Via Rail Nordique

#FakeMapFun

I saw this map posted earlier this week on Twitter by @apapenheim.

I immediately understood that this map was a joke (some on Twitter apparently missed this point), although I probably do not get all the jokes. I've lived in Canada for 5-1/2 years now, so I should get some, if not most of Ministry of Canadian Humo(ur) references. Or maybe I just have a jones for geography? Yes, that, too.

Here's what I've gleaned so far:

• High-speed rail all over the thinly settled North with Moose Factory, Ontario, being the Grand Central Station/transit center for all of Eastern Canada. It is funny, but it is also sarcastic, as the Canadian North and the Indigenous people who live there are probably the least well served by the Canadian government (boil water orders, no roads, poor housing, suicides) and the least acknowledged by the rest of Canada. But, you know, Canadians are so nice, all is forgiven!
  

• One lowly little high-speed rail line between Toronto and Sarnia--not Windsor, which one would expect over Sarnia, as Windsor is the "more important" city, the end/start of the McDonald-Cartier Freeway corridor, where most of Canada's population lives. Also, Toronto, Canada's most populated city, is completely disconnected from the rest of the high-speed network. And let me tell you, Toronto will not stand for this!

• No stops in Montréal (suburban Laval, instead) or Québec City (suburban Lévis, instead) and barely a stop in Ottawa, the federal capital. Again, the Québec City-Montréal-Ottawa-Toronto-Windsor corridor is the country's most populated. And, as Torontonians would say, it's most important.
  

• No connector between Calgary and Edmonton. The sibling rivalry is intense between these two, and never the twain shall meet.

• Barely a way out of Winnipeg. Likely more true than Winnipeg would care to admit.

• A stop located in "Marché aux Puces," Ontario. Which means "flea market" in French. I admit I had to consult my dictionary to get that joke.
  

• A stop located in the Narcisse Snake Pits, Manitoba. Is this even a thing? Yes, apparently, it is!
  

• A connector to Bismarck, North Dakota (why?), and another to Point Roberts, Washington, a city only accessible by land through British Columbia.

• The "under construction" line between Kegashka and Blanc-Sablon, Québec. In real life, there is no road between these towns along the Québec coast. I'm assuming they are all fishing ports that have limited ferry connections between one another. Part of the joke is likely that a road has long been proposed for this region or is something that seems desirable, yet impossible, and thus will never happen.
  

• "Thanks" to various entities and people, including the "SAQ"--la Société des alcools du Québec, AKA the liquor control board for the province of Québec. SAQ does not stand for la Société alcoolique du Québec--the Alcoholic Society of Québec--as I have been known to call it. By accident, I swear.

• The suggestion in the Twitter comments that this transportation map looks like it was crafted by the Toronto City Council, where eternal political gridlock for decades on end prevents even the simplest of transportation plans from moving forward.

I didn't get the reference to Hyder, a town in Alaska. Like Point Roberts, Hyder is separated from the rest of the U.S. and only accessible via Canada.

 

So I understand most of the jokes, but you know what? The jokes just aren't that funny. Or they're funny in a small-country, in-joke, Canada-is-so-special kind of way, which, like a robot, computer, or android, I understand but do not feel.

 

Perhaps, then, I've lived here long enough. Which gets me to part of why I've been so silent over the last few months: Yes, I've been busy with work and living my best pandemic lockdown self, but I've also been applying for jobs--and I finally got one in November. I say "finally," but it really only took two to three months once I made up my mind to move on.

And move on I will, next spring, back to the States, where I think I belong, at least for now. At least until Argentina is open for business again.

Oh Canada, I had such high hopes for us 5-1/2 years ago. My main reason for leaving, on paper, is to seek new professional challenges, but let's not be two-faced about it: Canada, you and I are not a good fit. I hate to admit it to you, but I've been faking my Canadian orgasm since at least 2017--the sight of the red and white maple leaf no longer stirs my heart, if it ever did, and I just don't give a rat's about David's story arc on Schitt's Creek. I care even less, if that's possible, about Dan "I don't like labels" Levy's opinion on anything or Drake's latest musical offering. 

 

Really, let's call the whole thing off. Faking it is just no way to live, no way to face and embrace your soon-to-be-sixth decade on the planet.

So, au revoir, Canada. Don't worry, though, there's plenty of time to talk it through. This will be a painfully long goodbye as I don't exit Stage American until May 2021.

 

Oh, and by the way, I still have permanent resident status and a citizenship application in the works. Because, Canada, the thing I may have learned most and best from you is insincerity.

Fight or flight

Photo credit: Meanwhile in Canada Facebook page

Today's challenge: A caption contest from the Facebook page, Meanwhile in Canada.

