camwyn | (no subject)

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Got to watch another Due South episode last night. I got past the "AAAAAH I'M DOOMED" part fairly early on and spent most of the episode going 'squee!', with the occasional bout of 'that animal is about as much of a wolf as I am'. Also wrinkling my nose a lot at the female lead's excessive hair and makeup.

On a semi-related note, my calendar this year appears to have pretty much every Canadian holiday in addition to the American ones. Also quite a lot of Mexican holidays. This was not done on purpose; I bought it because it was on sale for $4, and it was all German shepherds, and one does not get fussy about which breed of dog is on one's calendar when one is shopping for calendars at the $4 price point. It did, however, pay off in one regard. Lacking any particular reason to choose any other day, I picked 25 February 1873 as Sergeant Preston's birthday. According to my calendar, 25 February is Yukon Heritage Day.

It seemed appropriate.

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"aaaah I'm doomed?"

I've never known that reaction to Due South before.

Squee? definitely. Even done that a time or two myself - love that show *G* But 'doomed'? *L*

(and yes. Dief ain't much of a wolf *L* however, having never much liked the idea of 'training' wolves, and liking that dog/how they played him ... I've always had a fondness for Dief *G*)

Nah, see, when you travel to places within your own country and you get mistaken for Canadian- by Americans, Canadians, Singaporeans, Japanese, and several other ethnic groups- you start to wonder.

When you sit down in front of the lovely television show and realise exactly WHY they're making that assumption- namely, that when you travel, you put on a set of manners unnervingly similar to those displayed by the Constable, down to actually using the phrase 'thank you kindly' and meaning it- you start to worry.

When you turn off the TV at the end of the episode and realise that you are going to be stuck with his speech patterns in your head for a good day or two unless you take severe countermeasures immmediately, because they're so damn easy to instinctively imitate- you know there is going to be trouble.

And then when you look around your apartment and realise that, based on your books*, your decor**, your toys***, and your other stuff****, no total stranger would believe you if you said you were American rather than Canadian, that's when you know you're doomed. Like I said, one of these days I'm going to add some tiny, critical thing to the mix and explode in a flash of maple-coloured light because being born American just won't be able to stand up to it all.

*Scarlet Riders, Policing the Fringe: A Young Mountie's Story, Whose North?, Strangers in Blood, Ethnic Canadians: Vol. 8 (Prairie Studies Series), Policing a Pioneer Province: The British Columbia Provinicial Police, Courtship, Love and Marriage in 19th Century Canada, The Little Orphans, etc. etc.

**No couch, but a Molson's camp chair for two. Several Chinese items, all of which were bought either in Toronto's Chinatown or at the ROM.

***Musk ox on top of the television, admittedly one I bought in Alaska.

****Aheh. *quietly kicks RCMP hockey jersey and Stupid Hat under the bed, then curses because it's a platform bed and therefore has no 'under'* Also I've still got the Canada Day face temporary tattoo thing my friend Vicki gave me when we visited Niagara Falls. And the stickers people have sent me of Canadian Things, all kinds thereof. And I have two coffee mugs: one a crappy little NYC tourist mug, given by my co-workers at the Red Cross, and your Timmy's mug, which is my primary drinking vessel on account of my glasses being too small to hold much.

ahh *G* Now I see why I didn't get the 'I'm doomed' thing.

Being Canadian ... a Molson's camp chair (though being from London I have to be more a Labatt's girl nowadays ... even if I tend to drink my pints full of a british import *G*) seems normal. As does anything gotten at the marvelous ROM, and all sorts of Canadian things ... especially tims ;)

So I can enjoy that, and the self-mocking humour of Due South (with the thank you kindlys and that kind of thing that is yah, stuff we do *G*) ... without the earth shattering kabooms. However, given you're not from here ... I can get how the doomed thing started.

Don't worry. It's a good doomed :) Even the good constable (who recently is now on my tv as a manic shakespearian actor, but I'm sure will still say thank you kindly at least once in this show too *L*) would agree with me on that.

(of course, we may be biased *G*)

The Molson's thing is because my sister used to work in a liquor store and got it as a promotional item. We had it around the house for several years before it came with me to the new apartment. Nicely comfortable and holds my books very well. I don't actually drink beer- I don't drink alcohol at all- so specific brands would ordinarily be irrelevant... but, yanno, 'my name is Joe' and all that. (Though remind me- at some point I have to tell you about Jim and Jane from Canada.)

