Blue Goo Ate My Mom

As I mentioned on my Jul 27th post I was getting read to head up to my cottage for the August civic holiday long weekend. I ended up taking two hours off on Thursday afternoon so Firda and I could get a head-start before the Toronto rush hour traffic started. We stopped in Huntsville for dinner, grocery shopping and some consumer whoring (shopping at Walmart - where I bought two of those folding camp chairs for 8 dollars each).

We arrived at the cottage around 10:30 or so and were greeted by SMooSH, his girlfriend Laura, and Mush (not her real name), Andy (Mush's husband) and their 7 month old daughter Zoë. SMooSH and Laura had arrived at 7:30 and since Matt (SMooSH) had been up many times before he knew where the keys were and how to start everything up. Firda and I unpacked, unfolded our camp chairs and hung out at the fire until 2:00 in the morning when it was time to sleep.

The next day was quite relaxing. The six of us had a small breakfast, did some swimming and went into town to get water and groceries. When they came back and everything was unloaded the fridge was bursting at the seams with beer and food. Throughout the day several people arrived. The first being Caitriona and Joe, coming from down near my parents place. Then Jen and John coming from London (Ontario). At sunset the group of us decided to head out to the sunset rock (an outcrop of rocks that looks out towards the west) to see the sun going down. At this point in the story tragedy strikes, if you don't like imagining someone getting hurt then you should skip to the next paragraph - I'll give you a couple of seconds before I continue with my story - - - - - and that should be enough. My friend Mush and daughter Zoë was joining us to watch the sunset. Mush was carrying Zoë and a glass of orange juice. At some point she lost her footing and tripped. She dropped the glass of OJ, protected Zoë from harm and ended up breaking her leg in the process. Andy (her husband) ran over to see if she and Zoë were okay. I walked up, took Zoë (since I knew Mush needed the attention) and headed up to the cottage. Firda was in the cottage and is great with babies so I handed Zoë to her. Then I phoned my parents to find out where the closest hospital was. During this phone call I realized that there was no way we could move Mush without causing her a tremendous amount of pain so after talking with my parents I dialed 911. To cut this story short the ambulance arrived about 20 minutes later and the two burly paramedics got Mush up on a rescue chair and carried her to the ambulance. During this emergency Nathan arrived, which was a good thing since Andy needed someone to drive his car to the hospital and since Nathan was the only one who (a) knew how to drive a standard and (b) was the only sober standard driver he was elected to drive. Nathan, Andy and Zoë followed the ambulance to the hospital in North Bay, while SMooSH, Laura, Firda and I followed them.

We stayed with Andy at the hospital for about an hour and a half waiting to hear how Mush was doing. During this time Andy got in touch with people he knows in North Bay and after finding out Mush's condition we all headed out. Andy and Zoë to the place they were staying the night and the rest of us back to the cottage. It ended up that Mush needed surgery on her leg, which included inserting a plate and a bunch of pins into the leg. Apparently she is feeling better now and will probably heal quickly, since she is good at that kind of stuff :) Later that night Ian and his girlfriend Marian arrived and everyone stayed up kind of late with John and Marian lasting until 3 or 4 in the morning.

Saturday starting with the arrival of Lex and Juan-Jose. As in previous years the arrival of Juan-Jose means the arrival and consumption of copious amounts of pork products. This depending on who you are could be seen as very good or very bad. I like to think it's a good thing. I don't remember much about this day. Nathan got his LASER sailboat into the water and spent most of the day out on the lake. The guys did a little knee-boarding just before sunset and before long the sun was down and it was time for sleep.

Sunday was a beautiful day, if not a little windy. Firda and I started the day with a pleasant canoe ride around the lake. When we got back it was decided that people would go out and do some tubing with the motor boat. The tubing was great and made even better by the fact that it was windy. Firda, Laura, Caitriona, Matt, Ian and I partook in the fun. As well on this day we had to send out our first rescue mission. Firda decided to go out canoeing by herself, which is always a bad first step. She ended up being blown by the wind across to the other side of the lake and I had to rescue her with the motor boat. Lots of fun :) Everyone was dead tired from all the activities during the day but we still lasted until late into the night. At 2:30 in the morning Ian and I were the only two left up. Just as I was getting ready to get to bed we realized that one of the canoes was missing. Apparently someone forgot to tie it to the dock. So Ian and I jumped into the other (crappier) canoe and set out with a flashlight to do a middle of the night search for the canoe. Sadly we didn't find it that night and I decided to get up before sunrise to search for it.

With only 2 hours of sleep I arose at 5:30 and jumped into the canoe. I headed straight across the lake to the other side and thank the lord the missing canoe was stuck on a bunch of rocks right where I was paddling to. I returned the canoe to the cottage and jumped back into bed. I got up close to noon and missed Juan-Jose and Lex's departure. In the next four hours the rest of us cleaned up the cottage, packed everything up and headed home.

Since it was a long weekend the traffic is usually pretty heavy but apparently we left at the right time. The only problem we had was at one point we were dead-stopped for 45 minutes due to a fallen electrical line (as far as I can figure out it fell across the highway due to a storm that passed through the area). Even with that we made it home in reasonable time.

So thus ends the story of the 4th annual cottage weekend. I promise there will be pictures soon. I just need to find the time to go through the 720 megs of pictures from the weekend and then find the time to make a gallery.