Zen from Grapes

Yesterday was a triple threat party: it was my dad's 55th birthday, the family Thanksgiving celebration, and a little party for the Peach and me. It was a good day, all around: my younger brother's girlfriend was much more comfortable this time and had much more fun, there were two kinds of pie, and I got an ice cream scoop hefty enough to kill a man if wielded improperly.

The highlight of the night - for my brothers, at least - was the return of CBC's Hockey Night in Canada, and more specifically, the return of Coach's Corner. For those of you living outside of the greater Canadian area, Coach's Corner is a show hosted by Don Cherry, former NHL hockey coach-turned-television personality, a hero to hundreds of thousands of Canadians - so much so that he was in the Top Ten for the World's Greatest Canadian competition. The man rants and raves about the past week in hockey, and is usually entertainingly shouty. Thanks to the strike last year, though, there has been no NHL hockey or angry ranting Cherry for over 18 months, and my brothers were ravenous (one even climbed over his girlfriend in the middle of a conversation to watch the puck drop for the Oilers game).

I do have a soft spot in my heart for Don Cherry, ever since he kissed Scott Thompson from The Kids in the Hall on live T.V. He's a bit of a blowhard, kind of closed-minded, and slightly controversial, but he knows the game and he brings in the ratings. However, last night he said something that might just be my favourite Cherry quote of all time, ranking right up there with the great Yogi Berra's "Déjà vu all over again". I'm paraphrasing, but it's pretty close:

"People say they don't know why this happens. You know why you don't know? Because you don't know!"

Apparently, Grapes has mastered the zen technique of no mind. Absorb the wisdom, people.