Category: Family

The sweet, dry hereafter

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

My wife, bored of writing about the condo only every few months, has set up a new blog with the intention of recounting more of her adventures (and TV watching habits, presumably). She’s also graduated to a real blog software: WordPress. Go say hello, ever’body.

.:.

Today, as I hurried toward Summerhill station to escape the rain, I walked by Atom Egoyan and his wife Arsinée Khanjian (at least, I assume it was her; I didn’t get a good look) who’d ducked under some cover. They are both very tiny.

[tags]nelliedee, atom egoyan, arsinee khanjian[/tags]

How hot is it?

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It’s hotter than Satan’s asscrack out there. I’ve only felt humidity like this once before: in New Orleans.

It’s days like this I pine for dear old Nova Scotia. Dear old moderate, damp Nova Scotia.

.:.

So yes, there is a plan underway for us to become vegetarians. We plan to ease into it slowly, over the next few months, and by the new year hopefully we’ll be fully veggie (though Nellie plans to eat fish; I haven’t yet decided whether or not I will) and not sliding down a slope of protein deficiency.

On making these plans, it occurs to me that I will have become, in my father’s eyes, a vegetarian atheist Upper Canadian banker. It remains to be seen whether or not he’ll let me in the house. If he does, I believe it will be just to assert his dominance at cribbage.

[tags]humidity, vegetarianism, cribbage[/tags]

"Jim Henson knew his place"

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For the sake of my waistline, I really need my family to stop visiting Toronto. Last night we took another brother and his wife to Fieramosca — our second visit in as many Saturdays — and left the place stuffed, as always. The staff actually ribbed us a bit, saying “OK, see you tomorrow night!” as we left. Smartasses. I had the salsiccia e quaglia alla griglia, a sausage & quail plate that TimmyD got last week (which I just had to try), my brother had the linguine di mama ninetta (a favourite of T-Bone’s), and the ladies shared the seafood pasta for 2. The hostess Mani (sp?) gave us some Tiramisu to keep us busy while the ladies had their after-dinner glass of Amarone. 3.5 hours later, we managed to waddle home. Oy.

Sadly, we didn’t get to spend much more time than that with them. They arrived mid-afternoon, after trying to deal with some lost luggage, and after we got some food into them the ladies went shopping while my brother and I sat and Starbucks and caught up on things. Then we popped down to Henry’s to find them a new digital camera (and may have found one ourselves: the Canon S3 IS), swung by the condo to have a look, strolled down to Front Street and then came back up on the subway (fighting for seats with Indy fans) to relax before dinner. While relaxing we put it on Just For Laughs — there was really nothing else on — and saw a very bizarre, very funny ventriloquist act by Nina Conti…it was weird to see this beautiful woman do a surrealist comedy act with a smarmy monkey. Anyway. Good fun, but it’s too bad they could only stick around for half a day.

Now then…to find a salad…

[tags]fieramosca, henry’s, nina conti, molson indy[/tags]

Stars, deaths & disasters

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

Dang. Last weekend we saw a pink-topped hearse driving around, promoting the new Andy Warhol exhibit at the AGO (curated by David Cronenberg); we’d have stopped him if we knew we’d get free tickets.

.:.

My brother and his wife should be arriving soon (the other one, not the one who just left on Tuesday). They picked a great weekend to visit: great weather and tons of festivals going on.

[tags]andy warhol, david cronenberg, ago, family visits[/tags]

"And like that…[they're] gone"

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The Brits have been seen off back to London. We dropped them at the airport this afternoon after spending the day enjoying Ontario. We wandered around Elora for a while, checking out the gorge and a few shops (including Stÿll, which I think is worth making the trip back for) before jumping in the car and heading to a nearby lake. It wasn’t as impressive as we’d hoped; we just drove along it until we found a spot where we could walk down to the shore. It wasn’t the nicest lake, so we just jumped back in the car (but not before I snagged a chocolate milkshake from a walk-up snack bar) and made for a town. We passed through a little rain — as it turned out, the only rain we encountered; pretty lucky as the forecast had been calling for storms — before reaching Orangeville. We poked our heads into an art gallery, a chocolate shop and a restaurant for lunch (it used to be a pub, or so my pub guide said, but it had been replaced by a restaurant…which I think may have made me sick…anyhoo) before getting back in the car and heading south. We arrived at Pearson in good time, got our guests checked in and on their way, looking for a pub on which to watch the footie match (which Germany lost after Italy scored very late in extra time).

We jumped back into the car once more (after I searched frantically for my Blackberry, which I — whew! — found on the floor) and I fought back post-lunch nausea long enough to return the car to a downtown Hertz, squish onto a subway and get home in time for some prime-time chilling. By the way, I like Toronto a lot less when I have to drive in it.

TimmyD blogged the whole affair on The Plummet Onions. It was great to have them here, great to show them a little more of Toronto, and great to know that it wouldn’t be too much longer before we see them again.

.:.

Recent tidbits:

.:.

Finally, I’m sad to say that Ash, the tiny-but-fierce cat and companion to our friends CBGB passed away this weekend. She was ancient and storied, like all great legends. I’ll miss her padding around CBGB’s place, I’ll always smile when I think about how she fell asleep on my lap on the way to Collingwood, and I’ll always laugh when I think about poor Ed having to pick her up with hockey gloves. Hopefully the smiles & laughter will come as easily to CBGB as missing her will.

R.I.P., Ash.

[tags]elora, styll, orangeville, indietits, philosopher’s walk. polaris prize, tornado, ash cat[/tags]

Waterfall (and I don't mean Tom)

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It’s surprisingly pleasant sleeping next to rushing water. I had visions of being kept awake by a dull roar and a constant need to urinate, but it was actually really nice. The bed, while comfortable, squealed like a choir of rusty crickets if I so much as moved my head.

Still and all, I managed a decent sleep, and we’re up now, hoping to take advantage of the last day of our vecation before it rains. Wish us luck.

[tags]elora, river gorge[/tags]

I suck at pool

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

After an unspectacular (though, in the grand scheme of things, probably pretty good for such a tiny town) meal, we set out to have a drink before returning to our rooms. Being 10:00 the hotel bar was closed (!), but they directed us to a place up the street.

It was a pool hall / sports bar kinda place…cheap beer, free pool and TVs tuned to wrestling. We decided to play some pool; I suck, as it turns out. I’ve just never really played. I managed to win the second game by sinking three in a row, but then lost the last one by scratching on the 8-ball. Ah well. The best part was that the bartender gave us a bunch of free credits on the jukebox, so TimmyD and I went to town. It seems that I play better to Soundgarden.

[tags]elora, bar, jukebox[/tags]

Elora

Dan DickinsonLeave a comment

We were up early this morning to pick up our rental car, grabbing some road muffins along the way. We made it out to our aunt + uncle’s place outside of Guelph in really good time, before 10:00. We had a great visit there; our cousin and another of our uncles joined us for lunch (we had strawberry shortcake…droooooool) and I showed everyone the miracle of whipped cream on a gingerbread cookie. We left around 3 to continue our journey.

Only a few minutes north was the town of Elora, where we’d booked a night at the Elora Mill Inn, overlooking a gorge with rushing water. It’s a cute little town; we walked around for a bit, had a drink in the hotel bar overlooking the gorge and had a few minutes to relax in our rooms. Now we’re about to head out for some dinner.

[tags]strawberry, guelph, elora[/tags]