This AmeriCanadian Life

2006-11-30T09:53:00.000-05:00

So, I should be about finished my great American (/Canadian) novel by now, right?

Um ... not exactly. My days have not really been filled with feverish novel writing, though I have been writing a lot for my employer and various freelance places, I promise. (Evidence here and here and here.)

Although the little quirks of Canadian life continue to fascinate me, I've decided to put the blog on hold for a while (hence the month-long absence) to concentrate on all that real-life stuff beyond the comforting glow of the computer screen. Scary, but potentially rewarding, I hope! I'm even trying to host a holiday party, though I'm not entirely sure I know enough people to fill a room, so if you're in Canada next Saturday do stop by for some appetizers. (Seconds spent trying to spell hors d'oevres before I gave up and went with appetizers: 30. I think there's a U in there somewhere, but free Quebec or no, I just don't have time for it.)

So, thank you to the literally tens of people who read this blog, and wish me luck in the real world. Love,

Rebecca

2006-10-27T10:32:00.000-04:00

So I'm thinking about doing this ... write a novel in a month. Why not? Seems as good a way as any to get over my novel-writing block. The block doesn't seem to apply to newspaper stories, but maybe that's because of those wonderful deadlines -- they've always been a good motivator. So maybe that's exactly what this project will be good for. Anyone care to join me?

2006-10-16T10:43:00.000-04:00

I've been thinking about maternity leave lately -- and no, this is not a hint that I am in the family way. There's no little Dubelets incubating just yet. However, everyone I know seems to be either pregnant or has just had a baby -- seriously, if you're of childbearing age and reading this blog, you might want to use protection because apparently I'm emanating some sort of fertility-boosting rays.

When I lived in the U.S. I had the knowledge, as I think everyone does, that American maternity leave policies suck compared to basically everywhere else, especially Europe and Canada. But I never really thought about the specifics, or the ramification, until I moved here. Twelve weeks of unpaid leave in the U.S. versus a year of paid leave in Canada.

What I've found is the maternity leave policy radically changes the whole landscape for women in the workforce. In the U.S., it seems most of the people I know who have a baby then face some version of the Big Decision -- Do I go back to work, do I stay home with the baby, should I work part-time, what can I afford to do, what about day care, etc., etc. And these are usually pretty gut-wrenching decisions to make, or so it seems, because you're not only dealing with the life of the tiny little person you've brought into the world, you're also struggling with all these identity-charged issues about work and life and gender politics. And various pundits and authors seem to make quite a good living trying to convince women to feel very, very guilty about whatever choice they make (and conveniently forgetting that fathers have the same choices).

And in Canada, we really don't have all that. The normal course of events is, you work, you have a baby and go out on mat leave for a year or a little longer, and then you go back to work. No drama. It's apparently pretty rare to see women quit the workforce altogether when having children, simply because they're not forced to make that Big Decision. I think there must be a cumulative effect of this lack of disruption of women's lives in the workforce. Maybe in 10-20 years we'll see a huge gap in gender balance in the workforce in the U.S. versus the rest of the world? Someone might need to give me a big-ass grant so I can think deeply about this issue and come out with some brilliant book that forces the U.S. to institute humane maternity policies. Or at the very least, I might pitch this idea as an article somewhere.

2006-10-02T21:01:00.000-04:00

Sigh, sigh, sigh. My never-ending quest to find validation, a sense of identity, fame, fortune and flawless skin through my vocation really never ends. I had hoped the new job would serve the same function as a marriage in a Jane Austen novel or a Shakespeare comedy -- capping off the plot neatly with our heroine snug in the arms of her beloved. And the fact that the beloved in this case is a newspaper didn't even bother me one bit.

However, life is stubbornly unlike a Jane Austen novel and I'm struggling to find things to love in this new job, which involves not enough writing and far too much work that will one day be performed by computers or monkeys. (I'm hoping for monkeys, because I think they would really liven up most workplaces, if only we could get them to knock it off with the feces-throwing for a while. But it will probably be computers. Drat.)

Anyway, speaking of primates, here's a link to a fantabulous story by Tom French about the life and death of the king and queen of the zoo. (Fantabulous=cross between fabulous and fantastic. See, this is what happens when I don't get published often enough -- I get frustrated and start to make up words.) Tom French is an awesome writer, and apparently was in the midst of a long project on the local zoo when all this drama happened and he wrote this amazing story. The story is so amazing that I am able enjoy it whilst choking down my bitter, ugly jealousy at the fact that he was doing a long term project about ANIMALS AT THE ZOO, which is probably my No. 2 dream story right after something involving a lot of puppies, and IT SHOULD BE ME, DAMMIT. But no. So this is the first in a (hopefully not overly long) series of stories entitled, Stories I Would Have Written If Everyone Around Me Would Just Acknowledge How Totally Awesome I Am and Stop Being Jealous of My Coolness, Because You Know They Totally Are And That's The Only Thing Holding Me Back. Yeah, I know it doesn't really roll off the tongue, but it's a step up from my other imaginary series entitled Stories By People Who Are Totally Not As Good Writers As Me But Got Their Sweet Jobs Through Nepotism And Whom I Will Expose NOW.

So see, it could be worse. Enjoy the primates -- sans feces throwing.

2006-09-24T13:01:00.000-04:00

I'm back! And, unfortunately, I'm sick. My prognosis was very grim at about 2 this morning, when leading medical experts (me) predicted imminent death. I'm feeling better, but still achy and cranky and logey and I'm anticipating that tomorrow might not be my most brilliant first day at work, but oh well.

The trip was fabulous! We went to Amsterdam, Paris and Provence. My broken French actually came in handy several times. I will definitely have to say more about the trip later -- my brain is so foggy right now, all I can think of is that I liked the Louvre a lot. Really, it's nice. You should check it out. I like that Mona Lisa chick. It's cool. Also, Provence was pretty and the olive groves were nice and we ate really good food. In fact maybe this whole illness is simply my body rejecting a non-French diet, demanding more red wine and cheese.

The French were generally very nice -- I do think they appreciate an effort to speak their language, however mangled. All those hours studying the bilingual cereal boxes here really paid off. I could not believe how many Americans just blasted off into complex English sentences without so much as a "parlay voo anglay?" (North Americans, I'll say generously, although probably they were all from the U.S., since Canadians are more used to handling those touchy French speakers with care.) I will say I appreciate living in a place where customer service is an actual concept and you're not expected to apologize to the shopkeeper for disturbing her day. But I guess that just shows what a high-maintenance North American I am. C'est la vie.

One thing that was very wierd that I discovered is that I do not have an understanding with French dogs. The dogs in Canada and the U.S., if I'm walking down the street, I give them a "good dog" look, they give me a little tail wag; we have an understanding. We are sympatico, I believe, though maybe that's just the fever talking. But les chiens francais, non -- I'd go in for a little walk-by pat on the head and they'd just avoid eye contact. Maybe les chiens are just a little more reserved than our American dogs, or maybe they're not used to being fawned over in the same fashion, or maybe it was just a language barrier. I must admit it was a bit disconcerting -- I was under the impression my Dr. Doolittle skills knew no boundaries. Luckily now I am reunited with Wonder Dog, who has requested and received an alias change to La Chien Gentille, and as always we are muy sympatico.

I'm off to investigate the medicinal effects of triple-creme brie now, a bientot....

2006-09-01T22:14:00.000-04:00

In preparation for a rapidly approaching trip to Paris -- made sweeter by the aforementioned job offer and thus the knowledge of having a steady income stream when I return -- I have been reading Adam Gopnik's "Paris to the Moon," which is an excellent collection of essays on living in Paris and on being an American abroad generally. And even though I am overlakes rather than overseas, and the only language barrier I encounter is an over-reliance on the word "eh" and a predilection for inserting the letter u into words, I'm finding I relate to a lot of what he writes. It helps that he's a wonderful writer in that New Yorker style. (He and Malcolm Gladwell? Both Canadians, doncha know. Of course, both Canadians living in New York, now.)

There was a passage I particularly liked , which I'll reproduce here if I can find it, about how living in another country means not having any particularly strongly help opinions about the things most people feel strongly about. You listen to both sides of a debate and you think, well, they both have a point, which is exactly how I felt listening to all the debates during the last election here. The differences that seemed so glaring and fundamental to Canadians seemed rather slight to me, and it didn't matter much to me either way. And he writes a little about how this feels very free and refreshing, but after a while you get tired of it and it starts to feel a bit lonely, which I can see as well. As tired as I am of the whole red/blue conflict in the U.S., I could see how you would start to miss it after a while.

And reading his experiences with the bureaucracies of France, I realize we have it easy here in Canada even though I was pretty steamed that I have to pay $18 just to get my mail put on hold for three weeks. Yes, we have to pay the heavily-taxpayer-subsidized post office $18 -- plus provincial and federal sales tax, of course -- for the priviledge of them NOT delivering our mail. But still, it was a pretty simple transaction at least, so merci beaucoup for that. In a few phone calls to French restaurants to make reservations I have learned that my French is not up to French waiter standards, but I will continue trying because I took 10 years of French, dammit, and I ought to have something to show for it. Of course I dropped French immediately when I satisfied the language requirement in college, thinking, When will I ever live someplace where I'd need to know French? Little did I know, the places I'd go....

So this blog, updated at a pitiably slow pace as it is, will be on holiday for the next few weeks while I eat my way through France. If I do not exceed the weight limit on the flight back I will be back in September to report on the trip, and also my new job, which I'll start soon after I get back. Au revoir pour maintenant!

2006-08-27T23:15:00.000-04:00

Well, I have big (good) news ... I have a new job! An honest-to-goodness, permanent job with benefits and the whole shebang. So glad I can finally let my hair down at work and start being a bitch to everyone instead of being so freakin' nice all the time. ... Kidding, I actually am pretty nice, except to people who do things like walk over and stand right in front of me at a concert, as if I won't notice that I'm now looking at the back of their head instead of the stage, and if you think I'm too mature to start pulling your hair successively harder until you move away you are wrong, big head lady.

Ahem. But I haven't run into any of that at work ... no one is really jockeying to get in your way when you're about to edit a story about institutional investors versus individual investors reaction to the Fed's decision to pause rates, though honestly that was a pretty interesting story ... so I think my thin veneer of civilization will hold firmly in place.

I will even be doing some work on this Internet thing that we've all heard so much about, though I think it really might be a fad and any day now several generations will discover the joy of getting their fingers all smeared with ink and having to paw through several sections of irrelevant news before getting to the sports/comics/gossip/escort services ads they were looking for.

I am very happy, and feel a weight has been lifted from my shoulders that I didn't even notice was there until it lifted when I heard the words, "We'd like to offer you a job." Truth be told, I like the fun parts of freelancing -- working in my pajamas, frequent breaks for dog walking and kitchen-grazing and watching Ellen ("Let's have a little fun to-day!"), seeing my name in certain cool publications -- but the rest of it, the whole uncertainty and salesmanship aspect and constant striving and did I mention the lack of certainty? I didn't like that very much. I have come to understand that I really like structure, a lot. Rules and complex office hierarchies? Love them! Enigmatic authority figures from whom I can win approval and/or learn to hate with an obsessive passion? Fabulous! Count me in!

I hope to keep freelancing, so as to keep my options open in the carefree, pajama-wearing, sipping-Starbucks-in-no-hurry-at-2 p.m. kind of world, and also 'cause I like seeing my name in print in big fancy publications. Also, uh, for truth and justice and journalisticy goodness and all that good stuff too, yeah. But as I bounce on the trampoline of journalisticy daring, I feel I will soar even higher knowing the safety net of regular paychecks is guarding me from a hard tumble to the depths of financial- and identity-crises. Also, I'm hoping I won't run into this problem, described in the pages of Canada's national newspaper.

In conclusion: Opa!

2006-08-20T20:18:00.000-04:00

This weekend there was a festival in the Beaches, my neighbourhood. I couldn't really figure out the theme to the festival other than "It's been a few weeks without a festival, so here ya go!" Toronto and Seattle are very similar in that way -- the winters are quite miserable, so during the summer there's practically a festival every weekend, just to make the most of the warm, pleasant weather.

This weekend's no-reason festival was quite low key, and basically consisted of a few bands playing on the sidewalks and stores staying open late. We ended up eating at a Greek restaurant -- a local chain called Mr. Greek. We sat outside next to the band, which played all night as we enjoyed some sort of flambeed feta cheese that was sooooo good I want it again right now, and calamari.

As the night wore on there was much singing by the owner and dancing by the patrons, half of whom seemed to be related to the owner. The owner, a balding man in a orange polo shirt, did some dancing, and his wife threw paper plates at him (in a celebratory fashion, not a stop-embarrassing-me-you-fool fashion). A teenaged girl selling souvlaki out front left her post momentarily to perform some sort of traditional Greek bellydance as interpreted by Shakira music videos that the male patrons seemed to enjoy quite a bit. There was also a lot of circle dancing, all of which reminded me of the Hava Nagila. Something about being swarthy must make people want to dance in a circle. (I kid because I love.)

The showstopper, though, was a woman probably in her late 20s or early 30s who I'd noticed earlier in the evening. I must confess my first assessment of her was uncharitable, as she was absolutely gorgeous (long dark hair, slim waist, rockin' body), wearing a pretty pink and white sundress and high-heeled sandals, and parading through the restaurant with an adorable four-year-old boy. I wrote her off as one of those tiresome yummy mummys who see children as the ultimate accessory but who forego goodnight kisses on the grounds they might smudge their lipstick. Bitter much? Not me. Anyhow, this beauty took the stage and started a slow, traditional Greek dance. (At least I imagine it was traditional -- what do I know from traditional Greek dancing?) She looked down at her feet at she circled and traced patterns on the cement patio, swaying in time with the music. As it sped up, she twirled and stomped her feet, still looking more at the ground than at her growing audience, seemingly lost in her own world. Her movements had nothing to do with the orange-shirted owner's machismo showmanship, even less to do with the teenager's gyrations. As she spun to the music, I thought I could see her thinking of the girl she had been and the woman she was, and everyone stopped to look, and the band played faster and faster.

I knew I wasn't the only one who appreciated what was happening when the owner's wife appeared again with an armful of plates, real ones this time, which she hurled at the dancer's feet with cries of "Opa!" I laughed and clapped as she spun among the shards, and it was one of those moments that make you happy to be living on this earth, with such sudden and unexpected beauty.

Opa!

P.S. Joanna, move to Toronto! We have great Greek restaurants and plate-throwing, plus timely trash collection and draconian anti-smoking laws!

2006-08-11T23:15:00.000-04:00

I was wandering far and wide on the Web today, and I ran across two interesting items, and as so often happens they formed a connection in my brain.

The first is perhaps the cutest thing ever. Each time you look at it, you're just going to say to yourself, God DAMN that is cute. (Especially if you're Canadian and like to swear a lot.) Ask yourself, what could be cuter than a cute dog and a tiny money? Answer: A tiny monkey RIDING a cute dog, cowboy-style. I don't know how they got a Capuchin monkey, and how it ended up with its own custom-made Western wear riding a border collie, and I don't want to know -- I just know that it's magic. And while this sort of thing might be ripe for exploitation, it really seems that both animals are enjoying it. I don't know what sort of life a Capuchin monkey enjoys in the wild, but it's possible nasty and/or brutish and/or short, and probably does not involve custom-tailored Western wear. And as for the collie, we all know border collies love to work, and playing mighty steed to a friendly monkey certainly qualifies. I can just picture the collie talking to his dog friends: "Yeah, I know it's a little unusual, but hey -- at least I'm working."

Collies are very smart dogs, which brings me to my next item -- dumb people. According to this article, which I sadly have no reason to doubt, 39 percent of Americans (that would be U.S., not Canada) say that evolution is "absolutely false." Which is another way of saying that 39 percent of Americans are complete fucking morons. Which is kind of depressing.

So seeing these two items got me thinking about America, and sort of preparing what I might say the next time I'm talking to a Canadian who brings up the fact that 39 percent of Americans don't believe in evolution and says something like, "What a bunch of fucking morons." Because even though I might agree, I still feel the need to stick up for my homeland or at least provide some textual analysis. Thus, I say it's no coincidence that the same land gave birth to both the heartwarming, soul-gladdening news about Whiplash the Cowboy Monkey and the scary, emigration-encouraging news that 39 percent of Americans are completely ignorant of science and history and geology and anything outside of what their preacher and their talk radio tells them. There's something horrifying about a mind that can completely ignore scientific theory and decide that millions of years of fossil records were planted here by aliens ... and yet I say to you there's something in that same crazy mindset that might inspire a man to look at a small monkey and wonder if that monkey would like to wear chaps and ride a border collie.

Such a thin line between madness and genius, stupidity and cleverness. Is living with a nation of ignoramuses too steep a price to pay for the delight of monkey cowpokes? Perhaps, perhaps. Living in a country where people are more likely to accept Darwin's theory of evolution and less likely to ignore all common sense is more peaceful, perhaps, more safe and more steady. But what scares me more than closed-minded idiots is the idea of living in a world without a collie-riding Capuchin monkey. Ride on, little monkey who may or may not be a distant relative of humankind, ride on.

2006-08-03T10:45:00.000-04:00

A few news items have caught my attention recently and I feel the need to share. First of all, the New York Times ran a big story (do they run any other kind of story?) on the stereotype of the big sassy black woman gaining popularity in advertising, and whether this is OK or we should all feel liberal guilt about it unless the advertising in question is written and produced by black people. Fine premise for a story, especially in a slow news month like August. But the example they cite is this Dairy Queen commercial:

"In the spot, a man boarding an airplane sets his ice cream shake down so he can load his bag into an overhead compartment. As he reaches up, another passenger on the plane starts eating the Blizzard. Seeing this, the first man lets go of his bag so he can reclaim his Blizzard and inadvertently drops his luggage on another passenger’s head. That unlucky passenger happens to be an overweight black woman who lets out an irritated gasp that reminds all the passengers around her who not to mess with."

