Adam's Beanstalk

2007-09-04T22:19:00.000-05:00

writing a blog
is easy
when nobody is reading-

just curl up
like a philosopher by/
a torn page in
the fire
making,
yes, (making)
everything around
the me
charcoal dust
a glowing wormity

you are erasable!

i know you have drifted
like a beggar
bound for Beulah
-gotten lost in the flax
and for this moment
[let me savour]
.I be
~~
~~
~~
there is milk
squeezed from the leaf
that flows
down the side
of the mountain.

It's time for a summer holiblogiday!

2007-06-04T14:41:00.000-05:00

Hello all! I have an announcement to make: It's time for a summer holiblogiday! This may not be exciting to you (despite the exclamation mark). It means that I will be officially "not blogging" until the summer ends. This does not mean that I will cease to be sociable. Rather, if you want an update of my e-life, you can find me on Facebook, which I have been enjoying lately. It is there where I will post any summer pics and you can feel free to inquire about my day to day life.

Summer until now has been composed of...
a)grading Philosophy papers for a summer intro course
b)editing papers for any university students - I have done 2-3 a week
c)a Rose-Town fantasy baseball pool, where I currently sit in 2nd place (out of 15). I was in first for about three weeks after a remarkable surge from 12th.
d)practicing music for busking at the Forks. I got my license on May 28.
e)a bit of writing
f)reading Coutzee's "Waiting for the Barbarians"
g)playing Monopoly or poker or Killer Bunnies once a week
h)playing soccer with all the best players in town once a week. I have found my home as a goalie. It's quite enjoyable, and I feel I can contribute to the team.
i)playing two homemade games: battle ping-pong & a ball-on-the-roof game with Shane
j)playing home raquetball with Jimi
h)going to a ton of job interviews, and being frequently disappointed. Finally, last week I got some offers, and I start work at Nerman's Books and Antiques on Thursday. I'm really excited, as this should be a very enjoyable summer job. My prayers have been answered.

Cheers! Have a good summer.
AVTK

Rock Ridge Canyon and Surroundings

2007-05-10T14:29:00.000-05:00

On April 26th I left in a little Mazda car, even older than my old maroon, for a jewel of the valley called Rock Ridge Canyon, near Princeton, BC. Why? For an annual Navigators conference called Somewhere Else West (SEW). My first SEW was also in BC, on Thetis Island, four years ago. So now I'm quite a veteran, which means they like to put me as a small group leader.
But this year was harder to leave than most. Jord and Ashleigh had just got back from Ireland and Tracy had just arrived from UBC. Luckily, I managed to spend some quality time with them before I left. This included: making a green gift basket with Trace to remind Jord and Ash of Ireland (we had lettuce and green gum and sunchips and twist ties and green bananas, etc.); playing "No bears out tonight" after a campfire (bragging alert: I never did get caught, even though I tried); having a LARGE bowl of Cheeseburger soup at the Tea House; and inventing Pong Zen with Trace (it will catch on, I can explain the rules if you'd like). So then I left them behind, feeling quite guilty because I was beating them to BC (and yes Trace, I already miss you, too).

And then I woke up at 5:30 in the morning to get into the green car. Riding with me was Mr. A(lbert). J(ehova). Sarassin and Mr. Nathan Small. We had a delightful ride down; I discovered that I had a similar musical taste to Nathan, and we shared our obscure musician favorites as we drove. We also had a good time with A.J.'s BBQ Spitz, and I got to reading a nice chunk of Gulliver's Travels (which is a great read), John Ruskin ("The Nature of Gothic"), and Henry David Thoreau's "Walden". We stayed at a church in Calgary and had a gourmet meal of pasta and spinach salad which we picked up at the Safeway.

This is taking too long. You are probably bored already, before I have started talking about the conference itself. Well, let me share some of my highlights. First of all, the place was AMAZING! It was only a few years old, and the architecture was incroyable! You should have seen how thick and tall the main pillars for the lodge were. Plus, this place had the longest zipline in Canada!!! You will notice the picture of me suited up in the harness. The ride was about 40 seconds long, dropping down a hillside, over a building, and over a marsh! [The marsh will soon be replaced by a lake, as water was filling in even as we were there.] I went down the zipline in cannonball style, for maximum speed, but I did manage to take a few blurry pictures on the way down. We had all of our afternoons off, so we went on hikes (climing a very steep hill, and frolicking with deer, oh yeah, and climing under an electric fence), organized a campus vs. campus street hockey tournament (where my spectacular begginer's luck in net earned me a comparison to the mighty Kipper), and designed a game with Jon L. loosely based on the game Clue. All the students participated; there were seven suspects, all members of a photography club (I was the Bible Braniac "Uzzi Ulla") which they had to impress with a photo-scavenger picture (for me, they had to represent the Trinity with the people in their group). After we were impressed by their photos, we would present a challenge to them (e.g. a Bible Trivia quiz, beating the pool shark in billiards, or beating the Crazy Jogger in a running and screaming competition). If they completed the challenge, we gave them a piece of a letter which they would have to join in a puzzle form, decipher the text, and find out who was the guilty person, what weapon they used, and where the murder-like crime was committed. In other fun news, some of us made a nest under the stars on the last night, and watched the moon rise over the mountains. It was pretty sweet. We also came up with a few terms that one can use when making a nest, for example, a person can be called an "untucker", and one can use the "communist double clutch" (i am serious).
As for the serious part of the weekend, we were fortunate to have some speakers from the Navigators in Africa. Mike and Manfred shared the stage, speaking from Ephesians and Thesselonians, as well as sharing their life stories. These life stories were incredible. They spoke of hardships, like Aparteid and the loss of a child, and how they overcame these painful experiences by drawing closer to God. They spoke on how much Christ has done in our lives; He has saved us from death, which we all had when we followed the desires of this world, and he has given us hope, purpose, and life. I was also reminded of the power of prayer through the amazing testimony of Jolly, who is from Uganda, but is taking her Ph.D at the UVic. I hope to stay committed to prayer this next year. By focussing on prayer out in Rock Ridge Canyon, God showed me some amazing things. I felt led to walk down an old construction road along the mountain at night. Along the way I realized that there was a lot of fear holding me back. I felt that this road might not be safe, that there might be feral creatures roaming the night, and that I might at any time slip off of the road into the lake. But here I realized I had to see as if looking through God's eyes and rely on his protection. I could not be fearful of the dangers largely imposed by my own thoughts. I reached a place around the bend where the wind blew very strong, and there rose from the water two giant wooden beams, seventy feet high, that joined together to form a triangle. I don't know what these were for. There in the rock of the mountain, I picked a leaf off of a lamb's ear plant, and knew I was safe in my journey back.
There were many stories of our brokenness and God's healing throughout the week. A special time always came when we met in our small groups. I have attached a picture of them, below. Amy, who is standing the third to the left of me, was a co-leader. It was incredible to see people who were strangers at the start of the week come to share their struggles and their joys with each other. Please pray for Brittany, who is standing two to my left, who just received Christ during the week. She is going back to her hometown during the summer where she will be surrounded by her childhood friends who are not believers.

We left Rock Ridge Canyon before lunch on Friday morning. Our rented vehicle needed to have a part on the wheel fixed, so we ate on some tractor wheels amongst the dandelions at a garage in Princeton. I was driving with Armin M. and Jen G. on the way back home. We had some good satellite radio, so we cranked the 80's music and drove through the mountains. I of course got the stretch from Golden to Banff where there are few road markers and it was snowing, covering the roads in slush. We survived. We slept at the same church in Calgary, but stayed up until 2:30 hearing Armin's hilarious, and oft accurate, views on relationships. The next day we drove and drove some more, making it back to Winnipeg at 8:30 in the evening to a light drizzle. Home. It is usually where the heart is. The heart can also be somewhere else.

'Git Along Little Doggy

2007-04-23T11:26:00.000-05:00

So more on the puppy story...

Dad always said puppy was a Holdeman because of his little beard, but a phonecall we got late one night proved that this joke was indeed true...

[7:00 PM, April xx, Three days after the dog ran away from our place]
RING, RING!! RING, RI..
"Hello" I say.
"Hello," says phone back, "My name is Kendall Goossen".
"That's an interesting name for a phone" I say.
"I'm not a phone, I'm a person" it says.
"Oh," says me.
"Hey, did you guys see a white dog at your place?"
"Yes," I say, "We grew quite attached to it".
"Well, it was our dog! One day he and our cat ran away together. I guess it was spring and they were going after the same thing. It was raining out, and they were gone for two weeks. I thought they were dead. But then two days ago, the dog gets back here, and there is this phone number written on the collar" says Kendall.
"A phone number?" I ask.
"Yes, your number" he says.
"This is a good story," I say, "I am going to put it on my blog. May I ask what the dog is named?".
"The dog is named Socks" he says.
I laugh, because this is a particularly bad name.
"And the cat is named Strawberry" he says.
This name is even worse. The cat, if you recall, is light beige.
"Is he still at your place?" asks Kendall.
"Yes," I say, "and in a couple of months there will be twenty more Strawberries".
"Well," says he, "I better pick up Strawberry #1. The kids miss him".
"Come whenever you want" I say.

And so he comes, and Strawberry is gone. The kids laugh in the truck. Now both the animals are returned to their rightful owner.

Next morning, a white streak dashes across the lawn.
It's Socks.

Over the next week, Socks is picked up twice. He has always returned.
Why? He is not a Holdeman. He likes to sleep in the shed listening to Clear FM. He likes to lie on the couch and watch Animal Planet on TV. He has been a very bad little puppy. If only Kendall knew.

A few things that are both a)recent and b)interesting:

2007-04-10T17:42:00.000-05:00

DOG UPDATE
Corrections: The dog no longer likes meatloaf. The dog changes his food choice every day. He won't eat anything other than his select meal. He sometimes stands on his hind legs to eat food, like Chinstrap used to do (Although he doesn't jump and do backflips). The dog also likes to run away. Often he leaves for a day, or even two, and then mom gets really sad because she thinks the dog is gone forever, and then the dog comes back. This has happened more than once. And the dog always returns with pine needles.
The cat stays behind. They seem to have had a falling out. This might be because we make dog come in the house, when he often doesn't want to, and we make cat stay outside, though he would LOVE to come in. Nevertheless, Shane still refers to the pair as "Team Guido".

PLAYING A SHOW FOR THE TRACTOR CLUB.
On March 31st, Jason K., T.J. Siemens, and I played a show for an annual banquet of Tractor loving people. Yes! These are the same people that bring us the annual Riverside Tractor Show, which has been featured in many poems of Mr. Chase Yellowquill, who also happens to be a perennial favorite to win the lawnmower race. So, we put together a good set which included "I Walk the Line", and "Man of Constant Sorrow" to please both young and old (the audience was largely composed of the latter). The band's favorite song was "John Saw that Number" by Neko Case, which I urge you to download illegally. After we went to Harold and Margaret's to watch footage of the show. It was there that I also saw my first hot-crossed bun, which I forgot to take home to eat.

THE COUPLES CONNECTION
So we through a shower for cousin Kody and his fiancee Amy last Friday. It was the first time I had met her; she being from England and meeting Kody in Palestine. So at this party Shane and Mom and I came up with a little game based on "The Newlywed Game", called "The Couples Connection". 6 of our family couples competed for the title to become the Ultimate Couple. Some questions asked were:
Which amusement park ride would you say your relationship with your partner most closely resembles?
a)The bumper cars, b)Roller Coaster, c)Teacups, d)The Drop of Doom.
And yes, the Drop of Doom was chosen.
More fun occurred when Uncle G said his wife most closely resembled a bear (above all other zoo animals), and Grandma claimed she was "A Tiger".
Also, when asked "which article of clothing does your significant other wear too often?", there were more than a few undergarments mentioned in addition to the standard responses.
All chaos broke loose during the bonus round, when the question "Name Your Partner's most attractive physical feature" was asked. Needless to say, the answers were a little unexpected for a family gathering. Even more shocking was the fact that several partners matched their wife's response.

EASTER SUNDAY
Was significant and memorable. Beautiful weather, and a few of us left the family gathering to go to the treehouse. At the bottom, the refrozen river was feet away from the base of the tree. Rings of ice from previous melting clung to the trees like a frilly dress. At the top, one could see for miles through the unbudded trees. Children played by the road that leads to the submerged bridge in the distance. There was laughing, the joy of Easter Sunday. But they also threw sticks onto the ice.

P is for Puppy

2007-03-27T18:37:00.000-05:00

Let me start this post by saying that I saw Dancing Gabe running along the sidewalk again.

There, now that we have got that out of the way, I want to tell you about a little puppy.

So, we are standing around the kitchen in Riverside, and Chase looks out the window and says, "Who's dog IS that?".

This is a strange thing to say out of nowhere, especially to people who are not looking out of the window.

But, look! There IS a dog outside the window. It is of a medium-little size and white with medium-long hair. Some say it is like a Shih tzu while a detailed report claims it is a Pomeranean. I remain agnostic.

It is raining outside, and this dog is VERY wet. In fact, if you would have tried to dry off by using the dog as a towel after a shower you would have been more wet than before!!! I swear! So Chase let's this sopping thing into the house and spends almost half an hour drying it off. Now it is happy. So it stands on its tip-toes and rests its head against Chase's leg, like a little baby bundled in a papoose. You should see it, all leany-headed like that!

Then we wish to feed it something. There is some of grandma's meatloaf left over from supper. So, we put it on the floor, and--sure enough--little pooch loves it! This was a cute moment. But...
Mom goes to buy a few cans and bags of dog food the next day at the Co-op (being careful to avoid Iams). But when she puts them in doggie's plate, he won't eat!!! It turns out the ONLY thing doggie eats is grandma's meatloaf!!! So I think she has to make a meatloaf every few days in order to keep the dog from starving.

It gets better!!! We don't know how long little puppy was wandering the wilds for, but it turns out that somewhere along the way he found a travelling companion--an orange cat! Whenever puppy walks from grandma's house to ours, little cat follows behind. What's more, puppy seems to have some sort of romantic interest in cat. This is problematic for several reasons:
1)Puppy is a Puppy
2)Cat is a Cat
3)Puppy is a Boy
4)Cat is a Boy

Oh boy!

PS. Does anybody have any name suggestions?
PPS. I rented a banjo. I can play it for you sometime.

Thomas Hardy and a Man Named Harold

2007-03-11T20:15:00.000-05:00

So, maybe it's time for a little more substantial post...

Sorry for the long while, my friends. Yesterday, a small bottle of unmarked powder fell off of my shelf onto the floor during the night. This is how I feel for neglecting you.
(The shelf is far from my bed.
Things on the shelf fall off about once every three months.
Things on the shelf move on their own.
I found the unmarked bottle years ago, in a wooden box, in somebody else's barn.)

Honestly, you have not missed much about my life. At least nothing you couldn't piece together from other people's blogs. I saw a few concerts (JOC, the Hip, Blue Sky Addicts, etc.). I ate a few letters off a Toblerone bar, and will one day eat more. I have read many, many plays (my favorites: Titus Andronicus, The Country Wife, Tamburlaine, The Spanish Tragedy, A Midsummer Night's Dream (read it again!!!), The Way of the World). I memorized a poem. Let me share it with you:

A Night in November

I marked when the weather changed,
And the panes began to quake,
And the winds rose up and ranged,
That night, lying half-awake.

Dead leaves blew into my room,
And alighted upon my bed,
And a tree declared to the gloom
Its sorrow that they were shed.

One leaf of them touched my hand
And I thought that it was you
There stood as you used to stand,
And saying at last you knew!
- Thomas Hardy (1913?)

I don't think this is Hardy's best, but it does have a certain aura of mystery about it.

Recent Things:
It was a fun church service today. We played a galloping version of "Nothing but the blood of Jesus". Some of the youth ran on stage licking bowls of ice cream. A young man from the Lumber River Quartet had a low voice. It was all the talk. A man named Harold told a funny story about lawn mowers. Then we went downstairs for a fundraising dinner. Cody and I serenaded the audience and took personal requests. We played Feliz Navidad for the Lumber River Boys. Apparently, Canadians know Spanish better than Americans. I jest, I jest! Another highlight was Cody and Todd's duet from "High School Musical". Good stuff, boys. Todd has his arm in a sling. (Why I am I telling you this? Because it is a segway.) I had not played Monopoly with a man with only one functional arm until yesterday.
TK was gracious enough to host a Monopoly party, where he properly trounced the rest of us. But's that's okay, because I beat him in at least one game of computer Jeopardy, and I think Alex Trebek is way cooler than Rich Uncle Pennybags.
Looking back, I realize that I posted about Monopoly two posts ago. I marvel at the incredible symmetry in my blog.

Is Judge Judy Perfect?

2007-03-06T00:26:00.000-06:00

Or is she hiding something underneath those robes?

A gun?
An Illegitimate Child?

Turkey and Other Countries

2006-11-29T22:34:00.000-06:00

What has been going on?

1)Played a cutthroat game of Star Wars Monopoly over the weekend with Paul G., Shane, and Krystle. I managed to come out on top with a railroad/Podracer empire. Krystle alone must have paid me over $2000 on the one location with the help from some generous community chest cards. We still don't know what Paul was trying to accomplish with his mad mortgaging.

2)I won the E.D. Hirsch memorial scholarship for best creative writing piece at U of M, which has paid above and beyond the costs of my next semester. The winning piece is a work called "One Shovel Full, or Where the Gravel ends and Turns to Dirt". You may download and read it by clicking here: STORY. Note that though it is framed as a memoir, some situations have been distorted, so you can't get all "what's up with that?!!?" after reading it (though I know you are not that kind of people anyway).

3)We watched "The Notebook" at College and Career. I say no more.

4)I got a car! It is a 2002 Cavalier (a 12 year upgrade), and it drives without going "Rrrrr.....RRrrrr....rrrrr....stall". It even goes into reverse when I want it too. And there's no large dent in the driver's side door (remember when you have a hitch if you back up, people). Now if only the battery wasn't dead...

5)I bought a sweet edition of William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Experience" which I have been delighted to read through.

6)There is snow on the ground that I think will stay. It was sunny today and the wind was making the snow swirl and things looked beautiful. Too bad it was so cold that my eyes were freezing.

7)Travis and I put up the Christmas tree, while listening to an Osmond's Christmas special on TV. We don't have any decorations for it yet, so donations are welcome.

8)We had our Kroeker Thanksgiving gathering over the weekend, and it was sweet to get together with all of our Iowaian cousins, some of which had been gone for a long time. Kody had been in Palestine, and we got to see some of his fantastic pictures he took from that part of the world. We also had some exceptional turkey.

My coming to grips with Priest's identities

2006-11-11T16:41:00.000-06:00

Priest says, "The identity of an object is not determined by its properties at any one world" (90). This is all well and fine, but then what is identity for Priest? These were my humble thoughts. Perhaps they reflected a concern similar to the "What the Hell?" objection, where Priest has to hold that identities are sui generis entities, unlike other things we have seen.

