So many things that happen to me at the moment, I can't talk about. Not that I'm trying to be coy, or anything, but I can't discuss what happens at work. And I wish I could, because some of it is very emotional. It was court week this week, and we had folk on remand staying the week. Usually the lockup is just drunks or mentally unbalanced folk. Not much in the way of conversation. I'll never understand drunk people. I mean, if I've already said no you can't have any coffee until you're sober, and then you start insulting me (I get a lot of racial/sexual slurs) do you really think I'm going to go, "Oh, dear, I'd better give you coffee so you stop calling me names." I know the Innuinaqtuin for stupid white chick. So don't think you're fooling me with that either. I also know most of the names for sexual organs.

Anyway. This week, with regular sober folk, I actually had some conversations, and felt like I was actually doing something useful. At 4 o'clock the other morning, before a couple of them were due to appear in court, I was listening to their anxieties...

What I'm saying, I guess, is that it feels strange to be writing a blog that can't really reflect what I'm doing. When I was running the lottery booth, I used to be able to report on my strange happenings. But not now.

I'm so jealous.

Well, not so much as a regular thing, but certainly right now. I'm jealous of the young blonde pretty girl who has blithely reclaimed her job after maternity leave. I don't think she appreciates how good she has it. But, then again, maybe that's just me being old and petty. Because I feel old and petty. It doesn't matter that I've been approached about three or four other jobs. I want her job. I feel like a vulture. And I can't shake the feeling that somehow life is not being FAIR to me. Grmph.

On a brighter note, the class I'm teaching has been superb. I've had a wonderful time debating group theories and practices with them. Trying to come up with enough material to challenge them without overwhelming them. Too much fun.

Last weekend we bought a cabin. Out by Mount Pelly. So, if any of you want to come and visit, we can retire to the edge of civilization and hide. Come north. We'll fish. Or we'll just sit on the porch and watch the lake. (We have a porch! Near a lake!)

caribou, you may be happy to hear, possess effective cloaking devices. this according to my son who went hunting with Miguel and his friends today.

Sometimes I rise to the occasion.

I'm teaching -- a class in group counselling -- and enjoying every minute of it.

My head is spinning, though, because I had to design the course in three days, to last over nine full days of school (ending next Friday). Plus I have racked up full-time guard hours over the last week. I worked a midnight guard shift starting Friday at midnight after a full day of work at the college, and by Saturday morning things were very surreal.

Cubs tonight. We're making yarn turkeys. Thanksgiving was yesterday... turkeys are still topical, I think. Perhaps we could say we're making them early for US thanksgiving?

A funny thing -- used the word postmodernist today, and had to explain it to the class. It gives me a good starting point in undercutting the whole of the textbook...

Went to church today. It happens occasionally, when I don't do a night shift Saturday night or a day shift on Sunday. Rachel is a regular attender, she enjoys the Sunday School. She remembers her verses and feels very holy.

The bored minister has gone back down south, and so the congregation is taking turns to lead the service. We don't do communion, because we're all layfolk, but it's fun anyway. Somehow we are released from the need to be pious and attentive. The person doing the sermon today talked about Hell and Lazarus. And we all giggled a bit.

I've been away for ten days. Went to see my brother and his wife, and my mom and dad. This was tiring. But I went to see Snakes on a Plane. By far the high point of the whole holiday.

But I'm back now. To my motley collection of jobs (detachment custodian, lockup guard, statement transcriber) I will possibly be adding 'teacher'. I have to go tomorrow and meet a lady at the college who says she might have a course in group counselling for me to to teach.

Joeby is blowing spit bubbles. Rachel is wearing my new shoes. Ian's crunching Werthers and Miguel is yelling at him, because he can't hear the television program he's trying to watch. Kirsten is singing to her IPod and doing her homework. It's good to be home.

FarNorth Lockup Blues

4am witness statements and
instant coffee, he said
it's over and I tried to
give him back his
ring

drunks are snoring until
woken by coffee and
the arrival of those who
work in the
day

can I have a cup of
water and a blanket, needs
are few in the dark
and then he banged my
head on the steps and
I said grow up,
baby

a drunk with a few teeth
says he'll meet me at
the Lodge for lunch.

