So Long! And Thanks for All the Fish!

This post seems long overdue, but for those who didn't already know through family grapevines, new and exciting things have been going on in my world. Firstly, after 60 weeks of counting down, I am done classes forever! Or at least until I have a midlife crisis and go back to school, but for now, formal education is done.

Secondly, and most significantly, I moved! Again! This has been my third move this year and tragically will not be my last, but it is still exciting because I changed cities. A whole three hours away from home too. I live in Edmonton, and have for the past two weeks! I am here doing my practicum and the plan is just to stick around after and find a job here.

My departure was bittersweet and slightly surreal. I admit, even now I sometimes forget I don't live in Calgary. There are many things I miss, but many more I look forward to. In commemoration of my time spent in Cowtown (also known as my entire life minus the past two weeks) here is just a sampling of the things I love and miss about my hometown:

-my library! Yes, obviously they have one of those here, but my library was always Nose Hill. It's where I grew up going. It's where I learned to love books. Plus I don't have a library card here and I'm feeling deprived.

-my regular jaunts around the Bow River, and the Bow in general. Did you know the North Saskatchewan River is actually a disgusting body of water? The Bow is beautiful and clean.

-playing ultimate in Bowness Park. One of my favourite things to do in the summer.

-Shakespeare in the Park. I was religious about going to this every summer, usually to all the shows and sometimes to the same one more than once. It's outside, it's Shakespeare, and you can bring a picnic. What more do you want?

-My places to eat. Spicy Hut, Diner Deluxe, Tandoori Hut, Sate Sub and Thai Boat. Also, other special little places like I Appeal. I miss my niche.

-Going for downtown lunches with Neen! My sister e-mailed me the other day to inform me she was going to Sunterra for lunch, our favourite place to meet up and grab a salad. I had done the same thing the day before at the Sunterra here, and we both mourned the loss of a tradition we now have to live alone.

-Knowing how to get places. I can drive to work, and home again. I consider it a major accomplishment when I can get there without taking a single wrong turn. I miss knowing where I am going.

-my institute teachers. They were all fantastic.

-my ward! I was in Foothills Ward for four years. My last Sunday there felt so strange and people kept hugging me. I was devastated and exhilarated all at the same time.

And most of all:

-my people! Family, friends, inside jokes. I miss Leah saying she's just peachy every time I ask how she is and then I say I'm splenda. I miss random dance parties with Colleen, or outings with Neen where I convince her to drive me places, I miss Lou and her magical brownies, I miss being weirded out by my brother as he races into the ravine dressed as a ninja. I miss my people niche.

And yet, don't feel blue, because life is fantastic! It has been only two weeks and I still don't have my feet on the ground, but here is what I love about Edmonton so far:

-living with the Fixsens. Being witness to brilliant moments in their kid's childhoods like the brilliant dinner conversation Jaima mentioned.

-my job. I love my job. Suddenly, all the tearing of hair and frustrations of school seem like not such a big deal.

-exploring a new city. I have the opportunity to find new places: new things to do every summer, new places to eat and shop, new places to go for walks and play ultimate, new people to meet and have inside jokes with. I get to create a whole new niche!

And something else truly terrific:

-I now live in the same city as the hat store.

So, so long Calgary! It's been fun, but I have found somebody else. But thanks for all the fish!

Secret Man Classes

Last November, I went to Preference (the church dance where girls ask guys). The night of the dance was cold, icy, and very snowy, so it should come as no surprise that when I went to pick up my date, my car got stuck in the snow outside his house.

Without missing a beat, he jumped out of the car and told me he would push me out. He then proceeded to lean against the right side of my car just in front of the passenger side door and push from the side. I was so surprised I just stared at him for a moment before I remembered I was supposed to be driving the car out of the pile of snow. His bizarre technique worked like a charm.

When he got back in the car, I asked him how he'd known to push from the side. After all, if it had been me I would have pushed from the back, the front, and than the back again before maybe guessing to push from somewhere else. He didn't even have to look at my car to know where to push. What was his secret?

Sadly, he could offer no explanation. At least not one that I could follow. He merely shrugged and said he'd done this a lot. Well so have I! I live in Calgary, have been driving in snow as long as I have been driving, and get stuck on a routine basis. How had I not acquired his mad skills? I was more than a little jealous.

A few months passed, and I didn't think much of it. Then one evening in January, Janine's car got stuck in front of our house, sticking out into the road. She called me out from the house to help her push it. We pushed that car away from the curb from all possible angles on the hood, but it wouldn't budge from that one little icy patch it had created. We then decided to take the wisest course of action; we called Neen's fiance and asked him to come over and fix it.

No sooner had Ben arrived than he nonchalantly walked up to the car, pushed it from the back over the curb and out of the tricky spot. WHAT?! How did he know that? Again, didn't even look at it.

It was then that I realized what was going on. Both Ben and my date had acquired the same skill that neither my sister nor I could achieve. This must be a lesson from secret man classes!

