Christmas Baking Made Complicated

I attempted to make truffles today. Last week I bought all the ingredients, and today I put together the first of three truffle - like creations I am planning on making for Christmas presents. So I chopped up the chocolate and boiled the cream and added the butter and cream -- no problem. I added the chocolate and melted it down and poured the concoction into a shallow dish to cool.

Five hours later, despite the fact that my 14 month old refused to sleep, I hauled it out of the fridge and proceeded to "Using a spoon, scoop 24 rounded teaspoonfuls of the cold chocolate mixture onto a sheet of wax paper. Coat your palms with cocoa and roll each mound between your palms to form a ball". Sounds simple enough, doesn't it?

Not with a fussing toddler in a backpack on your back, and a warm kitchen. No, what you end up with are very sticky hands, cocoa all over the kitchen and the big roll of wax paper unwinding all over the floor where you toddler has kicked it in anger because you won't let him down.

So, after all this, I finish about half the truffles and I decide to taste one. And you know what? They were DISGUSTING. I guess baker's chocolate was not the best choice for something that's only other ingredients are cream and butter.

Now I have an even worse quandry: do I give gross truffles out as gifts? Do I just give them to people I don't like? Do I throw them out and waste $6 worth of chocolate and 1c. of whipping cream? Do I send them to starving children in Africa?

No, my friends. When the world gives you terrible, bitter truffles . . . make FUDGE! I melted down the truffles and added lots of icing sugar. Now my kitchen is covered in fine white powder as well as find brown powder and numerous sheets of wax paper. I guess I should go and clean it up.

Words, words, words

It is really funny to hear my son learn language. Especially since I try to pronounce things clearly for him, so he can learn words. Sometimes I must be a bit too "clear" because he comes out with extra syllables and sounds in words. Eg -- today he has started saying "owuaps". In other words, oops. On the other side of the coin, I play chase with him and call out "gonna getcha"! He calls back "Gongeddya". Or "Cheese" which he pronounces perfectly, but only in a hissing whisper, because I always emphasize the "ch" sound. Another multi-syllabic silliness is "Eauras" -- ears. Perhaps my son in learning middle english, rather than the modern variety. Ah, well. Once we're through with "Brown Bear, Brown Bear" and "Goodnight Moon" we shall proceed to "Canterbury Tales" and "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" in the original languages.

Similarities Between Myself and the Queen

I have come to the conclusion that Anglican minster's wives are sort of like the Queen. Your job is essentially to make an appearance. You show up, looking acceptable, chit chat, smile, and then leave. To actually attempt to get too involved would be like the Queen showing up in the kitchen, rolling up her bejeweled sleeves and washing dishes.

This is a new thought for me, since in the Baptist church minister's wives are more like the Prime Minister's cheif assistant. You must run the choir or play the piano, run the sunday school or kids' club, attend or comandeer a ladies' bible study of some sort, bring baking to everything and always have a pot of coffee on and a plate of cookies readily available. You are the right hand woman.

So imagine my surprise when I am asked to do, well, nothing. Except show up.

IF I have to read "The Belly Button Book" One More Time . . .

Sorry, but I can't come to my blog right now. I'm busy reading the Belly Button Book for the 100th time today. Let's all sing along to the happy hippo belly button song. All together now . . .

Baby and Cat

So, my cat is not the most social of creatures. I named her Beckett after the reclusive, oddball playwrite Samuel Beckett, and she has lived up to that name. She does, however, like my toddler.

This morning I was sitting on the floor in the kitchen reading a book to my toddler, when the cat decided to join us. She sat on the string to my toddler's pull-along turtle toy. Since I know she loves playing with string, I started swishing it around while I read to the baby, and the cat started batting at it and chasing it. Well, I got the baby's attention, and he was loving this game with the cat. The cat noticed that the baby was interested, and assumed he was interested in the string. So she grabbed the string in her mouth and pulled the string and entire plasic turtle (about half her size) around the corner. Then my toddler got up and followed her, determined to "give" the toy to the cat. The cat, of course, ran away.

