Driven to Distraction

Posted on April 29, 2014 by James Ross

My sixteen year old son has started driving. Now, I don’t mean to scare my readers by telling you this. I do not in any way mean to infer that the roads of Cottage Country have become less safe. In truth, so far he has displayed the attributes of a good and cautious driver. But you know boys …

I remember learning to drive myself, when my parents would let me behind the wheel on the quiet backroads leading to our cottage. Those roads are not as quiet anymore, so I felt it more prudent to enroll my son in a young driver’s course. Not that I was scared to teach him myself, but I recalled an old promise I had made after my first and only attempt to teach someone to drive … that would be my wife.

When we first met in Banff, Alberta, all those many years ago, this beautiful young girl with whom I was smitten did not drive, and I bravely (or stupidly) decided I could teach her. It would end up being the supreme test of true love. I’m not too sure if I was having trouble explaining, or my girlfriend was having trouble hearing, but her learning to drive was full of bumps on the road. I sometimes still wake with a start in the night; I dream of bumping down steep embankments when corners were taken too quickly, of sitting cockeyed on a curb after a parallel parking job that had gone horribly wrong, and of yelling “Sorry” out of the passenger window more times than I cared to count. In truth, perhaps more out of good fortune than talent, I can say with certainty that no property was damaged, nor were any pedestrians flattened during this time.

Wanting to put my teaching days firmly behind me, I dropped my wife-to-be off for her first test. She drove off with some strange man, while I waited outside the office. They were gone for about 45 minutes, before pulling back into the lot. I saw her have a long conversation with the instructor, and then she approached me a little teary-eyed. She had failed. No worries I told her, they often fail people on their first testing. We would polish up the mistakes and return in a few weeks.

The second attempt didn’t last very long at all. Off she drove with the old fellow, only to return within five minutes. The instructor jumped briskly from the car, and strode unsteadily back into his office, his complexion ashen white. The object of my adolescent affections stayed sitting in the car, with a look of anger on her face, a look that until then I had thought was saved just for me. I approached with trepidation. “ I can’t believe that grumpy old ogre,” she hissed. “It’s not like I actually hit the lady on the crosswalk.”

I believe the old ogre retired on that day, but at the time I did not have that uplifting news to share with her. Back to the road we went. We returned several times for tests. It was the same routine, but with a different instructor each time, which I assumed was a new policy. The battle cry seemed to be “Let the new guy do this one!” Anyway, in the end she finally did get her licence, and, over time, she has become a skilled and safe driver. And in spite of my obviously poor teaching, we did marry, so I guess she forgave me. I did make a promise to myself to never be a driving instructor again, which brings us back to our son.

My reason for telling you that there is another Ross on the road is not meant to worry anybody, but rather to simply address that one inherent fact of life – the quick passing of time. It seems only yesterday that I was scared out of my wits courtesy of the boy’s mother, and now he is learning to drive. Getting their driving licence is just the next stage in gaining their freedom, and another step in their separation from us. Do we worry about having them behind the wheel – sure we do, but we also must trust their skill and their sense of judgement. Having your kid driving is just one more of those hurdles in the journey of life.

Speaking of hurdles, I fear that if and when my sweet wife reads this blog, I might find that the story also becomes a hurdle, and perhaps ends up being our second major test of true love. Drive safe this summer!

Cottage Prepping

Posted on April 21, 2014 by James Ross

Cottage Prepping

It has been a long winter and my wife and I are getting restless. It is the drawback of the island cottage, there is a period of forced absence. We have to wait until the lake ice melts away before we can open up the place. It is that forbidden time, usually from late March to mid-April, when the ice becomes unsafe. We can only stare from the mainland out to the island.

We will usually take advantage of this sabbatical by doing some cottage prepping at the Spring Cottage Life Show, to see all that is new and fanciful for cottage living. This year, however, we decided to do something a little different, so we trekked down to the big city for the Wine and Cheese Show. It represented a virtual round-the-world taste test, to find that ultimate wine to sip on the dock in the late afternoon after a busy, fun and productive cottage day, or that full-bodied red to compliment the thick steaks that I would have cooking on the barbecue.

We started at the show wandering up and down each aisle, savouring the best vintages the world had to offer. While some of those standing around us would swish around the tastings in their mouths, gurgle it like mouthwash, and then, and what’s the sense in this, spit it out into some stainless steel spittoon, we would take a sip, close our eyes, and imagine ourselves laid out in a lounger on the cottage deck with the sun warming our face, or sitting around the big pine kitchen table enjoying a fine meal. While others would talk about their wine exhibiting the beautiful sweet nose of spring flowers and a taste of such richness that it massages the palate with the flavours of chocolate, gooseberries and leather oxfords, we would ask which offerings might best repel blackflies. There is nothing worse than swallowing a drowned insect in one’s robust merlot.

We sipped Italian Chianti and decided it would compliment a cottage comfort meal of spaghetti and meatballs. We tasted an Argentinian Malbec and muttered “mmm – steaks on the barbecue.” We swirled around a Pinot Noir from New Zealand, a Californian Cabernet and something unpronounceable from Great Wines of China. China? – Really? … We decided it would go nicely with Chinese. The great wine regions of Ontario were well represented, Strewn from Niagara and Crew from Erie – great for the cottage we decided.

