Intrepid Al

Saturday night. Sloane's asleep. Not yet time to go to bed.

For the record, I have pretty much every letter I ever received, downstairs in "the archive" (more accurately described perhaps as "the shitpile of stuff"). Went down there tonight, pulled out a box at random. Brucio's just back from Victoria, where Grandma, at age 94 or so, has decided to stop eating, enough is enough and so on. As a result, and obviously, I have been thinking in the last few days about mortality, grandparents, last words, fatal decisions, and legacies.

In the boxes I came quickly upon letters from Nanny, who died last year. My epitaph for her is here. She wrote me lots of letters when she could still see. She was, basically, a storyteller, and a good one. She never wrote her stories down. Except for one. For me. "Intrepid Al", about she and Grampa knocking a wasps' nest out of their backyard tree. Because I asked for it, because it was a hilarious oral story. In her later years, after she was blind, I really begged her to memorize this one (as she had for "The Cremation of Sam McGee" to tell at xmas 2000) so I could record her doing it, for posterity/a freelance CBC piece. She just felt like her time had come and gone and wouldn't do it for me.

So I'm down in the boxes tonight, and I see Nanny's handwriting. She hasn't gone completely blind at this point, I can tell by the script. I pull open the first envelope and there it is: Intrepid Al. Since Grampa's in a home in Nelson and can't object, and since it's a great story anyway, here it is.

Intrepid Al, by Gloria Horbow

We had a beautiful warm spring and our crabapple tree bloomed in great profusion. Then came a heavy frost and winter returned for a brief but deadly visit. Clouds hung low and threatening, and when the snow came it mingled with the beautiful blossoms... and both drifted sadly to the ground. Of course, no fruit grew that year and the leaves were sparse.

One noon hour towards the end of July, as I mixed batter for a pancake brunch, my husaband stood at the kitchen window and while lamenting the lack of apples, something in the tree caught his attention. He asked me if I thought it was a large bird or a smal animal. I couldn't tell, so my golden age gladiator went out to have a closer look. He was amazed to find a wasps' nest, about the size of a football, hanging from one fo the lower limbs.

The wasps were busy doing whatever it is that wasps do, and my mate decided then and there that the nest must go, and right now.

In a previous incident, a long pole was the instrument used to rescue his spectacles from a nearby lake and Al decided it was exactly what was needed to dislodge the quonset hut from its perch. As such he drove quickly to our son-in-law's home and returned carrying the 14 foot pole alongside the car with his left hand out the window, whilst he drove, steering with his right hand.

"Now," he said to me, "you're going to old a garbage bag under the nest while I knock it off the branch and into the bag."
   
I looked at him in amazement, but being the dutiful wife I occasionally am, I promptly swathed myself in cap, gloves, and scarves for the occasion. I tightened my pants at the ankles and was ready to go forth with my man to do battle against the enemy wasp encampment.

It was a very hot day and sweat poured out of my from heat, fear, and excitement. My knight stood with his jousting pole at the ready while I squinted up through scarves and persperation at the huge nest just a short three feet above my head.

"All set," I squeaked. Alex barely touched the nest with the end of the pole when out the little buzzers swarmed, blood in their eyes and their stingers in strike position.

Somehow, by instinct I guess, they seemed to know the villain of the piece and most flew straight for Al. Our hero dropped the pole and dashed for the back door, leaving me literally holding the bag. I was terrified, disgusted, and fearing for my life. I threw down the sack and stormed for the back door myself.

"To heck with that job, get yourself another method or another sucker!" As you can guess, I get quite waspish myself at times.

It was then that our adventurer decided to place the garbage bag over the metal frame which usually holds it. Now isn't that brilliant? Next, he placed it carefully in position under the nest, where the wasps had retreated to regroup. I stood at the kitchen window peeling off layers of clothing but still a keen observer of the activities outside.

This time intrepid Al was filled with determination and he gave the nest an almighty whack. It flew off the limb, missed the bag completely, sailed through the air and landed with an ominous thump about four feet from the home wrecker himself.

Now a truth, of which you are unaware, is that this man was a sports champion at his high school in 1937, with medals and trophies to prove it. He won the 220 dash, the 44 sprint, the high hurdles, the low hurdles, and all other field day activities. But I'm writing to tell you here that an unofficial world record in the standing broad jump was set on that 1992 summer day right there in my back yard.

Al cleared the 12 feet between the tree and the door in one gigantic leap. Panting inside, he congratulated himself for remaining unscathed and unstung while the hoardes outside the back door swarmed and rioted in anger, frustration and bewilderment.

But. One of the wily creatures, swifter than his buddies, and with the scent of the enemy filling his being, had managed to get through the door with our Al, and was now circling for an opening to strike. Not without reason, this wasp had recently been elevated to drill sergeant. He knew his job and was determined to repay this villain for the humiliation suffered by his comrades.

Suddenly realizing his peril, the agility of a youth returned to this aging athlete in the back hallway. His arms flailed wildly but his legs moved like well-greased pistons. They propelled him up the stairs, across the kitchen, around through the living and dining rooms, and down the hall into the bedroom. With only one place to escape, Sir Al threw back the comforter and prepared to dive under it. All this activity had loosened the lower section of his baggy armour and a goodly stretch of flesh was now exposed.

I arrived at this point, with a skillet in hand, in time to see the wasp drill into my beloved with all the venom he could command. In the next moment I smacked down with all the strength I could muster. A great howl of pain and outrage nearly lifted the roof off our bungalow. While Al clutched a this posterior I beamed triumphantly while the wasp died the death of a hero on the bedside rug.

