I've been thinking about an encounter I had with a visitor, at work, ever since it happened. Here's how it went.

There's a barge down on the waterfront that needed to be inspected. The inspector was on his way from Ottawa, and I began to receive a series of phone calls inquiring about arrangements for the inspector and keys for the barge, which were allegedly in our possession. Keys were located, arrangements were made, most notably between me and a man named Will who was to escort the inspector onto the barge. I know Will, we were on a course together for three weeks last year, and we are on first name basis. And we spoke a few times in the days before the inspector came.

The inspector dude comes bouncing into my office, and I give him the key I have put aside. He introduces himself (I promptly forgot his name, but I believe his first name was Roy or Ron or something). He says to me, "And you are?" I say, as I always do, "I'm Kate."

Then I phone Will. "Hello, Will," I say, "It's Kate. I have your man here, to inspect the barge. Do you want me to send him down to you?"

I have to tell you, I went out of my way to locate these keys for this man. It took quite a few phone calls, as no-one initially knew what sort of a key we were even looking for. And so his next comments surprised me.

When I got off the phone with Will, Mr. Barge Inspector said to me, "I'm going to give you a tip. When you talk to people, always give your last name. That's why women aren't getting ahead in this world." And then he said, "You have to show people that you take yourself seriously. Kate will always be the under-parlourmaid."

I laughed, because I wasn't entirely sure what else to do. He tried to impress upon me his seriousness. Asked me my surname. I told him, and he said, "Well, you should be proud of that, it's a good French name." I replied, "It's my husband's name. He's French. I'm not."

I don't know what to think of this. Should I be offended? Or is he right? I should add, I think, that Kate is not a common name in this town. And I always say, when I phone on business, "It's Kate at the RCMP." We're a first-name sort of town. When people call to talk to the constables, they use first names.

Some twenty years ago, someone told me (Phil Litke) that "Katie" was a girl with pigtails and I should make everyone call me Kate. So I did. And when I went to Iqaluit last week, after this latest conversation, and had to introduce myself to strangers I told them my full name.

However. I'm inclined to think that women will never get ahead in the world while some men feel free to give them hints like that. I can't think of a situation in the last few months where I was made to feel more inferior. Oh well.

Sleep is all screwed up. At 11:20pm we decided to go for a drive. To take pictures. We were gone for an hour. At 12:42am, now, it is still broad daylight. Rachel, who got up at noon, is reading Garfield in her pajamas. I think Ian might be asleep, I haven't seen him for a while.

What seems to happen, mostly, is that you go to bed and can't quite manage to get to sleep. So maybe every three or four nights you crash and get a good night's sleep. Other days you nap. Somehow the body is aware that it's light outside, even with tinfoil on the windows, and refuses to fall asleep.

Sometimes the North is a very strange place.

Social Services called me today. I had printed them out a document and sent it over. It had printed itself on legal sized paper and I'd chopped off the bottom couple of inches. Which usually turns out ok but today it made the edges kind of ratty. The social worker who called me was asking in a concerned way if he needed to send me over a ream of paper, as perhaps we had run out. I said, no, and explained about the printer settings and how I'd tried to cut off the excess with scissors, and then I realized he had me on the speaker phone and some other people were laughing at me in the background. I will get my revenge. I just haven't thought how yet.

I have to tell you that, in the aftermath of court, we have been making bets on who will last the longest on their probation.

Also, did you know (I had to go look) that there is a town in Newfoundland called Dildo? My boss was talking about it today. He says that it's just down the road from Come By Chance.

I have done Iqaluit. And survived. Passed the course I was taking, and am now even more qualified to run police computer systems. Cool stuff.

Went hiking at the Sylvia Grinnell River, with some other visitors to the region and a local lady. It was raining like hell, but we were all pretending that it was just lovely. My feet got soaked really quickly, after a misstep into a boggy bit, and after that it was just a question of getting through it.

Next morning, when I'm being driven to the airport, the radio is talking about the polar bear that was seen the previous evening. Down by the Sylvia Grinnell River. Just out of town. I said to the cab driver, "Hey, I was there last night." He was an Eastern European fellow, and he started saying to me, "Well, you know, you never hear that the polar bears eat people."

