Goodbye Stephanie

I woke up today to some very sad news. I checked my email to discover that a friend from the good old days had past away on Sunday. I met Stephanie at a party in high school. My friend Jorge had invited me to come to this hotel party, there wasn't a lot of people there, and I had dragged my friend Gord to come with me. There was maybe 10 people there at the most. There were two girls there that didn't really know anybody either, I guess somebody they knew had brought them along as well. They held up a sign saying "bass player wanted" so I applied, since I had just picked up playing the bass back then. Gord ended up being more interested than I was. We introduced ourselves, and we met Stephanie and Vanessa. Vanessa and Gord started talking about her band, which left me and Stephanie twiddling our thumbs, trying to get in on the conversation. So we started talking about music and school, teenage stuff. So they formed their band that night. The band didn't really work out. But we kept hanging out with them, we found out they too frequented this all ages club that Gord and I went to on occasion called Freak Show. So for the next while, we hung out with them every weekend.

At some point it's time to grow up, I started going to real bars, and avoided the all ages clubs, went to college made new friends, and we drifted away. A bunch of years ago, Gord out of the blue decides to give Vanessa a call to see what she's up to and she invites us to her boyfriend's party. We head over, and it's just like before, but more booze, and that was the last I saw of them, until I randomly found Vanessa on one of the social networking sites. Sent her off a message and we kept in touch via email for the next few years. She kept inviting me to parties, but I was always to busy to attend. But the last one she gave me a lot of notice. She called it the "Steph is the Best!" party. It was during the easter long weekend, I thought weird, maybe she's celebrating that Stephanie is back home from living in the UK for the past few years. Gord and I showed up, and we had pretty good time, but couldn't stay since we had other plans with some other people that night too. But we did end up leaving that party pretty late any ways. Fast forward today, and I now realize what that party actually meant, and now feel guilty for leaving that party. Before we left, I had promised that we should get together soon, since we all live so close to each other now. Stephanie seemed really excited about going to the pub by my house for Sunday night Karaoke, but I kept putting it off for making plans to do it. I could give you a millions of excuse of why I didn't try to make plans, but it's totally futile now. I feel bad about breaking that promise. That was the first time I had seen her in maybe 5 years, and I really wanted to hang out with her again soon. I wish I had known that she was sick, and I would have tried harder to make plans.

Stephanie was only 27, way too young to have what she had. Way too young to die. She had one of the most beautiful smiles I'd ever seen, and I always told her that, and how much I like her smile. It really could brighten any room. That is one thing I never forget about her.

R.I.P. Stephanie Ann Downs.

This was in the Today's Toronto Star, her obituary:
STEPHANIE ANN DOWNS July 23, 1979 - May 27, 2007 Stephanie died after a courageous 15 month fight with cancer. She left us the way she lived her life: with grace; dignity; a great sense of humour; and an incredible heart stopping smile. A graduate of Waterloo University (Psychology 2003), and Dalhousie University 2006 (Master of Library and Information Studies), Stephanie will be greatly missed by her spouse, the love of her life and best friend Christopher Tickner. She will also be greatly missed by her mother Judy, father Barry, brother Jake, and her aunts, uncles, cousins and many friends. Special thanks from the family to the many caring and professional health care service providers that we were privileged to meet during this trying time, especially Keisha Christian. Family and friends will be received at the OGDEN FUNERAL HOME, 4164 Sheppard Ave. E., Scarborough (east of Kennedy Rd.) on Thursday from 4-7 p.m. A private family service was held. In lieu of flowers, donations made to the Toronto Public Library Foundation would be appreciated by the family.

Interesting day

So I didn't know what to get for lunch today, so I just went across the street to the greasy spoon to grab a burger. I'm about to grab table, and I look out and see this beautiful woman. Now the area where I work, it's not exactly a uncommon sight, since they're are few photo studios here (I should know, I used to work in one of these studios), so there's always models walking around the neighbourhood. But wait!! I know her. So I step out, and she's not there, she must've stepped into the variety store next door. So I wait, and she steps out and I call out "Mary!" Success, it was her.

We hadn't seen each other in about 10 years. The last time might have been me doing a photo shoot with her. So we exchange greetings, I was kinda surprised to hear that she's still working as model and that she's off to a shoot, just cause she's around my age, and most girls our age don't work full time in this business. Nature of the beast. Well she had to go, since she was running late to her shoot, so she took my number, and we were off on our ways. Couple of hours later, she calls me to ask if I was done work. No, but I can step out for a bit, I tell her. So I head outside to meet her, and suggest that we go for coffee. Oops, sort of a mistake. What I thought would be 15 minutes, turned out to be an hour. Good thing there was no supervisor today. Oh and if you're reading this, I stayed an extra hour today and got everything done. We played catch up, obviously her life was much more glamourous than mine, she's travelling all over the world to do her modelling, I told her about my experience as a hand model a few years ago, maybe I should have told her I used to model when I was teenager. Not professionally like her, just one of those picked out of crowd ones. Two publications by the way, yeah not too exciting right?

May has been an interesting month, I've ran into 3 people I haven't seen in years, which was completely random, and met up with another friend from the past whom I've been exchanging messages with on facebook. So it's been a good month in seeing old friends. It's kinda weird, I don't normally run into so many people that I don't normally see, and in a few short weeks I've met 4 people, one friend twice in one week. First time I was having drinks with my facebook pal and Ray suddenly appears out of nowhere, didn't even recognize him at first. Two days later, I'm taking the subway to work, and I see him walking towards me while I was waiting for the subway, and he tells me I'm standing in his spot. That was a laugh, and we played catch up on the subway. So it's been fun, I wish this would happen more often.

