Category: General

On Wednesday morning I had the good sense to spend 3 hours at the library catching up on important e-things and of course blogging this.

In the afternoon it was another round of “High Tea” at the art gallery with me, Deanna, and the septuagenarian gossip posse. They served a scone, some fruit and various condiments on a multi-tiered tray which was either ridiculous or elegant depending on your point-of-view. The scone was tasty though. And did I mention home-made? Also: devonshire cream.

A hug from my new gramma sent Deanna, her mom and I into the boat for the big drive to Shaunavon, the town where Deanna grew up. A big to-do was made out of the fact (to me, anyway) that the sisters’ kids had cancelled their hockey practice so they could spend time with us, but upon arrival we found that only Layne, the youngest of the siblings at 5, actually had the evening free. We drew a book together and she made me a crown, so finally I could make some royal decrees!

Oh how she did cry when she had to go to bed, but I didn’t, because I played Super Mario Bros on the Wii. Despite the kid’s offer for me to sleep in her bed, Deanna and I went to her Mom’s place to crash, and so endeth the least boring day so far of the trip, owing primarily to the fact that I was not surrounded by old people talking constantly about other old people I have never met.

The Shurniak Art Gallery here in Assiniboia was founded by some rich local who collected artwork from all over the world. Both of Deanna’s grandmothers wanted to take us there so naturally we had to make two separate trips two days in a row. Yes, the gallery is THAT good. Part of our visit to the gallery was to the tea room where they have home made (a point made by everyone who we spoke with) baked goods.

Afterwards we went back out to the farm and I spotted a huge owl just off the road on grandpa’s land, which I followed and tried to get some snapshots and a movie of. It was amazing, and looked something like this:

We went to the local tiny graveyard which, like the rest of the area, was coated in grasshoppers and locusts. The locals say it hasn’t been this bad since the 80’s (the grasshoppers, not the cadavers).

Monday we had breakfast at a place called New Moon Cafe. This is apparently a staple of Assiniboia cuisine and features what one might politely call Canadian Chinese. I would call it the worst breakfast I’ve ever had. Heavy onion rings, soggy oversauced caesar salad, three different kinds of very deep fried chicken, overdone fried rice, and chicken balls preside. The neice had ‘dino buddies’ which are freezerburned, deep fried, vaguely reptilian-shaped chicken.

Afterwards we hit the library. This is the only place that we know of where I can access the internet, so naturally there’s been a round of jokes at the grandparent’s place about whether or not I’m off to the library. There’s no service out here for either my cell phone or Deanna’s Blackberry. I’ve been checking my emails to keep tabs on presales for BLAST! and if there’s any updates to my art assignments.

Though we’re staying at Geriatric Manor across from the swimming pool, we spend most of our time at Deanna’s grandparent’s place. This involves being overfed and managing many subtle layers of guilt. After drawing a dinosaur for the neice I was then charged with the task of drawing a chalice for Grandma’s cult meeting, which I completed even though it flies in the face of everything I believe in. Oh yes, Deanna’s family is steeped in the rich history of the masons.

At the local ice cream shop, this big city boy blew the staff’s mind. I noticed they had a licorice shake so I asked for a licorice sundae. She said they didn’t have those, so I had to ask for the finer details of how a licorice shake is made. Is it a syrup? Then take that syrup and toss it on a helping of softserve. “I’ve never done that before.” Yeah well carpe diem, sweetheart. The result was not quite tiger tail ice cream, but it hit the spot.

On Sunday we flew in a plane.

I think it’s been about 8-9 years since I’ve been on a plane. Less than a year before 9/11, I went to New York and stood between the twin towers. But I used to work at the airport, and in that time the edict was you were supposed to be at the airport 2 hours before your flight time.

Deanna, on the other hand, has flown several times in the past two years and she told me that we should be at the airport an hour before our flight.

So naturally we spent a lot of time rushing here and there and waiting in lines that were longer than Deanna expected. They took my dollar-store screwdriver set which I bought so that I could fix my glasses when the lens falls out, as it does from time to time. Deanna was outraged that I was holding up the show.

But we got on the plane and were lucky enough to catch the episode of “Rogue Nature” that featured the humboldt squid (also known as ‘jumbo squid’ and commonly misnamed as the giant squid). The trip was two hours and we landed in Regina where we met with Deanna’s mom, sister, brother and family and had what we would call lunch and what Saskatchewanites call dinner (they call dinner supper) at Earl’s. It was surprisingly good and the awful music wasn’t very loud. This is contrary to all my previous experiences of Earl’s in Abbotsford and Vancouver.

Deanna’s family are mostly Christian and all breeders. This makes me love Deanna more because she is neither of these things. But her sibling’s kids are the closest thing I have to nieces and nephews since my brother Merrick and I are cut from the same cloth, which is to say from a highly dysfunctional family which instilled in us at a very young age an undeniable urge to avoid having kids.

After ‘dinner’, Deanna’s niece wisely bailed from the truck with her parents because they have just had another baby which makes, as babies do, an ungodly racket. So on the hour-plus-long van ride to Assiniboia we took on the 5-year old girl in the back seat and discussed the merits of Candyland vs Ice Cream World. We picked up KFC in Moosejaw and tried unsuccessfully to get the chewing gum off the kid’s neck.

