The 31st
Halloween saw me doing the same thing I do every damn year: Mr. Dim costume, fog machine, jack-o-lantern, creepy music, and some miscellaneous spooky characters in the front porch. It was a good night for ghouls and goblins to be running around stockpiling candy and treats but only a mere thirty-nine trick-or-treaters showed up. That’s about half of what I usually get on a good year and getting so few ringing the doorbell makes for a migthy slow night. On the bright side, I managed to make a little girl bawl (though I say that with a slight twinge of guilt), and made one of Troy and Carol’s toddler twins pretty scared. I didn’t even realize it was the Little family until I took my mask off to make the little kid less scared. She was alright with everything after that and they left happy with some candy.
When I was a kid I remember my dad getting some of that fake skin for Halloween and I don’t know what it was about the stuff but it freaked me out. A lot. I may have thought it was real skin either by little kid assumption or it’s quite possible Dad convinced me the stuff was real. I seem to have a vague memory of seeing him applying it to his face in the downstairs bathroom mirror and then flipping out when he came out with a big, gross blob of flesh hanging off his face. I wouldn’t even touch the beige, waxy stuff sitting in the package because it weirded me out so much. Suffice to say, I got scared easily as a kid but seeing as Dad would jump out of nowehere dressed in a gorilla costume to scare us, or chase me around the house with lobsters, it’s rather understandable.
The 30th
He didn’t move. Maybe he was dead. Or picked a really lousy spot to hibernate.
The 29th
I went to my sister’s for dinner tonight and Calvin was going nuts jumping everywhere. He ended up on top of the cupboards, watching us eat from his lazy perch on high. Crazy kook. Apparently it’s one of his favourite spots. I’m sort of jealous of his hang out.
We must have been talking about dessert or sweets because it reminded Mom of how her dad would save the cream that formed at the top of bottles of fresh milk they got from the neighbours. She said he used to put eight spoonfuls of sugar on his pie and then would spread that cream all over the top. Farm fresh cream, sugar, pie. A toothsome triumvirate if I ever did hear of one. I guess I get my sweet tooth honest enough.
The 27th
Today was super mild so I decided to go for a walk this evening to take advantage of the nice weather for a change. The second I stepped outside it started to rain a bit then continued to rain for exactly the amount of time it took me to walk the two blocks to my parents’ place. Just enough to soak me. Just enough to be annoying.
The 24th
Laine invited people over to her place tonight and on my way out there I stopped in at MacCormick’s to find they had honeycrisp apples the size of grapefruits. The most gigantic apples I ever did see. Huge. They’re pricey as far as apples go but these ain’t your everyday, run-of-the-mill apples. They’re a Nova Scotian South Shore treat and worth every penny spent on their crisp, juicy, sweet goodness.
Sharon, Jeanine, Jen and Michael made it over for the little get-together. I brought some crappy, frozen appetizers like taquitos and sausage rolls only to find out that Laine’s a vegetarian. She wasn’t missing out on anything anyway seeing as they were just boxes of processed garbage food to be reheated. After my belly was full of said garbage it very much made me wish I had made something instead. Something tasty. Something partly nutritious, or at least not full of factory “meat”. Maybe next time we’ll pot luck it up and I can load up on the good stuff. Because it’s better to be over-stuffed with quality, homemade food than moderately full of No Name brand sausage rolls.
I didn’t end up staying over there the entire night, though, because I didn’t want to miss out on the opportunity to see Alien on the big screen. Empire in Ch’town has Fanboy Fridays which means I’ll get to see a movie every so often that I missed in the theatre when I was a kid. For some reason Ghostbusters is playing sometime next month instead of on Halloween night which is a Friday and the perfect night for that movie. They’re missing a bet on that one.
I went with Greg, Marcus and Nathan to the theatre which was surprisingly packed, meaning it’s a popular event, meaning there’s a good chance I’ll get to go more than once. The movie started, the print was filthy and old, and for a second I was kind of disappointed because I sort of hoped I’d get to see a good, clean, quality print. But then the novelty of watching a well-worn, thoroughly aged print with the shifting colour casts, scratches and dirt took over and it was a blast to watch. Now I want to send them my wish list for movies that would include such titles as 2001: A Space Odyssey, all three original versions of Star Wars, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, all of the Indiana Jones flicks (sans the new foolish one), The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, The Tenant, and the list goes on and on.
