It’s a tradition. On the first Monday in July that all three of us are on holidays, Orley, Jane and I meet for breakfast at the Ugly Club. We eat a good, hearty breakfast and then we drink beer all day.
So yesterday was the day. I honestly didn’t think I could drink beer all day, but I was up for breakfast and a beer. I walked over to the Ugly Club, and saw something interesting on the way.
My son was born on September 24, 1982 at the Grace Hospital. Whenever I pass by the site of the Grace Hospital – which has since been torn down – I think about September 24, 1982. So yesterday I was walking past the site of the Grace, thinking about September 24, 1982, and all of a sudden I noticed this car parked where the Grace used to be. Check out the license plate!
I got to the Ugly Club at the appointed time: 11:00. At 11:10, Jane arrived, and Orley came straggling in half an hour later. Sam made us breakfast even though we missed the breakfast cut-off time. (He knows how important it is for women to eat and keep their strength up during marathon drinking sessions.) Jane and Orley and I all confessed to one another we were incapable of drinking all day. None of us had been drinking much lately, and our drinking stamina was way down. We agreed to just have breakfast and a beer this time.
We drank beer until 8:00. I honestly don’t know how we do it. The hours just fly by while we exchange secrets, books, opinons, jokes, stories, rumors, whatever. All of a sudden, 8 hours and many pitchers of beer later, we’re congratulating ourselves and heading home.
I took the dog for a walk when I got home, and there was a quality sunset going on, so I went into the field to take a picture.
There were other people in the field, just lying around making films.
And then I went home and went to bed, satisfied that the tradition lives on and I am still capable of drinking beer all day long.
Gee, zoom, are your friends reading Dating for Dummies?
Bluebird, Dating for Dummies is THE hot new trend in 2006. Everybody who’s anybody wants to be spotted reading DFD in public.
Brilliant post, great pictures!
It’s so nice to have these little traditions and such great friends; they make life much more interesting!
How come I’ve never heard of this ugly club?
Dakota, I love making up new traditions as I go through life.
Dave, the Ugly Club is annexed to the Carleton Tavern…it used to be the restaurant next door, but they closed it last year, so now it’s the alleyway.
I was born at the Grace in 1958. I always thought it was too bad they got rid of it. But I guess nothing lasts forever.
Julia, I think the hospital where I was born, in Lachine Quebec, was either torn down or renamed. It doesn’t appear to exist anymore. Did you get your Grace Baby Birth Certificate? They were giving those out to people who had been born there, in the final days before it closed…I lined up for a couple of hours to get my son’s certificate.
No, I never went back after the day I was born. SO many years ago, I got my Ontario birth certificate – the plasticized kind they used to give out – and that was good enough. Now I hear they aren’t accepting them anymore (some places, anyway). Well, here I am – I guess I was born some place, some time! I am not sentimental about it. Good thing.
[...] Anyway, now I’m off for my annual All-Day Breakfast at the Ugly Club. [...]