TheFurFiles

Up close and personal with The Lionyls.

Last night my son’s band played their first real “gig” in front of about 500 people at Ottawa University’s men’s basketball game. As the lead singer – and resident crazy man – Zach had made himself a lion’s tail (his band’s name is The Lionyls) which took him two balls of yarn, one giant pipe cleaner, and four hours to make. He then stuck it in his pants and flailed about on the court, singing and dancing and just generally having a grand old time. Now, you might be thinking wow, that sounds fucking weird, but he was awesome. The band was awesome. And next week, they are recording their first video, which I will post when it’s ready. Not sure if he’s wearing the tail for that. Whatever the case, support indie music and check them out!

Anyway, when the show was over, it was then time for the parents to help wrap up cords, move the amps, and pack things up. Unfortunately, in the band’s excitement, they didn’t plan very well and there weren’t enough cars to carry all of the equipment (and all of the people) home afterward. So I ended up busing with my son – in -25 degree weather, as the snow was falling, in my little leather jacket (I wasn’t expecting to be busing anywhere, but like any good mother, I’d do anything for my children, including freeze) – and I froze.

It was on that joyous “where the hell are all these people going at eleven o’clock at night” ride that I was reminded of a time not too long ago when I was taking the bus home from teacher’s college, and it was snowy and the roads were slippery, and the bus driver was having trouble controlling the vehicle, and the metal monstrosity skidded going around a corner and nearly tipped over, and all the people from one side of the bus flew across to land on top of the people on the other side of the bus, and I had to literally catch some old lady and stop her from almost breaking her neck, and then once the bus righted itself and we all saw that we were still alive, everyone talked about how scary and crazy bus rides can get, and one guy said that he saw another guy get on in his underpants once, and everyone laughed, and this went on for another ten minutes or so, until I got off at my stop. Needless to say, it was an interesting afternoon.

Thankfully, last night, there were no such instances of danger or crashes or perverts riding the bus. It was just freezing cold weather as we waited twenty minutes for the number 97 to come along while every number in the nineties – 94, 95 (three times) and 98 – stopped to pick up passengers and then left us just standing there in the freakin’ wintery wonderland.

On top of all that, the bus only took us part of the way home. We had to run another quarter of a mile so that we didn’t turn into icicles.

I still turned into an icicle.

And so, I’ve come to the conclusion that I am not made for winter. My skin is too thin. It gets pretty red if I’m too hot or too cold. I could probably use a few extra fat stores as well, especially if I’m going to continue living here in Ottawa. If that’s the case, I wouldn’t mind eating a couple extra brownies every day, but chocolate makes my skin break out, not to mention that brownies generally aren’t good for you. I guess a person can’t have everything. That’s it, I’m just going to have to move south. Until then, I may need to go shopping for a full length parka though. As my husband always says, I’m really good at spending money.

When all was said and done last night, I went to bed in a t-shirt, socks, a hooded sweatshirt, and my Stanfield’s Chilgard long johns. My husband calls this my “armour” and when I don my “armour”, he knows he ain’t gettin’ any.

Happy Caturday everybody.

Best ten dollars I spent all week.