Kitlope, no, something, whatever, Field School

Eight months ago a friend of mine told me that there was this really amazing field school that NWCC puts on in the Summer where you go to the Kitlope. The Kitlope is a ways down the Douglas Channel, past Alcan, past Kemano and into the wilderness where the 1st Nations people used to have villages before European contact. Sounds great right? Even better is that the course is two weeks long and is worth 6 credits, a geography and an anthropology. Right up my alley. I went straight down to registration and signed up.

So there I am, totally set, 8 months in advance, I booked the time off work, let everyone know what I was doing, and didn't really think about it for another 7 1/2 months.

Then what happens? I got a phone call from the college, two weeks before the class began, letting me know that it wasn't looking good. There were some problems happening between the college and the 1st Nations group that was supposed to take us and it looked like we were going to have to do something else instead.

So, like a trooper, I'm like, ok, no big deal, I trust that we'll do something interesting and worthwhile, and I guess it'll cost a bit less, so that's a bonus. NO WORRIES.

Ok. So there has been some give and take. Our first field trip consisted of a cancellation of our hike at Glacier Creek because it might have been flooded, but no one was sure either way, so instead we drove the 20 minutes to Old Remo to look at culturally modified trees, but SURPRISE the road was flooded out, so we had to turn around and go somewhere else. (Oh, did I mention we had already left late because the teacher had forgotten to book something for the next day so we had to wait for her to get her shit together?) Where? 30 minutes out of town to a deactivated logging road that had completely grown over. We had to trudge through solid bush, shoving juvenile spruce trees out of our way and braving steep, muddy, embankments. Not a trip for the faint of heart, or knees. We then arrived on the bank of the Skeena, and apparently we were looking for culturally modified trees and cache pits, which were used by the 1st Nations to store food during a hunt. We walked around for about 20 minutes, didn't find them, (because of course the INSTRUCTORS didn't know where they were), and decided to leave, because OH WELL I GUESS THEY AREN'T HERE.

Most of us decided to walk back on the tracks because the trek in was beyond ridiculous, until we heard a shout in the woods from the teacher saying that they had found them. We then hiked it back in so that we could look at, wait for it, a bunch of holes in the ground. Holes in the ground that contained food 300 years ago. HOLES.

This is my two weeks of holidays for the entire YEAR, PEOPLE! Sigh.

Summer Activities

The weather here has been gorgeous for the last three weeks and although we've been enjoying it immensely, we've had a rather limited amount of time available to get out and enjoy it. So after much griping and moaning on my part, we took the day aside. In the morning we did loads and loads of yardwork and cleaning and then we went on a lovely little jaunt down the Centennial Trail and then up the Bench. I road my bike and Dave rollerbladed. It was a great day and we got to enjoy some breathtaking views while panting and hacking from overexertion.




The view from the top of Kalum Hill



Dave looks miserable but he's just exhausted.




Me!

A Little Glimpse of Nonna

My Dad's side of the family is Italian. And when I say 'Italian' I mean, live across from Giovanni Cabotto Park, shop at Spinelli's, attend Santa Maria Goretti Catholic Parish and drink wine with an alcohol content resembling screech. I mean the dish-flinging, over-bearing mothering, plastic sheets on the 50 year old 'chesterfield', singing O Solo Mio while drunk at 400-plus guest weddings kind of Italian. When I'm with my Nonna and Nonno I love every minute of it. That is, until Nonna starts fretting over me and asking when I'm going to move back to Edmonton and why doesn't Leannie have a boyfriend yet and why isn't Jon in school and while we're at it lets talk about grudges that originated over 40 years ago but are still going strong.

Oh what the hell, I still love it then too.

