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last night we had dinner with an Irishman.

no really, we did.

and I had scottish beer and welsh whiskey.

it was like an informal dinner tour of part of the UK.

today we’re going on a bike ride with said Irishman and Bond and Kendel.

above are photos of meals I have eaten in the past week. they span a bit further than a region like the UK. On Thursday, Margaret and I had intended to have lunch at Dose, but the new Ross St. Café just opened and they have Dim Sum, and well… dim sum.

those are curried baby squid.

they are chewey. I enjoyed them. I enjoyed the pan fried red bean paste rolls more. because pretty much anything with the words ‘red’, ‘bean’, ‘paste’ and ‘roll’ is fucking delicious.

for serious. Asian lunch down.

on Friday we accomplished what we’d set out to do on Thursday and went to Dose. except we got there too late to have the goat cheese rolls… so we had the gazpacho. i enjoyed it. i would have enjoyed it more with goat cheese rolls… just sayin…

Italian lunch down.

Yesterday I ferried Aimée and her ma up to Edmonton for a spa day they were having with my mom and sister. but not a ‘lay in a tub of mud’ spa day. apparently it was just a feet spa day. with no mud on their feet. what the hell kind of spa day is that? you think spa, you think mud bath right? right.

or cucumbers on eyes. I don’t really get that, but you see it in ads for spas all the time… why only cucumbers? why the dismissiveness to other members of the squash family? why not zuchini? or acorn squash? or pickles? that’s full on discrimination against other vegetables.

so they all go off to have their feet waxed or whatever it is that people do to your feet. my dad and I, of course, spend the day pursuing the goals of the Manimal.

which essentially boils down to “let’s go look at guns and then go buy a lawnmower.”

and have lunch at Cora’s. boom. North American lunch down.

so I returned home last night with two things: one. a new lawn mower.

insert this here:

 

two, a plan for august wherein when we attend the next Bud Haynes auction, should there be nothing there that catches my eye, I’m most likely going to pick up a Ruger American in .270 or .30-06. because , damn, that is a nice rifle. and damn it’s a good rifle for cheap. we had a nice chat with one of the guys at the store we frequent in Edmonton about how most people kind of back away from a rifle like that when they look at the price and wonder if it’s going to be a piece of shit because it’s only $400.

I like to call these people “stupid”.

I was pretty tired last night. I thought I’d sleep until after 8. but i didn’t. it was one of those sleeps where you go to sleep, and you wake up at 7:30, wide awake, don’t feel tired at all and are a bit ansty to get going with something.

except Aimée is still asleep and I don’t want to get Bernard going and running around already.

so I have maintained my stealthy position on the couch, trying to type quietly, and read up on pre-race comments about the Montreal GP.

I”m not sure if I’ll have a chance to watch it… I have to be in Banff the day of the race, and the room I got doesn’t have a tv. fuck, I never thought that one through…

plus, I missed the Monaco GP because our PVE decided to be a twat and record exactly one second of coverage. that one second amounted to the F1 splash being played.

that was it.

so if anyone happens to have that race recorded, please give it to me and keep your mouth shut about overtakes and crashes.

it’s not 9 yet. i figure 9am is late enough to go open up the box of the new mower and put it together and make grunting noises and stare threateningly at the lawn.