Last night I watched a friend of mine fulfill a dream of his and it was amazing. When he first mentioned that he’d always wanted to get up on a stage and do a stand-up routine, I thought “Ah. One of those ‘things to do before you die but never get around to it’ things.” When he said he was actually going to do it and I got my invitation, my first thought was, “How fucking cool.”

So last night, to celebrate turning 30 (and damnit, you SHOULD celebrate turning 30 instead of moaning about it 🙂 Mike got up on stage at the Grand Theater and did a 45 minute comedy routine. And he was good. Even though his kidlet nearly stole the show when, as he began a little anecdote about her, she piped up letting the audience know, “He’s talking about me!” It was freaking adorable.

Anyway, Mike rocked the house with his jokes, anecdotes, and impressions. But all day yesterday I kept thinking about him and wondering if he was nervous. This event was something he’d wanted to do for a long time, and he’d prepared for it, and must have thought constantly about what to talk about, how to pull it off, not to mention the logistics of finding a venue and all that stuff.

And then, after all that anticipating, all that planning, writing, practicing, thinking up jokes, editing – to have the Big Day dawn, I think I would have been a raw bundle of nerves, ready to vomit profusely at the slightest touch. Granted, none of my Things to Do Before You Die involves voluntarily placing myself in a position where I’d be speaking publicly but still, I don’t know how I’d handle it. But my admiration for Mike was certainly cranked up a few notches when he finished his show. It was a great show Mike, but the cooler thing to me is that you accomplished one of those Things to Do Before You Die. Well done dude.

So it’s 12:30-ish in the morning and the kid and I are still up having a sort of Angel-a-thon when we hear the rain coming down pretty hard. We both dig on going out in it for no other reason than it’s silly and a little whimsical.

Well our whimsy bit us on the ass tonight. We went out to get a little wet, even brought Spooky out though she pretty much stuck to the dry areas, and when it was time to go back inside, I reached for the doorknob, turned it, and realized it was locked.

Yes, we locked ourselves out of the house, in the rain, in the middle of the night. With the cat. Barefoot. In our pajamas.

At first, it was kind of funny. The lock on our door is pretty pathetic actually and I’ve often thought of asking the landlord to reinforce it somehow. I figured it would be fairly easy to just sort of jimmy it until it popped. Thieves make it look so easy. It doesn’t jimmy. It doesn’t freakin’ budge.

My pride is telling me to just find something wiry on the ground and work it til it pops open. Logic is telling me to just cave and humbly ask our neighbours (the ons who shag all the time on the other side of my bedroom wall) for a coat hangar or possibly a phone. I don’t want to call the landlord. It’s the middle of the night and he’s a cranky fella at the best of times. I can’t afford a locksmith. REALLY don’t want to call my grampa who has a copy of our key. The thought of waking up an 82 year old to drive across town in the rain just to let us in is extremely unappealing.

So the kid went scavenging around the building for something – anything – that could b used to pop the lock. No joy though. Time is passing, we’re both cold and wet and getting a little frantic. So we decide to bite the bullet and ask the neighbours after all. They very graciously allowed Shan to try and call the landlord. And he was very cranky. And in Wisconsin.

So she came back out and we ineffectually twisted the doorknob until our hands were sore. Finally our options were to either call grampa or wait on the patio until morning.

We called grampa. I worried and fretted about our gran being pissed off about it all (grampa wouldn’t be mad, I knew. He’s so cool. But grammy is a different story.) But he showed up, suspenders on over his pajama shirt and tired eyes, but he was smiling and laughing at us, told us not to worry and let us inside. Spooky was most grateful having spent most of her time outside freaking out and hissing if we got to close to her.

Anyway, I feel like a right eejit. But at least my toes are warming up 🙂

So I’m winding up a call to my gran last night:

Grammy: Ask Shan to tell you about Grampa and the letter opener.
Me: Ok will do.

