Day 1 – Bourgeois Bus

I had everything in order the afternoon before last. My laundry was done. My fish was at a friend's home. My plants were well-watered. I had a comprehensive packing list. All I had to do was pack.

Packing is hard for me. Yesterday was no exception. Somehow it took me from 5 in the afternoon until 3 in the morning to get a few measly possessions into a suitcase. I still can't tell if the 15 episodes of 30 Rock helped or hurt. When I finished packing at 3am, I was so glad to be done that I was too jubilant to go right to sleep. I checked Twitter. I read email. I listened to clips of the 10 most popular songs on iTunes. I finally passed out around 3:45am. My ride to the airport called me at 6:11am to let me know she was outside waiting. I threw on my clothes and ran out of the house with my bags.


I flew from Saint Louis to Chicago (where I met up with my mom), Chicago to Toronto, and then Toronto to Halifax. We arrived in Halifax just after 7pm and rented a car to drive to Prince Edward Island. It's a three hour drive. ("A three hour tour, a three hour tour.")

There are two options for getting from Nova Scotia to PEI—the Caribou Ferry and the Confederation Bridge. Both are a little over an hour from the airport. Both are free on the way over and costly on the way back. They are located on opposite ends of the northern Nova Scotia coast. We decided to go for the ferry. More interesting. More relaxing.

We sped down the highway in our little rented Kia Soul. We pulled up to the ferry launch just in time to see the last ferry of the day floating away, already 20 meters off the shore. We had no choice but to turn around and head for the bridge. We typed our destination into the gps and set off.

50 minutes later, the sun had set and we were in the middle of nowhere. We were on the Unintentional Nighttime Wildlife Tour of Nova Scotia (which included a black bear with cub, a fox, a cat, a skunk, and somethign unidentifiable), or possibly participating in the Travel On As Many Uneven Dirt Roads As You Can Without Breaking An Axle competition.

Each new direction from the GPS seemed like it must be the one that would take us to a highway, or at least a paved road. No dice. We spent another hour and a half meandering the Nova Scotian wilderness.

Finally—FINALLY—we made it to the bridge. We got to Prince Edward Island and found our bed & breakfast. Which was locked. And completely dark. We called the number. Answering machine. We called the second number. Answering machine. We knocked. We walked around the building. We rang the bell. We waited. We called again. We rang the bell again. Nothing. No light. No movement. By now it was nearly 1am.

What to do? Sleep in the car? Mother was pretty opposed to that. She wanted to go to Charlottetown, the only city on Prince Edward Island that's sizable. Unfortunately, it's also 50 minutes from our b&b. I was not up for another hour (at least) of driving. I looked through the sleeping options on the gps until I came to a hotel and conference center 8 miles away. The presence of a conference center sounded unlikely, but we called the number and, sure enough, they were open. The clerk also knocked $30 off the price because it was so late (and maybe also because he could hear the overwhelming exhaustion and burgeoning desperation in my mother's voice).

We set out. The gps attempted to take us on a gravel road running parallel to the paved road we were on. We ignored it. When we got to the hotel, it had a completely different name than came up on the gps, but apparently the clerk had informed my mother of this. (If this clerk campaigned for "Nicest Person in an Already Nice Country," I'd vote for him hands down.)

This was parked outside our hotel:

By now I was completely slap happy. I told my mother that maybe this would all work out because we'd meet somebody famous. "Like that Amish girl?" she queried, gesturing to the bus. I just laughed and laughed and got out my camera. When we got inside, there was a packet on the front counter with dates and times for the local festival, apparently going on this week—Lobster Carnival! "Bring your camera and take a photo of yourself in our giant lobster trap!" the sheet crowed. There are tons of events. Later today there's an Anne of Green Gables musical. At this very moment, I'm missing the dog agility show. And the only thing that costs anything seems to be the mini-concert presented by the College of Piping.

We thanked the clerk and headed for the elevator. The buttons looked like this:

This almost defeated me. Did I want to go left or right!?

We got up to the room and collapsed. There were two large beds and fluffy white guest robes that damn near made me cry.

Today promises to be better, if less noteworthy.

Oh! Canada!

[I Will Possess Your Heart–Death Cab for Cutie; The Engine Driver–The Decemberists; Tonight–Stars; Marching Bands of Manhattan–Death Cab for Cutie; Time is Running Out–Muse; I've Been Thinkin'–Handsome Boy Modeling School]

Security's efficient rather than officious, everyone's nice rather than surly, and wi-fi is free rather than outrageously overpriced. I am ready to move into the Toronto airport. Seriously, why isn't Canada beating people away with a stick? I guess I don't know. Maybe they are. But I kind of doubt it.

I could stand the snow and the cold and the caribou. How do I get a job here?

From here I'm going on to Prince Edward Island where supposedly everyone smiles all the time and fresh-cooked lobsters litter the streets.

Can't wait. Even though I don't eat lobster.

