The LEAST They Could Do

Two headlines today: Four Canadian soldiers and a civilian reporter dead in Afghanistan. And the Prime Minister has prorogued Parliament again.

You may recall that a prorogue was also in the news and in this blog last year at this time. It's sometimes described in the news as "hitting the pause button" or "taking a time-out."

The thing is, it's more like hitting the reset button or taking a do-over. Everything on the table -- like an investigation into what Canadian officials knew about how Afghan war detainees were treated -- is now hey presto! off the table.

But wait, there's more: although Parliament won't be in session until early March, after the Olympics, the Prime Minister can continue to act. One of the things he'll do is appoint five more senators, which will mean that there's a Conservative majority in the senate for the first time in decades. So when things do come back and legislation wends its way back onto the table, the Senate will more or less approve whatever the PM wants.

Is this really democracy in action? Or is it something similar to what China did during the most recent summer Olympics, when it pretended the ethnic uprisings and milk scandal weren't going on, la la la, look over here at this digitally enhanced ceremony with a lip-synching beautiful girl pretending to sing like the more normal-looking one??

And let's just set aside Prime Minister Harper's known distaste for what he once thought of as the un-democratic practice of appointing senators, since that seems to have vanished once he got to be PM.

I'm left shaking my head. And I'm just a bystander in all this.

What must the Canadian Forces be thinking? They don't get a reprieve from the dirty business of doing their job. They're out there trying to figure out who they're supposed to be fighting, and they're dying in the process.

The LEAST Canada's politicians could do, seems like, is keep working while soldiers are risking their lives (and the economy is wacky, and the public health system could use a good de-briefing over H1N1, and maybe something could be done about the environment -- I mean, if they need an agenda, people can come up with one for them).

But that would require actual leadership from a statesman interested in EARNING a majority government instead of machinations from a petty politician obsessed with GRABBING a majority government. Sorry for the CAPs; I'm getting wound up.

I know I said yesterday that the end of the year is just a rather arbitrary date and all that -- but honestly, is this bad behaviour any way to end 2009?

Actually, I'm ending 2009 with a trip to the grocery store, impossible though that seems after last weekend's eat-stravagannnnza.

My life is returning to a post-holiday normal. Would that were true for the troops.

The Arbitrariness of Importance

In a few days, we'll be in a year ending in zero: 2010. See that zero at the end? That must make it an important year. Right?

That's what I'm wondering: Why, exactly? Is it just because ten years have passed since the last year that ended in zero?

"Everybody" seems to think this new year is really something. Some of it is the typical "end of year" madness that happens every December. You can't turn on an electronic device without being bombarded by someone's "best of" list. And this year, because people insist on seeing the start of 2010 as being the start of a new decade, we get not only "best of 2009" but also "best of the decade" lists.

Okay. Numbers do make an obvious boundary around something, a border between two things. But sometimes the year's number is as arbitrary a boundary as the placement of the border between Minnesota and Iowa -- or, for Canadians, the border between Ontario and Manitoba. The two entities need to be separate, fine. But exactly there? Are you sure? These borders are lines on a map. They bear little relationship to the actual landscape.

That's how I feel about the impending arrival of 2010: Important? Sez who?

The 2000s so far have had a bunch of significant events: the "election" and subsequent election(!??!!!) of Bush, the terrorist attacks in 2001, an adult in the White House as of January 2009. Wars. Terrorist attacks elsewhere worldwide. Tsunami, hurricanes, earthquakes, avalanches, and other major natural disasters, some in unexpected places (and some, tragically, occur where you might expect them to happen). Personally, since January 2000, I've experienced a change of home and country, a divorce and a marriage, and the death of both parents.

But January 2010 promises what, exactly? As for myself, I can guarantee that I won't lose more parents, move, or divorce/marry again. Natural disasters come when they will, regardless of year, decade, century, millennium, whatever. Sort of like federal elections in Canada, though Canadian elections tend to have less impact than your average avalanche. And we all know that the next U.S. federal election is still years away.

So, 2010. About the only thing I can see changing is that we'll be closer to those years we'll call the "teens." And yes, you can bet that word people have already started arguing whether the 20-teens start on Friday, a year from Friday, or on January 1, 2013.

