Song Sung Blue

I received this email-propogated quiz from two friends today, and I'm going to answer the questions, at least some of them, as honestly as I feel comfortable sharing, but since I have this blog and since those of you who read it already know that music is very important to me, I decided that rather than email my answers, I'd post them here.

Question 1: What is the total number of music files on your computer?

Fewer than 100. Probably fewer than 50. The only songs I download are for the purpose of karaoke consideration. Last week I downloaded Cher's Dark Lady, because I thought it might be fun to sing it at the next KAK, but then I thought my karaoke buddies might not speak to me afterwards, so I haven't tried it yet. I don't get why anyone would want to listen to music on their computer. I have a stereo — a good one. With speakers that'd blow my neighbour's roof off. I also have a Dual turntable and several hundred records. My computer's for writing.

Question 2: What was the last CD you bought?

The new Green Day, twice. First, for my cousin M for Christmas, then for my friend Simon for his birthday.

Oh, you mean for myself? While Christmas shopping I couldn't resist HMV's 2/$25 sale, so I bought London Calling (which I only had on vinyl) and Bleach (which I only had on cassette).

No, wait, that's not accurate. I bought the Nirvana box set, With The Lights Out, just after Christmas.

Question 3: What is the song you last listened to before reading this message?

Carson, who is one of the friends who emailed the quiz to me, will think I'm lying but it was The Killing Moon by Echo and the Bunnymen. It was the last song I heard on the car radio when I got to school today. I was singing along with it, wondering if I could do it at KAK. I think I probably can.

Question 4: What are the five songs that you listen to a lot or that mean the most to you?

My first thought in response to this question is the same as P's in the email:

Oh Jesus. I think I'd rather strip naked and run through a Barnes and Noble screaming "I'm a real go-getter" at the top of my lungs. Honestly, I find that too personal a question (or perhaps I just fear that my answers would lay me too bare to anyone who might be reading this).

My second thought is that it would be disingenuous of me to speak my first thought, since I've already revealed more embarassing things about myself in these virtual pages.

My third thought is of Rob Gordon in High Fidelity, saying you can't just come up with a list of your top ten favourite songs, it has to be top ten songs to listen to when you're alone and depressed, or top ten songs to play when you're celebrating, or top ten... so I decided to give you my top five songs that make me all verklempt. Me and you, are subject to, the blues now and then. But when you take the blues and make a song, you sing 'em out again. So:

1. At the end of White Christmas (one of my five favourite movies), when they open the barn door behind the stage, and it's snowing, and Bing and Rosemary and the gang all sing White Christmas, I always, always cry. It makes me weep like a willow every time. My eyes are starting to water right now, just remembering it.

2. One Way or Another, by Blondie, because it's my favourite song by my favourite band, and because I have the album, Parallel Lines, in every possible medium including [wait for it] the 8-track tape. Oh, and the guitar chord music book. I used to be able to play it on the guitar (I'm not very good, but it's not a hard song.). I have sung it with various bands and musicians over the years, and I can kill with it in karaoke.

3. O Waly, Waly (The Water Is Wide) — but I won't tell you why. Sorry.

4. Haitian Divorce, by Steely Dan. Ditto. Funny thing, I can sing it with a cry in my voice.

5. Closing Time, by Tom Waits. Again, ditto. Again, sorry. But I refer to the whole album, not just the song. Record album, that is. Vinyl. On a turntable, you know, the kind that, every time it gets to the end the needle picks up and goes back to the beginning.

Over and over.

Question 5: What three people are you going to pass this on to and why?

I'm not going to email it to anyone. I'm not sure why. I guess I just wanted to post it here. I like silly "quizzes" of this sort — not long ago I took one that Logan's Dave posted on his site, something to do with numerology. I find them amusing, and terrific procrastination devices.

Right.

Back to work.

One last thing, though. Could somebody please explain to me what a meme is? I have vague memories of learning about memes in a linguistics class at university, and I'm failing to make the connection between linguistics and blogs, though I'm sure it's there somewhere. The original subject line of this email was "music memes," and there's a category in the Bloggie Awards for "Best Meme." I don't get it.

