I Am A Hippie With Dirty Feet

Spent the weekend at my friend Erika's parents's lakeside cabin up in the mountains. After a weekend of wearing flip-flops in a shower-free environment, I had such dirty feet that I'm certain Dave would have run screaming from if he had seen me.

Major accomplishments of the weekend included:

• I caught a fish! And it was this big*! We were just trolling around the lake and I caught the little guy (who we subsequently returned safely to his or her watery home). The only other person to catch a fish this weekend was the other vegetarian Elizabeth, who was fly fishing. I assured everyone that the reason we caught the fish was that they knew we'd throw them back.
• Wood was chopped while wearing sandals which, while stupid, did not result in any injuries**.
• As there was not, in fact, a ban on fires, we built a nice campfire around which we could sit and drink***. As predicted, non-vegetarians did toast and consume marshmallows and I was, in fact, jealous.
• Team Rat-tail**** managed to convince Team Mullet-hunter that they were nearly hit by a trucker bomb.
• The future of science in Canada was discussed at length (That's right -- I wasn't kidding about that.) Notes were taken, minutes will be compiled, world will be changed.
  

Best lines of the weekend included:

• "What happens at the petrol station in Merritt, stays at the petrol station in Merritt."
• "We really are roughing it. This place has a spice rack."
• "And for best pecs in science, the nominees are..."

Best line of the weekend for which you had to be there (and for which you had to be drunk) to appreciate:

• "What is knowledge translation?"

*my hands are currently being held three feet apart to illustrate the size of the fish that I caught. The fish biologist on hand estimated the fish to weigh in at about 500 g.

**surprizingly, it wasn't me who was doing this.

***for those who are interested in my ongoing A.R.M. research, current evidence suggests that drinking in the mountains prevents A.R.M. Or perhaps it is drinking next to a lake. Another possibility is that being far, far away from a liquor store or bar, resulting in the inability to consume dangerously large quantities of alcohol prevents A.R.M. The jury is still out.

****"Rat-tail" and "Mullet-hunter" were our two cars's code names for using on the walkie-talkies that we had to keep in touch during the drive (not only cheaper than cell phones, but we were so far from civilization that there is no cell phone reception there).