What I did on my summer vacation

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Hmmm I just realized that I never made a post to tell about my little vacation at the beginning of August. Time to rectify!

It started off with a trip to Ottawa, which is always kind of my default destination when I’m not going to visit Jen in CT, or when she’s not coming here. My friend Tracy lives in Ottawa, and we always have a lot of fun. Also, I needed to replenish my supply of Asian food from the Chinatown there cuz I was starting run low on staples like curry paste, naan bread, and pickled vegetables for sushi. This trip was just like most others… sleep in as late as possible, make a huge brekkie, putter around the house till two in the afternoon or so, drive to Ottawa, spend a couple hours wandering through Chinatown, then head to Tracy’s for a couple of doobies and too much pizza. Perfect day, if you ask me!

Sunday was largely a recuperative day, with lots of Playstation time. Tracy let me borrow all of her games (she hardly plays them since she started law school) so I could copy them and play them in my Playstation. Sweeeet. Monday, my friend Sarah came over from Brighton, and we went kayaking. We were going to go somewhere in the 1000 Islands, but she didn’t get here till afternoon, so we just went in the Cataraqui river here in town. It would have been a pretty relaxing paddle but, being part of the Great Lakes, it didn’t take long before the wind whipped up and a storm blew in. Seriously, one minute is was sunny and calm, then not more than 15 minutes later, the sky turned black and we were paddling against 2-foot waves and a stiff wind. We were already heading back by this point, but there was still a pretty hairy 15-20 minutes there where it was really tough going. Sure enough, as soon as we made it back to our cars, the rain stopped and it was nice again. One cool thing – Sarah decided to buy my kayak from me! I’m kind of glad because I’ve definitely outgrown that boat in terms of skill (it’s great for someone who’s just a beginner), and also it was a bit of a pain having it lying around the apartment. So yay! I think I’ll wait till Jen and I are living together somewhere before buying a new one though.

Tuesday I spent the day cleaning up, and totally excited cuz my pal Charlie, who was the teacher I replaced when I went to Japan, and probably my best friend from over there, was coming to visit! He’s an ALT, which means he had most of August off, so he came back to his hometown in Sacramento for the holidays, and did a little side trip to fly up and visit me. I drove down to Syracuse airport to pick him up, and it was instantly like we’d never even been apart. We chatted all the way back to Kingston, catching up on all the mutual friends, and when we got home, had a quick night-cap from the bong and then cracked open the bottle of my favourite Mie-ken saké that he’d brought with him. I’d forgotten how amazingly good this stuff is. Of course, our first toast was to Yutaka, our former student who had recently passed away from stomach cancer. He was only 50 or so, far too young, and far too vibrant. We honoured him by raising our cups to him, and then telling stories of some of the crazy shit he used to get up to. Both of us are pretty sure he’s still chasing skirts and asking inappropriate questions up in heaven, and though his death saddened me, I can’t help smiling every time I think of him. He was just that kind of guy.

Wednesday we got up bright and early to go out golfing, a favourite activity of Charlie’s, and one that I haven’t done nearly enough of in the last few years. Since we were just a twosome, another guy came and joined us, and it turned out he was this retired guy who actually worked at the course more or less so he could get free golf. This worked out in our favour cuz he plays there everyday, and knew every inch of the course, which meant he could give us perfect advice for every hole. It was a fun round, but by the time we were done, it was just crazy hot. We headed home for showers and food, then went out for a little tour around Kingston. We went to Murney Tower Museum, where Charlie was totally lusting after the tour-guide girls. Being suddenly surrounded by western women after nothing but Japanese for a year can do this to a guy – the same thing happened to me when I got back too. Not that Japanese women aren’t attractive (in fact most guys find them incredibly hot, me included), but its just having something different all of a sudden, you know? Anyways, after our little tour, Charlie took a bit of a nap while I honed my Playstation abilities. When he got up, we ordered pizza, then got pretty heavily into the bong and saké. Great night!

Thursday we slept in and puttered around till about noon before heading out to the Jiffy Grill for brekkie. Afterwards, we still had a couple of hours to kill till our next golf engagement, so we rode the ferry over to Wolfe Island. It was a really nice day, and Charlie couldn’t stop raving about how beautiful and friendly Kingston was. He also couldn’t get over the fact that all the ferries are free. I thought that was pretty funny. After the ferry ride, we hit Tim Horton’s for a couple of Ice Caps and went to sit in Confederation Park to enjoy them.

By this point it was already 2pm, so we had to head out for our tee-time at Loyalist at 3pm. It was a really nice course, but very snooty and expensive, and while I’d like to play their again, I probably won’t. The feeling of pretentiousness was just too much. Both of us played pretty rough rounds, lost a lot of balls, and took a lot of penalty strokes, but still had a good time, especially after we decided that the game was so far gone, we might as well just get drunk. Booya. It’s the whole “Brakes are out, no point in steering now!” philosophy. Anyways, after golf, we stopped in at Harvey’s so Charlie could try real Canadian poutine (he kept calling it poon-tang – how could you not?), and after dinner, we pretty much went to bed cuz we had to get up reeeeally early the next day so Charlie could make his 6am flight out of Syracuse.

