Attentive Electorate

Such doings in Canadian politics! Or maybe not.

The House finds the Harper Government in contempt of Parliament. This seems to be the official version of a head-shaking finger-wagging "tsk tsk," because it doesn't launch any other action. Rather like the non-governmental fallback, the sternly worded letter.

Or, I guess, a censure of a President in the U.S.

And then, the Harper Government proposed a budget that nobody likes. It sure seems like this government is no longer functioning with any pretense at effectiveness.

Still, an election is not absolutely positively certain. More meetings this week. Motions put forward. Votes. Amendments. Et cetera.

This household would probably qualify as "moderately interested" in Canadian federal politics. And here's the conversation during Peter Mansbridge's live interview last night with Finance Minster Jim Flaherty about the budget.

R: Does he [Flaherty] look funny to you?

M: Well, he's orange. See how orange? And now, how blue Peter Mansbridge looks? Wow, I hope they switch back and forth again. Look at that: Orange. Blue. Orange. Geez.

R: It's not just that. It's his hair.

M: He's wearing a ton of makeup.

R: But doesn't it look like he's wearing black-and-silver noodles on his head?

M: Yeah. Eww. Hey, did he say anything?

[crickets]

In this upcoming election (maybe! or just more finger-wagging!), half of this household will vote. Given the calibre of attention to the issues evident in the conversation above, what are the chances that the Canadian government will look radically different after the dust (maybe!) settles in some ten or so weeks?

Yep. We can, however, hope that they'll take care of the noodle issue.

Obscurity

How come I can labo(u)r away in obscurity but most of the people who belong here can't seem to find it?

I like obscurity, by the way. I have lived my whole life in Flyover Country, on both sides of the border, by choice (after the first 18 years). You can't get more obscure than that and stay on this continent.

In public life, the concepts of "shame" and "inappropriate behavio(u)r" seem to be disappearing. How come? They've served a useful purpose. Redemption stories can't exist without a fall from grace from which the protagonist has to recover. But it seems that today, people who misbehave, even criminally, are not allowed to fall.

Drunken, abusive actors may trip, but celebrity gossip outlets are right there to catch them and keep parading them in front of me--and I have only 2.5 channels on the TV. I don't look at online gossip. I'm relatively protected from the insanity, and I'm still overloaded!

It's not just celebrities. Politicians (on both sides of the border) are ever-more willing to tell whopping lies with a straight face, and idiots train cameras on them, and other idiots buy advertising. It's not just about media market share, though. In Canada's Question Period (no advertising, not a commercial venture), the bigger the lie, the more vociferous the defense. The volume is set at 11. Nobody blushes.

I don't get it.

Anyway, I'm starting a list of people who should join me in obscurity:

* any actor who invites the descriptor "bad boy"
* the former and present cast of Celebrity Apprentice (including the host/producer/progenitor)
* any person photographed not wearing appropriate undergarments
* any public figure who lies on purpose
* any politician who thinks he's smarter than anyone else he knows, especially if he isn't shy about showing his disdain

These people should all be banished.

Or maybe not.

Come to think of it, obscurity could become awfully crowded, and not with the kind of people I enjoy spending time with.

As you were. Strip off your undergarments (not the politicians, please!) and resume your lying, disdainful abuses of power. I'll just be over here, enjoying my elbow room.

Some Things Are Just Bad

And I don't want to write about them today.

But before I don't write about them, I have to say that governments in both the U.S. and Canada are on double-secret probation, as of this moment. Cut out the monkeying around with other people's jobs and livelihoods and make sure you're doing your own job. I just deleted examples because I really really don't want to write about them, but they're happening in the state of isconsin-Way, and all over the newly christened arper-government-Hay, the one that used to be Canada.

Pop culture is also full of dreadful things. I will refrain from making the obvious connections between Gadaffi and Lady Gaga. (You thought I was going to name a bad-boy actor, didn't you?) Because the imperiled fashion-impaired dictator is nothing to laugh about.

I also don't want to write about a former governor (male) who might or might not be taking potshots at another former governor (female) by forgetting the lessons of Dan Quayle and Murphy Brown to talk about a pregnant unmarried actor (female) whose uterus is NONE OF HIS BUSINESS, by the way, SHEESH.

See how good I am at not writing about those bad things?

But not writing about bad things leaves me staring out the window for something to say.

Thank goodness for wildlife. The ravens have started nesting on the cliff. I have no idea where they're finding nest materials, since the dead stuff is under a couple of feet of white stuff, but they are.

