NOT A PATIENT PENELOPE
My publisher began screeching for the Rome Adventure Guide manuscript – not unreasonably (I've spun through all his goodwill and extensions now). Seven clients vie for itinerary-time in Europe this spring. Deadlines stack like jets circling a closed runway.

The last few weeks have been a Gordian knot of trip-planning, 15-hour workdays, and trying to decipher the Inappropriate Beau's infrequent and increasingly distant emails.

Something's rotten in the state of New Zealand. But what?

"You're just exhausted," friends cluck and soothe. "Don't confront him, silly. You'll be fine once you're together."

But my skin crawls. I'm lackluster about our European jaunt. Each evening, I jog to Shilshole Bay and gaze at pewter Puget Sound. The anxiety doesn't ride into the sunset.

Frommer's suggests I stretch my six-week trip to ten, covering Romania and perhaps Slovenia for a new guidebook. I.B. – who plans to noodle around Europe for four months – begs off the extra time together: he's visiting hostel-buddies in Holland and Germany in May.

Germany being the home of his traveling companion. Female traveling companion.

Hmmm.

Oh dear.

Not promising.

***

A college friend supplies distraction: a game-launch at the Science Fiction Museum. I've partied with Mardi Gras royalty and media luvvies of late; why not infiltrate the Experience Music Project, that bastard brainchild of Architect Frank Gehry and Microsoft Cofounder Paul Allen?

The complex litters the base of Seattle's Space Needle. Said to resemble Jimi Hendrix's smashed guitar, the structure looks more "like something that crawled out of the sea, rolled over and died," according to Herbert Muschamp, architecture critic for The New York Times.

Inside, gamers and programmers mingle. The food is plentiful, the bar open, the music rocks (AC/DShe).

"So this German backpacker has me worried," I begin over strawberries, cheese and Chardonnay.

"Excuse me, are you Jason Ocampo?" A man steams into our conversation. "I watch you on Gamespot all the time. Wow! What an honor. I'm a huge fan!"

Surprised, I turn to my friend: "Jase, have you got groupies now?"

"Well ... They have us on-camera a lot now. I get recognized sometimes."

"But you're a writer!"

The interloper chips in, unhelpfully: "Oh, I never read the news. Too much work. But I love to watch it."

Great. My beau and job prospects are waning in tandem. Despite a handful of modeling and acting stints, I've resisted the siren lure of broadcast journalism. Wordsmithing drew me to this career; I can't imagine suffering its slings and arrows for anything less.

Perhaps I am too curmudgeonly, though. Why struggle in a garret? I could bleach my teeth, infill my Kirk-Douglassy chin dimple and become a podcast princess ...

No ... that's just the stress talking.

Everything will be just fine, I'm sure.

LAMB DRESSED AS MUTTON
Following my society debut in Arklatex, I attended the launch party of Seattle Metropolitan. What pomp, what circumstance, what epic queues for a mere drink!

The Emerald City went in LA-drag for this gala: cleavage and spike heels sprouted like rainforest fungus. "People flew in for this event," a friend whispered. Teens bumped and ground in striped stockings. I nibbled a lettuce leaf, all this vegetarian could snag off the sushi buffet.

Was this a magazine plot for fashionable thiness? Or catering catastrophe? "Let's sneak out for pizza," suggested my artist friend Maria. But lines snarled around the Moore Theater: leave and we would never return.

No amount of bespoke umbrellas – matching the inaugural cover – could cloud the fact this bash outgrew its britches. No intimate publishing soiree, it more resembled a capacity-crowd at a ballgame ... just with less cheerful inebriation. Did I mention the 45-minute wait for beverages?

Double-fisting drinks, the die-hards finally took to the dance floor. Some Microsoft coders writhed nearby. "The city's a bit chill," one of the Detroit emigrants admitted. "But we'll heat it up!"

Indeed. One mop-haired tecchie in aviator glasses reached under his sport jacket and tore his white t-shirt in half like the Incredible Hulk.

Steady!

A photographer friend invited us clubbing, except her car was hopelessly boxed. A cop watch impassively. "I can ticket, but I can't tow," he said.

"How many people would it take to lift that thing?" I asked.

"About eight, usually," he nodded.

I appealed to the crowd milling outside the Baltic Room. "Any chance you could help?"

The women volunteered. The men demurred and sloped off to drink in Pioneer Square. "Typical," the ladies groused.

"The door's unlocked," one of our party shouted. Then, under the approving gaze of Seattle's finest, she climbed into the offending car and rolled it downhill.

Our momentum was lost, however. We dipped into a Fremont club, a few Ballard bars all closing. And so Maria and I finished the evening outside the supermarket, talking to the QFC checker injured last year by a shoplifter.

The escape car doubled back – over his head.

After weeks in the hospital, he went home to his wife and baby. Eventually he even returned to the Ballard branch; the community's goodwill outweighed the bad memories.

I perched on the garbage can, massaging my sore feet (the turquoise high-heeled boots from London don't dance well). My artist friend – once a lawyer – laughed with the clerks in the night mist.

Metropolitan missed the pulse; Seattle's right here, not bathed under spots and strobes.

STRIPPER STOLE MY WIG
"Do you like? I just got them," Society Gal lofts her bosom under London couture. "They're double-D's."

I am so very out of place at the Krewe of Gemini ball. Men wear pink feathers here – great 12-foot wingspans of them with tights to match. Yet the good old boys keep kissing my hand, real tits notwithstanding.

One squeegees up, eyebrows waggling. "I'm King of XX Krewe and you are gorgeous!"

Though not a predatory woman, I grab my colleague Jack. "Dance. Now. Please!"

We swing into the crowd, bumbling along to the big band.

The lights dim. "Do you dream?" a portentous voice intones. "What do you dream? Of love? Of captivating fantasy?

"Tonight, come now and experience ... Gemini's dream."

The old kings strut on-stage to Mac the Knife. "Fancy white gloves has Macheath, dear. So there's never, never a trace of red."

What am I doing here?

***

The current royalty parade the hall's perimeter; some even coordinate their scepter-swings. The Queen wraps a length of metallic-turquoise heart-shaped beads around my neck. Photo op! Krewe dignitary confronts flapper-esque alternachick (or what passes for one in Louisiana).

The men wear top hats, like Uncle Sam in sequined drag. The women wear warpaint and the tight smiles of beauty queens avoiding lip-wrinkles. Either that or they're grinning broadly on Botox.

"Hey, little sister," Billy Idol snarls on the sound system. Rose petals flutter into the air, as backdrop scenery glides.

"It's like college, except you're partying with your parents," Jack groans.

***

We dance. Jessica, the tourism board's hostess, orders Domino's delivery. I befriend a waiter with a lip piercing. "Society Gal is a real bitch," he confirms. "I went to high school with her."

"She bought nice breasts," I note.

"C. always could afford the best."

***

Paramedics carry off a woman. Her head lolls on the stretcher. "Every year," a security guard sighs.

The Gemini Dream eventually fades, after a few renditions of Wild Cherry. "Play that funky music, white boy. Lay down that boogie and play that funky music till you die."

