The Good with the Bad

I hope the following is as amusing as it is enlightening.

The Good

At the end of last year, my girlfriend and I got tickets for Cirque Du Soleil. We had seen Alegria some time ago and really enjoyed it and vowed to go to more productions. We bought tickets for some kind of hybrid Cirque Du Soleil Ice show but the pandemic wiped that out. When we bought these tickets, we were worried that this would also be a bust, but we figured that it was a worthwhile gamble. Luckily this one paid off.

The show just opened a few days ago, but thankfully everything went ahead full steam. It was so nice to get out a do something. The show was lots of fun with a number of good acts. It is amazing what the human body can do with zero body fat and great balance. There were moments that were amazing. I will definitely go to more shows like this one. Perhaps, one day, I will be able to afford to be a VIP customer and get to spend time in the VIP booth before the show.

If I had any critiques, it would be with the high price for parking and the rather uncomfortable chairs. None of these things involved the show, so let’s leave them here.

The Bad

Yesterday, I joked about the coffee maker dying. I was planning on going through the whole vinegar routine on Sunday. The area I live in has hard water and regular de-scaling is important. I shouldn’t have joked about it, because I woke up this morning to a non-functioning coffee pot. Easter Sunday, and no coffee. Coffee makers don’t really last a long time, but I have a feeling I jinxed myself.

Suffering from caffeine withdrawal is no time to go shopping. Easter Sunday is no time to go shopping either. As it turns out, a number of stores are open, but I chose the wrong ones and couldn’t find a coffee maker anywhere. Then my girlfriend suggested Canadian Tire. I thought it would be closed and hadn’t even considered it. This surprised her as this is my “go to” store. Usually I consider Home Hardware my go to store, but sadly the size difference and stock quantities don’t really compare. I was surprised that I hadn’t checked the store hours either, and chalked it up to a lack of caffeine.

So, after several stores, I ended up at Canadian Tire and bought a coffee maker–nothing fancy. It used a basked filter whereas my current one uses a cone filter. No problem, I thought. I have a basket filter at home. Actually, what I had was the box for the basket filter, but not the filter itself. So, yes, I had to go back to the store. I blame everything on my lack of caffeine. Although breakfast was delayed, I did eat something. That was good because if I had also been hangry, it wouldn’t have gone well.

The Indifferent

I awoke to snow on the ground. While this was not totally unexpected, I had hoped that I would be on my bike this weekend. It melted and if it hadn’t been for the whole coffee maker issue, I probably would have gotten out on my bike. Then again, I probably would have had to engage in yard work too–so I really can’t grumble about this. I will be on my bike sometime this week.

Finding Refuge

Based on the anecdotes I have read or heard, I am not really following the classic pattern of this pandemic. I am watching less TV rather than more. I have not exhausted Netflix. I have managed to watch a few “new-ish” things on Amazon Prime when visiting my girlfriend (Fleabag is awesome).

Before you start thinking that I have somehow taken the high road, and put all my energy into cycling and self-improvement, let me assure you that it didn’t happen that way. I started out the pandemic that way. I was doing planks and push-ups between classes. I had improved my flexibility quite a bit before my inner lazy demon took over and returned my body to its original state (before the trip to Colombia that caused me to lose a serious amount of weight).

TV itself just didn’t pan out. There might be hockey, but my team didn’t make it into the playoffs. Actually watching many sports without the sound of real fans is not interesting. They put in the sounds of crowds cheering, but not booing. Which one do you think is more motivating?

Despite this, in recent days, I have found a bit of refuge in things of old. I decided to watch a couple of TV series that I haven’t watched in the past couple of years. These include Being Erica, Warehouse 13, and Firefly.

I pride myself on having a pretty stellar memory, but for movies and TV shows, I am sometimes at a loss. I remember things, but the details are lost on me. Watching things again, especially if I am pretty clear on the overall plot, gives me the chance to examine these details. I still like these shows and can appreciate them a bit more.

What older shows can you re-watch?

What shows are you currently re-watching?

What shows were so good that watching them again brings back all those feelings?

Kismet

Growing up, we played a lot of board games.  My oldest sister and her friends played together all the time.  My second oldest sister and I played them until we got bored.  On weekends the family would play things like Careers, or Auction, or….quite a number of them until we gave up most of them for Trivial Pursuit.

Being around these games made me want them.  Since we already had the classics, I got the second tier of games.  I got Payday, or Who’s It–my younger sister’s favorite.  I also got Risk–but getting people to play that one with you required a lot of begging and it rarely ever was played to completion.

