26 October 2013

28 – Sushi For Breakfast

Many of us work for weekends. We construct our plans for leisure activities around these brief windows when we’re free from dreadful things like punch-clocks, compliance reports, and deadlines. Setting out to make good use of your free time is great. But sometimes the best times pop up out of nowhere and you end up eating sushi for breakfast. 



Good anytime of the day.


I went to Vancouver for a work conference about five years ago. I was very excited to see Vancouver, the Pacific Ocean, the Rocky Mountains, and really big trees. The conference was really just a way to get there. It was boring and I attended as little as possible.




Way more interesting than a conference could ever be.

My epic friend, Small Paul, lived in Edmonton at the time. Being that I was in the neighbourhood, I decided to abuse the system and spend some of my travel allowance on a three day ‘stopover’ in Edmonton. In my books, a good system can be taken advantage of. This one worked just fine.

Small Paul had been living in Edmonton for a few years so it was nice to finally see his place. After picking me up at the airport and dropping my luggage off at the apartment, myself and Small Paul set out to stock up for the night’s activities. We picked up some KFC (with a large tub of gravy) and two cases of Heineken. We were good to go.  

We had a good time. Myself and Small Paul have never needed much to entertain us. We ate the KFC, dipping everything in gravy along the way (including the brownies), and proceeded to drink both cases of Heineken while playing Rock Band. We stopped drinking beer and our pursuit of rock glory around 730am. Besides, we’d already performed Black Sabbath’s “N.I.B” at least three times. So we brewed some coffee and turned our attention to breakfast.

To a person who hadn’t slept after drinking about twenty beer breakfast sounded like the single greatest idea in the universe. To top it off, there was an all-day breakfast restaurant right around the corner that, according to Small Paul, served pancakes of the highest order. Needless to say, my mind was blown.

We reassembled in the living room once we’d washed the reek of beer and smoke off ourselves. When I came back into the room Small Paul was sitting on the couch, strumming his guitar. Sportscentre was on the TV, but he wasn’t paying attention to it. Small Paul was focused on letting his fingers discover chords on the neck of his guitar.

I sat on the chair by his concert piano and watched. I was getting pretty hungry and I imagine Small Paul was too. But sometimes hearing interesting new chords takes precedence over your appetite.

I set myself up in front of the piano after Small Paul made a couple of more passes on the guitar. Each time he did, the chords became a little fuller. I wanted to play too.

I joined in on Small Paul’s next attempt. I had the basic chord progression down after a couple of passes. There was nothing elaborate about it. We’re not virtuosos. We just played the emerging chords as a duel harmony. Then we started talking about where those chords might go next. And then Small Paul grabbed a notepad and pen. That was around 930am.

We didn’t stop until we’d written out all the sheet music and played our song through (with minimal chord errors) a few times. The finished product clocked in around eight minutes. Myself and Small Paul like our entertainment and art to be epic, I guess. Then we remembered that we were supposed to be going out for breakfast. We also noticed that it was 830pm. Funny how the excitement triggered by an unexpected discovery can do that.

Breakfast was still a viable option. The restaurant around the corner still served it all day, and the pancakes were still of the highest order. But neither of us was in the mood for breakfast anymore. So we went out for all-you-can-eat sushi instead. We were in a celebratory kind of mood. It’s hard not to like a day that starts in a hangover and ends in a song. 

It's often good to plan things out, but sometimes planning can be counterintuitive. It can blind us to the things we need to see, hear, and feel. Sometimes we need to treat the plan like a morning fog and let it lift. Then it becomes a matter of seeing if there is something behind it and going with the flow. 



Happiness isn't planning what to do with your leisure time. It's doing something fun and fulfilling with your leisure time. Sometimes happiness is throwing the plan out the window, jamming on an empty stomach, and having sushi for breakfast. Fuck it. Sushi's better for you anyway. 

4 comments:

  1. Bob, I love re-living our epic days with your vivid words. Sushi on me!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you sir. Sushi always sounds good to me!

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  2. I sent you an apology too Bob for not reading this sooner. If you can take the time to write then I can take the time to read it. Sorry.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Bah! No apologies are ever needed. It's all good!

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