just another tuesday night???

Best day ever. Well, in a long while anyway. Woke up with a less sore throat than I had for the previous three days. Dylan came by for lunch, and we sat out in the sun chatting and drinking coffee. Started my day of cleaning convinced that today would be the day I finally get the floors vacuumed and mopped..... Then Will called to see if I was heading up the Dempster - nope, but we could play scrabble in the sunshine all afternoon...


After getting my ass kicked at both Scrabble and Boggle (i did manage to beat John at Boggle though), I decided, "why should the fun end?", and called a BBQ for 7pm. Realized right before the BBQ that I'd left the propane tank on since the last time I BBQ'd (when was that - music fest?) and all the gas had leaked out. Luckily Dylan is a master at calling in favors, and a quick call to Heidi's proved useful in our impromptu dinner hopes.





What is it with Aaron Burnie? He really doesn't like cheese - accidentaly picked up cheese smokies instead of regular ones knowing that he didn't have time to get his own steak. Dylan and I tried to just not tell him there was cheese convinced he wouldn't notice, but he did. Got to give that guy credit - I personally disagree completely with his whole cheese stance, but he's got conviction. Well, on the cheese front anyway - he did let Freddie decorate his beard with daisies...

When it started getting a little cold to be outside, we did what any sane person might do... This time of year at the Pit is awesome - well, from here on out actually... No one seemed to notice that we were getting pleasantly hammered at the pony bar (auntie's back on the rye train), and we didn't really notice that no one was noticing...




The light in the Pit is some of the best light ever - there's a lot going on in there...





When you get people to hold still, and you hold the camera really still, and there's no flash - man. If my batteries hadn't run out, we probably would have taken selfies all night. Let's go winter....




Do you think we're still arguing about cheese? Oh no, I think I was trying to convince Burnie that what this town really needs is a doo-wop band...

i'd happily kill one, if we saw one...

Where are all the grouse hiding? I was told that there were tons out and about, but could we find one anywhere? No.


The plan was, go for a drive up Hunker road, bring along Dylan's new pellet gun, find many grouse, shoot them, eat them.

What ended up happening:

a lot of ridiculous bushwacking...

a lot of aimless hiking....

looking (don't forget the looking)...

and finally, shooting a can because there was NO way we weren't shooting something.


We didn't get to kill and eat our dinner, but we did get to enjoy the beautiful fall time. I hadn't been up Hunker all summer, so that was nice. This really is the best time of year - right until the sun goes down, it's pleasant outside, the sun is warm, the sky is blue, it's just chilly enough to justify scarves.... good times.

floating is a swimming tecnique right?

My reward for making it through three days of stomach flu hell? An f-ing cold.

Of course, going out and staying out after work last night until 4 in the morning probably didn't help my condition. When i woke up this morning at 10:30, I thought my throat would fall out (is that even possible?), then i realized that i was also pretty hungover.... A half an hour after I took two tylenol cold and sinus nighttime pills (hoping that I could catch a couple more hours of zzzzz's), Dylan showed up to see if I wanted to go for coffee. I told him he should go get us coffee, and we could sit in the backyard in the sunlight. I kind of thought (and, at the time, was secretly hoping) he might not come back, but he did - with Freddie. It ended up being an awesome way to coax my body and head out of sleeping all day and missing the beautiful weather. In fact, Dylan had impressed me so much that I took his advice to go swimming with him at the pool - Wow... he's on to something - like maybe the actual best cure for a mild hangover yet. To be honest, I'm not a very good swimmer - I mostly floated and treaded water - but there was something about physical exertion in the water that made me feel a lot better. And the hot tub was pretty sweet too.

Work was okay.

a day for visits...

Stephen Harper gets here today.... But more importantly, Georgia gets here today for a visit! Dylan made the mistake of being seen in the old post office tower across from the P.M.'s secret service and created quite the security scare.... He does look a little like John Wilkes Booth in his old-timey outfit.

I still feel like shit, so no handshaking for me... It's okay, I'm gonna save my energy for next week and all the birthdays that it brings...

p.s. i love you

I feel much better today - thanks for asking.