Update:

Since I first posted this story two days ago several readers have emailed me with explanations of the meaning of meme. Carrington Vanston wrote a very detailed, thoroughly comprehensible and enjoyable, description of a meme, then suggested that, were I to pass it along his description would itself be a meme.

A meme meme? A meme within a meme? A metameme? The postmodern mind reels in delight.

I'm still trying to remember what it was I learned about memes in my intro to linguistics class in 1987. I remember the word because I loved the sound of it, but the memory of its meaning is lost in my brain's database somewhere. I know it's there, I just can't figure out how to access it.

I think it has something to do with hamburgers, though.

I remember my professor — well, no, I don't remember her, but I remember her telling us that the word hamburger came into use because the delicacy which we call by that name was first created in the town of Hamburg. Over the years the last two syllables of the word were appropriated by the namers of similar foods: cheeseburger, fishburger, tofuburger, spamburger; and in contemporary use can stand alone as a word, "burger," or be used in conjunction with adjectives such as "deluxe" or "vegetarian."

I think she said burger is an example of a meme. I could be mistaken. Hey, it's been almost 18 years since I sat in that classroom.

Gentle Reader, if you are a linguistics professor, talk to Sass.

Go to next story

You Know My Name

Ah, those great lyricists, The Beatles:

You know my name, ba ba ba ba, look up the number
You know my name, look up the number
You, you know, you know my name, baby
You, you know, you know my name*

Today I told my students Jack's name, and boy, have they got his number. The course is intro to marketing, and it's required for all second year business students at the university where I teach. This term, this class is made up almost entirely of accounting majors. Talk about a tough audience.

Me: "Today's topic is market segmentation and targeting."

They're thrilled. I can tell.

There ensues a lecture with lots of boring stuff from the textbook, leading up to this slide:



Me: "I want you to think about the person you imagine wearing this watch, that is, the typical customer. This particular Rolex, by the way, is owned by a friend of mine. I want you to tell me about him."

Student: "He's between the ages of 35 and 45."

Me: "He's a particular person, remember, not an age range. How old is he?"

Student: "37."

Me: "And you're saying he's a man, right, not a woman? In other words, demographic segmentation, specifically gender, is relevant?"

Student: "Well, it's a man's watch."

Me: "True. OK, you're right. His name is Jack, by the way. So tell me more about Jack. What does he do for a living?"

Student: "He's a businessman."

Me: "You mean he owns a business?"

Student: "No, he works for a business."

Me: "Can you be more specific? What kind of work does he do?"

Another student: "He's in sales."

Me: "Good guess! He's a sales engineer for a large software company. Where does he live?"

Student: "In a really nice apartment."

Me: "Where in the world?"

Student: "In Toronto."

Me: "Is geographic segmentation relevant to this product category?"

Student: "No, but the fact that he lives in a big city is relevant to his... personality."

Student: "Psychographics!"

Me: "Excellent! Jack lives in San Francisco, so you're certainly on the right track. What kind of car does he drive?"

Student: "A Lexus!"
Student: "A BMW!"
Student: "A Honda!"

Me: "A Honda?"

Laughter.

Me: "Be specific — don't just give me brand, give me model. Oh, and Jack actually has three cars. Yes, really. What kind of car do you imagine the wearer of this watch to drive?"

Student: "A BMW 5-series."

Me: "Whoa, you are freaking me out! Jack has two BMW's, and one is a 1992 5-series that he is emotionally attached to because he's had it for years. What's the other one?"

Student: "A 7-series?"

Me: "Better..."

Student: "Not an M5!!"

Me: "Oh yes. An M5."

Envious sighs from several boys in the class.

Me: "OK, now the third car spends most of its time in storage. It's not his main car, it's more of a specialty. What is it?"

Student: "A Corvette!"
Student: "An old MG!"
Student: "An old Beetle convertible!"

Me: "I wonder why none of you is saying a Toyota Celica?"

Laughter.

Me: "I'll give you a hint: Remember when we talked about consumer behaviour last week, and I told you the car that is my aspirational goal?"

Many students simultaneously: "A Porsche!"

Me: "Be... specific..."

