Just some serious silliness near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

“I’m going out, I’m not bringing my wallet, keys and phone.”

I hear this at least four times a week, or a variation thereof. Lovely Wife has a knack for leaving uselessthings behind, and her wallet, keys and phone fall into that category. Yesterday as she’s walking out the house to go biking to the library with the kids she lets me know she would not be carrying useless items. 

- Sure, I said, if you have an accident of something you could crawl to the nearest payphone to call me or the ambulance.

She made the face – you know the face that says you’re probably right but you’re an idiot – and took her useless things with her. And off they went to the library.

30 minutes later…

Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring. Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring!

I have call display, I see it’s Lovely Wife. All the possibilities run through my mind. Is she hurt, are the kids hurt? What’s wrong?

Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrring.

- Yeeeeeeeees? Are you okay?”

- Hey, look I brought my phone!”

- Are you just calling to let me know that you have your phone?

- Well, ahem…  no. I locked my bike and I didn’t bring my keys.

Of course I drove there to bring her the keys. I think this is the first argument I win in 17 years.

So for you not fluent in Quebecer speach, this could be translated as “Slightly exiled, a stranger in my own town”.

I have one of my bestest friend in the whole world visiting me for a couple of days – in fact, I can honestly say that she’s my best female friend in the world – so we did the tourist thing today: we took the Lady Dive tour. For those of you familiar with the Ottawa-Gatineau region, yes: This is the same company that had one of their “ship” sink to the bottom of the Ottawa river a few years back, killing two in the process. One of them was a very nice man that saved a few children before being sucked at the bottom of the river. Sad.  

Anyhoo, we took the tour and it was fairly cool.

But the very cool thing about today, really, is that Lovely Wife is a fairly good friend of Isabelle, and that pleases me a lot. There’s a lot of my friends that Lovely Wife doesn’t like that much (apologies if this applies to you – really!), so when I can find someone I like and Lovely Wife likes, I’m in Heaven with a capital H.

Now if you factor in that my bestest female friend also likes to enjoy a good glass (or bottle) of wine, I’m really in Heaven.

This is a good night.

Drunk-bloggin is awesome.

Internets, I salute you. These are awesome vacations.

That was meant as a compliment from Lovely Wife.

It’s apparently the wrinkles around my eyes that make me look likie a movie star. An old movie star.

I don’t know exactly what to make of that. I guess I’ll survive.

Today the kids are coming back home. We did miss them, but tried to stay busy and not mope too much while they were not there. To alleviate the pain (har har) we tried to go out for dinner every single night.

Sunday: Drove back from Sherbrooke and went to see the Dark Knight. Awesome, but New-York Fries was out of fries. 

Monday: Went to Les Fougères and had their 14th anniversary tasting menu with the wines. It was excellent. The last time I felt this full was when we went there almost five years ago.

Tuesday: Had dinner at Pub Italia. Pizza was great, mussels were excellent. Beer was really good. I’m thinking this is the perfect spot for an office party.

Wednesday: Dinner at the HRC in Ottawa. As usual, it was pretty good. Long Island Iced Teas for me, some frozen pink drinks for Lovely Wife.

Thursday: We went to Meule et Caquelon, and had a real Raclette du Valais. The service was slow, but the food was good.

Friday: X-Files and fries. That was very good. Yes, I mean the fries.

Saturday: Food at Le Troquet for lunch, and then The Works for dinner. Had a really amazing burger and shared a litre of shake with Lovely Wife. Then we came back home aqnd played American Idol Encore on the Wii.

Now excuse me while I go formulate a plan to lose that extra 10 pounds I just gained typing this recap.

I can’t believe vacations are finally here!

I think pretty much everyone knows about Arbuckle. Today I found this. Garfield is the original LOLCAT.

I think I’m featured on Overheard at the Office. Now I need to find who Allison really is. I’m a little disturbed by this actually. If it’s not me, it means somebody else in Ottawa had the same experience on the same day.

So, what to do during my vacations? Anyone visiting the Gatineau/Ottawa region?

I’m a little pissed right now.

I’ve just read what I call a “Rotten Easter Egg” e-mail. It’s basically an e-mail that was sent to a lot of people telling them to ask my team to do things I specifically said we wouldn’t do.

So now it’s damned if you do, damned if you don’t. What should I do?

And on my last day before vacation too…

Stolen Shamelessly from Ajooja.

What time did you get up this morning?
7:10. That’s funny because the alarm was set for 6:00.

What was the last film you saw at the cinema?
The Dark Knight.

What is your favorite TV show?
Arrested Development.

What do you usually have for breakfast?
Coffee.  I used to do yogurt & granola. I miss that. 

