I haven't written because...

It's been a week since my last blog post, figure I should write something, but feeling pretty low energy these days. Think I might have sinus infection: low energy, light-headed, I want to sleep all day and can't sleep at night.

I signed up for a few courses, initially two on Wednesday and one on Thursday. But then I got the brilliant (sarcasm) idea to switch the Thursday class to Wednesday and get it all over with at once. The net result is, I spend a whole day feeling stupid and klutzy. Can't weave, can't woodcarve and can't tai chi.

Isaac says I am cultivating Beginner's Mind.

Want to get out and do other stuff, like visit the Textile Museum, but just too low energy for it.

I am however happy about the American inauguration, I truly hope this is the beginning of something good.

A few pictures of this past week.

Everyone downstairs has been ill, so a lot of hanging out on the couch watching videos...
















...also hanging out at Granne's so Mom can get some work done.














Dobby likes my window, he can watch the street or the room, depending on which is more exciting at the time (and doesn't he look excited?).















Kayak still hanging there, a constant reminder of better times...


















OK, this obviously isn't mine but I like it:

Brrr!

Last night at 10pm all the lights suddenly went out. Looked out the window and the street was dark, it wasn't just us! After groping around in the dark for a few minutes looking for flashlights and candles, we all decided it was bedtime. From my bedroom window I could see some lights on in an apartment building on the other side of the train tracks, and the CN Tower still lit up. So it wasn't the whole city, just our neighbourhood, but I couldn't see how far it extended.

I kept waking up in the night expecting to see my clock radio flashing at me, but no. Fortunately I had piles of duvets on the bed so under the covers it was warm, but by morning the temperature was 12C not just in my bedroom, but in the entire house. Using my headlamp I got up to make porridge and tea (thank goodness for a gas stove!) and then went downstairs to commiserate with the rest of the household.

Phelan has been sick since yesterday with stomach flu, he's still sick and completely miserable. He refuses to wear warm clothes and cries for food which we have to refuse because he just throws it back up. Isaac manages to get internet service on his iPod Touch, sufficient to know that this blackout is serious and widespread.

Gretel gets on her cell phone (once again, having no landline, only VOIP, we are handicapped as far as phone service is concerned) and calls a friend outside the affected area to see if she can take the kids there for the day. On the radio they are saying service may not be back for up to another 24 hours, and this is one of the coldest days so far, -30C with wind chill!

Phelan being sick is a problem, we know he his pretty contagious and don't really want to expose other people's kids to him, but what else is there to do?

Even Dobby is feeling the cold, we are all huddled on the couch, Phelan in Gretel's lap, Tristan in Isaac's lap and Dobby in mine. We are planning for the day, getting the kids someplace warm and leaving taps dripping to prevent pipes from freezing. School and daycare are of course closed, they will have no heat until the power is back.

It feels very strange, very isolating, having no idea what is going on, no access to the internet or radio or TV. Our cell phone batteries are not well charged, we are trying to be careful using them. I manage to find enough batteries to power one radio, the radios here sure need a lot of batteries! Our sole source of heat is two candles. We can't use the gas stoves because they have some safety mechanism that prevents you from lighting the oven without electricity. The gas furnace won't work without the electric fans. We can however use the stove burners to make coffee, tea and porridge.

Gretel calls the daughter of Ross, the older single man across the street, to find out if she has checked on him. Turns out she took him to her home last night before the power outage, and she lives outside the affected area.

While Gretel is talking to her, the lights flick on and the furnace starts up. Yippee, power!

In another hour or two, I'll take off the gloves and hat, the house is slowly getting back up to warm.

The mayor has been on the radio telling people what to do, there are warming stations set up in the affected area. Turn the tap on! Check on your neighbours, especially seniors and the health-challenged! Move your cars off main streets! Go someplace warm!

Around 100,000 people have had their power cut, and Ontario Hydro is gradually restoring service. We were among the lucky 11,000 who got power back before 9.00am. The problem was caused by flooding of a power station at Dufferin and Bloor, they must have been working on the problem all night. The subway could run, but it couldn't stop in our area, it just ran right through to the other side. Streetcars couldn't run at all, they had shuttle buses instead. The affected area is from somewhere west of High Park to east of Spadina, and from St. Clair in the north to Queen in the south. The Bloor subway won't stop between Jane and St. George. That's a long way!

Cast of characters at the dogpark

I finally took a camera to the dog park!

