sunned-eh.
i crocheted some mittens for kaylin. i drove myself to the lake and sat on a bench on the beach. i was the only person in the park, i think. there were no cars in the parking lot and no people on the trails or on the beach. so rad. i read a bit of "dreams from my father" by barack obama. i walked on the trail and off the trail in the forest. i yelled a bit so the bears would know i was coming and not be surprised by me and try to eat me. i like making noise in the forest and i like being quiet in the forest. i think i am going to try to go out there more often this year. i bet erin will be up for it. we can sling up my hammocks and make a fire and cook bannock and meat and play barefoot and swim and read. it will be so good.

i drove home and ironed some material that i am going to sew. i found a mouse in a mousetrap in the sewing room. i was a little bit sad but a little bit glad that he will not be getting into my food. i ate some delicious tandoori chicken left over from friday or something, and marvelled at how awesome leftovers are. remember, guyana, no fridges? but here, you can eat the same thing you ate a few days ago! with no ants or salmonella! high fives! yeah. bedtime.

today i came into high prairie. i somehow didn't realize until saturday that my job starts tomorrow and not today. so i bought a new address book and some scrapbooking paper, and now i am going to go home and recover the book. i am a thrill a minute. also, i took out lee for lunch. hot date.

so tomorrow i start work, and i know two out of five of my other co-workers, and i bet the other three will be hot; long-haired; well-educated; creative; sensitive; athletic; balanced; culturally-, politically-, and socially-aware single cree boys between the ages of 22 and 28. yep. i'd bet money on it.

saturday!
i crocheted some maroon mittens for jenni, so that she will give back my green ones. and because i like her and i don't want her hands to get cold.

i went to the grouard powwow. megs couldn't come because her family was tearing down their house, but i did see a few familiar faces and i did give my number to a double-A hockey player with no front teeth from the blood reserve who is attending the kapow'n treatment centre in grouard. awesome. he seemed friendly enough. he seems pretty committed to fixing his life up, so that's rad. also: i do not have a crush on him. so don't think that. okay? he said he does some traditional crafts, so i might get him to teach me some.

i daydreamed about the kind of regalia i'd make for myself if i danced. i declined an invitation to round dance with the boy mentioned above. i saw my favorite dancer (he's an older grass dancer from driftpile, and he is sooo rad). i received a yellow plastic bowl in the giveaway. i drove myself home at about 11, and was delighted to see the northern lights dancing as i had hoped.

i like being around people who respect dance so much. i like that no one says, "i can only dance after i've got a few drinks in me." i like seeing people who dance for themselves and to honor the people and things that they love. neat.

get up off the floor and shout! there's a lot to shout about!

i'm writing today in separate posts, because i know it's daunting to try to read a giganto-post. so:
friday, april somethingth.
i went for breakfast with jenni on whyte. nice, as usual. i packed up. i left town. i thought about driving through swan hills, because it's a pretty nice drive out that way, but i wanted to go by the burned forest just this side of slave lake, so i took my usual nakamun-esque st. albert-legal-westlock-slave lake-kinuso-driftpile-sucker creek route. so beautiful. is it a surprise to any of us that "best friend" and "boreal forest" start with the same letters? is it really? no, it's not, because the boreal forest is AWESOME. best-friend-awesome. i listened to the new tape that dustan q. made for me. well, most of it. then i listened to a "greatest hits" tape of his songs that i made a few years ago (made because i got tired of carrying around all those other tapes). although all his stuff sounds the same, i like listening to him in my car because he has pretty much the same range as i do and so singing to his songs is my favorite. it made me miss high school/early university, and the snail-mailed, one-sided conversations (in the form of those tapes) that littered my adolescence. good times.

i got in to lee's at about 6. she wasn't home, but i found the key and unloaded all my stuff. two of her kids phoned, and i talked to them both briefly (i know most of her children reasonably well). one of them said, "welcome home!" nice. i told them that i had felt a bit apprehensive about coming back, because lee was pretty sick last year and i didn't want to be an extra burden to her. both her kids told me she was so excited to have me back, and that she'd been saying for the last month, "my girl is coming back!" so cute. one of her daughters told me on saturday that i was extending her life by giving her something to be look forward to. so... that's pretty special. also, the same daughter told me that lee has never lived in such a harmonious household (her husband was kind of a jerk, and she had a lot of kids). it's pretty neat for both of us, that we can just sit in the living room together and crochet and drink tea and not talk, and she can be vivacious and i can be grandmotherly. so neat.

bed!

