Rap version of Oh Canada and other important Canadian things

Yes, Virginia, there really is a rap version of Oh Canada, the national anthem of Canada. With a few additions, of course, including: poutine, a pregnant lady with a maple leaf on her belly, and mention that they invented the telephone.  In the patriotic tradition of my mother, I will wake up our guests on Canada Day (June 1st!) with this rendition and other Canadian patriotic music.  Mom would wake us up on July 4th with Sousa marches.

This past Sunday was the Juno awards, the Grammy awards of Canada.  It was hosted by Drake (A Canadian Jew, in case you were wondering. He's also pretty cute, eh?).

We heard a lot of great music, particularly a great selection of music commemorating the last 40 years of music evolution in Toronto by Sarah Slean* and Garth Hudson of The Band, Blue Rodeo’s Jim Cuddy and Greg Keelor, The Sadies, Sarah Harmer* and City and Colour*.  I tried to find a video of this but had a hard time, but any of these artists are worth a listen - they were fabulous.  Arcade Fire won a lot of awards, but honestly, I just can't get into their music, and while I can see why they won (they are very talented and it is almost like watching and listening to an orchestra), they would take a lot of energy. Neil Young was there (Canadian), Brian Adams (unfortunately Canadian), Shania Twain (she felt like a Canadian woman), but no Bieber.  He totally ditched the Junos. He did do a few video presentations, but it was weak.  And the new haircut? Eh.

On Saturday (we had a very exciting weekend), we watched. . . Hockey Night in Canada! On every single Saturday night all long winter long, there is a hockey double header.  Those lucky Canadian women!  We watched the Leafs - that would be the Toronto Maple Leafs for those of you who aren't yet fans, even though you should be since we live here - lose a heartbreaker, and then we watched Don Cherry.  He is a crazy man who comes out and talks about hockey in between game 1 and 2, and wears the most conservative attire possible.  Below, a few samples:

We now understand why hockey season goes on forever. You see daffodils and flowers in the states, and we have snow.  We have temperatures that are warm at plus 2 degrees Celsius, and you wear flip flops in March.   It makes sense for the NHL to still play hockey in Canada right now.  For them to still be playing hockey in Nashville (and when did they get a team in Nashville?), well, I'm not so sure.

So, in that spirit, we signed the kids up for skating lessons and bought them their hockey skates and helmets, with full face masks, so S has a chance of keeping those teeth we worked so hard to keep.  E and S's twin, 17 year old, female babysitters are hockey players, and so we have some awesome role models.  Watch out! 

Awesome Science - Lots of Pictures!

*It may be easier to view this post straight on the web, so you can go to the blog directly, because there are a lot of pictures on this one. 

Yesterday, in the snow, we went to the Ontario Science Centre.  A teammate of mine had told me about it before I had even arrived, so I knew it was going to be a great day (thanks, pb!).  We did not even begin to explore this museum. We only went to one movie and one exhibit in the 5+ hours we were there.  (Note to science centre: kids at the Nemo show (we saw Under the Sea) don't want to see previews for Tornado Alley in all it's Imax glory.)  So we have a membership and will plan to go back often during our time in Toronto.  

S and E look at animals and hear their sounds before we enter...

 the rainforest! (The warmest place in Canada - who knew?!)

 5th graders - do you recognize this?

 E, S and I listen to a drumming and science seminar by Jeremy Taggart, who has played with several Canadian bands, in honor of Juno week (like the Canadian grammys).  

 This tube probably has cool scientific properties, but E and S liked it because it made trash go up high and rain down on top of them. 

 This was in the Weston Family Hall - more for elementary and teenagers. These blocks could be turned and you could send boats down to see how fast or slow they went down depending on the materials they were made of, but again, E and S just had fun sending them down.

 This was an interactive Koi pond projected on the floor in a hallway. The museum is full of these kinds of things. One of the escalators is see through. You can see the imax projector.  Just amazing, little things like that for the careful observer. 

 This car is at the beginning of Kidspark, the under 8 area. This is so well-designed, they also have toddler/baby play areas for the under 3 set.  

 S and E went to a "Sturdy Structures" session where they learned what shapes were sturdy, and then were able to work in groups to make their own, new houses for the 3 little pigs so that the big bad wolf wouldn't blow them down.  Then, they received some material and played with it to make their own structures.  And you can't construct without a hard hat. (S is happy in the picture above - he raised his hand and participated a ton.)  For your reference, sturdy building shapes are squares, rectangles, triangles and cylinders. 

