I’m here! Sorry about the gap in posting, things have been crazy. I have a backlog of emails to reply to, and phone calls, it’s chaos at the moment!
I drove out to Arrowwood on Tuesday night after work and spent Wednesday with Badger before heading back to the city. As always, it was a nice getaway from things here. And right behind his house is a huge field of canola, so it’s like looking at an ocean of such a vibrant yellow… it makes me pause and stare every time I’m outside there because it just puts me in awe. It’s gorgeous and so strange to see.
When I got back into the city, I stopped at a strip mall to do some shopping for M’s birthday present. I parked in the lot, grabbed my phone and started replying to the bunch I got on the drive back in (I can’t text and drive) so my mind was instantly consumed. I went on my merry way throughout the various stores, picking out stickers and finding the perfect day-planner. (She wanted a day-planner to help her keep everything together in one place to stay organized, so I found her a gorgeous academic one, then decorated it with stickers and wrote random facts, jokes and FML submissions on random days, to give her something to look forward to.) When I got back to my car, I started shaking my purse, listening for the usual jangle of keys, but alas, there was no tinkling sound emanating from my purse. I started furiously digging through it, taking out things and putting them on the hood of my car, desperately searching for them. No luck. I looked on my car seat, in the middle console, on the floor, but I couldn’t see them anywhere. Then the clouds shifted just a bit, and there was a dazzling shine coming off of them, sitting happily in my ignition.
I panicked. What the hell was I going to do? I had no way to get into my car, my laptop and a bunch of clothes and stuff were in there as well as my GPS and Ipod. What if someone broke the window and stole it while I walked around? I called my mom and asked what I should do, but she didn’t really know. I basically had two options. Wait for her to get off of work in a few hours, drive home and try to find my spare key before coming back and helping me in, or calling a tow truck. I chose to wait, since I really don’t have the money to toss around on tow trucks. My uncle was conveniently at the same place I was and offered to let me stay at his house until my mom was done, but I was too stressed and wanted to remain close to my car in case anyone tried to break in. He did his best to reassure me that no one would steal my car, but it’s a big city, of course it could happen.
She called me hours later to tell me that I must not have given her the key, because she couldn’t find it. I was freaking out, because I can specifically remember when I gave it to her. I didn’t handle it as well as I could have I’m sure, but I was stressed to the max. Luckily, she did end up finding the key and rescuing me. What a disaster. I sure learned my lesson though, now I always ALWAYS double-check my keys are put in my purse before I exit the vehicle. The problem was that I am so diligent about locking the doors and closing the windows tight so no one breaks in, when I locked myself out there was absolutely no cheat way to get in (the ol’ hanger through a cracked window and whatnot). Fun times.
Thursday, I went to get summer tires put on my car so I could finally stop driving on my new winter tires (that came with the car.) I went to a dive-y little restaurant to wait out the tire exchange, so I could read and write while I waited. After perusing the menu and not really finding anything that appealed to me or that I could eat, I asked for the penne with marinara sauce instead of the alfredo sauce. The waitress was like “No, I don’t think we can do that.” I was perplexed. “You can’t put a tomato sauce on my pasta instead of the cream sauce? I’m vegan and don’t eat cream or meat.” She said she would ask the kitchen for me, and I uneasily left her to do that, trusting that someone with common sense would realize that switching the sauce is not a difficult process unless it was all pre-made and frozen or something, which it shouldn’t have been. Twenty minutes later she comes back and says “It’s going to be a while, we need to defrost the meat sauce.” Holding back a sigh of disdain, I calmly said “As I said, I don’t eat meat or cream, that’s why I asked for the marinara sauce.” Shaking her head, she replied “We only have meat sauce.” *Headdesk*
“You don’t have a plain tomato sauce for your pasta?” Again, she went back to the kitchen and asked. How hard was my request? Why couldn’t I have just a plate of pasta with tomato sauce on it? What am I missing here? Half an hour later, they brought me a disgusting plate of food. Oh, how I regret choosing that place to sit in and eat at. Never again.
