I drove to John and Gail’s with Nathan, Kathy, Lynn and Neil packing my car for the ride out. Their place off the beaten path thankfully didn’t have us getting stuck in the snow so we went in and enjoyed some lasagna, good conversation and Jaycee acting like a total nutcase all night. For the countdown to midnight he had this fancy bell on a stand and he rang the shit out of it to bring in the new year. Then he called his friend to do the same routine over the phone for her, and over the speaker phone you could her her say in a tone dry as bone, “That’s great, Jaycee…I gotta go.”
When it was time to leave we were confronted by a huge snow drift that had covered the road in a wide swath impenetrable even by John’s big and mighty 4x4 truck. We were stuck so the blankets and pillows were brought out for an impromptu sleepover. While standing in the kitchen waiting for some blankets I discovered a very warm air vent right next to the floor mat. With a couple of blankets and a few pillows I made my bed right there and enjoyed a very cozy spot. I wasn’t settled in for more than fifteen minutes when the cab company we called earlier decided to send someone out for us as long as we could meet them up the road.
We were all back in our boots and coats trudging through a tonne of snow within minutes and could see the headlights of the cab down the road in the trees. As we made our way, slowly, up the road the cab started driving away so we had to run like hell through the deep snow to catch it. We did but it felt like my heart was going to explode in my chest because I don’t think I’ve exerted myself that much since gym class in grade six. Fuck, I’m sick of this snow.
The 30th
I have a few random things to write about today:
1. I was reading a story on CBC.ca about scientists trying to apply the same energy/propulsion power system that sperm use to wiggle their way to the roost in a lady’s Virginia to nanobots so they can deliver medicine in our bodies before they are flushed out of our systems and into our water supply where they will take control of all life on the planet as we know it. Okay, the part about infiltratiing the water supply and claiming the Earth through biological hosts was something I made up (just wait and see…) but the other part was true. So here’s a quote from the CBC article:
Powerful, albeit microscopic, sperm cells use a kind of dual-engine system to generate their energy. Organelles in a sperm cell's midsection provide one part of its battery power, while a second process occurring in the long, spindly tail gives it an additional boost.
It is during this second process, known as glycosis, that ATP enzymes derived from glucose bind to the sheath of a spermatozoa's tail to give it that extra zip.
I think the scientists at Kraft use a similar technology to put the tangy zip in Miracle Whip. Sorry, that was a really terrible joke but I did it for me.
2. Over the past year I’ve noticed in my web stats that people have come across my site by a variety of methods but there are a number of search terms I find quite odd and some make me wonder just what the hell I wrote about that would bring up any of my pages in search results:
- how to make a lobster out of tinfoil (ed. Um, what?)
- quadrapelic exercise
- choosing a toaster oven
- buffet pants (ed. Haha…ah, that’s awesome.)
- came out of my ear
- fuck clay cullen (ed. I don’t even know who this dude is.)
- shit signs
- booger mask
- chipmunk symbology (ed. ?????)
- I feel sick when I wear wool (ed. …Okay then.)
3. Pizza Delight doesn’t allow people to grill bread from the bread bar with the buttered or spread side of the bread down on the grill. What’s the fucking point then? Honestly! If it’s a fire hazard, okay, that’s a valid reason but without the spread grilled right into the bread then you might as well just take out the bread bar entirely because it now serves no purpose whatsoever if you ask me.
4. Snow, you can fuck off already. Got it?
The 28th
I met up with Richard, D’Arcy, Thane, Dan, Tammy and Paul for Friday night trivia over at the old Linkletter in hopes of winning the more substantial prizes than what’s offered at The Heritage. With the amount of brain power at our table it was no surprise that we clinched first place yet again, my portion of the winnings covering the cost of my chicken fingers (a tad on the dry side this week unfortunately). Afterwards, Richard was nice enough to strike a very Victorian pose for me on the hotel lobby chaise lounge. A powdered wig is all he would need to complete the illusion of a foppish dandy musing over Chopin’s latest composition and bantering about the Leafs’ standings.
