Weather/Sports/Comics

There's still not much going on here, besides working way too much on really frustrating, uninspiring stuff. Otherwise, it's summer, which means lots of seeing people outdoors to drink, gossip, and generally hang out. It's very hot and humid in Halifax this year, which is supposed to be unusual but seems to be the norm more and more. I think we're getting more pollution blown up from the States than we used to.

Ali and I just got back in from playing some night tennis with a couple we know who happened to be there too. We played last weekend too, for about three hours in the blazing sun, and just about died the next day. I had a softball game to pitch and my back was killing me. Weirdly, the game ended early because the other team didn't technically have enough players and should have forfeited, but we said we'd play them anyway, and then when there was a dispute about a call in the fifth inning which began to turn a little ugly they decided to forfeit after all because they didn't feel like playing anymore. I can't decide if that was a smart move or poor sportsmanship. They were winning. It sure made my team mad. That was the second of two games, though, and we won the first handily. I even got a homerun, sore back and all.

Here's a gross but funny story: Ali and I were eating veggie hot dogs and french fries on the waterfront for lunch the other day, and saw a little girl drop her baseball hat into the harbour water by a little footbridge. She started crying and her family came over and all looked down into the water with her. Then some more people started gathering around and looking down too. They were pretty much all tourists. We went back to eating for awhile, and then suddenly realized that the crowd was cheering, still looking down into the water. We went over to see what they were looking at, and there was the little girl's father, minus his shirt, swimming out into the bilge to grab the hat and swim back. It was definitely one of the more disgusting things I've ever seen. He came out smiling and one of the local tourism information girls politely informed him that he might consider a quick trip to the hospital, as the harbour water is probably the most toxic substance known to mankind, not least because there is a steady stream of raw sewage being dumped into it. He asked whether there wasn't somewhere he could hose down, and the girl whisked him over to a side area to do just that, followed closely by his concerned looking family, the mother clenching her jaw and tightly gripping... the little girl's baseball hat! We were convinced she must still not understand completely what had happened, so Ali went over to quietly advise her that the offending garment might now be better off in some sort of sealed waste depot. But she kind of impatiently insisted that they would definitely be keeping it, as it was the girl's best hat. To be fully clear, this was a nylon, mesh-backed fuchsia hat with a plastic size adjustment strap and an ostensibly cute message silk-screened onto the front. The kind you can buy at any dollar store, usually on sale. "Not anymore," seemed the only possible response.

And if you thought those hijinx were funny, check out this sidesplitter entitled "Having a Bad Day". Meg sent it to me at work. I can't believe what an insensitive jerk this woman's son is.





- Andrew

When I say Buddha, you say machine! Buddha! ... Buddha!

Hey. Not much to say, but I didn't want anyone thinking I was dead over here, accidentally crushed under the laughable weight of my own 80's and 90's pre-recorded cassettes collection, with no one to find my flat magnetized corpse but Buster. I've been kind of living it up here while Alison endures barely-heard-of relatives in ultrahip Saskatchewan. You know: going out every night to play pool or tennis, watching movies, cooking fancy food, and playing the guitar for days at a stretch. Generally not fixing the place up. I did move some cushions from one room to another this evening before heading out to yoga class. Poor Ali will be home tomorrow night at 10:32. Whether she'll be better off I leave for you to decide, but I'll be happy to see her.

I'm working on designing some phony money, à la Canadian Tire, at work, and it's making me realize how much fun it would be to design real currency. All those nice engravings and Spirograph-like lines made out of tiny "Bank of Canada"s and stuff. I wonder who gets to do that?

Has anyone else heard about this crazy Mars viewing we're supposedly going to have in August? I hear it's going to grow bigger and bigger every night for awhile, until it's the size of a full moon! Can this really be possible? Where's the Star Hustler when you really need him? I'm freaking out! I am freaking oouut!

