Joe Cummings

July 12, 2017

Canada Day 2017- When You’re Wrong, You’re Wrong

Ok, so after Nerf Wars, there was still hope that I’d be right, that every vacation needed to be planned, but after an hour or so in the hotel pool, we retired to our room overlooking the Inner Harbour and waited for the fireworks with friends. Things had gone well. Very well. And I greatly feared that I’d have to make an admission.

I was wrong. You could have a good mini-vacation without planning every second of it.

But I held out. We still had the fireworks. Maybe we’d not find a spot to see them. Maybe every single food outlet would be shut down and because we hadn’t booked a reservation, the children would go hungry and be forced to beg for scraps from rich Asians in shiny suits. Maybe, because we had no plan in place, if there was a zombie attack, we’d die while trying to find a good chainsaw.

None of that happened, though. We had a great dinner with friends in our hotel room overlooking the Inner Harbour. Later, we found a perfect spot for viewing the fireworks, and apart from a couple of asshat punks who kept on shouting m*therf***er this and that while sucking on those stupid vape pipes, we had the most perfect time (and, frankly, what plan would I have made for those idiots other than bringing a good baseball bat?)

Even the next day, after me getting up early, driving out to visit some friends who were about to head to the Far East (Saskatchewan), we had a fantastic brunch at Spoons (another place I would HIGHLY recommend), played Smash-Up with my best friend (I lost every game), and even had an epic dance-off! (Yes. there’s a video of that, but I’ve been told not to show it if I ever want to wake up again.)

Then even got on an earlier ferry than planned. Plus, though the ferry was booked solid and there looked to be no seats for us to sit down in, we found 4 together.

Like it was planned.

The Prettiest-girl-in-the-world took this one.

We had the best mini-vacation I’ve ever had in Victoria. Our hotel room had two doors, and a bedroom for each of us. The weather was absolutely perfect. We found parking downtown easily and it was freaking free! We didn’t have any problems with traffic, the food was great where we chose to eat, and no one seemed to hate us for showing up 30 min late.

All with minimal planning.

So, I have to say it.

I was wrong.

The key is to plan just enough. In all honesty, I’ve done the total seat-of-the-pants traveling and it has its challenges, like arriving at 10 pm in Edinburgh and pitching a tent in a flooded soccer field or finding the only room in a town is a serial killer’s murder room (boy, that’s a story, I tell you.)

However, planning every hour simply adds a ton of stress and takes away from the adventure. Part of traveling is not just researching the hell out of an area, then seeing it, no, it’s finding something unexpected, something amazing you hadn’t planned for, something cool to do that you never would have imagined.

I hate that I missed so many of my friends. I hate that I didn’t get to laugh with them, hear about their lives, tell them my stories, but that’ll all have to happen at another time, or when they come over to visit us.

So, as my parting thought, as I wind up this mini-blog on Victoria, let me tell all my friends out there that it is ok not to plan out everything. You can still have a good time.

No.

A GREAT time.

July 4, 2017April 6, 2018

Canada Day – What if Everything Goes Right?

In my mind, they’re avoiding either Godzilla or a toll bridge

I’ve said it before, but the best stories don’t come from happiness or things going right.

They come from falling asleep while waiting in the ferry line and being woken up by honking and a ferry worker banging on your window and telling you to get the car in f…ing gear, in dealing with the Greek police after a car accident, in sorting out where you would have left your wallet in a place where people speak English about as well as you speak Mongolian, in pitching a tent in the pouring rain while lightning snaps overhead and thunder shakes the ground.

Now, I won’t say I look forward to those things, but they do make for good stories.

Our destination, this year, however, could prove to be problematic, vis-à-vis problems.

We had chosen to go to Victoria.

Few things are as beautiful as the trip from Vancouver to Victoria.

I booked the ferry in advance because it’s a long weekend and on those occasions, people like to travel to the Island and plug up all the roads. Now, the ferries have an odd rule. You have to arrive ½ hr before departure, but not an hour before. In other words, they give you about a ½ hour window. 5:00 – 5:30 to catch that 6 ferry.

It’s a hard window to hit in Vancouver traffic. Invariably, there’s someone who’s determined to set their truck on fire, crash into someone else or drive at the speed of a tortoise on pain meds.

Then there’s the whole getting the kids ready, packed, yanking them off electronics, stuffing them into the car and panicking as we realize we have to make a 50 min drive in 20 min now.

It can be quite the ordeal.

But not this time.

