Canadian girl out and aboot

In many ways, it's like I'm already on vacation. I only had to go to one meeting this month, and have been writing a few stories from home. I worked so much in November that December has been really lax. I could have gone home early and written from Saskatoon, except that I have my teen writers' group to teach this Sunday.

After three or four days of -40 weather, I was suffering from some serious cabin fever. This was made worse because I accidentally ate some chickpeas that had gone bad and had some digestive issues for about 2 days. Fortunately, this was settled with a bland diet and a whole lot of sleep. (It wasn't food poisoning. I just felt very ill and had a stomach ache and stayed home resting for a day. I'm better today. Today is much warmer outside (about -12), so I went for my first ski of the year! Skied around the park for an hour and it was fantastic.

Things are pretty lax here. Just a few articles (and a new short story) to work on, movies to watch, and books to read. My friends Patrick and Nicole, who are both poets, will be guest teaching at the teen writers group this weekend. I drive home on Monday and can't wait to hang out with my parents and dog.

I'm feeling much better than I did earlier this week. Last night, I went to a terrific reading/event. I generally go to these things alone, but end up knowing a few people, so I usually have people to sit with. Last night I sat with one of Mari's friends, Lisa and ended up meeting a few more neat people too.

The event was the Literary Saloon. It's a new reading series created by novelists Lynn Coady and Marina Endicott. They wanted to have a prose reading series in town and feature an out of town guest and local readers. The theme of the night was "Ink." Marina, Lynn and local novelist Greg Hollingshead read some excerpts from new work. Then Ted Bishop took the floor to talk about pens. He is currently working on a biography about the history of ink so he told us all about the history of the ball point pens and some of the incredibly weird characters involved with its design and promotion. He showed us vintage pens, pen posters and played us some old commercials including one called, "Is that a rocket in your pocket?" (The pens were called rockets and the ads were quite sexual.)

This was followed by a reading from out of town guest Annabel Lyon, who read us a passage from her award winning book, "The Golden mean."

Following this, Lynn and Marina organized a book SMELLING contest. Three volunteers from the audience were blind folded and assisted by celebrity judges. The volunteers had to identify, "Mastering the art of French cooking", "Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance", "Gulliver's travels", a new book called "The Incident Report" and a book by Michael Ignatieff. The celebrity guests (Ted Bishop, Greg Hollingshead, and Annabel Lyon) were allowed to give hints as to the nature of the book. Two of the volunteers did okay, but one was absolutely amazing and he could identify the books mainly by smell. Weird, but fun.

Tomorrow I'm going to the Edmonton Journal book fair. One of the writers decided to host a fair celebrating the many published authors at the Edmonton Journal. Then I'm going to a friend's holiday party that night.

My schedule right now is nice and open, but I'm already looking at the end of January, which will be insane. I'll be going to conferences and working A LOT.

Aah. I don't have to go to any more meetings until next week. I've been quietly working from home, which is blissful. I only have to drive to Red Deer once this month and I'm sitting on a pile of stories since I worked so much last month. It's blissful, it's great, it's all those things and I'm hoping to get some of my own writing done this month and next.

Yesterday the contenders for Canada Reads were announced. This is an annual debate contest for books, and so the literary bloggers were on fire and I was writing a bunch of posts, trying to get the books, and tweeting my head off. If you're in Canada (or want to read a bunch of Canadian books), you should participate in our Canada reads challenge at Roughing it in the books .

I have been rather stressed because I special ordered a bra for my dance recital at the end of October. The bra has still not arrived and if it doesn't arrive today, I'm going to have to go through my studio and see what else they have in stock. The bra must have gotten stalled at customs or something. This is really annoying. It rates as a two on a scale of one to 10 in terms of annoyance, but it still means I have to spend extra money. My recital is on Sunday. AAAAArgh.

Today my friend and I are going for a flu shot date. This means that I pick her up, we go for flu shots and then go for lunch. The lines for flu shots are a lot shorter and it's open to everyone now. I decided to make the date since I knew I would never get motivated to go by myself if I didn't set the date in stone and make arrangements. So there you have it.

On Wednesday, I drove up to Grande Prairie. It was a bit of a shock to my system as there was almost 20 degrees of temperature difference between the two cities. It was definitely winter in GP, and so I spent a lot of time freezing and being very cold. Friends kept on asking me what was wrong. I was staying with family friends when I got there. Jon and Laura were at a doctor's appointment, so I went for some soup and then went to the Prairie Art Gallery to check out the new exhibit.
Following this, I went to Jon and Laura's and we visited a bit before all three of us collapsed.
The next day, I got up and went to the GP Farm Women's conference. I had lunch and attended a couple of seminars before meeting up with friends to do the Power of the Land show.
Getting to see friends again was really nice. It was also cool because my friends brought some of their kids with them, so I got a chance to see the kids too. I also got to eat pizza at my friend Susan's house and visit with all of my friends. We did the show on the Thursday evening and it went off splendidly and was a huge hit. I got up early on the Friday morning and went back to some sessions at the conference before driving back home.

