Done and Done

Phew!! Thank God that is done. Although that has to be the quickest holiday season I remember. (We won't talk about the ones I don't.)

Christmas Eve was fairly quiet itself. Athough it did take a most unexpected emotional turn (thank you Tonia), but if there is one thing I've learned it is better to let it out than hold it in.

Christmas Day for the most part turned out as planned. I got the house to myself. I have been so busy this month, I was just dying for down time. The boys after laying some saaaweet gifts on me left the house by about 10:30. Time to get cooking!!

I love cooking, totally takes my mind off things. Made my "special" potats, my onion pie and prepped the stuffing for the bird. I finished all of that by around 12:30 and finally took a load off accompanied by a plate of peppered cheese and herb pate'.

The next few hours was just about a stack of old Pink Panther movies and absolute reflective overdrive. I really think I would have been miserable if I was surrounded by people. I need the down time to clear my head. I was expecting something of Christmas, and it didn't happen. But you know what? I'm used to disappointment. The me time would just serve to wipe it clean from my mind. The Pink Panther movies helped too haha.

Later in the afternoon my buddy Kim popped in for a visit. He was just out for a walk and decided to come by for a minute. A can of Canada Dry and he was on his way. It was time for me to deal with the turkey and I'm sure he didn't want to witness me shoving my hand in the various cavities of the bird.

Time to take a load off part 2. Second Pink Panther movie and time for a few drinks. Welcome to the next level, reflective hyperdrive. Time just seemed to fly by, and before I knew it the turkey was near done. I went crazy getting all the sides done, but after all these years I'm like a well oiled machine.

I laid out everything on the dining room table and sat to feast. I did have a wave of guilt wash over me as I sat looking at a table with food for 15 as I sat myself. But it passed. 10 hours of effort consumed in 20 minutes. Clean up only took a few minutes and I found myself back in my chair with a fresh beer.

A friend of mine called me and said she wanted to get out of her family thing. I knew if we did anything here I would probably just fall asleep. The Irish kids had been hounding me to go to their place which I had been trying to avoid, but they said Pauly was on his way over and Abby was pretty determined to get out so I relented.

My car was a freaking ice cube literally. I couldn't even get the door open initially. I picked up Abby and we drove to the Irish house where the police were doing their surveillance as always. We went up through the back door into the kitchen. Haha, what a freaking disaster. One of the worst kitchen messes I had ever seen. They were really disorganized initially with their dinner, so I bought the turkey for them and gave them my potats recipe. How either of them were cooked in that mess is beyond me. The look on Abby's face was priceless. We went downstairs where they had all the tables set up.

There were just about to start a card game and asked if we wanted in. I thought I knew the game they were talking about (I won't mention the name here) so I was like sure sure. It turned out as soon as we started it was actually a drinking game. I may be known for having a couple of beers every day, but by no means am I a drinker, and poor Abby until recently didn't drink at all. Of course everyone tried to gang up on me (including Abby), but fortunately there were many favours owed me around the table and I started calling them in. I even offered to pull out my chequebook at one point. In the end thankfully I only had to chug one beer (which I somewhat pooched). Poor Abby who was drinking wine had to do the same, a full pint of wine. I got dry heaves just watching. And when the game got to the last card (where you have to down a whole drink plus a shot jaeger) it looked like I was going to be screwed. Someone threw down a card and saved me but turned it on Abby who I thought was going to start crying. Finally Deviner came to her rescue and threw it to Gary. Game over, I'm out!!!

I sat back on the couch for a while and just chilled. I saw Abby was getting tired, so we bailed out. I dropped her at home and drove back. Hit the hay and spent the night staring at ceiling back in my reflective hyperdrive.

Another Christmas gone. Definitely one I'll remember. For the good and the bad.

Merry Christmas

Scene 41 Take 354

Wow!! I'm just not getting into this. I think after last year I need a big dump of snow. Something, I need something. There are a couple of pieces missing to make this holiday season what I always need it to be.

I've already waved the white flag. No orphans this year for dinner. I've had a solid run and I think this year I just need to be on my own. A stack of movies, and one kick ass dinner. And I'm sure enough reflection to rival a mirror store. (Are there mirror stores?)

The week didn't help. I've just been running my butt off. And Thursday didn't help. I got to do the most expensive scenic tour of the Rockies ever. Circling around for hours because they wouldn't let us land in Cranbrook. Write off of a day.

Hopefully this week I and the ones I care about will find what they need. Everyday is a new take, a fresh start with an unwritten ending. And I would like to get somewhere before scene 42.

Cut. Print.

The Lowest Common Denominator

I had actually been planning on talking about something else when I had the chance. I've been pretty busy so it's been hard trying to put something together. And Christmas is less than 2 weeks away....ugh!

Last year I wrote a post titled "A Hazy Shade of Winter." It was a slam of the human condition in light of the horrible killing of a Walmart employee due to the savage response of Black Friday shoppers just trying to get in the door to save a few bucks.

Well I'm afraid the human condition has once again shown it's ugly face. To start with, I will refer to the past.

When I was a pup, say about 5, I had one of the most terrifying experiences of my life. (There was the time I jumped into the Hippo pool at the Detroit Zoo, and when that Snapping Turtle basically bit my hand off, but I don't really remember those). We had flown to Toronto to visit my Grandparents. It was just my mom, brother and sister and I. I don't have a clue where my father was, but I don't now either so that is of no matter. Due to my mom traveling with 3 young children they let us exit the plane first as they did have these courtesy's back in the day.

