Let the sledding begin

I am back. It is one of those publish or perish things. I scribe therefore, I am. I just have to write, even when I think that I have nothing to say. I will say, he says about to state the obvious, that the days have gotten noticably longer. The sun is still hanging around after five, which is nice. That means spring is around the corner. Then again, to get there we do have to traverse through February.

I have long found February to be the coldest of months. That may be why it is so short. You get it out of the way and can look forward to March and spring and more cold and snow. That is what winter is like around these parts and that is what it has become. Cold and snowy.

There are worse things than this. I mean, I do not recall going sledding last winter. I did get to go with the Lad and his friend on Saturday. It was a lot of fun as usual. With all the people, I should say fucking unaware people, people who seem to believe that they are the only people out there at the bottom of the hills/runs, it was potentially dangerous. Then again, I am Darwinian at heart. If you are not smart or aware enough to realize that others want to come down the hills or are coming down the hills and you do not get out of the way or even look, then you deserve to be hit and crashed into. Do not cry to me because I do not care. We called down, you did not respond, so fuck you. The Lad is not like that, yet. He is still afraid of getting hurt himself in any collision. Who cares about physical pain?

He would go with another friend on Sunday, as well. He had fun then, too. That is the best part of winter, or the skiing if you are so inclined.

Well, I am done for today. There was a whole lot about nothing. Ciao!

More of said same or life on a merry go round means that it all reoccurs

I am back. It was not a funny weekend. I take that back. I did have a reason to laugh this weekend. Of course, it involves the Outlaws. Friday night was uneventful as far as dinner went. My father in law asked if I wanted wine (again), it was that crappy Concord grape kosher wine (again), I told him no and that it was cough syrup (again). All this and I know it will be the same fucking routine this Friday. He did go on to tell me about a song he taught his youngest granddaughter, but he has told me that story too many times to mention. The best part was that when he was telling me, the Lad was in the room. At the start of the story, before I could roll my eyes, the Lad looks at me and rolls his eyes.

I am thinking that it was disrespectful, not that I was any different. Then again, it is not as if my father in law notices (subtle behavior has always been too much for the Outlaws) as that would mean being aware and able to read the listener. I am not sure he has ever done that, the same could be said for my mother in law, as well. She has the habit of talking, just to fill the silence and drown out the voices in her own head. I have learned when she starts with "Here is something you will find interesting", invariably I will not. For me to find it interesting, she would have to know what interests me. To do that, she would have had to have listened to me and any answers I may have given to her questions. This has never happened. I know this because she will be asking the next question before you have a chance to answer the first question.

Anyway, dinner was uneventful and rather craptastic. The elevator did not get stuck on the way down, which is always nice.

The next day, I get a phone call in the afternoon from my mother in law. She had already called me earlier to tell that "The Producers" was on television that night. I was glad she called and I did get a chance to watch that movie (I love it) ("Blazing Saddles" was on last night, for those in a Mel Brooks-type of mood). It turns out that the Outlaws had watched a DVD and now could not get the DVD out of the player. Okay, I thought, this should be easy, but no.

My mother in law, whose first response is usually to panic and avoid, actually did something. Of course, it was not reasoned. She unplugs all the DVD to television connections and it still does not work. Worse yet, the television does not work, either. That is when she calls me. She could ask my father in law, but his one trick is to try to work the remote, and we all know how that turns out.

Instead of letting me give her instructions and going ahead. My mother in law has to have me do things one step at a time. I will tell her to do something and she will put the phone down to do it. It could not have been any slower. First, I told her to reconnect the DVD player. How? I do not remember what went where. The connections are color coded, I think you can match the fucking colors.

Next, I tell her to check the power cord for the television. She does and plugs the television back in. Funny enough, it worked. They could now watch television. On to the DVD, I had to "fix" the fucking thing about a month earlier. I made fun of her then and how old the extension cord that it was plugged into was. Does this occur to her? Does the fact that the red LED light that goes on when there is power flowing to the DVD mean anything to her? Obviously not. I then have to get her to plug the DVD power cord directly into the outlet (this worked...another Festivus miracle!) but I have to do it in about three steps since she will not let me give her the three steps at once. I had to tell her to unplug the extension. Now she wants to leave it be and wait for me to come on Friday. I then tell her to unplug the DVD cord from the extension cord. I then tell her to plug the DVD into the outlet and throw out the extension cord (made by Thomas Edison, no doubt). She does as I say and there is power and she can get the DVD out of the player.

