Uninvited Guest

            Full disclosure: I was not at home when the following occurred. This is a second-hand account of the events of one warm Wednesday evening. Like a dentist extracting a stubborn wisdom tooth, I patiently pulled the details out of Wade. The details of which lingered like a gossamer blanket over the entirety of my house for a few days.

            The dog was put out for his nightly ritual of pooping and sniffing. But on this night his usual routine was interrupted by something. Something which caused him to not just bark, but to rear up on his hindquarters and bay at the intruder. Wade was upstairs preparing a bath for the child, presumably to make her mellow out so she would go to sleep quickly. Curious by the ferocity of our beagle’s cries, he proceeded to the closed guest room window.

            What he saw was the dog fixated on the three bins for recycling, compost and garbage (blue, green and black in colour and in that order, left to right). The dog would pace a few metres to the left but would quickly return to the spot between the garbage bins. Then he saw what the dog was losing his marbles over. A skunk.

            Being the intrepid scientist that he is, he began to record the account on his phone. Sadly, the focus on the video was the window itself and the video quality was akin to being at the optometrist with all of the lenses on the fancy chair in place. Blurry A. F. He sent it to me. I watched it, confused as to what I was looking for. Then I saw it. What looked like a saucy weasel sashaying between the blue and green bins.

            From text:

            Me: WTF?

                    It’s blurry

                    Weasel?

            Wade: Skunk

            Me: Fuuuuuuuuck

                     Did he get sprayed?

Then he gave me the cliffs notes of how he, single handed, removed the scourge of the nose from our yard. I got the Steve Harvey version when I got home.

            After watching the dog freak out at the skunk for a little while, Wade decided that it wasn’t a welcome addition to the fauna of our back yard. The neighbours can have it, but we don’t want that shit in our backyard. Huh, kind of like some people and a safe injection sites. I digress.

            He went outside, through the wide open back door, where the skunk was. Puzzling out what to do, he grabbed the rake. He noted that the skunk continued to spray its ass concoction intermittently. His bright idea was to open the back gate with the rake, allowing the skunk to scurry the fuck out of there. The rake is a standard yellow wide leaf raking contraption. The tines are plastic and, well, rather weak and flimsy. His attempts to jimmy the lock with one of the tines were unsuccessful. And causing more distress in his new stinky BFF. As a result, more stink.

            Being the good Canadian that he is, he went back into the house and retrieved his trusty hockey stick. What he found out later was that there was a gap under the fence which is probably how the critter gained access. We assumed we have the Fort Knox of backyards. So naïve. A second thought crossed his mind and he opted to grab the hose to actively avoid hand to ass combat. He deployed a steady stream to the skunk. Skunks don’t like water. It booked it out of the yard through the hole it had dug. The gate and bins were left covered in skunk stench.

            Relieved of the skunk, he went back to his fatherly duties.

            Then I came home. It was raining a little. I got out of the car expecting stink. My nose was met with the beautiful smell of freshly fallen rain. I opened the garage door. A faint skunk smell lingered. I was hoping that would be it but knew better. I opened the garage door on what I would imagine the inside of the scent glands on a skunk would be like. It grew worse the further into my house I went. It went from “oh yes, a skunk has been unhappy here,” to “a skunk’s ass has been lit on fire in here.” In the middle of the scent that you could cut with a knife sat my brave husband. Freshly showered, in clean pajamas and eating frozen pineapple. Both fans and the TV were on full blast.

            “So, tell me how you got it out of the yard,” I said as I leaned down to give my dog a sniff. He was unscathed through the entire incident.

           

I Only Wanted to Be a Mountain Goat

            We went to the zoo on Thursday. I had thought about going on Wednesday, but a combination of my nap running a bit long and severe weather kept us home. One pinkie-promise later, we were up early and out the door. The one caveat was that we had to be home for an appointment at one o’clock.

            The other caveat was that this was a trip to the zoo to pad out my Workweek Hustle stats. It was mostly business with the occasional stop to look at the animals and then keep moving. There were a few protests, but for the most part, our zoo adventure was uneventful. Until the tigers.

            We rounded the corner in the far end of the Eurasia section, anticipating the striped felines snoozing in their enclosure. What greeted us was what felt like hundreds of people loitering about, listening to a zookeeper explain the nuances of feeding a hungry tiger. At the far end of the enclosure was said hungry tiger and a second lady zookeeper wearing rubber gloves holding a bucket and tongs.

            A volunteer was chosen from the crowd to be the tiger. An eager little boy stepped up to the challenge. The lecturer zookeeper dressed him in a cartoonish tiger skin tunic and he gave a shy roar. Zookeeper guy then explained how they had clicker trained the tigers to accept a food reward. Many clicks were made and plastic food stuff was passed over to the child in the tunic to demonstrate his point. Then he demonstrated a bridge technique where the tiger is booped on the nose with a long stick. Demonstration ensued.

