But my day got even better. Alex Dodd made me stuffed red peppers and roasted aspargus for dinner, with chai-flavoured vegan muffins for dessert.

And then he let me play Scrabble with him. Which I won, of course. (Although he gets bonus points for spelling the best word of the game: AGAVE.)

And then he tried to smother me because I'm a poor winner. (And a poor loser, for that matter, which is the reason why I like to win.)

On Saturday, we found a patio and Alex got his olive fix for the day. (Like Alex's custom-made wallet? My co-worker and friend Jordy made it for him. She also made me a bag, which is pretty much my new favourite thing ever and matches everything I own. You can check out her designs here.)

That night, we went to Chloe's house for the Girl House* kegger. Amanda and Steve were still thoroughly enjoying the sweet wrist caressing move I had taught them three weeks earlier. They weren't even prepared for the latest form of affection I had discovered: caterpillar kissing.

Earlier in the day, curiousity about kissing prompted some solid research time on wikipedia. (Kissing has always seemed kind of absurd to me. I mean, who decided to stick their lips together in the first place? I had to find out!) I read all about butterfly kissing, French kissing and Eskimo kissing. But it was the caterpillar kissing that caught my attention.

Chloe let me demonstrate to the group exactly how caterpillar kissing works: you rub your eyebrow against your partner's eyebrow. (Check out the guy in the background leaning in to check out the intense caterpillar action!)

Chris was not impressed with the moves I put on his girlfriend. Chloe could hardly take her hands off me afterwards.

It's time to introduce you to someone. His name is Paul (pictured on the left). Paul was standing in the corner talking to Chris and I couldn't stop staring at him because he looked so familiar. And then it hit me.

"Alex," I said, leaning in quietly. "Doesn't that guy look kind of like Dan?"

Alex started laughing. "That's funny, because I was just thinking he looks a lot like David Berry. [pictured here on the right of Paul] But yah, he does look kind of like Dan."

[Just for reference, this is Dan in a photo that I quite unceremoniously stole from Facebook.]

"If David Berry and Dan Grey had a secret love child, I'm pretty sure he would look exactly like that guy. Let's call him 'Dan Berry.'"

And then, because I'm a creep, I told Paul that we had decided to name him Dan Berry and why. He quickly left the room.

There were a surplus of Ontariotonianons at the party. I had invited the interns from the Edmonton Journal, including Jen (second from the right), my editor at McClung's.

And then before we knew it, the Ontariontonians were teaching the Albertans a new drinking game: Flip Cup. Alex Dodd, resident Ontarion, is picture here demonstrating proper Flip Cup technique to Amanda's brother.

Perfect form. At first I was skeptical, because I don't believe in drinking games where no one has the possibility of getting hurt. But Flip Cup won my heart. (However, to all of your who keep calling the drinking card game "Kings"--the proper name of the game is Sociables. But then again, in Australia it's called "Ring of Fire" and there are variations on it. But it's just so much fun to yell out "SOCIABLES!" everytime the Sociables card gets pulled.)

Chloe!

James! (I met James when I went to the U of A and we used to have lunch together on Fridays. I haven't seen him since.)

Alex Dodd! (And some guy's eyeball!)

Kim!

Redeeming myself.

Kim and her beau.

Girl House residents and keg-thrower extrodinaires: Kim, Costume-Change Chloe and Amanda.

Thanks for the awesome time ladies!

On Sunday, I got part one of my birthday gift from Alex: a pedicure for two. He may have sold me on Flip Cup, but Alex was definitely won over by the pedicure.

(Nobody bothered guessing what part two of my gift was, yet. So I'm not telling until next Monday.)

__________________________________________________________

*Seriously, people: if you have two or more roomates, it's necessary to name your dwelling in the most appropriate fashion possible. It prevents people from saying, "I'm going to Amanda, Kim, Chloe, Natalie and Jenny's house." Because what if you are friends with more than one person in the house? Well, obviously you don't want to pick favourites. Solution: plantation-style names for homes, a la China, 518, Homewood, Brunswick and Girl House.

There was just one problem. On Saturday morning, it wasn't just raining. . .it was snowing. (Well, just a little bit. But still! Enough that you knew that it was colder out than it should be on a long weekend.)

We needed to make the best of the day and there was only one solution. We loaded up the car with two cousins in the front seat, one cousin in the back seat and two boyfriends in tow. A road trip was in order.

To Saskatchewan, obviously. (Or should I say. . .naturally?)

Saskatchewan's a friendly place. We made some lifelong friends there, like this creepy blue-eyed dog.

And this dead fish. Our time across the border was done. It was time to head back to Alberta.

We got back just in time to get a late lunch and head down to the bowling alley for a couple of games.