two more important things before i leave:
1. brad (emily's... something. unofficial boyfriend? official boyfriend? i don't know) is rad. yesterday was her last day of university EVER and he gave her a big bag of m&ms and a card! with REAL words, that he wrote HIMSELF. and lots of them! what a great boy. good catch emily, good catch.
2. i got a tape from dustan in the mail yesterday. it has been sooo long since i got one of those. of course, they all still sound the same, but i don't think any of the songs are about me anymore. kind of sad. kind of nice. it's true: band boys ARE only looking for the next thing to write a song about.
bye, emminton! take care of the ducks and the geese for me!

i kissed landon last night. i am so awesome. but i like writing about my days in chronological order, so you will have to read about all the things i did yesterday before you read more about that hot topic. or you could just skip to the bottom. whatevs.

yesterday morning i packed up all my stuff in vermilion and loaded it into my car. i have a lot of stuff, but a lot of it is for camping/crafting. i went to the hospital in town to say goodbye to grandma nancy. gido bill was there, and he had his hand on her knee and they were talking to some other old people. adorable. i didn't stay long because of their company. one of the things i was worried about most in guyana was that something would happen to one of them while i was gone, and i wouldn't get a chance to see them again. i am so glad i had this week to see them, and spend some good time with grandma.

i drove myself to edmonton. i love that drive. i stopped at our old place in innisfree and walked across the road and down a short path to the lake. i miss that place so much. my dad told me that it has only been in the last couple of years that he's started to see vermilion as "home." i still don't. i know that innisfree's not really my "home" either, but i just love those 80 acres and the lake. jenni and i went there last summer for a little bit. it is so beautiful. i still don't feel like a vermilionite, despite having lived there for 8 years. i' gon' make me some money and buy that place back.

in edmonton, i stopped off at king's for some visits. i talked with claire (my university soccer coach), who might be leaving king's this year to pursue life. i visited dr. zinck, and informed marvin bravo that he lost the title of "my favorite jamaican" to seana paul. sorry, marvin.

i went to the apartment and checked my e-mail and saw that landon had written. yessss. we kind of made plans to hang out later. i also got an e-mail saying i wouldn't be able to take this wicked awesome course called "aboriginal edmonton" during my first semester of native studies, because i don't have the pre-requisites. but, the course is only offered every two years, which means that i will miss it if i don't take it now. eff. it looks so good, and it kind of seems ridiculous that they won't let me take the course because i don't know which bill regarding the Metis was passed in 1938 or '39. come on. i have a terrible memory. even if i learn those things in class, i will forget them almost immediately.

i drove myself to hawrelak park. i juggled my soccer ball for a bit. i'm getting my juggling skills back but kind of sucking it up on my rainbow kicks (those are the ones where you use your back foot to roll the ball up your front leg, and then flick it over your head/in front of you). sometimes i'm pretty good at them. not yesterday. i went for a long walk by myself on the horse trails. so nice. the weather was perfect. then chris sims met me at the park, so i went for another walk with him. then emily and brad met up with us, and we all fed the birds together. i love feeding those birds. a really neat thing that happened was hearing a goose swim through some of the half-melted ice on the pond. the ice was kind of slurpie-consistency, and when the goose swam through it, the ice made this beautiful sound that was kind of like muted chimes or something. so neat. i drove back home and walked to remedy to buy myself some tandoori chicken for supper. i came home and ate while i watched a bit of "high fidelity." john cusack. sigh.

at about 10 p.m. i walked my fine self across high level bridge and downtown. i saw landon/jenni/mel?/liam at kaylin's, and then they went to eat while kaylin and i went for a walk. kaylin is pretty sick, and she had no voice at all. so cute. it was nice to walk around with her and talk but mostly be quiet. i like having quiet friends. i liked that i had to listen very carefully in order to hear what she was saying. we went to meet jenni & co. at coco di. we ordered waters and didn't stay long. we walked kaylin and jenni back to kaylin's, so k could go to bed and j could get her bike. landon drove me home.

i have a pretty big crush on landon, and i have for a long time. i am moving away today and he is moving far away soon. he is young and i am kind of young and we are both going to change lots. but kissing is still awesome. so that's basically how the crush ends. that boy is so fun and neat. i hope we are friends when we grow up.

pack up your bags! it's never too late!

i mostly cut out fabric yesterday, because i won't have a mat or rotary cutter at lee's. i'm pretty excited about the chocolate-brown plaid corduroy i bought at fabricland. i'm tempted to never cut it up, and instead just ball it up and cuddle with it at night. because that's what you do with good-looking things, right?

i went to see grandma again yesterday. i took her for three walks around the hospital. i decided that maybe when i am in edmonton in the fall i will see if the cross cancer or the stollery or the u of a hospital has any volunteer opportunities to take people for wheelchairs in walks. i love walks! and my grandma liked having me take her for walks, so maybe other people would too. plus, it is nice, because conversation is optional and therefore unforced and genuine. we sat and we talked about sewing for a bit. she said, "caylie, when i was younger, my sewing machine was NEVER off. i would always be doing something." i like seeing bits of my grandmothers in me. that's a special thing, i think.

