We did. We just came back from watching Sean Penn in Milk.

What a beautiful love letter for this new generation to give them examples of where the freedom they enjoy today comes from.
I must admit that even though we all know how it ends, I was feeling the tears… and then I blobbed when they started mentioning what happened to all the characters, especially the one of Cleve Jones whose legacy holds such a gold place in my heart.

Go see the movie, this man was fearless.

I was warned a package was coming from the Chicago Boys, I had no idea what was in it… but once I opened it and stopped screaming like a little girl, I put it on and have been rocking it since:

Please meet Benchley The Hat:

Me and Benchley

DR and Benchley, the ONLY other time someone will be allowed to wear it!

Sheila and Benchley on their first date

BIGGEST OF THANKS to Bill and Andy… Seriously, I’ve been home 2 hours now and it’s still on…

BEST HAT EVERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Sometimes back, while shopping for birthday cards, I fell upon this small selection of very funny cards, they had a few for the Holidays, a few for b’days and a few for just any occasion. They weren’t like the other cards for sale, these had real pictures glued on the front of the cards with some snappy catty comments on the inside, the perfect gay card. Finally. Since I couldn’t decide which one to buy, I bought 7 of them, including these two:

At the cash register, the clerk asked if I knew them from before as they had just discovered them and were going to get much more in the future. I told him I had never heard of Mikwright before but I sure was going to be buying them a lot in the future. He then turned my attention to two little books filled with the pictures they used with the caption, I couldn’t resist, I bought both of them too. These books are proudly displayed in our bathroom for anyone to peruse while using the facilities. When we have a party, I sometimes can hear people howling in laughter coming from the bathroom, I know they have just picked up the books.

Mikwright has grown a lot since then, they do much more than cards… I have some of their sticky notes, napkins, toilletery bag, magnet, etc. Go see their website, there’s a sale right now!!! OH I NEED THAT APRON!!!

While camping a couple of weeks ago, we started discussing horror films and monster movies. I was reminded of this little gem:

And then this other one:

Well, I’ve finally joined Flickr.

That’s it.

Go see some of the creepy pictures from the Toronto Fan Expo… a cat with one eye… a chick with two heads… OOOOoooooOOOOOOoooooo

My friend Nick turned me on to this fantastic website and I was able to recover all my yearbook pictures through the years. They bring back so many memories:

1958

1960

1970

1976

1980

1982

1986

1990

1998

But if I would have been a girl, my yearbook pictures would’ve looked more like this:

1950

1960

1968

1980

1984

1996

Seriously, go to this site and have fun too… I want to see some of yours!

Today we went to the new Jack Astor patio at Dundas Square for lunch and I raised a cold one to my dad’s memory today. I know it’s something he enjoyed.

Today, my dad would have turned 75 and I know I’ll be thinking of him more as everytime I have to write today’s date on forms will be a reminder of his birthday.

This morning I woke up thinking about how we inherit genetic traits of our parents but those don’t mold us into the people we grow up to be. We may LOOK like them, but the genes we get from them don’t necessarily make us ACT like them. We spend our youth looking at our parents, emulating them if we like what we see, or doing the opposite if we don’t. As adult we make our own decisions but in the back of our mind, we somehow do certain things the way our parents used to when we were growing up under their care.

One thing my dad gave me comes to mind immediately when I think of the way I am today:

I love movies, ever since I was a kid I’ve loved them. One of my first memories is going to Saturday matinees with my dad and feeling totally special sitting in the theatre. In the late sixties they would show a lot of Gladiator type movies, Sinbad type movies, lot’s of “lost in the Jungle” type movies, tons of “adventure” movies that were definitely the precursor to the Indiana Jones series. Also James Bond movies… those were even more special as they were deemed “For 14 Yrs or Older” but my dad took me to a few of them before I was of “age” as we both shared the joy of watching the spy in action with his amazing cars and gadgets. Movies became an easy place to escape and let the imagination run wild and I know I have to thank him for that.

Of course there are many other traits I have stolen from him… I can be very outspoken when I disagree with something. I vote Liberal. I love to garden. I love practical jokes, but not necesarily on the receiving end… We both loved to listen to a call-in radio show where the host pretended to be a different character to trick people while on the phone… sort of like Candid Camera but with a phone instead. Just before I moved away from home, he used to drive me to the bus station every morning and that particular programme would be on during our drive and we always laughed out loud together.

Happy birhday dad, I know you’re having a good one.

Today was just an absolute gorgeous one outside, not a cloud in the sky.
The Mailman called early this morning and asked if I felt like a trek in the beautiful Riverdale Park and Don Valley trails… turns out I did.

These trails are popular with cyclists, joggers and walkers alike, but also seems a favourite of our local homeless wintering downtwon Toronto. We found a couple of “winter camps” left unattended during the warmer days:

A LONG WINTER

LOCAL SCARY FOLKLORE

ABANDONED CAMP

AND ITS CONTENT:

AND SOME OF ITS ART TOO:

FURTHER ALONG:

GARBAGE CAN AND GARBAGE CAN ON WHEELS

INTERNATIONAL ART

DON’T COME OUT RUNNING

DELICIOUS WINDOW TREATMENT

AAAAAAH! SCARY WINDOW TREATMENT

REMNANT OF AN OLD TRAIN STATION

BACK ON THE TRAIL AFTER A GREAT KIT-KAT BLIZZARD AT DAIRY QUEEN… OH YEAH, YUM!

