So last week, she decided to give back some joy. She had come across some catnip growing wild in another part of town, and decided to see if she could get the party started among these normally skittish night creatures.

The result? "It was bedlam. Licking, fighting, drooling, bodies lolling like an opium den." Check out the blackmail pictures on her Flickr set.

Alley cats on catnip

The sweet yet sad part about it is that these cats usually won't let humans go anywhere near them. Catnip loosened the inhibitions just a tad:

Licking the hand that dopes you

Got me thinking, what the hell is catnip, anyhow? It's the common name for Nepeta, a type of mint. Gives off a pheromone that gives cats a temporary euphoria lasting 5-10 minutes. Once they eat it, it becomes a sedative. Don't worry, they won't eat enough to O.D.

Here's something interesting - susceptibility to catnip is hereditary, affecting only two-thirds of cats. Australian cats do not react to it. And according to Wiki, "There is some disagreement about the susceptibility of lions and tigers to catnip." WTF? Who tested that one out?

Though it does sound like an experiment I'd like to watch, from a safe distance. Like YouTube, maybe.

You figure those books will ever really be used again?

As my colleague Vivian pointed out, it's a beautiful representation of love and trust - until you look on the ring finger of the smaller hand, right where a wedding ring might go, and spot the surveillance camera. Nice.

On Sunday, what appeared to be a snowy owl parked himself on the sign for a drug store at the corner of Queen St. East and Logan Ave. He drew quite a crowd, though he didn't seem bothered in the least. No idea why he decided to roost here in the middle of a Sunday afternoon. But my kids loved it!

This afternoon, an ad-bearing truck parked outside our office to advertise this product (apologies for the cellphone pic):

The product advertised: The Facet Gun. Looks a bit like a pop riveter, or a caulking gun. But when you look it up online, you can see it's used for quick 'n easy ... spinal surgery.

The Facet Gun is made by US Spine, a major manufacturer of spinal surgery equipment. Apparently it's "an entirely new type of posterior fixation" (oh man, the pun factor... can't... resist... "posterior fixation"... tee hee.) It quickly bolts on spinal implants. You know, in case you are up for a little DIY.

As my cellmate Kev says, the most disturbing part of this ad: "Shouldn't that guy be wearing gloves or something?"

As it turns out, the North American Spine Society  is holding their annual general meeting in Toronto. There's even some sort of workshop being held behind closed doors here in the CBC building. It's awfully tempting to crash the Cervical Spine Stabilization workshop or sneak into the Interbody Fusion Technologies class, although perhaps I'd be better suited for "An Introduction to Spine Care for Nonphysician Providers".

But it does amaze me - how many people walking past this mobile billboard are going to be in a position to make spinal surgery purchasing decisions? Obviously enough to keep US Spine in the green. And if you look at their Thoracolumbar products page, you'll see something even quicker and easier: a "Percutaneous Locking Facet Fixation" product called "LocTite". Yes, that LocTite - the guys who invented superglue.

Maybe you can do this spinal fusion stuff at home after all.

In Ontario, municipalities use different names for the August civic holiday, honouring historical figures Colonel By, Joseph Brant, Samuel McLaughlin, Alexander Mackenzie, John Galt and James Cockburn. Until his death in 2002 the residents of Cobourg, Ont. mistakenly believed the day to be named after James Coburn, and screened The Magnificent Seven on the side of City Hall every year. The practice has been discontinued.

Here in Toronto, it's Simcoe Day, named after John Graves Simcoe, who founded the city, and for good measure abolished slavery and introduced trial by jury, freehold land tenure, and "European-style" lapdancing.

His wife Elizabeth Simcoe, however, the second-best name in Canadian history*:

Elizabeth Posthuma Gwillim

To raid Wikipedia some more:

- Yes, the townships of North, West and East Gwillimbury that you pass through on Highway 400 on your way to cottage country are named after Ms. Gwillim. Gwillimburies may sound very tasty, but they give you the trots.

- The deliciously dark middle name Posthuma was chosen because her mother was buried the day baby Elizabeth was baptized. It is the same reason my middle name is Sprained Ankle.

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* #1 in my book is Amor de Cosmos, the second premier of British Columbia and third album by The Police.

Actually it's a used car dealership, but still... I'll bet the sticker price is reduced on this model. If you could see the sticker.

Nice billboard placement too. Family getaways are certainly NOT right next door. That's an oozing wall of cement next door. And your family won't be going anywhere.

Let me tell you, there are precious few crocuses in downtown Toronto, and the lovers don't stroll until it gets dark on Jarvis. So I did an informal poll of my colleagues, and here's our tentative Urban Signs of Spring list. See if you agree, or if you can add any to the list:

1. A winter's worth of dog turds and cigarette butts resurfaces from beneath the snow.
2. The good mangos reappear in the stalls in Chinatown.
3. Don Juan's chip truck parks across the road for the first time. Don's back (from Greece to grease.)
4. Jays home opener. Reporters say, once again, that this year they have a chance.
5. All the women on Queen St. suddenly wearing giant sunglasses.
6. Beer drinkers on sidewalk patios, wearing parkas.
7. Male pigeons start acting... twitterpated.
8. Rickshaws rides available. New runners, same ads for hot oil body massages.
9. The guy that delivers the water is already wearing shorts.
10. Building management discusses removing bike carcasses from around the perimeter.
11. News outlets run their annual pothole stories.
12. Building management turns on air conditioning.