Spring must be coming.

And that's very good.

Juxtapositions

Lots of back and forth, this week--the cultural equivalent of the weather this February. One day the temperature is above freezing and everything in sight is melting; twelve hours later the temp is 11 below C or 11 above F, the winds are howling, and it's snowing again. Go figure.

So here are three other pairings.

High tech: In Canada, several federal agencies--Finance, Treasury Board, and Defense Research and Development Canada--are under cyberattack. The attackers are sophisticated enough to make it look like they're working for China. Employees of those agencies who require internet access have been authorized to work in cafes and from home (because those internet connections are so much more secure??). This has been going on for some six weeks but came to light only recently (did a cloaking device fail?).

Low tech: Minister Oda hand-drawing a caret (like this ^ ) and writing "not" to deny funding to an NGO. Here's a picture. My earlier take is here (hey, the "not" jokes used to be funny). Political commentators, and not especially left-leaning ones, either, are still talking about this, with ever-heightening rhetoric.

Haves: In the U.S., the Obama administration extended the Bush tax cuts for those whose income is more than $250,000 (for a couple, $200K for a single). Reason: people who pay taxes in the U.S. (and those of us U.S. citizens who legally DON'T because we PAY PAY PAY in another country but are still forced by U.S. tax law to justify EVERY SINGLE YEAR why we don't pay in the U.S. TOO, not that I'm bitter) are still voters. In the U.S., voters hate "tax increases," even if they are technically just cuts that are expiring, and even if they apply only to people who make a whackload more than you.

Have-nots: The new budget in the U.S. includes a $5.50 (Canadian? The loonie is worth more these days!) surcharge on people entering the U.S. from Canada by air and sea. This will net $100 million or so in revenue, a tiny blip on the screen of their need for revenue, especially compared to what they could have made had they reversed those tax cuts on the wealthy, but like whatever. Reason: Few paying the $5.50 vote in U.S. elections. I say "few" because Americans travel from Canada into the U.S. at times, too. However, I won't be paying this surcharge because flying from Minneapolis cuts the cost of travel significantly, even with gas/hotel/time factored in.

If you like shouting: read What is America, by Ronald Wright (Alfred A. Knopf Canada). Written in 2008 before the election, it's full of sloppy scholarship and polemic. In fact, the title could use a caret: What Is ^ America; at the caret, insert Wrong With. His thesis seems to be that "America," a term that changes meaning several times in the book, is and has always been a horrible, exploitive place and that the neoconservative fundamentalist approach to life and the world is wrong. I don't necessarily disagree with him. I just don't think shouting is the same thing as making an effective case. Also, he's lazy in his research and writing, and he has no solutions. (Yes, some of the shouting related to this book came from me as I read.)

If you like muttering: read Doing the Continental, by David Dyment (Dundurn Press, Toronto). Full disclosure: I have only been able to dip into this book. However, I heard him speak, and he claims his book was aimed at the regular, nonspecialist person riding the ferry or the subway. If that's true, his editors should have had him try another pass, especially at sentences like this one: "The Americans are so much a part of our reality that they contextualize us" (p. 16). However, what I appreciate about this book and the writer is that 1. he claims a new type of relationship between the two countries is possible and 2. that Canada holds the power to effect this change.

That's enough whiplash for one week, eh.

Intelligent Move, NOT

Yesterday, one of the government's Ministers admitted to altering a legal document after it was signed.

The document awarded funding to Kairos, an ecumenical group of Canadian churches that advocates for international peace and justice. Or rather, the document apparently offered that aid when the bureaucrats signed it.

Then Bev Oda, International Cooperation Minister, or someone for whom she is now taking the fall after two years of obfuscations and denials, hand-wrote "not" in the award statement. As in, a particular amount is NOT awarded to this group.

Sheesh. It's been, what, 20 years since it was thought "funny" for adolescents say things like, "I like you...NOT" or "Here's some money...NOT."

Here's what happened after she admitted to inserting the "not" yesterday. Here's an article from last week that gives a little more context.

Time for two disclosures. First, I am a (sometimes bewildered but generally supportive) member of Trinity United Church in Thunder Bay, which is part of the United Church of Canada, which is a denomination that is a member of Kairos.

Second, Bev Oda was born in Thunder Bay but is not in government to represent either Thunder Bay riding.

But back to this "not" clause. I knew about the "notwithstanding" clause, which lets the federal government and provincial governments pick and choose among the freedoms granted in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Generally, they don't (though some have tried), but they could.

