a peek inside the fishbowl

One thing I never thought I’d ever say: “There’s a squirrel sitting on your teepee!”

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I have a longish post to write about two distinct and very important events.

1) My parents-in-law had their 50th wedding anniversary and we threw them a party on Saturday
2) It was the anniversary of the day of my birth on the 19th

First, the party.

Mark had been planning this for a couple of months.

You know, a lot of people have thanked me for my awesome hostessing, but I have to say that Mark was the principle planner in this situation and I was the mere deputy.

I can’t itemize the list of things that went into planning the party, but I’m particularly proud of a few things:

- Mark let turned his creative juice flowing machine on HIGH  (um, that doesn’t sound that good, does it?) and designed original invites, wine labels, and edited together a home movie, AND organized their gift… a golf getaway to Millcroft Inn.

- Meanwhile, I scored wine glasses at Ikea 6/$2.99. Ikea, sometimes you frustrate me greatly, but sometimes you really pull through.

- No seriously, I spearheaded the food end of things and brought the caterer on board. Some of you may or may not know Chantal, and you may or may not know she is also a super catering dynamo. Her company is called AppleRidge catering. She and her partner Lianne were wonderfully patient with me. I didn’t ever feel rushed or pressured, and I hope they weren’t annoyed by the one-line emails I sent them with things like “scratch the curry” or “I am not sure how I feel about avocados.” They made up a really nice casual poolside-type menu (that’s the kind of party we were having – sandwiches and salads etc) and it all came together wonderfully. So if you’re looking for a caterer in Ottawa, do drop them a line. They were easy to deal with, gave us great value for our dollar, and everyone loved the food. What more do you want?

The party was a big hit. Mary, my MIL, had no clear idea what was going down on their special day. She knew that it was going to be “something” but that’s about it. And sneaky little Mary, she hated not knowing. In the preceding days she asked us countless little questions designed for maximum output of party-related info: “Soooo…” she’d say thoughtfully, AS IF THE QUESTION SHE’S ABOUT TO ASK IS JUST FOR CONVERSATION “will you be needing the BBQ on Saturday?” or “how many chairs should I arrange around the pool?” I heard later that I wasn’t the only one being interrogated. She asked her family and friends too. Ha! But they didn’t budge.

I think Mary and Gary were both surprised to see 29 guests standing in their kitchen.

It was a fun day.  I wrote up some questions for a Not-So-Newlywed Game, and it seemed to be a big hit. Some folks went swimming. Otherwise we all stood around and talked and ate and drank and all of a sudden everyone was going home and it was time to pack it all in. Good thing too, because I was pooped.

The next day was my birthday.

This day shall be forever known as The Day We Were Nearly Hit By An Airplane.

Okay, not EXACTLY. But we COULD have.

But I’ll get to that later, but to summarize: I had a wonderful day.

Coffee was made for me first thing. And I was presented with lovely cards and gifts. I was totally surprised by my gifties. The girls gave me an electric kettle that changes colour (from blue to red) when it heats up – cool huh? Mark gave me an AF zoom lens for my digital SLR. Truly, this is a splendiferous gift that brought a tear to mine eye. A lot of my creative energies have gone into photography lately, and this was perfect.

We had a breakfast of yummy smoked-salmon-with-cream-cheese-on-fresh-bagels and then proceeded on a road trip to Merrickville (this was Mark’s idea, but I seconded the motion, after all, it was my day!).

It was a nice and relatively short drive from Ottawa – which is great because I had been feeling slightly nauseous. (I wasn’t kidding when I said I had injured myself on one of the kiddie rides. I’m nursing a neck injury and it’s making me feel woozy.) It was a gorgeous sunny day. We did a lot of strolling and poking our heads in all the shops, including a glass studio/store called Kiss my Glass (get it?) which belongs to the mom of a good friend of mine.

We had lunch at the chip truck, and bought ice cream on the way back to the car. There were a couple unusual flavours. One was a chili pepper chocolate and there was also a honey-lemon-garlic ice cream that I just HAD to sample. I did. And it was weird. The garlic was a little too distinct. I felt it in my nostrils and I couldn’t get over it. I decided to get mint chocolate chip instead.

We checked out a few more stores (Linden Tree beside the park/lock was full of gorgeous little things) and that was it for Merrickville.

On the way home we decided to stop at the local glider club and watch some of the action. We followed a sign to a conservation area and parked on the road right at the end of a huge grassy runway. I got out the camera, the girls sat on the car, and we enjoyed the sunshine and the chirp of the crickets while we craned our necks to watch the gliders. Suddenly I saw a man climb on his ATV and speed towards us (“speeding” being a relative term when you’re using an ATV). He’d emerged from what looked like a shed that had some lawn chairs around it. A viewing area? But there was no mistaking it. He was definitely heading towards us. There was no one else at our end of the field. Then he started to wave at us, which I would have interpreted as a friendly welcoming gesture only that it was a little too frantic to be friendly. Just as frantically he started to make the “move aside” motion with his waving arm.

Uh, girls, I think that guy is trying to tell us something.

I didn’t get it. The glider we’d been watching was still too far away to panic about. What’s the problem?

We jumped into the car and sped off.

Just then I looked behind us. A plane – a little one, something like a Cessna – had been coming from the opposite direction, and zoomed over where our heads had just been. It wouldn’t have hit us, but it was dragging a wire with a small hook on the end. If the Cessna had come in a few feel lower it could have hit something. Like the car. Or one of us.

Ack.

I’m sure ATV man thought we were complete idiots.

We turned around and chose a safer spot to glider-watch, but soon went home. When we got home we all went in our separate directions. Emma went to read, Sarah had some “quiet time,” Mark took a nap, and I went to read the paper. We had sushi for dinner. We ate chocolate. We went for a walk. Mark and I rented Borat. And before I knew it it was midnight and I was officially 35.

It was a lovely day all in all. Thanks Mark, Emma and Sarah, and thanks everyone for your birthday wishes. :)