July 24, 2004

k-days etc

well, I am in Kamloops today--for the second time in three weekends... I am here to visit with my sister, Kari, who is back in our neck of the woods for a few weeks after a year of teaching in England. I am only in town until Monday, so this time around the trip was made via flying metallic bird. suz kindly drove me to the airport this morning, and Kari met me at the Kelowna "international" airport, and we drove back to the 'Loops. Now I say 'international' airport mockingly, becuase any airport with like, only four gates is not international. Any airport that you have to get out of the plane and cross the tarmac before going in the building is not international. Any airport where half the planes that land are crop dusters, is not international.

Aaannnway, I'm back in kamloops now. yesterday, I spent the better part of the day at Klondike days. Ricky, Nicky, Stoo and Suz took to the fair. Unfortunately, the fair didn't take to Suz, and within 3 rides, she was feeling ill. She claims to have been a real trooper in years gone by, but now I just think she's all talk ;) ... after some downtime, eating, sitting in the shade, and wasting our money at the casino, she was feeling better, and we hit the ride circuit again. One one occasion, we waited in line for the better part of an hour, only to have the operators announce the ride was closed beofre we had the chance to get on. d'oh! not to worry, I soon drowned my sorrows in a lime flavoured sno-cone.

While at the fair, we also had the chance to see some cirque du soleil for free---they were putting on a few shows a day, a portion of their current piece, 'Charme'.

The rest of the day was filled with people watching (pre-teens wearing too much makeup and not enough clothing being the majority of our observations. This just in: you're 12. you needn't grow up so fast. And you need NEVER dress like that! ), eating corn dogs and ice cream, and refilling the water bottle a few dozen times in order to stay ahead of the heat. Good times had by all!

So that's about all I have to say for now! I'll be here in Kamloops for a few days yet, as mentioned. I already started making some apricot fruit leather, the fruit thanks to our overproductive trees here at home. I plan to pick a few more pounds beofre I leave on Monday as well.

Oh wait, I'm supposed to be at work on Monday. and I was yesterday, too. I mean... cough, cough... I don't feel so good...

July 22, 2004

this and that

Ever been kicked in the junk before?

Okay, now that I have your attention, I’ll explain. A bunch of us were taking advantage of a fine summer Sunday in the park. All the usual suspects were there. Football, Frisbee, volleyball. And Suzanne, jumping on my back.
"Don’t spin me around!" she said

So naturally, I spun.

And lost my own balance, let alone making her dizzy. Down we go.
The trip down would have been uneventful, were it not for Suzanne’s knee sticking up at in opportune angles, which connected with my jewels with alarming force. I writhed around on the ground for a few minutes… fast forward to five days later, it still hurts. I went to the clinic yesterday (always a good place to go when something isn’t right with your bits). He figures a bit of bruising in there, and give ita few more days and I should be right as rain. Until then, I grin and bear it.

I should not have spun Suz.

What else is new… lets see…. Won some Klondike days all day ride passes off the radio the other day, I expect to be putting those to good use! Klondike days, for those of you not in the know, is an archaic excuse to bring the fair to town on an annual basis. There isn’t much left to it nowadays that is ‘Klondikey’, from what I’m told, but hey, any excuse to be tossed around and around and upside down on the rides and stuff myself with mini donuts to the point of barfing.

My landlord moved out of the house last weekend, movin’ on up to a place on the 10th green of the Millwoods golf course. I volunteered to help.
Hindsight is 20/20.
How so much stuff could be crammed into one house and garage, I will never know.
A full, full-sized moving truck. A rented U-haul, filled twice over. Two pick-up trucks, one filled once, one filled twice. We started at 10 am or so, 7 of us. The drop-outs started around 1:00 pm. By the end of it, 5 still remained, though all moving considerably slower than in the morning. Throw 30 degrees and humidity into the mix, and you had one sweaty, tired bunch. Total disarray, not like we actually organized anything that was moved, it was just from point A to B, that was it. But Ruth, my landlord, very generously paid for the services, something not normally expected when one volunteers, so that made it worth while!

Other than that, I’ve just been working away, mooching food and movies off of Suzanne, now that my house is void of TV and internet, and is in a general shambles as I and my roommate prepare ourselves for our own move-outs in a few weeks.

Oh, by the way, if anyone else wants to volunteer to feed me, I wouldn’t say no :)