Digging Out

The photo below is a shot of what happens when you get a LOT of snow on the roof. If you enlarge it, you can see the shoveller working away.

 We designed and built the house we now live in and, because we were middle-aged and not very agile, we built it with a roof with a low pitch. We also built it with a ‘great room’ that has a pitched ceiling supported by a ‘gluelam’ beam, that last being a beam made of boards glued and laminated together. The combination of this beam and the low pitch means that if there is a lot of snow built up on the roof, there is a lot of weight up there resting on the beam. The thought of this weight keeps the designer awake at night, wondering if the beam is strong enough. And so, if we get a dump of snow, we shovel the roof..

 JG used to shovel it himself. He harnessed himself to the chimney and threw the snow off according to a plan that did not whump the bushes in the front, or bury the back porch. Once the roof was shovelled, the deck had to be cleared. Normally it was waist deep in compacted snow and took as much effort as the roof clearing. Luckily we have a young neighbour with muscles and some spare time and we have hired him in latter years. The one occasion on which we hired workmen from a local business, we ended up needing to get the roof reshingled. Not what is wanted on a regular basis. So we hope the neighbour is free.

 And so, after the foot or so of lovely white fluff (not) that we got this weekend, JG got on the phone to see if a shoveller was available. After some angst, we think he is due to clean us off tomorrow. The YD has volunteered to help if he can’t get a partner. She and her sister both live in the inner city, in houses with minimal front yards and narrow streets. She will have been shovelling quite a bit already, just to find her car and clear the drive. Her sister and partner decided, the last I was informed, to wait until it was ‘all down’; they may be looking for their driveway for some time. Some years ago, the ED sent us this record of what they had to do to clear the car for exit.

 You need a strong back or strong helpers to live around here sometimes.

Canadian, Eh?

 

If there is one thing that President Trump has accomplished in his first few weeks in office, it is uniting Canadians in patriotic fervor. It would be funny, in truth, if it were not so frightening.

 It has been my impression over many years that the one thing Canadians can agree on, across provinces, languages, ethics and location, is that to be Canadian is to be … not an American. We revel, in fact, in our sub-fusc, polite (except during hockey games) personae, and quietly get on with trading with them, visiting them, buying from them and not being them. If we also ride on their coattails in defence (DEW Line, anyone?), research and medial innovation (where did my father get his heart bypass surgery in 1970? The Cleveland Clinic, thanks), entertainment (Hello Mickey Mouse, Hello Bob Dylan), and transport (so, where was your car made?), it is neither a surprise nor an impediment to dissing them at the drop of a tuque.

 The first round of MAGA was, in my opinion, a case in point. We all sat back and shook our heads and commented about the epitome of the Ugly American getting elected. He whacked us with tariffs, was rude to our Prime Minister and ignored us, mostly. Bombast, we said. I very much suspect that a lot of Americans made the same judgment. But obviously what he said and the things he did do resonated with another lot of Americans. And so, here he is again and he has learned from his being balked the first time. This time we are going to see Action. And I am not sure that any of his oh-so-wild riffs on Greenland, Panama, Canada, Gaza, all that, are anything other than real. To him. Things to get done.

 So here we are, flapping our Maple Leaf Flags, buying Canadian, bracing for tariffs. Patriotism is glowing in our hearts. (The one time I have really liked Trudeau Junior is when he made a simple and unguarded response to an annexation of Canada question. ‘That has a snowball’s chance in hell,’ he said. I devoutly hope that he is right.) I hope we continue to buy on guard, tightening our belts as necessary, so as to live with the economic war that threatens. I do hope that the patriotism is real and lasting. I do hope that we can last until the sensible half of the US of A can tame their wildman.

 That they will do so, eventually, is my hope. I have to hold on to that. What I believe is that Canadians (et aussi les Canadiens) are strongly enough rooted in our country that we will withstand whatever the madman comes up with. This country for which my father risked his life, over and over, during WWII, this country that I have studied, worked for and loved, this country will survive.

 Not American? You bet.

The Way We Talk and the Way I Write

 

It is a gloriously sunny morning, but cold. February at its best. We had a fine snowfall yesterday, which, of course, I had to drive through, and there is now a layer on the barbeque that, if I want hamburgers for supper, I should go out and clear off. But perhaps I should clear up the compound-complex sentence I just put up. Also, the which/that conundrum. Gee, I am glad I am not teaching this stuff any longer and can break all the rules with impunity should I so desire. Those who hold to their grammar should simply shudder and read on.

