On Risk and Consequence

Life entails a certain amount of risk. Getting up in the morning increases your chances of dying. Driving is a statistically dangerous activity. Choosing to submit yourself to the forces of gravity and physics while attached to or riding on bits of slippery fiberglass is dangerous. Whizzing around on bits of sharp metal on ice is dangerous. Inhaling a toxic cocktail of nicotine, additives and pollutants is dangerous. Eating food high in sodium and fat is dangerous. Drinking alcohol is dangerous.

Whether we acknowledge it or not, there are risks associated with every single minute of our lives, and with every choice we make. Ignorance of the risks is not acceptable grounds for whining about the consequences if and when they catch up with you. Similarly, feeling that you are invulnerable and above the consequences of your actions does not excuse you from paying the potential price.

Take as an example the young girl who died while skiing at Calabogie a couple of weeks ago. She lost control, hit a tree, and died. Outraged readers in the comments section cried "cut the trees down!" The reason she hit a tree (which are not generally known for hanging around in the middle of ski runs) was because she was going too fast for her abilities and therefore went where she wasn't supposed to.

Another more recent example was the young Georgian luge pilot who lost control and died the day before the Olympics started. The response was to pad the luge run support poles and decrease the length of the overall run. I don't think anyone who saw the video of his death harbours any illusions that hitting a pole, padded or not, at 120-160 kms/hour will result in anything but instant death.

Both of these incidents are sad, no doubt, but utterly preventable... no-one made the child go skiing; no-one made the young man choose luge. And at the end of the day, it wasn't the tree or the ski hill operators or the luge run that were to blame: it was human error and/or hubris.

Sports "accidents" are not what really gets my goat, though. Pursuing exhilaration and glory for sports may not always be the safest thing, but it's somewhat forgivable. No, it's the other idiots that really get me: smokers who get cancer and then whine about how they didn't know it was bad for them. Obese people who try to sue fast food companies for their own inability to make sound nutritional choices. People who sue when their coffee spills and burns them.

Know the risks. Make your choices and accept full personal responsibility for your own actions. If you die from smoking, it's not the government's fault for not making them illegal, it's because you were dumb enough to start in the first place, and sincerely believed that little fairy tale "it won't happen to me". Let me tell you now... you're nothing special. God or fate or destiny doesn't love you more than anyone else, and if you put a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger, the odds are excellent that you'll end up just as dead as anyone else.

But go ahead and try it, anyhow. The world is a little too cramped as it stands, and you'll at least do us all the courtesy of removing your genes from the pool as you excuse yourself. One final favour? Kill yourself quickly with your vices so as to minimize the strain on our health care system. K, thanks, bye.

Love Thy Neighbor

My friend Arzu wrote a really interesting post today. My post is in response to her musings... you should go over and read it, otherwise this post will seem pretty random.

I'm not Christian... I used to be but there were too many loose ends that didn't make sense to me. I don't really know what I am at the moment; I believe God exists in one form or another but I really don't think It cares about us on a personal level.

This being said, I don't think that lessens our calling to care for one another. In the end, God is intangible; we are all we have. I think our highest purposes are found in helping others, in doing what we can to ameliorate someone else's pain.

I also know that I fall short of that standard. A friend, a neighbor recently suffered a death in the family. I found out immediately but could not bring myself to cross the street to console her or to offer my apologies. I was awkward and helpless when it came to facing death in my own family when my father died a couple of years back; I was awkward and helpless when it came to dealing with her loss. Even though I loved her and knew that my silence was hurting her, I could not go over.

I'd like to think that I'd be there if a friend needed me, but in reality, I'd probably be "too busy", or help out but feel put-upon and inconvenienced at the same time. How to reach the selfless spirit that Arzu's friend S demonstrated when the neighbor he barely knew requested his help?

I also know that if the shoe were on the other foot, I would suffer alone and in silence rather than ask anyone for help, thereby inconveniencing them.