my mom made blueberry crumble after supper and we watched "johnny tootall" on t.v. while i cut out more fabric. man, nathanial arcand is such a dreamboat. my neighbour is an arcand. i bet they are related.

grouard powwow on saturday! exciting! it will be nice to see people i like, and to hear good music. maybe this year i will summon enough courage to dance in an intertribal. maybe lee or megs or erin will dance with me. i really wanted to last year. it's pretty hard to be a dancer and then not dance when music is around. anyway, the kids will be adorable and the grandmothers will be beautiful and the young men will be strong and energetic and the old men will be strong but maybe a little less energetic and the scent of sweetgrass will take me to a good place and the "fif-teh fif-tehs" will be abundant and the mild tension between whites and natives will be subtley noticeable and inevitably i will say something inappropriate to someone and the northern lights will dance (hopefully). i can't wait.

i took my dad’s jeep into town yesterday. jeeps are so awesome for driving and parking in town, but i forgot how not-awesome they are on the highway. anyway, I went to visit grandma nancy in the hospital. her heart has been hurting lots lately. i gave her some pastel-colored balls of yarn and a crochet hook. she seemed pretty delighted with them. i told her that i went on a date last week with a cute boy who knows how to sew. her eyes got wide and she said, "oh, isn't that something. you hold on to him." haha. too late, grandma, too late. somebody brought a little puppy into the hospital, and she gazed at it with heartbreakingly wistful eyes. sigh. i told her i was moving up north again to live with lee, and she said it was probably very nice for both me and lee to have someone from another age group to hang out with and take care of each other (it is). she's been feeling really exhausted because of this whole heart thing, so i asked her if she wanted me to push her around the hospital in a wheelchair. she said, "oh, that would be lovely." i pushed her through the halls to the alice keith nursing home, and i saw darlene haverslew and diane ellard. she had never seen the nursing home, or at least, that's how her memory serves her, and she kept commenting on how nice it is. a neat old man who she knows stopped us to talk, and he kept on saying how great they treat him there. that was definitely a good thing, because gido bill would, i think, move into a nursing home soon, but grandma so defiantly resists. she complained about how drab the hallways in the hospital were, so i told her i'd smuggle in a can of paint so she could sneak around the hospital at night and paint the walls. gleefully, she said, "oi, yoi yoi. i'd splatter it all over!" later, she was marvelling at how i could find my way around the hospital, and said that she gets lost very easily. i told her that she could walk around and leave a trail of berries or paint behind her. she laughed. she is so adorable and frail and heartbreaking. she is still as funny as every, but her body and her mind are deteriorating pretty rapidly. talking about splattering the paint made me think about the story "the yellow wallpaper." i hope she doesn't go completely crazy, like that woman. sigh. as we came back to her room, i saw that auntie lorraine was waiting there, so i dropped grandma off with her. one of the nurses said that auntie sheila was in the hospital and needed a ride home, so i dropped her off. sometimes i'm amazed at the super-patience i can sometimes manage to exhibit. i think it's been passed down from mom and grandma marjorie. certainly not from dad. anyway, i turned into super-patient mode when i picked up auntie sheila. you know, the calm, controlled voice and the ability to not let things get personal. it turns out that i didn't even really need to. she didn't comment on how terrible my hair looks or how ugly my clothes are. she was actually pretty grateful that i gave her a ride home. nice.

after the family reunion at the hospital, mom and i went to lloyd so i could buy fabric. and HOW. fabricland had a wicked-awesome sale on, and i bought a bunch of corduroy for less than $4/m! what a thrill. i will be sewing all summer.

i came home and slung up my big hammock between two trees in the front yard. i played soccer by myself on the lawn and climbed some of the trees. when i lived here, the trees were too small to climb. now they are awesome and big and strong. i think i am going to be doing more of that today, because it is great. i am kind of wondering if i made the wrong decision about where to live for the summer. i love it up north, because the lake is wicked and being so secluded is awesome and my relationship with lee is so special, but... i'd really like to spend more time with grandma nancy right now, and my parents' house/yard is better than ever... ugh. and this is why i continue going to school. so i can avoid real-life decisions. it's not so much real-life that i hate; it's all the decisions. ugh. i am no good.

today i have to pack, and decide which craft boxes i will take with me and which i should leave here. it's a tough choice: sewing/fabric vs. crocheting/knitting vs. painting/stencilling vs. miscellaneous/collaging. i might just cave and bring them all, and just forget about bringing clothes.

also, some guy has his motorhome parked in our yard. he's friendly enough, but... it's a little weird, and i want my yard to myself today.

i am still sick. ugh. it is a beautiful day outside but all i want to do is stay inside and eat soup.