John and I built a snowman last week and it got knocked down on Thursday but John set it back up on Friday, a few inches shorter, and it survived the weekend! It's still upright! I think it was a matter of principle with John, he was kind of annoyed at the local young vandals who knocked it down. Myself I was surprised it lasted more than a day, and even more impressed that it survived the weekend!

So. Here are some of the local dog characters.

Grover is the King of the dogpark, all dogs either worship Grover or try to challenge him, so far no challenger has succeeded. Still the King.














Grover's principle admirer is Pickles, who licks Grover's face every time he sees him. If Grover is late arriving at the dogpark, Pickles sits by the gate, staring down the road that Grover will arrive by. G.rover appreciates Pickles adoration, although sometimes he wishes Pickles wasn't quite so enthusiastic in his face-licking.




Tereska, She Who Must Be Obeyed. The dogs love and fear her, even Grover. It was funny the other day when Tereska came up to Grover and gave him hell for hogging a ball, I've never seen Grover look sheepish and a trifle scared before.

The dogs surrounding Tereska include Magnum and Chico (two black dogs on the left), Pickles (foreground), Petunia the boxer, Sheba an older all white swaybacked dog staring up at Tereska, Abbie the little spaniel with the jacket behind Sheba, Sophie the white and tan foxhound with her face just below Petunia's belly, and I am afraid I don't remember the name of the black and white dog behind Tereska.

This is Dobby and Shiva play fighting. Shiva is the fastest dog in the park, he looks terribly handsome in his sleek yellow and black racing jacket.












The big grey poodle in this picture is Henry, he literally bounces up and down when he is excited. The little one next to him is Abbie. In the background are Petunia the boxer, Magnum (black), Sheba (white) and I think Digby, who looks a bit fox-like. Henry and Abbie are sniffing a snowpile that serves as a surrogate fire hydrant, while the rest of the dogs are checking out the fallen snowman.

Stories of Ruthe and Bill

I went to Barrie and Bobcageon over the weekend to visit Tim, Lori, Ruthe, Bill and Corrine. I returned home Sunday afternoon, quite exhausted. Since we didn't really do a lot, I think it was as much emotional exhaustion as it was physical.

Ruthe and Bill are my aunt and uncle, the last of my Dad's family. They are both in nursing homes in Bobcageon. Ruthe has kidney failure and has refused dialysis, we thought she would not survive the summer but she's still kicking along. Bill had a stroke a number of years ago and his physical care requires a lot more than his wife Corrine could handle at home. Both of them are otherwise bright and communicative.

I drove up to Barrie on Friday to stay overnight at my brother and sister-in-law Tim and Lori's place, and then on Saturday Tim and I drove to Bobcageon, a couple of hours further away. Although very cold (-25C overnight), the roads were all bare and dry so the driving was good.

We went early to catch Ruthe in the morning while she was still feeling pretty good, she fades in the afternoon. She said this was not one of her better days but still she seemed pretty good. I think we were with her for almost an hour and by the end she was reluctant to let us go but barely able to keep her eyes open. She said she spent a lot of time remembering the old days, especially her very young days at Balsam Lake. She said as she got closer to death her memories were more vivid and alive for her. Tim told her that Mum had said that just before he died, Dad (Ruthe's older brother) had had a conversation with Jess, their oldest but then dead brother. Ruthe reiterated that she did not believe in God or an afterlife, but still, she felt very close now to her parents. Ruthe is a confirmed atheist, no amount of tribulation will sway her conviction.

Ruthe and Bill are in different nursing homes in the same small town. Bill's wife Corrine lives just outside of Bobcageon. Our timing was such that we just had time for a brief visit with Bill before he went to lunch, so we did that and then when Bill went for lunch we also went for lunch with Corrine, at a local restaurant called MacGoo's. We had All-day breakfasts for about $5.00 each. Then we went back to Bill's nursing home for a second visit with him. Bill is in better shape than Ruthe but he also tires after awhile.

Corrine got Bill talking about the old days and about our Dad, she got him to tell a couple of stories and then we asked him questions about his family memories and about some of his own life stories. Our Dad was eleven years older than Bill, who was the youngest in that family. I remember Bill babysitting for Tim and I and mentioned that to Bill, and he said, Yeah, your Mom and Dad were probably out dancing.

Bill remembered Dad riding a horse that was kept in a field near the old Mills place on Long Point, Dad would have made a bridle for the horse and mounted it by leading it to a fence and climbing on from there. Bill would have been just a little kid who looked up to his two older brothers, Ted and Jess. Their Dad was very musical and very handy, Bill remembers Grandad playing the cello, well enough that he played for money and also practiced with the Toronto Symphony Orchestra. One time he brought home an accordion, and Jess learned in the space of a weekend how to play it better than Grandad could. Our Dad played fiddle, the three of them often played together, fiddle, accordion and cello.