In the U.S., the only thing I know (not that my knowledge of political gamesmanship is vast) that's similar is the Executive Order. The U.S. President (and state governors) can determine the actions of federal (or state, if a governor) employees by issuing one. Executive Orders can be relatively minor (e.g., protecting rivers) or they can do things like effectively set foreign policy by preventing federal employees from interacting with representatives of specific international groups. Here's a list (you can pick years).

In any case, here's the deal. This "not" stuff is junior high. If Bev Oda, or someone else in the Conservative government, is going to go against the recommendations of the people whose job it is to develop expertise and make recommendations, she should make those decisions in public.

And then, she should not lie or mischaracterize or spin them when asked about them later.

And she should be prepared for an exodus of expertise from the civil service. But that's one of the hazards of making ill-considered decisions.

This reprimand by the Speaker, this hoop-de-doo from the opposition, all this STUFF--this never had to happen, had she only behaved like an adult in the first place.

Meanwhile, buy your "Kairos is ^NOT going away" t-shirts here.

National Anthems

So there was a big sporting event recently (Canadians: not hockey) and somebody flubbed the words to the U.S. National anthem in front of bazillions of people and one kid in a Darth Vader costume.

I am not an apologist for overhyped, overexposed divas. However, here are some thoughts about THAT whole thing.

1. Americans, you're highly offended that said diva doesn't know the words to the national anthem. Do YOU? Really? "And the rockets' red glare, the bombs bursting in air, gave proof through the" what? Night? Fight? Either might work. Don't think about it. You'll have to go look it up if you think too much.

2. Musically, "The Star-Spangled Banner" is damn near impossible to sing UNLESS you're an overhyped diva. Not that overhyped divas sing it at all musically.

3. Canadians, your national anthem is easier, except when Conservatives try to deflect attention from issues by "fixing" words, which I wrote about ad nauseam a year ago.

4. Also Canadians, I still don't get that whole "stand on guard" bit. However, at least when you forget some words, you have a fallback phrase that's got a good chance of being accurate.

5. Is the whole "she flubbed the words" worth getting bent out of shape over? I don't think so--but it is useful to wonder whether some other professional singer might be worth hiring next year, even if they aren't starring in an overhyped, overexposed, underdelivering movie.

6. Here's an idea: Maybe pick someone who's an actual professional SINGER, as opposed to an entertainer. Maybe have a "no diva" policy.

I'm gonna ask that Darth Vader kid to work on THAT.

Borderline Yawn

So, Mr. Harper goes to Washington. He and President Obama talked about border security. They made some announcements about increased security and free trade and more cooperation.

This is the kind of announcement that should provide something interesting for me to say. So I keep waiting for something from this trip to be really earth-shattering and important.

[crickets]

These days, the U.S.-Canada border isn't particularly interesting, at least not in comparison to borders in other places...Gaza, for example.

And hey, after the last two weeks of unrest in places like Tunisia and Egypt, at least President Obama got to talk to a leader who's NOT facing a challenge to his leadership.

Right, Mr. Layton? Mr. Ignatieff? Bueller? Anyone?

[crickets]

Uh-huh.

Unexpected

To truly appreciate a holiday like Christmas, it's important to remain open and alert to the possibility of meaning in unexpected places.

Here are a few memorable moments from this holiday weekend.

Christmas Morning
Mummy: WHAT IS THIS, POO? WHO? WHO POO-D??
All: Not me. Nope. No!
Mummy: OK then, HOW DID THE POO GET ON THE SMARTIES??

Driving Through the Woods to G's House
Mummy: Oh, look! Three deer! Aren't they beautiful? Oh, how sweet. (Etc.)
Isaac (aged 8 tomorrow): I wish I had a flamethrower.

Welcoming Prayer, Boxing Day
Minister: You have shown us Your love in the coos of a baby....
Choir member [thinking]: The poos of a baby?

See? Sometimes, the true spirit of Christmas requires you to accept that the box of candy you thought you wanted isn't such a great thing. That the urge to hunt will assert itself eventually, no matter how cute the object. That you see love in your way, and others see love in theirs.

So far, the poo is winning over the flamethrower, 2 to 1.

Wikileak Worthy

I've been trying to come up with something to say about the Wikileaks "revelations" about Canada. I'm feeling a little...torn, I guess you could say.

Here's what my Canadian half has to say.

I don't know, I just wonder, maybe, I guess I'm saying that what I think I might want to say, isn't really, you know, very...pithy or interesting or...valid. It's not as good as what Americans say about Canada, that's for sure.

