Trash or Treasure? Jewel or Junk?

Today I got to see The Crapture from the other side. I worked at the church's Fall Fair. Antique dealers rent tables in the assembly hall to sell "real" "antiques," while the church sells "better" donations from its members. Nothing on our tables was more than $5, and most treasures were $2 or $3.

It's an odd feeling to see a vase that used to be in your living room sitting on a table with glassware sets, the odd bit of crystal, silver-plated serving trays, and other general housewares.

I've worked a few garage sales in my day. I've known before that there's no telling what people will buy. But I learned it again today. A young couple with a child of the "let me down!" age bought a special picture frame. It has places for those small-sized school photos. Maybe they start taking those in daycare or junior kindergarten; if not, that family will be waiting awhile.

A woman I know bought a stained glass wall hanging that I didn't want to bring from Colorado but found in my stuff anyway when I unpacked it. I knew she'd like it and I'm glad it found a home where it will be appreciated.

One shopper who spent quite a bit of time at the "real" antique dealers' tables also bought a large blue stoneware horse from us at the "bargain" tables. I was glad she bought it; that horse had a lot of personality and I was afraid it would start talking to me. And what would I do with a big blue horse? As I carried it out to her van, which she loaded down with several boxes and bags full of stuff, she said she'd just finished her Christmas shopping. I wonder what the horse recipient will think of her taste in gifts. I hope whoever gets that horse likes it.

Oh, hell. I wanted the blue horse.

Relaxing vs. Wasting Time

Hi, my name is Marion, and I'm a junk TV addict, wondering when oh when I'll be able to get my next fix!!

Since my father's death in April, I've allowed my evenings to deteriorate into festivals of bad TV. My husband and I were already fans of CSI:Miami, based solely on David Caruso's acting tics. We "do" his voice and delivery, his head tilt, and his "I'm all but turning my back on you and rocking" stance.

But now I know the characters on the CSI shows set all over the U.S. We even developed a theory: cleavage solves crime! It also, apparently, whispers ghosts--unless Melinda Gordon has a medical condition that requires her to wear revealing nighties 24/7.

But back to cop shows: I know the difference between Law & Order and Law & Order SVU. I can even tell apart the actors that play Gus in CSI (Las Vegas, the original) and that slightly weird one whose name I'm blanking now in Law & Order. Sometimes I mentally compare location shots for CSI and that Friday night Las Vegas show with James Caan.

I know that Criminal Minds has a new cop, played by Paget Brewster, the one who played Chandler's only real girlfriend on Friends (the actress, dated Joey first) lo those many years ago. Unfortunately, she plays a robot on Criminal Minds, as do many of the other characters, even my long-adored Mandy Patinkin, though I still watch to see if I can catch a flash of Inigo Montoya in his eyes, and I really wish he'd sing now and again.

Because I am powerless over my addiction, I had a favorite contestant on Canadian Idol and was frustrated when she did not win. OK, so maybe it was just "she's the best of the bad." But I was loyal.

Sometimes my evening indulgence carries over into the morning. As long as I'm being honest, I think Kelly Ripa is prettier from the Relly Award clips from the winter, when she is not so tan, than she has been in recent Relly Award clips, when she's plastered with bronzer. I'm still trying to figure out why Regis has a show at all, never mind that it's been in national syndication for 20 years. These mental games apparently require me to watch at least the host chat every day.

I thought I could control my need for mind candy--actually, for me, it's more like mind macaroni and cheese--but I was wrong. Junk TV addition is cunning, baffling, and powerful.

For the last few days, I have been forced to go cold turkey. We're down to 1.5 TV channels--periodically, one of the "good" channels goes out for not much reason that I can discern. This time, it's the CTV station; other times, CBC is the culprit. CTV runs all these bad cop shows, plus the morning news show, plus Regis and Kelly.

Looking back over the last five months in particular, plus the previous years when the roots of my addiction got hold, I can't quite find the line between an evening's relaxation and the "gotta have it!" moment of addiction. I only know that withdrawal makes me a bit grouchy. The new seasons are answering many of the questions I've come recently to ask about these shows and these characters, and now I'll never know.

