Calling it Carpe Diem

New motherhood

2009-04-07T09:11:00.004-07:00

There are a lot of things “they” don’t tell you about motherhood, and for the last 2 months, those things have taken me for quite a ride. Now that I feel like I’m on the upward swing of the other side, I can definitely see that I had me a bout of post-partum depression. There are still days where my mantra is FML, and all I want to do is hand off the baby to her Daddy so I can rest. But those days are thankfully fewer and further between.
I won’t go into what those things are that nobody tells you. Some of you may one day want to become mothers and I don’t want to dissuade you with the less-than mythical, un-romanticized version. If you ask, I’ll tell. I’ll just say that no one tells you that you might not immediately have goo-goo eyes for your baby, that it’s a complex mother-daughter relationship that might take its time building up to something incredible rather than just automatically being an alive, bloomed relationship. I can tell you that it for sure gets there, it may just take some time. I love my daughter with all my heart and would do anything, ANYTHING for her. But coming out of the hospital was terrifying and, in moments of exhaustion and desperation, I would totally have felt OK about leaving her behind. That’s how I felt, and I know that a cocktail of post partum hormones was playing around in my head and heart.
You know what has made it all so much easier? No, not looking into my baby’s eyes and seeing the beauty of a creature part me and part husband. Not the occasional coo amidst hours of crying. It was other moms. Other warriors who could commiserate, and tell me tat what I was feeling was OK, they’d been there. That raising a newborn is taxing and hard, and the epitome of selflessness, because that little being doesn’t know how to show thanks or return the love yet. Other moms who knew I didn’t want parenting advice, I was already feeling shaky on my own. They knew all I needed was a listening ear and the reassurance that I was a good mom doing fantastically well using the tools of intuition, survival, and the support of my husband (when he was not being a crime-stopping superhero of Ross River)
Thanks to all the moms, my own included, who helped me get through new motherhood, and who keep being helpful resources of encouragement and support. Thanks to those moms honest enough to acknowledge the difficulties, even when the hard stuff is difficult to talk about, or scary to deal with.
This morning, I am watching Abigail flail away on her play mat, listening to her Beatles lullaby CD, smiling at the dangling toys and screeching in delight. She pauses now and then to arch her head and look up at me, eliciting a huge grin just for me. I’m her mommy, and now I feel it.

How to be Abby's mom

2009-03-12T17:36:00.003-07:00

What being a parent has been like

I’d love to write some highly descriptive prose detailing life as a mom, but the job itself allows little time to write, to eat, to apply deodorant even. And so, you will have to do with this point-form list of what 6 weeks of being a mom has been like for me:
Being a parent sometimes means:
- Realizing that a full night’s sleep is a hazy concept I vaguely remember and may one day in the far, far future return to
- Learning to operating on sleep increments of 20 minutes to 3 hours throughout the night
- Learning, the hard way, to keep one diaper underneath her when removing the other, or else she’ll pee all over me and the change pad and her clothes
- Making breakfast, lunch and dinner with the use of one hand (the other is occupied holding the baby)
- Finding the nutritional value in frozen meals, meals from a box and meals in the form of replacement chocolate shakes
- Makeup routine goes from a leisurely 15 minutes staring at my own reflection to frantically applying some undereye concealer (to hide the sleepless night) while singing lullabies to the bored baby lying on the change table beside the mirror before she starts crying
- Taking naps with a beautiful baby girl curled up on my chest, smelling like baby and breathing her little baby breaths, drifting off with me making her little baby sounds
- Escaping the beauty of a shower by myself, the smell of lavender body wash and the feel of warm steam, to the blaring reality that my baby is screaming in hunger on the other side of the door while my poor husband tries to soothe her
- Choosing outfits based not on what suits me, what’s stylish or even what’s comfortable but based upon which make for easy nursing
- Switching outfits numerous times a day because I smell like milk she has spit back on my shirt or spit up on my pants
- Realizing that my baby has not read the baby behaviour books and does not know she is “supposed” to enjoy her soother and “supposed” to be sleeping at night in 4 or 5 hour increments
- If anyone else were to wake me numerous times from slumber crying that they were hungry, I would likely slug them. But this baby gets a free pass, night after night, because she is beautiful and dependent on my reciprocated love
- Getting immense joy and pride, equal to graduating university or finishing a race, from things as simple as her smile or her coos
- Living in Lululemon pants
- Remembering to shower only because the grease in my hair is too much to ignore, not because I remember how many days it’s been since my last one

50 Below

2009-01-09T10:34:00.002-08:00

I was going to get myself back in the swinging blog entry mode of things by writing a post about my insane nesting instincts, but today, I cannot.
Today, living in Ross River sucks, to me. Here’s why:
- It has been -50 degrees for like a week and a half. Did you even know that existed? I didn’t! It’s so cold that breathing the outside air stings my lungs. The dog doesn’t get walked, consequently, and then bugs the crap out of everyone inside with her unspent puppy energy. It’s really not her fault; she’s just got cabin fever like the rest of us.
- The cold made one of our truck tires deflate totally flat. This means that even if we survive the frigid trip down the front stairs, we have no way of getting out or about unless by foot. I had to work a few shifts at the library this week that involved my getting dressed up like a marshmallow woman, complete with giant coat big enough to zip up over my belly. The one mechanic in town added our truck tire to the waiting list of other cold-related breakdowns and battery deaths.
- As we cannot drive to the town dump up the hill, our garbage is accumulating. The outside bins are full, the inside box pile is overflowing the counter and when you’re a hormonal pregnant woman on a nesting rampage, garbage clutter does not a happy wife make.
- After countless delays picking up our nursery furniture at the Sears outpost in Whitehorse, we finally arranged for the Yukon’s truck delivery service to haul it all up here. This was to (finally!) be delivered yesterday (after orders were placed in November!) but then of course the delivery truck broke down on the way here, and now the delivery company drivers are too scared to make the 5-hour drive up here until the cold subsides. All I want to do is set up the nursery!
- This failed delivery attempt works out though, for now, because our front door froze shut and then broke. And then in a flash of macho handy genius, the husband removed the doorknob from the inside and couldn’t figure out how to properly reassemble it again. The back door works, so we can still let the dog out to go to the bathroom, but if we do work up the courage to venture out in the cold to do anything, the trek now begins with both stinging cold AND a journey through knee-high snow. Joy!
- I woke up this morning to the beeping of our smoke alarms. This type of beep happens when there is no power going to them electrically, only via battery. There was a power outage, and all I could think was the curse, “What else?” Thankfully, the heat turned on and the furnace revved up again about 10 minutes later. But when the power goes out here, we have no water (as it is pumped electrically from our water tank), no phone service (as we have portable phones) and no wood stove as a backup heat source when the electrically-powered furnace is not being fuelled in -50 weather!
Why do I live here again?

Making Up

2008-11-30T10:39:00.000-08:00

Women of the South fascinate me. Always have. Their “je ne sais quoi” (pronounced with a southern drawl), their grace and their demeanour are all a part of some feminine mystique that I can’t be a part of, by virtue of geography, of course. But they fascinates me none the less.
Dolly Parton was on Ellen the other day when I was home from work, positioned on the couch in such a way that slightly relieved the pinched nerve in my pelvis but that also allowed for my chest to be unobstructed and able to fully inhale (this baby is sure maximizing her real estate). Dolly was telling Ellen how she never took off her makeup, but rather went to bed “with her face on”, hung her hair on a lamp post by her bed, and simply scrubbed her face in the morning before re-applying her visage. This was because, she explained, if she was hauled out of bed in the middle of the night for some emergency, like a fire, she didn’t want to be out in the streets without her makeup on. Oh, southern women.
I have always been lackadaisical about makeup, not paying much attention to it other than to apply the basics in the morning before work or school. In the summer, I rarely wear any because, being a bad skin care girl, I let my suntan be my makeup, colouring the apples of my cheeks and the skin beside my hairline just the way I like it: golden brown. A few years ago, I helped research a book for a NYC beauty expert and started paying a bit more attention to how makeup can be maximized without having to shovel it on like Mimi on Drew Carey. I know this concept is elementary but, like I said, I hadn’t paid makeup much attention.
I learned to pick out quality eyeshadows over nearly transparent drug store ones, which tools cut it and which were fillers, and the Bobbi Brown secret: that if you start off with a great foundation, the rest will take care of itself. When Sephora (god bless franchising) finally expanded into the Rideau Centre in Ottawa, I gleefully stocked up on the products I had only dreamed about, put it on credit so the husband would not know I’d spent hundreds of dollars on makeup, and got butterflies.
Bare Escentuals mineral foundation, Nars blush in Orgasm, the Kabuki brush, the Shu Uemura eyelash curler, they all were invited into my arsenal. A couple of Urban Decay eyeshadows and some Estee lauder ones too and I was set. Set for Ross River, anyway, where I now sport what I jokingly call my $70 face to the school every day to hang out with kids that wouldn’t care or notice whether I came to work made up or with lesions on my face. But that’s beside the point.
As I prepare to enter mommyhood, I am gearing up to not be the frumpy ladies on daytime TV talk shows who beg for makeovers after having lost themselves to sweatpants, ponytails and sneakers. I am a woman, maybe not one of the South (but in my dreams…) and I still believe in the importance of putting myself together every morning, playing up what a lovely face God gave me. If not for the aesthetics then for the psychological benefit of taking time for myself now and as I get set to be a mama (as the Southern girls would say).

One year later

2008-11-21T16:08:00.000-08:00

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!

In Utero

2008-10-29T15:36:00.002-07:00

I realize I haven’t written much about the actual experience of being pregnant. At least, not publicly. It’s very easy to tell people about back aches and sore hips when they ask how the pregnancy is going. The truth is, there are physical discomforts and I sometimes let them detract from this experience, but on the whole, I love being pregnant. It is cliché to describe it as such, but I feel like a walking miracle. There is something completely fantastic and almost mythic going on in my belly, and I feel very honoured and lucky.
It amazes me to think about how minute the very possibility of conception is, how the circumstances have to be just perfect. And it happened. And then as cells divided and she attached to my womb and her parts fused and formed, she thrived. She kept growing and my body, my actual body, fed her and fostered her as she survived the first trimester.
For those of you who’ve never been pregnant, the first trimester is a whole lot of hesitation. It is tentative. I never knew if the pregnancy would last until I got to the end of it. I couldn’t quite celebrate it until week 13, and yet I had to succumb to a body that needed more food, more water and made me feel permanently seasick. I was making a big commitment, physically, to a baby you don’t yet know will survive.
Of course I gave it my all, took my naps, drank my water and obeyed my cravings for moose meat, cheeseburgers and lemonade. And I made it to week 13 with the first hints of a baby bump.
Since then I have fully embraced pregnancy. I am an incubator, an oven. I live my life but my body belongs to the little girl inside me.
I am so glad we decided to find out the baby’s sex. I was so sure it would be a boy, I’m not sure why. Just maternal instinct (gone wrong!) I guess. I envisioned taking him to hockey practice and had already bought little blue onesies. Then I lay on the ultrasound bed in September with the cold goopy stuff on my abdomen and watched the technician examine the baby’s features, measuring parts to make sure it was healthy. Then he got to the lower half, pointed out bent legs, shins, and then of course I noticed what was between them. It was very clear we were having a little girl, and I started to cry as he continued measuring her abdomen, her brain and her heart. My girl.
Now I can feel her moving around in me, kicking her arms and legs against the walls of my stomach skin. It feels just like someone poking or flicking me, only the sensations come from inside. I love waking up with a smile to her little kicks, and settling down with a good book on the couch only to burst out laughing at the hyper baby conducting a 3-ring circus in my belly.
I am surprised at my swollen belly when I catch sight of my reflection and love rubbing my hands over the skin as it stretches further and further. I love feeling what side the baby is lying on, and I am full of anticipation to meet her. I can’t wait to find out what she looks like, what her personality is, how she’ll smell and what she’ll sound like. I have a little less than 4 months to go, and I am full ready to get growing, be round, eat more and put my feet up in lieu of being busy.
My pregnancy is like being a front-row audience member at the world’s greatest show: watching this baby’s growth through the veil of my belly, waiting for the moment when she is revealed to the world.

Religulous

2008-10-18T19:48:00.000-07:00

Religion is always a touchy subject, at least to me, because I don’t want to insult anyone who might be especially sensitive or defensive about what they believe. I’ve learned that people who can take a joke about their big ears aren’t always the same people that can take a joke about their god. Anyway, that said, I am not so sensitive, and as long as someone isn’t try to recruit me or convince me of something, then people can do their thing, and I’m good with my made up religion.
I went to Catholic school until high school gradation. It wasn’t a uniforms-and-nuns Catholic school, but in Elementary school we learned about Jesus stories (parables) and how to have mass, and got the sacraments as they came (Penance, Communion and Confirmation). In high school, our school would still incorporate Catholic practices and morals, celebrate mass and all, but the actual Bible teachings slowed down the older we got. A world religions course was offered too, making sure we had the chance to learn about what else was out there in terms of organized religion. I thought this was fair.
I don’t agree with many of the tenants of Catholicism, but I am really thankful to have been raised with a formal belief system. I am glad that I was taught ideas of heaven and hell, sin and moral responsibility. I am glad I was given the chance to question teachings freely and draw my own conclusions. I wouldn’t call myself a practicing Catholic today, but I still practice prayer and I like going to Church at Christmas and Easter, if not to worship Jesus than to at least reflect philosophically on the basis for the celebrations, like family, love, forgiveness and such.
I don’t believe that Jesus died on the cross and literally was raised from the dead, but that doesn’t make me sad. I still believe he was a guy that had some profound teachings and incredibly wise guidance that is still applicable today. To me, it doesn’t change things or matter if he literally walked on water or cut one fish and fed a hundred. I look at it as a way to tell a story, and the message is what’s important. I don’t believe in an Immaculate Conception, but that doesn’t change the way I think of Mary as the mother of all mothers, the sort of female talisman or figure I can worship. I don’t think a man-made religion like Catholicism is without flaws and logical holes, like how women cannot lead religious celebrations, or how priests cannot get married.
I like to think what I practice is a tailor-made religion that helps me to be morally accountable for what I do and say, and helps me to live a meaningful life with spiritual foundations and faith. It goes something like this:
I say prayers every night to thank God for all the wonderful blessings in my life. I also ask him to help me with anything I might be struggling with. Usually this goes something like, “I’m having trouble with this, please give me the strength and courage and/or wisdom to get through it.” I’m still responsible for my actions and outcomes, I’m just asking a higher being for some help, you know?
I pray for other people, if I think my prayers or good vibes might get to them and help them in some way, whether by actual “prayer power” or by my transmission of positive energy. I guess that sounds hippy-ish, but I definitely believe in good and bad energies.
I also think yoga, when practiced as a form of worship, totally brings me to a higher appreciation of God. It helps me see the beauty of a breath, a tree, the building blocks of the universe. It makes me look at things as incredible intricate and fascinating creations, and I worship the dude behind all that. I am not sheepish to say that while doing yoga, and focusing all my energy upon the higher power, I have definitely had out of body, euphoric experiences. That is the closest I’ve ever felt to God and I can’t deny that power.
I wanted to be married in a Church, because even though I have reservations about the Church as a political body, I absolutely wanted God to be a part of that union, of that declaration that we would be together forever. I am not so stubborn or set that I could not get over the bureaucratic aspects of the Catholic Church.
That is the difference, I think, between being inclusive and exclusive. I am not a practicing Catholic because I do not agree with a lot of the decisions church leaders have made. I don’t think there needs to be that kind of dividing line: If you believe in abortion, or sex outside of marriage, you can’t be a true Catholic. Well, maybe not to you, but I can still believe in God and practice religion, spirituality, right?
I am more than pleased to attend different Churches: Baptist, Lutheran, I am not against any Church. I would gladly worship God and the beauty of the universe at a synagogue, or in meditation like a Buddhist. I think there are so many ways to just be thankful, to appreciate the beauty of what God and the universe have put together here, and that a religious label doesn’t necessarily need to be stamped on top.
That said, I am all for those of us that do call themselves Christians, Catholics, because their lives are made better by their Church. That’s what it’s all about! Find what works for you and go for it. But if someone does something different than you, don’t be so quick to tell them they are wrong. Let them do them.

Midnight Date in my pajams

2008-10-04T10:33:00.000-07:00

I had just curled up into bed with my fabulous pregnancy pillow and my dog lying at my back. I heard steps on the wooden planks of our porch and alerted the canine that now was a good time to barrel towards the front door squealing in excitement as “Daddy” was home from his work shift. I smiled from the bed at how happy she was to see him and waited for the steps to sound their way down the hallway and into our room. They did, as expected, and in walked the cop.
“Hey, the northern lights are out, want to come see?”
I love midnight dates! So I wrapped my fluffy housecoat on and slipped on a pair of his shoes. We stood on the back porch, and I could see a turquoise-coloured haze shining behind the mountain known as Ross River Hill. The lights in town took away from the spectacle, he said, “we better drive out to the airport.” So we raced around to the front of the house and into his police truck to drive to the airport, about five minutes away.
We pulled onto the tarmac, turned off the truck lights and stared up at the sky. Streaks of green danced up from the hills across and over everywhere. We sat there in the dark black night watching our own private light show.
“Hey, I saw a shooting star!” I proclaimed with glee. I never see them! I always have to pretend I do because everyone else sees so many but this time I really did! It was a magical midnight date.
We finally turned around and drove home, leaving the beauty of the dancing northern lights above us and behind us. We saw a drunk lady staggering around and she flagged us down to ask for a ride to her friend’s house. We kindly obliged, and as she sat in the back seat, we asked if she had seen the lights.
“Oh really? They out tonight? Right on! The stars, you know, the lights, it’s amazing,” she said. Well put, albeit succinct and slurred.
We dropped her off, drove home, and I jumped back into the still-warm duvet and pillows, my jammies still crisp and cold from the outside air.

Bull talk

2008-09-20T10:35:00.001-07:00

There is now frost on my windshield in the morning and a white crispy blanket over all the fallen leaves and plants. There hasn’t been snow yet, but I know it’s on the way because this week the chipmunks and squirrels were really amping up their food-gathering operations. I know the coming of winter to mean it’s time to inventory mittens to make sure all have partners, finding the windshield scraper somewhere and getting excited about the Christmas-themed catalogues that come in the mail. In Ross River, all those kinds of thoughts are delayed as people become frenetic about moose.
The colder it gets, the smaller the window to hunt moose becomes. And if you haven’t caught a moose yet, now is time to start “getting serious” about hunting. Serious can mean daily treks out to the bush to wait and make the calls of the female moose. It can mean taking off work to go on days-long hunting trips. The pressure is on to score a big, fat bull moose before the snow hits so that your freezer will be stocked up for winter. The teachers at school who are as yet moose-less were just antsy yesterday to get out the door and hunt this weekend, practicing their cow calls in the hall to each other and teaching lessons while their minds were in the bush.
I enjoy moose meat. It is really high in iron, which explains my early pregnancy cravings for it. It sounds hokey, but it’s also “organic” and not food from pen-living, trench-fed mass meat operations, which is a plus. We don’t need the meat in our freezer, plus we’re still kind of green up here as we’ve only had one Yukon winter under our belts, so we aren’t as “into” the moose frenzy. I am not sure I’m ready to go on a moose hunt yet. I much prefer the fruits of the labour, but who doesn’t? My husband thought he’d go along on a moose hunt one evening after dinner last week just to see what it’s all about. He planned to drive about 15 minutes out of town with a local teacher here and hike in about a kilometer to a “special spot,” to wait and make cow calls. (Nobody here tells where their moose spots are. They are scared secrets)
Within 10 minutes of waiting and settling in, they spotted a big bull, shot it and had their moose kill for the winter. A nice big one with lots of meat. The teacher will subsist largely off of this meat over the winter. I told him we don’t need the meat but he insisted, as an offer of appreciation for my husband’s help and extreme good luck in bagging a moose so quickly.
Everyone at school was congratulating me on the feat of my “good luck charm” husband, asking if they could bring him along on their hunts. The early success in his first ever moose hunt is a very good omen. Indeed, if one goes for numerous first moose hunts and doesn’t bag a thing, it is a sign of a hunter with very bad. So cheer to my good luck hunter of a husband, and to the poor bull who will soon sit, in pieces, in our deep freezer.

Yukon Show and Tell

2008-09-13T10:08:00.000-07:00

This week, the kids in one of the younger classes were asked to bring in pictures and items from home that describe them. A standard “get to know you” activity in most primary ed classes, no? But in the Yukon, the show and tell plays out a little different from down South…
Little Kyle (not real name) stands up and holds out his slingshot.
“I got this from Santa for Christmas. It’s my slingshot.”
Ooohs and Ahhs.
“I use it to shoot grouse with my grandpa.”
He then needs a little prodding from the teacher to expand.
“Well, one time I shot a moose in the eye with my slingshot and then the eye exploded.”
The class erupted in fascinated large eyes and smiles.
“And one time I shot a porcupine and the quills stuck out and I was happy. The end.”
This wouldn’t phase anyone up here, except that they would maybe remark that this little boy’s family is doing a great job teaching him to hunt and live off the land. But can you imagine such an exchange in an Ottawa elementary school?

The Elastowaist Wonders

2008-09-09T16:42:00.001-07:00

I have recently discovered the most divine and, might I add, well-kept secret of pregnancy: Maternity jeans. They are a godsend, and I can foresee they will be the most difficult thing for me to let go of once this 9-month journey is over.
They were purchased for me by my mother as I laughed at how outrageous they looked. I imagined that when I put them on, I’d look like one of those hugely big-butted people at Wal-Mart, you know where like the butt pockets are so far apart you wonder, “Why?” Maternity jeans looked to me like they would be the first step towards an eventual progression to the dreaded mom jeans. Ugh.
Most of my jeans sit low anyway, so I figured the maternity jeans would be reserved until I was categorically huge and blimp-like. Sure, my belt buckle would dig in a little when I sat down, but I can deal with that.
Yesterday was my first day back working at the school and by the end of the day I was so uncomfortable. I kept tugging down my T-shirt all day as it rode up my protruding belly, meanwhile trying to tug it down in the back and avoid plumber’s butt exposure whenever I sat or bent over. It was a whole day of re-adjusting. I swear if those “what not to wear” cameras were following me, they would have had a lot of ammo for supporting the theory that my regular clothing no longer fits.
So I reluctantly went over to the closet in the future nursery where I am keeping all my maternity clothes. Out of sight. I slipped on the Motherhood Maternity Secret Belly pants and oh……lordy. It was amazing. The elastowaist wonders had me hooked. I wore them to work today and though the elastic part creeped out under my rising T-shirt a few times, I felt so much better. And really, that’s the T-shirt’s fault. My belly could actually fill when I inhaled and yet my butt still looked fabulous! Not Wal-Mart huge at all!
I think I am going to live in these pants. Everybody should have a pair for Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners. They would give so much of what I need when stuffing myself full of more stuffing. Mmm, stuffing.
Meanwhile, I am not sure I have enough of those empire waist shirts to last before I have to make the leap to the designated maternity shirts…

The Gatherers

2008-09-04T10:58:00.001-07:00

In Ottawa, berry picking means driving for like 20 minutes to some farm where you get on a hay bale wagon and ride to a designated row where you pick strawberries, raspberries, whatever, filling up your cardboard boxes. Then, you ride back to the farm and pay for them. You bring them home to jam or bake or just eat and feel a little bit accomplished for providing for yourself or family, for being a gatherer, for eating local, like all the magazines tell you to.
In Ross River, berry picking means learning of a secret, sacred berry patch from someone who’s lived here longer than you. You drive out and hike in to its remote location and pick raspberries, strawberries or cranberries until you just can’t pick any longer. There is abundance; you’ll never run out of berries to pick. That is, unless you spill the beans, or berries, and betray the secret of your berry patch to too many people and then they come and pick too many and then you have to scour the hillsides for a new spot.
I was taken to a raspberry patch a few weeks ago and filled my bucket with raspberries smaller than I was used to. But man, were they delicious! And obviously organic and stuff since the pesticide sprayers don’t tend to make it to the North Canol Highway region. The raspberries made for delicious pancakes, smoothies and juices. Mmm. I miss them already.
Yesterday, a friend entrusted me to accompany her on a cranberry picking adventure. They are just ripening, she told me, and will continue to as long as there’s no snow! (A justified fear in a place where snow can fall as early as mid-September!) I squatted and sifted through moss and lichens, coming up for air and granola bars once in awhile. I came back with a mother load of little red berries. I don’t even know what I’ll do with them! Last night, some turned into a cranberry-rhubarb crisp. Maybe today some scones? I’ll freeze some for Thanksgiving and Christmas too.
Either way, this is what us gatherers gathered while the hunters in the area seem to be having a rough go of moose hunting this season. Everyone says the cows and young ones are being spotted everywhere, but you aren’t allowed to shoot those. Only one guy around here claimed to have shot three caribou, but I only believe about half of what he says. So good luck to the local hunters, and courage to the wives and children they are leaving behind for three or four days at a time, only to come home empty-handed. Courage, ladies!

The dog days of summer

2008-09-02T11:22:00.002-07:00

A resounding chorus of swelling shrieks, that, from a distance, sounds like a group of terrified screams. This is the soundtrack and most frequent audible backdrop to Ross River. This town is not known for many things: There’s no mayor, no landmarks, and the town sign has a dilapidated old car ridden with bullet holes at the entrance. But many people remember Ross River as “the place with the dogs.”
There aren’t any bylaws, so far as I know, limiting the number of dogs a person can own, as in most municipalities. There are indeed some residents who house nine and ten dogs, all in a dog yard behind their homes. At one point, I was living in a house flanked by nine dogs on our left and another ten right across the street. Not fun. And when one dog goes off barking at something – real or imaginary- they ALL get going in the chorus.
Aside from the dozens of dogs chained up in dog yards, Ross River is known for its pack of wild dogs. Dogs that start out as puppies, that are cute and therefore attractive as fun pets. But then people sort of forget to take care of them, letting them roam free and fend for themselves with the other rejected and neglected canines. It literally becomes a dog eat dog world. They congregate outside the restaurant, waiting for scraps. They wait outside of the school for their “owners” to collect them at the end of the day. They roam the main drag of highway, with increasing aggression the hungrier they become. I’ve been warned not to bother going for jogs in town because the wild packs of dogs would be apt to nip at my legs, if not attempt to gnaw the flesh from my bones!
Lately, there have been a pack of dogs in our neighbour’s yard howling between the hours of 11:00 p.m. and about 4:00 a.m. Not the kind of night music one might request to be lulled to sleep with.
Yesterday on the way back from walking our puppy in the woods, one of the residents stopped driving his John Deere lawnmower down the road and expressed frustration at the nocturnal barks. In fact, his words were,
“I can’t take it anymore. The next time I hear it, I’m going to go running out of my house with either a shotgun or a bat and I’ll gladly beat the dog to death.”
Hmm. I’ll chalk it up to another day in Ross.

