The curious nature of happiness

Why is it that happiness feels so brittle and fragile and tenuous? Yet misery is so dense, inescapable and when you're in the middle of it, it feels unending.

I'm in a situation which I don't remember being in before. I am happy, and I've been happy for so long I am starting to think there is a possibility that the other shoe might not drop. Balance has not been restored. Yes, I've had my knocks lately, but they're relatively small. The bigs things, the things that matter, are weirdly consistent, in a good way.

Today I was sitting in the sun on side of the trail with Oscar during the dog sled race here at Stardog Kennels. We were waiting for a dog sled team to pass by so I could get some photos. The birds were chirping, Ozzie was playing in the snow, squirrels were darting around, and I had a strange feeling. A happy feeling. Not the happy that comes with a helping of pressure, not a temporary glee, not joy or delight, it was more solid, more tangible. I guess you might call it contentment. 

I also realized something. The chirping birds and sunshine were not making me happy, rather they were like coins being added to a bank. Each coin makes me stronger. Each coin makes me weather the bad stuff better. Each coin makes me view everyone else with more affection.

I think I may be getting rich.

Another girl in the family

We are a two car family for the first time ever. Or at least we will be on Tuesday. We put a deposit on this zippy little 2005 Ford Echo on Friday. The mileage (kilometerage?) is 5 or 6 litres per 100 kms so it uses about half the gas the 4Runner does. 

Oscar loves car shopping. He managed to charm four chocolate chip cookies out of one of the salesman and he got to play with a huge box of toys including a dinosaur that swap heads. What's not to like. Rich also like car shopping although he would probably prefer to be shopping for a brand spanking new 4Runner. He gets very attached to cars. He refers to our 4Runner as "her." He's named "her" Fi which is short for Fiona 4Runner. I catch him caressing the dash or the steering wheel sometimes. He claims he's dusting it. Hmmm.

Revised minutes

It's funny how our perceptions of ourselves can be so skewed. Sometimes in a good way and sometimes in a bad way. I think I'm skinnier than I am and I have a minor shock every time I see a photo of myself. I thought I'd failed miserably my first time taking minutes the other night, and after comparing them with the recording, they are pretty close to spot on. Yes, it was hard work and it's not perfect, but I did not make the hash of it I thought I did. I don't do this often, but I'd like to take a moment to pat myself on the back. Well done, Christa.

Typing should be an olympic sport

My mom was a secretary for many years. She is one of the strongest people I know, but after my brief secretary experience my respect has gone to a whole new level.

I took the minutes for the Lorne Advisory Council last night. I typed 3000 words in an hour and a half. It is painful for me to write this post. My wrists are aching and my finger muscle feel like jelly. I bow down in awe to secretaries everywhere. 

My brain hurts when I think of the amount of acronyms and that flowed from the mouths of the speakers like a rushing river. It seemed like it would never stop. Every once and I while I am humbled and I realise I know nothing. This was one of those times.

My next job is to go through a 90 minute recording and try to fix my mistakes and fill in the gaps. My fingers seize up every time I think about it. My wrists are twitching in revolt, I think they want to sucede from the rest of me. This is one of those rare times where procrastination might be the smart choice.

Needless to say, this will be a short post.

Tears in my Hot Chocolate

So, as you may know, yesterday was the big day. I was going to hear if I got the job at Air North.

All day, I alternated between checking my phone and checking my email. I got lots of work done, keeping myself busy. The minutes ticked by, the hours were punctuated by texts from Richard asking if I'd heard anything yet. When he came home at 4pm I was trying to stay positive while I cooked a cheese cauliflower casserole. I tried not to look at the clock but when I saw 4:51 on the microwave I was really struggling to be positive. Five o'clock came around, then six, still nothing. Facebook comments and messages starting changing from "you'll get it" to "there are other jobs out there."

I was told that if they hire you, they phone you and if you don't get the job, they send you a letter. A letter! That's days.

This morning I checked YUWIN, the Yukon job web site. Funnily enough, between 10pm last night and 7am this morning, absolutely no jobs had been posted. When you check the postings every five minutes, nothing much changes at all. Between then and now there's been three jobs, two requiring a degree I don't have, and one for which I do not have the required experience but it wouldn't pay for the childcare and car expenses anyway.