Now, that last sentence ends with a preposition which is a little annoying but I'll let it slide because I'm not that anal a copy editor and that's the sort of thing about which I can't get too upset. But this is the New York Times' standard for sassy, outspoken behavior -- someone drops a suticase on your head and you let out an irritated gasp?? Really?? Have New Yorkers turned into polite Canadians or something? Because "irritated gasp," while probably ranking a "red alert" on the Canadian hostility scale, seems would be a relatively mild reaction to having a suitcase dropped on one's head. But no, according to the New York Times this is evidence that black women are being stereotyped as "strong, aggressive, controlling," as one marketing professor is quoted as saying.

*Irritated sigh* at articles that don't back up their ledes. Ooh, I'm so sassy!

That concludes the media analysis portion of this post. Now, for international news: Spoon-wielding women seize Mexican TV station.
That has got to be the awesomest headline and protest ever. The story never really explains why they're wielding spoons, or how exactly their spoons of protest empowered them to seize a TV station, but I don't even mind because I'm totally willing to use my imagination on this one. Maybe I'll carry a spoon aboard my next plane flight, just in case some doofus drops his suitcase on my head, I won't even have to gasp irritatedly -- I can just hold up that spoon, and everyone will know I am someone with whom they do not want to mess.

2006-08-01T20:49:00.000-04:00

People like to ask me how the Canadian media differs from the U.S. media. My old answer was something about how people have more interest in international news here, and there are fewer 24-hour cable channels and thus fewer people who exist solely to yammer about things about which they know very little. My new answer: fuck. And, shit.

Both words are totally accepted in newspapers here, even in the venerable Globe and Mail. I was curious so I looked it up, and there have been dozens of fucks and shits in Canada's newspaper of record, and apparently not a one has led to a mass cancellation of subscriptions or an appreciable increase in moral decay. And these curse words are not just allowed in print on Big Important Occasions like when the President doesn't realize (again) that there's an open mike. A police officer who calls something a "fucking disaster" actually gets quoted like that -- imagine, newspapers acknowledging the way real people talk -- and the sun still rises on Canada every morning. (Except in the Yukon in the winter. But probably not because of the cursing.)

It's hard to imagine this casual acceptance of reality-in-language at any U.S. newspaper outside of the alternative weeklies. During my tenure at The Charlotte Observer, in the good ole Bible belt, I'm sure that if any naughty words had by some chance slipped by the eagle eyed copy editors, the top brass would have shit a fucking brick.

There are some instances when editing out an obscenity just seems wrong. I heard a report on CBC radio about a car crash where one teenage girl died and another was in a coma -- someone mixed up who was who so the family with the dead daughter mistakenly sat for a week by the girl in the coma and the family of the injured girl buried what they mistakenly thought was their daughter. One of the girl's fathers said something like, "It was fucking horrible." I think his language was completely justified and editing it out is less than honest. I'm distrustful of those who would shield the public's tender ears from four-letter words while bringing us such vivid descriptions of every sort of human misery. And I have more trust for media outlets who respect their audiences' intelligence. (The CBC ran a short warning about harsh language before the piece, which I thought was reasonable.)

The funny thing about all this is that despite this media acceptance of everyday cursing, or perhaps because of it, Canada seems a much less vulgar culture than the U.S. The one national characteristic is unflagging politeness, so clearly seeing four-letter words in their newspapers hasn't warped their fragile little minds too badly. Maybe this is another symptom of the U.S.'s puritanical hypocrisy -- it's OK to lie or be stupid or boorish on TV, but don't you dare swear, and Grand Theft Auto is cool but Janet Jackson's nip flash threatens the very foundations of our culture.

Or, maybe Canadians are just fuckin' pottymouths.

2006-07-25T11:24:00.000-04:00

I am not a domestic goddess. I am not even a domestic demi-god. In fact, if the Tribe of Martha ever wanted to sacrifice someone to an artisan, color-coordinated volcano, I would probably be first on their list.

My house is messy. And when I was working from home as a freelancer, I was often able to fight the mess to a draw, but now that I'm working full-time and freelancing, the mess is definitely winning. I always distinguish between messy and dirty -- yes, there are piles of clothes and books and mail from two weeks ago lying about, but it's not like there's rotting food or roaches or anything really gross like that. Of course the fact that I take pride that there's not rotting food in my house (well, not since I threw out those furry strawberries this morning) is probably a big old red warning flag.

At this point I'm just trying to get the house presentable enough that I can hire a maid service. Once, in Seattle, we had a maid come in once a month and it was totally worth the money, except that one month she just stopped coming and we never heard from her again. I like to think that my messy house did not prompt her to flee the city in terror and change her phone number, but I don't know for sure....

It's not like I wasn't raised better. Our house growing up was always clean, thanks to my Mom. We were never the funny-smelling house, and I don't want to be the funny-smelling house. Although I do remember one time after my parents had a dinner party, my mom telling me in a "well they won't be coming back" voice that one of the women had said to her, "This would be such a lovely house if it weren't for the dogs." At which point I think my mom would have been totally justified in kicking her in the shins. But sadly, I can't blame the state of my domestic affairs on Wonder Dog, though she does shed great blizzards of fine white hair that seem to end up everywhere. But the dog hair tumbleweeds are just a symptom of a larger problem here. (I have thought of attaching little Swiffer pads to her paws so she can clean while I'm gone, but I think then we'd just have a clear path from her bed to her food bowl [which she checks many times a day just to make sure it hasn't magically refilled].)

I was heartened to see this story in The Globe and Mail, about how men are now doing more housework. The really alarming part of the story was the accompanying chart, which showed that women on average did 2.4 hours of housework a day and men did 1.4 hours a day. Nearly four hours a day of housework?? This is the average??? When the hell do these people sleep, eat, post on their blogs and catch up on Canada's Next Top Model? I just don't understand, which is probably why I shall never, ever be a domestic goddess.

2006-07-17T10:10:00.000-04:00

I have been remiss in updating this, I know, but it has been a busy week. Since my job is temporary, I'm trying to make hay while the sun shines and write as much as possible, but last week there just seemed to be a bumper crop of hay and I was baling hay as fast as I could but the hay just kept coming, not to mention I was having some thresher difficulties and thus the hay baling was quite laborious. OK, I think I've massacred that agricultural analogy quite satisfactorily.

I was going to write a list of good things and bad things that happened in the past week, but then I realized the events I experienced were not so easily classifiable. For example, on Friday I woke up, got dressed, went to work, checked the schedule and noted that I was, in fact, scheduled to be off that day. Oops. So I abashedly said bye to everyone and left. But actually my surprise day off turned out to be lovely, partly because it was a surprise and thus I had not scheduled any boring tasks to do. It was a free day!

Then on Friday night we went to see a "circus cabaret" at the Distillery District, which as the name suggests is an old distillery district that was saved and renovated at some point and now is a very cute pedestrian area with cobblestone streets, brick buildings and cute shops. The first hint of trouble was when the show started about an hour late. The people behind us actually left before it started -- in retrospect, a very wise move. I don't know when the nightmares will stop about the performer who wore a tattered Easter Bunny head as he sang about peeing in the shower. (At which point the spousal unit leaned over and asked, "Did they have auditions for this, or do you think it was just a sign-up sheet?") The real highlight, though, were the two young men who were fire jugglers. Or, I should really say, were in training to be fire jugglers. Because they dropped the fire. A lot. At one point, a flaming stick of fire rolled off the stage and into the audience. I've never laughed so hard while simultaneously fearing for my life before. It's experiences like those that are hard to categorize: bad, certainly, for the quality of the fire-juggling, but thrilling in an oh-god-we're-all-gonna-die-at-the-hands-of-these-bumbling-shirtless-jugglers kind of way.

2006-07-07T07:26:00.000-04:00

Recent signs that I am in danger of going native:

1. Yesterday I used the word "toonie" in conversation, completely unself-consciously and without giggling even a little.
2. While writing a story, I wrote "neighbourhood" without flinching. "Practising" still looks plain wrong to me, though, and per cent as two words still freaks me out.
3. I think it's hilarious that Bush calls Prime Minister Harper "Steve." This is a man who, when dropping off his children for the first day of school, shook their hands. I'm pretty sure even his wife and parents call him Prime Minister Harper.
4. Me, on the front page of the Globe and Mail's business section. Woo-hoo!

2006-07-01T14:11:00.000-04:00

Today is a very special day in Canada ... Canada Day! July 1 is when we celebrate being Canadian. So to explain this tradition to my non-Canadian friends, I've written a little song to be sung to the tune of Adam Sandler's "Hannukah Song." ("Put on your yamulke, it's time for Hannukah...") So here's how it goes:

Put on your toque and say
It's time for Canada Day
We know Canada is special in every way
That's why we celebrate Canada Day
So when you feel like the only kid in town
From the True North Strong and Free
Here's a list of people who are Canadian
Just like you and meeeeeeeeeeeeee....

Carrie Ann Moss
Grew up in B.C.
Maybe that's where she learned to defeat the Matrix
With fellow Canadian Keanu Reeves
Pamela Anderson's from Canada but her boobs are from the States
Sandra Oh grew up in Ontario and we think she's pretty great
Neil Young and Avril Lavigne rock out in the Great White North
We all celebrate on July 1, that's three days earlier than the fourth
(we beat you!)
You may not think you know many Canadian folks
But I bet you know the guy who played the dad on the TV show Diff'rent
Strokes (whachu talkin' bout, Canada?)
Rachel McAdams-a
Comes from Canada
So does Jeopardy host Alex Trebek
And Captain Kirk and Scotty from Star Trek
You know all about Mike Myers, John Candy and Jim Carrey
But you know who else is Canadian? Puffy "Friends" actor Matthew Perry!
Phil Hartman was from Canada, but now sadly he's dead
Canadian Cory Hart is still alive, we wish it could have been him instead
It's not just famous entertainers who have made it on this list
We've also got John Kenneth Galbraith, a renowned economist

So many famous Canadians, I can hardly name them all
When you look at the size of our country you must admit the U.S. looks rather small
So drink your maple latte
Get your poutine nice and hot, eh
And have a happy, happy, happy, happy Canada Day!!!!

2006-06-27T08:50:00.000-04:00

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Foreign countries are seeking to manipulate Canada's large immigrant populations to obtain intelligence and technological secrets, according to the latest annual report by Canada's spy service.
When Karl Rove asked me to move to Canada to be a spy for the U.S., I must admit I was skeptical. "But Turd Blossom (me and W. came up with that little nickname for him, hee hee), how could our peace-loving, beaver-emblemed neighbors to the North present a threat to the good ole U.S. of A?"

How indeed. I am older now, and wiser, and the owner of more maple-related products, and I'm here to tell you the Polar Menace is real. Now that my cover is in danger of being blown (darn you, nosy Reuters reporter and your free beer!) I feel I must warn a slumbering nation. Unless you want to see neighbour spelled with a U -- do you??!!!??! -- read and learn from the chilling tales of my espionage.

July, 2005 -- Arrive in Toronto, known as "New York without the garbage, London with better teeth." As I'm meandering down a crowded sidewalk, a man in a motorized wheelchair passes me, and I ever-so-slightly brush against him. "Oh, I'm sorry," he says. Reflexive apologizing -- the ultimate Canadian weapon.

August, 2005 -- It's hot here! Canadians clearly lying about harsh, polar climate to keep Americans from invading Alberta and seizing oil reserves. Lying -- that's evil, isn't it? Sort of like the axis of evil, eh? Watch out, crafty Canucks.

September, 2005 -- Am still struggling to locate the cells of the Canadian anti-American militant movement. I fear they are located in lingerie shops, which average three to a city block. In a country where long underwear is an acceptable fashion statement nine months out of the year, who is buying all these lacy underthings? Suggest we deploy army of Victoria's Secret catalogues to neutralize the threat. Operation: Panty Raid.

October, 2005 -- Beneath their friendly exteriors, Canadians are a deeply suspicious people. Exhibit A: Every grocery store requires a 25-cent deposit on carts. And plastic bags are not free. Perhaps this is a sign of flinty Scottish roots? Yet they'll let you check out your own groceries -- go figure.

November-March, 2005 -- Too ... cold ... must ... focus ... on ... tv ... remote ... (Note: the enemy is hardy. As opposed to other cities this operative has occupied, such as Seattle and Baltimore, in Toronto four inches of snow is apparently not good reason to totally freak out, stay home from work, burn furniture to stay warm, and pray for deliverance in the form of sweet, blessed rain. I sure felt silly in the grocery store checkout line with my cart full of toilet paper and milk.)

April, 2006 -- I visit Montreal. My god, what have they done to the Colonel? KFC here is called PFK -- Poulet Frit Kentucky. Is nothing sacred, mes amis quebecois? Aieee, now they've got me doing it. I shall avenge you, my white-bearded, trans-fat-laden friend. The south shall rise again! (Actually, would not best revenge be for sleek, fashionable Quebecois youth to succumb to lure of extra-crispy recipe, thus assuming shape of their rotund southern neighbors? Ah Colonel, you know what you're doing, don't you?)

May, 2006 -- An alleged terrorism ring is broken up by the police. Muslim extremists planning to bomb CBC, behead prime minister (like a president, W., only more quaintly British). And yet I still have civil liberties. So confused by this strange land...

June, 2006 -- The Carolina Hurricanes win the Stanley Cup, defeating the Edmonton Oilers. (Note -- Several players on "Carolina" team seem suspiciously Canadian. Perhaps we are not the only ones with a clever spy plan? Recommended investigation of NHL fifth column.) A reader named "Mr. Motoc" posts the following comment on the Globe and Mail web site: "The members of the Conservative Republican Annexation Party must be VERY happy that a US team won."
Why yes, we are-- wait! COVER HAS BEEN COMPROMISED!!! Operative's secret plan for world domination in danger. Forgive me W. and T.B., I failed you. Abort the mission, I repeat, ABORT THE MISSION!!!

2006-06-23T10:27:00.000-04:00

My first Toronto byline! Woo-hoo!

I had a dream last night that I bought the paper and the story had been totally changed, and the ending had been taken out. I was quite disturbed. Luckily it was not a prophetic dream. My subconscious is not very subtle when it comes to these things. Shortly after starting my copy editing job, I had quite a vivid dream in which the slot editor (the top copy editor, fond of referring to himself as The Slotweiller) screamed at me to hurry up as I struggled to finish five stories on deadline. Luckily, that one hasn't come to pass either -- the Slotweiller has been nothing but kind to me. Of course, neither dream can compete in terms of sheer horror and persistence to my recurring wire service dreams, in which I would go to call in a story only to find that the phone was broken or had been disassembled in some way, and I would have to put it together again to call in the story.

How come I never dream about winning the Pulitzer or something nice like that?

2006-06-20T10:56:00.000-04:00

No joy in Canuckville today, as the Oilers have struck out. A sad, sad day ... of course, now that they lost, now the Canadians engage in a little nationalistic hating on the U.S. -- too little, too late, my northern friends. If you want to get my freelance love you have to work up the rabid anti-American lather before the big game, when people actually care.

But try as they might, I don't think Edmonton's loss can be blamed on Bush. (Although Edmonton is an oil town [hence the name], and Bush likes oil, and the whole Iraq war ... ok, I don't have a conspiracy theory yet, but I'll work on it.) I'm no hockey expert, but I'm pretty sure that to win games you have to occasionally take some shots on the frickin' goal. Although if there was a Stanley Cup for passing the puck like a million times, I'm sure the Oilers would have won that one. Jeez, that was a frustrating game to watch. Ah well, back to the World Cup.

2006-06-18T22:33:00.000-04:00

Toronto is totally mad for the World Cup. Everywhere you go, people have country flags flying from their car antennas. If you're driving downtown, you have to know the World Cup schedule -- because you definitely don't want to get caught in Little Italy or Little Portugal after a game. Not that there'd be any violence, you'd just be stuck in a really, really happy traffic jam with a few thousand jubilant Portuguese. Even the elderly, bedridden woman I visit with Wonder Dog at the nursing home has a Germany flag at the end of her bed -- I also saw a wheelchair sporting a flag of England in the nursing home parking lot. The CBC and other networks devote hours of coverage to it, which is pretty impressive considering Canada doesn't even have a team in the World Cup -- can you imagine a U.S. network devoting time to a championship they're not even in? But Canada, as I now know, is different.

I thought that the World Cup was stealing away some of hockey's thunder, but Saturday night convinced me otherwise. We went to a street festival in Little Italy, and ended up eating dinner on the patio of a lovely Italian restaurant. From our seats we listened to the music from the street festival (which started out as traditional Italian and then switched to covers of the hits of the '60s and '70s, for reasons that are unclear to me, but it seemed to please the crowd, especially two elderly Italian women who tangoed all night. Or maybe they were in town for Gay Pride week -- I'm not sure). Like all the other restaurants with patios, this one had a big screen TV playing Game Six of the Stanley Cup, so we were able to watch the Edmonton Oilers completely thrash the Carolina Hurricanes 4-0 while drinking red wine, eating pasta and listening to a vaguely Italian-looking woman sing "We are Family" by Sly and the Family Stone. Which is how all hockey should be experienced, in my opinion. At the end of the game, the whole patio counted down the last ten seconds like it was New Year's Eve. As I shouted "three ... two ... one!" with the rest of them and raised my glass of Sangiovese to toast the Oilers, I realized that I actually, for the first time, was starting to feel like a Canadian.