            We climbed to the top of the rocky amphitheatre to watch the presentation. My little one wriggled to the front of the crowd on the top tier. She was transfixed on the little boy in the tiger outfit.

            “I want to be a mountain goat.”

            “Just watch what they’re going to do, they’re going to feed the tiger.” She turned back to the nose booping. “Would you like to go down to that side and get a better look at the tiger?”

            “Okay!”

            I’ll begin by saying what happened next was obviously my fault for a plethora of reasons. First, I wasn’t holding her hand. Second, I wasn’t firm in keeping her next to me at all times. Third, I am not the most graceful when navigating giant rocks on the downhill route.

As I began to pick my way past apathetic preteens with no sense of personal space or ability to keep their backpacks off the path (and their angry mothers shouting what I was thinking), my little sweetheart was booking it down the rocky embankment in a manner that I questioned whether she was mine. Amazed that I reached the bottom without causing a commotion, I looked around. I expected to see my child waiting patiently for me at the bottom of the rocks. No sign of her. Shit.

I walked around to the front of the crowd. I was looking low. She was wearing an eclectic blend of colours and a bright red hat. She should have been easy to spot. Then I heard it. A voice amplified by a microphone.

“No sweetie, we aren’t looking at other animals today, just tigers.” Fuck. I assertively moved to the front of the crowd to the right of the tiger. I’m sure there were irritated people but this was a bit of an emergency. The assault to my eyeballs was one part ridiculous and one-part embarrassment. Standing front and centre was my little Zoo Tot. The crowd was nonplussed. I was mortified. A volunteer moved forward to collect my now very downtrodden child. The volunteer was talking to her in low tones, probably asking which camp she was part of due to the hat. My kid’s chin was on her chest in obvious extreme disappointment.

“Yeah, she’s mine.” I said over the heads of the children in the front row. The volunteer’s head snapped up. She had a look of distain; judgement. Yep, I fucking lost my kid at the zoo. That’s NEVER happened to anyone else. She gently prodded my child toward me and we promptly left the area lest we became “the little girl who interrupted the tiger feeding and her idiot mom who can’t keep track of her.” A stern lecture ensued since this is not the first time she has wandered off and stolen the show. There was the dancing incident of 2016 (not my fault).

The lesson: Buy a fucking leash.

Later, when we were recounting this incident to Wade, he asked her why. Her response was given with the conviction of a very stubborn, moderately proud, nearly five-year-old, “I only wanted to be a mountain goat.” Well played, child. Well played.

F is for Failing to Plan

            Tuesday was the day. Community Day at the Stampede. I promised my child that I would take her after swimming lessons to meet the Paw Patrol. I expected there to be children in various states of emotional disrepair, screaming and throwing their pacifiers at Marshal and his ilk. The plan was simple. Park at Brentwood station and take the train to the grounds. I packed up the bag with sunscreen, train tickets, hats and water. I was ever so responsible. Look at me adulting.

            The first snag in my perfectly laid simple plan occurred while looking for a parking spot at Brentwood; there weren’t any. I cruised up and down, wasting time looking for a coveted blank space. I thought I found one, but it was between two cars in the handicapped zone. I am not one to prick park and I moved along. To Dalhousie station. Where it was much the same. Until I breezed into the four-hour parking lot. Perfect! Now I have an excuse to get off the grounds and keep her from any five-alarm melt downs. We exited the car just in time to see the train we needed pull away from the station. Rather than sprinting, like I would have prior to the child we opted to patiently wait for the next one.

            The train ride was incident free. Things were looking up. We arrived at the Victoria Park station and were met with a man with a megaphone directing we, the non-ticket holder and non-senior people, to the left. I looked at where he was directing the growing crowed and cringed at the line. There were eight people in a tiny booth attending to thousands, neigh hundreds of thousands, of people.

            I briefly contemplated just getting on the next train north. But no. I made my little girl a promise. I took a deep breath and we walked down the stairs at an agonizing pace. Yeah, I was THAT mom. I didn’t pick my kid up and she negotiated the stairs like she was a cross between a sloth and a snail. We arrived at the bottom and I briefly looked back to see a crush of dazed people who were disoriented by the new directions into the grounds. Pulling my child along, I went in search for the end of the line. Just when I thought I had found it, I noticed the line was now curving back the way we came. Annoyed, we turned around and got in the first of a few lines of the day.

            Blissfully, a cowboy-ed up man with a radio suggested that those who could walk go to the Olympic Gate. Our march continued past the Cowboy’s tent. Yeah, the tent where walks of shame begin and sometimes end. Head up, I marched my kid past, refusing to entertain any enquiries about what is happening inside. We arrived, sober and unscathed at the Olympic gate to a line that was glorious to behold. Barely a line at all. We stepped up and I paid my $2 entry.    Next was a stop at security. I placed my daughter’s unicorn backpack on the table and it was rooted through by a man with a drumstick. I was going to ask him if he was about to tap out a sick beat while he probed between the hats and sunscreen, looking for any weapon-like items. He gave us the go-ahead to move on and we were promptly accosted by the kindest most imposing Calgary police officer.

