Just Can't Wait

"On the road again, just can't wait t'get on the road again...." actually, that's not true. I love living here too much to enjoy going elsewhere. (That's the symbolic meaning of the teeny dead tree across the path, left.)

However, I have set aside time and money for a week of vacation in Washington, DC with a friend--just vacation. No family (no offense, family). No culling of items from my past. And if I'm smart, very little in the way of acquiring items for my future.

That's all in the following week. Family. Throwing out. Limited--very limited--acquisition of items to care for in the future. Basically, another installment of The Crapture. Probably the last installment, in fact, which brings both relief and a surprising sadness.

I may check in from the road, from time to time, but I may not. I'm not taking a laptop. I'll enjoy living experiences in the moment, whole-heartedly, without the possibility of immediate narration, immediate analysis--in short, without blogging. But I'll be back around month's end.

Who's Stupid Now?

I know; a lot of posts lately and a lot of posts about politics. Bear with me; I'm going on vacation next week and need to clear my brain.

One could argue that the U.S. system of government, with all its checks and balances, assumes that politicians are stupid. It wants to prevent any one stupid person or group of stupid people from having too much power. The risk is that sometimes the leader, the house, and the senate are all stupid at the same time. Add to that a stupid population that passes an idiotic referendum or two, and you have stupidity run amok.

Equally, one could argue that the parliamentary system generally seems to assume that politicians are intelligent. Groups of people form parties and select a leader. Individual voters choose a representative and assume that party's leader is going to be good enough to run things. If he (usually he) turns out not to be so great, then the representatives from that party and involved members of the party have to find a new leader. Jane Eh Voter trusts people to make sure this happens. And the system seems to require Jane Eh Voter to know, more or less, what's going on.

I'm sure this theory is flawed. I'll say it again: generalizations always have exceptions. Including this one.

I just wish that voters and politicians on both sides of the border applied their intelligence to elections and today's issues more often than they do. I wish voters didn't trust elected officials quite so much. Paying closer attention to issues and elections would benefit all of us. Lives, in our country and abroad, are at stake.

But mostly I wish I could discuss these issues with my father. He would point out, gently, where I am the stupid one. Yet he would cheerfully continue to live in a state whose federal science-challenged senator has called global warming the biggest hoax perpetrated on the American public. Perhaps unsurprisingly--my father was a historian, after all--he saw history over a longer span of time than I am able to. He had confidence in the ability of the U.S. political system to correct its own excesses. I wish I shared his optimism.

Here's the Deal with the Election: The Light Dawns

OK, I've been thinking about yesterday's election. It bugged me for a couple of reasons. Here's why.

For one thing, I'm cautious about the whole parliamentary system. It elects the leader of the country/province by electing its party, which means the leader could be far more powerful than in the weird system south of 49.

In the U.S., it's theoretically possible for voters to say, "Yeah, I want a Democratic president, but I'll vote for the Republican candidates for the House of Representatives and leave the Senate too close to call." Or switch the words around to reflect a governor, a state house, and a state senate.

I like that. I like having all those checks and balances. It keeps a megalomaniacal dimwit from, say, bombing a country because he feels like it. Just a hypothetical.

Yes, all these checks and balances cause gridlock sometimes. Yes, it keeps the government from being as efficient at changing policy as it could be. But sometimes, that slow response is a good thing. After all, an entire civil service full of bureaucrats works hard every day to keep the government running, to keep money flowing to the retired, the veterans, the needy, and in this day and age, the businesses. I know; I was one of them.

The other part of the parliamentary system I find disconcerting is the relative weakness of the federal senate and entire lack of a provincial senate.

To see why this is a problem, you have to know about state representatives. In the U.S., you elect state representatives (we'll keep this a state/provincial comparison for simplicity's sake) every two years. If your state gets a boneheaded bit in its teeth about something, like the issue here of public support for religious schools, and you accidentally elect a bonehead representative, you know he's got two years max and you can replace him.

Not only that, you have this whole other set of people who supposedly work for your interests--your senators. They represent large geographic areas (entire states, in the federal government) and so can't be as responsive to individual problems, but at least they're someone else to fire off letters to.

Senators in the U.S. have real power, too. They propose legislation, as do representatives, and they have to approve legislation that comes from the representatives. So, if you get an entire house of bonehead representatives, the senate is there to prevent them from causing too much harm. Plus, some percentage of the senate can override a governor's veto.

