Category: Daily life

Why yes, I had a nice weekend, thank you. And you?

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Beerbistro patio: Weihenstephaner, Anchor Steam, Maudite. St. Louis Wings (!): 10 original buffalo and a sneak preview of Montreal’s next opponent. Slight hangover. Vet appointment: (reasonably) clean bill of health. Kittens. St. Lawrence Market. Practically the entire first season of Veronica Mars. A bottle of Southbrook Cabernet rosé. California trip planning. Cumbrae’s steaks and a bottle of 2007 Thirty Bench Cabernet Franc (the Johnny Cash wine) and Ontario strawberries. The Informant! (imdb | rotten tomatoes). Up early. Starbucks, so help me. A little work. Bier Markt: patio seats and Blanche de Chambly and two Weihenstephaner (seriously, when summer hits I just cannot pass up this beer) and lots of wurst. The dramatic conclusion of Veronica Mars season one. Desperate need for — and frustrating inability to — nap.

Now, game one of the NHL’s Eastern Conference semifinals. Be still, my yawning and yet overly nervous heart.

[     Rut     ] –> Me

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Wow. What a game. Tense. Awesome, but tense.

This past week was frenetic; I’ve definitely earned my day off tomorrow. We’re headed out for a wine excursion in Niagara-On-The-Lake, the first time we’ve left the city since we went to France last fall. The weather is supposed to be shit but I don’t care. I need this. And I need some good food. And I need some fresh air. And I need a comfy hotel bed.

And I need to be back for game five.

The riveting adventures of sicky and worky

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So far this weekend I’ve barely left the office. Meanwhile Nellie’s allergies are so bad she’s been laid low by all the Benadryl she’s been taking. We did manage to watch Brothers (imdb | rotten tomatoes) late last night, which was okay. Now all I want to do is lie on the couch, turn off my brain, watch The Pacific and Treme and try to fight off this cold I can feel coming on.

In other news it turns out I like the caffe mocha. Who knew?

An evening of summer dreams

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On Thursday Nellie and I stepped into a bit of a different world. Through a work connection we somehow ended up at the ROM as guests for a charity event supporting Camp Oochigeas, a getaway camp in Muskoka for kids with cancer. It was our first time at a shindig like this and, while a little weird for us, it was a ton of fun.

The evening started with cocktails, the most delicious Kobe beef sliders I’ve ever tasted and a silent auction on dozens, maybe hundreds of items ranging from individual bottles of wine to trips, TVs, celebrity-designed paddles and many more. The one item that caught our eye was a painting, provided by Canvas Jam. The Pollock-esque painting had been done by Ooch kids, and it had the extremely rare quality of appealing to both Nellie and I. Seriously, we never like the same art, and that it had a backstory this special made it pretty appealing to us. We made an initial bid, and agreed on a limit for later when the bidding really heated up.

The crowd was moved into the main hall for dinner, introductory remarks and a virtually never-ending supply of wine. The emcee for the evening was Q107’s John Derringer, and he pointed out Beverly Thomson and Mike Komisarek (to whom, as a Habs fan, I am obliged to say: “boooo!”) in the crowd, but the real star of the night was a young lady named Heidi Hayes.

Heidi is an energetic, athletic, ridiculously charming girl who’s done some acting (including a part in The History Of Violence) and who happens to be recovering from some form of cancer that I can’t remember and couldn’t pronounce if I did. She was, of course, a former Ooch camper and was there to tell her story. Needless to say, by the end of her story the crowd was standing, clapping and shedding a few tears, utterly charmed by miss Hayes and unlikely to ever forget her. As Mr. Derringer pointed out after returning to the microphone, so long as Heidi is willing to tell her story for Ooch they’ll never have trouble raising the funds they need.