Tom was playing over at The Silver Fox so we headed over there to catch a few tunes before they wrapped up for the night. Richard kept heckling Tom and vice versa while I went about capturing this lovely still-life arrangement of economy-sized jars full of bar-top delicacies. The one on the right was new to me, I had never seen the likes of this foulness. Just when you thought wieners couldn’t get any tastier along comes the giant jar of pickled wieners! I don’t even want to know what those would taste like and I can only imagine what the brine tastes like. Wiener flavouring is bad enough, let alone mixing that delicate blend of processed tube-meat seasonings with vinegar and who knows what else.
Here are a few random bits about pickled wieners after a quick search on the topic:
1. I really would like a REALLY GOOD recipe for pickled weiners, my mother in law makes decent ones but doesn’t share the recipe lol. Any suggestions? (ed. Yes, please DO share a GOOD RECIPE with us since your old bag of a mother in law is being stingy with the details.)
2. McKeages Tavern, along with the notable smell, now has pickled weiners for purchase. What’s better than chomping on a vinegary sting punching pickled weiner while downing a flat draft!! Yeah! (ed. Sounds like a savoury match made in Heaven if you ask me.)
3. I’ve seen my spouse make pickled eggs & also he cuts wieners up & pickles them too ! I don’t have the recipie - sorry. (ed. Aw, that’s too bad. Perhaps your hubby can take a break from pickling tubes of ground up floor meat and hooves to enlighten us.)
I found another reference but it was part of some loser’s Star Trek: Voyager fan-fiction, and other than being lame it would have been taken out of context and was just plain stupid anyway. There’s no need for STV fanfic, just stop it. I also came across a brief mention of “wiener water soup” and I wonder if that’s the type of thing that is served cold like a traditional vichyssoise or served piping hot with some old, white hot dog buns for dipping. Either way, I bet it’s delicious and full of vitamins.
The 26th
It’s Boxing Day and the food fest continues! This time to partake I had to drive up west with my family so that my grandmother could feed us and where I could get another helping of plum pudding. I have to take advantage while supplies last.
After lunch we were all sitting around and somehow my mom brought up the topic of eating at The Regent when we were kids and I jumped on the moment as it was a reminder to ask her about Ernie’s chicken fingers that are unofficially the best in the universe. So CHICKEN FINGERS UPDATE: the chicken fingers Ernie made at The Regent back in the ’80s that I feel can never be topped in quality and tastiness were, to my dismay but confiming my suspicions, homemade with real strips of chicken breast in his own special beer batter, and he sadly no longer makes them. However, he still works as a chef out in Slemon Park so perhaps I could somehow convince him to make them special for me on my birthday or perhaps even make him realize they need to be added to their menu so that I can get them whenever the hell I want. It’s worth the drive out there, no doubt about it.
Every time we visit my grandparents over the holidays my dad carefully extracts a toy from the “good dishes” cupboard in its worn, flimsy box that’s probably not even technically paper after fifty-plus years. The wind-up tin Penguin covered in fabric is as old as my dad, he got it on his first birthday I think, and still works to this day. It slowly waddles from side to side with its beak opening and closing and its wings flapping up and down. When it comes to a stop he carefully re-packages it and returns it to its resting place for another year.
We stopped at my sister’s place on the way back to see her tree, gifts and to see how big her cat, Calvin, was getting. The little brat isn’t quite so little any more and pretty well has the run of the house. He was sleeping up on a shelf in the basement and didn’t want to be bothered but it wasn’t long before he was taken down to be mauled by the family. He’s a pretty cute kitty but his breath reeks worse than Hobbes’ and that’s saying something. If he beefs up he’s going to look like a real bruiser too, not the pretty, fat thing that runs around here shedding, shitting, and bawling for food.