My worry with Priest's theory of identies reached its apex on page 121, where he writes, "Suppose that you and I decide to write a story about Holmes(Doyle's character). But our stories, whilst presupposing all that Doyle said, are incompatible. In my story, Holmes has a maiden aunt; in yours, not. Then in the worlds that realize the way that I have represented Holmes, he has a maiden aunt. In the worlds that realize the way that you have represented him, he does not. Different worlds, but still the same Holmes."
This, I thought, led into dangerous territory. Suppose that we said contradictory things about Holmes himself, not something superficial like the fictional existence of an aunt, or even the location of a wound, but something that is essential to Holmes.
-if your story denied an essential part of Holmes, and mine accepted it, SURELY we could not be talking about the same Holmes.

This, I thought, was a huge mistake on Priest's behalf (unless identities, like the mythical direction of a toilet flush, somehow functioned differenlty in the Southern Hemisphere).

But then I asked myself - "what is essential to Holmes?" His detectivehood, perhaps? But this cannot be, for surely there are possible worlds where Holmes has a successful career as a chimneysweep, and would still be Holmes.

In my search for another example, I turned to the chimera mentioned in Chapter 3. Let us suppose that a chimera is only such that it has the essence of a lion, the essence of a goat, and the essence of a serpent (this is the second way a chimera can be taken, see p.71). Now there is no doubt as to what is essential in a chimera as a whole. So if a class is given an assignment to write about a particular chimera (call it Nadirub), I, in my fictional story, describe Nadirub as above. My classmate does not; she tries to describe Nadirub as lacking the essence of a goat. However, she cannot do this - There is no way she could imagine a chimera without it having the essence of a goat.

In the same way we will find that if we, in a story, denied that Holmes possessed something essential to him we would, we could, NOT be talking about Holmes.

So I came to see that Priest, and the noneist account may be right; identity is far removed indeed from its properties at any given world.

Top Ten Foods Adam No Like

2006-11-06T22:16:00.000-06:00

Indeed, the topic of food no no's has come up quite frequently in recent conversation. I thought you'd like to know my top ten most hated foods. Here they are:

#10-Ham and Pineapple Pizza (how in the world did this get to be one of the three main pizza choices?! Even anchovies make more sense than the combination of meat and those sweet watery packets that pop in one's mouth.)

#9-The Chicken Drumstic (being forced by culture to eat like a caveman off of the bone! It is so easy to imagine the living chicken flapping all the way down. Notice that if you will allow me to eat the meat with knife and fork, I have no problem with it)

#8-Corn on the Cob (why? It reminds me of eating chicken. I actually love the taste of corn)

#7-Steamed Peas (though a bowl of peas looks attractive, their mushy consistancy and stale taste is a big turn-off. Not so for peas straight from the pod!)

#6-Cold Fish (please! cold fish of any kind should be banned from public places. No, I don't want to smell your tuna sandwich while I eat my yogurt.)

#5-Pumpkin or Rhubarb Pie (don't hate me because I'm different. Things that can't be eaten by themselves do not become better when squeezed between a pie crust. I'm sorry!)

#4-Mushrooms(okay, so I like the taste...but I just find them CREEPY!!! Especially when you can see the gills.)

#3-Bananas (something about the texture, and the fact that Mrs. Kroeker forced me to have as many bites as my age (6) in kindergarten).

#2-Bugs, except for ants, they taste minty. (although this is probably not on the menu, I felt compelled to add it to the list.)

#1-Tomatoes, plain/sliced (No, I don't hate ketchup. In fact, I love ketchup. The best condiment! But my hatred for this transvestite vegetable grows deeper every year.)

A, B, and C

2006-10-29T16:33:00.000-06:00

Say "hello, hello" to new friends to the blogger world. You will find them on the sidebar. Cody is akin to a blogging St. Paul who at first persecuted blogs but then was out driving on a very muddy road and his car swerved and then a big yellow light shone through the windshield-and then he suddenly liked blogs and started one of his own. Olivia is the "keep it under a bushel" blogger who had been posting for some time - EXCEPT SHE DIDN'T TELL ANYBODY!!! Shame, shame. Do not do as she has done. She is my cousin.

In other cousin news, there was a time of great enlightenment when on Thursday of last week, Chelsea and I officially realized that we were second cousins. Of course, we had figured we were related for some time, but it was the vague feeling like the one you get after you have had milk that is just past the expiry date. It takes you a while to feel comfortable in asserting - "it's not sour!" - you know what I mean! So we did our whole big geneological trace back, which is not that hard when you're second cousins, and lo - the epiphany was revealed. This knowledge has already proved useful, for we can call upon cousin power to fight off the forces of evil Armin when he tries to take the little green hacky sack and use it for malevolent purposes.

So we had house church at Chelsea's in Rosenort on Thursday, which meant I could carpool with Jason, Paul, and Jared on Friday. There are merits to carpooling. But I shall progress down this path no further.

On Wednesday, I thought it might be fun to walk through Osborne Village after getting off the bus at confusion corner. It was. I felt like I might get mugged when I passed in front of the Motor Inn. This feeling leads to the feeling of fun. Trust me. So I got down to Movie Village where I rented Krzysztof Kieslowski's "The Decalogue" which has provided some entertaining viewing. Look it up and you'll learn all about them. Wonderful stark look at characters and morality; each short is based on one of the Ten Commandments. Czech them out. [This joke doesn't really work, because Kieslowski is Polish, and not Czech, but I try, I try!].

After I picked up the movie, I was waiting for another bus to the north of the village, within the gaze of red brick apartments and an old cathedral. Then...it was odd... there was an old man, also waiting for the bus. He was
a)shouting loudly
b)in a thick accent
c)to himself.

It was the most peculiar thing. Even funnier was that a group of women had formed a good ten feet away on the edge of the boulevard - huddling together, trying to hide from this man while trying to act casual in case a bus came.

Well, my bus did come.

My last few weeks other than the trip to Minnesota for a Discovering God Conference; ask me and I will tell you about that, too!

2006-10-14T17:08:00.000-05:00

I am overlooking a lake and a field of snow. The drive up here was white, a pastiche of slush and manger scenes. But there is good news: the sun is shinining with all its extra syllables. I spent the afternoon out on the lake in a canoe. It was quite windy, but we (KE and I) took refuge in a calm bay. It is an EMC youth leader's retreat at the Wilderness Edge camp. Some lovely seminars in the morning make me feel alright about the youthwork that I have done to date. I have been a friend, and that is the basis for all else. We stayed up late last night: started a game of Settlers at 2:30 AM. Krystal asked Cody for some wheat and he gave her a card of wood and thought nothing of it. That's how late it was, but we were wired on some good coffee. Of course this came after the hour of trying to get the N64 working on the projector downstairs. We eventually played two rounds where we could hear and see for about three seconds at a time before the screen would go blue for another three, and on, and on. Then we moved upstairs and played on a bigscreen TV. This much was very good. Somebody saw a deer right outside their window this morning; that reminds me of the prevailing wind we had this last week. How could one man blow so long?
It blew me throughout the days of school,
of human fooseball in the Nav Office,
of an evening NOT spent in the art gallery, but buying machetes and caps, and drinking some good coffee. I have had too much again!
The silly drug has an adverse affect on me.
REmind me, good people, not to have too much tonight, but I will.
-I was wearing shorts all last week.

March of the Sasquatch Princess (or, "This Train is Bound for Tier")

2006-09-19T18:49:00.000-05:00

Some of you may be wondering what has been happening in my life after August 9th.
Let me tell you:

I was not kidnapped by some hairy alpine beast and forced to escape by hitting it in the face with a custard pie.

I did finish work on the 25th of August (let that day be forevermore called "glorious"). And on that last day I did set my personal best time for assembling four LP130's, which was approximately 1:50 minutes (the normal time for two people is 1:30 minutes. Keep in mind I was one, and not two), and putting together four little bolt cups, in the time of 55 seconds.

Also, after this day of work, Mr. Joey Siemens and I celebrated by having a meal at the local C.K. (Canadian-Kantonese, tee hee) Cafe. It happened to be buffet night and I could get unlimited consumee soup, which I had been in want of for several weeks. A special note to the well-informed readers: No, I did not see any kissing.

When work was done, do you know what I did? I spent two weeks indulging solely in the act of writing, and then some hanging out with people. I wrote some days for five hours straight(add in a few breaks). This means I completed a number of fine pieces, including one on "The Phantom Skater" (I need a better name), one about a certain "Lincoln the Chicken", plus a revamp of "When the Old Man Lies Down". A poetry collection is forthcoming.

This also heralded the end of summer, which is always a sad time because it means the departure of good friend Tracy back to the lands of British Columbia. Before she left, we spent some hour teeter-tottering in the dark in the arena park. She also put together a treasure hunt for our circle of friends, which was fantastic. This was followed by a great big backyard fire which included lots of yerba tea, and a decorated Crayola cake. She left on September 2nd, without tomatoes or chili.

Then did I take my dusty car back to the city, and make my home once again in the cozy quarters of South Osbourne. And school started.

Subtopic 1.A. Fun at School - One day we played outside with a ball from Korea (thanks Rachelle) that featured an Energizer Bunny rip-off. I think it was a mouse (maybe a marsupial) holding a drum. Please correct me. We all got mad at Armin because he kicked it so very high all the time. That day we also went to Pizza Hut. Good. And then we went to Silver City (not quite like Purple City), and saw the Rock star in "The Gridiron Gang" because it was a free screening, and not because the Rock is a good actor. And then we went to Dairy Queen. Dairy Queen is not the Sasquatch Princess.
1.B. There is no B.
1.C. Playing 'Option' in Degrees. 'La' is clearly a word. 'Brits' is not. Need I say more?! I should have followed my maxim: never play word games with a friend.
1.D. Amazing Race I felt so tired only a driver only a driver the endzone is big uprights tall lost all the marbles. Christopher Robin has no son.
1.E. I like my profs.

Okay, I've had enough fun for one day. How about you? Good. Maybe we'll talk again next week? Sure, that sounds good.

With the Gales of November Come Early

2006-08-09T20:56:00.000-05:00

I was looking at other blogs when I realized that John Denver's "Rocky Mountain High" had repeated in Winamp about three times. Silly John Denver - you can't tell the beginning from the end. But I did get to hear about mountains.
^
^^ ^^
^^ ^ ^^^ - I have drawn a mountain for you, because you look beautiful today.

Yesterday, a good group of friends gathered in H&M's basement to watch "Inside Man", which I decide to give 3.5 stars, which is up after thinking about it at work today. Interestingly, 3.5 is also the number of swears per minute. A highlight was listening to the Eastern European music of the credits to the visuals of Home Improvement on TV. Love that Tim Taylor hip sway!

Monday was a Third Day concert at the MTS Centre. I went as sponsor to a very rowdy youth group. Ask me for details about the concert if you are interested.
Shane and I also started a mid day fire by the tree house after butterfly hunting. And it was a beautiful morning. I sat on an old board overlooking our pond and dwelt on logic problems.

Sunday Cody and I played a lot of music - first a special # in church, then took off to busk at the Forks, as the "Bowl Dusters". Some stranger dropped in a $20 bill! Loonies and Toonies also add up very quickly! Thanks to all who gave. Thanks to Tracy for listening to our same set of songs over and over and finding us two rocks for paper weights. Sorry I didn't tell you not to get the chicken sandwich.

We'll be back to play some more soon. See a good pic on Kelsey's blog (It would have been hard for us to play and take pictures ourselves.)

I made it on the bevel

2006-08-02T21:58:00.000-05:00

Alright, so I feel like I haven't talked to you in a really long time. I hope you have not turned into a puddle. Puddles can't do much except make people all wet around the bottom of the pants, and nobody likes that. You can tell I am very excited to speak with you again. Unfortunately, this excitement may make this post of sub-par quality. But I am writing as fast as I can (which is probably only about 70 words per minute, but I have to reconsult Mavis Beacon for that one). But wait - is it longer than a minute? And have I typed 70 words? Could somebody count and tell me the result in the commments section? That would be appreciated. You would be more than a puddle then.

Let then me tell you what has been a going on. If you have been following my lucky links, you will have seen that The Rustic Poets were about to play a reunion show of sorts. Well, yes we played, and it was super fantastique! A nice hovel along the river all embowered with trees and white lights. The audience sat on the grass in amphitheatre fashion and there was a bonfire going. I will put pictures up some time. Then we have some nice hot chocolate and coffee at Jason's place. Next morning we go out to the tea house for waffles with Eisenhauer and the band. They set a new record for being late - was it an hour?! Then I head off with the family to Grand Forks where we stay in AmericInn and do a lot of fun (?) shopping. When we get back I head to Elwyn and Annette Eidse's where we play a lot of Boggle while eating sloppy joes and some berry mix smoothies.

After work during the week I have been outside quite a bit. Some writing on the grass in the sunset. Yesterday Jimi, Shane and I went hunting those white cabbage butterflies with sticks in reminiscence of old times. They make a funny ping when picked out of the air. There are so many, it can't be mean! I killed over a hundred. Shame on me! WE had surprise youth group, on Tuesday evening. Played baseball with a tennis ball at the rosenort park. We played with a backcatcher from the batting team, and, as the catcher, I accidentaly made our team win by dropping the ball when Scotty ran home. Yay or Boo! And what about today? Jim and I went fishing in the paddle boat on our pond and I caught a foot and a half long pike. Good on me. Except.... I couldn't get the hook out. At first this is funny. I tried to get Jimi to touch the fish. He is scared of fish. (I have been reading Faulkner's "AS I Lay Dying") My mother is a fish. But then I realized that the fish was quickly growing faint. Poor little hook so deep in the throat. It was panic mode. So we pedal back to shore and Jimi frantically runs up over the hill and returns in a few minutes with Shane's pliers. Fish saved!

But it gets windy, bags are blowing, and it turns cold.
The blazing sun is an hourglass on a black spider's back.

One More Thing Found in the Grass

2006-07-12T20:21:00.000-05:00

I saw a small grasshopper in the bush by the river
in his mouth he carried a scroll as sweet as butter
fresh from churning, fresh from the cow’s udder.

And here is what it said:

“Hello, citizens. You all smell very nice!
So glad you could make it to celebrate this special occasion.”

Once it was read the grasshopper turned into a peach.

Bravo! Bravo! That was quite a show.

This is the encore:

!)A story about an Epiphany - so Jason and I decide on a nice nice evening to take a drive down to a barn where we spent many times time ago playing music and taking pictures with the Rustic Poets. Because this barn lay at the start of Epiphany Road (ask us what the Epiphany is some time) we affectionately named the barn “Epiphany 1”. We loved it because there were lots of old items (machinery, vehicles, sheds) in disarray, which captured “The Rustic Spirit” (I started to write a book on this). It had the surreal feeling of a ghost town among living trees.
So we arrive. Drive my little car down the long grass road, past the trees, into a clearing. And. What. Is. That? A grain truck? Dumping? Dumping is a verb. Trucks do not dump by themselves. There are people beside the truck. Oh no. Jason asks if we should turn around, run maybe. It is too late for this, that would be suspicious. We must go on. Park the car. I say “we must talk with them”. We cross the open clearing. They act as if we are not there. Go on dumping their trees. We wait beside the truck as they look back. This is AWKWARD! And where is that ghost town feeling?! Snow birds return to roost. Then we are acknowledged. I sheepishly ask if we can maybe take a look around, snap some pictures. Not so fast. Owner has to tell stories about teen vandals and how they smashed every car. Each one a different story, and their histories. Charming. What? How your son got a job and worked every day to buy this car. Then flood and now smashed? A brick from the barn window? Chase supposed to fix an antique organ and then you give him a different broken car? The organ doesn’t even open! But ha! We tricked you - we didn’t even have a camera along - though I took out my CD case to make it look like one. So we walked around a bit, not surprised at all that people would not think twice about smashing a window here. Because we thought this place was abandoned, too. Until...

PS. Christian Colleges DID survive the 1980’s.

@)We took a family outing to Selkirk last Sunday to visit the (deep voice) MANITOBA MARINE MUSEUM. Apparently I had been here when I was five, but remember nothing. There are big ships here, all sitting on dry land. Does this make them more or less likely to tip? Funny things: 1)Dad gets into a questionable bed for a little nap, 2)Chase hurt his knee rolling a tractor or some such story, so he climbs all of the stairs as if he was waltzing. Lololo. 3)Jimi gets scared of a diving suit! 4)Part of a ship that looks like Morris Legion hall. 5)Random ship steering wheels placed in rooms where they obviously do not belong. 6)Watch your children signs (another picture).

#)We got a PUPPY! Here he is tearing the living organs out of my shoe lace. And here he is going for a walk with me in lovely downtown Riverside. By going for a walk I mean chewing on the leash and following it wherever it goes. By the way - it still needs a name, so please leave suggestions.

Nota Bene)Here is a long awaited pic of the tree house excursion. Note the anti-bug gear.

Sunday, Saturday, Friday, Thursday

2006-06-25T22:13:00.000-05:00

So I went fishing today in our little pond in our little paddle boat loaded down with dad and Shane and Jimi and all our fishing equipment. Not so little. And also not so little was the chunky catfish I caught. 4 pounds by our Kroeker Mental Weight Scale System we just implemented. It was a perfect evening for doing just this. And a nice afternoon. I read some Kant on the back deck, and also with my back against a stone in the front yard. Ohh... and I did some writing down on the dock. I must try harder to get in more writing time like this.

Yesterday it was beautifully hot in the morning, and Jimi and I decided to set up a capture the flag game with Super Soakers and napkins as flags. Then we laughed because it started raining, and we couldn't tell if we were getting hit by rain or by the guns. We sat on the dike when the drizzle let up and heard some huge time thunder. Then there was a storm of lightning - about ten bolts simultaneously! I laugh again at the good luck I am having lightning watching this year.

Friday was the Rosenort School graduation. I realized from my city friends that most graduations are attended only by close family members. Not so in Rosenort - the whole town and more was out - the gym was so full a few had to stand. The backdrop was a quaint european courtyard, and the chairs stood out - garden wrought iron variety but all unique. The graduating girls also sported some of the best dresses I have seen at a grad. After the longish ceremony I started my trek of party hopping, stopping in at 6 grad's places in total to load up on snacks and sign guestbooks. Each party also saw a few minutes of good conversation with divers folk. And then the big aftergrad party at a barn on the Meridian Road. The dance music was pumping the whole night long (which unfortunately meant yelling for all conversations) which gave Chelsea and I the chance to show off our line dance skills we picked up at Somewhere Else West. Meanwhile, Paul Gregoire was busy working his slightly different skills with another group of line dancers - unfortunately it seems our lines intersected, for once every 4 bars we would bump hips or kick each other accidentally! There was a dog that could fetch an individual piece of gravel when thrown on a gravel road in the dark! We also roasted an apple.

Some Thoughts:
-------------------
Who brings fruit to a dance?

Who arranges it that EVERY PERSON must get driven home from a party when nobody has been drinking except the chaperones - WHO ARE DRIVING THE PEOPLE HOME!!!!

Friday was also the Westfield BBQ - we had a meal by Danny's Whole Hog (say it with an accent) and got a preview of the new self propelled auger. Took about two hours off of the day. We got caps as well. On a sad note, high school friend and fellow assembler Joey has been moved to the bolt bagging department. Thanks for the memories, Joe.

