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.

The stone church. Angaatdjuvik uyarak -- nutakat ikipkaqtaa.

I think we may have arranged to buy a truck. Which is very cool as it will make it easier to go camping this summer.

Ed's in the Relay for Life... go give him some money.

And Ed -- please just carry whatever you want. Or just run/walk/limp/follolop. Or carry Delia's sign a bit further. I'm shy.

someone burnt down the old church... sad.

Earlier this week. Caller reports, "someone stole my kalvik." Call meanders on, yeah, we usually leave it in the porch overnight, forgot and left it outside, it was gone this morning. I'm taking it all down, but I'm a bit hazy on what a kalvik is. Kamiks I know, that's boots. So I say, "ok, so someone stole your, what did you say, your kalvik?" And the response is, "that's right, someone stole my good wolverine." I've been wandering around saying that to myself. (ok, and other people.) Stole my good wolverine. I had visions of an angry, toothy little carnivore being subdued and spirited away, scratching and nipping, perhaps stuffed down the front of someone's coat, but clarification came later, when I was explaining it to those on duty -- it was a wolverine pelt, stretched on poles. Its owners were displaying it. Anyway, all's well that ends well, the good wolverine was found. Case closed...

It is WARM!!!! It was 0 degrees Celsius today and there were puddles. I was out without toque, gloves, or snowpants. This weekend I may go for a longer walk. The days are very lengthy, now, it's fully light by 4am and it stays light until 11 at night. I've woken every morning this week at 3:30 and thought, "must get up, it's getting late."

I am still, for anyone who cares, not smoking. Soon it will be three months.

Jazzy's no better, but she's no worse either. Miguel's going to Edmonton the second week in May and he's going to take her with him. That way he can be with her at the vets while she has a biopsy done. Poor sweetie. She's still eating well, and playing with her furby, I just don't want to believe that she's REALLY ill...

this time last year we were in England... the Tate Modern.

I'm still up. That's always the problem with working until midnight, I can't unwind and go to bed immediately I get home. I'm starting to get tired now, though. I'm moving into that stage of things where I think I'm craving things (food, drink; something unspecified) but I'm actually just winding down, I think.

Stevie Nicks has been playing in my head all evening:

Somewhere out in the back of your mind
Comes your real life and the life that you know...

Well lately I've been thinking
That the rooms are all on fire
Every time that you walk in the room

I downloaded it off limewire the other day, and it has set itself comfortably in my Windows Media playlist between Simon and Garfunkel and Sting. I was looking for Bruce Springsteen's I'm on Fire because I'd been quoting the lyrics to Ed, and Stevie popped up in the search. Somehow her lyrics are not stellar, I can't tell you I think she's a fantastic poet, a wordsmith -- it's in how she sings it.

Somehow I ended up guarding this evening. There's a beer dance in town tonight and no-one wanted to work. I had another one of those "How the hell did I get here" moments as I was walking down the hallway to check on folks. We actually had some laughs, tonight, as there were two sober weekend sentence servers and then a drunk got brought in midway through the evening. He was very voluble, and spent some time trying to persuade me to marry him. He talked me into singing him a lullaby, because he said he couldn't go to sleep without music, and once I had sung to him he actually went to sleep. The sober guys just thought all this was hilarious. They were ribbing the drunk guy because he hadn't even made it to the beer dance, got arrested before it started, but he took it pretty good.

It was funny, too, because when they first put him in the lock-up, he poked his head out the little window and said to me, "What side are you on?" I said, "Do I have to pick a side?" He said, "yes." I said, "What side are you on?" This stopped him cold, pretty much killed his line of questioning, as he didn't have an answer for it.

I was thinking about it later. Am I on any side? What sides are there? I used to think I had to pick a side, but somehow the boundaries get blurred. I have no objection at all to taking care of the folks who are staying in cells. I made coffee for them and talked to them. Fed them their dinner. Listened to their fears about their children. Basically acted as if they were at my house. Even pushed the tv over so they could watch the hockey game. I can do the job without being mean or nasty. The other day I answered the phone and the person on the other end was complaining about somebody I know. (She's drunk and she won't leave) I said, "Put her on the phone." Then I said to her, "Hey, it's Kate. You don't really want the police to come down and pick you up, do you?" She said no.

For Ed -- on teaching up North. (or should it be Up Norther? relative to that town you say is officially north. We're north of north.)

three additions to the last post:

1. the man in question is merely 'alleged' to have threatened half the town.

b. my father-in-law sent us a huge bag of jelly bellies (44.00 postage) which we hid in our bedroom and have been snacking on their multi-coloured wonderfulness all day in secret, so sugar overload may contribute to my maudlin mood.

q. Miguel is watching Bob Ross if you don't know what this dude looks like you gotta go see...

I had a third one, but I can't think of it.

Yesterday, at work -- a small girl of about five or six came in with her mother. Her mother was in the interview room, and the small girl was lurking in my office. At first she just grinned at me, but then she spied the foam polar bear on my desk and came to investigate. Then she turned big brown eyes on me and announced "I like to draw." So I pulled out pens and paper, she pulled up a chair, and we drew pictures. We drew ourselves, and puppies, and houses, and she wrote both our names and the name of the support worker who was helping her mother. It tears at my heart to know that the situation at home that brought her mother to us will affect this little person...

