3 free dinners!

      

THANKSGIVING

      

Well, we heard that the pentecostal church in town was giving a thanksgiving lunch yesterday. So, we hit that up. Met some nice people, made a new friend..."Megan", we'll call her. 

Since that's her name.

When we got home from the lunch, it was bright and sunny...reminded me of a beautiful prairie winter afternoon. (Though I'm sure we had it better than you Winnipeg suckers this weekend! HA! And some of you thought we were crazy for moving up north???)

     

Rosie , Great Slave Lake, and some trees.

Our second free thanksgiving dinner was dinner last night - the woman that hired me at the French association (AFCHR) invited Rosie and I over for turkey. Which was nice because we've been emailing for the last month, and had talked on the phone only once...so it was nice to put a face to the name. We had a nice meal with her and her family, and they filled us in on all the Hay River goings-ons....which are numerous, slightly complex, and often comical. Odd, to say the least. 

Like the secondary school that the daughter attends. She's in grade 12...and has only one classmate. Their teachers have TWO students. TWO. Boy, would I ever love to have that job. They don't even combine the classes with other grades. Nope. Just a sweet deal for their THREE teachers (who have just 18 other students in grades 8 thru 12). Lucky ducks.  And they went on a hunting trip last year with the grade 10's and 12's...with some old local hunter...and gutted and skinned caribou. Love it. Wish I could have been in that grade 12 class. No problem - I just gotta get myself on the sub list at that particular school. And apparently there are "cliques" in town. No problem...I'll get my way into 'em all.  And there is apparently  a lot of french/english/first nations/inuit tensions around town. No problem - I can fit into 3 of the 4 categories, at least! (and hey...I know all about the Inuit after my many theatrical experiences. so I'm really practically almost 4 for 4)......(ok, I wasn't going to give a disclaimer on that last one, but I have to in case someone reads this and thinks I'm an ignorant jerk. I don't actually know anything...I'm nowhere near 4 for 4).

Then today, monday, we got a phone call at our B&B, from a woman that we hadn't even met, but who attends the church we went to yesterday and knew we were staying at the bed and breakfast. She invited us over to have thanksgiving dinner with her family tonight...an event from which we just got home. Our new friend was there..."Megan" (I'm putting her name in quotation marks because she would like that. because of a story she told us about how she used to cheat in french class. her teacher told them they could use english words ONLY if they used quotation marks in certain instances where they really could not think of the french word to use...but "Megan" would abuse the tool because she was lazy, "quoting" entire sentences in english). We're planning to go to free aerobics with her on wednesday night at the elementary school. Then we met another young couple at dinner who are from Vancouver Island, but have lived here for three years, having moved here for a teaching job. So...we made lots of new friends. It was a great meal, and they sent us home with homemade buns, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and a plateful of turkey. mmmmmmm.

And "Megan" just called us a half hour ago to ask us if we wanted to stay at her place for the next few days until we find an apartment, since her roommate is out of town all week. Just the kind of helping hand we were praying for! We love this B&B, but we can't afford to stay here much longer with no income...coming in...yet. (sorry, "income coming in" seems to be a redundant phrase, doesn't it? Isn't that what income does: come in?). So we'll be packing it in tonight to move into town tomorrow. For free. Praise the Lordy Lord.

And I start my new job tomorrow... I'm feeling pretty good about it. Rosie's going to see about a job right next door to me at the Rec centre. So we'll see how that goes.

Looks like we have a lot to be thankful for this thanksgiving. How appropriate.