So many things don't count, up here. When I go somewhere else I remember.

We don't have cell phones. When I leave the house, no-one can find me unless they're willing to drive around and look for me.

Maclean's magazine sent me an email today offering to give me a chance to win a free car. There are no cars here. There are lots of old trucks, and some new trucks, but unless you count my friend Bella Rose's purple Jeep, there are no cars. The Dodge Neon that Maclean's is dangling would be completely useless here. I can barely get our big old black truck out of the driveway in the winter. A Dodge Neon would probably sit under a snowdrift for ten months of the year.

Unless you remember to go to the store after work and before seven o'clock, no food can be purchased. Except junk food from the game hall, if you don't mind braving the army of small children who hang there. And sometimes when you do remember to go to the store, the thing you were thinking you'd have for dinner is unavailable. David was here and he drinks Coke, but there wasn't any in town that week. We're used to this but I think he was pretty surprised. Like, if there's no Coke don't you just go to another store. Mmm. good thought.

We see movie trailers on tv and commercials for fast food, but we have no movie theater, no MacDonald's, no Taco Bell, no nothing but a pizza kiosk that generally shuts down around 5 pm, or earlier if they're bored. Our Friday night entertainment is usually sitting at my friend Patti's on her couch, or on her deck if it's not too too cold, eating her crab dip and talking. Sometimes we play Trivial Pursuit or argue with Peter (he's an atheist lawyer) about theology or justice. My friends all help with various things around town, Beavers and Cubs and the Education Authority (like a school board only not so much board) and we curl so we're together a lot in one capacity or another. If someone's building something, others come to help. We dog-sit and guinea-pig-sit. My father in law thinks we might be a commune. I think I could handle that.

Yeah, this is Kirsten and David at the beach in July. It's the Arctic. What can I say. (but don't they look cute?)

It has been busy here. Kirsten's friend is visiting from Ohio and it's been wonderful to have him here. Work is busy but they're mad at me at the moment because I took three days off this week to spend with them. Well, except one guy, who told me I should have taken the whole ten days off, and the rest of them be damned. But I did finish every scrap of work I had last week, and I've been in every evening to tidy up, and I'll be back tomorrow so hopefully they'll get over it.

We went out to the cabin last weekend, and stayed out there with Kirsten and David. We've been fishing a lot, and yesterday we went to the beach (in raincoats, mitts, hats...) and made a fire and had a picnic. Some muskox were running about in the distance, so David can say he saw some, but really they were just brown moving blobs.

My dad is recovering from his surgery, slowly, he's been at home since the weekend but is having home nursing as he still is feeling crappy and retaining fluid. He is probably not going to need a permanent pacemaker. My mum is talking about not going back to work in September, but staying home to look after him, but he doesn't want that.

My heart goes out to those who are struggling today. You know who you are.