The 20th
Here it is, the Video Cassette Cat Castle! Not long ago Kathy was over visiting and as I stood there complaining there was no way to recycle the armload of video tape stacks I had she suggested I build a house for Hobbes out of them. Ingenious idea. I wish I had thought of it. Why don’t I think of fun ideas any more? Oh, right. Because I’m not fun any more. I came up with the ramparts for the top at least.
I had fun making this for kitty, though. I had more than enough tapes but had to buy quite a few tubes of glue from the dollar store to complete this project. The fumes were pretty strong but everything held together quite nicely and I got all of the pieces together, including the detachable roof, last week. Yes, the little prince has his very own castle now.
It was in the kitchen at first and Hobbes actually started going in on his own right away. I figured he’d be scared of it or the smell might keep him from going in, thus making the whole thing a waste of time and glue, but he took to it and uses it for refuge when I chase him around. In fact, I was at one window wiggling my finger trying to get his attention to play when he noticed it from the outside through the other window. His eyes got big and his butt started shaking as he was about to take the bait. But instead of racing in through the front door and pouncing on my finger the dummy pulled a “good ol’ boy” and jumped straight in through the other window Dukes of Hazzard-style. I was dying laughing as all but his back legs made it through and he wriggled his dangling paws in with the rest of him. I couldn’t believe the fat thing actually fit through the window, that’s why the door was one tape wide and two tapes tall. Freak.
The 15th
I finished editing Old Fat McNally vs. Young Fat McNally. Enjoy!
The 14th
I like scented candles. I like things that smell tasty, like food. Scented candles are good like that. They make me think of food. I don’t tend to like ones that smell like flowers or otherwise normally inedible objects like sandalwood or cotton. But if it’s a candle that smells like baked apple pie, chocolate, cookies and such then I’ll take it.
That being said, on occasion, I have bought those little scented candles that smell of things I can’t or would not eat. I’m not sure why, perhaps the aroma smelled good in the store but then not so much once I got the candle home and lit it up. One candle had a label that read “Coconut Lime”. I like coconut. I like lime. I would eat those two things together it they were in pie form, or square form or cake form. I suppose the candle does smell like coconut lime but the strength of scent memory overpowered the actual smell. To me, the candle smells of things other than coconut and lime. To me, the candle smells like the inside of a pillow case with the dregs of Halloween’s candy collection at the bottom.
It’s so strange at how very specific that scent is in my mind and that candle hits it right on the money. All I can think of when I smell it is being crouched in the toy closet with my head stuck in the pillow case as I root through a small pile of the least wanted treats. I had already eaten all of the bags of chips, cheesies and Doritos. The chocolate bars were long gone by that point. If I was lucky I would discover a Tootsie Pop I had missed among the debris. Instead, I was stuck with that rare mix of loose, shelled peanuts and various candies in cellophane or wax paper wrappers. Things like Rockets, Roman Nougat (what the hell is that stuff anyway?), those Baseball things with the flat wad of chewy stuff on a stick, yellow suckers, or the classic Halloween molasses kisses. The latter only ever getting eaten as a last resort sugar fix sometime nearing December if they weren’t thrown in the garbage first.
That unique blend of aromas lingering in that pillow case with the dust and fragments of peanut shells, bits of wrappers, and chip crumbs has nothing to do with coconuts or limes. Why then does my brain get so confused when it smells the candle? Maybe the label should be truer to what it actually smells like but I doubt “Halloween Candy Dregs” would be a very appetizing or inviting scent to advertise on the bottom.
The 12th
I drove up west for Thanksgiving supper at my grandparents’ but stopped along the way to snap some photos of the Pumpkin Patch People at Compton’s Vegetable Stand. They seem to go all out each year, making dozens of pumpkin dummies and filling the yard with hundreds of pumpkins. I also popped in to get a jar of antipasto because, Gen, the woman that makes this fantastic stuff only sells it at, what seems to be, but a few select places. Kind of hard to find, I guess, so I try to get some whenever it’s available. I’ve only tried maybe three kinds of antipasto in my life: some stuff that Dave and Wanda made years ago where I chipped in for a small stockpile, some other local kind I found at the grocery store when I eventually ran out of the homemade stuff, and then Gen’s most recently. Her antipasto seems to be exactly the same as the homemade stuff that I find so tasty, while the other kind I bought just wasn’t very good by comparison. On top of Vinta or Sociables cracker, Gen’s Antipasto is bloody addictive.
