Once Lost But Now Found.

NeitherWhiskeyNorRye
FoundWeekendVille


Over the last thirty years I've spent many weekends that, while they were not entirely lost, were often lost opportunities.

Not lost opportunities to get data analyzed, lectures prepared, or work done.

But instead lost opportunities to do things with friends and, especially, family.

This weekend, just passed, I did my best to make sure that didn't happen.

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Early Friday afternoon I closed the box, stuck it in my pack, and took off on my bike for Bridgeport to catch the 620 bus to Tsawwassen.

One hour and thirty-five minutes later I rode off the lower car deck of the no fun/no autobahn krautrock ferry at Swartz Bay and started my ride into Victoria on the Lochside trail before swinging right at Reynolds School to head west on the Galloping Goose trail almost, but not quite to Horganland (i.e. Colwood).

Which meant that forty kilometres and a little over two hours later I was in my Dad's kitchen briefly making like Ray Milland in Billy Wilder's classic noir, downing two beers in quick succession with a back porch grilled steak sandwiched in-between.

Saturday, littler e., who is going to school at UVIC, spent the day with us on a project that didn't quite work out in the end.

But that didn't really matter because the fun was all in the doing and for dinner that night it was the traditional fish 'n chips from Salty's on Goldstream followed by the watching one from the PVR'ed Jeopardy bank, this despite the fact that the true slayer of the answers offered up by Ken Jennings is actually Bigger E. who was not with us this time.

Sunday morning I reversed the journey, apparently being spotted by my brother where the Goose crosses Saanich Rd just feet from where we used to play at our own Grandmother's house fifty years ago. 

In the end, I was back home tucked away in the subterranean homesick blues room just in time to watch the second half of the big bowl of commercials, the end of which was one big fizzle courtesy a phantom call that messed up what was otherwise a pretty interesting game.

Regardless, ten years from now I'm pretty sure I'll remember the bike ride, the waiting steak, and the fun with my youngest kid and her Grandpops a whole lot more than those Phila Eagles' fourth down wedge runs or the buckets of local anaesthetic that were used to free(ze) up the KC Chiefs' quarterback's high ankle sprain.

OK?

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And speaking of whiskey and rye, why, exactly, did Don Maclean have the good old boy's drinking both rather than the one and the same anyway?

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