adventures in ice fishing: part one (proof that hell really does freeze over)

of all the things one can learn about life all alone in your apartment in the middle of the city in front of your only piece of furniture- the talking one- here:

three things one should know before joining the primative ice-men (spitting female repellant mercilessly into the frosty wind as it freezes into their beards) in the arctic tundra. and a dash extra:

1. the fish are just as deterred by the frigid cold as sane people
2. when your limbs fail, and they will, a pocketful of seal blubber will hire a tough little serpa to carry you on his back (they don't mind)
3. cross country winnebago-ing leaves one feeling either a) like being sealed upright in a formica coffin, or b) manly. one thinks... this is mine, and it's big.

forementioned dash: caribou does not taste like chicken.

so you may sit, drunken. starving. freezing. appalled. lonely. homicidal. crying, (for mommy), and longing for something called the bed n' bass (one of the finer fish-themed motels); but through the torture of a slow almost death, you learn. how to revel in good company, (besides your constant drinking buddy mr. beam), how to appreciate the little things, (like snack packs and non-canadian winters and the cold reassuring snout of a search and rescue mutt), how to know a good heart when you see one, and finally:

how to love like you mean it. and mean it.

for the dazed, the confused, and the downright loopy, here it is in short;

keep your freinds close, keep the liquor flowing, consider a flower, and for christ's sake, write a bucket list.