B.Y.O.B. Week

I’ve been slopping down this entry in a piecemeal fashion, during each little break I’ve had between all my other busywork, and while I try to get some sun to transition my skin over to something else than a Siamese cat appearence¹. My August stretch of summer holidays, once again, is pretty much dedicated to home economics projects. The original “Bring Your Own Bottle” meaning is a suitable and appropriate definition for the use of the acronym around here during my free time in the afternoons², but I’ve extended it to also mean “Be Your Own Baba”: to be resourcefully frugal and efficient; to be focused with making the most with the least in the kitchen, and other areas of my dwelling, like some old Ukrainian grandmother would, as I’m sure mine did. It all started off during the month of August, in the year that I took possession of this property. Ever since then, either by strange coincidence or by some natural cycle, when early or mid August comes, it has sort of turned into an annual tradition for me to take a more serious interest of learning to do the best I can with improving my home life, and involve myself with fix-ups and various DIY projects, as I did when I first claimed this place, flipping it around to suit my standards of comfort. It also coincides and flows into garden harvest and canning season. So, I capitalize on using my time for that too. Whatever is done around here, I try to make all these little projects synergistic and interconnected: elements of one flowing into the form or function of another, to make something greater, like some sort of private little ecosystem. I’ve been happily and consciously getting reacquainted with my music collection again, playing it loudly and liberally as I get into the flow of doing my stuff around here: something else I don’t get to do at work. Included in this write up are samples from my playlists. Here are a few other ways B.Y.O.B. can be termed and used around here during this time of the year. Some things here are old tricks and hacks I often deploy; others are new little twists that I’m experimenting with that I thought were worth sharing:

1.       Be Your Own Bourne – Like Jason Bourne in the movies (I just saw the latest sequel in the theatre . . . so awesome!), the thing I’ll be doing is casting off my work identity; to be the independent loner who is an apt evader of malicious forces, and an on-the-spot improviser, who is on a mission to reclaim something that belongs to him: his own true self. Except when I do it, I’ll hopefully have none of the gunfire, car chases, or explosions. The thing I have to keep bringing to mind is that I’m not at work. For at least a little while, I’m not on some drive for using at least a full third of each of my days to solve other people’s problems. I get to devote my energy to working on my own. Thus, I have eliminated a lot of things that put me in a more negative mindset for complaint, which serves to do nothing for betterment. I don’t have to listen to it from others; I don’t have a reason to do it myself. Belay Your Obnoxious Bitching is perhaps another element that can be a part of all this. This is an important thing to do in freeing one’s mind to exercise any creativity, or to move toward improvements. When there is no one around to judge or criticize, and if failures happen during any of my experiments, or disappointments from my expenditures and exploits, I’ve only then set up a new platform for learning. Be Your Own Boss is suitable to use here too. (Best Activity Song {as I write this}: Find (Andy Moor Remix), by Ridgewalkers, mixed by Armin Van Buuren).

2.       Balance Your Own Budget – it seems like a contrary maneuver to satisfy the part about avoiding complaining and conflict, but it’s a necessary evil/challenge. Taking a good hard glimpse at what’s working well, and the reality of where one could be doing better with managing expenses, is crucial if one wants to make the necessary corrections to change things for the better. A holiday meant to relax, yet spent plunging into the red, ultimately isn’t a relaxing holiday. Be smart, and set things up to work within your means. It’s another reason why I opted for home economics projects. (Best Activity Song: Money, by Pink Floyd)

3.       Barter Your Old Books – I’ve been liberating my old stock of literature for someone else to enjoy, and trading these books at the city’s best used book store, Westgate Books, to get store credit to put something new and interesting on my shelves. As tempting as it was to collect silly, but fitting, ones with titles like I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, I took home something a little more poignant. The one I selected that I heard good things about is The Rosie Project, by Graeme Simsion. From the first page onward, I’ve been sort of freaked out about how much the story’s scientist narrator tends to think like I do, like I could have written much of what he said, thus it has been hard for me to put it down. Reducing clutter, freeing space, and welcoming new ideas all at the same time was the result. However, I couldn’t find any instruction manuals that I would find beneficial for my other chosen activities (see point 13). (Best Activity Song: nothing, I prefer to read in peace without distractions, but Lonely Boy, by The Black Keys would seem appropriate for this book I’m reading, either that or The Scientist, by Coldplay)

4.       Bench Your Own Bodyweight – that is, I need to start reclaiming some of the former magnitude of strength that I used to have. At least doing more things like more push ups. It’s not a vanity thing. Being alone and single necessitates one to be physically strong and fit for all kinds of motion, i.e. keeping your strength and flexibility means keeping your independence. No one is around to help pick me up when I fall down, no one else is there to help me move furniture, or other junk. It’s simply a fact that I have to be strong enough to do these things myself, and I can’t let myself weaken anymore. If I’m walking alone at night through a dodgy place or instance of time³, like I often have to, I’d want to be strong enough to be able to throw off an aggressor who is as big as I am should there be a time if I ever get attacked. That last example is a little extreme, but that kind of power is always something good thing to have in the toolbox that is one’s own body strength. It’s a shame to notice though that I have to dream up of negative scenarios to motivate me to exercise more. (Best Activity Song: B.Y.O.B., by System of a Down)

