Blame Canada...

...If you don't get a new post for a week. I am headed up to Toronto for the biannual Interamericas Hash Event. It is four days of running in and around the Toronto area, drinking beer and singing songs.

Since I've never been to Canada, I was glad the website for the event had these great FAQ to help me prepare for the foreign land:

Q: I have never seen it warm on Canadian TV, so how do the plants grow? (UK)
A: We import all plants fully grown and then just sit around watching them die.

Q: Will I be able to see Polar Bears in the street? (USA)
A: Depends how much you've been drinking.

Q: I want to walk from Vancouver to Toronto - can I follow the railroad tracks? (Sweden)
A: Sure, it's only Four thousand miles, take lots of water.

Q: Is it safe to run around in the bushes in Canada? (Sweden)
A: So its true what they say about Swedes.

Q: It is imperative that I find the names and addresses of places to contact for a stuffed Beaver. (Italy)
A: Let's not touch this one.

Q: Can you give me some information about hippo racing in Canada? (USA)
A: A-fri-ca is the big triangle shaped continent south of Europe. Ca-na-da is that big country to your North… Oh forget it. Sure, the hippo racing is every Tuesday night in Calgary. Come naked.

Q: Which direction is North in Canada? (USA)
A: Face south and then turn 90 degrees. Contact us when you get here and we'll send the rest of the directions.

Q: Can I bring cutlery into Canada? (UK)
A: Why? Just use your fingers like we do.

Q: Can you send me the Vienna Boys' Choir schedule? (USA)
A: Aus-tri-a is that quaint little country bordering Ger-man-y, which is… Oh forget it. Sure, the Vienna Boys Choir sings every Tuesday night in Calgary, right after the hippo races. Come naked.

Q: Do you have perfume in Canada? (Germany)
A: No, WE don't stink.

Q: Can you tell me the regions on British Columbia where the female population is smaller than the male population? (Italy)
A: Yes, gay nightclubs.

Q: Do you celebrate Thanksgiving in Canada? (USA)
A: Only at Thanksgiving.

Q: Are there supermarkets in Toronto and is milk available all year round? (Germany)
A: No, we are a peaceful civilization of vegan hunter gatherers. Milk is illegal.

Q: Please send a list of all doctors in Canada who can dispense rattlesnake serum. (USA)
A: All Canadian rattlesnakes are perfectly harmless, and can be safely handled and make good pets.

Q: I have a question about a famous animal in Canada, but I forget its name. It's a kind of big horse with horns. (USA)
A: It's called a Moose. They are tall and very violent - eating the brains of anyone walking close to them. You can scare them off by spraying yourself with human urine before you go out walking.

Q: I was in Canada in 1969 on R+R, and I want to contact the girl I dated while I was staying in Surrey, BC. Can you help? (USA)
A: Yes, and you will still have to pay her by the hour.

Q: Will I be able to speak English most places I go? (USA)
A: Yes, but you will have to learn it first.

Sounds nice.

Location, location, location

Went up to my new mountain property this weekend for a final walkthrough on the trailer. It's funny to do an inspection on a 50 year old single-wide trailer. I'm glad I did, though because I noticed the tags are expired:
I'm just hoping the owner has paid the non-op fee for the past 21 years...

While there I decided to walk the property lines to look for anything unusual. Hiked up the hill and saw that I do have some neighbors off the back side of the property:

I've never been in one of those dome houses but it looks pretty interesting and funky. I guess you'd have to be a big Dungeons and Dragons fan to built a house shaped like the 20-sided die. It would be cool if they put numbers on the little panels so it actually looked more like a die. Here's a view to the other direction:
Not too shabby, huh? Even more exciting than the view was hiking down the back hill and finding this:

It's a Native American gossip rock. You see, before internet dating, Weight Watchers and Prozac, the squaws would sit around a big, flat rock and grind acorns into the rock and talk trash about the braves who were out hunting. This one was apparantly the happening spot because there are six little holes and one big bowl and it is next to a seasonal creek. Very cool. Also cool is the way the tree growing next to it shaped itself around the rock:

Yeah, this is too educational for me too. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming...

There's one born every minute...

...and I serve my respective minute well.