 Teaching your little one language. ‘She was badder than me’ says the toddler. ‘No, sweetie, you say worse, not badder’. The next day you will probably hear ‘worser’. Kids are programmed to learn language logically and English isn’t.

 Reading about this stuff, I have been enjoying a book titled How You Say It Why We Judge Others by the Way They Talk – And the Costs of This Hidden Bias. By Katherine D. Kinzler. A lot of her work has been with children and she is eloquent on the benefits of bilingualism and of starting children very young on two or more languages. The basic ‘takeaway’ is that she believes children who are exposed to a second language at a very young age (even if they do not learn it) will be more flexible and accommodating as adults. Thinking about the obverse, look at the difference in ‘national character’ between Canada and the US of A. I suspect that many American children are not exposed to differences in language and culture at all. Yes, America is full of migrants from south of them, Spanish speakers, but unless there is a helper in the house who is one of these, a lot of households are unilingual. Whereas in Canada all children are deliberately taught French and it is presented usually in a fun way through song and poetry and games. It seems to me that we are more flexible and accommodating than Americans. Sorry? Eh?

 At any rate, it is an excellent book, spoiled for me only by the lack of information that the author has about Canadian children and language learning. She cites European examples of routine dual language provision and misses the Canadian one entirely. She also perpetrates the ‘oot and aboot’ myth. What she does get right is that the central Canadian accent is, in fact, the preferred and most widely accepted accent in North America, as witness the news anchors on major American television who were born and raised in Canada.

 Amusingly, I recall getting jumped on when I started university in eastern Ontario. Why? For my ‘American’ accent and speech. I was brought up in the border town of Windsor, Ontario, a smallish city that sits across a one-mile-wide river from Detroit, Michigan. One mile south of Detroit, in fact, if you want to be confused. We routinely listened to Detroit radio for the music, ‘Motown’ and wonderful, and those with TV’s got American stations. There was a small CBC presence but it was not widely followed. We all picked up American slang and cadence. I worked very hard to lose my ‘Americanisms’ but some of them are still there, even sixty years on.

 After I read this book, though, it came to me that I have speech mannerisms that are somewhat unusual. One is my active vocabulary. I routinely use words like ‘impunity’ that are not common. As well, I watch my enunciation carefully, the result of teaching English as a Second Language to adults. Someone who met me lately asked me if I had been a teacher and when I said yes, laughed and said it was obvious. I also remember from my school days being asked in annoyed tones if I had swallowed a dictionary when I used a ‘big’ word instead of the usual one. At the local community hall where I volunteer, there are two women who obviously dislike me and after I read this book, I wondered if my speech mannerisms explain this. Maybe I sound to them like a show-off? If so, too bad, as it is now too late for the leopard to change her spots. Or even go back and fix up that sentence in the first paragraph? Nope. Leaving it. Authentic voice rules.

 Put down the red pencil, already.

 

Note: Grammarly wants me to substitute ‘perpetuate’ for ‘perpetrate’ in the 4^th paragraph. I think the substitution is better. Comments, ex teacher readers?

Trump and the border with Canada

 Here is what the Washington Post said this morning about the Canada ‘deal’ that delayed Trump’s tariff threat. And, note the underlined comment on seized fentanyl.

“The actually new things that came after Trump’s threat, apparently, are the fentanyl czar, labeling cartels terrorists, the $200 million and 24/7 eyes on the border.

Most of these are geared toward fentanyl. But it’s worth emphasizing that the flow of fentanyl from Canada is a tiny percentage of the drug that’s seized at U.S. borders — about 0.2 percent. Border authorities seized about 43 pounds in 2024, compared with more than 21,000 pounds from the Mexican border. And data shows that the vast majority of fentanyl seized from Canada — about 80 percent — was brought by U.S. citizens.

That’s not to say halting however much of the deadly drug that can be halted wouldn’t be significant. U.S. authorities have been concerned in recent years about fentanyl “super labs” in Canada. But Canada already appears to have made significant headway in cracking down, including dismantling what Canadian authorities say was the nation’s largest drug lab a few months ago.

And it’s a far cry from how Trump has sold the importance of halting fentanyl from Canada, which often includes false statistics.

In other words, Trump has tried to set this up to look like a much bigger win than it really was — which, as ever, appears to be one of his overriding priorities.”

It is very discouraging to read the news these days as we know that the MAGA people do not believe fact in front of them, but I am going to do some political posts, just because.

And, as a comment. I would eat cattail roots and burn my precious books for warmth rather than exist in a Trump run 51st state.