J'adore...

Maybe it'll hook me up with Cher

2010-02-15T21:04:00.003-05:00

So I discovered Chatroulette - the online equivalent of all the crazy people who accost you on the bus, train or in the park. Someone was brilliant enough to glean from anthropological observation that humans will voluntarily hook their webcams up with random people on the internet who also have webcams.

A webcam is apparently enough in common to start a conversation, which you or the other person can abort by pressing "next". The equivalent of disappearing from that guy next to you in the subway.

The Globe and Mail article I read was title "Naked Guy, click, Naked Guy," but I found more variety.

I was talking to my dietitian friend on skype and turned my webcam around so she could watch the people popping up on my screen - shirtless young man who looks drugged, four middle-eastern-looking men with stupid grins on a sunny couch, man wearing a fucking balaclava, fat man with mustache who looks pissed off that he can see his own picture staring back at him. Click, click, click.

While this is one of the dumbest things yet to be invented for the Internet, I know it'll be a highlight of future parties. I'm just not sure I'm ready for the other side to see me.

Swine, meet cow.

2009-11-18T09:25:00.040-05:00

You've reached a weird stage in life when your professor lends you his wife's car so you can drive two hours to interview a farmer about cows.

With keys in ignition I stared at a crumpled poppy on the floor wondering how much was invested in this story. I refused to let this car be the collateral damage for a story about mini cows. Would not let that happen.

So I was cautious. But the car maxed out at 90 on the 417.

I heard my prof snickering while I watched my reflection in the rims of passing cars. I was the mini cow of the road, and the big cows would not be forgiving.

Where are you fellow mini cows?

An hour later, the sun was gone. It was 4:30 and I had no landmarks to tell me how far away I was from this farm. The farm was located on a road that did not exist on Google Maps and I'd lost the directions given to me by my interviewee.

I got to a juncture of a familiar road and called my subject. She said to turn left and that the road naturally curves to the right.

My car slid across the hardened mud road.

Suddenly I was driving through a forest. One lane, zero visibility, road speckled with stones that looked as sharp as the studs on a police speed belt.

Where the hell did these people live?

Picture a cow's intestines. Now consider taking a city car through one. That was this road.

I was afraid I was going to run over someone's goat or get shot by a hunter, but the prospect of turning around scared me even more. The forest had the ominousness of the forest in DiCaprio's The Beach where they would let people go septic and die.

I got to a dead end, cried bullshit in vain because none appeared, then inched back and forth in my bright yellow buggy and replayed the trip down in reverse.

Naturally curves to the right ... except where it doesn't.

No headlights will suffice.

I arrived in pitch darkness with the stupid optimism only journalism students can sustain. No tripod, shitty flash, and 'hey!' you've got a wonderful rustic farm! I love the no lights everywhere!

I traipsed into the cow pen with my interviewee and her grand daughter.

Fellow mini moos! I cried. Hello! Mwah mwah mwah . . .

They darted sideways like I've never seen cows do. An ability unknown to my car. They stared at me like I'd barged into the meeting of five pregnant women at the church gossip club - with an aloof cold suspicion.

I've never seen one like that, I thought I heard one of them say. What the hell is that?

I slowly drew my camera up to my eyes, causing them to wince from the multiple flash required to focus in the darkness. I could barely see what I was shooting, and could never be sure when the camera would snap.

Most of my photos look like I was mauled by a cow: A sideways photo of cow's cloudy eye, a hoof, the side of my interviewee's head and a cow's flank.

"They're very docile" my interviewee said. "But the bull's a bull." She laughed. "You can never trust them."

The bull stared at me and I felt it taking apart my limbs into all the cuts of beef it would eventually become.

Dexters are small - they eat half as much as a regular cow, and are only about 3-4 feet tall, but we're still talking 300-pounds of animal - most of which was pregnant.

I decided to try to get some photos near the barn where there were a couple incandescent bulbs. My interviewee and her grand daughter went inside as it was getting cold.

"Watch out for the electric fence," she said. "See that orange ribbon?"
"No."
"Just don't touch anything."

With little surprise, the cows were not more welcoming to me when I was alone. I was beginning to think they were plotting my death via heart attack. All they needed to do was charge towards me and Finito Laura.

An electric fence on one side. Four angry cows on the other.

I hid behind the gate and pried opened the chicken coop hoping there was room. A peacock said something snobby that I didn't quite catch.

Suddenly there was mooing. All I could hear was the reverberations of the cow closest to me.

I drove two hours for you cow! I will get your cute little noggin in my camera NOW.

Was it the lingering H1N1 that they didn't like?

I looked up at the side of the barn and saw it. These cows weren't just docile and smart.

"Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy" I thought I read on the side of the barn.

What followed was a blur. We may have re-enacted Animal Farm.

The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.

Despite the lingering cough, the swine has not got me yet. I swear.

Only the swine can make me blog again...

2009-11-11T19:30:00.008-05:00

Two months ago I decided to quit blogging for a while.

Now the swine has got me and my throat feels like the War of 1812.

So instead of talking, I'm going to blog. I'm going to be a swiny blog douche who will refer people to my blog when they ask me how I am.

I've spent the last 10 minutes in the kitchen stalking as though in withdrawal for a huge serated knife. Damn those neo citron packages. Child proof is apparently equal to the stabbing yourself in the arm.

I feel like now would be the perfect time to be the star in one of those Canadian Heritage Moments where someone is laying on a bed with Scarlet fever. Or H1N1 as it were.

Everything about it has been about the countdown. Countdown to vaccine, countdown to you being able to get the vaccine, countdown to getting it, and now counting the hours to it becoming hellish and making me want to crawl into a coffin.

My friend sent me this lovely article titled "what to expect when you're expecting swine flu" which was great and annoying at the same time, because writing up a chronology of swine flu symptoms to serve humanity was the only coherent plan I've had since rolling into fetal position.

The article promised me more cheer to come, including "your friends will abandon you."

I've been one-upped on the article but it also made me start to doubt whether I had the swine. I mean, I most definitely have the flu - but this hasn't been worse than my last flu when I was actually convinced death had come.

Sore throat of death? no way. Sure I slept for 35 hours straight - but that was yesterday! so over that.

I started watching Breaking Bad - about a guy who has lung cancer who in the first episode poisons a couple guys with Phosphane gas.

I realized that my coughing began to sound eerily similar to both the cancer guy and the dude who manages to survive the gas.

This is what the article says about the sore throat:

It will make you ask yourself questions like, "If I knew I would have this sore throat for the rest of my life, would I choose to go on living?" And the answer will be, "No." It's every kind of sore throat (scratchy, itchy, stinging, burning, dry, sharp) all rolled into one."

Fantastic. I can feel it coming on and I'm hoping I can just collapse. There's no way that I'm recording my voice this week for any reporting assignments. I will sound like a poor defeated sheep caught in a snowstorm (intermittently blasted with furnace air as this apartment would have it).

Why do I keep sweating?

The bridge looks smaller downstream

2009-08-13T00:20:00.019-04:00

While blasting down the highway on the outskirts of the city, lightning flickering like a hairlight on the horizon, I noticed my deflated dinghy in the bed of the truck bobbing up and down.

It was barely tied down. Rather, it was secured with the verve of a sleepwalker tying his shoe, the yellow rope halfheartedly draped over the 30-pound inflatable boat.

