Tradition, tradition

In England I found Christmas impossible to ignore. Not celebrating it took on a truculent, childish quality, like refusing to eat spinach. Participation-- Christmas tree, turkey, Brussel sprouts, mince pies-- equated to good citizenship, regardless of one's attitude toward or relationship with Jesus.

In the US and, I've found, in Canada, there's much more diversity around the festive season, some of which gets tedious ("Is it okay to say 'Merry Christmas' or does it have to be 'Happy Holidays'," etc.) Mostly we've been away from Toronto across Christmas Day, quite often flying or driving on December 25. But this year, because I've hurt my back and can't sit for too long, we're staying put.

In my Californian childhood my family would go for a drive or a hike or to the beach, bring home bagels and lox or maybe have dinner at the deli. Nowadays it seems almost all the Jewish families I know in north America have converged on a tradition: going out for Chinese food and a movie. People assume that's what we'll do. too. "What are you seeing?" ask my non-Jewish friends. The Yiddishkeit yen for Chinese food actually stems from several generations back:

http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/53569/jewish-christmas?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=78e77d25a3


So, we followed tradition. The meal at Mandarin Buffet was excellent. We saw *Arrival*. Thumbs up from the whole family.

Merry holidays!

It Could Be Worse

I've been taking stock in the long dark of the winter solstice, as the year's end nears. What a year of horrors it has been on the world front, one unbelievably awful event after the next. In a BBC radio comedy programme recently, someone quipped that on quiz shows of the future the questions will begin, "In what year did..." and the winning contestant won't wait for the rest of the sentence but will buzz in with '2016', and be right every time.

The view from Canada seems to be that at least here in the north, things could be worse.  People look south over the US border at the regime change in the offing, and east across the Atlantic to a Brexiting Europe, and treat themselves to some hand-wringing but also to a bit of modest self-back-patting. The ether holds a pulse of national pride. "We are nice," people think. "Just like our reputation. Good for us. Sure, we've got some issues, but really, it could be worse." This is true, in so many ways. But the other thing about Canada, I'm learning, is that 'it could be worse' is more than an expression of contentment and self-gratulation. It's a reminder and a warning: things could be worse!

There seems to be a need to remind themselves just how bad things could get, to conjure up some misery and prepare for it, sort of like a fire drill. 'In the case of real misery, act this way.' Moreover, the powers-that-be inculcate such thinking into their youth, mainly via the education system.  Things could be worse! I've written before about the nation-wide, largely school-based annual commemoration of the unfortunate cancer victim, Terry Fox (who died in 1981), which so terrorized our youngest child shortly after we arrived. The Toronto District School Board's curriculum, in line with the provincial Ministry of Education, incorporates the 'it could be worse' mentality into numerous contexts: equity studies, health, 'novel studies'. This last requires middle-schoolers, kids aged 11 to 14,  to consume Canadian teen literature that is, in my parental experience (third time through), unflinchingly dark and discouraging.  It is an apparently flourishing genre I might call Northern young-adult misery lit. Unlike the ubiquitous dystopian young YA fiction (e.g. The Hunger Games), these novels depict the here, the now, the kids next door or at the next desk. You. Your friends. 

http://www.carriemac.com/books/the-beckoners/

An example is the novel that my 13-year-old daughter is currently reading for school: The Beckoners, by Carrie Mac, an author who, according to her website, lives in Vancouver with her partner and children. In her photo, she is smiling and happy. Meanwhile, the teen protagonist in her tale both experiences and commits bullying on a horrifying scale. For example, the girl is forced to brand herself with a burning fork in order to join a cool gang at her school. She eventually displeases these new friends and, in response. they hang her beloved dog. My daughter has created detailed, well-rendered drawings to illustrate the various plot points. I admire her artistic skills. I'm just unsure where in the house is a good spot to display a picture of a dead dog. The living room?

Recently, my daughter and a friend of hers who attends a different middle school compared notes on their Novel Studies assignments. "In my book, the girl kills herself," the friend says, matter of factly, describing the dark, depressing, and Canadian-set circumstances that drive the character to suicide. I asked both children, is this what it's like in your schools? Girls, do such things happen to you or to people you know? No, they said. Of course not! They look at me as though I've asked whether they have wings. These are children who watch Disney animated films and YouTube clips on how to apply makeup. They have spats, they make up. Their friends are diverse in their family structures, ethnicities, religions, abilities. Relationships ebb and shift and small dramas occur. These are interesting to them, they are absorbing without being tragic or terrifying.

I don't mind what my children choose to read. I don't censor their reading. (Though I do limit, or try to, what television and movies they watch.) But to me, allowing them to read what they choose is different from choosing something for them and assigning it. That's a message. Things could be worse! Feeding them a literary diet of misery and woe as part of their school curriculum seems wrong. But what do I know? I'm a stranger here myself. I asked the girls whether these stories made them cry or feel sad, and they answered, "No," in unison, and definitively, even witheringly. Maybe something about this Northern misery-YA genre is helping them, helping the whole of Canadian society, to be more empathetic and kind, like an inoculation. Maybe it's toughening them up, preparing them for troubles arriving from overseas or over the border. But maybe not. 

Things could be worse. 

A hitchhiker's guide to Canada

Canada is big. Like, really big.

And also really small. There aren't many people. At last count, 36 million or so, for a population density of  4 per square kilometer  or 10 per square mile. In comparison, the UK, with 65 million or so souls (plus Nigel Farage) has a density of 269 per square kilometer  or 697 people per square unit of imperial measure. (Very happy this is a blog, not an academic paper, and I don't have to provide references.) But here in Canada we are not evenly spread, like well-buttered toast. Canada is bottom-heavy. An oft-cited statistic (oft-cited by me, anyway) is that 90% of the Canadian population lives within 100 km (65 miles) of the U.S. border (and not that sneaky one with Alaska). This fact is one of the several knock-on effects resulting from how the War of 1812 ended; I often fantasize, disloyally for an American citizen, about how the Eastern Seaboard right down to Florida could, in an alternate universe, have been Canadian. A further -- and related-- sequel to history as it really happened is the dire condition of Toronto's highways. More than 6 million people live in this area-- one-sixth of the entire nation-- and they all seem to be on the road at rush hour. I stay home then.

The other day I was consulting my family doctor about a back injury  (word to the wise: don't get one. Ow, ow, ow), and happened to mention a friend and colleague of mine, a general practitioner who works in a different city. I used only her first name. "Oh, I know her," said my doctor. And he did. In my academic research, where I do have to cite those pesky sources, we often discuss geographic disparities in access to health care. One of the first things I did when I settled into a desk of my own was to buy a map of the country and pin it to the wall. It's been ever so helpful keeping me oriented. Once I had to look up how many orthopaedic surgeons there were in each province and territory. In some, the number was zero. Another research project involves exploring the effect of big-city specialists holding telementoring sessions with family health teams, better to manage patients with chronic pain. It turns out that so many resources that the urbanites take for granted are simply not there in the vast space beyond. A public swimming pool. Physiotherapists.