5.       Befriend Your Old Bicycle – To get active and sort of explore at the same time. Twenty to thirty clicks in a day a few times this week should be sufficient enough exercise that won’t ruin me for the rest of each day after. Depending on the terrain, that equates to about six to eight kilometres of running, except with a lot less stress on my joints.  I notice that there are many new trails that I haven’t tried yet through and around this town. My plan is to explore more territory along the unknown sections of trails that I’ve somehow ignored. (Best Activity Song: Ride (Tiësto Remix), Cary Brothers)

6.       Break Your Old Barriers – New places, new activities, new roles, maybe a chance to meet new people: all necessary to see and try. I’m ashamed to say that given all the time that I’ve lived here, there is still a lot I haven’t done or places that I’ve bothered to check out here locally. (Best Activity Song: This Must Be the Place, by The Talking Heads)

7.       Bacteria, Yeast, and Other Botanicals – As previous entries of other years can attest, the only real cultural events that are happening here that I’m involved with throughout this week of August are the ferments taking place in my crockpot and carboys. Added to whatever I’ll be brewing in them will be fresh living herbs and botanicals for unique flavourings. I’ve also been thinking about experimenting with infusions and flavouring my own gin. The fermentation cycles will be exploited thusly like last year’s experiment: once the primary fermentation of the beer is done, the remaining living yeast in the trub is used to make bread dough, the extra bread goes to making kvass, the kvass culture goes to priming the brine to make fermented pickles. Therein is the synergy. (Best Activity Song: I don’t know what microbes like to hear, but if it helps them reproduce better, I should play them some Barry White to help get them in the mood. Kind of a ridiculous notion though, since in truth they multiply by asexual reproduction (cloning themselves). For them clubbing it though, I’d recommend Piledriver (Grayed Out Summer Mix), by Ameobassassin).

8.       Build Your Own Brewery – Along with Brewing Your Own Beer. I thought I could improve on the technical aspect of things regarding brewing ale (the easier option, since making true lager or pilsner requires a converted refrigerator), and to try to re-experiment with all-grain mash brewing. To stage things for all-grain brewing in this place, I’ll need some modifications for the different space constraints and environment here. The last time I did all-mash, many years ago, it took almost a full 18 hours straight from the mashing process, to sparging, to boiling/hopping, to cooling the wort, to pitching the yeast, and the long messy clean up with the jury-rigged system I had back then. But, it was honestly the best damn beer I ever made, and the fact that I reduced the cost of producing it to around seven cents per 341 mL bottle was a feather in my hat too. I doubt if I’ll ever get to make it that cheap ever again: considering inflation, and a big investment needed for the proper doodads, and gizmos. Trips to places like Peavey Mart, Princess Auto, Canadian Tire, Cabella’s, and Co-op Do It Centre were made to hunt for parts for engineering and crafting something for better thermostatic control, a counter flow chilling unit, creative moulding of food grade plastics for some sort of sparging appliance, and outfitting a propane burner unit that won’t torch the balcony area of my place, since my little stove would be quite inadequate for the volumes that I need to work with. That, plus there is no flippin’ way I’m going to be adding the heat of 18 hours of steam and stove use in my place when it’s going to hover around 30 degrees with the humidex outside for the week I’m off. However, I had no luck at all in finding the right stuff. It was fruitless; an exercise in futility. The time I wasted had to be regained with finding a kit that’s even more simplified than my regular brewing methods. It just seems wrong that the only input of preparation energy and ingredients for this time around was about 4 litres boiling water, plus the addition of whatever volume of cool water to reach my target gravity; but I hope the results will be within the same parameters, or possibly even better. That’s for the treatment of the Y(east) part in point 7. (Best activity song: Y Control, by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs)

9.       Blend Your Own Butter(s) – More uses with the botanicals part mentioned in point 7.  Crafting my own herbed and seasoned butters is a trick I learned to amp up the game in the kitchen. Locking in the botanical flavours in butter fat, and then freezing it, is a way to conserve that “fresh” flavour of them longer; as opposed to just being limited to using them in their dried state as the other alternative. It’s damn easy to do: just mix them in room temperature butter, form it, wrap it, and then refrigerate/freeze it. It makes it speedy to transform something from ordinary to something decadent, and adds other interesting dimensions of flavour to meat, vegetables and sauces. When I get a couple of extra pounds of butter (when it’s on special), I also get my hands on some fresh herbs, usually at this time of the year when the Farmers Market has a good, locally-sourced, seasonal variety in stock. (Best Activity Song: Spread The Love – Chuck Love) This time, I made five kinds of herbal butter, yielding about 230 grams for each one. They are:

a.       Sorrel and Crushed White Peppercorn – The lemony flavour of the sorrel is good with chicken, fish, grilled seafood, and vegetables like asparagus. I made an alternative sauce for Hollandaise, using this instead, when I didn’t quite have the right stuff when I was craving Eggs Benedict. It turned out OK.

b.       Dill – For putting on salmon fillets in a pinch, or shrimp, or lighter meats like chicken, or stirred into cooked carrots or beets, or a nice generous knob of it goes well with on top of mashed/baked potatoes when I’m in the mood for them. It can also be spread on hot toast to make an amazing tuna sandwich.

