The Things I've Learned on This Vacation

It's funny the things you learn if you take the time to get off the island and actually interact with others. For example:

1. No matter how many different ways Buzz said "no really, we'd just like a burger when we get in" his mom still prepared and served an eight-course meal twice in the 10 hours we were there.
2. You can indeed have burgers 4 days out of 10 and live to tell about it. Although your belly will be so bloated someone will ask "when are you due?"
3. The Gravenhurst Chip Truck beats all others
4. My three cousins are the funniest women I know. Seriously. Pity anyone trying to get a word in edgewise with those broads.
5. I have finally reached the point where getting into a bathing suit in front of others doesn't intimidate me. Mostly because I'm so fat no one would actually look at me in the bathing suit, so if they don't notice why should I?
6. Having your camera crap out on the 4th day of the 15 day trip is a huge drag. Now there's no way to torture my camera-shy nephew.
7. Back roads beat the Trans-Canada hands down every time.
8. Despite having some slightly addictive personality traits I will never be an alcoholic because after drinking every day for the last 10 I can now "just say no".
9. Water-softener is slippery as is evidenced by the ginormous bruise on my shin from slipping out of the bathtub.
10. I was a really bad babysitter as is evidenced by a story I had no recollection of that involved babysitting my 13 & 15 year old cousins whom I provided each with a pack of smokes and let them go "streaking" through the neighborhood while I was upstairs fast asleep. Note to parents who read my blog: I am a very bad babysitter. Do not hire me.

Next stop: Jingle City where we will alternate riding in the bro-in-law's boat on the Mighty St. Lawrence with tracking Hurricane Bill, a Category 4 storm making tracks directly for the OBB.

Burger Meister, Meister Burger

It occurred to me this morning that if I have a stroke it would really mess up my smile. And I'm pretty sure, if I continue to eat red meat at the alarming rate I have this vacation that a stroke or maybe even a heart attack is imminent.

In the 8 days we've been on vacation we have eaten 11 burgers between us. It is important to note that I have only eaten 3 of those 11, but still, for someone that doesn't eat red meat but maybe once every 5 or 6 months, the burgers are taking their toll. I am perpetually stuffed. My belly is distended, like those little African kids on the Plan Canada commercials. I've begun dreaming of chicken...and pork...or simple things like a toasted tomato sandwich. Anything but another hunk of red meat.

I'm not complaining that we've had the great good fortune to be invited to a number of parties on this vacation. Parties that featured grilled items. Like hamburgers. But last night, when we headed to a pool party with a fresh vegetable platter and red potato salad in hand, you can only imagine the look on my face when our hostess hollered "Honey, will you start the BBQ for the burgers?!"

I felt the pit of my stomach drop four inches and immediately started preying for a hot dog.

A Point or Two of Clarification...

For those eagle-eyed readers who read my blog posting about Snickers and the great accident of our 2009 Vacation Season - you were right! Congratulations! I DID indeed forget to specifically mention what had happened to the Beast that had him knocked out and had me on all fours screaming bloody murder for assistance from my otherwise engaged husband to resusitate the animal.

Oops.

I don't know why after all this time reading my blog you're not pyschic enough to realise that the dog had tried to leap through a door that was so sparkling clean (and closed) that when he flung his considerable heft in my direction, he was more stunned than anyone to realize there was a door there and he couldn't go through it. I guess when I wrote the blog I was still traumatized by the memory of my beloved beastly boy lying in a heap on the floor unable to move. That, or the sight of the emergency vet bill, but admittedly I wasn't thinking clearly enough when I wrote about it to give my readers the full picture. Many of you were wondering - was it heat stroke? Did the dog have a heart attack? How did he break his neck and dislocate his shoulder? Well the truth of the matter is that he didn't.

Whatever.

He tried to follow me out to the deck and instead launched himself into a screen door that fought back so hard it knocked the dog inoperable for a while.

He's fine now.

