Fun and Games Dept

Earl and I are parked in Hartford, Conn. for the evening. We are meeting up with my one of my best friends from high school, Scott, and his partner Mark. Tonight we are going out for dinner and drinks and then tomorrow we are going to “Out In The Park” at Six Flags in Agawam.

Aside from bumping into each other at the True Colors concert in Boston back in June, Scott and I have not seen each other since December 1988. It’s going to be wicked cool catching up on what’s transpired over the past 19 years or so.

It’s time to go get prettied up.

Earl and I made our annual pilgramage to “The Great New York State Fair”. Today is the last day of the festivities.

I’ve been going to the fair for as long as I can remember. What was a fun family activity for me as a child has turned into a fun family activity for me as an adult. As kids, Mom and Dad would load us into the car, stop at my grandparents to pick up my cousin Jean and then take us to the fair to enjoy all the exhibits, the food and maybe a few rides. Mom and Dad were quick to teach us that the rides weren’t the most important thing at the fair because there were plenty of other things to see and do, what with all the livestock shows, the Center of Progress building, the Horticulture building and whatnot.

This year Earl and I didn’t even go on the midway. I don’t think we were into it as much as we have been in the past or something because we both found ourselves irritated by the huge number of Wal*mart-esque people carts motoring around the grounds. Now this is going to sound particularly nasty on my part, but I couldn’t help by almost sneer at the woman who could have easily used TWO of those carts to move around eating a fried blooming onion*. When her pudgy grandchild (judging by age) went to grab a ‘petal’ from the blooming onion, she reminded him that she had fries and pulled away! To keep things interesting there were also several of the latest model baby-buggies without children being pushed around in a weapon-like manner.

Nevertheless, we walked through the barns so that I could chat with the animals and ask how the Fair was this year. Those that stayed until the last day seemed relatively happy, however, because it was the last day of the Fair many had already left and the farmers that live with their animals in the barn for the 10 days of the fair had packed up. I like seeing the woofsters in their living arrangements.

Earl and I also took a peek at the table decorating display and subsequent awards. I’ve always found this to be interesting. To think there are actually clubs out there that compete as to who can build the most impressive table setting based around a theme. This year’s theme was The Orient. I found many of the entries to be quite impressive but the judges didn’t agree: “The sizes of the mums contradict the size of the serving plate.”

And so goes another year at the Fair. In the spirit of tradition, we ran into my cousin Jean and her family which was nice. I’m always a little sad to see the Fair come to an end though, because it means that the end of summer is here.

Per wikipedia: “A single Blooming Onion has been reported as containing 2210 calories and 134 grams of fat.”

I’ve often said that I’m a two beer queer. This has somewhat been proven to be a false theory during my recent trip to Prince Edward Island where I had seven beers with our friends that live on “the island”. I once again proved that to be a false theory this evening where Earl and I hung with our friends and I had four Utica Clubs. For some reason Utica Club just knocks me completely on my ass so I kind of think of Utica Club as more than one beer per cup but that might just be symantics.

Anyways, I’ve mentioned before that one of the favorite attractions of our area is “Saranac Thursdays”, the largest happy hour in the area held at the local brewery. Our brewery is the home of Saranac beer, as well as that old staple Utica Club (and their mascots Shultz and Dooley), the first legal beer released after the repeal of prohibition. Many men of my sexual persuasion like to drink those trendy beers such as Michelob Ultra and whatnot. Blah. Personally, I enjoy Utica Club. It’s probably obvious from this blog entry syntax.

The evening started off innocently enough when a dilly of a thunderstorm blew though around 4:00. I was worried that this would put a damper on our happy hour plans at the Saranac, where we planned on meeting several people from Earl’s office and several people from my office. The last hour of work in the telephone company network operations center proved to be very busy, as expected, but that didn’t slow us down.

While Mother Nature blew through and did her Dena Dietrich “It’s Not Nice To Fool Mother Nature” trick with the lightning and thunder, Earl and I enjoyed a nice homecooked meal of steak strips and grilled peppers and rice. Have I mentioned that Earl is a fantastic cook? He rates right up there with Grandma Country. Anyway, I figured going to happy hour on a full stomach was safer than going to dinner on an empty stomach. This was later proven to be rather wise.