c.       Thyme – If there is no barbeque sauce (as I rarely buy it because steak eating occasions are becoming seldom), I simply grill a steak to my preferred doneness with just some salt and pepper, and then add some of this with some crushed and chopped garlic in it immediately once the steak is taken off the flame. Nothing more elemental or complicated than that; yet it’s so delicious. You actually get to appreciate good beef this way. It can be used a little more sparingly with lean pork or chicken, or for making a brown sauce. I couldn’t guess as to what sort of vegetables it might go well with, but I’m going to stir-fry matchstick cut parsnips and celery, and adding a little fresh garlic, and salt and pepper with it to see what happens.

d.       Basil – This stuff makes a cob of corn super yummy when you tuck some under the ears of a soaked cob, and then throw it on the barbeque grill. Also good with stirring into finished pasta, or making a white sauce for it.

e.       Mint – This one is new for me. I dared myself to make this specifically to use

with all this lamb meat I have left in my freezer, using it the same way I use thyme butter for steak. It wasn’t too bad!⁴ I’m guessing that it would mix in well with cooked green peas too, or other vegetables with a higher sugar content, like carrots or beets, or sauté zucchini in it. If you were wondering what I did with the rest of the big bunch of mint I had left, you’d be right if you guessed that I made a few Mojitos. Waste not, want not.

10.   Brew Your Own Batches – of sauerkraut and pickles. It involves the first B of

point 7: bacteria. May they find their jubilation and celebration with their procreation and propagation in the new creation of my fermentation station (Yep . . . I think those Mojitos are kicking in right now). This season’s attempt at brewing my lovely, five-kilogram, mass of smelly cabbage involves a 7% weight of course salt to shredded cabbage ratio, plus an addition of about a teaspoon of caraway seeds for an extra little zing. Making lacto-fermented pickles comes next week after this experiment after the series of other steps I mentioned above. (Best Activity Song: Strange Brew, by Cream)

11.   Boil Your Own Broth – I was blessed with enough time to devote to making authentic Vietnamese Phở Broth with my extra botanicals. I needed six hours to make it, but it was well worth the effort. Homemade Chicken Stock was made too. Getting all the flavours out of marrow and bone is waste reduction and frugality at its best. (Best Activity Song: Feel It in My Bones (featuring Tegan and Sara) – DJ Tiësto)

12.   Better Your Own Bullshit – I mean reframing your mistakes, and making an effort to correct them, or to do something better with them. I don’t mean being a better liar; I’m not a proponent of that. Mistakes can, and will, happen in my kitchen all the time; especially if I’m trying to do a hundred things at once. The only real mistake I find unforgivable in a kitchen is needless wastage, all other mishaps are fertile ground for experimentation. For example, I had the noble ambition to make some jam out of the gift of some raspberries that were given to me by my Mom. (Best Activity Song: Jammin’, by Bob Marley) However, I misread a recipe and underused the quantity of pectin I needed, but it was too late to add more, as I already canned it.

My Blueberry Jam.

No mistakes there. 

It's an obviously possible botch up if it doesn’t set right. If that happens, I instead will have made raspberry sauce, or raspberry syrup. Better yet, let’s call it raspberry coulis: because if you have something called coulis on a plate served in an upscale restaurant, it automatically seems to make that dish at least twenty percent more expensive than something with just plain old sauce on it. Redefining and repurposing a fouled result is redemption, and thus isn’t a mistake anymore. It leads one to really wonder about these so-called upcoming innovative and genius chefs. Are they really so, or were they just really incompetent at fixing up a dish according to orthodox methods and recipes, and to avoid being fired, they did something radical with food to hide or distract from their blunders, and then give it some pretentious name to feign ingenuity? Most mistakes in the kitchen are bullshit, and you can easily recover and make even better with them if you are cagey enough. Bob Ross, that instructional artist with the crazy big permed afro on the PBS stations, with his Zen-like calm and stoned-to-the-bones-sounding voice, said of painting, “There are no mistakes; just happy accidents.” The same also applies in kitchen work, although the likes of Gordon Ramsey would have you thinking otherwise. Speaking of Bob Ross, and his effed-up afro, I now shift to the subject of indulging in visual arts . . .

Trial started.

The base form is laid out,

I need to let the first layer

dry before I can add

details to her face.

My model is rather

uncooperative.    

