taking Luci to the Lake

tomorrow we're skiing. yay!

inertia

recently I've been thinking about inertia and how it relates to the can of rice pudding in my kitchen windowsill

Rachel went out trick-or-treating and one of the houses she went to gave her a glass, an actual honest-to-goodness drinking glass and a can of rice pudding

the rice pudding can has a deep dent in it. I don't know if we'll ever be able to bring ourselves to eat the contents

but it sits, upside down in the kitchen windowsill, in amongst a piece of rose quartz, a jar of chopsticks, an eggcup shaped like a burro with a basket, a plastic frog, a potato that looks like a person, two soysauce dishes, an empty sherry bottle, a small jar of oregano that I grew this summer, two stained glass things that need hanging up, and the phone

chances are that the phone will get put away, eventually. the rest of the collection will probably stay there unless it's perishable (like the potato) until I move it somewhere else

there are only so many places to be. this is as good as any.

Christmas at my grandpa's house

Just for fun, here's a few of the songs my grandpa would play at full volume on Christmas Day...

Whoa.

Just, whoa. Nobody was hurt... Media were calling again today.

music for cooking

This weekend's music for working in the kitchen - KLF - The White Room,
from a CD I finally found at Alibris.

Also this I made Lobster Thermidor for a dinner party and went to a karaoke party. Which was heavy on the Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline. Lots of fun.

lemon loafing

I made lemon loaf this evening. The teenagers have descended on it. Ian is on his third piece. I thought Miguel was asleep, but when I yelled, "lemon loaf's done" he responded.

Finished a project at work this evening, and sent it off. I'm sure they will send more but it's a good feeling at the moment. The house is sort of clean, we've got the Christmas decorating started - well, we've brought the decorations up. They're awaiting general inspiration.

The dog is not feeling well. He barfed his supper all over Kirsten while we were in the middle of watching Wall-E last evening. Then he shivered and smacked his lips all night. Not sure what that's about. He's currently cleaning up lemon loaf crumbs from the kitchen floor and contemplating whether he'll get in trouble if he starts on the crumbs on the counter (and yes, I do know what he's thinking, he's not the brightest animal). So he can't be that ill.

The Hamlet Council voted for an alcohol ban at Christmas this year - which should make life a bit quieter over the holiday, if it goes the same as the last time they had a ban.

home alone

As I took today off, because we're leaving this afternoon, I have the whole house to myself for the morning. Admittedly, I did go to work at my usual time to make sure that everything was ok - my boss walked in about ten minutes later and said, "What are you doing here?" and I said, "I'm leaving, really." He answered the phone at one point, while I was rummaging through things on my desk, and told the person on the other end that I was "away for the weekend". And by nine o'clock I was back here.

Amazingly everything was pretty much ok. The last time I tried to leave on holiday, back in March, I was still at work twenty minutes before my plane was due to leave and I almost missed my ride to the airport.

So I made some tea, put CBC 2 on, and I've been puttering about peacefully, made some rice krispie squares for the bake sale this afternoon, tidied up, had a nice long shower. The dog is sleeping and ignoring me. The phone doesn't ring. I've still got time to pack and run some little errands before everyone comes home for lunch. This free morning is almost as much of a treat as going off to Yellowknife will be...

happy birthday to me

Tuesday was my birthday. It was a good day, pretty quiet at work so I got lots done and then the Beavers had a party for me. Lots of balloons and cupcakes, tin-foil crowns and red Kool-aid, first time I've ever played musical chairs to Nickelback, hordes of six-year-olds giggling, we read stories and then Karen and Patti and I went back to Patti's place for the more grown-up portion of the evening, some wine. Not much, though, because Wednesday is of course a work day.

Kirsten and Rachel made me a beautiful cheesecake, from scratch. It was cooling in the fridge and when Ian opened the door at one point, it escaped and fell on the floor. I understand there were tears, I wasn't there, but really the cake was wonderfully tasty and we covered it with berries so the damage didn't show. Really it's the first time in a long time that anyone made me a cake without any pathetic prompting from me. (Nobody ever makes me a birthday cake. sniff)

This weekend we're off to Yellowknife to do some Christmas shopping, because of the miracle of Aeroplan.

darkness falls

It's getting darker. The sun's totally set by 2:30. I like the dark, I find it cozy, but it makes it so I don't want to get out of bed in the morning. Our bedroom is by the front door, and at 8:20 this morning Miguel was standing in the doorway with his coat on, and he said to me, "Not doing the work thing this morning?" But I did. Really, I've never been very good at getting out of bed, and maybe I just like a good excuse.

cold

It is -27 tonight. Chilly.

Rachel went trick-or-treating, and someone gave her a can of rice pudding and a drinking glass...

Kirsten still has a cold.