We met up with our friends Michael and Chris (Chris works with Earl) and Shirley and Ryan and his girlfriend Jacqueline (I work with Shirley and Ryan) and enjoyed the sounds of “The Band Charlie”. When we arrived the crowd was rather sparse, obviously tentative due to Mother Nature’s hissy fit that had since subsided.

Can I just say that if you have the opportunity to attend an event where “The Band Charlie” is playing that you should absolutely do so because they are clearly the best band we heard play at Saranac Thursdays thus far. A couple of weeks ago there was this battle of the bands thing going on where they all sucked and I could have wiped them out by playing Do-Re-Mi on a Fisher Price bell set but “The Band Charlie” is awesome. They use real instruments and everything. “The Band Charlie” kicks ass, go see them.

After Mother Nature gave us the “all clear” sign, indicating that the storms were over with a little bask of sunshine, the crowds started to fill in up to normal population levels. That’s when I started taking random pictures.

I just held up the camera and starting shooting in various directions paying no attention to what I was doing, as I learned how to do from Mark and Brian during GB:NYC this past Memorial Day. Here’s another totally random shot.

Earl and I hung with our friends, scoped out the crowd and jammed to the music. I drank beer, Earl drove. If you ever have the chance to go to Saranac Thursday, go for the people watching because it’s one of those settings where people from all walks of life mingle as they should, simply as members of the human equation. Class, status, dress, money, sexuality, color; none of it matters at Saranac Thursday. I fscking love it. And it’s very rare that you’ll hear me say this, but I feel a little bit of home turf pride while we’re there. I love the people Earl works with, I love the people I work with and I love the fact that we recognize people from various area interactions (restaurant servers, bartenders, bank tellers, toll collectors, etc) at Saranac Thursday. It gives me a tinge of “hometown pride”. I even told Earl that I could live here the rest of my life and only complain about it slightly.

Afterward, Earl took me, well us, to our local haunt, Zebb’s, where we had Supper #2, consisting of chicken wings and loaded fries. I think I talked a lot. I don’t really remember. I did find this charming picture on the camera though whilst I was uploading to the blog. I thought I’d share.

So remember, look us up on a Thursday night and join us at Saranac Thursday. It’s a guaranteed good time.

While traveling I always find visiting a mall in any given city to be an interesting experience. This morning we stopped at Neshaminy Mall outside of Philadelphia. Earl was kind enough to help me pick out school clothes for my upcoming run with college. We bought a t-shirt that cost $3.39.

While at Neshaminy Mall we stopped at the food court for a bite to eat from Saladworks. I say when you’re going to pig out at a picnic in the afternoon it’s good to have a healthy salad in your stomach to soak up an alcohol you might consume later on. While dining in the food court I enjoyed my sport of people watching.

To our left were a group of five elderly women. The youngest had to be 75 if she was a day, and Earl and I suspect that she was the designated driver, as she was the only one without a walker or a cane. Her four partners in crime had their walking accessories scattered about in disarray. The oldest looking of these women was busying herself freshening her lipstick and makeup. Her friend was wondering aloud why there were so many numbers on the lottery ticket she was feverishly scratching at. The others in the group were just chattering and having a grand old time. It did my heart good to see these women, who have probably seen and experienced a big chunk of this life experience, out and about enjoying their Saturday afternoon together. I respect that and wish them further years of these experiences.

Behind them was a thug type looking kid. He was blinged to the hilt and had this “don’t fsck with me” attitude going on. I was a little startled when he sat down, took off his hat and prayed before eating his meal. I may not believe as he does but I respected that he took the time to acknowledge his beliefs.

Now we’re getting ready to head to the family picnic. The weather is absolutely gorgeous and the vibe is good. I love Philadelphia and it’s people, with their tough sounding accent and their overwhelming Eagles pride. There’s good people here.

