Weekend predictions

The last time I was in Quebec City, for mere hours.

It's October long weekend! Thanksgiving weekend, for all the non-Canadian readers. Historically this was celebrated by Europeans giving groups of aboriginals small pox and burning their homes. Now we celebrate by eating too much, laying on the couch, and rolling around on the floor playing with the family pet. It's weird, no one questions it when Kitty is sleeping or stretched out on the floor, but everyone feels the need to turn it into a conversation topic when I do it. ("Fascinating, tell me, what was her childhood like?")

There is also another tradition among my immediate family over Thanksgiving and other long weekends - take off and play. Example: Easter is a four-day weekend. I have no idea when I was last in the same province country as my parents on Easter. Last year I road a camel on a desert safari on Easter Day. My parents were in Arizona eating tacos with illegal Mexican immigrants.

This Thanksgiving my wee family will all be in the same province! In the same hotel room, even! Dear Brother is departing Upper Canada, we're taking off from the Isle, and we're rendez-vous-ing (I'm practicing my French) in Quebec City. Or, as those from the province of Quebec call it, "Quebec". Confused? So are the anglophones who don't have the luxury of differentiating via direct pronoun or lack of direct pronoun. ('Le Quebec" = province, "Quebec" = city, "La Quebec" = MASSIVE FRENCH GRAMMATICAL ERROR)

PS: don't think this means you can break into our homes. People will be there. They will beat you with a baseball bat coated in rusty nails that have been dipped in gonorrhea.

During my 28 years on Earth, I've gotten to know my family quite well. Thus I have a fairly accurate idea of what will happen this weekend.

• My parents will want to toss me from the car for reading aloud every single sign we drive through Quebec (the province). I like reading French signs with an over exaggerated French accent.
• I will not be responsible for any early morning driving shifts because I don't understand things before 9:30am.
• Brother will dedicate himself to finding all the English television stations.
• At some point Father and I will wander away and secretly eat really greasy, bad-for-you food, washed down with a glass of goose fat. Brother will binge eat 90 bags of chips. Father and I will instantly gain 5lbs of fat, each. Brother will somehow increase his muscle mass and reduce his cholesterol.
• We will go to a mall. If it's sunny, I'll feel guilty for being inside on a nice day. If it's not sunny, I'll feel guilty for making Papa and Brother wait, even if we are planning on buying matching coats. (Although apparently double breasted coasts are bad for my body shape, which is so weird, because I have two breasts.)
• If someone brings cards, we'll probably have to play poker. I don't enjoy folding (folding = not playing and sitting silently) so I either win everything or lose within fifteen minutes and then roll around on the floor playing with the family pet. In this case, Pet won't be available so I'll just wander the hallways until I find a stray.
• Someone will vomit or not feel well. Traditionally that was me in earlier family vacations. Then Jeff beat me by developing, ugh, MONO while we dragged him all over Central Florida in 1994. We didn't know he had it until we got home; Parents thought he was just being grumpy and teenagerish; I thought he was going to slaughter me. This time I predict it will be Father because he has some weird elbow thing happening.
• Someone will lose something. Likely a sock. (Jennifer or Roy.)
• Someone will spill something (traditionally Jeffrey - see Milk Pouring Crisis of 1994-1997).
• Someone will get food on his shirt. (Roy.)
• There will be snoring (Papa!) - followed by yelling (Brother!)

I might turn this into a bingo game and distribute it to people around us.

I'm actually quite excited as I have spent minimal time in Quebec (both with the 'le' and without) beyond Gatineau and have spent minimal time with Brother this year. I also get to prove to my family that I'm not bilingual, but can usually avoid getting overly confused by the French language. Anything I don't understand I shall use the excuse, "Oh, I'm much more accustomed to the Acadian or South France accent."

Happy Thanksgiving! Give thanks, and thank that you are able to give. (MacPhail proverb written during the tragic years of prohibition and rum wealth.)