Dog, Gone

First of all, Canéla is fine, sorry,- it's the other dog, Skye, who has gone.

Yes, after three months with us, she has gone to live with Fenya and Bobby in Toronto. It was impractical to send her out there before Christmas, since the two of them would be joining us in Texas, and in Edmonton before that, and her cargo flight Jan 13 was canceled due to extreme cold here and snowy conditions at YYZ.

The nice people at WetJet Cargo called me at 9:30 the night before to let me know, and gave me the opportunity to re-book her right away, which was appreciated. 

Skye's kennel was already prepped, with a rubber-bottomed bathmat in the bottom, her bed atop that and the single toy permitted, a squeaky, crinkly, purple bat, already ensconced. Rather than give her a water bottle for the flight, the vet suggested we preload the little mongrel with moisture by soaking her food with water in the days prior to travelling.

Thanks in part to the bitter cold we had experienced and a generally laissez-faire attitude to policing her own defecations, Skye had pretty much abandoned pooping outside during her last week with us, which made the upcoming departure as much a relief as it was a sad parting. Most incredibly, Skye had no tells whatsoever indicating she might or already had pooped somewhere in the house, and my best indicator was embarrassed behaviour by Canéla. Skye remained a creature with no discernible shame throughout her time with us.

Still, having said that, it was a bittersweet goodbye at the house when I loaded her and her kennel into the Corolla and took her to the Swissport building at EIA (which, btw, ignore the Google Maps directions that suggest you drive past Guardhouse One and onto the tarmac in order to enter).

I knew I was in the right place because the lady ahead of me in line had a 10-week-old puppy named Riley who was also flying to TO on his own. While her kennel was being weighed, I tried to get her to drink a little or at least go pee, but she was just too distracted.

And no, she was none too eager to go into the kennel on the scale the first time, but the second time she lay down and was quiet, at least initially.

I let the TO crew know she was going to be leaving shortly, and returned home, checking her progress periodically on FlightAware.

And that night, Fenya and Bobby made their way to Canada's busiest airport (actually a warehouse at Pearson, not one of the terminals), and before too long, they spotted Skye's kennel.

Not long after that, they presented their paperwork, collected the kennel and let her out for the first time in around six hours. Amazingly the kennel was dry, and having slept in their bed a few times before Christmas, Skye was eager to see them, and showed no signs of trauma from her experience. 

And now Skye is a big city dog! Living with Fenya and Bobby in their apartment near Cabbagetown, and we got to see her chilling with them on the futon during online D&D Friday night.

I think Canéla was mystified as to her disappearance for a few days and maybe even a little mopey, but seems to be whatever passes for her normal self now.

Truth be told, while I am glad Skye is in her new forever home with people who love her and who don't have carpet, I do miss those rare bits of zoomies, that quaint and raspy smoker's bark or hers, and the chance to have double dog cuddles in the recliner on cold winter days.

But on the other hand, Audrey and I will get to visit her in March, so there is always that to look forward to.

Few Reservations - Echo, Reviewed

While culture warriors line up to decry the latest Marvel series, Echo, on Disney+ as more woke nonsense or whatever, Audrey and I enjoyed finishing off its five-episode run last night.

I am barely familiar with the comics background of the main character, Maya Lopez (Alaqua Cox), so the fact that her background and power suite differ from the source material is a non-issue with me. Having watched Hawkeye, however, I know the character is a former villain doing a face-turn and is a legit badass.

And I think a lot of the badassery comes from the actress herself, who, like Maya, is both deaf and an amputee with a prosthetic lower leg. This doesn't make any of her many fight scenes any less impressive, but the showrunners don't pinwheel from fight to fight. The bulk of the drama involves Maya's return to her former hometown in Oklahoma and her reluctant interactions with her estranged family and childhood friends. 

Having Tantoo Cardinal and Graham Greene appear as her separated grandparents was a real treat, as was seeing nearly a half-dozen actors from Reservation Dogs (including Dallas "Willaim Knifeman" Goldtooth). The Choctaw history and mythology that make up a big part of the story are well-presented, and a pre-Columbian game of lacrosse captures both the athleticism and desperation of a sport designed to replace battles.

The real draw for this program for me, however, is the return of Vincent D'Onofrio as Wilson Fisk, better known as the Kingpin. The tension he brings to almost every exchange, and ability to transition so naturally from measured control to elemental rage makes him as captivating to watch now as when he was the heavy on Netflix's Daredevil.

