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?

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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.