Visit from Jackie

Jackie took a Greyhound from Montreal to Vancouver to visit her friend Josh and then took the bus over the mountains to Calgary to visit me. She arrived here on Tuesday. I was busy finishing up my project here at the field station, so I had little time to spare for my poor sister during the day. During this time, she entertained herself by getting a sunburn at the beach, writing in her journal, reading, and working on a crazy puzzle with unicorns on it. At least she got a bit of a vacation. She came out to do the long term grids a few times. I don’t think she enjoyed it very much, mostly because it involved waking up at 6 am. There were a few interesting things that I managed to squeeze into this busy week.

On Wednesday, Jackie and I took a hike up to Prairie View, which gives you a nice view of Barrier Lake and the field station. I have pictures that I’ll put up eventually. It wasn’t as difficult as the one I did the week before with Kurt and Crisia, but it was still tough work. We needed to take plenty of breaks and Jackie’s heels were bleeding by the end of it.

Jackie and I made it down to the Calgary folk fest on Thursday and Friday night. The bands of interest on Thursday included The Sadies, City & Colour, and Rufus Wainwright. Jackie and I met a couple of her friends for a drink afterwards. On Friday, we were joined by Kurt, Tracy, and Nikhil in order to see Final Fantasy, Hawksley Workman, and Neko Case.

My favourite performance was by Final Fantasy although it was a very short one that we almost missed; it was on a smaller stage, so the slightly more intimate setting made it better than the other ones as well. My least favourite was Hawksley Workman mostly because I didn’t enjoy his voice. The surprise of the two days was the fact that I actually found myself rather enjoying Neko Case who is a country singer. I believe this is because Crisia plays her music over and over when she’s doing dissections in the lab, so I found myself singing along because I knew all the songs.

As for the folk fest overall, I think I would much rather see many of these artists in a smaller, more intimate venues; however, the likelihood that I would go see most of these artists performing on their own is slim, and the setting of many artists playing over the course of the day allows one to discover something new. I did enjoy the atmosphere of the festival, but many, many people lazing around on the grass and getting up, talking, and walking around made it rather difficult to enjoy any one concert.

On Saturday, the field station had its annual open house. I had stayed up until 3 am after coming back from the folk fest to finish off my poster. Eliott’s hand will be made famous by my poster. The researchers from our field station and another one that belongs to the University of Calgary had to sit around for most of the day answering questions about our research, and in the evening, we had a huge barbeque. Jackie spent most of this day at the beach and then joined us for the meal afterwards. After lots of food, many of the researchers hung around taking advantage of the excessive amount of beer remaining. We started out on someone’s porch, and then moved back to the loft in the lodge, where Chey, one of the cooks, brought out a couple of guitars, and Olga, a field assistant from the other field station, brought out her drum. Jackie took over one of the guitars and the three of them proceeded to jam for a bit.

On Sunday, Jackie’s friends from Calgary came by to hang out at the beach, while I was busy doing work. Afterwards, we set two of our regular grids here and another one in Kootenay, BC before Crisia, Nikhil, Kurt, Tracy, Jackie, and I went on a long car ride to the Radium Hot Springs for an hour. Like the Banff Hot Springs, this was still basically a hot pool, but it was at least bordered on one side by cliffs so that the setting looked a little more natural. It made a rather nice end to the weekend, even though most of us had to wake up at 6 am the next day after only four hours of sleep.

Nikhil and I took Jackie back into Calgary to catch her bus on Monday. We had to make a brief stop at a grocery store so that Jackie had some food for her two days on the bus, and we stopped for lunch at a vegetarian Chinese place. Luckily we decided to take our food to go because we were only able to get to the bus station 10 minutes before her bus was to depart. I saw Jackie off, and then Nikhil and I had to rush to get to a movie theatre before our movie started.

We got to the theatre just in time to miss the regular commercials. We had gone to see The Simpsons Movie. I actually really enjoyed it. It’s been a while since I sat down to watch The Simpsons, but this made me remember why I did.

It was really nice having Jackie around since she can make me laugh and frustrate me with one single sentence. I actually missed her weirdness, and I’ve been told that she brings some of my hidden weirdness out, which is apparently good. I will not, however, miss all her stuff strewn all over my floor. :P