crossing bridges

I promised to come back with more roadshow, but this past week had to make a major detour. It wasn't a huge sacrifice, though, because I've sort of lost interest in keeping up with my online life lately. I haven't been visiting many blogs and, with one brief exception, have totally abandoned any pretence at checking Crackbook. Maybe it's just a time/stress thing, but I did notice this summer that during my long breaks from the Awesome Power of the Interwebs I didn't suffer from discomgooglation at all. This is new for me.


This past week I have been the poster child for the sandwich generation. My 81 year old father's most recent stroke in July was a serious one, and it was only a matter of time until a bed opened up in an extended care nursing home. While driving my kids to their first day of school I got the call. Between getting my dad installed, dismantling his old life and dealing with a class-scheduling crisis with my younger son it's been a drop-five-pounds-from-the-stress sort of week. I'm not patient when dealing with bureacridiocy at the best of times and this was a week full of the worst kind of fuckups. I spent a great deal of time crossing bridges from where I am now to where I grew up on the North Shore. And yes ~ I mean that metaphorically at least as much as physically. Last night was my first chance to relax so we settled down in front of a DVD and a preview for the movie The Savages came on. I almost leaped out of my chair (OK, off the sad-sack futon that we should have trashed 10 years ago) as I suddenly saw my brother, dad and myself in a series of video bytes. (I like that Laura Linney plays me.) My brother, who is even more of a movie nut than me (and even works in the industry as a storyboard artist), has been telling me to watch it for six months. A perspicacious friend has also been urging me to see it. It's on order at the library at this very moment. Fortunately Rob and I have a well-developed sense of the ridiculous (we also have another brother whose sense of humour is not quite so, er, evolved) so actually appreciate the amazing fodder for comedy our father has provided us. The anxiety and worry has been nicely balanced with side-splitting moments. Too bad the film has already been made.




Now, I am weeks behind with my commissions, so my next move is to get back to work. Until I'm back, here are a few eye-candy type doctored photos from the Great Western Canadian Road Trip.