I love the idea, the ideal, of community... where we all take care of each other. It seems like such an impossible goal, though. How do we get there from here?

Westfest: Saturday Night

First off, in amelioration of anything I'm about to say here, Westfest is a free event. No cover charge for anything. Free anything is good. Free entertainment is fantastic.

The caliber of last night's entertainment was largely very good. The Ladies of the Canyon were enjoyable if obscure, and Lynne Hanson's bluegrass-y set got everyone moving. It was country night, after all.

Which kind of begs the question why the between-show pieces were so truly out of character, and in one instance, downright horrible. A pair of DJ's kept the music going before and after the Ladies, but it was techno-house music... a genre that I enjoy but considering the fact that most of the crowd was there to see Prairie Oyster, it seemed an odd choice. As well, if quickly became obvious that they were behind schedule on the performances, yet kept up the DJ'ing for what seemed like an hour.

Worse was yet to come, in the shape of a "media artist" called Bear Witness. For about ten minutes, we were subjected to his version of art: scenes sampled from "cowboy and Indian" movies, highly graphically processed, and accompanied by odd sounds and more thumping techno. Afterwords, my husband looked at me, wide- eyed and bewildered, and commented "Well, there's ten minutes of my life I'll never get back." The entire crowd was embarrassed for the so-called artist, who came out on stage following his piece and made an awkward bow.

In all honesty, I suspect the only thing which got his foot in the door at all was the fact that he is Native, and therefore everything he does is automatically better than any non-Native "artist". I think we've gone too far in political correctness, here, my friends... and if art smells and looks like shit then we should call it so, no matter if it's created by a Native or not. The Emperor has no clothes, but we're all gagged by our (government's?) society's need to kowtow to the poor set-upon aboriginals to call it as we see it. Enough already.

Okay. Rant over.

Finally, 45 minutes late, Prairie Oyster came on. Long story short, due to noise by-laws they had to cut their set-list to shreds as they still had to have the concert over at 11, no matter what time they started at. They were disappointed as was the crowd; although the two other country acts were okay, we sure as hell didn't come to see them, let alone some whacked-out "media artist" and a couple of DJ's.

The concert, what little of it was left, was awesome. Russell DeCarl has still got it goin' on after all these years.

CBC Cutbacks: Online Petition

I'm never sure how effective online petitions are, but I figure it can't hurt, might help.

I'm sure you've all heard the news about the massive cutbacks at CBC. If you're as outraged as I am, go here and let your tiny, insignificant voice be heard.

I Made A Spectre out of Myself

DH and I went to see The Watchmen last weekend. While I freely admit it isn't a movie for everyone, we quite enjoyed it for a number of reasons.

This is one of the reasons.



Silk Spectre II. All that crime-fighting sexy goodness and really long hair, too. She got me thinking.

The inevitable happened this weekend.





Yes... I Spectre'd myself, or at least my hair. For the first time in nearly 10 years, I have bangs... and I feel pretty damned hot, if I do say so myself. Now all I need is some yellow and black rubber for the rest of her costume. :) (Not to mention killer cheekbones.)

The Next Time Aunt Flo Visits...

This article is a discussion of female hygiene products. Move along to happy fluffy bunny blogs if this offends.

Now here's a surprise. You're not being given the whole story by the "happy period" people at Alw@ys and the shiny sanitary plastic Tamp@x people. There is a real third option; one that doesn't involve the tedious washing of re-usable cloth pads. I've been using this for over ten years, will never use anything else, and can't imagine why more women don't give it a try.

It's called The Keeper. Essentially, it's a small-ish rubber or silicon cup that snuggles up against your vaginal walls, near but not touching your cervix, and simply holds the fluids back. Simple in execution, comfortable to wear, and it makes 17,000 kinds of sense.



Does 17,000 seem like an odd number? Well.... it's the number of pads and tampons the average woman uses in her lifetime. Can you even imagine that amount in a landfill? (go here to see it. )Next, try to picture the bleaches and harmful chemicals that went into their production. And now, the amount of packaging waste. Cardboard, "discreet" plastic pouches and wrappers. That's a massive pile of waste, girl.

