J's lovely cousin and her fantastic husband drove out to Saskatoon for the Canada Day weekend. We took a trip out to The Berry Barn where the four of us had delicious Saskatoon Berry Pie and Crumble, marveled at the river levels, and walked amongst the Saskatoon Berry bushes. They're a lot bigger than I'd imagined! The Berry Barn has tons of kitschy garden and home decor for sale and I was sorely tempted by an approximately 10 foot tall, steel giraffe. I settled for buying a bottle of Saskatoon Berry syrup and a card for my wonderful brother's birthday.
J's cousin also introduced us to several of her friends from vet school who still live in Saskatoon. It was lovely to meet them and we really enjoyed our Canada Day barbecue together.
This last week has been sunny and hot, with our temperatures hovering between 25 and 28 degrees Celsius. J and I are learning about what to do when it comes time to sleep: Do we leave the windows open and listen to a bit of highway noise? Do we close them and turn the fans on? Do we leave the windows open with fans on? Or do we drag the portable air conditioner up from the basement and put it in the room across the hall so that the noise isn't too much? (If it is really hot, it will definitely be the air conditioner.)
J started his first few days of work this week. After watching the fireworks at 10:30 PM on Canada Day from our bedroom, he had to wake up early on Wednesday and go to his orientation, where he and all of the other first year residents found out important information about parking passes and where to find the washroom. (Parking passes are a particularly sore subject at the Royal University Hospital right now, as there is a brand new Children's Hospital going up on the area that used to be a major parking lot. This means that many of the hospital workers have to park fairly far away and get bussed into RUH. It sounds fairly inconvenient.)
He did his first actual two days of work on Thursday and Friday - he's on Internal Medicine's Clinical Teaching Unit (CTU) for the first four weeks of residency. I think that he's happy to be started, but it is a bit of a shock to his system to have to be at the hospital for 7 AM, or earlier. He and I certainly enjoyed his time off! (I, of course, continue to have time off, until September hopefully. I haven't got on with one of the local school districts yet, but I am working on it!)
Last night we went to see the Saskatoon Summer Players put on Gilbert and Sullivan's "HMS Pinafore" and it was hilarious. The show had us in stitches the whole time! It was clearly a very high class event, because Queen Victoria was in the audience, or rather, sitting up in the royal box far above the rest of us lowly common folk.
Today there was a Welcome Barbecue for all of the first year residents at the University Club. J and I both thought that there was going to be some sort of formal speeches, but it turned out to be really casual. We met some of the other residents (and mostly talked to his OBS/GYNE cohort and people who'd been at UBC Med School), ate hamburgers, and enjoyed ourselves.
When we got home, we went for a bike ride up the Meewasin Valley Trail to the University and back. It's a beautiful trail that follows the river valley. We saw all sorts of wildlife (small rodents, birds, pelicans, humans, dogs) on our ride, but were in no danger at all, unless you count a friendly dog coming up to say, "Hello", as dangerous. (We had of course sprayed ourselves with bug repellent before leaving the garage. The mosquitoes are bad. I have many bites on my legs and I think I've hatched a crop in my back garden. When I went to water the plants yesterday morning, a fair few had breakfast from my legs.)
Tomorrow J goes back to the grind and I'll do my thing around the house. I've got quite a few good books to get through, we need some groceries, and I'll continue my quest to get the car insured for Saskatchewan. (I managed to change my driver's license last week.)
Talk to you all again next week! Much love from S + J and J + S
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