This is me, falling in love. His name is squishy and he shall be mine. Also note the dozens of mosquito bites decorating my arms. I am not in love with mosquitos.

While visiting Kangaroo Creek Farm, smiling and appreciating the baby kangaroos, baby emus and assorted rodents of unusual size (Capybera and Maras) part of me was wondering just how hard it would be to shove a Joey into my purse. It’s hard…I assume. This is not an admission of guilt. PS, my strata has a rule against farm animals as pets.

Mayas are the fourth largest rodent in the world. They look a little like big rabbits with deer legs, but proportional to the size of a large rabbit. They’re impressive, but they’d be a bit more impressive if the farm didn’t also have the largest rodent. Cool but a bit like “hey want to see the biggest ball of twine in the world and the fourth biggest ball of twine?” Sure the fourth largest ball has a lot of twine, but no one is going to take their kid on a road-trip to Minnesota for that.

The theme for Roadtrip 2017 is officially Fire and Ice.

Fire:

• Wildfires (avoided)
• Semi-Truck Fire (watched)
• Hot-springs (soaked in)
• Sunburns (Seriously, how often do I have to re-apply and why don’t car windows have SPF protection?)

Ice:

• 18 degree plunge pool at Miette Hot Springs (The kids would not be dissuaded and I’m a sucker.)
• Columbia Icefield (literally and figuratively cool)
• Snowball fights in July (actually ice-ball fights…from an old avalanche)

Setting up this shot was fun…and a bit painful, but real art comes with pain right?. PS, the overcast sky is smoke from a nearish forest fire. “No kids, we’re perfectly fine. That fire’s a long way away. Let’s stop and climb an avalanche.” (Not sure if I’m completely irresponsible or the best auntie ever.)

At Kellerman’s our friendship lasts long as the forest fires stay away…

This is the sort of math problem I can solve. Just add dancing and my life will have peaked. We arrived at Miette Hot Springs Resort and it may be the quaintest place I’ve ever stayed. Little cabins. Outdoor activities. A lodge.  Yay!  I thought I was a total geek alone in the world until my husband started to whistle the some from the talent show at the end of Dirty Dancing.  He is perfect for me.

PS. Who wants to kick in to hire handsome and slightly slutty dancers and re-create the movie?

PPS. It is COLD here at night…but dancing works up a sweat right?

PPPS. The sky is smokey and orange. If our luck continues we may drive away tomorrow chased by flames licking our tires. Fingers crossed. (Against the fire. I’m not a monster. Although that would look pretty cool.)

Roadtrip 2017 is officially on…kind of.

Plan one was to visit Barkerville via Clinton and Williams Lake, then head North and East. Then they closed Highway 97 for forest fires and evacuated several communities between us and our destination.

Plan two was to divert to our third stop (McBride). When we called our pre-booked hotel to check the status of the roads the hotel was all “One road is open. Don’t come here.” (This is about the forest fires right?  Someone would tell me if my antiperspirant had failed?)

Plan three, Coquihalla Highway East, then this happened.

Three hours watching a truck full of 40 gallon diesel containers burn, hoping the wind doesn’t change. Good times.

At what point should I take the hint? Staycation anyone?

PS, this is definitely going in a story somewhere.  I’m not sure yet, but a truck full of diesel, encroaching forest fires, and a Coke truck (three cars back) that refused to open up and prove his truck was empty…there is a story here somewhere. (I didn’t ask the guy in the Milk truck if he was carrying, somehow a milk party on the side of the road didn’t sound like as much fun.)

PPS, I’m detoxing from another attempt to give up Diet Coke.  I really wanted the Coke truck to open up.

Clearly broken handle. Sure it was plastic, but like super hard plastic…

I don’t have many special skills.

I have skills. I’m a good singer (one might say Karaoke star). I’m a decent painter. I make a mean perogy. But none of my skills were something I’d feel safe to call special, until now.

A couple of years ago I snapped off the fridge handle. After several disappointing days of checking for evidence of super strength development, I forgot about it. Until I ripped a handle off my bedroom drawers.

Just to be clear, the handle wasn’t loose and I didn’t use tools. It was me vs. an overstuffed drawer. We both lost.

The handle broke off in my hand which, having exerted considerable force in the failed attempt to open said drawer, accelerated rapidly into the wall. The damage looks irreparable (to the drawer not my hand or the wall which are bruised and unaffected respectively).