Rich and I discussed our prospects this morning. He's spoken to a teacher yesterday who had waited 2 years for a position in Whitehorse, even though she was certified and experienced. The subjects of Alberta and England were brought up. After being here and loving it like we do, it would be even more heartbreaking to have to leave. Better to have loved and lost, I suppose.

Yes, it was getting pretty melodramatic.

Then I checked my phone. A message! 

It was one of the council members about the meeting Wednesday. I tried to stay cheerful as we discussed agendas and correspondence logs.

I put some water to boil so Ozzie and I could drown our sorrows in hot chocolate with marshmallows. Oscar thought it was far to early for whiskey. We huddled in front of the wood stove trying to keep out the chill of the -35C weather, ignoring the ice on the windows. We started watching a depressing episode of Call the Midwife on Netflix where a poor women is howling the workhouse howl, and the nuns explain to the midwife how it's like a howl of agony but there's no fight in it. The Yukon was feeling cold and forlorn.

That's right, more melodrama. I'm an emotional person, okay?

Then the phone rang! A Yukon number. "Hello?" I said, trying to prepare myself equally for good or bad news. 

It was Krista from Air North.

"I have some good news for you," she said. "We'd like to offer you the position."

The rest of the conversation involved a lot of "Thank you so much," from me, while trying not to shout for joy and also trying to take down the instructions for when to pick up my package and details about training.

I hope our landlord was not home today because there was quite a lot of whooping and hollering, plus some running around as Oscar and I celebrated. 

"I got the job!" I shouted.

"You got the job!" Oscar shouted.

The world is brighter. It's really not that cold, all you have to do is run around the house a few times and you warm up nicely. And the ice on the windows is so quaint, like a Dickens novel. I don't know how the nuns are going to help the workhouse lady, but I'm sure it will work out.

Anyone out there who is feeling down, I just want to tell you, don't give up. Good things do happen.

Whiskey sour

Today I find out if I got the job. For those of you who have been following this blog, so all three of you (hi, mom), you know what this is about. For those of you who are reading this blog for the first time (welcome) I had an interview for a job as a flight attendant for Air North.

This evening I will either be jumping for joy or crying into my whiskey. And its a 12-year-old single malt. So for the sake of whisky lovers everywhere who hate the idea of the perfect blend being ruined by floods of salty tears, let hope I got the job!

A tour of the Free Store

I'm told that free stores are common in the west. Before coming to Whitehorse, my virgin Ontario ears had never heard of such a thing. A store... that's free? But the tales are true. Our little Free Store in the Hamlet of Mount Lorne is fairly small but the odd treasure can be found.

Are you curious what we found today? Come join me on a tour and find out...

The Mount Lorne Free Store

This is where the magic happens.

Mile 9 Dump Recycling

Every week we come and drop off our garbage and recycling and every week I take a peek at the free store. I spent weeks looking for a sofa with no luck. This time I was hoping for a coffee table or a television stand.

The Free Store

Across from the recycling is the Free Store where you never know what you will find.

Books in the Re-use Area

This is like a library without the overdue fines and the paperwork.

Random stuff

You'll find lots of randomness in the Re-Use area. It's fantastic.

The Re-Use Area

This is where I found my wine glasses and soy sauce dispenser from last week.

Foosball table

Alas, if only I had the room.

The Re-use Clothing Section

There are lots of kids clothes here. With Oscar growing like a weed, it's a great place for all his clothes that are too small. This section also has a selection of hockey equipment, kids snow suits and winter boots, among other things.

Vacuum Graveyard

This one I don't quite understand. Either they are broken vacuums or Yukoners believe that a light dusting of snow and a few months frozen solid help improve the functionality of the average vacuum.

Our find

It was a train table and the sign said "Complete Train/Toy Table - no train though"

The island of Sodor returns

We sadly had to give up Oscar's lovely train table, made by Grandad, painted by Mummy, when we left because of lack of space.

Now, not only do we have a coffee table, but Oscar can play with his train set without having to bend over or crouch.

