Don't Mess with Nova Scotia

Well, I just got back from a trip to Nova Scotia. And by "just got back", I mean, two Saturdays ago. Jet lag, it can a long time to get over. There's a whole two hour difference.

It was my best friend's wedding (like the movie, except, I wasn't marrying him by the end of it) and I almost didn't make it. I had to decline being in the wedding party because I didn't think I'd be able to get up for the wedding. Then a week before, with some help from my mother, I got tickets to get there, and arrive less than an hour before the wedding, with a half hour drive from the airport to the church. So I flew with my ill-fitting dress shirt and tie (45 pounds ago it was nice and snug) through beautiful Detroit, and onto beautiful Halifax. Luckily I'm still short and chubby enough to look stupid in a tux, so maybe it was better for everyone that I couldn't make it into the wedding party.

Though severely dehydrated (damn you airline delicious pretzels!) and tired giddy from being up at 4 am to make the 3:30 pm wedding, I had a good time. I got to see my two best friends for the first time in years. Though thanks to my timing of being up the week after the wedding, my one friend obviously went on his honeymoon to beautiful Cuba, and my other friend had to get back to work in beautiful Ottawa the day after the wedding. And my wife Jody couldn't come along, so I decided to save all the "vacation" aspects of a trip home for next Christmas or next Summer. So I basically just hung around with my Mom, which is what she wanted anyway, cause I'm the baby of the family and it kills her that I'm in far off beautiful Minneapolis....where she can't nag me about drinking too much pop. But I had to drink more pop there, they don't have Lime Pop here, and I miss it so much.

Actually I spent most of the vacation eating junk food that you can't get in Minnesota, and watching the Euro Championship of Soccer, which costs $30 a game here, but was on free tv back home.

btw, the flight through Detroit was so much better than through Toronto, as last time I had to go through an hour long international customs line in Toronto. This time my first point of entry was Halifax, and I had a 5 minute line. Plus I only brought carry-on luggage, and I checked-in online, so I was super time saver Mister Travel Man.

I missed Swiss Chalet and Harveys so much. Harveys makes your hamburger a beautiful thing.

Anyway, I came back here and got a job interview, and I bought a new tie and dress shirt, and the going out of business Mervyns. I loves it when businesses go under, because of VALUES! Anyway, they ended up not hiring for that position (which doesn't make it hurt less...*sniff*), but they should have hired me, because my tie is georgeous. Man-Georgeous. And 20% off. You can't beat those deals.

And there was grilling, fireworks, and such on the 4th of July, and on the 1st of July (Canada Day). Actually, I missed Canada Day in Canada, but I did grill, and I did get cheap Canada shirts on sale at Sears. Quality Sears T-Shirts rule. So in the end, most things turned out good. Mostly.

But the main thing was that I got to make a lasting impression on my 6 year old cousin Sarah. My mother has, for reasons unknown, a big fridge magnet that says "Don't Mess with Texas" over the texas flag. I think she might have gotten it with a package of texas toast, but I'm not sure. It doesn't quite mix with her usual array of magnets that are mostly advertisements for paving companies and poems about the experience of being a mother or sister. But anyway, there's this old magnet there from my youth that says "Brian's Notes", and I got little Sarah to promise me that every time she visits my mother, she had to make sure that the magnets were aligned to say "Brian's Notes: Don't Mess with Texas", because really, you shouldn't. She was very excited about the whole operation, and has apparently not stopped talking about it since I left. So I got to teach a impressionable youth a very important lesson.

Don't Mess With Texas.

I'm not sure she even knows where/what Texas is. But she'll learn, and she'll remember.