Since this is a work in progress, I decided to split it up.

So, where was I...? Oh yeah...

On Friday night Mac had arranged for 10 tickets to the Raptors season opener. I asked where they got the tickets and the boys said, "Mac's daughter." Did they know which one? Ian could barely contain himself, "The HOT one. She works at the ACC". Both Mac's daughters are attractive but since we're dealing with teenage boys, I knew who they meant. There weren't enough tickets for all of them so, since Yevgeniy had assignments to hand in and isn't a big fan of b-ball, he opted out. I felt bad for him. Seriously, do you have to love a sport in order to take free tix to a major league season's opener?? So I took him to the Q for dinner. Added bonus, I don't have to cook!

I should note here that both boys are typical paddlers, very outgoing and comfortable in all situations. There was no awkwardness at all as we sat talking. Yevgeniy had already asked me a couple of times what the drinking age was in Canada. I don't know why he expected it to change overnight but I told him again that it was 19 unless he wanted to take the train to Quebec. Forget that he doesn't even look 18 and 15 year old Ian had a better chance of being served!

Yevgeniy told me about his college courses while we looked over the menu. He's in engineering - electrical - and exhibited classic engineer qualities when it came time to order. The Q has great burgers and you have 3 choices...

Titanic Burger
Handmade eight ounce sirloin beef patty/bacon/cheddar & mozzarella/sautéed onion/mushroom/green pepper/tomato/lettuce/ red onion/dill pickle/sesame bun

Mushroom Swiss Burger

Handmade eight ounce sirloin beef patty/sautéed mushroom

Swiss cheese/tomato/lettuce/red onion/dill pickle/sesame bun

Crooked Cue Burger

Handmade eight ounce sirloin beef patty/tomato

lettuce/ red onion/dill pickle/sesame bun

Jules was our server and asked if we were ready to order.

Yevgeniy: "I'll have the Titanic Burger."

Jules: "Good choice."

Yevgeniy: "But can you leave off the bacon, sauteed onions, mushrooms & green pepper?"

Jules: stares at him for a minute, pencil poised, and then says, "So you want the Crooked Cue Burger with cheese?"

Yevgeniy: "Ummmm, yeah."

This exchange really cracked me up.

I was at Laurie & Eric's house last Tuesday for a presentation and Eric mentioned he was having trouble finding billets for some kids from the USA canoe-kayak team. These are Mac's development athletes. They were arriving on Thursday afternoon so I said that if he was stuck I had room for one. He didn't think they'd need me but he'd give me a call if they did.
I hadn't heard from him by Wednesday night so didn't make any preparations (eg wash extra sheets & towels and make up the spare room, buy groceries to replace the dried up ear of corn and out-of-date Yop in my fridge) which was my own dumb fault. I should have been prepared in either case. Late Wednesday night I got an email, "Thanks for offering to billet athletes...pick yours up at the club at 6:30pm". I looked at the attached spreadsheet which indicated I would be housing David - 18.

Since I hadn't done the laundry, I ran out to Sears at lunch on Thursday and bought all new bed linens and towels. Yeah, I know. Sounds crazy but I needed them anyway. The bedding in my spare room is about 15 years old. You should have seen me sewing up a tear in it the night before Kyle's mom came for a visit. And that was 2 years ago! Anyway, I figured I'd just get something cheap that could go in the cupboard once I got something decent but I can totally live with this.


I was a little concerned about the wasp situation - they were still pouring into the house and were now showing up more often in the upstairs.

Okay, sidebar...everytime I say that wasps have invaded my house, I have a Family Guy moment and picture white anglo-saxon protestants decked out in Lacoste polo shirts, collars popped, going through my closets and wine rack while commenting in low tones about synthetic fabrics, garish taste and, horrors, domestic wine.

Anyway, the exterminator was coming back on Friday to spray the entry and exit points again but I was concerned about exposing this boy to the poison. It smells really bad (like Queen Street urine after a big saturday night in clubland) and can't be good for humans. And what if the kid's allergic to bee sting?

