Hello Kiddies,
It's the 26th of Sept, and do you know what that means? My birthday was three days ago!! Woo! Birthday! Huzzah!
...Ok, enough of that.
But I will tell y'all about it. We stayed up until my birthday started, I got to read my birthday card from Dylan's parents (it was really the only thing I got to open this year, so it was exciting). We watched some Daily Show and went night-night. We woke up and decided to go for ice cream, since our previous attempts the day before failed. For some reason, there's a ice cream store that isn't open in the middle of the afternoon or at night. Oh well. We ended up going to this adorable little place that is only open for a few more days and ice cream was 2 for 1 and the owner was the sweetest old man. That evening we went out for ramen and then were going to see a fancy fountain show. But it only runs through the summer and the 23rd of Sept is apparently not really summer...
I also got some emails from family, a voice mail from Grandma, and all my dear friends giving me facebook well wishes. All in all, I feel the love.
Other than that, my hubby got me a pretty-pretty dress. So yesterday we alls went shopping, (except for the mister) so I could get a shrug for it. And, with some of my birthday money, I also bought a couple of sweaters. It was exciting. And we took Pauly out for poutine, because it is a must when visiting Montreal.
We have vague plans to go to the Ottawa area in a couple days. Oh, and if things work out, Clair, Dylan and I might head down to Washington, D.C. on Oct. 30th. A nice benefit of living on the East Coast.
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Sunday, September 19, 2010
Pauly's here! Fun and excitement abounds! She arrived two nights ago, but unfortunately Dylan was working. So, guess who got to pick her up from the airport? But, don't worry, I did it in my typically neurotic way. Since I didn't want to be driving at rush hour, we left to pick her up at 3:30pm when her flight was expected to arrive at 6:54pm. Yah, we don't live 3.5 hours away from the airport. Our plan was to just sit in a coffee shop near the airport. It ended up being a Subway, but that's not important. Oh, and I also still refused to drive on the highway. So we took regular streets the whole way. Well, except for about the five minutes (at most) that are absolutely necessary to get to the airport. It wasn't that much slower, I swear! And I had my trusty Clair to read out my written directions and look up her phone how far away the streets that I was going to turn onto were. We would have taken the highway back, but for some reason Pauly refused to drive...
I took the picture in black and white because it seems more french to me. Also, I desperately need a haircut.
Yesterday, we took her downtown, walked through Old Montreal and up to St. Catherines. And today we were going to go for a picnic, but a) we are lazy and b) we decided that we would wait for a day that Dylan wasn't working.
I made dinner! Well, I made corn. Clair may have helped out and made the latkas.
That's all. Love love.
I took the picture in black and white because it seems more french to me. Also, I desperately need a haircut.
Yesterday, we took her downtown, walked through Old Montreal and up to St. Catherines. And today we were going to go for a picnic, but a) we are lazy and b) we decided that we would wait for a day that Dylan wasn't working.
I made dinner! Well, I made corn. Clair may have helped out and made the latkas.
That's all. Love love.
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Highjacking my blog.
Wow, so many updates, in such a short time!
In family news, my cousin got married over the weekend. I'm super happy for her, but kinda bummed I didn't get to be there. All the pictures on Facebook are beautiful and she looks so happy, so that is all that really matters anyway.
Now, to come to my main point: For those of you who occasionally listen when I get going on my crazy rants, you know that I sometimes get obsessed about a specific topic, research the heck out of it, and bring it up whenever it is remotely relevant, with whoever will listen. Unfortunately for Paul, she is the only one who really puts up with it, and this results in her spending a week hearing about nothing but the British Royal family, or Mao and the Great Famine, or whatnot. I normally refrain from using this as a way to force people to listen to my ramblings, but you can all just blame her for not having been on Skype for the last few days.
The last two days, my newest obsession has been Glenn Beck and the Restoring Honor Rally. I watched his full speech that ran about an hour and have been doing some reading up on him. I don't know how much y'all know about Mr. Beck, but I didn't go into it expecting that much. Our political views don't exactly line up, and in the past he has said some...interesting things. For instance, a couple of months ago, on his tv show, he recommended a book written in the 1930s by a known anti-semite and nazi supported. He also claims that his business is entertainment, not politics, and I just don't see how that could be true. I was actually mildly pleased to find out that he didn't come across as crazy as I was expecting and I did agree with some of the things he said. But there are a few small things that I would like to say:
1) I really don't see a cause for the imminent destruction of the U.S. (and the rest of the world) that he seemed so very concerned about. He said over and over that the States was at a crossroads, but he never specified what exactly caused them to arrive at this crossroads. He did, however, specify that this can be avoided through charity, hope, and faith.
