Smarter Than The Average Bear

This week I ate the biggest bear in Ontario history.


.... ok, well maybe not all of it. But still pretty impressive, no?

I suppose I should explain. First of all, I know that some of my veggie friends may be offended or off put by the content of this post. If you know me personally you know that I am omnivorous, but also be aware that this post will reference hunting as well as meat consumption. Consider this my disclaimer...

I have a wonderful friend from work named Erica. She is definitely an unique individual, which is probably the reason why I love her to death. That, and because she fed me bear.

Yup, real honest to goodness bear.

Erica is from Northern Ontario. Like many Northern Ontarians, her family enjoys hunting. Unlike other hunters, Erica's family has a web-based television show about it: "Just Us Hunting". Recently, Erica's mother bagged a 700 pound bear, the biggest bear caught in Ontario history. Did I mention that she did not use a gun, but instead used a bow-and-freaking-arrow?!?! (For footage, check out the episode entitled "Louise's 700lb Bear of a Lifetime".)

One day at work Erica mentions that she has massive amounts of said bear meat, and has been attempting to consume it for quite some time now. Being the caring friend I am, I offered my services & suggested that I relieve her from the burden of having to consume all of that meat by herself.

In my lifetime I have eaten game meat before, but my experiences have been somewhat limited to moose & deer meat. Being of the mindset that I will "try anything once", I found the idea of bear meat rather intriguing.

After weeks of cancelled "Bear Meat Night" plans, Erica showed up at work this week with a special lunch for me: Bear Meat Stir-fry, made with Trapper's Rice...a family specialty. I took the delicious-looking care package to the lunch room & opened the tupperware container....the meat resembled steak (of which I am a fan) so I began to get excited as I warmed it in the microwave.

I headed back to where Erica was patiently waiting, considering that it was only fair for her to watch my reaction since she took the trouble to prepare it for me. I stabbed a piece of meat with my fork, took a deep breath, and put it in my mouth.

It was deeeelicious!

Bear meat is in fact a great deal like steak...except it is a bit tougher, and tastes almost sweet. If ever given the chance I urge you to try it....although, chances are that yours will not be such a famous, or large specimen!

Thanks for lunch Erica, and for the chance to try something new!

Good Morning Heartache, You're Like An Old Friend...

(*Note: I had almost finished this post & stupidly navigated away from the page, thereby losing it all. Crap. Please take this into account...this post actually took twice the effort of a normal post.*)

Lately I have found my mind wandering back to the same thoughts over & over again...

How many times can a heart be broken before it is no longer able to repair itself? How long can you be heartbroken over a person before you are just heartbroken, in general?

For the record I would like to state that I hate these types of posts. I hate writing them. I hate reading them afterwards thinking to myself "Man, I sound like such a whiner". I try to project a strong and unshakable exterior because I associate emotion with weakness. Truthfully, I am a very emotional person, but it's unlikely that you will ever see that. I pride myself on my strength. If you hurt me I will scream rather than cry. Crying is weak. Anger is strong. Most of the time I can't even be bothered with anger....I mask most of my feelings with witty sarcasm and humour so that it is at least entertaining to the masses. I'd much rather be perceived as callous than weak.

I am taking a class about Adapting Canadian Literature to Film. Currently we are studying Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" (Fantastic novel, I strongly recommend it) and I came across a passage that really spoke to me and I would like to share that with you now:


"Falling in love, we said; I fell for him. We were falling women. We believed in it, this downward motion: so lovely, like flying, and yet at the same time so dire, so extreme, so unlikely. God is love, they once said, but we reversed that, and love, like heaven, was always just around the corner. The more difficult it was to love the particular man beside us, the more we believed in Love, abstract and total. We were waiting, always, for the incarnation. That word, made flesh.

And sometimes it happened, for a time. That kind of love comes and goes and is hard to remember afterwards, like pain. You would look at the man one day and you would think, I loved you, and the tense would be past, and you would be filled with a sense of wonder, because it was such an amazing and precarious and dumb thing to have done; and you would know too why your friends had been evasive about it, at the time..."

"...With that man you wanted it to work, to work out. Working out was also something you did to keep your body in shape, for the man. If you worked out enough, maybe the man would too. Maybe you would be able to work it out together, as if the two of you were a puzzle that could be solved; otherwise, one of you, most likely the man, would go wandering off on a trajectory of his own, taking his addictive body with him and leaving you with bad withdrawl, which you could counteract by exercise. If you didn't work it out it was because one of you had the wrong attitude. Everything that went on in your life was thought to be due to some positive or negative power emanating from inside your head.

If you don't like it, change it, we said, to each other and to ourselves. And so we would change the man, for another one. Change, we were sure, was for the better always. We were revisionists; what we revised was ourselves."


Any thoughts?

Not another apologetic post from an absentee blogger

I'm a flake.
You should be used to it.
I'm over it.

On to bigger & better things...which today consists of movies that scarred me as a child.

In my youth my parents closely monitored everything I consumed....food, tv shows, music & movies. Due to this, I find now that I am the one monitoring what I consume I tend to indulge in everything that my parents told me not to. I'm a badass like that.