My mother said a few months ago that it was a pity I wasn't this interested in Canada when I was in college. I went to school in Cleveland, see. At the time I knew precious little about Canada except the names of the provinces and territories, the fact that the Mackenzie River and its tributaries formed one FRELLING ENORMOUS drainage system, and that it would take a really long time for me to walk across the lake if I flunked a winter midterm. Oh, and that my great-grandmother had come to Canada from England with the family for whom she was a nurse, and when they moved to Vermont, she sort of moseyed across the border with them without getting her paperwork or anything like that. I like to think I've improved a bit.

Don't worry, I feel the same way after watching a particularly good episode of The West Wing sometimes. Except in reverse, of course.

Okay, that's cool. I can live with that.

At the dog park the other day, there was a beautiful....errrr, dog. I said to the owner, with a smile, "So exactly how much dog is there in that dog?" He replied with a grin "Oh, well, they SAY about 25%", or one grandparent. According to the rules and regs in BC about wolf-dogs, they have to be a minimum of 1/16 dog. I am betting that'about what they were at with this particular creature. He has the most amazing golden eyes! He is so incredibly wolf-like, in an incredibly overjoyed to meet people, running around making flat ears, grinning and making 'helicopter tail' kind of a way...

Oooh. He sounds marvellous!

So you're saying you're now almost fully ATC - American to Canadian. I know you've been out of the closet for while, and it looks like you're almost there.

*gloomy look* I think I know what the push-over point is, too. I caught myself looking at the maple syrup in every store I visited this weekend, but not buying any, 'cos I wanted to wait until I got hold of my King Arthur catalog again and could order grade B. More distinctive flavour, darker colour.

... except that King Arthur sells Vermont maple syrup, so I'm probably okay. For now.

ooh. the darker maple syrup? *cheers* yay for someone else who finds that stuff so much better.

I have my dad get me some from a family friend up in northern ontario every year. What dad calls 'the industrial stuff' *G* - dark enough they don't sell it in normal stores. So yah ... grade b or c or something like that.

It is sooo much better.

Am running massively low though. Thank goodness the season's almost here and I can beg dad for another quart.

Grade C's really hard to find at the consumer level here in the States. Most of it is sold to commercial bakeries and ice cream or candy companies. Grade B turns up in the occasional health food store, but mostly it has to be ordered. At least, in this area it does. I've never looked for it in a maple sugaring area like Vermont.

heh. then mine is likely Grade C. I just know it as the 'daad? did you get some maple syrup from St. Joe's this year?' variety *G*

Yah, commercial stuff. You don't use it as fast or use as much as you would of the more standard stuff. but my god is it good.

I have a really gorgeous recipe for whole wheat bread that uses maple syrup instead of sugar. And I'd love to try it in cinnamon stickybuns instead of the honey I normally use. I just don't think Grade A is up to the task, you know? At that level of taste I might as well just stick with Karo.

Wiggy. The healthfood store I work at carries LOTS of it, and that's way down in the south-lands (well, NC at least). (altho come to think of it, mostly we've been getting B lately instead of C....)

Still. want me to see if I can hook you up/find out prices and amounts for you?

That would be good, sure. If you can't, no worries. I can get it through King Arthur Flour Compa... co...

Dude. Do you live in an area where White Lily flour is available? King Arthur flour is wonderful for bread but the protein level is too high for properly Southern-style biscuits- you get tougher gluten and less fluffy biscuits if you use King Arthur, or any of the Northern flours. If you can hook me up with some grade C or a five pound sack of White Lily (all-purpose is probably best- bread flour's too strong), I'd be right grateful.

Thank you!

I'm almost certain i can--i'll check next time i'm at the store.

email connect? my addy is mintakacat at yahoo.com

Right. Camwyn at megaloceros dot net.

Dief is also not deaf. Fraser claims that he is in a regular basis, but he's not. He responds to commands and during later seasons (when the show got even goofier) there are one or two scenes from Dief's P-O-V in which he can hear people talking. So the wolf is not deaf. I think he just plays deaf to annoy Fraser. (Can you tell I think about this too much?)

