Dave Duncan

We enjoyed a fine meal of salmon fillets last night for dinner, which meant that Mojo spent most of the meal drooling all over our dining room floor and putting on his best dinner-time behaviour (no formal begging) in the hopes he’d get a taste.  The little maniac is crazy for seafood.

However, seafood is not crazy about him, and each time we have it, we ask ourselves “Is this going to make him sick?”.  About half the time, it does.

Last night I caved and gave him some of the skin and a bit of meat, which he didn’t even take the time to chew. Slurp, gulp and gone.  He was supremely happy and spent a good hour licking his chops and relicking his bowl.

Fast forward to this morning.  I had to leave the house on some errands and opened our door to a terrible smell.  A great big messy brown puddle was waiting for me in a rarely used corner of the house (thank goodness for that, at least), and a very sheepish little hound greeted me.

I didn’t curse or yell at the poor guy, I mean I’m the master… I should know better.  I dutifully cleaned up and let him outside to rid himself of whatever curse remained in his belly, but that’s it for seafood.  I have learned my lesson, even if he won’t learn his and the drooling will always come hand-in-hand with a salmon dinner.

I was sitting in my backyard yesterday admiring all the full-grown trees that overlook it when I had a very sobering thought that interrupted my peaceful moment.  At some point this fall, all the leaves that look so beautiful while shading my yard will fall and blanket it.  Worse yet, I’m going to have to rake them all up, bag them and put them out at the curb.

We’re not talking about a few trees here and there.  I have a maple in my front yard that is 25 or 30 feet tall with a branch footprint of over 100 feet.  That’s a LOT of leaves.  In the back, we have an ash that is easily 100 feet tall and as bushy as the day is long.  Then, on top of that, we have leafy shrubs that line the perimeter of the property.  That’s not even taking into account all the nearby trees that will have leaves fall and blow into my yard.

Now is the time to prepare.  I’m going to start stocking up on yard waste bags while they’re cheap (the price usually goes up by at least a dollar in September) and start working out my raking muscles.  I’m also considering training the dog to dig in piles of leaves so that they go flying into the bags, and then for him to pick up the bags in his teeth and take them to the curb.  He’s smart, I’m sure he’ll learn.

It’s amazing how some days on the calendar seem much more important than others, and today is just such a day.  On August 17 four years ago, my good friend Kenneth invited me out for a few drinks with some of his friends.  Sadly, most of the crew bailed at the last second, but fortunately (oh so fortunately), one person turned up.

The three of us had a great time hanging out, and when it looked like our new friend and I were getting along a little more than usual, Kenneth bowed out to let me spend the rest of the evening alone with a beautiful woman.

Eight months to that day, I proposed to that woman and six months later we were married.  All that happened because I got an invite to go out on the town on August 17.

First off, a big thanks to Kenneth for putting the wheels in motion (whether on purpose or by accident) and for being a great wingman and knowing when it was it was time to head back to base to refuel.

Also, a HUGE thanks to Danielle for being a great girlfriend, then fiancee and finally an amazing wife.  Four years doesn’t sound like very long in the grand scheme of things, but it’s felt like a lifetime (in the good way, not in the prison sentence way) and I’m looking forward to many years of celebrating August 17 as the day I first set eyes on the most beautiful woman in the world.

I’ve been playing rec league sports here in the city for a few years now and there are a few lessons I’ve learned.  One is that it costs more than I always think it should, but it’s fun, so I bite the bullet and toss the league my pound of flesh and enjoy each game.

A more severe lesson I’ve learned is that there is always someone (or maybe an entire team) that take the game WAAAY too seriously.  They fight for every point, even when they’re winning, and don’t let little things like illegal contact get in the way.  This never fails to ruin the fun for me, as I’m there to get some exercise and play a game, and I don’t want to risk an injury over nothing.  Absolutely nothing.

Last night, while chasing down a frisbee in my Ultimate game, my defender cut off my run and dove at my legs.  In the NFL, I believe the tackle he threw would be called a clip and his bodyweight came down on the outside of my left knee.  There was a pop and then searing pain that had me hobbling to the sidelines and sitting out the rest of the game with an ice pack and nearly in tears.

I needed help getting to our car and Danielle waited on me hand and foot last night (so it wasn’t ALL downside) and I had to sleep with my leg elevated and wrapped in a tensor bandage all night.  In case you’ve never done that, it’s not a good night’s sleep.

