I Fought The Lawn

Monday March 27th, 2006

We’re up at 9am and eating breakfast at the El Mercado buffet. It’s around this time that I begin to suspect the food is going to be shit here, because nothing I’ve eaten tastes any good. I later learn that the reason the butter tastes like goat ass is because… well, it might likely have come from one. And if it has actually come from a cow, it’s not like the cows in this country are extremely well-fed, see? So what comes out of it isn’t any good. But neither is the meat… or the vegetables… or the desserts. It’s edible, the food from the two buffets, but not what I’d call ‘good’ by any stretch of the imagination. Anyhow, afterwards we walk around, and check the place out.

As mentioned, there’s two hotels here that are physically connected: the Catalonia Yucatan Beach and Catalonia Riviera Maya. That means there are two lobbies, both of which are open-air, and four outdoor pools between them. They’re completely open to one another in the back, and share a long beach expanse between them that’s nestled between rock outcroppings at either end. The Catalonia Yucatan, our hotel, has the El Mercado, the swim-up Tequila Bar, La Creperie upstairs, a Mexican place called Alebrijes, and the Looky Bar in it; the Riviera Maya hotel has the La Brisa buffet, the Bamboleo Grill, the El Abuelo bar, a swim-up Margarita Pool Bar, and an Italian joint called the Bellavista. The other hotel has more stuff, but it also means it’s busier, and our side turns out to be quieter as the week goes on. I’m fine with that! So the place is beautiful, but we’ve got an 11am meeting with our tour guy in the lobby to talk about tours we can take.

After learning about all the things we can do, Tania and I elect to sign up for the Cabo Mayan Village tour and a trip to Xcaret. The Cabo Mayan Village tour will take us to a site of authentic Mayan ruins, where we’ll be given the chance to climb the highest pyramid in the Yucatan. Xcaret (pronounced Ish-ka-ret) is a giant eco-park that looks to be like the zoo if the zoo were on an acid trip of some kind. I learn later that my sister’s been there, and she loved it as much as I did. So with our trips booked, we fart around and eat lunch at the La Brisa buffet before lounging on the beach and by the pool. I even participated in an ‘aqua-fit’ class with a group of chicks, and while it’s permissible for you to question my manhood now for doing so I’d like to mention that I suffer from a painfully misaligned hip that I’ve been told to exercise in the water with. That being said, you may now feel free to fire your emasculating insults at will.

So all’s well… until the Great Swim-Up Bar Incident of ‘06.

Tania and I, as responsible adults free of children for the week, had decided to do something we never do: get completely knackered. It was supposed to be on Tuesday, but it crept up on us a day early. We’re at the cocktail swim-up bar, having met two other Canadian couples there – Ron and Chris from Belleville and Roger and Helen from Edmonton – and we’re all having cocktails. I’m downing these ‘Electric Lemonade’ things that don’t taste like they have alcohol in them, and we’re all slowly getting sloshed… and then Roger orders tequila shots. And they’re HUGE. We do the whole lime-and-salt thing, and pretty soon we’re all pretty blitzed. Despite being drunk, I have enough pride in myself not to piss in the pool, and so I manage to get out and make it to the hotel room to use the can.

This is when the Great Incident begins. Because as I emerge from the shitter, there’s A FUCKING CRAB IN THE ROOM.

Naturally, I squeal like a girl and scream “JESUS CHRIST WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?!” This thing’s not that big, and afterwards it occurs to me that it’s the Mexican equivalent of having a squirrel loose in your room, but for the moment I’m staring at a thing with frickin’ eyestalks, and he’s snapping his pinchers at me like he wants to give me the clamps. My friend Dave Powell once told me that he is greatly disturbed by any animal or bug that appears to be built for combat, and it’s a sentiment I highly concur with. As I collect my stuff, Clampy McPinchington nestles down in some towels on the floor. I stagger back to the bar, somewhat comforted by the fact that Clampy appears as freaked out at his being here as I am.

So I’m back at the bar to deliver the news: our room has been overrun by crustaceans. No one seems to believe me, so I’m off to the lobby to request the anti-crab SWAT team come and remove the invertebrate invader from within. Roger tags along this time, and as we arrive at the room security’s there and waiting for me. Now, I should mention that this security guard is decked out: he’s got webbing on his belt, a big-assed flashlight, and even a bat. Roger and I are in swim trunks. You think this guy would take the lead, right? No. In fact, this guard is afraid to even come IN the room. I’m laughing so hard by his mincing ways that I got my camera and snapped some photos. Roger’s got a bright idea, as we find the crab behind the toilet: stab some toilet paper at him, wait for him to clamp on to the other end, and drag him out of the room. He proceeds to carry out this plan as the guard hides behind the door. I nearly fell over laughing, but the plan works and Clampy is set free outside. (Incidentally, they served crab two nights later in the buffet, and I stood by it crying “CLAMPYYYYY! What did you DOOOO???” simply for my own amusement.)