Just as there are huge inequities in terms of access to health services,  other necessities are also in short, or expensive, supply. Food, for instance, costs more in the north (which is saying something, considering Toronto prices). Quite recently I learned from my children's piano teacher that music, too, may be considered a scarce resource in Greater Canada. This teacher grew up in Edmonton, Alberta, and was taught by a German immigrant. "I don't know how he ended up living there," the teacher mused, "but he is a wonderful teacher. He has a whole system for instruction that he learned from his father. I studied with him for years. He told his pupils who were going on to make music a career that he was offering us a scholarship for our final year of high school. Our parents would not be charged for lessons, on one condition."

With some trepidation, I asked what the condition was. "He said that when we left school, we had to also leave Alberta. If we stepped foot in the province for any of our higher education or training, we must give him back all the money for that last year. He said that there was just nothing going on musically in Alberta, and he wanted us out." Apparently, his prize students obliged him, scattering to the US or to Toronto. Only one returned, having completed her training out of the province. She came back to teach piano. The master did not make her repay the tuition.

Frontierland

"People who refused to leave home couldn't have settled the frontier," says the University of British Columbia's guide to parents of first-year students (aka freshmen). This bit of wisdom reached me a few months ago when we moved eldest child into his dorm.

I get the gist of the kindly-meant message: it's warning me off helicopter parenting. I'm not sure, though, where exactly the covered wagons fit in. Is my son getting an education in felling trees and overrunning terrain occupied by non-Europeans? 

UBC has been a leader in promoting respect for First Nations peoples and their prior occupancy of campus lands. Buildings display plaques with indigenous names, and university ceremonies often begin with a blessing or commemoration in the appropriate aboriginal language. And yet the New World ethos seems hard to eradicate. In my school days, I learnt that 'manifest destiny' was believed to be a divine force for expansion of the United States from coast to coast; I guess it had an impact here, north of the border, too. I'll ask my kids about it, like a good immigrant. 

And by the way, daily contact is working quite well, thank you, Ms. Alexander-Ellis. Praise be to Snapchat. I get to hear of son's mistakes much more quickly than I would have by Pony Express.

(G)O! Canada: 'Liberty Moves North'

First Brexit, now Trump.

Election night: "Only America," said one funny guy on the internet, "could look at Brexit and say, hey, wait, we can do you one better." Husband fished this graphic out of the internet soup: 

After both votes, various of my friends wrote or said something along the lines of "I bet now you're glad you live in Canada!" I shy away from responding because the sentiment makes me uncomfortable.  I am trying to figure out why. For one thing, 'glad' isn't a word I'm using in connection with the election outcome. A further clue is that I'm more irritated hearing such comments after the US elections than I was after Brexit. Then, I could laugh along in a mournful sort of gallows-humour way. Tsk, tsk. My hackles stayed down. Why are they up now?

I guess you can take the American out of America, but not America out of the American. I've noticed before that I'm more of a patriot outside my national borders than I am within them. The Obama years have been heavenly. Flashing my US passport has been a source of pride, so different from the years of Bushes when I kept the blue cardboard cover hidden in a pocket right up to when I stepped to the immigration desk. Living in Indonesia during the Gulf War, I sometimes denied being American in situations where no proof was required. Once, I got caught. In a town I was visiting for the day, I told the driver of a sort of motorcycle rickshaw called a becak that I was Canadian.  Several weeks later I went back to the same town, and heard someone calling 'Canadian! Canadian! Bu! Ma'am!' The same driver. He had spotted me getting off the intercity bus, and wanted to drive me again. I tried to recall the details of the story I'd spun for him. When first we practice to deceive, indeed.

Now is another good time to pretend to be Canadian, or at least, so says The Economist, who calls Canada the 'lonely' representative of liberty:

http://www.economist.com/news/leaders/21709305-it-uniquely-fortunate-many-waysbut-canada-still-holds-lessons-other-western

I find that idea a little frightening, the idea of freedom pushed upward to the polar margins of the globe. A comedy radio show on CBC, 'This is That,' described Canada as 'the US in bad clothing'  but I suspect it's less bad clothing and more shapeless parkas for huddling against inhospitable cold. "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose," sang Janis Joplin. Not that Canada is nothing, but there really are not many people here. Bearing the weight of the free world is a lot to ask of a country whose population is half that of the UK.

There is no denying, though, that, post-Harper, Canada exudes the aura of a safe haven, what with Prince Justin in charge and the national headlines quite often about rectifying, or trying to rectify, past injustices committed by immigrants against indigenes. There won't be a bricks-and-mortar border separating the US and Canada, but I hope the ideological barrier is strong enough to resist a lot of huffing and puffing from the White House. Or rather from Trump Tower.

Funeral for democracy

How, I ask myself at 4:00 a.m., did this come to pass? I tried. I voted. Only once. I made calls to Arizona and Nevada. "Hi, I'm Leslie. I'm a volunteer with Hillary for America. I understand you support Hillary, too."

"No, I don't," said more than one registered democrat on the end of the line.

"Thank you for your time," I would say, according to script, and feel a little worried. I realized I hadn't fully believed in the existence of Trump supporters. Not really. They existed on television, like the Muppets, and on Twitter, like trolls.

I should, obviously,  have been a lot worried. The Muppets and trolls voted in a man who has told us hundreds and hundreds of lies, who has no experience of electoral politics, who molests women for sport, who is racist as well as misogynist and whose fans include Putin and Kim Jong Il, as our commander in chief for four years. 

What a truly terrible feeling. I'm exhausted but don't want to go to sleep only to wake up and realise again that it is true. Can I stay awake for four years? Better yet, can I sleep through them instead? I shall be checking the requirements for Canadian citizenship. The time is unlikely to become riper. I heard that the Canadian Immigration website crashed this evening as the results took their sad and horrifying shape and Americans looked north for an escape route. Come on over, I say to them. Bring a coat.

For my kids, for my parents,  though, I must stay positive. There. Sit up straight. Bake some bread. The man's  going to be president, not king, not czar, not dictator. We are lucky to live under democracy, not because it's the best system of government, but because it's the least worse one.  (Least worst one?) The BBC's satirical radio show "The News Quiz" called this election 'the ongoing funeral for democracy in America.' Well it's not. Democracy is not dead. It lives. 

It's just wearing camouflage south of the border. 

And so to bed. 

My Superpowers

Autumn is beautiful here, yes it is, but it also brings with it one of my pet peeves: leafblowers. These noisy, odiferous machines have to be amongst the most infuriating non-military devices ever invented. Or maybe they are a tool of the military, its secret weapon. Take that, enemy. We'll irritate you into submission. If I had a superpower, it would be to disable any leafblower with a single glance.

