saskatoon

Well, Ive been here for 6 days now, and its been one hell of a weekend, let me tell you. Weddings are exhausting--and this was a small one. save yourself the trouble and elope!
okay...let me back track a little...
So I arrived mid-afternoonish on wednesday,  with the usual earache from the plane landing. it always takes about 45 min for one or both ears to un-plug...its straight up balls because I know it is going to happen and theres nothing i can do about it. so!
nothing exciting just re-aqquainted myself with the fact that people in Saskatoon are never in a hurry. I'm pretty sure, no i'm positive the term "mosey" developed here, because that's what everyone does. Its frustrating when you're used to dodging people and getting from point A to point B as fast as possible. Even their service is s-l-o-w....Pita pit took 15 freaking min just to make my chicken souvlaki, which i woudn't care about except I was starving because all I ate was a lousy chicken sandwich on the plane. Made by second cup, might I add: since when do they make sandwiches? gross. that night Scott came out for dinner and kept me company watching bad movies on TV. I called it a night early, because the two hour difference always takes it out of me. I realized that they just don't make corny movies like they used to. Everything is so smart now, which is great don't get me wrong as we're not stupid audiences, but watching Naked Gun 33 1/2: The Final Insult, I had to chuckle at the sheer corny stupidity of the thing.

Thursday was pretty un-eventful, dinner out here at mom's place in Warman (yay, salmon!)We picked up Andrew and Emily from the airport...my sister-in-law has never been west of Ontario, so it was entertaining answering questions about what the hell all the machinery did and why there is little ponds everywhere. it also was kinda nice that i wasn't the only one snapping pictures of every cow, grain elevator and farm (B wanted pictures)

Now here's where I started to get fed up... my mother of 55 suddenly got cold feet and wanted to call the whole damn shebang off. and, as the maid of honour, it was my job to calm her down and make sure that didn't happen. right! well, i guess i managed.... but seriously. her third wedding, Bruce proposed to her 36 years ago, you'd think she'd just want to get it the hell over with! bah. 

Friday, the day before the wedding. This is when things started to get hectic. By now i'm realizing why I've grown to like the city as opposed to the farm town life I grew up in. I haven't spent this much time in a car in years. people literally plan their days to "go into town" which takes about 25 min. (from Warman to Saskatoon)
anyway, early that morning Mom took the 3 of us out to Mitchison's, the flying school she attended and took us up in a Cessna 172 (C-GINO license plate which was perfect for Emily because she's a wop) and flew us out over the river and farther east of Saskatoon. we tried to go over the old Laliberte farm but the cloud cover was too dense. saaaad :(
My favourite cat was there though, Cessna. She lives at the hangar and is this gorgeous Russian blue who cuddles me. I also killed a spider for Emily, the big suck. 
Afterwards we picked up flowers for our hair, picked up the dresses,and made it back to the house for the rehearsal dinner.
the photographer for the wedding was Basil Howleuka, who drove out with his wife Marlene from Morden, Manitoba (a town just outside of Winkler, where I was born) just for mom's wedding. Basil took my very first portrait when i was but 3 days old, and to this day it hangs in his studio on his wall of famous babies heh heh. My face is all red and squinchy because i am SO ANGRY, i love it. the dent in my forehead shows, and when i get mad you can still see it to this day :D

Anyway, that was the first blast from the past for the weekend. After the BBQ we headed to the Western Modern Civilization museum where the wedding was going to be and rehearsed until I was sick of standing and holding imaginary flowers. The rehearsal was more for the priest than us, as we had to correct him on a few things. We were there until 10 at night because we decorated the damn thing all in purple. my mother has this thing with the colour purple this year...lavender, mauve, whatever, it made her happy so Emily and I hung streamers and made bows and bells and all that lovely wedding crap until out fingers hurt. it was pretty though, I'll show you all the pictures when i get my copy of the DVD i promise.

on a side note, such a shame this was a dry wedding. I would have loved to be sloshed. all there was was bottles of non alcoholic cider...whoopee!

Saturday morning rolled around and us three ladies went to get our hair did....I asked for a sort of lightly curled, vampy Jessica Rabbit look, but surprise surprise it turned out fairly different. I always have bad experiences with hair stylists. I even had a picture for her to work from! yeesh. and purpley roses in my hair....the girl was so enthusiastic that I didn't wash my hair with shampoo (thanks Lil E!) but unfortunately she had to drown me in hair spray so that it would all stay put. gross.

we made it back to the house, chased the best man into his suit and picked up the rest of the flowers....Emily and I made sure mum ate something and stayed hydrated because she is imfamous for passing out at important functions because her blood sugar gets too low. yay hereditary hypoglycemia!