GO OILERS GO!

2006-06-13T10:27:00.000-04:00

We have figured out the difference between the media in the U.S. and Canada, and it can be summed up in one phrase: feed the goat.

In the U.S., the daily task of producing news copy to fill the gaping maw of the newspaper, the web site or the broadcast is referred to as "feeding the beast." An apt metaphor, conjuring up an image of a huge, slavering monster terrorizing the countryside with his insatiable hunger for news.

In Canada, they call it "feeding the goat." Quite a different image, isn't it? I picture a white, long-haired goat standing out in a sunny field, contentedly chewing on whatever's been given to him to eat that day. Maybe bleating a bit from time to time, chasing a few butterflies if he's in a particularly feisty mood. Yup, time to feed the goat.

On a semi-but-not-really related note, some of the 17 suspects in the Toronto terrorism case have complained (or rather their lawyers have complained) that they are being "tortured." What sort of dastardly deeds have their Canadian captors made them suffer? Well, there's this:

Mr. Kolinsky also alleges that his client has faced at least some sort of physical abuse from guards: "As he was being searched, the guard touched his ribs and he's ticklish. He giggled a bit. And the guard drilled his finger in to his cheek and said, 'Is this funny?'"

Take heed, potential terrorists -- get arrested in Toronto and we will not hesitate to TICKLE YOU MERCILESSLY! Only in Canada...

2006-06-08T09:58:00.000-04:00

I have a confession ... I think I like being a copy editor. I had my doubts going into this job, having been warned (with good intent) that a shift of straight copy editing would make the boringest state government committee hearing look as thrilling as sudden-death overtime in Game Five of the Stanley Cup Finals. (See how I slip those hockey references in all natural-like, eh?) In other words, I feared I'd be bored to tears.

But actually, I find it quite ... refreshing. It's true that I've been started out slowly, so I'm able to dedicate a bit more time to each story than is probably normal, but there's something almost meditative about scouring a story for stray commas and missing verbs. I think I appreciate it in part because I am still doing reporting. After a hectic weekend spent chasing down the terrorism arrests story, it was almost soothing to come in to work on Monday and focus all my attention on one paragraph, sentence or word at a time.

The interesting (to me) part is that not one story has crossed my desk without an error. And the stories that I'm editing are written by what I consider to be probably the top reporters in Canada, and I'm totally not being biased because I work there, they really are at the top of their game. Yet even the best-written, best-reported stories will have a misspelled word, a missing quotation mark, a mixed metaphor. And sure, it wouldn't be the end of the world if some of those mistakes got through, but for those of us who love and believe in newspapers (a group whose membership I'm keenly interested in maintaining), it does make a difference.

Of course, having learned that every story has at least some minor error leads me to the realization that it is possible, of the thousands of stories I've written over the years, that a few of them may have had errors in them too! I know, I was shocked. And so all those picky copy editor questions that I've rolled my eyes at over the years were asked by people who saved me from making an ass of myself in print on a daily basis. To my former, much-maligned copy editors, I offer you my humble thanks. There won't be any money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness. So you got that going for you, which is nice.

2006-06-05T22:59:00.000-04:00

Now that I live in Canada, I have to watch the Stanley cup finals -- it's the law -- and I must admit tonight was a particularly exciting game. The winning goal was scored in the last 30 seconds, which was great, except that the winning goal was scored by Carolina and not Edmonton. If you were wondering, Canada has totally not gotten over the fact that most hockey teams and hockey money are now in the States, and thus their precious national sport has basically been reduced to pandering to people in places where ice does not naturally occur. As a new resident of Canada and former resident of North Carolina I wholeheartedly embrace this grudge and feel it would be an abomination for Carolina to win the Stanley Cup. Go Oilers!

I'm a bit disappointed that the whole Carolina-vs-Edmonton thing hasn't stirred up more nationalistic fervor. I would love to freelance a story about how all of Canada is pinning its hopes on Edmonton to reclaim their national pride and repudiate the Bush-loving, softwood-lumber-taxing, non-ice-having, conservative red state values of North Carolina. (Apologies to my progressive N.C. friends and family out there, but I can't let facts get in the way of a good story.) Alas that storyline is just not showing any traction here, despite my hopes to incite nationalistic hockey riots. The World Cup gets all the good riots -- it's just not fair. One problem is that Edmonton is in Alberta, which is like the Texas of Canada -- hence the name the Oilers. Another problem is that most of the players on both of the teams are Canadian, so it's sort of hard to get into the whole hating on the other country's team thing when they all probably played pee-wee hockey together in Ottawa. It's just a wild guess, but I'm thinking Carolina Captain Rod Brind'Amour isn't a Tarheel. Or as they used to say to me in good ole Rock Hill, "Y'all ain't from around here, are ya?"

2006-05-29T22:09:00.000-04:00

I have discovered a new reason why Canada rocks, and it ranks right below universal health care in reasons to move here: Canadian Idol! That's right, instead of going cold turkey like all you American suckas, I have a whole new round of reality show goodness to see me through the summer. There's Canadian Idol on Mondays, and then there's Canada's Next Top Model on Wednesdays. (And if you thought Tyra liked her ribs, you should see Canada's version! She could fit BOTH Miss Jays under her muumuu in the promo I saw!)

So I watched tonight's Canadian Idol -- which is a carbon copy of American Idol, except that instead of Ryan Seacrest they have Ben Mulroney, who is the telegenic son of former Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, so it's like if Ron Reagan Jr. hosted American Idol instead of a crappy talk show. And they have no Paula equivalent, because everyone else who mixes that many pills with that much booze is dead. But those aren't the only differences. I noticed Canadian Idol lacks some of AI's coldhearted cruelty -- like if the Canadians show you a little sad backstory on some teenager with a dream in her heart who sings while taking care of her ailing granny and whose father sold his teeth to buy her plane ticket to the auditions, you don't have to worry -- she's in. Whereas on AI, they'd occasionally pull the tugging-heartstrings fakeout. "She's just a poor kid with a dream ... that's not gonna come true! Sucks to be you!" Also on CA, and to me this speaks very highly of the quality of teenagers they grow up here, there's none of that backtalk. When the judges informed contestants that they were very, very bad singers, there was none of this, "You don't know NOTHIN'! I'm gonna be a STAR and then you're gonna be sorry!" They just cried a little and left, which I found very refreshing. The sense of entitlement among really awful singers is one of the more alarming aspects of AI, and I'm tempted to blame the well-intentioned but overboard self-esteem movement in American education.

I can only guess what surprises await on Canada's Next Top Model. Perhaps the models are not functionally illiterate, as they are in the U.S. version? Perhaps when they are told that ALL they have to do in a given week is memorize three lines of text, one of which is invariably "Easy, breezy, beautiful -- Cover Girl," they actually are able to accomplish the task? Ah, the suspense of reality TV -- thank you Canada!

2006-05-25T09:40:00.000-04:00

I am not cut out for public transportation. I took the streetcar to work yesterday, and while it was nice to be able to sit and read the newspaper, what is a 20-minute car trip took an HOUR and I barely got to work on time. So I'll be investigating the parking options near the newspaper.

I am realizing the fundamental angst of copy editors is that no one will ever notice the mistakes you DO catch. Last night I changed a "bid her time" to "bide her time" and corrected the spelling of Louisville, Kentucky and made various and sundry other changes that saved the newspaper from complete humiliation (complete humiliation on page B-13, but still...). And no one will ever know. Of course, the slot editors (who are the top copy editors who check everything before it's final) noticed where I failed to put the right tag on a wire story, twice, and when I failed to lowercase chief executive officer. I'm beginning to see why most copy editors tend to be a tad grumpy.

I'm also learning why bad things happen to good wire stories. I had to cut about 75 percent of a story about a Florida lawyer being charged with fraud to fill some hole on a page. I don't feel like it was any great crime against journalism, since how much do Canadians really need to know about some Florida fraud case, but my apologies to Curt Anderson, AP writer, nevertheless. However I didn't just cut from the bottom up, and I did manage to keep in the detail that the lawyer allegedly paid his ex-wife's alimony with money that was supposed to go to asbestos victims. Doing my best to preserve wire-story integrity, one story at a time.

One thing that might tempt me back on to the streetcar is the transportation union leader's announcement, widely reported this morning, that streetcar, bus and subway operators don't have to and shouldn't confront people who don't pay their fares. This is part of some long-running union dispute about bus driver safety, but all I have to say is, God Bless Canada. Only here would it be official policy to not stop fare-skippers because it might lead to an unpleasant scene. If the price of a round-trip streetcar ride just dropped from $5.50 to zero, it might be worth my while to leave earlier for work.

2006-05-24T10:08:00.000-04:00

I took a quick trip to D.C. (the other Washington, as it's called in the Evergreen State), and the first thing greeting me when I got off the plane was a McDonald's. Then, when I got into a taxi on the passenger side dashboard was a red-white-and-blue sticker that declared, "I AM COVERED IN THE BLOOD OF JESUS." Welcome back to the USA! Appropriately enough, the taxi driver belonged to the "Jesus, take the wheel" school of driving, as his hands were often both busy taking calls on his cell phone or changing the dial on the transistor radio he carried on his lap. (I want to write a hit song called "Jesus wants you to be an attentive driver and He says to steer into a skid.")

However, I arrived in one piece and got a chance to walk around the White House, which is always a nice antidote to cynicism. Because no matter how McCrazy and Jesus-Freaky America gets, there are always people taking pictures of the White House and the different monuments, and they're speaking a dozen different languages. And even if the current administration sometimes forgets the principles of democracy that these trappings of power represent, I think the tourists speaking Russian, Farsi and Chinese never will.

Later, I started my copy editing job and did my first act of violence to an AP story ... more to come on that.

2006-05-18T20:53:00.000-04:00

One fun fact about my work training this week that I forgot to mention: I'm being trained by a Scotsman on how to use a crazily complicated system invented by the Danes. According to the Scotsman, it all makes sense in Danish. Unfortunately we're in Canada. So the tutorials consist a lot of the Scotsman explaining, for example, that "Unbind elements from articles/pages" means "delete," and saying, "Well, that's the Danes for ya," or if something freezes up, "Fockin' Danish!"

I feel like I've been given a tour of the sausage-making factory. I always knew a newspaper was wicked complicated to produce every day, but I knew it in a vague sort of way -- I write a story, and then a bunch of people do things to it (and hopefully don't screw it up too badly), and then my name shows up in the paper the next day. (Unless a copy editor erases my byline and then rewrites it without checking and replaces my last name with the name of the murder suspect in the story, thank you very much Charlotte Observer!!) Now I'm learning exactly what happens to a story behind the scenes -- the coding, the layout, today I even saw the room with the big computers where they transmit the stories to printing plants across the country, that was pretty cool. And you know what? I think I was happier thinking that magical fairies picked up my stories and spirited them to the printing plant on wings of gossamer newsprint. However, it's certainly a learning experience. Now if I could only speak Danish...

2006-05-17T22:24:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm back in the laminated life again. I am the proud owner of a new ID badge, featuring a photo of me smiling far too widely. I wish I could master the art of not smiling in photographs -- I can't seem to help it, and when I suppress the instinct the photo comes out looking like I've just taken a heavy sedative. So I go with the grin. I am enjoying a whole luxurious week of training, which beats the five-minute "here's the printer... good luck" orientation I've gotten in previous jobs.

I obsessed over what to wear my first day, which is my nature. Since I'll be working with a cohort that includes several recent university graduates, I wanted to wear an outfit that sent the message, "While I am older and wiser and far more mysterious than you, as you can see I also have a devastating sense of style." I ended up wearing a lovely fitted light blue wool suit that said, "I shop at Ann Taylor." However that was fine, as apparently to this group, dressing up for your first day on the job means throwing on jeans and your cleanest golf shirt. Or, for the gals, how about a white wife-beater tank top over a red bra? (Of course, maybe she knows something about dressing to impress that I don't.) This is not an age thing, I don't think -- if anything I was more clothing-obsessed when I first started working after college than I am now.

Aside from my fashion statements, the other important question about this new job is, how is the Wonder Dog taking it? She seems a bit peeved, having gotten used to frequent walks and tummy rubs on demand while I worked from home. Of course, it is literally true to say she's taking the change lying down, since sleeping does occupy about 80 percent of her time. I think she'll be just fine.

2006-05-08T12:24:00.000-04:00

Today I was watching The Price Is Right while folding laundry. Yes, it's an embracing-my-inner-housewife sort of day. Unfortunately my inner housewife is as slovenly as my outer housewife, so I'm here blogging instead. But I did get to thinking about what an amazing show The Price is Right is. It first aired in 1972, two years before I was born, so that's 34 years of Bob Barker and "Come on down!" Bob Barker looks fantastic for 114. I love the pure joy of the people who are chosen to come on down -- if you could just bottle the excitement and glee of that moment, Prozac would totally become obsolete. Even the showcase models who cavort with the brand new cars, hideous living room sets and grandfather clocks, harken back to a simpler time -- job qualifications being long legs, big smiles and bigger hair. I would love to spend a week on the set of The Price is Right and write an article about it. I could go undercover as a showcase model! If I can't do it, I want Hank Stuever to write about it. Or even better, since this is my daydream, I would do it but I would write exactly like Hank Stuever and I would have his job at the Washington Post, and Hank Stuever would be my houseboy and do my laundry. Now, that would be a fabulous prize.

2006-05-02T10:18:00.000-04:00

Sometimes I think I must have lived through the Depression or was forced to eat raw turnips while wearing a dress made of curtains in a previous life, because I love (North) American grocery stores. There is something about rows and rows of neatly stocked food that fills me with a great sense of contentment and well-being. I'm feeling happy right now, just imagining a walk through aisles of floor-to-ceiling food.

Maybe this has something to do with happy childhood memories of riding through the aisles of the Four Corners Safeway in my mom's cart. I can still picture the layout of that store -- meat on the right, produce on the left. My sister and I treated the sacks of dog food as our own personal tree house, climbing behind them to amuse ourselves during the boring minutes of checkout time, which I'm sure the cashiers appreciated.

Canada has never felt more foreign than when I was navigating unfamiliar grocery store aisles. Their ideas about food organization were all different than what I'd come to expect from my trusty Seattle grocery stores (shout-out to PCC, Larry's and Albertson's!). And by different, I mean wrong and bad. Dried cranberries in the produce section? That's madness!! They should be with the nuts, which should be adjacent to the baking supplies. Even a child pretending that bags of dog food are a pirate ship would know that.

But, much like the first immigrants who endured much hardships as they crossed the Great Plains in wagons and were chased by bears and whatnot, I too have endured. And I was filled with a warm glow this week as I cruised the aisles of my local Price Chopper and realized that I know where everything is. Maybe it's a reincarnation thing, maybe it's a touch of OCD (in which case I'd really appreciate having a form of OCD that would get my house a little cleaner, because the kitchen floor could really use a scrubbing), but I feel so much happier knowing where all the food is stored at all times.

I realized I also know the soundtrack at Price Chopper, which is not Muzak but some Golden Oldies compilation that includes "96 Tears" and "I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch)." It makes for some great singalongs in the aisles. I think they must play the same dozen or so songs over and over in a continuous loop all day, which explains why the cashiers all wear expressions that say, "As soon as these drugs wear off I am going to STAB someone."

The Price Chopper is an interesting place. I once saw a man in a full-length fur coat (beaver maybe?) comparing prices on day-old, marked down meat. And there's a security guard who never, ever moves. He must have the good drugs. So yeah, Price Chopper has its quirks (and it's no Larry's!), but at least I know where the dried cranberries are.

2006-04-27T14:20:00.000-04:00

I totally don't get gardening. Why has this become an activity that women are supposed to enjoy? There's dirt and all sort of really disgusting bugs involved. Not that women shouldn't be allowed to garden, or discriminated against in the gardening industry, but I don't see how messing around with dirt and bugs got mixed in with shopping, baking cookies, sipping Chardonnay while reading trashy novels, and other stereotypically feminine activities that I can more wholeheartedly support.

Which is not to say that my gardens don't have themes. I don't go for those overused, boring themes like "English Countryside" or "Wildflower Medley," rather, my front-garden theme is "Evolution in Action." The plants that are best suited to the Toronto climate, rainfall, and sun exposure next to our driveway will survive, and the rest will die. Weeding and watering are just delaying the inevitable demise of unfit species. I want hardy specimens that don't need mollycoddling! The backyard theme, meanwhile, is "Lily's Jungle Wonderland."

My front patch is looking quite spiffy today thanks to the city of Toronto, which requires homeowners to plant trees when they install a parking pad (something about the circle of life, I suppose). So the previous owner paid for the tree, which was delivered and planted this morning. It looks great, except for the fact that they planted it directly under the telephone wires leading to our house, so if it grows more about three feet taller they'll have to come back and cut it down. Which is probably exactly what they have in mind -- the circle of life in this case being the circle of continuous employment for Toronto civil servants. Our tax dollars at work!

2006-04-26T13:05:00.000-04:00

Death is icky! Maybe if we ignore it, it will just go away and everything will be puppies and rainbows and positive approval ratings forevah and evah. Unfortunately the new Canadian government has adopted this crackerjack logic from the Bush administration and is now forbidding media coverage of flag-draped coffins coming from Afghanistan, where four soldiers died last week.

I seem to recall I spent a lot of time right after Stephen Harper was elected assuring everyone that Conservatives here in Canada are sooooo much different from the ones in the States, and Harper's not a mini-Bush, 'cause after all this is Canada and he only has a minority government and there's no way Canadians would stand for that repressive bullshit.

Oops! My bad. So sorry about that, as the Canadians would say.