I decided that, since the toddler had taken over the toy, I would tie some shoelaces together for the cat to play with. So I get the string ready, and of course now my toddler is interested in the string. I sit him on my lap to watch, and then get the cat chasing the string. The baby wants to get involved, so I give him the end of the string and try to show him how to walk the string around the house. I think maybe the cat will then follow the toddler, and they will both be amused. Nope. The baby decides to pick up the string in the middle and chase the cat around while waving the string at her.

Perhaps 14 months is a bit young to encourage too much cat - toddler interaction.

Bulk Food: Friend or Foe?

Alright, this goes along with the home grown vegetables. I am afraid of bulk food. I keep telling myself that the reason I don't buy bulk more is because I would have to take an extra trip to Nutters (the bulk food / health food store) to do so. But I know in my heart of hearts that this is not really the case! The fact is, that I am afraid of bulk food. After all, who knows who has put their hands into those bins? Who knows where that flour came from and wether someone licked it as they put it into that big orange flip-top lidded container. Did the marachino cherries come out of one of those big trucks that has a sign that says "NOT DRINKING WATER" on the back? How long do they keep the food before they throw it out? What sort of additives did those smiling ladies in the green aprons put in my brown rice before they put it on display?

There are just too many questions about bulk food. My imagination goes wild when I walk into a bulk food store. I can't help it. It just seems so much safer to buy a bright yellow bag full of flour than it does to scoop it out of a big bin. I like my bright yellow bag of flour. I don't care if it costs an extra .50 cents! It is strangely comforting for me to pour that big bag of flour into my tupperware container that I bought to encourage myself to buy bulk. Sigh. I guess this will change as my family increases and our income doesn't. But for now, I not so proudly support overpackaging and giant multi-national food conglomerates! Yay Robin Hood flour!

Stats at 30

So, I turned 3o ten days ago. I was thinking about this on my way home from the mall today as I walked in the biting cold prairie wind, and I decided to compile a list of my life statistics thus far:

Numbers of years alive: 30
Number of years living with parents: 18
Number of years living with husband: 12
Number of years in school: 20
Number of years gainfully employed: 5
Number of years as SAHM: 1

Elementary schools attended: 5
Highschools attended: 2
Universities attended: 4

Dead end fast food jobs worked over summers during university: 5
Schools taught at during time as highschool teacher: 4
Years as highschool teacher: 3
Subjects taught while a highschool teacher: 7
Students taught (aprox): 450

Number of marriages: 1
Divorces: 0
Children conceived: 1
Children born: 1

Countries lived in: 1
Cities lived in: 6
Houses lived in: 5
Appartments lived in: 5

Regrets: few
Accomplishments: some decent ones
Friends: many, some that I even keep in touch with still, many that I miss
Marriage: stormy beginning, but now good
Career: was amazing and exciting, but on hold for now
Parenthood: difficult and frustrating, but rewarding
Faith: up and down, but my commitment and faith never waver, just my discipline
Overall accessment: Not too bad. I'm pretty happy so far. I thought I would have accomplished more by now, but I have had lots of great friends, and some pretty interesting experiences, so that makes up for it. I'm just trying not to be a "peak too soon" kind of person.

Business and Boredom

I have never been so busy and so bored at the same time. This is the crazy thing about being a stay at home mom to a toddler: there is so much to do and it is all so mindless! I feel like I have two options. I can do all of the things that need doing around the house and allow my brain to die a slow death via starvation or I can not get everything done around the house and do something that is actually interesting. Of course this means ignoring my toddler, or wrestling to keep him off the computer desk while I type, or allowing him to chew on power cords while I get one more sentence of my novel read.

For a while, I had it perfectly balanced. I was keeping the house tidy and relatively clean and I was really quite happy about it. I felt like I had succeeded at the mommy thing. Yay Jill! Then I realized that now that I could do it properly I didn't want to any more. It was all so boring and repetative. Why spend all my time vacuuming and mopping when my husband is going to come home in a rush and forget to take his shoes off, and then my toddler is going to throw cottage cheese half way across the room? Why pick up the toys only to have them flung on the floor again the next morning? What is the point!

The problem is that now I am just being lazy. I sit around and reading and not getting anything done. It is terrible. My house is not as nice as it was. I don't have that satisfied tidy-house feeling, and I"m not doing anything useful or productive. Its not as if I'm writing or creating something. I have abandoned my lists and schedules. I am getting sluggish. But I am still bored, and annoyed at myself on top of that.