            “You going to have fun today,” he asked her.

            “Yes,” she mumbled.

            Next was to find the Paw Patrol. It was raining quite heavily and I decided we should head inside to where I believed the BMO Kid Zone would be. We stopped at an absurdly small bathroom to ensure that we would have no incidents, since extra clothes was not something I had packed in that particular bag.

            “Where are we Mama?”

            “The smallest bathroom in the history of man.” Unsolicited chuckles ensued from a woman who was standing inside but not in line. Once a stall opened up we got down to business. For some reason when that stall door closes, my child loses her inside voice and she became a stand-up comedian. Now I don’t remember exactly what she said but it sounded like the opening of an episode of Seinfeld.

            “What’s up with all this toilet paper? Why is it on such a big roll?” The ladies around us couldn’t contain their laughter. Mortified, I took my time and may have checked my phone until the room cleared. Refreshed and unencumbered by biological waste, we went in search of the Paw Patrol.

            Having not planned our route, not consulting a map and feeling cocksure of where we were going, we plunged into the market hall in the BMO centre. I fully expecting to run into the Kid Zone if I just walked straight. We walked as fast as the crowd would allow us. The show was on between 11:30 and 1:30, and it was 12:45. We were running out of time. Rushing past fancy knives which never lose their edge, flat irons, skin creams and deluxe corndogs, I was beginning to lose hope. Maybe we were in the wrong place. We ran into a wall, no Kid Zone. We went outside into the hall and proceeded toward the fancy ballrooms. Skeptical that they would allow so many hooligans to tromp on their glorious carpet, we kept walking. Then we ran into a set of closed double doors. Aggravated, I pulled out the free map I was given at the gate. There was no Kid Zone that I could see through my blurred red haze-over vision.

            I pulled out my phone and consulted the Stampede website. Once I found the Kid Zone page, I was horrified to read the words, “we have moved to the south end of the grounds!”

            Son of a bitch.

            I looked at the gathering crowd near the doors and figured the weather had taken a turn for the worse. Dragging my child, we wound our way through the throng of weather related loiterers. When we finally reached the door and it was absolutely pouring. It was somewhere between downpour and monsoon. Fuck it. Paw Patrol or bust. We plunged into the rain. You may have noticed a lack of coats in the list of contents in the unicorn backpack. They were also not on our persons. They were at home. Dry and snug. We were fast becoming the opposite.

            We scooted past the Coca-Cola Stage which was empty. The midway was shut down due to lightning in the area. The puddles were many and some were rather deep. Heads bent to the rain, we arrived at the BMO Kid Zone., which looked to be deserted. No Paw Patrol. All that was there was an empty stage and a few people milling about a face painting tent.

            I overheard someone say something about a show cancellation. I relayed the message to my little Paw Patrol fan. She was in a word devastated. There were some sad eyes and a pooched out lower lip. If it had pooched any further and she would’ve stepped on it. Now what? I had to think of something fast to get her back to happy.

            “Would you like your face painted?” She thought about this for a moment and gave me a single nod. We waited in yet another line and were given limited options for what could be done. Which was OK. More choices would probably lead to a debacle of the face artist telling her no and more disappointment. She picked a panda face and all seemed to be looking up. Once the artist was done she was given a mirror to look in. Her response was teenaged angst at best. Which matched her somewhat goth look.

            “Do you want to get something to eat?” She nodded a yes, I put her hat on to protect her makeup and we headed off for some lunch. More puddles. More lines. More wandering around looking for a table. We were finally offered a spot by a nice family who was about to leave and shared lunch. A gaggle of teenagers joined our table once the family had left. The leader of the group was bold enough to ask if they could sit with us. The stragglers were too shy. I wondered when the stranger danger phase ended. We finished up and went to Cin City and bought a bag of doughnuts to share between us and even saved a few for Wade.

            On the way back to the BMO Centre we passed the Coca-Cola stage again. This time there was a performer and a few brave fans out in the rain. For a brief moment I considered how awesome and hilarious it would be to have her start a mosh pit and possibly body surf. The moment passed and we headed for a drier place. We went to the Western Oasis in the BMO building. I was positive I would be suffering from Stampede Swamp Foot by the time I got home.

We squelched our way around the art work and took in my favourite part of the Stampede; the craft show. She perked up at the sight of the fountain at the entrance and seemed happier dragging me through various artisan booths. The rest of her stampede experience was disappointment. She wanted to go see the farm animals. My elation about finding parking lost its shine when I checked the time and noted we didn’t have enough of it to go to the Agrium building. Gah! I briefly looked at Kid’s day to see if returning Wednesday was a possibility. Free entry between 7:00-9:00am. Double gah! So much for that.

At least our Stampede experience was bookended with rides on city transit. I hope it was enough to make up for the disappointment of not seeing Paw Patrol. Worst case, I know what her birthday theme will be this year.