Dolly Parton and the hamster

So I'm watching Dolly Parton, and Kenny Rogers, on Oprah...everyone singing those songs that everyone, fan or not, knows the lyrics to.  This takes me back to being 19, and having basically "run away" from Victoria BC where my parents lived briefly (that's how I got there, being unsuccessful at providing for myself, and my cat) and getting on a midnight train to Edmonton, with my boyfriend, who was 10 years my senior.  We sat in the dome car all night watching the mountains go by, the pristine snow sparkling in the light of a full moon! Incredible!! So what does that have to do with Dolly you say?  Well when we got to Edmonton, we had nothing but the clothes on our back and a small amount of money.  We found a really sleazy one room apartment, and bought 1 pot, 2 plates and a set of cutlery each.  We searched for jobs, and when we found them (a Bookstore for me, a contracting job for him) we decided we would splurge....so we went to the pawn shop and bought a little tape player and every Dolly Parton tape we could find!!!!  That little music machine provided hours of entertainment, and drowned out the sound of the inebriated couple next door as they fought on and on...and we sung "I will always love you" and other such songs!!!!  I remember we wanted a pet....and we could afford the pet...it was the cage we couldn't quite manage....so we got the hamster anyway, and it lived in the crisper container of the fridge...no, not in the fridge...the container was out of the fridge....we didn't need it anyway because we didn't have enough money to fill both crispers !!! We eventually "moon lighted" from that apartment to a better one room apartment! I also remember that winter in Edmonton is cold...when I say cold...I mean "deadly" cold.  Having come from Victoria, I didn't have any boots, and was wearing those little Chinese slippers, black cotton, with a little strap.  My feet got very cold going to and from work, but the interesting thing about the cold in Edmonton is that it actually "speed freezes" your flesh so quickly, that you don't realize that you can no longer feel your feet until about 2 hours after you're back inside!!!  That's presuming that they don't just come right off when you remove your shoes!!! It's the "thawing" not the "freezing" that is so incredibly painful.  It almost makes you want to just put your "shoes" back on and go back outside for awhile!!!! Anyway...it's funny how these things go...how things link together in a quirky kind of way!  the best thing about Dolly; the hamster; the weird neighbours; the cold and the man is...that I got a "Paul and Andrew" out of it ...so they're worth more than losing a few toes!!!...if I had lost any toes....which I didn't...but you get the point!!