Meanwhile, back in the yard, unaware they had been somewhat avenged, the wasps again returned to their poor and broken nest for a council of war. They sensed the breaker of their home would be returning with a stinger longer than theirs. A strategy must be devised for a counter-attack.

While this conference was in progress, my husband, disregarding his wound, decided to strike while the weapon was hot. "Now, I'm going back out there, and you're coming too. I'm going to pick up the nest on the end of the pole and plop it into the bag. You be ready with a twist tie to close the top." Now there's a brave fellow for you! I wasn't about to argue. Knowing his tender condition and consequent frame of mind, I geared up again and meekly followed to do his bidding.

And believe it or not, it worked out exactly according to plan. And not one more sting to show for it! (Of course, the one he did get couldn't be shown, either!)

With the nest safely tucked away, my lord of the wasps decided he would give the yellow jackets a few days to expire completely and then present the trophy nest to the young lads next door. They would take it to show-and-tell when school recommenced in September.

The victor is jubilant and, omitting all personal indignities, tells anyone even remotely interested how he slew the dragon wasps.

In the background, I smile knowingly.

Categories: Ash | Canadiana | Family | Olden Days

Comments [2]

The Truest Song

There are a lot of true songs out there.

But if you're from a prairie city. A Canadian prairie city, especially. (And if you're from a prairie city that you didn't want to end up back in, hoo boy.)

And you're missing someone... but it's over, really over. (And it's never going to be not-over.)

"Ah yes," I hear you saying, ironically, "Awesome." (Been there, fuck that, fuck me, gimme a beer.)

The song for you - and, I suspect, for all of us - is this one:


Left And Leaving, the Weakerthans

My city's still breathing (but barely it's true)
through buildings gone missing like teeth.
The sidewalks are watching me think about you,
sparkled with broken glass.
I'm back with scars to show, Back with the streets I know
Will never take me anywhere but here.

The stain in the carpet, this drink in my hand,
the strangers whose faces I know.
We meet here for our dress-rehearsal to say " I wanted it this way"
Wait for the year to drown.
Spring forward, fall back down.
I'm trying not to wonder where you are.

All this time lingers, undefined.
Someone choose who's left and who's leaving.
Memory will rust and erode into lists of all that you gave me:
a blanket, some matches, this pain in my chest,
the best parts of Lonely, duct-tape and soldered wires,
new words for old desires,
and every birthday card I threw away.

I wait in 4/4 time.
Count yellow highway lines that you're relying on to lead you home.

This song is about Winnipeg.

And although you could argue that although I've always loved Winnipeg (blindly, perhaps, as some have suggested?) for the wonderful childhood memories it provided me, it's true that I only lived there until I was eight years old. (Calgary, the city we landed in afterwards, and the city in which I spent my pre-adolescent and teenage years, is not generally known for its decay or angst, particularly.)

But for some reason, this song resonates for me. In some ways, maybe in the lives-unlived that I would have had in Winnipeg, or in Calgary if I hadn't left in 1991? I don't know. Maybe everyone who grew up Prairie knew and feared this future for themselves; lived it a thousand times in unremembered nightmares and panicked moments alone at university. Knew we didn't want to go back: might someday end up back there: and in such an instance, might need to kill ourselves.

It was a balance: make it, or die. Or, worse: face all those broken sidewalks and half-remembered faces and pound them through the glass door of your love, broken. (So really, might as well die...)

But even so, I see the St. Vital sidewalk this guy is pacing. The random smashed glass that didn't necessarily mean "trashy neighbourhood". The short summers that help make a southern Manitoba life barely worth living.

Me, I've been in those hopeful, hipster, far-from-the-centre mid-twenties venues where everyone is half-hysterical. Those ones with curtains for walls and everyone too excited (and somehow, embarrassed that they aren't who they were in elementary school, anymore. Apologetic. Defensive. And weird).

Really, I think the saddest, truest line has to be, "We meet here for our dress rehearsal to say: 'I wanted it this way' ": All of us, anywhere, everywhere, have been there. Lived this blow. Breathed this lie. Tried to live it. Failed. I've been that person, the one going about their business. And dying inside.

And, AND! the whole subtext of the city killing itself: so true to my own heart. Completely a true statement about Winnipeg, Regina, Calgary: My city's still breathing, but barely, it's true... Through buildings gone missing like teeth. I'm not that old, but I can still give you a tour of my adolescent Calgary landscape by what's gone. By what's not there anymore. All those buildings that they knocked down. The Theatrey. Studio A Go Go. The Westward Club. And so on. They live on in me, and they ache like a missing tooth.

So, me, right? I'm singing this sad song to Sloane tonight for the first time. It just came into my brain between Yoshimi and Country Roads, and I sang it through for her. And you might think, in the midst of singing it, as I did: should you really be singing this fucked-up, lonely, pseudo-stalker song about a dying city and its damaged man to your toddler?

But then, you (or me, for example, I) think:
1. That was all me, those lyrics. In ways. In feelings. In bits. And pieces. That was me. It is Truth. There is no more TRUE Canadian song. Blessed be.
2. And by the way, it's not like we're trying to hide Sloane from the actual truth bits of life. (See the "We showed Sloane Rooney's ripped-apart corpse and then let her watch Mama bury him in the yard" post from a few months back, for deets.)
3. Prairie childhood & upbringing, and the saga of same... she might as well hear it from us (in part by way of The Weakerthans, natch).
4. ... And heartbreak. You really, REALLY don't want your kids to know. But really, eventually, it'll happen to them. (And if it doesn't, they'll end up sociopaths. So you have to, in a weird and sadistic way, HOPE for your kids to undergo the torturous and revolting SAGA that is normal, everyday heartbreak.) And someday they'll be sitting there with the pain in their chests, just as sure as we were.
5. Plus, like, isn't it my JOB, like, as a parent, to, like, competely psychologically hobble my children? Don't all parents strive for this? (Shouldn't I be grateful that I was given such an early opportunity to do same?)