On Thursday, the american athletes were at the club when I came off the water. Mac introduced me and said, "We're picking up your other one at the airport later. We'll drop him off." My other one?? At this point I was really wishing I hadn't taken out the spare bed in the basement to store my parents' furniture...but I have the big comfy couch in the living room. We'd be okay.
I had a vague plan to take David to Burrito Boyz for dinner but when I asked what kind of food he liked, he said, "anything but mexican." Sooooo.... grocery shopping? He's a university student and had some assignments to work on so I created an account on my computer called David and left him to it. Ian showed up while I was cooking dinner. 15 years old and 6'4". Yikes, he was GIANT! Would I have enough food? How was he going to sleep on the couch? David (about 5'5") had dibs on the queen-size bed by arriving first but seriously... he could have swapped. Thankfully, the paddler attitude of "no problem" is universal.
The next morning as I was driving the kids to the club, I asked David something and he didn't respond. I asked him again and he said, "uh, actually my name isn't David." Okay, let's forget that he didn't stop me the 1st or 2nd or 12th time I called him that...so they must have switched billets, right? No, there's no David in the program. So what's your name? Yevgeniy. Yev...!? Okay. I felt like a dumbass even though it wasn't my fault.
You know, this is starting to sound like a Simpsons episode. Bart gets billeted with some old lady. The house smells like pee, wasps chase him around inside the place and she insists on calling him some other boy's name. All that's missing are dusty, ribbon candies stuck together in a bowl and a mangy, cross-eyed cat.

I always figure humour is the best icebreaker so once we got our meals, I suggested we go downstairs and watch a movie while we eat (it was about 8:00pm by this time). While dodging wasps, the boys picked something from the dvd collection. They wanted to watch Hot Fuzz even though they'd both seen it about 3 times. This is from the "Sean of the Dead", "Run Fat Boy Run" guy, Simon Pegg. It was hilarious but both boys crashed about 40 minutes into it. Yevgeniy is from Seattle so, even though his internal clock was about 4 hours behind, he'd gotten up really early for the flight. Ian is from Washington too but the other one, D.C.. This is when I was so glad I'd gotten the extra bedding. Otherwise Ian would have been using the little throws I have on the couch for blankets and they wouldn't even cover his feet.

Here's the slideshow Daddio put together for the boys...

Friday night was a triple-header for Missy - awards night, 50th anniversary and retirement party for Olympians Attila & Tamas jr..
Carrie gave me a lift and we got there around 6:30. Paddlers and parents packed the top floor of the Crooked Cue (and as Kyle says, if you've paddled, you know where that is). This was a nice change from our usual banquet halls, legions and church basements. Not that those parties weren't fun, they were, but there's an impersonal feel to that type of venue that you don't get at the Cue. And bonus: full bar and the food was pretty amazing. There was a noticable lack of 20-something paddlers - people who are away at school or have moved away to start careers and new families. We really missed you guys.

After dinner - awards, a speech by life member Mayor Hazel and then a slideshow tribute, put together by Tamas Sr, to the paddling careers of Tommy and Attila.

I was taking photos and had my back to the screen. I missed most of the slideshow but there were a lot of never-before-seen shots of the guys from when they were really young. Tommy (the emotional one) was pretty moved and not embarrassed to show it. The canoe club awarded them both lifetime memberships as thanks for their dedication, leadership and representation of the club over the years.

While I was snapping photos, I looked into the area around the bar and there were the alumni filtering in for the 50th party to follow. So many familiar faces showed up to celebrate the club.



Eric's band, Hair of the Dog, was playing and everyone was up dancing. Although I got to say a few words to everyone, I was running around taking photos thinking there'd be time later in the night to have a real conversation. It never happened. A lot of people were buying me drinks and at some point in the night I realized ...uh oh, one too many. I didn't say goodbye to anyone, just packed up my camera, jumped in a cab and went home. Apologies to those I missed in the picture taking. I never even made it to that area in front of the band. There were lots of cameras there though and we'll be able to put together albums with everyone there.

