Putting your money where your mouth is.

Well, fuck.

Another day, another senseless act of violence, another show of meaningless 'solidarity' by changing a facebook picture, all the while ignoring the terrible things that happen to people around the world, people who look less like you.

Yup.  It's good to be home.

Since the events in Paris this week, a mosque in Peterborough was deliberately set fire.  A woman near Toronto was punched in the stomach, the hijab ripped from her head while she was called a fucking terrorist and told to go back where she came from.

People disgust me, yo.

It's exhausting, explaining to people, so-called Christians, people who supposedly worship a man who decried pointing out the splinter in another's eye while ignoring the beam in your own, that all terrorists are not muslims and all muslims are not terrorists.

But I'm privileged in that if I don't feel like speaking up, I don't have to.

I'm tired of trying to explain that the refugees fleeing Syria are NOT the threat.. they're running from the same threat.

And I will fucking scream if one more person talks about 'taking care of our own first' while doing fuck-all to actually help the homeless and the mentally ill.

Homeless people need help. Yes.  No shit.

The mentally ill need help.  Again, no big revelation there.

Refugees need help. 

None of these things need to cancel the others out.  If we have problems with mental health access and homelessness, it's not because of a piddling number of what... 25,000 refugees? That is 0.07% of this country's entire population.  Not even an entire tenth of a percent. 

That's one town.  One rather small town.

The mentally ill and the homeless aren't going to suffer because we accept a small town's worth of refugees.  They're suffering because of multiple governments that had already forsaken them several times over, governments supported by people who ignore the homeless and shit on people who have to rely on government assistance, but trot them out as an argument for having to 'take care of our own'.

The people complaining don't actually care about the homeless.  One person in a thread said that "The money has to come from somewhere."

Yes, it does.  Probably taxes.  I'm okay with that.  I'm willing to pay taxes if it means homeless people, mentally ill people, and refugees all get help they need (btw, there's overlap in these groups, in case you didn't know).  Fuck yeah.  Sign me up.

If you actually care about homeless people, then I hope you're speaking up just as loudly when MP's and MPP's and municipal politicians are giving themselves raises every year.  I hope you're fighting for better access to affordable and emergency housing.  I hope you're donating to food banks more than just at Christmas and Thanksgiving.  I hope you're fighting for legislation that prevents discrimination against people with mental illness or people with criminal records*, things that often lead to people being unable to support themselves.

But don't trot out the homeless to support your bigotry by saying "We need to take care of our own." 

Parenting Win plus Other Things.

Oh Hallowe'en.  Just because I've been slow on the uptake as far as preparations go, doesn't mean I don't love you as much as I always have.

I usually take this holiday pretty seriously.  My kids take the brunt of it.  The oldest one mostly just humours me but the youngest has taken my enthusiasm for blood and creepiness and run with it.  I dropped her off at a Halloween party at her friend's place today.  At the door we were greeted by a Little Red Riding Hood, and a cute little skeleton and an adorable cowgirl.

And then there's my kid, looking, very much of her own accord, like something coughed up from the very bowels of hell.  Gray, pasty skin, scraggly black hair and blood dripping from her eyes.

I'm so proud.

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Back in 2004, I took a road trip to Fort Frances, Ontario which is roughly a 20-hour drive away from where I live.  On the way, I stopped for the night and slept in the back of my car in the back of a Ford dealership outside of Wawa, Ontario.  In the cramped backseat of my 1992 Ford Tempo, I had dreams of my children turning into werewolves.

As of yesterday, a good chunk of that dealership has been washed away with a stretch of the Trans-Canada highway.  It no longer exists.

Yeah.. I was parked right around there.  - Source

I'm thinking that's a metaphor for something, but I don't know what.

My boyfriend scares me sometimes.

This post is a short preamble to the longer post with pictures that I have planned, that i may or may not get around to writing, of our adventures in the Bruce Peninsula.  Now that Blogger's iPad page has an actual editor, I may get around to posting more.  Also, it's my birthday today, so feel free to fawn accordingly in the comments.

So, this weekend The Guy For Whom I Have Not Come Up With A Good Blog Alias™ who for the purposes of this post, I shall refer to as My Navigator and I took a trip up to Tobermory, Ontario.  One of the stops was to the Bruce Caves, just outside of Wiarton, Ontario.  This conversation happened.

Approximately 1.5 hours before getting to Wiarton, we're looking at the map.  Navigator claims he has never been to these caves before. I'm a little skeptical, since he is one who has Been Many Places, but he insists so I believe him.

Navigator:  So, we have to turn onto Grey Road 1, but since it's in town, it'll probably be called something different.  I dunno, something like "Frank Street".
Me:  It'd be funny if it was actually called Frank Street.

