The vacation started well - much mucking about in garden. The wounds have almost healed. Which means, of course, that I didn't get nearly enough gardening in. I blame our extremely wet weather.
Spousal unit headed over to a friend's house, in town for the weekend. His friend talked him into going out to lunch with other in town people, as it was his high school's 50th anniversary reunion. High school reunions are for people who, um, went to the high school. Not spouses. This I know. Yet my spouse insisted I go to the lunch. Fine. Drinking beer on a patio on a lovely day in June is not exactly hardship, so I went, and it was fine. Then he insisted I go to the dinner that night. I have to admit it wasn't as horrible as I imagined, but watching old people fail to recognize each other and complain about the small print on name tags is not fun.
Sunday, more mucking in dirt. Then the rest of the family headed up to the cottage as Zoe invited 2 friends and our car only holds 6. I stayed home and cleaned and watched Bon Cop, Bad Cop - much fun. Very Canadian. Worth renting, if you're in the mood for low budget humour with occasional subtitles.
My brother drove me up to the cottage the next day, meaning I got to spend an hour holding Adrian, my new nephew. It were nice, it were. He was in that rarest of newborn phases, alert and quiet. Definitely a treat. We got to the cottage, and the kids informed me the car broke. Sigh. Our vehicle was fun when it had a bit of character. It's less fun now. I'd noticed the "suspension not working" light, and assumed that it was the sensor. Or the suspension. Either way, I wasn't going to do anything about it. But driving over gravel roads in a large vehicle with 6 people and no suspension isn't good for the car, and Hugh hit a rock and the tailpipes separated.
We spent some time Tuesday lying under the vehicle, attaching wire to the tailpipes. By "we", I mean Hugh did it as I reluctantly assisted. He managed to drive the vehicle back to town, and my brother left, leaving me at the cottage, in the rain, with 3 teenage girls and 2 boys. The girls don't like bugs, and we made them mad by bringing them a large toad and an enormous spider to show them. Yes, I should grow up, but it was too much fun to resist.
Wednesday Hugh returned, with his dad's car, and I left him up there with his brother and 1 boy. He showed up at home about 2 hours after we got back. Nice timing - gave me enough time to do all the laundry and put everything away. And feed the kids.
Thursday the rain began in earnest. We used my brother in law's vehicle to do some errands, including shopping with boy #1 for a cell phone. This is a child who would rather saw off his arm than call a stranger, but he needs a cell. Ah well, it's his money. Sort of. He buys the phone, I pay the $25 a month for unlimited text and highly limited talk. So far he's texted his sister and her friends, as his friends are at camp and not textable.
While at Future Shop getting Zoe a new cell - because you know, after almost a year, the "old" one is so, like, uncool, cause, like, everyone, like, has the, like, same one, you know? I bought myself an early b-day present. I am now the proud owner of the game active, Personal Trainer for Wii. It is very cheery. I want to create an abusive personal trainer game for Wii. The trainer would be highly sarcastic and insulting. Move it, you fat slob would be the trademark line. Much better than keep it up! You're doing great! Wow, that's real energy! You're a track star! Fuck off - I'm in my bedroom, pretending to jog with a remote in one hand and a nunchuck strapped to my thigh. Track star I am not.
So, dear imaginary reader, that has been my summer vacation to date. I left out the thrilling housework, but would like to report that our basement storage area is gradually looking less cluttered. I anticipate a return to work on Monday, to be followed by a call from spousal unit informing me that our mechanic has deemed our vehicle unworthy of repair. As we don't want to spend more than $200, and it needs a new suspension, tailpipe and power steering, odds are excellent our mechanic will not do the repairs. Fortunately, said mechanic is located only 2 blocks from Cohen's, where you can drive your old junker onto the scale and get CASH for it. Baby blue, my tiny commuter bug, fetched me $130, which I promptly spent on food. That was fun. That was also at the peak of the market, when scrap metal was so valuable people were stealing manhole covers. The green machine, while easily 4x the size of baby blue, might get us $50. That's OK. It's better than spending hundreds to allow it to limp for another week or so, until the next bit breaks.
I think I'll have to take another week off, later this summer. For now, it's off to the airport to drop off my parents, who are spending 2 weeks hiking in Newfoundland. We will use their car. Yeah!
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