today i had an interview to be a tour guide at the legislature. i think it went fairly well, except for when they asked me if i knew who my m.l.a. was. i said, "yeesh. i'm really bad with remembering this stuff. well, i'm from vermilion, and i think ours is... benoit? like, the vegreville-vermilion area?" and the ladies kind of smiled and said, "well, no, i think your m.l.a. would be ed stelmach, our premier. that's a big one!" then, the minute i walked out of my interview, i realized that we were both wrong, and that i DID know the name of my m.l.a. (as well as my former and possibly still current member of parliament, leon benoit), and that he's my best friend's uncle. thanks for being up on that one, memory retrieval system!

later on, i went rowing. it was a beautiful day, and this girl sarah and i got to row in a double. a double is different from a pair: in the former, each person rows with two oars; in the latter, each person uses only one oar. anyway, i was excited, because i like sculling (two oars each) more that sweeping (one oar each). however:
1. i hadn't been out in a rowing boat for two years, so i was pretty rusty;
2. sarah and i had never rowed on the water together, so we ought to have taken most of the practice just doing super simple balance drills and stuff like that; and
3. our "coach" didn't really give us any drills at all or anything to work on. in fact, he left us when we had just gone downriver from the hawrelak footbridge, and took his motorboat around a bend in the river where he could no longer see us. at that exact time, sarah and i both caught massive crabs (crabs are basically when you mean to "feather" your blade, (feather = to rotate it so it sits horizontally and you can then pull it back over the water for your next stroke), and for whatever reason the water catches the blade and pulls it, making it extremely difficult to regain control and balance) on our starboard side, started tipping, realized we were going over, and flipped our boat. it was my first flip ever, and it was awesome. the water wasn't super cold, but it was still really shocking to my system. in rowing, your feet are tied in to the footplate, so as we went over, my upper body went in, and the boat went over my body, but my feet were still tied in. luckily, the shoes i was in were WAY too big, so it was easy to slip my feet out. anyway, after kind of getting our bearings and coughing a lot, sarah and i grabbed onto our upside-down boat (which, like the oars, is a certified flotation device), and waited for a few minutes to see if our coach was coming back to help us out or at least tell us what to do. he didn't, and the river's current was carrying us fairly quickly towards one of the huge pillars holding up the hawrelak footbridge. we held onto opposite ends of the boat and swam, spinning the boat around to avoid the pillar. after we'd passed it, a men's quad came by and yelled out instructions to us so we could flip our boat upright and get back in. it felt pretty rad and rewarding to just be two girls on the river, flipping our boat and nearly smashing it on the pillar and then getting our shit together and righting the boat and actually getting back in and rowing back. luckily, by the time the boys started instructing us, our feet could touch the ground, so we were only chest-deep in water when we reflipped the boat and balanced it and got back in. i've learned to do canoe rescues and flips and stuff, but i don't know if anyone really teaches actual lessons on how to right rowing shells. i learned a lot from it (about rowing; about the river...), and i'm very glad it happened on such a warm day.

you laughed, enchanted by my intellect. or maybe, you didn't

yesterday dustan called me after i had already fallen asleep to tell me that michael cera and i were meant for each other because there was an article about him in spin saying how his favorite album is pinkerton and his favorite movie is rushmore.  thanks for thinking about me, dustan.  thanks for being such a dreamboat, michael cera.  

i've been sick lately.  i think it's because of rowing.  it might be because of my millions of environmental allergies, which are in full swing when i walk through the river valley to the edmonton rowing club.  it might also be because i am working all the toxins out of my body with all that exercise, but not drinking enough water to flush them out.  boo.  i haven't been on the water yet.  we've just been erging (using the ergometers/rowing machines) and in the tank (which is essentially an indoor boat that doesn't move - if you're curious, ask me about it).  i was supposed to be on the water with this other girl yesterday, but there were whitecaps on the river and i haven't been in a boat for 2 years, so we decided to stay in the tank.  i think on friday we'll be going out.  i bought some superwarm tights, which aren't really all that aesthetically exciting, but man, they will be so awesome in october.  

i went to the blackspot cafe on tuesday, after a cute supper with my sisters at chianti's.  jenni and the boys in her band were having some sort of jam session/open mic thing every tuesday, and there were only 6 of us there, but it was fun and super funny.  

