Some folks just don’t dance.

You can have a wide open dance floor, loud music, drinks, food, and lots of good vibes and some folks just don’t dance along with you. Have to admit, it’s been a few years since I last had a good dance party session. I know I’ve danced at weddings over the last decade, but besides cutting a rug in my kitchen along with the kids, I haven’t danced in full view of the public in a very long time. I’m also fifty pounds heavier, and my knees and hips are older than ever before. I’m not a smooth on the dance floor as I once was. Tired, heavy and falling off the beat! Ha. Still had a good time though. The music wasn’t entirely my jam, but I can make do.

I would have to imagine there are a number of hangovers avoided today by those using edibles instead of alcohol. Buzzed with no morning after roughness, what more could you ask for? No dry mouth, or raw throat from smoking. Bladder less stressed because I’m not pounding five or six beers. Less time spent searching for, and using the washroom. I’m still a touch dehydrated, but that’s from dancing in a sweater as a fat-(ish) forty odd year old man, in a small room with ten other people. Drank some Gatorade on the short walk home, and I feel right as rain.

Big plus is that the majority of my friends were there, and we all live stumbling distance from the house we were partying in. Babysitters were in short supply for the evening, I’ll bet, due to how many shin-digs were going on. We’ve had this party on the calendar since early December. It was a shame my spouse couldn’t join me in the end, but for a shining moment I thought we’d actually go to a party together for a change. But her cough, and our lack of babysitters meant she opted to stay home. Her take home prize from the doctors office earlier in the week made her desire to go out wane considerably. Damn you doctors office bug!

On the positive side no hangover means I was up and at’em by 8:00am, and my wife can have a lie in, and chill without the kids being mental, or all up in her space. I don’t need 12-16 hours to get over a hangover. It’s a really great way to party. I endorse it as long as you can walk/taxi where you need to be. Don’t drive under the influence, not worth it. Also no throwing up, no pounding head ache, no gut rot, no need to go pee every half hour, no spins when trying to sleep, no night sweats, no dry mouth, it’s all pretty up & up compared to drinking. I’m a ten milli Tommy. That makes me feel good, but not out of control, or destined for the moon. Feet firmly planted on terrain firma, with my head in the clouds, but not in a totally blacked out menace to society kind of way. It’s nice, don’t have to worry about saying/doing anything stupid. Doesn’t make me aggressive, or melancholy, or feisty. Just a nice warm internal hug that makes me feel alright. The CBD also helps to alleviate those general aches and pains in my knee, hip, wrists, and lower back. That pain relief fuzzy coating makes the THC buzz just that much more like a warm hug. Glorious.

Anyway – Lazy Sunday is here! Shall we watch movies as a family. Play a board game? Or sit listening to the kids lose their minds playing Mine Craft. I’d like to watch more Star Wars, or The Lord of the Rings trilogy if I had it my way. But that’s a long slog even for me, and I’m a fan of both series. I don’t watch the SW prequels, and I’m not as enamoured with episodes 7, 8, and 9. Rogue One however, I could watch twice in a row on most days. Far superior to all three prequels, and most of the last trilogy as well. It went off the rails as soon as The Force Awakens tried to rehash A New Hope. Lost cause. Andor was a slow burn, but added more than any of the last movies have done to the world building, and using non-Skywalker era characters. It was far more interesting. But I digress.

Can’t take the kids skiing or tobogganing due to the rain. Might need to find something constructive for them to do before they drive me crazy with Mine Craft tantrums. Where are the head phones! Not dry enough to scooter, or ride our bikes. Too rainy for ball hockey in the driveway. Maybe I should take them somewhere like a mall for an hour long walk about. I wouldn’t mind going to a Chapters/Indigo book store to find more reading material. I do have four books that I found out the other day from my TBR list, so maybe I’ll cool it on the book purchases right now. You know what I’d really like, another book like the New Horizons one, about the Pluto mission. I tried reading about the Mars Rover, but that comes across like a textbook slash technical manual. The Pluto mission was more cinematic and humanized. It was a terrific banger of a read. Makes me think of Apollo 13, and their scramble to fix issues off the cuff.