on sunday i met angie and justina and sarah and a boy named andy at the university bus stop, and we took a FREE, HYBRID ets bus to the earth day celebrations at hawrelak park. it was less enjoyable than it should have been, thanks to my sickness, but it was still neat. highlights included riding the bus (which seemed to have no shocks), hanging out with angie, talking to people at a school/organization called "caraway" and asking if i could volunteer with them next year, eating kettle corn, and learning about the new reuse centre that is opening in edmonton in the summer. neat! then i went home. i still felt sick. i watched the tenacious d movie, and later found out evan had also watched it at the same time. wierd.

yesterday i... can't really remember what i did. felt sick, mostly. (*edit*: i remember now. i spent the morning at the whyte ave medicentre, and found out that the chest pain i've been having for 5 years is not heart trouble, but likely stress-related. hooray!) i hung out with evan, currently known as "brad," at hawrelak park. wierd? a little. fun? definitely. he picked me up in a giant red pickup truck. what!?! i laughed super hard at it. sometimes we don't get along at all but sometimes we have really good conversations and do really fun things. yesterday was all about good conversations and a nice walk in the park. then i lrt'd downtown to meet mischa for tea. i really like her. i hope she will stay in edmonton for quite a while. i was going to hang out with k-lin and/or jenni, but k and i were both sick and i wanted to get back to vermilion before dark, so no hanging out happened.

my grandma is sick. i think i am going to go visit her and sit in her room and crochet.

first things first: happy earth day! i just read that calgary is the world's cleanest city (according to forbes), and saw that edmonton did not even make the top 25. it kind of makes me feel like how i would feel if a boy i had a crush on made out with my younger sister. it's a little humiliating. a little demoralizing.

anyway. another fantastic day yesterday. i remembered that the strathcona farmers' market was happening, so i invited joel and theresa to meet me there in the afternoon. i walked along saskatchewan drive and met them there around 12:30. the market was adorable, as usual, and i bought some delicious things: raspberry jam from a friendly old man, some strawberry honey, and some spicy thai lemongrass pesto. mmm. we went for milkshakes/coffee at block 1912. i tried to convince theresa to move to edmonton. i vowed to go visit winnipeg again sometime in the next couple of years.

then i went to chapters on whyte and killed time before my coffee date with emma newman at 3. it's ridiculous how many coffee dates i've been on this month. i guess it goes with the territory of coming back home from an exotic adventure. anyway, hanging out with emma was great. i'm pretty sure we would never have been friends if we hadn't played soccer together at king's, but i'm glad we are because she is so bright and crazy and motivated and awesome.

i walked back home and tried to nap but it didn't really work. i made some pasta to go with the lemongrass pesto i bought at the farmers' market. i drove to karen's house and we went to sherwood park to watch marney play a concert with some boys from jenni's band. i talked with karen's cousin, who made me feel very interesting. it was really really nice to just cuddle with karen in a church pew, like old times, and to find out that we are still pretty much on the same page spiritually. i think i needed that.

afterwards, k-rock and i went to the "theresa meinders appreciation club" party at matt and dave's house. oh! first we stopped off at karen's house so i could pick up my car and so we could eat some cookies and juice and peanut butter sandwiches because we were both starving. i saw melisa and mctaggart there, which was super nice. i like those girls. anyway, on the way to matt and dave's i was a little apprehensive because a) i am antisocial and usually hate parties, and b) i am a little bit tired of the inevitable post-university-graduation-conversation that has been popping up more than usual lately (ie. "what have you been up to?" i need to come up with a condensed version, like, "graduated in english, worked on reserve, dated boss, disaster, worked in homeless shelters, got depressed, moved up to the same reserve to work at a museum, moved to south america, came home, crafted. moving back up north for the summer, then going to school in the fall to learn about injuns*." maybe i could get business cards printed up that have my name and contacts on the front and that little sentence on the back. then i could avoid conversation entirely.). anyway, it turned out that i had nothing to worry about. the party turned out to be perhaps the most enjoyable social gathering in a dwelling-place that i have ever attended. everyone there was people that i knew well and liked lots! most of them already knew what i've been up to since king's! here are some particularly enjoyable moments:
-having dave give me a tour of the house, and being told that he has "a whole drawer full of dead things" when i saw a toy snake in his room. he wasn't kidding! he opened the middle drawer under his bed, and we proceeded to spend 15 minutes looking at skulls, snake skins, feathers, and stuffed birds. that boy is so awesome and ridiculous.
-talking with joel and laughing pretty uncontrollably at the fat turtle-lip he iced, acquired when wrestling with his younger brother lewis. he was unusually grumpy and unusually drunk, both of which were simultaneously enjoyable and troubling to me.
-ordering pizza! so simple; so awesome.
-talking with bri, and feeling reassured that if "satan has a hold" on me, at least he "has a hold" on a whole bunch of other king's graduates. also feeling not so bad about doing trashy "experiments" sometimes.
-having close friends who would willingly, nay, FORCEFULLY, eat the remnant cheese i pick off from my pizza. also, making a deal with matt to have pizza fairly regularly at the native studies wing next year, where even more picking-off-and-sharing-of-cheese can take place.

man, i forgot how awesome we all are. hopefully everyone who stayed in edmonton this year will be around next year, and the few stragglers will be convinced to move here soon. i don't know if edmonton can even handle such a high concentration of awesomeness. wing nights! open mic nights! recycling! grammar editing! dance parties! i can hardly wait.