class is really interesting.  we talked about northwest coast social relationships with regard to salmon today.  so neat!  in my native issues and insights class, we are talking about definitions for words like metis, indian, inuit, treaty, status, first nation, etc., and not really coming up with anything concrete.  in cree we are learning about animate intransitive paradigms and conjunct mode and i don't even know what those things are in english.  my favorite new cree words are "oho" (which has a macron above each of the 'o's, but i don't know how to write that on here), and "sisip," (which also has macrons above the 'i's).  "oho," pronounced "oo-hoo," means "owl," and "sisip," pronounced "see-seep," means "duck."  i think i am getting familiar with a lot of the cree sounds, but i still have trouble with emphasis.

he made me a tape of bootlegs and b-sides

wednesday was my first day of classes. exciting! the classes i have this term are: archaeology, socio-cultural anthropology, native issues and insights I, northwest coast societies from an anthropological perspective, and introductory cree. woo! later on, meghan and i ate at julio's barrio (because no one we worked with at the museum had ever been there, and they wanted to go. unfortunately, none of the rest of them showed up) and then walked home and painted watercolors and watched "high fidelity." (as a side note: i really do apologize for not citing my sources in MLA style. i know i don't capitalize, but citing sources correctly is a bigger deal to me. anyway, my screen on this new computer won't let me make italics, etc., and i don't know html. sorry.)

on thursday joel alexander and i met at 8 for a free pancake breakfast put on by the u of a students' association. i thought we would have to wait in line much longer than we did. we only waited for about 5 minutes. then we ate our breakfast in the native studies' tipi and then we hung out in the chem building and played with dry ice. i had some more classes. no crushes in them. later on i went for hot chocolate downtown with kaylin and we had a good talk. i think we always have good talks. then we went to see blake's band play at the starlight room with another band called "art brut." they were pretty amazing. i think i would have enjoyed the show if i hadn't been so tired/hungry, but i think blake enjoyed it enough to cover everyone. i don't know if i've ever seen someone so happy.

on friday i woke up really late, which was okay. i only had one class - my cree lab - but i will have more labs starting next week. i went to the doctor and she things i have asthma. another great quality i can add to my nerd list. later on i went to a meeting for the u of a rowing club. tryouts start tomorrow, and i am pretty nervous, because i can't really jog or do work-out-y things. i'm pretty decent at rowing, but i hope i don't get cut because i suck at push-ups. ugh.

on saturday i had soccer practice with a women's intramural team i might play with this fall. they seem neat and right at my level, which is nice. a lot of the girls are mexicans, and they give cute cheek-kisses to each other and yell in spanish a lot. cute. afterwards my parents and my sisters and my sisters' boyfriends and i went out for lunch at chianti's to celebrate my birthday. my mom and my dad gave me a rotary mat and a rotary cutter and a big clear plastic ruler (quilting/sewing supplies) for my birthday. woo! now i just need a flat, uncarpeted surface to cut my fabric on. later on, kaylin and i went to the sleeping bag drive-in at the u of a. it was supposed to be outside at QUAD, which would have been unassailably cute, but since it had rained all day, the movie was inside. it was still kind of cute anyway. kaylin and i brought lawn chairs and each cuddled up under blankets we had sewn ourselves. the movie they showed was "blades of glory." meh.

today emily and i hung out. i got some pictures developed so i could hang some new ones on my walls. we also went to michael's and then checked out the open house at the city arts centre. there are lots of neat programs on there this fall. you should check them out. afterwards we made multigrain chocolate chip cookies together. later on, i went to dr. e's because she was having a little party for a neat lady she knows. i saw linda and matt and dr. zinck, all of whom i haven't seen recently. i mostly hung out with bri, who, as always, was really great to talk with. then i finished collaging my scribblers, and now i am going to sleep.

oh! also, colin and i might be friends again. i can't say for sure, but it looks promising. that might be my most exciting news.

heyyy brother

so... i drove to calgary on friday. kelseydawn and i met up with a girl who worked for ghost river rediscovery, and who gave me a letter from the guyanese girl who wrote me a letter just before i left guyana (i wrote about it a while ago - if you're a new stalker or just a friend with a bad memory, go back a few months and read it). we spent the rest of the day hanging out on kensington and 17th ave., watching arrested development episodes on dvd, watercoloring, and eating tacos. the next morning we got up early and drove to canmore to go caving at "rat's nest cave." apparently, the cave has pack rats, which was surprising to us because we had believed alberta to be "rat free." also, "dutch elm disease" free. these beliefs, i suppose, developed over years of driving west out of lloydminster and seeing the "prevent dutch elm disease" signs. also, a boy in my high school class used to call saskatchewanites (?) "ratlanders," supposedly because WE didn't have rats. anyways. a surprise.

