there's no home for you here girl, go away

highlights of the last three weeks:
-going to elk island park with emily (although we didn't see any bison, AND we watched a baby grouse get crushed by a big mean truck)
-watching fargo, de-lovely, the secret life of bees, akeelah and the bee, the illusionist, frost/nixon, capote, and seabiscuit (all of which i have been meaning to watch for quite a while, and most of which i got for free from the library!
-crafting lots (still working on hand-stitching the binding onto my quilt, another knitted yoked sweater, and the beaded 1790s-style moccasins and voyageur's shirt for work. the voyageur's shirt, although a total pain in the ass to do because the handsewing is so finicky, is pretty neat. all the pieces are rectangles!)
-reading life of pi, the boy in the striped pyjamas, and one or two others i've forgotten already (i rarely have the attention to read, so it's nice when i am able to do it)
-going to edmonton and tutoring cree (for $50/hour!), having afternoon tea at rutherford house with my mom, feeding the ducks & geese at hawrelak with my mom, and watching emily's aerials performance (which included a pretty incredible performance by natasha's former roommate kim)
-taking my grandparents to my cousin's husband's parent's (got that?) 40th wedding anniversary
-writing lots of letters and getting a few back (notably: robin, erica, kelsey)
-canoeing with my coworkers and a funny 84-year-old man named pat from elk point bridge to the landing at our site (along the north saskatchewan)
-going to the saddle lake powwow with my coworker nathalie. i had never been to saddle lake before, but i liked it and would like to go there again sometime. it's a big reserve - one guy we talked to said it had about 6000 people. ho-leh!
-paying the entire cost of my residence (which includes breakfast and supper daily) in washington. it's a relief to know that it is paid for, and i won't have to worry about carrying around a cheque for three weeks while i travel beforehand, or for some reason not having enough money at the end of the summer.
-hearing that the city of edmonton paid for the new tire my sister had to buy after we hit a pothole on the way to aerials class a few weeks ago and put a hole in the tire
-finding out that i will receive $4000 from my faculty to write and illustrate the cree books i had proposed in early april
-booking most of my flights, rail tickets, & accommodations for september 2nd to december
-booking and planning a 5-day mid-summer vacation to vancouver. i will write more about vancouver when the time comes.
-my best friend is making some exciting changes

yucky parts of the last three weeks:
-my best friend is making some exciting changes. the most blogworthy one of these is that she is moving to belgium for a year. aaaaaarg. so. yes, i encouraged her to do it in the first place. and yes, she has been 300 km away from me for the last couple of years and we still only manage to see each other every 8 months or so, and the last year has been even more seldom than that. and yes, i am really really glad for her. i am not even so afraid of her going, because, as i have pointed out in numerous conversations in the last few months, not much ACTUALLY changes when people are apart for long periods of time. i am just afraid that if she goes, she will have no reason to ever come back. i may be insanely jealous of her too.
-i got a $50 parking ticket for parking my car "too far away from the curb" at the downtown library. i was parked for less than 5 fucking minutes, and the cube van in front of me extended at least as far out into the road as my car did. but my back bumper was apparently 80 cm away from the curb, and it cost me $50. fuck you, city of edmonton. use it to fix the damn potholes that are all over the city, hmm?
-i went canoeing from devon to edmonton with my dad and sister. usually that is pretty fun, but this time, it was super cold and windy the entire time. i felt like we would never make it home. there were whitecaps on the water from the wind, and we just had to paddle steadily through the wind to get down the river. i don't like canoeing because i like paddling. i like canoeing because i like sitting in a boat in the hot sun and eating snack foods and floating with a few people i like. that's it. i don't like getting up at 5:45 in the morning to drive to edmonton, and then paying $50 each to work hard and freeze and then get a sunburned face despite the cold. grumble grumble grumble.
-i have no one to craft with.