Tick Tock Tick Glass Ceilings

This morning, I’m avoiding cleaning my house (for the 3rd day in a row), listening to some epic pop (if you don’t believe that Seal and epic should go in the same sentence, go now and listen again: epic, right?). I’m drinking coffee and trying to turn the ingredients in my head into some kind of reasonably delicious word salad.

I’ve been absent from the internets. At first it was because I was busy doing rapid-fire learning. Then afterwards, it was because my brain was stuffed full of only two subjects and I felt like I had only boring details to say to you: For example, did you know that the all the colour varieties of horses are caused by interactions of just three genes? (Not boring – the boring part was in my head).

Now and for a few days now, I feel like I have too many things to say and I don’t know where to start. (This is what they call, how you say…. “irony”).

Right. So. Just to make sure we’re on the same page before I start chopping and tossing, the ingredients that Brian is currently juggling include: relationships; perception of social isolation – how to change; brazil; visas (cross your fingers for me); thrombosis (aspirin); vaccination; babies; choirs; life goals – Plans A and B and scaling roadblocks; being honest with self and others; the ripe avocados on my counter and the delicious guac. that I am going to eat later today.

…Excellent.

I’ve discovered a glass ceiling in my life. Discovered isn’t correct, actually. I’ve known about the glass ceiling since I don’t remember – I just didn’t think about it very much until the past year or so. It is more accurate to say that I’m approaching the glass ceiling. It’s a case of: can’t go over it, can’t go under it, can’t go around it…..got to go through it! (girl guides reppin’). I’m standing on a ladder looking at the glass and tapping on the glass. It makes a noise that goes “tick tick tick”…

When I was 15 years old, I decided that if I turned 30 and didn’t have a life partner… I would have a baby anyway. I would work hard and get a meaningful career, and if I never met the right guy, I’d do it by myself. We have the technology, and I am a good little feminist: I wasn’t going to be constrained by some notion that only heterosexual married couples should be allowed to have children.

PAUSE NOW and hear me say: I didn’t decide at 15 that I wanted to be a single parent. I didn’t make a plan for unconventionality; I didn’t hate men; I knew that it would be more optimal with a partner and hoped I’d find the right one. Simply, I made a plan that allowed me to put ‘being a mom someday’ into my own hands.

At the time, my line of thinking was somewhat more crudely constructed: I felt it was unfair to men that women got to a certain age and stopped looking for a life partner and started looking for a sperm donor. In more grown up terms…I decided at 15 that I didn’t think it was fair to anybody (me or Mr. Right) that finding the love of my life and wanting to having children need be one in the same. (True: it’s dubious that my own Mr. Right would know he never wanted kids but…. you see what I am saying).

I don’t remember a time that I didn’t want to someday be a mom: Accepting the possibility that I could do it alone was…liberating. It is true that my relationships are mostly freed from the glass ceiling that exists above my own head: I like to think that I am free to accept men as people and enjoy them for just that.

…The problem with the glass ceiling is that …a desire to have children doesn’t just have a role to play in my romantic relationships. It pervades everything, because…well… my fertility has an expiry date. I know we have technologies, but really? There is an expiry date.

The problem with the expiry date is that it is it is distracting me. I *HATE* that it is distracting me. I *RESENT* that it is distracting me. I want to go with the flow and allow myself to experience life as it comes, but really… I want to have my cake and eat it too. I want to have a career that I love and I also want to have kids.

This is not impossible. But there is the glass ceiling. The glass ceiling I feel like I can’t punch through… that yells at me: YOU NEED TO BE ESTABLISHED IN YOUR CAREER BEFORE YOU GET TO ME NEENER NEENER HAHA I AM APPROACHING EVER QUICKER STILL.

Time rushes forward and slips through my fingers while I work frantically for the chance to earn some letters that will lead me to my dream career. I’m the classic protagonist in my very own action flick: I’m running for my life (the life I want) but I keep looking back to see who is chasing me. I keep looking up to the sky to that glass ceiling – I keep climbing the ladder and tapping on it to see if it’s still there.

…I need to stop checking back to see if it’s there and run like hell.

