The Twizzler

If you’ve never heard of an aposiopesis—

I recently won tickets from SPUD to a new movie in the theaters called Food Inc.   It was a documentary-type film about the food industry and how it works.   I liked it, it shows you where your food comes from without inducing a guilt trip. 

I think one of it’s main points was that every time we shop around for the cheapest deal, we are getting cheap quality as well as cheap prices.  When all we care about is the price, no one cares about the animals that make our food, they don’t care about the workers that process it, they don’t care what poisons we get in our food, they don’t care if we die from it, as long as it’s cheap. 

Now, most of us don’t know if there is poison or if people are dying or anything at all about the animals, and we assume what we don’t know won’t hurt us.  However, it’s a vicious circle, as we cannot find out either, because many companies are behind closed doors, self-regulating, no one knows what goes on there and no one asks questions.  And those who dare to oppose, well, let’s just say they are silenced.  And that’s where the problems come in, when too much power is concentrated in too few people. 

Change comes slowly, but it does come, and this movie is an attempt to pull back the curtain so people can know where their food comes from and make informed decisions. 

At my house, I will definitely continue to eat and buy organic and local whenever possible.  I even buy organic grapes when it’s my turn to bring snack to preschool.   Every time I tell the marketplace I want something cheap, well, that’s what I’m going to get!  No Thanks! 

A thought on Fair Oaks Farms that Dad sent on:  that was not in the movie, but maybe it should have been.  I like that place, the thing I liked most was the glass walls and the info center: you could see what they did and how they did it; no hiding anything. They also spotlighted one organic farm in the Shenandoah Valley, VA:  Polyface Farms.  That is definitely where I’d buy my meat if I lived anywhere near there!

This movie is in a theater near you.  If you’re ready for some food for thought, get out there and see it.   Just a small piece of advice while you are watching the movie:  don’t buy popcorn.  Not this movie. 

Happy Eating!

Qu'Appelle City Hall

If I had been biking across Canada since January 1st instead of biking to work, I would be jobless and penniless by now.

But perhaps of more interest, I’d be penniless in Qu’Appelle, SK, 1780 km from Vancouver, according to everyone’s best friend Google.

I’m taking a forced medical break in Qu’Appelle as my arm is acting up again.

Besides the cool name, Qu’Appelle has an interesting history (according to our other friend, Wikipedia).  This sleepy town with a population hovering around 650 was once expected to be a major metropolis for the then-NWT.  Apparently its future plans were quashed when Pile-of-Bones–a waterless, treeless wasteland now known as Regina (though from the way Canadians blush when they say that you really wonder if it was an improvement)–was named territorial capital by a man with an undenied conflict of interest. (Lieutenant-Governor Edgar Dewdney owned land by Pile-of-Bones.)

That’s your Canadian geography and history lesson of the day, brought to you in part by Specialized.  Experience the Road.

I have always wished I could somehow completely integrate myself into another culture.  I don’t think it’s really possible.  You can move to another country; with effort you can learn the language, possibly even to the point where strangers don’t realise you’re not a native speaker; you can develop close friendships, even raise a family–but your roots are not really there, you don’t really belong.

On my more melancholy days I feel a stranger even to my “home” culture, and an impossible yearning to belong even here.

Daphne du Maurier’s The Scapegoat describes a man who shares my dream but gets to test it out.

I wanted neither my compatriots nor my own company, but instead the happiness, which could never be mine, of feeling myself one of them, bred and schooled amongst them, bound by some tie of family and blood that they would recognise and understand; so that, living with them, I might share their laughter, fathom their sorrow, eat their bread, no longer stranger’s bread but mine and theirs.

~

And there was no answer, only a question mark.

~

And the years that were gone, that I had no business to intrude upon, seemed to merge into a single entity, like the eggs and the butter and the herbs.  They could never be separated now, or examined one by one.  I was responsible for the persent, not the past.

~

I was no longer isolated, watching apart, … but one among many, part of St. Gilles.

~

We’re feeling the heat–not only the temperature, but also the fact that my parents will be moving in to our basement suite in just over a month!

To make room for them, the first thing to be done is organize the storage room.  I forgot to take a “before” picture of the messy storage room, but here it is in the basement kitchen:

Could *you* live here?

Some of that really needs to be in storage.  Others are boxes we just haven’t unpacked since moving a year ago.

We found some great modular shelving at IKEA.  Heavy-duty metal shelving, free-standing or attached to the wall, large shelves, just what I was looking for (and couldn’t find at the obvious places like Rona, Home Depot, or even Storage Solutions).

So this weekend we finished installing the shelves and started sorting through the piles.  (Helen is currently having fun sorting just one of those boxes, which holds years of old letters!  Remember those?  The kinds made out of paper?)

Ahh, that's more like it!

Well, Kenan had so much fun at that park with Mom he had to take all of us there.  So we did the ice cream thing again and got to play with Daddy on the slide.

Daddy got a good view of things!

Kid version of lying on a beach

I did it without getting more scratches!

Wrong Way

The other day Shana took part in a day-camp type outing with church, and Kenan and I had the day to ourselves.  It was beautiful and hot, so we went to a nearby park for a picnic lunch and he got to…

ride the train,

Choo Choo!

play on the slide,

Let's find them Redcoats!

and look at the ducks in the water.

He loves having a day out with Mom!

The heat is on, and it finally feels like summer.  We don’t miss a minute of it, we went out for ice cream the other night at a recommendation of Mom and Dad, Leavitt’s Ice Cream Shop (or LICS).  They even had a big old metal milk jug with “Nellie R. Leavitt” written on it in faded lettering.  I love authenticity!

On the way home we couldn’t resist playing at a neighborhood park.

I scream, you scream, we all scream for....hey! Shana, scream with me!

So dainty

He does everything with such GUSTO!

Long Live Summer!

Here’s one of the shots of Kenan taken by Chris Bolin during the Stampede Parade.