Three students simultaneously: "Carrera!"

Me: "Amazing! Are you sure you don't know Jack?"

Laughter.

Me: "What else can you tell me about him? Give me some psychographic bases of segmentation."

Student: "He likes to go hiking and stuff like that. You know, an outdoorsy-type. That would be... lifestyle?"

Me: "It's lifestyle, yes. How many of you think Jack lives that sort of lifestyle? That he's the outdoorsy type?"

Student: "No way! He's the kind of person who cares a lot about his surroundings. He lives in a really nice place; probably has a big home theatre setup."

Student: "And a computer, but a really good one, all loaded; the best of everything."

Student: "He's probably into music."

Me: "Interesting. Why do you say that?"

Student: "Because he's your friend."

Laughter. I hear a voice to my right mumble "Green Day", and, barely audible from the left, "Offspring." I am simultaneously thrilled that they are getting the point, and a little scared that they know me too well.

Student: "He's the kind of guy who pays other people to do stuff for him."

Me: "Funny you should say that. He told me a while ago that he sends his laundry out to be done. I don't mean just the drycleaning, I mean everything. Sends it out to someplace, and it gets returned to him all nice and folded."

Murmurs of disbelief that such a thing is possible.

Me: "And you thought I was — what's the word I'm looking for here? — a spendthrift — because I told you I go out of my way to find gas stations where they'll pump the gas for me. Not all consumers are price-sensitive about the same thing. Marketing is about providing customer value, but what the customer deems to be of value is a highly personal decision. It's hard to get into the mind of the consumer. You guys must be mind readers or something. What else do you know about Jack?"

Student: "He's very particular about his appearance. Probably because he works in sales... he's a bit, um <hesitantly>, showy."

Me: "That's OK, you go right ahead and call him a showoff. You know what? I think he'd be OK with that."

Laughter.

I'm just fine with it, myself.

I did not tell my students that the watch is unusually heavy. I did not tell them that I know this because I've held it. Jack never takes his watch off, not even to go surfing. But he did take it off once, in the middle of the night, so as to avoid bonking me in the head with it.

When the class was over the student, a girl, who had hesitantly called Jack a showoff said to me, "He's really good looking, too, isn't he? And probably tall."

I may have blushed, then. I sure hope not, but I think I probably did.

Me: "Now, what makes you say that?"

Student: "Just your voice."

*Postmodern postscript: This song was the B-side of Let It Be.

* * *
Go to the next story, in which Sass tries on a meme for size. To find out how Jack got his name (and how Sass got hers), go here. Later, Postmodern Sass is hypnotized by her students, and baffled by their performance on their midterm.

I'm So Excited

After having been repeatedly defeated this morning by "bandwidth exceeded" messages on the Bloggies site, I finally got through and discovered that three of our own GTA Bloggers have been nominated. GTA, by the way, stands for Greater Toronto Area, and it's what we Torontonians call our city when we're not calling it T'ranna.

The queen of the knit-one-purl-two, Marmalade.ca, is up for Best Canadian Weblog. Kelly, I'm still laughing at the Wonton Challenge.

Rannie the photojunkie, who continually reminds us of the beauty that is T'ranna, even when it's -30° out there, is nominated in the same category, as is one of my favourite daily reads, Accordion Guy — but Joey, if you don't lay off with the creepy Photoshopped Bill Gates images I'm going to boycott you!

For me, the most exciting news to come out of the annual Bloggies was the discovery of Tequila Mockingbird, who won the Best Kept Secret blog award last year. This year she's up for Best Writing, and she's already got my vote. (By the way, Tequila, and cc: to Nikolai, I agree with you that any content on a blog is, by definition, blog content. I have no idea what they mean by Best Non-Weblog Content either.) Sometimes when I read Tequila, I have a Twilight Zone moment where I feel like I'm reading my own words, but I can't remember writing them.

I heard from a few of my readers who nominated me for a nomination for Best Kept Secret blog, and for that I thank you very much. Even though I didn't get nominated, it's an honour just to be nominated to be nominated! Maybe next year.

Voting for the 2005 Bloggies is open to anyone with an email address. Cast your votes here.

