Halloween

Halloween used to be a MUCH bigger deal when I had kids out trick-or-treating....now it's just a couple of hours of hanging out in the kitchen and answering the door every now and again.

The girls are too old to go out getting candy anymore....Thing 1 stayed home and answered the door with me, and Thing 2 went to a friend's house. (Where they watched scary movies and screamed themselves hoarse. I'm so glad they were at the friend's house.) Last year they went out together; Thing 2 had the brilliant idea of dressing up as Wayne and Garth from "Wayne's World", and Thing 1 had to go because what is Wayne without Garth? They said a couple of 40 year old dads were thrilled at their get-ups, but a couple of cranky old ladies snarked "is that even a costume?". (Thing 1 was offended...."like I'd ever be caught dead in real life dressed like this!")

They both dressed up for school; Thing 1 went as a flapper (and a very pretty one, at that) and Thing 2 went as a fairy princess, a good excuse to wear her grad dress and high heels again, just add a tiara and wings and, voila!

Thing 1's best friend is VERY into her Halloween costumes, and makes magnificent ones. One year she went as Pac-Man ("no more costumes with no arms!") and last year, she was a Lego man, and THIS year, she went as a dragon:

40 pieces of bristol board, 4 rolls of tape, 4 metal frames and one very, very focused teenage girl. Note that the horns are touching the cafeteria ceiling. Also note the considerably shorter door she has to exit the cafeteria from on the right of the picture.

We had the usual 3 and 4 year olds, looking particularly adorable, at around 6 pm, and then the kids getting older and older as the night wore on. One little guy, a toddler, was way more interested in Toby than the treats, and another kid declared "I LOVE this house" after we gave her a large handful of Starburst Fruit Chews and Skittles.
At around 8 pm, I heard someone say "hey, there's Toby!", so I knew it had to be one of the girls' friends. Sure enough, three rather large young men, wearing hoodies as costumes, came to to the door. They were careful to pull down their hoods to hide their faces, but Mrs. Loudshoes is a hard-ass (as they should well know from many years of pizza days at school) and demanded full disclosure. "How do I know who I'm doling out to, if I don't know who you are?" I said. "What if I was unwittingly giving out Halloween candy to Al-Quida?" They all gave in pretty fast; who knew their price was a handful of Starburst Fruit Chews and Skittles?

We got about 30 kids altogether, which means that we have lots of candy left over. So I had Starburst Fruit Chews for dinner. How come it doesn't feel so bad to eat your weight in candy when you have to unwrap 72 little portions?

Bring on Christmas!

The Loudshoes in Europe, Part 9: The Trip Home

I've been to hell and lived to tell the tale....it's crowded and noisy and food is so expensive it will make you hyperventilate: it's Terminal 4 at JFK Airport.

On our way home from Europe, we had to fly to New York City to make a connection to Toronto. We could have flown directly from Heathrow to Pearson, but that cost an extra thousand dollars for the four of us, and we figured we could do a LOT with a thousand bucks on our holiday. (This becomes relevant later.)

The flight from Heathrow to JFK was fine, but when we got into New York the airport was in chaos; there had been some terrible thunderstorms in the area, with them getting more rain in one day than they'd ever had since they'd been keeping records. Every flight in the place was cancelled, including ours. And, the young woman behind the counter, who clearly thought I was being unreasonble and a total downer for harshing her buzz, said that she couldn't find us another flight for 24 hours. I wanted to kill myself, except at JFK, they would charge you something for that.

After chasing a hotel room, fruitlessly, for an hour or so (including a $30 round trip taxi ride for nothing) we looked at each other and concluded we were going to have to sleep in the airport. Thing 1 was a bit upset at this prospect ("It's like we're homeless!") and Thing 2 thought it would give her some serious street cred for having slept in public in New York City.
But then I realized were were going to have to spend another whole freaking day in that same stupid airport, and nearly lost my shit altogether. That's when I bought a bottle of water for 5 dollars and realized that waiting for this flight would cost us as much at 2 weeks in Europe.

We did find a place to settle down, at least; a bench with some padding meant that we weren't sleeping on marble floors. (50 year old backs + rock hard surfaces = cripples for days.) There were plenty of other people sleeping in the airport too, so it wasn't like we were the only ones there. But it did feel a little creepy, sleeping out in the open where anyone could come and go, and the homeless guys scratching their genitals and talking to themselves.

Airports are fairly noisy places, what with the flight announcements and the security check points. Oh, and the airport personnell who have to shout to their friends on the other end of the concourse to see who gets their break next. Yes, I could not get enough of that.

I eventually gave up on sleep and took out my book to read; between my 20's and having young children, it certainly wouldn't be the first night I'd lost out on sleep; I'd live.
Around 4 o'clock in the morning, the Mister and looked at each other and figured that thousand bucks on that direct flight would have been very well spent.

Around 6 in the morning, the Mister and I decided to move over to the terminal we would be flying out of, and at least see if they would check in our luggage for us; we were tired of dragging it around.
You know, the people at JFK are just so pleasant, and nice and helpful. Just kidding. They are horrible; mean and surly and shouty. The woman at the check-in counter looked at me like I was an idiot and asked why I was waiting for the 8 pm flight and not trying to get stand-by seats for the 8:20 A.M flight. "Because the snot-bag I talked to last night didn't even tell me there was an 8:20 a.m flight" I replied, except I substituted "woman" for "snot-bag". She sighed deeply, and shook her head at me, like she was sorry I was such a loser and she had to deal with me, and told me she would book us standby seats for the 8:20. I thanked her, and I was so happy to find out there was a possibility that I might get out of that hell-hole 12 hours earlier than anticipated, I even smiled at her and thanked her. (Which is forbidden at JFK Airport, just to tell you.)

We got to the gate, which was crowded and noisy, because approximately every single person in there was trying to get out. I asked the woman behind the counter at the gate how this stand-by thing worked, since I'd never done it before. She laconically said "we call your name". Now, I think I'd made it clear I'm new here, I haven't done this before and by the way, I had to sleep in an airport and watch a homeless guy scratch his genitals for the past 10 hours. You're going to have to put the dots real close together for me: "So, if you don't call my name?" I say, and she gets her eyes all wide and toggles her head from side to side and says in a sing-song voice: "Then you don't. Get on. The flight." I tell you, if I hadn't really, really needed her co-operation to get me the hell out of New York City, I'd have leapt over that counter and choked the living shit out of her. But I restrained myself.

I was pretty sure we'd never get on that flight: four seats that morning? No way. But, because I have good karma and I did not choke the shit out of that woman, she announced "all stand-by seats are confirmed, all stand-by passengers can board now." (So you don't call my name, you lying little shit!)

You have never seen four people dance onto a plane like the Loudshoes did that morning.

And when we arrived in Toronto, I wanted to lay down and kiss the ground. Except I was too busy finding the nearest Tim Hortons with my phone app. After loading up on cheap coffee and bottles of water that cost $1.35, we got in the van, and drove home.

We had a wonderful trip, truly a once-in-a-lifetime vacation. But walking in the door of my own house was one of the sweetest feelings ever. Ever.

