One very rude awakening

I typically read before drifting off to sleep.
If I had a dollar for every time I've been awakened by a book cover jabbing me in the eye, ribs or cornucopia, I'd be a rich man indeed.
The current late night book of choice is Miracle At Midway by Gordon W. Prange. No, it's not a tale about an amusement ride fanatic with unlimited coupons at the Peterborough Ex. Rather it's an analysis of the June 1942 Pacific Ocean battle between the American and Japanese naval fleets that really marked the beginning of the end for Hirohito and Co.
While reading helps to expediate Mr. Sandman's visit, the outcome is totally different when I combine that activity with food. Last night, against my better judgment, I devoured a huge bowl of chili before before picking up Mr. Prange's contribution to my modest home library.
That was around 10:30 p.m. Just before 12:30 a.m., I awoke, flailing my arms and generally thrashing about. A nasty dream, a nightmare really, had seen me take to the skies over a vast ocean; an endeavour which saw my plane riddled with bullets before going into a frightful spin.
Regaining my senses but sensing pain, I checked myself for wounds. Sure enough, right between the shoulder blades, I found my injury. Gingerly, I removed Miracle At Midway before screaming for the medic. Alas, she was fast asleep. War is truly hell.

Well, it started out OK...

My weekend really was a modern day Tale of Two Cities.
Friday eve and Saturday were just fine, thanks, starting with the Bee Gees tribute concert at Del Crary Park, although the wife is still smarting over my referring to Tragedy as our wedding song during Friday morning's bit on Star 93.3.
Where's the girl I married, the one with the sense of humour who found everything I said at least mildly amusing? Someone call the cops. She's been kidnapped.
Saturday saw a bit of a sleep-in, some time with the newspaper, a few mindless chores and, that evening, downtown and billiards with some pals. A good day but then Sunday dawned.
At the wife's request, I dug some stuff out of the shed she was looking for. No big deal. That is until she found some mice crap on the shed floor. Not good. She freaked. That was around 11:30 a.m.
At 5 p.m., the shed -- a small barn, actually, that my ceramically-minded Italian in-laws built a few years back -- was empty and I was scrubbing away.
I was sure that if Hunta virus didn't kill me, the bleach fumes would.
This morning, the contents of the shed filled the side yard. The neighbours no doubt awoke to wonder if a gypsy family had moved in.
I'm at work today. Thank God. I need the break.

Clothes make the mannequin

OK, the Peterborough Arms/turntable-dance-floor disco dream is on hold, at least until this Saturday's 6/49 draw. But I wasn't just jive talkin' Someday, somehow, you just watch. Studio 54 North will be the talk of the town. Let Lindsay, Britney and Paris know.
I'm kind of new to this whole blogging thing. OK, I'm very new. There's certainly never a shortage of topics. For example, if the spirit so moves me, I could write about... mmmm, let's see...naked mannequins.
Naked mannequins? Oh yes, we have naked mannequins. I was in downtown Peterborough Thursday eve, enjoying my yearly quota of fish at the Olde Stone. Very nice. Before dessert (lime key pie is awesome), I took a break and went for a stroll, discovering there's quite a number of naked mannequins in local store windows. Do these dummies have no shame?
A while back, a student's art work was taken down from Hunter Street, the fear being it would be offensive to tourists. Apparently naked mannequins, some of them particularly well detailed and, uh, gifted, aren't seen the same way. I have no idea how no clothes sells clothes but I suppose if I was stuck in a store window on a humid summer day, I'd have a little more sympathy. But I'm not and I don't, so get dressed or move on so we can focus our attention on the fully-clothed dummies who walk among us.

I have a dream...

With apologies to Martin Luther King, I have a dream today.
I have a dream that all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and...dance at my disco club.
Each time I pass the former Peterborough Arms building at Charlotte and Rubidge streets, it all comes to me in a vision. It brings a tear to my eye to see that once grand structure in such a butt-ugly state of disrepair but I have a dream. A discotheque complete with a huge record turntable for a dance floor.
Awesome but it gets better. The turntable dance floor, which is cut through the building wall and juts onto the where the patio once was, turns slowly. On a typical Saturday night, the masses will boogie inside and out, the "outties" even able to enjoy a puff before rejoining the world on the inside. And in the middle of the big LP (Remember those?), a bar swathed in the multi-coloured lighting that makes us all look good if only for a bit.
I have a dream today. Time to check my Wednesday night 6/49 ticket and come back to the real world.