i had been caving before, and kelsey hadn't, but this time was pretty different from the last time i went. a couple of times we had to clip onto ropes to avoid falling into 50-foot holes, and we also did a 60-foot rappell at one spot. we crawled through some pretty tight spaces, but this cave had more tight vertical crawls, whereas the other cave i've been in had a really tight long horizontal crawl. kelsey and i tried to photograph ourselves enjoying the activity, but the combination of:
1. terrible lighting,
2. terrible photography skills, and
3. terribly unphotogenic girls
made for some pretty terrible pictures. we had a really good time, though, and it's really nice to have someone to do pseudo-"adventurous" outdoorsy activities with. we think our next activity might be dog-sledding in canmore.

after caving, i drove back to edmonton and hung out with joel alexander kelly. i sure do like that boy. we ordered pizza and watched "the life aquatic," which seems like a pretty mediocre night but after almost a year in relative isolation, it was really nice to do city-ish things with a real friend. later on we went to see jenni play at the velvet underground. i really like illfit outfit's new stuff, i've decided.

on sunday emily moved out of the apartment to a new place, and i actually got furniture and a place to call home for the first time in a year. new brown bed! new brown sheets! new brown curtains! thrilling.

on monday i had orientation. i am so excited for school. i signed up for a bunch of clubs and got a bunch of cute boys' phone numbers. part of that sentence is a lie. later on i collaged the front of some of my scribblers.

today i got my hair cut. i also saw richard, my favorite homeless man, waiting for the bus outside the movie studio. i talked to him for a bit, which was pretty exciting because i haven't seen him in over a year. i've been working on mix tapes for the last few days. also, i finished handsewing the 4 pink moose onto the outside of one of my grey bags.

tonight i think i'll be staying here

after this weekend, i was pretty much convinced that life couldn't get any better, when it threw me A WHOLE BAND MADE OUT OF JASON SCHWARTZMAN. i'd rather italicize that, but my computer doesn't let me and i don't know HTML. anyway. kelsey made me a mix cd this weekend, and it had some coconut records songs on it, and i fell in love with them without knowing the band is almost entirely jason schwartzman. swoon. i will write more on my magical weekend later.

post script to last night's post:
1. one of the things becky said that i really enjoyed/identified with: "but i e-mailed him back, because i enjoy adventure and excitement." this was an e-mail to a boy she maybe shouldn't have e-mailed. i know how it is, becky. we both have pretty extreme emotions and i think we both like to play with them, with the same enjoyment that most people get out of extreme physical activities.
2. michelle told me some more adorableness about reece: "we were marking kids together for Mission Impossible and he was talking about how "manly" his Sr. was "he hunts, rock climbs, fishes...he's like the manliest guy ever. And me? I read books." he's so awesome!!!

there was a time when all i wanted was my ice cream a little colder, and a little cream soda

i should be in bed but i wanted to write about the awesomeness of my day before it leaves me. my awesome day didn't really start until 3:00. also, this may have to be in point form.

1. i drove to the south side of the city, and stopped at michael's (the craft store, not a handsome boy's) to buy a spool holder and some paintbrushes
2. then i picked up kaylin from her work, and we drove to
3. pick up becky from HER work, and we ALL drove to
4. camp nakamun! it's the first time i've been there in about 5 years! we visited:
5. michelle powles, who was as delightful and irreverent as ever and is like having a built-in MST3K robot in one's life; and
6. reece c., who has been my and michelle's long-time favorite "nakakid" ever since we discovered he had the same first name as my camp name.
7. kaylin, becky and i got to camp just as the best night of the week, TALENT SHOW NIGHT, was starting.
8. we also managed to get there on DONUT NIGHT! how lucky! we had some terrible camp juice: a fun memory but a taste which still lingers in the back of my throat and the roof of my mouth.
9. reece remembered me AND gave me a hug, and i told him to find me on facebook and he said, "i don't use facebook. i don't have many... 'personal' friends." a-dorable. i would have a for-real crush on him, if only he wasn't 17.
10. on the way back from camp, we saw a moose running through the field and across the road, as well as a porcupine!
11. driving and just generally spending time with becky and kaylin was great. great great great. they are some of my favorite people AND they are two of my oldest friends. that maybe seems short, since i didn't go to school with either of them, but becky and i have been friends for 8 years, and kaylin and i have been friends for just a little bit less. that's a long time.
12. kaylin and michelle and i have plans to collage our scribblers together before school starts.
13. we dropped kaylin off at home, and then bexxx and i went to see jenni/illfit outfit play. we were pleasantly surprised to see jon and scott kobewka there. i didn't dance at all, which was a little disappointing, but being at a show again with becky was really nice, and jon is rad and i am glad we got another chance to hang out this summer. we are supposed to be friends now but he is a boy so i don't know how good he'll be at that. anyway, i am excited for potential mix tape exchanges with him.

