...your faith in your good friend Jeremy is yours. BOO YEAH. LOOK WHO'S QUOTING STAR WARS LIKE A MASTER JEDI NOW? Come pretty far in a month, didn't I? :D
Anyway, I was all sure that this was going to be this great back to business kind of week, forgetting two important things: 1) Canada Day, and 2) that it's summer. Allow me to elaborate!
Almost all of you who have heard of my fair country know and joke about how it's nothing but freezing cold, with snow and Eskimos and we all live in igloos. This is mercilessly untrue. In the summer, Canada is very very hot and often humid and just really really catches you off guard with it. We`re having weather in the 30s, which is like... I'll ask, just a minute. Right, so, 30 degrees Celsius is like 86 Farenheit. That is a bad and unfriendly number.
Of course Canada Day sidelined me, and isn't it just like me to forget a little thing like a national holiday coming up? So yes, there were no movies or TV that day. There was an entertaining scuffle we're calling the War of the Staircase, wherein we tried to get this poor shattered fella in a chair down several flights of stairs. It was a very bad idea and we're all very sorry about it, but hey, I got a house party out of it and it turns out we had a pretty good view of the fireworks. All in all, it was a pretty fun day.
Roomie's apartment hunting, which has been eating chunks of his time and driving him nuts. Right now we live in what's called a walk-up, which is this charming landlord way of saying NOT SO FAST, JEREMY. You guessed what it means already, right? There is no elevator. So now we're looking for a place with an elevator, because I can really only tax my friends' upper body strength so far. Everybody's been really helpful, but the fact is I'm like this big old anchor right now and it's not a good thing. I like being mobile, and instead I've got one arm to pilot a wheelchair all of nowhere at all unless I want to surf a staircase with my face.
But let's get back to the heat because it is absolutely punishing. We've got the windows open and fans blowing and I'm drinking lots of cold water but it's still just miserable. Codeine does not dull my awareness of the temperature, which at its kindest is lulling me down for some sleeeeeep and at worst is just making the itches nightmarish. Remember, there's really nothing I can do about my legs right now. If they want to be hot they are going to be hot indeed. When we had the party, someone brought over this big party-size bag of crushed ice and I just picked it up and hugged it. Ohhh it was nice.
So yeah, there's been some hurdles this week, which put be behind-er than I expected. Lacy's family was in town, Roomie was sidelined with apartment hunting, I was melting, and there was a holiday. Now I hear they're saying some hurricane tropical nonsense is bearing toward us for tomorrow and Sunday. If it hits us, we'll see about if I have enough power to watch stuff. If it doesn't, everything should be cool. If it's here tomorrow that means it's probably in like upper USA right now... soooo I hope it didn't ruin too many people's holiday down there.
But yes! Let me tell you about The Fireworks Jeremy Should Have Missed! The city sets off fireworks from this barge in the harbour, and the waterfront's I guess really crowded every year but a lot of people miss the fireworks because funky-shaped waterfront plus tall buildings plus they don't really know where to put the barge so Dartmouth can see too. Now we live north of the waterfront, so imagine our surprise when the barge pulls up in line with our apartment window! There's a tower that would have completely blocked our view of the whole harbour and skyline, but the barge was beyond it, right in line with us. And this year, I don't know what was up, but they weren't shooting those fireworks off very high at all. Just high enough to be at eyeline for some poor dumb fella in a chair, watching from his apartment windows. Folks, that was really really not likely to all come together and yet it did. It wasn't the biggest fireworks show, but ohhh what I love in life is some fireworks. They always make me feel like a little kid in the best way. There was this one they kept shooting off, it would burst and spread, and then the little sparks would kind of dance in midair and then they would crackle outward and fade... and then SNAP BACK TO LIFE AGAIN! I'm sure my smile was the biggest, dumbest, goofiest thing around at that. Fantastic.
Now even though I didn't get to much this week, what I did get was very feel-good and folks, I do feel good. Despite being in a roasting oven. I feel very very good. I laughed at Groundhog Day, I liked The Carbonite Maneuver, I was just riveted by The Balance of Terror, and Rocky was such a positive film overall with this really endearing lead - I'm no boxer, of course, but I sort of empathized with the guy. He's where I'm at and has a chance for a bit of positive in his life. Now of course his is much bigger, but apples and oranges, right? So that was good, I liked that.
Anyway, now that I'm in a bit more of a spot to deal with the heat (new fan, you are my best of all best friends), things should uptick. Unless I'm forgetting some secret holiday next week. :D
To those who still read me when I come here with something to say, I want to just throw out a big big thank you. Leave some comments, please, I love reading them. I'm getting so many nice emails from people who are in my situation, who have been in my situation, who know someone in my situation, and every time I read one it's just this massive boost to my day. Thank you all so much. :D
"Leave some comments, please, I love reading them."