Now, I know that I am not "old" but the fine points of observation would be nice here. Again, observation is not a strong suit of the Outlaws (extending to the Wife, I might add). Where she should have been in tune to the lack of power (no red, power light on), she is mystified. It is like technology is some mystical beast. The electricity just sits in holes behind the walls. It boggles my mind and I get to hear all about it with great regularity. At least, I did not have to make a special trip to plug in the DVD. If I did, the term "justifiable homicide" would be used.

Ciao!

Just a bit of stuff before the weekend

I am back. I have another Friday night with the Outlaws upon me. I am psyching myself up as we speak. I have concluded that my father in law has no short term memory (or lacks the "register" that allows short term memories to be logged in the long term memory)(it is kind of like filling up a computers cache memory but there is no way to get that information on to the hard drive) and that he is and has been dependent upon my mother in law to be his memory for him. I am not sure how long this has been the case, but I am thinking it has been going on, without anybody noticing, for a good number of years.

The upshot of that is that he becomes so anxious when she is not around because nobody will spoon-feed him this memory. He really should be and should have been writing things down. That way he is responsible for himself and his "memories" of the here and now. But, my mother in law would not insist on this and as is her want, she will enable the dependency. She has been doing it for 50 years and it ain't gonna stop now. But do I have to witness it?

On a happier note, I was struck by an interview with Paul Weller talking about his career and such and the fact that he is playing the Jam songs on his latest tour. The thing that struck me was his answer and that it was a great way to honor the 30 years from the Jam's first album, "In the City". It is a great album, but I am biased.

That got me thinking of other albums that I love that are also 30 years old this year. There is "Talking Heads '77" that stands out and The Stranglers, "Rattus Norvegicus". I loved that album back in the early and mid '80s (still do but I have not converted it to disc). I remember thinking back in 1982, that it was a 5 year old recording and now it is 30. Hell, the final Jam album, "The Gift" is 25 years old as is Roxy Music's "Avalon". Where does the time go?

I am getting freaked by the movement of time and my place in it. When I look at the age of those albums and the fact that the Lad is ten, I find it somewhat sobering. Who the fuck needs to be sober? Not me! I think I may have to go on one long drawn out drinking bender ala Nicholas Cage in "Leaving Las Vegas". That settles it, it is time for me, nay it must be my destiny, to drink myself to death. I can go out in a blaze, er haze, of glory. Or is that really a pathetic punctuation mark to a life, my life? I think it is the latter, so sober I must stay. Then again, I am going to the Outlaws, so a few shots cannot hurt and can only ease the mental pain (and physical if you count the food (over)cooked by my mother in law) I am going to have to live through in about an hour.

On that happy note, Ciao !

Not much here today.

I am back. The postings have been sporadic lately. Oh well. I have noticed that I only get comments when I post about the Jehovah's Witnesses. Why is that? I did get called a moron in a comment about one of my JW postings. That was really funny. I wonder if it was an angry JW. I think that I still have some of their literature hanging around. I find that it is an interesting read. There are worse things than.....

Have they buried James Brown yet? How long can you "keep" a corpse? I just do not understand. Family squabble so they "honor" James Brown but bickering over his final resting place, so that he does not rest. It is not defiling a corpse but it is defiling a memory and creating a sick joke. Far be it from me to joke about such things. This is just ridiculous.

Those were just some random thoughts. I have been pondering those all day. I kid, because I love.

Ciao!

Stop Procrastination Now, but I think I will wait until tomorrow

I am back. I would like to say I am back, bitches, but I will not do that. I would also like to say that, "I'm Rick James, bitch!" but I am not. If I were I would be dead of a heart attack with cocaine, meth and vicodin coursing through my veins. Then again, being dead I could not write nor would there be anything really coursing through my veins. My fucking heart has stopped beating so how is there anything coursing through my veins. The pumping heart is what makes stuff course through the veins.

Sorry about that. I do not have much to say today except this. I got a message in my inbox today. It reads "Stop Procrastinating Now". How come I think that I will look at it tomorrow?

Ciao!

