Waves crashing on the retaining wall at Round Lake…

Thursday: On my first day of holidays I returned to the Dentist to remove the temporary cap from my Root Canal and a cleaning. Gah. What a way to start my holidays. Sure I haven’t had a cleaning in some time but it felt like borderline torture at times. I kept looking at the bloodied cotton ball the ‘hygenist’ was mopped up out of my mouth and thought, ‘that can’t be good…’. About an hour of ‘abuse’ later she was done… then the real fun began. Once again the dentist placed a latex dam in my mouth. Inserting it seemed to be causing him grief. He jammed it down with enough force to bruise my lips. Later in the procedure his assistant dropped a metal tool on my face. Had I not been wearing glasses I shudder to think what could have happened. After all that I had to pay 200-300$ more than I expected… Sigh. Gee, I wonder why no one likes going to the Dentist? The afternoon turned into running around Brampton getting things for the trip to Round Lake. After what seemed to be a long tiring day we crashed early with the intent of getting up early to drive to Renfrew County.

Friday : We ended up leaving fairly early and made good time to the Lake. Unfortunately we were greeted with rain that was on and off all afternoon. Meh. One of my co-workers Todd suggested I read a book that was saved from recycling during a work clean-up last week. So I’ve started Kurt Vonnegut’s Breakfast of Champions We’ll see how it goes. I like the idea of an author being ‘a laughing prophet of doom’ and ‘an unimitative and inimitable social satirist’ or at least so the liner comments describe him. Unpacking the car we quickly realized we brought waaaaay too much stuff. The fridge has enough food for three weeks and we have filled the small cottage with stuff in every small room. And I’m thinking of getting a smaller car… The rain seemed to be listening in on our conversations. Any mention of a ‘walk’, ‘swim’ or anything outside activity resulted in rain within a minute. Um… thanks?

Saturday : It didn’t rain! So we enjoyed the lake most of the day. The water is higher this year. The narrow strip of a beach we usually have is underwater. A lazy day for sure.

Sunday was overcast so we ventured to Foymount to look at the gear at Sierra Designs. Unfortunately once we started on our way there we soon realized we didn’t have enough gas to make it. No problem, we’ll get gas in Killaloe. Right? No. all the gas stations were closed, after all it was Sunday. I guess cars don’t run on gas on Sundays here. Sigh. So we had to detour out of the way up to Wilno. Wilno is a cute little town known for the tavern and many artist shops dotted along the highway that runs through it. We took a look through the shops, since we were there anyway… B. then realized we were close to where she thought one of her friends lived so we decided to try and find the place. B.’s friend and her BF (Trish and Fin) live on a piece of property the BF’s mother owns. It is a very rustic location down a bumpy dirt road with a ‘no trespassing sign’ at the base of it. Eventually we found her and some of her friends. The location is actually quite beautiful. They are living in a two bedroom eco-friendly cottage. The view from their porch must be breathtaking on some nights. We agreed to meet up with them later in the week. After the visit with Trish and Fin we continued to Sierra, B. found a jacket, I didn’t find anything that interested me. The evening was pretty quiet. We visited with B.’s mom, Uncle and Aunt at their cottage a minute down the road from where we are staying.

We awoke to rain Monday. I’m getting concerned the vacation is going to be washed out. It is suppose to rain all day today and tomorrow. GAH… B. has the radio on. I’m comfy on the couch. The station is set to country. OMG…: Got me a truck!
Let’s get the tires all dirty..
Come on pretty honey.
Daddy gots lot o’ money.
Brutal rhyming couplets. Make my soul say fsck it

B. got some double chocolate chunk cookies on Friday, today they stopped screaming. The sun managed to poke out for an hour today giving us some swim time. The clear blue skies were replaced by a big angry looking gray cloud by dinner time. We are debating going into Pembroke to see The Dark Knight. It was going to be tight, the show started at 7:30, Pembroke is a 45m drive and it was already 20 to 7. We decided to chance it. The drive from Round Lake to Pembroke is windy and mostly uninhabited, a bad place for an accident. Fortunately the drive was uneventful as was the movie. The movie was sold out. So we wandered around the mall for a bit, B. found some clothes. We drove around the town of 15k and found a Dairy Queen. We had to do *something* after a 45m drive in… The drive back was darker, kinda creepy, we did slow down once for a fox that was sitting in the middle of the road. We actually got pretty close before it darted off into the darkness. So now we have to wait at least a week or so to see the movie. Bleck.

