Window farts? What window farts?
10:31 p.m.
For our Labour Day weekend we had perfect weather. On Thursday we bought a car-top carrier which required �some assembly� (Hubby and I both worked at it for approximately four hours) and it was loaded on Friday morning with our luggage and the trunk of the station wagon was filled with two electric guitars, two amplifiers and one electric violin plus various and sundry, one of those being a cooler of the collapsible kind. We got to Kingston at 3 p.m. exactly and Hubby picked up his brand-new archtop. It�s beautiful. You could tell that the luthier was loathe to part with it. But we handed over the cheque and he handed over the guitar. A fair trade. There was just enough room in the back for it too.
It really is a beautiful guitar. The top is made from sitka spruce and the rest is from curly leaf maple. The finger board, tail piece and pick guard are ebony, as is the purfling (which is often plastic these days) and the luthier customized it with Hubby�s initials at the 20th fret, and an abalone swallow at the 12th. It sounds great too.
Moving on, we arrived at Hubby�s sister�s at around 8:30 that evening. We�re talking a long day in the car. Her husband had a great dinner for us, good wine, and we stayed in their cottage which was really special. There was no discussion, we made up the pull-out for Little Princess, and the two boys slept in the bunk beds. Pas de probl�me.
This was first planned as a tennis weekend by my brother-in-law, his brother, another friend of theirs, and Hubby, conceived of at the 25th wedding-anniversary party back in June. Hubby�s older brother was there at the time, and he was invited too. It kind of spiralled out of control at this point, and my sister-in-law was none too pleased when my brother-in-law and his wife came with their daughter, her boyfriend, and their granddaughter. Fortunately the five of them slept in two tents in the backyard. The brother came with his wife and two daughters, one of whom Buddy Boy hit it off with rather interestingly, and the other friend came with his wife and their son (leaving their daughter at home). Not to be left out when a party was being had, Uncle Al arrived in his van, and slept in it on the driveway. Hence, for Saturday dinner, they were feeding (including themselves) 20 people. This weekend must have cost them a small fortune, including the lost revenue for the cottage since we were staying in it for free.
Saturday morning we five went down to the beach where I took off for a walk along the shore, Little Princess sketched and the boys threw the frisbee around. Upon my return, Hubby and I informed the kids that we were going shopping for supplies and would be back in half an hour, but in fact went back to the cottage to take advantage of our privacy, only to be interrupted just as we were needing to �freshen up� by the squeak of the screen door. There was a trick with the lock, so that it took a little bit of jiggling of the key to open it, and the kids just didn�t have the knack, so at least I had time to dash into the bathroom. We�re so bad.
Lunch was at my sister-in-law�s, then the boys (the middle-aged, accident-prone boys) went off to play tennis, my kids retired to our own beach and I took a nap at the cottage and I have no idea what the others did. My brother-in-law cooked up the most amazing supper (salads and such were supplied by the other wives) and we gorged and drank wine to excess and I had a great time. Well, let me qualify that. My brother-in-law�s brother�s wife (that would be his sister-in-law) S., while in her cups, began to think that she and I were soul sisters, or something like that. Personally, this is someone I would never, ever choose for a friend. She and the other wife, T., who have been friends since fourth grade, talk to excess about absolutely nothing, and I am not in the least bit interested. But I am incredibly sympathetic, act interested, and for this reason people tend to spill their guts to me. She did. It reminded me a bit of that time at my brother-in-law�s place when his wife kept telling me how much she loved me. Drink is a strange thing. It�s also interesting that the next day when she was sober she was much less cordial to me than the evening before.
The next day we all rose late, which should have been foreseen. We brunched over at my in-laws� and the boys took off to play more tennis. My brother-in-law D. and his daughter�s boyfriend had already gone off to play 18 holes of golf. So the rest of us headed out to the beach. Buddy Boy, as I mentioned earlier, hit it off with one of the daughters, an incredibly busty girl who just turned 17 the day before (hence a year older than my son) with absolutely nothing masquerading as intelligence between the ears, and the two of them went off shopping for bathing suits. She purchased a red bikini which left nothing to the imagination and he got himself a pair of yellow trunks which are so tight that that was probably the one and only time he will wear them.
The beach was beautiful. I didn�t go into the water, but I�m told it was perfect. Finally unable to stand the company anymore (I�m so bad), I took a walk into town where all the stores are (the kind that sell bathing suits, beach apparatus and tourist stuff) and made my way through the crowds of bodies trying to find something, anything, that appealed to me. There were so many people there, mostly young, scantily dressed, and looking at each other. The people watching was the best part. I noticed that there is infinite variation between bodies, but there is a sameness as well, that which makes us human. I started to wonder if an otherwise �perfect� body would still be attractive if it had something different about it, like an extra set of breasts (bra-clad of course) on the chest, or a second head growing out of the neck. Okay, I�m weird. I bought myself a lovely amber bracelet in a store which was having a 20% off sale on all sterling silver jewellery, which this counted as. It will go well with the pendant and earrings I already have. Even on sale, it wasn�t cheap.
The evening before my sister-in-law admittted that she was more �material� than I am. She loves and owns tons of jewellery. She buys lots of �stuff�. I�m just not interested in that kind of thing, and even when I own bangles and baubles, I forget to wear them. Her daughter�s boyfriend was trying to find out what hobbies I have, what I could possibly spend money on, and I had to admit that my hobby is the internet. Pretty pathetic, eh?
There was another magnificent dinner on Sunday, after which the band (Hubby, Buddy Boy and my brother-in-law on bass) played on the deck. They did that on Saturday night too, but I forgot to mention it. Hubby just loves his new instrument. It wasn�t as late a night as the one before, and the tent people packed up and drove home that night. We got up early this morning, stripped the beds and cleaned up the cottage, packed the roof-top carrier, then headed over to my sister-in-law�s once more to breakfast on last night�s leftovers, gather the musical instruments, say our goodbyes, and head home. It was clear sailing, windowfartless, and we arrived home at 9:30 p.m. We passed two serious accidents, but they were in the oncoming traffic lane and didn�t slow us down at all. All in all, �twas a great end to summer.
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