Many Americans begin their Holiday decorating right after Thanksgiving. Canadians not so much; they tend to start after November 11, Remembrance Day, Veterans Day in the US.
Editors Note: You’ve probably noticed this is not the previously announced Hey Siri chapter of our ongoing story. Last week, in his haste to begin celebrating his first wedding anniversary, Chuck skipped this week’s installment, Christmas Comes Early. With any luck, Hey Siri should be next week’s story.—Kenneth
Like me, Jim and John are huge Christmas fans. The entire great room of their home, from stone fireplace and mantle with nearby tree and toy train, to the china hutch on the opposite side of the room, was decked out for the holidays well before my arrival.
The French doors leading to the front deck were festooned with pine garland. Santa hats hung from the backs of the dining room chairs. The large dining table was formally set with decorative stemware, festive Christmas plates and bowls, and topped off with a multitier Disney holiday themed mechanical centerpiece.
Having returned to my usual sleep pattern, I emerged from the lower level guest room well after Jim had departed for work. I was pleasantly surprised to find Jonny in the kitchen preparing breakfast for the two of us. John was watching TV in the great room.
“Shouldn’t you be in class?” I asked.
“This is a study day,” Jonny said. “We’re supposed to be finishing an assignment that’s due next week. I’ve already completed it.”
We sat side by side at the breakfast bar and chatted away during our meal.
“Thank you, this was great,” I said as I prepared to clean up my breakfast things, “but I have a bird to roast and food to prepare if we’re going to have a ‘good old fashioned American Thanksgiving’ dinner later today.”
“I’ll give you a hand,” Jonny said taking my dirty dishes and utensils away from me, all the while looking into my eyes.
Building within me was the return of the lovely sensations of being with someone who wanted to be with me. It felt like our first days together in Toronto so many months before. It was warm, wonderful and very distracting.
“Get ahold of yourself,” I said to myself still staring deeply into Jonny’s sparkling brown eyes. “You planned this weekend around Thanksgiving dinner and you’ve got to follow through with that.”
We cleaned up our breakfast things and set about preparing the turkey and stuffing for roasting, all the while chatting about everything and nothing, just as we had done in Toronto.
“How do you like the downstairs guest room?” Jonny asked.
“It’s lovely,” I said, “but cold. I’m fine when I’m under the sheets and comforter, but boy, are midnight trips to the downstairs loo fucking freezing.”
The entire great room of their home, from stone fireplace and mantle with nearby tree and toy train, to the china hutch on the opposite side of the room, was decked out for the holidays well before my arrival.
It was true, because it was such a large house, which meant it was expensive to heat, Jim and John set the heating somewhere around 15ºC/60ºF overnight. The problem was the thermostat was on the upper level. This left the usually vacant ground level somewhere between 7ºC/45ºF and 10ºC/50ºF at night.
“That’s usually where I sleep when I stay out here,” Jonny said, and I could believe it recalling how naturally warm he is and how much he loves sleeping in what he calls a “cool” room and what any sane person would call freezing.
This was the reason, despite the cold, I chose that room, mostly out of spite, upon discovering we would once again be in separate quarters.
The turkey securely ensconced in the oven Jonny and I returned to the sink to wash up.
“If you’re that cold overnight,” he said, which immediately made me think he was about to suggest switching rooms, “maybe you should sleep with a bed warmer.”
He was looking right at me and smiling wryly.
“As in you?” I asked trying desperately to appear as emotionless as possible.
“Why not?” he said.
“Sure,” I croaked like a teenager whose voice was changing, and then, so caught off guard by Jonny’s offer, I began to stammer and sputter incomplete thoughts and ridiculous sentences.
“Shut up Chuck,” I said shortly after realizing I was losing it right in front of him.
He laughed.
“Shut up Chuck,” I kept repeating as he began to tease me about my flustered reaction to his offer.
The remainder of the day flew by. We had a lovely big meal, followed a few hours later by Jim’s pies, coffee, and another movie. It was the second of The Hunger Games films. Oh joy.
After an evening of snuggling through the film on the sofa, we went to Jonny’s room, gathered his things, and headed downstairs to the guest room, where, I’m happy to say, I was snug and warm all night long.
Canadians might not observe US Thanksgiving, but they sure as hell throw themselves into Black Friday. While not an official holiday like their American cousins, the Canuks seem to take the day off, flood the malls, and shop like crazy.
Jonny only had one morning class that day, after which he was going to work out at Velocity, a new gym he’d discovered just across the road from the college in Owen Sound. He invited me to join him. He lifted lots of heavy stuff and I did the same machine exercises I’d been doing at WorkOUT, my gym in Palm Springs.
Like old friends who hadn’t seen one another for years, Jonny and I picked up screwing around, in every sense of the word, just as we had during my first three days in Toronto.
Being just as big a Christmas fanatic as our hosts, I’d brought along my classic full length velvet Santa hat and, ever the optimist, an elf cap for Jonny, which of course we put to good use in a series of photos.
I’d brought along my classic full length velvet Santa hat and, ever the optimist, an elf cap for Jonny, which of course we put to good use…
Over the weekend, there not being a whole lot to do in Wiarton and Owen Sound, we ate, drank, laughed, and watched movies. Thankfully the remainder of The Hunger Games films weren’t available for online rental.
On Monday, the day before I was to return to California, I joined Jonny once again at Velocity. Even combining the series of alternating days exercises I was doing back in Palm Springs, my workout didn’t take nearly as long as Jonny’s, which meant I spent a good bit of time talking with him between sets about things like the differences between machine exercises and the powerlifting exercises he did.
“It’s not that I haven’t gotten results using the machines,” I said. “I’m leaner, I feel stronger than when I began, and I’ve even noticed changes in my physique, which, by the way, I really like. It’s just that the machines only isolate muscles, and you need to do so many different exercises to cover a whole muscle group.”
“You said you know that the three main exercises in powerlifting work compound muscle groups,” Jonny replied. “Aren’t you planning on working on them?”
“Yes,” I said unenthusiastically, “but after listening to you describe lifting techniques, I know there’s a lot I need to learn about doing the lifts properly so I don’t hurt myself. It would mean finding an expert powerlifting trainer in a retirement community.”
“Well,” Jonny said while looking at me with the same sparkling gaze he’d had in his eyes since Thanksgiving morning, “if you spent the winter here in Owen Sound, we could work out together and I could show you how to do them.”
“Yes, yes we could,” I said, looking him straight in the eye with a smile on my face. “I’ll get on setting that up as soon as I get back to desert.”
Edited by
Kenneth Larsen
Join us again on January 23, 2018 for Hey Siri. We hope.
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