I was afraid first that it might fly out and cause an accident - but then my fears turned to a police officer pulling me over for my East German rope and attitude. In the GDR, this rope would have been the only available rope, these knots the only allowable knots, and my resourceful attitude commended. Lifting up the boat, the cop would have discovered my shirt and bra -- likely still drenched and smelling like North Saskatchewan river mud.

And I would explain this is how I run my life. I leave muggy clothing under a dinghy in the flatbed of a truck for a week.

A perfectly acceptable situation. Like fresh muffins from the oven.

The bra and shirt had served a purpose. On the dinghy, they were the mermaid sculpture on the bow, trying vainly to keep dry, where nothing could safely stay dry.

The water world journey had started with great promise. We had lifejackets. We had wine. We had time. We heckled old men fishers at the shoreline.

The problem was I'd decided to be an optimist. I chose to see the world through rose coloured wine and that led us downstream to a fantasia island of mud, the current beating us back, and back, and back.

I ditched all top garments in favour of just the lifejacket. My two friends also abandoned the idea of staying dry. After running and sliding in the mud for a while, and then letting the mud swallow us like quicksand so we had to fight to get out, we decided to row back.

With my pink bra at the bow, we set off. This dingy was powered by female vitality. And the brawn of three girls nudging a dinghy against the current like crocs nuzzling a zodiac.

Push the sun down past the horizon and spin the clock forward. Three hours later, we looked more like rugged wanna-be boat hands in Conrad's Heart of Darkness.

I also had no shirt. Or bra. And was forced to borrow clothes too small for me so that I had to wear a shirt as a skirt. Together with my thick button-up coat, I looked a lot like a beggar from 19th-century Russia.

In our new garments, we headed to the small-town bar, ordered massive amounts of fries and chicken fingers and learned about how Van Gogh painted over earlier paintings from the flat screen TV.

And didn't talk. Every muscle was crying like an infant. Saying even "beer" exerted energy none of us wanted to spend.

We briefly considered staying the night at the bar/hotel, before hopping into our respective vehicles.

My one friend said she washed her clothes today, and got her non-river clothes dirty after washing them all together.

I've avoided taking that road, hoping rain water will wash them out first.

Life as a white nehiyaw

2009-08-03T01:37:00.009-04:00

It was moments after the 80-year-old harmonica player had accepted his lime green snorkel that I heard our director calling us.

"Nehiyawak!"

Hearing the round-up call past the fiery stage of the talent show, some neuropathway in our brains lit up. Nehiyawak. It was an identity now ingrained, and we scampered across like rabbits to show what good Nehiyawak we truly were.

She led us to the woodpile. Motors revved, and the car lights blazing in the distance backlit the timber and our walking paths so all we could see were one another's silhouettes.

"Take some wood and put it in the truck."

We had crashed the party hours earlier, so we assumed this was a logical finalee.

We four 20-something girls, white as plaster, dipped our hands into the woodpile. We'd learned the word for firewood - it was different from a living tree, as one was animate and the other inanimate, but at that moment I could not remember.

I wrapped the logs in my blanket and pushed them under the truck's tarp, dusting off my hands, and taking in the last few moments of our glory at the reserve's annual culture camp, not far from where were camping.

First prize at the talent show.

Ok, one of our people was judging the talent show, and he awarded everyone a five out of five - jingle dancers, drummers, karaoke singers, jiggers - and our posse, the so-called language group, who will happily count to 10 on command. Some participants were awarded larger prizes, likely collected from forgotten piles meant to be returned and now long past the exchange date.

The cowboy-hat MC went around the fire pit yelling: Gold Medals! Gold medals for all! It's all tied up!

Some participants were laced with I Love Soccer keychain necklaces. The 80-year-old harmonica player waited patiently at the end of the line.

The MCs wife was speaking quickly: "We can't give that to him!"
"We have to give it to him!" The MC said, as though ordering a last charge at battle. "We have to give it to him! It's the only thing left!"

The MC placed the brand-new lime green snorkel into the shaking hands of the old man and began explaining what it was.

Our judge was laughing hysterically.

It seemed the joke wasn't just on us.

Before darkness fell, but as cold was setting in, our troupe had regaled the crowd, and the ring of spectators had fallen silent. The fire had continued to swagger in the wind.

Manoya. White person. Not I.

One by one, we negated our white pasts, white tastes, white urban sensibilities. We shed them like chains thrown over our heads with the force of our teeth. Wah! Kaya! With balletic pantomimes of Czars welcoming foreign royalty, we addressed the crowd in Cree.

eh-kasi-kway-an, eh-kasi-kway-in, eh-kasi-kway-ak...

The stars must have swirled in glee to hear our sparkling Cree. Firebugs must have exploded, and flowers pushed up through the earth, bending their ears to the ground.

On the ride home, I reflected on our show.

Guys, do have any idea what we sounded like to the people who understood Cree?
Um. What do you mean?
Let me paint you a picture.

Rewind: A bouquet of white girls amble into the show ring sporting exaggerated mannerisms, looking as though they are trying to describe overweight carry-on items to clerks who speak only Kurdish.

Our director sets up the show by explaining our talent and the fact we hail from all over the province. Obviously we are a cosmopolitan crew of prodigies, aged 11 to 30.

One by one, we bedazzle the crowd with our overweight baggage charade.

"I wash my face!" (pause for dramatic effect)
"You wash YOUR face!" (check for applause)
"We all wash our faces!" (scan for appreciative laughter)

One by one, we proved our Cree-ness. We were nehiyawak. We knew how to wake-up, run, and eat. We could name the colour of the sky, the grass, and the teepees. We could count to 10, at least in theory.

Why was no one laughing?

Maybe the crowd wasn't appalled, like I imagined. Maybe their jaws were shocked into a hyperactive state of glee. It's unclear. In the ring, I was focused on saying my five conjugations correctly, and miming so that any mistake would be covered by an accidental slap in the face. I suspect I may have said the same conjugations twice, as though really insisting that I was washing my face. My comrades played along, since we were a chorus line, each conjugation echoed in solidarity of purpose.

We would wash our faces. We would eat, and drink, and pray, and smoke. And so would you. And so would all of us.

There are times when learning a language when you wake up to what you are saying.

For me, it was after being gifted my Indian name: Kanita Masonayaget. We had gone around the circle that day, dubbing each of us non-Crees with names like "Running cat" "Plant woman" and "The one who likes to play with balls."

I think something was lost in translation in the last one about loving soccer.

As our instructors discussed each of our names, they mulled over some of the descriptive ones that fell flat when said in Cree: Plant foot, foot woman, beaver box.

I couldn't remember my name correctly. It came out more like Kanita Masochistic, which often felt true.

One of my instructors was determined to exorcize my pronunciatory demons. He positioned himself on one side in a running-back stance, yelling into one ear.

"KA-NI-TA!"
Kanita?
"KA-NI-TA!"
Kanita?

Times that by 54.

MASO-NAYA-GET
Masonayaget?
MASO-NAYA-GET
Masonayaget?

Times that by 105

KANITA MASONAYAGET!
Kanita Masonayaget?
KANITA MASONAYAGET!
Kanita Masonayaget?
KANITA MASONAYAGET!

I realized, after a few repetitions, that he was instructing me to believe in what I was saying: the one who writes well.

It feels weird to write about my writing confidence level, but let's say that it often feels somewhere between failing to shoot stationary deer targets and sewing ball gowns.

