By Lucy

Monday was time to get organized.

I had to break in my new shoes. New leather shoes always feel a little tight, don’t worry that you bought the wrong size. Put them on and go for a walk, they’ll quickly loosen up as they start to mold to your feet.

I had to drive down to Superstore for a shop. I find the kitchen at my place is really limiting me. For example, there’s only a single baking sheet for the oven. No casserole dishes or anything else. I know I have all of that in my storage locker, but I’ll be leaving in a little over two months, so I don’t really want to go digging in there for kitchen utensils I’ll be packing up again shortly.

I grabbed a small head of cauliflower. Keto enthusiasts keep calling it “Keto mac and cheese”, but it’s just cauliflower with cheese sauce on it, guys. Calm down. That’s how you get small children to eat vegetables.

I grabbed a small loaf of gluten-free bread. Some gluten-free stuff can be safe for keto if there’s no added sugar. This bread only had 1 gram of carbs per slice.

If you haven’t tried whipped ricotta, you really should! It’s such a versatile treat. It’s like cream cheese, but tangier and lighter. And you can dress it salty or sweet with your choice of toppings. Obviously it tends towards tasting like cheese, but a pinch of sugar in the mixing bowl, or a swirl of honey and some fruit on top, and it’s easily so sweet and light! I’m not sure you can find it pre-whipped, but I bought the extra smooth stuff and whipped it at home with a drizzle of good olive oil.

I also bought some oranges. I am missing sweet, a little bit. I know the oranges race right through me, but I still restrict myself to a third of an orange a day. If I’m absorbing anything from them, it’s the sugar, for sure.

The next day was a little wild.

I was trying to clean up my room. Now that we have recycling bins, I don’t need to hoard my recycling in my closet until I feel like driving all the way to Westfort to drop it off. I was going thru the stuff under my bed and debating if I aught to try shoving any of it into my storage locker in advance of me moving out.

During one of my trips outside to shove another armful of cardboard into the recycling bins, my landlord was outside talking with the downstairs tenant, Steve. I was sucked into the conversation, but I had a bucket of cold water dropped over my head when my landlord started complaining about the “queers” up at city hall.

“What does them being gay have to do with anything?” I said, fighting not to let my tone be icy.

“Oh, nothing, nothing, they’re nice people -“

“So why mention it?”

They went on, eventually joking between themselves about how being gay is an exclusive club, exclusive in the sense of “excluding” straight people.

Yup, I’ve heard enough. I spun on my heel and ran back up the stairs.

My landlord followed, asking if he offended me and apologizing. I slammed the door in his face.

It hurts. And its hurts more than all the usual ways. He’s always very supportive of me, criticizing small-minded men who don’t want women in the trades, and he ends every conversation by telling me I’m “a fine young woman and Canada is lucky to have me”. It’s silly, but it is nice to hear. But when you say things like that, it implies that being gay is “less than”, and I could pass but I refuse to. I’m aware that I’ve been blessed by not really suffering for my bisexuality, and I feel like I have to pay that forward by forsaking my protection when I have the opportunity to speak out.

He wouldn’t give up. He invited me out for coffee with him and Steve.

Well, fine. But not because I forgive him. Just because I had no real plans for the day and going out with him aught to be interesting.

When he walked into the Tim Hortons he immediately announced himself by name, at full volume. The regulars barely glanced up. The cashier exhaustedly said, “Yes, we know.”

So we had coffee and sat around chatting for a bit. Afterwards he decided to go for a Sunday drive and I realized I had trapped myself. Oh well.

I got back to my place and had a notification. My Fitbit was dying. Well, no matter, I’ll just plug it in….

Oh wait.

Hah, I left the charger at the Vagabond’s place!

So I hopped in the car to go to Walmart and get a new one, cuz he wasn’t gonna be back until Sunday night. And I might as well have a spare.

They didn’t have any.