*please don't get offended that i say "injuns," at least not on behalf of indigenous north americans. when i say it, it's meant as a dig at manifest-destiny-esque european ignorance. mmkay?

coming home after 1:00 a.m. TWO nights in a row!?! it's like i just turned 18.

i've decided that there is a cosmic rulebook somewhere that says, "if you are a boy, you have to hurt cayliedawn's feelings." so that's nice, because now i can stop taking things personally and remember that everything that happens is just according to the rule. sweet.

yesterday i felt yucky in the morning so i just stayed at home and played nintendo. i went to estee's fabrics to see if i could find some grey corduroy for a bag i am making for jenni, but it is spring and everyone has their heavy materials put away. boo. then i was kind of going crazy in my apartment, but luckily jenni called and asked me if i wanted to walk to cjsr with her and liam. okie-dokes. after that, we drove to west ed to see jessica at hmv. we shared a delicious cinnamon bun served by an abrupt young man at cinnzeo. i dropped jenni off at her home. i went home and tried to nap but still felt yucky, so i charged up my ipod and then left my house around 6 to walk to/around downtown. i had to go to the bathroom so i stopped at shaw conference centre and there was some volunteer appreciation night going on. some funny old ladies were trying to sell some crafts, and there was an old man wearing a hat that was made to look like a wolf's head. what? then i headed to HMV in city centre, but as i was passing kaylin's apartment, someone ran up to me and touched me on the arm. it was becky mcclelland! strange. stranger: her boyfriend had seen me from across the street and said to her, "that person looks like you." and becky said, "that's not me. that's caylie!" the mcclelland girls and i have a little bit of a history of people mistaking us for each other. so that was nice, to see becky and meet her boyfriend.

after HMV, i got a b.j. for free. i stopped at the booster juice at city centre. i told the boy (who was really friendly and young and skater-ish) that i wanted an orange creamsicle with fresh orange juice. he burped really loud in front of me without turning away. i told him that i deserved a discount for that. he saw that he had no fresh orange juice (at bj's, they usually squeeze orange juice in the mornings and then have it on hand all day, so they don't have to clean the juicer late at night), so he said that in light of the no-fresh-o.j./burping, he would make me a smoothie for free! hooray! and THEN, while he was making it, he started singing sean paul! best b.j. experience ever!

i went to kaylin's afterwards, and the two of us went to second cup and talked. nice. then we went back to her house and played with her kitties and looked at her books. their place is pretty neat, even though it's a little messy right now because of moving.

we went to see illfit outfit. lots of great people were there; most notably, karen fernhout! i have not seen her in a long time. nice to hang out and dance and have band crushes together. nice to dance with marney, also. nice that emily and brad came - we are finally starting to be hang-out friends, after 3 years of living in the city together! it was a really ridiculously fun time, and i got really ridiculously hot and sweaty. ew. i'm glad i had a chance to dance, though.

i am going to the farmer's market. goodbye.

i've decided that my day-to-day life exists on a continuum, with "drama" on one end and "crafting" on the other.

it's been hovering towards the "drama" side lately.

i've decided facebook.com has not reached its full potential until there is an anti-facebook sermon somewhere in the world, preferably in the southern united states.

in other news, i think i have a cavity. thanks, guyanese diet!

i am going to buy some corduroy.

yesterday i went for thursday-night-wings with jenni-girl! which traditionally turns into thursday-night-stomach-aches-with-jenni-girl. who's jealous?

p.s. this is me unofficially re-opening thursday night wings. an official ceremony will take place in september. you are invited.

i went to calgary for a few days. it was great!

i bussed there on greyhound. i've heard red arrow is a mazillion times better, so maybe i will take it next time. i didn't really have any complaints with greyhound though. i bought my ticket 14 days in advance and got a big discount! like, 40% or something. good on me. a boy about my age sat in the seat next to me, and kept trying to talk to me, even though i pretty obviously didn't want to talk (i was pretty tired and just not feeling sociable at all). i kept turning my head to the window and closing my eyes and saying, "i'm tired," but he still kept talking. apparently he plays soccer with all the vermilion boys, so maybe he thought we were "connected"? ugh. anyway, he kept talking and talking and talking, and then he finally said, "hey, if you want me to shut up, just say so." i guess the head-turning-away and eyes-closing had not been obvious enough. so i said, "yeah, i think i'm gonna sleep now." so he stopped talking for a bit. later, when i was in calgary, i saw that he had added me on facebook. what!?! maybe... don't do that, okay? yes.