Yes, let me tell you, getting up at 2am is just not fun. The good thing was that I had to get down to Connecticut anyways cuz I was heading there for the weekend for Jen’s sister’s wedding, so after I dropped Charlie off at the airport (a very bleary goodbye), I just kept right on driving down I-90. The good part about driving at this time of day is that there is zero traffic, and so I don’t think I turned off the cruise control at all except for when I stopped to get gas.

I had told Jen I would probably be there around 9am, so she set her alarm for 8:30 so she’d have time to get up and take a shower before I got there. Because of the light traffic though, I rolled in at about 8:20, and walked into a dead silent house - everyone was still sleeping. So I went and put my suitcase away, and then walked into Jen’s room, where she was still sleeping. She heard someone walk in and rolled over and when she saw that it was me, the look in her eyes was totally priceless! Sort of a half-asleep total shock thing. It was great. So I crawled in with her for a while, which was really nice, and then we eventually went down for brekkie. It was a really peaceful morning, eating breakfast with the parents and all, but it proved to be the calm before the storm, because as I mentioned, her sister was getting married the next day.

The rehearsal was that afternoon, which went pretty well, and when it was done, myself and Jen and all the bridesmaids headed back to Jen’s parent’s place. This is where things got rough on me. Remember that I’d been up since 2am, and it was now 11pm. I wanted to go to bed really badly, but with all the bridesmaids sleeping over, I didn’t really know where I was supposed to be sleeping. I finally ended up in the loft, which was stifling hot, but at least it was a bed. Unfortunately, it was also open to the rest of the house, so I could hear everything going on, and couldn’t fall asleep. In a nutshell, I got about an hour’s worth of sleep. Then at about 4am, Jen came and snuck in with me, and I was so happy to have her there, that I didn’t want to sleep. At 8am, I got up and made all the bridesmaids a big breakfast of eggs and ham and fruit salad. I was going to take a nap after they all left to get their hair done, but I wasn’t feeling at all sleepy at this point.

At about 2pm, it was time for Bob (Jen’s dad) and I to head to the Inn where they were having the wedding. I have to say, I’ve never seen Bob so nervous. He was totally procrastinating as we left the house, checking and double checking that all the windows were locked and that the lights were all off. It was kinda funny, in a cute kind of way. We had a really good talk on the way there, where I got him to lay out exactly what it was that was making him nervous, and he said it really helped him feel better, so I was happy about that.

We got to the Inn and I went to get changed into my suit. About half an hour before the ceremony, Jen showed up and I helped her get into her dress. Oh my goodness, she looked so incredibly beautiful! Like, I was seriously speechless. I couldn’t even express how beautiful she was at that moment, and I suddenly understood about songs like “Lady in Red” and stuff like that. In fact, you’ve got to see it for yourself…



Nice, eh?

So anyways, the ceremony was really nice, everything went off well, and no one really screwed up. I was sitting in the second row, beside Jen’s crazy aunts (who I love to death), and halfway through the ceremony, one of them leans into me and says, “Is there something you want to tell us?”. Turns out she’d spotted the sparkling diamond ring on Jen’s hand. Jen hadn’t told them yet because she wanted to do it in person, but they were too quick, and saw it themselves! It was pretty funny. In fact, the ceremony was the first chance most of Jen’s family had had to see the ring and find out about the engagement, so we got a lot of hugs and handshakes all evening. The reception was a lot of fun, I got good and loopy on very dry vodka martini’s and danced like a maniac (don’t worry, I was far from the only one). You’d think that after only getting one hour’s sleep since Wednesday night I’d have been completely comatose, but somehow I kept alive. And after seeing Jen in that amazing dress and dancing real close all night, I couldn’t wait to get her up to our room! Rowr! ;)

Sunday was interesting. We all said our goodbyes and headed back to Jen’s parent’s place. It was so quiet, and at one point, all four of us were kind of standing around in the kitchen looking like, “Now what?”. I recognized it immediately: a very real type of post-partum. See, back in my days as an actor, we’d go like crazy for weeks or months at a time putting together a play, then you’d do the show, there’d be this amazing climax where yer on a total rush the entire time the show is running, and then suddenly, it’d all be over. That kind of silence is deafening, and there would be this depression of suddenly being pulled apart from all these people and the common purpose that you’d worked towards for all that time, leaving a huge hole. After a few times of this happening, I came to expect it, and always made sure to plan something fun for the week after the play, like a trip or something, so that I’d have something to look forward to and take my mind off it. So yah, things were pretty melancholy at Jen’s house that day. Jen herself was pretty listless, mostly just kind of moping, and there wasn’t much I could do so I just stayed with her. The weather at least was quite nice, so we sat out on the porch and hung with the parental’s for a while till eventually everyone got to feeling a bit more peppy. And that’s about it. Monday I headed home, and Tuesday I went back to boring stoopid work.

Believe it or not, there’s more to say, mostly on the subject of wedding stuff, but I think this post is long enough so I’ll save that for another time.

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