The Confederate Canuck: March 2011

We like to relax on the weekends and do relaxing and enjoyable things. Yesterday, we decided it could be both relaxing and enjoyable to go into town in the afternoon for a little random loafing. Unfortunately, since Julie rises habitually late on Saturday, this was not decided until almost mid-day.

So first on the agenda was lunch. Comestibles were prepared, consumed, and cleaned up with an expected degree of disorganization. Ella ate at least half of her weight in grapes, which made an abrupt reappearance later on in the day and required an emergency trip to the Costco restroom, a Hazmat suit, and a pressure washer.

Next up was getting ready. The diaper bag had to be put together and Shiloh needed a pit stop. Both kids had a bath, which, as usual, involved displacing Julie's assortment of neatly arranged shampoo and soap bottles, Bobchi's bath towel, the rubbish bin, and everything else within a three-foot radius of the bathtub. Festivities also included putting a decorative quarter-inch layer of water on the floor. On the plus side, however, our bathroom floor is now sparkling clean.

Meanwhile, Julie was having an overly complicated discussion with her sister, who wanted to borrow our vacuum for the weekend. Julie set the vacuum by the front door so that we would remember to take it, but I later misunderstood her to say that they had subsequently decided she wouldn't borrow it after all and put it back in the closet.

Getting the kids out of the bath is a bit like a scene out of a Laurel and Hardy film. While I'm toweling Shiloh off, Ella decides to take an au naturel romp through the kitchen. While I'm chasing Ella down, Shiloh is putting his pants on backwards. I bring Ella back and close the three of us in so no one can escape, but while I help Shiloh reorient his clothes, Ella takes this opportunity to rummage through the closet in search of interesting shoes and other toteables. I kick those back in the closet and start pulling clothes onto Ella just in time to help Shiloh put on his belt. Meanwhile, the bathroom is still in a state of dripping chaos, and you can bet your last dollar that this is exactly where Ella will beeline because somebody forgot to close the door. Having Julie's extra hands on the weekend surprisingly doesn't alter this scene much.

After Julie and I got ready, it was time to put on snow gear. Here in the frozen North, each and every trip outside requires a veritable mountain of touques, mitts, coats, scarves, snow pants, and boots. Interestingly, the time you spend getting ready to go outside appears to be in direct inverse correlation to the amount of time you will actually spend outside; thus, 20 minutes getting zipped up translates roughly to five minutes spent shivering miserably in the cold before giving up and returning to a place where you can again feel the reassuring presence of your own feet.

Children, of course, require exponentially more time to wrestle into snow gear: by the time Kid 1 is ready to go, Kid 2 must be roused from a heat stroke-induced coma. By the time Kid 2 has all of her layers on, Kid 1 has graduated from college and is just settling down to a quiet life somewhere in Nebraska. By the time both kids are ready to go out, you are praying silently that your bladder will just go ahead and explode already and give you some relief. It is my personal opinion that the Canadian tendency to conclude every sentence with, "Eh?" is actually a Tourrete's-like nervous tic developed during many years of suffering through endless hours of zipping, stuffing, and stomping multiple layers of thick clothing onto their children.

Once we got the kids, ourselves, the bottle bag, and various other necessary items out to the garage, we made a new discovery. A skunk had gotten into the garage during the night and had sprayed right next to the car, the interior of which now smelled slightly worse than a forgotten fish truck on a July afternoon (a July afternoon in Alabama, that is; a July afternoon in Canada would keep raw fish frozen solid).

While Julie's car is normally comfortable and fairly roomy, this turn of events reduced it's desirability somewhat for a 45-minute ride into Winnipeg, so we made arrangements to take a different vehicle into town. Three trips back to the house later we were finally on the road... only to realize that Julie really had meant to take the vacuum cleaner along.

We like to relax on the weekend and do enjoyable things. Good thing the weekend is two days long.