Chasing My Trail

Gin is a spiritual drink for me because with Gin I throw up the least.
Of course, I drink Gin most frequently because of this, so I throw up the least most often.

I went mountain biking.
It wasn't erotic, obviously, but it was something that may have turned you on.
Myself, cascading over little paths with rocks on them.
Mud splashing everywhere.
Mountain biking I can do somewhat confidently because I haven't grievously injured myself on a bicycle yet.
Andie suggested that we take some path or another because she's into the concept of exploring.
And I say that's all fine and good and whatnot, but it's very difficult to explore while you're wearing your pajamas.
Unless you're exploring the jewelry section of Wal-Mart at 8pm, but that's another sort of thing.
I'm a bit of a homebody, granted.
I tend to not risk or...participate, but that's because I received so many participation ribbons while growing up.
So, according to the trophy case, which only contains participation ribbons, I have participated enough.
Not so for Andie, however.
She has this habit of pushing forwards at the precise time I want to go home.
Like, at Mad Rock the first time that we went there?
Mad Rock is the place in Bay Roberts that you never go to as a kid because it's way out in the east end, and paddling your bike beyond your piano teacher's house would be crazy.
Anyway, she wanted to get right on down there by the rocks.
The slippery ones, y'know what I mean?
Wherever the signs tell you not to go. That's where she's headed.
In Banff - this is unrelated - in Banff they had signs around the hotel because you weren't allowed to go into certain areas.
Wanna guess why?
Oh, come on. Guess. It's not like you're doing anything important at your job.
Unless you're the mayor.
Is this the mayor? Denny? I forget what he likes to be called.
He officiated a wedding I was at once.
Anyway, Denny, if you're reading this, you can get back to the slush funds or whatever.
The rest of you?
Anybody?
Snails.
They found special, endangered snails that you weren't allowed to trod on.
Then some idiot tourists wandered in there and got into trouble because tourists are idiots.
Ever been travelling elsewhere?
You were an idiot at the time.
Don't feel bad; my family owned a motorhome when I was a kid.
We were a tribe of idiots right up and down the eastern seaboard.
When you're on vacation - wait...I think I wrote about this before.
Try this post, I think. 
My theory is that when you're on vacation, since it costs so much money and since it is for such a brief, particular amount of time, people tend to lose sight of themselves while vacationing.
And, when you lose sight of yourself, you tend to forget about other people.
And, when you tend to not think of others, you tend to be an asshole.
Hence...
Banff was a real tourist town. I witnessed a lot of their habits, all of which were annoying.
"A postcard town" is the tab you want to hit for more Banff stories.
Most involve me not closing the deal with women and getting high a lot.
Anyway, Andie goes into dangerous places.
If you're on a hike with her, you're going to get your boots wet.
Inevitable.
So, on the bicycle I was sort of going for it, and she liked that.
And I liked that she liked that, and I liked going for it because I never go for it.
Like, when I was a kid, Dennis would always build ramps for our GTs (sleds, if you're from the mainland), and he'd immediately goad me to go first because he knew that I never would.
I always hesitate. I always avoid fractures.
With the missus, though, I go out of my comfort zone a little bit.
I second-guess less.
I still pay close attention to the signage though, as that's something she tends to miss, and we don't want to kill any snails that are in short supply.
I'll upload a photo of us on our little bike go-about.
We crossed a brook twice!
You'll see in the picture that, by Warford standards, I am smiling.
It's good to get out sometimes.

Oh,this is just an aside, but check out this picture.

I already put this on my social media bullshit, but here it is again.
Foodland parking lot here in Pasadena.
That's the keys to the car, and the window is open.
I'm used to Newfoundlanders leaving things unlocked, but even this was a bit far for me.
That's a Mercedes SL, which means that, even by Mercedes standards, it's expensive.

Here & Vow

That's it.
I can't watch any more footage of people injuring themselves while trying to pour buckets of water on their head.
It would appear I don't have much going on, but there has to be something that would be a better use of my time.
Perhaps I'll wash the dog...
While I'm unkinking the hose, read the remainder of Colin's Marriage Chronicles, for those of you who still give a damn:

