Month: July 2006

On Friday, Vero and I headed out to Saint-Jacques-de-Leeds which is an hour south of Quebec City. I like Quebec. Other than the traffic jams at 5:30 on a Friday in Montreal, I like Quebec. I think it’s way more beautiful than Ontario. The valleys are key. We traversed through a slew of valleys and the sun was setting and all was good in the world when we hit up the village.

Hung out with Grandma Payeur on Friday night which was great as I got to see some photos of Veronique as a kid (always a plus!) and was introduced to Croque-Monsieurs, pieces of toast with cheese and bacon on them. Mmm boy! They reminded me Dad’s ‘Cheese Dreams’ which were full slices of bread, toasted with cheese, bacon and Worcheister sauce. Yum!

Saturday arrived and we slept in and walked around the village to pick up some groceries for the camping night and we stumbled upon a heritage site where they spoke about the creation of the village and whatnot. This is where I started my forray into Quebec history – Saint-Jacques-des-Leeds was originally Leeds Village (and is also still known as such at the Post Office.). The English Anglicans settled there, built a church, had a good time. I wondered where the heck the French came from all of a sudden to change the name of the village?

Saturday evening brought forth some camping and swimming. Good times were had with Vero’s cousins and friends and I must admit that I held my own amongst the French speaking folk (and a few beers doesn’t hurt either!). It started raining as soon as we got there so we hung up a few tarps and we had a good campfire going on, but around midnight when I wanted to go to bed, the pain of camping in the rain ensued as we had to lift the tent over to the car to fill up the air mattress, then we returned the tent back to its spot, meanwhile making sure that every spot on the walls were touched in some fashion so water seeped through easily. There were puddles of water inside already and after a few hours of passing out I awoke to find that my sleeping bag was soaked on the sides and bottom.

Vero’s cousin’s boyfriend came by and asked if we wanted to go home…this was 4 o’clock in the morning, the eurobeats were still pumping from the car stereos (this wasn’t a provincial park so there’s no curfew) and all of us were wet. But we realized we are troopers and we can’t have some rain scare us away!

Well, not until at least 8 AM when Vero and I realized we had 2 hours of sleep and were just lying there with water dripping on our heads and we were soaked. We packed up and headed home and slept until the early afternoon.

Sunday brought forth some poutine next door and we went to see the farm in behind Grandma Payeur’s place where Vero proceeded to touch an electric fence! Her arm was numb and all, and we were wondering why there were no signs posted. I must admit I thought it was a little funny. We went over to the church to pay some respects to Grandpa Payeur and then I had a nap on the grass overlooking the valley and all was good in the sunny world. We went home, had some hot chicken sandwiches and hung out with Vero’s extended family for awhile.

All in all, an amazing trip to an amazing village. I love the small town feel. There’s just so much to do around the area if you are into the wilderness. Otherwise you would probably be bored.

Mom filled me on the whole ‘changing names of the village’ thing. Turns out (here’s a history lesson that I’m sure everyone but myself knew). Supposedly Quebec wasn’t really that French until the 1960s. That’s why my parents could come from Gaspe and not have to speak French – because the businesses were run by the English which started from the Battle on the Plains of Abraham when the English kicked butt. But then a quiet revolution occurred and the French took back the land in the 1960s and now what you see in Quebec is an anti-English province, with their own churches and schools (and the renaming of all the villages!). Who would have thought?

I recommend that anyone who is making a trip through any province get off the highway for awhile and take some backroads. That’s where the magic of the land lies – in the heart of a valley.

Dad called this morning to let me know that Trixie had to be put down due to internal bleeding from some unknown cause. Seeing that Trixie is 14 years old, it didn’t make much sense to find out what the cause was considering the damage has been done.

I must admit that I am pretty sad that I won’t see Trixie anymore. I have been hoping that she would be around one last time before heading up in a few weeks to Lumberjack Fest. I know that’s selfish of me…I am happy to see that she did not suffer before moving onto Doggie Heaven.

It hit me 3 years ago that Trixie won’t be around forever so I remember taking the photo above because I thought I should have a few pictures of Trixie and me. I remember being frustrated because Trixie wasn’t the most agreeable dog so every time I would sit and try and have her look at the camera with me she would either run off to sniff at something or tackle me with her slimy nose. Ha ha! I had a good laugh that day.

Trixie was half husky, half Alaskan malamute, I believe. A true Northern dog who would stay out in the cold all day long (unless it was 40 below and then she would curl up and hide her face away from Dad when he woke up in the morning. This was her way of saying “Are you crazy? I’m not going out there!!!) and pull ME for a walk (not the other way around!).

Trixie was a great dog but man, did she have a nomadic streak to her. She could never go off her chain/leash or else she would take off! I remember many times having to take a pack of weiners with me to chase after her and lure her back to the house. I remember this one time where she got as far as the Labries and turned around. I thought she was being nice to me and would come back. With a weiner in my hand I approached…slowly, slowly, more slowly, oh, not too fast! Then, I *swear* Trixie laughed at me with some wild eyes and took off. Damn you, you dirty dog! Ha ha ha…man, it was good times chasing after her. Even if we couldn’t find her, we would come home and awhile later she would literally come home with her tail between her legs and head straight for the doghouse. I think secretly everyone in the family loved when she roamed the wild which was Kapuskasing but as authoritative figures, Mom and Dad always made up excuses like “Oh, what if she got into someone’s trash? That’s not good!” I would like to think that she always found some cool dogs to hang out with for awhile, sniffed some butt, ran around and then at the end of the adventure, well it’s time to go home to the coolest family in the world!