The only thing is, mini-Bush aka Harper hasn't really cottoned on to the force necessary to quash the rights of a free press. So they restricted reporters' and photographers' access to the returning war dead to behind a chain-link fence. Which, as you may know, has big holes in it. And apparently photographers have these marvelous inventions called lenses which allow them to zoom in on action that is far away. Who knew?! Apparently not the Conservative government. Or maybe deep down, their strong and free Canadian hearts just don't have what it takes to make a mockery out of the fight for freedom by taking away the rights of the press to document the very sacrifices that such a fight demands.

Or maybe they're just dumbasses. Either way, bravo to the Toronto Star for refusing to go gentle into that good night.

2006-04-21T06:41:00.000-04:00

One common misperception about Canada is that everyone here speaks French. They don't, except in Quebec, which is where I'm headed this weekend! I have been polishing my rusty French skills with weekly classes at a local community center, et mon mari pense que je parle francais tres bien! Of course, he doesn't speak it at all, so I may just be spouting gibberish. However, my French got rave reviews when I left an answering machine message making a reservation at Au Pied de Cochon in Montreal -- the woman who called me back said my French was "not bad!" Which for a French speaker is a gushing compliment.

Hopeful as I am to become the David Sedaris of Canada, I wondered if my French class would be at all like his in Paris, as described in "Me Talk Pretty One Day":

"Huddled in the hallways and making the most of our pathetic French, my fellow students and I engaged in the sort of conversation commonly overheard in refugee camps.
'Sometimes me cry alone at night.'
'That be common for I, also, but be more strong, you. Much work and someday you talk pretty. People start love you soon. Maybe tomorrow, okay.'"

Even though my verbs remain mostly stuck in the present tense, there has been no crying in my French class, at least not yet. And I've rediscovered one of the great things about French, which is that if you're stuck for a word you can just say the English word with a French accent, and about 50 percent of the time you'll be right. My profession, par exemple, is journaliste. (Or redactrice de l'enfer, depending on the mood.)

I have also noticed that my ten years of not speaking French at all have definitely left a mark. I hear French flawlessly in my head, but when I speak it all seems to come out with an American-southern accent. How that happened, I don't know. Au revoir, y'all!

2006-04-18T15:44:00.000-04:00

Of all the marvelous things the World Wide Web has given me -- Television Without Pity, Go Fug Yourself, and of course this lovely conduit of self-expression -- I think my favorite thing online is the dictionary. Because there are a lot of 50-cent words hanging around in the back of my vocabulary, sort of half-raising their hands and letting their hair flop on their face self-consciously when I'm asking for volunteers. I'm 60-95 percent sure I know what they mean, but not totally sure. And is it too much to ask that I get my lazy butt up and walk five steps to the bookshelf and look up the word, risking twisted ankles and paper cuts? Yes, yes it is. But with m-w.com, I never lack for scintillating yet apropos word choices.

Also, m-w.com supplies unintended hilarity. Today I looked up heretical, because I was writing something that I thought might get me struck by lightening and wanted to make sure that was the right word, which it was, and here are two google ads that showed up under the definition:

Believe in Jesus?We'll pay you $75 right now to complete a simple survey!

Agnostics with awe: What if the Universe itself were the only god?www.pantheism.net

Way to cover all the bases, google ads!

2006-04-17T21:22:00.000-04:00

I got a job!!!

Yes, I have found gainful employment beyond freelancing and catering to the whims of Wonder Dog (both of which are full-time jobs, I'll have you know). It turns out the freewheelin' life of a freelancer is not so much for me -- I need a bit more human interaction. I think it's safe to say that when you come to believe that Oprah is speaking directly to you, it's time to find work outside the home.

So in mid-May I'll be starting a job at one of Canada's leading newspapers, thanks to editors of good taste and refinement who have the good sense to realize that knowing who Canada's ambassador to the U.S. is isn't everything. I have a feeling I'll enjoy my last few weeks of freedom a lot more now that I know there's a steady paycheck in my future.

2006-04-13T18:39:00.000-04:00

So today I was feeling a little blue, and I sat down with just a wee spoonful of cookie dough to watch a bit of Oprah. I turn the TV on and swear to God, Oprah is saying, "Today, we talk to women who have let themselves go. Next up -- numbing the pain with food."

Damn, Oprah! Cut me some slack!! That Oprah, she doesn't mess around. And for the record, cookie dough is a marvelous temporary analgesic. I feel much better now.

2006-04-05T16:53:00.000-04:00

Another random little thought: I found this amusing. A good lesson: if you want to intimidate someone with not-so-subtly veiled threats, don't do it in e-mail. As a former boss used to say, and it applies to so much, that's a conversation you have, not a letter you send.

A while back I interviewed Warren Kinsella (I spent the first few months here thinking he was the same as W.P. Kinsella, and being pretty amazed that this famous novelist was also a big-shot political consultant, but apparently they are not the same person. Or related, as far as I know). I was later warned that he was a loose cannon, but I found him quite articulate and cogent. Besides, I have no bias against interviewing crazy people; in fact I often prefer it. They say interesting things.

2006-04-05T16:51:00.000-04:00

For the record and in my defense, Alan Doyle is the leader of Great Big Sea (awesome band, by the way), and Great Big Sea is from Newfoundland, which is also known as The Rock -- so you can see how it's so totally understandable and practically not even a mistake at all to think Allan Rock is the lead singer of Great Big Sea.

2006-04-02T22:46:00.000-04:00

A few fun facts I learned this weekend by reading The Globe and Mail style guide cover-to-cover:

Meringues are called pettes de souers in Quebec, which translates to nuns' farts.
The first white person born in North America was named Snorri Thorfinnson (just Snorri on second reference). Born around 1005 to a Norse couple, possibly on the banks of the St. Lawrence River. Snorri and the Thorfinnsons returned to Iceland in 1015.
The Bible mentions "wise men from the east" but doesn't say there were three; people just assume that because of the three gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. I'd like to think there were four, and the fourth was like, "I just thought we were going to follow the star, I didn't know we were bringing gifts! I am sooooo embarrassed. Look, can we just say the myrrh is from both of us? C'mon, please?"
My cousins' children are my first cousins once removed; my great-aunt's children are my second cousins. I never understood that whole thing before.
Pyorrhea means "any continuous discharge of pus." Why they need this information at hand to put out a newspaper, I do not know.
In Canadian libel cases, the burden of proof rests on the defendant. Bummer!
There are nine species of tarantulas in Ontario, but their venom has little or no effect on humans.

2006-03-30T20:08:00.000-05:00

When my sister visited earlier this month, we had a wonderful time shopping through Toronto, drinking wine and watching a lot of "What Not to Wear" on TLC. Ah, sister bonding -- good times.

Recently I've decided I need to put a muzzle on my own inner Stacey and Clinton. Stacey and Clinton, for those of you who are not as intimately acquainted with the genre of daytime makeover television as I am, are the stylists of "What Not to Wear." They secretly film people who dress like crap, and then they surprise them and tell them they dress like crap and throw out all their clothes and make fun of them. The people don't punch S & C in their noses, though, because they get $5,000 to spend on a new wardrobe, and that tends to ease the sting of being told you dress like a colorblind Olsen twin.

It's an entertaining and addictive little concept, and after watching a few episodes you can't help wondering what Stacey and Clinton would say about your wardrobe ... or that woman down the street who wears ill-advised fuschia hot pants. I realized that I'd internalized Stacey and Clinton perhaps a bit too much while I was sitting at a writer's group meeting this week. It was my first meeting, and as these people generously welcomed me into their circle I was silently but viciously Stacey-and-Clintoning their personal style. "Do you wear that faded, bulky cable knit sweater to accentuate your bad posture? ... And the sci-fi writer with the thinning ponytail, hello, cliche! That's gotta go..."

Then I realized my bitchy inner monologue was not doing me any favors. For whatever crimes against fashion these people had committed, they had done something I hadn't: they had sold poems and short stories, written novels, pitched themselves to agents and publishers. They weren't churning out best-sellers by any means, but they lived honestly as fiction writers, and whatever I thought of their ensembles I had to respect that. From my spotty blog postings recently, you can probably guess that the muse of motivation hasn't been singing in my ear. So I climbed down off my high horse and tried, for a change, not keeping myself at an ironic, watchful distance. I think it worked. I left inspired to spend less time with Stacey and Clinton and a little more time trying to makeover my writing.

2006-03-29T13:51:00.000-05:00

Check it out, I'm an international theater critic! ('They're bored of the Rings.') Bring on the champagne and shrimp cocktail...

2006-03-24T08:33:00.000-05:00

All spectacle and no heart -- that's my review of the new Lord of the Rings musical, which had its world premiere in Toronto last night. I lucked out and got a free ticket to the $27 million production, but found it visually lush and emotionally barren.

(Can you tell I'm trying out my reviewer style? As I was sipping free champagne and scarfing down cocktail shrimp at the after-party, I decided the life of a reviewer is for me.)

I had high hopes for the musical -- and so does Toronto, where the theater district is still struggling to recover from the post-SARS slump in tourism. Unfortunately I don't think this will be the show that saves them.

The set and visual effects are amazing. A fairy forest of twisted branches stretches out from the stage into the box seats. The stage not only revolves, sections of it fall and rise to mimic mountains and cliffs. But it's telling that one of the biggest rounds of applause during the three-and-a-half hour show came when a giant spider walked on stage.

There were no emotional connections. None of the characters has an arc. The hobbits start out as innocent children, and they end up the same way. They're all played as comic figures -- Merry and Pippin especially end up coming off as an obnoxious Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dee. The actor playing Aragorn shouted/growled all his lines from start to finish -- there was no transformation from Ranger to King. The love story between him and Arwen never had any spark.

And the musical numbers were totally unmemorable. There were a lot of battle scenes, which all ended up looking alike. It's tough to make dance-fighting work, outside of West Side Story or Michael Jackson's "Bad" video, and the Enya-on-steroids music of the score wasn't doing this production any favors. There wasn't a single tune I could hum.

My favorite scene was a number with Sam and Frodo, singing about how their journey might be remembered in stories and songs "now and for always." It's simple and quiet and moving, and only served to highlight the emotional connection lacking in the rest of the show.

In case you think I'm just being cranky, even the local media panned it. Everyone loves the sets, but the hometown Toronto Star declared it "Bored of the Rings." The Globe and Mail snarks, "All it needs is an engaging storytelling approach, an emotional arc, credible performances and a more coherent musical score." Sooooo ... yeah, it kinda sucked.

It reminds me of that horrible Star Wars: Episode I movie, when George Lucas became so enamored with his special effects that he completely forgot about generating any real emotion with the human actors. This musical is the theatrical equivalent of The Phantom Menace, whereas Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movie trilogy managed to frame the epic with human emotion.

On stage as in the movie, Gollum stole the show. The actor playing him was terrific, and compelling to watch every time he appeared. Plus he remindsed us how much we likeses talking in the first person plurals. We likeses it! No, we hates it!! No, really, we likeses it.

At the after-party I talked to Rachel Tolkien, J.R.R.'s granddaughter. The army of PR flaks had been promising her appearance, then they lost track of her for about an hour -- personally I think they had her in a back room, plying her with champagne and cocktail shrimp until she agreed to say something nice about the musical. She was kind of bland -- said the musical was "very beautiful." Well, so was my dress, but I wouldn't have paid $27 million for it.

2006-03-22T15:42:00.000-05:00

Today at the nursing home, the Wonder Dog and I were walking down the hall when a cross-looking elderly lady held out her hand.

"Come here. Come here," she urged. In her past life she must have been a drill sergeant or a mother of 12, because her tone made it quite clear that this was an order. "This whole place is wired," she whispered as I came closer. "I've seen it. This is the headquarters. For spies."

I tried to interest her in the Wonder Dog. "This is my dog, would you like to visit with her today? She's a beagle, she's nine years old."

She looked impassively at the dog, then back up to me, her eyes filled with a perfect combination of despair at her predicament and disgust at my willful stupidity. "You're not listening to me," she said.

She must have noticed some softening in me, because she grabbed my hand. "You have ... a problem in your life," she said, doing her best Miss Cleo impression. "You are troubled by a problem in your life!"

I wasn't sure what she expected. Maybe something like, "Yes, yes I do! And you've seen right through me! You must be right about the wires too. I'm bustin' you out of this spy headquarters, right now!"

Instead, I just said, "I guess we all have problems in our lives -- we just have to muddle through the best we can."

She let go of my hand, still frustrated. I hope I see her again next week.

2006-03-21T16:50:00.000-05:00

Ever since I entered college, I've had a badge that told me who I was. At college, the badge opened electronic doors and got me into cool libraries and assured me that, despite my occasional failings, I had gotten into and managed to remain enrolled at Yale. I was a Yalie, and that was pretty cool.

Then I got a Charlotte Observer badge, and later I got one from The Associated Press. It always amazed me how those press passes opened doors, even though any semi-computer-literate person could have whipped one up in about 10 minutes. "You're here to see the president? Where's your press pass? Oooh, it's laminated! Well, come right in!" Never underestimate the power of lamination.

But those press passes didn't just work on flaks and door goons. They worked on me, too. If anyone asked who I was -- if I wondered who I was -- the answer was easy: I'm a reporter. If you don't believe me, here's my badge. The pictures usually accented my shiny forehead or flyaway hair and made me cringe, but I clung to the badges nevertheless.

Now I find myself badgeless. (Insert "We don't need no steenkin' badges" joke here.) I am not what I do anymore. "Freelance writer" comes in handy for answering small talk questions, but it's not quite sturdy enough to hang an identity on. Some days I embrace this as a marvelous freedom, an opportunity to reinvent myself and discover the Real Me. Other days, I despair. Much of what I've discovered about the Real Me sounds like I'm a Playboy Playmate -- no, I don't have silicon-enhanced breasts, but I like long walks on the beach, puppies, sunsets, cooking and reading. OK, maybe the last two aren't playmate-ish, but I'm not sure these discoveries are the stuff of a life-changing enlightenment.

Does what we do define who we are? Obviously not, because my current lack of full-time vocation hasn't caused me to disappear in a puff of smoke. I just feel like I'm climbing, trying to get a fingerhold or toehold in whatever tiny ledges of identity I can find, and wondering what I'll see at the top. It's a novel idea, and one I'm still getting used to -- life, unlaminated.

2006-03-20T11:50:00.000-05:00

Reason #193 why the Toronto Sun is one of my favorite guilty pleasures: Today's cover story on what the Sex Professionals of Canada (that would be the whooooooores) imagine different political figures would be like in the sack, based on their professional experience of judging the sexual prowess of total strangers.

The story is based on a poorly spelled chart posted anonymously several months ago on the SPAC's web site. But really, it's not like any real news goes into the Monday newspaper, so why not?

What do the other newspapers have? The Globe and Mail, Canada's own Grey Lady, has a banner headline declaring "UBC score academic coup by luring Nobel Physicist" jkgdsal;dskjkldk;ladslk;9uwqpoie;fhdsljkb9999999999999999999999

Sorry! Fell asleep there and my head hit the keyboard, thanks to the amazingly boring content of that headline!!! Do you think the Globe and Mail copy editors have some sort of sick competition to see who can write the boringest headline? If so, bravo to the author of that gem. I'm not even going to try to read the story, I'm pretty sure it's a leading cause of comas. Do not read that headline while operating heavy machinery, I'm warning you.

Apparently, the working girls say our new Prime Minister may be a conservative when it comes to fiscal policy, but in bed they think he is a "dirty boy."And the Sun editors in their wisdom recognized it as a chance to rerun the photo of Stephen Harper dressed as a gay cowboy; I just can't get enough of that. And they got 500 words out of it. I have got to get a job there.

2006-03-10T18:48:00.000-05:00

Some songs on the radio today got me thinking about guilty pleasures. Things I know I shouldn't like, but I just can't help myself. Here is a partial list:

1. The Dove "Real Beauty" commercials. I keep telling myself they're just trying to sell more soap, they don't really care about improving women's self-esteem, but darnit if that ad about the little girls who think they're ugly with "True Colors" playing in the background didn't make me tear up just a tiny bit. I also like the one where the woman shakes her "Buddha belly." Damn you, Dove marketers! You have me quoting ads now. You are far too clever for me with your self-esteem reverse psychology. I submit. I will buy your soap.

2. "Jack" FM, the dj-less radio station. They had it in Seattle and we have it here in Toronto, so it much be a North America-wide thing. In theory I hate the idea of souless, computerized corporate radio taking over the air waves. But in practice? Today while I was listening they played the following songs, in order: "Friday I'm in Love" by the Cure, "Keep On Rockin' in the Free World" by Neil Young, "Lucky Star" by Madonna, and "Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now)" by C+C Music Factory. It was AWESOME! How can I not love that? There is no way not to love a song set like that, is the answer.

3. Cadbury Creme Eggs. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. Chocolate shell filled with pure yolky sugary goodness. And after Easter, they're gone! Must eat as many as I can now, now now!! Hoarding instinct kicks in! Once again, well played, marketing executives. Well played.

4. Ryan Seacrest. I should hate his shiny plastic patina and his blonde highlights and the way he pretends to care about American Idol contestants rather than seeing them as paycheck meat, but I can't help admiring his naked desire to be loved by all America (and parts of Canada). He seems to be there every time I turn on my TV (on the TV, not in my living room. That would be weird). I admire that kind of work ethic. So Ryan Seacrest, against my better judgment, I salute you.

2006-03-09T18:32:00.000-05:00

I must admit, part of me was looking forward to watching the U.S. baseball team get their highly paid asses kicked by the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico and others in the "World Baseball Classic" (I guess "world series" was already taken).