Overall, losing the channel is better for me and my life. I work at home, whether I'm working on work that pays me or on one of the innumerable projects that doesn't. Even 2.5 channels presents too much opportunity to procrastinate.

So I get the message--it's time to get back to a diet with more variety than "mind mac." I have books to read (and write), organizations to contribute my time and "expertise" to, boxes to pack and unpack, phone calls and decisions to make on behalf of the family and my own financial future. I'll be a better person. I'll power through my to-do list.

And, God help me, I may rent Criminal Minds DVDs. Just in case, you know, Mandy sings.

Twixt Seasons

It's officially autumn. We received more rain in September than normal, but it was warm. We've had the odd day of cool sunny weather and even warm sunny weather, but gray and rainy isn't normal for September. I hope it's an aberration.

But somehow, the trees still know what season it is. The island in our bay is covered with balsam and birch, and the birch are starting to turn yellow--ever so slightly, just around the edges, but changing daily. The birches along our private path are dropping occasional golden loonies. Later, the path will look as if it's paved in gold. The pines are dropping extra needles, too. The grasses are yellowing, and the scrub brush has gone riotous red.

It's easier to be patient now, while watching the year wind down and preparing myself for winter, than it is to be patient while waiting for spring. Fortunately I have a beautiful place to wait--both seasons.

Which Fatigue Came First: Mental or Physical?

Yesterday morning, a three-foot-deep trench ran around three sides of the bathroom at the camp. (The fourth side is where it attaches to the rest of the house.) Yesterday evening, the trench was two-thirds full. Ask my back, hamstrings, and shoulders how all that dirt got moved. That's right--I did it all, with my little shovel.

So what. I mean, it's really not that big a deal. It took about an hour and a half of constant bending and shoveling. This is why I work out. Some people do more than this in a morning, every morning.

But it seriously wore me out. I was so physically tired that I was mentally out of it, too.

Today, I spent time with people, which always wears me out mentally, and then I did laundry, which requires just enough concentration that I can't do anything mentally restful or stimultating, either one, at the same time.

Today wasn't the mental equivalent of yesterday--work days, when I am explaining a concept that I barely understand myself, are closer--but I can tell my brain is tired. And that it's also showing up in my body.

In any case, thank goodness tomorrow's Monday. I can't take more leisure time like I had this weekend!

Parity

Back in the day--when I was moving here three years ago--I complained a lot about the relative values of the loonie (Canadian dollar) and the U.S. dollar (sometimes called the greenback but often just called "the dollar," with the "U.S." part understood). At that time, the loonie was worth about 80 cents U.S.

Oh, woe was me. I longed for the days when the loonie was worth 60 to 70 cents and hovered conveniently around 66 cents for several years. Back then, I got very good at the mental arithmetic for converting loonies to dollars--divide the Canadian price by three and multiply by two, and you have the comparable price in U.S. dollars.

Three years ago, I was even nostalgic for a loonie worth 75 cents. The arithmetic was tricker--divide by four and multiply by three--but I adapted. And I still felt that I could get incredible deals in Canada, on the rare occasions I shopped for something.

Now I'm nostalgic for the 80 cent loonie of three years ago! Yesterday, the loonie and the U.S. dollar were equal in value--for a few minutes--for the first time since 1976. The loonie ended the day yesterday at 99.something cents. Today, the currency opened at par and has pretty much stayed there. Pundits have been predicting this state of affairs for the past few months, but most thought parity would happen by Christmas. Few thought it would come this early in the year.

Many people up here are enjoying this moment. The TV stations show those "what were we thinking?" moments in hair and clothing fashion from the last time the loonie was so valuable. However, not everyone is tickled by this news. Canada exports so much to the U.S. that the high loonie actually hurts much of the Canadian economy; U.S. companies have much less incentive to buy Canadian when Canadian costs as much as buying American and carries shipping charges, too.

