What I Really Want To Do Is Direct

This post will be of a video I shot today. I just got a lovely Panasonic GS80 Mini DV Camcorder and I thought that 'Frodo', my 10-year old english bull terrier would be the perfect first subject.

I had to put it on YouTube since the blogger.com software keeps failing to upload the video. -sigh- (It looks WAY better in it's original full resolution)



Please enjoy the video and let me know what you think. Thanks!

Previous Post: At Least I Didn't Burn the Place Down

At Least I Didn't Burn the Place Down

So I survived my first day as Day Manager of Gino's Pizza. The young lady I wrote about earlier now has a healthy new baby boy named Aidan. The other young lady who worked for us also now has a beautiful baby girl named Madeleine. So one of the reasons I got to be Day Manager is because we lost two employees to pregnancy. Yay Babies!

The other reason is because the owner wants to semi-retire. Yay semi-retirement!

As I write this my feet are throbbing. (My old position as driver involved a tremendous amount of sitting.) This new position requires that I be constantly on my feet pretty much the whole day. My poor feet asked my why I am doing this to them and I had to remind them that now, a single weeks' wages will pay off my entire MasterCard balance at once. Yay more pay!

It's going pretty well. I haven't burned the place down, yet. My mistakes have been recoverable. I'm learning all the duties (many of which can't be explained, every day at a pizza shop has very different needs). Outgoing school orders, incoming food shipments, drink shipments, cheques to be written, customers to be served, pizza to be made, toppings to be prepared, dough to be prepared... the list is endless.

Once I'm up to speed the owner will be heading off to Poland for several months, and I'll be alone during the first two-thirds of my shift each day. That will be sweet. It's lot's of work, but with no one around to mess things up on me or give me a hard time, the stress level is very low.

Anyway I'll keep you all posted and I'll try to get back to 'the funny' as soon as possible.

Right now my feet have stolen my sense of humour.

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Previous Story: Privacy? What's That?
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Privacy? What's That?

During the same trip where my cousins and I almost had a close encounter with a bear, a few other things happened that are worth telling. Bear with me. (Terrible, I know.)

FYI: My grandparents regularly called all the small children in our family "édes" (pronounced 'ay-desh'). It means "sweet" in Hungarian. You need to know this. There will be a quiz later.

My grandparents lived in an old farmhouse made of granite. What can I say? It was Ontario and the builders used the materials they had on hand. For the record a stone house is really cool and comfortable in the summer but in the winter, without a woodstove, you can forget about having running water in your pipes. The foundation and basement were stone too. In fact, the basement, with it's cold dark stone, cobwebs, bad lighting and sump pump hole was pretty much a horror filmmaker's dream. I'd love to go back there with a camera and make one of those low-budget, creepy "There's Something in the Basement" summer slasher flicks.

But that's not the best part. The only way to get to the basement was through the bathroom.

I'll give you a moment to wrap your head around that concept.

To get to the stairs leading to the basement, you had to go through the bathroom and walk past the sink and toilet. It was like having an awesome secret passage in the bathroom. Only it wasn't a secret and it was actually incredibly inconvenient.

It wouldn't have been so bad if my grandparents weren't European peasants with no concept of privacy. I'm not sure there even is a word in Hungarian for 'private'. If there is, no one in my family ever used it. Why would you want to be alone? Are you doing something you're not supposed to? Then why not do it with family around? Why be hiding? So you're naked in the tub? We changed your diaper when you were a baby, we've seen you naked, it's not that exciting. Privacy? What's that?

So one time, my cousin Leilani went to the bathroom. She's sitting on the can with her panties around her ankles (we know this because she told us, we weren't actually IN the room... ok we were right outside snickering and hooting) minding her own business. James and I were watching from the dining room in fascinated horror as Grandpa shuffled over to the bathroom door, opened it, and marched right in without hesitation. He shuffled towards the stairs while Leilani covered herself with her arms and tried desperately to pretend she wasn't there.

As Grandpa got to the top of the stairs to go down, he turned, looked directly at her and with a friendly wave said, "Hi édes!" and then went downstairs.

After several minutes, Leilani came out of the bathroom. Her eyes were as big as dinner plates and her mouth was turned down in the most pathetic frown a little girl has ever worn. She hung her head.

Of course, we howled at her unmercifully.

After that, she always went out of her way to the upstairs bathroom. She figured Grandpa wouldn't go in there as often, since it only led to the attic.

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Previous Story: What Are the Odds?
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What Are the Odds?

So I was out doing window cleaning for George today. One of the jobs was "Jean's Flower Shop", a lovely easy job. But when I got there they were already open (they'd been open since 7 am... eep!) and there were approximately one billion people looking for a parking spot. Why?

Free roses. By the dozen.

So it was a madhouse. I worked around the people waiting in line for their free flowers the best I could. When the job was done, I was glad to get out of there. Got mom some free Sunflowers though.