Or: it's just a song! Get over it! It's got a great tune! It's Canadian! It's slow and sounds like a lullaby to my toddler! She'll grow up with Canadian music pre-programmed into her subconscious, how lovely!

And: my life is great, it's not like I'm singing about the present. It's possible to be happy on the prairie. But there's a bunch of turmoil between here and there. Better to warn her, right?

Yer thots?

Categories: Ash | Canadiana | Mom-ness

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Hinterland Who's Who

Found in one of my journals, dated 28 December, 1998.

[Characteristic Hinterland Who's Who whistle]

The back seat driver.

The back seat driver, contrary to its name, is often found in the front seat of the car, though on the passenger side. Back seat drivers are generally wary of speed, weather conditions, and driver navigational abilities. Many back seat drivers have licences but prefer not to operate the vehicles, being better versed in offering unsolicited directions.

Common calls of the back seat driver include,
"Watch out!"
"Slow down!"
"Where are you going?!"
"The road is treacherous!"

The call you never want to hear out of the back seat driver:
"Goddammit! I told you so!"

For more information about the back seat driver, please contact the Canadian Wildlife Service, 66 Sparks Street, Ottawa.

***
Those of you who aren't Canadian, or those of you too young to remember Hinterland Who's Who, please refer to this site to hear the audio/video of our youth on which this spoof is based: CBC television used to air public service messages to educate the masses about the native animals and plant life of Canada. And every clip began with the now-classic, plaintive, high-pitched flute solo which many (possibly every) Canadian Gen-X'er has trucked out at the bar for comedic punctuation.

And who says we don't have our own, home-grown culture up here, eh?

Categories: Canadiana

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Because After All, It's Only The End Of May

Lo, ye readers not born in Canada, prithee tremble before these bald evidences of our latitude:

Categories: Calgary | Canadiana | House

Comments [1]

Three Cheers For Antigonish

There are lots of obvious family-oriented reasons for us to love Antigonish. The seat of Turner's mom's side of the family, Turner's family arrived in the Antigonish area long long ago and (thanks to several sleuthy and talkative family members) the whole history of everyone since the ancestors' arrival from Scotland in the 1800s is well known and documented with the beloved "Dead Relatives Tour", available via Uncle Ron.

Margo and John retired back here two years ago, to a house they built on Margo's parents' old property, atop the Hawthorne hill overlooking town. Margo's siblings and their kids (Turner's cousins and their children) come "home" to Antigonish nearly every year - but even the most distant of the relatives make the tri-yearly pilgrimage back to Nova Scotia for "THE REUNION", an inviolable tradition among the far-flung McConnell diaspora and their married-in kin (like me!).

[Note to wannabe-McConnell gate-crashers, the next Reunion is scheduled for July 2007.]

The McConnell homestead, 109 Hawthorne.  

I'd never been to Nova Scotia before I started dating Turner. I was pretty sure I'd like Eastern Canada, being the rabid nationalist I am, but as it turned out, I REALLY liked it.

The first time we came out here was about three weeks after we started dating. Turner was working for Via Rail in 1997 and got an first-class private cabin all-expenses-paid trip out east by train from Toronto to "test the merchandise"... and brought me, his new girlfriend, along. At that early stage there was no inkling we'd end up married, and I'll admit that my main thought about the trip prior to departure was, "Score!!". But then we arrived. And even my earliest impressions were that I could happily live the rest of my life in the Maritimes.

I remember waking up on the train, somewhere in eastern New Brunswick, and pushing up the window blind to see where we were. At that moment we were rumbling through a small town, everything bathed in golden early-morning light. There were ditches instead of sidewalks, and most houses had clotheslines flapping underwear and socks and sheets - and a flagpole flying the Canadian flag. And then we passed over a rail crossing. Kids and parents were lined up at the striped bar across the road, waving at the train going past. It was 7:15am. ...I think I cried.

Celtic language blinky sign on the TransCanada through town.

I discovered only a few years ago that I truly adore fiddle music. Certainly the first and only live music performance I've ever really enjoyed was Ashley MacIsaac's 1996 tour, when I caught his truly splendid show in Kingston. I went mainly to hear "Devil In The Kitchen", which everyone with half a heart across Canada had come to worship, that year. But the whole show was fabulous. I gave serious thought to taking step dancing lessons in order to bring jigs and reels into my body. Although many "western" (which includes anyone from Montreal & Toronto and points further west) implants to Nova Scotia eventually earn raw nerves when it comes to the constant "fiddley-diddley music" being played in public places throughout eastern Canada, it turns out that the musical common denominator out here suits me just fine. ...More than fine. Yesterday Margo and I took in the twice-monthly Saturday Ceilidh at Piper's Pub downtown. It was absolutely splendid. If I lived here, I've be front and centre for every ceilidh, one foot bouncing madly under the table and a grin on my face above. Might even try my hand at the dancing!

Two of The Barra MacNeils from Cape Breton rocked the ceilidh casbah here at Piper's Pub, Saturday August 26th, 2006.

