Family Time

Gosh I don’t even remember the last time I wrote you. So much has happened in the meantime – all of August has passed us by, and nearly half of September – that I don’t think I can recount it in these pages.

Sorry. I’ve been reading Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and it’s affecting my writing style. I’m going all Jane Austen on your asses. I haven’t read the original, but this one’s much more exciting. I enjoy a Victorian comedy of manners so much more when it’s laden with gut-wrenching zombie-killing violence. It’s the love child of Jane Austen and Quentin Tarantino.

In early August, back in what I like to call ‘the rainy season’, I hosted a BBQ party for my mother’s side of the family. It was a hoot, from what I remember. There was dancing. There was drinking. People fished and golfed and swam and one of our number even went zip-lining in the quarry. We had big plans to go on the aerial adventure at the Cavernes Lafleche aerial park but those sizeist bastards wouldn’t take anyone with hips larger than 42 inches. For those of you who are familiar with my family, there are very few among them with hips smaller than 42 inches. Thankfully this is balanced out – many of them (females, mostly) are six-footers. I am a shorty at 5’7 ½ (barefoot). What can those cave-people expect?

After that, we began preparations for the arrival of the Austrians. During this time, we didn’t really visit the land much, so when we finally went up with the Austrians we were pleasantly surprised to find a lovely first-floor and three walls standing where there once was only bush. I must admit to feeling a sense of accomplishment. While the majority of the actual work has been done by my brother, by builders and various other service-people (septic installation, laneway backhoe, etc), I feel like as a unit we’ve moved the project in its entirety along at a great pace in just a few months. It also just so happened that the arrival of the Austrians was timed perfectly so that they could watch their cottage being built.

Their visit was a bunch of fun. We went to the land. We swam, we boated, we kayaked (we bought kayaks!), we slept in the trailer, we drank beer from the bottom of the lake (warm beer!), we fished, I watched Rosie redundantly chase a loon, before she decided she was outmatched and gave up. I kayaked WITH Rosie, which was adorable even though nobody else even saw it. We went bowling. We went shopping, and I forced them to buy stuff for their cottage so progress could be made on things like bathroom and kitchen fixtures, when the time comes. My brother came over a lot, which was nice, and many decisions were made about construction details. I got a really great sense of what goes into building a cottage, so that I now feel better prepared to tackle our own when the time comes.

They stayed for two weeks. It was great fun and we all got along and Rosie behaved herself, but I was exhausted at the end of it, and I’m still (four days later) setting the house to rights. I really look forward to the day when we will have side-by-side cottages, so we can play together, we can eat together if we want, we can visit for coffee, campfires, games, and then have quiet alone time when we want as well. My idea since the beginning that we should remain in seperate cottages was reinforced during this visit, so I feel better about the decision, even though it may seem frivolous from the outside. While we have many of the same tastes and interests, several factors would make it difficult to share: they have a lot more disposable income than us, so their standard for household things is higher. The budget for building their cottage is higher than ours will ever be. We will beg, borrow and steal whatever materials we can use, where they are thinking about buying fixtures in Italy and filling a shipping container to get them here. They were actually contemplating commissioning someone to build them a wooden bathtub, where I want a used tin farm tank as a shower stall. They are discussing having the visible steel i-beams in their living room be pierced with plasma-cut ovals where we would be happy with rough pine. They bought an antique dining table for $800, where I hope to use the table my Opa built. They don’t love kitsch as much as we do. They don’t like colour as much as we do. They don’t like spicy food as much as we do. We let our dog onto the furniture and they don’t. They don’t wear as many clothes as we do. I would hate to have my sister-in-law’s quality bed linens muddied by my dog’s filthy paws, or have anything petty like that become an issue between us. I think we have such a lovely relationship, the five of us, that this set-up will be absolutely perfect. If you feel like curry tonight, feel free to come over. Otherwise we will meet afterwards at the campfire, or for games and dessert. Quality, enjoyable, family time.

My mom thought that this project would slake my desire to build right away, but it’s done the opposite – I can’t wait to start. I think we’ll get a move on next spring, start by plotting it out, and putting in a septic. I am jealous.