1.5 hours later, we are in Wiarton, driving around getting gas, food and Tim Hortons coffee.  We turn onto a side street.  It's Frank Street.

Me: Whoa, there actually is a Frank street here.
Navigator: weird.
Me:  Heh.  I wonder if that's the road we have to take? That'd be freaky.

We go get coffee and he goes to check the directions to Grey Road one.  He gets back in the car.

Navigator: Okay, so we have to take a right out of the parking lot and another right at the lights. 

So, following his instructions, I take a right out of the parking lot, and a right at the lights.  The street we turn onto, which we have been told is Grey Road 1, looks familiar.

Navigator:  Look.
Me:  Holy shit.  Frank Street? 

Navigator: yup.
Me:  *blinks*  You're fucking scary.

With Respect to Messers Barker, Hoppus and Delonge, I Guess this really is growing up.

Anyone born after 1995 is probably not going to get that title, but oh well. Such is Life.

So, I bought a house. *applause*

Yup. Bought a house, and I take possession at the end of next month. I'm just now getting excited about it, mostly because I'm lost in a haze of "Holy mother of Gord, what the hell have I gotten myself into?" and "Sweet merciful Jebus, what all do I have to do?"

I don't do large purchases well, and this is the largest purchase I've ever made. The day my Real Estate agent texted me to let me know the offer had been accepted, I called my mom and cried, because truth be told, I was scared shitless.

(okay, I still am. Writing about this, even, I could pee a little. That might be the coffee, though.)

So, now I have a month of cleaning, organizing, purging and packing ahead of me. But in the end? My own property, my own home, my own BATHTUB (omg, three years with only a shower, you cannot begin to imagine...) my kids each with their own space, not piled one on top of the other. Amazing. It's been a long time coming and yeah, I have to give myself some credit for doing all this on a single income.

Go me!

Today is the Warrior Dash and I am at home doing laundry and organizing the shed (and blogging, apparently) because the illness I was fighting earlier this week ended up being a rather nasty chest infection that still has not entirely gone away. Huge disappointment, you bet. But considering I can't run across my living room without getting winded right now, a giant obstacle race was probably not in my best interest.

I'm still guest blogging over at Feministe this week. There's a pretty good debate going on regarding scent free workplaces right now, and an earlier post about delaying sexual activity in kids got picked up by The Lady Garden, so although it was not without criticism, that's still pretty cool in my books.

oh, and I got tweeted by the Good Lovelies when I wrote to them to ask permission to reprint their lyrics for this post.

700km, an Off-Roading PT Cruiser and the Faint Sound of Banjos, part 3 (the not-so-dramatic conclusion)

Part One

Part Two

So it looks like this, the third part in my "What I Did A Few Weeks Ago" trilogy will likely be the shortest of the series, as my memory is getting increasingly fuzzy. But, hey, I don't want to leave anyone hanging. In other news, holy crap! TWO posts in one week. How about that??

So Sunday we woke up by the faint light of the sun rising over the blueberry stand across the highway, groggy and stiff from trying to stay comfortable in the back of the Cruiser. Not an easy feat, as he's not one to be scrunched up to sleep and although i generally tend to curl up in the fetal position to sleep, I was trying to remain somewhat conscious of not kicking or hitting the poor man in my sleep. Which I am told, I have a tendency to do.  Sleeping me is quite violent.

This is possibly the shittiest sunrise picture ever taken.  I took this one.

Watching the condensation slowly evaporate, we had a pre-breakfast breakfast of coffee from the Tim Hortons in whose parking lot we spent the night and glorious sweet chelsea buns from the bakery in Bancroft we had visited the previous day. Finishing up, I got tired of watching condensation evaporate (because yes, that IS as boring as it sounds) and rather unsuccessfully tried to dry it up with my t-shirt.

Pre-Breakfast Breakfast.  Tim Hortons, I want some royalties for this.

After getting on the road, our first stop for the Morning was at Cordova Falls, which is just outside of the little mining town of Cordova Mines. Cordova Falls, to date, has probably been the least Impressive of our waterfall hunting excursions, but that may be a result of it being both a dammed (as opposed to damned) waterfall and it being later in the season. I will say I was impressed seeing the pennstock for the dam. Impressed that it had not burst, as this old wooden contraption looked about 60years old and was sprouting leaks all over, some of which had been lovingly and not-at-all-half-assedly patched up with various bits of wood, some of which were jammed right into the leaky spots.

That's Reassuring.

Once we had fully explored the Upper and Middle Falls, we decided to skip the Lower Falls and head to town to see if we could actually locate THE Cordova mine. The town of Cordova Mines, Ontario is a fairly small one, almost a ghost town now. We knew the mine had to be about 4km from the dam we had just visited, as that was what the sign at the dam had told us.

If you can't trust a historical plaque, who can you trust?