This time, we were totally ready to go hours before we had to leave. HOURS! And when we actually had to leave, it wasn’t like surgically separating them from their electronics.

Hell, we even left before we had to leave. BEFORE!

When we arrived within that 30-minute ferry window. No cards were declined. No one threw up in the backseat. No one forgot to bring the paperwork.

It all went fine.

Everyone who hadn’t made a reservation had a 2 sailing wait.

Sailing to Victoria, the weather was magnificent, the ocean calm, and the captain even yelled at a skateboarder over the PA system (stop it, we have cameras and can see you, you totally f…ing moron.) The Youngest read. READ! The Oldest didn’t once punch his brother while thinking we weren’t looking. And we listened to the Oldest’s newest composition (something honestly amazing).

It was horrific.

Like Heaven might be.

Then, we blazed through ferry traffic, found a parking space right in front of our hotel and got an upgraded room so huge that the Youngest said, boy, this room is huge.

Tegan and Sara in concert. Free! On the parliament lawns!

Something odd was happening here.

But it didn’t stop there. On the parliament lawn, right beside us, there was a concert playing – A duo that the Prettiest-girl-in-the-World LOVES. Tegan and Sara.

Musicians played all over. There was a truck that sold mini-donuts. People were dancing and smiling and waving Canadian flags.

So we listened to the concert for a bit, went to get ice cream, strolled along streets shut off to traffic and took pictures of the glorious sunset. The only iffy thing that happened was the Prettiest-Girl-in-the-World mis-hearing the cost of the ice cream (“$40 for 4 cones??????, are you kidding me?” “Not $40. $14.”)

No ice cream got dripped on my shirt. No drunken idiots tried to beat up anyone (unlike my last visit to Victoria). No activists shouted at us, outraged at something. No police sirens wailed. Hell, the Youngest didn’t even wander off to touch something that really shouldn’t be touched.

By the time we got back to the hotel, I was reeling.

Nothing had gone wrong. We’d had a perfect time. Perfect.

And all without a plan.

How was this possible?

And would it last?

For fun, a Tegan and Sara video (ad kept in cuz that’s how T&S make a bit of coin.)

January 18, 2016

Tournament Trials – The Loss – Part 7

IMG_8406[1] — They did their best to keep their heads held high

So, after 5 games, the boys had won four and lost one. The last one. And we were in serious danger of missing the ferry. Worse, we still had a ceremony to get through.

The boys lined up on the ice. A carpet was laid out between the two teams. Several old men in blue jackets and berets walked out to stand with the coaches. Veterans. Medals on their chests.

An announcement was made about the winners. The winners cheered. They were the better team. They deserved their moment. Then our time came and our coach took the mic. He looked over at his team. They had their heads up but their shoulders were slumped, like all the air had gone out of them.

He told them they hadn’t lost the tournament. He told them that they had won second place. Won. Second. Place.

Won.

He told them that they had beaten 4 other teams. That they’d played well.

He gave a great speech, but then he’s a pastor in his church and, I would think, not unused to giving people inspiration when they’re down.

Then the boys got their trophies. Pretty damn nice ones, too. The organizers did good.

Ok, it wasn’t a very big carpet they rolled out.

After each trophy was handed out, the boys would shake hands with the vets. “They had soft hands,” The-Youngest said. He wanted to know what wars they’d fought in, but I couldn’t answer that. “They each had two medals, he said, so that must mean they’ve fought in two wars.”

He could be right.

By the time everyone got their trophy, we had to really make time to catch the ferry. It was 5pm. The ferry left at 5:45. I had a reservation, but not all our team did and it would be a small New Years’ miracle if we all made it. The drive was 20-25 minutes. And we had to still get our gear off.

It was decided that the only thing they’d get off was their skates. Well, sure, fair and fine for players, but to get goalie skates off means you have to untie the pads as well. But we were up to the task, and while most of the team left ahead of us, we were not far behind.

We stuffed our gear in the car. We stuffed the gear of two other boys in the car. We stuffed, 3 kids and 2 adults in. Somehow. And sped off. Now is usually the time I get epically lost, but with the aid of my iphone, I weaved my way in and out of traffic like a Nascar pro.

We made it into the line-up at 5:25. The ferry was 93% full. The attendant gave people without a reservation about 50/50 if they’d get on.

While we waited in the lot, the boys changed their gear. At first, they wanted to change outside of the car. OUTSIDE OF THE CAR. Like, in the open! Like with people in cars on either side looking at them!!!

