Ideally, we would have spent our first wedding anniversary by fluttering off to The Keg for some massive steaks, asparagus and garlic mashed potatoes and some dessert at Memories Café. But we are not in Ottawa or any metropolis, and so we were required to settle for what options are available: Option 1- I make dinner for us at home. This happens every night and is not a treat for me.
Option #2- Go to the TND Motor Inn Lounge, aka the town’s restaurant. Off we were in the cold dark night (-25!) to eat greasy food and celebrate a year of marriage and all that’s come with it.
(Option #3- The husband makes dinner at home. This is hardly an option as his culinary skills extend to about toast and peanut butter, cereal and oatmeal.)
We arrived in the restaurant, and were pleased to see it wasn’t too busy, as this decreased the likelihood of us receiving some other tables’ meals.
We waited at our wooden, flip-out-legs style table for about 20 minutes while three high school aged-girls and some elementary students lingered at the cash register calling their friends on the phone and talking about us (subtlety isn’t their forte).
The girl that evidently drew the short straw and had to come serve the white cop and his wife sauntered over and mumbled something that indicated it was time to tell her what we wanted to drink.
“What kinds of milkshakes do you serve?” I asked.
Silence. Rolled eyes.
“Um, cappuccino.”
No strawberry? Chocolate? Vanilla?
“I’ll have water please.”
Eventually, the waters made their way back to our table, a safe bet as they came in bottles with sealed lids.
We each gave her our orders, me a personal size Hawaiian pizza with a side of poutine (high living in Ross River, bon appetite!) and for him a BLT sandwich. The girl, who suffers from severe Fetal Alcohol Syndrome, struggled to remember our order then walked over to the group of girl and audibly messed up our order to the greasy line cook. Husband is struggling not to get up and correct it, but I didn’t want to soil our evening with spit in our food, or worse.
The girl eventually got it right and while we waited, husband filled me in about how this 15-year-old girl had just had a baby boy and continued to drink heavily all day and night long, having dropped out from school. He had arrested her a number of times for being drunk. Standing out for being drunk in this town is quite a feat, let me tell you!
We ate our greasy meals that came with surprising accuracy, albeit after 45 minutes of waiting and a tad cold. We have learned to get what we are given!
Then we returned home and I was asked to wait in the bedroom while the husband created some surprise for dessert. After a few minutes, he led me out by the hand to show me the kitchen table. It had our wedding album, some tea light candles and 2 plates with toaster strudels, each decorated with hearts icing. It was so sweet and a perfectly Ross River anniversary!

Labels: Ross River, wedding