my cat has a learning disability

In an effort to raise a socially well-adjusted cat we have things we will not tolerate. We don't like it when the cat goes up on the table or counters, we stop her from biting and she is not supposed to whine at our door in the morning.
In order to instill this discipline we figured a squirt bottle would be the best method of behaviour management. So when we find here doing any of these things she gets a squirt from the bottle.

She doesn't seem to get it. She continues to do the same things though we spray her 11 times a day. Chris has resorted to putting her in the shower when she whines in the morning. It doesn't seem to work.

This is not completely abnormal with a cat. Some resistance is expected with most behaviour modification. The thing that really is strange is that she rarely lands on her feet. If we find her somewhere she's not supposed to be, we often pick her up, spray her and then drop her from about mid-thigh height. Not excessive for a cat to be sure. She often fails to land on her feet.

Chris is convinced she has a learning disability. We are looking into getting her coded and maybe we can get some extra funding for her.

I still really love her though.

I didn't think I would ever do a post on my cat, but I can't help it. I really don't have that many interesting things to write about. Although....we are leaving for Lethbridge soon. Hooray for home!

beta?

Has anyone switched their blog over to beta? I know beta was better than vhs back in the day....but blogger beta?

Any critiques of the new system? I was trying to post a comment on someone's blog that has switched and it didn't recognize my username and password. It said, try again later. Boooo. I was already logged into blogger. I like it on the old one how you can just be signed in and then comment without having to type in your username and password.

Any thoughts?

I love kids movies

Recently Chris and I have been watching a lot of movies because he was sick for over a week and a half. (he's feeling better now) We rented a few movies that were the feel good type you'd watch with your parents, some kids movies and a few avant-garde movies. Of all the movies we've watched in the past few weeks the kids movies were by far the best. Why is that? Here are a few of my theories.

1. Movies for kids have imagination. They take a story and then inject it with creativity and imagination.

2. They have a plot. We watched so many movies that have no plot whatsoever. They're either depressing movies about people getting screwed over or they are a fun filled movie that's about nothing really at all.

3. They create a world outside our own. Most of the time the kids movies I like the best are about a world that's not like the one we live in. Maybe one of my favourite kids movies is Monsters Inc. They create an entire world of Monsters with its own economy and stories. It's fantastic.

4. (usually) They have good character development.

Now I'm not saying all kids movies have these aspects, but I think I can safely say that most of them do. (at least the ones that I have watched)

Its nice to watch a movie and not feel disgusted by what you've just seen. There's no violence in kids movies, or adultery or prostitution or drug overdoses or any of the nasty things we see in the world all the time.

It seems like there are fewer and fewer good movies being made lately. Or maybe I just don't know where to look for them or how to pick a good movie at the store anymore. I pick up something that looks like it will be good and it turns out to be another story on young male prostitute drug addicts. (this is embarassing, but its happened more than once, this is becoming a popular movie subject) I end up having to turn it off because its just so nasty.

That's my rant about that. On another note we've sent off our Christmas cards. Do you think they'll make it on time? Chris wrote our Christmas letter and it is really funny. Don't be offended if you don't get a Christmas card. We only really sent them to family and those we won't be seeing at Christmas. I will be posting the letter on my blog though because its just so good.

venture forth...alone

Wednesday came and I was excited all day to go to the cbc studios and be there live for a recording between two fantastic artists. I went to pick up Chris from work and, to put it nicely, he looked like death. He was not well. He came home and passed out on the couch. So now I had to find someone else to go with me.

Now my rolodex of friends is not that large in Ottawa, in fact I'd say it was limited to three people that I'd feel comfortable calling up and asking if they wanted to go to a concert together. (actually its 4 but one friend is currently in the middle east) I phoned up each person and everyone was busy or sick. I was faced with having to go it alone.

No big deal. I'm perfectly comfortable going to things by myself. But I wasn't, not at first anyways. The whole time I was walking from my car to the studio I kept thinking "Maybe I should just ask a random person on the street if they want to come with me" There was a girl that was young and hip looking stopped at the walk light at the same time as me. All I had to do was say "Hey, I have an extra ticket for Fuse tonight, want to come?" But alas, I decided I'd rather go in by myself than with a perfect stranger.

Everyone was waiting in the lobby talking with their friends. I actually went through a nice period of transition standing in the lobby. From watching the news, to watching the people around me (I saw three local cbc celebs). I had so much fun people watching I completely forgot that I was by myself. It was actually perfect because there was one seat near the front that wasn't taken. I, being solo, was able to sneak in and get it. By the end I was actually glad that I went there by myself. There was a few retakes of songs and if I had been with someone I would've had to leave, but I didn't leave because I didn't need to. I was on my schedule and no one else's.

The concert was great. Zaki Ibrahim was amazing and gave me the shivers with her performance and Bob Egan was fantastic as well. We actually got two more tickets for another show next Wednesday with Patrick Watson and Torngat. I'm not sure who Torngat is but Patrick Watson was our favourite discovery this summer at Osheaga. This time I'll remember to bring my camera so you too can have a sneak peek at the inside of the cbc glory.

two things

First I thought I would share what I'm reading. Marc and Kylie shared the non-fiction works that they are slogging through, I thought I would do the same.
I'm reading Blink by Malcom Gladwell. He's most well-known for his previous book, The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference. (am I supposed to italicize that? I never know) This book is about how we make split second decisions, from first impressions to "intuition". I'm only 1/3 of the way through it but so far so good! It's quite the page turner. I highly recommend it. Reading on his website, he got the idea for the book when he decided to grow his hair long. He started getting more speeding tickets, getting pulled aside in airport security lines and once was pulled inside a police van because they thought he matched the description of a rapist they were on the hunt for. This sparked curiousity in him about the stereotypes we have and the profound effect they have on the decisions we make.

One part I especially liked in the book was the IAT (Implicit Association Test). Go do one yourself at: www.implicit.harvard.edu
This is very good if you have some procrastinating you would like to accomplish. Each test takes about 10 minutes.

Second, there is a cbc show in Ottawa called Fuse. They bring two artists into a studio and allow them to "fuse" their sounds together in front of a live audience. Since we've been here I've been really wanting to go. I finally heard the announcement for tickets before they were sold out and now have two tickets to go and see the fusing of Bob Egan and Zaki Ibrahim. I'm so excited! A live taping at cbc. Does life get any better than this?
(actually it does, when I was curling on Sunday the last two rocks I shot in the last end both made it into the house!)