Buffalo, Day 2: Of Malls, Massacres, and Movie Monsters

Nothing like starting a vacation like this.

Me (after the dog awoke me at 9 am): "Ugh, I need some coffee."
Mom: "Oh, I can dig out the coffee maker, I think there's some coffee still in the pantry."
Me: "You have coffee? How old is it? I can just get some at Tim Hortons."
Mom: "Well, I have some Folgers here somewhere, and it's on my grocery list."
Me: "So we don't have any coffee."
Mom: "I have Folgers."
Me: "So we don't have any coffee."

Anyway, it was good to hit up Timmy Ho's and get some cheap, strong coffee (and not have them look at you strangely when all you want is a drip), and then Karen and I headed to the Walden Galleria, a plan apparently shared by the entire rest of the city and half of Toronto. On the bright side, we were quite successful and took care of everything we needed in about three hours, but it still reminded me why I hate malls and the general greed and commercialism that has come to symbolize the American Dream. This year's big trick is apparently the "Buy one and get the second half-off" sale, because after you've spent $50 on a tie it helps to justify the insane cost by instead spending $75 on two, so they really only cost you $37.50 each. What a bargain!

From there I took a walk around the neighborhood. Although very little has overtly changed in the twenty-one months since I last set foot in the region, a massive and unexpected October 2006 lake-effect snowstorm wreaked devastation on the trees of the region, which had not yet lost their leaves for the year. The event was initially dubbed "the night the trees wept" by the Buffalo News, until it was pointed out that you can't weep when you're dead. Somewhere along the way it was re-christened "Arborgeddon" and that's the name it is now commonly known by, and yet somehow that is still an understatement. Some areas were without power for several weeks (my parents were among the lucky ones -- no damage to the house and only a week in the dark.) For a town that once prided itself on its tall, mature maples, elms and oaks, this set Tonawanda back decades, with many streets and neighborhoods looking like brand new developments -- only tiny saplings and shrubs now standing in place of the mammoth trunks that were violently hewn from the earth. Though the thousands of tons and millions of dollars of damage have been cleaned up and the power lines re-strung, the remaining trees stand like silent amputees, with broken and twigless boughs pointing up with angry jagged fingers toward the source of their lacerations. I did my best to capture a sense of these silent sentinels to last year's fury, although as is often the case, small photographs simply cannot convey the magnitude, both in severity and scope, of the event. You can view the shots (and find some links to sites with pictures and stories from last year during the cleanup) here.

Finally, I saw Beowulf in 3D this evening, which was quite entertaining from a 'check your brain at the door and enjoy bright shiny theatrical effects with scary monsters' standpoint. A few of the extreme close-up effects made my eyes water, but overall the 3D effect was quite impressive and it's come a long way from the crummy red-and-blue glasses of yesteryear.