My response: Canada geese don't reach their full a**hole potential until they've had their morning cup of Tim Horton's coffee. Its watered-down taste, insipid aroma, and tepid temperature start the day off wrong for cranky Canada geese at home and abroad.

If only someone would introduce the geese to Tim's Dark Roast and a sour cream-glazed, there would be joy in Mooseville (and Gooseville) again.

Then again, could there be anything surlier and scarier than an over-caffeinated Canada goose? Well, sure, serial killers, but a goose on the loose is a close second.

To serve clam

And the hard-hitting Canadian news keeps on . . . erm . . . comin' . . . .

I can't decide which is the more unsettling aspect of this article from CBC News--

That there is a "phallic clam" inhabiting the waters off the British Columbia coast. Wasn't enough that feet kept washing ashore--now we have to worry about penises?!

That they served said clam to the Royal couple, Will and Kate (pardon me, William and Katherine), on their recent visit to Western Canada.

That the clam's name is pronounced "gooey-duck."

That the Vancouver Aquarium has an executive chef.

Actually, I think it's the latter that is the more worrisome. No matter how you, uh, slice it, there's just something unseemly about creating recipes from the creatures you're committed to helping survive. It's like that old episode of The Twilight Zone, "To Serve Man."



Watch out Nemo and Dory, it's a cookbook!

Appropriate that a Canadian actor, Lloyd Bochner, is on the menu.

You know you live in Canada when . . . (Part 35,985,751)

. . . one of the local supermarket chains (Sobey's) is promoting the serving of "game day poutine" for the Superbowl.

Better idea: Skip the football game, keep your regurgitated nachos, and just pass me a steaming plate of French fries, brown gravy, and cheese curds, better known as the snack food of the Gods, also known as poutine.

Which is Quebecois French for "kiss my maple-flavoured buttocks, gringo." At least that's what it says in the citizenship prep test booklet.

The Dead Rodent Society

From the Weather Network Canada, 29 January 2016.
See the full article here.

Newsflash from the Weather Network Canada: Canadian groundhog, Winnipeg Willow, does a runner days before Groundhog Day.

Sometimes even I don't have the words.

Although when I posted this to Facebook recently, many a friend did have the words.

My favorite was, "So how's that socialized medicine working for you now, rodent?!" from my friend B.I.

Nonetheless, there were other pithy remarks about how at least in Pennsylvania they knew enough to have a "strategic groundhog reserve" of three or more of the buggers in case Punxsutawney Phil decided to make a break for that great pile of chucked wood in the sky at an inopportune moment.

I could draw some unfavorable comparison between Canadian and American understandings of show business, but let's be charitable on this marmotous momentous occasion. After all, Willow found out that the shadow she saw was her shadow of death.

We are all weeping and woeful for Winnipeg Willow.

Woah.

Bye American

Future Shop in Edmonton, Alberta; created by
Caldorwards4; CC BY-SA 3.0

Living in Canada means I no longer know how to shop "American."

Target doesn't exist in Canada. It failed grandly in an ill-conceived entry into the Canadian market over the last couple of years, fraught with corporate stupidity it would seem. Too many stores, too quickly, without the merchandise and prices that Canadians expected, which they travel to the U.S. to buy at Target. (Editor's note: I've seen estimates that 75 to 90% of Canadians live within 100 miles/160 kilometers of the U.S.-Canada border.)

Weirdly, WalMart SuperCentre (and I do mean centre) is a lot like Target. The stores are tidy, clean, well-organized, and well-stocked. The staff is generally helpful, too. Now, suddenly, because it's the Canadian Target, I think it's OK to shop there.

WalMart has its own clothing line called George, which I don't remember from the U.S. WalMart. However, I used to avoid WalMart at all costs. "People of WalMart" and all that.

Even big upscale malls like Square One in Mississauga have WalMarts. They might have Targets, too, if Target hadn't flamed out.

Macy's doesn't exist, but Sears (yes, Sears) seems like a Macy's at a second-tier mall. Sears has a Clinique counter, which I don't think is the case in the U.S. At home, Sears and J.C. Penney's seem to vie for a no-shopper's land between Macy's on the one side and Target and WalMart on the other. Albeit unsuccessfully: I just feel like Sears and Penney's don't know who they are anymore. There's a niche market between the two, but they can't define it. Personally, I'd figure out a way to outdo Macy's in some markets--Pennsylvania for one, which doesn't have Dillard's, only Boscov's in some areas. (I adore Boscov's, by the way, and missed it terribly when I moved away from Central PA.) An upscale version of Target is probably the best option at this point. Otherwise, you're facing a Montgomery Ward's future.

