The deli is closed

In Montreal, they give you tickets for parking the wrong way on a one way street after they change the direction of that street in the middle of the night without telling me. In Toronto, they give you tickets for parking because they feel obligated to do so. In Chicago, the post lady's supervisor puts a note on the door after your friend backs into the post lady's parked postal van and then drives away (she figured out where you live, friend, somehow). In Bloomington, Indiana, pursuant to the advice of my attorney, we walked. In West Fargo I slept, in Montana I sped, and in Fernie I now am.

Fernie town, in the Canadian Rockies, is so very nice. I came here on the advice of my uncle Nico, who calls it the tits. And he's not one to mix words. The people here are healthy and outgoing, with thick Australian accents. And the mountains. Rising like the very teeth of the earth, worn to bare granite and covered in snow for my amusement, like white bread on your molars after a sandwich before bedtime. The mountains here are huge. They are humongous. They are stone cold MOUNTAINOUS. My first day here I tried out my cross country skis. Maybe it was the elevation, the month of cake-eating followed by two solid days of driving and peanut butter and bacon, but it was awfully hard, uphill work. "Dog shit slow", to quote my high school ski coach. I may have had a cold at the time. The second day I rested. The third day I rode the downhill snowboard without incident. And now it's drawing time, huzzah.