Who gets to clean the mess?

Last Tuesday (August 22nd) I went out with a couple friends to celebrate their birthdays. Upon returning home at 11:00pm, I saw my landlady standing halfway up the steps that lead to the upstairs door of her place. I rarely, if ever, see her outside at night. This was very peculiar to me, especially since she was in her PJs. I soon noticed that she was on her phone. I was still in my friend's truck when I saw Tom appear from the apartment and then saw our landlord carrying a red baseball cap and a hiking boot. They were looking at the door to our apartment and then searching around the building. Something was definitely wrong! I left my friend's truck and told her I would call her and let her know what was going on.

As I approached the apartment our other neighbours appeared. He was standing on the deck and she was on her phone too. There was also blood on the entrance to our apartment. (GROSS!) Apparently our landlords noticed someone running around outside our building. He then got into their truck and left through the door on the other side of the vehicle. Two others showed up and then took off when she said she was calling the police. He then came up on our deck and came through the entrance to our apartment. Luckily Tom was sleeping and had locked the apartment door. Our neighbour who shares this entranceway was out of town at the time and his door was also locked. The guy did manage to bleed on our neighbours door too. The guy also want outside our place and was banging on the large window to our apartment. As I mentioned earlier, Tom was sleeping when this started. At first he thought I misplaced my key and wanted in, but he soon realized that there was something wrong - there was too much banging, too many strange noises. The guy also charged at the neighbour when she told him she was calling the police.

Our neighbour told me she had waited for someone to pick up the phone for 13 minutes. Hmmm...whether that reflects the competency level of the Inuvik RCMP or the Yellowknife call centre (where many calls are received) is unknown, but what I do know is that it is 100% unacceptable! Thank goodness this character was not wielding a knife!

Back to our little drama... The guy disappeared shortly before I showed up. Our landlord to him to sit and wait while he went to pick up his hat and boot, but when he got back, the guy left. He seemed to have gone under the building and into some bushes. At this point I called the RCMP and they answered right away. I gave them our address and they said they would be right over. After 5 minutes, I called back! Remember, Inuvik isn't very big, so a call to the police about a man, high on something and trespassing (vehicles and our apartment entranceway), as well as banging on and smashing things, should not have been answered with a leisurely "Sunday-Drive" to our place. As I made the second call, the RCMP vehicle approached our street. I flagged the officer over. Meanwhile, Tom located the guy behind our house. He was now banging on the house of the people who live behind us. (I am not sure if that was the house where there was a drug bust a couple months ago or not...may have been their neighbours)

The officer took him away, and we were left to clean up the blood from our door. Needless to say, I had a hard time sleeping that night!

By the way, we also found the guy's other boot in our entranceway later that night. As a courtesy, Tom mentioned to an officer that we would leave the boot there for a while if they (not the hoodlum) wanted to pick it up. Yesterday, Tom got rid of the boot and wiped away the hand prints off of our window. The incident is not just another wonderful memory of our 'northern experience' - Oh, the joy!

What Yer Doing?

Just because everyone always asks, here is a weather report from Environment Canada...
Inuvik Currently Observed at: Inuvik Airport 22 August 2006 10:00 AM MDT
Light Rain, Temperature: 10°C
Yesterday - Max Temp: 23.4°C
- Min Temp: 13.4°C
Regional Normals - Max Temp: 15°C
- Min Temp: 5°C
Sunrise: 6:40 - Sunset: 23:16
Today - High 16°C, POP 30%, Chance of showers (I think the POP% should be 100% and the word 'Chance' should be taken out - It has been undoubtedly raining for the last 3.5 hours!)

We have been back in Inuvik for just over a week now. Before I get into 'what wer doing', I wanted to talk about what we did during Tom's 2 weeks away from this place.

Tom arrived in TO on Saturday, July 29th at 6:30am. The following day was the start to a very busy 2 weeks! Tom and I went to a B&B to celebrate our 1 Year Anniversary.

We went to a beautiful spot in Coe Hill, Ontario called Jewel on the Hill. I will post some pictures later (they are on our other computer). We spent 2 nights there in the suite and spent our days touring around Bancroft and looking at real estate. We then headed to the Ottawa Valley to visit Tom's family.