Anywhere you want to go in Iqaluit is five dollars, in a cab. Per person. And if you're taking a cab, it will keep stopping for more passengers. To fill the car. So you could be stuffed in with random drunken strangers.

But, to my mind, the coolest bit of the trip was getting to fly back in the copilot seat of the Pilatus, and the weather was clear so the pilot was pointing out settlements and landmarks to me. And he gave me a headset, so I could hear all the air traffic chatter all over the Arctic. He said that the commercial airline flights go from Europe to North America in the morning, and then fly back later in the day. So in the morning all the traffic's going in one direction. There's miles and miles and miles of ice and rock out there.

It was good to get back home. Funny that I've started to think of this place as home...

Got home Friday at lunchtime, and went back to work. Then after work I went to proctor drivers' examinations. After excavating the kitchen enough to make dinner for kids and feeding them, I got everything squared away and went to bed at 10. At 11:30, they called from work -- they had people in cells and couldn't find a guard. So I went and worked the midnight shift. Yesterday turned into a bit of a write-off, I got some cleaning done but also napped a lot.

Today Patty called (she's got five kids) and we all went out to the beach. (No. We did not swim. There's still ice in the bay.) We made a fire and sat round it in our coats and toques, but we were at the beach dammit. Kids flew kites. Miguel's in Iqaluit now, I left on Friday morning and he got there on Friday afternoon.

I just miss her.

I'm off to Iqaluit for a week. To train on the occurrence reporting software. I'm looking forward to it.

Also we seem to be in the process of buying a house. Offer has been made, banks alerted, lawyers consulted. It's five bedrooms, and I swear at least ten people have pointed out to me that I'll have room to take in foster kids. We had a small boy at the office the other day, accompanied by social services, for a statement, and I said to the corporal, "I can resist the stray dogs right now, but I want to take in the stray kids."

In Iqaluit, the sun still goes down, I think. aaaaaahhhhhh.

I was in the kitchen at work making coffee. Dave, the Staff Sergeant, and Russ, one of the constables, were rummaging through the chocolate bars in the cupboard, and we were talking in a desultory way. So desultory that I can't even remember what we were discussing. Suddenly Russ said, "We've had this conversation before, in a dream I had. And I had the dream before I even started working here." I told him that things were strange right now, that someone else I'd talked to had been complaining of deja-vu. Also, my son asked me that morning whether I thought it was a problem that his hand was a computer cursor. An arrow.

Dave said, "You should have just told him to run it over a link, it would have turned back into a hand." Then he said, and this was the thing that surprised me, because he's generally a pretty prosaic guy, "They must be changing something in the matrix."

So, beware. If Dave can feel it, it must be big.

This 24 hours of daylight thing is killing me. I can't sleep properly and yet I'm yawning all the time. We're short on guards at work and last weekend they called me at 6:45 am on Sunday and got me to come down and watch 12 people. In 5 cells. Crazy.

However, it is warm. 15 degrees today. People are out in shorts. Not me, I should add. But people.

Because I wanted to read this tonight, I thought I'd share it with you all. In the 17 or so years since I first read this poem, I have never come across another that I've uniformly kept on wishing I had written. I have liked others over the years, but this one continues to apply. Probably goes to show that I'm not the cheeriest person, but oh well. It's a good poem.

Aubade

I work all day, and get half-drunk at night.
Waking at four to soundless dark, I stare.
In time the curtain-edges will grow light.
Till then I see what's really always there:
Unresting death, a whole day nearer now,
Making all thought impossible but how
And where and when I shall myself die.
Arid interrogation: yet the dread
Of dying, and being dead,
Flashes afresh to hold and horrify.
The mind blanks at the glare. Not in remorse
- The good not done, the love not given, time
Torn off unused - nor wretchedly because
An only life can take so long to climb
Clear of its wrong beginnings, and may never;
But at the total emptiness for ever,
The sure extinction that we travel to
And shall be lost in always. Not to be here,
Not to be anywhere,
And soon; nothing more terrible, nothing more true.

