Dear Asshole Neighbour:

If I wasn't such a considerate neighbour, I would drag our lawn mower around the corner and down your street, and start it under your bedroom window at 5:35am.

I would do this because this is the approximate time that your dog starts barking.

Do you not hear your dog?
Is your dog speaking to you?
Are you getting the pearls of wisdom from your dog to get your day started?
The whole fucking neighbourhood hears your dog.
But, the rest of us only hear loud, annoying, incessant, baying at the crack of dawn.

I have a news flash for you buddy, not everyone needs to get up when the sun starts peeking over the urban horizon

If you're not going to let your dog into the house, so that he doesn't wake up the whole fucking neighbourhood, I suggest:

Because if I wanted to listen to a dog barking for two hours straight at the first sign of daylight, I would have purchased a dog myself.

Ugh.

Tuesday 9:15pm

Mom: "Ya, tank Got dat ven Uja, me an Teta Ljuba are gon, you, Tanja an Deja vil hev each odder".

Me: "Yeah Ma, thank God".

Mom: "Don forget, I don vant a big deal fo mai funeral. Just don burn me."

Me: "ok, Ma".

I'm not doing the protest thing anymore.

I'm Going to Explode

Image by Diane Arbus (1963)

What does a kid have to do to be removed from a restaurant by a parent?

Last night, my Stepson and I were at a local Chinese Buffet getting take out.
While sitting on the bankettes waiting for our food, we observed little "Ethan" and his sister terrorizing the entrance area.

Right by the door, there is a little pond with live beautiful fish and the obligatory bridge.
Little Ethan kept running back and forth, and jumping on the bridge, with his sister right behind him.
Clearly, Ethan was leading the charge.
Occasionally, he would attempt to push patrons out of the way as he ran back and forth across the little bridge.
I could see the employees were watching him, but not sure what to do.

Not a parent in sight.

This went on for a while when I turned to my Stepson and said:
"Someone needs to get that child and sit his ass at the table. I'll never understand why people don't consider others when they let their children run wild in restaurants. The other patrons are not getting their meals for free to have to put up with that shit".

Suddenly, a parent appeared.
Dad said "Ethan! come over here..." He went directly to Ethan and took him by the hand.
Ethan clearly was not finished rearranging the mints and menus, and protested quite loudly.
When that had no effect on Dad, Ethan continuously slapped him as they passed us.
I heard Dad say, "If you're not going to listen, you'll have to sit in the van".

I was totally down with the van idea.

It seems that they were sitting directly on the other side of the screen that was separating the waiting area from the Dining Room.

I think Dad might have heard my comment.

About 30 seconds later, there was Ethan again at his post at the front door, once again pushing patrons out of the way as he ran back and forth across the little bridge at the front door.

When we left Dad was going to sit in the van with little Ethan.
Is this assbackwards, or what?

What would you have done?

I'll tell you what I would have done.
I would have excused myself (it looked like an extended family dinner), told my wife to call me when she was ready to be picked up, and put Ethan's hungry little ass in the van and taken him home, and put him in his room.
Next time we went out for dinner, little Ethan wouldn't be coming.

Rolling Blackouts


Weeellllll....
Power out since yesterday at about 4:15pm.
Back on 1/2 an hour ago.
Big annual BBQ tomorrow.
No water since 9:30am.

Last night was a beautiful night.
I haven't seen so many stars since I was a child. The moon was bright and Mars was visible.
Candles on the front stoop, a couple of glasses of red wine, BBQ, and the company of neighbours.
We weren't exactly roughing it.

Today,
I was freaking a bit because of the BBQ tomorrow and all the shifting of food I've been doing to save it from spoiling.

Now frankly, I've resolved "to go with the flow".
I've done more reading in the past day than I have in months.
I finally started "Family Matters", Rohinton Mistry's most recent book that has been waiting for the past two months for me to flip open its covers.
He's got me hooked....I love Rohinton Mistry's style of writing.

Sometimes God forces you to stop.
I fought it, but in the end, it is a good thing.

Still no water.
But, as I remember reading once at Linea's (and it's now posted behind my desk at work):

"Do not worry about tomorrow, for today's worries are enough for today"

I Vant to be Alone

I vant to be lyink on da chaise longue, an smoke da cigarettes.
I vant to boz mai manservant aroun an mek him bring me da bon bons, an bekaz I am lyink down...I vill vear dis shoes.
I vanna ver da silk kimono, mit mai hair an mekap to be perfekt.

I don vanna go to da Valmart, an da grocery stor.
I don vanna clean da hous, an kook da dinne.
I don vanna run da....how yu say.....errands.
I vanna hev, how yu say...."peopl" to do dis for me.

I vanna say "fack aff, responsibilities!", "Kiss mai ess, obligatshons! Go avay! Leave me alon!"

I vanna bi like Greta an Marlena touday.

There Goes Another Landmark

As I get older, more and more of the landmarks of my life are disappearing.
Wellesley Hospital (pictured above) is one of them.
The summer I turned 14, I worked in the Midway at the Canadian National Exhibition.
That September, I started high school and got a job in the kitchen of Wellesley Hospital after school.
From 4pm until 9pm, I worked on the "belt" filling whatever was for dinner into the thermal trays, collected them from the floors after dinner, then worked in the steamy, smelly, disgusting dishroom to clean the trays, along with a lot of other high school students just like me.
When I got my paycheque every two weeks, I handed half of it immediately to my mother to help her with the bills and groceries (something that is unheard of amongst todays working teenagers).
I learned so much from that job.
There were so many "firsts" for me at that hospital.
I once stood in the hallway of 4N, with tears streaming down my face as I watched a nurse feed a man who looked to be around 40 years old, but flapped his arms and wiggled around in his bibbed chair like an infant.
It was the first time I had ever seen what the misfortune of nature could do to a human.
I used to sit with a man in 3W during my breaks so that he could smoke a cigarette in his room (the nurses didn't have the time to sit with him, and yes, back then you could smoke in a hospital). He was blind and his legs had been amputated.
Albert always recognized my footsteps as I approached his room...I knew he waited for me.
"Dear, is that you, dear...." he would say as he heard my footsteps.

Wellesley Hospital was were I learned to be responisible.
I became an adult working there.
I learned about humanity, benignity, and that money had to be worked for....hard.

Now, the Wellesley Hospital building is hollowed out and shortly will no longer be there.
One more part of the history of our city, and my life to be referred to in pictures and memories.

It's Our Anniversary
I know it sounds kind of cliche, but my husband and I were married in Niagara on the Lake, just a few minutes drive from Niagara Falls.

We recently took a drive over there to have a look at the Chapel we were married in.

As I said previously in my 100 Things #41 & 42, the Chapel seats 4.
It was nice to see that the Chapel is still standing after all these years and that there is still a guest book that hosts the signatures of vistors from around the world.

On another note:
it's
Reecie's Birthday. Go on over there and wish her a happy one.