Enceinte

2008-08-31T17:46:00.002-07:00

Once upon a time in this funny little place called Ross River, I was having a temper tantrum and was angry at the world, including the fact that yet another month was going by without being pregnant. There’s not a heck of a lot to do here, so each month sans fetus was like “OMG, could we ACTUALLY be here for 2 years without a bambino?” Dread!
So I took a home pregnancy test out of anger, just to confirm to myself that I was out of the running, so I could move on and focus on other things. Other things like dinner. Or online movie rentals. Fascinating.
I took the test, waited an ADD 5 seconds and when I saw no second line I tossed the test and stormed off to clean windows or something. Then one distraction led to another. That night before going to bed I remembered the test and felt sheepish at being so baby crazy and frustrated. I tried to be all Zen and remind myself that my time would come and yadda yadda yadda. So I brushed my teeth and pulled the test out “just to make sure.” I took out the pink stick and saw a really faint second line.
“Hmm, what does THAT mean?” I wondered to myself. So I ran with my little pink cell phone out onto the back porch where no one could hear me and I called one of my best friends.
“There’s a second line but it’s like really light. What does that mean?”
She said if there was anything but one line, that probably means there’s something funky going on. We decided I’d take another test first thing in the morning. It was one of those digital ones where it just reads either Pregnant or Not Pregnant. I got it out of the package and all ready for my morning pee the next day.
I woke up at 8:00 to get ready for school, and hid the test in the bathroom drawer while I let it sit for the requisite three minutes after peeing on it. Unfortunately, while I was letting it process, one of our house guests who had popped in the night before from Whitehorse had taken advantage of the available shower. I made breakfast, got dressed, put together some snacks I could eat during the morning, and pretended to read a magazine while I waited FOR-EV-ER. She finally came out, dangling a towel over her hair and closed the guest room door. I opened the drawer and read the words PREGNANT. I don’t remember what my immediate thoughts were (kind of anti-climactic, sorry!) because I had to be quiet. So I raced back out onto the back porch, redialed my friend and told her the results. We both got giddy, I told her not to tell a soul, and I cut the conversation short so I could tell the father!
I have a stockpile of greeting cards on hand, so I pulled out a “Congratulations on your baby” card. Inside, I wrote, “Are you ready to be a Daddy?” and signed my name. I walked into our bedroom as he finished dressing for work. I closed the door, sat on the bed and told him there was something I needed to tell him.
“I feel it is best expressed in this card,” I said. I gave it to him and watched his face as he opened the envelope and read, then re-read the words.
“Seriously? For real?”
I nodded and cried, and he hugged me and we laughed and repeated over and over again, “Wow, we’re going to have a baby!”
We called my mom, my other best friend, his best friend and parents and told them our crazy news, cautioning them to keep it to themselves as we wanted to share and celebrate but be weary “in case anything happens.” I told my Dad and siblings a few days later on Father’s Day. Clearly, my “present” kicked everyone else’s butts.
And now we’re in the fourth month, my belly is swelling and I am just way too excited!!

I'm back!

2008-08-25T12:51:00.000-07:00

Yikes, alright, so it’s been awhile. At first I was sitting in Ross River willing the days to count down slower so I could just escape the tedious boredom of this silly town and go home. My days consisted of feeling sea sick, watching TLC shows in the a.m., walking the dog, doing some yoga, watching Dr. Phil and Oprah, making dinner and reading before bed. A tedium any twentysomething can see was filled with lameness. It was brutal.
Then I finally got to fly to Vancouver, where I visited with some high school buddies. We toured around, I bought ridiculously priced yoga pants, and we watched fireworks on the beach that night. It was a beautiful first night away from Ross.
I flew into Ottawa and surprised my sister by arriving a day earlier than she thought I would. It was priceless. I spent my time in Ottawa going to movies on the big, fancy screen, laughing at hilarious childhood movies in the basement, having sleepovers with my best friends, eating deliciously wonderful food and having heart to hearts: soooo much better in person than over the phone. Made some important artistic discoveries like She&Him and the Flight of the Concords (I don’t get out much).
Drove to Maine with some family and relished in the familiar beauty of the seaside town we’d visited many summers before. We played in the waves, ate fried clams, kissed lobsters, read on the beach and got sand into every crevice imaginable. I even went like 5 days without showering. Cuz hey: bathing in the ocean is so much better. In week-long doses, that is.
I said goodbyes to Maine, then goodbyes to family and friends in Ottawa. It was so hard to say goodbye, especially to my mum, because we now had so much more to bond over. We definitely have made the leap from parent-child to a place where we can be friends.
When my plane landed in Whitehorse, I was greeted by husband and in-laws and we set off on a Yukon tour. We stayed a few days in the capital at a B&B that had no beds or breakfast (c’est la vie) before heading up the Klondike Highway for 6 hours to Dawson City. I love Dawson. I really hope we can live there next. It feels like stepping on to the set of an old movie. Then we drove 7 or 8 hours back to Ross River, where our lovely helpers moved us from the brown house around the block to the big, beautiful new house.
And now that the in-laws have had their fill of the Yukon, and it’s back to being husband, myself, Goober and Skylar in this new, beautiful big house, I actually feel happy here in Ross River. Maybe it’s the change in dwelling, maybe it’s the refreshed perspective that comes with a trip home, or maybe it’s not being in a perpetual state of queasiness. But I’m in a place that feels like my home and I can’t wait to make room for one more. 

The joy of my own cooking

2008-07-10T10:58:00.001-07:00

One of the things Dr. Oz said on an Oprah episode this week about childhood obesity is that too many families scarf down food mindlessly in front of the television. What a travesty, he said, because no one takes the time to savour the food, to enjoy the textures and spices and contrast in the food that someone has taken the time to make. (You definitely lose extra points if it’s microwave meals: too much sodium, he said)
A few Christmases ago, one of the in-laws gave me The Joy of Cooking, the 40th anniversary edition. I didn’t pay much mind to it during my schooling years because I had the funds the support a culinary journey that seldom went beyond microwave meals and sandwiches. Here in Ross River, I’ve got nothing but time and it is actually enjoyable to flip through that book and pick out yummy-sounding dishes that I can make. I write all the ingredients missing from my pantry on the grocery list I bring into Whitehorse on my next trip. I return well-stocked and ready to try out ratatouille, corn bread, peanut butter pies and try out a game meat marinade for the moose roast in my freezer.
Taking the afternoon to stir, combine, whisk and bake is really very enjoyable. It is totally fulfilling to hear silence followed by praise around my dinner table from the husband or the guests we invite over. After all, meals should be shared, and the more around my table, indeed the merrier. Last night we had another couple over for my first moose roast and it was one of the most enjoyable foodie nights I’ve had in awhile. The red wine vinegar-based marinade made for excellent tasting moose and great gravy. The Yukon Gold mashed potatoes turned out just fine and husband’s garlic creamed pasta shells (his one and only specialty so far!) were finished right off before we all loosened our pants a bit and had tea with brownies. Tea caps off dinner like no other, I must say.
I definitely believe food tastes better when made from scratch and with attention and love. You digest that, and I think it makes a difference. It really is a shame there’s no English equivalent to the saying Bon appetite! But that says something, doesn’t it?
Make a meal, sit down and enjoy it, draw it out.

Whodunit?

2008-07-07T15:23:00.001-07:00

I studied the Steven Truscott case in my third year youth criminal law class in university. The point of the study was to come to our own conclusions based on the evidence because, as that point, the case had not received its federal review yet. Truscott had gone through a jury trial a bazillion years ago, (1959) but the resonant arguments about evidence, rushed testimony, crappy lawyers and suspicious area drivers let us all participate in a real-life game of whodunit.
It was always important to me to remember that it was not a game, that, in fact, a boy had gone to jail and nearly received the death sentence as a result of the jury’s verdict. As a scholar, however, I found it incredibly interesting to dissect the clues, compare and contrast them with cases from today and dig deep into my own soul and moral code to decide for myself if I thought he had done it.
I definitely think the investigation is an excellent example of how not to run a murder investigation, the process was certainly rushed and clearly geared toward blaming someone—anyone—so the town of Clinton, Ontario could rest easy knowing the killer of 12-year-old Lynne Harper was being punished. Truscott, a boy himself at age 14, was put through a legal circus and clown court that today’s Greenspans would certainly tackle. He spent 10 years in jail and 40 on parole.
I can’t go into the details of the investigation (at least as far as the public knows them to be) only because they are too detailed and exhaustive for a blog entry. But the one clue that gives me the “reasonable doubt” our courts ask for is the necklace: How did Truscott know exactly where Harper’s necklace was hung up in the woods surrounding Clinton, after it had been ripped off of her? That one minute detail is my doubt. Everything else I’ve read and seen reassures me that guilty or not, Truscott did not receive justice in the academic sense of the word, and as our Charter defines it.
The justice department decided last year that the 1959 trial was a miscarriage of justice. The department did not clear his name or label him one of Canada’s wrongly convicted. Today Truscott received a $6.5 million settlement package.
Did he do it?
I definitely believe that unless someone else comes forth with clear evidence, or a confession, of killing Harper, only Truscott will ever really know if he did it.

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080707/truscott_compensation_080707/20080707?hub=TopStories
More info: http://www.cbc.ca/news/background/truscott/

Another night in Ross

2008-07-04T22:25:00.000-07:00

Overheard as I set out a box of pizza at husband’s desk at the police department. He was in the jail cells section negotiating with a drunk guy:
Scene: Drunk guy is only mildly drunk and husband agrees to take him home as long as drunk guy agrees to stay inside for the rest of the night. Drunk guy agrees.
Husband: Okay, well I need your word that you’ll stay in, so I need you to shake on it.
Guy extends left hand.
Husband: No, no, no. You’ve got to shake with your right hand (Tries to get extra reassurance the drunk guy still has the motor skills and cognizance to determine left from right)
Drunk Guy holds back, begins to get angry.
Drunk Guy: No, man
Husband: Yup, it’s got to be the right hand, that’s how you shake on it.
Drunk Guy: No, man, with my left (voice rising)
Husband: Dude, give me your right hand and shake on it or you’ll be in cells tonight. Come on, I’m doing you a favour.
Drunk Guy: I don’t have a right hand!
Husband: What are you talking about? You’re starting to lose my trust here. Now, shake.
Drunk Guy: No, I mean, I don’t have a right hand!
He is very angry now and holds up his right arm, which comes to an end with a stump after his wrist.
Husband: (sheepishly) My bad. Alright, let’s get you home.

Oh, the things we have to discuss over dinner.

Stroke Leaves Canadian with New Accent

2008-07-03T11:54:00.002-07:00

http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20080703/accent_syndrome_080703/20080703?hub=TopStories
I had to read the article under this headline to believe it. Not that one can believe everything reported. Believe it or not, I understand that journalists can get things wrong, especially initial reports. Anyway, this sounds crazy doesn’t it? Waking up from a stroke with an accent from a locale you’ve never visited? I guess if you’re going to acquire an accent, a Newfie one wouldn’t be the worst. I think I’d want a Spanish one, like Penelope Cruz.
The article made me think of the life skills teacher at our school, who is a Newf with a very thick accent. I thought it was hilarious this guy was working with kids whose own speech patterns and communication skills were extremely delayed and regressive. The poor angry kids who are spoken to by a guy spouting words so fast and in so thick an accent they don’t know if they’re getting lectured, punished or praised. (Many also lack the skills to correctly interpret tone of voice, though they certainly have good days)
That teacher retired this year, and told me he was thinking about taking a speech pathology position up in a remote community called Old Crow. Goodness gracious, who comes up with these ideas?

Canada Day in the Country

2008-07-01T19:26:00.001-07:00

I watched the CBC’s live coverage of the Canada Day show on Parliament Hill this morning. It was a little mournsome, as it was all so familiar and evoked major nostalgia. I could envision my friends and family, painting maple leafs on each other, barbecuing, drinking, and putting those paper flags in their ponytails, getting ready to make the trek downtown, where crowds frequently erupt singing the national anthem and everyone joins in.
On TV, I watched the cannons go off, the PM shake hands awkwardly with people in their traditional dress and people wearing as many red maple leafs as possible. I had sort of written off this Canada Day, knowing it could never compare to an Ottawa Canada Day. I even pitifully texted all my Ottawa friends, wishing them a happy Canada Day, envisioning them walking the downtown streets blocked off from traffic wearing goofy hats and flags in creative ways.
But then there was a Canada Day miracle. Husband/lead cop in town was asked at the last minute to organize a Canada Day parade. Now, when Ross River residents say “parade” what they mean is organizing all the emergency vehicles (police, fire, ambulance) to form a convoy with sirens on and wailing. Each vehicle pastes Canada flags and Canada balloons all around it, and the occupants prepare freezies and Canada Day tattoos and candy to throw out at the kids.
I thought this was hilarious, driving through town with sirens blazing, no doubt irritating all the hung over drunks. More importantly, a whole slew of kids started following the “parade” on their bikes, collecting the strewn freezies, tattoos and candy. They were so happy! People waved to us from the balconies and drove out in their cars to follow. It was too funny; I smiled ear to ear tossing freezies and laughing the whole morning.
To top it all off, a mother and her daughter hauled out their ice cream truck, for this once-a-year occasion, and drove around ringing their bells selling ice cream to everyone. They made a killing and I got an ice cream sandwich.
It was totally not the high-budget, staged spectacle of national TV, but it was just enough to make me forget about what I was missing at home. Happy Canada Day!

Five finger green thumb

2008-06-29T14:28:00.000-07:00

Let’s talk about the fundamentals of greening up my home.
For one, I am not so good at planting, and do not see myself squatting over dirt wearing floral-print anything gardening up a storm anytime in my future. (I’ll never say never). People here start little buds in that dark soil around February and plant seeds under heat lamps. Then when it’s May and relatively warm outside (i.e. not freezing) they plant rows and rows of these seedlings-turn-two-leaved mini-plants. Then the constant sunlight leads to constant photosynthesis and within short weeks there are beautiful, ripe gardens. People grow potatoes (Yukon gold!) and herbs and tomatoes and eat wonderfully fresh produce from their own gardens for all of summer (which is two months).
This all sounds splendid and totally not realistic to me. Maybe one day, but not now. So I’m not going to plant little seedlings and grow them under heat lamps and presto change-o have beautiful, leafy green plants. It’s just not in my self-determined cards.
I love the idea of buying those ready-grown ginormous plants at the Wal-Mart garden Centre on my trips into Whitehorse. All I’d have to do is keep them watered, and I can handle that, even if our water tank does disagree with our average level of water usage. BUT, that would mean loading a bunch of plants in the bed of my pickup truck and driving four hours at about 100 km/hour on bumpy dirt roads. I’ve yet to see anyone in this town perform such a feat successfully. Not to mention the bed of my truck is also filled with coolers and Rubbermaid containers full of groceries and food. Humph.
So I took to stealing. My husband’s coworker has gone AWOL but did give us a random phone call asking us to water his plants. I interpreted that to mean, “Take my plants and find perfect spots for them in your own home and then water them until the end of time.” So I did!
Then the nice man who runs the “life skills” class (i.e. special ed) at school gave me one of his, since he was moving.
See, all this came from this Feng Shui for Dummies book I ordered from Amazon that told me I need more plants in my house to balance out the flow of energy in order to be happy and reap the rewards the universe is ready to offer me. Naturally, I was like “right on!” but then went through the above thought process in wondering how to acquire said plants.
Now that my home’s energy is all redirected and balanced thanks, in part, to my stolen plants (is that Feng Shui hypocrisy? If so, can the energy gods tell?), all is well.

The Longest Day

2008-06-22T14:17:00.001-07:00

Yesterday all across the northern hemisphere was the longest day of the year, the summer solstice when the sun is up for the longest amount of time. Here in the Yukon, it is a notable occasion celebrated in many ways. Like Christmas, each family and group of friends has its own traditional longest day activity. This being my first, I thought I’d start one up.
The sun rose at 4:00 a.m. and set at 23:44, although the hours between sunrise and sunset are not dark. The sun sets only a little bit below the horizon and so the sky stays relatively light; it’s pink on a clear night. Last night was a little cloudy but nonetheless, we took pictures of ourselves holding a clock at midnight to send back to friends and family in Ontario, so they all could see how light it was. I am anticipating it will be really weird to take my trip home to Ottawa this summer and see stars for the first time in months!
Last night I also launched my inaugural annual rib grill-off. I defrosted about seven racks of pork ribs in my fridge starting Thursday after rescuing them from the depths of my frigid deep freezer. At about ten o’clock last night I lit the barbecue up and started slow cooking them. My puppy took advantage of the missing grease trap to lick up all the fat and grease drippings, so I guess that was her longest day treat.
At midnight, I slathered them up with sauce and the husband and I sat down with his boss in the kitchen at midnight to get our fingers all sticky and our teeth full of ribs as we chowed down, sans cutlery, of course. To top it off, we all took sliver-sized pieces of the Georgia Peanut Butter Pie I’d made. I went to bed more full than I’ve been in a long time!
And that was our first longest day, and the first time I’ve lived in a place on the solstice where the sun never really goes down!

Into the Wild

2008-06-08T13:15:00.001-07:00

I read Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer about two months ago, I think, and finished the book wondering if Chris McCandless was a brazen adventurer who met some bad luck or whether he was an arrogant tramper who could have saved himself with more careful planning. I decided that he had been well-intentioned but had gone too far in denying support, from communications systems, food rations and maps. After all, as the author pointed out, he could have made it over the river had he used a map showing a ranger station 2km down stream. Instead, we all know he turned around and made some more fatal errors living off the land, biding time until he could walk out on his own. The dream ended in gaunt tragedy in the wild.
I watched the movie last night and changed my mind. This is a case, I think, where the film is better than the novel. Is ay this because the film, being visual, is so much more convincing. The carefully filmed scenes of mountain chains back dropped by pink sunsets, of the Colorado River flanked by terracotta-coloured rock walls, add a whole new dimension to my understanding of McCandless. It was like, “Aha, so that’s what he was after.” The infinite beauty of untamed wild, of scenery, of scenes illuminated by sunlight and not by neon.
Part of the McCandless mystery, like that of Jeffrey Eugenides’ Virgin Suicides, is that we’ll never know whether or not young Chris made fatal errors or was too arrogant in his quest for the wild that he orchestrated his own demise. Maybe he never intended to make it out alive; we’ll never know. But watching the film adaptation and having the detailed research and analyses of the book certainly draws me in as a captive wonderer who’ll never know what happened, but who longs for more clues. After the visual argument of beautiful coastlines and barren arctic beauty, I’m now more convinced that the beauty was intoxicating, convincing the young ex-academic that all can and would be solved with surrender to the larger beauty and organization of nature.
I for one fully give myself to the comforts of civilization, knowing that solitude and self-sufficiency are not my fortes, at least in terms of basic survival, nourishment and shelter. Love is way better and love must be shared.

Meeting the Elders

2008-06-03T18:39:00.000-07:00

There’s something to be noted about first nations and their oft-touted motto of respect for elders. It’s an absolute about-face from the way I grew up viewing a western societal take on the geriatric age, where old people are addressed with demeaning tones as they are shipped off to retirement homes, only to be visited or let out for Christmas, Easter and the occasional grandchild birthday.*
Today the students had a field trip led by elders to the site of the old Ross River, before it was moved to this side of the river in 1963. It is about a 20-minute hike, once you cross the footbridge over the fast-moving Pelly River, and the path is marked with grave sites, hawks’ nests and walking trails established long ago.
Troubled kids who are normally off the wall and wouldn’t listen to warnings of a nuclear attack sat enraptured by the tales of the elders. Kids who have difficulty remembering their own birthdays were able to tell me how they were related to the elders present, where the families became connected long ago. As far as I know, the age of 65 denotes one an elder. Their faces are dark and lined at the creases, their hair is black but lined in white. They speak softly, and say much with few words.
One, Amos, I estimate is almost 80 years old. He said he was 13 in 1942 as he recounted a story of how large steamboats would pass the old Ross River settlement during the war. He led a walking tour of the old site in the bush, keeping a quick pace with his carved walking stick through unmarked paths. I consider myself in decent shape and found myself taking large steps to keep up with him as he moved from the site of an old car to an abandoned house once owned by the Catholic priest. He showed us where the produce was stored for coolness and recounted what fun he had running around with his friends. Though hard of hearing, he told stories with fascinating detail, and all listened, no matter how soft he spoke.
Around the campfire, he sharpened stick to be used in a gopher trap, and talked to the students.
“Those potato chips, potato chips. No eat those potato chips. You eat potatoes, fruit, that be much better,” he said with a nod.
“And don’t be drinking. You stagger around act like idiot, that’s no good,” echoed with a face of disgust.
“That marijuana smoke,” he said, raising two fingers to his mouth as if to smoke it, “you stay away, it make you crazy like, no good. Us old timers, we know, you stay away.”
Sound advice, even if the demographic was largely between the ages of 9 and 12-- not early or too late.
Another elder, a woman, told me talking to the kids today is like talking to sticks, she said, holding up a sharpened piece of willow.
“They don’t listen, don’t know how to survive off the land.” Is that really important these days? It is here, where families still hunt in the bush for extended periods of time. “They run out food, bear eat it, these kids don’t know how to feed themselves.”
She pointed out some kids that are eager to learn, but lamented that most fall victim to junk: food, family structures and alcohol.
This was the first time, since arriving here, that I heard such candid and clear thoughts against drinking, against the social dysfunction that I witness every day. I realize there are wise people here who wish for better, who recognize the trouble their people are in.
The old Ross site smelled sweet from the thousands of sage plants growing in the field. The area is dotted with rusted-out tin roofs, cars and ovens. A couple of cabins still stand, but most are fallen, eroding pieces of wood. The kids and I learned which berries to eat (berry blossoms and rosehips) and which not to eat (bee flowers and soap berries). We learned what wood to use to smoke the fish we catch (and fillet ourselves, naturally), and finally, how to set a gopher snare. It was completely impressive to see this practice taught to the kids. It is seldom used these days, and why bother—is there not a general store to buy candy? Of course, but this is tradition, and this is an elder, and for that we respect him and learn.
*=SIDENOTE: This is, of course, a generalization. In my family, my Grama and Grampa were always hanging out with us, taking us to the park, even skateboarding with us. And my Dad’s parents were esteemed intellectuals who never lost their touch until the day they died. That said, I fear we are the exception rather than the norm

Boyfriends

2008-05-30T17:00:00.001-07:00

The big drama at school this week on the playground was who’s going out with who. Now, going out seems to be a title. I mean, around here, I wouldn’t be surprised if a “couple” in grades 3 or 4 were up to no good after school hours when nobody’s watching them, but at school, being someone’s boyfriend or girlfriend seems to mean sitting beside each other at assemblies, and saving the last Gusher or piece of gum for them.
I laugh and remember my first boyfriends. I also laugh that between grades 5 and 7 I had more boyfriends than between grades 8 and 10.
My first was Kyle. He was a football player and I was a cheerleader, it was like a match made in after-school-special heaven. I’m sure this all freaked my parents right out. I mean, who expects their 10-year-old to start dating? They kept tight reins over what our dates were allowed to entail. We went on bike rides and one time he even came over to watch “Billy Madison.”
I don’t remember how things with him ended, but I do remember that I was ready to get right onto the next one. My grade 5 boyfriend was Brendan and man, we were like the Zack Morris and Kelly Kapowski of Miss Buckle’s class. All I can remember is that when we made Valentine’s Day cards in art class we made some for each other, instead of making card for our parents, like the other kids. And at one point he gave me a blue and turquoise-coloured plastic jewelry box that I still have, actually. The part of our relationship I remember most, of course, is the breakup.
Our class had just begun the gymnastics unit in gym class, and I was stoked. All things bendy were where I excelled, being double-jointed. This phys ed. unit drove us a part. Brendan was a natural athlete who rolled in high grades in every gym unit; sports were a cake walk for him. But when final gymnastics performances were held and I scored higher, he could not take it. Brendan broke my grade 5 hear breaking up with me, all because I was better at doing the splits. To rub salt in the traumatic wound, he ran right into the arms of another Northern Getaway-clad classmate, Michelle.
After Brendan there was Blake and Steven and Michael and Dan and Matt. All were dramatic, and all ended, either me with my face in my pillow sobbing that the world was unfair and boys were stupid jerks, or me making an awkward telephone call to tell the poor dude he just wasn’t cutting it.
Then, as we all know, I struck the jackpot in Grade 10 and started dating the dude who is now the Mr to my Mrs.

RIP Zola's Cafe

2008-05-26T19:57:00.001-07:00

One of my favourite downtown Whitehorse landmarks announced this week it is closing, succumbing to the pressure of big business moving in.
Zola’s Café Doré is a coffeehouse on Main Street owned by a coffee bean brewer famous in Whitehorse. Whenever I had the chance to do a face-to-face interview while writing for the paper, I almost always chose the quiet back room, painted red, at Zola’s. Everyone knew where it was, the clientele was loyal and frequent, and the coffee was phenomenal. It had my favourite: decaf chai latté. The walls were lined with the paintings and photographs of local artisans, the walls muralled with scenes boasting a coffee revolution.
When Starbucks announced they would be opening a second location in Whitehorse on Main Street, I surveyed coffee drinkers and business owners for an article, gauging whether or not the coffee giant’s infringement on the street’s independent coffee shops would cause their demise. Most thought the mom and pop shops’ customers were loyal enough to continue offering their business, despite the corporate competition down the block. The Starbucks staff and the small shops’ owners all told me they thought there was room for everyone to strive and prosper. Not so, it seems. The Main Street Starbucks opened its doors a month ago, and now Zola’s has announced it is closing.
True, there is a Tim Horton’s around the block, another small coffee shop down the street and Java Connection a few streets over. That’s a lot of coffee in one area. Then again, that’s where all the government workers are stationed from 9 to 5.
I don’t know if this is a case of corporate box store using its solid and internationally-backed franchise structure to dominate the downtown coffee market with its jazzy familiar menu and predictable interior, but it sure is coincidental that Zola’s is now closing.
I like Starbucks. I like their chai lattés too, and their hot chocolate isn’t bad. In the summer, they’re the only place I know that offers green tea lemonade. I like jazz music, and I really listen to it, while I sit in their plush seats in the warm coloured décor. I think it’s comforting. I still think that if I had to choose a spot to do an interview, I’d choose Zola’s. Not only is it taboo in Whitehorse to express admiration for “the man” or the corporate giant, especially considering the hippie and neo-hippie demographic, but Zola’s was always Zen, always calm- even for a coffee joint.

