The Ultimate in Compliments (OR Shotgun Wedding, anyone?)

It was an extremely busy day around here. We’re in the midst of renovating and building and getting on each other’s last nerves. It’s been a tense, tiring and beer filled week, and I was a little pissed off when I got relegated to hanging out in the kitchen all afternoon to prep dinner instead of taking the afternoon off to go kayaking like I’d planned. Nevertheless, I took to my kitchen wench duties with gusto, even making diabetic dad a sugar-free carrot cake for his belated father’s day party tomorrow.

After all the veggies were grilled, the meat was cooked, a bottle of wine was consumed and I’d managed to get 2 parents, 1 brother, 1 cousin, the farmer from down the road, and his kid, to the table to eat, I got the ultimate redneck compliment:

The farmer turned to me before he took his first bite and said, “Well, you’ll sure make some man a good wife someday.”

And that, my friends, is what all good little redneck children are raised for.

A Breeder choosing not to

I fear I've pissed someone off.

Those people that know and love me have all had to deal with my long winded tirades on why I'm planning on being childless by choice, and how irked I am by those who believe parenting is the only reason we're on earth.

Those that don't are often dumbstruck by why I would choose not to.

I get everything from, "But you're able to right? Like you're healthy and everything?", to, "Well then, who will take care of you when you're older?". As if the concept of saving for your retirement, or having better things to do with your time than to throw up for 9 months straight (followed by 3 almost completely sleepless years), are completely foreign ideas.

Friends with children: I'm sure your kids are lovely, and that their arrival changed your life and you're blissfully happy and I'm not going to begrudge you that. I'm very happy for all of you. Wanna try doing the same for me? After all.. I'm the one buying the shower gifts and honestly never expecting anything in return except those mini-quiches you served as appetizers.

I am perfectly content being the 'aunt' that is going to spoil your kids rotten. I love kids. Just for short periods of time. I'm no good at cleaning up the various battle wounds acquired by rambunctious tots, and changing a diaper is something I haven't done since my (now 15 year old) brother was a baby. I am really good at shopping and playing with toys.

So just a quick FYI, I wasn't trying to be a bitch when I told you I guess I wasn't going to know who I really was if finding out required having kids. After 7 long years of trying to justify my choice to every baby crazy person in my life, my defence mechanism is to respond to things tongue in cheek. No offense.

Hooray for Days Off

I got to work tonight to discover a parking lot full of vehicles. For most people this would be the normal course of events, but for me, it only indicates that something is up since at 8 pm the only vehicle that should ever be in the parking lot is the night security guard.

Sure enough, something was up.

Evidently a baggie of cocaine was discovered somewhere on site today, and they were busy putting all the remaining staff members through their drug tests to find the culprit (I assume). I say remaining because I've been informed that somewhere between 30 and 60 employees walked off the job today, either due to frustration or to the fear of not passing the test. Since I am located in Northern BC, I'm willing to bet money that it's the latter.

The results are in tomorrow, and until they're in, and things get figured out, the job has been postponed until at least Monday. I'm very happy to have the day off tomorrow, but less than enthusiastic about the prospect that with half their workforce absent this job could run a lot longer than the next 9 days like previously planned.

Not that I mind the money, but oddly enough, I like sleeping in and not being sore, too.

Taken with a Grain of Salt

In all the trip planning I've been doing, I've discovered one invaluable piece of wisdom that I'd like to impart to everyone that is also planning a trip:

Don't heed anyone's advice on places to see, not to see, things to do, not to do, etc. if it conflicts with your plans.

I've also discovered that anyone who has ever travelled Europe, landed in Europe once enroute to somewhere else or read a book on Europe is now an expert on the continent.

I've been told that a) Madrid is beautiful and the people are friendly, b) that Madrid should be avoided at all costs since it's not anglophile-friendly and the men are lecherous and c) that Spain is overrated altogether unless you're going during the fiesta season/festival of San Fermín in Pamplona for their 'encierro'.

I've been told that, a) I NEED to see the Vatican when I'm in Rome because it's the best part of the city, b) that the Vatican only appeals to the zealous Catholic (and that as a lapsed Catholic who hasn't stepped foot in a church in half a decade, it would only be a waste of time) and c) that I should go see the Sistine Chapel and then vacate the Vatican immediately as the crime rate is horrendous there.

I've been warned that a) gypsy pickpockets are in no short supply, b) that the gypsy pickpocket warnings are urban legend and they are a rarity and c) that the gypsy pickpockets will throw babies at me in order to rob me of my money.

Obviously everyone has their own ideas of what to see, where to go and what to be cautious of, and it becomes increasingly more difficult for me to plan a trip all my own when I'm trying to make everyone else happy by taking all their advice.

If everyone had the same travelling experience, then wouldn't we just pay someone who is incredibly gifted in describing things and places in vivid detail, to snap some pictures and tell us everything and save the thousands of dollars we'd spend on going ourselves?

Anyway, if you want to go see the Eiffel Tower/Leaning Tower of Pisa/Stonehenge/Tibetan Monastery, do it. Just because someone else did it and didn't enjoy it, doesn't mean you won't enjoy it either.

The Single Life

Last weekend I went out with a few old friends of mine. All 3 of us were feeling a little raw about a relationship that didn't work out for whatever reason, but by the end of the night I was feeling pretty happy about my solo status.

I had decided being single was actually pretty great. I could make eyes at the hottie standing at the edge of the dance floor and not feel guilty because I'm leading him on. I could be out with friends and not be the one going outside to talk to their significant other for a 'few minutes' (which is always at least 20 minutes by the time 'I love you' rolls around in the conversation) while the rest of the friends feel resentful at being ditched. Best of all, I loved that I could be as uninteresting as possible since I wasn't trying to keep or hold the interest of someone of the opposite sex.

And then I volunteered to drive the kids home.

Saturday night, a friend was holding a pasture party (I won't explain, but those savvy in farm kid lingo know what this is). I went for a drink, but since it was primarily my 15 year old brother's friends, I decided to go home and watch a movie. One of my brother's friends had approached me at the beginning of the night and asked if I could give him, his brother and their out of town friend a lift home at about 11 that night. Since he's a good kid, and he was one of my armed sentries when we had our bear problem, I agreed. I came back at about quarter to 11 to discover the out-of-towner stumbling around talking nonsense, the brother passed out in a bile/liquor soaked shirt and a questionable looking puddle and the rest of the party goers in a concerned circle around the man down.

The friend holding the party was stressed, as he usually counts on me to be the 'responsible babysitter type', and after about 10 minutes I'd finally pieced together that the brother had downed about 3/4 of the bottle of the Newfie Screech a client had given me last summer. I couldn't help but feel responsible, even if it was not me, but my 15 year old brother who had pilfered the bottle and left it unattended on the bench.

The brother, Kobe, was conscious but not overly responsive so we debated the best method of taking care of him, managed to get him down a bit of water and got him to rid a bit more of the liquor in his system.

After a few minutes of fighting with the out-of-towner friend, we managed to get him to sit in the passenger seat of my truck where he happily talked to himself and sang along with the radio, and I squatted on the ground beside Mr. Barely Conscious.

"Kobe, we're going to put you in the backseat of my truck, and I'm going to take you home, ok?"

He rolled his head back and stared at me for a second.

"You're Beautiful", he slurred, and then hiccuped. The other guys erupt into laughter and the party host winks at me, "Well, at least he's got his vision back, huh?".

But that did it for me. The realization that in the past 5 months that I've now been officially single, the only time a male has called me beautiful, it was a 16 year old in a puddle of his own puke pissed on Newfie Screech. If I didn't think it was so funny, I might cry.