The Loudshoes in Europe, Part 9: Kent

After our exciting time in London (Riots! Kidney stones! Indian food!) we headed south-east to Kent, where my aunt and uncle live. It was their 50th anniversary, and the ensuing party was mostly the reason we were in Europe in the first place.

We took the train from Victoria station, in London, to Sittingbourne in Kent. Let me tell you, the public transportation systems in London are fabulous: easy to navigate, reliable, clean and reasonably priced, and they get you where you want to go. Coming from a country that has decimated it's rail system to the point where there is really only route from one end of the country to the other, the British system is wildly accomodating. (In Canada, there's no train service in Newfoundland at all. And if you want to go to, say, Saskatchewan, you only have one place to get on and off. And that place is Saskatoon, and come on, who wants to go there? 22 hours on a train and then you're in Saskatoon? Please. )

We stayed at one of the strangest little hotels I've ever been in....they didn't even have phones in the room. But it was clean and accomodating and close to where we wanted to be, even if it was inexplicably 100°F in that room. Seriously, it's in England....why was it hot enough to grow bananas in there?We went to my aunt and uncle's house for dinner, and they were so welcoming and generous; it was wonderful. I hadn't seen this family for almost 20 years, and they could not have been more congenial. My cousins are lively, funny, delightful people, and I don't get to see them nearly enough

The next day Mister slept in while the girls and I went to McDonald's for breakfast. He's not a big breakfast eater (and I love him anyway) and he was still jet-lagged from the kidney stone.

They had a breakfast buffet at the hotel, but since it cost a lot and we decided that we were too spoiled by our breakfast buffet in France, we'd take a pass. Besides, we were more thirsty than hungry, what with sweating out 10% of our body weight overnight.
Breakfast in McDonald's is never going to be the highlight of anyone's day, but I have to say, it was one of the oddest breakfasts I've ever had. I ordered bacon and egg on a bagel, which you'd think would be pretty straight-forward, but no....the bagels in the McDonalds in England are really just bread shaped like a bagel: round bread with a hole in the middle. I could fold it in half and eat it. The girls got pancakes which came with no syrup. When we asked for syrup, any kind of syrup, the pimply youth behind the counter looked at me like I had asked him to calculate the square root of time or I'd shoot him, and offered up some jam. I didn't want him to wet his pants, so we took it. The coffee was a very pleasant, warm, brown liquid, but it bore no relation to coffee. We did like the British nomenclature for "no-pulp" orange juice; it said "no bits", which we used for the rest of the day to express delight or pleasure. ("How is your cake?" "NO BITS!")
(We also liked the signs for the fire doors: "This door is alarmed!". Seriously? Did it just hear about J.Lo's divorce?)

The party was that day, and it was lovely, real English garden party. (Like in a book!) The weather was wonderful (always a bit of a gamble in England) and the food plentiful and delicious and the company was utterly fabulous. I had such a great time seeing my extended family, and they made us feel like rock stars, just for showing up.

We made our way back to our hotel and then, naturally, to the pub for a drink or two. And then it was Sunday, and time to go home.

The Loudshoes in Europe, Part 8: London

Because my cousin Eilish had so generously put us up (and put up with us) while we were in London, the least we could do was take her out to dinner. The girls stayed at her place and had watched British television (which, curiously, seems to consist of lots of "Friends" re-runs and show like "Pregnant and Impaled!". I wish I was making that up, but I'm not.) while we went out for some Indian food.

We walked to a restaurant Eilish knew of, and while we were on our way we detoured past site of the nearby riot a few nights before. It was terrible; an entire 3-storey building reduced to ruins, and all the homes and businesses around it destroyed as well.

While at dinner, my cousin and I yipped and yapped about all sorts of things...sharing some DNA meant that neither one of us had any trouble filling a silence. The Mister was pretty quiet during dinner, but I'm used to that when I'm in the room. But I also noticed that he didn't very much, not as much as he ususally would when faced with excellent chicken tikka masala and naan that was so puffy and warm you could curl up and go to sleep on it, and dal with coconut and gobi aloo that we would ususally have a fierce tussle over.
And then I noticed he didn't say one word on the walk home; I mean, he's a quiet guy but that was quiet, even for him.

When we got home I came up to our bedroom with a glass of water to find him hunched over on the bed, breathing hard between his teeth and rocking back and forth slightly. I'm no Sherlock Holmes, but even I could tell, something was up, and I had a pretty good idea of what, too. "Kidney stones" he hissed. Yup, just what I thought.

The Mister has had kidney stones before, and they are so painfully agonizing that I make sure the big knives are out of his reach, lest he try to go in after them himself. It's been about 6 years since he last had one, and they don't really give him any notice, the kidney stones just show up and attack, like terrorists.

At least he knew what it was, and it wasn't going to kill him, just mostly kill him, until it passed. And it would pass, eventually. (The one good thing about a kidney stone is that when you've peed it out, it's all overwith, the pain is good and gone in an instant. ) I asked if he wanted to go to a hospital to get some painkillers, but he declined and said he'd make do with the Tylenol I had in my bag.

Poor man, he had a long and miserable night. In the morning, I finally convinced him to go to the hospital; although he was feeling a bit better (he though he might have passed something), we were due to fly home in two days, and I really wanted him to have something to take care of the pain in case the tiny renal terrorists decided to strike at thirty thousand feet.

My cousin drove us to the nearest hospital, and thankfully, the waiting room was blissfully empty. (It had rained the night before, so the rioters took the night off.) He was seen fairly quickly, by a disturbingly young doctor....seriously, this guy looked like he still needed a babysitter and wore pull-ups to bed. But he had the authorization to order painkillers and x-rays, so I wasn't going get fussy about having canned goods older than him at home. I explained that we were here on vacation from Canada, that we had a 15 hour trip home in a couple of days and that all we really wanted was to get the Mister home without me having to bulldoze him through Heathrow on a luggage cart. ("Does it really take 15 hours to get to Canada?" he asked. "When you're as cheap as us, it does." I said.)

After an x-ray and examination, The Little Boy Who Went To Medical School determined that the Mister had probably passed a stone, and that there was another one in the kidney, but for the moment, it wasn't causing a problem, and he gave us some painkillers (just in case) and told us to take care of it when we got home.
We had traveller's medical insurance, and after calling them and determining that we were to pay the hospital and we'd be reimbursed later, I asked how much we owed them and where did I pay and hoped that the $9,000 remaining credit on my Visa card would cover it. And he answered "nothing, you don't owe a thing". At which point, I asked if they did hearing exams, as well.
It turns out the UK has a reciprocal agreement with Canada (among other countries) for emergency care; we were in the clear.
The Mister and I looked at each other, thanked the Boy Wonder and high-tailed it out of there before they could change their minds. How lucky were we??

The Mister has been fine ever since; his kidney hasn't bothered him at all since that night. And guess what? He hasn't done a thing about it since we got back; I'm sure he's waiting for it to show it's nasty self again, like on Christmas Eve or on our way to a wedding. At least we still have the pain killers.

