setting things straight

Hey! This website may have sounded like a ridiculous adolescent recounting of reckless partying lately, so I want to formally disabuse you of any notions that my sister and I are not 99% fucking serious and responsible 99% of the time. Those stats equal seriously high odds of finding us ready to drive you to the airport, water your plants while you're away and stamp out frivolity wherever we see it. STAMP! STAMP!

So two nights ago, my sister and I went and camped out at the very beautiful Kusuwa Lake and then in the morning paddled the very beautiful Takhini River. The night at the lake she made a Thai green curry while I set up the tent and organized gear. Then we ate dinner on the shore of the lake as waves lapped up by our toes and the sun glowed on the mountains around us.

Then her dog* hunted something and brought it to us, so we skinned it and ate it too. That's how serious we are. Pictures in a few days.

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* (part Shepherd, part Husky, part Greyhound, part Pretty Boy, part Prince, part Two-Year-Old, part Grizzly, part Mule)

yard sale

On the Alaska Highway, by the side of the road, a sign: YARD SALE.

To the side of the sign, a few items that have been assembled there weathering winter after winter for years, including:

- lawn mower with faded paint and almost indistinguishable from rust (nearest lawn: 50 km)

- pile of metal tubes (20 cm diameter, 1 meter long)

- rake, stuck in the ground

- chair, hiding behind the fireweed

crazy on you

Well, for half of our sushi party one friend of ours walked around with sushi rollers tucked under his hat and down his pants to look like a samurai. Sort of.


He also set up a croquet course that involved bashing the ball into a bed of wild roses, then through a patch of cedars, then into the woods. He told us "60 strokes, 10 minutes, some variation."

Then, with our bellies full of raw fish (fresh salmon and tuna from the north Alaskan seas) and sake (and vodka and beer and wine), we interpretive danced to Heart, but before that, Aretha Franklin and Solvent.

All in all, another good night.

UPDATE (next morning): Apparently, we're now going to paddle the Yukon River. What books do I want to pack? If you say anything by Robert Service or Jack London I'll punch you in the throat.

one thing's for sure - we're all going to be a lot thinner!

Oh, Han, Han, Han... You're so smrt (sic).

So my new theory is that $2 pints at the Kopper King (KK) + wings (hot and honey garlic) + going home and a big bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream + Star Wars ON V-H-READ-M-N-WEEP-S = delicious.

Also, I lost my sister's dog yesterday, her beloved beast, (eyes were off that rascal three seconds) and today at 11:30 AM we found him. Thank the sweet fancy baby Jesus and the good people of the Yukon.

That is all.

Oh, and: "Travelling through hyperspace ain't like dusting crops, boy!!"

(Thinks to self: quality post, quality post...)

the circadian rhythm that makes you crowd surf

Well, that's what the Dawson City Music Festival does. The sun doesn't set, and remarkably, neither do you.

So you start the day with a seven kilometer run straight uphill, pick raspberries by the side of the road, come back to the campground, shower, and then (according to tradition) go straight to the Snake Pit (a smokey gold-rush bar with crooked floors and yellowed photos on the walls) to slam a beer.

Follow this with some ice cream down by the river, some Tuvan throat singing (mind-blowing! rent the documentary "Genghis Blues" for more info), and a brief nap in the shade. Catch some more music, pop over to Bombay Peggy's to double-fist martinis because it's time to step things up a bit (Great Lake Swimmers were terrific but a bit soporific), and head to the mainstage. By 2AM after the final act is done and you've found your missing earring on the dance floor with the help of a friendly and eagle-eyed festival volunteer, the sky is looking a little dusky but by 3 or 4 it's getting quite bright again and you're starting to think about what you'll do for breakfast in a few hours, but after you get through a few more beers, and maybe it's time to make up a gymnastics routine involving balancing on a ten-foot-long dusty board, smashing raw eggs against the back of a pickup truck, and a running-jump high-lift.

My sister and I, our stomachs aching from laughing so hard, crawled fully clothed into our tent at 7 AM on Saturday (Sunday?) only to wake three hours later to go get some Eggs Benedict at Klondike Kate's with six other pals where we debated whether a tattoo of a tear under your eye means you killed someone (our server had one).

