Painting our Life - 6 Colors

   School has ended for two weeks and the holidays has finally begun. It's about time! Two months of school had left me stressed and it's time to unwind. I started off by getting up early on day one, and attempted to prank Dash.

   I had entered her room with a tube of lipstick. I planned to draw a mustache on her face. It was my way of getting back at her for almost freezing me to death and the snowball incident. I took light steps towards her bed. Not tiptoeing though. She wouldn't wake up at the sound of light footsteps. It's true she was a light sleeper while she was a pony, but she sort of lost that ability. Unfortunately, I wasn't watching where I was stepping. My focus was on Dash and a sharp pain shot up my foot. I bit my tongue down to resist the urge from making a peep. When I checked my foot, a small blue Lego brick was stuck to it. I looked down to find myself staring at several Lego bricks scattered around her bed. She had a defensive system! I couldn't clear away the bricks. The clattering sounds of the bricks hitting each other would've woken her up. There were too many and not enough small spaces to step around. To make a long story short, I had to abort the mission and leave her room. She must've went through my boxes of old toys to get those. I don't mind her going through my stuff, my stuff is her stuff, but it kind of scared me knowing she could cleverly set up something like this. Only the evilest of monsters would set up Lego bricks in a caltrop like way. Thought she'd be a bit nicer to me after what happened at the dance but I guess Dash isn't one to change easily. I guess the defensive system means that she still doesn't trust me fully yet. It hurts. We've been living together for nearly a decade, what's not to trust? I mean, she did the right thing scattering those around her room or she would've woken up the next morning with lipstick all over her face. It might be nothing. Who knows? Maybe Rainbow Dash likes to play with Legos.

   Dash and I are both taking time offs from work. We aren't making a lot of money, but my bank account is still in the five digits so it's all good. We have more than enough money and we're still earning cash bit by bit at our part time jobs.

   Before the Winter Break started, we received our report cards in the mail. Well, I'd be clucking my tongue while saying this, but let me tell you, our grades aren't that great. My english marks were ok, math was average, but I really flunked in history and geography. And my French is worse than a rat's. Dash's academic marks weren't so high. But they skyrocketed in drama and physical education. She got an 100 in physical education! That's an impossible grade to achieve, or thought to be. There's a myth floating around saying that no student should get hgher than 98, as everyone has "room for improvement." To be honest, I can't care less about my grades, I mean, I have a job right? I'm thirty three years old, I shouldn't have to put up with this. I'm just glad that they didn't ask for parent signatures. That is the one thing I cannot provide.

   Another thing I spent a lot of time thinking about is Christmas. It's only a few days away and I haven't gotten Dash anything yet. She already asked me what I would like, I just simply shook my head and told her that I need anything. I didn't ask her what she wants though. I want it to be a surprise. That was the problem. I didn't know what to get her. After hours of thinking and hair pulling, I decided to pull out my money, drove down to the store, but not leaving without telling her I was off to buy a pizza dinner. It was a cover up. I came home with a pizza on the passenger seat, and a brand new XBox 360 and two games for the console in the back seats of the car. Wouldn't it just be a lovely surprise giving her more video games to beat me at for Christmas? I think she'll be very happy. It's actually a surprise that XBoxes and Playstation Threes are still popular these days. Neither Sony or Microsoft has released a new console for years, but games for both systems are still being developed and played. Nintendo is still going, despite their newer systems being repeats of older ones with little changes. People still buy them, but Dash isn't interested in a Nintendo 3DSi with enhanced graphics better than a Playstation's.

   Finding a hiding spot foot the gifts was easy: in my closet. The hard part was actually sneaking them into the house without Dash seeing. She began to start greeting me when I return home again, just like our earlier years together. It's great, but I had to leave the gifts in the car and wait till she was asleep that evening to retrieve them.

   Christmas was days away still. There wasn't anything to do around the house so we took a moment to search for a nice spot to visit and pass the time. Dash and I packed some clothes, booked a hotel room for two nights (making it so we return on Christmas Eve), locked the house and drove out of town to Owen Sound, a smaller town hours away from Guelph. You can say I'm not an expert on vacations, as Owen Sound turned out to be a town near a beach known for their "summer cooling fun". On day one, we just took a walk along the beach. No one was around, of course, giving us all the open room we needed. Dash dared me to go swimming in the lake, her tone confused me if she was either joking or serious. We didn't hang around there for long, it got cold and we returned to our hotel room. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at booking rooms in quality hotels as it turned out to be a motel. Owen Sound is a small town, and motels filled the streets. No hotels. I probably would have rebooked if there were any.