Stopped by the local feed store on my way home from work on Friday to pick up some pig food. That, in and of itself, speaks volumes. I went in the store to find the owner and her son bathing what I thought was a small rodent. Turns out it was this:

Tippy, as she has come to be known (due to her orange-tipped ears and tail), was apparantly abandoned by someone or something on the side of the road and some locals found her. They brought her to the feed store because, well, that's what people do around here. Jean, the owner of the feed store was all in a tizzy over this clearly malnourished, sickly kitten and what her husband would say to yet another stray critter being brought home versus taking her to the animal shelter.

Enter Gilb Gal, recently recovered from the untimely death of her previously rescued, slightly retarded cat. Believing in fate and the desire to have a little creature to save, I took her home. Then it was off to the vet because her eyes were so mucky and swollen and she was sneezing like crazy. And lord knows what parasites she would bring into the house. Two hours, some Thai take-out, and a $120 payable to the animal clinic later, I was home with my sickly new addition. Vet said she'll recover but may be a runt. Cute. She's already looking better and my need to nurture has been fulfilled for the year. Here's another picture just because everyone loves little cute things:

Queer Eye for the Straight Goat?

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

The white shadow

I woke up early Tuesday morning to a strange sound. I was in that state where you don't know if you are awake or asleep or somewhere in between but you really hope you're asleep because it sucks to try to get back to sleep once you emerge from that state. Anyhow, it sounded like someone was pressure washing the neighbor's house. I was disoriented and thought I had overslept and those crazy neighbors were indeed spraying something. They had just put up one of those inflatable pools and the kids have been out there every night listening to mariachi music and splashing around, squirting eachother until the wee hours. I looked at the clock and saw that it was a little after 1:00 am. Then I noticed the air was humid the sound of what I thought was a pressure washer was coming from my own house.

I lept out of bed and attempted to run down the hall, thinking something was going on in the kitchen or pool. As soon as I left the carpeted bedroom for the wood hall I was in an inch of water, slid like I was surfing an old slip-n-slide, and grasped at a bookcase to keep from falling. My little dog had woken up and was chasing me, barking. I got to the kitchen and couldn't find the source of the river so I backtracked to the bathroom where I opened the cabinet under the sink only to be doused with hot water. Of course, my house (trailer) is old and there are no shut off valves inside the house. So I run outside to the main, buck naked (yes, I sleep in the buff - never understood why people dress up for bed - you wouldn't wear your swimsuit in the shower, would you?), dripping hot water, body parts jiggling in the moonlight, and my little wet dog in tow announcing my insanity to the neighborhood. This set off the flood lights and every animal in the neighborhood began to yell at me, which led to lights being turned on in other house, clothed and groggy folks emerging on doorsteps or peeping through windows to catch the lone streaker. I finally found the shut off valve and made it back inside, hopefully in time to merely cause confusion about a white shadow on the street. I guess this is why people wear pajamas? I mean for late night pipe bursts that may require them to run to the roadside and shut off the water main. I really see no other reason to.

I ended up using every towel in the house to sop up the water and then decided to go back to sleep and figure it out in the morning. I woke up a few hours later and found the source of the problem - a rotten washer where the pipe connects to the sink. No problem, right? I headed to the hardware store with the bad parts, got the things I thought I needed, came home and realized I needed something else. Three trips, a new pipe cutter, an attempt at finding pants that would give me a plumber's butt, more frustration than I could imagine coming from eight inches of brass tubing, several thoughts of living without hot water, and many dousings later, I managed to fix the problem.

In the end I like to think I saved money because I'm pretty sure a plumber makes more than a lawyer because a plumber deals with real shit whereas I just deal with self-made crap. And I'm still not planning on wearing pajamas.

Tequila, dehydration, and culos galore

Woke up Sunday morning to the sound of the ocean, mouth tasting like it was full of cotton balls, stumbled out of a stranger's tent, noted the near-empty Casadores bottle nearby, hobbled over a rock or two, and saw this:

My good friends B and J, who normally camp at the lake near my house, had called to invite me out to Faria Beach for dinner. They were camping with T and R and had prime oceanside spots but one thing was missing - me. Ever since they have been RVing together I have joined them on Saturday nights for their BBQ and beer party and they missed the entertainment. The thing is, the lake is 2 miles from my house, the beach is 15. Add to that the fact that they had three bottles of tequila waiting for me and you can understand why I woke up in a tent in need of hydration.