anyway, the rest of calgary was much better. kelseydawn and i did a lot of fun and cute things. i might forget some, but here are some highlights, in mostly chronological order:
-the location of her house is SO convenient. we could just walk to kensington and downtown. perfect.
-watching TMNT in theatres. the movie as a whole was lame, but there were some really cute parts in it. plus, michelangelo has been my longest-standing crush, so it was good to see him again.
-getting one malaria pill with relatively little hassle (but being charged a ridiculous amount). i had forgotten my malaria pills in vermilion, and you're supposed to take those ones for 4 weeks after you return home. i didn't have them, but i didn't really want to risk getting malaria, so i had to get one. one. ugh. luckily, we went to a thrift store that was right next to a medicentre, so i stopped in to get the prescription. then i went to the pharmacy and got my one pill - which cost $14! eff you, western medicine. so... that was kind of sucky, especially because i rarely ever lose/forget things. whatevs.
-teaching kelseydawn how to crochet.
-watching some really good movies (borat, the science of sleep, rushmore, rad) without having kelsey fall asleep, as usual. if anyone hasn't (or has, i guess) seen the science of sleep and wants to watch it, let's do it! i am up for it.
-being inspired by rushmore to make "punctuality" and "perfect attendence" shirts for ourselves (this hasn't gotten past the inspired stage yet).
-going to the telus world of science. we watched a documentary on whales (not enough killer whales in it), saw an exhibit on toys from the 50s and 60s, and got a million kid-germs from touching all the exhibits. hooray!
-making kites! that didn't fly! we made some cute kites out of colored tissue paper and wooden dowels. we took them across the street to the park below SAIT. we tried to fly them. we would run super fast but all they would do is swirl around really fast behind us and then dive into the ground. boo. we laughed pretty ridiculously hard though.
-going longboarding at a quiet little park and sitting and watching some ducks. i love ducks and geese in the spring/summer. so cute.
-maybe there was more but i forget some of it. it was just 5 days of funness. then i bussed home.


here is the awesomeness that was yesterday:
-bussing back from calgary without any talkative boys sitting next to me.
-registering for classes at the u of a next year. so exciting!!! i am going to be taking: introductory cree, native issues and insights i and ii, northwest coast anthropology, aboriginal edmonton, archaeology, socio-cultural anthropology, research methods in native studies, and urban aboriginal issues. neat!!! i decided not to go with a course overload as i had originally planned, mainly because i am too lazy to ask permission from the faculty to do it but also because i have a mazillion things i want to do next year and i should probably just let myself do them instead of filling up my life with class. i'm awesome!
-picking up my new sewing machine. !.
-napping.
-going for a walk by myself at hawrelak, and seeing all the geese and ducks. heart! it was really nice because there were very few people there (like, 4 or 5) because the weather was not so good. i had wanted to play around with the new soccer ball i bought, but, again, the weather was icky so i didn't.
-hanging out with landon a.r.! why weren't we friends a million years ago!?! we've been at all the same stuff at the same time all our lives! almost. what happened? anyways, i had fun. and THEN emily and her something-friend brad found us and we all went for supper. i like them! emily's so great and dumb and funny and i like her a lot. and brad is neater than i thought he was. i never thought he was not-neat, but now i think he's extra neat. i like that he's smart. go for smart boys, -nyra girls. i told emily today that he may be the second best &nyra-boyfriend ever, after trentington. that is, pre-post-caylie TSB. before he went all, well, like he is now. anyway, emily and brad are great, and i am planning on living vicariously through them this summer, with all their cute plans to go to the ledge and hawrelak and some shows and being all cute and crush-y. jea-lous.