***

I'm walking around a pub, looking for the lip-ringed waiter. People stare. Small wonder: I'm wearing a scarlet bob wig, feather boa, floor-length black gown and a few select strands of Mardi Gras beads (the fish made me disproportionately excited). In the land of tans, tulle and teased hair, my pale presence is nearly Gothic.

I know four people in Arklatex. (Six, counting the King of XX Krewe and his wife, who obviously longs to bitch-slap me for existing.) What do I care?

Jack, Renee and I fall in with two locals. Then a few more. A bar-crawl evolves. At the Filibuster, a lady rushes up, "could I borrow you wig? Just for a bit? You can wear my cowgirl hat!"

Now, this silly accessory was one of the few artifacts from Hong Kong. Travelgirl magazine sent me there to shop.

I failed.

My story begins: "Hong Kong sticks to my skin. Clouds veil the neon core of this glamorous, gritty metropolis. But the Fragrant Island, frankly, confuses me. Capitalist guilt and it-girl greed fuse my brain. Should I nab some Louis Vuitton Epi bargains? Barter for a black-market movie? Saddle my bureau with yet another inlaid jewel box, ethically purchased from a co-operative of oppressed artists?

"Torn, I do the only thing conceivable: dance until dawn in a scarlet wig and pink aviator glasses."

Editor Stephanie Oswald – whom Jordanians continually mistook for my twin – was as indulgent as a sister should be. She let me have an existential consumer crisis over six spreads in a glossy national, concluding:

"I now realize I won't ever win in Hong Kong, as a sucker or a skinflint. Pennies saved are plums deprived to children living in poverty. Hundreds squandered pad the pockets of fat cats and their multinational shareholders. I return to Seattle nearly empty-handed. In a city celebrated for shopping, I have found friends and a happy fortune, but little fashion, high or low."

So the wig is big. It's symbolic. I can't just let a stripper abscond with it, no matter how nifty the hostage-hat.

We follow her retinue through several pubs until closing hour. "I can get us into the Hustler Club free," she announces. "I know people in this town."

Erm. I'd rather just grab the wig and ... oh, nevermind. What the hell. When in Shreveport...

We're swept into the club. I haven't entered one in ten years, since my award-winning piece on students who trade erotica for education.

Nothing's changed. Women gyrate. The patrons – mostly male – slaver.

Yawn.

Wig restored, we're evicted at 6am. The locals are unstoppable. "Let's go to a casino!"

I want to stay the course, to see just how hard Arklatex parties – purely for research purposes, of course – but breakfast interviews beckon, only a few hours off. I crawl back to grand-and-bland hotel. This southern city has whupped me good.

SYRINGE JELLO SHOTS
Racks of beads jangle on pegs, as the floats prepare for the Krewe of Centaur's Mardi Gras parade, Louisiana's largest this year. Riders storm through the three-story floats, loading more glitterware. A Catholic priest blesses each one, hurling holy droplets: "my prayer is that's all the water you'll see today," Monsignor Earl Provenza intones under a slug-grey sky.

I weave among the floats, prior to the parade's launch. My scarlet-bob wig is topped by the Jay hat, the one that somehow morphs a pretty woman into a trash-talkin' punk from Kevin Smith's NJ trilogy.

As numerous colleagues have pointed out, this Mata Hari disguise can come in handy.

A silver-maned woman proffers vodka jello shots at the KISS float, just beside the Star Wars tribute. My eyes rest on Chewbacca, as she syringes the rubbery mass into my mouth. "What have I done?" I ask, after choking it all down in two wussy gulps.

"Five cc of liquor. Two ounces of jello," the nurse replies.

What I avoided in three years of college occurs in three short Shreveport days. Amazing.

Freshly initiated – and inebriated – we wander among the 32 floats. Each receives $1,200 from the Krewe annually. Other design expenses draw from the pockets of the lieutenants. Yet each rider might shell out $75 in dues, $50 for a float-slot and at least $250 in trinkets.

This party ain't cheap.

Soon 4.5 million "throws" – mainly beads, but also stuffed animals and commemorative cups – will litter the six-mile parade route.

An aviatrix in a bomber jacket and goggles exhibits her float, first-prize winner for its airplane with whirling props. She leers at twenty-something Brian and forces more jello shots, in restrained salsa tubs this time, on us.

"Down in one," she hollers. "You need liquid protection on a cold day!"

The cherry blubber hits my throat and slides south. I cough it down, hating the sweetener. But our hostess approves: "you there, Red, you've done this before, I see."

"Not much," I think. But my scarlet lips smile.

Mardi Gras isn't who you are. It's who you want to be – today.

HOME OF THE MUFFY
"ALERT!!! Plastic Baby Baked in Cake," declares the warning sticker.

"Do you boil the babies first?" I ask a worker at Julie Anne's Bakery.

"They're clean," she points to a cup of fingernail-sized, naked pink dollies. She lobs one into a roll of sweet dough and begins twisting it into a king cake, the traditional sweet of Mardi Gras. Basically, it's a big circular cinnamon roll, sprinkled with gold, purple and emerald green sugar crystals.

Whoever scores the baked baby has to buy next year's cake. "No pagan fertility overtones?" I ask. The baker shakes his head. "It represents the infant Jesus. Some people think it's lucky."

Sugar-fueled denial: the best kind.

***

Tonight I'm attending the black-tie Krewe of Gemini ball. Nervous about sub-par grooming among the southern belles, I run to the drugstore. And freeze, confronted by acres of powder compacts.

Am I alabaster or ivory? Do I need to foundation goo, which I despise? Does the applicator puff come in the packet? I beg a clerk for help. "Honey, I don't know make-up, but she does."

She points to a colleague, whose black complexion is overwritten with garish blush and blue eyeshadow. Her hair rises to a woodpecker wedge, bleached blonde at the tips. All that glitters is gold – namely, a tooth.

It's a look, all right. Not exactly the one I was after, though.

But why not ask?

This vivid woman is, in fact, a licensed cosmetologist. She selects a suitably prissy, whiter-shade-of-pale powder and coaches me on its application. We laugh a lot.

I leave, much wiser in ways beyond make-up.

***

We lunch at Fertitta's, purveyor of a legendary mixed-meat and chopped-olive sandwich on muffaletta, a round Cajun-Sicilian bread.

"Dad couldn't afford to spell the whole word on the neon sign, so we're just the 'home of the muffy'," explains Agatha Fertitta McCall. Her delicatessen is now on the National Register of Historic Places. The interior retains a 1950s air with checked table cloths, faded travel posters, family snapshots and a crucifix on the pea-green walls. Patrons sip cokes and sweet tea.

"It would be a great place for a mafia movie," Agatha admits. "Once we hosted a divorce party. The cake was shaped like a pig and had the ex-wife's name on it."

Her husband Robert interjects: "Yeah and it was red, so it looked like the pig was bleeding when they cut slices."

Both shudder. Mob jokes aside – and we Italian-Americans all make 'em – the McCalls are gentle people, dedicated to family and tradition.

Fertitta's was once surrounded by the honky-tonks and shotgun houses of the Blue Goose District. "My dad looked at Elvis and said, 'that kid isn't going to amount to anything. He's a hoodlum.'"

