D & D's Diner

This little restaurant we had passed numerous times finally called out to us a few weeks ago. The service was good, the place was "nice" (frilly and filled with teddybears and hearts and other vomitous debris) and the food was.....ah....mediocre at best, but the kids liked it enough. We had a nice four seater table right next to the gas fireplace. A few nights ago we decided to stop in again and give it another try. I had the pickerel/shrimp platter with fries and slaw and a pepsi, Theo had a Mexican dish which was very hard to screw up and the girls had chicken and fries. The pickerel was bland and greasy, the shrimp was scary, and the fries were surely meant for one of the local pig farmers. I dared order dessert feeling they had to get something right, yet felt sure this would also end badly, so I ordered lemon meringue pie being the optimist. I had to peel the top layer of meringue off as it was rubber and the filling was far too tart and sweet while the crust was soggy. And now I will always associate the D & D Diner with the phrase "They did not once disappoint to disappoint me". I could honestly say the pepsi was the best part of that meal.

Rain Girl Makes Me Beam

I went to Rains school today to watch her do her speach. I forgot they have orals for primary kids too. She had to go first and took a few seconds and a lot of smiling and nodding from myself and her teacher to get going, but once she opened her mouth the words came out eloquently. I could not stop smiling at her. Even after she sat down and other children told their stories I kept looking over at her beaming like a mad idiot. She fidgeted and sucked her cheeks in and made fish faces. Later in the day we went to pick up Theo from school so for the drive I bought the girls a discman and two sets of headphones so they could listen to what they want. Its so cute watching them when Bohemian Rhapsody plays (one of their fave songs). Rain gets a far away look like the song is reaching her on a very deep level while Cassidy sings Galileo Galileo as Gowwawayo Gowwawayo. Tonight the song "Birdhouse in Your Soul" by They Might Be Giants was playing and they were both singing louder than I am sure they realized. The one lyric goes "Not to put too fine a pine on it, say I'm the only bee in your bonnet..." which Rain sings as "Not to put too fine a pine on it, say I'm the only bee you're a butthead..." Someday I will show her the real lyrics, but for now I will continue to use it as a constant happy pill.

Prayer of the Smoker or Thoughts On Watching Folks Flick Their Butts Everywhere

The world is my ashtray. I shall want.

Trip to Toronto

Went to visit some friends who were visiting Toronto from Sioux Lookout over the weekend. It was really nice to see them after so long. When you don't see a friend in roughly two years its surprising how much they change. I guess as we begin to age a little quicker it becomes more noticeable. We crashed at my sisters and husbands place later and had breakfast with them. Sis made banana and almond butter sandwiches which were actually pretty delicious. We then headed to Kids Sport to meet up with another couple and their kids for a play date before heading back to Dover. On the way out of Toronto as I approached the North Service Road to gain entry onto the 403, I began to accelerate through a green light when this person just cut right in front of me. They were coming from the south and turning west as I heading southward. I have no idea why this person tried to make the turn in conditions which were actually quite bad (freezing rain/sleet) making road conditions very slippery. In any case, I was forced to brake suddenly while trying not to hit the car next to me and could see that there was no way I could avoid hitting this person. As I braced for impact and listened to Theo say "Oh no. Oh my God" and caught a quick glimpse of the kids I thought we would be ok as the speed was not high enough to do huge damage. And by some twist of fate, after that eternity of waiting for contact, we were lucky enough to get away with a small "thunck". I pulled the car over and made sure everyone was ok and then exited the vehicle to assess the damage. No visible damage. And then I looked for the other driver and spied him/her/them driving away. The contact was audible and there was no doubt about impact, yet off they went. I tried to get the plate number, but they were too far away. Sure I am happy that it was not serious, but at that moment I could have killed that person. What kind of person drives away? I had my wife and two girls in the car with me and that coward drove away. All that person had to do was come over and apologize and I would have been cool with the whole thing. These things happen after all. But, to just drive away.... If ever I meet you there will be another hit and run. You will hit my fist with your face several times before I allow you to run away like the no-good coward you are. Why are people so damn stupid?

Cassidy vs. Daddy

The scene is Daddy walking into Cassidy's room which she has trashed totally.

Daddy: What the heck is going on in here? This is terrible. Clean this mess up now or you are going to get big trouble from daddy!

Cassidy: NO DADDY YOU GAT DA FACK AWAYED FROM Hered.

Not so good.

Nightmare on Rain St.

Rain related a nightmare she had last night. She was very dramatic.
Rain: "A boat full of people were being thrown off into the water where they were being eaten by giant anacondas. One anaconda yelled 'We are here to F-E-S-T all of you."

Theo: Do you mean f-e-a-s-t feast?

