more communiques from london

the garbs sent me some more pics from his and mishi's vacation over in europe - they are now in england and loving it... i think.

g.

cut from the bottle.

I remembered when I arrived on the coast. I’d decided to leave Wyoming and all the shit that was going on there and make a clean sweep of it. A fresh start. Especially, I though, a good one where I knew no one and no cared if I came or went or even knew I was around.

1979. a year or so after I had discovered there was more to life than sitting in a bar listening to the same people, the career drunks, tell the same fucking stories over and over and over.

She was part of that. Part of getting me out of that hole, one I had dug for myself. And as much as she helped me, she hurt herself. Late nights trying to keep up with me and the crowd I was running with, to try and keep me straight and get me to work on time after long nights out. She was able to sleep at her job and take time away when the boss wasn’t around to catch up on her sleep after nights with me. Keeping me away from the needle. She was a chambermaid. I’d often take my clothes to her work and mix them in with the wash she was doing. Any money saved back then was more money to drink or smoke or.

She lost her will to help and it seemed like it happened almost all at once one night. A night not much different than a thousand others we had had together. The look on her face said it all and when she left I knew she wasn’t coming back. Ever. Two-thirty a.m. in Billings and I was left with twenty-two seventy-five in my pocket and a bill at the bar for three times that. I’d never walked out on a bill before but I did that night. And as I stood at the gas station across from the Denny’s I knew I was fucked.

I hitch hiked back to Wilson and after working some odd jobs for a few weeks headed to the coast. A thousand dollars in my pocket and a carload of clothes and a few memories.

It may be no better here.

I heard she died last night in a car accident on the I-80.

unsupervised.

the garbs and mishi are in europe - spain, holland and england - and are out there basically unsupervised. good for them.
some good pics were sent to me seconds ago for your viewing pleasure.

g. xo

why we work, do what we do, get up early...

i was talking to one of my suppliers today, mick at ACT Equipment, great guy and when i was talking to him i could feel the tiredness in his voice and asked him if he was having a bad day...he said yes. i asked him, "why do we work mick. why do we come to work, get up early...?"
"because we're not rich garnet."
ok.
now i know.
when does that daylight savings thing kick in? because that's always good for a laugh this time of year. the darkness is a sure savings for sure. go to work when it's dark, drive home in the dark. so awesome.
the lawns are coming to a close and it will mark the end of the seventh season of lawn order very soon. and it's now that i'm ready for it to be over, and really, only because it becomes hard to cut, the lack of light at the end of the day, the rain on the weekends - when i have to get all the cuts done, the wet boots and shoes, less sun to burn my neck. all that. still love it and will be back next year - though i am breaking up with at least one client (they don't know yet but i am...) breaking up is hard to do, even with people who pay you cash to come to their place and manage their shitty 'lawn'.
not bitter.
and so it goes. today.
have you heard the new Girls album - father, son and holy ghost? get on it. sappy songs for the young at heart and the freshly dumped. maybe i should sent it to my lawn order client i'm trying to break up with...

g. xo

Who said rain?

I'll tell you, it's raining like a weathergirls album right now. And I'm here at the pickle holding down the fort and, shortly after I got here today, making sales. Mr. Pickle strikes again. I made a few yesterday as well. Nice action.
Yesterday was a barnburner. Three lawns cut by 11:30 am, at the pickle by 12:45 pm after picking up Fiona from her art class-she hung out with me at the pickle and made her mom a little treat out of some silver we had hanging around, then home to get my hockey gear to go defend the bombers honor against the tigers... 10-1 final for us in the end. Sure it was a blow out but I like to use those games to practice things you can't in tighter games...then off to garvie's for a late dinner and laughs with her pals Alan and Elaine.. Good ones.
Then bed. Happily.
Now a little more pickle then out to ailsa's parents for some dinner before my hockey game tonight with Corie and the cowboys.
I feel tired already.

g. xo

Señor pickle

Yes. I am señor pickle this weekend...sometimes...And the next couple of weekends... For a few hours here and there. Come on by, but call first to make sure I'm here. Deep discounts while Mishi and the Garbs are away.

it was a week....

for sure and it's over now..sort of.
brain overload at the salt mine, late nights - dinner with issy, hockey with the bombers (that included me showing my now less seen pissed off side...oh well..), talks from accountants, numbers missing in excel sheets - then found, plants looking the same and hoping they would look different...by now.
stuff. it's all just stuff. and i'm thinking of buying some more stuff...just because.
have a great weekend. i'll be bombing and playing another game with the cowboys...

g. xo

The best I can

...what to do. What to do.

g.xo

my 1979 purchase that changed everything.

