Canada Dry Bitter Lemon? Awful

Before wrapping up MB exciting trip to our northern neighbor, I should mention that the arrival of Baby Zeigler (still unnamed) is imminent. Millicent's due date is May 10. Some may recognize this as Mother's Day and find that fitting or sweet or both. The coldhearted may not but does anyone really care about them. Hence their cold hearts. Anyway, if Baby Zeigler stretches it out (so to speak) until then I'll be surprised but rest assured, there will be a birth announcement up here ASAP. It probably won't be for Baby Zeigler, but it will be a birth announcement nonetheless. Oh, and please try not to notice that I shifted a four-day trip into two.

Day 2 was spent doing more sightseeing but managing to avoid pretty much any place the average person has heard of. So that means, again, no CN Tower and um, no CN Tower. They did see a dude who looked like a Gord but turned out to have the rather American name of Brad. Bummer. But MB did manage to find a cool record store, Soundscapes. (This was possibly on Saturday, but since I don't know I can't imagine why anyone would care).

Like me, MB is always on the lookout for record stores because she's never going to catch up with my collection otherwise. Unlike me, she does has somewhat of an interest in architecture and historical sights of which Toronto has them in spades. The CN Tower and, um, you know. Usually however, the pull of plastic, vinyl and snooty hipster clerks wearing glasses and cool shoes wins out. As it would.

Before she left for Toronto, she had asked me if I wanted her to pick me up anything. Natch, I forgot until after she left and sent a frantic text requesting such an item. (The new The Who Sell Out Deluxe Edition which isn't available in the U.S.) Unfortunately, my text writing skillz and her reading skillz didn't match up and I didn't even get a lousy t-shirt out of the deal. But she did let me know how cool the store was. Thanks. I then told her how cool it was to hang out with some person she would think is cool but no one else would recognize. Oh, how mad she got.

Now the ultimate purpose of their whole trip was just to get away from Jacksonville. Fair enough. That cold, snow and heavy coats destroys sun, beaches, and scant clothing in a battle of the desirables is a no-brainer. So it was with some disappointment that MB and Alfredo found the weather not all dissimilar to their adopted Jacksonville. Such a crushing disappointment this was, that MB briefly considered calling the whole thing off. But the prospect of eating doughnuts with members of Barenaked Ladies proved to tempting and the trip was back on. Alas, on the whole doughnut thing she was disappointed too. Though can not meeting Barenaked Ladies really be considered much of a disappointment?

The secondary (and really main) purpose was to go to the Great Lake Swimmers show in Toronto. Elephant memoried readers of this space may recall that a couple of weeks ago, the three of us enjoyed an evening with that very band. Such was the life-changing nature of the performance for 1/3 of us that a trip 1600 miles from home was deemed necessary. Bringing the mountain to Mohammad this was not. It's close enough for rock and roll though, I suppose. As GLS are from Toronto, (which is, in fact, the ONLY city in Canada) they were warmly received by the crowd. In kind, they washed their flannel and trimmed their beards for the occasion. Well, not the lady, I'm pretty sure she washes daily which is rather polite of her.

Unlike the previous night's Youth Group show, MB found this one much more to her liking. No douchery to be found and since I'm sure the guys and gal in the band will be reading this, if only to figure out where I live so they can come itch me with their beards, thanks for entertaining MB and Alfredo. They really dug it. As did I the other night in Atlanta.

After the big show, there really wasn't much else of interest to be found in Toronto. Sure there's a cracking transportation system, ever-present dudes named Gord and Stu, and far too many other Canadian cliches I've yet to run into the ground, plus the always unneeded prospect of french fries covered in gravy and various other goop (Poutine). An aside, how do you know your country is so awesome it has too much free time? When there's enough time to come up with something to make the greatest food ever invented, french fries, disgusting and inedible. Well played, my Canadian friends. Maybe that's why there fewer fat Canadians. Aside from Bachman Turner Overdrive, of course.

