As many of you already know… I work pretty scattered hours. This means I get the time off I want oftentimes (that is if I request it early enough) and well… can truly get out and enjoy beautiful days as they come along. Canada Day was no exception.
Thursday night, I suppose you could say my adventures began. Thursday, I spent the majority of the morning online (yay for my hand no longer hurting so much that I can't do that. In fact, it really doesn't usually bug me at all anymore… except when I try to lift stuff (that might be a bit heavy) and move it in really odd ways… I'm still favouring it slightly… but less and less with each passing day!), and followed that with some relaxing tv and cleaning. I saw Brad again for the first time in what seems like ages (I really don't see enough of a lot of people as of late), and we caught up at the Next Act (which had gone smoke-free before the bylaw kicked in). This was followed by meeting up with Shauna and cruising with Bryan, Steve, Shauna and another guy (whose name escapes me). Food at Cosmos following checking out the gun sculpture at the Works and of course trips to Sherwood Park and St. Albert ending up at my place at some late hour.
Canada Day began with waking early and journeying to the Legislature for the free pancake breakfast. This was of course plenty of fun. Later we returned to the Leg., had ice cream, tea, checked out City Hall (balloons! And of course Shauna picked up a fabulous top [I would really appreciate the url to that website to find more fashions by that local designer!]… I also picked up a couple nifty maple leaf pins… which were unused so I might bring them to Greensboro… we'll see. We headed over to Save-On for cake, and then to the streetcar to reach Whyte, the Silly Summer Parade and a long jaunt to Gerard's to deliver a ticket to a mailbox. Following our return to Whyte we shopped a bit and rode the other trolley car to Jasper, the LRT and then Commonwealth for one of the awesomest concerts I've had the pleasure to attend.
The Celebrate Canada Centennial Jam was not only fantastic… it was uber-fantastic! 😉 I totally appreciated seeing so many ol' (and new!) friends in the crowds and the stands. Calico Drive was nothing to scream home about and Non Status has improved but is still not the kind of music I care to really listen to, but the rest of the artists were MORE than awesome… it was hard to believe how few people attended and how few people seemed to care about the other awesome bands. In fact, 5 of the 7 people who were to come with me did not even attend, although I certainly enjoyed the concert regardless.
Les Fistons was one amazing French Canadian band (and quite humourous!). I really do wanna get more of their music sometime… anyone know where I might be able to find it?
Wil was stellar. Really. And he's got an amazing website of information (and whatnot) at ibreakstrings.com (he breaks them OFTEN… and can apparently change a string in 8 seconds). I also need to pick up his CD sometime… as really, I loved this artist's show.
The Shumka dancers were, as they always are, impressive. It was good to see them perform again.
And then… came Randy Bachman and the rain. Now, I've seen Randy Bachman perform before (at Klondike Days) and I love his renditions of The Guess Who and Bachman Turner Overdrive songs… but this performance was definitely far better than the last one, and truly I enjoyed it, as much as I was located up in the nosebleeds.
Then one of the coolest things happened: The MCs invited the crowd to join the people on the floor level to help fill up that area. So we rushed down and well… eventually Jackie, Ash and myself ended up about three people from the front of the crowd to watch the Barenaked Ladies. Suffice to say… this was awesome!! So many nifty memories!! 🙂
Seeing Mim, Shauna, Carla (briefly), Colin, Nicole (briefly), Ash, Jackie, Curtis (more than one of 'em), Nolan, Mark, JR, Shelly, Rhianne, Brendan, Gerard, Dave (times two), Simon, Brian, Jenn, along with various significant others, siblings, and other fabulous people was just plain fantabulous.
Seeing the police take down a person who had been fighting drunk (and who had been in the scuffle that sent at least one person off the bridge) was rather disturbing… as was watching someone fall off of a foot tall concrete barrier on the bridge that he was sitting on, drunk… defensive and… smoking… not to mention… raving about the history of the bridge we were standing on.
Then there was the fireworks… which were quite honestly amazing (although standing on the bridge meant a somewhat obscured view. We all wanted out of the rowdy crowds and masses of drunks… so headed over to my place to end off the evening quietly.
This morning… was a relaxing and beautiful one. I totally loved catching some time at the City Market on 104th (a farmer's market). It's just great to have a saturday morning free to do so. Gotta love fresh food and yummy baked goods.