Now the red-brick building stands isolated amid empty lots. "I don't know what will happen to the Home of the Muffy," Agatha says. She curls an arm around her son, a young man who dreams of real estate development, rather than mincing pickles into the olive spread.

"All I know is my father told me to hang onto Fertitta's, no matter what. The longer it lasts, the more valuable it becomes. You can't manufacture history and tradition."

ELVIS HAS LEFT THE BUILDING
"The King played right here," the guide announces. "Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash too. A lot of people get down and kiss the floorboards..." he pauses, glances around. Noncommittal, we're all staring into the olde-time rigging.

"Don't any of you want to kiss the stage?" he adds plaintively.

Um. No.

I am, in fact, pretty impressed. Shreveport's Municipal Auditorium hosted the Louisiana Hayride, which gave the boy wonder his big break (after the Grand Old Opry's rejection). Gladys and Vernon Presley had to sign the contract – for $18 a show – as he was just an acne-speckled 19.

Elvis first "left the building" here too. The Cradle of the Stars boasts a stack of notable alums, from Hank Williams and Slim Whitman to Eric Clapton. But I'm still not motivated to smooch the stage.

***

Where would I abase myself? I can't imagine. Even the Roman Forum – my dream and object of study for decades – didn't inspire groveling.

Oh, I have moments of deep, quiet awe (Petra, the Eternal City's Cimitero Acattolico and the maritime prairie where the Pig War unfolded peaceably). But I never kneel.

Maybe that's the curse of travel writers: always a pilgrim, never a penitent...

***

Luckily, the Multicultural Center of the South interrupts my navel-gazing. This kooky collection showcases everyday objects from 20 local ethnic groups. So visitors progress from an Indian living room to a Chinese bedroom.

"Did you know you can tell Asians apart?" comments the Dutch-Indonesian guide. "A lot of people think they look the same. But if you line them up – Japanese, Korean, Chinese – and look at their eyes, they're all different."

Her wonder and excitement are so genuine, I dare not snigger like a Left Coast cosmopolite. Instead I bite my lip and examine the Filipino hut, the African zebra-hide chairs, the Scottish kilts next to Greek Corinthian columns.

"Here we have the all-purpose white honky room," a colleague mutters, finally voicing our collective cynicism.

I resist the urge to kneel and kiss his feet.

FIGHT FOR FLIGHT
I lurch straight from a nightmare to the window. The airport shuttle rumbles on my quiet street. No!

Two alarms, two door-buzzes and one phone call failed to rouse me; ironic, really, after my January piety. Luckily, my suitcase is packed, my clothes prepped. I slop kitty kibble in bowl and race out the door.

"You're pretty quick for an oversleeper," the driver notes.

Why is this an odd point of pride?

We swing by Queen Anne Hill, gathering an older Brazilian woman and her two daughters: all Americanized, but still svelte and sexy in a South American way. La mamma is a translator and language instructor. This gracious cosmopolite chats to me in Italian. At 4am. Gentile signora, per favore, no!

I zombie through Seattle's airport, strangely empty except for its bored and hostile employees. One security expert does nothing but accelerate laptops along the x-ray conveyor belt. As each fragile machine rattles along – stripped of its cushioning case and relegated to a gray plastic bin – she gives it a mighty shove. There. That'll teach you to sneak out early, avoiding the rush.

My flight to Dallas, however, is far from empty. Dozens of prepubescent cheerleaders – en route to some competition – bounce and squeal. That phrasing, I promise, is not the sour grapes of an unpopular nerd. These darling children really writhe with enthusiasm. In fact, one writhes directly into my kidneys for almost four hours.

But I forgive them much, including the purple and mallard-green jumpsuits (like, hello, who dressed you like an 1980s mall? Let's pull their hair!). Because the pilot booms some platitudes over the intercom: "We have some celebrities on board, a [Seattle- suburb] cheerleading team. Good luck, girls!"

At least five piping voices correct el capitan: "girls and boys."

***

I ride the mosquito fleet from Dallas to Shreveport, Louisiana. "What's it like to live here?" I ask a middle-aged black woman, as we stroll through the tiny terminal.

"Big crime problem," she comments. "Those casinos..."

I hadn't realized gambling's sway in Arklatex (the corner of Arkansas, Louisiana and Texas, for the uninitiated). But I'm staying at Sam's Town, a big, bland mirrored-skyscraper temple to lady luck. No wonder she covers her eyes...

The clerk is brisk: "your room's not ready yet. It's being cleaned."

"Maybe I could just ... freshen up? Please?" Inside I'm screaming: "one hour of sleep, a bolt from the house, damn you: let me shower before interviewing!"

"Ma'am, we couldn't let you into a dirty room!"

Really, I wouldn't mind one bit. Probably wouldn't even notice the difference ... And I'd be more charmed by the concession than any amount of fresh linen or furniture polish.

But I'm in fake-glitz la-la land. So I smile, check my bags, slap water on my dark eye-circles in the marbled, mirrored toilet. My game face is more or less intact: bring it on, Arklatex.

TIME-LAPSE REALITY
I was home in Seattle just two days between Quebec's Carnaval and Louisiana's Mardi Gras.

Many items had ... shifted. Nothing malicious: dirty coffee cups were clean, some plates were tidied into the wrong spot, a jade plant migrated rooms. Jake the Tabby and Molly Alleycat, no matter how clever, were clearly not the culprits.

Nope. Someone with thumbs had meddled.

Late night, after long flights and greasy airport food, such changes are disconcerting. I rang S., who shares this 100-year-old duplex and frequently cat-sits, permitting me to lark about the globe.

"Um, did you wash up?" I was forced to ask. "Or maybe your mom..."

Her mum is famously enthusiastic about domestic duties – and sometimes fills in, minding this five-cat house when we're both away.

Not that I'm ungrateful, just unnerved.

"Yeah, I'm so sorry," S. said. "I meant to leave you a message. She stayed over because someone broke into my apartment while you were gone. I was too freaked out to sleep here."

***

Hell's bells. I'm home about 85% of the time S. isn't. And I'm alert; I recently stopped a bike theft in the alley. Yet some beast threw rocks through her window at four o'clock in the afternoon, then prowled the flat. I was in Quebec. She was at the emergency room, tending her father (who recovered, but still, extra helping of bad karma there).

Inevitably, we both fretted. Was someone watching our home, aware that I'd abandoned sentinel duty? Or was it sheer coincidence? For business, I have a PO Box, an unlisted number ... Still I worried: had this blog somehow contributed to the incident?

Probably not. Three other neighbors were burgled on this block. In every case, the robbers ignored bulky, big-ticket items, preferring to paw through drawers for drugs and money (so say the cops). These thieves seemed opportunistic and impulsive, not wily cyberstalkers.

Nevertheless, it's a good excuse for some lag-time in this journal. So Road Remedies will trail behind reality a bit; partly because I do, partly for security.

ROCK STARS AND DOG SHIT
The sled-dog pups writhe and nose through the cage's mesh. "Go on," Kate Alvo, a novice guide, urges. "Climb in. Hold one."