I have a slightly different concern, aside from my own selfish concerns about my financial situation. (It requires incredible juggling to be sure that I have enough money in each country to cover the bills in that country.) My concern is two-fold, and both folds are those nebulous cultural things.

First, the Canadian minister of finance said yesterday that it's not so much that the Canadian dollar is worth more; the situation has arisen because the U.S. dollar is worth that much less. (Note: not "worthless"; just "worth less.") The dollar has dropped in value compared to the Euro, the yen, and the British pound. So the U.S. dollar is a lower target than it used to be. Achieving parity might actually mean that both dollars will buy what 90 cents U.S. bought a month ago.

It's like deciding you can't get to Mars, so you'll stop at the moon. There's nothing wrong with getting to the moon; it just isn't Mars.

Here's the second fold: Dollar-loonie parity doesn't mean anything about the relative value of the cultures or peoples. (I would say that parity also doesn't mean that much about the relative values of the economies, since they have such different bases, but I really don't know what I'm talking about, so I won't.) Last night, news programs showed Canadians celebrating their loonie and Americans blue that their greenback is less valuable. It's personal. But why?

Canadians are not now somehow "more equal" to Americans than they were last week. Parity doesn't mean that last week, any Canadian was worth only 95% of any American, but now--hoo boy, look out, buddy, we're just as good as you. Huh?

And here's my bottom line: the Canadian economy needs to aim higher than a loonie at par with the U.S. dollar. And the Canadian cultural psyche needs to aim higher than a feeling of "equivalence" to Americans. In both cases, I hope Canada and Canadians find different yardsticks, or metre-sticks, to measure themselves against.

The Political Season: Short and Sweet

Elections are far different in Canada and the U.S. It's all fascinating to me. Yes, I understand that politics and differences among countries, blah blah blah, are not interesting topics to other people. But the advertising in particular is just such a different animal than the political advertising machine is in the U.S. that I can't resist writing about it.

In fact, the Canadian system is a real relief to anyone who's sick of the U.S. political schedule. Here's what's wrong (one thing, anyway) in the U.S. In an early episode of the last season of The West Wing, the VP candidate tells the presidential candidate that elected presidents have 18 months to govern. Then come the mid-term elections and after that, he'll be running for re-election. So much for a four-year term.

When I was on my way to Oklahoma in August, I happened to need a motel room in Des Moines on the night of a double whammy. Not only was it the State Fair, it was also the night of a straw poll evaluating the chances of various Republican candidates for President. Needless to say, I pushed an hour south before finding a room and then paying double for it.

But those poor Americans--fifteen months before the 2008 election and a full year before the nominating convention, five to six months before the earliest primaries, and they're doing Tarot Card readings about Republican candidates. Americans are forced into semi-serious conversations about whether some guy--yes, all the Republican candidates are guys--"looks Presidential." Sheesh.

Ontario is having a provincial election. It's just a few weeks off. The campaign, if you will--the time between the call for election and the actual voting day--is about six weeks, total. (The election cycle must be at least 36 days; the longest ever has been 74 days, according to Wikipedia.)

That's just six weeks to endure ads for each party, plus ads that generally encourage people to vote. Party leaders still have plenty of time to get themselves in trouble--the Progressive-Conservative leader is catching a lot of flak for his idea to give public school funding to private religious schools--but the voter fatigue doesn't accumulate in the same way it does in the U.S. It doesn't have a chance.

The issues that ads highlight tend to be recent--one of the larger opposition parties lists, like, nine different things the current government "did wrong" in the last session. One of their hot buttons from last spring is the $40,000 pay raise that the members of parliament (their equivalent of the House of Representatives) voted for themselves, while ignoring a bill to raise minimum wage from $8 to $10 an hour. Health care--along with statistics that show it's excellent or that it's horrible--is an ongoing issue, because the province of Ontario is responsible for managing health care for its citizens.

The advertising itself isn't remarkable. Ads show people saying "the current government is great," or "the current government broke its promises." However, the whole process is wonderful because. It. Is. So. Short!!

