Category: Uncategorized

That’s my fault. I’ve gotten out of shape and I don’t wish to blow out a knee chasing the birdie all about the end of my driveway. Near perfect weather for it this morning. Hardly any breeze, sunshine, and warm but not sweltering hot. We’ve taken a shine to Badminton over the winter, playing it for brief stints in the hall or living room. It’s a stunted game when we play indoors. Low ceilings, narrow halls, pendant lights. It’s a whole thing. But now! Now we can play outdoors. So far we can comfortably manage between 4 & 7 returns in our rallies. We have no net, and keep no score. Just trying to get to a point where we can just pass the birdie back and forth, before we worry about things like nets, court sizing, and the ultimate conditions needed for competitive play. Hell we are also trying to get out basketball dribbling down pat, before I invest in a hoop, or whole rig for the front driveway. On occasion we’ve even spent some time bumping and volleying in preparation of playing volleyball come grade four (4). Trying to stay active without over doing it. We played a couple games of road hockey in January when we had oddly hot weather for two weeks, and again in early March, prior to getting the ‘Vid.

I think going on a bike ride will be the next big thing. I should get a wider & softer seat for myself, because… ouch. I’m also 10lbs shy of the heaviest I’ve ever been in my life, and all that extra weight on one tiny seat will leave me walking funny for a day or two. Too much pressure over such a limited amount of area. A fuller seat would alleviate some of that, or so I believe.

The mosquitoes and black flies have been unpleasant so far this spring. I can only imagine how bad it is at the cottage. My sibling in Ottawa has been swarmed by them in Ottawa, so cottage country must be horrendous right now. Yuck.

I finished off our back hedge row yesterday, and gave myself all new scratches on my arms that sting and throb. Cedar and me don’t get a long. Not as bad as a Juniper bush, but enough that I look as though I attempted to hug a badger. Strike that off the honey do list. Now I need to find a way to dispose of three fairly large piles of brush consisting of Maple limbs, Lilac limbs, and the top 6-8ft of my entire Cedar hedge row. It still stands 10ft tall, so it’s only noticeable if you knew how much taller it was to begin with. I have let it grow untouched for 8 years. And this winter’s heavy snow & ice storms caused them all to nearly bend in half. Hopefully this way, now they will thicken up along the trunk and not be so susceptible to bending during inclement weather. I need a trailer to get rid of these three enormous piles. Not like farm enormous,  but suburb enormous –  piles. Couple hundred pounds of dead and dying wood, brush and leaves. Too much for a mini van to lug around, unless I took five or six trips, and even then, might need a few more after that. I still need to clear out over the top of the back of our shed, but I hurt my biceps using the loppers, and didn’t feel like doing more damage to my left arm. Both shoulders are sore today anyway. So glad I called it off when I did.

Yesterday was a very long and productive day. Only one more month with the kids & wife out of the house until summer starts, and then things will get really crazy. Ciao Bella!

Beauty of a morning, up early, and the kids are out on the ice. Looking at a short week next week with the Friday PA day for report cards. Hope the weather holds up on Friday and we can spend a good chunk of it in the pool – for free! We’ve opted not to choose day camps for the kids for the day off. A morning in the pool would be a welcome change I think. I’m sure the kids will agree.

The Saturday morning turn out is as strong as ever for Ringette. Happy to see it. I hate when things fizzle near the end. I do wish it were a few hours later into the day, but this way the whole day is before us, and our obligations are done right as we all get up. Not that I wouldn’t enjoy sleeping in, but I have years of that to look forward to once these kids become sullen teenagers, or just get fatigued from high school life, home work, extra curriculars, work, and life in general. Top of the morning to you. Ciao Bella.