So there I was, at sunrise, alone on the beautiful beach. Dolphins were passing by and the tide was low so I grabbed my camera and went to explore the tidepools. It was so peaceful and there were tons of starfish out in various shades of orange and red, snugly attached to the rocks. Here's a picture of all the fat, dumb, and happy starfish at low tide:


I had never seen so many starfish on our beaches before and was quietly enjoying them as the other campers slept in. Unfortunately, my peace and communion with nature was soon disturbed by two other early risers - poorly dressed, chubby teenaged girls, no less. I said hello and went the other way up the beach. When I turned to come back I saw the little v-string wearing murderers prying starfish off the rocks:

They had soon collected a few starfish, taken them up the beach, and splayed them out upside-down to die of dehydration in the early morning hours. Note the tips of some of the tentacles are missing, evidence of the fish clinging for life as the evil girls pulled them from their rocks.

I went right up to where they were gleefully watching the starfish squirm in their final moments, snapped a photo, pointed at a moving tentacle, said "Look, that one is trying to live", gave each girl the mother-nature-curses-you look, and walked away. They expressed a brief moment of horror wherein I like to think the ounce of humanity left in their MTV-polluted souls told them to put the starfish back in the water. I thought I had succeeded in saving the poor fish but then saw them fleeing the scene, back to the safety of their parents' $45,000 home-away-from-home, half-dead starfish in hand, no doubt talking about the crazy booze-scented bitch on the beach with the camera.

At least they didn't take any anenomes, or culos (Spanish for butthole). This one was pretty cool, and does look like a culo, or Mick Jagger's lips:

Pool Boy

I have a pool. Yep, a real, live, in-ground, tons-of-concrete-used-to-hold-gallons-of-water pool that has become the bane of my existence for all but about 14 days a year.

When I bought my house, which was condemned at the time, the pool actually had fish in it. My friends and I marveled at the resilience of nature and how these fish had gotten into the pool. My theory was that a bird had eaten some fish eggs at the lake, then flown over the pool and pooped at precisely the right moment to drop the eggs in the pool. Made sense to me until the day I came home to find a note from Agent Ventura, a county employee and most likely the inspiration for Ace Ventura, Pet Detective. The note was simply his business card with the words, "I need my fish back. Call me" written on the back. I still have the note because how many times in a girl'fe life does she get such a note? Hopefully just once.

Apparantly, there was no miracle of nature, rather, the county had placed minnows in the brackish water for mosquito abatement. Now they were demanding their return. For what purpose I am not sure. Perhaps there were more stagnant pools in the county and these were specially trained minnows, particularly skilled at mosquito eating in cement ponds. Ever the law-abider, I did not question the logic and called Agent Ventura to arrange a date and time for him to pick up the fish, which he explained was was a delicate and precise process because the fish could die if held in buckets too long. It was all very complicated but I followed Ventura's instructions and got a bunch of buckets and saved as many of the fish as I could while draining the pool. It took about four extra hours to do because I was carefully saving the little fish. That day, no one came to pick up the fish so I left them outside in the buckets for a couple of days, thinking Ace would be by. He never came by and I ended up with several buckets of dead minnows. That was my first experience in pool ownership.

After I cleaned the pool, I used it as as skate park for a few weeks and then decided to paint it that bright blue pool color. Of course, pool paint is different than regular paint in some unknown way so it costs about $80 per gallon. And it takes a lot of paint to do a pool. Still, it looked so pretty when I was done and I was so pleased I couldn't wait to fill the pool and start swimming. Years later I learned you shouldn't paint your pool because it doesn't stay on, no matter how special the paint. It starts peeling off a few years down the road, then gets powdery and makes swimmers look chalky. They think I'm poisoning them and never return. I just thought I was incapable of tanning, turns out it's the chalk in the pool that's turned me white. Maybe Michael Jackson has the same issues at Neverland.

One problem I quickly learned about pool ownership is that once you've taken the fish out, sandblasted and painted the thing, you've got to maintain it. You always have to be doing something to keep it clean: sweeping, chemicalling, skimming, adding stuff, measuring stuff, cleaning the filters. And then there's the electricity to run the pump. It's a pain in the butt. Sure it's fun to go skinny dipping and catch the neighbor boys falling out of trees with their binoculars, but beyond that it mostly just sits there. I despise the upkeep. So after years of self-maintenance, and once I finished law school, I decided to get a pool man.

I wanted one of those hot pool men who would come over and clean the pool shirtless while I sipped lemonade and giggled with my girlfriends on the phone. Then I would offer him a cold glass inside and nature would take its course. Or it would be so hot one day we would both go for a dip...Ah, yes, I thought, a hot pool boy would be nice!