Now let's do the math on the money aspect of the scenario. Having not bought the things for years, I really have no idea, but Mother Google knows all... lesseee... roughly $10 for 36 tampons, the same price for 48 pads. That makes the totals (are you ready for this?) $4700 spent over your lifetime for tampons, or $3500 for pads. Wouldn't you rather go to Mexico for a week... twice, rather than buying pads and tampons?

Now. Back to The Keeper. You pay roughly $50 CAD (at today's exchange rate) for a solid ten years of use. (Mine's over ten years and shows no sign of deterioration.) You simply fold it in half, in half again, insert, wiggle a little until it's a nice circle again, and forget about it. Well, not too long... the little holes at the top of the cup to help release the suction will eventually leak if your flow is heavy or if you leave it in for too long. So... you whip it out (by pulling on the stem) when you need to visit the lady's room, empty it neatly into the bowl, clean it with water if available, or t.p. if not, and fold it up and stick it back in. Look! You've saved a tampon already.

When you don't need it anymore that month, a nice wash with hot water (not boiling... this breaks down the rubber) and soap, and then you tuck it back inside the sweet little cloth bag that it came in until you need it next month. "Hand-made by retired seamstresses" the website says. Awww.

Seriously. Why aren't we all using this? Okay... granted, it takes a woman who is not squeamish about her body, its functions and its discharges. However, if you can bring yourself to use tampons, you can get used to, and eventually love, the idea of the Keeper. And even if you are a little on the squeamish side... maybe the environmental and monetary savings will make you think about getting a little more cozy with your bod. And honey, that ain't such a bad thing.

edited to add: Tammy says that they won't ship the Keeper to Canada anymore... but has found a site for the The Diva Cup. It looks like the same thing. Thanks, Tammy.

Twenty Years Better

I've recently been pummeled on Facebook with "friend requests" from my fellow graduates from high school. Our 20-year reunion is coming up this summer, and I guess everyone is feeling all huggy and emotional about those days.

I have ignored every one of the friend requests. Chances are pretty good that if we're actually friends, we're already Facebook friends. I know that the definition of friends on Facebook is probably different from the real-life definition of friend. Even so, being trapped for a few years in the same educational institution together does not automatically make you my friend twenty years later.

One fellow didn't take a hint when I ignored his request. Twice. The third time (and I was surprised I bit my tongue for that long) I messaged him, telling him I wasn't his friend back then, and I wasn't feeling any closer to him two decades later. (He had something over 1000 people in his friends list. Tell me he's not trying to compensate for something.)

He was surprised, and admitted after a couple of messages exchanged back and forth that he recalls being mean to me in high school. All the more reason not to throw myself at him for a nice how-ya-doin' hug, though honestly I don't remember him being mean. Or much of anything about high school. Everytime I have a drink, I will the alcohol to kill those specific memory cells.

Back to the reunion. I hated that school, that dead-end hick town, my social status (or lack thereof), my friends (or the lack thereof) and the powerlessness of youth. A year or two after graduation, I cut all ties (including an engagement to a local hick boy) and moved down to Vancouver, which marked the beginning of my real life. The one that I carved for myself, not had pushed upon me by convention or lack of other opportunities.

The only reason at all I'd go back is to laugh. To laugh at the high-school beauty queens, once the envy of the school, now 60 pounds overweight, with three pudgy vacant children (or, more likely, grand-children) and a job at the nail salon. To laugh at the school jocks, unobtainable and desireable back then, now with thinning hair and their guts straining their John Deere belt buckles.

It's not worth the airfare just to mock them. My successes and adventures do my mocking for me. I wish my fellow graduates well, but I never want to see them or set foot in that town again.

Organizing committee? You can take that as a "no, I won't be attending." Now piss off and stop sending me info about it.