it's not the milk you seek; it's the sun you need

remember that pair of brown chucks that was missing one shoe? the peeps at foot locker called around all over canada, and they found ONE full pair in my size and they ordered it for me. so, this post will hopefully be short, because i have to go pick them up. woo!

more good news is that my credit card insurance company sent me a cheque in the mail for the amount of my stolen red ipod. but here's the deal: i bought my ipod when i bought my new mac, and it was on this deal where you could get a new ipod (below the value of $229) for free. so, the ipod i got was about $315, so i ended up paying $70 for the ipod after they sent me the rebate. but now, i have a $315 cheque, and i don't really NEED another ipod, because i still have my big one. hmm. decisions. should i buy a new little ipod for little trips? should i buy books? should i drive as far as i can on $157 worth of gas, and then drive back? the world is my oyster!

i'm back in edmonton, but here's a little summation of the remainder of my v-town trip:
-i cut out a LOT of fabric
-i sewed some of said fabric into log cabin squares for a quilt i am making for myself. some of my favorite fabrics include 2 pinecone fabrics, a brown fabric with cattails all over it, and some pretty japanese flowers.
-i sewed some more fabric into bags and wallets. i had to do it all then because i wanted to use my mom's serger. i still have to do the fronts of the bags and wallets, though, and that will take a long time. the one i am working on right now is for a grey corduroy bag, and i am hand-sewing four bright pink moose (mooses?) onto it with a blanket stitch. it's pretty ridiculous. i think i'll put a duck and some cattails on a brown bag, and a bison on the plaid bag, and then who knows what else. world = still my oyster.

i went longboarding with dustan one night. it was really, really nice. sometimes i like having new friends, because it's nice to learn about people, but sometimes i like having friends like dustan, where new stuff isn't all that important but memories are what keeps the friendship alive. we played a game that i have been wanting to play with a different boy recently: we would just drive around and alternately point out a memory. i always feel like vermilion isn't really my home, but it turns out i have a lot of memories there. also, i wanted to hang out with brina, but i didn't get a chance to, because her sister just had a baby. i didn't even know she was pregnant.

emily and brad came over on monday. for some reason, emily was thinking about these old computer games we used to have, and then she found them, so i spent a night playing "ecoquest." this was partially because my dad but a ban on me sewing after he's gone to bed, because my machine makes too much noise and keeps him awake. i think it speaks volumens to my nerdiness that my family's computer games are limited to "ecoquest," "spelling blizzard," and "the island of dr. brain." yeesh.

yesterday evening i met up with karen, bri, bethany, joel, lisa, and marney to watch this boy who used to play in illfit outfit play a couple sets at a church. i like hanging out with those peeps. i like that my summer's been bookended by one of his shows and two illfit outfit shows. hearts for symmetry!

i can feel so boring for someone so interesting

today i was cutting fabric and my mom told me, "i like this one. it's not pretty but it's interesting... like you." ouch.

when i got back to edmonton, the first thing i did was go to see "superbad" with emily and meghan and meg's boyfriend nick. it was supercrude, but michael cera is adorable. "samesies"? how could i not love it? the next day, emily and brad and i went to see "the simpsons movie" at city centre. not terrific, but i'm glad i watched it with those two peeps.

