Could Pinky possibly be more of a girly girl? She’s the only cat I’ve ever had that poses. If she were a human she’d be forever trying on lipgloss and prancing around the house in pink tutus. Her brother, on the other hand… let’s just say he was named after Iggy Popp for a reason (but he’s not addicted to heroin that I know of).

Speaking of addictions. I think finding the 1901 census might have been a bad thing. I’m just way too into it. I spent hours on it last night trying to find info on the 1901 occupants of certain houses in my neighborhood. I decided I wanted to look up some of the grander houses on my street (the ones closer to downtown). I actually kept a log with this information and plan to take a walk up there to look at the houses and read my notes. Is that insane? If not, it’s extremely snoopy! However, I can’t resist. These houses all listed at least one “domestic” living in the house, sometimes two. I found myself comparing their wages and tut-tutting the families that were paying the lowest wages to their "general servants" (as their occupation was titled in the census). Most of these wealthy families did not list an income and the heads of the households often didn’t hold a job. The ones that did were usually in business for themselves, a barrister or physician, etc. Then there is the mysterious “traveler”. What on earth is a traveler? I saw that listed more than once and the wages were more than double of what the cabinetmaker, engineer and publisher were making. Someone is paying them to do this job, they listed themselves as an employee. It seems like those in business for themselves were not required to report their income. Or were they allowed to refuse? I don’t know, but it put the kaibosh on further snooping.

I also can’t believe I live in this city and I’m not English, Irish or Scottish. So far I haven’t found one family in 1901 that did not immigrate from one of these places, or descend from people that did.

All right, that’s enough of that. I’m sure I’ve driven you all crazy by this point.

When I was perusing The Gibson Gallery’s artists on the weekend, I found a photographer who’s work just blew me away. Larry Towell. Please check out his work, it’s incredible.