Bombay Duck

Today was the 400th anniversary of the founding of Quebec City by Samuel de Champlain.

Tens of thousands--tourists and locals--are whooping it up in this beautiful city tonight. And the party is going to go on all summer long. It's about a 5-6 hour drive from here; but Mr BA and I are going to try to get up there one weekend. It's one of the most beautiful cities in North America.

Quebec City

Mr BA got a job! It's a contract to design a communications strategy. It starts Monday and is only until the end of August, but it pays well  and buys him more time to find something permanent--w00t!

Boston is still up in the air at this point. Not sure he'll be able to get the time off for us to drive. Still, I have enough airmiles for a ticket, if I can find a reward flight that works with my dates...

In other news--my staycation officially starts tomorrow. I was off Tuesday for Canada Day. Off Wednesday too--although I caved and checked my email, only because I knew some weird shit was going down. Today I had to be up early for a professional-development "retreat". But it was fun and informative, I can get that vacation day back at a later time, it was over by 4. I've been sitting out on our second-story deck, drinking dessert wine and reading a very good biography of Julius Caesar,  surrounded by our lovely herb and tomato planters--everything is growing prodigiously after all the rain we've had. We have 4 kinds of basil, 5 kinds of tomato, sage, Greek oregano, thyme, parsley, rosemary, cilantro and mint. Mr BA built all the planters himself out of fragrant cedar  He likes to grow vegetables. He planted a clematis vine too, but it isn't doing very well. No flowers and it's barely grown any shoots. we got a hibiscus too, and it's looking lovely. I'm sure it will get more flowers now that the sun has returned (we only had three days without rain in June).

Tomorrow I have to get up extra-early again. I have an appointment with an eye specialist at 8 a.m. (blech). But I plan on spending the rest of the day doing nothing. Oh, except getting a hot stone massage and hanging out at the baths here:

Le nordik

Deacon Blues

Seen at Grumblebunny's. Cranky, next time the raccoons give you trouble, you can see that I'm perfectly qualified to save you.

See how you rate here.

Brought To You By Adult Toy Parties

In honor of Canada Day, show us your favorite Canadian.

Yeah, yeah, we know. We amuse you Americans no end. We apparently say "oot and aboot"  You like our beer (that's ok, you can have all the crappy Labatt Blue and Molson Ex you want. We keep the good microbrewery stuff for ourselves). We stick the letter "u" in words like colour and famous. We gave you Celine Dion (sorry), Bryan Adams, Sarah McLaughlan, Feist, and Alanis "yes, it's another album about another fuckwad ex-boyfriend" Morissette (how this woman, with her record of public revenge, is ever going to get another date is beyond me. But I digress).

Anyway, here's a list of some of my favourite fellow Canadians.  Like Redzilla, I'll start with my peeps, who I hope are all enjoying their day off.

Bobavid
Laurie
arbed
Morgat
Toe-Knee
Ian in Hamburg

And here are some of my favourite Canadians. You may have heard of some of them:

William Shatner (the Student Union building at McGill University is named after him)
Dr. Frederick Banting and Charles Best (discovered insulin)
Glenn Gould
Oscar Peterson
Stephen Leacock (turn of the last century humourist and author, kind of our Mark Twain)
Jacques Plante (legendary Montreal Canadians goaltender in the 50s ; first NHL goalie to wear a mask, his own invention)
Mary Pickford
Martin Short
Mike Myers (Mr BA went to high school with him)
Nellie McClung (feminist and women's rights leader; she led a movement that led to Manitoba becoming the first province in Canada to give women the vote. The country followed a year later.)
Henrietta Edwards (founder of the Victorian Order of Nurses, one of the longest-standing and most respected volunteer organizations in Canada. She was one of the "Famous Five", a quintet of women who, in 1927, successfully argued before the Supreme Court of Canada that women were indeed "persons under the law", and therefore entitled to sit in the Senate.)
Russell Peters (Indo-Canadian comic. Like me, he looks brown but has a white name. And he's fucking hilarious. Every thing that comes out of his mouth concerning Indian FOB (fresh off the boat) families is true. )

Based on the previews for that wretched-looking "Dave" movie with Eddie Murphy, Eddie appears to have adopted the same bizarro Nigerian-Oxford accent he used in "Coming to America"?

Seen at arbed's and SnoringKatz's.

You Are a Flashy Red Bra!

Outgoing, friendly, and fascinating. You're a charmer, with your pick of the men. But you want a man who's as magnetic as you are. You need someone who can keep up with your all night gab fests!

Now!

I'm off for the next two weeks. Well, except for Thursday, where I have to go on a corporate retreat for the day. But at least it's at a nice golf course, and not at the office. And I'll take that lost vacation day sometime during the summer--like a Friday or Monday.

I worked until 7:30 pm tonight, just to clear a whole chunk of stuff off my plate so I don't need to stress about it over my staycation. Tomorrow is Canada Day. 90% of people either got the day off or took it off. Those who came in all left before 4. Gee, must be nice. And yet I'm the one people complain about.

Whatever. My plan is to ride my horse almost everyday, get a massage, chill out, sleep in...and try not to worry about office bullcrap.