By Lucy

One week ’til I leave, 2 ’til I’m on a plane.

A realization settled over me on the weekend.

One thing I’d struggled with, rightfully or wrongfully, was whether or not I would have preferred to be in Thunder Bay with the Vagabond, or be here in New Zealand by myself. I’ve skirted that question with the simple truth that staying with the Vagabond was no longer an option. But now that my trip is coming to a close, I looked back and realized… I actually preferred being here. I’m glad I didn’t stay with him.

It was not an easy realization… partially because I know he will claim he was justified to break up with me, which is a lie. He broke up with me in a petulant fit, not because he really thought I needed to “be set free” to go on my trip. And partially because of the sense of shame my parents imparted in me. In my parents’ house there was no room for mistakes, errors, or the changing of minds.

It’s just such a dichotomy, though! I would not be in New Zealand at all if it weren’t for him! I am still in love with him, I still miss him, and it is hard to find room for all these conflicting feelings. How can I love someone who hurt me? How can I miss someone while knowing I shouldn’t want them back? By the same token, he was such a source of joy and hope for me. No one has changed me more profoundly. It is hard to decide if he is a net benefit to my life, and how to feel moving forward…

I seem to have this terrible habit of hoping I can change someone with love. Which is something I resisted acknowledging about myself for a while, because the armchair psychologists would start saying I have daddy issues and I’m a people pleaser, but that’s not quite it. I’m not subconsciously projecting my parents on to people and trying to make people love me. I’m projecting myself; I’m trying to prove to my parents that anyone can be lovable and anyone can change if you just give them love and affection, the things I never got. But it’s time to acknowledge that I’m not proving anything to anyone that way, and just focus on myself.

This realization was chased by the additional realization that what I really really wanted to do was message my dad with pictures from the trip and tell him about it. Then I looked down at the tattoos on my arms. I didn’t have those before. Or the motorcycle. Will my father even know who I am anymore?

Or rather, who I became when I had the space to grow.

Freedom.

Here, I learned to breathe.

It didn’t need to be New Zealand, no Eat Pray Love crap here. But this is where it happened nonetheless.

It makes me wonder more and more, about the things I don’t know and will never know. My mother used to wax poetic about the idea of taking a gap year and backpacking around Europe. But, so far as I know, she never did. Did she lack the ability to? Was it something that occurred to her only after she had kids? What did happen in the more than a decade between her finishing high school and meeting my dad?

I didn’t message my dad. The last few times I messaged him, he basically told me to eff off, so why waste my time? I emailed Andrej instead, who has been here for me the whole time, offering support when I needed it.

Anywho…

I feel much better now I can sleep again. I think I’ve reached some level of working out where I need to leave myself 2 or 3 days between workouts instead of every other day. It’s frustrating but I can temper myself when I see my gains; my stomach getting flatter and some definition in my biceps. I’m doing 30 push-ups now, 3 sets of ten. My plank has plateaued (hah hah) so I decided to focus on building up my stabilizing muscles, like obliques.

One of the things I’ve added to my travel shopping list is exercise equipment. You can get these cloth kettlebells that you fill with water or sand (or gravel, most likely) and since you can empty them and roll them up small, they’re great for travelling. They cap out at like 30 pounds, but I’ll cross that bridge when I get there. I’m also thinking a jump rope; light, easy to travel with, good for cardio.

Now that I am back to feeling good, I am freakin’ hungry. I seem to have flipped the switch for my metabolism; even on the days when I’m not working out, I’m averaging 2’300 calories burned, when the average for a woman is 1’600 to 2’200. You need to consume 15% more calories than you burn to build muscle, so I should be aiming for 2’600 calories a day, and I doubt I am hitting that. I’m going to be eating constantly when I’m back at work and my calories burned hit 3’000 every day. Ironically, the healthier food here is handicapping me; my breakfast of plain cornflakes and milk doesn’t even hit 200 calories because of the low sugar content in NZ cornflakes. The instant noodles have similarly reduced caloric value compared to what they would be in North America. Of course, the big problem is that these are all refined carbs, when what I need is protein, but I can’t ask Simo to buy me a bunch of chicken breasts. I try to make myself snack healthy; there’s usually bananas and oranges around for snacks, so I’ll have one of those and cut myself a chunk of cheese for the protein. Still, not gonna lie, I think one of the first things I’m going to do when I get to Invercargill is buy a bag of candy and inhale it.

