Paranoia or Genuinely Creepy?

Bonjour mes amis!

I got home today around 1, 1:30pm after spending all day yesterday with my friend and going back to her place for the evening, which was all very eventful but will (maybe) have to be put in another post. You see, when I got home I was quite tired as we had stayed up late and did a lot of running around, etc. So I sit at my computer.

My little step sister, who is 11, is the only other person home with me when she decides she wants to use the toaster (regardless of the fact I asked before we left if she wanted toast, of course) but my mother is weird and puts it away in the cupboard. So I'm halfway down the stairs to get the toaster down for her, when I hear a little squeak from my sister in the kitchen, and I ask if she found it.

"No, the construction guy just scared me," she giggled, still frozen in place from being startled. Confused, I then notice the man standing outside our kitchen window with the hard hat and shiny vest on, watering the bush with a garden hose. Very confused, but tired and thus not giving it any thought, I chuckle and get the toaster down, plug it in, and walk back upstairs.

It then occurs to me that not only is he supposed to be working in the road, he was using OUR hose and OUR water to water said-bush. Standing by OUR window, with two relatively young females home alone.

I went back downstairs and locked the doors and windows.

I texted my step dad about it and he went and yelled at him for using our water, but the guy claimed to have knocked on the door but no one answered, said he has daughters of his own and my step dad was convinced he only wanted water. Yeah, maybe if he knocked on the door with his finger nail...

À demain (I hope!)

Mlle Delphine

Voyageurs National Park - Jour Deux

Bonjour mes amis,

If you missed the first day, you can read about it here.

Saturday I got up bright and early again, but this time not until 6:30 or so. It was still cloudy but wasn't raining. While my parents and I waited for our hosts to wake, we went for a little cruise on the boat, which was fun but chilly. When we got back, they started to wake up and delicious French toast was served!

Then began the grand tour, my favorite part of the trip. We got back into the boat we rented while the family friends climbed into their boat, and they showed us around. First we headed up to Kettle Falls, which was probably about an hour boat ride away. Granted, our boat only had 40 HP so it wasn't fast. I loved this part because we actually crossed the border and got to be in Canada!!! I know, I'm a dork, but I'm a daydreaming dork who got the tiniest taste of her dream. The cool thing about Kettle Falls is that you can *only* fly or boat in, or snow mobile in the winter. Anyways, we walked up the trail and it lead to an overlook of the dam (I assume this would be the "falls" bit), and thus a little more of Canada.

We stopped in the hotel at the top of the hill with an awesome warped room. The floor wasn't just normally warped, it seriously bent down and was all crazy, it's hard to describe without a picture. Anyways, we walked around the gift shop but there wasn't much interesting. However, there was another little store at the bottom where the boats were parked and I noticed they had the same pure jam there as at the hotel. Because I wandered to look at them, I noticed on the bottom shelf there was a white can with big red text, something "Canada's." It was jam again, but it really was a Canadian jam; the back of the can had English and French. I bought it. (Edit: The jam is AMAZING.)

On the way back, we went down the Ash River and stopped to eat at the Ash Ka Nam. It was okay, but it literally took them an hour to get us our food and it really wasn't busy. We went onwards down the river and saw there was a waterfall with a man on the top, so one of our hosts, Terry, asked if we wanted to go up. I said sure, but wasn't that enthused. We ended up having to park the boats on the shore and climbing up the side of the hill, literally using feet and hands to get up some of the steep rock towards the top. I wish I would have thought to get some pictures on the way up!

It was so much fun! I had a huge grin on my face, despite the fact I wasn't graceful crazy enough to leap off of the log that had been split and was therefore unstable onto the highest point. Still, I was close to the top.

After that adventure, we made one more stop at the Ellsworth Rock Garden. It truly was a garden of rocks! The pictures couldn't begin to bring it justice, so I'll hope that my writing and your imagination can work together a bit here. Firstly, it was built on a hill so it had things at all sorts of levels. This man spent 21 years of his life designing and arranging rocks to make statues that depicted things like Native Americans, ducks, whales, etc. They were shockingly easy to recognize. The part I felt was especially awesome was the fact that he had built little stone walls. Short enough you could step over, but they added almost an Irish feel to the area, and it sort of guided how he wanted you to see things. Unfortunately it's been vandalized a lot since he passed away, but there are volunteers working to restore it to its former glory.