One trail that we found almost took us all the way there, we discovered upon checking the maps at home. It started out near a small community hall, the type with a park and picnic benches and tables under shady trees, the type of place one could envision town picnics being held generations before. We braved the path as far as Petey would take us, at one point traversing a ground level river crossing. But beyond this we found a heavy gate with a variety of "No Tresspassing" signs. Later we would find out that what we were looking for was just on the other side.

Those aren't puddles.. that's the river creeping across the path.

...Just in case you didn't believe me.

Giving up on finding the mine, we headed to Peterborough for Actual-Breakfast and to see the Peterborough lift locks.  I can't remember all the ins and outs of how these locks actually work.. it has something to do with water displacement is all I recall.  I'm going to let the wonder that is Wikipedia fill all the dirty details in for you and just say that they were impressive and cool to watch.. we got there just as the first boat of the day was crossing.

See? Impressive.

Breakfast was had at one of GFWIHNCUWAGBA's (okay, acronyms clearly aren't an option here) favoured establishments.  Good potatoes, good eggs.. toast was a little too dark, bacon too crispy.  Good coffee and I got to find out just what in the hell 'Beaver Balls' were.

Turns out, they're basically like Beaver Tails (which I think may be known to people in other countries as Elephant Ears) but in ball form.  The More You Know.  At least they aren't some bizarre Fear-Factor inspired delicacy.  Although I still say that eating bull testicles would have been child's play had Joe Rogan just battered and deep-fried them.

However, I digress.

This was my first ever visit to Peterborough (with the possible exception of visiting my grandfather in hospital shortly before his passing, but that may have been Bancroft hospital) so he took me on a bit of a tour around the downtown and through some of the riverfront parks.  Having been up since about 6am we had made fantastic time to get to Peterborough, look around and still have time to visit my Nanny on the way home.  We got hit with the rain about 40 minutes before Nanny's house, after a weekend of otherwise lovely weather.  So that was lucky.

**************************************

In other news, I'm making a concerted effort to post more.  I've missed it.  I kind of put myself on hiatus writing at Different Paths, Same Destinations when I ran out of fucks to give in regards to my weight-loss efforts. I get the feeling I'm not the only one on a break.  Hopefully the other girls will come back and start posting again.  But we all have lives, and busy ones at that.

My posts here will probably focusing on my day-to-day stuff for the next little bit as I will be saving some of my social-issues ranty type stuff for a two-week guest blogging stint at Feministe (*geekyfangirlsquee*).

Say it with me, Sally Field.  "THEY LIKE ME!"

I'm ridiculously honored to have been asked to submit.  Like, stupidly so.  Like being asked to the cool girls house for a sleepover.  Except I get to write a lot.  So look for my posts over there during the last two weeks of July.

My own childhood bullying tale - or - I'm not fucked up because of how my parents raised me, but how other parents raised theirs.

Today I felt like crying.

No, no.  I'm okay.  Nothing to worry about.  Just feeling bittersweet.  Accent on the bitter, I guess?  

It started with a Facebook group.  *shakes fist in Mark Zuckerberg's general direction*  A group called I GREW UP IN AURORA.

I did, you know.  Grow up in Aurora, I mean.  Aurora, Ontario.  Some of those closest to me may be familiar with the sneer of derision that usually comes with mention of the place.

I'm not actually a member of this group (update: I totally lied.  I am).  My mom is, because she did too. Grow up there.  That may be too simplistic.  I think my mom merely lived there.  It'd be safe to say her actual growing up was done in the neighbouring town of Newmarket, which according to the stories of adolescence I have been regaled with over the years, was a far more rad place than it's neighbour to the south.

A friend of mine who lived in the area for roughly the same period of time (although we didn't meet until years and years later) once remarked that in Aurora, you'd drive down streets where people had paid tens of thousands of dollars on landscaping, only to find nothing but junk inside.

At the time it seemed an apt metaphor.

Gosh, I sound pretty bitter, don't I?  Why all the hate, you may ask?

Interesting question, that.  I'll get to that.

So yeah, because the Mighty Zuck seems to think everyone needs to see everything that everyone does, I caught a link through this group to a photoblog which had, amongst its many posts, photos of the school I attended from grade 1 to 3, which was shut down a few short years back.

It's a tremendous and beautiful building, having first served as a high school (where my grandfather attended) and later used as a primary school for grades 1 through 6.

Seeing the photos was a bit of a head-trip.  I, myself, have not stepped foot inside in over 20 years.  When they closed Wells Street, there was an open house to commemorate it's 100 year history.  The few photos in this woman's blog brought forth a rush of emotion - first, the visceral reaction I generally get when presented with classical architecture.  I'll be the first to admit, I have a bit of an obsession with older buildings.

Second was a flood of memories of the relatively brief but formative time I attended Wells Street Public School.