This election was originally scheduled for October 4, but it was changed to accommodate a Jewish holiday. By October 10, it will all be over. And so will the advertising. What a system. Ya gotta love it.

Why Is This Man Smiling?

Did OJ Simpson break into a Las Vegas hotel room, with or without a gun, ringleader or follower, and take sports memorabilia?

Who cares? If he were anyone else, this wouldn't be front-page news. And we wouldn't have to see his smiling face and hear him say, yet again, that the cops are out to get him. People: He loves the attention. Don't give it to him.

Well, I foresee another stretch in which I won't have to watch the "news."

The Things You Learn

This photo shows the guts of the corner of the camp's "piano room." It's dark, but maybe that's not surprising--it is a picture of dirt, after all.

After working on the family camp, I understand why surgeons aren't allowed to operate on their family members. When you're looking inside something that you normally see only the outside of every day, you see stuff you maybe didn't really want to see. Or, more articulately: yuck.

For example, joists aren't really all that big. The ones under this room are 2 inches by 6 inches and eight feet long. They help hold up an entire room--four walls and a ceiling and flooring--and everything in the room. In this case, a piano. That's a lot to ask from wood, especially wood that's been exposed to critters and some weather for decades.

And wood, when it rots, is spectacularly scary. It flakes, it gets iridescent, it smells, it squishes. For something that starts out very solid, it sure can adopt a lot of different un-solid textures over time.

On the up side, you do learn a lot when you're underneath or inside something you normally see only the outside of. When you're digging ten feet away from a birch tree, especially if there's a building between you and the tree, you don't expect to hit tree roots. But you do. Apparently the root systems for birch trees aren't particularly deep, but they creep a long way, horizontally, from the tree. Who knew?

Birch roots poking up from under the soil can look like human knuckles, especially if you've watched a lot of CSI shows recently. Also, birch roots have a layer of red bark under the top layer of grayish-brownish-tan bark. You have to cut through birch roots to see it, but it's there. And it's not the kind of thing you would normally see, driving at highway speeds looking at stands of birch trees.

Does the "huh, that's cool" factor outweigh the "yuck" factor? I suppose that depends on your tolerance for frailty, whether of humans or lumber, and your memory. Once the camp is closed up--which should be in the next week or so--I will eventually forget the details of the dark and musty foundations. I'll focus again on what I can see, every day.

But I will continue to depend on the foundations for support as I enjoy the camp. I'll consciously remember the digging, and the tree roots, and the shards of broken china that turned up under my shovel. I'll walk on new flooring, paint the new support beams, sweep the floor, rearrange the furniture. And I'll know, at some level, that the dirt and cement blocks and beams and joists make all that possible.

Chaos or Creativity?

OK, maybe I'm a glutton for punishment. We're tearing apart this heirloom structure (built by grandfather!! decades old!!) and because that's not enough upheaval, I'm also trying to move. Unfortunately, it's not one of those "moving day is X" moves. It's "let's start with the office and do a little bit every day" moves.

Which is fine, really. This little-bit-at-a-time move is the best for me, for us, right now. For one thing, have I mentioned chainsawing up the flooring in the camp and the whole renovation thing? For another, my family is still clearing up our parents' estate after our father's death in April. There are to-dos from that, plus there's some serious psychological work of "letting go" of stuff that has always been around in their house but I don't need it around in my house! Plus my husband's house is still full of furniture, photos, boxes, and assorted memorabilia from when his children and late wife lived here.

So I have too much going on to also pack up all my stuff and bring it to a place where there isn't room to unload it all! Hence taking one room at a time.

The downside is this approach means that all parts of my life are chaotic at the moment. I was hoping in September to have some time to set up my business plan for the next year (that academic year is hard to let go of), which will include applying for a grant, finishing two projects that are "on the go" already, sending out old material, and even--gasp--writing new stuff. That could still happen in September, once my office is finally moved. Maybe September 30.