Because they think we have an, um, inferiority complex? Like, we are so inferior, because of being, um, smaller and not-American, as a country, that is (because we are waaaay bigger in square miles, really, and three coastlines to contend with), and sometimes we show how bad we feel about ourselves by overcompensating and pretending to act all superior and smug.

Like when we make the U.S. the bad guys on our TV shows, and I might add those are based on real-life stories like Maher Arar, but maybe, you know, that's out of line.

Or maybe when we point out that we're actually, like, BIGGER than the U.S. as well as a whole separate country, and therefore, not-American is pretty much exactly how we should feel.

I'm sorry. Was I too loud? Just...I need a moment. Thanks.

Here's what my American half has to say.

Canada. Yeah. Hmm. They're like, north of Alaska? We don't really need them, not for anything important like oil or building materials or minerals or anything. Wait, let me check my BlackBerry...C-a-n-a... Oh, the Olympics, right. Like that hockey game meant something. They speak some French up there, don't they, and have a lady on their money?

I don't mean to make mock. Well, maybe a little mock.

But hey, World, here's the deal: Diplomacy is not the same as honesty. They have a separate word for it and everything.

Now, isn't there something else we could all be doing? Like maybe not bombing each other?

Two WikiThoughts

So, Wikileaks. So what?

1. News flash: DIPLOMACY REQUIRES TACT.

2. As the World High School Turns: Episode summary.

Chris, the crusading and/or conniving editor of the school newspaper, found a diary containing the most personal and private thoughts of Usa, the most popular girl in the school (just ask her).

Chris, being the crusading type, or possibly the connving type, plans to publish the diary in the school newspaper, page by page, thus drawing out the drama all week long.

The school is all a-twitter. (Twitter: See how au courant I am?) What does Usa think of us? Of me?

Those in the Asia club huddle to gossip, but then North Korea pokes South Korea in the eye and China says, "Don't make me come back there" and they lose their focus.

The members of the African club try not to be concerned. Australia and New Zealand shrug and go surfing with their Pacific Islander friends. Central and South America pretend to go about their business but hang out in the hallway outside the newspaper office.

Two groups of loners (yes, it's oxymoronic)--the Middle East and India/Pakistan/Bangladesh--brace themselves for the publication of nonsense about them (though Israel and India secretly think they'll come out looking relatively good).

Poor Haiti. It's home sick. (Seriously. Haiti deserves a better 2011.)

The Scandinavian Club remains aloof, as usual. Somone in the former Soviet club insults a former Baltic state and a scuffle ensues. Russia officiates.

The groups disband and reform: the History club (members of the former British Empire) meet to share rumors, then report back to their home continents. The former Soviet republics touch base with Turkey, the Middle East loners, and north Africa, then drift back.

Even the European Club, focused though they are on ekeing out each other's allowances, can't pretend they don't know that Usa's most secret feelings are going to be made public.

Meanwhile, Canada sits at the window, staring out into the evening. What will Usa say about me? Will Usa recognize my loyalty? Will she compliment my mission in Afghanistan, my compliance in trade negotiations, my leadership, uh, followership, uh, "being there"-ness in environmental and security issues? Will Usa go on record and tell everybody we're really best friends?

A horrible thought crosses Canada's mind: what if Usa doesn't say anything about me at all?

Tune in tomorrow, when Canada is forced to write her pal Usa a sternly worded letter (in invisible ink) in As The World High School Turns.

One Expression, One Pronunciation

Recently, I have been trying to collect other language observations but still have just one expression and one pronunciation. So here you go.

1. Expression: "keener," as in, "The keeners who finished their assignments early got a lollipop."

From context, a keener is enthusiastic. She is eager. She is on that project right away. A quick trip to the urban dictionary confirms my sense that a "keener" is a little like a brownnoser but not as nerdy.

I don't know an American equivalent. Do we scorn eagerness and achievement? Do we answer rhetorical questions? We do: indeed, we do.

2. Pronunciation: "juke," as in, the Grand Old one from York with ten thousand men who marched them up the hill (and then he marched them down again).

"Duke" has cropped up on TV fairly often recently, for some reason (perhaps Prince William's engagement? but he's a prince...hmm). Often it's pronounced as "dee-YUKE," run together quickly. But I've heard a fair amount of "juke." Since moving here, I have heard mercifully less "dook," which is what my "dee-YUKE" pronunciation was teased into, lo those many decades ago. Apparently the "y" sound conveys a certain refinement, a sense of "who do you think you are?" intolerable to my peers. And I caved to their pressure. I pronounced down.

