Wow, things really get different in the off season for me! This past weekend was a complete departure from the disciplined Steve that I’ve been of late. Instead of denying myself all of my vices in order to train hard, I decided to just ‘let my hair down’ and party hard. Luckily, the doctor had just what I ordered. Friday night was set to be the Dr. Teeth year end party, to celebrate the close of yet another year of playing Ultimate Frisbee. A nice laid back (and by laid back I mean really intense) evening at Dave’s crib with the team-mates. Then, instead of recovering and taking it easy on Saturday, it turned out that it was our good friend Andy’s Birthday! Huzzah. Hmmm, now, how to celebrate that occasion? Why, Lucky Ron of course, with its associated delicious quarts of beer, followed by a nice pub meal at Patty Bolands, along with more beer, then off to some place called ‘Collection’ for a crazy round of Martinis (thanks I-A!). Now, normally, this would conclude my broadcasting night, but instead, we had to head to yet another party at McLarens on Elgin, to help Ian and Esther celbrate their upcoming wedding in New Brunswick. Yikes, turned into another crazy evening again! What follows isn’t for the faint of heart 😉
By the time Friday rolled around, I’d pretty much taken all of the past week off from training. I went out for a nice 2 hour paddle in the kayak on the holiday Monday by myself, which was really nice. The season is almost over, which means I can only really get out paddling on weekends, or right after work. The only other thing I did that week was head out for a canoe paddling session with Steeve for a couple hours on Wednesday, in preparation for our upcoming 14 hour race at the end of the month. That was a really smooth paddle, with both of us using kayak paddles. We were really pleased with our speed and efficiency, so I’d say we’ll do alright at the race, although in the race, we’ll have a third in the boat, namely one Jim. Unfortunately, that means that I’ll likely have to ride the middle bar. Oh well, that’s the price of being a shorty pants. Anywho, I’d pretty much decided that Friday would have to be old-school cool boozin’. I wasn’t exactly sure how I’d play it, but I knew it would likely mean a hang-over and an unimpressed Jody. But I figured I deserved it! Hee hee.
So, what did I do you ask? Simple, really. Two words kiddies. Century club. Solo. Maybe not the best idea, but the word on the street is that I was fairly entertaining, if not a tad on the annoying side. Yes, I’ll admit that. However, if you don’t know me by now, you will never never never know me. Oops, sorry, I was quoting Simply Red there. It never ceases to amaze me just what a raving lunatic doing a century club will cause a normally sane man to become. I officially started going for a golden century, but only made it to 87, which isn’t too bad. The worst part was that I didn’t have time to eat much food, and by the time I was done, I was too far gone to remmember to eat. D’oh! As the night rolled on, so did I. After several of us beat each other silly in the basement while wearing Dave’s old body armour, Rob, Matt and I headed over to the Carleton tavern, trying to mix in with the locals. Sadly, I had to leave early, I knew I had no business being at a bar anymore. I grabbed a bus, and made it home in time to watch the SOpranos on time shifting. Sweet. Next I knew, I woke up the next morning with a half-eaten bag of Fritos corn chips on the couch. Ouchy!
Saturday was a bit foggy in my head, but I decided that I couldn’t just wallow in self loathing. Luckily I had arranged to go biking with Kev during the day, and he was still up for it. We biked from my place and headed West, ending up ultimately at Constance Bay, and found a nice bit of property for a mere $800k. The whole trip was about 80km, which was pretty decent all things considered. To that point, all I’d had that day was a bowl of cereal, and a snickers bar. I was starving. Sadly, it was already time to head downtown to start all over again. On the way to Chateau Lafayette, I stopped at the mall for some tasty Manchu Wok for a snack. Best idea I’d had all weekend! Next up, our man Lucky Ron for Andy’s Birthday. Rob and Matt were already there, and Rob was well on his way to turning into Friday night Steve! I took things a lot easier this time. It was pretty entertaining being on the outside of things this time.
Rob and Matt regressed to become a pair of three year olds over the course of the next couple hours. Andy was pretty much like a rock, just having a good time, and generally behaving well, like me. We also had the lovely Jody, Alix and Irene-Ann with us to baby-sit. At the bar for supper, Matt and Rob got into a huge condiment fight, resulting in a whole lot of salt and pepper all over everyone, and a mess of newspaper on the floor. To chill everyone out, we headed out for some tasty martinis at Collection. I had a G-String, as did Matt. Jody had a Pussy Galore, Irene-Ann a Creamsicle, and Alix something with berries I think. Rob, well, call him predictable, but he had a beer, although it was fancier than usual, being a Stella. From there, we finally made it out to Ian’s congrats party at the pool bar. By that point, Rob pulled another classic move, by going into Stealth mode, and heading to the washroom and never coming back, he’d gone home. The rest of us stayed for an hour or two, playing some pool and having a few more drinks, while catching up with some friends we hadn’t seen in a while, including the old French Connection of Matt’s, Luc and Nick. At the end of the night, Darcy was nice enough to give Jody and I a lift home, while Al and Matt headed back with Andy and Irene-Ann. Another successful night of total relaxation. I’m really starting to look forward to the fall season.
Sunday rolled around, and the rest of the weekend started to catch up to me. I was pretty much beat. I didn’t plan much for that day on purpose. I avoided chores as best I could, and instead opted to head over to Jaques Cartier park for a round of Disc Golf with the gang. I ended up biking there, hooking up with Matt and Rob, so that we could ride over together. I can’t believe that I actually hung out with those two clowns all weekend. We haven’t done that in a long time. It was fun. At the end of our round, I was the winner. Sweet, I’m not sure how that worked out. Andy and Stella were also part of our little group. We were supposed to play with Kev, John, Dave, Luc and Greg as well, but we showed up a bit late (30 minutes), so they had played ahead of us. Fair enough, it would’ve been way to slow to play with 9 of us, with others waiting to play too. All in all, a red letter weekend by my estimation. One that I hope we’ll repeat again. Of course, poker season is just around the corner for our little group as well, so maybe that’ll give us an excuse to hang out. Either way, that’s it for me for this post, hope all’s well with all out there!