He lived to see another day, eat copious amounts of hot dog and to chase chipmunks all around Loon Lake for 5 days. So yeah, he's well on the road to recovery.

In other news, do you know what today is?

365 days ago today, the one whom I adore (also known here affectionately as "Buzz") and I swore to take each other for better or for worse, through richer or poorer and in sickness and in health. Who'd of thunk it, but in the 365 since that fateful day on the beach that we've lived our vows with such complete and utter commitment? We've both been pretty sick (and without a doctor) and we've had moments of robust health - like the 2 months last January when we were dedicated to hitting the gym 5 days out of 7. Sadly, March came around and neither of us has been too worried about the "and in health" part of our vows enough to continue our gym vigilence.

Ahem.

In the last 365 days we have definitely been better and one more than one occassion (can you say Moonshine) one of us has been "worse."

And because we're on PEI where I am decidedly "under" (but not "un") employed, we have definitely been "poorer".

But we're optimists! We have the first year under our belt. We are now officially no longer "honeymooners".

But we are happy.

We are healthy.

We are rich in life's experiences and great friendships and family ties.

He's the one I want to spend my time with when I don't want to spend time with anyone.

He's one lucky son of a gun because I'm the one that cooks him gourmet meals 5 nights out of 7. I'm lucky because no matter what, he takes me as I am, with all that that means. Plus he buys the groceries.

Happy Anniversay Buzz! Here's to 37 more.

A Wrinkle in Time

It's about to happen. The thing I've been dreading for some time now, but inevitably, I knew whose day would come.

I'm down-grading my moisturizer.

For YEARS now I have been worshipping at the alter of Estee Lauder. I have faithfully slathered Estee's bag-reducing eye cream under my eyes ever since I first discovered the joys of wrinkle-reducing minimalist creme way back in my Maui days. As a result, here I am, pushing 50 (okay, not for another 3 years, but you know I'm trying to make a point here) and I have fewer wrinkles then some woman 3/4 of my age.

Last year I gave up my morning dose of pore minimizer. When I last went to the Estee Lauder counter and unable to afford to buy both pore minimizer and moisturizer I asked what the difference was. Given that I've been wearing both pore minimizer and moisturizer for about 11 years now, you'd think I would have asked that question sooner, but, whatever, better late then never.

So, the difference? Well, the pore minimizer is a treatment while the moisturizer is, well, a moisturizer. You can see why I had to give one up? If the drone behind the counter who gets paid to know all the intricacies of their various products cannot adequately define the difference between a pore minimizer and moisturizer, she shouldn't be surprised that I chose to drop the treatment whose benefits she could not define. By the way, 8 months without using my pore minimizer and guess what? My pores look exactly the same.

So, about the moisturizer. I've come to the point in my life where consumption of expensive products just for their brand relevance is no longer a good enough reason for me to pay $120 for a little cup of creamy moisturizer when, for about $25 I could buy something that would provide the same experience.

So here I am. Ready to take the plunge.

I'll let you know if Oil of Olay will keep my youthful glow and wrinkles at bay. If it doesn't, then bring on the pore minimizer, creme de mer and eye bag cream because by then, we could be talking face-lift

Hillbillies on the Highway

The great thing about having opposable thumbs is that along with dexterity you also have a brain capable of learning lessons based on past experience.

Which leads us to the great gasoline hunt of Winchester, Ontario last Saturday night as we were racing toward the Emergency Veterinary Hospital.

Details to follow.

JUST KIDDING!

So, after a 13-hour drive, almost running out of gas once, backtracking 30-km to fuel up, battling the ridiculous traffic that is downtown Montreal, we finally arrived, tired and hungry in Ingleside about 8 o'clock Saturday night. Everyone was very happy to see us, including Dexter a 120-lb chocolate lab belonging to Buzz's brother Mark, at whose house we were staying. Dexter is Snickers' arch-nemesis.

