pavlov's daughter.

"Good mix of people, good food and more than 20 bottles of wine consumed."

After I spent 10 minutes trying to figure out how to access the "Bell Hotspot" at the local Starbucks (or one of the assumed 5 that are probably in a ten block radius), I checked my e-mail & found a gem from my father.

After a rather rocky child & early teenage-hood, my father and I have put aside (most of) our differences in the past two years and have moved onto being more friends than family, a relationship that seems to confuse everyone but the two of us. When in Europe last year visiting Maddy, when we ran out of money & couldn't stay at the commune we were supposed to, he put us up in a fancy hotel room on Grafton in Dublin & paid our astronomical room service bills (Cough. Wine bills.)after hosting a couple small soirees after drinking at several nearby bars. He took us out for steak when Maddy had been eating brown rice for months. He gave us advil in the mornings we saw him to nurse our hangovers.

On Sunday my dad turned sixty but he's certainly no closer to slowing down than I am. After just getting back from golfing in Portugal, drinking wine in Italy with his girlfriend, and hiking in Corsica, my father I assume will be heading to his estate in Kelowna soon to ski all winter with his ladyfriend who, by the way, is a real doll.



Don't get me wrong, my dad & I still have our differences, but to be honest he is a pretty cool dude. When I got my first tattoo, he laughed while my mother sat in the other room and cried. When I got my second tattoo, he just laughed even harder. For the record, he likes both of them. One day last summer I was talking on the phone about the Air Mattress Incident of 2008 with my best friend, which led to one of my piercings being ripped out, when I heard laughter coming from the other side of the door. He may be a snoop, but at least he finds me endearing. On our roadtrip moving me from Winnipeg to Toronto, he drove me through the States just so I could stop and get polaroid film & American cigarettes. We sang along to Loudon Wainwright III's "Daughter" and I'm fairly sure I saw tears well up in his eyes. I introduced him to Sufjan Stevens & Devandra Banhart, which he loved, and The Pharcyde, which he hated.

In the e-mail, my father told me about how he had a 'small soiree' at his condo on Saturday and got trashed. Sounds about right.

Turns out the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

The second picture, with my dad on the left, was taken in Ireland after eight (EIGHT!) bottles of wine with maddy, his friend, and I. Please note his wine teeth. In the first picture which was taken in Galway, Ireland, please note the fact that he is drinking beer outdoors. Love you, pops. Happy birthday.