Holly Jolly Christmas

Hi everyone! I figured I'd start this week with some out-of-context thoughts and musings I wrote down in my journal over the past few days. These are, clearly, things that I found really important at the time, and it takes too much time and energy to try to weave them into a more coherent storyline. So here they are, unabridged. I've got places to be and people to see! (This is true-I have to help Barb with the community dinner in like, an hour).

1. It's really annoying when someone asks me for my ID, not that it happens often, and not that I care if someone thinks I'm younger than 19 (really? I'm 37-I know for a fact that I don't look like I'm EIGHTEEN). Why is this annoying? Because I stopped carrying a purse last year (always had waaaaay too much junk in it). Now I carry a backpack (for some reason it doesn't bother Jordie as much...oh...I'm just realizing why that is...he doesn't have to carry his own crap around!). And my wallet is literally always at the bottom of my bag. Or else it's in my house, forgotten.

2. There are some words that I've heard a million times in my life, and even use myself on some occasions, and I have no idea what they even mean. Like...'calibrate.' What does this mean, really. "It's like...you know...when you standardize something against a standard." Me and my friends used to play this game called 'Gun to the Head' (terrible name, I know), where we would imagine having to explain with confidence how a household item worked under the pressure of having a gun to your head. And you couldn't stumble or anything. It went something like this: "A radio? OK, a radio uses...signals...I mean, signals with frequencies and stuff...from outer space, I think." Fail! This game would be good with tricky words like 'soffit' or 'spec house.' Maybe I should just ask Jordie what all these words mean, since I'm pretty sure they all have something to do with 'carpentry.'

3. Jordie comes home for lunch now because his commute is less than three minutes. Not having a bulky mess of tupperware containers filling up the sink is really nice, and so is having a half an hour to sit and chow down with him in the middle of the day. On the tupperware line of thought, I feel like a mason jar is probably the only 'to-go' coffee container that doesn't bug me.

4. It always makes me laugh when you ask someone if they're from Kaslo and they say no, they're from Schroeder Creek (Schroeder Creek is about 10km from here). Or Shutty Bench (6km), Fletcher Falls (9km), Three Forks (or is it Two Forks?). Three Forks or whatever it's called can't be more than 5km from here. Let's face it, people. If you're from any of these places, just say yes when someone asks you if you're from Kaslo.

5. The Kootenay Savings Bank has a sign in the window that says something like, 'Do you like to tap? You're going to love your new debit card!' Just thought you'd like a little example of how living in Kaslo is like living in 1995 sometimes.

6. EVERYONE has a truck in Kaslo. It's like a rule or something.

7. I keep forgetting that pot is legal now and you don't have to hide it when you're smoking it on the sidewalk. Unless you're 6 metres or less from a doorway or near a park/beach/body of water.

8. Buying tampons in a small town is just...weird. "Hi Linda! Yup, just these." I wonder if anyone has posted on Kaslo Community Web yet that I have my period.

And now for a brief trip down Christmas memory lane...visits with Santa!

Last week, as I turned the corner onto Front Street, I saw the big 'Season's Greetings' sign that the town of Kaslo strings up between the taqueria and the 'Eurythmy Studio' each year during Light Up. I gasped. Not like in a scared way-I mean, I inhaled in that way kids do when they see Santa. Is this gasping? The letters above the street are, I think, made with fake cedar greenery and have little lights on them. This in combination with the big cardboard Santa and his reindeer on top of the post office makes Kaslo one hell of a good example of a small, wintery, festive Canadian town. As I write this, there is a small, cozy, adorable blizzard going on outside. When I was walking home just now, I nearly slipped and broke my neck for the twentieth time this week. I wasn't wearing my Yak Trax.