Is it true that I need to be established in my career before entertaining the notion of babies? No, I suppose not. It doesn’t matter to almost anybody at all … except to me. It matters to me. *A lot*. It matters to me to be able to stand on my own two feet; to have a career that I love and am respected for; to have a job in which I am part of a bigger picture that works to change the status quo…

It’s harder to get that kind of career with babies on your hip: you have less time to think selfishly with diapers to change and mouths to feed. And really? Being at the front of the rat pack takes time and dedication and commitment – I fear that if I had children before getting on the road to my dream job…It would be all too easy to stop prioritizing the job… and I’d wind up resenting myself.

Maybe not. But I’d rather not take the risk. So. I’m trying to run like hell and also… looking for a sledge hammer that would allow me to go with the flow. I am trying not to goal multitask (multitasking is a lie: it never works), and remembering that there are many ways to have children, not all of which have a time limit.

We have a dual standard for woman and their uterus’ … a smart young woman who decides not to pursue a promising career in order to have children? She is selling herself short. We shake our heads and tut softly about how she isn’t attaining her potential.

A smart woman who decided that her promising career required 150% of her energy, and accepted that kids just maybe weren’t in the stars and might never be a priority? We point fingers at this woman also, and shake our heads and tell her that she’s missing out on one of the quintessential experiences of being a woman.

(Am I missing something here? …Nope, didn’t think so)…

I sometimes wish I could be one of these woman: I admire them. I wish that either a career or children could be enough for me. I wish that I could feel fulfilled in attaining one or the other…because both are good and honorable and valid uses of intelligent brains.

…Because it’s hard to divide your passion and energy between two equally insistent goals. It would be easier if I just had one…but I don’t, so that is that. Good thing I like running.

Here is where I set up the soap box and stand on top. I look you in the eyes and I tell you that feminism will always have a place in this world as long as one gender of humans of is born with the apparatus to bear children and the other is not.

Right. Now I get off the soap box and get about making that guacamole and vacuuming my house. You should stop by for a snack… It’s going to be delicious and full of garlic.

Deguchi Strategy

One year. A lot can change in one year. Illogically, it would seem, many more things can change in an hour, or a minute, or a second.

One year ago, on March 11, 2011, Japan was hit with a 9.0 magnitude earthquake. The quake hit a mere 400 km from the nation’s capital, and resulted in a massive Tsunami that lay waste to much of the Iwate Daichi (prefecture). The quake and resultant tsunami also provoked a dangerous nuclear accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Plant.

An estimated 15, 800 human lives were lost as a result of these two disasters, and more than 3000 people remain unaccounted for (to say nothing of the lives that will certainly be affected in years to come due to the effects of prolonged exposure to radiation).

Japanese authorities estimate that reconstruction will take more than a decade and cost in excess of 23 trillion yen (to say nothing of the time it will take for the nation to stop grieving).

I don’t pretend to be an expert, or even remotely savant, but I reflect on the fact that the true ‘cost’ of re-building will have to include not only towns and cities and an economy, but also trust. It’s unfortunate that no scientist or economist or government will likely ever have an adequate answer for the questions of: why us and why now that I am certain will run deep in the souls of a grieving nation for a long time to come.

I first heard about the tsunami via my brother. He had telephoned my parents at roughly 4 AM to tell them. A person might wonder what sense of urgency compelled him to phone at oh-dark-hundred hours to report on something happening a world away.

And then… how quickly the world shrinks. In 2007-8, my brother spent one year living in Iwake City, Japan, in the heart of the Fukushima district. A person could see the nuclear plant from where he was living. When he telephoned that morning, he hadn’t yet had made contact with the four families he had lived with while abroad.

I think about how different things could have been if he had been living in Japan last year instead. I think about how I would have been the person wringing my hands all night with nothing but a string of unanswered questions for company.

In time, my brother was able to make contact with all four of the families he had lived with. They were the lucky ones: Iwaki City was not as severely impacted as some other (very) nearby towns and cities. Even still, it’s hard to imagine how different their lives must be as a result of the disasters.

In Spring 2008, while my brother was living abroad, I went to visit him. During my visit, we made a trip to the Fukushima Aquarium – a beautiful multi-storey glass aquarium right on the coast. However impressive, it wasn’t really my visit that made the aquarium memorable.

My trip to the Fukushima Aquarium made a deep impression only after the tsunami. It is burned in my memory because in the days after the disaster, while looking idly at a photo of fish on my bulletin board, I realized that I didn’t know if the aquarium where I took that photo existed anymore.