Girls, well, one girl, is phoning Ian.

Miguel had a painting (well, a print) at an auction on Saturday and it went for over 1200 dollars.

The Body Shop sent my perfume (sandalwood) and some lovely amber soap, and two little free samples of vanilla spice stuff. I had a bubble bath.

It is court week. My office is full of lawyers.

sunrise on the bay

the view from my window at work, at 9:30 this morning.

lazy shade of winter

today...has been a long day. and it's getting cold.

giving up the upper hand

It's funny, you know. When we were younger and I wanted Miguel to do more things around the house, and he just wouldn't, I did them myself. Painted rooms, took up carpet, unclogged drains, dug gardens, mowed lawns. Now that we're older and presumably wiser, he is more likely to do the sort of manly things that I previously would have loved him to do. Some of our friends that have only known him since we moved up here, have commented that I'm lucky that he's handy.

But there's an uncharitable part of me that remembers stripping wallpaper when I was 6 months pregnant, planting vegetable gardens and painting fences and all that stuff for years, plus all the cooking and housework, and I want to say to them, "He hasn't always been like that. It's a recent thing."

But I don't tell them. I wonder how much of what he's doing here is motivated by the sheer danger that surrounds us so much of the time, the cold could kill us if we allowed our house to deteriorate, and maybe that's the difference here, I don't know.

What I do know is that relinquishing up the upper hand is hard. If I'm being honest (which I am) I have to say that it's difficult for me to give him credit for these endeavours. I always thought that it was what I wanted, for him to help around the house, but maybe the reality is that I became used to the paradigm that featured me having the moral high ground.

And the irony (maybe that's too global, I always tell the kids that coincidences and unfortunate turns of events aren't per se ironic) is that now that he's doing these things, I can't be happy for his personal growth because nobody in our lives at the moment can see that he's had a free ride up til now....... Although really, what does it matter.

blowing in the wind

We drove out to the cabin today to retrieve the water jugs and make sure the oil valves were turned off, for the winter. It's cold enough that the water out there is frozen, Miguel walked out on the lake a bit. There isn't very much snow yet, but it's really windy. We saw this little fox in his winter coat, on the way out - I thought he was a patch of snow but then he moved.

barge fun

Our appliances are here! It's like Christmas, but with dishwashers. We ordered a new stove and dishwasher, and also a washer and dryer, to come up on the barge. I was over at a friend's house last night, and he mentioned that when he went to get his pellets for his stove off the beach where the barge left them, there was a large crate with our name on it. We got pellets too, but that's nowhere near as exciting.

The old dishwasher was barely pretending to wash dishes, and the stove couldn't hold a temperature in the oven. Which is important, given the amount of baking that gets done by the teenagers around here. The dryer didn't shut off by itself, and the washer had that "I'm going to die soon" burning oil smell. We've been here two years now, in this house, so this is happy anniversary, house. Today was the dragging upstairs phase of things, and Miguel and I lay on the floor in the kitchen for a lot of the evening, trying to hook up the dishwasher but it's done now. Tomorrow will be washer/dryer day, after church. too much fun! And if they ever bring us water again (I begin to wonder) we will be able to try out the dishwasher...

zombie movies to add to the list

recently:

Sunday

things I did today:

got up at eight to finish printing the readings for church.
had coffee with Miguel.
led the service at church. (water from the rock)
went to Patti's for coffee with everyone from church. (and cinnamon buns, yum)
came home and had more coffee with Miguel.
repotted some plants cuttings that I've been rooting.
roasted all the peppers in the fridge - food mail sent too many and we'd never be able to eat them before they rot.
admired Rachel's assorted bruises that she acquired on the cadet camping trip.
watched Ian sleep on the couch as he was exhausted from the above-mentioned camping trip.
made roasted garlic and yam soup.
made black bean hummous.
made caribou shepherd's pie for dinner and lemon cake for dessert.
watched my family phone each other with their new cellular phones
called my mom. she
worked on the blanket I'm crocheting for a friend's baby (due Oct 12)
went to work and finished what I was working on yesterday.
came home and made tea. no more coffee, I've had enough.

so now I've got a fridge full of lunch fixings for this week, I'm all spiritualled up, tomorrow I can start something new at work, and I've got plants to give away to a new lady in town who is missing the greenery of her home.

we're going home

Turtle cheesecake

Two of my favourite things all rolled up into one. with whipped cream. yummmm. It followed a very nice meal downstairs in the restaurant. And now I'm pleasantly full.

The course is good, I'm learning lots of cool and useful things, and we even finished early today, so I was able to come back to my room and get some work done. I actually wish I'd brought more work, because I'm almost done the stuff I brought. I was feeling a bit guilty yesterday because I bought a Peter Robinson book I hadn't read at the Northern in the morning, then went hiking, and came back to the hotel room at about 3pm and spent the rest of the day reading. It's not often I get to sit down with a book and read it from cover to cover with no interruptions. (well, other than to get more Pringles and cheese...)

