i ate some good food today and saw some good friends. but the exuberance of the weekend is starting to give way. i haven’t slept in days.

it’s not hard finding places to stay. the hard part is having someplace to hang out in the daytime. with no home base to post up in, i spent the day dragging myself through the heat of the halifax streets.

dozed off at the corner of almon and agricola, dozed off on the wall at pizza corner, dozed off in the air-conditioned park lane food court trying to cool down.

now my car’s fucked up and i might be stuck here for another couple days dealing with who knows what expense. it’s the exhaust, it sounds terrible and i can’t really drive on it.

anyway, right now i’m going to head down to reflections and play rockin for dollars and try to bring the party and squeeze some fun out of it.

i just dozed off at the wheel of my car parked in front of robin’s old apartment. that’s not good; none of that is good. i need to get out of here.

Vickers, those are my shoes, give them back. You are a cat. They don’t even fit.

Vickers is an old man and lately he’s been having some old man problems.

He lost his appetite and all but stopped eating. When you pick him up, he feels so much lighter, with shoulder bones sticking out. Have you ever seen a skinny Vickers? This has been a matter of great concern and heartbreak.

The vet shaved his belly and gave him an ultrasound. They found a cyst on his liver. The test was inconclusive. It could be lymphoma, which is a form of cancer. Or it could be lymphocytic portal hepatitis.

If it’s lymphoma then he’s all done. Another month, maybe two at the most. If it’s hepatitis, he will be taking steroid pills for the rest of his life, and he should be good for another few years (he’s 14 or 15).

So I’ve been giving him the pills. I tried stuffing them inside cat treats, but he’s not feeling these treats. (Has anyone seen Pounce on the store shelves lately? Gaspereau Forks is dry.) I have to tilt his head back and push them to the back of his little mouth with my fingertip. Vickers wasn’t too crazy about this at first. He has gotten good at taking pills though, and lately it doesn’t even interrupt his busy purring schedule.

Anyway I swear to god he’s been putting some weight back on since we started on the steroids. I’ve also put him back on Special Dinner. We’d had him on this swirly food that supposed to be all nutritionally ideal and blah blah blah but Special Dinner is all he ever liked to eat anyway.

I’d been planning on doing some serious touring this fall but I haven’t really been setting anything up. It doesn’t seem like a good time to be travelling. Should I just be optimistic and book a bunch of shows? Or should I be pessimistic and book a bunch of shows. I don’t know. I think I’ll probably just stay home.

Vickers is my best buddy. We’ve been companions since the mid-90s and I’m used to always having him around. The house has felt a little empty, a little eerie while he’s been doing tests in Saint John.

I got in the habit of leaving items of black clothing bundled up on the floor or lying on furniture around the house. I would notice the amorphous black bundles out of the corner of my eye and for a second I’d think it was Vickers having a snooze.

Anyway he’s back home now. We’ve just been hanging out, same as always. His personality hasn’t been affected in the slightest.

You guys should come for a visit.

A\V played a show last night in Springhill, Nova Scotia, birthplace of Anne Murray and home of the Springhill Mining Disaster.

The venue, the Lamp Cabin, had a sandy beach volleyball court laid out all nice in the backyard. Spring Break 2009!

My first time in Springhill reminded me of my first time visiting El Paso, Texas. It was the summer of 1927.

There were seven roads leading into El Paso guarded seven days a week by seven deadly snakes, each of which represented one of the seven deadly sins.

Pride. Envy. Sloth. Gluttony… Lust… Avarice. And uhh… Wrath.

The only actual way to gain entrance into El Paso was to pass through the gate guarded by the snake of Sloth. Because as you entered the city, Sloth would look at you and think… ehhh, I’ll just bite you next time. I’ll get around to it.

The locals knew this. El Paso residents would all come and go by way of the road guarded by Sloth. But I was not a local. I was a stranger, coming to El Paso Texas for the first time, during the dusty drought and the boil order of the hot summer of 1927.

And so it came to pass that I was bitten by the Snake of Lust.

Welcome to the latest edition of Party In Your Mouth, AKA Cooking With Uncle Philly. Today I am happy to share with you my recipe for delicious pineapple chicken.

Ingredients:
– Pineapple
– Chicken

Serves: 2

1. Grab yourself a couple of those fresh tender slabs of dead bird and grill the asses right off them.

2. Cut up a bunch of pineapple.

3. Put the pineapple on top of the chicken. PARTY!

Enjoy this classic taste of the Far East!