Antigonish is known as the "Highland Heart Of Nova Scotia", and brings all kinds of sincere homage to the title. There's a giant Highland Games every summer, complete with pole-tossing and pipe bands and what have you. The photos are really magnificent: terrifyingly hairy and sweaty men in kilts straining to throw some kind of giant rock on a chain, lines of ladies in full gear, dancing in formation. People come from miles around to see the spectacle and hear the music, so I hear. You can buy all manner of trinkety shit (magnets! hair bows! dog treats! teapots! licence plate surrounds! ETCETERA!) with the Nova Scotia tartan on it here in town - I have no idea who makes it all, or where it all goes once it's purchased. If you want a sporan (the fur-covered male purse-thing worn with a kilt), Antigonish can set you up. Bagpipe lessons? Sure, some of the most authentic dead-animal-gut music outside of Scotland, bye. I's the b'y that builds the boat? Maybe not so much anymore now that the fisheries are all collapsed, but certainly most Antigonishers (and that is, by the way, what you are if you're from Antigonish. An Antigonisher) would be able to rattle off every Stan Rogers song you never knew about, if you're not afraid to ask. I'm not saying it's a town of caricature borne, but if you let your western Canadian imagination get running wild, you're sure to have one or two beers more than necessary (beer's $2.50/pint at the local pub - cheap at twice the price, anywhere else in Canada) and start humming to yourself in public: "...I wish I was in Sherbrooke nooooowwwww... Shed no teeeeeeaarss!" ...And the Antigonishers? They don't mind.

A suncatcher in Margo's livingroom window. The thistle figures prominently in Nova Scotian Scottish descendants' iconography. Turner has one aunt (whose pronounciation of "shooooooes" is to my eternal delight) that chooses jewelery exclusively on the basis of whether it features a thistle.

Antigonish town at 5000 residents is technically small, but it punches above its weight for community goings-on and cultural happenings. Why? Partly because of where it is. Halfway between Cape Breton and Halifax, the county might be a drive-by for RV-hauling Americans, but it does have some great restaurants, and an established and thriving Acadien community. Although the county couldn't manage to keep Wal-Mart out, the downtown and local businesses still manage to keep their doors open and their smiles wide. The kiddie playground has this fantastic waterworks area with a giant dragon head spewing water, water cannons, a water rainbow and dancing fountains. There's an acclaimed summerlong theatre festival every year, and the gold-medal-three-years-running champion l'Acadie Blanc Jost wine is grown on an acre of hillside just off Southside Harbour road. Though it doesn't have a sushi place (despite being on the ocean, and even though some of the finest toro tuna belly in the world comes out of the water not 30 km from town at Boyd's Harbour), the town is a surprisingly cosmopolitan and diverse place.

And let me be the first (in this posting, anyway) to credit St. Francis Xavier University for its amazing and lovely impact/presence on the overall milieu. As someone who spent seven of my prime years at various levels of university study, I am unqualifiedly thrilled to find a spirit-fuelled undergraduate population in a place I spend part of the summer every year. There is no question that St. FXU (or, if you prefer, just "X") has a huge influence on the vibrancy of the town. In a province where you don't have to knock on more than two doors before you find a relative Gone Away to Alberta's oil sands for financial reasons, St. FX adds a youthful boost to a community that would otherwise feel emptied out of young people. It's a huge boon, the school.   

Another thing is the cathedral. Sure, the Respect Life Centre on Main Street (a store which sells garage sale stuff and presumably gives out anti-abortion literature... though I wouldn't know - I've never been in) irks me with its location and philosophy, and LORD KNOWS (in fact, the Lord definitely knows better than anyone on this count) I'm no fan of some of the details of Catholicism proper. But I will say there's something grounding and lovely about everyone going to church here on Sundays at St. Ninian's cathedral. Go ahead and get pissy about me thinking it "quaint", but it's mainly that I appreciate the Sunday service appeal as a measure of community cohesion.

In Antigonish many excellent aspects of church are on full display every Sunday, with people yelling out hi to each other on the steps, sitting together and greeting their neighbours during the service, talking about the sermon in town later that day. People here still say, "God love 'er..." and they really mean bless you when they bless you after a sneeze. When it comes right down to it, even as a Protestant-raised-agnostic-islamist-buddhist-type person it's nice to visit a spectacularly gorgeous local church that keeps its doors unlocked, and doesn't make you pay an entry fee just to come in, and as a photographer you're never asked to get out when you're wandering around taking arty photos of the pillars and stained glass windows in the middle of the day.

And there are churchbells that ring. You have to be dead inside not to appreciate the charm of churchbells.

Looking up the left aisle, St. Ninian's Cathedral. The ceiling, domed and painted light blue, with frescoes, is spectacular (not shown).

But it's the everyday, commonsense, that's-the-right-way-to-be stuff about Antigonish that really wins my heart. Nobody loses their mind about bylaw regulations if somebody wants to bring their kid into the bar to hear the music. The guy who walks his pugs through town every day will tell you (without prompting) all about how his wife's peach-mango pie crust - which used a combo of Crisco AND butter - will never be duplicated, yes-yes. There's usually a bunch of kittens, "free to a good home", at the Saturday Market down at the Ex grounds - and they'll let you hold them as much as you want, even if you're not going to take one. Every ditch and vacant lot is full of Queen Anne's lace and goldenrod, and the municipal government lets it all stay. There are swimming holes alongs the rivers, and warm lakes with leafy bottoms, and long messy seashores with washed-up jellyfish to poke with a stick.

And - this is the thing, the amazing and magical gem that I had to save for last because it's so, so, so fantastic... and yet now so rare - kids still say hi to random adults (i.e. me) walking past their house.

