Thanksgiving Weekend '07

Ah yes. My first trip “home“¹ in about a year and a half, since my par­ents got divorced.

The entirety of my trip was in the com­pany of Andrew and Alex, who hosted me for the week­end. Pictures tell the story.

Drinks at the Madison

On Friday night, we went to The Madison to catch up with their old drag­onboat team­mates. The Madison is a mas­sive pub, made from two or three amal­ga­mated houses in the down­town dis­trict. A very pop­u­lar spot, which was appar­ent from the amount of peo­ple in it as the night went on.

I hadn’t been out drink­ing in…two years? Something like that.

Food

Food was a high­light of the week­end. After drink­ing on Friday night, we went for some greasy wings. Saturday night was filet mignon wrapped in bacon at Peter’s Fine Dining Steak & Seafood. Sunday was a Chinese Thanksgiving din­ner. Monday was dim sum. Even on the way home, Annie and I got talk­ing about Chinese food, so we stopped off at a Chinese restau­rant when we arrived in the city, and I took the left­overs home.

I tried to put my foot down on being treated to only one meal, but in typ­i­cal Chinese fash­ion, Andrew and Alex refused.

Visiting Brian

It’s been less than a year since Brian passed away, and it was his birth­day that week­end. I didn’t know Brian very well. We were part of the same clique, but other than that, we never spoke much. I only have a sin­gle mem­ory of him: when all the guys were at my house and we were watch­ing Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life Part VII: Death.

A bunch of his friends decided to visit him on Saturday morn­ing, but Andrew and Alex went them­selves for a lit­tle more privacy.

I’d been fol­low­ing his progress since last Christmas, when we were told that he was diag­nosed with a brain tumor, and his friends had such nice things to say about him. It made me won­der. What will my friends write of me when I’m gone?

Old places

A trip “home” is a chance to see the old stomp­ing grounds. Places I grew up, hung out. Next time, I’ll visit the path I took to Ashley’s house. Ah, mem­o­ries of child­hood girlfriends.

Chinese stores are also a some­what nec­es­sary visit. This time I was look­ing for a ceramic teapot, so I can build up some flavour in the stone, as opposed to mak­ing tea one glass at a time. No dice, I’ll wait until I go to Hong Kong next year to find one.

Markville Mall has changed tremen­dously. It was the clos­est mall to us by far, so the one in which we spent the most time. I remem­ber see­ing my old class­mates work­ing there all the time. It’s filled with Chinese peo­ple now.

Old faces

The Annie who drove me was some­one I knew through Andrew and Alex back in grade three and four. I remem­ber her sis­ter, now about 20, run­ning around in dia­pers back then. Andrew, Alex, and I would go to her house, and I would steal rock sugar from the cabinets.

I also met-up with Dave, whom I hadn’t seen in about eight years. “You haven’t changed at all”, he said. As kids, we lived a block away from each other. We used to walk to ele­men­tary school, until I switched to a dif­fer­ent one in grade five. Then I switched to his school in OAC, and all grown up, he would drive me. The whole time, we were always in the same clique.

I also saw Joe (or Uncle Joe, as I used to call him), who’s the father of Rockson and Cason, and also used to be one of my scout lead­ers. We both rec­og­nized each other at the front door, but couldn’t remem­ber each other’s names.

Who knows when I’ll see these peo­ple again.

Fall

Since the tem­per­a­ture is falling and the flow­ers are dying, I tried to cap­ture the theme of decay. Leaves on the ground were mostly red, but there were a few green ones, filled with life, stick­ing out. Most of my shots were in the morn­ing, when the dew was still on the ground, and the sun was just peer­ing over the horizon.

I had hoped to get pic­tures of our old camp­grounds, but it was just too much to fit into one week­end. One day I’ll get a chance, but it must be dur­ing the sum­mer and in the morn­ing, as I remem­ber it.

At home at home

The week­end was some­what non-stop, stick­ing with Andrew and Alex’s social cal­en­dars. It wasn’t over­stim­u­lat­ing, but exhaust­ing. It was only this week­end that I felt caught-up with sleep. Before leav­ing, Nora gave me some mango green tea and white tea in pyra­mid bags, which Annie once gave her.

It was a strange cou­ple of days, maybe because I was rid­ing off my momen­tum. I never felt so at-home in the world, and it was a pecu­liar feel­ing indeed.

But this is where I belong.

1. I’ve decided that from now on, the quoted “home” will refer to Toronto, and the unquoted home will refer to Ottawa [↑]