Whingey Smurf

Hey, everyone! Guess what this is!

Gotcha, you perverts! It's not a Smurf penis at all. It's a neti pot spout:



You know, one of those things people use to flush their sinuses out. Sounds like utter quackery, I know, but apparently daily nasal enemas are a legitimate treatment for some kinds of chronic nose troubles. Which I don't suffer from myself so I can't give you any examples.

But *someone* in my house does have chronic nose troubles. (Actually, more than one someone in my house might, but I don't think a neti pot is going to help Small Fry keep his exploratory instincts at bay.) Let's call this someone... ummm... Smadrian. To protect his privacy. Yesterday, Smadrian got his first neti pot - it was prescribed by his physician.

But let's back up a bit. Ever dealt with One of Those People who clearly don't have enough perspective on life? Like, mountain-out-of-molehill people, or have-never-had-a-day's-troubles people, or men, like, in general? Well, Smadrian happens to be the latter sort of person. And it is this rather fundamental characteristic of his being that results in an inherent lack of perspective in some crucial matters. He has never, for instance, given birth, had intravenous medication, had an epidural, been catheterized (all four of which sometimes occur simultaneously, in my experience), been examined with the aid of a speculum, been regularly bombarded by the amorous advances of certain fleshy male appendages... y'know, those sorts of things. Invasive sorts of things. Here are images of some those things - please take a moment to compare them to the comparatively innocuous neti spout pictured above.

Wait a minute, what the hell is THAT?

Whose lousy idea was this anyway?

WHERE do you want to put that?!

In what I view as a direct result of never having been "invaded" in his life, Smadrian is terrified of using his neti pot. Terrified. He actually yelled at me for talking about using the neti pot, which is why I decided to write this story. I mean, hide his name in this story.

I had only this to say:

All. The places. You have wished to insert your penis over the years, and you are afraid of a wee little Smurf dick resting near your nostril and gently flushing your sinuses with a small quantity of sterile saline solution?

Woman up, you giant wuss.

Halloween Feast

Medium Fry is going on a student exchange trip to France this year.

(Before the story really gets rolling, let's all take a moment to reflect on how much cooler school is now than it was Back In Our Day. Aaaaaaand... moment up. Carry on.)

In preparation for this exchange, the exchangees are doing a bit of a structured pen pal thing through their schools. Apparently Halloween isn't celebrated in France so some of their first discussions have centered around this strange foreign holiday, from the benign - 'Do you decorate your house for Halloween?' - to the unintentionally hilarious - 'When do you prepare the Halloween feast?'

Really, they should have planned the exchange itself around some unique and fun events in the host countries, such as Halloween here and - I have no idea what there. You'd think this sort of thing would be part of what the kids would get to discover. Instead, they are sending those poor French kids here in February. February.

Quick, think of the worst possible time of year to visit Calgary.

... okay, other than Stampede.

... and January.

Exactly! February. In February, no one has seen sunlight or a fresh vegetable for five months. It's tax time. Either minus 40 or a slushy mess of a Chinook, sometimes both in one day, which I guess makes it migraine season in addition to flu season, not to mention I've-officially-failed-at-all-my-New-Year's-Resolutions season. How do you pack for that?

What will we do with this kid for ten days in February? Canada is an amazing country and Alberta an amazing province, but February is pretty much our collective dirty laundry and we just shouldn't be airing it willy nilly. I can't even think of how to welcome this poor exchange student here in February that doesn't involve a preemptive apology. I've got a few ideas to run by y'all, let me know what you think:

Bienvenue au Canada! We have prepared for you the traditional gift of long johns and vitamin D supplements.

Bienvenue au Canada! Let us engage in our traditional winter sport of dangerous driving conditions.

Bienvenue au Canada! I swear it's usually hospitable to human life.

Bienvenue au Canada! We saved you some Halloween feast!

Bienvenue au Canada! At least you're not in Winnipeg!

Bienvenue au Canada! Enjoy the Great Indoors!

Bienvenue au Canada! Uh... sorry?

And seriously, if anyone has any ideas for things to do and see around town in February, particularly "weather contingency" options, please let me know. I'm stumped.

Sweet Dreams Are Made of...

One time, in preschool, Small Fry's class was baking apple 'pies' (pat dough into lumpy circle; add apples, sugar and cinnamon; fold; bake) when some apple juice leaked out into the oven, causing smoke to billow, alarms to sound and children to be evacuated to the great outdoors until the firemen showed up to ensure all was well. Not one, but TWO fire trucks, chock-full of firemen. It was a beautiful day outside. The pies even turned out alright.

It was possibly the single best day of Small Fry's young life.