See? It's arbitrary. Just like that birthday I'll have in November, the one that will also end in zero, the one that makes it practically impossible to pretend I'm still in the first half of my life. If I can make myself believe now that the whole "ending in zero" thing is arbitrary, I might get through next November without a nervous breakdown.

Zeroes: Arbitrary. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Units of Measure

You know about centimetres vs. inches. You know about C vs. F. About litres vs. pints, quarts, etc. And kilos vs. pounds. Speed: km/hr vs. mph. And even loonies vs. greenbacks.

But generally speaking, time is time. Different cultures may celebrate different time-based holidays. The actual dates of the new year and even religious holidays like Christmas and Easter are up for grabs to some extent.

But an hour is an hour, a minute is a minute, etc. Right?

Yeah, sorta. But I have heard a time-related unit of measure only on this side of the border. (Yes, I know -- not a scientific survey at all.)

It's "sleep." As in, "Two sleeps till Christmas!" It's used in my own house, by the jolly crew on Canada A.M., and in the For Better or For Worse comic strip. Plus I've heard other people around town use the phrase.

I have not heard it used south of the border.

My husband, who is good at answering questions even when he doesn't REALLY know answers, thinks using "sleep" as an alternate for "day" comes from Native culture. Which you'd think would have been an influence south of the border as well, particularly in Oklahoma. However. I heard it here first and I'm sticking to that story.

It's my favourite Canadian measurement so far because it's easily understandable (darkness, then light) and requires no translation.

I also like it because it uses downtime as the measuring tool. Not the "day" part, in which we're supposed to rush and rush and get stuff done and compete and achieve and measure our successes by wins and dollars and citations and deals.

Nope. Instead, it celebrates the "sleep" part, when we are allowed -- encouraged, even -- to do nothing. Our bodies may be busy repairing the day's damage at the cellular level, but our consciousness can rest and perhaps even create some interesting stories to entertain us while we sleep.

And that's how I hope more of us can experience this coming weekend -- a holiday for some of us, an enforced weekend away from work for others. I hope the time is about BEING, not DOING. A time for refreshment and renewal.

But meanwhile, I have a little rushing around to do before my next sleep.

UPDATE: After googling, my husband now says that Native cultures tend to use use "sleep" as a unit of distance. As in, "Grandmother's house is two sleeps away." Its use as a unit of time is more a mainstream-culture thing.

All I know is, I heard it up here first.

Act Natural

Here's the monologue. Now, what's the setting?

"Just drape your arm around here, and put your hand here, but don't hold on. Loosely. That's it. Turn your head this way. A little more. A little more. That's better. Now shift your feet forward. No, 'forward' toward me. Bend your knees slightly. Hold it, hold it, holdit holdit holdit...NOW. Good, got that one. Now, turn your head up. Look up and ahead. Chin down slightly. No, don't look down. Move your right shoulder back. Back. There, that's it. Now, hold that one. Hold it, hold it, holditholditholdit, and...NOW. Good, got it."

Et cetera.

Nope, not a glamour shot to give as a holiday gift. Or for any other reason.

Not even the picture of the church choir taken on Sunday. I was blowing my nose during one shot. Honestly, people must absolutely say "Are you ready?" Sometimes "candid" is a BAD thing.

Actually, the words above were from a clinical setting--from my mammogram, in fact. It was less painful physically than I remembered, but that might have been the massive endorphins flooding through my system, released by all my laughter at the sheer absurdity of the instructions.

But it's done. I hope it is merely a baseline. If not, I'll hear otherwise, most likely in the new year. So I'm taking off my "take the picture now!" smile for the rest of 2009.

I wasn't going to say something sentimental about the holidays and family--for a change--but it's difficult to escape sentiment at this time of year.

My father was born 93 years ago today. Though he is no longer puttering in his study on this earth, I feel confident that his experience of the afterlife is like that of Jorge Luis Borges: "I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library." With no need to publish research results, too: complete freedom to follow every interesting rabbit trail he runs across. And nobody knocking at the door. That really does sound like Paradise.

A Favo(u)rite Canadian-ism

"Holiday Baking."

As in, "Bring a casserole to the potluck. And, of course, a plate of Holiday Baking."

In the States, we did the Holiday Baking, but we didn't give it the name.