Meanwhile, I'm trying on a new pair of rose-colored glasses. Instead of feeling as if my life is chaotic, I'm trying to imagine that it's in a creative space. This time, which feels like disorder, is just the time when the paint is getting mixed up into the new color that will represent me, married, living here, writing full-time again.

They say that childbirth is anything but orderly. I hear it includes screaming from the creator and the created. I don't necessarily need to scream. But I'll be letting go in many parts of my life during the next few months, and that will probably have painful moments.

But at the end, I'll have a new phase of my life to nurture. The structures will be solid. My life will blend the old and the new. As will the flooring in the camp: new beams and joists, combined with old, covered with new plywood supporting old walls--and decades of memories.

Pride or Hubris?

After yesterday's crowing entry, disaster struck. Or, more accurately, a gale passed through and a tree struck--only the ground, fortunately. It was about ten feet from the camp and about a foot from the car. Both of us were safe. But it was still pretty freaky to hear a huge crack and know what was happening and be completely powerless to stop it.

I started thinking about the hubris of imagining that I can direct the way my presence changes the landscape, even here, where I am most intimately connected with the land. Me? Pfff. Nature holds all the trump cards.

I don't often quote the Christian Bible, especially the Old Testament, but this is Ecclesiastes Chapter 1, Verses 2b through 4: "All is vanity. What profit hath a woman of all her labor which she taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever."

I'm of the generation that currently cometh. I follow two generations that came to this part of the North Shore to build and rebuild and build again. I hope another generation will come after me. If not, that's OK: the earth abideth forever.

And should another generation get too big for its britches, she'll send a birch tree down to remind them who's boss.

Progress: Invisible but Indelible

Today, we are working again at the small family camp. This morning, I got quite a shock. In the back kitchen, I pulled on the door to the kitchen and stood, open-mouthed, as the door swung free.

That door has stuck on the concrete floor for ten years. Part of learning to be there is learning at what point on the door's arc to lift up so you can open the door all the way. But today, it opened all the way to the shelving on the wall behind it. No scraping. No sticking. Not even any creaking.

It's a little thing, but it's a welcome sign. Starting early Sunday afternoon, we altered our M.O. for fixing the smaller camp. We moved from the inside floor to the outside walls of the bathroom. The bathroom is a semi-separate structure added to the main house in the late 1960s. The bathroom has been falling backwards away from the rest of the house for at least the past decade. Roy figured out that because all the various roof sections are connected across the entire house, and because some of the walls are standing mostly because they're attached to the roof (the flooring beams and joists are rotten in a large area), we have to fix the bathroom sooner rather than later.

Once the bathroom structure is upright and stable, we can then go back to the beams inside the house and get them upright and stable. The walls, too.

Eventually, when we're done tinkering around with the foundations and solidity of the place, we can put that new roof on, which is what I've been wanting for a good five years anyway. When the roof no longer leaks, then the inside won't deteriorate further and we can paint walls and floors. Then it will be easier to enjoy being there--currently, it's tough to overlook all the projects that need to be done and have a simple vacation.

Meanwhile, the little bit of work we've done on the bathroom is invisible when you're standing inside the main structure. The walls are still skew-gee. The back kitchen still sinks toward the spot where the piano was. Still, the work has yielded visible results: the door opens easily. Progress. We are making a difference.

What Archimedes said was true: give me a lever and a place to stand, and I can move the world. He was right in the metaphoric sense, too--given a little success, my imagination can conjure the end state. We're not there yet, but we can see it from here.

Dumb or Daring?

Today, let's play a game. We'll call it "Dumb or Daring?"

Taking a chainsaw to the flooring in a family heirloom structure: Dumb or Daring?

Sawing through timbers that hold up the floors, walls, and ceiling of said family heirloom structure: Dumb or Daring?

Crawling around in the dirt and sand under the floor to set cement blocks that will hold up new timbers, which will serve as supports for said family heirloom structure, possibly for 80 more years: Dumb or Daring?

