The Day Arrives

This is it folks. The groomsmen are coming over in about another 45 minutes. The hall is ready, and most of the goods are up there already. Wish me luck:)

Kitchens, Attitude, and the glee of wedding planning

Folks let me tell you...I HATE WEDDINGS.

Oh I know what you're thinking.

"Why Stuart? Weddings are beautiful! Oh look at the dress! Isn't she so very beautiful! Awwww!"

Meanwhile, heres what I'm thinking.

"Oh g-d not this shit again. If we have one more stupid argument about colours I swear I'm going to start planning a permenant escape to bora bora. Yes, lets go talk to yet another vendor who will ignore me entirely for the next two hours. I don't bloody care if they're waving freakin' fans or not! Augh! Damn it, why did the vendor say that? Now I'm going to have to deal with a stressed out fiance...again! Augh"

Please note the stressed out fiance part. I swear in two years of dating this girl prior to proposing I could count the stressed out moment on one hand. Now its almost daily, over such small tasks like:

a. five minute phone call to rabi
b. selecting a song
c. writing out the contact information of the vendor for the wedding

How is it that shoes can be so frickin' difficult that it requires multiple trips to find them? Why does anyone care? Why the hell would anyone be fixated on the brides shoes? Why do I have face a stressed out fiance over something as stupid as a pair of shoes? Why why why????

In the mean time I'm handling the DJ, purchase of a place to live, upgrades to the place to live, the honeymoon, half of the contact list,the photographer, disposable cameras, the wedding website. In two weeks I'll not have to worry about this for at least another 23 years. All this fuss over 1 day.....grrrrrr.....

exciting and scary....but good

We did it. Katy and I put in an offer to buy a condo...and it was accepted:) This has to be the 2nd most exciting and scary thing I've ever done. This is going to take some getting used to...its my last summer at the home I've grown up in since the age of 5. Holy shit!

What have I experienced in this house:

-every emotion someone could ever think of
-my first bike ride
-beng scared of monsters in the closet
-my first puppy
-late night movies
-eating fresh baked cookies from the oven
-producing my own closed circuit radio show
-guitar lessons
-movie nights
-renting a projector on my 6th birthday to watch buck rogers
-playing with remote control cars in the basement
-hours of late night study for high school/college/university
-sleepovers
-poker chip fights in the dark
-water gun afternoons
-my first business(lemonade stand)
-bike rides in the ravine trails
-snuggling with my parents on nights when dreams were bad
-making my own darkroom in the basement
-running through the sprinkler
-playing catch in the backyard with Mom
-singing when nobody was home
-opening presents at channukah
-shabat dinners
-passover seders
-tears and comfort after bullying
-caring hands after accidents
-arguements
-making up after arguments
-late night arrivals after parties
-a bed full of stuffed animals
-late nights watching lunar eclipses talking about life
-last minute trips to Canadas Wonderland
-cleaning snow after icestorms
-watching a transformer explode during a stormy night
-watching fireworks at richmond green and alexander mackenzie
-fear and trepidation on coming home to an unexpected open door
-the aftermath of a kitchen fire
-my first walk to school
-struggling to open the garage door
-hopping on a chair to reach the cupboards
-seeing life as someone very small
-experiencing my first taste of independance/trust
-playing with water
-fun in the bath
-staying the bath so long that I changed the water to make it warm again
-all seasons of star trek tng
-Nana
-my first trip on the bus alone
-the experience of coming home to find your Mom waiting for you on the stairs
-getting blocked into the basement by a bad neighbor
-sleeping in
-chicken pocks
-food poisoning and lying on the floor wretching
-games of hide and seek
-being carried to bed when I was very young
-dressing up for purim
-eating hamatashen
-coming home on sundays from hebrew school to bagels and cream cheese
-my first experience with hot peppers
-the taste of hot chololate on a cold day
-building snowmen in the front yard
-picking plums
-watching W.C. Fields reclining under a tree
-feeling sad that the mulberry tree was tied to a stake
-picking berries every summer from that very same tree
-playing with train sets in the basement
-the anticipation and wonder of watching logs burn in the fireplace
-channukah candles

I have only scratched the surface. There are so many memories here. I'm sad to go, but I'm happy to have a place that Katy and I can call our own. There are so many more memories to make. Its rather bitter sweet. There really is no going back. Sometimes I wish I could just be small again, when everything can be solved with cookies and hugs. So simple, but I have been given so many good memories, even if I could, would I truly want to lose them? I do know one thing, perhaps heaven for me would be to have the power to live each of my favourite moments as if it were the first time.