So, oh reader, what is the solution? How do I keep my house, my toddler, and my sanity all intact?

Adventures in Quilting: Part 1 - Buying Fabric

I have decided that, as part of my domestication, I should learn to quilt. To this end, I signed up for a quilting class. Now, these classes take place at the local fabric store and the woman who runs them is quite familliar with me. I come in with my jogging stroller every few weeks and ask for strange and obscure things. She looks at me sideways and shows me where those things are, and then walks away after I completely ignore her suggestions. So when she told me that I would have to come into the store so she could help me pick fabric I knew it could be interesting.

For the quilt pattern that I am making, the first fabric you need to pick is your main print. All the others are chosen around this first print. On my sheet it is called a "floral". I guess I wasn't reading my sheet very well. The first fabric I picked was a funky fabric covered in little round multi-coloured circles. It looked like a great polyester shirt from the 70's. It had various shades of brown, green, tuqoise and pale blue, with tiny flecks of yellow. You are then supposed to pick one colour from that print and find a lighter and darker fabric in that colour. Well, first I went hunting for the cool tuqoise colour, but it was nowhere to be found in the store. The woman pulled out two soft, pastelish greens which I quickly vitoed. I asked her if she had any fabric in the brown that I could see in the quilt. She looked rather dismayed and pulled some soft blue fabrics for me to look at. I asked her if she had the bight turqoise. She said "The greens really do look nice with it . . ". I paused.

I asked how much the fabric cost. Why the sudden question? Well, firstly becuase there were no evident prices anywhere on the bolts. Secondly, because if I am going to make a cheap quilt, I don't care if its not perfect.If I am going to make an expensive quilt, I want it to be beautiful. She told me how much the fabrics cost and she must have seen my face drop at her astronomical figure, because she said, "why don't you see if you can find anything in the bargain bin up at the front, dear. They're $6 a metre."

Up to the front I boldly trekked, searching desperately for something reasonably priced to make my quilt out of. SHe followed me and pulled several "lovely" florals that I might like to use for the pattern on my quilt. I kept looking through the bin. Finally I found a green that I liked -- a warm, medium green. Then I found a black with the same colour of green vines twining through it. I though "these are really cool". So I pulled them, along with about half a dozen other things.

Back I went to the cutting table that was now strewn with bolts of cloth. We found one set of matching fabrics that were all from the $6 bin. Unfortunately, one was a medium floral print and the other two were soft blue. where, in my house, would I put a quilt in those colours? In the basement in a box, that's where.

So I hemmed and hawed and looked at this, and looked at that, when suddenly it hit me. I should make a BLACK quilt with the two greens as the contrast colours! So I ran to the regular priced fabric, thinking, "If I have two sale priced colours, I can afford one regular priced colour". And there is was, in the black section. A beautiful deep black with a small geometric pattern of aleternating daisies and spirals. I triumphantly brought it back to the cutting table, very excited with my find. After all, the green contrasts would bring out the red in the pattern, and vice versa. My problem was solved! I had found my quilt fabric!

I proudly showed the saleslady what I had found. I smiled with satisfaction. "Well, yes, you COULD do that", she conceded. And I will.

Fool's Errand : Book Review

This is the first book in the Tawney Man series by Robin Hobb. It picks up where the Farseer Trilogy left off but 15 years in the future. Once more it chronicles the thoughts and adventures of FitzChivalry Farseer, bastard in the royal family of the Six Dutchies. After 15 years of self-imposed exile, Fitz returns to the court at Buckeep under an assumed identity along with his friend the Fool. They are charged with the task of finding the soul heir to the throne, Prince Chivalry Farseer, who has gone missing.

The first third of this book re-introduces the characters fromthe first trilogy, as well as several new characters. It tells the reader what has happened to Fitz in the intervening 15 years, and sets the stage for his return to Buckeep. The second two thirds of the book concerns Fitz and the Fools' efforts to find Prince Chivalry and return him to Buckeep Castle. It is a fairly straighforward plot but it has enough surprises and twists to keep the reader's attention.

