my canada includes wendel

i remember during the last quebec referendum wendel clark was playing for the nordiques and karen's boyfriend at the time had this bumper sticker on his car that said: my canada includes wendel.

i was thinking about that today whilst reading about the toronto maple leafs retiring number 17, wendel's jersey, and the habs retired number 33, patrick roy's jersey.

you might be wondering what a picture of a cat has to do with retiring hockey jerseys. well, i have a propensity for naming cats after hockey players. my much beloved cat in montreal was named dougie - partly because when i was discussing what to name my cat christine turned to me and said 'why don't you call it dougie?' promptly bursting out into laughter and looking at my dad, but more so after doug gilmour whose jersey is being retired in january. so when a cat wandered into our flat on thanksgiving drawn by the smell of turkey and kept coming back for more over the next few days, i decided to call it wendel.

wendel lives in the basement flat and still comes on occasion for a little visit. we have a box of food in the cupboard just in case and she likes trying to jump up on the table while we're eating dinner. i don't know what her/his real name is, but davoud and i still call the cat wendel.

maybe i'll get her a small wendel moustache for christmas...

canada v wales

i don't remotely follow rugby, but when i found out canada was playing wales on a friday night i decided it deserved my support with a trip to the pub. my very proud welsh friend rich and davoud (who also has a welsh last name) came along. i had to ask the manager to put the game on and they were very obliging.

i was holding out quite a lot of hope as almost up to the end of the first half canada was leading 6 to 5. last week they were absolutely clobbered by ireland, so i was pretty impressed by this. in the end we lost 34 to 13, but we held our own i'm proud to say. we made a breakaway try close to the end of the game and i was the sole person cheering quite loudly and attracting a bit of attention.

i really like watching rugby. it's like hockey on grass. loads of shoving, pushing, and the ball/puck either moves a foot or all the way down the pitch/ice. and the guys are really, really big.

why i hate bonfire night and who is snack banana

so it's bonfire night or guy fawkes night as some say in the uk today. i hate bonfire night. i don't think anyone really knows what it's about anymore, but now it consists on one big night of fireworks, which the city council pays for. and for the two weeks before and after 5 november, kids run around and set off fireworks whenever, however and at whomever they like. it's loud and people just go out and get pissed.

but this year i can see the fireworks from my window so that's pretty cool. what makes it better is that they're going off as i have barack obama's acceptance speech on in the background, so it feels like they're celebrating that too. the world feels different today and i'm not the only one who thinks so. just seeing some of the pictures in america celebrating is inspiring. they're *celebrating* a politician, something i have trouble conceiving of ever happening in canada or the uk for that matter.

i almost wore my canada pin today for fear that any stranger i might speak to would ask my opinion about it all because they thought i was an american. and it happened and i was still happy to offer it because i like politics and have followed this campaign from iowa back in january. the funniest moment today was when i was working with my group of young people at the gallery and one girl said that at school they can't pronounce 'you know, like, the guy who won's name.' so they call him snack banana.

hilarious.