On my shoulder

2008-05-21T21:24:00.001-07:00

Because it’s summertime, (meaning a weather forecast that doesn’t linger at two degrees) and the living is easy (read: few social or entertainment outlets), I am happy to say I have time to do the things I always said I’d do “later” or “when I have a bit more time.” Indeed, there are no newspaper deadlines for me, no Monday night council meetings or Wednesday night aerobics classes.
Not that my life was so crazy bad. Like, I was nowhere near the point of an overworked, intervention level. I am an A-type personality who accomplishes much with a packed-full schedule and thrive in busy days planned by the hour. Some cringe at such a daytimer, but not me. Now? Now, when I have one thing, one errand to accomplish, it’s a days-drawn-out affair of “tomorrow I will drop off that application.” Then, “Oh, maybe the next day I’ll swing by the post office.” Slowed right down.
This is where the little angel on my shoulder pops up. Or as I like to think of it, a little Buddha, wearing spandex shorts and sweatbands. He reminds me now that there is this “time” I was always waiting for, it’s time to work on me.
Yikes, I even hate how cliché that sounds. I don’t mean in the twentysomething “I have to FIND myself” kind of way. I mean there, alright, we have very little to do, so let’s use that time to accomplish some personal shifts. As in, shift back into daily yoga, shift back into the kind of dinners that take awhile to prepare from scratch but taste soooo good because of it. The kind if shift that prompts me t read on the back deck rather than watch another damn episode of Tila Tequila’s Shot at Love 2.
I’m re-reading books I remember as interesting, even…get this…SCHOOL texts! I know! I am catching myself in bad habits, or trying to, like touching my face all the time. I had no idea how much I rested my face on my hand, or swiped at my forehead. Near crazy levels! I’m writing letters to friends and family, by hand of course, and even pitching quirky columns to the Whitehorse paper again, just to keep journalistic. And, of course, to get paid for writing again, which is nice.
More importantly though, I’m doing all these hokey hippie things like Feng Shui and meditation and having smoothies with weird things like what germ in them. Things that I think make me a better, more mindful and healthy me. Hence, the spandex-clad Buddha on my shoulder.
It’s my happy-healthy tag team against the general sadness vibe of Ross River. I’m going with the “I’ll smile at you until that one day you might smile back at me” practice.

Just the Two of Us

2008-05-19T11:02:00.001-07:00

It has all come down to this weekend: Here we are, just the two of us, left to our own devices. Isolated, no social entertainment outlets (because really, the town bar is not our scene), no video rental store even. We had always remarked how nice it would be when it was just the two of us in Ross River. “Oh, what time we’ll finally have for each other.” Friday when the work whistle blew, it was on. The moment had arrived. Could we indeed last an entire long weekend, just he and I, without driving each other crazy?
Things could have gone quite cranky. I mean, I had a list of long weekend to-do’s: Replace hallway light bulb, wash truck inside and out, bake a pumpkin chocolate cake and grill a beer chicken. He gets nervous when I make lists, because he knows if he doesn’t look busy, he’ll be assigned a task sooner or later. And then the “you nag me” “well you don’t do anything around the house” arguments begin.
They never did! Saturday we stayed in bed as long as we could, finally letting our growing puppy lie in bed between us. When we did rouse, we made a slow breakfast and decided it would be a nice day to take a drive and a picnic lunch. He was patient as I asked him repeatedly to stop driving and let me get out to take pictures. I cursed him out when he didn’t believe I saw mountain goats, but apologized when I realized he didn’t see them because- duh!- he was driving. We had an awesome picnic lunch by the shallow lake melt, and enjoyed doing something new together while holding hands and stuff.
He helped me clean up after baking my cake and he got supper started. We watched Hitch on TV and laughed together. When he became bored with the movie, he did his own thing and that was that. We laughed at each other for things you all probably would not find funny. But that’s exactly what makes it funny, and kind of special for us, it’s like our own language, our inside jokes that we know only the other will appreciate.
I washed the truck Sunday morning and he was quite firm in letting me know the day was a write-off for him: International hockey and NHL playoffs, of course. When that was over we went to the gym together and though this happens quite regularly, I enjoyed watching him workout. It was kind of like seeing him through different lenses. Noticing him.
We ate supper and he complimented my cooking and thanked me, saying, “That was really good food, I like it when everything tastes good.” As opposed to when it does not? I’ll take the underhanded compliment as it was meant, with kindness.
Even though we are spending the weekend doing things quite in the ordinary, it is just us, free to sleep in, enjoy all of each other, and I love that I can just get up walk over and snuggle into him anytime I want. Six months in and I know that the married life is definitely for me, I’m loving it.
He knows when to hug me and when to let me be.
He knows where to draw the line and he knows when to concede.
He knows how I like the bed made and to put away DVDs,
He knows why I love him and I’m happy he married me.

Not Winnie the Pooh

2008-05-15T07:50:00.000-07:00

“Do you guys want to come over some night for bear nachos?”
I thought this was a cute saying, like bear claw doughnuts that aren’t really bear claws, but pastries. Until she followed up her invitation with a clarifying sentence.
“Yeah, we caught a bear last weekend.”
Indeed, she was asking if we wanted to go over to her cabin on the lake to eat actual bits of bear meat on nachos! Only in Ross River…
I’m very curious right now about hunting. It fascinates me and definitely impresses me. Coming from Ontario, the concept of subsistence hunting is still a little lost on me. I mean, who would need to hunt for food in this day and age? Well, people in Ross River, is the answer.
The bears have just started coming out of hibernation, and are looking for food and rearing their young. They aren’t big and fat like they are before winter, but apparently their coats continue to grow in winter and many of the black and grizzly bears have pretty yummy meat on them.
This couple caught a bear with one shot, dragged all 200 pounds of it to their cabin and dressed it that night. That means cutting it open and taking out all the bits and pieces. I imagine this to be kind of like a real-life version of the board game “Operation.” They plan on having the hide tanned by a local tanner to make a bearskin rug. All the meat will be eaten, they say, lasting them until their next hunt, likely a moose later this fall.
I’m not sure how fascinated I’d be if I were a vegetarian or a big-time PETA proponent or whatever. But this is the culture, the tradition around here. And I’ll be darned if I leave here without having gone on a hunting trip.

Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes

2008-05-12T22:20:00.002-07:00

I never thought I’d say it but my trip into Whitehorse, i.e. the social milieu with which I’m most recently familiar, was actually overwhelming. It was odd to be amassed with a group of people I knew. I found it kind of odd and uncomfortable having people talk to me for lengths of time. Me! The journalist of only a month ago! It surprises me how much even a month in a small northern town of first nation land has changed me.
I can feel it, kind of like Spiderman realizes how he’s changed after the spider bite. I can feel myself slowing down, taking it easy. I can tell I am more reflective and certainly more appreciative of simple things like special cheeses (what a treat!) and hugs. I can also feel myself being pulled away from who I used to be. Not that this is a bad thing, I know I will always be changing, or evolving, as I like to say.
I can feel my skin thickening as I learn to deflect misguided anger and discrimination. I can feel myself becoming more independent and self-sufficient because I have to solve problems myself, there are no yellowpages full of answers. I can feel myself humbling, finding joy in things that, only weeks ago, would have gone unnoticed, unappreciated. I live for quiet moments petting my sleeping kitten and sharing a meal with the husband.
I learned more about what’s changing inside me by returning to Whitehorse for the weekend, where the familiar settings and routines seemed different. They are unchanged, and it is me who is seeing things from a changed perspective. Call it the self-discovery of a twentysomething on her own in unfamiliar waters, but I like how difficult life in Ross River can be. I enjoy that it challenges what I know, what I once believed. It does come with tough days, and feelings of despair and sadness I had not experienced before. But change comes slowly, it’s a process, and I am computing it all, figuring out what it means to me, how to deal with it, and where I stand.
The difficulty, I’m finding, is how best to articulate this change and describe it as I live it, not in retrospect. I’ll enjoy having you along on this journey with me as readers, and I hope that as it all unfolds, I can be clear in my descriptions. I don’t think it’s possible for me to paint a complete picture of what this huge upheaval and major life change is like from a personal experience. I’ll try, but there really is no way for you to understand what living here is like unless you do it. I’ll try, of course, but be patient, because I’m in an unfamiliar place, metaphorically and geographically, and as I maneuver my way through it, I may lose you just as I am confused myself.
But now that the initial shock has worn off and I keep moving forward with eyes and mind wide open, we’ll see where it takes me.
“The truth does not change according to our ability to stomach it.” – Flannery O’Connor, American author, 1925-1964

Dangerous Minds

2008-05-07T16:07:00.000-07:00

As you can imagine, not everyone is a fan of the detention supervisor. Wednesday afternoons at school, all the students attend special workshops they’ve signed up for. Cooking class, quilting, welding, native appreciation, stuff like that. If a student is late for their activity, they must go to the homework room for the whole period. Some students just get sent to homework automatically, perhaps because they have misbehaved earlier in the day. Either way, I sat at the desk in the homework/detention class and read my book to myself. Students opened up sketchbooks or started origami projects. I didn’t really care what they did, I was just there to make sure they weren’t jumping out windows or running away. This is not a dramatic exaggeration for storytelling purposes, but rather a reality at Ross River School.
Two girls decided that my habit of asking them to stop running away from class was unfavourable. I didn’t give them the benefit of my attention when they decided to write “shit” and “fuck” on the blackboard, giggling and looking over at me, waiting for me to get all teacher-angry. At that point it was more productive for me to count down the ticking clock than try and reprimand them. I decided they did not in fact need to take a fourth bathroom break in under 20 minutes, so I reminded them that they could choose to stay in class or see the principal. This worked for a little bit, as they’d shuffle back to the detention class giggling and whispering, making sure I heard my name interjected in their gossip.
This dance of leaving class, being called back, sulking and giggling circulated for about another 10 rounds before they tried again and I stoop up and headed to the door, indicating I’d be involving the principal.
“Girls, stay in the room. You don’t get another break for at least 20 minutes.”
One girl pretended she didn’t hear me correctly.
“What did you say?”
I repeated.
“I can’t understand you,” she said. Giggles shared between them. One whispered something to the other, and nudged her to say it to me.
“We don’t understand white speak.”
I asked them what, exactly, that meant, because as far as I knew, we were both speaking English.
“You’re too white and stupid to understand,” said one.
“Well, maybe you should teach me then. Explain to me what you mean so that I may learn from you,” I answered.
“We’re smarter than you, we speak the language, and you’re too stupid and white.”
Quite a mouthful of racial epithets to come from the mouth of a ten-year old, I thought. One needn’t wonder too long to deduce from what gardener such thoughts may have been planted in a majority native community.
I knew the principal was busy, but I wasn’t about to argue with these kids or put on a show for the other students in class. We took it to the principal, a white male of Slovakian descent. He was not too impressed. I doubt the girls are sorry, and we’ll see what happens next time. For now, I sit on the other side, wondering what it’s going to be like being the racial minority belittled for my skin colour. Who would have thought a white, Gap-wearing girl from Orleans would be saying that.

Imagine the amounts of dog poop

2008-05-04T17:17:00.001-07:00

Now that I’ve settled into something of a routine and figured out some of the parameters of my substitute teaching job, I figured I’d entertain at least a couple of the job offers thrown my way when I first arrived in town. Among them were ambulance driver, health centre secretary, librarian, computer class teacher, youth programs organizer and jail guard. Since school’s only in session 9 a.m. to 3 p.m., that leaves time to fill. And with little to do recreation-wise and a husband whose job sees him out of the house, I thought it’d be best to fill the empty hours with something ore productive than watching The Hills and Shot at Love.
I thought I’d go over to the head nurse’s house across the street to talk to her about helping out as sort of an on-call health centre secretary whenever they needed a backup and community librarian, filling in. What began as a quest to diversify my work portfolio ended with chains around my ankles and violation of my private parts. But, let me backup and explain this.
When I knocked on the nurse’s door, she asked me to come in.
“Quickly, just scoot in here, I’ll keep the dogs out.” She has ten dogs. They appear to be German Shepherd-Husky mixes with some weird mutts thrown in that she’d collected over the years.
I told her I wouldn’t stay long as I could see she was cleaning house for dinner guests. I explained that I was interested in helping out, and asked how I would go about applying formally. She had a bit of a confused, displaced look and quickly explained where I could drop off resumes and what forms to fill out. Then she started showing me around her kitchen for some reason.
“This is where the carrots are, they love carrots, they get all excited when they hear me say the word.”
Her dinner guests?
“I keep the chewees and treats up here, and you can give out as many as you want.”
Does she mean “you” in the generic way?
She had me follow her out back where five of her dogs live, to introduce me. I figured, why not? I might as well meet my neighbours, canine or human.
I had five giant dogs jumping at my back, my face, my arms.
“Don’t be afraid to be firm with them,” she advised.
I felt one large dog’s snout forced strongly between my legs from behind, kind of like a bicycle seat.
“Thanks so much for offering to watch them while I go into Whitehorse this week.”
Um, what?
“Oh, did your husband tell you? You’ve been conscripted!”
No, he most certainly did not. But he sure does have some ‘splaining to do.
“Anyway, here’s the puppy food and the dog food. The cats are in this room and they don’t require much care.
The other five dogs, I learned, live in the front yard tethered to industrial-strength posts with industrial-strength chains.
“These guys are all pretty strong, and I keep them on the chains otherwise they tend to scrap.”
As she toured me around, pointing out water bowls and behaviour tendencies, the excited dogs ran circles around me, resulting in my ankles being encircled by their chains.
She handed me a key, thanked me again, and pointed out the emergency phone numbers where I could reach her.
“Sound good?”
I walked back across the street wondering if anyone would notice if I cared for these ten giant dogs by spraying water towards their dishes with a hose from a safe distance away. I’ll send husband to do the feeding.

The Germans are coming

2008-04-30T15:30:00.002-07:00

I settled into my bed Monday night, flanked by puppy on my right, kitten on my left,with his tiny mew-mew head burrowed into my armpit. My own head was propped up by a second pillow, the lights dimmed to that of only my bedside seashell lamp. Hands newly moistened with my olive oil shea butter stuff, I was ready to read until I felt sleepy. Until WWII broke out.
I heard the revving up of alarm signals I had only ever heard before in war movies. Like, the winding up air horns that rang over England to alert citizens that the Germans were preparing an attack. But a blitzkrieg in Ross River?
It stopped, thankfully, once all dogs in town had joined in the wailing chorus towards the moon. Then it revved up again. And again and a few more time in the next half an hour.
Apparently the school's fire alarm is not the regular, modern-day ringing but the war-era invasion alarm, on a pole in the town's centre for all to hear. And some kids had set it off.
Strange.

Ode to the Water Guy

2008-04-28T17:16:00.000-07:00

The Adventures in north country-living carry on. This weekend’s episode was the Survivor-esque one in which the water tank ran dry. To top it off (no pun intended), the water filler dude had joined many other Ross Riverians on a weekend drive into Whitehorse. This meant between Saturday night and Sunday night, we played house without water.
At first, this was comical to me, in the sense of, “As if we are out of water! Like, a basic necessity, that water.” Our upstairs (and, as current, only) toilet was running when we came in from quadding Saturday afternoon, and this was the culprit of our woes. In the city, this is not so big a problem, mostly because water comes from city pipes that lead to a pretty large, seemingly infinite water supply. Our finite supply usually requires a fillup every couple of days around here. When things are running smoothly, we cannot expect to do laundry and each have a shower in the same DAY.
So, we used the reserve in the pipes to fill a few jugs and cups and resolved it wouldn’t really be so bad. After all, how much water do we need?
We soon found out. It wasn’t too troublesome to do our laundry at a friend’s house, as it was only a year ago I was having to do this anyway as a student who couldn’t afford the neighbourhood coin slots. We showered at the gym after working out, so our hygienic needs were largely met. But we grew frustrated we could not use our toilets, wash our hands, and boil water to prepare dinner or cleanup spills on the kitchen floor.
I joked we’d have to resort to laying plastic mattress covers on the back lawn to collect dew, like in real survivor shows I’d seen on TV. I took a drive past the water guy’s house just to see for myself whether he’d driven into Whitehorse. I left a yellow Post-it note on his door, hoping it would stick.
He came to our rescue after dinner time, which was helpful beyond just the convenience of having running water again. It also meant we didn’t have crusty dishes waiting for us the next day to clean by hand because, alas, a dishwasher would certainly not be water-efficient and so we do not have one.
Now, we are back to hydrated living, and basking in it.

Quadding in the RR

2008-04-26T21:09:00.001-07:00

‘Twas a Saturday afternoon, though without the aid of a clock, it’s hard to tell what time of day is morning, noon or evening. Sun’s up at ten to six in the morning and down at quarter to ten at night.
We had finished hauling the last of the moving boxes up to the town dump, and brought some to the grocery store clerk, who requested them for transportation of produce. The patio was set up, barbecue intact and reading chairs set out. I took the chance to be busy doing nothing, sitting on my patio chair, revisiting a favourite read, with my dawgie (that’s what I think you’re supposed to call them out in the country) at my side, resting her purdy little gold head on her paws. (Purdy may be taking the country dialect too far)
I sat in the sun, outdoors, for the first time in months and peacefully exhaled into a deep, relaxed reading session.
The time came to retire inside when clouds covered the high white sun and I got a bit chilled. As I wandered in, an invitation came to put the police quads to good use.
“Want to come play?”
Of course we did! We saddled up our Rhino, buckled our belts and followed the leader into the bush. Now, when I say into the bush, I mean the wooded area around our town where people have laid snowmobiling and ATV tracks, so its not really all that rugged and primal. But certainly a new thrill to us! The winter melt meant there were many a giant puddle to drive through, and we laughed as I suppose only green city folk can when we realized our motorized vehicle was designed to traverse water and over fallen branches.
We climbed, I ducked my head to avoid snapback branches, I shrieked with delight when we went speedy fast and was content to marvel silently when we took a break where Ross River meets the Pelly River and we took it all in. I hear the area looks beautiful in the summer when the trees are all green and the river ice has broken.
We planned picnic trips and boat rides to fish and winter snowmobile treks up the mountains, although I suppose we will conduct them under the guise of official police “patrols” in order to warrant the free access to all the motorized toys that will take us up, away and over.

Parallels and other universes

2008-04-25T16:04:00.001-07:00

Though I am only 4 hours away from Whitehorse by car, the distance I am from home feels like it has tripled in one week. I walked back to the school after the lunch break today and thought, “I’m glad I don’t have to wear my puffy vest, only my hoodie!”
And, “Look at that snow bank melt!” Winter is at its tail end here, (I hope? Don’t jinx it!) meanwhile phone calls from home tell me everyone’s wearing shorts, eating on patios, thinking about tans. I recall winter beginning with a first fierce snowstorm in September, making this a stupidly long 7-month season. Who came up with that?
Tuesday I happily watched husband set up satellite TV and connect all the wires that make the Internet happen, keeping me in tune and at least electronically closer to home. How did homesick writers do it before the web? There is comfort in America’s Next Top Model and the same tea I drank in my cozy apartments at home. I also find it in my plush bath robe, boxes of Laura Secord chocolate from Easter time and hearing a giggly, curly-haired friend or an excited grade-eight sister on the other end of the phone when it rings.
I feel far from home when I look around at a school assembly that fills up a teensy corner of the vast court and realize I am the only blond, and one of the few people with white skin. It’s just odd to be in the minority, I guess. I feel worlds away when I meet a kid in grade three who doesn’t know his own name, because his parents and family members have never called him by it. I find no relatable ground when I see a kid upset, and the reason is not that their friends teased the, but that their parents got drunk and said mean things to them, so they were up late crying.
That said, I can see how Ross River will be a leap of a learning curve, a chance to learn about real struggle, find out who I am against a drastically different backdrop and of course start out a marriage in a welcoming, warm home for two.
Lesson #1: This weekend will not be about shopping at Canadian Tire before going out for dinner, renting a movie and meeting up with friends for coffee. Rather, it will be about exploring the hiking trails around us, clearing out the giant mountain of moving boxes in my backyard and hoping that our nice, quiet moments aren’t interrupted by a phone calling him out to work.

The Casino Royale

2008-04-22T16:40:00.001-07:00

This weekend we sat down in our living room—we set that up first—to watch Casino Royale. We nestled into our new chocolate suede couches we had set aside under plastic wrapping for the move. It was like Christmas waiting to use them; we had this whole new living room set we couldn’t play with until we moved. The new setup is cozy and organic-y and definitely reflective of us. Especially the curtain panels, of which I mistakenly bought two similar but different colours and a pole that is not long enough and thus caves in at the middle. Oops! I’ll pick up the right ones on my next trip into “the big city” next month.
I digress.
We pressed play and the opening sequence of psychedelic James Bonds and playing cards plays out to Chris Cornell’s voice. Man those James Bond film opening scenes are cool. It hit me then what a polar oppositie experience we were having since the first time we watched the movie.
Rewind!
It was Christmastime 2007 and we were shopping in a 4-day trip to New York City. After a long day carrying overstuffed bags and being herded through crowds thick as an Irish pub on St Paddy’s Day, we were ready to sit down. It seemed a bit weird to go on vacation and see a movie, but that’s exactly what we felt like doing. We went to a mega-plex cinema in Times Square, were escalated about ten stories to purchase our tickets and snacks, before escalating another few levels to the theatre. We sat in over-sized (American-sized?) leather reclining seats marveled like fish out of water at the extravagance of it all and watched Casino Royale.
This time, we were in our small, three-bedroom government-issued house in Ross River, a town of 400 people in the far north of Canada. In what most people would call the middle of nowhere. The closest movie theatre of the multi-plex variety is probably in Vancouver, which is now a 36-hour drive from here, nonstop. Instead of walking out to busy, neon streets of the Big Apple, we walk out to gravel streets run by stray dogs and littered with empty Wiser’s rye bottles. It’s certainly a marked difference.
The people we’ve met so far seem pretty nice and welcoming, although there are certainly a few sideways glances and retreats when they find out I’m “the new cop’s wife.” More than a few kids at the school marvel at my gold-coloured hair and fight to sit beside me at circle time. I can tell it’s going to change me, living here. It’s a tough life, nothing comes easy, nor is it supposed to, I guess. And after being immersed in a small town with a big drinking problem for only a few days, my priorities have begun shifting and suddenly the problems I knew back home seem so far away and insignificant, by comparison.

So long, farewell

2008-04-14T15:58:00.001-07:00

Overnight bag is packed and I’ve masking-taped a printer paper to our guest room door that reads “Please do not pack this room” in purple Crayola marker. Inside the room are the bags, the animals’ beds and bags of their food, food dishes, a board game, a cooler for a last-minute run to M&M’s meat shop and the furniture we have to send over to a friend’s house. (We borrowed it/stored it for someone who moved waaary up north so now it’s being passed on in the borrow/storing circle)
Our freezer is full of sustenance and our pantry is packed full of granola bars, chips, meal replacement shakes (in case we really run out of food), cereal, crackers, soups, sauces, spreads and animal food. We’re living with friends while our stuff is packed, loaded and driven. We’ll be in Ross River by Friday and I’ll be starting my new job as a substitute teacher/tutor next week. The school called today to let me know I would in fact not be tutoring the young lad with Oppositional Defiance Disorder. What is ODD? Is it worse than ADD? It sounds like I’m sure to meet my share of characters. This is excellent. Boring people are no fun; variety is the spice of life, n’est pas?
I think I‘ve remembered everything I have to do. See you on the rural side!

Nuggets

2008-04-09T14:41:00.000-07:00

One (Yukon gold) nugget of wisdom my favourite professor gave me, upon learning I was moving to Whitehorse, was to stay open-minded as long as possible, or indefinitely. He said I was likely to find people who, just by wanting to help me out, would tell me all about people, places that I should be weary of. Opinions will come tinged with their own negative experience, and it’s up to me to experience things for myself, come to my own conclusions, he said. Simple advice, but solid. I have made a conscious effort to do that since living here. I have found things out for myself and made friends with some great people who were previously warned to me to be ‘weird’ or ‘stuck up.’
Now that I am moving again, I find myself reacting almost comically to what people, well-wishers no doubt, have tried to impart to me about Ross River.
I haven’t been to Ross River yet, and probably won’t before we move there next week. To me, that means the little town of 400 is a clean slate to me. I am preparing for the four hour drive to take me to one of many of the many possibilities I may find at road’s end. It could be an oasis, a paradise, a secret haven. It could look like the slums of ghetto-set movies I’ve seen. I don’t know, and that’s the point. And yet, so many have thought to tell me exactly what they think when I tell them Ross River is my next destination, perhaps hoping it’ll help me to be geared up for something terrible.
“Oh no! Be strong,” said one RCMP wife to me today.
“Yeesh, that sucks,” said countless others.
“You’re going to absolutely hate it. How horrible,” said my editor.
Thank you?
And when our move was finalized, i.e. we crossed the no-turning-back threshold, people really let us know what to expect.
“Be safe, OK? Don’t let them scare you.”
“You guys are the kind of people who won’t be devastated by it.”
and my favourite: “I feel so bad for you.”
The way I see it, it’ll be as good or as bad as we make it. Nobody, and no place, has the ability to dictate my propensity for joy. I’ll be disappointed with myself if I leave miserable, because to me, that just means I let something negative get to me.
Haha, we’ll see if these posts steadily decline in morale and you find me clinging to literary life after two years. No, no, we’ll do just fine thankyouverymuch.

Northern Eats

2008-04-08T16:04:00.000-07:00

I’ve been blog-tagged by an Ottawa writer and fellow twentysomething with compiling a list of my top eating joints. I’d absolutely love to sit and think about all my favourite places to eat in Ottawa, salivate and get a little homesick, but in the interest of variety, I’ll list my favourite Whitehorse spots. Come up and try them! It’s only 25,000 Aeroplan points away from Ottawa! Peanuts!
1. La Gourmandise
This is kind of a cheat because I have only been there for Sunday brunch. They are the only locale in the ’horse to serve French crepes, complete with bolognese sauce and ham or custard with berries. They are prepared by an ex-pat French chef, and because they only serve them on Sunday mornings, he puts his heart and soul into them. And probably other ingredients. They’re decadent. The dinner menu looks good but like I said, I’m half cheating on this one.
2. Alpine Bakery
This giant log cabin has a yoga studio upstairs and an organic bakery downstairs. I love to get their organic pizza: ready-made whole wheat crust, handmade tomato sauce, fresh vegetables, feta cheese (if any, sometimes it’s vegan pizza) and an organic brownie for dessert. If I’m splurging, I’ll get a glass of fresh apple juice, where you watch the foreign-born and adorable servers shove two whole apples into a tube and instantly this red juice comes out (red from the peel). It tastes phenomenal. They also serve organic chocolate truffles. It’s no even a sin because it’s organic dark chocolate, people!
3. The Backerei Kaffee Haus, which I am dismayed to find out is now The Bake Zone
Granted, I liked it more when it was named something German, but the decor, staff and menu is still the same so I can hack it. They are the only place with an ice cream bar, and even then it’s organic gelato. My fave is the cups of mango gelato with those little mini spoons. Their sandwiches are pretty tasty if you grab one before the lunch rush and while I don’t like their chai lattes, their expansive tea menu more than compensates.
4. Giorgio’s Cuccina
The owner is from the same Greek island as my aunt, where I traveled in second year, so the familiar wall paintings and select Greek dishes invites me. It’s an upscale (by Whitehorse standards) restaurant, so it’s a bit expensive, but I think worth it. They’ve one of the city’s best wine menus, the pasta is always delectable and hearty enough to take some home for tomorrow’s lunch. They have seafood dishes that look appetizing, and I’ve heard great things, but I always go for the fettucini alfredo, spinach canneloni or chicken penne. Call me simple, but I love my classics. Also, when I say fancy by Whitehorse standards, I mean you can walk into this place and see tables of well-dress government workers, or people in overalls, or sometimes even track pants. I’ve heard the dress code is called Yukon formal.