Come to think of it, when you distill it down to its primary component parts (Key Words: Firemen, Pie), it sounds like a pretty solid day by my reckoning as well.

More recently, he *may* have overheard me ranting to telling - well, any number of people - about a certain workplace fiasco involving a winter archaeological and palaeontological dig in a river valley with no overland access, wherein someone's fanciful solution to just fly a backhoe in for the afternoon somehow came to $30,000 fruition. And then the project was cancelled. Gah!

This scenario has really captured Small Fry's imagination. I admit I was a *leetle* irritated by the logistical nightmare it presented, the dollars wasted, the days of my life I will never get back, etc. but when you distill it down to its primary component parts (Key Words: Backhoe, Helicopter, FRICKING DINOSAUR BONES) it pretty much is the most amazing thing a little kid could even imagine. Heck, maybe I imagined it when I was a kid and... well, be careful what you wish for I guess. Now when we cuddle up at bedtime, Small Fry says to me, "Mommy, tell me the story about the helicopter and the backhoe." And I do. I even manage to write out my frustrations in the name of a good bedtime tale.

Then I snuggle right up and say to him, "Sweetie, tell Mommy the story about the firemen and the pie."

(Hmm, I wonder if they make a calendar for that?)

Optimist, Pessimist, Humourist

I love my work - I really, really do - however, in general, and as wildlife biologists have long surmised, it is not particularly exciting. Sure, there are wee bits of it that are fun (like that part where ridiculous sums of money show up in my mailbox, whee!), but no one is ever like, "Because dichotomous key! Bwahaha!"

Ever.

In fact, sometimes my work is so dull that I just fall dead asleep on the prairie and only wake up because I'm snoring so loudly. (To be fair, this was near the end of a marathon field stint and I was pretty tired in addition to bored senseless.) (But no excuses for the times I woke myself up by drooling on my hand or dreaming elk were jumping on me!) Some people drink chamomile tea in the evening; I just tuck a Daubenmire frame under my pillow and pass out cold from the sheer boringtude it emits.

But I seem to have fun, right? That's because I have this superpower, you see: I'm specially equipped to have way more fun than is reasonable in a given situation. I have fun all by myself, just in my own head, in spite of all the botany I am subjected to on a daily basis. (Really, it's the only way I could even cope with it. I know some botanists - okay, well, one - who have completely zero sense of humour and I seriously don't know how they haven't offed themselves yet.) If you're specially equipped in this way, you're likely to find that hilarity is all around you. It's like how optimists see good things around them and pessimists see bad things: I see funny things. But it wouldn't be a superpower proper if just any old schmoe could do it, so let me clarify further: I see funny things like Superman sees your gotch and Haley Joel Osment sees your great-great Aunt Helen. I see... beyond.

Or maybe I'm just crazy. Who knows! Either way I'm having a ton of fun, and my Tuckeb runneth over.

Yay Crew Cab!

I won't name names here, but *some* motel in *some* small town in Saskatchewan gave away my room reservation the other night. I had had trouble booking a room in the first place, but by the time I got into town at 8pm and discovered my predicament the entire place was a hospitality dead zone - as was every town within a 2-hour radius. As more than one front desk clerk helpfully pointed out, "We're an oil town, ma'am. It's very busy here." Yes, thank you. That's why I made - and lost - a reservation in the first place. Given the constituency of the average oil town motel, I don't doubt I could have found myself some "shared accommodations" quite readily, but I'm not really in the market for that sort of shenanigans these days - particularly not with oil town motel constituents.

I had work to do so I couldn't afford to keep wasting time looking for a room. I gave the back seat of my truck a serious appraisal, then drove to Wally World to buy a pillow (yay $3 bargain bin!).

I fired off the proposal I was working on at 10:30 from the lobby of the local McD's (yay free WiFi!) and set out to find a suitable camping spot. Dark, quiet, cozy - you know, all the things one could want for a back seat adventure. And in fact, I had just settled in to my selected location when another species of back seat adventurers arrived and parked a short distance away. Then another. And then a couple of what appeared to be purveyors of illicit goods, just for good measure.

Oh. Right. Dark, quiet, cozy. I've really lost my edge the past twenty years or so - this hadn't even occurred to me. I felt almost embarrassingly straight, just standing there brushing my teeth and applying witch hazel toner with an organic cotton ball, beside my truck full of botanical guides and granola bars, while these people carried on with their shady weeknight activities. (Seriously people! On a Monday?!)

I relocated to a well-lit, bustling location and settled in for an uncomfortable night of little sleep.