Sometimes my hand is shaken
sometimes, hugs.
cleaning cells I find my name
in one handwriting
and 'bitch'
in another
and I know it's a boy
who I wouldn't let
have a smoke

soon, snow. soon, darkness
one day I won't smell of cheap vodka
and unwashed blankets
I'll be asleep at 4 am, without the
voices in my head, and there will
be no instant coffee, no news
in Inuktitut.
Mamiana. such a shame

My neighbour's dog, Kaylar, died this week. The vet consulted on the phone said "deathly ill. probably dying". After some discussion, (her husband is out of town and I was being surrogate spouse, I think) we decided to end the poor dog's suffering humanely. I have dogsat her on occasion, the last time for five weeks, and I've seen her go downhill over the last few months. The vet said, liver failure. Poor sweetie.

thus, at 9pm on Monday night, another friend and I were out trying to dig a hole in the tundra (permafrost's not that far down...) and joking around about Six Feet Under. We buried Kaylar out near where Jazzy's ashes are, but Kaylar's in the valley behind the hill and Jazzy's up top.

Can't resist the urge... turns out it's Red Rider I want to listen to over and over.

I had you and my poetry to protect me
We were so much younger then

Well, things change.

Now I am a full-time lockup guard. Freak me green and call me frog.....

I can't say this is my favorite way to spend time. But in some ways, it's like being the night desk clerk at a very strange hotel. Like the Hotel California, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. I sit and amuse myself while drunks sleep in the cells. The regulars know my name now. I even found my name in dispatches on the cell walls -- apparently I'm a bitch. I know who wrote that, though, and it was a young man who was trying to convince me that having a cigarette would be a good idea. I disagreed. Especially since it sets off all the fire alarms if I let people smoke in the cells...

I'm fighting the urge to listen to the same songs over and over again. It seems that that is the doorway to manic. Either it's a symptom or it's a cause, but either way listening to OUTKAST doing "Roses" or whatever repeatedly seems to trigger something. I suspect that all of it revolves around lack of sleep but I have no proof....

I'm off tonight. I called (I'm so STUPID sometimes) and volunteered to go in at 6 am . don't ask me why... All I know is that *I* like it when I know when I'm going to be able to go home, so I called and told the person who's working right now that I'd be in at 6...

Apologies for absence. I had not intended the quote from Gnarls to be the only entry last time, but the planned sequel didn't get done.

I've barely been home since the afternoon of the eighteenth. Miguel said to me on the phone today (while I was down in the guardroom yet again) "These long-distance relationships are hard." At this particular moment I should be phoning my mother and responding to emails, but I feel a need to explain my silence.

On the afternoon of the eighteenth of August, I took a call at work. For this. Some calls stop your blood from circulating. I think I handled it ok. The aftermath was time consuming. Somehow I found myself sitting in the morgue for 18 hours guarding the body, and then doing overtime guarding the suspect over the next few days. The paperwork was immense, and Major Crimes were here, big burly guys using our office space.

However, the upshot was that Major Crimes needs someone to transcribe all the interviews they conducted in town while they were here. As in all small towns, I imagine, everyone knew something and wanted to talk about it. So I'm going to be doing that over the next few weeks. The lady I was replacing came back to work this week, too. I found that hard, to give up the job, but it's all done now. And this weekend, due to a guard shortage, I've been working midnights. And while all this has been going on, I've been ill, first with a cold contracted in the draughty morgue, and then yesterday with a killer flu.

So. Crazy, yes. But it's a good kind of crazy.

I remember when, I remember, I remember when I lost my mind
There was something so pleasant about that phase.

I am enjoying my new camera. It is allowing me to chronicle the oddities of the north. Such as this. I'm wondering who decided that this sign was needed, and why?

Other people have laptop problems. In fact, according to CBC, who we all know to be a bastion of truth and non-sensationalism, it is the Summer of the Exploding Laptop.

In other news, today I met a wonderful man. So wonderful that I invited him to dinner on the spur of the moment and then had to explain what I'd done... to Miguel. I also offered to lend my boss' daughter our truck to take her drivers license test in, and I forgot to tell Miguel that, so he was a bit surprised when she showed up to get the keys.

I digress. The man I invited to dinner has been canoeing solo in the Back/Baillie/Aramark river system since July 1st. Some of my neighbours are canoeing enthusiasts, and so I invited Bob the canoe man, three neighbours, and two of their children. Suddenly we were eleven for dinner.

