Monday, July 30, 2007

This Monday in Friendly Manitoba

Canadian League Football is in full swing, in case anyone is interested. The BC Lions are kicking some serious ass. I didn’t watch them play the Montreal Alouettes. The outcome of that game was pretty much a given, barring divine intervention. The contest between the Lions and the Calgary Stampeders the other evening was better than okay and at the end of it, the Lions remained undefeated. I would surely enjoy watching a couple of games between the NFL and the CFL; alternating home fields and rules of course.

Kat and her Mom had carepractor (chiropractor) appointments this afternoon. I’m thinking it would be a good thing if there were “practors” that adjusted attitudes. They would probably do one hell of a business and contribute dramatically to peace, quiet, tranquility, and a massive lessening in the stress index.

As we were driving over to pick up said Mom, I turned a corner in a residential area and had to immediately slow down. Skating down the middle lane was Hans Christian Freakin’ Canuck. How did I know he was Canadian? Well, my first clue probably was that we are in freakin’ Canada. I mean, how many Americans come up here to skate down the middle of the lane? The dead give-away was the hockey stick he was carrying. Who but a Canuck is so nuts about hockey they are going to be playing the game outside, on inline skates, when the temperature is 96 degrees and the humidity is high enough to give Tarzan a bad case of jock itch.

The ride over to the little town where the chiropractor practices wasn’t too bad. The air conditioner wasn’t working worth a tinker’s damn, so I put the windows down. At 115 KPH, and a stiff wind out of the south, conversation wasn’t going to happen and that definitely wasn’t a bad thing.

We came up on a road crew busy patching the potholes and ripples in the road; an exercise in futility if there ever was one. Canadian winters hate roadways. The road crew had a full lane blocked so they put signal persons out for the sake of safety. It seems a reasonable precaution when the road is as straight as a ruler.

The ol’ boy what had charge of our lane was bedecked in a safety vest you could see from ten miles away. In his left hand was a walkie talkie and in his right hand he held aloft a sign that read ‘STOP.’ In case you’re wondering, the sign was red and was an octagon. As I slowed to a stop, he drew an imaginary line with the antennae on his walkie talkie to indicate the exact spot my stationery tires were to rest and he was damn serious about it. I figure he once worked in some Washington bureau some time or another.

Kat is so polite it sometimes amazes me. I was going to say that sometimes it drives me to distraction, but I figured I’d get some flack over that. Just before she finished fixing dinner tonight, I pulled the band off my pony tail and shook my hair loose. She calls me to dinner. I go in and sit down. She looks at me and asks, “Would you like me to brush your hair?”

“Not particularly,” I tell her. “Are you trying to tell me it looks like crap and needs brushing?”

“Oh no,” says she. “I thought you might be more comfortable if it were brushed.”

Comfortable, my aching ass. So I let her brush it and put the pony tail back in. And now I’m so much more comfortable I can’t begin to tell you.

Life is sweet – because I’m comfortable and my hair is back where it belongs.

Buffalo 6:19 PM

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