13.   Better Yourself at Oils and Brushstrokes – I must say that this is the most challenging of all the exercises that I’ve done so far. When day 5 of staycation (Wednesday) came, I hit the wall with doing kitchen projects, and it was raining all day. I was so restless and irritated for some reason; feeling cheated out of a sunny day to enjoy on top of it. While cleaning out my office closet, I found an easel that was collecting dust. I bought it about five years ago, and used it maybe once. Being in DIY and home décor improvement mode, I was already probing through shops earlier in the week, looking at paintings and pictures to see what I could use to cover some of my naked wall space. So, then came the notion to trying to make some kind of art. I really do envy people who have such talent. I wish the people who I know who have it could just easily avail themselves to come here, so I can learn and feed off their creative energies while I watch them work on such projects. I don’t know what it was, but as I set up this easel, a cloud of hesitance came over me. Overthinking it, as I typically do. I’m sure there is a more complicated psychological term for it. The “happy accidents” idea just didn’t sink in. I somehow was getting an anxiety of putting myself in a spot of expressing myself visually, scared of facing the fact that this is something that I completely lack talent in. A performance anxiety when there was only me to perform for. It did help me realize exactly what kind of visual forms I find satisfying and impressive. I like things and forms with geometrical precision. Anyone who has tried to read my dreadful handwriting would agree that I certainly don’t have the ability to mimic that technical skill. I set up a blank white canvas, just staring at it for a long while, becoming more self-conscious that I would just sully this thing in some weird way. I thought that if I just projectile vomited on this thing it might be more aesthetically pleasing than anything my clumsy hands, driven by my undisciplined mind, could ever produce. Bob Ross made it look so bloody easy, and I could watch that bugger paint all day and be amazed, but it’s the complete opposite for myself once I have a brush in my hand. I freeze with indecision. I then went to the local Michaels art supply store, hoping to find either some sort of aid or inspiration. I found neither. I just found more stuff that overwhelmed and intimidated me from the idea of painting. I then had to ask myself, “What made me buy the easel in the first place, and what real pleasure did I really get from it before?” The answer was not in the easel, but rather the palette that came with it. What I really enjoyed was just mixing and matching the colours, curious to see what tones I’d get, and finding out what shades went well together. From there, I thought I’d take another step backwards to start with something a little more basic involving colour. I spotted one of those adult colouring books – thinking it would serve to guide me for what to put on canvas later. It was a book of mandalas: the circular symbols in eastern religions that have geometric precision, which I like. That’s when I went through what I would call a dreadful sense of embarrassing regression – knowing that days before this, I was doing this very mature and masculine thing of fervently hunting for fixtures, components, and chemicals for building something technically sophisticated and scientifically systematic for crafting stuff for adult enjoyment. Now, I’ve been reduced to practicing something that four-year old kids do. There was a whole lot of shattered ego crashing down there and then. But keeping precept number 6 on this list in mind, I forced myself to buy it anyway. I remember feeling so very weirdly sheepish as I brought this thing to the till: kind of trying not make eye contact with the cashier, like I was standing there trying to buy the most depraved and raunchiest form of pornography that can just barely be legally sold. I guess that’s how estranged I’ve become from my “inner child”. Using that book and some pencil crayons at home though really did make me a whole lot calmer. Actually, it was the most relaxed I’ve been since . . . well, I can’t remember when. It’s a good way to remind myself that I don’t always have to be purposeful or “productive”. I use and justify playing around with language learning apps, and I buy math and logic puzzle books of the Mensa standard for “edutainment”, rationalizing that these are to help keep my wiring for analytical and logic skills in shape, so I’m less likely to lose my marbles later in life from dementia as I get older. I forget that the other hemisphere of the stuff between my ears needs a good workout too with the right stimuli. That trip to Michaels that day was probably my salvation for keeping me away from the only sort of “addiction” that I probably do use impulsively for handling my restlessness and angst: buying technology. Kind of weird too, since I can’t seem to take that a sense of wonder and playful curiosity I have for figuring out technology, and apply it to using it artistically. Given the day that I was having, without that trip to Michaels to get an $8.00 colouring book, I could have easily walked a few steps further to Best Buy, dragging away another TV, or a computer, or whatever other kind of console, gizmo, or accessory that costs hundreds of dollars, kind of blowing point 2 up in smoke. Mixing my oils, and applying brush to canvas is coming up, but right now I’m happy to be involved in just being present with filling in colours in this book, as I enjoy a refreshment and listen to tunes. So . . . yay for me, I suppose I was successful at discovering a new hobby, even though it is seemingly “non-adult”. At least it doesn’t add to my current frustrations. More people should learn to be content in retreating into doing something so childishly simple⁵. (Best Activity Song: Any Colour You Like – Pink Floyd).

14.   Better Your Output on Blogger – So, to sum up, for this week off leisure-wise, I’ve been doing OK as an amateur chef, a bookkeeper, a brewer, a beer sampler(guzzler), a puzzle solver, a bookshelf reductionist, a recreational cyclist, a fermentation biochemist, a food preservationist, a kitchen ecologist, a Mojito mixologist, and most recently, a page colouration specialist (well, not so much a specialist, but a budding enthusiast). Now, I’m back to immersing myself in the role of humour essayist. Sure, it’s not exactly like being a true renaissance man, nor was this all as exciting as traveling somewhere new and special, but I haven’t been wasting time just parked in front of a TV frittering away these fine summer days either. As much as I’m flagellating myself for not having better artistic ability, I’m also grounding myself in the fact that not everyone out there is skilled or daring enough to write their own blog. Reading a lot will make you smarter; making an effort to express yourself better in writing will help keep you that way - or at least I hope that’s true. Being able to chronicle something or tell a story, be it frivolous or poignant, either with factual accuracy or for entertainment, doing so with a voice that’s truly all your own is an alright asset to have and improve upon too. These words are for those who I wish I could have had here to make all this going on more of a party during my time off. They are spread out all across the province, the country, and the continent. I miss them dearly. Putting all these BYOB exercises into words is my last exercise.

