Friends, Family and Flights Of Fancy

The word of the week is fulfillment.

Aug 22 - A brief evening in Milton

One of the nice things about where I am staying is that it is within walking distance of a local Tim Horton's, among other things. So I have been breakfasting there every other day or so on the cheap; a bagel BELT and a tea provide exactly what I need to fuel up until well after lunch. Also, the local Timmy's have started providing free WiFi internet access, so that's an added bonus. Today though, I was feeling rather tired while I worked on my blog, which didn't help as I discovered that while I can type up docs on my ASUS tablet easily, the web interface for getting them INTO my blog is fraught with minor glitches. I spent hours alternating between naps and trying creative solutions to finally end up with my blog online, before I headed out to Milton ON for a brief evening with Rob - I was too tired to handle anything else today.

That visit was a good one, as I arrived at Rob's place right on time after getting a picture of Ned Devine's, a local hangout that has a story attached to it from my last visit years ago( Dustin Hoffman's wrapped up in that story, too ). After saying hello to his wife Leanne and his two boys, we headed out to a patio at a local pub to catch up. As with all my good friends, it was like the years between us fell away and we chatted about a lot of things broad and deep. It was incredibly good to see Rob, who again was still the same friend I'd met in high school all those years ago, all wrapped up along with family duties and career aspirations - neither of which has changed him in any way save for the better. It was with regret that we called it an early night, as I didn't know when I'd next get a chance to catch up in person... I was back in Niagara by 11pm and hit the hay worn out.

Aug 23 - Family and Friends

 
A major reason for vacationing in Niagara was to see my relatives, those of them that I could in the time I was in ON. I arranged to visit several of my aunts and uncle for the day, traveling from Niagara Falls to Grimsby to see them all in one place. In the hours we talked, I mentioned several things that they might have inferred over the years about the troubles my parents and I faced that resulted in our moving to BC. I was happy to see how open I could be with them and how supportive of my decisions they were, given how little contact we've all had. I was especially pleased to spend time with my uncle, who is not in the best of health and whose memory has started to fail him in major ways. It's difficult to juggle memories of being young in a crowded family gathering with the quiet afternoon with just a few retired relatives; in my mind, I am still ten and sitting at the kid's table in the kitchen, while all the adults squeeze into the dining room. It's a hard thing to reconcile memory with reality, and harder still when memory starts to fail.

In the evening, I was at Jack Astor's( the original one! )with three former MMart co-workers, having managed to forget to invite several others who were not on an updated FBook list - my technical bad. We had a good time remembering old times, as well as catching up. They were all very glad to see me, as I was them - it's a mark of how much we enjoyed one another's company that we still find the time to talk years later and thousands of miles apart. Good people always will, really. I just wish more people could have made it out... but we all have to move on and prioritize.

Aug 24 - The Kilt Again!

‎In the Falls today for lunch with my friend Brian and our buddy Ray, who has a car sales business there. We grabbed some food from Garrison's Grill on Thorold Stone Rd, which was excellent - big subs, with thick real bacon and great turkey. Ray caught me up on a few things, but in the main we really enjoyed just shooting the breeze on a sunny afternoon without any time pressure. It was great, and just one more reason to enjoy having the time off to do things like that.

Of course, a Wednesday evening in Niagara HAS to be spent at The Kilt, so I was there in plenty of time to snag a patio table with Lucas. We were joined by Dan, Dave, Shawna, Nigel, Scotty and Matt K. and later on Matt L. It was a great group to be with as the sunlight dimmed and we dug into our $2.50 wings, despite a few nosy wasps. The light continued to fade far too fast as we kept track of a developing storm on our various devices - the deadly tornado on Sunday in Goderich ON was fresh in our minds. A little after 6:30pm the rain started and by 7pm the storm was in full swing, with lashes of water falling from the sky and reams of lightning making it bright as day over and over. Power failed to various parts of the city and did not return by the time we remaining few left around 11pm, soggy in the rain. It was a good night to be on the protected patio though, as the storm didn't dampen anyone's spirits - I was in very good company.

Aug 25 - BOOM goes the thunder!

Not a lot of sleep for me last night, as a SECOND storm front crashed its way though Niagara at 3am. Rain and hail rattled the windows while lightning lit up the sky continuously for almost an hour, with bolts tens of kilometers long. Check out this radar map of the 12hrs from 6pm PST Aug 24 to 6am PST Aug 25 and you will see the MASSIVE fronts that swept through the area.

I managed to get back to sleep after an hour when things subsided and was rested by the time I headed out to lunch with more family at Cafe Amore in St. Catharines. It was a good afternoon, though I didn't manage to catch a snooze before heading to the Lake St Starbucks around dinnertime. I snuck over to Pizza Pizza across the street to grab some dinner, pleased to be able to enjoy one of their pizza pockets as there are no locations in BC on Vancouver Island - they're pretty good as pizza goes and the Lake St. store is big and clean.