Junior Men's comeback crew of 2009 - believe it!

I'm trying to catch up my blogs but am working on minimal sleep so this is a post in progress.


In general, my life runs a smooth path - comfortable, routine and pleasant. Lucky and happy are words I use about myself most days. I have everything I could want. Every couple of decades my life will take a major detour, usually self-induced (pregnancy, divorce), that takes me in an unexpected direction. And, as is the nature of detours, the new road may not always be comfortable or scenic or have the familiar reference points and rest stops. Growth is what some people call it and when you come out the other side you have gained some things, lost others and left behind items no longer needed on the journey. Blech. Okay, I think I've killed the roadtrip analogy.
The changes for this decade are of a slightly different nature. Not exactly initiated by me. Suddenly, things in my life are breaking. Not in devastating, emotional, life-changing ways. I mean literally breaking. My house, my car, my old slr camera.
The water purifier stopped working and flooded the laundry room, my clothes dryer makes a loud rattling noise and I'm afraid to run it unless I'm home.
The dishwasher. Oh boy. It has become the equivalent of a lazy husband. You know, when you first get one there's an understanding that it'll perform certain functions and it has all the working parts to perform these functions. It's all shiny and new and jumps to attention when you turn the dials and touch the knobs. But after awhile it doesn't always perform on it's own; it wheezes and rattles and flops around when you try to get it started. You realize you'll have to do some prep each time, fiddle with some moving parts, prop up others and ultimately force it to do it's job. Even then it's only going through the motions and you end up having to REDO THE WHOLE THING YOURSELF afterwards... haha, and now I've killed the husband as appliance analogy. Moving on.
My car, which has run pretty efficiently since 2002 has basically been rebuilt in the last 2 months: new windshield, new brakes and resonators and, this week, a complete transmission with torque converter.
And, on top of all the breaking stuff, wasps have settled in the walls of my house and are coming in through the basement. Perfect. This isn't a problem so much as it's made me a party to genocide. Seriously. The first few days I just moved them outside. Then there were too many for that so I just sat very still whenever I went down to the basement. However, within a few days, there were a hundred wasps cling to the walls just metres from me. I had to call an exterminator. I felt really bad until a friend pointed out that, if I could negotiate with the wasps and they refused to move and then I brought in the weapons of mass destruction, I would be a bad person. Whatever. I still feel bad about killing something.

Adam & Ave...

Nice recognition! Oakville has named a street after Adam. Appropriately it's the one formerly known as Water Street.

I don't know about you but I don't see myself spitting out adam-van-koeverden street so it'll be either VanK Street or Adam Ave.

oh my god. He is so right.

I had always planned to have a career in film and when I was in college, it was drilled into us that we should sit through the credits of every movie... a tribute of sorts to the hundreds of people who put effort into the production. And also because (hopefully) our names would be in those lists some day. So, even now, unless I'm with friends who want to leave quickly, I sit through to the end of the credits of pretty much every movie I see, in theatres and at home.

It's actually pretty interesting. You notice things like Waiter #2 has the same last name as the lead or, in older movies, that some later-famous star had a bit part (Suzanne Somers & Harrison Ford in American Graffiti or Brad Pitt in THelma & Louise). Anyway, for me the most interesting information appears at the very end - the music credits.

Tonight I rented Leaving Sarah Marshall and let the credits roll. THere were a couple fo songs I didn't even notice during the movie, one of which was Sinead O'Connor's smash, 'Nothing Compares 2 U'. The credits reminded me of something I'd forgotten - this song was actually written by Prince. Sinead's video was one of the simplest productions of that decade, mostly because of Sinead's compelling features. I defy you to look away from her face. Especially if you've just gone through a bad breakup. Those two tears sliding down her face at the end?...salt in the wound.

Sinead O'Connor - Nothing Compares 2 U
Uploaded by MovieFanQS

More pics from Katie. These are from their pre-race changes/training run last Sunday on Kailua Bay. You can also read more at Morty's blog here.

