The bus strike and the blizzard seem almost divinely synchronized for maximum impact on the city. I predict chaos and paralysis if this strike is not averted. It was bad enough trying to get home tonight, with just the blizzard.
Mayor Larry, on his blog, keeps saying things like “It would be sad if there were a transit strike.”
I think the mayor is in need of a Dr. Seuss Primer on Emotional Intelligence, because ‘sad’ is a bizarrely inappropriate word to use in this situation.
I’m not sad Larry. I’m hugely inconvenienced and I’m pissed off. And there are plenty of people whose lives will be more disrupted than mine by this strike, and I bet they’re mad-not-sad too. Students are trying to get to exams. Seniors and people with disabilities are trying to remain independent. Some people do their grocery shopping by bus. There are people who are going to lose their jobs because they can’t get to work.
I think the mayor has made a gross miscalculation if he truly believes all these people will react with sadness to a bus strike.
I think to Mayor Larry there are only three kinds of people: those whose ass he kisses, those who kiss his ass, and those who refuse to kiss his ass even though he thinks they ought to. It’s this last group that makes his blood boil, and it includes unionized workers.
I’m a unionized worker. I’ve been on the collective bargaining team four times in the last ten years. I know how difficult it can be, even when – as in the case of my workplace – both sides come to the table with an attitude of respect and a genuine desire to make fair and reasonable changes to our collective agreement.
I can’t even imagine how difficult it would be to go into bargaining against an unjustifiably arrogant boss who lacks experience and wisdom, who is openly contemptuous of the union, who swaggers and brags about how tough he is, and who combines a love of power with a lack of leadership.
I’m not saying the other side has done everything perfectly either. The local’s president, Andre Cornellier, surely alienated much of the public with this unseemly attack. I would think that public opinion would be a powerful thing to have on your side in a strike that affects the public so profoundly. Cornellier apparently sees the public in an adversarial light, which could potentially become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
In spite of Cornellier’s outburst, my support remains with the bus drivers. I have no problem with workers trying to keep good jobs good.
People have been asking me lately how I find all these interesting and quirky things to do in such a boring city.
1. Email Lists
(a): I subscribe to Artengine, and it sends me notices about all kinds of art-related events. There are a LOT of art-related events going on in Ottawa. For example, on Friday night GC and I went to two free art openings: Great Big Smalls at the Cube Gallery and Foot Fetish at Cyclelogik.
Great Big Smalls was a show/sale of small art by local artists. The art was fun and they served hot mulled wine, cold fruit punch, popcorn and chocolate.
Foot Fetish was a stone’s throw from Great Big Smalls. It didn’t have anything to do with feet or fetishes – it was just that all the pieces measured one square foot. The art was diverse and the food was dramatic. (I was already full from the chocolate and popcorn but I wished I’d saved some room for the little hors-d’ouevres called Smoking Jackets. They’re made of tobacco, port and blackberries. Weird but gorgeous.
(b) The other list I subscribe to is the Homelessness list. This one alerts me to all kinds of poverty and political events. If you want to get on that one, send an email to lbrowne [at] ysb.on.ca.
These email lists might not accurately reflect your location or interests, but there are probably other lists that do…you just have to dig them up on google and subscribe to them. Or check out the groups on Facebook.
2. Street Signs
I read every sign on every street post and bulletin board I see. It doesn’t matter whether it’s for a lost cat or waxing services, I read them all. I can’t not read signs. I often learn of intriguing upcoming events from signs. That’s how I heard of the Ferret Frolic, for instance.
3. Word of Mouth
I get a lot of good suggestions from friends and people who read my blog.
GC supplies some of the ideas too. Last night we went to see the CBC reading of Dickins’ Christmas Carol because he just realized he’s always wanted to do that. It was kind of cool to see those radio voices in person and all dressed up. The fashion statement of the evening was Michael Bhardwaj’s socks.
4. Serendipity
Sometimes we just stumble across things. For example, just yesterday GC and I stopped into Irene’s Pub for something to eat and there just happened to be a magician doing a magic show there. Yeah, I know, whoever heard of a magic show in a pub? But then again, Irene’s is no ordinary pub. Far from it.
(The serendipitous approach, by the way, works best if you actually leave your home and go outside from time to time. I know this because I spent some time as a homebody and I rarely found myself in the middle of a magic show or a parade of zombies.)
So there ya go. My secrets for finding stuff to do. How do you find stuff to do?
By the way, I ran across this awhile back and meant to post it here. So far the only Canadian city on the Free and Cheap Things to Do in Your City site is Toronto. Let’s put Ottawa on the map.
