Some Things That Happened This Summer

I applied to Indigo and got an invitation to submit a video interview the next day. I keep trying to feel anxious about going back to work, but I keep realizing that I'm really looking forward to getting out of the house a few times a week, hanging out around books and contributing a little to the family finances. I think I'm really ready. One might argue that it's way past time for me to be ready, but one could then be cordially invited to take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut. I refuse to get nervous about an interview, because I think they'd be daft not to hire me, so I'm willing to let things unfold as they may.

My reading mood was weird over the summer. I couldn't read anything dense or challenging, and I read overall much less than usual. A few weeks ago I did what I always say I never do and put a bunch of holds on at the library that all came in at once. Then I read eleven books in eight days, so I'm feeling better about that whole end of things. It's like the reset button has been hit on a few things, which gives me hope that last year wasn't actually the start of a giant downward slide ending in death.

The summer was good. Really good. One thing that happened was that we got one of those picnic blankets that's soft on the top and waterproof and slippery on the bottom and folds up neatly with built-in carrying straps. It comes in a perfect bundled-up package, and you bring it somewhere and unfold it and experience its lovely soft waterproofness:



Then you spend the rest of your life trying to get it back into that state of pristine perfection, (which is not helped by the fact that one side is insanely slippery),











....with very occasional success.

Memorable moments from our Summer of Awesome

Eve feeds a baby for the first time: "Oh, she's so cute, she wants the spoon."; "Dani, you have to....okay, she keeps throwing that magnet on the floor."; "Here, baby, do you want...AGH! There's yogurt ALL OVER MY HAND!"; "THIS BABY IS HORRIFYING!"; "Wait...was I this bad when you fed me?"

>

Angus discovers that, no matter how good a pitcher you are, you can't beat a rigged carnival game:

>

Eve rides a carousel, and halfway through her ride Angus and I realize all the horses on it are really freaking scary.



Matt discovers, to his great disgust, that our kids suck at bumper cars:



We babysit a bird for five weeks and get quite attached. The little bugger dies two hours before we're due to bring him home. At least his owner (Eve's friend) was already here and had seen him alive so they didn't suspect we'd been keeping him in the freezer or something, but still, it sucked.



Angus wins the ground ball competition at baseball practice and reaps the somewhat unorthodox reward (Ultimate Fighting Championship belt):



I follow my friend Janis into EQ3 in the market to look at sectionals and stumble upoon the purple rocking chair of awesome that OBVIOUSLY must be obtained for Eve's soon-to-be new room:



Just FYI, if your herb garden looks like this, it's probably past time to weed:



Eve and Marielle take Britannia Beach by storm and I have a huge laugh at Marielle's Mom's expense (that's the bikini she was ONLY allowed to wear on the cruise they're taking next March):



One minute it's all football and sandcastles, the next you're smack in the middle of the Zombie Apocalypse:



For Swistle: me, practically full-length, wearing the EXACT SAME SHIRT as tiny little Zarah. (Eve demanded it, and since we made the kids wear matching shirts I capitulated)



This year the kids (Zarah's and mine) would only agree to pose nicely if we subsequently photographed them beating on each other:








Our enterprising children engage in both theatre and marketing:



And the cast photo, naturally....



During the Provincials championship game, Angus falters while pitching his fourth of five innings. The first baseman walks out to centre field, punches him lightly on the shoulder, and returns to first base. This makes me cry.



Eve decides to pick a recipe from my Mrs. Fields cookbook for us to cook. We make black and white cupcakes. She doesn't really like them.



Eve gets over her fear of driving ("WHAT? I can't drive THAT!"):



Angus gets off the baseball diamond and onto the beach - somewhat unfortunately for photo ops, his friend Jacob has been there for four days already.



Helmets!


My Mom drives a go-kart. Pretty much worth the price of admission right there, wouldn't you say?


I get my act together in time to participate in one of Amber's monthly round-up posts. Yippee.