Go to next story

Welcome to a New Kind of Tension

A couple of weeks before Christmas there was an envelope in my mailbox, the return address of which bore the names of my friends C and S, who aren't speaking to me. It sat on my kitchen table for a week before I worked up the courage to open it.

To my surprise, it was a lovely card which contained the following message: "Thank you so much for the beautiful sheets. They are on our bed now. I am sorry we did not end our last correspondence on a great note. Can we start again?" It was signed with one X and one O, Carly and Simon. Simon's name looks like he wrote it, but the rest of the missive is clearly Carly's effort.

You've got to admit that was a pretty classy move on her part, sending a note to a female friend of her husband's, encouraging the continuation of a friendship. I mean, a lot of women, most women, I would think, would take the opportunity to cross me off their Christmas card list. Not that Simon and I were ever a couple (and not that I'm saying that there wasn't a time, pre-Carly, post-X, when something might have happened — did I mention that he's also 6'3"?), but most women are threatened by other women who are in their husband's lives, especially when those women are single. To not be threatened by me shows that Carly is not insecure, not catty, and, well, that she's a classy dame. I like her more and more.

So I sent an email to both of them, saying how happy I was to hear from them, and of course I want to try again. I apologized again for missing their wedding, but that's the last time I'm saying anything about it. They made it clear that they don't feel being stood up is an acceptable reason for foregoing the blessed nuptials, and I think that makes them heartless, but I prefer their anger to their pity, as I told you, Gentle Reader, last October. But then Christmas was upon us, and we weren't able to get together.

Simon's birthday, I remembered, is at the end of January, so 'round about the middle of the month I sent an email, just to him this time, inquiring about birthday party plans, and promising that, were an invitation to be extended, I'll come this time, with or without a date, most likely without. He replied immediately, saying that plans were in the works and he'd let me know. And I replied, saying I was very glad that he was speaking to me again. His final reply showed me that I've got Simon back:

"My memory is similar to that of a dog's: I remember who my mate is, where the food is, and loud scary noises, but everything else is pretty much like it never happened."

So last night friends of Simon gathered at Lot 16 for drinks. I'm getting to know his circle — even though I missed the wedding, I was there for the engagement party a week prior. It was a karaoke party; I wouldn't have missed it for the world. Simon seemed surprised that I could sing. We did Eminem together.

Of the posse that gathered for the party last night, many remembered me from the engagement party. A couple of people made comments like, "Oh yes, I remember you from the wedding..."

Yes, that's right. I'm gonna go ahead and go with that...

Anyway, last night there was Carly's sister, Cassie, and her boyfriend, Sam, who lives in Chicago but always seems to be here in T'ranna. He must have a serious whack of frequent-flyer points. We tease him about being an honourary Canadian. He's more honourary than many of us, being one of those foreigners who knows more about the country than the locals. And he's not a bad singer, either.

I hadn't met Carly and Cassie's father before last night, though. I'm good with dads, have I ever mentioned that? No? One day I'll finish the story about my karaoke buddy, E's, dad. But I digress.

C&C's dad is Martin, and he's one of those men who looks exactly like his name: tall, narrow face, glasses, salt-and-pepper beard. He is 52, which makes me closer to him in age than I am to Carly. At least I think so. It seemed that way to me last night. We sat beside each other for an hour, talking about our Volkswagens, and what fun it was driving through the snow. About 15 centimetres of the stuff fell yesterday, and because it was also very cold, -16, it didn't melt, but just accumumlated so that driving was a challenge in traction-finding. Martin and I both expressed the joy of driving a little German tractor, made for just such occasions.

There was Peter, Simon's friend who works at Queen's Park, who's an interesting guy. He knows a lot about music, and I like him OK, but at the karaoke engagement party I sensed he was going to ask me out, and began to practise what last night I got very good at: moving around the room and including others in our conversation.