I don't believe in bucket lists - I don't need another to-do list interfering with my life - but when something sortof rad and random happens to pop up, I jot it down on the post-hoc list I've got going. I call it the Tuckeb List, 'cause Anti-Bucket List and Fuck-it Bucket were already taken.

Spend the night in a parking lot? Check.

Sweet.

Cougar Monitor

There is something about ambiguous product names that makes me crazy. Like, baby wipes, I get it - clearly they are wipes for babies, not wipes made of babies. That's easy. But it took me forever to work up the courage to read the label on the bottle of fish sauce and see whether it was sauce for fish or sauce of fish. (Spoiler alert: it's of fish. Fermented fish. Ick.) And clam juice? Like, how the heck does one juice clams? But there it is, hidden in the fine print, presumably because that is just so damn gross that it can't be advertised directly in the name (e.g., Juice of Clams).

It seems really quite immoral that companies are allowed on one hand to advertise Made With Real Fruit Juice! in big bold print to trick stupid people into thinking that gummy candies are ever anything even close to being "fruit", yet on the other hand keep the whole "we have squeezed clams for your dining pleasure" business on the down low. Those companies probably all have some sneaky wordsmith on board, fine-printing their way straight to the bank. What kind of jerk makes a living writing weasel words to give the dubious products of big corporations a veneer of wholesomeness? I mean, not me, that's for sure...

Ahem.

So I was out doing some field work this past week - alone (my fave!) - when I got an emergency stand down call from the office: "There's been a cougar sighting 30 miles away - we're sending someone out to escort you around. Just wait in your truck until they get there."

Multiple ironies are woven into this little nugget. The painfully obvious: unless that particular cougar was a serial killer who planned on hitching a ride to my site to do away with me that very afternoon, the likelihood of my being eaten by a cougar had not increased at all by virtue of someone having laid eyes on one 30 miles away.

Secondly, it had only been a few minutes since I had hunkered down for a snack of celery sticks and peanut butter and pondered how pleasant it was to not be working in bear country where you have to think about actively making yourself seem not-delicious - oh yeah. Cougars too. Whoops.

And finally, who did they send out to act as Cougar Monitor for this middle-aged lady but a cute li'l 20-year-old boy.

Monitor for... or monitor of? The name reveals naught.

Dance Fever

We bought Small Fry a clock radio for his birthday. It's shaped like a giant Lego brick (a two-er, if you're interested) (red) and it has since become an unexpected source of joy and consternation in our house. As is often the case with such things, the joy is his; the consternation mine.

Small Fry L-O-V-E-S his clock radio. He spends every morning dancing around his room in various stages of undress, and I spend every morning yelling PUT. YOUR. PANTS. ON! RIGHT NOW! But every song is a song he loves, and songs he loves just make him dance around naked. No amount of parental disapproval or threats of tardiness for school are going to change that. He's gonna be a hit in college.

If it was just music, that would be one thing. But there are also ads, and announcements, and news on the radio. Small Fry will come bolting into my room - usually naked - and announce breathlessly, "Mommy! There has been a multi-vehicle collision on the Calf Robe Bridge! Emergency services are on the scene!" then run back to his room to catch the next thrill coming down the pipes.

Thanks to Small Fry's clock radio, we have learned A Great Many Things at our house. We have learned that Calaway Park was opening (dammit!). That a wine festival was happening on the weekend (sweet!). That komodo dragons and a rhinoceros are coming to the Zoo. That McDonald's now offers three delicious flavours of iced frappe: coffee, caramel and vanilla chai tea. That Hooters is the ultimate Father's Day destination ("Mommy, we have to take Daddy to Hooters! My radio told me!"). That if we shop at Old Navy, we could win an incredible Brazilian adventure to the World Cup.

(Good golly. I just commissioned a Brazilian adventure expressly for Father's Day - do I really have to suffer through Old Navy and Hooters too?)

I had sortof forgotten about this Eerily Accurate Recall Stage (EARS) - Medium Fry went through it too, years ago. Seeing EARS in action again really strengthens my resolve to limit my children's exposure to advertising, because I find it seriously disturbing to see just how effective it is on the impressionable young mind. Just like smoking, I guess you've gotta catch 'em young if you want them to tirelessly campaign to go visit the new rhinoceros or celebrate Father's Day in an olde-tyme fried food and misogyny theme park, because surely no one else is listening.

But he drew a portrait - a loving, detailed, and vaguely Cubist portrait - of his clock radio on the table at Montana's the other night. With the numbers all square like digital clocks show them, and a happy stick version of himself dancing beside it. (Probably naked.) And my resolve to save him from the dangers of Hooters ads weakened.

Besides. I wouldn't have known about that wine festival if he hadn't told me.