dear dairy,
i had the best day of all days today! first, when i woke up, i talked to kelseydawn on the phone (because i am going to see her tomorrow and needed to know if i needed to bring anything in particular. and the answer is yes: a bathing suit and a longboard, not to be used together. yay! i like that our swimming/longboarding skills match. as in, we are both mediocre at both. bff.). i like her lots. then i went to the tory building at the u of a, to pick up some "consent of department" forms for some anthropologt classes for next year (i start registration next week). i loved being in the halls! i love school so much! i can't wait! also, i ran into alyssa just when i was getting out of the elevator. weird. then i went to pembina hall (where the native studies offices are) to pick up some more "consent of department" forms, and the lady at reception told me to talk to matt, who turned out to be my "shadow" matt blimke! i knew he worked there, but it was nice that he was the person that i needed to talk to. he gave me a tour of pembina hall (it is amazingly cute, and i can't wait for classes there next year), and i met some neat people. one of the ladies i met was working on a master's thesis on a prayer book by bishop grouard. grouard!?! that's the town i am working in/worked in last summer! as part of my museum job, we give tours of bishop grouard's mission! crazy! (he's a neat guy, by the way. he was a catholic missionary who served the area between edmonton and alaska for over 60 years, doing most of his travelling by foot. he spoke 7 languages - french, english, and five aboringinal languages. so neat. he translated the entire bible into cree syllabics. he did some really neat paintings in his churches, using all-natural dyes. he was a good guy, i think. ALSO! he had the first printing press in alberta - he brought it over from france, where he was originally from. AND - get this - it is rumored that the first book ever printed in alberta was done on his press - in an indigenous language (i would guess cree, but maybe not)! how's that for some neat history!?! good on ya, grouard. anyway. i digress. back to my wicked awesome day. i left pembina hall and lrt'd to northlands coliseum, where a sewing and crafts show was being held at the sportex. i was tempted to go in, but a) $12 is too much to pay for admission, and b) i am kind of creeped out by quilting ladies. maybe because i know i will become one soon. so, i got back on the lrt and went to bay station. i listened to sufjan on my ipod on the lrt. i love the lrt. i love turbulence on airplanes because it reminds me of the lrt. from bay station i walked to the second cup on jasper ave and i had a vanilla bean hot chocolate made by the fantastic kaylin betteridge. she was too busy to talk much but she looked cute in her brown apron. then i walked to the ledge to drink my hot chocolate. ledge = maybe my favorite place in the city. i drank my hot chocolate pretty fast because i needed to get back to the university for... wait for it... this is why i need a form of cyclical writing...

before i went to the university, i walked on the edge of the ledge wading pool. there was no water in it yet but i just like walking there. and i found a toonie!!! the world is comin' up caylie! i walked back across the high level bridge (east side - also maybe one of my favorite places in the city) and went back to the university for...

...bannock and tea in the native studies department! at first i felt awkward because the room was full of people i didn't know, but then one of the ladies i had met that morning invited me to get something to eat. so i did, and then i started talking with the grouard lady. then i saw a girl named jill, who had worked for AFL in sucker creek for two summers before i was there! then matt blimke came in, so i had TWO friends! and THEN i saw a girl named amanda, who had gone on a ghost river rediscovery internship (just like mine to guyana, only hers was to dominica)! wow! so many people! nice to talk with them all.

then i walked back to the apartment to pick up alyssa. mom and dad think emily and i exclude her a lot of the time, so i tried to engage her by asking her to go make-up shopping with me. what!?! i haven't bought/worn make-up in 5 years, and even then it was the first time in about 5 years before that. anyways, in guyana, i just decided i wanted to feel better about how i look, which included not looking like a drab, tired housewife all the time. so we went to west edmonton mall to buy make-up. ew. i am embarassed for myself for saying that. okay, but first, we stopped at a sewing place on 142nd and I BOUGHT A SEWING MACHINE!!! yes, i did. congratulations, self. i don't have it yet - i am going for a little tutorial next thursday, and i'll pick it up then. thrilling. AND the machine was A HUNDRED DOLLARS LESS than i had originally seen it listed for in lloydminster. yeah!

so... sewing machine, make-up, then i dropped alyssa off at josh's and went to see miss jenni at her house. i sure do like her a lot. she looked all... not-fashionable, which is a rare thing for her, i think. we had a nice talk and tried to remind each other that satan does not have a hold on either of us. things are really coming together for her, and i guess for me too. that's exciting. i hope she stays in emminton for a long while. i like having good people in my city. i wish kelseydawn would leave calgary and move here. i love edmonton. also, matt blimke told me he loves edmonton. i like that. our city is so neat! we have really good recycling! is anyone listening!?!

i said goodbye to jenni. i went home. i showered. i had a bitta tea, i played a bitta nintendo. i picked jenni up from the riverdale hall and we went to pick up supper at planet organic. we listened to some mediocre soca and some fan-friggin-tastic sean paul. we picked up kaylin and blake. we went back to riverdale hall or whatever. illfit outfit played a show. things i liked about it: my crush. jenni being all cute. the EPs. things i didn't like: all the underage kids making me feel all grandmothery (in a bad way) and not cool. i wanted to dance but the lights were too bright, and the kids were too... highschooly. i picked up a neat magazine in pembina hall, so i read that a bit. i drove kaylin and blake home. i went home.

eff. i am tired. in a few hours i will see kelseydawn!

i'm the best!

so... i am back in alberta. i WAS back in alberta on saturday, but dial-up internet ensured that no one would find out until now.