This is a special way of being afraid
No trick dispels. Religion used to try,
That vast, moth-eaten musical brocade
Created to pretend we never die,
And specious stuff that says No rational being
Can fear a thing it will not feel, not seeing
That this is what we fear - no sight, no sound,
No touch or taste or smell, nothing to think with,
Nothing to love or link with,
The anasthetic from which none come round.

And so it stays just on the edge of vision,
A small, unfocused blur, a standing chill
That slows each impulse down to indecision.
Most things may never happen: this one will,
And realisation of it rages out
In furnace-fear when we are caught without
People or drink. Courage is no good:
It means not scaring others. Being brave
Lets no one off the grave.
Death is no different whined at than withstood.

Slowly light strengthens, and the room takes shape.
It stands plain as a wardrobe, what we know,
Have always known, know that we can't escape,
Yet can't accept. One side will have to go.
Meanwhile telephones crouch, getting ready to ring
In locked-up offices, and all the uncaring
Intricate rented world begins to rouse.
The sky is white as clay, with no sun.
Work has to be done.
Postmen like doctors go from house to house.

Philip Larkin

Miguel bought me a jigsaw puzzle. 750 pieces, a sort of pastoral scene of a stone wall with a wrought iron gate in it, and trees behind. So lots of stone pieces and lots of leaf pieces. I've been working on it every spare moment since the weekend. It's done now. He says he won't buy me any more because I was obsessed with this one.

I've been working on compiling our domestic violence statistics, at work, for a community plan intended to address family violence. The research makes for depressing reading, on the whole. I had to plough through a lot of cases, because the statute for assault (sec. 266) includes all kinds of assaults. So in some cases I had to ask around -- a man assaulted a woman but are they partners? Although jealousy seems to be a common flashpoint, most of the reports are also linked to over-consumption of alcohol. And then I found a statistic on the StatsCan site, to the effect that if your partner is a drinker -- that is, drinks five or more drinks at least once a week -- you are SIX times more likely to be a victim of domestic violence.

One thing that surprised me with the cases here is that although some of the women who were assaulted eventually refused to cooperate and no charges were laid (the Crown will not support the police going ahead with charges if there are no co-operative witnesses) all of the men who were assaulted by their partners were co-operative and charges were laid against the women. Granted, more men were still charged than women.

So I don't know if this is just a Nunavut thing? We've got such huge rates of personal victimization in the first place. Statistics are interesting... (really...)

Rachael Ray. In the sink.

I don't know exactly what she's up to. But it kinda looks like fun.

For Ed, the story of my fist-fight.

When I was eleven, I was a small, quiet girl with a pigtail. I think I was about 4’9” and maybe 70 lbs. I didn’t talk much in class, because I had an English accent and kids often mimicked me. Something I still hate to this day. When I was eleven, I moved to a new school, in a small town in Southern Alberta, and in my new and strange classroom, I sat in front of a larger boy named Kevin. He called me flat-chested and skinny (both of which I was) and he would pull my braid, hard, and poke me with pencils, when the teacher was out of the room. Which was a lot. (As a side note, the boy’s name was indeed Kevin, but I’m not putting his last name, because I don’t want him reading this.) He would sometimes try to bug me on the playground, but mostly I could run away. It was while I was stuck in the classroom that his teasing and torturing was a problem.

I told my dad that this boy was bugging me, and dad said I should just hit him a few times and put a stop to it. To facilitate this, dad taught me how not to punch like a girl. Don’t tuck your thumb into your palm, he said, and keep your wrist flat. Dad let me punch him a fair bit, until I was good at it. I liked how it felt, but I didn’t think it was a good idea to start punching Kevin, so I didn’t.

However, while I was internally debating the ethics of defending myself, Kevin escalated his tactics. One particularly scary day, he put his hands around my neck while the teacher was out of the room, and strangled me. I could feel myself starting to pass out, and it hurt. When he stopped, I was angry. I said to him, from the bottom of my anger, “I’m gonna get you.” I don’t remember what he said exactly, but it was something sneering to the effect of, do you want to fight me after school, little girl, and I said yes.

