A while back, I asked you to send us your questions and we would answer whatever you came up with. You certainly didn't let us down!
Wednesday, April 30, 2014
Monday, April 28, 2014
New and Scary
My long-term substitute role at the school has finally ended, and I am back to being an on-call sub. This means less work, but there is still plenty of need, so I expect I will still be going in most days, hopefully. Teaching grade 10 was a great learning experience, and unlike any teaching role I've had in the past. It was equal parts challenging and rewarding, and it's a great feeling, knowing that you're enriching a student's life, or just preventing them from sleeping through class (those are the two extremes). It's also nice having a mid-week break at times, to catch up on things that are usually forgotten or delayed, like laundry, cleaning, and flushing the toilets immediately after the sewer truck comes to minimize the poop smell that otherwise permeates the house shortly afterwards.
In other words, things we all forget to do.
I also get to watch a new show we are taping on our PVR, one that Lily is reticent to watch with me. It's called "When Ghosts Attack", and you can guess the show format based on the title. We like to watch shows like Paranormal Witness and Ghost Hunters, which contain scary moments, but this new show is terrifying. Let's just say that we are thankful it is still pretty light out when we are getting ready for bed. I love it, but Lily will stick with Grey's Anatomy for now I think. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend it. Just don't do it before bedtime.
-J
In other words, things we all forget to do.
I also get to watch a new show we are taping on our PVR, one that Lily is reticent to watch with me. It's called "When Ghosts Attack", and you can guess the show format based on the title. We like to watch shows like Paranormal Witness and Ghost Hunters, which contain scary moments, but this new show is terrifying. Let's just say that we are thankful it is still pretty light out when we are getting ready for bed. I love it, but Lily will stick with Grey's Anatomy for now I think. If you haven't watched it, I highly recommend it. Just don't do it before bedtime.
-J
Friday, April 25, 2014
I can almost taste it. Summer, I mean.
Unbelievable! The other day I was talking about spring, and warm(ish) weather, and Mother Nature must have heard the hopefulness in my voice. That cruel, cruel deity.
The next day, it snowed. And it's been a balmy -30 or so with windchill since then. A far cry from the -3 of a few days ago.
Undaunted, Lily and I decided it was time to celebrate spring regardless of the ridiculous reading from the thermometer. We had recently inherited several cases of tonic water, so I took it upon myself to mix up a few G&T's for my wife and I. Lily likes hers with a touch of agave syrup, and I must say, it takes the edge off quite nicely.
As a child, I was repulsed by tonic water. Club soda, I felt, at least had the decency to not add any adverse flavour to a drink. Indeed, club soda had no flavour, really, yet cost far less than Perrier. Was I the only child smirking at people who were spending way too much on fizzy water? Unlike my wife who claims she was bottle-fed on it (yes, she is a princess) and has grown up loving bubbles in her H2O. Anyway, I remember going to the fridge looking for something to drink one evening and spotting a yellow can, I grabbed it and read "Tonic water". I figured tonic was another word for seltzer, which meant this can would be a great thirst-quencher.
Wrong. So wrong.
I took one sip and spat it out immediately. I thought it must have gone rancid somehow, because that couldn't be what it was supposed to taste like, surely. Unless the liquor my parents occasionally drank was ultra-sweet, and having sipped one or two, I knew that to not be the case. Why would someone take an awful-tasting substance like gin, and cut it with something that tasted worse? What was wrong with these people? Who in their right mind would choose gin and tonic over Kahlua?
Enter my grandmother. She swears by gin, although she cheats a little, and drinks it with diet 7-up, which is just sweet enough to barely mitigate the unpleasantness of gin. Seriously, for those of you who haven't tried it, knock back a slug of gin sometime. You will forever after love the flavour of everything else in comparison.
That said, I now enjoy G&T's, and Lily and I enjoyed a few cocktails before dinner. G&T's are nominally a summer drink, but summer is so short up here, we have to start enjoying summer early, and since we can't wear our bathing suits yet, gin and tonic is the method we must use to remind ourselves that the end of winter is less than three months away. The things we do. Hurray.
-J
The next day, it snowed. And it's been a balmy -30 or so with windchill since then. A far cry from the -3 of a few days ago.
Undaunted, Lily and I decided it was time to celebrate spring regardless of the ridiculous reading from the thermometer. We had recently inherited several cases of tonic water, so I took it upon myself to mix up a few G&T's for my wife and I. Lily likes hers with a touch of agave syrup, and I must say, it takes the edge off quite nicely.