Those funds, in this particular case, were for their Summer Dreams program. Since so many kids are unable to get away from the hospital or their families for two weeks, Ooch is coming to them, building a location near the Toronto hospital district. To that end, the evening features a live auction for some premium items to go along with the silent auction and general donations throughout the evening. And this is where it got fun.

Somewhere between the $15,000 it took to win a Muskoka getaway and round of golf with Bobby Orr, and the $13,000 bid on a 52-bottle fridge filled with some unbelievable wines (1990 Lafite anybody?), we realized that we simple folk from farm and military base were faaaaaar from home. But damn, it was fun. One table spent $40,000 on 3 lots. I don’t know where those guys work but I hope they’re hiring.

Anyway, with that excitement done, we were in for a little of our own. We got back to the silent action. Somebody had bid very aggressively on our painting, but we matched. Then he threw up another big bid. We snuck one more bid in at the last minute, and he came back, ready to bid again. Nellie shrewdly engaged him in conversation as they compared notes about who wanted it more. While they discussed it the staff came around and collected the books with the winning bids…so I guess we wanted it more!

We were now the proud owners of some Ooch art (sorry for the shaky iPhone pic). I immediately began to worry that this wouldn’t seem like such a great idea the next (sober) morning, but there’s been no buyer’s remorse as yet. We’ll pick it up next week but we already have a few walls in mind. Oh, and T-Bone won dinner at Nota Bene, so we all made out well.

Overall a really fun, interesting night with good friends for a fantastic cause. And art! Hard to beat that.

"Someone's ear is in danger of having hair brushed over it…"

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I learned something this weekend: that there are three indispensable ingredients of a great weekend. These are, in no particular order: beautiful weather, ample time and people with which to share it.

On Friday I did have to go to the office, but it was nice enough outside that I could walk there, and I didn’t stay long. By noon I was home, fed and ready to enjoy the unseasonably warm day. Nellie and I strolled down to the Bier Markt patio for sunshine and beer (me: Erdinger weiss, Weihenstephan weiss, Spaten lager and Delirium Tremens; she: KLB Raspberry Wheat, Big Rock Grasshopper, Okanagan Spring pale and Koningshoeven Tripel) on a lazy Friday afternoon. Nellie had an urge for an Urthel Hop-It so we wandered up to the Beerbistro in search of one; alas, they had none. So we availed ourselves of the rest of their collection (me: Maudite and Trois Pistoles; she: Durham Hop Addict and Koningshoeven Quadrupel) while making dinner reservations at nearby Harlem. We’d been there once last year and liked it and it felt like the right fit on a lazy Good Friday. One ill-advised cocktail later and were into the starter (catfish Lafayette…yum!) and then our mains. My pork hocks were okay, but Nellie wisely got the fried chicken. I didn’t mind that I missed on some of the flavour. The relaxation was tasting delicious enough.

Saturday was the first day in about two months that I haven’t had to go to work, so I celebrated by sleeping in. Despite it being another beautiful day we didn’t really get out and about that much as we were prepping for dinner with T-Bone and The Sof. Well…Nellie did the prepping, I just cleaned up and provided moral support. Anyway, after a great meal (baguette w/ honey, balsamic and goat cheese; sausage-stuffed pasta with pancetta and sage; steak from Cumbrae’s and three kinds of cheese) this is what our table looked like:

Just for the record, that’s:

  • Marie Stuart champagne (which we brought back from France last fall)
  • Nino Franco prosecco
  • Stratus Icewine
  • Z52 Zinfandel
  • Hidden Bench Fume Blanc
  • L’Acadie Alchemy
  • Noval 2001 Port
  • Blanche de Chambly
  • Christofel Nobel
  • Doppel-Hirsch Doppelbock

And yes, in case you’re wondering, Nellie does like to drink her beer from a wine glass toward the end of the evening.

Sunday was, blessedly, another lazy day. A good lie-in, brunch at the Jason George, a nice long talk with my mom who turned 60 (!) today and Zombieland (imdb | rotten tomatoes), which was excellent. Tomorrow it’s back to work, in spite of my best efforts to take a day off, but for the first time this year I feel like I really got my money’s worth out of a weekend.