A Random List of Another Few Songs from My Collection I Enjoyed Chilling to as I Wrote All This (multiple decades; multiple genres):

·         Home – Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

·         We Used to Be Friends – The Dandy Warhols

·         Juliette – Hollerado

·         Dirty Paws – Of Monsters and Men

·         Airscape – Robyn Hitchcock and the Egyptians

·         At First Sight – The Stems

·         Our Love – Editors

·         Dirt – Phish

·         No Never Mind Blues – David Deacon

·         Poor Boy Blues – Jazz Gillum

·         Mannish Boy – Muddy Waters

·         Hoochie Coochie­ Man – Eric Clapton

·         Wishing (If I Had A Photograph of You)­ – A Flock of Seagulls

·         Fine Without You – Armin Van Buuren

·         Prayer for Rain – The Cure

·         Pictures of You – The Cure

·         Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division

·         Four Play – Fred Wesley & the Horny Horns

·         Limelight – Rush

·         La Villa Strangiata - Rush

·         Red Rain ­– Peter Gabriel

·         Kashmir – Led Zeppelin

·         Bron-Y-Aur Stomp – Led Zeppelin

·         Spill The Wine – Eric Burdon & War

·         Just Like Honey – The Jesus & Mary Chain

·         More Than This – Roxy Music

·         7 Years – Lukas Graham

·         Bourée – Jethro Tull

·         A New Day Yesterday – Jethro Tull

·         The Only One I Know – The Charlatans

·         You Read - Eric Charles Band

·         Passenger – Iggy Pop

·         I’m Afraid of Americans – David Bowie

·         How Soon Is Now? – The Smiths

·         Tight Black Rubber – Black Francis

·         Hallucinations – The Raveonettes

·         Love In A Trashcan – The Raveonettes

·         Where Is My Mind? – The Pixies

·         I Wanna Be Adored – The Stone Roses

·         Fool’s Gold (Remastered) – The Stone Roses

·         Little Monster – Royal Blood

·         How to Disappear Completely - Radiohead

1 - Brianese to Canadian English translation: Siamese Cat complexion – when your face, lower legs, and forearms are quite darkly tanned, but the rest of your body is looking ghostly white in comparison.

2 - I have quite a few good, if not interesting, ideas that strike me while I’m in a mildly conspicuous, yet still lucid, state of inebriation.

3 - I specifically refer to the gang-scum festered traveling shit show that is the EX, and the plague of thefts, robberies, and assaults that spike in the surrounding neighbourhood when it’s here. It comes here next week . . . Blargh!!!

4 – Really meaning, it was rather awesome. My Canadian attitude shows itself in my writing a lot, including the sometimes annoying proclivity we have for being really understated.

5 – I know some of those who know me who may be reading this might be thinking I’m starting to slip some gears; the most critical of the ones I’m thinking of who are ready to jab a barbed opinion at me for doing this are themselves inked up in the most skank-ass tattoos you can think of. Oh, the hilarious irony . . . people turning themselves into colouring books ready to snicker and beak off at a guy who just had a moment of curiosity to pass the time with one. If you have a tattoo, you don’t get to judge.

A Road Trip to 65 MYA

There should be no way that I should be disliking any of my vacation time; yet I have been. Four days passed into my stretch of time off, and I was finding it all pointless. The weather forecasts since Canada Day have been a 100% chance of cloudy/rainy suck-ass, as well as tornado watches in effect at times. Although I’ve been eating well, one can eat only eat so much, accounting for only a small fraction of a day. Medications disallow me from drinking the necessary volumes of booze that would actually put me in my happy place. I can only drink so much coffee at the coffeehouses that I feel very little need to frequent: just sitting there, watching other people brood about things has no entertainment value. I was becoming angered with getting interference from what are still work related calls over last weekend. I dipped into what is my all-too-massive personal syllabus of reading material (science and non-fiction mostly); I overdid it and consequently suffered too much eye strain from having my nose in too many books.

I spent most of the following Monday feeling wounded, the source of that being from having a dental appointment that morning. I didn’t have the sense to book a time outside of my vacation days. As per usual, the dental hygienist performing the cleaning service managed to poke at each and every special acupressure combination of nerve endings along my gingiva, which made me feel like I was being repeatedly struck in the face with a pick axe throughout the ordeal. A migraine ensued after and stayed with me for rest of the afternoon. More time wasted; not a good vacation day. I suppose it wasn’t enough to already feel like a luckless loser for the day. I went to the casino later in the evening to have it confirmed. I lost most of the small stakes that I thought acceptable to part with, and that time passed quickly. I realized then that I had to do something else with myself than handling kitchen knives, reading/screen-watching, or waving bye-bye to my hard-earned money at the slots and roulette table. I saw that another staycation was going to shove me into a pit of misery. Lunch with my friend on Tuesday gave me a little time to decompress as I examined my situation. I was made to see afterward that I have always been shirking travel off in the guise of being responsible. Another reason is that there isn’t much fun doing it alone anymore; or I’ve been hating my own company enough to the point where I am starting to bore myself: a symptom of something very wrong, I think. Whatever the case, I found myself really having to leave this town, badly.