Dexter, the big boy that he is, will happily chase Snickers round and round and round the yard until he collapses in a gob-slobbery heap on the deck, completely spent, or so you think. After a half hour of letting the two run and chase and hump and sniff and lick each other's whizzers we thought we'd give our beastly boy a break and so shut him off in the mud room to enjoy a dish full of diet dog food.

Well.

Snicks would have none of it.

After locking him in the mud-room I continued on my way through the kitchen to the living room and out the sliding screen door to the deck. As I swung the screen door behind me and began to inspect Mark's rain barrel I heard a blood-curdling YELP from behind me.

I turned to look and there he was, my beastly boy, flat on the ground, with both front legs contorted underneath him and looking dazed and confused.

I dropped to my knees and pleaded with him to get up.

He couldn't.

That's when I let out a blood curdling scream of my own "BUZZ - HE CAN'T GET UP, HE CAN'T GET UP!!!!!!!"

Poor Buzz. He had just settled into the bathroom upstairs for a post-roadtrip meditation session.

Dropping his reading material and grabbing his pants from his ankles he raced downstairs to see me collapsed on the floor with Snickers' head in my lap, trying to coax him to stand up.

He tried valiantly, but all he could manage was a belly crawl to me. His front legs were curled up from his "wrists," inverted in an odd shape, completely unable to put any pressure or weight on his limbs. I didn't know if he had broken his legs, dislocated a shoulder or something more sinister like broken his neck.

What a great start to the two week vacation.

Having a former nurse for a mother-in-law paid off as she was on the phone immediately to the On-call Vet at the Emergency Animal Hospital who said to load the dog in the car and meet her at the clinic.

Buzz gathered up all 63-lbs of the beast and put him in the back of the truck and we headed off to Winchester. As we entered the 401 Buzz looked down at the dash board and says, quietly, calmly, "Um, we better keep an eye out for a gas station, we're almost empty."

AS IF I NEED THAT SHIT AT THIS POINT OF THE DAY!

As we made our way to Winchester, a quiet burg about 45 minutes away we encountered endless gas stations. None of which were open.

We couldn't find the vet clinic. We were dangerously low on fuel. I think my dog is dying in the back of the car.

And so, it's just another Saturday night in the life of Buzz and Kim.

One frantic call home and we were pointed in the right direction to the Vet Clinic where Buzz carried Snickers in for an emergency consult. My poor boy could not even stand on the exam table. The vet thought their might be some neurological damage.

With Snicks in the hands of a vet and with me shaking in my boots, Buzz left us in search of a gas station open at 10 o'clock on a Saturday night in the countryside. No easy feat, but he found one and so, a half-hour later when he returned he could not have been more surprised to see the Snicks had made a miraculous recovery and was up on all fours, parading about the clinic, tail wagging, seemingly none the worse for wear.

And so, after one big dose of anti-inflammatory and pain killers and an emergency vet bill in greatly exceeding my discretionary spending for the trip, we loaded the dog back in the truck and headed back to Mark's place for dinner.

So what if it shaved 5 years off my life. Who cares if I'm still suffering heart palpitations from the heart attack I suffered at the hands of my dog. It's no big deal that we almost ran out of gas twice in one day.

Snicks is fine.

We got to the cottage. We even showed up with a full tank of gas.

We've been drinking non-stop ever since.

OBB Hillbillies Ride Again

Time for another installment of the Hillbillies Ride Again, also known as Kim & Buzz take a vacation.

Leaving for vacation is never easy, especially when you're a big muckety-muck financial wizard for a big hotel company and you're leaving for vacation the same week as month-end is due. But Buzz got 3 weeks worth of work done in one week, with enough time left over to be home Friday night in plenty of time to pack, organize the loading of the Cranberry Cruiser and to join me and the neighbors in a pre-vacation beer as we instructed them on how and when to water our flower baskets. Saturday morning we were up bright and early final packing complete, truck loaded up, lunches & lobster in the cooler and we were westward-ho! with a ticket to ride off the island.