Thursday we have house church at Konrad's house. Things of Note:
1) I walk across Academy Road holding a guitar
2) Konrad's dad has a constant art show going in the house
3) We studied the book of Jude. Makes for a good time.
4) Robin's Donuts and Yerba Mate brewed through a coffee machine!

Mystery in the Apartment!

2006-06-15T19:33:00.000-05:00

Somebody has painted our apartment while we were out for work.

Everything is white.

This is not a joke.

I will let our conversation say all.

Travis says: Adam, you realise this means someone entered our apartmnet (locked) and started painting it while we were at work?

Adam says: inside our apartment?! [Pause] Maybe it was a paint monkey! [Pause] Or... yuppies!

Travis says: The paint monkey appears to drink tim hortons double doubles

Adam says: was anything missing?

Travis says: doesn't seem to be. Aside from the paint job the only things noticeably different are:
1)the tim hortons cup left on the mantle
2)the toilet lid was up
3)there's some sort of paint in the sink
4?)and the battery on the cordless is low, though that could be because it sucks

Adam says: maybe it was dorchester doing an anti-color campaign

Travis says: I'm thinking the caretakers had to be involved somehow because the door was locked when I got home. I'm going to try calling them again

Adam says: this is too wierd

Travis says: still no answer. Yes, it is rather strange. [Pause] Another possibility, though slim, is that this is the work of Jenna and Zoe.
Zoe still had a set of keys in her possession when she left, and though I doubt they'd do something like this, perhaps the schemed it

Adam says:
but no! it couldn't be! [Pause]
they would not have left the toilet up!
aha!
what skills of induction i possess!

Travis says:
the toilet lid, not the toilet seat

Adam says:
oh.

Travis says:
do you know if Jenna like Timmy Ho's Double double?

Adam says:
good question. i'm not sure, but it is our chief clue. [Pause]
or is it... a RED HERRING!?

Adam says:
we must tread carefully.

Travis says:
indeed.

Speak

2006-06-15T19:31:00.000-05:00

Once there was a boy, and he was made from earth, and when he sneezed little clumps of him shook off. This is my story.

I am a boy.

I am made
from earth.

"Hello there!"
(It is nice to meet you).

This boy/I/me works at a factory all day long. He gets up quite early, but it doesn't seem so early because the sun is up, and that makes things much better.

He puts earplugs in.

And grabs a hammer, and maybe six 3/8 x 1 bolts. When all is done, there is a creation. A baby hopper! He was made, and he has made!

All from the earth.

After he takes his earplugs out, the world gets much louder. He can hear the "sshh, sshh of his gloves when he rubs them together. And he can hear birds - oh the meadowlark song!

There's a Door in that Puddle!

2006-06-15T19:03:00.000-05:00

Then he is home, but not for long. He is known to practice his mandolin skills in the hopes of busking. He treks off to the emerald city to lead a book study on the Pilgrim's Progress. But nobody else comes, and there is much (or little) wailing. The emerald city is not made of earth. [So a game on boards with little cutout mechs is played.]. He goes to more campfires, to keep his friend occupied while his wife is a pampered chef. There is much hockey to be watched. And there are tree houses to climb, and Indiana Jones to be seen. (You do belong in a museum!). And we see Melissa dressed up with great headgear to avoid ticks. And there are talks of Baby Jesus clothed in swaddling paper mache (MADE) and two trout named Frank and Lazarus.

Yes...

Two Trout Named Frank and Lazarus.

12 Things that Made this Last Week Bad

2006-06-04T20:50:00.000-05:00

I called this post "12 things that made this last week bad". I did this merely to grab your attention, because you have demented intentions and really want to only find out bad news. Well, the fact is that there is no bad news. In fact, this last week was supercalifragilisticexpial and idocious all in once. I did not check the spelling on that, because one of the things that made last week not bad, but good, is that I spelled this word correctly to Shane without looking. And without writing it on a piece of paper. This makes it much harder. Do you know that when my sister Tanya tries to spell a word she will write letters in the air? - if she makes a mistake she erases the letters with an invisible chalk brush! Oh yes, why my week was good:

1)Good walks along the Red River in Winnipeg, and downtown to pay the rent. Made very funny because of the hundreds of green worms hanging from trees on their silver strings. They are marionettes, and there may be a man hiding among the leaves! The lady behind the desk gave me a pen that got ink all over my hands. (Is this bad?) I love seeing people lounge around outdoors in the city, and was crazy to bump into Rachel. (This IS Bad: I realized I run into far too few people in the city like this).

2)Relaxed to some good sports on TV. Hooray for the Oilers! Boo Buffalo! And a lot of Blue Jays.

3)A freaking hilarious MSN conversation trying to convince Melissa that people should NOT lay eggs. But she convinced Chelsea and I (I think...) that ticks should be baseball sized.

4)Watching Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe at Blaine's parent's place. Oh the memories!

5)Getting together at 6:25 - what the random! - to eat breakfast with Cody and Tracy in her sunroom. It took a gonzo-shaped pancake to convince me to come.

6)Having a sweet campfire at Jason's parent's - hooray for parents! - and feeding his dog lots of pretzels. Then we went inside to eat pink stuff and talk to Rick and Ale and Harold and Margaret.

7)The Riverside Tractor Show - there was rain at first as always, but then I got some clear coffee and the rain cleared up. Then "The Races of Riverside" started. Chase made a poem with that name last year. Pylons were set up and garden tractors did timed heats. Chase flew through the course with the Viking. Even though he was penalized two seconds for hitting a pylon, he STILL had the fastest time. Good work.

8)Getting a job! I went to Westfield for an interview and tour on Monday. Even though assembly is not a glamourous job, I have done it before. However, I wanted to stall to see if I could find a better job in the city before I told them what my plans were on Friday morning. My chance came when I heard on the answering machine an interview opportunity for a sweet job at Nav Canada (doing airline admin work). So I called and scheduled an interview for Thursday. But I thought it over. I wouldn't know if I got this Nav Canada job until Monday, in which case I would have to betray Westfield. I called Nav Canada to cancel the interview. =^(. I start work at Westfield on Monday.
So - if anybody needs a place in the city to stay for summer, drop me a line, as my fully furnished room will be empty.

9)College and Career where we played volleyball outside of Chad's house, and yelled when the ball rolled into the ravine. Every time. Then we had a good Bible study about Christian offense and defense. You can tell Kevin made it. Then we through defense out the window and drove to the city for a 10:30 showing of X-Men 3. I thought it was easily as good as X-Men 2, which says a lot, because I loved that movie. I heard from Travis that he didn't like it. But then again Travis may be the worst movie critic ever (didn't like Lord of the Rings). I give it 3 and a half stars ***1/2. Brilliant special effects (the bridge scene, wow! and the house! yes!), unique characters, intense action, a good plot, and difficult ethical issues raised (my favorite part of the X-men series). However, did not make much attempt at deeper symbolisms, or produce any real-world allusions(only a few rare moments when over chess, and maybe the Golden Gate "bridge"/relationships between mutants and humans "bridge), and was not in any way innovative.

10)Grandma and Grandpa's 50th wedding anniversary this afternoon. It was special to play songs with them and see how they have touched those around them. They are also models for what a great marriage should be. And I love that there are still these moments of cute romance between them, like when they sang a duet. Unfortunately, the funniest moment came during a speech by great uncle Eldon - which was in Low German. Everybody who understood was killing themselves laughing. I could only laugh at the amount they were laughing. And that says something.

11)Playing a game of horseshoes and croquet and later poker at Alwin and Annettes. Jason rigged up a super croquet course (not as tidy as mine, of course) with tunnels and ramps and terraces, and it was good. I dropped the dog on its head.

12)Seeing nature's awesomeness - first on Saturday morning, 11:30. I was down by the pond watching the yellow carp jump. There is thunder rumbling all around. Suddenly I see a bolt of lightning shoot horizontally north across the sky - then one bolt straight south. THEN from the centre I see a SPIRAL OF LIGHTNING, and more bolts burst in all directions. My mouth dropped open.
Fast forward to next Friday after the croquet at the Eidse's. We are sitting around a campfire playing mandolin and guitar. All of the sudden Cody exclaims "What is that?". I look into the eastern sky of night and there I do behold a beam of blue light brighter than any I have seen, seemingly passing just above the trees. And from it is shooting flames of white and gold! It passes so slowly across the heavens that I have time to jump out of my chair and yell "YOU ARE KIDDING!". A shooting star, tin through the air, and I am rocked.

All I need is a Fork and some Bacon

2006-06-01T16:21:00.000-05:00

It read:

Calling All Buskers!
Busker's Festival at the Forks
May 27 & 28

And so I thought, "I can do this!"
I talked to Cody and we planned to take a two man group to the auditions, I playing mandolin, he, guitar.
We were going to practice Friday night, one day before the Festival.
No problem.
We will practice, show up, wait for an audition spot, and hopefully get at least a "B Pass" that will allow us to play outdoors.
Thursday rolls around. I told you I wasn't done with it yet. We are getting excited to take our as of yet unrehearsed show to the world. I take another look at the advertisment. Yes, yes...

Calling All Buskers!
Etc.
Etc.

...blah, blah, blah.
But then I read below.

Call 555-9258 before 4:00PM on May 19 to schedule your audition.

May 19 was last week.
I kick myself for not reading this.
I anticipate getting hit over the head with a guitar.
Then, in a moment of inspiration, I decide to call in to see what strings I could pull.
"Hello", I say "Do you happen to have any more audition slots available?"

No. Sorry. We are packed full. I'll add your name to the waiting list."

The waiting list.
Probably longer than the green mile.
I begin to formulate an excuse I can tell to Cody.
"Uhh... they said they only allow solo acts or groups of over three people"... no... that wasn't going to work.
So I wait. Good thing we didn't practice early!

But something odd happens.
I get a call.
A slot has opened up for 5:10PM on Saturday!
Totally a God thing!

So I go home. We practice past midnight. Saturday we are ready to take on the world.

We walk out of the audition having performed a pretty dolled up version of "You Are My Sunshine", winning the hearts of the octogenarian audience and the votes of the all-female panel of judges. This grants us an "A Pass" and an immediate offer to play during the Kids Fringe Festival. We have a hearty meal at the Old Spaghetti Factory to celebrate.

Watch out people - we are going to take your money!

Life, as it were

2006-05-29T10:22:00.000-05:00

One week behind in blogging - not good. I must stop doing exciting things! Let's see how far I can catch up on this post...

Victoria Day, Monday - We planned to play ultimate frisbee at Rosenort School at 3:30. It was a holiday, and on holidays people should play frisbee. Unfortunately, the wind was gusting to, LIKE, 82 KM/HR! So frisbee was cancelled. Jason called us all but could not contact Tracy as a certain sister (who is getting a hard time on this blog) was using the internet. So 4:00PM Tracy shows up at my house wondering why nobody is playing ultimate at the school. In lieu of frisbee we play a round of head to head croquet in a sweet course that I set up earlier in the morning. It spanned the length of the green between our house and our grandparents, running past the tetherball pole around the lone tree to where the grass is mossy, past the false well that we dug when the water-witcher came (I'll tell you the story sometime if you don't know), to the log pile where I set up some stumps as obstacles and even built a little statue that could be shot through. And then we got some ice cream and cones out and went to eat them on the portable tower used for laser leveling. A good place to eat ice cream on a windy day in the sun!
When the sun fell, more people came over. It was the "24" season finale. Unfortunately, it started at 7:00, which is not the usual time, and the satellite guide was messed up, and I thought Jason had called the people to come to play croquet around 7:00 anyway, so some of the guests missed the first part of the show to which I endlessly apologize. After the show, we played a bigger game of croquet, and then a game of Bocce. But the sun had now truly fallen, so I got out a pile of flashlights (get a new one every birthday from some relative) and we tried to find the palino under the light of our torches.

Tuesday - Super hot and humid day - Went to watch Jimi play baseball at the park in the late afternoon. It is hilarious to watch these little guys play. Lowe Farm team had 14 players on the field at one time, yet none of them could pick up the ball. Jimi got two doubles and an inside the park grand slam. Yup, yup! Thanks to the tutouring of his older brothers. The I drove to the city.

Wednesday - See digression postings below and Chelsea's blog for an American Idol moment that I happened to catch.

Thursday, Part One - Oh, this was a good day. After doing some job searching work and preparations for house church I went on a long walk. I took the river paths by our apartment to see how far they would lead. Down and down and down and down and down he goes. I saw a big old muskrat on top of a mound of earth. He didn't mind me none. Then I walked along a very nice path with trees all above and train tracks a little up to the side. I anticipated a horse drawn carriage to meet me. Then I reached a bridge. I turned right and crossed it. It is that nice bridge with fake smokestacks and fake fire. Connecting south St. Boniface to not St. Boniface.
I turned around.
I walked across the road, this led to the forks. The grass was very green. I read some of the historical signs and enjoyed the architecture. I walked across the Esplanade Riel. And then past the burnt Cathedral on the other side.
I turned right and walked across the bridge with fake smokestacks and fake fire again. By now I wanted to be home.
I walked along the river paths. Down and down and down and down and down and down he goes. I chose to take a path closer to the river instead of the nice horse drawn carriage path with the train tracks a little up to the side. The river's side is like a beautiful jungle. There are bushes bright with flowers that smell nice. A giant large leafed plants. I enjoyed this time.
Then I saw a man by the river, preparing a sleeping bag on a log. And I hoped he didn't notice me, for maybe he would have a bloody knife, and I walked through the undergrowth. Now I noticed discarded matresses and old jackets and beer bottles and swamped chairs.
Life, as it were, but dead.

A Coat of Many Colors

2006-05-26T13:48:00.000-05:00

Sunday: I felt like going to Sunday School this morning, and it was good discussion with Kevin Friesen, Clinton Brandt, and Trevor Friesen. Then I was doing sound for church. I made a funny mistake - So Pastor George prays for the offering, and I look and see nobody sitting at the piano. If people play for offeratory, they ALWAYS sit at the piano beforehand to get their music ready. So I notice this, and doing prayer I frantically get a CD popped into the player so that something can be playing other than silence as the bags get passed around. I wait for three seconds after the prayer before pressing play. The beautiful viola strains of a hymn come playing over the speakers before I look to the stage - there is Arlin Scharfenberg with a horrified look on his face. I shut down the music and realize that they were just going to sing another song over the offering. I sheepishly hide in the booth.

Dinner at the grandparents is good. We have a choice of three leftover cakes from Grandma's birthday. Then we play some tabletop hockey - the poor blue centre always pops up so he fans on the puck.

In the evening I go over to Tracy's where I was dooped into drinking some of Maryanne's Mushroom Tea (beware all who visit the Siemen's household) - but it was actually pretty good. As an added bonus, all my wounds were instantly healed (this is not true). Then I was showed the jar where in the orange liquid this huge flat mushroom was floating much like one of those experimental pig foetuses.
Then we played a game of payday which lasted for a year and I made so much money my bank account was full, whereas Tracy hit a card that cut her savings in half. Oh - I almost forgot the funniest part of the evening. So we went downstairs and thought we'd maybe watch a movie. But of course it is mainly Trish who has bought the DVD's, and compiled a rather large collection - entirely of CHICK FLICKS! (No offense Trish). So we are forced to pick the worst of them all in the hopes of ridiculing it. "From Justin to Kelly" is put in and we skip scenes until we see one guy rapping over Justin's vocal beats. We watch this twice and then have had enough. But before we can shut it off Trish comes downstairs and starts making fun of OUR MOVIE CHOICE! Can you believe it?! The one who is ultimately responsible...
So we turned the TV to this infomercial of a greasy moustached man selling bowel cleanser. It was so disgusting - he graphically described a "healthy bowel movement the circumference of a human wrist". We were laughing so hard we did not hear how long this particular piece of stool was. And the woman beside him wore a black shirt with glittering stripes of many colors.

A Gift from Saturn

2006-05-26T13:31:00.000-05:00

Saturday: our Youthgroup had our annual Cleanathon. I got my rubber boots (forgot my gloves) and brought a carload of grade 6's to the Rosenort Co-op.
Go West, Young Men!
We walked the ditches - so windy and cold when the sun hid under its bonnet of clouds. A happy dog had to be returned. No mice. A fair bit of garbage. We reached the Meridian road and took a break jumping into mud underneath the bridge by the Holdeman church. There were the parts of a rusted car. And when you threw a stone it sounded like clapping hands. After Amos found us and gave us doughnuts, we kept working, and finished the road by noon. Had a hotdog meal and went home after that.
In the evening played music for Jason's mother-in-law's 50th birthday party at the Cafe 75. Whipped out the CCR classic "Down on the Corner", the Beatles' "I wanna hold your hand" and Abba's "Mama Mia". The finding of a drummer was remarkable in itself. We had tried for weeks to get somebody, but drummers are elusive. Friday night before the show Jason calls me to tell me he has secured Ross Klassen to drum. Though a bassist by trade, we were willing to give Ross a go. And he was incredibly polished, marvellous all things considered. We had a great time including playing pool with broken cues, and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles "Pizza Party" board game, which was a little sucky. Although it did lead into an in depth discussion on Shredder with Destiny's neice Tria. Then there were fireworks outside. These were sparkly and high. The kids, sitting on top of the skateboard ramps, tried to predict what color the next roman candle ball would be. Meanwhile, Jason and I hopped on the kids scooters and scootered around as the fireworks went off. This is a great feeling, because you feel as if you are part of a show. Hooray for scooters!

Digression 2: an Intermission

2006-05-24T11:01:00.000-05:00

I have been outside reading for the last half hour. I have been outside reading by the lovely tree, and the *shrubbery* filled with inch worms. There was a pleasant smell, perfume found on a windowsill. But real. I have been outside reading James Joyce's "The Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man". This is all well and fine. Two men were talking across the street in Italian. This may be trouble. But here's the highlight:

A man jogs by me on the sidewalk.
IT IS DANCING GABE!!!

He is bobbing his head to the music as if he can't contain himself. The music is coming from a pair of headphones - they are as big as hamburgers and bright yellow!

DANCING GABE.
JOGGING.
HUGE YELLOW HEADPHONES.

Digression

2006-05-24T10:10:00.000-05:00

Something really cool just happened: I had left MSN messenger running when I put my computer on stand by mode. When I logged back in, I heard both the Windows welcome song and the Messenger sign in song - AND THEY WERE IN HARMONY! Sweet!

(to the sound of the triangle)

2006-05-24T09:04:00.000-05:00

It has been a long time,
It has been a long time,
a very long time since...

Weekend very busy,
Weekend very busy,
Leads to blog silence.

~0~&~0~

Q: Oh, this is all well and fine, but tell me, O great blogster, what has kept you so busy as to not update your blog?

A: It started Friday evening. It was sunny, with a brisk wind. Travis and I walked down to the Park Theatre. There we rendezvoused (I checked the spelling) with Chelsea and Melissa, and got ready for the showing of "Monty Python's Quest for the Holy Grail"! (There were tables in the theatre!) The hewing of limbs looks so much better on a big screen. And seeing it beside people who have never seen it before makes it even more hilarious. This time I appreciated the true brilliance of the characters. Every fantasy element was played off of, from Tim the Sorcerer who was a firebolt happy to the bickering heads on the three headed giant.