As a result, our traveling duo headed back to the relative comfort of the good ol' U.S. of A and the beautiful, welcoming sights of Buffalo, New York. Buffalo is a city for those who like the dingy industrial feel of a Pittsburgh or a Cleveland but hate that it only snows 7 months out of the year instead of 10. Probably best known to most as home to that eternal punching bag of sports futility, Buffalo Bills. Buffalo--Where Super Bowl dreams come to die. It's still an okay town in my book, I just can't imagine they put that slogan on the tourist brochures.

And then some time later, MB and Alfredo arrived back home to their cats and the sun and the heat and the comfort of knowing that in a few thousand words I'd managed to offend an entire country at their expense.

I must go now. I'm expecting a callback on my job with the State Department.

MB's so bored with the USA

I took a brief venture to Atlanta last evening to see the ultra fab space rock duo Windy & Carl. It was all very cosmic and something that will probably be expanded upon at a later date. In the meantime, let me get back to detailing MB's trip to Toronto that I didn't go on. When I left off, her and hubby Alfredo had just settled down to nap after testing out the wash basin in their basic Polish bed & breakfast room.

Though it seemed as though they slept for a few hours, MB and Alfredo actually slumbered for less than 15 minutes. Not really enough time to do much of anything save give them the energy to head down the street and find some coffee/beer. That's something one instantly notices in Canada: the beer. Sort of like wine is to France, I suppose. The golden nectar flows freely everywhere up there. McDonald's, libraries, even churches have been known to hold "beer day" at random. Days which are quite popular since everyone, regardless of age, is required to drink instead of doing much of anything.

The rest of the world call this Monday.

Inevitably, once the beers get in then talk of revolution and finally breaking free from all that British tyranny is begun. It lasts long enough until everyone sobers up, goes home and remembers that the Queen means even less to them in Canada than she does in England. And then the anger turns to the Australians. Who, in turn, direct their anger right back. A couple of times, the war of words has escalated to the point of impending battle. Then the other realizes that their opponent is on the other side of the bloody world and all that travel time could be better spent boozing. So it goes.

That is all neither here nor there, since MB was perfectly content to nurse a single Moosehead and Alfredo stuck with some St. Pauli Girl, which is not Canadian. That Alfredo can be such a contrarian. Since beer is such a large part of the culture, they were able to carry on with the sightseeing, brews in hand. First free health care and not open drinking. The Canadians really do think of everything.

As there wasn't a whole lot to see in Little Poland, they ventured somewhere towards the center of town. The sight where most tourists would head to see all the big sights of this fine city (CN Tower and um, the CN Tower). But figuring once you've seen one Space Needle, you'd kinda seen them all, MB suggested they bypass the view and revolving restaurant atop the CN Tower. In other words, the went downtown to see the sights and ended up seeing FA.

I once saw a news clip about the guy who has to change the bulb on the light at the top of the CN Tower. One would figure such a fellow would have an interesting story to tell or at least have a story that could be made interesting. In his case, this was not true. Super dude that he probably is, our bulb changer must also be the most boring bloke on the face of the earth. How hard is it to make the story of working 800 stories in the air, with only a cable keeping you from landing face first into the recurring nightmares of bystanders, interesting? Apparently, quite when there's really nothing much to work with. Why they couldn't have embellished that he is also an ace ornthologist or helps spot the odd missing child/dog is beyond me. See, media folk, it's not that hard.

Nevertheless, figuring that if the most exciting job available at the CN Tower is filled by such a snoozer, the Tower itself probably wasn't worth seeing. They skipped out. Alfredo flipped the Tower off as they went by just because it sucked.

The evening's entertainment was to be provided by an Australian group known for some reason as Youth Group. They are vaguely a group and at one point were youth so there you go. I guess. Being a band that MB has seen several times in Australia, her expectations for greatness were perhaps a little high for the Toronto show. They were not met and her comment that the lead singer acted "a douche" was taken by me to not be much of compliment. This could be one of those "bad meaning good" phrases, I don't know. I'm not up on hipster speak. I will say, however, that being in Toronto and playing at a place named Lee's Palace and not performing any Rush tunes is a pretty douche-y move.