The Ladies' Auxiliary held our annual 'cookie platter' meeting on Tuesday. This is when we all bake 2 dozen of something, and then we make mixed platters for people in town that might not get too much Christmas cheer (a lot of these peeps are older folks). What a great community offering! They're wrapped to perfection in festive cellophane, and contain everything from candy canes and matrimonial cake to peanut butter marshmallow squares and shortbread with tiny cherries on top. And then we ate a bunch of pie that was left over from one of the many dinners the Ladies make for the townspeople. Pumpkin pie and coffee. Somebody asked me if I'd ever played mahjong, and I found out that there is weekly carpet bowling at the Legion! I ended up with the turkey carcass (ugh, 'carcass' is a word that really grosses me out, but 'turkey body' doesn't sound any better) after the last big meal we prepared. It was actually my first time making soup from a turkey. Holy shit was it ever good! I'm not exaggerating when I say I ate about (at least) two litres before I went to bed that night.

I went for a drink with Jordan and our friend Daniel at the Angry Hen. This place allows dogs inside, which I love. 'Burt' the dog came to put his head in my lap. He looked and smelled like our old dog Bongo (a good smell), and it took me right back to when I used to use Bongo as a pillow. She didn't love it, but she also didn't struggle much. The Hen also allows you to bring in your own food. You can bring in a pizza, maybe even a turkey dinner if you want to! In our case, we had a bag of plain ripple chips I'd been stuffing my face with out on the street before I entered the bar. Daniel said we needed 'Saltspring Island' dip to go with it and ran over to the grocery store to get some. He was right. It was delicious. Nutritional yeast was one of the main ingredients, so no wonder it was so tasty.

The wintery season is shaping up to be a busy one for me in the studio. Over the last week, I've been in there every day, listening to podcasts and painting my little heart out. Ricky Gervais, Joe Rogan. I can't believe I'm actually listening to Joe Rogan. Joe Rogan of 'Fear Factor.' Everyone raves about his podcasts, and I'll admit, I like some of them. But there's no time crunch for this guy, at all! His episodes are sometimes more than two hours long. Two hours, just talking to...Roseanne Barr. I have added 3 new paintings to my art show at the Bluebelle, and I just bought 47 large canvases from my fellow Ladies Auxiliary member Carol, so jeez, I guess I have my work cut out for me! I also snagged a free silkscreen (a big one!) from the side of the road. Jordie looks concerned every time I mention some big, bulky thing I've picked up. He seems to think we have a limited amount of space in the 4Runner for when we eventually go home at the end of March. Pssssh.

Friday evening was Jordie's work Christmas party at the taqueria. This place has fantastic cocktails. Everyone's favourite of the night was the 'Pepino,' which is mezcal with cucumber or something. It's really boozy and really smoky. Myself, I prefer the one with muddled oranges and spritzy white wine or whatever that was. We ate fish tacos and duck tacos that I thought were pork tacos, and some of the best guacamole I've ever had. Don't you hate it when people say 'guac?' Me too. My dessert was tres leches (cake with creamy deliciousness). We had a Secret Santa thing (well, everyone kept calling it Secret Santa, but it was really Yankee Swap), and Jordie ended up with the present I bought (a little hand-potted coffee mug and a bag of Oso Negro coffee from Nelson). I ended up with the other present I'd bought. Yak Trax. Do yaks not slip on the ice or something? After the Christmas party, we went out to have a little fireworks show in the middle of the street (Jeremy bought them). Eventually, some lady popped her head out of her door to say it was late. It wasn't really that late, but maybe she thought we were just going to be setting off fireworks all night. Somebody doesn't realize how expensive fireworks are! It's like a ten minute thing, lady!

Sheree, our friend Britt and I had a lovely little movie night this week. We watched 'Dirty Dancing,' which I'm not sure I'd ever seen in full before. There was pizza pops, cheesy popcorn, and a lot of laughing at how dirty the dancing was. I kept rolling my eyes every time someone said 'Baby,' because I don't think I realized that was Jennifer Grey's actual character name in the movie. I mean, I remember the 'Nobody puts Baby in the corner' line, but I guess I thought her name was Donna or something and they just called her Baby sometimes. Nope! Sheree and I crocheted while we watched. This is something I've picked up-bringing my slippers AND my crocheting with me wherever I go. Hello, grandma!