The Upper Room: the upper room is a loft above the theatre with nice couches. There is a hole in the ceiling where the giant in the attic can stick his leg down. We are better than geniuses here, for we beat Mensa puzzles and Travis even insulted them. That makes us better. And then we solved Travis' seagull puzzle (see Chelsea's blog) and that makes the rest of us better than Travis. So we are in a league much higher than everybody else. That is why we sat in the loft.

The Bridge: or BDI is not too far from the Park Theatre. It turned out to be a warm evening, and no wind. I got a vanilla cone, chocolate dipped. We walked across the bridge. There was ice cream that had fallen. Collective tear. The lights were flickering on the bridge, as they must do at the end of eternity. We kept walking. We are better than eternity, for we walked right past it. Into the residential zone on the other side. The streets were warm, and houses looked like cottages, like ginger bread cottages. Deer stood silent on front lawns (groomed by a lawn care service) as we passed. We got to the end of the street. There was water on the far side, down below. This is what the end is like. Remember.

Moths: There were two big moths circling the light. One left.

Bada Bing Party Bus: Maybe he followed the music.

And I look back on this night and say "It was good". Correction, "It was very good". I feel it was an opening to the Summer. Yes, laughter. Yes, ice cream at night. Yes, indeed.

Peach Cobbler

2006-05-18T20:57:00.000-05:00

Considering the following story describes the interviews I had today, I decided to present it to you in interview fashion. The text is taken from a messenger conversation. In order to protect the identity of the other person, I have taken great care to scramble the letters in the username. Here is the conversation:

Sealech era says:
hey! did you have an interview today?!
Adam! says:
yes, 2 in fact
sealech era says:
how'd they go???
Adam! says:
first one, at the Sunglass Hut, was quick and pretty casual because they REALLY
want me for the job
Adam! says:
the second, however...
sealech era says:
not so good?
Adam! says:
was down at Duha Color close to the airport
sealech era says:
duha color? what kind of job is there?
sealech era says:
painting?
Adam! says:
That was the computer programming job
sealech era says:
there name isn't very explainitory...
Adam! says:
Well, they do make paints
Adam! says:
The job just happens to be behind the scenes
Adam! says:
...so anyways, I haven't done much programming in like, three years
Adam! says:
and I get there, and sit in the board room
sealech era says:
intimidation still works, apparently
Adam! says:
and am brought this stack of papers, a test, if you will, on computer programming
sealech era says:
oh goodness!
Adam! says:
asking... how would you write the code for this
Adam! says:
and that
sealech era says:
i'd start crying
Adam! says:
I stared at the page for a while
Adam! says:
like this... [imagine a shocked-face emoticon]
sealech era says:
like a stork flying at your face... understanable
Adam! says:
yes... a big black stork that is the text on the page... and then I started to make things up
sealech era says:
yay! i love making things up!
Adam! says:
yes! so from what I faintly remembered of Visual Basic I created some commands, maybe out of thin air
Adam! says:
So I worked on this test for like half an hour
sealech era says:
ohhhh... that's ususally not very good
Adam! says:
and then a knock on the door
Adam! says:
Time for the in-person interview!
Adam! says:
Well, I butter them up real good, telling of all my computer accomplishments (now a long time ago) trying to prevent them from realizing I have forgotten everything
Adam! says:
but then at last the time came when they wanted to see what I had written down
sealech era says:
oh no!!!
Adam! says:
so I tell them... It has been a really long time, but I'm sure I could remember given a few days
Adam! says:
but they look at my work...
Adam! says:
hmmm, hmmm....
Adam! says:
and nod a little
Adam! says:
then say "yes, this is right"
sealech era says:
NO!!!!!
sealech era says:
lol, that's AMAZING!!!!!
Adam! says:
I was pretty stunned
sealech era says:
wow....

Welcome to Buzzland

2006-05-15T13:29:00.000-05:00

This is a good and funny story. So as I am looking for a job, I come across this one company that hires tutors. "I can be a tutor", says myself to myself, and so I send them a resume, just one out of the many I have sent. However, the next day I receive an email stating that I have passed the first phase of the interviewing process, and now it is time for part two. Many of those who need tutoring are seniors who want to learn to use computers, and so part II tests whether we have these skillz ourselves. This is the test: place a $2.00 bid on any item at Ebay.
Now, though this is not difficult, it is something I have not done before. So I go to Ebay, open up an account, and look for an interesting item on which to bid without winning, and therefore paying for, that item. So I go to the art section, knowing that I could not possibly win a painting for $2.00. Unfortunately, all the starting bids are over $2.00. Hmm... maybe some small antique item will start for lower, I tell myself. So I browse through the antique section. Hmm... not this. No, not that. Finally I come to an 1897 children's book entitled "Victor in Buzzland" which has a current bid of $1.50. There are 2 days left, so I am guaranteed my bid will be passed. So I place a bid of $2.00, and email the tutoring company to say I have completed the task.
All is well.
Until...
I get a message in my inbox stating:
"You have won your first Ebay item!"
Victor!
There is no turning back once something has been won.
Soon a little package will arrive by mail.
And I will pay $2.00 for a book I do not want
and a hefty shipping fee.
This is a good and funny story.

What Have I Been Up to All these Years?

2006-05-13T21:51:00.001-05:00

Tagged by Leah:

The Rules (which I break by #1)
1. You can only say YES or NO.
2. You are NOT ALLOWED to explain ANYTHING unless someone comments and asks!

1. Taken a picture naked? Yes. Do you want to see?:
2. Painted your room? No. Though there is some paint waiting to be used behind the bathtub.
3. Made out with a member of the same sex? No
4. Drove a car? Yes
5. Danced in front of your mirror? No
6. Had a crush? Yes
7. Been dumped? No
8. Stole money from friend? No
9. Gotten in a car with people you just met? Yes
10. Been in a fist fight? Yes. Good old Beaver Creek Camp. That wasn't a pillow.
11. Snuck out of your house? Yes
12. Had feelings for someone who didn’t have them back? Yes. Frequently?
13. Been arrested? No
14. Made out with a stranger? Only if you consider her a stranger. (Her? Who?)
15. Met up with a member of the opposite sex somewhere? Yes. (What does this mean?)
16. Left your house with out telling your parents? Yes
17. Had a crush on your neighbour? No (considering my grandparents live next door)
18. Ditched school to do something more fun? Yes
19. Slept in a bed with a member of the same sex? Yes (Hotels only, grief!)
20. Seen someone die? No
21. Been on a plane? No, believe it or not.
22. Kissed a picture? No
23. Slept in until 3PM? No
24. Love or miss someone right now? If I say yes, I'll get points for being mysterious.
25. Laid on your back and watched cloud shapes go by? Yes - if anybody says no to this, I cannot be friends.
26. Made a snow angel? Yes
27. Played dress up? Yes
28. Cheated while playing a game? Yes - hopefully not in a few years.
29. Been lonely? Yes (what a stupid question)
30. Fallen asleep at work/school? No - I deserve a gold star!
31. Been to a club? Yes
32. Felt an earthquake? No
33. Touched a snake? Yes
34. Ran a red light? No, and I even prevent Jason from running one once. Good me.
35. Been suspended from school? Yes. Rice cakes + heater = bad idea? But I had a great time playing Zelda at Jordan's the next day!
36. Had detention? Yes
37. Been in a car accident? Yes, remember the vertical files that came flying from the back seat when I drove into the field at high speeds on the way to Jeff's house for "public skating"?
38. Hated the way you look? Yes - puberty is a bad time.
39. Witnessed a crime? No. I may be missing out.
40. Pole danced? No
41. Been lost? No, but everybody else was. Mall of America. 1999. Good times.
42. Been to the opposite side of the country? North Pole?
43. Felt like dying? How does dying feel?
44. Cried yourself to sleep? No
45. Sang karaoke? Yes
46. Sucked your thumb? No. Wait. Yes, I just did. Felt like dying.
47. Done something you told yourself you wouldn’t? I want to say no, but probably it is yes.
48. Laughed till some kind of beverage came out of your nose? Yes
49. Caught a snowflake on your tongue? Yes! And then I tied it in a knot!
50. Kissed in the rain? No. I'll put this on my to do list.
51. Sing in the shower? Yes
52. Made love in a park? Remember the curvy slide in Riverside Park? Just kidding.
53. Had a dream that you married someone? No
54. Glued your hand to something? No
55. Got your tongue stuck to a flag pole? No - but the side of our bolar camper.
56. Ever gone to school partially naked? No
57. Been a cheerleader? No
58. Sat on a roof top? Yes - I like to read on the roof.
59. Didn’t take a shower for a week? No
60. Ever too scared to watch scary movies alone? No
61. Played chicken? No
62. Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on? Yes - good old snow camp!
63. Been told you’re hot by a complete stranger? No
64. Broken a bone? No
65. Been easily amused? Yes - ooh, wallpaper!
66. Laugh so hard you cry? Yes
67. Mooned/flashed someone? No
68. Cheated on a test? Yes. Back of the Ruler. Grade 4 spelling.
69. Forgotten someone’s name? Yes (how can they get away with a question like this?)
70. Slept naked? Yes
71. Gone skinny dipping in a pool? No
72. Performed on stage? Yes - am I on right now? "Good Night Seattle! You Rock!"
73. Blacked out from drinking? No
74. Played a prank on someone? Yes. Dead Mouse. Gwen Friesen's desk drawer.
75. Gone to a late night movie? Yes. The Two Towers first viewing, started after midnight. Bad idea. Good movie.
76. Made love to anything not human? No, sick! Remember when we were performing "The Importance of Being Earnest" and Miss Gautema made us change all references to "making love" to "flirting"? Poor old Oscar Wilde!
77. Failed a class? No
78. Choked on something you’re not supposed to eat? No
79. Played an instrument for more than 10 hours? Yes. In one sitting, even.
80. Cheated on a girl/boyfriend? No
81. Did you celebrate the 4th of July? Yes, we usually are in the states on trips then.
82. Thrown strange objects? YES!!! Throwing stars in the back shed at Vidir! Poor Clint sprained his ankle trying to jump and grab one stuck in the wall.
83. Felt like killing someone? Not really.
84. Thought about running away? From the law? That would be fun!
85. Ran away? Let's just say it was the worst sleep I've ever had.
86. Did drugs? No - I don't need them, believe me. "Dancing in the wicked land, tainted honey, wicker man!"
87. Had detention and not attend it? No
88. Dumped anyone? No
89. Made a parent cry? Yes
90. Cried over someone? No
91. Owned more than 5 sharpies? No
92. Dated someone more than once? No
93. Have/had a dog? Yes - let's just say he got into a fight with a skunk.
94. Own an instrument? Yes
95. Been in a band? Yes - None Input, Septic, The Rustic Poets
96. Drank 25 sodas in a day? No
97. Broken a cd? Yes
98. Shot a gun? Yes
99. Dated a married person of the opposite sex? No
100. Written a love letter? Yes

Well, there they are. My deepest secrets. But this was fun. I'm gonna have to pass this on. You can yell at me if you don't like it.

I tag: Chelsea, Sherri

And now... for dessert!

2006-05-11T11:24:00.000-05:00

Right Jolly! So it is nearing twelve on the o'clock and I pull up to my good Riverside house in my car (maroon). I am not sure what to expect - I never told my parents when I would get back, not sure if I would stay in the apartment in Winnipeg for a few nights, and quite frankly unsure of when Somewhere Else West was supposed to end. So I walk, feeling very much like Jean Valjean, better yet, Hamburgler, into my childhood home trying first to be quiet so as to not wake anybody, then loud so as to not make them think I am truly a thief breaking in. But there is good news. Mother is merely resting on the living room couch, and sees me illuminated in the oven-light glow. She rubs her eyes, then gets up, startled, as if she has just seen an imp that has passed through a netherworldly gate. Yes, it is I, your oldest imp child! The three globe lights in the kitchen are thrown on, and I am welcomed back. There is more good news - it seems I may be one of the first back home. Shane is working the night shift at the Super 8, Chase has gone for a party after the last performance of "The Music Man", and Dad is working on the field. Sure enough, the door opens again and it is father, quite covered in grease. A pizza is produced warm from the oven, and I have a few slices of late supper and even a bowl of salad. Why, there is even some entertainment as dad finds he is the carrier of several black wood ticks! And then Chase shows up, still dressed from the play and dropped off by a friend. There are more things to talk about - dropped flowers and a music CD that skipped because of possible sabatoge by fingerprinting.

I intended to write about the other things that happened in the early part of the week: feeling rested enough to go to church, a good Sunday lunch at Grandma's, a baseball game where I reunited with friend Tracy (called off in the 6th inning due to lightning), a quiet evening reading Spoon River Anthology, a day raking and burning the flood-mess, having a big group of highschool friends over in the evening to watch 24 and play Wide World - and it is... it is a wide world and we have moved about it in so many ways. It would take a string of words from here to the rolling Cypress Hills to fully describe every step. And that is why, though indeed I tried to tell you more, I could not, and you must be forever content with the contents of that hour, that single hour, that took place after I got home from Somewhere Else West, figuring that everybody else was asleep.

Somewhere Over the Rain and the Homemade Bow

2006-05-09T22:17:00.000-05:00

Of course you know how I got to the West. You do not yet know of the tension that befell our party the following day just outside the Navigator house in Calgary. It lay hung as a canvas backdrop to the play that was the week to come. Here is this week, in pictures.

Our captain, Jonathan Serhal, who bravely guided us out from Winnipeg to Calgary by himself. But beware! He barely escaped a mutiny!

The leader's weekend was an excellent time where we got to connect with other group "facilitators" and grow in our own spiritual walk. We even got to spend an entire afternoon, five hours, in prayer. This picture was taken during that afternoon, as I hiked up the hillside past a lone patch of snow. It is a box, resting on a prairie field. This box is me. This box is you. All around is blue.

Making the best of a windy day, Chelsea and I decided to build a kite that set off an arts and crafts revolution at the camp. It was a little wobbly, but I swear it would fly if it wasn't for that broken string. Or the lack of wind. Or the scent of horses.

In some form of wicked anti-chinook, the campground was covered in a marvellous snow storm the day the others arrived. Though this cleared up, the area was hit with about a foot of snow on Tuesday.

On Wednesday night we were treated to a BARN DANCE. Many good times. Us Mennonites showed them all how to two-step. Here is one of us, Tyson, with the sweet cowgirl Launny.

In this candid shot, fierce barbarian Will Manty (single male), takes to his steed. We got a chance to go horse riding at the camp (it was my first time!). I was on a horse named Sonny and he was sometimes slow/sometimes fast. Many nagging comments came from those behind. So I made Sonny trot to catch up, and everything was fine (until Will Manty's horse got spooked by a car). Sorry, I passed him in line. I am bad. I deserve to be kicked.

The boys in my cabin (and by boys I mean men, almost all older than I, their leader) in a rare moment when they were not holding guns or saying "Simon" in a british accent. My fist of punishment often fell. And then there was the Tyson that turned up our thermostat to 30 the first night. He shall pay twice over.

Some of the group without a name hanging around a pole without a purpose in front of the main lodge. In the picture is John L., Chelsea, myself, and Charlynne.

A bigger group of us on the last full day hiked up to Prayer Mountain. It was a beautiful hike where too many snowballs were thrown and then we saw a hydra and John tried to slay it barehanded, but we don't know if he lived, and then we went on a quest, over swampy bog and biker bandit attack, to find the sacred sword that grew from a tree stump.

Just when you think you are all alone, and that God has answered a prayer for safety, up springs a giant bear inside the main lodge. Those that laughed at it because it's back legs were wooden were the first to be eaten. Most of these sitting at the table survived by using it as a shelter. I think James lost an ear, though.

To close, to close, I gave our kite to the beloved kids who had helped to make the week more interesting by shooting us with water guns and drawing neon horses. They smiled, and this is what I took. I took it with me all the way back to the green confines of southern Manitoba.
Fin.

The Road to the West

2006-04-28T10:42:00.001-05:00

It was Thursday morning, 5:30, when I opened the day like a can of worms. I saw Travis had brought home some lovely barbequed sausages from the farm, and they were all plump, with juice springing from the inside. To start a morning with a barbequed sausage sandwich! Packed, I headed to pick up Dennis down Balmoral. I was ashamed to find it to be so light outside at this time of day, and so peaceful. How time has been squandered! At Dennis' apartment I waited outside, when I saw a tabby cat behind a screen window above me. It tilted its head sideways with curiosity as it viewed me. Then, in a slow fit, attempted to burst from the screen to meet me on the street!
Soon we were at Johnny's place, where we got a small tour of the perennials while things got underway. In the tree sat three black birds, with matte chests and glossy wings. An omen?
Picked up James and Will and started to drive.
Driving.
Driving.
Driving is done at John's good pace. Our eventual destination is here:

Along the way we are busy throwing "verbal barbs" at each other (I quote the James on this one). This, or something else, caused the van to get quite heated, and sometimes smoke was seen on the inside. The van itself drove fine. We gassed up quite frequently, and made an emergency #2 stop.
One time there was a stench coming from a garbage bag in the back. Dennis threw it out in the trash, but then James stated that his shoes were in a garbage bag because they were wet. A moment of horror. Then we found the shoes, still sitting in the van in a different garbage bag.
There was a constant background of various metal music, which complemented the metal farm equipment along the road outside. This naturally lead to great discussions about farming, and James gave us an eleven point sermon on the problems of farming today. Dennis often occupied himself by reading: once from a magazine that put forth unfounded trends in computer engineering, the rest in a small book on vitamins in food.
He vowed to eat as healthy and as infrequent as possible, even buying a small Horton's wrap so he could avoid a bigger lunch. Come lunch time, he went to Safeway and bought bread, and turkey, and bananas, and vector bars, and lettuce. A good and healthy effort to avoid spending money on supper. He ate some salad while the rest of us ate other salad in Wendy's. He made a sandwich and put the rest in the cooler (which had to be constantly monitored due to a testy power cord). John wanted the cooler off to save energy. So Dennis had to eat the meat to prevent it from going bad. Could you blame him? The whole packet, and most of the bread, and the bananas that did not get squished on the floor now drained. This got us to supper. We ran into Subway where I tried the new ham and swiss sub (3 out of 5 stars) and the sandwich artist got anxious after we bugged him about the lack of garlic bread. When we got our subs we found Dennis in the parking lot, having gone to Dairy Queen to get a small, make that a medium, blizzard, which was promptly eaten and (somewhat) spilled on his shirt.
So this is good! We are on our way to Calgary for an evening out.
We decide to pass the time on the flat plains of Alberta by playing "The Price is Right" with items found in a Swift Current newspaper. What is the price of a salt block? $4. What is the price of a grain bin? $8000. Will surprises us all by nailing these two prices on the head. Will, you should be an auctioneer. We move on to cars, and boats, and dogs, and office wages, and rent per month, etc. How about the price of one square bale? James should know this, for he has just spent the morning telling us about his Aggie studies. And he guesses... $400 per bale?! What? Actual retail price: $2.35.
We are in Calgary, and heading to a Jazz club owned by James' cousin. Here it is:

Playing tonight is Rabnett 5 (we don't like the name either), a local band, and pretty young. But as we all know, young jazz musicians are great, and they put on a solid show. I loved admiring the band's dynamics, and the bassist was outstanding. They played a variety of styles, adding a funk/jazz song and some mellow blues. The drummer spiced up jazz time with variations from other styles.
After the show, we go upstairs to an empty Piq Niq to have a drink and chat with James' cousin. We hear stories of old relatives who have beat up thugs with army belts, and a cousin driving off to Dawson, BC, with a trunk full of other relatives luggage and plane tickets. It was not an accident.
Neither was our arrival at Tyson's place after driving through Okotoks for, what was it, half an hour? =^). In due justice, Will was gunned down by an M16 bullet on the front lawn. Out from the bushes emerges a cowboy hat and a grinning face: Tyson with his airsoft gun.
There was lots to discuss before sleep.