We spent 2 nights visiting with the PILs (parent-in-laws) and another night with the B&SIL and our beautiful niece. We meant to go back to PIL's place that night but we had such a nice visit that we ended up staying overnight. We are very glad we did as it gave us so much more time to spend with our sweet and happy niece - I didn't even mind getting up at 6:00am when she did, as long as I could enjoy some precious moments with that little girl, I was happy! (We really miss being closer to home!)

Hmmm...what next? I have family moving to Luxembourg for a few years so we spent some time visiting with them on Saturday. That was a nice gathering of cousins, aunts, uncles, and friends. Being in Inuvik means that we rarely get a chance to see them anyways, but it was nice to get together before we both left Ontario.

On Sunday, July 6th we (my mom, sister, Tom, and myself) drove to Michigan. It took us 8 hours to get there, which included almost 2 hours of stop-and-go traffic at the toll-bridge into the States and the border crossing at Sarnia. We got to the hotel, went for a bite to eat, and then Sister and I went for a nice swim in the pool at the hotel. The purpose of our trip was to attend a Dedication Ceremony for our dear friend Jerry who passed away in April. The Town of Hudsonville, where he worked for 25 years, was planting a tree and putting up a plaque in his memory. Without getting into too much detail, family members of Jerry's (who were not close with him at all and rarely or never spoke with him even when he was hospitalized) cancelled the ceremony the morning it was to have taken place. That's alright though. We were still able to go to the Nature Centre where the planted a beautiful tree and some flowers in a beautiful garden dedicated to Jerry. There was also a bird feeder hanging from a post in the garden. We believe it was one that Jerry built when he worked for the Town. We met a few people down at the site who were kind enough to show there respect despite the formal service being cancelled. We when took a walk through the trails of the Nature Centre that Jerry planned out so many years ago. I remember him talking about the Nature Centre and how he wished we could see it - I know he meant see it with him, but I think he knows we were there. Afterwards we went to the cemetary to pay our respects.

That evening we went our for dinner with Jerry's brother and sister-in-law. We had a great steak dinner and then, after dropping Jerry's SIL off at home, went for a tour of some nice areas within 20 minutes from their hometown. We went to a spot near the river where we climbed 285 (huff) steps (puff) to reach the top. Had we been there 25 minutes earlier we would have been treated to a spectacular view of the sun setting over Lake Michigan. What we did see was still amazing! After (slowly) making our way down the stairs in the dark, we went for a drive. We also went for a drink at a nice little pub and went to dip our feet in Lake Michigan with only the moon to light our way. We had a lovely visit with Jerry's brother and went home with bitter-sweet memories of our trip.

We were pretty exhausted when we arrived home on Wednesday, August 9th. I can't remember what we did that evening, but the next day we were busy gathering last minute items to take back to Inuvik with us. I also took Tom out that evening to celebrate his birthday. Although his birthday was on Friday, that was to be our last night in town so we wanted to spend that at my mother's house, laid back and somewhat relaxed. For his birthday we drove downtown where I took him out for a nice dinner and then to see the Blue Man Group. It was my second time seeing it but Tom absolutely loved it! If you don't mind something "different" and you like to have fun, I would recommend seeing this performance!

The next day was Tom's birthday. We went to some stores that Tom wanted to visit before we left and I did my final last-minute shopping. We then went home and had a wonderful dinner. We had a nice salad, baked potatoes, and fresh rainbow trout stuffed and placed on the grill. This, of course, was followed with 'Death-by-Chocolate' birthday cake and presents. (By the way, thanks mom for arranging such a great meal.)

The next day Sister and I went to visit my uncle who was recovering nicely from an operation. We all then relaxed (or tried to) before having to leave on the 8:40pm flight to Edmonton. We will miss all the kitties and our family while we are gone (again).

I better go get lunch ready now. By the way, since I started writing this post as hour ago, it has stopped raining and the sun is trying to peak through the clouds.

I will do my best to post pictures in the next few days.