Relax, Go With The Flow, Part 4, In Which We Get Serenaded By A Puppet

Due to overwhelming demand for more of my weekend getaway (which happened like a month ago, and it's more than about time that I finished this damn thing already), I am FINALLY posting Part 4 of this exciting, yet longer-than-it-really-should-be, encyclopedic analytical saga of Mr. Handsome's surprise to me for our recent 18th anniversary of marital semi-bliss. Believe it or not, Mr. Handsome himself has been begging -- yes, BEGGING -- me for the next instalment. I KNOW! Who knew that this would turn into such a monumental event?!

If you have not yet read Parts 1, 2 and 3 of this blockbuster event, I'd really strongly suggest you do that first, otherwise you might get hopelessly lost, which would be pretty unacceptable, if you ask me, which you haven't, but I'm not one to wait around for permission (just ask Mr. Handsome). Just do it. Now. Thanks.


Did you know that even at a 4 1/2-star bed and breakfast, the beds creak? And to that, I say, "What the heck?! Did we not just spend hundreds of dollars here?!" And for what? A noisy bed, which makes it sound like we have a full-blown orgy going on in our room (which, by the way, sat right above the VERY QUIET library), when in fact all we were really doing was reading our books and occasionally shifting our body weight so that we didn't get leg cramps or sore joints. God. You people have dirty dirty little minds.

So, after our night at the casino, and a breakfast of freshly baked croissants, homemade jams, quiche, and really really good coffee, we decided to do the tourist thing in Kingston and amble about, which I do quite well, apparently. Mr. Handsome and I wandered through the downtown core, taking in the many sites.


I had to take a picture of this because it was so funny. Yes, that is my sense of humour. I'm sorry.


A gorgeous limestone house, which you will find everywhere in Kingston.


Then we got lazy, Mr. Handsome started whining, so we decided to take a cute little trolley ride that would take us past all the city sights, without us having to do any work, which is right up our alley. After all, we were on vacation, right? The trolley was fun, but we didn't have an open window seat, which made me sad. But the worst part was the mother sitting behind us with her bratty five-year-old who kept screaming every time she saw a tree or rock or piece of garbage, and her mother thought she was god's gift to intelligence, because she kept trying to teach this bratty five-year-old all about the history of Kingston, which, of course, the five-year-old couldn't care less about, and she did it in this VERY LOUD VOICE, so that everything SOUNDED LIKE THIS in my ears for THE WHOLE FREAKING HOUR we were on the godforsaken trolley car. And I asked myself why was this woman even on this trolley car tourist ride thing if she and her child already knew everything there was to know about Kingston?!

And then I had this urge to maim her, just a little, so that I could have just a little peace and quiet on my vacation with my husband, but then I remembered that Kingston has 11 prisons, so I kept looking over at Mr. Handsome, who would acknowledge my obvious pain with a small nod of the head, and we carried on until the tour was over and we could get off the trolley and as far away as possible from that irritating woman and her extreme knowledge of Kingston and everything else that was oh-so-annoying by this point.

The remainder of the day was spent wandering about, taking in the sites, such as this:



St. Mary's Cathedral, the tallest building in Kingston.



City Hall.

and sitting in Starbucks, sipping special cold drinks, and reading books, enjoying the sunshine and quiet, and just being. I then started to fall asleep in one of the big, comfy chairs we had snagged by the windows, and I didn't want to start snoring and drooling in public, so we made our way back to the B&B to get ready for dinner.

Once again, Mr. Handsome had secret plans up his sleeve. I know! Who IS this man I married?

As we made our way to dinner, Mr. Handsome led me by the arm, all romantic-like, and he kept guiding me from one restaurant to another, winding through this street and that, all the while keeping me totally oblivious (more so than usual) to where we were actually going to end up dining.

And then, suddenly, we were on a boat! Yes, a boat. Mr. Handsome had made plans to take me on a -- GET THIS! -- a sunset dinner cruise! This is yet again something I have wanted to do for a very long time, and here we were, doing it! I was bowled over by Mr. Handsome's impressive ability to know exactly what to do to totally blow me away. Not that he doesn't do this on a semi-regular basis, but this was serious stuff.

We actually even got window seats, which just made it that much more special for us, because it meant we'd actually be able to see the sunset without lots of people's heads in our way.

The cruise boat looked like this:


I don't know who this woman is, and she wouldn't move for me. I don't think she understood my extreme arm flailing and foaming at the mouth.

and as you can see, it is basically made of glass, so that you have a full, unencumbered view of Lake Ontario and the sun setting as we travelled through The Thousand Islands.

The cruise took about three-and-a-half hours, during which I took about 547 photos of -- you guessed it -- the sunset.




The cruise also offered a dinner and entertainment, which excited me to no end. That is, until dinner arrived, and the entertainment began. Because we all know that, if you're going on a sunset dinner cruise, and you're paying through the nose, you expect certain things; namely, a sunset (which we obviously had), a nice dinner, and good entertainment. NOT a dinner that might be acceptable at, say, you neighbourhood family restaurant, where you expect that the meat is going to be overcooked, the sauce from a can, and the veggies cooked to the point that they no longer resembled anything even remotely of this world. Okay, maybe it wasn't that bad, but it was. We expected more.

But, can I tell you about the entertainment? Oh, the entertainment was out of this world. And I mean that, and not in a good way. It was alarming and dreadful, is what it was. Because, you see, we had this guy



who thought he was HILARIOUS with all caps, and he really wasn't. At all. He kept telling jokes that were shopworn and very unamusing, and I would even hazard to say inappropriate at times. Because here we all were, celebrating anniversaries and special birthdays and things, and here's this guy, dressed in a penguin suit with bowtie, telling us the worst jokes ever. Oh, people were laughing, but I'm pretty sure they felt sorry for him. I know I did. Although it did seem like some people actually thought he was all that, and if they really did, god help them all.

And then he started singing, and he would put on different costumes, depending on the song being sung, and he'd pretend to be Elvis, or Bob Marley, and sometimes he'd pull out a puppet, and walk around the boat singing like Barbra Streisand. No joke.



What amazed me maybe the most was that, at the end, he was shucking his wares (he had CDs of his stuff out), and PEOPLE ACTUALLY LOOKED interested, and went up to the front and SOME PEOPLE EVEN BOUGHT THEM! I'm still shaking my head over this one, because guys, HE WASN'T THAT GOOD. He wasn't even sort of good. He had an okay voice, but his act left a lot to be desired.

But you know what, folks? Mr. Handsome and I didn't let any of that ruin our evening, because we made it into a positive thing, because that's how we roll, and instead, we laughed at him as we picked overcooked chicken out of our teeth, and took more pictures of the amazing sunset, and went back to our B&B for our last night in Kingston, where we made more noise on our very creaky and expensive bed as we read our books and tried to digest our mediocre dinner, all the while smiling because it was one of the best nights ever, and we had each other.

Next (and last, I promise) instalment, comin' right up! Honest.