Chinstrap (2005-2006)

2006-04-25T22:33:00.000-05:00

He never came home. We thought that he was out hunting. He sometimes did this during the nights. During the days he would lie inside, his favorite place behind the black ottoman along the wall. He would stretch out, and let his white belly be tickled. He slept in the garage during winter. We gave him the better food. Yesterday, we let the other cats in to finish off the remains. Chinstrap would always wait by the fridge, and jump for treats. He would play with his little pet mouse or watch us spin tops across the linoleum. We laughed when curled up on his favorite chair, the one Shane sits on for supper. It has a great view out the window. But there is nothing to hope for anymore, no waiting for the black and white prodigal son to come waddling down the driveway. The waiting is over, and now it is time to mourn.

Chinstrap digs under the pumpkins while his friend, Catalanato, looks at the camera.

Post Script: I have created a video montage of Chinstrap which can be viewed by following the link to Myspace (Listen to Adam's Music) on the sidebar. Click on the video link there.

Life is precious, life is sweet, like the earth beneath.

2006-04-24T13:57:00.000-05:00

This Wednesday goodbye Kyle, mushrooms on everything, all you can Boston's.
Graveyard, here off Osbourne, probably filled with mushrooms, too.
For mushrooms, dead people are like pizza.

Thursday John Botkin gets BBQed by Navs. Chelsea's blog for a sweet report. Here it is as if people fell from the sky, but not, they rose from the ground. They pulled the bell first, to warn us. Thank you.

Friday, Youth Group, Rosenort. Sing some outside, across from the cemetary. In the sunset. Of our lives. Had a mad game of. Spoons from which I still have two. Gaping burn wounds. But at least I didn't have to drink the salt water. Picture still from Thursday. Kept haunting thoughts.

Weekend mornings. Beautiful. Walk my camera like dog. Capture this spring shot. Like a sling. A sling for broken branches. Later, Sunday afternoon it gets cold and windy. As I work before window, I notice that hundreds of these seed strings are flying from the trees down they come, spring hail, and I go out the screen door to stand on the deck looking west and am showered by these red strands it is such a moment.

Afternoon down by the river's edge. Our neighbour's garbage burial yard got raised by the floodwaters. Bottles everywhere. I, pen, and paper, write messages. In the bottles. We go river. Wedge bottles in the dirt. Then take a swing with a golf club and launch them into stream. If you find a bottle. Leave a message of your find here. There are 15 to collect.

Through My Window I Can See the Frame

2006-04-19T23:26:00.000-05:00

It feels good to have the windows open in Spring.

Except:

1) It seems Travis is allergic to something mysterious. When the windows are open I often hear him sneeze five or more times in a row. There are no good numbers beyond four, so this is a bad sign indeed. Luckily, symptoms have been improving as of late.

2) Once faint outside noises are now loud. This means you, seagulls! Also, one day something must have reverberated in the garbage bin outside the window and I thought a bomb had gone off, or a train had fallen off of a bridge. It was quite possibly the most frightening thing I had ever heard. I sat at the window for over five minutes wondering whether or not I should grab an armful of soup cans from the pantry to weather the nuclear winter. I am not joking when I say this. After five minutes, I heard an ambulance driving down the road. This did not help.

3) Because the windows have not been opened for the greater part of a year, a number of dead insects have accumulated between the panes (imagine them as the crumbly graham layer on the bottom of a cake). Included in this collection are dead flies (now just black exoskeletons) and dead ladybugs (did you know they turned white?). (I did not, but I tried to take a picture of one today because it looks immaculate!). Anyways, it was monday afternoon and I was reading on my futon-a-bed, enjoying the crisp breeze. All of the sudden, however, a sharp gust of wind swept from the streets of Osbourne through my very screen. Looking up, I realized that this wind has tossed up a fly skeleton, and it was flying right towards me! I could not move. I could not run. Defeated, I watched the rigid carapace fall into my lap as if I were an offering plate. Fie!

It is April 19th (Happy Birthday Shane) and Springtime in Winnipeg. Needless to say, my windows are now closed.

Announcing AdamVincentTylerKroeker Idol!

2006-04-18T15:10:00.000-05:00

You would think that I would like to keep all my easter eggs for myself. Well, you are right. However, I would like to offer you all a different kind of egg - it has lines, and a giant staff, and some notes. You guessed it - a musical egg! I have four more musical eggs waiting for you. All you have to do is follow the sidebar link. Included is my favorite recording, "Reflections", and the new dance craze called "Opening the Resurrection Tomb".

Tell me which ones are your favorite, because the ones that do not get voter support will be booted out so new songs can come in! Leave comments on the particular websites or here on the blog comment space.

Who will be the next AdamVincentTylerKroeker Idol?

Easter Egging

2006-04-17T17:37:00.000-05:00

So we had to eat a boiled egg at the seder I was telling you about. I probably hadn't eaten one in fifteen years. The last time was before my egg-hating period. This period ended three years ago. Then I decided I loved eggs. I loved them so much that I got a job at a chicken barn. Sometimes I brought home the juice from the cracked eggs in a big pail so I could share my love of eggs with my cats. But it seems that the boiled egg was still on my CAUTION list, and I hadn't eaten them like I had scrambled, poached, and sunny side up.

Friday we had an easter gathering at Uncle Greg's place. The day was beautifully warm and windy, and the high waters altered the landscape dramatically. For supper, I ate another boiled egg. This one was colored green on the outside. It is symbolic of the green grass where eggs go after they fall from the nest.

We had an Easter Egg hunt outside. For the Kroeker's side, because there are a good number of us, we have a tradition. We are each given a number, cut out from a calendar date. Mine was 23. A good number. A short quip, usually a bible verse, is written on the back. Mine said "trust in the LORD your God with all your heart, and lean not on your own understanding". I thought it was telling me something. Then we gathered on the deck and got ready to look. We were shown the boundaries, and told there was one bag of goodies that had our number on it that we were to find. So off we went. I looked under the bales, in the juniper patch where the two mice ran from, and in amongst the pine trees. I could not find it. Then I looked up at the clothesline, which was attached to pulleys so the clothes could be pulled along. It was moving, being pulled by Uncle Greg from over by the house. To my surprise, out from the trees comes shuffling a bag of treats on the clothesline with the number 23. A gift from above!

The bags contents get more interesting every year. Gone are the eggs, and in are the cashews. Wrapped in seran wrap, they were. There were also Big grapes, and juicy, I hear. These were beside their bretheren, the Fruit to Go, and sisters, the baby carrots. Do these siblings get along?

Sunday, squished between my last exam on Saturday and my last paper on Monday, we went to our Loewen grandparents where, after a big meal, we partook in our Loewen egg hunting tradition. This is a tradition started in the last three years and involves a treasure hunt put together by grandma & grandpa. This year the hunt was competitive, so Shane, Jimi, and I squared off against Mom, Dad, and Chase. We each had a different order of clues and a different color of paper to take at each location. I wisely chose the yellow paper for our team, which stood out more than the white. And off we went, our first clue on the back door that led us to the bird bath, the next clue from birdbath to the door of the fifth wheel, then to the eavestrough spout, next to the wheel of the water truck, then to the bird feeder, and eventually to our little bolar camper, where we found a big sack of treats. We beat the parent/chase team by a few minutes. They had apparently tried to find a clue in the snowblower, which, though it is used in winter, has no door, as far as I know.

A truant finds home...and I wish to hold on...
But there's a trapdoor in the sun...immortality...

-PJ

Transportation to the Beyond

2006-04-15T22:16:00.000-05:00

It's blogoff time! Adam vs. Rachelle, FIGHT! This is like the old Street Fighter II games I remember playing at Justin Brandt's with his Super NES controller with electrical tape. I was a Chun Li fan. Not many people like Chun Li, but she was so agile! I think Jason would always play as the big sumo and just do his thousand punches all game until I ran into it. But my Chun Li could do that spinning upside down in the air that I loved. Did anybody else play this game?
So, as I said, it is a blogoff, so be prepared for the bar to be raised as high as an elephant's ---.

Thursday -- went to St. Aiden's Anglican church for a passover Seder meal. Getting there was funny enough. My car was piled full of people, made funnier because they were piled with funny food items. Jeremy was holding a tray of brownies that he cut about as good as a five year old, plus a loaf of garlic bread. Rachelle was holding, well, I'm not sure, let's say a giant piece of rhubarb. James was holding a bag of buns that my grandma made last weekend and Travis and I didn't get around to eating, a can of spaghetti sauce that we didn't use, and a thing of peanut butter cookies. So we start driving, the church is only five blocks away, and we start stalling. We must have stalled thirty six times in between. Stalling makes it hard to parallel park, let me tell you! So we get inside and I bring the buns for the potluck up to a lady in the kitchen. Then the seder starts. We sit at the table while the pastor starts to read from the liturgy. A group of designated men are supposed to stand up. They do. Number one is supposed to have a line. All stand still. Why is nobody speaking?! We sit in awkward silence for literally thirty seconds. Finally the bald one realises that he is number one and reads the line. We are called to dip the bitter herbs into the salt water. I could get used to this. Then we are called to make a mini-sandwich with the matzah bread and horseradish dip - a little tangy. Then a tense moment as an elderly lady passes out at the front of the church basement. An ambulence is called, and she is carried like the ark of the covenant on a chair to the door. After a while, we hear a report that she has regained consciousness and is doing alright. So we sing a Jewish song. And then is time for the potluck meal - our spaghetti goes a little slow, but there is a bountiful variety to choose from. But... where are the buns that I brought?! They have not put them out! My offering... my offering has been rejected! Is this proper potluck etiquette?
The service ends with a powerful time of us reading from the psalms out loud while climbing the steps into the main sanctuary. We find a pew and sing an a cappella song. A passage is read from Mark, up until the part where the disciples abandon Jesus. The book is slammed shut, and all the lights turn out. We sit in the dark, the stained glass image of Christ on the cross the only thing that glows in the evening light.
We recover at John Botkin's place, where we get there for the end of "Jesus of Montreal". I brought a bag of cookies that we had also failed to eat throughout the week. When I got downstairs, I saw they were already eating cookies, so I put the bag aside. We went upstairs to play a game of RACKO! with Chelsea, Melissa, and newbie Keith Tang. I have a brief moment when I think I am the worst RACKO player in the world. But I recover, and could have maybe taken the lead from Chelsea had not Keith called a RACKO! on the last hand knowing full well he would lose. Silly, silly, beginners. So it was late and time to go. I went to grab my bag of cookies.
But when I got downstairs I realized the bag had been taken. Taken! Oh, what cruel fate that is the stealer of my gifts! So after I cried for a while, and deemed myself fit to drive back to Rosenort, I left, going to drop Rachelle off on the way. And as we drove down residential Winnipeg (stalling a few more times) we looked up and saw the glorious northern lights slice across the sky, as if God was carving a chicken. They turned from green to yellow, making grand swoops and swirls, eddies in the black light opposite the moon. And I looked in my pockets for my bag of beans, in want of a plant that I could climb to the electric heights, but, like everything else, they were gone.

Bit in the Mouth 2

2006-04-13T13:29:00.000-05:00

Because this is a long post, I separated it from the other, which you should read first.

- Monday: The water is quite high in Rosenort, almost ready to go over the road at Jason's parent's place. I hang around, loving the nice weather, even going to eat breakfast outside on the deck. I bring my computer out to work on a Creative Writing Portfolio, and take some time to help dad cut down some trees that were growing under the deck and threatening to make it a treehouse. We also worked cutting away some rotten floor in our collectible shop. After lunch I drove down to Jason's parents place and snuck into the "Office", turned Jason's bachelor pad, where we used to have Rustic Poets music practice. It was haunting - considering how many good times were spent there, I realized I hadn't stepped foot in the place since last September. I took some of the great pictures down from the walls (yes, the rooster standing on a sheep with the three trees, now hanging in my bedroom) and a few board games. A couch sat in the middle of the room, piled with old belongings. Jason's cabinet and 12 string still huddled in the back room.
I drove back to Winnipeg after having a four o'clock supper. We put up some of the paintings around our house. Then Jason arrived. It must have been like entering his old house in a new place. We sat down at the kitchen table and started a game of Iron Dragon. He had a great first run, as usual, leaving Travis' and my trains in the dust. Then we got a call from old friend Jenna Waldner.
So off we went to meet her at the Park Theatre (not the Globe, contrary to Jenna's belief, which caused her to be, oh, a half hour late) where I had a choffee and we sat around the couches in the upper loft. And it was good to see how distance and time had changed us, and given us new friends and adventures. And let us talk about old friends and adventures. And we discovered that her new roommate is in fact Travis' old roommate (the replacement none other than yours truly), and that she worked with Travis' sister. Of course the two of them had never met, and this was all quite fascinating to us. Coincidence? And then the lights turned off and we parted ways, and Jason came back to our apartment and we talked of even older times much longer than we should have, because he was here, and Rosenort a long ways away.

Bit in the Mouth

2006-04-13T12:59:00.000-05:00

So this week things have been a little slow in blog-world. I guess I'm still experiencing a little bus-lag from Spring tour. However, I did update some of the links on the side to include some of the blogs where I draw my inspiration from. Also, check out the link to my music @ myspace, and tell me what you think. I've had a lot of these songs kicking around for years, and not many people have heard them. So don't let them pass from this world in vain! To catch you up with my life, here are some of the highlights of my week:

- Friday Night: we performed our dramas again, but this time for our home church. The house was PACKED and the skits went well. Superman even managed to avoid crashing. I remember the strawberry-kiwi juice after the performance which I thought was great and Jason thought was bad. I'm still not sure whether Wendy spent all day picking out the seeds because she also denied mixing it from bought juice.

- Saturday Day: Good fun watching the Blue Jays game. Glad to be back in baseball season, after my new found love of the game that happened sometime last year. To put this love into practice, I played a game of 500 with Jimi and Shane. The cool thing was that the sky outside was kind of deep purple, with a bit of the globe of sun trying to escape in the west. Then it started to rain, really hard and sideways, like when a totem pole tips. So we were all wet on one side and dry on the other.

- Sunday: Come to think of it, I think the game of 500 I mentioned was actually played on Sunday. Alas. Went to church and got to catch up with Jeff & Chris, and saw Paul Gregoire without a suit jacket. Managed to escape a Lorne Kornelson worship service without hearing "To the River". Instead we got "Farther Along" which I love, even played it on guitar on Saturday night - coincidence? Went to grandparent Loewen's for lunch where I helped grandpa set up a hotmail account. Funny - when we were asked to create a secret question to remember we talked about which question he wanted to answer. We briefly discussed favorite author, but he seemed interested in answering "First Car". Fine, I thought. But when he typed in his answer it was "C.S. Lewis". Is that an early Ford?

A Dinner at Woo's Cafe

2006-04-11T10:33:00.000-05:00

It was Thursday last and the second day of Spring weather in Manitoba. The sun shone and dust was whipped up by the huffing wind. I, walking down the street, stopped at the Goodwill store to search for unique items. Indeed, I found a game called "Merryment", a game of acting and improvising medieval court cases. With this purchase in hand, I looked for something to eat. I went into Flying Pizza, which was serving "two large slices of pizza for $2.50". Looked pretty good. But upon going inside I realized the place was overrun with teenage hormones resulting in the unsettling feeling of being on the wrong side of the monkey cage. So onward I looked at another restaurant called "7 1/4" (or something close, please correct) which served "comfort food" (or something close, please correct). But I was not in the mood for scalloped lemon beef on worchesire bread (I made this up) for $10.00. And so I went to Woo's.
Woo's cafe is a corner restuarant which markets itself as something Chinese. That's why I was surprised upon entering to find it looked like a Chicken Chef. Looks like I was the only customer in the restaurant, as well. I walk up to the counter, which is a difficult task in itself. Because there is a LARGE AQUARIUM in the way! I supress my memories of Chinatown in West Edmonton mall and greet the chinese man (Woo?) who waits in a small window cut out of fake wood panelling. Woo, who is sporting a grey moustache, hands me a menu and says "Take Seat". So I go and sit down, browsing through the menu. Pretty good prices. A cheeseburger for $2.00. But I grow suspicious of the cheeseburger. I bet it's one of those mini-burgers or a burger that has a thicker patty of cheese than meat. I cannot take the risk. I look elsewhere on the menu: it's all American food! What is Woo trying to do here? For a minute I get Seinfeld-like aspirations and contemplate giving him some business advice. But I refrain, and turn my menu over. Yes! There, on the back, I see it! Something authentic - chinese style chicken noodle soup.
Now I wait... a waitress, or Woo himself, should be here any minute to take my order. 5 minutes pass. Okay--I guess I'll do it myself. Returning to the counter behind the aquarium I find Woo waiting patiently, and order the soup and a cup of water.
The soup was delicious, and in a giant chinese bowl, too. The water never came. Oh well, can't always get what you want.
And as I eat the soup I watch the television above the aquarium, and the news reporter speaks of the wonderful scientific find, the missing link, of the fish who crawled onto land. I take a look at the fish on the television, then to the large carp floating lazily in the aquarium. Maybe...

A Toure of Spring

2006-04-04T20:42:00.000-05:00

This is like a gentle brush on the shoulder, this is like rubbing a bear. Here are pics from spring tour:

Of course, playing cards is always a good way to pass time on a long bus ride. Frequent games were: Big Boss, Little Boss; Hearts; and yes, even Poker with chips.

Our first performance was at the Willow Cree school on a native reserve, and was one of the best. I was along when our group did an excellent show here 5 years ago, but our reception this time topped even that! We were greeted by a traditional native drum song, and after our performance we all participated in a native Round Dance - the circle was as big as the gym! We got lunch there after the show, and Ashley, the girl in the picture who was also an aspiring journalist, had all the guys enthralled. For an interesting time, notice Cody's expression in the background.

Between the show at Willow Cree and the Penitentiary in Prince Albert, we stopped at the classic museum where we climbed the incredible flights of stairs to the tower for a great view. After that we were shown Louis Riel's last letter, which is held by the tour guide with the white gloves. We arranged this fitting shot around the haunting statue of the museum's founder (taxidermy?). Once again take note of the face.

This slick pic was taken in West Edmonton Mall - sorry for the jump in time, I don't have pics of our performances in between - where we stayed for an afternoon and night. Here we went mini golfing, to the water park, shopping, throwing the flying disc, and...