I’ve been working more on my theory of why keto makes me feel good. One thing I found is leucine, which is common in fatty fish. Some studies have found leucine helps overcome cachexia, cancer-related muscle loss, and it’s found in high amounts in fatty fish like salmon and sardines, which I was eating a lot of on keto. You could theoretically supplement it, but fish oil supplements don’t really work that well; you’re better off just eating the fish.

I noticed that spirulina is top of the list for leucine as well, which makes sense cuz it’s algae. I rolled my eyes; I think the first time I heard about spirulina was when the Vagabond started taking it. He said something about it making it easier to lucid dream… I don’t know, he’s so into his new-Age mumbo jumbo that I usually just listen to him cuz I like the sound of his voice and not cuz I’m paying attention to what he is saying. Still, it might be helpful for me to supplement with it, although I gotta laugh at the copper content. 50% of your daily copper! All these “alternative medicine” nuts are always going on and on about heavy metal poisoning that doesn’t exist and then they’re telling people to supplement with copper! Good way to find out you have Wilson’s disease, hah.

The other thing I came across is that insulin moves potassium intracellularly. They give you insulin in the ER if you come in with hyperkalemia. Since staying hydrated is a problem for me, I wonder if the fact that being in ketosis, I’ve got all this insulin kicking around with no sugar to process means my body got better at processing potassium. Of course, there are 0 studies into this effect, because it’s such a niche thing to be concerned about.

I found an article that says 2% of Americans have been injured in a mass shooting. Two percent! You realize (depending on how you measure it) only 3% of Americans are trans? But, sure, trans people are a scourge and guns aren’t. There was a single shooting in Toronto on the weekend and 12 people were injured and everyone is panicking. That’s a slow Tuesday in America.

On the topic of criminals in Canada, a Canadian has made top 10 FBI most wanted. I find the timing highly suspect; as the idiot in the toupee is trying to argue that Canada is a source of criminals and Fentanyl, a Canadian gets kicked up the list? Still, we spent a good chunk of time speculating about the guy. To absolutely no one’s surprise, he was born and raised in Thunder Bay, although everyone quickly shouted me down by pointing out that the guy moved to BC fairly young and doesn’t seem to have been back since. Thunder Bay is a wretched hive of scum and villainy and I just like reminding people I’m tough as nails, ‘kay?

Saturday dawned bright and chilly. Kelly is too broke to buy cookies to share anymore. I debated giving her cash to bring some but decided against it. It’s wild to me that people think car loans in Canada are too expensive if the interest rate is 4%, and in NZ the interest rate just came down to 6! I half-debated offering to get her a Canadian loan so she’s paying less interest, but I’m not sure that math makes sense with the exchange rate.

There was a chicken stuck in the coop. That is to say, it didn’t seem to be able to jump up over the 1 foot rise into the yard. I helped it out and it ran off to get food, but I was willing to be it would be dead by the next day.

For first lunch I had Gary’s dinner the night before. It was stir fry and he barely touched it!

For second lunch I made a tuna melt with an open can of tuna I figured had been open in the fridge long enough for me to poach it.

I spent the day playing Rimworld and bugging Jeremy.

Little Lamplight continues to grow by adopting children. Just some weird quirk of the RNG; in my last game I didn’t encounter any children needing rescue. If you’re smart at the game kids aren’t a handicap; they can still work, so as long as you have someone who can cook and build, the colony can limp along for a long time. Also kids age exponentially, so the time from baby to full grown adult is 5 in-game years.

For dinner we had a lovely dinner of fresh pork; as in, it was killed and butchered the day before. Not that it really makes a difference for quality, but it fired up my bloodlust. Gary did the roast and we had pork cracklings too, the best part! And then we had a dessert, crumble – apple, pear and peach – with some cream and ice cream. We all agreed NZ cream is the best; whipping cream in Canada is 35% and it’s still not as thick and rich as NZ cream.

It was a nice dinner, all of us around the table cracking jokes and chatting. Both Gary and Ethan can be kind of sullen at times, so it’s a good day when Gary finishes his whole meal and starts telling us stories.

