The cabin at Shuswap Lake does not have internet. Geothermal temperature control, yes. Internet, no. So no updates until August 2nd.
Shuswap Lake temperature high today: 36°C! (97°F) I'll be underwater most of the time.
Shuswap Lake temperature high today: 36°C! (97°F) I'll be underwater most of the time.
Our furnace and hot water heater are powered by natural gas. This is perfectly safe technology. Perfectly safe. It used to be perfectly cheap too, but costs have been rising this year, which is good if you are the B.C. economy, but bad if you are, like me, the recipient of the bi-monthly gas bill.
As Spring progressed, the bills we got showed that our costs increased as the weather improved, which was slightly backwards to my expectation. We used the furnace less, and yet we owed more... Must be the rise in natural gas prices. "Chelle, try and cut your showers down to less than 15 minutes, for the love of Yog!" I would uncharitably scold.
Spring revved up into Summer. Things got hot. The furnace was turned off for good, not to be messed with again until October. The bills remained high. I'm no economist. What do I know about the ups and downs of the global oil and gas industry, except that the ups are inevitable? I drive my damn car to the pump and pay whatever it takes to fill the tank, just like everyone else. It costs a lot. I pay it. End of story. Except.
Today Rachelle was painting the gas meter purple. Not all purple. Just enough to make it "funky" instead of "industrial', maybe. I'm no expert in the psychology of the female mind. And she smelled gas. So she called the gas company, and sort of apologized for even phoning. They sent a guy out right away.
I don't know about you, but when a company like Terasen sends out a technician right away, that's the signal to me that something is very, very wrong. Only paramedics and firemen turn up on your doorstep with that kind of response time. "Don't light any matches or cigarettes nearby," said the customer service representative, "or anything that might set the gas alight." Um, like a barbecue? Like, the barbecue which has been sitting not 3 meters away grilling steaks, burgers, and weinies over AN OPEN FLAME for the last T minus six months? I can't believe we didn't find ourselves sitting atop a pillar of fire on our way up to the big Picnic in the Sky.
So Mr. Gas Man replaced the roundy bit in the picture, because yes, it was leaking. So our bills were high because we were releasing unknown amounts of natural gas into and around our home.
Come to think of it, a gas leak would explain the headaches, rubber-legs, weakness, loss of eyesight, vomiting, diarrhea, Tourette's syndrome, and occasional seizures. And all those bad things I did. I would definitely recommend this perfectly safe technology to anyone looking for both a home heating solution and low-grade chronic nausea.
I manfully tackled the mammoth portions: shoveling, gobbling, grunting. Didn't chew much - waste of energy. A small crowd formed, their faces aghast with horror and amazement at first, but they began to thrill to the vigour of my macrophagery, each forkful a step closer to victory, and before long they were cheering and stamping and waving their arms about, eyes bugging out of their heads in disbelief and sheer excitement. Their hurrahs drew more people, and soon the entire airport had gathered around - they were doing the wave, they were singing English football songs and taking their shirts off to whirl them in the air - the place was in a fever pitch, and I had never felt so "on" in my entire life. My arm pumped like a piston, plate to mouth, plate to mouth. My jaws gnawed and mashed tirelessly as if they were made of iron. I was alive, I tell you, alive and eating.
When the final moment came, when I had cleared away all but the last morsel, you could have a heard a pin drop. The air was alive with tension. I lifted up the last forkful, and a hundred faces leaned in closer. A faint smile played across my lips and I paused. Just for a moment. Just to make them sweat. Then I popped it in my mouth, chewing fluidly, polishing off the last bits of rice and pita and feta cheese in masterful triumphant swallows, and the crowd leapt up with a thunderous shout, a crashing wonderful noise that shook the rooftop. I saw strangers hugging each other in fierce joy, businessmen punching the air for victory with tears streaming down their cheeks, and then they all came at me in a wave, lifted me into the air and carried me on their shoulders in a spontaneous victory lap around the waiting area. It was perhaps the finest day of my life.
When the final moment came, when I had cleared away all but the last morsel, you could have a heard a pin drop. The air was alive with tension. I lifted up the last forkful, and a hundred faces leaned in closer. A faint smile played across my lips and I paused. Just for a moment. Just to make them sweat. Then I popped it in my mouth, chewing fluidly, polishing off the last bits of rice and pita and feta cheese in masterful triumphant swallows, and the crowd leapt up with a thunderous shout, a crashing wonderful noise that shook the rooftop. I saw strangers hugging each other in fierce joy, businessmen punching the air for victory with tears streaming down their cheeks, and then they all came at me in a wave, lifted me into the air and carried me on their shoulders in a spontaneous victory lap around the waiting area. It was perhaps the finest day of my life.
Truth is an absolute, and we at Peaeater & Co. are committed to nothing less than 190% truthfulness at all times. Ficklegruber flogs the plain, Prodnose the unvarnished, and Slugworth the so-called whole, but only Peaeater & Sons Ltd. can deliver up to one hundred and ninety percent truth with every assertion.
How do we do it? How does Peaeater Transnational Inc. pack all that truth into every single statement? The answer? Because it's better! Yes! Take advantage of our patented* TruthGro formula, guaranteed, right here on www.peaeater.com!
Visit early, visit often, to ensure your supply never runs out! Never! Runs! Out!
A paid service announcement from the good people at Peaeater OmniMultiGlobex Corporation.
How do we do it? How does Peaeater Transnational Inc. pack all that truth into every single statement? The answer? Because it's better! Yes! Take advantage of our patented* TruthGro formula, guaranteed, right here on www.peaeater.com!
Visit early, visit often, to ensure your supply never runs out! Never! Runs! Out!