Alex Dodd worked on his game face while we waited for the rest of the family to show up.

Alex Dodd won for individual bowlers, but our collective team won both games. I was so busy trying to help out the team that I got a bowling injury. (I wasn't the only casuality. The next day, Katherine was complaining the her wrist was particularly sore. These are the lengths we're willing to go through to win.)

Okay, enough with the heart-warming family stuff. There may have been beer bongs of sorts involved in the weekend, too. And a game of "I Never," in which a number of unsavoury but nonetheless hilarious things about Katherine and I were quickly revealed.

Alex Dodd was pleased to go into the liquor store and meet Kandice. Before I even really had the chance to introduce him, she said, "I know. It's Alex Dodd!"

Andy (K-Flo's boyfriend) was the instigator of many beer bongs and apparently a tequila shot or two. Allegedly, they were requisite "bonding" activities for the boyfriends. (It's too bad they couldn't bond with each other later in the night over their mutual love of the friendly toliet seat head-rest.)

D-Dawg saw it coming all along.

At the bar, I ran into a few trouble makers who were brave enough to come out during Maple Flag. Tori and Kate were there. "Do you want to meet my boyfriend?" I asked Kate. "Yes!" she said enthusiastically.

"Kate, this is. . ." I was immediatly interrupted. "It's the Alex Dodd!" she finished for me. Apparently Alex Dodd is something of a legend around these parts.

I also ran into Chantel and Kara at the bar.

The girls and some random Maple Flagger.

I was proud of Alex Dodd for attempting to two-step, and for being patient as Flaggers pawed my ass, even when he was clearly holding my hand. The flask we filled with gin may or may not have been a factor, though.

The next day, it took a while to get going, but Alex's hangover wasn't stopping us. We picked up one of the cousins and drove out to the provincial park to work on our mad rock skipping skills.

We're pretty much professionals, now.



Alex Dodd chilled with his new friend, the unnamed lady bug. (Alex found the lady bug out at the lake house and brought it with us on the 10 minute drive out to the park. Yet, over an hour later, his new friend still hadn't left his side. They finally parted ways just before we left the park. It was a beautiful, tender moment that brought a tear to my eye. I'm sure the ladybug is enjoying its new home.)

Snow? Saskatchewan? Dead Fish? Hangovers? Hell, my family may be jamtarts at heart, but there's nothing stopping us on a long weekend.

(And, if you want a further conclusion to the story, on Sunday night we built a campfire, roasted some s'mores and even got in a game of flashlight tag with the Kasper kids. Also, we ate some mangos and birthday cake. And played Scattegories, bocchi ball and cribbage. Despite the snow, it was a pretty solid weekend.)

It's 2:30 p.m. and I'm standing in front of a room of 13 and 14-year-olds. It's their last class of the day and it's my first school presentation of the season. The last bell is minutes away and their eyes are on slow-moving hands of the clock.

Only moments earlier I was comfortably alone in my car, sunglasses on, skirt hiked up to my thighs, air-conditioning cool on my freckled skin, half-ass rapping along with Dr. Dre.

My armpits are damp and I'm talking too fast. My shirt is bordering on exposing an inappropriate amount of cleavage, but I can't pull it up indiscreetly.

And then it's over. "You'll be back next week?!" the kids ask, happy. They want me to come back. "Yes," I tell them. They liked the prizes I brought. "Next week we're talking about resumes."

Afterwards, I reward myself with feeling like a kid again; a slurpee from 7-11 and a few stolen minutes in my favourite Bonnyville park before I begin the drive back to Cold Lake.

Later that night, I head back to Bonnyville with my mom. We go to the greenhouse at Hoselaw and while I'm waiting for my mom to pay, I start a conversation with the gawky teenage boy who lives there. I ask about his insufferably cute dog. We're left alone together for an awkwardly long time and as we're loading the geraniums in the car, I try to make conversation. We swat at the mayflies hovering in clouds above our heads.

"Do you go to school in Bonnyville?"

"Yah, I'm graduating this year," he tells me proudly, adjusting his glasses.

"That's good," I offer politely.

"Yah, I'm pretty excited about it. . ." he's silent for a moment, grappling to make the words in his mouth form sentences. He wants to ask me something. Without making eye contact: "What grade are you in?"

I laugh. He's hitting on me and I find it adorable. "I'm 23."

The shocked look on his face says it all. He thinks I'm lying. I laugh again at the sheer disbelief on his face. And in my head I know that the next time I see him, will probably be next week when I'm at the front of a class, talking too fast and sweating too much.

C'mon now, what screams street cred more than recieving an illicit package in the mail?