Turns out one of the guys from my gym said he was a pool guy. Perfect. Sammy is very handsome, fit, and a nice guy. I also knew he liked older women (he was 22) because he'd had an affair with a fellow lawyer who worked out at the same gym. She was a nut so I knew he wasn't picky either. So I called him and arranged to get my pool serviced. He said he'd come every Tuesday morning. Perfect.

The first Tuesday Sammy was supposed to come I made sure I was home, wearing something hot, hair done, looking like I was off to the office just in time to run into him. Not that he hadn't seen me at the gym looking frightening, but this would show him my softer side - the successful pool owner/don't-mind-the-pig/my-what-a-big-hose-you-have side. Imagine my surprise when a short, squat, balding, old guy showed up with the hoses and gear. The pool guy was Sammy's dad, Mo, a fast-talking Lebanese refugee turned self-made pool mogul. And, of course I was looking good and Mo thought it he had struck gold with a lonely, single career woman in need of his special services. He moved in for the kill and no sooner had I said I was out of lemons, than he was in my house looking commenting on the artwork. He was quite smarmy and I quickly told him I had to get to work. He soon began the campaign and started calling me under the guise of talking about my pool. He even invited to his house for dinner! Of course, his tune changed about a year ago when I learned he was married and pointed that out to him one day when he asked me to go somewhere. Not only did that stop the advances, my pool cleaning bill was discounted by $15 a month!

Finally, I thought, there was balance in the world, at least with regard to the pool. Mo came on Tuesdays, sometimes with Sammy, the pool was clean, there was no harassment, and I was getting all this at a discount. So you can imagine my surprise Monday at work when I received a call from Mo. I had just had him install a new whisper-soft, eco-groovy, energy-saving, mega-sucker 3000 pump and assumed there was a problem. Nope, nothing wrong with the pool. Mo had called to inform me that he and his wife were finally divorced. Nothing else. Just that he is now divorced. What this has to do with my pool is beyond me so I guess I have to go back to my Tuesday mornings in hiding days. Or just fire the pool man and get some minnows.

Queen of the Trailer Park

You may recall that a few weeks ago my family was in crisis. My brother was in jail again and my mom had decided to leave my stepfather to go live in her van. Well, things have calmed down a bit - my brother is out of jail, whereabouts unknown. At least I know he has some spending money - about $100,000 from the sale of his house. That should keep him drugged up for a while.

At the time of the crisis, my mom went and looked for a new place to live. She found this nice little trailer on five acres in the mountains near her house:


She was so enamored with the trailer (as happens with we trailer types) that she made an extremely low offer on the place - almost half what the owner was asking. Of course, it was an all cash offer. Funny thing is, my mom does not have the cash to make such a purchase. She was banking on my brother buying it for her. Yes, I'm sure he was thinking about spending his unearned money on his dear mother. Just like he was planning to quit doing meth for her, reimburse me for bail money, get a job, go help at the ranch, and clean up his act. All things I'm sure he intends to get around to one day. At this point I'm fairly certain a phone call to let her know he's alive would suffice.

It turns out the owner accepted the offer, and, after seeing some photos of the property, checking some comps in the area, and determining the trailer was somewhere my mom, or brother, or both, could potentially live that was far enough from me to keep them out of my daily life, I paid the down payment and escrow was opened. I went up there last weekend to check it out and fell in love with it. Well, not the trailer, but the land. This view of the meadow on the west 40 is one of the reasons why:

Now imagine it covered in snow. Oooh, aaah. Yes, it snows there, and the trailer has a nice, albeit illegal, wood stove that is sure to blaze the 463 square feet of wood laminate and formica. I could see myself felling trees and chopping my own wood, roaming the mountains in snow shoes, sipping hot cocoa on the deck, writing the great American novel, becoming a nature photographer, finding a new internet dating pool of lumberjacks and hunters. Ah, the romance.

But when I got home and looked at the pictures of the magical place, I came to the conclusion that maybe it's just another old trailer parked on a hill, complete with a dead Chevy Vega (anyone else see Batmobile potential?):
Then I realized by purchasing this, my second trailer home, I am indeed becoming the quintessential queen of the trailer park, complete with polyester curtains and a redwood deck. I guess I am really living the lower income American Dream, on blocks.