buncha stuff

Random notes today.

ALPF found two more Americans making the move. By coincidence, I registered at 43things.com a few months ago, just so I could encourage yet another American thinking about Canada.

A commenter has an alternative view on Costco.

After reading the lyrics to "The Toronto Song", Wrye had this to say, reprinted here because I enjoyed it so much.

Ah, marriage... Y'know, Canada does turn up in nineteenth century novels and early feminist/suffragette works as the place of last resort to flee to when escaping marriage and/or the patriarchy (normally invoked, as near as I can tell, in the same tones as Siberia would be, if it had been the British hands).

DISCLAIMER: Wrye makes no claim, explicit or otherwise, that Canada is currently patriarchy free. Do not consume patriarchy if pregnant, able to become pregnant, or if prone to high blood pressure, ulcers, or underemployment.

Emigration to Canada is a major step and should not be attempted without first consulting a physician or other medical professional. Discontinue emigration to Canada immediately if frostbite develops.

The first part fits right in with something I've said elsewhere, as well as comments by LonePrimate and others, about Canada as a place of refuge. The rest is just funny.

Kyle was reading early wmtc posts, and asked:

So when exactly did you make the decision to move to Canada? (I looked through the archives, and found your reasons why Canada, and why now, but not when you made up your mind)

When you started saving up money a couple of years ago, had you already decided where you were going to go?

The answer is buried in there somewhere, but since I never expected anyone to read it, I guess I didn't make it very clear.

We started talking about moving to Canada in July 2003. In response to some Moron Administration travesty - possibly involving John Ashcroft - I repeated the old American lefty cliche, "That's it, it's time to move to Canada". And Allan said, "Could we? I mean, seriously, if we wanted to, could we do that?" He said he'd been thinking about it for a while. I had been seriously considering leaving New York anyway, so it didn't seem like a far-fetched idea. At work that weekend, I started looking at CIC info.

Now, simultaneous to this, we had recently gotten out of debt. We had a sizeable chunk of writing income due in, and for once, it wasn't being used to pay off a past vacation. I'm not talking a fortune here - about $6,000. For people who've always had credit card debt, and who've never had a dime in savings, this was very significant.

We had been planning on using that money for a special trip we wanted to make. I suddenly thought, maybe we should hold off. Maybe we're about to make a big change, and that money will be the foundation.

I started to gather information every weekend at work. (I told you this was a great job - tons of down-time for net surfing.) On Sunday night, over wine and the ESPN baseball game, I'd report back on what I learned. The more we talked about it, the more we liked the idea. By September, we pretty much knew. By November, we were starting to plan.

****

And last, has the heat wave in Ontario lifted yet? We are in the midst of one here, temperatures in the high 90s, heat index 105-110. Tonight it's supposed to rain and cool down to mid-80s. Selfishly, I would like the Toronto heat wave to lift before Marnie's birthday. Which happens to be the day we're moving. Please see what you can do.