I think I might have said it all in my title line.

Like, "Hey Neighbours. My Han Solo tshirt is so awesome that it doesn't even require pants."

I am dog and house sitting tonight. The wind is howling and it's been raining all day, and the house is very, very quiet, except for the occasional snuffle of a poodleish puppy, the tiny little waddle of a Norwich Terrier that looks kind of like a delightful footstool, and the gentle snores of a petite moppish type dog who bites your ankle when you try and leave the house.

Tonight is much quieter than last night, where in I SAW RADIOHEAD IN CONCERT. I also wore my crocs to the concert, and then squeaked obnoxiously the entire way home. Welcome to the Sounds of Vancouver at Night: Traffic, Random Wet Stabbings, Marijuana, Sarah Sovereign's Poor Choice In Footwear.

Radiohead was tremendous. It's probably the biggest concert I've ever been to, unless you count Nsync, which I'm not. Even though Justin Timberlake broke out a really great run on solo to express how God Must Have Spent a Little More Time On Me. And he totally did. Like, thanks God for that thing I can do with a toothpick, some string and five cottonballs.

Watching the sea of people in front of the stage was amazing... as was sitting in front of the douchebag who spent the entire concert going, "Oh my God. Thom Yorke is going to... oh.. oh he is Alice! He IS going to play Paranoid Android! Oh God. OhGodOhGodOhGodThomYorke. SUPERB! HE IS A GOD. I knew he was going to play this. BECAUSE OF OUR UNSPOKEN CONNECTION."

I saw Feist a couple of weeks ago, and she knocked my socks off as well. She had everyone sing as Merpeople in Deer Lake Park, thereby confirming that she is just pretty darn fantastic. I bought a tshirt at the concert which I wore consecutively for like, three days after because I'm awesome. I changed into it at the concert inside of a dirty port-a-potti, which teetered threateningly. But hey. It's a Feist tshirt. Even tipped over inside a port-a-potti, I'm wearing the shit out of that fine garment. ... Or not.

I decided in that moment that I would start collecting tshirts from all of the concerts I attend, up until the minute I went to the store booth at Radiohead and discovered the tshirts there were fifty dollars and I can barely afford like, an expired, half opened kid sized Apple Juice found in the discount bin of a Salvation Army. Luckily, I see nothing wrong with making my own impressive Radiohead tshirt with an old white tshirt and a Mr. Sketch marker.

Neko Case is going to Vancouver in early September... I haven't bought tickets yet, but I'm thinking about it.

Labels: Adventures in Babysitting, Music

So I am leaving momentarily to head into Vancouver to pick up Laura! I like to refer to this as Laura 2008, as though there is no other explanation needed. Just one word to sum it all up, like Christmas.

I am pretty excited! Laura and I have not seen each other since last summer, when we had a stilted and awkward conversation somewhere in the vicinity of the old red shag carpet that used to make up my basement. Since then, much has changed. I can't help but reflect on all the awesome things we did and now have done, and I really think this will really be a Laura to Remember.

... Only the most astute of you will note my reference to the Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers Christmas Album.

I have been babysitting great children all day, but am now mysteriously covered in yogurt ... how, I do not know. Children just seem to go hand in hand with yogurt and sticky hands and tubs of colourful, broken crayons.

-- Update! Laura is here safe and sound! Tomorrow, we begin adventures in the Fraser Valley... watch for pictures, Internet!

Labels: Adventures in Babysitting, Sarah Land

Otherwise I might decide to pick up a dirty stranger to babysit. Seriously, why not. They are affordable because I can pay for them in snackables.

Instructions for Baby Care.

Link from Dooce.

Labels: Adventures in Babysitting

We high five everything in this house. "You finished your homework? HIGH FIVE!" "We have a toaster? HIGH FIVE!" "Fifty cents for a mint condition copy of Fifth Business? HIGH FIVE! AND ONE MORE TO YOU, MR. ROBERTSON DAVIES!"

We also like to offer high fives, as a reward system. It isn't uncommon to hear, "Could you grab me a muffin from the kitchen? I will give you a SUPER AMAZING HIGH FIVE." Sometimes this works, and sometimes this doesn't. It depends I think on the amount of high fives already given on that day. I mean, if you've already experienced 8 or 9 high fives, the one more high five offered for you to get off your ass and go all the way to the kitchen isn't going to make that much of a difference.

But, in the middle of an 8 a.m. high five this morning I posed to Max, "What if we like, did a new high five?"

He's supposed to be getting ready for school at this point, but what the hell. It's an important question because really... I've re-invented the high five from across the room concept, but that's only going to amuse us for so long.