And finally, I remembered to go to the post office on my lunch today to get a money order and send away for the buddha machine. I can't wait 'til it gets here — it'll be just like when I got those two-way space phones from Bazooka Joe comics. Only good.

- Andrew

Blessed with Too Much to Do

Lately I've been feeling like I'm slowly getting more and more behind on the various things that are waiting for me to do them, and it's been kind of weighing on me. I'm trying to just do one thing at a time, and not think about the other things, but the "to do" pile seems to grow faster than I can shrink it. (In case you're wondering, writing a blog post is NOT one of the things on the list.)

But today was a really beautiful day and I got a lot accomplished at work and we just got back from a really great yoga class, so now I feel pretty hopeful about things. Alison is right now packing for her trip to Saskatchewan via Toronto tomorrow morning. She'll be gone for a week, which is a big bummer, but my plan is to get all sorts of crap done without the annoying distraction of a cute friend with whom I always want to do fun things.

Today, for instance, I rode home for lunch so we could eat it in the backyard. Sure, it was a nice meal of salted string beans and various Mediterranean salads under a bright warm sun, with a gentle breeze and birds singing in the trees; and granted, there was a New York Times crossword puzzle thrown in to sweeten the pot; but... uh, actually I forget where I was going with this... something about the toilet not cleaning itself.

Also since the last post, our friend and my coworker, Meg, got back from her two week vacation in Japan and brought us all sorts of nice exotic gifts. Right now I'm eating some Pocky that is "Men's" flavour, which means that it's dark chocolate instead of the regular kind. Kooky. It sure is good to have Meg back at work and in our lives. I can't help but feel we would have won at least one of our softball games last weekend if she'd been there. There is only one Meg®.

Finally, I got to have a nice visit with my old friend Al the other night. He's been living out of town for quite some time, and has gone through some pretty hard times, the details of which I'm mostly in the dark about, but he's going to be moving back to Halifax in September. I'm looking forward to having him around and catching up with his crazy life. Also, meeting his by all accounts adorable little daughter.

And now to bed so I can get up insanely early with my cute distraction.

- Andrew

Jack's Favourite Radio Station

Alison went to the beach with Krista and Keith today and they stopped at a second-hand store, where she found this great pair of headphones that are a radio for like twenty-five cents. Perfect for rollerskating. We tried them out and the station we picked up best was a brand new one that never existed before. Z103 (with the 'z' pronounced the American way, I guess so it rhymes) — The Beat! It's all dance/hip-hop music so we probably won't be listening to it very much, but we had a good time dancing around with those headphones on and saying, "This is the beat, man!"


If you click back and forth between these two photos on the camera it makes a pretty cool animation.

Dig the Elaine Benice thumbs-up.


I swear I didn't know I was making this face. A scary thought.

Otherwise, this weekend was up and down as I had to spend about five hours at work yesterday putting together a proposal for some new business which I know we definitely won't be getting, but then sat out in the sun in our backyard this afternoon and wrote a whole new song for the first time in I don't know how long. Plus there was some very fun softball and I actually finished that horrible sudoku.

- Andrew

Our Distinguished Guests II

Well, the weather was beautiful, as promised. And I didn't receive a strange business invitation, so that puts the score at Meteorologists 27, Astrologists 32. However, right now the Economists are kicking both of their butts with their "gas prices will continue to rise" strategy. It's gonna be an exciting Pseudoscience Olympics! Clam Harbour Beach was exactly as I remembered it and we had a really nice day picnicking on the bluff and then beaching on the beach. I'll let these pictures show you what I mean.




I still haven't finished that sudoku, by the way. But I did get in the water, unlike those other namby-pamby sand-lyers.

That night we ate at the Five Fisherman, an outrageously overpriced seafood restaurant. The food was good and everything, but the service was none too fancy. We again had a really nice time, though. Ate way too much, too. There was a photo taken but it looks like crap so y'all ain't seein' it.

