Wednesday, April 13, 2005
Our Trip, cont’d
Daaaamn. Ok. So I talked (briefly) with The Mac on Monday evening, because I had just been making dinner. I don’t usually do this, because Rob does it all the time nowadays since my going to the gym takes up the two hours between work and dinner. But Rob had gone out for beer, which I know he likes, and I got home before him, which is practically unheard of these days, and I was hungry, and thought I’d be nice and make dinner. Seriously, the dinner-making was more for him than me, but I was hungry…
And then I noticed I had a few minutes there. While the dinner was cooking, and I didn’t particularly feel like cleaning anything or turning on the TV and getting sucked into a stupor for the remainder of the evening, so I called The Mac. I had called to chat it up, because I haven’t talked to him in a while (because we were away, which I’ll get to in a minute). Anyway, just as I started chatting with him, Rob came home. And I always feel AWKWARD when I’m on the phone and Rob is puttering around in the house, like I should be talking to him or helping him or doing something more like cleaning or chores or whatever.
So The Mac and I chatted for a while, and there was a brief discussion about a disturbing story wherein bald eagles in the vicinity of Vancouver are being discovered, dead, without heads, and I certainly hope whoever is doing this gets punished somehow, preferably by vigilantes, and if they’re interested in poetic justice, they’ll flay the person or people alive, leave them bound on the ground and then release some bald eagles so they can pick at the person or people until they are dead dead dead. And I told The Mac about a “cougar attack” in Southern Alberta, probably in the Kananaskis somewhere, except I couldn’t exactly remember where, and how that news report was RIDICULOUS. Because the guy who had been “attacked” got, like, one puncture wound and some scratches, from TWO COUGARS while he was out walking with his “friend” (although one other news report called her his “girlfriend”, so she’s gonna be mad at one of the news stations, and I don’t know which one). So this guy, he gets attacked, see, and he “threw the cougar fifteen feet” so he could escape. Heh. Fifteen feet? Man, you couldn’t throw Smudge Fifteen feet, and she’s little. Mostly because she’s wriggly, but still. A cougar weighs in the neighborhood of 75-100 lbs, and throwing that fifteen feet, all wriggling and growling and trying to EAT YOU would be just impossible. I’m just sayin’…
But I had to go and finish dinner, and I told The Mac I’d call him the next day, which was last night, and then I couldn’t do it. I was out last night watching Rob play pool, because that’s what a girl does to support her man. She watches him play pool.
So sorry, Mac. I’ll call you the next time I can, I promise!!
Anyway, back to our little trip East. We had just left off after catching the first raccoon. Well, the next morning, there was a second one in our live trap. No skunk, mind you, but another raccoon. We had put the trap out on the grass, and this poor guy must have been in there a while, because he thrashed the hell out of the trap digging up a lot of grass and dirt, and he had dirt ALL OVER his cute little face. We got some good pictures of that guy and his release. We took him to the same place as the first one, and let him go. And sure enough, he fell into the same stream, climbed up the same bank, and ran away into the same forest. I hope they knew one another and were friends, and were glad to be reunited.
We spent a couple of days mostly inside because it rained on us. There was a big pile of cut wood waiting to be stacked, but because it was raining, it wasn’t a great idea to stack it. We explored the attic, we played some games. We had ourselves a little cribbage tournament. On the Saturday, we took the car into town to get some groceries, and maple syrup for friends here, and what happened? We got a flat tire.
We pulled into the parking lot to a church, and Rob put on the spare, as I negotiated with Budget Rent-a-Car about what to do. Their first response was “well, stay where you are, and we’ll bring you a new car from Montreal.” To which I replied “No.” Because we were about two hours away from Montreal, and that would be a stupid idea, plus it would take forever for them to find us. Then, the woman I was talking to suggested, “why don’t you put the spare on and drive in to the rental car place?” To which I replied, “No. We won’t be doing that, either,” because the spare has a 100-km safe tolerance rating. I talked to several more people. I tried to find the nearest Budget franchise, and one was located about 30 km away in Sherbrooke. I contacted the Sherbrooke Budget, and that guy was incredibly rude. “We don’t do that,” he said, “and our garage is closed.”
