Elton John & My Dog Philip

In today's post you will learn nothing useful. But you will get to see a slightly out of focus photo I took of Elton John last week and get to do a time wasting online puzzle of Philip. Because for today Google can suck it.

That's right. I told Google to suck it. Google can go and suck a big fat egg. For today anyway. If you're wondering what THAT'S all about you can read my post from last week about how Google and blogging works.

Even though Google doesn't give a crap about how I went to see Elton John last week and had 8th ROW TICKETS - you might. And that is how we got to this post.

Here's how it happened. For the past - oh, I'm going to say since Tab was a popular drink choice - I've wanted to see Elton John in concert. Because he's an icon, a showman and even in the Tab days was getting on in years.

I knew one year he was going to stop touring. That year was 2020. But I forgot to get tickets for the 37th year in a row.

As luck would have it, in 2020 the entire world was shut down due to a toilet paper shortage. So Elton's final tour was cancelled. Final tours are always the best - I can attest that Cher's first farewell tour was a memorable one.

A couple of years later the toilet paper shortage is over and we have entered a much more reasonable time of life where the only thing you can't find is a house under a million dollars. And about a zillion other things including but not limited to appliances and Sriracha sauce for some reason.

This post on guaranteed crispy sweet potato fries has a REALLY good Sriracha/mayo dipping sauce recipe.

THIS time around I wouldn't forget. When Elton John announced he was going to be kicking his farewell tour off in 2022 I marked it on my calendar. The very MOMENT tickets went on sale I was doing something - I can't remember what - but it definitely wasn't buying Elton John tickets.

If we're going by odds, chances are I was either staring at my computer or putting out the garbage because where I live it's garbage night every night. At least that's how it feels every Tuesday night.

You know the story doesn't end there otherwise you would not have had the pleasure of seeing a very unprofessional blurred shot of Sir Elton at the top of this post.

I live about 45 minutes outside of Toronto (17 hours if you're travelling at any time other than at 3:47 in the morning). Apparently I wasn't the only one who was hoping to see Elton John in Toronto because the sales were so fast they decided to add another date.

This time I set an alarm and had my computer and credit card beside me.

I was going to get the very best tickets I couldn't afford. I had been waiting for this moment ever since Darryl B. brought in a 45 of Crocodile Rock for show & tell in primary school.

This was my last chance and I was doing it up good. Also, the prior 2 years saw me saving a lot of money what with having nothing available in stores to spend it on.

The 1-3 row tickets were out of the question because they were upwards of $3,000 each. I'm not that rich. I then found 2 seats in the 8th row, almost centre for $1,000 each. I bought 2 tickets. I'm not that rich.

The buyer's remorse didn't hit until I realized I needed to find someone else that also wanted to see a 75 year old man play the piano in his bathrobe.

No this is not the same photo as the first. They're very different in that one is of Elton John with his hands spread apart standing behind his piano wearing a bedazzled jacket while in the other one he is wearing a bedazzled bathrobe.

I luckily found someone to go to the concert with and do not regret giving Sir Elton John all of my money. My friend and I even made an event of the night having dinner first which consisted of a free lavender tainted flat beverage that someone was handing out on the street and a hot dog from a cart.

I can only live large.

The night after the show, still on a bit of an "I saw a celebrity up close high" I went up to the garden to check on things. It was there that a gang of rodents scratched their way through my good mood. Staring over my patch of sugar pumpkins I was shocked to see it had quite violently been reduced from 6 pumpkins to 4.

Something (I suspect a vole, probably the Kingpin) repeatedly attacked one spot of the pumpkins until it had drilled a perfect hole into two of them. Once inside the entire twitching organization of rodents proceeded to eat the whole pie pumpkin from the inside out.

Twice.

Without cinnamon, sugar or whipping cream. So we immediately know we're dealing with radicals.

Philip was with me because I bring Philip up to the garden with me the odd time. He's pretty good about laying in the dirt and just smelling the smells. The problem is he doesn't want to lay in the dirt paths, he wants to lay on inconvenient dirt.

Like my carrot bed. He loves laying in the carrot bed. Which is not something you can have delivered from Petsmart, otherwise I'd order one for my house.

So that's one of the reasons that Lip likes it up at the garden.

All he wants to do is lay in the carrots. And chase toads. And pee on the celery. And break the dahlias.

Which I would scold him for if it weren't exactly what I do at the garden every time I go.

This time of year is one of the busiest for anyone who grows their own vegetables. You have to harvest your produce, preserve it (if you're preserving), pee on the celery one last time, clean the beds up and gingerly poke the compost pile to see what comes running/slithering/flying out towards your face.

You'll find out all about the horrors and fun of September gardening in Monday's How to Start a Vegetable garden post. That's where I'll be all weekend; weeding the weeds, digging up the potatoes and fluffing the carrot tops.

Because sometimes it's fun to just sit quietly and be frustrated by an actual puzzle instead of the puzzle that is life, I leave you with this.

Because the odd time Philip is a good boy and doesn't lie in the carrots. He lies in the zinnias.

---

Don't try to do the puzzle on a cell phone, you'll make yourself crazy and then you'll get mad at me and I've already had to deal with two sucked out pumpkins this week. The puzzle is meant to be done on a tablet, laptop or desktop.

---