I like putting numbers in boxes. I love doing taxes. And reading instruction manuals at bed-time. In grade 11, I spent many of my Saturdays hand painting one inch tiles on a pop art piece I was doing for class. It grounded me. Gave me a sense of control. Order. And it was these skills that landed me the job of painting Mary-Kate's toe nails before the wedding near Santa's Village. A Muskoka wedding, up north. With three kids, a wedding up north demands some creative childcare solutions. And you can only leave the kids in a McDonald's playland for so long. So, despite Rowan's vote to stay in a motel and watch movies all day, Mary-Kate found Santa's Village on the map, just around the corner from the wedding. "Santa's Village?" I said, "In the summer?" "It's only open in the summer," said Mary-Kate. And so begins the adventure. Santa's Village is the perfect film setting for a CSI episode, or the Mentalist: elves and reindeer walking around, Santa's hat the frame for all signs. Mrs. Claus has a bakery of course, and all the rides are Santa themed -- reindeer leading the roller coaster, Santa's toy-shop bouncy castle. We even saw Santa one day walking by. "You didn't stop and look both ways young lady." Santa just told Mary-Kate that she didn't cross the train tracks safely. That was the only interaction we had with Santa. It was the end of the day. He was tired. The best part of Santa's Village is Ricky. Ricky looks a lot like Santa Claus, but has been miscast as the driver of Santa's River Boat. This boat is like a jet ski for 50 people. And Ricky has been driving it 20 times a day every summer for 30 years. 30 years! Every day! Ricky loves his job, and man, does he do it well. Playing Chipmunks, and The Chicken Dance up and down the Muskoka River. "How's the fishing!!!?" he yells to some local cottagers. They smile and look away. Ricky drives a school bus in the winter. "Half way through the school year, I really miss this boat."
Now, Santa's Village also has a campground across the road where we had set up our tents. A large white pine trailer park for dedicated Santa's Village repeat elves. It was in this dusty campsite where I was very carefully painting Mary-Kate's toes with neon orange-red nail polish. Oh, girls, you've got to get a picture of this. So Rowan & Sikhona smash open the camera case, and each put a camera around their necks. Sikhona figures out how to press the silver button to take a picture. And just starts taking them. On motor-drive, she's taking pictures, close-ups really, of various things, wrists, sky, trees, ground, oh, we're in that one. I'm carefully painting. Staying within the lines, trying to layer the polish not too thick, avoiding streaks. Rowan has the other camera right up close. Nails, painted. Hands, knees, other body parts. "You might want to back up a little girls. Get a wide shot. The whole scene. And poof! A cloud of wood ash billows up around Sikhona as she falls backward into the fire pit, holding the camera, looking just fine really. Picks herself up, dusts off, and keeps pressing that silver button. I finally finish my work of art. We send the girls off to Santa's Village with Megan and all our towels, and Mary-Kate and I get our wedding digs on in the campground washrooms. Open-style I would call them. The women's washroom is closed for cleaning, so Mary-Kate just bursts in anyway, and says to the man, "I'm going to a wedding. I have to get ready. Just keep doing whatever you're doing." He leaves. She sets all her stuff up in one stall, and then discovers there's no hot water, so she jumps from stall to stall trying to shave her legs. I have no soap, so I keep leaving my shower with a t-shirt wrapped around my waist to pump soap from the sinks. The doors are wide open, and I do my best not to moon the kids across the road on Santa's reindeer. We do make it to the wedding with no evidence of our roles as extras on a CSI episode, other then Mary-Kate's beautiful Santa red toes.
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