Wandering from Saturday into Sunday

Have I said lately, that I love living in Red Deer - hell, Alberta in and of itself is just ... glorious! Dev and I spend quite  a bit of time in Calgary when he comes home. It's a beautiful, trendy city full of shawarma shops, hipster bars, Irish pubs, sheesha bars, farmer's markets, parks and condo buildings. Even in winter it's beautiful.

Red Deer is smaller, but I love it no less. There are trees everywhere and I can't wait for the Spring to really arrive and watch the explosion of Nature waking up from a long and bitter cold winter. I've been in a sushi bar and watched a red deer wander nervously out of the trees to munch on a few surviving strands of grass only to dart back to the safety of the maze of bare tree trunks and naked branches. The people are friendly (for the most part, but there are a few d-bags and asshats - no city is perfect afterall), I'm not driven to WalMart by necessity (I've only been there twice since the beginning of January! Not that I have anything against WalMart or her many world weary, crazy, internet-famous denizens, but I firmly believe that WalMart is its very own circle of unending hell. A sentiment that my girlfriend Trish will attest. We were each other's support when journey's to WalMart were undertaken. We wouldn't have survived without each other and neither would have anybody else if one of us was absent. Sadly, now that I'm in Alberta and Trish remains in Ontario, I fear for her safety and sanity when she has to cross the threshold of that weird universe of sweat pants, messy topknot buns, and reckless, cart wielding individuals who can't navigate safely through the various aisles and then get in their cars and go careening down the 401. It's kind of scary once you stop and think about it. So far, all attempts to get Trish to move out to Alberta have not availed, but I remain hopeful. I know my pleas for the return of her friendship - and safeguarding of her sanity 0 do not fall on deaf ears, and one day she shall brave the broad flat expanse that is Saskatchewan and cross in to this new blissful haven and rejoice in the fact that she never has to go WalMart again. Until then, pray for us interweb.).


There's a little shopping center just down the street that has several banks, a Starbucks (seriously, if for no other reason I am in love with Red Deer purely because of the Starbucks and Chapters bookstores), a couple of restaurants, a salon, liquor and grocery stores, Tim Hortons and a couple of different gas stations and, on the other side of the fence, there's on-going construction for a new residential subdivision. 

Dev and I have some exciting projects coming up as well in the next year or so - which I won't talk about just yet for fear of jinxing them - and I've even managed to squeeze in some time to write on the long days when he's gone for weeks at a time to live/work in camps in northern Alberta.

I'm told camp life is difficult. The days (or nights, depending on what shift they end up sticking you on) are long and essentially mind-numbingly boring. They're dry camps as well, and nobody really seems to be all that social, so for someone like Dev - who's a social butterfly - it's hard. So, when he comes home we tend to cram a lot of socializing (read: drinking) in to a small amount of time. His job, which I am greatly oversimplifying, essentially consists of him sticking a big metal rod in a hole, then taking it back again. The rod takes reading in the ground, and this data comes out on paper as "squiggly lines" which some other guy then interprets and relays his opinion to someone else whether or not to continue looking for oil in this particular spot.

Yes, my partner is involved in the oil and gas industry. Now, don't go getting your knickers all bunched up. Yes, we debate global warming and recycling and living green at great lengths, (Trish can vouch for me. She's seen these debates - and laughed her ass off at us too. But she thinks that her black car is really blue so don't mind her. Love you, Trish! xox) and the closet we have come to agree is that because of his profession I feel even more responsible and obliged to try and recycle and cause as little damage to the earth as possible. And while I'll never get him to recycle, he has recently revealed to me that he'd like a build a shipping container house, which might be as close to green living as I'm likely to see him get. I remain on the fence however about the prospect of living in a house made of shipping containers, laid one atop the other and different angles and yadda yadda yadda.



**** SEVERAL HOURS LATER ****

So, I got a little sidetracked. I spent the majority of the day today reading Where'd You Go, Bernadette? by Maria Semple. I devoured this book - so much so that I forgot to stay hydrated today, and ended up with a killer headache that could only be cured with two tall glasses of water and an Advil Liqui-Gel. I won't give up too many of the details but the book follows a family in Seattle. The mother, Bernadette, was a woman pioneering in the field of architecture; her husband a genius computer guru who gets snagged up by Microsoft. Together, due to life events and tragedy they relocate to Seattle and they're daughter Bee is born. Bee thrives at the private school her parents enroll her, despite being born with a heart defect that requires one surgery after another. Then, one day after earning a stellar report card, Bee declares that for graduation she'd like a family vacation to Antarctica as her present. A series of events all come together that result in the sudden disappearance of Bernadette that send both Bee and her father on a journey that you really, really, need to read for yourself.

I've barely even remembered to eat today, which is probably why I sat down with a box - yes, box - of ice cream for supper and ate one delicious scoop of mint chocolate chip after another. I've watched a mini marathon of The Big Bang Theory, caught a new episode of Almost Human, and now The Following is on.

Meanwhile I have an entire season of The Walking Dead to catch up on along with two episodes of Vikings, and the latest season of Once Upon A Time as well. There's also a ton of books on my shelf to read, and I've also been missing my PS3 binges of endless hours playing Skyrim and Assassin's Creed: Black Flag. Plus, I also need to get my nerdy little paws on The Last of Us, and Second Son. Sadly, Second Son is only available on the new PS4 console and as of right now, despite what appears to be a really stellar game, I can't justify shelling out major moola on a console where I really only want to play one game. Maybe next year, once they've had time to release some additional titles it'll be worth it, but not right now - not for me, anyway.

So, I apparently loaded up my plate. This of course, does not include trying to volunteer once a week at the yoga studio, getting back into a regular yoga practice routine, and maintaining a job that keeps me working almost 50 hours a week.

Oh yeah, I got a job! Have I told you that yet? Right. I started working at Enterprise Rent-A-Car. I wasn't even sure if I would like it, but I'll have been at it for 3 weeks and I'm so amazed at how much I love it. And apparently, I'm doing pretty good - even though I'm making a growing list of "rookie mistakes." But I'm getting over it and I have the skeleton of a plan in place that will hopefully someday see me in an HR position! But first, I have to conquer a written exam, an intense oral exam, and then conquer various branch position all while maintaining networking relationships, participate in Elite dinners and build a good solid foundation based on sales numbers, and a whole host of other things! It's a lot to take in and very exciting and I wish I had really listened to Dev's advice much sooner and applied there.

Anyhoo, my lovelies, it's late - or getting there at any rate and I should try to rustle up some more grub and head to bed, perhaps with a new book.

But before I do there's a new movie involving Paul Bettney, Johnny Depp, Cillian Murphy, Morgan Freeman, Johnny Depp, Scarlett Johanesson and did I mention Johnny fucking Depp!? It's called Transcendence and I HAVE to see it!!!!

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