Exhaustion has a funny way of forcing you to shut down - I slept for about 14 hours in the last 24. Maybe I was a little tired. I must have been - I watched a stupid romance movie last night (waiting for comments to flood in about my taste in movies) and cried a LOT. Lame. And not the fabric lame. Just lame.

Today, my big plan (so excited) is to do a whole bunch of yummy cooking, fold the laundry that's been in the "clean pile" in my room for two weeks, vacuum (finally), and maybe if the weather turns nicer this afternoon, take out the garden (well, most of it) - I can't imagine much more is going to grow this year.... and the flowers are pretty right now and should probably be enjoyed before they die.

Fast forward to 7pm.

What did I get done today? Nothing. Whatever I had yesterday came back, and I've been camped pretty close to my bathroom all day.

Arg.

It would be really nice to have a day for myself. Maybe tomorrow. I hope tomorrow - Stephen Harper comes to visit Dawson... Don't want to miss that.

why does it always rain on me?

That's it? The beautiful indian summer we were enjoying is over?? Seriously - get it together weather....

I had a lovely day planned with Oliver. And it started great. Janice dropped him off in his pajamas, and we chatted and decided what we would do for the day. Man, he's gotten to be such a little man. Lots of compromising. We ate some breakfast - he even tried some potato pancake against his better judgment. He got dressed by himself (in camo pants and shirt) an we were off to the store on our bikes to pick up some ingredients to make chocolate chip cookies. He thought a nice addition would be butterscotch chips - he was right. The day was going great, and Tara showed up for a visit when it hit - I have NO IDEA what happened to me, but I got really sick. It wasn't quite as bad as the food poisoning in Thailand but it was close. Thank god she was here. So, the wonderful afternoon we'd planned was ruined, and poor Shelby (although later I found out that she didn't mind that much) had to take the afternoon off to look after him. Sucks balls.

I'm feeling a bit better now, and apparently, a few people around town are strangely ill... At least that rules out beaver fever (despite boiling water at camp, I am still paranoid), and hopefully, tomorrow, I'll be back in regular form. I have a lot planned for my second day off - unfortunately this one was wasted in agony and sleeping.

Good blog entry. Maybe tomorrow, I'll tell you about that time I bought office supples - that would probably be more interesting.

back in the city

I made it.

Flying in was pretty uneventful, but informative. Last glimpses of random big machinery and old relics...





We picked up another guy - Brian - on our way to the landing strip, and of course there was time for a quick beer. Should I be proud that I finished mine before anyone else did? Probably not. I even got to sit in the front again.

Here's us landing in Dawson:



And some shots of the flight in:















You know, I live in a pretty incredible place. I mean, to get an opportunity to try something completely new is one thing... How many jobs do you get to commute to work in a plane?!? I was joking with my mom in an email the other day - what a crazy thing: to choose to isolate yourself in the middle of nowhere (I mean it's a 30 minute flight and then a 40 minute drive to the Barker Creek camp) to cook for 5 or 6 men, who are strangers (not to mention a shotgun comes with the job) - that's crazy. And awesome.


So, it's Friday - and you know what that means:


Hooray.

And I am very hung over. I ended up working yesterday at Peggy's, but because I wasn't supposed to, I got off at 8pm. Went for a lovely dinner with Sean to the Aurora, where, this time, despite loving the veal, ordered the filbert crusted salmon. I wasn't disappointed. Then, after the $200 meal (we did have cocktails and a whole bottle of wine), we proceeded to get wasted. Fun times... Sang at the Pit, yelled at Gill (who does that guy think he is, not knowing my name and calling me so-and-so on stage - arg. That guy's head is way too big), stumbled home, made popcorn - you know, the usual. Woke up to a phone call from Dylan wanting to take me for lunch. Then the headache kicked in. And what was the first thing I did at Peggy's? Dropped the bowl full of maraschino cherries in the freshly cleaned fridge. Started cleaning it up, and I guess I wasn't overly aware of where my body was in relation to the fridge, so when I stood up quickly to do something else (answer the phone, stop the sink from overflowing?), I cracked my head so hard that I thought I broke the top of the refrigerator. What a start to the day.


Two more days and Auntie gets her first day off in almost a month. And not soon enough - my house is a disaster, and I could really use some catching up on sleep.