Can Persistence Overcome Resistance?

 I love Alberta. The place, anyways. And yes, most of the people too. But there is a constituency I am finding harder and harder to abide; the ones who reside at the intersection of stupid and hateful.

The town council of Westlock AB voted unanimously to paint a crosswalk in rainbow colours for Pride. There were those who spoke out against it, but there was also a lot of outspoken support, and at the end of the day, the council felt it important to signal their inclusion for everyone and support for marginalized sexual minorities. 

Rather than express their displeasure in the next municipal election, a concerned citizens group (aided by GoFundMe money from who knows where), requested a plebiscite requiring "neutrality" for all town sites and resources, prohibiting flags or other public displays for any "political, social, or religious movements or commercial entities." Please note this would not only ban Pride flags but remove any chance to honour things like St. Patrick's Day, the Metis Nation of Alberta, Knights of Columbus, Scouts and Guides, the Hudson's Bay Company, etc.

The vote was held earlier this week and by Thursday it turned out a) only a third of eligible voters showed up and b) the neutrality side won by precisely two dozen votes (50.9%).

I mean, bad enough that small-minded jackasses take it upon themselves to spill black paint or do burnouts on these crosswalks across the province, but for a group of people so upset at acknowledging 2SLGBTQIA+ individuals in their own community that they would lobby for painting over a rainbow crosswalk and highlight to the world how intolerant their community wants to be is equally disheartening and stultifying. And knowing those regressive imbeciles at Take Back Alberta had a hand in it is not comforting either.

I believe this (re) post by Dr. Kristopher Wells, Canada Research Chair for the Public Understanding of Sexual & Gender Minority Youth at MacEwan University, sums up the shortsighted idiocy of this play:

But unlike some folks, I still believe in democracy and agree that the will of the people (in this, case, the will of the one-third of eligible voters who took part), must be heeded. 

I am glad to hear council is already looking for other ways in which to support this particular community, but laughed out loud when I read about this retort:

In the end, I think yes, love and support will eventually wear down ignorance and bigotry.

I just wish there wasn't so much of it to overcome, especially in a province with so much to love about it.

The Great Bookshelf Cull of '24

In the novel Buckaroo Banzai, the Great Man eulogizes a fellow Hong Kong Cavalier by saying of him, "he loved and slew, he made music and made merry, and never owned more than he could carry on his horse."

Despite the other differences, I feel people comparing us after I pass will not remark on my lack of kills so much as they will point out my tendency to hang onto things.

Not to a hoarding level - at least, not from my perspective, and I can't help but feel Audrey would not leave such behaviour unchallenged, but yes, there is an enticing, nearly sultry overlap between preparedness and sentimentality that can be quite debilitating, it turns out. Particularly when it comes to books.

Friends of ours are moving, and watching them go through the process of shedding decades of potentially or suddenly unnecessary accumulations has prompted Audrey and I to examine our own situation. And in a historically rare and fortunate alignment of time and motivation, we determined that on this Family Day long weekend, we would at last pare down our collection of books.

The stacks in question were six bookshelves of various sizes, qualities and provenance. Many of the books residing on these shelves were perpetually obscured, either by an additional row of books in front of them, or stacks of other items like compact discs. Some shelves bowed like the shoulders of Atlas under their burden, and Audrey believed the left-hand lower cupboard door had become a load-bearing element, but it turned out to just have been stuck. 

The gap in the second shelf from the bottom was recently vacated when, in anticipation of this weekend's endeavour, I asked my friends if anyone wanted my collection of Inferno! magazine, the first publication from Games Workshop's publishing arm, Black Library. Now I have the satisfaction of knowing all 44 issues are going to a good home, where they will be appreciated.

A few items were likewise rehoused, but the vast majority of them made their way to the Goodwill donation centre, including my Latin textbook from university. I also recycled the cheat sheet I used to help memorise tenses and declensions and the like - by which I mean, I memorized the sheet itself and painstakingly wrote it out before every major exam; such was my challenge with rote memorization.

