Dad's Facebook Page

   It was my Dad's birthday yesterday. Facebook went out of its way to give me several days notification that his birthday was impending (along with a handful of other people's) and also did a fine job of alerting me that his birthday had, in fact, arrived.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

   Of course, I don't need reminding when my Dad's birthday is---it is etched into my consciousness almost as boldly as my own birthday. I do enjoy seeing my Dad's face pop up on occasions like this, however, so I suppose I should thank Facebook.
   What is secondary to all this, though, is that my Dad's been deceased for two years!
   In light of this, receiving Facebook reminders about his birthday are somewhat bittersweet, naturally. I have no idea how many other FB friends of his still continue to receive the same messages as I do, I suspect that some do and it wouldn't surprise me if others have already "unfriended" him.
   Personally, I don't have a problem with receiving these little reminders and notifications periodically---they feel more like happy little memories than anything else. At the same time, I can't help but think that the appropriate thing to do would be to shut down his Facebook page.
   This would be hard to do, though! Whenever I find myself on his page, I am assailed by nothing but pleasant memories and pics of people I love. Kind of hard to delete! I find I also have a hard time throwing away greeting cards and deleting romantic e-mails, etc. Just doesn't seem right.
   So I am in a bit of a quandary as to what to do with my Dad's Facebook page. I don't exactly know how to delete an entire Facebook page but I do have Dad's password for it so I'm sure I could find out.
   Because I have his password (and because I also have a particular sense of humour), I have many times been tempted to send "messages from beyond" via his Facebook status. Yesterday I really wanted to make his status say "Thank you for the birthday thoughts, everyone, am having a wonderful time, just wish it wasn't so damn hot down here!" You know, stuff like that...
   When my Dad passed away, there was a tendency to want to save everything of his---old clothes, stationery, pots and pans, those kinds of things. With a little time passing, however, common sense has set in. It's now much easier to see what was actually important and worth holding on to.
   I suppose most of us go through something similar when a loved one passes away. You want to hold on to as much as you can for as long as you can. Well, this is where I find myself with my Dad's Facebook page.
   People have been dying for millions of years now but most of them didn't have Facebook pages. A lot of the elderly these days still do not, so it's not like there's an accepted protocol for how to handle situations like this. There's also not much on my Dad's page that isn't stored elsewhere so it's not like I (we) would be losing valuable pics or anything. He  never truly engaged people on FB, beyond the more-or-less perfunctory salutations, so we would not be losing significant conversations he might have had with anyone, either.
   What to do then?
   I suspect that at some time in the near future, barring any possible objections from the people who were his friends and family, my Dad's FB page will cease to exist. When that time comes, I'm sure it will all boil down to the single "click" of a button. And that will be hard to do...
  

Birthday Boy 2, Bond-age And The Week that Was

   Time stands still for no one and, once a year, it marks its passage all over your (my) wrinkled little head with a birthday celebration.
   Yesterday was the day for me as I celebrated entering my 62 year!
   Late in my fifties I was already over the "sixty" thing and, presently , I am relishing the age I now find myself at. For the most part, my body has not failed me and my mind, when it hasn't slightly wandered, continues to do its thing, somewhat admirably.
   As luck would have it, my birthday this year also fell on a Monday. This is cool because Monday is also one of my three days off during the week, along with Saturday and Sunday. Yes, I have a three-day weekend EVERY SINGLE FREAKIN' WEEKEND! And yet I still have a full working week, hours-wise, so you can imagine what some of my workdays are like.
   My day off offered me the opportunity sit here on my butt and read the odd b-day message on Facebook. It also offered me the chance to do a couple of household chores, folding a little laundry, making the bed and clearing all my crap off the diningroom table so we could actually use it for dinner later on. So that I wouldn't be caught driving with expired plates at some point, I took the opportunity to head to the Service Ontario outlet in Lambeth and purchase a new licence sticker . Took forever to get the odometer reading, I'd done something weird with screen earlier on and had a hard time getting back to the odometer (or I was looking at it all along and just didn't realize it...) After this, a quick trip to the country to pick up my stepsons who were at their dad's place and bring them home.


Not a lot of fun dodging all the water!