Instead of a fifth, I will now indulge in my homesickness and just list off my fave Ottawa epicurean centres: La Boulangerie Francais for croissants and sandwiches, Milestones for their pumpkin and pecan pasta or peppercorn steak, the French Bistro off of Dalhousie Street that looks like a sketchy back alley joint but is actually fantastic, Paddy Boland’s because the food is great and the staff are even more phenomenal, and Memories Dessert Cafe with the best pies and cakes this side of the I-don’t-care-how-many-calories-are-in-this world.

The bounce is back

2008-04-08T12:06:00.000-07:00

I put my Mountain Equipment Co-op trail runners to excellent use yesterday and finally tackled a good part of the Millennium trail at lunch time. It’s a big giant loop around part of the Yukon River that is wonderfully paved, although parts of it are covered in melting snow runoff, necessitating the wearing of the super-grip trail runners. I had previously ran from our downtown office around the barren part of the trail, up to the forest entrance and back again.
I’ll say I did this because that takes half an hour and I didn’t want to take too long over lunch, but really it’s because the heightened elevation up here usually sees my lungs on fire by that point, dying for a break.
Yesterday, knowing I only have a few more chances to run the trail, I entered it the other way, right into the foresty part and up to the dam bridge. I decided to turn around there, which is the halfway point, but mostly because it was windy and I didn’t want to run in the barren part. Sometimes running in the wind makes it hard to breathe because you go to inhale and all this wind just flies into your throat and makes you cough. Not fun.
Anyway, my lungs didn’t give out and my iPod lasted through most of it. Marky Mark’s “Good Vibrations” and James Brown’s “I Feel Good” got me through the wanting-to-give-up parts. And my legs aren’t even sore today, bonus!
I love the warming weather and extended sunlight hours. Totally makes me believe that I will become super Mrs. Athletic Runner for the rest of all time, and forget how disturbingly frigid it was donning all my winter running gear and freezing my behind off during what was really a hibernation season for me.
I’m back!

A totally Yukon night

2008-04-07T15:49:00.000-07:00

In our short time here in Whitehorse, we have met some wonderful people. I didn’t think it would be a big deal to move out of the city, because I figured I hadn’t been here long enough to be affected by cutting ties.
Now that we’re 10 days away from leaving, I am clinging to the comfort of friends I have made since arriving here on 07/07/07.
When we announced our move day out to Ross River, I figured we’d have last tea and coffee dates with our buddies, load up the pickup with Wal-Mart and Superstore supplies and head on out. What happened was not one but two going-away parties were planned for us. It made me feel oddly welcomed, strange that a party would be thrown for us when it’s seems we’ve hardly had a chance to be more than a reference note in people’s lives.
This last weekend was the first of the two, and what a perfect Yukon night it was.
We went outside of the city to our friends’ house for a bonfire. We arrived before sunset, because that isn’t happening until about 9:30 p.m. these days. I learned a new way to build a fire (lots of newspaper, haphazardly thrown kindling and lots of blowing before the logs) and, more importantly, how many people cared enough to spend their Saturday night seeing us off. It was touching, and as I mentioned, a little odd to be the guests of honour!
It was a perfect night for weather, it never really got cold, especially in front of the fire, not even by the time we left at 4:00 a.m.! The sky was clear and for hours we were treated to dancing green northern lights. I learned that if you whistle at them, it’s akin to taunting and they recede for a bit, at least that’s first nation folklore.
We drank and made fireside confessions that will never go beyond the orange glow, and laughed louder than the music, which was allowed to blare in the rural neighbourhood. Besides that, if there was a noise complaint called in to the police, it would be redundant, as on duty officers joined in the fireside party sporadically.
It was a ,marvelous night spent among friends that genuinely wished us well, offering us places to stay when we come back in to ‘the big city’ to load up on supplies at retail prices. (As opposed to insane Ross River prices on limited selection)
Next weekend’s another, only it’ll be a swanky cocktail party, complete with requisite dress code and fondue!! I can’t wait, but I can. It’ll be bittersweet.

I got it from my mama

2008-04-02T12:18:00.001-07:00

For the last couple of days, husband has insisted we listen to Will.i.am’s “Got it from my Mama” when driving into his early shift at work, which starts at 6:00 a.m. Having only one truck between the two of us, I get stuck driving him in early, so I can get to work three hour later.
“I like to get pumped up before work,” he insisted. At 5:40 a.m., I was in no mood to argue.
I mean, I like the song, it’s just not a 5:40 a.m. kind of song, at least to me.
Typically the first song I hear in the morning stays in my head all day, and this is no exception.
That said, I started thinking about inherited traits, nature versus nurture, and all the things passed on to me from my own mama, or mum as I like to use.
I definitely have her hands. This is made even more clear by our shared fixation with keeping them well-moisturized. As I get older, and pay more attention to not biting my nails, I notice they look more like her hands, the ones I saw from knee-height when I was little, rested on the counter. Or on top of tissues at the kitchen table, with nail polish in the process of drying.
I definitely got my hair from her and for that I count my lucky stars. It is straight as a board, even after a shower without combing it, and in its primal state was a glorious strawberry blond. Admittedly, I get a little help now and then returning to my five-year-old colour, but whose strawberry blond hasn’t faded to a weird, drab brown? Thanks, universe, just when I was entering my beauty prime! It grows well, is a good balance of not too thick and not too thin, and even in this arid climate of the Yukon retains a nice shine.
It’s weird to compare, but I also have her knees. I find it hard to describe what makes our knees our own, because I mean, how do you describe knee shape? Difference between us is hers are rather pale and freckled, while mine are darker and bruised, most days. But they are ours and if we sit side-by-side on porch chairs in the summer wearing shorts, we are definitely knee twins.
Aside from these things, we don’t look much alike. I am tall, tan easily, rarely burn, have high cheekbones and big eyes. She is short, more full, light-skinned, and has cute little green eyes.
But I have so much more from her, things that had I been adopted, I can only wonder what would have passed through to me.
I inherently worry about the people around me before myself. I grew up seeing her tend to our cuts, hunger, discomfort and sadness. It was always immediate, tender, shusshed and quiet, but she was always there to make things better for us. Now that I am older and in a position of relative independence, I recognize an innate desire to help where I can. Bandaids, pasta dinners, comfy blankets abound.
I love being outside among trees and water bodies, even though I grew up in suburbia. We both love to have camping vacations in tents, canoes and on grass, even when given the chance to do something more exoitc. Its a comfort, a simple, basic enjoyment easily achieved but wholly enjoyed.
I’m sure as I get older and older and become a mum myself, I’ll pick up more things she’s given to me. And then those words, “I’ll NEVER be like my mother!” expunged in teenage angst will come back to haunt me.

Abundance

2008-03-25T09:21:00.000-07:00

The sun is now above the mountainous horizon for 13 hours of the day. My Dad is visiting from home, and I’m only working two days this week.
I served an Easter dinner of ham, pineapples, scalloped potatoes, peas, garlic bread and two pies (bumbleberry and banana cream). It felt so good to make dinner that was actually prepared without major flaws. It was nice not to have to offer cautionary discretion,”sorry the potatoes are so rock-solid. I don’t know what happened!” The two cops and my Dad thanked me for a wonderful dinner and that felt so warm, making them happy with food, sitting around a table enjoying the epicurean delights spread around the corners. Tea to hit the spot and easy cleanup via the dishwasher made for an enjoyable Easter dinner.
Then again, last night, I had another gloriously happy moment. We sat across the living room couches: husband, Dad, kitten, puppy, me. Blankets across laps, plates of Chinese food balanced on knees. The sun setting on the other side of the French doors, pinks and oranges painted in wisps atop the dark mountains. And I thought to myself, “This is pretty wonderful.” It was a very happy moment.
It could be the visit from home, the extended sunlight, the wonderfully abundant food or the awesome hug from husband telling me he missed me on his day shift, but I just feel so full, like the cup that runneth over. I filleth and spilleth with happiness.

Slainte

2008-03-17T15:53:00.001-07:00

This time, two years ago, 4 in the afternoon. We waited out in the cold for ages, shifting weight from sore foot to sore foot, checking cell phone texts. “A. is coming in about 20,” I announced to my fellow freezing revelers waiting to get into the bar.
Staying at home wasn’t an option. It wasn’t on our radar screens at all. It’s St. Paddy’s Day, which means you go to an Irish pub wearing green to drink Guinness and Murphy’s. Naturally.
The wait should not be underestimated, and was as much a part of the festivities as the bar itself. It was long. Often over three hours waiting in a wraparound line to get inside where the barron is beating and the fiddle is screeching. People pass flasks, we cheer at the horn-hitting cars as they drive by, a flag propped out the window or a fella with his body painted green, orange and white.
The moment of truth: Will we pass the door man’s inspection? Will we find a spot to lay our coats?
Girls holding hands as we squeeze through the crowd. Find a spot to hide our purses under coats in the range of splashed beer and sticky bar residue. It didn’t matter. By the end of the night, we would be too.
Run to the bar, get started. Feet tapping unconsciously in time with the ballads we remember from years before. I pretend my name is Bridget O’Shaughnessy and people kiss my cheeks. Boyfriend finds a goofy green wig and wears it, even though we’ve no idea where it’s come from.
We crack pints against each others, and spill some down our arms. I recognize songs, like Barrett’s Privateers, and sing them at the top of my lungs. No one expects you to have a voice after St. Paddy’s Day.
"What's in your hair?" "I can't feel my feet!" "She totally made out with the bartender!"
The hours spent in the bar turn into blurry memories of bathroom trips, linking arms and dancing and a hilarious stumble home. It’s not so cold on the walk home, and high-pitched shrieks and messy laughs are the soundtrack for the end of the night across town.
This year is markedly different, not boring, but different. There are no Irish pubs in Whitehorse and I actually forgot to wear green today. I’ll cover city council’s meeting tonight and go home to a meal of chicken and yam fries with broccoli. At least my plate will be of traditional Irish colours. Points?
It’s a mark of how my life has changed. A natural progression whether I was here or at home? Maybe. I know I can’t scream my lungs out at bars on a regular basis like I did in school.
Nope, tonight’ll be a quiet one. My former roommate will no doubt earn tons of money working at our favourite Irish bar, and my friends who remain in Ottawa will probably go for a drink or two (not having to wait in line anymore, thank goodness, having connections with staff). I suspect they will call it an early night and will probably not paint shamrocks on their cheeks.
I ask myself: Are we growing up or growing boring? Do I cease to carpe diem because I do not celebrate it from start to finish? I tend to believe I am lame because I currently sit an an office desk counting down till quitting time, and that is certainly not seizing the day.
Best friend K and I decided it’s not boring--just different. Not living hour-to-hour with drinks and thumping bass and Facebook-intended photos and random things to recollect tomorrow as we all wake up in various states of comfort in an apartment built for one or two. Finding cherished happiness in sunset walks, food that tastes better because I made it, finding a passage that is written beautifully, interviewing a man who’s lost his house in a fire, that is what makes me days memorable now.
Not boring, different.

Oh, the places you’ll go

2008-03-14T10:55:00.000-07:00

When I had just finished my second year of university, my two best friends and I flew to Santorini in the Greek Cyclades islands. For two weeks, we swam on black sand beaches, ate saganaki and spanakopita, rode donkeys, hiked a volcano, toured an ancient city, went to a baptism, and visited Oia and Athens. At the time, I remember thinking the experience was enjoyable and exciting, but maybe not life-changing. The people were great, we walked everywhere and the food was delicious. I’m not sure what experience I was looking for that would be life changing. I thought maybe the peak of a 20 year old’s life-changing experience is the time she tries absinthe.
Now that I have had the subsequent time to reflect on my trip and what it meant to me, I realize the life-changing experience was the journey. The dedication to explore, broaden my understanding, add a new platform from which to view the world.
Greece was beautiful and I have since explored bits of Jamaica, Turks and Caicos, and now, a far corner of my own country.
This isn’t a vacation, which is a difference, but northern living sure is life-changing. When we were getting ready to move, I was really excited to see what kind of person Id become in the Yukon. More confidant? Relaxed? Appreciative? All those are revealing themselves as true, and it is exciting to reflect upon what imprint a different lifestyle can leave on your person.
I am still me pre-exploration, minus the teen angst of course. The chance to discover more about myself and what it means to be a part of the decision-making world population is a continually life-changing experience. I don’t doubt the same thing could happened had I stayed home in the comfort of my home surroundings. But I am sure it would not occur to the degree it is now. Removing myself from my comfort zone and finding joy in somewhere far away and different provides a new comfort: That happiness come from experience, not shoes, and that no matter where I am it;s things like sunset walks and cuddling on the couch that make my days worth living.

Stand by your man?

2008-03-12T10:38:00.000-07:00

I don’t purport to know what it is to be in anyone’s shoes, only to use their circumstances and evaluate what I would do.
I know you’re supposed to stand by your man, and I resign myself to that. I’m fully prepared to be crazy and supportive of husband should he come up with hair-brained ideas or crises, like absolutely needing to pack up and RV across the country or something. I’m down for that. I can provide him logic and play devil’s advocate but really, I’m along for his life’s crazy adventures as well as my own.
I know he’ll count on me when he’s down and when working as a cop starts to take a toll on him, I am more than happy to be the hug he needs at the end of the day. I’ll stand by him if he finds himself on the bottom of a slippery hill, daunted and feeling hopeless. I’ll be there when he wants to crawl in a cave and die.
I’ll be there when he’s on top of the world, under pressure, confused and sick. It’s a partnership and I fully intend to hold up my end of the bargain.
But if he were to renegotiate the terms of that agreement, or violate them without my knowledge, I’m not sure what I’d do. If he were Elliot Spitzer this morning, telling the world he had paid for sex from a call-girl ring under investigation, I’m not sure I’d be beside the podium. Dude is a father of three and while I know being a politician makes him no less human than anyone else, I wonder not what he was thinking (the answer to that, my mother would say, is that he wasn’t) but rather what she is thinking.
What is she thinking standing beside him, following behind him?
Of course I don’t understand what she’s feeling or thinking, I have nothing close to which I can compare shared experiences. But I ask the question: Why is she not holed up with some Kleenex and sweats? Or arranging for their house’s locks to be changed? Or, if she’s going to compose herself and keep a stiff upper lip, why not use that for the good of her children instead of supporting the cheating husband? And not just cheating, but like high-priced prostitute in business trips?
Will she look back on this time and regret standing next to him?
Politics, and especially the life of a politician’s wife, is about keeping up appearances to earn the confidence of constituents. What does it say when she, a modern woman, stands beside her husband as he admits to the world he is rather scum baggy?
I am disappointed in that. Not in her, because I don’t know her. But disappointed that he still gets a wife by his side after doing all that, and that she would model unconditional devotedness to the world. At what cost? Only she will know.
While there are few limits to my own commitment to the husband, and I hope they are never tested, I hope that I can model self-assuredness, confidence and of course love should the situation so require it.
Today, I am glad that their news is a distant headline to my own life and experience. I will drive home after work and feel comfortable in my loving house and share a good hug with him. Understanding of course that a shared human experience dictates the world we live in, I do hope that family comes out of this healthy and happy, one day.

Thought of the Day

2008-03-11T14:47:00.002-07:00

"Perhaps the time has come to cease calling it the 'environmentalist' view, as though it were a lobbying effort outside the mainstream of human activity, and to start calling it the real-world view." - Edward O. Wilson

I'm not a fan of isms, they are convenient ways to compartmentalize ideas and perceptions that are usually limitless, fluid and certainly malleable. I like this thought.

Paradox

2008-03-10T14:55:00.000-07:00

There’s something odd about watching America’s Next Top Model in my university sweatpants, a vintage T-Shirt from Peterborough and my bangs bobby-pinned off my face. Odd because around me are sprawled out mountains sprinkled in snow and fir trees, a pile of classic fiction I’ve just read, some puppy toys, the sound of the dishwasher I’ll soon have to open and chipped nail polish on my toes.
My setting is so anti-top model. There are no catwalks in my living room, no beds built for six skinny girls, no Tyra Mail. No makeup mirrors with a billion bottles and tubes and palettes, no stilettos, no tight jeans, no handbags.
Instead there are hiking boots, moisturizer/sunscreen, Mountain Equipment Co-op layering systems and elastics to pull my hair back.
I watch the show and pass judgment, but it’s not who’s pretty, who’s ugly. It’s who’s faking, who’s real, who notices how awkward and obnoxious Tyra’s antics can sometimes be. But I live and die by Next Top Model. It falls on hump day, dividing my forlorn workweek with a pique of entertainment. The show is of no real use to me. I do not take notes on Miss J’s walking tips to practice as I strut down Main Street. People would probably wonder if I’d hurt myself. I don’t practice being fierce, and when people take my picture, I don’t work my angles.
The coined term guilty pleasure works well, although I hate to use a cliché. I enjoy turning my brain off and returning to things that were important to me in grade ten: hair, poise, fending off catty beeyotches and aspirations of the glamorous life. Not that I scoff at my 15-year-old self, but I like my non-glamorous Yukon life.
I could probably give the show up if I had to. But then what would I ask my little sister about when I call her after school on Thursday? And in what other situation could I laugh at someone else’s expense and not feel guilty and immoral? The contestants aren’t real, they are on a show called the next top model! Of course they’re crying when they get top model makeovers!
I’m not proud of it, and by no means would I want to step into those uncomfortable but haute couture shoes and do that myself. Of all the talents people embody and roles there are to fulfill, I think filling the niche of clothes-seller is quite limited. “We show people how to dress and wear their hair in interesting ways?” quips one of Derek Zoolander’s model roommates before dying in a freak gasoline fight accident.
The rest of the week I’ll weep during Oprah, watch the news, Intervention on A&E and documentaries about how the world works. But Wednesday night, all brain bets are off as I immerse myself for 60 minutes into the world of weaves, smiling with your eyes but not your mouth, and top model eliminations.

Don't have to look up at the stars

2008-03-07T11:28:00.001-08:00

One of the things I sorely miss about Ottawa living is the abundance of live musical thrills. Jazz fest under the stars in the summer, concerts of up and comers at grimy bars full of people looking the same trying to look different and hockey stadium sellout shows that cost way too much.
Right after I moved, Kanye West played an outdoor show, and I was aching to see him live. My little sister went with my Dad (she’s still young enough that his company was not embarrassing). She called me from her cell phone and held it up towards the speakers so that from 5,500 km away I could hear the screaming fans, pounding base and lyrical rapidity of Kanye’s performance of Gold Digger. It was nowhere near as cool as being there, but it wasn’t a half-bad way to get a sense of the show I was missing.
Since then my sister called me from the Toronto Spice Girls Concert and I nearly lost my mind. I was baby spice at my friends’ grade 7 Spice Girls sleepover party, and we sang Spice Girls songs at the Junior High talent show. I remember playing their CD to my then 3-year-old sister, teaching her the words to “Stop.” And there I was a few weeks ago listening to them sing “Wannabe” a decade after their prime with my 13-year-old sister sitting in the 100-section, and me sitting on my bed.
Last night my brother called me from the Justin Nozuka concert in Ottawa at Babylon, which he attended with his girlfriend and my sister. I clued him in to the tour date after checking with doubtful hope that Justin Nozuka would for some reason play a Whitehorse show. No suck luck. But hearing him strum and sing the words to my new favourite song “After Tonight,” I melted both at the magical tune and my siblings’ heart-warming efforts to make me feel included.
The cell-phone can never come close to duplicating the tears-to-my-eyes feeling of hearing Coldplay perform Clocks in a giant arena, nor the beauty of Jason Mraz sitting cross-legged on a purple round cushion playing “Plane.” Those are memories I’ll just have to hold onto until I’m once again in a musical tour date locale.
But I thank my family for making me feel like I’m not so far away.

Wish upon a star

2008-03-03T16:28:00.000-08:00

Writers get all kinds of advice, helpful things to muse upon, I guess. My favourite is to write the truest you can, and I’ve found writing that follows that acutely is usually the best. Not cognizant of reaction, not writing for an audience, just to “get real” with yourself (imagined Dr Phil overseeing the process or not) and pen it.
I usually do this, even if it’s totally soul-baring and puts me in a vulnerable position. I won’t spew verbal diarrhea about everything I think, especially not things about other people because I don’t think that’s being “honest’, I think that’s being catty and gossip-y. I also don’t go too much into what I think abut stories I cover as a reporter because it’s possible the newspaper’s readers might read what I write in my blog and infer some kind of bias. And I am all about keeping my job.
But there’s something I haven’t written about, even though it’s been at the forefront of my mind for a while now. It occupies my planning, my future goals, my day-to-day thoughts and musings. It’s something that I think if I say it, it won’t possibly come true, like I’d be jinxing it or something. Truth is, I’m scared if I say it out loud it can become one of those things I often discuss but never actually get around to doing, like horseback riding.
I really want to have a baby.
Those baby-fever thoughts have danced in my head since I was a 15-year-old girl watching TLC’s Baby Story when I was home sick from school, and not just because it was the only thing on TV. It’s gone from knowing I want to someday be a mother to a need, a desire an “I would give up almost anything” ultimatum I throw out to the universe daily.
Now, this is a want I share with the husband, but I am only speaking on behalf of myself in this forum. See? There I go getting all cognizant of my audience. Write what’s true, write what’s true.
I have so much love ready to give it almost barfs out of me. My poor kitten and puppy get smothered wit it all day long. I want so badly to take care of a little person, reflect every day on his or her life’s possibilities and coo about the sanctity of innocence.
And it’s a process. Irresponsible teens might get knocked up on a daily basis, but it turns out it takes a little more than a lack of planning, naiveté and alcohol to cook up a fetus.
People invite us to go on trips and sign up for races and I agree with great enthusiasm, hoping they can’t see my internal hesitation. And if they can see it, I hope they aren’t hurt. It’s just that in my head, the dialogue is asking ‘But what if I’m pregnant then??’
People of course feel free to ask me all the time when we’re going to have kids, because it seems that this is a natural and obligatory conversation to have with a newlywed. I want to scream out “NOW!!!” but of course, I say that it’ll happen when it happens, cautioning myself more than I am my conversational partner that “it can take awhile, who knows?”
I really hope I’m not one of those cases that takes years and years and has to go to special doctors and pay a bajillion dollars for a one in a thousand odds. That is my biggest fear right now. Because if I have this much to give and this much enthusiasm, then I can just see how frustration will turn into sadness and into loneliness and hopelessness and when I’m living in a super small town in the arctic, that can’t be a recipe for good times.
That said, there are times when I look over at the husband and feel supremely satisfied and comforted, like if it were just the two of us forever that might not be so bad. But then the whiny me voice in my head goes, “C’mon! You know that a crazy insane house full of running, giggling kiddies is exactly what you want.” And I go “yeah, you’re right.” And meanwhile the husband looks at the blank stare on my face while this conversation plays out between me and myself in my head and asks what I’m thinking and I just hug him and say, I just want a babyyyyyyyy”
I don’t know how long it will take, I don’t know what the circumstances will be, I just know I’ve got my heart set on something and I hope the universe doesn’t make this too difficult a feat for me to attain.
Here’s hoping.

My furry homies

2008-02-26T16:29:00.000-08:00

Skylar introduces herself to most people by jumping up in a vertical wiggle with her mouth wide open, aiming her giant-looking teeth at any body part she can latch onto. It’s a bit overwhelming.
When I come home, she groans this high-pitched nervous whine that, if emitted by a human, would be a strong indicator of a social anxiety, or perhaps a precursor to an epileptic fit.
She whacks her tail with the ferocity of a beaver against walls, legs, the floor or my face, when we are lying in my bed, feet-to-head.
Skylar assumes the position of a sprint runner at the start line when my morning alarm goes off and freezes herself in slobbery anticipation for me to roll my legs over the bed.
“Fooooood!” is the chorus I imagine is ringing through her minute brain. She takes off to the kitchen, slides her doggy toenails across the tile and jumps her front two feet, hops them is more like it, until I am kind enough to deposit two scoops of kibble in her bowl.
I think she just breathes in, using all her lung’s capacity. She doesn’t really chew, that takes too much time. And when you’re as excited as she is about eating, you don’t have time to enjoy whatever it is you’re eating. You just swallow, and hope you don’t later eat something your system rejects and cause all your kibble to come back up. Then again, if you’re Skylar, you eat throw-up too.
Skylar eats shoes, socks, bones, Goober (the kitten)’s toys, pine cones, pine needles, sometimes her own poop, depending on the day and flavour, I assume
As neurotic and “energetic” (that’s dog owner talk for crazy) as she is, Skylar is the best relaxant and cuddle partner. She wedges herself between my legs and the cough, propping her chin on my thigh, while we watch TV. When we go on walks in the beautiful trails behind our house, she darts from male pee spot to pee spot, but never strays too far from me, making the walk enjoyable for me, energy-spending for her. Then she collapses at home and I forget for a moment what an insane puppy she is.
Goober helps me forget this too, by acting as a diversion. He pops his little head out from behind couches and corners, providing a teeny-tiny target for Skylar to clumsily lunge at. She usually opens her mouth around the scruff of Goober’s next, but never causes harm, save for the slobber that acts as kitty hair gel. Goober’s hair is usually spiked these days.
The two of them chase each other. Don’t shake your head at me for exposing my kitty as prey to a larger animal. He makes her yelp with his needle claws, and they both have an understanding they share of when is play time, and when is cuddle together on the fluffy blanket in an adorable photo op time.
The two of them are both teaching me to enjoy simple pleasures, as that is the only luxuries to which they are accustomed, or that they understand. It is nice to know there are two furry creatures at home that live for the moment I walk in the door. And feed them.