I AM THE ONE WHO WRITES WELL!
I am the one who writes well?
I AM THE ONE WHO WRITES WELL!
I am the one who writes well?

Eventually I got it. And while I continued to feel weird introducing myself in such a forward way, maybe it boosted my confidence a little. The Cree elders certainly appreciated my saying it in Cree.

And maybe it offered a small excuse as to why my speaking was so bad. I swear, my writing is good.

Turning, turning

2009-07-19T03:07:00.009-04:00

I can't sleep and the sleeping potion bought in Germany has made my body tingly. The instructions were written only in German, and my German is bad. I guess my time in Germany was better spent drinking Jaeg at Turkish bistros and tippling through art shows and soccer games. Stories not meant to be revealed here.

There's a moth scuttling across my screen. Now it's hopping. I'm chasing it with the mouse.

Tomorrow I drive three hours to do Master's research. I'm in suspended disbelief and can't get my thoughts to shut up. My brain is an ever-turning search light of a ship anchored at sea, the light trying to sweep across some buoy of comforting logic.

Maybe I should take off now -- get there at 5 a.m. eyes like saucers, breath spritzed with a hint of German sleeping potion tasting suspiciously like Jaegermeister.

My eyes are always tired-looking these days. I need botox if I hope for anyone to ID me again. I read about employees of one company in the U.S. who were laid off and got a special severance: botox injections.

I hear it numbs emotions. Good call, company.

I must find my mic stand, and phone numbers, and make business cards. And start caring about my appearance.

Everything that will promote me to a cushy anchor job.

How the West was fun

2009-07-13T22:24:00.021-04:00

We knew we were in cowboy country when we passed an electric wheelchair with vanity plates.

"Drive it like you stole it" it read. The scooter was strapped to the back of a pickup.

We had driven eight hours, stopping first in Vanscoy where I found a magazine called Cowboys & Indians. It taught me how to wear turquoise jewelry and to tell apart different styles of cowboy hats. Its cover story on John Wayne proved interesting only for as long as we could figure out how to hook up the iPod port to the car stereo. The prospect of ordering a year's worth of the mag for our Calgary friend was tempting, but they minted them in the Yanky West and charged $20 to Canadians, likely for transport via chuckwagon, fuelled by yeehaws.

Our car on the other hand was fuelled by the looks of disgust and appalled glances of Huckleberry as I documented the drive via my digital voice recorder.

"Dear diary . . . " I breathed into my recorder. "We are now on highway number seven, flat and unexpressive . . ."

In Drumheller, we toured dim galleries of dinosaur bones and fossils encased in 4-inch gold picture frames. It was like viewing a private collection at a mansion where each room had a special name: The fossil "libry" The bone "gaaalery" The sea atrium. I got a picture of Huckleberry with his head in the maws of a Piranha skeleton the size of a cot. He can check that off his life to-do list.

After a hall of Darwin's sketches, we walked into a tunnel with a glass floor. Under our feet were the manifestations of pictures drawn by 3-year-olds. Organisms familiar if it weren't for the teeth, or the extra legs, or the odd shape. We were surrounded by mutant water insects and some were our ancestors. I imagined photoshopping some of my forebearers (who likely had the capability to self-spawn and eat simultaneously) into our latest family photos for Christmas cards.

I marveled at how far we've come in evolution as I sipped my Starbucks on the wooden walkway overlooking the badlands and the museum. Coffee . . . mmm . . . thank you dinosaurs for giving us oil . . . so we can make Starbucks.

I was confronted with my own limited evolution when we arrived in Calgary with no idea where to find the Stampede. Our local friend didn't know and Internet was on the lam. He called his brother for advice. We followed him like three ashamed sheep to the Park & Ride.

"You get off when all the stupid cowboys get off," he said.

We did our best to fit in: being fake was part of the ditty. The only real cowboys were behind the corral. For us, it was button-up plaid, cowboy hats and cigars.

The C-train took about 30 minutes, and I witnessed the two-minute half-life of a tram headed to the Stampede. Each stop doubled the number of hyped-up cowboys and girls filing onto the train who prevented fresh air from circulating.

Virtually everyone was paying some small homage to the west, whether with a hat, boots, plaid, or all the above.

Just inside the gates was a faux western town circling a treed picnic area. We stood by the blacksmith shop and watched a clown cowboy on stilts angle through the crowd. He had a braided whip in one hand and snapped it like a firecracker. That answered my question of potential heavyweights taking him down.

Hasslers, just like animals rights protesters, will never take down the cowboy clown.

Even though the Stampede is somewhat clownish and precarious, PETA protesters have had no luck shutting down any of the events.

Partly it's tradition, and partly it's the claim that animals injuries are rare. For more info, GOOGLE.

As we sat and watched the rodeo events, I tried to feign indifference to the cow's plight (Think Frau Farbissina listening to Dr. Evil and Scott argue after they meet).

Between the three of us, we encompassed all possible attitudes towards the Stampede: horror; appallment; excitement; indifference; glee.

The MC upped the tension by announcing the various ailments of cowboys as they mounted the bucking horse or bull.

"And this next cowboy, from Texas, who's all here from Texas? he's got a broken back! A slipped disc. Let's have a round of applause!"

In the large TV monitor, we could watch the cowboy's expression as he slid his hand under the bull's riding strap or get a good grip on the horse's rope.

It was an expression not of fear, per se, but his muscles knowing instinctively what would happen when he nodded his head and the gate flew open. His body tensed, teeth clenched like those of human remains found buried in Pompeii lava, contorted in pain.

I bet they were sweating like a volcano too. One guy fell off his bull, but in his effort to remain on, ended up under the 2000 pound animal as it bucked and stamped its feet in a high stakes game of Dance Dance Revolution.

He scampered away with his neck craning back at the bull, then he fell onto his knees, hands folded in prayer to the sky.

He is not the first to brush injury. For 100 years, the Calgary Stampede has brought the lore of western ranchers into the competitive ring. Wild horses needed to be tamed on the frontier, and cowboys needed to teach them not to buck. Some horses naturally buck more than others, though, and since half the points allotted to the cowboy go to the horse's performance, it's important the horse buck well. Most rodeos ban the use of any equipment that harms or discomforts the horse, and cowboys testify to horses not performing well if they are in pain. The bucking horses simply don't like anyone riding them. They're bred to buck off whoever mounts.

Clench those teeth, cowboy.

As Huckleberry looked appalled at the calf roping event (another skill from ranching days) my SK ex-pat friend was underdoing a gradual chemical change. His skin was becoming as red as chafed cowboy thighs. The sweat dripped down his face. I had no idea three hours had gone by until I saw how burned Ex-pat was.

It looked as though he had dipped both arms in red dye up to his T-shirt sleeve line.

That basically ended the day. On our way to the train we got stuck in the equivalent of a cattle run - hundreds of people trying to funnel through a narrow passage like sand in an hour glass. We were the sand that refused to funnel.

The tram ride home was virtually silent, and very empty. Stampede had demanded energy we no longer could afford until we found some heavy duty aloe vera. Preferably in a "run through the sprinklers" format.

Ex-pat friend descended into his basement suite and refused to come out for the rest of our visit. Huckleberry and I bought some industrial strength sunburn anesthetic.

It was our parting gift.

The German Smorgasbord was worth it

2009-07-13T17:52:00.013-04:00

Bea and I pushed our noses against the faux waterfall.

Electronic drops illuminated our cheeks with blue light.

"I have a good feeling we are going to leave here ruined," I said.