The wedding did, in fact, happen.
Nothing really went awry.
The babies made a lot of noise and fussed about and so on, but anyone who has been to a decent wedding or Christmas Eve church service has seen this before.
The maid of honor did forget Colin's ring, but that was glazed over with a lot of sitting around and murmured discussion.
After what seemed like a fair amount of time for the groomsmen to just be standing there, I managed to draw attention to myself, getting on the mic, saying:
"Umm, we just have a brief delay while the women find the rings. Remain patient, all of you will still have plenty of time to object."
I'm not sure all of mom's friends got it.
He did okay, the fussy codger.
Colin really dislikes public speaking (he also dislikes being mentioned in blogs), but he did pretty well.
No flubs along the way.
I know that I tend to not get nervous about this sort of thing.
And I know that I haven't been married.
But I've heard a lot of dudes say that their biggest fear is messing up the vows.
Even though you repeat after the priest, and he really breaks the sentences up quite a bit:
"I, Paul..." "I, Paul..." "Craig Warford..." "...Huh? Craig Warford..."
That sort of thing.
How badly can you fuck up the vows?
It's not like you're going to come out on the other side married to your mother.
"I knew this would happen! That's why I told you and Dad to sit in the back! Now I'm married to both of you and the whole day is ruined!"
Just take your time when you're doing your vows, kids. You'll be okay.
The photo shoot was tricky.
Oh, sure, the photographer and her assistant both had very charming bodies and asses and so on, and it'd be great to see the two of them enjoy a hottub together, but the day was too warm.
And Colin hates getting his picture taken (noticing a trend?).
By this time, I was very out of sorts because I hadn't slept the night prior (I love doing this for major family events), and I hadn't napped.
Also, acting as the MC, it was relatively unwise to drink, so I was getting pretty contrary.
Not as contrary as old wedding pants, though.
He really wanted to get out of the limo, send...Eddie? Was that the driver's name?
Anyway, send Eddie on his way, and get started on supper.
That's what Colin wanted.
We stopped at several locales, and the lack of communication between limoist and photographer was complicating things slightly.
Sending him out to stand on a cliff edge for half an hour likely didn't help Colin's mood.
And, Flynn, who is a wedding veteran, wasn't helping during the sojourns between shoots when he'd tell Charlotte, "You're never going to use these pictures. Do you think you're putting a photo of us all doing shots on your mantle? This is all a big waste of time."
We peed in a governement house and went to the reception.
We were half an hour late and everyone was waiting to eat.
Showtime!
I did great. I'm available for all of your weddings, should you need me.
No matter how many times you get married!
The speeches were whatever and the turkey was pretty good. They had a glaze on the carrots.
Then we danced and that's another couple who are now one another's emergency contact.
The tradition lives on.
Colin was smiling a lot. Everyone commented.
Despite himself, he was having a lovely time.
Andie and I represented the young, unattached heathens that everyone else longed to be once more.
Some were overheard to say that if we got married, they would attend the ceremony, whether they were invited or not.
I have only one thing to say to these crashers:
I hope you like skydiving.
Because if we do get married, the whole goddamn thing is going to be one skydive after another.
That's the theme.
Wedding shower (whatever the hell that is)? Skydive.
Bachelor/Bachelorette parties? Skydive.
We'll be throwing the cake and all of the gifts out of the plane on their own little parachutes.
At first, we considered scuba diving (as a play on "taking the plunge"), but you can't fit a tuxedo under the wet suit.
So, skydiving.
We hope you get the chance to...drop in!
You get that one?!
Anyway, it was a helluva wedding.
Too bad I'm out of unmarried brothers now. 

Bachelor Patio

The benefit of a french-immersion course, besides ensuring that your child will become a successful flight attendant, is that when they call for a cab in Montreal, one will actually collect them.
Not the case for this anglophone.

I'm ordering another tarantula today.
Don't tell my mom.
The west coast of Newfoundland has much larger spiders than the east coast.
I suppose they're necessary for ensnaring the massive, unyielding bird-moths that live here.
There are a bunch of them among the bedroom's ceiling corners as I type.
I insist upon keeping them there because I'm difficult to live with.
Anyway, wanna see?

It will look much like the one that this engaged person is sporting.
Andie agreed to the idea because she never thought I would actually get around to ordering one.
Since I'm so lazy and all.
However, she didn't anticipate how focused I am when it comes to spending money.
I 'feed' wild spiders all the time. I'll grab some stupid bug and throw it into a web. 
I'm on the side of the good guys.
Spiders will never give you an itchy bite on the webbing between your fingers, or on your genitals.

Speaking of an uncomfortable penis, paint-balling was on the docket for the bachelor party.
Any of my readers who are in the fan club and have the member's sew-on patch already know how I feel about paintball:
Strongly 'for'.
We trundled ourselves and our beer coolers into St. John's so as to bruise and intoxicate Colin.
We all stood about in Frontline's parking lot as we tried to pretend it wasn't 35 degrees outside.
Difficult for Newfoundlanders to do, as they tend to complain about warm weather more frequently than they even do about cold weather.
I shot two people in my first round.
Brian, however, also shot me in the head and on the hand - two places that are specifically known for being unpleasant.
I didn't really care, what with the adrenaline and all.
My body is so unfamiliar with it that even a thimble-full toughens me right up.
However, when the ball hit my head (forehead corner region) I heard a distinct ringing noise for half a second, which I wasn't crazy about.
I crawled through the thickets on my stomach and elbows and had a wonderful time.
Eventually, we pelted Colin with the remaining balls we had left.
He was permitted to defend himself, and he managed to shoot Ian right on the head of the penis!
Once he had finished doubling over, I believe that even Ian was a little tickled that it had happened. 

