Tricky vs. Shifty

This morning we attempted to beat the storm into Toronto, so that we could go to a memorial service for my dad's cousin. (He passed away in early January; he'd been suffering from advanced Parkinson's, as well as Alzheimer's, I believe. It was not unexpected.) We made it to the 401, where there was pretty much only one lane (as opposed to the usual three). We made it as far as the west end of Milton when we decided to turn around. You could barely see 20 feet ahead of you, and at the rate we were going, we'd be lucky to make it into the city in several hours, let alone the 45 minutes we had before the service was to start.

So I've been baking instead. I wish I could say it was in honour of my dad's cousin, but I didn't really know him all that well. He was nice and all, but I have no clue as to whether he'd even like Oatmeal Chocolate Chip cookies, or white cake. Well, no matter. I'll still eat a slice in Don's memory.

So now my most urgent decision (which isn't urgent at all) is whether to put chocolate or vanilla icing on my white cake. (Cake mix was on sale yesterday at the grocery store. And listersgirl had written about cake recently, so I'd been kind of craving it. Plus, there was cake at work on Tuesday, but they ran out so I didn't get a piece. I am now making up for it, I suppose.)

This weekend was really good.

My mom was planning a surprise party on Saturday for my dad's 60th birthday (as well as his friend's 60th). So all three of us kids and my mom have been lying through our teeth for the past few weeks to my dad. I was starting to think he didn't actually believe I also had a wedding to go to that day, and that maybe he suspected something.

Anyway, so on Thursday, I got a car from my parents so that I could drop my sister off at their place on Friday, the story being that her landlady was having an openhouse that weekend to rent her apartment, and my sister didn't want to be around for that. I was going to bring her up on Friday, and I'd stay the night, as it would be quicker for me to drive to the wedding from my parents' house than it would be to leave from my apartment.

Saturday morning, my dad went over to my brother's place to install his dishwasher. He wanted to be in and out as quickly as possible, so as soon as he left in the morning, we get on the phone with my brother, and tell him that no matter what he has to stall my dad until atleast 4:30pm. Which turned out not to be a problem, since my brother's house hadn't been wired for a dishwasher, so my dad spent many hours working on that. Poor guy.

I booted out to Woodstock for the wedding ceremony. It was beautiful. Luckily the weather was great (after a week of "it's going to poor like crazy on Saturday), and the ceremony could be held outside. Gorgeous. The minister was a little odd (and I don't think it was entirely that he was Baptist), and it took him at least 20 minutes to get to the actual ceremony part. But everyone looked great, the dog behaved, and it was lovely.

I then booted back to my parents' place, hoping I'd make it back before my dad did. Driving at 140km/h helped in that. I'm very lucky I was stuck behind slow people for all three cops I saw. I made it back about 20 minutes before my dad did. And he was so surprised! He totally didn't know what had been planned. A few people met him down at the bottom of the driveway, since all the cars on the lawn would have eventually given it away (at first he thought the neighbours were using their lawn for parking, as they had once before); he reacted just like my Nana (his mom) would have, apparently! Too funny. He was totally speechless. It was great!

And I even got a few surprises! My aunt and uncle from Ottawa came up, and a bunch of old, old friends of my parents came too. I hadn't seen them since I was six, and the men all played on a baseball team together. And they totally looked the same, so I immediately recognized them (Big Ross! Tommy Tucker! Sue! Brenda!).

It was a lot of fun, and so much food (oh my god, did I ever have so much to take home, between the party food and the veggies from my mom's garden). I think every month should have a weekend like that.

I hope you all had fabulous weekends, too.