A paid service announcement from the good people at Peaeater OmniMultiGlobex Corporation.
This is a running debate. The question is: How long should you keep a greeting card?
I personally believe the sentiment has been received immediately upon reading the card, that in fact a transfer of sentiment has been made from card to brain in that moment, and that the card itself can be discarded within minutes, its fuel spent, its mission complete: sentiment launched safely into orbit.
Others, and here I mean my opinionated spouse, believe the card is to be enshrined for a length of time directly proportional to a) the virtue and perhaps b) the sheer amount of sentiment, a number of days (or weeks or months) arrived at through the application of an instinctual algebra occult and arcane.
And I ask her, how do you get to that point where *yesterday* the card retained enough sentiment to remain on display, but *today* cannot produce enough to save it from the bin? Did it spring a leak?
Maybe I've got the metaphor there. Maybe the card releases a fragrant nostalgic perfume that I, in my rough and shambling evolution, have never learned to smell. Maybe I prefer one big long snort.
I personally believe the sentiment has been received immediately upon reading the card, that in fact a transfer of sentiment has been made from card to brain in that moment, and that the card itself can be discarded within minutes, its fuel spent, its mission complete: sentiment launched safely into orbit.
Others, and here I mean my opinionated spouse, believe the card is to be enshrined for a length of time directly proportional to a) the virtue and perhaps b) the sheer amount of sentiment, a number of days (or weeks or months) arrived at through the application of an instinctual algebra occult and arcane.
And I ask her, how do you get to that point where *yesterday* the card retained enough sentiment to remain on display, but *today* cannot produce enough to save it from the bin? Did it spring a leak?
Maybe I've got the metaphor there. Maybe the card releases a fragrant nostalgic perfume that I, in my rough and shambling evolution, have never learned to smell. Maybe I prefer one big long snort.
Yesterday, during all the confusion, I accidentally turned six and thirty.
Trust me, it won't happen again.
Trust me, it won't happen again.
Now, I hate spam as much as the next fellow. I'll kick up some dust, shake my fist at the sky and howl and such, because I'm theatrical, but really I know I'm mortal and that nothing can stop the daily drenching from this spittle of the gods. Stoicism meets clownism. Into every life a little rain must pratfall.
But THIS guy is a very angry individual. Also a cretin. Angrism and cretinism combine to form a very powerful personal philosophy, popular in certain Western countries where the sense of entitlement monsterizes in the presence of too many Walmarts.
Unaware that the spam originated from his email address in the first place and that my inbox is merely bouncing it back to him, he's going to sue my, um, thing-hole. I ask myself, is that legally, or gosh, even anatomically possible? "Next on the dock, your Honour, we have Cretin vs. Hole. All rise!" Fecit rem qui olfecit 1, I shall cry to judge and jury, which in this case is perfectly and even technically true.
Take a listen. I clipped it before it got *really* colourful, but it's still not suitable for younger types.
Mr. Cretin gets on the horn without "Thinking It Through"
1 he who smelt it, dealt it
But THIS guy is a very angry individual. Also a cretin. Angrism and cretinism combine to form a very powerful personal philosophy, popular in certain Western countries where the sense of entitlement monsterizes in the presence of too many Walmarts.
Unaware that the spam originated from his email address in the first place and that my inbox is merely bouncing it back to him, he's going to sue my, um, thing-hole. I ask myself, is that legally, or gosh, even anatomically possible? "Next on the dock, your Honour, we have Cretin vs. Hole. All rise!" Fecit rem qui olfecit 1, I shall cry to judge and jury, which in this case is perfectly and even technically true.
Take a listen. I clipped it before it got *really* colourful, but it's still not suitable for younger types.
Mr. Cretin gets on the horn without "Thinking It Through"
1 he who smelt it, dealt it
But wait! I'm back from the moose-wrassling capital of Canada. I outwitted the pungent musk-ox, outperformed the burly bison (aerial stunts in a ball gown category), and ate over 3 dozen corn dogs to best the wapiti, before I was run off the field, squealing like a little girl, by the mighty mosquito.
I really did see a moose. A big bull male who could have snaffled me up or trampled me down, his choice, if he hadn't run off. This was on our way to canoeing the Takhini river, which we completely canoed - we canoed it good. And baked bannock-on-a-stick, and brewed Labrador tea picked 30 paces from the boiling kettle, and sundry other outdoor pursuits, which I may twist into sundry Tall Tales, time permitting, in future posts.
I really did see a moose. A big bull male who could have snaffled me up or trampled me down, his choice, if he hadn't run off. This was on our way to canoeing the Takhini river, which we completely canoed - we canoed it good. And baked bannock-on-a-stick, and brewed Labrador tea picked 30 paces from the boiling kettle, and sundry other outdoor pursuits, which I may twist into sundry Tall Tales, time permitting, in future posts.
On Wednesday we answer the Call of the North and follow the footsteps of the Klondike gold seekers. Or some such romantic claptrap. But we ARE going to the Yukon, by grueling jet plane, there to visit Mike, Fawn, and Jade (and Nanuq and Crook) and find out just why exactly they chose, of their own accord, to live there, and whether it's infectious. Likely I'll end up in a foetal ball in the Walmart parking lot.
In other news, Rachelle' union managed to negotiate a contract signing bonus (after posturing like a rutting silverback gorilla throughout the bargaining process) so she's on the lookout for a Nikon D50 camera this summer.
In other news, Rachelle' union managed to negotiate a contract signing bonus (after posturing like a rutting silverback gorilla throughout the bargaining process) so she's on the lookout for a Nikon D50 camera this summer.