I have some photos but I have to download them and I'm not sure if I'll do that for a while. Now that we're back in Whitehorse where the sun sets fully at midnight and rises again a little while later, I have a few minutes to catch up on sleep.

lies all lies

Posts will be more sporadic than usual because I'm on vacation! That means I'm telling people I'm in the Yukon, but I'm really holed up in my house in town double-fisting vodka sodas and drunk dialing people at 3 AM. Maybe I'll call Norman McNair! Maybe I'll call you!

If I were actually in the Yukon, I would have spent the day hanging with my sweet sis-in-law and baby niece. Then I would have gone for a walk with my sister and her dog and skinny dipped in Long Lake, where we would have splashed about in the clear water under the bright northern sun, saying "get a load of this" and mooning each other.

how I feel packing my bags at 1 AM

I hate when people pose all head-angled and pouty like they're trying (unsuccessfully) to look like a bored celeb or mimic a model pose. THIS, however, is the real brain-dead, and the pout is the inadvertent result of making the "pchhhhh" sound of a gun going off.*

UPDATE 1:02 AM: OK, like for example, where the hell is my wetsuit? You think I'd be able to locate it by the sheer stink of neoprene, but nooooooo.

UPDATE 1:11 AM: I found it! By stink! Oh god, this is all coming together.

UPDATE 1:20 AM: On my work email account, I just got the best message from one "Norman McNair":

Hello! I am bored this afternoon. I am nice girl that would like to chat with you. Email me at [email address] only, because I am writing not from my personal email. If you would like to see some of my pictures.

Boy, Norman, I would LOVE to see some of your pictures! I'm pretty het but I'm really quite comfortable with gender bending. Why, I enjoyed Priscilla Queen of the Desert! Maybe we'll strike up an erotic online relationship RIGHT NOW leading to the inevitable disclosure of my credit card number and home address. Once we've established our love as fact, you can help me find my fucking laptop bag because I need it before I get on that plane tomorrow. Thanks Norman!

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*Not that I'd know what that actually sounds like - I'm Canadian. We don't believe that everything's possible up here like I imagine Americans do, and we don't have guns. We just drink Caesars and play hockey.

let's have breakfast caesars at Klondike Kate's

Hi again little darlins!

Tomorrow I head north to the Horse. The day after that, to Dawson City! Want to come? I'm going to the DCMF again. It doesn't matter if you don't know any of the acts. The sun barely sets, the town is about seven blocks long, the river is beautiful, my sister is the most fun person in the universe, and life is gooooooooooooooooooood.

I hate the name of my blog

But it's too late to change it, isn't it.

Yes, yes it is.

I never really thought I'd do more than five posts.

this really might only be funny to blackbeltbarrister

As part of my ongoing campaign to unwittingly alienate my already dwindling readership... I give you a religious post! Bwahahahahaha. OK, quasi-religious. OK, so there are hot priests. Does that count?

So a friend of mine went to Rome and brought me this calendar as a present:


A hot Italian virgin, a new one every month!

See, for no apparent reason (mother = lapsed Catholic, father = card-carrying atheist, me = godless heathen) I went and studied Comparative Religion in university, and now my friends give me awesome religious stuff occasionally, like crosses and iconography and even (once) a little Jesus on wheels. (Even though, hey, you know, I was actually more into the Jews and the Muslims. But whatever, same diff, right?)

Now while that calendar will have to be pried from my cold, dead hands at the end of my days (I love it that much: the irony, the hilarity, and the stunning, doe-eyed Mr. July almost certainly pining to be deflowered), I really don't think my life will be complete until I have a statue of Jesus carving some sweet turns in the fat pow-pow:


Hey, even the Lamb of God needs a little turn therapy sometimes.

pooooooooooooooooo

Just found this story in my notes, recorded shortly after one of my seven-month old nieces produced the biggest poop ever.

(So right there, I've just reduced the number of readers who continue from approx. 10 to approx. 3!! Hi Mom! Hi Dad! Hi Sister!)

"Was it up the back?" I asked, (deploying what knowledge I have of these matters).