This would be the same part of me that delights in watching skateboarding punks who think they're so cool try some fancy trick on the sidewalk and fall. Sometimes it's all I can do to keep from laughing out loud. On the one hand, that's sort of an evil reaction, but I prefer to see it as my ability to take joy from the small things in life.

Anyhoo, I never thought Americans would get beat by Canada at their own game! Whose national pastime is it, again? How embarrassing for the U.S. The sports commentators here can barely conceal their glee. Of course, if Canada's so good at baseball, how come the Toronto Blue Jays suck so much?

2006-03-07T16:22:00.000-05:00

Another reason to be glad I'm out of the U.S., and sad and scared for what is happening back home.

Honestly, this story makes me so sad. Not just for women in South Dakota, and not just because abortion could eventually be banned in some states, basically making safe abortions available only to those wealthy enough to travel and/or get around the rules.

What's really depressing is the thought of all the passion and effort and money -- my lord, the millions and millions of dollars in lobbying fees and ads and rallies and litigation -- that will be spent on this issue over the next few years. And meanwhile, actual already-born children will continue to suffer in poverty, die of abuse, get shoved into sucky foster care homes, go to underfunded schools. And some of them will grow up to be teenagers who get pregnant because they're totally ignorant about birth control and/or so desperate for love that having a baby at age 15 sounds like a swell idea. I wish all the people who are so damn concerned about fetuses -- on both sides -- cared half as much about what happens after the babies are born.

I remember a few years ago I covered an anti-abortion rally in Olympia. The woman who organized the rally was your pretty standard abortion foe -- talked a lot about Jesus, waved gruesome pictures, ended most sentences by screaming "THEY'RE KILLING LITTLE BABIES!!!" But her daughter was a little more interesting -- about 20 years old, kind of a hipster, quiet though just as passionate about stopping abortion as her mom. A small group of pro-choice people turned out for a counter-demonstration, and there was a lot of yelling back and forth between the two groups. (And then Mom the Organizer yelled at the news photographers taking pictures of the yelling, "STOP PAYING ATTENTION TO THEM! PAY ATTENTION TO US!!")

But in the middle of all this, Daughter of the Organizer actually managed to have a thoughtful, civil, non-shouty conversation with one of the counter-protesters about abortion -- about how it's never a really great choice, how kids need to be educated about contraception and teenage girls need to be empowered and society as a whole needs to step up and support women and children so that fewer abortions will be necessary. It was a great conversation. It was the type of conversation we need to have. But it always gets drowned out by the shouting.

2006-03-06T16:26:00.000-05:00

Go Canada! I watched the Oscars last night, even though I hadn't seen any of the movies. (That's what DVDs are for -- sorry, the Academy, I just don't buy your hysterical rantings about how movies are an art form that can only be appreciated on a big screen, sharing the experience with strangers who were clearly raised by rabid wolves who told them never to stop talking, ever, ever.)

"Crash," of course, was directed by a Canadian. Although "Brokeback Mountain" was actually filmed in Alberta, so I guess Canada's a winner either way. And, uh, I think the sound guy on Capote might be from Montreal.

Living in Canada is sort of like living in a small town in that way -- something big happens and you instantly find the Canadian connection. As soon as I moved here, I developed this reflex of blurting out "He/She's Canadian, you know" whenever anyone mentions anything remotely connected. Rachel McAdams? Canadian! Neil Young? Canadian! Sandra Oh? Canadian! I could go all day, and I'm hardly even trying.

Unfortunately the Best Picture announcement must have come after newspaper deadlines here. Or they just decided that a Reese Witherspoon photo would sell more papers than Paul Haggis, which is probably true. I really like her, pointy chin and all.

In a bad bit of Oscar juxtaposition, the banner headline on today's National Post, atop a standalone George Clooney Oscar photo, declares, "Crash claims second soldier." I know some people really wanted Brokeback Mountain to win, but blaming Crash for military deaths seems a bit extreme.

2006-03-02T22:00:00.000-05:00

Some people are dog people, and some are cat people. And that doesn't just depend on what sort of pet you prefer.

Cat people always land on all fours. In any room, after any number of drinks, they know where their best angles are. All those starlets you see in the magazines, posing with their toes turned in to achieve that artful oh-am-I-having-my-picture-taken-I'm-so-authentic-and-cool-I-didn't-even-notice effect? Cat people. Kate Moss, even at her most coked up, probably knows how to drape her dessicated limbs just so to achieve maximum hottness.

The situation of dog people, on the other hand, can best be expressed by a fierce-looking Doberman Pinscher I used to babysit for. Actually, there were children involved too, but whatever. After the kids went to bed I would couch-sit and watch TV, and the Doberman would try to sit on my lap. He'd never just jump up there -- no, too clever for that. First he'd lay his muzzle on my knee, and then he would ever-so-slowly start limboing his shoulders and torso onto my legs, as if he was hoping that I'd never notice an animal that outweighed me slowly sprawling over my lap. And if I called him on it, he'd just look at me innocently and wag that abbreviated tail. "Who, me? Crushing your legs? I'm just a wee puppy! Love me!"

Of course, this is why I do love dogs. They have no idea what size they are. You see Chihuahuas barking ferociously at cowering Great Danes. They also have no idea of where their body begins and ends -- my poor Wonder Dog seems to learn anew, every night, that there are two sliding glass doors between her and the backyard. Every night -- wag wag wag THUMP! wag wag wag. I should buy her a helmet.

Yup, I'm a dog person through and through. Or to put it another way: I have a softball-sized bruise on my knee from banging it against the tub -- which is the same height it has always been, despite my accusations -- and I accidentally grated my left hand along with the cheese for tonight's dinner. Twice.

Ruff.

2006-03-02T20:28:00.000-05:00

For a much more lyrical and insightful take on foreign groceries, check out Karma Canyon for thoughts on Whole Foods, surly Greek cashiers, and the search for identity. It's honest and great and brilliant. Joanna -- am I blog-stalking you now? I apologize -- I so don't know the etiquette on these things.

2006-03-01T19:03:00.000-05:00

I have been meaning to write about the differences in Canadian food versus food in the good ole US of A for a while, but my plans have been overtaken by urgent breaking news:

I have discovered generic Samoas here!

Yes, delicious round coconut cookies topped with caramel and chocolate, available year-round in the grocery store. Take that, monopolistic Girl Scouts! No longer am I captive to the whims of your seasonal marketing campaigns and the school-age daughters of my coworkers!

I'm soooo excited. (Although that might be all the sugar.) I don't think the people who discovered the actual island of Samoa were probably as exicted as I am about these cookies.

They're sold here under the "No Name" brand, which I initially thought was just a cheapie generic thing but now I think maybe they're trying to hide from the Girl Scout mafia. I'd offer to smuggle in boxes to the USA, but I'm afraid the Brownies would kneecap me.

Of course, now that I have discovered The Source, probably the next you'll hear from me is when they have to get the crane to lift me out of my house because I weigh 600 pounds. But it'll be worth it.

Another Canadian food discovery is that Canada may be the only country in the world that actually likes things sweeter than Americas. I learned this from a friend who works in the communications department for a pie-making company. (All together now: Mmmmm, pie.) Canadians like things so sweet that they actually have to tone down the sugar in the products they sell in the U.S. I think they feed the babies here straight maple syrup or something. And that may sound like an easy maple syrup joke, but I am serious, they put maple syrup in everything here.

One mystery I have not solved: at the end of Oreos commercials here, they always say, "You make a good cookie, Mr. Christie!" Who the hell is Mr. Christie and what is he doing to Canadian Oreos? It's all very mysterious and I must investigate further. Actually, I just realized that my friend who works in the pie factory is named Christie! Oh my god, this is like the Da Vinci code of the dessert industry.

2006-02-28T18:05:00.000-05:00

The Wonder Dog has coprophagia. For those of you who are neither Latin scholars nor perverts, this mean she has developed a taste for poop.

I swear, I wasn't even going to discuss this here. Even in this age of uncensored personal revelations, I figured there are some things you just don't need to know. I was content to keep WD's dirty habit on the down-low.

But she pushed me over the brink tonight. I returned from a trip to Home Depot (because one really needs the proper organizational system before even attempting to tidy the basement, of course) and let her out to the backyard, as per our normal routine. I'd noticed the whole poop-eating thing before, so I was vigilantly watching to try to discourage this behaviour. (Which is how I ended up running outside in pajamas, a robe and untied snowboots this morning, yelling, "Don't eat poop! That's gross!" The neighbors must be so happy I moved here.)

Sure enough, she starts to chow down on some frozen feces, so I race out to the backyard yelling "No no noooo!" and "Leave it!" She backs away, but she already has a poopsicle in her mouth, and she doesn't want to leave it ... and that's when she notices that I left the door to the house open. She takes off to enjoy her poopsicle inside where it's warm and cozy. I take off after her, but she's nimbler and scampers inside, where she jumps up to her favorite spot in the house -- our white couch.

THAT'S when she decides to leave it.

I have researched coprophagia (it's not like I came up with that word on my own) and apparently it's pretty common. Sometimes dogs just like the taste. Sometimes it means there's a deficiency in the dog's diet, but considering that she eats a special food that I can only buy at the vet's and which costs more than most of the food I buy for myself, I'm thinking that's not the problem.

She's now sitting contentedly by my side in the office, giving me looks that alternate between "You SAID to leave it, you didn't say WHERE" and "You know, I'm still hungry. Is it time for dinner yet?" Oh, now she's licking her leg. If you're wondering where that unpleasant taste in your mouth came from, Wonder Dog, I might have a few ideas.

2006-02-28T14:30:00.000-05:00

It's amazing how a simple interaction can turn your whole day around. I finally ran out of things to procrastinate with and called United about my frequent flier miles. Actually, I just reached my very own tipping point where the procrastination tasks (organizing the basement) became less attractive than the task I was avoiding. It's the only way I get anything done around here.

This may seem silly but I have just been dreading calling United about my frequent flier miles. I needed to try to get credited for a few flights I've taken. They didn't get added to my account in part because United Mileage Plus was totally dumquizzled by my name change a few years ago, because apparently they've never in their history had to deal with someone changing their name after marriage, and I had accounts under two different names and it was all a big mess. But honestly part of the fault was mine, and my inability to stay on top of domestic tasks such as frequent-flier-mile crediting raises uncomfortable feelings of inadequacy that I would really rather not deal with if there's something else I could be doing, and really the last thing I need is to feel judged by a surly customer service rep.

So anyway, I finally overcame my personal issues and called... and the customer service rep was soooo helpful! I mean, it's not like she sounded as if she was loving life in the customer service dungeon, but she totally went the extra mile to find my flight information even though I didn't save my ticket receipt, which is different from the boarding pass or itinerary and apparently everyone but me knows that you must under all circumstances save your ticket receipt, keeping it in a briefcase handcuffed to your wrist if necessary. Bottom line, I got the miles credited which means I have enough miles for a free ticket somewhere nice sometime soon.

But really, even more importantly here, I learned a valuable Life Lesson, which is that my dread for certain tasks has a tendency to grow out-of-proportion to the actual task itself. I should keep that in mind the next time I find myself frantically procrastinating.

Now, on to organizing the basement -- right after I clean off my desk, and work out, and maybe clean the kitchen....

**The blogger spellcheck wanted to change my misspelling of procrastination to "procreation" -- well, I guess that's one way to do it.

2006-02-23T18:43:00.000-05:00

As a former figure skating Olympic gold medalist, naturally everyone has been asking me what I thought of this year's competition.

Frankly, it was a little meh. I was disappointed that no one landed a triple-triple combo when it counted. Shizuka Arakawa skated a lovely, graceful program and definitely deserved to win. But she won by playing it safe. Which I guess is the way to go in figure skating.

Sasha Cohen again fell apart under the pressure, and I feel sorry for her a bit. I used to not like her because she looks sort of mean, in a pretty-girl-mean kind of way, but then I heard that she can press 400 pounds with her legs, which is awesome, and also I don't want her to kick me because it would probably hurt.

The one I really feel for is Irina Slutskaya -- love her, love her unfortunate-translation name, love the sparkly jumpsuit she wore in the short program. I wish she could have won, but I'm glad she lost to a woman skater and not a prepubescent girl. I was getting a little sick of that trend.

In conclusion, the winner played it safe and in hindsight, played it well. But that's not what the Olympics should be about, in my humble opinion. But at least skating hasn't totally gone the way of "women's" gymnastics yet, and someone with actual breasts won.

Edited to add: It has been brought to my attention that in fact I did not compete in the Olympics, but rather in Olympia, Washington. And that in fact I was not an ice skater, but a political reporter. And that the "gold medal" trophy I have is in fact a tin foil necklance that I sometimes make my dog wear.
Additionally, it has been pointed out to me that I did not win a pairs skating competition with D.B. Sweeney, an injured ex-ice hockey player who reluctantly agreed to be my partner and at first we totally hated each other but then our hate turned to fiery love, and then we skated to glory when we sucessfully completed the risky "Pachenko" move in competition after he finally told me he loved me just before our program started. Apparently that was a movie called "The Cutting Edge" starring Moira Kelly, and not my life.
This Americanadian Life regrets the error.

2006-02-23T13:04:00.000-05:00

What happens to ice skating stars when they're old and washed up? (And by old I mean 23, of course.) I discovered the unsettling answer today: They play the feud! Family feud, that is. Boy skaters versus girl skaters for charity, which I guess elevates the personal dignity level up from "Standing in a chicken suit on the side of the road to promote a new fast food restaurant" to "hawking a genuine cubic zirconia ice-skate pendant on QVC."

Still, it wasn't pretty to see Jamie Pelletier and Sarah Hughes trying to guess what the survey says for questions like, "What item in the house do women use more than men?"

Sarah's answer: mascara. Only if you don't live with a male figure skater, I guess. Emily, look at your future and run, run far away.

Jamie's answer: the bathroom. Only if you're a bullemic desperately trying to purge back down to your ice princess weight and trying to disguise your body dysmorphic self under a shawl that looks like someone ate one of Tonya Harding's skating outfits, vomited it up, and gave it to a blind person as a knitting project. My survey says you and the 11 people who agreed with you on the survey need to go, take off that shawl, and eat a damn sandwich.

Tonya was not on the show, which is sad because I bet she would have bitch-slapped Richard Karn and his stupid beard into next week. "Survey says I kick your ass!"

Scott Hamilton was on the show, but I have nothing mean to say about him because I love me some little Scotty Hamilton!

The show did feature my good friend Kristi Yamaguchi, whom I met and became BFF with while working in South Carolina. She was the spokeswoman for this nasty-ass synthetic fabric they made there, and I covered her visit to the plant, during which she gave a hilariously vacuous speech (which I don't blame her for, because really how much can you say about acetate?) and pretended not to be grossed out when factory workers touched her.

One thing I learned during that assignment is that figure skaters are tiny! Kristi Yamaguchi was (and I'm guessing still is) about five feet tall and could have fit in my handbag. The ice makes people look really big for some reason. She was teensy and darling and made me feel like the Jolly Green Giant. Ho ho ho!

Kristi, I totally agree: Acetate IS the fabric of our future! (Assuming we live in a post-apocalyptic future of drab yet shiny jumpsuits, ruled by a quasi-military junta.)
Survey says call me!!!

2006-02-20T09:16:00.000-05:00

I am disappointed in my fellow Canadians. They've got a prime opportunity to float the mother of all anti-American conspiracy theories, and yet I hear nothing. But I'm not afraid to blow the lid off this dastardly plot:

So the U.S. launches this secret wiretap program, allegedly to catch "terrorists," and yet the only crime-busting wiretap investigation I've heard about just happens to involve Wayne Gretzky, and it all just happens to break loose the week before the Olympics, where The Great One and his Olympic hockey team happen to be Not So Great, In Fact Kind Of Sucky, losing to Finland and Switzerland. The Swiss, for god's sake, beating Canada at hockey! Dark days above the 49th parallel, my friends, dark days indeed.

Between that and the women's curling team losing to Japan (who knew anyone outside Canada even had heard of curling?), the women's hockey game today will be Canada's big chance to restore some scrap of national pride.

2006-02-18T15:43:00.000-05:00

In honor of my parents' visit this weekend, I was thinking of some of the advice they have given me over the years. They're probably astounded that I was paying attention to any of it, but yes, a few words of wisdom did sink in here and there. So, greatest hits of my parents' advice:

Mom's advice for cleaning the house: "Never run your finger through the dust. That's the biggest mistake you can make. Otherwise no one will ever notice it." (Mom's house, I must note, is much cleaner than mine and probably never has dust bunnies the size of actual overfed rabbits lurking in the corners.)

Dad's culinary advice: "Everything tastes better with nuts."
"Salad and bread are good together."
"If it has a drumstick, you're allowed to eat it with your hands."

Mom's advice for sending condolences: "Even if you don't know what to say, just say something. They'll be glad you sent a card. It really means a lot to people."

Dad's advice for new challenges: "Some people never do anything their whole lives, because they're scared to try new things. But you just have to try new things, even if you're nervous." (This advice delivered while driving me to the airport for my first big trip away from home, a model United Nations conference in Boston -- yes, I was adorably geeky.)

Now, the good advice that I ignored -- that's a whole nother topic.

2006-02-14T14:55:00.000-05:00

My dog is on Valium. That sounds like some sort of punchline, but sadly, it is the plain truth. Apparently Wonder Dog took our four-day absence a bit hard -- she was panting and shaking and generally freaking out all day yesterday, until finally I took her to the vet to rule out any sort of catastrophic illness. Fifteen minutes and $70 later, the diagnosis: She just needs to like, chill out, man, and take one of these pills. After a dose of doggie Valium, she settled down and went to sleep and woke up as her normal mellow self this morning, much to my relief.