I glanced around the room that had been my home for 5 months. I was slowly getting rid of everything that wasn’t going on the plane with me and losing a lot of my personality. The bike and the bike gear were gone. I had been allowing my tea supply to dwindle. Every scrap of paper I’m not holding on to for sentimental reasons has gone in the fire.

I had to give up on my jeans. The holes must have been the bike riding, cuz I bought my black jeans at the same time and they have no wear in the same spot. I guess next time I should get specifically-made riding pants. I offered them to Simo as rags or something and she declined because she has too many rags already (from Gary). She suggested throwing them in the fire, but I think they have too much Spandex for that.

The chicken that couldn’t hop was indeed dead the next day. It was in the “young ones” pen, which is always concerning. Simo said those one are only 10 months old, and considering I got here 6 months ago, they barely started laying before I arrived! What a growth rate.

Simo suggested counting the chickens to see how many we’ve got left. It occurred to me that counting chickens is a skill not unlike that Mario Party game where you have to count a number of moving objects within a frame. I had the brain wave of just taking a picture of them all busily devouring breakfast and counting it later at my leisure.

In the evening I started watching “The Pitt”, a show on HBO Max that’s been blowing up among healthcare workers. It’s like your generic hospital show, except hyper-realistic; the central gimmick is that the 15 episode season covers a single shift in an ER, each episode covering an hour of said shift. Unlike, say, Grey’s Anatomy, the show doesn’t have ridiculous plotlines about romance and intrigue between staff members. Most of the drama is derived from the sort of real drama you’d get in an ER; people who are traumatized by the death of a loved one, difficult decisions about care, patients who’s injuries and illnesses are caused by assault or abuse, and the simple fact that you just can’t save everyone. The show also tackles social justice issues, like the African American woman who comes in shackled to her bed because the white paramedics didn’t know what a sickle cell crisis is and thought she was psychotic, or the man who was a member of the first ambulance service in the US, Freedom House, until it was shut down by Pittsburgh’s racist mayor in the 70’s.

Since I am a clever girl, I can call most of the diagnoses are soon as they present, and I can keep up with the fast pace of the episodes, but I think the average person would have trouble watching more than 2 or 3 episodes in a row without their head spinning. But it’s all background noise to me, I’m just killing time.

On Monday, Simo went to Christchurch.

I went about my day, crossing things off the to-do list. The guests had been people doing the Coast-to-Coast bike tour, so they left around 7:30. They left towels draped over all the soft furnishings… I don’t know why some people are allergic to the idea of hanging a towel on the hooks provided! We even have towels hooks in each room, you don’t have to go that far!

I closed the bathroom window just in time to stop a fantail from flying in to it. Still besieged by birds! Is it because it is the fall and they are cold? We never get this in Canada cuz, shock and horror, we have screens on the windows.

In the afternoon I dug out the potatoes I had planted myself in September. I was technically past my allotted 5 hours, but I had a feeling I should get it done that day and it was at the bottom of the list and I didn’t want to skip anything. The plants were turning brown and falling over. It was kind of fun; 6 months ago I planted potato seeds, now I’m harvesting the fruits of my labour! Farmer Lucy.I found a few red ones, and also a random Ube as well, as well as most of a broken wine bottle. That’s ok, who needs all ten fingers?

I had a lunch of leftovers. For dinner, Simo didn’t feel like cooking; she basically got home from Christchurch and shut herself in her office again to focus on schoolwork. I made myself some ramen with some pork and vegetables cut up and mixed in to it, like a proper ramen. I’ve been dreaming of all the take-out things I want to have in Invercargill and Vancouver, my last big splash for 3 months. Ramen, sushi, a saucy chicken burger or some fried chicken or both…

Simo pointed out that it might be easier if Sam drops me off in Rolleston and she agreed. The bus arrives in Rolleston almost a whole hour later but I’m not sure how much that changes in terms of when I will be dropped off. I’ll need to find something to sustain me on the 12 hour bus journey. No, it’s not 12 hours on the road, but there’s only half an hour to get to my connection in Dunedin and I’ve walked around that part of Dunedin, there isn’t any takeout there, and then once I get to Invercargill I’ll have to check in and get settled before I can sort out dinner.

Added some stretches to my evening routine. I’ve been having hip flexor pain; the pain is not when I stand, but when I sit.

