In the interests of public safety I should probably mention that if you’re going to the Calgary Zoo, watch out for the big male pelican. His wings are clipped, so the exhibit was designed with a little chain fence at about ankle-height that surrounds the pelican pond. However, of late he’s been jumping the fence and, as the interpreter apologetically explained, attacking people’s ankles, as well as umbrellas, purses, and baby strollers.

How not cool is that? Imagine going to therapy at forty-five and whispering, curled fetally on the couch, that you’ve got this lifelong fear of pelicans, ever since one savaged your stroller at the Calgary Zoo.

It’s like you’re not really welcomed back to a city until you check out your old haunts with someone new and go, “Oh yeah, I used to be here all the time!” A buddy of mine came up for the long weekend and we started off on Friday at a restaurant you would have had to pry me out of with a crowbar back in the day.

Here we are trying to look tough in Milestones, and just failing by a miiiile.

The next day we did up breakfast at Nellie’s, another restaurant I revere and adore, and stuffed our faceholes at a nice table under the skylight so that we’d have enough energy to go to the Space Science Centre, where we generally ran around like five year-olds and got motion-sick in the dome show (’Wild Safari’ - I highly recommend it unless you’re in a delicate state from lack of beverage restraint the night before).

Here I am generally being a nerd with the defects table. I was also a nerd on the Table of Nails a few minutes later.

One mildly alarming exhibit was a sand vortex thingy that was supposed to illustrate the effects of global climate change - there was a fan and you could change the direction of the wind and its speed. It was hypnotically beautiful - we spent twenty minutes staring into the sandstorm - but they’d put a toy tractor and truck inside and it was both creepy and sad to watch them get buried in the fine dunes.

Then we grabbed supper at Eau Claire (another old-tymey Premee haunt, mainly due to the candy store), which resulted in me smuggling most of a highly fragrant spaghetti dinner into ‘Spiderman 3.’ (My five-second review: crap on top of crap, except for some of the fight scenes, but it’s not like you can’t watch it. It’s Spiderman, for Gob’s sake.) Then today, we went right back out to Nellie’s and then to the Calgary Zoo, where my camera was running out of juice but I managed to grab a few shots, including this one of an orchid in the tropical gardens. I think I might blow this one up and frame it - I lurve flowers.

Further plans for the weekend now that my houseguest is safely back in Vulcan: avoid the rain, watch ‘Alien vs. Predator,’ eat fruit snacks in my penguin-print boxer shorts. Aw yeahs… living alone is so great.

When I moved to Saskatoon, only two small boxes of books would fit in the minivan. Being a rabid bibliophile, of course, I could feel my soul dying over those eight months. I decided that when I moved out I would bring ALL of my books, birth until present. It was merely a handy coincidence that the permanent move was carried out by movers, which prevented my family and I from shifting upwards of a thousand books to Calgary.

Among this treasure trove were such childhood trivia oddities as ‘Lots of Things to Know’ and ‘Another Giant Book of Fantastic Facts.’ (I guess I was destined for the Hi-Q team before I even started school. But I digress.) These facts, though, I gotta tell you… ‘fantastic’ is a bit of an overstatement. Most of them are charming oddities, and the ones that aren’t are… well… weird.

Here’s one from ‘Another Giant Book’:
“During the nineteenth century, when divorce was possible only by an act of Parliament, an unhappily married Town Clerk was drafting a Waterworks Bill for his town; and in a clause concerned with technical details he inserted the phrase “and the Town Clerk’s marriage is hereby dissolved.” Nobody ever noticed the phrase while the Bill was going through Parliament, for everybody probably was fast asleep before they got to the clause. In due course the Royal Assent was given, and the Town Clerk gained his freedom.”

Another not-so-fantastic fact:
“In 1762 the Venetian Abbe Grioni lost all his clothes gambling and had to return naked to his monastery.”

For goodness’ sake, this book was a birthday present in 1987. No wonder I turned out like this, fed a steady diet of unfantastic facts. What did you read most when you were a kid?

Two things:

1. Packing up and moving my entire room has made me realize that we are, at all times, in much closer proximity to giant spiders than we might like to think.

2. This song is for a guy I used to know and it is completely true, except that a) his name isn’t Sunny, b) I am in fact moving, and c) I don’t think he’s addicted to heroin - although many of his heroes are, or were, which probably tells you quite a bit about him. Nevertheless I think he deserves one last shout-out and then I won’t be mentioning him, even obliquely, ever again.

“We’re really missing you
We’re really missing you
Oh, and you’ve only just gone

Oh, well, you punched and fell
Then you felt embarrassed
My heart goes out to you
So I offered love
And it was not required
Oh, what else can I do ?
What else can I do ?

We’re really missing you
We’re really missing you
And you’ve only just gone

So, Sunny, send at least one thoughtful letter
My heart goes out to you
Tell us all how things are so much better
My heart, it left with you
What else can I do ?

Oh, they’re not forgiving you
And you’re not even wrong

Oh, with your jean belt wrapped around your arm
Oh, Sunny, my heart goes out to you
And with a needle pressed onto tight skin
Sunny, I cry when I see where it’s taken you

I’m here, I won’t move
I’m here, I won’t move
I’m here, I will not move…”