Outlaws, Elevators, Madlibs

I am back. It has been a while since the last post but that is life. I have a new wrinkle to the weekly visit to the Outlaws. In fact, they were invited to my mother's for dinner on the Sunday to celebrate the birthday of the Lad (the Sunday before was to celebrate the birthday of my nephew, the Lad's cousin, who was born two days before the Lad, but five years later). The betting in our house over Saturday and Sunday afternoon was that they would cancel on my mother, but suprisingly they did not. They did get to my mother's before she got home, though, so some things do not change. I think my father in law has it in his head that time is linear (the Wife does the same thing) and that if he arrives early, he can end the evening early. Either that or he gets so anxious to go and he has no control (bladder, thoughts and anything else) that, like a two year old, he hucks and hucks. My mother in law relents and they arrive early, too early, rudely early, but he feels no sense of being rude since he has become pure Id, in Fruedian terms.

Anyway, they were gone by ten after seven on Sunday. He groused at the way my nephew and neice were playing. My mother in law chided him continuously. He is so afraid of the kids getting hurt. If it were up to him, they would be covered in foam rubber and velcroed to the couch so they could not move, do anything or get hurt. Then again, he would have their mouths taped shut so that he could hear the commercials on television, or he would continually "shush" them, like he does when we are at his place. Of course, I ignore him. What is he going to DO? Nothing!

Anyway, Friday night dinner was uneventful. It was pretty down right boring. We leave a bit after nine and the Lad is looking tired. He is getting a bit whiny too. He and Wife are playing around in the elevator when I try to top them by jumping in the elevator as we were descending. I hit the floor and then the elevator stops. We are stuck between the fifth and sixth floors. Ooooops!

The Lad's first order of business is to panic (I wonder where he gets that from...you will see shortly). He is near tears worried about being stuck "forever" and what if the elevator plummets (we have watched too much "Mythbusters"). This was the add on to his fear of getting older and dying, though I do not think he foresaw himself dying a day after he turned ten. Ain't life a bitch that way?

A moment of reason hits us and we hit the "phone" button on the elevator. We tell the lady we are connected to what the problem is and she tells us to hit the alarm button to alert the super. She is the elevator service dispatch, not on site, and is not much use to us in the immediate sense. The Wife calls her mother on her cell phone to tell her to call down to get the super.

The Wife tells her mother what is up and then hears the phone drop and silence. The first utterance my mother in law makes is "...(the Lad) is NEVER going to want to come here!" No wonder the Lad's first order of business is to panic and default to a worst case scenario, he learned it from the Outlaw family and how they react. I would have smacked my mother in law, if I were not stuck in the elevator.

Anyway, she finally gets a grip, wakes up my father in law (who had gone to bed around eight thirty) to do what I do not know. I am shocked that I did not hear about her trying to ram the elevator door with her shoulder to open it or rappelling down the elevator shaft to rescue us. Anyway, I hear a voice asking us if we are okay. I tell the voice all is well and ask how long a wait we are looking at. I am told twenty minutes. We sit as there is nothing to do but wait. We did have some leftover soup in the elevator with us, so it was no big deal.

The Lad is still a bit nervous and nauseaous. I try to tell him that it is an adventure. We are all together so how bad could it be. At least, we were not stuck on that elevator with strangers, Stinky Guy or the Outlaws. If that were the case, I would have killed my father in law and it would have been justifiable homicide. (Kind of like the drive home from Dayton in early April of 1996, in the snow flurries of western Ontario, I was determined to speed through it so that I could shorten the time I had to spend in an enclosed vehicle with them all or kill us all trying). I told him that this is the first time that I can recall being stuck in an elevator. The Wife told him that she got stuck in an elevator in Las Vegas on one of our trips there.

It is an okay scenario, other than the fact that we all want to be home. Then all of a sudden, the fire alarm light comes on and there is this continuous, loud buzzing/alarm type sound. Now, that is annoying. It is bad enough we are stuck in the elevator but now it is stuck with a buzzing alarm sound that we cannot control. It turns out the super thought he could recall the elevator by turning the "fire" key. OOooooops!

Long story short. Elevator maintenance dude arrives, pries the door open and gets us out. Apparently, all the elevators were offline (they have been replacing the elevators in the building) so it is looking like a coincidence of the jumping and stopping of the elevator. I have to test that one again, but I have promised not to do it with either the Wife or Lad present. I can see their fear, er, point of view.

