Corner of Bourbon & Division

For today's topic, miseri asked me what the wackiest thing about New Brunswick was.

Now, there is a long list of wacky things, but I have to say that the local French dialect is really what stood out for me. Remember, my work is done over the phone, so people's voice and language are usually all I have to go on. So getting calls from people speaking Chiac (I don't even know if that's how it's spelled, but the internet tells me I'm right) was a heck of an adventure.

I am a francophone by birth. A French Canadian, born speaking la Langue de Molière and the whole nine yards. Going to New Brunswick is a lesson in an entirely new language, or at least a new dialect. Most of the time, I had no idea what people were saying. Chiac seems to be comprised of 50% French, 30% English, and 20% mashing all your words together and speaking three times faster than the average person, so that every sentence comes out as one giant garbled string of syllables.

Everyone who came from out of province had the same trouble I did, so we all commiserated with each other about the incomprehensible local dialect, and muddled through as best we could. After all, when you're working 911, you can't just shrug and move on to the next caller. You have a responsibility to find out where the caller is, what they need, and get them the appropriate help. A lot of my calls involved getting people to repeat themselves over and over and over and over. "Slow down," I'd tell them. "Say it again, please. Can you spell that for me? More slowly. No, even MORE slowly. Okay, where is that? What? No, you're going too fast again."

Obviously some callers were stressed and frustrated, but for the most part they were really great with us. Most callers knew that we were there from other provinces doing relief work, and so they were incredibly patient.

My favourite name from the region was Elsipogtog. Pronounced EL-SEE-BOOK-TOOK, more or less, and depending on who you ask. It just sounds funny. :)

Best phone call was from a man whose wife had injured herself.

"Ma femme ah fallé en bas d'la steppe!" he informed me, sounding rather concerned. "Ah enfargée dans l'chien!"

Luckily this was toward the end of my stint there, so I understood immediately that he meant: "Ma femme est tombée dans les escaliers. Elle s'est enfargée sur le chien!" Which translates to: "My wife fell down the stairs. She tripped over the dog."

As I was getting his information, he kept holding the phone away to tell his wife: "Grouille pas plus qu'y faut, là!" Which was adorable. It sounded like she kept trying to get up, and he was exhorting her to stay still, but "grouiller" is a very particular kind of verb, which I'd never heard used in that particular context.

Anyway, it all worked out. I got them an ambulance and first responders, and all was well.

The other really cool and unusual thing about New Brunswick and the areas around there are the incredible tides, but alas I didn't get to witness any of them first hand this time around. Next time I will go and blog extensively about them!

I didn't have time for the pet post today, so you'll have to settle for a Real Life Stuff kind of post for now.

Tonight is my last shift here in Moncton. It's been a very exciting thirteen days, but I'm looking forward to getting home. They actually are asking for some people to stay on until July 4th, but even if I wasn't done my own unit needs me back. Besides, I have renovations to organise and the dog to take to the vet, and plenty of things that simply aren't getting done while I'm not there.

Sometimes yesterday morning I must have slept funny, because I have hurt my neck in a pretty serious way. It's not as bad as in 2009 when I had to be medicated to the gills to even be functional (I couldn't lie down or do anything other than keep my back ramrod straight because even tensing my neck muscles ever so slightly was excruciating), but it's pretty painful nonetheless. I couldn't find a position to sleep in that didn't pull on muscles in a bad way.

Our visit to the Hopewell Rocks was cancelled due to my coworkers being wet blankets who didn't want to get up three hours early to drive out there and back. Boo. Then again, seeing how much pain I'm in, perhaps it's just as well. I am sad I won't get to see them, though. I guess I'll just have to come back to New Brunswick some other time and see them then!

The shift supervisor of the operators who were on duty the night of the shooting took us out tonight for a tour of Moncton and then for a lobster dinner! It was delicious, but very rushed because the tour took longer than expected. I had to take half of my lobster to go. Still, it means that I have a lobster snack waitin for me later tonight!

Friday night is always busy around here, so it's actually taken me about three hours to write this entry so far. Compared to the quiet nights we had earlier this week, we've had a fair bit of action tonight. Nothing too terrible, no lives truly in danger (which is good!), but someone lit his food on fire (accidentally, this was not meant to be a flambé) in a big apartment building, so that kept us busy for a while.