The Loudshoes in Europe, Part 7: London

When we got back to my cousin's house, around 8 pm, my father called from Canada, with a worried tone to his voice: "Is everything okay? Are you all alright?" Now, you can accuse my dad of being a lot of things, but an unreasoning fusser, he is not.
We're fine, I said, why? "Because I'm watching the BBC World Service on television and there are riots in Croyden at the moment, and I know you're there. There's a huge fire and they've closed the train station." Okay, we had just come from the train station, and there had been nothing going on at all. (Turns out we were at the East Croyden station and they'd closed the West Croyden station.)
We stuck our heads out the front door and sure enough, a huge column of black smoke was rising over the houses across the street, and there must have been 5 helicopters hovering around and sirens blaring. The BBC World Service does not lie; there was a riot happening about a 15 minute walk away.
It turns out there were riots all over London that night, and a few other cities besides. There seemed to be no real reason or cause for the riots, other than hoodlums smashing and grabbing at retail stores, and criminals taking the opportunity to do whatever they wanted. The fire near to us was a furniture store...who robs a furniture store? Did the rioters plan on leaving with a sofa under their arms? And the pity is, that was a 150-year old, family run business, that had lasted through a couple of depressions and two world wars, and it was gone in one night because some twerp threw a Molotov cocktail through the window.
We were all fine though, and didn't feel like we were in any danger at all. We wouldn't have even known it was happening, had my dad not called from Canada to tell lus.
We walked down to see the damage a few days later, and it was awful. More heartening, though, was the reaction of Londoners; they were horrified and sickened, and assured us over and over that this was not the real London, and they hoped we understood that.

Before we left home, I bought us tickets to tour Buckingham Palace. Apparently, they only have the tours a couple of weeks a year, when the Queen is away, I assume to deter people from sneaking off and trying to find her and have a chat. Not that I would even dream of doing such a thing.
Buckingham Palace is huge, and we only got to see a small portion of it, and it is magnificent. The rooms are gorgeous, and I totally loved the place, even if it was, as my father reminded me, built on the backs of my ancestors. It is all red carpets and gold accents, and the artwork is incredible...I kept reminding myself that those paintings are real Rembrandts and original Vermeers right in front of me.
Kate Middleton's wedding dress was on display in the ballroom, and let me tell you, that thing is beautiful in real life, much more detailed and lovely than on tv. The veil looks like it's made out of cobwebs, it's so gossamer and light. They had a video about how it was constructed and the lace was made, which was even more interesting than the dress itself. And, the waist on it is tiny. I don't think I could fit my right leg into it.

The girls really wanted to go to Mme. Tussaud's wax museum, so we headed on up to there, to find another two hour line up. (I tell you, the Loudshoes family are expert liner-uppers by now.)
It was, again, incredibly crowded, but we had a good time looking around and taking pictures. Thing 2 was thrilled, thrilled, to be able to get her picture taken with Justin Bieber. (Ironic note: we had to go 3,000 miles to see Justin Bieber, and his hometown is only 4o miles from where we live.)
They had some statues that were uncannily like the person they were supposed to be (Helen Mirren and Russel Brand were so lifelike it was kind of creepy.) and then a few more that you suspected they let the new staff members have a go at them. I had to ask who James Dean and Drew Barrymore were supposed to be, and the Elvis looked more like Joan Collins.

It was a really beautiful, sunny summer evening, so we took another tour on the "hop-on, hop-off" bus and had a good look around. London is such a gorgeous city, and it never looks better than when the sun is low and the breeze is warm.

We decided to just grab a bite to eat at the train station, since it was getting late and we didn't want to sit very long. All along on this trip, the girls had been very good at eating whatever was there, and after 10 days of eating unfamiliar food, they fell upon the McDonald's at Victoria station like lions on a limping antelope. I went over to the Marks and Spencer food kiosk, which was only fabulous. They had all kinds of lovely sandwiches and salads and fresh fruit, all ready to go. They even had plastic glasses of wine (as well as bottles) all sealed up for you take away...wine to go! What a concept!

And the bathrooms still cost a few cents, but the attendants were a lot less intimidating than in Paris.

The Loudshoes in Europe, Part 6: London

I figured the next morning was one to sleep in...we were all sore and tired from the previous day's marathon and all we had to do today was get ourselves on a train to London. Sleeping in is one of my all-time favorite things to do, so that was easy.

We packed our bags up and headed down to the breakfast buffet, and again it was magnificent and the angels themselves sang us through the waffles, brioche and cheesey goodness. Plus, and I forgot to mention this in the previous post, they showed "Tom and Jerry" cartoons on a huge screen during breakfast, for the kids, you know. You should have seen the four of us, entranced by the cartoons and chewing our chocolate croissants open-mouthed and unblinking. We looked like we needed a babysitter.

We negotiated the Paris metro system one more time, with our luggage. ("God, have these people even heard of escalators??") We got ourselves to the Gare du Nord, which looks like something out of Harry Potter; it's really crowded with possibly the most interesting-looking people wandering around there. And it had crepes, so I was happy.

It used to take days to get from Paris to London, and now it's only a few hours...that? is a miracle. I was pretty excited about taking the high-speed train from Paris to London; I thought it would be really impressive and momentous. Turns out I was wrong; it was pretty much like any other two hour train ride, except it had about 20 minutes when it was dark outside,right in the middle. I was happy enough to have a non-eventful ride, especially considering a few years ago 4 trains got stuck inside the tunnels for hours, with thousands of people on board. I'll admit I don't like tunnels that go underwater (One leak, just ONE LEAK and we're all dead!!), but I decided not to think too much about it while I was on the Eurostar.

We got into St. Pancras station (which is also the King's Cross underground station, if you are a Harry Potter fan....there really is a Platform 9 3/4, too! They've embedded a little cart into a brick wall where you can take your photo; very cool.) Then we had to negotiate another subway system and then another train ride to get to my cousin's house in Croyden, just south of London.
This time, we spoke the language, though, and the Mister and I had dealt with the Tube before, so we knew what we had to do. Still a lack of escalators, though; they really should look into that.

The train and tube system in London is pretty terrific, I think. I know the residents think it's expensive and inefficient and not so great, but I was impressed with how easy it was to figure out, and get where you wanted to go with a minimum of fuss. And beleive me, taking one look at the traffic on the roads, I was really, really happy to not be driving in that city; that would make my head explode. (I have NO idea how they are going to manage during the Olympics next year...London is already chock-a-block crowded with the most insane traffic I have ever seen. I don't know who's idea it was to drop another million or so people into that.)

My cousin, Eilish, had very generously and graciously offered to put the four of us up for the week, despite not having laid eyes on me for almost 20 years. She has a lovely, comfortable little house that is so English...it is one of those narrow, semi-detached, early 20th century houses that you can imagine men with handle-bar mustaches and corseted women in, or having and Anderson shelter in the backyard during the war. I loved it. She was very accomodating and welcoming to the four large, loud, messy Canadians invading her space.

The next morning we got up to explore London. I love London, it's a fabulous city, full of stuff you already know about. There's the museums and the galleries, but it's also got all sorts of stuff you've seen on tv and the movies for ever, and you didn't even realize. When we went to St. Paul's cathedral, the girls were impressed that not only was this where Princess Diana got married, it's also the place where the lady feeds the birds in "Mary Poppins"! And there's Harrods' and Big Ben and Trafalgar Square and Tower Bridge. It's like seeing a book come to life.