The pen reeks powerfully of pee-steeped snow and doggy straw. But the youngsters are irresistible – and I don't even properly like canines. But they spread around us, staked near huts: howling, hundreds-strong.

I let the litter sniff my hand first, always good manners with strange animals, then loft a pup into the air. His body still churns to a jazz beat. "Thumpa, whump, slap," drums the tail. My fatigue sloughs away and I remember a minor insight of last week.

Tired, embittered by the freelance slog, I'd skived off into the afternoon sunshine. As I darted from errand to errand – what a rebel am I! – a man was coaxing a puppy across 20th Street in Seattle. "Go," he cheered, as the walk-light flashed. The little creature steamed off ... completely in the wrong direction.

"Well, she got part of it right," I noted. "The goodwill is there."

"She's nothing but goodwill," he beamed. (Probably because man's best friend is ginormous babe-magnet – or so IB reported, while dog-sitting for his ex-wife. Case in point: would I normally strike up a conversation on Market Avenue? Hell no. Chill Seattle earns its name.).

"Oh," I thought. "Now that's the point, really. Caring for small, enthusiastic wriggling things. Not the deathless prose of travel blogs or yet another guidebook to Rome." (Or chatting up cute girls in Ballard, however fun, presumably.)

Funny, really, how even the ominous tick of a biological clock is preferable to work.

***

The sled's almost entirely wood, unlike the plastic-coated ash-runners and canvas sling I drove in Colorado. We glide along well-worn trails, weaving among trees, hills and lakes. The guide, Simon Jegou, tells me about his grief losing pups and his hassles crossing the border post-9-11 to follow his favorite band. "I am such a Phish-head," he announces.

I'd guess Simon's wages – as a sled guide and summer trail worker – don't cover his expenses. But he obviously loves this work, despite all the close-up cameos of husky-mix bottoms and droppings.

"A poo!" he declares in cheerful French-tinged English, every time a dog crouch-hops and defecates. I shield my face with the Patagucci mittens. We're barreling towards said poo – what a horrible graphic term – at maybe 10 miles an hour. My mouth is about 30 inches above the trail. I envision this horrible pancake-flip slapstick sequence...

Why did no one warn me about such occupational hazards?

***

I know, I know: my job is ranked #2 in the world on some surveys, right behind rock stars'. But riding in a snowy chute of dog excretions? Not even I can manage a glamorous spin on that one.

A student in New Zealand recently asked if my frank blog might not "erode the travel writing mystique".

"Good" was all I could reply. I would never discourage someone from their dreams – this career is among the finest, no doubt. Equally, I wouldn't blow smoke about its downsides: long hours, low pay, hustling for gigs, loneliness, uncertain prospects, icy hotel rooms and, well, dog shit.

A NAKED APE IN THE NOT-SO-SILENT NIGHT
During my mountaineering days, I slept on glaciers a dozen times or so. I'd strip to one layer of thin thermals, snuggle into the mummy bag and snooze till reveille. No problem.

The accepted wisdom, however, is that being naked is even warmer.

"At negative 20 outside, it is negative 10-degrees in the hotel," announces our cold-weather orientier, Ambroise Savard. "The average fridge is negative 4 Celsius.

"Humidity is the enemy. Clothes trap moisture and they could make you sweat. And then you will freeze," he explains.

If there's ever a time to test the nude theory, it's now at the Ice Hotel – close to a sauna, hot tub and first-aid-trained staff. I just wish I weren't sharing a room with four colleagues: three female and one male.

***

They dance in the Ice Bar. I'm restless, not in the groove, so I walk alone under the stars. Hundreds of sled dogs howl into the moonlight. Quebec lacks mountains, but a wildness laces its forests still.

I return to suite 8 and slip into my trusty French-Canadian bikini, four days old and already so famous. Andrea's struggling with her sleeping bag – the neck must cinch tight to preserve heat – so I tuck her into bed. "You'd make a good mom," she says. "You take care of people."

"I used to be a wilderness guide; I've had practice," I reply. "Once I had to Scotchguard someone's armpit. Weird job. Almost as weird as this."

Barefoot, swaddled in a terry cloth robe, I pad the corridors to the courtyard. A few die-hards linger in the hot tubs at 2am. Soon I'm alone again, though. The steam clings to my twisted bun, then freezes into crunchy clumps. The experience, I decide, isn't all that wonderful. So I retreat into the sauna, basking in the cedar-scented heat.

***

Warmed, I race for the room. Andrea's already out, Stuart's staring at the candlelit ceiling, the others are gone: probably sleeping on the lodge couches, I figure.

I step into the liner, like a magician's disappearing sack, and bunny-hop into the mummy bag. I squirm out of the wet bikini – that modest shrug and shimmy of childhood, changing behind a towel at the beach. My dry clothes are packed around me; otherwise they would freeze by morning. I lie beside Andrea – trying to ignore the social awkwardness – on the double bed: a carved slab of ice, lit from within, and topped with a foam mattress.

I'm not cold, really. Just tepid. And tired of pushing my boundaries.

Sheila and Sharon enter whispering and laughing. Stuart decides to taxi back to the Quebec Hilton. Andrea shushes them. "You can not expect a gaggle of journalists to go to bed quietly," I murmur. Especially when we've all drunk vodka shots from carved ice-chunk cups.

Eventually we all simmmer down and sleep. Everyone snores, cloudy puffs in the frigid air.

***

I wake slowly, as usual. Tepid still. I worm into silk thermals and, ah, experience warmth. My nudity experiment flopped, but I'm glad I tried.

Andrea grins, still halo-ed by her mummy sack. "The others are already out of bed," she announces.

"That may be the strangest comment a colleague has ever made to me."

THE BIMBO MINDS
"You're a page four girl," my friend Andrea greets me. "I saved this."

She hands me Le Journal de Quebec. Sure enough, I'm splashing snow in a black-and-white quarter-page image. Really, next time I'm nearly naked at minus 30, I must remember not to slouch...

"I'm embarassed," I whine.

"You'll show this to your grandchildren," she insists. "Be proud. You're tough and you looked great out there."

"I just hope I'm not on the AP wire."

***

My issue's about control, I realize. As a member of the media since 18, I'm accustomed to editorial veto on coverage of myself. Some, at least.

A sadistic features editor once assigned me "Three Hairstyles for the Millenium". I protested; yes, I was that uppity cub reporter, a serious chronicler of science and literature and travel, not fluff.

"You, dearie, cover what I tell you to cover. Now go get groomed."

The experience was wretched. The hairdressers hand-tonged my thick, long, perfectly straight hair, starching it into crispy curls. The styling and photo-shoot took seven hours longer than expected. The final molded 'do was so plastic, I biked home through a rainstorm and it didn't even wilt.

My colleagues were much amused. "Blimey, love, you clean up well," a 65-year-old paperboy announced.

I wrote a wrathful piece about my hatred of salons and the bunny-torturing cosmetic industry. My boss ran it under a headline that said "What a Difference a Day Can Make!"

"Erm, Fiona. This title doesn't match my angry-young-woman text."

"Do you think you know how to write headlines better than me? I'm Assistant Features Editor!"

"Well, maybe you could read the story beforehand? So there's a vague connection between the two?"

