Last Month in Kaslo

One of my favourite photos of me and Jordie. This was taken as we were peeling off into the distance to start a six-month journey down to Frisco, adventures bring what they may.

From right to left: Dad, me (I'd just gotten off the set of Cool Runnings), Mom, Jordie, Chucky.

Hello, dear readers. It's the first week of March, which means Jordie and I officially have less than one month left of our 7-month stint in the Kootenays. Time flies! Anyhoo, here are some deep thoughts to get your weekend rolling.

1. Daylight Savings isn't really something that gets me fired up. In other words, it's really not something that bothers me. But man, some people get REALLY fired up about it! And in a way, even though I will never understand why this is such a contentious issue, it's still kind of satisfying to hear people getting so passionate about something other than politics.

Here are some fun facts about Daylight Savings

a) It seems you can just 'decide' whether your country/province/town is going to participate in Daylight Savings or not. You would think something as universal as TIME would be one of those 'all or nothing' issues. Apparently not.

b) Japan, China and Iceland don't observe Daylight Savings at all. India is a maybe. Clocks in Creston, BC are aligned with Calgary time in the winter and Vancouver time in the summer, just to be difficult.

c) Benjamin Franklin is widely credited with coming up with the idea for Daylight Savings. He had some other innovative ideas as well: bifocals, odometers, street lamps, and 'flexible' urinary catheters (which he apparently tried first on his poor brother that had bladder-stones). I wonder what it would have been like to live in the olden days, back when someone would always have to sign up to be the guinea pig for all the new medical technologies. I think I would have tried to be 'out of town' when these medical experiments were scheduled to take place. Whoever volunteered to try out the procedure in the photo below for the first time was really taking one for the team.

2. Remember Y2K and how everyone thought the whole world was going to explode at the stroke of midnight? A couple of things I'd like to say here. One, I'm surprised there was never an Armageddon-style movie made about this, and two, isn't it weird that a suspected computer glitch issue made people go out and buy more toilet paper? I was thinking about this as I bought 6 cans of kidney beans at the store today. You know, just in case the Coronavirus comes to town and buys all the kidney beans. I'm just kidding-I didn't really buy 6 cans of kidney beans. I did buy 6 cans of beans, but it was a medley.

3. I think everyone knows at least one person who's a die-hard conspiracy theorist. One of those people who has seen the movie Zeitgeist too many times-one of those people who thinks the government is hiding a bunch of aliens at Area 51 or 'time isn't real' or whatever. If time isn't real, does that mean you don't make appointments? What do you do, just show up at the dentist's office? And what about flat earthers? Did you know they've got their own dating site? It's called 'Flat Earth Singles,' (really putting it all out on the table there!) and I think it's kind of brilliant. You know why? Because if you went on a date with a 'round earth' person, the whole flat-earth thing might be kind of a...dealbreaker. The 'Flat Earth Singles' dating site helps to avoid conversations like this:

Sandra: Hey look, I'm really sorry, but this just isn't working out.

George: Really? Why?

Sandra: Well, I only date people who believe the earth is flat.

George: Oh. OK, well, thanks for telling me.

Sandra: You mean you're not upset?

George: Actually, I was going to end it with you today anyway, so this works out perfectly.

Sandra: What? Why?

George: I only date people who believe that Michelle Obama murdered Joan Rivers.

4. The other day, I took myself out for lunch at the Treehouse Cafe, which is not actually a cafe in a treehouse, but it should be. Man, that would be amazing! Something dawned on me as I was deciding what to put on my toast. There's always orange marmalade in those little bowls of jam and peanut butter packets, and yet the only marmalade fan I have ever known was my Grandpa Rankin. I decided to try it. It was OK. It just made me wonder...who is this mystery community of marmalade lovers? They must have a lot of political power or something, because there's marmalade in every restaurant. I even saw it in a Chinese noodle-house once, which really made my head spin. What am I gonna do, put marmalade on my chow mein? Come on now.

*I just got a new Shark Tank idea: a dating site for marmalade people, called 'Marmalade People.'

5. Things I pretend to understand when I'm talking to my American friends:

a) Super Tuesday. You always hear a lot in the news about Super Tuesday around the time of an American election. I'm pretty sure Super Tuesday is like 'cheap day' at the movie theatre, but with free popcorn.

b) Why ketchup or dill pickle chips aren't sold in America. I'm sorry, but this just doesn't make any sense.

c) 501K. I think this has something to do with retirement. Is it your pension? $501,000? If so, I think that extra $1,000 is just a marketing scheme. I think most people realize $501,000 is really not that much more than $500,000, but maybe that extra thousand bucks makes you feel all warm and fuzzy about the company you work for. You could buy a thousand extra bags of chips with that! Not ketchup or dill pickle, though. I suppose people use their retirement money for more important things than buying chips, but people are funny, so you never know.

*Here is a list of ridiculous Canadian words that apparently don't exist in the States: -garburator (this sounds exactly like what it is-a garbage machine in the sink)

-keener (aka 'brown noser,' which is actually kind of gross when you think about it)

-pencil crayons

-going for a rip (going for a fun ride/excursion)

-duotang (aka inconvenient paper folder thingy for students)

-ginch/gaunch (aka 'underwear,' but not just any type-I've never heard of slinky women's underwear described as a 'ginch')

6. Have you ever heard someone call a couch a chesterfield? It's a trip. Kinda makes you feel like it's 1955 again. One time I was chatting to an elderly lady and she went even a step further, calling the couch she was sitting on a davenport. She was one of those davenport people.

