The Apartment

Lizzie and I moved to Saskatoon. We have heard it called S-Toon as well. We like to use the adjective ‘sassy’ when referring to anything Saskatoon or Saskatchewan, so, Sassytoon.

When we moved in, it bordered chaos. The rental agent we had talked to up until then dumped us onto another agent the day of our movein. Needless to say, our new rental agent was very busy. If I had kept a tally of how many times she answered either of her two phones, I might have reached one hundred. But we got in. We had to clean the place ourselves because no cleaning crew had come through yet, but that’s not at all interesting. We had a painter come in to fix a plaster problem on our living room wall. As I began to mention how the plaster was weak and might break with any shift of the wall he karate chopped the bad plaster and watched it crumble to the floor. “Yup, it’s weak,” he said with a Canadian grin. We had a different maintenance man look at the moldy drop tile in our bathroom that was now leaking water. I began to explain how worried I was about the mold and that the tile would fall. Before I was halfway through my explanation his palm had shot through the tile, and again I watched something crumble, this time into the tub. It’s an ask questions later mentality up here. 

We hope to remove this useless folding door to our kitchen soon.

We have an empty room. Our kitchen has dishes, utensils, and we even picked up a table with four stools on clearance. Our bedroom has a newly purchased, on sale, bed and boxspring in it. Our bathroom, well it’s a bathroom. Our toiletries are in there. But the living room… We moved with no furniture, and as such, there is nothing to occupy a living room. We have some ideas. 1.) The Gallery. We have lots of pictures to put up, even groups of pictures with unifying themes. I’m thinking of making cards explaining each piece. 2.) Sassy Fitness. Our living room has a 57ft. perimeter. 92.63 laps is one mile. 2426.91 laps is a marathon. During trial runs, we discovered the need to switch directions every 10 laps to avoid dizziness and leg dominance. I see this as a very profitable venture.We are open to suggestions.

Hopping the Border

On the first day we drove through Wisconsin and Minnesota, finally stopping in Fargo, ND. We had a cooler packed with dry ice from the Philippino ice cream store in Chicago where we kept our chicken salad sandwiches. We had three kinds of chips, apples, peanut and regular m&ms. We needed nothing but the miles to pass under us. We tried to stop at Culver’s twice, both times unsuccessfully. Fargo sucked.

Driving during the second day was unexpectedly beautiful. I had envisioned North Dakota to be a wasteland of dead grasses and shrubs and the bones of once roaming ungulates. Instead, outside of my window I saw brightly juxtaposed green and yellow farmland. Soybean fields marched right up to the edge of golden wheat; a ground layer in deep contrast with the dark, threatening to rain sky.

 

The border crossing happened. In short summary: I got my student visa. Lizzie and I learned that if we had lied just a tad bit more about the length of our relationship then Lizzie could have received an open work permit. They didn’t let my plants through—not even my Kalanchoe tubiflora which I had been raising from seeds for over a year. We had to take them back to the U.S. side. The border official there said he would put the plants in the new office and, provided that he would still be working there, that I could collect them in two years when my grad program ended. I will be taking ND Rt. 52 S on my way back into the states. If those plants are still there…well that would be hilarious. 

The mile marker said 223 to Regina. I said,"Holy shit! Google maps was way off!" I was now on the metric system; a first of many reminders that I was no longer in the states. Well, the third reminder. The first was those goofy accents at border patrol, and the second was that everything is also printed in French.

They call Saskatchewan "The Land of Living Skies." These two photos show that, I think.