Aural blight on the landscape

I know there are social justice issues at stake around who uses the infernal things and why, but my political correctness has hit a wall. Get a rake, people.

Thinking about it, maybe this magic could be just my autumn superpower. Come winter, I'd trade it in for the ability to warm up Toronto without environmental destruction.

And of course in the carefree summertime there would be leisure to use my amazing abilities to create world harmony, cure disease, and heal America from its self-inflicted wounds.

Vote, Americans. Vote.

Quartet in Autumn

I've never really understood people who claim autumn as their favourite time of year. The onset of fall marks the demise of summer's off-leash freedom.

Autumn does however bring out the best in Toronto, especially this year with warm temperatures stretching into November.

Shame about winter and all, but heigh-ho. Turn, turn, turn.

Gourd lovin': Harbord Village Pumpkin Festival

Bike trail

Sun setting on our corner

The other dog park

Love, Canada

Some Canadians decided to cheer America up with a very public display of affection:

http://www.npr.org/2016/10/14/497986850/canada-just-wants-to-tellamericaitsgreat

One American I know said the short video mash-up made her cry.

My heart felt warmed, too, at first. ''Aw, gee, shucks," I thought, shuffling my feet, shyly smiling. Thanks, Canada.

A second response surfaced. Hey. Hey. Wait one cotton-picking minute. Just how low have we sunk to make such a love letter welcome? I am not sure whether to address America or Canada with the question.

I try to imagine a similar campaign emerging from the UK and can't do it. I believe Brits would sooner request a rematch of the Revolutionary War than openly express non-ironic admiration and sympathy for America. Or for anything, really. No way, no how. Nope.

Leaf Peeping

Ontario has some pretty foliage, but the rises and dips in the terrain of New England and upstate New York-- the density of contour lines on the map-- makes for more drama south of the border. A privilege of living in Toronto is being in driving distance of my friends Rebecca and Sam Busselle, in New York State's Harlem Valley, between the Hudson River and the Connecticut border: the Taconic Range. Rebecca took me leaf-peeping on our way to the wonderful farmer's market in Copake.

Route 22

 I must say, it's fine country, this US of A. I'm hoping fervently that its leadership lands in a safe pair of hands #VOTE

Thanksgiving Northern style

We've just celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving. Unlike American Thanksgiving, the northern version doesn't have a (problematic) back story about bumbling pilgrims and hospitable natives and approaching winter and transatlantic knowledge transfer.  Instead it arrives for no particular reason, in a rush, two months earlier than American Thanksgiving, chasing summer's heels. The timing always bothered me.

Not this year. This year I am grateful for the holiday's early appearance, because it brought with it not a pilgrim, but a prodigal: my firstborn child. Eldest son has moved way out west, to the Pacific coast, to attend the University of British Columbia, but he came home for the long holiday weekend. Not without some grumbling, mind, because as it turned out he had a presentation to give and a math quiz to take and upcoming midterms to study for, but the plans had been laid and tickets booked long before. So he boarded the red-eye and landed in Toronto at six o'clock Friday morning. I could hardly sleep the night before and popped awake at 5:00 to collect him.

Special delivery: Pearson Airport, 6 a.m.

He was happy to be home, to be fed and coddled and cuddled. And he needed it. He had a lingering cough and a battered thumb from a bizarre rowing accident and tired, bloodshot eyes. As soon as he entered the kitchen he raided the fridge. Moments later he climbed into bed in his own room and slept for hours. I like to think he does still need his mommy, as well as his daddy and his brother and his sister and his cats. It's been so wonderful for all of us having him here. The best part of the weekend was in fact not sharing the scrumptious feast with good friends, nor witnessing the happy reunion of son with his mates, but having a few quiet hours when the five of us sat home, reading and studying and listening to the radio and playing FIFA '16 and giggling. The stuff that up til a month ago was normal life. I can't believe I ever took it for granted. Silly me.

I am quite sure son enjoyed his visit, the friends and the turkey and the cranberry sauce and his family. But he missed uni, too. "Next year," he tells us, "I'm definitely not coming home for Thanksgiving.  I'll be way too busy."

We shall see. For this year, at least, I'm thankful.

New year's resolution

Bitch, moan, moan, bitch.  I complain way too much about how busy I am; it’s become a reflex, and I tire of the sound of myself. Too much to do, too much to do. I think I can’t. I think I can’t. Enough already! I don't have time for it. Whereso and thereupon, my Rosh Hashanah resolution is to stop complaining about how busy I am.  

Because really, there  is enough time to do everything, or at least everything that matters. 

The problem is that there's no time to do nothing. 

Fine, it's not much of a resolution, I grant that. Probably fits in a tweet. In fact I’ll post it on Twitter (@lectoronto), if I have time. 

Okay, stopping….now.

Shana tova v’ metukah to all. A happy and sweet new year.

Postscript: the other day I emailed my regrets to say that I would miss a meeting at work on Monday due to Rosh Ha’Shana. A non-Jewish colleague wrote back to say ‘Shana Tova’. That's a response I never got at work in England. There is much to be said for Canadian multiculturalism.

Paddling Around

I kayaked in the city one evening last week. Really, right downtown. It was great fun. A friend of mine belongs to a yacht club where she keeps her sailboat along with a couple of spider-ridden kayaks. I don't have a particular fear of spiders or other bugs, but my friend does, so we spent a goodly amount of time hosing off, kicking, and scolding (me) or shrieking at (her) the sleepy critters who, disturbed by yet not understanding the plans for our imminent voyage, skittered everywhere but off. Eventually we evicted them, embarked, and propelled ourselves a number of laps round the marina, which is just next to the runway for the little island airport.

Toronto's 'island' airport

Our paddling was accompanied by a slowly setting sun and rapidly rising airplanes. The CN Tower glowed in the east. Surreal and magical.

Later, I mentioned this outing to a friend in England. "Ooh, now you're a proper Canadian!" she responded.

I hope there's a tick-box for 'kayaking in the heart of Toronto at sunset' on the Canadian citizenship application, because there are times in this country when I feel as foreign as I did when I lived in Indonesia. More so, even; a story for another post. At least I'm not afraid of spiders. That has to be worth something.

Adaptive niche

I've loved the word 'crepuscular' since I first encountered it while studying primate behaviour in Anthropology 1. Crepuscularity pertains to the edges of day and night, to dawn and dusk. Some creatures are diurnal, others nocturnal, and a few species are crepuscular. These are behavioural adaptations to temporal rather than  spatial niches, a way of sharing environmental resources and reducing competition.  Most primates, like us humans, are diurnal animals, but the lemurs of Madagascar cover all bases. They include diurnal, nocturnal, and crepuscular species. 

