You Know You're Isolated When...

Over the course of the year, I have found myself laughing at life and the circumstances that make it so bloody funny. As some of you know, our family leads a quiet and unassuming existence down the back roads of the Peace Country. While nothing that has happened has been earth shattering or cataclysmic in the slightest way, it has made me wonder how often people get lost in translation. (Rosehill doesn't seem that isolated.) What follows is a list of things that have happened to me over time and make me wonder just how isolated we really are.

1. You know you're isolated when the hunters that are staying with your ultra-friendly neighbors see you on the road you share with the rest of the world while taking a break from your daily jog and go, "Who are you?"

2. You know you're isolated when you find yourself talking to the local wildlife as though they were people and actually answer yourself. (Yes, Castaway totally had it right.)

3. You know you're isolated when you learn weeks later that the road grader operator quit.

4. You know you're isolated when the directions to get to your home are too complex for Google Earth and requires a freestyle hand drawn map on a sheet of 8.5x11 printer paper if anyone is going to understand you.

5. You know you're isolated when people say many years after the fact, "Oh, you're the people that bought [insert some name you've never heard of] place? Good to meet you."

6. You know you're isolated when the County has to have a bus turnaround made at the base of your driveway because even a mini-bus can't get up to your house.

7. You know you're isolated when you find yourself calling the County to ask them if they stock beaver ponds with fish because the water, which is on both sides of the road, is maybe a foot below road level.

8. You know you're isolated when the Canadian census worker comes up and looks utterly as bewildered as you are when you open the door, and you find yourself in a Mexican standoff with a stranger. He's thinking, someone lives here? You're thinking, I swear someone just knocked on the door...

9. You know you're isolated when you're out jogging and you jump into the bush to watch that strange car come over the hill only to discover that it's your mom. In the family car.

10. You know you're isolated when your neighbor's tell you that to communicate with them you should set up a community-wide smoke signal language.

11. You know you're isolated when your neighbors spread the word that, "If you know Jenny's going to be home alone -- announce yourself!" (True story.)

And my personal favorite that just happened in the last few months:

12. You know you're isolated when the County workers who are putting up the country address signs for each residence (think garish blue sign with numbers on it for the ambulance at the base of your drive) either forget you exist or can't figure out if that rope gate, that blocks the Twilight Zone road that apparently leads nowhere, which reads: NO HUNTING. PRIVATE. has a home somewhere...up there... To be direct, they completely lose you.

Well, maybe I'm more isolated than it seems.

Love,
Jenny
MUL