So far, the correct answer each time is Daring. I know that in my head. I know that to get to the rotten stuff, you have to take out what's covering it first. I've had cavities since I had baby teeth; I know about drilling out the crap, stopping the rot, cleansing the wound, blah blah blah. I know that we couldn't begin to see what was wrong with the foundation of the back part of the house without going through the floor, which, by the way, was seriously rotten in spots. So my logical brain said, "Hey, let's do this. It's best in the long term."

Meanwhile, my gut churned. Somewhere deep inside, I know that the sound of a chainsaw inside our family camp (heirloom! handed down through generations!!) can't be good news. I fight panic. I take deep, cleansing breaths and remind myself of all the logical stuff in the previous paragraph. And the non-logical part of my brain, the reptile part, which apparently is also verbal though it has pre-verbal roots, shouts "Dumb! DUMB!! The answer is DUMB! Seriously dumb!"

Often, I have to find something else to do while Roy wields the saw or lays the concrete blocks. I have made serious inroads in clearing out the brush that obscures the view of the lake from the front windows. I have several other projects in mind if the chainsaw comes out of its case again.

Also, time is a great teacher. Now that we're into the concrete block phase, I have hope. It's easier to believe that soon, fresh treated timbers will take the place of the cedar trees my grandfather felled and used as the foundation of this house. New joists will help bear the load of the floor, walls, and ceiling, which won't swag, sag, or leak. New plywood, in layers, covered by flooring of some kind, will make the back room strong and beautiful for the next 80 years.

Even my reptile brain sees that the danger is past and the good stuff is just around the corner. It's not quite ready to change its vote to Daring from Dumb, and I don't want it to. I like having a warning system that won't let me tie rubber bands around my ankles, jump off a bridge, and call that fun. But my reptile brain is willing to admit that maybe the line between Dumb and Daring can shift a little. At least for the next construction project. Maybe.

Inside? Outside?

Sometimes it's pretty easy to distinguish between "inside" and "outside." Or, depending on what you call it, "indoors" and "outdoors." If you've ever been camping, you may know where I'm going with this.

My husband lives in a pretty traditional house, where the above picture was taken (of the rain, sorta, through a screen door). (Yes, I will soon live there too. What can I say, it's a process.) When you walk into his house, you cross a threshold into "indoors." There, you are protected from the rain. It's a small three-dimensional part of the planet that is climate-controlled, for the most part. Even with all the hoop-de-doo in the past ten years about "indoor/outdoor living," the spaces are pretty much separate.

However, the situation is different at our family camps. One is more house-like. It was built only about 50 years ago. It's uninsulated, one-and-a-half stories, with cubbyhole bedrooms in a semi-finished upstairs, one bathroom (added in the 1980s), and a pump organ. Because my grandparents wanted it there, that's why.

The other camp, the "little" one, 80+ years old, is far less house-like. Only boards separate its occupants from elements--no insulation, no interior walls. The roofing boards are covered by tarpaper roofing material which desperately needs to be replaced.

When it rains, as it has for the past couple of days, it's even more difficult to tell whether you're indoors or outdoors, even if you're standing on wood flooring under spruce beams. You're likely to be standing under a persistent drip as well. The foundation beams, which were sturdy enough 80 years ago, sag in spots. We're working on shoring up the back room, now, and after the foundation is solid there, we'll put a new roof on. That will help separate the indoors from the outdoors.

Still, even with these improvements, only the faintest of lines will prevent those staying at this little camp from being outside. That's part of the allure, of course. Waking up in the morning to the music of waves and loons and gulls--well, there's nothing like it. And that's why my family wanted this camp in the first place.

Defining a Nation: Eagle View

"Horse and Train," Alex Colville

I've been thinking more about defining a nation's character, especially when it's an outsider trying to do the defining. The problem with coming up with a national personality is that everyone knows someone of that nation who doesn't fit that definition.

For example, say Canadians are polite. What about that company that keeps calling me, even when I've asked to not be called? What about the dorks on the expressway who are so much more important than everyone else that they tailgate and pass on double yellows? OK, maybe that's stupid but it's also rude.

