home

New York City is still there. It's still big and noisy and dirty, and I still love it, even though New Yorkers re-elected a mayor who seems to have nothing but disregard for them.

It was great to see friends and family. Everyone is doing well and I had fun all around. But I loved coming home. Home to our cozy little house, home to my loving partner and our wonderful dogs, but also home to Canada. I like showing my Permanent Resident card at the border, seeing the Maple Leaf, driving back on the QEW. Nice.

Two good things happened while I was gone.

V, our new dogsitter, had another successful Buster session. She came in while no one was home, leashed up the dogs and took them for a walk, all with no problems. This means Buster has fully accepted her - which means we're all set, we can go away for US Thanksgiving. Hooray! Patience, plus the advice of our great trainer in New York, paid off.

It's important for us to be able to go away without the dogs, but it's also wonderful for Buster to make new friends. I always felt bad that he lost his human friends when we moved. Cody will make friends with everyone and anyone, but Buster's circle is so small, his life is so restricted - I hated to take him away from anything that made him happy, from anyone he loved. So I'm very happy that he now has a new friend, a wonderful person who cares deeply about animals and really wants to bond with him. Plus we can get out of the house!

And it looks like my editors and publishers have gotten it together, and I can finally begin the next Ancient Civs manuscript. I haven't finished my Kids On Wheels assignment yet, because people I have to interview are lame and won't call me back, but I purposely kept my work for this issue very light. It shouldn't be a problem to juggle both until the KOW is finished, then concentrate exclusively on Ancient Civs. More about that as it develops.

Allan taped Rick Mercer, but - uh-oh - said it wasn't funny. I haven't watched it yet, but will soon. Was the season opener typical?

Comments

  1. mkk11 November 2005 at 05:58

    Hooray for Vera! We are so glad you will be able to leave Buster and Cody in capable hands, so you can join us for Thanksgiving!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Unknown11 November 2005 at 07:00

    I wasn't that impressed with the first show either. I watched it but sat there wanting more. I didn't see the entire series so I can't answer the question.

    ReplyDelete
  3. allan11 November 2005 at 09:26

    was the skydiving bit supposed to be funny?

    i'm impressed he did it -- i think i'd literally die of fear -- but what was the point?

    we'll try it again next week.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Marnie11 November 2005 at 10:34

    I don't think it's so subtly nuanced that you're missing any points. In my view, the show's sole purpose isn't to be funny, but to show us Canada through the eyes of a funny, smart guy. (Who happens to be a big fan of the military, so expect lots of time spent with the troops.) I really enjoyed the In My Riding segment because, hey, that's my riding too, but it didn't have me rolling on the floor.

    I guess you'll either find it funny or you won't -- it's not required.

    ReplyDelete
  5. laura k11 November 2005 at 10:38

    In my view, the show's sole purpose isn't to be funny, but to show us Canada through the eyes of a funny, smart guy.

    Ah-ha, that's interesting. We've been under the impression it's hilarious comedy. In any case, we're definitely going to watch more. I think it might be required, I'll check my immigration papers.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Marnie11 November 2005 at 12:11

    Now THAT's funny, because I was going to make a joke along those lines myself. Thanks for stepping up to the plate. :)

    I think we may have misled you by lumping the show together with Air Farce and Red Green. (Not that those are necessarily hilariously funny either, but they try.) Rick Mercer is smart-funny, while those other shows are lowest-common-denominator-funny, is how I see it. 22 Minutes falls somewhere in the middle, I guess.

    ReplyDelete
  7. dogsled_stacie11 November 2005 at 12:51

    Just catching up here, but tijo - that whole post is Rick talking about his new speed reading skill. He goes on to say he reads articles much faster now, but misses "some of the nuances, but all the facts are there" - then he goes on to totally screw up all the facts. Funny stuff no?!!?

    He calls Justin Trudeau the son of former PM John Turner, and throws Ben Mulroney in there somewhere too. It was actually Justin that canoed the Nahanni in NWT (not Nahinni as he calls it!) with others and a film crew a summer or so ago in order to bring awareness to the area and climate change/global warming and all that.

    He did NOT mention draining it!!! Nor paving... :-)

    Thanks for the link to Mercer's blog btw - it' looks great.

    I thought the show was pretty good (not his best ever though), and yeah, it's not the busting out your sides kind of funny. It's maybe a bit of a warped sense of humour? Give it a few episodes.

    ReplyDelete
  8. laura k11 November 2005 at 15:45

    Thanks for stepping up to the plate. :)

    And you claim you don't follow baseball. :)

    I think we may have misled you by lumping the show together with Air Farce and Red Green.

    The words "hilarious" and "beyond funny" would have added to that confusion.

    But we'll definitely give the show time. Hey, I haven't even seen one episode yet!

    ReplyDelete
  9. Marnie12 November 2005 at 04:10

    >The words "hilarious" and "beyond funny" would have added to that confusion.

    But I think the show IS those things, at times ... and some other things as well, like thought-provoking and cynical.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

sharia

This morning I see that Dalton McGuinty, Premier of Ontario, is banning the Muslim religious court known as sharia . This ends months of debate about whether sharia would be legal and binding in Ontario. I'm quoting at length from the story in today's Toronto Star because many US readers are likely not up on this. In a surprise announcement that caught both supporters and opponents of sharia law off guard, Premier Dalton McGuinty says he will move quickly to ban all religious arbitration in the province. McGuinty made the announcement in a telephone interview with The Canadian Press yesterday after months of debate and controversy surrounding use of Islamic sharia law in family arbitration. "I've come to the conclusion that the debate has gone on long enough," the premier told the news agency. "There will be no sharia law in Ontario. There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians." The announcement prompted t
Read more

observation

This is something I've noticed throughout my Canadian odyssey, from our earliest trips to Toronto to today. I've waited a long time to mention it, to make sure I wasn't drawing a hasty generalization. Canadians seem very careful with money. Frugal. Cheap. Of course no generalization is absolute. But on the whole, people here seem very concerned with how much things cost, and with saving money. I'm not talking about people who simply can't afford things. I've been poor. I know what it is when your basic expenses outstrip your income, how wearing that is, the stress it puts you under. So we'll leave that aside. I'm talking about an attitude. A concern with spending the least amount of money possible, about avoiding or reducing costs if at all possible. An unwillingness to part with money. Phone bills. Parking. Cable TV. The garbage tags I blogged about yesterday. In the US, charging an extra dollar for garbage tags would not create an incentive to put out
Read more

can of worms

I'm opening a sticky subject here, my need to understand causing me to throw caution to the wind. It's about Alberta. Alberta vs. the rest of the Canada. The Globe And Mail runs something about Alberta's gripes every day, and I try to follow along. If it weren't for wmtc's resident Albertan , and the ensuing arguments in comments, I would've had no warning. It's not something Americans know about. As is, observing for more than a year, I have only the smallest of clues. Here's what I know. Please pardon my ignorance and oversimplification, but I have to start somewhere. The province of Alberta is rich, because it has oil. The province of Alberta is conservative, relative to the rest of Canada. Hmm. Funny how those two go together. Because of its great oil wealth, Alberta revenue helps fund services in the rest of Canada. (These are transfer payments?) Apparently many Albertans resent this. They want to keep Alberta's money in Alberta. They don't
Read more