I found this book to be lighter and more entertaining than the previous trilogy. Its plot was more straightforward than the first two books, and its climax and conclusion more satisfying than the final book in that trilogy. This is partially due to the characters involved. FitzChivalry is 15 years older and has, thankfully, matured slightly. I found him to still be an anti-hero (he maintains his role as Catalyst to others heroics), but an older, wiser and thankfully less self-absorbed man. He still has a dark side, but his choices are marked by greater maturity. The Fool has always been a foil to Fitz's darkness. Despite his role as White Prophet, he is still a fun character and he brings a lot of humour and irony to the book. He is also my favorite character from the first series, so I am glad that he is a central character in this second series.

If you like fantasy I would definitely suggest you read this book. It gives enough background that you could read it without having read the Fareseer Trilogy. It was entertaining and engrossing. During the last two days I was reading it I all but neglected my housework and only vaguely supervised my son. I was so worried about how Fitz and the Fool were going to get out of one scrape that I found it hard to carry on a conversation with someone I ran into while I was grocery shopping. So, I have a bit of an overactive imagination and when someone says to me "suspend your disbeleif" I say "what disbeleif?" But that aside, it was a good book. Read it.

Receiving as a Form of Giving

You know what drives me crazy? People who can't receive. I know that we are to do unto others as we would have them do unto us. I know we are to lay down our lives for others and that it is better to give than to receive. But I think there is also merit in knowing when to allow others to give back.

For example, I have recently had guests to stay at my house for the weekend. While they were here, they wanted to take us out to dinner for almost every meal. They raked all our leaves. They washed my dishes. They wanted to cook all the meals we ate at home. While this was all very kind, I felt frustrated by the end of the weekend. Why? Because I had wanted to be able to host my guests -- to make meals for them and clean up while they visited and allow them to enjoy spending time with my son. I felt like I was not allowed to do anything for these people without them recompensing me.

There are times when we all have needs, and we can not fill them ourselves. There are times when we have what it takes to meet others needs. If we do not admit our needs and allow others to give to us, we will burn out and run dry. If we never get to use our gifts to help others we will feel useless, frustrated and unappreciated. What we need to do is find the humility to accept kindnesses from others.

Being a gracious receiver is also a form of giving. It allows the giver to feel as though their gift mattered to you. I allows you to build a give and take relationship with the person. If you are a gracious receiver, it makes it easier for that person to ask you for something later, because they do not feel like you will be doing it out of "obligation", nor that you are "keeping score". Mutual giving and taking is the basis for any really good friendship or marriage.

Playgroup

So, my town has a city - wide playgroup. This is great, because everyone puts in a nominal fee and gets to bring their kids to a big gym with lots of toys once a week. In winter it helps the kids blow off steam and the parents get out of the house. There is tea / coffee / hot chocolate for the moms and a snack and crafts for the kids. I love the idea of a citywide playgroup.

But the reality is that there are about 20 - 25 moms there. Most of them have grown up together / go to the same church / are Kinettes. So they know each other already. They know everyone in town. They like to sit together and gossip about other people in town and talk about whatever. The problem is that it makes it hard for new moms to break into the group. There is a small group of new moms that kind of hover around the edges. We stand like the kid who wasn't picked for either team of the soccer game, watching our little tot play, and hope someone will come over and talk to us. We hover over our child while they do their craft, thinking that maybe the mom next to us will spark up a conversation. Sometimes we even try to talk to each other.

But in such a huge setting, with so many kids and so much going on, how does one get beyond "how old is your baby / tot?" and "so how long have you lived in Melfort?". It is difficult to have a meanigful conversation and really get to know anyone. For me, as an intense, highly emotional kind of person, this small talk just doesn't cut it. I crave more. I need to really get to know people.

So, I have decided to start taking surveys every week. I will develop a list of non-mom oriented questions (since I suck at talking about being a mom -- have you noticed?) and ask them to everyone each week. I figure that maybe this will get people talking about non - mommish, non - did-you-hear-what-bob-did-last-week topics. Maybe it might even spark, God forbid, a CONVERSATION.