I rolled my eyes so much I thought they would come out of my head and start rolling around on the dashboard of our disabled car. Finally, I talked to someone who had an idea of what they were talking about (they had read the emergency manual, because apparently, no Budget car has ever had a flat tire to date, and I was the first client who had to go through this process so that the call center operators could get some experience), and they told me to just get the tire repaired.
The tire had a large-ish hole in it. We took it to Canadian Tire, which was the only place open at 4p on a Saturday. The guy there did not speak very much English, so I had to dust off my French and really get into it, and do you think I could remember the word for “flat”? No. But it’s “creusé”, in case you’re interested. The guy was a little iffy on whether the tire could be repaired, and his schedule was filled up for that afternoon, so we left the tire with him and limped away on the spare. He said he’d call if he could get it fixed before the end of the day and the shop closed. We went and had a beer in a bar, waiting to see if the guy would call, which he didn’t. We went back to the farm, defeated, and then had to go back to town in the morning to get the tire.
Since we were going into town anyway to get the tire, we decided we’d have breakfast at Eggsqui’s. Eggsqui’s is a little breakfast diner. There are apparently several of them in the area and scattered throughout Quebec. The Mac and our sister and I had breakfast there once, and they put this custard on everything. The waffles, the French toast, the pancakes… My sister was disgusted. Even more so, when The Mac took her discarded custard, which she had deposited in her unused coffee cup, and DRANK IT!! We drank no custard this time around, and Rob and I just had a nice breakfast instead. And then we picked up our repaired tire, Rob put it back on the car, and we were on our merry way.
We caught another raccoon that evening, and drove him out with mostly the same fanfare to the same location as the other two. He was released and the event was documented with pictures. We had to make it quick, though, because we found out that releasing live raccoons basically into other peoples’ yards is sort of frowned-upon.
The skunks, who had moved on from the farm due to the increased activity (raccoon trapping, yelling, much activity in and outside the shed), and we figure they just went down the road to my Uncle Eric’s place. Because when we drove by, there was the unmistakable scent of skunk right at his place.
We walked down to his place on the Monday, just to see how things were. We walked along the brook, fell in once, crossed a big tree to get to the other side, and made our way onto his property. His dog, Rex, barked an enormous bark at us, but gave away his friendly intentions by wagging his tail. He was so excited to see people that he continued wagging his tail as he sat on it. Once he realized we were friendly, he came bounding down to see us. Rex is a Shepherd/Rottweiler/other stuff cross. He is huge. He’s over 100 lbs and his feet are almost as big as my hand. He leaned against us, sitting on our feet, just begging to be petted, and he smelled like skunk.
We wandered around my uncle’s place for a bit, and then left poor Rex all by himself and made our way back to the farmhouse. It had started to rain again, of course, but we were pretty happy anyway. The next day, Rob and I went down to Eric’s to walk his dogs. Eric also has an old Shepherd/retriever/other stuff cross, named Sasha, who is about 15. Poor Sasha wheezes when he walks, and had a wound on his foot, but he was pretty game about going for a walk. We walked up Eric’s logging road into the woods.
Halfway down the road, we took note of an old hollow Maple tree, with a lot of droppings beneath it. We speculated as to what might be inside, and heard scratching from within. Rob stuck his digital camera into the hole, aimed upwards, and took a picture, complete with flash. You could see, from the picture, that it was a porcupine’s home, and the porcupine was IN. Rob took a few more pictures, trying to get a better view. The porcupine didn’t budge, so we kept on going.
We noticed, as we went along, little tufts of white fur. And a tuft of fur that was attached to a hunk of skin. We wondered what could have happened there, a struggle between rabbit and coyote, perhaps, or a deer and coyote or something… and were answered near the end of the road where it meets the brook, when Sasha started rooting around at the side of the road and came up with a calf’s head. Eric had lost a calf, stillborn, earlier in spring, and had ostensibly dragged it out as far as he thought necessary and tossed it into the bush. Sasha would not give up the head. And we also found the remains of the carcass, all picked clean and looking like something out of Predator 2, when the alien rips the head and spine out of a body and holds it up triumphantly as a trophy to take home. Heh. But ew. Rob tossed it back away from the road into some scrub where the dogs would be less likely to get at it. At the very end of the road, across the brook, we saw a moose wandering off into the forest. So many critters!!!