the 28-hour trip home from georgetown was okay. i watched "happy feet" (maybe the story of my life), "freedom writers" (also, maybe the story of my life), and "for your consideration" (not really at all the story of my life) on the planes. a japanese man sitting next to me tried to recline my chair for me (and i DID NOT ask him to do it) and then asked to use some of my lip balm. EW!!! i bought a couple of books by barack obama. crystal and i were overwhelmed by the access to free toilet paper, and were tempted to steal and hoard some (it's every man for himself in the rupununi). i went to tim hortons in toronto with my new friend catherine during my 8-hour layover. air canada paid for crystal and me to stay in a hotel for a few hours in toronto. i cried when i said goodbye to crystal in the toronto airport. i am glad to be home.

we had easter dinner yesterday at our house with my grandparents. they are so crazy. they've been married over 60 years, and they were all hand-holdy and cute. my grandma sang the hat song that she always sings when she comes over ("i had a hat when i came in, i hung it on the rack. i'll have a hat when i go out, or i'll break somebody's back."). she got really excited about the food my mom prepared (wide-eyed: "meatballs! they're my favorite!"). she got really really ridiculously excited when i gave her some of my yarn to make some afghans (she had run out of all her yarn, and she likes to crochet all day to keep herself busy. all over the house, she has these 2' x 3' crocheted pieces she tries to pass off as "afghans." good try, nancy). she cackled like a witch when i gave them to her.

i made a few shirts yesterday. one is blue and coral and has a stripe and three moose on it. the other is all coral but i am beading a brown ant onto it. i think tomorrow i am going to make a green one with maybe some red caiman on it or something. also, i started working on a bag but i have to buy some red lining for it today or tomorrow.

breaking the hearts of young edmontonian men everywhere, i regret to inform the interweb that i will be moving up north at the end of april to work at the museum i worked at last summer. sorry, boys. you'll have to wait another 4 months. for everyone else: i will be in emminton fairly regularly, so chill out. we will do fun things. we will fly kites. we will go to the ledge on canada day. we will go to elk island park and hawrelak park and go to mediocre restaurants (that's for you, jenni) and eat ice cream. we will go to the vermilion fair. i will run up a $300 long distance bill from up north. you will not come visit me. not a single one of you. thanks. it ain't no thing.

oh! there's a powwow up north at the college i'll be working at on saturday, april 28. if you'd like to come, you're more than welcome to come up with me (although you might have to either bus back or get a ride back with my dad). let me know.

i am an egg

the day before i left the rupununi, the north rupununi junior wildlife clubs held their annual festival at bina hill. i was only there for the first day, but it was pretty packed with neat activities: a costume and banner parade (as usual, pictures are on facebook, and more will come when i get back home), cassava grating races, cotton spinning competitions, archery, volleyball... the best part was the costume parade. the kids made AMAZING carnivale-style costumes using only wire/branches, newspaper, and spray paint. new craft ideas!!!

saying goodbye was hard. i am so excited to be home, but it's always hard for things to end. i will miss the youth a lot. one of the girls told me she would miss me a lot, and i said that there would be new interns soon to take our places. she said, "they won't be like you." i said, "what, grumpy all the time?" she said, "no. they won't gaff with us like you did." so that made me feel good. the two best parts about guyana, for me, were long walks across the savannah and just messing around with everyone in the back. listening to the boys sing bob marley. making kissy noises back at gilbert. complaining about b.h. (a multi-purpose phrase the boys started using to describe bina hill as well as pretty much anything else, thanks to its similarity to the word "bitch.").

this part will sound egotistical; i don't mean for it to. one thing i've learned in guyana is that i can have what i want. i mean, i've realized i'm interesting/intelligent/ambitious/attractive/educated/balanced/experienced enough to have the things i want: the kind of job i want, the kind of husband i want, the kind of house i want (namely, the kind of elaborate craft and sewing room i want), the kind of life i want. last time i dated, i stuck with the relationship for a long time even though it wasn't everything i wanted, just because i thought it was the best i could get. now i know better. i hope that if you don't know that about yourself, that you learn it soon.

i am in georgetown. i will be home in 4 sleeps. count 'em. 4.

i was woken up today at 5 a.m. by a cockroach running across my face. wtf? how did a cockroach get inside my mosquito net? i can only assume it was a final farewell from all the animals who have visited my bed over the last 6 months: roaches, centipedes, ants, wasps, mosquitos, flies, spiders, and i think even some lizards. next time, roaches, maybe you could just send a letter. or if you can't write, maybe you could get your friends together and stand so that your bodies spell, "fare thee well, caylie," and then when i flick the lights on you can all yell, "surprise!" except that you can't yell. maybe you could all wiggle your antennae at the same time and i would know you are meaning to yell "surprise." also, we don't have any lights or light switches here, so you would just have to wait patiently in formation as the sun rises. thanks, roaches. thanks.