For most of my life, I have been, unlike most primates, decidedly nocturnal. I pulled my first all-nighter at age nine, in fourth grade, to complete a report on Mt. McKinley, aka Denali. Maybe I'm part lemur, cross-cousins with the aye-aye rather than the chimpanzee. As the years progressed, I found that having babies did not change me, but having teenagers has. I've begun inhabiting the dawn hours. I've become crepuscular.

~~~~~

Our family now live in a big hundred-plus-year-old ramshackle house - every room needs something repairing or updating. And yet somehow our 4-story rambling wreck feels fuller than the much smaller houses where we lived in Hove or Durham, when our children were younger or nonexistent (when they were, as we would tell them, just 'twinkles in our eyes').  In those days, the kids always wanted to be near me and also near each other. I loved having them close (I still do). We tended to migrate en masse from one bit of the house to another, depending on the activity and the time of day. Thus we used all the rooms, but rarely were they all required at once. For instance one bedroom could have sufficed back then. We would put the children to bed in their own rooms for form's sake but I used to wake up in the morning in our enormous king size bed and without opening my eyes, reach out to count the number of heads on pillows. One, two, three. Oh yes, four, including the toes of the one lying upside down. They'd all sidle in during the course of the night.

Moreover, and this was crucial, the children went to bed earlier than we, their parents, did. Our reward for getting them bathed and pajamaed, brushed and storified, before the watershed, or at least not too long after, was having the house to ourselves for a few hours. We might only fall asleep on the sofa in front of the telly, or we might engage in riveting conversation (yes we might), or we might sit silently in our own spaces and work or read. The main thing was that after the kids' bedtimes, we had the place to ourselves and to each other. We surely suffered sleep deprivation, but we enjoyed some peace and quiet. Fair dos.

With teens we have learned that there is no set bedtime, especially in the summer holidays. However late I can stay up, they can stay up later. And their brains never shut down. At midnight as I struggle to code an interview, or to write a pithy paragraph,  or to finish the newspaper, an offspring might wander in and want to discuss the nature of the relationship between philosophy and government, where the graph paper is kept, how to calculate the length of the hypotenuse, or whether the washing machine is free. Maybe there's a question about how their father and I got engaged, or the names of their great-grandparents. Always something interesting, not always something to which the answer is 'go ask your father.' And the parenting adage about being available to listen when your teens are ready to talk rings in my ears. I step away from the keyboard or page and ponder with the relevant child on the nature of Marxism and poetry or the location of the laundry detergent. I enjoy it. We laugh, I learn.

It means that peace and quiet are in short supply, or rather that their availability is uncertain, like sugar in wartime. On the plus side, these days husband and I can go out of an evening without the cost and kerfuffle of hiring a babysitter; still, I found myself missing those few silent hours in the house. And now I know where they are. By a happy accident (jet lag) I discovered the treasure trail to tranquility: dawn. Hence my attempt to cultivate a new, crepuscular niche. 

By next week, however, with the arrival of the new academic year, I'm worried that this house will start to feel bigger and quieter. Our eldest child is leaving for university. We are so proud of him and happy for him. It's all good, I tell myself. That other parenting adage, about the days being long and the years short, has never ever seemed so true. Suddenly my yen for peace and quiet comes under the heading of 'be careful what you wish for'. I sigh a lot, and I cry. I must add Kleenex to our shopping list. I've just emptied the box on my desk (as well as my supply of truisms. I ought to take up cross-stitch.)

Coda:  I have read that some animal behaviour specialists now argue that 'crepuscular' lemurs are in fact more accurately called 'cathemeral', or active both day and night. That might be a better description of me, too.

Bearly There

No camping for us

Cottaging [sic] is a big deal in Canada, or at least in Ontario. Our family have occasionally been invited to join friends at their cottages, which might be edifices as basic as four walls, floors, and a partial roofed, to magnificent palaces that make our own house seem a hovel. We have always enjoyed being guests in these homes from home. This year we received a generous offer from a fellow anthropologist, now a friend, to occupy her cottage on Georgian Bay (the forgotten Great Lake), on our own, figuring out how to cottage [sic] for ourselves. We said yes, with much gratitude, and juggled our dates and plans-- this summer, as most, we have had obligations at home - work, kids' activities-- and abroad-- England, California; family, also work. Husband and I envisioned a few days lolling by a lake beach, watching children cavort like dolphins. We would throw them a few fish every so often, or at least fish fingers. We would read, and write, run and idle.

First thing we learned is that a lot of work goes into preparing to be idle. I read a column in the Toronto Star by Uzma Jalaluddin ( 'The appeal of cottaging finally makes sense' ) about the columnist's first time taking her family, along with several others, to a cottage, and she described their planning meetings beginning weeks if not months in advance. Suffice it to say we were a little more chaotic in our arrangements.

Eventually our car was packed and the route plugged in and off we sped. 'Can we make s'mores while we're there?' daughter asked. She has become a true North American. 

'S'mores?' queried husband. He has not.

'Sure,' I promised. Rashly, as it turned out.

We hit no traffic (that would be down to our late start), and it took under three hours to reach the tiny island on which perched our borrowed cottage. It was exactly as I imagined a cottage would look when I first heard of them (they would be called 'cabins' in California): a spare box, enclosing the bare necessities, lots of space, lots of wood-planked walls and screened windows, lots of board games. Lots of outdoors. Not a hut, not a mansion; rustic, not alpine. This one was born in the middle of last century, its charming history lovingly outlined in a ring-binder on a table.  

View from Turtle Island in the gloaming

Unfortunately, though, we hit a snag. It turned out that in fact not all the bare necessities were available. Although the lake itself, Georgian Bay, was full to the brim with water, none of it was reaching the house. The mechanism designed to pump and purify had been damaged, probably, according to the hastily-summoned caretaker, by a motorboat coming too near the machinery. He expressed his regret, told us repairs could not take place till next week, explained (extremely helpfully) how buckets of lake water could be used to flush the loos, and then departed.  

We ended up leaving, too, after a day and a night, but we used our time well. Water was hauled by wheelbarrow (for la toilette). We had lugged a couple of plastic jugs of drinking water in the car, for emergencies, and rationed those carefully. No bathing or cooking.

Hauling water by the light of the iPhone

Games were played round the long dining table, swimming was swum off a rocky shelf, a kite was flown (by daughter standing on hands, using one foot, and why not), frisbee was thrown, football was kicked, books were read to the sound of wind in reeds. We saw snakes (water and garter) and frogs and found a desiccated ulna beneath the porch.

But the effort of living without plumbing got to us by the second night and we decamped for the town of Parry Sound, sited picturesquely on the lakeshore 30 minutes distant. En route we stopped in Killbear Provincial Park and walked to its lighthouse and beach. We saw no bears, dead or alive. 