Day is done

2008-02-25T11:17:00.001-08:00

The Quest is over, and I can sleep!
The champ won the final race, 15 minutes ahead of the next guy. I gleefully covered as many finish line arrivals as I could, spending hours reading in my truck, looking up to Shipyard’s Park every now and then for a musher’s silhouette.
The wait was worth it, the sense of accomplishment and relief oozing off of the mushers as they arrived at the final checkpoint, knowing they could sleep in a warm bed, with warm clothing. I asked about the biggest challenges, the greatest memories, and their tired eyes would again light up as they recounted tails that they will surely recount the rest of their lives.
At the Finish Banquet Saturday night, one musher proposed to his girlfriend after accepting his prize, and of course my eyes watered up, blurring my vision through the camera lens as I still tried to capture images for Monday’s deadline. Another musher cried when he won the vet’s choice award for supreme dog care on the trail. Again, those hormones had my eyes all ablaze with moisture.
When I had finished taking notes and snapping shots, it was time to mingle around the tables of mushers, handlers, race staff and volunteers that had patiently answered my questions and let me intrude on their adventures for the last week and a half. It was a little like saying goodbye on the last day of summer sleepaway camp.
Who knows when or if I’d ever see some of the musher’s wives again? Or chat with a four-time champion musher about breakfast preferences? It’s a little bit of a let down after a week of highs, adrenaline, and excitement that swept me up into the Quest hurricane.
At the same time, it’s nice to be able to catch up on work e-mails and stories from my regular municipal beat that have been cast aside. Though at times the Quest was cold toes, smelly hair, nutritional sacrilege and missing the husband, I am already hoping they ask me to cover it again next year.

I am becoming one with nature

2008-02-17T13:19:00.001-08:00

This morning we left Dawson for Pelly Crossing, a town 3 hours south of Dawson, 3 hours north of Whitehorse. Halfway home for me and the 3/4 point for the mushers.
Along the way the photographer pulled over, and got out. Curiosity piqued, I did too, and saw five giant moose grazing on the side of the highway. I tried tiptoeing and walking ever so cautiously around the car, and then saw the photographer march right up to about 10 feet away from one to take pictures. Oh, I guess they aren’t going to charge at and eat me, I thought. They were pretty giant and moved surprisingly quick when they spotted a juicy-looking bit of leaf or whatever it is they were eating.
Foxes, I found, don’t charge either, at least the Dawson City ones. Last evening, I took a walk around while the sun was about to set, so I could see all these crazy olden-time buildings. I walked into the playground of Robert Service School and sat on a swing. Then this cat-dog looking thing with like a black mask and bushy tail, came and sat a couple feet away from me. I had just read a section of “White Oleander” (By Janet Fitch) in which the main character gets mauled by dogs, so I was nervous. But the little creature, which I determined to be a red fox, just sat and watched me swing and then went on its merry way. Fun stuff.
Went to a seminar on dog psychology last night that was disappointingly more about the science of comparing human eyes and ears with dog eyes and ears. I did learn that some dogs can be trained to smell cancer and ovulation (not at the same time!) and that Skylar ranks among the more intelligent dog breeds as a golden retriever. I think I would have got more out of the seminar if the silk-scarf wearing lecturer didn’t repeatedly scratch his crotch every few minutes. Weird!
Now we wait in Pelly for the first mushers to arrive. I take back my judgement of the BO-smelling people of the Dawson checkpoint, because with a decreasing availability in shower services, I fear I may become one such person myself. Wish me luck in the personal hygiene and journalistic scoop departments!

Live from the Yukon Quest

2008-02-15T12:00:00.002-08:00

Instant Karma? Perhaps as a quick reward to my renewed appreciation for little adventures throughout my Yukon adventure (see last post), I got called into the boss's office the next morning with a request I couldn't turn down.
Could I drive up to Dawson City tomorrow and cover the second half of the Yukon Quest?
Absolutely!!
The photographer and I left Whitehorse yesterday on a six-hour drive up the Klondike Highway to Dawson. The drive was a scenic split through snow-topped mountain chains, roadside stops at gas stations with dirty toilets (a requisite for any road trip), sporadic, stack-y radio feeds from CBC, depending on how far we were from the last town.
We pulled in about 5:30 p.m. and I was thrown right into the throws of Quest coverage, running around with my head cut off, trying to secure interviews with race officials, trail markers and, of course, the guy in first place who stands to repeat his fourth win of the Yukon Quest.
The Yukon Quest is a dog sled race from Fairbanks, Alaska to Whitehorse. It was spawned from the Iditarod as a race meant to be tougher, more authentic and with longer distances between checkstops. People and dogs have died on the Quest. It's intense, to say the least.
This morning, someone in the wood lodge here called out, "Musher!" and immediately, heavily-booted feet quickly marched out through the doorway to the checkpoint line on the riverfront. The seventh musher was in, looking tired, with eight dogs strung up before her. Watching the mushers and their dogs is so ... wow! It just hit me I'm describing the toughest dog sled race to people who, for the most part, are my family and friends in Ottawa who maybe saw the movie "Iron Will." Ok, so I don't know that you'll "get" the magic of Dawson City, which has been preserved since the gold rush days and is therefore spotted with old, Saloon-looking buildings with facades reminiscent of City Slickers. Nor will you likely know the magic of watching a man and his sled dogs run over the hilltop into the checkpoint, exhausted after having just run maybe 10 hours out in the barren wilderness. It is moving.
My favourite part is when everyone cheers as the teams slow to a halt in the checkpoint, giving the onsite veterinarians a chance to look over the dogs real fast and race officials to records timings.
You never know what you'll hear when they arrive. They may report an injured dog, a beautiful ride, a treacherous trek up over large snow drifts, tales of desperation or excitement.
We wait hours between mushers, in which time period anticipation builds, and takes of past quest runs are exchanged between rookies like myself and seasoned Quest mushers who have since retired.
My interview with the front runner occurred at one of the local pubs over his celebratory rums. The informailty of the chat and the level of his achievement do not match.
The mushers and the dogs are so impressive. It’s beautiful to see this dedication. I mean for most of the participants, mushing is their life.
And here I am, wide-eyed and a big giant newbie, soaking it all in, getting lost in the majesty and thrill of the Yukon Quest.
As the msuehrs race on, we move too. I expect to be out of Dawson tomorrow night, staying over in Pelly Crossing.
See you then!

Ain't so bad

2008-02-12T15:18:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I think my new Yukon life is really boring. Like Friday night when the big event is going to one of husband’s hockey games and by the time we get back and he showers it’s “late” (read: 10:00) so we read and go to bed. C’mon, that’s pretty lame. Or even worse are the Saturday nights when he’s working overnight and has thus taken the truck with him and it’s just me, the puppy and the kitty on the couch for a CSI marathon. Par-tay!!
But then other times, when I do a little inventory of all the cool things I’ve done, I realize this is all part of a wicked adventure. I’ll be smug, but I mean hey--this is the Yukon. By virtue of even being North of 60, my life is not boring. When I can survive two weeks of pillaging, -45 cold weather, freezing my damn hands off just to get the mail, I can call that something of an adventure. Right? To remind myself (mostly) of what this crazy Yukon journey’s all about, especially before I move to an insanely remote community north of here, (called Ross River) I have compiled a list of fun things I have done in Whitehorse:
(in no ranking order)
1. Hiking up a MOUNTAIN. Not the Gatineau Hills, not the toboganning slope, but a mountain. Grey Mountain, which overlooks downtown Whitehorse. We drove up to the peak the night we got our pickup truck. That was terrifying for *someone* and super exciting to me. I loved looking out the window, over the steep, narrow edges. He nearly cried as our back tires spun out while the truck was angled up about 45 degrees. The next day we hiked it. I drank actual spring water, like, from a spring, that tasted SO good. Eff Evian man, that stuff was mint!
2. Interviewing Sam Roberts. Pseudo-superstar, at least in Canadian rock star terms. That’s as close to a true celebrity as I’ve come (well wait, does Sam Roberts trump Paul Martin?). He was actually a nice guy, maybe trying to let me know he wasn’t an a-hole. He had a small frame, a demure speaking voice and was actually quite informed about the Yukon, so he got some points there.
3. Tobogganing in a desert on Boxing Day. So when this part of the world was covered in glaciers, one started to move, and scraped the ground, and created a big sandy desert up here about a 45 minute drive away from Whitehorse. Snow covers the sand in winter and voila: presto change-o, we have a toboggan hill! I learned how to drive the Skidoos that shuttled us up to the tops of the massive slopes and had crunchy sand bits in my teeth when I went to sleep that night.
4. Speaking of Christmastime, I got to be the voice of the North on a Palm Springs radio Station on Christmas Eve. They called our paper looking for a ‘Santa Watch Correspondent’. I gave them the low-down: Our armed forces were ready to protect Santa, everything was on schedule and initial sightings of his sleigh had been made. That day, I felt like a celebrity, at least to the eager kiddies in Palm Springs.
5. Sitting at a campfire in our new friends’ backyard, passing around a bottle of butterscotch schnapps, everyone taking a swig. Roasting hotdogs and marshmallows over the fire, snuggling close to keep warm. Looking behind me, over my left shoulder, and seeing the sky light up with dancing green northern lights for the first time.
6. Turning a corner on our usual hiking path behind our house, to take a route we hadn’t tried before, and finding a Secret Garden of a winter walking trail. Soft, powder snow sat on tree branches bent over from snow’s weight to form a tunnel, a continuing archway over our walking path. It was so beautiful, a scene that I hope will stay locked in my brain forever.
I guess there are more things, on a smaller notch of the adventure scale, but that’s the list I have come up with for now. Want to come live up here with me?? Tell your friends, the Yukon’s not so scary bad.
Of course, I can say that now that it’s a balmy -2 outside and once again the grocery store’s produce section has things for sale.

Patient thoughts

2008-02-11T15:16:00.000-08:00

Here are some of the things I noted in my Steno Pad, while waiting for an interview to show up at the Bakerei Kaffee Haus this afternoon on Main Street.
SCENE: Beside the storefront window in a two-seater table, sipping raspberry-lemonade organic stuff.

Beard like a brillo pad
Crooked teeth smile
Hair in a ponytail
Why's he on trial

City steps take me
Manicured, prim
Come to awakening
I'm no better than him

Bubbled tan froth
foaming at the mouth
furred jackets here
are a faux-pas down south

Coffee beans organic
and indie rock blare
A waitress, the young one
with beads in her hair

Almost Famous

2008-02-04T11:48:00.000-08:00

We met her with a triangle haircut, she was short and quiet and just small. Small voice, small hands, but though she was quiet, she was fun and smiled at you when you smiled at her, and had really fun ideas of games to play at recess.
She joined us in our elementary school folly, playing hide and go seek, truth or dare and eating all the candy we could from our pillowcase sacks after trick-or-treating.
We grew together, us in height, she in character. We went through that god-awful white eyeliner phase in Grades 8 and 9, we had photo shoots in our basements and backyard on our Grade 6 graduation present cameras.
She always wore seed-bead homemade necklaces and when we did get her to laugh, it was big and blaring and her usually squinty eyes were wide.
Her basement held the best big-party sleepovers: Six or so of us preteen skinny girls laughing and doing makeovers, listening to Dance Mix 98 and Spice Girls CDs. I think our Grade 7 Spice Girls party was in her basement. She was the quiet but beautiful Posh Spice.
She went out with a cute boy, whose garage band even wrote a song dedicated to her. It was an awful song, but aren’t all songs by Grade 7 garage bands? She loved it, but tried not to let it show. She played the flute beautifully, and sang with just the same airy, steady voice. Although few knew, because her quiet demeanor kept this feat hidden. When she did sing in public at our high school talent shows and musicals, it was usually a part of a group or choir.
She played a beautiful bobby soxer in “Leader of the Pack,” and though she may not have stood out, she was our friend and we cheered for her because we knew she was good.
She had a best friend who I like to think brought out the best in her. She became less quiet, (though by no means loud) let herself enjoy shopping at the suburban mall and began to believe she was a good performer. She was, but of course, it’s one thing to be good and another to know it.
The two of them promised to move to Hollywood to be big famous stars. They weren’t like the other junior high girls who said they’d be singers or actresses “when they grew up”. Oh no, they were going to do it.
After Grade 8, her family moved to Texas. We wrote back and forth letters with fuzzy and scratch-n-sniff stickers all over the envelopes. We wrote about the parties we started to drink at, the boys we started to kiss and the dramas of being 15 and awkward. I don’t think she kept up with her flute lessons, but she did keep acting on stage, signing and dancing for whomever would cast her at the small-ish town. Every once in awhile, we’d give her a call, usually around a table on new years’ eve or during the summer, lying around our friends’ backyard pool. She visited once or twice, and commented on how cold the summer nights were here, but other than climate, her changes were gradual.
She was more beautiful than before, a little more self-assured, a little more willing to take the crazy high school risks that I lived for.
We got infrequent updates on what plays she was in, on her preparation for prom and college. We did the same, branching off to different schools and area codes.
Nowadays, we hear from her once in awhile through e-mail, or her once best friend. She lives in LA and is still trying to make it. That sounds like she won’t, I know. I believe she can. I also know, though, that it’s not always about how good you really are. They call it a break for a reason, right?
I wonder about her. I wonder if she has a good girlfriend with whom she can still have sleepovers and talk to about the boys she kisses, although these days I guess that’s her fiancé, if the grapevine is correct.
I wonder if she’ll keep going for her dream. Her Grade 7 dream she has chased for so long and all the way to Hollywood. I wonder if she’ll just resign herself to being a wife and tending a house and being OK with that. If there’s any bit of junior high her still around, then she’s built for something bigger. But, like I said, she’s quiet in nature and though powerfully talented by now, I wonder if she’ll let that be her guiding force. The ring on the finger can pack a strong pull. And who can make life plans when that involves waiting tables while waiting for a break?
If she’s reading this, I hope she knows I still think about her often and wait to see her name on a screen sometime. It’s a matter of time, I know it. A matter of time, and who’s to know if she’ll wait it out.

So this is Yukon winter...

2008-01-30T12:06:00.000-08:00

In Ottawa when it is colder than -35 degrees Celsius, the government issues weather warnings to stay inside, keep an eye on children and the elderly and everyone has fun shopping, going to movies, having sleepovers with best friends and stuff like that. Well, we had friend sleepovers, anyway.
In Whitehorse, when it is that cold outside it is called ‘winter’ and everyone bundles up and plugs their cars in. I think they issue warnings when its colder than -50. This week it’s averaging between -35 and -40 something. I nearly hospitalized myself filling the truck up with gas. (An exaggeration for you southern folk. My fingers just got really cold. Even inside my mitts!) Our truck didn’t start at all Monday as all the oil and engine had frozen. We used a creative technique involving a hot lamp, blankets and a forceful shove from another car, pushing ours into our garage to remedy the situation. Our garage door, it turns out, is built to close 3 centimeters short of our truck length. Hoorah!
At work, we all run down every hour or so to turn on our engines so they don’t freeze up, and when I got to the indoor track for lunch runs, I just leave ‘er running. (No riverside runs in this weather, oh no, my pretty blond head would likely cryogenically freeze or something!)
The usually insanely busy Superstore has a barren parking lot, and all the good movies are rented out.
There is this phenomena called “ice fog” that magically impedes my vision as I try to figure out where I am going by where the tail lights in front of me are headed.
The poor puppy pees closer and closer to the door, and lifts her poor little paws off of what I assume feels like a frozen pole you are not supposed to lick. No walks for her so she takes out her unused energy on our clothing and our carpet.
I wear like a bajillion layers to go 100 metres to get the mail, with only an eye slit left exposed so that I may see where I am walking.
Steam comes out of our front entrance when I open the door.
I am forced to stay in my living room on my comfy couch eating fruity popsicles with my puppy and kitty while husband works night shift, and that in its own is not an unwelcome break.
It is unwelcome when it is repeated for days on end and there is no good TV because the writers are still on strike. Curses!
Oh, and we found out this spring we are moving somewhere further north and colder in this freezing frigid territory of ours.
[Shudder]

Frontin'

2008-01-23T12:00:00.000-08:00

Most of my phone calls home involve me describing what life’s like here, what I do, what makes Whitehorse different from Ottawa. My work is covering the city beat here, so most of my day is spent filling my office corner up with such thoughts,sticky notes and interviews.
Time to time, I know I have to look beyond the mountains that form walls around this city, and see what else is going on in this big, wide world of ours. I owe it to myself (curiosity! Cool random facts!), my job (perspective! ideas!) and my responsibility as an able-minded citizen in a large-scale capitalist democracy who believes you use it or lose it. (I apply that adage to my mind, in this case)
Today I checked out my fave news site, BBC Front Page. It’s my fave because the news isn’t always politics, and it doesn’t act like Africa is one solid place that creates war-ish headlines once in awhile like SOME news outlets seem to think. As high and mighty as that sounds, I realize today I am no better.
There are stories with which I am not familiar in the slightest. I try and connect headlines to generalized social histories I learned in high school (so, does this Gaza Strip-Egypt thing have to do with the agreement after W.W.II? Still? Oh, OK). I try even harder to read the detail and absorb it all. Half because one day I want to go on Jeopardy and kick butt and know everything, and half because I want to retain knowledge about the world like my Dad, who I’m pretty sure DOES know everything.
It was always so easy to ask him things like, “So, what’s the Mulroney-Schreiber affair?” and have him answer in plain language in five minutes and have me understand enough to follow the news while forming opinions for imaginary, sophisticated cocktail party conversations I imagine myself having.
“So, this business in Kenya is quite something isn’t it?”
Real me: “Yeah ... it is? It’s a real...bummer?”
News-smart knowing me: “A travesty, but a pattern likely to repeat itself in the postcolonial aftermath plaguing Africa until its governments can stop relying on foreign arms and financial support and become self-educated and functioning, not to mention relapse from the AIDS devastation.”
I remember when I traveled to Greece, when the BBC was THE news source, and I was in awe over what got covered outside of Canada. For the first time, there was daily coverage on African countries’ politics, arts, health and business, beyond the Sudanese war headlines I was used to seeing, with declining frequency. It made me realize that just because Canada has news outlets, that doesn’t mean that I as a Canadian have to rely solely on what those sources tell me. And thus I began learning the value of perspective.
I also like to look at what BBC News has to say about Canada, which stories are worthy of spreading to people in Turkey, or Germany.
So today, while I may open the web site and not have the slightest as to what half the headlines are talking about, I take the opportunity to read them and learn them. If not for the ability to take advantage of such a resource and better myself, than for the betterment of my journalism, where my job is telling people what’s happening with some degree of authority. Any lower level of social awareness, and I’d feel like a fraud.
Today I challenge you to read one international news story and see if it doesn’t brighten your eyes, make you feel smart, to give you something of substance to discuss beyond the hideous outfit you think your coworker is wearing.

Viva la vie Boheme

2008-01-16T12:27:00.000-08:00

All my friends knew the words to Rent songs, starting in grade 5 when one of them must have seen it in Toronto, or got their hands on a CD (or was it still tapes then?) of the soundtrack. I didn’t appreciate the “light my candle” references, and I didn’t think it was necessary to ‘moo’ with anybody because I ad no idea what Rent was. Some musical, I guess.
A tour of it came through Ottawa when we were in grade 12, and so many people liked it, I figured it’d be worth the $40 or so to see it with my diehard Rent fan friends. They brought along their CDs, and blared the soundtrack from my parent’s Subaru all the way downtown. I didn’t let on that I still had never seen it. I tried to sing along the way we all try to do when we don’t really know the words: I kept my voice low and faked each syllable, hoping decibel-breaching level of my friends’ singalong would drown me out.
We sat in our seats, and saw there was an empty balcony spot empty. Using our developed smarmy charismatic teenage girl skills, we filled up the balcony spot with our giggles, coats, jean purses and Orangina.
The show started. I recognized songs from my friends’ impromptu concerts, although these performers hit more ear-pleasing notes. :) The intermission came and the lights came up and I was lost. What had just happened? Some struggling artists had sang some songs and I know it was around Christmastime because of the stage props, but otherwise, I had no idea what was going on. Why did she need her candle lit? And were they really singing about killing a dog?
The play ended and all I could gather was that one of them had died, but even that was hard to “get” because the scene was played out with wind-blown white sheets, symbolic dancing and subsequent actors’ grief.
We left and I tried to play scenes over in my head, figuring out what Rent was about and secondly, why people liked a play that was so convoluted and difficult to understand.
Internet was around at this point, so when I got home, I researched Rent plot synopses. I really should have done that before the show, because a light bulb went off in my head, “oooh, they had AIDS...”
I read a few more and finally pieced together critics’ descriptions with the scenes I had just observed. It made sense, but my initial confusion was not saved, and I remained a tentative fan of Rent, for the sake of my friends.
It really wasn’t until the movie came out (this admission is lame and so not-cultured of me, I know) that I saw detail, facial expressions and finally understood the hidden meanings to things. “Oh! she dropped her bag of drugs...”
And it was like an awakening. As the movie came to an end I actually cried at the funeral and gave a little cheer when Mimi woke up. It was so nice to have some more clues, like figuring out who April was, and that Maureen was protesting something I now understood.
Either way, the DVD came out and I watched it and the behind the scenes features as I usually do. It was then I learned of the story of Jon Larson and the whole movie/play was elevated to a whole new level of appreciation in my mental realm of understanding.
The poor dude was writing about the life around him in poor New York: AIDS, poverty, Jewishness, making it. He based it on Puccini’s La Boheme, sure enough, but the play was his life, his songs, seven years of his work. And then right before it was supposed to open, he died of a heart aneurysm. He didn’t even get to see the labour of his love play for an audience.
Rent’s near 12-year Broadway run is scheduled to end, the New York Times told me today. Ticket sales are down and the diehard Rent head lineups aren’t as long every morning. (I know my friends would totally be in that line if we lived in Brooklyn).
It made me kind of sad that it won’t keep playing (live on Broadway, anyway). But at least now, community and high school theaters can start performing it, making it more accessible to the people who will likely “get” the play better than I. I hope.
So this is my ode to Rent, the songs I now sing in the shower and while stirring pasta in my kitchen. The words to which I reaad from my own soundtrack CD jacket and memorized.

Saturday Night not so Live?

2008-01-14T13:07:00.000-08:00

There are some up here who don’t even own a TV. They have nature and skidoos and have no need for sitcoms, they tell me.
I need my MTV, as the saying goes. Especially since MuchMusic stopped playing anything but the O.C.reruns and VJ commentary shows. I need my brain-dead celebrity TV that robs my of intellect, and the sappy dramas that wind me in with their stylish actors and scandalous plot lines. I make no apologies-- I am a twentysomething who may have left behind her crazy bar days but will fight tooth and nail to retain the right to be a Gen Y-er who is sometimes apathetic and easily amused by what pop culture tells me is cool.
SaturdayNightLive is one of my favourite turn brain off outlets, and has been since Grade 6 when I was allowed to start watching it. I love “getting” all the witty refernces in Weekend Update, laughing at the bathroom humour and recurring characters. Last year’s addition of Digital Shorts was genious and has given me something fun to look up on YouTube and pass around the next day before they’re all taken down.
The situation with SNL and I was even better when I moved to the west coast, with its Pacific time zone and television show airings. Usually, I missed the truly live SNL episodes, being out and about (read: hammered) with girlfrends in the market. Now, it’s on at 8:30 p.m. my time. This is convenient because 1- I don’t have to worry about missing it most times and 2- I am lame and old and don’t usually stay up that late anymore, even on weekends.
But now, what am I to do? Like so many other outlets of entertainment that help me escape the monotany of my 9-5 and give my active, analytical brain some reprieve, SNL is in reruns. All the shows will soon be in reruns. Why can’t the stupid writers’ strike end already?
The Golden Globes were reduced to a press conference, people. I threw my hands up awhile ago, why can’t the writers and their bosses do the same? It is that easy, I’m sure. Is this a bore-off, whoever runs out of things to do first succumbs to the others’ demands? I suggest turning on the TV to speed things up, if that’s the case.
Bring back my TV! Leno did! I know in theory reality TV (among my fave brain-killing activities!) should be able to keep taping without writers, but for some reason they need them. Maybe so the hosts know what to say? Regardless. Stop not-working, writers, and let my shows come back. Get drunk at the staff party and get the boss to agree to a raise then! Or privately challenge them with a bogus sexual harssment suit like the rest of us do when we want extra cash! But don’t make me, the poor Yukon twentysomething whose husband is working night shifts, be deprived of the one thing that allows me to turn off my thought-maker, stare, eat chips without thinking until the bag is empty. I need that!

Back to it

2008-01-09T12:40:00.000-08:00

Ah, the small pleasures of simple living. I alluded to them last post, and one has led me off on a tangent in my life I think would only be possible in the Yukon. Or in my Yukon life.
I’ll take this and back up a bit.
When I was “training’ for my 10k race last year (meaning, doing what all runners do: run with some regularity while sloooowwwly upping my distance), I remember getting so down on myself about ‘only’ running 3 or 4 times a week. That sounds lame, I know, but hear me out. It just seems like it was something to try really hard to fit into crazy journalism school schedules and interviews, work events and interviews, family visits, and the obligatory ‘we’re almost done!’ weekend drinkfests. Its a rough life, and busy.
I knew I could be doing more to reach personal limits and test myself. Granted, huffing and puffing and sweating and cursing were indicators that I was working hard on my runs, but I always knew I wasn’t really pushing it. I did my 10k and honestly, I didn’t feel like dying or collapsing afterwards. I just remember thinking how I had totally had it in me to get a better time. Competitiveness with myself? Maybe, and maybe my upbringing in a competitive, consumeristic, pressure-filled world is to blame. Maybe not?
So, anyway, I half-assedly brought running with me to the Yukon. First, I complained that the elevation change was too dramatic to keep at my regular running schedule and so I stopped. Or I’d run on the gym treadmill once a week and be satisfied I’d done something. It was a poor excuse for a fitness regimen. Granted, I’m not pudgy or jelly-ish (Destiny’s Child!), and it’s not like pounds were starting to pack on. But that’s not REALLY why I run, either. Its good for my heart, certainly better than sitting around not exercising my heart, and I wanna be a healthy old fart one day.
I went home for the wedding though, and had the whole, dramatic, I-don’t-fit-into-the-dress fiasco. That was the first time ever I didn’t fit in something. I used to be the stick-skinny girl people started bulimia rumours about, for crying out loud. I don’t GET bigger!! Well yes, I do. And I did. So I got back to running in Ottawa, and I fit in my dress and all was well and good.
I ran on my honeymoon, even leaving new husband alone at the hotel to run the Kelwona waterfront. I was so dedicated. We returned to the ‘Horse and I was still all ‘Ya, I’m totally for sure gonna keep up my running’ and thinking it wouldn’t even be hard because I’d already been running the last month regularly.
But then it got cold. Like, gross cold. So I didn’t run outside. And getting to the treadmill took some effort,.Like, the effort required to decide to go, pack stuff, run and come home. Exasperating! I’m not sure when, but ‘too cold’ and ‘too treadmill-y’ became solid reasons to return to the butt indentation on my couch and stay put.
For Christmas, my Dad got me a subscription to a women’s health magazine, which was really what I needed. In glossy, pretty pages, the message to me became clear: You are lame. Get up and do something. Wanker.
So I signed up for their online save your body or die program (although their name is more suitable and less scary) and began by logging what I eat to see how many calories I’m taking in a day. This was relative to little to no physical activity at this point. Baby steps.
That part turned out OK. I was eating enough. I don’t want to lose weight or anything so that can stay as is and I can stop logging calories for everything I eat, which is relieving. I don’t know how many calories are in Lindor chocolates but I don’t want to either.
This week, I got a gym membership at the Canada Games Centre, this awesome facility with an indoor track (real running! no cold!), a pool (I could so get back into that! And do aquafit hahaha!) so there’s step one. I replaced my broke-down old iPod with this tiny one the size of an eye shadow compartment so I had something to listen to on my runs besides the sound of my laboured breathing.
And my magazine web site thingy tells me what to do. When to run, how long, how hard. I can add in all the other fitness-y things I’m making myself do, like hikes with the puppy, yoga and well, that’s it for now. But soon swimming! I promise!
So the long and short of it is (if you were smart and skipped down to the bottom to avoid reading all of that) is that the simple pleasure of my magazine subscription has re-inspired me to get into running and being active, with a little bit of accountability involved.
I even signed up for pole dancing for fitness at the games centre. I wonder what I am supposed to wear to that? Anything? Anyway, I figure I’ll keep things interesting by switching things up, logging what I do, and planning in advance when I’m going to do it. Yukon time gives me a whole lot more to my day, even with the full-time j-o-b, so I know I can do it.
This is totally the year of seeing how far I can go. There are some extreme races here in the summer, so I’m excited for the chance to push myself and see where these legs can take me.