Back at Starbucks, I visited with Dan, Shiloh and later Mike, along with Sarah K. who was there too. It was very similar to years ago when we would gather at the Fairview Steebs( Starbucks )but I prefer this newer location, as it is far less crowded with more space, as well as being less noisy - you can actually converse easily inside at any time of day. We all talked on various subjects, but the one that came up that caught my muse was talk of writing... seems to be a theme this visit. All too soon we had to call it quits, but we lingered in the parking lot as the wind rose and we tried not to simply turn all our separate ways, again.

Aug 26 - How Messed Up Am I?

I was in Welland in the morning for a long-overdue massage therapy treatment, my first and thankfully it was at the hands of a good friend. They examined my range of motion and quickly determined that my back and neck needed the most work, which we set to with determination. As it turns out, I wasn't in terrible shape... but I was definitely in need of an RMT and again a few more times when I return to BC. My neck and upper back have seem continuous bouts of tension, with me pulling my neck turtle-like into my shoulders and hunch, as though trying to avoid being beaten about the head with stress-sticks. Not good, and by the next day I would be quite sore in my neck and shoulders... but standing noticeably taller than I was while hunching. As I had been doing unnoticed for years.

After a lovely waitress-centric warm-up at the Kilt in the afternoon, I was at a friend's in St. Kitts for a BBQ gathering by dinnertime. There were burgers and cheese dip( Groo! )galore to be enjoyed by many friends who dropped by. The weather co-operated nicely as well, though I managed to pick up( only )a half-dozen nasty mosquito bites on my sandaled feet as souvenirs that would be angry red for quite a few days. We gathered inside as it grew dark to continue our breeze-shooting( and some shots for me )with an electric miniature Mini-Cooper planted on the living room carpet( it belonged to my friend's child ). Gatherings like this are why I love visiting ON, and it really made my heart ache as every single one of my friends kept asking when I was moving back from BC - not if, but when. I've discussed things as best I'm able with most of them and I don't have an answer, save that I've never put moving back off the list. When the time and cost are right, I will need to decide if that's best for me when the choice needs to be made... but it's leaning more and more towards the east, not west.

Aug 27 - Packing Up, Last ON Day 

Breakfast in the morning was on the patio at The Bleu Turtle in St. Kitts, along with Lucas, Dan, Josh and Rene. This was somewhere I had never been before, as they opened only a month before I left in October 2007. Their kitchen is graced by a trained Chef( note the capitol )and the food is supposed to be amazing - I am pleased to say that nobody was disappointed. I had the French Toast with Apples and Oatmeal with a Maple Cream sauce... oh my, was it tasty AND filling! Perfect to enjoy while sitting on a patio in warm morning temperatures with friends, despite my error in updating FBook that left another friend at a wrong location - social messaging fail #2 this trip, annoyingly. I headed back to pack, then spend a few more hours with Josh, Mandy and their Aria - mainly trying to get an iPod Shuffle to work with Aria's song CD's, which kept on giving very strange errors( Josh got it to work hours later, finally ).

I spent a few hours at Romby's on Lake St. with Lucas, Shawna and Nigel, listening to the dulcet tunes of James Moore live over beers. It was a great way to end my stay in St. Catharines with friends, as the sun was shining in through the windows. Again, I was reminded of all the reasons to return to Niagara, sitting in the company of such fine people and not influenced even a little by the free beers. Shawna and Nigel drove me all the way to Hamilton in plenty of time to catch my flight, with several pit stops along the way and a lot of good conversation. The two flights back to BC were uneventful, though we arrived in Calgary late and the other flight had to wait for us - I found that out at the boarding gate, as nobody on the Hamilton flight told us to hurry up. On both flights I ran through a few TV shows on my ASUS Transformer, finding that using an external drive manages to drain half the battery in about 3 hours. Not bad, but not great, so I think next time I will put some shows on a USB stick or flash card to save power while playing. I arrived in Victoria rather tired, but was picked up and arrived home after a stopoever at Timmy's well before 1am... which by then was 4am EST and boy was I tired. I fell into bed and slept dreamlessly.

Aug 28 - Sleep and more sleep

My morning vanished into early afternoon, as I alternated bouts of snoozing in the warm sunlight with unpacking my things and putting everything into its place. Amazingly, it was quite warm here, with my room reaching over 30 degrees by noon despite the effort of several fans - shades of Niagara, anyone? I took advantage of the good weather to spend some time outside in a hammock, then moved over the The Bean for some tea... but no peanut butter cookies, sadly. The new owners haven't been doing a good job of keeping regulars while attracting new business, which doesn't bode well for the slower season approaching - they've lost some staff and are about to lose more, so I can only hope that they'll still be there in the spring( heck, I may be in Victoria itself by then ). In the evening I was on my usual NWN quest with friends, which was a fairly talky one that engaged my negotiating skills... atop trying to make a lot of chatter interesting for everyone else who wasn't talking. It was a good three hours of conversation, not action, which was good as I was feeling rather tired again. Once my blog was updated, it was almost midnight and I turned in ASAP - a quiet end to my travel weekend, which was nice.

 

And I still have 3 more days off - bonus! 

 

I'll update my FBook albums with the Niagara Trip shots on Monday, as well as a few other things. I'm back in BC now, but my thoughts are still far away in ON...