Killbear Provincial Park

Books galore

Tiny Parry Sound offered us a cheap motel that accepted dogs,and a waterfront diner that served - lo!- deep-fried s'mores. The next day husband and I rose early for a jog on the shoreline trail. Then we all, dog included, plundered the town's wonderful second-hand bookstore, the delightful Bearly Used Books. Astounded by the volume of our chosen volumes, the staff graciously offered us a 25% discount.

As a last hurrah, we found a small, family-run marina at nearby Otter Lake that rented us a couple of canoes, and we embarked on a family voyage. It lasted 2 hours, rather than 10 days, as seems to be the Canadian norm, but it was a start. When the time comes we shall note it on our citizenship applications. Luckily the dog is already a native son, because he was definitely not a fan of the sport.

We canoed! Canoe?

We arrived home two days early but with the sense of being on vacation still: no plans, no one expecting us anywhere. A staycation tacked to the end. A soft landing. So while the cottage trip may not have worked as planned, it worked for us. 

And eldest son, newly licensed, did much of  the driving! That's the way to travel.

Killbear Beach, Georgian Bay

Free shipping

Son is preparing to leave home for university in British Columbia, far away on the other side of this vast country.  It's a four-and-a-half hour flight. On an airplane. I won't describe the knots in my heart.

Last week son learned his room assignment in the halls of residence -- a shared double in Shuswap House, next to Kwakiutl House, both in Totem Park. (Toto, we're not in the Old World any more.) He and I have been wondering about how to outfit his dorm room. He asks about things like an extra computer monitor and electric strips; I'm talking duvets.

Student dormitory checklist (partial) from Bed, Bath, and Beyond

We are thinking it makes most sense to send the bulky items, like linens and towels, ahead of us rather than flying with numerous suitcases. Bed, Bath, and Beyond is the place to go, I’m told by experienced moms (aka my sisters). I look up the store’s US site: ‘Free shipping on orders over $29!’  it says. I try the Canadian one. ‘Free shipping on orders over $99!’ 

Honestly. The high cost of living in Canada, in black and white. Right there, in banner format. I start to fume. Two countries separated by a common dollar sign. I ask you. 

After I ungrit my teeth and release some steam, though, I calm down, breathe in, breathe out, and consider that in fact, this difference could reflect something deeper dividing the two nations. That $70, might, I estimate, represent the price of universal health care, of a focus on (though not yet the achievement of) tolerance, social inclusion and diversity, of a civil society aiming for a greater measure of civility than that in my native land, especially at the present electioneering moment.  

And, of course, the heating bill. 

It's a theory.

Air Canada

Old phone box with kids, Birling Gap, E. Sussex

I indulged in a madcap, last-minute, too-brief visit to England last week, timed to attend a bat mitzvah. Apologies and regrets to all the friends I did not see; I spent my few days catching people I'd missed on last summer's trip, in between attending the festivities that formed the reason for my trip. Every minute was packed, either with plans for myself or those for daughter, who accompanied me. Only after she and I had passed through the (bizarrely) rapid check-in and security at Heathrow, ready for our flight back to Toronto, did I sit back and breathe slowly. I watched my child zigzag across the shopping mall known as Terminal 3 in a determined quest for PokemonGo quarry. As ever, in that liminal zone, I contemplated my imminent departure, and wondered whether I was leaving home or heading toward it. 

Normally I'm no fan of flying-- every turbulent bump sends my heart racing-- but as we boarded our Air Canada flight from Heathrow for Toronto, and settled into our upholstered capsules, I welcomed the opportunity to sit still, read, watch a film (*Sicario*. Good. Brutal), dole out 'lift-off' sweets to daughter, play games, and think about where I felt least foreign: Canada or the UK. Maybe travelling between the two was my true home. I tightened my seatbelt, accepted a chewy Haribo in preparation for take-off. But wait. Before we could complete a game of Hangman on the seatback screen, of course, we had to watch the safety video. And right there, right then, on the tarmac at Heathrow, I knew I was already back in Canada. 

The small glass square showed a smiling pair of men, their romantic connection signified by the fact that they have a row of three seats to themselves yet choose to sit next to each other. The one in the middle wears a cardigan, another clue to his sexuality. They demonstrate how to buckle seat belts. Next up, a South Asian woman wearing a sari and with a bindi on her forehead smiles broadly as she puts on a canary-yellow oxygen mask and then applies one to the pony-tailed smiling little girl sitting next to her. A besuited white business man frowns as he stows his screen in his wide business class seat (the kind that slip into the arm-rest: way posh). A slim, chic east Asian woman in a pencil skirt and buttoned white blouse carefully studies the laminated floor-plan of the plane, memorizing the location of the overwing doors. A stylish blonde woman in the emergency exit row nods in agreement as a disembodied hand points out the opening mechanism, and not to be outdone, a very handsome, vaguely dark-skinned man of unidentifiable ethnic background(s) and dashing five o'clock shadow smiles delightedly before adopting the 'brace' position.  

Yes, it's Canada. Diverse, tolerant, inclusive. Toto, we're not in England anymore, certainly not with its Brexit-endorsed outbreak of xenophobia and isolationism. Nor are we in the USA, Trumpeting its disdain for Hispanics and Muslims. We are going home, and, right now, it's a home I feel proud to claim.

Being a true curdmudgeon, however, I do have a few objections to the airlines' portrayal of Canada and Canadians. They are as follows: 1) I adore my husband but if given the option to have an extra seat space between us on a flight, I would so take advantage; 2) it's bloody uncomfortable to have your hair in a pony-tail on an airplane because you can't lean back, poor child; 3) except for these few shiny and cheerful good Samaritans, the flight is empty and spacious (on second thought, this may in fact reflect Canada quite well-- just not Toronto); and, finally, finally 4) no one, not even a Canadian with plenty of legroom, would be calm and smiling in a situation requiring an oxygen mask.

Unless social justice, inclusion, and diversity are antidotes to gravity, as well as to misery? 

In any case, it was a serene flight, not an eddy or a bounce, until we landed in Toronto. And if anyone is interested, daughter is currently at Level 7 of Pokemon Go. I'm so proud.

Commencement

My son has become something he never would have managed to be had we stayed in England: a high-school graduate. Like his mother.

In England there is no such status; exams are passed, or not, and kids celebrate, or sulk. In Canada, as in the US, high-school graduation-- also called, oddly, commencement-- is a near-universal rite of passage, accompanied by much pomp and circumstance. I remember my own graduation ceremony, held outdoors on the school's shadeless football field at summer solstice, in Southern California. We wore tank tops and shorts beneath our polyester gowns and sat, sweating and thirsty, while 1095 (why do I remember that number?) students took turns marching to the stage. El Camino Real High School, where I attended grades 10 through 12, had  3500 kids. No one thought this either unusually large or in any way undesirable. My sons' high school, Ursula Franklin Academy, grades 9 to 12 has about 500 kids. It's the largest institution our kids have ever attended.