Ponder that. When was the last time you saw that happen, on a regular basis, where you live? Might've been about 25 years ago, and the kid saying hi might've been YOU, hmmm?  

Damn, it gets me every time. Kids calling out, "hullo!" to me, a total stranger. Unafraid to talk to me in a random store, un-over-chaperoned at the park. Kids, being kids. Just kids saying hi. About Antigonish, and perhaps eastern Canada in general, THAT'S saying something.

Kids jumping from the Arisaig pier docks... and nary a legislator salivating about the 0.00001% possibility of litigation if there were ever an accident. The pervasive phenomenon of "goddamn lawyers ruining everything" hasn't yet infected this sane coast.

Yep, I could live here. (...Did I mention the real estate prices?)

Categories: Canadiana | Nova Scotia

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Eastern Pilgrimage 2006: Part II

Otherwise it's brunch fun with Toronto folks and waiting for Thab's new baby to make her debut.

September 6th (Wednesday): Turner heads home to Calgary to start writing the book.

September 7th/8th (Thurs/Fri): Ash and Sloane head to Montreal by train. The first 1-2 nights we'll crash with Cousin Viki, and on Friday we head over to the House of Hot Sauce.

We head through Gatineau and then on to Kingston, to swim in Buck Lake and carouse at Queen's Homecoming, before heading back to Toronto on September 17th. We get a few more days in the Big TO, to paw at the new Sayo and click pictures with pals and wish everyone a happy fall, before Sloane and I return to Calgary on Thursday September 21st.

Categories: Ash | Canadiana

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Tidal Bore Rafting: Unboring!

Even if you know me well, you might not know how much I love rafting. Mostly I like white water river rafting where you get to paddle and be involved, but I'l take most kinds of being-on-a-boat-in-waves nearly at par. I've rafted in Canada (the Kicking Horse and Slocan rivers), India (doo-dee-doo'ing down the Indus in Ladakh), and Nepal (some famous yip-yip-yeehaw river northwest of Kathmandu), and if I had lots of money rafting would be my 'extreme' sport of choice. I'd have my own monogrammed lifejacket and a selection of fancy lightweight paddles, if you know what I mean.

For a few summers now, I've looked into rafting in Nova Scotia, which the internet will tell you mainly takes place on rivers off the Bay of Fundy that experience the tidal bore. It never worked out in the past, but his year, I mashed the river rafting onto our agenda, rounded up the husband and the brother-in-law and the nephew, and off we went to conquor the Shubenacadie River near Truro (home of the highest tides in the world!).

Here's my homemade postcard from the adventure:

Dig my yellow nor'easter slicker, eh?

Lots more rafting and other Nova Scotia photos are up on my Flickr account. (If you're looking for info on companies who run the bore, lookee here.)

Categories: Ash | Canadiana | Nova Scotia

Comments [1]

A Hiatus

You might ask what the hell is going on, and you have. Thanks for the emails! I kind of went on an unexpected hiatus.

One of the funniest things I've ever seen on a resume was on my friend Matthew's, circa 1999/2000. We'd met at an audition when we were kids, both child actors in the Calgary scene. After high school he taught himself how to play guitar and formed a band called Shiver. They had tshirts and a great cd. The band did pretty well. They were, as we say on the prairies, big in Saskatoon. Ten years later, Matthew was a married homeowner and decided the whole rock star thing was getting tiring, and was drawn back to acting. I was sitting in his house in Mission at Christmastime that year and with a big grin he handed me his new and updated acting resume. On it were the serious high school plays he'd done, the starring role in the grade 12 production of "Grease", the street performance stuff. Then, under a heading of "1993 - 1999", it read, "HIATUS" ...followed thereafter by an explanation of his longtime and successful stint as a lead singer, the subsequent wearying of the road and desire to return to acting, and so on. But my eyes kept coming back to that six year hiatus as I laughed my ass off on the couch. To this day I am SORELY tempted to just put "HIATUS" into the blank spots on my resume (you and I both know I was UNEMPLOYED or OVERSEAS) just to re-live that great laugh from Matthew's cv.

No disrespect to Matthew's actual hiatus, mind. He was, and is, a true rock star.

Anyway, I went on hiatus there. Had some friends 'round the house. Went over to visit other people. Did errands. Painted the damn fence (which looks, I might add, damn fine).

Now we're getting ready for the annual Bristowe-Turnersesses' Eastbound Pilgrimage, to visit the loved ones in Antigonish and Halifax, and our beloved people in Ontario. Goddamn them all, such fine people that they make us broke and lonely, by turns. It's expensive to fly across the country, but it's harder to miss them. Besides which, Nova Scotia and Ontario are "home" just as much as Calgary is, so it's not really a choice. We gots to go.

However, this year we have a lovely housesitter for Chez Bristowe Turner. Please welcome Barb Bell, new Calgarian by way of Newmarket, by way of Edinburgh, by way of... somewhere else, I forget. She's a friend of a friend (Tracey) of a friend (the incomparable Alexis Bahry), and I think we're all quite happy with the arrangement.

So ha! to you, people who might like to come and steal our hand-me-down furniture covers and broken chinese bead curtain! Ha, double ha! The house will not be empty! Lo, we have a friend of a friend of a friend staying here, and she will BEAT YE UP! Don't even try it! 

Photos to come from Nova Scotia, our first leg of the Eastbound Pilgrimage.