We took a boat tour along the Thames with the best, most-deadpan tour guide I ever heard. "That is Millenium Bridge, a footbridge built in the year 2000, to commorate the millenium. A few years ago, I saw a 10 year old boy unload a strawberry McDonald's milkshake onto a tour boat much like this one. Funniest thing I ever saw." "Next year London will host the Olympics, which will cost the UK taxpayer over £9 billion, but you cannot put a price on two bronze medals" We loved him.

Dinner was at an English pub (in a basement, for some real atmosphere!) where Thing 2 had her third order of fish and chips in as many days, and the Mister had bangers and mash. You can't say the Loudshoes do not embrace the culture.

The Loudshoes in Europe, Part 5: Paris

Our first morning in Paris, we got up bright and early and went down to the hotel's breakfast buffet....I LOVE good breakfast buffet, and this one did not disappoint: crepes and eggs and bacon and cheese! Oh the cheese! And the bread! Baguettes and brioche and chocolate croissants! I could have stayed there all day and been perfectly happy.

We headed back to the Eiffel Tower because we wanted to go up to the top of it, and we arrived 10 minutes after it opened to find an hour and a half wait for the elevators. (This, as it turned out, was to be a theme for the rest of our vacation.) When we finally got to the base of the tower, we had to go through the usual bag searches and other security. I managed to set off the metal detector, because I had on a heavy necklace on under my scarf. When I pulled the scarf off to show the security guard he gave the most dramatic sigh and rolled his eyes so far back into his head I thought he might lose them altogether, like he could not believe he had to put up with idiots like me day after freaking day! He must be fun to work with....can you imagine him at the Eiffel Tower Staff Christmas Party?

The view from the top was spectacular; we were lucky enough to get a clear and windy day that made it easy to see for miles in all directions. Then we lined up for another half hour to get back down.

We decided beforehand that we wouldn't go into any museums or churches, our time was just too tight; better to see a lot of things briefly than one or two things in depth. Judging from the lines at the Louvre and Notre Dame we made the right choice....I'm not exaggerating when I say there were a couple of hundred people in lines for both.

We took a boat tour along the Seine and saw all the famous buildings and some of the not so famous ones and we ate....boy, did we eat. I think we ate our way from one end of Paris to the other. Thing 1 and I particularly liked the crepes; they had these stands where they made your crepe to order every twenty feet or so and I think we stopped at every one....who knew bananas and Nutella was a combination I have been missing out on all my life??

One thing I liked about Paris and London is that there are plenty of public washrooms everywhere, and for the members of the Tiny Bladder Club, of which I am a charter member, this is a very welcome policy. You usually have to pay a little bit to use the bathrooms, but that's okay, it pays for a staff that keeps the bathrooms clean and supervised. And let me tell you, the ladies staffing the women's bathroom underneath Notre Dame take their job very seriously. These two North African women running this place did not put up with fools; you had to be right smart about doing your business, no lolllygagging, and they parceled out toilet paper like it was made of gold. And they kept yellling "Flush! FLUSH!!" every time anyone left a cubicle. But they kept that line moving and got a LOT of people in and out of there very efficiently. There wasn't a sign with the fee on it, and I was afraid of getting kicked out, so I gave them 2€ for the three of us and they beamed at me, so I guess it was enough.

I had read about a place on Ile St Louis that serves fabulous ice cream, and since I still had not quite eaten my total body weight yet, we went in search of it. And we found it! Here are Thing 1 and Thing 2 and I perusing the flavours at Berthillon, and drooling.

They had flavors like apricot and rhubarb and dark chocolate. Thing 1 had peach and Thing 2 had lime and I had salted caramel, which was out of this world and so intensely delicious that it was hard not to eat it too fast.

I have to say, the people in Paris were wonderful, friendly and helpful and very kind when I butchered their language beyond all recognition. I speak enough French to ask a question, but not enough to understand the answer. Everyone I tried my French on was very encouraging, but answered me in English, for which I was grateful. I had heard that Parisiennes were snotty and cold, but that was not our experience at all. When we were trying to find the entrance to a subway station (they hide them!) I asked at a gas station (in French) if they could tell me, and when one of the customers found out I was Canadian, he bellowed "J'adore! J'adore les Canadiennes!!" and hugged me and babbled on for a while (which I did not get at all....I thinkI heard something about being polite and then something else about Afghanistan.) and told us where the entrance to the subway was, and for a moment I thought he was about to come home with us. And then as we stumbled about for another bit finding the entrance (seriously, they hide them, they do NOT want you taking the subway in Paris!) an older couple walking down the street asked if they could help us. They could not have been lovelier.

After twelve hours of walking and eating, we were all grateful to crawl into bed and get some sleep. Because we knew that breakfast buffet would be there in the morning!

The Loudshoes in Europe, Part 4: Paris

You know how you've always heard that Paris is spectacular and wonderful and the be-all and end-all in vacation experiences? Well, it's all true. It's fabulous.
We flew to Paris from Ireland and had to get ourselves from the airport to our hotel on the train and the metro; luckily, the Mister and I have enough French to be able to read signs and get ourselves on the right train and not to Poland or something.

Our daughters were a bit taken aback at a European hotel room, even one in a modern hotel...it was very....compact. No ice machine, no ironing board, no free wireless. It ain't Disney World, let me tell you. But it did have a dazzling view of Paris from it's rather large window, and that was good enough for me.

We went out straight away to see the Eiffel Tower, which was #1 on our agenda, and as we strolled beside the Seine on a beautiful summer evening, we just kept turning to each other and saying "do you believe we're in Paris??"

The Eiffel Tower was way bigger than I thought it would be (I'm not sure how big I did think it was going to be, but I was surprised.) The Mister thought it was smaller than he thought it would be. Go figure. It is far more delicate and lacier than I thought it would be, too. It's really very lovely.
We wandered around a bit (and got asked 50 bazillion times if we would like to buy a cheap, plastic souvenier of the Eiffel Tower, by dozens of interchangable, sketchy looking guys who were so clearly used to being told "no" that they'd have fallen over with surprise if we had said "yes".)
Everyone was getting hungry, so we found a sidewalk cafe that looked like it would not cost all the money we possessed and we got a decent dinner from the most stereotypical snotty French waiter. Seriously, if I hadn't thought he would spit in my food, I'd have asked to take his picture. He was so full of contempt for us pitiful, non-French tourists that he'd have had to add a few inches to his nose to look down on us properly.

On the way back to the hotel, by way of the Eiffel Tower again, the heavens opened and we got full-on thunderstorm. We ducked into some phone booths nearby, Thing 1 and I in one and Thing 2 and the Mister in another. And Thing 1 and I found a cell phone in our booth! We tried to figure out if there was a number in the contacts that said "home" or some such thing, but the fact that neither of us speak French hindered us somewhat. And then it rang! It scared the bejesus out of us! We probably should have answered it to find out who it belonged to and to tell them where it was, but, again, we don't speak French and we couldn't tell them where it was anyway, we didn't even know were we were. ("Allo! Je have your phone! Here in the booth du telephone! Near la tour Eiffel! But I have no idea what street we are on or where the hell your phone is! Adieu!")