UFA's ceremony took place in a large, nicely temperate auditorium, with plenty of room for families and friends of the 125 graduating students. The girls wore summery dresses under their gowns, and the boys, for the most part, shirts and ties (and trousers). I admit to shedding the odd tear, but truly husband and I enjoyed the whole thing tremendously: the playing of Pomp and Circumstance (of course), the flock of black robes and sea of mortarboards, the good-hearted speeches (Dr. Ursula Franklin sent a personal message), the suspense of the awards (there were many; son received enough to make us beam, in particular 'The Socratic Thinker Award', which I have renamed his 'License to Argue' medal). We were treated to an excellent musical interlude on the cello by son's super-talented friend, and then a magic show by another boy in which the trick worked (almost) perfectly. There was the time-honored Tassel Ceremony, in which the tassels on the mortarboards are flicked in unison from the left side to the right, signifying the graduates' new status. There was posing for photos with endless configurations of friends and relatives and strangers (again, ma'am, very sorry, I deleted it, honest).

Afterward we went to Fran's Diner, our family's first-ever restaurant in Toronto, situated next to the hotel where we stayed seven years ago. The university had flown us from Brighton to visit this flat and landlocked city in the northern country that might become our home. Lucky for them, the gamble paid off, and a year later we made the move. There were of course other factors influencing our decision, but Fran's played its part. In addition to its great burgers, it stays open 24 hours-- unlike anywhere in Brighton. And even with only 125 kids, graduation lasted well late. Dining out at midnight in Hove? I think not.

So, the boy's school days are done, and the next stage begins. Our young man has decided to head west, to the University of British Columbia, where he will be one of forty-two thousand other students. A big pond. A few years from now, that is a graduation that may take some time. I wonder if there's a Fran's in Vancouver.

Bat Mitzvah miracles

I like to play to my strengths. Who doesn't? I'm good at a number of things, and after a cup of coffee, I might be able think of a couple. What I do know, even with nothing more stimulating than morning tea, is that event planning is not one of my particular areas of expertise. Still, organizing my daughter's bat mitzvah should have been pretty straightforward after the experience I had gained from celebrating her two elder brothers' passages into ritual adulthood.  Those went smoothly, didn't they?

I poured coffee. My memory stirred.

Oh, right.

They were both beautiful events. With glitches. The first one, five years ago, mere months after our moving to Canada, involved a very steep learning curve just to cope with the basics: invitations, a venue, an officiant. The seating plan for dinner was very nearly the death of me. One brother-in-law was a no-show due to an expired passport plus an international border between  California and Canada. We missed him for himself and also for his upper-body strength, as he was meant to be 'hagba', the one who lifts the Torah scroll and pirouettes prettily in front of the congregation.  Luckily, our friend David from England agreed to step in. It was tricky due to the time of year and consequently unequal weights of the two parts of the scroll. Suffice it to say disaster was narrowly avoided. (And if David has taken to doing one-armed press-ups in recent years, that may be why.)

At next son's bar mitzvah, we had some knowledge and experience under our belts. However, husband's aunt, who had come from England for the event, fell and broke her hip the day before the ceremony, which was truly terrible. She spent the next day, in fact the next week, in hospital in Toronto, undergoing surgery (eventually). Fortunately, very fortunately, my father-in-law, brother of said great-aunt, had reminded her to take out travel insurance before embarking on the trip. "Oh, I won't need that," aunt said blithely. Father-in-law, a former solicitor, said firmly, "Do it." So, while our son's great-aunt missed the event she had flown to attend, and (like many) has never really recovered from the fracture and its consequences, at least her expenses were paid. These included a stretch limo to the airport and an upgrade to first class for great-aunt and for one companion (mother-in-law, as it turned out; father-in-law got left back in economy).

So now it's daughter's bat mitzvah. We thought: third time lucky. Surely, we had earned the right to some smooth sailing.

We thought wrong.

On top of all the usual kerfuffle, the things we had actually learned from experience, like deciding honours and other ceremonial issues, the iniquitous seating charts and centre-pieces, we faced completely new and unpredictable challenges. First amongst them: a month beforehand, the fridge broke down and could not be fixed by either of two repairmen. Once its death warrant had been signed, we ordered a new one. "Oh, that's a great choice. It will be here in two weeks," said Denis, at the large, highly-recommended appliance store we chose. Two weeks seemed long. I wondered whether they grew the refrigerators from seed, or harvested parts from fields in Saskatchewan, or Szechuan, and then assembled them by hand, like a jigsaw puzzle. But two weeks gave us just enough time before the out-of-town family and friends arrived. In the meantime, we borrowed a cooler and bought many bags of ice.

After two weeks, sure enough, Denis called us. "Good news! Your fridge is here!" Three days to D-Day. Whew.

"Great!" I said. "Bring it by."

"Oh, no," said Denis. "We don't have any delivery spots until next week."

I muted the phone against the sound of head-banging. "Denis," I said, calmly, at least at first. "I explained this to you. I need a working fridge in my kitchen and I need it before Friday."

To make the excruciatingly long story short(er), in the end, Denis's distribution manager and I had a pleasant chat in which he agreed to deliver the item on Thursday in exchange for a good review online, a result which (further) undermines my faith in reviews.

I made plans to be home Thursday morning. Unfortunately, at that exact time I found myself in the emergency room of our local hospital, a place one never really wants to be, but in particular, not two days before one's daughter's bat mitzvah. Husband escorted me there at 4 a.m., but had to abandon me in a cubicle awaiting my fate sevreal hours later. while he rushed home to take delivery of the fridge. Ananda, our true and wonderful friend who came all the way from London in order to work like a skivvy for week leading up to the bat mitzvah, helped with the shifting of furniture required to get the old appliance out and the new one in. (She helped with so much else too.)

I underwent various unpleasant diagnostic procedures and sat waiting to hear my fate. Meanwhile, my father called me from Los Angeles. Odd, I thought, since he was meant to be on a plane heading for Toronto.

"How are you?" I asked, trying to sound cheerful and to mask the noise of medical machinery and human woe in the background.

"I'm not doing very well," he said, tremulously, and my heart lurched. "I've lost my passport."

How he lost the passport remains exceedingly unclear. In brief, it was there, on his dresser, and then it wasn't. The number of suspects is limited and, all things considered, best if we never identify the culprit. My mother decided to ditch my dad and was at that moment on her way to the airport; at least one of them would attend their youngest grandchild's bat mitzvah. My poor father! He loves his family and hates to miss out on events.  I looked at my watch. We still had almost 48 hours till the ceremony. Sisters, nieces and nephew, my mother and I went into high gear and with everyone pulling together, including my father himself, an airport car-service, and eventually an Uber driver named Emma, accompanied by at least fifty phone calls, three cancelled and re-booked reservations, and a hundred-odd text messages, he made the last possible flight from LA to Toronto: the red-eye. At 2:00 am in Toronto, 11:00 pm at LAX, he and I texted back and forth: "It looks foggy." "Still on schedule." His plane landed promptly the next morning, and he walked into the shul just as the Torah service started. In spite of having agreed, days earlier, to the rabbi's request that we keep the family reunions in the aisle to a minimum, this one, we said, had to be an exception. (Our gracious rabbi understood.)  And it was indeed exceptional. With tears and with joy, we settled to watch my thirteen-year-old daughter become an adult. She did so with grace, aplomb, maturity and beauty. She was perfect.