Also, in this country I am apparently surrounded by "KYOO-pon" rather than "KOO-pon," which ditto with the teasing, although my husband says "KOO-pon."

And I, embracing my inner keener, have found myself returning to "KYOO-pon" and "dee-YUKE." And now, I'm off to march up and down hills!

Hi Ho Hip Hooray

Well, it happened. I heard my third "tickety-boo" today. And when n = 3, and none of those "n"s is is a relative, and especially when one of them was a CBC pundit, I feel compelled to share.

So, here you go: "Things were going along tickety-boo when all hell broke loose."

I have never heard it used when it wasn't followed by the sense of "but I was mistaken" or "but that didn't last long."

As in, the economy was chugging along tickety-boo until the housing market collapsed. Or I was running all my errands, tickety-boo, and then I got slowed by road construction.

A brief Google search reveals that it may be Scottish, and that's likely how it came into Canada.

It also revealed the following earworm, with which I leave you:



It is, after all, a peaches-and-creamy day, on which one wants to bless mankind, including one's attackers.

Countries Behaving Badly

Of all the bad timing in the world...

I have to renew my permanent residence card. My residence status isn't changing at all. I just need a card to prove my status when I cross the border using a commercial form of transportation. Renewing it requires filling out bazoodles of paperwork and then waiting a year and a day (well, 2/3 of a year), all of which is a blog topic for another day.

Because today I'm heartsick. Like Canadian officials, I've been ignoring Omar Khadr. Yesterday, the 24-year-old, who has spent 1/3 of his life locked up in Guantanamo and the other 2/3 growing up brainwashed by his family into becoming an American-hating future terrorist, entered a guilty plea in front of a U.S. military tribunal.

The "gold standard" evidence, crowed the U.S. military officials, was a confession that he threw a grenade that killed an American soldier and wounded others. The part that they didn't brag about was that they tortured him, a teenager, to get it.

It is believed--certainly by Khadr--that he will serve one year of his sentence at Guantanamo Bay, and "the rest of his sentence" in Canada.

Or, more properly, he will serve one MORE year at Guantanamo Bay. That's one MORE year, after some 8 years already. And the Harper government here is making no promises about taking him back after that.

In fact, CBC reports that more and more often, Canada is refusing to allow Canadians serving time in the U.S. to transfer to Canada, where they have access to rehabilitation and are closer to their families. Instead, Canadian officials leave them in the U.S., where they are denied access to rehabilitative services (because they're foreign nationals) and leave prison without any information about their offenses on their Canadian record. How exactly is this helping anyone? The offender gets no help and no support from family to re-enter the general population to live in a more constructive way. And Canadian officials don't know that s/he's just done time in the U.S.

Safety? Security? How does the treatment of Omar Khadr by either country, and the Harper government's so-called "tough on crime" attitude, help anyone? How many future terrorists were inflamed into action, not intimidated or prevented from action, by the way Omar Khadr has been treated?

So it is again time for me to choose to live in Canada. It is with a heavy heart that I collect documents and fill out paperwork proving that I am who I say I am.

I'm committed to my life in Canada. I am not ready to cut ties to the U.S., where I was born and where I also have family. But today, I am not particularly proud of the official actions of either country.

The only bright spot in all of this is that I have the ability to say so. At least for now.

(And oh by the way, here's hoping that the reason I am allowed to exercise this right to speak freely has everything to do with my citizenship and my immigration status, and nothing to do with the fact that I am a white, nominally Christian person.)

What is this Stuff?

I have written elsewhere about chocolate-oatmeal macaroons. (They are distressingly easy to make.) (And I am proud to report that I haven't made any this whole week.)

The recipe calls for margarine. Since I had never made them before, I actually used margarine, though I am not nuts about its flavo(u)r, or lack thereof.

Side note: last week on CBC's Rewind program, they played an interview from 1949 with Kate Aitken, in which both Kate and her Vancouver host discuss the "bone of contention" that they call "MARG-rin." Not "MAR-juh-rin." Hard "g," two syllables. The whole interview is here (the first option); marg-rin appears at about 5 minutes. The podcast as a whole is a fun little trip into 1949 post-war radio. The voices sound different in a way that can't all be ascribed to patronizing condescension toward domesticity.

Anyway. I challenge you: without examining the labels, pick out the "marg-rin" from the samples above.

Yup. It's the bronze-wrapped thing.