PRETTY TREE IN BLOOM

PRETTY FIELD IN BLOOM

PRETTY BRIDGE NOT IN BLOOM

A TURTLE!!!

SAME POND, BUT NOT A TURTLE RELATIVE.

I CALL THIS ONE: YELLOWY

I’D MAKE THE ROOM ON TOP MY BATHROOM

WOULD BE NICER WITHOUT THE WIRE… I SUCK AT THIS.

OH!!! THAT’S WHAT THIS NICE BUILDING IS…

INSIDE THE CREMATO… PRETTY

ALSO INSIDE THE CREMATO… I COULDN’T TAKE THE FREAKIN’ FLASH OFF.. OH WELL, STILL PRETTY

NOT STEAL MAGNOLIA

GUARDING THE MASTER’S HOUSE

THE FAMILY IS ALL HOME… SWEET

I’ve been asked to help at the Information Booth lately as part of my new duties. I relieve the person who is there all day during her breaks and lunch time, and sometimes help out at the end of the day as well, but by that time it’s usually fairly quiet, so it’s all good.

I’ve learned quickly not to have a personality when dealing with the public at the Info Booth. The people coming there aren’t happy and aren’t looking for someone to joke with them. No siree. They are mad about getting tickets, they don’t want to take the blame for themselves, they want everyone to know they’re annoyed and they want to exercise their rights… loudly. That’s 85% of the cases I should say, some are more, humm, civil… Not taking it personally at all, I just ask how I can assist them, give them the info or forms they need and with my eyes glazing over, I tell them to fill all the forms out and wait for the number I have also given them to be called at the counter.

Luckily, there are certain moments that make it all worthwhile and stop me from wanting to take some “Special Jonestown Kool-Aid”.

Yesterday was actually fairly quiet in there for me, the waiting room was full-ish but for once there wasn’t a long line-up of people ready to take a stab at me, it gave me time to do a bit of rearranging in this small room, turning my back to the window. That’s when an older gentleman in his 70’s came to the booth and asked if I could verify something for him, he seemed a bit confused and said: “the way things worked today with computers, it’s so complicated”. He was speaking with a very thick Italian accents and his English wasn’t very good but he could still get by. I took a look at his ticket, punched the info in our system and saw that it had already been dealt with properly, the matter was closed and completed. I informed the gentleman, told him he didn’t have to worry about it at all, he had taken care of it and his record was clean. He looked straight at me through the thick plexiglass window separating us and gave a great big smile. He then tried to slip his hand through the tiny space we use to slide forms back and forth with guests and got stuck before going too far… I took it he wanted to shake my hand to show his appreciation, so I reached for his and our fingers touched in a way suggesting a weird “thank-you-handshake” but with fingers.. Still smiling, he then said: “Thank you for helping me” and turned around to leave. I too turned around to continue the rearranging job I had started earlier and then suddenly stopped… my eyes starting to tear up… it totally dawned on me right there and then just how much that man looked like my dad, especially with that smile he had just flashed me… I took a few seconds to compose myself and then shook it off and continued…

A few minutes later, that man reappeared at my window… I couldn’t help but smile first this time. He said he wanted to do something for his son but he didn’t know how to go about it… His son had gotten a speeding ticket and he wanted to arrange for a court date on his behalf. I took a look at this new ticket, all was in order, all was in time. I gave him a form to complete and a number to wait his turn. Told him to put his son’s information as it appeared on the ticket and then sign his own name as the person requesting the court date. He took the info and went into the waiting room, only to show up again at my window a little later on to ask me if I could help him fill out the form and write the information down because his English wasn’t very good…

As employees of the city and the court system, we, legally, cannot assist anyone filling out these forms, I take it from past conversations that guests have used the excuse that city staff helped them fill out the forms and had made mistakes putting the blame on them while in court, etc… So I explained that I personally couldn’t help but that anyone sitting in the waiting room could certainly give him a hand. He turned to look at the crowd and for a moment it looked like he wasn’t up to the task of asking those strangers to help him. I took the bait and told him to wait a few seconds. I came out of the booth and asked for everyone’s attention: “Could someone be kind enough to help my friend here fill out his trial request form, he’s having some difficulty with his English and unfortunately as employees of the court I cannot assist him in that regards, but anyone that doesn’t work here can certainly do him this favour”. One lady with a small child whom I had just directed earlier said she would gladly help him. I came back to my gentleman, put my arm around his shoulders and started walking him to where the lady was sitting, winning me another one of these smiles reminding way too much of my late father… I felt totally weird again looking at him and I didn’t want to show too much emotions so I hurried back in the booth only to be stopped by one of our security guards telling me I had just done a very nice thing. I replied that nice people deserve nice things…

But in my heart I was just so incredibly happy to have had just another one of those moments… with my dad.

I do believe that even when they are gone, they come and say hello once in awhile

Yep, I’m crying a bit now…