Afterward, at the party, our daughter and her friends danced and jumped around and dressed up in silly wigs. They spun in circles, competing to see who could hold their arms out the longest, then collapsed in laughter. They raided the candy buffet with abandon, aiming in particular to acquire ring-pops. Perhaps the bat mitzvah girl is not quite an adult yet-- and thank goodness. Baby steps, for her and for me.

And oh yes, my diagnosis. The doctor eventually appeared and said, "It's the best possible outcome you could hope for with these symptoms." It has a multi-syllabic Greek name that took me longer to learn than the chanting I had to do in Hebrew, but the end result was a prescription for watchful waiting. I watched, and waited, and I'm fine. And so was the whole bat mitzvah weekend-- week really-- in fact it was more than fine. It was beautiful. Some very special Toronto friends pitched in to help when it seemed everything was about to collapse, and they made me realize how entrenched we are in a wonderful community, which is a pretty lovely thing to realize.

We were reminded (not that we needed it) of our amazing friends and family who don't live in Toronto, too. To square the circle, Yael, David's wife, played the role of 'hagba', five years after her husband's heroic act. She had it easy, though: at this time of year, the Torah is evenly distributed across its two spindles. (Plus Yael goes to the gym.)

So, our last bar/t mitzvah, and now it's all over! Just the thank-you notes and the photo album to organize, and, of course, that review of the refrigerator to post. Let's see.  "I love it, I adore it, I am crazy about it."

You can take that to the bank.

Member of the Press

It's a pretty catchy title for my first piece of journalism in Canada, if I do say so myself:

The article graces page 5 of the Harbord Village Newsletter, spring edition. (There is no summer or winter issue.) The Times, it's not. My assignment was to cover a proposed pilot project to install a separated bike lane on a stretch of road near us, Bloor Street. It's a contentious plan I've been hearing about since we first moved to Toronto six (SIX!) years ago. In fact if I cycle past the front window of our former rental house, now empty and destined for demolition, I can still see my 'Bike Lanes on Bloor' campaign sticker.

I'm not quite an ace newshound (yet), but nor am I a total novice. Far from it. In elementary school I wrote an article for the Platt Ranch Reporter (or something like that) about child TV actors. The most exciting parts of that for me were 1) getting to interview Erin and Diane Murphy, the twins who played 'Tabitha' on my favourite show, Bewitched, and 2) being permitted to operate the mimeograph machine to print the paper. I still remember the sweetly poisonous smell of the ink. A few years later, in junior high, I took a journalism class. I don't recall writing any articles, but I learned about 'ems' and 'ens' and how to write headlines. It was complicated, using up the right amount of space without running over. A little like Twitter.

Neither of those journalistic excursions allowed me to claim any special privileges (though Mrs. Murphy did serve us lemonade and cookies during the interview). My civilian identity remained intact. The article about bike lanes, however, led me to attend a press conference held by two city councillors. It was perhaps less that I 'attended' and more that I gatecrashed the gathering with my dog in tow on the way home from delivering my daughter to school. I listened to Councillors Joe Cressy and Mike Layton, I took notes, I hauled the dog's leash out from between other reporters' legs. When question time was announced, I raised my hand. That's not how reporters do it, it turns out. They just shout. So I waited for a lull and said, "I have a question about bicycle parking."

"I'm afraid we're only taking questions from members of the press," said the councillor representing my ward, Mr. Cressy. I guess the dog and the bike and the fact that I hadn't yet brushed my hair gave him the wrong impression of me.

"I am a member of the press," I told him, attempting dignity while my cockapoo humped my leg. "I am writing for the Harbord Village Newsletter."

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Joe Cressy back-pedalled, with a small laugh,  his own stab at grace. "Go ahead."

"Sit," I said. The dog did; the councillor stood his ground as I asked my question, to which the answer was "no." I said thank you, collected up the dog and my bike, and rode to the park.

The good news is that city council has passed the motion to pilot the bike lane project at long last. I credit the two city councillors for its success, and I like to think the dog helped motivate them just a bit. He is awfully cute.

In case anyone has finished reading the back of their cereal packet and is interested in The BLoB Approaches, or more interesting news from the wilds of Harbord Village:
 http://harbordvillage.com/files/HVRA_NL_Spring2016_.pdf

Ye Olde Soccer Mom

Last Saturday, at the end of my soccer practice, as we all changed out of our indoor shoes (yep, still playing indoors at the end of April) a young woman with a blond pony-tail mentioned that she would be celebrating her birthday the next day.

“Oh, how old?" asked another player, with short black hair.

"Twenty-eight," said the first.

It turned out that the short-haired one was the same age.

“Well, at least we’re not thirty yet,” said pony-tail, laughing. Then she glanced at me and said, “Oh, sorry.” 

There was no need for them to apologize. I've been around the pitch.

I am a soccer mom. In England this was called being a 'football mum', or equally, a 'mum'. Here in Canada the equivalent is a hockey mom, and I count my lucky stars I'm not one of them. I couldn't cope with the amount of kit, the shockingly early hours, and the ice. This country is cold enough without adding insult to hard, slippery injury.

But long before I was a soccer mom, I was a soccer player. I began my playing career as an undergraduate on a year-abroad scheme at the University of Sussex. All the foreign exchange students were encouraged to join clubs, which, along with bars, formed the backbone of UK undergraduate social life. I enrolled in Ceramics first, hankering to try the throwing wheel, but after the first couple of sessions I had failed to create an object I desired. Everyone else was ready for firing and all I had was a wet lump of clay. "I don't think you belong here," said the instructor, exasperated. "Try a different club." I wiped my greasy hands on a filthy towel and gave up artistic pretensions.

Instead I joined the Sussex University Ladies football side. In that long-ago era, very few ladies, girls, or women in England played the sport, so even with zero ability, my presence was warmly welcomed. I forgot all about the throwing wheel and threw myself into learning new skills, like dribbling and kicking. I gained experience quickly. We were regularly short of team members so that rather than warming the bench as might have been expected, I played nearly all of every game.  I missed the ball more often than I connected, but I could run, often full tilt into the opposition.  "You do a lot of damage to the other team, considering your lack of skill," my coach said to me admiringly, toward the end of the season. I fell in love with the game. The coach had recently defected to England from Hungary and in addition to being brilliant at football, it turned out he had a love of the arts and a wicked sense of humor. "I'm even funnier in Hungarian," he assured me. I fell in love with him too. 