Hudson Bay Company (aka The Bay/La Baie) seems like a higher-end Macy's (aka Macy's when it was special/before it took over the world). Holt Renfrew and Ogilvy are more like Saks and Nordstrom as far as I can tell. In other words, although the clothes are beautiful, I'm not worthy. Saks is planning to open stores soon in Toronto; I would imagine Nordstrom will follow, but, personally, I'd be happier with a Dillard's or a Boscov's.

I'm waiting for Simons to open at Square One. It's one of my favorite Montreal-based stores, one with beautiful housewares and often lovely, affordable clothes, none of which I can fit into anymore. But still, it's nice to dream.

Future Shop was Best Buy, but we do have Best Buy in Canada. So Future Shop is now Circuit City. Only the signs and square footage remain.

In Canada, you can buy decent clothes at Canadian Tire and at Loblaws (grocery store chain) superstore. I have a hard time wrapping my head around this, the same way I do at the thought of buying clothes at Costco, Kohl's, or Target. This makes me realize how class-influenced shopping is in the U.S. Or at least how class-influenced I am.

There are a zillion supermarkets, at least in and around Toronto: No Frills, Sobey's, WalMart, Food Basics, Whole Foods, Metro, Loblaws, FreshCo, and more, not to mention hundreds of smaller markets, many of them catering to Toronto's various ethnic groups. (But not Americans and Southerners as far as I can discern.) So far, I like No Frills, Sobey's, and WalMart. The No Frills in my area is referred to as the "ghetto one" by *some* people I know (not me but Cairo), but it's actually my favorite. There's a crazy variety of fruits and vegetables, many of them more common to Caribbean and Indian cuisine, reflecting the cultural reality of my part of the GTA. And, thus, for a brief moment, I can transport myself back to shopping at HEB in San Antonio, where Mexican fruits and vegetables were quite common, more so than the standard "Anglo" ones. While the Giant Eagle in Pittsburgh rarely sold cilantro, the HEB in San Antonio often sold out. Which speaks volumes about the "quality" of Pittsburgh cuisine. That is to say, if you love that Eastern European root vegetable diet that your babushka used to make, you're in so much effin' luck in da Burgh.

May I never, ever return, except for the occasional visit to see friends and old colleagues.
 
As far as I know, there's no CVS, no Eckerd, no Rexall, no Walgreens in Canada. Shopper's Drug Mart is the big pharmacy chain, at least in English-speaking Canada. (I think Quebec has a very just-like-in-France-branded Pharmaprix or Uniprix chain. Paris on the St. Lawrence. I'd be there if I could.) The Shopper's Drug Marts have a branch of Canada Post in many locations so that you can buy stamps and mail stuff even on Sunday's. However, daily mail delivery open happens Monday through Friday; there is no Saturday delivery in Canada.

* * *

I share all this because I spent part of a recent Saturday trying to buy a phone case and laptop bag and had absolutely no idea where to go to do so.

I couldn't find the Best Buy, discovered that Future Shop was indeed closed despite the huge sign out front, perused some overpriced shirts at the Bay ($118 CAD for a Ralph Lauren--which means I'm going to wait for a "Bay Days" sale before investing heavily in new clothes), mailed a package at Shopper's Drug Mart, bought a Canada "XpressPost" regional mailing envelope for my passport renewal application (one of my many must-dos as part of the resettlement process)--and finally ended up at WalMart and bought most of the stuff on my list.

Which is fitting because I would have normally gone to Target for this stuff anyway.

RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounting, Please)

Some random TV offerings from Rogers Cable, suburban Toronto, June 2014. Please cast your eye beyond Juicy Black . . . and instead gaze upon the porn title, Canadian Quickies.

Now I will spend the rest of the weekend thinking up ridiculous titles for "Canadian quickies."

To-rut-oh! with Love (?)

Canada Goosing (?)

Have You Been Ridden by a Ford Lately? (?) (In homage to Hogtown's illustrious mayor)

Frottage Country (?) (Based on the expression "Cottage Country," used by Torontonians to refer to the Owen Sound-Barrie-Muskoka area north of the city near Lake Huron)

Other versions of "Cottage Country," which I'm too much of a gentleman to repeat . . .

And all those variations on a theme of beaver.

It's only going to go downhill from here. You've been forewarned.

* * *

All in all, though, it's not proving as promising as the recent discussion with my friends, Two P's in a Pod, in which we tried to develop 19th-century porn titles based on works of American and British literature.

While we have many nominees--

The Scarlet Leatherman

Uncle Tom of Finland's Cabin

Daisy-Chain Miller

Some Tail in Two Cities

The best one--The Importance of Being Harnessed--wasn't even mine.

I've clearly lost my way. In more ways than one.