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Here’s a little video from last night:

(more pictures)

Mother Nature brought us perfect beach weather today, so Earl and I headed to our favorite park in the New York State park system, and that’s Southwick Beach State Park. Relatively close to my hometown, we locals tend to just call it “Southwicks”. Here’s a brief history of the park courtesy of Wikipedia:

Southwick Beach State Park was named after the Southwick family, who owned the property from 1870 to 1960; the park is referred to as “Southwick’s Beach State Park” on some maps. Starting in the 1920s, several promoters built entertainment facilities on the property. The most notable was Albert Ellis, who developed it as the “Coney Island” of Northern New York. In time, the beach boasted a roller coaster, bathhouses, a dance pavilion, merry go-round, and midway. Ellis also built a baseball field and organized the Jefferson County Amateur Baseball League, attracting large crowds. These businesses failed during the Great Depression. In 1960, the Leesi Management Corporation of Syracuse purchased the land from the Southwick family and operated the beach for five years. The New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation purchased the 500 acre property (with a 3,500 foot lakefront) in 1965 for $150,000; Southwick Beach State Park opened in May, 1966.

One of the beautiful things about Southwick’s is that it’s situated on a 17-mile stretch of white sand beaches along the eastern shore of Lake Ontario. This is the only stretch of beach complete with sand dunes that is not along an ocean in the entire northeastern United States. Nowhere else along Lake Ontario will you find a spot so ocean-like, the only thing missing is the salt in the water.

There are a number of reasons that I love this park. First of all, the sunsets are breathtaking. Secondly, I have many happy memories from my childhood at this park including swimming until I was completely waterlogged and listening to “Boogie Fever” on the jukebox at the beach pavilion with my cousins. When I first introduced Earl to my parents, it was at a picnic of just the four of us at Southwick’s. Thirdly, even though I grew up closer to the neighboring Selkirk Shores State Park (which is not part of the stretch of sand dunes), Southwick’s is much more swim-friendly in that there’s no rocks along the lake bed, the seaweed is practically non-existent, there’s lots of sand and it really does feel like you’re at the ocean.

After spending some time at the main picnic area and beach, Earl and I decided to hike along the adjacent Lakeview Wildlife Management Area to the south of the park. The NYS DEC is doing their best to keep this beach as natural as possible by trying to keep people off the sand dunes by providing a couple of walkways to the adjoining marsh area. In addition, it’s in this part of the park that you’re away from the relatively crowded beach and into a more “broad-minded” area. Area boaters often shore up along here for their private picnics, same sex couples can occasionally be seen holding hands and just being themselves and there are often several nudists sunning themselves and swimming in the lake in a carefree manner.

Earl and I took the 1 1/2 or so mile hike and situated ourselves under some trees to just spend some quality time relaxing, enjoying the sun, swimming and playing some grab ass in the lake. It’s a good way to escape for the day. We both highly recommend it.

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After a lazy day of relaxation, catching up on sleep time via a few cat naps and more relaxation, Earl and I decided to get our day started around 6:00 p.m. After finally showering and getting dressed, we hopped in the Jeep and headed for my home town for the annual “Field Days”.

We didn’t make it in time for the parade, which we heard was rather disappointing, but we did arrive near supper time, so we headed for the chicken barbecue in the beer tent. I waved hello to several former classmates along the way. Good ol’ chicken dinners were being sold for $7.00 a piece. Accompanying your half of a chicken was some macaroni salad, a dinner roll and some cold baked beans. Earl and I have never been able to figure out why they serve cold baked beans. Why bake the beans if you’re going to serve them cold? The chicken seasoning seems to be pure salt, but that may be why they’re being sold in the beer tent, so that you buy more beer. We skipped the beer and stuck to pop.

Attendance seemed to be rather low at the Field Days this year. Back in my day, the field would be shoulder to shoulder with people after the big parade. Tonight you could clearly see from one end of the field to the other. I found this rather odd. We did see several people from my high school days, which is always a delight. We even ran into my best friend from high school. In my junior and senior year people thought he and I were dating, and we could have since we’re both gay and all, but we never dated. On overnight trips with the band and chorus and whatnot people assumed we would share a bed, and we did, but we never did the touchies. Perhaps that was a missed opportunity. Who knows.

