I was away all weekend with my wife and step-daughter at an old friend’s gorgeous island on Lake Joseph in Muskoka. The old friend has a kid of her own now, but is doing it up as a single mom. Her four-year old girl, who’s kinda cute, came with attached maid, and grandma too, along with a total of about 29 hours of intermittent rain.
The mosquitoes were great fog banks of peeling hellfire, and when the sun came out every few hours and you went into the open areas where they don’t stray, the deerflies and horseflies took over bloodletting duty. The kids, when not eating, drawing or sleeping, were scrapping. Mine tried to drown hers once in retaliation for hairpulling, and the maid leapt in to prevent a murder. Old friend was fighting with her mom. The maid, a Filipina who really knows when to keep her mouth shut, mainly did that. The lake was coated in a film of pollen which collected mainly near shore, so you were swimming in what looked like powdered sulphur.
As a Newfoundlander might say: O, it were grand.
I was very well behaved though. I’d been prepared for the many banalities that were sure to pass while stuck in an all-female possse, with no sunshine and many bugs, and so packed plenty of beer, wine and literature, as well as mozzie repellant. And I declare with sublime pleasure that, apart from an ever-growing storehouse of experience-fueled wisdom that no one wants to hear, I have become the beneficiary of a new aspect of being me, now, here: Muskokan mosquitoes no longer bite me. Not one of them would, no matter how tempting I made myself, which included many bare-assed dives off the high rocks.
We drove home Tues aft, and as we hit the customary gridlock on Hwy. 401, I suddenly remembered that I own a motorcycle. As soon as I’d unpacked the car I rode it to the liquor store, got cider for the wife, Chimay beer for me, went ridiculously fast a couple of times and in the end decided I’d had a fantastic weekend after all.
Never underestimate the healing power of horsepower.
Nice article!! i like your blog..
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