Tomorrow is the end of the course, and the exam. Then on Friday I head home. Via Yellowknife so I can buy some clothes.

Iqaluit

So on Sunday night we invited people over for dinner - I think the final total came to 20 - (well, most of them were kids - 6 adults besides Miguel and I and a whole bunch of kids).

At 5:30, half an hour before everyone was supposed to arrive, I was just finishing up the Alu Gobi I was making (cauliflower-and-potato curry for the grownups) and the phone rang. It was Canadian North, to say that the direct flight to Iqaluit that I was supposed to be taking at 6:45 Monday morning was cancelled. The guy I was talking to told me that I wouldn't make it to Iqaluit before Wednesday afternoon. Which was of no earthly use, given that the two-day course I was going for would be half over by then.

As I was stirring the Gobi and glumly wondering if walking might have been a better idea, Patti came in, and when I told her what Canadian had said, she suggested I call First Air and see if they could fly me out that night so that I could catch the Canadian flight from Yellowknife in the morning.

So Miguel kindly called for me, First Air kindly obliged, and then I gobbled some Gobi, packed willy-nilly and rushed off to the airport. By 11 PM I was sitting at the Super Eight in YK.

So although I did all the cooking, I effectively missed the dinner party (and the dishes, which Miguel was left with) but I hear it was fun.

And now I'm in Iqaluit. I will be there in the morning tomorrow for the start of the course, which is one I've been hoping to take for a long time.

I went hiking down by the river at lunchtime.

things this week

hoo boy. It was court.

1/ according to a very drunk lady, I am going to burn in hell. Miguel says he'll come visit.

2/ watched Untraceable. creepy.

3/ teenagers keep taking my car.

4/ my avocado is sprouting. it has leaves.

5/ dyed my hair. it's browner now. wanna see?

Dedication ceremony for a S/Cst. grave. It was raining. We all got wet.

don't lv msg

Do people really need to have that whole spiel on their answering machine - you've reached Jack and Jill and we're not available to take your call, please leave your name and number after the beep and we'll get back to you as soon as possible?

Aren't we all trained well enough now that we'd just leave a message after the beep? And aren't we adult enough to know that if we don't leave a number no-one will bother to go look it up and call us back? And isn't it understood that if the answering machine picks up, the householders are not interested in or capable of talking at that particular moment? And really, doesn't the phrase "get back to you as soon as possible" suggest, perhaps erroneously, that the owners of the answering machine will call you back while still wearing their coats and shoes, immediately upon returning and entering the house, so that you don't have to wait a moment more than necessary to get their recipe for sex-in-a-pan.

Shouldn't we maybe tell the truth?

"You've reached the number you dialed. Unless you're drunk-dialing or dyscalculic. We might possibly call you back if this isn't the nine hundredth time you've called this week to try and get us to take a survey about our eating habits. If this is my Mom, don't tell me how much you hate my answering machine. It's an inanimate object and it doesn't care. BEEP."

(I should probably add that my answering machine says something about tacos, thanks to the collective sense of humour of the four teenagers regularly playing with the phone. And yet people leave messages.)

things that make you want to call the police

This is a partial list...

1> I've downloaded a program off the internet and I can't find the icon for it.
2> My neighbour slammed his door and a picture fell off the wall in my house.
3> Some kids were throwing rocks at my house at 3AM. (this at 10:30AM)
4> "Everybody's fighting". I envisioned a brawl. When the guys got there, "everybody" turned out to be two very intoxicated females who were the only occupants of the house.

However. The Iqaluit CBC radio station called to ask my boss about 'shots fired' in town. Ok. So for all the above shit you call me, and for the shots fired you call the radio??? (for the record, it wasn't shots... fireworks)

Eclipse

Waking sweaty, ears ringing, in my blanket nest
Jumbled half light in the cabin
It’s 2am.

At the door, you ask our plans
Ultimately, death
I say, I think
Tell myself I’m still asleep

Smoky haze on the horizon
Behind the lake
Candy-pink edges the only proof
Of the sun, spinning before the eclipse

Despite my flippancy
The plan involves treading the spine of Ovayok
(His falling down and dying made a ribbed mountain)
Approaching, half the town
Perches already, or scales the steep sides

I leave you all sprawled
At the top of the first rise
Keep going

Wind, warm animal breath from the head
Damp and alive
Tugs my clothes, whistles in my coat

Passing those I know
(Hey, Kate)
And those I don’t
Smile anyway
It’s their mountain

As I approach, one woman turns from contemplation
Kate. What time does it start?
I look at my watch but I already know the answer. Now.
The answer confuses. The sun hides.