Jess and Grandad built a kind of mini-railway to put their boat in and out of the water. They got the tracks from an old railway that used to be out on Toronto Island. Grandad made a fiddle out of an old wooden cigar box, a broomstick and some wire. He used his cello bow to play it.

Dad signed up in the Army and went off to War in 1939 when he was twenty. He came back about six years later, a very different man. Bill said he was older and kind of stressed. Because of his service in the war Grandad gave Dad the family sailboat. Unfortunately, Bill would have been around 15 at the time and he was becoming an excellent sailor, having won a race or two with that boat. He was not so keen on having Dad take the boat away. Dad was moving north to Fraserdale and of course took the boat with him. Just before he did, Grandad and Jesse had made a keel for the boat and bolted it on, changing it from a centreboard boat to a keelboat. It was a pretty good job that they did, but the boat leaked ever after, probably because of the bolts. Anyway, Dad had to make special arrangements to take the boat to Fraserdale as there were no roads there, they had to build a cradle for it and put it on the train. A few years later Mum and Dad returned from Fraserdale, but he did not bring the boat back with them, apparently because it leaked so much that he didn't see the point. Bill is still kind of annoyed with Dad about that. If you take it away, you should bring it back!

I can see that this would have been very upsetting for Bill, he was a young man who had his boat taken away from him just at what would have been the start of his sailing career. As a teenager and the youngest kid in the family, he had no say in the matter.

Something interesting, Bill said that Dad wanted to learn to sail (he woke Bill up very early one morning to get him to teach Dad to sail) in order to impress our mother, Anne. Bill said Anne was an excellent sailor, always was and still is a better sailor than Dad. Which surprised Tim and me, as kids we remember Dad being the sailor, not Mum. We also have no memories of Dad playing any kind of musical instrument, so it was surprising to hear how musical he was before the War. A lot of things changed with the War.

The other regret Bill had was over Grandad selling the cottage at Long Point. He loved that place. Grandad sold it because he just couldn't keep up with the maintenance.

Grandad ran away from home at age 14 to join the circus. He travelled to Chicago and other places, he learned to play the cello and he learned a trade, something to do with printing. He met Grandma in Montreal just as she was arriving from Edinburgh. They settled in Toronto where Grandad grew up but relations with his family were strained. I guess they never really forgave him for running away. Or maybe he had good reason to run away? Bill didn't have any memories of his grandfather, he didn't know why they didn't see much of the grandparents, he just knows that they didn't. Grandad went to Jesse Ketchum Elementary as a kid. Grandad was a very hard worker who was careful with his money and took care of his family, but one time he co-signed a loan for someone and that person defaulted on the loan so Grandad got stuck with it. He impressed on his kids never to co-sign on a loan for anybody, no matter what.

Bill was pretty handy too, I remember him building a sea flea (a little speedboat) and when I told him about building the kayak last summer, he told us about building a canvas and plywood kayak. His description of it sounded awfully like Mike's baidarka! For a long time he flew airplanes for a living, he still is intensely interested in airplanes. By his bed he had a lot of photos, including one of the Avro Arrow which was on display at a museum recently. I was surprised at the photo, I thought all the Arrows had been destroyed, but Bill said there were models that they tested and sank over Lake Ontario; someone went and pulled them out of the Lake. I would like to find out where that model is now, I would love to see it.

Both nursing homes are big and modern, clean and bright. Being in a small town they are surrounded by trees and nice views. Bill's nursing home has more common spaces for residents to gather in, Ruthe's doesn't have common rooms except for the dining room and instead residents gather in the wider hallways in front of the elevator. Corrine thought that Bill was better off sharing a room, she thought that Ruthe got lonely being in a room by herself. She knew a lot of the residents and we said Hi to several people that she knew there. So in many ways it seemed more sociable than Ruthe's home, but it's hard to say from just a short visit. However I think seeing so many very old people like that makes one very conscious of one's mortality; these are among the nicer places to end up, but still...

It was wrenching to leave them, if they had had the energy I would have loved to stay longer. I know Ruthe's days are numbered, I hope I see her again.

Sunday afternoon at the ROM

I just emptied my camera of its pictures in hopes of finding one suitable for yesterday's post, and found a bunch of photos I took at the ROM on Sunday.