It took us about 12 minutes to get home from the Outlaws. It was an experience that is all.

Oh yeah, just to give you a sense of my world. The Wife has a hearing problem. She is telling the story, on Sunday, to my sister. My sister asks, "Did you have snacks?" The Wife replies, "No, (the Lad) was there." My sister gives me a look, like what the fuck is she talking about. I mention the soup and look at the Wife and say "What are you talking about?" The Wife says "We did not have sex because (the Lad) was there." I am left to say, "She asked about "snacks" not "sex". "Oh"

I turn to my sister and brother who had just joined us in the kitchen to say, "Welcome to my life." There is some poor communication in this house and it ain't just me. The Wife cannot hear, does not discern context and comes from a family of talkers, not listeners. So the Wife fills in the blanks from her own imagination. A conversation around here is a living version of Mad-libs. Never a dull moment!

It was ten years ago today!

I am back. I HAVE to send out the most sincere birthday greeting to......the Lad. He turned 10 today. I cannot believe that ten years has passed since his birth. It was the most profound change in my life. I love that kid more each day as he turns into, I hope, a fine, well adjusted and successful young man. How is that for sentimental? I was going to go into what was going on around me ten years ago and may hit some of those salient points but something more present came up last night.

Anyway, I will say that ten years ago, I had made the wife promise me that she would not give birth until after she had gone on maternity leave. The Lad was due on or around January 29th. The Wife's last day was January 17th and she thought that she would have two weeks to just sort of get ready. Ain't life funny? We had dinner at the Outlaws' when they still had their house with the Wife's aunt (mother in law's sister not father in law's sister, blah) and her family (husband, two daughters and daughter's then boyfriend, now husband)(They were there every week, so that now when my mother in law invites them for Friday's my father in law, this always cracks me up, refers to them as "freeloaders". which is what they were/are). I do not recall the dinner specifically but I am sure it was crap. It was also motherfucking COLD outside. Anyway, it is about 8 and we are about to have dessert when the Wife tells me that her water broke (or she pissed herself and was too embarrassed to say so, either way she had some wet underwear)(as an aside, at least for her 40th birthday she was not in wet underwear at Fantasy Island in Grand Island, NY, and I am thinking that I did not lube up her panties that day, but I digress and possibly give too much information).

We bid a hasty good bye, go out into the cold and the car and go home. There are no contractions to speak of so we, the Wife, calls the hospital. By eleven, they tell us to come in. It is back out into the bitter cold, drive to the hospital, find a parking spot which was pretty easy, and check in. Her OB-GYN is on call that night and sees her. There was some "water" leakage but no cirvical dilation and no contractions. We are told that the baby could come in two hours or two weeks. We are sent home. It is back out into the cold, the damn fucking cold! We get in the door around 1 and I am exhausted, so I go to bed (I am such a good husband). The Wife spends the time fretting, oh by the way, as we walk in the door, she gets her first contraction. She lets me sleep until 4:10 and then wakes me to tell me that we need to go to the hospital. By 4:30, I am coherent and just gaining my bearings. By 5, we have gone back into the cold and dark, and arrive back at the hospital. Finding a parking spot was great. Funny, but there was a spot right out front.

Now, they check out the Wife and I get us/her admitted. Long story short, no dilation for the first half hour, then bang (I think I heard something pop, but I needed caffeine, so I could have been hallucinating) it is time to bring the doc with the epidural. He is giving his list of possible side effects and we/the Wife agrees. The needle (harpoon?) is out and getting near her spine when the Wife says, "I have to push!" The labour nurse, Debbie (very comforting and assuring, sure she has experienced thousands of these) puts her arm under the Wife's hospital garment and feels the dilation (okay, another chick was putting her hand in the Wife's nether regions and it was not the least bit sexual). She waves away the dude with the needle and it is off to the delivery room we go.

I won't go into the gory details. Besides, I was so tired, I was on autopilot. I needed a coffee and I was not doing anything. It was all very surreal to me. It still is. At 6:55 am, Saturday, January 18, 1997, I welcomed the Lad into this world. It was the coldest day of the year outside but I did not feel it eventhough I was in and out of the cold day and night air that day.

