Wednesday, September 13/17
So a few weekends past I had the weirdest thing happen to me and wonder if any of you can relate.
I was shopping at Loblaws and at the meat counter getting some fresh cut lunch meats as my son likes to make himself a sandwich when he gets home from classes and I'm partial to fresh lunch meat over the packaged stuff.
After placing my order I was just standing there minding my own business when someone crashed into my shopping cart making me turn around to see who could possibly be o blind as to miss me standing there and I saw a young lad trying to pull back on the cart, a look of pure terror on his face, and then his mom walked up and started to apologize to me while looking down at her son.
I sort of laughed and asked her "How have you been?"
Hearing my voice made her look up at me and smile as she recognized me.
"I'm doing good, just getting some stuff for Evan's birthday party this afternoon" and looked at her son and gently pulled him close.
He asked her who I was and I waited to see what she would say but I think the question flustered her so I took pity and responded for her saying "I know your mom from work, happy birthday"
The deli clerk told me my order was ready so I reached back and placed it in my cart before looking over at Susan and smiled as she mouthed "thank you" to me and we went our separate ways to finish what we were doing. We crossed paths a few times and each time her son would exclaim "Mommy, there's the man from your work" and we'd laugh.
I finished up and was loading the bags into my car when my cell beeped that I had a new message.
"Marcus, it was so nice to see you, totally caught me off guard, wanted to talk more but you know how little boys get when shopping, let's do drinks ok and catch up?"
"Susan, you were a sight for sore eyes, hope the party is a success, sure you're spoiling Evan"
I met Susan last year in the spring and we hit it off but there were some red flags for me as she developed some serious trust issues from her last boyfriend that sort of clouded how she saw men in her life and made me more than a bit wary of trying to help her deal with them. She is quite successful in life and had her son a little later than she wanted, having gone through several years of procedures before finally going the sperm donor route when she realized her boyfriend wanted no part of kids. Things go so tense between them that he had legal documents drawn up stating that he was not the biological father and had no parental or financial responsibility for any child born to her.
Sounded like a real winner when she told me the story and made me feel kind of bad as being a parent has to be the coolest thing I've ever done, but he was a bit older than Susan and had already done the whole parent thing. When they eventually broke up he went after her for some of the equity in her house, even though he never lived with her or made any contributions towards it's upkeep. Just a money grab plain and simple, but made her question every man's motive that she ended up seeing.
The combination of dealing with my lingering feelings for she who shall remain nameless and Susan's own issues sort of doomed things for us, but I did enjoy our dates and thought that at another time we might have ended up with more but as in real estate so in love does timing matter, unfortunately ours just wasn't in sync at that time.
As I was driving home I stopped to fill the car up with gas for the weekend and literally walked right past a woman who did a double take and than grabbed my arm before hugging me and asking what the hell was up with me.
I laughed at the karma that had brought me into contact with yet someone else I'd briefly dated, well not really dated but met a few times for drinks as we knew the first time we'd met that we weren't really a match for one another but still liked the company of the other person. The funny thing is that about a year after I first met Liz we were sitting in a room at the Kanata Recreation Centre listening to our sons hockey coach outline his plans for the atom team both our sons had been placed on.
Over the course of the next few years we've been parents on a couple of teams and I actually become sort of friends with her ex, though neither of us ever told our respective ex's that we had ever tried dating. Our son's ended up at the same high school and have made a couple of runs to Gatineau to go clubbing with other friends, making it likely we'll be seeing each other a few more times over the next year or so.
I've seen more than a few people I've crossed paths with from dating sights when out and about doing daily activities but never run into two different women that I've dated in the same week let alone the same day. what are the odds?
When I got home my son commented on my good mood and I laughed as I handed him stuff to start putting away and said sometimes karma happens for all the right reasons and makes things interesting. I think he wanted to explore that comment a bit more but he got a call from his sister and was sidetracked, forgetting all about it, luckily for me as I don't think I wanted to admit to having dated one of his friends mom's......somethings are best left unsaid don't you think?
My name is Marcus and I'm taking it one day at a time as I try to be the best father, friend, and person possible as I keep my eyes open for the possibility of meeting the one imperfectly perfect woman for me.
Today's musical recommendation is "Find Me" by Kings of Leon
Wednesday, September 13, 2017
Monday, September 4, 2017
Double 5's
Monday, September 04/17
So last Thursday was one of those momentous birthday's we all have at one point or another.