A Losing Battle

My husband and I don't give our daughters everything they ask for. Every week they come to us, begging for (insert current electronic "have-to-have" item here) or money to go on some optional school field trip or some such thing. They do not lead deprived lives; they have every thing they need and quite a few things that they don't. Compared to our childhoods, they are spoiled rotten, though they don't often come across as such.

Last year the question of cell phones came up. They were 11 and 12, and their friends started getting cell phones, so immediately my husband and I became Bad Parents since we didn't think that children needed them.

Then their mother came back from Afghanistan, and one of the first things she did was to buy them both cell phones.

Let me tell you a little bit about their mother. This is the woman who went away for seven months into a dangerous operational theater, and who called her children perhaps once a month while she was gone. This is the woman who made her kids cry themselves to sleep out of worry every night for half-a-year because they never knew if their mother was alive or not, because she couldn't be bothered to call. (In contrast, my husband called me at least daily while he was in the same theater, so it certainly wasn't a matter of access... and she never left camp, either.)

By any account I can give, she is a bad mother who cares far more about her own interests than about her children.

So. She buys them cell phones. The youngest immediately lost hers, and mummy replaced it just as quickly with a newer, better model.

So it's become, in this matter and many others, her against us. She is quick to throw money at their every whim, which I suppose for her is much easier than actually loving her children, or wanting to set any kind of boundaries for them. Anything we deny them they run to her for. I know this isn't a new story or situation, that countless children of divorced parents manipulate their parents in the same way, but by God is it frustrating.

My husband and I set limits for the girls so they learn to appreciate what they have, so that they understand that sometimes you have to earn the things you want. That maybe getting everything you want isn't the best thing for you in the long run. That learning the pleasures of delayed gratification builds a strong, enduring character.

She undoes everything we do, every lesson we try to teach she renders invalid. We're the mean parents, in the girls' minds, the ones who are more likely to say no to everything. I know that twenty years from now, they'll be on a therapist's couch, realizing that their mother really didn't love them and we weren't being mean, we were just trying to raise decent human beings. In twenty years, we shall be vindicated... but until we win the war, we shall lose every battle.

I hate parenting (step-parenting, in my case.) This is exactly why I never wanted children in my life in the first place... it's a lonely, thankless job. They hate me for trying to do what's best for them.

Heart in Mouth

I have never wished to be an American before today... I want to vote so badly. I watch with the rest of the world, with heart in mouth and tears in eyes, waiting for America to finally embrace hope and change and life.

Enough of the reign of evil old men.

Fun Stuff in the Mail

It was a fun mail day. Aside from my confirmation letter from the college I will be attending in January, I received these:



These are two day-passes to the Creativ Festival in Toronto (formerly the CSNF). This can only mean one thing: ROAD TRIP!!!

Kate and I have train tickets booked, hotel arranged, and tickets in hand for next weekend's all-you-can-handle fibre festival. I haven't attended for years, and am very much looking forward to the festival itself, and a road trip with a dear friend who I don't see nearly enough of.

I got a retirement card in the mail today as well. Velda, who has noted my pouting and stomping about with regards to the lack of ceremony when I left work, has taken matters into her own hands and sent a thoughtful card.



She also is an enabler extraordinaire. One of the reasons I'm rejoicing in my new freedom is that I now have greater control over what I look like. Civilian clothes all the time, painted nails, hair dyed unnatural colours... it's all available to me now. I even confessed to her that I was thinking of getting my nose pierced; I like the look, and it is now lawful for me to do so. Her reply:



Do ya think she's trying to tell me something? :)

A Hero You Never Knew

DH, my mum Linda and I vacationed in Dubrovnik last spring. DH and I had spent six months in BiH in 2001 and had briefly holidayed (and fell in love) in Dubrovnik, and knew we had to return.

