My Son & Other Things

My son Evan was recently Charlie Brown inhis school's production & Igot to see it with my brother-in-law Darren's help & the help of their son Cole & daughter Maia and wife (my sister) Lisa plus my kids, Monica & Evan, visited. Here are some shots:
Here's Evan's GF Katrina:
Here's my sister Shauna, who's married to Ken (ot shown). They have two other kids (Rebecca, 24, & Andrew,22,) plus Justin (picured).

Above are Darren, Lisa, my mom & Maia.
Here are some of Ev's friends.
Here's one of my kids when they were small.
Here's me getting my ass burned off at Homo Escapeon's.
Here's me beating HE at floor hockey.
Here's me stealing from HE.
Here's me being as masculine as can be.

Oh here's my youngest sister Shauna.

Here's Lori's hubby Alec & daughter Rebekah.


My Mom...
My youngest brother Gerry
Above, Darren; below, my sister Lisa.

Above, my nephew Justin; below, my niece Rebekah & oldest sister Lori.


Above, my sister-in-law Kim; below, my brother-in-law Alec and son Ben...

Above, my brother Gerry's tongue & below, one of his & wife Kim's 2 sons


Here's Joshua, above;Justin;
My Mom
Youngest sister Shauna & nephew Matthew;
Me & MyKids
Merry Christmas To All
And to All A Good Night.

My Dad, son Evan, daughter Monica, me below.











To All A Good Xmas

HOMO ESCAPEONS

I can only laugh at him. But I DON'T think I'd be alive without him -- or able to howl at life or hold people as closely as I do without him to show me the way. Happy Birthday, Mr. Coppens!

Full of GRATITUDE

I have forgotten some people.


People like Gareth and Ron and Amy and Jamie and Dr. Engel and the entire nursing staff at Deer Lodge Hospital in Winnipeg plus my friends and relatives who came to visit and those who didn't or couldn't.

Thank You and your Signicant Others.

They aren't Significant for No Reason.

I have forgotten some people.

From Stroke to Shining Stroke

I am back, sort of.

I sm living in my Mom's long-time apartment building, still feeling the effects of the stroke that struck the right side of my body. I of course would like to thank you and my entire family but also Donn & so many others.

You know who are.

I would like to thank the Academy...

Chris

HI!

I'm back!

Just dicking around on here.

I'M SO UNAMERICAN

IT WAS LATE LAST SUMMER.

...AND AFTER RECEIVING THIS BILL BELOW ONLY LAST WEEK, I NOW REMEMBER THE INCIDENT ALL TOO WELL.

I don't know if you'll be able to click on this scanned image to read what the bill says. But it's from Budget eToll of Great Neck, N.Y. (Why would a place be called Great Neck, anyway?)

And it claims that while I was driving one of their rented cars, I failed to pay a 40-cent toll somewhere around Chicago on Aug. 28.

Either because my "PERSONAL TRANSPONDER FAILED TO WORK" or because I KNOWINGLY OR UNKNOWINGLY FAILED TO PAY THE TOLL.

My personal transponder, whatever that is, works just fine, thank you!!!

Whatever. As a result, I now have to pay a bill of $45.40 US in fines and administration fees.

I've been to Chicago a number of times, mostly to cover Stanley Cup hockey finals, but I've never had to rent a car.

Last summer, I had to cover our baseball team as it wound up its season in Joliet, Illinois, not that far from Chicago.

And then I had to carry on with the team to Gary, Indiana, for the start of the playoffs.

Joliet, as you might have heard, houses one of America's most dangerous prisons, or at least used to. Gary was once America's murder capital. Great assignment.

And now I feel like I've been victimized myself for being a goofy Canajun.

I flew to Chicago, rented the car, tried to make sure I had enough American change for all the tolls I expected to encounter.

I nixed Budget's offer of a car equipped with GPS, got my maps out, and merrily went on my way.

Well, not merrily. I had some nerves.

When you come from Flatland, Canada, a place with few freeways and no toll booths but high taxes (hmmm...so how come our roads are so lousy compared to theirs?), a place you've lived most of your life that you know like the back of your hand...

...And you pile into a car to navigate some of the busiest and most congested freeways, highways and byways of one of the most densely populated areas in North America, you just might have a little trepidation.

It's called ChicagoLand, for gawd's sake. It's another world from what I'm used to.

Long and short of it is, I had the toll booth thingy all worked out on my route.

Unfortunately, I took a wrong turn at Albuquerque and had to double back about 20 miles to get the correct turnoff for Joliet.

I had to go through two more tolls (unmanned ones) than I planned for. I ran out of change. But I couldn't pull over to get more change.

I'm on about a 360-lane freeway with bumper to bumper traffic at rush hour.

I have some Canadian change, but not enough American change. As I inch up towards the big collector thingie, I try to throw in some Canadian change with the American change I have left.