Rain: Oh *Shrugs shoulders and walks away*

The National Playlist

Props to Jian Ghomeshi and his CBC1 radio program

http://www.cbc.ca/nationalplaylist/index.html

I love to hear people discussing music and I especially love being introduced to new artists, but... please Jian, no more Michael Jackson or disco music please. It died for a reason.

As a Favour to Me (As a Favour to the World)

Please do not judge my stupidity as a sign of a weak intellect.

The Kid From Brooklyn

Every once in a blue moon you come upon one of those rare treasures on the net. Go to the following site and watch the mans videos. This guy totally cracks me up while at the same time reaffirms that it takes all kinds.

http://www.thekidfrombrooklyn.com/

Brilliant!

Vince Carter

When he played for the Raptors Chuck Swersky would say of Vince (Air Canada) Carter after a great play "Half man, half amazing". The guy is that talented a ball player that you could say Swersky nailed it. However, after watching him hit the last second three-point shot to defeat the Raptors today I could not help being irate and desiring to hit this "man" over the head with a basketball hoop repeatedly. This is a person who tanked his play on purpose to get the team to trade him. This is a person who says all the rights things, but is completely hollow. This is a person who screwed the people of Toronto (Canada) so he could get his. The same case could be made of his cousin Tracy McGrady. It seems to be a family trait. Lots of talent without any honour. I would wager that New Jersey Nets fans will eventually get the same treatment Raptors fan received. I find it sad that the NBA would allow such happenings. How it can condone a person purposely tanking his performance in order to pressure the team into making a trade is beyond reason. I believe the NBA as a whole is predjudiced towards Canada and will always make Toronto a bottom-feeder where has-been players wind their careers out or where talented players bolt as soon as their contracts are fulfilled or (as in the case of Carter) tank their effort to push the team into bad trades. In any case, Carter may be a star quality player, but he is also a dishonourable playa'.

New Years Eve

This was the nicest New Years Eve I have ever spent. Me,Theo, Rain and Cassidy sat at the kitchen table and had icecream cones. Then we had party poppers which had tissue paper crowns, a joke and a little toy inside each one. We then told each other our resolutions for the new year. Rain said she was going to try being less pushy. I said I was going to eat more fruits and vegetables. Theo promised to workout at least three times a week. Cassidy's resolution was, in her carefully chosen words, "icecream". We then set out pillows and blankets and sat by the fire. We stayed up until midnight and wished each other a Happy New Year and then curled up in our blankets next to the fire and fell asleep. No hangover.

Theo and Friends

Our friends came from Toronto for a visit the other day. Lots of kids with high-pitched squeals to be heard at every turn. They loved it. After our friend Kay had asked me to untie a bottle of ginger ale she proceeded to have a conversation with Theo and Bella.
Kay: So what did Santa bring?
Theo: I don't know.
Bella: What do you mean you don't know?
Theo: I don't remember.
Kay: You know who Santa is, right?
Theo: Of course I do. He's the fat guy who lives at the North Pole.
*Laughing*
Kay: No, Theo, you are Santa.
Theo: What are you saying? Are you saying that I'm fat?
And I pretty much chuckled through the rest of the evening.

Boxing Day in Toronto

I cannot believe the news of innocent people shopping the boxing day sales in Toronto's downtown Yonge St. area being caught in the crossfire of bullets which shot six people one of whom died. The death was a fifteen year old girl out shopping with her parents. I feel such rage at the cowards who have done this that I feel quite capably murderous. I think of the girls parents who witnessed their daughter being murdered and feel so much sadness and compassion for them. I have two girls and I do not know what I would do if I lost one of them, especially in such a senseless way. To have to witness her death would be utter despair. A wound that will never heal. I have no trouble in meting out the death penalty for such a terrible crime. I fully do not know what to say about this hideous action. I am shocked, angry and saddened. Words cannot describe this fully.

60 Minutes

I used to look forward to watching the program every Sunday. I watched it tonight and was thinking about the last time they actually ran a story that investigated something with teeth. Tonight they ran pieces on the New Beirut, the Moken people who survived the sunami and Tina Turner. The Beirut piece added fuel to the American fire that the Middle East is unstable in all the Arab world. The Moken people had potential, but they took the low road and missed pursuing the real story. Tina Turner? Respect her, but she is on 60 minutes bi-annually. Every time I tune into the program I seem to catch some story about a pro football athlete or the hardships one man overcame to mate insects. Human interest stories of a light caliber seem to be the only fodder the program can run now. Missing are those stories bringing to light companies polluting waterways with DDT or how Coca-Cola killed 6 workers in Central America to prevent the workers from unionizing. Gone are the stories of how politicians covered up illegal arms shipments or waged wars on false pretenses. 60 Minutes has become much like the reporters who do the stories; geriatric, ineffective and beaten down by the system that feeds them. You sold out 60 Minutes. End it now so you leave some semblance of self-respect.