at karen's on sunday, i somehow rolled my ankle really bad. i think the ground was a bit uneven because there must have been a large planter or something sitting there a while ago. anyway, i kind of fell out of nowhere and looked really ridiculous doing it, but it really really hurt and still does. i have bad ankles because of dance/soccer, and they haven't been so bad lately because i haven't really played much soccer for the last two years, but now they're totally messed up again. ugh. so, i've been in vermilion for a couple of days now, but haven't gone longboarding yet because of my dumb ankle. however, i have been keeping busy. i bought some fabric to make myself a quilt, and i visited my grandma and gido at their new place at the lodge. i should be working on my bags and wallets for nokomis, but i don't really feel like it. i couldn't find any more of the lining fabric i really like, and it's hard to start on those projects without the lining fabric. boo.

i talked to trent and dustan. trent was same old new trent, so we didn't talk long, but i had a good talk with dustan. we might hang out tomorrow. he asked me to be his date for esther and joel's wedding in october, which is nice, because i didn't get invited. i told him i would go, on the conditions that: 1) he didn't have a beard, and 2) he wore matching socks with no holes in them. then he said i could have 5 conditions, but i didn't have to list them all at once. that's pretty generous of him. most of the time that boy makes me crazy, but about 10% of the time, he's one of the best friends i've got.

then mom just rolls her eyes. she says, "you'll find that special guy," but to herself she cannot lie...

i got back to edmonton on friday. i've mostly been unpacking and reclaiming the apartment. also, i bought some watercolor stuff and have been painting every night with my sisters. i am really, really terrible, but it is nice to do. today was karen's birthday party, and i bought her some watercolor paints and a few brushes and cheap paper and a little paint tray, and then i sewed a little red corduroy pouch to fit everything (except the paper) into. i was pretty happy with it, for something that was done 2 hours before the party. it has some brush pockets all the way across the front, and then the tray fits in a big pocket across the back, and the tube paints fit in their tray inside the pouch. also, i cut some of the paper into postcard-sized pieces so karen could paint and send postcards, because that's what i've been doing and i like it.

but the big news in my life is not watercolors. it is that in the span of ONE HOUR today, i found out that two girls i am pretty good friends with are getting married, and another from my king's soccer team got married already (to another girl - is that legal in alberta? i don't know...). one of the girls getting married is mischa, who i hung out with after i got back from guyana and who did not have a boyfriend at that time. i will have to find out more about this. but i bet this boy is good, because mischa is smart and good with making decisions. then again, i do recall mischa once handing in a rough draft of a sociology essay we worked on together, with one of the sentences have SIX "not"s in it. yikes. the other marriage is andrea, one of my best friends since high school and with whom i had an enormous fight in university, and did not talk to for over a year. now we are good good friends again, and tonight she asked me to be in her wedding party. in new brunswick! wow! exciting. and a really special honor. i like that some of the people i am closest with are the people who i've gone at least a year without talking to because of anger/hurt. so. weddings. exciting, because they mean dance parties. not exciting, because i am an old maid.

i thought i should probably write about a few semi-exciting things that happened this week:
1. i saw a black bear, a marten or a fisher, and a coyote.
2. i picked blueberries and raspberries with meghan, and we even got some yellow raspberries! they are just like red raspberries, only kind of peach colored, and a little bit sweeter and less tart. neat!
3. i am done work in one hour, and then i am driving back to edmonton!
4. i cried today, and i am glad. i haven't had a good cry for a long time.
5. jen showed us just how slippery a banana peel on the floor can be. i never thought it could really be that slippery. i thought that was just a made-up fact for cartoons. nope.

i'm only waiting for the proper time to tell you that it's impossible to get along with you

so. i have decided that my annual september kickball party at hawrelak park will ALSO be a mix tape exchange party. just so you know. you are invited. it will be on the afternoon of september 15. you should start working on a mix tape or cd (whichever one you make should depend on what you want to receive: i think mix tapes are more magical, so i am going to make a mix tape and get someone else's, but if you can't make tapes or have nowhere to play them, make a mix cd, and then exchange it with another cd-er). make some nice cover art. invite your friends. write it on your calendar. don't forget.

sucking freezies in the rain

i am extra, extra, extra grumpy lately. that is all. no, wait, it's not. i got some really nice mail from dustan and joel recently. thanks, boys! also, i got two surprisingly nice e-mails from trent. we'll see how long that lasts.

my tambourine is still shakin'

yesterday my mom called me while i was making something, and she suggested that i drop out of the university program i'm registered for and take an art or design or sewing program at red deer or something. man, i wish. but... i am not confident enough in myself. so i decided to stay in my program, but i DID register for a mixed media course at grant macewan starting in late september. exciting!

i made millions of oatmeal chocolate chip cookies this weekend. i made a bunch of garment tags, and they look soooo good. i sewed some wallets. i made some mittens. i did some laundry. i fell in love with the cuttlefish, who i learned a whole lot about on "the nature of things" last night. i am a busy busy bee.