Why is it that kids get so much more delight from a train table than just playing trains on the floor? It's one of those mysteries of life. I'm just glad to see him happy.

I mean, look at this kid, isn't he adorable?

Furniture success at last

This was our find of the day. A couch with a hide-away bed and an armchair for $50. We found the listing on Kijiji and went to look at it today. The set is very old and worn, but sooo funky. They don't make them like this anymore. A very sweet lady was selling them because she was moving from a 3000 square foot house moving to a 1000 square foot place in a retirement community.

Here's a couple of weird and wonderful facts. One, this couch weighs a lot. It's from the days they made stuff with real wood from trees. I'm not sure but I think metal was more dense back then. Two, this sweet old lady was crazy strong. She helped us carry this beast to the trailer, and when she let go I almost sunk into the driveway from the weight of it. When Rich and I man-handled it into our apartment, we had to stop and hyperventilate about five times. Huh.

Between the couch and chair, using a few odds and ends we'd brought with us, and repurposing Richard's dresser as a television stand, we now have a furnished living room.

By the way, if anyone super accurate is reading this, I do know metal was not more dense 50 years ago. I was kidding. Love you Steve! For the repressed furniture re-arrangers out there, go nuts, give me your ideal set-up. Well, Mom, you'll be here in June, so you could just come and do it. Love you too!

Minutes

"Have you taken minutes before?" asked a council member.

"No," I replied, "But I think I will be all right. I'm used to doing interviews."

I was at the Lorne Mountain Community Centre, being shown the ropes. I agreed to fill in for my neighbour Katherine, taking minutes at the Lorne Mountain Advisory Committee meeting next week. Having heard how laid back everyone is in the North, I didn't worry too much about it. Plus I was super excited, I'd be like an essential part of the community.

Don't blow this Christa, be confident, I encouraged myself.

"...and you touch type?"

"Yes," I replied confidently, with absolutely no idea what touch typing is. I kind of assumed it meant touching the keyboard to type and tried to ignore the logical part of my brain. I pretty much always touch the keyboard when I'm typing, I've got this in the bag. 

I've since looked it up. According to Wikipedia, it's typing without looking at the keys.

Okay, now I'm a bit worried.

I'm not a slow typist, I type every day. I did take a keyboarding class in Grade 9. I won't say how many years ago that was, but I was using an Apple IIE. Nowadays I suspect I do glance at the keyboard, I don't really think about it. But how hard can it possibly be to touch type.

I am tu[oimg this semtamce without looking at the keys, and its taking ,e wite a long time,

Hmmmmm. 

Technically I can touch type, just very slowly and with several errors. So I didn't exactly lie.

I took a look at some previous minutes. It looks like it's pretty much word for word. I wouldn't be surprised to see sneezes and coughs and chair shifting recorded. I'm a little more worried.

Okay, what would reporter Christa do? Duh, I would record it. Of course. Problem solved. I can use the wonders of modern technology. Namely, the iPhone. If I had sound effect, this is where you would hear angels singing. I tested the voice memo app, even from distances and it works great. So I can type and have a back up recording. 

Genius idea number two, If I wear sunglasses no one will know I'm looking at the keyboard, right? That won't look odd inside in February, right? Right?

Will it be an epic disaster, or a brilliant masterpiece? Stay tuned for Thursday's blog post to find out.

A trip outside my comfort zone

We made a deal. 

The deal was that any day Rich wasn't substitute teaching we would pick one activity to do as a family. It could be skating at the LMCA (that's what we locals call the Lorne Mountain Community Centre), visiting the Wildlife Preserve, taking a road trip or snowshoeing. Well, today it was -27C so we decided against all those and opted instead for a family swim at the Canada Games Centre.

Here's the thing. I'm one of those people who feel out of place in a lot of situations. I've made my peace with it. I feel most comfortable when I'm camping at McCrae lake back in Ontario or hiking the Bruce trail, but take me out of my comfort zone and it's a different story.

One of the areas I feel most like a fish out of water, ironically, is in the water, specifically the water contained in a community swimming pool.