When we got back from our walk, Eric was home, his job at a cottage washed out by the rising lake water. We helped him cut some wood instead for a while, and then went back to the farm for lunch. Life on the farm revolves around meals, which may be why I’ve gained so much weight in such a short time (cry, cry).
That afternoon, we took a tour around the lake to the other side, where my grandparents’ parents were from. It was sunny and beautiful, and a very nice afternoon.
Of course, when we got back to the farm, Rob noted we had another flat tire. Not the same tire, mind you, a totally different one. And it was 5:30p, so all the shops in town were probably closed. So I called around trying to find someone to repair it (not even bothering to try and call Budget again…), and found that the Luc Gagné garage was open until 10p. That Luc Gagné is a man ahead of his time, I’ll tell ya. Rob and Eric took the tire out, and Therese, my grandmother and I all cooked dinner and watched Dr. Phil. My grandmother really likes Dr. Phil.
The next morning was our last, and the most heartbreaking part of the trip. I love to go there, but I also hate it a little because it reminds me of where I’d really rather be. And when I have to leave, my heart breaks and I cry. I hate crying. We left at 9a, even though our flight wasn’t scheduled to leave Montreal until 1:30p – Rob said we needed the extra time in case we got another flat, which I could see, but still. It was another hour I could have spent there, lingering and wishing.
The traveling was long and tiring. I read Rob part of my book while we were waiting at the airport and on the planes, which I have to finish reading to him because it’s a funny one. We got home at 5:30p Calgary time, and Rob’s father picked us up at the airport. We finally got home to our house around 7p (since we had to stop at my parents’ place to get our vehicle), and the pets seemed slightly disinterested to see us. I guess they had been spoiled with our friend’s company there a lot more of the time – she goes to school and works, but her schedule is a lot more flexible than ours’, and she walked the dogs THREE times a day. So they were sad to see her go, I’m sure.
And it’s a week later, and we’re still not totally unpacked, and the house is NOT cleaned up, and I’m still tired from traveling.
What I need is a vacation.
And then I noticed I had a few minutes there. While the dinner was cooking, and I didn’t particularly feel like cleaning anything or turning on the TV and getting sucked into a stupor for the remainder of the evening, so I called The Mac. I had called to chat it up, because I haven’t talked to him in a while (because we were away, which I’ll get to in a minute). Anyway, just as I started chatting with him, Rob came home. And I always feel AWKWARD when I’m on the phone and Rob is puttering around in the house, like I should be talking to him or helping him or doing something more like cleaning or chores or whatever.
So The Mac and I chatted for a while, and there was a brief discussion about a disturbing story wherein bald eagles in the vicinity of Vancouver are being discovered, dead, without heads, and I certainly hope whoever is doing this gets punished somehow, preferably by vigilantes, and if they’re interested in poetic justice, they’ll flay the person or people alive, leave them bound on the ground and then release some bald eagles so they can pick at the person or people until they are dead dead dead. And I told The Mac about a “cougar attack” in Southern Alberta, probably in the Kananaskis somewhere, except I couldn’t exactly remember where, and how that news report was RIDICULOUS. Because the guy who had been “attacked” got, like, one puncture wound and some scratches, from TWO COUGARS while he was out walking with his “friend” (although one other news report called her his “girlfriend”, so she’s gonna be mad at one of the news stations, and I don’t know which one). So this guy, he gets attacked, see, and he “threw the cougar fifteen feet” so he could escape. Heh. Fifteen feet? Man, you couldn’t throw Smudge Fifteen feet, and she’s little. Mostly because she’s wriggly, but still. A cougar weighs in the neighborhood of 75-100 lbs, and throwing that fifteen feet, all wriggling and growling and trying to EAT YOU would be just impossible. I’m just sayin’…
But I had to go and finish dinner, and I told The Mac I’d call him the next day, which was last night, and then I couldn’t do it. I was out last night watching Rob play pool, because that’s what a girl does to support her man. She watches him play pool.
