A Weekend of Bears and Fish; Valleys and Mini Ponies; Friends and Awesome Kids
July 28, 2010 This past weekend was one of the last long weekends of the summer that Bear and I will get to spend together. For the past six months I've been trying to use my banked holidays by taking a four day weekend every two weeks. This way I am off work when he is and we can spend eight days a month together instead of four. In a few weeks I will be in a black out period though, and I won't be able to take any more time off until mid September.
Having a man partner who works out of town isn't always bad. I have more time to write. And when he is away I can live more luxuriously by pooping with the door open-- live like a real princess.
But I do miss him when he's gone. I miss our driving songs, and calling each other derogatory names, and sharing snuggles, and conversation, and ideas, and laughter. I miss the way Snort momentarily forgets how to rape meow because he is there to distract her with upside down bum hugs. And when I tell him that a wasp is inhabiting the inside of the patio door, he sits outside with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and waits until the wasp comes back, and when it does, he glares at it and murders it, like pphhfftt, whatever. Then he seals the holes in the door, and he's all like, "what?", and I am all like, "where have you been all my life?"
Last Friday we got the call that Bear's vintage F-150 was fixed, so I spent most of the weekend sitting barefoot beside him as we drove around Central Alberta. I sang along to the radio in a munchkin voice. I squealed when I saw a miniature pony. I ate copious amounts of drive-through lard. No, I didn't feel bad about it. Yes, I sort of do now.
On Monday morning we headed to Sylvan Lake to meet Bear's friend, Doug, for an early morning fish off of the wharf.
Not Worf.
W-H-A-R-F.
Doug is in my top three favorite friends of Bear's. He is up there with Bear's foreman, a stellar man who is preoccupied with the notion of Bear and I procreating and is known for getting on the radio at Bear's work and asking him if he's thinking about babies.
Every man's worst nightmare.
But not quite as extreme as the last time I saw him, which was around this time, when he walked up to me with a huge smile on his face and said, "so I hear you two are having a baby." I looked over at Bear, whose face and body writhed in man-horror and, perplexed, he blurted, "OH MY GOD, MAN!?". I let him down gently and told him that no baby was cooking in the oven. "Babies are a good thing," he reminded us in his gruff, matter-of-fact man voice, ". . . a good thing."
And then there is Bear's cook, AKA "Mom", who regularly sends me bags of goodies. BAGS. Obviously she knows the way to win an undomesticated girl's heart. And obviously she feels that my love handles need to be bigger. A lot bigger.
Bless her heart, sweet woman.
Sylvan Lake is a little resort town that is about ten minutes West of Red Deer. Bear and I aren't huge fans of Sylvan, mostly because it is crawling with party-happy douche bags during the summer season and it takes away from any sort of feelings of serenity normally attributed to being at the lake. But at 6:00 am on a Monday morning, it was dead. And cold, may I add. Which, of course, I overlooked, and, once again, wore inappropriate footwear. An hour into it, Bear passed me his hoodie. Two hours in he offered his socks. "You're sure you don't want my socks?! You're SURE?"
"F!cking city girls," he muttered under his breath. "F!cking. . . city. . . girls. . . "
Doug brought his eldest son with him. That kid is the shit. Meaning I love him. Not a bone of attitude in his body, except when he's being beaked by Bear and he tells Bear to shut up. And that's the kind of attitude that every kid needs to properly navigate through life. That's a life skill.
Later on, Doug's wife dropped off the younger two before heading to work. The middle boy is about eight or nine years old and has a quick wit that I really admire in a child. Like when he referred to something being contaminated and commented that it was contaminated because it "saw his brother's face." Sibling love. Nothing is better. Especially when it's done well.
The youngest of the three is a petite, six year old girl with long, apricot hair and a sunshine giggle and a determination that she will sure as hell do anything and everything her older brothers do. "I can do it myself! I CAN DO IT MYSELF!" She doesn't hesitate to wind up her fist and punch Bear in the torso as hard as her little body can muster, either. Then she does her sunshine giggle. Again, life skills.
Apricot Sunshine refers to Bear as "Bob". "Bob" refers to her as "George".
"Bob."
"Bob!"
"Look what I got, Bob."
"Bob! Look what I got!"
"BOB?!"
"BOB!!!"
"Yessss, George?"
The last time we went fishing with them, she showed "Bob" some rocks she had found.
"If you rub them together long enough, you'll get a diamond."
"NOOO! That's not true," she said and sprayed her sunshine giggle all over the place. She wandered away, rubbing the two rocks together, and came back a few minutes later looking discouraged.
"Show me the right way to do it, Bob!"
"Bear showed her the appropriate technique. "It'll take awhile, he assured her, "so be patient."
She took the rocks from his hands and rubbed them together as she walked away, her tongue sticking out the side of her mouth in great concentration.
Her dad sighed. "I am so ashamed right now."
