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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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From:

camwyn

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.

From:

jjloa.livejournal.com

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*)

From:

camwyn

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.