Cross-Country Handsomeness

What better way to get back to blogging than with a picture of a beautiful Toronto boy with beautiful tattoos? We had dinner with this one on our stop over in T-dot. Luckily for me he hates to have his photo taken so I was able to get his cute mug and his fantastic zips.

And then two hours after we departed from Mississauga to begin our roadtrip...Here's Bentley getting four new tires in Barrie, Ontario. A large piece of rubber had come off one of the rears (we'd replaced only the front two in Montreal) and the Canadian Tire we limped into wouldn't change one unless we changed all. Seems the four that were on there were too big to be safe. The VERY nice mechanic helped Andreas strap the new ones from Montreal to the van's roof. Lucky for us we'd been fined $300 in Montreal for having lights up there otherwise where would we have fit those tires?The kids and I waited in the shade (four hours +) til I could stomach the $800 bill.The Cheat was exhausted.
But once we were back on the road we saw (and made use of) some beautiful country.Umm, I can't really explain this one. Here I am in the middle of the country with Scabbers and The Cheat and a large fish.I expected to HATE Winnipeg (obviously) but here it is at 5am and it was gorgeous. It's quite a pretty city and was our best motel stop along the way. We were sure that there were no dogs allowed in the motel so we smuggled them inside in bags. I was totally stressed out and tense and an hour later we read that pets were okay in most of these joints (Travel Lodge). I began to book then in advance.

Saskatoon was fantastic and we were put up by some lovely prairie kids who showed us around and took us to a farm. Clint has built a beautiful studio out there under those big skies. The two bumps in the field are not prairie dogs but country-loving rugged city hounds. It was windy, vast and amazing.Alas we had to get back on the road. We thought a lot about Laura and Jon in this place and what it is that makes prairie folk so frackin delightful.Blah blah Jasper elk blah blah...
Who needs REAL animals when you've got these great signs with PICTURES of animals!?!Yowza!! Why do I even make art this is so good?! I tried to get a shot of all of em including the elk, wolf and deer. Oh you Provincial Park smarties. Oh Canada.
Marty drinking a lake with two loons in it. Blep blep blep.

In PRINCE GEORGE, B.C. I decided to try and trade up ol Bentley for this bigger and more practical truck. Here I am working my magic on some firefighters who drove over to my parents house to get their knives sharpened. Ha ha ha I'm saying, you're so funny. That's Mom and Dad's place in the background and Papa coming down the driveway.
The Mystic Wizard...
Our new roomate in a pair of VanderKooij's sunglasses


Our other new roomate. She may look fierce but there's no need to fear her. She pinched her brother the other day while squeeling "It hurts me too!".Both kids have excellent manners and are great at sharing. In fact, if an old guy's too tired to walk he can simply have their place in the stroller.

Handsome on the Move

So moving day 2007 started early with a 7am breakfast downtown. Early rainy weekend mornings are the best time to be on St. Catherine's street in Montreal. We spent the morning packing and taking apart the last of the furniture. The kids all arrived around 11 and we drove the three blocks to the RCA to begin unloading the studio into Bentley The Ambulance:

I guess there's no way we could have antcipated all the freight elevators save one being used by other movers and that this would force us into using the lesser known and generally crappier set a few hallways down. How could we have forseen that using these shabby lifts would necessitate scattering a crowd of surly, painted teenage models who were working the crumbling and soggy hallways of the old building as though it were a runway to the arms of that big fatty Tyra Banks? Each load of our ill-begot Home Depot carts had to be wheeled through the spindly crowd who would in turn have to cease their display, pause "Dance Hits 2004" and stand aside for the increasingly stinky and signifcantly stubbier movers; their pointy-toed, pimped out, well...Pimp really, was less than impressed.

The first load from the studio packed the elevator so tightly that Randolph, Alan and I could barely squeeze in with all the junk. Andreas and Andrea returned to the studio with their orange carts (again scattering the models like so many pretty pigeons) and I pulled down the heavy door of the lift. There are two doors in these old elevators and the inside one is a metal fence that slides sideways in a track. The outer doors close like a clam shell and must be tightly together on each floor of the building or the thing won't move. During our slow, noisey and moderately terrifying journey from the fifth floor to the main, a rung of the metal fence caught in the lips of the third floor's clam shell causing the lumbering elevator to grind to a halt. Since the three of us were wedged into our spaces inside the box and my slice was closest the door I grabbed hold the metal bar now jutting horizontally out into the hallway and wrenched with all my might to get it back inside. I reckon that to Alan and Randolph I looked like a feral monkey trapped by zoologists who collect miscellaneous pencils and failed drawings of floating bears but this little chimp managed to crank that sucker back into the lift and our downwards momentum began again.

After that it was hours before we got all the studio stuff into the van. We stopped for delicious croissant sandwiches and Knudsen's sodas which we enjoyed while leaning on the dank walls of the parking bay. Here's the guy responsible for almost all of these photos...

At St. Ferdinand street the five of us were were joined by three more super good looking helpers and we set about bringing our worldly belongings down the three winding spiral flights of St. Henri stairs. It was still raining but not pouring and the lovely help made the whole thing seem like it was less of a horror. Of course once we got the majority of our stuff down to the alley way we realized that 60% wasn't going to fit. What was definitely not going to fit was my beloved green couch that we bought from Numa:

This thing weighs so much it's ridiculous. The ropes tied around it are intended to prevent the crushing of the bodies of those we loved who were on the bottom side of it on the way down. So now that we had it down and realized it wouldn't fit the heartbreaking reality of our situation was upon us. The kids all went to the Dep for drinks and to give us time to decide what or who would be staying behind in Montreal so we could fit the essentials. The dogs and Andreas got to continue the journey but my bed, bed frame, wool carpet, lamp, boxes of art supplies (oh why did I even pack those?) and many other fine objects were voted to stay behind. Andrea and Laura (who FYI I vote to be Queens of the World) took off to Andrea's house to call and email everyone we knew about a spontaneous three hour only garage sale. Lindsay, Alan and I decided that the 100 proof would stay behind so we pulled it out of the van and consoled it with a few heavy swigs of farewell. The single malt got to stay onboard Bentley and it was tucked in a small hole atop my $500 roll of canvas. It's a perfect match really.

So we fit what we could and dragged everything else back up the three flights. Including that lead couch. The beautiful bartending contingent took the bed and frame and in return gave us cash money and a flat of Tim's donuts with coffee. That was the best part.
!!!!JONNED!!!!

The following day we sold the rest of what could be sold and moved all else to the curb. Monday came and found us still in Montreal in the very same clothes of the day before and the day before trying to repair Bentley's alarm system which had taken to going off without cause or warning and mostly in the middle of the night. Imagine two tired and stinky movers out in the midnight drizzle after an 18 hour moving day holding a flashlight while the van's alarm continued to wail. Eventually we cut the wire to the battery. When the interior lights of the truck then refused to turn off we discontected the battery entirely. Sigh.

It was a hell of a move but in the end no one was seriously hurt and we had a van full of a lot of our more treasured objects (and probably some stuff on the bottom that we didn't really want anymore but could no longer extract). The best part of the whole thing was Saturday night when we were able to sit down with everyone for the beer and the pizza and laugh about how poorly it all went down.

Monday afternoon when we finally left Montreal the two co-pilots were just happy to be invited along. They didn't even mind that we'd used the available space under their basket to store more junk...