It was the lights and sounds that reminded me of Disneyland. Boops, beeps, and chimes... a conference hall of games themed with The Little Mermaid, Inca Adventures, and the Wild West.

The child in me perked up.

The ceiling was not a ceiling at all, but a volcanic wasteland tipped upside-down. Craters and pustules shone above the dings and blinking of the machines.

I was here to surf Bea's free tickets to the Canadian Open golf tourney at a brand new course 30 minutes outside the city. It came with a $10 voucher to the casino - the only attractive part of this whole idea.

The golf had been unexciting. We were the only spectators, and had no idea who anyone was, so after whispering for a while about our options, we decided to trail a set of golfers across a lawn that had the texture of renegade underarm hair - potentially comfortable in a bed of nails kind of way.

After giving my cheeks and hands a nice exfoliation on the green, I scampered to catch up with our herd.

They were literally beating around a bush for a lost ball.

Having never golfed myself, nor having much knowledge of the game, I delighted in the opportunity to help.

I spotted the white ball that was the key to my belonging in the herd and presented it to one of the golfers.

"Is this it?" I said, anticipating the yell to the other hunters that the hunt was over.
"No. If you see a golf ball DO NOT pick it up."
"Oh. Sorry. I... I..."

I put it back. Only golfers would think it fitting to replace a golf ball into the middle of a bush.

I discovered that whispering outside is not my forte. I felt like I had to take on the psyche of a gopher: forced to freeze in my tracks if a golfer was preparing to swing, lest I distract him.

"Are you as crazy as you look?" one of the golfers asked me, a father caddying for his son.

At least 15 reasons why golf is a ridiculous game jumped around inside my head.

"I guess so!"

The golfers took their shots, and my slow-reaction time meant I never followed the ball's flight path. I was too fixated on the golfers themselves. Who were these strange creatures? What was their agenda? I hoped none of them was out to change the world. Never do I want a golfer prophet to bring grace to the land.

"Tremble not! Thou shalt take thy caddy to thy birthplace and there will come a star that will lead you to the promised land of Astroturf and khakis!"

In this case, it led us to the casino.

The illumination from casino games is not flattering on anyone's face. Because the players sit on tall stools, the light beams up like a flashlight under the face, sketching dark rings under each eye, outlining the gravity lines from the nose to the bottom of the chin.

I felt no more at home here than I did on the golf course, and there were probably as many people staring at us. Bea and I ambled through the rows of games, and I read the titles out loud:

Uncle Jess's Shootout Galley! PollyPocket's Dollhouse Teaparty . . . A Squaw's Revenge . . . Wolf Hunt . . .

Each machine operated the same way -- you filled it with your bills and a button blinked inviting you to push it, triggering the wheel.

It required about as much skill as plugging a parking meter, and its payoff was about the same.

Bea and I decided to play $10. We each put our first $5 in a $1 slot machine.

I turned the crank. My stomach leapt! Lines from Percy Shelley mingled with the beeps and bops of the surrounding slot machines.

Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes!

I lost, but giggled and squealed for effect.

Bea was winning. $1, $1.50, 30 cents . . . the more she won the quicker her hand slammed down on the blinking button.

I reached for the crank to try another hand.

"Why isn't it working?" I asked.

We both stared at it. An older man sitting next to Bea glanced at us uncomfortably.

"I think that's actually a $5 machine . . ." he said.

Ouuuuuu.

Well then.

I think I'm moving on.

Bea used up her $10 while I hummed and hawed over my next conquest.

Would it be Wolf Hunt or Lucky Larry's Lobster Mania?

The Lobster one looked more friendly than the machine with a growling wolf on it. It's hard to make starfish and lighthouses look foreboding.

This time I got luckier. I won 2 free turns, then 5, then 250!

250 turns times 5 cents . . .

I cashed out and looked at my money voucher: $13.80

Karma had redeemed me.

I promised Karma that I would name my next hamster after it, alongside a hamster called Irony, and walked out $4 richer.

Coming out ahead meant I had to celebrate with a 3-course meal and beer.

The joy of gambling probably put me in the hole -- and not in the golfing kind of way.

But as Shelley would say, if winter comes, can spring be far behind?

J'adore

2009-07-07T21:02:00.005-04:00

Welcome to J'adore -- formerly Laura's Page of Plenty. I got sick of the old name. This page is all about things I love and I thought J'adore is a nice way to incorporate my love of pretentious French accents.

I haven't yet done any Sarkozy impersonation interviews, but I feel equipped after watching Saturday Night Live Bill Hader's impression of Keith Morrison:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vBeI-A8PHWc&feature=related

Unfortunately, the funnier skit is not available on Youtube yet.

The Wild Moose Hunt

2009-06-21T13:38:00.007-04:00

I've joked about how my job is sometimes a wild goose hunt. Yesterday, it was a wild moose hunt.

Somehow, a bull moose (up to 1500 pounds, 7 ft) regaled itself in the city without anyone noticing. Until it laid down in a woman's garden in a central area of the city.

This is the 3rd moose in a week.

How did it go unnoticed? It probably wandered in at night. I don't kid myself that this is a party town, but come on, really? A moose, and nobody awake to notice?

We may as well fax terrorist ninjas for a coup, since they'll be able to completely surround and inhabit the city before anybody wakes up. We need our precious zzz in this province, and damn anyone trying to disturb them.

That's my attitude anyway. I wasn't up to see the moose. But I also don't live in that area.

I found out from the police where the moose had showed up in a garden and headed to that block. I had no idea whose garden it was, but I had a good feeling about this hunt.

I even found a trail of blood.

But I also talked to a lot of people who looked at me and laughed. It's not often you knock on someone's door and the first thing you say is, Did you happen to see a moose? Some people asked whether I'd lost mine.

A couple guys were in their back-alley garage building something with wood. They invited me over for moose burgers later.

I finally found the woman. She led me out back and showed me where the moose had laid in her garden. The rhubarb was partially flattened and moose tracks everywhere! This reporter had uncovered the best photo op of the day, and had absolutely no camera.

I wanted to lay down in the rhubarb, feel what that moose had felt, its flanks heaving in and out, scared shitless of this uneven treeless labyrinth. But then I saw the trail of blood. It wasn't drops because the moose obviously had been running. They were spatters, the kind you might see in an abstract painting.

They continued down the entire block, and were even on a woman's car.

Poor moose.

I forgot to mention that by this point, I knew the moose had been tranquilized. It wasn't the moose I was after, so much as the people, cars, and fences it had laid waste to in its path.

The woman who had found it in her garden at 6 a.m. told me she had gone back to reading the paper. "What can you do?" she said. Indeed.

This city never has moose. And now it's had three moose in a week.

One woman thinks it's the dryness. It hasn't rained enough to make the ground wet in about 2 months.

The moose may have been trying to find some food. It probably injured itself in its frantic gallop through the city. What made him choose that woman's house? No fences on the side. A welcoming yellow bungalow.

At least it didn't do what a cop said happened once with a deer: the deer plunged into someone's living room and started running around inside.

I can't imagine a deer ever feeling at home in a living room.

Moose used to be my favourite animals. I often forget this fact until I see my collection of moose plush toys and printed-out emails from mooses_are_cute@yahoo.com. I still think they are cute, but am glad I can sleuth in the safety of knowing the creature is sound asleep in its favourite bog.

Or desert plains, as it were.

