Over at Arctic Hound I got tagged.

What was the first rock concert you went to?
I think it was Bryan Adams when I was in grade 11, in Lethbridge. Him and Platinum Blonde. I know that the first rock concert I wanted to go to was Journey when I was in grade nine and some friends of my dad's had offered to take me but my mum said no.

What is the best rock concert you've ever seen?
I would have to say The Tragically Hip (oh, you're not really surprised are you?) at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre as reviewed in this very weblog back in 2002. But I also remember quite fondly an amazing and deafening Def Leppard show back in the late 80's and a raucous Nazareth concert in the same time period. On the not-so-good side there's a Billy Idol concert where Billy was so drunk he could barely stand up - at one point he fell off the stage and then climbed back up and started swearing at the audience. The Cult were the opening act and they definitely outdid him.

We enjoyed the cruise - here's Miguel on the bed with our towel elephant. (And Frederick, he came for the cruise).


One of the most interesting (to me) results of travelling is the perspective it gives me on my life in general. Especially when making journeys with kids, things get very basic - do we have food, are we all warm/cool/sunscreened and where will we be sleeping tonight. The conversations we had on the upper decks of the cruise ship in the dark, me and the kids, were wide ranging and free of the distractions of television, computers, and phones. We talked about the future, theirs and mine, and what we remembered from the past, when they were children.





In the course of one of these conversations, Ian told me that he always thought, when he was small, that the tattoo on my ankle was a telephone pole... (It's a cross.) I laughed and asked him if he had a theory as to Why I would have a telephone pole on my leg, and he said, "I thought it had something to do with a Tragically Hip song". Which is not a bad theory, really. Wish I'd thought of that...





Rachel and I snuck off to get ice cream one afternoon, and Kirsten and I had coffee on the deck of the boat late at night, talking about love and relationships. Miguel did Miguel things, mostly, but one afternoon we forgot to tell the kids we were going to sit in the bar down on the casino deck, and managed to be there for about two hours, talking and drinking margaritas, until the kids found us.





There was a slot machine called Lucky Lemmings, that we kept walking past on the casino deck. On the third day of the cruise I said to Miguel, "I think it's a sign, we're from the Arctic, lemmings, you know, we should put some money in it." So we poked in a five dollar bill, and as it was a nickel slot we played it for quite a while. It kept spitting out money, periodically, and I was putting it in a bucket. After half an hour or so, Miguel went off to watch an art auction, and I was still playing all the quarters. Pushing the buttons, listening to the lemming song, playing a nickel at a time and the money was still coming out faster than I could put it in. When the bucket was full, I figured I'd go cash it in and see how much I had. The cashier took the bucket without comment, and poured it into a counting machine. As I watched, the display went from 10.00 to 20.00 to 30.00, counting all the quarters, and I thought, oh, hey, 40 bucks or so, that's cool. But it didn't stop. It kept going and going and didn't slow down until it got to 190.00 Grand total 192.00. I said to the cashier, "Pretty good for five bucks, hey?" and she looked a bit startled.





I went back to the room and put the money in the safe. Miguel put a bit more money in the slots later in the day, but I kept the lemming money and we went to a steakhouse in Cocoa Beach for dinner when David (Kirsten's boyfriend) and his mom and sister were with us. Nice dinner, even if the servers were a bit surly. Wait staff in Florida, I guess you have to feel sorry for them - they're probably a lot friendlier when it's not Spring Break. Even at the IHOP the waitress told me she didn't know where her head was that week.

Well, I'm back.

It was warm, in Florida. And we went on the cruise. Which was lovely. This is the beach on the far side of Paradise Island that we hung out on ten years ago, when we were in the Bahamas without the children.

I'm making lists, prior to packing. I love this bit.

The other day I ordered a daybook. I found a red Moleskine on Amazon Stores, and I couldn't help it, I had to buy it. Even though it will be April before I get it. There's just something about a new notebook.

I also got a prayerbook, when the church made an order. It's easier to help with the services if I know what the readings and such will be. I guess I'm committed to the whole lay-leader thing now, I've gone to half of the course already and soon I'll be licensed.

Well, very soon we will be South.

I leave Friday for Edmonton. Then Florida. At minus 51, today, I can't wait. I was sorting out my summer clothes yesterday - tank tops that I generally wear under sweaters, a pair of cropped jeans I wore in Australia, some skirts I brought from Nanaimo and have never worn here - and they look so flimsy. I almost can't believe I'll really be wearing them. But it's 30 above in the Bahamas and I remember what that felt like the last time I went there. Hot. And sticky. I guess I'll have to buy a pair of shorts, as in sorting out I find I don't even own a pair any more.

Joeby is staying with the housesitters. I'll miss him. But he'll be ok. He likes company and he's not fussy who it is, as long as they don't mind being drooled on.

It's court week and I'm trying to finish everything I need to do before I go. I've got too many things to do on all fronts, as usual. I gotta figure out a way to make that stop.