One of the most distinct things about my grandparents is their house. All of their furniture is exactly the same as it was when I was growing up. Most of their belongings remain as well. They have blush pink couches bearing intricate dark wood detail. Their coffee table is a dark wood with space in cubbies for trinkets and little statues, of which there are many. The china cabinet, kitchen and dining room table, their bed and dresser have all been in that house since before my birth. Their belongings are so distinct, (tacky), that whenever I (or my sister or my mom) see "Nonna" stuff, whether that be decorative items or clothing, we always take the time to stop and point it out. Often, one of us will stop and cry out at a particularly sequined, colourful confection, "oh god, that is SUCH a Nonna sweater." And the rest of us will stop and admire.

Not having had this experience in quite some time here in Terrace, I had to stop and take pictures of these "bouquets" that I saw at a local shop here. Nonna has these EXACT displays in her home and I was shocked to see they still sell them....somewhere.

Self - Help by Norm Foster. Pics Volume One.

The show closed on Saturday night with what was undoubtedly our best performance. For those of you who couldn't be there, some pictures will have to suffice. Too bad for you.

These are from opening night and were graciously provided by my one of my colleagues, Gloria, and her man, Sandy.



"Mr. & Mrs. Savage, the people who live here."



"Okay, time to switch to plan B"



"Flatter you be damned!"



"Is it because I said Mitchell Quinty was a pantywaist?"



"Please Detective, call me Ruby."

Style

If you aren't already familiar, definitely do some research on Shepard Fairey. He's the guy that did that very famous poster of Obama with the red and blue hues. Fabulous artist, and he has some really cool posters and prints for sale. Getting to understand this guy's passion and vision is worth a couple hours of internet surfing.

Skeena Flooding?!

Last summer, I swear to you I nearly died from a vitamin D deficiency. It was, hands down, the worst summer EVAR. With only a couple weeks of sunny days, inerspersed with rain, clouds and more rain, I tell you, there was more than a few times where I nearly dropped dead on my computer desk at work from the heartbreak of it all.

Meanwhile, this being my first summer in the Northwest, everyone in Terrace was saying, "Oh, Amber, no, this is such unuuuusual weather, this neeeeeeever happens, we always get hot summers and it's just so great and wonderful and we don't understand why this summer is in the shitter...."

Needless to say I was skeptical.

It seems however these local yokels may have actually been genuine in their defense of Terrace weather. For the last 6-7 days we've been having 30 degree heat! YAY! It's been fabulous. And I don't think I've ever heard so many conversations starting with the sentence: "Hot enough for ya?" Love it.

It seem however that in this area, heat like this all at once comes with a fairly heavy cost. THE SKEENA. Everyone is freaking about how high it is, understandably, because with all this hot weather the levels are ridiculous bordering on 'run for your lives!'

To view a handy mathematical chart that outlines the water levels, click here.

Video of 'The Flood of 2007', to which all things are compared.

Sunday Style - Thursday Edition

I read "How to be a Canadian", by Will Ferguson and Ian Ferguson, on the train on my way to visit family in Edmonton. I immediately wished that I was reading it alone because it took a lot of effort not to belly-laugh my way across BC's interior. That said, it was such an entertaining read that I chose to make due with the curious stares.




An excerpt:

"Population:

There are 30,000,000 people in Canada - all of whom have, at some point, frozen their tongues to the side of a chainlink fence or flagpole. Even though their mothers told them not to. Indeed, at any given time of the year, it is winter somewhere in Canada and someone, somewhere, is stuck to a flagpole. "Hap me, hap me. Tumbuddy, pwease hap me."

Average I.Q.

See above."

Late Night Homecoming

Opening night for "Self - Help" came and went with extraordinary ease. We had no major catastrophes and though it was a small crowd, people seemed to really enjoy themselves. Tonight I get to do it all again and I hope to improve personally on last night's performance. I'm a star now, you see, and I have a reputation to live up to. *Sigh,* the obligations of fame..

When I got home from the show I was informed that for the bazillionth time Zoe had slipped through our grasp. It was getting close to 11:00pm and it was dark. Finding her in the dark has been an unsuccesful venture in previous experience, so we all went to bed, hoping to get a call from someone who would perhaps find her in their yard in the morning.