Just when I thought my plum pudding quota had been reached, Debbie (Saint Debbie) mercifully came to the rescue with “help yourself” portions of plum pudding when I went out to the get-together at her and Dale’s place tonight. The pudding and sauce were different than what I usually consume in large quantities but it was still mighty tasty and I somehow managed to keep my portion reserved. I think the daunting prospect of eating the massive block of fudge Heather sent me from Vancouver may have given me performance anxiety and stifled my appetite for the evening.
Richard was there when I showed up, visiting for the holidays and bringing with him an endless supply of anecdotes and random facts. There was a break in the story-telling, kitty counting and stove-side merriment while some of us went about lighting off a dozen or so fireworks in the backyard and hearing the reports echoing back across the fields. Back inside, the evening wound down and eventually ended with the inevitable stories about Hitler from Richard.
The 25th
Mom went crazy again with the food for Xmas Eve dinner this year and I ate until I could barely move. There was food I didn’t even try which came somewhat as a shock to her but I made up for it Xmas morning by cracking open a big lobster and making a couple of lobster rolls for breakfast.
The dogs slobbered over people and ran back and forth between my grandparents with their tails wagging all evening. When they weren’t trying to find a spot on Mom’s new couch they laid on the floor staring at the gifts for them, which there were plenty of I might add. Spoiled rotten babies.
The first thing to greet me bright and early Xmas morning was Khaly playing with a Wendy’s fry cup like a weirdo all by herself in the backyard. Like a true family member, my sister was late but that just gave me more time to sit back and drink coffee and watch the dogs act like dummies. My brother is out west this year and didn’t come home so that always makes Xmas a little different. He might not say much but it’s nice to have him around and he definitely won’t spend another Xmas out there by himself judging by our conversation on the phone the night before. Yes, we actually had a conversation.
I got a pretty good haul this year and it actually looked like Mom cut back on the gift buying, something she says she’s going to do every year but never does. I’d rather she spend her money on other things instead of gifts for us, the amount she spends on food alone for Xmas is enough already. We had another huge dinner and I drowned by plum pudding in a sea of brown sugar sauce like I usually do. I only get the plum pudding my grandmother makes one time throughout the year so I’m going to go all out with the sauce while I have the chance. Mom made Seven Layer Bars too, as requested, and I honestly would be happy with that being my only gift from her. Of course, if that were the case I wouldn’t be sharing them with others, I don’t care if it’s the season of giving or not. Everyone can eff off as far as me and my Seven Layer Bars are concerned.
Nathan had the annual family-style get-together at the house and I somehow managed to not eat much of anything despite the fact that there were sweets, chocolates, snacks, cake and meat pie strewn dangerously all around the place. It was like a tasty mine field designed to stop an over-eater dead in his tracks no matter where he goes. While I danced around most traps but Debbie made this awesome peanut-type dip so I couldn’t avoid trying that with some veggies. You know, because I need more food after a gigantic turkey dinner only hours before.
Of course, an Xmas Eve gathering wouldn’t be complete without a fat, spoiled, retarded housecat squatting and pissing on someone’s coat. Ron’s jacket got a nice, hot cat piss soaking right in front of everyone and Hobbes received an impromptu solitary confinement sentence in the bathroom while I quickly did an emergency wash and dry. At least the jacket was warm and fresh-smelling when Ron left.
The 23rd
Vick (now known as Dr. Ocean) and Shawn picked up me and Luke to go play some pool. Somehow this picture of Shawn and Luke each enjoying a single chicken wing seems like the perfect photo to sum up the evening.
The 19th
Goddamn weather. On Sunday, the forecast was calling for a snowfall warning and high winds for that night and Monday morning. I figured if I didn’t make it across to Halifax on the bus Monday morning then I wouldn’t be able to make it over in time for my appointments Tuesday morning. The lesson here is that if you’re going to get diagnosed with a tumour you should make sure you get the diagnosis in the summer. That way you’ll probably get in for tests and surgery by the fall so you get to take advantage of a full summer and avoid travelling in all of the shitty winter weather. That’s what I’ll do next time.