It was a beautiful day, bright blue sky, big yellow sun and with the two dogs power-lounging on their bed in the way back of the truck, we were rocking out to our summer playlist on the I-pod and taking it all in. As we crossed over the Confederation Bridge, it started to actually feel like we were on vacation. Ahhh, vacation...

About 4 hours into the trip I glanced over to the dashboard and asked Buzz how much fuel was left in the car. "About a quarter of a tank" he replied.

"There's a PetroCan at the next exit, maybe we should stop and fill up." I suggested.

"Nah. It's on the other side of the highway." he shrugged.

"Are you kidding me? We've only got a quarter of a tank of gas and you don't want to stop because you'd have to cross over the highway to get to the station?" I asked incredulously.

"That's right" he said. "It's not that efficient. We'll get gas at the next exit."

"But I know my car, and I think you should stop now" I whined as we whipped past the PetroCan exit.

"That's okay, we have plenty of gas to get us to Hartford or Woodstock".

And folks, here is where it happened. That thing that is so sweet I will savour it all my live-long-days. It was here, traveling along the TransCanada Highway through the boonies of New Brunswick when Buzz first realized that every once in a while, and although it doesn't happen often, I WAS RIGHT. We were about to run out of gas.

There was no gas station at the next exit. The next station was some 40-km ahead of us and now our gas guage was sitting right on the red line.

So we had to back-track 30-km to go to the PetroCanada station we had passed 20 minutes earlier.

The only difference is now it was on the right side of the road, and therefore, the perfect place to fuel up.

My friends, this is only leg one of the ridiculousness that was our day of travel to Ontario. There was also that thing that happened in Ingleside on Saturday night. But I won't get into it yet - I'm still processing.

Suffice it to say, we did make it to the cottage and this morning, woke up to this beautiful vista:

The Secret of a Happy Marriage

Yesterday I decided that since Buzz works so hard and such very long hours that the least I could do was give him a treat when he got home. So I shaved my legs and put on make-up for the first time in two weeks.

Hey, at least I shower regularly!

This is the problem when one “works” from home. And by “works” you know damn well I mean watches the Y&R, bakes way too many sweet treats, reads the blog-o-sphere, and surfs PEI websites looking for a full-time job in my area of expertise. So, yeah, sometimes[1] it’s like right-before-he-walks-in-the-door o’clock before I realize I’m still in my PJs and I haven’t yet washed my face.

Sadly, this is not a new phenomenon for me. When I lived on Maui and worked for an Atlanta-based company, working from my home office[2] I started work at 4 a.m. You read that correctly people – 4 o’clock in the I cannot believe I am up at this hour! morning. It was to make my leaving corporate HQ easier on my team – in order to convince my boss I could work remotely from 4 time-zones away I agreed to begin my work day at 10am Eastern. In the winter, that’s six hours ahead of Hawaiian Standard Time. So that meant I had to roll out of bed at 3:45am, brush my teeth and make it at least “sound” like I’d been up for hours before starting my day off. What that also meant, of course was that 8 hours later, when my work day was officially “done” it was only 12 noon and I could go to hang on the beach[3] for the rest of the day.

But, back in those days, if I say “forgot” to shower for a couple of days, no-one noticed. If, say, my shaving razor was broken, no-one was there to worry about the stubble stabbing them in the shins as we spooned. Back then, if my hair had extra “texture[4]” from not being washed every single day, well, that was a look that was generally accepted on Maui as “the beach head look” so I was jiggy with it.

But, now that I’m an old married lady and what I look like matters to more than just me[5], and to ensure I have a happy marriage I must remember to pay special attention to taking care of the finer details of grooming. Like remembering to get dressed at least a few times a week. Just so he understands that if I needed to go on a job interview at a moment’s notice I’d remember how to walk in high-heels.

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[1] Most times

[2] My sunny lanai

[3] Sleep

[4] Grease

[5] Or Snickers