7. When Jordie makes me coffee first thing in the morning with the perfect amount of milk in it, I know I'm with the right person. But yesterday when he bought a 1-litre bottle of wine instead of the 1.5, I had my doubts.

GOD, I miss summer corn.

8. We went skiing at Whitewater Resort in Nelson the other day, and I was waiting at the bottom of the chairlift for Jordie when some older man zoomed up to me on his skiis and said: "Hey! You've been standing here since I went by last time! You haven't moved an inch!" For some reason, this really made me want to punch that guy in the face. But I couldn't, because as quickly as he zoomed up to me, he zoomed off again.

9. One of Kaslo's churches had this sweet little pancake cookoff in the evening last week. I couldn't go, because I was sick with the world's longest cold, but I definitely thought about it. In the fine print on the pancake flyer, I think it said something about a church service. I am not a churchgoer, but if they always offered free pancakes, I'd probably go.

This Parisian portrait painter once told Jordie he had a 'perfect face' for a portrait. I think this guy just likes a good beard, that's what I think.

10. I'm not pregnant, but I'm kinda thinking about having a kiddie. I can't resist the idea of having a kid-I adore kids. You know what's funny? The things people say to pregnant people. Seriously-ask the gals in your life who have had kids to tell you some of the gems they heard from total strangers when they were pregnant. You'll hear some real doozies-everything from 'You don't look that pregnant,' or 'Holy shit, you're huge!' to 'Gee, do you think it's going to be a long, painful labour?' I think this would make a great idea for a funny book. It could be called 'Comments That Don't Help When Someone Is Pregnant.'

The last week has been a bit of a whirlwind of cooking, watching movies and painting at my shop. I've been working on a dog portrait that seems to be going nowhere. I know I'll eventually get it done, but sometimes I arrive at the shop in the morning thinking it will be a productive day and then end up spending 3 hours looking at stuff. I'll look at the painting, then I'll look away, then I'll look at the painting, then I'll really look at the painting. Life is a wild ride.

This week, my biggest accomplishment was going from greeting Jordie with 'Bordig!' to 'Morning!' followed by finally being able to breathe through both my nostrils at the same time. You really take your nostrils for granted when they're doing what they're supposed to be doing, hey? I also don't think it helped my sickness when I lost my voice from singing that Austin Powers song 'I Touch Myself' at the top of my lungs, but damn that's a good song. I've also given up on my can opener-I just give cans straight to Jordie now and let him deal with it. We support each other in different ways.

Jordie and I went for dinner at Jer and Sher's place a couple nights ago and we had grilled cheese sandwiches with homemade tomato soup. I always forget this meal exists, but it's such comfort food. I think my favourite comfort food, though, is a giant bowl of steaming pasta. One of the days I was sick last week I had a giant steaming bowl of pasta at 10:30 in the morning. I think if you're sick for two weeks straight, you have every right to eat something ridiculous for breakfast. Jordie didn't judge me, at least not out loud, which is another reason why I love him.

Yesterday we went to Whitewater for a lovely day of skiing. It was sunny, clear, and the snow was 'hardpacked.' When a ski hill says their snow is 'hardpacked,' it's code for 'icy.' Jordie said it was 'kind of icy,' but when we were on the chairlift, I could barely hear him even though he was sitting right beside me. The snowboarder two miles away was really scraping down the hill. For breakfast, I ate two day-old pizza buns they were selling at the lodge. I guess I was still sick. The Australian gal working at the cafe told me it had 'fee-ta' on it. Normally, I'm pretty good with figuring out accent stuff, but she had to repeat it like three times before I realized she was saying 'feta.' It felt like a Monday all day to me, even though it was Thursday. Jordie said he didn't think it felt like a Monday at all. I asked him what day he thought it felt like, but he got bored and changed the subject.

I had a nice visit with my friend Sarah this week. We gabbed about life, and I snuggled with her dog Huck, and I taught her how to crochet a dishcloth. I warned her about the addictive nature of crocheting-after Sheree taught me to crochet last Christmas, I basically got Carpal Tunnel from making too many blankets. There was a huge windstorm in the night on Tuesday (which didn't wake me up-I sleep like a log), and one of the giant trees in Sarah's yard fell down. Did you know trees that are in danger of falling down are called 'widowmakers?' I guess if it was a woman doing the arborist work, it would be called a 'widowermaker.' But that doesn't really roll off the tongue now, does it?

Before I go, I have to tell you something. This week, I got the second big 'I can't breathe' laugh of 2020, and guess what was the source? Jordie on cross-country skis. Those gut laughs where you can't even talk or breathe are the best things ever. I had no idea watching people fall on cross-country skis was such a treasure trove of laughs! Jordie was going down these little hills and fell three times in about fifteen feet. God, it was funny. Jordie is forbidden to laugh at me if I fall when I'm skiing, though. We laugh at each other about different things.

Well, friends, I think that's all for today! I'm going to meet Jordie at the Angry Hen for a Friday post-work beer. At least, I think that's what I'm doing. I don't have a phone, so he has to email me the plan. And then I have to be sitting at my computer to check my email and email him back to confirm. I'll probably just run into him at home later, realistically.

Until next time!