How I Spent My Summer Holiday

To offset the fact that I'd have to work back to back 6 day weeks starting on September 10th (due to an impromptu Eric's Trip reunion tour... ah the sacrifices I've made to rock...) I decided I would take a week off leading up. I started thinking about the last time I had a whole week off... and other than the stretches in May I take to cover the FIMAV for Exclaim!, I think it was actually the summer of 1991.

You know what that does to you?

In the weeks leading up to this miraculous stretch of off-workness I marvelled over the possibilities: I could go up to Ottawa and visit Marc L.; I could find out if there's a show I want to see anywhere on the East Coast; I could take a few days and hang around Percé and go out on boats and read and....

But.

I had to visit my folks at some point during the week. I hadn't made it up all summer and only seen them briefly in Quebec City (see previous entry).

The problem arises that, since I usually travel by bus everywhere, getting to and from Matapedia kills a day each way... Acadian Lines leaves F'ton at 11:30 and gets there at 5pm and vice versa. So now we're down to four useable days. I can still go down the coast to Percé though.

But.

I have upcoming Surge! shows on the 14th and 21st of September that needed posters, press, promotion, plus a raft of other previously backburnered tasks that it wouldn't do to leave undone before leaving... so that takes two days. And that leaves two days. In Matepedia. I can still go to Pointe-a-la-Garde one afternoon and walk on the beach and peek around all the my old childhood haunts.

But.

There are thunderstorms forecast for that day.

So... there's still a refrigerator full of food and court tv... and I did walk around the river that runs behind my folks' apartment.




It's incredibly low due to hot weather and very little rainfall. This is a salmon river, remember... one that usually draws wealthy tourists from all around the world.




Normally this point would be under about 8-10 feet of water. This isn't a structurally or aesthetically normal inukshuk... but my back hurts, so I can't stay bent over very long.


Back at homebase their's is a marvellously messed up kitty to torture... and my mom's slippers in the background, there.

So... the moral is... take vacations regularly, 'cos once you stop you completely lose the knack.