Word got around. I don’t know how. But after school there was a crowd on the little kids’ playground, waiting for me and Kevin.

I remember the exhilaration. The feeling of acting out my anger, as I hit him, my self-righteous tower of anger at my own helplessness and Kevin’s cruelty. I think I hurt him. He went running inside, and later I heard he went to tell the principal that Katie was beating him up. It was said that the principal, a retired farmer, said, “What do you want me to do about it? You’re getting beaten up by a girl?”

I have to say, though. I have told this story a few times over the years, and the consensus among those I tell it to is that nowadays, if one of my daughters beat up a boy, something would be done about it, at school, because of the panic over violence among girls. There were no consequences, for me. Nobody was scared of me....

Ian's back. He very kindly password-protected my computer, while he was away in Quebec, but neglected to tell me the password when he returned. So tonight while he was out at cadets, I started it up for the first time since he got back, and spent some time guessing passwords. When he came home from cadets I greeted him with "Please tell me you know the password for my computer." He did. He says he didn't want anyone to play with my laptop while it was unattended at the science fair, which is fair enough, and thoughtful of him. He seems to be back in one piece, and I can use my computer again. I missed my blog. And my boy. He grew while he was gone, I swear. He says he had a great time, and he won 700 dollars and a 1500 dollar scholarship to Western University in Ontario. Yay Ian!

Jazzy's ashes arrived yesterday, and are now on top of the fridge. I think we'll probably go scatter them somewhere, when it warms up and the land's a bit less soggy. I miss her so much. Joeby's still lost. Kirsten pointed out to us that he rarely gets treats now because he doesn't know how to ask for them. That was Jazz's job. She went and stood by the treat cupboard and barked meaningfully, and then they both got treats. She was also the one who told me when they needed water, by flipping the metal bowl around on the kitchen floor, making a godawful noise. And she'd keep doing it until she got results. I have to remind myself to keep checking his water bowl. Poor boy. I also don't know when people come to the door. Jazz always barked, but Joeby just coughs politely once or twice. He doesn't go pee when we let him outside, either, now, he just stands there and stares at us. I guess he only knew that's what they were doing if Jazz did it first, I don't know. Either that or he's waiting for her to come out too and doesn't understand. Dumber than a bag of hammers. I'm trying not to be angry with him for being the stupid one who is still alive, and my sweetie's not...

Miguel's been away too, for two weeks, he just got back on the weekend. I've been interested to observe in my own behaviour that I cope really well while he's away; I take care of everything, and I don't whine to him on the phone or anything, I look after children, dog stuff, shop for food, feed people, while he was gone this time I even cleaned out the storage room and went to the dump, and did a whole bunch of baking for an open house at work, but when he gets back... (as a side note, the dump was an adventure, it's a half-charred wasteland featuring piles of caribou heads, empty liquor bottles and stinky diapers. Interesting place.) When he gets back I tend to fold, and stop making any decisions for a week or so, and let him do all the cooking. Fortunately he doesn't seem to mind. I make sure to give him a few days to rest before I abdicate responsibility. It used to be when he travelled (his jobs have required this for a few years now) that I would be so looking forward to him coming home (so that he could carry his weight again) that I would be really impatient when he needed to rest for a few days after his trip.

The sun now does not go down. At all. I have been having trouble sleeping. Although, the amount of coffee I drink might have something to do with that.

Somewhere we are walking together on a beach. We don't talk much. There's no need. I have never known another companion as loving and unconditionally loyal as you. I know that I will stop crying, because my memories will always be full of you. The god that cares for furry animals has charge of you now. I hope that he has a cupboard full of treats, some small stuffed animals that he won't mind if you chew, and that he lets you sleep on his bed. I know I have to let go. It's just hard.

Thank-you to everyone who has reached out, here, in email, and on the phone. It means a lot.

My son is off to Quebec for the Canada-wide science fair. He's taking my laptop, because he runs his robot software off it, and for some reason I can't ever manage to post to my weblog from any other computer. So it might be quiet here until the 22nd.

