Finally Fucking Friday

And it's about 0 deg. right now. ARGHH

Went to the comedy night yesterday and was pleasantly surprised. As usual, Tristin was a standout but the newbie to the scene really brought it, and I was very impressed. I won't write too much on it (cuz you'll have to read my article later! haha!) but the night involved making obscene comments regarding a poor battered gold pan and bashing tourists. A pair of Japanese girls left after the 'shorro' comment...yeah...oh and probably after the 'Japanese like concieving under the Northern Lights' comment too... There's an art show at Arts Underground tonight, opens at 5pm--I'd go, hell it's free food & free culture. Win-win!


As for that change I've been desperately hoping for? Yet to come. Why is it that bad things seem to rush you, take you unaware and mercilessly destroy you, when good things take their time, don't show up, or disappoint you again.

Oh, the tyranny of life!

If you liked 'Into The Wild'...

A small shill for another good book--but for a reason-my old prof from college wrote it!

Fatal Tide: When the Race of a Lifetime Goes Wrong, a book- length dramatization of the events of the 2002 Fundy Race and the larger consequences for the international world of adventure sports.

Written by David Leach, professor and managing editor of Explore Magazine. His style is very reminiscent of Jon Krakauer, and the stories are compelling and earnest. I think these types of stories, man vs. nature, man vs. wild, man vs. himself are always relevant particularly now, when nature seems so far removed from us. Also, people are always doing dangerous sports, events. In the news today, a man died attempting to climb Mt. Everest without oxygen in the 'Danger Zone' and predictably died of hypothermia and lack of oxygen. Like Jon's protagonist in Into The Wild, he refused assistance in the form of a team member offering him oxygen when he noticed the Calgary man was in dire straits.

These kinds of warning tales never seem to stop. But they make a great read anyways...

"It was a perfect morning for a walk in the park, you had to agree. And a damn fine day for a race."

Fatal Tide, by David Leach

Is it really worth it?

Aaandd.. Blogger deleted my entire post.

It was a good rant. Sigh.

I am too good to be somebody's office slave, it is not worth living here if you get out of it less than you put in. It is also too expensive.

We did not go to school to be secretaries. DID not. Sorry, not entitlement as I know we all have to start somewhere and go somewhere, but I'm not getting trapped as somebody's office slave ANY LONGER.

Gardening?

My house, which is lovely, came with a not-so-lovely back yard. The front is nice, albeit with tons of gravel from the driveway still littering the lawn, but the back? Looks like someplace Chucky and Freddie and all those loveable horror stars would hang out, someplace near the compost container put the wrong way and the creepy ass structure with rusting railway spikes, metal bars and rusting rebar.

What to do, what to do?

Apparently much of the Yukon has yards like mine. Hideous things, with scraps of weeds struggling to survive amongst the clay dirt and gravel. My yard is approx. 70% gravel, 25% clay dirt, and 5% sand. No grass to really speak of...So people tend to give up, pack it with gravel and park boats in their yards, back or front. Tacky as hell.

So, I decided to focus on what I *can* change. I have raised planters, so my friends who are wonderful and competent gardeners came over to assist me with my yard renovations.

I planted lettuce, peppermint, potatoes and a strawberry plant! We fixed up the planters and even attempted a bit of gardening where the humongous propane tank lurks...yeah, try beautifying that!! We got the seed potatoes from Cdn. Tire, and a note to those starting seedlings-do NOT buy from Cdn Tire. Go to the big Sunflower place by the church on the Alaska Hwy. Cdn Tire seeds will not sprout.

As for the yard? Got some helpful ideas, like a bunch of cedar mulch covering everything, perhaps a small wishing well to hide the ugly drainage hole..maybe some camouflage fencing for the propane tank and plant camouflage for Chucky's playhouse of horror.

Just have to get rid of those spikes & rebar...eeeesh.

Sun is now going down after 11...and I am having a really tough time sleeping! Ack!

Ps. that change I was yearning for? Might be coming. Soon!!~

Appreciation Day!

First I will voice my appreciation for those interesting candies of yesterday. They were great, the food high-point of my day! I ended up trying the Bassett's Sherbet Fountain and man, as someone who absolutely detests black liquorice, I loved that candy! Yum yum. The fizzy powder you dip the black liquorice dip-stick into just goes so well, even the slightly bitter, woody taste sort of balances the sweet fizz.

The only bummer? Mine was stale (hence the on sale part) and the dip stick broke off, and when I went for the rest still inside the powder & paper tube, I yanked it so hard it came flying out, along with a good quantity of white sherbet powder. On my laptop. Grrr..suspicious white cocaine-like powder liberally coating the keys! Ohh well, it was messy but tasty.

And now for an alternate focus:

It is nice to feel appreciated at work. Even if you are under a large workload, you will always work your ass off for a boss who appreciates you. Who says 'Thank You' and not just a curt, cursory, thanks- in an email.

I have had hard-ass bosses, who made it clear they did not tolerate any shit. I strove to work my hardest for them, because their compliments were hard-won and sometimes a long time coming, but they were so genuine.

I have also had bosses that made it clear the thought a monkey could do your job, and you are only a warm body with half a brain, if that. Even when it's clear they don't know how to transfer a phone call, or make you do minutes for large meeting a week after they proclaim that 'no plebes are to attend this meeting' after they find out how hard and boring it is. (emphasis and exaggeration are mine. You get the idea)

Yeah. No.