I remember looking for information about the aquarium online and reading in one account how locals reported the tsunami waves rolling over the building. Once upon a warm spring day, I was inside that building. It’s an eery thought. I realized that I had walked in a city that would never exist in the same permutation again.

These cold thoughts are rendered more chilling because of the sheer distance between Canada and Japan. They are etched more permanently because the media tends to report the disaster but not the re-growth. I feel close and yet so far. I feel that no matter how much I read or hear, I won’t understand what has happened unless I visit Japan again.

I feel that way about much of our communication these days. We hear so much (and believe so much) about what happens in the world through news, the internet and social media. In reality, though, we have no idea what’s happening at ground zero (hear me spell ‘K-o-n-y’): not at the moment; not in a week; not in a year. I don’t trust what I hear anymore.

These days, we reach out to the world but stay in our homes to do so. Some days (often days), I feel that the growth of online media comes at the expense of real human interaction (see also: social skills; see also: OMG such a fun night! Even more fun: uploading my life to faceboooookkkk). I promise I’m not a luddite (OMG blogging…. upload my life to bloggggg), but this doesn’t really feel like progress to me.

In Japanese, the word deguchi means ‘exit’. I know this because I am lucky enough to have a very dear friend in Japan whose surname is the very same. I wonder sometimes when this my ‘plugged-in’ generation will find an exit strategy, or, at the very least, start to value a more balanced effort on both the on and off-line profiles.

A lot can happen in a second. More maybe even than in a minute or an hour or a year. Today, or tomorrow, or maybe even the next day, I challenge you to take a second to think about the twin disasters that struck Japan’s east coast just one year ago.

Think about how many times you’ve thought about this disaster since you first heard it on the news; think about how many times you’ve thought about how the people most affected are still acutely coping with its aftermath; think about how many times you have ‘shared’ a horrific news story and then never thought of it again.

Note: The photos in this post were all taken while visiting my brother in Iwaki City, Japan, in 2008. The factual information found in this post is from BBC News; I especially encourage you to take a look at this series of before and after photos.

Occupy ___________ & Birthdays for Merchants

There has been a lot of buzz about the Occupy Wall Street crowd; Media coverage has been widespread and varied, and bright-eyed folk across the globe are getting their occupy-X on in some pretty major solidarity. I’ve been wanting to comment for some time, but (for once in my life) decided to keep my mouth shut and see what happened for a little while. See if my gut feeling would shift at all. I hoped that it would.

I am really very truly sorry to say that it hasn’t. Do not, please, take this singular comment out of context and at face value, but what I  feel for the Occupy X crowds outside of America is, well, mostly contempt.  Let me explain (thoughtfully – it’s taken me 10 days to formulate my explain):

Do I belive in community? Yes, absolutely. Do I believe in acts of solidarity? Yes, often. Do I believe in overt protest? Sure, in theory.  In theory, I believe in a lot of things, though. I believe that we have unreasonable disparity in the world, and that we should strive to shrink the gap. I believe in transparency of governance; I believe that governments need to get out of the back pocket of corporations (and stop spending so much on various private consultants  for hundreds of thousands of dollars per year). I believe we should create open forums for discussion amongst like-minded people (especially youth), and that we should speak up and out about our opinions. As the lucky few who have the privilege to do so, we need to exercise our right to free speech, so yes, I believe in protest in that form.

My problem with  Occupy X, Y and Z, is not philosophical in the least. I love that people are ramped up enough to go camp out for weeks on end. In theory, it’s all gravy. I find the movement frustrating for two primary and related reasons: (1) The aims are not nearly specific enough; (2) There is a communication disconnect: we are not speaking the language of legislators.

In a (fairly) recent interview on Dave Letterman’s Late Night Show, former US President Clinton spoke about the OWS movement and related it to the Arab Spring. I echo his sentiment and appreciate his words:

“If you look at these poor Coptic Christians that were killed in Egypt in the last few days, you also see what the limits of mass protest are. The Egyptians who were interviewed in Tahrir Square were among the most impressive young people I’ve ever seen, but they didn’t have an organized political program, nor did they have a party, so what is happening is others are filling the vacuum. … So all I would say to the people in the Occupy Wall Street crowd, even though I believe we have to resolve the housing debt and flush through it much quicker than we are to get back to a full employment economy, the program the President proposed would create another couple million jobs in the next year-and-a-half and they ought to be for that. They ought to be for some other things. They need to be for something specific and not just against something, because if you’re just against something, somebody else will fill the vacuum you create.”

