Checkered Lounge Pants

I struck me, while walking from the flat I rent, in Ville Ste. Laurent to the commuter train, earlier this week, that Montreal is the most eclectic major city I have ever seen in North America. I have an option of commuting to my appointments by train or subway. That, in itself, can be a virtual excursion in the mosaic of two completely different profiles of the unique aggregate that makes up the citizenry of Montreal. "What", I ask my francophone colleagues, "is the most significant factor that seems to make Montreal so special from other cities?" The responses I ge t are rarely the same. The churches, the language, the food, the women, the housing, the depanneurs, the Habs, are some of the suggestions trying to remedy my curiousity. I was getting some supplies for the flat at the neighbourhood grocery when, I realized, I was shopping in a predominantly Greek store and I had all sorts of selections to choose from that could transplant my palate from the neighbourh...

Just another day in paradise..............the weather is trying hard to let spring jitterbug into its step and the scene outside my window tells me we should be getting the Hawg ready to roll. I have some yard work to finish from last fall and I was stalling to see if Val would jump on it, but that has gotten old, soooooo the rake and yard bags will be getting rousted from the shed this weekend. My folks are watching over the bike and the itch is starting to bite. I had to leave the sled back home after the Strugis run, last year, cuz I ran out of time to get back to Windsor. I still dont have a proper garage to park it, but the drive from the beach to town is to nice to do in a cage all summer. I am already looking forward to a summer run even though I have no idea where, yet. Things seem to be setteled down with my boyz. Cam has to move and he has found a place and Kevin is back in Brandon and I talked with him last night. Val and I grabbed some clothes for the kids and she is maili...

Another week, another whopper.....It seems my days of grandparenting have met a twain. My phone rang last week and my grandchilds mother was ringing up asking for some help to buy some supplies for the chilldren. Where's my son, was my first reaction..."Gone" she cried. "Krikee", I mused. I rushed into town and sent some help. Flash forward a week and I have tracked the lad down. He has returned to his birthplace some 120 miles from the grandkids and his mate. It has a whole different feeling now, when I look at the pictures of the kids I have on the mantle over the fireplace. Its funny how life lets you feel what your parents went through. I hope this week's menu is a cheeseburger rather than a whopper.

I hope this finds all is well with you. I was just musing over the last few developments in the newz that have struck me as rather fetchingly unusual. Newly elected politicians acting like they are part of a sports team trade and the sports icon, nay, sports legacy having a most unusual asscoiation with gambling, and, truancy charges from the school of socialism. Granted the newz is, for the most part, peppered with hooks and grablines, these things seem beyond the realm of reason or common sense. Even the recent revelations of the lost billions of US dollars being grafted by US contractors in Iraq, fall into the unsurprising events category after the prophecies of war watchers and their predictions of future indescrepencies with the like of Haliburton and other "highly placed" contractors, but Mrs. Gretsky teetering the Gretsky legacy......and Socialist guru, Buzz Hargrove being unceremoniously suspended from NDP sanctums.... It must be something they are drinking.

Greetings to my blog...... I have been musing about a blogsite for sometime now, but never really committed to it until today. I was not really sure if I wanted to spend the time on the site when I already seem trialed by the website I have to post for the Local Union I preside upon. When did that become work, eh? The Labour movement and social justice are my passion, but some aspects are never more than a vocation. I was wrestling with a name and I wanted something serene yet inspirational, virtuous yet exotic, unique yet common, and I had been leading towards something reflective of my recent relocation to the Lake Erie shores but here again, I was wrestling with my new found love of the Erie shoreline and my loyalty of my long lost white sands of Grand Beach (in Manitoba). It was at this point I called my beloved Val at home and in passing asked "What are you wearing?" and she answered, "Checkered lounge pants". Hence my blogsite was birthed. I live with my belov...