We ate barbecue at a nice woman's house and I mixed some incredibly shitty daquiris.
They always look so tasty in the movies, but I definitely took a wrong turn in the mixology somewhere.
For the safety of pedestrians, we took a cab downtown.
We went to Lottie's and I drank one White Russian before laying the other one aside.
Disembodied hands gave me these drinks, so far as I know.
I have no idea who bought them.
I learned, over breakfast the following morning, that we had gone to a second bar.
I couldn't remember this.
I did an Irish Car Bomb? Pardon me?
When did that happen?
Don't remember that. And I did pretty well at it?
That would be a first for drinking any beverage of any kind.
Well, that's fuzzy.
No, now that you mention it, I can't really remember how I got home or how I ended up in our hotel room.
Guess I took a cab. I'd hate to know how much I tipped that guy.
Luckily, I have no recollection of interacting with anyone after my half-hour conversation with some truck driver at the bar.
He, in fact, is about the only part of the evening that I do recall.
We talked about life on the road.
If I hadn't been so hammered, I'm sure I would have found it depressing.
Breakfast was dandy the following morning as everyone recounted their drink orders.
Some hard-on with a power drill kept interupting our brainwaves while doing some sort of renovation.
I was tempted to say to the waitress, "Can you please tell the man with the drill that he's negatively impacting your tip?" but I decided not to be catty.
Besides, I'd already confused the woman when she asked me how I liked my eggs and I told her that I didn't know.
All of Colin's old friends were there (the only kind he has these days).
It's a beautiful thing, really.
A collection of memories and laughs, all bundled into a group of men standing on a patio.
Bachelor parties are the echoes of childhood that men rarely get to hear once they become men.
The hair thins and the eyes wisen and the wives get in the way, but the personalities persist, unerred, once the boys get together. 

A Ken And A Prayer

Here's the difference between my mother and I:
Mom prefers to plan each and every detail of an important event so that it will unfold smoothly.
While I, on the other hand, prefer to do everything differently than my mother.
Andie and I were six hours away from the wedding by car, twelve or fourteen hours by boat, and about 66 million years by pterodactyl.
How were we getting across, mom wanted to know.
Well, da b'ys were supposed to be dropping out for the weekend.
Boys' Weekend we had taken to calling it.
Doesn't take a genius; we'll hitch a ride back with da b'ys.
The days lined up near-perfectly.
Yet, Boys' Weekend bottomed out at the last minute and became Babies' Weekend instead.
Still fun, but fewer molested strippers.
Anyway, babies use baby seats and baby seats occupy regular seats, hence our ride was kaput.
Well, how would we get across the island?
Rent a car, whatever.
A rented car is a perfect excuse to show off new sunglasses anyway, so whatever.
Big deal. Rent a car.
Everyone leaves on Sunday. Bachelor party is a couple of days away, the wedding itself is in six.
Ring-a-ding, "Hello, car company? One car, please."
All cars across the entire island were rented because my life is a joke continuously being played on myself.
So, how were we going to get across the island?
Well, now I no longer knew, but Mom didn't need to know that (yet).
I called Colin and gave him an update on Sunday evening, and he pointed out that I had to make it because I was due to stand in the wedding.
Duh.
"He's also the MC!" Charlotte called from the background, which I had forgotten.
So, the lady perused Kijiji and found some fellow darting across.
New Subaru, so we couldn't take the dog and had to instead stick her in a kennel, which was too bad.
Yet, at this point, we had to focus on the big picture:
Getting to the bachelor party in time so that I wouldn't miss paintball.
Ken was a fellow from China with good English and a nice interior.
We got aboard, laid out our cribbage board, some books, magazines. This won't be so bad, right?
A town or two over, Ken picked up a young German couple who were traveling around.
They also have good English and nice posterior, but I know that Germans poo on each other in the bedroom, so I couldn't even look the lady German in the eye.
So, now we were a little crammed in.
Tough to play crib when you can't move your elbows from the sides of your body.
As we began to cruise, thus discomforted, Andie asked, "Oh, are you a Whitney Houston fan?"
"No," Ken explained, "This is Celine Dion. I got her CDs at some such place and so on..."
Three hours. Every Celine Dion hit that you'd forgotten about, plus some other tracks you never gave a shit about in the first place.
Anyway, when it was all said and done it wasn't so bad.
We ditched the Germans in Terra Nova, and then we were able to sprawl out enough for me to beat the missus in crib three or four times.
She's still learning the game, but she has to win stuff, y'know?
You know the sort? Typically they play sports and get way too into croquet at barbecues.
I've never cared about winning or losing at anything I've ever done at any time in my life.
I could play jacks with a five-year old girl fifty times in a row, losing each time, and not care whatsoever.
Who gives a shit? It's jacks.
Who gives a shit? It's crib. We're passing time, here.
She was a few points from winning, talking all sorts of shit and jabbing it in my face.
Suddenly, I bamboozle her with a 16-point hand and win the game.
Well, now what?
Heavy breathing. Like, she had to take huge, paper bag breaths so as to not freak out on me in the back of Ken's rig.
"Okay," deep breath, "That's okay. Let's put the crib board away." Deep breath.