The vets phoned at 10:15. They put me on the speakerphone in the operating room, and told me that they couldn't do anything for Jazzy. I've got an enormous lump in my throat and I wish so so much that I could have been there to say goodbye. They didn't bring her round from the anaesthetic, and they said it was peaceful. I don't feel peaceful. I want my furry friend. I want to go upstairs and find her waiting for me on my bed. I want her to come and steal my chips. Bark at me in the mornings until I provide milk-bones. Flip her food dish around when she's hungry. Bite visitors.

They are sending me her ashes.

xxxxxxxx's -- I stole the questions from Kirsten's friend Kelsey - but the answers are mine.
HAVE YOU EVER:

(x) smoked a cigarette (mmmmmmm cigarettes. five packs a day mmmmmm)

(x) crashed a friend's car (Miguel's. backed it into a parked car.)

( ) stolen a car

(x) been in love

(x) been dumped (he said "I think you're too immature." some things don't change)

( ) shoplifted

( ) been fired

(x) been in a fist fight

(x) snuck out of your parent's house (um, yeah... let's hope they don't read my blog.)

(x) had feelings for someone who didnt have them back (AND he had to get someone else to tell me so. hmph)

( ) been arrested (but been picked up by cops and taken home, after sneaking out of house - see above)

( ) gone on a blind date

(x) lied to a friend (I was a professional liar. told you what you wanted to hear)

(x) skipped school (every single Monday-morning-8-am class in my university career)

(x) seen someone die

(x) had a crush on one of your internet friends (Oh always.)

(x) been to Canada (live there.)

( ) been to Mexico

(x) been on a plane

( ) purposely set a part of yourself on fire (no but a propane explosion took my eyebrows and all the hair on my arms...)

(x) eaten Sushi (mmmmmm sushi. then cigarettes.)

(x) been skiing (tons when we lived in Lake Louise)

( ) met someone in person from the internet (and there are some I've known for ten years.)

(x) taken painkillers

(x) love someone or miss someone right now

(x) laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by

(x) made a snow angel

(x) had a tea party

(x) flown a kite

(x) built a sand castle

(x) gone puddle jumping

(x) played dress up?

(x) jumped into a pile of leaves?

(x) gone sledding

(x) cheated while playing a game

(x) been lonely

(x) fallen asleep at work/school (got kicked out of Film Studies for sleeping through Citizen Kane)

( ) used a fake id (no, but I did drink in bars in Edmonton and Vancouver when I was sixteen and seventeen)

(x) watched the sun set (although not recently, it's given that up)

(x) felt an earthquake (my mother yelled at me - she was downstairs and she thought I was throwing things)

(x) touched a snake (NOT on purpose - I hate snakes)

(x) slept beneath the stars

(x) been tickled (however am no longer ticklish)

(x) been robbed (at gunpoint)

(x) been misunderstood (oh endlessly. because I'm abrupt.)

(x) petted a reindeer/goat (goat.)

(x) won a contest (I won windsurfing lessons in grade nine)

(x) run a red light (and crashed the car I was driving. hmmm. trend?)

( ) been suspended from school (no, but been on academic probation)

(x) been in a car crash (see above)

( ) had braces (no, just have crooked teeth.)

(x) eaten a whole pint of ice cream in one night (only a pint?)

(x) danced in the moonlight (at my brother's wedding)

(x) liked the way you look (for about three days in 1985)

(x) witnessed a crime (see above)

(x) questioned your heart (but it has few answers)

(x) been obsessed with post-it notes (not only obsessed. Entranced.)

(x) squished barefoot through the mud

(x) been lost

(x) been to the opposite side of the country (and the top!)

(x) swam in the ocean (swam in the Pacific, Atlantic, Mediterranean, and fallen in the Arctic Ocean)

(x) felt like dying (but I got over it)

(x) cried yourself to sleep

(x) played cops and robbers

(x) recently coloured with crayons? (yes, with my small visitor at work.)

(x) sung karaoke (at new years)

(x) paid for a meal with only coins (in Europe)

(x) done something you told yourself you wouldn't do (ah, yes.)

(x) made prank phone calls (in grade nine. we called boys and left messages for them to call cool girls.)

