Monday, January 28, 2002
Had an eventful weekend this past weekend – and I for one am glad that for once I didn’t have to head up to Keswick to attend to my mother’s house. It was nice to “stay at home” for a weekend. Am glad to report that Mom seems to be doing fine, and sounds good when I’ve chatted to her over the phone – she doesn’t seem in the least bit addled, and I am hoping that the familiar surroundings help things stay that way. Still, the least thing I want is for her to be a virtual prisoner in her own house – when I last talked to her, she hadn’t been out of the house since arriving there from the hospital a couple of Fridays ago.
As for this past weekend, it makes the most sense to go over things in chronological order.
Saturday
I wanted to get seriously back to work on Core CSS, 2nd Edition, and Erika kindly offered to look after the kiddies for much of the day. This was made easier for her in part because of a birthday party for one of the local kids that Vanessa had been invited to. So I ended up hammering away at chapter 21 (“Ruby”) while Erika took Vanessa to the party. Erika ended up relaxing for much of the afternoon at home – and catching a much-needed nap while Annie rested – while Vanessa had a blast at the birthday party.
In the afternoon I got a call from Sinister Pete. He asked for phone numbers for other friends that he didn’t have, and letting me know that he wanted meet everybody at Pauper’s, a downtown bar, at 8:30pm.
So I get there just after 8:30. No Peter (no surprise there really ;-) but Bill and Toby were, and we drink and chat for about a half-hour until Pete shows up. It’s been ages since I’ve seen Toby – he’s unemployed and enjoying it. His various illnesses seem to be catching up to him though: various lung, liver, spinal and intestinal problems leave him looking a bit gaunt, but otherwise he’s happy (“my brain is fine, but my body is falling apart” he said). One of his doctor's is thinking of shortlisting him for a liver-and-lung transplant -- he's been told point-blank by one doctor that he doesn't have too many years left to him. He's still as creative as ever, and he gave us some ideas for some truly warped songs: one that I remember was for a song involving two drivers who meet at an intersection and end up waiting forever for the other one to go. He living at a friend’s house, and paying his way there by doing carpentry work and fixing up the place. He would like to get back to work, but only on his own terms, which means contract (rather than full-time) Java programming.
I get a real treat from Peter when he arrived: I had asked if he could loan me copies of his tapes of the “Mondo Music” show we had done together almost a decade ago. He does me proud by handing over a bag filled with tapes, including some stuff I had completely forgotten about, such as some rough takes for “Captain Mondo” radio shows, unused joke “Croeko” ads as well as copies of radio shows I didn’t already have a copy of myself. Am hoping that I’ll finally be able to complete my recorded collection of the “Captain Mondo” radio shows with what he’s given me.
Shortly after Pete and his girlfriend arrive, all of the rest of Pete’s Toronto-area friends arrive. The only one I immediately recognized was Victor, who I hadn’t seen since at least the last time Pete turned up in town. I had to be re-introducd to Teresa M., whom as it turned out had been in Peterborough for the fabbled Miscellaneous "S" concert held there years ago. She related one amusing "S"-related story -- for a while she roomed with a girl who had a completedly middle-of-the-road record collection plus one Miscellaneous "S" album. Turns out that she had been a former girlfriend of one of the band's members, and this musical selection she retained in her music collection was the only even vaguely adventurous thing she had musically-speaking. ;-)
Pete looked good, and is still quintessentially Pete (those who know him will understand what I mean. ;-) He showed us pictures he had of his various trips to far-off places, including Iceland and Australia. He also had pictures of what life is like at the pirate radio station he works at in Dublin. He told us of how they wanted to go legit and how they’d worked on a formal proposal, and how they were eventually beaten out by a proposal for a country-and-western station. “Like Dublin needs a country-and-western station” said Pete. Their station plays a lot of local artists – Pete showed us several photos of himself mugging in front of local music celebs – and they have a sizable audience, at least according to the research done by other radio stations who had submitted their license applications.
Pete told us that until quite recently he’d been working as a comedy director for a local TV station. But he got fed up of having to bs talented comedy writers and performers that his station would do their stuff, and then not do it, so when his contract came up for renewal, he decided to walk. In the meantime he’s planning on working as a receptionist for his chiropractor, until something else comes up... ;-)
It was great seeing Pete again. I made a pledge to come and visit him in Dublin for what would prove to be a legendary “lost week” or so. Would love to do more comedy stuff with him again. One of the ideas for a show idea I riffed off was for “The Bank of Evil” which is the place comic-book evil supervillians go in order to get funding for their plans of world-domination. Pete played off this idea immediately, and come up with sample rejection letters that had us all in stitches: “I’m sorry Dr. Freezo, but we must reject your plans for funding your freeze ray. Considering the fact that the Super Justice League handily defeated Mr. Icicle’s similar sub-zero ray gun last year, we feel that you have not fully done your research, and need to rethink your plans.” Well, I guess you had to be there. ;-)
I stayed there at the bar until last call, and then took a cab ride back home, dropping Toby off at his place in the process. I immediately had a shower to get rid of the smoky-smell that permeated by hair and clothes – yuck! So I collapsed into bed at around 3am on Sunday...
Sunday
Vanessa gets up at about 8am and proceeds to jump on her fast-asleep Dad who’s still in bed. Ohhhhhh...
So I get out of bed, somehow make breakfast for myself and Vanessa. When Erika wakes up about an hour later with Annie, she tells me that they all had a late night as well. Vanessa was out skating on her trainer skates for about an hour, and then went back to the place where the birthday party continued into the late evening, with the remaining kids staying up and watching movies. So Vanessa was a bit tired underneath it all.
At about 10:30am we left for the ROM, as it was a special “member’s day”, and it promised to give us another chance to look at the Asian Dinos exhibition.
The tickets to the dino exhibition were timed, and it ended up that we had about an hour before we could expect to get in. So we went over to the Eaton Court, which housed the activities for members. Vanessa had a blast, particularly at the place where kids could gather and brush away layers of fine-sawdust in order to reveal mounted dino bones hidden underneath. Vanessa also tried putting together a dino made out of coloured pipe cleaners, and had fun colouring dino pictures.
Had I known how tired she was, I would have just stayed there for some of the other activities they had planned there, such as dino story-telling and the like. But instead we headed over to Asian dino exhibition when the time came, and Vanessa had a sudden attack of the willies – she’d been there once already and didn’t think much of it, and I think maybe she was a little bit scared by all of the big dino bones. So we didn’t get to see much of the show for a second time. ;-) To make her feel better, I bought her a dino stickerbook, which she happily played with on the subway ride home. I picked up a DVD (Allosaurus - A Walking With Dinosaurs Special), which was a show I had thoroughly enjoyed when it was the Discovery Channel a couple of months ago.
Once home I promptly put her – and myself – to bed.
The rest of the day wasn’t eventful, which was fine by me. We ordered pizza for dinner, and in the evening Erika and I watched a couple of fascinating shows of Extinct. The first one was about the dodo and the second about the Tasmanian tiger – both fascinating and well-done shows. Though I may have spotted an error in the show -- at one point in the first show they have a naturalist inspect what is claimed to be “the only known surviving intact Dodo skeletons”. So I have to wonder what the seemingly intact dodo skeleton I saw at the main entrance gallery at the ROM earlier in the day was... ;-)
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