Happy Holidays from the Pugsley Street Posse at the Milk Carton!

As I write this, the furnace has kicked in for the umpteenth time, chronically reminding me that it’s winter, and it’s here with a vengeance. *sigh* You’d think after 38 years of living in the North that I’d just accept the cold, but it still shocks me every year. Perhaps I need to start booking warm vacations during the Christmas holidays as bit of a reprieve from this insanity. We’ll see in next year’s letter whether I follow through with that or not!

But on to the highlights of this year, starting with a nod to my cultural roots; around Easter time, I took a fantastic workshop on how to make pysanky, or Ukrainian Easter eggs.  Wow. Talk about process! I don’t know how people take the time to make the multicoloured, intricately designed masterpieces that they do, because it literally took me all day to design two very simple eggs. And if you’ve seen my thumbs, then you know that it is not even a simple task to HOLD an Easter egg, let alone decorate one. So, I chalked this one up to experience, gave recognition to all of my Ukrainian forefathers and mothers that would have spent many hours on those little suckers, and moved on to other art forms. 

The next art form came in the way of a tattoo. I had been playing with the idea of getting a family tree tattooed on my arm for a while, and started muddling with the design over the course of the spring. Thanks to the power and efficiency of Facebook, I was able to post my rough draft sketches and get a lot of positive, constructive feedback from friends.  The design started off pretty “typical” but then I sat through a grad ceremony with a Sharpie marker and paper and doodled up the second design that you can see here. I liked it so much that I went back to the drafting table and decided to merge the two concepts together in to the final design. Eight hours, one pizza and lots of pain later, I had a completed tattoo, done by Mike Magee at Underground Ink in Thunder Bay. I highly recommend his service if you’re ever considering getting any work done even if my Auntie Mary thinks I’m a “stupid ass” for getting it done. haha! I love having my family tree on my arm. They’re always with me. 

My next big artistic endeavor was the completion of a 12x16 foot mural painted on the side of the Lakeview Restaurant here in Red Lake. It took just over 61 hours to complete, done over a span of three months…darn rain! A few years back, I re-designed the cover of the menu for the Lakeview, and the owners of the Lakeview, Pearl and Grace Fleming, decided it was high time that the imagery also blasted full throttle across the side of the building. What a fantastic way to pass the summer hours, with many visitors to the scaffolding, and “interesting”, perpetual commentary from the passer-byers. I got pretty good at keeping my headphones on after a while. ;) This project has also stimulated another mural project that is hopefully taking place the summer of 2011, with the idea of being the artistic director of the program, working with a variety of age groups, and painting four murals that will display Red Lake’s identity and diversity. 

 I also spent a substantial amount of time preparing for the Trout Forest Music Festival this year, determined to have an art booth during the festival. Unfortunately, the weather was dismal practically the whole weekend, with the rain and wind escalating over that time. I was forced to pack up all of my art work and forfeit the opportunity to sell and simply enjoy the festival at all, actually. (Fortunately for me, Facebook is a fantastic market for my art work, and most of my work has sold since then.)  But I did have the awesome opportunity to get my hands on some face paint, and paint a very pregnant woman’s belly!!! Maybe her daughter will grow up to be an artist from the experience in utero?

Luckily, I had a great feast of music earlier in the summer, taking my bestie Deanna to the Winnipeg Folk Fest for her first time. It’s pretty magical to introduce someone to a new experience, and we had a great time dancing in the mosh pits, eating delicious food and meeting a plethora of interesting people while listening to awesome music in the grass and the heat.  I was even able to hang out with my little man Alexander, who was at the festival with his dad. In a few years, I am sure I’ll be getting back stage passes to festivals across Canada, as either a groupie or manager of my son’s musical career.  

Deanna and I also packed up our young ‘uns and took them to the city for their first experience at the University of Manitoba’s “mini camp” where they were given the opportunity to take a focus program for a week. Alexander signed up for a physics camp, and enjoyed the experience, but preferred the Science North program that was hosted here in Red Lake the following week.  But as parents, Deanna and I both felt it was good for our kids to have the opportunity to see what university life was like, moving from faculty building to faculty building, and even staying in residence for the week. While there, Alexander was given the opportunity to brag about getting first place standing at the local science fair, and second place standing at the regional science fair for his study on bottle rockets. We had a heck of a lot of fun blowing up the neighbourhood with our air compressor and pop bottles for a good week. Alexander still likes to entertain his friends with this experiment on any given day. He’s even introduced food colouring to the experimenting so we have a rainbow of colours spraying my car and house. All in the name of science! As long as there aren’t any matches involved, it’s all good.  I am petrified what is going to happen this summer, since my boyfriend, Brad, and Alexander have big plans to create monstrous things that catapult and fling and do all sorts of questionable things. I’ve overheard them saying things like, “We’ll have to go way out in the bush to make that one because it might do some damage in the neighbourhood.” Oh oh. I’ll keep you posted.