2) Someone forgot to give him the memo that Church and State are separated in America. He is a religious man, that's cool. Even better, he seemed to promote interfaith cooperation (even if I didn't fully buy it). The problem I do have is how he tied faith, patriotism, and politics so tightly together. To be a good American, you have to be married, have a family, and go to church. That is blatantly not true and insulting to the millions of Americans. If he believes that prayer is answer to the problems facing America, it that's his right, and I would be inclined to agree that it certainly can't hurt. But he took it just that step too far by saying that it was people's patriotic duty to pray. I won't even go into all the problems I had with what he said about families.
3) I feel it is irresponsible for him to stand in front of thousands of people and tell them to tithe 10%. He is a very rich man; Forbes estimated that from March 2009-March 2010, Beck earned $32 million. I understand that giving $3.2 million is very generous, but that still left him with $28.8 million. It is an entirely different thing to give 10% when you only make $25,000. That $2,500 is going to be harder to do without, especially since apparently you are less than human if you don't have children. I just don't think that it is his place to tell people to do that. He kept saying that change starts in the church, again implying that if you didn't follow exactly what he told you to do, you didn't love your country enough.
(Cute picture of our neighborhood Mini-Oro to distract you from the fact that I am still talking about Glenn Beck.)
As far as I can tell, the whole point of his message was the importance of hope, charity, and faith. And I agree that it's a good things to tell the truth (somehow the practical application of hope is to always tell the truth...), to financially support causes you believe in and to freely practice religion if you so choose. I don't think anyone could argue that these things are dangerous or harmful. But then he keeps talking and takes it too far. I suppose it is entirely possible that this tendency that annoys me so much could very well be the thing that makes him so popular. Fox News is full of conservative reporters saying that the government is too involved in the lives of individuals and that the Democrats are hurting the U.S. But, he stands out when he takes that, along with some random facts, and comes out with his conspiracy theories that everyone is out to destroying American conservatives.
Oh, and I'm pretty sure it's sacrilegious to refer to the Constitution as being the holy scripture of the U.S. Oh, and unless I missed the part of the Bible that refers to Americans as being God's chosen people, I think Beck might be wrong on that one.
Ok, this is getting pretty long, so I'll finish up now. In my readings, I have come across quite a few people who strongly dislike Beck, but the most entertaining critique has come from Stephan King, who described Beck as "Satan's mentally challenged younger brother."
In family news, my cousin got married over the weekend. I'm super happy for her, but kinda bummed I didn't get to be there. All the pictures on Facebook are beautiful and she looks so happy, so that is all that really matters anyway.
Now, to come to my main point: For those of you who occasionally listen when I get going on my crazy rants, you know that I sometimes get obsessed about a specific topic, research the heck out of it, and bring it up whenever it is remotely relevant, with whoever will listen. Unfortunately for Paul, she is the only one who really puts up with it, and this results in her spending a week hearing about nothing but the British Royal family, or Mao and the Great Famine, or whatnot. I normally refrain from using this as a way to force people to listen to my ramblings, but you can all just blame her for not having been on Skype for the last few days.
The last two days, my newest obsession has been Glenn Beck and the Restoring Honor Rally. I watched his full speech that ran about an hour and have been doing some reading up on him. I don't know how much y'all know about Mr. Beck, but I didn't go into it expecting that much. Our political views don't exactly line up, and in the past he has said some...interesting things. For instance, a couple of months ago, on his tv show, he recommended a book written in the 1930s by a known anti-semite and nazi supported. He also claims that his business is entertainment, not politics, and I just don't see how that could be true. I was actually mildly pleased to find out that he didn't come across as crazy as I was expecting and I did agree with some of the things he said. But there are a few small things that I would like to say:
1) I really don't see a cause for the imminent destruction of the U.S. (and the rest of the world) that he seemed so very concerned about. He said over and over that the States was at a crossroads, but he never specified what exactly caused them to arrive at this crossroads. He did, however, specify that this can be avoided through charity, hope, and faith.
