I was so caught up in the angry car rental post I forgot to post pics/vids of my Easter Weekend! Whole set is here.
Montreal – Their graffiti is better…
Their trash is better…
Their Gay Village Warning to Tourists Signs are sexier.
I taught my Sister In Law how to make a pillow!
We get a bit crazy at the Cabane a Sucre forest ride.
I had cake. Seems like I like sticking crap up in front of my face.
We’re waking up the house in Vermont now and soon we’ll hit the US border, drop the in-law Mom and Aunt back in St-Jean-Sur-Richelieu, hopefully hit the Ganq’s casino for $40 and finish the long road back to George Hamilton.
This opening sequence is so cryptic I can’t even begin to tell you. Pics of a Cabane a Sucre, creepy cake and more later. Thanks for your patience.
Getting my “Red Shirt” ready!
It’s a long ride between Toronto and Brockvegas, where I grew up.
When I was 13 I started to occasionally accompany my dad on business trips into Toronto. At that age I was ready to escape the bizarre conservatism that the town’s parents exuded and the boring, “lets get drunk every night” attitude my high school chums demanded I enroll in. Toronto was an “otherworld”, a safe haven where my hidden gay desires could be “not so hidden” and I would beg my dad to take me along with him, if only to sit in a hotel room in a large metropolitan city for a day.
As I said, it was a long ride, especially before everyone in Ontario collectively decided that 120kph was the unofficial legal limit (I doubt cars could sustain that limit for long, back then). It took under 6 hours with rest stops as opposed to the manic 4 hours you can do it today in good traffic/no peeing.
One particular trip to Toronto defined my car relationship with my father and was possibly the most notable. Trapped in Dad’s LTD, he decided somewhere around Kingston he was going to give me The Talk. Yes, The Talk where as a teen, you have to discuss sexual intimacies with a parent. Yes it was spine-curlingly embarrassing, with long pauses and awkward metaphors and aphorisms that made me press my back hard against the passenger door. I could see it in Dad’s eyes that his back was equally plastered to his door, the window crank making an indelible mark along his spine. But he was determined to get this parental duty done.
Dad started out slow with a statement that would make any teen boy writhe in panic. The harbinger of adult responsibility. The trumpet blow before your cocooned, responsibility-free young adult world crashed down around you.
“You’re at an age, now…”
The depths of which my father went into sex was kept to a respectable level, almost 10ft pole distance, but every so often he would prod one of my prudish nerves like some one-off serial killer extra on Dexter: “You… know about vaginas…?”
“Dad!”
“You know about sex, right? About …fucking…?”
“DAD!!!”
I tried to deflect it by pointing out that we get this subject in school now so this awkward talk can change to something else. But no, he continued.
“You know how babies are made, right?”
“…Dad…? Please.”
And so it went through several topics, until, like some great engine seizing up with a lack of oil, our conversation seized at a long pause, unsure where to go next.
Those who know my father, know this whole incident skirts on the edge of irony. Three years after this scene, my father came out of the closet, finally admitting his own sexuality and becoming comfortable with himself to drive faster.
Okay boring one out of the way first: Flickr tells me this was my most viewed picture for last year:
The best “Husband” Image for 2008 goes to “Beach Relaxio at Saugatuck”
The Runner up best “Husband” picture is also the Best “Picture from Disneyland”:
Best “Involved With Enviroment” image goes to “Huge Bollocks!”
Next, the best “Brush With a Homemade Celebrity” Image goes to “Lack of Faith”!
For the “Most Creative Use of Clippers” award, we give it to “Hot DJ”
The award for “No Colour Manipulation” image goes to “Husband on a Dock”!
Best “Well, DUH” image goes to “Crew’s Fire Saftey Plan”
For the best “Faux Arty Farty” shot, we give you “Ball of Burn”!
But the “All Round Ultimate Best”, in my humble opinion, would have to be my depthy, curious picture of a hybrid cauliflower and a cat:
Baseball Wine Hottie
A story from our recent camping trip:
We had packed up the car on the last day of camping and said our goodbyes to the three women across from our site, offering up our remaining wood for them to use. We get into the car and start to drive away.
We almost got to the campground’s front gate when SharkBoy remembers the clothesline still hanging between some trees back at the site. How he did an inventory in his head of the car’s contents while he drove to the exit is a mystery to me. But it came to him in a flash and I had to jump out and hike back to our spot. It was quicker than trying to turn the behemoth of a car around and obeying the 3mph speed limit through the trailer park, crawling past glaring tenants who think you’re doing 4mph.