Aventure Laflêche - extrêmement awesome

The weather here this summer has been fabulous (if you like weather of the scorching melting hot variety, which I actually don't, but I also don't love everyone moaning and wailing when they don't get it, so on balance....). However, it has also had a nasty habit of sensing when I'm planning to do something fun and unusual with the kids that we've never done before and dumping a bucket of crap on those plans. So we didn't get to Puppets Up in Almonte, or Saunders Farm (I know, I'm possibly the last person in Ottawa who hasn't been to Saunders Farm). Of course, the kids are usually already pumped up about doing something, because I'm - what's the word? - a moron, so we have to do SOMETHING, but it's raining, so the something almost invariably ends up being a movie. And kids movies this summer? SUCKED SUPER HARD. The Smurfs? Jayma Mays and the awesomeness that is Neil Patrick Harris, and Hank Azaria, plus little blue people? Actually it demonstrates a sort of impressive savant-like level of excelling at being lame to screw that up. Spy Kids 4? I was cautioning my daughter that we might have to go to some special theatre - IMAX or something- to get the SmelloVision, since I thought they'd be blowing bacon-flavoured mist out of the vents or something. Nope - just a darling little scratch-and-sniff card, with eight numbers on it that, when scratched, all smelled pretty much exactly the same. Ditto with the writing and acting.

So when we woke up on the day we were going to the Laflèche caves and it was threatening rain I said FUCK IT - we're still going (in my head, of course - I hardly ever say 'fuck' in front of my kids, and the one time I did Eve tolds me consolingly that we'd just pretend I was saying 'seal' in French).

We went with my friend Janet and her son and daughter (wasn't it brilliant how the whole group of us birthed boys first and girls second? Years of great parties where the boys play video games and shoot nerf darts at each other downstairs and the girls play mysterious games and shoot nerf darts at each other upstairs and the adults drink wine and shoot nerf darts at each other in the family room and on the patio) and took another 12-year-old boy with us. We did the children's course, because the girls weren't tall enough for the adult one (it's totally true, you can look it up, it had nothing to do with my morbid fear of heights and looking stupid, which I did anyway).



So they harness you in and you inch across ropes and ride on wooden swings and crawl through MOVING WOODEN TUNNELS, none more than 4 metres above the ground (which is really not that close to the ground when you're up there, trust me).





Both segments of the course end with a baby zipline ride. This was probably the thing that freaked me out the most and then surprised me with how much I liked it - once I committed myself to lurching off the platform in a most undignified manner, it was surprisingly comfortable and exhilarating. Until I crashed into the rocks.



(Picture of me? Yeah right).

As we were walking back down the path talking about how much fun the course was, Janet said "actually I'm a little surprised you did it all -- don't you have a phobia about this kind of thing?" I said "oh, I'm totally soaked in fear sweat right now, but you have to challenge yourself every now and then". Then I asked her to hold my hand in case my wobbly knees refused to carry me any further. Angus is keen to do the adult course, which is three and a half hours long with much longer and higher ziplines. I told him I have to train for six months and undergo extensive counselling first.

We had a picnic on the tables by the pond, where we could watch people sail overhead on the Adventure Course ziplines. The girls chanted DROP YOUR SHOE! DROP YOUR SHOE! every time - curiously, no one did.

Then we went on the cave tour. I thought this was going to be the easy part, and then I remembered how I'm mildly claustrophobic. It's kind of annoying the things I've scaled and squished through and the water slides I've gone down headfirst, all in the name of showing my kids that sometimes you have to feel the fear and do it anyway. It's not totally fair that they have to do it anyway without the promise of tequila afterwards, but still...

The caves are really cool. Well, all caves are, aren't they? It's a big mountain that you can walk inside - that's cool. Plus we got to wear headlamps!




We also had to climb up a small, clammy, endless ladder at one point, but let's not dwell on that.