   It was a beautiful day and also a scheduled run day so after I picked up the boys it was off to Springbank Park for, essentially, a crappy run! After my victorious 10K run the other day, I was all jacked up to get out there and do a PB in a 5K run. Didn't even come close. In retrospect, I think I hadn't allowed enough recovery time from the 10K---I'm no spring chicken anymore. Started off strong and then just crapped out the rest of the way---LOTS of walking breaks. Oh well, still a great day to be out running, although I DID have to detour many times around lakes of melted snow. But it was melted snow and that was the main thing!

Myself and Bryant, about to dive into b-day cupcakes!

   Later on in the afternoon, it was a quick trip to the beer store and then downtown to pick up my other two sons for supper. On the way back to our place, we stopped at our favourite Thai restaurant and picked up supper.
   After supper----CUPCAKES! And wonderfully decorated ones, at that! If you look hard at the pic, you can see both my and my son, Bryant's, names spelled out, along with our ages. His birthday was a couple of weeks ago but this was his first opportunity to get together with his stepbros and celebrate so cupcakes it was, compliments of an awesome mum, step-mum and wife, Doralyn!
   Ben, my youngest son, needed a ride back to Waterloo after dinner so we basically ate and ran. Dropped Bry off downtown and hit the 401. Not a lot of traffic so made the trip in short time.

My secret identity finally confirmed!

   I was stopped at a set of lights back in London, just a couple of minutes away from home, when I looked down at the odometer. I hardly ever check the odometer but I did this particular time and what I saw there kind of confirmed what I've sorta felt for a long time. That I'm Bond....James Bond! It's a good thing I looked when I did, this was the one and only time my car will ever actually confirm my identity like that!
   So that was kind of the week that was, at least the last two or three days of it. Got pretty spoiled with presents, too---got a pair of dress shoes (long overdue), a cool graphic novel trilogy called "Essex County", running shorts and a shirt to match, a Bobby Orr collector card, a fifty dollar bill, a running jacket and a couple of Running Room gift cards. As you can tell, I am very blessed! 
  

Birthday Boy and Poetry Slam-The Week That Was

   This week, Bryant, my son, celebrated his 32nd birthday.
   Now, this still kind of blows me away that I have a son in his thirties but I try not to dwell on it too much, it could be that he is blown away by having a Dad in his sixties!

Myself and Bry

   We graciously shared him with Lindsay, his girlfriend, on the actual day of his birthday, Wednesday, and made arrangements to get together with him the following night.
   We ended up taking him out to Beer Town for supper. Beer Town is a fairly new restaurant here in London which specializes in a variety of different kinds of beer (naturally). I actually had a fruit-infused beer, which was quite tasty (but not gluten-free, which means I might have been playing with fire...) We found the food to be excellent as well and the service very good, to boot. Highly recommended!


Bryant and Doralyn

   After supper, it was off to Michael's and we managed to track down a frame suitable for housing Bryant's autographed Patrick Roy jersey. Hard for me, being a Boston fan!

   On Friday night, we attended this month's edition of the London Poetry Slam. Went there with our friend, Louise and her friend Jacek. The two of them had been to the previous month's Slam and reported having had a great time so we joined them on Friday.
   A poetry slam is basically an opportunity for a poet to get up in front of an audience and recite a poem and then....get judged on it! Five or six judges with scorecards, scattered throughout the audience, rate every poem, much as in a diving competition. You end up with scores such as 8.6 or 7.2 or that ever-elusive 10.0. At the end of the evening, the poet with the most points wins! Just not sure what exactly they win, likely some money.
   There is also a featured spoken word poet every month and this month it was Titilope Sonuga. She is an amazing poet and for the better part of ten (?) minutes she mesmerised us with her presence and the wonderful things she did with words. You can read about her and find out more about the London Poetry Slam here.
   Throughout the evening, the audience is encouraged to be loud and boisterous (though perhaps not when the poet is reading) and regularly shouts out encouragement. If one of the judges posts a score you don't agree with, you are free to berate them. If you approve of poem as the poet speaks, you snap your fingers. Poets must speak the truth and the audience must show the love.
   There is an entry fee if you wish to engage in the competition but if you are simply "testing the waters" then you are encouraged to sign up for the open mic portion of the contest.
   Many of the poets spoke from deeply wounded areas related to abuse, incest and race. A couple were quite humourous. All were passionate. Together, they did what poets , I believe, were meant to do---bring you to self-examination. I wouldn't be surprised if we go back!