I was a painfully shy, and oddly intelligent child.  A little awkward, a little chubby.  More interested in the planets and ocean creatures than Barbies and My Little Ponies.  Eager to please, eager for others to like me.  A prime target for bullies.

Third grade was when the two 'popular' girls in my class decided that that year was the year I would have no friends, no fun, no joy whatsoever.  They began to taunt me, promising friendship then ripping it away, with mocking laughter and cruel, cutting, remarks.  They made it well known to all that I was social poison.  Not only would they not be my friend, but anyone who did befriend me would also be outcast.

Two of my best friends would whisper when no one was looking that yes, they were still my friend, even if they put up the act of shunning me as well.

I could hardly blame them.  I had already saw the devastation these two popular girls had wreaked in my own world.  I couldn't let that happen to my friends as well.   My third friend managed to escape the social stigma of being my friend simply by benefit of being a boy.  The threat of expulsion to loser-land was lost on the boys in my class... they were just happy to join in on the fun.

In the evenings, I would cry inexplicably.  I was always crying.  My parents would ask how my day was, what was wrong.  In a quiet voice I'd insist that my day was fine.  Nothing happened.  I was okay.  In tears, but okay.  My sister knew what was going on.. She wrote me letters from the exchange house in Germany where she was staying that winter, telling me she loved me and making empty but appreciated threats to beat the 'little bitches'.  My parents continued to wonder why I was upset all the time but refused to open up to them.

I guess that has just never been my way.

I have no recollection, perhaps I've blocked it out, but I've been told that it got to the point where I was skipping school.  This was how my parents found out about these girls and how they had been tormenting me for most of the school year.  The one girl lived down the street from us, with her grandparents and her mother who was single and worked full-time, relatively unheard of in 1980's Aurora.  Her mother was devastated and truly remorseful that her daughter was capable of treating another kid this way, and blamed herself.  The other child's mother, who had attended high school with my own mother, simply sneered.  She had taught her daughter to be tough.. it wasn't her problem if I was "such a fucking wimp."

I see these pictures of the school and I remember not just its immense empty halls, but I remember walking them, sad, and scared and angry.  The staircase in the second photo from the bottom is the same staircase where I would sit after being sent in the hall.   Heeding the advice of "ignore it and it will go away", I would close my ears to the whispered taunts until finally I would lash out in anger and frustration, only to be scolded and sent to the hall for causing a disturbance.  I'd sit out there and cry and wait until I was sure my face was no longer red and my breathing had returned to normal.

Even then, I had a tendency towards 'The Ugly Cry'.  Oh, look.  There it goes again.

I was lucky enough to change schools the next year after being screened for the region's gifted program.  My problems didn't end there, by any means, but they subsided for a good while.  However, by the time we moved from Aurora to the Midland area, I was good and ready to get the fuck out of there.  I never really felt like I belonged there.  I don't think my family did either.

You know, a lot of this seems trivial in retrospect.  So what?  Everybody had bullshit to deal with as a kid.  But it kind of fucked with me for a long time.  For years I had a difficult time making friend without falling prey to the suspicion that I was being taken for a fool, that I was being set up as part of some grand, Carrie-esque prank and I'd be the girl covered in pig-blood, only instead of wreaking my vengeance all I would be able to do is cry and hate myself a little.  I missed out on what could have been some wonderful friendships because I couldn't bring myself to trust.  That said, I'm thankful for the few long-standing friendships was able to forge over the years.

I'm not going to lie, I've let these memories color my memories of Aurora with a very dark brush.  I think sometimes that I would still like to go back.  To fight my way down Yonge Street where everything is so built up now that you can no longer tell there was ever any bordering area between Newmarket and Aurora.  I'd like to park at my uncle's house (which was the house where we lived) and walk the neighbourhood as I did when I was a kid - my parents were the free-range kid type.

There are still places I have fond memories of..

The Tip of my Tongue.

When I was growing up in Aurora there was a restaurant down the street from my uncle's place, in a plaza (some may know them as strip-malls) on the Southeast corner of Murray Avenue and Yonge Street, at one point the longest street in the world and the eventual route that would take my family on our short but life-altering pilgrimage from Aurora to our current home on the Georgian Bay.

My memories of this establishment are fuzzy yet curiously vivid as well.  Glaring yellow signage ran the length of the outer end of the building - it was the last unit and faced the traffic of Yonge street.  I recall caricatures of old comedy acts such as Laurel and Hardy and W.C. Fields gracing either end of the stylized lettering, now blurred in my mind's eye.

It was a fairly large, licensed establishment, specializing in Italian fare - a family restaurant, before we became inundated with proto-family-cookie cutter chain eateries.  Upon entering, one would walk into a sparsley furnished, harshly lit entranceway with a small counter for picking up takeout orders.  In contrast, the main dining room was lush and romantically lit, a sea of dark wood, leather and tiffany lamps.  As a small child I would swing my feet from the huge bench seats of the booths and look around curiously, in my own world, ignoring the chatter of my parents and sister.