After another intense icing this morning, I can put weight on it, walk around and bend it fairly naturally without discomfort, so it’s just going to take a few days to work out the kinks, but it easily could have been much, MUCH worse.

If you’re paying $200 to play a sport and the most you can win is a free t-shirt, take it down a notch; a few notches even.  Getting hurt and hurting others is not fun for anyone.

Note: I got an a apology after the game, and while I couldn’t get up for the standard post-game lineup and high-fives between teams, the opposing team finished by jogging over to the sidelines to check on me and give me high-fives too.  The guy who clipped me felt genuinely bad, so I don’t hold any animosity anymore.  I get the impression he’s learned the above lesson.

And like a set of dirty sheets being lifted off a bed, the veil of humidity has been lifted off our fair city, for now at least.  It was an oppressive weekend for working outside, even with the light breeze that sort of made it feel like you weren’t swimming underwater.  Still, yesterday’s series of storms put on a pretty good show if you were able to watch them.

We missed part of the afternoon storm while we checked out the O’Connor Bowl for the first time (the Geocities-style website gives you an idea of what it’s like inside too).  Danielle, my brother and I played three games of five-pin (all they have there) and had a great time.  Despite what I would’ve thought, I found five-pin more challenging than 10-pin.  You have less mass and fewer pins working together for your strikes, so you have to have better ball control, which isn’t easy with something the size of a softball.

And now, here we are on Monday morning with sunny skies, a light breeze and humidity nowhere to be found.  This might actually turn out to be a great week.

Everywhere I look today, people are commenting about today being Friday the 13th.  It’s on the news, on Twitter, on Facebook and now it’s on my blog.  Face it, you can’t escape the date.

I’m not a terribly superstitious guy, so I don’t really have feelings one way or another about how lucky or unlucky this particular day is, but I’m seriously tempted to watch Jason Voorhees tear into a camp full of unsuspecting teenagers (chee, chee, chee, chee, ha, ha, ha, ha) to celebrate the occasion.  That’s how I roll.

If you’re at home with the windows boarded up and cradling your trusty shotgun, you can take solace in the fact that every tick of the clock takes you closer to Saturday the 14th and when that happens, your deepest fears can go back into hiding until May of 2011 when fate strikes again and you’ll have to reload your shotgun and stock up on supplies.

For a while now I’ve been patiently searching the Toronto Craigslist “Free Stuff” board in the search for a few large, square patio stones for my yard.  My BBQ is slowly sinking into the ground and I have to move it to mow the grass that grows up long around its edges, and over time it becomes less and less level where it sits.

I’m also on the lookout for a filing cabinet, but since we don’t have a truck (or access to one), I’ll have to wait until there’s one near enough to our ‘hood that I can rig up a way to get it here.

I’m always amazed at the sheer amount of useful stuff that people are more willing to give away than throw out, and I’m very tempted to head out and pick up something I don’t really need just because it’s in great shape and free.  Fortunately, I know that our house is a finite space and common sense wins out in the end.

If you need firewood, a spare bed or a couch (so long as you aren’t picky about how great it looks), this is certainly the best bet for your money. You can afford to be patient and wait for the ideal thing to appear, but then you’d better act fast.  I can’t count the number of times I saw patio stones and then checked back later to make sure they were still there only to see the post change to add the word ‘Gone’ in the headline.

The other joy of sorting through the free listing, is the odd gem of a post that makes you laugh and laugh and laugh.  Case in point… No thanks.

You don’t have to go all the way into the woods, but you might want to get out of the city tonight to check out the annual Perseid Meteor Shower. It should be easily visible tonight (assuming the weather report is accurate) and it’s a good excuse to snuggle up in the dark with that special someone and make a LOT of wishes on a LOT of falling stars.

It can be kind of a late night, but it’s a real treat to watch so many little streaks of light shoot across the sky at once, and it’s certainly a rare treat to look up into the night sky and see something a little bit different.  Keep in mind that staring up like that for long periods of time will throw off your depth perception, so look back down to earth every once in a while.

One more thing, if you’re going to lie out under the stars on a mid-August night, bring a tarp or something waterproof to lay over you.  You’d be surprised how soaked you can get from a little summer dew.