We tried this weird thing where you do circles in the air without your hands touching, but I'm pretty sure I saw that very same thing in Demolitian Man, and I've come to the conclusion that it's probably best to just totally distance myself from that film as much as possible. Like, I don't want people to think I'm not cool.

So, anyways, we're trying out new versions of the high five when I say, "HEY. What about a Vulcan greeting?" We did that, but ultimately decided that the Vulcan greeting shouldn't just be cheaply thrown around hither and yon.

But this lead to other topics of conversation -- precisely, the Vulcan Nerve Pinch and When Is It A Good Time To Use It.

I told Max he should wait until he meets a Vulcan who can teach him how to best implement it, and when to use it, because you don't want to just wipe out the whole playground with it and then have no one to play Yu-Gi-Oh with. Secondly, like, he should really wait until he's perfected his ninja skills, because a ninja who could incorporate the Vulcan Nerve Pinch would probably be the best, most awesomest ninja in the entire GALAXY.

And I think that's really something to strive for in life.

Labels: Adventures in Babysitting, Sarah Land

When I was a kid I had a few brushes with lice.

I remember one time in particular when my dad stood above me, looking down, telling me all the things the lice were doing... winter sports in my dandruff, weenie roasts by my left ear, dance off's gone wild at the back of my neck.

I cried, and I screamed, and I was fairly certain I'd be scarred for life. Like, that's MY HEAD. ONLY BARRETTES AND REALLY FUN HAIR TIES ARE ALLOWED ON THERE. And possibly HATS THAT I WILL NEVER WEAR AND EVENTUALLY GIVE TO JULES.

I cannot handle lice, just like I cannot handle horny animals, ventriloquism and the musical stylings of Christina Aguilera.

So when Max got it the other day, I tried really hard to chill. I was the very picture of poise when I realized him and I had been sharing a brush, when I realized he'd watched a movie earlier in my room, when I saw the giant lice doing conga lines across his scalp. But I'm pretty sure, if, when Melissa examined my hair she had said, "Oh my God, Sarah. You have lice." I might've given serious, impulsive thought to simply shaving my head bald and dousing my scalp in tea tree oil. Also, I might've started batting at them wildly with my hands while doing my very best impression of Margot Kidder, possibly while trying to implement a big wooden bat to kill them all. Nyx? What?

Luckily I'm lice free, but Max did decide to shave his head bald.

That kid is so punk rock, Y'ALL JUST DON'T EVEN KNOW.

Labels: Adventures in Babysitting

I've come to the conclusion, after wandering around outside in my bathrobe at 5 in the morning searching for kittens, that I am not a cat person. I am a Jax person. Jax is an awesome cat, and I love him, and he is orange, and I think that since it's unlikely I'll be able to find another Jax ever, once he dies, eventually, at the ripe age of 350, God willing, I will have him stuffed and become one of those old ladies who wander aimlessly around town gently petting their beloved taxiderm. (Taxidermy? Taxiderm seems like it would apply to like, the single pet, but while I'm at it I could potentially amass quite the collection of barn owls poised in flight and beavers gingerly gnawing on petrified wood.)

Some of you may have noticed my posts regarding "KITTENWATCH 2007!" which almost immediately morphed into "Kittens? What kittens? There were never any kittens. I totally didn't make a graphic illustration demonstrating what I believed said kittens would look like, and I also didn't give them names before they were born. There was never going to be a kitten named Sunny Muffins. All of you are full of LIES, let's just FORGET IT."

We thought Matilda was pregnant. Now. I've spent a great deal of time feeling like the biggest event-naming, graphic-creating R-tard ever, but Matilda giving birth to kittens really did make total sense. The fact that the shelter said not to get her fixed until after Christmas, because cats don't go into heat during the holiday season (Presumably because they are too busy celebrating the birth of Jesus and drinking eggnog -- totally understandable), the fact that she was eating ALL THE TIME and fighting Jax almost to the death whenever he tried to grab a crumb of food, weight gain, nipples, delicate straining -- KITTENS.

But no. Not kittens. That doesn't equate to kittens. Apparently that equates to Matilda going into heat, jumping out the upstairs bathroom window, taking a six foot drop to the ground and then tagteaming the entire un-neutered cat population of the Masset.

I was positive I would wake up in the morning and find the lifeless little corpses of Sunny Muffins and Dutchess Amelia and darling wee Untitled Kitten Number Three, which lead to me waking up at every hour of the night to look outside, in my bathrobe, wandering around the garden like the crazy woman I was sure I'd have at least ten years to grow into.

And cats in heat are gross. I can think of at least a million things I'd rather see around the house than Matilda's big, lubricated vagina. Listen to Bob Barker, Internet. Even at Christmas.

Labels: Adventures in Babysitting