For my money, there hasn't been a real Marvel knockout on streaming for me since WandaVision, and Echo doesn't quite reach that level, even if the new PG-13 rating adds significantly more edge to the fight scenes. But as a family and crime drama set in the MCU, it brings a lot to the table, and at five tidy episodes, it makes sure not to overstay its welcome.

Echo is a good romp filled with interesting characters who are not just pulled from the Central Casting pool and who all fit well under the street-level focus of this corner of the MCU, even if that street is in small-town Oklahoma. And if some people believe that a comic book show led by a deaf, physically disabled Native American female is anything but a cool thing, well, let them miss out, I guess. 

The rest of you, be sure to hang around for the post credits scene that may hint at happenings in Daredevil: Born Again!

Just How Cold Was it?

Like most Canadians, I am predisposed to discussing the weather at length pretty much anytime it diverts from the expected. With this weekend's temperatures dropping to new records held for five decades, it seems a reasonable topic for blogging. I mean, I wrote about the same issue two years ago, but it was even colder this past weekend.

So just how cold was it? Cold enough to make the record books, for one thing. It dropped to -45.9°C Friday night, breaking the previous record low from 1969 (!) of -39.4°. The mercury hasn't risen above -20° since Tuesday night but Tuesday's forecast has it going all the way up to -16°, making BBQing at least a possibility again.  

Saturday night it was cold enough to warrant a province-wide alert from the Alberta Emergency Management Agency on everyone's cellphones, warning about the possibility of rolling blackouts if the draw on our grid was not diminished.

We quickly turned off unnecessary lights in the house and unplugged both vehicles as they weren't needed the next morning (even in-person church had been canceled!). Amazingly, it seems like many other people followed suit, with a 200MW reduction in power usage within minutes of the alert coming at 6:44 pm. Honestly, it seems like I get far too few opportunities to be proud of my fellow Albertans, but this was really well done!

UPDATE: Although there are also some very good questions about why more individuals than businesses contributed to this success, and how shutting down a couple of natural gas power plants may have helped cause the shortage (as well as a spike in electricity prices).

It is also so cold that the cargo flight intended to whisk Skye from Edmonton to Toronto yesterday was canceled Friday night due to extreme cold at YEG, and extreme snow (and thundersnow!) at YYZ. WestJet cancelled 191 flights across the country this weekend, so this was not altogether surprising.

Getting either dog outside in this weather is a real endeavour, I kept them out with me while cleaning up the yard from their earlier outings, before the snow concealed them until spring. They were initially happy to hop in and out of the garage to escape the wind, but were barking to be left in before too long, Canéla actually standing on two feet to keep one front and one back paw off the frozen cement.

Despite the aching in my toes (picked the wrong boots, dang it!), I took some time to refill the backyard birdfeeder. When I checked it less than three hours later, it was already half-empty.

At least I don't have to work outside like Glory's BFF on the farm!

Today we tried to take advantage of the low temperatures to defrost our freezer, which my bargain hunting has filled to capacity with a variety of meat, frozen dinners and pizzas. Food insecurity is not a thing here, unless there is an extended power outage. Working together, the three of us had the freezer emptied and into a half-dozen boxes in the garage in under half an hour - which gave me time to refill the front birdfeeder.

All in all, it was a good weekend filled with gratitude for having a warm home to be inside, friends over for gaming in the evening, and dogs looking for afternoon sunbeams to lounge in.

And I do not begrudge winter for being cold - this is Edmonton, after all, North America's northernmost urban region of 1 million plus. And I would love more snow to help replenish the water table in the spring after the dryest November in a century, frankly. 

But if the temps could hang around the negative teens for a little while before heading towards the spring thaw (and not go back to freezing, if you please!), I would be even more grateful!

The Rest of TXmas 2023

Looking back from New Year's (which felt very topical and timely when I wrote about it at the time), it occurs to me I should jot down some of the Texas experiences we had prior to that celebration.

Things got off to a delightful (if early) start when our flights to Houston on Christmas Day were completely hitchless. This may seem a mundane thing to celebrate, but I am a very wary and anxious traveler, particularly when border crossings are involved. There had been drama already when one booking site's autocomplete had mussed up a traveler's name and escaped my notice until after the tickets had been paid for, and then more when my vacation was almost denied due to a blackout imposed 6 weeks before departure, 12 weeks after I had purchased non-refundable tickets and 11 months after I had submitted my vacation request. 