Categories: Canadiana | House

Comments [3]

Beware The Canadian Wildlife

After the wedding we roadtripped back to Nakusp with Jenna, to spend a few days with Val and Mike at Strawberry Hill. Having Tawn visiting from Hawaii gave us all the chance to be the Canadian know-it-all smartypantses we like to be, so he got the full Nakusp show of getting lost trying to find St. Leon's hotsprings, being chased out of the water by 40-cm leaches and a truly terrifyingly large water bug at Box Lake, rafting on the Slocan River accompanied by a guide who learned the river in his youth "like, totally ZIPPED on shrooms, eh?", the Lesbian Bakery in New Denver ("Spicy Buns!" reads their sandwich board), and the old Nakusp Dairy Farm that we've been eyeing for five years and would buy in a flash if only it wasn't $498,000... so, you know, the usual tour.  

And of course we maintained a running multi-tiered monologue of informational tidbits - Oh, see that plant there? It's called Devil's Club. Spikey stalks, and they get HUGE. But the leaves are good to use as toilet paper in a pinch... Ah, keep your eyes peeled for the osprey nests built along the wood hydro towers here as we head north out of Fauquier, they're so enormous, it's like they're built of whole tree branches... Etcetera. You get the drift. The insider's view. The sights, the sounds, the flora.

Ah, and the fauna. Although there's plenty of wild animals here in the Kootenays that can eat/maim you - bears, snakes, cougars, and so on - I provided Tawn with a close-up view of a different animal attack, that of the common black fly. Goddamn those little fuckers.

Here's the good (unbitten) ear:

And here's the sad ear. Bitten in at least four places, it's all hot to the touch, and hugely swollen:

Turner tells me that last picture doesn't truly represent the swelling (I can't see my own ear that well in the mirror, of course), so here's a closer view. Dig the redness, the shiny-ness, caused by the swelling:

The first night, it was just itchy. But over the whole next day it got worse and worse and bigger and bigger, until I had what felt like a Dumbo-sized ear on one side, and my little normal ear on the other. Back at the ranch here I took a couple of expired antihistamines (1995), and soon thereafter succumbed to the sedative therein, and promptly fell asleep right on the ear.

Today I woke up and the swelling had moved further down my neck and there was a discernable difference in my hearing on the right side! Off to the Emergency Ward at the Nakusp hospital, where my chart eventually read: Severe reaction to fly? insect? bites inside right ear. Recommended - ice packs and up-to-date antihistamines to bring down swelling and prevent spread. In the end the only thing that really provided any proper relief was slathering the whole damn thing with calamine (expired: 2001). Ferris Bueller, you're my hero:

Let that be a lesson to all you would-be hometown tour guides in Canada this summer - wear your bug juice.

Categories: Ash | Canadiana

Comments [3]

Happy Canada Day!

We missed it, unfortunately. Canada Day is my favourite holiday. But I've been out of the country a number of times: in France (1990), Philippines (1995), and India (1999). This year we were in Evergreen, CO. They didn't celebrate Canada Day, obviously. Everyone was gearing up for the 4th of July, which falls on Tuesday, so it's a de facto giant long weekend. There were free hay rides and twirly stars n' stripes pinwheels. Plus a lot of Uncle Sam hats and other Independence Day paraphenalia. We had lunch at a Vietnamese restaurant and gawked at the prices - VN is considerd healthy fast food in Canada, and priced accordingly. Not so in the USA, is all I'll say. I had the Evergreen Sampler appetizer - deee-lish!

Categories: Canadiana

Comments [0]

Travis's Maple Leaf Meme

Travis sez: The challenge: draw a maple leaf. Like it appears on the flag. So g'wan. Try.

Attempt #1

Attempt #2

My contributions, courtesy of Microsoft Paint.

Turner sez: "You did that? Without looking? ...Pretty good for not lookin'."

Categories: Canadiana

Comments [2]

What The Hell Is Going On With Canada Post?

I can't ignore it any more: something wonky is happening down at Canada Post. Yesterday I received a letter from my bank stating that my mortgage payment had bounced and that if I didn't immediately rectify the situation that my credit rating would be adversely affected. That letter was dated April 27th - almost two weeks have passed since the bank sent me a warning that I'd MISSED A MORTGAGE PAYMENT. Now, actually, I'd caught that error myself about a week and a half ago, and fixed everything, so we're not sliding into credit hell here at Chez Bristowe Turner (at least, not yet). But two weeks for a local letter, seems a bit looooooong, don't you think?

Then there's Mum, who sent Brother John his birthday card three weeks before May 7th, and it still hadn't arrived by the time we went out to dinner to celebrate his 30th birthday. We've been getting incorrectly addressed mail for months now, for addresses that are nowhere near ours. The postal codes aren't even similar.

I won't go into the deets of the gigantic XpressPost delivery fuckup that was our pre-Thailand adventure of getting Sloane a new passport two days before we left. Because we're still very touchy about that GIGANTIC FUCK UP and it's better for the collective blood pressure around here if we just quietly go about our business of putting the finishing touches on our open-and-shut pending lawsuit on the matter. (It cost us in excess of $450 cash money to fix that last-minute disaster, even before you start counting up the time lost, stress undergone, sleep missed, etc., not to mention the seriousness of the form we had to sign - and get notarized by a lawyer in the middle of the night - stating that we hadn't received the first passport, signatures by us releasing the government to incarcerate us if it's ever found that we were lying. Which we weren't, but nobody likes to be threatened with jail - c'mon.)