Rabba, who's Serbian, was there with his new girlfriend, Dagmar, who's also Serbian and who looks exactly like Julia Roberts. There were a few friends of Carly's, who spent most of the time talking with her, and a few other guys, some of them quite tall but all of them, except for Martin, attached to one of the females. Usually, at parties, I hang with the guys. I've been that way since I was six years old and learned that boys are typically more fun, smarter, and more interesting than girls, and I haven't found cause to change my position on that. But last night there was a great deal of talk about football. Apparently today there are two big important games; something about deciding who'll play in the Super Bowl.

I couldn't care less about football. I'm still mourning hockey.

I gave Simon the new Green Day album for a birthday present. This is the second time I've bought it hoping that the person for whom it is intended already has it, so I can keep it. Darn it all, my cousin M loved it too when I gave it to him for Christmas.

I have to laugh, though, at the parental advisories our righteous neighbours to the south insist on. If the parents don't know who Green Day is, are they going to listen to the record so they can understand why the "warning" is needed?

Don't want to be an American Idiot
The subliminal mindfuck America

Are the parents being warned that Green Day is calling them idiots? Or that the lyrics contain the words "faggot" and "mindfuck?"

Either way, I guess they don't sell this one at Walmart.

In the next story, Postmodern Sass gets excited.

We Three Kings

I love getting presents, and this week I got three.

I've been looking after my neighbour's cats while they've been away over the holidays, and earlier in the week all three of them returned, bearing gifts they traverse afar. I really don't know what myrrh is, but I did get gold and something not dissimilar to frankincense.

You can learn about a person from the gifts they give you.

Sunaja, whose cat, Gambit, is a beautiful and very friendly orange tabby, has been in India for a month with her father. Gambit and I have been having a fine time watching Trading Spaces, which seems always to be on, no matter what time I turn on the TV. I don't have cable, so visiting a cat who does is as much fun for me as it is for him to have a lap to sit on for an hour. Today, he's the happiest cat in T'ranna, because his mommy is home. Sunaja brought me a lovely wooden box full of Darjeeling tea.

Donnatella and Ermenegildo — I call them The Spanish Cats because it's easier to pronounce — are owned by a couple whose family lives in Colombia. Every Christmas they go for a long visit — "they" being Maria and Carlos, not Donnatella and Ermenegildo.

Though I am more familiar with Maria and Carlos's home than I am with them personally, I can tell you they are handsome and stylish. Maria is an artist. The spare bedroom in their home is her studio. I like her work: abstract paintings with lots of reds and blacks. She brought me an unusual, museum-inspired gold stickpin; a concentric swirl design, and a brochure from the Museo del Oro in Bogotá that explains the inspiration for the art. Then apologized because it's in Spanish.

The Italian Cats live with Angela, and are white Persians named Leo and Daphne. In the summer when Angela shaves them she leaves little tufts of fur around their paws and at the ends of their tails, which makes them look exactly like Truffula Trees.

Angela is a Life Coach — yes, that's what it says on her business card — who's looking for a husband, and with whom I've had many wine-filled discussions about men, love, and sex.

Angela went to New York for the weekend with her boyfriend, Luciano. I asked her to bring me an interesting New York souvenir. I've been to the City many, many times; even worked there for a few months, so I've already got the key chains and fridge magnets. Angela knows this. She brought me a black thong with the I♥NY logo on the front.

There's only one man I'd consider modeling this souvenir for, but for now it's going in the drawer with the red plaid schoolgirl outfit.

I hope she wasn't thinking that it'd be helpful for me in finding a husband... because me, I ain't looking. I had one for a long, long time, and now that he's gone I have no desire to break in another.

Funny, Angela was married before, too. She has nothing good to say about her X. Apparently he cheated on her, and generally treated her like dirt. You gotta wonder about men, I mean, Angela's stunningly beautiful, and she's Italian, from Rome. You can picture her, right? I can't understand why she wants another husband, but she does. She's quite methodical about it. She doesn't date to have fun, she dates to evaluate men as to their potential husbandworthiness.

Then again, I've seen Luciano, and he doesn't look like husband material at all. Plenty of fun, though, I bet.

When people bring you gifts it really is the thought that counts. Because it's the thought, the effort, the knowing of you, the giftee, that determines whether the gift will be a success.