Defining a national character requires taking the eagle view, not the mouse view. The mouse sees a few blades of grass; an eagle sees a meadow. Stand up close to a famous Canadian pointillist painting, and you see dots. From farther back, it's a horse about to meet a very rude train.

The real problem comes when the mouse and eagle start claiming, "I'm right and you're wrong." Both are right. Both are wrong. The picture is made up of dots. And it shows a horse and a train. Saying that Canadians are polite or that they tolerate diverse personal choices may be legitimate statements. However, it's also correct to say that some Canadians are rude and intolerant.

Any definition of a nation has to allow for the dots, for the individual perspectives. One reason why 2004 felt like a good time to emigrate to Canada was that the space for my dot, my perspective, in the U.S. political landscape was small and shrinking. The U.S. national character didn't include me and my ideas, and the political climate didn't put any value on the contributions I could make. Any disagreement with the majority was painted as near-treason. Ugly, ugly, ugly.

My solution was to go to a geographic location where I felt at home; it happened to be in another country. Others in the U.S. came up with different solutions that involved staying in the U.S., and the political landscape is changing. I hope that the shifts don't simply define a different, still limited, character for the country. I hope that in the future, people in the U.S. can hold a variety of political opinions and feel part of the bigger picture of the nation.

I do think that the Canadian political climate accepts and encourages a wider range of perspectives. The two main parties may mirror the U.S. two-party system, but the Bloc, the Green Party, and NDP also participate as legitimate players in national discussions. But you know, I may be mistaken. I may see only part of the picture. It's very nice to know that I learn and disagree with others and won't be called a traitor.

And another thing...

About yesterday's topic, the story in the print version of Maclean's about the ex-patriate American who started a support group because Canadians are "unfriendly"....First, it's still not online; sorry about that.

And now for the more important, "pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain" element of that story. The subject interviewed assumes that only Bush-haters are welcome in Canada. The only people Canadians might want as friends are those who want to apologize for their country. What's more, the reporter assumed the same damn thing.

Roy says that's the underlying belief in the story because the story comes from Vancouver, a notoriously liberal city. British Columbia is the California of Canada, and Vancouver is the Granola Capital of Canada. Like Seattle except without the dot-com money, like Hollywood except without any of that stardust money.

Still, Vancouver is also home to the Fraser Institute, an extremely conservative think tank. And Vancouver doesn't represent the entire country, a point that the article does make, to its credit.

From my perspective in what is called "Central Canada," this country has its share of thoughtful people. People who can, for example, dislike Bush for his cowboy petulant elitism and hotdogging sanctimonious faux piety, yet agree that military solutions are the best option for addressing terrorist attacks. Dare I say it, there are probably also people in Canada, just as there are in the U.S., who don't dislike Bush--who may even be big Bush fans.

After all, the Prime Minister is a conservative Christian most recently from Alberta, the Texas of Canada, who wants to cut government programs (such as daycare) and put money back into the pockets of ordinary Canadians (but not enough to pay for private daycare or stay home to care for the kids). The Prime Minister also shuts down debate about Canada's role in Afghanistan by saying that any discussion undermines the mission. He uses rhetorical tricks to paint the opposition as anti-soldier, anti-military, anti-patriotic, and "soft on terror."

Sound familiar? It should. "Steve," as President Bush likes to call Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, is one of Bush's best buddies, especially now that "Yo, Blair" left the frat house after his early graduation and "Pooty-Poot" Putin is now obviously insane.

Canada also has its share of people who enjoy a growing economy and try to stay as far away as possible from thinking about difficult issues. You know, like Americans. However, the Prime Minister formed his government from a weak position--he didn't receive the majority of votes (much like Bush in his first term), so he has to govern by coalition with other political parties. Although the opposition parties have given him a fairly easy ride to date (much like the U.S. Democrats in Bush's first term), they are keeping a weather eye on him.