I forgot to mention, in addition to the moose at the border, they also give all comers a Rush cd so Youth Group can't use that as an excuse. I'd imagine that Youth Group regretted the omission when the powers that be, i.e. Rush, made sure there were only about 25 people in attendance. Coming all the way from Melbourne, methinks they lost money on that gig.

Hell hath no fury like Geddy Lee scorned.

To be continued...

Canader? I hardly know her

As few probably realized but pretty much all would have cared, my dearest pal MB and her hubby, Geraldo, decided now (last weekend, actually) was as good of time as any to take a little vacation. World travelers they, this was a short jaunt north of the border to the place every Bush-hater threatened to move but of course never did, Canada. So as the world was just coming to grips with the latest media scaremongering PANDEMIC!!!!! (capital letters, exclamation points, OMG, etc.), Swine Flu, MB and Geraldo decided to take in the HQ sights of the media's last scaremongering pandemic (small letters, no exclamation point because the U.S. was never threatened), SARS. I suppose this is somehow fitting. Or at least nice of them.

Whatever the reason, they went and MB took a 428 photos, some with Geraldo and a few actually interesting (I keed) but felt she couldn't adequately capture the experience and turn it into a post worthy of her blog. She jokingly suggested I write it for her. She will probably never crack wise with me again as I'm taking her up on that offer. This is a task that I feel I am uniquely and thoroughly qualified for. To wit:

1. Rush hails from there and I've been listening to them religiously for over 22 years during which time I've seen 18 shows.
2. I love the Kids in the Hall, know a lot of their skits and have seen them live.
3. Growing up my favorite baseball team was the Toronto Blue Jays.
4. I spent about 4 hours in Toronto about 20 years ago on a youth choir trip and have a t-shirt from the University of Toronto bookstore. I know, I'm awesome.

I'm fairly certain that these four reasons (and I could go on) more than make up for the fact that I wasn't along for their trip. I can't imagine why they didn't ask me. Enjoy.

Thursday morning started out pretty hectic as they hurried on to the Jacksonville airport. (I've no idea if they were running late, but I'm required by law to assume that any/all trips to any/all airports are behind schedule. This is a cheap device writers use to avoid describing the mundane. What's more exciting? They tore into the parking lot on two wheels, not even taking time to shut off the car and dashed to the gate just as the skyway was about to pull away from the plane. Or. They left home at the suggested 3 hours beforehand, encountered little traffic, parked near the terminal and waited for the next 2 hours until boarding began.)

So finally on the place, MB commented she couldn't believe that she was finally going to land of free health care and beer. Geraldo agreed. The plane smiled at them. Aside from the screaming child and the overweight fellow with the nasty cough (again, law requires) the flight was uneventful. Except for when MB demanded the flight attendant provide something other than Everybody Hates Chris for the in-flight entertainment. A mini-revolt was quelled and they eventually arrived in Toronto.

As most probably know from watching Don Ho or that Brady Bunch episode, when one arrives in Hawaii, one gets a lei (an unfortunate side-effect being that every comedian thinks he/she is the first to come up with a "I got lei'd in Hawaii joke. Ho, ho.). In Canada, they give all visitors a moose. I'm not really sure why or what they expect folks to do with them, but they do. Since most folk have forgotten to pack a trailer and hate moose and all that they stand for, the roadside from the airport has become a sort of haven for abandoned moose. It was at this point, that MB shed her first tear. The abandonment was disheartening, but she recovered in time to kick their own gift, Maurice, to the curb. Nature is a cruel bitch.

Figuring that some posh hotel in downtown Toronto would be what everyone was expecting, MB and Geraldo opted for a bed & breakfast in the Polish district of the city. I suppose one knows one is in a truly international city when there are nationality districts. We just have the white section and the black section around here, but we'd gladly welcome any Polish too. Aside from a lot of peeps with -ski on the end of their name and Lech Walesa monuments I don't really know what makes up Toronto's Little Poland but I'm sure it's nice.

