Canadian Christmas Vacation

Pemulis thinks that he's been bit by a spider or at the very worst that there's a strange mold that's been living in his mattress that has laid dormant since the previous owners of his furnished apartment and has now become active and made its way through the clean sheets and made contact with his skin to cause a rash that seems to be getting progressively worse. Hoping that things will take care of themselves as these sorts of things (not that he's experienced THESE sorts of things before but you know, things of that nature in that nature here means just strange or annoying [and sometimes not even necessarily strange] things that come up and they just go away) tend to do, he goes about his daily life and tries to not spend too much valuable time worrying about it -- even though it's getting worse and becoming quite painful -- because he has more important things to worry about like Christmas shopping and finishing the work that has to be done before the Christmas holidays and his trip back to Canada. Coffees and Camparis are drunk, baguettes are eaten, laps aren't swum because the rash is getting big and very embarrassing, ping pong balls are pinged and ponged, work is completed to a certain extent, and Christmas gifts are bought until one Sunday the pain really becomes unbearable and Pemulis tells his wife Joelle that he has to go to an emergency clinic or even a hospital (this is a Sunday mind you and though regularly nothing short of coffees and baguettes [but only before noon] are purchased on Sundays this is less than two weeks before Christmas so the French government graciously lifts the no shopping on Sunday laws and the stores open). A weekend doctor's clinic is found and Joelle leaves Pemulis to whatever fate awaits him and escapes the cramped waiting room that is crawling with much worse molds that even Pemulis imagined might have been living dormant in his mattress. He eventually meets with a young doctor who is so young that when he sees the damage and realizes (tout de suite) that it's a case of the vicious Zona he asks if he can take a picture and upon being granted permission snaps one with his Samsung mobile phone. Good lucks are given along with a prescription for pain killers and the once mystery pain/blemish continues to degrade into a cruel underworld of pain and hideousness. The lendemain the true (German) doctor is available and laughs at the ineptitude of the "baby doctor" and quickly prescribes powerful anti-viral medicine that in due course alleviates the pain and frightens off the aforementioned hideousness at least for the most part. Pemulis -- being a conscientious citizen -- alerts his families to his predicament but due to the nature of disease of any kind in general really he politely requests that they use this information for whatever purposes they must but kindly do not disseminate it. Of course, this request is not adhered to at all and in fact what might be called the opposite seems to take place as Pemulis eventually hears from all manner of human being that they heard that he had Zona (though they tend to use the less gentle English version of the predicament's name).

The flight home is difficult to rank in a conventional sense because if Pemulis says that it was "fine" then some might take that to mean that it was somewhere around a 6 out of 10 for daily experiences that one might encounter in any given day. If it were understood that way, however, it would not at all correspond to the reality that "fine" for a transcontinental flight (when not in first class) is really less than a 1 out of 10 when compared to pretty much anything that one can imagine and if Pemulis ever finds himself in a job where he is asked to come up with means of torture designed to break down prisoners and force them to give up information in exchange for having the torture stop he will suggest putting said prisoners on a flight (in coach) around Christmas time with a minimum number of crying children and smelly people who cannot stop coughing. The required information in his opinion would likely be given up post haste.

Pemulis and Joelle arrive at Joelle's parents' place and greet Joelle's parents' dog Bow. Bow's attempts to slash out each of their sets of eyes are only just unsuccessful but he vows that success will be had before the war is over. The weather is cold and the house is cold but the beer is also cold and it mixes well with the pain killers. Sleep comes quickly but ends just as quickly as circadian dysrhythmia sets in. Pemulis will wake in the environs of between 2 and 4 AM for the first several days. This does not represent a problem of very large importance as he is liking his book and enjoys reading it in the early morning when no one else is yet awake. It does present other problems, however, in that each night he is going to sleep at a sensible time but waking up at an ungodly hour and is therefore falling exceptionally short of the recommended 7 to 9 hours of sleep that he should be getting each night. Nevertheless, this too ultimately passes (the jet lag).

After attending a Christmas get-together with a surprise appearance by Joelle's father (of which the first words that are uttered as Pemulis enters the house are "I hear you had shingles!" UGH...) they drive 1.5 hours in their recovered automobile to Pemulis's parents' place (you don't use the trailing apostrophe when it's a proper noun that ends in s in Pemulis's opinion though he didn't always believe that; it was during his time working at a law firm that he was dissuaded away from his original belief that it should always be done). An excellent dinner is consumed and Pemulis and Joelle leave for a party with friends of his from high school. Pemulis has been excited about this party but he realizes (as he does every year) that most of the people are extremely boring and that the party is never that much fun but his brain forgets that and always convinces himself that this time will be amazing. There is much talk regarding housing prices in Toronto and kitchens being too small. Even finding solace in drink is not a tenable solution due to the ongoing sleep issues and Pemulis and Joelle retire some time shortly after midnight.

