Anyone who comes to the lodge in June knows Carrie’s birthday lands somewhere in the middle of the month. It’s easy for me to remember because it coincides with the highly underrated Flag Day! Flag Day would get a pretty poor seed in a holiday bracket matchup, but I digress.
It can be a little tough to celebrate a birthday at the lodge. There are no days off and plenty of chores to keep you busy. I always offer to give Carrie the day off, but she politely declines. I think it has something to do with visions of a disaster breakfast. Maybe guests breaking their teeth on burnt french toast and me trying to extinguish a kitchen fire while figuring out how to make more coffee. I still think I could pull it off.
Since Carrie elects to work on her birthday, I try to provide some of the smaller comforts available in the town of Red Lake. That starts with a box of Timbits from you guessed it – Tim Hortons. Yes, you can actually order an entire box of only one flavor – Carrie’s favorite is Sour Cream. If you are Canadian and didn’t get that – her favourite is Sour Cream. The cashier might ask you three times if you are sure you only want one flavor, but I verified it can be done. Other fun gifts might include movies from The Bargain Shop, a dessert from Antonio’s, some Canadian candy bars, books, magazines, pink fishing tackle, and a box of Bear Bangers. What girl doesn’t want a box of Bear Bangers for her birthday? Now you actually know all of her gifts before she does, but I’m banking on her opening them before reading the blog.
Speaking of openings gifts, I’m not great a gift wrapping. My expertise lies more in the realm of tying lindy rigs. So I like to make use of the dozens of grocery crates we have stacked everywhere and make a giant present pyramid. All you do is hide the gifts in the crates! Perfect. Now if you can take some of these crates off our hands, we’ll be able to enjoy our living room again.
Seriously, we have way too many of these crates and the grocery store won’t take them back for some reason. So if you want to take some free crates home after your trip please ask!
So Happy 29th Birthday to Carrie and Happy Flag Day to you!