Pióro

One of Poland’s many charms is its idiosyncratic consular services. Martha and I are bound by geography to the Consulate General of the Republic of Poland in Toronto and because of numerous trips to the lovely Lakeshore West building, we feel like we really know the place. We have a long history with this mission, which has treated us to a no reply policy on phone inquiries, unilingual (re: Polish) clerks and running hours that never exceed three hours a day. While the building’s exterior is the kind of stately that befits a country with over one thousand years of complex history, the interior presented to regular citizens of either country is of a different character. To get into the consulate, you must follow a narrow fence corridor that leads from the street to the side of the building. After descending a few step and entering through a side door, you come to a room that is best described as ‘institutional.’ The battleship grey walls are lit by florescent bulbs sunk into the ceiling. There is a sizeable window that faces south, but for some odd reason, it’s always cloudy out. At the far wall are two teller windows of bullet-proof glass, where two middle-aged women sit. There are only two Fates at the Polish consulate: Drop-off and Pick-up. Drop-off, on the left, speaks English pretty well; Pick-up, on the right, barely does. Their voices are carried through the glass barriers by speakers; there replies always so loud the room can hear. I always try to talk clearly but not too loudly. However, the glass, like a long-distance call, makes you speak louder. These ladies must feel like they are getting yelled at all day. The room can’t accommodate the queues, which always buckle by the back wall. There’s a door off to the side, out of which an official type person occasionally pokes a head and waves a person in. The person is then popped out a little while latter. I can never read their faces. I have no idea what issues could be so private or complicated that the Fates couldn’t blurt a reply through the loud speakers. I went to the consulate once to look into getting a Polish passport. The explanation of this multi-hooped process of if’s-and’s-and-but’s complete with Polish-only papers and, “Well, you’ll have to talk to your grandmother” (both of whom haven’t been residents of Poland for nearly sixty years), didn’t even warrant a peek through the mysterious door.

In order to work in Poland, you need to get a work visa. To get a work visa, you need a work permit. To get a work permit, you need to sign a contract with a Polish employer. To get a contract, you need to get hired by someone in Poland. Thank God for the InterWeb. We applied to a bunch of Polish schools online and finally accepted employment from one with a very nice online demeanour. This was in mid-June. Near the beginning of July, our contracts came in the mail. We signed them and they were off. Our employer got them and then submitted them to the proper people in Poland. Then the employer got the work permits from those proper people. These got to our door in August—barely.

It was our turn to make some magic happen: the last step, turning permit to visa. For this bureaucratic transubstantiation the applicant takes the work permit to an embassy or consulate in his or her home country. Not Germany, or Lithuania or any other European country that lets Canadians in visa free. Your home country.

I called the consulate with a few questions but could only leave a message in the black-hole that is the consulate’s automated telephone system (probably of Soviet design). I’d have to pay them a visit instead. Not to submit the permit. No, you can’t rush into things like that. You’ll just end up disappointed. You have to do some research first. Things change overnight. There could be new forms or a special colour of ink needed to fill out the forms. So I set out for 2603 Lakeshore West armed with the Polish translation for “Does anyone here speak English?”

On that particular visit, the role of Drop-off was played by a young and pretty woman. When I got to the bullet-proof glass she told me what I would need to apply for the work visa. It should be no problem. I just needed to fill out some forms and come back with a photo. So far so smooth but I had a question that was sure to give both of us a headache. You see, our employer thought it would be a good idea to arrive a week early to get settled and prepare for our teaching gig. Martha and I, therefore, got airline tickets that would get us to Poland on September 25. The starting date on the work permit said October 1. I asked Drop-off if this would be a problem. She hummed and hawed and disappeared from the window. Here it comes, I thought. She returned to tell me that no, it wouldn’t be a problem. They’d have to adjust a few numbers on the visa, but we could land on September 25. That’s when it hit me. Something must be wrong. Everything was going too smoothly. I must be in the wrong consulate. That would at least explain the second visit to the consulate a week later.