Past scattered inukshuks and teenagers
Eyes slide away
Don’t know where I’m going or why
I need to walk but the
wind keeps blowing against
me and some watchers are
higher still and
then the sun stops.

I turn around.
Suddenly everything is downhill fast
and the light is grey
and then I’m in Ovayok’s belly button
in the middle of the night
with a whole bunch of people
and it’s dark.

summer

The avocado pit that I've been trying to sprout has grown a root! And my second pineapple has green shoots in the middle! I love the 24 hour daylight for growing - all my plants go wild. I have been trying to order a small seed starter, like a tiny plastic greenhouse, but the company called today and told Rachel they can't ship it to me. Not sure why. I was looking forward to getting it. Oh well. I guess I'll have to keep using margarine containers and plastic wrap.

We didn't end up going to Starvation Cove. Miguel went fishing from work (they all went on Friday - company fishing day) and caught a 12 pound char, so he didn't really want to head out again on Saturday. So we invited a bunch of people for dinner on Sunday, made caribou stew and char and had a good meal.

Next weekend is the eclipse. I've been told that we're staying up Thursday night to see it, at 3am Friday morning, despite the fact that I have to work on Friday. Miguel doesn't have to, he's off to San Diego...

Chris and Clark are within 100km of their finish point.

Saturday

I'm getting things done. I went to work just after noon, and found there was no-one there, so I spent a couple of hours madly washing the floors and vacuuming before anyone came to muddy it up again. I also took all the blankets from the cellblock over to one of the unoccupied houses to wash (really unoccupied, not just house-where-owners-are-on-vacation). The new guy is moving in there on Tuesday and I wanted to make sure it was ready for him, too. I went to do this in one of the other houses before a new couple arrived, and the place had a dead fly problem. The floor was black and crunchy. After getting to know her, I think if that guy's wife had walked in and found it like that, she would probably have gotten in a cab and headed back to the airport...

I'm also working on a church service for tomorrow. It's my turn. Made banana bread, cleaned the kitchen, invited a bunch of people for supper tomorrow, tidied up the living room, took a stab at the bathroom, paid my taxes... (well, the huge ass penalty I got for filing late because we were waiting for a piece of paper from my RRSP.)

Also at the moment I'm caught up at work, I thought I was getting a bunch more stuff to do, transcribing-wise but the disk I was sent turned out to be blank. So until a new one with actual recordings comes, there's nothing pressing for me to do. It's a nice feeling.

all my links have disappeared... I think it's the cat's fault that is (Delia's right!) messin w my blogz

hopefully they'll reappear from wherever they went

the preceding post is what happens when

computer is left unattended while bagels toast.

The wind is blowing, today. Taking all the bugs away. On Saturday if it's nice we're planning a trip to Starvation Cove, where the fish are rumoured to be bitey. I just like the ride.

Rachel is back from camp. (as you may have noticed) Kirsten will be back next weekend. Ian called on the weekend and said he's going on maneuvers this week, in the bush. It sounds like a good camp, and he's talking about going again next year. Despite Rachel's misgivings, she enjoyed herself too, even the cadet-ish portions of the festivities, and is also thinking she will go again next year. The cadet program is awesome, for the opportunities, the friends made, and the general sense that they can withstand a lot more than they ever imagined. Rachel has a picture of herself mugging madly in front of a canvas shelter that she and her partner made in the bush, and she's come home knowing that even though she's still afraid of bears and bugs she can survive in the wilderness and come out laughing.

Work is a bit quieter this week, and I've been napping a lot in the evenings. We discovered that the non-functioning of the internet was due to an intersection of electronics and water, probably courtesy of the dying washing machine. This has been fixed, and Miguel has dug up an old laptop for me to use until Kirsten returns with my computer.

And it was all like woah! ...

Woah! and i like couldnt stop it! Chicken's run freely in the rain with purple umbrella while yellow smiling ducks eats their young. Cats get shoved in boxes and kids pushed them around. What has the world come to?

And i can't stop it! Why?

Cause it was all like Woah!

-Rachel


more cat pictures

otters of the twin variety

This week I had a couple of long days - I went on training to be a spotter for air search and rescues. It started with ground school, which was kind of boring. Somehow, and I'm not sure how this is possible, the material was interesting after a fashion, but it was being presented in a sort of junior high science movie format. At one point in the movie, a man with some gooey blood on his head is standing in a field, waving his arms excitedly, while an 'injured' man (you can tell he's injured because he's covered with a blanket)lies on his back, at goo-head man's feet. The airplane, apparently filled with poorly trained spotters, passes overhead and disappears. The concerned voice-over says, "Imagine the despair of these injured passengers, when the rescue plane they have been waiting for flies right over without seeing them." The man standing up assumes a posture of great despair, with his gooey head in his hands, and the injured man on the ground gives a feeble and heart-rending wave in the direction of the oblivious aircraft. That made me laugh. I mean, it's not really funny. Really.