Team Zebra did a respectable time in the Moloka'i Hoe coming 21st in 5:28:22. Sounds like the conditions were very challenging this year. Full results can be found here. Photos courtesy of Katie.

The winning crew of Shell Va'a, pictured below, maintained an 82 stroke rate throughout to win this devastating race in a record-breaking 4:38:35.

Sticking with an outrigger theme... as promised, here are some photos I poached from fb. Matt is getting into outrigger and here's some pics Wes posted of the Hali crew.

L-R: Matt, Max, Rob

Wes and Matt

Matt vs Submarine

(I hear they love it when you knock on the side)

CanoeKayak Canada is hosting a training camp for women's canoe to be held at Orenda in conjunction with the 2009 World Senior Canoe Championships.

"The training camp is being financially supported by the International Canoe Federation, CanoeKayak Canada and Canoe ’09. The ICF has provided support through its Development Program.

All participants in the training camp are expected to compete for their national federation in the exhibition events for women’s canoe being held during the 2009 Senior World Canoe Championships from August 12-16. The events on the competition program are:

Women’s C-1 500

Women’s C-2 500

Women’s C-1 200

Women’s C-2 200"

Click here for the details and here for the application form .

I'm waiting for pics from Matt Abbott who has been lucky enough to get set up with an OC-1 out on the coast. Wish he and Wes had a camera on their first trip out - they went to the surf beach with a 6ft shore break. Comical, I'm sure.
In the meantime, check out Linzee ripping in Indo...

So the Moloka’i Hoe is this weekend and a few of our friends will be racing as Team Zebra. Originally it was Peter, Tamas jr, Attila and Martin Buday plus Gyorgy Kolonics, Martin Doktor, Andreas Dittmer, Attila Vajda and team captain Paul McNamara. Attila & Martin opted out and Gyorgy, sadly, passed away this summer. Morty, A-Russ and Kyle have stepped in to race for them. What a line-up!

national team has been posted...

So the latest news from canoekayak is that Banook won nationals this year, not Burloak. There was a miscalculation of points at the regatta. I get the impression that this is tied to the Black race. No one wants to be second in this 1000m C4 race because they get enough points to turn senior...which means they can't race for the Black next year. It's unusual (but not unheard of) for a crew to stop racing as soon as they realize they're going to cross the line in second. It's been suggested that's what happened here but the crew made it sooo obvious, the basically did a 90 degree turn to go out of their lane, that CCA officials couldn't ignore it. It cost Burloak 8 points and, oh, look at that, they lost by only 7 points. That sucks for both clubs.
Can you imagine what kind of a celebration it would have been for Banook winning the burgee AT HOME after so many years? I'm sure their fall banquet or christmas party will be great but it's just not the same as doing it after the last race and at the party later on.

"CanoeKayak Canada announces that an error in the overall points calculation for the 2008 CKC Sprint National Championships has been discovered. Further investigation has revealed the Banook Canoe Club of Dartmouth has accumulated the most points with 685 points. They were closely followed in second place by Burloak Canoe Club of Oakville with 678 points. CKC regrets the error and obvious disappointment which will be felt by the Burloak Club. At the same time, CKC congratulates Banook on winning a very close competition to win their first National Burgee since 1992."

Before I get into my busy weekend, I want to post some photos that should have gone up a couple of weeks ago. They painted the bridge abutments under the Lakeshore. I think they did a decent job considering how cheezy these things can sometimes turn out. I seem to remember them painting the day after Laura's going away party so this was done on the weekend of the Shuffle.

The guy rowing the boat was the only part I kind of went "aw jeez" about but it's a representation of Port Credit's old lighthouse keeper, John Miller.