But that’s only the first half of the Great Incident, because after it’s over and we’re all back at the bar, Tania’s seeing double. For REAL. I mean, I’m pretty drunk, but the woman’s eyes are crossing and she says she actually sees two of me. It’s about now that I, having downed my second double-shot of tequila, stop drinking and ease Tania off her seat and into the pool. I manage to pull her Baywatch-style over to the shallow end of the pool so she can climb out, but she’s so drunk she can’t really stand. I’m begging her to get out of the pool, because I know in my black heart that Tania, in her generous ways, is about thirty minutes from giving the tequila back to the hotel in a very direct and vulgar fashion. And as much as I love the woman, I don’t want to be swimming in the contents of her stomach. Finally, however, after twenty minutes of cajoling, I manage to get her out of the pool and half-guide, half-carry her back to the room before putting her to bed. I took a picture of her sleeping it off, because I’m not nice.

It’s 6pm and I’m drunk as a skunk, but filled with the idea that I must try and be the responsible one. I go back to the pool and get our stuff, and make shure we’ve got our camera, wallets, room keys. All appears to be in order (as it turns out, I lost our sandals and sunblock), so I’m off to buy cigars and resume drinking with my fellow Canadians. As I come back to the room and smoke that stogie on the balcony, Tania gets very ill in the bathroom before finally passing out until morning. I’m soon sick a couple of times myself , and we’re both unconscious at 10pm that night.

Sunday March 26th, 2006: THE HONEYMOON BEGINS!

So there’s the 3am wake-up call, and then the shower, and then the cab at 3:30 to take us to the airport for a 6:45am flight. It’s the ‘hurry up and wait’ principle, and I guess we could have gone later, but I’ll be damned if I was going to get held up in some customs lineup and miss the flight to start my honeymoon. So we were there two hours early, and ate some crappy food and coffee until our flight at 6:45am to Cancun. It was Air Transat, which basically means that it’s living death in that plane, but we had an exit aisle seat where you get more leg room in. If you’re getting on a plane anytime soon, I highly recommend that you ask for an exit aisle seat, lest your muscles atrophy and physiotherapy be required to get them working again. In addition to our uncomfortable surroundings, there were highly stupid people in front of us with stupid kids and a stupid baby, and they kept going through the exit aisle over Tania’s feet even after she told them off. Anyhow, I managed to survive the crime against humanity that is Air Transat by watching Harry Potter and the Bags of Money or whatever the hell that confusing tripe was called, and by dozing in and out during the flight. We landed in Cancun at 10am.

They don’t fuck around at Customs in Mexico, but we got no problems from the humourless robot that processed us. We waited 30 minutes for luggage, because of course there’s only one man who unloads the luggage from the eleventy billion planes on the tarmac, and after some guy carried our bags to our hotel bus and hung around unsuccessfully for a tip, we were off on the road to our hotel. It was a long hour and a half for us, as the bus stopped at three hotels on the Mayan Riviera before ours, and we’d been up since 3am on two hours of sleep. Our actual town was named Puerto Aventuras, and we passed a marina and golf course before arriving at the hotel. Too bad I didn’t bring my clubs.

We finally checked in at 1pm at the Catalonia Yucatan Beach – it’s actually attached to the Catalonia Riviera Maya hotel, and we could use both hotel features without a problem – and were given a ground floor room facing the beach and ocean that was right behind the Looky Bar. While the hotel was really beautiful, we were disappointed to find that the room was very damp. We asked to change the room a few minutes later and were informed that the hotel was full, but were put on a list (that we eventually removed ourselves from, as it turned out ALL the rooms are like that in Mexico). We were really tired by then, so we ate at the El Mercado buffet and crashed out about 3pm. We woke up in time to catch a show in the ballroom off the El Abuelo at 7pm, whereupon we at dinner at the La Brisa buffet and went back to sleep at 9pm. We crashed until 9am the next day.

Saturday March 25th, 2006 : WEDDING DAY

We started off our wedding day with an impromptu family jaunt over to Denny’s. If you’ve never eaten at this artery-hardening institution, it’s basically a nationally-franchised greasy spoon that encourages you to do serious damage to yourself through the over-consumption of sausages, bacon and pancakes. I highly approve of this idea, and thus I happily stuffed my face with all of aforementioned food items. I also knew that I’d be pretty nervous later that day, and to prevent my bowels from exploding into my tuxedo I knew I wouldn’t be eating anything more until the reception. So breakfast was pretty heavy that morning, and we all enjoyed it.

