For the first time in about 22 years, hubby and I went away alone for the weekend!

The girls of course are married and gone, but my seventeen year old son’s always been around till this weekend, but he was away, camping, so hubby and I packed up our stuff and headed east towards the historic city of Kingston.

Kingston lies at the narrows of Lake Ontario as it empties into the mighty St. Lawrence river, and contains a myriad of very scenic islands called the thousand islands, some of which belong to Canada and some of which belong to America.

It was a major fortification in the war of 1812 when America tried invading us, and failed.

It’s also the birthplace of wacky old Sir John A Macdonald, our first prime minister who consulted the dead in seances I believe.

There are some very nice cruises through the thousand islands that we’ve already been on (having basically explored most nooks and corners within driving distance in southern Ontario) but we decided to go again.

We drove through Northumberland county, a very picturesque little spot just sound of the 401 corridor that juts out into Lake Ontario, almost forming a little peninsula.

A very famous Canadian author named Janet Lunn lives in the vicinity.

And everytime we go by there, I always think of her book Shadow in Hawthorne Bay. It was all the rage when I was first getting started writing and it’s still a good read, but I wouldn’t read it because I believe now that it actually deals with jinns (demons) and I avoid all literature that deals with that stuff.

We got to Kingston the roundabout way by about 4:30 on Saturday evening with enough time to relax and chill, spend the night in a hotel and catch the thousand island cruise in the morning.

It was so nice!

Hubby told me not to pack any sandwiches, so there was absolutely no cooking to do, and just the two of us, going to dinner, or lunch or whatever and later on we decided to watch a movie in the hotel room.

I always dread trying to find a movie that both of us can enjoy.

While it is NEVER a good idea to diss your spouse’s taste in anything (after all he picked you didn’t he?) I have to say that generally speaking I like different movies than hubby does.

He tends to like a lot of mindless melodramas (as far as I’m concerned) whereas *ahem* I tend to like witty flicks with good characterization and animated dialogue.

But I was flicking channels and came across a movie I’d already seen at least four times, but liked well enough to watch again. Shaun of the Dead.

The only reason I’d ever seen it was because my son had bugged me and bugged me till I agreed to watch it.

He said I’d like it, even though it was a zombie movie, and he was right!

It’s made by Simon Pegg and it is the funniest zombie movie I’ve ever seen, not that I’ve seen any others. Okay, let me rephrase that: It’s one of the funniest movies I’ve ever seen, period.

And clever!!!

A movie’s clever when you get something new each time you watch it.

If you do decide to watch it on my recommendation–and I highly recommend it! Watch it very carefully! Don’t go to the kitchen to get a drink of water thinking that there’s nothing happening in this scene, because you’re bound to miss something!

It’s tightly constructed and gets funnier with each time you watch it!

And wonders of wonders, hubby liked it too!

When I asked if he wanted me to change the channel he said, “Nah, leave it. It’s brainless.”

I didn’t bother telling him that it was anything but brainless, I was just happy to have found a movie we could agree on.

And even though I’d seen it so many times, there was one scene in particular that had me laughing out loud where I’d never realized what had happened.

It won’t spoil the movie to tell you this so don’t worry about reading this bit, but do watch for it.

At one point, the actress in their midst is trying to teach Simon Pegg and his mother and the ex-girlfriend and others how to act like zombies. She asks them all to give it a shot, and the mother character is daydreaming for a moment. The actress says, “Perfect!” The expression on the mother’s face is priceless. And the mom says, “Huh? I was miles away.”

Oh, my description doesn’t do it any justice whatsoever! You just have to watch it!

But I should say, it’s not ‘literary’. It’s just a fun romp!

There is a point to it, but basically it’s just the kind of movie that makes you want to watch it and I’m finding more and more that’s precisely what I’m into.

The weather was less than perfect for the cruise, it started to rain, and the mistiness made me sleepy and I nodded off for bits during the three hour–cruise (and yes, Gilligan’s island occurrs to me everytime I hear the phrase three-hour cruise!) feeling kind of guilty spending so much money and then wasting it sleeping, but then I thought, what the heck! Why shouldn’t I nod off if that’s what I felt like doing?

This was a mini-vacation after all.

All in all the whole time was wonderfully relaxing, precisely what I needed after so many hectic mind-boggling days.

I’m ready to start cracking on revisions for the sequel, with a tongue in cheek attitude that will probably be very helpful.

And while cruising hubby lent me a book he was reading called the Rules of Life. A very interesting read.

There are tons of really good advice in it, but one rule really stuck out at me because it’s something I do often but I hadn’t been doing it for the last week or so and now I’m wondering if that wasn’t why I was feeling so frazzled.

It’s the rule to do absolutely nothing for a little while every day. He likened it to catching your breath.

Just sit idle for half an hour, ideally, but even ten minutes.

Don’t drink coffee or read the paper–it’ll turn the break into something else. Just do nothing. He said it really rejuvenates you and ironically it increases your actual productivity.

So many mornings–if I’m not rushing off to school presentations, I do just that. I wake up, sit up, with my back to the headboard, and do absolutely nothing for about fifteen to twenty minutes, sometimes half an hour.

I think, and that’s all, and I get ready for my day.

And when I do manage to fit that in, my days tend to be incredibly productive. The days I don’t get to do that, I’m running around breathless.

So try it.

Oh, and watch Shaun of the Dead! I betcha you’ll love it!