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November 8, 1999.

Home again, home again, back from my Western walkabout & ready to chat.

First off, I had an absolutely kick ass time. You all may think that Edmonton is in the low 200's of best places to go, but you're so wrong my friends. For the first time in my life, I was within driving distance of the Northwest Territories, not to mention the dinosaur bone concentration in Drumheller. For my entire life as a Canadian student, these places have been mere abstractions; what one learns about in grade 6 and Bliss' Canadian History survey course, or just filler in the Travel Canada push the newspapers do every July 1st. I was there, and it was cool.

Not to mention that the whole weekend was not only a discovery of the new, but a celebration of the old; man, it was good to see Agamemnon again. In a strange departure from form, I didn't feel like drinking once in the time we spent together. That's almost an insult...Agamemnon taught me to drink beer in large undergrad quantities, after all. But it seemed appropriate to keep all of our senses about us & greet the day charged to the max.

Our flight in was quite the experience: we took the midnight flight to Calgary, & caught the connecting jump to Edmonton 4 hours later. But as we arrived at 2 a.m., the airport was closed. There were no coffee places for fortification & no warm places to hunker down. Eventually we just stretched out on the vinyl seats, put out heads on our valuables, ignored the people walking in & out & fell asleep. Not the most comfortable hour of my life, but a hell of an anecdote.

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The puddle jumper we were booked on for the red-eye commuter flight was a Dash 8...the cutest little prop plane you ever saw. The Boy insisted on calling it "Dashy" for the rest of the trip, and I could easily imagine a children's book written about the little commuter plane that could.

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Our host picked us up at sunrise in Edmonton & drove us to a welcome bed. She was amazing; the most darling girl. Those of you who've been to the Wild West will know what I speak of when I use the phrase "western hospitality." It's very different from Eastern hospitality, where more often than not your treasured guests feel uncomfortable accepting your generosity. As Agamemnon said, there's a really distinct notion of 'fair price' in the west - when he bought his car, he took 3 Westerners along & paid 4 grand less than the ticketed price - but when it comes to hospitality, there's a deep reservoir of cash on hand. For instance, we were lent a car for the weekend by a stranger, simply because Agamemnon asked for one. Thus we were given a surprising amount of independence & got to know the ins & outs of the city quite well.

Overall, western hospitality makes for a luxurious vacation when one is prepared to get by on a shoestring like a gutter punk.

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Well, a gutter punk that's inclined to attend 3 church services in 36 hours. We were there for Agamemnon's ordination. So this was a religious vacation as well as a reunion. This was another reason why we didn't get hammered every night: it isn't consistent with a priest's dignity. In fact we were given a complete run-down of forbidden topics in front of the parishioners: including drinking excessively, gun control, liberal trends in theology and Yonge St. Which pretty much let out all of the stories beginning with: "this is nothing; I remember when Agamemnon..."

Which is prolly for the best.

And we did do a lot of holy things during which there was no room for ribald anecdotes. I managed to collect material for 2 Mystery Worshiper reviews for Ship of Fools, which pleases me immensely as I've been waiting for the chance to contribute to their wonderful website without becoming a crackpot prophet of the apocalypse. I was very surprised by Western churchmanship; there's an immediacy & fellowship & practical purpose there that I don't find in the East. Where a UC minister would say "we should all strive..." or "one should be aware," a western minister says, "you better be ready." If ever I move to Edmonton, I think I know which church I'll be attending...I've never felt such a sense of community in worship before.

And on the high end of things, the consecration of Agamemnon was magical. I miss ritual - it's no substitute for solid theology, but it's still neat to see about 20 holy men & women stretch out their arm to assist the bishop in focussing the power of the consecration. I got Chrism on my hands during the Peace; before this weekend, I had no idea what Chrism was. Like I said, nice for a change, but too cold as a regular thing. I'll be posting links to my Ship of Fools reviews as soon as they're posted, which will give you that much more information, but as for now all I want to mention is that Dirk - Dirk the Unbaptized Atheist - received Agamemnon's first blessing as a priest, which is apparently worth a plenary indulgence. So Dirk skips out on his time in Purgatory while I toil away like a moron on the perfection of my soul. Bah.

But I didn't spend much time dwelling on it after the event; there was too much food & chatting to be had. The Boy interrupted my first foray at the sausage rolls by informing me that, "there's something you need to see over here."

As he led me through the crowd, I thought, "it better be beer." But it was better...it was a baby girl. She was the university chaplain's daughter, and she was perfect. I was allowed to spend a good twenty minutes carrying her around from place to place & cooing, which sent me to the skies. She was just soooo lovely. Dirk & the Boy took pictures, which I thought odd until I realized that they've never seen me around a baby before. Not a lot of babies drinking on weekday nights around campus, you see...although she was as fascinated as I with the Pink Bag of Justice. But where I coo over it, she tried to eat it. I don't think it was a very pleasant experience for her, but she seemed compelled. "Oh. Oh, this strap is sooo funky. Can't stop chewing...the strap. Ew. Ewwwww. Must eat bag."


the cathedral, if life were a sepia wash



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In between the churchin', there was quite a bit of time for sights. In our too-short weekend, we squeezed in the Art Gallery, the University campus, the downtown core & (of course) West Edmonton Mall. We managed to find the goth district fairly quickly...including a life-sized grafitti portrait of two goth stereotypes that had to have been modelled from Toronto's own Morpheus & Groovella. Sure, the whole goth section of town was only 2 stores, but I think the mural made up for it.

I have to say - the Mall to End All Malls really isn't that big of a deal any more. Sure, it's got a roller coaster & a haunted house & a really big Marks Work Wearhouse...but the mega-mall has proliferated since the building of West Ed, and I wasn't that impressed.

Or maybe it was because the Boy & I got really scared in the Haunted House & had to leave half way through. It was terrifying...you had to feel your way through close dark curtained corridors, and things would light up & jump out at you. After the first minute, I just clung to the back of the Boy's jacket & shuffled forward with my eyes closed. It was just too scary.

Yes, I know I pretend to be a vampire in my spare time. Shut up. It was awful.

Besides the Haunted House debacle, there was very little that went wrong. I got an enormous migraine on the last day in town, which made Agamemnon's 1st solo Eucharist celebration something of an ordeal...I've never been too nauseous to sing in my life. After the service, I was offered 2 large pink unidentified pills by one of the older female parishioners. Hey, if you can't trust little old ladies who go to church on a Monday afternoon, who can you trust? And she told me the first one's free.

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Enough detail. I'm losing my grip on incident by now, and just remembering how good it felt to be away from work & away from the stresses of the city. Sometimes I pass through the streets of Toronto, see places I used to go & feel oppressed by the memories of wonderful things that will never happen again. Edmonton is a clean slate. Our host offered to send me an application package for the university, and I'm strongly tempted to throw my energies towards the West.

As Jim Morrison said...oh, forget it.

Noting one final note, I was really happy to be travelling with the Boy. He's my favourite travelling companion ever. Then again, my other main travelling companion is my mother...and we won't even start to discuss why that's not the most ideal arrangement. But even with this working in his favour, he ended head & shoulders above the competition (i.e. the rest of the world), and I'm so glad he was there with me. As always, I mean.

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cathedral pic stolen from the diocese of edmonton home page. honesty is next to godliness.