1473 - Young, Embarassed and Climbing

Last week was a wild week, at least the Thursday through Saturday stretch. It was so wild, I was a week late finishing my previous entry. I'd decided to be a bit more casual with my writing, as I seem to have lots of free time during the week. This time, I didn't.

It was a decent work week, until Friday. I got lots done, and I wasn't interrupted much by the Seattle guys. I really focused on making life easier once these inevitable interruptions make their unheralded return.

Monday after work, I tried to finish off my taxes, but I wasn't able to log into the tax site. The "email me my password" thing didn't work. I tried dozens of usernames and passwords, but I had to give up. I was too pissed off to enter all my information again. I watched the first of what would be a string of Kenny Vs Spenny episodes, a show that has quickly become one of my favourites. It pits the bizzare, unscrupulous, and intelligent Kenny versus the paranoid, honest, and irritable Spenny. Each episode, they pick an activity at which they compete. The winner of the activity gets to choose a "humiliation" that the loser must suffer. The show is Canadian, taped on the streets of Toronto - I'm glad that we came up with such a brilliant concept! The two conflicting personalities could not be more perfect.

I cooked Monday night. I made perhaps my best stirfry to date - for the first time, I didn't overcook the meat (chicken) OR the vegetables. I put in a can of coconut milk, and it really absorbed nicely into the chicken. As always, I made it pretty spicy.

Though the cooking experience went smoothly, I was angered enough by my small wok to head to the stores in search of a larger one. I also made a list of the other things that had been bothering me. I looked for a nice, heavy blanket for my bed - ideally one that is heavy yet not particularly warm. I like the weight of lots of blankets, but I don't like being too hot (certain exceptions noted). I also looked for a large pot (for chili/chowder making); a larger cutlery tray (why are there never enough spaces for two sizes of both forks AND spoons? COME ON!); and a large, wooden cutting board (so I can cut more than one bloody carrot at a time). I am such an old man.

I returned with a cutting board, an overpriced cutlery tray, and deflated enthusiasm. Tuesday night, Dad and I went out for round two. We hit store after store, but the puny woks available did nothing but insult us. The Paderno store had one large wok, like JW's, but with handles that were extremely loose. The clerk recommended I not buy one, so I left empty-handed. At Zellers, our sixth store, I finally broke down and bought a wok. It's only slightly larger than my old one, and now I think I'll return it and keep looking. I did get a nice pot at Price Club.

Okay, I'm just sitting down to continue this entry. It's after one in the morning, and I'm running imports in the name of Seattle. I need to do something to pass the time. Anyway, enough about that - I can't be talking about the future in the present context!

Wednesday night, I went to yoga and had a great class. We had a guest instructor, and though she lacked the superior intellectual skills of our usual instructor, I liked her literally hands-on approach. She helped each person stretch beyond what was achievable alone. She physically helped you get into the proper positions - sometimes verbal instructions just aren't enough. It get's confusing when they say something like (and this has happened), "reach as high as you can, but keep your shoulders low and relaxed... now turn your shoulders into your armpits...." The stretches were amazing, and I definitely came out of there with an added bounce in my step. I needed it, too, because I wound up walking all the way home - I still beat the bus there.

I think Wednesday was AN's birthday. Thursday evening, we celebrated at his place. TA and I bought him a quart of Johnny Green, which he wasted little time in opening. AN and AB bought him some knives and some snacks; they also bought him a cake. We tried to convince AB to let us have the word "cracker" written on the cake, but she would have none of it. After all, last year, we got AD a cake with "Happy Birthday Dorris" (yes, TWO r's) written on it, and he still thinks we got a deal on a cake someone didn't want.

The evening was spent eating snacks and drinking blender drinks courtesy of AD. He now has an extensive liquor cabinet, and he seems to take great pleasure in taking orders from his guests, knowing he'll have the ingredients available to make the beverage. I'd decided I wasn't going to drink that night, sometime that morning. By go time, I'd alloted myself two Strongbows, a reasonable amount. In the end, I had two grasshoppers, two pina coladas, a Strongbow and a shot of Johnny Green. AN tried to get me to do a shot of tequila on the way out, but that's exactly what I didn't need. He poured it back into the bottle.

The five of us wound up back together again the very next night, once again at AD's. This time, we played Risk and then poker. I won the Risk game, while we listened to 103.5 and drank wine, whiskey, beer and blender drinks. I didn't have all that much, but I had enough. RD had a lot - she smashed her favourite crystal wine glass, spilled a drink on the Risk board (separate incidents), and rolled a die across the board, knocking the men all over the place. She spent the latter part of the evening passed out on the couch. We had a good time that night - everyone was in a good mood, and we laughed constantly the entire evening.