So, dear readers (I realize you are few and far between, but help me out here), give me some questions. Next week is "what is your favoirite genre of movie? Your all time favorite movie?". I will see what happens and get back to you. Maybe it will be fun. Maybe I'll just get weird stares. Maybe I will be completely shunned and forced to leave playgroup.

Fear of Home Grown Vegetables

I know that I am a child of the modern era because I am afraid of home grown vegetables. It is not so much that people have actually dug them out of the ground. That part I can handle. Nor is it the fact that I don't know wether the people grew them properly or not, since they are not expert farmers. No, it is their shape and colour. I have discovered that I am so used to homogenized food industry vegetables that I am disturbed by tiny beefsteak tomatos and potatos the size of my head, not to mention bumpy carrots. These really frighten me -- is it cancerous? Should I give it radiation treatment before I eat it?

Those funny scratchy scars that home grown vegetables sport also make me pause. Is it a virus? A fungus? A secret warning sign that the vegetable is not safe for human consumption? A former nesting place of a caterpillar? What is it exactly, and why is it on my food? Should I eat it or cut it out?

I am rather dismayed by this discovery, since I am quite crunchy. I like to go to farmer's markets and I like the idea of growing my own food or eating food from other people's gardens. But even though I know the pesticides are bad for me, I wonder if home grown food is safe. I worry about the whole lack of expertise and precisions put into home gardens. I mean, all they did was put the seeds in the ground and weed and water the soil and they got food? And I can eat it? Really? Wow. Crazy.

Why I Will Never Star in an Action Movie: Reason #1

I was reading an outdated copy of US magazine the other day and it was talking about Jennifer Garner preparing for her role as Elektra. It said that to get her super lean body she ate 1400 calories a day and did martial arts and weight training for several hours a day. She snacked on nuts in between meals of chicken and salad.

According to Shape Magazine (a reliable source, I know), an average woman should never go below 1500 calories when they are trying to lose weight, and a highly active woman, like Jennifer Garner was at this time, should eat around 2000 calories a day in order to stay healthy.

I will never star in an action movie because I think it is stupid to do long term damage to your body, even if it does mean you look really hot in a vinyl jumpsuit right now.

Christianity and the Human Desire for Power

In my confirmation class we have been going through the book of Mark. This last week we looked at passages in Mark 8 - 10. I was once more struck by the disciples' lack of ability to actually hear what is being said to them and clue into what Jesus is all about. He tells them 3 times that he is going to die. The first time, Peter corrects him. The next two times, they ignore Jesus and continue to argue about who is going to be in charge of the Kingdom of Heaven. James and John, being forthright guys, even come and ask Jesus if they can be his right and left hand men. When I first read this I was amazed at their audacity.

The more I thought about it, the less I was amazed. One of the things that has always made the Bible beleivable for me is that the Saints are all too human. The disciples probably think they are going to Jerusalem so that Jesus can take over from the Religious Leaders. After all, Jesus keeps talking about the Kingdom of Heaven. He has the power: he can raise the dead, heal the sick and outsmart all the religious teachers. He has been in an escalating power struggle with the religious leaders of his day. Surely at the end of this Jesus, the son of God, will win the power struggle and take over Jerusalem. Once he has that part of the Kingdom well in hand,he will spread out to Rome and then the World. James and John just want a spot on the Comittee that will head the New World Order. Is that too much to ask?

But in one of those paradoxes that makes me love Jesus and my faith, this is not what happens. Jesus warns them well ahead of time that he is not going to be a hero or a world ruler. He will lose the power struggle and go to the cross. He will die. He will lose the physical, political battle in order to win the spiritual battle. He will live and die his words that "the first shall be last and the last shall be first". He will be a true friend, and give up his life for those he loves.

This is one of the things that makes Jesus supernatural. He has the courage, in the end, to lose. To set aside power, reject the ego, and serve mankind. Imagine if more of the powerful people in our world took this seriously; if they, ironically, used their power to serve the weak and helpless of the world. Imagine if each one of us did this in our own life. What a beautiful place this world would be. One might almost call it something close to the Kingdom of God.

The Friendship Dance

Remember when it was so easy to make friends? You would go up and say, "Hi, I'm Jill." And the other girl would say "Hi, I'm Suzanne." And you would say, "Do you want to play mermaids with me?" and they would say "OK." And you would be friends. The pact was sealed until you found a more interesting friend. Because you were only 10, after all, and easily bored.