No dice. So readers of the Oxford Mail were treated to schitzophrenic double-page spread: my rant, her rave, plus photos of various Merchant-Ivory upsweeps (so very 2000).

Worse yet, I passed the front-page designer's terminal. My picture simpered above the masthead. The text beside it blared, "how to get a head for the holidays."

"That's a bit suggestive," I offered. "Maybe get rid of the innuendo?"

My colleague wheeled around and snapped: "You're such a Yank feminist. I'm sure whoever this bimbo is, she doesn't care."

The bimbo minds. Yes indeed.

SIXTY DEGREES OF SEPARATION
We arrive at the Ice Hotel in the late afternoon. "The light's fading," Stuart gasps – and disappears into the cool, blue labyrinth.

The guard stops me. I flash my carnaval press pass. "We're not the same company," he explains.

I know, I know. But photographers. And light. They're like children in a sweetshop, you know... We're staying here tonight, so would it just possibly be OK to wander about now?

The guard's a tall, bulky bloke in a thick coat and a Siberian-style hat. Intimidating. But he's just doing his job. And so are we.

He relents a few minutes later, having confiscated one of my business cards. I track down Stuart inside the frozen wasteland. "I saw a woman with a floor-length fur, all diagonal white and brown swirls. Want to photograph her?"

"You're a vegetarian," he points out. "Why promote dead animal skins?"

"She's an exemplar of her type," I explain. "It's an Ice Hotel. Parkas are passé! We want a big freaky fur coat! Pelts and ice, classic combo."

He agrees, so I hare off. The floorplan is probably no more convoluted than the average hotel, but there's something about the igloo walls, the sculpted benches and bars, that's disorienting. The monotonality, perhaps? The minimal furniture?

I pass a barkeep razoring opaque orange curls from an ice table. "Orange juice," she sighs.

"That would be a 30-second wipe-job anywhere else," I note. "How long will it take?"

"At least ten minutes."

***

Furl Swirl Lady has melted into the landscape like a Wicked Witch. I pass other day visitors: giggling Japanese girls, earnest families, ski bunnies. Disappointed, I loop back through the main chamber. A couple pose under a Gothic arch of ice.

Her legs are bare between fur-trimmed boots and a handkerchief-hemline white dress.

"Excuse me. Did you just get married?" I ask. "Could we interview you and take some pictures too?"

Rachel and Travis allow us to gatecrash their wedding. The young Sydney couple eloped to the Ice Hotel. A few days ago, they lounged on the beach in 30-degree Celsius weather. Now they are man and wife – about to sleep on a snow slab – in this minus 30-degree clime (given the wind chill).

Sixty degrees of separation!

The Marshalls, I suspect, are infinitely more fun than Fur Swirl. I glimpse her at dusk, mincing up the trail in high heels. And I'm pleased we captured their warmth and joy, instead of a cold cliché.

 

A RIVER RUNS THROUGH IT
The ferry heaves onto an ice flow, which shatters into scales, then slush. To the soundtrack of this tinkling applause, the boat bludgeons across the Saint Lawrence.

This river is special to my family's mythology. My parents tried to start a commune back in the halcyon early 70s. The other hippies balked at the downpayment, so Ellen and John bought 120 acres in upstate New York. Cherries dot their forest. Beaver gnaw dams on its borders.

Together, they built a log cabin, hewing timber, notching the logs, the whole works: real pioneer stuff. About $75 worth of plastic sheeting and tar finished the structure, which stood for 17 years.

We lived there my first winter. Snakes wormed off the hillside, seeking the warmth of the oil-barrel stove. My father John snapped once, raking great handfuls of them from above his infant's head, casting them alive into the flames.

In later summers, my parents would set me out to graze in the hillside garden, a tangle-haired tot crouched among the carrots and peas. "You were a bit feral," they admitted. "We couldn't convince you to sit and eat, so we just figured, why bother? You'd run past and snag some food, or forage outside. You ate plenty and you ate well, so we didn't worry about the table manners issue for a while."

Why was it any surprise I turned out vegetarian? Or a travel writer? And an etiquette barbarian...

But I digress. This particular patch of earth – called "Island Afoot" – bordered the Grasse River, a tributary of the Saint Lawrence.

The name laces through my earliest memories. I had a lot of respect for the Grasse River, having fallen foul of it twice.

The first incident I don't recall. Family legend claims as a toddler I willfully leapt into the spring-melt flood, bobbed to the surface and started paddling. My mother raced alongside shouting, "swim!" until she found a shallow swathe of bank, where a rescue was feasible.

"Heartless woman," I like to tease her.

"You were buoyant and breathing. You were doing just fine," she points out. "If I'd jumped in at the wrong point, we both could have been swept over the falls."

People do not survive that stretch of rapids.

But the good swimming hole is just above the first cascade. So age eight – otter-strong and sure in the water, but clumsier on land – I raced barefoot over the river-slicked boulders above the whirlpools.

I fell. Windmilling backwards. That slow-motion, cinematic, not-going-to-make-it-sensation piping down every limb.

Gracie – an older neighbor child I idolized – reached forward and grabbed the front of my bathing suit.

The fabric stretched. Strained. Then stayed my fall.

I almost lost myself in the Grasse River twice, which only increased my awe of the Saint Lawrence. Bullied by a mere tributary, I couldn't imagine the mother river.

***

Now I learn that the Grasse is not as ferocious as my childhood recollections. In fact, it's not one of the Adirondack's more rough-and-tumble waterways. St. Lawrence University Archivist Edward J. Blankman reported that: "quite distant from High Peaks country, it has the qualities of a faithful companionable wife, rather than a spectacular fiery mistress."

She still spanks bratty kids pretty hard, to my mind.

***

Arriving in Quebec Wednesday night, I yanked open the hotel drapes and gasped. A broad bay unfolded, dark on dark. I knew it was just a river, but its sweep resembled the sea.

Yes, the Saint Lawrence. Finally.

***

I couldn't leave without crossing its waters. Safe on the ferry deck, I thought about families and memories and great waterways that noodle across borders, mocking nations' maps. Of the people who pluck you from the flood or the maw of a fatal whirlpool. Of small gestures that have large resonance. Of Gracie, of Ellen, of pea-patches and pratfalls in the syrupy sunshine of childhood.

As I smiled, the crushed ice applauded.

THE ITALIAN-EDITING IDIATAROD
I am DONE with bareskin gonzo journalism. Don't get me wrong – the Snow Bath experience was huge – but I'm beyond tired. Deadlines, four hours of sleep a night, six-hour meals ... I grab my Bain de Neige certificate; hug Pauline, Bruno and Raymond; then creep back to the Hilton, jaywalking a la Quebecois, and collapse.

The Inappropriate Beau is, I believe, in Perth. My sweetheart's in summer. I'm desperately soaking in the shower, trying to raise my core temperature.

Helen and I manage about ten minutes at the parade, then slope off, promising to watch from the hotel windows. I do, over the iBook's top, proofing the PhraseFinder.

"This resembles the Italian-editing Iditarod," I write my handler at Frommer's. "I'm either freezing in the cold or fumbling with my bilingual dictionary."

Still want my job?

