Opening Night in Winnipeg!!!

A 30 pound cat named "Whiskers" has fallen in love with me. Talk about crude love.

Yes, sports fans, we have arrived safely in Winnipeg despite our car rattling like spare change and it stalling a couple of times yesterday. Some guy in Dryden, Ontario at the Husky gas station was just driving back from Tofino and suggested we need a coat hanger to stop the rattling of what is maybe our exhaust something or other. Also he was kind enough to notice that our oil cap was off. Like ships in the night, he said "yeah, it sucks to be Eastbound".

So we arrived. This morning we pick up posters and flyers and start postering. We are late and it looks like all the coveted spots are already taken. Then we tech the show for 3 hours this afternoon. Flyer people this evening and pray to God we can get some people out to our opening at 11 pm.

I forgot to mention that our number 1 Fan, beside Whiskers the aforementioned cat, is Corey Bennett who came to every single one of our shows in Toronto. 7 in all! And Frank made 5! Jan made 4! We couldn't believe it. The Bennetts like us. They really really like us. Its almost disturbingly stalkerish and also beautifully supportive. My sis did come to 2 and that's with 2 small children at home, so that is also a feat. Not that it's a competition. But wow, our families are lovely.

Some things that happenned to us on the way around Lake Superior: I saw a car in the ditch with other cars that had stopped on the side of the road. Then I saw a person, or a body, lying on the grass next to it with someone holding his hand. He didn't look conscious. Don't know if it was a person who had been run over. The ambulance and police cars arrived shortly thereafter. Hope that person was OK. Gives us all reason to pause at the frailty of life. Which leads to what our main topic of discussion was, "What is the purpose of life" and are we close? I'll just throw that one out there. Some ideas: To be Happy, To Grow, To Give, To Experience, To Learn, To Discover, To do your best with what you have.....

And we saw a bear.

We are now staying in a small house with a very sweet woman who is going to a wedding and a perogy festival outside of Chicago tomorrow. She lives basically next door to the tarmac of the Winnipeg airport. So every 4 minutes it sounds like a jumbo jet is going to land on our head. Or that we are under attack.

Gotta run to the printers. "It's opening night!!"

p.s. Have I mentioned how much I love my husband lately? 24 hours a day together in a small car in the very creepy landscape North of Wawa and we didn't gnaw each other's faces off or anything, though cannibalism seems somehow fitting in that remote and foggy tundra. No, we are still in love and I am so grateful.

But I can't say that I'm quite as grateful for the newfound affection I am receiving from Whiskers....Crude love indeed.