Saturday, Toni had yet another "big" party at his appartment. It's thunder was largely stolen by Friday night's activities at AD's - a night we all knew would be difficult to top. Earlier on Saturday, I re-did my taxes, this time completing the process by submitting them to the government. I'm not really convinced I got all of my tax documents this year, but I decided to go ahead and submit anyway - I'll take my chances.

Mid-afternoon, I went to JW's. It was a nice day, so we sat out on the front steps while she did the remainder of her work. Once outside the house, I noticed that the door had locked behind us - we quickly realized that we were locked out, with a laptop computer and no warm clothes. JW's roommates had just gone out, so waiting around was not an option.

The ensuing examination of the building for potential entry points proved fruitless. JW lives on the second floor of her building, so a simple (but effective) smash-the-window-and-hop-through-the-hole approach wasn't in the cards. I decided that our only hope was to get up onto the deck coming off of JW's roommates' room. It looked fairly simple - climb onto the fence surrounding the deck of the first floor unit, grab onto the bottom of the second-floor deck, and pull yourself up.

It wasn't quite that simple, for two reasons. Firstly, the step I planned on using to get from the lower deck to the upper deck was far underneath the upper deck, making it difficult to stand on while getting a grip on the upper deck. Secondly, the boards making up the fence of the upper deck were incredibly smooth - getting a good grip would be fiddicult (I was going to correct that typo, but it's kind of funny).

I got JW to come around to the back of the house to witness my death. I climbed up onto the top of the lower deck's fence. I tried to find a good place along the upper deck, but I gave up and circled around to the front, so that I would land on flat ground if I fell. I got up on the step underneath the upper deck, while holding onto the slippery boards. I collected myself, then let go with my weaker left hand and quickly reached up for the top of the railing, not really sure if I'd be able to hold my weight with only my right hand. I was able to hold it long enough to reach the top of the railing with my left hand. Once I'd got ahold of it, I knew I was in the clear. I pulled my body up, and easily hopped over the railing. Luckily, the door to the deck was open, and I was able to get back inside. It's a good thing, too, because I wouldn't have been able to get back down, at least the way I came up.

We went to get our groceries as usual, then went to Economy Shoe Shop for dinner. We split a club wrap and some sort of Thai dish (the only one on the menu), both of which were delicious as usual. Next to us sat a couple of younger guys who'd obviously put back a few. One of them was the boyfriend of our waitress, and she would go over to their table every few minutes to chat or grab a nacho. There was a magician going round to all the children, and he got roped into a rather lively chat with the two guys. The conversation ended when one of them said something like, "catch ya later, brother." On our way out of the restaurant, I said to one of the guys, "have a good one, man" and we punched fists (or whatever it's called) before heading out. It was an interesting meal.

Next up was another one of TA's famous parties. There's not much to say - a bunch of us sat around, people marvelled over my flowing locks, we looked at pictures, and had a few beer. It was a fun party, but yet again, it was poorly attended. It's kind of sad, but it seems that TA's coworkers have stopped coming to his parties (with two unfortunate exceptions).

Sunday morning, JW and I went to a nearby Jamaican restaurant for breakfast. We both had the simple eggs/bacon/taters breakfasts, with toast. I was a bit disappointed that I had to eat eight slices of toast with only raspberry jam for spread. I'm going to have to start carrying mini cheese whiz packets around with me.

After breakfast, we took a walk around the neighbourhood - we stopped at a shop in the Italian market, where I bought another cast-iron (or similar) figure for my house. It's a frog, and it hangs on the wall (I know, good description). After that, we continued on to Needham Park for a couple of nice sits in the sun.

At supper that night, the golf was pretty uninteresting. A couple of nobodies duked it out for first place, and this is rare: I can't even remember the name of the winner. The runner up's name was Ken Duke, appropriately. After supper, I went to visit my grandmother for an hour - we talked about the usual things - events that have happened in our lives, my hair (an endless source of banter for her) what we'd eaten for dinner.

I went back to my parents', then got driven home, where I watched a bit of television before hitting the sack in my new queen-sized bed. Apparently I forgot to write earlier that I bought a bed at Price Club. Yeah, I did. It's good.

I’m currently listening to: 103.5 - The Beat of Halifax (Again - is this the death of the CD? There's some Beyonce song on right now - it's a duet, of course, because we expect it. Stars make things good. Like the Simpsons.)

Movies watched this week: none (so sad).