i need a hero

Or I don't - for today, my friend Collette is absolutely my hero. She's moved off to Churchill, Manitoba for the summer (I hope it's for the summer) to run a bar there (and check out some polar bears?). Well if that lady ain't the shit at everything she does. The only person I know who can effortlessly (at least it appears effortless) end up in ridiculous and amazing situations on a regular basis. Shout out to you miss Collette. I've been flirting my ass off with a helicopter pilot for two years, and not even a mention of a free flight. Arg.

Best thunderstorm last night ever. Up here - especially when it's as dry as it is - lightning is usually very bad. I get why. And I couldn't bear another smoky summer like old 2005 (2004?). But I miss thunderstorms - they're such a common occurrence in Ontario - they don't happen that often up here. When they do, it's like magic - I wish I'd had a camera for the amazing sun-thunderstorm last night, and a way to capture and share the smell of thunderstorms in Dawson City.

tuesday is a day for canoeing.

Woke up at 8:30am to bake a cake - it's Mindy's 40th birthday today - so I was free to go out for a canoe trip down the Klondike. Then the clouds rolled in. It was sunny all morning, and it's sunny now (9pm). Although I was optimistic about the weather and thought we should just go anyway, I got veetoed, and the trip was canceled. There were some pretty loud thunder claps and a few bolts of lightning. Oh well, perhaps next week. So what did I do instead, you might be wondering? I borrowed a bike with the intentions of riding it out to Bear Creek to visit Janice and Shelby. Forty-five minutes later, I arrived - thank god they were home. The ride itself wasn't bad - the head wind at points and the traffic (worrying that a flying rock from fast moving oncoming vehicles is terrifying) were the only bad things. Oh, except for the fact that today's ride was the first time I'd been on a bike in a long time, so my butt hurts - and apparently physical activity is hard when the only exercise you get is carrying beers from one end of the bar to the other.

Best things about today: Making pizzas for Mindy's birthday with Janice and Shelby (from scratch) and hanging out with babies. Wayne and Mindy's new one, Hazel, and Doug and Ashley's new one, Cove, are hella cute. I stopped by the bar to see if anyone was around, but remembered my new plan of not stopping by my place of employ on my days off. Yesterday, I stopped in and ended up having to stick around because of a wee emergency. Which I don't mind doing at all, but if I'm not there, there could be other options instead of me having to work. And it's probably good to spend some time at home anyway.

So I've rented me a couple of movies, and maybe I'll make some popcorn.

Oh, and I made a pretty sweet birthday cake shaped like "40" for Mindy today: Carrot Cake with home made cream cheese icing. Yum.

lucy loves me

Well, I had a great start to the day. First, I fell asleep on the couch after getting home at 4am to a weird late night movie on CBC after eating another awesome midnight snack (baba ganoush and homemade chinese food from the freezer in case you were wondering). At around 8:30am, I woke up to tiny "romping around" noises much too close to me to be able to sleep through it. At first, I thought Lucy was just messing around and being crazy as she sometimes does. Then I noticed the romping had a purpose. Is that a dead mouse? Oh wait, no. It's a mostly dead mouse.... Way to go Lucy, way to go. I get that bringing in dead rodents and birds is supposed to mean that my cats love me, but I'd rather they kept their presents to themselves, or left the dead animals on the door step like civilized cats. At least fully kill them before entering the house - COME ON.



That brings this year's totals to:

• 2 live birds
• 1 dead bird
• 1 almost dead (and then dead) mouse
• 1 very dead (we're talking rigor mortis) mouse (shrew?)

Yep. I've got quite the pet cemetery going outside...

Apparently, it snowed in Whitehorse today. Suckers. It's beautiful up here. We had a ten minute thunderstorm that passed over town, but currently the sun's out , the sky's blue, and it's hot. Not as hot as Guelph apparently - A guy that checked in today said when he left a few days ago it was, like, 42 degrees. Whoa.