I let the chickens out since it was supposed to be rainy the next couple of days. At one point, I was interrupted by a chicken I guess chasing a bug around the wall of my cabin, knocking on the walls like it was trying to tunnel in. The air is alive with the sound of farm equipment; everyone trying to bale their hay or bring in their crops before winter set in.

I had to laugh my usual dry, cynical laugh at whatever is going on in the US, and Glenorchy. See, the owner there was big on Elon; she had Tesla cars, the solar panels and solar wall battery, Starlink, everything. And it’s hard to argue with that. No one is doing what Elon is doing in term of internet connectivity and popularizing electric cars. Starlink has no competitors and even if you don’t want to buy a Tesla car, at least in Canada, every single publicly available charge port is owned and run by Tesla. He really was the textbook example of a loss leader; all that money is coming back to him, like it or not. It’s pretty smart. But she was lukewarm on the guy himself, admitting he had faults but trying to argue it was balanced by the good he was doing. I left before inauguration; I’m curious what she thinks of him now!

I noticed some absolute cretins trying to coin the term “polycrisis”. Umm, no. A crisis is a crisis, no matter how many facets it has. As up and down and bonkers as things have been since Covid, that’s really been the normal for most of human civilization. The period of calm between the end of World War 2 and Covid is what was out of the ordinary.

I had another headache on Tuesday.

I had an email from the Ministry of Skilled Trades that there was a Level One course opening up in Thunder Bay… June 16th.

Ok, firstly, why isn’t the union hall messaging me directly? It’s been a year since I first asked them to put me on the list, and I suspect they just forgot to do it the first time. They are not so busy with apprentices that they are running back to back training courses – they run one, maybe two a year. I should complain to a union rep or ombudsman or something.

Secondly, holy crap what a busy summer I will be having. The shutdowns will be done by early June. I was hoping for some post-shut work, but obviously training takes precedence. I have to schedule surgery in between the two of those, cuz I don’t want to take time off work and I can’t miss a day of training (well, I can, but I don’t want to). And then in between all of that, I have to find the time to work on Jeremy’s game.

Thirdly, how the heck do I sign up for this? I emailed the front office, but unfortunately Daylight Savings Time kicked in in Ontario so there’s now a 7 hour difference, which is bollocks for normal working hours. Assuming I get up and check my email right at 7, it’s already 2PM in Thunder Bay.

“Bonjour.” Simo greets me tiredly as I clean the eggs in the kitchen. I gesture to a tea made for her on the counter.

“Bonjour. Comment ca va?”

She pauses for a minute. “Comme ci come ca. Someone booked a showing for tomorrow. You know what that means.”

Of course. All of our plans for the day had to be thrown out so that we could get the house ready.

There were still black feathers scattered around the living room from the chicken on the weekend!

It was really windy and the clouds looked quite foreboding. I tried to warn Simo a few times about having the windows open, but she wouldn’t believe me until I dragged her outside.

At one point, as I was standing on the counter wiping down the 8 foot tall windows (not exaggerating) she came over with a measuring tape. “Would you say this is a good size for a kitchen table?” She asked, demonstrating the size of it in relation to the kitchen counter.

“Yeah. It’s a little slim, but it should be fine. Which house is this for?” I replied. She’s been anxiously working on the plan for the house in Methven she closes on next week, but she’s also been redoing the plan for the house in Akaroa as it nears completion. It had walls, a roof and windows now.

“Oh, this woman I am hiring to change the beds for the house in Methven. I told her she could have the table from the Stablehand when we sell, but it’s taking such a long time to sell I feel bad.”

“So you’re… buying her a table? That’s generous of you.”

“Yes, I like to help people.”

As she wanders off, I think about me and Kelly and how she helped us. Something about it seems vaguely predatory, helping all of us desperate souls. I can’t really see how it could be nefarious, but I’ve seen the same thing in how gangs operate… Maybe that’s just my personal history making me see something sinister in something that’s innocent.

The day went on and on and I was finally able to settle down at 3:30. Not for long; Simo came rushing out to my cabin before my tea finished steeping. The wind rattling the windows had shaken one of the double-glazed windows out of the frame and it shattered all over the carpet (no, it was not one of the windows she had open against my recommendations). Of course it was the one room in that a guest had booked for the night, so that was several minutes of picking up razor sharp glass while she fretted what to do about the guests and kept getting in my way while trying to help me, no doubt feeling guilty.