What stands out in my memory, clearer than anything is the Pac-Man game.  The PacMan game sat in the entryway, close to but not quite in the dining area.  It was one of those table-top arcade games where two players could sit on either end and play head-to-head games of Pac-Man.  Occasionally I was lucky enough to be given a shiny quarter to play while we waited to be seated, but even when no quarters were available I was content to sit hunched over the bright flat screen and trace my fingers along the plexiglass, following Pac-Man's gluttonous feast.  My little brain, just then learning to read, would watch as the screen flickered and switched from the demo to the menu screen and mouth along as the rival ghosts were introduces.. Inky, Blinky, Pinky and...

and...

What was the last one's name?  I can never remember.

The last time I was there, I was seventeen.  My friends and I had embarked on a road trip to the city for some reason or another and I, being full of ideas, suggested going to Aurora and driving by my old house.  We stopped there for lunch and it was as I remembered it, mostly.  I don't recall now if the game was still there, but the food and the atmosphere was as I remembered.

That was nearly fifteen years ago.  The restaurant has since been shut down, re-named, under new management.  It's funny though, that with all that I can remember of that place, of the details in the decor and the food and how my child-mind perceived eating in a  big, grown-up fancy-pants restaurant with china and cloth napkins and where I was even allowed to order a Shirley Temple and felt very grown-up doing so... well, with all that, to this day I cannot recall it's name.

Funny, that.

UPDATE:  So, I was at work and standing in the bathroom washing my hands and out of nowhere, it hit me like a ton of bricks.

Barrel Pizza.

Jacques Cartier, right this way...

So last Friday I booked the day off,  booked and hotel for the girls and I, and embarked on the roughly 1000km road from our little dollhouse to Quebec City.  The girls had gotten the bug after I had told them of the trip I took out there a few years ago.  At the time I had taken five days with plans to hit Ottawa, Montreal and if time allowed, Quebec City.  My itinerary was pretty loose, in fact, I really didn't know where I was staying each night until I got there.  I guess it sounded like a pretty fun adventure, so they got on a thing about going to Quebec City as well, and I had said maybe this summer, if we can find the time and the money.

It so happened I had one last vacation day left for this year, and the ex-hub's current wife was going to be laid up due to surgery, so instead of trying to scramble for daycare for two days I figured I'd get daycare for the one day and book the friday off.  It then dawned on me that this was the Friday before Labour day so there was our 'time'.   Still didn't *really* have the money but I DID have the available credit.

I'm usually loathe to put ANYTHING on my credit cards, but with saving for a house I've been scrimping and saving to death and sometimes it feels like I'm missing out on a lot with the kids because I'm always having to say no.

So I said yes (well, actually I probably said "fuck it!") and we were off.

The basic plan was this:

• Drive to Ottawa Friday.  Stay with friends.  Visit Ottawa either Friday night upon arrival, or Saturday morning before pushing on to Quebec
• Stay two nights in Quebec city, having the full day Sunday to explore the city.
• Get up stupidly early Monday morning and book it all the way home in time for dinner.

You'll note that I didn't leave room to visit Montreal.  That is because I don't care much for Montreal.  As someone rather directionally challenged, the roundabouts and one-way streets disagreed with me.

Anyway, a few days beforehand I contacted a friend of mine in Ottawa who I hadn't seen in some time and asked if they would be around.  In an ironic twist of fate, her response was "No, we're not home that night and I really hope you're not telling me you're going to be in Ottawa because we're going to be in the Harbour.  I was going to come see you."

I am the QUEEN of lousy timing.

So via the Facebook, I put out word that the kiddies and I were seeking accomodations for the night in the Ottawa area.  A friend and former co-worker extended an invitation for us to stay with her and her boyfriend so that was set.  I booked a room at a Super 8 in QC (a pretty cool family suite with bunk beds for the kids, and an XBox 360 in-room that we never ended up using) and we were off.

On the way, we stopped in this awesome hippie store in Sebright, ON.  I just spent about fifteen minutes trying to find out what the place is called, with no luck.

There was a giant Betty Boop statue out front and the front doors and windows were covered with tons of pro-choice, pro-gay, pro-pagan, left-wing slogans and bumper stickers.  An old-fashioned triangle hung near the wooden screen door.

Inside was even cooler though.  They sold imported and old-fashion type pop in glass bottles.  The ceiling was covered in old vintage LP covers, and there was a wall dedicated to practical jokes and novelty items.  The front counter was a display of homemade cheeses and meats.