Next day we attended the final performance of the Royal Nova Scotia International Tattoo. It was an odd collection of stiffly stirring military musical numbers


and weird acrobatics,


with a few syrupy songs belted out in between and some terribly corny "comedy" routines thrown in for good measure. At three and a half hours, it definitely could have stood some cuts. But the acts we had gone expecting to see, i.e. the marching bands, were all very good. My and Ali's favourites were the pipe bands. Here's just a taste of the caco-eupho(n/r)ic drone.




There was supposed to be a softball game on Sunday, and I was hoping Mom and Papa would be able to come and marvel at my underhanded underhand wonderlob, but it rained all day so the field was too wet. Instead, we located their old house and then took a trip out to the always nostalgic Chickenburger, home of the world-famous sandwich that my uncle calls "chicken microwaved until it explodes and then thrown on a wet bun". Ali took two pictures of which, believe it or not, this is the better. I call it Fun Times at the Chickenburger.


Boy, we did a lot of eating with those guys. That night, their last here, was at an Irish pub called The Old Triangle. Once again, you'll have to take my word for it that the other shot was even worse.


There was an old-timey Irish-esque young couple called Bette and Wallet playing, who were excellent. Both multi-instrumentalists. I guess they know Al Tuck, because at one point we suddenly realized they were playing "Family Photo," which he co-wrote with Matthew Grimson in our old apartment on Robie Street years ago. So that was a nice small-world-that-is-Halifax moment for the visitors.

It was really nice having those two around. Saying goodbye was kind of hard. It's too bad my Dad couldn't come down with them. Maybe next time. Now we're back to the usual grind of work and apartment arranging, and figuring out what kind of summer vacation we can set up next.

- Andrew

P.S. I just found out that Syd Barrett, founding member of The Pink Floyd and thinly veiled subject of most of their material after they kicked him out of the band, died today. If I didn't have to go to bed this very minute I would play you Baby Lemonade. Maybe you could track it down yourself. I think he was a fairly tortured soul, so let's hope he's found some peace now.

Happy Birthday, Jeff!!

Our Distinguished Guests

My mom and grandfather arrived yesterday and we've been having a good time seeing the sights, eating the food, and chewing the fat. Yesterday we had some really late lunch at an Irish pub and then hung out at our new place for awhile with some G&Ts.


Today was down to the Halifax waterfront, where we we checked out the HMCS Sackville, of which Papa (my grandfather) is a trustee, and headed into the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic.


Neither Ali nor I had ever been to that museum before, so it was fun to finally see what goes on in there. However, it soon became apparent that they should rename it the Maritime Museum of Atlantic Death. You won't find anything about cute sea creatures, marine ecology, or the fishing life in there. It's pretty much all bloody naval battles, shipwrecks, and disasters. The 1:300 scale models of navy ships, hand crafted by a group of unpaid old guys who work there almost every day (!) were very impressive, but the guns and swords and shoes of juvenile Titanic victims started making Ali and me feel a little queasy. Then, when we got to the large section covering the Halifax Explosion, a couple of exhibits was all we could take before we both broke into tears and had to get out of there. Making Ali cry is like shooting fish in a barrel, but in my own defense, let me just say that the second exhibit was all about the telegraph operator who heroically saved a trainload of people from coming into Halifax minutes before the explosion (you've probably seen the Canadian Heritage Moment on TV) and they had transcribed his morse code message in large bold letters on a vertical board: "Munitions ships on fire. Halt train. Goodbye, boys." While Mom and Papa watched the film about the explosion, we decided the Sable Island exhibit would be a good distraction, what with its interestingly isolated, tiny population and those beautiful horses. But of course when we got to it we saw that the title was "Sable Island — Graveyard of the Atlantic" and it was all about the many shipwrecks that have happened there. It was pretty funny, I had to admit.

Included in the ticket price was admission onto an old scientific research ship called the Acadia. That was pretty cool, as I'd often admired that ship when walking down by the water. It's straight out of a Tintin comic. While we were exploring her lower deck the Citadel cannon went off (at 12:36, for some strange reason?), surprising all of us.


