So again the weekend has slipped by without comment, and my belated, massive update shows up on Tuesday.
Saturday; ‘Hang Out With Married-Pregnant-Couples Night’
After I got off work at the Snail on Saturday night,
Now, when I say that these ladies were pregnant, I’m not joking around. Joy’s a mere 6 months or so along, but Erin was so very pregnant that she in fact gave birth the next day! To a healthy baby boy, 6 lbs, 3 oz, name of Jacob Ryan. Very exciting. My Mum has poisoned my brain so badly with her horoscope fetiish that my first thought was, “Oh! He’s a Pisces!” Whereupon I immediately suppressed the urge to email Chris this link, and this one, and also this one.
There’s a lot of Pisces birthday action going on right now. Another sweet Piscean fellow in my life is my Daddy, who is turning 72 today.
Happy birthday, Dad!
Blurry vision and sleepy puppy
I also had the first of two optometrist appointments this week with my brand spankin’ new lady eye doctor yesterday. Dr. Heeney is the proud owner of an eentsy-weentsy black toy poodle named Buttercup who sat on my lap and licked my hand throughout the examination. She fell asleep when the lights got turned out for the reading chart, and started snoring soft little puppy snores. I want to go get my eyes checked more often. Maybe daily. Afterwards I could barely see, my pupils were so dilated from test drops, so I staggered along King Street, trying to avoid traffic and streetcars and talking to my Mum on the phone.
Mister Miyagi Drives a Cab?
Work is still hectic; today it’s been all about disabilities, but yesterday I covered two news conferences on women’s shelters and abused immigrant and visible minority women. On the way back from the Legislature, I got the coolest cabbie. He had this whole Mister Miyagi vibe going on (you remember, from the Karate Kid?) – except with really long hair, shaggy beard, gloves, and a black beret. AND he was singing along to the Dazed & Confused soundtrack. Awesome.
It’s been all about karate this week, actually, as I spent the early part of Sunday night watching Remo Williams. Has anyone else seen this movie? It features Wilfrid Brimley of Quaker Oats fame, and Captain Janeway as a “tough” military broad. I’d be interested to know whether it’s achieved the cult following it so desperately yearns for. I was slow to warm to it, but eventually the fantastic computer graphics and lines such as “You move like a pregnant yak!” won me over.
Sadly, I didn’t get to see the ending, as Dan started crying and rolling around in the foetal position, begging us to stop torturing him with bad cinema (slight exaggeration – actually he just sat silently in JVL’s beanbag chair, looking morose and clinging to his beer). Anyway, I get the feeling I will see the ending before long.
I will conclude today’s rambling entry with the following questions:
1) Why doesn’t the Laundry Fairy ever visit my home in the middle of the night and wash all my clothes and bedsheets?
2) Am I not leaving enough tasty fairy treats by my windowsill?
3) Have I been blacklisted?
Actually, Remo and his long-suffering instructor Chiun do have a cult following, but not because of that crummy movie. The film is based on an insanely long-running series of pulp action novels called The Destroyer. They’re surprisingly intelligent and really fun; the movie does manage to get their relationship right, but everything else is pretty generic action movie cliche. A shame, too, since the books were full of so many gonzo ideas.
As for the ending? Remo kills the bad guy by dodging bullets, he gets the girl, and Chiun runs across the surface of a lake with the aid of a not-very-well-hidden platform under the water.
insanely long-running series of pulp action novels called The Destroyer
Tell me about it. When I used to work for the Mississauga Public Library System in Deletions, I used to dread getting one of those because it meant sorting through hundreds of bar codes before I found the right one to take off the system.
The movie was supposed to be a springboard for a whole series, just like the novels, but never caught on. Hence “The Adventure Begins”, implying the first of many.
It also had a tie in pop song written by Styx alumnus Tommy Shaw.
i thought the laundry fairy only frequented Whitney Hall…