Thankfully Kathy and Nathan were going over Sunday night so I made the six-hour journey to Halifax with them. Yes, six hours. The winter was in full effect and I have no idea how Kathy even knew where the right lane was because all I could see was white. It was slow going but we did eventually get there, and I arrived back at Bryanna’s apartment even though she was back home in Ontario. Her roommates were nice enough to let me stay there again while I dealt with all of the hospital crap.
With a whole day of nothing ahead of me on Monday except playing Scrabulous and chasing Potato, and it actually being really nice out and hardly a day one would expect to proceed a snow/rain storm, I figured I should start spending a bunch of money at cafés and restaurants again. Uncommon Grounds, if there were one here, would no doubt be a common haunt for me but thankfully there isn’t and that means my bank account won’t start plummeting from increased coffee and sweets intake.
During my aimless city wanderings I stopped to give a hobo-man some spare change and he had a voice that was cooler than Tom Waits’ voice. I know, believe me, it was tough to come to that assertion but this guy should be in movies or at least doing voice-overs for animated features.
I also took in the bright, colourful, fun wonderment that is Freak Lunchbox and amazingly didn’t buy anything once again. How I manage to get out of there without a crate full of candy, chocolate and toys is beyond me. Perhaps I just get too overwhelmed by the sheer decadence of a store like that and need to get out before I am seduced by the nougats, chocolates, sugars and syrups. Though, despite the eye-orgy of alluring packaging, I did notice that there was an ambulance parked outside the store just like the time before. A paramedic, complete with stethoscope, was inside attending to his need for sweets it would seem instead of some old dame in the back of the bus like last time. I don’t know what it is with ambulances always being outside Freak Lunchbox but it makes me wonder if I should go back. Maybe it’s a sign.
The cold Tuesday morning was witness to me walking to the hospital with a muffin in hand before the clock hit 7:00 am. I sat in the cafeteria eating my blueberry and bran muffin wondering just where the hell I was supposed to go because in my haste to risk my life on the highway during Sunday’s storm I had forgotten the instructions/directions I copied down for my appointments. All I knew was that I had to be at the hospital for blood work, an EKG and x-rays by 7:30 and then go have a CT scan at 9:15. Helluva way to start one’s morning. Thankfully I had a muffin.
The rest of the morning was one big mess. Blood collection had no record of my appointment but, to my delight, I managed to get in for a good needling before I was sent off like a lost child wondering which of the strangers in scrubs was going to jab me with a needle or shoot radiation at my head. A woman in cardiology set me straight, with appointment papers to boot, and soon I was off to pre-op admissions to get a fancy bracelet from a cute office-type gal (the morning wasn’t all bad I suppose). I somehow managed to get out of having a chest x-ray but a super-quick EKG was lined up, as well as a CT scan which had me getting stuck in the other arm with another needle for my IV. No CT scan would be complete without having a bunch of x-ray dye pumped into the bloodstream, the kind that makes your entire body feel warm and makes it feel like you’re wetting your pants in the front…and the back. No accidents to report.
Glad to be rid of the effing IV and holding gauze in the crook of each elbow, I headed back to pre-op to meet with the anaestheseologist (holy spelling mine field) where he told me they’d have a number of fancy pokey things stuck in me while I was out cold next month. Plus, when I get released from ICU, they’d probably give me this contraption that would let me administer my own pain meds. A silver lining if there ever was one.
Back at HQ, Michelle’s friend Melanie was visiting and had bought a three-month-old pitbull puppy which was yet-to-be-named. She was so quiet and calm for a puppy, only making a sound when she’d whimper for Melanie whenever she’d leave the room. Potato was flipping out, as expected, when this cute, dopey pitbull pup started wandering around the apartment looking to make friends with the only other four-legged creature. Kitty would have none of it. She kept her distance and got her back up when puppy would come near. When the puppy would leave the room, Potato would follow her to keep an eye on the intruder, probably making sure the dummy didn’t eat her food or drink her water. She had territory to protect after all.