... drinking bubble tea from a vendor in Chinatown. Here I also tried to catch the carp in the pool with my bare hands, and guided a beleagured group of youth through the wild sights of a Chinese marketplace.

Ah, yes. In the basement of the Abbeydale EMC a hole was made in the wall during our made up game called something like "Monkey on the Tracks" (I can't remember), which was like Monkey in the Middle, except (you guessed it), the players on the outside had to stay on a track (made of tape). There would be 2+ people on the track trying to pass the ball. At no time could they step out of the track or be in the same line of track as someone else. There were free zones that allowed for safe passing, but one could not throw from a free zone, and could be tagged out if he was even holding the ball on a free zone. Other players (1 less than on the outside) were in the middle of the square ring of tracks trying to intercept the ball. If one of the players on the track made a mistake, the players in the middle had to catch them before they touched two opposite walls. Unfortunately, this wall was touched a little hard. I put the pterodactyl in the hole to ease some of the tension.

Some of the sponsors (me in the middle) posing for a pic beside the Bow River Falls in Banff. We took off a day to go hiking and shopping in the mountains (as well as check out the posh Banff Springs Hotel), and it was a highlight of the trip. The trail we were on was apparently closed, which translated to: "have fun on the icy paths and don't fall into the river!". Well, we headed home after this. More about the tour later when I get some fresh pictures.

Those Renew Days

2006-03-26T22:11:00.000-06:00

Well, how-dee-ho to you all! Just wanted to tells all you readers out there that I will be packin' up the saddles and ridin' down the trails out west this next week on Rosenort EMC's very own Magical Mystery (Spring) Tour, which will take us through ghost towns and native reserves, and even through a jail (How I loved my time alone!). There are sure to be lives that are changed on this trip, so I'd ask y'all to pray for us. God willin', I do know when I'll be coming back again: next Monday. So until then, Happy Trails!

2006-03-24T08:23:00.000-06:00

Holding bones in the palm of my hand
I spit sunflowers to the ground, to the ground
Where the sun falls with a sound around
the sunken bus tracks,
a mound of cables and dead electricity.

It was 11:44 and I

2006-03-21T22:23:00.000-06:00

It was 11:44 and I,
having wasted so much of God's good day,
decided to leave;
walking down
the old boat trail,
hard packed snow
where the dogs go
under brambled bush
by rusted pump.
Between the river Red
and iron beds,
of Riverview,
there 'twas I
and did espy
a quinzee
perhaps abandoned by
some crazy man,
but I
entered, crawling
polar child
earthly wild,
wrapped in warm sheets
of snow
I died.

There are Blue Lambs!

2006-03-20T09:53:00.000-06:00

Let me tell you about my delightful weekend! Friday I dug up an old two by six from the church basement to use as "The Fence" (shh). And there we washed potatoes and found black things inside some. Saturday I went to Jason & Destiny's for a pre-pre-natal-diem supper for Debbie. Peter Fast was there as well. Yum! We ate some barbecued chicken with cheese in teriyaki sauce. And we reminisced about the time after a Reach for the Top tournament when we cashed in all our free french fry coupons at each fast food restaurant and ate them from a full greasy bag. After this the lot of us went to C&C at Kevin and Becky's where we talked about the new heaven and the new earth and transparent gold and a tree that surrounds the river. Do you know that the new Jerusalem was measured to be as big as the entire western half of the united states? Of course with this knowledge we proceeded to play a great round of Pass the Pigs (one of my favorites) when I got a leaning jowler and was happy. Then we played Last Chance, but I always forget Last Chance strategy when I don't play for a while, and I had very little money. But fun! And Sunday I woke up early and did sound for Cody's music practice, and then I planned to go home and get ready for church, but some missionaries from northern manitoba were talking during sunday school hour so yeah, i had to do sound for that too, and then church started and it was good, and then after we had our Spring Tour fundraising dinner, during which Cody and I went around with guitars to serenade tables. And here is some of the requests we played:
- You are my sunshine
- Barney's "I love you"
- u2's beautiful day
- happy birthday in jazz
- yellow submarine
- i'll fly away (like 3 times, once with a key change mid way)
- skinamarinkydinkydink
- mary had a little lamb (blues version)
- and many more - a CD to follow!

Draw Your Own!

2006-03-14T10:17:00.000-06:00

There are notices up in the apartment:

BACKPACK STOLEN
-Was left on the front step with a
Black & White Jacket
-Full of Clothing
-Saw a person
put on the jacket,
walk inside with the
backpack.

Another notice in the laundry room:

Have you ever had a favorite pair of jeans?
Well I used to, but they were taken after I
left them in the washing machine.
Please return them, you don't know how much it means.

Looks like someone has sticky fingers... Sooner or later we'll be standing outside and that person will come up to us and say:

"Nice pants."
"..."
"I said, give me your pants!"

Do you know that I just pulled out a long hair that was nestled between keys on my keyboard?

On Sunday afternoon I went to play poker with a crazy collection of local youth:

Christopher "Drummer" Dueck
Brother Shane
Brenden Friesen
Chris "Auger Boy" Dueck
Michael Brandt
Thomas Remple

Is this not a fascinating combination of people? We played around Michael B.'s pool table, and the effect was rather charming.

We started a B side after people were eliminated from the A side game. And we made nasty comments to the other group and stole their Lay's Stackers. When Christopher went to heat up some pizza from M.B.'s freezer the last of the pepsi's was taken. It turns out he picked a tomato pizza which was apparently
"Very Old!"
And so I gave him the last 20% of my Pepsi, but he had to get me a glass of water, and then he drank the pepsi in one sip, and laughed at his foolish life.

Well, I thought I got my car fixed, but take note that it did stall a few more times. Granted, I was trying to turn around on parking lots at odd angles, but it still is a little haunting.

Yesterday evening we went out to eat at Daly Burger, which is on Corydon and run by (judging from the pictures of the acropolis on the walls and his striking accent) a jolly Greek man who looked like Victor from Vidir(Dmitri's dad). There were several layers of music going on inside the restaurant at the same time: curling commentators for the Manitoba/Sask game on TV, classical piano music from CD, and a Creed song off of Weathered. An auditory jungle! The burgers also have several layers at once, including a spread of chili and some limp, chili doused, pickles. They are overall tasty, though!

Now I will end without a conclusion.

Be bop be bop be bop be, one bird sits in a lonely tree

2006-03-13T00:07:00.000-06:00

*This post will be more enjoyable if you snap your fingers along with the simplistic words.

Saturday
Walked outside
it was white
there was snow
snow is bad

filled the boots
filled the air
filled the swing
as I swung
filled the mind
filled the mind
do do do

Saturday
got a ride
to Paul's house
went inside
talked about
the end times
ate some cheese

then we got
the scrabble board
tried not to start
a holy war
twice the words
twice the fun
I spelled BIFFED

then was Paul
with AZUL
and Jason
dropped an UG
which we still
don't think
is a word.

All To change, All To destruction

2006-03-11T11:48:00.000-06:00

Dark is the dragon
that sticks in his tongue
that sticks his tongue into the wound.
~AVTK

And I am: that dragon, that vile wyrm - built of scales bronzed in the kiln of ancient suns, & wings stretched from the flesh of those infants whom were thrown over the walls when I approached the castle. Mother's hoped they could be saved. Yet I around the castle looped, sliding upon my burlap belly until I found my other end. Between my own teeth I held my tail and then pulled back, contracting, the walls of the castle crumbling, then, with my labour, fell.
~
Thursday: deep underground a gas line fissures. Women run screaming from their stations and police men divert the traffic down Brandon Ave. My home. Some say the cloud of gas is spreading, and I sit, trapped inside the house labouring on a presentation due tomorrow, planning for house church, and reading Atwood's "Hairball". When it is time to leave I think nothing of the fact that the gas may still be leaking, the road to Confusion Corner still closed, knowing I can always go down Jubilee.

Jubilee is a drain completely clogged with hair. My car, having troubles at low speeds recently, stalls every time I come to a stop. People are honking, waving, wondering why I would want to stop in the middle of the street during rush hour. But there is no way to communicate with them. We are all mimes trapped in glass cubes of our own design. When I finally get to Stafford, I stall just as I turn the corner. An angry van revs up behind me. Not wanting to ruin the day of any more people, I decide to take the punishment myself, cranking the unpowered steering wheel like a butter churner in order to turn into a parking lot. Once I restart my car I realize that the way out is a one way street that leads back to Pembina, down to Confusion Corner. After half an hour of horrid toiling in the car, I arrive at a place a minute from my house. By the time I reach Jeremy's house I am frustrated and exhausted: destruction is inevetable. For a while I forget about the troubles ~ there is spaghetti with cheese sauce and good coffee. I sing some of my favorite songs and the bible study is interesting. There is drawing on a cup. I forget until tomorrow when I wake up in fear of a terrible presentation, when in my haste I park along the Markham road in the muddy snow, when I struggle to print handouts on the old fashioned printers in St. Paul's, the ones with the dotted stripe down the side that you have to tear off, when, returning to the car I find a parking ticket for more than I can afford after four months of having money eaten away by moths and rent payments, and no work to help out.
~
There is nothing left of the outer wall now. The rubble has fallen on those inside; their legs stick out of it like pins from a pincushion. I slither over to the courtyard, where I still find life. Underneath the boughs of a giant tree sit the prince and his lady, seemingly unawares of the collapse of the walls. Sweet apple blossoms cover them ~ statues in the snow. I am content to watch for a while. Watch. Watch. But the game gets old. In a second I burst down from the tree, snatching the poor girl up between my teeth while the prince stands by, silently. Is he dumbfounded or relieved? And there in front of him I eat her, let the juicy marrow trickle down, a shower.
I am reminded of things beyond this when I hear screaming. The castle has taken fire! Great clouds of smoke billow forth from the ruins, cooking those pinned below. The mighty castle has fallen, and a dragon shall be crowned king. Soon the giant tree is burning, burning blossoms now fill the air. There are darts of fire, then blazing bales: meteors from above! And sure - the ground is burning ~ all the grass and sheep and even dragons! I have caught fire! First on the paper-thin wings and then tail and then soft underbelly ~ now too the eyes burst forth and the crown melts. And then, falling backwards into the burning tree, I expire!
~
Tomorrow night after the walls have fallen, I will find myself sitting in a hottub in the country, with soft lights from a red and white painted barn before me, the white frozen wind around me, and the country stars above me. But today fly the snowballs, and we are utterly untrenched. We run around as scavengers, trying to stave off the inevitable defeat. Down drops one, then down drops another, then I drop down to look at something reflecting on the pavement underneath the giant billboard and city sky: a small pile of bronze scales. I drop my change in a bowl and go home.

The Rambler No. 4

2006-03-09T14:40:00.000-06:00

Now the town melts away, now melts the town away, now away the town melts into a puddle of black leaves. Am I finding less things are happening? Is this why I have to write like this? Yesterday morning I woke up at ten in the morning. But I made it a good day by singing "The World is a Vampire" on the way to school. Why would you want to read this? Do you think my life is interesting? I'll tell you about class. We talked about Marxism and laughed that the capitalists have us under control so that we feel really rebellious when we wear the Che Guevara t-shirts and pink baseball caps - yes, we paid for them! And then I went to Logic class where I talked to the philosophy girls that hadn't been there for a while. This class is funny: this whole semester there have never been more than 5 people in the room. I should get working on it, i should get working on the -- railroad! Maybe, maybe, its time to put up a poem that I'm working on. It's going to be in a chapbook put out by our creative writing class. You can buy a copy from me for $5. It will be worth it. You can reserve a copy by simply posting a comment. You can also comment on the poem. I think I'll work on it a little more, so give me tips.

Give Us, O Bones, an Anthem
Adam Kroeker

Give us, O bones, an anthem
to provoke the Maple flag,
to give purpose to our triumphs,
forgetfulness to loss;
an anthem that the little child can play.

Keep strong the fearless soldier,
when he crashes on the banks,
when to the baritone bombardment
he adds his own refrain;
Refrain! Refrain! The children’s choir sings.

Here once a child playing,
building strongholds in the sand--
now to mine! and now to mortar!
onward press our nations’ men
--forgetful of the rising of the tide.

But we upon the beachhead
stare upon the score of men, holding guns
locked up with the cold that sing
an anthem that the little child can play.

I apologize in advance

2006-03-07T22:01:00.000-06:00

Hello, my little peaches! Time to pluck you from the orchard. Yes! Let me get a ladder and a big wooden bucket. You are quite plump, and will sell for a good price in the market! Don't be ashamed -- you were born for this! Live it up!

There is a girl in front of Tim Hortons who is wearing a bit of a bedsheet down below and only some giant daisies up above. She is quite plump.

Trying to read "Housekeeping" but fall into the most beautiful nap right after the train flies off the bridge into the depths of the lake.

Yes. I think I hit a tasty spot.

But where does God end and the world begin?

Tell, me peaches - can't you speak?

Why do you think we have feelings about fictional characters? Are we stupid, childish? Do we believe them to be real people? I have my ideas. An essay topic, perhaps. But tell me what you think - talk peaches!

Green things grow on the cheese in the fridge, green things grow on the cheese. Black things grow on the plug in the bath, black things grow on the plug.

Oh! A pit!

Did I tell you I didn't like peaches?

Don't call me daughter!

Sick, lame, stupid fruit.

I read a book all day - fuzz face!
I played guitar all day - mush brain!

Take a look at the sky - and suck!

And there in the snow, a freshly covered footprint

2006-03-06T00:20:00.000-06:00

It is a perfect evening in Winnipeg: heavy snow oh soft snow rests on the boughs of the evergreens, evergreens now white. The air is crisp, though mild while the night sky buttery soft, a tiger tiger ice cream. After garbage, river walk, I take the winding trail dusted powder, view of Red. Just returned from potluck meal, a meeting of house church leaders. We told old stories from the heart, drew up plans for coming year. March deserts of cream cheese & apple, and coffee that was maple. Then gowns, then suits, and giant bows, the academy awards are served with friends in basement lined with books. In the afternoon there were gifts, a nap on the small couch. Filling a cart with bread and salad. Lunch at three. We made a trip to the Mulvey market. Piled bodies of well-worn action figures, narrow lanes of lampshades and paintings. Friendly people who cannot organize. We arrived here from church, a morning at Elim chapel. Stained glass and cleansed hearts. Communion cups and crackers (where do they get the silver trays, an old warehouse downtown?). And bodies dead and storms and storms and hems of garments, healed! Botkin gives the message drives it down the giant organ pipes the wind a vent that opens, shuts, a choir and gospel favorites, a favorite, indeed.

Not Even Plaster Shall Last

2006-03-04T17:52:00.001-06:00

And I am exhausted! Just worked all Saturday demolishing the insides of an old house on Spence street: part of our Navigator's Work Day. It was a three storey (please tell me if I am spelling this wrong, for it is one word I have never known) house, from which the residents, likely some of the poorest in Winnipeg, had moved out just three days prior. There was still some furniture that had to be hauled out to the garage or dumpster. After this was taken care of, we attacked the walls with our crowbars and hammers, ripping off the chunks of hundred year old plaster. Then we destroyed the small plaster boards with sledge hammers! My favorite moment of the day was kicking through a wall on the main floor. This debris was collected into garbage cans, then brought out onto the roof where we had strung together a makeshift chute (have I ever told you that I love chutes?!) that led to the dumpster. The dust from the plaster being smashed and thrown into piles was as thick as a dustbowl sandstorm. Many great memories, especially the pizza lunch in the basement with the six foot ceiling. Yes, and then Ashley pulls out the omnipresent tripod and takes a picture, the warm light from all angles icing the dust on our faces. We look immortal.

plants Raised in the dirt of our hearts

2006-03-03T14:12:00.000-06:00

When in a casserole, roll a watermelon! This is what Francesco says. He does not think it is good. There may be instructions on the internet for Brokeback Mountain. What is now? When is what? Look at this, after house church and Chelsea's horrible day, what does the syllabus tell me to read but "The Lives of Girls and Women"! I laugh for maybe ten minutes, though on and off. Are there italian I-pods? When in a casserole, roll a watermelon! What have I done? There are only wingdings left. I have gone to a Gregory Scofield reading at 9:30 in the morning. This was interesting. He read poetry about his metis ancestors, singing songs in Cree and yes, woo! And we have gone to eat supper at Burger King at 10:00 PM and I handed the new server $5 and she said "Excuse me, your total was $4.70"... "Oh..." and then I had to remind her I ordered a water. And then we asked the manager about the little yellow square people on the cups. She blamed it on the creative department. They cannot call it 'Indian Leather' anymore, now they must say 'Indian Suede'. And there are other things: wild events with my car stopping at random times, like in the middle of roads and in the toonie lot. And these are red on Saturdays. This is tomorrow. What left? When in a casserole, roll a watermelon!

Batter Up!

2006-03-01T16:11:00.000-06:00

Well, dear readers, we have reached a special time, the time when holy days fall back to back: today is Ash Wednesday, and yesterday was declared Tuesday of the shrove. And though our protestant forefathers were not fond of getting their heads dirty, this time of year is important to me for one reason: Nav's serve pancakes in Campo! Our grill, the grill at the end of the line, manned by Melissa and I, often produced pancakes that were, shall we say, deep fried. We tried are best to mix in a little love into the batter and these are our creations (artistically rendered by Adam). Enjoy!

Did God Will the Death of Mr. Fish?

2006-02-27T23:40:00.000-06:00

Today is Monday,
Today is Monday,
Monday wash day,
All you hungry brothers,
We wish the same to you.

Wash Day - I washed a saucepan. Then I put spaghetti in the saucepan. Then we debated whether or not I should add more spaghetti. Then we ate the spaghetti. Then I had to wash the saucepan again.

Hungry Day - our big ideas & paper bag discussion today was on the topic of Free Will/Fatalism. Though nobody was persuaded to change their beliefs, we did manage to prove that the monkey on the chair was indeed a real monkey. Our differences seemed to hinge on whether bad things are God-willed. Nota Bene: it turns out our example was false because Travis did not kill me five minutes from when it was suggested.

Brothers Day - I went to watch Ben Clarkson play at the Academy Bar & Eatery. On a stool, with a guitar, a mic, and a Mr. Fish setlist Mr. Clarkson took to the stage. He did not tell his questionable land mine joke ('How do you appreciate a mine?'), but captured the audience with a humility that encapuslated the difficult choices it takes to make a setlist. Some songs which were planned were dropped on the spot. Others the audience had to encourage him to play. This gave the sense of a wildly interactive show. I was expecting a man in a king suit to emerge from the crowd at any minute. Ben played some of his long time favorites, including two by Weezer and one he stole from a friend. Do you know what impressed me? I never saw Ben Clarkson tune during his whole performance. Amazing considering the mad hammering on his strings. His guitar playing stole the show, with several fascinating runs that appeared out of the great musical ether. I give the show an A-! Congratulations, Ben (I am a tough marker.) You can visit the website for Ben Clarkson at www.myspace.com/benclarkson/.
Ben was followed by a group of preppy looking scrappers called "The Playing Cards". Wow and Smokes! This motley crew of fourteen year olds put the audience in a full nelson with their complicated arrangements and catchy melodies. Who cannot love a girl dressed in Western attire who haunts the keyboard like an abandoned organ? What about playing table hockey to the sweet refrain of "Mother, I wished we lived in the woods"! Or what say you when three cowbells play at once?! Sha-freaking-zam! You can find out more about this prodogy-stew by going to www.myspace.com/theplayingcards/.