What did I miss? Let me know!

This time around, it was nothing fun, per se, unless you define "fun" as replacing your faucets. And getting your carpets cleaned, your locks changed, etc. I'm still wrapping my head around this grown-up thing... blowing a thousand bucks on your vacation used to be way more fun than this.

Anyhow, a couple more items on Paul's List of Chores were taking some new pants in to get altered, and some shirts to get dry cleaned. Believe it or not that was actually a tiny bit of fun, if only because normally the only attention I pay to clothes is to wash them and frown at the wrinkles. What really made the trip, though, was that I got to wander down my stretch of Queen Street East and visit some genuine old school mom & pop stores.

Leslieville is a neighbourhood with a history. Hell, when they shot key scenes from Cinderella Man here, they didn't have to do anything to half the stores - and some of the others kept the movie fascades afterward - they were considered a marked improvement. (See my previous entry on that, plus my fleeting encounter with Russell Crowe.)

Anyhow, visits to both the tailor and the dry cleaners were like stepping into a time machine. Hand-painted signs, hand-tailored clothes. Linoleum floors. And yes, for what it's worth, the cleaners were Chinese and the tailor was Italian.

But the thing I had to take a picture of - and in a more modern store, would be discouraged from doing so - was the cash register in each place. Both were huge metal machines, painted in a faux woodgrain. Big, clanking buttons, and no hint of electricity (or much cash, actually.) Both had been in use in those locations for an estimated 40 years, and both had stories to go with them.

Above is the one from the cleaner - and notice that the fee for one dress shirt and one wool sweater was a rather reasonable $4.90. The family that runs the business bought it second-hand in the mid-1960s, but estimate that it's probably twice that old.

Here's the one from the tailor - with buttons for $1, $10, $20 and so on, and rectangular cards that pop up to display your purchase. The tailor did upgrade to a small electronic register - small enough to be stolen a few years later. So they went back to this model, which a thief would have a hell of a time tucking under his arm.

The tailoring was a little more expensive than the cleaning, but perhaps the two stores are in cahoots - the pants smell faintly of the Italian cigarettes the tailor no doubt smoked while he worked his magic. Yet another throwback. Still, smoke 'em while you got 'em - after generations in Leslieville, the tailor is closing down for good in a few months.

I wonder what will fill the gap in Queen St. E., and what they'll do with his register.

You may recall that there's a giant pit just to the east of the CBC's Toronto HQ. It's part of the construction of the new Ritz-Carlton hotel and RBC Centre office tower at Wellington and Simcoe streets. (I've been snapping some photos along the way and putting them in a Flickr folder - maybe in two years I can create a time-lapse animated .gif, or something.)

Construction is apparently moving apace, despite a strike that nobody noticed from the Laborers' International Union of North America (L.I.U.N.A. Local 506). That strike consisted of a chain across the entrance way for a few days - no picketers, no website, no concerts by the Barenaked Ladies.

Anyhow, what interests me about this site at the moment is the "branding" on the construction hoarding that surrounds the east end of the site. The RBC Centre is being branded not as "the first new Toronto office tower in a decade", or "a really tall, expensive container for bankers to roll around in your money", but something more homey - and ridiculous.

Apparently this is not a building. It's your new best friend.

It claims to be:

• A building with a work/life balance
• A building that pays its way
• A building comfortable in its own skin
• A building with a conscience
• A building that works for employees
• A building that is breaking ground
• A building that makes an impression

WTF? Is this building actually alive, with blood and emotions and some sort of benign Hal 9000 brain? Are they building it not with jackhammers and concrete and steel, but with spoonfuls of love, group hugs and fluffy bunnies?

Yeah, I get the idea. Personalize the space, appeal to our softer instincts, make it sound as different as possible from the cold, cash-driven sort of banking towers they fly planes into. But come on - it's an office tower, not a loft, or mom's house, or a hippy commune.

This sort of cloying anthropomorphism really burns my britches. Anyone who has kids knows what I'm talking about - it's cute for a while, when little Sally says "that car is happy" or "the sky is crying." But last week my daughter asked me, "why does the toilet like to eat poo and drink pee?" Yeargh!

If the RBC Centre wants to pretend it's your cousin, fine. Here are my suggestions for construction hoarding slogans:

• A building that will take out your garbage
• A building that loves long walks on the beach
• A building that would open its windows if they weren't sealed shut
• A building with an extensive shoe collection
• A building that is a little afraid of lightning
• A building with a degree from Yale
• A building that once had a tryout for the Ti-Cats
• A building with erectile dysfunction
• A building that served three years in the National Guard
• A building that feels guilty when birds hit it
• A building that thinks your weight is just fine
• A building that took a year off to "find itself"
• A building that promises not to shed large pieces of marble

So, what human trait describes the building you work in? (Mine likes to eat poo.)