DRIFTS IN MY DECOLLETE
We burst from Quebec's drill house, shouting as we jog over the packed snow. As we near the Snow Bath mound, rows of mittens jut; swaddled observers high-fiving, as we race past in our swimsuits.

What now? I'm outside. The air hurts my lungs, never mind my exposed skin. People are down rolling in the powder, so I give it a try.

Yup. Just as cold as I expected.

I swivel towards the media section. I see shark-hats, yes, a lovely gesture of support. More intimidatingly, I see the snouts of two dozen cameras. Big, black professional jobbies.

What am I doing on this side of the rope? Why didn't I just give this curious ritual 80 words – or stick with the time-honored three-source article? Why is my ass on the line? In a snowy bikini, no less?

***

Career shock aside, two things stand out most from the experience: fatigue – physical and choreographical.

Go on, you just try frisking in a drift before thousands of people and the international media. Roll around. Shower crystal flakes into the air. Swing dance with companions. Bury some foolish boy. After about 180 seconds, the average snow bather is fumbling, desperate for new moves.

And I, well, I am tired. My winter of discontent has been an inactive one. Forty-five minutes of aerobics and running has knackered me. Forget the cold. I just want to sit down.

First-stage hypothermia or wussiness? Read the book.

***

The first round – two minutes – concludes. We race back inside the gym. "Le Bleuuuuuu," we holler at the waiting corps. That's right. We're VETERANS. Take that, you neon-pink shrimp.

"Go, Seattle!" someone shouts. We're all hugging and backslapping like Superbowl celebrants. Anyone would imagine we'd captured ancient Troy, not endured a small, man-made mound of snow and humiliation in Quebec, Canada.

Pauline lends me a towel to wipe dry. My skin is mottled, cold to the touch. "Bien?" she asks.

"Oui, oui, but I'm tired."

She smiles and pats my shoulder. Literally, we comprehend little. But together, we understand much.

Too soon, Le Bleu boomerangs back into the cold. As the organizers promised, the second round isn't so tough. Until Stuart – the photographer with whom I'm collaborating – shouts, "the Associated Press is here. The guy's asked your name about six times."

I conga past the press pit and a shooter yells, "are you Amanda Castleman from Seattle?" I nod, then purposefully obstruct his line-of-focus as much as possible. Damn. I write the news, not star in it. And anyway, back off my scoop!

Cavorting, I blunder into the Carnaval snowman. "Je suis journaliste. Bonjour!" I chirp into the flat disk of his face. Apparently Bonhomme made a rare indoor appearance at breakfast this morning and asked for his little American buddy Amanda. Pity. I was holed up in the hotel room, editing and drinking bad drip coffee.

"What do you think of the Snow Bath?" he shouts in perfect English.

"Bloody cold, Bonhomme."

We mimic a Gallic cheek kiss, no easy feat for the molded Michelin-man. Then I'm off; frisking, frisking, frisking. I clear snow from my cleavage – surely a personal first.

A sharp point pierces my mitt, as I paw a drift; a fake sheriff's badge. I pass it to a finned colleague in the media zone. Already Pauline is holding her head. An icy chunk hit her just above the fur earmuffs.

The Snow Bath, like so much, has unexpected edges, it seems.

***

One last round to go, this time all 80-odd revelers together. Knackered, I slow to a walk between the gym and arena. Pauline touches my elbow gently. Come on. Almost done. Words are worthless; this is pure animal communication. Mute, but not dumb.

The last ten minutes are remarkably short. I finally wheel around and – mamma mia – see the spectators stretching to the horizon, a 150-degree-wedge from where I stand dumbstruck. Poised between the cameras and the crowd, I brush the panic aside and excavate more snow from my décolleté.

Bruno, a Normandy tourism heavyweight – and my unofficial translator – slaps powder at me, then scampers. Despite the no-horseplay rules, I run him down and smear a snowball on his nape. No matter what the customs lady believed, he's the only other foreigner I've encountered.

I didn't expect to make it. But I'm screaming and singing and chanting, surrounded by comrades at the mound's edge, as the final whistle blows.

 

THE SHARK-EAT-SHARK WORLD OF STUNT JOURNALISM
"Witness the Snow Bath: imagine yourself in your bathing suit in the middle of winter at 10 degrees below."

That line triggered this particular gonzo escapade... though Greg Johnson deserves some blame too. I freelance Pacific Northwest outdoor stories for him at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. The nicest of editors, he's dead keen on experiential coverage. Don't imagine. Report. Firsthand.

And here I am. In the Quebec Drill House, a grand, copper-crenellated building near the Plains of Abraham, the old battlefield that hosts the Carnaval and one of its crowning events: the Snow Bath.

Eighty-odd revelers file into the gymnasium, flanked with soldiers in camouflage. Roughly five speak English, an usually low number even for Quebecois. The rules blur past in French, then suddenly I'm poked in the ribs. "Stand up," the organizer translating whispers.

I do the beauty-queen wave at the half-dressed crowd; people hoot and applaud. Crazy foreign journalist. Fantastique! Not quite as fantastique, of course, as the other media cameo: a Brazilian television anchor in her thong a few years back.

My bikini boldness is barely an ante in this game. Damn.

I make some nervous noises at the middle-aged woman beside me. She clucks back in French. We continue to have completely nonsensical conversations for the next hour.

We change. Mon ami Pauline dons fur earmuffs – the height of trapper-line fashion. I wear a red toque with a black fin, for reasons known only to Sylvain, the Carnaval bigshot. He assured me that some of the press corps will also sport shark hats in a gesture of support.

"Great. I'll be a marked as a member of the media. I probably won't make it out alive. They'll turn on me, like a feeding frenzy," I moaned.

"This isn't America," he reminded me.

Another voice interjected: "Get over yourself. Do you really think anyone's watching you?" snarked a colleague (the type who's blocking an indie film in his head constantly).

"Aside from the whole press pit and several thousand people, no."

***

Befinned and bikinied, I join the other snow bathers running laps around the gym. I could have happily gone my whole life without doing co-ed aerobics in a swimsuit and shark hat. But I knuckle down: this is serious business. If I don't hula to Madonna and work up a heat, I might not make it.

The soldiers are terribly professional and pokerfaced. We bumble past, cutting corners just like P.E. class: the gent in the "Kiss Me, I'm Irish" plastic hat; the cheaters in hula skirts; giggling gals in hot pants; the badminton team (man, I wish I had a prop too!).

Twins lead the exercises momentarily. We're – help me – high-kicking. Some buddies push a groom to the front. As he prompts our jumping jacks, he explains this ritual is part of the stag-party hazing. He's proving his worth for marriage.

No wonder the Inappropriate Beau fled to Australia ...

I kick off the square-dancing do-si-does with Raymond Boutin, a hale 70-year-old Quebecois gentleman who's snow bathed 14 times. We're all swinging like a barrel of monkeys, under the impassive gaze of camo-ed militia. I hope they're not rotated back from Afghanistan; the contrast could really fritz some circuits.

Time's drawing near. I'm in the first group of 20-odd. Our mission: a two-minute dash into the snow. Then a four-minute exposure. Followed by the grand finale of "around ten minutes with the whole mob".