The second day, which was much more interesting (but colder and more uncomfortable) was the flight training.

Nine of us went on a Twin Otter, and it was a bit chilly and cramped. Very nice little aircraft, though. You can really see a lot out the windows, which is good if you're meant to be looking for small things on the tundra.

Spotting is funny. We were told we had targets - an abandoned snowmobile, a tent frame, a couple of old cabins, and a disintegrating boat. So we performed our procedures, as directed, but it's hard. You are meant to be scanning in the same direction that you would read, I guess because that's a natural movement for your eyes. At first I was concentrating really hard and it was making my eyes hurt a lot. Eventually it began to feel more natural, but then I started getting distracted. As previously mentioned here, there are a lot of muskox around and they run away when planes go over. And, as a human being, my eyes are drawn to moving objects. So the mental soundtrack was: "scanning, scanning, don't look at the muskox, damn, I'm looking at the muskox. what did I miss?"

The man sitting in front of me spotted the cabins, I spotted the boat, but we never did see the snowmobile, despite frequent passes. At the end the pilot said, somewhat sheepishly, that there was a possibility that he had plotted the snowmobile wrong, and it never was where we were looking...

The flight training has to be two 1hr flights, so after an hour of looking for the damn snowmobile, we landed at Jayko Lake, on a short gravel runway, and got out to look around. And I wished I had my camera because it was very pretty. We ate our snacks and laughed at each other, and then we all got back in the plane to do the second half of the training.

So now, if there's an air search called, I might have to go and be a spotter. I'm told that the hard part of that is that they keep going until either they find what is being looked for or the search is called off, and the last one they did was 36 hours of spotting, napping, and peeing in plastic bags. But my bag is now packed, I'm certified, and ready to go.

Aha! the internet has relaxed its vigilance. I can access pages.

All the kids are now away. Kirsten is in Quebec (with my laptop, as previously mentioned), Ian's in Vernon BC doing a rifle coach course until the middle of August, and Rachel's at cadet camp in Whitehorse.

Kirsten has called lots, she's having a good time now that she's stopped being homesick. Rachel called last night and she doesn't sound homesick at all, she has a posse already, and they're all going horseback riding on the weekend. She was really quite apprehensive about going - she's a worrier and she felt that all the wasps in the Yukon would be having a convention to decide how to torment her while she was there, and that all the army guys would yell at her. She told me gleefully that the leaders had taught her and her cohorts how to make their beds, but that it was so complicated and so hot there that they figured they were just going to sleep on top of their covers rather than mess it up and have to remake. (To be fair, she did step in a wasp nest, during a camping trip when she was about four, and got stung very badly. And at home she never makes her bed.)

Ian hasn't called at all, but he's a boy.

Miguel and I went and stayed at the cabin for the whole weekend, and the sun shone (no romantic sunsets in the land of 24hr daylight). We went overland on Saturday to Long Lake, about an hour away from the cabin. The muskoxen have fuzzy little calves and I tried to take pictures but they don't like to be disturbed and I didn't want to get too close. One old shaggy muskox was standing on top of Mount Pelly, like a sentinel.

I know, I don't usually do this, but I want to see it so here are the lyrics to City and Colour's "Sleeping Sickness". Gordon Downie sings in the middle...

I awoke
Only to find my lungs empty
And through the night
So it seems I'm not breathing
And now my dreams are nothing like they were meant to be
And I'm breaking down, I think I'm breaking down

And I'm afraid
To sleep because of what haunts me
Such as living with the uncertainty
That I'll never find the words to say
Which would completely explain
Just how I'm breaking down

[Chorus]
Someone come and, someone come and save my life
Maybe I'll sleep when I am dead
But now it's like the night is taking sides
With all the worries that occupy the back of my mind
Could it be this misery will suffice?

[Gordon Downie]
I've become
A simple souvenir of someone's kill
Like the sea
I'm constantly changing from calm to ill
Madness fills my heart and soul as if the great divide could swallow me whole
oh, how I'm breaking down

[Chorus]

Things that are conspiring to make it hard for me to post here:

Kirsten has gone off to Quebec with my laptop.
Our internet has major issues, and some days I can't get any connection.
On the days I can get a connection it is sporadic and if I compose a post it gets lost when I try to put it up.
The sun is shining and we've been spending lots of time at the cabin.

defense de passer

three for one court week

I know. It's been a while. I can only explain by saying that we ended up with almost three consecutive weeks of court. Partly because of this.

I can't sleep tonight.

