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The workweek was a mixture of milling around and meh. Monday and Tuesday were each early starts- 8:30 Monday in a local town court, 9:00 Tuesday in somewhat more distant Batavia. Both wound up with me sitting around, with little to do, until around 10 each morning when the respective judges took their benches long after telling people to be there "on time." (Mindful of that, I had a 5:30 Tuesday afternoon back in the same Slowpoke Town Court, so I took my sweet time getting there- only to find the place fully rockin' and rollin' when I got there. Then I realized- it's Night Court, so everyone WANTS it to move along so they can all go home! ) I got that night's client a decent result, despite him not providing me with something he was specifically told to provide, but that's how my week went in general: people telling me one thing and then acting completely to the contrary.
Example One: Last month, I filed papers, assigned to a judge I'd not had before but who, from prior nonjudicial contacts, I was less than enamored of. I was told, two weeks ago, Oh, the judge signed everything, but the court clerk has to enter them and she's on vacation. Well, she's back, and the word from her THIS week was, no, you have to do three other things before the judge will sign anything, never mind what you were told.
Example Two: A title insurance company is holding a rather large chunk of client money, telling me they'd only release it after I obtained a court order of a certain flavor. I obtained it close to a month ago and we sent it to them. NOW they say they won't release the client's money unless I agree to indemnify the title insurer in the event they get sued over releasing the money. Um, isn't that what we paid you title insurance premiums for in the first place?
But I got paid- mostly and satisfactorily- for the previous week's trip down the rabbit hole, and another less-than-reliable client also paid, so at least I'm solvent while being annoyed.
Meanwhile, formerly in Canada,....
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Baseball season ended this week, in a historically weird manner. The Washington Nationals, one of the last two teams to make the postseason tournament the week after the season ended, defeated the heavy favorite Houston Astros by winning four games out of the seven. All seven games were won by the road team- first time anyone can remember that ever happening in a seven-game final of a North American major sport.
There was also plenty of cosmic significance to it happening this year, and to this team. For the franchise now known as the Nats was, until 2005, based in Montreal and known as the Expos. Fifty years ago, they debuted as new members of the National League (beating the Mets at Shea in their first game before the teams' fortunes went opposite ways for the rest of 1969). Twenty-five years ago, the Expos had the best record in baseball and looked to be heavy favorites to make, if not win, the World Series- but that was the year of the 1994 players' strike that canceled the end of the season and that year's Series. Montreal fans never forgave baseball, they wound up owned by a complete jerk who wrecked the franchise, almost got it contracted out of existence, moved many of its home games to Puerto Rico, and finally bailed on it before MLB sold it to new owners in DC. For years, the Nationals refused to acknowledge their passé québécois, reissuing retired Expo numbers and putting only old Senators on display (Frank Howard, not Frank Church)- but they've come around and given love to the likes of Andre Dawson and Pedro Martinez and of course the two who'd previously crossed paths with the Mets' franchise:
Alas, neither lived to see their former Expos achieve this glory- but I'm glad I did:)
It also completes a multisport cycle of weird. The reigning champions of MLB and the NBA are now Canadian-founded franchises. Meanwhile, the league most associated with Canada, the NHL, couldn't get even one of its seven teams oot of the first round of this year's Stanley Cup finals. Maybe this bodes well for the 2019 Bills, as close to a Canadian team as the NFL is ever likely to have.
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My rounds with expatriate Canadians continued last night, but first:
That's not just a sammich. It's a phenomenon, with a bit of clucking back at a homophobic competitior.
I've had one Chick-fil-a sandwich in my life, on a longago trip to Columbus, Ohio. I'd heard it was Da Bomb. I was less than impressed; since then, I became even more unimpressed when learning of their owning family's undying support of homophobic hate groups. But they'll still serve you disordered homo sect chuals, except on Sundays when they're closed while reloading their clobbering Bible verses.
A few months ago, the competing Louisiana chain Popeye's decided to expand into the chicken sandwich market. It went so well, these little bags of poultry became a scarce and crazed item. Think the annual appearance of McRibs, only on chicken steroids. We have a Popeye's near the Rochester office; a few weeks ago, on a lark I checked and they were still sold out, but promised to be back in stock by mid-October.