We headed back to our tent and the other couple's cabin, where the husband, Terry, got a soda out of the cooler. I was just standing there minding my own business, when he flicks water at me! He was looking at me kind of sideways and sarcastically said, "Oops, sorry. Did I get you wet?" And did it again. I dove for the cooler and cupped my hands to get some, but he had already run away. I called him out for being a chicken, and then awaited my moment for revenge.

Everyone was sitting at the beach and the couple's daughter wanted to go swimming, so she ran to get her swimsuit on. Mel, Terry's wife, asked if I wanted to as well, and I figured that would be best since Terry was already threatening to throw me in the lake. I've never been thrown in a lake before, so I figured I might as well go in prepared. When I returned in my bathing suit, Terry was at the end of the dock with his daughter. Muahahahahahahaha! I walked down to the end of the dock before taking off the pants I'd thrown on over my swim suit, and set down the water bottle I brought with (Yeah I know, it's suspicious, but I was planning on him being down at the beach!). Then I took my pants and water bottle, and set the jeans down on the bench next to Terry and asked him a question.

"Do you have a couple of towels? Because you're going to need one!" and then dumped the water on him. He jumped up and threw me in the lake, as promised... and then threw my jeans in too! But that was fine because it was sunset and I wasn't going anywhere that night. It was so worth it.

That evening, storm clouds came in. We sat at the end of the dock to watch the lightning. Well, sort of. Terry's family sat on one bench while my parents sat on another on the other side of the dock, so I sat down between them. Once it was dark enough for the stars to be easily seen, I laid back and looked at them while everyone else admired the lightning and chatted. It was really cool to listen as the storm slowly made its way towards us. The water started out gently lapping at the dock and shore, but over the course of an hour or so, the wind picked up and changed directions several times, with the water becoming more and more aggressive. I can now understand why it's so easy to connect a storm at sea to anger! Water really is a physical form of passion.

Afterwards, we went in and chatted for a bit before heading to bed. I know it probably doesn't sound like that amazing of a vacation to you guys, but I haven't gone anywhere in five years and this place was absolutely beautiful! Everyone was happy and having fun or relaxing. It was a lovely weekend, though tiresome.

Hope I didn't bore you too much!

À demain,

Mlle Delphine

Week Two: Exercise

Bonjour mes amis,

It's 10:30pm and I have to be up at 4am to dog pile into the car for a trip up north for the weekend, so this will be a short post with no French.

I was bad again, but in a different way. I worked REALLY hard Monday... which left me sore all week. In fact, my legs are *still* sore. I didn't work out at all the rest of the week, I decided I should let my poor abused body recover. But next week I've got it down. Not too much, not too little, juuuuuuuust right (Goldie Locks, anyone?). I hope.

I'll post again upon my return to share about the trip to Lake Kabby!

À demain,

Mlle Delphine

3 Hours of Sleep + 5 Hour Energy Drink + 16 oz. Cappuccino = This Post

Bonjour mes amis,

Warning: This post may leave you confused and questioning society and the world as we know it.

So, why DO they put your shoe boxes into plastic bags to carry across the parking lot anyways? I mean, it's a 3 lb box. Maybe if your hands were full.. But then wouldn't it stack better as a box? Sorry, that's been nagging me since I got my shoes this morning. Yes, I finally got athletic shoes! I haven't had any decent tennis shoes since like the 6th grade. I'm nearly set to start working out on Monday. The only thing left is to nag my parents into helping making some room in the living room.

I also discovered that nature treats me weird. Like really. We'll start with the simplest.

1) My body absolutely hates me; I'm "ill" far more than the normal person, to the point where I don't think anything of it when I actually am sick. My stomach is often unhappy and I can't breathe right to save my life (Okay, not literally, but...) and I get dizzy just from taking a quick shower. Today was no different. I was out walking around at a city get together type thing, it was hot and sunny, I was dehydrated, hungry, and running off of three hours of sleep and a 5 Hour Energy Drink. I nearly passed out on the way home. Fun times.

2) Bugs love only one portion of me; on my left leg I have six bug bites, all of which are between my knee and halfway up my shin. The other leg is the same but with less bites.