Even though I had said that there would be no sleeping on our trip to Paris, we did make our way back to the teensy hotel room and settle down for the night.

The Loudshoes In Europe, Part 3 Ireland and France

When we were on the plane to Ireland, the bottle of water in my carry-on bag spilled and soaked half of my magazine of crossword puzzles. After three days of sitting on the dresser in the bedroom, it still wasn't dry enough to use. That's how damp it is in west Kerry.

After having explored the Dingle peninsula to it's fullest, it was time to move on. We got in the car and drove to Cork, a few hours to the east, by way of Fermoy, where I was born. (I've only been back there once, when I was 11....I have no real affinity for the place, but the Mister was dead set on going.)

Once we got used to driving at Mach One down roads the size of a bicycle path, with the hedges whipping the passenger side windshieild, we drove through counties Kerry and Cork without incident. We did stop in Mallow to load up on chocolate and chips. (Or crisps, as they call them over there. Cheese and onion are, apparently, the flavor of choice when it comes to potato chips in Ireland....guaranteed to make your breath smell like you've been gnawing on a skunks arse.)

The LOVE roundabouts in Ireland, like I mean, the transportation engineers would take them out and marry the roundabouts if they could. They are everywhere. And with good reason, too...roundabouts never really caught on in North America, but they should because they keep traffic moving, unlike intersections, and they they add a certain merry-go-round quality to one's trip, particularly when one has to take several stabs at getting off on the right exit.

We stopped in Fermoy for lunch and picturesHere I am in front of where I was born. I am reasonably sure it was one of these buildings, but I have no clue as to exactly which one. As I was crossing the street to rejoin my family, a truck the size of a killer whale came roaring around the corner and nearly squashed me like a bug. All my family could say (with horrified glee!) was "wouldn't that be ironic? What if you had died right beside where you were born?" Then Thing 1 opined that it would have been "even better" if it had happened on my birthday! And my 5oth is coming up!! They were disturbingly thrilled with the idea.

We made it to Cork and stayed with my mother's brother, who is incredibly welcoming and generous, and his wife, who is one of the loveliest, nicest, kindest women I've ever met. They fed us and plied us with very nice wine and it was all good. I could have happily spent the rest of my holidays right there. I saw my cousin Jennfier, who I haven't seen since my wedding, and whom I like very much. (I always envied my friends growing up who got to live near their cousins and see them all the time. I really like my cousins.)

The next day we went to Paris. I did not spill my water bottle.

The Loudshoes In Europe, Part 2, Ireland

The west coast of Ireland is one of the most beautiful places you could ever see....the air is windy and fresh, the scenery is breathtaking and unique and being that close to the ocean gives it all a perspective that is hard to beat. But you do not go there for the weather.

The atmospheric conditons on the west coast of Ireland are changable, to say the least....it's the weather equivilent of "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride". Sunny one minute and pouring rain the next, it's the only place I've ever been that the weather can give you whiplash.

We actually were very lucky in that regard. I've been to Kerry before where it quite literally never stopped raining for the entire week we were there, and my father claims that there was one summer in about 1957 where the sun never came out once the entire season. Our first day was overcast but bright, a major stroke of luck in an area that gets 2000 mm of rain a year. But the girls were outright offended by the change in temperature: we left 30°C to go to 16°C; a bit of an adjustment. ("Seriously? This is what they call "summer"?") We did most of our sightseeing that day, with me making a nuisance of myself saying "You have no idea how lucky we are with this weather!! This is incredible!!"
And then the next day, the clouds came down and it started to drizzle in the most grimly despondent way possible. And my family then understood what I meant.

Just to give you an idea, here is Thing 2 at the beach on our second evening in Kerry.
And here is Thing 1 the next evening.

The thing is, the temperatures were about the same. Go figure.

Here is the veiw from behind the house in Lispole, on a good day. (By the way, isn't that quite a sight out your kitchen window in the mornings?) See the mountain? It's a good sized mountain, no?

And here it is the next day, gone altogether. It could be part of a performance art piece called "How to Make a Mountain Disappear".

You also do not go to west Kerry for the relaxing drives. We went around Slea Head on our first day, on a road that takes you right around the west end of the Dingle peninsula and to see some of the most spectacular scenery ever. The only problem is, the road is narrow, and built on a cliff, so that the passenger in the front seat gets not only the best views, but also the uncomfortable realization that there is only a two-foot stone wall between the car and plunging headlong into the Atlantic Ocean. Do that for a couple of hours.....Makes for an interesting day. I think there might be a big market in selling Xanax at the pre-historic beehive huts.

Here is one of the typical roads around the area. Note that this road is not a one-way road, it takes traffic in both directions. And also? You can drive 60K an hour down this road. (That's nearly 40 mph.)

Both Thing 1 and Thing 2 thought that this explained a lot about their grandfather's driving habits.

At least we could see the road.

The Loudshoes In Europe, Part 1, Ireland

We came back from vacation almost a week ago, and I am just now starting to feel like I inhabit my own life again. By my estimation, a two week vacation actuallly takes about 6 weeks: 2 to get ready, two to go away, and two to sort yourself out and re-enter your normal existence again. Not that I am expecting sympathy or anything; I went to Europe on my vacation, for goodness sake.

We flew from Toronto to Amsterdam, and then on to Cork on the southern coast of Ireland. It took me days to get everything organized, and I still felt like I had a million things to do as we were leaving to get to the airport. How on earth did the Mister's ancestors ever manage to get themselves on one of those coffin ships to flee the famine? I had entire Excel spreadsheets to make sure I covered everything before I left.

Our flight itself was fairly uneventful. Overnight flights to Europe are usually pretty quiet; they serve a round of drinks, they feed you dinner and then turn out all the lights and everyone goes to sleep. Except for the two young men who were sitting in front of us; they talked for 7 hours straight. And although they weren't whooping it up or being excessively loud, an airplane is a fairly contained space, and the Mister and I were privvy to their conversation for the entire flight. And they were not talking about nuclear physics or world peace. It was like flying to Amsterdam with Beavis and Butthead.

The guy in front of me put his seat back as soon as he was allowed, that made it impossible for me to see the tv screen in front of me (it was too close and I couldn't focus, because I'm old.) or hold a magazine up because there was no room. (Let me interject her to say that I think there should be a special place in hell for airplane interior designers. Either put a few more inches between the seats or don't allow the seats to recline.Or give me a golf club to knock some sense into the person in front of me.) I finally, and might I say very politely, asked them to shut the hell up. They sheepishly aquiesced, but not without giving me a bit of a look that said "jeesh, old lady". You know, what Beavis? If you don't let me sleep and you don't let me read, my only entertainment is to bitch at you.

We landed in Amsterdam and then headed straight to Starbucks because Mrs. Loudshoes - 1 night's sleep (/units of caffeine) = misery and heartache for all concerned. After a grande latte with 8 sugars, all was right with the world.