I yank on my glove liners and gigantic "Patagucci" mittens. As I clap, they resemble seal flippers. My aquatic metaphors are mixed, but I don't care. We're all bouncing, screaming our color: "Le Bleu! Bleu! Bleu!"

Hoarse, I shout football chants, the Quebec Carnaval theme, "Le Bleuuuuuu!" I wouldn't recognize myself now. I'm not a jock, a hearty joiner-in. I don't even speak French. But that mob mentality kicks in. Ouuuuui! Whoooo! Let's go roll some hot pink skin in that snow!

HEY SISTER, GO SISTER...
I may never say this again: deadlines saved my sanity.

The Frommer's Italian phrasebook wrapped this weekend, so I was frantically copy-editing – thanks to the sub-contractor's late delivery – until bolting out the door for the dread Snow Bath.

No time for, ahem, cold feet, then. I plait my hair into cutsey alpine-braids in the lobby. Helen and Lynn consult on the sash; we decide on a trailing Isadora-Duncan-style scarf configuration, though hopefully with less deadly effect.

The morning's a blur. I gaze at the ice palace of Bonhomme, the cheerful, high-kicking snowman who serves as the Carnaval Ambassador (he's not, organizers stress, merely a mute mascot). I wander past snow sculptures and carnie booths. Nothing sinks in. Except cold.

We watch horse-sledders skid around a racetrack, which momentarily punches through my self-absorbed anxiety. "Hey sister, go sister," Lady Marmalade warbles over the loudspeaker. "Soul sister, go sister ... You are the one gotta represent."

As the All Saints hit the less-relevant chorus – Voulez vous coucher avec moi ce soir? – I'm back in the now. The sun's crisp, the crowd delighted, adventure is on hand.

And as my friend Edward says: "Half an hour of pain, lifetime of stories."

Go sister, go.

ALL THE KING'S WOMEN
Quebec City imported a passel of wenches about 325 years ago. Not quite mail-order brides, these filles du roi – the king's girls – could at least select their husbands, soon after their arrival in the French colony.

"They were orphans," the tour guide explains, as we stand scuffling in the snow to keep warm.

My Torontian friend mutters, "we always heard they were prostitutes. What healthy, well-connected woman would come freeze here?"

Indeed, the weather is bitter enough with modern miracle fibers and central heating. As I gaze at the Chute Montmorency – a waterfall 30m higher than Niagra – my skin cracks from the cold. Already, my delicate complexion is peeling, overwhelmed by icy winds alternating with the overheated Hilton.

The river's spray freezes at the cliff base, forming a mound – the "sugar loaf" – where locals toboggan.

I bury my face behind a fleece scarf. How will I endure this chill in just a bathing suit tomorrow?

***

And not just any swimming attire, but a bikini.

"No half measures," decide my Canadian consultants: Lynn Ogryzlo and Helen Racanelli. So after lunch at La Lapin Saute, we take the funicular uphill to Simons, a department store that dates back to 1840.

Much to my chagrin, the lingerie section has a small selection of bikinis. I think fondly of my high-necked Speedo one-piece, aka the "nun suit". As a former competitive swimmer, I prefer all the bobbly bits to stay secure, unless lounging on some gold-flecked beach in Mexico or the Mediterranean.

"Go all the way," Helen argues.

Lynn chimes in: "We thought perhaps a black bikini with the Carnaval arrowhead sash around your waist for warmth."

No, no, no. Absolutely no horizontal stripes on the stomach, ladies. And no "hair down for warmth". My shoulder-length locks would become one giant snow-sponge.

I'm skeptical even about the black bikini. But Lynn, Helen, the very amused saleslady – just about everyone agrees – the visual drama far outweighs the extra modicum of warmth.

And I was due a new skimpy suit anyway. Why not a Quebecois one? I slap down $30 and skid back to the hotel, those earlier words echoing in my head: "What healthy, well-connected woman would come freeze here?"

A fine question, indeed.

JE SUIS MANNEQUIN
"I see you have brought a mannequin (model)," noted the Quebecois bloke in the sauna earlier, as we shot pictures for the Ice Princess piece. He vaguely resembled Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn, so I was steadily ignoring him. Attractive men make me nervous. I dated one prettier – and I do mean prettier – than me once and can't be bothered to repeat the experience.

The Inappropriate Beau – however handsome – makes me laugh, which is far more important. Soft enough to let me ramble, he's sharp enough to be fun, funny and frighteningly wise. I can't imagine anyone I'd rather keep company with, despite the ubiquitous Mariner's baseball cap.

"Are you ever going to shuck that damn thing in public?" I asked, just before we bumbled across that line between best friends and sweethearts for the second time.

"Probably not, but I might get a different hat," he replied.

Then I realized I didn't especially care, despite my Euro-instilled snobbery against billed caps. Because I'd rather walk down a street in Rome – or anywhere in the world for that matter – with IB, baseball hat and all.

The flash car still takes some tolerance, however. But more on that – and his lovely ginger goatee – another time.

Back to the spa, where I desperately tried to explain the difference between a mannequin and écrivain, as I believe the French might dub an author. Except I was babbling "scrittrice" in Italian, which doesn't go far in the province of Quebec, Romance language or no.

Why did it bother me so? I've modeled in the past, after all. Not much, but some ... Still, dollydom bruised my ego. I'm 30 now – a woman, a writer, not some wan face and frame to project fantasies upon.

***

"You clean up well," a colleague comments at the Chateau Frontenac, Quebec's grand hotel. "Oui, je suis mannequin!" I bullshit.

Amid a frenzy of paparazzi – assembled for some minister – we check our coats, then endure a five-course meal. The food is, of course, sublime. But such long dinners are a misery with strangers, flashing me back to state occasions at the American Academy in Rome, where I lived for two years amid a flux of celebrities, ambassadors and poet laureates, plus embittered minor artists and scholars.

The Frontenac, however, contains some notable history behind its swags and towers. The lavish hotel, high above Cap Diamant, housed the planning of D-Day: the Quebec Conference between U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King in 1943.

Legend claims a busboy gathered a scrap of paper that contained the invasion plans off the floor. Agents fed it to a pig, preserving the secrecy of the Normandy landings.

Much as I adore this tale, relayed in dramatic French-accented English, it can't be quickly corroborated anywhere.

But what do I know? Je suis mannequin...

THE EXOTHERMIC LIZARD LASS
The specter of the Snow Bath is ruining Quebec for me. Anxiety wreathes every moment. I have to run into the subzero chill in my bathing suit. Again.

Today, you see, kicked off with a visit to the Siberia Station Spa outside the city. Given the sketchy French-English translations, I was never quite clear how this deviated from a typical Scandinavian format (hot tubs, cedar-sauna, sweat lodge and snow. Lots of snow.).

Photographer Stuart Dee offered to shoot my cold-weather, first-person extravaganza. So not only was I near-naked among the icicles, but I had someone suggesting: "could you just back into that freshly melted waterfall again and hold your arms out?"

And my personal favorite: "Don't sweat in the sauna."

Thanks to my lunatic thermometer, I don't, in fact, work up a lather in saunas. Throw exercise into the equation and I glisten – glow ... steam, even – like a sow on a winter's morn. But heat simply makes me content, drowsy and – above all – dry.

