Blogging about summer (Part 3 of 3)

Previously on "Blogging about summer," Christina and I decided that being roommates was a good idea, attended a "family" wedding "together," and then killed rainy time in Calgary watching Queer as Folk.

Like last time, to keep this blog relevant and not rooted in the past, I'll start with some current event updates.

A divided/shared home once more

Context! Get your context here!

I have previously mentioned that Christina will be moving into the guest bedroom of my house, and that I have to remove all of the guest furniture that is in the room to make space available for Christina's shit. (So, where will guests stay now? In a hotel, apparently. Or, if they don't have an aversion to cat hair and biting, there's a hide-a-bed in the basement.)

Talks have now progressed to sharing the rest of the house. Just as I was getting used to not having to share, this happens, and now I have to rethink everything about the common areas. It's probably a good thing this is happening now and not a year from now, because my selfish tendencies would have just gotten worse and worse. And it's also (maybe) a good thing this is happening with Christina, because I at least know that we made this work in the past, so we should be able to make it work now. There will likely be copious fighting, though, probably more than we ever fought as a couple.

What's especially fun is that Christina and I were never good at sharing. There was always a "this is mine, this is yours," division. Amusingly, that attitude is now the appropriate way to handle our property and shared living areas. If we are going to pay for our own living expenses, there needs to be a clear way of recognizing mine vs hers.

Some areas of the house that I claimed after Christina vacated are not reverting to enemy control. I am still owner and occupier of the master bedroom, and thus the walk-in closet and en suite are still all mine. Yes! Christina now gets to slum it in the upstairs guest bathroom, ie. what used to be my bathroom. She can have it. The en suite is so much sweeter. And Christina has her own closet in the guest bedroom, albeit a small one.

Christina's old art studio, ie. the third bedroom, is now prime brewery real estate. There was a time that the brewery operated out of the basement, but a certain cat pissing and shitting on the floor initiated a redesign of the process. And there is no going back there. The new system works so much better than the old. It's clean, inaccessible to animals, and handy in all the right ways. The only way it could be handier is if I lived in a bungalow. However, with smart use of shelving, and the removal of a few heavy storage bins full of books, it is theoretically possible that the third bedroom could become a dual purpose art and brew studio.

But now Christina is asking for space for her stuff in the kitchen and pantry. Pretty demanding one, that ex-wife of mine. Saturday brewery services require ample space in both the refrigerator and pantry. I can't give that up. Not for her... Ha! I kid. I kid. Just jokes. The brewery and I will adapt to these changes.

When we were married, I had one dedicated shelf in the refrigerator. It was full of bread and beer. (That's all you need!) After Christina left, the beer multiplied. And the bread got its own dedicated shelf. Not being a dick, I have been planning in my head a reasonable way to deal with Christina's return to the refrigerator, and the solution was quite simple--although it did cost $200. I have purchased a 4.4 cu. ft. bar fridge. During summer (not sure about winter), it will sit in the garage, as its primary application is brew day refreshment disbursement. It will also hold all yeasts and hops that currently occupy the refrigerator. The bread will keep its dedicated shelf, though. That's essential.

One of the big benefits of Christina moving back in is that I get some of my stuff back. One of the major items that I sacrificed to the gods of divorce was our large upright freezer. The return of the freezer will provide ample room for the brewery's 10 (maybe 8 now?) pounds of frozen hops. Now we can buy more hops! Although there is still most of a grass-fed cow in that freezer...

Sharing the pantry, aka "brewery storage," is a bigger challenge. One shelf in the pantry is wasted on recycling bins; those can easily be moved to the floor of a nearby closet. And, sure, an outsider to the brewing operation would look at all of the small competition bottles of beer and say, "Why do those need to be here?" I may even have been asked that question already. The answer is pretty much, "Because. You just don't get it." But it looks like I'm going to have to compromise here. Bah. There is a large storage cabinet in the brew studio that is currently full of Christina's "junk" that she left behind last year. That cabinet will henceforth be full of competition bottles of beer, not to mention whatever else I can fit into it, which may end up being most of everything that's currently on the floor of the brew studio.