Well, that's not completely true. I was asleep, very deeply, between 10pm and midnight, but then I woke up and tossed fretfully in a sweaty half-sleep. Very unpleasant, and the things going through my head were pointless and annoying. So I got up. Since Rachel's sleeping over at Siobhan's and the older two kids have to work tomorrow, the house is now quiet and still. I can't even hear the guinea pig we're looking after while its owner is on holiday. Cuddly little thing, but loud.

It seems we may also be looking after two small girls while their foster family is on holiday, starting the 21st. They are very cute, but they're six and seven and we're not used to that age any more. The last time they came to visit they played happily with my good china. I guess I'll have to put it away again. They go to their mom's house on the weekends if all is good in their world, so if we do have them it'll probably be only during the week.

driving me nuts

Kirsten got her driver's licence. Miguel took her out to practice a couple times, but mostly it was me. We cruised around, she practiced parking, tried not to drive us off cliffs. My main goals before her driver's test, since we had the basics covered, were to get her to understand backing up (look where you're going, don't stamp on the gas) going around corners (Jeeps do roll at high speeds, I believe, but it's not something I want tested) and stopping at stop signs (without whiplash for passengers).

At first it was very nerve-wracking. One thing about this town is the prevalence of small children and even some adults who dart in front of cars. So while we were driving around, I was constantly saying to her, "Do you see that person walking? Give him some room," or "Kids on bikes. They might come this way."

It's funny, too, because I remember my dad taking me out to drive around on the gravel roads in Southern Alberta, and freaking out when I backed the big old Suburban into a ditch. Backing up is hard. Driving by proxy, it seems, is even harder. "Are you looking in your mirror? Take your foot off the gas now, you have to take this corner. Step on the brake. No, now. NOW!"

She took it all really well. And she managed to do her test and pass. The best bit, for me, was when I got home that night and the phone was ringing. It was Rachel, and she said, "Can you come and fetch me from Siobhan's?" As I repeated that back to her to stall for time, because I really didn't want to, Kirsten came up behind me and calmly said, "I'll go get her." And she did...

well. we do have a lot of blizzards...

20%

The top off the barbecue????

The cabin was pretty much as we left it. For some reason, on the way out, I was anticipating that we might find that someone had broken in. And when we arrived, we found that someone had been moving furniture around in the porch, but hadn't broken into the main cabin. They had also taken the top off the barbecue, the metal lid, and thrown it on the tundra. Really I don't mind if people use the porch. It's warm in there when the sun is shining through the big windows, and if you were cold I would want you to stop in and warm up.

We sat on the deck for quite a while. Hundreds of geese flapped overhead, towards Lady Pelly, barking to each other.

There's something about the silence of the tundra that is seductive, that makes me want to sit and listen. Listen to nothing, endlessly. And all the things in my head, all the worries that go in tight circles in the back of my mind, they lose urgency and dissipate, and I don't miss them. Every spring that I have been living here, and this is the third, I have had a moment on our first real trip out across the tundra on a warm day where I've felt that I'm part of all creation in a way that is only possible up here. And I begin to understand in a physical way, why this place is different from any other - because on some level, time is behaving differently here. I want to say ...Vaster than empires, and more slow... but then I'm playing with words, intellectualizing it.

I read Ed's post about Jon Krakauer and co. And I really enjoyed it. A lot of what he's talking about, I used to muse on while I was working at the coffee shop. About how nobody can last long without help from others. (I'm paraphrasing, it is a long and eloquent post). I know that I'm not living the same lifestyle as the Inuit who live(d) here for aeons. I have a snowmobile, a parka made of nylon, a thermos full of coffee, a kamotik made of wood (not bone), and when we get to the cabin there's an oil-drip furnace and some Coleman lanterns. When I was first here I went through a period where I wished I had been here a hundred years ago, so I could see what it was really like, but quite frankly the best part of a spring trip on the land is the nap on the couch in my warm living room when I get home. Although Miguel and Ian have been out and shot caribou and muskox for our consumption, I cook them in my electric oven.

So. In the spirit of everyone being dependent on each other, Ed, or anyone else, if you're ever out near Ovayok and you need a place to warm up and drink your hot chocolate, feel free to use my sunporch. Just don't take the top off the barbecue. And close the screen door behind you. We have enough flies as it is.

The view from the back

Yesterday was a beautiful day, with a sweet little breeze, high painted clouds, temperature just around zero. We packed up a lunch and two of our children and one of Patti's and headed out to the cabin. I was passenger with Ian, and Miguel pulled Rachel and Siobhan on a kamotik. A small one, as our larger one got borrowed in the night by the guy who sold it to us.

Usually I like to drive, but then I fumble with my IPod and annoy whoever is passengering. Ideally I like to drive alone. Ian's a pretty good driver, although he sometimes comes a bit fast over rises with no visibility. I only grabbed him once, and that was when Siobhan fell off the komatik in front of us and I wasn't sure if he'd seen her.