After spending a good 25 minutes looking around, we moved on, stopping in Bancroft.  My grandparents had retired to Bancroft so I spent many summers there before my grandmother eventually sold their house and moved to Orillia to be closer to family.  We visited Nanny and Grandpa's old house and I was a little sad and nostalgic to see that the current owners have kind of let it go.  The gardens out front have been allowed to grow wild only to eventually starve themselves.  I wanted to take some pictures but I saw a curtain move in an upstairs window and felt that perhaps we were being watched.

There's an amazing lookout in Bancroft called the Eagles Nest where you can look out over the entire town.  When I was a kid I used to write scary stores about ghosts that lived the graveyard beneath the Eagles nest.

Yes, we did interrupt some couple having a moment.

We got to Tasha's about 8pm, so really not much time to explore Ottawa once we got there.  Tash left the company where I work to pursue her dream of running a dog kennel, which means that at any given time, they have a good amount of dogs on the property.  During our stay there were about five in the house.  Given that I am not much of a dog person (I respect their right to exist, and don't wish harm upon them but otherwise, leave me alone) I thought this had the potential to be pretty interesting, but considering the number of them, they were well trained and well behaved, and I almost kind of sort of started to like one of them (god help me if I can remember her name though).

This one.

Saturday morning we took the dogs out for a run on the property and Tasha's boyfriend Dave took both the girls on an ATV ride which they enjoyed immensely.  I was really glad she had extended the invite, because I had a really nice time visiting with them, and they were both good hosts.  Thanks again if you're reading this :-)

After saying our goodbyes, we backtracked to Ottawa proper and visited the Museum of Civilization and the Parliament buildings.  It was ridiculously hot that day so after visiting Parliament and getting some ice cream it was unanimously decided that the best option was to get back on the road and try to get to Quebec City before night fall.  Basically it's about six hours to Ottawa, and another four or five to Quebec.

We reached our hotel about 8:30pm and decided to go for a swim and settle for the night, as we would have the entire day to look around.  The Super 8 hot tub could better be described as a 'kinda-warm tub' but at least I didn't feel bad staying in longer than the required fifteen minutes.

Next morning we woke up and it was raining, which put a bit of a damper on plans to park downtown and explore the walled in area that is Old Quebec.  So we had some breakfast, had another swim and got in the car to brave the rain.

Driving down Wilfrid Laurier Boulevard we kept seeing groups of pirates on the sidewalks, waiting in bus shelters.  As we passed the entrance to Laval University I came to the conclusion that this must be some kind of Frosh week activity.

Upon finding ourselves downtown, I tried to find parking and somehow managed to get ourselves on to the Autoroute 40 by taking a wrong turn.  Know what happened then?

You guessed it, we got horribly, horribly lost.

And those Google maps that you print out when you get directions somewhere, don't do shit when it comes to navigation, since they only name about four roads.  Oh yeah.

EVENTUALLY I made it back downtown and found a place for us to park.  We came upon an outdoor Zumba display and looked in a few stores while we looked for a place to eat lunch that wasn't ridiculously expensive, and wasn't McDonalds.  Because yes, even Old Quebec has a McDonalds.  It's a neat looking McDonalds in an old stone building with wood shutters on the upper levels, and possibly even turrets, but it's still a McDonalds nonetheless.

One place got vetoed because the hostess wouldn't let me in with my coffee even though I made it clear we were definitely buying food.  For all three of us.  So congratulations, pub-whose-name-escapes-me, you lost out on what would have probably been a 40 dollar meal, easy.

Eventually we stopped at a place called Buffet D'Antiquiare, which was a neat kind of place with exposed brick, dark wood, framed black and white prints, and large menus written in vibrantly colored chalk.  The waitress met my helpless shrug and inquiry as to whether she spoke English with a bit of impatience.  I had been holding my own okay up until then, very stiltedly making efforts to communicate in French whenever possible, but at that point, the thought of having to order three breakfasts in french was overwhelming so for that little amount of time, I gave up.

After lunch, we continued on foot.  I was trying to get us to the boardwalk that runs between the Chateau Frontenac and the St. Lawrence River.  I had spotted what I thought was the Frontenac's green-copper roof and told the girls to follow it.  However as we drew closer, it because evident that this building was NOT near a boardwalk OR water.

Not the Chateau Frontenac

This, however is. (from 2005)

I approached a young woman and in my stilted French I gestured towards the building and asked "C'est la Chateau Frontenac?"  to which the woman responded by saying no and pointing to a tall peaked roof well off in the distance to which I responded by swearing in English, saying "merci" and saying to the girls "Okay, so remember how I said my sense of direction is better on foot than by car?  It's better, but not by much."  I pointed out the same roof and said "See that roof? That's where we need to be."