B.’s uncle Joe treated us to a boat trip around Round Lake. I was surprised at how long it took. The lake has some lovely homes and cottages on it. When we returned to the cottage the sun was out! Joy! So we rushed into our swim suits and into the refreshing lake. The sun shined only a short time however as a big gray cloud rolled in for a shower. The rain also passed quickly, the evening was cool but clear. After a double grilled steak dinner we went into Killaloe to use the Internet at B.’s parents. I sent a few e-mails and checked my work e-mail. It seems the game we made is continuing to get some great press! It was dial-up so I’ll read the mail in full when I’m back to glorious broadband.

Wednesday: B. had one of her friends (Trish) over most of the afternoon. The weather cooperated for the most part. We sat around talked, ate and had a short swim. She brought her dog Lupine with her. Tanga took the opportunity to be the dominate bitch she is lording over the dog every chance she got. Eventually they played briefly together. In the evening we decided (ultimately) to go to out to dinner. We went to the Red Canoe (www?) in Wilno. Dinner was good, or I was very hungry, I actually willingly ate turnip strips. *Whistles* We may be returning to the Red Canoe Thursday for an open mic night. After dinner we dropped in on B.’s mother to give her her birthday present. A digital picture frame loaded with photos of family. She seemed to appreciate it. We watched a little TV then called it a night.

Friday we left Round Lake. I continued to join my buddies at Joe’s cottage and B. was returning home.

I was meeting my friends at a rest stop east of the 35/115 on the 401. We were considerably behind in meeting them. I appreciate their patience for waiting! The weekend was a lot of fun. Clearly we are aging. There was a lot more sitting around resting and doing nothing than partying and boyish gameplay which often occurs in volumes when we get together. Not that the weekend had no causalities. Kirk hit the sauce pretty hard the first night and hugged porcelain most of the late evening. *smirk* We went into Campbellford just once, we stocked up on food, booze and *of course* chocolate, there were many Lobster girls there. Other events during the weekend included:

• the original acoustic versions of the Kirk song and the Joe song
• 20$ buy in poker – the game wasn’t finished – Joe was leading when we stopped playing of course there were fires – we burnt a dresser, a couch, tons of wood, fireworks; mostly after the Environmental PM left 😛
• cutting down trees; delightful footage coming soon (heh)
• Euchre : the PUKES (myself and Mike) crushed Joe and Pat 5-1. The best was Mike going alone and winning 4 points when we only needed 1 to win. Ouch. Nasty. I can’t believe the karma police didn’t arrest him.
• Mike was the man for morning breakfasts cooking up a storm of potatoes and backbacon. He cooked so many potatoes I tried to get Pat to bestow an honorary Irish title on him but the request was denied… (ahem…)
• didn’t see much wildlife this weekend. I guess all the past years of chasing and yelling at anything that wander on the property did have some impact. *smirk*
• Basketball : we had a bunch of games of 21. Mike cleaned up here. I was good to get to 20 but couldn’t make the ‘backwards’ 21 shot from anywhere to save my life. I must have had 20 chances at it one game…
• we drank a fair bit, we finished of a bottle of Vodka, Abinsith, Spiced Rum, Dark Rum, Glava, Jack Daniels and numerous beer and coolers between the five of us.
• in the evenings we watched a few movies : Rambo 4, Rambo 2, Blazing Saddles and Office Space, Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi
• the weather was pretty much the same as it was in Round Lake, a few hours of sun then a nasty storm would roll in; did witness some pretty decent lightning
• Joe was gone Friday night at a Fishing Tournament, he placed 8th out of close to 90! Took home 750$! Not bad for a day of fishing!

A fun weekend, as usual. It was great to see everyone. Here are some photos from Joe’s Cottage Weekend 2008.