Cheap Thrills

2008-01-03T10:09:00.000-08:00

Wintertime, and the living is...harder. Grocery carts now must manoeuvre over bumpy snow, my car windows fog and then ice up in a frustrating daily cycle, the produce flat out sucks and when I leave the house, I look like the Michelin man, all bundled up.
When I do outdoor interviews, I take my pencil, because pens freeze up and then I can’t do said interviews. My oil heating bills come in at a whopping $500, and just when I need my sun friend the most, I cannot tan in the middle of a swimming pool because the sun is only up 5 hours a day and also it is usually -30 degrees Celsius.
That said, I have found some things I file under the Cheap Thrills heading in my brain’s organization system. Things that tickle my pickle (I never thought I’d be the kind of person to use that saying), that cost little and that surprise me.
Here, in no particular order, are the cheap thrills of the morning:
1- Finding the box of English Breakfast tea just when I thought a cup of tea at breakfast would be perfect.
2- Listening to the new Hilary Duff album on my way to work, singing along to “With Love” and even moving my head and shoulders as if I am performing, and the guy in the red truck next to me isn’t staring.
3- Laughing as a giant Grate Dane comes barreling at my puppy on our walk this morning, his owner hollering from about 100 metres away, “Don’t worry, he’s friendly” and my puppy whines and hides behind me. What a wuss! So I clearly moved out of the way and let this Grate Dane named Charlie run full throttle at Skylar and slobber all over her as she looks at me with fear. She’s fine.
4- The absolute silence surrounding my mountain house.
5- Ripping off yesterday’s page of my Living Green page-a-day desk calendar. It’s so fun, this little ritual, and to see what today’s tip will be. Maybe I won’t take reusable grocery bags with me to the store every time (gotta have something to pick up dog poop!) but it’s a thrill. :)
6- Satsuma body wash and body butter. A wonderful pick-me-up that keeps smelling awesome. It’s thrilling because of its sweet smell and because there is no Body Shop up here, so it kind of counts as a luxury.
It’s only 10 a.m. and I’m sure there’ll me many more cheap thrills before day is done. But it’s much more fun to sit and thin about those than to get back to work, which I must now do. Editor will notice if I’m typing all morning and don’t actually hand in a story.

2007: The road to hugeness

2007-12-31T11:01:00.000-08:00

2007 was clearly my year of hugeness. 2008 must feel bad, like getting the spot in the talent show right after the beautiful girl who sings “The Sound of Music” with perfect falsetto, and all you have in your hand is a dinky recorder!
2007 started with seeing my man off to live in Regina for 6 months. That day, all I remember thinking was how I wasn’t going to see him for another half a year. Three days later I broke down and bought a ticket to see him in April over Easter weekend. That was the best weekend ever, but I was SO SAD to fly back home afterwards, I’ll tell ya!
I laboured through my last semester of journalism school. The end of the long haul. The process of doing things just to finish them, not for the grades or with hopes of re-activating my first-year scholarship. I lived with a fabulous new roommate who did not set things on fire, and who let me laugh at myself on a daily basis.
I ran my first 10k alongside my bestest girl friends in May(minus C who was traveling the globe!) and we all did it in time we could be proud of. Crossing the finish line was an incredible high.
A few weeks later I crossed a stage, signaling my transition from regular student to esteemed alumnus woman with bachelor of journalism, high honours, major in law, minor in history degree. Standing on the duct-tape X marker and hearing them read that out, I couldn’t find my family, or recognize any audience faces, because I just stood there and beamed and let my eyes well up. That was the single proudest moment of my whole life and I’ll never forget it.
Another graduation brought my family and I to Regina to see the dude become a full-fledged Crown copper. He looked so cute!! And of course, he was so impressive. A whirlwind next couple of days saw us fly home, oversee movers pack up and cart off all of our stuff, as we said goodbyes and got on a plane that took us early in the morning from Ottawa to Vancouver to Whitehorse. The northern adventure began!
We lived in cop’s quarters while we waited, and waited, for our stuff and our truck to arrive. My my mum and sister came up to visit, originally to help us move in but since our stuff was somewhere in the prairies, they stayed in a hotel and toured around.
I got some reprieve in August with a pre-planned family trip to Turks and Caicos where I supremely got my dive on, sometimes three times a day! Saw my first sharks, and was treated to numerous sea turtles...my favourite!
The biggest and best event of my life took me back home in October to plan Operation:Matrimony. It was actually easy and fun, because with my mum’s work beforehand and our pre-planning, lists, schedules and calendars, we had everything done in time to enjoy it all.
I was away from my dude again for a month, which was a bittersweet bummer. The next time I saw him was five days before we made it legal! The wedding was a blast, went by really fast, and I can’t wait to see pictures and videos soon so I can start recollecting what all happened.
We had our first married/first Yukon Christmas with visiting brother-in-law and cousin, which was a nice touch of family.
And that was 2007. I was away from my husband a lot, and I hope we never have to do anything as crazy as be apart 7 1/2 months out of the year. That stinks! But the way things are looking, it’ll be he and me in the Yukon until work allows us time to go away somewhere...if that actually happens! 2008 should be quieter, I mean, I don’t know what would make it bigger than 2007. And that’s something to look forward to for sure.
I think my resolution last year was to be healthy or something vague like that. This year it's to wear sunscreen everyday on my face. I don't want to regret not doing so when I'm like 40 and realize all those nuggets of wisdom people offered me in my twenties were actually worthwhile.

Christmas: Home versus the Yukon

2007-12-27T12:50:00.000-08:00

First off, nothing will ever beat Christmas at home where the magic of preparations, dinner and stocking-filling remain the property of the parents and grandparents. Where the kids get the luxury of having a holiday largely presented to them in the form of church, turkey dinner, presents, sledding and Santa. All we ever had to do is decorate the tree, get presents for each other, and offer to clean up around the house leading up to Christmas.
Christmas on my own, 5,000 km from home, was initially a tough sell. I got directions from the home camp, husband’s side, to prepare a turkey dinner all by myself on Christmas Day, one of only two I would have off from work this week. I had to be in on the holiday magic, playing Santa, and be the last to see the tree and its under-contents before bed that night.
It was essentially graduating from the audience of the show to the backstage producers, responsible for the success of it all with little help from anyone else.
Here’s how I fared in the first home versus Yukon Christmas:
I did my turkey dinner menu prep days before, purchasing my fresh turkey and dinner dishes at the insanely busy Superstore. I pre-chopped my carrots and peeled the potatoes in advance to decrease my to-do list, at least a little bit.
I wrapped presents early and had them all ready to go under the tree and in the stockings. All were pleased.
I sent cards and presents to family and friends in Ottawa weeks ago with instructions not to open anything until Christmas, so that I could make a presence Christmas morning, at least in some shape or form.
I donned my Christmas Santa hat and visited my Dad, brother and sister via web cam as they finished up Christmas brunch, and that really made me feel at home, included and that I wasn’t missing out on things as much as I really was.
I disguised my home-missing quite well, I think, with an insistence that Christmas CDs be played on repeat, with numerous calls home, and by throwing all energy into dinner, leaving no time for nostalgia or homesickness.
I set up the dining table with all the holiday table decor I’d been slowly acquiring in the preceding months, and I must say, it was gorgeous. I prepared the bacon-wrapped turkey, the stuffing, the scalloped cheesy potatoes, the peas, the rolls, the gravy and the two pies, bumbleberry and apple. (Yes, I forgot about the carrots, cut me some slack). We ate a nice meal, drank wine and champagne (a first Yukon Christmas is certainly cause for celebration) and finished the day with a round of board games and pie a la mode.
A phone at my grama’s house was passed around with myself on the receiving end, listening to what everyone got, how the food was and how everyone missed me. I hurriedly reciprocated so my homesickness would stay quelled.
Instead of hitting the malls at Mach-ten first thing Boxing Day morning, I lazily woke up at 9:30 with the puppy snuggled into my arm pit. I started the tea kettle, woke up the boys (visiting relatives from Edmonton) and made turkey sandwiches to take sledding. We bundled up, loaded sleds, and took off to an adventure that can only be described as follows:
Boxing Day Sled Fest in the Desert.
About an hour from Whitehorse is a town called Carcross, and it has a desert, or what used to be the floor of a glacial lake. We brought the dog, water, sandwiches, snacks and sleds, and took turns being pulled up to the top of the snow-covered sand dunes by friends on Skidoos. The slopes were steep and I managed to stay on my sled most of the time. We even got the puppy to figure out how to chase us down the hill, tiring her out in the process. We made a bonfire with friends, and one of them let me drive their Skidoo, man that is fun!
I perfected the art of sand dune sledding, which involved knowing when to close my mouth so that sand would not fly in, and using my palms, not heels, as steering rudders when necessary.
I didn’t come home with bargain jeans or iPod speakers, but I did come home with a bona fide Yukon adventure under my belt and a day spent with friends and the little bit of family that is here.
Home may still win for best Christmas, but we made it work here. And given the choice, I would choose desert sledding over Boxing Day sales anytime.

Little Miracles Here and There

2007-12-19T16:18:00.000-08:00

There’s the saying that there are little miracles all around you, the question is whether or not you notice them.
Have you heard that?
Being all pro-carpe diem and stuff, I’ve always tried to notice such things. I often find them on my lunchtime sun runs along the half-frozen Yukon River, or in the genuine, warm husband hugs, and more often these days, in delicious food. (Christmas baking done right is certainly a little miracle)
In my job I get to neet different people all the time and learn about something different every day. This variety totally helps me to recognize what’s special, beautiful and a little miracle in its own way. That way I don’t have to rely on saying babies, sun rises, rainbows are the only miraces I see. Plus, those things get a little less miracle-y after a while. I have to find new thigns to keep my miracle list spicy and interesting.
Speaking of spices...add garlic to my little miracle list. Mmm mm I could put that on near anything, I tell you.
Today’s little miracle came in the form of a fiftysomething dude I interviewed a while back.
I had talked with him about his crazy drug past for a feature series I was writing on the world of drug addiction. This guy was my main character, so to speak, and he willingly let me in to his colourful past. We had sat in a coffee shop while he poured out some of his darkest secrets. I was a stranger with a pen and a paper pad and he really didn’t have to do that. I was incredibly grateful he did, and with such honesty.
The paper published my series and I didn’t get much feedback from anyone, but that’s the norm in this town. I was a little worried I hadn’t heard from this man, though. I had changed his name and some identifying detaisl, but still, I was worried he’d hated it and more importantly me, for exposing such truths.
He called me and we set up a lunch coffee date at the same place, so he could tell me what he thought of the story. He also said he had something for me and let me know he was very impressed, so I went to the coffee house without nerves or jitters.
I’m scared I’m going to cry writing this. Crap, I’m at work and they’ll all think I’m nuts.
This man told me what a wonderful job I’d done. He went into y story layout and organization telling me why he thought it worked. He told me some of the things I wrote were really hard for him to read, and he was surprised at how much he had told me.
“I want you to know you did a really good job, and I think it’ll really help people understand what it is we go through,” he said. That was exactly what I was trying to do, without exploiting his or anyone else’s stories, and without dramatizing the struggle addicts and their overseeing mentors go through.
“You’re very good,” he said. He presented me with a copy of his favourite bok, one he said got him through some tough times. I remember “The Four Agreement” by Don Miguel Ruiz froom I think Oprah’s book list and then I just never got around to reading it. I currently am almost done “Love in the Time of Cholera” and have two more waiting, but this man’s super kind gesture puts “Agreements” in the next slot.
I’ve always thought books were among the best kind of gifts one can give. I started that with my sister, but grew a bit discouraged as the copy of “To Kill a Mockingbird” with little notes all through it and “The Lovely Bnes” sit untouched in her room.
That he would give me that book after already giving me so much, treating me with honest conversation and insight into higher understanding, that is my little mriacle of today.
That and husband hugs, those never get boring or repetitive.

Christmas in Whitehorse is coming!

2007-12-17T10:12:00.000-08:00

You know how in almost EVERY Christmas movie there is an iconic scene where the characters walk along Main Street doing Christmas shopping? Maybe it’s the wacky neighbours in their Christmas bragging war, scrambling to buy the most twinkle lights, or maybe it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger trying to buy the last action figure. I have always liked when it’s a grandparent and young child window shopping, picking out toy trains or dolls.
The snow is falling slowly, cars are driving cautiously, the street lamps are decorated with holiday garland.
This weekend I got to DO that, for the first time ever. It may not have had the cheery background music or controlled wind of a movie set, but I felt so Chirstmas-y. All those years worth of holiday films’ brainwashing techniques actually capitalized in my own life: I found a spot on Main Street to park my truck, sideways of course, and tucked my wooly hood over my head. I walked lazily, wide-eyed into all the same stores I’d been in before, only I was the character on the set of my own movie, carrying shopping bags, smiling at little girls in dresses with their parents, wishing a Merry Christmas to all the cashiers. I found what I needed and then some cute stocking stuffers at the token tourist gift shop. If my life’s camera were to pan back with an aerial view of Main Street, it would capture me smiling, swinging my bags and kicking the snow, preferably with “Holly Jolly Christmas” as my background music.
I am now ready for MY movie Christmas!
Relatives come in Saturday night (the day after the longest night here in the Yukon, then we start gaining another 6 minutes of sun a day!), and we are getting their beds and towels all washed and ready. I have been scoping out the Superstore, figuring out what produce is available for me to make Christmas dinner dishes, and making tobogganing party plans for boxing day. That excites me because, until this year, boxing day has always been about hitting the mall to score on the ridiculous savings at my fave stores. Here in Whitehorse....well, there’s no Gap. So tobogganing it is! I have my eye on a $4.95 saucer at Canadian Tire I hope is under my tree next Tuesday, and that’s about all I hope for!
I can’t wait to wear my red apron over my Christmas dress and make bread rolls right before dinner.
I can’t wait to have a mini-panic as I realize I have no idea how to prepare a turkey.
It’ll be so exciting to wake up Christmas morning and have presents under our first tree together! We can make breakfast toast and eggs and OJ and play my Christmas CD!
I can put a cute bow on the puppy and serve tea in the tea cups I save for company! Because we’ll HAVE company!
It won't be as comfortable and traditional as a family Ottawa Christmas, but in a way, that's what's exciting. I'll have to put some of the presents under the tree late at night when everyone's sleeping, so I'll be in on the secrets for the first tie, but I think that'll be exciting.
Oh, Christmas is coming and in the movie of my life it’s gonna be full of comic shenanigans, realizations of what Christmas is all about, and me wearing a Santa hat that’s clearly too big but fun nonetheless.

My hands, they are my own

2007-12-13T12:18:00.000-08:00

I got my nails done--or DID--(as the wannabe ghetto suburbanites wearing Phat Farm say) for my wedding, almost a month ago now. I had never had gel nails before, but was advised to go for the smelly fake stuff because they are hard and resilient and therefore will not chip like nail polish. It was my wedding, I was down with pulling out all the stops. Even if it meant filing my real nails down to a harsh, grainy surface, and sitting in a chemical, cancer-smelling room for an hour.
We all went together, me, my sister, my ant, my best friend and my grama. Well, grama and my aunt had to leave cuz grama couldn’t handle the fumes. I was amazed by their teeny tiny brushes and applicators, like I was watching someone play with Polly Pocket toys instead of grooming me.
They looked weird, not like my nails that I had been growing out. The whites were very white and the gel part was thick and kind of heavy. But people do it all the time and suck it up and really? Was I complaining? It hurt a little the first couple days, but I ended up really liking the final production on my hands (minus the little red nick the nail lady gave me on my right forefinger. C’mon! I’d been nursing those hands for a whole month and you nick a finger?)
Wedding day came and went and I honestly didn’t think about fingernails the whole day through but they did look really nice, I can reflect now via photos. I’m glad I did it. Edit: I was glad I did it until the first one started coming off. The bottom half of my left middle finger chipped away so that every time I washed my hair, individual strands would get caught under this fake gel fingernail.
I was back in Whitehorse and not sure there even was a place to get them touched up. I talked to my mum on the phone and she was going to get hers redone, “just once because they aren’t looking very good.” She’ll be a gel nails addict now, I’m sure.
I knew I didn’t want to be. They don’t feel very “me”-ish and I had grown to like the nails I found myself capable of growing, once I quit biting them nervously. (A habit so hard to break and ingrained since I was little it took husband’s moving away for 6 months to give me the solace and reflection to beautify my nails).
Today, still only 3 or so weeks after getting my fake gel nails applied, all but the thumb ones have come off, and now I have short, brittle boy-looking fingernails all over again. The surfaces scarred with weird white specks and stripes from the glue, I guess.
But, hands are hands and as Jewel (remember her??) used to say, they are my own. So today I embrace my broke-down ugly-looking hands with two nice-looking thumbs and type at my keyboard with increased ease.Besides, I've got two beautiful rings on my finger that make it all worthwhile.

On the couch

2007-12-10T10:33:00.000-08:00

It sounds like a country song, at least in my head, but there’s just no place like my couch, under a blanket, with my baby. (It sounds more like a song when you draw out ‘baby’)
It’s the thing I look forward to most throughout my work day and what I cherish the most when thinking of how awesome my life is at night when I’m going to sleep. Sitting on the couch (the ugly one, not our nice suede one) that reclines with footrests, under the fuzzy polar bear blanket, snuggled up to my husband (that is still so weird to say!) watching a movie or a TV show. Even better when we’ve just finished our cups of tea and the dog and cat are on our laps sleeping, oblivious to each other’s presence.
When it’s cold outside (as it is now 100% of the time, it being winter), and the phone is too far away to grab (on purpose?) and I can see the soft kind of snow falling lazily outside the balcony window, being on the couch under a blanket with him is the best.
If I were in grade 7, I’d say it was the bomb. If I were in grade 10, I’d pretend I was too cool to care but really my insides are fluttering like butterflies. If I were two years old, I’d scream out really loud with a big smile on my face and my arms up in the air. Since I’m a twentysomething, I nestle in further and know to make it last as long as I can.

The gramas are all right

2007-12-07T10:57:00.000-08:00

So I got an assignment at work to do a story on how more seniors are taking on retail and service jobs in their retirement for various reasons, and my job was to find out why.
Honestly, whenever I see one working in a big box store or some senior is cleaning up spilled orange soda at a fast-food joint, I feel so bad for them, assuming they must be so hard done by financially that they have to take on jobs most of us leave after age 16.
Like seeing cute animals caged in a zoo, taken from their families, and forced to make life more enjoyable for the masses, I feel bad for people’s gramas and grampas when they’re wearing a uniform walking up and down neon-lighted aisles.
Some surveys and interviews and research later, I found that it wasn’t so bad, that while many do work because they need money, some old people just get bored being retired and need something easy to do. I mean, I can see that. My grama volunteers a lot and swims more than most Olympic swimmers, (I’m sure!) because otherwise she would be bored. If someone else’s grama wants to don a blue apron with lots of flare (Office reference!) and direct customers to aisle 23, then so be it, you know, their choice.
This morning I went to our local Wal-Mart, where there are always a great many seniors greeting me as I enter the store, stocking shelves, hanging gigantic oversized beige panties in the underwear section, you know, around.
I had a list of questions that politely asked why they chose to work past retirement, what they used to do, how many grand kids they had, that sort of thing.
The Wal-Mart gods that be told me I needed head office approval, so I couldn’t do my interviews. I took that to mean, “Feel free to pretend to shop and casually strike up conversations about the aging workforce with our older employees on the floor.” So I did.
I found a couple of people, and found a way to see if they were over 60 without asking or assuming they were. I got my story, went to work, typed it up and filed it.
It is Friday and I am looking forward to the weekend. That is when I get to spend schedule-free time with husband and friends, and of course new puppy. That is fun!
I think I’m built for wearing a matching track suit, living in Florida and getting my white hair done at the salon. You will most certainly not see me shying away from the golden years, I can tell you that. Midday golf? Bring it on.

Settling in

2007-12-05T11:05:00.000-08:00

In more ways than one, I’m getting bit by the reality bug as the products of so many of 2007’s big decisions become permanent.
Decision One: Agree with husband that yes, moving to the Yukon would be so cool!
Is that adjective biting me in the butt now. It is only December, or, the second month of Yukon winter, and it is -40 degrees Celsius. Summer here was beautiful. We climbed mountains, sun tanned, walked everywhere, soaked up intense amounts of vitamin D cuz the sun didn’t set till 12 at night. Summer, I have heard, lasts only those two months I experienced here, July and August. Then it was back into the 8-10 month cold stretch. This is where I find myself. Call me seasonally affective, but it’s all a little depressing to be freezing cold all the time, missing my riverside runs, lamenting my super-dry skin (I have to moisturize like 6 times a day!) and with Christmas coming, I kind of just want to be at home.
Granted, it’ll be nice to have my first married Christmas here on my own, but Christmas is all about family and traditions and visits, right? Not this year. I’m discovering Bailey’s in my hot chocolate and numerous comforters on my bed make the Yukon winter blues go away.
Decision Two: Buying a puppy, because they are, like, so cute and fun!
Yes, but they also whine, poop, pee, destroy, chase kitten, eat clothing, gnaw hands and need attention when I really want to be painting my toenails.
I love Skylar the dog. She is cute and has the epitomous puppy-dog eyes and when she does snuggle up and sleep on my lap, it is the most relaxing feeling ever. (Especially when Goober the kitten joins in the sleeping snuggling mix). But man, I am realizing that taking care of a new puppy is a significant amount of work! I sleep less, I worry about my home’s destruction, I am gong through urine and poo remover/cleanser in alarming and likely carcinogenic amounts.
To both of these things I know comes the answer, “I’ll get better.” And I know that’s true. But a carpe diem-ing twentysomething sometimes needs more than assurances things’ll get better later. Like, I would prefer to have things get better now, so I can go back to being carefree. Or is that what being a grownup is?

You asked for it, Imus

2007-12-03T11:40:00.000-08:00

At the risk of sounding like the elderly former editor of my newspaper who calls me once a week to complain about the way things are, today I am wondering what happened to the good old days of media people getting fired for their goof ups?
Don Imus was back on air today after he was suspended, I guess, for calling a women’s basketball team a bunch of [insert racial epithet here]. It was a big deal, you’ll recall, and there was a whole lot of media hoola and Oprah forgiveness interventions and discussions.
What I don’t understand is why he’s back on the air today. We live in an almost over-populated world (depending on what Malthusian opinionista you talk to), so why are we giving second chances to racist mouthpieces when there are a whole slew of equally talented other mouthpieces who can do the job?
There’s the argument that we should all forgive and forget, people make mistakes, the guy said sorry. But that isn’t it. I mean come on, what credibility does he have once he’s said the kind of things one is never supposed to say on air...or in public? I for one don’t buy the “it was a moral slip-up” argument. Did Don wake up that day a radically altered racist and accidentally express that? Or did he say something he was thinking and come under fire for it later? I’m inclined to think his true colours were the ones on air before his spin doctors told him how to apologize.
So why wasn’t he fired? Why wasn’t his radio slot given to some equally-opinionated and colourful radio host who could do the same job? Sure, he wouldn’t have the same following as I mus, but really, does Imus have the same following he used to? I don’t know, call me crochety but it makes me wonder, are we all apathetic, or willing to forgive and forget? Maybe the people who decide he goes back on air want to bank on his notorious name. But what would their mommas say?

Please can I can I?

2007-11-30T11:34:00.000-08:00

I’ve often found that the most spontaneous, fun things I do end up providing me a great sense of adventure, pride and joy in retrospect. Piercing my tongue? what fun driving my parents nuts! Getting tattooed at a shady biker bar at age 15? Rebellion at its finest. Making out with that cute guy I don’t even know? Well, that one got me a husband. See?
It is with that blind faith in spontaneity that I got picked up in the truck after work yesterday and directed husband to a woman’s house in the subdivision next to us. I planned on waiting till we got there to surprise him with his Christmas present (albeit early) and I couldn’t even wait that long!
“We’re going to go see golden retriever puppies!” He grew a huge smile and looked over to the passenger seat.
“Really? You want one?”
“Oh yes yes yes!
We got to the house and two insane dogs jumped and greeted us with their crazy dumb dog smiles, leading us to the pen, and their human owners, around back. Two tiny puppy heads poked up above the pen walls and I was sold. Like, instantly. Him too.
So we went to Wal Mart to buy dog things we thought we’d need, like anti-chew spray and a cute pink collar for the runty girl we picked out. We called the owners to confirm. Our discussion was probably on parallel with that of eight-year-olds.
“Do you want it?”
“Ya, it is sooo cute.”
“It’d be a lot of work.”
“I know, I know, I know. I’ll do it. Pleaseeeee.”
So it looks like we’re getting a 13-week-old golden retriever puppy this weekend. We haven’t decided on a name yet, but we like Mango and Skylar.
I am totally unprepared, we have to dog-ify the house, I have no idea if puppies sleep through the night or if they need to get up and pee at some point. But it’ll be so much fun, right?