Thinking about it takes me right back to high school. My mother and Aunt E, her best friend, always hosted the United Methodist Women's Christmas Party. The baking started on weekends just after Thanksgiving. The party itself was usually near the end of the semester (maybe mid-December), when the students were studying like crazy and my mother enjoyed a bit of calm before the storm of grading ("marking" up here) their final exams.

I helped, at times with cheer (don't judge; I was a teenager). I rolled balls of dough in orange juice and colored coconut. I packed minty cream cheese into rubber molds and later popped out holly leaves and bells. I wrapped maraschino cherries in some kind of white doughy stuff and then dipped them in melted chocolate. Aunt E (a good Oklahoma gal) made killer divinity and toffee, but she did that at her own home, so I didn't participate except as delighted audience.

The night of the party, the extra leaf went into the dining room table. The top was covered with silver trays, heaped (in my mind, at least) with baking. I helped keep the silver trays full. I ladled (usually pink) punch from the bowl into little glass mugs that fit into a spot on an oblong plate, which the ladies could load up.

All the ladies wore dresses and big costume-jewelry Christmassy pins. My mother wore one of her skirted-suit University Professor outfits, plus a Christmas apron -- the kind you don't wear when baking because you want to keep it clean. (Yes, even though it's an apron, a garment designed to keep the clothing underneath clean. It doesn't HAVE to make sense.) She favored red florals.

In spite of all this "helping," somehow the baking thing didn't really "take." I don't even own an apron. Fortunately, ladies in churches across North America still do and they bake like a house afire, as Aunt E would say. So at choir potlucks, I can count on sampling some serious Holiday Baking. I especially like it when there's a competition -- informal and friendly, mind -- over "best shortbread."

Before the end of the season, I may well make candy cane cookies, depending on interest from the Future Leaders of Our World (g-kids). Christmas dinner will include brownies and (store-bought because they're better) Nanaimo bars, as well as pumpkin squares, to appeal to the dessert preference of the gathered eaters. But that's not the same as "Holiday Baking." It's not "extra" baking, "for fancy."

And in spite of being generally too old for my years, I don't "do" Holiday Baking, even when asked to bring a plate to the potluck, and I don't even apologize. Instead, I bring deviled eggs, for three reasons. First, I'm (technically) an American and I can get away with doing whatever. It will be thought of as part of my unique heritage. Second, what party isn't improved by a plate of deviled eggs? And third, I have the attention span and equipment to make them. Unlike, say, cream cheese mints.

My mother has been gone for a decade. Aunt E is not fully present in the "home" where she lives. So I like to imagine them in a warmly lit kitchen somewhere, laughing and singing together as they melt chocolate in the double boiler or choose a color for the coconut for those orange juice/coconut things.

Because although those two ladies may have retired their aprons in this world, their legacy lives on in other ladies in another country. And this weekend, I get a crack at their Holiday Baking. I'll be wearing my mother's snowflake pin.

Don't get between me and that shortbread.

Canadian Content at Christmas

The original words to this Christmas carol are in Wendat, the language of the Huron people; the tune is a traditional French folk song.

It was written in the 1600s by a Christian missionary, Jean de Brébeuf, at Saint-Marie among the Hurons. It has since been translated into French and English, of course. However, the English translation is relatively recent -- the best-known translation was in 1926. In this version, you get to hear all three languages.

I learned all of this more or less against my will. Last night, I was driving home from a late coffee with a pal and CBC radio was keeping me company. One of my least-favourite programs, The Vinyl Cafe, came on.

(The Vinyl Cafe is similar to Garrison Keillor's radio stuff. For me, a little goes a long way. And yes, I realize that feeling ambivalent about The Vinyl Cafe makes me un-Canadian. I am okay with that. I also dislike Jimmy Stewart, for the most part, which makes me un-American, especially at this It's a Wonderful Life time of year.) (Blech. Ptooey. Just trying to get that saccharine taste out of my mouth.)

I nearly turned to CBC Radio 2, or another station, or silence. But I didn't. And my reward for keeping an open mind about The Vinyl Cafe was hearing a lovely version of this carol and learning all this Canadiana.

I suspect I was already supposed to know this, but some information just doesn't stick until you hear it late at night, at the end of a long day, while driving in the frozen darkness toward your warm, love-filled home.