As an adult I have developed an appreciation of horror movies...especially the really terrible ones (see: Zombie Strippers, Teeth). Despite the best attempts of my parental units, there were a couple of movies that I somehow managed to slip past their watchful eyes. I have re-watched these movies as a grown-up (I use that term loosely) and have come to realize that they are really & truly, quite terrible....but as a child they scared the pants off me. So badly in fact, that I believe they have left me scarred for life.

And now for your reading pleasure I give you exhibit A: Tremors

What the shit was this movie about....seriously? Giant worm things that lived underground & could pop out anywhere and gobble you up. For a little girl who spent a majority of her time with her feet on the ground, this was terrifying. And I didn't even have Kevin Bacon to save me. I mean, look at these things:

Not pretty.

And even though I was never a small child, I am quite certain that a "graboid" could swallow me whole. Shit, they probably still could. And because of this I am fairly certain I will never visit the desert. It may also explain my love of swingsets & climbing things.


Now on to Exhibit B: Arachnophobia

Before I watched this movie, I was not afraid of spiders. Afterwards, the same could not be said. To be honest, up until recently I was unable to deal with spiders invading my personal space without screaming (now, I am pleased to announce that I can in fact squish my own spiders very calmly....and then freak out about it afterwards like the little girl I am).

Yeah. Pretty much.

And the strangest part about it is that I wasn't really afraid of being bitten & dying (as is the plot of the film), but more of being spun up in a giant web & having my insides sucked out (as real spiders do to their prey)....at least I was a well-informed & scientifically factual paranoid child. Or maybe I just watched too many nature shows.

So in conclusion, the moral of the story is that perhaps my parents were right in sheltering me from things that were "too scary" for me as a child. Turns out that the ramifications of such things can be long standing. Just don't tell them I said so, ok?

....And without any futher adieu

Oh hi.
Apparently I have a blog. No shit.

It appears I haven't posted in about 3, 4 months? So what's happened you ask? Not a whole heck of alot.

I finished this semester...let's not talk about it. I'm still working at the University...that's pretty cool. I turned 26......25 is so last year (My friends really went above & beyond this year...I will post pics soon). I cut off half of my hair and pierced my neck (no kiddin). Went to go see The Hip with my Papabear this week which was pretty awesome & plan on seeing NIN/Jane's Addicition and Bif Naked in June, Rancid/Rise Against/St. Alvia Cartel & Warped Tour in July. Summer concerts make me happy in mine pantaloons.

Other than that it's been more of the same....work, hangin with my homies, floating from one day to the next. I am the epitome of underachiever.

How sad is it when your own life bores you? It' not that anything particularly bad has happened....but nothing good has either. I do get the distinct feeling that something is on the horizon....something big & exciting. Maybe it's just wishful thinking....but here's hoping.

Look At Me, Silly Me, I'm As Happy As Can Be

No, really. I'm just as surprised as you are.

I'm not going to apologize for not being on top of my blog anymore. I am sooooo super crazy busy funtimes that this is the first thing I will let slip if something's gotta slip. I love blogging but this shit don't pay the bills, or get me A's in school.

So far this semester has been fabulous. I'm working all the time, I'm doing well in my classes and I even joined the gym (no shit!). Add in a light sprinkling of activities social in nature and overall, this chick is quite pleased with herself. For the first time in a looong time I feel productive & content.

I feel like myself again....and I remember why I like me. Mostly because I'm friggin awesome. I love my friends, my family.....my life in general right now. Sometimes it's stressful, but I've got a pretty good grip on things....and that counts for so much.

I Have Conquered The Winter!!

Yeah, you heard me. Winter is my bitch.

Typically Winter & I do not get along. I don't really enjoy being cold....or wet.....or effin' COLD. I usually spend most of the winter indoors trying to solve the puzzle of human hibernation. Until now.

This winter in the Niagara region we have been blessed (ha!) with copious amounts of snow. You can say that I was less than pleased....at first. This blustery winter season I have come to appreciate it, or at least fight back. This battle has been epic and ongoing for 25 years now, and every year winter kicks my ass. This year the tables have turned, winter! Take that!

It started innocently at first....walking to the corner store in a snow storm to avoid driving. Then it escalated after pushing SEVERAL cars out of snow drifts. What happens next is no less than earth shattering....

Yesterday night.....I went for a hike. In the snow. And it was MY idea. No shit.

I'm just as shocked as you are, but it looked so nice with the ankle-deep snow & the big fluffy flakes falling slowly....it was hypnotic. I had a blast. Once I started hiking I was going full tilt....up hills, down hills, through thickets....over fallen trees...and even falling in the snow while ascending a particularly steep slope. It was cold, but I didn't mind.

So bring it on winter.....I'm ready for you this time. You can huff & puff & blow the snow down, but it's not going to keep me cooped up inside. I've got far too much exploring to do.

No, It Didn't Hurt Too Much When I Fell Off The Face Of The Earth

I'm a bad, bad blogger.

It's been almost ten days since my last post....but I have been sooooo busy. I'm back in class, and I'm working like a slave child so you will have to forgive my absence. Things should be back to normal after next week. I think.

Then again, my life as of late has been an ongoing process of trying to "get back to normal". Well, normal for me anyways. But I am starting to feel like myself again....and that's awesome.

The bad news is, I haven't really given much thought to an actual post for this topic....so it's basically just a quick "Hey! Happy new year! Don't worry, I'm still alive!" I do have a couple cool ideas rolling around for future posts though....so stay tuned!