Christmas With TTFM

My Dad has driven down to be with us for Christmas. His moniker is TTFM which stands for Tommy Too Much. You can try to guess what the F stands for all on your own. Tonight while we were dining with Pops and the in-laws our neighbour Dave popped in dressed as Santa. Dave does this every year to all the houses with kids in the area. He gets home from Mass, dresses up and drops in on the neighbours to give the kids "magic cookies" that help the kids sleep (just ginger cookies that look like reindeer) and listens to what they want for xmas and tells them he's just checking that against his list. As Dave the Santa was leaving TTFM stops him and tells him a joke about Santa coming down the chimney and leaving gifts when he is surprised by a woman wearing a slinky outfit. The gist of the joke is that Santa can't get back up the chimney with his pole firmly fixed on the northerly direction and so stays awhile. And he tells this joke in the most animated way to a man dressed as Santa who just got out of Mass. Brilliant!

Siblings

I was thinking back to a particular Christmas when I was fourteen with a little sadness. You see, my sister had written on her present to our grandparents "To: Gramma and Granpa" and I couldn't help myself (been de anail speeling champeen what I am) in correcting her. I remember how I stood there full of joy, feeling proud of myself for catching her miscue. I of course realized later in life that she had done it on purpose, being the nine year old prodigy rebel that she was, but she did not have the heart to tell her older and less gifted brother at the time. I could not at that moment see she was just trying to be cute. Oh woe is me. If only she had told me of the error I might have avoided similar incidents that now haunt me such as:
My Uncle to his son----> "To: My loving Sun"
My Ex to her Mother---> "To: My dearest Muhma"
My Wife to her Brother---> "To: My darlin Brudda"
and so on and so forth. Oh the shame I harbour to this day makes this holiday a cold cold time for a pour misanthrope such as I.

P.S. I love you too you freakazoid.

Thanks For Your Response

I want to take a moment to thank a few of the people who have responded to me over the last few months. A big shout out to Medsonline, ErEcTus and Peepeegrowth. What they lack in content they make up for in volume.

Christmas Is Coming

This is from my little Rain girl. I can now love xmas again like I did as a child. Oh joy.

These People Must Die

I was driving home from dropping my youngest at nursery school listening to the radio when I heard this advert for this Impaired Driving help. They are like XCopper and the like; helping to get you off charges or out of tickets or at least reduce fines and/or sentences. Look, if you get nailed for impaired you deserve whats coming to you. I can't believe these freaks are allowed to run this type of company. There was a case last fall in these parts where a young woman was hit by a drunk driver on the highway outside of town. The guy was so drunk he didn't realize he had hit her. The mother called the police that evening about her missing daughter, but they had no luck in finding her and had to wait to file for a missing person for the required time. The mother knew the route her daughter would have taken so she drove slowly along the shoulder of the road. About 5km down the road she saw a shoe laying on the shoulder. She stopped to investigate and saw it was the same type her daughter wore. She then looked in the field nearby and found her daughter. She had bled to death. If the drunk would have realized what he had done he might have been able to save her. Now tell me you can condone such a program. Every time a drunk gets behind the wheel it should be classified as attempted manslaughter or at the very least attempted assault with a weapon to cause bodily harm.

I Still Got It

I recently took my wife out for dinner at a restaurant in Simcoe. It was contained in an older home and was resplendent with its original woodwork and flooring. The restaurant was divided into two sections with the dining room contained in the older part of the house and a pub which was contained in an addition. Having left my credit card at home and with insufficient cash I was forced to pay by interact which meant I had to follow the waiter into the pub side. As we walked into the pub I did the quick glance around the room and a table on my right caught my eye. It contained four women, one of which was tugging on her friends sleeve and nodding towards me. It has been some time since I last noticed I was being eyed by a women let alone four of them. I began the procedure to make the debit transaction when my wife walked over to join me. I believe she has this uncanny sense in being able to sniff out competitors. We got outside and I related to my wife what had transpired. We laughed about it and she told me she didn't blame them and that she wholeheartedly agreed with them, but she was the one who had me. We giggled a little more and then I opened the car door for her and waited for her to be seated before I closed it. As I walked around to my side of the car I checked to make sure that my fly wasn't down or if I had something sticking out of my nose. The coast was clear. I then wondered if these women were just really desperate and got excited over the appearance of any man who didn't look like a biker, a farmer or a drug dealer, these being the main selections on the menu as it were. And then I thought what the hell did I care either way. I was in love with a very beautiful woman who was very in love with me. She still makes me sigh and smile at how lucky I am to be with such beauty every day. I know I know. You didn't figure me for a gusher did you.