What I was saying the other day regarding Marvel movies, I sat down and watched Wakanda Forever, Black Panther 2, and I enjoyed it a great deal. A real tear jerker regarding the untimely death of Chadwick Boseman from bowel cancer (IRL), and a mysterious illness in the movie. It was a decent enough follow up. I guess that’s the Iron Heart girl from the comics filling in with a Tony Stark-esque way with machines & suits etc… cool cool. I can dig it. He left a void which needs to be addressed in one way, shape or form or another. The visual effects were still good enough to not annoy me, or stick out for feeling rushed and unpolished. I’m now kicking myself for not seeing GOTG v3 in AVX, but I’ll still watch it on blue ray at home. I should watch the holiday special and catch up on the characters too. I’ve been really tired as of late (Covid after math most likely) and had to wait to watch my back log of stuff. I’m none to keen on Eternals just yet. Maybe on a miserable rainy day I’ll give it a whirl. Just thought I’d add my addendum in, given I spoke of Marvel movies just a day or two ago. Ciao Bella – again.

The HST bill came in yesterday, and all I can say is – Ouch! Not quite as bad as the Income Tax bill, but enough to leave a lasting mark on my account. Yeesh! Not a fun two months paying these bills. Now I’m going to need those invoices to start pouring in left & right. On the plus side I do have some to go out in the next few weeks, so I’ll puff up a tad. Which just means more woes for tax time next year – Ha! The never ending cycle.

I should give more thought to going full time in-house somewhere, only the thought of a commute, and being around other people for 60 hours a week, makes me feel queasy. Not to mention the added cost of pre & post school child care, travel costs with gas and the train, I’m not certain how much further we’d come out ahead. Not to mention only seeing my kids for spits and spurts in the evenings, or on weekends. I love’em too much to not see them every single day, and be there for pick up & drop off. Maybe a part time job to keep money flowing inbetween my busy sessions might be worthwhile looking into. Manual labour to keep me from developing RSI on my wrists from being at a computer 24/7. Who knows. I’ll look into it.

I may just need to pick up a new client to fill some gaps. Or talk inactive clients into doing some new & exciting design work this year.

Well I gotta go cut my jungle of a lawn. Chat again soon. Ciao Bella!

I know I was a little taken aback by the revelation that dementia and multiple strokes ran in my wife’s side of the family also. Not a terribly cheerful late stage of life for our kids to look forward to, if not regarding us, but more so themselves. The brain meltiness runs on both sides of the blood lines. Both rails of that double helix are cursed! Do what you can to steer clear of environmental factors that might tweak it, twig to it, or add more fuel to that type of fire. Not the kind of legacy one wishes to leave to their kids. Brain melting illness that you can do nothing about. Wonderful. Such is life I suppose. Can’t enjoy the highs without also experiencing the lows. Though to be honest, I’m perfectly fine on an even keel, but that might just be me. Perfectly cromulent. No massive wins, but no catastrophic losses either. Like I said, cromulent. Adequate. Reasonable. Acceptable even.

In other news I need to make some phone calls regarding this malfunctioning water softener, and I’m not too keen on sitting on hold for two or three hours to get no where with it. The gloom outside isn’t doing much to assuage my reticence to make those phone calls either. I’m sure the local water table is happy for the recharge, and refill. Sitting in my living room and looking outside the difference of a week or two is remarkable. The leaves are almost all out in full force now. There are a few hardwood trees late to the game as per usual, but damn. This town looks really great with all that leafy green goodness finally here.

Maybe I should take this time to go pick up the birthday presents for this Friday’s movie party my kid is going to. I’m just not in the mood to do much of anything right this second. I’m glad I came home from drop off and went right to work on a couple projects earlier this AM, as I am losing all ambition to do… anything, really.