Oh, I figured it was pretty clear that Dief wasn't really deaf as soon as I saw Fraser call his name and he responded despite looking the other way. And being several yards away, on a concrete surface that couldn't have transferred any kind of 'come here, please' foot-stompy vibrations. I assumed Dief was just being headstrong.

olna_jenn says she saw a fanfic once where Ray (I forget which) figured that Dief wasn't being difficult so much as he was assuming that he, Dief, was pack alpha... since out of him, Fraser, and Ray, only Dief was getting any. Which is as good an explanation as any.

*snickers* It's very true. Ray and Fraser are hopeless.

Also, I started saying 'thank you kindly' without even realizing it after watching this show every day for a week straight. I said it at work and someone pointed out that I sounded like "that mountie on that show" before I even realized that I had begun saying it. I pay more attention now and started to realize just how Canadian it is to say that. It's hilarious.

That's the thing, see. I always did that. Along with- well, I don't get people's names off their shirts or mailboxes, because I don't want to make them feel uncomfortable because a stranger knows too much about them, but I address people I don't know as 'sir' or 'ma'am' nine-tenths of the time. That really seems to catch people off guard.

Also my co-workers rib me for spelling it 'colour' but that's their problem.

I always call strangers sir or ma'am. Is that a Canadian thing? Mind you, I have the tendency to be ridiculously polite - very Canadian of me, although definitely not something everyone does. The majority of us are jerks.

You spell it the right way. ;) Good for you.

It's not a common thing in this country outside of the South, where they put a bit more emphasis on manners than here in the Northeast or out in Ohio. (I can't really vouch for the middle of the country, beyond the fact that the Southerners who worked for the Red Cross were very appreciative of me using 'sir' and 'ma'am' when we met on a flood relief operation in Wisconsin.)

I actually started using the 'u' spellings long before I got interested in Canada. Back in... mmm, high school, I think... I started adopting a number of British spellings because I'd read the James Herriot books once too often, and because I'd seen Chariots of Fire. I liked the little fillip of difference it gave my writing. I never adopted the changed spellings wholesale, but I've got just enough difference from American standard written English to stand out.

Do you say "zed" or "zee" though?

Zee, and believe me, I'm aware that this is not a particularly Canadian thing. See item nine on my list. I am told that whether you say 'zee' or 'zed' varies based on what your schoolteachers were like, but my friend

mountainspeak always pronounces it 'zed', and of course there is Joe's rant, so...

Here again, southern girl talking--I say "Thankyoukindly" ALL THE TIME since I started watching dueSouth; it only added 'kindly' to what i say anyway. "Sir" and "Ma'am" also are ingrained habit. We get a lot of northern transplants who don't use the honorifics, and it is unfortunately falling out of favor with kids EVERYWHERE. (I blame TV, and its blandifying of our regional differences, but that's a totally different rant.)

But my mom would have tanned my hide for being less than polite to a stranger growing up, and it sorta stuck.

(if it helps any, I use Brit spellings a lot of the time too. {grin})

Me, I picked up the 'sir' and 'ma'am' after working in a drugstore between sophomore and junior years at university. It's stood me in very good stead. On the few occasions when I'm mistaken for something other than Canadian, it's almost inevitably a Southerner, and when that happens it is always because of the 'sir' and 'ma'am'. (Well, that and because when I get tired I am not always careful about my tendency to match the speech pattern or accent of the person I am talking to.)

oh, i'm so glad i'm not the only one who does that....

The accent matching got a little weird when I was in Rowlesburg, W. Va. That's holler country, where they've got to pipe in the daylight. I wound up talking to a farmer there and completely failed to realise I was matching his accent and speech pattern until one of the other people I was traveling with asked me why I did that. I've noticed that tendency since.

I've got friends who get tickled as anything when my accent swerves way into the country, as it does whenever I'm talking to people whose families have been here since forever. My mom used to do it, and I'd laugh at her for using a phrase like "Ain't seen you in a coon's age!" ...I've recently had to apologize, as i do the EXACT same thing.

I think my eventual goal is to make it impossible for people to tell where I'm from based on my speech, if only because I've filed off most (but not all) of the regional 'tells' one gets from living in NYC to age 11, then added 'tells' from sufficient other English-speaking areas of the country and the world to balance the remaining ones out.

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