That's right. I'm hardcore. Wanna fight about it? (Probably not. I've got so much street cred right now that I've probably got a gang behind me that even I don't know about. And you don't wanna mess with that.)

"What does that say?" I asked him in the kitchen after we'd finished lunch.

"Bodacious."

"Oh, really?" I teased, "So what are you trying to say about yourself? What does Bodacious even mean?"

Steven and my uncles stared at me like I'd been living under a rock all this time. Or, more accurately, they stared at me like I'd been living in a city all this time.

"Bodacious was a world famous rodeo bull," my uncles told me. One of my aunties chimed in, "Nobody was ever able to ride him. He gave several riders life-threatening injuries." Oh. Obviously. Why didn't I know that?

Despite my shameful lack of rodeo related knowledge, I didn't miss a beat. "So nobody was able to ride him, huh? So what are you trying to say about yourself again, Steven?"

On the drive home from Camrose, my mom broke the silent lull as we crossed the province for the second time that day.

"That's funny, you know, because I've heard your Dad use the word bodacious before," she said. "And I can assure you--he wasn't referring to a rodeo bull!"

Anyways, in fourth grade, my reading partner was a ninth grade boy who I'll call J. He'd help me learn to read, and we'd play games together and we had a generally good comraderie, despite the awkwardness that comes from a little 15-year-old boy struggling to relate to a 9-year-girl.

I didn't think about him until years later, when my brother graduated. The night before my brother's graduation, my reading partner from six years earlier died.

In Cold Lake, the pre-grad grad party was traditionally held at Strawberry Hill, a section of bush between the Provincial Park and the edges of town. As the story has it, a group of guys got into a pick-up truck that night after the party. With no room left in the cab of the truck, J. crawled into the bed of the truck, Prairie-style.

(When I was a kid, this was my favourite way to ride in my Dad's truck out to the cabin. It wasn't until Vanuatu that I got to re-live the feeling of sitting in the back of a truck as the wind rushed through my hair, the dust settled into my eyelashes and I laughed every time we hit a bump.)

As they came down the hill by the Catholic church, the driver, who was drunk of course, rounded the bend too quickly. J. flew out of the back of the truck, hit one of the totem poles, broke his neck and died.

To commemorate his death, a beer gardens was held at the Marina View (or what locals refer to as the Roundel). Because, of course, one should always create a memorial out of drunk driving accidents by holding beer gardens.

Rumour has it that as the drunken festivities memorializing his death drew to a close, people were seen jumping into their pick-up trucks drunk, to drive home.

This is reason #2 that I sometimes hate living in northern Alberta. Lessons are never learned, and worse yet, irony is always lost.

The strangest thing about being home again is how a place like Cold Lake can make you feel like the centre of the universe, and at the same time, so completely insignificant.

Here, everyone knows who you are. They know your reputation, they know your history, they know your parents. For those of us who have picked up and left, we're fawned over by adults wanting to know what we're up to, sharing a friendly hello. Walking down the street sometimes feels like a scene out of The Truman Show, with even the dogs seeming to bark their greetings. It's a stark contrast to the anonymity of sitting on a Toronto streetcar, staring at your shoes to avoid making eye contact with the blading guy standing in front of you.

There is no feeling like the feeling of everyone knowing you, whether it's for good or for worse.

But then you remember that this is just one of hundred or thousands of small towns spread throughout North America, and that somewhere, someplace, is a girl just like you, walking down the street and thinking that she is the centre of the universe.

I'm as large as life, and nothing more than an ant.

This is what the weather was like today. (Yes, that is snow. It snowed for about an hour in Bonnyville today.)

The wool dress was not enough.

2. Red Bull obviously keeps you awake. But the Spitz, accordingly to my chiropractor, are a trucker's secret. (And, my chiropractor is the authoritative source on truckers.) Since they are an official "activity food" (that is, they involve some effort to eat beyond chewing and swallowing) they are more likely to keep you awake. Added bonus: you will likely have your window rolled down to eat them, which ties in nicely with step #1. (On this particular trip, I was also tempted to buy a cigarello to smoke, a la Melissa, but then I remembered I don't smoke and therefore, don't know proper ashing techniques and was liable to set myself on fire while driving.)

But if that doesn't work, there's always my hidden weapon:

3. DMX. . .And Then There Was X. I stole this CD from a high school boyfriend, but only really pull it out for occassions like this. I really like, "Why Do Good Girls Like Bad Guys" (which was my high school theme song for a very short-lived period of time, until I discovered that in fact, bad guys do tell mad lies, even if I'm a honey with class, not just a honey with ass). I also thoroughly enjoy barking along with the barking bits.

And this weekend? Another 600 kilometer drive. But this time I'm gonna have my mama to keep me company.