I went out for sushi at Momoya and it was extra tasty as expected but an ambulance showed up outside while I was in there too. Maybe it’s because I don’t live in a city and so I don’t tend to see many ambulances but it does seem strange that two ambulances in as many days decided to park outside establishments I’m being all customer-like in. Though, I have discovered that that paramedics like to eat candy and Subway.
Today I was left in the apartment by myself and the poor Unnamed Pitbull yelped and whined for her mom from their room so I had to let her out to hang out with me. She followed me around and went back to her quiet self while Potato went back on the offensive. She began with sentry duty from a good vantage point to see pretty well everything the pitbull puppy was up to but she came down from the safety of her perch and the inevitable confrontation between dominant female cat and dozy puppy broke out. It took all of five seconds for the pitbull to amble over to Potato, get the cat’s back up and, after a startled yelp, end up with a lightning-fast swat to the snout. The poor puppy ended up getting a cut above her nose so I put a bit of ointment on her and felt horrible that I let her get close to the bad ol' puddy tat. She eventually retreated to the couch for a nap after her first cat fight and Potato triumphantly strutted her stuff, letting the white dog know that the black cat was the head honcho around these parts.
Nathan showed up at the apartment soon after while we waited for Shawn and his dad to get into Halifax. They were picking up Potato to bring back to PEI over the holidays so we hitched a ride back with them. It definitely beats getting up early for a 7:15 am bus, even with a cat in a carrier next to you. Surprisingly, Potato was calm and quiet the whole time which was in stark contrast to the five minutes of freak out time Hobbes has when I just take him uptown to the vet.
The 15th
Shawn and I met up with Laine and some of her friends to go see I Am Legend. All I have to say is that the first two-thirds of this movie were pretty good overall. Some really tense moments and some great shots of a desolate and abandoned New York city. The movie went downhill in the last third as all of the coolness and suspense disappeared to be replaced by a bunch of foolish digital foolishness or corny corniness. Why they would have opted to make the creatures using CGI instead of hiring actual actors is beyond me. All they need to do is look at a movie like 28 Days Later or Night of The Living Dead to see how much more effective a real person in make-up and prosthetics is at being scaring, creepy and disturbing. Instead they had a bunch of unimpressive creatures with disproportioned heads that looked like they came out of some 1999 zombie shooter. Boo.To try and salvage the remainder of our night, the three of us rented Superbad and ate lots of Pillsbury Chocolate Chunk cookies.
The 14th
Chicken fingers. Those delicious, dippable, deep fried delights. That’s what I’m going to write about today so let me get right into it. Last night at trivia* at The Heritage I ordered chicken fingers which came with some carrot and celery sticks, and plenty of dipping sauces for everything. While they satisfied my craving for breaded finger food and were pretty tasty as far as pub chicken fingers go, they weren’t anything special by any means, just a deep fried guilty pleasure with the veggies and ranch dip as a light, moderately healthy side. Not that eating vegetables does any good health-wise when also eating chicken fingers but it’s at least something.Tonight at trivia at the Causeway Bay (yes, I go to different trivia two nights in a row lately), I ordered their homemade chicken fingers for a taste test and to see if they were actually homemade or just restaurant “pretend” homemade. As far as I could tell they seemed rather homemade-esque, or as homemade as restaurant food can be anyway. There were only three but they were fairly plump and tender, and the batter was a bit too thin but it was mighty tasty dipped in a honey mustard sauce. Unlike my previous evening’s order, these didn’t come with any veggies so boo to that. I think they go well together.