That textbook and reference has accompanied me from Augustana in Camrose to two apartments in Edmonton, across the country to Toronto and back to Edmonton; it felt almost a shame to part ways after all that time together! But part we did, and from many other reference works as well. My rubric had a pinch of Marie Kondo's joy-bringing to it, but focusing on what Wikipedia or other websites could do just as well as these often out-of-date dead tree editions allowed me to be particularly ruthless with the non-fiction items.

Before too long, the downstairs table was carrying a significant number of volumes.

So much so that we exhausted our supply of boxes, so we took the half-dozen or so that we had filled over to Goodwill, and resupplied at the liquor store on our way home - with more boxes, that is.

Being forced to audit one's accumulations can be a trial, and a blow to nostalgia to be sure, but it is rewarding for all that. It is a chance to encounter one's former self, as when I encountered two books I had ordered from Scholastic probably in elementary in Willow Park. I elected to let go of my sole Alfred Hitchcock and The Three Investigators book, but maintained my copy of Lester Del Rey's Tunnel Through Time, recalling an early bonding experience with someone thirty years ago who I am still privileged to call my friend.

I came across my very stylish invitation to the 2005 GW Veterans' Dinner, where the company would fly employees and their partners to the U.K. to receive their 10 year plaques and a leather jacket.

Glory asked if I missed it, the culture and all, and it's true; there are times when I really do. But on the other hand, my current workplace has a number of people who share my dedication to doing good work, even if the subject matter isn't quite as entertaining as Space Marines and toy goblins. And to be honest, I have probably saved myself a great deal of clutter just by not working for a maker of fabulous toys and games.

From that same trip, I found what I believe was a napkin from the cafeteria at the Tower of London (?) that obviously I held on to because of a certain similarity in names:

And on one shelf, this exquisite (if tarnished) box which should be on its way to Toronto to join its namesake before too long:

Moments of reverie slowed us down but never fully overtook us.  By the end of the afternoon, we had whittled enough away to get rid of the smallest bookshelf entirely.

In addition to being smaller and tidier, things are a bit more organized now, and there is still room for a handful more volumes. This was an afternoon well spent!

But wait - why is Audrey gazing over at the shelves full of boardgames?

A Great Achievement in Stupid Movies - Argylle, Reviewed

Years ago, I was with someone when they watched their first Bond movie. It was in the living room at our old place, and we were watching Goldeneye, I believe because a new Bond with Pierce Brosnan was on the way and our guest confessed that they had never, ever actually watched one. 

So we tear into the cold open with its derring-do, wisecracking action, laser watches, et cetera, but when Bond chases a runaway aircraft off the edge of a cliff, skydives into it, and wrestles control away from the Russian pilot, soaring away to the strains of Tina Turner's theme song, they rolled their eyes and snickered, "oh, brother."

I paused the film and said, "Look, everyone has their own threshold for this kind of stuff, but if that stunt tears you out of your suspension of disbelief or whatever, we may as well stop it here and put in something else, because, in the words of B.T.O., 'you ain't seen nothin' yet'."

They apologized (which I explained was unnecessary), we resumed the film, and although it was not entirely their cup of tea, they enjoyed the remainder and said they could definitely see the appeal. They just had no idea what they were getting themselves into, and the recalibration seemed to have helped.

Watching Matthew Vaughn's Argylle today in a theater empty but for the two of us, I turned to Audrey at one point and said, "I didn't expect this flick to be too serious, but it has slid way past silly and is wading speedily into stupid territory."

She gave me that look that I know means, "...and?"

"And I am here for it," I replied.

You probably don't need me to tell you the premise of Argylle is ludicrous, even by the standards of a big-budget, international spy film. Anxious, cat-loving Elly Conway (Bryce Dallas Howard), author of a series of highly successful espionage novels starring her creation Agent Argylle (dramatized by Henry Cavill), has her life turned upside down when a real-life secret agent (Sam Rockwell) tells Elly that her fiction has overlapped with real-life operations in such a way that a rogue agency is now trying to capture her to get a jump on what will happen next.

I mean, right away you should know we are further away from the John Le Carré milieu here and way closer to Austin Powers, right? But because this is Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass, Kingsmen), the action scenes are both brutal and beautiful, lethal and funny, particularly when Elly's rescuer Aidan asks her to crush the skulls of the adversaries he intends to lay out on the path of their escape.