Last fall our postal worker left our mail out in the rain two delivery days in a row and it was all destroyed. And although we have a nice, neat, large brass sign on our house which reads, "PLEASE USE SIDE DOOR" (with arrows showing you the way), Canada Post workers (and only Canada Post workers, I might add) always ignore the sign and ring the front bell, or just leave packages propped on the front porch. Because apparently our government mail service is now employing illiterate people. Or maybe they're just obstinate. Or perhaps our mail carrier is getting back at us for reporting those two days of sopping mail found on our sidewalk inside the gate. Frankly, I do reserve my right to report shitty service ANYway, so there.

Lastly, it's gotten fricken EXPENSIVE to send stuff. Letters have weeny little variances in the size and weight allowances, but if you keep within the limits I'm the first to say that it's a true bargain to be able to send something through the post for 52 cents. But god help you if the package is, say, a small paperback book. And, say, you want to send it to Ottawa. $18 later (no insurance included in that price - to which I always respond, "...Do I want insurance? Why? Are you going to lose it? What am I paying for with the $18 itself?") and they won't even use pretty stamps - just a utilitarian machine-produced label. Uh? ...Uhhhhh? Zillions of dollars put into advertising: send xmas gifts to your family! Send your EBay stuff with Canada Post! E-cards! Online tracking (for a price)! And yet it's $45 if you want to send some maple syrup to Thailand. For example.

Is it just us, and our family? I don't think we're being targetted per se, but Canada Post seems to be falling apart at the seams. I'm a lover of stamps and I like the idea of "the post" very very very much indeed. The mythology, the lore, the idea that the mail 'must go through', etcetera and so forth. However, I can't help but let my brain hover around the notion that Canada Post is subcontracting out the meat of its business to 1968 Czechoslovakia.

(Usually I put a little graphic or photo in posts like this, to ground the text with an image. When I went to the Canada Post site to pull their logo for this purpose, I found the following warning:

Canada Post Logo Permission Request Form Because it represents the highest level of trust for the people and businesses of Canada, the Canada Post corporate logo is valuable property of Canada Post. It is the most visible and recognizable expression of the Canada Post brand. Canada Post acknowledges the desires of third parties to show a connection or relationship to Canada Post. However, you should not use the corporate logo to imply affiliation with or endorsement by Canada Post without express written permission from Canada Post.

Somehow I just don't think they're going to give me permission.)

Categories: Ash | Canadiana

Comments [2]

Here's The Thing

Conservative minority government, Bloc holds the balance of power. ...Man.

Two things before I get to my point.

1. Goddammit, couldn't the NDP have the balance of power for once? Jesus christ, two seats away from the balance this time. TWO. Last election it was ONE seat that stood between them and the balance. You can't ask for much from the electorate in most parts of Ontario, Quebec, and the Prairies. They've got their hometown favourites or their clubby niche-i-fied shoo-ins. But C'MON British Columbia and the Maritimes! Couldn't you have pulled off TWO MORE SEATS for the damn NDP in some of those close-call ridings? For the love of god! Is it so much to ask?

2. Having said all this, it's going to be INTERESTING. In the gleeful heart of me I love the idea of the Conservatives and the Bloc having to work together. If they weren't so darn contrary to the whole notion of this thing called "Canada" I'd be a big fan of the Bloc. Their social policies are progressive and sound. And they've got their representative priorities straight: their MPs know they are in Parliament to represent the interests of their constituents, and that's what they do. ...It's just too bad for the ROC that we can't get such interested politicians to put their bums in our ridings' chairs.

In any case, I'm not a political blogger, so I'll keep this short. I'm glad of the result. No electorate should stand for corruption in their leaders. Of course, all politicians are lying bastards, so there's no getting away from corruption in politics whole hog. But when the corruption is thrown so completely in the face of the people as with the Sponsorship scandal, and the former PM is there on television yelling, "NOT ME NOT ME!" in the middle of the election campaign to the total detriment of the current fates of his party, and the patronage and appointments and graft are just too much to ignore, you just can't elect them again.

I should say that I think the Liberals did an okay job of running the country. I don't have too many complaints. I got my cushy government job as a result of that big wallop of Arts funding they put in place in 2001, so I guess I was happy about that, at least. I don't think any party could govern Canada without pissing off factions in all corners, so you can gripe about what they did or didn't do about softwood lumber, BSE, health care, Native settlements, energy revenues, arts policy, you name it - but if it had been a different party, it would be a different list of gripes.

However. Paul Martin insisted again and again he didn't know anything about what went down with the Sponsorship monies. I want to put a few irrefutable facts in front of you, in case you still have your head in the sand:

He was the Finance Minister.

He is a son of Quebec, and a Montreal MP.

He is a filthy rich businessman and a lawyer; he knows everyone who's anyone in power brokerage in this country, don't you doubt it for one second.

When I worked for government, I was a lowly PM-03. That means I was in charge of 7-10 people and/or up to $250,000 in funds - something like that. Now, in reality a PM-03 is pretty low on the bureaucratic totem pole. I wasn't exactly sent to get coffee, but people's eyes for sure flickered in my direction when they were too lazy to get themselves a refill. (For the record, sometimes I was nice, as a professional gesture, and offered to get people another cup, unasked. And sometimes I'd hand them my cup and say, "Yeah, I'd love some more, too - will you get me a refill when you go?")

And as lowly as I was, and as marginal an office as was the one in which I toiled, there in Calgary, between 2002 and 2004, I can tell you that we knew EVERYTHING before it happened in Downtown Canada (read: Ottawa). We heard about every snotty nose, every bad case of hiccups, every small fuckup. And because of our reliability security status, we couldn't say anything about any of it outside the office. ...Like about the provincial civil servants in Ontario who were caught writing grant cheques to themselves, with the collusion of their department's finance wing. Something like $175,000 down the pisser. Ever hear about that? Nope. Boy did that get dealt with quietly. Everyone sacked. Department essentially shut down. ...And no media coverage.