So what? What are we asking for, exactly? What specific demands are we making: They are nowhere near specific enough. It’s not enough to say: “They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil” (or) “They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.” [From the Occupy Edmonton Facebook Page] If you have a better idea about how to govern and how to make policy: what’s your idea? What specific legislation could be implemented? Amended? Abolished?

In my (overt but humble) opinion, this kind of overt protest does nothing to open dialogue, because by and in large, elected policy-makers don’t speak ‘protest’ – not as such, anyway. They speak ‘public meetings’. They speak ‘legalese’. They speak …’votes‘. And because we aren’t speaking the same language, it’s easy to tune each other out. Its too easy to issue a press release or formal statement in solidarity and then let the water go under the bridge. And then, in the defense of policy-makers (a great many of whom work tirelessly to follow through for the people they represent): how can they follow through on the specifics when no specific demands have been made? And you, Miss World? What is the one most important thing our society needs? …Oh that’s easy: World Peace. DERP.

A friend recently told me about an experience she had had with an organizer and participant of a local Occupy X group in Canada, which I feel furthers my point. This friend had been invited to a drum circle held by her local Occupy X group. Although she had participated in (and enjoyed) drum circles previously, she declined the invitation. She went on to suggest – if they had any influence with the organizers – that the occupiers reconsider the drum circle all together. Her sum-up comment to me was, bluntly: “Do you know what you look like from the outside!”

I am not telling this story because I’m against drum circles: they can be productive and empowering and fun – but there is truth in this friend’s reaction: A drum circle would, very likely, be misinterpreted by the mainstream, the outsiders, . Oh yeah man, it was sweet man, like, we went down there and drummed and smoked a bowl and then, like, Leonard Cohen came out and we read some poetry together, yeah, and world peace, right on man. We have to speak each others language before change can happen, and most of the blue suits don’t speak drum circle, unfortunately.

My biggest beef with Occupy X  in Canada is this: we live in a democracy. The inglorious they that the Occupy movements in Canada keep referring to? It’s us. We are they. We vote the policy makers in (and we have the power to vote them out). I acknowledge that it is perhaps a limitation of this form of governance, but as a citizen of a democracy, your vote is your voice. The only real way that you have to take action and make change – beyond running for public office – is to vote (always) and to get the vote out.

And yet…. voter turnout is on a downward spiral in developed nations. In the last Federal Elections (2011), only 61.4% of all eligible Canadian voters even bothered to turn up. In Alberta, the situation is even sadder: In 2008, an abysmal 40.6% of eligible voters came out to vote [From Elections Canada & Elections Alberta, respectively].

I don’t have the words to express my dismay at those numbers: They are pathetic.

My ultimate worry with the Occupy X movement is this: That the energy and drive and passion that has gone into such widespread and (now) long-lasting movements will not translate to votes. In fact, in some instances, the fact that nothing tangible might come of these movements immediately will mean we have a great number of disillusioned people of the variety: I (or even “they”) came out, occupied,  rallied, and for what? Nothing happened? So why should I bother to vote – nobody is listening anyway…. it frustrates me, and so I tell it to you.

On a semi-unrelated note, singer/songwriter Natalie Merchant celebrated a birthday last week. Back in her days with 10,000 Maniacs, a song was sung: Candy Everybody Wants. Have a listen; read the lyrics. We are they – and as we get in our SUV’s to drive to Occupy, who should we be blaming, anyway?

PS. Guess What? This is Post 50! Thank you for [making it to the end of this TOME] ….reading & commenting & being generally lovely and awesome. Oh, and, of course: Happy Halloween!

If lust and hate is the candy,
if blood and love tastes so sweet,
then we give ’em what they want.
Hey, hey, give ’em what they want.

So their eyes are growing hazy ‘cos they wanna turn it on,
so their minds are soft and lazy.
Well, hey, give ’em what they want.

If lust and hate is the candy,
if blood and love tastes so sweet,
then we give ’em what they want.

So their eyes are growing hazy ‘cos they wanna turn it on,
so their minds are soft and lazy.
Well… who do you wanna blame?

Hey, hey, give ’em what they want.

If lust and hate is the candy,
if blood and love tastes so sweet,
then we give ’em what they want.