I’m not sure how yet, but I’m fairly certain this propensity for handle breakage is a useful and or marketable skill. Suggestions or how to monetize this are welcome.

Wall of Snow!

I’m pretty sure I had the best KickStarter Campaign idea in history and I got rejected so I’m sharing it here. PS. I listed it under Art, KickStarter. Art. PROTEST POST!

Project Title:  Wall of Snow

Funding Goal: $100,000,000

Project Description:  Events across the border are getting frightening. Let’s build a wall of snow…Winter is coming.

1. Risk – This is nowhere near enough money to build a wall of ice 8891 km long and 213 m tall but Kickstarter wouldn’t let me set a higher number so the project will likely be scaled back, probably to a backyard ice rink somewhere near the border, or to a few cold drinks…hard to say.
2. Risk – I have no permission nor ability to build this wall. No chance. Not going to happen. So, you know, pledge at your own risk.
3. Risk – People will totally not get that I manage anxiety with comedy and I’ll get roasted on social media. But hey, no risk no reward.

Support this project

Pledge $10 or more – Ice Cube

I will carve your name in a cube of ice then ship it to you. (Or several cubes if you have a long name…I’m not an artist, and I have no idea how to do this.)

Don’t worry I’ll also email you a picture…there’s no way the ice cube will survive in the mail.

(No refrigeration provided, it will probably arrive as a soggy piece of paper or maybe a dry piece of paper depending on how long the mail takes to arrive.)

Pledge $500 or more – Ice Brick Wall of Fame

Every generous donor that pledges at this level will have a custom brick in the wall of snow. The brick will be carved with your name and stand proudly to display your support as long as the wall stands.

No guarantees about how long the brick will last. And I’ll probably put them up around the 100 m level so you’ll never get to see them…but they’ll be there…trust me.

Pledge $10,000 or more – BeaverTail Concession

If you’re willing to shell out 10K towards our wall you will get the honour of running one of our exclusive BeaverTail concessions along the top of the wall. (No equipment, training or supplies provided. You just get permission.)

Please note 100 percent of all sales at your concession will go to supporting the maintenance of our wall, so this level of support is really indentured servitude…but it fits the theme.

PS I wanted this to be a 400K level, but Kickstarter has limits. Sigh.

Note: There are not limits to how many people can pledge at this reward level. An 8891 km will will need loads of Beavertail carts.

Help Wanted Labs

• Someone who knows how to build a wall.
• Someone with the permission or influence necessary to build a wall along our border.
• People with a sense of humour.

Biography

I’m just a person (who thinks this is funny) and uses humour to manage anxiety. Nice to meet you.

PS. I have no qualifications to build a wall of any type, nor the permission needed to do so…

Workplace hazards. Poison, compress gas, bubble wrap…

I’ve taken on a new volunteer job where I get to smell like fish and risk tetanus every time I go (more on that another day). Before I could start I had to take a number of online training courses about chemicals and falling hazards and inappropriate touching. (Oh my!).

After taking the courses I feel well prepared to face the risks in my new volunteer role; and fairly certain I won’t touch anything or anyone inappropriately. (At least not on the job.) However, the safety training has had the side effect of making me feel decidedly unsafe in my normal job. Not because I’m really at any greater risk in my day-to-day life but because I’ve realized just how many things in an office can kill you if you eat them and how unprepared the rest of my office mates (who have not taken the fish-related-job online training courses) are to keep themselves and therefore me safe.

I used to think my boring office was a bastion of security. After all we have a health and safety committee that follows every rule there is; they really looks after us. (The committee once reprimanded me for storing something too high-up. They were worried it could fall in an earthquake and cause injury. It was bubble wrap.) So my office is safe right? Wrong. WHIMIS training made it very clear that I was in danger and I should have already had safety training (tsk, tsk, bad employer) to make me aware of the proper handling of workplace hazards like, wait for it, printer toner (which is apparently poisonous if swallowed).

What the training didn’t make clear is how I might accidentally swallow printer toner (I have some research to do), or if the risk is from disgruntled colleagues discovering that black toner blends right in with office coffee without effecting the taste (allegedly).

I’m sure my heightened awareness of risk will fade over time, but just to be on the safe side I think I’ll go make a list of everything at work I shouldn’t lick.