It's nice when "life lessons" like "keep an open mind, already!" bring immediate rewards like this. And if you find yourself singing "Jesous Ahatonhia" later today, don't be surprised. It's catchy that way.

Trade-Offs

The picture is from last year, but some things recur. The forecast here for the next few days is snow, with warmer temperatures--just below freezing. Then the sun will come back out and the temperature will drop again.

Some days, I'd take the cold if it means sun. Other days, I'm okay with the snow (and the hassle of driving in it) for those few degrees of "warmth."

Speaking of trade-offs...last night, I happened to hear the verse of "White Christmas" and think of my mother at the same time. And things I'd known, intellectually, about her life came together in a new way.

My mother always liked White Christmas--the movie and the song. In elementary school I learned a silly version (substitute "pink purple polka dotted" for "white" and you'll get an idea of its intellectual heft). When I sang it in front of her, she had a fit at the travesty against "that lovely song." I assumed that her attachment had to do with the war years and her fondness for Bing Crosby's relaxed "everyman" singing style. And it probably did.

But last night I had a smack-the-forehead moment. The verse starts this way: "The sun is shining, the grass is green." Oklahoma in December often looks like that. Thunder Bay in December hardly ever does. So it makes sense that "on December the 24th," she would be "longing to be up north."

Not that she would have changed her choices. With her mother's blessing (and presumably that of her father, too), she chose to go to graduate school in the U.S., marry an American, live in the U.S., and pursue her mathematics career there.

But in choosing to live far away from her parents, she--well, she chose to live far away from her parents. She traded close involvement in their lives for the professional opportunities that came from leaving the Lakehead. As they aged, more responsibility fell to her, and handling it from 1200 miles away was difficult.

At Christmas, this most sentimental time of year, it's natural that she'd wonder, just a little bit, if she had made the right choices. Even though by 1970, when I was singing the parody of "White Christmas," her mother had been essentially "gone" for 10 years and had died 5 years before. And especially even though my mother rarely, if ever, acknowledged doubt or tolerated indecision.

My mother herself has been "gone" for some ten years. Fourteen years ago, with her support (and that of my father), I moved to a new home to pursue professional opportunties. I never seriously considered living near them. I made a similar decision 5 years ago, when I chose to move here instead of living nearer my father.

As my mother's health failed, I was 800 miles away. In my father's case, I lived 1200 miles away--the same 1200 miles, in fact, that separated my mother and her mother.

Would I change either of those decisions? Not on your life.

But at this most sentimental time of the year--as I recognize that ten years can feel like a split second, as I feel sometimes more emotionally connected to my mother than ever before--I think about the trade-offs.

Was the sunshine worth it? Or would the few extra degrees of warmth have been a better choice? As I said, some things, some questions, recur.

Signs of the Season

Believe it or not, TV commercials are not the only way to tell what time of the year it is.

Though (today only!) I think the number of exclamatory comments goes up!! as the year winds down!!!! (Get yours now! I seem to be using more! than!! my!!! fair!!!! share!!!!!)

Today I found myself hunting down a pair of binoculars to check out the birds sitting around on the ice floes. I was reasonably sure they were seagulls, whose residence is unremarkable at most times of the year. This morning, their presence was fascinating, and not just because of the usual Monday morning procrastination.

As winter approaches, fewer animals are out and about. We haven't seen the muskrat in a couple of weeks. Deer still pass through but they don't hang around as much, now that the temperature has dropped below freezing. The bear has been conspicuously absent, too.

In winter, chickadees and nuthatches, jays (blue and gray) (or grey), woodpeckers (downy, hairy, and pileated) and seagulls make up most of our company. Although even the gulls are scarce. All of these birds get pushed to "ho-hum" status in the spring, when first geese and ducks, and then wigeons, teals, herons, sandpipery things, cormorants, eagles, and finally loons come to play in the bay.

But me, I know winter is coming. I can look at the thermometer and see that at 8 a.m. today it was 12 F. I can look out the window and note that the colo(u)r palette has changed to grayish blue and pale orange-tan-brown. Or I can watch my own response to something as ordinary as seagulls hanging out on the ice.

And yes, the fact of ice floes in the bay is another clue.

My larger point, if I must have one, is that this time of year doesn't have to be the season of sales and shopping and buying unless we want it to be.