I packed a few essentials; Ella happily joined me in the car. As I didn’t have any real plan, I chose to visit my folks first. If I got nothing else done, I would have at least spent some time with them. Wherever else I decided to go to, the Battlefords is not too far out of the way as a jump off point: a better one if going north was feasible, and an acceptable loss in highway time if I had to retrace any route back through and past home. I used Wednesday afternoon, watching the news and weather channels, formulating things. The process for narrowing down my destination decision was as such:

1.       The Weather Corridor – Forecasts for rain were for the north and east, and I was getting chased by funnel cloud warnings from the southeast. That left me with west or southwest if I wanted to find someplace without inclemency.

2.       Geographical Variation – the idea of a vacation is going to someplace that doesn’t look like home. Some people are content enough with walking into another room for a change of scenery. Other people, like me, need the entire landscape to change to feel like they’ve gotten away and escaped to someplace. That’s a tough deal when one has been an inhabitant in an area smack dab in the middle of the Canadian parkland/prairie . . . a region that’s so expansive. There is the Boreal forest, but as I said, weather wasn’t making going north an ideal choice, neither was my lack of camping gear. The next closest options for going southwest were: Cyprus Hills (with an elevation as high as that in Banff), or the Badlands. Next factor . . .

3.       My Six Hour Driving Radius – six hours in a crammed in a vehicle in a day seems to be my absolute limit. After that, I start having some adverse psychological effect from it, especially when I’m the one driving. If I have bad company with me as a follow passenger, then it’s triply worse. They risk being punched out and then abandoned in some ditch in the middle of nowhere if they exhibit too many marked signs of stupidity or impudent assholery for each and every minute approaching hour six, crammed in a vehicle with me. Life is short. I travel to see new places and experience new things; so sitting in a metal box (with toxic people), like a goddamned trapped rat, longer than necessary, is wasted time. The trip between Saskatoon and Calgary is an example of the longest one I can endure by car. If longer than that, then I fly; using only three hours or so to take me to places in this country much further away with less overall cost, hassle, and energy needed to attend to driving. I’ll happily spend more money to buy more time to stay off a road. The whole issue of me now being more prone to idiopathic thrombosis and blood-clotting makes the matter of prolonged periods sitting/immobility a more genuinely serious reason to avoid extra long of car rides. Cyprus and the Badlands fall within that six-hour radius from the Battlefords.

4.       An Act of Rebellion Against Ignorance – as I sat with my Dad, switching to the channel with Wheel of Fortune for him to watch (and Jeopardy for me after), I caught the last few minutes of the CBS nightly news which showed a story that disgusted me as a person who appreciates progress and education in science. I watched this story about some guy in Kentucky, who built a supposedly full scale replica of Noah’s Ark for an amusement site. It cost millions to get this thing made. The guy who founded this project is a self-proclaimed Creationist, who truly believes that the Earth is only 6000 years old or so, and that humans and dinosaurs co-existed together. He actually has models of dinosaurs penned up along with other contemporary species in this excessively ridiculous display. He, as an employer, actively discriminates by making the workers there sign some sort of “statement of faith” to prove that they are “Christian” enough to work there. He goes so far as to say that evolution is a “junk science”, and this crazy tacky spectacle is the length he is willing to go to refute and take a stand against it. You may just say “pshaw . . . whatever, it’s just a goofy spectacle”. I would agree too if it weren’t for another crazy issue about this damn stupid boat. The most disturbing issue of it for me was that some of the millions that he used to build this wretched monstrosity actually came directly from the state government of Kentucky itself, i.e. the Kentucky taxpayers were pitching in a fortune to have this idiotic thing built. It’s bad enough seeing that Kentucky is regarded as being one of those have-not states in the USA and suffering for it, with fewer resources for better healthcare, and an adequate education system*. To see this kind of insane amount of money (in the high tens of millions) being squandered away by their state government to sponsor the creation of something that takes away from science education and promotes more ignorance to suit the whim of a lobby of biblical-literalist right wing nut jobs** goes far beyond obscene in my mind. How did this guy manage to con some government official to permit him access to this kind of money for such a moronic endeavour? I admit to having some moments of a fantasy after I saw that story - it was that of Neil Degrasse Tyson himself, going over there to pop a cap in the ass of this ignorant bastard perpetuating this nonsense. Thinking about Richard Dawkins storming over to this ark thing, and then beating seven shades of shit out of this fundamentalist huckster with one of the limbs torn off of the animatronic Noah mannequin was an entertaining visualization too. It helped, in a way, to settle the question as to where I was going to go then for my holiday for my narrowed down options. I chose to take a stand! I’d then make a pilgrimage to the Badlands to use my tourist dollars to support science. So, Drumheller ended up becoming my chosen destination.

I heeded my Mom’s advice. She told that I really needed to take some time for myself. It meant surrendering the dog to her care as I went on this trip: so I had one less thing to tend to, and fewer problems, like finding lodgings that take pets. My car stereo quit working, meaning that I had no tunes, or CBC radio to occupy my mind as I drove for so long. I was a sort of on a true pilgrimage: just me, without my dog, driving for a long time, no distractions, being alone with my own thoughts. Stray thoughts slipped into my mind about those of whom I’d love to have riding shotgun with me on such a venture. I thought about where I would go to in the US if I ever took a spontaneous turn to head to the border (that is, if I hadn’t procrastinated and gotten a valid passport). Given the current political mayhem going on down there, the current currency exchange rate, the obscene amount of (recent) gun violence, and the reflection about the types of mindsets I’d be dealing with, like those who would allow and support something like the bizarro Noah’s ark down in Kentucky, any curiosity about finding anything interesting to do in the states extinguished pretty quickly. Those same reasons I just gave for not heading over the border maybe are the same ones as to why I saw so many vehicles with American license plates around where I was touring.

