There’s a small group of people I graduated high school with who live in Regina that we started going out for supper with a few times a year maybe 4-5 years ago?
We had our last in-person supper before Covid hit at a local brewpub in February 2020 and though we transitioned to a private Facebook group and had a few Zoom gatherings or smaller gatherings, the full group of a dozen or so of us hadn’t all gathered in one place in about 18 months.
But that changed Saturday as one buddy offered us his backyard for a pot luck with brisket and everyone else brought a wide range of sides – baked beans, cornbread, salads, veggie trays and not one, not two, but THREE different desserts!
Even though most of us just keep re-telling the same high school stories we’ve heard a million times, it was still great to get together and share updates on our lives, our families, and our respective Covid experiences (which was especially timely given we had just learned that one of our high school classmates had died of Covid in Medicine Hat very recently.)
Love the way the crowd is an active participant in these two recent clips from AEW. Even if you don’t know the wrestlers or the storylines and back story to these clips, you can’t help but feel the energy…
CM Punk Debuts After Seven Years Away From Wrestling:
“He likes repetition,” she said. “So it’s like ‘yea you were just at the library to visit Jason, and you got to see Cheri, and Shirley gave you the hand stamp. There’s a real connection there that’s vital to him.’”
Brandon was a child of the system who was put into foster care at the age of 18 months and transferred through dozens of homes by the time he was six. Now age 29, he continues to struggle with a variety of physical and intellectual disabilities. He is non-verbal and uses hand gestures to communicate.
Bray has fond memories of participating in the Cops & Readers program. Now in its third year, the program promotes youth literacy. Officers visit library branches to read to young children and talk about the importance of book learning.
– in common with some of the most popular answers, I went on a sunset boat cruise in Kelowna about ten years ago. They were promoting “Classic Rock” but they played stuff from the 1980’s instead of the 1960’s like I expected (may have been the first “wow, am I old now?” moment I can remember.)
– my eye doctor is someone I used to babysit.
– I went for a haircut and the stylist asked if I “wanted my eyebrows touched up too” since they were apparently a little scraggly!
– was at a public event at work and a young regular asked if my kids were my grandkids!
– when I watch a music awards show, I barely recognize any of the artists. They also usually give the “Lifetime Achievement Award” to somebody who’s probably a decade or more younger than me – Britney Spears or Justin Bieber or whoever.
– Yes, I have been asked if I qualify for a senior’s discount.
– I think our house is almost completely LED lights and I still run around telling everybody to turn them off.
– I’ve started (occasionally) drinking low alcohol beer.
Those are a few off the top of my head. Unfortunately, I’m sure there are a lot more examples. 🙁
(And honestly, I picked one random example but there are dozens if not hundreds of examples from across North America and around the world where religious leaders are playing a role in making the pandemic worse by giving bad advice to their congregants.)
What’s the sad joke?
Christian in ICU bed dying of Covid: “God, you were supposed to protect me!”
God: “I sent you a vaccine – what else did you want?”
I know lottery tickets are a waste of money but I buy them for a few reasons:
1) Lottery money helps fund a lot of great organizations including many of the non-profits I used to work for/with/volunteer for.
2. As a colleague once said, “sure, you’re not going to win but what you’re actually buying is permission to dream about what life would be like if you did.”
3) I’m fairly restrained in my purchases, only buying a single ticket at a time and not even for every draw – only if jackpots get huge and/or coinciding with when I’m at a gas station or convenience store or a similar place where I might have occasion to buy one. (It always pains me if I’m buying tickets and somebody else buys like $100 worth of tickets at a shot.)
At any rate, posting this pic makes me feel like my aunt who goes to the casino and always tells you how much she won but never how much she spent to win that jackpot. But since I rarely win more than a free ticket or $10, this was a pleasant surprise the other morning.
This is a scan of a print (remember those where you’d get 24 photos in a roll of film for a camera?) of me coming out of the main doors of Regina Public Library,
What I love about this picture is, at a time when every photo was fairly precious and you didn’t waste film taking pictures of every single thing like you can now with 256 GB of storage in a smartphone you have on you at all times, whoever took it (my parents?) recognized that this was something that was significant enough in my life that it was worth taking a candid photo of me at this very special place.
Cameras in this era didn’t have zoom lens (unless you were a pro!). so it’s pretty far away and I’m not sure how old I am in this photo – late teens? Early 20’s? – but again, that’s what makes this photo special – obviously libraries have played a large part in my life for a really long time before library school was something I knew existed, let along considered.
But I sort of wish I could go back in time and whisper to that young kid that he’d take a fairly circuitous route to get there but would eventually be working at that same library system including five years in that very building!