My Long Weekend

I can't believe how much I'm slacking on this blog. When I started this thing, I was hopping to go at least once a week with this. now it's once a month, I'm sure people have stopped coming because of how much I'm slacking. Any ways on to the topic at hand.

So what did you do this long weekend? I started by leaving work early, it's usually okay since we're not that busy on Fridays. But because it was a short week this week, it probably wasn't a good idea, but I finished all my work, so I left a little early. Earlier in the morning, I stopped by Motoretta in the Beach hopping my side cowl for the Vespa would be ready. Long story on why it broke, so I won't digress. But it wasn't, I told Alix there, I would need to have it by around 3 cause I would be leaving work at that time to meet up with my club mates to head out to Niagara for the Tundra Schmucks rally. He called me early afternoon, to come up to garage that's near my house in Scarborough, the mechanic had to fabricate a new pin for me and wanted to make sure that it was fitting my bike properly. Fine, half hour out of my way, got up there in no time, now I had to get downtown opposite side of the city to meet my club mates. Get out to Queen west, load up the bikes and it's now around 5:30, I still haven't even had lunch yet! Going full out on a empty stomach, not good. I forgot to grab my tokens in the morning, and had no change on me, so I had to get some bus tickets, didn't want to buy a pack a gum just for change, so I kept walking down Queen until I found a vendor. Got it, head back home, and it's about 6:30 now, dump everything in the car, head out to get some food and beer, and head out. I arrived in Welland at about 9:30. Alright timing I guess, no traffic and I just did the speed limit, since I was no longer rushing anymore since I knew I would have to pitch my tent in the dark any ways.
Half way up the drive, I realized I forgot my mod Parka. The only thing I have is what I wore and a change of clothes, so just a light jacket. Big mistake, cause it was freezing at night. So I'm there, I got drunk, hung out around the fire to keep warm. Soon it was getting late, and time for bed. Finished blowing up my air mattress, tried to get in the bag, but the zipper is done. It got really cold and I couldn't keep warm, and ended up only sleeping for a few hours. When I tried to emerge from the tent, I ended up pulling a leg muscle, and it hurt like hell.



Hours later, we set out to ride. We're going until we hit a gas station and we all gas up, I ran out of gas just as we were pulling up, flipped it to reserve, and didn't have to walk my bike over like a chump. We rode for another 20 km or so, until we hit the city. Our final destination was the strip joint called Mints, I didn't partake in that form of entertainment. So we locked up our bikes and started walking around the town trying to find something to eat. On our way there, a man in his car stops us and offers us a business card, it's for the Rub 'n' Tug across the street from Mints. No big deal since we weren't interested, but the guy had his whole family in the car with him. Does anybody else think that's odd, that he's pimping something that's one step below a common bawdy house? We moved on, went to some diner for lunch, food wasn't great, but we're just glad to have something to eat. Since I've never been to this rally before, I don't know the way back, it was the first for another member, and the other guy hadn't been to the rally in years, and didn't know the way back either. So we try to head back, and we got really close before we got lost. We actually over shot it. I wasn't leading, but I had a feeling that we did overshot it, so I caught up with the lead scoot to say something. We pull over and try to think which is the right way. Then we see a crotch rocket pull up, and thank god for the 2 wheel brotherhood, he gave us directions back, but then said "Just follow me!" He was trying to impress us by pulling wheelies and stuff, but we weren't really impressed. We eventually got back, and met up with our forth who showed up a bit late.

Mine is the grey one in the back.



More drinking and debauchery ensued after we got back, of course the show and shine, the parts fair, did I mention drinking? One cool thing about private property is no helmets, so we would boot around the grounds on our scoots for the stupidest things like go to the washroom, back to the campsite to get more beer. Just cause it was so much easier and more fun then walking. Oh and if I thought Friday night was cold, Saturday night was even colder. It was so cold I decided to sleep in the car. We all woke up pretty early the next morning, we loaded up the van, cleaned up our campsite, and got the hell out of there (van needed to be returned by around noon).











I had also gotten another invitation for the weekend from my friend Matt who lives in Guelph, so instead of heading home, I went there instead. I got there, and everybody was heading out for breakfast, oh well second breakfast, it's not like it's gonna kill me. Get back, have a much need shower, since it was just the second time I saw soap in 2 days. And then I did something I haven't done in a long time. Nothing!! It was great, not a thought in my mind, not watching any TV, or wasting time on the computer. Just lying down on a couch and did nothing, well a beer in hand, but that's it. Catched up with Matt for a bit, but he too had the same idea, until people came in to start bugging us to join them in their games of crochet and bocce. Well it was good while it lasted.
For some reason they had a pinata, that was there since Halloween, and since this was the first gathering they've had since, we strung it up and took turns beating on it. Sometimes it's really nice to be able to act like a kid again, we're all scrambling for the candy and toys, even though none of us really want it, well maybe the candy, but my teeth started to hurt after a few bits of candy, so that was enough for me. We spent the rest of the evening talking, drinking, playing cranium and cards. It was a fun time. Didn't get to sleep until almost 4 in the morning, which is pretty late for this guy. Almost everybody had already gone to bed, but a few of us stayed up later talking and drinking, of course I had the couch, so I didn't have the option of going to bed.
The next morning, I helped cleaned up the mess we made, and there was talk about pancakes, and Delia didn't want to make them so I volunteered. You'll be glad to know, I didn't have to throw out the first one. All perfectly rounded and cooked. After breakfast, people started to leave, I stayed for a bit, talked a bit more, but it was getting late, and started to make my way home. One thing that really surprised me was that I saw no traffic both leaving the city and coming back.
It would be safe to say that I had a great long weekend. I hung out with people I don't normally get to hang out with too often, and they weren't my usual friends I hang out with. But I still had a good time, and it was nice to hang out with the other friends that I don't normally get to hang out with.

So that's that.