Where is the damn rain? My gin-inspired rain dances have not been working.

Cranks for the cranky

2009-06-10T21:40:00.014-04:00

You may have seen me at the side of the road today. I apologize for thrusting an ethical dilemma of whether to stop for me into your life. I guess a girl in high heels on her cell phone with her arm thrust out like a heil next to bumper to bumper traffic in rush hour is less appealing an image than it's made out to be.

And sorry, cops who drove by, I realize hitchhiking may be illegal. Maybe that's why no one stopped. Or was it the manic look in my eyes as I tried to dial a cab with my cell phone and accidentally called a friend instead?

Yes! Oh God, thank God you picked up! I need a cab right away in front of the Mendel.
. . . Um, I think you dialed wrong.

I hung up to see "Friend from Shakespeare class" blinking at me. Shit. I just cold called a guy I haven't talked to in months, who probably would have been happy to hear from me if I hadn't just tried to order a cab from him.

I eventually sidled up to a woman in a huge white SUV waiting to turn, and she offered me a ride in the same direction she was going in.

*Faith in humanity semi-restored*

And there was still the possibility of making 20 minutes of my 30 minute massage. I realize the irony of throwing myself in front of a car in order to get to a massage. What some would call stupid, I call "perseverance to succeed."

I had left my truck lights on all day, ultimately because the squirrels need to see what they're doing in the bush. I'm practically PETA. I would appreciate at least a hand-crank like in the old days when the radiator started overflowing (does that happen?) and they just threw open the hood and cranked 'er up. That would have been useful on my cellphone too, when it died yesterday and I couldn't find my friend.

Cranks! It's a back-up plan every device should have... so Sony, Mazda, Telus, NASA take heed. Cranks are the future, because in the future, people will rely more and more on technology, and less and less on their real memories. I consider myself ahead of my time.

R-ice weddings in May

2009-05-15T22:08:00.012-04:00

This morning as I drove to work, I saw white chrysalids sliding towards earth, exploding on the ground.

Saskatchewan is special this way. We don't have a flurry of flower petals that fall from the heavens in springtime. We have ice pellets that explode on our windshields as they fall from the elms.

I thought about taking a rowing course in May, but I would have ended up taking out a boat called Louis "ice-breaker" Riel, slapping the ice with a paddle like a beaver's tail while wobbling in my sliver of a boat.

My friend's baby niece said "snow" for the first time this week.

I think farmers were probably saying a few choice words before "snow" which the baby will probably learn soon.

If only airline policies extended to other inconveniences

2009-05-07T22:21:00.011-04:00

Canada's airlines have downed the ante.

They've come up with their own bill of passenger rights to counter the one proposed by an MP. This is the equivalent of making up my own punishment as a kid when I did something bad, hoping that my somber tone and profligate use of sighs and adjectives would trick my mother into thinking that I really thought my self-imposed punishment was harsh.

But the airlines have some right to complain. The private members' bill could impose fines of $500 an hour on airlines who delay flights, and require them to provide food after 2 hours and shelter for overnight delays.

This sounds great, until you realize that most delays are caused by mechanical problems, not the whims of extravagant heiress' who send their chihuahuas on private flights to Cancun.

"Mais non! I will nat allow zat flight to Winnipeg! Gingerbread cakes wants to visit Iqualuit. Where is my silk moomoo?"

Once this legislation is passed, airlines will basically have incentives to
a) fly despite mechanical errors and/or rush the job
b) crash, thereby killing all the passengers they could owe thousands upon thousands of dollars to, depending on the size of the flight.
c) shaft all small flights, since the incentive would be to avoid paying gigantic fines.

Frankly, I have had more than my fair share of airline fuck-ups. But I've discovered one Canadian airline's secret - something they don't publicize, but honour without fail.

When I ask, the flight attendant gives me a noble nod. It's a code word not many people know. A word that inspires both joy and fear in the hearts of flight attendants around the globe. A word that I wield like a sword every time the airline asks me to sit on the tarmac for 3 hours, after delaying the flight 5 hours before that.

The word is gin.

They will provide it free of charge.

Not many people know the airline's current "Code of Ethics" but this is one chapter verse that I know: thou shalt provide pitiful passengers with free booze in the hopes they shall lay dormant for the rest of the flight.

And it works. On me at least. Half that little bottle of Beefeater and I am drooling on a stranger's shoulder, mumbling the words to La Cucaracha.

Imagine, on the other hand, if this were the policy with other inconveniences.

Bus late? Have a transfer and a Caesar.
Your library book recalled? Take a gin and aspirin.
Children screaming while you wait somewhere in line? Have this pitcher of wine.

Of course, you might really start to like inconveniences, but when they're inevitable, why not enjoy them?

That's what they said at Christmas.

How I got here

2009-05-04T19:43:00.012-04:00

I've been in a coma from reality. I barely made my plane yesterday after spending all afternoon lounging on a hill next to Parliament, flashing the nation's capital every time I forgot to adjust my skirt. It was a favour. Parliament hasn't had much action since December.

Jack and Jill (that's me) sat under the statue of Champlain, trying to avoid slipping lest we roll down the steep grassy hill and reach the bottom prickling with used syringes with cigarette butts in our hair. Quebec was looking as dour as a Charles Dickens novel, no doubt to piss off Canada. The 80-foot smoke stack was quite obviously giving the Library of Parliament the finger, while the other buildings were doing their best to be rusty, windowless, and grey.

I probably flashed them too at some point. They deserve something in the passive-aggressive defiance category.

I felt I could be generous, since things seemed to be working out in my favour. Sometimes the world decides to knight you, and doesn't slip and fall and accidentally behead you.

My cabbie was a jester knight sent to my aid, though I contend he wasn't a real cabbie. He was there to offset the bad karma brought to me by my prof who's given me another extension on an assignment originally due in March. The 14th extension now? It's what journalism school would be like in hell - the same, but with never-ending extensions that prevent you from handing stuff in.

So God sent the cabbie into Shawarma King, and there he met a young woman and man, and even though he had not eaten in days, his sense of goodwill overcame him and he invited them into his wagon.

As the young man got out, the cabbie used his spiritual powers to roll down the window so they could say goodbye.

"Do not be sad, behold the galloping horse on the pay-o-meter how it speeds and slows with the rolling of the car."

The girl was overcome with laughter and tears simultaneously.

End of psalm 1

Begin Modern English version

When we got to the airport he bitch parked in the wheelchair zone, grabbed a cart and hucked my half dozen bags onto a cart. He raced inside, leaving the cab trunk wide open, me chasing after him. Inside was an enormous line-up, at least an hour wait. Just follow me, he said, and I followed him into the empty Executive Class queue. He was going to make up for more bad Karma than I thought.

"Have you done this before?" I asked.

"Executive class deserves executive service," he said, winking. The galloping horse wasn't the only thing running on diesel.

We were ushered to the next attendant, and before the lady could ask for my name, he was already throwing my bags onto the belt and waving his palm at the woman, saying, "it's ok, now, it's ok."

Then he bowed out, leaving me to deal with the no-bullshit attendant whose lecture I accepted with puppy eyes.

The passenger at the attendant next to mine overheard my situation - and where I was headed, and helped me pull old tags off my bags.

"Not you, ma'am!" my airline rep snapped, but the woman tore away.

Who were these people?