It won't register as paid.

I quickly jump out of my rental car, run to the guy behind me, explain I'm a stupid Canajun and offer him $5 American for the proper American change -- 40 cents!

Before he can say anything, and with horns blaring at this idiotic, pathetic driver they're all being forced to wait for, I put the fiver in his hands.

Dumbfounded, he reluctantly gives me his change, I run back to my car, toss it in the collector thingie and drive off.

I'm convinced that's where they got me.

I think the collector thingie didn't properly register the amount of change I threw in -- or I did something else wrong -- and so for not paying that 40-cent toll, I'm being dinged $45.40.

What's that, more than a 1,000-per-cent surcharge? I'm terrible at math, but I know it's a lot.

Hopefully the one thing you CAN read on that bill is right at the bottom: BOO HOO!

Resting and Being...

...And simply waiting for summer and sunshine.

DONN AND RIDLEY AND CHRIS AND ALICE

WHEN I THINK OF THE LONG AND UNBELIEVABLY FUNNY ROAD I'VE TRAVELLED, I COULD NOT IMAGINE MAKING IT WITHOUT THIS GOOFBALL.

This was all about us (mostly Donn, as you can see below) having fun with the vegemite sent to me by the unbelievably lovely Stace, from Australia.

I could wax on about his lively simultaneous senses of intelligence and stupidity.

His outrageousness and good sense, his immaturity but his insight, his utter disregard for good taste but also his politeness and political correctness.

And, in the next breath, his political incorrectness.

In fact, I often have.

But as our separate yet never completely separated lives have taken their twists and turns over the years, the one thing we've always maintained is a never-say-die commonality of both being complete doofuses.

And to virtually be inseparable. And to love doing that, together.

And this has endured through time and space and lost marriages and found lovelies and our kids and bad times and spectacular developments and otherwise. And this will never cease to be.

I'm a couple of years older than him, so I'm way smarter and sexier.

But somehow, despite his obvious shortcomings, he has managed to find a lovely woman from which sprang a beautiful son.

And of course I have embraced them and they have, to my great fortune, embraced me.

And I have blogged about them before.

As in the following picture sequence, when young Donn & Alice progeny Ridley was introduced to the boyhood magic of a fart cushion, a pleasure I was never privy to as a kid.

I just made my own.

Now Alice is quite restrained, actually. But as I understand it, this was her idea.

You can't see it under Alice's butt above, but it's there, making that indescribably funny sound.

Ahem. That was last year, I think, over at their place. Isn't Alice sexy?

And in this photo below taken at my place, isn't Donn NOT SEXY?

Donn, as you can see, is a camera-friendly guy. He's very animated, he's the life of the party, and when I first met him, I couldn't stand him.

But somehow, he persisted. He won me over. I was fascinated by that sense of stupidity and moronic kid-like personality that hid his perception and depth, his philosophies about combining fun and philosophy.

Just living in the moment and doing it right.

Being a wussy...

And many other things.

But on Saturday, at his invitation, I went over to their place again. And I felt embraced, again.

By Ridley, who seems to bring out the kid in me -- even at this ripe old age -- and who loves testing his physical limits, and likes everything from playing catch to getting tennis balls shot at him.

(Donn sent these photos to me and added the labels on the pix)

Ridley's about to try and bean me in the head with a nerf football above as Alice calls me from behind to take my pic, as I recall...

Alice catches my butt, which is apparently on fire.

That little fireplace thingy has been an enduring and constant presence in their back yard all these years as Ridley grew up, it's one of those beautiful things that jars the senses gently.

Well, at some point, the old guys had to get into it. And Alice was there to record more 50-something male sports silliness.

One good turn deserves another. Unfortunately, Ally did not get the shot where I actually did hit Donn in the gonads.

Now I think Alice is one of the most beautiful women on the planet. She's warm, lets me hug her close, makes me always feel at home...she's a beautiful mom and, as Donn says, she's his lovely lady wife.

But we're best friends, Donn and I. So I get to have at least a bit of her, don't I? At least a few hugs now and again?

Evidently not...Donn started pouting after that pose above.

So Donny boy got over my little tryst with Alice in their back yard and then he fired up their barbie and cooked some absolutely gorgeous steak for supper, complemented by some excellent shrooms and onions and red peppers by Ally.

I feasted on that food.

And then after that, we went outside again for a while, did that fire thing above, Ridley had his bath, then he joined us for a game of Phase 10, a game they introduced me to several years ago.

Ridley was amazing. He can add and subtract better than I can. His mom was helping him slightly, but I've seen adults who can't do math like he can. He truly is an amazing young man.

After Ridley went to bed, the obviously inebriated Donn took this pic of the three of us playing Phase 10. I can't even remember now who won, but I know I came back big-time to make it close.

And speaking of close, see how close Ally and I are?

Donn, do you remember anything?

Good.