I still remember my dreaded swimming classes in school. Eye glasses were not allowed and voices echoed and bounced off the walls in the tiny pool room. This meant I was essentially blind and deaf and the majority of time I had no idea what was going on.

It hasn't improved much now that I'm older and supposedly wiser.

There's the whole secret and varied system for getting in the pool. My first time at the Wasaga Rec Plex I stood outside the change room doors for 15 minutes once until someone used a key card to open it. Then there's the little things I never seem to know, like you need 50 cents to get a locker. And then there is the litany of rules everyone else knows but me until someone tells me off or I read it on the wall after it's too late. You get the idea.

The Canada Games Centre in Whitehorse is a huge imposing building with three ice rinks, several pools, a fieldhouse, a flexihall, and two restaurants among other features. The first time I went in to check it out, I grabbed a brochure and went straight out again. Here's what happened this time...

I walk in the change room area with Rich and Oscar. I've got my peeps with me this time. I now know to bring a towel because of a previous experience. And I have bags for the wet swimsuits (also learned from a previous experience.) Rich goes into the men's change room. I stand there with Oscar and stare at my two options, the women's change room or the family change room. I open the door to the women's, I see a bum, I close the door. I wish I was more evolved, I'm just not there yet.

I try the family door. Several waiting mothers heads swivel towards me, eyes shooting daggers. "Wait your turn," I imagine the eye daggers say. Ten minutes of the one hour family swim time tick by slowly. A bead of sweat rolls down my neck and I peel off our winter jackets and hold them awkwardly. 

I see Rich in the pool looking for us. I catch his eye and shrug. He smiles and says, "Just change Oscar in the hall, then he can come in the pool at least." 

I love Rich. He is the opposite of me in so many ways. He is not daunted by the huge Canada Games Centre in the slightest. It could be because he's spent a lot of time in pools as a swimmer and a coach or maybe because of his glorious disregard for the rules, he looks totally comfortable. 

I change Oscar in the hall so he can join his already wrinkling father. One mother looks at me sympathetically. "You can change in here," she says, pointing to the bathroom her son has vacated. I do the quickest change ever, I'm talking Clark Kent in a phone booth quick, and scoot out into the pool, worrying that I'm breaking a rule.

Just as I'm wondering if this is all really worth it, I see Oscar's ecstatic face. He's found a ball with lightning McQueen on it and he's playing catch with Richard, laughing with delight. As we play, my worries begin to fade. As we are carried around the lazy river, one of the most fun pool features ever, I'm hard pressed to remember what my worries are. Now Oscar is floating around by himself in his water wings and braving the water slide and I'm having a great time. Instead of the anticipated scolding for some unknown rule, the lifeguard laughs at Oscar's shenanigans and turns on the big water slide for us to try.

After a hot shower and a nice sandwich for lunch we let Ozzie loose in the children's play room. He makes a new friend and a fort, does a few Lightning McQueen impersonations and climbs everything climbable. 

It was a good day. Once again the combination of family support, and our new home have helped me grow.

Score from the Free Store

Whitehorse may not have a re-store, but it does have a free store. Locals take their unwanted items to dump and leave it at the free store for someone else to take in to their home. They say one man's junk is another man's treasure. Lord knows we got rid of enough "junk" before we left. We only brought the bare minimum so it's fun to "shop" for little extras. I did see a cute sofa but unfortunately it was covered in a mound of snow, so we passed. This week I got a soy sauce bottle, some wine glasses and a planter and Rich got a Yukon golf shirt. What can I say, we're living the dream.

3 things I did not know about caribou until today

We had some excitement today on our road trip when we spotted a herd of caribou. Well, we thought they were caribou. I looked it up before posting this to make sure. And here are three facts about caribou I discovered.

1. Caribou belong to the deer family.

2. Female caribou have antler as well as males, unlike moose. Also moose are much bigger than caribou. 

2. Caribou are called reindeer in Europe. This made me wonder why Santa calls his caribou reindeer, so I looked it up. It's a controversial topic but as far as land mass goes, an island in Greenland (Denmark) is 38 miles closer to the North Pole than Canada. Therefore technically Santa's abode is closer to a European country than a North American country. No country actually owns the North Pole but it looks like it might come down to Denmark, Canada or Russia one day. I'd root for Canada but caribou does not rhyme with appear.