The irony is so profuse. This is a dog who generally sleeps about 20 hours a day. In the morning she waits until she's sure I'm filling her food bowl to get out of bed. Her response to any new stimulus is either #1, ask it for food, #2, roll over to get a tummy rub, or #3, fall asleep. I would have to rank WD up there with the three-toed sloth in the list of least-stressed animals.

Yet here she is, on Valium, while I remain tragically unmedicated. Unless I can persuade her to share...

2006-02-13T19:07:00.000-05:00

I've never really aspired to be a White House reporter -- seems like a lot of stenography and kissing unpleasant ass to get super-secret triple-deep-background info from hacks who are just using you for their own political spin games -- but this transcript from today's White House press briefing almost makes it all seem worthwhile. You can almost smell the Scott McClellan flopsweat.

My favorite question: What time on Sunday morning did you learn that Vice President Dick Cheney was the shooter?

I think we all knew that it would come to this one sad day. Beware, for as Ernest Hemingway once said:

"Certainly there is no hunting like the hunting of man and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never really care for anything else thereafter."

2006-02-13T15:29:00.000-05:00

Home is where the dog is. That was my thought as the lights of Toronto came into view through the window of the plane last night. I was returning to the land of white snowy beaches after a short but blissful visit to the land of white sand beaches, namely Florida's Gulf Coast, where my spousal unit judged a journalism contest while I hung out on the beach.

I still remember returning to my college dorm after winter break of my freshman year, and feeling surprised by the sensation of coming home when I dragged my suitcase into the quad and saw the lights of Old Campus. I was surprised because it was the first time I'd identified "home" as anywhere but where my parents and sister lived. The idea that I could make a home, by myself (albeit heavily emotionally and financially supported by my family), was at once liberating, empowering and a little strange and scary.

Since then, each time I move I wait for the moment where I feel myself identifying the new place as home. Last night, as the plane descended toward Pearson Airport ... I didn't feel it. I had already mistakenly said "when we get back to Seattle" a few times that day, so I guess my brain is not yet ready to accept that Toronto is our new home.

But I was happy to get back, of course, because waiting for my return was the Wonder Dog! Happy to see me and Wonderful as always, she reminded me that home is with my loved ones, canine and otherwise. As I drove back from the airport that night, I also realized that I've become familiar enough with Toronto's really not-at-all-intuitive highways to navigate without thinking about it much, and I've adapted enough to Canada weather that the snow blowing across the road didn't even faze me. So maybe I have further to go before this feels like home, but at least I'm starting to know my way around the place.

2006-02-08T18:29:00.000-05:00

Today, I have achieved something I never before thought possible: I have the best hair cut and color of my life, and it only cost $24. I have seen through the evil manipulations of the hair care industry, and I have defied them, and I have looked in the mirror, and I have said yea, it is good. And whosoever telleth me that I have to spend $80 for a cut and blow dry, they shall be smoted (smitten? smited?) with lightening bolts of bleach.

So yeah, $16 for the cut at "Top Choice" haircutters on Queen Street (it's right next to the dog grooming place, but I'm sure that's totally coincidental) and $8 for Clairol Herbal Essences Bold N Brilliant Bleach Blonde. And if I may be so bold, it is totally brilliant. One hour and one mildly burning scalp later, my new look was born. It's sort of reminiscent of Nicole Kidman circa "The Interpreter," minus of course the flawless bone structure, anorexia, alabaster skin and crazy closeted Scientologist ex-husband. Other than that, me and Nic are like twins. And I bet she paid a lot more than $24 for her hair!

In non-shallow news, Wonder Dog and I made our first unsupervised visit to the nursing home today! It went well, though I could tell by the end Wonder Dog was like, "OK, enough with the old people touching me, and I was told there would be treats here?" The most touching moment was when an older man, with his daughter, scratched Lily's ears and said, "Angus, Angus." That was the name of his old dog. Then we left, and WD got treats and a nice romp in the off-leash park. Her hair looks fab too.

2006-02-03T15:30:00.000-05:00

Welcome to all my visitors from Cyberjournalist.net! I do hope you'll take off your coat and stay awhile. I must warn you though, this blog is not so much concerned with the future of online media or anything highminded as all that. I'm more about random attempts at wit and occasional semi-unhinged rants on the subject of being an American Woman in the frozen north of Canada. (And if The Guess Who's "American Woman! Stay away from me-eee!" is now playing in your head, well done! They're Canadian, y'know.)

Actually, I'm going to have to lay off the frozen north, cold vast wasteland, icy tundra complaints. It's actually quite temperate and lovely! Winters that are chilly rather than wet is a new concept, true, but one I'm growing to enjoy. I'm not surprised the new PM, Stephen Harper, wants to pull out of the Kyoto agreement. Global warming ROCKS for Canada! Too bad, U.S. and South America -- see you at the next ice age, suckas! Bring it on, I say. There aren't any oceans near my house, so when the eastern seaboard goes underwater Toronto will be the new Miami! Muy caliente, eh?

2006-02-02T18:49:00.000-05:00

What does a copy editor look like? Hopefully like me, this afternoon. I interviewed for a copy editing position at a magazine. Technically speaking my professional copy editing experience is, in the most unimaginative and strictly literal sense, a tad limited -- but really, aren't we all copy editors at heart when it comes down to it?? So I decided it wouldn't hurt to look the part. Which in my case means I wore my glasses, even though they hurt my ears, instead of contacts, and I put my hair up in a ponytail. (I thought a bun would be overdoing it.) Sober black suit, natch. Keep your fingers crossed and your participles non-dangling for me! (OK, maybe I should wait to see if I get the job before attempting copy editor humor.)

We'll see if my clever ruse works, though I think they'll probably pay more attention to this copy editing test I have here (take home, woo-hoo!!). It has already tried to trick me by spelling Toronto's Centre Island as "Center" Island -- but I caught it. I've got my eyes peeled for neighbours and colours as well. You crafty Canucks, you'll have to wake up earlier in the morning than that to foil me!

If you're at all interested in copy editing, or writing, or semi-cranky but amusing nitpicking, this site written by a Washington Post copy editor is great. I read it to get all psyched up before the interview.

2006-02-01T18:28:00.000-05:00

While running errands today I looked up and saw a banner in a studio window advertising "PILATES DANCE FIGHT."

I know these are very likely three separate services being offered, but in my heart I wish it meant I could go there to learn the ancient yet deadly fighting discipline of Pilates Dance. They stun you with their core strength, then kill with a step-ball-change to the head. Or, it could be advertising a midnight rumble between the pilates people and the dancers -- "We said, 'OK, no rumpus, no tricks.' But just in case they jump us, we're ready to mix. Tonight..."

Either way, I could hardly be blamed for wandering the grocery aisles in a contemplative daze over that one.

2006-02-01T10:23:00.000-05:00

Newsflash from The Globe and Mail today: $1 million homes are nice! And the people who buy them can be picky.

Hmmmm, I smell a NYT Sunday Styles story!

2006-01-31T10:37:00.000-05:00

Here's a nice, tidy little example of how stories get born in this brave new citizen journalism world. Story: Asshat motorist throws beef patty out car window onto crowded street; crazed bike messenger thoughtfully returns it to him; brawl ensues involving thrown coffee, car keying and attempted mauling. The media play-by-play:

1. A random but interesting event, illustrating a larger problem (road rage, littering, asshattitude), happens on a city street.
2. A non-journalist photo blogger happens to capture photos and posts them to a middling popular web site: www.citynoise.org.
3. Word of the story gets out via links from progressively larger blogs.
4. Traffic skyrockets, issue sparks debate, at least one of the principals weighs in.
5. Story percolates up to the MSM, in this case Canada's largest daily, which publishes story about both the original incident and the power of the Internet to reflect on it: http://tinyurl.com/d3y46.
6. Unfortunately, the end of this story is also common-- middling popular web site crashes due to overwhelming number of hits. (At least it was down this morning.) Oh well, that's the curse of popularity for ya.

Personally as a card-carrying, secret-handshake-knowing member of the MSM, I think this is all good and fine and well. Everyone gets an interesting story; everyone's happy (well, except perhaps for now infamous littering asshat). Who says we can't all get along?

2006-01-30T14:12:00.000-05:00

I had a most Canadian weekend. We went ice-skating here, and enjoyed the view of Lake Ontario as well as the balmy mid-50s weather. I managed not to fall, but realized anew that ice skating is hard! Ice is very slippery, I'll have you know.

The fruits of my hooker interview have gone live here, bringing the wisdom of Brandy the Windsor Whore to a larger audience. I love the stripper in the photo (not Brandy): Bittersweet Justice. That's an awesome stripper name. Great furry boots, too -- I'd imagine it must be a chilly line of work.

I see the pig farmer (accused) serial killer is finally going to trial. Not that serial killer stories are ever rainbows and kittens, but this has got to be one of the grosser ones. He's pleaded not guilty -- I hope his defense team is cleaning him up for the trial, because he looks like a Serial Killer straight out of central casting. Seriously, I've never seen anyone look more serial killerish. Creepy. I'm glad I'm not covering that.

2006-01-27T16:13:00.000-05:00

I have a new music discovery! I'm not sure how cutting-edge I am since I did see her on CMT, but she's from Ontario so I'm claiming her as my discovery. Sarah Harmer -- sounds a bit like Alison Kraus except her voice seems a little harder... not rough exactly but a little more pointed, maybe. Well, I'm no music writer. You'll just have to listen and judge for yourself. Check out the song "I am Aglow" on her website (about halfway down), www.sarahharmer.com. I like her lyrics too: "You're a map of a place maybe someday I'll go / With thoughts of you I am aglow."

And when she makes it big, remember, I discovered her!

2006-01-26T17:21:00.000-05:00

I talked to a real live whore last night! It was very exciting. For me, at least. She sounded emotionally dead inside enough that I doubt I made much of an impression.

It was for a pre-Superbowl story about how Windsor, Ontario, just across the river from Detroit, is a super sin city: legalized prostitution, all-nude strip joints, and legal Cuban cigars! Add that to the Superbowl, and it's like the average football fan's version of 72 dark-eyed virgins.

Brandy the Windsor Whore was not much of a conversationalist -- and I think she was probably smoking pot during our interview -- but she did have some pretty good lines. She's got the girl-next-door look going on (no links to photos, sorry -- don't want to get anyone fired), and she talks like a laid-off auto worker. Which, come to think of it, she probably is.

Brandy has a cheerleader special planned for Super Bowl weekend, even though she's not a football fan. "I don't know nothing about it, but they don't care," she said of her discerning clients. I think you're right on that one, Brandy.

So apparently prostitution is legal in Canada, though Windsor is the only city that actually regulates it. I had no idea I'd stumbled into such a den of sin! And I must point out, a lot of journalists have done the Sin City story, but I'm the only one who interviewed a real live whore! Maybe I'll put that on my resume.

2006-01-25T15:13:00.000-05:00

I want to write one of those cool glossy-mag service-journalism stories like "9 Tips To A Better You!" or "12 Ways To Sublimate Your Hatred For All Mankind Into A Successful Career In The Bank Of Montreal Call Center."

My problem is I can only get to about #3 on a list before running out of super-duper ideas. Of course, that's usually about as far as I read in those list stories before flipping to the next page. So maybe I shouldn't worry, maybe all those articles consist of randomly typed letters from #4 on.

FIVE WAYS TO MOTIVATE YOURSELF TO FINISH A PROJECT:
1. Break the project down into small, manageable pieces and give yourself a small reward after each one.
2. On your desk, display a visual reminder of your motivation, such as a postcard from a vacation destination or a past-due electricity bill.
3. Limit your non-work-related Internet usage to truly essential things, such as posting insightful, witty observations on your personal blog.
4. Blah blah blah flkdsaghdl;jlsqjafkl;djruiwtuoavn,xmnv,dlkgj, the quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.
5. I like cheese.

2006-01-24T14:02:00.000-05:00

Ouch, talk about stealing thunder! Paul Martin's resignation as Prime Minister/leader of the Liberal Party just got totally wiped off the front page by Mario Lemieux resigning from the NHL.

Speaking of hockey, funny quote from new PM Stephen Harper, on why the Liberals' campaign attempts to get Canadians to hate him failed: "Canadians can disagree, but it takes a lot to get Canadians to intensely hate something or hate somebody. And it usually involves hockey."
(Courtesy AP writer Beth Duff-Brown.)

In other news, Canada elected a Conservative Prime Minister and the sun still rose in the East this morning. And I finally got election results and (much later) some sleep last night.

2006-01-23T20:59:00.000-05:00

This is my first election in ten years without access to instant returns on the AP wire, and I think my head is going to explode. My god, I had no idea I was such an addict to election returns. Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery, right? Where the hell's my 12-step program?

As mentioned below Canada's government, in all its paternalistic wisdom, forbids disseminating any election results until ALL the polls in the country close, which is 10 p.m. EST. And it's much harder to get around this law than I thought. So instead of instantly getting the results at my desktop and listening to my bureau chief call races for the AP wire I actually have to sit here and wait until the media reports the results to regular mortals. Which is far too long to wait!! Right now I'm reduced to getting bootleg early results from a web site called, no joke, The Surly Beaver. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

2006-01-23T18:01:00.000-05:00

I'm wearing a suit, and since I don't have a job interview that must mean it's election day! My election day suit-wearing is a proud tradition that dates back to 1996, when I was a reporter for The Charlotte Observer interviewing toothless yokels in the backwoods of South Carolina.

Well, that's not entirely fair. Some of them lived in the frontwoods.

But see, I wear a suit on election day because democracy is worth dressing up for! (That's actually a better slogan than Rock the Vote, now that I think of it!) Voting is important and the startled voters that I've accosted outside polling places in South Carolina, Seattle and now Toronto no doubt appreciate that I honor their patriotic duty by donning my finest apparel. Although, they probably didn't notice my suit today since it was under my parka. But it's the thought that counts.

Election day got off to a good start for me when the first person I interviewed gave me the perfect quote that I just knew would be the third paragraph of my story. That's the kind of thing that makes me feel like the stars are aligning, knock on wood. Plus she was a yoga instructor who voted Conservative, and how often do you see that? Only in Toronto...

My highly unscientific exit poll of six voters in my district yielded some startling results: three Conservative, three NDP. I had thought I'd have trouble finding Conservative voters, because my neighborhood has voted Liberal since the beginning of time. But it was just the opposite -- I didn't find one Liberal voter. Conservative landslide, anyone? We'll find out soon.

By the way, my highly unscientific exit poll is probably highly illegal -- Canadian law prohibits reporting any results before the polls are closed everywhere. No exit polls, either. No political advertising, and no endorsement editorials allowed on election day. Bloggers even have suspended their comments section to avoid running afoul of the law. They interpret the whole freedom of speech thing a little differently up here.

2006-01-22T13:31:00.000-05:00

One undercovered story of this Canadian election has been the influence of bloggers. And I'm not just saying that because I've now joined their pajama-clad ranks. Here are my two indications of bloggers playing a key role (to have a proper news story I'd need THREE whole examples, which as we all know is proof of a trend, but for blogging purposes I just have two):

1. The income trust scandal. The Mounties are investigating whether the (soon-to-be-unelected) Liberals tipped off their fave insiders before making an important tax announcement. This was based on suspicious spikes in trading right before the announcement. Bloggers were all over this like white on rice. Esoteric investments, trading patterns, conspiracy theories -- totally up their alley.
And when the scandal broke is the MSM, that's when the Conservatives overtook the Liberals in the polls. The Conservatives are ahead for many reasons, but I think it was the blogger-fueled income trust scandal that really started their momentum in January.

2. The Big Scoop of the campaign was the Liberal party's platform being leaked ... to a blog. And not just any blog, but the blog connected with a two-year-old conservative magazine called The Western Standard. The mag is basically the closest thing Canada has to Fox News. Which, blessedly, is still a far far cry from Fox News.

I chatted with Western Standard publisher Ezra Levant, who said the leak "created an enormous buzz."

"We publish 24 times a year, so it's not like we get a lot of hot news tips. This one was very time-sensitive. The web was really the only way to do it," Ezra said.

He was also rather adorably excited that his blog was ranked 322nd for traffic (including U.S. blogs! he noted). For the record, my blog recently ranked #1 in a survey (of all the blogs my parents visit).

2006-01-20T14:30:00.000-05:00

I got the air vents cleaned today, and after the guys left I noticed the heat seemed to be working really well. I thought wow, cleaning the vents really helps! Then I noticed he'd turned the thermostat up to 78 before leaving. No wonder the dog was panting....

In other news, this must be some sort of threshold event in terms of me making it on the Canadian media scene _ I've been blogged about (second item). Woo-hoo!

2006-01-19T19:39:00.000-05:00

An editor from the U.S. actually e-mailed me the other day, "I wish our politics was this exciting!" (This in response to an e-mail I sent explaining the background of how a top Liberal official was forced to resign after posting a picture of a female opposition candidate on his blog next to a picture of a Chow dog, under the heading "Separated at Birth.")

Canadian politics -- exciting -- whouda thunkit?

I was interviewing voters yesterday and when I explained to a lovely older woman wearing a rad bike helmet with devil horns on it that USA Today was pretty interested in the election, she responded huffily, "Yes, I guess they WOULD be, with HARPER winning." (Harper's the conservative turned smiling-nonthreatening-moderate candidate.)
Oh yes, lady, you've figured me out -- I'm the advance squad of the vast right-wing media-industrial-military complex sent to scout out our takeover. Curses, foiled again!
Actually, what I said was, "Cool helmet."