So sorry, Mac. I’ll call you the next time I can, I promise!!
Anyway, back to our little trip East. We had just left off after catching the first raccoon. Well, the next morning, there was a second one in our live trap. No skunk, mind you, but another raccoon. We had put the trap out on the grass, and this poor guy must have been in there a while, because he thrashed the hell out of the trap digging up a lot of grass and dirt, and he had dirt ALL OVER his cute little face. We got some good pictures of that guy and his release. We took him to the same place as the first one, and let him go. And sure enough, he fell into the same stream, climbed up the same bank, and ran away into the same forest. I hope they knew one another and were friends, and were glad to be reunited.
We spent a couple of days mostly inside because it rained on us. There was a big pile of cut wood waiting to be stacked, but because it was raining, it wasn’t a great idea to stack it. We explored the attic, we played some games. We had ourselves a little cribbage tournament. On the Saturday, we took the car into town to get some groceries, and maple syrup for friends here, and what happened? We got a flat tire.
We pulled into the parking lot to a church, and Rob put on the spare, as I negotiated with Budget Rent-a-Car about what to do. Their first response was “well, stay where you are, and we’ll bring you a new car from Montreal.” To which I replied “No.” Because we were about two hours away from Montreal, and that would be a stupid idea, plus it would take forever for them to find us. Then, the woman I was talking to suggested, “why don’t you put the spare on and drive in to the rental car place?” To which I replied, “No. We won’t be doing that, either,” because the spare has a 100-km safe tolerance rating. I talked to several more people. I tried to find the nearest Budget franchise, and one was located about 30 km away in Sherbrooke. I contacted the Sherbrooke Budget, and that guy was incredibly rude. “We don’t do that,” he said, “and our garage is closed.”
I rolled my eyes so much I thought they would come out of my head and start rolling around on the dashboard of our disabled car. Finally, I talked to someone who had an idea of what they were talking about (they had read the emergency manual, because apparently, no Budget car has ever had a flat tire to date, and I was the first client who had to go through this process so that the call center operators could get some experience), and they told me to just get the tire repaired.
The tire had a large-ish hole in it. We took it to Canadian Tire, which was the only place open at 4p on a Saturday. The guy there did not speak very much English, so I had to dust off my French and really get into it, and do you think I could remember the word for “flat”? No. But it’s “creusé”, in case you’re interested. The guy was a little iffy on whether the tire could be repaired, and his schedule was filled up for that afternoon, so we left the tire with him and limped away on the spare. He said he’d call if he could get it fixed before the end of the day and the shop closed. We went and had a beer in a bar, waiting to see if the guy would call, which he didn’t. We went back to the farm, defeated, and then had to go back to town in the morning to get the tire.
Since we were going into town anyway to get the tire, we decided we’d have breakfast at Eggsqui’s. Eggsqui’s is a little breakfast diner. There are apparently several of them in the area and scattered throughout Quebec. The Mac and our sister and I had breakfast there once, and they put this custard on everything. The waffles, the French toast, the pancakes… My sister was disgusted. Even more so, when The Mac took her discarded custard, which she had deposited in her unused coffee cup, and DRANK IT!! We drank no custard this time around, and Rob and I just had a nice breakfast instead. And then we picked up our repaired tire, Rob put it back on the car, and we were on our merry way.
We caught another raccoon that evening, and drove him out with mostly the same fanfare to the same location as the other two. He was released and the event was documented with pictures. We had to make it quick, though, because we found out that releasing live raccoons basically into other peoples’ yards is sort of frowned-upon.
The skunks, who had moved on from the farm due to the increased activity (raccoon trapping, yelling, much activity in and outside the shed), and we figure they just went down the road to my Uncle Eric’s place. Because when we drove by, there was the unmistakable scent of skunk right at his place.