I did, however, grab a card for the landlord. It’s his birthday next week and I though it would be nice to have everyone in the house sign a card. Just a little thing. I am grateful for a place to rest my head, and all the times he lets me borrow his tools.

Then I walked to Best Buy.

Then the Dollar store.

Nothing! They want you to buy the Inspire 3 and I have the Inspire 2!

Well!

I ordered some off-brand chargers on Amazon. Makes sense to get spares now, since they’re apparently becoming thin on the ground.

Later in the evening, the Vagabond sent me a screenshot of this off-brand video camera he had ordered on Amazon.

He’d been talked off and on about filming his motorcycle rides and posting them on Youtube, but I could never tell how serious he was. He likes his privacy and I’m having a hard time understanding his motivation, honestly. I also figured that it was going to be a large time investment on my part – he’s not not tech savvy, but there is a fair amount of him handing his phone to me and going “I don’t know how to do this”.

And let’s be honest, I’m not that tech savvy either. I know people north of 50 like to think everyone under 30 was born with an cellphone in hand, but I was not. My eyes glaze over when the guys at the Barrie photography club starting arguing over mirrorless vs DSLR. But I know what I don’t know, at least.

The camera he sent me wasn’t going to work. I had a hard time impressing upon him that any camera under 400 dollars was going to turn out a meaningless blur of colour and would be a waste of money. Once I did, he was a bat out of hell to find a camera that I would approve of that fit his arbitrary budget.

There’s a lot to consider. Brandon had concerns about the sensors (for… something). Framerate needs to be high – I doubt we’d get a camera that could really deliver 4K quality and quite frankly I don’t give a toss for 4K quality. A decent framerate for 1080 seemed like a better focus. EIS – electronic image stabilization – is where the money is, and why GoPro rules the roost. It’s sort of like an AI that automatically crops and edits the video as it’s being taken to make it smooth and not jittery.

The last bit was the memory chip, but since those rarely come with the camera, I decided I didn’t need to educate him on it. I consulted Brandon and ordered a Samsung Pro Endurance micoSD, for speed of writing and also life of the card.

I stretched for a 128 gig, which should be enough for five hours of footage, but as it was I knew this would be a daily project for me. He wants to do the Circle Tour in a week, which is at least 300 clicks a day, not including sightseeing. Unless I bought some ridiculous terabyte card, I’d be uploading it to Youtube every single night lest I overwhelm my poor little laptop. I’d have to format the card, and of course there was the small matter of naming the Youtube channel etc…

Wednesday there was some sort of waterfront festival. Thunder Bay does so much stuff during the summer it’s hard to keep track of! I wandered down to the marina hoping I might meet someone interesting and make some new friends.

There was a stage set up for some local bands and they were pretty good. I did a lap around the vendor tents set up.

There was a booth for the Thunder Bay Museum, which I haven’t yet visited. They were handing out slips for a draw, winning a ’69 Pontiac Firebird. They were also handing out free passes for the museum and I managed to get 4, with the idea that I might be able to convince the Vagabond to go with me, Hanuman and Emily.

The Art Gallery was handing out advertisements for the Garden Tour on Sunday.

There was a man with a booth selling ostensibly authentic African crafts. Supposedly the crafts are made by single mothers, and he sells it for them and sends the money back to Africa for them. It’s heartwarming if it’s true. I took lots of pictures of that booth cuz I know the Vagabond loves African art. He spent a few years there at some point.

There was lots of little crafts and activities for kids as well, which was good to see.

I found a bit of shade and flaked out for a bit, but after about an hour I’d had enough of laying in the grass and went back to my room. I could hear the music from my room anyway.

Thursday was equally boring. The heat was starting to pick up again. Later on in the evening Eli asked me if I wanted to go out for coffee, so I picked him up and we sat at Tim Hortons for a bit. He got a hair cut and has started to work on his missing teeth. It’s good to see him starting to get his life back together.