While there, I prowled the streets alone one day, and found my way to War Photo Unlimited, a gallery that focused on stories of conflict. Being deeply interested in the subject matter, I bought a ticket to the exhibition. The main exhibition was by a Canadian photographer with Croat roots, a young woman called Lana Šlezić. Her exhibition, titled Forsaken, dealt with the subject of women in Afghanistan. The photos are provocative, sad, hopeful, horrifying; powerful in every dimension. Deeply moved, I brought my mother and husband back to see the exhibit the next day.

One photo in particular struck me. A robin's egg blue burqa shrouded a woman; from beneath the fabric her arm is raised, pointing a pistol.



This is Malalai Kakar, one of the few incredibly brave women who serve on Afghanistan's police force. Death threats from the Taliban were the stuff of her daily life, but she was a woman who knew she was doing what needed to be done and making other women's lives better by her actions. She did not let fear stop her.

The Taliban shot this amazing woman in the head this morning. She was killed instantly.

The only consolation I can take from this (inevitable?) tragedy is that upon hearing of her death, over 20 women today alone joined the Kandahar police force.

Summer in the City, Part 2

DH and I drive up Prince of Wales drive and past Dow's Lake every Wednesday as we drive to our dance lesson. It looks so pretty and I always have wanted to rent a kayak and explore the area. I've explored it once on ice-skates a couple of years back, but the extreme discomfort from ill-fitting skates and freezing my ass off made me unwilling or unable to enjoy the scenery. Not to mention in the winter, there is no scenery, as far as I'm concerned.

Kayaking- now that's more my sport. As a displaced and desperately homesick transplant from Vancouver, I have had the obligatory sea kayaking lessons, and consider myself rather good at it. If I was still blessed enough to live in the Emerald City, I'd have a kayak by now, and would have camped all over the Gulf shores. Seeing the small craft all over Dow's Lake makes my fingers itchy and my heart yearn. I've pestered DH all summer to take me kayaking, to no avail.

Yesterday he announced that he and the girls had been invited to go on a boat ride. One of the girls' little chums from school has a single mother who has nicely inserted herself into my husband's life, and they plan all sorts of activities for themselves and their gaggle of girls. As I'm allergic to children, especially my own, I excuse myself from most all of these plans. I'm not sure how convenient this works out for the single mother, but it's an arrangement that causes me some unease. I trust my husband absolutely but I do not trust these other women who seem to attach themselves to him.

Anyhow. Neither here nor there. Long story short- they were going on a boat ride and I was not invited. I felt hurt and miffed and pissed, and decided to treat myself to my own watery fun. I packed a picnic lunch, a good book and some knitting in a drybag, and set off for Dow's Lake this morning.

I went from one set of locks to the other- I think this is around 10, 12 kms? I put my headphones in and listened to my favourite CBC Sunday afternoon programming as I paddled along. Stuart McLean and Mary Hynes are my favourite kind of company.













What a great way to spend the afternoon. I paddled and picnicked for three hours, completely content and pleased as heck that I had finally done this instead of wishing and thinking about it.

I got home after a quick stop at LCBO for some Leffe and had a lovely quiet afternoon in the grass with the kitties. DH and the girls still aren't home, actually, but that suits me just fine. I still may be a little pissed at him, despite my efforts to mollify myself.

Once again, I owe Ottawa an apology. Thanks for showing me another good time, you grand old dame, you! I suspect you have a few more tricks up your sleeve.

For my Ottawa readers- what else should I experience in this city? Is there a certain festival or fixture that you consider "must see"?

Summer in the City, Part 1

We live in Barrhaven, a southern suburb of Ottawa. Although I like the area we live in, there's not a lot that goes on out here, and I always forget that it's really a short drive to the heart of Ottawa to partake in the full range of city life. Ever since I moved to Ottawa from Kingston, I've grumbled that this city seems boring and soulless, but that's really my own fault for not exploring it more. This weekend I've really made the effort to feel the city, and I'm glad I did.