Then there was a delicious seafood lunch at McKelvie's (actually, Papa had a chicken sandwich),


after which Mom, Ali, and I walked down to Pier 21 to see the giant cruise ship, The Queen Mary II, which had recently docked there.


I guess Ali must have taken all the pics, as she's not in any of them. While in the area, we picked up supplies at the nearby grocery store for the picnic which we'll have tomorrow at Clam Harbour Beach. 0% chance of rain, supposedly, but I'm still keeping my fingers crossed.

- Andrew

That weekend was so nice, I think I'll have another.

Happy belated Canada Day, fellow Canucks and Canadiophiles. Hope everyone had a nice long weekend. Us? Yeah, not bad at all, thanks for asking. There'd been some plans to go camping but we didn't get organized fast enough so they fell through. Instead, though, we got to go to the beach with our friend Krista, where we ran into her boss and his partner and their dog, Lola, the last of whom is really sweet and cute.





The weather was perfect, although the water was still a little too cold to get in unless you were an obliviously roly-poly toddler. But today we got to do some swimming in the pool of the sister of our other friend Keith.

We also spent a lot of time fixing up our new place — figuring out where things look best, lugging them around, finding out there aren't enough plug sockets there and so figuring out where they look second best... that kind of thing. It's starting to be a pretty sweet little abode, but we won't be satisfied until it is such a dream apartment that we never want to leave. Even if there is no food or toilet paper. Today I alphebetized all the cassettes and created my own Dewey decimal system for the non-fiction books. Yesterday was CDs, stereo, and television. We somehow have free cable in this place, which watch for that to be our eventual downfall. Is Friends ALWAYS on? I never realized. I'm sure when the police finally break down the door it will be either that, Seinfeld, or Everybody Loves Raymond entertaining the flies that are feeding on our comfortably seated bodies. Just please don't let it be Oprah.

Our other other friend Jill came by yesterday to check the place out and bring us some nice housewarming tea and candles. She was full of compliments on our painting job, and she's a professional painter, so we were glowing a little bit. We had some coffee in the backyard while she showed us how to "dead-head" a few flowers. It was pretty nice.

Oh yeah, and after the beach on Saturday our even other friend Sherry had the first event in her and our still other friend Jay's brand new store. It was an art opening and pretty much every hipster in town was there, all looking fabulous. The artist had rented a stretch limo and it went around picking up and dropping off po-mo bohos all night long, which never stopped amusing me as they crawled incongruously out of the back seat. Sherry's family were there too, so I got to meet them for the first time — what a bunch of sweethearts. Sherry herself looked incredible in some clothes she'd made herself, which is a large part of what they're going to be selling at the store. The store looked fantastic too. It's called "Lost & Found" and has a really nice round sign which will soon be made into a clock. That in itself will be great, because for some reason there are almost no public clocks in Halifax. Besides Sherry's creations, they'll be selling second hand clothes, records, objets d'art, and indescribable thingamajigs. I can't wait for the opening on the 7th.

But before that, my mom and grandfather are coming for a visit, on Wednesday. I'm taking Wednesday to Friday off work to pal around with them and show them the sights, including the Tattoo about which I'm actually kind of excited as I've never seen it. But which means I only work tomorrow this week. Which, together with the fact that Meg has gone to Japan for two weeks, means the rest of the creative department may be totally screwed. And which also means that I had to go into work for four hours today to get some work done that has to go out first thing tomorrow because I won't be around to look at the proofs from the printer otherwise. Which meant that I missed antiquing and beaching with Alison and Krista today. But that's OK because I got it all done with no distractions and now I'm ready for an extra-long weekend with Mom & Papa. Hwee! Hwat fun!

- Andrew

HB

Love from And & Ali.