Crazy girl runs in arctic winter for fun

2007-11-29T15:08:00.000-08:00

I was really good about keeping to my running schedule when I was in Ottawa. I was also motivated by my shock and awe when I arrived and could not do up my wedding dress. Me? Put on weight?
So it was an everyday task I sometimes lamented but always stuck to: 4-5 km around my ‘hood. I was making progress, eating right, and ended up looking fabulously fit in my dress, if I do say so myself. I realized I had been lacking motivation in Whitehorse. Why run? I’m skinny and stuff. Why run? I walk to work don’t I? Why run? It’s hard when I breathe like a fat kid in this elevation of 2,300 feet above sea level.
Now that I’m back in Whitehorse I see winter is coming. I see it because it is dark out almost all the time and it is friggin freezing too. I can’t wake up, eat a leisurely breakfast and go for a run at 10 in the morning anymore because I’m back to work, bringing home the bacon and breaking stories. Motivation is desperately seeking a life force. It’s cold. It’s dark. The wedding’s over and my man loves me even when I gain 10 pounds.
But wouldn’t it be cool to run a race with all these superfit Yukoners in the spring and not be barfing up a lung in the process?
And how sweet would it be if I ran the mother’s day 5k and actually placed in it with a kick-butt time?
So Tuesday I packed my outdoor winter running gear. The stuff that hadn’t seen my skin since I was running along the Rideau Canal during winterlude last year, prepping for my first 10k. I brought it to work and I ran the Millennium trail along the Yukon River during my lunch break, the one time of day when there’s a bit of sun in the sky.
It was beautiful. The river was banked with snow, it was serene, the run was quiet and surprisingly not too difficult. I didn't even take my iPod. I listened t the water running over the rocks and the sily thoughts inside my head.
So I’m back, running. I’m back with Gore-tex, super-grip winter running shoes.

I like Gooooollllldddd

2007-11-28T11:27:00.000-08:00

So there’s polar diamonds and fair trade diamonds and arctic diamonds, and though I haven’t seen Leo sexify it up in Blood Diamonds with a fake South African accent, I get the jist of what a blood diamond is. (Thanks Internet!)
And kudos to those out there for pioneering social and environmentally conscious diamonds, because really, there are people who care about that and it’s 2007... we don’t need to be using trade practices established during the colonialization of Africa, right?
Living in Whitehorse gives me a leg up on factory-direct gold and diamonds (ha! I wish!) that are mined around here. Well, I at least can visit the mines the stuff in our jewelry stores came from, although I probably wouldn’t. I just know that I can. I can trace where diamonds come from (the ground up here in the arctic) to the treatment/refinery plants to People’s jewelers or, in my case, Murdoch’s on Main Street.
Now today’s assignment at work is researching eco-gold. Ore that is being panned
(using modern, cool equipment mind you) up here in the Klondike using no toxic chemicals or byproducts that makes hippies and activists and socially conscious consumers happy. (Or so these companies claim ... I’ll bite for now) There aren’t any international rating or certification systems for fair-trade or eco-gold yet, so consumers just have to do the research themselves (though who actually does?).
I thought this was a pretty cool concept. As a twentysomething now making more mint than my student career allowed, I am also able to make conscious choice about where said money goes.
Organic or cheap? Soy or 2 per cent? Fair trade coffee or the don’t-ask, don’t- tell Timmie’s coffee? Do I buy advil for my headache or do naturopathic things like wearing cold wet socks to drain the blood from my head? Decisions, decisions.
Although I must add in the disclaimer that when it comes to gold and diamonds, I never turn away what comes to me in small velvet boxes, nor do I ask where they came from. I mostly just squeal in delight and hug whoever the giver of such jewels happens to be.

For the Record

2007-11-26T13:17:00.000-08:00

My wedding day was a blast and each day that passes since (going on 10 now) leaves a little more of the story foggy in my newlywed brain. So, for the records (yours but mostly mine!), here is what it was like:
7:00 wake up in my old room, now my brother’s room. The girls and I built a fort the night before, tacking bed sheets to the ceiling, stringing Christmas lights around the room. We had watched Muriel’s Wedding, and Father of the Bride. We had half-empty Smartfood bags lying around and empty mini cans of Coke Zero. But we had no time to clean, of course. We woke up, shut the door to that room for another day, and went to the salon.
8:00 At the salon, I got to sit down first. I sipped water, wanting to look “hydrated” and with the foresight I wouldn’t be nonchalantly sipping on my litre-sized Nalgene today like usual. We passed around the muffins my aunt and grama had made, and we laughed along to the mix CD my best friend made. (Imani Coppola, Spice Girls, Across the Universe songs)
My quirky hairdresser regaled me with stories of her failed marriage and recently-received divorce notice, quipping, “I know you don’t want to hear this today, but...”
She put on the veil and everyone swooned (including me!). My bridesmaids and mum’s hair looked awesome and sophisticated and we hurriedly tornadoed outta there.
10:00 Enter my house, it smells really good. Turn the corner and see my living room filled with vases of roses and flowers from fiancé. Wow! I honestly wouldn’t have expected something so sappily romantic from him, but was pleasantly surprised at how easily I became a princess.
We all stampeded upstairs to begin make up. I shaved my legs over the side of the tub before putting on my thigh-high stay ups and blue garter.
11:00 Best friends did my makeup and applied my fake eyelashes as the photographer and video guy showed up to “capture the magic” as they said. The video guy interviewed me downstairs against a backdrop of more flowers and the black leather book that was my present to fiancé.
“And what’s your present to him?” asked the video guy, who looked a little like Donna’s Dad from That 70s Show.
“Well, it’s a book of pictures no one but Rich should see!” I had taken boudoir pics for him, well mostly for him, but also so I can be an old granny and look back at how smoking hot I once was.
12:00 And I’m having my gown slid over my arms, shoulders and head. Best friend does up the back, slowly, so the paparazzi present could capture it. I put on my shoes, necklace, bracelet and earrings. Check my mum’s mirror one last time to make sure my makeup looks right. Photographer enters for our photo shoot. Bridesmaids and mum file in for pics with me at photo guy’s direction and I hear the door open downstairs and fiance's voice. I giggle and get so antsy! Finally, he is brought upstairs with eyes closed and he sees me for the first time. I cry a little nd the photo guy gets his shots before I can go hug and kiss my man. A few more pictures with family, I grab my pashmina and parka and we’re going to the market for pictures.
1:30 My brother dedicates the sweetest Gavin DeGraw song to us on the way downtown. I make a conscious effort to take it all in.
1:45-2:30 Downtown is really cold. We pose, we move, our hands get numb and our noses run but the photo guy says we take great pictures. We scurry between my parka and stone walls, benches, archways.
2:30 Mad dash with my brother back home to catch the limo to the church. Fiance’s parents have left without him so brother has to take him.
2:40 We’re in the limo, me, my parents, my girls. We sing “Chapel of Love” and touch up lip stuff.
2:55 We’re in the basement of the church. The flower girls are dancing, fluffing their dresses, we’re laughing, I’m nervous.
3:00 Justin Timberlake music starts playing and the church lady at the back assembling us all looks like a chicken with her head cut off. Each girl starts walking away from me, one by one. My stomach is flipping, I’m breathing deep trying to calm down. My dad squeezes my hand.
I walk down the aisle and forget about everything but the boogie jokes my dad is telling me, and trying to see fiancé. The video guy’s light is right in my eyes so I can’t see much. I see one of my friends bawling and I laugh at her. A big smile is plastered across my face from now until sundown.
We stand in front of everyone but I just look at him. We say our vows, we put rings on each other and hold each others hands. I cry a little bit but not too much.
We walk down the aisle together, the sun is shining right in, making a silhouette around us. We stop to look back at the photo guy, then at each other, before we leave the church as man and wife.
3:40 I have people all around me taking pictures giving hugs, coming, going. It was overwhelming and I don’t remember much. We go back into the church for family pictures and I get called Mrs. ___ for the first time. :)
4:30 The wedding party gets in a limo, we drive to our photo location to find we have 10 minutes before it closes! We take hilarious, speedy pictures and then some outside where it is cold.
5:00 We are in the limo, drinking champagne and laughing. I ask the limo driver to cruise for awhile so we can soak this all in and be goofy. I give him his present, he loves it. He gives me earrings that match my engagement ring, I love them too.
5:45 We get to the reception, at a hotel. Unload our stuff in our room. Check makeup fast and head out to wait to be called into reception room. People running all around me, photo guy going nuts.
6:15 get introduced into reception hall. Don’t notice much at first except a few faces as we head to the dance floor for our first dance. We dance to our high school song, "Hanging by a Moment.” I don't notice anything anymore but him. We laugh to each other.
6:30 We sit down to eat an awesome dinner. I didn’t really like the mixed green salad, but the mashed potatoes were sooo filling. We had champagne in special flutes. We stood up to kiss everytime someone sang a song about love, cops, or reporters. We laughed and cried in speeches. Best man had some surprisingly sweet things to say, I was speechless! Best friends put on an awesome slideshow that made me realize, “Wow, this is all for us!”
7:45 ish Daddy and I dance to “Daughters”, get the night kicked off.
8:00 Onwards all night now is dancing, drinking more water, getting hot, taking goofy pictures, asking for help holding my dress in the washroom and rubbing my sore armpits being rubbed by the boning in my dress.
The last song of the night, when most people had gone to bed but our diehard party friends and relatives. They circled around us, and we danced the last song, “Grow Old with You.” We say sweet things to each other and look into each others eyes. It was the best moment of my whole life.
And they lived happily ever after.

Wedding Planning Is...

2007-11-05T08:39:00.001-08:00

Booking hair, nails, facial, massage appointments. Making seating plans, place tags, favours and table numbers. Steaming my dress, picking up and fitting bridesmaids'. Organizing groomsmen, buying rehearsal gifts, tanning, running, sleeping, hydrating, dieting, and whitening my teeth. It is exfoliating, writing programs, buying decorations, getting sheet music, setting up rehearsal, dodging stressful people, asserting myself, being a diplomat, checking the bank, applying for marriage license, writing thank yous, buying flowergirl baskets. Meeting with DJs, photographers, videographers, reception staff, MC and acquiescing to unique and inconvenient relatives' requests.
It is missing my fiance, bonding with my mum, laughing with my friends, planning makeup and hair and music and the morning-of.
It is crazy, busy, insane, occupying, and each day finishes with a sense of accomplishment with things I can cross of my lists, and worriedly adding others as I remember them when I should be falling asleep.
It is wishing I could do it all myself, worrying when other people don't do what they said they would and hoping that magically money will appear in my bank in time for the next set of purchases needed.
It is counting down the days (12 left!) and wondering how it will all come together. It is exciting to answer questions, happy to be doing this all at home, relieving to find the support of my friends and overwhelming when I think about it all too much.
But yikes what a fun day I think it will be! If it ever gets here in one piece.

We were day trippers

2007-10-24T08:53:00.000-07:00

“Do you want to go to Toronto? They’re turning Wonderland into a haunted house where people jump out at you!”
No, that sounds really far away and I hate people jumping out in a scary way. No.
“But it’s going to be a road trip!”
Sold.
So the second day after flying home from Whitehorse, a two-day ordeal of cross-Canada flight delays and airport food, I found myself looking forward to sitting shotgun for endless hours in a one-day adventure from O-Town to Peterborough, where we picked up our BFF and then onwards to Ajax to pick up another and finally to Wonderland.
“Ew, did someone fart or is that smell just this awful town?”
“Did you know the Cat Came Back song is actually about the cat hacking people to pieces?” Oddly enough, the driver had the song on her iPod, so we listened as we drove through the orange and red tree-lined highway number seven. Stranger still was she was right. Listen to it, it’s quite perturbing.
“So I don’t want to lose weight, I just want to tighten,” [insert hand gestures from Knocked Up]
And thus is a sampling of the conversation that carried us from Ottawa to Peterborough. We actually hardly paid attention to the background music and if we did it was only to sing along off-key and with the passion every girl shares after pronouncing “Oh, I LOVE this SONG!”
Peterborough is a beautiful town and after living in Whitehorse, it seems much bigger and busier than I had previously given it credit for. We ate at K and A’s favourite, before finding our new spots in the car and driving onward ho to Ajax. We picked up another, bought our tickets and were an hour away from the land of wonder.
Under the stars we rode roller coasters, bought $23 pizza and screamed until we were hoarse. My lower back was sore from the clenched muscles K and I sustained while going through haunted houses, arms around each other, hunched over, nervously laughing and nervously twitching backwards when things indeed did jump out at us.
It actually wasn’t as bad as I had thought it would be. Then again, I hadn’t opted to go in the clown-themed haunted house where midway through, the lights turned up and a voice announced there was a fire and everyone was to evacuate. Unfortunately, the haunted house was structured as a maze and poor claustrophobic A and S found themselves in survival mode trying to get out of the smoke-filled, creepy clown-filled tent.
We decided to drive back that night, promising that whoever sat up front had to stay awake with the driver.
At exactly midnight I opened my birthday present from A and our car celebrated the beginning of my birthday. It was beautiful to start this year off with these girls around me! And I got A to sing us the song she is to perform as I walk down the aisle in less than a month, and she totally made me cry.
We got home about 5 in the a.m. I sleepily said goodbye, I thanked them for b-day wishes and shuffled up to my mum’s front door to sleep another few hors before it was birthday mode and, where I find myself now, in an extreme wedding-planning zone.

Strange Days

2007-10-15T11:42:00.000-07:00

Since my last post a number of strange things have happened here. I have gone from wearing flip flops and cute skirts to Gore-Tex winter boots and my mittens. It seems I have been waking up earlier and earlier when, in fact, the days have just started later and later. This morning it was still pitch black outside at 7:30! I also have to be ready to leave earlier because I have to scrape and defog the truck’s windows, and allow for the bit of traffic backup as everyone has decided that cold weather means no more bicycling to work. Winter is here and I am not ready. Because it is not near Christmas, and that s when the snow is supposed to come. At least in Ottawa.
With fiancé finding himself with two days off over the weekend, in correspondence with my own weekend, we decided to take advantage and plan a road trip, my first outside of Whitehorse. We were to visit Pelly’s Crossing, about three hours northwest on the Klondike Highway.
An hour into the trip, we were white-knuckled with gritted teeth as we swerved all over that friggin, uncleared, snow-covered highway. There were three tire track lanes, meaning if another car came, one of us had to risk sliding over to the curb as the three driving tracks meant there was only room for one of us, albeit on our side of the road. The road trip could have happened, it just would have taken five hours of going 60 km/h, so we turned around at Fox Lake and came home. I have never felt like such a city girl.
“It’s October, the highways are snowed out, and ohmigod what are we going to DO?” I stood there, wearing my MEC gear (meaning wasn’t I PREPARED?) and looking to fiancé for comfort in this beautiful, barren land. Is this really the situation for the next seven months of winter? (That’s how long the season is here)
It matters not for the time being, as I am lucky enough to have a ticket home to Ottawa this week, home to plan the wedding, which will be a month away as of Wednesday. To Ottawa, where it is about 15 degrees warmer and (hopefully) where my winter gear will not yet be necessary.
I am not prepared to think ahead to the 24 hours of darkness days and the 40-below temperatures that await my return after the honeymoon.

All better

2007-10-03T20:12:00.000-07:00

Last post was about an awful feeling, so this will be about an awesome one.
It’s awesome to hear that a story I wrote made someone cry because they were so touched by my words. It’s exciting to see my name in print every day under the headlines of my stories. It’s refreshing to be respected and paid attention to after four years of screaming for sources and callbacks in the capital city where journalism students and novice reporters are no one.
It makes me feel so good when the stories I write really make people think, and when they tell me this. Or when the mayor calls me to tell me what a good job I am doing. And when my stories get picked up by the Globe and Mail for people across Canada to read, that is nice too.
These are things I thought to myself on my way to work, late, after fighting with my roommate’s car door, trying to force it open against the will of the ice keeping it frozen shut. Frozen because it dipped below freezing last night in this north of 60 place in October, and why would the car door open for me if it had been freezing out, really.
These are nice things I will tuck away when the editor asks why I missed something that CBC got, for when I find myself lacking passion writing about more mundane things like subdivision approvals and rezoning amendments.

Hungover

2007-10-01T12:41:00.000-07:00

Do you ever NOT feel stupid when you get hungover? What about when you’re supposed to be beyond your crazy college day benders? When you work a 9 to 5 and then get messy drunk on Saturday night, keeping you bedridden and puking all night and Sunday?
Saturday night was not nice to me. I went out with my new coworkers to get to know them outside of the press room. This involved convening at one person’s house and drinking games. I didn’t THINK I drank more than “usual” although the standard for usual was last set when I was out at Ottawa bars near every weekend getting silly.
In retrospect, I pinpoint the beginning of the downfall with our drinking snacks. The guy’s whose house we were a is some kind of Iron Chef or something and he made up these appetizers that were ground beef and corn atop baguettes, with a fried quail egg on top. This is probably something really sophisticated, but all pretense was lost on us as we chased our quail egg delights with rye and beer and wine.
You know what, I should have realized then how the night would end.
We went to one of Whitehorse’s only decent bars (decent standards as set by another twentysomething) called Coaster’s, where shots were slammed, drinks were sloppily cheered and the music, I’ll admit, wasn’t half bad. I didn’t really know the people I was with, but if frosh week taught me anything, it is that you can make fast friends by sharing a night of boozing. I was nervous, granted, so maybe that sped up the pace at which I imbibed.
2:00 rolls around, as did my vision, with the “whirlies” kicking in. I got home and clump-clumped my way through the dark into our room. Memory fades to black.
Wake up the next morning feeling OK at first, surprised actually, although confused by the pasta pot lined with a plastic bag beside my head.
I got up, made myself a Gatorade cocktail to ease the dehydration, and resigned myself clad in bathrobe to watching 90210 reruns on TV. It hits me.
I am puking up Gatorade and what water I ingest all Sunday long. I felt worse than I have ever felt post-drinking. Was it the quail? The purple shots?
Fiancé filled in the blanks and informed me that between the hours of 2 and 4 a.m. I had been wrapped around the toilet, puking my guts out, ignoring his pleas for me to drink more water, eat some bread. He was so nice to take care of me those 2 hours before he had to get up and work 12 hours.
I am now back to normal, although my skin is a whole new kind of dry and pasty, and the headache lingers as my body restores its water contents. (Ode to the red Nalgene on my desk)
It turns out, upon reconvening in the office Monday morning, that near everyone got disgustingly sick with quail and booze toxicity, so I don’t feel quite so stupid. Misery loves company, and I guess so does shame, haha.

Fall-winter continuum

2007-09-24T10:51:00.001-07:00

I called home yesterday to my mum’s house, where everyone had gathered to celebrate my little brother’s 19th birthday. They were eating teriyaki chicken, and my grama’s scalloped potatoes with corn flakes on top.
I could hear cutlery clanking against plates in the background, and I knew exactly what they looked like because this scene has played out for every birthday. The birthday guest of honour sits at the head of the table, flanked by grama on the left, sibling on the right. Mum sits at the other table end, close to the kitchen. My little sister dims the dining room lights and mum comes around the corner, face aglow with the candles in front of her, atop a homemade chocolate cake as everyone sings happy birthday.
“We were just saying to each other how weird it was that you aren’t here,” my mum told me, from 5,000 km away.
“I know. I’ll be home for the next birthday though!” I cheerily forced out. (I will indeed by flying home in less than a month for wedding prep, three days before my own birthday)
My brother took a break between corn flake potato scoops to thank me for the card and Rolling Stone subscription.
“What’s it like up there?” he asked.
“Funny you should ask, it’s snowing and cold and today we even had to go out to buy toques and gloves,” I said, amazing myself even at how inappropriate the weather is here, at least in terms of September.
“Really,” he said, stating it, not asking. “We’re here in like shorts and T-Shirts, it must’ve been 25 out today,” he tried not to gloat. Yesterday marked the calendar start to fall, and I watched big fat snowflakes fall on the roof of my truck from my balcony doorway.
“I can’t wait to come home,” I said. I do have that to look forward to, the visit home and the wedding that’s becoming so real and exciting. But what happens when I don’t have a visit home to look forward to? When it’s dark out for most of the day here and colder than any temperature my skin and bones have known before? What happens when there’s no escape in sight and the people who make winters pass faster are all back home?
When the only thing I want to do os skate the canal and eat Beavertails? Then what?

ooooooooo!

2007-09-18T11:25:00.000-07:00

For over a year now I have tried to play down my excitement but I now I can’t. No more! It’s coming so soon, it’s OK to explode in a giant joygasm now! I don’t have to be concerned that it’ll seem too far away if I use up all my excitement too soon!
The wedding is in two months and I’m just going to burst! My mum mailed out the invitations yesterday so it’s real now! People will start writing back to tell us if they’re coming! The ivory stock card and ribbon concoctions the girls and I put together months ago while watching “My Best Friend’s Wedding” and “My Big, Fat, Greek Wedding” are now in envelopes in vans and airplanes being sent across the country.
The guest list we came up with last fall (so we knew numbers) have now become the names of people invited to my wedding!
The dress I picked out so long ago is going to be ON me in less than 2 months and everyone will stare at it at 3 p.m. when I walk down the aisle.
People are asking me if I’m stressed, to which I reply, “NO way!” This is so exciting, I almost don’t want it to stop! My mum and I have this wonderful project together and my very best friends are all at home working like wonderful worker bees to get things ready. Let’s be real: When the concern is red versus copper tulle, there can be no stress. This is awesome!
I’m so excited to go home and see everyone, and have my homecoming culminate in a wedding to the BEST guy ever! Everyone says that, I know. But for me, this guy is the BEST. I mean it, no one can be better. :)
Oooooo I wish I could just hit the vowel keys iiiiii uuuuuu aaaaa and have you understand how excited I am. That is the highest degree of clarity with which I think I can express myself, vowels.
It’s 59 days and 21 hours away!

Working for the weekend

2007-09-14T20:20:00.000-07:00

Amidst all my northern self-discovery and deep thoughts, I find myself at a standstill when it comes to work.
I am working for the weekend, clocking in my 8 hours a day just to get out, to go home, to get one out of five days closer to the weekend’s return. I don’t lament work. I don’t dread coming. While there, I am usually pleased with the level of effort I put in, and in retrospect I am very proud of the work I do and the role I play in society via my occupation.
For the two months between when I was done school and moved here, I became so bored without a job. My routine was gluttonous, non-contributive. It was relaxing, but you know when you get relaxed, it’s even harder to get up and do something. Besides, I had the luxury of looking forward to guaranteed work.
But now that I’m here, now that I’ve decorated my desk with pictures and a now-dying ivy, the novelty has worn off. I’m at work, I sit at my desk, and the grass is looking greener on the other side.
On the weekend I can sleep in, I can take my time baking and cooking. I can watch teen movies on TBS and stay in sweatpants. I can have Saturday nights, a drink, and an excuse to wear shinier, silkier shirts than normal. I can do the things I put off until the weekend, I can have lunch when I want to!
Come Sunday, I don’t look forward to the next day’s 9 to 5. I ceremoniously pick out my clothes and get the week’s groceries that will turn into brown bag lunches. That’s no fun.
Work is like the boring parent. The one you spend the most time with so that the things you get accustomed to doing together are no longer treats, they’re just ‘the way.’ Then the fun parent comes home, the one who hasn’t spent all day punishing you, and you have the option of being silly and goofy where before, that behaviour indicated it was perhaps time for a nap.
Does my lack of continuously motivating passion for work mean I am not meant to be a journalist? Am I supposed to be tuned into my inner reporter all the time, always on the job, therefore meaning work is life and life is work and there is no more looking forward to the weekend? Am I supposed to be so satisfied by my weekday job that it is almost difficult to leave Friday at closing?
It’s Friday at 11;18 and 5 o’clock is looking real far from now.

Asking Questions Like It's My Job...oh, wait

2007-09-10T14:17:00.000-07:00

They say to ask and ye shall receive. This is something so basic and simple, I’ll chalk it up to accidental overlooking when people don’t ask. I listen to people whine, “Why won’t he do that?”, “Why won’t they promote me?”, “Where did mum put my socks?”, until I cannot bite my tongue.
"Why don’t you ask?" and then I repeat the old saying, old complete with the word ‘ye’ even.
It’s done me well so far in my (albeit short) journalism career. When colleagues kindly (it really is well-intentioned) advise me not to bother trying to get some info, trying to talk to some particularly difficult source, I often tell them I’ll try anyway. Nine times out of ten it works. Maybe it’s my blond hair, maybe it’s because I asked nicely. Either way, I have found that asking has got me answers. A simple prerogative, yet effective in reporting.
But what about beyond us? Woah. Getting existential, I know. But seriously, what about asking for what we want? Asking God or the universe or whatever force you may or may not believe in that oversees our existence. My Catholic school called it prayer, but I don’t want to use that word here because to me, prayer has been taught to me to be something like this:
“In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (fearing that if I didn’t “dial in” to God correctly, he wouldn’t pick up the line)
“I pray that you can please forgive me for being a big fat sinner so that I may go to heaven when I die. Amen” (Religious click as I put down the prayer phone)
At least that’s the take I got.
I probably lost faith in the power of asking God for stuff when he didn’t deliver on my eighth grade requests.
“Please let Nick really like me back and make him want to go out with me forever.” Nick being Nick Carter. It never happened, and so I stomped off angrily, pissed off like teenagers get.
But now that I have resolved that I don’t really want to marry Nick Carter (man, he got fat and ugly) I have returned to the idea that maybe I can ask for stuff, and maybe, by virtue of asking, I will get it.
This hit me yesterday when I returned to swimming laps. (I thought it was so easy. 40 laps and I was laughing. Until about an hour later, when my legs gave out and I was comatose) I thought, maybe instead of asking for things like patience and courage and stuff, I could ask for specifics, so God wouldn’t get confused and give me patience while sleeping or courage when peeing. You know, couldn’t hurt to clarify.
So I thought I’d ask to become closer with my mum. We’re close, and having a blast planning the wedding, but there’s been an unexplained awkwardness on my part when talking to her. I have no idea why. She has even asked me what’s wrong. So I put it out there.
“Look, I have no reason to be all awkward. She’s my mum, she’s let me puke on her. She’s seen me embarrassed beyond belief. Can you make me less awkward when I talk to her so we get get past said barriers and get closer? Thanks.”
I also asked for more opportunities to meet friends here. Between work, the drive, and home, I haven’t met too many people, and I’d really like to have something more to do on a FRiday than hang out with Goober watching “Monster-In-Law.” I asked for a friend or two, people to call here when fun things happen, to gossip with about American’s Next Top Model, and to go OUT with on weekends. Thanks.

I’ll let you know if I receive. For my part, I will be consciously trying to push these things along too. Cuz I know God has like a bajillion people to answer to.

I wonder what Nick Carter asks for...