Who is on the Mexican Train?

2006-02-27T00:06:00.000-06:00

Sunday, Sunday, what's a-happening?! 7:45 seems so early on a Sunday morning, yet normal the rest of the week. Why is this? Do you know who I saw after I woke up? Somebody had turned the channel to the service at the Church of the Rock, where the preacher with the flat hair was wearing a colorful striped sweater. And do you know who he was talking about? Satan, the prince of Darkness himself! Imagine that - talking about Satan while wearing a striped sweater! Foolhardy! He said that many people don't believe in Satan, but he plays an important role - if he didn't exist all our natural disasters would be God's fault. Well, now, Mr. Stripes, I think we are getting into that popular fallacy of 'if it's bad, look for the devil'. I'm not so sure that God gave Satan free control over the weather machine, and even if He did, we would still want to know why. Now I'm not about banishing the devil to myth - I do believe the dark forces can work on a human psyche - but let's just say the biblical Satan didn't ride on a thundercloud. Is it not demeaning to attribute to the Devil one of God's most awesome tools?
I am playing the role of Satan in one of the plays on our youth group's "Spring Tour" where we take a charter bus across western Canada performing skits and music. It is in the classic play, "The Fence" where several people walk along a hypothetical fence trying to decide whether they want the perks offered by God, on one side, or myself on the other. It ends with the ba-ba-ba epiphany, "The fence belongs to Satan". Have you read the Robert Frost piece about fences. I read it once in a little anthology of Pocket Verse. I remember good things about it.
Today was a good day for bonding with the brothers. In the afternoon I went to watch Jimi play hockey in the new Morris Arena (trust me, it's not like the MTS Centre), where they smacked the Morris team 13-3. Also, in the evening, I let my other brother Chase cut my hair, as he has some interest in the art, and I was in need of a trim. Sometimes telling people of a haircut before you see them is like ruining a surprise birthday party, so I apologize to all readers. I think he did a pretty good job.
After witnessing a round of Mexican Train dominoes and having a great feast at the Loewen grandparents, renewing our Sunday tradition after they returned, I watched some of the Olympics closing ceremony. My goodness - watching clowns with drumsets dance to 'YMCA' may be the creepiest thing ever. And what was with that guy dressed up like the Burger King mascot? And whos bright idea was it to give the athlete's red clown noses to put on? Geez, make the best sportsmen in the world look like fools. I'm sure the ancient greeks would approve. Not! (Yes, I pulled out the 'Not!' Hate me!) But then, after the circus stopped and the athletes sat down, who comes out onto the stage but our new friend Satan, who plays a giant dragon-harp that shoots fire! This to the strange chorus of children dressed up as angels and demons and then men with wheels of fire on their backs and I get a feeling like Ezekiel's vision and I see the seraphs with their wings covering there eyes and they say Holy Holy Holy but the dragon is still spewing fire even though it is a harp and a harp should be praising and not all children are saints or are even saved for some are demons and what do we do with that how does that fit in to our orthodoxy but this is not our orthodoxy this is Italy.

Fun Things to Do With Your Big Toe

2006-02-25T22:36:00.000-06:00

From Then to Now:

I have celebrated my birthday, with family. Got a darling homemade card from young cousin Carla, and a wonderful antique portable stove from the K. Grandparents. The other Grandparents had been working in Texas for a month, but made sure to arrive back exactly on my birthday, with lots of great clothes and a football slow cooker. From the parents I got some great fishing gear and a pile of postcard sized photo paper.

I have watched the olympics, with friends. By this I am referring in especial to the (markedly disheartening) Men's Hockey team match with Russia - a group of us sitting on high bar stools before the big screen TV in IQ's. The experience is enhanced by
a)the bleeps of Dance Dance revolution (from the room where we stole the stools)
b)the head of the tall man in the middle of the screen (we did eventually move)
c)the freezing arctic air coming from the ceiling vent(where we moved to)
d)the "OOOH's" of the hockey fans sitting on the couches and floor as if, I must reiterate, they were in a tippy canoe.

I have seen a man reading Dostoyevski while walking down the sidewalk. There must be a great meaning to this, but I have yet to discover it. If you have any ideas, please leave a comment.

I have received a blood blister on my big toe from playing soccer in socks (believe!). By soccer I mean a plush ball in ministick hockey nets on a rug floor. I remembered that I am a terrible soccer player, even in this miniature state.

I have poked my big toe with a sewing needle and watched the blood pour out in little squirts, like when coffee falls into the pot.

I have pokered my big blind in an online tournament.

I have managed to go an entire week without paying for parking.

I have written a great deal. Thanks for editing the poem, Trav. Yet though my work on the ski trip was entirely devoted to prep for the creative writing class, I realized that come Tuesday's class, I had not completed half of the assignments!

I have ordered in pizza and called before knowing my order, in an attempt to make a better decision through dialogue. And our fridge is probably still filled.

From Day 6 to the Home: Though the Looking Glass is Frosted

2006-02-23T11:11:00.001-06:00

Are you buckled in? Good. It's time to ride.

Left from our hamlet of Harvey Heights early in the morning. Blew like burning tumble weeds down the road until we got to Calgary where we hit the morning traffic. Our good Leader-Van-Trailer got lost somewhere in the pack; however, one of our vehicles took no notice of this. Thus: we hit the outskirts of Calgary doing 150 clicks trying to catch this truck, who in turn speed up even more thinking Leader-Van-Trailer is miles ahead of them (perhaps waiting for hours at a small gas station in Medicine Hat helplessly being battered by the flirtations of desperate female truckers). HIGH SPEED CHASE! I have never driven this fast in a van before, and I think it may even be icy, oh! and lets add that there are oil slicks and thick fog - no, even better, thick smoke from the flaming walls of a forest fire! So we're going so fast the g-force makes it impossible to lean forward, but as we pull up beside them I manage to raise my arm with a Herculean effort and motion for them to stop. Roll Credits.
The rest of the trip is like being a coccoon in a hammock ~ I rest, only to burst forth from time to time to take the wheel again. When the day winds down our sweetest moment: reading from anthologies or reciting from memory our favorite poems. Here and there falls a Shakespearean monologue or the soft patter of Plath. Our faces illuminated like at a campfire, only from the small reading lights of the van, we form beatiful imaginary worlds: vases that are crafted then shattered. By the time we reach Portage there are shards all over the floor.
I am surprised to find that my car starts, after having rested outside for the whole trip in the coldest weather of our winter. I drive back to Riverside, my car an iceburg on a flat and frozen sea.
The next days are so cold I think trees are sculptures. I say inside, warm and telling stories about the trip: often expressing my entusiasm in vain. Hoodoos? Oh, that's nice. We've seen some before. Boris' soup? What are you talking about? Such is always the death of euphoria after returning home. And eventually we are kneaded back into the dough of the day to day.

Trip Day 5 (Green Runs and Lettuce)

2006-02-22T18:02:00.000-06:00

And so this is the day that I went skiing. How did this come about? First of all I am ever gracious to Gabriella for letting me use her lift ticket. And to this may I add ski pants (which were probably more blue than purple). And then I rented some skis at the hill. Check. And then Karen waited for me so I wouldn't have to ride in the gondola alone, that was nice. Oh, and after the first few runs I needed Chad's neckwarmer - which certainly saved me from frostbite. Hey, and during the last run I used Joseph's goggles which made the world look like it was splashed with soya sauce. So thank you all, I couldn't have done it without you. If I forgot somebody, please leave a comment. It turns out I really loved skiing in the mountains. Much better than at La Riviere where getting off the ski lift is a black diamond in itself. Here there were some sweet runs where mucho speedo could be built up. One time I was following Karen through a gap in the trees but failed to realise that there was quite a large jump, followed by a small dip. I must have been going just a little slow so I hit the last part of the dip, causing one ski to sail off. But I just kept going with my one good ski with nary a problem, even bringing myself to a sliding stop. Another good story is when we were going to meet up with Paul Gregoire and company at the bottom of a run. Unfortunately, when Karen and I got to the bottom of the run, we didn't see them anywhere. "Maybe they are a little further down the hill!", thought us, and so we kept going. Well, we kept going, and kept going, until we realised that we were at the parking lot at the bottom of the hill. And then we had to take the 20 minute gondola ride back up again.
So after our day at the hill was done we headed into Banff once again for some sweet Korean food (see pictures on Chelsea's blog). This was meat cooked in trays on our very table, which we placed on a leaf of lettuce adding rice and sauce. Then the leaf was rolled over like a burrito and eating commenced, repeated twentyfold. And then some of us went to the English pub downstairs, which was cozy and surreal, and there were English soccer jerseys on the wall and Joel Braun was wearing soccer pajama pants which some of the girls in the pub liked. And there I learned that you cannot order some drinks in pitchers, but you can play early 90's dance music anywhere.

Trip Day 4 (The Brown Walls of Valentines Day)

2006-02-22T10:32:00.000-06:00

Better get this trip retelling over with soon. Day 4, which was Tuesday, Feb. 14th, Valentines Day, was my relaxing/working day (indeed they can be one and the same). I sat around in the hotel room writing mad stories. This on Valentines Day! What an idiot am I! I should have baked heart shaped cookies or made sweet little cards, but here I was writing stories! And do you know what I did later that evening ~ I played poker with the guys (even for a little money) - a table full of men! But my goodness, that was the best Valentines evening ever (am I sarcastic? you'll have to ask me!). And Armin won again in a heated head to head match with Francesco, even after he angered the poker gods. But yes, and no! That was it, and now I'll give you an excerpt from the short story "The Brown Walls of Potter's Street" It's still in first draft, so excuse...

Judas Lee has just moved in upstairs. He has hair like a lampshade, and all the girls adore. But he doesn’t care for them, he tells me. One dry summer evening, our backs to the brown brick wall, he says, *girls are just yellow-tinted windows*. The salty strains of the tired blues sound come sliding down the alleyway, and those men who hurry by on the streets seem to carry it with them on their backs. And when they pass, the moth cluttered light of the corner lamps pulls their features into strange black beaks, and we realise that there is something hidden in each one of them. *Where do you think the music comes from?* he asks me after a long silence. I take a deep breath from the narghile we share between us, and let the fluttering cloud mix with the tones of the light before answering. “The shadows”, I say. *No* Judas replies, *the shadows are too thin. It’s gotta be deeper*.

Trip Day 3

2006-02-20T22:29:00.000-06:00

Rather than feed you with another crappy poem, I shall give you the glory of Day three in living photographs! And then I may talk a bit like cousin Ethel when she shows her slides in church. Enjoy!

Here is our Great Van Group (pretend it's a name). Back left is Jesse, then Joseph, in the front Karen then Gabriella. Swell times, team!

Somewhere in Saskatchewan...

"The family" in front of the lodge sign early Monday morning. Melissa had some problems scaling the wall.

The family in a classic sepia picture of Lake Louise. The postcard blue water was covered by a layer of ice and snow, except in the thin ice zones which made us a little nervous when walking onto the lake.

Myself with arms outstretched through the doorway of the ice castle on Lake Louise. We also viewed the fantastic ice sculptures and toured the ritzy hotel.

The stylin' George Roy (aka. dad) in front of the hoodoos that overlook the city of Canmore, AB. Though they are a worthy tourist attraction, the path leading down to them was steeper than some of the ski runs at Sunshine!

Trip Day 2

2006-02-18T21:17:00.000-06:00

So we arrived late in the evening last night and got settled in. The hotel is in the hamlet of Harvey Heights just outside of Canmore, AB. There is a small path running between the grass and staircases lead to the rooms which look at each other. A hottub waits by the main lobby. I drive a van to the ski hill, then leave to check out Banff in search of a book for creative writing class. I instead find shops, many identical souvenier stores and my favorite called Quest, which sells fossils and spectacular Canadian Inuit art. After waiting until the library opened at 11, I realized that it was Sunday, not Saturday, and that the library only opened at 1. So I headed back to the hotel to do some writing, including this piece composed out on the deck, while wearing a T-shirt in the plus-7 weather.

Just Outside in Banff [Feb 12, 2006]

The mountains;
my staff,
and I
just outside in a wooden chair
A train rolls by;
an avalanche
of logs, tarred and cut
for American
factories.

Trip Day 1

2006-02-18T21:07:00.000-06:00

Well, we indeed left early on the trip, but it was a beautiful day. We were greeted with moonbeams coming down from the clouds like a beanstalk (I suppose) while listening to 'The Boxer' by S & G. Our van had the best music - thanks Karen & Gabriella! After this there was a great pink sunrise (which I sometimes call sunset). We stopped for supper at Peter's Drive In in Calgary, to which I coughed up this quick poem with a swell beat:

Peter’s Drive In

All the hottest cars
come to Peter’s Drive In
For their greasy double fries
all the ladies beg their men

All the cutest girls
are eating at the Drive In
And on the picnic tables
carve their names inside a heart

All the greasy guys
Are scoping out the Drive In
In their ‘57 rides
While at home they’ve left their wives.

Seeing the sheep jump over the moon, from my little pea green boat

2006-02-10T21:30:00.000-06:00

9:35 PM. Almost ready to get to sleep, for the sweet sounds of Simon and Garfunkel are about to play in less than six hours, and we will embark on our trip into the Rockies. Yes, I am going, but not really to ski. Why? You ask? For good times with friends, for good school work in a nice location. I don't know. So before I go I'll give you a recap on the last two days. Wednesday evening Jason came over and we went to find a place to have coffee. Oh, let's go visit Gabriella at the Fyxx! We get there shortly after 10 and walk in. The place is hopping. We see her there and chat for a bit, but what's this? The place is closed? How then could we be here? This is similar to the time last year when somebody told me I was dead. (This didn't really happen, but try to imagine how you would feel. You would be a little scared, and a little embarrassed). So I put my name into a draw to win a portrait with the family and we left. We ended up at the Park Theatre near our place on Osbourne. We had a good chat about Yerba Mate with the man behind the desk and we ordered caramel coffee things. Really good. And then more talk about homemade board games and Celine Dion. Say hi to Jordan Bissonnette and soak up the classic theatre feel.
Thursday I meet my parents for lunch and a bit of shopping. In the evening I go to Dolly's for house church to see the fruits of our last week's labour. The place is looking great, Dolly! And she treated us to some wonderful rice and chicken and curry, and so many laughs about the degree at U of W and maybe Jeremy Epp's reduced facial hair.
Friday I have class from nine thirty to two thirty. Start off the day with a presentation on Kendall Walton's "Fiction and Nonfiction", quite a bizarre essay, but good, which talks about tree stumps turning into bears, etc. Then we had a small class for critical theory, which felt like trying to get something planned at a slumber party. Speaking of slumber party's, Jeremy Kroeker is over at the house tonight due to our early morning departure. We had a pretty long game of chess which eventually ended in stalemate. Also this afternoon I got to play bass in a band practice setting again - really refreshing! Well, let the moon pull down the blinds, I'm ready for bed!

Correction

2006-02-09T15:42:00.000-06:00

It was probably a magpie;
and not, as I said,
a bluejay.

Purloined Conversations

2006-02-08T18:32:00.000-06:00

There's a song in the air: the voices in the upper room are yelling. It's been going on for fifteen minutes. Is this a record? I hear him yelling that 65 million people died in World War 2. What does this mean? I get nervous. He is shouting more facts. 30 year war, 7 million! Spanish Civil War, 3 million! What is he going to do? Surely he can't add to the facts now. Does she need help?
Today was a funny day. I found four giant old dictionaries (1897)at the U of M Libraries book sale, the best book sale on Earth. They even contain a list of the top fifteen diamonds in the world. This is good to know.
This morning I read Jacques Lacan while taking a bath. Is this not interesting? I take a bath from time to time. We have one of those old ones with legs, as if it pretends to be a cow. If baths were cows, where would they drink from?
After this the phone rings. Here is our conversation:
"Allo, may I speak to meester Foombelais?"
"I'm sorry, you have the wrong number!"
"Wait, wait! It is spel-led F-R-I-E-S-E-N"
"No, he's out right now"
"Excuse me, sir. Are you over 18?"
"Of course I am...wait, who is this?"
"Perfect!"
"Perfect?!"
"You are eligible for our very very special Plateenum Credit Card!"
"Oh, well, you see I don't really..."
"Do not worry, we weell send you this information rright away"
"Alright" [maybe I can get this guy off my back]
"You live at 32B in 377 Brandon Avenue?"
"Yes."
"Good. First name or last name on the card?"
"Last" [they're going to send me the card?!]
"Very good, Mr. Friesen. What do you do?"
"Err...I am a student" [oh no, he thinks I'm travis!]
"What subject do you take?"
"Uh... computer engineering"
"What is your mother's maiden name?"
[Oh no! He's got me trapped] "Loewen...LOEWEN"
"What is your birthday"
"Mmmm, January 15?"
"Very good... you will receive your package in the mail with your new credit card. First I have to get affirmation from you that everything you said was true before we do a background check"
[Oh crap, oh crap - how did it get to this?! Uh...] Click!

Guilt always follows a conversation with a Pakistani man who has trouble with English. You have to help him with words, and he thinks he is your friend. Why did I lie to my new friend? Tell me, what is wrong?

Piano for Sale

2006-02-07T23:55:00.000-06:00

So hey, why don't you come over here and listen to this? So we's sitting at the Academy Bar and Eatery (or the Academy B&E, as they call it downtown) sometime after class. The place 's packed, we even need to get Brian [(?) the "tightass"] to go fetch a stool from off of the stage so we can sits in the other room. Who's we? Let me introduce yous. Here's Sue, she tells me she's a biker, and Erin, she's a pastor in North Kildonan. Over there at the table with his lady friend is Ivan. He works in the steel factory. So I orders a pizza and waits. Up on the stage the local poets are coming out and readin' their stuff. Bunch of pussies--those poets dancing around in their flower glades talking about the Winnipeg transit system like it's as universally significant as Macbeth. Pish! Tell those poets to go back to their boxes and leave the bars for us civilised folk. So my pizza finally arrives on a nice white plate--but--pishaw! there's a slice missing! What the 'eck?! How do yous forget a slice? So I looks at the gurl, she's a nice looking girl, 'eh, and she looks back at me and says "I dropped it on da floor". She's a nice girl too, she gave me a free hot chocolate. They make it real good with the whipped topping and some chocolate shavin's. So I listen to the crap onstage until this big ol' black dude comes to the front without any sheet to read from. And he beats us with his words like Roosevelt beat his dog, and wes all crying after he leaves the stage. And then comes my buddy from the other class, and he reads like a news anchor and wes all laugh. And Sue and Erin leave and I's finish off my HC, and it goes down real smooth, but it burns my tongue so I can't go up to the stage and speak. Good thing, because I would have been too lates to sign up anyway.

Distilled Yesterday Juice

2006-02-07T23:34:00.000-06:00

Yesterday's talk on God left me
wanting to find a broom
a broom of destruction
and do housework.