It is now Christmas Eve and, after doing some shopping, our protagonists return from whence they came (1 or 2 days before -- P cannot remember which). On the way they visit a Starbucks 401 service centre location and purchase 2 lattes and 1 gingerbread cookie for the princely sum of $49.33 (perhaps not remembered correctly but definitely within ballpark range). Christmas Eve dinner is tortière with some imbibing in the form of red wine. A movie is maybe watched but for the life of him, P is finding the details to be remarkably hazy which he attributes to the pain killers that he was desperately in need of, the wine (which didn't hurt), the whole circadian dysrhythmia thing, and his advancing age. Pemulis is remarkably able to sleep until past 7 o clock on Christmas morning and presents are opened with gay abandon (old time use of the word). Sticky buns are eaten, later on copious amounts of cheese and crackers are consumed, and the protagonists are off again in search of greener pastures.

London is cold but full of good cheer with family members and quasi-alike.. or something. Pemulis and Joelle and family open presents and eat and drink and are merry. Christmas dinner happens and is made up of deliciousness. Pemulis begins reading his book "Phi" and is careful to hide it on very high shelves. Pemulis enjoys himself but thinks that he would really like to have a dog.

Pemulis visits Toronto and meets a young philosopher/entrepreneur on the bus. The young man leaves him with entertaining stories but Pemulis is full of loathing for the entire bus ride because he cannot read his book and therefore has to put up with Kinsey Millhone's hijinks for a little longer. Some of the philosopher/entrepreneur's views on life: "if I owned a restaurant and someone ordered a steak well done I'd just say '#$%& off man" and kick him out of my restaurant"; "you can buy houses in Detroit for like $5,000 because it used to be a big industry town but now it's dead and so I'm gonna buy a bunch of them and grow weed and make a ton of money and then I'm gonna buy an office building in Detroit for like $1M and then I'm gonna grow weed on each of the floors and ..."; and that's all that Pemulis can remember right now but there was way more and most of it was way funnier. Pemulis is greeted at the bus station by his good friend LaMont and they watch some TV chez LaMont and head to dinner to consume hipster tacos with his other friend Menny. During the course of this evening Pemulis realizes that LaMont is a True Friend (TM). Just a really good person and someone that he can say that he truly likes. This is a good thing but also somewhat unnerving because there really are not very many of them and most of the people that he knows in life he can't get past all the terrible things about them (to him) and he really doesn't truly like them. But this is a good night and he's happy. Unfortunately, though the bus ride back to The Farm (not CIA HQ) has no entertainment in the form of philosophers or entrepreneurs, it is completely dark and so Kinsey Millhone again has to wait another day.

Pemulis and Joelle and Joelle's sister go to a sports bar with Joelle's sister's friend Ekaterina. Joelle's sister and Ekaterina do some kind of gossiping as young girls are wont to do and Pemulis watches a basketball game -- something that he has never done before. Pemulis and Ekaterina get their picture taken in front of a giant ad for Air France that is for some completely unknown reason on the wall of a Pizza Pizza.

Pemulis's parents take Pemulis and Joelle to an Italian restaurant on the outskirts of town. It is not to leave them for dead on the outskirts of town but to wine and dine them for some unintelligible reason. Pemulis's steak is incredible as is the wine that he drinks. Everyone leaves the outskirts of town unscathed and returns safely to the confines of town.

Somehow time accelerates and days go by and Canada does not win a medal in the World Junior Hockey Championship for the first time in 15 years. Babies cry and rye is drunk and books are read and DVDs watched. Pay-per-view is made use of and Tom Cruise is laughably seen playing a role that calls for a nearly 7-foot-tall man. Finally, lo and behold, shit it's time to go back. The plane ride is as awful as any plane ride (terrible) and Pemulis and Joelle are treated to the extra treat of a 3 hour delay announced upon their arrival at the airport. However, they are each given $10 gift certificates for a refreshment that can be used in the shops in the departure area. They head to the bar only to be told that these gift certificates can most certainly not be used for alcohol. They do find an interesting use for them however as they purchase bird friendly coffee grounds with their certificates to bring back home and put in their loving coffee machine, Syntia (real name).

It snows and it snows:

And Pemulis and Joelle dream of warmer days...