A huge part of many kids’ childhoods and a deep, impactful connection to Saskatchewan as well.
(I never met the man but of all the celebrities I’ve tried to add on Facebook – some successfully, some not – his acceptance was probably the one that made me the happiest!)
“Rainbow Connection” – Bob McGrath, Beverly Mahood & Donny Parenteau (Telemiracle)
What’s your funniest purity culture story?
Mine’s when my parents secretly installed Covenant Eyes on our computer. A week later, they confronted me about my “p*rn addiction.”
I swore I wasn’t, so they showed me my “explicit searches.”
It had one entry: “the barenaked ladies”
— Zach W. Lambert (@ZachWLambert) December 3, 2022
Sasha buried me in blankets and toys the other night and I swear there’s a puppy in this photo too though he may be hard to spot…
The Hotel Saskatchewan always feels magical during the holiday season…
Three years ago today, a man in Wuhan China started feeling ill and changed the world completely…
3 years ago today: A man in Wuhan, China starts feeling ill and later becomes the first confirmed case of COVID-19. More than 6.6 million people have since died.
— BNO News (@BNOFeed) November 30, 2022
Here are some other Covid-related tweets that have caught my eye recently…
Why does SARS-CoV-2 damage appear in such different ways in different people?
You have probably all known the answer to that this whole time, and have been humouring me, but I just had that jaw drop coffee cup drop moment of the pieces fitting together.— tern (@1goodtern) November 25, 2022
"I hope to god I'm wrong. I've never wanted to be more wrong in my life…. Worst case scenario… we are going to see a tsunami of cardiovascular disease over the next few decades."#LongCOVID https://t.co/FaDxEHrIqr
— Mike Hoerger, PhD MSCR MBA (@michael_hoerger) November 26, 2022
https://twitter.com/finchth/status/1595074930865061892
With my criminal record check approved, I was off to be a parent chaperone for Sasha’s class visit to Agribition today.
(Good thing it was approved as I had a few moments of “Oh-oh – that’ll get you on a list!” during the day – from accidentally leaving the house with my fly down to buying the the three kids in my group candy to wondering if it was my job to intercede when a bunch of girls in the class noticed some obscene graffiti in the stands where we were sitting. But my zipper was up before we left the driveway, the candy was promptly eaten, and no, I did not intercede as they giggled at the picture of genitals drawn on an upper walkway at Brandt Centre!)
Anyhow, I managed to end the day, not with a criminal record but with a bunch of good memories…
Our first view upon arriving weirdly reminded me of our first view arriving at the Hyatt Ziva in Cancun as Sasha looked out at everything in front of her…
We had lots of parent chaperones so everyone ended up with relatively small groups (all of us had 2-3 kids and I only got a third last minute when one parent called in sick)…
Shea says our house smells like a barn now that Sasha and I are home. Guilty!
Sasha thought our new dog was the softest, cuddliest thing she’d ever seen. But this alpaca might have the dog beat…
Our most important stop of the day…
“Caollaidhe” – Greg Keelor
…but I find myself intrigued:
I don’t think I’ve fully internalized how frankly bizarre the world of suburban mega churches are. And I’m saying that as somebody who attended one as a kid pic.twitter.com/TRm1DwDaDp
— BoHo Chicagoan (@Eric_Erins) November 27, 2022
I was off on Friday and had a busy day…
5am
– Charlie wakes us up. Years ago, 5am used to be the time I went to bed but not anymore!
6am
– watch “Stutz” on Netflix with Shea. Wonder if therapy is easier or harder if you’re rich and famous.
8am
– drive Pace to school. Look forward to day he drives himself.
8:45am
– stop by my work to drop off some donated prizes for an upcoming event and check out ongoing renovations.
9am
– take Sasha to medical appointment. Get to see her kidneys on an ultrasound.
9:30am
– grab McPuke’s breakfast sandwiches as a treat since she was fasting before her appointment.
10am
– check in on Shea at home who is dying, possibly of RSV (no positive Covid test yet). Wonder why I haven’t caught it yet.
11am
– go downtown to the police station because, in the course of doing an online criminal record check to volunteer for Sasha’s class going to Agribition, I find out that my gender and birthdate is a match for a registered sex offender so I have to do the extra step of getting fingerprinted to confirm I’m not some Jeffrey Epstein creep. That goes pretty smoothly and actually interesting – not sure when I was last printed but they now have a machine that’s like a scanner that sends your prints to RCMP HQ in Ottawa and gets results back about five minutes after running them against their database. The tech who did the fingerprinting said “I know you were born in 1973 so this is a bit more rare. But honestly, if you’re a male born after 1980, it’s almost always a match. That’s both good and bad – makes you realise they’re catching a lot more offenders than they used to but also makes you realise how many sex offenders are out there!” I asked why they only call people in based on gender and birthday matches but not name but he said that sex offenders often change their name and move provinces to try and get away from their crimes so they have to be sure it’s not a match by using fingerprinting.
12pm
Eat lunch then take advantage of a beautiful day to chip all the ice and snow off our driveway. (When we moved to our new house which is in the same general area as our old house, I joked we were moving from the “poor” to the “rich” part of the neighbourhood. Even though they’re six blocks apart, it does feel like there’s a different standard for maintaining your yard/driveway and keeping the snow down to the quick is part of that! Crank the new Ringo Starr live album and with the sun beating down, brings back some fond memories of seeing Ringo Starr under the stars at Hard Rock Hotel in Dominican Republic.
12:30pm
– tackle another Charlie inspired job. Funny that when we first looked at our new house, there was a bunch of dog shit in the backyard and I seriously pushed to have “clean that up!” included as a condition of sale. Fearing I’d wreck the deal over some dog poo, Shea talked me out of it and our realtor said “Oh, I’m sure they’ll clean it up!” Fast forward to our possession date and…the crap’s still there. I tried to get it out but it was frozen (new neighbours later told us the previous owners *did* try to get the crap picked up but it was frozen in place and they apparently felt bad about it.). Anyhow, when I picked up that shit, I remember thinking “Well, at least I only have to do this once.” Now we have Charlie and I get to do it on a regular basis. (Plus my so-sick-she-can’t-leave-the-house wife does have the energy to send me a screen shot from our backyard security came labeled “Such A Good Turd Picker!”
1pm
– watch the Flames play an American Thanksgiving game against the Capitals (which they eventually lose.) Think about how, when my team’s winning, I think they’ll never lose again and when they’re losing, I think they’ll never win again.
3pm
– go to our annual meeting with our financial advisor (Shea joining on FaceTime.) A one hour appointment goes for two hours as we chat and catch up since we haven’t met with her since she got back from maternity leave. Good news – we’re 99% covered for retirement and that’s based on conservative estimates for investment returns *and* based on us living into our 90s (which I hope happens but know isn’t likely.)
6pm
– take Sasha to a sleepover at a friend’s house.
6:15pm
– pick up Pace’s choice of Houston Pizza for a special family meal without Sasha since Sasha got a special meal with Shea and I one day when she was off school but Pace wasn’t.
7:30pm
– watch “The Swimmers” on Netflix. Think about my day and all the ways that I’m fortunate – being Canadian, having a good job, having a healthy family (okay, maybe not so much right now!), being in a good financial position, having a beautiful home.
10pm
– crash early because I have a feeling Charlie will be waking me up again at 5am (which he does!)
So that’s a long summary of my day just to say I really can’t believe I’ve become a guy who has to pick up dog shit regularly!