I guess I got into a trip down personal memory lane. The funny thing last night was that the Wife was over at her friend's place so I was left alone with the Lad. He is washing up when I hear some crying. I did not hear anything crash so what is he doing? He comes in to the room in tears. He does not want to be turning 10. He wants to stay in grade 4 forever (I recall some guys who seemed to actually do that. I recall a guy who when I was in grade 4 was shaving and we think he had a wife and kids, then again that may have been a suburban myth) which can be arranged sort of (You do end up like Wooderson in "Dazed and Confused"-"I like high school girls. I keep getting older but they stay the same.") He figures that as he is getting older that he is closer to death.

There it is, at ten he has figured out that each day on Earth brings him closer to his last day. I had that one figured out by six, but I was exceptional or psychotic, either way. I wonder where he gets this trait from. He is my protege in so many ways. Poor kid! Of course, I am not scared of dying. I now have to get him to not fear the reaper. I am thinking we will be listening to a lot of Blue Oyster Cult from now on. Now, I just have to get him to see the lesson and plan of action to seize the day and not fear it!

That is all for today. Ciao!

Just checking in

I am back. I had taken some days off from writing, obviously. It has been hectic in my world or at least in my head. My perception is that things were hectic, I could be wrong, but perception is reality. So there is my reality for the past few weeks. Things have settled, somewhat, but it's Sol Goode (It is all good). Now, I just need something to write about. I considered more stories about life on the road with GSM, though those are three year old stories, they are funny. I could go into a psychological profile of the Wife and the Outlaws, but no.

Oh yeah, I have to wish my nephew a happy 5th birthday. We attended the end of his party at an indoor Beach volleyball place near us. In fact, the Lad's third and fifth birthday parties were held there. The first one (2000), the place was "new"ish and they had not figured out their party prices, so we got the place for about $150 and that included pizza for the kids. It was quite the bargain. The only downside was it was January, cold and we were the first booking of the day, so it was freezing. They heat the sand and the place when there are people there, so the sand was cold until about a half hour into the party. Then again, it was not me walking barefoot in the sand, so I was not cold. It was fun.

Okay, in the news....Castro is dying. Well, it is about fucking time. It will be interesting to see what happens in Cuba after it happens. This could get very interesting. You have mini-Castro, Hugo Chavez, in Venezuela trying to implement populist and socialist "medicine" on his people. He can be thankful he has those petro-dollars now, but it is not enough to keep the taps running. He has alienated those with the know-how and capital, so how does he expect to keep pumping the stuff from the ground. Their oil infrastructure will deteriorate like it has in Iran and Iraq. He is trying to run his country in a manner that history has proven does not work, but he will not heed the call of history. This ends only one way and it is not good for the Venezuelans. (Think Soviet Union/Russia or Cuba even)

That is all for today. Perhaps, tomorrow, though I am pretty sure I will not be able to post tomorrow, I will be more funny. Ciao!

He may be dead but he is still funky!

I am back. Oh yeah, here are a couple of thoughts and memories for y'all. It is my father in law's 80th birthday to him. I would send a shout out to him, but he is busy staring at the red LED dot on his television, or the masking tape covering it up so he does not focus on it. He fumbles with the remote and cannot read the numbers on it without looking over his glasses, but he is unduly distracted by a red light. I just cannot fathom what goes on his head. He tuned out most of life around him, especially if there was any conflict or human confrontation involved, but he cannot ignore a red light on the television. Then again, given he watches all the good stuff that Spike TV has to offer (if it was in syndication, he loves it. I guess it is that there is no thought involved) I can understand how the red light may be more entertaining.

As I said, I would give him a shout out in this but he is no way able to understand how to use a computer. He has no interest as it may connect him with humanity and he has become VERY disconnected and that was and is of his own volition. Anyway he is 80 today so happy birthday to him.

It was on this date, ten years ago, that on my way down to the office, in the cold of winter, I lost my keys on the subway. I got to the office only to find that I could not get upstairs because I had no keys to unlock the elevator or get in the office. I was trading at the time. I thought that it did not bode well for that trading day, a Friday. Oddly enough, I was wrong. I traded well for the morning, after calling a friend and other trader with keys to get himself down to the office quickly. It worked out well. I made some decent coin by about eleven and then coasted for the remainder of the day. I know it is kind of a banal memory but it had significance to me as it was the final Friday before I had to deal with birth and baby issues.

On a final note, I was reading that there was some issues regarding James Brown's estate, so he has not been buried yet. See even in death the Godfather of Soul remains funky.

