Dawson City

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Food, Food, Food, Food, and More Food

Today started off slooooooowly. I needed to go in at noon, rather than my usual eleven, so, of course, I woke up quite early by my standards: quarter past nine. I then made up for that by spending more than an hour in bed with the cats reading, checking my email and getting work done on my iPod Touch (I wish I was kidding. Or maybe not!).

Our fishmonger left today and I thanked him once again for a gift he gave me yesterday: a big bag of frozen shrimp!!!  I’m going to have them on the grill soon as I take the time  to get it set up.

The morning was pretty sedate, but active, since I needed to do some work on the property, including sweeping which really feels like a futile endeavour. The best way I can describe what the property looks like is to imagine the set of the show M*A*S*H, only with RVs instead of tents. There are a lot of similarities in the layout (including mountains in the background) and that ever present coating of dust that turns to mud soon as it’s wet out. Whenever I’m put to beautification detail, I think of the episode where the colonel had the camped spruced up for a general’s visit, which culminated in a fountain being made with bed pans. I suggested we make a fountain with gold pans, but that didn’t go over so well. Hmph! 😀

Just before I went on my afternoon break, I was treated to a slice of watermelon. It was a tad pasty, but by Dawson standards it was excellent and I savoured every morsel. I’m almost at the time of year when my junk food cravings are going to give way to an insatiable appetite for fruit and salad and the watermelon was a nice way to inaugurate the season.

Unfortunately, we’re also at that time of year when the sun is really bad during my time off (3 to 5), so running to the post office and back was quite a chore. I was glad to return to Miranda’s cool interior and get some work done on my contract. As a side note, I received an email a couple of days ago that the contract had been canceled. I was understandably devastated! But some inconsistencies in the correspondence I got made me ask a few questions and I was able to learn that only part of the contract has been terminated. So, I can still count on some hours a week, just not as many. This served to show me that I really can’t rely on that contract for any sort of income this winter which led me down another alley for the winter. It’s much too soon to start on that subject, however.

When I came back to work, late afternoon, I snagged an apple (Golden Delicious!) from the manager and then attempted to show her how to transfer ebooks to her iPod. I believe I may have added ‘ebook transferer’ to my job description. 😀 We were interrupted when a caravan rolled in and I had fun watching the RV ballet. Once everyone was squared away, the organizer came in with treats for everyone–a huge container of cashews and a cinnamon bun the size of my head! It came from the Braeburn Lodge… known for their huge cinnamon buns. A couple of us tore into the bun right away, but we left more than half for the morning folks (ain’t we nice?). I had thought of making shrimp for dinner, but between the cashews and cinnamon bun slice, I think I’m done for the night. 😀

So, needless to say I was thinking breakfast, not dessert, when one of my colleagues (who was a neighbour in Oliver!) handed me two beautiful carrot cake muffins with cream cheese icing when I handed her the night phone. They are going to be soooo yummy with my coffee in the morning!

Been a good day; slightly crazy, which is what passes for normal around here. 🙂

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Oz’s Fieldtrip

This afternoon, Oz and I went on a two hour walk to town and back. He was such a good boy!

On the way there, he took his sweet time sniffing around and marking his territory, so I thought we’d never make it! I accidentally kicked a rock a short ways past the motel and Oz went tearing after it. We played that game for a good ways, with me throwing a new rock for him to play with every few steps and that definitely got us moving.

The afternoon was starting to be a scorcher, so when we got to town I brought him down to the river so he could cool off a tad since his owner had mentioned that he loves the water. He was very happy with this detour.

Since today is a holiday, not much was open, so I decided to just get an ice cream and come back home. I tied Oz to a bench outside the store where he was immediately adopted by two grannies from Maine. Oz was very happy to lie in the shade under a bench and be fawned over while I got my cone.

I had my ice cream as he continued to garner attention and then it was time to head back since I had a shift starting at 5. Oz knew the way home and he was eager to get there, since he was obviously exhausted. He walked to the full length of his leash without straining, stopped, and then looked at me with an expression that said “Come on, I wanna get there!”

what a sweet boy!

what a sweet boy!

waiting for me to throw another rock

waiting for me to throw another rock

playing in the Yukon River

playing in the Yukon River

chillin' out in front of the ice cream parlour

chillin’ out in front of the ice cream parlour

Playing the ‘cool aunt’ with a dog is always fun, but I know I am nowhere near a stage in my life where I could have one. I’d definitely need to be home a lot more and have a semblance of a routine. That said, I look forward to more outings with Oz.