The woman caught me by the arm as I pulled away and asked if I'd take a piece of carry-on for her.
"What is it?" I asked, as though her answer were the deciding factor.
"Roller-blades."
I did a little head bobble at my existing carry-on load and apologized.
"Why don't you wear them?"

So I'm back on the prairies, and have already written a story about canola. Just ask how many excess tons of canola SK produces each year, and prepare to be shocked and amazed. More trivia coming your way, as I catch up on the past week's absent blog posts.

Bodies are like Light Brights

2009-04-22T15:45:00.010-04:00

I've been worried about my memory and general stupidity lately.
"Lately" may include the past three years. Episodes like the tropical
bird gouging me in the eye after I tried taking a photo with it in its
cage was one. Missing flights, another. Never fixing my bedroom light
so every time I unscrew my light by hand, I burn off some of the
feeling in my finger tips. That probably counts.

I've never been one for supplements, but I've always been curious. I mean, Viagra is a supplement. It works. Maybe there is a drug that can make me stop boiling water and leaving the house.

Like a good Gen Y-er I strolled through the supplement aisle to fix me a batch of smarty pants.

Erring on the side of safety, I chose the Children's Learning Formula.
I was hoping it would help me learn about other people's favourite
colours and keep track of how many sleeps till Christmas.

I've been downing Children's Learning Formula and B100 Complex
for a week.

Conclusions:

- Children's Learning Formula: like eating a handful of bath beads.
Friends think it makes me manic; I think it makes me happy. Possibly too much hassle for a placebo effect.

- B100 Complex: Inspired by the "Be 100% Complex," a mental disorder
characterized by the desire to be at 100% mental and physical capability at all times. Users may occasionally think of supplements downed with beer as a meal.

-The conclusion that I may have wasted $17 but at least I'll be arguing from experience now.

But no effects are better than bad effects, am I right? You will after you read this. (Credit to Dave for the link.)

Chantix is one of the more disturbing drugs. Side effects include
"sleep disturbances" which may manifest as horrible life-like dreams.

The doctor probably didn't go too in depth on that one. If he had, he
would have said, "Hey this drug will help you stop smoking. Now watch
this David Cronenberg film to learn about the side-effects."

Darkness, demons, inanimate objects coming alive, you know, typical common side effects for this line of drugs. Those things won't make you want to smoke will they?

Guest Post by Carmen Sandiego

2009-04-20T00:04:00.018-04:00

I wrote a whole post about how I was paid in coupons to visit a strip club, knowing that I could never publish it. The Internet is not about being stalked, but about creating the paranoia that you're being stalked. And I fully embrace that paranoia, especially when it comes to people who currently or futuristically employ me.

Yes, some people employe me in the future. And some people write employ with an e.

I probably haven't met these employers yet, so your guess is as good as mine as to who they are. I'm really hoping it's the tornado chasing branch of National Geographic that gets paid in coupons because its employees are being laid off left and right.

Stay tuned for more unsubtle hints about said missing post!

Segue!

I remember thinking how great it would be to meet my future husband as a 10-year-old. I didn't mean become a child wife. I just meant meet the other 10-year-old I would eventually buy a house with.

This was a very romantic idea, because of its plausibility. Maybe I had met that boy. Maybe it was that kid throwing potatoes at the dumpster when we went through the car wash.

[Cue part of Laura's brain responsible for delusions/Cue Laura's brain]

It was obviously a boy who had been to space and loved building forts out of kleenex boxes. Or moccassins. (Note: parents may pretend to enjoy moccasins made out of empty kleenex boxes, but they will eventually wean you from their preening. I suggest a large kleenex box fort to keep reality at bay).

Blah Blah

The right words gahhh809

Thinking is frustrating. So is writing. And so is logic come to think of it. Which is why there are so many non fucking sequiturs in this blog post and many others.

A man disappears for a decade. Police put out large reward now. Won't explain why.

This is a story I happened to *read* while at work. Admitttedly, I also wrote it. FUCK.

Anonymity is so hard on the internet. I feel cornered.

What would you do if a normal day was your superior telling you you need to drive to an international border town an hour away, question its residents Carmen Sandiego style about missing man, and you ended up in a strip club?

Be glad they can't take away what they've already given you? ie) 2 for 1 coupons you are hoping to pawn for bus tickets?

Someone disappears a decade ago, and their friends are in the same bar today. My official position is they're drinking the same beer.

The spot the missing man used to sit in? Have a seat. That was his view. Coffee?

Who serves coffee in a strip bar?

I say strip bar, because this ain't no club. It's more like a whatchamacallit... small-town bar with girls in bikinis. The lights are so dim it's got that classic bunker feel. A beach-themed bunker minus the sand. Complete with intrigue, and a "boss" upstairs who says he's coming down and never does.

But all this happened to me a long time ago. I was just reminded of it recently when I was sent down to a small down on the border with an hour to do my job, the only guidance being that it was a small town. Someone ought to know him.

This is a new holiday destinations for all you Carmen Sandiegos. I'll let you know when I come out with the 2009 best-kept secrets version, rated in number of geese. The book of wild goose hunts turned Who unstrapped my bra?

Come to think of it, that sounds like a trip to my basement.

Except instead of geese it is all the spiders I caught and released all winter. And all the jagged nails hooking onto my clothing without saying hello.

Not a Carmen Sandiego moment, despite my flowing red hair and yellow fedora. I figure I'm not big-city sleuth until I figure out how to make people trust me even when I look ridiculous.

"Tell me your feee-lings!"

(I stop to bite my pen and bobble my head - no bra!)

That sounds like I'm trying to hypnotize people. I do too much interviewing over the phone, and trust me it's difficult to avoid the dial tone of failure when you take the vow of silence and commence the bra-less seance.

But that's all laughs! HARDEY HAR HAR!

You didn't even read this...

Dr. Evil's Transit Pod

2009-04-11T17:12:00.008-04:00

A new verb may find its way into the dictionary: schweebing.

And... it isn't another social networking site!

Probably the best thing about the Shweeb is that you power it yourself, despite it running on a track. It might be hard for groceries, but maybe they'll come out with a hatchback version soon. It's brought to you by the Kiwis, which shouldn't be surprising if you know about Zorbing.

The creators are marketing it as the future of public transportation. I'm not sure how collisions are avoided, but the idea is to put these pods on a set of interconnected monorails.

And zero carbon emissions! Just the emissions from the food you ate to fuel your pedalling.

Playing the Fiddle as Rome Burns

2009-03-22T13:53:00.026-04:00

source: photobucket

We had already been sitting at the pub for an hour when a skinny guy in a loose leather jacket ambled up to the end of our table and started talking. I couldn't understand him at first, and figured he knew someone else.

"You need to dance to the fiddle," he told us, leaning in. "You only have so many chances to dance to the fiddle."

The live band was playing at the front of the bar, and there was some space in front of them where the crowd had given up milling.

My friend said she was enjoying the fiddle where she was sitting just fine. Dancing wouldn't add anything. She didn't mention the unfortunate blender foot injury she had acquired earlier in the day, but I got her drift. I wasn't about to ditch the group to fiddle dance with a guy whose agenda was unclear.

He persisted and then went away for a few songs. He returned with a friend, a tall unshaven man with cowlicked hair.

"You only have so many times when you can dance to the fiddle," he continued. "And this is one of them! You're just going to waste it?"

He dropped an arm onto the wobbly table making the beer slosh.

His speech was full of platitudes - the kind of tough love a boxing coach might give to an athlete one punch from a KO.

