Belonging

There is a quotation I found on a community planning website shortly after I came North. It reached into my chest and touched my heart. It seemed to encapsulate my feeling toward this new place in which I had found myself, and it spoke to me of hope.

"When people feel they 'belong' to a neighbourhood which is theirs through their own efforts, then it will become a place which is worth struggling to retain and develop. People will safeguard what they have helped to create."*

I feel that way about this place most of the time - I want this town to continue, I want this town to thrive. I want to promote this town to the world outside, to say, "I came here, and look! I became part of something - not because I want to take over and tell people what to do, but because I want us all to develop and retain this place to which we all belong!"

It's a bit lofty, I know, but it keeps me going.


*Lord Scarman and Tony Gibson, The Guardian, 11 December 1991 [emphasis mine]

Where have I been?

Let's see...lounging, having a headache, working, working, having a stomachache, taking a sick day, and that brings us to today.

One thing I like about this town? People notice if you're not where you're supposed to be. Kara noticed my truck wasn't in front of the office yesterday, deduced I was sick, and she and Matt and the kids brought me dinner (and visited briefly because it was pouring buckets outside). Back in London, no one would have noticed a thing like that. Or brought me delicious cabbage-roll things.

Unfortunately for me, my landlord had made arrangements for some guy to come look at my house yesterday - without letting me know. The guy turned up, and I'm in my sweatshirt and fuzzy pants, definitely not expecting company. I asked if he could give me half an hour, and I tidied up the kitty litter and threw several bags of garbage in the garage. The house wasn't perfect, but it was okay.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more pissed off I get with my landlord. I thought maybe he had tried to email me at work, but when I got here this morning, there was no email. I was home all Tuesday night, so I don't want to hear him say he tried calling. That is bull cookies.

Also, if I hadn't been home sick, there wouldn't have been anyone home to show the guy around. Did you think about that, landlord?

Whew. Sorry, that got a lot rage-ier than I meant it to. I need to summon back the calm of last night - headache gone, belly full, overdosing on Supernatural. Life was good then.

Still here

You thought I was in a drunken stupor all this time, didn't you?

Well, I wasn't.

I did have a drink Friday night, and a couple last night, but nothing major. I went to Matt & Kara's Friday night to check out the work they're doing on their backyard - it looks pretty good now, so I can only imagine how great it's going to look when it's complete.

I drove to Ross River yesterday morning to put up a sign at the Canol Footbridge. I didn't know where I was going, and there weren't really many people around to ask, but I asked the man at the hot dog stand (which was actually just across from the bridge). And then I was starving, so I bought the most expensive hot dog in the world - seriously, it was just a hotdog, like you make at home. I could have bought a whole pack of hot dogs (and buns, too, if I were still in Ontario) for that.

But I was really hungry.

I filled up with gas at the General Store, so now I have no excuses for not going to Ross for gas (since I know how to do it and how to pay for it now). Then I came home for my last day of snuggling Titus. Heather came by to pick him up in the evening, and now I find the house is a bit too quiet.

Now the mad rush to get my house presentable for my parentals is on. I want them to see me living in a neat and tidy house (even if most of my belongings are stored in Rubbermaid containers). They'll be here in just over 2 weeks, so I need to get crackin'.

Going to Town

I am going to town this afternoon, and it is hard for me to do anything productive.

I'm going in for a meeting about the new health plan all the Yukon Communities are enrolled in, which means there will probably be a lot of note-taking involved. But there will also be a hotel bed, and a chance to go grocery shopping, so I'm all woooo-hoooo. But, you know, in a quiet, refined kind of way.

In other news, I have punctured the middle finger on my left hand through excessive quilting over the weekend. I couldn't find my good thimble, and nothing else seemed to have any effect at all - bandages were punctured within three stitches, and whoever suggested a few layers of nail polish obviously was not familiar with my inability to allow nail polish to dry. Luckily, I did not touch the fabric during that experiment.

The new quilt is coming along pretty well, I think. The part that I thought would be the hardest (freehand-drawing of vines and leaves) is actually proving to be fairly simple. The only difficult part is the darkness of the fabric combined with a regular old pencil makes it tricky to see what I've drawn in order to quilt it. But with any luck, I'll pick up a white pencil at Walmart or the Bear's Paw, and then everything will be aces.

Where is the boy who fetches my drinks?

Still not a 100% definite answer on the cautious optimism issue of yesterday, but perhaps 80%? If the corners of my mouth turn up a bit, is that out of line?

I just composed a two-page long email to Sean regarding his email from the weekend. It was nice to have someone to whom I could completely unload, about work, about life, about my continuing lack of love-life. I think I'm going to have get his phone number in Australia - it's been too long since I've heard his voice.

Yesterday's soup turned out a bit more like baby food than soup - turns out that when Mum said to use a blender, she meant use a blender. The hand mixer was not terribly effective - especially when it was spewing sweet potatoes and squash all over my kitchen and work clothes ^_^ Ah well, live and learn. 'Twas tasty, nonetheless.

Right, then. Back to work.

My eyes are burning

I'm so sleepy today!

I've decided to put a notice in the next issue of the Town's newsletter that I am looking for suggestions on improvements to the Town's website - things people would like to see added/removed, updates on out-of-date information, and that type of thing. It's not just the Town Office's website, after all - it's supposed to be promoting the whole Town. (I can't seem to write Town with a small 't' any more, which is a direct consequence of my job.)

I'm thinking of putting some kind of survey up on the website itself (if I ever get a spare moment to figure out how to do such a thing), and perhaps that way I can start to get a inkling about how people feel about using Facebook/Twitter/social media to promote the Town.

But first, I have minutes to transcribe, final reports to write, and an updated schedule for the Crane & Sheep Festival to work out.

Good times!

Life in a small town

A gal I went to university with made a comment on my Facebook account (in response to my comment about how stressed I was) about how she thought small towns were supposed to be so peaceful.

I thought so, too, until I moved to one, and started a job that planted me right in the middle of pretty much any drama that starts.

Northern Exposure reruns did not prepare me for life in Faro.

Methinks I will be having a pizza tonight, even though I told myself I wasn't going to do that anymore.