All right, all right, I realize it has been a while.

I'm in Huntsville. Enjoying the fact that there is a Zellers and Dollarama within a 10 minute walking radius. Clearly I appreciate the high brow things in life. You try living without Dollarama for 4 months and see how you cope. I am never paying $3 for bobby pins again in my life.

I'm sitting in my bed in my big bright room. Which I think is the perfect setting to write a few blogs about my mom coming up to Dawson City. I meant to write them earlier but the whole moving across the country thing got in the way.

Mom's arrival in Dawson City was great fun. It was great fun because I got to drive my coworker's car out of town all the way to the airport. And when I met my mom she had not met up with my co-worker Nancy who was also on the flight with her. It was a flight of about 40 people. Nancy was on the flight with me when I went up to Dawson.

I drove Mom back to town and I am convinced she took about 100 pictures in the 16 km span between the airport and town. And for those of you wondering what she took pictures of. Not too much because there really isn't much on that drive. The highlights include: dredge trailings under snow, the department of highways and all of their equipment, the dump, 2 gas stations, and a bridge.

I decided she needed to get a taste for how cold it was so I took her up to Robert Services cabin and she almost lost a few fingers taking pictures at the cabin.

Lunch time was quite the treat. I had chicken fingers. She had a buffalo burger. Now this is not the Ontario version of buffalo burger where they put hot sauce on chicken, this is real ground buffalo shaped into a pattie. It tasted great. Its a lot leaner than ground beef.

You know what really grinds my buffalo?

In Ontario we call it Garbage...

I went on a field trip last friday. It was my first time leaving town since I arrived in Dawson on December 5. Picture that for a moment. Never leaving the boundaries of a town for 3 months. Its just such a strange concept in Ontario because there are so many other communities around. We are isolated up here. Whitehorse is 6 hours away by car. Carmacks is closer. But why on earth would you want to go there.

On to the trip. It was an exciting trip. Wanda had been promising to take me to "the free store" for a few days and I was tingling with anticipation. (Not much else has been going on in my life).

We drove down the highway and got to the dump road which hadn't been plowed. Which was bad because it has snowed for 12 straight hours the day before (a rarity up here). I was worried this small car was going to slide into a ditch and we would be stuck and die. (Nobody has cell phones up here and apparently they don't work out of town). We made it safely to the Free Store.

Now I know you are all going to rush to judge me and I am ok with that. Here in the Yukon we are resourceful and are attempting to save the planet by not putting everything in the landfill. That is the purpose of the free store. Also it houses a squirrel.

There are children's toys, books, clothing, bedding, appliances, and old computer bits. I went straight for the books. You can't take your mittens off at the free store. Despite the fact that it is covered it is Darn cold. And there is snow on the clothing. I took Death of a Salesman, and this other random book that looked funny. I was slightly disappointed to see not one, but two copies of one of my favourite books. But what can you do. I also picked up a corel plate (which has subsequently been soaked in bleach).

Wanda got some books and walked up the mountain of clothing. I wish I had my camera. This would make these stories far more interesting. I also got a "winner" medal for my coworker Jo who is working like a madwoman. I'm going to give it to her when her program is over.

If you have any questions about the free store I will answer them. If you want to judge me hold your judgement until you too have lived in the Yukon for 3 months.

One week

As you might have noticed I have been quite quiet lately. I do not have internet at my new place. So I've been crafty and have been sneaking into my old place to use the internet that I am paying for. And I have been using the phone too. It's not like the house is Fort Knox. It doesn't get locked. And the guys in the house don't really care if I'm there.

Some times I get crafty and use my own phone in my old room.

Anyway back to the point of my post. Mom is coming in a week!!! Yes it does deserve 3 exclamation points. Mom is flying from Toronto to Vancouver and then from Vancouver to Whitehorse and then from Whitehorse to Dawson. The trip to see me is not a short one. When I flew up here from civilization my coworker Nancy met me in the Whitehorse airport and we flew up together. Apparently Nancy is flying up with my mom too!

My mom will be engaging in the typical Dawson Activities... spending too much on food, layering up, and volunteering. She will be taking part in my coworker Jo's program "A Night in the Museum" which I am looking forward to helping out with. Grade 5 and 6 kids will become characters coming to Dawson in the gold rush.

I am all alone at work again. No more assistant. So I've taken to having conversations with myself. Because I miss my witty banter with Wanda.

This is going to be a 2 for 1 day. Yay for 2 blogs!

Owie

I am now in my new place... right next door to my old place.

If you will recall my previous post I detailed the icy stairs of death. 3 Months and the Stairs decide to kick me in the butt on the way out.

As I'm moving (with my stuff in garbage bags) I think I'm doing pretty well. Finally its time for my last load. I have all of my non-perishable food in 3 boxes 2 of them in the biggest one.

I get to the second stair and within seconds I'm on the bottom stair on my ass with groceries all around me. It was a pretty impressive fall. And even more impressive is that fact that I'm not hurt. I survived it relatively unscathed. I'm bruised and I lost an entire box of whole wheat spaghetini. And I can't sue the bastards.

Apparently the fall rattled my brain and has affected my ability to write. Better posts later.