Kiviuq, formerly a puppy, is staying with us again while her family's away. She's getting really huge, but that's not surprising given that her daddy's a St. Bernard and her mum's half wolf. She does have one blue eye and one brown eye, and she likes to eat things.

The frogs in my bathroom are on strike. Their spokesperson presented me with their list of demands tonight.

Funny thing, in a way, being married. Later on this year we will have been married for 20 years. Given that I'm 40, that pretty much tells you we were very young, comparatively, when we decided to be wed.

Miguel has started smoking again, the latest in a long lines of unquits. Or restarts. However you want to put it, the end result is the same. He resumes smoking slowly, hides it from me, is extra nice to me because a/ he's feeling guilty and b/ he's happy to be smoking again, and then one of the kids rats him out. This time he actually confessed about twenty minutes before Rachel told on him. Because, I'm figuring, he knew it was coming. He has a new job, started this week, with all the stress that sort of thing always engenders. Although in my mind it would be easier not to spend time your first week on a job standing outside smoking. But I digress.

Miguel has started smoking again, and that means that I have to (paradoxically) reassure him that I'm not planning to leave him because he's hopeless. And he plays certain little games (that I fully recognize) to ensure that I convey the necessary reassurance.

At one point the other day, he said to me, "Why do you stay married to me?" With the feeling that no answer I gave would quite be good enough, I said, "I don't think anyone should examine the answer to that question very deeply." I reminded him of a particularly cold-blooded conversation we had a few years ago where he basically told me that he enjoyed talking to me, but that our relationship could be conducted mostly over the phone. I wasn't terribly flattered at that time, and I don't want to fall into the trap of trying to answer that question.

I don't know that it matters, really, why. The fact is that I do stay married, and I don't think about the reasons. If this sounds cynical, perhaps you all will sympathize with Miguel... he needs the reassurance. Oh, and bring cigarettes.

Somedays I don't think I'll ever be able to fulfill all my obligations. It was a long week, I have a silly cold and I'm still not putting milk or sugar in my coffee. And I'm still trying to fast. And I'm working on transcribing a difficult case from the East, that I want to get done this weekend. Also we were curling this week twice, I said I'd take minutes at the school board meeting on Thursday, I agreed to do the church service this weekend, and we were cleaning the mission house today. And Miguel's parents are coming for dinner tomorrow.

However. I've been told that my contract at work is being extended for another three months, until July 1st, so I'm happy about that.

Joeby's ear is better. Doesn't seem to have any lasting damage. It's a bit warmer now, only minus 40 instead of minus 60. Can't wait to go to Florida!

Joeby has frostbite on one of his ears. It's swollen, and he's being difficult about letting us touch it. I looked up frostbite in dogs, and it says that the time to worry is when it turns black. Unfortunately Joebs is a black dog so that doesn't help. However, the swelling seems to be going down. And that is apparently a favourable sign.

Lots of barfing here. It's flu time. Feeling sorry for the boy, he's kinda icky.

Went to Ash Wednesday service tonight. I almost didn't go, I was mostly asleep on the couch when the dog came up and I swear he said "Mom". I woke up. But I was sweaty and grumpy and didn't feel like walking down to church. But I did. And I was glad. It was just me, one other parishioner and our visiting Father. Who I know would have walked down there in the cold.

It was funny, there's a passage halfway through, in the Psalm for the Ash Wednesday service, where we ask to be forgiven for envying those who have things we do not. Boy, do I ever need that.

I'm fasting, for Lent. And I gave up sugar. Hence the sleeping on the couch - I only managed half a cup of coffee with no sugar and I usually have, oh, five or six. Roll on, Easter...

Today was one of those days where all kinds of people phone and tell me long involved stories. Unfortunately some of those callers were guards explaining why they couldn't come to work. So I watched the detainees all day, too. I worked through lunch, and finally convinced someone to come in and take over from me at 5:45 so I could go curling. We lost by one rock. Wah.

Kirsten wants a giant elephant shrew.

(Rodent geek)

Yesterday at work we had a report of a missing teenager, who, without going into too many details, had wandered out on to the tundra with intentions of self-harm. Bear in mind it's minus 35 and we only have about four hours of watery daylight. He was reported missing at 11am, just after the sun came up, and when they still hadn't found him at 1:30, we knew we only had about half an hour of daylight, and we were looking for a very cold boy.

I had so many people to worry about - his brothers had also gone off looking for him, his parents were waiting at home for updates, the guys I work with were driving around in trucks and on snowmobiles looking for him. I really wanted to go get a snowmobile and go look too - but someone had to answer the phones and relay radio messages to the parents and the forming search parties. I was kind of praying in the back of my mind, I realized, a repetitive prayer was going on, occasionally I tuned into it and said or sang a few words out loud while I was listening for the phone and the radio, and looking out the window at the frozen bay.

