Sad day� Bailey, our loony ring-necked dove, has flown on to brighter skies.

Bailey was a fifteen-year-old dove whom we inherited from a co-worker of mine a few years ago when her mother moved into a smaller home and couldn�t keep all her birds. His two handles were his missing right eye, and his trademark drunken �woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!� call that sounded more like a sports cheer than the typical cooing dove noise. When we got him he didn�t really have a name, so we spent a few days staring at this one-eyed dove darting his head around, looking at his new surroundings with his good eye. We came close to calling him Odin, but finally settled on Bailey, as he was the precise brownish-cream colour of a nice glass of Irish Cream. Besides, however he lost that eye, it certainly wasn�t as a sacrifice for knowledge; he was pretty, but was rather lacking in the intelligence department.

We couldn�t let him out of his cage to fly, which was a real pity as he was used to having a whole room with branches in it to knock about in. Every time we let him out, he�d take off and fly� leaning ever to the left because that was where he could see. So his straight lines would deteriorate into lazy circles that took him into lamps, mirrors, shelves, and piles of paper. Eventually we clipped his wings and would take him out to sit on our shoulders, which he liked just fine, because he could play in our long hair. He loved to groom my husband�s beard, too. Due to the fact that he was missing an eye, his sense of depth perception was skewed, so he�d sit on his branch and eye the floor of his cage where he�d scattered all his food, screw up his courage, then leap from the perch with that �woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!� as he hurtled to what could be three feet or three inches below him. When he�d hit the cage floor sooner than he expected, the whole contraption would shake, and he�d make a chuckling sound in appreciation for his apparent luck in surviving the treacherous drop.

Lately, however, his drunken cheers had become quieter and less frequent. His enthusiastic daily exercises (consisting of gripping his branch tightly with both feet and flapping his wings as hard as he could, raising clouds of seed dust, fallen feather, and dander) had also grown few and far between. We checked on him daily, and took him out of his cage last week for a long cuddle and a cage-cleaning, and there was nothing wrong with him; it was just finally his time to go. After fifteen years, hey, he was long overdue.

He had a good life, a terrific sense of humour, and brought a smile to many faces. Cheers to Bailey!

Woo-hoo! Norway just took a point, and they’re calling it a game; final score is 9-4 for Canada! The Canadian men’s team now stands at seven wins, one loss!

Oooh! Oooh! Canada just took another point! 9-3 with three ends remaining!

Okay. I’m going back to trying to figure out how to put the code for this comment function in so the Grand Poobah can rest easy. I managed to do it for my web counter, which now works; I’m stunned. Let’s see if we can make it two for two…

Tom Allen of CBC Radio 2�s Music and Company is insidious. He remarked that the show-stopping tenor aria La donna � mobile sounded tricky to sing because you could so easily slip into It�s Howdy Doody Time.

AAAGH!

Now, I dislike Verdi’s La donna � mobile to begin with. Apart from being derogatory towards over half the planet’s population, it ranks up there with the opening movement to Beethoven�s 5th Symphony, Mozart�s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, and Mendelssohn�s Wedding March from A Midsummer Night�s Dream. They�re all overplayed, and as a result I can�t stand them. I can appreciate their genius, the mastery over the medium and all that, but the fact that people never get past them to discover other wonderful examples of symphonic or chamber triumph bothers me. What also rots my socks is that it�s a closed loop � people like them so the music gets played a lot, and because it gets played a lot people assume it�s good and like it.

Sigh.

So now, whenever I hear La donna � mobile, on top of gritting my teeth, I�ll have to think of Howdy Doody. Brr.

A huge hug all around to everyone who came out to honour the birthday boys last night – I know they both appreciated it. Now that the husband’s gone off to work, I get to dig through his presents to see what everyone gave him. I assume you all got the usual, “You didn’t have to get me anything – the only gift I ever ask for is your presence” speech when you passed him his loot? As for the brief preview of The Gondoliers in the form of After Sailing To This Island as performed by the Sisters in Misfortune, myself and Tara; the missing line no one could remember is “Is the populace exacting?”. You’re welcome. I know you were tossing and turning, sleepless all night with the suspense.

Seems that dreadful Valentine’s Day interview might not have aired yesterday. I might have been bumped in favour of some knowledgeable Olympic persons. No great loss. In fact, I’d be thrilled beyond belief if they’ve axed it. Next time, they get told that if one topic is prepped and another replaces it in the interview, they get corrected – on the air.

Now, because I am certain that you’re all squiggly with excitement, the latest curling news! The Canadian team lost to Sweden 6-5, spoiling their perfect undefeated record in the round-robin. Apparently the ice was tricky, and the Swedes picked it up before the Canadians did. It happens. Despite that, it was a really good, tight game. The Canadian women’s team is still 4-0 going into their next game with England.

Seems this blog is getting attention! The Grand Poohbah is scrounging around for a comment function so he can, well, comment, because apparently he’s bursting at the seams. In the interests of his health, I hope he finds one soon.

So after Buffy last night, I flipped through channels looking for my weekly The West Wing fix. What did I get instead? The Mists of Avalon. Part One. Sigh. The severity of mental gear-shifting was almost painful.

I finished Cryptonomicon yesterday. Neal Stephenson really has a problem ending his books, doesn’t he. I mean, don’t get me wrong; I’m all for the “life goes on” feeling in a novel, but sometimes I wish there was a bit more… well… finality.

Just recorded a telephone interview with CJAD, our local talk radio station. Being one of the local Pagan Poster Girls, I get a lot of calls around Friday the 13th and Hallowe’en. And now, evidently, Valentine’s Day. I love the producer; he’s terrific. We talked about the historical and ethical issues surrounding Valentine’s Day and spellcraft, which is terrific, because I hate shallow gag interviews about love potions. There’s a new host that they paired me with though, who asked me my areas of specialty (academia, historical practices) before we started, then proceeded to completely ignore all the pre-production work to ask me, in the interview, how to do a love spell to make Meg Ryan fall in love with him.

You know, it’s people like this who laugh at the concept of magic who really tick me off.

I was as polite as possible while telling him that he was an idiot and it’s a serious topic, but it really burned me up. On top of it all, this happened only a couple of hours after I turned CFCF (a local TV station) down for a TV spot. We’re short-staffed today, and a TV interview takes up a chunk of time and manpower that we simply didn’t have. I told them courteously that we’d be delighted to do an interview at any time, with two days notice so that we could get in an extra staff member to meet their needs. Who wakes up on Valentine’s Day expecting to go on TV and talk about love potions (ugh)?

Well, obviously I should.

Now I hear you all wondering, “Magic? A serious topic?” Heck, yes. That, however, is a topic for another day.

CURRENT READING:
Player of Games, Iain M Banks. Excellent. Nice, smooth read. An author who is obviously right at home with making you feel like you’re wherever his protagonist is.