On the Road Again...

A happy belated Thanksgiving to my Canadian readers! It’s been one heck of a rough weekend for ol’ Al. I could safely rename the blog Al B Here, There and Everywhere after all of my travels. Right now I’m dead tired. I picked up the rental car at 4:30pm and headed for Ontario a little after 5pm. Contrary to popular belief, les Montrealais don’t necessarily take off early on Fridays of long weekends, as I discovered first hand. I drove headlong into rush hour, pushing back my arrival time in London to close to 2am. The word “ouch” comes to mind.

Saturday was a wee bit more eventful as I learned of the birth of Chris’ bébé. There are the appropriate number of fingers and toes, or so I’ve been led to believe, so all is good there. Rebecca also made it through intact, so all is good on that front. But that wasn’t the end of our adventures for the day. No, sir! It also happened to be the wedding day of my fraternity brother, Rich, so back into the car I went, dragging my friend Lauren in tow. Back we went to Toronto for what amounted to being a hybrid of a Chinese and Canadian wedding reception, meaning that we had the 8 course meal, but there were also speeches given by the groom’s side and a dance afterward. I didn’t get to take advantage of the open bar, though, because we were heading back to London that night. Yes, you read that correctly. I drove from London to Toronto for a wedding reception and then returned the same night. No hotels for me.

In an interesting twist of Fate, I had had a conversation with the girl at the car rental agency, during which she advised against bringing “friends” to weddings as it tends to curtail the good times and hamper one’s ability to meet someone new. Well, I have to give her credit for foresight as she was half-right. I’m glad I made it to the reception and it was nice to see the boys again, but there are certain obligations that go along with being the gentleman, namely attending to one’s date and making sure she’s having a good time. That being said, I wanted to catch up with the guys a bit, which left Lauren the opportunity to socialize. Don’t go thinking I left this girl by her lonesome the whole time. That wasn’t the case at all. But somewhere along the lines, she got to talking with one of the single guys who sat at our table and, sure enough, numbers were exchanged, etc. So my “date” picked up at Rich’s wedding. Good one, Fate. Thanks for that.

I hadn’t given too much serious thought to Lauren for a while now. There’s a pretty significant age difference between us, which has been used as an excuse for why we won’t hook up, but the new guy is 29, which the mathematicians among us will note is a mere 2 years younger than I am. Um, yeah. So the feelings are a bit hurt, at the moment, even though I wasn’t actually pursuing her. My friend Chris said something worth sharing regarding the whole situation. It went something like this, “I suppose in future, the response to anyone who claims some hard & fast rule is "Bushwah." There are no rules people won't break when its convenient.” Well put. And that’s all I’m going to say on the matter.

Sunday was football, as is customary. I watched my Lions blow a 14 point lead in what seemed like 30 seconds and go to a woeful 0-5 record on the season. That was followed up by the usual family dinner and a quick jaunt over to see Chris’ new bébé. Monday was another roadtrip adventure that amounted to 10 hours in the car, thanks in no small part to traffic being reduced to one lane around Brockville. So this has been quite whirlwind weekend for me. And tonight I’m going to see Iron Maiden at the Bell Center, so I’m in for another long day. Wow, all this just to explain why the Bernard Landry interview isn’t fit to print yet!

I would just like to take a moment to pass on my congratulations to Chris and Rebecca on their recent arrival, as well as congratulate Rich and Leslie on their marriage. Both are starting off new chapters in their respective lives and I wish them all the love and happiness they can have. Til next time…