We chit chatted and chicken salad sandwich'd our way through the ride and got to Roach's Line.
My brother Brian was there to collect us and he and Andie met for the first time and we gave Ken nods and thanks you's and best-of-luck's and parted ways as he continued on to St. John's and the rest of his life.
Got back to Mom's, unloaded the truck.
I hefted along with my bag and I looked ahead to Andie who was about to enter the house, and it dawned on me.
"Oh Jesus."
She was wheeling Ken's luggage across the driveway.

Tying the Knot

Like most sprawling voyages, this one begins with Ken.

It's a long story, but in June I bought a tiny book about knots for eight bucks in Lunenberg, Nova Scotia.
While I was on the ship I vowed that I would learn how to tie some cool knots from all of these clever sailors.
But you know me with vows...
I left the ship learning nothing (what a relief!) and I decided I'd try to uphold my empty promise to myself regardless.
Then, while having a two-day hour long conversation with an old buddy's dad, I found this wee book about knots.
Serendipitous as it was, I decided to get fleeced on the price and take it home with me.
I really will have to try and pack the story of the knot book into a seperate post because it really was quite retarded.
Anyway, yesterday I thought I'd cut off a length of rope, wrap each end in electrical tape, and get to work.
Here's what I picked up:
I have no spatial reasoning, no patience, and no new knowledge of knots.
I learned the half-hitch and thought that everything was going quite smoothly.
Half-hitch slipknot. Hey! I just pull this guy and it comes undone! Tying knots is a great bit of fun.
Figure eight stopper knot.
...
Half an hour later
Figure eight stopper knot.
The book, proving to be of less and less value with each passing day, shows the knots, but doesn't provide figures instructing you how to actually tie them.
And goddamn this knot.
Ten minutes later
I'm watching a YouTube video on how to tie a figure eight stopper knot, realizing that this is why people are reading less books.
The video didn't help either and by then I was too pissy to continue.
Anyway, feel free to try it yourself.
The book says it's a better stopper knot than the regular overhand we all use to tie everything.
If you're willing to trust the book, that is.

 

I'm warm and I'm probably sooky.
It's incredible how desperately a man may need a coffee shop.
I'm not one to write at home.
Perhaps I've always had problems with writing at home because I fish for excuses to not write anywhere.
Or, ultimately, maybe I just enjoy a three dollar oatcake from time to time.
No oatpucks to be had in this town, however.
Oh sure, I can buy cotton gloves and rat poison under one roof here in Pasadena ("Where? Where is he?"), but coffee shops are a tad rare.
There isn't even a Tim's, for crying out Horton's.
There is a Trudy's, however.
Picture a cafeteria in a trucker's driving school, then attach a walk-in beer fridge to it.
That's Trudy's.
It's my first day writing here in Trudy's, and I suppose, ideally, it won't be my last.
I mention all of this because there are two dudes wearing steel-toed boots sitting across from me, and I think they're finding my prescence strange and it's making them uncomfortable.
I hope this is true because they're definitely throwing me off of my game.
So, Colin got married.
This is my oldest brother for any newcomers.
Colin is a curmudgeonly, sour man.
He likes cats and those soft cheezies, and that's about it.  
No one who knows Colin personally would have expected him to agree to something so joyful as a wedding. 
Don't worry, he planned none of it.
As a consequence, it was a pretty good time.

Andie and I just returned home after an almost-week at Mom's, full of sweaty family members, screeching toddlers, homebrew and sex down at Mad Rock.
So, settle in with your mamosa - wait, let's find you a recipe for that.
Okay, so coochy in with your mamosa and your favourite lap dog, and let's see if I can relive the magic over a number of seperate, marketable posts.