I woke up late this morning from a fitfull sleep filled with numerous nightmares. I wouldn’t have minded the nightmares if they were due to eating too much delicious cheese before bed, but my evening prior had been sadly cheeseless. Foolish.
Marie was already up and doing her morning workout so I hopped in the shower and belted out a soulful rendition of ‘Bless your Beautiful Hide’ from '7 Brides for 7 Brothers' that would have made Howard Keel proud. Then I towled off and sauntered back into our bedroom to get dressed. As I entered the room, the pile of covers on the bed suddenly leapt up and went ‘Ahhhh!' very loudly. This surprised me somewhat as I was definitely not expecting them to do so. As it turned out, Marie had been hiding under the covers and waiting to scare me, which she found hysterical and caused her to laugh uncontrollably for 12 minutes. She is adamant that I am not allowed to scare her back because she is 7 months pregnant. That just means I have two whole months to plan the perfect revenge scare.
We have a lilac bush outside of our kitchen window and it is finally in bloom and the lilaccy scent is drifting pleasantly into the house which gives us the idea to venture out to the Centennial Lilac Garden on the Niagara Parkway. The garden does not disappoint, and we spend a couple of hours picnicking on the grass and enjoying the scenery and smells. I always love visiting there but today is especially enjoyable because it is so nice to not be staring at a screen for awhile. There is an adorable old couple who have brought their own table, chairs, and table cloth along with a bottle of champagne and glasses. It is very sweet but inside I curse the man for making me look bad as all I brought for Marie was some takeaway KFC.
Marie was already up and doing her morning workout so I hopped in the shower and belted out a soulful rendition of ‘Bless your Beautiful Hide’ from '7 Brides for 7 Brothers' that would have made Howard Keel proud. Then I towled off and sauntered back into our bedroom to get dressed. As I entered the room, the pile of covers on the bed suddenly leapt up and went ‘Ahhhh!' very loudly. This surprised me somewhat as I was definitely not expecting them to do so. As it turned out, Marie had been hiding under the covers and waiting to scare me, which she found hysterical and caused her to laugh uncontrollably for 12 minutes. She is adamant that I am not allowed to scare her back because she is 7 months pregnant. That just means I have two whole months to plan the perfect revenge scare.
We have a lilac bush outside of our kitchen window and it is finally in bloom and the lilaccy scent is drifting pleasantly into the house which gives us the idea to venture out to the Centennial Lilac Garden on the Niagara Parkway. The garden does not disappoint, and we spend a couple of hours picnicking on the grass and enjoying the scenery and smells. I always love visiting there but today is especially enjoyable because it is so nice to not be staring at a screen for awhile. There is an adorable old couple who have brought their own table, chairs, and table cloth along with a bottle of champagne and glasses. It is very sweet but inside I curse the man for making me look bad as all I brought for Marie was some takeaway KFC.
On the way home we stop in at Giant Tiger (my most favourite of all tiger sizes) because I had seen from a Facebook friend that they have tasty racks of ribs on sale for $4.99. I don’t eat ribs too often but I do enjoy them from time to time and they were on my mind as I’d just found out that this years RibFest was cancelled. I enjoy going to RibFest because you always run into people you know and it gives me many opportunities to make the same terrible ‘ribbed for your pleasure’ joke multiple times year after year.
After returning home I set out to begin vacuuming the pool to get it ready for the heatwave we are scheduled to get next week. As I walk outside I see that there is a cheeky little rabbit hanging out in the backyard. I think he is super cool but Marie insists he is a pest and always digs up holes and eats the vegetables from her garden. I decide I will be a hero and chase him away but he doesn’t seem scared of me at all and I literally have to chase him all the way around the circumference of the pool before he finally decides to scoot under the fence into our neighbours yard. If I’m going to get revenge on Marie for this morning I am going to have to step up my scare game.