ReplyDeleteOK, here's a comment for you to read. It's probably entertaining on account of being so awesome and humble.
Also do not sleep in front of a fan, it will pwn you.
-Anonyman
86? Positively balmy where I live, it's been up around a hundred a few days this week. Nicer now, of course, but that could just be because it rained all night.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteI wish it was 86. Right now is 90 and with the humidity it feels like 100.
ReplyDeleteKeep the good work.
As soon as I read 86 I thought "He's not going to impress a lot of Americans with that number." Yep.
ReplyDeleteOf course, most places that regularly get above 90 or so probably have air conditioning in personal homes, so don't pay too much attention to the gloating :p
What, seriously? Okay, not going to your country in summer then. Yikes.
ReplyDeleteI'm used to like, 20. 20 is nice. 20 is comfy. 20 is like 72 or something there. Real easy living temperature. I like 10, too. 10 is grand. 10 would be like 50. Here's another one I'm a big fan of: 0. 0 degrees Celsius. Man that's some tasty weather. That's some light dress shirt, get out of the house, have a nice walk sort of weather. 30? 30 is scary. And I tell you what, we've got the ocean right here and it just puts out the humidity like you wouldn't believe. Last summer we had one that was 38, so 100 for you guys, and it felt like 45 according to the whoever decides that sort of crap, which is 113 degrees and that's just an unfriendly piece of work no matter how you look at it.
The cold, that's a Jeremy thing. The hot? I don't have air conditioning. If it goes above your 90 up here, I've got a fan. A few fans, if my email is to be believed, but I'd trade in a handful of you for some sweet sweet air conditioning.
I'm going to tell a quick story here actually because it's funny. My grandfather has this old car, and my grandmother has a car and for a long time she had an old car too. Now the two of them didn't put any stock in air conditioning; you were gonna wilt and die in a summer car with the summer car feel that's like this screen of pure poison heat and you were gonna suffer it and that was that. Roll the windows down.
DeleteOne day my grandmother, this wonderful old lady, is taking me down from Sydney to Antigonish and then to Halifax, to check out some schools, and it's this blazing summery type day. Five hours on the road, and five more back the next day. Wouldn't you know, car's got some problem on the road and we need to get a spare. Now we've got people down Antigonish way, and they loan us a car to get to Halifax, and it's got the air conditioning. Two hours down, plus however bloody long at the causeway while a boat did its whatever, and all that grilling in the sun, sitting on these beaded things, and then suddenly we're in air conditioning.
Long story short, we get back to Cape Breton and she goes inside the house and she says to Grandpa "Rod, we are now air conditioning people." Just like that, leaving him scratching his head like "What is she on about?" Now he';s a lovely gentleman and stubborn as a mule and he insists on driving that old Mazda with the windows down, but my grandmother's new car... boy that's a slick ride, and she made damn sure to tell them she wanted the air conditioning.
For reference, Jeremy, my family flees Vermont in the summer and goes to our family place south of Inverness on Cape Breton Island, to escape the heat. (Or at least we did throughout my childhood; now I live in Minnesota and have a baby and a job and can't make the trip frowny face.)
ReplyDeleteGiven your love of fireworks, I think we need to bump The Lord of the Rings further up the list, both the book (which is maybe my favorite book of all time) and the quite excellent trilogy of movies. The book especially is very relevant to geek culture. And they do feature fireworks.
I've actually never seen Rocky, and only absorbed its plot through osmosis from other sources.
Just wanted to let you know that you've got a subscriber here. This blog is on my daily "check if there's an update" list.
ReplyDeleteHey, didn't realize you were a fellow Canuck! Congratulations! I guess!
ReplyDeleteI'm absolutely loving this blog. There's a rush you get when you show a friend a movie - you get to piggyback on their experience and feel once more what it was like to see that movie for the first time. This blog is like a concentrated dose of that rush. Scrolling through The Big List, I can't help but get excited to read what you'll think of so many of these films. I hope you enjoy them!
ReplyDeleteBTW, would you like the list updated with the release years for all the films? I could throw it together pretty quickly and e-mail it to ya'll.
Down in Boston, I have been melting just schlepping my kids around in my 10-year-old car that hates to run the air conditioning when in low gear… which is most of the time during rush hour. I cannot even imagine how it would have been with a cast on even my arm (as I experienced during winter one year), let alone on both legs. Hurray for you managing without going completely insane, and enjoying fireworks to boot!
ReplyDelete(Regarding C/F conversion, one of the day camp counselors was joking with the kids and saying "nonsense, it feels like 50 degrees out here!" and I looked at him and said "Yes, in Celsius!")
Jeremy: Not sure if you've seen the Alfred Hitchcock classic "Rear Window," but it may resonate with your right now. It should be a recommended movie in any case. May you have a good recovery.
ReplyDeleteIf outside is hotter than inside, keeping windows open is not a good idea.
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