What is your middle name?
Jérôme Gilbert.

What food do you dislike?
The only food I won’t eat is beef liver. I saw an autopsy and realised there’s no way to differenciate a human liver and a beef liver.

What is your favorite CD at the moment?
I mostly buy music online, so no more CDs… My most recent acquisition is “Lost in the 80′s” by the Lost Fingers.

What kind of car do you drive?
Nissan Rogue 2008 in Orange Alloy.

What is your favorite sandwich?
Anything from La Bottega.

Favorite item of clothing?
T-Shirts from Cafepress.com. Today’s shirt says “Another deadline, another miracle”.

If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go?
Scotland. I’m planning a trip there for my 40th Birthday.

Favorite brand of clothing?
I’m a fairly brandless kind of guy. Jeans and black t-shirts with funny quips.

Where would you retire to?
Hmmm. Never thought about that. I guess Europe somewhere. Maybe somewhere like the Dominican Republic where my dollar would go farther.

What was your most recent memorable birthday?
Just turned 37 Sunday, so I’ll go with this one.

Favorite sport to watch?
Hockey. Go Habs Go!

Are you a morning person or a night person?
I used to be a night person, but became a morning person. I think I’m going through the change again.

What is your shoe size?
10.5 4E.

Pets?
None at this point, but the Zadorables are plotting to get a cat/dog/hamster…

What did you want to be when you were little?
Skipping the obligatory Astraunaut/Policeman combo, I remember thinking I was going to be an architect when I was 12.

How are you today?
Tired.

What is your favorite candy?
Anything Caramel.

What is your favorite flower?
Orchid.

What is a day on the calendar you are looking forward to?
July 25, 2008 at 16:00. Beginning of vacation!

What are you listening to right now?
Jean Leloup, “La vie est laide”

What was the last thing you ate?
Meathead Pizza from Pub Italia. 

Do you wish on stars?
I once wished on Charlize Theron.

If you were a crayon, what color would you be?
Black.

How is the weather right now?
20c and cloudy.

Last person you spoke to on the phone?
My son.

Favorite soft drink?
Diet Pepsi no caffeine.

Favorite restaurant?
Les Fougères and The Works.

Hair color?
Black. 

What was your favorite toy as a child?
Meccano / Legos

Summer or winter?
Fall.

Hugs or kisses?
Both please.

Chocolate or Vanilla?
Caramel.

Coffee or tea?
Double Espresso please!

When was the last time you cried?
Birth of my kids.

What is under your bed?
A wood platform.

What did you do last night?
Went out to dinner, passed out on the couch watching Big Brother 10.

What are you afraid of?
Dying without having the time to make sure my family’s okay.

Salty or sweet?
It depends on the day. 

How many keys on your key ring?
I just cleaned my home key ring: 2 (car + house).
My office key ring: 6

Favorite day of the week?
The day I don’t have to work or do anything.

Do you make friends easily?
I’m a fairly friendly person, I like to think I make friends easily. I have many friends, but only three really good friends.  

1. I’m tired and I don’t know why.
2. I miss my kids, and they’ve only been away for 3 days.
3. Why does my iTunes keeps making copies of all the frakin’ songs in my library? It took me close to an hour to clean them. My iTunes went from 3786 songs to 1985 songs.
4. What is going on with my workplace? Who’s staying, who’s going, who’s merely complaining to make a point?
5. Why is my coffee cold?
6. My eyebrow is itchy.
7. I have this thing that makes me unable to stand the tags in any t-shirt I wear. I think there’s a name for that disease. Anyone?
8. I think I’ll phone a friend. If you don’t get a call from me, don’t worry I still like you.
9. Should I grow my hair long?
10. Can this qualify as a post?

To kick off our week without kids we went to see the Dark Knight Sunday night.

What a great movie.

What wasn’t so great about this night you ask? Well, since you asked.

If your place of business is called New-York Fries,  I wouldn’t expect you to run out of FRIES. You could run out of soft drinks, hot-dogs, apples, but I think you should never ever run out of FRIES. Especially when it’s 20h00 and you still have 20 some movies to go for the night. And if you have the theater manager stand in front of the counter waving his arms around yelling like a mad man that there are no more fries for the night, it doesn’t make it all right. It only makes me pay more attention and see the uncooked fries that you still have in the back of the restaurant, the fries you seem t be keeping for MONDAY during the day. Idiots.

I must say this is not the only place where I couldn’t get the food I thought would be available. I once stopped at KFC and they were out of CHICKEN. They had no chicken salad, no chicken burgers, nothing with the word chicken in (or the actual chicken). The only thing they had left was coleslaw. Now that I think of it, it might have been a blessing in disguise.