Shout-out to the other Mr. Hall

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Best of 2009: Welcome to Tanzania

In April, I arrived in Dar es Salaam after midnight and was driven to the Mediterraneo Hotel in darkness. I awoke to roosters crowing and stepped out of my room into paradise. The beach. The tropical flowers and trees. The old fishing boat bobbing in the water.

Flip-flopping down the garden path towards the restaurant—it has only one wall and some glass panels to keep the ocean breeze from carrying away your napkin—I was taking photos and scolding myself for my not-so-secret fear about equator-sized spiders and lizards and fleas when something fell from the branches above, landing just ahead of my big toe with a splat.

A wet, headless rat. Seemingly boneless, organless, as though it had been eaten from the inside out, all that remained was the furry wrapper, tail, and bulbous brain stem still attached to the body by a stringy spinal cord.

Not pictured.

Best of 2009: The Midnight Garden

During my spring stopover in France, I spent about 36 hours in Narbonne visiting a friend and his two sons while the missus was out of town, and did nothing untoward, by the way, unless you count suggesting the boys wear buttons that say I Heart my New Mom. Just after I turned out the light, my friend knocked on the guest room door and ushered me down to the garden. “I heard something outside,” he said. “Whatever it was went into the bushes and I couldn’t rustle it out, so I stuck in my hand.”

Now see, this here is your proof of the nothing untoward. Genius STUCK HIS HAND IN THE BUSHES. He stuck his hand in the bushes BECAUSE he didn’t know what was there. Would I, with such a man?

And then: “I felt something prickly. So, I grabbed a towel from the laundry room to throw over it and dragged it into the light.”

Seriously, there is not one reasonable statement in that whole story.

The towel was lying on the ground over a small mound. About the size of a large, headless rat. He lifted the corner to reveal a hedgehog, curled up tight, playing dead. We could just make out its adorable little scrunched-up storybook face. And that, well, that was worth getting up for.

On an unrelated note, shaved truffles and mascarpone encased in brie and served on a baguette with a side of eggs will not in fact stop your heart. Not for dangerously long anyway. Fortunately, Genius served this for breakfast AFTER the hedgehog story, because I might with such a man. Yessir, I might.

France, meet Africa. Africa, meet France.

Best of 2009: Culture shock

After 28 hours of traveling, from Dar es Salaam to Toronto via Amsterdam, it was so lovely to see my friend Chad at the airport. He very kindly offered to take me to Tottenham to pick up Lucas from the kennel so I wouldn’t have to rent a car and drive through a haze of jet lag the next day. We just had to make one little stop on the way.

December 4: Gombe Stream National Park, Lake Tanganyika

December 13: Pro Bass Shop, Vaughan Mills

Grasshopper vs. Lobster

Who ya got?


See Grasshopper take on the massage chair!

Some assembly required

I really like Christmas

Aw crap

This week's horoscope:

Whether you are still madly looking for dangerous excitement and thrills with any and all strangers who cross your path, or you have had quite enough unpredictable reversals for one lifetime and would now prefer retiring by yourself to a spot deep in the forest where nobody can hurt or abandon you again, guess what. In the area of relationships, life has a few whopping surprises for you.

Where I am

http://www.flickr.com/photos/37422333@N03/

Laws of Attraction

I can't figure out why I haven't been in an action movie yet. It's my dominant mind thought between 6-8 a.m. and 10-11 p.m. every weeknight, including holiday Mondays, and everyone has been commenting on my positive energy since I discovered ephedrine. Maybe I need to pin Billy Murray to my vision board.



Edit: Here is Grasshopper working on his two-dimensional vision board. Note that he has yet to accomplish his dream of "tearing someone’s life apart in five years time. Nothing malicious, just a systematic erosion of what makes a person a 'person,' until they’re nothing left but a shell."



Perhaps a better "picture" would help him realize this "dream" of "his."

Calendar Girl and McFaker

Un autre Français dans la famille

Congratulations on your dog's DNA results, listed below. 

 
Level 1 (75% or greater)    Brittany
Level 2 (10-20%)            Yorkshire Terrier

 

Go ahead. Snicker.

You think Luke is somehow less of a dog just because he has a bit of a small breed in there. Yeah, well, see that sweet little puffball beside him in the photo? That's Molly. She's fifteen pounds of solid scary, has kicked Luke's ass from here to Mississauga a hundred times, which I just realized isn't really making my case SHUT UP.

It's hard to look all squinty and tough when you appear to be wearing freshly scrubbed white tennis socks. And a ruffle.

That a great-grandparent was a Yorkie may explain his tolerance of Lyon, our beloved houseguest who peed on my bed five times and repeatedly launched his earmuff-sized body into the air, Matrix style, to make direct hits to Luke's face.

And yet. Luke is missing some Brittany traits, like birding and pointing instincts, and has a long tail and other attributes that seem more border collie than, you know. (SHUT. UP.) So the lab coats are going to retest him in case my swabbing sucked.

Meantime, Himself says: S'il vous plaît de me parler que dans ma langue maternelle mais pas de kiss-kiss parce qu'il est yuck. Merci et vive la France.

Postcard from Toronto's forgotten Communist Block

There is food in my bathtub. Food that traveled from my next-door neighbour's sink, under the wall, up the drain pipe, and into my tub.

Imagine if I hadn't been home to hear the tub rapidly filling with water and stew remnants. 

On the bright side, the power is on today and food rationing is on hold until the Halloween candy is gone.