He Was Kilgore Trout

Albert Finney is one of my favourite actors of all time. He has played many roles and while he may not be as versatile as some others he is a damn great character actor. Funny thing is I always forget his name. We could sit down and name our favourite actors and his name would be at the tip of my tongue, but I most likely wouldn't come up with it. I would name a few standby's like Bogart or Irons all the while trying to come up with Finney's name. How could I forget the man who played Kilgore Trout for crying out loud.

Night at the Lighthouse

The Lighthouse is our theatre here in Port Dover. It's actually the nicest theatre in the entire area and is home annually to many productions. For the last seven years near the end of March a variety show is put on consisting of students from our High school, Public School and Catholic School. The students at each of their schools perform in a variety show and are picked by judges to perform in the big show. Imagine my delight when my oldest daughter was picked to perform. She and her friend sang "My Favourite Things" from the Sound of Music. I felt so proud of my girl up there on stage singing her heart out. I'm still smiling over it. She and her friend were the third act of the show so we sat through many performances before the end of the show. I felt a little like the Grinch. My usual cynicism towards our world gave way to delighting in how wonderful we humans can be. The youth, hope, energy and joy I witnessed was intoxicating. My youngest yelled out pre-performance "Hi Rain Girl" which cracked the audience up. Then she proceeded to ask the woman sitting in front of her if she had farted. Thankfully she found it very amusing. I still feel the effects of the evening and I hope it stays. Sometimes I get too caught up in the negative aspects of us humans. We all have our skeletons. We are all human. We do bad things. Understanding that and being able to get beyond it is paramount in seeing the good we do. The love we share. The joy we can bring to one another. And maybe I become more corny and sentimental (or just mental) as life flies by, but I tellya', it sure feels a whole lot better this way.

Insomnia

Wednesday 2:46am.

Theo: Honey, wake up!

Troubles: Huh whaaa. Wassa madder? Wassa madder?

Theo: I'm sorry to wake you up, but I can't sleep.

Troubles: Oh. Ummmm. I can.

Back to bed at 5:12am.

Sign of the Times

Paying for jobs. This is my new fixation. I am amazed at the lack of any outpouring denouncing this practice. Monster, Workopolis and Apply-to-teach all are "services" that hit you up for money so you can get a job. In the case of Apply-to-teach, you have people coming out of University/Teachers College who are mostly loaded down with debt from student loans and living expenses who are forced to fork out money so they can apply to school boards for a job. This service has been picked up by most school boards because education cuts over the years have left school boards searching for ways to bring in revenues to offset budgets that do not and can not meet the needs of the populace. We are so backwards that we now accept these types of revenue generating strategies while our government cries broke yet have billions in surplus revenues each year. We allow time and again expenses to be laid at our own doors while we continue to fork out income taxes, GST and PST. Our social net is constantly shrinking while we see no real changes in the amount a citizen of Canada pays out to there government. Where is all this money going? Nobody gets angry about these things any more. They ho-hum and fork it out. We used to be a strong nation of people with a voice and an understanding of the importance of social fabric. Now, we are just a bunch of pussies waiting in line to be suckered out of their hard-earned pay.

Adventures With Theo

So I drive Theo's mom to Hamilton so she can catch the GO bus back to Toronto. Theo escorts her mom into the station along with Rain while Cassidy and I sit waiting in the car. After an eternity Theo and Rain return to the car and we are off to visit a friend and former colleague of Theo's. Joanne and her husband Chris had twins 6 months ago and moved to Hamilton from Toronto shortly after delivery. I have a basic idea of the direction I need to start towards and do so. After a few minutes I ask Theo for the directions. She fishes through her pockets, her purse, again through her pockets and once again through her purse. She once again fishes through her pockets only to come up empty of the directions we were to follow.

Theo: Oh my God I think I threw the directions into the garbage at the terminal.

Me: What? Are you serious?

Theo: Yep. Man, I can't believe I did that.

Me: Well, that's brilliant. Do you remember the address at least?

Theo: No. I know its near Aberdeen and Dundurn. Near the Tim Horton's.

Me: *Shaking my head* Near the Tim Horton's huh. *Dripping with sarcasm*

Theo: Don't do that! Can't you look at this as an adventure? Other people would consider this fun you know.

Me: Oh my love, it is and always has been an adventure.

After knocking on three doors we found the place and the babies were beautiful.

F & F

One of the great things about living in a small town relatively close to Toronto is that visiting is never an issue. What's even nicer is that we rarely have to do any of the visiting. We get to entertain and that's just great by me. Our friends Mario and Darlene and their daughter Hannah came for a visit the last few days. Last night after the kids were put to bed we stayed up until 2am drinking and playing euchre. Getting up early in the morning hungover, while never pleasant, actually made me a little giddy. I haven't been sloshed in years and while in past moments of hungoveredness I would question why I was so stupid to have imbibed so much the night previous, that question never entered my clouded noggin' this am. We laughed hard and long and often to the point where our cheeks hurt and our sides stitched. We had my favourite hangover cure of water, coffee, bacon, toast and eggs over-easy. We walked and talked all over town and around until the effects of too much alcohol were gone. And these are simple things which many a peruser of this blog will find boring and/or meaningless, but it is true of the old adage 'the best things in life are free'. Here's to simple pleasures shared with Friends and Family.

At Wars End

Our Eve online war is over. We handed them their asses. More like some of the other guys in our Corp did. I was far too sick to be of any use this weekend. Two days of fever left me often too tired to do anything but sleep and watch the idiot box. All this during our three day weekend. Yea that was fun.

In Like a Lion

The school just called to tell me they are closing up and sending the kids home due to the weather. I love snowdays. My wife will be home soon too. Looks like it's time to bundle up and go tobogganing. Hopefully this storm lasts and they close tomorrow too. Ahhhh a three day weekend. Sweet! I'm still a kid.