That is all, ciao!

I am a sighty

I am back. Saw something I have never seen before. I was showering at Mayfair when I notice some dude putting on swim goggles before he got into the shower. In another life, I would just have mocked (he was an older dude). Today, I merely wonder whether the lenses in his goggles were prescription or if he were wearing contact lenses and used the goggles (assuming he went swimming first) to prevent the lenses from falling out or getting wet (is there a problem with getting your lenses wet?).

I know that I take my sight, or what is left of it, for granted. I do not know what it is like to not be able to see in the shower, or immediately upon waking. I have never experienced washing my hair with conditioner (the Wife has). Though, I am finding fine print difficult to read and somehow my arms will soon no longer be long enough to read small print. I may have to get those "granny" magnifying reader glasses, like my uncle. Then I could put a string around them, hang them from around my neck and look like an old lady playing canasta.

I just take it for granted that I will be able to see what I am doing. I have watched those around me have to use corrective lenses. There were those whom I met as wearer of glasses or users of contact lenses and those who needed these things after I had met them. Now, in my family, I am the sole "sighty". The Wife, the Lad, my mother, brother and sister all use corrective lenses of some sort. I am the last of a dying breed. A "Sighty". At least I am not a cyclops.

I figure finding glasses for a cyclops is not easy. Then again, serving a cyclops must not be easy given their penchant for eating people. There you have it, I am thankful for never having to serve a cyclops while working retail. Thank goodness for small miracles. Ciao!

I got nothing today

I am back. This will be another short post, though I am not so sure that my Saturday post was short. I forgot to mention, or maybe I did, that when the Outlaws were over for dinner on the Friday before New Years, my father in law had my mother in law out of our house by seven (plus or minus ten minutes). My poor mother in law could not even have dessert, though they took home that crappy lemon meringue pie. In fact, I saw it in their refridgerator on Friday, partially eaten. It is funny how afraid of the dark he has become and how anxious the darkness makes him.

The weekend was pretty uneventful. I mentioned Friday night with the Lad. He had a good time at his friend's house. Sunday, the Lad and I watched the Raptors game on television. That was fun, though the Wife did not think so. I finally have somebody who will watch these games with me. I have not had that since I was living at my parents' house and would watch basketball games on Tuesday night with my brother and father. I always enjoyed doing that, but, of course, those were the late 80s and now we are well on our way to 2010.

That is all for today. It was writing for writing sake. Have a good one. Ciao!

Aging be not proud

I am back. It is the rare Saturday post because I did not have time to post yesterday. Then again, it gives me something to write about. It was another Friday night dinner with the Outlaws. This time my attention buffer, the Lad (I really should capitalize all those people, and I will), was not with us as he was sleeping over at his friend's house. That meant I would have to engage in conversation with the Outlaws.

Do not misconstrue, I can enjoy engaging the Outlaws in conversation. It is just that my mother in law tends to go on and tell pointless stories. I would rather read the paper. My father in law is just getting worse. He asks the same question repeatedly, never remembering the question has been asked and answered before. He seems to have a problem with short term (and medium term) memory. I think he should be writing stuff down (or tattooing it to his body ala Guy Pearce in "Momento").

We arrived earlier because we had some errands to run and they turned out to take less time than we had anticipated. I walk in and find the Mogen David Concord Grape Kosher wine and that fucking bottle of Galliano on the table. Ahhh, the joy of being consistent. I have time to kill so I go into the den with the paper to read and watch television.

I notice that on the television is masking tape covering the small red LED light on the front. The red light has my father in law vexed. He cannot understand why it is there and on. Worse yet, he cannot bring himself to ignore it. I guess my mother in law put tape on it so that he would not see it and she would not have to hear about it being there. Other than the marred aesthetic of the flat screen, it is a functional and utitlitarian avoidance solution to the matter. If it works for her, it is acceptable to me. It beats her poking him with a cattle prod.

He was still vexed by the remote control. Again, he had to demonstrate how he uses it to my brother in law and I. It is just a fucking remote control. He, hell we, have been using such things for over twenty years now. What is the problem? I just cannot fathom how you cannot recall such a thing or how the only thing that has changed is the look of the remote, the function and process are the same.

