The Great Canadian Quiz - wherein I'll probably display my ignorance of the land of some of my foreparents

Darlene Ryan, one of the bloggers at Poe's Deadly Daughters, wrote this week:

...I’ve discovered that other people don’t know a lot about us. I did a little survey this past week, asking non-Canadians what they knew about Canadians and found out that—at least among the people I asked—we’re thought of as polite people who drink a lot of Tim Horton’s coffee and watch a lot of hockey. And maybe that’s the reason the rest of the world doesn’t know much about Canada. Instead of talking about ourselves we’re standing in line at Tim’s, talking about last night’s game and telling the young woman at the counter, “No, I think he was here first.” 

So to educate you about some things Canadian here is The Great Canadian Quiz, twenty questions  on this country and its people. Check back Sunday night for the answers. (At Poe's Deadly Daughters, which is in Auntie Knickers' blogroll - if you want to take the quiz yourself scoot right on over there before reading the following)

1. Who is Don Cherry? . Sorry, no idea. A hockey player?
2. What is dulse? Dried seaweed, used as a snack in the Maritime Provinces, and I think I could buy some at my local supermarket here in Maine.
3. What is a double-double? Clueless here.
4. What’s a two-four? Clueless here too.
5. What are the Original Six? Hmm. I'm guessing: Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario and British Columbia???
6. What do you do with fiddleheads? Pick them in the spring in the woods, steam and eat. They are a type of fern and another thing that's available here.
7. Name the Canadian president. Oops, good thing I'm not running for VP.
8. How long is a CFL field? I don't even know how long an AFL field is!
9. What piece of hockey equipment was Jacques Plante the first person to use in a regular season NHL game? A helmet? My friend The CEO's grandfather was the first one to use one at all, in a Harvard game. He used his leather football helmet.
10. How many provinces and territories are there? I'm saying thirteen.
11. Where is the CN Tower? Toronto. That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
12. If it’s ten o’clock in New Brunswick, what time is it in Newfoundland? I'm guessing 11 o'clock.
13. What color is the $50 bill? Red. (Just a guess, never seen one.)
14. What color is the one dollar bill? Grey-green? It's been a while.
15. What is a loonie? A one-dollar coin with a picture of a loon.
16. If you’re in Cavendish, PEI and the weather forecast says it’s 32 degrees outside will you be going swimming or tobogganing? Swimming, as long as there's a pool. I suspect the water is even colder than here.
17. When is Thanksgiving in Canada? October but I forget the day.
18. Name Canada’s major league baseball teams. Toronto Blue Jays, Montreal -- ???
19. When is Canada Day? July 1
20. When is tax day in Canada? . I don't know this either.

Well, I'm afraid this is a pretty poor showing for someone with one-fourth of my ancestry having been Canadian for nearly a hundred years, and who has Canadian cousins on both sides, and who's recently been watching multiple episodes of Due South. How did you do?  I do have a feeling sports fans may do better than I.

Friday Five: Vulnerability

Sally, this week's Friday Five positer at RevGalBlogPals, remarks:

I have recently been reading a book entitled Jesus wept, it is all about vulnerability in leadership. The authors speak of how Jesus shared his earthly frustrations and vulnerabilities with a select group of people. To some he was the charismatic leader and teacher, to others words of wisdom were opened and explained and some frustrations shared, to his "inner circle of friends: Peter, James and John, he was most fully himself, and in all of these things he was open to God.

So I bring you this weeks Friday 5:

1. Is vulnerability something that comes easily to you, or are you a private person?
I don't like being vulnerable. I'm a private person who takes a long time to make a friend. This seems to increase with age. But then there are occasions when I find someone I can open up to quickly.

2.How important is it to keep up a professional persona in work/ ministry?
Hmm. I've mostly worked in fairly small organizations so it hasn't been as big a deal, given that I tend to be rather self-protective anyway.

3. Masks, a form of self protection discuss...
I have certainly been guilty (?)of wearing the "always cheerful" mask in the past.