Martha came for the second visit. We each had the right paper-work filled out and a little passport photo. This time young and pretty Drop-off wasn’t behind the bullet-proof glass. It was original surly Drop-off. No need to worry. It’s not like consular procedures change with the person manning the drop-off window. We decided to double-check. Turns out things were different this week. Original-surly told us that there was no way we could land on September 25. The work permit was for October 1 and that was the earliest we could get into the country. The consulate was bound by what was on the work permit. No exceptions. We protested loudly. But last week, someone said one hundred dollars each to change our tickets. Our employer said we could and she doesn’t lie. Original-surly didn’t budge. We asked for someone else and were told to wait. It is hard to wait nonchalantly by a line of ten people after you’ve just been yelling at a window. I like to pretend to read signs in a language that I don’t understand.

As my eyes skimmed over consonants with nutty diacritical marks ć’s, ń’s, ł’s and ś’s), the door off to the side opened and we were waved in. We were kept in the hallway behind the door. I could see a meeting room off to the left. To the right was the room that held the Fates. I think there were stairs leading up at the end of the hall. I couldn’t really see beyond the large bearded Slav who waved us in. He repeated Original-surly’s routine. We repeated our protests. He said he was sorry. He couldn’t do anything. Maybe the consulate could give us a discount on the visas, but the date couldn’t change. For a second I thought we should get that discount part in writing. But that was the end of the discussion. He showed us the door, which, I noticed, had the door-knob almost at chest height. We headed straight out of the grey room and outside onto the street. We weren’t happy.

We took two days to check in with our employer. She couldn’t do anything on her end. We’d have to accept the October 1 sentence and change our airline tickets. Luckily, our employer would cover the $100.00 fee for the ticket change. Still, I felt a glum sort of resignation as I went to the consulate for the third time. Original-surly was back behind the drop off window. It made me wonder if there was ever a young and pretty Drop-off. Original-surly said she remembered us. After taking our papers, she disappeared for a bit. We couldn’t figure out why. All the paper-work was done. There were no weird questions on our part. We just need the receipts to pick up our passports in two weeks. Martha thought maybe we were being black-listed for our last performance. I said maybe. Then Martha suggested that Original-surly was securing that discount for us. I replied with a strong, “I seriously doubt that. That was an off-hand remark made by a petty diplomat trying to get rid of us.” I’d like to think I made that remark quietly.

The door off to the side opened. Original-surly waved us over. She gave us our passport receipts and pointed to the individual cost of each visa. They were both reduced by half. That’s $90.00 off each visa. So, like I’ve been saying all along: the Polish consulate in Toronto is a great consulate.

A few days ago I crossed the border with the Heckman’s. Now, we’re in the lovely suburb of Ambler just outside of Philadelphia. I’ve kinda traded one suburb for the other. But Ambler is older and, though most people do drive everywhere, you can walk places.

Too all my peeps in the ‘States, sorry about passing you by on the I-81. Next time I visit. Promise.

I’ve been trying to stay out of trouble. Yesterday, all the Heckman kids went to Hershey Park to subject their heads and stomachs to high-speed joltings. I opted out. Instead, I went to a bookstore. There was also a walk around town. I found a local electrical sub-station with a hole in its surrounding chain-link fence. I decided to play throw-the-rock-at-the-transformer game. There were sparks, but that was it.

SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! TRACTOR PULL. BEEEEEEEEE THERE.

My sister tells this story from her last year of high school: That year, the prom was on the same night as the tractor pull and these choices presented a real dilemma to some. You see, every year the town of Brooklin has a good ol’ country fair. The small town is eight kilometres north of Whitby and is currently being subsumed by the northward ooze of Styrofoam^TM housing. I believe the town is technically part of Whitby, but Brooklinites are a proud breed. And these ones didn’t even lose the Dodgers. This fair comprises your typical fair fare: rides whose nausea inducting powers are two-fold—gravitational and structural; food that flies off the top rope to drop-elbow your guts; and oodles and oodles of teens exuding there brand of sexual tension—girls teasing boys, boys punching other boys on the arm and girls shouting to other girls “Hey bitch!” To boot, there’s also a real, mother f#*kin’ tractor pull. You can see why some of the Brooklin boys from my sister’s graduating class were conflicted.