 This is a spinner where they see how fast they can spin, or throw up.  They even have padded walls for when the kids get thrown off. In the background, you can see that they can make their own roller coasters.

 Here is where we got into trouble.  Knowing we would be walking around in a museum all day, and remembering we are potty training S, I didn't want to lug around boots, and my coat, etc. So I left my coat in the car, and let the kids wear their tennis shoes instead of boots.  Obviously, living in Canada has not sunk in.  Because we came out to another 4 inches of snow, and while it wasn't a long walk to the car, it wasn't pretty.  

 S had done pretty well in undies in the museum, but he did have one accident, and I did forget an extra pair of socks. This was fine in the museum, but not fine when snow was sneaking into his little shoes.  So I took his shoes off and put my extra pair of mittens on him in the car.  All toasty warm!

My April resolution is that I am not shoveling any more snow.

Canada Welcomes Spring! Finally!

Oh, wait.  No, we didn't.

We got fresh snow today.  I thought the first day spring was March 21?


P.S. Guess what is cheaper in Canada? Probably the only thing, so far?

BACON!

I don't know what that says about Canada or Canadians, but I like it.

P.P.S.  I spent $70 to fill up my gas tank this week. :(

Miscellaneous Updates

• Our OHIP cards go live in April. We paid $6 in parking for 30 minutes to get our socialist health care. Yeah!  And Ontario caved (or is going the good karma route, depending on your view) and is giving the mom the drugs she was asking for (see previous post).  
• S is potty training. He has had three accidents since yesterday - all at home. We even went out all morning and he did a stellar job. Yippee for S!  E is a super duper helper. Of course, it is encouraging his already prevalent nudist tendencies. 
• I liked this article about the War in Libya by Margaret Wente. 
• We went to Tim Horton's today for the first time in almost two weeks. Ahhh. It is such an interesting cultural phenomenon -- everyone in Canada goes there. They even hold their Tim's cups differently, with four fingers on the bottom and their thumb on the lid, or maybe it is vice versa, but they don't hold around the cup like you would normally.   Fancy business people, parking enforcement, ladies meeting for coffee all meet at Tim's. My father-in-law never would have left.  Ever.  
• Don't take two young children with you to the liquor store.  Especially when they have these little plastic rolling baskets and you only get one and your kids have to take turns (Why are your kids pulling the alcohol, you ask? Gigantic lapse of judgement.) and it is the end of your errands and they are starting to fight.  That is all I have to say about that.

Breast Cancer Debate and Health Care in Canada

Ontario apparently has been in an uproar about Jill Anzarut, a 35 year old mom of 2 who was diagnosed with breast cancer, but was denied access to a medication her doctor prescribed by Cancer Care Ontario.  I suggest you read the linked column in defense of CCO's position, and Ms. Anzarut's comments (about 3rd from the top) in response to the columnist in the column's comments section that follows.

It was a really interesting conversation about supposedly universal health care in Canada.  Provinces make their own decisions, so this woman's case would have been handled differently in B.C., for example, instead of Ontario.  It's obviously a loaded and emotionally-fueled conversation about a mom with little ones. There was also a lot of suprisingly rational conversation about how much should a country pay for, and what is reasonable to pay for, in a universal health care situation.   When the health care debate was going on in the U.S., there was a lot of debate about "health care rationing," but insurance companies already make these decisions, and there is similar conversation here about how it is inevitable in any large scale insurance program.  This decision is on a macro level and has been taken public, which is what makes it more interesting.

We apply for our Ontario Health Insurance Program (OHIP) cards soon.  It will be an experience to use them. We were able to get in to see a doctor for our introductory appointment at the end of April. That was the earliest they had an intro appointment available.  An ominous start?

Canadians and Their Coffee

This post is dedicated to FdP, who helped me pick out J's espresso machine. I will make him wince in the next sentence.

Does it make me more Canadian to have gone to Tim Horton's twice in one day?

Canadian's love them some Tim's.  J and I would poke fun at our realtor, who would stop there regularly for coffee, tea, chocolate milk, or other beverages. We would openly worry about the state of his kidneys, since he seemed to finish his day with beer, and there was no water to be found in his day.