After returning home I set out to begin vacuuming the pool to get it ready for the heatwave we are scheduled to get next week. As I walk outside I see that there is a cheeky little rabbit hanging out in the backyard. I think he is super cool but Marie insists he is a pest and always digs up holes and eats the vegetables from her garden. I decide I will be a hero and chase him away but he doesn’t seem scared of me at all and I literally have to chase him all the way around the circumference of the pool before he finally decides to scoot under the fence into our neighbours yard. If I’m going to get revenge on Marie for this morning I am going to have to step up my scare game.
Once the pool is taken care of, I decide to try my hand at a different pool and play a few games of potting balls. Since social isolation began I’ve been practising daily at trying to pot all the balls on the table in as few shots as possible. My record so far is 18, which I’ve achieved twice, and I’m determined to break it. I get off to a good start and pot 2 balls off the break but I end up falling agonizingly short by taking 19 shots total. I can feel the rabbit mocking me from outside. Now I'm glad Marie didn't plant carrots this year.
I decide to take out my frustration by going to annoy Marie who is at the computer desk working on her online lesson plans for her students. The school has asked all of the teachers to make Bitmojis of themselves for some reason and now Marie has taken on the project with gusto and created her own virtual Bitmoji classroom to teach her lessons. I remind her how much she made fun of me when I made a Bitmoji last year but she pretends not to remember. It’s inspiring to see how much she loves her job and makes me want to come up with a new creative project of my own.
I had been chatting with my friend Mark Andrews the night before about ways to improve the online comedy experience to make it feel more natural. We agreed that having comics interact with each other in a panel/game show format could be a fun idea to explore so I jot down a few ideas to expand upon. It will take a bit of time to bring these ideas to life properly but luckily time is something I have in abundance right now. It was nice chatting with Mark as I am definitely missing my friends more and more with each passing day. I have lots of funny friends who make me laugh and they very seldom nibble on my garden vegatables which is an added bonus.
Later in the evening I text my buddy Rob Dorinzi to see what he is up to. He responds by telling me is going to throw a piano on a bonfire, which is probably one of the coolest responses I could have envisioned. Bonfires are super cool as it is, but throw a piano on top of it then that is a recipe for good times. He promises to send me pics and when I receive them later that night they are everything I had hoped they would be and more. Say what you will about this pandemic, but you need to appreciate the good with the bad. Who needs online comedy shows when you can just watch pianos burn instead? As if the piano pic was not satisfying enough, he then sends me a video of the instrumentular destruction. As I nibble my cheese and watch the flames rise from the keys I know that tonight I will sleep well.
I decide to take out my frustration by going to annoy Marie who is at the computer desk working on her online lesson plans for her students. The school has asked all of the teachers to make Bitmojis of themselves for some reason and now Marie has taken on the project with gusto and created her own virtual Bitmoji classroom to teach her lessons. I remind her how much she made fun of me when I made a Bitmoji last year but she pretends not to remember. It’s inspiring to see how much she loves her job and makes me want to come up with a new creative project of my own.
I had been chatting with my friend Mark Andrews the night before about ways to improve the online comedy experience to make it feel more natural. We agreed that having comics interact with each other in a panel/game show format could be a fun idea to explore so I jot down a few ideas to expand upon. It will take a bit of time to bring these ideas to life properly but luckily time is something I have in abundance right now. It was nice chatting with Mark as I am definitely missing my friends more and more with each passing day. I have lots of funny friends who make me laugh and they very seldom nibble on my garden vegatables which is an added bonus.
Later in the evening I text my buddy Rob Dorinzi to see what he is up to. He responds by telling me is going to throw a piano on a bonfire, which is probably one of the coolest responses I could have envisioned. Bonfires are super cool as it is, but throw a piano on top of it then that is a recipe for good times. He promises to send me pics and when I receive them later that night they are everything I had hoped they would be and more. Say what you will about this pandemic, but you need to appreciate the good with the bad. Who needs online comedy shows when you can just watch pianos burn instead? As if the piano pic was not satisfying enough, he then sends me a video of the instrumentular destruction. As I nibble my cheese and watch the flames rise from the keys I know that tonight I will sleep well.