That Ontario scandal was an internal, provincial-government matter halfway across the country from our 8-person outpost of Canadian Heritage in Calgary. And we knew about it.

So really, don't insult your own intelligence. Let me make it baldly plain, in case it isn't already: Paul Martin knew about the Sponsorship money and where it was going. He knew names, he knew amounts, and he knew dates. Please, don't kid yourself. Or do yourself a favour and go buy an ostrich costume to complete the look.  

Anyway, what I'm driving at is this - once something like that comes out, you just can't elect that same party into power again. It'd be giving them a renewed mandate: Yes! More of the same graft and stealing, please! Well done with the last round of slimebag backroom deals - give us more! So for that reason and that reason alone, I'm glad of the result.

Hopefully Canada is well served by this new government. For the record, Turner and I voted at an advance ballot held in our riding of Calgary Centre (do I even need to mention that it's a Conservative stronghold?). I won't speak for T, but I voted NDP. Rock on.

Categories: Canadiana

Comments [17]

Part Two in the Lost Archives series...

Ah, grade eleven, when a young woman's thoughts turn to earnest political letter-writing.

Turner: Dear Ms. Bristowe, thank you for your VIEWS on the situation in Nicaragua...

Ash: Hey. I had VIEWS, okay? Like, VIEWS, man.

Yesterday I would have bet cash money that at fifteen I knew FBA about Central America. ...But apparently I knew enough to write a letter to my MP and express my "views". A few years ago I went to Guatemala and Belize as the photographer on a project, and I got some great photos, an Antigua recipe for rice n' beans, and a some super sound for a radio piece for CKUA. But not so much in the political insights department, I have to admit. Still, you have to admire the bold and rash willingness of youth to put pen to paper and give elected officials what for. On VIEWS. Because, you know, you have them, at that age.

Please note: I no longer live at the above address. Other nice, lovely people live there now. I can't speak for their views on Nicaragua, but I'm sure they're as concerned about the ozone layer as I was.

Categories: Ash | Canadiana | Olden Days

Comments [0]

The Alcove

Nova Scotia produces one hell of a passable white wine.

I know, I know - there are those among you of our acquaintance, Brother John and Sir John Johnston included, who might stand on a plastic lawn chair in order to better shout to the neighbourhood (this mainly being Brother John rather than Sir John) that Canada has never produced a good wine.

Au contraire. [Cousine Tanya, take note.]

Now, we're not saying it's great, as in, "for the love of god buy stock in this winery", but rather it's good, solidly good, in a "bye jesus that's a hell of a good wine there, bye - anybody'd think so, doncha think?!" sort of way. And it's grown just around the corner from us here in Antigonish, up on Cape St. George of all places, never known for its... well, it's anything other than wind and bent-over trees, really. I mean, the road's pretty and it looks over the ocean, but it's never been grape country; like, never. But then a coupla years ago some nut got it in his head to grow grapes, I'm told, and sold them to the local winery- and here's the result. I put in one vote for this guy's hand on the proverbial vine-growing tiller.  

But good luck finding it:

Jost 2004, Cote St. George "L'acadie Blanc".  $11

But anyway, like I say, it's a good wine. So great that this nursing mom, bulging milk-filled boobs notwithstanding, fed her daughter Enfalac from a bottle tonight when she woke. Now that's a good bottle of wine.

Categories: Canadiana | Married Life

Comments [14]

Flickr: A Recommendation

I've posted a bunch of the photos from our trip thusfar on my Flickr account. But here, a taste:

AGP, where's your blue and white striped shirt? Didn't you get the Boys' Weekend dress code memo?

Summertime lakeside!

Sloaner meeting the Toronto relatives.

...And much more! Lemme no if you don't have a Flickr account.

Categories: Canadiana | Friends | Sloane | Ontario

Comments [2]

Lordy, My Front Teeth For A Good Photo Upload Program

More than 400 photos and nine days later, the Ontario portion of our summer vacation is going splendidly. We're fresh off Thab and Phet's superbo Countryside Weekend Party out in Howdenvale, where I discovered the joys of swimming in Lake Huron, seemingly the only big body of water in Canada that isn't a) polluted, b) salty, or c) FREEEEEZING cold. Actually, I don't know about the pollution-o-meter for Lake Huron, but our friends have gone there every summer since childhood and still have the correct number of digits and seemingly all their brain cells, so we chanced it. I'm a convert: hip hip hooorrrah for Sauble Beach.

Previously in the week we started off in Arnprior with Sister Ains, then to Aylmer for Family Barbeque Sunday, then to Kingston to visit Cousins Jana n' Jay, and then to Barrie to stay with the Nazeralis. Lovely, lovely visits, all. I'm going to avalanche the site with photos once we're in Nova Scotia; our flight is tomorrow afternoon, where we'll be met by Grampa John and Gramma Margo.

Categories: Canadiana | Friends

Comments [0]

Life Is A Highway

Listening to Fifty Tracks again this morning on CBC Radio, they finally got to Life Is A Highway by Tom Cochrane.

I love this song. I know a lot of people got completely blown out on it in 1991-92 when it was everywhere -- but to my rabidly blurred pro-Canada brain, this roadtrip anthem has never lost its power.

This song is still great - there's rarely a long-distance car ride that doesn't bring it to mind (though Turner won