Great day yesterday. For starters, my gruelling divorce is finally done and signed, woo woo! Now hopefully most of the legal nightmare and unpleasantness is over and I can be left with lots of good memories and a wonderful daughter.
In the evening, after a “Welcome Back” BBQ at Nefarious’s school, I got my birthday present from Saira, who took me to a concert. The opening act was the poorly named but highly recommended Flowers of Hell, a nine or ten-piece band (cello, saw, double bass, trumpet, baritone sax, etc.) that had an epic and vocal-free Godspeed-meets-Spiritualized sound and was without doubt the highlight of the night for me. The first video below is them — I have no idea how an opening band this big supports themselves on tour, although the Kool Haus was packed beyond capacity. The middle act, Gemma Hayes (who I briefly and excitedly thought was Jenna Haze) was a really terrible girl-folk act, and it seemed like everyone around us agreed that it was a completely nonsensical decision to have her on the bill (a demeaning “who’s girlfriend is she” sort of response)…
The headlining act was one of my school-era favorites, My Bloody Valentine, resurrected after disappearing in the early 90s (their first tour in sixteen years I think). Yes, I got a “Glider” shirt. Thankfully they handed out earplugs at the door, because this was literally the loudest concert I’ve ever been at (to say nothing of the blinding and disorienting lightshow)… Even with earplugs in it was skullshakingly loud — I can’t imagine the damage that was done to the folks who chose pigheadedly to not wear them!
I also recordeded Survivor, perhaps my favorite TV show, which I am about to enjoy now and thankfully no one has emailed me a spoiler… I also ordered a new hydraulic pump for my car’s canopy, and beat a couple top-level Rock Band tracks so really, an all-in-all full day. And I look forward to this evening’s Presidential Debate debacle — seriously, what a bizarre election cycle this has been. Weird stuff.
Nefarious and I got a membership at the gym across the street — less than $0.50 a day! — so we’re able to swim again (the outdoor pool here is closed for the winter), but after a discussion this morning about how a show she likes is made, we’re going to try making a stop motion movie with her dolls as today’s after school project. I’ll post it if it turns out!
Yesterday we were up at Yorkdale at supper time so we decided to eat up there and ended up at “Rainforest Cafe”… Both Caitlin and I can’t stand the place, but Nefarious loves it and is a total sucker for the faux thunder storms and animatronics. Even though we ate the least expensive items on the menu, the bill for the three of us was still a ridiculous, and in my opinion, staggering, $60.
Tonight I cooked as usual and we ate a great meal of tuna steaks in a garlic teriyaki sauce with rice and fresh veggies — a million times better than last night’s meal, and with a total cost under $5 a person. On the subject of tuna, I read that fancy-pants restaurant “Nobu” got hassled by Greenpeace for selling endangered bluefin tuna. Nobu’s response? They just labeled it “endangered” on their menu, I guess in order to increase the cache of the dish for wealthy douchebags.
Earlier this week Cory from BoingBoing blogged about two classics of parenting books — How Children Learn and How Children Fail, both books that I also wholeheartedly agree with and recommend. The discussion in the comments on his posts are worth reading as well if you’re interested in the subject — especially the recommendation to read John Taylor Gatto‘s book on education, which you can check out for free on that link for free (I’ve recommended it in the past if that sounds familiar).
Other than that, I got tattooed last Friday, but I’ll wait for it to heal so I can post it looking proper.
We got memberships at the gym across the street today, so now Nefarious and I have an indoor pool that we can use for the winter. It doesn’t have a deep end unfortunately, but I suspect that means it will be warm… Warmer than winter swimming, which starts in a couple weeks, and this year we’ve met some of the other folks who winter swim in Toronto so there will be more of us.
This is my best score ever in Wii bowling. It is her worst game ever, but her best “make the saddest face you can” ever*. I got pro status from this game which gave me a fancy ball, but then I was soundly beaten on the next game, and lost my status, upon which I made that face.
* so no one worries — this was completely hammed up and a big joke for the picture!
Funnest part of our day? Going to the coin-op car wash and having ultra-squirt gun wars with the spray guns. It’s more show than a splash though, because they just turn into mist at a range of more than five feet — so it’s very dramatic and a lot of fun, but won’t really get you soaked.
Yesterday Nefarious and Caitlin had a long day, and a very long car ride to achieve it… They went to a friend’s wedding reception, and in driving them downtown first the highway was closed for construction, and then after inching our way across town, we were three blocks away and thirty minutes late, having discovered that University Avenue was completely shut down for the filming of a movie. Caitlin and Nefarious hopped out and tried to walk the rest of the way as a helicopter strafed the street and disinterested police tried to block them from crossing under the street via the subway station…
I left the Wii on so Nefarious could play bowling when she got up… On her most recent game she destroyed me with a whopping score of 198. Ack! Way out of my league, although neither she nor Caitlin can challenge me on guitar (for now).
After breakfast we went out to Riverdale Farm since we haven’t been there in about a year I think, but the Cemetery is on the way there so when Nefarious saw that she insisted we all stop and walk through it (just like last time) which was a really nice diversion. She has a real fascination with cemeteries and the zillion stories you can tell from them — how long ago the person died, who they’re buried with, what it says, how old they were when they died, the odds of them being a zombie.
The Farm was fun too, although at the end of it Nefarious and some kids she befriended hunted runaway chickens a little to vigorously (although it was quite amusing watching them stalk them like cats) and everyone got a little parental scolding for pulling out a feather. After that, enough log-rolls down the hill at the park that I feel very sick to my stomach. Urgh.
Ari’s other new fascination is taking the stairs rather than the elevators. A very tiring fascination (about a 120 foot climb I figure), although I suppose that I need to lose more than a little weight so I guess it’s for the best! But not fun after so many log rolls.