For those of you who aren't in the know, secret man class is where guys go to learn those skills we assume are so easily acquired by the male population such as pushing cars out of snow, matching the correct nuts and bolts together without having to dig through every drawer and try every one, and how to cook meat with fire.

There are also of course, secret women classes. Here we learn how to tell the difference between chartreuse and emerald green, how to tell what fruit is good quality at the grocery store, and how to tell precisely how many more bay leaves are needed to make a pot of stew taste just right.

In my research on these two under the table institutions, I have begun to accumulate a thesis on their possible curriculums. So my question to the blogosphere is:

What skills come naturally to you from secret man/woman classes? What have you noticed your spouse it naturally good at that you simply cannot fathom?

Perhaps one day I will understand this phenomenon, but in the mean time, I will just collect stories, call my brother-in-law when my car is stuck, and advise guy friends on which are the good oranges to buy at Superstore.

Something to Giggle About

This past school year, I've been teaching Relief Society in my ward. Out of all the church callings I have ever had, it has been my favourite. There have been difficult lessons, awkward pauses where I suspect even if I did a tap dance people would still stare at me with the same dazed expression, and tricky topics; like when I had to teach my peers about drug addictions. However, none of my experiences relate to what happened to a friend of mine today.

Whenever there is a fifth Sunday in the month, we have a combined meeting of our Relief Society and Elders Quorum (ie - rather than split up for that one lesson block, the guys and girls are in the same lesson). Usually this is a chance for our bishop to teach us whatever he thinks we need to hear most that month. Today was a fifth Sunday.

Apparently, the bishopric forgot what Sunday it was, and so they assigned my friend Mike (who just moved into the ward last week) to teach the next lesson in the Gospel Principles manual same as usual. Upon arrival at church, the bishopric sees women filing into the Elders Quorum room, and suddenly remembers how many Sundays have already happened in the month of May. They pull Mike aside and tell him that he will not just be teaching the guys. The girls will be tagging along as well. What is Mike's lesson again? Oh yes. The Law of Chastity.

Welcome to the Ward, Mike! Sundays are always filled with lessons, inspiration, and moments of gratitude. Today I simply marveled at our way of welcoming the new guy, and profoundly gave thanks that I have never had to teach the most uncomfortable lesson in the book to a crowd of mixed gender twenty-something year olds of whom I know maybe a handful.

And for the record, once he stopped staring at the bishop in horror, Mike did an excellent job.

New Methods of Feeling Fabulous

When Prince William and Kate Middleton announced their engagement, I like everyone else, glanced over the articles and promotional photos in the grocery store checkout. When Janine brought home MacLean's commemorative issue, I poured over it. Studying the pictures, the stories and the wedding plans, there was one thing that Kate Middleton had that I really wanted.


Her hat. Every time I saw those photos of William and Kate walking along in that blue dress, I looked at that hat and sighed with envy. Man I wish I had a hat like that. It would define my wardrobe.

In contemplation of our future monarch's coming nuptuals, my friend Leah and I decided we needed to celebrate. We determined the best way to do this would be to PVR the wedding so we didn't have to have our party at three in the morning, invite all our girlfriends over, drink tea, and eat cucumber sandwiches. Dressing up was mandatory. Hats were recommended.

My dad of course told me it was a silly purchase, but I saw this as a perfect excuse to make one of my silly dreams come true. I remembered a store I'd visited in Edmonton called Head Case. It sells practical hats like toques, berets and cowboy hats, as well as an array of classy society hats. I have been eyeing those hats for years wishing I could justify buying one, but I could never think of anywhere to wear it. Leah's tea party gave be a perfect excuse.

On a recent day trip to Edmonton, I stopped by Head Case with my sister Katey. It didn't take us long to find it. It was exactly what I wanted. I hadn't got far out of the store before I started to doubt my purchase. Had I just spent money on something I only had an excuse to wear once? Was this going to be one of those purchases I regretted making because it took up space in my closet and moved with me from home to home until I started to hate it and threw it out? Suddenly I felt incredibly silly.


It's on shopping trips like this that you need a sister or friend along to keep you in the right frame of mind. Katey asked me three questions:

1. Did I love it?
2. Did it make me feel pretty?
3. Had I made any indulgent purchases recently?

If my answers were yes, yes and no, I had nothing to worry about. By the time I was showing off my hat to my mom, I felt great again. Surely I could think of places to wear it other than Leah's tea party. I just had to have the confidence to pull it off.

The tea party was fantastic. Leah went all out, watching the wedding was fun, and I looked fabulous in my hat. The next day at church, we were all talking about how fun it had been and how much we had loved the excuse to wear a fabulous hat. We all agreed it was a shame people never wear hats in our society. Wanting to rectify the situation, we came to an agreement; the next time our ward had a lunch after church, we would all wear hats.