I must admit that I haven’t lived in Kap for about 9 years now so Trixie hasn’t been a constant factor in my life so I haven’t seen her in the later years of life…one year she grew this lump and Dad wanted me to touch it. Ewww…that thing was gross! I have no idea what this thing was but she lived with it for the past few years.

Memories are flooding back now of every little thing that she would do. Bark to get in, then bark to get out in the span of 30 seconds. Everyone always yelled at the dog for this but I thought it was hilarious. I wonder if it was her secret way of playing a game with us. She was a clever dog.

The odd thing about Trixie is that she never once came down into the basement. Perhaps she was scared of the stairs. I had always wanted to bring her down to the basement and I remember saying this to Mom and Dad when I was up last Christmas. I wanted her to have a sneak peek into where we went to watch television or to get our laundry. I remember when she first came home and we realized that we would have to set up her blanket (a He-Man and the Masters of the Universe blanket nontheless) up in the kitchen. Trixie was always fond of strange foods…such as carrots. You always had to give her the carrot after dinner. She would even wait by the fridge for it. I’m sure I’ll have all sorts of memories flooding back throughout the next week….

Here’s to the greatest dog anyone could ever know. I was scared of dogs before I met Trixie and she made me love her, and the rest of the canine species (except for the small yappy ones. What a waste of a dog. Get a dog that you can throw around a little and put on some ski-doo mitts and have her tear into them. That didn’t turn out to be a good thing when we DIDN’T want to play with her!). I will miss Trixie and the way my room smelled like old, wet dog when I returned the first time from college. I let her sleep in the room though that one night but she decided to leave the next night because she was cool like that. I suppose she figured if she could have my room for four months, then she can give it up for a week or two.

We’ll miss you Trixie. I hope you’re up there eating all the weiners and carrots that your heart desires.

Shannon and Maureen’s wedding went off without a hitch…other than the fact that the church was not unlocked until 2:25 and it was a 2:30 wedding. Being an usher didn’t help me out any and I had to do unruly crowd control on 150 guests. I even had to tazer one rogue who wouldn’t take no for an answer. I felt that on the Lord’s grounds, this was appropriate as he was trying to break into the church. Sorry about that Duncan!

However, in all reality, things went well. Ushering was reduced directing the herd of cattle when they entered into the church (bride side, groom side) since there was just this mass flux of people. I ended up taking my excellent, excellent viewing position by the musicans up at the front of the church. That’s a bonus of getting to be part of the wedding – you don’t have to be in the back wondering what’s going on up front (aka “Did Shannon cry?” Shannon most definitely did NOT cry at the wedding and we have had many witnesses confirm that, so James, suck it up and pay off the bet ya baby!)

Playing a Mozart tune with Caroline went off alright. I messed up this one chord change which I had kept messing up all along during the practices. Do I really care? Not really…only the musically adept people in the crowd noticed which consists of 1% of the population. I like those odds.

Jason graciously hosted us at his house before the reception started and then we headed off to the Irish Hills Golf Course to start the night off strong! The MC was great, the venue was great, the speeches were great (old and cheap women…Duncan, you art brave!…heck, while I’m at it, let’s all remember how I got a shoutout from the bridesmaid during her speech. Awesome.), the food was great.

I took stage to play Mr. Jones to start off the night. After viewing the video taken of the event (aka, very dark, but you can hear me play) I can now safely say I am an accomplished wedding singer and am now charging $50 (or free drinks all night) to play at any further events. My apprenticeship is done!

The rest of the night resulted in a flurry of dancing and mayhem, where around 11:30, the ties come off and the shirts unbuttoned. I even brought my trusty pewter beer mug which Shannon gave to me as a gift. Thanks to those who brought it to me after I had left it at the reception! But where are my sunglasses? That’s the real question. I just bought those suckers for $9 at the Beer Store!

The highlight of the night was definitely Joe. Joe is currently up in Nunavut making tons of cash working for the Coast Guard. In the true spirit of Joe, I brought a framed portrait of him (seen above) and carried him everywhere. Joe got in more pictures with ladies than he would have in real life. Ha! I even had him on the chair next to me during Mr. Jones. Let me apologize to all the people who asked myself and Maureen (and whoever else) if our friend was dead. He is not dead, just cold and very sober up in Nunavut. Joe, here’s to ya. Rumour has it, Joe’s picture went home with a lady at the end of the night. Booya.

By only disappointment was that by 12:00, there were only 4 people left in the room who were over the age of 40. I won’t knock the families too much, but bring out your dancing shoes next time!

Special props go out to Vero who looked very pretty in her party attire. Tu es tres belle, mon cherie!

Congrats Maureen and Shannon! I hope you enjoy your move to Deep River and life together as Mr. and Mrs.