A Visit from Flat Stanley

Do you remember reading that book when you were a kid? A Floridian woman on Ravelry asked a bunch of us international bitches if we'd like to have a visit from Stanley for her daughter's school project. So Stanley landed in my mailbox in Toronto, via Nova Scotia, last week.

Last Saturday, I took Stan around with me as I did my Xmas shopping. I was on a mission not only to show Stan the sights, but to finish all the fucking Xmas shopping that day come hell or high water.

We start out in my own neighbourhood of Queen and Bathurst. At the end of my street is Come as You Are, a women's sex shop. Much to my surprise, Stan wants his picture taken there. Naughty, naughty Stan! I never would have guessed!



Further along Queen, Stan stops to have his photo taken in front of my favourite yarn store as a shout-out to the Ravelry bitches.



After picking up a gift for my niece at a kiddie clothing store, we turn the other way and head for the Eaton Centre. On the way, we pass the Condom Shack, where Stan thinks it would be great to have another picture taken. I think he's secretly fascinated with the high concentration of sex shops in my neighbourhood. I guess he didn't realize that Toronto is full of whores. You learn something new every day, Stan!



In our defense, there is very little to do during a Canadian winter but have sex. And it's winter 8 months of the year. Yeah, we like to get laid.

It is hella cold today, BTW. Wind chill like you wouldn't believe! By this time, we are both friggin freezing our asses off. Me literally, because I stupidly wore a thong under my jeans, so my asscheeks are numb. Stan doesn't have asscheeks, though. Anyway, we stopped for a cafe mocha. Stan eats most of that whipped cream, the greedy bastard.



We head out again toward the Eaton Centre, hopped up on caffeine and sugar. (Did I mention I ate a Nutella crepe with that cafe mocha?) As we get near to City Hall, we pass a guy holding forth regarding the recent political shenanigans in Ottawa (see my last blog post!). There's a podium here called "Speakers' Corner." When Canadian nutjobs have something to say, we give them a place to say it, and they use it. See, we Canadians all very civilized, even the nutjobs. Anyway, this guy has a sign claiming that he will be the next prime minister. Stan and I highly doubt it, but he asks me to take a photo anyway, just in case. You never know, right? And if not, hey, Stan has a photo of himself with a bona fide Torontonian nutjob. We love our nutjobs in this town. Since this is Canada, they're mostly harmless and even polite. If you look at the bottom of the photo, you can see that this particular nutjob is even collecting donations for the food bank!



Here's Stan in front of City Hall (as seen in Resident Evil, The Sentinel, Star Trek: TNG and many other fine movies and TV programs). I think we're still allowed to call that thing behind him a "Christmas tree," although some politically correct assholes in City Hall tried to change the name to "Holiday Tree" a couple of years back.



Finally, we made it to the Eaton Centre! Damn, my asscheeks are freezing again! Here's Stan in front of a giant rotating Xmas tree covered with Swarovski crystals. Hey, what's Xmas without excess, eh? Eh? Har har!



We spend 2 hours in the mall buying presents, mostly books because I'm an idiot and apparently I like to haul around 17 lbs of books all day long, duh. OK, I'm too tired to walk to the CN Tower, so we're taking the subway.



Ahhh... at last we can sit for a minute. My dawgs are barkin. How about you, Stan?



We get off the subway and head for the CN Tower, passing through the Air Canada Centre, home of the Toronto Maple Leafs and Toronto Raptors. I have a brilliant idea for another Xmas present, so we stop in at the gift shop. Stan makes 2 new friends. Unfortunately, one of them looks like he wants to eat poor Stan. I rescue him just in time.



We were going to take a picture in front of the ACC, but there's construction going on, so we just keep going to the CN Tower. That's the landmark most people recognize anyway. And here we are!



In case you're wondering what those things are showing through Stan, they're his "bones" (cardboard), which I stuck to him to keep him from flapping in the wind. Did I mention it is fucking windy and cold today?!?!

Since it's right next door, we take a picture of Stan and the Rogers Centre. This used to be called Skydome, but an evil old man bought it and slapped his boring-ass name on it. But the joke's on him, because he died 2 weeks ago. Ha ha! (Too soon?) Anyway, this is where the Toronto Blue Jays play, and the Buffalo Bills hosted a regular-season game here against the Miami Dolphins (shout-out to Florida!) a couple of weeks ago.