Appreciation shows an employee you consider them valuable. Appreciation means that when an employee gets fired, they don't delete every file off their computer just to screw you over.

An employee who does not feel appreciated either by words or kind gestures will never go out of their way to help out a company or association. They will not go the extra mile. They will be surly about the company when not at work. They will be two-faced, unhappy and bitter. They will never share with coworkers, nor will they open up and feel comfortable at work. They will job-hunt while at work and go to interviews at lunch. And they will never feel bad about it. EVER.

Are you willing to take that kind of risk? Please, treat people nicely. We are or once were plebians and hoi polloi at some point in our lives.

I have to add, this is rampant at any sort of size workplace. I worked at a large (50+) person office at the absolute lowest rung and felt so appreciated and welcomed, it was really tough leaving! I left for an unrelated matter, moving provinces, but really missed them.

On the other hand, I have worked in tiny (-10) person offices and been miserable. Go figure.

Candy Review!

As a pick-me-up, and because I had some 'free' money in my hot little hands, I trotted down to Paradise Alley, a touristy shop that sells some gourmet food and candies. The money I had was 'Murdoch Money,' dollar bills you get when you spend ridiculous amounts at Murdoch's Gem Shop. I had a whopping $14 (and boy, you do not want to know how much actual dough I spend to get that) and was eager to spend spend spend!

As an aside, I always found free money harder to spend than my own. It seems to have strings attached, like, why waste it on this, or that, or whatever guilt trip your boyfriend lays on you re-free $$.

But I was in the mood for some weird candy. I bought: A bag of incredibly stale, chalky and bloomed chocolate, a sherbet fountain by Barratt (thought Bassett's did them..weird) and 5 powdery cubes of that old chestnut, Turkish Delight.

I am onto the chocolate, which appears to have formerly been high-end but is now a factory reject due to it's age. It is stale, but has a nice, rich filling. I don't know if I would buy it again (well, who am I kidding. I eat baking chocolate when desperate)..but still..

Turkish Delight feels unusually firm. Like a gummy candy. I grab a pink dusted cube and chomp down, and you know? It's actually pretty good. Minimal lipstick taste, firmer but chewier and more substantial and less doughy. Good deal!

My Bassett's (turns out Bassett's does make them, they are a liquorice-fizzy powder sweet, British) is yet to come, I haven't tried it yet but it is just fascinating the heck out of me. Hmmm...review to come!

Snafu is a snafu

To celebrate May 2-4 and get hell out of our dreary grinding work-a-day existence, we went camping with friends to Snafu Lake, about 1-1.5hrs out of Whitehorse. The road is on the road to Atlin, so pretty bumpy and not paved once you get out there.

We arrived at about 3pm and my buddies had a good campfire going. My friends themselves looked incredibly rough though, I could tell the night before had been a 'rager, despite their assurances that it was pretty chill. We cruised around the campsite, visiting others, checking out the outhouse facilites (not bad), the lake still slushy with unmelted ice and snow.

We wandered out to the 'Green Valley' which unfortunately was littered with beer cans and bottles. Disgusting! Nice view though. My partner and I vowed to come back the next day and clean up the bottles, and we did. Good karma for us.

Once night fell (12am) and the campfire raged, things started getting pretty insane. There must have been at least 50 people there, at times I had no idea where anyone I actually knew was. Most of the campsite invaders were young 'tweenagers' about 17 or so, and drunk on their own sense of incredible stupidity.

I saw, what I charitably described to a friend, 'the ugliest person in the world' who was pockmarked and riddled with tweenybopper acne pustules. That wasn't it though, it was the lip-smacking, nonsensical chewing, staggering, blinking and weaving that did it for me. I was describing this young 'man' (yeah, didn't think it was a man, but whatev') and in the middle of my description he grabbed a raw hotdog and crammed it in his mouth, turned to my friend and I and started chewing messily, chunks of cheese-filled 'dog falling from his opened maw. It was hideous. Ugliest person ever.

Oh and I was also witness to this bit of frivolity around the campfire. A large, frat-boy type was sitting in a lawn chair, drunk. His drunk 'Iago' type friend (small, weaselly and drunk) snuck behind him and pulled the chair out from under the Moose. Moose went down with a pretty big crash and it was fucking hilarious! He got mad at Iago, and chased Iago away from the fire.

Iago was not to be ignored! He snuck back and started messing with Moose's chair again, causing Moose to leap up clumsily and throw the chair at Iago. He then chased Iago around a tree, where Iago found the machete. Iago grabbed the machete and menaced Moose with it.

I was like, oh JESUS. My quick-thinking friend, Meri, hopped up and snatched it from Iago's sneaky fingers. Phew. I was picturing machete wounds all 'round the fire...

And a possible Darwin award for those two? Only time will tell! I just couldn't believe the retarded male-posturing that went on, simulated fights, yelling, boorish behaviour. Well, I had a good time until I went to bed with my partner (back of our car) and some 'wit' decided to shine a flashlight into our window at 4am, saying they were the 'cops'. Yeah, scared the fuck out of me to sense this, I banged on the window, woke my partner up, and then we calmed down.

Heard some girl screaming 'don't do this, don't do this' to a guy, who was then yelling, 'go back to your fucking camp, Atlin or whatever'.// ???

Hm. Well, with youngsters the fun or violence never stops!

And I was sober the entire time, recovering from a hangover from the night before.