Everywhere I've lived since, I have played the beautiful game. It could almost be a unifying thread of my patchwork life: after Brighton, Berkeley (where I joined the university women's B team); then Bandung. Also, non-alliteratively, I played in Philadelphia, where I suffered a knee injury that kept me off the pitch for a year, and in Durham. After several years in Durham, I developed another condition that interfered with my playing: repeated pregnancy.

Pregnancies became children. In 2004 our family of five moved south, to Brighton, where I transformed fully from player to mother of players. My role became that of standing on the sidelines, often in gusting rain, cheering wetly, or sheltering in the clubhouse, selling lukewarm tea to other parents. I washed the children's football kit, and bought them new boots when they outgrew the old ones. I rescued mis-kicked balls from neighbours' gardens and rooftops. I shivered at the local park while they fashioned a goal from discarded coats and played 'Wembley', or as they called it, 'Wemberley.'

After yet more years, we moved to Toronto and began to learn a new country. We all struggled to adjust but I was particularly unmoored, having no job and no school to ground me, no structure. An acquaintance, now a friend, another anthropologist, asked me to join her soccer team, Genesis. "Come play," she urged. I demurred; how could I, after all these years, get back on the pitch? "Join us for one practice," she said, so I did, just the once, I said. And I loved it. I joined the team. Despite my advancing years, I play once a week, sometimes a game, sometimes a practice. It can take a lot out of me and there's a limit to how much I’m willing to suffer these days. I’m often bruised and battered, and I wear out faster than I did, but-- thus far anyway-- I keep going back for more. 

So, to the young women at last week's practice who were still on the left side of thirty, I said, cheerfully, “No worries. That decade is long past." I shocked them by telling them my age.

"Whoa!" they chorused.

“And you’re out there playing with us?” asked pony-tail. 

“When I'm old, I want to be like you!” said the one with the pixie cut. "Oh. I mean..." And she trailed off.

I knew what she meant, and I knew it was a compliment, and for a few moments I basked in being a role model. Then the glow faded, I gathered up my water bottle and my shin-guards and my ankle brace, and headed home to sort out the kids’ team sign-ups for this season. And to apply ice to my bruises. Ice is good for that.

The Trouble with U

It's also the trouble with 'Z'. Canada is on the fence in terms of its spellings. I have adopted a strategy of randomness when I write, because as far as I can tell, so has the rest of the country. Sometimes they go American, sometimes British. At work I belong to a research group called 'Team Optimize', but I wrote a 'cheque' for a charity contribution. I have described previously the sign at our doctor's office saying 'Medical Centre' which has next door to it one reading 'Travel Center'. (Actually the travel center has since closed down, going the way of cheques/checks.)

Yesterday my daughter texted me from middle school to ask who had made her lunch. I did, I replied. Usually it's her father, but for his birthday, I had wanted to be nice and give him a break. "I don't like it," daughter complained of my cheese, jam, and matzo concoction (it's Passover). "It tastes like farts in my mouth."

I reported this to my husband, also by text. He asked, "Is that bad?" I replied, "Well, it's not a Ben and Jerry's flavor." Red underline. I tried again. "Flavour." Just for fun, I cut-and-pasted into email. This time 'flavor' won.

Canada. Please.

Lynne Murphy at the University of Sussex writes a tremendously entertaining and informative blog that I've mentioned before (I mention it a lot)  called 'Separated by a Common Language' http://separatedbyacommonlanguage.blogspot.ca/ which discusses the Atlantic division of English. However her blog focuses on linguistic differences between the UK and the US. Canada, as in so many other domains, is left hanging, like a Floridian chad, though a lot colder. High of 7C today, by the way, at the end of April. I'm not bitter, no sir, not me. I have been channelling my inner Scarlet O'Hara: "I shall never be frozen again." Until next winter.

But I digress. And now I make my egress.

Saving Helen: #TheArchers

I'm pretty excited because I've just found out what one of my birthday presents will be: a tee-shirt reading "Free the Blossom Hill One".  Below the words is an image of a casserole dish. The One in question is Helen Archer, a fictional character on a radio soap opera that's been running on BBC Radio 4 since 1950. The programme's tagline is 'an everyday story of country folk' and recently, that's a chilling thought. Helen Archer, resident of Blossom Hill Cottage, in the (pretend) village of Ambridge, has for the last year or so been gaslighted and physically abused by her new husband, hashtag #EvilRob Titchener. Devoted Archers listeners have heard what Helen's mostly oblivious family and friends did not. We have shouted ineffectively at the radio, but much more effectively, we have expressed our concerns, comments, cracks, and quips to each other on Twitter. We're the tweetalongers, and we had our finest moment last week when Helen finally decided to leave the bastard. But it all went sour when, after serving #EvilRob a Last Supper of tuna pasta bake--in a casserole dish-- she ended up stabbing him. (Homemade custard was also involved.)

At that point, we trended. I've never been part of a Twitter-storm before; I lead a sheltered life. It's quite something.

There are six fifteen-minute new episodes each week, every week, and an 'omnibus' edition on Sundays. The show itself is rather niche listening. It's a cultural meme; practically everyone in England knows about it, but few people below retirement age will admit to following it. I myself became an Archers Addict long ago, thanks to my pusher, aka my husband. He no longer need bother to keep up, as he can just check with me. Lately, he and I find ourselves discussing events in Ambridge before those at work or home. It's become that gripping. I tried explaining to my husband that this particular storyline has exploded beyond the eccentric little gaggle of fans but he didn't believe me-- at first. Then The Archers started appearing on the front pages of real newspapers in the UK, and on television.  Everyone's talking about it, or so I'm told. I imagine that strangers on the bus exchange views; that cashiers in Sainsbury's give their opinion with the change.

Sales of the 'Blossom Hill' tee-shirts will enrich the funds already raised in Helen Archer's name via a JustGiving page set up by tweeter @paultrueman. The real money-- over 100,000 pounds thus far-- will go to help real women who have suffered domestic violence. Conversations have opened up about the reality and the signs of 'DV' as I've now learned to call it. Legal, psychological, and medical experts have weighed in on Helen's fictional chances and on the real-world chances of woman in similar situations.

New listeners are coming out of the woodwork and navigating their way to understanding via Twitter. @HarrietGunning tweeted 'Is there a support group for people who have never listened to #thearchers and just binged through 9 eps? Asking for a friend'.  @velvetyjoe wrote 'I thought radio was television's poor cousin. #thearchers has taught me otherwise. Much more immersive than tv.' And it's true. I am immersed. Though I'm far from the epicentre, thanks to the magical internet, I can follow along, and tweet along. Still,  it's disappointing that I can't share my views on Helen's best bet for a legal defence with my streetcar driver. Heigh-ho (as a good friend is wont to say).

Anyone with internet can listen in:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qpgr

From the BBC website

But don't say you weren't warned. CBC, this ain't.