As are the people, including the owners of the B & B, Mr. & Mrs. Jires. Geraldo had scarcely put his bags down before Mr. Jires welcomed them with some gibberish that Geraldo assumed was Polish. MB responded in French and suddenly a little Tower of Babel moment occurred. Mrs. Jires looked on with distress. "Not more French," she thought. MB won her back by telling Mrs. Jires that her pal's, Jeremy, all-time favorite film is Rosemary Baby's directed by Poland's Roman Polanski. For the next 6 hours they discussed Jeremy and why he would be so enamored with such things. A rather remarkable discussion considering that until MB and Geraldo entered their lives the Jires had no idea I existed. Luckily, MB had brought pictures and was able to bore all to death with my mundane life.

Having wasted the day's sight-seeing time discussing me, MB and Geraldo retired to their rooms wherein they found a bed, a bedpan and a wash basin as one always finds in such places. Geraldo drew some water from the sink and the two of them collapsed on the bed for a well deserved nap. It had already been a long day. More to follow...

Laziness pt. 14

As I know the world is always wondering about such things, here's the current desktop picture on my computer at work. It captures Dustin Hoffman and Carl Bernstein discussing being Jewish whilst Bob Woodward and Bob Redford think about being handsome men. A pity the movie (All The President's Men) is such a self-congratulatory snoozefest. Watch Dick instead. Will Ferrell and Bruce McCullough are probably closer to the truth anyway.

Sort of like Kohoutek

For a technically savvy family, we're not exactly on the cutting edge of things. We know all about the latest gadgets/gizmos; we choose not to purchase them until they're outdated, which makes perfect sense. If it hadn't been for the England trip back in the fall I probably would still be an ipod luddite. Getting one never really crossed my mind. I had a little mp3 player for running and that was sufficient. For everything else, I wondered why I would want to take a decent chunk of my record collection around constantly when I could just carry a couple of cds. Again, perfect sense.

But then we started becoming world travellers again and the near constant silence between my father, brother and me on said trip seemed too daunting. As I said at the time, we're not big talkers and after 300 years together have things down pretty much down to winks, nods and grunts. A sample conversation: One of us: "What do you want to do now?" Another one of us: "Dunno." The other one: _shrug_. And repeat. Thus I entered the ipod world and marched confidently into the technology of 2006. In late 2008.

Which brings me to yesterday wherein I purchased an ipod shuffle. To commemorate I did a ceremonial 5 miles yesterday with my old mp3 player containing its same songs that I'd long grown sick of. After a final swing through some Deep Purple and Fountains of Wayne, I retired the MP3 from running duty. Enjoy your retirement old friend. Coupled with color tv and a microwave, I'm pretty sure that brings my tech status to sometime in 2007.

Not to be outdone, my Dad, for reasons best known to himself, entered the Blackberry fray. I realize for most modern folk, this is hardly a newsflash but considering up until a year or so ago, he rarely kept his cell phone on, this is a titanic shift. Maybe he was jealous of all those youngsters with their cool shoes walking around with those snazzy holders on their belts. Don't know, but now he's got a whole new assortment of bells and whistles he'll never use.

I've never really known him to be mowing the woods (yes, he does this though is otherwise seemingly sane) and have the sudden urge to know, say, Pedro Martinez's stats from his previous start. An understandable urge. However, having never experienced this particular strand of helplessness I suppose I can't really fathom the severity this entails. I'm probably in the minority, however. But praise Jeebus, should that urge strike him now, he can find out such facts and so much more without having to leave his beloved tractor. And people think modern life is rubbish.

Because he's gone from zero to sixty with this latest craze, he's a work in progress on the Blackberry. But he's on his own. Andy is busy with final preparations for Baby Ziegler (still unnamed) and doesn't have the time to show him exactly how to use the device. I simply can't be bothered because I am a bastard--not literally, of course. And since my Dad never knows when the mood/opportunity will strike to learn all about those amazing features of his new toy, he carries all manner of wires, plugs, discs and general crap relating to said Blackberry in a Wal-Mart bag with him. I believe that falls under the realm of defeating the purpose. But again, I'm a bastard.