M and I then got together to hit up the Stampede, which was so much fun. We started with one of the craziest rides in the park, and in front of us was this family from Quebec that was the least classy mix of people I have encountered in a very long time. The daughter of the group was wearing short-shorts and a plunging v-neck top that was cropped, was smoking up a storm and punching her idiot little brother in between drags. The …mom? Aunt? was with her clearly newer boyfriend, making out with him and teasing him and her leather-brown skin was covered in trashy, terribly-done tattoos. They were being loud and raucous and rude and both M and I were just… embarrassed for them. It’s hard to describe the bunch, but it was painful to be stuck behind them in a very long line for so long. M and I had wonderful luck on the rides though, and always managed to get to the front seats of whatever one we happened to be on. I also watched horses doing cow cutting for the first time ever, and it was remarkable. The way those cutting horses move, with so much agility and speed, was spellbinding to watch. They looked like border collies with sheep; they were so swift and easy to maneuver… I love those kind of sports, that actually have a purpose other than being the fastest or staying on a bucking bull’s back for a full eight seconds. These horses were so well trained, worked so hard and looked like absolute naturals in there. It was a fantastic experience.
My stupid moment of the day? I won thirty percent off of a flight to anywhere Westjet flies, which is amazing. Not so amazing is the fact that I gave them the wrong email address, so my little coupon is lost somewhere in the abyss of the internet. I called Westjet when I got home (the kiosk had closed by the time I really started freaking out, worrying I gave my wrong email address) and they told me to email someone, though they never told me how long to expect to wait for a response. So I proceeded to call them the next morning and reiterate what was happening, hoping against all hope they could find my name somewhere on the list of people that won… I have to wait about a week to hear back. Now that it has been a few days, the major anxiety over it has waned, because as M put it, I lost something I never really had. It would be fantastic to have it, but if I end up not being able to get the discount, I just won’t be booking another trip any time soon, no harm no foul I suppose. I really felt so stupid though. What a ridiculous issue to have. If it had been a normal keyboard I would have been fine, but I didn’t double-check the spelling on the stupid touchpad. Bah!
M and I went on the skyride, which is a mutual favourite of ours. It’s a simple little seat attached to a wire that slowly goes in a straight line over the whole Stampede grounds (kind of like a gondola), providing a lovely respite from the crowds. As we were on our leisurely ride, a compartment going in the opposite direction held two young boys, no older than ten or eleven, and they got my attention and one hollered “I love what you’re wearing!” I was taken aback, so I just smiled and said thanks, until a little further up we both burst into laughter. It was so random! Usually younger boys like that aren’t really noticing girls my age… are they? I don’t think so… unless it’s the whole baby-sitter crush thing that sometimes happens… anyway, it was amusing. Then two or three compartments behind those boys, another cart holding two young men (probably eighteen or nineteen) went by, and one of them said something about how I looked and asked for my number. You know, I have never, EVER been asked for my number before. Guys have asked for like, my email address (for MSN, the phone of the new millennium!) or my Facebook or whatever, but never for the oldschool method phone number. Again at a loss for words, I merely mumbled a thanks and smiled as the ride carried me away. M and I looked at eachother and were like… “What is going on!?” Getting hit on twice in the span of forty seconds was definitely a nice feeling, but it was very strange at the same time. I got a lot of coy looks and smiles and some waves (and one girl telling me it was her birthday), and M asked what it was that made people speak so openly to me, and I had no idea. I guess I look approachable? (This must be so, because I went to the Stampede again last night and had literally five or six people ask me who was playing on the Coke Stage, to the point where the woman standing next to me actually said something about it, then later said “Since you seem to know everything about what’s going on with the concert, are they finished now?” Of course, there was the overly-contrived encore to come, so I told her there were a few more songs to come.)
