come in action 2... can you complete the mission?

megs and i have been spending the last little while on the CTV website, looking for fax numbers for press releases and celebrity-crushing on all the news anchors. then i got sidetracked and found myself looking at the different wishlists that CBC/facebook has registered for the "great canadian wishlist" or whatever. and here are two things i want to say about it:
1. right now, the top three groups are:
-"abolish abortion in canada," with 9199 votes,
-"i wish that canada would remain pro-choice," responding to the first group, with 7627 votes, and
-"for a spiritual revival in our nation," with 4349 votes and a fairly obvious assumption that "spiritual" is synonymous only with "christian."
ugh. usually i love canada, but all of these are stupid enough for me to hate it, if only for a few hours. i won't get into my thoughts on abortion, but i can easily say that the subject would never in a million years make it into my number one wish for a better canada. what the hell, everyone. (also, in case you're wondering, the current #4 group is, "restore the traditional definition of marriage." gah.)
a couple of groups that i like, but still wouldn't vote for as my number one wish for a better canada, are "i wish tuition fees would be either lowered or eliminated," "a canada where no one must choose between paying rent and their medication," "better transit, less pollution," and i'd support the "make poverty history" groups/campaign if there was a hell of a lot more focus on the poverty in our own damn country. yikes. sorry.

anyway, while i was looking, i came across this website. maybe you agree with abortion, and maybe you don't. anyway, either way, the shirt is interesting. i like how it encourages dialogue in a really non-threatening manner. i like how it is so not in-your-face. it is so quiet. i think it's rad. and just in case you're wondering... i've never had an abortion.

today we've been getting quite a few faxes of evaluation sheets for our school programs, and one teacher commented, "kaley was especially good at managing the children's questions and behaviours." woo!

yesterday was our last day with schoolkids! whew. today we drove around and hung up advertising posters. we all went for lunch together, and we were trying to kill time at the end so we wouldn't have to go back to work, so jen kept asking us ridiculous questions, like, "who's worn candy underwear before?" sam's response was, "what!? so, you eat them after you wear them?" haha. we laughed pretty hard. sam is so awesome. i like that she doesn't think before she speaks sometimes.

i found some canada post stamps of canadian architects, and the set includes stamps of douglas cardinal, who just happens to be kaylin's favorite architect. i bought some of the stamps for her. i hope she likes them.

i booked a rafting trip for myself and kelsey and my majah and fajah for next week. fun!!!

so, i have some bad news. kelseydawn's car is broken, which means she can't come up to edmonton for the annual, traditional g.yra-s.elgrove canada day celebrations. it's my favorite day of all days, and i am pretty bummed that i can't spend it with my favorite person. so, maybe if you have some canada day celebrations planned in edmonton and you wouldn't mind a third wheel, maybe you could invite me out. hey? hey? or else i will just spend the day by myself, which i think i would enjoy equally as much. like the time i spent new year's eve alone in my apartment. sad and awesome at the same time.

robin and i worked on more postcards last night. i am going to leave them around edmonton on canada day. i wish i had more time to make more. also i thought that maybe we could make a few postcards with buttons sewn onto them by hand, and then we could make little embroidered fabric patches with buttonholes and button them onto the postcards so people could put them on their own stuff. yeah? then we went and watched shrek iii. i am not a huge huge shrek fan, but it was okay. oh, also, i got locked out of my house somehow last night and lee's son helped me break in through a side window. i always forget how much i like breaking into places and sneaking around.

that's real deadly

i worked on saturday! from 10 until 4! i can only handle short sentences right now! with exclamation marks!

dr. e and her son neil came over to visit me for the weekend. i showed them around the museum when they arrived. we went into high prairie for supper at egan's and to buy groceries. we came back to lee's and watched a bit of a movie that i am not even going to mention because it is embarrassing how many times i've seen it in the last two months. we were too tired to finish it. on sunday lee made us a huge breakfast, and then we went to hilliard's bay and shaw's point for a walk in the forest/a picnic/ice cream. nice. then we bought more groceries in high prairie and they made a delicious supper. then we crafted a bit and went to bed.

there is a powwow this weekend in alexander (just west of morinville). jenni and i went last year, and i think we are going to go again this year on saturday. this is an open invitation for anyone who reads my blog to come with us. i think we might go saturday evening, for the 7:00 grand entry.

oh! i forgot! remember tyler, the toothless boy from a reserve down south who wanted us to "be together"? yeah. he called me again last night, at about 11 p.m. faaaack. dr. e says i should just tell him that things have changed since the last time we talked and that i am happily involved with someone else or something and hopefully he will understand that he shouldn't be calling me anymore. gah.

