What I’m Blogging

I do get mistaken for a Canadian quite a lot… especially in Toronto eh?

Riding Shotgun

When it comes to driving, I’m a driver. I’m pretty much the worst passenger You can imagine. I fidget, I fuss, I am generally a more curmudgeonly person than normal. Pain in the arse levels run high when I don’t have a steering wheel in front of me. Now couple this with a long car trip to my Father-in-Law’s house for diner, in my wife’s new car and her love of driving (not to mention skill) which far exceeds my own.

So a passenger I became. It wasn’t as bad as I thought. The tunes were good. I got to fiddle with the camera along the way, and by convincing myself that I was actually riding on a train, the fact that I wasn’t driving was OK… and I got to drive home.

Holiday Baking

It’s surprising what you can do with a little butter, flour, sugar and a few chocolate chips. We are deep in the process of Christmas basket creation. Like Keebler Elves, we are rushing around the kitchen baking up a whirlwind of shortbreads and oatmeal.

The only thing left to chance, is exactly how many of the wee things actually make it into the tins… excuse me, I can’t keep typing with my mouth full.

Who Wakes You Up in the Morning?

The bond between humans and dogs goes back tens of thousands of years (assuming that your religion doesn’t tell you that 10,000 years of human existance is reight out too lunch, but humour me). Dogs are our companions, they are are helpers in the hunt and in the collection of stray farm animals such as sheep. They guard us. They Love us unconditionally.

In modern times, Humans have discovered a new use for the canine wonder. Dogs are extremely regimented in their day, and this can be harnassed to replace the need for an alarm clock. Clocks have to be set, the mechanical kind have to be wound up. A Dog on the other hand will be in your face each and every day at the same time, regardless of whether or not daylight savings is in effect with one thing on their brilliantly focused canine mind… “Get up. I have to pee and where’s my biscuit?”

After the Install

Wisdom tells us that no matter what, the install expands to absorb all available time alloted for it, and then some. It is also a known fact that no plan survives contact with the enemy and no matter how much you prepare something will always rear up to throw a spanner into the gears. The network got moved. It more or less works the same way it previously did. Best of all, there’s a dark light in a pint glass at the end of the tunnel…

You can’t go home again. Nothing is ever the same, and in the final analysis, the memories of what was are more richly sweet than what remains.

…hard times shared and stout pints raised…

This was illustrated to me, in some detail, the last time I visited “my pub”.

My pub was a sanctuary. A place where a pint and comrades met to escape the insanity of the dreaded office and the trolls of management that lingered there.

We met for lunch. We met after five. We started once a week and towards the end of the dreaded International Greed Enablemet Corp., we were there nearly every day. We were there so often, that we had our picture put up on the wall and were given the nickname “the Guinness Lads.”

But alas, it is gone. The picture is gone, a causualty of a rowdy night at the pub attened only by my image. The lads are scattered to the winds, and our more frequent revels are now occasional remembrances, of hard times shared and stout pints raised.

This morning, the harbinger of cold left it’s calling card on my windshield. It was the first snow of the year. Not a blizzard by any stretch of the imagination, but a clear reminder that the annual Canadian deep freeze has begun again.

…Bears may be the number one threat to America…

Now is the time of frosty rituals and rememberances of warmer times. The liner goes into my coat, sweaters come out of storage, my wife starts making threatening sounds while waving gloves at me.

It is at times such as these that one wishes that humans had followed the evolutionary path of our ursoid brothers. What a joy to sleep, warm and safe in bear-like bliss while the wind howls outside. No shovel needed to clear the driveway. No driving on icy roads with morons in SUVs. Just sweet slumber; dreaming dreams of salmon and picnic baskets. Bears may be the number one threat to America according to Stephen Colbert, but they sure know how to handle winter.

I‘m not sure how it works in other parts of the world, but in Canada coffee is a sacred trust. The average Canadian commuter spends about 1-2 hours on the road every day getting from home to work and back again. The only thing that keeps us sane and prevents general civil disorder and mayhem from erupting in the frozen north, are the strategically placed coffee shops along the avenues and highways of the nation. These bastions of caffeinism are the very symbol of social cohesion.

…I nearly spit the unholy mixture across my windshield…

We each have our favourites; Tim Horton’s is the most popular and most identifiable with Canada. Coffee Time, Starbucks, and others make up the rest. Being a fiercely democratic and individualistic people, Canadians also have their own unique ways of drinking the dark waters of life. You can have a regular, sweet or lite, cream only, a “double double” - twice the cream twice the sugar, or as I like it, black (as Jaun Valdez and his donkey intended coffee to be consumed). Most of us early morning road warriors pick up our fix at the drive through window. We mumble our order into the microphone, drive to the appointed window and receive the communion that powers our morning.

Now I like to get on my way after picking up my coffee. I drive down the highway for 5-10 minutes and let the coffee cool from volcanic to drinkable temperatures. While keeping my eyes firmly on the road I do the one hand lid open maneuver and consume the black gold. Ah coffee the way I like it, what could be better? Well I don’t rightly reckon I know, but I know what’s worse. Worse is taking a big swig of precious rich black coffee only to be assailed with the taste of too much sugar and too much cream! Any trace of those two elements is too much for my coffee. I nearly spit the unholy mixture across my windshield. A trust has been broken here. If a man’s home is his castle, his coffee has to be something right up there with say the front portcullis. They got my order wrong. I feel violated.

