Tuesday

Tuesday is Monday's boring cousin.  The one you are too polite to ignore at the wedding so you wind up having to sit through endless stories about how he and Monday used to gang up on Wednesday and kick him in the humps. Tuesdays are jerks.

This bear is more interesting than Tuesday

Those Aren't Raisins

It seems the family living here before us made the decision to sell rather hastily. That is the only explanation I can offer for the following list of things I have discovered on our lawn, revealed slowly, item by item, as the snow melts. It's like the Easter Bunny hosted an orgy. And invited incontinent pit pulls.

"Put the kegs on the table next to the giant pile of paint cans and Doritos."

Thus far, we have discovered...

• one office chair, missing a seat
• two metal storage units
• two paint cans, colours not found within the house
• 15 beer bottles, Bud Lite (how common)
• 1 beer bottle, Cariboo Genuine Draft (this guy probably didn't get invited back)
• 2 empty vodka bottles
• half a dozen McDonald's Super Size beverage cups
• a left glove
• nine pieces of stove wood (front yard)
• a stone fire pit (back yard)
• two lawn chairs, broken
• one deck chair, ugly
• one dog house, floor chewed out
• a variety of gum and candy bar wrappers
• 3 metric tonnes of dog 'doings'
• a charming planter box containing last year's petunias and a deer skull

...and the snow isn't gone yet.

Feel the Burn

It's official. Alberta is killing me. 37 years of wonderful good health marred only by infrequent and delightfully blurry bouts of rampant alcoholism, and Alberta takes that all away with four little letters that sound more like a wart than a stomach condition. After months of suffering through heartburn and lack of sleep and voluntarily giving up coffee, chocolate, sugar and beer and everything else that makes life worth living, I am being assessed for ... GERD. (That means heartburn from Hell, the acronym really doesn't make sense to me either.) 

Remember that time when you woke up from a good night's sleep after a night spent munching nachos and sipping beers with friends, did some yoga and then had a cuppa joe with your bacon and eggs? I hate you.

I am now that annoying person in restaurants who orders a salad, hold the dressing and everything else that essentially makes it salad and not just a plate of what amounts to very expensive grass. "I'll just have a bowl of leaves with a glass water, thanks." 

Giving up coffee in the mornings was the hardest. Giving up a beer on the weekends was also the hardest. Giving up everything that could possibly cause the slightest shift in my pH  also made it possible to sleep at night without wondering if I'm having a heart attack so I guess that's the silver lining. 

This actually looks soothing.

Thank heavens I don't have to give up sushi because, once again thanks to Alberta, I already have.

Luckily, I'm Already Crazy

Moving about the country as we do it is sometimes hard to feel as though one fits in. A person has to be really strong in their sense of self to handle this sort of constant upheaval or else they could snap, go crazy and really lose their identity.

Fortunately for me I am already a sociopath.

I also like the great outdoors so, chameleon-like, I will blend in with the closest group of hippies in my geographic location. In BC, this was actually harder than it sounds because of, well, B.C.  There are just so many groups to choose from there. Did I want to be an art hippie? An environmentalist hippie?  A crazy hippie? Eventually I gravitated towards surf hippies, not because I have anything against trees or pottery or wife-swapping but because I figured, since I'm never going to give up my pink Daisy razor in defiance of the preconceived notions of feminine beauty dictated by the male oppressors, I may as well get some mileage out of my smooth underarms and flounce about in the waves in a rash shirt.

Also, it was easier than being a vegetarian.

I'm finding it a little tough out here in Alberta, as well. They have a whole other word for hippie out here: target. I was starting to get a little worried that I may actually have to develop a personality of my own until, out of the corner of my eye at the 12th Annual Cold Lake Home And Leisure Show ("Mini Doughnuts on sale now!") I spotted something familiar. People wearing toques indoors. They were wearing organic bamboo cargo everything, sporting serious boots and eating trail mix. Hippies!  And not just any sort of hippies but my very favourite sort, canoe hippies! They embraced me as one of their own when I demonstrated that I knew which end of the paddle goes in the water and was able to say the words 'pit toilet' without throwing up in my mouth a little bit.

Husband and I had originally planned on heading back to Tofino at the end of August, in order for me to get some salt in my blood because I miss my ocean so. Now, though, we are seriously considering an extended canoe trip into the wilds of the Canadian Shield in northern Saskatchewan.  Although I do miss the ocean, I grew up on lakes and rivers and for the first time Alberta is reminding me a little bit of home. Canoe hippies are people I understand, they know the hardships of bears in the camp and pine-scented biodegradable shampoo/dish soap. They come from all walks and will not judge my need for under-eye cream even though we are on day 6 of an 8 day trip. They will not fidget with their holsters if I say the words 'recycling' or 'hold the beef'. They are my new favourite thing.

However, just for fun, and because old habits die hard, I still like to ask for the vegan option at the steak house.

Noli Me Tangere

Noli Me Tangere: "Don't touch me, you greasy little back country rapist"

Creepy grocery store stalker, 
I watched you watch me from behind the pineapples.
You aren't fooling anyone with your dark sunglasses
In this brightly lit store.
You tried to hide when I caught you in the feminine hygiene aisle.
Use tampons often, do you sir?
Leaning in to whisper in my ear in the check out line 
Nearly got you killed by the two good old boys in front of me.
I wonder if that was part of your plan?