Headline News

We have survived the Vancouver Monsoons of November 06. Yep...it's true. Just because I feel the need to point it out again, we just had the "wettest month EVER" in Vancouver. Our first rainy season here....and the city breaks the record.

A few stats:

• days with rain:28
• mm of rain: 308
• cm of snow:36.6
• total precipitation: 349mm
• pairs of boots purchased: 2
• pairs of rainpants purchased: 3
• raincoats purchased: 1
• number of days child came home with

• no socks: 1
• someone else's socks: 3

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Where That Boy's Hat At?*

One of the things we love about McKay's new school is the feedback we get from his teachers. We get one (or more) email each day from at least one of his teachers telling us about his time away from us. This one was sent to me a few minutes ago from his teacher Wendy.

I had a sweet conversation with McKay today that I wanted to share. The children were getting ready to go outside and McKay asked me to zip him up.
I said "Don't forget your toque."
"What's a toque?" McKay asked.
I explained that it's a Canadian word for a woolly hat. A toque is what we call this kind of hat in Canada.
McKay said thoughtfully, "Oh, we don't call it a toque at my house we call it a hat. We don't use that Canada word in my family, we speak Atlanta."

You can take the boy out of the south, but you can't take the south out of the boy. We're missing you Atlanta!

* one of our Kirkwood 'hood neighbours would yell this across the street at us every time he saw M. outside in the summer without his sun hat on.

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No two alike...

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There's GOLD in them there mountains

Well....snow anyhow.

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Parallax

As L already posted, we've been under a water boiling advisory for about 36 hours now. I sort of feel like I'm back in Thailand, having to get bottled water to drink. At least I can put TP into the toilet here and I actually get the container when I order a bottle of pop instead of a bag filled with ice and a straw.

I was some ready to rant about this. I have never in my life lived in a place where the tap water wasn't completely safe; where you could just walk up to a tap and drink. I wondered how a country as rich as Canada could have the water supply of its third largest city at the mercy of the weather. Water is just...there, to be taken for granted. How could Vancouver not have a water treatment plant, my thinking went. If Atlanta can pull it together, surely it's not that big a problem.

Then, at Lorraine's urging, I went looking for facts instead of throwing my "irate" switch.

• Two long-time Vancouver residents I spoke with had no memory of this ever happening before.


• As of midnight on 12 November, Vancouver had already exceeded the average rainfall amount for the month of November, which is historically the wettest month. (As an aside, it is currently raining again.)


• The land upslope of the reservoirs was already saturated with water when the winds and rain started again on the 15th.


• There were several landslides into the reservoirs.


• Turbidity (which I learned is a measure of how cloudy the water is) should have a value of roughly 1. On Wednesday, it was above 30. (Link to current readings.)

I remember relearning parallax in my astronomy course. The Ptolemaic model of the solar system got wildly complicated as astronomers hacked and rehacked the model to explain why it sometimes appeared that planets went backwards in their orbits and changed brightness.

My wronged outrage at being forced to live like, well, many millions of people in the world got harder and harder to sustain when faced with more and more facts. It eventually collapsed under the weight of its own exceptions.

I should have come to this conclusion long before I did: sometimes things just break, even if they're important.

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Can I borrow a cup of water?

In addition to the tsunami, heavy wind and heavy rain warnings, we're now under a "Boil Water" advisory. Expecting another heavy rain day tomorrow!

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Ready for Total SubjuGAYtion.

From the November 13 edition of Talk Radio Network's The Savage Nation:
** hat tip to The Brian from Story of the Turtle for bringing this to my attention!

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SAVAGE: And I want to tell you something, and I'm going to say it to you loud and clear. The radical homosexual agenda will not stop until religion is outlawed in this country.

That'd be great, can we start working on that? Can I sign an online petition? I'd picket, but you know, it's cold out.

Make no mistake about it. They're all not nice decorators.

He's right here, at least a few are flight attendants (and don't even get me started on the Flight attendant from hell).

You better get it through your head before it's too late. They threaten your very survival.

I'm thinking there are a few other causes, hang on, let me check. Yep, according to the CDC, gay people have a very low chance of lowering my life expectancy.

They went after the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church is now caving into the homosexual mafia.

