Sorta Like a Holiday

/ 2012/05/18 / Life / Permalink
Kids and their bubble wands

Bubble Mania | cap­tured on May 18, 2012

It was a bit of an odd day. Not only was Jennifer home, but so were our vis­it­ors: Moppy, Poppy and Anne, all here for the week­end. And so for a Friday, it was quite dif­fer­ent to have so many people milling around to dis­rupt the day; and I only mean dis­rupt in a the best of ways.

Both Anne and Jennifer took the kids to school while I spent 30 minutes or so scour­ing through job boards. Otherwise, I was free for the day. Moppy, Poppy, Jennifer and I hopped into the van and drove out to a Gap Factory out­let in Mississauga, con­tinu­ing my quest for a pair of jeans. Alas, I could not find any 36/32s in a style that I liked but we were able to pick up a few other things. We then stopped at the Lindt shop for some chocol­ate before get­ting some gro­cer­ies and head­ing home.

Later in the day, Jennifer and I drove out the High Park to watch Matthew’s school soc­cer team. Although the match was sup­posed to start at 2:20, it was halfway done when we arrived, on time. The boys had won their first two matches but lost the last one. At least we were able to take the Lad home. Later still, we walked to the school to pick up Marina before mak­ing our way to De La Mer, a new fish mar­ket on Roncesvalles. We got some prosciutto-wrapped tilapia which I cooked on the BBQ. Delicious!

And now, we’re all sit­ting around quietly, every­one on some Apple device or another: iPhones, iPad or laptop. Mr. Jobs must be smiling.


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Filling Up with Football

/ 2012/05/16 / Kids, Like, Sports / Permalink

Our Soccer Schedule Next Week

Here’s a snap­shot of next week’s cal­en­dar (all red dots are soccer-related). Yes folks, the out­door soc­cer sea­son has begun!

Both kids are pretty excited and have man­aged to snag some nice team names for a change. Marina’s team is Scooter Girl, her favour­ite toy shop which is situ­ated on Roncesvalles and Matthew’s part of the Red Patch Boys. The RPB are the vocal lot that take over BMO Field with chant­ing at every Toronto FC match. They are so named after the 1st Canadian Infantry Division which was mobil­ized right before the Second World War. If I’m com­pletely hon­est, both Matthew and I (as assist­ant coach) are only Red Patch Boys because I swapped boxes with the other coach when we picked up the uni­forms! Luckily, he was okay with the switch.

Anyway, we were quite for­tu­nate (again) that neither Marina’s games coin­cided with Matthew’s. And even though that means we have games from Monday through Thursday, it gives one par­ent the option to have a night or two off. Of course, there’s still the Friday night Select prac­tice but that’s just icing on the cake.


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350

/ 2012/05/15 / Life, Observations / Permalink
Cracked Speed Bump Sign

Speed Bump Ahead | cap­tured on May 13, 2012

It isn’t a big num­ber. Mind you, it’s not small either.

Yes, I’m two weeks from being off work for one full year. Sometimes it feels like it’s been 2 years. 3,000 days. Forever.

Alas, nothing’s changed in the past little while. No calls. No inter­views. I con­tinue to apply for jobs (10 so far this month) and I keep con­nect­ing with people, hop­ing to shake some­thing loose. But still, noth­ing. And while unem­ploy­ment num­bers have dropped across the coun­try, the same can­not be said for Ontario and Quebec.

Both Jennifer and I were dis­cuss­ing what else I could ven­ture into last night. But quite frankly, the whole idea pisses me off. I mean, why — in my 20s — did I stop my life to go back to school, excel and gradu­ate, then work in a field that I’ve trained for for the past 20 years only to throw it all away and become a jan­itor? Seriously, what was the point?

But today is another day. I’ve been quite busy with the volun­teer pos­i­tion I’ve been involved with for the past few months. Interestingly, it could lead to some­thing new that is in the works. Don’t hold your breath, mind you; it’s another long shot but it’s some­thing else that I’m enter­tain­ing. Proof pos­it­ive that I’m look­ing into all sorts of options.


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A Busy Mother’s Day

/ 2012/05/13 / Kids, Life, Like / Permalink
A mother duck and her ducklings

Staying Close to Mum | cap­tured on May 13, 2012

I hope you Mums out there enjoyed a great day. After all, you deserve it. The weather — in Toronto at least — man­aged to coöperate.

The kids and I snuck down­stairs around 8:00 this morn­ing, leav­ing Jennifer to sleep in. Frankly, this isn’t all that dif­fer­ent from every other week­end. The big dif­fer­ence was that the pan­cake ingredi­ents were already spread out on the kit­chen counter, wait­ing for me. A hint or just being helpful?

I decided to feed the kids first which is noth­ing new. You would have thought that Mummy deserved the first pan­cake, but I opted to give her more time in bed, by her­self. I did serve her before me, if that helps. Once her pan­cake was ready, I set it out on a tray with a cup of tea and a tulip; the kids helped me bring the break­fast up. Needless to say, it was a big hit.

Later on we decided to go for a hike, in the City for a change, at the Leslie Street Spit. We’d often heard of this 5 kilo­metre pen­in­sula (it’s not offi­cially a spit) but never man­aged to make it here. Originally, it was cre­ated as a break­wa­ter for Toronto’s outer har­bour but the need for it never came to fruition. Instead, part of the spit has been des­ig­nated as Tommy Thompson Park where vis­it­ors can walk (or bike) along trails and observe many of the 300 dif­fer­ent spe­cies of birds, 45 of which actu­ally breed on the headland.

We star­ted our hike hav­ing parked at the wrong part of town, at the foot of Cherry Beach. Walking along the beach, we could hear thou­sands of birds from across the water; it was pretty cool. Jennifer had already poin­ted out that Toronto was host to over 5 mil­lion birds — song­birds, mostly — this week­end as they made their way to breed­ing grounds in Canada’s North. We saw more than our fair share of immense flocks, sail­ing over Lake Ontario.

A couple of kilo­metres into our hike, we real­ized we were in the wrong spot, so we walked back to the car and drove to the foot of Leslie Street, where the spit begins. It’s only opened week­ends, so the park­ing lot was already full. Luckily, we were able to park on the side of the road with dozens of other vehicles before we set off. We hiked along the Southern shoreline and prob­ably made it halfway along the spit before we decided to turn back. It was a good thing too, as neither Jennifer nor I was wear­ing a hat. The hike wasn’t as nice as oth­ers we’re used to; the trails run along road­ways that are filled with cyc­lists and it was a bit of an odd place to begin with. You have to remem­ber that it’s a man-made island, so it’s not unusual to see rebar and other con­struc­tion mater­i­als strewn along the beaches — on pur­pose. Still, the skies were vast and open and the birds, def­in­itely abundant.

By the time we got back to the car, every­one was def­in­itely exhausted. Some much-needed rest was cer­tainly in the cards when we got home.


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Tickled Pink

/ 2012/05/12 / Sports / Permalink

 

Ryder Hesjedal celebrates winning the pink jersey

© Gian Mattia D’Alberto, The Associated Press

On the 7th stage of the Giro d’Italia (a 3-week race sim­ilar to the Tour de France and con­sidered a launch­ing pad for the Tour), Victoria nat­ive Ryder Hesjedal pulled ahead to take the over­all lead and don the Maglia Rosa, the pink jer­sey. It’s the first time a Canadian has taken the lead in the Giro d’Italia. This prom­ises to be an excit­ing year in cycling.


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