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jawnbcIt's a quiet, grey, cool Thanksgiving Monday here in Vancouver. Shortly I'll head out for some grocery shopping: ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
querrelle has to catch up in the office today, so I'm off to a pot luck with a couple of friends from work. It's never fun to have to go to work on a public holiday. Well, perhaps if you work for the circus.
One of the things I lost fairly quickly after leaving the States was Thanksgiving, where T-Day trumps Christmas in what is surely one of the most pedanticly Christian nations on earth. My first November here I decided to go home and spend it with my family: I had ended a (fucked up) relationship and got sober six months earlier and thought the familarity would be a good thing. I don't remember much about that trip except how insane US airports are at Thanksgiving. They should pump laughing gas into US airports that entire week; people need to lighten up. And while I didn't swear "never again," neither have I been tempted to repeat that experience.
Thanksgiving in Canada is different. It's earlier (you get Columbus, we get Thanksgiving, we get REmembrance, you get Thanksgiving, we get Boxing Day, you poor bastards don't), and much lower key. People often do the traditional turkey and pumpkin pie feast, but the energy of it all is much more diffuse. Or saner perhaps. So we (mostly) get the Monday off and (mostly) have a big meal on the Sunday. We happened to be hosting roast Sunday lunch, which I suppose was technically a Thanksgiving Day meal. We had roast beef, Yorkshires, roast carrots and parsnips, and pear crumble. Then we went to a filum («Ne le dis à personne» quel film!).
But there was no grace, no rounds of "I am grateful for...". There was good cheer and fine company. And while I'm not gonna spread for no roses, I will spread for Yorkshire pudding. Andquerrelle knows this and works it to his advantage. Clever lad.
Tomorrow is the culmination of Canada's 35 day electoral campaign. Our system is antiquated in some ways, but in operational terms something of which every Canadian should be proud. A non-partisan, arm's length public body runs things. We use simple paper ballots, marked with pencils. All registered parties can send a scrutineer to each and every polling station in which they have a candidate running. When the polls close the table is cleared, the box opened and the ballots sorted according to vote. Very few ballots are disputed and the results at most polling stations are calculated within an hour of closing (though it takes longer for the result to wind its way up the hierarchy to Elections Canada's website. We also have a results blackout in parts of the country where the polls remain open. In fact, the polls across 6 times zones open and close on a staggered basis, within 2.5 hours of one another. So at 19h01 PDT our TV networks will reveal the results for Atlantic Canada and must of Québec and Ontario.
I suspect the result will be similar to what we had before. It will certainly be a minority government, most likely Conservative. The Greens were polling ver well but are dropping as they always seem to do (there's very few ridings in Canada they have a shot at winning, so people often switch to another party in the closing days). The NDP has run a strong campaign and will make some gains--but will it be 5 net seats or 15? And I'm not counting Liberal Stéphane Dion out just yet. He might just squeak out a minority win, albeit it a weak (115 or so seats) one.
A four day work week should sound nice, but it lately means doing 5 days' work in 4....
querrelle has to catch up in the office today, so I'm off to a pot luck with a couple of friends from work. It's never fun to have to go to work on a public holiday. Well, perhaps if you work for the circus.One of the things I lost fairly quickly after leaving the States was Thanksgiving, where T-Day trumps Christmas in what is surely one of the most pedanticly Christian nations on earth. My first November here I decided to go home and spend it with my family: I had ended a (fucked up) relationship and got sober six months earlier and thought the familarity would be a good thing. I don't remember much about that trip except how insane US airports are at Thanksgiving. They should pump laughing gas into US airports that entire week; people need to lighten up. And while I didn't swear "never again," neither have I been tempted to repeat that experience.
Thanksgiving in Canada is different. It's earlier (you get Columbus, we get Thanksgiving, we get REmembrance, you get Thanksgiving, we get Boxing Day, you poor bastards don't), and much lower key. People often do the traditional turkey and pumpkin pie feast, but the energy of it all is much more diffuse. Or saner perhaps. So we (mostly) get the Monday off and (mostly) have a big meal on the Sunday. We happened to be hosting roast Sunday lunch, which I suppose was technically a Thanksgiving Day meal. We had roast beef, Yorkshires, roast carrots and parsnips, and pear crumble. Then we went to a filum («Ne le dis à personne» quel film!).
But there was no grace, no rounds of "I am grateful for...". There was good cheer and fine company. And while I'm not gonna spread for no roses, I will spread for Yorkshire pudding. And
querrelle knows this and works it to his advantage. Clever lad.Tomorrow is the culmination of Canada's 35 day electoral campaign. Our system is antiquated in some ways, but in operational terms something of which every Canadian should be proud. A non-partisan, arm's length public body runs things. We use simple paper ballots, marked with pencils. All registered parties can send a scrutineer to each and every polling station in which they have a candidate running. When the polls close the table is cleared, the box opened and the ballots sorted according to vote. Very few ballots are disputed and the results at most polling stations are calculated within an hour of closing (though it takes longer for the result to wind its way up the hierarchy to Elections Canada's website. We also have a results blackout in parts of the country where the polls remain open. In fact, the polls across 6 times zones open and close on a staggered basis, within 2.5 hours of one another. So at 19h01 PDT our TV networks will reveal the results for Atlantic Canada and must of Québec and Ontario.
I suspect the result will be similar to what we had before. It will certainly be a minority government, most likely Conservative. The Greens were polling ver well but are dropping as they always seem to do (there's very few ridings in Canada they have a shot at winning, so people often switch to another party in the closing days). The NDP has run a strong campaign and will make some gains--but will it be 5 net seats or 15? And I'm not counting Liberal Stéphane Dion out just yet. He might just squeak out a minority win, albeit it a weak (115 or so seats) one.
A four day work week should sound nice, but it lately means doing 5 days' work in 4....
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no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 07:50 pm (UTC)If we had proportional representation then I'd totally vote for the Work Less Party. They advocate a four day work week. It'd be nice and sane.
no subject
Date: 2008-10-13 09:59 pm (UTC)