Manning Park 2011

Friday February the 4th 2011 and the boys are off to Manning Park for the weekend.

Me, Tanner and Spike. I had a list. I started it 2, maybe 3 weeks before, all the essentials, stuff you can't go on a weekend trip to a winter wonderland without. It started with the obvious items like travel crib, boots, sled, beer, Ove-Glove, decent carving knife (I'm cooking Prime Rib) and ended with a shopping list for the morning of departure.

Tanner goes swimming on Friday mornings with Tanis so I had a small window of time in which to gather together all the essentials together.

I was thrown off my game, somewhat, by the meat slicer that appeared on Craigslist the evening before our departure. A decent meat slicer has been an elusive part of my kitchen gadget collection for many years. When we had 5 students living with us it was an essential tool in the effective transformation of leftovers into other gastronomic delights ie: roast beef into beef dip. Can't shave beef without a meat slicer, now can you? But a decent one? The $200 plastic ones work well for a while but they're plastic and that translates into built in obsolescence.

But this one. No pictures, but from the description, it sounded like a beauty, cast aluminium, 10" blade, the lady selling it used to own a deli.

Advertised at $200 obo. How could I resist?

So. All I need to do is squeeze in a quick trip to West Sechelt to buy the meat slicer, I mean look at the meat slicer, between 9:30 (when Tanis picks up Tanner) and 11:30 (when we have to leave to catch the ferry). No sweat.

9:30
Wave goodbye to tanner and run to the truck

9:40
Arrive at gas station to fill up for the drive to Manning. Manning Park is a couple of hundred km's from Vancouver and the last 80 km's is uphill. It is, after all a mountain resort.

9:55
Leave the gas station. I know that that took a while but the price of gas has gone up in recent weeks and my truck holds a lot of it. I also managed to pick the slowest pump at the gas station.

10:05
Leave the bank machine with weekend cash and money for a meat slicer, well maybe.

10:15
Arrive at the current abode of my new meat slicer.

Nice house, new, not finished, landscaped really well but with a really steep and long drive. Thought it best to leave the truck on the street as it has a bit of an oil leak and this was very new concrete.
Oh I would I regret that.

I knocked on the door and a very nice, petite, lady in her 50's answered and invited me in. "Don't take your shoes off" she said "like her already" I thought. I followed her into the kitchen.

And there she was. Gleaming like one of those old Airstream travel trailers (caravan, for the brits). 10" blade gleaming in the morning sun and the bodywork to carry it.
"Bloody hell" I said "it's huge" and then, I think I might have giggled. This was the mother of all meat slicers, you could slice up a whole cow and not even break a sweat.
"My wife's gonna kill me" I mumbled. I realized later, that this statement meant I was probably buying this slicer, even though, my head had already figured out that I had nowhere to put it, I would never use it to it's full capacity, and, yes, Tracy was going to kill me. But easily be able to slice me up, bones and all, and dispose of my body at her leisure. Probably like how they got rid of the dirt in "The Great Escape" little slices of me, tucked into her jeans, that she could drop off when she was taking Spike for walks in the forest.

And then she said "My sister placed the ad, I told her I wanted $200 but she put it in for $150" "so you'll take $150?" a voice said "yes" she said, and that very same voice that had said "so you'll take $150?" said "I'll take it". It then dawned on me that that voice was mine.

"Maybe you should bring your truck up here?" she said "Oh no" I said "I can manage" "It's pretty heavy" she said "maybe I can help you" I thought to myself  "it's aluminium it can't be that heavy. I was wrong. Not only was it heavy, it was awkward. I nearly dropped it on her her new "engineered" wood floor and desperately adjusting my grip managed to get control of the beast. By the time I got to the front door I was out of breath. Luckily the driveway was downhill so all i really had to do was stop myself from careening out of control all the way to Gibsons. I managed to manhandle the thing into the passenger seat of the truck and off we went.

11:00
Oh oh, slicer successfully unloaded, back into town for beer, groceries and beer

11:15
Return home and load the truck with all the stuff for the weekend. I'd already got our clothes and stuff ready so really it was a matter of checking the list and loading it all up.

Should have checked the list

11:40
Off we go, Wahoo!

I guess we were almost at Abbotsford and I was thinking about how Tanner would be sleeping in a strange bedroom, when it occurred to me. Crib, I forgot the bloody crib. I had put the crib by the sofa in our basement next to the mattress for the crib and the sled. Bollocks, forgot those too.

I was kinda choked about the sled. I bought it 7 years ago, when we started the adoption process and have taken it to Manning every year since. All the other kids got to use it and last year Tanner was too small. But this was the year. Or not.

I called Tracy and asked her to phone ahead and get a crib for the room. At least he'll have somewhere to rest his head.

Spent the rest of the journey wondering what else I'd forgotten but also somewhat relieved that I hadn't put the beer by the sofa.

Hey Tanner, should we tell mum about the meat slicer?