Well…you sure as heck can’t say that it’s been a slow week since the last time I checked in. It seems like it was just go, go, go all week! I can’t say my life has been altered in any way positively. I didn’t win the lottery (although I have two tickets for this weekend, so that might change). I didn’t get a new job or even an interview (although I applied for eight jobs). I didn’t get my novel published this week (although I did come up with a great idea for one that I can’t stop thinking about – literally I know I’m going to pull an all-nighter this weekend to work on). By the same token, nothing horrifically bad happened, so I will take that as a win for the week.
Things started off with the arrival of my sister and nephew for a visit last weekend. Jack and Cathy lent us a hand in bagging up the leaves, small twigs and walnuts that had littered our back yard after the lightning strike. With all four of us working, it was only about half an hour to forty-five minutes before we had the leaves and walnuts bagged up, and the small twigs piled up. Rather than have to find someone to pay to cut up the two large branches, and seeing how the local squirrel population enjoys running around on them, Jack and I just hauled the branches to the back part of the yard.
If Mom and I thought it was going to be an otherwise quiet, stay-at-home visit (which we really didn’t), we were totally wrong. We almost immediately headed into London because Jack wanted to go to Plato’s Closet. We went to the Goodwill Book Store first (where I noticed they had some copies of Shelf Life Magazine on hand) and then Jack, Cathy and my Mom went to Plato’s Closet while I went down to Indigo (or is it still Chapters?).
I will say that walking past the Landmark Cinemas brought back a few memories. I remember when I lived in London, especially when I lived on Huron Street and was working at Blockbuster, I would often take a day and ride the bus out to White Oaks Mall to check out the stores there and then catch a movie at the theatres.
Attention Coles Peeps: When I was in Indigo, I noticed a young woman at a table doing a book signing. It got me to thinking about the author who used to come do book signings when I worked at Coles. He was the writer of what I think were self-published spy novels. He would sit at a table outside the store and basically badger people into buying a copy of his book. The reason I bring it up is because I can’t for the life of me remember his name. I tried googling what I could remember about the guy but to no avail. I asked Lyz De Marco and while she remembered the guy, she couldn’t remember his name. Anyone out there (I’m looking at you, Jenny from the Block) remember this guy’s name?
It seemed we were barely home from London before we were off to Ingersoll supposedly to get Little Caesars Pizza. Since Little Caesars was closed for construction, we ended up going to McDonald’s. I guess that was enough to re-energize us because we were off to London again to check out the Value Village.
I hadn’t bought too much from the Village for a while but I picked up a book on writing a screenplay in 21 days (and don’t think I won’t try to do that some day) and NBA 2K17 for the PS4 (although I play it on the PS5). I don’t know what it is but I have become addicted to that game. Not playing it, mind you, but just having it run in the background while I’m doing other things. I created my all-time favourite team, the Harlem Globetrotters, and populated it with some of the legends included in the game (Michael Jordan, Julius Erving, Magic Johnson, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Kobe Bryant) and created some of the old-school Trotters (Curly Neal, Meadowlark Lemon, etc.) No wonder the team is 40-2 on the season so far.
We also managed to go to three different pet stores. I think Jack (and to a lesser degree, Cathy, and to a lesser degree, me) wanted to talk my Mom into getting another cat. My Mom says she’s not ready for one, and I agree with her. Sure, it would be nice to have a furry friend around the house, but it can’t be a spur of the moment decision. I also think we need to wait until I am back working again.
Of course, on the Sunday we got up and went to the One Of A Kind Mall. I think for the first time in history, everyone got something. Usually, my sister walks through the place and never sees anything she wants but this time she found a coffee mug that she wanted. As per usual, my purchases were mostly NASCAR-related, as I got a Richard Petty T-shirt and a Michael Waltrip #30 Pennzoil Pontiac diecast. I also got a poster of the Fleetwood Mac Rumours album cover. (Still need to find a place for that.)
After we left the store, Cathy and Jack headed back to Whitby and Mom and I headed back to Thamesford. I think my Mom was starting to get a little emotional saying goodbye to Jack, knowing he’s headed off to university soon. But Jack promised that he’d be back for a visit in a couple of months. We certainly wish him the best of luck and know he’ll succeed in university.
We sure seemed to cram a lot into the just-under-24-hours that Cathy and Jack were here.
But the rest of the week seemed just as busy. On Monday, I mowed the back lawn and then on Tuesday, we took the 11 (ELEVEN!) bags of brush and walnuts, and the smaller branches to the North Dump. It took us three trips but I’ll tell ya, the back yard looks a lot better now than it did about a week ago! Throughout the week, we took another trip to Value Village in London, went to Ingersoll for groceries and went to Stratford to the Habitat for Humanity, Value Village, Dollarama, and Fabricland.
My Mom has some more home decor projects on the go. She has reupholstered a chair, is making two new pillows and will be making new curtains for the dining room. Following in my father’s footsteps, I was able to lend a hand in picking out the material. My Mom always said that Dad had a knack for picking the right colours to match the decor and apparently I do too. (Who knew?)
As I said earlier, in between all of that, I applied for another eight jobs. I had to laugh (and I mean that literally) because in the last two weeks, I have seen postings for my last two jobs. I will leave it up to the reader to figure out which of the two jobs I am more likely to send a resume to.
Top 5 Desert Island TV Series and Albums
This section stems from a combination of two conversations I had recently. The first was with my friend Jason who said he wanted to create some content for his YouTube channel and was going to do some Top 5 lists. The second was with my sister, during our trip to the One Of A Kind Antique Mall, who called INXS’s “Kick” her desert island album.
In a follow-up conversation with Jason (whose birthday is on Sunday, so wish him a Happy Birthday if you know him – or even if you don’t), I started brainstorming my Top 5 Desert Island TV Series and decided that it would make some good blog content. I also decided to make a Top 5 Album list as well. (One rule for my Top 5 Album List: there can be no “Greatest Hits” anthologies.) While these two lists are sort of in order of importance, it’s not something that’s set in stone.
Top 5 TV Series
- Friends
- Cheers
- WKRP in Cincinnati
- The Gilmore Girls
- China Beach
Top 5 Albums
- The Doors, The Doors
- Fleetwood Mac, Rumours
- Daisy Jones and the Six, Aurora
- Michael Jackson, Thriller
- The Beatles, Twist and Shout
So…what do you think? Would my desert island picks match yours? Let me know by leaving me a comment on my Facebook page, or a text or voice message. For that matter, feel free to do the same if you want to weigh in on anything I’ve talked about above. (And heck, if you can’t sleep sometime this weekend, drop me a line and see if I’m still up writing my novel.)
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