So I was trying to get away from the nightmare and ended up going down the side streets to avoid the traffic. I decided to take a random side street to get down to the main street I needed.

Here's where the title of today's post comes in.

What are the odds that a wheelchair accessible school bus would happen to be blocking the one side street I turned down. Or that someone immediately pulled up behind me so I couldn't back out. Or that they were loading the entire Teen Special Olympic Basketball Team onto the school bus. One wheelchair at a time. Slowly and carefully.

Did I mention S L O W L Y ?

So I listened to 14 songs, 113 commercials, and read my owners manual, twice. Then I got out of the car and started a pick up game of Euchre (on the hood of my car) with Jerry, Tim and Tina, fellow travellers also waiting for the school bus to turn off it's lights so we could move. By the time Tim had won all my lunch money, the bus was half loaded.

Seriously. My life is like one of those low budget European art films where a bunch of strangers end up stuck together for some ridiculously impossible reason and end up either killing each other and/or falling in love.

What are the odds?

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Next Story: Privacy? What's That?

Previous Story: That Bear Wants To Talk To You
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That Bear Wants to Talk to You

I'm back from my relaxing vacation.

But not all my vacations have been relaxing. One time I went with my family up to a "cabins on the lake in the woods" vacation. No TV, no phones. No Internet. No cel phone service. Just south of Algonquin Park. Very peaceful.
The environment was peaceful anyway. My family... not so much.

Here's a picture of the area.

So one evening while the sun was setting we went for a walk down the road. Typical Northern Ontario crushed granite gravel road, bordered on both sides by birch and pine trees. We were on our way back and it was getting very dark. I'd gotten ahead of my family and was fooling around with some wood I'd found in the ditch. Suddenly Dad called out to me.

"Hey Teddy, that bear over there wants to talk to you."

I jumped out of that ditch so fast I'm amazed my socks and underwear didn't fly off.

High comedy. Thanks Dad. Scare me to death in the woods. Yeah, yeah you can stop laughing.

So one time I was staying up at my Grandparents house along with my cousins Leilani and James. They lived way out in the country in an area of red granite and pine forests. Much like the above picture.

We went for a walk down the road. I was the oldest so it was my job to protect the little ones. Right. The first thing I did when we got about half a kilometer down the road was start talking about bears. (Hey, I learned it from my dad.) Leilani and James got really nervous, bottom lips quivering, ready to cry. I was so mean.

We stopped and I said, "What's that noise? Over there in the woods! Shhh!" We all froze. Of course, I was making it up. There was nothing there. Or so I thought.

Suddenly there was a real noise in the woods. A kind of chuffing, snorting belch, very deep and growly. All three of us screamed and started running. We blasted across the field towards the house as fast as our little legs could take us, not looking back, shrieking in terror.

Partway across the field we heard a new noise. It was Grandpa, waving the cowbell to get our attention. He was shouting, "Children! Come back!" This struck us as odd behaviour for Grandpa but we were so scared we didn't care.

Then he tells us that he came looking for us because there was a bear in the woods. Some vacationer had been killed and the police had phoned the residents and warned them to keep kinds and animals inside until they tracked the bear down and killed it.

I don't think my cousins ever forgave me.

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Previous Story: What's the Letter that Looks Like a Swiss Chalet?

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What's the Letter that Look Like a Swiss Chalet?

Today's title is my Dad's idea of high comedy. I swear. Go ahead, try to figure it out. I dare you.

He was trying to make a joke about not being able to read. Mom and I were making a lot of noise and joking is his clever way of telling us to shut up without actually saying it. So he says, "I can't read anymore. Somebody help me. What's the letter that looks like a Swiss Chalet?"

We stared at him for a minute and then mom made the shape of an 'A' with her arms. "You mean this one?", she replied sarcastically. "That would be an 'A'." I just shook my head.

Of course, Dad's jokes always have to include a reference to food or a bodily function. Otherwise it's just not funny. I have seen my father laugh out loud at the stupidest movies. Pauly Shore movies. Carrot Top movies. But Wallace and Gromit? Not even a smile. He came down while I watched Curse of the Were-Rabbit and ruined the movie for me by sitting there with a dour expression on his face. When it was over he said, "This is not funny. How is this a good movie?"

Sigh.

This is the same guy who watched me play Civilization IV on my PC for several hours then came over and said, "Why are you watching this crap? And by yourself? Why don't you do something real like come watch TV with us. We're watching Discovery Channel!"

Oh Boy. My Favorite. I guess leading the Mayan civilization from its humble beginnings to world dominance over six thousand years isn't going to teach me anything. I should go watch TV instead. I wouldn't want to miss yet another show about primates flinging their feces at each other and how much we can learn from it. What a tragic loss THAT would be.

Sigh.

Family. Can't live with 'em. Can't kill 'em.

And people wonder why watching model trains on a layout going around and around helps calm my nerves.

I need a vacation.

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Previous Story: When Model Railroading Goes Horribly Wrong
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