Today is April 5th, 2009. More than that, it is the first day of Summer here in Central Ontario. “Wait a second,” you’re saying, “I thought the Summer Solstice wasn’t until June 21st (05:45, to be precise)?” While you would be correct, this is not the definition of the first day of Summer that I use.

Instead, I use the first occurrence of my family’s “boat!” meme. To summarize, whenever we see a boat (on a trailer), someone calls out “Boat!” — much in the same way one would call out “beer” when a car with only one working headlamp is spotted. The length of the word varies depending on the type of boat; small fishing boats are awarded a quick “bote”, modest runabouts get the standard “boat”, particularly fancy or nice boats get an elongated “boaat”, and ski and wakeboard boats — in particular Malibus, Nautiques, and Mastercrafts — get the super-elongated version, “BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!”.

Today’s spotting was a black and tan Lund aluminum fishing boat with a 90HP Mercury four-stroke.

Happy Summer!