Have I mentioned Quebec is a city of many many steep inclines?  Oh yes.  We wandered through the little shops of lower town and took Le Funicular which is kind of like a Wonka-esque Great Glass Elevator that takes you up the hill to the Upper Town where the Frontenac and the boardwalk is located.
While wandering the boardwalk, we spotted another flight of stairs that appeared to go up another level of town.  After walking up these damn stairs for a good 20 minutes or so, I asked another tourist couple "Umm.. where are we?"

Where, was apparently the top of the Citadelle, which are some of the military fortifications that were built in the mid-1700s for the protection of the city.  It's pretty freaking high up.  Funnily enough, where it took about 20 minutes to walk up the 8 million stairs to get to the top, there's a trail on the other side that brings you back downtown in oh.. say 10 minutes.  Yessir.  well, 25 if you have an eight year old child who leaves her sweater at the top of the Citadelle and doesn't realize until you are halfway back to downtown.  And of COURSE it's the really nice sweater that she really likes and that I really like that her Great Grandmother got her for CHRISTMAS so of course we can't just leave it and call it a loss.  I went up the hill just to the point where I could see the lookout where she left, collapsed on the grass and said "Okay, go get it and come back here."  So with eye peeking over the arm I had flung over my face, I saw the little yellow t-shirt sprint across the wide green field, disappear for a few moments and reappear as a yellow and purple blur bobbing and weaving back across the field.

We made our way back to the car (with the kids naysaying my ability to actually navigate us back to the car.. but I made it there!) and we had dinner at the Chinese buffet next to the hotel.  Next morning we got up at six, we're on the road by 7:20 and did a straight out burn down Autoroute 40 to Highway 401, making small stops for gas and to pee, and managed to make it home around 6pm, in time to get ready for school the next day.

Some random pics of Quebec:

View from the Funiculaire

Dirty old man table art

Lower Town

Probably my favourite shot from the whole trip.

Funny story about that last picture.  I saw the guy in the wheel chair kind of struggling to get up the hill, before I saw him turn around and head back down.  A few minutes later, two kids go zooming past, each hanging onto a handle bar, just motoring this guy up the hill.  I think they were his kids.  They were yelling stuff as they shot past, and the three of them just looked like they were having a lot of fun.

Class Elitism, Thy Name is Tiny Beaches

I live in a small town with a lot of waterfront property, yet a proportionately small amount of public water access.  We have one small beach, two public docks and a small number of 'public' boat launches - somewhere in the area of 2-3.

It really frickin' grates my cheese that in a town that is surrounded by water, it is so bloody difficult to find a decent place to swim, especially with small children in tow.  Our public beach is a bit of a mess.  To get to a decent spot to swim, one must first wade through a couple feet of muck, then navigate a trail of slippery, moss-covered rocks before hitting a sandy bottom.  At this point, you may be able to wander out another 50 feet or so before hitting a bed of weed.  At this point, I'm maybe waist-deep in the water if I'm lucky.

Of the two public docks, one is surrounded by weed beds, and both garner a fair amount of boaters and/or anglers which make swimming hazardous at best.  There's one boat launch that has half-decent swimming, but little to no beach to speak off.  About 20 square feet of beach, I'd wager.

The rest of the water front that is taken up by cottages, waterfront homes, and luxury condos the latter of which not only restrict water access to the very wealthy, but also serves to prevent the rest of us from really even enjoying the view of the water.

So it comes that I have to venture out of town to find some decent swimming for my children and I.  About 20 minutes from us there is a long stretch of white, sandy beaches known as The Tiny Beaches.  Over the past few years, debates rages over the sanctity of public use of these shorelines as homeowners in the area attempted to subvert ability to access these public beaches.

This weekend it became clear that this fight for fair access is being lost.  My girls and I had been made aware of a beautiful stretch of beach at the end of the 6th concession of Tiny.  Crystal clear waters, sandy bottom with nary a rock or a weed in sight, water that stretched out for miles.  However, access to this 'public' beach is impeded by a severe lack of available parking.  That is to say, there is NO available parking.  For a while, we were able to park in a vacant lot about 500 meters from the beach entrance.  But this past Monday I was chagrined to find pink tape had been lined across the entrance to the lot and again we were thwarted, so off I drove to try and find parking that would result in less than a 20 minute walk with gear in tow.  Well, you know what?  The road that runs behind this beach, along with all the side roads, are lined with No Parking signs, or with Permit Parking only signs (a $60 fine for each three hour period).

Buy a permit.  That's reasonable, you say?

Sure.  Residents can get two permits for a cost of $15 dollars.  If you're from out of town, be prepared to pay upwards of $75 dollars for a permit.. if you can get one.