Saturday's entertainment came to my attention courtesy of CBC Radio One. An interview on Friday with an organizer of a dance event on the Sparks Street mall reminded me that I had meant to check it out this summer- this was my last chance. The Spark Street Dance Challenge was wrapping up on Saturday, and as a bonus, there would be a dance competition before the live music started. DH agreed that this sounded like fun, so we all dressed up and ventured downtown.

The girls were pretty dubious at first, and I have to admit I was too, when the dance competition was between three ballerinas, a jazz dancer, a swinging couple doing the Lindy Hop, and another couple who murdered the tango. The competition didn't really hold our attention so we wandered up the street to find some place nice to eat. After we ate, it was time for the band to begin.

The band was a swing band, lively and fun, and the cobblestones of Sparks Street looked pretty inviting as a dance floor. DH and I were pretty brave and took to the floor first, stretching our meager ballroom and Latin dances to fit the music as best we could. As the night fell, soft and welcoming, more bodies slipped onto the floor. We all danced in the warm summer night, forgetting everything but the joy of movement.

The songs were super long- ten minutes each, or so it seemed. Wayne and I would dance together until we were tired, then each of us would take one of the girls by the hand, teach them the steps of the dance, and dance with them for the rest of the song. They were having a ball- when a song would start, they would beg us to go out and dance; it really meant a lot to them for us to be out there.

We were all getting tired by 9, so Wayne invited his eldest daughter for a dance. They danced together, awkward at first but she slowly picked up on the box step he was doing and began to move better together. After a while, I suggested to the youngest daughter that she should cut in on the dance. She did so, and father and daughter shared another special moment.

It was a magic family evening, and I'm so glad we went. May it be the introduction to a long life of dance for those girls.

The Demilitarized Zone

I'm travelling through the demilitarized zone right now. With a month left in uniform, I am wading into the hugely detailed process of wrapping up my career. Appointments, briefings, info sessions and paperwork is the stuff of this next month; no-one really expects me to be around at work a whole lot. I'm going somewhere a lot of people wish they were going, and I carry that aura with me. "She's getting out!" they whisper, half-envious, half betrayed.

I've accumulated a lot of kit in the last 14 years. Kit to see me through war in the forest, desert, and snow as well as nuclear-biological-chemical attacks. I'm turning it all in, five pieces at a time, and freeing up a lot of space in the basement. I turned in a load of winter-warfare crap yesterday, and while the kit didn't have any negative memories attached to it, I was glad nonetheless not to have to use it ever again. I've become too attached to creature comforts to relish sleeping in a tent in the snow and having to haul my weary bones out of a cozy sleeping bag at 0300 for fire picket. No more.

I'll still be subject to the Code of Service Discipline for the next seven months, which means I'll have to wait until the spring to march in a protest, become politically active, dye my hair henna-red, get my nose pierced, or paint my nails orange. I'm not sure I'll actually do any of this when my vow to Queen and Country is dissolved, but it will be nice to have the option.

Half Full or Half Empty?

It would be easy to get a little scared of where we as a North American* society is going. Ever-increasing fuel prices and the promise of rising food prices are just two of the headline stories that have loomed overhead for the past few months. Combine that with the US economy and real estate market dropping, and the anticipation that Canada's markets may not be far behind, and there seems to be legitimate grounds for worry about what the future will bring.

That's if you're a glass-half-empty kind of person. If you're a glass-half-full, you are excited. Here's why I am.

It's no secret that the current, automobile-driven (no pun intended) way of life that has dominated North American society for the last few decades is completely unsustainable. From an environmentalist view, cars and their manufacturing process are responsible for rampant pollution. The roads they drive on ruin natural habitats and suck natural resources. From an economic standpoint, we throw away thousands of dollars a year on maintenance, fuel, and taxes to pay for roads. From a time perspective, millions of man-hours are lost in the everyday morning commute from the 'burbs to the office.

From an urbanist's perspective (Jane Jacobs, in specific,) suburban sprawl, which is only made possible by the overwhelming ownership of personal vehicles, murders communities and wastes land, time, and energy. From a health perspective, the ability to drive everywhere has robbed us of fitness and made our society overwhelmingly obese. The automobile is also partially responsible for the rise of diabetes, in that fast food chains have flourished because they have become so very easily accessible.