Pearson Airport was not yet the monster it is today, but it was still pretty big, especially for someone my age. We proceeded down the escalator to the baggage area. I had not taken notice that I had a shoelace untied (this was almost guaranteed at this stage in my life). When we got to the bottom of the escalator and the stair went to sink before starting it's return journey it snagged my shoelace and started pulling my foot toward the grating. The pain was fast and instant, it was as if the escalator had become alive and was trying to consume me. Meanwhile the 200 other passengers on the plane bore down on me. Initially about four of five people fell on top of me including my sister. My mom went into instant panic and started screaming. Luckily a man just walking by the lift saw what was happening and hit the emergency stop. Not that it helped me, blood was coming from my shoe, and I still had a few hundred pounds of people on top of me. Not the greatest experience for a claustrophobic young boy.

It was the first time in my life that I got to see the human condition as it really is, the crumbled society. Even though there was a staircase right beside the escalator, people wouldn't use them. Instead of waiting for my foot to be released, they continued to stampede down on me. Some would kick me, one business man even yelled to cut my foot off. My mother was just screaming at them at the top of her lungs. Even the poor maintenance man that ran over to cut my shoelaces was pushed aside many times before being successful. It was crazy, sick. They wasn't one single person behind us on the damn thing that tried to help.

Flash forward to yesterday. I was flying home from Toronto after a very long week. 7 hours of sleep in 4 days, and all the usual junk. I just wanted home. I was flying on one of those new 777's. A beautiful plane that I always try to get book if I'm doing these longer hauls. It was a fairly uneventful flight. I watched the movie Funny People and followed that up with Julie and Julia. I drifted in and out of sleep during the second one. It is actually a pretty good movie, I just didn't have any gas left.

We finally landed and everyone got up to grab their items from the overhead compartments, and then stood around like a bunch of cattle waiting for the door to open. I was about 10 rows from the back of the plane. I was fortunate enough to have a row of three by myself, the rest of the plane was essentially full. It is a double aisle aircraft and I was standing on the left. The gentleman that was beside me in the opposite aisle gave out a gasp that I don't even remember, it was like an "Oh God" or something like that, I find it quite blurred in my head.

He went down immediately to what seemed like a massive heart attack. His wife, like my mother started screaming. And what do you thing happened? That's right!! Everyone started pushing forward. The man is lying across the aisle dying, and people are trying to get him out of the way, and yes, stepping over him. Due to my clear aisle I was able to get to him. The first person I encountered (some young smarmy businessman) was also trying to push through. Before I knelt down to the man I just looked at this guy and said "If I so much as even feel a nudge from you I will drop you right here", suddenly it was as if reason returned to him, you could literally see it in his eyes. I told him to just use the row I just came through and exit from the other side which he did. Do you think the people behind him got the message? Of course not.

It just seemed like hours of chaos even though it was only a matter of minutes. There was a fellow two rows ahead that was trying to help out with crowd control. The attendants were yelling on the PA for people to go back into their seats but no one was listening. (You know they were in a rush to get down to the baggage wheel so they could wait another half hour for their bags). The attendants were also trying to find a doctor or nurse over the PA, asking them to report to row 55. That means that the guy helping out a couple of rows in front also had to deal with all of these knobs coming back against traffic to fulfill their morbid curiosity.

I just tried to get the man laid out properly and more so tried to comfort his wife who obviously was still in hysterics. People behind me eventually figured out they weren't going to get past me so they either walked through my row or went around the back of the plane. One of the attendants finally yelled to me that emergency personnel were coming. I figured that was the best time to get out of the way and I waved the attendant over to look after the wife. The other man that was helping me cut through the row with me and we went to exit the plane. When we got to the front one of the attendants told us that there was a doctor on board the entire time but nobody would let him pass to the back.

We went up the jetway right when the paramedics were coming down. We got to the baggage carousel to find everyone standing around waiting for their bags. Just a bunch of sick sick people. But also the majority. There were 15 rows in the back of the plane behind the galley. 9 in each row. That's 135 people less the two missing from my row. So we had 3 people helping out of 133. That is 2%. There is your human condition.

The Mayans said the world is coming to an end in 2012. It's already over folks.

10 Things I Think I Think

10. The Cleveland Browns, the Saskatchewan Rough Riders, and Max Hall of BYU should charter a plane to Jonestown Guyana where hopefully there is some Kool-Aid left to put them out of their misery. They are a disgrace to football.

9. In 95% of cases someone who doesn't return a message to you within 3 hours doesn't really give a rat's ass about you. People are obsessive compulsive with their phones. They stare at them like Snoopy doing the Beagle/Vulture. Do the math.

8. President Obama is in a no win situation so I think everyone might as well sit down and enjoy the ride. All we are witnessing is the failure of a two party system. No one could have taken this office and come out smelling like a rose. If you want to fix things, work together. The way the deck is stacking up you are fast tracking to the greatest economic disaster in world history. Tell Rush to shut up, STOP and I mean STOP Sarah Palin in her tracks, and help build a better world for your children.

7. Sometimes the hardest thing in life is to say you're sorry. The only thing that is harder is living with the regret you never did.

6. Animals are taking over Hollywood. This is proven by Sarah Jessica Parker (obviously from Mr. Ed's bloodline), Renee Zellweger (she is actually a Chilean Sea Bass), and Robert Pattinson (I haven't actually figured out what he is yet, but he sure as hell isn't human).

5. My Grandchildren (not that I will have any) will be paying for the 2010 Olympics.

4. I used to think I could save the world. I now have doubts that I can save myself.

3. Absence makes the heart grow fonder is probably the most accurate statement I know.

2. The Caramilk secret is sooo obvious.

1. About a year ago I wrote a quote by John Gregory Brown. "There is something like a line of gold thread running through a man's words when he talks to his daughter, and gradually over the years it gets long enough for you to pick up in your hands and weave into a cloth that feels like love itself." I crave those days and I miss my Miley so much.