My father once complained, "you're a reptile child," as I basked on a black rock in the North Cascades, bundled in polar fleece. He'd retreated to the shadows in a T-shirt. "You're exothermic. Whatever heat you produce, expels instantly."

Warm to the touch, but constantly cold: that's me. So why the hell did I volunteer to run into the drifts in my bikini?

And – more to the point – where will I find a bikini in Quebec in February?

***

"I can't make it back to the lodge," Stuart announces in the yurt.

"Huh?" I manage from my hammock.

"I was born in Manila," the Vancouverite replies. "I just can't walk through the snow back to the lodge."

I stare at this stranger's six-foot-plus frame; he's hardly piggy-backable uphill, socially or physically. And why do I have this urge to fix it all better, anyway? Some demented throwback to my days as a Girl Scout (which ended in dramatic expulsion) or later as a wilderness guide (abandoned in favor of journalism)?

He's scuffling newspapers, trying to origami little booties, when a Scotswoman – Sheila – finally slings him some spare towels. He swaddles each foot like an infant.

At this point, I'm falling apart laughing and saying unhelpful things like, "c'mon, British Columbia. Suck it up! I thought you lot were all tough north of the border."

Stuart shoots back: "And you admitted you have no nerve endings in your feet. So it's hardly a fair comparison."

True, true. Now there's a trait John Lamont Castleman (my father) and I share. We both can wade across rock-strewn, glacial streams without wincing much. Our toenails turn purple and petal loose before we notice boot discomfort.

I pad barefoot up the trail behind Stuart, who camps it up, yelping about the balmy Philippines.

But no amount of smugness will see me through the Snow Bath. Sneakers and wool socks will shield my feet, long-toughened by racing along barnacled driftwood and beach boulders. It's the quivering, cold-intolerant remainder that worries me.

CHUG THE CARIBOU
"Good morning," I chirp ... at 5pm.

"It is not," the French-Canadian passport official gives me a sharp glance.

"Sorry, time-zone change. I'm from Seattle, it's almost morning there. Kinda."

"This is the joke? You find this funny?"

"No, no joke. I'm just exhausted."

The barrage of suspicious questions begin. What do I do? Journalist. Why Quebec? Carnaval.

Blimey. I'm about to be the first non-criminal denied entry to the Great White North since the conscientious-objector era. Taking a chance, I lean forward and confess: "I'm going to take the Snow Bath. I'm not only tired, but very stupid."

The officer guffaws, glances at her colleague for support, then howls with laughter.

"Is it that bad," I ask?

"Yes, I am from Quebec and even we do not do this."

"So I'll be running around in the snow with a bunch of other crazy foreigners?"

"Oui. But first, you must ask for caribou."

"What? The skin?" I'm imagining a Raquel Welch fur-kini number now. Very fetching. Except all the other vegetarians might kick me out of the club for wearing pelts.

"No, no. The drink. Ask for much caribou – gin, rum and fortified wine – before you go outside," and then, laughing still, she waves me past. "Good luck. You'll need it."

 

ICE PRINCESS
In a gonzo-journalism moment, I volunteered to take a Snow Bath this weekend at Quebec's Carnival, one of the world's largest.

"Very simple: you wear running shoes, socks, a bathing suit, mitts, and – if it is cold – perhaps a hat," Sylvain, an organizer, explains.

The thermometer dipped to -8 degrees Celsius in the walled city on the Saint Lawrence River today. How exactly is this not "cold", eh?

Later, I will sleep under a deer pelt at the Ice Hotel ... and post more entertaining fever delusions perhaps.

Quebec Tourism believes I may be the first foreign print-journalist to take a Snow Bath, so the article should be a standout … if I survive. Because – truth to be told – I am a poor-circulation, temperature wimp of the first water.

Full report to follow, if enough fingers remain to type...

LIVING LARGE, DYING WELL
My cousin died well on Friday. Hammered by Ewing's sarcoma – a childhood disease rare in adults – he had, um, padded the truth a bit. Either that or the grapevine tangled between Florida and Seattle.

"Months to go," I heard. "But visit soon while he's still strong."

Ryan McCleskey was strong right until the end. He was laughing and joking with friends at home. "I need to rest," he announced. Then he walked into the other room and died quickly in the arms of his family: his new bride Kitty, his brother Reed, his mother Darlene.

He was just 26. But he had the sense to pass with love, laughter and dignity ... what more can you really ask for?

Except for dear ones not to die young. And for him to see the second annual Ryan McCleskey Redfish Challenge II today. Despite crummy weather, 102 fishers raised over $9,000 for the Children's Hospital Cancer Fund.

Some Jack Johnson lyrics tug at me:

I heard some words
from a friend on the phone,
didn't sound so good
The doctor gave him two weeks to live
I'd give him more if I could

And I can imagine Ryan's voice booming: "Amy (my baby name), can't you find something more butch?"

So I'll sign off with silliness, as he would have liked. In This is the Place, Anthony Kiedis sings: "On the day my best friend died /I could not get my copper clean."

The reference is probably to some junkie kit. But I always imagine Flea and the other Red Hot Chili Peppers scrubbing posh pots, distracting from grief with menial tasks, like I've done.

My heart's heavy, but my house is damn clean. And that, I'm pretty sure, would have made my cousin grin.

 

RUSSIAN RIFLES AND DRIVE-THRU BARS
My parents called at 9pm. That means only one thing for such early-to-bed, early-to-rise folks: death.

My cousin, Ryan. 26. The 6’5’’ giant who met me with a bear hug at Panama City airport, shouting “what is up with that pussy you married?”

I’d last seen him 15 years ago. He’d remained a scrawny swamp kid in my mind, Leonardo di Caprio circa This Boy’s Life ... brushed golden by the Florida panhandle. Now he was burly, garnished with tattoos, a former Navy diver. He called me a Yankee do-gooder wuss. I called him a closet Democrat. We laughed a lot.

He dipped and twirled me swing-dancing, despite the cane from his last cancer operation, which replaced his humerus with a titanium rod. We ended the night in a liquor-store bar with a drive-up window, his diver friends “bulldogging” to keep me safe, unmolested, in Ms Newby’s dive. His brother and I carried Ryan from the car at dawn, then dragged this 235-pound muscle-slab back into the yard, so he could pee au natural.

His vomit was girly pink from all the tropical punch. Chemo does that.

He married six months before the end. And turned back to his art, neglected in the living-large, Hemingway years of rowdy diving and fishing.

I almost booked tickets south yesterday. We all thought months remained.

I didn’t know Ryan McCleskey well. But he taught me to comb our dying grandmother’s hair, how to pimp roll on a cane and make jokes that push back the shadows, if only briefly.

So I’m crying a bit tonight. But I’m also laughing, because I wouldn’t stop at the strip club so he could “give those poor, poor women CPR. They need help! I’m an EMT, you know.”

And because I’ve shot Russian rifles in the bayou. And caught snakes with a forked stick. And eaten hash browns in a shiny leather booth with my boisterous, beautiful cousin.

Ryan. Thank you.