"What? I-I can't do that!" Elly protests.

"No, no, it's easy," Aidan assures her, "the human skull is shockingly brittle."

Anyhow, despite or possibly because of its silliness, Audrey and I had a good time at Argylle. It is uneven in places, particularly where it feels like Vaughn is trying to bring in some dark humor from Kingsmen but having trouble squeezing into the confining PG-13 box the movie required. In fact, he mentioned in an interview that he didn't find it difficult so much as puzzling - head shots are R-rated but chest shots are PG-13?

Bryce Dallas Howard does a great job portraying a nervous person adapting to terrifying circumstances, but Sam Rockwell is a delight, as always; making you laugh and feel relieved but then adding enough ambivalence to make you wonder if trusting him is the right thing to do.

The book scenes with Henry Cavill are intentionally outlandish with a few too many CG-driven stunts (not my fave) and oodles of style, and let me tell you, for a gorgeous pop star, Dua Lipa looks tremendously comfortable firing a submachine gun from the back of a motorcycle.

For what it's worth, I believe the plot has enough internal consistency to get you over the finish line without too many "oh, brothers", but make no mistake, this is a story where, in the end, they are kind of relying on dumb to get the job done. 

In fact, I will tell you what: I hate when people tell movie-goers to turn their brains off and just enjoy themselves, but you are far more likely to enjoy yourself at this movie if you a) don't bring any cynics along with you and, b) periodically ask yourself, as I did, if perhaps this was originally intended to be an animated feature.

If you enjoyed the Kingsmen movies at all (particularly the second one), you can likely have a good time at Argylle. This goes double if you are smart enough to recognize when stupid works, but not everyone does, which I wonder is perhaps why it is struggling in the theaters.

The Grill - The Latest in a Series of Very Dad-like Events

I've wanted to replace our aging propane grill for some time now, and this weekend I finally did it. But it wasn't easy.

First of all, I needed to convince Audrey of the worth and validity of an upgrade to a wood-burning smoker/grill, followed by a rudimentary cost-benefit analysis. The arrival of the Traeger roadshow to nearby Costcos in the same month we got our cashback coupon from our Costco credit card was indeed fortuitously timed.

It took a bit of scouring but I did manage to find the Alberta roadshow schedule online, but misread it and took a wasted trip to the East Edmonton warehouse earlier in the week. I then accepted I would have to wait until they came to that store on Feb 6, but when I checked on Friday, the event had been canceled.

Rather than waiting until the end of February in  Sherwood, I drove out to Leduc after supper on Friday. I made my way to the improvised booth that had been set up, but was saddened to see nothing at the price point I was looking for. The two grills at my end of the scale (including a portable model) felt a bit too small.

Luckily Brent, the Traeger rep returned as I was preparing to leave, and suggested the one model might suit me well, as he owned the same model, the Mesa. He pulled out his phone and showed me a picture of his easily enclosing an 18 lb brisket, another with three large steaks and a half dozen ears of corn, and a third with an entire three-pack of Costco chickens sitting comfortably on the cooking surface. When he threw in the cover for free, I quickly consulted Audrey, got the greenlight and departed Costco with my largest single box ever in the back of the Flex.

The next day I deployed a new blade in the old box cutter and started the unpacking process. I quickly discovered there was almost as much cardboard as metal inside the packaging, most of which serviced as baffles to prevent damage from jostling during shipping. One nice touch though, is that they print a cute cabin on the inside of the box so kids can play in it, so we will put that aside until Robin's next visit. (Although the compulsion to colour it is almost overwhelming...)

Traeger does a great job with packaging their tools and with their assembly instructions, although the Ikea-style pictographs really made me question the need for printing it in multiple languages...

Despite my misguided focus, which almost resulted in my attaching a handle to the interior of the barbecue (oy!), I managed to get the whole rig put together by myself and got ready to prime the augur (a motorized screw that delivers wood pellets to the heat source, or firepot) and season the grill with a brief high-temperature run - and here I began to encounter challenges.

First, Audrey requested the chimney be moved further away from the house; fair enough; I placed the new and old grills facing each other beside the step, making sure they were both 18" from any combustibles.