4 more sleeps until i move back to edmonton!

i wanna hear the same song twice

after lunch, the jen that i work with brought in a sublime album, and asked us if we knew how to skank. heh. maybe she's "wannabesk8erjen"! only kelsey will get that. anyway, it was enjoyable. i like having ska revisit me every once in a while.

also, sam told us that last night she "was playing too many cards and so [she] missed [her] bingo." ha. i love it up here.

pop! goes my heart

on tuesday i went to high prairie so i could: 1) buy blank cds and iron-on transfer paper; 2) go to robin's and burn cds/hang out one last time/pick up my sewing machine; meet meghan for our regular tuesday night brownie at egan's (usually we have one at trivia, but it's done now); and 4) play soccer. hanging out at robin's was even more fun that usual, and we didn't even really do anything except burn cds. goodbye, friendship! he is moving to red deer to be an instructor at the college, i think, and so i won't see him very much any more. but we will try to hang out sometimes, because we like doing arts and crafts and music sharing together. megs and i shared our brownie and then i went to soccer, and it was more fun than i thought it would be. a bunch of new boys showed up, and we just messed around and then played world cup. robin and i won world cup, but i think that's because we got lucky/the other boys playing weren't really soccer players. but they WERE boys, and robin and i WERE on "the girl's team," so i think that counts for something.

on wednesday i got a ride back to joussard with meghan and some other ladies i work with. megs invited me over to her house, and we had chicken fajitas and then we went quading and blueberry picking in the forest. then we watched a movie called music and lyrics. it was not really great, but drew barrymore is always adorable and we liked the music video that hugh grant was in. plus, girl sleepovers are fun and i don't really do them anymore, so it was nice.

on thursday i made garment tags for my wallets/bags, using the iron-on transfer paper and white satin ribbon. they turned out so, so well. i am excited to start putting them in my stuff. also, my "service engine soon" light came on in my car, which would be bad except for that i had an appointment that day for the mechanic anyway. perfect! i took my car in to the guy in joussard, and then i stayed at meghan's again. we went quading again, and picked tons and tons of blueberries. then we made some blueberry muffins, and started watching a pretty lame movie called premonition. our movie selections are quite limited, because the joussard store only has about 100 movies, and meghan has seen most of them. and the ones that she hasn't seen, she has to filter through and figure out if they are ones that her boyfriend will want to see with her. she and i can't watch those ones. boo!

the reason i had my third panic attack last week is because i got a message on my edmonton apartment phone, saying, "hi, i'm looking for caylie ... nair-uh. i'm an investigator with the human rights commissioner. if you know where caylie is, can you please have her give me a call." yikes! so i panicked all weekend, thinking someone was suing me or something. but it turns out they were just questioning me about a complaint that was made against a former employer. whew.

a lot of times, i feel like my life is the song "empty cans" by the streets. everything and everything and everything goes wrong, and then one thing goes right and then everything starts going right again. anyway, this time, the one thing that went right is that my typewriter's broken keys just magically started working again. i spent a whole day typing letters, so maybe YOU can expect one in the mail! maybe not. don't get your hopes up. i got a bunch of letters done, and i got to mail a whole stack of them yesterday! i love love love walking to the mailbox with a handful of letters. it might actually be more satisfying than receiving mail. that doesn't mean that you should stop writing me letters.

i got a lot of crafting done this weekend also. i worked on a wallet for sam and one for joel's friend natasha, and i crocheted a few pairs of mittens (i am trying to get rid of all my yarn - if you want a pair of rose pink or royal blue or soft green or brown or maroon or olive green mittens, just let me know.). i cut out some fabric for some more plaid bags, and i also finished a beige kite wallet. also, i went to robin's for a bit yesterday and he taught me how to paint with watercolors. one of my goals this year is to learn how to paint. i got off to a... pretty poor start, actually. i think my problem is that i just want everything to be brown.