Oh, and the other ingredient for a perfect weekend? Consecutive shutouts.

http://www.thebiermarkt.com/home.html

Editor's note

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[Ed: please pardon’s Dan’s absence as he’s currently occupied with other things. You remember that scene in Return of the Jedi where Jabba drops Luke (and that poor Gamorrean guard) down the shaft into the Rancor pit? And Luke has to run around and hide under ledges and bash the Rancor’s scaly fingernail with a rock and throw a skull at a button way across the room (instead of using his Jedi telekinesis or whatev) to finally drop an iron gate on its neck? Yeah, well, it’s like that, except he’s in an office building. And it’s worse. But he’ll be back soon.]

Sorry, cats

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I know, I know, this blog is a ghost town lately. Too much time at work, both for me and my brain. Not a lot of other time or processing happening. In fact, today was the first chance I’ve had to just relax. We went to the market, picked up some wine and snacks and watched two movies: Adventureland (imdb | rotten tomatoes) and Trouble The Water (imdb | rotten tomatoes).

We even sold our old futon, finally. We were glad to see it go to some kids who’ve just moved here. Hopefully it lasts as long for them as it did for us. That futon was pretty much the first piece of furniture we bought when we got our first place in Toronto, and it’s served us well over the years. Twelve years later and it’s still completely solid. We need the space and there’s just no earthly reason for us to still have a futon anymore, but we still felt a little sad to see it go.

Now relaxo-day is coming to a close, and tomorrow it’s back to work. Anybody out there have a time-delaying machine? Anybody? Anybody?

2009 annual report: steady

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Let’s see, what happened in 2009?

Well, we took a big trip to France, a relaxing trip to Nova Scotia and a weekend trip to Ottawa for my brother’s birthday. Closer to home we enjoyed Toronto things like Hot Docs, TIFF and a Leafs/Canadiens game, as well as concerts by Mogwai, Frightened Rabbit and The Rural Alberta Advantage. We also made it through some rather dodgy Toronto moments like being stuck in a high-rise elevator and a tornado-spawning storm.

We celebrated friends’ events like the weddings of our friends Jenn & Trent and Tatiana & Sean, and for my friend Adam the signing of a record deal with a major label. We also said goodbye to some friends, like Nick and Stryder.

We tried, for the first time, fantastic restaurants like Amaya Bread Bar, Jacobs & Co, C5, North 44, Fid, The Wellington Gastropub, Scaramouche, and book-ended the year at Nota Bene in January and December. We also returned to old favourite Canoe, and I got to try Splendido one last time before it changed ownership.

I watched 80 movies (for the first time, that is; I re-watch movies all the time), bought 30 albums and got 15 DVDs. I also read 14 books (quite a change from previous years when the MBA all but killed my pleasure-reading): The Coming Of The Third Reich by Richard Evans, Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell, Rock On: An Office Power Ballad by Dan Kennedy, A Fine Balance by Rohinton Mistry, Slaughterhouse Five by Kurt Vonnegut, Almost Home by Damien Echols, Columbine by Dave Cullen, The Blind Side by Michael Lewis, The Long Walk To Freedom by Nelson Mandela, Deliver Me From Nowhere by Tennessee Jones, Pygmy by Chuck Palahniuk, The Dark Valley: A Panorama Of The 1930s by Piers Brendon, A Short History Of WWII by James Stokesbury and A Writer At War by Vasily Grossman.

So while last December I felt pretty blah about the year gone by, I was happy with this year. Most of the significant change came at work, which I don’t talk about here, but trust me when I say it got a lot more interesting and significantly busier for both of us. Outside of that, though, there was a lot of good, very little bad and a whole lot of steady. Given that 2009 was anything but for a lot of people, I’ll take it.