Walking around, walking across, walking away

Patti and I are walking in the evenings again. It's nice, it makes me sleep better at night. Although with deeper sleep comes stranger dreams - don't remember what I was dreaming about last night but I found myself standing panic-stricken in the kitchen at 6AM. Sometimes in the last few years, bad dreams make me leap out of bed and head upstairs, a kind of sleepwalking, I think. I'm not even sure why going upstairs is the thing my body decides to do, without my knowledge. Who's in charge here?

Some other walkers I met recently - Chris and Clark. They are retrying a trip they attempted in 2005 - walking across Victoria Island. I wish them luck. They stopped in at the detachment to register, which we really like in wilderness travellers.

Miguel's mad at me. He went downstairs a while ago, and Rachel just came and told me he's not here... I'm not sure why he's mad at me, but I do know _I_ would be in big trouble if I walked away like that... men.

In the eighties, there was a Wind in the Willows series that I used to watch with a kid I babysat. In one episode, the weasels convince Mr. Toad to buy shares in the Arctic Pineapple Corporation...

I'm growing a pineapple. I started it from a pineapple top, when they sent us a particularly healthy specimen in Food Mail. It doesn't look like much yet, but I'm sure it will yield a crop of tasty Arctic Pineapples.

Happy Mother's Day!

Rachel made me frogs, for Mother's Day. Lots of frogs. She enlisted the help of her class. She gave one to the shop teacher and he used it to demonstrate a nail gun, by nailing it to a table.

Wish You Were Here

Rachel and I went to Kitiga Lake today, to go ice fishing. I didn't fish, I don't have a licence and I can't eat fish anymore anyway. I caught just as many fish as everyone else - zero.

The trip is cross-country, and it's hard to tell you're at a lake, except that when Gord and Ben got the ice auger down far enough, they hit water.

smile

The cadets seem to be having a good time in Burnaby. That's my boy looking serious.

Things I did today:

Got up early. couldn't sleep - it's not really getting very dark any more. I nap randomly.
Drank coffee. Probably too much. Sat around in my pajamas until noon.
Tidied up at work.
Cleaned my desk at home. long overdue. found a whole bunch of pens. some that even work.
Re-potted some plants. I'm growing a pineapple.
Cleaned house and cooked dinner, Miguel's parents came over because they're leaving soon.
Walked out to the dump with Patti. Everything was smouldering, no good pickings. Strangely, though, there were a lot of pickles.

Things I didn't do today:

The dishes from the dinner. I'll be sorry about this in the morning.
Work. I've done lots this week.
Wear my snowpants to the dump. I'm sorry about this already, as I'm chilled.
Go to the store. Now I'm really out of conditioner.

Ah, it's FRIDAY.

I finished (at three minutes after five this afternoon) a project that has taken up my every evening this week, including last night until midnight, at work. Someone was rummaging through drawers, over in Iqaluit, and they found some stuff that needed to be transcribed because it's going to court next week, and sent it to me in a bit of a panic. I promised completion by the end of the week. I delivered it, but it was painful today because I was tired and my brain hurt and I kept having to go off and do other things (like the work I'm SUPPOSED to be doing) so it took longer to finish than I hoped. But, it's done now and I have no commitments for this weekend other than the last session of the lay leader course on Sunday.

Tomorrow I can sleep in.

And in a surprising reversal of the hate-on I was ascribing to the universe, the person who could have bumped me from my job has decided not to do so, and the guy who I was figuring wasn't really sending me my daybook wrote today and supplied me with a tracking number! Which indicates that my book is at the post office, believe it or not! It says they "attempted delivery" on the 28th (they did no such thing, I would have definitely gone and turned in the parcel card if'n I'd gotten it) so Monday 0830hrs I'm gonna go down and insist they produce it. We only have boxes, for mail, it's not like they came to my house or anything. I'll have a daybook, and I can stop keeping track of things by sticking post it notes to my coat, or emailing myself.

I still don't know whether I'll get to keep my job, but I have a better chance now, I think. And a daybook is not going to make me stop forgetting things entirely, but at least it gives me a place to write down "I owe $10.00 to the boy who dressed as a girl to go to the dance" and "if I don't buy more conditioner Kirsten will yell at me."

The universe does not want me to have a daybook.

I have a Dayrunner binder that Miguel gave me a few years ago. We have no stationery store here. The Dayrunner website took my order back in 2005, for 2006 pages, and they were shipped up here to the wilds. Success. This, however, was, I realize now, a freak occurrence contrary to the laws of nature. Like, oh, I don't know, when it.... rains frogs....