Then, the homophobes tripped on their own secret sauce. They made a big deal out of their promotions for National Sandwich Day, before somebody noticed- um, oops. NSD, November 3rd, falls on a Sunday this year.
Popeye's said, that's all I's can stand, I can't stands no more!, and cleverly decided to relaunch the missing chicken sammich on Sunday, keeping with its tradition of kicking these hypocrites in their unholy parts:
Not knowing any of this business imbroglio earlier this week, I stopped by the one near my office, saw the COMING SOON! signs over the menu items, and pouted. They heard my pouts. Turns out, at that very moment, the manager was training the staff on how to make the beloved items. Would I like one of their floor samples?
Is Chick-Fil-A homophobic? Does a chicken shit in the middle of the road? Seven dollars later including a side, it was mine, all mine.
And,.... just like that long ago one in Columbus, it was all right. Not worthy of all this fuss. I was reminded of the end of the Star Trek episode where Spock goes into heat and eventually surrenders his Vulcan bride to her paramour:
After a time, you may find that having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting. It is not logical, but it is often true.
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In my Rochester travels on Thursday, I also wound up making plans to return almost to Canada last night. On my last trip to Niagara Falls NY for court, I'd seen the marquee outside the Rapids Theater advertising an upcoming appearance by Steven Page, formerly lead singer of the Barenaked Ladies and now fronting a trio. I'd lost track of the details, and with all the other shows I've been to lately didn't feel the need to retrace, but then Rochester friends mentioned that they were making the trek to the Falls for the show. I waited until yesterday morning to be sure I survived the week of work and Halloween Night of wind (no house damage, though our internet was out most of yesterday), booked a ticket, and met up with them right before the show started.
The Rapids is another of the last-century movie-vaudeville palaces (some actually named that) that managed to survive 70s partitionings and 80s wrecking balls and have come back with some if not all of their original glory. We were almost as close to this stage as I'd been for Lake Street Dive two weeks before- only this time, there were seats.
There was also an opener- name of Dean Friedman. I'd forgotten his connection to BNL lore, remembering only his wondrous 70s hit "Ariel." But he'd also done a song about falling in love with the girl behind the counter at Mickey D's- which the BBC promptly banned from airplay due to the commercial reference. (If you've ever heard a version of the Kinks' "Lola" referencing "cherry" rather than "Coca-Cola," same thing.) Years later, the BNLs covered it, bringing it back into popular culture, and likely into royalty checks for Dean.
My Rochester friends named their daughter Ariel after the one hit song. Here's my picture of them at the merch table with her namesake's author (Ari, of course, was too busy to hang with the rents):
Then the trio came out, representing the length and breadth of Canada- Vancouver's Craig Northey on guitar and plugin bass, and Halifax's Kevin Fox on cello.
(Scott took that picture; my phone shoots shit still pictures in the dark.)
The videos come out pretty well, though: here's the finale before encores of a bit of Brian Wilson:
He also did this one, titled "Linda Ronstadt in the 70s," which I particularly got a kick out of. After seeing the documentary about her and picking up her memoir, we've been listening to a lot of exactly that over the past few weeks.
There was plenty of banter and improvising during the set. When Steven took his place behind the electric piano for the first time-
- it led to an extended riff about how one sits at such a piano so as best to show off the pianist's legs to the audience (or not), and this resulted in a song about full-length windows of people on city buses and seeing their legs. There was a bit referenced on prior setlists as "The Feelgood Strum," where the trio work various works into such guitar work, ours beginning with "My Girl" and dissolving rather quickly into "Baby Shark").
We were out by 11 and I was home by midnight. Eleanor made her own home entertainment after working until 7, with a film and meal she really enjoyed. Scott and Lisa were my "Beth and Bill" of the evening, which is now two concerts in a row where I've actually known the in-love couple I was borrowing.
And now, the weekend. Round 1 of Washington-Buffalo went to the District; hopefully, tomorrow's NFL matchup will work out better for the home team, not that that necessarily means anything:P