And that brings me to introducing you to my wonderful boyfriend, Brad, a fantastic man who moved to Red Lake from Vermilion Bay just over a year ago to take up a new career at Red Lake Plumbing and Heating and swept me off my feet in the process. Actually, it was a long process, because he tried to sweep me off my feet about a year ago and we ended up getting into an argument instead and didn’t speak to each other for a while! Fortunately, Brad is a tenacious man, and obviously isn’t afraid of a stubborn woman *ahem*, because he was able to woo me with is charm, good looks and great cooking and is now a permanent resident at the “milk carton” here on Pugsley Street. Alexander and I love sharing our life with him and Sandy’s kinda getting used to the idea. Haha!  We’re in the process of transforming the basement into a music jamming room and looking forward to filling our lives with music, fun and happiness.  Life is good and we’re all reveling in it. 

Brad and I even had the opportunity to “work” together this fall, both being involved in the local theatre group. Brad was highly involved in the arts back in Dryden, where as I’d been on hiatus for the past 10 years or so! I was going to slowly ease my way back into the group by helping with some script writing, but ended up taking on what turned out to be a very busy and entertaining role! The group put on a “Ukrainian wedding” dinner theatre production where the Ukrainian bride was being married to your “typical” Anglo-Saxon, southern Ontario groom from a high class family. Well, you could imagine the chaos when the fleet of Auntie Mary’s decided to take over the kitchen, ensuring that prime rib was replaced with kielbasa, perogies and cabbage rolls. The groom’s mother had an affair with the groom’s best man (who he happened to meet on “BFF” a best friend’s version of eharmony) which ended as a “dance off” later in the night, the bride’s family got very drunk, and the wedding planner almost had a complete meltdown.  Brad can be seen in the picture with the groom having his photo taken by the wedding photographer. He played the role of “Chaz”, a very put out best man who was highly insulted that “Taco Diaz”, the groom’s best man was given more attention and recognition that he was, even though he grew up with the groom! People who came to the show said later that they felt like they were at a real wedding reception so I guess it was a success! 

  This fall also brought Alexander into the double digits, and I now have an official ten year old on my hands! I can’t believe how quickly those first ten years went by and hope that the next ten slow down a little bit so that my baby isn’t out the door sooner than I think! (Don’t get me wrong though, I don’t want a 40 year old living in my basement. Haha) Alexander celebrated the event with a few classmates and a first class birthday party out at his camper on Flat Lake, complete with fireworks, marshmallow roasting, a swamp walk and ghost stories. I highly enjoyed seeing eight big eyeballs stare back at me while I told the old “fingernails on the roof of the car” horror story. Hee hee! 

Sandy the wonder dog continues to grace us with her presence, albeit a bit slower than last year. She is really into barking a lot lately, demanding treats more often than she actually deserves, but I humour her. She is close to 80 years old and should get a cookie close to any time she wants one as far as I’m concerned. She likes to bark any time Brad and I kiss or hug! Oh, what a mighty protector she is! Haha As we speak, she’s lazily snoozing on the couch, oblivious to the fact that such kind words are being said about her dear old soul. She’s a beautiful girl. 

Other quick news is that I finally sold my Chevy Avalanche, albeit with much sorrow. That was definitely my adventure truck and I’m truly missing having her with me. I will buy a new truck of some kind, but haven’t really even starting thinking about researching it. I guess I’m still thinking about all the great memories I had in that red beast and haven’t moved forward yet to thinking about new adventures.  But we have big plans for the summer (refer to paragraph about catapulting things in the bushes) so I think that will be my project for the new year…..buying a new adventure beast. Yeehaw. 

I continue to teach at RLDHS, moving in to my 14^th year as a teacher, and 13 as the Visual Arts teacher! Wow! I had an excellent experience at this year’s Subject Area Group Conference at the Winnipeg Art Gallery, where the focus was on social justice in the arts. I’m hoping that some of those concepts can be implemented into the mural program that we’re developing for next summer. I was also fortunate to listen to Sir Ken Robinson speak at the Burton Cummings Centre in Winnipeg a few weeks back about motivation, education and the Arts. I really feel that we are in a revolutionary new age of thinking in terms of the way our world views employment, motivation and self fulfillment and am excited to be a teacher going through this engaging process. I never thought I’d be excited about pedagogical philosophies and here I am writing about it! It will be interesting to see what kind of teacher I am within the next 5 to 10 years. I think it will be very different from the approach that is implemented in classrooms today! I’ll keep you posted.

Until then, from Brad, Alexander, Sandy and I, we wish you an absolutely fabulous holiday season full of love, excitement and great health. If you’re ever in the neighbourhood, please, swing by for a drink of good cheer. We’d love to see you.

Cheers!