So their eyes are growing hazy ‘cos they wanna turn it on,
so their minds are soft and lazy.

Well… who do you wanna blame?

Boat, Moat, Tote…Vote?

Bin Votin? …’Cause I have.

Eggzellent Arts

This morning, two things happened: (1) We received a whole schwack of campaign literature. (2) I got an e-mail from my lovely mother: a plea to write to the candidates in my riding and ask that they support funding to the CBC. (<– Also: English is weird. Do we really need the article here? Why: “CBC is playing [a program about] X” (or) “CBC has Y” … but not: *I listened to X on CBC, (or) *support funding to CBC)

All linguistic conundrums aside, I’m thinking a lot about campaigns… and public funding for the arts – including publicly funded radio.

I’m thinking a lot about how funding for the arts and funding to art programs should absolutely be supported. 

I mean…It doesn’t matter, y’know, that the arts have HUGE cultural and social value for community and group building (and therefore, have the ability to improve quality of life…). Nope. No way.

….Nope. Funding for the arts should be a priority for elected officials because political campaigns all about an image these days, right? For votes? Rebrand yourself and your party {Stevie – I see you’ve been hittin’ the gym, slimming down – dayum man you lookin’ goooood; Layton you’ve got those hipsters on the hook f’sure –  Mo’ mo ftw; Ignatieff: you keep rockin’ that stoic Canadian Trudeau-ish vibe; and well….Duceppe, you keep being loud and proud}.

…if I didn’t know better, I might vote on the colour & layout of campaign literature alone: not all campaign literature is designed equal.

And now, with my tongue fully out of my cheek, I say to you: if you feel like supporting the arts and funding to the CBC, take two minutes (I’m not exaggerating: two minutes – it does it all for you) and click here. Write to the candidates in your riding. Include your phone number. Someone might even call you about it. (If they did, would it sway your vote?)

At the very least, think about it? (Photo credits to Miss M.E.: Thanks for making eggzellent art with me).

Head-emony, Anyone?

There’s a lot of talk about this royal wedding:

In New Zealand, it would appear they’re rebelling quietly against constitutional monarchy – sticking it to the old mum via post. For more on this accident(?), check out the full article.

I’m not so sure I’m committed enough to my British roots to stay up to watch the wedding live… but I’d probably definitely like a set of limited edition wedding stamps, especially if they were as oops as these. …I could also probably get behind an afternoon of wedding highlight re-runs with tea, and warm biscuits with jam and clotted cream. Or maybe brunch and screwdrivers.  Any takers?

I M A: Feminist. R U?

Happy International Women’s Day to you. On this March 8th, I’m drinking Lady Grey, and reflecting on the fact that some time in the not-so-distant past, I would absolutely not have called myself a feminist. Do you call yourself a feminist?

It’s okay if you do, and it’s okay if you don’t. I don’t blame you if you’re in the “don’t align me with THEM” camp. It’s a bit of a totally loaded term. Just about anybody can call him/herself a feminist, irrespective of their political or moral agenda (What if I call myself a feminist and people imagine on the one hand that I’m like Sarah Palin, or on the other, that I am a raging, hairy,  man-hater?). I don’t mean to imply that there need be unification of the term. Simply, it’s a word with a versatile past. If you want to use it: claim it. If you don’t…find a new word, and own that one.

I am a feminist because I wouldn’t have a sense of entitlement for equality without the hard work of women who called themselves feminists long before I was born. I am a feminist because I am sex-positive. Because I am pro-choice. Because without the work of feminists, I wouldn’t count as a person in the eyes of the law.

I am a feminist, because I don’t think that it’s fair that women have to choose between being excellent career-women and breadwinners and being excellent home-makers, mothers and lovers.Why can’t I win a Nobel Prize on flex-time. Why can’t I become the CEO of a company working part-time. Shouldn’t I be allowed a life? Isn’t that healthy? They tell me it’s healthy, but if I maintain reasonable work-life balance, I should also probably forget any kind of ambition.

If you have 45 minutes to spare (or to procrastinate away), here is some succinct food-for-thought about what it means to be a feminist (and the state of gender equality in Canada). I just love the CBC. Thanks to M.H. for the link.