So very little sleep was had on Christmas Eve, and it had nothin' to do with Santa. But all's well that ends well, and we landed in Houston late Monday afternoon, and Tara and Jerry arrived in short order to whisk us away to their lovely home outside the beltway.

It was close to 6 pm when we left IAH and I was kind of hoping we would hit up an awesome Texas Whataburger on our way home, but true-to-form, Tara had already prepped an immense charcuterie table for us, which we enjoyed on their patio.

The thick red liquid in our glasses is a remarkably weird beverage -  a fruited imperial sour beer called Elf's Blood, from the local Ingenious Brewery. What makes it weird? Well, let's start with the fact that it is the very first beer that my ale-hating wife has finished a glass of. We can move on to the fact that despite rocking an impressive 9% abv, it tastes like a tart fruit smoothie, but Elf's Blood earns its weirdness appellation primarily because it looks like Dracula should be sucking it out of an IV bag. I desperately wanted to bring some back, but having an unpasteurized live beer in my luggage for 14 hours felt like a terrible idea.

We gathered to open presents the next morning and discovered that Tara had purchased Xmas pajamas for everyone (as well as rainbow blanket scarves) so we could start TXmas Day off properly.

All the gifts were thoughtful and well-received, but the real treat was everyone coming together to help prepare the immense and tasty Christmas dinner menu. Peeling, pushing, crock potting and barbecueing all coalesced into a feed that Audrey and I were still eating leftovers from when we left nine days later.

Much of the rest of our time in Texas is a blur of eating, relaxing, conversing, sitting by the fire table or lounging in the hot tub. 

Or quiet time catching up on reading, both leisure...

...and professional.

Oh, and no small amount of drinking, including the excellent Goose Island Bourbon County stouts Jerry always procures as part of his Black Friday pilgrimage. They were excellent, as usual, and Jerry was delighted to see that Bobby was just as much a fan of them as he and I are.

And spectacular dinners out abounded; from seafood at BLVD in Galveston:

To excellent Mexican fare at nearby Don Ramon's:

And of course, our semi-elegant night out at McGonigel's Mucky Duck to ring in the Irish New Year:

Introducing Bobby to the Johnson Space Centre and Buc-ee's in the same day [CORRECTION: Buc-ee's was actually after Galveston!] trip was almost overwhelming - so much scale!

But all good things must come to an end, with Fenya and Bobby returning to Toronto and Glory heading back to Edmonton Jan 2, with Audrey and I getting home late on Jan 4.

My depression this weekend had very little to do with the return of cold weather to Edmonton and a precipitous drop in both stout and margarita intake. But looking back over these photos tonight and in the future will be a great reminder of a wonderful family time. 

Happy Hou Year!

All five of us (including Fenya and Bobby!) have been with Tara and Jerry in Houston since Dec 25, and having a wonderful family holiday together in an experience we are calling “TXmas.”

We’ve been shopping (Buc-ee’s!), travelled to Galveston to touch the Gulf of Mexico and have taken Bobby to Johnson Space Centre, but some of the best times have been just hanging around their lovely home.

Last night was New Year’s Eve, so we went to McGonigel’s Mucky Duck, a listening room and bar with a wonderful kitchen for live music to ring in the new year…in Irish time (i.e. GMT, 6 hours early), so we were done by 6:30!

We had a wonderful time, then came back for time in the hot tub, a visit from their neighbours, a chance to sample an astonishing Goose Island stout (Angel’s Envy) that Jerry generously provided, and then some fireworks.

We ended up ringing the new year in via five time zones: Ireland, Newfoundland, Toronto, Houston, and Edmonton. And we did the Newfoundland one with an impressive barrage of fireworks (early and before the majority of drinking)!

It made for a late night and today has been blessedly languid, but now we are counting down our last moments together, as the kids fly home tomorrow to Toronto and Edmonton. A big chunk of the afternoon was spent watching the Eras Tour, which btw, is a spectacular watch.

And I know future gatherings and holidays will certainly come, but TXmas and NYE 2024 will be hard to top. Even if the next one does include a glow-in-the-dark T-shirt.