here's a nancy drew wallet i made for myself a few weeks ago. i love it!

also, you should check out the chicago tapes website if you haven't yet. i don't really have the best music catalogue by some standards (kelsey!), but i really want to do this, and i feel like some of you (joel? angie? michelle?) might be into doing this too. so i think we should. maybe we could work together? i could do the stencilling and maybe cover art stuff or something? you could make the tapes? i don't know. let me know if y'wanna.

this is a picture of robin, me, and peter being ridiculously cute and sewing our crafts at the north country fair.

i sewed some little pouches and robin and i filled them with cute things, like plastic turtles and little candies and safety pins and buttons and stickers. we put them in pairs, and one pouch out of each pair had a little card that said, "everything in this bag is for you. the other bag is to share. thank you for everything." the buttons were my favorite part. we hope that people will sew/stick them onto their clothes to match the person they shared with (the buttons also have a sticky part so you could actually sew them on, or just, like, scrapbook with them or whatever). i think i want to do some simplified versions of this craft, with just buttons instead of whole pouches.

then we sewed the pouches onto some colored cardstock, onto which robin had typed, "this is for you" (pointing to the first pouch), and "this is to share" (pointing to the second). we put stamps on the other side of the cardstock and put robin's return address on them, and we hope people will write us back and tell us who they are and who they shared with.

we left the cards around north country fair this weekend. we went out early this morning for a walk to see where we could leave some, and we left one on some benches near the exit for the fair. then, when i was leaving the grounds a few minutes later to come to work, i saw a lady with a harley davidson headband and an orange sweater walking away with our card in her hand! she had a really neat expression on her face, like a little bewildered and secretly happy about what she had found. i think. so worth it.

every morning we have to unpack these big blue plastic bins full of exhibit material, and display them in the tents and tipis. every afternoon we have to pack them up again. every day i work on the woodland cree tipi exhibit. i have a super-specific way of packing the artifacts up so that they fit perfectly into the 4 bins alloted for the creepi (it's what we call the cree tipi). last week when i was gone, aaron packed up the creepi, and then this week, she bought me a doughnut so i wouldn't freak out on her because she packed them so terribly. i hadn't realized i was such a nazi. but if being a packing nazi brings me free doughnuts, a packing nazi i shall be.

the bravest thing i have is hope

i brought my new typewriter home last night. it worked perfectly. i was really exhausted, so i went to bed at 8:30, and i was going to type a letter to brittany before i fell asleep. i tried to type, and it wouldn't work. somehow in the 2 hours between when i first tried it and then, my typewriter broke itself. the letters "c,d,e,p," and the numbers "3" and "0" don't work. i guess i will have to stay friends with robin as long as "c,d,e," and "p" remain part of my alphabet. but the good thing is that it is an electric typewriter, and because the letters/numbers are kind of in a row, i think that it has to do with the wiring or something, which seems like something that could maybe be fixed. i hope.

today is my dad's birthday. happy birthday, dad! he always wants me to post a picture of his horses on my blog, but i am too lazy to sort through my e-mails to find those pictures, so here is one of him with a backhoe. thrilling!


some of my favorite people are playing some of my favorite music on saturday, june 23, 2007 at 105 ST and Jasper Ave. you should go if you are in the city. joel alexander is playing in toy singers at 2:00, and jenni is playing in illfit outfit at 2:30. what attractive people! what attractive sounds! go on behalf of me, please.

i went to robin's last night before soccer so we could plan a neat craft that we are making for the north country fair, which is happening this weekend. i will post pictures of our crafts when we are done. i am excited for them. also, we found out that his mom's sewing machine works! that is good news. also, i am buying a typewriter from my boss today! now robin and i don't have to be friends anymore, because i won't have to use him for his typewriter and he won't have to use me for my sewing machine. just jokes, robin. i will still use you for your good craft ideas.

soccer was okay, but the ground was super wet so it made the ball slippery and unpredictable. i didn't like that.

megs and i played trivia by ourselves at egan's, and we did the best we've ever done before. wow!

don't show up so on time, and don't act like you're so kind

guess who showed up on my doorstep last night. tsb. a.k.a. trent shubert band, a.k.a. just trent shubert. wow. if only i had known earlier that missing someone and then writing about them on your online journal could bring them to your doorstep, i would have been consciously doing a whole lot more missing. unfortunately, the doorstep he showed up on was the one at my apartment in edmonton, so i didn't actually get to see him. boo.

