On Weekends

Before I begin this post, I'd like to give a shout out to my brother-in-law, Peter Harris, who was interrogated by Chinese police a few days back. Way to put it on the line in the pursuit of freedom of the press, Pete. Can't wait 'til I hear the full story over a glass of brotherly scotch.

Had a good time this weekend, first at Erin's tropical themed party and then later out at the cottage with my girlfriend and Riz. My one regret from the party is that at one point, someone asked me a question which I did not hear and proceeded to completely ignore. I feel the same deep sense of shame that any Canadian would feel when he/she learns that he/she has been inadvertently rude to someone.

For those of you who failed to leave the house during the cold snap, it was pretty cold on Saturday. And snowy. And windy. Mercules is built for this kind of weather, but apparently the cottage was not. Imagine my surprise when we got there that night to find that the pipes had frozed.

Despite our best efforts (ie. hitting the water pump with a wrench, carrying a useless space heater downstairs, etc.) nature eventually came to our rescue, but not before we had filled the counter top with dirty dishes. The bathroom situation wasn't that great, either. We managed to get most of it done before we left, but I'm heading back out that way tonight, so I should be able to finish the clean-up then.

I did, in fact, make a lasagna that turned out to be pretty damned tasty, despite the fact that I had the wrong sized pan and it turned out to be a very, very thin lasagna. We proceeded to watch The Quiet American and eat Jello-no-bake-cheesecake covered in Roger's chocolate.

The lake's more or less frozen over at this point, but I'm waiting another week before I set foot on it. There's an island about 600-750 m from our cottage that I'd love to have a walk around. Apparently it's a great place to go cross country skiing as well. We'll see how next weekend fares.