Yesterday's talk with people found me
without a needle, but with a pail of thread
of thread with no ends
and no beginnings.

Flying a Kite in Fair Weather

2006-02-07T14:37:00.000-06:00

What comes there, old friend?

Saw you there and we sat at the same table.
Are you crazier than I remember, making a comment about fish and then laughing?
Making us realize how much fish have evolved from high school?

Buddy, welcome back.
Looks like things are going to be different now,
A new year, a new town, a new circle of friends
Illegitimate friends not part of our natural world.
Newly formed in nether-vats, we wish they would leave, but they have already
Entered.

Just heard from somebody else about how you hate this city
Under a foot of surface permafrost
Still the biggest small town in the world.
Think about the times we spent together
In fifth grade, shooting frogs with small bullets--
Necks that bled into the green algae in the Rosenort ditch.

and I am left thinking on all of these things, and how I was less a friend than I could of been, but more than I needed to, and I am left wondering where we will all be when the new generation arrives oh wait--they have already entered.

Song Writing 100: Old MacDonald and Friends

2006-02-07T14:23:00.000-06:00

Yeah, it’s much easier to feel God in the music. A story writer steals much more: steals from everyday life. Almost nothing is his own. But music--music comes out of nothing. Sometimes a melody hits you when you’re out working in the forest, in the field. The field is best, you can riff off of the drone of a tractor engine or nearby aerators in the neighbour’s bins. And then you hum, you hum it to yourself, each time changing it a little, polishing up the rough edges. Write some words then, they help you remember the melody until you can record it on paper, on a machine. Words are a problem here. You’ve got a timeline--if you don’t change the words within a week of focussing on the piece, the old one’s are gonna stick, like it or not. It’s very hard to change words, especially those in the chorus, when they have been engraved on the mind’s circle a certain way. Once you’ve got this, a little tune, with some good words, then you can start bending--bring it over to the furnace, heat it up, and then bang the heck out of it on the anvil. You get a generic song if you don’t pound it very much (but sometimes a melody and great lyrics are all a song needs--some songs that are beautiful in their simplest forms can’t take much beating), but if you really take the hammer and start smashing you can get something that keeps the listener constantly surprised. Hey, if you’re feeling ambitious, you can even weld a few of these unique creations together, to get a song that goes through dynamic changes, constantly evolves, never returns to what it was. That’s what I did with "Step Down in the Ground". (Try to find it on the Rustic Poets site). It could have been seven songs, I had that much material. I remember sitting in the backyard in summer, on the old cement cover for the sewer, making a melody for one part of the song, writing some words down, running back to dad’s computer to record it, and then returning to write the next, completely different block. Everything came together in that day, all the scraps that I had been collecting over the course of the year. But you’ve got to be careful that the parts are linked, that there is cohesion running between them. Otherwise it’ll be like listening to a role call in a barnyard, and we all know how that sounds.

On Friday...

2006-02-06T20:16:00.000-06:00

Friday is not the name of a reindeer. I sang jingle bells today, although I had no reason. Today is not Friday, it is Monday, but I will tell you about Friday on Monday because I did not on Friday. I went back to Riverside. This is why I do not post on the weekends. Our internet is slow, and the roads are bumpy. So I went back to Riverside and ate supper. Then I went to the church where I got on a bus. Then I went back to the city. We (our youth group, of which I am a responsible sponsor) attended a concert at the Church of the Rock. These were bands I had not seen. First of all a man with a guitar, sounding very much like Dave Matthews. Unfortunately, not the kind of excitement anxious teenagers want to hear to start off a rocking evening. Oh well. Next band: three punks from the States playing a la de da Sum-41 rip off style of music. A lot of guitar twirling, but hard to hear words (sound was terrible most of the evening, with frequent feedback ralph's (ie. puke, to coin a bizzare phrase). Then Seventh Day Slumber, really good melodies, but very typical alternative style. Best part was the lead singer's revealing testimony, followed by an alter call. With eyes closed, he asked audience members to raise hands if they were contemplating suicide, and indicated that at least two dozen had admitted that they were. Indeed. I was stunned at this result, and rejoiced with the over two hundred kids that came up to the front that night. Up next we had the rapper KJ-something or other, who had a good rhythm section (yeah bass!) but there was so much request for the audience to move their arms (first the up and down slow rap bob, then the raise the roof, then the two-hand overhead clap) that it became quite silly. And then his last song was dedicated to Mountain Dew & caffene (for which we substituted 'Kathleen')! Brutal! Oh, well, I took this time to chat with some University friends I saw in the crowd. Last up was Superchic[k], who were fantastic for a pop-punk band. Bengals-esque in some places, but the overlapping melody of two similar female lead vocals created a super doubling effect. They moved through a well planned set of driving beats and cool ballads, all the while having fun and looking stylish. Certainly the best act of the night. And then night it was.

The Day of Time

2006-02-02T23:25:00.000-06:00

Enter. "Good morning." "Good morning." "You look older." "Oh, do I? I had a rather harrowing experience with some tongs and baking powder as a child." "Yes, that must be it. How have you been?" "Rather well, rather. Well, I did start the morning with a wonderful chocolate chip muffin. And tea. And every time one starts a morning with these things, a good day will follow. Like when a bear with a beanie comes out before the circus, you know the circus will be good." "Indeed." "Right! Do you know then that I read Barthelme's 'Sentence' and Borges' 'Book of Sands'? Fascinating! That first one is all one sentence, and it doesn't even end. Why, you may say the Book of Sands is also infinite." "Do you think that we are infinite?" "One thing I do know is that lasagna is not infinite. Travis said the middle of his tasted funny. And if lasagna is not infinite, all bets are off for mankind." "But don't you think that we are different?" "Different? Maybe. Lasagna cannot write--that's one thing. I went to the University this afternoon." "On a Thursday?" "Yes, to listen to Kent Bruyneel, the editor of Grain magazine." "Is that for farmers?" "No. Not most of them. It's for writers." "Oh, them." "Yes, us writers are a wild brood! I went to buy groceries after the Grain talk." "Oh... wild indeed..." "There was an old lady giving taste tests. When I walked up, there were the typical plastic cups--but they were empty. There was an awkward pause until I asked 'So, what do you have?'" "Not the most poetic thing to say!" "Hey, that's why I'm a writer--they have more time to think." "What is time, and how does it relate to thought?" "Thoughts are like the eggs in a bowl, and time is the whisk that beats them." "I do suppose. Sounds like an eventful day." "There's more--we had house church tonight, but we were supposed to pick up Ricky on the way." "Oh, oh, you said 'but'... what happened?" "Well, we waited at the BK by the bus stop for twenty minutes, and no Ricky. We drove down to Jeremy's and then he calls and says he missed his bus. So Jeremy has to drive all the way back to pick him up." "Shame" "Well, things happen. So we have a great sloppy joe meal and then we get back in the cars and drive to Dolly's new house in the northwest part of the city." "Ah." "The guy that was living in there before was evicted and so he trashed the place. We had to do a lot of clean up and painting and rug removal. I've never seen so much glue used to hold down a carpet! Dolly's shoe actually came off her foot it was stuck so tight to the glue!" "Marvellous! What were they trying to hide?" "We actually uncovered a secret drain below the rug that was full of spider webs." "Ooh, I hate spiders!" "Well, there were some dead spiders on a piece of baseboard from which I was removing nails. When I tried to hammer a nail out a dead spider fell onto my hand causing me to drop the baseboard onto Jeremy's back." "Good times." "Maybe memories are immortal." "Maybe."

Addition

2006-02-01T20:13:00.000-06:00

I heard a man from the back of the class say he watched a bluejay
clamp a stick with his beak and flew up to his wooden nest
but when he stopped to catch his breath dropped the stick
and to the snow it fell. And here the bird let out a puff
and looked below with teary eyes, a man who watched his favorite vase
toppled by his child. And doesn't know whether to break
the child or himself; but where to get a new vase, a new child...

If I were to Rule the World

2006-02-01T16:10:00.000-06:00

You Are The Sun

You represent the best of life - vitality, success, and and truth.
You tend to have a strong, centered, balanced personality.
Inspiration and discovery are your fortes. You are very mentally strong.
A talented mind, you tend to excel at math, philosophy, and music.

Your fortune:

As well as you have done in the past, the future is going to be filled with more success.
A new creative project is coming your way. Feed it, and it will grow into something huge.
Great riches, recognition, prosperity, or happiness is coming your way.
And it's possible that a fantastic vacation, or a new baby, is coming sooner than you think.

What Tarot Card Are You?

Upon the Bed of Fresh Salad

2006-01-31T23:30:00.000-06:00

Well, this is the last of you, fat January. You have been a good father this year, and shall get more than coal when the real father returns. It is a good day to give out keys, to allow new friends into old places. Welcome, new. You are my Assistant Editor and we shall work well together. Yesterday a woman came to me in this same room, locked out of the study hall beside. Went to the bathroom and locked her coat, her purse, her test. She told me her whole story; I could have asked her anything, but yesterday I did not have a key. For you there is a key, but of course there is also a twenty-five dollar deposit.

The Daily Bread Cafe. Saw Rob from creative writing and sat down to chat. Ordered the chicken fingers on garden salad. The chef wanted to know who had done my surgery. An odd thing to ask when preparing a salad. He said he had been in a car crash and had to have major facial reconstructive surgery and he knew this surgeon, great guy. Chicken fingers were moist, and the dill dip was great, like a dog in heat. Salad was a little dry.

Back in the St. John’s faculty lounge, we are treated to a class with Meira Cook, another fabulous Winnipeg poet. We each have prepared a presentation on metaphors and draw forth the distinction of the dead and the extended, and some talk about metonymy. And Erin brings up incarnation. And Meira’s sweet, South African/British voice reading the words of Robert Kroetsch:

A dark as dark as a dark.
A moon as moon as a moon.
My lust doth rage in this
of mine old body.

And there is time for one, and there are times for two, but in these times there is no metaphor; there is only flesh.

Below the Great Toad

2006-01-31T23:26:00.000-06:00

Rather than..
eke out a living as the head architect of God
I sit in gentle bars on Monday night
wondering how long the Toad has been sucking
Fort Garry dark
from a bong-like tap
on a schoolmaster’s chalkboard.
Or how a Black Mam[b]a
could fail to notice
the KISS-like changeling
stroking her hair.
This is philosophy.
We talk of breakfast at night
and France-French
and something funny is said about
religion.

The Death & Subsequent Resurrection of Simon Peter

2006-01-30T18:08:00.000-06:00

You are an owl in that tree--don’t tell, don’t tell me what to do! Stupid owl, humans have shotguns. But owls make better listeners than wall-mounts. Okay, I’ll tell you what happened on the weekend in owl-language, so that only you may understand. We humans can pick up meaning here or there, but have little idea of what is really going on in owl language. Perhaps with diligence and a well-experienced ear we will learn to pick up on these things; we will learn to judge what is true and what is fancy. But tell you a story I said I would! Ergo:

Ern Friday Nacht--Children, the wild children, running around. Wrestle? Yes. Blood? A bit. Our people call them yooth. I hear a story of a man who said ‘I’ a thousand times and choked on his own words. Non. A better story, which I hadn’t heard. 2 ducks, 1 frog. Pond dries. ‘Hang onto the stick little froggy, yup, with your froggy gums, while we lift you to safety!’ Farmer sees 2 ducks flying by with stick and frog, says ‘Who came’er up widdis bootiful idear?’, whereas the froog replies ‘I!’
And one child is sad, for his friend Simon Peter has fallen from the sky.

Ohh Der Saturdas--Vurld is a nice place, and safe. I wrack brain making b/s for college & career. I find a story of the fierce lion and a stream from ‘The Silver Chair’ and talk about this (even wear my tiger shirt accidentally). Criers during the black plague, criers and the healers, called ‘those who take a risk’. Go to Lindsay’s and play pool--show the world how to ‘bank heist‘. But the most striking is the story of Legion. Legion lived in the tombs and could not be shackled by any man. A miserable, rotting, ferocious ogre. Not a lion, but strong as well. But the Man comes and makes his demons flea into the nearby hillside of pigs.

Inn Eats und Soundae--And I do this in church. Nick comes up to me and asks me to make nine tapes of her funeral. She died last Wednesday. We don’t know why. There was a bit of blood. The blue ink was filling her mind. She stood up in church the week before and said she was going to meet the priest. On Thursday. Our kind doesn't talk to priests. We think that we are priests (demons begone!). There were others, others whose patience was wearing thin. What were the shackles? She gave the boy a Bible and asked if he was from Hong Kong. No. Canada. Hearing about the God again brings back memories of the dead. The boy writes a letter, ‘To Simon Peter, From Your Lover.’ As if the pain could only be expressed in the form of a man longing for an estranged woman. Is it only some cruel arrow shot by the Trickster’s bow that passes through a dozen hearts? Is S.P. only the juice of a mind that is free to roam where it wants, picking up images from Galilee to Health class? How far could one really go to plan a funeral for an imaginary friend?
No.
No.
No.

The boy gets another letter. ‘Simon Peter has returned from L.A.’

The Twelve meet in a small room (with the Russian critics)

2006-01-26T23:33:00.000-06:00

And what did I do today? Did I not start off the morning with a bowl of lovely corn square cereal while reading the Farmer's Almanac in the most comfy chair in the world? Yes, the one you were sitting in the other day. And O, what fantastic research than sprang forth on New Criticism and Structuralism and even Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin. (Yes, yes, you are good friends with him, I know). Were you there when I played guitar this afternoon? My fingernails are getting long which means one hand plays guitar better while the other plays worse. I played a game of chess. Russians like chess, no? I realised that sometimes I do not take the time I should to plan my moves. Objectives! I forget to set smaller goals, and then I lose. I should be fed to the big dogs! We had house church in the evening. You may have been there. What an incredible atmosphere of a dozen people singing in a small room! Last year it would have seemed inconceivable. The pasta was amazing-the food always is. Why did I have so much coffee? Tell me, Rabelais! I will be up all night, and then I will hear them--the ghosts in the other rooms, who wail in the deepest hole of night. I see them-a poets mind is too quick, you know. Imagination for him is like the dog unleashed with meat in all directions. Maybe I am no different-maybe we all can hear, maybe we can all imagine.

Two rats on the banks of the Thames

2006-01-26T12:00:00.000-06:00

Perfect Pitch Paul came up to the office eagerly expecting a fresh batch of Rachel’s chocolates. He visibly fluttered in anticipation. Rachel’s erudite expression, like that of a great statue of Xerxes, did not waver as she related the news to the bursting chrysalis at the door: the order wasn’t made yet. The wings stopped as Paul alighted on the leaf of reality. But Rachel had a solution--imported chocolate from California. 5 Spices! Paul took a bite and started naming them: ginger, parsley, cinnamon... Could his mouth break down such substances into their simplest elements? What-How? Of which enzymes?! I stood in the kitchen, with the roommate out for supper. Do...cha, cha...I hear...cha,cha...a festival?...Mexican? I fried up the last of the empanadas, just right, in a bed of fresh rice, and washed it down with a sultry vegetable cocktail. Voila! But why should you care what I eat? I tell you why... cooking is a river that has run for a thousand years. Would you not care if I sent you a postcard from the banks of the Thames? The act of cooking connects one to an art as old as mankind has had an appetite-yet still there are new variations to be found! James Beard, an American chef said “Food is our common ground, a universal experience.” And I believe that all timeless and universal activities allow us to draw closer to a timeless creator. And all the people say “God is at the bottom of the frying pan”. Goodnight.

Of hay & way

2006-01-26T10:02:00.000-06:00

“Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way”

The words come through tinny on the small speakers, but Dylan Thomas’ voice is unmistakable. His deep lazy growl is a tiger after a meal, warming his belly in the sun. I heard a short winter story of his on the CBC on Christmas Eve, while I, still in my stockings, was waking up from a long winter’s nap. Dylan Thomas was a troublemaker. Travis and I were grocery shopping today. You should see the Spartan apples; the honey ham! At the checkout an elderly woman, a hired help, asked us if we needed assistance carrying the bags. We politely declined, saying (in a somewhat more tactful way) that we should be the one carrying her bags. This was followed by Travis looking over his receipts and noticing that he hadn’t signed for his credit card payment. He informed the cashier of this, to which she inwardly rejoiced with the blowing of heart trumpets. The elderly woman said “It’s nice to see that there are such respectable gentlemen nowadays.” And for a short time we were all brought back to the nativity scene, where, though the cattle lowed in the background, the glory of the child burned brightly in the manger full of hay.

Green Lights in the Cafe at the End of the Dock

2006-01-25T12:48:00.000-06:00

Rabelais! Rabelais! Come, I've saved the best chair for you. Would you take tea? With milk! You are a queer fellow. Let me tell you of things of yesterday. It got off to a right slow start. I fed the chickens and milked the cow-yes!-and I gave a flower to the girl by the mill! Did I tell you I was living in the city now? Oh, yes, of course--you are sitting in my house! Heavens, the mind slips some times. Do you know that after this I read a few chapters of Johnson's "Rasselas"? Fantastic times--while eating soup and cheese crackers, you know. Yet I am a slow reader. Dear me. In the afternoon I processed some pictures of a rustic well that bubbled green water. We found it during the winter break, while we were down in South Dakota. The water was warm, but I was afraid of crayfish when picking small rocks. Crayfish! And then I got rassled up with chess, though it was time to go to an Arts council meeting, and I had to look at the variations of the Ruy Lopez opening, but this made me late for the opening of the meeting! And because I had a class shortly thereafter, I had to leave after but two presentations/pleas for funding. And because I didn't rudely leave in the middle of the last presentation I was late for my one and only class of the day, with a guest lecturer/poet Dennis Cooley (check out his work online)! So late I arrive and take a seat in the cozy St. John's faculty lounge. I say it is even more comfortable than the chair you are in. More milk? One second.
So we chatted and wrote on the topic of metaphor, quite good, all in all. Let me share some of my potential moon metaphors (which I will phrase in similie form for easy reading).
The moon is...
...a castonet
...a horse on a carosel
...hole #14
...a lost ring
...a forgotten word
...a water mill's wheel
...a footbag
...a ballet dancer
There you go, take a few of those and add them to your tea! Well, after the class was over, Cooley and three of us went out to Boston Pizza where I ordered the Smokey Mountain Spaghetti (or something like that). It was the biggest plate of spaghetti I have ever seen. So we talked on about poetry and sometimes hockey, and here and there the results of Monday's election, while the green night slowly enveloped us, and we were back in our beds, asleep.

Waygo, Waygo, Waygo to the Beango

2006-01-24T10:29:00.000-06:00

In a new bubble underneath a world of cloud life is born. In the days before a small green thorn tumbled through space, gathering a coat of flames as it entered the atmosphere of this old Gravity. In time less the tearing of an eye the smouldering seed reached the heart of this bleak world where it found the One bubble. Was this bubble the source of the gravity? Was it the all-attracting force? The thorn dove into the bubble's film; now a writhing salamander within a crystal cocoon.
--A sprout takes form within the circle that lifts and shakes and eventually pokes its beak through. A beanstalk from a bubble in a world of cloud--what heights will it reach?