However, Canadians don't have this whole other set of people to turn to. The federal senate is made up of political appointees (though the current Conservative government has proposed changing that). Their mandate is to review proposed legislation. Whatever that means.

And Canadians don't know how long they're stuck with possible bonehead representatives. In the parliamentary system, the government calls elections more or less at its own discretion. If the government is a majority government, it can wait a long time--four years, five years, something like that. In an election like yesterday's, you could end up with a bonehead MPP in a majority government and no chance in sight to replace him.

After two-plus years of living full-time here, I'm beginning to understand the system I left behind. The light dawns on the path I was walking before. I wonder how many years it will take before I understand the system I live in now!

Ontario Politics 101: Four More Years

The province of Ontario held an election yesterday. This election was short and sweet and interesting to watch. All in all, though, I feel like a teetotaller at a wine-tasting, because I don't get to vote.

Here's what happened in American-speak. The party that had won before, the Liberals, won the election. Liberal candidates won races in enough districts (here, "ridings") that the Liberals will lead ("form") the government again. In addition, the Liberals won enough ridings that they will form a majority government, which means that they also have enough votes to pass any legislation that the party puts forward.

There wasn't a race for the governor-equivalent, the Premiere (the person who will lead the province), exactly. In the parliamentary system, people vote for their district's representative. Then, the leader of the party who won the most races gets to be Premiere. (Or, federally, Prime Minister.)

Yesterday's election did the equivalent of giving the Liberals the governor of a state and a majority in the state's House of Representatives. And since there isn't a state senate-equivalent, the Liberals can do pretty much whatever they want until they have to call another election (in about four years).

Even if all the other representatives from all the other parties got together and voted against them, the Liberals have enough votes to pass legislation. All they have to do is keep from pissing off people in their own party. Sometimes that's easy; sometimes not so much.

Locally, the incumbents, both Liberals, appear to have been re-elected in spite of the Liberals doing a lot to piss off people up here. One major contentious issue is energy--the Premiere closed a coal-fired power plant in northwestern Ontario, which puts many people out of work in an area that can't afford to lose jobs, and at a time when there aren't viable alternatives online so costs go up. It also charges some kind of surcharge on energy, and most of the businesses in northwestern Ontario use a lot of energy.

Yesterday, Ontarians also had the chance to change how they elect their representatives ("members of Provincial Parliament"). Currently, they use a "first past the post" system. If 51% of voters in 51 out of 100 ridings elect Liberals, the Liberals form a majority government. Interests of the 49% of people in those ridings may (or may not) be represented by the members from the 49 ridings. However, the population in each riding isn't exactly equal. It's possible that a party may form a majority government without actually having a majority of the popular vote.

Sound familiar? Electoral college, anyone?

However, Ontarians rejected the proposed alternative method for selecting their MPPs. A study group had recommended letting people vote both for their MPP and a specific party, so that Parliament would include both members elected to represent geographic areas and members-at-large, sorta. In theory, this system would give that 49% of people in those 49 ridings--whatever party they voted for, and there are more than two viable parties here--a voice in government.

The advantages and disadvantages of each system weren't explained well at all in pre-election information. I don't have enough provincial history to know of instances in which a particular leader abused his power and the minority MPPs would have made a difference. The thing is, I'm not sure that the Ontario voters, who should have that kind of memory, were invited to speculate about that, either.

I wish I could come up with some kind of pithy summation, but I'm still mulling it over. Aspects of yesterday's election bother me, and aspects of the system itself bother me, and I'm not able to separate them yet. However, I'll work on it. Stay tuned.

I can say that I'll be pleased not to see any more political advertising for awhile. I just hope we get a new crop of commercials to go with the new fall season!

Stupid Oven

About those Thanksgiving brownies...go get a coffee, because the story requires a lot of self-justification upfront.

In June or so, I started baking cookies from scratch at Roy's house and have kept home-made cookies on hand ever since. It started because during the post-funeral flurry of family communication, an aunt mentioned my mother's gingersnap recipe. That gave me a hankerin' for her gingersnaps. I've made other kinds of cookies, too, even though I didn't bake cookies for entire decades. My recent rationale has been that if I'm going to eat cookies, and apparently I am, then they should be really good cookies.

Through the summer, I've learned that Roy's oven is peculiar because it tends to run hot. I've adjusted most recipes down 25 degrees, and I leave the cookies in the oven for about 2/3 of the listed time range to avoid crispness. They may be called "gingersnaps," but in my house, they're "gingerbends."