See, back in The Old Country, all butter or butter-esque products come in long sticks, like the one center-top, above. (Or in tubs, but we pretend they don't exist because they're usually margarine and we don't like it and you can't cook with the kind that comes in tubs because it's whipped and doesn't measure correctly.)

In The Old Country, many recipes call for "a stick of butter." Imagine my surprise when I came to Canada and discovered that butter comes in "sticks" like the one to the right. A stick that says, "We're a logging country. We don't mess around with little sticks. Here, have some butter." Cutting 1/4 or 1/2 cup off that log o' butter is a different experience.

Fortunately, the powers that package marg-rin in Canada are aware of all those recipes. That square hockey puck thing is a half-cup, which makes it the Canadian equivalent to "a stick of margarine."

Logs o' butter, pucks o' marg-rin. Oh Canada.

Ah, you say, but isn't that thing at the top also a stick of butter? Yes, it is. But also, it is not. It is a product made by Lactantia, a Parmalat company. This particular product is a "butter" called "My Country." It is an unsalted, uncultured product with a "distinctive European flavour." This particular version is "Swiss flavour."

You know how the Swiss like their butter? Without flavo(u)r. Maybe it tastes like fat, but not in a particularly satisfying way. (I came into some of this product when our renters left and donated the contents of their fridge. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it.)

I am a fan of butter. That is, I'm a fan of the kind of butter that tastes like something, and I don't want to hear how that "something" is added salt and chemicals required by some process or other. I don't care. I love the butter like the stuff to the right in the picture, stuff that has the taste from The Old Country. The kind that, in this country, comes in a big inconveniently shaped log.

Did I mention the inconvenience of the shape? Try cutting a piece to put into one of those butter dishes. The butter dishes of which we have several in this house. Yes, you'll find you're cutting a piece that's...the shape of a U.S.-style stick of butter.

I know. The log o' butter means less packaging. (One piece of foil, no cardboard box.) But dealing with it dirties at least one knife, and my fingers, every single time.

I also recognize that the butter dishes that are ubiquitous in this house were likely manufactured and imported as part of a trade agreement with The Old Country. Still. Logs o' butter do not lend themselves to pieces that fit into them.

At least the butter, the REAL butter, tastes good.

I didn't say this was earth-shattering stuff. When you're on vacation, something like this may be cute and interesting and a bit quaint. But when you're a resident, a permanent one, this stuff requires mental adjustments. And, like the oven wars of 2007, it's these little things in the New Country that are the most surprising and disconcerting.

Like finally finding a stick of butter, only to discover it doesn't taste like butter.

Or mentally changing your idea of a "butter dish" so that the dish resembles a small plate, because it's easier to saw an appropriately shaped piece off the log to fit a plate.

It's almost enough to make one wish for a batch of chocolate-oatmeal macaroons, just to take the edge off. Fortunately, the hockey pucks come in packages of 12. (Yes, 12 pucks of marg-rin to a box!) We've had only three batches of macaroons so far. Hmmm.

Hosting with the Mosting

Things I have learned this summer about being a host: if you play your cards right, when the company leaves,

1. You still have half a batch of scones.

B. Also blueberry pie. That's two more times eating it!!!

iii. Have been to interesting places with your company, some of which you really mean to get to the rest of the year but often don't but now plan to, and some you have never been to before and may never seek out again. For example, I have seen a couple of really cool exhibits at The Thunder Bay Art Gallery (Norval Morrisseau! Frank Big Bear and his magic prismacolor pencils! and an exhibit devoted to ravens!!), and I have been to the casino (semi-comatose people staring at flashing lights!). I leave it to you to figure out which is which.

d. You lose your mind a little. Ergo, I'll be the one in the sugar coma (scones! blueberry pie!!) getting my toenails painted.

P.S. Yes, I know the items in the list above aren't parallel. It's for effect, a little writer-editor geek humo(u)r.

Intermission

A ku-hai for your contemplation

It rains, yet the house leaks not.

No bears lumber by.

I breathe: inhale, exhale, in-

Three Days in August in Canada: The Opera

SATURDAY

Chorus: For the company arriveth, and we hath no air conditioning, and humidity it thriveth and temperature (oh the temperature, the temperature) it riseth (riseth!! RISETH!!).

Duo (The Princess and Prince): For this is not normal, not normal, it is too hot and muggy. Oh please you cannot touch me, oh please you must assist me, for the company is my family and they expecteth beds in comfort, not in sauna. We will survive this, we will endure, our love it too will thriveth, though the temperature it riseth (riseth!! RISETH!!).

