my long weekend at Shady Acres was one of those things that have made my summer simply amazing. of course, to get there, i had to take a car, a plane, a bus and a subway and a streetcar to get into Toronto from Northern Ontario, and then a subway, a train, a bus, and a car to get to Stony Lake where the cottage was, so i was essentially on the road from 7AM to 9PM. but sometimes these things need to get done.
the cottage was located at Stony Lake, very close to Peterborough.
it was my good friend Steve Eccles' 32nd birthday that weekend, so he decided to celebrate it in style - by inviting some thirty of his closest friends to indulge in a three-day long party. it was a pretty crazy time, and even though i didn't know a lot of the people there, you get to know people pretty quickly when you spend three nights in close cramped sweaty communal quarters with the same folks, patiently waiting for the outhouse, sneakily stealing their mustard, going on canoe trips with them, crawling into a bed with them because that's the only spot left, not showering....
saturday night i made the discovery that sleeping arrangements were rather like a grown up version of Musical Chairs. the last one to pass out will inevitably run out of places to sleep (especially when there are some thirty people there). i tried sharing the sofa bed with two other people, but that was uncomfortable on several levels, so i in my brilliance decided that it would be a good plan to go sleep outside in the hammock and watch the sun rise. the outdoors was infinitely more spacious than squeezing three in a bed, and so much more quieter, so it was a pretty incredible "night" (i didn't actually sleep, and it was dawn). however, i soon learned that sleeping in a hammock really messes your back up, so i learned my lesson and slept the next night in a proper bedroom, listening to corey snore.
i was impressed at how well other people were eating. they were cooking pasta sauces, pepper salads, baked sugared apples, and baked potatoes. i on the other hand, ate three gross sausages and two awesome bowls of ramen noodles the entire weekend. oh, and a lot of breakfast beer. it was not my healthiest moments, but my manservant Carlos was playing hooky and i had no one to cook for me.
this was the coolest polish guy at the cottage. i have empirically determined that he is far cooler than Paul or Luke.
lesson learned: if you want to avoid bug bites, hang around people who are more prone to bug bites than you. then the bugs will go to them instead of you. i love jeanette.
many nights were spent, sitting on this dock, staring up at the clear night sky of stars, playing banjo while trying to sing HTC songs. it was pretty friggin' sweet.