The future is a little scary, but full of joy and reward tinged with bit of sorrow. So much joy from this place will be tinged with a sorrow for having to leave. The sorrow for having to leave will be drowned by the promise of joys to come in a new life that will bring with it a new family. One that will repeat that same sorrows and joys, and so many more that I will never have suspected. In a little over a month my home will be with my love by rules we will create as we move along. I'm a lucky man. Life is good:)

It's damn good to have friends

I recieved the best damn birthday present ever this year. It didn't come in a box. There were no tags to rip from its package. Actually there was no package, no recipt. I feel as though I belong again. I've not felt like this since the middle of high school.

Where did this feeling come from? Like everything else that has been worth while in my life, it came from a risk. The next month will be an interesting time. I don't fully know what the outcome will be, but whatever happens I'm willing to be it will be good.

My big three-oh was about two weeks ago. I did a hell of a lot for it this year! We had two days of cake at work, lunch, karaoke, and a dinner night. What I always used to love about this time of year when I was a teen was having people over just for a good time. The b-day itself was not the focus. Thats what it felt like. I took care of the people around me, watched them smile, and laugh and enjoy. That meant a lot to me.

The best feeling had to be on the day of. I came home from work and made the best damn steak recipe ever. Steak frites with peppercorn sauce and peas. Now that is a treat. Being there with the ingredients in my hands..turning them into something more. The feel of the defrosted meat, the smell of the pepper, the thick viscous demiglace, the acid of wine coming together.

There are a lot of moments I miss being young and small. I've thought about this a lot in the past few years. What would it be like, to wake up being 5 years old again? Stuffed bear in hand, toddling down the stairs. If I could snap my fingers and go back in time, would I? Would I go back and try to find a way not to go through the pain of being bullied? What would I be like now if I did? I think perhaps for a day I would be happy, and then I would miss my life now. I would then miss the independence. So much joy, so much hurt, struggle.

the 20's - the shedding years

Tonight I had a difficult phone call to make. When I was in college I made a number of good friends. Unlike university, where the links all dissapeared, my college friends stayed. One friend in particular I worked with quite often.

In the last year though, he seemed to get in with the wrong crowd. I'm not into cliques, and I am no snob....but the wrong crowd did apply here. Suddenly my friend was skipping classes, and towards the end of it all, problems with the law. I could have run away from it all...ignored his phone calls, left him to fend for himself, but I didn't. I called, I wrote, and I even helped him to get a lawyer for his court appearances.

Tonight I had to tell him he was no longer a groomsman in the wedding. Why you might ask? When someone cancells on you for nearly a year, what do you do? When you're supposed to meet your friend, and they turn off their phone and don't show up, what does it say? I don't know him. Whoever this is I spoke to tonight isn't the friend I met in college. Its sad, and I can't say I like how it worked out. I just hope that one day, I can call him a friend again.

A gift offered....an insight revealed

So last week I offered an opportunity to a former faculty member. Basically I mentioned a job posting that they might have a student for. One might think that the answer would be, "Yes please! Send me the details." The actual reply was a bit of a shock.

Me: Hi, I found out the company I work at is looking to hire more flash developers. Do you know of any students that are in need of an opportunity?

Them: Thats interesting. You should send that to Bob.

Me: I've been trying to get in touch with Bob for 6 months. He never returns my calls.

Them: We're restructuring the program. Its taking longer than we thought. Did you try sending an e-mail?

Me: I've phoned and e-mailed quite a bit. Bob never gets back to me. You'll likely see Bob before I do. Can you pass the message to them?

Them: Well, not to belittle your problem, but we're really busy.

Me: Well, thanks anyways. I guess I'll have to take this elsewhere.

At this point I began to recall the difficulty I had in my job hunt. The feelings that faculty had lied about helping students to find jobs rang in my head. No wonder they didn't seem to help finding opportunities! If this is how they treated me when I presented this to them, who knows how they would respond to someone they didn't know.

Grrrrr.

May I have some more

I had the incredible good fortune to go on a cruise to the Caribbean just two weeks ago. It was two weeks of sun and ocean:) I loved every moment of it. It occured to me that life would be perfect if we could relive all the best moments of our lives.

When we reach the end is this what our last thoughts are like? Do we think "May I have some more please?"