Goin' Snakes!

Last Saturday was a blitz of fun, bookended by two looooong days of driving. Man, this country is big.
Friday morning we undertook the drive to Calgary and arrived at Mom's house around 7:00. We had a delish dinner and great chats, as always. I picked up my tap shoes in preparation for my adult tap/jazz class to start next weekend! Wheeeeee! I can't wait.
Saturday was a crazy day. We hung out chez CRs in the morning and then picked up Michael, who had taken the bus down from Edmonton. (It's great having responsible friends live in our old house...worry-free!) Michael and James headed off to play "championship" mini golf with Cory and pals for Cory's birthday, while I went to the Campbell's house for a work bee. Bekki's wedding will be decorated with all kinds of paper treasures, from gorgeous place cards and table numbers to corsages and pew flowers. Our task for the day was gluing wire to the back of magnolia petals. The flowers turn out to be about 10" in diameter...
they are going to look absolutely stunning on the pews. I was a surprise visitor for Bekki, so it was a lot of fun to turn up and help unexpectedly. There remains a lot to be done before the wedding, but such is the way. It was fun to catch up with Aunty Cheryl, Aunty Deb, and Uncle Glen (none of whom I'm related to, of course). As always, there's a lot going on in that family...not only is Bekki getting married, but Jamie (her older brother) is engaged, and both Cheryl and Glen are retiring. Of course, they're the kind of people who'll be busier after they retire than they were while they were working, but I hear that's half the fun.
After the work bee, James and I drove all over the city in search of Brian and Breanne's wedding reception. (For you Calgarians out there, we drove from Scenic Acres to Rocky Ridge or something like that--the NW city limits--got completely lost, and then eventually found our way to Harvest Hills.) Bri and Bre, as we've been calling them, got married on the beach in Mexico last month, and so they were having a party Calgary-style for those who didn't make it (and many of those who did). It was a lovely, relaxed atmosphere with plenty of good catching up to do.
James also put the engineers to work on his birthday present from Brisket, which featured the most complicated wrapping job ever: a wooden box, glued and nailed shut. Fortunately, Steve quickly identified the best course of action, procured the appropriate tools, and was into the box in no time.
We kept the box to wrap Brisket's next present in!
We took an early leave to head to our next engagement, which was a BBQ chez Brisket and Andrea. The whole gang was there, and we were engulfed with hilarity in no time. James and Cory both have birthdays in August, so there were some great presents being exchanged. Of note were Todd's presents: apparently, he wasn't sure what to get either of them. 'I can't just put money in their cards,' he thought to himself. 'That's what their grandparents would do.... hmmmmm...' and the idea struck. So James and Cory were both presented with money inside "To a wonderful Grandson" cards, as well as a roll of Werther's Original to complete the experience. That's some inspired gift-giving, I think.
I ran off a bit early from there (for you Calgarians keeping track, this was in Braeside) to meet Toph and Christopher, who had been doing the Chinook pub crawl (East Side Mario's, then Moxie's). We had a brief but fabulous chat, and then Christopher and I headed off to meet the whole rest of the gang (seriously, there's no other appropriate word for it) to see
SNAKES ON A PLANE!
It was the perfect environment for it--few other people in the theatre but two rows of us, crammed in together. And when Chris and I walked into the theatre, who happened to be there by sheer and utter coincidence but Poonwah!
Poonwah, who had returned from Afghanistan not one week earlier. I had thought he was still in Edmonton, but there he was! I finally got to meet the famous girlfriend, if only for a couple of minutes. SO good to see him, safe and sound, living and breathing.
And as the capper, there was the movie. Oh man, oh man. Moviegoing experiences this fun are very rare. We killed ourselves laughing all the way through, and we all chanted Samuel L.'s famous new line in unison (and cheered after it was said). If you haven't seen it, GO, but go expecting a hollywood parody. A HILARIOUS hollywood parody. (Or is that an hilarious?)
We celebrated as Samuel L. afterwards:

Finally, Jimmy and Michael dropped me off and then went on to Nick's place, where they and the glorious Columbus Blue Jackets won the virtual Stanley Cup for (I think) the third time. It was a raucous video game party from 1 to 5 in the morning, which was the perfect ending to the day.
(Oh, and if you're still mentally mapping, that was Chinook to University Heights to Edgemont. Not to mention the fact that we'd come up from McKenzie the night before. It was basically the Tour de Calgary.)
Sunday morning was church at Prince of Peace followed by brunch in Strathmore with Mr. and Mrs. Cooley. Great classic breakfast food at Smiley's in Strathmore--worth the drive. The Cooleys, in typical generous fashion, sent us off with armloads of fresh venison sausage. Mmmmmm! Michael and his parents then headed up to Edmonton, and Jimmy and I got on the road. Of course, we bought 99cent/L gas in Strathmore--unbelievable that that's what passes for cheap these days; time for a Smart car--and got on the excrutiating road to Regina.
The great thing about travelling on a Sunday was that Jimmy was still wearing his collar.
When we both went in to the gas station, apparently we left a car window open, because we returned to find a bottle of In Kahoots brand marinade and a bottle of hot sauce, plus some literature, courtesy of the guy driving the In Kahoots truck who had just left the gas station. I guess he saw the 'minister' and decided to leave a free sample! Ah, the privileges.
Predictably, the drive back was awfully boring. We did our best, but we were both stir crazy before we'd even crossed the Saskatchewan border, and that's with approximately 4 hours left to drive. I think next time, we'll fly.

Birthday bash in the Sin City of the prairies

Pop quiz: where can you find a fun getaway with great food, entertainment, accommodations, and a rich history of prostitution, rum running, and gangsters? That's right, kids--It's party time in Moose Jaw!
This was my second time in the Friendly City, as Mom and I visited the week before. We were so impressed with our tunnel tour that Mom decided a tour would be a great birthday present for Jimmy. So away we went!
Moose Jaw, or "Moozjuh" as the locals seem to call it, has maintained its historic downtown buildings beautifully. They're focusing on the tourist trade and doing a great job of it. There are roaming tourist info people, lots of signs, and free parking for vehicles with out-of-province plates. Woo! Did I mention that before? Well, I 'm just so darn pleased with us for having our Alberta plates actually accomplish something good.
Our first stop was the Western Development Museum, at the recommendation of James' parents who vacationed in Saskatchewan last summer. The museum in Moose Jaw is one of four branches (the others being in North Battleford, Saskatoon, and Yorkton) and specializes in the history of transportation on the prairies. They had a miniature railroad set up, revealing my long-lost Moose Javian relatives:
There were lots of rail cars and related vehicles (like a car converted to run on rails for the fancy railroad higher-ups to ride in, no doubt), lots of cars and trucks and things that go, and lots of airplanes. There was an electric car developed in the early 80s that could go up to 100 kph and could travel 160 kms on one charge! What happened? We need those! I want one! Apparently, it wasn't sturdy enough to survive Saskatchewan winters, but neither can a Vespa. We could think of no reason why that car hasn't been further developed. But anyway, at least we got a chance to do some piloting:

There's Jimmy at the controls, and me ready to jump ship.
From there, we free-parked ourselves downtown, did some tap on the amphitheatre,
and went on the two tunnel tours. Unfortunately, they don't let you take snaps down there, so I have no visuals for you. But we enjoyed both tours very much, even though the Chinese immigrants one was a bit depressing and preachy. It's amazing to go across a street and in the second floor of a building, and then wind up on the other side of the street at the end of the tour. Those tunnels go everywhere! The Chinese immigration one was particularly cool, because we got to see manholes and steam pipes. (Apparently, the tunnels were originally constructed for steam engineers to perform boiler maintenance, and only later were used for such excellent pastimes as stowing immigrant workers and transporting booze for gangsters).
After dinner in a surprisingly hip restaurant (where James had steak and kidney pie--blechhh!) we decided that the mineral spas would be much more appealing if it wasn't deadly hot outside, so we headed for the air conditioning of the Casino Moose Jaw. It's pretty small--just a room full of slot machines and a couple of poker tables. We won about three bucks on the Double Your Monkey machine, but then got run ragged by cowpokes, pirates, and island folk. Jimmy proudly emerged with 3 cents remaining from the $10 we'd started with. NICE.
It's entirely possible that we stopped for delicious gelato and fudge before heading back to our motel.
I admit to a stroke of genius when choosing our accommodations. The Prairie Oasis Tourist Complex is a little slice of wicked awesome. Not only was the room much more decent than I'd expected from a motel-campground type of place, but they also had mini-golf and the best indoor waterslides ever! We spent an hour running up and sliding down and running up and sliding down. It was wicked! Especially good because there were no lines to wait in. Just slide away! Oh, so good. We will definitely be back--especially because we won a round of two-for-one mini-golf.
The next morning I went to meet Mack, which was an inspiring experience.
He's sizeable, that guy! We drove down to Caronport to eat breakfast at The Pilgrim, which is a restaurant run by a Bible college where the menu is cleverly called The Pilgrim's Progress Report. Sadly, though, the restaurant has closed since Jimmy visited there in 2000 on his cross-Canada road trip with his dad. Dejectedly, we went back to the Jaw for breakfast (weird, weird breakfast--i ordered fruit salad which came with ice cream(?!), and James had a Chinese buffet) and headed back to town. The great thing is that travelling to Moose Jaw takes just about the same amount of time as driving across Calgary, so it's pretty darned convenient. We had a great time, and now Jimmy is appropriated feted, birthday-style. Phew!

Le boy du birthday

It's that time of year again--time to shower the Jimmah with a massive birthday haul, make much, eat cake, and go off in search of extreme amounts of fun.

Jimmah's birthday began an evening early this year, with a night-before present in the tradition of the Christmas Eve pyjamas Bjorn and I always got. It starts the excitement early, but also relieves some of the tension in the hopes that you might actually sleep that night. I always loved it, so I thought Jimmy might, too. I presented him with the craft-store storage system I'd devised for his Heroscape dudes. Admittedly, it was a gift for me as much as for him: no more foot-piercing figurines lying around.
He happily played with his armies of vikings, Greeks, Samurai, robots, secret agents, dragons, werewolves, and kyries well into the night.
The morning of, I fixed up his current favourite breakfast (courtesy of the Lea & Perrins cookbook Heather sent for my birthday) and watched as he giddily tore into his massive stash.
Needless to say, he was thrilled to bits with all his wonderful gifties, and has played with/read/worn/drank/watched almost all of them already.

Unfortunately, duty called, so our Jim was off to the office for a hard day's work. Fortunately, his lovely and caring wife slaved over a hot grocery store all day and brought him a nice cake.
Bev (the church secretary) and I sang him happy birthday and enjoyed some chocolatey goodness. Good ol' Co-op.

Seeing as it's impossible to get more work done after one has been eating chocolate cake, Jimmy agreed to let me steal him away on an extended dinner break. After a bit of searching (the addresses in this city follow no greater organizational principle whatsoever) we found the Red Lobster that would serve up some delicious fish and chips to the birthday boy.
Work duties called once again, and so Jimmy's birthday ended with a church meeting (which took for EVER), but at least that meant the treasurer could be hassled into coughing up a paycheque. Not a bad ending to his special day.

But fear not--more festivities were on the way!

Tuesday was technically a work day, but we spent it colouring Shrinky-dinks to send out to the Sunday school kids. In the evening, we met up with Pastor Bryan and his wife Bev (not the church secretary) to catch the summer's final instalment of the Sunset Ceremony down at the ol' RCMP academy.
I'm pleased to report that these cadets were much more on the ball than the ones Mom and I saw parading last week. They have graduated to red-coat stage, which apparently means that they can march in time without tripping. Some olde tyme NWMP folk ran out, hauling a cannon
and then by a very clever rope-pulling manoeuver, stopped the thing, loaded it, aimed it, and fired it! Wooo! That was definitely the most exciting part of the ceremony, which made the rest of it kind of anticlimactic. But we still enjoyed the band and the officers marching in formation, making patterns and spinning in pinwheels.
Dance, RCMP officers, dance for our amusement! The flag-lowering ceremony provided some extremely Canadian snapshots,
but was a tad on the pathetic side, as it took place to the sound of one lone glockenspiel ting-ting-tinging The Maple Leaf Forever. In the end, it was all worth it because we caught a glimpse of what I can only assume to be the RCMP pace car
and scored some wicked paper hats.
The evening concluded with a nice trip to the pub to get to know Bev and Bryan. We just keep getting more and more comfortable here. It's dangerous how much we feel at home! My big excitement of the day came when we got home to find a message offering me my first real editing job.
Celebration time!