Also right next door is one of Toronto's many breweries. Mmm... beeeeerrr... No, Stan, wait until later! He's so bad.



One more shot with the CN Tower for the road. We're practically right underneath it here.



Let's take the streetcar home, Stan. I can't lug these books around any more!!



Who's hungry? Let's go have a beer and some Mexican food at Sneaky Dee's, Toronto's most respectable total dive bar.



The What Faces? Ooo... parental disclaimer!



Stan stole my margarita!



Then he drinks a whole pint of beer. Stan, that beer is almost as tall as you are!!



Uh, he's getting tipsy now.



Oh, STAN! Honestly... some people shouldn't drink. Especially non-Canadians.



At least he does the responsible thing and calls a cab.



And that's Stan's day out in Toronto. I put him in the mail to Winnipeg today. Bye, Stan!

A Letter to Dion and Layton

Re. GG Agrees to Suspend Parliament

Dear Mr. Dion and Mr. Layton,

I must say that I have not been this upset about a political situation in my own country since I was an idealistic university student during the Mike Harris years. Unfortunately, the recent situation in Parliament has resurrected those old feelings of outrage.

Before the Governor General’s decision today to grant Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s request to prorogue Parliament, I was certain that she would refuse his request. The crisis was of his own making, and he created it for nakedly partisan and cynical reasons. Yet, much to my shock and dismay, she granted his request to suspend Parliament for two months. I am still in shock, but now I am also perplexed. I just cannot fathom why she would abet Prime Minister Harper’s self-serving political manoeuvring.

According to Elections Canada, 13,832,972 voted in the last federal election. Of that number, only 38%—or 5,256,529 people—voted for the Conservative Party. The other 8,576,443 of us did not. A coalition government would have duly and democratically represented the majority of voters. However, instead of turning Prime Minister Harper back to face a vote of confidence this Monday, which may have led to the formation of a coalition government, he has somehow won a reprieve from Her Excellency. Certainly, the 8.6 million people who voted for the members of the proposed coalition were not the deciding factor.

There may come a time when a future government will also seek to prorogue Parliament in order to avoid a vote of confidence. Now that this decision has been made, they will have every reason to expect that their request will be granted, regardless of the reason. I am grappling with a very powerful sense of disappointment and not a little apprehension as well regarding the future of my country.

I sincerely hope that you will maintain a steadfast and united opposition to the PMO, which is entirely too thirsty for a type of exclusive power that should never be permitted to a Canadian Prime Minister. It is for this reason that we have elected you; to stand on guard and protect our rights as citizens of Canada.

It has been many years since I was directly involved in any type of political movement, but I think the time has come again for me to be more politically active. If there is one good thing that can come of this, I hope it will be that I am able to encourage more of those around me to take our nation’s destiny out of the hands of a man who grasps for too much power than is seemly and place it back into our own. We are Canada, glorious and free, not the subjects of one man, be he Prime Minister or otherwise.

Sincerely,

[Pandora]

Cc. Her Excellency the Right Honourable Michaëlle Jean, Governor General of Canada
Office of the Prime Minister, Stephen Harper
Olivia Chow, M.P., Trinity-Spadina

Introducing Ayla!

Yesterday, I had the privilege of being present for the birth of my first niece, Ayla!

I was my sister's support person during the birth, along with her husband. At 4:00 in the afternoon on September 3, my brother-in-law called me and said that my sister was in labour. Due to a certain medical condition, my sis already had an epidural in by the time I arrived at the hospital at 4:45. At that time, she was only 4 cm dilated, and her contractions were 3-4 minutes apart. She was also being given a small dose of Pictocin which her doctor raised by small increments every couple of hours.

At first we thought the baby would be born on the 3rd, but as the evening wore on, my sis did not dilate much further. At one point she started to cry because she thought she would have to have a cesarean.

My BIL managed to get about 2 hours of sleep, but my sis and I couldn't really sleep. Some family members came and went in the waiting room, but the hospital wouldn't allow anyone but me and BIL into the labour room, so they couldn't really be a part of what was happening, sadly. By midnight, the only one left waiting was my mom.

