Phew, what a weekend.

It all started off with truck problems..
 I could not take the truck down to Canmore as Eric needed it to haul horses and sheep into the rodeo.
This meant either cancelling my trip down to Canmore to give a presentation,
or to make alternative arrangements.
As the presentations were advertised and promoted, I felt it was not appropriate to cancel and so decided to fly down to Calgary, rent a car and attend the presentations.
The flying part,
would become that jaw dropping part of  this whole trip.

As I had some time on Friday, I really wanted to utilize it to visit with some (new) friends and some dogs. My first stop was at Zoran and his wonderful family (Hi MayaJ) and of course their sarplaninac dog Ringo. I felt very welcome, had great Serbian food and dark sweet Turkish coffee.
Zoran, Maya and I spoke about dogs, history and all sorts of things. It was a great visit and always great to meet new friends and talk about amazing dogs.

Ringo, is still one big pup!

Then it was off to Cochrane to meet another friend and visit with a pup we bred a few years ago. It was great meeting with Katrin, Jim, and of course now adult, Rubic again.
Wow, Rubic is one huge girl.
Her job is to guard the poultry..
She is still not being very nice to the turkeys,
but the ducks seem to be relatively safe in her care…
Katrin and Jim treated me to a night on the town.
Thanks for a wonderful dinner, great wine and good conversation.
It got late, so I did not have the time nor the inclination to review my presentation,
and worse of all completely forgot to take a picture of Rubic!

Drove to Canmore.
Wow, I do love the mountains.

One day,
when we are rich
I am going to have a cabin in some remote mountain area...

Of course I had to stop for some wild sheep on the way..

A lovely drive and I was looking forward to hearing the first presentation about wolves and conservation issues facing them given by Sadie Parr.



Photo from Shelly Black, Northern Lights Center



After lunch, it was my turn.
Unfortunately, there were just a handful of people attending this presentation about predator friendly ranching. Perhaps this topic does not touch the lives of mountain resort tourists? Or, maybe it was the first great sunny weekend and people wanted to be outside?
Whatever the reason, this was a pity considering the cost and time put into it.
On Sunday, the topics where focused on the plight of the bears in Alberta and the conservation issues facing them. These presentations were well attended; perhaps the mighty bear speaks more to people than the wolf?
Interesting presentations and an eye opener as to the lack of motivation the government or Parks Canada has in wanting to save the last few remnant populations of Grizzly Bears in Alberta. In fact, the Great Bears are facing extinction in Alberta and nothing is being done…
zip, zero, nada.

Sunday night I took a drive and a short walk in the mountains and pondered the Griz matter.

Monday morning, I had some time to kill so I visited with another former pup of mine and his mom. Remember Bear? Well that’s who I dropped in to see.

Bear is doing well.


 He is as beautiful and magnificent as always.
He needs to get his mind a bit more on the job at hand
and is still very much a large overgrown pup.


 It was great to visit with Louanne.
Her whole house should be posted on my pinterest wall, I love how its decorated. The only thing I would change is the location. It needs more trees and forest.
Thanks for the tour Louanne, love what you have done.

Then, it was off to the airport.
You know, clean the car, hand it in and then wait and wait and wait and pay huge sums of money for overpriced water…

The first part of the flight back home was to Edmonton, this was non descript, boring, the usual flight and airport hussle, full body screeining, pat downs etc..

It was a lengthy wait in Edmonton but I loved reading my new book that I had bought in a second hand book store in Canmore. In fact this book is very entertaining and gives you glimpses  the world of the wolf.
So, find this book “Never Cry Wolf by Farley Mowat”.
I had read it years before, but when I found it at the bookstore I had to have it and read it again.
I am not sure how much is fact or fiction however, it is entertaining!

When it was time to board, I think the most memorable event of the whole weekend took place during the 40 minute flight back to Grand Prairie…

Get a coffee as this gets lengthy..

I sat down in my aisle seat and said a quiet hallo to the 40 something lady sitting in 4A, the window seat. I got my book out  and was looking forward to another reading session,
the wolves where calling me to read on.
The lady looked at me.
She put her hand out and just subtly touched my arm and said, “I am so excited, can I show you something?”
“Sure”, I answered, expecting to see a picture in her purse of her children, hubby, grand kids, her pet, you know, the usual thing.

She scooted over into 4B the vacant seat between us on the plane,   whipped out her iPhone 4s with leopard skin cover and proceeded to find her camera roll of pictures.

This is not her, nor her phone, just added this image for effect!

O dear I thought, lucky me, I get to see endless pictures of babies, kids, pets…
While her hands were working at finding "the" photo,
 she casually states that she was going to show me some photographs of herself,
naked.

 NAKED!

What!?

I am startled, stunned and completely flabbergasted.
In that instant,  I  really and truely did WANT to see drooling babies, smiling kids and Shih-Tzu's (for the ignorant, that is a lap dog of sorts and is pronounced Shit sue!).

Now, I am not all that squeamish, I can handle rotten and aborted lambs, dog puke, vaginal prolapses in both sheep and cows and a whole lot of bull shit.

But, looking at a complete stranger’s,
40 plus
naked body
is not something for the faint hearted.

So, I smiled and said, “sure I can handle some boobs”.

So, before I could change my mind, out came the “before” pictures, with the accompanying explanations. We, I mean she, scrolled through some  20  pictures,  some focusing on certain focal points on her body, others full frontal and others of the "other side".
“Look” she says and points to a liberal fat roll around her waist,
and in the following picture she points to some stretch marks above her buttocks,
and then on to her sagging belly button,
all the time explaining that this was "before"...

I did not want to dampen her enthusiasm or hurt her feelings so I feigned interest,
going so far as to even ask some delicate questions that she was dying to answer.

The next twenty were the “after” shots.

The scalpel line,
and the sutures,
the swelling
and redness…
in all its gory glory was laid out for me to see.

This, she explained was her gift to herself!

“Yes” I motioned, “the sexy doctor in Mexico, he really did do a fantastic job”
She glows.

I add:
“wow, for nine thousand dollars cheaper than the Canadian doctors,
gee I can’t believe the bargain”

“Yes”, she radiates “I am so happy”.

Still, having been brought up to be polite and kind, to show genuine interest in people, I was certainly not going to put a damper on all this awesomeness.

So, to try and wind things down a bit,
I once again  dared to ask how the healing process was going from her recent tummy tuck …

Before you could say “what” she jumped up, in the plane, pulled up her shirt, pulled down her pants so that I could see the healing process in action!
Right there, right now.

All that came out of me was a stunned “wow”.

As she sat down, I grabbed Never Cry Wolf, I wanted to hide in the words..
I needed time to process what just happened to me (and to her).

I started to read.
 I felt her familiar hand on my arm again.
I did an inside sigh.
My thoughts were racing, I was about to have a menopausal flush,  what now?

My husband used to beat me she whispers..
I quietly set my book aside and listened to her life story
and once she was done,
I could honestly appreciate her happiness, the tummy tuck and all!

And, so 40 minutes later we landed in Grand Prairie.
Eric was meeting me,
he asked about the weekend,
but my head was filled with another story…