Um, yeah. I've since become one of those people in the drive thru line that is throwing out my old Tim's cup to make space for my new one.

Last Saturday, E, S and I were on our way to a children's theatre, to see some Robert Munsch stories performed. For those of you not familiar with Robert Munsch, he is the author of those lovely stories like I Love You Forever and the less lovely but incredibly hilarious ones like I Have To Go Pee (very appropriate for this post, I think).  He is Canadian, of course, and an excellent verbal storyteller so he is very fun to listen to in the car on long car trips.  H had a tape of his when she was little, and E and S have one that we listen to as well sometimes.

In any case, it was a cold, rainy morning, and we stopped to get some coffee for me, and donuts and milk for the kids. With sprinkles. On Leafs game days, the sprinkles are blue and white.

The TTC bus driver in our lane has gotten out to look at his bus, so the four cars in front of me turned right into the street prior to Tim's in a quest to get their coffee more quickly.  There were at least ten cars in line before the turn into the actual drive thru access line, so cars begin peeling out of line and parking to get out and run into the building.  The line had not dissipated by the time I ordered my large triple-triple.  This scene is not unusual across the city.

Triple-triple, you ask?  Tim's coffee is ordered by the amount of sugar and cream you want in it.  (FdP just winced again, but then again I'm not sure he's tried Tim's coffee.)  Standard is considered the double-double, though I've also heard people just ask for double cream or double milk.  According the the link, even just regular coffee has milk and sugar in it at Tim's. Of course, I don't really like Tim's coffee, because it tastes pretty bad (it is just convenient and hot), so a triple-triple works well for me.

My favorite coffee chain is actually Second Cup.  It is a competitor to Starbucks and actually has delicious coffee, and we've purchased their beans to brew at home.  Their coffee has a nutty flavor, and they have Tuesday latte specials.  But to drink it at home, J actually has to make it before he leaves for work.  He's stopped doing that since the coffee improved at work, and I'm busy getting kids out the door, so more often than not it's Tim's for me.

We have a lot of independent coffee and espresso places in the city, and they are also delicious.  We've found a local place to buy fancy espresso beans for J and a local place to buy supplies for his fancy machine, so we're all set here at First Cup at home.  We enjoy our weekend or evening drinks.

J wants a Tim's line in our budget. I think that is fine, as long as we allow for S's donut with sprinkles.  He only eats the top, with the frosting, and leaves the rest.

Night Skiing... Deserves a Quiet Night

I didn't think hurtling down a mountain on two waxed sticks of wood would ever really be my idea of a good time, let alone romantic.  

In fact, a few weeks ago, at Blue Mountain, as I was heading down my second blue run of the day with J, all I could think of was, "I hate Kim F., I hate Kim F., I hate Kim F.," Kim being one of my longtime friends that I grew up with in California.  I also took my first skiing lesson with her - the poor instructor!  Of course, it was rationally all her fault that I was stuck in the middle of this almost vertical incline barely able to slide down on my bottom.

However, our family has persevered, mainly due to the calm, steady, kind influence of J, and you saw the pictures from a few weeks ago where we got the entire family, even S in his little pull ups, up a real chair lift and to the top of the hill.  (The poor kid can't even make it to the potty, yet we are making him make a pizza pie with his legs and pushing him down a hill.)

This weekend, we decided to take advantage of some of the "Spring" sales (Ha! Spring! It is still -2 degrees Celsius here) and went to our local ski shop to get some boots for J and I.  I was the only one still renting equipment, and J had some old equipment he had bought online.  The people at Skiis and Biikes were great, if you are ever in Canada and in the market for new equipment (they have stores here and in Vancouver/Whistler).  They actually stretched the plastic in my boot, and cut out part of my liner, and put a footbed in J's boot, and did all of this technical wizardry stuff that made our boots fit our feet.  

Well, we already had a babysitter last night for a long delayed date night, so we headed out to our local hill, Glen Eden, for a little night skiing.  I'm excited all over again writing this!  It was so much fun!  Don't you wish you could go night skiing? (I can't put this picture in directly b/c of copyright, so click here for a picture.)

We listened to our favorite radio station on the way out (CBC Radio 2, of course), and rode fairly empty lifts and trails down, and it wasn't too icy.  We came home, and J made us a decaf latte, and overall, it was a lovely evening.  (Except for the gentlemen peeing in the woods at the top of the hill.  It took a little ambiance away from the evening, when you watch them zip up, and yellow snow is just gross.)