December in Kaslo is quite full of events and things to do. There's always a little recital put on by the kids (two, actually, this week, and somehow I managed to keep from tearing up as I normally do when kids perform), or a movie at the Langham, or a concert, or some kind of community dinner. Last night, I went to the kids storytelling thing at the Langham's theatre. My favourite story was the one about the turtle who tricks the panther into getting inside his drum so she can roll him away and steal his drum. I also loved when everyone sang 'Must Be Santa.' Hadn't heard that song in years! Jordan and Sheree both said they'd never heard of it, but I remember this being a staple at school around Christmas time. Jeremy and Sheree are doing their annual Christmas concert at the Langham this Friday. I'm going to sneak some red wine in a to-go cup (mason jar). Hope nobody from the Langham is reading this! There's a polar bear plunge on January 1st down at the lake-a fundraiser for the Langham, I believe. Jordie and I were talking about how much colder it would be doing the polar bear swim here, compared with in Vancouver. Even in a wetsuit, it's freezing in the lake here. Another wintery thing is there's a cross-country skiing program for kids called 'Jackrabbits,' and you can rent skiis for your kids for $25 for the entire season! Jordie and I rented skis for ourselves on Sunday ($25 each for the day) and went over to Retallack to enjoy the beautiful snowy trails. Cross country skiing is way harder than it looks. The hardest part is going downhill. Even if it's a super slight downhill slope. Because cross country skis don't have edges on them like downhill ones do, so you can't really slow down. Plus, everyone else is always whizzing by, giving advice.

Whenever I look at old photos of Kaslo (current population: around 1,000), somehow I always come across a few that make me stop and wonder how many people used to live here back in the day when it was a 'huge mining community.' I wonder if the old Kaslovians could buy stuff like thread and yarn and crochet hooks and staplers (we've lost these luxury items, but there's always Amazon!) The Hotel Slocan, for example, pictured above, looks bigger than the current Kaslo Hotel, and just down the street there was another hotel of similar size called the King George Hotel. OK, I'm just now noticing the huge American flag in this photo. Maybe this photo was taken in New York or something. Oh, and if you just read the caption under the photo of the Slocan Hotel, when the timber dried out, it shrunk, and the boards in the walls of the hotel rooms had huge gaps in them, so if you wanted, you could just peep at the person next door! Bonus! Didn't someone figure wet wood would shrink?

I just googled 'carpenter jokes,' and this was the first one that came up:

'Yo mama so old, a carpenter could use her crotch as sandpaper!' Hahahaha....what?!?

Our house in the snow. Isn't it darling? Don't worry about that line in the sky. That's just Fred, the local martian. He visits everyone-it's kind of a community thing.

And so ends another week in Kaslo. I'm starting to really like this little place. It is amazing to me how different it is to be in a small town, though. The whole personality of the town itself is completely unique. In Vancouver, I've lived in the same 300 square foot apartment on Napier Street for 10 years now, and I don't know my neighbours. I recognize them, and we say hello (most of the time), but I don't know their names. I can see into my neighbour's living room (and I'm sure she can see me walking naked through my kitchen), but we are basically strangers. I know things about her that I probably shouldn't know (for example, she watches a LOT of CNN, and our houses are so close together that I can actually READ the captions going across the bottom of the screen...war this, politics that). Here in Kaslo, interactions with my neighbours go something like this: "Morning, Leah! Hey, I hope you don't mind that I've been shoveling your driveway," or, "Leah, do you want some of the homemade salt cod my brother gave me?" So yeah, it's nice.

Ciao for now, happy holidays, and don't forget how great rum and egg nog on ice is!