The cat box looked like this (don't be too grossed out; it's really a cake, not a repugnantly dirty cat box. Does that make it less disgusting?). I'm not surprised since Tallboy, who took care of my place and of Noudnic the Cat while I was away told be he didn't "scoop poop". Fair enough, especially since I got my place back cleaner in every single other respect than I'd left it (including washing the outside of all the windows!). Embarrassing? Not in the least. I should go away more often.

I could have stayed at my folks' another week or so. A chauffeur service, a chef service (that takes requests), and all the surreal conversation you can stand; I sometimes think that my parents inhabit an alternate plane of existence. Winnipeg is a great little city and I left just in time: Winnipeg is a great little frozen city as of very soon.

So I guess it's fair to say that I'm fairly happy to be back, although I don't want to start facing real life yet. I'll do it next week. For the rest of this week I'll continue to pretend I have no responsibilities and that I can live without need of trifles such as money before I really have to live without trifles such as food (except burritos).

In the meantime, however, I have plan to live like Martha Stewart on the tightest budget she could ever imagine (before that whole prison thing, of course). No going to bed until the dishes are washed, the bills filed, the recycling squished into the undersized box, and the clothes put away or placed delicately in the hamper. I will eat healthy food only and remember to take my multivitamins every single day. I will wash them down with fruit juice I myself will squeeze every morning as the sun comes up.

Why as I write, even, I am virtuously lunching on a sandwich made entirely of vegetables and – get this! – wild rice bread I brought back from one of Winnipeg's one hundred thousand hippy bakeries. I so am enjoying the subtle vegetable flavours mixing in my mouth and if I were to desire to make even the smallest of critiques it would be to add only the delicate zest of bacon bits, and mayonnaise, and just a hint of roast beef. But just a hint, mind you. The fact that I have a side or Doritos next to the sandwich has no bearing here.