On to flight #2, to Cork, which is only an hour or so and there was nobody annoying on that flight. We land in Ireland, land of my birth, to a big, beautiful new airport in Cork city. Because it is a little, almost local flight, almost everyone on it is from Europe, and they go into the "EU Passport" line, and the other 7 of us go into the "Non-EU Passport" line. We get through customs and immigration faster than any airport I've ever been in. The Immigration man stamps the Mister and both Thing 1 and Thing 2's passports with one stamp and then mine with another..."welcome home" he greets me! "How come mom got a different stamp than we did" asked Thing 2. "Because she's allowed to stay", said the Mister.

We drove for 2 hours to the west, to Kerry, where my father grew up and my parents lived when they got married, before they came to Canada. To this little house, which my grandparents built in the 30s.

Nothing has changed in that house in my memory; it still looks and smells exactly the same. (Except it does have a phone and a shower now. Welcome to the 21st century!)

Here is the Mister, at one of my very favorite places in the whole world. I just love this beach.

It's hard not to keep taking a million pictures of exactly the same thing, since the whole place is so gorgeous and incredbly, breathtakingly beautiful.

We went to bed around 6 pm that night and slept for 14 hours. I'm not even making that up. (Thanks, Butthead!)

Eating Down the House

We have entered the phase of vacation preparations called "Eating Down the House", which means that we have to make do with what is here, and not buy anything new to eat this week. Otherwise, I will come home to a fridge full of slimy, furry lumps of yuck, that smell so bad the cat needs therapy.

It's not so bad in the beginning, we can make very nice dinners out of what we've got. By the end of the week, it's getting a bit more challenging. But by today, two days before we go, it's just awful....tonight I have to make dinner out of two beets, a rather dodgy tomato, some leftover Fettucine Alfredo and molasses. Toby is getting nervous, because he knows his tuna stash is next on the menu.

Thing 2 complained that there is nothing to eat in the house, and I replied "I know!
That's why we are getting out of here!"

I have a secret to tell you: I've been trying to save money on groceries (so I can spend it in France!!) and so the rest of my family doesn't know it, but we've been eating down the house for weeks! They just thought I was serving terrible food!

Now, I know full well that cheap food does not mean bad food, far from it; it's not all lobster and steak at Chez Loudshoes usually anyway. But we have been eating a lot of pasta and beans the last month or two, and I think they might be on to me. The Mister asked if we could have something with "real meat" in it sometime soon.

I think he is referring to the last batch of chili I made a few weeks ago. (Chili is one of Thing 2's and the Mister's favorites, and although I can take it or leave it, it is pretty easy to make in the crock pot and the leftovers are easy to re-package and sell as a whole different meal somewhere down the line. )
I put in some leftover quinoa I had cooked up earlier in the week. Quinoa is a grain, sort of rice-like, that is supposed to be a miracle of nutrition and the current darling of the health-food disciples. I like it because it's filling and cheap, and I can make a salad for lunch out of it in about 10 minutes flat.
Anyway, it has bit of chew to it, and since I had about a cup leftover sitting in the fridge, I plopped that in the chili.....who's going to notice?
Well, quinoa has a distinctive little white "C" shaped bit in it, that does not disappear when you put it in chili. The Mister came upstairs from eating his lunch at work and asked if I had put anything new in this batch, and I confessed that I had tried to stretch it a bit with the quinoa. He said he thought it might have had little worms in it. But, and here's the bit I really like, he kept eating it anyway. Even though he thought it was full of little white worms.
I swear to God, that man will truly eat anything.

At some point before that, I tried to make another crock-pot meal called "Chili Mac" which is sort of a cross between chili and macaroni and cheese. Again, cheap, filling and right up my family's oh-so-sophisticated alley. It didn't turn out quite as the cookbook promised; it was a bit gloppier than expected and not terribly tasty. The Mister ate two bowls of it and froze the rest for lunches, having christened it "BARFY" for identification purposes.
Undaunted, I tried an Indian inspired crock-pot dish called "Dal", which is lentils and coconut milk and spices served over rice....again, cheap and filling and sounds like it could be good. Again, not so much....a bit loose and bland, this was christened "INDIAN BARFY" and frozen for future use.
And yes, we've eaten the rest of those, too.
Beggars can't be choosers.

Pack Up Your Troubles.

We are going away on holidays next week, and I am just about at the point of organizing myself for my holidays that, if anyone told me it was all called off and I didn't have to go, I'd be altogether thrilled.
Not that I don't want to go on holidays, it's just that I don't want to get ready to go on holidays. Its so much work to get yourself organized to go on holidays that you need a holiday when you are done. Which works out well.

This year the Loudshoes family are veering wildly from our usual plans of a week up at a cottage on Lake Huron. (The cottage was sold last winter, and we don't know the new owners and they would probably charge us considerably more for the use of their dwelling than a couple of haircuts and a really good loaf of homemade soda bread.)
This year, we are going to Europe; specifically, Ireland, France and England. For two weeks, not one, which is stretching my organizational abilities to their max.

The girls are beside themselves excited, and the Mister is totally thrilled and I am trying hard not to think of this as more than a shitload of work and worry.
My father asked if I was getting excited for our trip and I said that I was beginning to have dreams about missing planes and forgetting passports and losing luggage, so yes, I think I am.

I'm always this way before a trip, trying to plan for every eventuality and driving myself absolutley crazy with all the possible disasters that I have to avert. ("Umbrellas in case it rains! Bandaids and moleskin for blisters! Immodium in case of diarhhea! Anti-venom for snakebites! Sunscreen! Rubber bands! An axe!" I have to remind myself we are going to London and Paris, not Mumbai and Mount Everest.)
I guess I come by it honestly; when my father's mother came to Canada to visit us from Ireland in 1967, she brought her own tea, because she was afraid we wouldn't have any good stuff here.

I have to tell myself that no matter what I pack, I will take lots of things I wish I hadn't, and I will forget to bring something so vital, so necessary, that I will wonder if I had been smoking crack while I was packing. One time we went to the cottage and I forgot to pack sheets for the beds.....all of them. And another time, I sent Thing 2 to summer camp with no underwear and no pajamas.

We are also visiting the west coast of Ireland, where my father comes from. We will be staying in the house my grandparents built, where my dad grew up and where my parents lived when they first got married. I love that house and west Kerry, and I'm really pumped to show it to my kids.

Currently, here in southwestern Ontario, the weather is stupid hot. It has been over 30°C for over a week now, and on Thursday, it was 35°, which is ridiculous. I have been keeping and eye on the weather, and in Dingle, where we will be going, it is 16°C and drizzly. (Says my father, "I could have told you that; it's always 16 and drizzly. April, August, November, February, 16 and drizzly.") With the heat and drought here, the beaches of West Kerry never looked so inviting.

This really will be a trip of a lifetime; the girls are at a terrific age to be going overseas, and I'm thrilled to be able to go to Paris, however briefly.

I just hope I pack enough tea.

Alligator Alley

When my daughters and I went to Florida last month, we were perfectly happy to sit around the condo and the pool, reading and shopping and indulging in the States nearly unexhaustable supply of junk food. But eventually, that gets a little boring, even if you can buy a new kind of potato chip every single day.