Why is it so much more complicated at 29? I enter a new town, and I meet people I would like to be friends with. But now, I can't just walk up to them and say "Do you want to be my friend?". Now it is more like a dance.

A dance where we discover if we can really be friends. I think, "Maybe this person will be my friend". So I talk with them, or invite them over for coffee. But I don't share too much, and they don't share too much. First we need to know: are they trustworthy? will they tell other people? will they think I'm really weird and abandon me? will they think I'm too aggressive and shy away? will I put them off too much and they will think I don't like them?

Slowly, we reveal ourselves. Slowly, we get beyond the "Hi, my name is" and the "I'm from here" and the "I do this for a living". Gradually, step by step, to a tune we hope is the same as the other person's tune, we say, "This is what my family was like". We say, "This is something I am passionate about". We say, "This is one of my secrets". And we hope beyond hope that the next time we see them, they are still our friend.

Perhaps they will be a better friend, and the pace of the dance will quicken. Or perhaps the dance will fade away, and we will lose them. But if we want to be friends, we must dance this dance, for we are no longer young and innocent. We are scarred and we know that people are dangerous. Worse, we know ourselves well enough to know how we are a danger to others. And so we tread lightly, and we dance the dance in hopes of creating a real friend. For the older we get, the more we realize how precious a friendship is, and how difficult it can be to find a real friend.

The Birds Knew Something I Didn't

Fall has quit flirting with Summer. He has started pursuing that coy tease, Winter. She comes and goes. She kisses the ground, then melts away. She blows a gust, then turns away. She reminds us that this far north we may not be in her domain, but we are in her playground.

The television antenna

We do not have television. We have a television set, but we have no channels. The last time we had channels was in 2002 for a few months. Dave's brother decided that we needed an antenna, since we had a TV, so he bought us one. We hooked it up for a while. I watched Survivor and Friends every Thursday. Before that we had never had television since we got married in 1993.

Yesterday, we were bored. We didn't want to rent a movie, since there wasn't anything exciting in the video store. We couldn't go anywhere because our son was sleeping. We had done next to nothing all day on Dave's day off. So we decided to try to get a channel on our TV. I went to the basement and dug out the antenna. We set it on top of the TV and plugged it in.

We spent about 10 min. Figuring out that we had to turn off the cable function on our television before we could get it to work. Then we spent another 10 min. twiddling with the antenna while switching channels, trying to find a channel with a signal. Finally, we found it! Channel 11 had wavy lines, not just static! I left Dave to fiddle with the antenna and when I came back we had vague images moving across the screen. Yes, they were black and white, yes they were blurry, but you could see that there was something happening there!

What we couldn't figure out was why there was no sound. Usually with such a tantalizing picture you would get a pretty good sound quality, but there was nothing. Not a peep. So, we unplugged all the DVD cables, hoping that would result in a sound. Nothing. We twiddled with the different things on the antenna -- still no sound. So I decided to check if the sound cable was properly screwed into the plug at the back.

I took the antenna plug out of the TV. I checked it. It was fine. I put it back into the television. The picture was gone. Even the hint of a picture was gone. We turned the antenna every which way. We twiddled with the dial. We tried all kinds of settings on the TV menu. Nothing worked. Our hope of being reintroduced into the exciting world of moving pictures was over. Dave went to play on the internet. I washed the dishes. I decided it must the the antenna.

The Birds

We had some crazy bird action going on here on Sun. morning. I felt like I was watching the inspiration for Hitchcock's classsic. We have an apple tree in the back yard, and all the apples that we didn't get off the tree are now becoming bird food. Which is cool, because usually there will be lots of birds standing in our yard munching on apples.

Sunday morning was a whole other ballgame. There were robins everywhere. These were not the happy little robins you sing about in Kindergarten. These robins were swooping around our back yard in and out of trees,. They were standing facing each other and butting chests and flapping wings at each other. They were making formations and careening wildly around my yard and the neighbourhood. It was crazy.

I wonder, is it mating time? Doesn't that happen in the spring? Was it some sort of teenage pre-migration bird party? Were they deciding who gets the best condos when they arrive down south? Are my apples turning into bird alcohol? Was there a special south-northern wind blowing through the yard?