When I got up west, I noticed that the tree in front of the house was chock full of holes. Hundreds of perfectly bored holes all over the tree trunk and branches. My grandfather said a yellow-bellied sapsucker was killing that tree and all of his cherry trees too—they were making swiss cheese out of the things—and apparently he managed to shoot one but they keep coming back. I even caught one on video for him once so he could see it up close, I think that was when he figured out it was a sapsucker as opposed to maybe just a woodpecker or something. In any case, the only time I think I’ve ever heard of a yellow-bellied sapsucker prior to the devastation of my grandfather’s trees was in an episode from the 1983 Snappy Loons cassette The Origin of The New Snappy Loons with Warner Trent entitled “Peaceful Waters Bird Show”. I figured they must have made up the species because it has a goofy, comedic name. I’m fairly certain I won’t get sued for posting this clip.
The 11th
It was supposed to coincide thematically with the summer Olympics but, instead, the McNally Foot Race took place on this lovely Saturday afternoon of Thanksgiving weekend. The two competitors, Shawn McNally and D’Arcy McNally, would determine on this day which of the two cousins was the fleetest of foot in a monumental race at Elm Street School’s soccer field. The wheels were set in motion for the day’s race and I acted as chauffeur for the younger of the two athletes, taking Shawn to Neil’s to get some proper footwear for foot racing. Neil was nowhere to be found but we eventually tracked him down at the waterfront because he had apparently “forgotten” he was supposed to be at home to lend some sneakers to Shawn but was off on a nice beach-side walk with a girl who was visiting him from school instead. Forgot indeed…
Fashionably sporty in two different coloured socks and fashionably late after the running shoe snafu, Shawn stepped onto the field but not before we did a slow, intimidating drive-by of the small crowd in hopes of rattling D’Arcy’s nerves. I followed with cameras and equipment to document this historical event from multiple angles so that future generations could experience what would transpire on that beautiful, sunny afternoon in the West End.
The spectators were but a few friends, relatives and other fans of the sport gathered by one goal near the school where I set up the tripod with the finish line cam. Thane readied himself with his own camera to catch the race head on. There would be no way we could miss the winner breaking the finish line which was of masking tape that threatened to snap in the wind but showing much more strength than the original toilet paper version. At the other goal on the far side of the field, the other Neil captured some pre-race footage of the racers and the race official, Richard, while I established myself mid-field with another camera. Shawn and D’Arcy did some stretching before getting into position where they awaited the firing of the starter’s pistol (e.g. a cap gun).
It should be known that no one at all was placing any bets on Shawn to win except Shawn himself and perhaps his girlfriend back in Nova Scotia, Bryanna, or maybe his mom who also wasn’t in attendance. D’Arcy was assumed by everyone else to be the safe bet in this contest despite being fifteen years Shawn’s senior and a long-time smoker. He used to be a runner back in the day, after all, while Shawn…well, wasn’t. That and because Shawn basically sits around eating wings, ordering from China Star and reading comics.
Framed overhead by the rusty goal, the two competitors in their starting positions were taut and focused, the world around them blurring as they each envisioned their respective claim to glory, their eyes set firmly and exclusively on the finish line. A crack from the gun and the racing duo were off across the field in an instant. Cheering and shouts from the small but enthusiastic crowd spurred on the racers on as they pushed their bodies to their maximum limits of pure sprinting power. The sight was awesome in both the classic and vernacular sense. To witness such athleticism is to witness godliness…once you get past the bellies and the grunting, that is.
It appeared the race was neck and neck until the mid-way point when, to the shock of everyone but himself, Shawn overtook his second cousin to secure the lead all the way to the finish line where his pumping fists were launched skyward in a victorious arm-raising as the masking tape finish line snapped across his well-upholstered midriff. Shawn did a victory lap, proclaiming his win and showing up all those who lacked faith in his racing prowess. What fools he made of us for doubting him, and D’Arcy could only have been crushed by such a defeat. Still, both upheld the tradition of sportsmanlike behaviour and congratulated each other on a race well run. Debate sprung up over the length of the race and whether or not either of them had a head-start but there it was: the race was run, the victor was Shawn despite an overwhelming confidence in D’Arcy, and one of the most hotly anticipated racing events of the season was over almost before it had begun. Such a build up for what took only mere seconds to conclude.