The Catholic Church is more sort of falling down because of its pedophilia problem then it is caving in. Although he might have a point if he's talking about the Evangelicans?

They will not stop until they force their agenda down your throats.

Heh

Gay marriage is just the tip of the iceberg. They want full and total subjugation of this society to their agenda.

Let me remind you what's on our current agenda so you can compare and contrast
Monday 9:30-10:00: Iraq
Tuesday: Tobacco companies (site visit)
Wednesday lunch meeting: Gun laws (remember to get publicity photo with famous actor)
Thursday: Every Child left behind (and just in case you missed it the first time we posted it)
Friday: Golf

Now, if you want that and if you don't think it's a threat -- believe me, that is what's going to occur in this country.

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Just in case you thought we weren't paying attention

The house began to pitch, the kitchen senate took a slitch
It landed on the wicked witch in the middle of a ditch.
Which was not a healthy situation for the wicked witch
Who began to twitch, and was reduced to just a stitch
Of what was once the wicked witch

(Munchkin 1)
We thank you very sweetly for doing it so neatly

(Munchkin 2)
You've killed her so completely
That we thank you very sweetly

(Glinda)
Let the joyous news be spread
The wicked, old witch at last is dead

(Munchkins)
Ding-dong the witch is dead
Which old witch? The wicked witch
Ding-dong the wicked witch is dead!

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Lost in the Woods.

This city is full of tree huggers, and apparently always has been.
These are the cross streets between here and McKay's school, going from East to West.

Ash, Heather, Willow, Laurel, Oak, Spruce, Alder, Birch, Hemlock, Granville, Fir, Pine, Burrard, Maple, Arbutus*, Yew, Vine, Balsam, Larch.

If you get turned around in this forest, you can be lost for days. I just keep driving, either I'll hit the Pacific, or Newfoundland.

A healthy whale likes octopus salad and baked halibut. Go forth pale beast, meet a young vapid, busty leach.

Obviously...this is a plea for help. (HELP)


* Cokey assures me it's a small woody shrub.

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Specially Marked Boxes

A bunch of folks have asked lately, "So, how IS Canada anyhow?

"Very good, just a touch of the old bursitis, and you?"

After 6 years in the Grand old US of A (like the Duke of York) there has been some readjustment. I started a list back in August of some of the things that really stick out. Some of these are BC, or Vancouver specific...

• Coin money. No $1 or $2 bills. Only coins. It's amazing, you can find $18 in the bottom of your bag while trying to buy a pop.

• Parking meters everywhere. But, atleast you can call the meter on your phone and charge it with a credit card. It's TRUE!


• Each and Every time you buy groceries, they offer to help you take them out to the car. Even if it's only a litre of milk and some apples.

• Gas is $3.23 USD a gallon. (Had to do alot of math for that one).

• Juice Boxes are returnable for deposit. I wonder if Scouts Canada has drink box drives the way we used to have bottle drives?

• Every product is labeled in French and English. The whole country is cereal box bilingual. "Nouveau look, même goût épatant !" and "les boîtes spécialement identifiées".

• Canadian Tire: A cross between Target, Home Depot and autobarn. You get 1.5% back in "CanadianTire money" for every cash purchase. Every Canadian has a Canadian Tire money drawer where they keep their stash saving up for that big purchase. Some bars, most charities and other stores (including ebay.ca) will accept this currency.

• The city's largest University has a nude beach. IT'S TRUE. Very different from the US where the undergraduates aren't even allowed to drink on campus. If you notice while we were there last weekend, everyone was fully clothed in SEVERAL layers, and atleast one of us had a full change of clothes in a backpack.

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A boy and his Stick.

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When you eat your Smarties....

This was the "booty" from McKay's Hallowe'en heist, shown here late on the 31st. 24 hours later, one Reece's peanut butter cup and a single Hershey's kiss was left.

We let him eat as much as he wanted as long as he also ate full meals. After dinner last night (yam and chestnut ravioli yum) he munched his way through the last of the mini bars. With one left to go (peanut butter cup) he put his head on the table and proclaimed, "I'm full of candy!".

"When you eat your Smarties
do you eat the red ones last,
do you suck the very slowly,
or crunch them very fast,
they are candy-coated chocolate,
so tell me when I ask,
when you eat your smarties,
do you eat the red ones last?"

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