“Simo, stai attenta! Ci penso io.”

She paused and smiled. “Va bene!”

After I got the vacuum to clean up all the little pieces, she decided to “upgrade” the guests to another room just in case there was some we missed. Also because the wind was bellowing down the chimney like blowing over the opening of a glass bottle, except orders of magnitude louder and liable to keep them awake all night. I heard a wail down the hall; she went into the intended room and was trying to reach a cobweb on the high ceiling, but missed and knocked over something, making a mess all over the floor. I dutifully dragged the vacuum cleaner over, smiling and shaking my head.

“Thanks, Lucy!” She said, sinking down into a chair with a wry laugh.

Finally, back to my cabin for some real rest.

At 7:30, dinner still wasn’t done, as per the usual, we had guests for dinner. She told me to come back in 15 minutes, but the harried way she was rushing around and the tone in her voice told me to stay. She kept talking as she worked on the guests salads and when she went to serve them, she asked me to keep an eye on some bacon cooking in a pan.

Ooh la la, from being told not to be in the kitchen when she cooked to being allowed to stir a pan! The bacon was chopped up small, obviously to imitate pancetta.

She came back in, trying to uncork a bottle of red wine. The phone rings. “Can you get that, it’s probably Gary anyway.”

I pick up the phone, “Good evening!”

“What are you doing answering the phone?” He squawks from the other end, but I can hear the smile in his voice.

“I got upgraded! She’s busy serving guests at the moment.”

“Oh, alright. Tell her to call me back.” Click.

The bacon is done, it can join the mushrooms she’s already cooked. Time to boil the pasta. “How long does this cook for?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know, I can tell if it’s done by looking at it.”

“How?”

She grabs one of the noodles, “See how it’s white on the sides and cooked in the middle? When the edges are the same colour as the middle, it’s done.”

The guests have been served their main by the time our dinner is on the table; Simo finishes making the sauce. It’s really, really good; bacon, fresh mushrooms (it’s mushroom season so she’s been harvesting them), New Zealand cream, parmesan.

We keep talking even once dinner is done, which we usually don’t do. I suspect it’s her subconscious way of not wanting me to leave, cuz I’d do the same. Somehow we end up on the topic of sheep, and she mentions they had one orphaned sheep that ended up being a pet, Rosie. Even when Rosie went out to pasture with the other sheep, she still preferred human company. Apparently she got impregnant early by accident, so no one was expecting the lamb but someone noticed it, in the dead of winter in the paddock. This was Daisy, the second pet lamb. I guess because Rosie was raised by humans, she didn’t know what to do with her lamb, so she just ignored it. She has lots of stories about things Daisy tried to do to keep up with the kids, like hand stands!

The sun dipped below the horizon and eventually we had to call it a night. It was a long, cold walk to the coops to lock up the chickens. The possums have been out in force. I’ve discovered that no matter what, if you shine a flashlight on them they freeze and look at it – deer in headlights. So I had a bit of fun chasing them around the yard and using the flashlight on my phone to make them play red light/ green light with me. That’s probably a little mean, huh?

I feel like this post was kind of short. The opening preamble took a lot out of me. I think it’s going to take a lot out of me for a good while.

There’s been a video making the rounds on the Canadian front. Trump committed the cardinal sin of dictatorship; he united his enemies against him! What people forget is that Canadians may be nice, but Canadian hockey is still one of the most violent sports in the world because when we get angry, we do it right. It’s not all maple syrup and beavers up here; you piss us off, get ready for the storm. Mark Carney won the Liberal party election and will be our next PM, and he’s quickly overtaking the Conservatives for the simple fact that he’s taking a hard line against Trump. Even before Ford ordered the LCBO to remove American liquor from store shelves, it wasn’t going anywhere cuz no one was buying or selling it anyway.

Anyway, there is this legendary Molson ad in Canada that was called “I am Canadian” that everyone had memorized for a while. The actor from the ad made a new video spoofing the original ad and everyone’s been passing that around.

Just remember, you oversized Cheeto in a roadkill wig, we burned the White House to the ground once, and we will do it again!

Cuz I

Am

Canadian!