A heckuva coupla days

Well! Have I got stuff to tell you.
So there we were, last Thursday. We started the day with breakfast with Karim, 'brown brother' to Bjorn and me. We had a really nice time catching up after three years. We surmise that he is well and happy, which in turn makes us happy.
James then headed off to work and Karim to Calgary, so Mom and I were left to our own devices. We hopped on the highway to Moose Jaw, where we enjoyed free parking thanks to our out-of-province license plate. We went on the excellent tour of the tunnels (character interpretation at its best, as well as its most mediocre, but the tunnels alone are enough to keep you grinning in disbelief. Plus, it's sooo nice and cool underground.) We tried our best to experience the Friendly City, but the heat was absolutely deadly. In the end, we managed to get to a classic small-town cafe before running away from that fiery furnace.

We arrived in Regina just minutes after Murray and Natalie had also arrived. Mom relaxed in air conditioned comfort at home while we did the same at our local Houston Pizza.
Hard to believe they'll be gone for an entire year... Who will we have rousing games of Things with now? Sigh. But we did have some pretty wicked pizza.

Friday our tourism continued. We began the day with the RCMP museum, which was amazingly informative and requiring of more time than we had to devote. I'll definitely be bringing Jimmy there to see the spy gear and Sitting Bull's tobacco pouch. At precisely 12:50 the Sergeant's Parade or Drill or whatever it was began out on the parade square. The cadets marched and marched and stood and stamped and counted off while the cadet band tried to play in time (and even sometimes in tune).
Mom and I giggled and made snide comments as the future members of our venerable RCMP fell out of step, tripped over their own shoes, and generally sucked at turning corners in formation. But they did their darndest, and I didn't envy them one bit as they filed past us, enduring constant reprimands from a seriously intimidating officer.
Go, cadets, go! One day you will earn your red serge.

Then we were on the road towards Saskatchewan's Dirt Hills (sounds appealing, no?) and the Claybank Brick Plant national historic site. It's an old brick factory, built near the beginning of the last century and in active production until 1989. We had a very Markervillian lunch (including delicious, classic Saskatoon berry pie....oh man!) and took the tour guided by a local high school student. I admit to my horrible prejudice, assuming that her tour would be half-assed, but this girl knew her stuff. She joked and chatted with us, and clearly cared very much about the upkeep of the brick plant. We learned about the brickmaking process and about the horrible labour conditions endured by the poor dudes who sweated in its intense heat (maintained to keep the bricks dry). Apparently the layoff - rehire cycle was so frequent that when it was announced that the plant was closing, the workers collectively said "yeah, right" and left most of their effects intact. As such, the place is a ghost town, with jackets still hanging on hooks and tea kettles sitting out. There were even metal filings on one machine, looking like they'd only been there since closing time.
From the smokestacks to the kilns to the rail cars, the whole place had a disconcerting, Holocaust feel to it. But we enjoyed ourselves very much; now, when we see pictures of the Chateau Frontenac, we will know that its central tower is faced with Claybank Tee Pee Moka brick.

On our way back to town, we watched farmers out on their combines kicking up a fine golden dust, and we even had to slam on the brakes to let an antelope cross the road. So very Saskatchewan!

Mom's flight left at a horrific hour the next morning, so she and I went off to the airport at 4:00. Even with the milk-tasting and juice-confiscating restrictions in place, she made it home with no problems.
So that was mom's trip to Paskatchewan--a nice vacation for all of us. But my tourist odyssey continues... you just might have to wait a few days to hear about it. Ohhhh, the suspense!