It’s funny that my two closest friends in high school were also gay. I had several other gay friends in school as well. Earl has asked what was in the water, as he didn’t remember so many gay people in his high school, which was bigger than my school. Maybe us farm boys like to roll in the hay after all.

After our run at the Field Days, we took the long way home and met my mother at a 24 hour diner for some dessert and some chatter. It was a great spontaneous visit. I like doing that from time to time.

Oh – and today is my 6th blogaversary! “Life is such a sweet insanity” turns six years old today. Yay!

So I’m back home, snug as a bug in a rug. I arrived to the smiling face of Earl around 7:15 p.m. last night, confirming my suspicions that Québec is about eight hours from our home, not including the 1.5 hours I spent waiting at the border to cross back into the United States. Sitting at the border was an absolutely fascinating opportunity to people watch. I was in the left most lane of about eight lanes waiting to cross. All lanes were backed up for about one mile. Three lanes over there was a man with a toddler sitting on his lap, allowing the child to steer the minivan full of people. I wish that I could have worked it out so that I could watch him try to get through customs without the child in a car seat. When I was a kid, we were often entertained by being allowed to sleep in the back window or sit in the steering wheel. Today kids are strapped in and forced to watch a DVD. Hmmm, we survived just fine.

The man at the border crossing was surprisingly very amicable. I think it’s because I willingly gave him both my passport and my driver’s license. “Are you bringing anything back into the United States?” “I have less than $100 in souvenirs, you can take a look if you want.”, was my reply. I think he liked that. He thanked me for my passport because he just had to scan instead of typing the information into the computer. He also had a blond version of my mustache. I like to think that we bonded in some way. He has my number if he wants to call.

Earl and I haven’t traveled in Canada very much since 9/11, mostly because I find the treatment of people coming into the United States rather disconcerting and I don’t want to deal with the hassle. But since this latest excursion, I can say that I plan on visiting our neighbors to the north a lot more. Plus, looking at a map I found a very small border crossing in northern New York that we’re going to start using so we don’t have to wait in the long lines on the interstate.

Here’s some of the observations I made:

1. Talk radio in Canada, both in English and French, discusses a wide range of topics with varying points of view. They talk about the environment, they talk about the upcoming gay pride parade in Halifax, they talk about nuclear power, they talk about crime rates and they talk about their health care system. As soon as I crossed into the states, talk radio was all about terror, terror, terror and more terror, the war, some more terror, the war, terror, the damn liberals, terror and a general “the sky is falling” attitude. I spun the dial several times trying to find something a little less bleak but all I found was more terror, terror and terror.

2. The number of SUVs on the road in Canada is only about a tenth of what we have here in the states. There are some cute little two seat cars, which look like half of a Cooper Mini. I don’t know what they’re called but they look to be quite fuel efficient. I also saw several electric cars, especially around Montréal. While I’m talking about driving, Canadians still use sensible lane discipline for the most part, meaning they still heed “Keep Right Except To Pass”. Here this little law is all but ignored, especially in New England and Upstate New York.

3. I was able to walk through Zellers (think K-mart) without seeing a person on one of the motorized carts that I think should be banned from stores (at least in all but a few extreme circumstances). I also noticed that waistlines are generally somewhat smaller on Canadian citizens. There’s still a lot of husky, but there’s not a lot of grossly overweight going on.

4. Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick seem to be very environmentally conscious in that there are no “trash cans”, there are recycling stations with “garbage”, “recyclable” and “compost”. Everywhere. McDonalds, Tim Hortons, the mall, the street; everyone is intent on recycling. This is good.

5. I confirmed that Americans as a whole are surly and depressed. Canadians seem much more chipper. Every clerk or cashier was friendly, smiled and accomodating. I never left a store without hearing “Merci beaucoup, au revoir!” (Thank you very much, good-bye). And they sounded like they meant it.