After this tomfoolery, M and I met up with her sister and two of her sisters friends, a boy and a girl, making for one lucky man with four blondes all to himself! We were all sitting at a table talking while I had my first candy apple, which was massively disappointing. And MESSY. You should have seen my face after I finished with it; I looked like a sticky four year old, red dye all over my face and teeth. It was totally unattractive. Haha. We went outside to peruse the midway, when Pat (the guy) and I decided to go on the reverse-bungee ride together because M wimped out (I’m calling you out on that, your damn candy apples were a fourth of the cost!). We stood in the line and had a fantastic conversation about travelling, school, careers, relationships, and our plans for the future, all in the span of half an hour while we stood waiting for our turn. I was trying to keep his mind off the ride, because he was freaking out and was near tears due to his huge fear of heights. I didn’t want him to chicken out so I had to go alone! I told him that he would regret not doing it, and when we finally got to be flung into the air, he was exhilarated (as was I) and was so glad that he did it. It was worth the forty dollars, but I don’t think I would do it again just because of how short the ride is. The Skyscraper I went on last year lasted way longer, and is better bang for my buck. Here is a picture of what we went on. 
You get shot up into the air (it takes 1.8 seconds from the ground to the top height of the ride, then bounce up and down a few times before returning to solid ground.
That was all on Thursday night. Last night (Friday) I went with my friend O to see One Republic, which was a really enjoyable show. I was pretty impressed that they were on the lineup to play the Coke Stage, because they are a pretty big band now and the star-power over the past few years has been on the decline. I also saw Marianas Trench on Monday night, which was nice. I love how polite the Canadian bands are in contrast to American ones, there really is a significant difference in their demeanor and attitude towards the fans and crowds. You can’t beat our Canadian boys! (Alexisonfire (especially Dallas Green,) Our Lady Peace, Matthew Good, Marianas Trench… the list of awesome Canadian bands keeps getting bigger and bigger).
I also thought I should mention that for the first time in for as long as I can remember, and can search through Google, there was an accident on one of the amusement rides at the Stampede last night. The compartment became detached from the arm of the ride and threw riders against the concrete ground. No one died, but at least six people were seriously injured (nothing life-threatening.) This has been a terrible year for the Stampede with six horses dead in five days and now a ride mishap. Alberta as a whole is not doing well this month. I don’t know if any of you Americans or otherwise have heard, but there is some special-interest group in the US bashing the shit out of Alberta and saying that our oil sands (out East they are called tar sands) are just as bad as the BP spill in the gulf, and are spreading propaganda through a few cities in the States and are bringing their campaign to the UK soon as well. They are basically telling people to not visit Alberta because we are a dirty province ruining the environment and killing things. The truth is that 1,600 ducks did die in the tailing ponds from the oil sands, and Syncrude was found guilty in their deaths. The company could face a maximum penalty of $500,000 under the provincial law and $300,000 under the federal law, and I hope that they are fined to the full extent because of the damage they caused and the death toll. Syncrude has been very publically flogged because of this, and they are bound to be more diligent in taking care of things in the proper way, which is fantastic. However, for an American company to start slinging mud at our province, trying to tell the world how horrible it is here, they should take a look in their own backyards. The BP spill was under control as of what, yesterday? And there are still questions about the effectiveness of that, and a massive, massive economical and ecological fallout from that, affecting far more than 1,600 ducks. So forgive me (and the rest of Alberta) for being pretty upset over the ridiculous parallels this group is trying to make. Once everything is perfect down there in the US, THEN you can start casting your stones. Until then, let us deal with our problems without you trying to ruin our tourism here. In case you were wondering what the purpose of this advertising was, the group wants the entire world to stop using fossil fuels. Well, when that group lives in caves for a while and realize how ridiculous it is to say that they want the world to instantly stop using these fuels, I hope they realize how foolish they look. Scientists are working on alternative energy and fuel sources. However, because these are not viable yet and not implemented, how about we continue to grow and learn and make the best of the situation? If your group is so dead-set against fossil fuels and the way we do things, how about making a move to get America to stop buying oil from us. Oh ya, the rest of the world isn’t a huge fan of you, so good luck with finding alternatives to our product.
Alright, rant over.
Tags: Calgary, Frustration, Human Idiocy, Just me, Monologue, Rant
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