3) Only the inside of my elbows sunburned; Yeah, you heard me, the inside of my elbows were the only thing that burned today. Seriously, how do you burn the inside of your elbow??

I've had a really weird day. Before we even left to go get my upper shins bitten and the inside of my elbows burned, I was waking up by chatting with folks on the computer. My step father walks up behind me and puts his hand on my shoulder and just stands there with a smile. So I turn to him and ask, "Can I help you...?"

His smile grows as he replies, "No, just proud of you."

"For what?" Jeeze, my desk is a mess, I haven't washed the dishes in weeks, it's the middle of summer so it can't be grades...

He chuckles and says, "Just stuff," and turns and walks away.

Curiosity killed the Kat. But for now, this Kat must sleep.

À demain,

Mlle Delphine

Odd Dreams

Bonjour mes amis,

It's 5:27 am. I went to bed at midnight. I cannot sleep... So here I sit, with me, myself, and I. I had some sort of weird dream last night that made me really solemn and I don't really know why. The only part I can remember is talking to a girl from my school named Mary, about another girl who seemed to be completely made up, but had committed suicide. Mary told me that the other girl stole her phone, she knew it because they found it in her things, and the guilt was just too much. I asked how they knew she stole her phone. She said she guessed they didn't.

There's absolutely nothing I can connect that to right now. There was more to the dream I can't remember, though. My Canadian friend, Ryan, was somehow in the mix. I don't remember. Dreams are funny things... it's my third one this week. Kinda odd how you can have no dreams for months, and out of no where have them again. People say that when you stop dreaming it's because you've lost your soul. Does that mean I've found mine?

I'm not particularly religious. I believe in science over faith in these sort of things. But still, one can't help but wonder, because there will always be more questions and science will never have all the answers.

À demain,

Mlle Delphine

Thus Far in my Quest to be Employed

Bonjour, mes amis!

Alright, I kept mentioning the job but never actually writing about it, so here it is. Wednesday, I got a phone call from Cub (it's a grocery store) around 10:30 in the morning. That's rather early for a girl who stays up until 1 or 2am regularly. Anyways, the guy on the other end of the phone introduces himself as Matt and he begins the phone interview process for me to become a cashier.

Matt: Name a time you had a big project to complete, and tell me how it went.

Me: Well, *Stifles big yawn* in my english class we had this optional project to do, *Stretch* ...

You get the picture. Well, he had great things to say about me, so he went ahead and sent me on to the interview process with the manager at the store. We originally scheduled it for the next day at 3pm but it turns out that there was a big all day "meeting" (I found out when I arrived they had done lots of wine testing) and so we rescheduled for Friday. At 10am. *Groan!* But I was too excited to be brought down by the fact I was getting up early for a job I didn't have, so Friday rolls around and I get dressed up and go to my interview (mind you, I woke up at 8:30 to get up and look nice and awake!). This man was very pleased with my availability and the like, and he even introduced me to the woman who would be my direct supervisor if I got the position. He said he would call "today or tomorrow." The rest of Friday afternoon I spent clinging to my phone like I was a mother with her newborn child. No call. Saturday I wake up, and start to think they're not going to call. Joy. So I try to talk to a friend about it.

Me: ... Yeah, and they really liked the fact I'm pretty much open whenever!

Justin: If you don't get the job they just found someone with more work experience, I know all about operating a business. That includes the hiring process!

Alright, so I've never actually been employed before... But c'mon, I woke up at 8:30am, got ready to go, and made it to my interview with fifteen minutes to spare and a smile on my face. Finally reading all of those silly news articles paid off! I felt confident, I didn't fidget, I didn't smile too much but I did when it was appropriate.. Things like that. And they really liked what I had to say.

Sunday comes, and I've more or less forgotten my hopes of the job. I wake up this morning to my phone buzzing.

Me: *Groans, smacks phone* .. Wait.. *Leaps out of bed, clears throat* Hello?

They had five people interviewed for the position. I was "very highly ranked" but didn't get the job, however, he wants me to get interviewed at another store for a produce position tomorrow. He said I'd be stocking shelves and that sort of thing. Most joyous day.. But hey, even though it's about twice as long of a drive (if not a little more) at least it's at 10:30am so I have time to get there without waking up earlier than before.

À demain,

Mlle Delphine

Non français... je suis fatiguée.