On the other hand, when you give a gift you never really know if you've been successful, because the people to whom you give a gift always say they like it, even when they don't. There's that one split second, though, when they first lay eyes on it that, if you're watching closely, you can discern their true response. The practised viewer of Trading Spaces understands the moment to which I refer.

I think I'll try on that thong, just in case.

In the next story, Postmodern Sass makes up with her friend Simon, whose wedding she didn't attend because Jack stood her up.

Hopelessly Devoted To You

I continue to reel from the shocking reports out of Indonesia, Thailand, and Sri Lanka as the other side of the world begins the unimaginable task of recovering from the tsunami. Though the devastation caused by it is mindbogglingly horrific, as I grapple with assigning the news a locus on my schema it occurs to me that it is not as bad as the destruction of the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001.

Exponentially more people have died. The costs of rebuilding will be tens, hundreds, thousands of times greater. A dozen countries, not one, were victimized. Am I mad to say it's not as bad?

I don't think so.

In the days after September 11 there was nothing else on CNN. There was nothing else on any television network. All regular programming was pre-empted by news from New York. For days. I've been watching TV this week and the programming has been as regular as it ever is over the Christmas holidays, which is to say reruns of network shows at best, silly specials like Dynasty: The Making of a Guilty Pleasure at worst. My friend AC reported no irregularities in his New Year's Day football orgy.

Last night CTV's correspondent in Banda Aceh, speaking with the camera framing no greater panorama than his upper body, said, "The carnage and destruction is difficult to convey, and the images too gruesome to show television viewers." In 2001, the news media in Europe were criticized by Americans for showing video and still pictures of people jumping from the burning towers. It was months before American television resumed broadcast of Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwartzenegger, and Sylvester Stallone movies.

True Lies was on TV last night. It's clear my evaluation of the newsworthiness of the tragedy in Indonesia is not only validated by NBC, ABC, CBS, and Fox, but corroborated.

And so begins the posting of the pictures and the names of the missing on public walls and such lamp posts as remain standing.

Those of us watching television reports of this behaviour understand the futility of it, but will not admit it aloud, even to ourselves, because to say so would be uncharitable, verging on cruel. And, besides, what do we know, sitting in our comfortable, warm, living rooms, drinking vanilla bean hot chocolate, safe in the knowledge that though a blizzard may be raging outside our windows, there's nothing that can happen to us that can even begin to come near to possibly getting close to some sort of an empathic understanding of what those shattered souls in Banda Aceh are going through.

It's like in the story, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge, by Ambrose Bierce: Though it seems incredibly improbable that the rope would break at just that moment, allowing the prisoner to escape, we nonetheless suspend our disbelief because we're sympathetic to him, because we want him to make it home, and because, well, it is possible that that could happen. We get so wrapped up in the excitement of his flight that when finally the rope snaps taut and we realize we were experiencing vicariously a hope fantasy, the truth is all the more shocking and horrible.

When Sandy Olsen sings that she's hopelessly devoted to Danny Zuko, what she means is that she can't stop loving him, even though he has rejected her. We've all been there, we can relate, hence the decades-long popularity of Grease in all its forms.
The homeless survivors and orphaned loved ones on the circumference of the Indian Ocean are devoted to the hopeless notion that the missing will be found alive. And we can't even begin to relate.

I'll begin, anyway. This is my story of hopeless hope. I'll never forget the lesson it taught me.

When I was in university I lived for a year on the 13th floor of an apartment building on the corner of Girouard and Sherbrooke. It was a tiny bachelor apartment, one room with an alcove for the bedroom, and a door in the north-facing wall that opened to a very small balcony. To the right of the door was a narrow window, the boundary of which barely overlapped, by only a few inches, the railing of the balcony.

Because of the close quarters of our living arrangements and the necessity of cats to have a litter box, my cat Beaker's little boy's room, during the summer months, was the balcony. Beaker was a black cat with white paws and tummy, adopted from a neighbour's litter two years earlier, and named after the character in The Muppet Show because the baby-cat squeaking sounds that so endeared me to my pet reminded me of the non-verbal exclamations of Dr. Bunsen Honeydew's assistant.