I’m back to agonizing over the purchase of my next computer. This is something I do periodically before shoving it to the back burner again because I can’t decide between a Mac and a PC. I blame it on my indecisive Libra nature.
I’ve been using PCs for about 20 years now. My current PC is five years old and starting to sag and get wrinkles. For reasons too boring to go into, I have to buy either a new computer or a new monitor before Wednesday.
I’m totally straddling the fence on the PC vs Mac thing. I keep hoping I’ll just wake up one morning with the decision firmly made and a sense of clarity and peace, but it hasn’t happened yet and time’s running out.
What do you think I should do? (If you’re reading this from a Feed Reader or email, you’ll need to click over to the blog to vote.)
Bonus question: If you’ve made the transition from a PC to a Mac recently, could you please tell me how it went? Was it as painless as the Mac salesperson said it would be? Were there any unpleasant surprises or unexpected expenses? Is there anything you miss about your PC?
Posted by zoom! on December 7, 2008, at 12:18 pm |
I was lucky yesterday because my birthday-twin Laura very kindly sent me a head’s-up about an event she knew I’d like. It was pottery artist Chandler Swain’s annual Christmas sale, which was being held in a private residence on Sunnyside Street.
I loved it. GC and I were the very first customers to arrive, so we got first pick of everything. Between us we picked up eight items, all with imperfections that drove the prices down but which seemed mostly pretty minor to us.
Here’s what I got.
A large pitcher with a woman wrapped around it.
A smaller pitcher with a crow on it. I LOVE crows.
My very first soup tureen!
And, because I love Chandler’s more whimsical stuff, and because I love bunnies, I bought a bunny teapot. It makes me wish I loved tea, which I don’t. (Except for my recently discovered Indian Spice Tea.)
GC got four trippy pieces of pottery too, including a teapot, a vase, a plate and a cup.
Chandler makes a plate with a picture of a car overgrown with wildflowers, and it says “zoom zoom” around the edge. We’re hoping someday she might make something with a bunny and zoom zoom. Or a big orange cat and zoom zoom. Or a crow and zoom zoom. Or all three and zoom zoom.
Even though I’m always a bit shy when I first meet people who read my blog, it was a treat to meet Laura and her mother-in-law, who arrived shortly after GC and I had cleaned the place out. I hope she didn’t regret having told me about the sale when she saw us absconding with boxes of pottery. And I hope she managed to find some lovely piece that GC and I had overlooked.
Afterwards we drove very carefully – since we had a trunkload of pottery and the suspension on GC’s car is suspect – to Elgin Street for the Not Your Grandmother’s Craft Sale. I bought some fridge magnets made from antique buttons, a gift for the Christmas exchange at work, and something that will make David Scrimshaw envious.
It was squeezing-room-only at the craft fair, so I was kind of relieved to get out of there and over to Irene’s Pub where we could spread out a bit, eat breakfast, read the paper and do the crossword puzzle.
Later we went to GC’s place to deliver Duncan’s blanket to The Dog, who was very interested and enthusiastic about it. Here I am reading Elizabeth Hay’s A Student of Weather and hanging out with The Dog.
GC made us oatmeal for dinner. This was no ordinary oatmeal, mind you. He’s on a mission to make me love oatmeal more than I love Neil Diamond, so he put raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, blackberries, kiwis, apples, cinnamon, ginger, cashews, raisins and bananas in the oatmeal. This left very little room in the bowls for the actual oatmeal, so we ate out of casserole dishes. It was yummy, but I think I still love Neil Diamond marginally more than oatmeal.
Speaking of Neil Diamond, we went to the Bytown Tavern on Thursday night to watch Jo Stockton spin records, and she played a Neil Diamond tune just for me! And somehow – I don’t know what kind of DJ wizardry she employed to do this – she made it fit right in with all the other hip music she was playing.
There’s a new poll coming later today, and this one is Serious Stuff. Stay tuned.
I used to sleep alone in my big double bed. Last January Duncan moved in, and as you know he’s kind of on the large size. He’s never been the kind of cat who sleeps with the feet. Right from the very first night, Duncan slept with his arm wrapped around me and his face tucked up against mine. The bed felt smaller with Duncan in it, but in a nice, cozy way.
Last summer GC moved into my bed too. He’s got his own house, but he spends most of his nights with Duncan and me. As you might recall, this caused Duncan some distress in the beginning, which he resolved by peeing in the bed. But Duncan and GC like each other very much, and I think they’ve worked things out for the most part.