i am making a super mario world 3 wallet for emily's boyfriend brad. i put the SMWIII logo onto an iron-on transfer, and the rest of the wallet is bright red and blue. it is pretty hot. all the best wallets i've made so far have been for boys i am hardly even friends with. sorry, real friends, for making you shitty ones! i'll make it up to you somehow.

i got a nice little letter from brittany in the mail yesterday. it was really simple and short with a little drawing she did in pen on the front. i love it. i am going to commit to sending more simple mail. i always feel obligated to write interesting things on interesting paper and include interesting trinkets. no more! well, maybe sometimes. but i have avoided sending some of my favorite people mail this summer (this includes you, karen. sorry!) because i have run out of money to pay for the postage for the big packages, and i didn't want to send something small. i will start sending small things. in abundance.

today i am running our archaeology program with the kids. i think i will really like archaeology in university. i am usually pretty impatient, but i am also incredibly patient with things that most people have no patience for. i think that's an essential skill in archaeology. last summer, i spent every night for a whole week sorting multicolored seed beads into separate colors. why? i could have just bought the beads separately. i didn't even end up using them. i just like sitting and being quiet and keeping my hands busy. so. archaeology. maybe i'll love you.

am i too flirty? do i like what you like?

i forgot to write some important things about this weekend:

1. when i was going into my apartment building last night, i am pretty sure i saw sheldon elter, a.k.a. my celebrity crush, go into the mac's downstairs. you may know his name from métis mutt, the play he wrote/performed at an i.s. conference at king's a few years ago, or from his semi-brief stint on canadian idol last season. he's from peace river. dreamboat. don't laugh. i'm a little deprived of crushes up here, okay?

2. i talked with debbie and rawle this weekend (the peeps from guyana who are staying in calgary until later this week), and they told me that some kids from yupukari village loved ASPYR (the after-school program i started at annai secondary school) so much that they started one in their own village! wow! that makes me feel really good and excited and proud.

3. i walked around the u of a a bit on... someday. i forget. anyway, i've been longboarding there but i've never explored as much as i did on that day, and it turns out there are TONS of awesome places to go. they are so smooth and wide not too steep and i hope i get some chances to go this summer before all the students come back (also, kelsey: bring your longboard up if you come for canada day. you could even come the day before. hmm?). also, on a semi-related note, i know a boy who kind of made out with girls between classes (that's not exactly the story, but bear with me), and at first i was a little confused but now i realized it is genius. on mondays and wednesdays i will have two hours between classes. what better way to pass the time than to secretly make out with someone i only kind of like? genius. so i was kind of checking out longboarding/secret-make-out spots around campus.

happy father's day!

i forgot to tell my dad "happy father's day!" this morning, which kind of led to the raisin-choking incident mentioned in the previous post. so, to make up for it, here's a list of things i like about my dad:
-he's a real-life cowboy. that is so hilarious and awesome to me.
-he's surprisingly good at raquetball.
-his "legacy": his collection of orange leatherbound diaries dating back to 1983.
-he's smarter and funnier than i give him credit for.
-the way that he travels is interesting. i like that he can just go off on trail rides or sit in a cafe and meet/talk to half a dozen people. he's got mad interpersonal skillz.
-he earnestly wants the best for me and my sisters, even if he's not always fantastic at conveying concern or giving helpful direction.
-it's really interesting to me that he's worked at minco gas for the last, like, 30 years. at least since i was born. it seems so contrary to his attention deficit disorderesque nature.
you're a real gem, gunny.

i'm hot 'cuz i'm fly, you ain't 'cuz you not

a boy i know just sent me this link, and you need to check it out, because it is fantastic:
the brown dress project
wow. i need to start doing stuff like that. i love it. and brown! what a great choice.

okay. on friday i hung out with jenni-jen. we met at michelle powles' second cup. that is the first time i have seen that girl in a lot of years. but we are going to make it up to each other by hanging out next year when we are both at the u of a. i can't wait. she is one of the funniest girls i know. if you know her, you already know that. also, she is smart and irreverant and a good dancer. heart. anyways, jenni and i were starving, so we went and had delicious cajun chicken tortellini at some place on the west end. goo-ood. then we went to michael's to buy craft stuff. i didn't buy anything, and she spent too much money on stamps. i know how that is.

i messed around on my new 'puter for a while until emily and brad came home. then the three of us drove to vermilion. i realized i have been spending too much time on my new computer when i went to reach for the mouse when i was driving the car. eek. in my defense, i've mostly just been trying to put my pictures and music onto the computer.