So we lose time, money, health, a sense of community, and damage our earth in various ways when we bow in homage to the almighty automobile. Ask yourself who wins. The answer is always the same... Big Business. As long as there is a profit to be made selling cars, they will be made. As long as the government serves as a marionette, with the industry and unions (CAW, anyone?) holding the strings, they will not begin to make the kinds of changes that are necessary. And until government (at municipal as well as provincial and federal levels) starts making changes, there is not much incentive to make the average person park their car and find a better way.

What kinds of changes need to be made is the next big question that everyone should be thinking long and hard about.

There's electric bikes... how cool are these? Or there is always the time-honoured bicycle. What about car-pooling, or even carsharing?

I see these gaps in alternatives as an opportunity, and I'm not alone. I posted a while back on my experiments with hypermiling, a concept I heard about on the pages of Wired magazine. This week it made headlines on CBC.ca ... the concept is catching on. (Incidentally, I've dropped from ~11.3 litres per kilometer to less than 10 lpk (what an unwieldy measurement) in my experiments... and I suspect there's lots of room for improvement.)

The point is that there's plenty of options to the solo-commuter car. Some are less convenient and practical, but eventually, government at all levels will need to step in to help its citizens to find compromises that most can live with. Better mass transit, more bike lanes, less urban sprawl, communities designed around walking, not cars. Answers to the transportation questions to be found when our backs are hard enough against the wall. If they're not now, they will be.

The same can and will happen for food, manufacturing, and other key industries. When the economy makes what we do or how they do it unviable, we will change. We will become more efficient, less wasteful, more respectful of limited resources, and more community-oriented. Despite the fact that rising prices forced our hand, I can't see these as bad things.

Margaret Mead says it best. "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."

We are that small group of thoughtful citizens. Let's recognize that change is very much in our hands... within our families, within our communities, and eventually within our country. The dramatic news stories that threaten doom and gloom ought to serve as a wake-up call, and a hand gently guiding us to solutions implemented not nationally, but starting in our own homes. We have created these problems and we can surmount them.


*North America, for the purposes of this article, is the USA and Canada.

Game On.

I bought my little pick-up truck in 2002. I chose a pick-up for the flexibility of haulage, as I lived out of town at the time on an acreage, and I needed the payload space. However, I also chose a manual transmission and a 4-cylinder engine out of a desire for fuel economy. My little truck has been the best of both worlds... loads of flexibility and decent gas mileage.

However, after reading an article on hypermiling on Wired, I decided last week to see if I could improve my fuel efficiency by changing how I drive. I'm not an aggressive driver, and if I speed, I don't go over 15 kms over the posted limit (more as a nod to legality than efficiency) but there are areas where I could improve. I decided to trial some of the new driving techniques referred to in the article and associated references.

I dropped conscientiously down to the speed limit. I dropped into neutral and coasted down hills, I avoided sudden starts and accelerated slowly and smoothly. I turned my ignition off at intersections. I did this for one week.

I was able to get one extra commute to work and back out of the remaining half-tank of gas that I experimented with. Usually a tank of fuel lasts me two weeks; I will need to fuel up Monday on my way home from work rather then last Friday as usual. That's three less trips to the gas station over the next year, that's an extra $240 in my pocket. (Think of all the extra yarn that would buy!) And all that with only a one week trial.

Tonight I will fuel up again, and play the game for the whole tank of fuel; the results so far have me curious to see what the peak efficiency of my little truck is. Game on.

(My husband plays the same game with his car, often able to go over 1,000 kms on a single tank, but since he drives a hybrid, I can hardly compare our results.)