Fast forward to the wedding.... we get there at 2:00 for photographs...pretty eat because they were taken all around the museum's "Boom Town" inside buggies and old cars and in front of old storefronts, inside the replica jail/photo studio, etc. neat as hell, but my face hurt from smiling that much.. it was easily an hour and a half before Basil proclaimed us done.. the wedding started at 4 PM sharp. thankfully the service was short and sweet...
The priest almost forgot to do the ring exchange (aka actual marrying) moving from the sermon to the witnessing, but my mother and I were both like "the rings!!" in a stage whisper and he quickly carried on like nothing happened...poor guy. He said the night before that he could do funerals in his sleep, but that he'd only ever presided over about 20 weddings. thanks for the confidence, Gerald!

whatever, it went well... more pictures with the family afterwards until my feet wanted to scream and then we got to eat. food is the best part of weddings, next to the (non-existent) booze. mashed potatos, roast beef & turkey with stuffing, jello salad, strawberry & green salad, beans and carrots, and two other kinds of salads to boot. then came the desert... oh my god was I in heaven.....Saskatoon berry cheesecake, Saskatoon Berry pie, Saskatoon berry trifle, and Saskatoon Berry Crisp. My poor little tummy was in absolute heaven, and full to bursting by the time it was all done.
Then came the moment of truth for my speech preparation and oratory skils. The toast to the bride, and welcoming of the groom into our family. My brother and I both had very different ideas of what a toast was supposed to consist of...I insisted on some kind of personal story and account of her many talents and he insisted on just saying thankyou and we love you, etc so we just sort of split the mic. he said his bit of the top of his head, I said my bit from my little piece of paper, and succesfully made my mom tear up (ka-ching!) hehe.

I didn't even eat the wedding cake....no room. too full.
Then mom and bruce got up and talked about both of their parents, as all four of them are deceased. Bruce had been our wingman while my grandmother was ailing and still living on her own.. he talked about how he had tea with her every wednesday and how he bought all the birthday cards and addressed them for her to send to the grandkids, and how when Florence called him up and said "bruce, can you keep your big mouth shut?" it meant she was in trouble and that he knew he would be calling my mom as soon as he hung up with her. My grandmother would have been so happy to see them get married, I know it, and listening to them talk about her... how she died 4 years ago yesterday, I cried a little.
I still miss her, even though we were never supremely close, she was my grandmother and she should have been there. c'est la vie...
after the reception the family all drove out to Dalmeny to my aunt and uncle's place to get drunk proper ( the Godden way...scotch or drambuie) but I passed out on the couch from exhaustion by 11. hey, I pulled a B!

basically, the wedding was great. I'm so fucking glad its over. yesterday I was absolutely exhausted, mentally, emotionally, and physically after dealing with my mother and the staff at the museum and all the strangers. If you ever get asked to be someone's attendant/maid of honour.... seriously ask yourself if you're ready to be the go-to person for everyone and their dog for every little issue. They should be bothering you, not the bride, which sucks, but thats what you're there for! I even had kleenex tucked into my cleavage for when she started crying on the platform exchanging their vows. oiy. 


Saskatoon is great though.... the horizon is endless.
every time i'm out here all I want to do is jump out of the car and start running as far as I can go. I probably would only make it like 100 metres before I stopped and wanted to be picked up, but it would be so worth it to just be able to go and not have anything in my way.
Thats why I love the prairies.... you can see for miles in every direction. in the daytime its nothing but the bluest of blue skies and huge rolling clouds, and at night there is about 3 billion stars above your head on a black velvet backdrop. impossible to take pictures of though...
watching a storm out here is also fantastic. you can see the angry clouds rolling in  far before it hits, and the lightning is breathtaking. farther north you can see the greens and purples of the northern lights.... amazing. just amazing.
I could never live out here... I'd go nuts having to drive everywhere unless I had a horse. which is very probably because everyone has gorgeous horses on their farms. but i would love to come escape here for 2 weeks every year... but without my mother. after 3 days I can't stand my mother. and bruce's sense of humour is trying everything in his power to annoy me and then saying "pull my finger" and not waiting for me to do it.
seriously, if I ever get to the point where my greatest joy is fart jokes, someone grab a .22 and put me out of my misery!

pictures to follow once i upload from my mom's camera.
love

Tommorrow will be newhomefreeland's final kegger ever. I'm pretty sure everyone is approaching this with mixed emotions....
there is the "FUCK YEAH this party will be the bombest there ever was"......and of course the "shit....when is the next time i'll see all these people in the same house again?".....the feelings of sadness that are placated by the realization that it is time to move on.....the thought bomb that maybe we all needed this....or the excitement for something new about to begin. another chapter in the lives of handful of people. The fact is, its not really over per say. RVL is an idea, one that blossomed kind of recklessly and now is slowing down to fill out the underdeveloped bits. this is what makes it absolutely beautiful, because as we all continue to live our lives it will probably be the fondest looked-back-on chunk of memories. Some of us have numerous years of memories to draw from, while others only a couple.... but it doesn't matter because we were here
I know we can't help but stay in contact with eachother. we all need to get away from ourselves too often.

don't be sad. people that make an impact on your life like this make you want to stay in touch. between cell phones and interweb and TTC, we'll all just have to travel a lot more.
embrace the fact that we'll all get off our asses a lot more, and to be sure we fucking need it. Split a bus pass with someone. make some playdates. drop in by surprise. make a phone call to just chat for 5 min. i promise you won't be lonely.
so fuck it, lets party in this house that isn't going to be ours any more, I don't want to see any tears because this is a celebration bitches! we're moving up in the world, or at least along, steph is a quarter of a century old and little E is returning to the C-eh.
now all we need is a kiddie pool.
I'm going to dance up a TORNADO