Okay, make that four hours to write this entry. Eesh. Lots of stuff happening. Lots of custody disputes tonight, and one little kid. "My mom and her boyfriend are fighting and yelling and throwing stuff at each other." Super calm, too. You could tell it wasn't the kid's first time calling. :(

The regular operators are going to start coming back gradually as of tomorrow, so things should slowly get back to normal here. I think everyone is going to heave a collective sigh of relief as life goes on in the wake of the tragedy.

*checks clock* *sighs* Still not time for more Robaxacet. It's the only thing keeping me functional tonight. That and the Aleve I took around 16:00. I accidentally took two of those at the time, not realising I'm only allowed two a day (one every two hours), so I guess I'm stuck for the moment.

So that's the news for now. In 24 hours I'll be on a plane heading for Ottawa, and from there I'll be driving home in the morning. Good times. I'm going to miss all the people I met here, but it'll be good to get back.

I owe miseri two consecutive posts. If I can kick myself out of bed in time to do it before work this evening, that's when it'll happen. Especially since I'll have to think long and hard about the post on Brideshead Revisited, as I haven't read the book in about twenty years. Yikes.

I've worked six twelve-hour night shifts in a row, and the fatigue is starting to show. The new crew are great, though, and we're having a blast together. I miss the new friends I made last week, but it's been lovely to see old familiar faces from Montreal (two operators from there are working with me now) and meet a couple of new people from Alberta and Manitoba, too.

Work has finally given me a car for my own use, which is really nice. Before I had to walk to another hotel in order to hitch a lift with the night crew to the comm centre, but since the old crew all left the day before yesterday, work had to give me the use of a car or else I'd be stranded at my hotel. The comm centre is close, but not really close enough to walk. The car is an orange Dodge Lancer, and it's like driving a luxuriously-appointed sofa. If I weren't staring at the road, I would swear I was sitting in my living room.

I have five more nights shifts ahead of me, after which I shall be returning super, super late on Saturday night. Technically I think it will be Sunday morning when I return. So I'm going to sleep in Ottawa overnight and drive back to Montreal on the Sunday, and then spend four and a half well-deserved days off there before going back to my regular job. I think it will be hard to get back into the routine in Ottawa, since things have been pretty exciting here. While my new job is great and I love the people, I do miss the actual dispatching aspect of my old job, and working 911 is even better as far as I'm concerned.

Mind you, I'm scheduled to work overtime at the OCC in Ottawa in mid-July too, so I'll at least get to do some federal dispatching while I'm there. It's not quite 911, but it's operational, so that's something.

Even though this is proving to be a really awesome experience, tragic circumstances aside, I'll be happy to get home. I have a to-do list as long as my arm to get done if I want to sell the house, and while I've been trying to coordinate things from here in Moncton, there are lots of things that I simply can't do over the phone, no matter how much I want to.

Also, I missed Fathers' Day, so I promised my parents I'd go out and see them for dinner on Wednesday, when they will be back from their own short trip to New York.

On that note, bedtime. I will be making a herculean effort to be up early in order to write and run a couple of very overdue errands this afternoon.

It turns out I was wrong about Danny's future. Danny is still young, with less than a year in service, so he's going to continue to work. The RCMP news release had the following to say:

The RCMP in New Brunswick has received a high number of requests from media and the public via social media and in person about the future of Cst. Dave Ross's police service dog, Danny.

Cst. Ross became involved with the RCMP Police Dog Service Training Centre in Innisfail, Alberta in 2008. Dave began working with Danny on December 4, 2012. The two began formal training on April 22, 2013, and graduated from the Police Dog Service Training Centre on August 30, 2013, giving Danny less than a year of service when he tragically lost his partner.

"Anytime Danny barked at home, it would be to get Dave to open the truck door so they could go to work," Cst. Ross' wife, Rachael Ross said. "It wouldn't be fair to Danny to retire him as he loved his work as much as Dave did." While Danny too is grieving for his handler, he will have the opportunity to continue on to a rewarding career. While it is unusual for a police service dog to change handlers, it has happened a few times when a handler left the program, or retired.

When a handler in need of a police service dog is identified, the process to re-team Danny will begin. Danny will go through a bonding period with his new handler, after which he will return to Innisfail for a three-week period to confirm the new team meets the standards established by the RCMP.

Danny is trained to work. Danny's bond with Dave will always be there. If not for Dave recognizing Danny's skills, he would never have had the opportunity to serve Canadians, something he will continue to do with pride and dedication.


Dave and Danny