Aria (The Prince): For I will find the fans (the oscllating fan, the bigger box fan) and make them ready for the company.

SUNDAY

Aria (The Princess): We had a chilly evening, two weeks ago, or three, I remember it! I do! I wore this lovely jacket, this sturdy hooded sweatshirt, for the evening it was chilly and what else was I to do?!!

Chorus: Tidy, tidy! You must tidy! You must put away the jacket, the sturdy hooded sweatshirt, for the evenings aren't chilly any longer. They are hot. The humidity is 80% and the temperature it riseth and you won't wear that sturdy hooded sweatshirt for a good month or two.

Recitative (The Princess): Thank God for the clouds to keep the temperature under 80 and the wind that brings the clouds, for it makes the upstairs habitable. Oh woe; I rue the day I bragged of this place to family and friends, for they expect perfection and that I cannot provide. (Perfection, perfection, ah, no.)

Aria (The Prince): The company arriveth, and we can make them welcome. The fans are ready and will drive away humidity so we all can sleep. Fret not, for it is lovely, and they will be good sports.

Chorus: For all around is lovely, and the company arriveth, and they will be good sports.

MONDAY

Chorus: A lovely morning, a cool and lovely morning, a morning the likes of which we have not seen since April, a cool and pleasant morning, the humidity it dropped and the temperature with it, too. Is that red line at 50? It is, it is at 50: and the humidity at 60, too.

Aria (The Princess): Oh bless the eleegant breeze, for well did I sleep, and the humidity it fell and the elegant breeze swept the sauna from my mind and my upstairs bedrooms, and I slept with joy and woke with thoughts of coolness and good humour again.

Recitative: (The Company): What a lovely morning, it's chilly here is it not, I didn't bring long pants, the news reports (news reports! NEWS REPORTS!!) said it's been the muggiest summer on record, and yet it feeleth chilly, so I will wear my jacket. And oh how I wish I had long pants. Yet all will be well.

Duo (The Prince and Princess): I swear just yesterday was different, the muggy, the heat, the humid lay insistent on all the land and our upstairs bedrooms too. You must have brought this respite, for the humid lay on all the land and we were crabby too. (Oh they do not believe us but we know whereof we speak and our love it also thriveth.)

Recitative: (The Company): Yea, I am glad I brought my jacket, and I wish I had brought long pants, for the flies, they doth bite. But lo, we will be good sports.

Recitative: (The Princess): And now I wear my jacket, my lovely hooded sweatshirt, for the cool lingers in the shade and the deep forest, and the breeze it brings the coolness across the land, and it is a lovely jacket, and I am glad I did not tidy (tidy!) for today I will wear it again.

Aria (The Prince, to The Company): Thank you! Thank you for bringing the respite, the respite, for it swept the humid from the land and vanquish-ed the temperature and now we are not crabby, and we will wear long pants, for the flies, they doth bite.

Chorus: And the company arriveth, they arriveth, and they bringeth the respite, and they don't believe our stories of the humidity and heat that lay across the land, but we don't care, for we can wear our jackets, and we have long pants, and our love, it also thriveth, and they will be good sports.

THE END

Claustrophobia

In October, Delta-which-bought-United-Northwest-whatever will suspend its air service between Thunder Bay and Minneapolis.

The service has apparently been faltering for some time. It's inconvenient, scheduled apparently without regard to matching the schedules of incoming flights, so that connecting from Tucson requires either a multi-hour wait or a sprint. It doesn't fly in bad weather, which I suppose is understandable, but summer flights are always iffy and nerve-wracking. It's not dependable service.

And it's hugely, hugely expensive, relative to the cost of other legs of a flight: $400 easily. Recently, a day's drive to Minneapolis, a night at a motel, and a drive home--repeated--has won out over this crappy service.

And I wonder: aren't most of these complaints about the TB/Mpls route applicable to other routes? The primary difference is that Delta was the only option. And now it's going away.

All of which makes me extremely claustrophobic. I feel trapped here.

It makes no sense. I have chosen not to use the service, so really I shouldn't complain if the service goes away. PLUS not using the service has given me first-hand experience in getting out of this country. (I drove across! Both ways! Twice! In the past two weeks!!) AND it's not like the Thunder Bay airport is shutting down. I can always get to Toronto!

Not only that, but I'm here in this country by choice. I really really WANT to be here. And I have a difficult time leaving, even to go on vacation.

But then, that's why they call it a "phobia": the fear has no basis in logic. Mentally, I'm standing under a transparent bubble at the airport, pounding on it: "Let me ouuuuuuut! Let me ouuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuut!"

