Tuesday, October 9, 2012

Even Santa Lives In Canada


           It’s Canadian Thanksgiving! (Well, yesterday was). You know what that means. It’s time to take a moment and give thanks for Canadians.  I don’t know if you’re lucky enough to have Canadians active in your life. I feel blessed to be able to say that three of my closest friends are from that other country that shares the North American continent. I believe that my Canadians (as I lovingly refer to them in my head) are aware of the superiority of their citizenry to ours (American), but they never point it out because that’s just how great Canadians are. 
            Of the friends to whom I refer, one of them once electrocuted himself helping me charge my cell phone in his European apartment (to which I showed up to stay for a week with only one day’s notice). I also once watched him hammer a hole in a window because he was hot. Another is so fiercely loyal that she can and will hate on command. She and her dashing fiancée took me out for quite an extravagant birthday feast this year. We went for dessert in the North End (Boston) after doing our part to help with the lobster crowding issues in the Atlantic and were forced at gunpoint by mobsters to drink grappa with our tiramisu and ice cream. Maybe the gun part is an exaggeration, but the rest of it is mostly true. And, it wasn’t good grappa. It was more like lighter fluid. And the third friend, a Danish Heidi Klum doppelgänger, has been acting as my personal cheerleader in multiple avenues of life for longer than I can even remember, while also winning the prize for being the best long distance friend of all time. We punished our hamstrings together for an entire week this summer at an Ashtanga yoga intensive, and then rewarded ourselves with large quantities of ethnic food, including Ethiopian. It takes a special kind of friendship to survive 40 hours of sweating bullets combined with eating food with your hands. Aside from their individual strong points, it goes without saying that all three of these gems are brilliant, funny, kind, and incredibly attractive (they are my friends, after all).
            If you know my friends, you already know how great they are. If you don’t know them, I’m really sorry, but I can’t tell you who they are. In general, I’m a pretty generous person, but when it comes to them, I’m not really interested in sharing. I can, however, offer several other reasons why Canadians are fantastic.
            1.They know more about American history.
2. They have a keener understanding of what’s going on in our country politically at this moment. Didn’t see the debates? Don’t read the newspaper – ask a Canadian!
3. They build American cars. (Oh, you thought your bailout dollars were building Chevrolets in the US? HA)
4. They have much higher standards for the quality of their beef.
5. Ryan Gosling.
6. They started the NHL and supply most of its players (can we get a move on those contract negotiations please????).
7. Lululemon.
8. The Rideau Canal Skateway in Ottawa (world’s largest skating rink) – you can actually ice skate to work. 
9. Sorel boots – I just got waterproof winter boots. My Uggs leak water up through the bottom. Screw that. Bring on the snow.
10. The only Cold War they’re still fighting is the one with the thermostat (they’re not forbidden to travel to Cuba).

In the spirit of good will we shall forgive them Justin Bieber, Nickelback, and Celine Dion. I think those things are evened out by the Canadian shows on HGTV, Degrassi, and Neil Young. The more I think about it, the more I realize how much shit pop music comes out of Canada…their pop stars are terrible, really. Hug a Canadian today. 

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