   The room? Don't get me started. The television didn't receive any good channels. The room itself was small and we had to wait ten minutes before the shower hooked us up with hot water. And guess what? There was only ONE bed. ONE bed. The idea of sleeping on the floor sent a feeling of dread through my body and I knew what I must do. After countless wrestling, pushing and hairpulling, Dash and I were forced to choose the only civil option and share the one bed. I think I should've taken my chances with the floor, that girl kicks while sleeping. My back was faced to hers and she must've had a dream about kicking some guy's butt or something because before I knew it, her foot was jabbing into my ribs. In the end, I decided to take refuge on the floor with a coat as my blanket. It made me wonder if she was just pretending to be asleep because her shifting stopped immediately the minute I was on thus floor. I was just glad that the heater worked and I woke up the next morning with all my bones intact.

   On day two, I bought tickets for a cruise around the lake and a visit to Flower Pot Island. We were the only two on the boat other than the captain himself and the tour guide. What surprised me was that the lake wasn't frozen over and the water in this part of it was so clear you could see the bottom of it. It was all rocks and stones, no sand to murk up the water. There was one really amazing part during the tour, the boat sailed over an old shipwreck. You could see everything through the water, so I snapped a few pictures of the shipwreck. I also took a photo or two of the awe on Dash's face, but was forced ten seconds later to delete them or I would've had to gone swimming in the freezing water for my iPhone. Once we were done seeing the shipwreck, the boat picked up full speed and we were heading for the center of the lake where Flower Pot Island was located. There, we were dropped off to explore the island for two hours. How can I put this in the nicest way possible? It wasn't what we expected. I mean, Dash and I were excited for the first ten minutes. It was going to be like an adventure hiking around the island. Until we heard about the poisonous snakes that inhabited the island. There was also no electricity on the island, and only a few portable potties were scattered here and there. Needless to say, Dash and I hung around in the gift shop (that used natural sunlight, known as windows) until the two hours were up and our cruise boat was here to pick us up. There was no heater in there, but trust me, it was still warmer inside than outside.

   The following night, I enjoyed the soft bed underneath me, as Dash was too tired out to even twitch in her sleep. Which was nice, because I could finally get a good night's sleep after two long days of horrible vacationing. It was no surprise that I woke up with Dash's hand on my face. She had spread herself out on the bed overnight and one of her legs was resting on my stomach. Thank god she was wearing pajamas or that moment would've been more awkward than it already was.

   I might've gained a pound or two during our trip. It's not like motel rooms have a kitchen, so we were forced to eat at a fast food restaurant for every meal. Dash isn't worried about gaining weight. She's very fit. Me? Well I could use some more weight myself, but I think I'd rather have it in muscle than fat. According to an article I read online, Dash and I are both underweight. I don't see the hazards to health of that though, I mean, we aren't overweight. What could be dangerous about being skinny? We're eating correctly, and that's all that matters.

   We returned home on the third day, Christmas Eve, to realize we forgot the most important thing. A Christmas tree! We spent a few hours dragging the old, tree from the basement (it's fake) and bringing it into the living room to decorate. I got a bit squirmy when I opened the ornaments box to find three spiders crawling around. Dash turned out to be the bigger man than I was and she squashed all three with her hands, which was why I refused to let her touch me until she washed them.

   After the tree was decorated, and I must admit, it looked pretty darn good in our living room. I cooked dinner, (homemade pasta) and we brought our plates in front of the television to watch Christmas specials. That was pretty much our Christmas Eve. Nothing exciting really happened, nothing bad. Not all the Jakobs and Tims in the world could have ruined this. By now, I expected something dramatic to happen already, but it seems I'm wrong this time. Apart from an extremely bad location I picked to vacation, this winter break is going fairly smoothly.

   I'm sure neither of us will get any sleep if the television stations decides to run a movie marathon all night. That'll cause some problems for me. I didn't wrap the presents. Don't need to. Though I am counting on Dash to be asleep before I put them under the tree. But that will be another problem for me later, it's best not to worry about it now. Even I deserve a break now and then.

   I must stop talking now. Dash is expecting me in the living room to watch Elf with her.