So I have some big projects ahead of me in the next three weeks: empty the guest bedroom; remove heavy bins full of books from the brew studio; relocate all competition bottles of beer to the brew studio from the pantry; stock my new bar fridge with almost everything beer-related from the kitchen refrigerator (leaving a reasonable quantity of beer in there for regular daily consumption); and rearrange shit in the basement to make room for additional storage. But I won't complain too much, because I have it easy compared with Christina, who has to pack her entire apartment into bins. Fun!

The Days Were Golden

Fun factoid. When Christina was planning her exodus from Regina last year, she was initially fixated on moving to Golden, B.C. Personally, I didn't understand why, but she had recently visited the town and came back raving about it. As you all know, in the end, she moved to Calgary, but since those days, I've been very curious about this amazing Golden place.

So, that's why we chose to visit Golden on our day trip to the mountains on June 17th. Leaving Calgary, it was still raining, but the weather cleared up as we drove deeper into the mountains. In our five years together, Christina and I have visited Banff numerous times, but this was the first time we had driven into British Columbia together. We didn't spend much time in the town of Golden itself, which did seem somewhat charming, but mostly unremarkable, instead driving through it to get to a nice nearby campground, where we had a hot dog and smokey camp cookout for lunch. We then drove around the Golden area all afternoon, doing touristy things like taking numerous pictures of everything. Pro-tip: the Kicking Horse gondola doesn't run on Thursdays in June. In late afternoon, we returned to the campground, took a quick paddle-boat tour of the lake (goddamn, paddle-boats are hard work!), and had another hot dog and smokey camp cookout.

For those with an aversion to Facebook, here's some of my favourite pictures from the day, presented without explanation or comment:


On the way back to Calgary in the evening, I suggested that we check out scenic Lake Louise, which I haven't visited in summer since I was a kid. Since we hadn't purchased a National Park pass, we couldn't access Lac Louise and instead had to settle with Moraine Lake, which fortunately turned out to be the prettiest site we had seen all day:


I love the mountains. I mean, who doesn't love the mountains? They are fucking awesome!

A Spontaneous Trip to Northern Saskatchewan

As we packed my car to leave Calgary on June 18th, we found that we now had more stuff than would fit. We decided that we would leave the camping equipment behind in Calgary, and then on the long weekend, we would return and actually try camping in the mountains this time. As the long weekend approached, we started second guessing the plan to return to Calgary for numerous reasons. For something different to do, Christina suggested that we check out La Ronge.

For reasons beyond the scope of this blog, Christina is very interested in Northern Saskatchewan right now, so it's not really surprising that she wanted to travel to La Ronge. What is surprising is how quickly and easily I agreed to this spontaneous plan to drive as far north as paved roads will take you.

The farthest north I had previously been in Saskatchewan was Prince Albert National Park, and that was many years ago. La Ronge is actually not much farther than Waskasiu, but there is a major change in scenery in that extra hour and a bit of driving as you enter the Canadian Shield. La Ronge is approximately six hours (although I was expecting it to take longer, based on Google Maps's estimation) from Regina on highway two, and we also traveled the extra hour on less quality roads to Missinipe on one of the days.

We stayed in a decent hotel in La Ronge with Duke, Daisy, and little Buffy the Finger Slayer on her first and last trip with us. Daisy slept in my bed, Duke slept in Christina's bed, and Buffy slept in the bathroom.

We arrived mid-afternoon on July 1st. After checking in to our hotel, we avoided the Canada Day crowds at the town beach and instead drove around looking at the various campgrounds in the area. We eventually found a beautiful, private beach north of La Ronge, in Wadin Bay, where we probably would have spent a couple of hours if not for the arrival of the horse fly infestation.

I have never been bitten by a horse fly, so when Christina started freaking out about the horse flies at the Wadin Bay beach, I was like, "What's the big deal?" She assured me that if I had ever been bit by a horse fly, I would know what the big deal was, so we fled to our car as quickly as we could. The horse flies concentrated their attacks on the dogs, but they were circling us as well the whole time. Neither of us got bit over the course of the weekend, but that didn't stop horse flies from quickly becoming the weekend's nemesis.