When I got back, Larry and Joe were several beers deep in the kitchen.

On Friday, Hanuman messaged me in despair. He had hurt his knee and couldn’t do our planned hike on Saturday!

I told him not to worry about it, and truly, it’s not like there’s any malicious intent. I did feel very lost, though. Now I had precious few plans for the weekend, and I didn’t relish the thought of being trapped in my small, sweltering room, cooking alive.

There’s also the anticipation of the Vagabond coming back Sunday that was slowing the hours as they ticked by. I wanted something to distract me.

Cooking is starting to get seriously disheartening. Almost every time I see a Keto recipe I like, there’s something about the kitchen that prevents me from making it.

I have been eyeballing two subscriptions.

The first is called KetoKrate and offers a bunch of Keto snacks. I like it, but it only ships to the US. There is a service for shipping packages to the border and grabbing them there, but then the border will charge me a customs fee for “day-shopping”, which is BS.

The second is Factor, the pre-made meal service from HelloFresh. Now, I never jumped on the HelloFresh bandwagon and I thought the sales pitch was hilarious. Sure, a bunch of pre-measured, pre-prepared ingredients shipping in a box with a bunch of packaging and disposable ice packs – somehow cheaper than take-out? They are not – they were being subsidized by Silicone Valley. Every time they try to pull back on the discount codes, everyone bails.

I like Factor better because it is literally just take-out freezer-dinners. If I’m already paying take-out prices, I don’t want to cook! The big draw for me, though, is they offer Keto meals.

Well, barely Keto meals. They can have up to 15 carbs in a single meal, which is a lot for Keto! But once you’re deep into Ketosis, you can push your carbs between 20 and 50. I also don’t plan to eat 2 Factor meals a day, I just figured having one a day, or one every other day, would go a long way to taking the stress of trying to meal plan off my mind. Then I’m only trying to plan one meal, and snacks (because breakfast is always eggs and zucchini). That’s worth it to me.

Afterwards, I went for a walk down to Superstore to grab another log of bologna, this time a half. In theory, I won’t be spending a lot of time at my place next week.

As I was walking back, I ran into Hanuman as he stomped out of the hostel. Like me, he was annoyed at life and just wanted to get out of the house and go somewhere, anywhere. I gave him a hug and convinced him that we should go for a Sunday drive. I dropped off my grocery, we grabbed our water socks and drove up to Trowbridge.

This time, he directed me to the parking lot on the other side of the bridge. There is a large BMX park there, which I immediately took a lot of pictures of and sent to Duff, cuz he loves BMX. And the park is sweet! At my peak fitness when I was running all over town on my little red pedal bike, this would have been my favourite place!

We walked past the park to the Current River. Hidden in the trees are some steps cut down to the water. There were a few people lounging in the river – the water isn’t deep enough to swim, only waist-height at the deepest parts. We waded a couple of kilometers against the river’s flow.

The water socks were pretty good for traction. It was a lot of fun, a combination of a lazy river and a wave pool! I wished I’d had a bathing suit so I could flop entirely in the river, let the currents push me along, or lounge alongside the rocks for a massage like a tub with jets. The water was shallow enough to be pretty warm, but it was so hot that even the parts that were cold were very welcome.

After a while Hanuman had finally burnt through his restless energy, so I returned him to the hostel and went back to my place to shower and nap. I don’t know why, hot weather makes me want to nap during the day, and then I can’t sleep at night.

At 6:30 PM I had a photographers meeting. In theory, there would be a group of us at Timmies, and then we’d go to the International Gardens for a shoot.

In practice, as I suspected, the only other person who showed up was the only person who ever replies to my posts, a photographer named Paul Phillips. He was a nice guy, fun to talk to. He admitted he’d never actually done a shoot with a model – all the girls who want to model in Thunder Bay leave for the big city. Which does leave me as the oddball who moved away from the big city to seek fame in a tiny one. We chatted for about half an hour and then went to the Gardens.