There’s still a little bit of jockeying for position in the bed sometimes, but we seem to have mostly settled into this configuration:
GC and I snuggle up facing each other, entwined. Duncan gets himself comfy up on the topmost conjoined edge of us, purring and peering down on us like a gargoyle. (That’s peering, not peeing.) Sometimes he reaches a paw down and strokes my face.
Even though his weight is distributed between the two of us, he’s still a fairly substantial cat, and we sometimes have trouble falling asleep like that because we can’t breathe.
So then we all realign ourselves. I roll over onto my back, taking Duncan with me. He curls up in the crook of my left arm, with his face tucked under my chin. GC cuddles up against my right side. We fall asleep like that most of the time, all cozy and comfy.
Now that we’ve ironed out the wrinkles, we want to bring GC’s dog into the picture. It just doesn’t seem right that the three of us are so cozily ensconced in one house while The Dog sleeps alone in the other. (But just so you don’t think The Dog’s being completely neglected, GC works at home, so The Dog has companionship all day.)
The Dog did visit once, in the early days, and Duncan was displeased in the extreme, and expressed his feelings about it with impressive clarity by peeing on GC’s clothes.
We learned not to be so cavalier about the cat. We learned to be more circumspect, more respectful, more fearful of invoking his displeasure.
Since then we’ve been tossing around ideas about how to properly introduce Duncan and The Dog.
So far we’ve put a picture of Duncan on GC’s fridge, at The Dog’s eye level, and a picture of The Dog on my fridge, at Duncan’s eye level. We haven’t noticed either of them looking at the other’s picture, but maybe they do it when we’re not around.
It was with heavy hearts that GC and I walked to the rally on Parliament Hill, only moments after the announcement that the Governor General had agreed to the Prime Minister’s request.
But you know what? It wasn’t so bad. The rally was surprisingly upbeat, as politicians and citizens alike agreed to build momentum for the coalition between now and January 26 when Parliament resumes.
Still, I think we were all disappointed and more than a little worried about how much damage the Conservative propaganda machine can do in two months.
GC and I found ourselves on the very front lines of this rally, shaking hands with Gilles Duceppe and Jack Layton and a procession of MPs. Gilles Duceppe has extraordinary eyes for a politician.
(Oh! That reminds me! On the #14 there was a large, gruff-looking man crocheting a white lace blanky. We made eye contact as I was getting off the bus, and he did not look in the least little bit friendly. He looked mean, and for some reason the white lace did nothing to soften his expression. It was so weird and disconcerting. I think I need to revisit my stereotype of men who crochet.)
Anyway, back to Parliament Hill. Right beside us was an unusual man with a black lab named Mac. The unusual man was dressed quite skimpily considering how very cold it was. He told us he lived on the streets and that the messed-up people in shelters could do a better job running this country than the clowns on the Hill. He had a lot to say, this guy, but he kept coming back to the fact that he had to pee and that there aren’t enough legitimate places a homeless person can go to pee. I’ve heard this before and I don’t doubt it’s true.
The crowd started chanting “HEY HEY HO HO, Stephen Harper has to go!”
“What about me?” cried the street guy, “I have to go too! My dog can go anywhere he wants, right there on the street. I don’t even have as many rights as my dog!”
I love this country. How many times have I stood on Parliament Hill, in the shadow of the Peace Tower, exercising my right to express my opinions? I’ve been going to demonstrations on the Hill since I was in my teens. I’ve been to feminist rallies, peace rallies, human rights rallies, rallies of all kinds. I went to the Hill every Saturday morning for months in 2003, during the lead-up to the Iraq war. I was at the sex trade workers rally a couple of months ago.
I’ve been to the Hill for things that had nothing to do with protest too: I was there for a moment of silence on September 12th, 2001, for Canada Day celebrations, for fireworks as we entered the new millennium, for yoga on the Hill, to visit the Parliament Hill stray cats shelter, and to honour John Lennon when he was murdered. (We lit candles and sang Imagine and Give Peace a Chance on Parliament Hill. It was brutally cold. It was beautiful.)
We lost the battle today, but it made me feel good to stand on Parliament Hill with politicians and strangers and friends and homeless people and dogs, exercising our rights to assemble, speak, protest and dissent. There are many places in the world where this is not permitted, and there are people with power right here, right now, in Canada, who would happily strip us of these freedoms if they could.
And, while I think it’s a travesty that the GG let Harper duck out the back door today, I’m not ready to give up. I’m disappointed, but I’m a lot more hopeful than I was a couple of weeks ago. You?
Last night GC and I went to three events, two of which aren’t actually happening until Friday. I don’t know how I managed to mess up the Google calendar quite so messily. At any rate, we ended up playing checkers at Raw Sugar instead. It was our first visit to this whimsical little coffee shop.