so: the ride home with brad and emily: fun. i drove and they sat in the back and were all kissy and stuff. i like driving with vermilionites because they enjoy listening to my vermilion-edmonton playlist: wynonna's "no one else on earth," clay walker's "what's it to you," and a little bitta hanson. yessss. brad even enjoyed it! what a guy.

brad is a self-professed emo kid. i think he out-emos me in the tight tight clothing, cd collection, and haircut departments, but i out-emo him in the crying department. i cry at everything, all the time. i cried this morning because i was choking on a raisin at breakfast (my dad made me laugh), and i almost had to throw up to get it out, but i haven't thrown up since i was 12 and i was unwilling to give up that record. i was crying more about possibly breaking the record than possibly dying. you know how it is. thankfully, i beat them both. high fives, self!

brad helped me figure out how to get my music off my ipod! amazing! i could have done it for free, i think, but i paid $9 for a program that'll transfer all my songs and my playlists. i am so so happy.

i am realizing just how working at the museum is affecting my thoughts: when i was sitting in the backyard at home, i watched the cat playing in the garden and wondered how valuable his pelt would be, and what someone could use it for. sorry, gus!

our yard is so nice. i never really noticed that before, probably because everything was just freshly planted when i lived there. it would be a nice place to live, if my dad wasn't constantly making noise or coughing or asking a string of questions at 7 in the morning, every morning. sorry dad, but you know it's true.

the prescription medicine that i cried about last week turns out to actually be worth every penny. it was for my allergies, and they are hardly bothering me at all anymore. wow!

you can stand under my umbrella

emily's boyfriend brad just gets more and more amazing every day. here are some great things about him:
-he gives her cards for special occasions! and he even writes things that he MEANS on them!
-he is excited about having a super mario world III playoff with me sometime.
-he added BOTH my parents as friends on facebook! (before you think my parents are creeps, you should know that i directed them there so they could see my guyana pictures)
-i think he knows a lot about music, but he is really rad and non-elitist about it. i like that he gets excited whenever rihanna's "umbrella" comes on the radio.
-he's super comfortable and friendly with my whole family.
three gold stars, brad! three gold stars.

yesterday emiline and i went to pick up my little red ipod, and then we went to the u of a bookstore to try to find programs to transfer my songs from my big ipod to my computer. no luck. then i met joel alexander at the u of a. i waited for him at pembina hall, which is where most of my native studies classes will be. i am so so excited to start school. while i waited for him, i watched out for crushes, because i've been figuring that school will be a good place to find crushes. BUT every boy that i saw had terrible shoes, and terrible shoes are a pretty reliable indicator of terrible people. or at least, of terrible crush material. finally, i saw a boy with good shoes! but he turned out to be joel. boo. we ate lunch at "the good earth" (where i think i might apply for a job for the school year) and then he showed me his lab at the u of a. he spends all day making things glow in the dark. well done. also, we played with some liquid nitrogen. what a thrill! then i went home and played with my new apple toys. then lizzy and i drove to the mongolie grill (i would have walked, but she doesn't like to) to have supper with dad, emily, brad, and karen fernhout. so many good people in such a small area! wow! also, i saw this boy who i used to work with at silvercity. he is kind of becoming a girl, i think. he was wearing a shiny black button-up shirt with poufy sleeves over a shiny white tank top. he has the nicest hair i have ever seen (kelsey - he's that boy we saw a couple of times a few canada days ago at the ledge. remember?). he was a nice boy. we kind of kept making eye contact but i didn't want to be rude so i kept my eyes down a lot after that. afterwards, we all drove back to the apartment to park our cars, and we walked over to the jubilee auditorium to see this canadian comedian russell peters. my family totally loves him. i don't know if i've ever gone to see a comedian perform on stage before. it was really fun, and i'm really glad that k-fern was my date. i think we could have done without some of the crudest jokes, but the rest was really enjoyable.

i am hanging out with jenni today. jealous?