(Museum subway station)



I totally forgot about that trip!





Isaac and I decided to take Tristan to the Museum on Sunday afternoon.





Tristan wanted to see the Diamonds exhibit but neither Isaac nor I were interested in it, so we hoped to substitute the new Gems and Minerals exhibit instead.

And I wanted to see the Costumes and Textiles exhibit and the Ancient Ukraine exhibit.



I think Tristan enjoyed it, but we stayed until closing time and as we were leaving Tristan said, But wait! We haven't seen the Diamonds yet!


And of course it was too late, the Museum was closing.



Ah well. I on the other hand was completely satisfied with the trip.

Most of my photos were from the Gems and Minerals gallery, I guess I got tired of taking photos after that.



(Malachite, and close-up)


The colours of the minerals were totally amazing. Absolutely brilliant.


And they weren't even gems, they were "just" minerals.



It must be an amazing experience to find these brilliantly coloured minerals in the ground.




(Copper sheet, five feet high)

The Ancient Ukraine exhibit was about a Neolithic civilization in the Ukraine, called the Trypillians (the ROM spelled it "Trypilian", but I found a Ukrainian website that insisted that the correct spelling was "Trypillian").

These people lived in the Ukraine around 5000-2500 BC, their disappearance remains mysterious. They had the huge settlements, the biggest at that time in history, but they were not "cities" in the sense that they did not have separate buildings or structures for industry, governance or religious activities. Just houses.



(Azurite)

And the houses were fairly widely spaced, with little in the way of defensive structures between or around them. The houses were arranged in two or three large concentric rings.



The exhibit showed an aerial photo of a modern farming area, and you could make out the very faint outlines of an ancient Trypillian settlement, more than 5,000 years old.





They had household altars, wheeled toys and presumably wheeled carts, but no pottery wheels. They made quite beautiful large jars without access to pottery wheels, which I think is impressive.

Their diet was based largely on grains that they grew. They did not keep large herds of animals, although they probably kept a few goats.

So they were not nomadic or pastoral, but their settlements didn't last more than a few decades before they moved on, never to return to that location again.

This civilization pre-dates both the pyramids and Stonehenge.

The third gallery I wanted to see was Costumes and Textiles, up on the fourth floor in the Chin Crystal. There are only two galleries up there so not a lot of people go there.

(Amethyst, in basalt)

I think I want to visit that gallery again as by the time we got there I was getting tired and not really taking it all in. Some absolutely gorgeous costumes from previous centuries though. In the very early 20th century the ROM acquired a huge collection of Chinese imperial costumes, clothing only worn by Chinese emperors and empresses.

I guess after the fall of the last Chinese empire in 1905 those costumes were going cheap on local Chinese markets and the ROM saw a deal. They only had one or two of those costumes on display, what looked like silk kimonos with embroidered dragon emblems.


(Wulfenite)

Apparently there were strict rules about who could wear embroidered dragons, and the colours indicated your rank in the royal court.






Next to the Costumes and Textiles gallery was an exhibit that is hard to describe.

Last year there was an art project on the site of an old Tent City in Toronto, what was once a community of homeless people that last for a few years before being shut down by the police. That land has since been filled with big box stores like Home Depot.




For the project they roped off an area and constructed "houses" that artists painted, the art commemorating the homeless people who used to live there. All of those painted houses are now standing in the top floor of the ROM.





(Pterodactyl)

My membership in the ROM runs out at the end of February, I am not sure that I will renew, so I have to get in as many visits as possible before then.







(Tin soldiers)

I think I would like to get a membership in the Canadian Textile Museum next, it's also of interest to me and it's cheaper. I hope to visit there before the end of January as there are a couple of temporary exhibits that I would like to see, of textiles from Afghanistan.

Between the ROM and the AGO and the Textile Museum, these are as far as I am concerned the saving graces of wintering in Toronto.


(Tristan trying out a "chair" in the Spirit Gallery)

Nitwits and snowmen

A good fresh fall of wet snow, ideal for snowballs, snowforts and snowmen. Not so great for sliding, probably awful for driving.

At the dog park today, John (owner of Grover, a big Husky cross) and I made a snowman, John said it was probably his first snowman since the '70s!

The dogs were intensely interested, several wanting to pee on it before it was even constructed. As a result our snowman now has a bright yellow shoulder, four feet up from the ground.

Right now he only has a knob for a hat, maybe John will find an old hat to put on our snowman later today, when Grover feels the need to return to the scene of the crime.

