more gravy, drink it up boys

This weekend (or at least the Saturday) I went Canadian on everyone's ass, as I strolled downtown in the Escort, parked at the usual family parking spot (wink, wink, nudge, nudge, tap finger to nose) and then sashayed myself down to Confederation Park and the entrance to the Canal to take a skate. You have to keep in mind that this jabroni had not been on the canal for at least 5-7 years so I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know if there would be gangs present, or if I would fall through the ice into the frozen waters of the historic canal, only to never be heard from again. In fact, none of that ominous stuff happened and I am here today writing this blog. I will say that it was quite crowded unexpectingly since it was pretty cold and I went at 4 pm. However, expectingly, it was justified in being crowded since it was the first Saturday of Winterlude. One factor did not cancel out the other and the crowded won out. I always go for the underdog but it didn't prevail here.

Anyway, if you saw the dull blades on my skates before starting out on the rough and used up canal surface, you should have seen them after! They looked like butter knives - and not the blade, but the handles! In the second half of my canal skate, I could barely move at all as the blades were just so dulllllll. It served me right as the last time I had sharpened my skates was probably before Bush started his first term and I had done a lot of outdoor rink and arena skating in between. Ok, well, if you know me and what I get up to - yawn VHS yawn - you would call bullshi t on that since I hardly lace up skates, but still, there was that one summer of discontent where I went every Tues night to the Walter Baker to skate amongst the kids and families. I was their hero! I was their Stone Cold Steve Austin.

As I was saying, after dogging the last km of my skate, my rootie-poo candy-ass was craving some fat and sugar. What better place than the Beavertail stand, of which there was one every 500 m, conveniently located for all us jabronis. As luck would have it, the lines thinned out around dinner time since most people do not say, "hey cletus, lets go git us one of d'em Beavr tail thingies before we eats-us our squirrel for dinner." No, they try not to spoil their appetites.

My gain, as I got one quickly and a warm apple cider to go with it and just ate and drank in the middle of the ice. I went home and then turned slightly American and watched some wrestling tapes I had just bought earlier that day. I watched 1994 Royal Rumble with Razor Ramon facing I.R.S., The Hart brothers taking on the Quebecers ("we're not the mounties!") where Owen (RIP) famously turned heal, and the vaunted casket match between Yokozuna and Undertaker, which was hilarious.
Sunday I slept in long, exercised, laundered (clothes not money), organized my mental compartments and tried to do some reading and stuff. Also finished the movie Simon Birch.

Going back to the beginning of the weekend, I had lots of fun at my dad's 70th b-day party, hosted by Jones and FB. Happy B-day dad, what a milestone. You look great too and deserve everything you have today. The event was fun as Heidi put together a wonderful cake, which I appraised at $50. I also schmoozed Francois' parents and got caught up with my nieces.