2) Someone forgot to give him the memo that Church and State are separated in America. He is a religious man, that's cool. Even better, he seemed to promote interfaith cooperation (even if I didn't fully buy it). The problem I do have is how he tied faith, patriotism, and politics so tightly together. To be a good American, you have to be married, have a family, and go to church. That is blatantly not true and insulting to the millions of Americans. If he believes that prayer is answer to the problems facing America, it that's his right, and I would be inclined to agree that it certainly can't hurt. But he took it just that step too far by saying that it was people's patriotic duty to pray. I won't even go into all the problems I had with what he said about families.
3) I feel it is irresponsible for him to stand in front of thousands of people and tell them to tithe 10%. He is a very rich man; Forbes estimated that from March 2009-March 2010, Beck earned $32 million. I understand that giving $3.2 million is very generous, but that still left him with $28.8 million. It is an entirely different thing to give 10% when you only make $25,000. That $2,500 is going to be harder to do without, especially since apparently you are less than human if you don't have children. I just don't think that it is his place to tell people to do that. He kept saying that change starts in the church, again implying that if you didn't follow exactly what he told you to do, you didn't love your country enough.
(Cute picture of our neighborhood Mini-Oro to distract you from the fact that I am still talking about Glenn Beck.)
As far as I can tell, the whole point of his message was the importance of hope, charity, and faith. And I agree that it's a good things to tell the truth (somehow the practical application of hope is to always tell the truth...), to financially support causes you believe in and to freely practice religion if you so choose. I don't think anyone could argue that these things are dangerous or harmful. But then he keeps talking and takes it too far. I suppose it is entirely possible that this tendency that annoys me so much could very well be the thing that makes him so popular. Fox News is full of conservative reporters saying that the government is too involved in the lives of individuals and that the Democrats are hurting the U.S. But, he stands out when he takes that, along with some random facts, and comes out with his conspiracy theories that everyone is out to destroying American conservatives.
Oh, and I'm pretty sure it's sacrilegious to refer to the Constitution as being the holy scripture of the U.S. Oh, and unless I missed the part of the Bible that refers to Americans as being God's chosen people, I think Beck might be wrong on that one.
Ok, this is getting pretty long, so I'll finish up now. In my readings, I have come across quite a few people who strongly dislike Beck, but the most entertaining critique has come from Stephan King, who described Beck as "Satan's mentally challenged younger brother."
Monday, September 6, 2010
So, the other day, our landlords stopped by. We now officially have a signed english copy of our lease (apparently, for a lease to be legal in Quebec, it has to be this one specific form that you can buy at pharmacies or whatnot that has to be filled out by hand). We should be able to get Quebec healthcare now that we can prove that we live here!
We had asked them, when they told us they were coming by, if they could look at our toilet because it runs a bit. So, the husband went and looked at that while we were signing the lease. This alone shocked me since I am used to landlords saying they will fix something and then doing everything they can to avoid it after that. Then he re-did the caulking on the tub, while he was there. He told us that he'd have to have his handyman come in and fix the toilet, and when we mentioned that our taps dripped he told us he'd get the handyman fix that as well. The wife used our front door (which we rarely use), to go get something from her car, and noticed that the door stuck. The husband looked at it, fiddled with it for a couple minutes, and added it to the list of things for the handyman to fix. We also mentioned that the fan in our room wobbled in a worrying way, and they told us that the fan was left by the previous tenant because it was supposed to have some dome light thingy. Regardless, the husband went and took a look, but realized we didn't have a ladder tall enough for him to reach. Oh well. So they came back today and fixed it!
They aren't around often, since they actually live in the States. But they actually do stuff. They fix stuff for us, they return phone calls, they are generally helpful people. I think my head may fall off.
We had asked them, when they told us they were coming by, if they could look at our toilet because it runs a bit. So, the husband went and looked at that while we were signing the lease. This alone shocked me since I am used to landlords saying they will fix something and then doing everything they can to avoid it after that. Then he re-did the caulking on the tub, while he was there. He told us that he'd have to have his handyman come in and fix the toilet, and when we mentioned that our taps dripped he told us he'd get the handyman fix that as well. The wife used our front door (which we rarely use), to go get something from her car, and noticed that the door stuck. The husband looked at it, fiddled with it for a couple minutes, and added it to the list of things for the handyman to fix. We also mentioned that the fan in our room wobbled in a worrying way, and they told us that the fan was left by the previous tenant because it was supposed to have some dome light thingy. Regardless, the husband went and took a look, but realized we didn't have a ladder tall enough for him to reach. Oh well. So they came back today and fixed it!
They aren't around often, since they actually live in the States. But they actually do stuff. They fix stuff for us, they return phone calls, they are generally helpful people. I think my head may fall off.
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