My sister had Yahtzee, so I was given something similar.  I was given a similar game called Kismet.  It turns out that this is an Arabic word for fate.  I have heard it enough in movies and TV to know that we use it too.  My Iranian girlfriend thought it was interesting as the word is the same in Farsi.  What makes Kismet different from Yahtzee is that it has coloured dice which allow for categories like “two pair same colour” “flush” and “full house same colour.”  The ones and sixes are black, the twos and fives are red, and the threes and fours are green.

Like most of us, spending more time at home has meant a bit of a resurgence in family time and game playing.  I have to admit that I think this is great and I enjoy getting away from TV based entertainment.  I hope that this trend continues even after we are through all of this.  It also wouldn’t hurt if we shopped less–but let’s save that rant for another day.

With this aforementioned resurgence, I dug out my game of Kismet, dusted it off, and challenged my girlfriend  to a match.  Sadly, I did not have any dice luck and she trounced both times we have played.  I may not be able to consider winning Today’s Perfect Moment, enjoying a simple pastime with someone you care about is.

Ramblings

I have a few rambling thoughts before I go to bed.  None of them are Today’s Perfect Moment–so if that is what you came for, you could stop reading now, but I sincerely hope that you don’t.

On Blogging

I was doing a good job at first finding things to blog about.  Lately, possibly due to a lack of outside stimuli, I don’t have much to blog about.  I am happy that technology allows me to contact people and keep my job, but as good as that is, it doesn’t always equate to a Perfect Moment.  I haven’t given up on the Perfect Moment, but after a day of online teaching, they are seemingly more elusive than before.

On Entertainment

I have started watching Stargate Universe.  I picked up these DVD’s a long time ago.  I remember they were quite cheap and up near the checkout at Best Buy.  I think they were next to the complete Rat Patrol series–not sure why I didn’t pick them up, but I found them on YouTube a short time later.  I like the show and I appreciate Science Fiction that is character driven and only uses the effects to enhance the story.  It is definitely the darkest entry in the series, but that’s not a bad thing.  Maybe it was influenced by the look of the rebooted Battlestar Galactica–or vice versa.

I have been watching a lot of videos on woodworking and woodworking shop organization.  There are a lot of creative and talented people out there.  They are making a lot of cool stuff.  They also seem to get a lot of free stuff from tool companies or glue companies or accessories companies.  I guess I misunderstood YouTube.  You probably don’t make any real money from the channel, but maybe your hobbies or passions get funded.  Doesn’t seem like a bad trade-off to me.

Weather

I seem to write a lot about weather.  Now that my view is mostly the from window of my office/teaching studio/hobby room while teaching, the weather does seem a little bit weird.  My girlfriend described today’s weather so precisely.  She said that Winter and Spring were having a tug of war.  Since it was sunny, then snowed, was sunny again, then snowed again, then became grey, I have to admit she might be right.

Using my time

I might be tired from working, but I am not completely worn out from the commute.  As a result, I am getting a bit more done around the house.  I make a to do list every day.  While I don’t get them all done, I do managed to cross some of them off the list.  I consider that a win.

In Search of Some Randomness

Looking for a change in my entertainment, or perhaps just searching for something random, I looked through a pile of DVDs in the basement.  I came across a discard movie from the library.  It was in the pay what you want or pay what you can pile.  I don’t remember what I had in my pants pocket, but a loonie or twoonie (the one and two dollar coins in Canada respectively)seems likely–of course I could have been super cheap and only dropped a couple of quarters.  I really don’t remember.

The film is titled Stuck Between Stations.  I suspect the only reason I grabbed it is that is stars Zoe Lister Jones who I thought was super funny in the short-lived but rather funny Whitney.  She’s got that sarcastic slightly scratchy voice that reminds you that Hollywood is not entirely full of cookie cutter actors.  If I read the synopsis before taking from the library, the memory of it has been completely erased due to vacation and teaching from home.

I am not going to sing the praises of the film because it is far from perfect.  However, since I chose the movie blindly without even reading the synopsis I was pleasantly surprised.  It was a talky film that used a lot of non-traditional exterior shots and some unusual interior shots to tell the story.  Maybe the best way to think of it is a starker, harsher version of Before Sunrise.

Now after a couple of weeks of shutdown or lock-down, or whatever we are doing to limit the spread of the virus, it is hard to forget that the world after midnight exists.  I have looked down some busy streets late at night only to find then devoid of cars, when weeks ago they would have been a long row of headlights and an equally long row of taillights.  Things have changed.

When was the last time you were surprised by a movie?

Solving a Dilema

For the last hour or so, I’ve been sitting here pondering Today’s Perfect Moment. Sure, for some of that time, I’ve distracted myself by visiting YouTube and playing a few time wasting games on my phone, but in the back of my mind, subconsciously, I’ve been pondering.  I’ve evaluated and rejected many moments over the past weekend–since I wrote about my bike ride on Saturday morning already, it seemed like the post ride is a natural starting point.  Considering all that, nothing jumped out at me as the clear winner.