2006-01-18T16:21:00.000-05:00

I can't help it, now I can't stop thinking of what the United Chimp Party platform would be.

1. Demand U.S. lower unreasonable tariff on bananas. If not, no more maple syrup for you, yankees!
2. Every NHL team must have one chimp/monkey/ape player on ice at all times, which will at first cause all sorts of wacky frustrations but will ultimately teach everyone What Being A Team Is Really About.
3. Throwing feces is now an acceptable form of debate in Parliament.
4. First order of business: Prime Minister Chimp and Stephen Harper take crazy road trip across Canada in a classic 1958 Chevy Impala. Harper must wear this outfit at all times. Hijinks ensue.
5. All cattle ranches in Calgary seized by government, converted to banana plantations patrolled by chimps riding cows.

I think Canadian law doesn't allow Americans to become Prime Minister... but it doesn't say anything about chimps! Mwahahahaaaaaaaaaa!

2006-01-17T18:46:00.000-05:00

I just heard on BBC World how New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin thinks Hurricane Katrina was a sign that God is mad at America.

Tangent: I must say that hearing about the latest crackpot news from America is ever-so-much more pleasant when it's delivered in a posh BBC accent. It gives me that nice illusion of distance. And I think of Julie Andrews: "Just a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down! In the most dee-light-ful waaaaaay!"

Where was I? Oh yes, God's wrath. The solution here is so obvious I'm almost embarrassed to point it out: Ray Nagin. Pat Robertson. Cage Match. Let God sort this out once and for all.

I do sleep easier at night knowing that no matter what happens in the Canadian election next Monday -- say, a chimpanzee in a funny hat is elected Prime Minister (which would be AWESOME) and a meteor shower strikes Ottawa while unseasonable wildfires ravage Toronto and Vancouver -- absolutely no one in this country will say it's God's punishment for voting Conservative/Liberal/United Chimp Party.

2006-01-16T10:31:00.000-05:00

I had such a social butterfly weekend. Well, for me at least. That is to say I didn't spend the ENTIRE weekend reading "The Golden Compass" and watching Tivoed episodes of "My Name is Earl" (love that Jason Lee!).

On Saturday we had another couple and their daughter over for dinner, and it was very nice and very grown-upish, in a good way. (Good grown-upishness: Dinner parties with wine. Bad grown-upishness: Taxes and back fat.) I made lasagna, which was awesome if I do say so myself. And I do. Even the 10-year-old liked it, although she warned me herself she was a fussy eater. Victory!

And then on Sunday we went on a guided hike to learn about the "hidden streams" of the Beaches (our neighborhood). Apparently our street, Norway Avenue, is named after an old river that used to flow into Lake Ontario! Now "old river" may be a euphemism for "sewage canal" but I think Norway River sounds more romantic, so that's what I'm sticking with.

I found out about this hike through this group called Linkup, which is like Meetup.com for people who are too cheap to pay Meetup's monthly fees. But apparently you get what you pay for. This was my second Linkup event and I swear I have never met a more conversation-impaired group of people in my life. The whole point of Linkup is to meet new people, so you'd think the people who attend these events would make just the slightest bit of social effort, but no. This is a transcript of like five conversations I had:

ME: So, are you from Toronto originally?
UNCOOPERATIVE CONVERSATIONALIST: No, I've lived here all my life.
ME: So, how do you like it?
UC: It's nice.
*silence*
ME: I moved here from Seattle a few months ago. Toronto seems like a great city so far. I love my neighborhood.
UC: * nods*
ME: It's very livable, y'know?
UC: *glassy-eyed stare*
ME, casting about desperately for conversation topics: I make a mean lasagna. Also I can sing the entire soundtrack from Grease. Wanna see me do a cartwheel?
UC: *silence, not breaking eye contact*
ME: Oops, I seem to have accidentally set myself on fire in an attempt to escape your coma-inducing dullness. Byee!

I'm not asking for the Algonquin Round Table here, but a little reciprocal conversation would be nice. And it's not that I bored all those people into a stupor, because I'll have you know I am a sparkling, fascinating, witty conversationalist. It's true! I could chat up a lawn chair, and probably have done so in some dim-lighting, open-bar situations. Plus now I know tons of interesting facts about hidden streams in my neighborhood. My next dinner party is going to be a smash hit!

2006-01-12T11:45:00.000-05:00

Canada might have a conservative government soon; how strange is that? Conservative Leader Stephen Harper has a double-digit lead in the polls, with 10 days till the election. Apparently he has successfully pulled off an image transformation from "Scary Right-Wing Animatronic Robot" to "Dorky But Lovable Moderate Humanoid."

What I want to know is, if Canada elects a Conservative, what will happen to all the Americans who moved here after Bush was elected in 2004? Will they all move back? Emigrate to Iceland? Retreat to an underground hippie compound on Vancouver Island?

One thing I continue to appreciate about this Canadian election are the French-language debates. In the last one, Jack Layton totally got the best translator. He must be paying them off or something -- he sounded like Michael Caine. Poor Paul Martin sounded like the homicidal computer HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. Stephen Harper sounded like a heavily medicated Jack from "Will and Grace" and Gilles Duceppe was apparently translated by Theodore, the chubby brother from "Alvin and the Chipmunks." Tough break, fellas.

Another thing I like about this election is that, despite a lot of negative campaigning, the campaign is so much more focussed on the issues than presidential elections in the U.S. The "scandals" are about things that actually matter to the election, like the misspending of public money, not what kind of haircut someone got or the bizarre sounds they make while having an apparent psychotic break onstage after the Ohio primary. And I recently realized that I have no idea what any of the leaders' spouses are named. My election brain isn't cluttered with information about what sort of cookies Mrs. Harper likes to bake and how Mrs. Martin balances life as a First Lady with her challenging career as an astrophysicist. AndI find that quite refreshing.

2006-01-07T15:36:00.000-05:00

Today is Hockey Day in Canada! Woo-hoo! I thought every day was hockey day in Canada, but according to the CBC this is THE hockey day. I have been celebrating by watching hockey on TV, which I think is the traditional way to observe HDIC. Although I should probably be drinking beer to get into the full spirit of the holiday. Ah well, Hockey Day is still young.

In political news, polls now show the Conservatives ahead in election campaign. Wouldn't it be kooky if they won? I mean, whoever wins is going to have a minority government anyway so it's not like they'll be able to steamroll anything. Plus Canadian Conservative does not equal American conservative. But Canada turning Conservative would be kind of trippy, like your pot-smoking hippy cousin** who suddenly shows up for Thanksgiving dinner in a suit and tie talking about supply-side economics. Far-out, man. Will all the Americans who moved to Canada after Bush won now move back?

**I prefer this cousin analogy to Tucker Carlson's "retarded cousin" comparison. Grown men who wear bow ties and floppy bangs shouldn't throw retarded stones, Tucker dear.

2006-01-06T12:49:00.000-05:00

My car is possessed by the devil. In a way I guess it's flattering that Satan himself would ascend from the underworld just to imbue a 1996 Honda Civic two-door with his evil spirit, but it's also a bit baffling. What have we done to deserve this, little red Honda?

It started when my husband informed me that the dome light was flickering on and off by itself in a very spooky-like manner. When I went to investigate, the Honda rejected my attempts to unlock it with the keyless remote thingy, and when I unlocked it with the key the car went apeshit and the alarm started blaring. Same thing when I tried putting the key in the ignition.

So my neighbors who looked out their windows last night to investigate the source of the blaring car alarm were treated the sight of me shouting "By the power of Christ, I compel thee!!!" and beating my Honda with a plastic grocery bag (I didn't have a crucifix handy).

Strangely, that had no effect on the car. So I called the dealership and they said it might be a dead battery and I should try jump-starting it. Obviously they're just part of the Great Satanic Honda Conspiracy. I'm stocking up on holy water.

2006-01-05T13:22:00.000-05:00

Perhaps it's because I'm part of the dreaded media elite (or at least they haven't taken away my secret membership card yet), but I don't understand the outrage over newspapers getting the trapped miners story wrong.

Of course, it is bad to report facts that are not true. It is especially bad to banner them across your front page. I will grant these complaints as valid. But I also think people should get over it.

The "12 Alive" story came from two sources: the families and the governor. The governor told AP, "They told us they have 12 alive." And then he left the church to go to the command center, where the media couldn't follow. So you've got that, and jubilant family members celebrating. Reporters are supposed to do what, grab the family members and say, "Wait, are you SURE they're alive? What if this is all a sick rumor and they're really all dead? Do you REALLY know for sure?" Yeah, I'm sure that would have gone over real well. The rumors came from the command center, and the people at the command center choose not to set them straight.

The newspapers went with the story they had. And I don't think that's a sin, despite the fact the story turned out to be wrong. The difference between this story and say, the WMD story turning out to be wrong, is that in this story reporters sought out and reported all available information while in the WMD story they did not. There's a difference.

Another difference is that newspapers didn't hurt anyone but themselves by running this story. For the families of the dead miners, the damage is already done. I doubt that inaccurate newspaper headlines added anything to the crushing grief they must be feeling. The inaccurate "12 Alive" headlines didn't hurt anything except newspapers' pride. It certainly didn't spark any wars or anything.

So yeah, it's bad when wrong stuff gets into the paper. But when news is made between the hours of 11:30 p.m. and 3 a.m., it's gonna happen sometimes. I just don't think it's the end of the world. Today's news, tomorrow's fishwrapper. Get over it.

2006-01-04T17:17:00.000-05:00

Am I an empowered consumer or just a nasty grump? It's so hard to tell these days. Let's just say I had an unsatisfactory conversation with a customer service representative at the Bank of Montreal. After navigating their endless phone tree and listening to their horrendous on-hold music for 10 minutes, is it too much to ask for friendly customer service? As you may have already guessed, the answer is yes, absolutely, that would be way too much to ask.

So I expressed my displeasure at the end of the call, and the customer service lady started telling me why I was wrong, and then I told her I thought she was being very rude to me and I hung up. (Which may be rude also, so pot-kettle-whatever, but at least I said goodbye.)

Anyway, I was feeling pretty justified in my snippiness. It would be great if I existed on some higher Zen plane where rude customer service people didn't bother me, but I don't, and I don't want to just absorb their rudeness like baking soda absorbs bad smells in the refrigerator. Standing up for myself in the face of rudeness is a good thing, I believe.

But then I started to worry -- what if they do record those conversations, like they say they do, and her supervisor listens to it and she gets fired and now she's unemployed and wandering the streets of Bangalore or Bismark or wherever these calls go and her children are hungry and now she has no money and the rent's due and she's all alone and she steals a loaf of bread to feed her starving child and then she's arrested and she serves 20 years and then she gets out but Inspector Javert still follows her everywhere and she can never be free and then she gets mixed up in a crazy revolutionary scheme and then dies to save her daughter's lover and they make a hit musical about it but it'll be too late because she's dead and it'll be ALL MY FAULT.

Whoah. Maybe I should just do internet banking from now on.

In other news, The New York Times scientifically explains why pandas are cute.

2006-01-03T10:28:00.000-05:00

A few newsflashes... really all the news you need to know today.

Windsor, Ontario: Den of Sin!!!

Blame those wacky Americans and their wacky gun culture.

The National Mitten Registry represents all that I love about Canada.

Now I'm going to go work out, floss and moisturize. I am a walking New Year's resolution cliche.

Edited to add: Oh, and Santini, the Dark Master of Escape ... escaped. He was not one of these new, hip young magicians. In fact he looked kinda like a Teamster. And his stunt consisted of watching a metal box for two minutes until he popped out of it, while two announcers in baffling, hideous poufy dresses broke the dead-air silence by wondering aloud, "Ohmygosh, do ya think he's going to make it?" again and again. Not exactly captivating television -- I think escaping from metal boxes sort of went out as a form of spectator entertainment shortly after the Lincoln-Douglas debates.

2005-12-31T12:37:00.000-05:00

I must be getting more Canadian, because I'm actually happy that it's snowing today. It's so much prettier! And there's nothing better than a pretty snowfall when you have nothing to do for the next few days other than curl up on the couch with hot cocoa.

The big new year's shindig in Toronto is an outside fest at Nathan Phillips Square, with fireworks and a concert by Bedouin Soundclash, who have at least one song I really like, and a few other bands I haven't heard of. There's also a "daring stunt by Santini: The Dark Master of Escape!" according to the web site, which is tempting, but I think I'll watch from the comfort of my own couch. First, the square is just 'round the corner from where the big shootout was last Monday, so I'm thinking it might be wise to skip it. Plus I dislike being cold and being in large crowds of people, so that's just icing on the random gunfire cake of reasons to not be there. But I'll let you know how the dark master of escape does.

I wonder what Santini's business cards look like? I think I should get business cards with "Rebecca: Dark Master of Freelancing!" on them. Business cards should have more exclamation points, I think, and who could not hire me with a title like that? They'd be too scared of my Dark Powers not to hire me. This is such an excellent plan. I'm retreating to my Lair (the couch) to plot my next Diabolical Scheme (grocery shopping) now. Mwahahahahaaaaaaa!!!

2005-12-29T17:56:00.000-05:00

It's not even safe to go shoe shopping in this city anymore -- what is Canada coming to? Today I visited a makeshift shrine to 15-year-old Jane Creba, shot dead in the crossfire of two rival gangs while doing some apres-Christmas bargain shopping in downtown Toronto with her family. Six other people were wounded.

Makeshift shrines all tend to look the same -- grocery store flowers, flickering candles, stuffed animals, scrawled notes and prayers -- but I always find them touching. Here you could tell so many of the notes were written by teenage girls by their rounded, cutesy handwriting -- girls who knew Jane, girls saying goodbye like they're writing in a yearbook. I'm especially moved by the people who didn't even know her, but felt they had to come pay their respects, leave flowers or light a candle for her. Less noble motives led me to pause at the shrine outside the Foot Locker -- I was there for a story.

The police investigator said this murder made Toronto lose its innocence. Of course, people also said that a while back when a teenager was shot to death in a church during the funeral of a friend who was also shot to death. Personally, I thought maybe the innocence had been lost earlier this summer when a four-year-old boy was shot multiple times in a drive-by (he survived). But whatever, I guess now the innocence is officially, totally lost.

It would be too facile to say people just care about this shooting because it claimed the life of a pretty white girl. But I think race isn't so much of a factor -- the outcry would probably be the same if the victim had been a black 15-year-old girl who, like Jane, was a popular star athelete and good student. Really it's the location of the shooting that hits home -- right outside Eaton Center, the most popular mall in the city, and just around the corner from city hall. It was the first time most people (including me) read about a Toronto shooting and thought, that could have been me.

Of course, Toronto is still way safer than any American city -- 78 homicides this year in a city of 2.5 million. Chicago, with 2.8 million people, had 444 homicides and Houston, with 2 million people, had 324. At least each murder is still a big deal in Toronto -- that's not the best thing to brag about, but I suppose it's something.

Sorry for the downer post, but after visiting a teenage girl's murder site shrine it's sorta hard to think of other topics of conversation. I know it's cliche, but my heart goes out to her family, especially her older sister. They were shopping together and got separated, and after the shooting happened the sister was looking frantically for Jane and couldn't find her. Finally a cop told her and her mom what had happened. I guess as an older sister myself I can imagine her panic and devastation. I hope she's OK.

I was talking to a lady at the shrine today and we agreed we just couldn't fathom what someone would be thinking as they pulled a gun and started firing in a crowd. I mean, it's not like I can't imagine wanting to kill or injure someone -- I felt that way several times today while I was on the phone trying to resolve a health insurance dispute with truculent bureaucrats. But on a crowded sidewalk like that? If you're going to be a "gangsta," and please note those quote marks are dripping with condescending irony, at least learn to aim. Assholes.

2005-12-21T16:49:00.000-05:00

OK, here's my plan for world peace this holiday season. (And on a side note, I never before paid much attention to whether I said "Happy Holidays" or "Merry Christmas" or just grunted into my eggnog, but now I intentionally say "Happy Holidays" just to spite those crazy "Merry CHRISTmas" jerkoffs. Ha! Take that, Bill O'Reilly!)

Anyway, back to the world peace plan. We should replace all television news footage worldwide with this: http://sandiegozoo.org/news/panda_news.html. For about a week, maybe two. Sure, people might be a bit perturbed at first when they turn on the news and instead get nonstop coverage of a baby panda frolicking. But pretty soon they'd be like, "Awww, damn, that is CUTE! I am totally going to love my fellow humans, and pandas, from now on." You can't really argue with the logic of an unbelievably cute baby panda chewing on bamboo shoots, so don't even try.

Plus I think this plan would spark a lot of "Panda-monium" headlines, and that's one pun I can't get enough of. Bring on the panda-monium and have a very pandamazing holidays!

2005-12-19T23:46:00.000-05:00

Alas, actual work has distracted me from my busy schedule of obsessively chronicling my dog's life and mocking Canadian politics. But my research in the workaday world has led me to some marvelous things. For example, in this story about the first same-sex marriage in the U.K., I particularly enjoyed this exchange:

"You need to turn yourself away from your sinful lifestyle. You're an abomination before God," a Scottish preacher, the Rev. James Dawson, told one lesbian couple walking past.

"You would be so lucky to have this lady, love. I'll see you at the gates of heaven, mate," retorted Belfast woman Brenda Murphy, walking beside her partner, Nuala Quiery.

I know it's not overtly funny, but think about it with the accents.

Scottish preacher, ala Mike Myers: If it's na Scottish an' fundamentalist Christian it's CRAP!!!
Belfast lesbian, ala Lucky Charms leprechaun: Stop trying ta steal me lucky charms, ya bigot!

