adventures with the stroller

so, janelle and i purchased a stroller from sears on tuesday. it's a fairly nice one but it came in a big heavy box and we didn't have a car and we were in a bit of hurry, so we left it at the store and promised to come back and pick it up the next day.

wednesday, i returned to sears by myself to get it. i claimed the stroller and the counter person asked if i would like to have it delivered to the loading dock so i could put it directly into my vehicle. well, i don't have a vehicle, so i asked if i could just unbox it right there and carry it out. but they said, it's all in pieces and needs to be assembled. so, right there i decided i would take it home on the bus, in the box.

right. well, i picked up the box and started carrying it out and it was okay at first, but by the time i got out of the store it was abundantly clear that there was no easy way i could carry it onto the bus and from the bus stop to my house. so i set it down in the mall, next to a bench, near a garbage can and cut open the box with my keys.

then i pulled out all the pieces of the stroller and assembled it, right there with lots of people going by and watching me. it was a little confusing and i had to keep referring to the instructions, but i eventually got it. i threw out the packaging into the conveniently located garbage can, but the box the stroller came in was too big to dispose of easily, so i tucked it under my arm and pushed the stroller with my other hand and i wheeled the thing the whole way home, carrying an enormous folded cardboard box under my arm.

Stanley Park by Timothy Taylor

Summary
Jeremy's father lives in Vancouver's Stanley Park. That makes their relationship a little awkward because Jeremy never knows how to find him. He has to set up an appointment with his own father through a dirty homeless man who talks to himself.

Jeremy is a prize winning chef who got his training in France, of all places. He divides the chef world into two classes: the Crips and the Bloods. The Crips are the hipster chefs who experiment with their food and make outlandish stuff. Jeremy is a Blood, he loves traditional cooking, he likes the idea of food that has personal and historical roots. Incidentally, he owns a restaurant called The Monkey's Paw, where he makes traditional worldwide dishes with local Vancouver food.

To say that Jeremy owns the Monkey's Paw is a little inaccurate. You see, Jeremy is no good at managing money. He went two hundred thirty thousand dollars into the hole to buy the restaurant and open it and since then, he has been getting further and further into credit card debt. The bank actually owns the Monkey's Paw. And his cosigner, the devilish Dante Beale of Inferno International.

What I liked
Great story. Really interesting. The archetypal themes were fascinating and created suspense. Also, the food descriptions were mouth watering. And I love the idea of local looking and guerrilla grill.

Also, I loved that the story made the homeless people into real live people with stories of their own. I found myself investing emotionally in the homeless characters. That was unexpected. And neat.

What I didn't like
Long and a little clunky. Not the writing, the writing was actually pretty smooth and nice. But the story. There were chunks of hundreds of pages where I could only bear to read two or three pages at a time. But that's my only complaint.

Conclusion
One of my favourite books so far this year! 5/5 guerrilla chefs.

Patrick's Outrageous Bucket List

Things I want to do before I die:

1. I want to meet Janelle Monae and hug her and tell her she is totally rocking and quite possibly changed my life (or at least my musical preferences).

2. I want to meet Kate DiCamillo and hug her and tell her that her stories are super awesome and they sometimes make me cry.

3. I want to meet Deborah Ellis and/or Patricia MacLachlan and pick her/their brains.

4. I want to skate in St. Petersburg.

5. I want to be baptized by an African rainstorm.