The beaver is a proud and noble animal

Ben and I spent two and a half weeks in Canada. This was a trip that had been planned to within an inch of its life, but of course real life interfered and none of the planned minutia survived, even though we did managed to do most of what we wanted to do, if not in the “right” order, or for the full amount of time.

Even before we left, a (stupid, pointless) discussion over a North Face duffel bag started, and didn’t really ease up for the whole two weeks we were there – hence the “stressed” picture from my watch. Flights there and back were in premium economy, which was very nice because of the extra leg room and the smaller cabins. Ben enjoyed the food, I didn’t want to risk it. I did enjoy the wine though.

We spent the first couple of days at Nat’s place, which was really nice. Her cat is a cuddlebug. Those first couple of days were taken up by shopping (of course) and trying to keep Ben from eating out at every possible meal, succeeding at various degree.

We’d gotten tickets for the new Cirque du Soleil show, which garnered mixed reviews. Gab, who was supposed to come with us, bailed at the last minute so one of Nat’s friends that had toured with her in the Allegria days met us at the old port. The new show has potential, but it was clearly the least polished show I’d ever seen. The giant marionette was cool. The juggler was good. The ladies who were connected by their hair and/or mouths were insane. The slackline number was annoying because the view was blocked most of the time by the rotating box. There was one number that just sucked. The acrobats in the final were not synchronized and all over the place. The 1st half was clearly stronger than the 2nd half, and the show needs more polishing. Still, it has potential, and I’d be curious to see it in an year.

We went to my parents’ place for the weekend/following week. We had a large family party for 3 of my cousins who were turning 50 this year and had organized a large family gathering. Turns out we were about 80 people. 30 adults and 50 kids/teens. It was really nice to be there. I saw family members I probably hadn’t seen in over 20+ years. I realized that this is something that Ben is never really going to appreciate. My mom is one of 9 kids, each of whom had at least 2 kids, and now those kids are having their own. Most of the people under 15 years old, I hadn’t seen in… I don’t remember when. But it’s still family and they’re still my peeps, if only very occasionally and from afar. It was really nice to reconnect, if only for a little while. Ben did really well to come and participate, I know it’s not something he’s comfortable doing.

The rest of our time at my parents’, he tried to go shopping and I tried to do things that didn’t involve spending stupid amounts of money on stuff he doesn’t need. We tried to go to the National Gallery of Canada, in Ottawa. I enjoyed it, if at an accelerated pace. We went to the Canadian Museum of History, which was really fun because it had a temporary exhibit of all the TV shows I grew up watching, but this was completely lost on the boy. In both cases though, the visits were cut short because Ben lost interest and/or got tired, then got really pushy to leave. I’m a bit annoyed that he spent most of the time that we were at my parents’ place in the basement, on his laptop, working on whatever the latest obsession was. Now, to be fair, I spent most of that time upstairs at the kitchen table because it was just too bloody hot out and there were too many buzzies around outside, but at least I could chat and play cards with my folks. Ben was constantly calling me downstairs for “private chats” (about current obsession) or to stay downstairs and spend time with him.

Nat drove us back to Montreal, and she’d taken some days off work to spend the last little time we were there with us. We went to tbe biodome, which was renovated but not in a good way, really, and to the planetarium, which was good, even if Ben fell asleep during the projections. I tried to get him to do things beyond shopping, like going to see a movie, going to see the light and music show at the Basilique, doing à river cruise. None of it really got him interested enough.

I wanted to meet up with some friends again, but that didn’t happen – and to be honest I didn’t expect it to be possible, given Ben’s moods. All in all, this holiday went pretty much as I’d planned, even if it still surprised me with all of Ben’s constant demands about bags, eSIMs, shoes, clothing, airpods, moving to new apartments, bringing one of my parents’ kittens back to Switzerland, getting one (or two) new Siberian cats and getting pissy when the breeders didn’t respond immediately to his emails, reorganizing his room to setup a cat corner (for a cat we don’t even have yet), sushi, etc etc etc. I think my parents really got to experience the real Ben, full on, for the 1st time. It was relentless, and constant, and intense, but such is our life.

I slept for shite the last 2 nights at Nat, because Ben and I were sharing a room and for some ungodly reason, he kept waking me up in the middle of the night, while dreaming, asking stupid questions then going back to sleep while I spend the next few hours trying to get back to sleep, and failing miserably. (dad!dad!dad! is it normal the room doesn’t smell like you? zzzzzzzz). I’d end up getting up at 6-7am, having coffee, feeding the cat, and doing Nat’s dishes…

Anyway, I really enjoyed spending time with Nat, cooking, drinking (!), eating and talking. I know she appreciated me cooking for her and doing her dishes, and putting up the frames that had been lying on the ground for the past several months :)

The trip back was fine, and now I just need to get over my jetlag, as well as Ben’s, before going back to work next week.

Getting there & back / Random moments

Cirque du Soleil

National Gallery

Museum of History

Family party

Biodome/Planetarium