In the midst of all this Blackberry madness, my Dad has also discovered that bane of grammarians everywhere, texting. One might ask why would a non-talkative 68-year old dude possibly need another medium to not communicate with his two non-talker sons? What could he possibly not need to say electronically that he can't not say to us in person? Beats me. Perhaps he feels we'll take his texting privileges if he doesn't use it. If we did I really don't know what he would have to complain about. He'd still have his 8-track player and some Ferrante and Teicher albums to keep him company.

For whatever reason, though, since then I've gotten far more updates on his mundanities than usual. 16-year old girls the world over would be proud as he informs me such details as I'm leaving the doctor's office. I got the Tahoe unstuck from the mud. Ooh, I just passed a brick house. OMG. God help us if he ever discovers Twitter.

Will you be my friend on Facebook?

As the EPJ presently has about half of Mexico working on site, my declaration of Rancho Relaxo pool/spa & salad bar being complete and open for bidness may have been a bit premature. Nevertheless, like the still under construction Death Star in Jedi, it is still fully functional and ready to destroy small planets. Or fun. So...below a couple of pictures. Rancho Relaxo meet Earth. Earth meet Rancho Relaxo. Gate that keeps out the riff-raff leading to cement made from the sands of the Sahara up steps to authentic old-timey rocking chairs stolen from Cracker Barrel.

A couple of notes: 1)The EPJ was eager for Earth to know the door on the smokehouse (she's quite the cured meat fan) is being painted to match her umbrella. Presumably she means red and not striped. Personally, I'd prefer a striped door because that would be sassy. 2)Assume the garden hose is the very one used to fill 'er up. They keep it nearby as a second line of defense should the gate fail to do its job. 3)The EPJ thought this the best picture to show off the pool so please ignore the fact there's a table in the middle of the frame blocking, erm, the pool.

Met a man on a train near Santa Fe

The answer to the question that I know has been on everyone's mind is, no. I am not going to the secretary's luncheon today. Mainly because I'm not a secretary. Even if I was have no desire to sit at a hen party explaining for the umpteenth time that I don't eat "adult" food (I really don't care how divine that broccoli salad might be) or feign appreciation of my goodie bag from Mary Kay. Still, the EPJ asked if I was going because "she'd let me go if I wanted to." I concentrated real hard and asked her if she could read my mind.

As for the EPJ, it will be with some interest to some to know that the Rancho Relaxo pool/spa is finally complete. They installed the salad bar last week and I believe the whole shooting match is officially open for bidness. Which is not to say it's being used; that would be ridiculous. I'm pretty sure the waters have yet to be disturbed. It looks nice though. So should the urge to hop in for a few laps strike during lunch, she can now give in. I'm pretty sure that was the only reason for building the thing anyway. Oh yeah, Rancho Relaxo also has fountains that shoot water in pretty patriotic colors. I've no idea if the red, white and blue was extra or if the builders threw that in because they love the USA. I consider this another victory in the war on terror.

My pinkeye or allergy or whatever was previously figured has turned out to be a staph infection. Of my eye. In a touching display of empathy, Marisol told me she'd never heard of getting one in the eye. My family has a knack for the unique. Lucky us. So now I'm dropping eye drops every waking hour (literally) until I go back to the doctor tomorrow.

My coworkers, pillars of support all, apparently believe a staph infection to be a death sentence. "Oh, golly." "I'm so sorry." "That's serious. Are you all right with it?" "Shouldn't you stay away from us?" I'm getting by thanks; I managed to talk myself down from the roof of my doctor's one story office.

Regarding this death sentence, I'm pretty sure it's not since I figure the doctor would have at least closed the door for such a prognosis. But he only went to med school and has practiced for decades; my co-workers do watch Oprah and read women's magazines so I guess that counts for something. You go, girl.

Update: One of the groundskeepers managed to discover water on the courthouse property with his trusty lawnmower. Pretty sure he didn't mean to, but oh what a majestic gusher he's created.

45 minutes later that sucker is still going. It seems as if no one can quite figure out where the off button is. I've volunteered the EPJ services to go sit on it until a better solution can be discovered.