MC

[The Stars Came Out Once the Lights Went Out–The Veils; Brighten Up– Chutes; Flashing Red Light Means Go– The Boxer Rebellion; If You Run– The Boxer Rebellion; All the Same to Me– Anya Marina; Navajo– Black Lips; I Killed Sally's Lover (live)– The Avett Brothers; I'll Be Thinking of You– Jamie McDonald; You're a Wolf– Sea Wolf; Dots on Maps– Say Hi; California Love– 2Pac]

The small Illinois town my dad lives in began a new tradition this year. They held a talent show in the town square yesterday, in part to determine who would perform before the fireworks show tonight and in part to raise money for the fireworks show. Kitten saw a flyer for "Ottawa's Got Talent" and decided to enter to complete one of her goals for the year—performing a stand-up comedy routine.

Here's the thing about a first-year talent competition—there are still some kinks that need to be worked out. For instance, each act was given ten minutes. And there were 34 acts. If you'll be so kind as to do the math with me, you'll realize that you're looking at a five-and-a-half hour talent show. Yep.

Someone must have realized this, but rather than adjust the time allowance, they just scheduled the event to go from 2-8pm. The show was divided into age groups: 5-12, 13-17, and 18 and older. Kitten checked in at 2pm, came home and got ready, and then she, my dad, and myself returned to the park at 3:30. Number 15 had just finished, the last in the 5-12 age group. Good, we thought. Ten acts until Alice. And they went through 15 in an hour and a half, much quicker than expected. My dad fetched some lawn chairs. The weather was surprisingly pleasant. We prepared to enjoy the next hour.

Things didn't go quite as I'd envisioned in those blissful minutes just after we'd arrived. First of all, things slowed waaaay down. These teens were serious about taking the whole ten minutes. (The set was opened by three thirteen-year-old boys who performed a mash up where they danced to Usher, break danced to Chris Brown, and sang to Jusitn Bieber.) Second, there were frequent pauses and interruptions. Winners of the previous group were announced. "Split the pot" winners were called to the stage. The MC, a nice man in his mid-30s wearing a shirt that said "More Cowbell," frequently implored the crowd to go vote for their favorite acts. The judges were praised.

But the slow pace was okay. The park was full of people, there were treats for sale, and there were activities for children.

And then, half-way through the adult set, right after Kitten performed, the teen winners were announced and the crowd thinned way out. The only people left were either seriously invested in one of the adult acts or too old and tired to get up. Half an hour later, all the food vendors closed up shop and left. The activities were long-gone. The rest of the show had the perverse feel of a mother hell-bent on getting her overweight child to finish out a pee-wee soccer game despite an abject lack of talent or enthusiasm on the part of the child.

Which isn't to say that nobody was talented. Some act were great. But there was absolutely zero audience participation. Every joke told dropped dead as soon as it exited it's creator's mouth. (Kitten leaned over at one point and whispered "Ottawa's Got Narcolepsy.")

One of the final performers was a woman who sang the national anthem and then what she called her "personal anthem," a country song I didn't recognize about overcoming adversity. She peppered the vocal pauses with comment about her personal journey. I half expected her to include performing at that talent show as one of her many trials. God knows it would have been justified.

As the day wore on, the exhaustion was most evident in the behavior of the MC. When we had arrived, he was energetic. Enthusiastic. Bubbly. He bounced onto the stage as soon as each act was over. He complimented each act and introduced the next act. He made corny jokes. He was effusive in his praise.

But his energy began to flag. It took him longer and longer to make it to the stage. Most acts left the stage alone, pitifully unplugging their guitars and shuffling away as the applause died after three or four claps. (The saddest, Kitten reminds me, was an awkward teen who sang two Dashboard Confessional songs without introducing himself or the songs.)

The second to the last act was a band of 18-year-old boys who performed Nirvana's "In Bloom" and Radiohead's "Creep" while wearing goggles. (What could possibly win you the affection of your rural audience more effectively than singing to them "He's the one who likes all the pretty songs and he likes to sing along and he likes to shoot his gun but he knows not what it means"?)

When they finished, the MC ambled out in front of the stage and said "Just leave your amps, kids. We'll just...yeah." The last act, a male/female duet who called themselves "Whiskey Romance," was quite good and, in fact, won.

After they finished the MC appeared, looking haggard, and said in a completely flat and emotionless voice, "Well...we made it. Man I'm tired. Does anyone care...?" Kitten and I looked around to see most of the audience gazing back at him, glassy-eyed and open-mouthed. "I guess that's a no." He gave the audience ten minutes to cast their votes. When he appeared fifteen minutes later to announce the winners, he accidentally dropped all of his papers. They fluttered everywhere. "It doesn't matter."

What could be a better summary of the day's events?

Kitten and Dad on a sunnier day in Ottawa.