“when, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
but a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny caribou”

does not have the same ring to it.

A trip down memory lane

On July 19th, 2000 the Sun Princess docked in Skagway, Alaska. It was my first cruise on my first ship and Skagway was our first stop. I remember stepping off the gangway onto the dock. I had a disconcerting feeling that the cement dock was moving (it wasn't). Passengers were streaming all around me, making their way to tours and shopping. It seemed like I was the only one who didn't know what I was doing or where I was going. It was one of my loneliest days.

Yesterday I stepped on that very same dock with a different feeling entirely. I was with my husband and my son, watching Oscar see the ocean for the first time. It was February, and there was not a passenger in sight. A seal bobbed in the water, looking at us. We were alone, but not lonely. I have a peace and happiness in my life that 22-year-old me could not have foreseen.

My son, Oscar, seeing the ocean for the first time.

I was really excited to see Skagway again. It's one of the ports I'd visited the most during my time on working on cruise ships, and one of my favourite. I'd often go hiking up to Lower Dewey Lake with friends. We would picnic beside lake which could be so still the reflection was flawless. Sometimes we'd do a circuit around the lake. On top of the cliffs on the far side, if we were lucky we might see we an eagle flying beside us. It was one of the few ports where we could get a break from ship life.

Although many of my fellow crew members have been to Skagway, I don't think many have been there in the winter. Cruise ships start heading south around September.

Unlike Juneau where there is a tourist shopping area, and a separate local/crew shopping area, as far as I know, Skagway is just Skagway. I used to walk from the ship to the residential areas and wonder what they all did in the winter.

When we drove into Skagway it felt weird, like returning to a hometown after many years of being away. It looked almost exactly the same as I remembered it, only instead of crowds of people in the streets and shops, the streets were practically deserted.

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Downtown Skagway, on a beautiful February day. Photo by Christa Galloway.

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Rich was concerned about the 20 minute parking limit in Skagway yesterday (Feb 1). I told him not to worry.

The population of Skagway drops from 2,000 to 800 during the winter, and that's not factoring in almost a million people who come for the day on cruise ships.

Most of the shops were boarded up or had empty display cases in their windows. The tour company buses were all hibernating. We actually drove onto the cruise ship dock, noting our favourite restaurant, the Stowaway Cafe, had a new name, and our favourite coffee stand was still there, but closed. 

There were some cafes and restaurants open, a couple shops, and of course, the liquor store. We went to The Sweet Tooth Cafe for lunch, took a drive to the abandoned town of Dyea, and headed home.

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The Sweet Tooth Cafe, a familiar sight in the port of Skagway. 

Oh yeah, the shocking secret, or rather, the mildly surprising fact about Skagway in winter... No snow. That's right. Far from the ice-encrusted ghost town with snow drifts in the streets of my imagination, it looked pretty much the same as it does in the spring at the beginning of the cruise season. There was even green grass on the lawns. Who knew?

The road to Skagway

Yesterday we took a two-hour road trip, crossing a time zone, a provincial border and an international border. We stopped often on the the way, the scenery on the Klondike highway was fantastic. Here are some photos from the journey.

Klondike-highway-1

Klondike-highway-2

Klondike-highway-3

Klondike-highway-4

For the next post, the shocking secret of Skagway in the winter. Okay, shocking might be an exaggeration. Mildly surprising would be more accurate. For now, I'm off to the Mile 9 dump (yes, I'm a regular now) and another road trip down Annie Lake road.

Mountain man extraordinaire

I love this picture of my husband, Richard, from yesterday. He looks happier than I've seen him look for a very long time. He's taken to northern life like a duck to water. He loves the views, the majesty of the mountains, the exploring to be done, and he secretly loves to chop wood. You can tell because his most frequent question is, "Do we need more wood chopping?" You can also tell by the way he admires his new, strong biceps.

We've heard over and over, "You either love it here or you hate it," from locals, many of them recent locals themselves. Then they peer at us intently and say "How do you like it here?" I'm always slightly surprised they need to ask, I'm sure it must be written all over the silly grins on our faces. We love it.

