Visitors

Currently relocated to Dawson Creek for newly found work as a First Aid Attendant on a BC Hydro construction project, I was over the moon when Dan and the current kitties visited last night.  True, I have only been here a week, but a week away from where I'd rather be none the less.

Work days have been slow and the crew has not given me any business (good) I gave myself a goal of finishing one novel every two days.  A few town days and training sessions and I'm still on track.  Yan Martel's Beatrice and Virgil - spooky, twisted ending; Rajaa Alsanwa's Girls of Riyadh that points out the common threads of women everywhere; and Paul Theroux's latest and rumoured last travel memoir The Last Train to Zona Verde: My Ultimate African Safari - a brilliant first hand account of western Africa travel - are on their way back to Chetwynd's library.

When the temperature plunged to -29 with a windchill of -36 I earlier this week, I undoubtedly confronted Theroux's driving question: What am I doing here?

Taking advantage of a bigger center's Arts Scene, I was pleased to drop in on a great acoustic session by Winnipeg's Chris Carmichael.  Dawson Creek's Art Gallery hosts concerts throughout the year and Carmichael visited on Tuesday. Among the sparse audience numbering fewer than a dozen, his original rock, alt/country, blues, surf blues and cover songs were a welcome break from hanging out in my fancy, furnished apartment yearning for my friends and family elsewhere.

Wilma, new foster kitten

Wilma joins us from a busy foster home in Fort St. John where there were three dogs and another cat.  In our comparatively quiet home, her and Millie are now mostly friends.  Mostly.

When not duking it out in the Kitty Battledome, they`re parkouring off the furniture and wrestling on top of our sleeping bodies.

They`re both total cuties and we`re still on the fence as to whether we`ll keep Millie or not.  Luckily we`ve been able to postpone that decision as no one has shown any interest in adopting her.

At the prompting of a well-connected woman, who is quickly becoming a favourite friend in Chetwynd, I attended a volunteer orientation at one of the primary schools at lunch.

Car free and usually care free, I debated the  merits of walking or cycling in a developing northern snow storm.

Both would get me out of the house. Pro.  I could get there faster cycling and read a novel longer.  Pro.  I was going to a school and they would have a bike rack.  HUGE Pro.  A book club mate and the inviter to the event had recently dislocated her shoulder from a cycling fall - on dry pavement - hmmm, possible con.

I cycled there.  It was chilly.  I felt hardcore.  The wind blew snow into my exposed face both ways.  Con, con, con.

There was delicious carrot soup waiting when I arrived at the school and two fun kitties when I returned home. Pro.  

Least liked ice breaker

Billed as Life's Most Dangerous Question, I dislike it when I am working and even more so when I am not - and the latter is often.

"So, what do you do?"

I inwardly grimace and roll my eyes when meeting new people and sulk that this is their idea of small talk.  It's not an inquiry to my hobbies, volunteer interests, books I read, mountains/hills I scale, how I have mastered bread making or counties I would like to visit.  No, it is an imploration in to how the workforce values me and a subtle inquiry of income, status and rank.

Are we that bored or programmed that we can find no other common ground discussing things we like and are passionate about rather than the jobs we loathe?

I don't care if you're a stay-at-home Mom, science teacher, physician, farmer, bus driver, painter, cake decorator or struggling student.  What I am interested in is what you care about, where your dreams and passions lie, if we have similar hobbies.  If I wanted to network, I would have gone to a conference, professionals meet and greet or cruised around on Linkedin not attended a social gathering.

I was a member of my current book club for a half year before anyone asked me "what I did" or (and this one I liked) "what I did for the community."  The former forced me to admit after being laid off I had taken on a role that was inappropriate for my location and education while the latter allowed me to expand on the great work the local rescue, On Our Way Home Animal Rescue, has done in re-homing and rehabilitating surrendered, abandoned animals in the B.C. Peace while strengthening its presence from Mackenzie to Fort Nelson.

Leveled up, first town snow and Millie has a twin

An overnight wet snow thwarted my cycling into my Occupational First Aid Level 3 practical exam.  I had been cycling in each morning the three-ish kilometers (uphill) from home and was annoyed I wouldn't be able to do it for the final day.  

Cycling clears my head, the gentle incline into town revs up my heart rate and the twelve minute ride allows me to ponder and prepare for my day ahead.  I courageously cycle on the right hand shoulder of the highway for a couple hundred meters where a recent construction project by the town has destroyed a once-perfectly-usable pedestrian path (in its place is an awkward switchback with deep gravel that even those walking in get bogged down).  

For the past two weeks, I have been at the (allegedly haunted) Northern Lights College completing OFA Level 3.  It's a course I have been encouraging employers to put me through - when I had employers - and decided to do it myself when I had the time.  

Struggling to find work in the environmental field, successfully completing this course will hopefully give me a few more options in town and outside when I move on from the Peace.   

Millie and Mabel photos

There's rumours brewing Mabel (Surerus) is being adopted on Thanksgiving weekend.  I snapped a few photos before we send her on her way to her furever home.

When we received Mabel (our name), she was barely off a bottle and in to wet and dry foods.  Now she's easily doubled in size and Millie has accepted her as a playmate and snuggle buddy.  I think Millie will miss her kitty girlfriend more than Dan and I will.

Dan and Mabel shortly after we agreed to foster her

Millie found Dan's headband

Mabel after morning kitty cuddle time

How to beet it?

Squash are the rabbits/mice/cats of the garden in that they produce like mad!  Most recipients of please-just-take-it squash are grateful for the gift and usually have uses in mind for it - chocolate zucchini loaves, muffins, cookies, spaghetti squash pizza crust or simply covered in fresh pasta sauces, acorn or butternut soups.

If not for my mother giving me my weight in green and yellow zucchini on a recent visit, I would have been relegated to buying it from local farmer's markets (good) or the oddly stocked local stores (bad).  

Zucchini is a vegetable that most people know what to do with it when your coworker/neighbor/family member downloads their overharvest.  

My squash plants this year grew great big leaves, curly cue climbers and had delightful flowers but no vegetables came from them.  I accidentally weeded leeks and garlic.  Carrots did well, spinach bolted and the brassica bug annihilated my late season kale.  Beets also flourished.  

Still in the ground, I don't know what to do with them.  There's only so much glory bowl in which I can grate fresh beets.  Borscht, maybe I'll give that a go.  Someone said roast them.  Another to make beet burgers.  If this autumnal rain stops, I'll slog out to the soil one last time for the last of this year's fresh northern veg.  

Wow weekend!

This past weekend has been one of those rare ones where I see the majority of my friends in Chetwynd, rest up and recharge for the week ahead and have a clean(er) house.

Another girlfriend has left town for a promising work opportunity and she called together her town friends and coworkers from the last two years for one last bash on Friday.  Pub-filling laughter bounced off the wooded walls before we spilled into the Indian summer night and wished each other well with intentions of staying in touch.

Happy and (mildy) hungover the next morning, Dan and I set out on bicycles to meet friends for breakfast at the pub we had left mere hours before.  In small-town style, we saw nearly all our friends that morning.  At the post office, thrift store, library, in their yard, ahh.

Mild house and yard work filled the time until we popped out to friends house outside town for dinner.  A stellar meal was in the making - roast moose and garden spuds, carrots, onion.

We resigned ourselves to a sleepover, made arrangements for a friend to come to the house and feed our foster kitties when another friend dropped in after (unsuccessfully) hunting the same animal we had just eaten.  Conversation flowed, laughter filled the vaulted ceilings and we bummed a ride back into town for the night.

A delightfully leisurely day followed with light walks, board games, BBQs and kitty cuddle time.