Hailey swims for her school team, and under Murphy’s Law the one swim meet she had this year was destined to fall on our wedding day. She really wanted to go, and Tania felt for her, so rather than have her daughter miss it she opted to have The General (Krista, her mother) take her to the meet. She wouldn’t be back until 3:30 that afternoon, and the wedding was at 5:30. It was cutting it a little close, but not enough to cause worry. Tania also had a hairdressing appointment that day, though, and she’s the one who ended up cutting it close, as she was two hours late getting back! The family had agreed to meet and dress at her father Werner’s house, and I was pretty nervous when she wasn’t showing up when expected. I killed time by pacing around and suggesting to her father that perhaps she’d fled to Mexico. Apparently she was rejected at the border, however, because she made it back in time to leave and looked fantastic doing it.

I dressed in a room with my best man, Shaun, who was also my best man the first time I got married, and with Liam, Tania’s son. We all had matching tuxedos, and Liam looked like a little version of us in his tiny tux. He loved wearing it: for whatever reason, Liam’s always liked putting on nice shirts, ties and so forth ever since I’ve known him. While he was pretty eager to take it off at the reception, he seemed to enjoy hanging out with us big guys and dressing exactly like we did. Tania looked incredible in her dress – seriously, I am married to a beautiful woman – and with the family in tow we all headed out to North York City Hall in Shaun and Paulina’s Yukon.

When you get married, you worry about a lot of stuff right up until it’s over. You worry about being late. You worry about other people being late. You worry about tripping over your words when you recite your vows, or tripping on the carpet before you get a chance to recite them. You worry that the guy marrying you is going to be some new age, chime-ringing freak, or a bible-thumping, southern-style preacher with fire and brimstone spewing out his maw. In our case, we needn’t have worried, because the minister was fine and the service was mercifully short. There was a brief incident before the ceremony where Liam decided he didn’t want to be the ring-bearer and wanted to carry flowers instead, but after we left him alone in his grumpiness and threatened to leave him in the hall he ‘manned up’ and played his part perfectly. I came down the aisle first with Shaun, and Liam followed carrying the pillow with two rings on it. I’m not sure if he was supposed to, but he stayed with us up there and stood beside Shaun and I just like Hailey would for her mom.My good buddy (and golfing nemesis) Dennis worked the music at the back of the hall when the ladies came in, and his son Brian recorded everything with the video camera. Denny’s wife Marina is Tania’s best friend in the world, and so she stood in as matron of honour alongside Hailey, who was the flower girl. Now, on the rare occasions that I’m truly nervous, I tend to break out in a sweat, and after Tania came down the aisle to Shania Twain’s When You Kiss Me I could see her eyes wandering to the beads of sweat that perpetually came down my brow. The minister did his thing, and we read our hand-written vows to one another before signing the papers and being declared Mr. and Mrs. Wood. With twenty-something family members and friends around, we posed for pictures in the room for awhile before getting the hell out of Dodge City. As a side note, it was as we were leaving that Shaun pointed out there was a wall-mounted fan that could have prevented some of the massive amounts of sweat that had poured down my face if SOMEONE HAD ONLY TURNED IT ON. Bastards!

After the pictures, we went with Shaun and Paulina to the hotel to unpack rather than go straight to the restaurant. The room was alright, and while we weren’t expecting to have much time to sleep before going to Mexico the next day it was good to have. From there we went to Mirra’s Place for the reception to enjoy the most fabulous filet mignon and lobster tail dinner since… well, since the last time I was there. I’m telling you, this is the best restaurant I have ever been to in my life, and the food is always incredible there. Shaun gave a very touching and open speech that I have since kidded him about but which I appreciated greatly, and to avoid anyone suffering from stage fright we had previously decided to limit the speeches there. I gave my own speech on behalf of Tania and myself, of course, and raised three toasts: one to absent friends and family (I promised my sister Michelle that I would, who lives in the States and could not attend), one to my late father (who would have really liked Tania), and one to those people in attendance who were gracious enough to attend. I’m not a great public speaker, but it went alright. What really was the icing on the cake was that Liam opted to make a speech out of the blue, where he said he was really happy we were married and all part of the same family now. Seeing a six year-old make a speech is a lot of fun.

After my mother was handed a bill for the dinner that would make Donald Trump choke (Mirra’s is fantastic, but it ain’t cheap) around 9:30, most of our guests went their separate ways. We went back to the hotel with Shaun and Paulina, Dennis and Marina, Krista and Werner, and Susie (Tania’s sister) and her family. After changing in the room, we spent time in the hotel bar until everyone checked out around 12:15 in the morning. Half an hour later, we were asleep in the room and awaiting a wake-up call at 3am for a cab at 3:30 that would take us to the airport.