Back at the site, the women are deep in animated conversation and without comment I head straight to the trees to start untying the rope.
I’m considering using my teeth on one particular high up knot, concentrating all my will to get it to release itself and without thought, I fart.
Sometimes the only time you notice a noise is when it stops. I’m not talking about the fart, no. The lesbians had stopped talking abruptly.
Don’t turn around. Keep working that knot. Wind up the rope. Keep your eyes down. Get back to the car…
Five days roughing it in the wilds of Michigan!
“Roughing” is a cliché of course. Campit has heated pool, showers, family cabins and the prerequisite gay dance hall.
Our Home Away
And the village of Saugatuck ain’t no slouch, either. I swear the value of holiday yachts actually increased despite the economy being toilety. The charm was still there and if I could, I’d retire there in a heart-murmur.
The Most Liberal Car In Michigan
Things of note:
Evil Panda and Thor have a new dog that transcends “adorable”. Betty the Bulldog was well behaived and utterly cute with her lop-sided underbite.
Cuties!
Evil Panda and Thor transcend adorable together ( and on their own, of course).
Grand Rapids is a place i’d like to look around more. It has a cool university town vibe and that crazy sculpture garden is massive.
Kinetics in The Sun
When you come across a five storey bronze statue of a replica of a Da Vinci horse maquette, you basically feel awe.
Big Horse
Bronze horse gonads the size of a Mark V torpedo is awe inspiring, too.
Drug deals outside your tent at 4 am is a good sign that culture lines are blurring (camping & raving collide). It also was a sign that we were going to get little sleep due to intermittent stupidity. I don’t blame the campground, just the shitdicks who think drugs while camping is fun.
And finally, I really need to learn how to knit. Thor made me a present of a tea cozy and I’m totally wanting to take classes this winter and knit a robot sweater…
With all the gadgets in the house I started to get a bit edgy about the cost of replacing them if (god forbid) some street bacteriophage got it into their heads to enter into our home, touch things and then leave with said things. It adds up after a while and would take a while to add it back up.
Last night I saw an ad for E-insurance where regular folk turn into animated cartoons and do all sorts of fantastical things like fly, save trees, jump, fly, swim great distances, um… fly… and just be cartoony. Unfortunately E-insurance was unable to turn these people’s voices into professional cartoon voice actors which made the whole ad seemed flat and gimmicky. But I was impressed with that “one stop shop” for insurance.
Quick! To the internet!
And lo and behold, there is a Canadian version called Kanetix, a one stop shop site that is blistering with information. Not an entirely ugly site, it seems rather “Government of Canada” kind of vibe, in the sense I can trust it (no animated “Welcome!” gifs, like the previous campground post…). So I start to look around and I’m suitably impressed within moments. Beyond all the features you’d expect, it’s got dynamic forms that morph to your responses. To me, that says “smart!” and “we have money!” so already I feel at ease using the site. Ooh look! The Postal Code swaps out lower case for upper case text! Keen!
I start with Travel Insurance, since we’re going to Saugatuk, MI soon. I may be bitten by a moose. you never know. So I punch in some facts, some figures and hit submit. BAM! Faster than oh say… crappy AVIS car rental site, I get ascending pricing of about 8 quotes. I’m still reeling at the speed. I guess insurance servers aren’t as clogged as car rental sites. Anyway, two options from there: Call to buy, buy online. Snazzy!
I’m intrigued now: on to home insurance. Area code… date of birth… couple personal questions… You can imagine my tounge is poking just outside my mouth as I type all this. Oh and imagine I’m humming too. That would be nice. Right. Fire plug question… easy… couple inches from the front door… Fire hall location… Real close. Wish it was closer, hubba hubba… What? Ok. Click, no thank you, sure, no, ha! ok, sure click, and CLICK! Hey presto. Ooo a 4 second wait this time, which warranted a pop up window that barely had time to load and boom! 2 quotes for an annual fee with quote reference number. Hm! Reasonable.
Just the act of searching for insurance makes me feel responsible. More adult.
Then I ask myself real quick: Am I getting old?
The other voice in my head, the one that says “Don’t stand naked by the window nearest to the TTC stop” says real quick: “Not old. Just smarter!” My chest puffs out.
I show this to SharkBoy and without a bat of an eyeball, says “We’re already insured through my work. You married into it.”
Oh. Well.
Can I get an animated version of myself then?