This year my London boys and I broke the tradition of doing a big birthday combo weekend (Mike's is the 10th and Kozzy's is the 14th) and I spent Friday and Saturday night up north with the St. Catharines crew. The London posse is too spread out this year, plus we'd have nowhere to crash down here since the majority of people have moved back home or off to distant lands.
Erin's cottage is up on Black Lake near Minden, and we could only access the place by boat. I think roughly 20 of us headed up for the weekend, the notable exception being Cersdawg who has to prepare for yet another accounting exam.
I finally got my optometrist appointment done on the Friday morning, and my new glasses should be ready next week. Now I just have to go back for one more visit to have the doc ram contacts into my eyes and watch me fish them out, and I'm all set. Thankfully I'll be able to see the puck this year in hockey. I've never had contacts before, so I'm kinda curious to see what it'll be like to have my childhood vision back.
As soon as the appointment was done my bro and I packed up the cars and headed up to Orillia with the girls to finish off our shopping and grab some lunch. After a short delay (which my crybaby brother bitched about all weekend) we got up to the lake and Birdy shipped us over to the cottage in Erin's little aluminum boat. It turns out we were the first ones to arrive that day, and only a few of the guys who had spent the previous night up there were around to greet us.
Throughout the day more people showed up, and we hung around the deck, jumped off some cliffs into the lake, worked on our sunburns, and did a little fishing. My bro and I each pulled in a nice bass, one smallmouth and one largemouth, and we kept em to cook but never got around to it. They're currently sitting in our freezers. When I clocked the little mofo's over the head that night one of em had a crazy convulsion that made his body whip back and forth like crazy. I whacked him again quickly to put him out of his misery.
That night we got nice and loaded and I rang in my bday in style - passed out in a bed.
The next day was more of the same, but a few of the boys came up with the idea to stage a canoe race across the lake and back. Due to the number of guys and the lack of canoes, we did a time trial. Each team of two had to start from shore, curve around a dock at the other side of the lake, and come back to slap the deck with a paddle to stop the timer. I think 6 or 7 teams took part, one of them being my bro and I - the legendary MacCrae Lake Muckers. We drew the last position, and after some hilarious capsizings, and tight times, we took off and returned with the record of 2:14. I think 3 other teams were within 4 seconds of us.
Unfortunately my bro lost his brand new sunglasses as our canoe flipped over in the final stretch for the finish, but they were free anyway so I guess he can't complain.
Burt and Matty (who finished 2nd) then had a proper race with us after giving us about a 10 minute break, which was entirely too short considering my arms were jello ofter the first race. They spanked us handily and walked around like they owned the joint. Damn hosers.
My bro and Angela took off that day, and in the evening all of the boys had a hockey draft for the upcoming season of hockey pools. It was tough to do it all by memory, but I think I did alright. It's only a $5 pool anyhow. Unfortunately that draft took the time we had for a poker match, but nobody seemed to care anyway.
Another drunken night, another hungover morning, and we were headed for home. And after a stop off in Barrie for dinner with the parents and riff-raff (Ryan and Angela) we began the long drive back to Sarnia. We got lost in Woodstock after filling up with gas because all of the on-ramps to the highway were closed. So after a long struggle with the map and terrible detour signs, we made it back to a highway that later joined up with the 401.
I usually have an impeccable sense of direction, but I think I got all fucked up by the lights of a town nearby bouncing off the clouds. Made me think that the sun was setting there, but in reality it wasn't. And Jenn's useless with directions so we wasted a good 45 mins on that venture.
Once we arrived in Sarnia I was too exhausted to drive all the way back to London, so I crashed for the night and I took off in the wee hours of the morning for work. It was a surprisingly good day at work, which was a bonus.
I think NVP says it best in this pic... nobody likes you when yer twenty-three.
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