I had an *awesome* weekend, and I have the sunburn to prove it!

Friday morning I hopped in the car and drove 2 hours north to spend the weekend with my beloved grandma. It's funny how big a difference 2 hours distance makes... it's like entering a whole other world. It's so green and beautiful and lush.... something I will sorely miss if I go to Israel this fall. Within a 10 minute span I saw a groundhog right in front of me eating the flower tops off of weeds, a deer wading at the edge of the lake getting a drink and a great blue heron take off after a successful feeding near the shore. I stood out on the dock at sunset and I saw loons as they made their mournful cry, kingfishers chattering and plunging from the sky into the lake to grab a fish, and dragonflies as they swarmed over my head. For some reason the dragonfly population is particularly plentiful this year which is good news for me since they help keep down the mosquito population. They were swarming over my head because the mosquitoes (and other such biting/flying bugs) come out at dusk and I was attracting them, which in turn attracts the dragonflies who take care of business for me so I can go about fishing without swatting. Unlike previous years I did not see much in the way of bats, which generally like to come out and feed on the dragonflies that come out to feed on the mosquitoes. In the past I have enjoyed standing outside while hundreds of bats flutter right by my head scooping up bugs.

Of course there were also the token raccoons, ever disturbing things and making a mess. My grandmother has motion detect lights and at night they are constantly turning on and off as the raccoons skulk around the yard at night. One time when the lights came on *thousands* of flying insects swarmed the light (as these things tend to do) and I was awestruck by just how many there were. The spiders had a mighty hard time keeping up with the multitude of bugs they were catching, and in fact the webs were having difficulty withstanding such an onslaught. Nature is really bizarre sometimes, I tell ya.

Ok, so the big question is.... did we catch any fish? The answer, I am happy to report, is yes (two smallmouth bass, seen here). This was no easy feat considering we were in heavy competition with a giant snapping turtle which was fishing in the same bay we were. My grandmother and I both caught two smaller ones which were put back in the water to be caught in another year or two, and then we both caught bigger ones, which we kept. Personally I am all for letting the poor things go because I don't have the heart to kill them, but grandma is an old-school farmgirl who likes to eat what she catches, so into the frying pan they go. I feel a little guilty when I say that they truly are delicious when freshly caught. And it was Saturday when I got my sunburn because I somehow thought I was impervious the effects of UV rays. I'm an idiot sometimes, I recognize this. Clearly this is a behaviour that will have to be rectified if I am to spend time in Israeli sun. My delicate white (read: Irish) flesh was not meant for longterm exposure to such light, this much is obvious.

Sunday morning I was up at 6am, out for a few hours of fishing, back in the car driving 2 hours home, off to the Pride Parade in downtown Toronto, back home, and then off to a 9:50pm showing of Land of the Dead. Needless to say, I slept like a babe by the time I rolled into bed at 12:30am.

The Pride Parade was great as always (footage and info here); I befriended a couple of lovely gay boys on the subway on the way down and then a few more while roaming the streets. One drunken guy came up from behind me and threw his arm around me and began chatting me up. He introduced me to his boyfriend and offered me some kind of alcoholic beverage from a jar. Yikes! I took a pass on the offer but chatted them up for quite some time.... really funny guys. And that is why I go to this event... it is just one big happy celebration and I wouldn't miss it for the world. The dancing in the streets to live as well as DJ'd music, the colours, the sight, the sounds.... it's amazing. And since I was sporting a fresh sunburn I was offered sunscreen numerous times by kind folk at various booths and tents. It was just a great time, but would have been better if My Big Gay Daddy (Sam) had been with me. I missed you sweetie, and thought of you the whole time. Pictures of all the fun from Pride and my fishing weekend can be found over in my photoblog (for archiving sake look in the June 2005 archives).

As for Land of the Dead (scary trailer here), it was a good film but it didn't scare me much. A friend of mine was a zombie in it so I spent a good deal of time trying to pick him out, but there were just so damn many that I couldn't locate him. Dennis Hopper was hilarious and the effects were great (the film was shot here in Toronto, btw) but it just didn't scare me like 28 Days Later did. *shrug* Is there no film out there that can scare me??

I hope the rest of you had a great weekend...