Milton up a tree and other Saskie adventures

Note to self:
If you ever consider taking Milton out on a picnic againdon't tie him to a tree. This will happen.
You will try to get him down, but he won't budge.
Eventually you'll have to wait for him to take his own sweet time to get down.

But anyway,
this is our week of visitors! First up: Mom! Hooray! After braving the gawdawfully early morning flight from Calgary, Mom arrived this morning. We headed down to Wascana Park, stopping first at the church to show off Jimmy's grownup office. We explored the Royal Saskatchewan Museum--always fabulous--and then had a lovely patio lunch. We took a tour of the Sask Legislature, which is remarkably opulent (Swedish, Italian, Cyprian, Canadian, and American marble!) and quite large, especially considering that this is a province of only 975 000 or so. We saw all the essential things, like the busts of Tommy Douglas
and Dief the Chief,
as well as a portrait of a stogie-puffing premier.
Important Saskie artifacts are preserved at the legislature, such as the hallowed curling rock
and the ubiquitous sheaf of wheat.
Now that's Saskatchewan right there.
It was quite a fruitful afternoon, as James found a new job as Speaker of the Legislature.
We toured the Queen Elizabeth gardens, yes, wot, I do say, indeed.


The evening will bring a walk in the park and likely some Gilmore Girls. Tomorrow morning we see visitor number two: Karim!

Richard Simmons, armless volleyball, and Crazy Mouse for free!

In the spirit of summertime fun, we did what all urban Canadians must do: visit the local exhibition. In Regina, it's called Buffalo Days, and is themeless as far as we could tell. It had all the usual stuff--midway, mini doughnuts, B-grade bands on a free stage--but it also had many unexpected treats. Unfortunately, it wasn't exactly camera-friendly, so I can't supply any visuals. I will rely on words alone to explain our fabulous tale of adventure!
I think I'd better go chronologically, for fear of forgetting things. Here, in point form for the attentionless MTV generation, is our adventure:
-Arrival, wherein we discovered that small cities rock because parking is only $3 at the exhibition grounds, and you pay your gate admission as you drive in. Smart.
-Exploration, where we sussed out the lay of the land, noting the abundance of Stewie Griffin-themed carnival games.
-"K9s in Flight," which consisted of some guy yelling unintelligible things into a microphone while he threw some frisbees for his dogs, who had about a 75% catch success rate.
-Petting zoo, including the usual goats, pigs, sheep, bunnies, cow, and llamas, plus cages of snakes, and a blue-tongued skink which closely resembled the one which used to reside in one Tony Russell's lab at U of C biosciences and which was named James (after James, of course).
-Barrel racing in the arena where the Regina Pats (WHL) play. Kind of disconcerting to have horses thundering around indoors.
-The North American Sepak Tarkaw championships. This is essentially volleyball played with anything but the arms. Kicking and heading were the most common moves. It's played with a ball made of hard plastic woven strips. It's also the game which murdered Ted's ankle when he was visiting the lower mainland on a Seminary excursion. We had never heard of the sport when Ted tried to describe the origin of his injury, and it appears that we aren't alone in our ignorance. It can't be very widespread, because the athletes at these North American championships, uh....kinda sucked. But hey, they were raising awareness. And it was free!
-Attending a play directed by Aaron Coates, who was a member of my high school playwriting group at ATP. Cleverly, the Regina Fringe Festival runs on the exhibition grounds during Buffalo Days. The show was very good, and I enjoyed being back in a theatre after a looong absence.
-Drenching each other with the water balloon slingshots.
-Midway riding. We bought passes for two rides each, but then fortunately were loaded in a hurry onto the Crazy Mouse rollercoaster, and dude forgot to scan our pass. So on we went to both the big slide and the log ride. Wooooo!
-Munchies from the "Romanian Orthodox Deanery" food booth. What makes you orthodox, we asked the proprietors. Well, they said, we've got two Orthodox priests serving sausages in here. I see! That'll do it.
-The juggler show, where we didn't realize that we were sitting behind the president of the congregation until he and his wife were called up on stage to help perform a card trick. Then he got to hold some spinny plates and balance one on his head. It was the good times. Jimmy also got called up on stage to do that trick where you sit in a square, lean back on each other's knees, and then remove the supporting chairs. It just about blew his knee out, but he kept his cool.
-A trip around the indoor exhibits where much swag was obtained from the Turn In a Poacher booth and the Saskatchewan Environment booth. Magnets and pencils and tattoos, oh my! We also stopped by the Lutherans Helping People booth, where people from our church handed out tracts and leaflets. As James pointed out, it sounds like they're implying that Lutherans aren't people. Time for a name change, perhaps.
-A trip to the beer gardens to watch Captain Tractor. They were quite excellent despite a very sparse audience, But we hooted and hollered, and brought out our best jigs and polkas when they covered the Arrogant Worms' The Last Saskatchewan Pirate.
-Finally, the hypnotist, who hypnotized our dear Jimmy into doing a fabulous Richard Simmons impression, complete with wig and yellow pinny. I proudly observed as Jimmy showed off the moves he'd learned in our aerobics class. It was legendary. So much so that the hypnotist asked James to come back for the all-star show on Sunday night. The jury is still out on that one, but my guess is that he's had enough humiliation for one year.
So that was our adventure in all the itty bitty details. It was great fun and relatively cheap (especially compared to the Stampede).
Oh, and we located Ted after his U-haul adventure, and all is well. This afternoon we had our very official meeting with the Sunday school superintendent (read: beer and pretzels at her place, followed by a BBQ. Yessss.) Now it's time to go help the Jims with his children's message for tomorrow so that the poor kids will stop giving him confused stares.