In September of 2006, feeling very organized, I went on the Dayrunner website and ordered new pages for 2007. They did not come. My credit card was never charged. I wrote to them in November, wondering about the status of my order. I got back a terse email that informed me that my "address was not in their computer". So no pages. When I headed out to Australia, I did a bit of shopping in Edmonton and looked for pages, but it was March and everyone was sold out.

2008 was approaching. I'd been writing my appointments and to-doings in list form on the spare looseleaf pages that came with my Dayrunner when I first got it, but the spares were running out. I went south in November, but got caught up in other things and never did find a store that sold them. Miguel looked in Toronto, when he was there. No luck.

On March 5th, I went on the net and, as I mentioned, ordered a Moleskine. I expected that it would be in the mail when I got back from holidays. It was not. I emailed the seller. He said, oh, it must have been lost in the mail, I'll send you another one. That was two weeks ago.

I realized today that according to Amazon Stores' policy, I have three more days to claim a refund. It's been 57 days since I ordered the book. 57 days that I have not been able to keep track of, because I DON'T HAVE A DAYBOOK.

Rachel said to me, (When I was yelling about it at lunchtime) "You'd think it wouldn't be so hard to mail you one. It's not rocket surgery."

I'm doing the dishes. Sometimes this process takes me an hour, because I am easily distracted.

First I had to find appropriate music. Today it was Outkast, because I needed to drown out a rowdy game of Life in the dining room. The game broke up quite quickly, with some shouts of "I hate Life" and some withdrawing to rooms. Then I had to suggest some alternate diversions to Rachel and her friend Siobhan. But Siobhan called her mother and was told to go home, so then I had to explain why I couldn't drive her. (look out the window. do you see a car? no?) She and Rachel set off on foot.

I also got sidetracked by sweeping the floor (because the dining room table had crumbs on the placemats and they ended up on the floor) and finding a disk I'd lost, under my desk - the bunny hunt picture disk that I was supposed to add my own pictures to prior to giving to Dan. So I did that. Also for some reason there was a maggot ??? in the disk case. So we had to examine it.

The spaghetti pan had been put back on a burner with wet spaghetti in it. Now dry spaghetti. Much scraping. I also thought of something I'd been meaning to Google - we were talking about Facebook jealousy at work. So I went off to do that, and ended up here. Not doing the dishes.

Joeby's eating the dirt I swept up. The clam chowder pot is soaking. Condemned is being played. I'm nowhere near the kitchen.

On the plus side, I accomplished a lot this weekend, work-wise. We're almost done the lay reader training course. Apparently in short order I will be licensed and allowed to lead prayer services, perform funerals, do baptisms in extremis, and anything else the diocese decides it wants done. And yeah, I'm still a bit bewildered about this. I keep waiting for someone to come and say, "No, really, ha ha, not you, we were just kidding."

It was bunny hunt day today, at Beavers. As you can see from the picture, it's still pretty cold here. Dan, this year's long-suffering bunny, kindly agreed to come and allow himself to be found, captured, chopped up, and made into stew. Great fun was had by all, and Dan even seemed to be in pretty good spirits afterwards.

From Ian re-doing his cadet uniform buttons, I have a small pile of black shiny buttons on my desk. I keep catching sight of them out of the corner of my eye, and thinking they're candy and I should eat them.

Lucky I learned the self-Heimlich maneuver at the first aid course I took recently. If I'm going to take up swallowing non-food objects I'll probably need it.

Guitar Hero came back from our vacation, with the kids. I didn't buy it when I was Christmas shopping because I failed to see the point. I still don't see the attraction - I could stand it if they were legitimately practicing a musical instrument - God knows I lived through the "Ode To Joy on a recorder" days and the "Theme from Star Wars on a clarinet" days, at least that seemed to be an accomplishment. But Guitar Hero? Songs I didn't even like from the 80's are being played to the accompaniment of tapping on a mock guitar. I need new knitting needles. Because in addition to my button-swallowing fetish, I have the urge to plunge needles into my ears.

It's been blizzarding the last few days, and everything is all drifted over again here. Will spring ever come? Where oh where is Delia's global warming? (Just kidding).

We drove out on snowmachines to West Arm on the weekend so the kids could jump off the snowcliffs. We were just ahead of the storm, and when Kirsten and I rode back it was behind us, blowing hard. Bit of a wild ride, but fun. Tonight it's calm and cloudy, but the storm is done. It will be back to business as usual tomorrow. Which is good because we're almost out of water. I don't know if I've mentioned here that water and sewage are trucked to our house - we have tanks in the furnace room like everyone in town - and if the trucks don't run we have to go into conservation mode. Hard with teenagers.

Ian and the Cadets were shooting in Yellowknife this weekend, they came first in the competition and get to go to the Nationals in Vancouver in May.

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.