Chaos, Both Infuriating and Exciting

So here's the story. The people moving into our old place were to come over yesterday right after work so we could introduce them to the ancient landlord couple, who live in another of the row houses. So I went over there to meet them, and ran into his lordship and her ladyship sitting in front of their estate. I told them that the new people would be coming by any minute and they said, "Well, that's fine, but we have someone else in mind. If she doesn't want it, though, your friends can have it." To which I said, "But we told you a month ago that we'd found someone to take the place. They're moving in this weekend." To which they said, "No you didn't. You only said someone was coming to look at it." Then I think the conversation went something like, "Yes, I did," "No, you didn't," "Yes, I did," "No, you didn't," "Yes, I did," and then his lordship started shaking his wizened red head back and forth violently.

Then he said, "Well, who are these people anyway? What do they do?" which made me even madder because when I'd originally told him they were going to move in he wouldn't listen to descriptions of them, saying only, "As long as they give me a cheque every month, I don't care who they are." I started telling him about how they're a nice young couple and I know the guy because he manages the coffee shop I go to every day and I've also played some shows with him, and that got the landlord really mad. "Young? No, I don't care for that. Musician? No no no, I don't care for that at all. The woman we have in mind is responsible. She's in the navy." I started shouting that they're moving in, the landpeople handed me an application form to give the young couple, and I walked away furious and shaking.

I really didn't relish the thought of bringing the dreadlocked girl and newlly-mohawked guy over in the mood I was in, what with their tattoos and piercings and all, to duke it out with the old couple, so I was just as glad when they didn't show up. Alison and I walked back to our new place in a funk, only to discover a phone message that they were just finishing up a couple of beers and would be over shortly. I called them and told them the story, they still wanted to come over to meet the duke and duchess, so Ali and I walked back to face the music. Weirdly, after an initial angry explanation of why he would never shake their hand and a warning that they would be out if he heard one loud party, the feudal lord became sweet as pie, as did his wife, and ended up saying that they would tell their friend not to bother coming to look at the place. Then he talked our ears off for probably about an hour — he was in rare form — while his wife went over the form with the young woman. We really wanted to eavesdrop on that conversation, but all we managed to pick out over the gravy=>pasta-sauce=>soup recipes and stories about hookers in 1930's Belgium versus those in present day Halifax was, "So, what religion are you exactly?"

Anyway, all's well that ends well, I guess, though I still had traces this morning of the stress the whole situation caused me. Luckily, our new place is really great and just getting greater every day. Here are some pictures, as I promised you, of the painted rooms with their disorganized piles of junk. I mean valuable possessions. They were all quickly snapped and even more quickly Photoshopped.

- Andrew








P.S. The blue curtains are probably going, but we'll see.

P.P.S. Here's a shot I took tonight when I went for a bike ride out to the northernmost end of the peninsula to see a billboard that was supposed to be up yesterday which I produced. For some reason, it's not up yet. But the ride was worth it, as the sky was doing some pretty amazing things. It'd been sunny and humid all day, and then in the evening a cool, high fog rolled in and it seemed like it might rain. But there was also still plenty of clear blue visible. Turneresque!

Quick Update

Just want to let everyone know that we're all moved into the new flat. Well, there's the small matter of putting all our stuff into some sort of ordered arrangement other than The Random Pile, but at least Buster is no longer foaming at the mouth and cornering our friends.


In fact, I think he's kind of into the place.Thanks a million kazillion to Krista, Keith, Meg, Johanna, Charles, and Michi for all your help. I'll tell you a crazy story tonight about the people moving into our old apartment.

- Andrew

Just More Facts

I still don't really have time to be doing this, but this incommunicado phase is weighing heavily on me. I'll keep it brief with a partial list of what's been going on over the past, oh, month or so.

1. ICE Awards: awards for advertising. Yes, they really do give them. I went on the company's dime and ended up wishing I hadn't because the whole affair was sickeningly self-congratulatory. No one seemed to have an inkling that we were anything other than an auditorium full of people who do wonderful things for the planet and its denizens. Even the irony of the visible discomfort felt throughout the room whenever we were forced to watch sponsorship reels was lost on them. I walked home feeling like a self-loathing Satanist.