…

Me: Hey kiddo. Grammy told me to ask you about the letter opener.
Shan: *giggle*
Me: …*waits for giggle fit to pass*
Shan: So, you know how the G’s letter opener has been missing for quite a while now?
Me: No, but let’s assume I do.
Shan: Ok, well you know how the letter opener resembles a butter knife?
Me: … *falls off the chair laughing*

Ahhhhh. Now we know how it ends 🙂 I used to have a slight fear that something catastrophic would happen before I had a chance to find out how the Harry Potter books end. Now I can breathe a sigh of relief 🙂

Anyway, we did the midnight release of the Deathly Hallows. My newspaper was there shooting vid of the crowd and happened to catch Miss Shannon being goofy. So this morning when I was in the studio doing Newslink, I pulled up the B-roll and cut Shannon’s little bit out and stuck it on Youtube for the fam etc 🙂

So a lot has gone on since my last post on the day of Gary and Charlotte’s wedding 🙂 We’re back home now and we’re back into the daily life that is summertime in GI. Shannon has turned 16 *sniffle* and on that day she breezed through her drivers exam and has now joined the ranks of driving elite. Yesterday she made her first foray out and about in my car with a friend. A Gulp moment for me, that’s for sure. But she’s a good driver and I trust her. Unlike me who was a thoughtless terror at 16, having spent more time grounded from driving than actually getting to drive.

She also had a fun time renting out the Grand Theatre for three hours so she and her friends could play video games on the big screen. That was pretty cool actually. Try F-Zero on a movie screen while perched on the stage beneath the screen. It was vomit-inducing 🙂

Today we spent some time pillaging the annual Huge Book Sale the Hastings library puts on every year. Thousands of books, dead cheap. Today, the last day of the sale, it’s pretty much “All the books you can fit in a bag for a dollar.”

So here’s what we walked away with for the princely sum of $2.18:

A History of Europe from the Reformation to Present Day (Present day being 1925. It’s an old book.)
A History of Russia
The High Renaissance (Not sure if it’s fiction or non, we were just grabbing by the end of it)
Mother India (Shannon’s choice)
Russian Diary
A travel book on India
2005 ACT prep book (Shannon’s choice. My good little girl 🙂 She’ll be taking them this year.
Arachnophobia (neither is sure how that got in the bag)
7 hardback Victoria Holt novels. I loved them back in the day.
World According to Garp
A lovely copy of DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterly’s Lover
2 VC Andrews paperbacks. What? Shutup.
Nicholas and Alexandra (The Russian Tzar and his wife) Not quite sure if this is fictional fluff or not, but I love reading about Rasputin and the Tzar.
A new copy of Michener’s ‘Centennial’ because my copy fell apart.
Michener’s “The Covenant”
Woodward and Bernstein’s All the President’s Men
Paperback of Thorn Birds. I have it in hrdback but I figured, what the hell.

Not a bad bloody deal eh? Most of these are hardbacks. TWO DOLLARS for all of these! I’m very chuffed. And now I have enough stuff to read to keep me busy until next year’s sale 🙂

Will blog later, for now here are piccies 🙂

And a little video. No sound, sorry 🙂 My camera sucks.

We’re back in Great Falls today and Charlotte’s house was a gathering point for a multitude of people coming for the backyard wedding tomorrow. Charlotte has a huge family and so several of her brothers and sisters and assorted spouses met up here and at around 6:30pm we all headed for the stadium to watch the Great Falls White Sox take on the Billings Mustangs in the first of a three-game series.

Gary had reserved the stadium’s new MVP section for us right behind the visiting team’s dugout so we got to heckle at close range. I dug watching the game from that area. We got a cool free baseball cap and program and some food and drinks and had a great view of the game and accompanying thunderstorm.

The game went on for around 15 innings I believe. We gave up and left after the 14th though because everyone was pretty knackered and tomorrow’s a big day 🙂 But the Sox prevailed and all in all a good time was had.

Here’s a few more shots of the fam watching the game:

From right to left: Swi (Gary’s best friend), Tom, Jo, Gary and Swi’s wife Ann (turned away taking a pic of her own)

Gary and Swi watch the game intently 🙂

Shannon poses in the cool hat.

The Bride and Groom 🙂 I’m not sure who the other peeps are as of right now but I think they’re related to Charlotte.