As the excitement and the joking around faded, as gear was put away and as breath was regained, the the crowd dispersed to leave the field quiet again in the late afternoon sun. I stood packing up my cameras by the finish line when a little girl pushed her bike toward me from the nearby playground. I asked her if she had watched the race, to which she responded that she had. She said she didn’t come over to watch because she thought we were all a bunch of teenagers, to which I responded by admitting that we merely act like teenagers. I asked her who she thought was going to win and she said she was rooting for the guy in the red shirt. So it turned out Shawn did have a fan after all.
The 9th
I had an MRI appointment in Ch’town this morning, was running late for it and, of course, it took forever to find a parking spot. They get you to change out of your street clothes and into some stylish hospital garb in colours that would make a healthy person sick. No one, I repeat, no one looks good in any sort of sickly salmon-coloured pants. Hospital pants only make matters worse. But then again, nobody goes to the hospital to wear hospital pants for style. They go there to be healed, treated and examined. Fashion and pants colour doesn’t really come into play when hospital visits are concerned.
The nurse sat me down and got out her torture tools of the trade so she could hook me up with an IV. She actually remembered me from my last panicked and unfortunate encounter with her needle attempts. It’s somewhat reassuring to know she understands how freaked out I get by needles but, at the same time, you feel pretty dumb when some nurse who sees hundreds or thousands of people a year remembers you as the pansy who goes grey and almost passes out when they miss the vein several times. Thankfully, this time things were good right out of the gate and she found purchase in my near-invisible wiggly vein on attempt number one. When she slapped the tape across the IV I experienced the same sort relief as after you’ve been cutting something and the knife slips and for a brief instance you're positive you lopped your finger clean off but the lack of blood evidence and a furtive scan of the countertop for a non-existent severed digit says otherwise.
After a couple of nurse ladies in a booth looked at my brain on a screen, they let me go on my merry way. I went downtown to pick up a case for my iPod touch at the Little Mac Shoppe before heading over to the Monsoon Tea Room for lunch. I’m pretty sure I could eat there every day for the rest of my life. I ordered the spicy roll and a bowl of miso soup, winding up with a completely satisfied feeling after eating my lunch just as I do every time I eat there. I’m tempted to have a big plate of their sushi couriered to me one of these days when I’m jonesing.
I hit the road for home, grabbing a coffee from the market uptown as fluid for me, some brake fluid for my car at Canadian Tire, and lucked out finding honeycrisp apples at the farmer’s market off of North River Road. Then on the highway I spotted a church missing the big front window so I turned around to go take a gander. Someone had been in there gutting the place and right in the middle of the open church was an old piano. It would have been kind of neat to take off with the piano but, while I can normally lift that much weight on my own, I would have needed a truck to get it home. Besides, stealing from a church regardless of how much disrepair it’s in is probably a crime on both a mundane and cosmic level.
Sushi, coffee, honeycrisps, and snooping around an old, ripped up church. Had I not started out my day with an IV and having my head stuck into a loud machine that doused my brain with a magnetic field stronger than the planet’s it would have otherwise been a pretty swell day.
The 4th
I guess there are so few people going to the Waterfront Mall now that they have to fill the gutted food court with dummies in ball caps to make it seem like there’s a lively, bustling atmosphere that a lone table of grumbling old men can’t convey on their own.
My sleep routine is so out of whack that as I laid down in bed at 7 a.m. to try and get some sleep I decided that since the farmer’s market opens in an hour and a half I might as well just stay up. This way I’ll be able to actually get to the market for a change instead of sleeping until 3 p.m. and, hopefully, by staying up all night and day I’ll be able to get back into a normal sleep routine by going to bed at a decent hour tonight. How well this plan will work out remains to be seen.
I got to the market just shortly after the doors opened, the bright sunlight in the east forcing me to squint from its unfamiliar rays. John and Gail were surprised to see me at the unusual hour so I had to explain that I had yet to go to bed as part of my plan to start sleeping and waking like a normal person. I chatted to Clayton about the Pork Guy’s video of some free-range-type pigs having fun before their ultimate demise. With some coffee and food in me I grabbed a few supplies before heading back out into the bright light of the morning. From there it was off to Price Chopper where I found the mall to be as empty in the a.m. and it is in the p.m.
For some local fall harvest type of event, the city puts dummies—scarecrows I suppose you could say—all over the place, and without the few situated in the foodless food court I could probably count the number of mall patrons on my fingers. Truly sad. Thanks, Wal-Mart. Soon the dummies won’t even come to the mall.