I'm really looking forward to my days off this week. For the first time in what feels like a long time, I have no ridiculous obligations. Maybe I'll go golfing again. Maybe I'll get out on the river. Maybe I'll watch the entire first season of Perfect Strangers.... the possibilities are almost endless. I'll definitely spend some time in my yard - the garden is coming along quite nicely - no sign of pesky aphids, the plants I bombarded with insecticide seem to be bouncing back - perhaps, I'll take a couple of photos to prove my green thumb exists....

I wish something interesting had happened at work last night, but other than being super busy, the day went by mostly uneventfully. Oh, except for, Dylan and I had our first serious collision behind the bar. I've worked closely with him for two years. We have a pretty good system when we're sharing the tiny work space at Peggy's, but last night, for reasons unknown to us, we weren't jiving at all. Toes got stepped on, bottles got dinged, multiple oopses and sorries got muttered, and for our crowning achievement, we managed to collide with a full tray of empties in between us. Other than a bit of a bruise on my arm, some drink dregs spilled on my shirt (I got the worst of it for sure), one broken martini glass, and a very loud clatter, it wasn't so bad - just slightly embarrassing for both of us. They can't all be winners.

Me and Dylan last Halloween.
In case you were unsure, he was a sailor and i was a "roll in the hay".

goes without saying

There are a lot of crappy things we put up with up here, including those mentioned above in this comic I found (well except for the pirates - there are pirates up here, but I like most of them). But the great things up here.... do they ever make up for the crappy things.

Like standing outside of a bar staring at a horse tethered to the liquor store for half an hour with your friends and giggling like idiots when the horse gets a boner (it's like we willed it to happen).
Like getting a chili dog at three in the morning and getting to tell hippies they don't know shit about that dog Chewy, and get away from him, and don't feed him garbage.
Like blue sky one minute then thunderstorm the next then blue sky ten minutes later.
Like walking down the street in a grumpy mood and having three different people ask how you're doing.
Like getting your medium cold soy latte the second you order it because they saw you walk in five minutes ago.
Like getting a drink on the house because you have no cash on you and the bartender's a good friend.
Like having your friends stop by in the afternoon to pick up the sunglasses they left in your purse last night and remind you to sew the buttons back on the shirt you ripped off of them because you thought it was a snap-up shirt. (I owe Aaron Burnie a new shirt.)
Like pretending to be a runway model in your backyard with the guys that followed you home to drink beer at five in the morning because it seemed like a fun idea - it was a fun idea.
Like not being judged the next day on your "performance" last night because it can't be worse than Dylan's performance on Tuesday, and we all forgave him.

This is why I live here.

where'd you get that sunburn?

I got asked that a lot at work tonight. It's my own fault - I know better. Damn this porcelain skin. Okay - starting tomorrow - sunscreen is becoming a part of my daily routine... stupid sun. And in my defense, it wasn't even all that sunny for most of my time outside - those pesky clouds did something. Always meddling.

In a way, this here burn worked in my favour - I had a reason to be in a bad mood at work tonight, and had a lot of fun getting people to feel how "hot" I was.

Side note: it's amazing that tips are just as good if not better when you give shitty service and are in a shitty mood.

Okay, new business. Either some one I don't know got a hold of this here blog, or one of you assholes (I can't believe you would do this to me) is playing a trick on me. There was a comment posted about the scarf I "stole". For the record, indoor scarves are stupid (and I stand by that), but i didn't steal anything. I found an indoor scarf at the end of the night, at the pit, soaked in beer and took it. It is not a silver smoking lily scarf, no chance. definitely not that classy - i would find the owner of a classy scarf - i'm not a complete asshole. And thank you (whoever you are) for making an already paranoid person give up her hopes of any good-spirited scarf-stealing fun this summer. Thank you.

who loves golf?

Apparently I do. Tuesday might have been the best day ever - or at least so far this summer. Woke up to find that most of the aphids were gone, but bought insecticide and sprayed the crap out of everything just in case.