We sit down to eat and asks if I want wine. Again, I tell him what he has out on the table is cough medicine and not wine. Then he asks what kind of wine the Galliano is. I tell him the same answer that I have been repeating for a few months now. I also ask why he keeps bringing it out, given that I keep telling him not to do so. I get a confused look and then he asks how "this chewed up food" got in his mouth. (Just kidding, that would be freaky)

That problem was solved when the Wife poured the Galliano down the drain and tossed the bottle. She did say that the fumes from the Galliano were making her dizzy. Maybe my father in law has been taking a nip of it. No, the bottle had not been opened in at least thirty five years. Well, there is something I won't see again and a question I won't hear again.

Well, that is all for now. Ciao!

The one about the inbreeders

I am back. This will be short and not so sweet. I went to the Raptors game last night with the lad. He got the tickets as a gift. He was excited to see a game live. He was not a "sporty" kid, which I found sad in a way. On the one hand, I was a sporty kid but I was never involved in organized sports or leagues. I do not know why that was. My parents never brought up the subject and I never asked. As I look back on it, I probably would have enjoyed it.

I started playing hockey late in life. I would skate regularly (once or more a weekend growing up, when skating could be done on an outdoor ice pad--not like the weather we have been having here, unseasonably mild with no snow) but never asked to play ice hockey. I had friends who played in the local house league but I never asked to play. I am not sure I really "wanted" to play. I am thinking that I was afraid of looking bad learning how to play. That is the benefit of age and wisdom, I now know that as the learning curve and that we all progress at different speeds, but still it seems that I would rather have been thought of as a moron than as some sort of uncoordinated spaz (there is word you just do not hear enough, "SPAZ").

I would have loved some sort of basketball league but I do not think we had those back then. Basketball was not such a big sport then, but I did love to play and watch it. I liked watching hockey, too. I never joined the softball league and never got pushed to do so. I had to find out about it on my own. I stumbled upon it and wondered why I was not playing. Then again, I am not such a big fan of playing softball/baseball. I think that with the size of the teams, we could never get such a large number of guys for a pick up softball game. Oh well, that is ancient history and I did play organized ball hockey as a young adult, so I guess I learned that if I wanted to play I had to do it for myself.

So, back to the lad. We have got him involved with house league soccer (not a big fan) and softball (he really likes that). He does some skating but he, like me before him, is unsure and does not want to risk embarrassment so is not into ice hockey. That is okay as he has been involved in some basketball. This is good given his freakishly large size and Lurch-like coordination, he needs to catch up to his size so his mechanics are off. It can all be worked on. Anyway, he has developed a passion for basketball and baseball, even getting X-Box basketball and baseball games for himself.

As you can see, going to the game was a real treat for him. We did go together about four years ago. He did not seem to enjoy the game, though the seats were pretty bad. He enjoyed running around the Air Canada Centre more than the game. I guess he was too young to appreciate the game itself as opposed to the experience of running around in a "strange" place.

Just two observations here. One is that my streak continues. I have not gone to a Raptors game, in regular season, that they have won. I have not been to many games and there have been some pretty crappy teams, so that is not surprising. They lost last night BUT it was a good game and it came down to the final minutes of the game before it was really decided. It was a good effort and the lad got to see an exciting ending.

The other thing is that the crowd at a Raptors game is much different than those at a Blue Jays game. The Raptor crowd seemed to be a little more diverse ethnically speaking. It was a microcosm of this city. The Blue Jays crowd seemed more, what is the word,.....inbred. Yeah, that's it. The Blue Jays, or is that baseball, attracts inbreeders. You heard it hear first.

With that I say, ciao!

Insane Family Gathering Part II

I am back. This will be the first posting of 2007. Another "Duh!" moment brought to you by me. Okay the obvious is out of the way, I did see the outlaws twice this weekend, and Friday night here brought the bar down to about curb level. I told you that with it getting dark so early he would freak earlier. I was so right. He was "freaking" and speaking such nonsense at around five. Why they came at four, I have no idea. Well, I do. My mother in law could hang with the lad and not have to listen to my father in law babble his reality broken thoughts.

We are sitting in the living room and he is yammering about my brother in law, who was supposed to be there at six thirty (he was late). Now, my father in law is trying to create a time line as to when he finishes work, comes home and gets to our place. Of course, in his world the laws of fucking physics cease to exist. It is like bringing the ice out at nine in the morning and being shocked, and not being able to comprehend why, that by four in the afternoon the bowl of ice is a bowl of tepid water. Somehow, in his mind, my brother in law has the technology to instantly travel at the speed of light and should be here instantaneously. He was not.