One Part Schadenfreude, Two Parts Comeuppance

You know how when a highway is being narrowed from two lanes to one lane, and there have been signs for miles, and then there are cones and signs saying It's happening now!, and at that point there are always a few yahoos that try to zoom ahead in the lane that is being closed to cut off everyone else? Those people make me CRAZY! The fact that they're doing that is what slows traffic down so badly. I'm sure of it. Rather than breaking slightly to let someone merge, someone has to come to a complete stop, wait a few seconds for the jerk to realize they're being let in, wait while they pull into the line of traffic, and then continue. And who do these people think their cutting off? Are the rest of us, who are doing the logical thing and merging in a timely fashion somehow less important!? Does our observation of understood traffic rules make us chumps who deserve to be taken advantage of? IT DOES NOT!

I'll tell you who I love—the people who get fed up with jerks who refuse to merge in a timely fashion and pull half-way into the lane about to close. Even then, there are wackos who pull onto the shoulder, sometimes even the median, to get around. Don't these crazies see that they are cutting maybe 30 seconds off their drive and making dozens of strangers hate them in the process? Terrible karma, just terrible. (I realize one could argue that the relative insignificance of the amount of time saved or lost here also means I shouldn't be concerned with this issue at all, but it's not about the time. It's about consideration for fellow human beings. It's about recognizing that you are not more important than everyone else, and that taking advantage of other people is not okay.)

ANYWAY—this is exactly what was going on as I was driving to Chicago yesterday. One guy in huge black SUV actually barreled off the road to get around someone who was intentionally blocking the lane that was closing. Traffic ahead stopped so the SUV could pull into the main line of traffic.

After the construction zone had ended, several miles down the road, there were police lights. The guy in the SUV had been pulled over! The universe is not always a random and chaotic place! There is justice! I was delighted.

Reverse Paparazzi

Kitten has this little quirk where she suddenly explodes into photos I'm trying to take. Evidence from our trip to Germany.

I love her. 

Sleep Deprivation

[O Children-Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, I am trying to break your heart-Wilco]

The sheer number of connections necessary to make it from Saint Louis to Heidelberg is outrageous. Stl to Ottawa,IL by car. Ottawa to long term parking. Parking to the airport via monorail. Chicago to Dublin via plane. 7 hours to kill where we very nearly got in a taxi to see Dublin. Brief interlude with friends. Dublin to Frankfurt via plane. Plane to airport via tram. Airport to train station via bus. Train to Mannheim. Train from Mannheim to Heidelberg. Walk from train to hotel. And you know? That would all be okay. Except the trip, just from Chicago on, took over 24 hours during which myself and my travel companions got little to no sleep. Not so easy to navigate your way from a train station to your hotel without a map in the dark when you feel like you might be legally insane.

Nevertheless, we eventually made it to our hotel where we all tucked ourselves into little down poofs and slept like bricks.

Peanut

I've been waging a war against the squirrels.

A few months ago, my dad brought me a large bag of bird seed. I've been slowly using it to fill the bird feeder that hangs close to a railing outside my house. The distance from the bird feeder to the railing is the precise length of a squirrel from hind to fore paws, which means I've witnessed many awkward squirrels scrambling desperately to snatch sunflower seeds with their grubby little paws as the feeder swings to and fro. When I see this, I yell at the squirrels. Greedy little jerks.

Several weeks ago, as I approached my front door after work, I heard a mad scrabbling noise. When I was feet away from my apartment, a squirrel came shooting out of the bird seed bag, seeds flying from its fur as it sprang away. I rolled the bag closed tightly.

For weeks, nothing else happened.

Then I went out of town, and there was an attack. I arrived home to find the bag of bird seed savaged. A corner had been ripped off and seeds were everywhere. There was distinct evidence of squirrels having rolled in the spilled seed. I wasn't sure quite how to remedy the situation. Leave the seed until it had been completely consumed by creatures? Try to gather it and throw it into the woods? Pull out the bb gun under my bed, use the seed as a lure, and wait for the culprit to return to the scene of his crime?

That week I was either lazy or busy, so I did nothing. Well, not nothing. I yelled from my living room like a lunatic when the squirrels would show up to gather seeds; they always came in quads, like little Terry Goodkind thugs. And I cursed the sky when I would walk out in the mornings to find that birds had processed and voided the seeds right there on my doorstep.

All of this behavior culminated a week later when my sister was over. I peered out the front door and called "Hello, Peanut!"
"Is that one in particular or just all of them?" Kitten inquired.
I stared at her blankly.
"I mean, are all the squirrels called peanut now, or have you singled one out?"
"Ah. I was just greeting my neighbor's cat. Named Peanut."
She laughed and laughed. I realized I'd been acting totally bonkers.

My dad visited a couple days later and dumped the seeds in a gravelly area a few feet from my door. Those lazy squirrels never bothered to finish them. The seeds turned into a strange little patch of grass, an unpleasant reminder of my insanity.