So much for what "they" say: that Canadians have stronger ties to their U.S. neighbours than to other Canadians. Try flying to Minneapolis from Thunder Bay.

Because I'm curious, I did some research. Minneapolis, you recall, is a city as close or closer to me than Winnipeg. Yet to get to Mpls from TB, I'd have to fly to Toronto (or Winnipeg AND Chicago). One of my favourite return routes would take me from Minneapolis through Houston (that's Texas, y'all) and THEN Toronto before bringing me back here.

Lest you think that "flying to Toronto" from here is equivalent, say, to flying to Phoenix from Tucson (a half-hour journey): The TB-Toronto flight is 1:42, 900km. As a drive, it's 18 hours or so (allowing for summertime construction). And all the connections were more than $500.

So, let's review: I'd be flying to a city easily twice as far away as Minneapolis to get, eventually, to Minneapolis. Possibly through scenic Houston, another 2000 km out of the way. Time elapsed: 3 hours Toronto/Houston, 3 more hours Houston/Minneapolis. Plus the 1:42. Add in connection times and an hour for time zone change: 12 hours.

Driving. That's the answer, as it is so often, when one doesn't have the luxury of staying here. Argh.

P.S. Because I know that Minneapolis is not often the final destination, I also checked into a flight to Tucson. There are no 1-stop routes. I can fly Toronto/Denver/Tucson, home Denver/Edmonton/Tucson. Other routes include stops in Phoenix or LA. Touring the U.S. through its airports: now there's a reason to visit my sister.

P.P.S. Yes, I should appreciate the miracle of flight. That it's possible at all. Et cetera. And I do. But I'm human, and we don't respond well when options are taken from us.

What is This Thing Called "Vacation"?

Still not sure. But I'm on one. At home. People are here. More people are coming in a month. Hard to say "no" to someone whose roots here are deeper than my own.

Meanwhile, I'm experiencing border crossings in the car again. Expect a report when vacation, whatever that might be, is over.

Between now and the next raft of company.

The Shiny: Not The Important

Grrr.

A few weeks ago, a cabinet minister got booted out of cabinet and out of the Conservative Party. Lots of hoopla. Lots of hearings, mostly about her husband, did he have a contract to lobby for a green business, blah blah blah.

Meanwhile, no discussion about the torture of prisoners in Afghanistan and what the Canadian government knew when. No talk about what we expect our soldiers to do and how we expect them to survive psychologically.

Why the attention on the "scandal"? Because everyone--opposition parties, media, the public--responds to the shiny. As in, "I'm paying attention to something important, I'm about to take action and Ooooh! Something shiny over there! I'm going over there." A person who is tap-dancing is pointing to something shiny. Over there.

A kerfluffle. Gossip. It's a slippery slope from letters on parliamentary letterhead, official BlackBerrys, text messages from the Hill, is-it-lobbying-or-is-it-a-social-call to the wide-eyed "news" tidbits read by Mary Hart on Entertainment Tonight.

Then whoa! The question of Afghan detainees comes back into the spotlight. PM Harper has been stalling Parliament's previous brief attention on the topic--its demands to know what the government knew about detainees and torture, and when it knew it--by dumping banker boxes full of papers with all the words redacted.

Parliament went to Daddy--er, complained to the Speaker. He deliberated and then made a 45-minute-speech last week that is the equivalent of saying "You kids have two weeks to work it out or else." Or else what?

But, I thought, at least we're getting somewhere. Once they get the administrivia figured out (for which there are precedents that do work, south of the border, y'all), we'll talk about detainees, about Canadian policies in Afghanistan, about how exactly Canada will get out of Afghanistan in 2011....You know, the important stuff.

Alas, it has become apparent that the Speaker's affirmation that Canadian politicians are expected to behave like adults--that is, to find a solution to this "problem" that allows elected representatives of Canadians to see material while still protecting the "safety of our troops"--is not about either the detainees or the troops. It's not even about sensitive information.

It's again about the shiny, the power. Does Parliament have the power to force the Prime Minister to cough up information that the public has a right to know? Or does the Prime Minister have the power to hide indefinitely behind "security," because he knows that nobody, but nobody, will stand up to him if it means an election?

Power: Does the Prime Minister have too much power? Are Parliamentarians irrelevant?

Important: Are young people killing other young people, and children, and old people, in horrific ways, for questionable gain?

Power. The ultimate shiny object. Too bad important isn't so shiny.