There was one tiny tunnel we were supposed to crawl through. I was about to clamp down my burgeoning hysteria and proceed, and then I thought, wait, surely not everyone who does the tour would consent to this insanity. So I went around.



When we were doing the course, the rain couldn't even reach us through the trees. The minute we got out of the caves the skies opened up and we were drenched by the time we got back to the van. It was still a great day - with no little blue men, crass product placements or baby poop sight gags, just good, outdoor, mild-panic-attack-inducing fun.

Who's Afraid of Camping? I am, I am!

I'm off to not camp again, this year with son in tow - daughter decided she'd rather have some Daddy time (I believe it also had something to do with the fact that my sister is coming back to pick up her kids. Eve adores my sister. And my sister's sample case from her home jewelry selling business, which she only does to be able to write off her renovations, because she's a very well-employed pharmacist - yeah, no self-esteem-damaging comparisons there at all). Happy week-end, all.

Oh, and in the spirit of the mostly-defunct (at least here) Friday funny: Enjoy this.

1000 Islands of Awesomeness

I hadn't done the 1000 Islands Boat Cruise since I was about Eve's age and went with my parents. Our usual crew were camping/cottaging nearby so we headed up to Ganonoque on the Saturday morning to meet them. Eve was all for the idea after she verified that the boat was big - she had a nasty almost-getting-swamped experience in a smaller boat while cottaging last summer and was not at all interested in facing her fears on that count.

The tour of the 1000 islands and the various stories of people who have inhabited them (there was something about a self-styled 'pirate' who died ignominiously by slipping on some water on his dock or something) was actually fairly interesting. For the adults. The kids were mostly interested in finding the best places to ride...

...and eat two-bite brownies.


The tour we took stops at Boldt Castle.

This is just the boathouse:


It's knock-your-eye-out architecturally, with a very sad story attached to it, about a man who was building it for his wife who died before he could finish it, so he left it unfinished.





The kids enjoyed walking around the grounds



and exploring the castle,



This was Eve's favourite part:



There are also many rocks which obviously must be climbed. And the obligatory ice cream and cheesy souvenirs. My daughter is the proud owner of a necklace with a magnet on it, to which one affixes a beer bottle cap. So proud.



If you go, be advised that you need a valid passport for Boldt Castle (it's not strictly speaking in Canada), but not one that is more than six months from expiry (someone mentioned this figure to me at some point and it has caused me ALL MANNER of unnecessary anxiety). Also, if you want to sit on the top of the boat you need to arrive quite early, but on the return trip sitting on the top of the boat can be very hot. Also, the same trip that was new and exciting and required no additional distractions on the way there will now be four times as long and the slightest bit boring and may entail complaining about having to share a drink with certain other germy individuals, scaling of various marine structures and a wish that all electronic devices had not been banned and relegated to the cars left back in the parking lot. Just sayin'.

Also, not that I didn't appreciate him taking the picture, but he could have mentioned the bra strap.

Baseball Team of Awesome OR My Son is on the A-Team!

In our league, spring ball and summer ball are separate. Eve only plays spring ball, because the glory of adulation of usually being the only girl on the team (man, the Moms who only have boys LOVE her) only goes so far. In the spring all the players are sorted out equally onto teams. In the summer, there's a competitive team that you have to try out for - they call it the A team. I remember when my husband first mentioned the existence of this team. He said they practiced almost every day, sometimes twice a day, and I was rolling my eyes saying "Cripes, that would be the only thing you did all summer. Can you believe people actually do that? Can you....holy crap, you actually want him to do that, don't you?"

The first year that Angus was in Minor, he was 'playing up', i.e. playing in Minor when he was still technically supposed to be in Rookie, but his birthday was close enough to the cut-off and he was a good enough player that they let him in. We had decided that he wouldn't try out for the A team that year; we were going to go on a two-week vacation out east with three other families, in preparation for possibly not being able to take vacations in the summer once he was playing on the competitive team. He got invited to try out for the competitive team. My husband was in Japan and I told him this on the phone, and then I said 'they're supposed to show up at 11 to try out for the A team and 1 to sort out for the regular team. I'm taking him at 1." My husband agreed - because he was in freaking Japan, what were his options? Then the damned coaches let him try out at one for the A team anyway. Fortunately (depending on who you ask) he narrowly missed being selected for the team.