Shakespeare tells us that “we are to the gods as flies to wanton boys. They kill us for their sport.” This may have been the case for the capricious deities of the the Greeco Roman mythology, however, the Lord Almighty, King of Kings, This That and the Other Thing, of our current Western theological happenstance prefers to merely torment us with the elements. In my current case it is rain.

…sometimes I prefer the old gods just hurling a thunder bolt and getting it all over with in one big bang…

Don’t get me wrong now, I’ve got nothing against rain per se. I’m an old farm boy and rain is generally a good thing. Like all good things it is chiefly good in moderation. When taken to excess, rain is not good for anything.

I’ve just spent the last few days cleaning up from a particularly nasty precipitational marathon, otherwise known as an “Act of God.” A torrent of rain fell on my house. It fell for hours. It fell in buckets. Being the flowing liquid element that it is, the rain, now become ground water, sought out the lowest point possible on it’s rush to the sea… namely my basement.

Now as acts of deities go, this was a pretty straight forward affair, or so it appeared. Basic, normally harmless element water, added to basement full of stuff, equals destruction of said stuff, with a mustly after smell of soaked carpets. The real sublte genius of the divine, was the creation of Insurance Companies that then use the “Act of God” excuse to excuse themselves from any form of compensation… so sorry, bye bye now.

So there you have it. God and the Insurance Companies - one, Me and mine - zero (“naught” for you British types).

You’d would think a self confident deitiy would stop there… but no! The rain is still coming, and it doesn’t matter how loud I yell Uncle! Sometimes I prefer the old gods just hurling a thunder bolt and getting it all over with in one big bang.

At the end of the summer there are certain ritual observances that cultures engage in. The Scots have highland games. New Agers and First Nations mark the passage of the sun into autumn. Parents of Little League sons, mark summer’s end with endurance marathon play ’til you drop baseball tournaments.

…short of lightning’s electromagnetic discharge, we play on…

These playoffs are a two day affair where the victors are rewarded with an ever increasing number of games to be played in strict succession. In the big league they might have a double header and play two games in a single day, in the flurry of little league playoffs we can easily do three to determine who shall pull the sword of victory from the stone.

For the boys, it’s a day of hanging out with their friends, talking like twelve year olds, and consuming fast food. In short it’s heaven. For the parents, it’s getting up early, driving, followed by sitting all day on a metal bench, yelling for our sons to “do like you can! ”

The weather plays a key factor. This year it is cold,gray and overcast. Rain threatens on the horizon, but the threat is empty. There are no rain delays in the playoffs, and short of lightning’s electromagnetic discharge, we play on. Somewhere in the drizzle of the of the second game at the bottom of the fourth inning, one finds oneself praying for defeat. Defeat means elimination and a trip to the warmth of hearth and home. Inwardly we hope for an end, outwardly we clutch our coffee cup tightly in our hands, sucking what heat is left into our numb fingers and offer encouragement to our team “like you can son, like you can.”

One of the joys of owning vehicles that are older than my children, is the knowledge that I saved a bundle on the purchase price. One of the drawbacks, however, is the randomness of impromptu repairs… like say after a late evening Little League game, in the parking lot, with a flat tire… and me without a clue.

…the universe, however threw me a bone…

These things always seem to happen on summer vacations. They never seem to happen when the time is allotted to our capitalist overlords.. er I mean “work”. These things also always happen when you are completely unprepared. No jack, no tools to release the spare from the undercarriage of the van, and worst of all no portable air compressor. I have two, one for each vehicle, and where were they both? Yep, in the other car. Don’t ask me why, I don’t have sufficient training in quantum physics nor psychology to explain it with any accuracy.

So what to do? RING-RING. “Honey, can you come and rescue me and the boy? Bring the air compressors, pretty please? Yes, I broke the van again.” It also only breaks when I drive it. How’s that for summer fun?

The better half arrived, compressor fixed - if only temporarily - the slow leak, and she and the kids took off in her van so I wouldn’t have an opportunity to break it more. I got to drive my old beater home alone in the dark of night. Could it get any worse? The universe, however threw me a bone. In the glove box of my car was a cigar. I had the night, Jazz on the radio and a semi-fine smoke. Sometimes things do work out after all.

Ghosts of Video Store Past

Before, in a time long ago, when there were no super stores. When there were no national chains promising us “no late fees” and then charging us “restocking fees” (lying bastards). When small towns were communities instead of being overnight motels for the commuting worker, there were independent small video stores.

…we have traded focused personal service for impersonal unattentive slection of the same old thing…

Stores that had character, stores where the sales clerk knew every movie in the store, and after a while of friendly small town chatter he knew you too. Many an evening of video watching was saved as I placed my choices on the counter and the man behind the counter would say, “You’re going to really hate those ones. Why don’t you try this one, it’s more your style.” He was always right too. While the selection wasn’t as extensive as the large video box store, it was more varied. If you wanted to see a particular film and they didn’t have a copy, within a week or two they got a copy for you.

We have traded focused personal service for impersonal unattentive slection of the same old thing. How is this better?