My real point is that I am no stranger to the oven in Roy's house. Furthermore, my acquaintance goes farther than simply turning it on and taking it for granted; I've messed around with cooking times and paid actual attention to darn thing.

And now, here's something most people south of 49 don't know about ovens in Canada. They have international symbols instead of words. These symbols, although theoretically understandable in any of the world's languages, are not that easy to comprehend. For proof, really look at the photo at the top of this post. (I know; not my best work. You can also see me taking the picture, and you don't even need CSI-like skills to do it.)

Where a setting on your oven might be labeled OFF, ovens in Canada have a circle with small lines coming down from the top and bottom but not connected in the middle (the top setting on the right dial in the photo). The lines mean that there's a break in the electrical connection required to make the oven come on. Or something else equally easy to remember. Cough.

Where your oven might have an ON label, this oven dial has three different kinds of horizontal lines to choose from: one with a heavy line on top, one with a heavy line on bottom, and one with a heavy line on bottom and a clock face next to it. I'm telling you, using the oven is a mental workout.

I'm just happy the temperatures (separate dial on left) are still labeled in both F and C. Speaking of mental workouts.

But back to the Thanksgiving Brownies. Saturday night, I was getting a jump on the holiday dinner, so I made brownies and the appetizery things. Then I made chocolate chip cookies, at Roy's request. Unfortunately, the first sheet-full was a disaster. It was the first time I had tried this recipe, so I was adjusting the temperature like crazy, and still the darn things would brown on the top but be gooey on the underneath. I couldn't figure it out. I wondered about the flour, the amount of mixing time (I do it by hand but I'm lazy), the cheapness of the chips (can't easily get Ghirardelli or Nestle here)--even the cookie size.

While I was mid-mutter, Roy came in to hover around till the early cookies were cool enough to sample. He asked the million-dollar question: "Is the oven on the right setting?"

Of course it wasn't. I had it on the "broil" setting, which is the setting with the heavy line at the top and the lighter line across the bottom. The meaning of the symbol is that the top element, the broiling element, is on and the bottom one isn't.

OK, it makes sense, but who has time to figure it out? And more important, why was I suddenly having trouble figuring it out, when I'd never made this mistake before? I put it down to pre-holiday stress. An early example of a senior moment. Nothing to dwell on.

Once I turned the oven over to "thick bottom line, thin top line," AKA "Bake," later batches of cookies turned out just fine.

And that, I thought, was that.

Until Roy started cutting the brownies after Thanksgiving Dinner. He beckoned me into the kitchen. "Are they supposed to look like that?" He pointed a knife covered in brownie batter to the plate, where brownie batter was oozing out from under a top crust. It looked a little like an experiment from an earth science class, one that demonstrates how deeper layers of magma are liquid and the earth's crust, which we consider solid, is just a thin top layer.

Apparently I had cooked the brownies on "thick top line, thin bottom line," too. And what's worse, I hadn't even considered the need to check them, even after the severe cookie consequences the previous evening. Is it possible I'm losing not only my ability to read international symbols and bake things, but also my ability to foresee consequences?

Naaah. I'm sticking with my first line of defense: it wasn't my fault. It's the weird oven.

So, Thanksgiving is Today

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. We had the family meal yesterday: chicken baked in a cranberry sauce, with rice pilaf and various vegetables. Dessert was supposed to be Thanksgiving Brownies (who isn't grateful for brownies?), but that's a sore subject and I shall save for another day my justifications for why their sludge-like consistency wasn't my fault. Fortunately, store-bought vanilla ice cream is always popular with the under-35 set.

Today, many stores are closed (including grocery stores). It's a normal three-day weekend here--I assume people are doing their usual fall activities. It's still hunting season. People are out on ATVs; I've seen them tearing up and down near the highway on paths that may become snowmobile trails in January, if we get snow. The men at church were complaining about being too busy to go to curling practice. Hockey practices have definitely started. And some brave soul went kayaking in the non-rainy one-hour window early yesterday evening.

I enjoy Thankgiving in Canada. It's such a low-key holiday compared to the hoop-de-doo in the U.S. People here do go shopping, of course. For many Canadians, a cross-border trip to get an early start on Christmas was a tradition long before the value of the loonie made it economically advantageous. However, the shopping is just that--people buying stuff. It's not the shopping equivalent of Ground Hog Day, a harbinger of the year's upcoming Most Important Economic Season (Christmas), as it is in the U.S. No navel-gazing element.