Afterwards we went to our third event on the Google calendar – Ian Tamblyn launching his new CD at Irene’s – and that was actually happening, so we sat back and enjoyed some songs, guitar and dulcimer music.
Today I’m skipping my Thursday Lunch Hour Knitting Club in order to overthrow the Canadian government. I like the way that sounds. But really, I’m just going to a rally on Parliament Hill to support the Coalition.
There’s a lot of confusion about the legitimacy of the Coalition and whether what’s happening is fair and legal. Stephen Harper has been instrumental in promoting and exploiting that confusion. The fact is, the Coalition is all three: legitimate, fair and legal. The Yarn Harlot put aside her knitting yesterday to write a very informative and user-friendly primer about what’s going on. (As of 6:37 this morning, there are 518 comments on that post.)
If you’re in Ottawa and you support the coalition, come on up to the Hill at noon today and help make Canadian history. If you can’t make it to the Hill, you can still show your support by signing the petition.
Posted by zoom! on December 3, 2008, at 10:26 pm |
Remember Mike? His beloved Ebony died in August. He just got a brand new puppy named Izzy. She’s a very lucky dog, because she will spend the rest of her life going for five-hour walks in the Experimental Farm, running off-leash, playing with her friends, and sleeping in a big comfy bed with someone who loves her with all his heart and soul.
Many thanks to all of you who voted for Knitnut.net in the first round of the Canadian Blog Awards. You catapulted this blog onto the short list in three categories! I was very pleasantly surprised by that, and I thank you all warmly from the bottom of my heart.
We’re now in the second and final round of voting. Just cast these last three votes and then I promise you we can get back to voting about more important things, like Neil Diamond vs. Oatmeal.
While you’re over there, poke around some of the other categories too. Watawa Life is in the final round for Best Photo Blog, XUP made the cut for Best New Blog, Party of 3 and Don Mills Diva are both still in the running for best family blog, Salted Lithium‘s up for Best Health Blog, and the Yarn Harlot has an excellent shot at winning Best Blog again this year.
I have a theory that everybody loves Neil Diamond but most people are afraid to admit it. Today at lunch my coworkers all denied their love for Neil vehemently, but I think it was just a classic case of the ladies doth protest too much.
Years ago I had a New Year’s Eve party and at some point I threw on a Neil Diamond CD. Predictably, everybody started groaning and rolling their eyes, but I refused – refused – to change the CD. Sure enough, within a few minutes, everybody was bopping along with the music, and it became apparent that they all knew the words to Cracklin’ Rosie and Sweet Caroline. They were totally into it, but they still wouldn’t admit that they loved Neil Diamond.
I scored free tickets to the Neil Diamond concert last night! The seats were behind the stage at Scotia Bank Place or whatever it’s called this year, in the second tier. Neil was fabulous. Seriously. He had a brass band and dancing girls – 15 people in all. It was a great show. Not as great as Dark Side of the Moon in Montreal in 1975, but great in its own Neil Diamondy way. At 67, Neil’s still got it.
He started with Holly Holy. He sang Cracklin’ Rosie, and I Am I Said. He did Sweet Caroline twice! TWICE! He did Brother Love’s Traveling Salvation Show for an encore.
Afterwards, as we were driving back through the ice pellets, I sighed “Don’t you just love Neil Diamond?”
There was kind of an odd silence.
I glanced at GC and – thinking maybe he’d just been wrapped up in his own memories of the concert – I repeated the question.
“Don’t you just love Neil Diamond?”
There was another pause, and then he said “I had fun tonight.”
“Yeah,” I said, “But don’t you just love Neil Diamond?”
“Love’s kind of a special word,” he said carefully, “How exactly do you mean it?”
This time I paused.
He couldn’t take the silence for more than a few seconds.
“I don’t love Neil Diamond as much as I love you,” he said.
“Of course not,” I said, “But you do love him, right?”
“I don’t love him as much as I love Duncan,” he said.
“Me neither,” I replied, “But you do love him a little bit, right?”
There was another pause.
“Not as much as I love oatmeal,” he said finally.
And then, apparently feeling emboldened by this assertion, he went on to suggest that most people love oatmeal more than Neil Diamond!
Which of course is ludicrous. And we have the technology to prove it.
Please step into the polling booth, ladies and gentlemen, and rate your love for Neil and oatmeal.
The bus strike and the blizzard seem almost divinely synchronized for maximum impact on the city. I predict chaos and paralysis if this strike is not averted. It was bad enough trying to get home tonight, with just the blizzard.
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