in 1979 i went on a trip to seattle for a rowing regatta - not that fancy but pretty exciting for a kid in grade nine who had never been to seattle before. while the rowing was interesting, i was more interested in hitting tower records to buy an album or two to play back in our dorms.
i had, for years, read about lou reed, patti smith, mink deville and the ramones but couldn't find any of their albums in the regular stores i frequented. now i knew i would be able to. i, up until that point had been listening to kiss - huge fan, bad company, nazareth, foghat, reo speedwagon, angel, and sweet. but i wanted a ramones album. and today i was gonna get one.
and i did. tower records was ripe with records - all manner of records. it was hard to choose. but i did, eventually. i chose 'road to ruin'.
and the die was cast.
soon after it was more ramones records, talking heads - after seeing them at the gardens at the pne in late 1979. and others soon followed.
that ramones record changed the game for me. i could tell by the pictures i had seen that it was interesting, that i wanted to hear it, and now i was. and it was good.
sure, 'i wanna be sedated' was on there but, 'don't come close', 'questioningly', and 'i'm against it' made a bigger impact in the end.
so great.
i'm telling you this now as i'm going to be telling about more albums i think shaped my life somehow. sweet, bowie, nazareth...

g. xo

chance of showers

it's raining.
don't let anyone tell you any differently. it's wet and for the next, many, moths it will be so. sure, there will be breaks here and there, maybe, but throw away your bikini and board shorts and get a big piece of rubber for a raincoat. and, as i was telling erin - art dept. head honcho, today, we, as a province, reply on the rain to help with certain industries so, a little rain is good for us. kind of. even though it fuckin' sucks.
last night i whipped out to T-town to have dinner with issy at brown's social house, a place that's not so bad, and invited my good pal dave to join us there - dave and i went to high school together and i don't see him nearly enough. he and i played rugby together in high school and later on hockey on various teams but now don't play on the same teams so...less hockey time for me and dave. he also bought an apartment across the hall from me in kits years ago and was a great neighbour. the boys from snfu nicknamed him kramer as he was always at my place - borrowing things, eating, hanging out... good guy. perhaps the only guy i went to high school with that i ever see...i think. anyhow. nice to have dinner with issy and him.
a little pick up hockey tonight, love it, with the bombers and some others. a little late fr the old guy but good for me...
ok. back to it.

have fun.
g.xo

for all the wrong reasons...

i don't usually drink for the wrong reasons, hell, i don't even really drink...very much....but i did have a few tonight - and really, a few. probably the amount most people have every day, but i had them tonight. that and a refuel burger. and now i'm home and feeling just a little guilt. i need some sleep. a nap. i'm pretty full but that spoonful of peanut butter i just had tasted pretty fucking great.
and i have a new haircut courtesy of k-win. nice.
ok...bedtime soon.
maybe some cereal.
nope.
bed.

night night.

g. xo

soup soon.

ailsa was saying this morning that she may make some pumpkin soup from the two pumpkins i picked from my garden...i have left one to grow - hopefully larger - for fiona to carve to a halloween pumpkin. though, she may have to carve this one sooner than later and then do another one closer to the actual day of tricksters.


the garden is dying at a rapid rate, the maryjane is, i think, budding and doing what it's suppose to do - a couple more weeks and i should know for sure if i've been doing anything right - though still fun to grow.


ok. off to my second hockey game of the day.

g. xo

old man winter.

the tomatoes are wilting and done basically, the mary-jane is doing something that some days gets me excited and other days leaves me confused, the pumpkins are done early and my deck is wet like winter.
summer's over.

g. xo

one more for the road.

sometimes the things he wears just makes me love him more.

and more.

g. xo

that's a hell of a moustache, man...

scott has been cultivating quite a beard of late and now that he's getting rid of it, he's doing it in stages...he had a full blown goatee yesterday...now it's this...sort of a dennis maruk look...

g.xo

Feliz cumpleaños senor tornack

si, it is senor tornack's birthday today...how old is he? no one knows for sure.

so a big happy, happy to him. today. salute.

g.

hitchcock

dan called me on the phone and told me to come outside...so i did and right next to the BOC shop were more birds than we've seen before - i think...high on the wires and on the telephone pole itself. pretty cool. hundreds of them. maybe this show really is getting weird...

g. xo

switching teams

i have mentioned this before but i will, again, now because i think you should know...
tania campfield, my mortgage broker, rocks!
she watches what's going on and when the time is right - strikes. and what i mean by this is this...she called me the other day and told me if i moved my mortgage to XXX from YYY i'd not only get a lower rate than i have now - this is on my kits place - but even with the penalty for leaving the other bank early, and the other associated costs, i would walk away with a nice little 'thank-you for coming over to our bank' bonus cheque to spend how i see fit...pretty good.
so...
if you ever need a great mortgage broker give her a call...her number is 604.376.4997 and if you're into the e.mail like the kids are these days:
themortgagewizard@shaw.ca

just sayin'...it may be very worth your while.

