Go to Barbados! Then once you’re in Barbados, go to Berts Bar!!! It is the absolute perfect combination for a Canadian! Escape winter, head to the sun and sand of Barbados, then, while in your t-shirts and shorts, with your face a wee bit sunburnt, go to Berts Bar by the ocean and watch the OTTAWA SENATORS kick the Toronto Maple Leafs’ collective butts! I highly recommend this vacation, as I just got back from doing that. Along with Sens army Captain Ryan Guthrie, his brother Murray, and a great group of people that gathered with Sens owner Eugene Melnyk and Bert himself, what a blast!!!!
Next to watching the Senators via satellite, one of my favourite excursions was the ‘Cool Runnings’ catamaran, loaded up with excitable party animals INCLUDING Spartacat himself! There’s something to be said for this visual: Spartacat clutching the steering wheel of a huge catamaran charting a course down the Barbados coast-line, his red hair flowing in the wind, a majestic Ottawa Senators flag flapping above him. That cat is the ultimate chick magnet.
I’ve had three animals on my ‘must see in their natural environment’ list. One is the wolf (yet to see), the humpback whale (yet to see) and the other was the ‘sea turtle’. Well, not only did we see sea turtles, we swam with sea turtles, and we even touched their backs gently, which they seemed to enjoy. Or maybe I just imagined them enjoying that. Come to think of it, their shells are as hard as a rock so petting a turtle was probably a useless exercise. To the turtle. For me, it was the thrill of the year. Now I just have to pet a wolf and a humpback whale.
Sitting at the Barbados airport waiting for our flight home, someone pointed out that Jean Beliveau was sitting in the airport lounge with his wife. The great Jean Beliveau himself! That was cool. Over the P.A, his name was announced to board the plane first, and when he stood up everyone burst into applause. A lesson to be learned here: if you work hard and become a highly regarded hockey player spanning an incredible career, you get to be the first on a plane.
St Pattys Day is on a Saturday this year!! That’s a wonderful thing…for the most part. But having St Pattys Day fall on a Saturday does mean that we will miss out on one thing: the people leaving their workplaces to head to a pub for a St Pattys Day lunch….a sea of career suits and skirts and dress blouses and shirts and heels….the intention is to have ‘one pint of Guinness’ then head back to the office….hah! By around 4 pm the shoes are off, the jackets are piled high on hooks, and the accountant is wearing a flashing neon ‘kiss me I’m Irish’ button. Happy St Pattys Day, and remember, before you kiss the Blarney Stone, find out where its been.
I’ve become absolutely hooked on a TV show that is no longer running. I used to watch ‘Arrested Development’ on occasion , before it was cancelled by the network. I think it was on FOX TV. Anyway, its now in syndication on CBC every day at 4:30 pm and I drop everything to watch it, because it is the funniest, most creative, most well written and acted show of all time. (or is that ‘most BEST written’?) I laugh out loud from beginning to end, on the couch, all by myself, unless you count my card-board cut-out of Mike Fisher. He loves Arrested Development too.