Beaker liked to sit on the balcony and monitor the traffic on the Decarie Expressway thirteen floors below. My neighbour to the right, a corpulent gentleman given to shirtless tanning, was fond of the same activity. The two of them would be out there for hours, not exactly together, but nonetheless not far apart, as my neighbour's balcony also edged against the opposite boundary of the previously mentioned narrow window.

One fine day in June I was sitting on the sofa watching TV when suddenly Beaker glided through the window from the outside like a Flying Wallenda and alighted gracefully on the far end of the sofa. Such cat acrobatics, while mightily impressive, nearly stopped my heart — it's thirteen floors up without a net.

Ever try to stop a cat from doing something once it's learned how?

I tried not letting him out for days at a time, but the pathetic meowing and relentless scratching on the door eventually caused me to give in. But I'd only let him out when I was home, and then I'd leave the door wide open. Why would he try to jump back in through the window when there was a perfectly functional and far more convenient doorway to walk through, I reasoned.

Later that summer my boyfriend, Norman, dropped by with a carload of something or other that required my help in unloading. He buzzed from the lobby, and I went downstairs to meet him. Twenty minutes later we were back in my apartment. I was pouring us a drink when I noticed that Beaker hadn't come to greet us. When you come through the door carrying rustling packages and your cat doesn't snake around your ankles in hopes of a treat, you know something's wrong.

I called kitty, kitty. I looked out on the balcony. Under the sofa. Then, though I was feeling just the tiniest hint of panic way down deep in my stomach, but just the tiniest hint, I calmly and methodically opened every cupboard and container in the place. It didn't take long; this was a very small apartment.

No Beaker.

But he must be here somewhere, I reasoned again.

I went back out onto the balcony. My neighbour wasn't tanning, but his balcony door was open. His railing wasn't a foot from mine, and if Beaker could jump up onto my railing and pounce from there in through the window, surely he could pounce onto the next railing if he wanted to. That was it; he must be in my neighbour's apartment.

"He's next door," I exclaimed with relief to Norman, "Let's go get him."

"Did your neighbour say he's got him?"

"No, but he must be over there. Buddy's door's open; Beaker must have jumped over there and gone in."

He must have.

We knocked on the neighbour's door, but there was no answer.

"That's odd," I said, "His balcony door's open. I guess he must have gone out. Beaker must have gotten into the hallway somehow."

I called for Beaker, and made a circumference of the corridor. A couple of neighbours heard me and opened their doors to ask what was wrong. "Oh, my cat seems to have gotten out somehow. Have you seen him?"

They hadn't.

I came around full circle, back to my door, then went around again for good measure. On the second pass I fixed on the door to the stairwell.

"He must have gotten into the stairwell! Poor Beaker; he must be so frightened by this time!"

Norman said nothing, but followed me as I walked slowly down thirteen flights of stairs, calling for my cat.

We reached the lobby, and still no Beaker. Now I was truly puzzled. Where could he be? The lobby was small, with no place for a kitty to hide. Unless he had escaped out the door and into the street! Oh no! Beaker had never been outside! He might be lost!

I grabbed Norman and was pulling him toward Girouard Avenue when we literally ran into the building's caretaker. He was a big guy, so I didn't quite knock him down.

"Did you see a cat out there?" I asked hurriedly, in lieu of an apology.

"Oh..." he paused. "Which apartment you're in?"

"1314."

He made that sound my father makes sometimes, by sucking air through closed teeth, lips only slightly open. I knew what that sound meant.

"Big black cat?"

"With white paws!"

"He's on the balcony, 315. They call me jus' now."

I heard the words. I comprehended the English, even through the heavy French accent. I'd been in Montreal for three years, I was used to communicating this way. But I didn't understand what he was telling me. Norman did, though. He put his arm around me and turned me toward the elevator. I don't remember what happened after that.

Today, in memory of Beaker, and in the spirit of Hope, I went to the Web site of the Canadian Red Cross and made a donation to the tsunami relief fund. You can donate online with your credit card, and they'll email you a tax receipt in PDF format.

In the next story, Postmodern Sass gets three Christmas presents. More than twenty years after Beaker went parachuting without a parachute, Sass will lose another beloved cat.