Yesterday was another one of those days. One of those great days. We took a road trip to a place we know very well from our cruise ship days. More about that later!

This was the view out my window 10 minutes ago

I tend to get distracted from my work by the view out of my office window. Can you blame me?

Head in the clouds

Here we are 2500 feet closer to the sky than if we were at sea. Clouds drift by, sometimes blocking the mountains from view, sometimes engulfing us completely.

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Low clouds over the peak of Mount Lorne. Photo by Christa Galloway.

The light is different here. A low sun illuminating low clouds gives the sky an appearance that is so different from where I come from, that it sometimes seems alien, a suitable backdrop for Captain Picard's number one, Riker and his away team. (Yes, I prefer STTNG to the originals, and yes, I am a complete nerd.)

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Cool skies in the Yukon. Photo by Christa Galloway.

The result of all this is that I often find myself outside in my slippers shivering, taking photos of the ever-changing sky. Maybe one day I'll look out and it will be so ordinary I will decide to keep my feet warm and stay inside. But that day is not today.

The Zumba experiment - gone wrong

Today I cracked open disc three of my Zumba DVD set I received for Christmas. It was a present from my mother who knew I'd taken an interest in Zumba. I first heard about it when I met someone who'd lost 100 pounds with Zumba. I love latin dancing and my main criticism of exercise videos is the excruciatingly bad music. My sister-in-law's warning "you'll really feel it" did nothing but make me more interested.

As I tore open the wrapping on Christmas morning and saw the Zumba logo, I was elated. Then I noticed the word "gold" underneath "Zumba." Gold, I thought, that could mean advanced. Like, you'd win a gold medal with this Zumba. Okay, I can dig it.

Then I saw the plus-aged dancers on the cover.

Ah.

They don't specifically say "for old people" anywhere on the package. I guess it wouldn't help their sales. It say things like "get grooving' at your own pace" and inside there are tips for alleviating arthritis and boosting memory.

Still, I thought, I'm not the most fit person, maybe it will work for me. I tried out the music disc before I left home and the music was great. When we got settled in our apartment I tried out disc one. This is the disc where they teach you the steps. Amidst the passive aggressive battle for dominance between Beta, the younger creator of Zumba, and Joy, the gold representative I forced my way through the instructions. If fighting boredom is exercise, I would have been fit as a fiddle afterwards.

The instructions are always boring, I thought. They'll speed it up in disc two, the cardio disc.

Not really.

But disc three! Gold-toning! I mean, there's weights and everything. Unfortunately, the weights are incredibly light, possibly to save on shipping costs. They do make a lovely maraca sound when you use them. And the pace didn't improve much either. It's like doing tai chi to fast-paced salsa music.

Don't get me wrong, if you're 70 or 80 years old I'm sure it's fantastic. I'm not quite there yet though.

I decided to finish the disc anyway. I was gamely doing the slow-motion movements when I saw my downstairs neighbour out the window. The one who teaches cross-country skiing, and jogs while pulling her daughter behind her on a sled when she's not winning skijoring races. The one who would challenge a fiddle for fitness and probably win. 

I am NOT ashamed of my gold Zumba, I told myself, mentally urging Joy to pick up the pace a bit. I determinedly stared at the screen and carried on.

Unfortunately I can picture what she saw. No, the tenants upstairs had not snuck in an adopted an elephant. It's just the slightly portly Mrs. Galloway, in her pjs and running shoes, hair awry, thumping away with her arm flung in the air holding the world's lightest weight.

Maybe I should take up a more northern pursuit. Like moose wrestling or mountain climbing.

A light frosting

I woke up yesterday morning and the world was frosted white. White snow, white trees, white clouds. Later in the day the clouds broke up into regimented sections and marched across the sky, leaving behind a brilliant blue. When I left my house for my afternoon walk with Oscar, I left my camera behind, because really, how many times can you photograph the same thing? Of course, once we were out there I realized my iPhone was not going to cut the mustard so I bribed my snowsuit-clad three-year-old to return to the house with promises of hot chocolate and marshmallows so I could fetch my camera. And I'm glad I did.