While their homemade chicken fingers meet my approval (Ryan Recommends™), they by no means compare to the chicken fingers of my youth that I consider to be the gold star standard for top quality breaded and deep fried chicken strips served with various dipping sauces. Years and years ago, back when ugly people could be successful in the music industry, my siblings and I would go to The Regent for dinner on Friday nights when my dad obviously didn’t feel like cooking and wanted to take advantage of the discount my mom got from working there. I liked sitting in a booth behind the mirrored salad bar best, the smell of an assortment of salad dressings, croutons and bacon bits in lingering in the air.Chief notables of The Regent dining experience include the bowl of soft, pastel after-dinner mints at the register, seeing my parents’ friend Ernie cooking in the kitchen, and the stream of 80s soft rock being pumped in gently and slowly like a teen flick’s long make-out scene (the kind without a rapist football player). While it was part of the overall backdrop of the joint, I remember how much I hated that sappy rock music—the “Turn Your Love Around”, the “I Want To Know What Love Is”, the “I Just Died In Your Arms Tonight”, etc.—and hearing those types of songs makes me either think of being at The Regent or watching Video Hits with my babysitter. But, anyway, the main attraction as far as I was concerned was ordering the Chicken Fingers That Have No Equal. When that big plate of chicken fingers, French fries, and cup of sweet and sour sauce came out of the kitchen’s swinging door, no song by Foreigner, UB40, Hall & Oates or Phil Collins could distract me from my meal, not even the likes of Richard Marx and his shitty-ass love slop.
These chicken fingers were plump, large and not that squishy, rendered and formed processed junk you get in most places these days. The chicken was tender, moist and actually looked like chicken as opposed to some dense, white sponge coated in some run-of-the-mill-same-as-fish-sticks batter. The batter was fairly unique because I don’t think I’ve seen it since on any chicken fingers that have crossed my dinner plate. It wasn’t crumbly or thin and crispy, it was more of a thick cocoon protecting the succulent chicken inside from the harsh minutes spent immersed in a deep fryer. It was wrinkly, grey-brown, peppered and more of a dry greasy than an outright greasy. They had a satisfying heartiness and flavour that I have longed for all of these years later. I should ask my mom if she happens to remember what brand they were because I wish I could find this kind somewhere so I can experience the joy of eating them again. Except this time, I won’t have Simply Red playing in the background.* Note: This was the night that Kyle, Jason, Cory, Becki and Becka showed up to trivia after drinking and partying all day. Shawn would have come but he drank so much rum that he puked and passed out on a couch. Cory and the girls were surprisingly well-behaved while the Ellsworths were so drunk and out of it that I had to usher them out of the bar at the end of the night so that the bouncer didn’t do it for them. It was also the night that Kyle, in his complete drunkenness, went about insulting everyone all night long with a sharp focus on Nathan by using long strings of repetitive insults that at times weren’t actually insults but merely poorly-formed sentences with random verbs and nouns replaced by the titles of singles from Nathan’s three albums (i.e. Bottom Dollar Baby, it’s cold out there, I North American Dream hot tub, High Low slice someone’s throat open with a City Destroyed, etc.).
The 11th
I’m not looking forward going back to Halifax next week for pre-op tests and the like but they did schedule them sooner than I was expecting. I go over for the head-cracking on January 9th and they go to work bright and early on the 10th, again, much sooner than expected. I figured they do the needles and zapping that first week of the new year, forcing me to do a lot of travelling that week or just spending several days there to avoid the back and forth between tests and surgery. Since I won’t be driving over and taking the bus instead I’m going to have to leave early Monday morning to be able to make it for my tests early Tuesday morning and then stick around until the bus leaves early Wednesday morning. That’s a lot of extra time I don’t need to be spending in Halifax and too many early mornings in a row if you ask me. Ugh.
There’s no better way to start off one’s morning than by having doctors and technicians poking me with needles, filling me with dye and blasting me with rays from different machines that require me to cover my junk with lead. If they threw in some bacon and eggs I might be a little more positive about going through with all of their tests. Shit, if they scheduled me in for 3pm I might be a little happier about the whole thing too.