Despite him being inexperienced, he was more than game to try, and I was very pleased with the results. You can attend classes for concepts like shot composition, use of negative space and colour etc, but some things can’t be taught and really need to be instinctive. Once we did a few different locations and poses, he started to develop a real eye for how to shoot me and we gelled really well. I think it will be a productive partnership!

Since I no longer had plans for Saturday, I flaked around, wilting in the heat. I got everyone to sign my landlord’s birthday card and shoved it under his door while he was out in the evening. He could probably find out that it was me who did it, but I wanted to make an effort to leave it anonymous.

On Sunday, it was too hot to cook. I went to Mr Sub to try their Keto bun. It was not bad… it was not great. See above John Pinette jokes about carb-free bread! I got two so I’d have something to eat at the Vagabond’s the next day.

I decided to go on the Garden Tour with one of the Soroptimists, Kim, and her friend Pat. I’m not really interested in gardening, but I wanted to spend some more time with my fellow Soroptimists and not spend another day dying of heat stroke in my room. The heat was such that the Sleeping Giant was erased by the haze again!

The first location is the old Art Gallery, which is tucked away on the Confederate College campus. I’ve never been in there, so it was nice that the Garden Tour tickets came with free admittance to the Art Gallery. They currently have a collection by a native artist about his childhood.

We only made it to 4 of the 6 gardens, unfortunately, but it was still a pleasant afternoon.

Then I went home, made myself some dinner, packed my overnight bag and waited for the Vagabond to get home!

Finally the magic text I had been waiting for! I flew across town and let myself in the back door, like always.

“Hey girl!” His face breaks into a giant grin when he sees me. I can’t think of words and just throw myself into his arms. We slow-motion crash onto the couch and just lay there cuddling forever.

“You lost weight.” He says finally, poking me in the ribs. “I could see it in those photographer pictures.”

I can never tell if it’s that easy to see my weight, or if he just has a really good eye for it. Still, a good opportunity to tell him about the diet. He is confusingly accepting about it – I’m healthy and happy, all he needs to know.

Monday we flake around the house all day. The camera shows up and we spend some time playing with it and getting it set up.

We also spend a lot of time talking. It’s getting to the point where my secrets have secrets, and there’s really no logical reason for it. Plenty of emotional reasons, but I have to work through that.

“It feels like home here.” I say, very quietly.

“What? It feels like home here? It doesn’t even feel like home to me, I just live here…” He says, glancing around as his brain catches up. His head whips back around to me. “Me? I feel like home?”

I nod, fighting the urge to close my eyes or bury my face in his shoulder. “I’m scared to lose you. I never had that before.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, girl!” He exclaims, pulling me in for a cuddle, tucking my head under his chin like he always does when I say something heartbreaking in its sadness. He holds me for a long time. Finally, he pulls back so he can look me in the eyes. “You’re my girl, you know that? I don’t want to lose you either.” He kisses the top of my head.

I feel tears well up behind my eyes. I’m unsure if I should let myself cry. My parents wouldn’t let me cry. My ex’s wanted me to cry as a sign of genuine emotion. The Vagabond is somewhere in the middle, viewing crying as manipulation, sometimes.

That reminds him to ask about my finances for the trip. I tell him the truth – still waiting on the last job to sort it out. Which is bullshit. But my credit card is clear and I have no problem helping out with the trip.

“I’d rather go to the soup kitchen again than miss this trip.” I say. Even though I’m really at no risk of that, my pay should be sorted before we get back.

He shakes his head. “You don’t go to the soup kitchen anymore, ok? You come here. I’ll cover this trip. Pay me back when you can.”

Home. I have a home.

Wherever you turn,
Wherever you may roam,
Whatever you conquer,
I’ll always be your home.

“I will.” I nod enthusiastically.

“I know.” He grin widely, then playfully shoves me across the couch.