Martine Pagé

A little while ago, I blogged about an animal shelter in Montreal. While browsing through the adoption files, I found a cat that looked just like our cat Spiff and, by a strange transfer phenomenon, I felt responsible for that lonely kitty and considered adopting him. After all, Spiff had been raised with two other cats (who are now dead, but not because of Spiff) so I thought a companion might be a good idea.

Good thing I didn’t act on that impulse.

The yard of our new house seems to be the chosen highway for local cats, who like to go under our fence to get to the other yards around. From the deck or even when he’s inside the house, Spiff likes to watch the other cats walk by and when he sits there quietly, we always say: « Spiff TV is on ». That’s the kind of strange things people who live with cats come up with.

See this photo? (Click to enlarge) This is not Spiff looking at himself in the mirror. It’s a different cat.

Since the new neighbors have moved in (yes, the loud ones), a yellow tabby who looks just like Spiff likes to come by for a visit. He’s a little shy and he just sits there, looking in. (Maybe he also has his own TV channel and Spiff, Blork and I are the guest stars.)

Yesterday, I was working on a post about writing an exciting chase scene, when I heard cat sounds coming from downstairs. I ran down and found Spiff and the visiting cat in a stare out contest through the closed patio doors of the living room. I thought « cute, let me get my camera » and ran upstairs. When I came back with the camera on, the cats were still quiet but Spiff’s tail and fur were fluffed up to raccoon size, probably in the hope of hiding his embarrassing manicure. I took a couple of still shots and then I had the brilliant idea of sliding open the patio doors to get the cats to sniff each other through the screen.

I put my camera on the movie mode to capture that cute Hallmark moment, slid the door open and all hell broke loose.

Here’s what I was able to get on video while trying to slide back the patio door. (click to start video)

I only caught the tail end of it, no pun intended. You’ll forgive me for worrying about getting scratched to death instead of thinking about the quality of the video. For those of you who can’t view this very informative cat documentary, here’s what happened: Spiff went completely nuts, got up on his back paws and started attacking both the screen and the visiting cat, who responded by getting on his back paws as well and attacking back. It was very, very ugly and violent, complete with the kind of cat sounds that wake you up in the middle of the night sweating with fear. I stood back, tried to calm down the cat (in English, I’m not sure why), managed to close the door and stood there stunned as Spiff paced around the room with a faced that said « Let me have him! Let me have him! ».

Spiff is usually nice to other cats, but somehow the fact that this one looks too much like him seems to freak him out. And to think that I almost adopted his twin, just because I thought it was cute.

So this is why Spiff will stay lonely until he dies of old age.

Thank you very much for listening.

La tr�s controvers�e fontaine du sculpteur qu�b�cois Armand Vaillancourt reprend vie � San Francisco apr�s des ann�es de s�cheresse:

Since its debut in 1971, the fountain has survived an avalanche of criticism of its design, as well as the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Additionally, the San Francisco landmark has had several brushes with fame, including a shot in the 2000 film « Bedazzled » and an act of vandalism by Bono, lead singer of the band U2, who spray-painted « Rock and roll stops the traffic » on the fountain during a free outdoor concert in 1987.

Extrait du San Francisco Examiner.

J’ai travaill� pendant pr�s d’un an dans un des buildings de l’Embarcadero (panorama Quicktime), juste � c�t� de l’endroit o� est install�e cette fameuse sculpture. � cette �poque, quelque part au d�but des ann�es 90, la fontaine ne fonctionnait plus. On me disait souvent « it was made by a French canadian man, you know » et je ne savais jamais si c’�tait une sorte de reproche ou de compliment.

I’m working on a new draft of the screenplay and I just wrote a chase scene between a car and a motorcycle. I wrote it because I know that the director of the movie will love a chase scene. He will probably think that this is a much better draft because there’s a chase scene in it.

A freakin chase scene.

I never thought I would ever write a movie with a chase scene in it.

It was kind of fun. A little cheesy – like I knew it was part of some lame, unnecessary tradition – but still. I hate to admit it but it was fun.

Could this have to do with the fact that I rode my scooter on the Jacques-Cartier bridge yesterday when there was no traffic at all? Weeeeee!

Hey, I get my research wherever I can.