Money Money Money Money

The time has come once again for me to request money. Is it easy to live as a single parent of seven children on a puppeteer’s salary? How about if each of those children has an extravagant extracurricular activity including, but not limited to; polo, aviation, deep sea diving, yacht racing and intergalactic travel? Frankly, I have no idea as this situation doesn’t apply to me in the slightest. If I were to hazard a guess though, I’d say it’s not easy, but manageable. Despite everything you may have heard about skyrocketing puppeteer salaries, union dues and material expenses still take a large chunk.

But I digress, I am, of course, asking for pledges to the Relay for Life. As many of you know, the Relay is a twelve hour non-competitive walk that I bust my ass each year to win. This is my tenth year competing – I mean “participating.”

I’ve set a rather lofty goal for myself this year to raise $2,000.00. I’ve calculated that if each of my friends donated $20.00 I’d be able to raise nearly $18.00 (less his inexplicable finder’s fee and parking charges). This is why I must broaden my circle of appeal to; acquaintances, co-workers, former cellmates, current cellmates, muchachos, muchachas, fast food workers, slow food workers (for the most part these are workers in the fast food industry who aren’t as quick on the uptake as their counterparts), members of the press, game show hosts and single parent puppeteers.

In all seriousness cancer fundraising is a cause very close to my heart. The Canadian Cancer Society not only funds research on all types of cancer they also raise awareness, provide information on causes and prevention of cancer and provide support for cancer patients.

You can read more about why I relay and help me reach my goal my clicking the Super Karate Monkey image on the right and then clicking the “Support David!” button. Thank you.

Tax Season

Each year I do the income taxes for my brother and father. The hardest part of this is getting the information from them. Their filing systems leave a little to be desired. My father has a large envelope in which he very neatly places random pieces of paper. A T4 from 1978, an expired coupon to Ponderosa restaurant, duct cleaning flyers and Ziggy cartoons that he has clipped from the newspaper. Almost everything can be found in those envelopes with the exception of current year tax statements. My brother is not quite as meticulous. He will crumple various pieces of paper into little balls and then stash them in every nook and cranny he can find.


This year my dad and I weren't able to connect for him to pass me his envelope of miscellany so I had to get the numbers from him over the phone. He could have sent an e-mail but he types by the hunt and peck method and I'm not sure if he knows how to use backspace so errors are not corrected, or acknowledged, so that wouldn't have been reliable. As it was, I had to pry the proper form names out of him.


"I've go a T4D here."
"Dad, I don't think there's such a thing."
"Sorry, T47G."
"Try again."
"Right, right - it's a T4164."
"Dad, you have a Manitoba Odour-Control Tax Credit?"
"I am using that new soap."