"It was up the back and the FRONT," she replied. "I had to throw out the shirt."

"Really?! Straight to the garbage?" said I, incredulous.*

"Directly to the garbage. I even considered cutting it off her body, but I was afraid to use scissors so close to a baby. It was everywhere. It was on the walls. She looked like she'd been rolling in mud. I had to use two tubs of water. And she kept flailing and reaching down."

Um, so there you go. It's been a slow Sunday because I'm afraid I'm getting that freaking sore throat back - but I fly to Whitehorse on Wednesday for two weeks of fun fun fun til Daddy takes the t-bird away - and want to be healthy.

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*For context, my older sister has already raised two babies, isn't squeamish about poop, not an exaggerator, is a huge environmentalist and is not wasteful in any way... so like, this is serious.

a proposition, a couch, a bottle of viognier

Before you get any funny ideas, you scoundrel, I just watched The Proposition and got quietly hosed on une bouteille de Viognier, un vin de Pays d'Oc par Les Jamelles, a wine I bought because of the beautiful label, and bought a case of because of the flava-flave. Delicious!

As for The Proposition, beautifully shot, and for the record, I freaking can't believe Guy Pearce was Felicia in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. Well done, sir, well done. My summary: flies, lots of flies, Irish accents, the Outback, moral ambiguity, and is Emily Watson related to my grandma? Maybe. She might be. Distant cousin is my guess.

Anyway, you, my robust and understanding little readers, you can handle the intoxicated blogging and warmly accept that I needed a (hosed) break. See, you may not know this, but sometimes I edit books on the side (if you can believe the appalling grammatical crap and sub-standard punctuation I let slip here) and on top of the old 9-5 it sometimes leaves me very very LE TIRED. But they are just so interesting, and they are part of what helps preserve my, oh, what do you call it, "will to live"... so I keep doing it. Yes. And then sometimes I find myself dancing around in a dive bar on the Quebec side in my leopard print bra with a bunch of other half-naked people in dorky costumes to shake the dust off. See? It all works out, and no one needs to know.

My astrologically fabulous sometimes roomie just informed me that my north node is in Capricorn, and you know what THAT means, kids. (Keep in mind she prefaces most of her elaborate astrologically-based hyper-analytical pronouncements informed by two years of studying with a well-known astrologer with a South-African-accented: "Now, I don't believe ANY of this but..." and do I ever love her the more for it.) Well what it means is, I supposedly have to start getting practical. Enough of this lovey-dovey nice-to-other-people thing. That Cancer agenda was my past life - apparently - and it's time to be all Capricorny and take care of the WORLD.

Uh, OK! Can I start on that by mercifully ending this post and going to bed? Please. Yes please.

why yes, I DO love pain.

Can't post today. Just go watch this:



I remembered how much I love this clip after reading Hooker's post this morning.

last night I dreamt all my teeth fell out

Yup. One by one, they'd just get loose and fall out, teeth suddenly becoming like free and jagged stones in my mouth, leaving meaty bloodless holes in my gums. In the dream I was working in some kind of facility in a white jumpsuit uniform where a co-worker explained "Well yeah, I guess it's because of that one time you were exposed to all that radiation. Shitty."

But before these anxiety-riddled hypochondriacal REM-fueled mental shenanigans, it was a great night.

Picture it: Sunday evening, a bunch of white-water river-rafting guides with Monday off for about 90% of them, all mildly agitated from a week of being consistently cordial, patient and entertaining for boat after boat of paying clients who ignore most directions and sometimes just scream and stop paddling as soon as they hit a set of rapids.

So these people find ways to reward themselves and blow off a little steam. They rent a bus, dress up in wacky outfits (this last Sunday it was a jungle theme), go to a dive bar in the middle of absolutely nowhere (this is Canada, there's a lot of that) which they completely take over as a mob, get drunk as lords, dance on the tables and speakers, strip off a bunch of clothes, bus home, love life.

Despite not being a river guide and not having a costume (other than a last-minute borrowed rough-edged skirt and a recently-acquired and inexplicably-packed leopard-print bra - which I hadn't really yet been convinced to expose*), this whole scheme somehow became a part of last night's plan.