It was seriously a whirlwind trip, as I was only in town for one full day. I didn't even stop to visit with any of my friends. Fortunately, I don't have any more overnight work related trips planned for a while. I have one that I could do in mid December, but I'm not even sure about that one yet.

This week's schedule has been- work, watch movies, etc. Really that's about it. I did two days of work related writing, and then spent a day at the alpaca conference at Farm Fair. I attended some really in depth presentations about birthing alpacas and ended up looking at pictures of alpaca placenta and afterbirth. I'm not joking.

My publishers were in town to release a new book of poetry and so I got a chance to chat with them and meet author Hiromi Goto , whose work I have long admired.

In my exhausted stupor, I watched the Rolling Stone documentary "Shine a light."

This weekend I attended two films at the Global Visions international film festival. This documentary film festival is the longest running documentary film fest in Canada! I saw "Hair India" which about the hair trade in India. Pilgrims travel to temples to have their heads shaved, then the temples sell the hair to international agencies. Working class women go through the hair before it is shipped to international centres, like Rome, to be processed into hair extensions. In the film, an Indian woman in Mumbai had her hair treated and got extensions done. It's a really weird look at culture, hair and social class. Prior to this film, we watched a short film called "Namrata". This film was based on the life of the woman who was the inspiration for Deepa Mehta's "Heaven and Earth." I was very struck by this film.

Today I saw "Transit Dubai", which is about the transitory nature and social classes in Dubai. I've had many friends visit the city and one of my friends is working there now. I thought this film really showed some of the class structure and problems with the city.

I also got a chance to go for brunch with some friends. We just got a Cora's in Edmonton. Cora's is a chain started in Quebec. It has since slowly been spreading across Canada. They serve breakfast food with lots of fresh fruit. We had to wait quite a while to get in, but it was worth it.

Yesterday my friend Jesse came to town. He emailed me ahead of time and offered to take me to the West Edmonton mall waterpark. I'd never been before, but various people had told me that the waterpark was awesome.
We used to go to the West Edmonton mall when I was a kid, and I loved watching this one particular slide at the waterpark. It was one slide where you twisted around and then dropped out, falling about 5 feet into the water.

I was quite excited to go on that particular slide and I got to fulfill a childhood dream yesterday. Since we were at the park on a weekday, it was a lot cheaper and less busy than the weekends. The lockers at the park cost $7 and they're computerized. You type a security code into a computer which unlocks and re-locks the locker for you.

There were strange signs around the pool which told you that- "Noseblowing, and urinating in the pool were prohibited." They also warned you not to go into the pool if you'd had diarrhea in the past 2 weeks. (I have never seen the diarrhea or the noseblowing signs before)

The waterpark is quite huge. It's got the world's largest wave pool, which makes 5 foot high waves. This was quite nice and we sat in the pool and visited a lot. Then we went on a variety of the slides. They have beginner ones, intermediate ones, advanced and extreme. I hadn't been on a waterslide for years, so I started off with a tame one called "The Corkscrew." This was followed by an extreme one called "Nessie's revenge." This one actually launches you into the air! You go up into the air as you clear a big bump! It was fun, but intense.

We followed this up with my favourite "The Tropical Typhoon." My friend Jesse called it "The Tidy Bowl". This was the one that I'd watched when I was a kid. This one spins you around and then you fly around a huge bowl that swirls you around like a toilet. You then fall five feet into a pool of 10 foot deep water. This was pretty intense and scary, but incredibly fun.

We went on one that required tubes, sat in the hot tub and repeated some of the slides. My least favourite was a slide called "The Blue Bullet". This slide is closed in and completely dark, and you can't see where you are going. I'm claustrophobic, so I HATED this slide. Jesse had a friend's waterproof camcorder, so he made some videos of us going down the slides. It was a lot of fun and I'd recommend doing it. However, after sliding for almost 2 hours, I was dizzy and waterlogged. Very intense, but I'd go again.

I have neglected to post about the completely fun wedding that I went to in Vancouver almost two weeks ago. This is rather deplorable, so I'll make up for it now. My friends Carlos and Andrea got hitched. They wanted a very non-traditional ceremony, so they held the wedding at a hall in Kitsilano in Vancouver. The weather cooperated and it was an absolutely gorgeous day. When we got there, they were still setting up, so I was able to see the groom, which was weird to me. I don't think I've been at a wedding where I have seen the groom before the wedding.

We were also given our wedding favours immediately. The favours consisted of a small button with a drawing of Carlos and Andrea holding hand, a Count and colour colouring book that detailled their courtship and a few crayons with a ribbon around them so we could colour. This was awesome, because we could colour as we were waiting.

The justice of the peace they hired was awesome. She told us that we had to begin the wedding by shouting, "Let this wedding begin." Andrea and Carlos entered the hall to a Sarah Harmer song and walked onto the stage. The justice of the peace told us the story of their courtship, which began on OK Cupid. We got to hear the story of how they got together and some of the early things about their relationship. The justice of the peace also gave us a glass heart made by a local artisan to pass around. We were all supposed to hold the heart and think about how much we loved the couple and think good thoughts for them. Then the couple would always have the heart to remember how loved they were by their community.