Now I've already hit several of these along the way like my 18th and getting to vote, my 21st and getting to legally buy alcohol, my 30th, my 40th, my 45th though for the life of me I can't really understand why that one is such a milestone, my 50th, and now the big 55.
I don't really feel all that much different now than I did before, and I know it is sort of a cliché that you are only as old as you feel but I'm still feeling a hell of lot younger than 55.
Yes, my back gets sore a lot sooner these days after playing golf 2-3 days in a row and my vision isn't what it used to be but other than that I'm not feeling all that old.
Not sure why that is the case but I'm not going to complain one little bit.
I played a round at The Marshes, my new favourite course, and was matched up a father & son that couldn't have worked out better if the golf God's had intervened themselves.
They were from Guelph and had driven up to get the son settled at university, the exact same one my own son will be starting tomorrow, so I was able to talk to them about what the first year will be like for him. Turns out the son is a 5th year in the business school and a member of the golf team, it showed during his play as he was 2 under for his round in a some pretty fierce winds.
I really enjoyed listening to them tease each other, the banter about target lines and club selections, and just came away from my round feeling pretty damn good. It was like getting an extra birthday gift :)
Golf was followed up with a visit to see my grandson who spent the next 2 hours using my hands as leverage to get up and walk around the house and Toys-R-Us. My daughter joked that it was my birthday but baby Jack was the one getting presents from grandpa.
My son and I met the daughter, fiancé, and grandson for dinner at La Cucina, somewhere I'd meant to try a couple of years ago but didn't get the chance due to unforeseen circumstances, and not only was the food superb but the staff went out of their way to accommodate us and make Jack comfortable, something that sticks with me and makes me have no hesitation about recommending them to anyone and everyone I come across.
My future son-in-law ordered some shots and was trying to get me a little blitzed. My son was a tad upset as he had to be the designated driver for pops but we reminded him he'll get his turn in January when we're down in Mexico for the wedding :).
The night ended with me and the son watching the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol2 Blu Ray he got me for my birthday. He also got me a gift card to Golf Town that I used on Sunday to buy a very nice Under Armour pull over that I wore playing golf today.
I got lots of birthday wishes on Facebook from friends and a really nice message from my ex that reminded me once again what a good person she is and how much of a positive impact she'd had in my life.
I would have loved to end the night with a text from a partner but we can't get everything we want right? Maybe next year that one will come true, fingers crossed.
My name is Marcus and at 55 I'm starting to wonder if I need to change my tag line and begin to accept that I might not have a perfectly imperfect mate out there waiting to bump into me........
So last Thursday was one of those momentous birthday's we all have at one point or another.
Now I've already hit several of these along the way like my 18th and getting to vote, my 21st and getting to legally buy alcohol, my 30th, my 40th, my 45th though for the life of me I can't really understand why that one is such a milestone, my 50th, and now the big 55.
I don't really feel all that much different now than I did before, and I know it is sort of a cliché that you are only as old as you feel but I'm still feeling a hell of lot younger than 55.
Yes, my back gets sore a lot sooner these days after playing golf 2-3 days in a row and my vision isn't what it used to be but other than that I'm not feeling all that old.
Not sure why that is the case but I'm not going to complain one little bit.
I played a round at The Marshes, my new favourite course, and was matched up a father & son that couldn't have worked out better if the golf God's had intervened themselves.
They were from Guelph and had driven up to get the son settled at university, the exact same one my own son will be starting tomorrow, so I was able to talk to them about what the first year will be like for him. Turns out the son is a 5th year in the business school and a member of the golf team, it showed during his play as he was 2 under for his round in a some pretty fierce winds.
I really enjoyed listening to them tease each other, the banter about target lines and club selections, and just came away from my round feeling pretty damn good. It was like getting an extra birthday gift :)
Golf was followed up with a visit to see my grandson who spent the next 2 hours using my hands as leverage to get up and walk around the house and Toys-R-Us. My daughter joked that it was my birthday but baby Jack was the one getting presents from grandpa.
My son and I met the daughter, fiancé, and grandson for dinner at La Cucina, somewhere I'd meant to try a couple of years ago but didn't get the chance due to unforeseen circumstances, and not only was the food superb but the staff went out of their way to accommodate us and make Jack comfortable, something that sticks with me and makes me have no hesitation about recommending them to anyone and everyone I come across.