Oh, I finally saw Ant-Man three a couple nights ago. Now i did watch it on my phone, so that could be a factor here,but it was, meh! Ok, nothing spectacular nor a total abomination. I have fallen off the wagon here recently. Well since Covid i guess. Dr Strange 2 MOM, Thor L & T, Black Widow, Ant-Man 3, none of these have been particularly amazing viewing experiences. The Disney plus shows were better. Hawk eye, and Winter Soldier, even Wanda Vision were really fun. The films seem lacklustre in comparison. I have yet to see Eternals, nor Black Panther 2. I want to get out to see GOTG V3, but don’t think i have the energy to go tona late show just yet. I haven’t seen their holiday special yet either. Falling behind. Falling out of the demographic most likely. Worse things can happen.

I really had a taste of that with the first two new Spiderman movies with Tom Holland. Playing to the youths. Great for them, less interesting for me. Heavily laden with responsibility Peter, now that i can identify with, but it don’t track with the preteens and the kids of today. Nor should it. Let them be hormonal children with deep emotions, and grade school problems.

But, as I was saying, I saw Ant-Man 3, and it was ok. More of the same. Funny when you think that Paul Rudd is into his fifties, and doing all this stuff. He was great. Funny & charming as always. Hard to go wrong there. The MODOK stuff felt like a shoe horned stretch, but, I mean, I guess? Ok. He didn’t seem pivotal to the plot, just a way to kill ten minutes or so of screen time. I don’t know where they go with Kang. Is this all simultaneously happening along with the Loki show? That was a good one too, far more so than a good portion of these films. I could do with less scene starting hair flips though, that affectation from Loki wears thin real fast. Tie it back, shave it off, or do something else. I bet there is a jump cut of all Tom Hiddleston’s hair tosses from Loki, and it’s probably a full eight minutes long. Chill out with that. You’re going to hurt your neck. Will much of the Kang story line be wrapped up with Loki season 2? I feel as though they are painting themselves into a corner here. But I’m no movie maker, I don’t know what they’re going to do. Invest in some quality control would be a start. The VFX are sliding hard core into the bargain bin with less polish, fit ‘n finish. But I digress. It’s like, how does the original iron man have better cgi than Dr Strange 2 MOM? they are 10 years apart, or close to. Jeez.

Anyway, enough whining from me. Ciao Bella.

In the last few months it has become increasingly apparent that my wife is getting more & more forgetful of things. Now it’s only minor stuff that I know of at this point in time, but it feels very much like a return to ‘baby brain‘. The exact kind of short memory loss she suffered when sleep deprivation set in from the immediate aftermath of the birth of our children. Am I concerned? Yeah – a little. But given how close we are to the end of the school year, which means the high school kids she teaches are going mental as they attempt to try to pass their classes last minute, or come to terms with summer school enrollment or failing for another year, things get hectic. Add in her year off, and planning to make her replacements life easier, and you have yourself a recipe for things getting missed. Like water bottles, lunches, keys, etc… small stuff to be sure. At least for now.

My MIL had a potential mini stroke yesterday where she became confused, and forgetful and spoke gibberish for a short period of time, but tests at the ER said she was fine, and in no imminent danger. Turns out this sort of thing runs in their family, both sides, so that’s good to know. My grand parents all died with dementia, cancer, or from strokes, so yeah. That’s something we all know now. Add in bad hearts, but issues, deafness and you’ve got yourself a real party! How can you not smile at a time like this?

Tuesday today. Nearly forgot about the trash & recycling. But I caught it. Seems like today we’re at the end of the line and not the start of the route. Those guys either get here at 7:01am, or not until 5:30pm depending on which direction they start their routes from. Never the same time twice in a row. Trash can roulette. My favourite past time. Haven’t had that chunky raccoon by since he pulled my garbage bin cover apart. Added close to forty new screws the secure it, and tie it together, along with some additional cross braces, and wood glue. Seems to be holding up, but I won’t really know until that fat little fucker tries to break his way in again. For all I know he may waddle through my repairs without a second though. Little shit head. Not to mention our squirrels are still pulling the blooms off of our tulips to eat them fight in front of us. If I had a pellet gun, oh I’d show those little monsters a thing or two. But alas, I don’t, and thus I cannot.

