others could document the events and I put the results in a photoset.

I had the opportunity to thank most of you in person for the wonderful house warming gifts you gave, but there is one thank you I have yet to offer. The Monday morning after the party, I was astonished to find something pink and furry in my suit jacket pocket. Along with this unexpected pet, came adoption papers for a little dog named Fifi. At first I was a little worried she would be high maintenance (judging by the pink boa), but that concern soon became unfounded as I came to realize what a wonderful pet she was. So a big thank you to the anonymous previous owners.

Fifi and myself

Milestones

It's been a while since I've been able to do an event based post, and a lot has happened since then. One of the biggest things to happen was Stephen and Minal's wedding ceremony. What follows are a few highlights from the colourful reception that followed.

The Happy Couple

The First Dance

Becky and Lizzie's Dance

Geoff and Theresa's Waltz

Payal's Dance

Galina and My Salsa

A more in depth view can be found by checking out the photo sets of Kyla, Sara and myself.

While the wedding of Stephen and Minal was obviously the celebration of a large milestone in their life together, it was also the occasion for a much smaller milestone for Geoff and also myself.

You see, it was pretty much exactly a year ago minus one week from the reception, that found Geoff and myself on the occasion of celebrating his birthday at the Empire. Things proceeded as they did normally for us on such occasions. We got up on the dance floor and acted like fools (Note: Apparently some things never change) and girls, heaven knows why, would come up and begin dancing with us. This time, however, something was different, one of the girls invited myself and, primarily, Geoff to come up and try salsa dancing with her. At any rate the girl had some effect on Geoff and by the end of the night had him convinced to go across the street to Ted Motyka's Dance Studio for drop-in lessons sometime.

Shortly thereafter, Geoff and I made good on our endeavour and showed up for lessons. The prospect was quite intimidating, our ability to make fools of ourselves on the dance floor did not directly translate into being able to master even the basics of latin and ballroom dancing. This disconnect became all the more readily apparent when we danced with beautiful women, specifically Galina, who knew what they were doing and therefore how far we fell short. This, however, made it all the more of a challenge for us and it was during this time that Geoff and I would have a conversation that became quite routine.

The pattern would go something like this. Geoff and I would see someone doing something with ease (with said beautiful women) which was quite impossible for us, and we would then pause and look at the other with the mutual understanding that it was both very impressive and something which we wanted to do ourselves. Then without fail, either Geoff or I would say, "In a year that will be us", and we would smile, partially, I think, because we didn't fully believe it.

Getting ready for our first public dance performances, at Stephen and Minal's wedding, it was then a pleasant surprise to realized that, the week after our performances we would hit the one year mark for our craze of all things dancing. Our progress had shifted so gradually, as it does when you you are a part of it, that I couldn't pinpoint exactly when we left the "that will be us" to "that is us" stage, but none the less it was nice to realize it had happened.

So then, to all of you who dream, and I would hope that would be everyone of you. Hopefully this can be a bit of encouragement to reach out and achieve those goals.

Ed: I blame the length of time since I've lasted posted, for the build up of sappiness. I've let it all out now. Future posts should be relatively safe.