Delta f and the Vicissitudes of Life in Windsor

So as some of you know I have a couple of chickens here on the island. B-kak and Beans as I named them have adapted to life well here, laying eggs every day and settling into their coop very nicely. As far as pets go, they're great! They're friendly, follow you around and do a very good job of not being eaten by raccoons. Not a run-of-the-mill pet as far as my Toronto upbringing goes, but when was the last time you ate breakfast made of something that came out of a dog, cat or hampster?

Don't answer that.


"B-kak!"


The question has been lingering for about a month now since I've had my foul and feathered friends as to just what exactly I will do with them when I leave here for the winter. Donate them to a farm? Leave them to brave out the winter here alone? Even - god forbid - slaughtering my good friends has been proposed. With this last option in mind I came access this link to a very disturbing story when you actually have the damn things with their heads on wandering around...


Weird. Just Weird.


So aside from any gruesome experiment that comes to your mind after reading that article, any suggestions for this pair of poultry would be at the very least interesting. The best idea I've heard so far is adorning the chickens with capes that say "you suck" and touting them as the Stony Lake Insult Chickens. Having a pair of those released on your property would be something to remember.

Somehow as the summer wears on though, their fates just seem more and more clear...


Yum.

So most of you might have noticed that I give Mel a hard time every now and then for baring a slight resemblance to a certain young movie/recording/crap star Hillary Duff. I was willing to leave it at the Strange Resemblance and move on, maybe allude to it in private conversation every now and then when said hack-of-a-star shows up on TV.

Fate would have it this way.

Not more than twenty-four hours after taking heat for that last post of remarkable resemblance my cousin and roommate up here lets me in on a strange bit of information that changed my perspective of serendipity for ever. First, let me bring you a bit up to speed as to where I am right now.





Here's where I am right now. On an island in Central Ontario on the beautiful Stony Lake (yes, Stony is spelt right, damn-it!). Primarily catering to summer cottage-goers - a truly Canadian pastime - Stony Lake is a quiet waterside community of rich middle agers that, of course, has to be serviced by a series of resorts and restaurants which are fuelled by an army of young labourers such as myself. I boat to work every day, it's great.
For the people that work up here the gossip and excitement is usually limited to who's having the next big party, who's sleeping with who and the likes, but once in a blue moon the outside world drops in to say g'day. Ronnie Hawkins (of the Hawks fame) has retired up here for instance, and a few years ago the Red Hot Chilli Peppers did one of those "Out of the Blue" concerts on the lake. Pretty cool, but these tend to just be minor diversions from work and suntanning out here in the wilderness.




So this brings me back to me cousin telling me what the big excitement was going to be on the lake this summer. Apparently, the sequel to the more than forgettable "Cheaper by the Dozen" was to be filmed up here. My first response was pretty much "who cares," maybe we'd get a glimpse of a B-rate star at the local watering hole. Then he started to list off the names of stars that would be gracing us with their presence for the month of July. Steve Martin, cool, he plays banjo; Carmen Electra, sweet; Eugene Levy, yeah, I watched SCTV; and you guessed it, none other than Hillary Duff.
This was just strange. I think that something was just trying to show me, once and for all, whether it really was a strange resemblance between those two.

So I'll try to make a rather boring story short here. Sure enough, all the L.A. people have taken over our lake, for the better or worse. The only thing you can really talk to the employees of the big resort where the cast is staying about is how they served ice cream or went water skiing with one of the kids in the movie. Yay. I was regaled with the tale of how Steve Martin didn't complain about his less-than-par food yesterday and I almost walked away. My cousin, who also works at the resort and taking the cue of the whole Duff situation, decided to seek her out. He being a photographer didn't hurt at all, either. Since I don't work there, my access is a tad limited.
Access to Hillary Duff on Stony lake, even for a picture: impossible. She doesn't go anywhere without two giant body guards. The only people they let even remotely near are sixteen-year-old girls squealing for an autograph. Since I don't exactly fit into this category, I've just about given up hope (at a loss for another word). This didn't stop my cousin though, who hid in a boathouse and snapped pictures of her with a telephoto lens while she was seadooing. He phoned the National Enquirer saying he had pictures of her in a bikini.

They called back today. I shit you not.

So for the time being I just have to be happy with the novelty/coincidence that Miss Duff is on the same lake. What the hell would I even say to her, anyway?
"Uh, you look like this chick I know..."
Probably wouldn't fly too far.
How about "Hey! Can I have a picture? Sweet! Fan? no. Actually, I think you're destroying the music industry from the inside out by candy-coating horse shit. That's Tyler with a 'Y'."

Who knows, they're still up here for a few weeks.