Cafe Hitch-hike

2004-04-13

Easter Ducks

It was 3:00 this past Saturday. Where the hell was John? He said he would be at my house by then. He called at 1:30 to tell me he had 40 minutes of work left to do and that he would be by. It would be our long day together, just him and me.

He didn't come by until 3:30. Man, was I pissed! I finally had a weekend off from both jobs, so John and I planned to do something fun! We were going to a nearby Canadian national park to do some light day hiking. With most of the day gone and barely 3 hours of daylight left, what was left to do? Dinner and a movie? How lame! We can do those in the confides of my dull (yes, dull) municipality. I wanted so badly to get the hell out of the paved-over region of Wayne County, Michigan and see something different on my hallowed weekend off!

John finally got into my car and was trying to be cheerful. I scowled all the way to downtown Detroit.

John whistled, "you're pissed at me, aren't you? I really thought I only had a little bit of work left, but one last task took so much time! It really did! I thought I had everything done early so that we could have this day!"

I thought it over. Yes, a couple of days earlier, John was happy that he had his InfoConglomo work completed (he indexes and summarizes legal cases for InfoConglomo, a company that sells this information to organizations for roughly the cost of a yacht). Something sprang up on him. This made sense. Now in the past, John had a tendency to make himself late for things he doesn't want to attend. I had to lay aside that observation as well, and decided to stop with my mulling.

The national park was a short drive from the US-Canadian border. Nearby the park was the city of Leamington, a small urban area surrounded by fields and greenhouses. The small town probably got busy with with summer tourism, but it still had a bit of life without the tourists. We walked along a pier in Leamington and watched a ferry take off to Pelee Island. John immediately liked the area, and scooped up some pamphlets about the ferry and Pelee Island so we could come back in the summer.

While we walked along the pier, a male and female mallard were drifting by. The female was behind the male and her head rested closely to her body.

"That is Mr. and Mrs. Duck," I began. "Mr. Duck said he was going to be home at 3:00, but instead came at 4:00. He pleaded to Mrs. Duck that he was late because he was trying to catch a big, big fish."

"Ducks don't eat fish," commented John.

I continued, "When he got home, Mrs. Duck was pretty mad. You see how she looks behind Mr. Duck. Mr. Duck tried to make well with her, telling her how glossy her feathers were and what a pretty duck she was, but as you can see, Mrs. Duck isn't convinced."

I looked at John. He was listening, with a bit of a smirk.

"'Ah, what a loon!' muttered Mrs. Duck. She was still not convinced. So now, Mr. Duck is taking Mrs. Duck to the park to get some ice cream. Mr. and Mrs. Duck like ice cream, so they will feel better after getting a cone."

John and I laughed about the story.

We decided to drive around down, and then John suggested we stay at a hotel for the evening and spend the morning hiking in the national park. It sounded like a great plan! We were unhurried, with no place to go, nothing scheduled for our time. In the morning, we wandered in Point Pelee National Park and stood on the Lake Erie shoreline. The Great Lakes are like the ocean; you look at the water, and that is really all you see, as far the eye can see. The wind and waves are just like the ocean's. It's humbling, somehow, to be next to something so immense.

I was so happy that we were able to stay the night. We had a nice dinner in a restaurant in a tudor style home. Since Leamington is the tomato capital of Canada, they had a bunch of tomatoey food on their menu.

It's always more fun, at least for me, to watch TV with a man. John nor I have cable TV, so we caught up with what we were missing. We were cracking up from watching David Chappelle, bad court drama, and a Punjabi musical program that presented turbaned men who handled swords while they danced. The night's viewing activity concluded with a Canadian version of HBO's "Real Sex" and then some cowboy movie. Woo-hoo! Gratutious sex! Bad programming! Now I remember what I am missing on Saturday night cable!

When I thought about just doing something fun on my weekend, I thought a visit to Canada would be cool. Well, I was delightfully surprised. The remainder of that "late" Saturday was well-spent. I was amazed by John's adaptability to hang out in Leamington. Even if it were to make up for being late, he still seemed to be enjoying himself! It was also a treat to do something relaxing and to get my mind off my worries, even in that short amount of time.

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