There and back, with a detour and a snow storm thrown in for good measure.
11:57 p.m.
We went back to the same resort near Puerto Plata we were at last year and just before Christmas, arriving in time to grab lunch before the dining room closed at 3 p.m. The bus didn’t break down on the way from the airport (not like last time when it blew a tire). We were given a room with two smallish beds in it, and we asked nicely and were allowed to move to a different room with a king-size bed the next day. This room was on the second floor overlooking the ocean, which was really nice.
The days lapsed into routine pretty quickly. My husband played tennis with the pro every morning at 9:00 and I would sit in the lobby, writing in my journal and then buy a half-hour’s internet time to catch up on email and whatnot. I would meet him at the pool, wherein he would plunge his sweat-covered body (stinky clothing and all), then we would lounge about until lunch time, eat, make love, nap (I invariably did that while my husband played more tennis), have dinner, go to the evening entertainment, sit in the courtyard playing cards and drinking drinks, and then wander off to bed to sleep and be woken up at 3:00 a.m. by the couple upstairs scraping their bed rhythmically across the floor. Life was good.
We met some very nice people: Ken and Shelley from Winnipeg, Neil and Anne from Calgary, and others whose names I have forgotten, including the nice couple from Windsor and the poor guy from Port Perry. Oh, that was a story. Tim (that was his name) had gone riding dune buggies with his wife and his friend and his friend’s wife as part of an excursion activity. They rounded a corner and lo a truck was coming towards him. He went up on the embankment to avoid it, his own vehicle flipped and tossed him out, so he put out his left arm in a reflex action to break his fall and ended up snapping both the radius and ulna clean in two (or four, as the case may be). Apparently his forearm was bent at a very unnatural angle and he was in screaming pain.
The tour company took him to the hospital immediately where he was operated on (they had to use titanium plates and screws to fasten the bones back together) and spent two days, then he came back to the resort where we would see him lying on a chaise longue under a palm-thatched umbrella drinking a tall, cool drink, resting his poor enplastered arm on a pillow and smoking. Bummer, eh?
A high point for us was our inclusion in a family outing by the tennis pro. He picked us up on Saturday afternoon and we squeezed into a little Toyota Tercel with him, his wife, their one-year-old daughter, his sister and her seven-month-old son, and his other sister. On our way to our destination we also picked up the husband of the sister (and father of the son). That makes seven adults and two small children in a car built for five. No seat belts were worn, no babies were placed in car seats. It was a freakfest in our sensibilities. But we had a lovely time, going to a nearby plaza, taking pictures, eating Pizza Hut pizza (they’re everywhere, I tell you!) and trying to communicate in a combination of broken English and Spanish. I did learn a new word: hongos. I requested that they be left off my pizza.
We returned to the Great White North a week after we left, on Thursday, March 6, amulet suspended from my neck guaranteeing a safe journey (and it was), a speedy passage through immigration and customs (while sitting beside the pool, the man with the broken arm suggested his wife ask me where there was good shopping nearby, and I replied that I had no idea, I don’t shop; whereupon he asked, “Can we marry you?”), our luggage having descended quickly, we found our car (which started immediately, in spite of the snow that boxed it in) and headed westward towards the wilds of Ontario, staying that night in the bustling metropolis of Brockville at a seedy motel (with a surprisingly good restaurant attached). Sadly, I forgot my styrofoam container of cod pieces in the fridge in our room.
The snow started falling the next afternoon when we stopped in my husband’s home town to visit the potter who made our good dishes (we bought more stuff, don’t worry) and grab a quick lunch at an Indian eatery across the street. It continued falling as we arrived at my brother-in-law’s and then headed to the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga for the fourth annual Canadian Smooth Jazz Awards.
I have a cousin who is the head sales person at a radio station which plays only smooth jazz. Knowing that we are musicians and into popular forms of music, he got us tickets to this event (my brother-in-law paid $90 apiece for his), but we had no idea what this smooth jazz was, so we tuned into the radio station as soon as we could get reception and discovered that it has very little to do with jazz, but consists of R&B and funk toned down so that it would not be out of place in a dentist’s waiting area, an elevator, or your car during rush hour traffic. I find it rather insipid and pop sounding, but apparently it has a very wide listening audience.
The show was fun, though, and the live music quite good. It’s only the recorded stuff that is “smooth”, it seems. We were invited to the VIP reception afterwards where we got to schmooze with the bigwigs of the industry, and there was food and drink and chocolates (mmm... chocolates... drool).
The next day, which by this time would be Saturday, the snow continued to fall. We braved the treacherous roads in order to drive to Toronto to pick our son up at his residence and take my mother out to lunch. We ate at a Middle Eastern restaurant, aptly titled The Jerusalem, where we had a delicious repast. My mother was in very fine form, not exhibiting any memory problems and sharp as a tack. It was very nice to see. Lunch having been despatched (that would be an ablative absolute if we were doing this in Latin), we returned my mother to her house and then hit the dusty, or rather snowy, trail again back to my husband’s brother where my sister-in-law prepared a veritable feast (I was still full from lunch) and after which the boys had themselves a jam session, the women gossiped about my sister-in-law’s youngest sister’s marital problems (don’t ask) and the granddaughter annoyed us.
The next morning dawned sunny and fine, and I took a picture of the snow on the back deck, which was quite amazing.
We took our son back to his residence and drove the rest of the way home (a total trip of approximately 820 km.) on clear roads under blue skies (until it got dark, that is). There were several slowdowns and we saw lots of cars and trucks either in the median or the shoulder, some even off the road entirely in the ditch below. The one that made the most impression on me was a tractor-trailer on its side, a picture of which I was able to take as we drove past.
We got home last night, tired but safe (let’s thank the amulet again, shall we?) and today went back to work. Sigh.
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