(x) laughed until some kind of beverage came out of your nose (grape pop. ewww)

(x) caught a snowflake on your tongue

( ) danced in the rain (don't think so, anyway)

(x) written a letter to Santa Claus

( ) been kissed under a mistletoe

(x) watched the sun rise with someone you care about (most notably on the west coast trail

(x) blown bubbles (this was daily at our house when the kids were little)

(x) made a bonfire on the beach (Long Beach.)

(x) gone roller skating (oh, rollerskating. in the arena in Vulcan.)

(x) had a wish come true

(x) worn pearls (my grannie's, she left them to me)

( ) jumped off a bridge

(x) ate dog/cat food (milk bone someone put in my locker in high school)

(x) sang in the shower (always)

(x) had a dream that you married someone else (Prince. Don't laugh.)

(x) glued your hand to something (staircase from a doll's house)

( ) got your tongue stuck to a flag pole

( ) kissed a fish

(x) sat on a roof top

(x) screamed at the top of your lungs

(x) done a one-handed cartwheel (my one gymnastic accomplishment, never did get the backflips)

( ) talked on the phone for more than 6 hours? (hmm. may have come close once or twice.)

(x) stayed up all night (especially when I worked midnights.)

(x) didnt take a shower for a week (again, West Coast Trail)

(x) picked and ate an apple right off the tree (our back yard in Nanaimo)

(x) climbed a tree (lived up them when I was a kid)

( ) had a tree house

(x) are scared to watch scary movies alone

(x) believe in ghosts (maybe)

( ) have more then 30 pairs of shoes (I have three pairs.)

( ) gone streaking

(x) gone doorbell ditching (this is turning into 'sign of a misspent youth)

(x) played chicken

(x) pushed into a pool/hot tub with all your clothes on (well, a bathtub. In residence at University.)

(x) been told you're hot by a complete stranger (a biker guy on the street in Nanaimo. Made my day)

( ) broken a bone (nope. just teeth.)

(x) been easily amused (as with this quiz....)

(x) caught a fish then ate it (yes! last summer)

( ) caught a butterfly

(x) laughed so hard you cried (watching Beavis and Butthead's movie, when he's being cornholio. goes with the easily amused thing, I think)

(x) cried so hard you laughed

( ) cheated on a test

( ) have a Britney Spears CD

(x) French braided someones hair (small girls. I love doing their hair.)

( ) gone skinny dippin in a pool

( ) been threatened to be kicked out of your house (but I fought with my mother and left of my own accord before they could threaten me.)

Jazz is in Yellowknife. The vets have her, and she's having biopsy surgery tomorrow morning at 9:30 am. I spoke to the vet clinic a couple of times today, they are very sweet, and they said she had 'tried' to bite someone but they didn't think she really meant it. She doesn't like the cage they'd like to keep her in, so they've tied her up to a table leg and they say that seems to make her happy. I imagine that what they're saying by that is that when they lock her up she barks incessantly.

I only knew on Friday that she was going on the plane to Yellowknife on Saturday. I didn't sleep much Friday night, I kept waking up to look at her. She starts her night on the bed with me, lying between my feet until we both get too warm like that and she gets off and lies on her blanket, on the floor next to my head. Saturday morning it was a bit windy but I took her for a walk. Her ears were flapping in the wind but she bounced along for a while.

We called the airport at 2 and were told to come right away. Miguel wasn't quite ready and had to scurry around packing. When we got there Miguel just had to check in and they said bring Jazz back at 3:30 so she could get on the plane. We sat outside in the truck for quite a while, she sat on my lap and I stroked her, and we watched the airport staff going about their business.

I'm not ready. I think they're going to call tomorrow and tell me there's nothing they can do for her, and then I'm going to have to decide what to do next. I don't want her to suffer. But she's been my friend for so very long and I can't imagine life without her any more. It's so hard with dogs, because although she knew I was sad, she didn't know why, and she was excited about going with Miguel on the plane, and wouldn't sit still for me to hug her when he said it was time to go. I don't want to know. I want her to come back, I want them to fix her, I want us to be able to snuggle and go for walks and sleep on the couch on Sunday mornings. I've walked so many miles with her, more than I think I could ever count, eleven years of walking all over Alberta, BC, and Nunavut. She's climbed mountains with me, walked through rain forests and run about madly on beaches, chasing seagulls. We even met a bear, once, just outside Lake Louise. (She didn't even bark). She was hit by a gravel truck when she was about three, and got away with just scratches. Joeby misses her. He keeps wanting to go outside to see if she's there.

