Author Archives: Judith Pettersen

When people marry, they usually discover new things about their partners. A dislike for returning library books, a penchant for Big Macs. And then there’s the clashing of family cultures. My husband’s clan were kind of superstitious and had certain beliefs about good and bad luck. Salt played a huge part in things. My familyContinue reading “Even Stranger Things”

Growing up in a house with six other children required a certain amount of hardiness. After a traditional baptism, another followed that was more like an ongoing episode of Fear Factor. It involved loud squalling, bare knuckle fighting, laughing, and general hysteria. Since six of us were less than two years apart, my mother wasContinue reading “Hi Jinks”

Before I had my first child, I’d never cooked a turkey. I didn’t feel grown up enough for the task. To me, that mysterious arrangement of stuffing and those magnificent sides of creamy mashed potatoes and turnip apple casserole could only be produced by a mother. Many years later, I’m on the other side ofContinue reading “The Turkey”

When I was at Zumba one night, we were doing this Greek dance that involved lots of finger snapping. The bottom half of me performed just fine, but the top half had to fake it because I’m snap impaired. Always have been. And it made me wonder. Like in fairy tales, was there a goodContinue reading “Once Upon A Time, in Flin Flon”

This walk down memory lane is a blog from a couple years ago. (Sadly, I still haven’t repainted the red door.) Something strange comes over me in the month before Christmas. A restlessness. An inability to view my surroundings with anything less than creeping dissatisfaction. The benefit of this emotion is that I get thingsContinue reading “T’is the Season”

Once upon the new millennium, a guy looked at a photo of Sigmund Freud and said to himself, my facial hair envy is out of control. I must have that beard. I’ll shag it up, grow it longer, and throw testosterone around like a final sale at Sears. In an alternate scenario, the same manContinue reading “The Truth About Hipster Beards”

A few weeks ago we harvested our generous tomato crop, set the produce inside the house and left town. Upon our return, a problem emerged in a very literal way. As I stepped into the upstairs bathroom, a cloud of fruit flies mistook me for a rotten banana and swarmed like a death cloud. “FruitContinue reading “Murder, She Wrote”

In our mid-twenties, my husband suggested we quit our teaching jobs to travel through Asia from Turkey to Nepal. The Encounter Overland company would supply the tents, food, converted army truck, and eighteen more people from all over the world. I pictured myself on this exciting new adventure, tanned and fit in my new hikingContinue reading “Risky Business”

Culture Days, an end of September cross Canada celebration, is a wild weekend party and an endurance test that I have failed. I’m down with the flu, but Crystal Kolt has to be feeling even tougher. She spends the whole weekend running through the streets of Flin Flon shouting, ‘You’ve got culture! You’ve got culture!Continue reading “Got Culture?”

While traveling through Asia in a converted army truck with a group of zany folks from around the world, we were almost through Turkey when we broke down in a small Kurdish village called Yuksekova. The guidebook we used said not to stop there. Not for lunch, not for tea. It’s larger now, and moreContinue reading “Break Down”