We drove to ‘the farm’ outside of Assiniboia and said hi to Deanna’s grandfather who was ‘swathing’ the fields of wheat with his combine. We caught some grasshoppers and Jack showed me how to get the grains out of the wheat sheaf. And then he couldn’t get his antique combine started up again and there was some awkwardness.

Off we went to hole up at Grandma’s house where I mostly watched people watch the baby drool on everything for several hours. Oh, and there was the football game to watch so that was exciting. But eventually I had staked out a place long enough that I gained access to the remote control and I was able to enjoy more shows in the Discovery Network or TLC or something, about grizzly bears and Mythbusters.

We drove in the old folks car to the old folks home where we are renting a room for $15/night ($5 more if you use their towels and sheets). Seriously. And they don’t have a DVD player in the room – but they DO have a VHS. Too bad I didn’t bring any.

Boring Old Photos from the PNE

1. Aliens crash and become sand!

2. Deep Fried Oreo

3. High as a Ferris Wheel

I used to enjoy Maoam, but you can never find it anymore.

Shame, because look at this wrapper:

Out here in the boonies of Greater Vancouver (which is to say dangerously close to Burnaby), our grocery shopping options are as follows (in geographical order closest to our house to farthest):

Banana Grove

Great Canadian Superstore

Pricesmart Foods (which is a fancy way of saying Save On Foods)

We only occasionally shop at BG because although it is 2 blocks away, everything is expensive (Over $5 for a 2L bottle of sody pop, for example). Also, the staff and patrons there are for the most part annoying. Really I’d say the only thing going for it is the deli counter which is too crowded to maneuver in.

We used to shop at Superstore but, uh…well, to quote the Simpsons, “shopping is a mind-boggling experience.”

Now we shop at Pricesmart. We like it because it’s cheaper, it’s not as packed with customers as the other stores, and has the organic options that Deanna craves. The part I don’t like about it is the points. POINTS! Too many points in this world. Shopping is not a video game. I don’t need the high score. Can I convert my points into gold coins? Or even copper coins? No…no I cannot.

Although second last trip the clerk did ask me if I wanted to redeem some of my points to get my 4L jug o’ milk for free. Hell yes! And all this time I thought I’d die with the most points on my card. So I guess it’s not all bad.

This weekend we took another trip to Pricesmart and it was unusually busy. We decided to try the “self-checkout” because it would be faster and more efficient, right? Robotic logic is infallible, right? The future is friendly, right?

Right?

I scanned the first item. The screen gave me the price and told me to bag it. We brought our own grocery carrier bag-deal, of course, being environmentally conscious. So Deanna put it in our carrier which rested on the floor. RoboClerk did not understand that. I tried to scan another item but could only press the button “I DO NOT WISH TO BAG THIS ITEM.”

Great! Next item. Same deal. Every time we scanned something I had to wait and press that on screen button. Except on the fourth time RoboClerk halted the entire procedure and told me to wait while a customer service clerk was summoned. He arrived swiftly, entered his login code, and overrode RoboClerk. He said it might ask us a few more times to do that but eventually it should let us bag the stuff in our own way.

Except for the time we actually did put some stuff in the bagging area. And the time we took that stuff on the bagging area. And the time we tried to scan broccoli. And when it didn’t compute the weight of our cloth bag. And when we tried to use the coupon we got when we entered the store. Every time something like this happened one of the PriceSmart managerial types had to come over, scan in their card or punch in their login, and smooth over relations between RoboClerk and us. “This isn’t really designed for large orders” was to be heard.

So perhaps if we were a little more seasoned in the use of RoboClerk, the entire operation wouldn’t have taken twice as long as waiting in the regular line up. Plus RoboClerk probably would never offer me FREE MILK!!! Certainly not with our tense relationship so far.

On the weekend Deanna and I and some other friends went to a berry picking place in Chilliwack (well, Yarrow, practically). It was pretty much the end of the season but we got lots of blueberries and a few strawberries ‘n’ raspberries.

The name of the place is Country Bumpkins – the most aptly named company in the history of time.

We were there with two other couples and there was just one person to help us pay for our foodstuffs so naturally with such a short staffed operation things are bound to go horribly horribly wrong.

First up Stewaria put their buckets on the scale and the lady weighed and added up the maths. I put our buckets on the counter about 5 feet away from theirs. The lady took Stewaria’s buckets and started putting the contents into those green foamy takeaway baskets (you know the kind) on the counter. She started grabbing our buckets o’ berries — which we hadn’t paid for — and mixing them into Stewaria’s. All of us pretty much tried to stop her.

Us: “Don’t mix those up.”

Her: “I have to mix them up to put them in the baskets”

Me: “We haven’t paid for those yet”

Her: (Not looking up) “I’ll do yours after I finish with these guys”

Me: “Those ones are ours”

And it went on like that and in no time the situation was fubared. Some of our berries were mixed with Stewaria’s and some weren’t and there was no way to figure out accurately how much anyone owed. So she gave us a dollar off…of something but we don’t know what that something was. But the best part was that when she realized the mistake that was made, she got pissy at me.

Then, for the piece de resistance, we decided to buy a jar of jam and put it on the counter with the rest of our stuff. As she was ringing it through she picked it up and started to walk back to the jam section, asking “what size of jam do you want?”

“The size in your hand” is what I wanted to say but didn’t.

This from a self-proclaimed 15 year veteran in the u-pick berry service.

So, for future reference, if you ever go to Country Bumpkins, please for everyone’s sake, only go in one at a time.

Does anyone else think this would be a mind-blowing screen saver?