We sipped our way through most of the afternoon, and for most of the day our romantic city escape and cottage prepping plan seemed well founded. Then, two things happened. Firstly, we started to realize the value of using the spittoons. No matter, we had wisely booked into a local hotel and had taken a shuttle to the show. Still, the wonderful wines had probably clouded my judgement a bit, and had made my wife less tolerant. Wandering down one of the last aisles I came across a wine tasting seminar being advertised. “Get Naked With Wines” it was called. I stared in at the young, nubile speaker and immediately signed us up.

When the pretty vintner swirled around wine in her glass and said things like “you have to check the legs, the lighter the wine the faster they run, the fuller, the slower,” or “a slight hint of melons and the essence of candy,” or “this is likely a little more body than you’re used to,” I thought she was speaking directly to me. Worse than that, my darling spouse thought that I was thinking that she was speaking directly to me.

Cottage Prepping! We have some newly discovered wines we want to savour dockside. I can swirl a rich, robust wine around in my glass, look over at my wife and proclaim, “beautiful legs.” Perhaps that will get me back in the good books. Or, maybe, such tasting theatrics are redundant, a good bottle of red sipped at our favourite place on earth will suffice.

Cottage Dreaming

Posted on April 8, 2014 by James Ross

Men never grow up. They think and act like children. That is my conclusion, having conducted recent research.

The Spring Cottage Life show at the end of March is the stage for my investigations. In the midst of this never-ending winter, it is the perfect time to check out all the new cottage products, the toys and gadgets that, in our mind, will add both comfort and excitement to our summer days. I’m especially excited this year because we have brought the kids along – which means more fun for a dad than simply having to trail off after a spouse on an agonizing, stop and go trek, through the endless aisles of Martha Stewart-like interior exhibits. No, cottage life should be about fun in the outdoors, not inside entertaining. The kids won’t put up with the monotony of furniture, crafts and cutesy knick-knacks, I reason. Meaning this visit will be about fun and toys and … then comes the let-down, in one simple sentence.

“Why don’t you kids wander around on your own, and we can meet back here in an hour. Your dad and I want to check out the new cottage kitchens.”

No! They will be climbing in and out of fancy new boats, checking out the latest in canoes, kayaks, catamarans and wind surfers, sitting dreamily on jet skis and hiking themselves out on some racy sailboat like a crew-hand in the America’s Cup. The girls will lounge briefly in the cushioned seats of pontoon boats imagining themselves hanging out with their friends in bikinis, while my son will play with the steering wheel of a ritzy cabin cruiser while envisioning himself as some multi-millionaire yacht owner. They will be kicked off a good many vessels by salesmen wanting to impress more legitimate customers. The kids will try on the latest water skis and boogie boards, bounce on water trampolines, practice fly casting, and try to climb into futuristic hot tubs. I want to be with them.

Instead, my wife and I are hanging out staring at soapstone countertops that are “as attractive as they are durable and not only impervious to heat and stains, but virtually maintenance free.” I run over to a wine tasting exhibit to help me get through this, and then catch up to my darling wife drooling over a mammoth pine harvest table with eight sturdy plank chairs. “Wouldn’t this look good at the cabin?” she seems to be asking me, and I probably would have heard her, had I not been looking off with envy in the direction my four youngsters have wandered.

She stops and listens to some talking head extolling the virtues of something called “Sham-Wow,” and then I see her take out her wallet. She hands me a small, square piece of very expensive felt and tells me she bought it for me to clean our old boat – “fellow said it would be just like new!” I run back over to the wine exhibit, swirl a Shiraz around in my mouth and tell the person that poured it, “Ah, full-bodied, with a distinct note of black cherry and a hint of pepper, if I’m not mistaken,” or some such thing that I had memorized from the information card.

We meander through some food exhibits and sample feta stuffed mini pitas and little nibbles of chocolate cashew buttercrunch, so small that they are only a tease. We dip pretzels into little dishes of various sauces, while a lady explains to my wife the fine ingredients whilst glaring at me undoubtedly recognizing the classic vacant look of the typical double-dipper. A spicy chili concoction has me running back to the vintner exhibit, only to find that I have been cut off.

Finally, mercifully, the hour is up, and we hasten back to the rendezvous point. Perhaps seeing my pain and sensing my agony, my compassionate children beg me to come with them for a brief look at all they have discovered. I cast my eye on the elegant lines and shining chrome of a polished mahogany launch. The kids drag me onward to the fancy ski boat, envious of all the bells and whistles, especially the enormous stereo speakers that I’m sure would be heard all around the lake. If that’s not loud enough for them, they marvel at a jet boat. With exclamations of approval, my son watches a video clip that shows the enormous, space-age craft zooming around a lake, belching fire out of its back end and sending a plume of spray 100 metres in its wake.

My wife stares dreamily at a sporty Hobie Cat, I’m sure taking her back to the sailing days of her youth. There is a sleek wooden row boat, and I imagine rowing it around the island and over to shore each morning, a great way to get into shape. I show it to my wife, who imagines herself sprawled out in the bow sipping red wine, while I get into shape. Something new for the cottage dream list, somewhere ahead of the flatulent jet boat, but surely well behind a harvest table.