I should really start at the beginning, because Bob is an amazing man. In June, I received a letter at work informing me of his trip. I sent back an email, asking for his date of birth, and when the email was answered, by his wife, she told me he was born in 1936! So there's a seventy year old man out canoeing around in the middle of nowhere... Yesterday he phoned me on his satellite phone, from somewhere up the coast, because he was trying to reach people to come and pick him up, he was done. I was a bit worried, because one of the outfits he was trying to phone called me, too, and asked me if I knew what he wanted. I made a call in the afternoon to make sure that someone had in fact gone to get him. They had.

Bob came to check in with me this morning, in person, as he had promised in his letter, and I was instantly enthralled. I could have sat there all day listening to him. My boss was bugging me, after he left, saying, "Are you in the habit of inviting total strangers to dinner??? He could be an axe murderer." (Policemen can be soooo cynical...).

But it was a fantastic dinner, lots of great stories and my neighbours were just as enthralled as I was. Too much fun.

I've only got just over two weeks of work left. I'm sad about that. They will continue to employ me, as a guard, and probably to do the cleaning, but I won't get to do all the fun stuff I have been doing. We're very busy right now because of this... and other midnight activities of the more adult variety.

I worked all weekend. Not on purpose, so much, as I went on Saturday at lunch time to wash the floor in the main building (Friday was a muddy day... when it rains in this place the mud is like concrete) and was met by a panicked guard who had been working since 4am and REALLY wanted to go home. Her relief had failed to show. I arranged for someone else to come in at 4, the next shift change, and he stood me up too. So by the time I got home I'd been away for almost nine hours. The problem with doing impromptu guard shifts, that I've found in the past, is that you are stuck either reading old Reader's Digests or watching the one channel on the television. All the drunks in the tank were sleeping, so no entertainment there. I like it better when I know I'm going and I can take my writing or reading or crocheting. Or all three, in case my mood changes halfway through.

Well, my laptop is still limping along. However, Miguel brought me a beautiful digital camera back from his trip. I've never had a digital camera. Haven't even had an old-fangled camera since before the kids were born.

My laptop is dying. About every third time I start it up, it just goes through the motions but won't let me do anything. It gives me the desktop and all, but the icons are just pretty pictures, can't click on 'em. And yesterday Mozilla disposed of all my bookmarks. Argh.

It is HOT here. 22 degrees today. Not very Arctic, as such.

The National is here today. A helicopter buzzed me while Joeby and I were walking on the tundra. My neighbour is hoping we'll be on tv.

Yesterday I went off up the coast by myself. Drove the ATV up to Long Point and fished for a while. Didn't catch anything, as usual. But it was a beautiful afternoon, just enough of a breeze left over from our windstorm to keep the bugs away. So I sat on the beach with my thermos of tea for quite a while, thinking about things. The sky was blue, the water was choppy, and I saw a herd of muskox on my way back.

Today Joeby and I went for a walk on the tundra. He went swimming. I didn't. He's tired tonight. And jealous. The dog from next door is staying with us. She's very quiet, and no trouble other than a bit of nervous peeing on the rug, but Joeby seems to be feeling a need to be right next to me at all times to ensure his favoured dog status. It's funny, because I thought he missed Jazzy, and would be happier if we got another dog, but I'm beginning to think that wouldn't actually be the case. He has settled in to his only dog life.

It's been ten days that Miguel and the kids have been away. I've enjoyed the solitude, but I'll be happy when they're home. Not for another week, however. A week tomorrow. I haven't seen Ian for quite a while, as he was at cadet camp before they went on holiday. I'm looking forward to hearing all his adventures, and Kirsten's from her trip to Ohio. I think I'm starting to get a bit bored. Good thing I've got to go to work tomorrow.

One big factor in my boredom is the fact that I tried to go to the library AGAIN today and it was closed. I wish they'd just give me a key. I swear I'm the only person who takes out books with any regularity. Sometimes I come in to return books and put them in the box right on top of the last books I returned.

It looks like I'll be working until the end of August, anyway. After that, who knows. I'm going to miss it. Best job I ever had....

It's like this. Ed linked to an article about being bored by kids.

I've read the article twice, and gone through a fair number of the attached comments, and I think I've got some things to say.