Then as we are sitting in the living, my mother in law is upstairs with the lad trying to get him to watch Oprah?, my father looks across my wife, his daughter, and then sees that it is dark outside. He then asks what "the wife" will do because it is dark. I look at the darkness and agree it is dark and then say "so what?". Meanwhile, I cannot, nor can the wife, figure out what the hell he is talking about especially when he refers to her as if she is not sitting beside him. It makes my brain hurt.

Anyway, I told you that you would get part II of an evening with the extended outlaw clan, or as I call it, "Who let the inmates escape the Asylum?". You have heard all about my father in law and his inability to master the remote control, now I bring you tales of his younger, diva, moronic sister.

She arrives like a house afire. Bitching about her son and daughter in law not being there, blah, blah, blah. The wife caught wind of it and put her in her place. It is funny. They grouse and come off as tough but back down like lambs when confronted directly with their own words. Anyway, she comes in with a gift for my in laws, a very thoughtful gift (that would assume that she thinks of anybody but herself) a bunch of tins of flavored coffee. My in laws drink instant coffee and nothing flavored (I would question anybody who drinks flavored coffees in any event, bunch of freaks, coffee should taste like fucking coffee, besides it is just a caffeine delivery system). Recall, my mother in law likes her instant coffee in a styrofoam cup so that she can imagine being at some fancy place (nothing but the best styrofoam) having a coffee.

She then sees that my mother in law's sister has brought some sort of dessert. I would not eat the thing, given how it looked but that is me. Anyway, this aunt now has a shit fit. If somebody had told her, she would have made and brought a dessert, blah, blah, blah. Somehow, this is some sort of competition between crazy, insecure women. I would suggest a fight to the death, but then again I see that as a win-win outcome. Ohhhh, that is too nasty even for me. I do not wish death on either of these women. Silence, yes, death, no. Well, that storm (tempest in a teapot) blows over. We eat and it is served buffet style.

That is cool by me. I end up sitting in the kitchen with my mother in law's friend. She, too, does not like this Crazy Aunt, but she takes no shit, so has no trouble standing up to the bully. It was funny because my mother in law joined us in the kitchen and would later say to me that she has not seen me, or spent time with me, all evening. I must have left some great impression.

Dessert time comes. Water is boiled to make tea. The Crazy Aunt wants coffee. Not just any coffee but the hazelnut coffee the she brought as a gift. When asked where the coffee maker is, my mother in law tells her that they do not have a coffee maker. "No coffee maker? Who does not have a coffee maker? What about a French press?" My mother in law looks at her and does not answer. She does not know what a French press is but if it is anything like that French tickler that my father in law had forty years ago, she wants none of that.

She created such a stink, actually a two part stink, that my mother in law's friend, who lives on the second floor of the building, got her coffee maker. It is a good thing that she drinks hot water with lemon because you never get rid of the smell or taste of that crappy flavored coffee because the essential oils bind with the plastic in the coffee maker (like attracts like for those of you who do not remember your organic, or even inorganic, chemistry). See you get a story and a science lesson when you read the Well Adjusted Madman (also, with the underwear I am wearing today, it should be the Continually Readjusting Madman, but I digress). So she got her fucking flavored coffee (quite the gift, huh?) and the smell of that hazelnut shit still permeates the air in my outlaws' unit.

The best is that on Friday, when the outlaws came for dinner, what did they bring, the fucking tins of flavored coffee. There is a coconut flavored coffee, which only made me say "What the fuck?!!!" Coconut and coffee? The chocolate, vanilla and hazelnut, I can see. But coconut. Maybe Crazy Aunt is crazy like her big brother (there is 15 years between them) only nobody has had the good sense to get her brain checked out. Coconut coffee??? Is there any other explanation for that? I mean, I do not know who invented that flavor, but the crazier part is somebody was fucked up enough to buy it (presumably for somebody else, was this a regifting?). So, now I have these tins of coffee that I would not consider using, so will end up giving to the homeless. They don't have homes, so they won't mind flavored coffee. I am expecting a lot of pissed off homeless soon.

Happy and Healthy New Year to y'all! All the best in '07! Ciao!