g.

mary. mary quite contrary...

how does my garden grow...? pretty good today.



g. xo

more playland, more mini-donuts.

the girls on swings...

i actually had no mini-donuts but the girls did and they looked awesome...we rode rides like champs today...it was fuckin' hot too...the pavement there doesn't help when you're waiting in line. and as i waited in line for the new Atmosfear ride, i wondered about engineering, how it had been engineered, if the chaind would hold as i whipped around 200' in the air at 70 kms...and if they did let go, exactly how far would i or rather we - me and a guy i had never met before, would fly before we hit the ground and died and became front page news...how far? couple hundred feet? would we hit anyone when we came down? or would it all be fine? and the lined moved along and ailsa and fiona watched as i finally got to my chain seat and prepared to kiss my ass good-bye...
but it was fine...and i'll tell you this...it's awesome. fuckin' scary at times, and slightly cold as you whip around in the air high above the park and if it went another 90 seconds, i may have lost my mind. it's good. but at times, unsettling. i'd do it again.
fiona tried win an ipod by climbing up a near impossible ladder, we all did the bumper cars, rode the scrambler, i rode the corkscrew - alone, they rode a few rides i don't know the name of, including the log ride - twice...fiona will sleep well tonight as will garvie.
i'm home and am gonna relax and make more ketchup. want some?

have fun!

g. xo


me and my pal ride the atmosfear.

fiona tries to win an ipod.


bumper car action.

to fast to catch.

ready to ride.

Dizzy at playland

I told Corie I was going to playland with Ailsa and Fiona on Sunday, he said I was brave...it's been fun so far... Real update when I get home...

g.

Shut that thing off

There's a car lot across from ailsa's that has some sort of intercom/horn that goes off sporadically during the night...some nights. It's awesome. The low horn goes off and then a voice come through the speaker kind of akin to the voice you sometimes here through a fax machine speaker if someone has accidentally dialed a Fax number...anyhow. A phone call was made last night to the owners of the used car lot...they said they didn't have a speaker or alarm that made a horn noise, etc... So... The investigation continues...

g.

weekend MJ report

cam came by today and thought things were looking pretty good on my deck...hopefully he's right. he's gonna take some trimmings off my plant and try and use it next year - word is beefy may try his green thumb out next year as well. here are a few pics from this week's growth.





g. xo

new rock for your soul

i said before that the new richmond fontaine concept album, the high country, scared me a little, and it still does, but it's getting great reviews so...maybe i know nothin'...could be true. i listened to some tracks and it sounds good...you can hear some of it here...and if you want buy a digital version of it - i did...'lost in the trees' is a return to the rock - there's a video you can watch while you rock out to it.

g.

saturday ice time, lawns and a weird lookin' mascot.

TD bank was giving out free ice cream today at the rink...corie was in for that.

it was a barn burner at work this week...they've been filming in chicago and will be coming to town in approx. ten days to start here and we've got a lot to do to be ready for the first days of filming here. i have been spending money at a rapid rate and now have two drivers working for me/us that i am keeping busy all day. friday night after work i was ready to cut a few lawns to help get rid of some of the week's action that was still in my head. two friday and night and three more today...

they had a mascot that we couldn't figure out...what the fuck is it suppose to be...?

i got going early today so that i could get the lawns done before our cowboy's hockey game at 12:15 pm...i was in richmond by 8:30 a.m. and done by the time i time i picked up corie at 11:45 a.m. nice..now, after a hockey game that we won 4-1, i can relaxo and meet-up with ailsa and fiona for a nice dinner out. the heat has really played with me and the lawns, one lawn just needed the dandelions knocked down - no mower action, another just needed the back yard done, and the last needed the full pull. corie's was a no-go so i'll go by and cut it during the week.
now...a nice smoothie for lunch, picked more tomatoes and am gonna do a little house cleaning to end it all as far as work goes today...

go have fun. i need some shade right now but you should go see the sun - it'l be gone soon.

g. xo

seriously.

while i have gotten over the guilt and love my new nike's...these are retarded.

g. xo

burgers and breaking bad...

ailsa and fiona came over tonight for burgers - fiona's last before she heads off back to school for grade 3 and her seeing her pals again for the first time since leaving in june...i made ketchup today with a bunch of my larger tomatoes and if i do say so myself - it tastes pretty fuckin' good.
now it's a little breaking bad and then off to bed...back to the salt mine tomorrow and the magic of the movies...

g. xo

these became a very nice ketchup...



fiona learns i like burgers and giving the finger.




nice burger.