Because our policy on vacation is "you don't do, eat or see anything you could at home", we wanted to do something very Floridian, and for that, we had to get the alligators involved. We don't have alligators in southwestern Ontario....we have raccoons and skunks and the occasional directionally-challenged bear, but no alligators.

My parents knew of a place a few hours south of them, on the northern edge of the Everglades, that had tours on those boats with the big fans on the back, which we don't have in southwestern Ontario either, although they might be very good in the snow. \

It was fabulous. Not for the squeamish, though, you get scary close to those alligators.

This is the boat, but that's not us on it. No one in my family would ever wear magenta capri pants. You did get to wear some nifty red earmuffs, because the fan is really loud.

But you can see how low in the water it is, and that there are no railings or anything else much to stop you from toppling out into the alligator-infested water. (The water's only about a foot deep, though, so you might be able to outrun an alligator, what with the adrenaline and all.)

We spent an hour tooling around the lake, seeing dozens of alligators sunning themselves and swimming around. Sometimes the boat got really, really close to an alligator. Like this:

That grey line on the left hand side of the picture is the running board of the boat. Thing 1 took that picture without a zoom lens. The tour guide said that was probably as close as we'd ever get to an alligator, we literally could reach down and touch him. I said that was as close as I ever wanted to get to an alligator. Doesn't he look mean?

We came upon a nest of baby alligators. This one was about a foot long.

Usually, babies of any species ellicit ooohs and aaaawes of delight and appreciation. Not so with baby alligators, which, unlike kittens or koala bears, look menacing and intense. I'm pretty sure this one was eyeing up the soft, tender flesh of my knee while I was taking this picture.

The boat was very stable and you didn't feel tippy or anything in it, but you really do get close to those alligators. One woman asked if they would lunge at the boat, and the tour guide replied "I'm supposed to say 'no' ". Comforting.

The pool and a bag of chips was about as adventurous as we got after that.

Florida Adventure, 2011

The girls and I are home from a beautiful week in Florida; my parents have rented a place on the Gulf coast for the month of March, and we took advantage of the free room and board and enjoyed a week in the sun.
There really is nothing like that blast of hot, humid air when you step out of the airport when you go on vacation to somewhere warm from somewhere cold. Just to illustrate, we went from this:


to this:




in three hours. That? is nothing short of a freaking miracle.

The girls had never been to Florida before when they weren't at Disney World, so this was a bit of a different expericence for them....I think it was a bit of a shock for them that people actually live there, that there are schools and churches and malls, and that not everyone wears a name tag.

We went to parks and the beach, we did some shopping, and hung out by the pool a lot. When you live in Canada, the idea that you can swim outside, wear flip-flops and need sunscreen in March is incredibly heady. We never got tired of exclaiming "it's winter!" to each other, all week.

Thing 1 and Thing 2 got their first taste of the ocean; they'd never seen it before. Unfortunately is was way too cold to actually go swimming in the Gulf of Mexico; we're Canadian but we're not crazy. (I have some cousins that grew up in south Florida, near Fort Lauderdale, and they were shocked and somewhat in awe that my father would go swimming in their pool when it was only 80°F! We used to be thrilled when our pool here got up to 80.)
They spent their time collecting shells, which you don't get on beaches on the Great Lakes. (Unless you count zebra mussells, which we don't.)
Gasparilla Island was close by, and they have possibly the world's most boring lighthouse. Apparently the island is over run with iguanas, but we didn't see any.

The Mister didn't come with us; his idea of a vacation is not shopping and a book by the pool. But he did excellent work dropping us off at Detroit airport and picking us up. I think he enjoyed the week on his own...he had plenty of time on the computer and probably didn't eat a vegetable the entire time.
Toby was beyond thrilled to see us come home yesterday; I'm sure he thought we were gone for ever. ("And you left me with him???? He does NOT get up at a reasonable hour and is incredibly snarky when I have to remind him to do so, and worse, he eats the tuna himself!! What have you done to me?!?")
This morning he practically turned himself inside out when he realized that I was right there in bed where God intended me to be! He could not stop purring and head-butting and drooling all over me. It was a nice, if rather messy, welcome.

I'm back to work tomorrow; the girls have a few more days of March Break before they are back to reality. But we have the pictures to prove we were there, even if we can't wear flip-flops any more.

Over the River and Through the Woods.

I'm taking the girls to visit my folks in Florida next week, and I am in the midst of the pre-vacation frenzy that is known as "Prolly Days". (You know, "I should prolly take that sweater. I should prolly get American cash. I should prolly cancel the paper.")

It occurs to me that taking a week's holidays takes up two other weeks of your life as well...the week before is Prolly Days, and the week after is Holiday Hangover, when you have to re-enter your life and take care of all the stuff you missed while you were away. Somehow, only 7 days away can feel like you have been time-travelling and you are not quite synced with your real life and you have to fake it for a few days while you try to assimilate all the changes that have happened while you left; like who's out on America's Next Top Model, and the house across the street still has their recycling bins out. It can be very disconcerting.

I went to the bank yesterday and got American money, and hallelujah, the Canadian dollar is at par! There was a time when it cost us $1.60, if you can believe it, to buy an American buck. Now it's like there's a huge, America-sized sale on, and we don't have to pay HST!
I also got our health insurance, $60 for the three of us for a week, because there's no way I'm taking the chance that one of us will need a kidney transplant while we're there and have no way to pay for it.

I also had to buy new yoga pants for the plane, because flying in jeans is all kinds of uncomfortable. Thank God for yoga pants, even though I only did one yoga class in my entire life and I had a very hard time not falling asleep during it. (I was afraid that if I did fall asleep, I would drool like a St. Bernard and then do that jerking thing where you dream you're falling off a cliff. Doing that in public earns you no friends.)

I also got a crossword puzzle book, a few new books for my Kobo, and because I am a tiny bit OCD, a real, live book, just in case the Kobo conks out on me and I am left with nothing to read for two hours. (Can you imagine? The horror. Even my kids don't want that to happen, and they LIKE talking to me.)

I've topped up our phone minutes, written lists of what to pack, remembered the GPS, printed off maps of where we need to go, hired rental cars, rented a hotel room for one night and confirmed tickets and that we all have passports. Thank God the Mister is staying here and I don't have to deal with turning things off, setting lights on timers, locking the garage door or finding a babysitter for Toby.

I'll be so exhausted from organizing our holidays, I might be too tired to actually go on our holidays.

Happy New Year!

Normally, the Loudshoes house is a hotbed of tv watching and snoozing on New Year's Eve. But last Big Liver Girl threw a party for both New Year's and her husband's birthday, and we weren't about to miss that.
My overwhelming memories of New Year's Eves of my youth involved standing in a snow-bank in shoes inadequate for the weather, tired and cold and hungry and trying to get a taxi to get the hell home. I don't think the Mister and I have been out for New Years in about 20 years, so this was quite a departure for us.
It was a great party; Big Liver Girl and her family are terrific hosts. There was plenty of booze and wonderful company and fabulous food. (One thing she passed around, which was a big hit, was drinking glasses with bacon standing up in them, like bouquets of flowers. Brilliant. Although, the Mister said this morning that one thing he learned last night is that there is such a thing as having too much bacon. Who knew?)
I won't be making any New Year's resolutions, either, because what's the point? If I wanted to do something different in my life, I would have already done it instead of waiting until January 1st to do it.