(Not me, not my bra, but possibly the funniest photo on the entire Internet?)

Anyway, on the way out on the dirt road to the bar, my pal (who was dressed in a skin-coloured body suit with fresh leaves sewn over her naughty bits) and I followed another car full of people to what they were calling "The Scooby-Doo House". I had no idea what to expect and didn't ask any questions because it just seemed better that way.

We took a little turnoff into what more or less looked like an old driveway crowded by bushes, parked, piled out, and climbed over an old chained gate. Then we walked for several minutes down an old lane overgrown with weeds and spattered with cow shit (some ancient, some fresh), the high meadows on either side lit up with fireflies and a starry indigo sky streaked with dark clouds above.

The goal, as it turned out, was to reach this falling-down farmhouse that they described as "the most haunted house you'll ever see". (OK!)


With two small flashlights between eight people, we creaked open the door, walked through the old collapsed summer kitchen, went one-by-one over dangerously sloped floors with missing boards and gaping holes, gingerly climbed shit-covered stairs (at least 5 different kinds of animal craps in the house, easily) and tried to freak each other out.** Except for the other driver and me, all were drunk and half naked, dressed in wigs and grass skirts. Not bad! And only one person got shat on (by a very nervous swallow who was understandably alarmed by our intrusion and fluttered in a grey blur up in the dimly lit corners of the hall). Good times.

Then the rest of the night at the bar unfolded in a fun way***, and at long last we all went back and crashed. This morning I had to get up early and drive an hour and a half to get to town, get home, shower and climb into some office clothes, then get to work to be an alert, problem-solving professional for the day.

Because of the dream about the teeth, and the fact that I probably really only slept about four hours, I suffered a bit (as my leaves-on-the-naughty-bits friend put it "it feels like it takes two hands to press each key today"). Lack of hangover (I was a driver last night, after all) was a bonus, but fatigue was extreme****, and I had to keep running my tongue along my teeth all day to make sure they were still there.


(For those of you who missed it the first time, go check out my actual plaster teeth gone wild.)

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* I'm a prude.

** This was pretty easy, because it was the kind of place where you more or less expect to find a friend of yours in the basement standing facing a corner right before someone drives a cudgel into the back of your skull, and because it really did feel like the whole structure was about to come down on our heads.

*** Yeah, I guess here is where I confess that by 1 AM I was dancing around in my bra like your average small-town jungle ho-bag. In my defense, it was largely in response to a friend saying, "look, are you going to be a Sally and sit on the sidelines or are you going to just go for it and get into this?" He had a point.

**** Yes, yes, my own damn fault. I'm not complaining, just stating the facts.

girl talk

Amy: my score is still a mud puppy and a ling - i need to get out more
we should go toss a rod sometime.

Roo: where'd you catch a ling?

Amy: ice fishing last week of march
looked like it coulda walked away - catfishy, slimearoo and alienlike

Roo: wow cool and gross and fantastic.
yes
that would be great!
apparently there are lake trout and lots of bass in our lake
but I have no idea how to catch them
don't have any of the right gear -- though I have lucked out and occasionally landed a large or smallmouth bass

Amy: next time i get home i will raid grandpa's tackle box

Roo: generally I just catch rock bass, ones as big as my hand, though I suppose if I wanted to spend hours and hours I could fillet like 30 of those mofos and have a dinner ha haaaa

Amy: these dinguses have some gear here - if we have enough wine filleting 30 would be a breeze

yeah, that one

Back from the Canada Day weekend. Will post shortly. Here's one of my favourite places to sleep: this quilt, this bed, this cabin, this peninsula, this lake, this province, this country.


Where's your favourite place to sleep?

Oh, and a scene from earlier today, when I made my niece and nephew paddle me around the bay for hours without food while I rained down verbal abuse on their heads. "Faster!" I shouted. "You kids are wimps!" I screamed, and "You'll never make the Olympic Team at this rate!" I screeched. I think it was working.


Time to start restricting their protein intake, which I think is making them uppity. Few things worse than a 3 year old and an almost-5 year old with a sense of free will and like, self-respect.