This story piqued Martha’s and my interest. We were excited that our sojourn in the ‘Bee would offer us the chance to see this cultural event. But alas, the only time we could go to the fair was on the Friday of its four day run. And alas, we would miss the tractor pull because everyone knows that events where there is the burning of much gasoline and alcohol at high decibel levels happen on SUNDAY! SUNDAY! SUNDAY! Still, we decided that we should attend the fair as disinterested anthropologists. We thought we’d rope Elif into this thing too.

…

Matthew moves to the phone to call Elif. Martha heads to the computer to find the Brooklin Spring Fair web site. They need to find out what’s happening on Friday. Hopefully, they’ll find something that will entice Elif.

“Hey, I’m going to put this thing on speaker. We can both talk to Elif. It’ll be so fun,” says Matthew, a simple soul who’s easily amused by phones, single socks, bent paper-clips and elastic bands.

“Umm, humm,” says Martha, who knows it’s better to just go along with these things. It avoids the screaming and the tears.

“Hello. Is Elif there,” says Matthew in the manner of an American tourist speaking to a French waiter.

“Hey Elif, what are you doing tomorrow?”

“Nothing.” This is Whitby don’t forget.

“We’re going to the Brooklin Fair. Wanna come?”

“Well, I—”

“Holy shit Matt! The tractor pull is tomorrow!” Martha yells after clicking through the fair’s schedule.

“Matt, what was that?” asks Elif.

“Mar just found out that the tracker pull is tomorrow. Isn’t that wicked!”

“Well, I—”

“It starts at seven tomorrow,” says Martha.

“Okay, Elif we’ll be by your place at 6:30.”

“What? Matt why what’s going on—”

“We can’t be late for the TRACTOR PULL,” says Matt, his face turning blue as he employs that frustrated-whiny lilt that is used to great effect by twelve year-old girls.

“Uh, okay.”

“Wicked see you then.”

…

We also got Caitlin, who caught the GO train and arrived at the Whitby station at 6 o’clock. Then a stop at the drug-store for earplugs. Elif’s. Then no stops ‘til Brooklin.

We took a spot on in the bleachers amongst the fans at the 200 feet mark: a couple with a pack of du Mauriers stuffed in the baby carriage, boys with long floppy shirts down to their knees and blue lips from their snow-cones, older boys with ball caps sporting the logos of motor oils and after-market car parts; girls who look like they got lost on their way to the meat-market club; men, who were men because they had leather pouches on their belts carrying multi-tools or cell-phones. And families, loads of families.

The track was 400 feet of packed dirt with low concrete barriers lining the sides. The MC of the event, whose name I never got, was masterful as the master of ceremonies. He was full of all sorts of information from Ontario laws and regulations governing highway tractor-trailers to the history of the Hemi engine in relation to drag racing and pulling. His colour commentary was also excellent with such gems as “…and the twin stacks are starting to bark” and “…she’s taken the hook with a good bite on the ground” and “don’t worry folks, all the mosquitoes have been checked for West Nile Virus so go a head and let’em bite ya.”

There were four classes of tractors that would be pulling. Each machine in each class would pull this huge contraption called the Executioner, a sled (a they call it) which increases the resistance on the tractor as it hauls down the track. The dude who gets farther than the others wins. If two or more drivers make it to the end, then, as our MC said, “We’ve got a full pull and we move on to a pull off.” This means the full-pullers get to drag the Executioner down the track a second time.

The first series of pulls featured highway tractors, you know, those things hauling trailers of important goods across the country, like beer and Canadian Tire products.

“[Pulling’s] a great way to get rid of your warranty. He can get [his tractor] fixed anywhere he wants after tonight,” our MC said.

“They’re rippin’ on the road, they’re rippin’ on the track and they’re rippin’ in the fields.” I think he was talking about the highway tractors, but I’m not sure what he meant by “rippin’ in the fields.” Sounded cool nonetheless.