Finally, at 4:30 a.m. on the 4th, the doctor checked and confirmed my sis was 10 cm dilated. Woo! There was a flurry of activity as nurses came in and set up for the birth. They propped my sister up and the doc took another look and said, "Whoa, the baby's right there!" And sure enough, there was the head practically out already without any pushing! So the doctor asked her to push, and sploosh! There was the baby! One push, if you can believe it! And here she is!

Born at 4:47 a.m., 6lbs, 2oz. At the baby shower, we had all guessed the gender and weight. Guess who was right on both counts? Yours truly! :-)

They moved my sis and the baby to a regular room about an hour later, which is when my mom finally got to see them. Then, since it was not visiting hours, she had to leave. BIL also had to go to get their sons who were being babysat by his mother and take them to school. So I stayed with my sis and helped her out until he got back. By the time I left it was 9:30 in the morning. When I fell into bed at last, I had been awake for almost 28 hours. I felt like dying!! But yes, it was worth it! I finally have a niece to fuss over. Let the spoiling begin! LOL

Catcher in the Rye, my eye

Good Magazine recently published an article about why we should finally stop teaching The Catcher in the Rye in schools. Then Gawker weighed in with a disingenuous rebuttal.

I'm happy to see that at least someone is having this discussion. I have always hated The Catcher in the Rye with the flaming passion of a thousand fiery suns. Even today, seeing that solid red cover with gold type makes me throw up in my mouth a little. As a black female teen in the 90's, I failed to see why Holden's whining should interest me. Yet, millions of students have this stale text shoved down their throats every year. On top of that, I had the particular misfortune to be at a school that forced us to read Franny and Zooey as well. It's a miracle that I'm not blind today from gouging my own eyes out.

Gawker misrepresents Trubek’s argument . Where did she mention Gossip Girl or Lindsay Lohan? Her revised syllabus is exactly the sort of thing the children of this millennium would enjoy reading. And isn't literature supposed to bring enjoyment as well as provoke thought?

If Catcher simply must be part of the syllabus, it should be relegated to the “classics” portion of the curriculum along with The Great Gatsby and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. The core reading list, however, needs updating so that today’s more diverse and media-savvy students will be interested in reading at all, and so that more students have the opportunity to see themselves reflected in literature. Hey, teenagers of the 50’s were lucky enough to experience this when Catcher was published. But you can't expect the multicultural students of today to be thrilled by all angsy white boys all the time.

Spotting the Odd

This, apparently, is a pole. Just in case, ya know, you were wondering.

Le sigh

A friend of mine just emailed me to tell me how much money my dad makes. The gov't publishes a list of public servants who make over $100,000 per year. I knew he made 6 figures, but I didn't know the exact number until now. Judging by what she said, by the time he retires in maybe 5 years, he will probably be making a quarter of a million dollars a year.

Back when I was a kid missing meals sometimes, he must have been making even more money than I thought. Those bad times are in the past, and yet now the old wound is open again. Argh!

God, thinking back to my childhood when I would see him a couple of times a year and it seemed to me that he was always moving into a bigger house, or driving a new car, or sporting a tan from yet another vacation... meanwhile, I tried to spare my mom from paying income taxes on the paltry $400 per month that he had been paying in child support for me (the amount never changed in 10 years) by asking him to pay it to me directly... and he clawed it back to $250 because he couldn't get a tax break on it anymore. At that time, I can now estimate that he was making over $160,000.

Le sigh.

Last year he claimed that he may have seemed rich at that time, but he wasn't because he had debts and whatnot. Well, that may be so, but he worked really hard to look rich, and I told him it's not my fault I believed his fiction. Now I have to wonder whether it was even a fiction, as he claimed.

Whee!

OK, I'm not actually excited, I'm actually bored, sitting here at Ottawa airport. At least I have my iPod touch to amuse me. That's how I'm posting this. Whee!

I've just spent the weekend here, visiting friends. I wish I had some pictures to post, but my camera is crapola now, you're outta luck.

Anyway, what can I say? We spent a laid-back weekend walking around town getting sunburned in the 30 degree heat. Damn, it was hot! And yes, I was in the bathroom just now and realized I have a sunburn! What's the point of being black if you can still get burned?? I guess I'm like Barack Obama: not black enough. Har har! Burn!