A Break

I had the laziest of weekends home and it was lovely. I went down planning to see friends and do all kinds of things, but never got hold of anyone. I dutifully sent out the emails and made the phone calls announcing my weekend down, and then never heard back from anyone until the day I drove back. All these weirdos with plans for the long weekend. Which I wasn't all that broken up about, considering that I just wanted to go to Windsor and collapse on my parents’ couch.

Friday, I arrived in time for supper, then hung out with my family and played euchre. Went to bed at about 12, and woke up at 10. Sooo nice. Saturday I felt that I should leave the house at least once, so my brother and I drove to Essex to visit Dairy Freeze and hunt the elusive Leamington tomato. At the Dairy Freeze, I had fries with cheese and gravy. And no, it could not be called ‘poutine’ in my opinion. The ‘cheese’ was melted pieces of cheese slices. It was okay for a lunch, and then we felt that we were duty bound - being at Dairy Freeze and all - to purchase some ice cream. We asked for a small dish initially, and were shown a ‘kids’ cup’ about the size that would snugly fit a golf ball. We decided to go with the medium. And regretted it. Because the size of the dish was only the beginning, establishing the base for a swirl that projected up to four or five times the height of the dish itself, as if the dish were a cone and the ice cream swirled into it in the same way. But it was very good. And drizzled and dotted with fresh raspberries and juice. And it was a perfect, lovely, warm-but-breezy day, sitting at a picnic table, watching the lazy dragonflies bumble about, and with this sky looking down on us.

With all of the craziness that’s been the theme of my life ever since 'The Big’ announcement at work, I really needed this weekend, and this day in particular. A day to sit in the shade of a maple tree with my brother, trading insults and witticisms and with nowhere to be, nothing to do but sit there and eat my ice cream and not worry about my job or my apartment or my bank account because all I had to do was make sure I was eating faster than the ice cream was melting.

Saturday night, I watched a movie while my brother WoWed. If you’re the right kind of geek, then you know what that means, and if you’re not, you really won’t care. (Trust me.) That night was another marathon sleep, not waking up until 11 am, which astonished me to the point of actually yelling, in my croaky, just-woke-up voice, “It’s eleven!?” Sunday was another gloriously lazy day; the only time we ventured out was to go buy a kiddie pool so we could give the dog a bath. Sunday night, we went to see Superman Returns, and then Monday was a leisurely preparation and final departure back to the land of work and worries, with the stress and worry trickling back into my being with every kilometre that rolled past my windows.

Everyone needs to recharge every now and then, and this was a good one. I just have to remind myself that everything will be okay and I just have to survive this.