I went to Drumheller a couple times before in my life: once as a kid who was awestruck with dinosaurs, and again as a twenty-something with university classes in zoology still fresh in my head to make me appreciate the experience even more. Now, with a little more life wisdom and knowledge at this stage of life, and some more conscientiousness of how to put big concepts in a whole new perspective, I thought it would do me well to see the place again before I become a fossil myself. Given the things I said before, what else can a nerd who is travelling alone with limited time really do?

I eventually made it there, and after touring the Royal Tyrrell Museum, and scrambling around the Hoo Doos for a while, I went to the first hotel I could find – more accurately, I went to the first hotel I spotted that didn’t look like it was slapped together with pieces of flotsam from a shipwreck. I passed by three other places that fit such a description. This place was a short walking distance from a place that sold cold off-sale beer - a nice bonus. I managed to claim the last of the vacant rooms there. I was given a whole room with two double queen beds. I guess, to the clerk, I looked like the sort that rolls around a lot. I discover that the day after was an event called the Passion Play of the Badlands, happening the next day: apparently, it is an affair that attracts more fundamentalist types from all over the continent, and such goers to this sort of thing snapped up most of the rooms. Aw Shit! Religious nuts to contend with?! I couldn’t help but to be bewildered by the irony of it all: a place with the richest bed of fossil evidence of dinosaurs in Canada, confirming their existence and extinction 65 million years ago, scientifically proving the workings of evolution; being swarmed by a clique of religious people, many of whom still believing in this myth of creationism, like that knob in Kentucky. They probably show this religious theatrical production here, just because out of all the places in Canada, this one perhaps has what looks most like the natural scenery of Golgotha of ancient Judea.

I couldn’t stay to be bothered by all this to witness how cheesy and tacky it would all be. I thought about proceeding to Calgary, but then realized that the Stampede starts the day after. I wouldn’t have had a hope in hell of finding a hotel room. Just as well, because my time wasn’t going to be used mingling around in a place celebrating country music and cowboy/rodeo culture***. I spent what little time I had left wandering the hills in the early morning, contemplating and meditating: about the massive explosions of both life and death that occurred here, captured in the layers of sandstone throughout this valley that act as chapters of a book capturing the history of all life on Earth in this region for many aeons. I thought about how I wouldn’t even have been here to witness all this if it weren’t for an asteroid wiping out these monstrous creatures 65 million years ago. If that rock was even a small percentage larger, the likelihood of any life existing on this planet today would be zero. The intricacies of cause and effect being quite overwhelming, as I sat on those rocks, thinking about courses of natural selection and what comes about for each beings’ evolution. All this was pondered, plus a great myriad of other things involving the natural catastrophes involving extinction . . . that are a hell of a lot more interesting and rational than some story of a flood and an old dude on a big boat full of animals.

I returned back to the Battlefords after another long drive. I was happily greeted by my own little dinosaur who was missing me: attacked with eager kisses from the Ellabooboosaurus. I stayed long enough for a reprieve from driving, and helped to do some DIY electrical work installing new fixtures in my folks’ home. I returned to my own place later that evening, happy to use my own bed.

More holiday time is due to me in August, and I’m debating whether or not it will be worth booking a flight somewhere east (if there are any cheap enough); it would be a thing I genuinely would like company for though. The places I have in mind are walking and bike tour intensive.

*- I found an infographic recently on Mental Floss, which compared the education level of each state in the USA which similarly corresponded to the level of education with a world nation on the United Nations Development Index. Kentucky's education level was most similar to that of Honduras.

**- I’m not bashing all religious acts. Pray if you like to: if that, or meditation, really gives you a centred mindset for empowering yourself to do better for yourself and others, I’ll even encourage you to do such things. It all costs nothing to do, and it’s harmless while you are sitting there still and silent doing it. However, when huge sums of government money are being used for propagating mythology as fact, instead of fostering true science education, and being diverted away from more socially valuable “Christian” ways of helping people, like for instance, supporting and equipping care homes for the elderly, sick, and disabled, it obviously becomes an evident problem for everyone. I guess there is no such thing as separation of Church and state down in Kentucky.

***- Some people want to relive the bloody Wild West. I believe in living in a progressive, civilized, and educated one, if you haven’t figured that out already.

Canada Day 2016: Whiskey vs. Schnapps

My stretch of holiday time officially began at 4:05 PM yesterday. It was the kind of day yesterday when all I could do after coming back home, and briefly allowing my dog outside around the block, was to flop on my chesterfield and forbid myself any movement. The hour long nap I was hoping to get at the very least only lasted for about eight minutes after interference by the rudest and most obnoxious of nuisance alarm noise that came from someone’s car, and wouldn’t stop. As it is, I’m already convinced that it was Satan himself who invented the car alarm to begin with; and this one was malfunctioning. It kept switching itself on and off steadily for 20 minutes before I abandoned all hope that the neglectful idiot who owned this particular vehicle would show up to disable it, so I took off out of my place frustrated; trying to use my time a little more fruitfully without anymore annoyances and contention* for the rest of my day.