Everyone at the wedding was asked if we would support the marriage and their act of marriage and we responded, "We will." I thought it was a great way to honour the couple.

The funniest part of the ceremony involved the justice of the peace asking a question about the special gift that Andrea had got for Carlos. The J of P meant the ring, of course, but Andrea responded, "I got him a button maker."
Everyone in the audience laughed, but then Andrea got it and they exchanged rings. Since Carlos is Spanish, part of the ceremony included them reciting, "With this ring, we are wed," in Spanish. There was no bridal party, but the parents came onstage to sign the registry.

Andrea had a very cool dress. It was made especially for her. It consisted of a black slip dress with pink tulle underneath. She also had a jacket to cover the dress that had small pink buttons on the sides. She had a big pink and blue flower arrangement in her hair, turquoise shoes and a black, pink and turquoise clutch. The parents and Carlos had corsages with pink or turquoise in them. It was very sweet.

After the ceremony, the immediate family went for pics and the rest of us milled around. A lot of the friends helped get the reception hall ready for the dinner. This consisted of arranging tables and putting African violets on the tables. When people were allowed back in, they were able to buy 50/50 tickets to help pay for the cost of the wedding.

The dinner consisted of Memphis bbq. The vegetarians had veggie lasagna and salad and were allowed to eat first. There were tons of different kinds of meat! (Pulled pork, ribs, lamb, chicken, beef, sausages and something else if I remember correctly.) For dessert, we were given mini cupcakes made by Andrea's sister. We were given bags of icing to decorate the cupcakes, which was a lot of fun. The wedding cake was a huge cupcake, decorated with blue icing and the wedding ducks. The couple also bottled and labelled their own wine. After the dinner, we had a number of fun speeches by various friends and family, and then we cleared out the reception for dancing. This was one of the funniest playlists ever as we played music by the Pipettes, The Postal Service, The Black Kids and Annie. It was very hipster, but lots of fun. There were about 100 people at the wedding, which I am convinced is the perfect number. It's a sizeable group, but you still get to interact with everyone!

Also, I should add that I won the 50/50, and made $250! When I was called to the mike to collect my prize, I was asked why I should win. I said I should win because I was from out of town, and I was a writer. People loved my answer.

The bouquet and garland toss were done to the song "Single ladies". My friend Emily and I did the Single ladies dance before the bouquet was tossed off. It was super fun. After the dancing, a few people went to the casino, but I was exhausted, so I just went home.

Earlier in the day, I'd been to visit my friend Arthur and his new son, who was three weeks old. He's an absolutely beautiful baby. All in all, a fantastic and original wedding and a great day.

Man, I've just been writing away like a fiend, doing some freelance work and work related stories. Crazy stuff. And in between all that, I've been reading like a fiend. In the past 2.5 days, I've devoured three books. I mean, I normally read a lot but this has been just ridiculous.

I've also been doing things to get ready for my trip to BC and am actually going to be social this evening and go see a movie at the Edmonton Film Festival tonight with Mari and her dude.

I've got some social events lined up for when I return from BC. Being this anti-social is okay once in a while, but I can't let it rule my life. That said, I've also been to dance class and yoga this week, and walked over to my friend's to pick up a book and visited with her for about 20 minutes, so I have been leaving the house. I've just really had my nose buried in my work.

I got a much needed haircut and drove up to Grande Prairie. When I got there, my family friends and another friend hopped in a car and drove to the new Prairie Art Gallery for an art opening. The event was massive! It was the opening of the second show in the new Prairie Art Gallery and there were hundreds of people there. They had a rock band, free food (roast pork sandwiches and chips) and a chocolate fountain. The art was pretty cool as well. It was a rather surreal event for me, because I saw a lot of people that I have interviewed one or two times. However, I also got a chance to catch up with some friends and hang out at the new art gallery in GP. After that, Jon and Laura and I went home where I cuddled with the Yorkshire terrier and we watched "Mad Men", which I don't really care for. (Confession- I don't really care for Flight of the Conchords either)

Going to weddings requires a lot of work. Yesterday I bought my dress, shoes and wrap. The dress is a red, off the shoulder jersey style dress with great draping. Unfortunately, there was a small tear along the seam. I managed to get a small discount at the store, and took it into the tailor's today. I got a wrap to wear over the dress and a potential necklace to wear with the dress. I tried on a whole shwackload of dresses yesterday. I was not aware that so many of them were made for people with small breasts. Dresses that normally fit me would not go over my chest. I have a huge rib cage which made it challenging to find a dress that fit properly. There were a couple that I tried on that made me feel like I was falling out of the dress and I didn't think that would be a comfortable way to spend an evening.

I also went to get the card and did a few other wedding related errands today.

I've been watching Gossip girl in between my fits of busy-ness. The show just keeps on getting better and better. I managed to pick up Season 2 at the library and have been enjoyed in a bit of a marathon as I try to watch episodes in between doing all the things I have to do this week. I remember enjoying Season 1, but I'm enjoying Season 2 just as much, if not more. I love Chuck Bass. He makes evil look good.