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Almost Gone With the Wind

Two nights ago, I awoke shivering the middle of the night and had to grab another blanket. Last night, I slept with a window and two roof hatches open and stepped outside this morning to weather that had already passed twenty degrees. Calgary apparently got snow yesterday. Bwa ha ha ha ha!

It wasn’t unbearably hot, though, since it’s still windy out. That wind is a mixed blessing since it covers everything in a fine layer of grit. I won’t miss that grit, but I will miss that breeze as the sun starts to beat down mercilessly.

Today’s big to-do was a staff barbecue. There was a bit of schedule coordinating necessary for both the manager and I to attend, but we made it work.

Between the heat, the manic pace of a busy day, and the mountain of grilled shrimp, I’m feeling rather spent. Guess I’ll call it another good day in the Klondike. 😀

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A Very Full Day

I don’t know what it is about the long sultry summer days of the Klondike, but I seem to wedge twice as much into a day as would seem feasible. So, today:

A Ferry of My Own!

I was out at Gertie’s a little bit later than I should have been last night, so this morning’s awakening at 9:20AM by my iPod Touch alarm clock was a tad brutal. I’d promised friends across the river that I’d help them move back to Bonanza, so I was up and at ’em in minutes. In fact, I was at the hostel with the car nearly packed within a half hour, including a short wait on the ferry. Not bad!

We had to wait for the ferry to cross back, less than ten minutes. I had the ferry to myself, which was kind of cool. I would have thought that they would wait to load up, but nope. They take the passengers who are there, or at least as many as they can fit, and then they cross. Back and forth, all day, every day. What a service!

Once back at the motel, I checked them in, dumped their luggage, grabbed some toast, gulped down coffee at the office and started my day.

Beds and Bundles!

Housekeeping was shorthanded this morning, so I spent an hour stripping beds and then running linens and towels up to the rooms. I needed to be back at the office for noon, which enabled me to discover that I can make two beds in fifteen minutes. I’ll have to look up my record for last summer and see if that’s good or bad. 😀

Back in the office, it was the usual zaniness. During quiet moments, I continued to make little bundles out of our check in cards in preparation for inputting into our computer system. I designed and implemented a new database this week, so I have a huge backlog to go through. I don’t mind since I love data entry AND I’m doing it on a Mac! Yes! We’ve got a Mac in the office this year and I can do 90% of my work on it! Yaaaaaaaaaaaay!

I was relieved at quarter past two and headed home to play with my iPod some more.

iPod Breakthrough!

After getting in a little work at my contract (subject of a future post), I decided to focus on the iPod and try to get more ebooks on it. I put together a few semi-related pages and came up with a way to connect the iPod to my cellular connection! This finally gave me full iPod use, limited only by my bandwidth restrictions. I was given a huge cd filled with tons and tons and tons of wonderful ebooks and I transferred a few of them to the iPod. Then, I discovered that you can actually bookmark and annotate books in the Stanza app. Amazon Kindle? Pfft.

Oz!

I went back to work at quarter past five and it was the usual zaniness until a customer checked in with a bunch of dogs and the manager decided to adopt one. Well, she’s trying him out tonight on a trial basis, but they’ve bonded, so I know he’s staying. 🙂 Somehow in the middle of this, she and I agreed to coparent him this summer, so I sort of have a dog now! He’s a Jack Russell, the only breed I have any experience with since that’s what I had growing up, and we named him Oz! I will be taking pictures soon. 🙂

The Night Is Young!

It’s presently 8:40, dinner’s in the oven (chicken and lasagna), laundry’s in the washer, I have work to do, I want to play some more with my iPod settings, and I want to finish the short story ebook I’ve started.

Just another day in paradise and I’m lovin’ it! 😀

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Gift of a Salesman

We’ve had a fishmonger staying in one of our rooms for a few nights. He travels around in a refrigerated truck hocking frozen fish to individuals (restaurants have their own suppliers). I inquired about his wares and when he realised that I was shopping, not just being polite, he was quick to offer me a good price on a 5lb box of haddock.

Much as I love haddock, I knew there would be no way I could get through that much fish in a reasonable amount of time, so I asked a friend to split the box with me. By the time she had examined the fish and agreed, the fishmonger had dropped his price again, to $80, or $16/lb which is a good price for up here.

I’m just waitin’ on dinner…

In the meantime, here are some random pics that don’t warrant their own post:

no need to close the rear blind this winter!

c is for cat AND contentment

Dinner’s ready! And YUM! Best haddock EVER!!!