But today is Canada Day, and a time to reflect on the nation in comparison to the rest of the world. The morning greets me with a bit of a chilly breeze, and a sky full of dark clouds and possibility for rain later. A disagreeable state for this special day for sure. I started off making breakfast the most Canadian way I could: pancakes and bacon; only for the reason to have it serve as a platform to use maple syrup. I don’t really fancy pancakes all that much, but it’s only thing I could make with what I had around here right now. If I could have my patriotic breakfast of choice for the day, if such things were available, given my true appetite (for something less greasy), I would have been more content with some local homemade Saskatoon Jam on some Winnipeg rye toast, maybe poached eggs for protein, and some double-double coffee, perhaps about four cups of it if I want my brain to fly straight right now.

My mind drifts again to subjects of contention. In regards to our nationhood, I reflect on something that really took me totally by surprise. As a Canadian, I’m rather ashamed to admit that I’ve been ignorant about such a matter; it being unbeknownst to me until like just a week or so ago. Recently, I had read a post on Facebook from one of my Danish immigrant friends about how Canada and Denmark are currently, and have been for some while, involved in some sort of conflict. “What?! How so?”, I wondered. How, for shit’s sake, did all this come about? It sounds too crazy to even contemplate! Both Denmark and Canada rank highly as being two of the happiest nations on earth, I believe ranking first and second respectively according to one list. Both are reasonably progressive, I’m sure, in some other human development/social well-being indices. I always thought that there was a good political rapport between us as far as relations between nations go. How could one nation that does delightfully ingenious things like taking its power grid off of fossil fuels, making wonderful beer and cheese, and manufacturing Lego, the best toy ever, get into a snit with this other nation that initiated the idea of a peace-keeping force in the UN, sired Rush, the best power-trio progressive rock band ever, and perhaps even had a hand in helping to liberate the other nation in WWII?

Well . . . it turns out that Denmark and Canada are both trying to lay claim to some frozen rock up in the Arctic Ocean: a place called Hans Island, lying somewhere between Ellesmere Island and Greenland. This silly little island is probably no bigger in area than the schoolyard in my neighbourhood, except it has a lot less on it. It serves no apparent practical use whatsoever, unless for Canada, it may be a great observation point for tracking migrating narwhals and walruses, or else perhaps the Danes secretly found some sort of radioactive isotope on there that would permit them unlimited energy for manufacturing Lego blocks. Whatever the case, possession of this barren little speck on a map is somehow a big enough deal for both nations’ respective royal navies to send patrols up there to secure this place since 1973. The way this dispute is occurring between forces is weirder still. Canada’s navy plants our red and white flag there and leaves behind a bottle of whiskey to stake this place as our territory. Then the Royal Danish Navy comes along, takes down our flag and then props up their red and white banner, taking away the whiskey and leaving behind a bottle of Danish schnapps as a claim to the island, which the Canadian sailors clear away later, and the process is repeated. This place must be really remote and insignificant for Arctic dwellers, even for the Inuit, to bother visiting, because if they knew that there were bottles of booze just lying around on this island, and if it was more accessible, they would be invading the place for sure**. Both nations seem to be opting for the same strategy: of either somehow making the other opponent sailors too pleasantly pissed to want to fight, or just dulled into indifference to care about a stupid chunk of Arctic rock out in the middle of nowhere. As far as conflicts go involving military engagement between nations, it is a strange little affair, and I am l relieved to say that it is as such. It probably makes for the friendliest sort of “battle” for a patch of land that’s currently happening on this Earth right now. It makes one think that if this battle were to escalate or intensify, the resulting dead flesh amidst this conflict of nations would probably (hopefully) just amount to an exchange of Canadian bacon and Danish ham along with the spirits.

There sometimes is a perplexing vagueness involved in trying to find out what it is that gives us as Canadians our own unique national identity. As a natural born citizen here, I still struggle to find all-encompassing adjectives to describe what and who we precisely are. However, the paragraph above is fine example of how things are approached when it comes to conflict here compared to other nations: stand your ground when you must; try to settle things kindly when you are allowed to do so. I’m happy that my greatest nuisances are akin to the noises of car alarms blaring off accidently, or the fireworks bursting off later this evening that will terrify my dog, rather than the sounds of bombs going off around me. In viewing the news as of late, I’m glad that we are a lot luckier in this respect than a lot of other nations.

Tonight, as I view the fireworks from my balcony, hopefully without any rain, I’ll raise one of my glasses of whiskey to any Danes out there and wish a peaceful resolution between us, one way or another, and hope there’s some Dane out there raising their shot of schnapps on his or her national holiday wishing the same. Right now, no one is really hurting from this little conflict, and I hope it stays that way.

*- For the benefit of my friends who use English as their second language, a note about how stupid this language sometimes is. If you are content, it means you are pleased and satisfied; yet if you have contention, it is the complete opposite of that, meaning that one is involved in a dispute, or becoming upset by a disagreement.

**- Let's not kid ourselves: regardless of ethnicity of the people living up there, the higher rates of alcoholism and substance abuse, and fewer available resources for intervention, continue to be the worst of the social ills in the remote and isolated Northern and Arctic communities.