I showed this display of crazy robin behavior to my one year old son. He said "oh."

Missing a Multiplicity of Cultures

One of the things I have noticed about living in a small town is the lack of cultures. It is not that there is no culture in a smaller town. It is simply that there are only one or two cultures instead of many.

Let me give you an example. I used to live in Thunder Bay, a city of 117 000 people. There was an Italian hall, an Italian cappuccino bar (before they were cool), and several Italian Resteraunts. There was a Finnish Resteraunt, a Finnish community center, and several shops that imported goods from Finland. The same could be said for the Portugeese, the Ukranians, the Hungarians . . . you get the picture. Aside from this there was a Christian community that was small enough so that I could recognize almost all of the Christian teenagers in town, because our paths had crossed at various events. We had our own culture, our own community. But I was also part of a group of Catholic friends at school, who showed me how to pray the rosary and had me over for Easter dinner. I was also friends with a bunch of other people who were interested in music, and introduced me to jazz. I knew a lot about Finnish culture because I grew up in a Finn area of town . . . again, you get the picture.

The same was true, only more so, on the West Coast. When I taught at big highschools in Surrey there would be kids who were seperated by interests and general social status, just like anywhere else. But there were also kids who were friends because they were Phillipino, or Indo-Canadian, or Korean, or Iraqi. These kids rubbed elbows with each other and with the run of the mill "Canadian" kids, and voila, a cornucopia of intersecting cultures was born! It was wonderful to watch them learn to swear in other languages, listen and dance to music from other cultures, eat food they would have never otherwise sampled, and generally be exposed to ideas and experiences of people from all around the world. There is a certain depth that comes from the intersection of so many cultures. You see people differently. You learn that your perspective is not the only one. If you are open to it, you can learn to see the world through the eyes of a different culture, and understand why they act as they do. "They" becomes blurred with "us".

The strange, wonderful thing about Canada is that we, ideally, maintain both the "we" and the "us - them" simultaneously. I strive to maintain my own cultural / religious / personal identity while also being enriched by the cultures and religions of those around me. I become broadened and deepened by all this exposure and knowledge. Is it perfect? No. Does it always work this way? No. But if you allow yourself to be welcomed in, if you listen and watch and taste and ask questions, it is amazing what you can find out.

And that is one of the things I miss after my move to a 3 Horse town in Saskatchewan. I miss gyoza and curry and home made salad rolls dipped in peanut sauce. More, I miss my friends who have bravely married into multiculturalism. I miss soy-sauce basted turkey for Thanksgiving and my Japaneese friend learning to sing R&B and Italian arias. I miss my Malay friend teaching me how to make Yorkshire pudding correctly. I miss mis-understanding my American friend because we use the same word in such a slightly different way that we get half way through a conversation without realizing why we are both so confused. I miss all the differences I had learned to take for granted.

But yet, there is a subtle trap here. The trap is to think that I should instantly understand the culture here becuase everyone is white and mostly Christian. It is to think that I can walk in and not use those cross-cultural sensors here because everything looks familliar. The longer I stay here, the more I realize that things are not always so familliar. Now I am in a culture where the differences are more subtle. Where the great depression and World War II and the original homesteaders have left as indellible a mark as the Hong Kong Reappropriation has left of Vancouver. A strong sense of community and volunteerism, strangely paired with the notion that one should be independent and be able to provide for oneself -- and your neighbours to boot -- pervades the culture. This province of people whose ancestors dared to take ships across the ocean to start new lives in parts unknown. This province of people whose parents fed peniless, jobless drifters at their back door. This province of people who sent throngs of young men to fight for Queen and country.

This province tells its own story. It is not a story with a long history. It is often not even a flashy or exciting story. But it is a story the newcomer needs to listen to. For it is the story of these people with whom I live. And in order to understand them, I need to hear it. And so I listen. And slowly I understand. And one day I will take these stories with me, just as I take the stories of new immigrants just arrived full of hopes and dreams, longings for home and familliar sights and sounds and foods. And I will absorb them into myself as I have taken those other stories. And they will make me stronger and wiser, richer, and deeper.