My future son-in-law ordered some shots and was trying to get me a little blitzed. My son was a tad upset as he had to be the designated driver for pops but we reminded him he'll get his turn in January when we're down in Mexico for the wedding :).
The night ended with me and the son watching the Guardians of the Galaxy Vol2 Blu Ray he got me for my birthday. He also got me a gift card to Golf Town that I used on Sunday to buy a very nice Under Armour pull over that I wore playing golf today.
I got lots of birthday wishes on Facebook from friends and a really nice message from my ex that reminded me once again what a good person she is and how much of a positive impact she'd had in my life.
I would have loved to end the night with a text from a partner but we can't get everything we want right? Maybe next year that one will come true, fingers crossed.
My name is Marcus and at 55 I'm starting to wonder if I need to change my tag line and begin to accept that I might not have a perfectly imperfect mate out there waiting to bump into me........
Saturday, September 2, 2017
Golf, Soccer, Golf, Soccer, and more Golf
September 02/17
So last weekend was sort of a warm up for my long Labour Day weekend and it went mostly as I expected with one small blip.
I've been booking off almost every Friday this past month in order to use my accumulated vacation as well as to get in as much golf as possible before the season comes to an end. I'm hearing that we can expect some warmer than usual weather through the middle of November but I'm not counting on it, not given the summer we've had.
My son was at cottage and due home early Friday evening as his soccer tournament kicked off on Saturday so I played a round at Pakenham to see how the recent decision to move solely to my Nike Vapor 3 Wood off the tee was going to play out given I've suddenly lost the ability to hit my Vapor driver with any kind of consistency, well that it's not quite true as I'm consistently hitting everything low and to the left.
I totally shanked my first shot off the tee on the Canyon Course and then managed to settle down and play some serious golf going 9 over through the first 8 holes before managing to double the long par 5 that runs as a severe dog leg left. I played the Lake Course for my back 9 and doubled both of the first two holes before once again settling down to play the final seven holes at 7 over for another 11 over par on that stretch. All told I was 22 over, which puts me 4 over my goal of playing bogey golf and feeling not too bad until I looked back at my stats per hole and realized I had 9 holes where I 3 putted and that cost me breaking 90!! 3 putting is like knowing how to read and suddenly not recognizing every 3 word in a book, you can still understand the story but it is a struggle and leaves you feeling sort of unfilled.
Saturday morning was all about soccer and watching my son play in what was his last teen recreational tournament. His team has not played to it's capabilities all season but the hope was that they could rise above it all and make a run to the playoffs on Sunday. They were drawn 1-1 in a piss poorly called game that actually saw me issued a red card for questioning the calls or lack of from the referee. I thought for sure it was going to upset my son and/or my ex but he gave me a thumbs up as I was walking towards the parking lot and his mother smiled at me and said I just beat her to it, with my daughter holding my grandson and telling him "Jack, that's your grandpa and he rocks!"
I was talking with the coach after the game when the convener came up and asked about the parent who got tossed from the game and he sort of stood in front of me and said he didn't know who it was as he was focused on the game, making me laugh and confess it was me, she asked me what happened and I explained the whole thing, I've coached when she has convened so she knows I'm not one to lightly question a ref, and she asked me to talk to the clubs head referee and outline my concerns as she was in complete agreement with my questioning him. To shorten this part down a part lets just say he was removed from doing any more games involving our age division as he had clearly shown bias in his calls.
The boys than met the 1st place team in the second game and were soundly thrashed 6-0!! Nothing more to say than the score tells the complete story.
We went into the 3rd game needing a win if we hoped to advance and after conceding a goal less than 2 minutes in on a play the goalie just quit on made things look bleak. That is until my son decided enough was enough and made two fantastic runs to net 2 goals just before the half ended. The only blemish in the half was the linesman on our side of the pitch made some horrendous offside calls that were based on where the player was when he received the pass and not where he was when it was initiated. As the second half started my son picked up where he left off and scored his third goal only to have it waved off by the linesman on another bad call as he'd been onside by a good two yards.
The referee, to his credit, pointed to the centre of the pitch signaling a goal and walked over to the linesman to talk to him when he saw me sitting there, smiled at me, pointed to the linesman and told me to explain to him to the correct application of the rule, instructing the linesman to pay attention and follow my words carefully. As I walked over to talk to him some of the parents from the other team voiced some concern to the referee and he explained he'd seen me coaching for 10+ years and I probably knew the rules better than about 95% of the referees in Ottawa. I looked at one mom and smiled as I told her I'd actually been arguing against two call that went against her sons team and she laughed and told me to carry on lol We ended up winning 4-1 and secured a rematch on Sunday with the team that beat us down 6-0
My son went to spend the afternoon with his girlfriend after her shift ended so back to golf I went and managed to get in 18 at Sttitsville, shooting a nice 92 until I realized I had another 3 3 putts and another blown sub 90 round.
