Ready, Set, Sleep in!

This blog post is hereby dedicated to my fantastic fans, my G-parents.

This weekend, this wonderful weekend, where do I begin? When you listen to teenagers (sorry teenagers, I'm about to insult you) talk about the weekend it usually consists of brainless blabber about parties and/or getting wasted. This weekend was remarkable, this is the kind of stuff I enjoy.

The story of my billet experience starts on Thursday. I knew good things were coming my way when I caught word that Sarah made curry for dinner that night. That flavourful omen was indeed a good one, because I was then picked up by Lynne to come to my new home to watch the Canucks game on a 48 inch high definition television.

Now, some people who know me are gonna question two parts of that sentence. The first being "Niki, you don't watch hockey" and the second being "Niki, you have never cared about television size or definition.". To correct the first, I watch hockey when I know it's on, and on Katimavik I felt more connected to watching hockey because it's something we can all be represented by. Of course, it's got to be an amazing season for the Canucks and I'm not in Vancouver to witness the excitement, so watching the games are as good as it gets. Then there's the television quality thing. I think bears appreciate trees like I appreciate television, we don't really care, because it's part of our environment, we don't like it when you take it away, but we can still live without it. When you spend 5 months "out of the loop" you have a renewed sense of appreciation for these kind of things. So, I'm really just mentioning the high definition to get you guys, the bears with trees, excited, I'd be happy with a black and white television right now.

This being out of the loop things is only really making itself clear now. Watching the television, I realize that I don't recognize any of the commercials, and I'm the kind of person who could easily recite a commercial jingle I've only heard a couple times. It's not just TV either, reading the magazines in the gift shop made me realize I have no idea what is going on, because by the time gossip is printed, it's changed. I don't even want to make an effort to catch up on any of this stuff. I don't pour ever last drip of my time into Hollywood drama, but at home I just kind of, knew this stuff, never looked into, just knew what was, well, new. I have no attachment to the celebrities that they mentioned in any of the magazines. Once I took the afternoon to purchase two copies of Portal 2, one for me, and one for my dear brother (Who is 20?! How did that happen?!) for his birthday. While I was stumbling around the steam store I realized once again, time has passed without me. Games came out, updates happened, people are playing games I haven't heard of. What is going on?! Niki isn't up to date on video games?! Panic mode! I was looking at these games people are excited about that I have no idea about. By the time I get home everyone will have beaten Portal 2 and I'll have just started. Maybe I'm not thinking with portals, but I'm thinking life is gonna be a little weird when I get back.

Enough about that, for now.

Friday was busy at the Meno-Ya-Win. I got there in time to bring up tables for the big bake sale. I've always seen bake sales as an opportunity for individuals to pity people who sit behind a table of soggy pastries and if they feel generous, they actually buy something. But I had never had June's baking. June is the interpretor at the Extended Care Center, despite her knowledge of Ojicree, she's best know for her magic ability to make the most wonderful food you ever had the fortune of eating. This bake sale happened in about 25 minutes, there was a line up. The gift shop was full, everything was sold, and we made about 200 dollars in this short time. It was like a sugar-hungry tornado.

Later we held a "Pitch In" for cleaning up the area around the Meno-Ya-Win, so it was my job to hand out the garbage bag, and gloves. After this Francois, my wonderful boss Sharon, and I went to downtown Sioux Lookout (Front st.) to collect donations for the hospital auxiliary and offer flowers for mother's day. During this event I spotted a unique van, a Katimavan, and who jumped out of it? Not much of a question actually, it was obviously Sarah, no one else has the keys. She didn't see us, so we left a note and a flower on her windshield. When she got back to the car, she saw it, saw us, waved, and walked over.

While talking with Sarah, a familiar friend came up. Author, British Columbian, and Wilderness expert, Roy* was ripping around town in his new wheel chair. Ryb had been staying at the Meno-Ya-Win for, in his words, "too long". He frequented the gift shop were he'd explain pages of his wilderness survival guide, or just tell us the most entertaining stories of his life. This man has been stabbed in the neck by his girlfriend, bad mouthed by a former premier, stalked by a bear, built his own alcohol still, and lived of the land. Long before my time, Roy even worked as the blacksmith in Barkerville, he's an amazingly knowledgeable guy, a storyteller and a cowboy of sorts. I hadn't seen him since he left the hospital, so it was neat to catch up with him. He mentioned he would be constructing a wooden leg to replace the wheelchair, in fact he'd already tried dancing on one leg.

Francois and I finished the day at extended care with three games of crib against the crib champions of extended care. At least we won one game.

Friday night, Lynne and Allen took me out for Chinese food with the rest family. Sioux Lookout has Chinese food? Another dumb question ...YES! New Kowloon restaurant serves the finest westernized Chinese food. Tasty tasty tasty Honey Garlic Spare Ribs....


Saturday was fun too, and not just for the sleep in, but for our trip to DRYDEN. Where's Dryden? About an hour and a half out of Sioux Lookout, Dryden is a "big" town,  "big" by Sioux Lookout standards refers to a couple things. Such as number of grocery stores, fast food outlets and what not.

 The arnea in Dryden is named after NHL player Chris Pronger, who grew up in Dryden.

 Sandy Beach outside of Dryden taught me that even lakes have beaches.

Finally figured out the panorama mode on my camera. Cool, eh?

Allen referred to this Moose as "Buster" but apperently his real name is "Max". To me he will be Buster.

We had a fancy dinner at the Pizza Hut in Dryden. Here, the Pizza Huts are more like Boston Pizzas, where you sit down and order and what not.

 

Ran into this little fox friend on the way hoe, he even posed for me.

Sunday, Cody invited me to go to come over to his billet house to try out the sauna. When I got there, Jessica was on her way, and we made some phone calls and before you know it, practically the whole group was there (Sorry you couldn't make it, Francois). We zipped back and forth between sauna and jumping in the lake. That lake was COLD. Cold cold cold. But we had lots of fun.

The night we had a little mothers day dinner, with food that was all to tasty. I love the food here, I'm eating so well.

I luckily had the chance to call Mum and Grandma today to wish them a happy mothers day. There was one thing Grandma wanted for mothers day, and that was a new blog post. So that was it G-ma I hope you enjoyed that!

"I told you I was working on competency 8, which is basically preparation so that life after Katimavik isn't like jumping from a sauna to a freezing cold lake. Wait! Forget that I said that! That was witty, I'm gonna put that in the blog!"

-Me while on the phone with the family

*Just calling him Roy because I signed some confidentiality agreements. Knowing him, he'd tell me to just quit worrying and use his real name, he'd probably say something like "Use my name, use my full name, hell give 'em my home address! If they want me, they know where too find me!" But let's play it safe.