Movin on up

Hi,
Guess what? I'm moving out of the Ghetto House! For those of you who aren't able to see my facebook pictures I thought I'd post some of the highlights of the house on here.

This is the side entrance that doesn't have the icy stairs of death. It is also nowhere near my room. I rarely use this far safer option. Maybe I subconsciously do it because I want to fall down and break my arm and sue the pants off my slumlords. As of this week there is a nice dog urine stain on the bottom icy step of death.

This is the tub surround from my shower that doesn't work. Well I suppose it works if you enjoy having cold water squirt out at you while only scalding hot water comes out of the showerhead. Personally not my ideal shower. Its alright though. The tub will fall through the floor soon because the caulking hasn't been doing its job for a while. I'm sure there are mold issues. Thank goodness I don't own this house.

This is the kitchen. My fridge leaks. There is quite the little puddle in the bottom of it and on the floor outside of it. The microwave is a dial that only has 20 second and 1 minute increments. God forbid I want something cooked for 30 seconds. And you can't see it in this picture but this carpet is hideous. Its something people in Ontario would reject for their cottages. And shacks. But good news for future occupants of the house. The landlords are ripping it up and putting in wood floors. (By wood it may end up being the subfloor but they claim hard wood will be put in, the plan is to do this before they fix the plumbing in my bathroom, smart slumlords, real smart).

See the Tv in the TV room. Its not there anymore. Neither are the lamps or the fans. They have all been snarfed (look at my Yukon Dictionary) by other people who have lived in the house while I have lived here. I don't even know if the curtains are still there. The couches are hideous and are covered by even more hideous comforters.

And I left the best for last. My room. In this picture you cannot see the sexy times shag carpet. It is a cream colour. Not white, maybe it was back in 1972 when it was put in. There is dog hair. In my one attempt to vaccuum the room more dog hair spit back out of the vaccuum. That is when I stopped vaccuuming.

You also can't see it in this picture but my bed schlumps toward the right (if you were in it) it has a dent, or divot for those of you golfers out there.

The Wood panel walls scream attractiveness. The print of the Waterfall over the bed has not caused me to wet the bed but that doesn't mean there isn't still urine on the mattress. There is also a sketchy stain that looks like blood. I don't generally like sleeping on a bed where somebody could have bled to death. Or spilled fruit punch. I'm one of the lucky people in the house who have a baseboard heater that works. One of my roommates had her books freeze to the walls of her room. (I'm not even making this up). Two of the drawers in my dresser don't actually have bottoms. Thus rendering them useless. My windows were frosted over for the better part of 2 months. I can finally see out of them now. The closet is the best part of my room. If only someone hadn't nailed "the ulgurtain" in front of it. uglurtain is an assimilation of the words ugly and curtain. And yet it cannot describe the sheer eye pain it causes. Maybe I could sue for eye damage.


I could go on but I need to leave things for future blog posts. I'm planning on bleaching everything I own that is safe to bleach. Maybe that will help me feel clean again.

Doggies.

I realize it has been a long time. So I am going to try to make this post extra-mega-super-awesometastic.

http://www.yukonquest.com/

If you go to this website the entire blog post will make a lot more sense.

The Yukon Quest is this killer dog sled race which goes from Whitehorse to Fairbanks, Alaska. Take that Iditerod. Anyway, last week was Quest week in Dawson. Which meant Town came to life!

There was a lot of pressure from my coworkers to see a dog sled team to come in. The teams have to come into Dawson and have a mandatory 36 hour rest period. At which point the dogs get massages and the people get to eat.

I planned on hitting up the concession stand because I figured there would be at least 5 different kind of chilis there and lets face it, I hate cooking for myself. I hit the jackpot at the concession however, some wonderful member of the community had brought in sushi. I love the stuff! So I had sushi. It was spectacular:) I also had moose chilli but I'm concerned she mixed it up with the beef one because it tasted quite beefy. At least I can say I ordered moose chili.

And then as I finished eating people started to pour out of the building to see the sled come in. Admittedly, it was a bit anticlimactic but when in the Yukon. Its one of those things that just has to be done!

I will summarize this in 5 words now. Dog.Sled.Sushi.Cold.Mush. (That was almost poetic).

Reputation

I'm starting to get quite the reputation around Dawson City. Don't worry Family, its not for any bad reasons, trust me.

I am becoming known as the girl who wears the pink kids boots.

The story is as follows:

In November 2008 I was in Belleville at the Quinte Mall. After a long Peterborough winter the year before I refused to not have good winter boots to keep my feet warm and dry. I didn't care how I looked all I wanted was a sock protector. Because if you do not know this yet I HATE having wet/damp socks. I thought I was going to be in Kingston for the winter so the -20 cold rating seemed adequate.

It is now February. And when I went to the art show a few weeks ago my coworker's friend (who works with my classmate) looked down and was like... "Oh you are the lady with the pink kids boots". I was like "you better believe it". Why would I pay more when a size 4 with velcro fits me perfectly? Despite the fact that they were advertised to -20 with a pair of thermal socks they were perfect in -50 weather.

To summarize (ha you could have had to only read this one sentence) my pink boots with stars on them make me known around town and are super cool.