Not From Around Here at Fort Calgary

For the past number of months I've been working with Atsushi Ono, a Japanese magician now living in Calgary, putting together a 60-minute two-magician stage show that we've called Not From Around Here. As far as I can tell this is unique in  Western Canada; other people have done shows with two magicians taking turns, but this one is entirely scripted and choreographed to feature two magicians throughout!

We were recently approached by Fort Calgary to be part of their dinner theatre season, and along with our third member Barry Crane 'Da Newfie MC' we did our first show at the Fort last week. And it was a great night! We had so much fun.

We start with close-up strolling magic over the cocktail period, then a little more between courses (with Barry doing his hilarious meet-and-greet), and the main show is after dinner. Unlike most 'dinner theatre' events, after the meal everyone walks down the hallway to the purpose-built 140-seat theatre for the show. Yup - cushioned seats, red curtains and the whole bit. Such a treat to be able to perform in a venue like this.

The first show was wonderful fun and a superb evening and the next one is coming up in less than two weeks! Thursday 27 March 2014. You can get tickets via www.fortcalgary.com!

Oh - you can also visit our website - www.notfromaroundhere.ca, and find us on both Facebook ('Not From Around Here') and Twitter (NFAH).

...And saying goodbye to Snowdon.

It's been less than a month since Augustus died, and sadly little Snowdon had to leave us yesterday as well. He'd developed a tumour on his neck over the past few months; surgery would have been risky, healing would have been difficult and the whole thing would have been shockingly expensive so we agreed to let him live the happiest life possible until the tumour began causing him problems.

We weren't sure how he would recover from Augustus' death but he surprised us. He really came into his own. He was happy, binky, active and outgoing. King of all he surveyed.

Yesterday morning, though, he caught the tumour with his claw with a vigorous scratch and managed to tear a gash along it. Within an hour it was obvious that this would not heal well. He was in distress. We had one more dose of Tramadol in the fridge which made things easier for him, but at 3:30pm we had an appointment with the vet.

I have to say the vet we use is always fantastic. She sedated him partially in order to look for a vein but - as often happens with little bunnies - she was unable to find one with the needle. She gave us the option of being with him as they put him under with gas and then injected the euthanol into his heart, but I would have found that too hard to watch. He would have been asleep anyway and would not have know we were there. We had a few final minutes with him, and then said our goodbyes. He was three years old.

Rough day, and the house is now terribly empty.

So it goes.

The first photo here is him getting an unlimited breakfast buffet of snacks yesterday morning.

Saying goodbye to Augustus

Sadly last week we had to say goodbye to our little Augustus. He was three years old.

By June he'd gone through GI stasis three times in 12 weeks, and each time we spent days with him, force-feeding him critical care mix and meds every 2~4 hours. It was hard on him, and it was hard on us. There was no apparent reason for this happening, but our vet (a very good rabbit vet) suggested feeding him metaclopramide and trimebutine prophylactically to see if it would keep his guts working.

Every three days or so we'd dose him up (he loved the banana flavour we added and would lick it off the tip of the syringe) in the hopes that it would stave off the GI stasis longer.

I don't think it worked.

Only five weeks after the last time he stopped eating, it happened again last Sunday. Fourth time in four months. On Saturday evening he was gobbling his snacks as he sat (reluctantly, as always) on my lap and got stuck straight into his bedtime nuggets, but in the morning the nuggets were almost entirely still there. Wouldn't touch his banana, wouldn't take any other food. He looked listless and in pain.

We had already talked it over at length and decided that if it happened again we would have to say goodbye. Knowing the pain he was in each time, for days at a time (the tramadol would help but who knows how uncomfortable he was each time the meds wore off), and how awful it must be to have a giant syringe full of 'baby-gack' stuck down your throat every couple of hours, we just couldn't justify putting him through it again and again and again. For all we know, it might have continued every month interminably, and that's not fair to put an animal through.

So Nadine and I took him to the vet's one last time.

I had to go to work but Nadine took his body home for 24 hours for Snowdon's sake. Apparently bonded animals recover from grief better if they've been allowed to see the body of their friend after death, rather than just not understanding why their friend vanished into thin air one morning. I'm happy to say that Snowdon seems to be doing well. He was quite uncertain what to make of Augustus' body, but tried grooming him a little and went over to sniff him a number of times.

On an unrelated note, we're beginning to wonder if Snowdon might be deaf! He's always been slow to respond to a number of things (calls for snacks, crows and other noises outside etc) and we're trying to work out how to tell for certain whether he is in fact hard of hearing or not.

Augustus video - first harness experience

Ok, looks like I might have worked out how to upload it. Let's see if this has done the trick...

Augustus on his first harness foray

The weather is lovely, the birds are out and all the flowers are coming up. Here's a little video of Augustus on his first-ever harness excursion in our back garden. They used to have a large run in the garden but it didn't survive last winter so we got one of these instead to try out.

Hmmm... can't seem to get the video to upload. Here are some photos instead.

Holiday of sorts

We're off to Moose Jaw in the morning to help my mother prep her house for sale.  In our absence my sister in law will be bunny sitting.  This means pen life for both until we get back.  As you can see Augustus is less than thrilled at the prospect.

New photos from Jason Verschoor

Quick update here - thought I'd show off the new promo photos I had taken recently by photographer Jason Verschoor. Some wonderful images here! The Japanese fellow in some of the shots is magician Atsushi Ono, my occasional performing partner.