"That girl is playing her heart out. And you're just sitting there, not even clapping. All you need to do is get up. Get up and dance and forget about everything else."

My friend with the blender injury told him she had gotten her undergrad in fiddle appreciation and so the dancing was unecessary.

"You only remember half the things you do anyway," she said.

He eventually ceded. "You're good! Fine. If you ladies want to let this slip by, that's your perogative."

There's a myth about Nero playing the fiddle as Rome burned. Flames licked the sky, buildings crumbled. I didn't want to be Rome burning.

But by then the fiddle was over.

His gusto, his bravado, I thought. He would make an excellent life coach.

I need someone to rally behind me at the grocery store when I'm picking out veggies or deciding on yogourt.

But without the fiddle music, the guy left.

1000 accordions is not enough

2009-03-15T16:46:00.043-04:00

Years ago, while spending time in my Grandparents' suburban house in B.C., I bumped into my musical heritage. I uncovered it in closets, behind dressers, in boxes. A slew of oboes, tubas, cellos, violins, sitars, organs, pianos, and gongs, lined up on the carpet. I passed a lot of time prodding instruments that were beautiful, but obviously impossible to play.

Then one day my Grandma sat down and strummed a song. Her eyes darted back and forth; her foot tapped the ground. And her head swayed like a Bollywood dancer. Then she rushed to set down the cello/accordion/sitar and explain she hadn't touched it in years.

It was infuriating how well the instruments listened to her, when I was obviously offering them all the love.

"She keeps you in the walk-in!" I whispered hoarsely.

My Grandma had two accordions and taught me how to play Amazing Grace, Take Me Out to the Ball Game, and Edelweiss, ie) The same four chords. Eventually she gave me one of the accordions, and I watched my Dad grumble as he packed this box under a van seat with all my other boxes.

I felt she had invited me into a mythical family tree - one I imagined being dotted with flouting Minstrels and hide-drumming Vikings. I was next. And it wouldn't be through monotonous piano lessons my Grandma had tried to give me when I was younger. No. It would be through the accordion - the most challenging instrument I knew.

Sure accordions are loud and obnoxious, and I am neither loud nor obnoxious. But accordionists are also loners, and I've always felt an affinity to outcasts. Remember that scene in the animated Peter Pan with the sailor in the crow's nest playing the squeeze box?

Captain Hook shot him.

I hated that scene.

It's part of my emerging into adulthood (still ongoing please God) that I've sought out my heritage by irrational obsessions like learning German and lugging my accordion to parties.

Is it any wonder then, this deep desire to go where the accordions roam, where polkas run on tap all night, and felt hats and lederhosen waltz in mountain air?

I was thinking about all the aspiring journalists getting high-profile internships this summer and flying to Indonesia and meeting celebrities.

And then I thought, if I go to Kathmandu, I'll miss the world's largest accordion festival with my Grandma and her RV.

I realize that my image of "accordion festival" is probably a little off. I was picturing a hallucinatory music fest with former hippies dressed like Chestchire cats smoking fat cigars on their trailer steps in the desert.

It's Kimberley B.C. after all with accordion players over 60. I don't want to be the only one on drugs, ending my news reports with,

"This is Laura Keil, dispatching from the edge of sanity WAAAAAAANH" (=sound of accordion)

Fun, yes, but not in that collective way you expect at a summer fest.

All-night polkas. World Records for accordions played at the same time (1000). It sounds like the perfect week in July. The perfect way to skirt reality, and follow my lineage.
.

New Master's Research Project?

2009-03-10T19:23:00.009-04:00

"One thing came to my mind." (Image of moth) "That's Jesus!"

I'm starting to think that Christians should take a cue from Muslims in trying a little less hard to see their prophet.

I apparently can't even visit a vending machine without being accosted by hallucinations. If you fast forward to 4:00 in the video, you'll listen to a man pronounce that a mutated Cheeto will be known as Cheesus.

As an atheist, I'd appreciate if Christians weren't themselves blasphemous. It lessens the role of atheists.

I'm also a little concerned by the lack of differentiation between "image of Jesus" and "Jesus."

Would Jesus approve? Or is Jesus a frying pan?

It's a little odd that most of the Jesus images turn up in food. It makes me wonder whether there was a reason I always felt hungry in church.

If I hadn't been so hungry, maybe I would have been able to pay better attention. Still, a sentence like this would have alerted me:

"A cinnamon roll, toast, a danish, pancakes, fish sticks, and now a cat."

Sigh.

I'm afraid to go for an eye exam in any state where two thirds of rear-view mirrors have dangling Virgin Mary's.

I'd like to inform you that that is not a T. That is the Lord.

Health is a funnel of gin in your ear

2009-03-04T21:48:00.012-05:00

My roommate's girlfriend told me something tonight that changed my perspective on my favourite bar drink, the gin and tonic.

Think of it as the moment Marie-France used fireplace bellows and realized that the rips in the side created music: Voila, accordion.

Also pretend in this metaphor that the accordion can cure physical ailments... which I contend it can, but no one will ever let me finish the cure.

I'm just getting over a cold and my left ear is plugged, so everytime I blow my nose it feels as though I'm reaching 30,000 feet. That would make sense if I were drunk (1 drink = 5,000 ft). That's science. But I'm not drunk. And when sober I believe in science.

What my roommate's girlfriend told me was this. She had a friend who accidentally poured a gin and tonic in his ear when he had an ear infection.

Don't ask me how that works. Inner ear causes lack of balance, penchant for frat parties?

It cured him. So the next time he got an ear infection, he did it again.

Again, cured.

And not because he went into a coma and woke up five days later.

So I was prepared to go out tonight to the bar to test this theory. I feel an ear infection coming on. Maybe it's just my cold, but why in just one ear? I'd swagger up, show the bar man two fingers, and point to one ear. He would probably frown, thinking I'm deaf, and mouth "ten dollars." Then I would shoot back one drink, grab nearest friend/colleague, place my head on the table and say: Pour it in! For goodness sake! Do it!

But then my eyes began to lose focus, and I didn't want to hear the cure for that.

Osama? Obama? Enunciate please

2009-03-02T19:35:00.005-05:00

My cell is my robotic secretary of state. Whatever state I'm in (right now it feels as though I'm bleeding internally from a nasty cold) I can dial anyone in the world just by saying their name.

Introducing, from my 2006 cellphone, Driving Mode. A great way to amuse yourself and others on the bus or in the Library and Archives Canada ladies' room.

I was collecting toilet paper today to nurse my one eye that hasn't stopped leaking in the past 20 hours, when suddenly a perky woman who I will describe as a fem bot, announced from my bag, "New message from (beep)" and then a man's voice said, "fucker."

I happen to have a friend with a similar name.

There was a snicker from the stall next to mine.

I often rummage through my bag, accidentally hit the driving mode button, and then say fuck. My secretary in a phone will ask politely "Did you say Laura?" Replace 'Laura' with any of the random numbers I keep in my cell phone strictly for journalistic purposes: mental health lines, motels in small-town Saskatchewan and Quebec, editors of newspapers, the U of O psych department. Don't ask me why. Don't ask me why my phone asks me if I'm trying to call a shrink when I yell fuck into my damn handbag.

But there's a bright side. I can tell my phone to call Obama, and it will find names in my contact list to suggest.

That's a snazzy way to wait in line at a club or the psych dept.

