Category: Family

12 days 'til Spring, my ass

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Another day, another snowstorm. How typical.

Actually, this one caused some consternation as my brother et al were scheduled to fly back to Halifax this evening. They ended up going to the airport a little early in the hopes of getting an earlier flight, and were able to do so. The early flight ended up leaving nearly an hour behind schedule, but that’s about all you can expect on a day like this, and there’s no reason to think their original flight wouldn’t have been similarly affected.

I’m glad they got away successfully. It was a nice visit, I’d hate for it to have been ruined by problematic weather.

.:.

I can’t believe I have to set the clocks ahead tonight. Ridiculous. Thanks, Dubya. Swell idea.

[tags]toronto snowstorm, pearson travel, halifax flight, daylight savings[/tags]

2 days, 4 Dickinsons

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

It’s been just over 36 hours since some members of my family arrived: my dad, my brother and my nephew. Since they got here yesterday morning we’ve had some breakfast at Sunset Grill, walked around Toronto a bit, played some crib (while my brother & nephew went to the CN Tower), watched some Planet Earth, had dinner at The Keg, shopped at St. Lawrence Market, had breakfast at Over Easy, visited the ROM, relaxed (while my brother & nephew swam in their hotel’s pool), ordered some Pizza and went to a Raptors game (while Nellie bought herself a Nikon D-60).

The question now is whether they’ll be able to fly out tomorrow evening because of this storm.

[tags]sunset grill, cn tower, planet earth, the keg, st. lawrence market, over easy, ROM, raptors, nikon D-60[/tags]

"Officials would not estimate the likelihood of success, only calling it high."

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Yesterday my brother was supposed to be in town for dinner, but fate prevented him from reaching Toronto in time, so Nellie and I just went ahead and had dinner at the same place. Screw valentine’s day; ’tis a crock.

Much more important to us are the days immediately before and after V-Day; Feb 13 is the anniversary of the day we got engaged (which Nellie refers to as engage-iversary) and Feb 15, the anniversary of the day we adopted the cats (which, naturally, she refers to as cat-iversary). Of course, there’s another wonderful day coming up on Monday: our new holiday. Thank you Dalton McGuinty.

One more Valentine’s-related tidbit: I’m guessing NBC re-aired last year’s V-Day episode of 30 Rock, ’cause yesterday my blog was flooded with hits for the phrase “Happy Valentimes!!”

.:.

Let’s see, what’s in the news today? Hmm…US primaries…campus gunman…Pentagon to shoot down satellite…baseball hea…wait, what?

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Pentagon plans to shoot down a disabled U.S. spy satellite before it enters the atmosphere to prevent a potentially deadly leak of toxic gas from the vehicle’s fuel tank, officials said on Thursday. [via Reuters]

Yeah, I don’t see how anything could go wrong with that.

.:.

Toshiba: bring out your dead.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. has decided to exclusively sell high-definition DVDs in the Blu-ray format, dealing what could be a crippling blow to the rival HD DVD technology backed by Toshiba Corp. [via MSNBC]

Seriously where’s my Blu-Ray Children Of Men?

[tags]valentine’s day, family day ontario, disabled satellite, hd-dvd, blu-ray[/tags]

This title should have been "a lassi for my lassie," but she drank beer instead

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Last night seven of us went to Indus Junction to celebrate Nellie’s birthday. It was very, very tasty…I think we tried five different appetizers and five mains. The vindaloo shrimp appetizer was excellent, as were the vegetable dumplings and the paneer & cauliflower dish. The vindaloo salmon was good too, and the soft garlic naan and dhal mahkni. A few of us had dessert; the rice pudding was apparently quite good but my double-fudge tart was just too much chocolate (!) for me.

All in all, good food, good spot, good service. We’ll be going back, I think.

.:.

The Canadiens beat the Ottawa Senators early last week, but that was when Heatley and Alfredsson were injured. Last night the Senators, with their top line intact, hung a 6-1 loss on the Habs. Glad I didn’t stay home to watch that one.

.:.

It sounds more and more like Godspeed You! Black Emperor is over, finished, kaput. Granted, A Silver Mt. Zion is still active, but I’ll miss the bombast.

[tags]indus junction, montreal canadiens, ottawa senators, godspeed you! black emperor[/tags]

"The blues is when you love someone don't love you"

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

.:.

Last night was a great Toronto night…lots of snow, a (relatively) quiet downtown and some comfort food after a trying week. We took Nellie’s mom to Smokeless Joe which, despite the fairly empty streets, was packed to the ceiling. We finally got three seats together and put down some pasta and some beer before hitting the wall. We’d all had a long day so we just came home and watched some TV (The Wire…so good!!) before crashing.

I have to say, after a week of corporate finance, it did me some good to sit in cozy little Joe’s with my wife, drink a good beer, have some good food, chat with the excellent staff and listen to Leadbelly on the stereo. My recharging has continued today; with the snow now stopped we had some breakfast at Over Easy and I now have the place to myself as Nellie and NellieMom have gone to see Dirty Dancing. Me, I’ll be staying home and watching the Canadiens game on TV…oh, right about now.

.:.