But what I really like about Thanksgiving in Canada is the lack of story. No pilgrims! And therefore, no smallpox-infested blankets, no "Christopher Columbus was a historical giant/spawn of Satan" discussions. And no stories such as burying dead fish in the corn hills to serve as fertilizer, which can lead to theories that our ancestors displaced people who were experts in sustainable agriculture and lived in idyllic balance with the planet, or that our ancestors displaced people who had already depleted the land so whatever impact we have isn't so bad (the always-popular "they started it" defense, with the "look over there, nothing to see here" misdirection).

Some of the Thanksgiving-themed decorations they sell here include pilgrim figurines, and people here buy them, for reasons beyond my comprehension. Maybe they take the pilgrims off when they get the fake corn/pumpkin/leaf thing home. But generally speaking, pilgrims are noticeably absent from the lives of adults.

At dinner yesterday, I checked into the lives of school children. Roy's Grade 2 grandson goes to a a French Immersion school. I asked him yesterday what they'd said in school about Thanksgiving. He said they didn't talk about it. That may be true, or he might have been thinking about something else when they covered it, or he may simply not have felt like being put on the spot at the Thanksgiving dinner table.

The lack of Thanksgiving Legend makes the holiday far less stressful for me. With the historical focus, if any, on giving thanks for the year's harvest, the meal becomes a celebration that one could invite any friend to--even, possibly, a friend who is part of a First Nation. ("Native American" to those south of 49.) Or any nation, which is also possible in Thunder Bay.

Thunder Bay is an odd amalgam of immigrants. The influx of Scandinavians (Finns, Swedes, Finn-Swedes, Danes, Norwegians) and people from Eastern Europe (Poles, Ukrainians) started after World War I. The post World War II years added Italians to the mix. Since the 1960s, the numbers of immigrants from Pakistan, India, Hong Kong, and South America have increased across Canada, and some have settled here. All of these groups joined those who trace their ancestry to Scotland and England, those few who had French voyageurs as ancestors, and the increasingly visible members of First Nations.

I don't know how many families in town keep their own ancestor's traditions (wherever those ancestors lived), and how many have gone the turkey-stuffing-potatoes-turnips-pumpkin route. But I enjoy picturing families gathered around their table, whether it holds lasagne, stir-fry, a roast turkey, pickled beets, kippered herring, a nice curry, or some combination thereof. Those tables hold many blessings for which to be grateful. I personally have a lot to be thankful for this year, as is true every year. I try to be grateful every day, not just the one day a year, but it never hurts to have the official day.

Now, if I could just master the art of baking up brownie mix without disaster.

Now? Then?

This week, CBC Radio is running a five-part series on memory called The Once and Future Past. I caught part of last night's show, which was apparently devoted to the moment you recall something. The interviews touched on false "recovered" memories, the reliability of eyewitness testimony, and the general suggestibility of memory. The program also mentioned post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), mostly to distinguish it from the other topics it was covering last night. Of course, that's the part that was the most interesting to me.

From what I understand of PTSD, it's very different from being haunted by memories of something. It's more like being unable to distinguish between "now" and "then." Instead of remembering something, you re-live it.

I doubt I've had experiences traumatic enough to "count," on some cosmic counter, as PTSD. But I think a lot of what we slap labels on is actually just an experience that's at one end of a spectrum of experiences. Perhaps PTSD is an extreme form of an experience that some of us more boring people also have in a milder form.

Here's why it's on my mind.

When my father was sick in Tucson last spring, my sister and I drove regularly from her house to the hospital and the rehab facility and finally, once, to the hospice facility, all in the same campus of buildings. We did it for nearly a month before he died. We got really good at it. We learned what to carry with us (bottles of water, address/phone books, pads of paper, extra pens, cell phone chargers). We learned how to find the ER, the 400s, the surgery waiting room which doubled as the waiting room for the CCU, the place with the bad espresso, the in-cafeteria Starbucks, the Schlotzky's. We learned visiting hours and how to get in after visiting hours.

We learned to cope with myriad new realities at a moment's notice: my father was sick enough to be hospitalized, then suddenly critical, then slowly mending, then definitely recuperating, then experiencing setbacks, then holding his own, then suddenly dying. It was an intense experience, and a rewarding experience, and one I hated but wouldn't trade for anything.