The next series was the Stock 4×4’s, which were anything but off the rack. I think only the bodies were original and the rest was suped up beyond highway regulations.

As we watched, some locals behind us made fun of two other guys dressed up as cowboys.

“Look at the belt-buckle. Like, where are yer spurs, buddy?”

The next set featured 2 Wheel Drive Modifies. These were trucks that had huge back tires and engines that burned alcohol and spat flames. They were frickin’ loud too.

“Remember to cover yer ears folks. And if you’ve got kids, cover their ears first. We want everyone to be safe. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, if you don’t know there’s a pull going on in Brooklin tonight, you’re either dead or deaf. I can just imagine all those folks in Scarborough right now wonderin’ where the thunder is coming from.”

We also got a lot of information from the dad behind us who had to explain things to his seven year-old son.

“Dad, why don’t they drive back to the other end like the other trucks?” said the boy as tractors hauled the 2 Wheel Drive Modifies back to the starting line for the pull off.

“It’s too expensive to burn all that fuel just to get back.”

We also found out that the engines get so hot that the drivers only run them for the minimum amount of time. That means no more than two pulls a night.

One driver came from a long line of pullers.

“His father was a puller. His grandfather was a puller.”

Hey Beavis. He said ‘puller.’ I think we were the only ones giggling at the onanistic innuendo. Imagine the fits of snickers produced by “full-pull” and “no more than two pulls a night.”

The ultimate series was the Multi-Engine Modified. That’s right, these suckers had a maximum of three engines on them. Actually, one contestant had to remove his fourth [!] so that he could compete. These things were cool. They ran hotter and louder and their front wheels lurched into the air higher than the vehicles of the previous class. The first driver piloted a tractor with a V12 Allison engine, off of a WWII fighter plane. This guy’s machine went up and down and side to side down the track. I thought he’d crash. We all had to admit, it was pretty cool.

Elif and I left after the second driver’s heat. Martha and Caitlin said the sound from the machine rumbled them around a bit over in the beer tent. Our new found need for speed took us to the carnival rides. The Ferris wheel was just crazy enough for Elif and I. Martha and Caitlin needed more so they hit the Zipper, an old standard made by the Chance [!] Manufacturing Company of Wichita, Kansas. It was a ride they both described as ‘transcendental.’ For the rest of us, that means nauseating. Caitlin won the champ award because of her showing that night. Her dinner was a bag of Doritos, a serving of dripping fair fries and two beers. Then she went on the Zipper. She wasn’t quite right until she had a good late night viewing of the Wrath of Khan and a good night sleep.

Here’s to the fair.

I watched a good portion of the PC convention this Saturday. No, I didn’t grab a bag of all-dressed chips and hunker down in front of CPAC for an all day marathon. But whenever I was near a TV, I’d invariably shout, “We gotta find out how David is doing.”

Yes, I have a bit of a soft spot for Mr. Orchard. I read his book, “The Fight for Canada: Four Centuries of Resistance to American Expansionism,” the summer between Grade 11 and 12. The effects of his prose were tremendous and for the twelve months following, I was a rabid nationalist. I even helped campaign for the National Party (a move Mr. Orchard probably wouldn’t have recommended). I still have a copy of the book, but I can’t read it, just like I can’t listen to the Barenaked Ladies “Gordon” album anymore.

Anyway, I was thrilled that Orchard was making another play in the house that Mulroney built. I knew he couldn’t win. He knew he couldn’t win. His followers probably thought he could. Then, BAM, Orchard is behind Peter “I’m so perfect for this job ’cause I’m boring as toast” MacKay. That move was probably as close to Matrix-level excitement for these kinds of things as you can get. I know I was riveted to the tube. (No comments about the paucity of things to do in Whitby on a Saturday night. That’s my job.) I never saw that deal with MacKay coming, though I should have.

