Posts in category "Daily Life"

No One Gets My Humour

Sometimes, my sar­cas­tic humour is so dry and sub­tle that peo­ple who don’t know me very well think I’m being seri­ous. I try to say things that are so ridicu­lous they can only be tak­en as a joke, but it does­n’t always work. Example:

Yesterday, Jairus made pulled pork sand­wich­es (took him 8 hours!) that smelled soooo good they made me hun­gry, even though I had just eat­en a huge din­ner. As we were watch­ing A Jihad For Love (about the coex­is­tence of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty and Islam), Jesse said, “Too bad these Muslims would­n’t be able to enjoy this deli­cious pulled pork sand­wich”. I said, “Oh, cause it’s pulled”, in a tone like I had just real­ized some­thing, but what I thought was a jok­ing man­ner. Everyone turned their heads at me, Ian said, “Cause it’s pork, yeah”, and he lin­gered on that yeah real­ly slow­ly, like he was embar­rassed for me, then every­one turned back to the TV. I’m pret­ty sure they all think I’m an idiot now, and that I thought Muslims have some­thing against ani­mals when they’re slow-cooked in vine­gar sauce.

Working Hard and Playing Hard

Miric

Thumbnail: Barbecue
Thumbnail: Documentary night
Thumbnail: Karen and kids
Thumbnail: Strawberries and scones
Thumbnail: Stuffed animals

It’s been busy. Side work is going well, and I try to do as much as I can on week­nights so I can have my week­ends free.

It’s made for a rather hec­tic sched­ule, which is a wel­come dis­trac­tion at the moment. I feel great for being pro­duc­tive, and great for being able to relax. Time is fly­ing. I can’t believe it’s past the mid­dle of September already.

I use to bring my cam­eras with me every­where, but now I find I’m tak­ing few­er pic­tures. I want to be less of an observer/documentalist and more of a par­tic­i­pa­tor late­ly. I don’t want to miss out on liv­ing from wor­ry­ing if I’m cap­tur­ing every­thing as best as pos­si­ble.

Things iPhone app

One of the things that’s helped me main­tain my pro­duc­tiv­i­ty is Things for my iPhone, which gives lit­tle alert badges on the things that are due. It’s a great moti­va­tor when you want to clear the alerts from your home screen.

See You In Toronto

Street

I’m so glad that Toronto remains a place where I can go to get away. There are places to stay, an end­less cycle of friends or acquain­tances to vis­it, and some­one else takes the wheel and dri­ves.

It’s amaz­ing to see how much Toronto has changed. How cer­tain streets down­town have turned into trendy, expen­sive shop­ping dis­tricts, a Canadian ver­sion of Rodeo Drive, and a far cry from the run-down roads I would vis­it every lunch in high school by rollerblade and sub­way to buy Magic cards and Warhammer fig­ures.

MindBender loves you

After Bill Clinton’s speech at the CNE, there was a brief ques­tion and answer peri­od. The host asked him, “What do you like most about Toronto?”, adding that Torontonians seem to have a sort of self-dep­re­cat­ing humour1. After mak­ing a diplo­mat­ic com­ment on the Aboriginal art as being his favourite thing, Clinton said, “You folks can make fun of your­self, but peo­ple would kill to live a soci­ety like this. You should be very proud.” I had to agree.

Dim sum

Before leav­ing, I had dim sum with my dad, and we caught up on each oth­ers lives a lit­tle bit. He sound­ed pret­ty hap­py when I called to ask him if he want­ed to go.

I bought a pair of wind­shield wipers but did­n’t replace them, bring­ing them with me to his house instead, hop­ing he could show me how to install them. I could just as eas­i­ly have read the car man­u­al, but I want­ed some­thing to share with him. Maybe now I can catch up on these father-son things that I seemed to have missed in my child­hood.

  1. I sup­pose you have to, with how well the Leafs have been doing in recent years. [↩]

Goodbye Picnic

Group left

Thumbnail: Group right
Thumbnail: Assorted veggies
Thumbnail: Cheese salad
Thumbnail: Spread
Thumbnail: Opening bubbly
Thumbnail: Gourmet cookies
Thumbnail: Whipped cream toes
Thumbnail: Cream on roll
Thumbnail: Picture posing
Thumbnail: Bride and groom

To say good­bye to Tim and Pam, as well as Sunday brunch potlucks alto­geth­er, it was decid­ed that some­thing spe­cial be done. So we found a shady space in the park for the blan­kets and food. It was the first time we had wine at one of the potlucks, and a beau­ti­ful day.

For some rea­son, Jess likes to call me Satan. Maybe it’s because cheese is her weak­ness, and I always enjoy indulging her temp­ta­tion.