A small birthday celebration for Eve on Friday. Finally got to see her and Cliff's new place on Queen. Very nice! Their place is perfect for a couple, nicely painted and decorated with some new furnishings they got together.
Rachel and Lionel were there and a guy I haven't seen in AGES, Yuri Kuzman and their cat, Eli. I'm friends with Dimitri & Diana on fb so sorta know what they're up to but it was interesting to hear about Julia - or Dr. Kuzman, I should say.
Poor Rachel. She was so sick - a terrible cold, having an alergic reaction to Eli and unable to take any kind of remedy because she's 5 months pregnant. Anyway, it was a fun night. Drank to much red wine but that's what happens when you're having a good time and not paying attention.

Saturday morning I dragged my ass out of bed so I could go take photos of the bantam practice. It was actually a beautiful day and once I got some Starbucks into me, I felt pretty good. Danielle drove me around in the motorboat and we had some laughs. The pics are up on fb in two albums called fall training.
The water's not nearly as low as it usually at this time of year but still, if you go above the thousand there's a chance you'll hit bottom. You can see the water level change in some of the photos above

It was Sydney's first birthday so there was a bday party at Jackie and Blakes in the afternoon. Wow, they've been renovating but I was surprised at how much they got done in time for the party. The place looks fantastic.
Sydney is so cute! I wish I had photos but after carrying my camera around in my car for two days, I forgot it at home after I uploaded the bantam pics to my computer. I'll have to get some shots from Jackie and Rebecca. Also there were Tat & Sean, the Hara's and Jackie's dad came all the way from Shanghai for the celebration. Charlie was cracking me up the whole time. She's such a socialite! It was just her and Syd for a long time until the Seckos arrived. Birdie, Gavin, Konrad and a friend of Jackie's with her daughter Alicia, showed up to round out the group. There was really good food (amazing really) and 2 cakes, one with nuts, one nut-free and lots of presents. I have to say that Sydney was pretty good at dealing with the papparazzi (they were relentless!).
I was bagged from the night before so left around 6:30. I rented a movie, made some popcorn and settled in for the night. I stayed awake long enough to see Tina Fey do a hysterical Palin in a vice-pres debate sketch and then went to bed.

The construction replacing the underground pipes along Lakeshore is still going on through Clarkson and Lorne Park. They seem to change which lane is closed every few hours and backups are random. Looking at how they're re-grading the south side - especially the hills between my house and Jack Darling on the east and Meadow Wood on the west it looks like they might flatten out and extend the recreation trail once they're done. Excellent.
Meeting with the web team this morning. Nothing of interest to note. I was kicking myself for arriving late since there were no seats left and I got stuck between two people who are deathly ill with whatever cold virus is going around.
The hospital called yesterday and they've released my dad. So he'll be back in the nursing home. This is good in a devil-you-know sense.
I watched some of the vice-presidential debate last night (and just a little of Canada's english-language debate for the national election) but finally turned it off. I couldn't stand Sarah Palin's pronounciation of Iraq and nuclear (Eye-rack & new-cue-lar). If John McCain's plan was to make sure no woman is ever taken seriously in politics again, mission accomplished.
I'm going to be taking some fall training pics at the club over the next couple of days so show up for practice! Also, if you're away at school or wherever and training, send me some pics. Shari is doing her best to keep the website up-to-date and we need photos of y'all.

turned the heat on for the first time tonight. Damn.

Nothing to write. Went straight to the hospital from work where the nurse complained about the caregiver and the caregiver complained about the nurse. My dad seems comfortable - fever's gone and now that crazy-eyes Rhonda's there, he's actually getting fed (he's not able to feed himself so the nurses have been saying he won't eat or isn't hungry and send the food back).

Went to Sherway on my way home. Too depressed to go home. Bought a silk/cashmere stripey sweater at BCBG and a cute clutch plus a fortune of L'Occitane lotions and other nice smelling stuff. Mall shopping when you're low is like grocery shopping when you're hungry. bad combination. I did talk myslef out of a Coach bag though and a leather coat (although I may go back for that) so I wasn't completely crazed.

Came home, ate noodle soup and half a bag of party mix. Perfect. It's like I'm a student again.