Sunday's game was at 9 and everyone came out to watch. There were 4 generations watching as my former mother-in-law was there along with my ex, our daughter, and grandson. A very cool sight to behold in my opinion.
The game was nothing like Saturdays blood bath as the lads were feeling it and managed to control the ball for the most of the game but just couldn't manage to get one past Green's goalie, though my son had a chance in the dying moments and just glanced it off the cross bar. The game ended in a 0-0 draw so off to penalty kicks we went, the ending every coach hates as it's so random.
My son was first up for us and slotted home a perfect shot to put us up 1-0 but that was all there was to be as the next three shooters for Green scored and none of his teammates could find the back of the net so down we went on penalty kicks 3-1. They boys were happy to end on a good note and thought they did pretty well all things considered. My son was glad to be done as had they won they'd have faced the Orange team that was literally a class above everyone else in the league, they'd go on to dominate Green that afternoon in a 5-0 championship game.
My Sunday was now free and my son was off to see the girlfriend so off to golf I went once more.
I managed a time at Sttitsville once again, helps to be a member, and as I played the first two holes was really struggling to hit any decent shots and not really feeling totally in sync.
As I walked down the long par 5 second I remembered being told there was a tournament just finishing up on the back nine and glanced over to watch some carts drive down the 15th and noticed it was a couples tournament as every foursome was a pair of couples.
That made me feel incredibly sad and kind of jealous as I think it would be so cool to have a partner who golfs, one thing we could do together, not something I've ever experienced before though I will say I came close with C, no not a ramble about my lost love so relax, as she used to like to come drive the cart sometimes when I played and I loved those moments on the course with my partner.
I think these thoughts sort of derailed my game as I played no better than double bogey on every hole and called it quits after finishing my front 9, something I've only done in the past when my back stiffened up on me back in late 2015.
I can honestly say it was a great weekend, Sunday's round notwithstanding, and good preparation for the Labour Day weekend which was made into a 5 day weekend with some last minute changes.
But that is a post for another day :)
My name is Marcus and these now infrequent posts are my attempt to share my thoughts about being single in my 50's, trying to be more open to dating, being the best father and grandfather I can, and possibly meeting the one who is imperfectly perfect for me.
Today's musical suggestion is "Figures" by Jesse Reyez
So last weekend was sort of a warm up for my long Labour Day weekend and it went mostly as I expected with one small blip.
I've been booking off almost every Friday this past month in order to use my accumulated vacation as well as to get in as much golf as possible before the season comes to an end. I'm hearing that we can expect some warmer than usual weather through the middle of November but I'm not counting on it, not given the summer we've had.
My son was at cottage and due home early Friday evening as his soccer tournament kicked off on Saturday so I played a round at Pakenham to see how the recent decision to move solely to my Nike Vapor 3 Wood off the tee was going to play out given I've suddenly lost the ability to hit my Vapor driver with any kind of consistency, well that it's not quite true as I'm consistently hitting everything low and to the left.
I totally shanked my first shot off the tee on the Canyon Course and then managed to settle down and play some serious golf going 9 over through the first 8 holes before managing to double the long par 5 that runs as a severe dog leg left. I played the Lake Course for my back 9 and doubled both of the first two holes before once again settling down to play the final seven holes at 7 over for another 11 over par on that stretch. All told I was 22 over, which puts me 4 over my goal of playing bogey golf and feeling not too bad until I looked back at my stats per hole and realized I had 9 holes where I 3 putted and that cost me breaking 90!! 3 putting is like knowing how to read and suddenly not recognizing every 3 word in a book, you can still understand the story but it is a struggle and leaves you feeling sort of unfilled.
Saturday morning was all about soccer and watching my son play in what was his last teen recreational tournament. His team has not played to it's capabilities all season but the hope was that they could rise above it all and make a run to the playoffs on Sunday. They were drawn 1-1 in a piss poorly called game that actually saw me issued a red card for questioning the calls or lack of from the referee. I thought for sure it was going to upset my son and/or my ex but he gave me a thumbs up as I was walking towards the parking lot and his mother smiled at me and said I just beat her to it, with my daughter holding my grandson and telling him "Jack, that's your grandpa and he rocks!"