I’ve quite literally wracked my brains. So, I’ve decided something that should have been obvious when I started this long and slightly frustrating meditation on Today’s Perfect Moment.  There’s an easy solution to my dilemma.  The whole weekend, with its food, entertainment, conversations, and jokes, is Today’s Perfect Moment.

Unexpectedly Perfect

After we got back from cycling and the rush it gave me, I expected the rest of the day would be just okay.  I was completely wrong on this front.

Our guide offered his own personal tour.  He said it would be great, but I expected it to be just okay.

We went to one local swimming hole that was just okay.  It featured a Tarzan swing, but that was about it.

Then we went to a jungle area to look for frogs.  I have to admit that they were really cool.

Then we we to the supermarket to get some drinks to take to the hot springs–the super secret hot springs that very few people know about.  That’s where the magic happened.

So there we were, sitting in a warm spring, drinking our drinks and relaxing.  Our guide even made us a traditional Costa Rican cocktail—cacique and Fresca.  The sun went down and we lit candles to heighten the ambiance.

Honestly, that was such a perfect moment.  It was like the universe belonged to me, and me alone.

Sadly, at some point we had to leave in search of sustenance.  That turned out to be a “small” pizza and a beer.

A Novel Way to Catch Some Shuteye

If you sit in the teacher’s room, you might think that the students’ goals, besides learning, are to frustrate and confuse the teacher. The truth is, more often than not, I really think they are trying to entertain me.

If you’ve read this blog for some time, you have probably read about my students and there strange ways to eat kit kats (here and here), or more recently the use of chopsticks to eat a muffin. However, that is only a smidgen (never thought I would use that word in a blog post) of the entertainment that I often get.

It is only the rarest of students who manages to fall asleep during class–and usually they manage to do it repeatedly. The excuse is often something to do with all-night partying or all-night online sessions with friends back home or all-night binge watching some program on Netflix.  I’ve always been good at shrugging, and this has only given me greater practice.

While a student falling asleep during class is rare, during break time, a scant 15 minutes at that, it is practically a sport. I don’t know how many times I have come back from my 15 minutes (travel time up several flights of stairs and a bathroom break included in that paltry quarter of an hour) to find students heads on desks or reclining across several chair, eyes closed and in dreamland.

For today’s perfect moment, I wanted to share a picture I took on Friday of one student’s novel approach to shutting out the world while catching a few zzz’s. In case it isn’t clear, the coat is on backwards and the hood is covering the face.  I alone, and none of the other students, was concerned about a possible suffocation risk.  All I got were classic eye rolls when I mentioned it.

I wonder if this student tried that on the airplane while traveling to Canada.

Radio Days

I usually listen to the radio in the morning before I go to work.  I chose my morning DJs or morning show crew not because I like the music they play.  In most cases, I like about one in five songs, and even then, I don’t love that one song.  I chose my morning DJs because they are entertaining when they talk and they have a lot of stuff going on that is both predictable and comfortable.

I don’t drive my car to work, but when I am in my car, I want something else.  I want songs that will take me away from all of that.  I might want to hear the news, but since most of it is bad and depressing, I tend to stay away from those stations.

Today, I drove out to Mississauga and turned on the radio as I hit the highway.  I have about nine pre-sets and mostly I think of them as a slot machine.  I press a button and hope for a jackpot.  This is seldom true.  I usually get only one or two good songs on my drive and have to resort to putting on my own music.  That wasn’t the case today.  I heard a whole pile of songs I liked, one after another.  It was like they were playing my driving playlist.

In case you didn’t know, that was Today’s Perfect Moment.

 

Catching a Late Bus

It might be strange to call missing my bus Today’s Perfect Moment, but when you’re out with your best friends….things happen.

So, we had a few drinks at a rather poor excuse for a bar–so poor in fact that it won’t even be named here. Nor will I bother to go on Yelp and lambaste it.   We only met there because a friend was staying there while he is in town for meetings.

We then found ourselves at Hemmingway’s in Yorkville. I would say I like the place for the name itself, but actually the food is pretty good.  I also had a customer dance provocatively for me…but that was just random behaviour or a customer, rather than an actual chance to meet someone.

The evening progressed much as one would expect.

In the end, I found myself at the bus stop a little later than I would like. I also find myself at this keyboard a little later than I would like.  All I can say is that sometimes friendship requires sacrifice, and if that sacrifice is sleep, so be it.  Best friends are called best friends for a reason.