That day in sacrament meeting, our bishop announced the next Linger Longer would be the following week. We spread the word and gathered all the hats we had. The next Sunday, half the Foothills Relief Society was wearing hats. Most of us were too excited to wear them to wait till after our meetings. After some debate, we determined the correct etiquette allowed women to wear hats in church, and seeing our bishop had no objections, we wore them all through our meetings; sitting in the back row so we didn't block anyone's view. Did we get startled looks? Yes. Did the people in the other ward wonder aloud what was with the hats every time we passed them? Yes. Did everyone eventually smile and tell us we had some great hats? Absolutely.

We ran around all Sunday feeling fabulous in our hats. Every Linger Longer Sunday has now been declared Hat Sunday. The Foothills Relief Society is bringing hats back in style!

The Hair Room

My house was built by a man who has difficulty growing facial hair. I can tell this because there are no electical outlets in either of our bathrooms.

When I first moved in in December, I was made aware of the fact that I woul have to blow-dry, straighten, and curl my hair in my room. This can be nuisance when you have limited outlets, shelf space of mirror space lining up with the other two, and I have all three. Doing your hair on your bed while consulting the mirror on the closet door across the room is a nuisance; especially when you are paranoid like me and always think that if you're not careful setting down your curling iron, you will set your sheets on fire.

When Janine moved out in February, we had no one to take her spot, and her room (the one next door to mine) was left empty. After about a week, I looked at my messy room and did not want to face digging my way through to an outlet so I could straighten my hair. Looking at the empty one next to me with an outlet in easy reach of the mirrored closet door, I figured why not, and set up camp with my flat iron inside. Because I am such a neat and tidy person, I decided to leave the flat iron there with hairspray, a brush, and several bobby pins for company. No one else was using the room right away, and if anyone came by to see the room, I would just move it quickly.

The situation was simply too convenient, and so, for the past few months, Janine's old room has been dubbed; the Hair Room - where it's only real function is a place to straighten, curl, and blow-dry.


I think I make use of extra space nicely. I mean how many people can boast that they once in their life had a room entirely devoted to doing their hair?

Lawyer Kate: There is No Nice Ring to It

I always like to make fun of stupid news. I really thought I had seen it all when Dickens' fictional orphan was exposed as being well fed; making a scandal out the line "Please sir, can I have some more?"

Then today happened.

I arrived at work to find the paper on the table in the back room. My coworker Delby and I like to do the crossword, but we don't like to pay for the paper, so our choices usually go to MetroNews and the Calgary Sun; which are both more of advertising catalogues than newspapers. Still, the Sun usually has a few updates on what is going on in the world. You can imagine my surprise then, when I say today's front page headline.

Apparently, there is a lawyer in Calgary who looks like Kate Middleton. A few people have stopped her on the street wondering if she really is our future queen. This also makes sense because if I was about to marry a prince in Westminster Abbey next week, I know I would be hanging out in Calgary.

According to the Sun, this lawyer's name is Kate, has long brown hair, and lives in a British-style house. That is where the similarities stop.

I am pretty sure I ranted about the non-newsiness of this for twenty minutes before I remembered it was just the Sun.

Then I came home and googled the story. Imagine my surprise when I found the same story reported by the Calgary Herald.

What I wonder the most is how this "story" even came to the attention of the media. Did Kate the Lawyer call the Herald and Sun and say "I look like Kate Middleton sort-of-not-really. You should abandon the federal election and other news do feature me." What the hay?

Seriously, we are in the middle of an election, the verdict was just given on the murder trial of two children, and yet the story we led with was a girl who looks like Kate Middleton but not really?

Oh Calgary.

I Hope They Have These Brownies In Heaven

One night this week, my roommate Lou got home around 10:30; shortly after I arrived home and just as our other roommate Jessica was ending a date. Lou came home with a very important purchase; milk chocolate chips. Somehow through our conversation as we all summarized our days, the agreement was made that we would have to use them to make brownies right then and there.

I rushed to change out of work clothes and into pajamas covered with an apron, and when I returned, Lou had pulled out the brownie recipe she had just been bragging about. When I saw the title on the top of the index card, I did a double take.

Celestial Brownies?! Who names their brownies after heaven? I mean, always claim that salmon is the food of the gods, but really? Celestial Brownies? Just what was in this recipe?

Lou explained the story as we mixed together the ingredients. The brownies in the past had simply been called "Chocolate Chip Brownies," but then one day, she had been making them with a friend. This friend was just learning about our religion, and our take on heaven, or the Celestial Kingdom. When this friend first tasted these brownies she raved about them, describing them as a bit of heaven, and celestial-tasting. Naturally, a new, much more interesting name for these brownies was born.

With this guarantee, we concluded it was a very good idea to all stay up till midnight baking brownies even when we all had early mornings ahead of us. I love little roommate moments like this.

And to answer your question, yes; the brownies were very celestial-tasting. Here is the recipe, courtesy of Lou.

4 eggs

3 cups brown sugar

1 cup melted butter

2 cup flour

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp vanilla

Combine ingredients and pour into a greased 9x13 pan. Sprinkle with milk chocolate chips. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-30 minutes. These brownies are food of the gods!