[Update: those tricky aphids are still kickin' it old school, but only on a few plants - those guys are quarantined in the greenhouse.]

[Also: I caught Himilaya drinking water from the tray that the pesticide plants were sitting in. Should I be worried? Stupid cat.]

Once that job was done, I met up with Dylan, Janice, and Tammi to go golfing across river. From the second I got in the car, I knew this would be a fun afternoon. Sure enough, my expectations were well exceeded. Turns out, I'm a slightly better golfer than I thought (very slightly). Also turns out that drinking and driving is totally acceptable when golfing. Golf carts are very fun, and Dylan and I had a sweet ride named "SKOOKUM" - for anyone planning on renting a golf cart anytime soon, the Skookum cart is FAST. Fast enough to do this:




It takes some speed to make a golf cart skid to a stop. Ha ha ha. We did that about twelve times to get the video. I didn't mind.

After golf, I made it back to town to go on a dinner date with Wendy at the Aurora. We primarily went because Caroline (the owner of the Aurora) invited us for a free dinner to check out the new menu. Wow, was it great. I started off with a glass of lovely red french wine (I forget the name) which I probably didn't need since I was half in the bag from golfing. First course - Danish Blue Cheese, Beet, Blanched Asparagus and Greens with Beet Vinaigrette Salad. Delicious. Main course - (are you ready for this?) Veal with a Mushroom Reduction Sauce on top of Lyonnaise Potatoes with Grilled Vegetables. Holy, I love baby cow. I know it's kind of faux pas what with the small cages and being force-fed milk and horrible lives for baby cows and all, but I don't care. As far as I'm concerned make those cages smaller and feed 'em more milk. Best veal I've ever had. Dessert: Banana Spring Rolls with Bourbon Sauce and Fresh Berries. Just amazing. Go there, seriously. It's a little expensive, but not as expensive as you might think - Wendy and worked out that our meal (she had veggie options of comparable deliciousness) and wine probably cost about a hundred bucks. I just wish the decor was better. I mean the food is so good, the service is great, the wine list phenomenal, but you feel like your sitting in an old folks home or something. Rattan furniture and floral curtains have no place in a fine dining situation.

Dinner done, I headed back to Peggy's to see if I was in time to meet up with Dylan, Jenna, and Jonathan to go for a boat ride. They'd already left, so I ran to the dike to see if they'd hit the water yet. Sure enough, they were approaching my area, but on the other side of the river. I started waving my arms and screaming at them (the tourists standing nearby had no idea what was going on). They didn't see me - but, boy, if they had have driven over to let me hop in, I would have looked so cool....

A good day all-in-all.

I'm currently compiling a list of best things overheard from American tourists while working behind the bar. Molly gave me these gems yesterday:

"Iran is like another middle east or something - like Palestine and stuff."
"They knew 9-11 was going to happen, they knew", chorus of agreement follows.

I often wonder what Canadians seem like to other people in other countries.

ahhhhhh! aphid infestation.

I spent several hours raking, weeding, manuring, top soiling my raised beds and pots today to sadly discover that there are about 12million aphids all over all of the pepper plants and tomato plants. Arg. What do I do? What do I do? I am very upset about this development, and on top of this distressing news, a huge popped and full-of-dirt blister for all of my efforts. Stupid aphids. Do I even plant these things? Arg. Janice told me to look aphids up online, so I did. Insecticidal soap? Where do I get that? And at this hour it's too late. What if the plants don't make it until tomorrow, what if it's already too late? I spent so much money and time on these stupid plants.

At least the infestation hasn't reached all of the herbs I bought.

Oh well. I did get to spend a lovely day in the yard. Got a bit of sun. Felt very productive.

Aphids - who knew the tiniest little bug could ruin a perfectly good day. Obviously, I can't let it go. Maybe I'll figure something out tomorrow.