Orchard’s got a good head for politics. Back in 1988, he could see that the three way PC, Liberal, NDP race (call it an either/or/or situation) was bad news for people who actually cared about preventing the free-trade deal, as opposed to those just concerned about gettin’ their guy elected. More Canadians voted against the FTA when they sided the Liberals or the NDP. However, the Conservatives marched back to Ottawa with a majority government, thanks to the vote splitting. During the lead-up to the 1988 election, a then unaffiliated Orchard was proposing that the Liberals and the NDP form a collation on this issue, so that the FTA could effectively be blocked. You see, the unique thing about Orchard is that the issues come first. Hence his move this past Saturday.

Orchard is out to get his concerns addressed. He could have gone out on Saturday, patting his supporters on the back, happy they all came so far, and then sat back at the Tory’s kiddie table for the weird children who have been known to eat worms. By throwing his weight behind MacKay, Orchard’s concerns have a better chance of being addressed.

Almost as exciting as the MacKay-Orchard deal are the reactions to it. There all those Tories pulling their hair and gnashing their teeth ’cause their new leader made a deal with the devil. Martin with the “gun to the head” metaphor and Chrétien’s “hot couple” comment make me giggle. Toronto Star columnist Chantal Hébert has written the party off.

But hold on there. The jittery Tories seem to be jumping the gun they’ve aimed at their head. Their piety to the PC past makes them appear more the fanatics than Orchard’s devoted. Are the FTA and NAFTA such sacred accomplishments that they are above review? Do these Tories believe that these agreements have brought nothing but milk and honey to Canada? And what if the worst was to come to pass: MacKay, with Orchard pulling those puppet strings sitting in that “gentleman’s agreement,” harshly criticises or opposes [gasp!] free-trade? Would they pull the last remaining hairs from their patchy heads while screaming, “Blasphemy, how dare you desecrate the sacred-heart of Mulroney!” while conveniently ignoring those days (way back) when a Canadian conservative was someone opposed to free-trade. (This was before conservative was equated with neo-con/big-biz ass-lick.) Tories have completely changed their minds in the past, why would it be so wrong now? Look at the Liberals, it didn’t hurt them too much (think free-trade and GST).

As for Hébert’s claim that the Tories now have no chance, I’m not wholly convinced. Because of the MacKay-Orchard phenomenon, Tories are posed to be one of the most interesting if not volatile parties. C’mon, how cool is publicly admitting you’ve got a secret deal? Frankly, my interest is piqued as I’m frustrated with a Liberal government that simply steals neo-conservative ideas, an NDP party that expounds vacuous flakeries and Bloc that doesn’t run any candidates this far west of Hull. I’m tired of Alliance tinged Liberals and I’m curious about this new socialist/conservative love-child.

Saturday night in Whitby and the I’ve never seen the parking lot at the Blockbuster so packed.

Earlier in the day, Elif suggested that we find at least another friend in town. It makes sense. Someone with a different opinion about the town would be refreshing. Still, this fictitious fourth person, who we now call Ringo, would have to know that Evelyn Waugh isn’t girl and George Eliot is.

We were pretty self-conscious as we walked into the movie-rental place. In Montreal, Elif had a conversation with a friend from university.

“So, where are you living now?” asked Will the friend.

“In Whitby,” said Elif.

“Oh, so you rent videos?”

It hurts ‘cause now it’s too true.

You see, the weather may be getting better and the flowers may be blooming, but this is actually a dark time in the ‘burbs. In the previous months, when the sun went down, there was the 500-channel universe to keep the existential angst away. Now, all our favourites have packed it in for the summer. I still have MASH from 10 to 11pm. Martha has [gag!] Trading Spaces.

The only sport worth following, hockey, is essentially over for the season. Despite my best efforts, armed with all my good-luck tokens (lucky rabbit’s foot, lucky half-eaten piece of cake from my 10th birthday and lucky two-by-four), the Ottawa Senators lost on Friday. Now, I just hope that that f*$#in’ Walt Disney team doesn’t win the Cup.