United 93 has been playing on TMN lately, and I’ve watched bits and pieces of it over the past couple of weeks. I thought the film was unsettling and brilliant when I saw it, and thought it was one of the best of 2006, but I simply cannot watch it again. It’s too hard on me. Every time I watch it, even just a few scenes, my guts twist into a knot. It’s probably the most physical reaction I’ve ever had to a film, and it happens every time I see it. I want to watch it — Paul Greengrass is a master at that sort of emotional recreation — but I get apprehensive just thinking about it.

I guess I’ll just have to lot it from a distance.

[tags]berczy park, smokeless joe, leadbelly, united 93[/tags]

Happy anniversary to me

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At this very moment four years ago I was probably doing some boxing day shopping with my father and brother, and was seven hours away from making an honest woman out of Nellie.

.:.

I’ve watched a ton of movies in the last few days, so here’s the synopsis: The Good Shepherd was actually pretty boring, and Angelina Jolie is really starting to scare me; Friends With Money was a chick flick, but the four lead actresses were so good it was almost worth it; Haven was one of the worst films I’ve ever seen and I have no idea how it got on my list in the first place; Shame was a rather shoddily-done documentary about an incredibly interesting topic so it balanced out; Spider-Man 3 was kind of entertaining but was the worst of the series by far, and 300 looks frigging amazing on Blu-Ray.

Whew.

[tags]anniversary, the good shepherd, friends with money, haven, shame, spider-man 3, 300, blu-ray[/tags]

My brain and eyes might just explode

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Yowzah, that was quite a morning. I guess not going home this year freed us up to purchase some bigger-ticket items for each other (which we normally wouldn’t want to try to get on a plane), so I am now the proud owner of a Blu-ray DVD player and Nellie now has a wine fridge. We certainly got lots of other cool stuff as well, but suffice it to say the DVD player’s been a little distracting; I’ve already hooked it up and watched Superbad.

I also got 300, the Spider-Man Trilogy and the seemingly-made-for-high-def BBC series Planet Earth on Blu-ray, as well as The Bourne Ultimatum in standard DVD format (it’s only on HD-DVD for now). Nellie got Freaks And Geeks: Season 1, Young Guns, Young Guns 2 and Never Been Kissed.

I got a few books too: My Boring-Ass Life by Kevin Smith, The Book Of Dave by Will Self and The Cult Of The Amateur by Andrew Keen. Nellie got A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore.

Right now Nellie’s making Christmas dinner (everything except the turkey, of course) while A Christmas Story plays in the background. I don’t know if she’ll be able to top last night’s kick-ass meal (lemon pepper shrimp, scallops, cheese, chocolate & a bottle of white wine I bought her last year) but I’m willing to let her try.

Happy Christmas, everyone.

[tags]christmas, blu-ray, wine fridge[/tags]

The Family Stone we are not

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

I’m not going home to Nova Scotia for Christmas this year, as I normally would. When I tell people this their first reaction is usually, “Oh, don’t want to deal with all the family drama, eh?”

Given how often I’ve heard it in the last month, and the number of times I’ve heard stories about such family drama, I think I must have a fairly abnormal family. There’s no drama. We don’t fight. We don’t have feuds, or get snippy, or form alliances, or try to manipulate each other. In fact, even since I grew out of the gimmetoys-gimmetoys-gimmetoys phase (if my dad were reading this he’d say, “What, you mean two years ago?”, ’cause that’s just how he rolls humour-wise) spending time with my family has been the best thing about Christmas.

I laugh more, and feel more relaxed, with my brothers and parents (especially when we’re on the farm) than I do with anyone else, except Nellie probably. That quiet time, punctuated with games of skill (read: cribbage and Trivial Pursuit), musical interludes (usually my father, brother or I fighting trying to convince my mother we should listen to delta blues instead of Christmas carols) and episodes of utter silliness (my brothers and I speak some kind of special language when we get going and occasionally fall on the floor laughing) is about as close to blissful meditation as I get.

And this isn’t just my immediate family either: our extended family on my dad’s side gets together every Boxing Day and it’s equally fun and laid back. Of course, they’re all like my dad…not a lot of high-strung people amongst the Dickinsons.

One of the reasons we could stomach the idea of not going back to NS this year is because we just spent time with my family in France (having one of the best times of our lives, I might add, so that’d be hard to top so soon after) and Nellie’ll have a family visit in about a month, so we won’t have been away from them for too long. There’s a couple of other reasons why we decided to stay in Toronto, but the idea of avoiding family drama never even crossed my mind. The only drama at all will be not seeing them.

[tags]family drama[/tags]

A morning of mild revelations

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Something occurred to me yesterday: I am half my father’s age. Well, technically I was precisely half his age on Oct 10 (thanks Excel!) but in terms of years, I’m 32 and he’s 64. I remember when I was a kid I wondered how old I’d be when that happened; I didn’t have the math skills to just figure out that it was just 32 so I sat down and did the math. I wasn’t even ten years old at the time, so 32 seemed like centuries away. I couldn’t imagine being that old.

Also: I never thought I would own a brown suit, but I’m wearing one today for the first time.

Life’s full of surprises.

[tags]silly musings[/tags]