We walked down to his place on the Monday, just to see how things were. We walked along the brook, fell in once, crossed a big tree to get to the other side, and made our way onto his property. His dog, Rex, barked an enormous bark at us, but gave away his friendly intentions by wagging his tail. He was so excited to see people that he continued wagging his tail as he sat on it. Once he realized we were friendly, he came bounding down to see us. Rex is a Shepherd/Rottweiler/other stuff cross. He is huge. He’s over 100 lbs and his feet are almost as big as my hand. He leaned against us, sitting on our feet, just begging to be petted, and he smelled like skunk.
We wandered around my uncle’s place for a bit, and then left poor Rex all by himself and made our way back to the farmhouse. It had started to rain again, of course, but we were pretty happy anyway. The next day, Rob and I went down to Eric’s to walk his dogs. Eric also has an old Shepherd/retriever/other stuff cross, named Sasha, who is about 15. Poor Sasha wheezes when he walks, and had a wound on his foot, but he was pretty game about going for a walk. We walked up Eric’s logging road into the woods.
Halfway down the road, we took note of an old hollow Maple tree, with a lot of droppings beneath it. We speculated as to what might be inside, and heard scratching from within. Rob stuck his digital camera into the hole, aimed upwards, and took a picture, complete with flash. You could see, from the picture, that it was a porcupine’s home, and the porcupine was IN. Rob took a few more pictures, trying to get a better view. The porcupine didn’t budge, so we kept on going.
We noticed, as we went along, little tufts of white fur. And a tuft of fur that was attached to a hunk of skin. We wondered what could have happened there, a struggle between rabbit and coyote, perhaps, or a deer and coyote or something… and were answered near the end of the road where it meets the brook, when Sasha started rooting around at the side of the road and came up with a calf’s head. Eric had lost a calf, stillborn, earlier in spring, and had ostensibly dragged it out as far as he thought necessary and tossed it into the bush. Sasha would not give up the head. And we also found the remains of the carcass, all picked clean and looking like something out of Predator 2, when the alien rips the head and spine out of a body and holds it up triumphantly as a trophy to take home. Heh. But ew. Rob tossed it back away from the road into some scrub where the dogs would be less likely to get at it. At the very end of the road, across the brook, we saw a moose wandering off into the forest. So many critters!!!
When we got back from our walk, Eric was home, his job at a cottage washed out by the rising lake water. We helped him cut some wood instead for a while, and then went back to the farm for lunch. Life on the farm revolves around meals, which may be why I’ve gained so much weight in such a short time (cry, cry).
That afternoon, we took a tour around the lake to the other side, where my grandparents’ parents were from. It was sunny and beautiful, and a very nice afternoon.
Of course, when we got back to the farm, Rob noted we had another flat tire. Not the same tire, mind you, a totally different one. And it was 5:30p, so all the shops in town were probably closed. So I called around trying to find someone to repair it (not even bothering to try and call Budget again…), and found that the Luc Gagné garage was open until 10p. That Luc Gagné is a man ahead of his time, I’ll tell ya. Rob and Eric took the tire out, and Therese, my grandmother and I all cooked dinner and watched Dr. Phil. My grandmother really likes Dr. Phil.
The next morning was our last, and the most heartbreaking part of the trip. I love to go there, but I also hate it a little because it reminds me of where I’d really rather be. And when I have to leave, my heart breaks and I cry. I hate crying. We left at 9a, even though our flight wasn’t scheduled to leave Montreal until 1:30p – Rob said we needed the extra time in case we got another flat, which I could see, but still. It was another hour I could have spent there, lingering and wishing.
The traveling was long and tiring. I read Rob part of my book while we were waiting at the airport and on the planes, which I have to finish reading to him because it’s a funny one. We got home at 5:30p Calgary time, and Rob’s father picked us up at the airport. We finally got home to our house around 7p (since we had to stop at my parents’ place to get our vehicle), and the pets seemed slightly disinterested to see us. I guess they had been spoiled with our friend’s company there a lot more of the time – she goes to school and works, but her schedule is a lot more flexible than ours’, and she walked the dogs THREE times a day. So they were sad to see her go, I’m sure.
And it’s a week later, and we’re still not totally unpacked, and the house is NOT cleaned up, and I’m still tired from traveling.
What I need is a vacation.