Opened my inlaws pool this weekend. The kids all swam. I opted not to. The pool heater was on, but the air temperature was a tad low, and windy, so not my ideal conditions. We did take in some very rainy fireworks on Friday with a good portion of the town. That was fun. Kids were up until almost midnight. Slept in the next morning for a change though. That was unexpected. But welcome. First time in ages we didn’t go to the cottage. Our understanding was that the bugs were horrendous, worse by far than usual. So we stayed home. The 1 year anniversary of the Dericho storm came and went. Luckily without a repeat performance. I have a generator on hand because of that 26 hour long power outage. Live and learn.

I need to go swap over the laundry. So chat again on day 526 (a.k.a tomorrow). Ciao Bella!

The kids were gifted a plastic skateboard by my wife’s aunt over the Christmas holidays, and we found it in the garage this morning, so obviously we had to try it out. It’s far too small compared to my longboard for it to do me much good, so the girls are giving it a whirl. Our three wheeled scooter has made a brief appearance this morning too. Helmets on for safety, and away we go.

I was just moments from falling asleep last night when I suddenly remembered the longest bike ride I’ve ever taken by myself, and with limited water on hand too. It was the day after a big break up and I took a bike 32.3Km one way from our home in Erin Ontario, out to Belwood lake. I was gone for the whole day. Caught the sun real bad. I just had to stay busy & tired in order to not get too wrapped up in my break up, at the time. Had one water bottle, and finished it once I reached the lake. Took off my shoes and socks and waded into the water. Sat there for about an hour. Then suited up to ride back home. I recall stopping off at a former work friends farm along Hwy 26 to have a rest & refill my water. I just wanted to die by that point. Still had like 2 hours left on my ride home too. We chatted for a bit, and I sat on a comfy chair to rest my groin from the rock hard seat old mountain bikes used to come with. Then rode on home, and showered and collapsed. 64 plus Km in a single day. I have never done anywhere near as much riding in a single day since. I was very dehydrated the next day or two, and had some horrendous leg cramps that night. I’m not sure why I thought of it. Why it came up. I do know I wore my hand me down red Sir Oliver Mowat gym t-shirt for the whole ride, and my yellow & black soccer shorts. A white & red cap on backwards under my helmet to try and stop my neck from burning (unsuccessfully I might add). It all came to me, and then I just couldn’t fall asleep for several hours after that. I hate taking those solo trips down memory lane. One thing cascades into another, and then lots of details come flooding in, and what? What am I to do with these details? Revelations, forgotten memories. Just sit with them, let them wash over me, and carry on. Not much else you can do when that stuff comes flooding in unbidden like that. Weird feeling that is. It’s like how I used to forget where my locker was, like every year there would be a stretch where I would be like, “where the fuck is this locker!?!”, and wander around until it would come to me weeks later. Like oh yeah. Here it is, exactly where it was. Same combo from year to year. You were just three down or three up the row. Idiot boy. I was distracted ok. I was sickly, depressed, tired, and an insomniac. Not surprised that stuff would vaporize out of my brain and then spontaneously reappear as though I hadn’t totally lost my mind for a few weeks about this one thing. Life is messy. Let me tell you. Or not. I’m not your guardian.

There are currently more coaches, and coaching assistants on the ice, than all the kids combined from all three levels of Ringette skills groups. Can’t say I blame those whom didn’t show up today. Dank, dark, grey rain outside, and the first big holiday of the summer season. I’d be in bed too if I could be.

The kids are tired after being out until after 10:00pm to watch the town fireworks show last night. I incorrectly thought it started at 8pm, the fireworks that is, not the event as a whole, so the actual 9:30pm starting to the light show was not my favourite thing. Oh well. Gotta read the fine print. My bad.

Glad I cut the grass yesterday because after this long drizzle into a downpour the grass will be a foot tall before you know it. Blink of an eye it’s a wheat field with tall seedling grasses. Yikes!