we've been sitting in your backyard for hours, but she won't even come out and say hi

on thursday i drove into town for soccer, but robin was the only other person who showed up. we had an "end of our friendship talk": "thanks for coming over and crafting...," "i wish we had gotten around to...," etc. he was a little mad that i didn't say goodbye to him last tuesday at trivia, but here's a newsflash: i never say goodbye. i make it a point to slip out of places before i have to say goodbye. in guyana, everyone was waiting around at rockview lodge for my plane to come in, but they had to go back to bina hill for lunch. i hoped super hard that my plane would come before they got back. isn't that terrible? thankfully, that's what happened, and i managed to avoid the hassle of goodbyes. i hate introductions; why would i like goodbyes any more? anyways, we say we are going to be friends when he is in red deer and i am in edmonton, but are we really? answer: probably. probably more than i am friends with people in my own city. mostly because we are both pretty good about e-mailing/calling/snail mailing.

i have had, like, 3 panic attacks this week. i will write more about the most recent one later (the first two were about having my room broken into).

a broken home and some broken bones is all he'll have to show

i made myself some multigrain oatmeal chocolate chip cookies last night. jealous?

on wednesday meghan and i went to the high prairie rodeo. i'm glad she likes rodeo as much as i do. for those who don't understand the attraction, here are a few pictures of the most enjoyable events:
mutton bustin' (kids under 10 try to ride a sheep. most are outfitted in a hockey mask. i told meghan that if i have kids, i am going to put them in mutton bustin'. she said she could see me having kids specifically for that purpose.)
calf scramble (kids under 10 are put in the arena, and a calf with a ribbon on its tail is let loose. kids chase it down, get knocked over, and the kid who finally grabs the ribbon gets a prize. in high prairie's case, it's a bike.)
wild pony races (i don't quite understand what the rules were for this one. i think it went something like this: teams of 3 young boys had to all try to get on and ride a wild pony. the rules were confusing because no one was really successful.)

also: sometime next week i am going to buy tickets for the canadian finals rodeo (it's at rexall place, and performances are at 7 p.m. on november 7-10, as well as at 1 p.m. on november 10 and 11). if you want to come, let me know. it is hilarious and adorable.

you got a reaction, didn't you?

so, i found out what happened to my mysteriously absent ipod. someone freaking broke into my house and stole it. i am still not sure if the bathing suit was stolen (my hypothesis is that some pervy teenage drug addict stole the ipod for drug money, and also took the bathing suit on the way out for pervy boy reasons. but maybe i flatter myself too much). last week, i was confused because i came home from work one day and one of the inside doors leading to the tea room was open. i had left it closed (because earlier in the summer, lee gave me a talking-to about making sure it is shut), and lee had been gone to lac st. anne all week, so i kind of just assumed that one of her kids or grandkids had come in to drop something off (they sometimes do things around the house for her, like take out her garbage and stuff). also, this solar-powered light was sitting next to my sewing machine, and it hadn't been there before, so i just assumed that someone had brought it in. but then when lee got back from lac st. anne, i told her that someone had been in the house and that some of my things were missing, and so she asked around in her family if anyone had been inside the house. no one had, so she looked around a bit more, and saw that the screen of the window to my room had been cut at the latch so it could be unlocked (my window leads to the tea room, not to outside). frick. scary. but i might be able to have the ipod replaced through my credit card's insurance. we'll see how it goes.

yesterday my work put a float in the high prairie parade. i think we might have won something. we had some spruce trees and our little tipi and a firepit. meghan and i walked alongside and handed out candy. this year the parade was way faster than last year's, so we mostly ran the whole way. holé. we were pretty exhausted and i was dying of cramps, so we went home after work and had naps. then we went to the final week of trivia at egan's (i'm not sure how we did - we left early) and then we went to the dance at the stampede. i decided vermilion's fair is way better than high prairie's stampede. at vermilion, you pay $5 a day, and you get into the midway, the beer gardens, the grandstand show, the tractor pull, the chuckwagon races and all that other horse stuff, the midway, the petting zoo, the exhibit hall, and the trade fair. at high prairie, you get into the midway for free, but it's $10 for the beer gardens/dance, $20 for the rodeo, and that's all they have. boo! anyway, it was nice to dance, but it wasn't as fun as the vermilion beer gardens.

some other sad news from the weekend is that i found some beautiful beautiful shoes at southgate mall. they are all-brown roll-down chucks. i tried on the one on the shelf, and it fit perfectly, so i asked to buy the pair, and the boy could not find the box with the other shoe! eff! beauty evades me...