Last night I went to KnitWits at the College-Shaw TPL branch. Jennifer was there, we greeted each other like long lost sisters, haven't seen her since the Parkdale Fabulous Knitters last spring. It was the first night of the season, so only four of us, but a good time had by all. Carole and Lily were regulars from before Christmas, Jennifer started the group in late October but didn't advertise it until the latest issue of What's On (at the TPL). Carole invited Lily and I to the Knitting Club on Saturday mornings at the Annette branch.

Sam asked me to make him a hat instead of socks, I asked the group for advice last night, and Jennifer suggested trying Noro yarn for a toque similar to the one I made back in the days. Way back in the days! She showed me mittens she made in Noro and I thought they were beautiful so I'm thinking I might try it. I was a bit reluctant to do another hat like my old one, I didn't think it was all that great, but they disagreed. It may be old but it has its good points.

In other news...

Yesterday at the dog park I learned that in our downtown Toronto neighbourhood we have:

- an opossum (and probably more)
- groundhogs
- at least one hawk
- two orange feral rabbits (most likely escaped domestic bunnies).

Besides all the feral cats and big fat squirrels!

Wild, eh?

News from the west

Sam called last night, to tell me about his two new dogs, Malemutes. He's fostering them for a dog rescue agency.

They originally belonged to a Korean family who named them Happy and Hero, good Korean names.

Sam has had them for all of one day and is rapidly falling in love with them and agonizing over the question of whether to adopt permanently or not.

On the upside, he lives in ideal circumstances for keeping a couple of Malemutes and these are dogs that he has wanted for a long time. He has oodles of outdoor space in the mountains, a good-sized kennel next to his house (for leaving them when he is at work), and lots of trails for walking with them.

On the downside, he doesn't know what his future plans are and if he were to move to the Big City (Vancouver) in the next few years he never in a million years would find a place to live with two big dogs, not to mention how restricted and cramped their lives would become.

But for now he is in love.

I've been looking at photos he posted on Facebook of the snow around his place and it makes me "homesick". I have always loved his area, well, always since he moved there in 2005, and I miss it. I examined his online pics ferociously, a series of 8-10 photos he took on a trail near his home, and I recognized every single one, I knew exactly where he was walking and where he was stopping to take a photo. Even though this trail is now under a couple of feet of snow I feel like I know it like the back of my own hand.

And now he has two big friendly Malemutes to share those trails with...

...He says he has no photos of them yet because he has to keep them leashed for the first few days, and with two big dogs on leashes, taking photos is a bit difficult!

Five starling day

This is the view from my kitchen window, the next door neighbour's roof.


See the chimney?



See the starlings sitting on the chimney?


I can pretty much tell how cold it is outside by counting the starlings huddled around the chimney for warmth.

This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago, it's just a 3-starling day. Today it is colder, it's a 5-starling day, and their feathers are all fluffed out.

On the coldest day so far I counted eight starlings sitting shoulder-to-shoulder on that chimney, so today's not so bad!



Christmas has come and gone, the highlight for me was Sam visiting for a week.

Here he is playing a game on his brother's iPod Touch, something he spent a lot of time doing when he was upstairs. When he was downstairs he played on the Wii with the kids.


We managed to get him out for a few walks, but mostly he said he just wanted to hang out and chill. So that's what he did.

I haven't taken a lot of pictures lately, and only downloaded the few that I had today. There were some photos from the trip to the Royal Winter Fair that Tristan and I did in November...

Kids and kids...



Gross pumpkin...














Kids and chicks...












Feeding the goats...


















And this one that I had forgotten about. I don't remember exactly where this house was, but somewhere in our neighbourhood...














The emergency bike...


















Oh yes, and this is Dobby thinking he's a lapdog...
















I haven't been in much of a mood for writing here, nevermind taking photos. I don't see much prospect of the mood lifting anytime soon, so I'm afraid postings here are going to be sporadic at best for the time being.

Wish you all well in the new year!

.

Who's on first, what's the score?

Canadian politics are getting out of hand, if I turn off the radio for even an hour or two, I miss the latest upheavals. Yesterday I spent half the day with the radio turned off, knitting and catching up on snail-mail, and apparently I missed the resignation of Stephan Dion, Bob Rae backing out of the Liberal leadership race, the de facto crowning of Michael Ignatieff as new Liberal leader, and some speech by Steven Harper exhorting everyone to work together. Of course once again he could not resist a bit of mudslinging in the process, this time aimed at the NDP.