I'm going outside to squint into the sun now -- because it lies so near the horizon all day at this time of year.

Who, Indeed?

Did you hear the one about how The Government can track your location based on the currency you carry?

I did, and I live in the very last house on Paranoia Lane so everyone else must have heard it by this time. There are strips in $20 bills that tell the government where you are at any given time. It's true. It was on The X Files. Seriously. (Or maybe not so seriously. It was on The X Files, though.)

Here's a new twist. Now, FOREIGN Governments can track your location through radio frequency transmitters embedded in their money. If you happen to be carrying one of these poppy quarters, that is.


The quarters were issued to commemorate Canada's war dead. Apparently the coating over the red poppy was designed to protect the poppy from rubbing off as the coins circulated. Or to hide a radio transmitter, according to widespread rumors in 2006. Depending on your level of paranoia.

Here's the AP story. Note this part:

"I don't think it is an issue of the Canadians being the bad guys," the Pentagon's counterintelligence chief wrote, "but then again, who knows."

"Who knows"? Seriously, that's the response? In 2006, five years after 9/11 and amid the ongoing mistaken belief that the 9/11 terrorists entered the U.S. through Canada, U.S. officials at the Pentagon still didn't have a sense of Canadian security?

I'm not necessarily saying that Canada is as serious about border security as the U.S. I have no idea -- but then again, I don't work for the Pentagon (as far as you know). Surely U.S. security officials, whose job it is to protect U.S. borders, have some idea of the policies and attitudes in Canada, the country that shares the much-touted longest undefended border.

You'd think, anyway. I know I'd expect that.

But then again, who knows?

P.S. Can I also mention that perhaps the U.S. does NOT grossly underestimate Canadian intelligence forces? It's entirely possible for Canadians to be as bad as the next bad guys (in an extremely polite way, of course). Perhaps Canada designed this tracking system to see which Americans actually hang onto their Canadian currency after it's slipped to them accidentally in casinos.

No doubt CSIS worked with the keen minds in charge of security at the Royal Canadian Mint, which last summer lost $15.3 million in gold. That's actual gold, not $15.3 million in value. The stuff they show in blocks in the movies. The real thing. And thank goodness that they're pursuing this investigation "rather vigorously," according to the story.

Finally, stories like this one remind Canadians that the U.S. really doesn't understand that it is NOT the centre of the universe. Or center, either.

Thursday Miscellany

Because none of these is really a topic unto itself.

• Pronunciation: I have heard two people up here (one famous and one no so much) pronounce the first syllable of "frontier" to rhyme with "prawn." Or as if the person is saying "frond-tier" without an audible d. I realize that it's irresponsible to generalize when n = 2, so I'm keeping my ears open.
• American gate-crashers: In West Wing World, Chief of Staff Leo McGarry would use the incident at the recent U.S. state dinner as further evidence that his staff can't even eat a pancake breakfast without screwing up somehow. I wonder how many low-level staffers crowd around to watch old episodes to see what is coming. You'd think they'd expend some effort trying to prevent easily preventable foul-ups. Though truthfully, if they're watching West Wing episodes, they probably let the couple in because the wife is a ringer for Donna Moss. Only more superficial. And with worse hair, speaking of superficial.
• Canadian politics: Oh for crying out loud. I agree with Paul Wells in the recent print edition of Macleans. Torture, harmonizing (raising) sales taxes, Copenhagen and climate change -- up here, it's not about the issues. That would require discussion of, well, torture, taxation, and climate change. No, Wells says, and I agree, that it's all about the polls: what does this issue mean to the government? Will this issue inspire the Liberals to cause this government to fall? If so, will Harper win his majority?
• Culture: Today's aria from the opera Harper in China is entitled, "I know you are but what am I?" It opens, "It's been too long since the Canadian Prime Minister came to Canada, and oh by the way how dare you lecture us about human rights, you torturer of Afghan detainees?" to which our hero(?) replies, "And how long has it been since Chinese leaders visited us, purveyor of lethal baby formula and false visuals from YOUR Olympics?" It closes with a unison chorus of "Hello, pot? This is kettle. You're black."

Yesterday the bay outside our house was clear. Today it has ice floes, the first of the season. Plus snow, on an otherwise sunny day. Life is good, in other words. (Except for the torture, taxation, and climate change parts.)