Landlordy

This weekend we jetted off to Edmonton to turn our little house over to its proud new occupants. We caught the fabulously convenient 5:30 am flight out of Regina (after almost three whole hours of sleep!) and briefly met with Jimmy's parents for a brief but lovely visit.
Ted picked us up from the airport, and after a stop at Ikea for their famed $1 breakfast (SO worth it if you haven't been. If it's not enough, buy another! Heck, buy 5! It's only $5!) we returned home to the Revenge of the Weeds.
Thankfully the Keith family kept the yard watered (thanks!), so there were zero plant casualties, even after the scorching heat of the preceeding three weeks. Some things had grown with a vengeance, like the clematis which had to be anchored to the garage roof for stability,
the voracious raspberries intent on devouring my compost bin,
and the freakish towers of lettuce.
The biggest garden surprise of all was that the weeds I had neglected to pull from the brick planters had grown tall and were developing flower-like bulbs on the ends. Upon closer inspection, they proved to be surprise sunflowers!
I have absolutely no idea how they got there. Neither James nor I nor anyone we questioned placed sunflower seeds in those planters. Plus, I've had other flowers and new soil in them for two summers running. The sunflowers are a delightul mystery.

So, Jimmy dutifully pulled the weeds
and I did some last-minute cleaning. Michael and Terri arrived intact, but their truck had been running on not much more than luck since about Ponoka. All was well, though, and so we celebrated with a bottle of REAL champage, hand-delivered from France by Michael two years ago.
That champagne had been biding its time until the appropriate moment, and boy was it worth it. Man, it was delicious! Needless to say, the evening progressed to fun, hilarity, and board games. Murray and Natalie came by, and we all enjoyed a perfect Edmonton evening on the patio.
Having taken care of all the necessary legal details and leaving the house in half-decent condition (with Michael and Terri gamely agreeing to chuck out some of our junk...thanks guys!) we turned the place over to our tenants (hee!)
who are both happy as could be to move away from Montreal to the land of Albertan opportunity.
Jimmy and I drove Ted's car back to Regina (sans Ted, because--surprise, surprise--U-haul screwed up his reservation and didn't have a truck ready for him. NEVER RENT FROM U-HAUL.) and were greeted by a super-affectionate Milton. We're still waiting to hear from Ted to see if he U-Hauled safely down the Yellowhead. Ted? Ted? Where are you, Ted? ...Hopefully, we'll have our new neighbour soon.