So it’s off to the video store we went, while my parents were in Battawa attending some Scottish haggis-eating fest (pretty weird for a couple of Poles) and Elif’s parents were out hanging with friends. Two houses devoid of parents! If this was high-school, there’s no way this opportunity would be wasted with a movie rental. But, we’re much more mature now. We watched the flick and then Saturday Night Live and then after a few yawns Mar and I headed home. Elif’s parents had shown us all up, staying out well past 1am. The real kicker, though, was getting home to find my parents hadn’t gotten back yet. What the hell! They had to got to church the next day. Just who did they think they were!? I waited up to give them a good scolding.

We went out for Michelle’s birthday. Dinner, drinks and dancing. I wish Caitlin hadn’t told me that Injera tastes and feels like boiled flesh. Her accuracy really affected the meal for me.
At the bar they played most of a Can album. How cool is that? On our way to the dance club, we meet this dude who’s all about this pop-tarts commercial: the one that features some guy yelling at a car full of girls as his car bounces up and down on some ‘roid-ragin’ pneumatic shocks. The yell sounds like the evil love-child between a simple ‘boom’ and a four-year old doing a car-driving-fast sound. Add I-told-you-so arrogance for good measure. So dude lets the yell rip.

“Like, what was that?” I said.

“You know that pop-tarts commercial?” he said.
“Oh, right, right, right. Do it again.”

“BEEEEEEYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAOOOOOOWW-
WWWWWWWW,” went the guy.

“Nice.”

He gave a couple more shouts, to us and then to some people walking along the opposite sidewalk. We got the twelve year-old ‘whatever’ look from them.

“Dude, you are like the man in charge.” I said and his girlfriend added, “Oh, you don’t know how much he thinks so.” We left with a few more BEEEEEEYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAOOOOOOWWWWW-
WWWWW’s following us to the club.

For some odd reason, the Rolling Stones came up while we were at the bar. Then calls for my Mick Jagger impression. Since Kraków, where this party trick got out of hand (Do Yagar Maczek. Do Yagar.), I’ve been sticking to the “I’m an artist not a performer” school of reticence. I held out until after midnight, when it truly was Michelle’s birthday. So, in front of the club, I pranced around and flapped my lips. Done. Happy Birthday. Let’s go into the club.

The bouncer says, “How about that Mick Jagger impression again?”

“Really? Okay, but for a reduced cover.”

“You can get in for free.”

I quickly dropped any artist snobbery and performed. I pranced around and flapped my lips and got my hand stamped without forking over a Sir Wilfred Laurier. I think the word for this situation might be BEEEEEEYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAOOOOOOWW-
WWWWWWWW.

Ah, life in the Durham region. Where styrofoam houses fill the landscape to the horizon and whose elected officials conduct themselves with the utmost dignity and panache. The Durham region includes the ever-stunted Whitby and its bedroom-community brethren Pickering, Ajax (whose relation to certain heroic Greek warrior is overwhelmingly ironic), Oshawa, Uxbridge, Scugog (the best named of the bunch), Port Perry and a host of others almost worth mentioning. As is usually their want, these communities elected a member of the Conservative party as their representative in the provincial government.

On Monday of this week, John O’Toole showed everyone just what kind of leader he is.

During a debate in the legislature, a debate that he no doubt spent a long time preparing for, complete with rehearsals in front of the bathroom mirror, O’Toole was interrupted by the NDP’s Peter Kormos. Now maybe lowly backbenchers don’t have to spend a lot of time in the legislature, maybe they can skip out of these things. I’m wondering this because Kormos’ interruption came as such a surprise and infuriated O’Toole to the point that the MPP for the Durham region felt he should give the NDPer the one-finger salute. It was only following this incident that things got ridiculous.

Outside the chamber, O’Toole denied that he’d made any offensive gesture.

“But Mr. O’Toole, it’s right here in the legislative broadcast service videotape.”

Busted, O’Toole then said he was sorry.

“Uh, so then, why did you deny flippin’ da bird?”

To which he responded that he didn’t know what the reporter meant by “flipping the bird.”