On the flip-side, have men really been given this option either?… Nobody wins a Nobel Prize on flex-time. Not just women: nobody. Nobody gets to be CEO working half-time. Want tenure? Forget about being home in time for dinner, nevermind in time to MAKE dinner (no matter what your gender). NO, I won’t argue the fact that patriarchy runs deep in our society. YES, there are overwhelmingly more stay-at-home parents who are women…but…

I think we largely bring up boys (and girls) who have some pretty patriarchical (see also: exhausting) ideas about what it means to be a provider. And boys are brought up with the idea that they are suppose to be providers. Real men aren’t suppose to stay at home. A real man is meant to provide financially for his family. Stay-at-home Dad? Part-time or casual workers? Vagrants and Bums leaching off of their hard-working wives who bore them those beautiful children. A real man isn’t suppose to know how to cook and clean, how to raise children. Real men aren’t really very good with kids, anyhow, not the way women are, naturally (and if you’re a woman who isn’t very good with kids, naturally..well then, you better BE the CEO or the Prime Minister).

The ‘old-boys’ club is so brainwashed that I don’t think they even know how to ask for better. They work themselves into the ground, and, since we women have asked for equality? They expect us to work ourselves to death too. My mom, a gender minority in her field, used to say that some of her male colleagues would forget that their female colleagues didn’t have a wife at home: their husbands were out working full (+) time too.

I am well aware that I’m exaggerating. The situation certainly is improving: it’s more and more OK for men to be sensitive-new-aged- cooker-cleaner-child-rearing types. I still don’t think it’s really acceptable for men or women to be both excellent at having a family AND excellent at their job. Either you’re awesome at home or you’re awesome at work. Awesome stay-at-home dads don’t become CEO’s any more than awesome stay-at-home mom’s win Nobel Prizes. You can’t be awesome at both.

I don’t think the good fight will be done until we raise several generations of men and women feminists -or whatever else you want to call them- who truly believe they should be given the option for balance in their lives, and then who work with other men and women to find that balance.

What I’m really trying to say is…I am happy to call myself a feminist: lipstick, lingerie, high-heels and all. What’s it to you?

Cookies and other Canadiana

Thinking about what it means to be Canadian – It is a difficult talking point for even the most landed of Canadian citizens. Ask any 5+ generation Canadian such as myself, and you will find the response far from definite.

(see also: squinty eyes, vague eyes looking into the distance, beard rubbing, head holding, superfluous imbedded clauses with many unnecessary  discourse connectives to the effect of…..

“What does it mean to be Canadian? Hmm..[crosses arms][uncrosses arms] yeah…well…[shuffles uncomfortably][scratches head and/or rubs beard depending on amount of facial hair] …Canadians…are…you know, like, {insert 5000 discourse connectives here}…multicultural. Yeah [insert shit-eating grin for having come up with reasonably concise response]….”  (And what is multicultural) “oh [discourse connectives], a mosaic. [Discourse connective of choice] Mosaic model [uncomfortable shuffling] yeah, and we have…[insert one zillion topics classified under an idiosyncratic list of Canadiana held by the speaker] ….yea and we’re awesome?”

Right so. My point is that the lowest common denominators in an explanation of what it means to be Canadian will inevitably include (among a lot of awkward, because nobody really knows, and we don’t have blind nationalism to bolster our insecurity…our friendly neighbours to the south – No offense intended, we are secretly jealous of your prideful exuberance):

1. The words “Multicultural”, “Mosaic” and/or “Patchwork Quilt”
2. Any random amount of information on topics considered to be uniquely Canadian and/or Canadiana. P

On the topic of Canadiana…Please, Consider the following:

Cookies by George: Canadian

“Public*” Healthcare: Canadian    (*”reasonable access”)

Dr. Stephen Duckett: NOT Canadian. Unable to fully grasp the aforementioned topics in Canadiana. Also, unable to multitask on the aforementioned topics in Canadiana.

…Eddie (can I call you Eddie?) How come the Albertan government didn’t give Dr. Duckett more detailed instructions on Canadian cultural norms? Perhaps it is not his fault he responds inappropriately to situations involving one (or god forbid, both – see below) of the aforementioned topics in Canadiana. …For shame.

(Disclaimer: Dr. Duckett may or may not actually be eating a Cookie by George. This is not the point.)

Oh…and.. before I leave: Please enjoy this comic, c/o the hilarious and fabulous Allie at Hyperbole and a HalfIt is also on the topic of cookies – this time Americana (Sesame Street is probably Americana at this point, right?)