Everybody's changing and I don't feel the same

2007-09-06T19:05:00.000-07:00

I think the lead singer of the band that sang that song is in rehab, which is a bummer, and made me think twice about using his chorus to describe what’s going on lately, since the changes around me aren’t pointing towards rehab. Unless you count the feature article I’m working on about rehab.
I can feel Whitehorse changing me. Or me changing in Whitehorse, whatever karmic chicken and egg analogy you want to use.
I can look back at 2 months ago me, new in this northern mountain town gawking at the stereotypical small town staples and boasting about what I knew. I knew nothing. I deliberately set out to come here with a mind open to whatever unfolded before me. And to be fair to myself, I tried to be, and thought I was.
But as newer people come, and I see 2 months ago me in them, I recognize that I am changing.
I don’t try and figure out how much money people make when I meet them.
I don’t purport to understand anything, knowing that I can never truly understand something 100 %.
I don’t care what purse I bring with me, if it matches, or if its season-appropriate. That was the first to go.
I don’t gloat about hiking a mountain when the people I live here with do that twice a week and travel all over the territory doing so for fun.
I don’t purport to be a runner, at least not by Yukon standards. I am a runner in early training. When my colleagues run half marathons just for kicks, up and down mountain trails even, I cannot in good grace call myself a race runner. Humble pie for me!
I drive slower, and don’t notice.
I get excited to go to WalMart.
I get excited to order catalogues.
I don’t spend paycheques the day I get them after one walk through the Rideau Centre.
I don’t spend all my paycheque ever.
I write letters on nice note paper, and take the time to do this without scheduling it in between classes, work, bus rides or coffee runs.
I do yoga every morning, waking up at 6:00 and I really LIKE it.
I don’t get tired until bedtime.
I drink 2L of water a day, and notice when I don’t because of the lip-smacking and tongue scraping I unconsciously begin doing.
I can’t go a day without a book to read, or continue reading. (On to Jeffrey Eugenides’ Middlesex)
I am learning the names of plants and animals around me, expanding my natural savvy beyond the squirrels, sparrows, rabbits and Maples that formed the suburban nature of home.
I don’t feel like a tourist anymore, and I stopped shopping in the tourist stores.
In short, I am retaining the me I like and building on it with the characteristics that Whitehorse air has begun filling me with. Like a slow intoxication of Yukon qualities with every breath of mountain air. I am scared I’ll visit home a different person. But isn’t that why I was excited to move here n the first place, seeing who I’d turn into?
I feel excited and anxious to meet a little more of the new me every day. It just requires the kind of quiet and introspection that a slowed-down, balanced and happy life I’m getting from Whitehorse.

Just another day in Paradise

2007-08-29T20:31:00.000-07:00

Like students lamenting the end of summer vacation and the return to the familiar routine of hall passes and early mornings, I too find myself missing what I made into my brief summer vacation.
In ten days, I went from Whitehorse to Ottawa to (a couple delayed flights and missed connections and airport anger later) Turks and Caicos and back again.
I went with the fam on a dive trip to an all-inclusive resort. I usually feel guilty and uncomfortable about the idea of all-inclusive beach resorts in third world countries because, as my 12th grade world issues teacher said, “You’re going to these places where The Man has taken the most beautiful beaches away from the people, made resorts, and staffed them with the poor people they robbed, and then there you are stuffing your face and living a life of luxury in front of them, rubbing it in their faces.”
Indeed, I felt such things when I went to a resort in Jamaica, which required a tour bus ride through shanty roadside towns dotted with tin shacks and desperation.
This time, Turks and Caicos let me enjoy the beauty of a tropical paradise guilt-free, as the island has no real “natives,” just a bunch of rich people buying up oceanfront property for their own summer jaunts.
I went, I dove, I tanned, I snorkeled and I ate splendidly. I describe it simply, because the living was that: simple and easy, just like the Porgy and Bess song says summertime is supposed to be.
The best memory I take from the trip is being 80 feet deep, looking over my left shoulder at the coral reef on the underwater cliff beside me, and instead finding myself eye to eye with a sea turtle. We had a moment, mere inches apart, nodded each other off and shared understanding (I like to think, anyway). I couldn’t stop myself from smiling euphorically, which unfortunately brought me back to reality as the smile lines on my face allowed copious amounts of sea water to enter my scuba mask. Small price to pay.
The food was excellent, with fresh fish, jerk chicken and tropical fruits a part of near every dining experience. It was almost too easy to overlook the quality and beauty of the food presented, as it was all “free”, and provided in abundance. But recent readings have taught me to value to slow appreciation of food’s taste and quality (Elizabeth ilbert's Eat Pray Love).
Upon my return from the Turks part of the trip, I reunited with Ottawa friends to do the thing a twentysomething carpe diem girl should do in such a place: I laughed, hugged, smiled and donned purple lamme spandex pants to 80s night at Barrymores night club for a night of drinks, retro dance moves and laughs. I rode the OC transpo, and was almost overcome with homesickness, finding beauty in all the familiarity around me.
But then I thought, “I can’t stay here,” and was comforted knowing there was always Ottawa to return to, but I am on a real life adventure in the Yukon.
So I packed my stinky scuba stuff and still damp beach wear home to my man and me new kitten, Goober. Here I am, back to work as the town’s students pack their pencil and books to go back to school, and we all wish for one more day of summer.

Extreme Makeover: Cry edition

2007-08-13T10:32:00.000-07:00

Throughout this last school year, I missed out on something that happened at regular intervals, on Sunday nights.
Those nights were usually spent finishing assignments I’d said I’d do all weekend but ended up going out and imbibing instead. Sunday nights were vowing to be organized, picking out the next day’s outfits, preparing a healthy lunch that wouldn’t leave me desperate and starving by 3:00 p.m. Sunday nights were my renewal, my accomplishment.
But, like I said, I had missed ot on something that only now, by the gracious goodness of reruns, am fully appreciating.
It’s called Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. Every Sunday night me and my Kleenex Box curl up. I try and hold in my crying until at least 20 minutes into the show, knowing there’s more to come. I don’t want to use up all my crying at the beginning and miss out on crying alongside the lucky homeowners who are also crying at the end.
For those of you unfamiliar with the show, the format is as such: Family desperately in need and heartwarmingly good are nominated to have their home rebuilt because they cannot afford it, but it is needed. Sometimes it’s a family so poor because of illness, sometimes it’s people who’ve always ben poor but who give everything to helping their fellow man. Either way, their stories make me cry. Then Ty Pennington of Trading Spaces fame amasses a design team, and the help of almost every resident of the town hosting the family receiving the home makeover. We watch them demolish the old house, build a new one, and then they bring the family back from some dream vacation to come and investigate their new, palatial home complete with fancy new furniture. Then I cry more and the people on TV cry more, and I’m filled with a feeling of, “I want to DO something.”
I never feel bad crying to this show. Although I don’t like to cry alone so I usually call one of my best friends who introduced me to the show and cry with them. And don’t feel bad, because it’s not crying out of a sense of helplessness or tragedy. It’s crying at how beautiful these helpful people are, how grateful they are for something so elementary that I and many others take for granted. It’s crying watching thousands of people amass with smiles to help people they don’t even know. It’s beautiful.
I obviously finish up with some crumply, damp Kleenexes around me and a drive to renovate. Of course, my bank account is smaller than that of ABC Television, and so I cannot afford to makeover the broke down house downtown that is used as a women’s shelter.
But who’s to say I can’t help out in another, more cost-effective way? Can I indeed become a volunteer? I am no longer a student who devoutly commits free hours to papers, assignment and barhops. Now I have a 9-5, evening and weekend freedom. I could volunteer, couldn’t I?
Hopefully I wouldn’t cry every time. Maybe with a few more episodes of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition I will be desensitized to those things that make me cry. Although, I really hope that never happens. I like my Sunday night cry.

No rush hour, no rushing, just clouds

2007-08-09T11:04:00.000-07:00

This morning I drove to work beside clouds. Clouds! It was rainy last night, so the clouds came down nice and close, leaving a few wispy ones hanging low today, under the bright blue sky of arctic summer mornings.
Mountainous living is something else.
My ears pop when we drive up the hill to our house. My lungs burn when I run as I adjust to the higher elevation, (still waiting to acclimatize, make the burning stop already!). My butt has gotten the workout of a lifetime traversing up and down, hiking here and there.
Sometimes when I look out my balcony window, the color of the sky behind the houses on my street seems to be a dark blue, like the sky at home right before a thunderstorm rolls in. Here, it just means you aren’t looking high enough. Past the dark blue of the faraway mountains is the real sky, the bright blue that stays until 10:30 p.m. these days and is back up by 4:00 the next morning.
All of this, and there’s still nothing as surreal as looking out the passenger window to see a row of tall, skinny pine trees and a long white cloud right beside me, following me to work. It’s like something from my imagination, like I’ve flown up to a dream world in the sky where there isn’t just birds and airplanes, but a whole green paradise with turquoise waterways, purple fireweeds, and peaks of green and blue.
I don’t want to get used to this, I hope it’s this dreamy as long as I’m here.

Moving has happened

2007-08-03T12:09:00.000-07:00

The journey of separating keep from toss, watching strangers collect my belongings and box them, those boxes going in a truck, a four-week waiting period in which my boxes and belongings moved between a few trucks and, for a time, did not go anywhere, has now concluded.
Boxes were unpacked, my things were moved into the house and this weekend I will be finding a place for everything, putting everything in its place.
I cried a little when I got home after work yesterday and fiancé, who had overseen the unpacking process, told me our headboard had been chipped, our bedside tables broken, the back of our bookshelf fallen off and our TV and couch gone missing. MISSING! Like, lost! He was surprised by my reaction.
“What did you expect?”
“Um, for our stuff not to be lost and broken?” I cried indignantly.
“Oh, I just figured with the moving and jostling our stuff would get here a little worse for wear.”
“Well I figured a professional moving company that has been doing this for years would have picked up a thing or two about not losing and wrecking their customers’ things!”
I threw my hands up at him and turned away; I needed to breathe out big and deeply before I could accept our losses and move on. (But you KNOW I’m going to go to town filling out claim forms!)
We went to bed with sore backs and aching feet after spending the second half of the day unpacking, moving, moving again to better suit the “flow” of the room as fiancé said, and tracking down the bed sheets necessary for a good night’s sleep.
When I woke up today, found my long lost housecoat hanging on the door rack, I walked to the balcony and for got about the past day’s frustrations. I spooned my Cinnamon Toast Crunch into my mouth (the taste not yet ruined by toothpaste) and looked out at the high sun shining down on the mountains and the valley below, where we live. It was a sight to take in slowly (I was almost late for work) but it made me so much more appreciative to be here, with our stuff (most of it) and together in the place we’ll call home when we get married. No more moving between houses, no more living out of a suitcase, no more cooking with other people’s pans. Just us, in our home sweet home in the mountains.
Us and maybe a kitten, fiancé told me today....

A proposal of Japanese sorts

2007-07-31T11:51:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got the chance to cover a group visiting Whitehorse from our sister city, Ushiku, Japan. I don’t really know what makes two cities sisters, or why a small, Japanese town wanted to be linked with a mountainous arctic city in Canada, but that’s neither here nor there. Apparently it means teenagers can travel between the two and get treated to lunch with the mayor.
They were visiting for the week and I attended their official city welcome luncheon. Speeches were made via a translator, soup was served (as the organizer told me, the Japanese love soup) and groups of local teens who couldn’t speak English tried to mesh with the Japanese students by using hand gestures, laughing and pointing.
I learned that there is no Japanese word for “host family”, that the stereotype of Japanese teens holding their hands in peace signs for pictures is true, and that jokes told with the deay of a translator are often not well-received.
The strangest thing to happen to me all week occurred when I was sitting at my little spot going over notes, speeches and waiting to do an interview after the soup session.
“Excuse-a me, meese, what ees yo name?”
I told the lanky teen boy in the combat jacket with long bangs my name.
“We [giggle] want to say [giggle] that you-a are very [giggle] beautiful.”
I smile and nod my head, say thanks. But then.
“Weel you a-marry me? I woo-ed be so happy.” Dayum, I KNEW I looked hot tin this dress! Work it, own it. I smiled bigger, while giving him a half-squinty look, turning my head to one side.
“Thank you, that’s very nice, but no, I cannot marry you,” and I took full advantage of the opportunity to flash my ring.
“Oh, thass okay, eet no bover me that you taken.”
What a nervy little Japanese emo looking dude, eh?
I switched seats to one with a free chair opposite me and welcomed my two interview subjects, who impressed me with their English, expecially compared with my knowledge of Japanese (I can say hello, thank you very much Mr. Roboto and where is the toilet). They used words lke “fresh and clean” to describe this city, which really hasn’t been modernized since 40 years ago. And also that they enjoyed “all the natures” around. They were both shy, and the girl covered her mouth when she smiled. I don’t know if that’s cutom, but I like to imagine it is.
I finished, had the photographer snap some shots, and returned to work. I was excited to tell fiance about his competition to get me to an altar. But really that means fishing for compliments, hoping my valiant hero man would step up and defend my honour and his lady.
“Huh,” he said. “Maybe he can bring you futuristic things from Japan.”
Hmm, I hadn’t thought of it that way.

Water-ly duped

2007-07-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

So Pepsi revealed today that its brand of bottled water, Aquafina, is tap water. I know some will be outraged and justifiably feel duped. After all, who would feel good about having paid for water most can get for free in their kitchens?
For me, this debate comes down to practicality. I have been living like a student these last few years, which has meant that my grocery store ventures produce few bounties and fewer “luxuries” as I call them-- the things I in no way need to adequately nourish myself but purchase for the sake of enjoyment. Bottled water has never made the trip back from the grocery store with me, partly because that’s a lot of heaviness for one 5”7 girl and her little cart to carry. Partly because I have a conversation with myself that goes like this:
“Should we buy bottled water? It’ll be so convenient to just grab one on our way out, stick one in the purse. The 8-glasses a day thing will be so much easier with bottled water on hand.”
“OK, then why don’t we buy a Nalgene bottle, refill it with the free stuff that comes from the faucet, and and not buy into this whole ‘oxidized nine times for the puriest-pure French Alps water’ thing.”
“But it IS more pure, and therefore better for you, and then you won’t get cancer.”
“So we will hook up that tap filter we got from the mother-in-law, avoid cancer, and still not pay for some Coke conglomerate’s version of water.”
So today I purse my lips, slide my head back and scoff at the news release from Pepsi. It’s water, people. Not cigarettes, not cancer water, water.

A dog day afternoon

2007-07-23T11:24:00.000-07:00

I’d mentioned that I’d started a reporting job up here, hadn’t I? Well, day one in the newsroom was quite a shock and I went home disheartened, discouraged and disappointed. My lifelong dreams of saving the world with my journalism, and the culmination of four years getting the degree seemed to be working in a snail’s-paced newsroom where my lead story is about a cat stuck in a tree.
The people here are great, and the newsroom works like most I’ve worked in before. But my discouragement came with the lack of challenge, the lowered expectations and the laissez-faire attitude that has become the paper’s modus operandi.
“I am ready for so much more, and here I am stalled, bored,” I cried to fiancé after my first day. He loved his job, la-dee-da and go figure.
But, never one to give up until at least something better came along, I agreed to give the paper a chance. I have grown more fond of it and have found great joy in covering stories that may not grab national headlines, but that make a difference in the lives of the people that read my work, which has become a great reward I had previously not experienced.
I think Marley’s story best relays my sentiment.
In the middle of a hot, stuffy day when I was feverishly working away on a big story, I got called out to cover a story at the humane society. There, the photographer and I met Marley, a golden lab mix left with three legs after being hit by a car and left to die. Humane society workers estimate he had been roadside for weeks, suffering and starving. When a caring citizen did pick him up and bring him in, the animal shelter got to work organizing the dog’s medical care. When we arrived to do the story, Marley was nursing his fresh amputation wound and building up his strength. He wagged his tail and dog-smiled at us with his big brown eyes.
The shelter had incurred great costs to fund to dog’s operation, and had called the paper to ask the public for help.
I wrote the story, we ran it alongside touching photos of a smiling, three-legged dog and I went home early.
I brought fiancé to the humane society on Saturday to show him the kitty and puppy I had picked out for us while covering Marley’s story. We waited in line for an attendant to show us the animals and I smiled all giddy at the cute critters in the windows. While waiting, curiosity got the best of me and I listened to the people in front of me.
“I am wanting to give some money to help out that poor dog in the paper,” said the lady in front of me wearing a fruit-pattered top and rain boots.
“That story was just so moving, I had to help.”
And my heart melted. I felt like Superman. I hadn’t swooped down to save a damsel in distress, but my words had helped this poor dog with three legs and big smile. I felt so good.
And when I got to the front of the line, I didn’t even tell her I was “the one” who wrote the story. Which is a big step for normally show-offy me.

Life change anyone?

2007-07-15T13:20:00.000-07:00

I've been MIA since my Internet access has been reduced to whatever half hour time slot I am fortunate enough to book at the Whitehorse Public Library. Because that's where I moved. Whitehorse. The Yukon. As in the arctic, north of 60, 23-hour sunlight.
Its a bit surreal. I have not fully realized yet that I have left my entire life, friends, family, work, social network to move 5,000 km away. Even as I write that, I don't appreciate that I am the subject of my own post here. The town is beautiful, clean, and the major perk is the mountainous landscape and aqua-blue waterways. Ive found a reporting job, and am getting used to the fiance having a job where people hate him and he sees depressing things like 14-year-old drug addicts all day long. I haven't quite figured out that I cannot go on a shopping spree on a whim (no money and also no clothing stores to go nuts in!), stores close at like 5 or 6 and then you're just supposed to be with people, and also the idea that business casual can sometimes mean over-sized T-Shirts and cargo pants. I'm adjusting, and trying to absorb all I can about what I've gotten into so that maybe one day, sooner rather than later, I will find myself speaking the words "home" and referring to Whitehorse.
More later when I have my own computer in my own house with my own Internet access that does not include peery strangers shifting their gazes to my screen. Yeah, old gardening lady in Crocs that smells of cilantro, I mean you.

Love and Marriage

2007-06-19T08:40:00.000-07:00

It was a humid kind of sunny afternoon where you couldn’t help but sweat unless you were in the pool. I was not, since I was waiting for fiancé’s mum to pick me up any minute. We were out back on my dad’s patio while the younger kids played in the pool. I congratulated his friends, who had been married the weekend before. They told me how the ceremony went, showed off their rings, and thought it appropriate to share this advice with me:

“Don’t worry, it’s so much easier and way more fun the second time around.” They didn’t chuckle, which would indicate they were being sarcastic or joking, but looked at me with a sympathetic smile. As if I were embarking on a stressful wedding journey where I ultimately discover that he’s not the man for me, we’ll call it quits and one day do it all over again with different people. I excused myself for a refill of iced tea.

I was sitting on my front porch, leaning against the porch frame, eating strawberries and sipping my hibiscus tea. I was lazily waiting for the rain to come and brought an Oprah magazine out to keep me company. The first article I read described how the problem with most married couples is that they are so desperately clinging to the comfort of what’s familiar, they miss out on the beauty of change and discovery/ The key, it read, was to embrace that love is not forever, and that once we are open to change, we unchain ourselves from miserable lifetimes.

I now take this literary opportunity to wonder loud, “What the eff?” Who hardwired these people to be so pessimistic and why are they trying to counsel a young bride with impeding doom?

Will this be one of those things that I look back at when I’m 45 and scoff at how naïve and wide-eyed I was, believing in true love found at age 15 and meant to last forever? Will that be because I have grown more wise with age, or more cynical? And is that destined to happen at all or can I still please believe that, even as a twentysomething, love is something I’ve found and committed to and that is true and blind to the participant’s age?

This is isn’t a cold feet post, because I am excited to live in a chaotic household run by screaming kids with syrup in their hair, I know I’ll get a rushed kiss on the cheek while we both run in different directions—him to work, me to soccer practice. I am excited to know that at one point, I will go through something that I will later call the most difficult part of my life and that he will be there going through it with me. I am actually excited to see what the universe will try and throw at us, and to conquer each obstacle with unity. I foresee love and strength unwavering during the tough times, and celebration of the good.

I’m just wondering aloud, who do you think you are to tell me I’m foolish, naïve or setting myself up for failure?

Where's Your Head At?

2007-06-14T08:38:00.000-07:00

The last 3 or 4 weeks have been, in no sensical order, DJ meetings, cake tasting, Sens game watching, moving stuff to my place form my parents, packing, running, phone calls from fiancé, graduating, swimming, buying a truck like a grownup, negotiating a rent contract with people 5,000 km away, remembering to paint my toenails when they start chipping (for not to is a sin), planning my lasts (last day, last party, last dinner, last beach day…), planning futures (future visits, future trips, future wedding…) and of course catching up on Dr Phil reruns. I know its lame to say I blew off writing for Dr Phil reruns, but it felt so indulgent to turn my brain off and let a Texan and his insane guests entertain me.

I am counting down the days until I get to see my man again after being at cop-training school ½ way across the country for the last 6 months. We’re down to 18 days now, which feels so unreal considering the countdown started in the hundreds. I’m as excited to see him as I used to be when I counted down the days to vacations. Knowing that in xx amount of days, my cares will slip away, I’ll be taken somewhere new and exiting and be surrounded with all things good that I have convinced myself I am thus far missing. It won’t be a vacation this time but I am excited to see my man again and in a way we are escaping to a new place, albeit for keeps this time. The catch is, to get there and finally see him again, I have to leave my family and the only life I’ve known behind me and fly far, far away. But with him, so that’s awesome. But without my friends and family, so that’s tough. See what a catch-22 je suis dedans?

So that’s what my head’s been dancing around this last little while. It’s been tough to grab it out of the clouds and keep it down long enough to formulate written thoughts.

Race Day

2007-05-28T08:37:00.000-07:00

It was race weekend, the day I circled in my agenda back in February when I registered. Back when my weekend long runs were only 30 minutes long and less than half of the total distance I would eventually run. Back when running made my lungs hurt, my shin splints wreaked havoc and my shoes were stinky. (Well, that still happens).

My four girlfriends and I met up an hour before the race and drank our elixirs of race energy. I prefer chocolate milk. We put our time chips on our shoes, pinned our number to the front of our shirts and walked towards the race soaking in the envious and admiring glances of passersby who were not running.

There were thousands of people heading towards the start. We saw the stick-thin, limber Kenyans warming up in their track suits. We saw mums holding their kids' hands so as not to be separated in the crowds. We saw people stretching way too much and scoffed at their inexperience. We thought we were running goddesses. Dramatic? Yes. But that’s just how it goes before a race, we psych ourselves up to be the running goddesses we have bled, sweated and cried to become.

The gun went off and the start line emitted a high-pitched tone as everyone’s timing chip was officially set off, crossing the start line. I admit, I felt like the biggest superstar in the world running that first kilometer down Elgin Street, looking up at the crowds of people cheering for us. I laughed at the voice of the little kid who said, “Way to go runners you’re almost there,” a mere 2 minutes into the run. I found my pace, I smiled, I breathed into my belly and out through my mouth. I totally forget what I thought about during the run, but I think that means I was in “the zone.” I slapped my best friend on the butt when I met up with her. My other best friend spat water on my neck at the water station and the saliva-filled cool water mixture felt so good as it hit my sweating neck skin. We thanked the spectators who cheered us on individually,

“Way to go, orange shorts, keep it up!”

“You’re doing so well, only three kilometers left!”

In the last leg, best friend K and I were snapped by her paparazzi papa, and given a last dose of inspiration by my mum and little sis. At their words, “We’re so proud of you,” I kicked it up, sprinted like I was seven years old and booted it to the finish line.

Nothing can compare to the feeling of lifting your arms and pumping your fist as you cross the finish line.

We waited for our friends who were trailing us, collected our medals and slammed back some Gatorade. We crashed early that night and spent the better part of the next day at a Scandinavian bath house soaking our muscles. We earned the feeling of accomplishment. I am a certifiable runner and I pinned my number bib to my bulletin board to remind myself of the glorious feeling of running farther than I’ve ever gone before.

Coach

2007-05-23T09:18:00.000-07:00

He was my brother’s favourite football coach. He was a leader who bred leaders. He was a thinker who saw the game at many levels and brought his players into his multi-dimensional game plans. He was committed, aggressive, confident, realistic, and hard. He didn’t take excuses. His game plans were levels more sophisticated than other league coaches.

“Pain is temporary. Glory lasts forever,” he told his players. He brought them all the way, sometimes through undefeated seasons with no touchdowns against. His team always lost to the same cross-town rival with expensive training equipment, we called it a curse.

He came for family dinners, he wrote Christmas cards, he inspired his players to be great men, on and off the field. He commanded your attention, and spoke succinctly, making each word matter. He taught them to be valuable, to feel important and become key players in their lives.

He bothered some players’ parents with his gum-chewing, clipboard-throwing anger directed at a stupid call or an enemy touchdown slipping through. His face would redden, his temper flare, when his carefully orchestrated game plan was tainted by inattention to detail or carelessness. He demanded excellence, and often received it.

My brother graduated from his coaching and moved on. They kept in touch and shared their love of the game and admiration for each other. My brother was the player coach wanted him to be, wanted his own son to be. They admired each other’s intellect, skill and observational ability to outsmart opponents, not just beat them. They continue talking and shaking hands and watching big games occasionally.

I saw him yesterday, a broken man. He was wearing a suit, not his track pants and whistle. He was telling me about his new job with the fallible desperation of a man convincing himself he’s happy. His job does no justice to his passion for football. Football doesn’t pay the bills though. I’ve seen him through a slew of jobs that don’t satisfy, that he has to do, that break down at hi character and confidence with every internal memo reprimand. He is a sliver of the man I knew as coach. He stood in his suit and carefully gelled hair as a man who’d given up on proving his worth, but still holding on to weekend football for some purpose.

He gave me his card, told me to pass it around.

“I hope I can come to your wedding,” he told me.

“I’d love it if you could,” I said.

He walked back to his card with his head hunched over, the result of ears of downhill disappointment and receding hope in the restorative power of football coaching.

Grownups

2007-05-18T07:50:00.000-07:00

I know, I've been away and lax with my postings. Its a fatal flaw, whenever it starts getting warmer I migrate to the closest deck-- all the better when its poolside. I've already slathered SPF 15 Sport all over me, but I figured while I wait for it to settle in, I'd tend to my business here. This week has been muey reflective. I had a mom fight, the kind where we both said things we didn't mean just to induce the sting. I ran away to my best friend's house and we had gelato. I snuggled with my little sister and talked about growing up. I had heart-to-hearts with little brother and realized he's more grown up than me. I cowered in a corner avoiding grownup things I have to do. I did this until I got called out.

I remembering whining to my mum when I was little about how unfair it was being little. How I couldn't eat Smarties whenever I wanted, I couldn't go watch movies by myself, I couldn't go on trips without my parents.

"Being a grownup is not as much fun as being a kid," she'd say, and already I'd stopped paying attention thinking what she was saying just wasn't true. "We have to pay bills, go to work and take care of other people."

But working sounded fun to me, and I didn't really know what bills were. I like staying up past what used to be my curfew, eating Gushers for lunch and snacking on Hot Rods and Joe Louis if I want to. But, being a grown up means getting fat from those things, and staying up late just means I'm tired the next day. Being a grownup is definitely not as much fun.