Ed says that he lit a lantern for Grannie. Thanks Ed, that means a lot.

A million thank-yous to Sarah from Blogger, who rescued my blog from the accidental "delete this blog" that I performed on Sunday........

I don't follow hockey. I'm a terrible Canadian, I know, but I can't be bothered. But at the moment all the men I work with are in a hockey pool, so a lot of the talk around is about hockey. Because they know I'm ignorant, every so often they will pretend to pull me in on their side -- "Right Kate?" and I'll agree to whatever. However, unlike some I have worked with, they see no need to educate me. For which I am grateful.

Sears sent me an email yesterday, saying that the shirt I ordered was ready to be picked up. In downtown Toronto. I wrote back saying "The blue shirt I ordered was delivered already. To my house. In Nunavut."

Drove the snowmobile tonight, for the first time. I think I like driving better than passengering. This weekend I might take Rachel out to West Arm, where there are hills, and go sledding with her. She's been bugging me to go.

I'm at a loose end tonight. It wasn't very busy at work today, just cleaning up files after court, and I feel as if I have energy that could be put to use but I can't think of anything to do. I'm hampered by the knowledge that if I start something tonight, tomorrow is Cubs night and I'll be out, and Wednesday night I'll probably be tired again. So what am I doing? Reading weblogs and my email, and listening to the kids bicker about what to watch on tv.

They've settled on music videos. Gwen Stefani singing "It's My Life". Commenting on whether or not one should wear lipstick when being executed in the electric chair. Consensus is -- not. It's interesting to live with folk who have only been alive and cognizant of their surroundings for the past decade or so. Most recently I have found myself explaining Watergate, ABBA, Liza Minnelli, West Side Story, Tang, Fiddler on the Roof, and hysterectomies. I worry that they will have a whole lot to unlearn when they realize that I am not an expert on US presidential scandals, Scandinavian supergroups, Broadway, powdered drinks, or surgical procedures. But I've found to my chagrin that they only listen to short explanations, and will not sit through anything I research to present to them. A longish explanation is likely to be cut off by non sequiturs. "Is she holding a pig? Yeah, whatever, mom."

Sampling is also problematic. Playing Stevie's Edge of Seventeen the other day while I was doing housework prompted some comments about "I hate that song. Isn't it supposed to be a Destiny's Child song?" No, it is not. It's Stevie Nicks. "Is that a man? Girls aren't called Stevie." Yeah, whatever.

I had to go and look up what ABBA song Madonna was sampling in Hung Up. As in, I knew I knew it and that it was ABBA but the title was buried somewhere in my subconscious.

I called my parents tonight, and mentioned that we were buying a truck. Dad said, "What kind of truck?" I replied, "Uh, it's black." He called me an unflattering name. So, to put the record straight, it's a Dodge Dakota. And yeah, that's as much as I know. Theoretically it has an engine. It seems to drive around, at least. That would indicate engine-possessing. I don't know what kind. It seats about five if you don't mind squishing. We have no seatbelt laws here, so we can squish. There also don't seem to be any laws against hauling people in the back of pickup trucks, so we can probably 'seat' about seventeen if we need to...

Broke down today and hung curtains in the living room. The sun is nice. But it's ALWAYS and ETERNALLY shining in my eyes while I'm trying to watch tv.

I also made a slightly deformed piece of pink paper. And hung Miguel's paintings that he has done since we've been here. And pried all the used candles out of the holders and replaced them with new ones. (A bit of a pointless exercise as it NEVER BLOODY WELL GETS DARK) but oh well. They look better.

I'm told that the summer is the time when family violence is most prevalent here. I'm beginning to think I can see why.