So what’s the fallout from this? Well, there have been calls for his resignation by his constituents. And I don’t blame them. What does it say about a region who elects someone who’s too dumb to know he’s been busted and plays stupid after the fact?

[Props to CTV.ca and The Durham Times and extra big shout-outs to Whitby this Week.]

Call it making the best of a less than ideal situation. Call it emic anthropology. Call it the search for kicks. We called it, Whitby Night.

On Friday, Caitlin, Michelle and Scott took the GO eastbound. Picked them up at the station, the classic rock radio station blaring.

“I didn’t know [Trooper’s] Raise a Little Hell actually had verses beyond the chorus,” said Michelle.

See, the event was educational from the start.

The plans for the evening involved a barbecue, a designated driver and a six of 50 (cans). All of us grew up in the suburbs, we wanted to see if we still had the skills we honed in our teens.

After a lovely barbecue came the stealth mission into the woods behind the elementary school and the old-folks home. On the path to the forest, we were passed by 20 to 30 high-school kids. Caitlin wondered aloud if this was some class-trip. I heard calls of ‘Nerds!’ Ah, la plus ça change. For us, it was into the woods to the big tree with the forked trunk and then off to the right to the rotten log. A few leaves scattered ever so naturally and the 50 was stashed.

“Sixer, dude!”

On the way back, we could hear the kids, cursing and swearing their way along the fence set up to keep the wild sylvan things off the old folks’ chemical lawn.

The six of us crammed into Elif’s parents’ car. I did the lie-across. Parking downtown [sic] Whitby on a Friday night turns out to be pretty easy, at least outside that ‘Firkin’ pub. Nickel Jam was on the stereo and hockey on the tube. An incredibly generic experience, really. The next stop was the Downpatrick: no frills, neon Ex sign in the window, harsh fluorescent lights inside, darts and AC/DC. I went for the first available table, right in the middle of the place. Someone else spotted a nice booth off to the side.

“What do you guys want?” says the bar-guy.

“What do you have on tap?” says Caitlin.

“Well, what do you want?” reiterates the bar-guy.

“50.” says Matt.

“I wish.” says the bar-guy.

A good sign nonetheless, eh?

As the levels from the first round approached empty, but before we could start debating a refill, the fit hit the shan. The whole bar erupted in a fight. A full on bar-brawl with broken glass and baseball caps knocked onto the floor. One of the servers said quite despairingly, “Oh, we haven’t had a fight in three months.” before she called the cops. Then, the fight took a break so that the participants could file outside and continue to smack each other in the face. The booth turned out to be the best seat in the house. We could sip our beers and watch everything. It might have been a little hairy if we stuck with my initial choice.

Scott and I got a warm “goodnight/take care” from the bar-guy. The cops told Martha, Elif, Michelle and Cait to stay out of trouble. “No fighting girls, hehehe.” We crammed into the car, headed to the northern reaches of town, made our way into the woods, past the car parked at the end of the soccer field with a make-out couple, to the big tree with the forked trunk and then off to the right to the rotten log. I brushed aside the natural-looking leafy covering and voilà, the sixer was still there! Time to enjoy mother nature and father 50. Lovely.

On our way to my parents’ we ran into a guy making his way home for the night.

“Aw man, were you here when all the cops showed up?” says the dude.

“What?!”

“Yeah man, there were like three or four cars here, busting people. About an hour ago.”

“Really, how many people were here?”

“Like, uh hunrud.” [Trans. “There were roughly a hundred.”]

“Holy crap!” [Trans. “A hundred?! That’s rather impressive.”]

Timing. It’s everything.

Well, we are moving up the domain name food-chain. No more .ws. Although, .net doesn’t quite have the same cachet as .ws and I won’t be getting that double-take that comes when I give out the address: “Yeah, that’s ‘ws,’ as in Western Samoa.” But, .net is way cheaper. So, there it is.

Boom, here they are: the digital docs from our wanderings through Korea and Thailand. I know, “It’s about time. It’s not like jet-lag can keep you down that long.’ I think… um… the cold was slowing us down too… er, yeah, that’s it.