Days 362 to 364

Day 362 and after a nice little rest it was off for a dive. Which was great, because I hadn't been in the water for about two weeks! You don't actually realize how much you miss it.

Which was followed up by lunch. Good times.

In the afternoon I did my boating test... and I passed! I am now a licensed boater. Sweet.

It was then time to head up north to Huntsville to see comedy Andrea Martin, comedy legend, in her one woman show. You probably know her best from SCTV and My Big Fat Greek Wedding.

The show was AWESOME... such a wonderful retrospective of her career. And some great characters that had us (my parents and I) literally peeing our pants.

And then came her character from My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Aunt Voula. She says she needs two young strapping men to do a greek style dance with her.

I look around. No one is volunteering.

As a theatre and improvisationally trained human being, part of what you learn is never to leave anyone hanging.

My hand slowly goes up.

"You! The frisky one! Come dance with me!" calls Andrea.

Who am I to refuse? I get up with the enthusiam of a just selected Price is Right contestant and start hopping down the aisle calling "WE DANCE! WE DANCE!" Which now that I think about it, reflects me back to Tom Hanks hosting SNL while perfoming in a sketh entitled Sabra Price is Right.

It takes me a few instants and after some back and forth banter I realize that I am sharing the stage with comedy legend Andrea Martin.

Wow.

Andrea goes out and fishes another older gentleman to compete along side me. Now those of you who have seen my appearance on Skooled back in 2006 know that I cannot dance very well. This was also seen on stage on this day, but I had good fun with it. I lost the audience vote (it skewed old! What can I say) but that was okay.

The rest of the show was just as exciting and after the show I reunited with my parents, who really weren't surprised at what happened.

It turned out that Andrea was receiving some guests and when she saw me she called "RYAN! YOU WERE WONDERFUL!" which was quite flattering. We had a nice chat and she was very flattered to hear that I had drove two hours to get to the show. But of course!

And, as if that wasn't enough of a thrill... on the way out I spot someone. You'd think I'd never guess his secret identity, who's on the inside hiding out.

Indeed it was Derek McGrath who has done a wonderful amount of comedy but I know him best from the late 80's show My Secret Identity.

After all that we went to the Nutty Chocolatier for some post show ice cream and then drove to my parents' trailer for the night, which was another 90 minutes northwest... I was pretty delerious by the end of it!

Day 363 and I awoke to have a nice breakfast at my parents' trailer before starting the long trek back. They have a really nice site which unfortunately is closing down this year however they are moving it to a site near Mattawa which pleases me.

The drive back down south was pretty tiring but I got home by about 4 pm to catch a mid-afternoon nap.

Around 6.30 pm Gweezy (she knows who she is) arrived to watch the season finale of Fort Boyard with me. Sadly the rumour is that it isn't coming back which saddens me deeply but you have to give props for a 21 year run for a game show. Fingers crossed that it's not the case however!

Day 364 was the season ending ultimate frisbee tournament. This year each of the 24 teams were put into a 4-team pool which made it fair across the board. It was really a fun day.

Our first game was against Slipped Discs. We fell behind early and were down about 8-2 at the half. We weren't playing our best. In the second half we came at it in a fresh way. I unfortunately tried to catch a disc in the end zone and fell really badly on my arm so I subbed out for the rest of the game. At one point it was 11-11 but we just missed getting the win and lost 12-11. We were frustrated but happy with our performance.

Second game and we were facing Ultimately Challenged. We built an early lead and won quite comfortably but you could see we were tiring pretty quickly, especially with the 30 degree heat.

Our final game was against In the Box. We had found this had been a hard team when playing them earlier in the season. And it came down to this: win and we would lock into at least a two way (if not a three way tie) for first place; lose and In the Box would win the lot.

So we went out and played very very hard. At half time we were surprisingly up 8-2 and there were some players on the other side that were very frustrated. We continued to play solidly in the second half and apart from a skirmish near the end of the game it finished up well, and we ended up winning 14-8 or something like that.

It then came down to points... and guess who pulled it out?

Yeppers! Hucky Ducks won the pool! How exciting is that??? We really came together as a team and it showed!

To boot Theresa and I also got named spirit players by the other team which was very kind.

Because my arm was hurting I decided to decline the invite for post-game munchies... as Hans and Helga had shown up unexpectedly we went for a nice dip in the pool and then out for ice cream. Helga, as you can see, is a bit bashful for the camera.

Two days to go!

Cheers,

Vick.