2. Softball: there were two rained-out weekends in there, bookended by games wherein our team was beaten soundly by another team of infuriatingly friendly people. In the first one, i.e. the lefthand bookend, I was hit very hard in the shin by a line drive. Luckily, the physical exertion of my loud swearing was not enough to prevent me from reaching down to pick up the still spinning ball and throw it to first, thereby getting the perpetrator out. The messy wound on my leg healed just in time for the righthand bookend this last weekend.
[Editor's note: I just realized this is the third time I've told you this story. Twice would be unforgivable, but I think three times is leaning back towards funny, in a bemusing kind of way. Besides which, I believe this is my best version so far, so it's staying on.]

3. Hockey: ultimately disappointing, but penultimately thrilling. I was pretty impressed with those Oilers, and especially with that young turk of a backup goalie, Maarkinen. They got real grit, those guys. Now that it's over, I can finally stop drinking beer during the week. Sometimes the price of being Canadian is almost too much.

4. Painting: still going, bit by bit. And, relatedly,

5. Moving: same status as above. The big finish comes on Sunday, when we rent a cube van for the big stuff and Buster.

6. Nosferatu the Vampyre: a remake of the first, silent Dracula movie, which was directed by F. W. Murnau. This one is by Werner Herzog and is not silent, but retains the super creepy atmosphere of the original. It also fits in perfectly with a lot of Herzog's other films, of which I'm a big fan, in that a) it moves very slowly and mystically, the actors sometimes seeming hypnotized, and b) Klaus Kinski takes on the title role. He's a scary looking dude any time, but you should see him doing the rat-and-plague-obsessed filmmaker's vision of the character. Yoiks! I'd bought this movie secondhand awhile back, but we didn't watch it until we were desperate for something to do besides paint one evening. Well worth the price and the wait.

7. Yoga: the spring session is over and the summer one doesn't start for another three weeks. I'm a little worried we might actually go insane from not standing on one foot and staring into space regularly. I realize this is an unorthodox version of what constitutes sanity. In the land of the blind...

8. Ali's birthday: was real nice. We went out for dinner and drinks with some friends. It WAS on the 7th. Thanks to everyone for cards, calls, and camaraderie. I got her a camera lens which I thought was pretty nice but which turned out to be just this side of crappy. Man, those things are expensive. So it's gone back, to be replaced by a better one soon.

And that's actually more than I have time for right now. I'm sorry for this blog abuse through negligence. Things should even out, keel-wise, fairly soon and then I'll be able to type your ear off much more regularly.

- Andrew

No Bloggy-Bloggy

Due to busy schedules which would be considered insane in some parts of the world, there's been precious little time for bloggage these days. Sorry. Whaddayagonnado?

We've been painting and moving into our new place. It's a lot of work and is taking a frightening amount of time. It'll be worth it though — the place is looking great. I mowed our new back lawn the other day, too. Now I just need to buy a rake so I can clear away what was knee-high grass and is now piles of mulch. I'm going yuppie and I'm going all the way!

Work is also nutso freak-out these days, what with a huge new account and one of the designers on vacation for two weeks, only to come back and get sick for another two weeks. I'm starting to lose it a little bit. Yoga helps a lot, but we had our last class until mid-July last night.



That Serena Maneesh album I was telling you about back in January finally came out domestically, so I bought it and got excited about them all over again. Here's another track, to hopefully make up for my cyber-silence.

- Andrew

Happy Birthday, Ali!

See you tonight for dinner & drinks, cutie!



- The Honky-Tonk Donkey

Our New Igloo

We took a bucket of games and videos over to our awesome new place today, along with some assorted knick-knacks. All our books are now moved in. It's kind of fun doing one little trip at a time, because you can unpack at the other end immediately. As requested, here are some photos of the apartment. I'll give you a guided tour.


