I was at Laurie & Eric's house last Tuesday for a presentation and Eric mentioned he was having trouble finding billets for some kids from the USA canoe-kayak team. These are Mac's development athletes. They were arriving on Thursday afternoon so I said that if he was stuck I had room for one. He didn't think they'd need me but he'd give me a call if they did.
I hadn't heard from him by Wednesday night so didn't make any preparations (eg wash extra sheets & towels and make up the spare room, buy groceries to replace the dried up ear of corn and out-of-date Yop in my fridge) which was my own dumb fault. I should have been prepared in either case. Late Wednesday night I got an email, "Thanks for offering to billet athletes...pick yours up at the club at 6:30pm". I looked at the attached spreadsheet which indicated I would be housing David - 18.

Since I hadn't done the laundry, I ran out to Sears at lunch on Thursday and bought all new bed linens and towels. Yeah, I know. Sounds crazy but I needed them anyway. The bedding in my spare room is about 15 years old. You should have seen me sewing up a tear in it the night before Kyle's mom came for a visit. And that was 2 years ago! Anyway, I figured I'd just get something cheap that could go in the cupboard once I got something decent but I can totally live with this.


I was a little concerned about the wasp situation - they were still pouring into the house and were now showing up more often in the upstairs.

Okay, sidebar...everytime I say that wasps have invaded my house, I have a Family Guy moment and picture white anglo-saxon protestants decked out in Lacoste polo shirts, collars popped, going through my closets and wine rack while commenting in low tones about synthetic fabrics, garish taste and, horrors, domestic wine.

Anyway, the exterminator was coming back on Friday to spray the entry and exit points again but I was concerned about exposing this boy to the poison. It smells really bad (like Queen Street urine after a big saturday night in clubland) and can't be good for humans. And what if the kid's allergic to bee sting?

On Thursday, the american athletes were at the club when I came off the water. Mac introduced me and said, "We're picking up your other one at the airport later. We'll drop him off." My other one?? At this point I was really wishing I hadn't taken out the spare bed in the basement to store my parents' furniture...but I have the big comfy couch in the living room. We'd be okay.
I had a vague plan to take David to Burrito Boyz for dinner but when I asked what kind of food he liked, he said, "anything but mexican." Sooooo.... grocery shopping? He's a university student and had some assignments to work on so I created an account on my computer called David and left him to it. Ian showed up while I was cooking dinner. 15 years old and 6'4". Yikes, he was GIANT! Would I have enough food? How was he going to sleep on the couch? David (about 5'5") had dibs on the queen-size bed by arriving first but seriously... he could have swapped. Thankfully, the paddler attitude of "no problem" is universal.
The next morning as I was driving the kids to the club, I asked David something and he didn't respond. I asked him again and he said, "uh, actually my name isn't David." Okay, let's forget that he didn't stop me the 1st or 2nd or 12th time I called him that...so they must have switched billets, right? No, there's no David in the program. So what's your name? Yevgeniy. Yev...!? Okay. I felt like a dumbass even though it wasn't my fault.
You know, this is starting to sound like a Simpsons episode. Bart gets billeted with some old lady. The house smells like pee, wasps chase him around inside the place and she insists on calling him some other boy's name. All that's missing are dusty, ribbon candies stuck together in a bowl and a mangy, cross-eyed cat.

I always figure humour is the best icebreaker so once we got our meals, I suggested we go downstairs and watch a movie while we eat (it was about 8:00pm by this time). While dodging wasps, the boys picked something from the dvd collection. They wanted to watch Hot Fuzz even though they'd both seen it about 3 times. This is from the "Sean of the Dead", "Run Fat Boy Run" guy, Simon Pegg. It was hilarious but both boys crashed about 40 minutes into it. Yevgeniy is from Seattle so, even though his internal clock was about 4 hours behind, he'd gotten up really early for the flight. Ian is from Washington too but the other one, D.C.. This is when I was so glad I'd gotten the extra bedding. Otherwise Ian would have been using the little throws I have on the couch for blankets and they wouldn't even cover his feet.