we make the best of what's around

i am pretty sure i have superhuman powers. today was the SECOND day in history that i KNEW i would see one of my ex-boyfriends when i was walking down towards whyte ave. and i did! wow! how did i do that!?! in a related vein, i sure have been missing trenty like mad lately. last night at trivia, one of the song clips was a dave matthews song, so i think that started the missing, and then on my way to edmonton today, i listened to a whole bunch of dave, and got to a whole bunch of missing. we had fun, fun times. i wish he wasn't so crazy/angry now. here is a list of some of my favorite trenty memories:
-playing badminton with him, my family, and kelsey at the gym in vermilion
-hanging out in his dad's apartment in vermilion, which was the only building in town to have high-speed internet at the time, where he was constantly trying to kiss me and kds
-getting in fights every time we took the #4 westbound to WEM
-the terrible/adorable "bee mine" and "i TURTLEY need you!!!" valentines he drew for me.
-late-night michelina's and dave matthews in my room at king's
-obnoxiously loud 2-person dance parties in my room at king's
-playing game boy in the back of sociology 201
-"badger boy" and "grammar girl"
-his dreams about going on "quests" on the forest with his dog
-his sweaty upper lip and panic attacks when he had to talk in front of people. or in front of one person.
we can't really hang out or talk anymore without him being a huge jerkface to me. but i miss how interesting he was. no matter: this just clears out space for all the new interesting crushes i am going to have when i start school in september.

i'd like to extend a warm welcome to the three newest additions to my life: my lovely new imac, with whom i am currently enthralled; the university of alberta's free wireless internet, available at my house; and the new chip in my car's windshield. in a few hours, i will also see the addition of a little red ipod. woo!

i was pretty grumpy last night. i mean, even grumpier than usual. i've been trying to go to the doctor's for about a month, and yesterday i finally got to go, and i ended up with a $100 pharmacy bill for two lousy prescriptions. faaaack. well, now i know my parents weren't joking when they've encouraged me to find jobs that pay benefits. ugh. i cried in my car and called my mom and decided not to go to calgary this weekend because i can't afford it (i know, i know, i just wrote about getting a new 'puter and an ipod. but i'll get a $229 rebate for the ipod, and i'm going back to school, so i really do need a computer). i am pretty bummed i won't get to see kds, but i'll get to see her in a few weeks, hopefully. anyways, i went to robin's afterwards while we waited for trivia to start, and i had some chickpea and rice soup he had made (i picked out the yams - i HATE yams) and i looked through his fabric box. those things made me feel a lot better. plus we skipped soccer, because it was pretty yucky out, but nobody really turned up anyway. plus he told me some stories about his trip to regina this week and his crush stories, and i was glad to hear them, because i feel like none of my friends have crushes anymore. just serious boyfriends/girlfriends/common-law partners, etc. boo, everybody! crush talk is just about my favorite thing ever. that's one of the reasons i'm so excited to see karen in a few hours. she always has such good crush stories. also, i like her a lot.

megs and i played trivia with her mom and a few of her mom's friends. as usual, we were terrible, but we DID enjoy some free dry ribs that we acquired by coming in last place last week.

my new favorite definition of "metis" is "cowboys and indians," as suggested today by one of the boys from gift lake metis settlement.

there's this really neat lady who must be related to a bunch of the kids from the area up where i live, because she came to supervise the school program today, and that's the third time i've seen her at our programs (she was there for 2 last year). at the end of my program, i asked if she had visited us before, and she said yeah. i told her i really appreciated seeing her, and i liked how supportive she was of our programs, especially because so many people really don't like having "white" girls present first nations'/metis culture to first nations/metis kids. she said she really loved coming, and that we were doing a good job, and she gave me a hug! so nice. she is a neat neat lady.

the grouard dating scene

today, one of the girls at my work told me, "caylie, you should date calvin. he shot three elk this week." baha. living in northern alberta is so hilarious.

dear edmontonians,
what's with the mass exodus to north carolina? the newest convert: one of the elephants from the valley zoo. she's apparently moving there to get some. zoo officials want her to settle down, start a family, you know. what does north carolina have that edmonton doesn't? certainly not north america's longest continuous stretch of urban parkland. yeah. but apparently it does have the best beach in the united states. so says msn.com. so, i don't know. it's a tough call to make.

we have some grade 1 students from a french immersion school here today, and they are unbearably adorable. how do they speak two languages so well!?! wow!!! a credit to my 7 years of french classes in school: i can understand most of what they say. a failure of those same 7 years of classes: i can hardly string together the words, "i like my cat" in french, and can certainly not say anything with any shred of a decent french accent. when i was in guyana, i decided that i am going to try to take some french classes from the u of a sometime soon, or else try to do that french immersion exchangey thing that is so popular with university students. but i will have to wait two years, i think. learning cree in school next year will be hard enough. i don't want to mix them up.

craft-minded girls, you make the rockin' world go round

i need a man in my life. not because i need some sweet lovin'. because i need my car washed, and i am too lazy/cheap to do it myself. males seem to be more easily irked by dirty cars, and more easily moved to wash said cars. so, if you see a lonely boy around, looking for a car to wash, send him my way. you can have him back afterwards.