Hot Dogs and Drive-bys

The problem with work is the bloody hours. Having to get up to go to work at 7:30am is, without a doubt, the doing of old people.

I've had more coffee over the last few days than I've had in the previous two months. My preceptor even noticed me almost falling asleep WHILE he was talking to me. Guess I just don't like sitting and listening for 30 minutes nodding my head and saying words like "uh huh" and "yep".

Hospital pharmacy seems more interesting than retail pharmacy since you interact with different types of people and since health care professionals in the hospital just seem to care more.

On Friday, Dr. Phil, an associate of mine, and I ventured out to experience Calgary's nightlife. We walked around the downtown area to see what's happening.

Stephen Ave is populated by the after-business types who go to the bar after a hard day of work. Not surprisingly, we found only one bar on this avenue that lacked an air of pretentiousness, and where we wouldn't draw looks of disdain from our after-tennis attire.

Next we went to 17 Ave S, known to some as the Red Mile, after the Calgary Flames' 2004 Stanley Cup run, where some teen-aged girls showed their ... um ... wares. We found a cool place called Tubby Dog. Tubby Dog is a retro 60-70s diner that serves good old fashioned hot dogs and some newer concoctions, such as a hot dog with peanut butter and jelly and Captain Crunch. On the weekends, they have DJs playing old school music like Al Green and the Supremes and project obscure cartoons on the wall while you enjoy your dog.


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Saturday, I saw three festivals downtown.

1. The Chinatown Street Festival, which featured Chinese opera that may or may not cause insanity as well as a ping pong ball ejector that hopelessly overwhelmed undercoordinated kids.

2. The Expo Latino, a tasty fusion of Latin cuisine and beats, that unfortunately cost $10 to enter.

3. Shakespeare at the Park, where I caught the last act of Romeo and Juliet.

It should be noted that the Expo Latino and Shakespeare were at war, since they were both located closely in the same park. Sadly, Juliet could not poison herself beside Romeo's still warm body before the machine-gun wielding drive-bys from the loco Latino gangs finished her off.

Strange Days

Saturday, at 4:30 am, as I was crashing at Derelict's place, I woke up. Still drunk from our bender at Blues on Whyte to see master bluesman Russell Jackson, I smiled.

I was happy. And I laughed. And laughed. I felt this strange joy in my heart. I wept with tears of elation. And so this behavior continued in various durations and intensities. For one hour.

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The next night, in Calgary, I woke up at 2:30 am. And I could not sleep. For three hours.
Sure, it may have been too warm at night, but it was more than that. My mind could not rest. It was too full of ideas: silly ones, optimistically elaborate schemes. I was thinking of the next day. Of my hospital pharmacy orientation. Of girls. Of the future.

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In the morning, I felt alive, cheerful, chatty. I talked to a very cute girl for several minutes. She had great big receptive eyes. Disarmingly adorable, expressive mannerisms in her body language. And a peculiar way of raising the pitch at the end of some of her words. And she wasn't wearing any rings. Jackpot.

Late in the afternoon, I felt dead. I was feeling the effects of fatigue. I barely had the energy to walk back to my car to drive home in the hot, sweltering weather. And the horribly slow crawl of rush hour on under-construction Glenmore Drive could have ignited many incidents of road rage. I listened to Belle and Sebastian, the perfect soft, soothing music for the angry testosterone-driven roads we drive on today.

I feel like a different person.

A Friend Going Down A Different Path

You remember Derek, right? That former peace-lovin, treehuggin, free-lovin hippie that once vowed to 'stick it to da Man'? He is now a diaper-changin, office worker who now goes to sleep at 10 pm for something he likes to call 'work'. In short, he is now the Man. How could his life have been so horribly twisted?

Derek is now a member of the 'Bar'. Yep, I saw it. In a ceremony best described as renouncing his pagan roots and making a handshake with the Devil, Derek officially became a lawyer. To be fair, Derek was mocked for his proficiency for using Ziploc bags in a crowded Indian bus and his crossdressing tendencies, to which he attributed to the foolhardiness of impressionable youth.

The reception at the law firm afterwards involved wine and cheese and expensive imported beers reserved only for preferred guests.

His elite lawyer buddies talk about driving their new M6s , J45s and THX-1138s down the QEII at 200 kph. Irresponsible? Not when you can hire a fancy German autobahn expert to testify that driving at this speed is quite reasonable. Pretty soon, Derek will be invited to $25 million homes to discuss the most efficient way to house the poor in squalid shantytowns while ruing the perils of shipping Italian marble across the Atlantic Ocean.

Derek, already with a fancy 25th story office with a excellent window view, is no longer content. He now demands an office with at least 3 marbletop desks, a private bathroom and a properly trained masseuse.

Mr. Beaulac....um....Elliott, we hardly knew ye.



LEGAL DISCLAIMER: This account, while based on real events, may contain some factual inaccuracies