Until August 5^th Montreal is hosting the ‘Out Games’ otherwise known as the Gay Olympics (that’s not official) – although you don’t have to be gay to participate which I think is rather inclusive and welcoming.

The Out Games are a global event being held for the first time ever in Montreal and I have to say that I think it’s a very good way to present Montreal to the world in large part because (1) the Out Games aren’t very well known yet beyond the gay community so there is little chance of childish protests by irresponsible anti-gay bigots, (2) for the gay community it paints Montreal as a very accepting city with great athletic facilities, and (3) it fills the post comedy-festival lull.

The only two disadvantages are (1) Bert is losing all his speed skating ice time this week to make way for the ice-based events (of which speed skating is not one – I asked) and (2) most of the participants are men which means that the traffic on the streets is very male dominated and Meeka is afraid of strange men – she now spends half of our walk time dodging friendly pets from random men.

Yep, our city may be welcoming when it comes to gay rights however our dog is more of a feminist rights champion herself.

So I have this grand plan for keeping our apartment in some semblance of order. Actually I’ve had a few grand plans and most have fallen by the wayside. For example:

1. I would spend five minutes cleaning every night before I went to bed - it turns out that five minutes a day is not enough to keep the apartment clean. Oh some days it is (i.e. when Bert is away and the dog has not been inspired to destroy a tennis ball / stick / rope / plastic coke bottle / etc) but mostly all I do is put a small dent in what really needs to be done.

2. I set Sundays aside as cleaning days. This actually worked for a while. When Bert would leave for skating I would start and three hours later, by the time he got back, the apartment was fairly spick and span. Unfortunately the skating season came to an end and cleaning for three hours while Bert napped / watched tv / surfed the internet put me in a wicked-ass bad mood like you wouldn’t believe.

I have also tried to hold myself to a plethoera of little rules: never leave laundry in the dryer, always clear the breakfast dishes before leaving for work, dust the dark wood furniture at least once a week, sweep the dog-hair catching hallway at least twice a week, always take the recycling out on Wednesday even if the bin isn’t full.

HOWEVER…our apartment is an absolute chaotic mess! So my new grand plan is to clean - from top to bottom - one room a day. No matter how long it takes. I will do the big jobs (kitchen and bathroom) on the weekends and leave the easy rooms (the bedroom and entryway) on Mondays and Fridays. The rest will fit is as appropriate. Brilliant plan n’est pas?

What image pops to mind when I tell you that I met someone yesterday who rescues retired cancer-ridden rats from medical labs?

A scruffy hippie with hairy legs wearing rat-hair covered fair trade hemp trousers?

A crazy old lady with purple hair and a great cane with a poking spike on the end?

A creepy short bald middle aged man who lives in his mothers basement?

Ha, you’re all wrong. Rat girl is one of the most amusing (in a laughing with, not a laughing at way) well put together young ladies I’ve met in a while.

Actually she only fosters dying rats until a new home can be found for them so now I know:

- that lab rats do get retirment benefits

- that there are people out there who like rats enough to adopt dying ones

- that not all rat-lovers are weird

- that the idea of paliative care for rats makes me chuckle

I was cursed this morning…no seriously I was.

I was carrying the recycling bin and trying to open the front door which is full of windows and very easy to see through. It is because of the windowfull nature of the front door that I was able to see this woman walk by in a pastel pink skirt and a white top. She had un-naturaly bright blond hair and looked altogether Stepford Wife-esque. Which is why she suprised me when she looked my right in the eyes and winked.

‘How very random’ I thought about a second and a half before wacking my finger on the door frame skinning my knuckle and making it bleed - all be it not very dramatically but still.

So it occurs to me that this winking Stepford Wife must have cursed me with some sort of pink powder puff voodoo. I wonder what’s going to happen next?

So Bert and I spent the weekend attending the wedding of a good friend. Typically wedding comments fall into three categories (1) the bride, (2) the ceremony and (3) the reception.

With regards to the bride, she did look very beautiful – how could a bride look anything but gorgeous, but she spent a seemingly disproportionate amount of time crying. This got me thinking because, you see, our wedding was quite unemotional from the tear side. Part way through our wedding ceremony I did manage to eke out a tear or two but it was quite an effort. Does that make me a cold, unfeeling bitch, I mean honestly this girl was absolutely bawling and all I could think was – ew, her Kleenex must be so snotty by now.

The ceremony was rather uneventful (other than the bawling) and the rain let up – mostly – about ten minutes before the ceremony started. My husband looked ever so cute as a groomsman even if his tie did have pen marks on it so I spent most of the time snapping photos.

The reception was a little bit of a disaster. The food was decidedly ok, and I was promised salmon but got ‘roughy’ instead – I traded with the girl next to me for the chicken. The speeches, well I’d be interested to know if this seems strange to you. When the father of the bride gave his speech, he spent the first half congratulating the brides’ sister on her new job in Switzerland and expounding on how much he was going to miss her. He spent the second half illustrating the fact that the bride has ‘always loved the lime light’. Scattered throughout were references to the ‘tough times’ the bride and groom have gone through – in terms of their relationship, and his pleasure that the groom has decided to study dentistry because he only would only have been happy giving his daughter away to a ‘doctor, lawyer or dentist’. The other speeches also harped on their relationship challenges (the wedding was delayed twice) and the groom was rather poorly represented both in terms of speech content and number of guests. As a guest of the groom I thought this was very unfair.

Oh yeah, I almost forgot, Bert and the other groomsman kissed during the reception – a rather unfortunate incident involving a silver Hershey’s Kiss. The rather conservative, rather old crowd of guests, did not think it nearly as amusing as I did.