The 5th
On Monday morning I was on a bus at an hour I’m very much unaccustomed to and ended up arriving in Halifax just as the air began to fill with snow. Wonderful. It was the beginning of some very nasty weather that I wished would have just stayed away. Especially considering I had to be back on a bus the next morning in what would most likely be a horribly nerve-wracking journey back to PEI. Little did I realize just how crappy things would be for the next two days because of the mess falling from the sky.I had to meet with some hospital types in the afternoon about the thing growing in my head and my plan was to hop on a bus shortly before my appointment to avoid walking in the snow but when neither Bryanna or I could figure out the bus map I had to call a cab…several times. I believe I called seven, maybe eight, different numbers and got nowhere with any of them, only to have Bryanna make one call and, sure enough, a cab was on its way. I would have been better off walking in the first place.
For some reason they made me take a hearing test first even though I’m 100% deaf in my right ear. After listening to the beeps, boops, tones and white noise, I was seated in another office where the neurology types proceeded to ask me lots of questions and had me do little neurology stunts for checking eye movement, balance and the like. They gave me the particulars about the growth and explained it was actually part tumour and part cyst. Bonus. It’s not as big as the last one but it’s still big enough and they said it could be treated with radiation or removed surgically, the preferred option. As much as it sucked the first time around at least this time they don’t need to worry about the facial nerve or my hearing but there is this really important thing they mentioned. What was it? Oh yeah, my brain stem.
I managed to get a print-out of my MRI which shows the tumour very clearly nestled in behind my ear again, about three centimetres or so in size which pales in comparison to the last one which was apparently about the size of a plum. The doc said I could expect to be in hospital for a week, perhaps up to two weeks, after undergoing another lengthy surgery. Boy, oh boy, I can’t wait to be stuck in ICU again for a whole day with a tube down my throat and other tubes…in other places.They told me they’d arrange for me to come back for some pre-op tests and set a surgery date in the New Year sometime. At least the surgery won’t interfere with the holidays but I’m certainly going to be busy as all hell up until then trying to get work done, shopping for Xmas presents, and trying to get some other small projects finished up before the end of the year.
Not wanting to bother with another cab-calling fiasco, I decided to just walk back even though I’m especially prone to getting lost (as you will see later) but seemed to remember fairly well the route back. It was a wet, cold and miserable walk but it was mildly interesting to be in the beginnings of a snow storm in another city for a change. I grabbed some chocolate pop from Uncommon Grounds and headed back to Bryanna’s place only to find she was out and I was without a key. This seemed like the perfect opportunity for me to take a seat in the hallway, to try and dry out some, relax with some podcasts and a bottle of never-before-tasted chocolate pop (which did turn out to be quite tasty). After several unsuccessful attempts to open the bottle without an opener and taking a small chunk out of my finger, Bryanna got home and before long we were back out in the shitty weather seeking sushi.
This time we went to Momoya and we each got the veggie sushi special, except I couldn’t let the dining experience stop at sushi, miso soup and salad so I also ordered some deep-fried gyoza dumplings and tempura bananas for dessert. Everything was awesome and I would kill to have a sushi place like that within two blocks of my house. You lucky, lucky Haligonians.
With the art girls at the art apartment all busy with art school work, I trudged my way over to the cinema to check out Before The Devil Knows You’re Dead, finding maybe ten other people in the theatre. I wish I had gotten some more sleep the night before because it was very tough to stay awake during the movie, not because the movie was boring but because it was almost like I was alone in a big living room with my feet up, relaxing. The movie was pretty good, some solid performances and an example of why regular joes who need cash shouldn’t plan a heist because it’s only going to lead to trouble, more trouble, and a hole that keeps getting deeper and deeper. Phillip Seymour Hoffman really pulled off an extra-sleezy low-life in this film.
Later on, after the movie and a slice of pizza with raw dough for “crust”, Bryanna, Nadia and I sat in the living room with the lights low and disc two of the new Radiohead playing while creepy winter thunder and lightning flashed and rumbled outside the window. It was kind of freaky. Judging by the weather and the mess on the streets, it was more than likely that the bus wouldn’t make it back to PEI in the morning, if it even left at all.