As a child, I was repulsed by tonic water. Club soda, I felt, at least had the decency to not add any adverse flavour to a drink. Indeed, club soda had no flavour, really, yet cost far less than Perrier. Was I the only child smirking at people who were spending way too much on fizzy water? Unlike my wife who claims she was bottle-fed on it (yes, she is a princess) and has grown up loving bubbles in her H2O. Anyway, I remember going to the fridge looking for something to drink one evening and spotting a yellow can, I grabbed it and read "Tonic water". I figured tonic was another word for seltzer, which meant this can would be a great thirst-quencher.
Wrong. So wrong.
I took one sip and spat it out immediately. I thought it must have gone rancid somehow, because that couldn't be what it was supposed to taste like, surely. Unless the liquor my parents occasionally drank was ultra-sweet, and having sipped one or two, I knew that to not be the case. Why would someone take an awful-tasting substance like gin, and cut it with something that tasted worse? What was wrong with these people? Who in their right mind would choose gin and tonic over Kahlua?
Enter my grandmother. She swears by gin, although she cheats a little, and drinks it with diet 7-up, which is just sweet enough to barely mitigate the unpleasantness of gin. Seriously, for those of you who haven't tried it, knock back a slug of gin sometime. You will forever after love the flavour of everything else in comparison.
That said, I now enjoy G&T's, and Lily and I enjoyed a few cocktails before dinner. G&T's are nominally a summer drink, but summer is so short up here, we have to start enjoying summer early, and since we can't wear our bathing suits yet, gin and tonic is the method we must use to remind ourselves that the end of winter is less than three months away. The things we do. Hurray.
-J
Wednesday, April 23, 2014
Mud: the Spring of the North
Here it is, mid-April, and while the rest of the country is prepping their lawns with fertilizer and planting the first annual bulbs of their gardens, we here in Baker Lake are witnessing significant changes as well. Granted, the landscape is still a near-uniform white, and the temperature has yet to reach above zero, but there are differences now that spring is in full-force. Obviously, we don't possess the same markers as you Southerners; namely, trees and similar greenery re-acquiring their leaves, and birds tweeting (birds have always been the original tweeters, and would have made a fortune if they had copy written the term), and rain.
While Baker Lake is home to our beloved, if slightly stupid, seagull variant known as Ptarmigan (or "Ptasty", depending on who you ask), they do not show up until late May, and are not known for their melodic harmonies. Instead of birds, we look forward to the low buzzing hum, generated by the wings of hundreds of thousands of mosquitoes and black flies. Actually, we won't have to endure that terrible affliction until summer, or mid-August. No, the subtle maneuverings of Mother Nature in Baker Lake consist chiefly of longer days, cold weather, and mud. The roads are already starting to soften and things are getting messy around here.
We are still a tad too chilly for rain, but with the days growing longer, the sun is working mightily to melt the snow off our roofs, and transform our once-winter-picturesque community into a churning, muddy morass. Gone are the insulated, 20lbs boots, and out come the galoshes. It is finally warm enough to take Pepper on outdoor walks, but we make him wear his booties, which he understandably detests, but they are super cute, and more importantly, make cleanup of a muddy canine much easier. As mentioned, the days are also lengthening, and we now see dusk at around 9pm. It's 7:30pm as I type this, and it's as sunny as it was 4 hours ago.
It's a welcome change over dark days and unbearable cold. Though, a sobering warning from a local reminded us that we shouldn't get too excited just yet; more winter will be coming (our last blizzard last year was in June). For now, we'll take our extended days and enjoy them while we can.
-J
While Baker Lake is home to our beloved, if slightly stupid, seagull variant known as Ptarmigan (or "Ptasty", depending on who you ask), they do not show up until late May, and are not known for their melodic harmonies. Instead of birds, we look forward to the low buzzing hum, generated by the wings of hundreds of thousands of mosquitoes and black flies. Actually, we won't have to endure that terrible affliction until summer, or mid-August. No, the subtle maneuverings of Mother Nature in Baker Lake consist chiefly of longer days, cold weather, and mud. The roads are already starting to soften and things are getting messy around here.
We are still a tad too chilly for rain, but with the days growing longer, the sun is working mightily to melt the snow off our roofs, and transform our once-winter-picturesque community into a churning, muddy morass. Gone are the insulated, 20lbs boots, and out come the galoshes. It is finally warm enough to take Pepper on outdoor walks, but we make him wear his booties, which he understandably detests, but they are super cute, and more importantly, make cleanup of a muddy canine much easier. As mentioned, the days are also lengthening, and we now see dusk at around 9pm. It's 7:30pm as I type this, and it's as sunny as it was 4 hours ago.
It's a welcome change over dark days and unbearable cold. Though, a sobering warning from a local reminded us that we shouldn't get too excited just yet; more winter will be coming (our last blizzard last year was in June). For now, we'll take our extended days and enjoy them while we can.
-J
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