I was talking with the coach after the game when the convener came up and asked about the parent who got tossed from the game and he sort of stood in front of me and said he didn't know who it was as he was focused on the game, making me laugh and confess it was me, she asked me what happened and I explained the whole thing, I've coached when she has convened so she knows I'm not one to lightly question a ref, and she asked me to talk to the clubs head referee and outline my concerns as she was in complete agreement with my questioning him. To shorten this part down a part lets just say he was removed from doing any more games involving our age division as he had clearly shown bias in his calls.
The boys than met the 1st place team in the second game and were soundly thrashed 6-0!! Nothing more to say than the score tells the complete story.
We went into the 3rd game needing a win if we hoped to advance and after conceding a goal less than 2 minutes in on a play the goalie just quit on made things look bleak. That is until my son decided enough was enough and made two fantastic runs to net 2 goals just before the half ended. The only blemish in the half was the linesman on our side of the pitch made some horrendous offside calls that were based on where the player was when he received the pass and not where he was when it was initiated. As the second half started my son picked up where he left off and scored his third goal only to have it waved off by the linesman on another bad call as he'd been onside by a good two yards.
The referee, to his credit, pointed to the centre of the pitch signaling a goal and walked over to the linesman to talk to him when he saw me sitting there, smiled at me, pointed to the linesman and told me to explain to him to the correct application of the rule, instructing the linesman to pay attention and follow my words carefully. As I walked over to talk to him some of the parents from the other team voiced some concern to the referee and he explained he'd seen me coaching for 10+ years and I probably knew the rules better than about 95% of the referees in Ottawa. I looked at one mom and smiled as I told her I'd actually been arguing against two call that went against her sons team and she laughed and told me to carry on lol We ended up winning 4-1 and secured a rematch on Sunday with the team that beat us down 6-0
My son went to spend the afternoon with his girlfriend after her shift ended so back to golf I went and managed to get in 18 at Sttitsville, shooting a nice 92 until I realized I had another 3 3 putts and another blown sub 90 round.
Sunday's game was at 9 and everyone came out to watch. There were 4 generations watching as my former mother-in-law was there along with my ex, our daughter, and grandson. A very cool sight to behold in my opinion.
The game was nothing like Saturdays blood bath as the lads were feeling it and managed to control the ball for the most of the game but just couldn't manage to get one past Green's goalie, though my son had a chance in the dying moments and just glanced it off the cross bar. The game ended in a 0-0 draw so off to penalty kicks we went, the ending every coach hates as it's so random.
My son was first up for us and slotted home a perfect shot to put us up 1-0 but that was all there was to be as the next three shooters for Green scored and none of his teammates could find the back of the net so down we went on penalty kicks 3-1. They boys were happy to end on a good note and thought they did pretty well all things considered. My son was glad to be done as had they won they'd have faced the Orange team that was literally a class above everyone else in the league, they'd go on to dominate Green that afternoon in a 5-0 championship game.
My Sunday was now free and my son was off to see the girlfriend so off to golf I went once more.
I managed a time at Sttitsville once again, helps to be a member, and as I played the first two holes was really struggling to hit any decent shots and not really feeling totally in sync.
As I walked down the long par 5 second I remembered being told there was a tournament just finishing up on the back nine and glanced over to watch some carts drive down the 15th and noticed it was a couples tournament as every foursome was a pair of couples.
That made me feel incredibly sad and kind of jealous as I think it would be so cool to have a partner who golfs, one thing we could do together, not something I've ever experienced before though I will say I came close with C, no not a ramble about my lost love so relax, as she used to like to come drive the cart sometimes when I played and I loved those moments on the course with my partner.
I think these thoughts sort of derailed my game as I played no better than double bogey on every hole and called it quits after finishing my front 9, something I've only done in the past when my back stiffened up on me back in late 2015.
I can honestly say it was a great weekend, Sunday's round notwithstanding, and good preparation for the Labour Day weekend which was made into a 5 day weekend with some last minute changes.
But that is a post for another day :)
My name is Marcus and these now infrequent posts are my attempt to share my thoughts about being single in my 50's, trying to be more open to dating, being the best father and grandfather I can, and possibly meeting the one who is imperfectly perfect for me.
Today's musical suggestion is "Figures" by Jesse Reyez
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