Thorn In My Side

Some of my unhappiest moments in high school were spent in French class. Our teacher, a thin and beautiful, if middle-aged, Parisian French woman did what she could to make the class interesting. However, she was fighting a battle she could not win. We lived in far Northern BC at the time, and French was the most purposeless subject ever. Who the hell spoke French in Northern BC? No-one who didn't want a sound beating by a bunch of farmers and ranchers, that's who. School should have been about learning relevant, useful things. I hated French with a burning passion and resented every single minute I was in that classroom.

Skip forward twenty years, and over a few provinces. I now work for the Feds, in the Politically Correct Capital of Canada, and French is as much a thorn in my side as it ever was. My career is dictated by how well I can, or can't, parley-vous, despite the fact that the working language for every unit in Canada except the ones in Quebec is English (and believe you me, I'd work at Mickey-D's before I allowed myself to get transferred to La Republique.) My future career in the public service will also be determined by how well (or not) I speak a language I will never use.

What I don't understand is how it came about that roughly 23% of the total population of Canada can dictate how the other 77% of us live our lives and do our jobs. For the number crunchers, this is the total percentage of the Quebec population compared to Canada's in general. I know that only 50% of that 23% are unilingually French and the rest are bilingual or English... but there's no easy way to separate the lunatic fringe of Language Zealots from the rest of 'em.

Yes, I understand their society is all unique and wonderful, that their cheese curds are yummy and I love the convenience of buying wine at a corner dépanneur rather than the liquor store. I love the European feel of Quebec City, the flair that Quebecers tend to show in the matters of personal grooming and attire. I love the fact that roughly 83% of the exotic dancers throughout Canada come from La Belle Province. (Don't ask me how I know that.) It kinda takes the heat off the young women in the rest of the provinces, you know?

Most every French person I have met has been lovely. They did not personally beat me on the head with their Larousse, or act with the overbearing arrogance that the French language laws suggest the province in general suffers from. They are generally witty and warm and don't hate me because I refuse to speak their language, whether I can or not. (Mostly, not. Unless I'm drunk. Then I'm fluently bilingual.)

Yes, Quebec is great and all that. French people, nice. Most of 'em. Just get your freakin, over-reaching, meddling fingers off my career. I'll make you a deal. You keep your language laws in your province, and I'll stay in mine. Let me do my job without having to speak another language. Hire me, rate my performance and judge my career progression by how competent I am at my job, not by factors that are completely irrelevant to my job performance.

If I lived in Greece and spoke Greek, then moved to Italy, I wouldn't expect the country to legislate that everyone else had to speak Greek just so I'd fit in and feel all special. I'd damn well learn Italian and get on with it. You may make the argument that Quebec is a part of Canada, not (yet) a separate part, thus the example doesn't hold. Hasn't Quebec been screaming "distinct! different! nation!" all these years? They can't have it both ways. Well, actually, they can, because they have the rest of us in a political stranglehold and everyone is too afraid to call it like it is.

I'm sick of it. Truly. And I can't wait to move out of this sterile, God-forsaken city, the source and prime example of all that's wrong with the great Canadian bilingualism experiment. I long to be back out West, where my ears and eyes aren't assaulted with the constant doctrine that I'm a second-class citizen because my only tongue is English.

My brother had the stones to pull his son out of the mandatory French classes they were jamming down his throat back on the West Coast. The school board was horrified but my brother, in one of the acts I admire him most for, stood his ground and had his son taken out of French in favour of a more useful subject. Which is anything, really. I wish my parents had done the same when I was a child; perhaps I wouldn't still be sitting here getting furious all over again about the lost time twenty-some odd years later.

I Heart Jim Cuddy

I am such a Canadian girl, with Canadian crushes.



I dare you to listen to this song. Be warned, you'll be humming it for half the day.

NaBlahBlahBlah Is Almost Over!

God, will I be glad when the month of "posting any old crap just for the sake of posting", otherwise known as NaBloPoMo, is over in Blogland in general, so we can return to reading (gasp!) thoughtful posts where people actually have something to say.

My apologies, and admiration, to people who managed to post something worthwhile every day.