Eventually he was found safe but cold, and everyone came back to the detachment for coffee and chocolate bars and big sighs of relief.

My Chinese horoscope for today said:

"You may have had lots uncertainty concerning your job, however, you should see a period stability in the new future."

Stability, I suppose, could also mean that rather than the uncertainty I am just unemployed... I don't really want to talk about it, because it's out of my hands, but I don't have any status in my job and am in danger of being bumped out of it by someone with priority, at the end of March. Still, I've lived through this before.

We booked our holiday for March last night, we're going on a cruise to the Bahamas. We've been promising to take the kids, ever since we went when they were little (10 yrs ago). We also have a few days in Florida, and Kirsten's boyfriend David and his mom are maybe going to join us for that part. Which should be fun. This is actually the first time in a few years that we've all gone on a holiday together. Really, considering I'm likely to lose my job, we probably shouldn't go, but we're gonna anyway. Only live once, and all that.

I guess I've been thinking about it a lot, because I had a Florida dream the other day. In my dream we were staying at a hotel, and there was an outside buffet restaurant on the ground floor, a big circle. Miguel and I were looking through the food, he was filling his plate, but I couldn't really find anything I liked. Although I'm not still a complete vegetarian, I still try not to eat too much meat. I ended up finding a sort of log of sticky Shanghai-looking noodles, tied with string, and a banana. I took it up to the cashier, and she started cutting the string on the noodles, and she was saying, "What's in there?" When the string fell off there was a small lumpy grey crocodile inside, and it started to walk away. The cashier said to me, "Well, are you gonna eat that, or what?" I said, "What do you want me to do, stab it? It's still alive!" As it sauntered off it shot me a dirty look over its shoulder. The cashier said, "Oh, well, it's too late now." As the crocodile walked down the street, it got bigger and bigger, so that when it was getting ready to turn the corner at the bottom it was life sized.

I noticed today that my profile has me listed as being 251 years old. Yesterday evening, I felt every day of it.

It was court week, which is always long and frustrating. Twice during the week, two different guards in the cell block walked into my office at 9am and announced their intention to go home. This would leave 12 people in cells wanting breakfast before court... To the first guard, I said, there's a number on the wall for someone who professed availability if anyone wanted to ditch a shift. She went away, and in the process of calling around, decided she'd stay. That was Tuesday. On Thursday morning, the guard walked into my office with her coat on and her bag on her shoulder and said, "I'm going home." And did. So I had to run back and forth between the phone, the front door (which is locked and no-one gets in unless they know the code) and the cell block where I was trying to make coffee and waffles for the folk in cells, until I convinced someone else to come and take over. When she walked in, I could have kissed her. By yesterday afternoon I was exhausted. But really it went quite well. I learn a bit more every time.

The sun came up yesterday. I took a picture, but it's not very good.

An interesting article - based on statistics I compiled.

I have been having the urge to phone Al Gore. Yesterday it was -59 C with the windchill. My mum has been reading his book, and keeps emailing me little dire bits of prediction. I'd like to call him and let him listen to "the sound of yr breath freezing in yr lungs when you step outside" or "the sound of yr fingers turning to ice and breaking off" if you are foolish enough to take off a mitten.

"Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour: Whom resist stedfast in the faith".

It's from 1 Peter. Quoted because I've been wondering for a while why "stedfast." (and not because I'm sermonizing.) It was topical today given the state of things in the cell block, and I was thinking about it. It's a passage that begins Compline every night in my prayer book.

Old English is Stedefaest. Run the A&E together. And it has to do with standing fast. Where 'stede' means place (like a homestead). And faest meaning 'fixed firmly in place'. So stedfast or steadfast, I can't find any explanation why one is better than the other, sounds pretty solid.

This week I reread Kingsley Amis - Stanley and the Women. One of my books that came up on the barge.

While I was reading, I realized that the last time I read it, I had imagined the details differently. As in, the main characters lived in a different house. And I could slightly remember the other house I had put them in, when I read it before - it was on the other side of the road, and the tree that Stanley's mad son sits in was on a boulevard. But even after I remembered, I couldn't put them back in the original house. Maybe this is just something that happens as time passes - characters in books get bored with their surroundings and move house.

It's a New Year.

The phone was ringing in the other room, this morning. I woke up and thought, why aren't I at work? We were out late, karaoke and some homemade salmonberry liqueur that I could still taste. Not an unpleasant feeling, necessarily, but I was a little groggy.

On the phone was the young man in the guard room. He said to me, in a tone of voice I'm sure I've exhibited before in similar circumstances,"I've been here for 11 hours and they've been screaming and throwing up all night. I've called everyone on the guard list and nobody can come." I told him I'd be right there.

So I spent my New Year's Day watching people sleep off their parties. None of them knew where they were when they woke up, either.

As a side note, if you are ever incarcerated for public drunkenness, please refrain from throwing up in the cell sink. Somebody has to clean that up, you know.