This morning we woke up to rain, and plenty of it. Which meant that the knee-high snow that's been hanging around since the storm in early December is melting at a rollicking clip. We can actually see grass. And YAY! No water in the basement! (There is a LOT of water sitting around on the frozen ground at the moment, which means it has no where to go.) The only problem is, the forecast is calling for plummeting temperatures, so all that rain will freeze and we should be able to skate to work on Tuesday. The temperature is so mild right now there is actually steam coming off the snow banks. We have the weirdest weather ever.

This afternoon we are going out with my parents to the Mandarin for dinner, so we probably won't be hungry again until Tuesday, either. I could do much worse than to start off a new year in the company of my family and my delightful friends, with a full belly and a warm, snug house.

Happy New Year!

This Is Halloween

Today is Halloween, and the festivities are just beginning. I rather like Halloween; it's not too much work and there is plenty of chocolate and Starburst Fruit Chews for payoff.

Thing 1 has not gone out trick-or-treating for the past few years, feeling she had gotten too old for it. But they both saw "Wayne's World" back in the summer and got the brilliant idea of dressing up as the main characters, so Thing 1 agreed to be the Garth to Thing 2's Wayne. It's Thing 2's last kick at the can, it's nice of Thing 1 to go along with her.

I have a fairly liberal policy when it comes to Trick-or-Treaters here: If you have a costume, you can have some candy, however lame. I figure if kids come dressed up, they get something, no matter how old you are. (Even if 11 year olds come without a costume, I don't mind giving them a Kit Kat bar....you never know what some kids are dealing with at home.) It's sometimes hard to tell anyway; one year a gang of 6 foot 4 guys came to the door, and I almost asked them if their Employment Insurance didn't cover candy, until I realized that they were all in Thing 1's Grade 8 class, and were only 12 and 13 year olds.
Besides, we have "A List" candy and "B List" candy; Cute little 5 year olds dressed up as caterpillars and Ninjas get the "A List" candy, teenagers with a top had or a football helmet get the "B List" stuff.

One year a fairly distinctive van pulled up in front of our house and a whole load of teenagers spilled out of it. I was a little put out; if you can drive I think you're probably old enough to buy your own candy, but what the hell, they can have the "B List" candy. When they came to the door I was amazed; their costumes were unbelievable. One girl was dressed as a fairy, and she must have spent hours sewing on sequins and glittery bits. One of the guys was dressed as a matador, complete with a red cape. They had put some real effort into those costumes; they definitely got the "A list" candy.
A little while later, I saw the van leave, only to pull up again a few minutes later in front of our house. Nobody got out for a long time, and eventually I saw a window open and some smoke come out. I'm pretty sure they weren't smoking cigarettes in there, because when they came up our front walk again I heard one of them say "hey man, I think we've been here already! I remember that pumpkin, that pumpkin freaked me right out before!". They had just gone around the block without realizing it, probably because of the stuff they were smoking. They left, but I think I would have given them some "B List" candy anyway, just because they amused me.

It's supposed to be cold and rainy tonight, so I don't suppose we will get many kids, maybe 25 or so. Which is fine by me; for the first time in 13 years I can let the girls go out on their own. I will hang out here and eat the "A List" candy.

The Nutrition-Free Week

One of the nice things about holidays is the suspension of routine; the normal rules of living are loosened somewhat, because no one has to be out the door at a particular time, meal and bed times can be fluid, everyone can sleep in. It's a "get out of jail free" card for the duration.

This has translated into a "nutrition-free" week at the cottage. It started when the girls were younger, and as part of the week away from routine, we would get considerably more "treat" food for our week away than we ever had any other time of the year. And as that meant that I was constantly trying to beat them out of the kitchen, and eternally being the "treat police" and it was distinctly unpleasant, mostly for me. After a while, I threw my hands up and figured "it's one week out of the year, have at it". You want Pringles and pudding for breakfast? Be my guest. Lunch is some licorice and a popsicle? Not a problem. Popcorn at 2 in the afternoon? Great idea. You're not hungry for dinner because you ate your weight in Pop-Tarts? Why didn't I think of that?
It's tradition.

I'll admit, I've had some sober second thoughts regarding this policy on more than one occasion. One morning, when Thing 2 was about 6 years old, I woke up to find her sitting on the couch, watching a DVD and eating vanilla icing straight out of the can with a spoon. I was mostly horrified, but a teeny bit impressed at her intestinal fortitude. And Thing 1 once ate an entire chocolate cream pie by herself over the course of a day.
And it's not just the kids, oh no. The Mister and I can hold our own in the "Red Dye Number 2 Festival"....I don't know what it is about sitting on the beach, but I crave potato chips like a meth addict when I'm there. I can not only eat a bag of chips every day, I have also been known to put a serious dent in a bag of cheezies, which is completely unheard of any other time of the year. The Mister, who usually never eats breakfast at all, will almost always have a bowl of whatever chocolate flavored, sugar coated, morally dubious cereal that's around, every day.

I do make dinner every night that week, and although I'm a bit more lax than usual, I do try to have something that gives everyone's pancreas a fighting chance. And I do have plenty of fresh fruit and vegetables around. It makes me feel a bit better to have some baby carrots with my lunch of bacon and egg bagels and a fudgesicle.
And I notice that 'round about Wednesday or Thursday of our week, someone will ask if there's going to be salad with our dinner, or if we have any apples. The nutrition-free week works itself out pretty nicely....eventually your body will start to demand fuel that has only one or two syllables in its name.

It's nice to have one week where you kick the rules to the curb and let loose. But truly, one week is enough.

Back

Back home. We arrived into the real world on Saturday, having spent a blissful, soothing, lazy week at the cottage. And as much as I love that week away from my life every year, I really love coming home, too.

We have been renting the same cottage on Lake Huron for 13 summers now, and this was, easily, THE hottest week we've ever had there. The temperatures rarely went below the 30s, and it was hazy and hot and humid for the duration. It was a perfect week to be at the beach, living in a bathing suit and napping every day. It was heavenly to be able to read in the shade all day, drinking something icy cold and snoozing whenever the feeling came over you.

And the best part is that we still have a whole other week of holidays left! Usually, go to the cottage on our second of our two weeks, but this year, because Thing 1 got a job (yay!!) we went up to the lake on our first week. AND, it started raining yesterday and is still raining today, so we definitely got the better of the two weeks.

This is last week:

It was so hot that the Mister and the girls literallly spent the day in the lake. That's the Mister on the left, sitting in a chair in Lake Huron, and that's the girls on the right, going out far enough to submerge themselves in the water.

This is today....soggy and wet. (Although, it is a welcome relief from the heat and humidity.)

This week, we will go blueberry picking and see some movies. I plan on reading even more books, and surfing the net. I can do some errands, but when I feel like it. And I can sleep in my own bed.

I love holidays, where ever they happen.