The Trip From Hell
Guelph to Gravenhurst. Two and a half hours. It's a pain in the butt for us. SWMBO does not travel well (her back). Ratdog #1 whines for an hour, then starts throwing up. Ratdog #2 does something completely different. She throws up immediately, then whines for the rest of the trip. They do settle eventually and we have meds, but everytime you stop the car, slow the car, make a turn, adjust the frigging radio, they are up and at em, once again. God help SWMBO if I have to get out of the car. They lose their shit. So, the whole process is stressful. I won't go (too far) into the driving habits of (most) women, old people, young people, new Canadians, Civic owners, BMW owners, et al. I despise them all equally. KEEP RIGHT EXCEPT TO PASS. There are signs everywhere. It's not that complicated. The only thing more aggravating are the posers in gigantic pickup trucks with tiny penises. Passing lane, tailgating constantly. Thirty over, forty over. Having tiny penises, gets you a special licence to speed apparently. OK, enough ranting about that.
Being retired means you can travel through the week, when all the aforementioned wonderful human beings are stuck in their cubicles as they so richlyh deserve. The problem with that during that same time frame, those thousands are replaced by a couple o' hundred lazy morons in hard hats standing on the side of the road ... drinking coffee. You can read their minds. If I can't sit on a dock drinking ice cold beer, then you are not going to sit on a dock drinking ice cold beer. Don't let their small numbers fool you. They can bring just as much pain my world as the the thousands I get starting Friday afternoon, fighting their way up the 400 with me.
So downtown Erin is a horror show. Right downtown, they have an enclosure right across main street and they are digging. For uranium apparently as they have been there all summer? There is a slick little work around that my BIL taught me. Just before going into Erin from the east on #124, there are eight sideroads that you can go north on and catch Sideroad 17. It comes out right at the north end of Erin (by the Tim's) and avoids infinite bucket loads of drama not the least of which is watching old ladies try to parallel park in downtown Erin. Last week, we discovered the last frigging kilometer of this workaround under construction! Not normal construction, we are talking a single lane goat path barely navigable with a dune buggy construction!. Two sets of flagmen, only a single goat path open in two spots. Forty-five minutes to go the last kilometer. An hour and a half into our trip we are in Caledon. We should be just south of Barrie. We stop for SWMBO to have a smoke and a piddle. We go north on #10, hang a right on #9. Just past Airport Road, you go down a huge hill and you can see right across the valley. I think Todd and I measured it once when he was little. You can see ten kilometers and traffic is lined up as far as the eye can see. We sit there for fifteen minutes, and do not move. About fifty of use pull a a U-turn. It was easy as there was no traffic coming the other way! So there is a little parade of us working our way north and east on sideroads. An hour later we come out in Alliston and head over towards the 400 on #89. We finally get over near the 400 and stop for another smoke and pee break. I am thinking I am goingto be really late for my third round of meds, look in the backseat ... no suticase .... no meds ... SIGH. SWMBO comes back out of Tim's and I break the news. She actually took it pretty well. We talk about getting my drug store to phone in an order to the IDA in Gravenhurst right around the time we finally arrive at Hwy 400 and #89. It is jammed solid, stop and go headed north into Barrie. It was a short conversation. We turn south. So 4 hours after leaving our driveway, we are back in it. Car is jammed. I'm pissed (at me), SWMBO is hobbling, both dogs are sick, the car is packed full. We stumble inside, order $80 of Chinese food, eat and go back to bed. What a lovely way to spend a Thursday. The Jays beat Tampa later on. It was last Thursday's only redeeming quality!
Our Optimum Week
We did eventually get to Muskoka (three days late) and my sister announced in a loud clear voice: "four months today until Christmas". SWMBO says she is the nicest person in the world, but that is just mean? Onward. Sirloin Tip beef is on for half price at $8.99. That's still nine bucks a pound but every nine bucks is a pot of bourguignon or stroganoff or burgoo, or chili or beef stew or beef with broccoli or Vindaloo ... you get the idea. You could also just buy it in steak form for those last BBQ's of the season. Our favourite cut of chicken (boneless skinless thighs) is on for $5.49 a pound. A word about inflation? I ignore all the drivel on TicToc about prices, because they are trying to be sensational and I know the price of everything ... from every store. Having said that, we used to regularly get this cut of chicken for $4.99 a pound ... so that is up 10% over the four years since I retired. Property tax in Guelph is up 38% in the same timeframe. So, grocery prices are up and that is no small thing, but not front page news? This week, I strongly recommend the beef and chicken from the flyer and have listed a bunch (but not all) of the Moredays items for you to consider. I think they are using these Moreday events in place of overall continuity offers? They seem to have mostly disappeared. These are more targeted so if they are products that you use, then back up the truck:
Holy Gift Card Extravaganza Batboy! (thinking Christmas)
Hey, my sister started it. Get eight thousand points for every $20 spent on gift cards from Doordash, Gap, Google Play, H&M, Indigo or Uber? I have NEVER seen a deal this rich! It's not a good list for us, as we literally don't do business with any of these folks but a $100 dollar gift card gets you forty dollars back in points!! You could spend $500 in twenty minutes and gety $200 back in groceries! If you know and love a few millennials who use Uber to haul their drunk asses home and then call DoorDash to bring their drunk asses food, this might be for you?
What I'm Reading
I'll start with a double header as I had a dog-eared copy of The Eagle Has Landed by Jack Higgins which I had never read. I saw the entire movie on YouTube for free with commercials, so ... challenge accepted. I read the book then watched the movie. Micheal Caine, Donald Pleasance as Himmler, Donald Sutherland getting seduced by a barely 20 Jenny Agutter, Robert Duvall in his first top billing role, it is just a wonderful WWII movie. And it's no wonder. The book was a summer blockbuster that I consumed in about two sittings. Now I am going to have to go to Sunrise Used Books here in Guelph and buy a bunch of Jack Higgins stuff! I hve about ten to take back as I have been reading like a fiend. Reviews for those are still on my to-do list.
We Are Watching
Seal Team on Netflix - I don't mind the guy from Bones and I would admit to only watching it because Zooey Deschanel's big sister Emily is an eleven and hilarious in it. They renewed this show six times so how bad could it be? Turns out, not that bad. One surprise is AJ Buckley, a Canadian actor who played Micheal Rapaport's little brother on Season 5 of Justified. He has a larger supporting role on this show and is great. Mindless stuff, but it's well done and worth a watch while waiting for the Blue Jays game to start.
... and finally IBAT
My buddy's Dad is a plank holder at the Bruce County Heritage Farm. They have a fundraiser every August and after hearing about it (for a couple of decades), I finally made it up to Paisley, ON for opening day. It's actually an easy drive from Guelph and I had a blast! Curmudgeonly 0ld farmers with stories to tell, millionaire collectors who come from all over with their lovingly restored tractors, hit and miss antique engines enthusiasts, a steam driven sawmill, horse drawn farming equipment from the 1800's with actual demonstrations in a nearby field. Great food, a live band at night. It's ten whole dollars to get in, kids are free, no pets! How can you go wrong? My problem is to stay and see everything I would need to either get a nap in the parking lot before atempting the drive home or pitching a tent and staying over. Next year, I would like to take Sloop. How do I get all my camping gear up there on a motorcycle?
Mitch & Maddie