Have a great rainy Sunday January 28th, 2024. Ciao Bella!

PA Day Antics.

Hello glorious Friday morning, how are you! For what it’s worth the sun is currently shining, I can see some light grey blue sky out my window and the kids are home off school because of the York Region pa day schedule. I believe there is another one, plus the Family Day holiday in February to plan around too.

Not to mention there are only a few weeks left until Valentine’s Day. Not a huge deal, atleast not around my immediate neck of the woods. We do something nice/simple for the kids, but we don’t make much of a fuss about it between my spouse and I. Haven’t done so since the mini mites entered the picture. We haven’t celebrated some of our more minor milestones from November yet. For a few years running, actually. Finding a trust worthy baby sitter has proven challenging, and we don’t go out all that much to warrant an exhaustive search. My eldest can do her babysitting course in another year or two, and then we’re all set to go out on the town to enjoy ourselves until 10:00pm. Living large! I’m excited. For a few years from now, we’ll really be able to live it up together, as a couple! Instead of trading off to go and do stuff separately.

The temperature is still really low, low, low, low. Not going to be much fun to go outside. I know we’d spoken of doing an outdoor skate this weekend, but I fear that will require hours of labour to clear the rink before we begin. And by then I’ll be too tired/frozen to want to skate for an hour or more.  The things we do for the ones we love. Not looking forward to having to manhandle the old snowblower around on the ice pad at the in-laws. Heavy and traction less. Stinks to high heaven, and never wants to start. I always end up pulling skin off my fingers pulling the recoil fifty times in a row. Not to mention the sore shoulder that will give me. Or I’ll get to scrape down the ice pad with a metal blade and then shovel the fine crystals off so the ice is nice and smooth. The only thing I don’t do, because I think my brother in law enjoys it, is flood the rink or run his homemade zamboni contraption. Can’t say I blame it. Setting the boards, stakes, and liner was a real chore. Cleaning the ice sucks, but maintaining the cleared ice pad is a piece of cake in comparison.

Which reminds me, I need to find all the skates and helmets for the outing. Pray that last years oversized skates still fit, and that the edges are still keen enough to skate on reasonably well. The girls have done two sessions of Ringette so they know how to skate, the basics anyway. Can move forward and backwards, but we’re not doing olympic trials or speed runs or anything like that. Good enough to just have fun is all that matters at this point.

Working from home during a pa day certainly is an experience in futility with small kids at home. Some times I think my oldest is mature, and other times – yeah, not so much. To think the original plan, pre Christmas was to be back in Florida right now. Several things didn’t line up, so we had to pass on it, but otherwise we could have avoided much of this sudden deep freeze, and be riding roller coasters right now, or sitting on a beach. It wouldn’t be all that hot, but a mid sixties to low seventies is better than the minus twenty give with the windchill we currently have. I can do shorts and a sweater in a theme park. I sure as hell can’t do that here, right now, deep into January. Brrr. No thank you.

I very nearly pulled the trigger on a new bandsaw yesterday. I held off though. I got to looking at saw mills again, and my eye started to wander. Then I was looking into chainsaws and Alaskan mill set ups, and got to thinking – again. So I halted all activity because I’m obviously not 100% certain of what I really want to do with my limited funds. I think I still need a bandsaw regardless of if I get into milling. I need to be able to resaw boards, more than I need to be able to slab logs. No, scratch that. Processing my own logs into slabs is great! But, I still need a bandsaw to break down slabs for use on anything other than live edge projects which are not trendy anymore. Had a real hay-day the last four to six years, but moving away from that sort of thing now. More straight edge, asymmetrical designs. Think minimalism with a flare for angles and joinery. But I digress. I only watch a few Japanese, and American furniture builders right now. It’s what I’m seeing, but that’s a tiny sliver of what’s going on out in the wider world.

Anyway. Have a nice Friday, and a great weekend. Stay warm!