This is the hallway that the front door leads into, looking back at the door. I think we're going to paint it.



The first room off the hallway, to the left, is this large front room with a non-working fireplace. We're going to use it as the den. That wall colour has to go.



The second room off the hall, accessible also from the first room as you can see, is the living room. There's all our books!



The living room leads into the kitchen, and also to a small set of stairs which go up to the bedroom, the only room on a second level. More painting that definitely has to be done.



The kitchen's pretty nice, with a big fridge, gas cooking stove, and wood stove which also will give some extra heat to the bedroom in the winter. Then, beyond the kitchen, we have the pièce de résistance...



This is a little sunroom that looks out onto our beautiful backyard, complete with trees and gardens. The big window opens right up and hangs from a hook on the ceiling. Obviously, we will paint over this hideous purple. We'll also have to learn how to do some gardening so we don't wreck our little Eden back there. That's Ralph, by the way, Krista and Keith's cat. Buster hasn't seen the place yet.

I'm not sure why, but the place looks smaller in almost all the photos than it feels. We were using Keith's digital camera and you seem to have to stand farther away with that than with our camera, so maybe that had something to do with it.

Now we're going to try to pick out some paint colours online. I don't know how much I trust that concept, but I guess there will be paint chips to double check in the store. Alison's going to try to pick up the paint tomorrow so we can get this show on the road.

- Andrew

Trivial Pursuits

I made one of my patented mix CD's yesterday. This one is called "Baroque Pop" and it's pretty great if I do say so m'self. Got some Kinks, some Zombies, and some Beach Boys on there, as well as some more contemporary stuff like Belle & Sebastian, Dungen, and the Shins. I even snuck a little Neuseiland on there. It's a very pleasant mix.

I've been using my Spirograph set too, as you can see. It's just as much fun as I remember it, but unfortunately it didn't come with any pens. I only have black ones, so the house is full of black geometric squiggles. "You can have any colour Spirograph design you want, as long as it's black," to paraphrase Henry Ford. I'll have to pick up some ballpoint pens at the dollar store.

We're the official residents of our new apartment now. The other guys moved everything out yesterday and now we start the long process of crap transference. The new backyard is looking beautiful — flowers and blooming trees everywhere. I'm a little concerned that we're going to ruin it, not knowing anything about gardening. But I'm excited to learn. It's such a nice view out the large sunroom window.

Did I tell you that I got hit really hard in the shin with a softball last Sunday? I think I did. I got to see just how gory and ugly it looks last night when I played some tennis with Meg and therefore wore a pair of shorts. Ugh. Actually, we didn't really play tennis, as such. The courts were all in use, so we found a place to hit balls against a wall, which is probably what we need more anyway. It took a really long time to find a place, though. It seems like they build schools these days in weird convoluted shapes, probably to prevent exactly what we were trying to do. So by the time we started it was already quite dark, but we got in a good forty minutes or so anyway.

I'm quite proud of this one. I moved the ring around one of the wheels as I drew it. I want to get into more like this, using the oblong pieces, but the pins we have are too wide to fit in the holes. Another dollar store purchase, I guess. I'd kind of forgotten how this was my favourite toy as a kid. As Charles always says, in imitation of his friend Lonny, "It's a clyaassic, myaan!"

- Andrew

What's That Crazy Sound?

I have a new favourite song. I don't know who does it, but I think it's called No, No, No, No, Don't Funk With My Heart. It goes, "No no no nooooo! Don't funk with my heeaaaaart!" You can basically find me singing it 24 hours a day. They play it all the time at the gym, nice and loud so we can still hear it in the yoga studio, even with the door closed.

We had the best yoga class ever tonight (not at the gym) and then I made the best hummus ever, which we ate while watching a documentary about Lou Reed. He is a wild man.

Speaking of which, The Naked Ape is so far very compelling.

- Andrew