I was bored by some of the more tedious bits of child-rearing when my kids were younger. The videos that got played over and over. The Berenstain Bears. Hated those books, they are so saccharine, but my kids loved them and I was forced to read them out loud. And my girls always wanted me to play Barbies.

Rachel and I (she's 11) went to babysit for a friend of mine recently. We were watching Terra (she's 3). Rachel was really doing the babysitting, but it was her first time, so I went along to provide moral support. Rachel was in the bedroom playing Barbies with Terra, and I was watching TV, and after about an hour she came out and said to me, "Mum, you go play with her. I can't any more." I sprawled on the floor as best I could with Terra, and played Barbies. It was fine, because I knew it was only for an hour or so. But I remembered the endless appetite of three-year-olds for your time. How they'd suck it all if you let them. Which I often did. Because I loved them. But Barbies, seriously, they get boring. Their stupid little clothes that don't fit over their pointy hands. Slutty clothes. On their cold plastic bodies. And the games that get played consist mostly of a running commentary from the girl 'playing', while I put different clothes on them. "Barbie's going to a dance. She needs her purple gown. Now she's going to the beach. She needs her bathing suit."

When we got home, I said to Rachel, "So. When I say I'm done playing and I go do something else, is it because I don't love you?" She replied, "NO, it's because you're getting bored."

Watching kids do sports can be boring, too. Depending on the sport. Watching a beginners gymnastic class, especially if the kids aren't paying attention, is painful. If it was interesting, on a basic level, we wouldn't bother with major league sports. We'd just show home movies on ESPN. School plays and things like that are good for the three seconds that my offspring are featured, and yawn-making the rest of the time. All the other parents are just there to see their own kids, too. Otherwise the principal wouldn't have had to remind parents not to take off home after their little darlings performed. The last Christmas production I went to, they didn't announce it, and by the time the grade sixes were performing the final song, there were about seven people left in the auditorium. Which tells me that not even all the parents attended in the first place, since there were 20 students in the class.

Ok. So I've said how I agree. But -- there are so many ways kids are not boring. There's Plasticine. I can play with that for days. There's making really messy crafts. We did lots of that. In fact, Rachel and I spent an entire evening last week making crazy collages with the pile of magazines in the living room. And there's poker. And swimming. And reading Roald Dahl out loud. And I LOVED going to the park. That was one thing that kept me sane when they were younger, (I had the three of them in four years) was just getting them out into nature and letting them run around.

I hope the woman who wrote the article is being a bit tongue-in-cheek. I'd like to think that she's not always bored silly by her kids, that she's somehow trying to be ironic, to question the motivation of the sort of people who talk to their kids in silly voices and pretend that everything the kids do is fantastic and interesting. I remember being in the grocery store one time and the cashier said to Ian, in a sickly sweet voice, "Isn't it nice that you're helping Mommy to shop. What a good boy." He was about four, and he turned to me and said, "Why is she talking to me like that? I'm not a dog."

Terra's mom said to me, when Rachel and I were leaving her house the other night, that another friend of ours who has a three-year-old boy, David, had phoned her the day before and said, "You have to bring Terra over. I'm home alone with David and I can't play Spongebob Squarepants for one more minute."

I'm all by myself at home. Miguel and the kids have gone to Edmonton and Nanaimo. And I think I might be out of work again real soon. The lady whose maternity leave I'm filling has decided (I've heard) that she needs to come back to work on Aug. 7th. Which presumably will mean I'll be out of a job. I'm sad, I had a hard time not crying when my boss told me what he'd heard, because I've been thoroughly enjoying the work. And even though I've kept trying to remind myself that it's not 'my' job, I've bonded with it anyway. However, no-one has officially told me that I'm laid off or anything, it's just all office gossip at the moment. Until I see a piece of paper, I'm gonna continue going to work.

We are having a storm. When I took Joeby out on the tundra for a walk, the wind was incredible, I could hardly walk in it. The rain is coming sideways. When I've been walking towards the Distant Early Warning Station sometimes I've come across strange things -- plastic bags and diapers and cardboard boxes way out there, and I wondered who would have brought garbage so far from town, and why. Now I know. As I was coming home, I saw three large pieces of fiberglass and a red-and-beige tarp go by, on their way to the open tundra. Fast. And high up in the air. The tarp entangled a man and a small child who were walking along the side of the road. The fiberglass just sailed. Probably a good thing I had Joeby on a leash, he's pretty skinny.