Welcome to Grillbase Alpha

I then removed all the innards from the barbecue (heat diffuser, drip tray for grease, and the grills themselves), loaded the hopper with applewood pellets and followed the instructions for priming and seasoning. The augur turned so slowly at first I didn't even realize it was moving, but soon enough pellets began to drop into the firepot. I turned the switch off and then back on, and turned the heat up to 450 as instructed, and was rewarded a couple minutes later with the sight of fragrant white smoke puffing out the stack on the side.

This would need to continue for a half-hour or so, so I went back inside, but emerged a few moments later to a lack of smoke and a cryptic "HEr" message on the thermometer display. A quick online lookup revealed this to be a high-temperature error, and opening the lid revealed a small bonfire not only in the firepot but the end of the augur channel as well.

I switched everything off, blew out the flame and went inside to do more research while everything cooled. Fearing at first that I might have a faulty temperature controller or something, I eventually found a set of instructions on the Traeger that differed from those in my manual. This set added a step where you replaced the grills, drip tray and diffuser I had removed, which made sense to me since they felt tacky to the touch and undoubtedly had some sort of solvent or other compound that needed removal via heat. 

The second priming proceeded uneventfully, so I will say Trager makes a great product but their documentation and website could use some work. Oh, and yeah, that ended up being a lot of cardboard when I was done too. But now that my Trager was food-ready, I had still more work to do.

I raced out to the nearby Peavey Mart to grab some liners for the grease bucket that hangs off the end of the grill, but they had no welding blankets, which were suggested to me as an insulator against the cold. Next stop was to Costco for the three-pack of chicken so I would actually have something to cook the next night, and finally off to Princess Auto to grab the welding blanket and a steel pail for collecting ashes in.

Returning home, I froze one of the chickens and prepared a brine for the other two, using a mix of kosher and smoked salt, plus brown sugar. The next day, I rinsed the birds, lightly salted them, and added rosemary, smoked paprika, and fresh ground pepper, then put them on the preheated grill at 225 to smoke for an hour. 

The Traeger is meant to function using smoky, indirect heat with the door closed as much as possible, a real switch-up from my constant minding, flipping, and avoiding cold spots and flare-ups on the propane grill. Putting the welding blanket over top of it in order to regulate the temperature and potentially conserve fuel was a real aid to this. 

There is a port in the side so you can insert the included meat probe that displays on the grill's thermometer, but I subbed in my faithful wireless model so I could keep tabs on the temp while remaining indoors.

After an hour, I added an aluminum tray of little potatoes tossed in olive oil and a seasoning mix called El Chupacabra I had brought home from Texas, then turned the heat up to 375 to crisp up the skin on the chickens.

It was around 10 below and breezy during most of my first cook, but about 70 minutes later, the thermometer chirped that the chickens had reached 165 degrees, so I went out and brought all the food inside. If nothing else, it certainly all looked appetizing!

Audrey and Glory were returning from High River and it was tedious going thanks to the snow along most of the way, so the dinner waited in the oven for about 45 minutes until they arrived. Meanwhile, I cooked the potatoes for another 5 minutes in the microwave, since being uncovered, they were still crunchier than I wanted.

Soon after the family got home, we carved into the chicken, which was a smidgen on the pink side, but which Brent had warned me about and assured me was still safe. We ate with gusto, and although the potatoes were a bit of a letdown (lesson learned - get them covered!), the brining and smoking had provided us with moist, flavourful chicken.

So! First meal completed within 48 hours of purchase, and I was very pleased with both how it turned out and how easy it was to prepare. With the grill itself managing the temperature and the flow of wood to the fire, the Traeger is largely a 'set it and forget it' affair, which is right up my alley, frankly. 

Perhaps next time I will forgo the brining in favour of a saltier rub, or try our beloved beer can chicken instead. I am perusing recipes online at the Traeger site and elsewhere, and bookmarking furiously. Cincinnati chili? Never heard of it, looks interesting. Ribs? Obviously needs to happen at some point. Brisket? Hmm, maybe in the summer. 

Wait a minute -there's a cocktail section? 

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!