PipesDreams

Yesterday I went for a lovely 5-hour trek along the Bruce Trail near the tiny village of Norval with Sara, Nicola, Alex and Cory. Nic picked me up at home and together we finally found the railway tracks where we were supposed to park and meet up. There was a perfect light snowfall happening as we set out. The plan was to hike a few kilometers, stop at the Copper Kettle Pub for lunch, then hike back to the car.

Nothing is as soothing as the soft crunch of snow under your boots as you meander along a trail, looking at beaver dams and red-headed woodpeckers and breathing in clean cold air. Unless it’s listening to the usually ultra-laconic Alex talk about why he prefers David Sedaris to Turgenev and what animal noises translate to in Russian, because let’s face it, a Muscovite accent in a winter setting is as heartwarming as a tall glass of vodka.

Sara kept us all going at a merry pace, and despite some wistful food-talk at hour two that signified encroaching painful hunger, we made it to the pub before I had to execute my “human sashimi” plan on Sara’s tasty-looking buns and thighs.

On the way back I had a bad meeting with an icy puddle and soaked my socks, necessitating an immediate hot bath once I got home at 7pm. I did a scary re-enactment of the scene from ‘Time Traveler’s Wife’ when Henry returns from his regrettable barefoot trip to the parking garage, but thankfully all of my toes returned to their normal colour after a 15-minute soak.

Enjoy a glimpse of Canadian winter at its best (as opposed to today’s shitty ice-slush hell).

I warn you, I got a little “snap-happy” on the trail; there are almost 50 photos in the album.

I am currently missing the opportunity to wish a happy birthday in person because my hiking trip was longer than expected, so I’ll try to use my evening wisely by chronicling half of the weekend now so that you poor bastards don’t have to face another information overload Monday like last week.

In brief, Saturday night was a mixed bag. I’d been a little blue all day, so when I showed up at Crispy’s house, I mostly sat on the futon and nursed my wine. Once Paul & Amy showed up, we got down to business with sushi and ‘Little Miss Sunshine’, which was an incredible movie that I highly recommend to anyone and everyone. If it hadn’t already happened with ‘Anchorman’ or ’40-Year-Old Virgin’, or his gig as commentator on the video game ‘Outlaw Golf’, this absolutely cemented my crush on Steve Carrell.

I ducked out after the movie to meet with and we primed for Matt’s birthday party. We had a hell of a time finding the bar: Queen West was crawling with hipster 20-somethings trying to squeeze into any hotspot without a half-hour lineup and the place was an unsigned, unnumbered hole in the wall marked only with a faint chalk ‘UNIT’ casually scratched on the brick by the door.

After about three minutes, I remembered why I hate bars.
Item #1: 98% hearing loss occurs as soon as you enter the music zone; the other 2% of which disappears after an hour of screaming “conversationally” at your friends.
Item #2: Being looked at like a piece of meat.

Fortunately, my friend Marc (who I haven’t seen since JVL and I visited Victoria in 2004) was also in attendance, and has grown an immensely comforting large wooly beard that I turned to petting for solace in times of bar-related stress. There’s something soothing about a man whose field of speciality is the study of monks, even in a crowded booze hall. And he’s even more soothing when his face is partially concealed by a water-buffalo-esque chunk of facial hair.

After a while, L. and I decided that, while talking to a Professor of Medieval Studies is a pretty awesome way to pass a Saturday night, we should probably get down to brass tacks and actually circulate around the bar. UNIT was crammed to the gills, but we found Matt without trouble and I gave my lady the tour of his man-posse.

This was awkward, because when you’re used to referring to someone exclusively by a nickname, sometimes it’s hard to remember what their real name actually is.
“Uhh, L., I’d like you to meet my friend… (oh my God, oh no, shit shit shit I cannot introduce someone for the first time as ‘Logs’ or ‘Loggy’ or ‘The Logster’, it’s rude. Come on, come on… what the hell is your name, what is your #$*#&@! NAME???) CHRIS! Meet Chris.”

We took off at around 1:30am, once I decided I would rather poke out my own eye than have one more conversation based on whether or not I was in line for drinks. See? That’s me poking my own eye out to make a point. I crashed on L.’s sofa with her gorgeous tortoiseshell and have now firmly decided that cats are better than bars and screw this nightlife nonsense.

So endeth the tale of Saturday night. Sunday’s story is better, but will have to wait.