Our friends Sean and Jeffrey are going through the necessary red tape to move to Canada and become Canadian citizens. I must say that I applaud their efforts and I completely understand their reasoning. Given the opportunity, I would love to live in Canada full-time. Ten years ago or so, Earl and I discussed retiring to Southern Québec and last night I confirmed that game plan with him.

I love our neighbors to our North. I look forward to visiting them again soon.

So tonight I am in the gorgeous city of Québec, Québec. I haven’t been here since 1983, when I was here with my high school French class. It’s as beautiful as I remember it, with a unique blend of old and new. I love the province of Québec because it has it’s own culture and you definitely feel like you’re not in the States when you’re here.

One of the reasons I chose to come through Québec on the way home, which by the way added over three hours to my trip, is because I’m always looking to break out of my shell a little bit and by spending the night in a city that doesn’t have English as it’s predominant language I figured that I would be forced to be a little more outgoing.

I’ve startled a few people with my attempts at speaking French.

First of all, I don’t know why the New York State Education Department insists on teaching it’s students France French. Half the northern border of the Empire State is with a French speaking province, you’d think they’d teach us functional Québecois instead of France French. From what I understand (and I know Thom in Va. can chime in on this), the folks here speak a more proper dialect of French than the French do. It’s as different as American English versus British English and then some. No offense to Mlle. Hallinan (my high school French teacher), but the maitre’d does not care that Je m’appelle Jean-Patrick nor do they care that “Michel! Anne! Vouz-travaillez? Non, je regarde la télevision, pourquoi?” (We had to recite that last bit from our french book on enough occasions that it has stuck in my head to this day.)

I believe that when you’re visiting a foreign country, you should at least attempt to speak the native language before asking/demanding/jumping into your own tongue. I will make every possible attempt to get through a conversation completely in French, but I’ve been a little wary since that time I told the woman in Montréal that I was in heat (I meant to say it was hot). Now, when greeted with a cordial “Bonjour” at an establishment, I return the same and then try to muddle my way through some French before saying, “Je regrette, parlez-vous anglais?” There’s usually a sigh of relief when I get to this point. Said sigh is usually preceded by startled looks.

The “parlez-vous anglais?” bit worked perfectly at the front desk of the hotel, where the very attractive desk attendant went from perfect French to perfect English without so much as a bat of an eye. I think she was relieved that I wasn’t going to give her the “Michel! Anne!” speech nor was I going to quote Lady Marmalade.

Feeling quite cocky, I got myself gussied up and drove into Québec without a map or GPS at my side. I ended up in the gayborhood! Whoo hoo! I walked around a bit, hoping to find some little place that I could get une table pour un (cringing yet Thom?) and enjoy a little dinner. Unfortunately, that neighborhood seemed to be all about the sushi and/or Vietnamese food. As good as I was feeling avec mon francais, I wasn’t about to dive into some oriental version of the language nor was I going to try to bark out a number off a menu. So I did some more walking and enjoyed the crisp air before deciding I head back to the hotel.

Calorie starved and a little dizzy when all was said and done, I found a 24h McDonalds and decided to give it a shot. I walked up to the counter and did the Bonjour! response and my “Parlez-vous anglais?” to the young lady when she responded “Eh?” I asked if she spoke English again, this time a little slower when she responded with a meek “Non.”

Ugh.

So much for my cockiness. Time to muddle through another order and hope I don’t end up with McYak or something.

“Numero Huit.” I blame Earl for the Spanish I threw into the mix because I had just cleared my voicemail of him babbling in Spanish in response to my French message.

“Huit!” she said.

“Grande”, I asked, hoping to god that’s how I got to supersize.

She looked at me blankly, so I tried again. “Grande?” “Large?” “Super-Sized?” “Mondo Mondo?”

She made “large” motions with her hand and said “Trio”.

“Trio.” Who the hell cares if I was about to get three meals. (I’m thinking that the super sized meals here are called “Triples”, hence the “Trio”.)

When all was said and done I got what I intended and ended the transaction with a sweet merci beaucoup exchange between us. I like to think that the cashier and I had a moment.