Cute accents totally take the sting off divisive social issues, I think. If I were in a debate with a Scottish preacher about gay marriage I might bust out a few Highland Fling moves, just to throw him off. We might just settle the whole thing with a dance-off. I also think "I'll see you at the gates of heaven, mate," makes an awesome comeback for almost any situation. I'm going to start using that. I'm also going to try getting some sleep.

2005-12-16T10:13:00.000-05:00

I watched the first debate of the election campaign last night -- in French. They'll do another one tonight in English. Mais oui! I watched the translated version, of course, and found myself paying more attention to the translation than to the politicians' rather predictable answers.

My question is, how do they pick these interpreters? Because I learned that all interpreters are NOT created equal. Jack Layton's guy sounded like Anthony Edwards circa "Revenge of the Nerds." And I swear poor Stephen Harper's interpreter was the guy who played Charlotte's very fey, gay friend on Sex in the City. Who knew Anthony was bilingual in French and English? Nice to see he's working, though. This led to much cognitive dissonance, especially when Harper was talking about how he wanted to repeal the gay marriage law. I kept expecting Anthony the Interpreter to hiss "you bitch!!" under his breath.

So now I'm really curious about these interpreters. It's a pretty high-stakes job, non? You make one little slip-up and your candidate just told the world he wants to give every Canadian more raccoon facelifts instead of more economic opportunities. Oopsie! Do the interpreters hang out with the candidates ahead of time to get to know their speech patterns, or study tapes of them? If the candidates say something in broken French do they clean up the grammar or repeat it in broken English? ("Is our children learning?") From last night's debate I'm guessing they clean it up because I didn't hear any awkward phrases. There were a couple times when the candidate spoke in French for like 20 seconds, with silence from the interpreter, and then all of a sudden the interpreter would start speaking really rapidly. Maybe it took a while to figure out where the sentence was going? I can imagine it would be hard translating politicians, with all their circular logic and verbal wankery. I bet that's an advanced class at interpreter college: Verbal Wankery 301.

2005-12-15T10:07:00.000-05:00

True transcript of a conversation that took place in my house last night.

Me, petting Wonder Dog: "Hey, check it out! Her ears totally smell like Cheetos!"
Husband, skeptically: "What?"
Me: "Really! Smell her ears!"

Husband smells WD's ears, then stands up with growing look of concern on face.

Me: "See? Cheetos!!"
Husband: "Honey, you really need to get a job."

Of course I told him that jobs are for suckas!! Once I write this letter to the Frito-Lay company I'm sure the endorsement money for me and WD will start rolling in and THEN who will be the crazy one? Hah!

2005-12-14T18:14:00.000-05:00

So the big news in Canada is the U.S. ambassador giving Prime Minister Paul Martin a stern talking-to in retaliation for Martin's verbal bitch-slap to Bush at the recent global warming conference.

Martin, a Liberal, said the U.S. lacked a "global conscience" on global warming, what with Bush refusing to acknowledge it exists.
The U.S. ambassador was all, hey Prime Minister Smarty Pants, I think it's time for you to have a heaping helping of shut-the-hell-up!

This whole kerfuffle plays right into one of Canada's favorite national pastimes, which is complaining about America being a big bully with weak beer and an inadequate appreciation for curling.

Apparently the Bush administration doesn't know or doesn't care that in Canada, being criticized by Bush (or his ambassador/lackey) is worth at least 15 points at the polls. It's not that Canadians hate Americans, but they do hate Bush a lot. In the last poll I saw, 73 percent of Canadians disapprove of Bush and 38 percent think he's more dangerous to world security than bin Laden! So Martin getting criticized by Bush is sort of like bin Laden coming out with a pre-election video slamming Bush.

Seriously, Martin is LOVING this and poor Conservative leader Stephen Harper probably cries himself to sleep every time the Bushies say something mean about Martin. OK, what U.S. Ambassador to Canada David Wilkins actually said was,

"What if one of your best friends criticized you directly and indirectly almost relentlessly? What if that friend's agenda was to highlight your perceived flaws while avoiding mentioning your successes? What if that friend demanded respect but offered little in return? Wouldn't that begin to sow the seeds of doubt in your mind about the strength of your friendship?"

OMG! Canada and the U.S. are totally frenemies!! Now it all makes sense....

Or perhaps, as one commenter said on The Globe and Mail web site, if my best friend said all that to me I would take a long, hard look in the mirror.

2005-12-13T14:39:00.000-05:00

I visited the nursing home again today with Wonder Dog, and I think I love the arthritic lady with her little claw hands and her motorized wheelchair. She's so awesome. Some of her choice quotes this week:

"Dogs are so much better than children, don't you think?"
"Now, if you had a child running around here, I would feel resentful. But you can let the dog go wherever she wants. Does she want to get up on my bed?"
And, more philosophically, "I don't mean to be morbid, but really, this is how everyone's going to end up. Some people don't want to come here because they don't want to think about it. I mean, I don't want to think about it sometimes. I think, why me? But, oh well ..." (pets dog).

We also visited a tiny, birdlike old lady who couldn't get out of bed and could hardly speak. But as soon as she saw Wonder Dog she started making these little "ohhhh! ohhhh!" noises of joy. I put WD on a chair next to her bed so she could pet her ears. She showed us a photograph of one of her daughters sitting with two border collies. She just loved the dog. She cried a little when we left.

Our last visit was with an older man who'd had a stroke who sort of played it cool. He wanted WD to come in, but he very firmly said he didn't want to pet her. At first he seemed to be ignoring her but then I noticed he was sneaking peeks at her and smiling when he thought I wasn't watching. WD did her "sit" and "shake" for him, which I think he enjoyed. So I counted that as a successful visit.

In other news, a friend who lives in the suburbs of Toronto and had us over for dinner once told us her husband may be getting a new job, which would require them to move possibly to our neighborhood and for her to quit her job. Is it wrong for me to hope they do so that I can have a Starbucks buddy in the middle of the day? She's an American ex-pat too, and gave us the very wise advice never to argue with a Canadian about beer, hockey or health care.

2005-12-12T10:47:00.000-05:00

Pet peeves and assorted rants, in no particular order:

Celsius temperatures: The problem with Celsius is that it just makes everything sound so much colder than is reasonable. The temperature today is now -14 degrees C. That's just crazy! Not that 7 degrees Fahrenheit is balmy, but it at least sounds a bit more human, whereas -14 sounds to me like some forecast for one of those planets very far from the sun. It's psychologically demoralizing. Both measurement systems are too hard to spell, also, but that's equal demerits for both. Some say Celsius, like the metric system, is a Communist plot, but I think it's a Canadian conspiracy designed to convince Americans that it's far too cold here to invade. So far it's worked, so I guess I should give Celsius some grudging respect for that.

Ontario wine: Dear lord it SUCKS! This was an unpleasant surprise, coming from Washington state where you can get a lovely local bottle of whatever you want for less than $10. Not so here, where the Niagara "wine region," and I use that term loosely, churns out barrels of red sugar-water. They market it like crazy, and I wish they'd put just a teensy bit of that marketing money into some research on how to make their swill drinkable. If only Ontario wine were better, it might make the whole Celsius thing easier to bear, but no, I've got to convert Celsius to Fahrenheit and spell them both without a buzz on. And the crazy protectionist tariffs here mean they want me to pay $20 for some drinkable Australian wine that should cost $8. Bastards!

Slushy puddles: self-explanatory.

The bacteria in my dog's urinary tract: Why do you have to be so darn antibiotic resistant? You couldn't be killed off by the $40 antibiotics, nooooooo, you have to have the $140 antibiotics specially made for you. And to anyone whose pet peeve is TMI about my dog's health, I officially apologize. But in my household there is no such thing as TMI about the wonder dog.

Cheapo grocery store: Part of me still loves you, cheapo grocery store. I don't even mind the way you make me bring my own bags, because yes, we should all recycle, and yes I would prefer those savings to be passed on to me. And I loved that one time you sold me those big bottles of Diet Coke for $1 each. That was awesome, and I should have bought more. But your aisles are fraught with danger, cheapo grocery store! I never before thought of checking the expiration date for bread, but apparently it can go brilliantly moldy and bad within a few days of purchase at the cheapo grocery store -- my bad. Next time I will be warned, and I will also warn other, less mold-alert members of my household to check the color of the bread BEFORE making a tuna-fish sandwich. You have odd smells, cheapo grocery store, and sometimes you are mysteriously out of previously available items such as Parmesan cheese and I have to scurry over to the expensive grocery store and be reminded of all that I'm missing. And yet I will probably return to you, cheapo grocery store, because we are both cheapo and I am out of Diet Coke.

2005-12-08T16:49:00.000-05:00

Dude, I have seriously underestimated the market value of my ranting. Check out Slate's cutting commentary on the evil that is "My Humps." Of course, the writer quotes Susan Sontag and treats the song as a stinging rebuke to relativism, a song so awful "it reminds us that categories such as 'good' and 'bad' still matter."

Of course, readers of this blog knew that long ago! I have learned my lesson -- no longer will I give away my rants for free. Next time I'll throw some Sontag in there and sell that puppy to Slate.

Speaking of Microsoft-owned online media hilarity (smooth segue, eh?), I highly recommend this MSNBC.com column: the straight dude's guide to seeing "Brokeback Mountain." Yay for the hot gay cowboy movie! As the columnist points out, Westerns are like 1000 percent gay anyway so it's really not much of a stretch.

Personally my plan was to shield my straight dude from any "Brokeback Mountain" marketing or reviews, then take him to the movie with the explanation it's a Western about cowboys, and then feign total surprise when the cowboy-on-cowboy lovin' commences. But unfortunately, he reads this blog, so my evil plan is probably foiled.

2005-12-07T09:24:00.000-05:00

The thing I'm wondering these days is, does it get colder than this? Because I think I've reached the limits of my cold-temperature endurance. You know how fancy winter coats and sleeping bags have labels saying what weather they're good in -- I should have a tag saying I work in temperatures down to 20 degrees Fahrenheit, and after that I must be kept inside with a mug of hot tea.

As I walked along the beach yesterday with the Wonder Dog, my cheeks freezing from red to white and my fingers numb in my non-Toronto-worthy fleece gloves, I decided I've really had enough of winter. Fall was lovely, we all love a little fresh, crisp air, but if it's all right with everyone I think I'd like to fast forward through the next few months of weather. Luckily for WD, we have a fenced-in yard. The cold doesn't seem to bother her. On the contrary, there's nothing she seems to enjoy more than slowly, thoroughly sniffing every snow-crusted leaf on the sidewalk while my feet turn to blocks of ice.

Of course it doesn't help that our bedroom is apparently unheated. Two heating vents, but neither seem interested in blowing hot air into the room. A down comforter purchase is in my near future. I'm finding that sleeping in a fetal position under the covers to conserve warmth makes for vivid dreams -- two days ago I dreamt there were snakes crawling all over me (still getting over those willies) and last night I dreamt that AP sent me a check for $400 for no reason. I hope and I fear, respectively, that neither dream is prophetic.

Hmmm, apparently it does get colder here. I'd better stock up on tea.

2005-12-05T10:16:00.000-05:00

In non-political news, the Wonder Dog and I recently made our first visit to the nursing home as therapy dog and handler. Wonder Dog (WD) was a bit freaked out by the institutional smells and I think she wanted to eat the decorative pine boughs, or at least taste them (you never know what's edible until you try, is WD's motto). But she settled down pretty well, apart from the occasional lunging at invisible crumbs on the floor.

It was quite challenging, even though technically WD was doing all the work and I was just along for the ride. I'm supposed to get everyone to wipe their hands with antibacterial stuff before and after they touch WD, and put a towel on the clients' laps to prevent undue shedding/drooling on them, which doesn't sound hard -- but juggling excited dog on leash, towels, hand sanitizer and bag containing water for dog/spare towels/more hand sanitizer taxed my limited coordination abilities. And these old people can move pretty fast when they see a dog they want to pet.

But overall it was lovely and I'm looking forward to doing it again. One of my favorite ladies wheeled up to us in the lobby. Her hands were all twisted and claw-y and had some weird knobby protrusions on them, and at first I was like, ew. (Hey, I'm a volunteer-in-training, not Mother Teresa.)

She said "I love dogs" over and over again as she petted WD with her poor little folded-over hands. As WD gazed soulfully into the old lady's eyes and sniffed her face (for crumbs, probably) I realized the lady had really bad arthritis, thus explaining her freaky hands. So I told her that WD, who is nine, has arthritis too. She laughed and said, "Well, we'll get along then. We can compare notes!"

Later today, I'm off to the vet again so Wonder Dog can display another one of her Wonder Talents -- racking up expensive medical bills. Unfortunately the free Canadian health care does not extend to the canine members of the family. Of course, nothing's too good for my baby....

2005-12-02T17:27:00.000-05:00

The up-is-down, night-is-day world of Canadian politics continues to mystify me. Conservative Stephen Harper just proposed cutting the sales tax -- which of course is a regressive tax that disproportionately affects the poor.

Liberal Paul Martin, meanwhile, wants to cut the income tax -- a progressive tax that mostly affects the rich.

What? Huh? Conservatives like poor people in the country? I'm so confused now. Why can't they just color the provinces red or blue like they do with the states in America?

For more Canadian political news, please see The Daily Show's excellent "Hosed." Which was, sadly, probably the most extensive U.S. news coverage devoted to the fall of the Canadian government. My favorite part is when Samantha Bee (a real Canadian!) explains the fall of the government and Jon Stewart asks her to back it up a bit.

Bee (paraphrasing because the video has disappeared from the web site): Well Jon, many MPs will face tough re-election campaigns in their ridings, which--
Stewart: Whoa, whoa. Back it up there a little bit. Big picture.
Bee: OK, so ridings are like American congressional districts, and--
Stewart: Back it up a little farther.
Bee: Um, OK. Canada is a parliamentary democracy, based on the British system--
Stewart: Farther.
Bee: Well, there was a political scandal here, and now the leaders will be held accountable in a democratic election.
Stewart: Hmmm, interesting. Tell me, Samantha, where is Canada?

Funny 'cause it's true!

2005-11-29T21:59:00.000-05:00

You will NOT believe what's happening in Canada. An election has been called and it's going to be a super-long campaign... a whole eight weeks!!!

Yes, eight weeks is considered a horribly long campaign in Canada -- 35 days is the norm here. I knew there was something refreshingly civilized about this place... And of course everyone expects the candidates to take a week-long break for Christmas and New Year's. Given the kvetching about this election campaign dragging on for 56 whole days, I can only imagine the shock and horror of Canadians who relocate to the U.S. and realize our presidential campaigns basically last two years nowadays.

Of course, Canadians make up for their blessedly brief elections by having many more of them. The last election was in June 2004; this week the Liberal minority government once again lost the confidence of Parliament (I totally should be drinking tea and eating scones as I write this) and so we're having another election. Given that all the smart money is on another minority government (meaning a ruling party that has a plurality but a majority of votes in Parliament, and thus has to suck up constantly to various other parties to stay alive) and given that the average life span of minority governments is 18 months, election fatigue could become a chronic condition for Canadians.

I'll be interested to see what this campaign is like. Everyone's predicting some fierce mudslinging. (Reliable sources say it'll be a bitter vote.) But how dirty can Canadians get? I'm thinking this calls for a compare-and-contrast chart of dirty politics, U.S.- and Canada-style. For example:

Negative campaigning, U.S.-style: Spread rumors in a key Southern state that your opponent fathered an illegitimate black baby.
Negative campaigning, Canada-style: Suggest that, in your opinion, you think your opponent may not have always behaved completely honorably and might be misguided on some of the issues.

The gloves are off now, eh!

2005-11-28T12:13:00.000-05:00

Last night I caught a few minutes of the Grey Cup, Canada's equivalent of the Super Bowl. It's not so much a Super!!! Bowl as a "we're fine, thanks for asking" bowl. It's actually named after Earl Grey, who along with drinking lots of tea also served as governor general of Canada back in the day. Football, tea, governor generalling ... he was like a triple-threat earl.

The Edmonton Eskimos beat the Montreal Alouettes, which seems only right considering that "alouette" means "lark" -- not sure which marketing genius thought that would make an intimidating football team name.

Canadian football is basically the same as American football, with some changes -- there are three downs instead of four, blah blah blah. Honestly, I barely care about or understand the rules of American football so I don't think the CFL has much chance of breaking through my wall of sports-related apathy.

So I'll go straight to the important stuff: the half-time show. They had the Black Eyed Peas (I guess Ontario's own Shania Twain was booked), and I do like the Black Eyed Peas. Or I did, until they unleashed the horror known as "My Humps" on my poor unsuspecting eardrums.

Sample lyrics (and if you are lucky enough to have not heard this song you might want to save yourself and look away now before these lyrics burn their stupidity into your retinas):

What you gonna do with all that junk? All that junk inside your trunk?
I’ma get, get, get, get, you drunk, Get you love drunk off my hump.
My hump, my hump, my hump, my hump, my hump,
My hump, my hump, my hump, my lovely little lumps.

But wait, there's more! In case the junk/trunk reference was a bit too subtle:

What you gonna do with all that ass? All that ass inside them jeans?
I’m a make, make, make, make you scream

Oh, you make me scream all right ... because my ears are BLEEDING. Now I'm no expert on the "rap music" that the kids like to listen to these days, but can I just point out that ass and jeans DO NOT RHYME! Call me old school, but I just don't think that should be allowed. Seriously, if I had to choose between the mindless thuggery of gangsta rap versus the mindless sexploitation of "My Humps," I'd choose 50 Cent and his multiple bullet wounds any day. Unless deaf is an option, in which case that might be the winner.

Shania, a lost and confused Canada awaits your glorious return!