Canadiana
We're landed! Officially! Whoo! We got the offical letter, and it's all official and all. Fishwhistle takes our passports to Buffalo tomorrow for the official permanent-resident visas, and I think we get a special card or something, et voila!
::breaks out the maple-syrup-flavoured champagne::
::and the Canadian spelling::
Permanent residency, baby! Whoo!
++++++++++++++++++++
So this afternoon while sitting in a downtown cafe I eavesdropped on two young women in sweatsuits who appeared to be university students and looked similar enough to be related.
Pretty girl: Really? You'll be my bridesmaid?
Stunningly beautiful girl: It's an honor!
Pretty girl: Thank you! That's so great! [cautious pause] You do understand we're having two weddings, right?
Beautiful girl: Oh, of course. One Sikh and one Christian, yeah?
Pretty girl: Right, right. I've been talking to his mother. They way they do weddings is so weird. I didn't understand it until she explained to me. It is so not our culture, you know?
Beautiful girl: I know a little bit about it already. I can do it.
Pretty girl: Well, it was all new to me, I tell you. I felt really bad when I found out that I'm supposed to make the bridesmaids all wear the same color ... and you know you have to pay for your bridesmaid dress, right? I'm so sorry about that!
Beautiful girl: I know. It's okay.
Pretty girl: Yeah, these Christian weddings are a big waste of money if you ask me. But maybe it's just that it's not my culture, you know?
Beautiful girl: Right, right. So what are you wearing for the real wedding?
++++++++++++++++++++
It was completely dark out by the time I got home today, around 4:30.
++++++++++++++++++++
A close reading of last Saturday's Globe and Mail revealed the following:
In Canada's newspaper of record, columnists and arts writers are willing to write about marijuana in ways that suggest that they may have at some point inhaled, or at least stood next to someone who did, and that this is a manner for mild, familiar joking, not apology or jeremiad; this proved to be true once again in an article about Cheech and Chong. (Chong is Canadian, I thought you'd like to know.) However, a review of a book about children's folklore began with the reviewer remembering that rude song (to the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic) we all sang in fourth grade, you know the one, "my eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school ..." but then the reviewer stopped himself before getting to the line about "met her at the door with my trusty .44" because, he wrote, it couldn't be printed in a family newspaper.
So, this is the state of Canadian print journalism: pot can be discussed openly and reasonably; guns cannot.
++++++++++++++++++++
What a great country! We're so glad to be here!
::breaks out the maple-syrup-flavoured champagne::
::and the Canadian spelling::
Permanent residency, baby! Whoo!
++++++++++++++++++++
So this afternoon while sitting in a downtown cafe I eavesdropped on two young women in sweatsuits who appeared to be university students and looked similar enough to be related.
Pretty girl: Really? You'll be my bridesmaid?
Stunningly beautiful girl: It's an honor!
Pretty girl: Thank you! That's so great! [cautious pause] You do understand we're having two weddings, right?
Beautiful girl: Oh, of course. One Sikh and one Christian, yeah?
Pretty girl: Right, right. I've been talking to his mother. They way they do weddings is so weird. I didn't understand it until she explained to me. It is so not our culture, you know?
Beautiful girl: I know a little bit about it already. I can do it.
Pretty girl: Well, it was all new to me, I tell you. I felt really bad when I found out that I'm supposed to make the bridesmaids all wear the same color ... and you know you have to pay for your bridesmaid dress, right? I'm so sorry about that!
Beautiful girl: I know. It's okay.
Pretty girl: Yeah, these Christian weddings are a big waste of money if you ask me. But maybe it's just that it's not my culture, you know?
Beautiful girl: Right, right. So what are you wearing for the real wedding?
++++++++++++++++++++
It was completely dark out by the time I got home today, around 4:30.
++++++++++++++++++++
A close reading of last Saturday's Globe and Mail revealed the following:
In Canada's newspaper of record, columnists and arts writers are willing to write about marijuana in ways that suggest that they may have at some point inhaled, or at least stood next to someone who did, and that this is a manner for mild, familiar joking, not apology or jeremiad; this proved to be true once again in an article about Cheech and Chong. (Chong is Canadian, I thought you'd like to know.) However, a review of a book about children's folklore began with the reviewer remembering that rude song (to the tune of Battle Hymn of the Republic) we all sang in fourth grade, you know the one, "my eyes have seen the glory of the burning of the school ..." but then the reviewer stopped himself before getting to the line about "met her at the door with my trusty .44" because, he wrote, it couldn't be printed in a family newspaper.
So, this is the state of Canadian print journalism: pot can be discussed openly and reasonably; guns cannot.
++++++++++++++++++++
What a great country! We're so glad to be here!