PS. There were so many jokes about inappropriate touching training I had trouble choosing just one. Please feel free to take a moment and tell yourself a few now.

I don’t know if anyone else who writes feels this way, but I’m fairly certain that most of my good ideas come to me via a demon that lives in my head. Or who at least visits my head from time to time.

I haven’t decided if he’s good or evil. The ideas are great. (One point for good.) But he doesn’t seem to understand that critical plot points or new story ideas should not present themselves, demanding my attention, while I’m on the highway doing 90 kph. (One point for evil.)

Seriously, I once wrote an entire song pulling over every block to write a new line.  I’d stop the car, write a line then wait and see if more was coming. When no other lyrics seemed forth coming I would drive away only to have the next line slide into my head complete with percussion and instruments that I have no idea how to play and so have no ability to get down on paper. Thanks.

My most recent story idea has me leaning towards evil. The idea came while I was walking down a hospital corridor.  It was a great idea that quietly suggested I risk sitting down in a possibly plague infested hallway to get the critical plot points down before they faded into “what was that idea” and “damn it, that was good, why can’t I remember” territory. I didn’t sit down. I took a picture of the wall that inspired me instead and hoped for the best (I can’t afford to get sick again.) Nice try demon.

PS. I’ve been thinking of setting my phone up for hands free calls so I can call myself on the road and leave random messages about writing ideas while dodging traffic.

Apparently my minor snoring issue, and constant fatigue are sleep apnea. And apparently my new sleep device is going to make it so that I keep breathing _all_ night. I’m not convinced yet, I mean do I really need to breathe the _whole_ night? And I don’t mean to complain about the strange diagnostic process that resulted in me breathing all night for the first time ever, but what thought process can take you from “my patient has a chest cold” to “I wonder if she is slowly choking to death every night”?

Apparently I’ve been defying death my whole life. Not something I expected to find out, but now I know I think it’s the reason I’ve never felt the desire to leap out of an airplane or cliff dive. I apparently get all the adrenaline rush anyone could need just going to sleep, nearly dying, then wrenching myself from sleep only to repeat the pattern (if the test can be believed) every five or so minutes until the alarm goes off.

I have sleep apnea. A fun fact I discovered while visiting two specialists and doing a half dozen seemingly random tests as my doctor tried to figure out why I catch every cold that goes around and then some. (PS. I still don’t know.)

When the doctor suggested a sleep apnea test I wasn’t exactly enthusiastic. I was sceptical about how sleep apnea could cause repeated chest and sinus infections and I wasn’t exactly thrilled about sticking tubes up my nose while I slept so they could tell how much I wasn’t breathing. But I agreed because Andre was on the doctor’s side (apparently I snore) and I was hoping it would lead to something relevant.

So I tested, and I have it. (I’ve been getting a lot of “I told you so’s and significant elbows from Andre who was apparently right…again.)

In good news, this new type of broken has resulted in me becoming a part-time cyborg and that can’t be bad. (I’m sure I’ll work my way up to full-time.) I mean as a part-time cyborg, when the robots rise I’ll be seen as one of them, right?

Don’t worry, I’ll be a benevolent ruler…mostly.

PS. I’ve been informed that having a sleep apnea device doesn’t make you a cyborg and that robot overlords wouldn’t need a go-between with their human captives. I respectfully disagree.

PPS. I wonder if my characters will start having less traumatic experiences now that I don’t choke nearly to death every night. (I hope not.)

I looked at my CT scan and this is pretty much exactly what’s in there. Don’t feel bad if you don’t understand it right away, I’ve been living in my head for years and I still don’t get it.

The inside of my head is classified.

Not the information therein, just the structure. Totally classified. So classified that the CT tech let me see the results of my scan on his little screen but he wouldn’t let me take a picture. The inside of my head is rated eyes only.

Given its classified rating, I’m not really sure why the CT guy let me see the inside of my head. He didn’t even check my security level. I guess he assumed that possession of the head grants authority of some sort. But considering I didn’t even know the inside of my head was that important I’m pretty sure I’m not cleared to see it. (Seriously CT guy, don’t assume.  This is how leaks happen.)

PS. I feel a bit like a reverse Johnny Mnemonic. I can tell you all my thoughts, but information on the box I keep them in is strictly need to know.