I'm still careening down the mountain without much finesse, arms and legs flapping like an ungainly flamingo. I fell over in the lift line as I tried to show off by coming in too fast, and it was NOT a pretty picture watching me put on or take off my boots, especially in the dark, for the first time.  We're having fun, though, and that's the important thing.  

I checked, and Mont Tremblant in Quebec is open until about April 10, so we still have a chance to ski some more.   Right, J? Um, J? J? 

I apologize to America

I heard this on CBC Radio 2 this morning:

Kenney fundraising letter breaks rules: NDP; Staffer resigns over document outlining campaign to target ethnic voters *

And read this on the Globe and Mail's website this afternoon:


Disgraced integrity czar’s $500,000 severance deal includes gag order**
and I would have to conclude that Canada likely has the same issues that America has, at least in terms of the functionality of their elected government - some good ones and some not so good ones.  While I haven't heard of anyone stuffing money in their bra yet, I'm sure it is just a matter of time, right? Right? Or are they just not that fun here? 


Oh, no, Canada. 




*It's a goody - an aide used parliamentary letterhead (seriously?!) to ask for donations and outlined their campaign to target certain ethnicities in the GTA (greater Toronto area) in the anticipation of an election being called soon.  I don't get this whole "we can call an election whenever" stuff, but apparently you can here, so they feel like they should have the money to be ready. I wonder how much a federal Canadian election costs? (From what I could find, like 300M? compared to 5.3B in the US? But I can't really tell what that means, since Harper is technically kind of like the Speaker, and if he loses his seat he loses the Prime Minister position, so the only female PM only held her position for about 6 months before losing her home seat. I need to talk to my neighbor and get back to y'all.  This doesn't even touch on the fact that technically the Queen is still in charge here.)


**Double goody - Her title is the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, and the article goes on to read "Although she was the person in charge of fielding complaints from federal whistleblowers – an office that demands an arm’s length relationship with the government," she exchanges e-mails with accused government officials, harasses her staff, and only investigates around 8 of the 200 some complaints during her time in office, for which she receives a parting payment of $500,000 and a promise not to tell anything. 

Music Freedom Day in Canada!

Yesterday, my alarm clock woke me at 6:30 a.m. with the news that it was Music Freedom Day in Canada, or at least as celebrated by the CBC's Radio 2, my new favorite radio station (I'm on the Eastern channel for those who want to listen along).

This radio station is well worth a listen for those of you who like fun, interesting music.  Yesterday, I listened to music from the protests in Egypt, to a Michael Franti song (Hey Hey Hey)
 Hey hey hey, no matter how life is today 

There’s just one thing that I got to say

I won’t let another moment slip away
 
to a Guster (Do you love me?) song.  
 
I wanna wake you from your dreams.
I wanna know just who yer talkin' to when yer singin' in yer sleep.
I wanna find out what it means.
Do you love me?
 
According to my in-depth research on Wikipedia, the format changed over a few years ago from all

classical to more modern and eclectic music.  During the workday (9ish-3ish, as near as I can figure), it still plays classical music, which is great for putting the kids to sleep in the car.  In the morning and evenings, it plays different shows, and gives you some great history or background about the music. For example, I learned that the Red Hot Chili Peppers song, Under the Bridge, which has a gospel choir at the end, also has their moms in the choir.  This is a fact I would not have appreciated when it came out when I was in high school, as J so kindly pointed out, but it was interesting to learn about now that I am more mature and I am no longer in conflict with my mom all of the time.  J, I also learned David Gray has a new album out.  
 
Anyway, back to Music Freedom Day.  Canada recently banned airplay of Dire Straits "Money for Nothing" because of the use of a derogatory word in the lyrics, and it is important to note that the absolute free speech in America as guaranteed by the first amendment (see the Supreme Court case about protesting at funerals here) absolutely does not apply in Canada. Perhaps that has something to do with the civility I talked about in an earlier post? In any case, it is interesting that they decided to celebrate the freedom of spreading the appropriate message.  Yeah, musical freedom!

(J and I do really love CBC Radio 2, and they also have tiny, 10 minute snippets of excellent world news. J called it one round of WTOP and then some cool music. So it is worth a listen on your computer or while you cook dinner.)