And I like to think the Canadian people have less tolerance for the either-or, for-us-or-agin-us kind of grandstanding that Bush has turned into an art form. Even the conservatives. Even those Canadians who might not require a "Yeah, but I totally hate Bush" statement as a condition of friendship. None of whom Maclean's interviewed for an article about unfriendly Canadians. Which would have made a more interesting story.

No Escaping Your Citizenship

In the September 3 Maclean's, Julia McKinnell reports on a support group of American ex-pats in Vancouver. (The story isn't yet on the site, hence the lack of link and the extensive summary in the next couple of paragraphs.) The story describes the experience of a young American couple who moved to Vancouver and "always needed a disclaimer" when meeting new people. Disclaimer, as in "Hi, meet my friend, she's an American, but she's OK because she, like, totally hates Bush."

Kristin, the young American woman, says, "I thought Canadians would've travelled to the States and known more Americans, so they'd know that we are not all ignorant. But that hasn't been the case."

Tired of always answering questions about her politics and trying to make friends with those "unfriendly" Canadians, Kristin set up a support group for other Americans. Now some 60 people meet regularly for social activities. They also feel free, in the group, to be "loud," which is a way Vancouverites typically describe Americans, and to talk about real, substantive issues, like immigration and why Canadians expect visitors to remove their shoes when coming into a house. (I'm not making this up. Yes, many Canadians expect visitors to remove shoes. And yes, these Americans apparently feel a need to discuss it.)

On one hand, more power to these people. Immigrants of any type suffer from culture shock. Culture shock is culture shock, even if it's of the LP-blip variety. No one is immune. I, too, have felt as if I'm louder than the rest of a group--dare I say it, even boisterous--when I am thought to be anything but outgoing in the U.S. And yes, I still believe that sometimes the fact that culture shock shows up as a blip instead of an overwhelming desire to stay in bed gives it a special kind of poignancy. Many small straws, over time, can break a camel's back as surely as a large load of logs.

On the other hand, GROW UP, people. Welcome to the world. You're an American; you can't escape the consequences of the actions of your nation, especially if you vote in the U.S. Leaving the country doesn't let you off the hook. The only benefit to living elsewhere is that you have some distance from the insanity. For example, I haven't seen or heard an Ann Coulter story for many years now, and I am a better person for it.

As for expecting Canadians to have travelled more to the U.S. and known more Americans, some of whom are presumably not "ignorant"--why is that a reasonable expectation? Put the shoe on the other foot for a moment. How well do Americans travelling in Canada (all four of them--tourism has dropped dramatically in the past five years) know individual Canadians and their political views? I defy Americans traveling in Canada to name even one of the five major national political parties.

Canadians know that the elections in 2000 and 2004 were close; many even know that the Democrats control the House and that the Senate is about evenly split. In other words, they know at least as much as most Americans do about politics in the U.S. But how would Canadians be able to know, by looking, how any individual American voted? How else could they know except by asking or inferring from extended conversation?

Furthermore, in the course of a vacation to the Grand Canyon or New York City or the Everglades, exactly when do you think a Canadian would have a political discussion with Americans? Especially if the Canadian is actually polite, or at least trying to live up to her nation's reputation for politeness? Who wants to participate in a contentious debate on a holiday anyway?

Overall, I really don't understand the concept of any ex-pat group, but it seems to be a common human urge. There's an alumni group from my Arkansas undergraduate school in the greater Denver area. Snowbirds in Arizona and Florida form groups based on where they migrated from. I suppose support of a home tribe is important, even as you're experiencing a new culture. But I would be leery of the ex-pat group being the only, or primary, interaction with people--if you're not mixing with the locals, why leave your country? Where's the learning if you stay with what you know?

Late in the story, Kristin says that she wishes Vancouverites were more direct in conversation, less concerned about offending. I'd say Vancouverites have reason to be concerned about offending her. Their all-too-understandable curiosity about the biggest issues in her country of origin, which by the way affect her new home country, seems to be already too direct and forward for her.