We're back from our quick trip and we had a wonderful time.  We saw sockeye and coho salmon swimming upstream.  Jack was worried he would see the fish having sex, and we explained how fish mate.  When we stopped at Little Fort rest stop I remembered the creek there.  Jack and I climbed the hill and I thought, what is that smell?  There were a lot of dead fish who already spawned and died, so we got to talk about that too.  Tsutswecw Provincial Park was beautiful, in spite of the fire damage from the fire two years ago.  I want to go back next year, a bit later in October.  

The teachers in Alberta have gone on strike and our premier Danielle Smith (I spit on the ground), has of course blamed it all on the teachers.  The UCP is deliberately underfunding both public education and public health, trying to privatize as much as possible, except that's not what Albertans want.  The UCP doesn't care and they continue on with their own agenda.

So Jack is home with me full time for now, until the strike is resolved.  Yesterday I took him to pottery class with me and he was good as gold.  He spent about an hour on his tablet playing games and then when that got boring, the teacher had set out building blocks and he spent an hour building things.  

Today we're taking Auntie Katie to see the doctor because she needs a sixteen page form filled out to satisfy the provincial government, and prove that she is in fact, still disabled; then there are more hoops to jump through for the federal government regarding guardianship.  Oh joy.  Have I mentioned how much I dislike forms?

Yesterday I took Jack to the skateboard park in Edmonton and there was a drunk woman lying on the ground, in the middle of the park; she had been there for two days the kids said.  I tried talking to her, to see if she needed help, got her water to drink which she dumped on the ground because she was an angel and could only drink covered water.  I finally phoned the police and the woman smashed her vodka bottle, got up and wandered away.  I ended up picking up a million pieces of broken glass.  One of the kids, maybe 11 years old, helped me pick up glass and told me that there are often drunks or drug users in the park.  He knew about fentanyl and oxi.  It broke my heart.  

The kids, ranging from 6-16 were all so polite and thanked me for getting rid of the drunk woman and cleaning up the glass.  I know it's reality but still WTF.  The worst was Jack.  He was so upset by the drunk woman and had a lot of questions about alcohol, it's effects, and drunks (as he calls them).  He wanted to know why people drink so much.  While we were away on holiday, eating in restaurants, he noticed people drinking and was worried they would get drunk and become violent.  We told him that doesn't happen in restuarants and that if it did, we would protect him.  Thanks Gracie.

Mount Robson hiding in the clouds.