On July 2nd, our plan was to rent a boat and explore Lac La Ronge in the morning, and then drive to Missinipe in the afternoon. Boating into the middle of a giant lake and picking a random island to hang out on for a while was probably the highlight of my entire year so far. It was awesome. But, damn, the horse flies! Horse flies really fuck with skinny dippi--oh, wait, pretend I didn't say that. They chase boats and sometimes out-run boats. They bring their friends. They mercilessly attack dogs. They apparently crash every party in Northern Saskatchewan. Motherfuckers!

The trip to Missinipe was pretty uneventful. The road is shit, but the Neon survived. Christina wanted to meet with some people that she may get to know quite well in the coming years, so we did that. And then we had some ice cream and headed back to La Ronge.

And on Saturday morning, we packed and headed home. It was a short but thoroughly memorable trip.

Once again, for those with an aversion to Facebook, here are some of my favourite pictures from this fantastic trip, presented without explanation or comment:


Unquestionably, I will be spending more time in Northern Saskatchewan in the coming years. Next time I hope to camp, rather than stay in a hotel, and it would be nice if it was not the peak of horse fly season.

All aboard the Caribbean Princess, winter 2011/2012?

Christina and I never had a honeymoon. Regrets, I've had a few. It's not like we made the decision to not spend a bunch of money on an expensive vacation lightly, and there was seemingly no rush; we had lots of time to get our finances in order and then take a great memorable trip together. Burn.

Early last summer, I started planning for a Caribbean cruise, because we had both agreed that a cruise would be a nice late honeymoon. I decided to not cheap out, so budgeted $10,000 for everything, and planned to have a luxurious room with a balcony aboard the Caribbean Princess liner.

When Christina left, I was pretty frustrated (for many reasons, including) that my cruise plan would now be scrapped, but she told me that if I still wanted to go on a cruise someday in the future, she would go with me. I scoffed at that idea. It would be pretty silly to go on a cruise with your ex-wife, am I right?

As Christina and I traveled from Saskatchewan to Alberta to British Columbia and back this summer, I realized pretty early on that there was no good reason that we couldn't travel together to other places. And the idea of the Caribbean cruise popped back into my head. On the way home from La Ronge, I asked the burning question, would she still go with me on a cruise with the understanding that she would now have to pay for herself. And she agreed.

We are still early in the planning stages. We haven't settled on a cruise liner or destination yet. My personal preference is the 7-day Classic Southern Caribbean cruise aboard the Caribbean Princess. It is a nice island hopping route with minimal long stretches on the water. And I did a lot of research on the various cruise companies back in summer 2009, and I think Princess is the best for our wants and needs.

There is also the matter of when. I had hoped to plan the cruise for summer 2011, but that's not an option with the cruises that I have been looking at. Instead, a winter cruise is most likely. I would like to plan the cruise during a week that Christina's mom is available to house and animal sit for us, so I could go away with no worries about what I am leaving behind, the biggest problem I have with traveling.

I want to travel more than I do. I like seeing new places. I have never left this continent, which is silly. And now that my financial situation is stabilizing quickly, I will soon no longer have any excuses. A trustworthy house-sitter that could deal with the local zoo is essential to my getting away from home peace of mind. Christina is likely the best bet to take on this role in the near future. United Kingdom, summer 2012?

The End

I'm sure glad I decided a week and a half ago to break "Blogging about summer" into three parts. I banged the first part out quickly, but I felt (quite accurately) that it would take me a while to get to the end of the story. Part two took forever to write (forever = one week of sparse writing), and then my new editor delayed its posting by a day. I don't normally post blog entries on Saturdays, because I'm not normally in any condition after a brew day to write anything sensible. Have you seen my Saturday Facebook posts? I can't stop myself from drunk Facebooking, but I do try to avoid drunk blogging as much as possible.

Now that I'm at the end of part three, which took more time to write than part one but significantly less time than part two, I realize that I've neglected the regular posts on this blog. I'm going to need another Week in Review catch-up post soon, but next I have another somewhat infected brewblog to write. And maybe I should do some work.