This past weekend, my sister hosted our elderly aunt for a weekend's visit. They went to a fancy wedding, and my aunt tripped and, as it turned out, broke her nose. An ambulance came and took her to the same ER where my father had been. My sister called me in the wee hours, understandably distraught at packing her bag again with address/phone books, pads of paper and pens, water, cell phone charger. She didn't want to get into the car and make that drive again, to park in the lot again, to sit in the same ER again, to see the same hospitalists, to listen to a patient under sedation ramble incoherently, to be across the hall from a dying patient, to hurry up and wait, to wait some more while our aunt was admitted.

Was she re-living our March/April trauma? It sure felt like it to her. Yes, she knew that what she was experiencing was "now," and that her experience with my father was "then." She knew in her head that she wasn't back there in that time, but that logic didn't really register. It didn't feel like it. It felt to her as if the line between present and past trauma blurred. Whether that "counts," on that cosmic counter, as PTSD is immaterial. There are degrees and degrees of flashbacks, and she was having one. I was sorry not to be there to support her, but I wasn't sorry to miss out on the experience.

Her experience has made me more aware of how much of my life I spend in some other time--whether it's whining about the previous value of the loonie and running mental calculations on what I would get for this U.S. check if I'd had it a year ago, or worrying about whether I'll be able to cover for a receptionist on Tuesday without seriously screwing up. Obviously, those experiences aren't PTSD. But my own lesson from the experience is that I could stand to live more in the "now," and less in the "then," whether present or future.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

P.S. I could say that our aunt's story ends more happily than our father's. But I'm not so sure.

Our aunt is safe at her home, where she still lives alone. Her daughter, son, and daughter-in-law are conferring about her general health and future care. Their journey is just getting started. At the very least, they'll need keys to her house, plus permission to attend her medical appointments and know her medications. What they could use is a good dose of courage to ask the tough questions about her mental status. And then they'll need a backbone of steel for the road ahead.

Meanwhile, my father died in April, firm in his faith and surrounded by love and laughter. Perhaps that's the best ending to his story, if his story had to end at all.

Does Moving North Mean Moving On?

Warning: If you're not interested in The West Wing (WW), you won't be much interested in this.

By the way, we're back to our usual 2.5 channels. However, during our recent hiatus from junk TV, I dug out The West Wing Season 7. We're through two disks now. It's surprisingly difficult for me to watch!

Part of the problem, of course, is that my father and I talked about WW a lot. Generally speaking, he and I had only a little in common, aside from family and being basically the same kind of person. However, part of that "little" was an interest in politics, particularly as expressed through WW. One of our joint Tucson visits several years ago coincided with a WW marathon on Bravo, and he got hooked.

The Bartlet Presidency was a miniature Eden for most Democrats, beyond my father and me. There (in the pilot episode no less), the Commander in Chief gave the religious right What-For. Walked right into the room and smacked 'em down! BUT--there was way more there there.

Appealing characters held conflicting (and conflicted) perspectives on the Democratic Party's platform. The occasional Republican characters often held thoughtful, nuanced perspectives (and that, at least, still holds true in Season 7). The discourse was very different from the rancor and vying-to-be-the-biggest-victim rhetoric going on in the "real" U.S. during the earlier years of this millennium.

On the other hand, viewers saw plenty of sausage being made. Every character had to compromise on something important, and everyone wrestled with her conscience while she did it. Characters left (some actors purportedly in a snit), as did the creative force. But the world Sorkin created was bigger than Rob Lowe's Sam Seaborn, as it eventually proved to be bigger than his own talented self. I personally can think of about six characters that I either want to be, think I am, or have been at some point in my career. (In real life, I've mostly been one of the interchangeable grunts, Ed and Larry, in a very much smaller fishpond, but I like to imagine that I've been considered a crusty, Toby-like influence. And who doesn't want to be CJ?)

But missing my father isn't the only thing going on with me and the WW World. I hate to admit this, but I think I've moved on (and not in the MoveOn.org way).

In the most recent episode we saw, Jimmy Smits and Alan Alda, in character, held a mostly scripted "debate." Originally, the episode was broadcast live. I had actually seen it while I was visiting my father, but we saw the East Coast version, while the DVD has the West Coast version. Whatever.