Last year he did make the team. There weren't many returning players because many of them had moved up to Major, and the pool of kids who tried out wasn't as big as it sometimes is, so they had to take some weaker players. It was a good team, but not a fantastic team.

This year? They're freaking unbelievable to watch. Angus is a good pitcher, and a good batter, but last year there were times when he almost had to carry the team, and in a playoff game if he struck out or faltered, the whole team seemed to freak out and lose it. This year if he throws a bad pitch or fumbles a ball, the rest of the team backs him up like a well-oiled machine. They were undefeated in regular league play going into the District tournament. They won the District tournament, which meant they played teams from all over Ontario in the Provincials. One day we opened the paper and saw this:



(That's my kid on the right). That was kind of neat. The coach saved Angus as a pitcher for the final game. He pitched five innings and they won 7-0. The next day this was in the paper:

Eagles win provincial Little League championship

Except in the actual paper, not only is most of the article about him, the HEADLINE reads: ADAMS DOES IT JUST LIKE DOC.

I said to my husband (who used to play all-star hockey), "do you you think he's peaked at 11?". My husband said, "I peaked at 12. It could happen."

It's still pretty cool though. For the entire Provincials tournament, they scored 64 runs and only had 2 scored against them. The day after we won, the parents who had the party sent out an email with a picture of a pile of beer cans saying "We actually managed to drink more beers than the team scored runs".

I love it when a plan comes together.

Cottage Surfing - it's Awesome.

New record for me and Eve - three cottages in six days. Have GPS, will travel.

First, Lyndhurst. My husband's uncle and aunt and six-year-old cousin (which the kids find extremely amusing) had rented a cottage in Lyndhurst. The boys were in District playoffs, so we were the only available family representatives. The swimming wasn't great - I tried to push Eve out past the weeds in a tube, but it turned out there really was no 'past the weeds'. But the deck overlooking the water was beautiful. And there was beer.

And frogs.








Next up, our friends' place where they have people up every summer and this nice man deep fries a turkey.


Eve has never been able to jump into water. She has stood on the side of the pool or the edge of the dock for countless minutes, always getting really frustrated with herself for chickening out. Today, with a huge audience no less, she finally took the plunge.


...which was great, because then she could partake in the numerous cannonball contests.


There was also swinging, sliding, singing, bottle-drinking...





...and an upside-down baby.


Third, we visited the female half of a family we met through baseball - B. was on Eve's team, L. was on Angus's, and Matt and I really liked the Mom and Dad. Two years of bliss and merriment...then the stupid military made them move to Edmonton. They were in town at their cottage for a week, so Eve and I went out for the day. We went swimming, sat on the deck for a bit, and played a game of Trivial Pursuit.


We couldn't decide between the Younger Player questions and the Canadian version - the younger player ones gave us such masterpieces as: "What is Cookie Monster munching on in the video game Cookie Monster Munch?" Seriously? So we kept going back and forth, and we made the girls read all the questions. This led to B. asking a question about 'Austria's Nasty Party' (well, the Nazis were pretty nasty) and Eve reading something about the King of structures which confused the hell out of everybody until we figured out it was 'what KIND of structures'. Eve and I built up a nice lead early on, then W. and B. caught up and we eventually had to call the game on the grounds that W. and I were out of beer.


Did I mention that B. is only three months older than Eve, who is not short for her age? Yeesh.


Here's to travelling with vats of Southwest Pasta Salad, permanently damp bathing suits and the Wailin' Jennys as background music.

(no frogs were harmed in the photographing of this post).