The answer to that was, ah, no. No way. So they took turns inside the Rav 4 getting out of their sweaty, wet gear and into civilian clothes.

In the end, we all got on and assembled at the front of the ferry. The boys’ good humor had returned, and they were all so excited that they’d done so well. Mad props to the coach for finding exactly the right thing to say to them when the game ended.

The coach gave another speech about behaving, but this went largely unheard as the boys roared off to cause problems. Not The-Youngest though. He was given 20 min then a few quarters to play some video games, then kept by my side (mostly playing games on my phone.)

Yes, this is what two people decided to do on a busy, busy ferry. Lets put our hands together for their humanity. Thank goodness their snowboards had seats.

Most of the parents did the same thing and those who didn’t quickly gathered up their sons after supper. However, as goofy as the kids may have been, the epic award for being a complete asshat goes to a couple who occupied 6 seats in the cafeteria.

The ferry was 95% full when it left. There was a massive wait for food and for tables.

The staff even gave an announcement that anyone who’s finished eating, if they could please bugger off so that others could sit down.

Not those two entitled pricks though. They saved 4 seats for their snowboards. So, I took their picture. To quote Red Foreman, my fathering mentor, ‘Dumbasses!!!”

As we sat down, I told The-Youngest to see what a sense of entitlement leads to.

How many people had they inconvenienced so they could store their coats and snowboards? How fair was that to our team that could have used those seats to eat?

He said he’d never do that, and I believed him.

All things considered, he’d been great on this trip. Not perfect, sure, but he’s 9 and he was with his hockey buddies, so he needed to have a good time as well.

We got home in time for him to tell everyone about the games they’d won, the saves he’d made, the MVP medal he’d won and the trophy the team got for ‘winning second place’.

I declared the weekend a success and went to bed and slept for 20 hours.

January 4, 2016

The Tournament Trials – Part 1

16 teams. 2 days. Add one motel, one ferry and 16 wild and crazy kids. Yeah, that is a good idea. — 16 teams. 2 days. Add one motel, two ferry rides, and 16 wild and crazy kids. Yeah, that is a good idea.

Christmas had come and gone. So had New Years. So what better way to start off 2016 than with a hockey tournament in Nanaimo? 2 days of hockey. A day of travel to and from the tournament. With 16 kids. And a ferry ride! And a motel!! And…possibly unsupervised playtime!!!

Such are the things that age me (or nearly kill me.)

I guess a part of it is that I was once a 9-year-old boy, and 9 year-old-boys are very creative when it comes to fun, explosives and sharp sticks. If you’ve read the blog, or seen some of the pictures, you know what I did when I was young, and I think I was a pretty good kid.

I greatly feared what the new generation could come up with.

But I also knew this could be a legendary weekend for The Youngest. Something he’d remember for years. Maybe for all his life. So I had to take him.

And the truth be told, I wanted to be there to be a part of that experience. Maybe as Sgt Shultz shouting “Hoooooogan!!!!” all the time. Or maybe just as a hockey supporter. Or maybe just as the proud parent of one of the few kids who didn’t pull a fire alarm or yell at the top of their lungs all the time.

So the plan was to head over on Friday, have a great time at the hotel, then buckle down and play 3 games on Saturday. Now, 3 games is quite a lot, even for young kids, and getting a goalie in his gear, out of his gear and in his gear over and over and over and over, again, can be a fun experience all on its own.

However, if we won the 3 games, we had a chance to go to the playoffs. If we won one of the playoff games, we’d go to the finals and probably get a trophy or a medal or a golden jock or something. But that was only a part of it. In truth, the kids were looking forward to pool time at the hotel more than the games, and they were looking forward to playing mini-hockey in the hallways more than the playing in the playoffs.

Such is the nature of boyhood.

For me, though, I was more than a little stressed. See, I have control issues. It could be hard being a parent on a tournament. I would have to let the Youngest out of my sight and believe that he’ll make good choices. At the age of 9. With a mob of other 9-11 year olds. Yeah. That’s a serious leap of faith.

But the other choice was to keep him by my side at all times. Don’t think I didn’t think about this. I thought about this very seriously. But what fun would that be, so against all my fears, I wanted him to have a good time more than I wanted to avoid ending up in a mental hospital.

The BC Ferries could not have possibly imagined what awaited them

So, I nutted up, loaded him into the car with tons of equipment (forgetting, of course, the water bottle), and then picked up another parent and his two boys. My first test of parenting on a tournament would be the ferry.

What could go wrong on a ferry?

Well, now, that’s an interesting story.