This time around, the episode is different. Truthfully, it hardly held my interest. The philosophies themselves aren't interesting to me anymore. The arguments, by which I mean "series of reasoned statements," seem like a recycled rehash of real life (does "Education President" sound familiar to anyone from Arkansas?) and various sentiments put forth in earlier episodes by the Barlet Administration. "They always" raise taxes, cut taxes, spend, run a deficit, build a debt, allow guns to run loose in the country, prevent citizens from defending their own property, act like a soft Mommy, act like a mean Daddy, blah blah blah. "They always." Pff.

The looming issues in real life--the war in Iraq, the all-but-abandoned war in Afghanistan, the contracting economy--loom too large for a made-up debate to seem relevant anymore. It's a good thing this season aired two years ago; if it aired today, the show might lose even more of its audience.

But I think the real problem for me is that my sense of impending doom is kicking in. The Bartlet Presidency as a whole, in Season 7, is winding down. I sense that I'll have to let go of these people someday.

The characters themselves are certainly moving on--the exodus during Season 6 to support Democratic primary candidates was just the start. At some point during Season 6, Josh and Toby had a fight and stopped speaking, thereby depriving viewers of the chance to watch two excellent minds thinking aloud about policies and politics. In Season 7, Toby has been sent off-camera to be spanked for his infamous leak, while Josh is campaigning. Even if the writers had wanted to, they'd have had a hard time getting the two into the same storyline. Even on the phone.

This "moving on" theme is likely real for any administration, and it certainly mirrors real life. For me, watching Canadian politics has apparently replaced watching West Wing. We're in the middle of a provincial election, and there are rumblings about a federal election sometime this winter. I don't get to vote, which seems like a raw deal given all the taxes I pay. What happens in Toronto (for the province) or Ottawa (for the country) is more interesting than what happens in the Bartlet Presidency.

Still, I'll finish the season. My loyalty to Toby, CJ, and Donna (among others) forces me to see how their stories arc, how their lives turn out to this point, how their characters accommodate, compromise, grow.

Plus, I know my father would have wanted me to follow through to the end of the story. And then, he too would want me to move on.

More Parity

The loonie closed higher than the greenback one day last week and after that I stopped tracking. Sigh.

The dollars have been pretty much at par long enough that people north of the border are now starting (starting?!!!??) to do some comparison shopping. And, Omigosh! the reporters say breathlessly, Canadian consumers have been getting ripped off!

Even when the exchange rate was greater, Canadians were paying 25% to 50% more for consumer products--mostly big-ticket items like cars, but also weird stuff like shoes and even toys. (How could they not know this? Could they not do the math before?) Now, with the dollars at par, why are Canadians paying higher prices for the same consumer goods?

Recently, American car dealers in places like Buffalo have been ordered by their parent companies to not sell to Canadians. Even with duty and import fees, cars are cheaper to buy in the U.S. and import than they are to buy north of the border. But Canadian dealerships don't like it, and the automakers are bowing to the pressure from them. It remains to be seen whether customers exert similar pressure.

Retailers up here are complaining that customers expect prices to drop too quickly; they bought their stock with a different exchange rate and don't think they should be expected to take a loss. Consumers aren't impressed with this reasoning--retailers can certainly jack up prices at a moment's notice. Why not cut the consumer a break this time, for once? And while you're at it, improve your customer service.

One benefit from all the news stories about cross-border shopping: the newspaper recently listed all the products that are exempt from duty at the border. Books are on this list, as well as artwork and most articles made in the U.S. or Mexico. You have to declare this stuff, but you don't have to include it in the total value of goods you're bringing back from the U.S. when you cross into Canada.

("You" meaning Canadian residents and citizens. Canada customs doesn't care what you Yanks bring in, as long as you're not leaving it.) (Except potatoes. Prince Edward Islanders grow lots of those, so you can't bring spuds in.) (And there are probably laws about alcohol and tobacco, and there are definitely serious laws about firearms, but I don't even begin to try to keep up with those.) If I'm gone 24 hours, I can bring in $60 worth of goods. If I'm gone longer (I think a week), I can bring in $400 in stuff. And now I know most of the stuff I buy, except during the odd trip to Kohl's, is exempt!

Woo-hoo--another reason to buy books in the U.S. The Canadian prices on the back covers are often some 33% higher than the U.S. prices, and they're printed on there, so no Canadian retailer is going to be selling for less any time soon. And now that I know I won't pay duty on them--well, Drury Lane Bookstore in scenic Grand Marais, here I come.

I'm not normally a big shopper. But since I bring money across the border to live, I want to be sure that I take advantage of exchange rates as much as I can. The banks and retailers sure are.