Later on a woman I know came in to fill out a criminal record check, as she's a new foster parent. She brought along her foster child, who I recognized. I know her mother, and I know that her mother has been trying to get her life together so that she can keep her daughter. I only hope it's not too late, and the foster care will be temporary, just while my friend finds her feet.

Court starts tomorrow. The circuit only comes about every six weeks or so. We have, in a town of 1300 people, some 100 matters on the docket. (Although one guy is responsible for a whole whack of them because he threatened to kill a lot of people...) All my files are ready, but I'm well aware that each file contains someone's life, their hopes and dreams, as well as the details of "what they did."

You will forgive me for my sentimentality today. Put it down to lack of reading matter. Although, as soon as Dustin gets here to start his new job I'm sure it will be just fine..........

My mom is sending me a book. I am considering B&E at the library if they don't reopen soon. My nice librarian, the one who allowed me to take more than my quota of books, went back to Devon. I miss him. A new librarian is advertised for, but no applicants yet. If anyone reading this feels like a radical move, please let me know. I need books.....

Today, in foodmail, we got French bread. It was semi-frozen and the crust was a bit chewy but we had it with spaghetti and it was wonderful. Funny how I always took for granted the accessibility of fresh bread, oh, pick up a loaf for dinner. Here it's Wonder Bread. White or brown, your choice.

Last night when we went for dinner with Miguel's coworkers, they asked me, "What do you do now?" I was working at the health centre for a while, but then I got offered a position with the police, to fill a maternity leave. I do just about everything, really, that they'll let me, lots of paperwork, talking to anyone who comes to the door, helping people with pardon applications and criminal records checks and drivers licenses, chatting with lonely people and drunk people and people who need the police. I'm working on organizing all their files, they've only had someone in the position I'm doing sporadically over the last few years and there's a lot to do. And I've been updating all their contingency and emergency plans, and their contact lists. I feel useful. And, I've found, that the constables and the sergeant genuinely care very deeply about the inhabitants of this out-of-the-way little community, and do everything they can to help.... they are very gentle, and they work very hard. They let me deal with a lot of things on the phone, making it so that sending the police is not the first response, if a little bit of listening is really all that's needed. I'm learning a lot...

Dinner with the neighbours was good. Food was eaten, they brought wine, we talked about art and life. The kids played upstairs.

I'm very much enjoying my time off. I needed a long weekend. Don't even really want to go anywhere, just decompress. Rachel and the neighbours have gone off tobogganing, Ian is still in Yellowknife, Kirsten amuses herself well, with the occasional need for snacks and to impart random pieces of information about her complicated online roleplaying game. So I have been able to please myself today. Had leftover dessert from last night for lunch. In a while we'll make pizza for supper. It's all good.

This week at work was interesting. The corporal has gone off to Arviat, one of the constables is on holiday in Nova Scotia and another one went on a prisoner escort, so that left the sergeant, me, and a constable we borrowed from Toronto for a month. So, suddenly, I'm the one with the most recent knowledge of who's on probation, who's been picked up for what in the last little while, and what stage court cases are in. I guess I almost didn't realize how much I've learned until I had to start explaining things to someone new - ever since I've been there it's been me getting things explained. Me asking a million questions. And the sergeant is leaving soon, his rotation's almost over, and the new sergeant called wanting to know about the community and living up here.

I am off work today. I forgot that I would be off today, yesterday, and so I didn't do something yesterday that I normally do on Fridays. (with me? yeah, it was hard to explain to my boss, too.)

I called my boss to tell him, I usually schedule guards for the weekend on Friday afternoon, because they have to start work at 6pm, but that I hadn't done it yesterday. He seemed confused, said to me, "So there's no-one there now?" Turned out that he thought, since he was at home, that it was Saturday and the 'spend-the-weekends-in-jail' folks were over in the lockup without any guards. (not that that would have happend, the guards don't leave without a replacement, but still) Once we got all that straightened out, I felt better. But I really hate having to admit I've forgotten something. I want them to think I'm infallible. And I hate that feeling when I remember something I forgot. Like an elevator in your stomach suddenly plunging to the bottom of the shaft. Oof. I forgot.

Then, for some reason, I invited the neighbours for dinner. Now I hafta cook. But my son and my honorary son have gone to Yellowknife to shoot guns with the other army cadets, so the house is devoid of teenage boys. Maybe there'll be food left for the rest of us. (why did I invite the neighbours????)

Fun thing today, though, being guest contributor on Ed's blog.

Reading one of the magazines I got suckered into because I wanted Macleans and it came as a package, I came across an ad for this event. I've been pushing it around in my mind ever since, because I was very curious about what a "life strategist" could do for someone. I went to Ms. Rubin's homepage and took a quiz. It seems I am not ambitious enough.

Strategy? For life? I think if I had to declare one, it would be like cooking spaghetti. Periodically I throw things at the wall to see if they stick, and go from there. Hence my current situation. If I had ambition, I think it might mean that I had to narrow my focus and could not be free to chase interesting opportunities. So, maybe a little bit of dog-in-field-full-of-rabbits strategy. Ooh, there's one, let's chase that for a while. Bigger one over there? I'm off with my tongue hanging out. There are too many interesting rabbits and pots of spaghetti to cook, I hate to limit myself to pursuing or boiling just one. Metaphors thoroughly mixed. My work here is done.