Once upon a time, access to these beaches were free for the public.  Then the property lining the shore began to get bought up by wealthy cottagers who did not want the great unwashed littering *their* pristine beaches. Anti-parking bylaws were passed, fences were built, and it became more and more clear that these 'Public beaches' - as are clearly posted - were only for the cottagers, the elite, and their friends... and for, perhaps, those hearty enough to walk or bike out to the far reaches of Tiny Township (which, if you are familiar with the area is a complete misnomer).

Last year one of the few remaining beaches with available parking implemented a 'Pay and Display' system, which is only a little less annoying than the permit parking.  Plans are in the works for next year to have the last remaining 'Free beach' at Balm Beach go pay parking, and restrict parking on the main road leading into the village.  Business owners in the area have protested metered parking, claiming it would cripple their business, which is a reasonable fear in my own humble opinion.

I can sympathize with some of the concerns of residents who pay property taxes to live in these areas.  When I was dating the most recent ex, who lived in the same general area, it was hard to even get to his place while navigating through the throngs of people and cars at the beach.  Thing is, the people, the crowds, the cars are hardly new.   It's not like these folks move in and go "Holy Shit!  People!" (well, maybe, if they buy during the winter months).  No, for the most part, they should probably know what they are getting into. But there seems to be an entitlement amongst the tourist class to come into an area such as ours and squeeze out the local lower-classes by changing the rules of the game to suit their comfort levels.  And of course Municipalities are going to go right along with it, because of the property taxes.

I guess what bothers me the most is that I wouldn't even have to deal with the bullshit parking issues in Tiny if my own constituency had a decent swimming area.  I know, I know.  First World Problems.  People in the world don't even have water to drink let alone swim in.  I know.  I'm whining.  But as someone who operates on a pretty strict budget and would like, once in a while, to have a fun day out at the beach with her children without settling for a mucky, boggy, rocky weedpatch of swimming hole, when there are white sandy beaches stretching for kilometers, if you only you can find somewhere to put your damn car, well, it's pretty frustrating.

*In the name of full disclosure, I should divulge that our family moved to this area from a suburb of Toronto after camping in the area for a number of years.  However, our move was based less on needing a 'summer home' to 'get away from it all' and more on 'Wow, Aurora sucks and living here is expensive as hell!'

Everything I Ever Needed to Know About Canadian Geography, I learned from Twitter.

Hilarious trending topic on Twitter today - #badprovincialmottos  Let's all come up with the worst provincial mottos we can think of.

My contributions:

Ontario: It's where the capital is! No, not Toronto.. Ottawa.. No.. OTTAWA.. Otta.. Oh fr' chrissakes...

Quebec: Britain's Angry Step-Child*

Prince Edward Island: Our Dirt is RED. And yeah, Potatoes.

Manitoba: J-Lo came here once.

Favorites from other Tweeters

Alberta: We Gave you Nickelback.  You're welcome.

Saskatchewan:  As Flat as Your Nine-Year-Old Daughter

Labrador: Not technically a province, but we try!

Alberta: We're Not As Racist As We Used To Be

Newfoundland: where everybody knows your name but outsiders can't understand you when you tell them

Manitoba: It's not always this cold. Sometimes it's colder.

Nova Scotia: We've Got Crabs! 

By now, some of you U.S. readers (and those further abroad) may be confused and or bored and about to click to go find some porn or pictures of cats.  So you can laugh along with our blatant stereotypes, heres a province by province tutorial.  I hereby present:

Canada according to Twitter.

British Columbia:  Weed.  More Weed.  Will someday sink into the ocean.

Alberta: Oil, a fuckton of Conservatives and Nickelback.

Saskatchewan:  Flat.  Regina rhymes with Vagina.

Manitoba:  Boring.  Often forgotten by school children learning the provinces. Big-assed mosquitoes.

Ontario:  Self-proclaimed centre of the universe.  Is really big.  People don't know what our capital is.

Quebec:  French people. Still pissed about the Conquest.

New Brunswick: It's there, and it's not Newfoundland

Newfoundland:  They talk funny.  Weird time zone.  No jobs.

Labrador: Technically not a province.  Kind of like that family member that no one likes to talk about.

Prince Edward Island:  Really small.  And there's potatoes.

Nova Scotia:  Named after a bank. Had a big explosion once.  Shaped like a lobster/penis.

Yukon:  Cold

Northwest Territories: Not quite a province.  Also Cold.

Nunavut: Still Cold.  No one can pronounce its capital (Iqaluit)

For your convenience, I've compiled a map of our main exports, by province. Click to Enlarge.

Remember kids, knowledge is power!

*No, really.  Think about it.  In the context of Mother Britannia, the United States is the kid that ran away because they didn't like the rules.  English Canada is the kid that stayed at home until they finally got told to "..get the hell out, get a real job because you're not staying around here, playing your video games all day and get a haircut, ya hippie!"  Quebec is the angry stepchild who didn't ask to be there anyway and "...besides you're not my real mom!!"