I got up at 6:30 after hardly sleeping at all for fear I’d sleep through my alarm (the tiny one I removed from my arsenal at home consisting of three other alarms), and headed out into the cold and rain as I made my way to the bus depot. Or so I thought. I basically went in the completely opposite direction, not realizing until I hit the Citadel Hotel and seeing a Staples that I was nowhere near where I needed to be. A very bad thing considering the street clock said it was 7:10 and my bus left at 7:15. Thoroughly soaked, cold and mad at myself for being so stupid, I asked people who were unfortunate enough to be out at that hour and in that weather like me for directions to the bus depot but realized it was pointless to even hurry as I saw a big Acadian bus drive past just a couple of blocks away. Bon voyage.
I went to the depot anyway and talked to some shipping dude who said the bridge was closed so I was better off being in Halifax instead of stuck in Moncton or Amherst. True but I would have been better off stuck in Halifax not having walked up and down Halifax’s hills in the rain and snow for an hour at daybreak. I felt pretty horrible pressing that buzzer to be let back into the apartment so early in the morning but I managed to get some more sleep and dry out (sort of). I filled my day by playing Mario Kart on the DS; Internetting, where I checked out the bridge’s live feed that looked like it was being streamed from Hoth; chasing Potato around; enjoying the fine food, coffee and tunes at Uncommon Grounds; picking up some Montreal bagels and goodies at Pete’s Frootique with Bryanna; and getting a huge-ass chicken shwarma and a ginormous plate of seasoned fries from Venus Pizza. So unbelievably massive, tasty and filling that could have easily made two meals out of it. I probably should have actually.
I got to meet the other roomies this time around too which was nice, though Jenn only briefly but who did recommend to me the shwarma. I chatted with Michelle about Photoshop and compressing photos to send to a magazine (yup, that’s how cool I am) and hung out with them that evening recounting the disgusting monster spider stories River told me when he was visiting PEI from Australia. After that it was time to get some sleep before attempting the whole 7:15-am-try-to-catch-a-bus routine again.
Thankfully, I went in the right direction this morning and arrived at the bus depot early and not soaked by winter rain this time. All I wanted to do was sleep, which I managed to do for most of the bus ride except after we left Amherst. Some woman was on the bus with her young daughter and shortly after we hit the highway an argument arose over the stupidest possible thing: whether or not the bus was in PEI. There’s simply no argument since we just left Amherst, NOVA SCOTIA and we hadn’t crossed that rather noticeable landmark called the Confederation Bridge. The kid was just stupid and/or trying to cause trouble and the mother couldn’t have been more obnoxious as she repeated the same threats of going to bed when they got home, to stop with the attitude, etc. over and over again as I tried to sleep. All I wanted was to shut my eyes and wake up in PEI but they just wouldn’t shut the fuck up, people looked back to see what the hell all of the fuss was about as they continued to nag and argue with each other.
Sleep wasn’t an option at this point so I turned on my iPod and drowned out the two of them as best I could by turning up Wolfmother as far as I dared in my one and only good ear. On occasion I would pause the music to see if the coast was clear to get a little shut eye but no such luck. I swear they bickered with one another from Amherst to PEI and I would have loved to wrap their heads in duct tape to keep them quiet. The kid was a plain old brat through-and-through and the mother was a half-retarded broken record. Gawd, I love the bus.
Back on PEI it looked like they got it worse than Halifax judging by the sides of buildings completely plastered from snow driven sideways by the wind. There’s so much snow everywhere that there’s no doubt winter is here to stay and we’re definitely going to have a white Xmas. The walk back home was cold but it was a nice day and the sounds of kids sledding as they enjoyed their snow day and of passing cars was muted by all of the snow. Everything had that quiet, muffled winter sound which was kind of nice but the novelty wore off when I got back and had to clean off and shovel out the car, my windshield wipers breaking soon afterward.