This morning lying in bed gathering my courage to leap naked out of bed into the 12C air of my bedroom (the perils of older age, wearing PJs to bed runs the risk of seriously overheating during the night), I contemplated the almost daily momentous changes in the Canadian political landscape. What will today bring? Who's on first? When do the rest of us get to say something?

My brother described The Daily Show episode on the so-called Canadian Crisis to me over the phone, it sounded quite funny. How we were in the process of forcing our current leader out of office, and Jon Stewart asking, You can do this?!? 'Cause we gotta guy...

Anyway, it occurred to me that one of the fundamental differences between the American and Canadian systems is that once elected, Canadian MPs are required to vote the party line, while in the US elected Senators and Representatives are free to vote their conscience. For the most part this means voting the party line, but it does allow for forming temporary coalitions to get legislation through.

In Canada, legislators don't get to do that. Forming a Coalition is a Big Deal. But on another level I think it promotes (in Canada) a more vicious level of talking to or about each other. If you know that you will never have to negotiate a liaison with a member of the opposing party, then you are free to bad-mouth them as much as you want. But if you knew that one day in the future you might be obliged to cosy up to members of the opposing party in order to get your legislation through, you might be a little more circumspect in your insults.

Negative campaigning during elections seems to be a big part of American politics. It's catching on here too, but I have to say that my two weeks in the US during their election was a little disconcerting, it seemed like everybody hated everybody else. Maybe election-time is the only time American politicians get to vent their spleen, the rest of the time they have to mind their mouths in order to make their political system work.

A little bit of that here would be a Good Thing.

Rally 'round the Coalition, boys and girls

Across Canada on December 6 were rallies for both the Conservative government and the Liberal-NDP Coalition. As to be expected, the bigger pro-Conservative rallies were in the west while the Coalition rallies predominated in the east. The perennial East-West split in this country (in addition to the Quebec/rest-of-Canada split).

We went to the Coalition rally at Toronto City Hall, on one of the colder days so far. Tristan got a lesson in parliamentary democracy (see Gretel's post about that here) and then prepared a sign for the rally. He came prepared to educate any who asked on what was going on with his props, two bottles full of red (Liberal), blue (Conservative), orange (NDP) and grey? (Bloc) painted macaronis, carefully counted and bottled to numerically represent the Government and the (Coalition) Loyal Opposition.

There was a large contingent of about-to-be-laid-off Canadian autoworkers (CAW) surrounding us in the large crowd. We could hardly see the stage where Mary Walsh presided and Stephan Dion and Jack Layton gave rousing speeches. When folks around us got excited and waved their signs, we saw nothing at all except signs and backs of heads, the iconic City Hall looming in the background.

This is a pic of the young activist in the making...



On the streetcar ride home I talked to a woman sitting behind me, visiting from Halifax. We agreed that while we supported the Coalition we did not really believe it would survive very long, that PM Harper has narrowly escaped an ignominious end, grace a the Gov-Gen Michaelle John.





I'm listening today to The Sunday Edition on CBC radio, which is totally focussed this week on what it all means. Who is in the right? Who is in the wrong? What's all the fuss about? The main thing I'm hearing is that never before have people all across the country been so up in arms about government. Too bad this didn't happen during the election in October! Politicians are receiving tons of messages from constituents about the situation, and it is a close call as to who is getting the most public support, the Government or the Coalition.

Another interesting thing that was said was that our form of government is not about majority rule, it is about parliamentary confidence. A minority can rule so long as they retain the confidence of the House. This is the issue that has everybody screwed up in knots here now.

Oh, and on a personal note? The hat and scarves in this picture are grace a moi and my amateur knitting needles...

Exciting times

Exciting times here in Canada. Long but excellent explanation of what's going on over at the Yarn Harlot. I quibble with a few of the definitions and details, and she definitely gives a biased opinion on the matter, but since I share her bias I'm not going to quibble too much on that. I have yet to hear an unbiased opinion from anyone, so I guess it's just not possible to sit on the fence on this one.

Within half an hour this post will be obsolete, the Prime Minister is or has just finished speaking with the GG about what to do next. I am hoping she (the GG) will refuse the PM's request to prorogue Parliament, effectively handing the government over to the new Coalition. However, this is a polarizing issue here, essentially western Canada supports the PM and eastern Canada supports the Coalition, with of course lots of exceptions at both ends of the country. But it is divisive and that is unfortunate.

One commentator I heard said that Harper is truly amazing, in his short career he has successfully united both the Right and the Left, something probably no politician in the world has ever achieved. Gotta hand it to the guy, impressive accomplishment!