had to fix the path again, since i had forgotten to drop the 'feisty_meow' from the variable i was using (which already contains that component).
&backup_number("aa_backup", $snarf_file_base, $number);
# the top directory where everything we're grabbing lives.
-local($root) = &canonicalize("$FEISTY_MEOW_APEX/feisty_meow");
+local($root) = &canonicalize("$FEISTY_MEOW_APEX");
# grab the top level stuff.
&backup_files($snarf_file_base, $number, $root, ".", ("*.txt", "make*", ".gitignore"));