When we got up this morning Zoe was snuggling with a pillow in the spare room. For a few minutes Dave thought that she had been home the whole time had been hiding under the bed or something - until Anthony and Margaret got up and let us in on what happened.

Apparently at about 3:30am Margaret could hear Zoe barking. She and Anthony debated for a short time about whether it was actually her, and then Anthony ran out into the street and looked around. There in the dark he could see Zoe running from door to door on our street barking at each house, terrorizing all of my neighbours in the wee hours of the morning. By the way, IF YOU'RE READING THIS I'M SO SORRY!!

The nice thing about it was that Zoe was trying to find her home!! Anthony called to her and she charged at him and nearly knocked him over by attempting to leap into his arms. Anthony said it was the happiest he had ever seen her! (Perhaps she got lucky??)

Mystery SOLVED.

As if my life wasn't chaotic enough already..

Allow me to set the stage:

For the last two weeks we have had three couchsurfers staying in our trailer and garage while they look for work and other accomodation in Terrace. Two brothers from Ireland and one girlfriend, from Arkansas. They are absolutely lovely and though they were originally only going to stay for a few days, we have extended our home to them for as long as they would like, primarily because of their fabulous cooking, dog walking, and pub stories.

Yesterday was the dress rehearsal for the show I'm performing in with the Terrace Little Theatre, which I have written about here and here. My life is now fully and entirely dictated by the needs of the theatre as we set to embark on the first of 9, (yes NINE), shows tomorrow night.

Zoe is in heat and has escaped about five times (we've lost count), most recently this morning, and continues to evade our attempts to keep her in the house and yard with her wily female tricks.

So, with all this, as if my life wasn't already balancing on the fringe of utter disorder, OUR PLUMBING IS ON THE FRITZ.

Two days ago, I noticed that the bathroom sink wasn't draining as quickly as normal, and when the tap was on there were gurgling noises coming from the other drains. I immediately let Dave know that we should call the plumber, to which he responded, "no it's fine, there's nothing wrong. Besides, the plumber will cost too much."

Feeling strongly that it was a problem we should pay attention to, I pressed the matter several times throughout the day, until he finally told me that it was alright to call.

I left work at 5:30, in a hurry to make it to dress rehearsal which began at 6, and came home to discover that the bathtub was lined with a quarter-inch of black sludge. I immediately assumed that the plumber had come by and had left this disgusting mess in my bathroom (which I had spent an hour cleaning the day before). Thankfully I was able to keep the contents of my stomach inside my body at the sight of this and I managed to clean it up. This left me with 3 minutes to get to rehearsal so I had to run out the door, after giving the plumber's emergency number to one of the Irishmen, just in case.

Dress rehearsal came and went, and afterwards I got a phone call from Dave explaining that the plumber had made things worse and now the tub wasn't draining and they couldn't use the water. I was shocked, thinking that the problem had been fixed, but I was distracted by a second phone call coming in from a person saying they had found Zoe. Who we DIDN'T EVEN KNOW WAS MISSING.

Sigh.

This morning, when I called the plumber, all geared up to ream them out for the mess they left and for not fixing our problem, when they informed me that had not come by yet.

Gasp!

My tub backed up on its own! EEEWWW!

All morning my coworkers have been regaling me with horror stories about roots digging through pipe, entire yards being dug up, thousands of dollars gone!!! (So comforting, the people I work with).

Anyway, the plumber has promised to go by today, and have also promised not to let my dog out, and hopefully are going to solve all my problems, preferably without taking any of our limbs or firstborn children!!!

Sunday Style

Back when I went to prison Christian School, the only redeeming feature was this game. The student body was 99% Dutch and introduced it to me (shocked that my young Italian self hadn’t heard of it before!) and it was loads of fun.

I forgot about it for years and then Dave was introduced to it when he was in Winnipeg recently. We’ve been playing it all the time and it’s been a blast. Also adorable.