That'll be 10 dollars ma'am
(I hold up a finger as I dig through my bag. Five minutes later, after I've retrieved my phone, I sensually hit the side button in front of the bouncer)
"Please enter a command."
Contacts, I say, keeping eye contact with the bouncer.
(bouncer rolls eyes)
"Please enter a name."
Osama Bin Laden
"Did you say... Osama Bin Laden?"
"Yesss."
"Calling."

I can programme numbers under different names. I often get calls from Hillary Clinton and Josh Groban.

Even better is when my phone sets itself to Driving Mode without my knowledge and announces the caller. Trust me, entering endearingly profane names for friends is a surefire way to change your profs' opinions of you in the middle of a class on Spreadsheets.

What is this? Some kind of practical joke? Who put this phone in my handbag. Ha... ha... Her name's not [enter Bond villainess here]. It mispronounced it.

I can't wait for the robotic age.

The Dépanneur Bar

2009-02-20T15:34:00.020-05:00

It's called The Whip.

No menu or kitchen. A quebecoise Judi Dench will point to a frigo where a jar sits pregnant with eggs and vinegar. Brigades of Molsen EX are packed into four fridges, dépanneur-style.

The other patrons dutifully knock on VLTs. There is no indication of why the place is called the Whip; we draw our own conclusions.

Judi Dench brings us the Whip's oeuvre: wine bottle-sized beers with thimble glasses that might be used to allot prune juice in a senior's home.

We've brought a game of Connect Four and play a speed round robin. The loser nails back ice-cold beer, burning her eye sockets. Pours another thimble.

The room is clean, bare, no place marked vomitorium - even with the eggs, which remind me of clues to a medical history exhibit. No one ever needs to see a severed foot in fermeldihyde nor boiled eggs ogling in brine.

We skip the eggs. They ogle without our notice.

This is unfamiliar territory and we're an omnium gatherum, hodgepodge of drinkers huddled around the campfire of a Depanneur cooler beefed with bottles of beer that say "ex" as though we're here to mourn lost love over VLTs and pickled eggs.

Panic will come later. For now, responsibilities are sloughed like snow from our coats.

We're in the whip and we'll lick the lion tomorrow.

Life-size Fussball and a Caribou Martini

2009-02-17T12:41:00.038-05:00

He offers me the red cane he holds with three fingers, his smile uneven like an orange peel. The smell rises up from the red stick like holy incense, Hail... Hail... why haven't I seen this altar boy before? the only thing to do is to grab it and drink. It is like drinking out of a flute, all the keys shut. You stop when you sputter. Amen.

I had wandered into a tent that might have been better suited as a 1950s make-shift nuclear town. Faux brick panelling, paintings, and plants furbished the inside of a tarp that was delightfully free of children. Behind me, six middle-aged middle-grown women slouched in sofas as though reserving spots in an opium den.

Our surroundings wooed us to refill the hollow cane umpteen times with Caribou. We had learnt that nothing says Carnaval more than a bison hat and a 23% sludge of red port, Cognac and maple syrup, hot as coffee. The more you drink Caribou, the more you're convinced that you're the Bonhomme Carnaval. I guess this is because you become both manically happy and scary to children.

We were getting jolly - but our French wasn't improving. I sat down on the coffee table with the cane between my knees and the carpet in the Old Man Winter pose, mulling how alcohol consumption and children could go so well together.

A life-size Fussball game was going on outside, children and adults playing together. As a friend suggested, the only thing that would improve the game is if people controlled the players from the side. Instead the teams are simply lashed to the bars. Unfortunately for spectators, they aren't flipped around.

Not coin-operated

Here on the historic Plaines d'Abraham where General Wolff had perished under an English flag and French General Montcalm had received his fatal wound, snow bathers romped with the Bonhomme; adults pulled tiny sleds laden with unconscious children, their little arms spread, welcoming the sky in one-piece snow suits. The parents didn't even glance back as the sleighs hit planters and fences, grazing around them.

The Caribou was making me meditative. Now outside, I took another swig from the cane, the alcohol rushing from the end, red liquid crashing against my face like an ocean wave and drizzling down my chin. I let out a cough of satisfaction and eyed the Olympic Torch under a Coca Cola marquee. The torch was attached to a podium. Not easily freed. But isn't that what they told King Arthur about the sword?

The Caribou had given me strength, and I felt ready to use it.

But I'm afraid of getting arrested, and even more scared of being chased by Bonhomme-suited security guards wielding batons, so I settled for getting a photo with a snow sculpture of Old Man Winter holding a candle between his legs. I wish I could have gone up close, gone between his hands and helped him light the candle, but once again someone would have paged security. It meant I had to go back to drinking excessively in predetermined nuclear towns, buying 7$ shots of bailey's in glasses made out of ice and throwing the glasses onto a heap of used glasses behind some imported potted spruce.

Everything makeshift. Fake. But the Caribou was real - the label on the bottle made me believe I was tapping a maple under the northern lights in 1616, tap the trunk, do the rights, holy incense and drink the cane. It almost gave me the courage to take part in the snow bathing competition, but I have less guts than this old man:

Drinking Caribou is simply not as warm as wearing it.

What do you mean I have a flair for boredom?

2009-02-01T18:34:00.022-05:00

Let's talk about my voice.

For most of my life, I could blissfully ignore my teenager way of turning every phrase into a question and the way I sometimes sound like a tight rope on estrogen.

But in radio, I have to broadcast this 1980s jukebox to other people. While being taped for eternity, and posterity, so my grandchildren can know why they sound like teenage boys when they're 23-year-old women.

My newscast went great. Until it was time to say my name.

I looked in horror through the glass where the producer and my classmates smiled at me and I heard the click of the intercom.

"Say your name again, please."

I don't usually aim to sound like I'm wearing a loin cloth and leaping from vine to vine.

"And the food bank is having trouble during the transit strike.

LaurAHE-AHE-AHHH,

Radio News."

Oh my God. It sounds like my voice box is in a wrestling match with Jonathan Taylor Thomas. How the hell did he get in there? Fucking Tom and Huck. I should never have memorized the script to that film.

I fudge my name all the time in writing - but that's because cursive is all disorientating. I have to concentrate. Visa understands that Laura and Laara and Larua are all the same person.

Just as Laura and LaurAHE-AHE-AHHH are one and the same.

But spoken word is different. I can't say my own name into a microphone?

Later on, while practising my script, I was told by my radio mentor to brighten up my voice.

"You just have one of those voices that sounds naturally bored all the time."

That's just great.

I prefer sarcastic. Or deadpan. I do not want to be known as Margaret Atwood. There is a woman who sounds bored all the time. She can barely lift her gums to say "hell no."

But maybe Margaret understand why kids always thought I was making fun of them in elementary school. I'd say something nice, and they'd throw sand. They probably didn't even hear what I said. They were being lambasted by the sound of boredom. Poor kids.

Because of my self-consciousness, I'll be compensating for weeks, smiling while I talk, and making everyone wonder why I'm showing off my teeth and not blinking. As long as I can keep my voice steady while I'm saying my own name.

This isn't the first time I've had to compensate with my expression. There was that time my hairdresser chopped my bangs an inch above my eyebrows and I was forced to look surprised for weeks so others wouldn't notice. I'm sure everyone wondered what kind of lobotomy the hairdresser had given me behind the bangs.

The crazy smiling? It's so I don't insult you, prematurely. When the smile comes down - so does the guillotine. I have a weapon to wield and it's about to ruin the mood.