4. Who knows you warts and all?
My spouse and my 4 oldest friends -- and very likely my children.

5. Share a book, a prayer, a piece of music, a poem or a person that touches the deep place in your soul, and calls you to be who you are most authentically.
A prayer written by Robert Louis Stevenson, whose picture appears at the top of the page; we've said an abridged version at all our children's baptisms.
LORD, behold our family here assembled. We thank Thee for this place in which we dwell; for the love that unites us; for the peace accorded us this day; for the hope with which we expect the morrow; for the health, the work, the food, and the bright skies, that make our lives delightful; for our friends in all parts of the earth, and our friendly helpers in this foreign isle. Let peace abound in our small company. Purge out of every heart the lurking grudge. Give us grace and strength to forbear and to persevere. Offenders, give us the grace to accept and to forgive offenders. Forgetful ourselves, help us to bear cheerfully the forgetfulness of others. Give us courage and gaiety and the quiet mind. Spare to us our friends, soften to us our enemies. Bless us, if it may be, in all our innocent endeavours. If it may not, give us the strength to encounter that which is to come, that we be brave in peril, constant in tribulation, temperate in wrath, and in all changes of fortune, and, down to the gates of death, loyal and loving one to another. As the clay to the potter, as the windmill to the wind, as children of their sire, we beseech of Thee this help and mercy for Christ's sake.

My Alphabet: C is for Children's Literature

    I can't remember learning to read, nor a time that I couldn't read anything that came my way. My mother said that she taught me to read when I was 2 1/2 (probably in self-defense, as Brother #1 was imminent). So I've been reading for almost 58 years, and in each of those years I'm sure I read at least one children's book.  I've also read quite a bit of the history and theory of children's literature, and had many opportunities to hear writers and illustrators, particularly when I had a student job at the Kerlan Collection.

    My favorite book when I was small was called Dr. Goat.  It was a rhymed tale of a goat physician and his animal patients, and what happens when he himself gets sick.  It was a Tell-a-Tale book (published by the Whitman Co. in Racine, Wisconsin, and I believe, less expensive than the Little Golden Books) and probably cost 15 cents or less in 1950. Now? Copies in varying conditions, some pretty bad, go for $72 and up -- close to $300 for a copy in very good condition. I'll probably never see it again. (My copy was lost, either to the depredations of siblings or the exigencies of multiple military moves.)  You can see a picture of it above.

    During my first few years in elementary school, my parents enrolled me in the Junior Deluxe Editions book club, which brought me everything from Myths Every Child Should Know to Black Beauty to Oliver Twist.  Here's a picture of what those editions looked like (I still have most of those I got and have picked up others whenever I saw them at sales). Actually, the picture is above. I'm using Chrome, the new Google browser, and its interface with Blogger isn't as seamless as one would have wished yet. 

    They would also pick up books for me at used book sales. The first of Laura Ingalls Wilder's books I read was The Long Winter, because it was the one they found. It's still my favorite. One of my cousins recently returned my copy to me (it had been passed on to her and her boys consider themselves too old for it now).  Mine is the original edition illustrated by Helen Sewell and Mildred Boyle, not by Garth Williams as most of us are familiar with.

    School libraries and, starting with the Mary Taylor Memorial Library in Milford, Conn., public libraries, supplied me with still more books.  I spent some of my first post-college earnings at the Old Corner Bookshop in Boston on boxed paperback sets of The Little House Books and the Chronicles of Narnia.  When I was in the Army in Monterey, California, I got to visit the wonderful children's bookshop, The Magic Fishbone.  And, of course, once I had children of my own there were still more excuses to buy new books, old books, signed copies, library discards, and to read them all out loud.

     Children's literature has enriched my life and continues to do so. My most recent children's book purchase was My New Best Friend by Onkel Hankie Pants' cousin, Julie Bowe. It's the sequel to My Last Best Friend, her first novel. I highly recommend both!

     Of late, I've been more involved in mystery stories, and have slacked off a bit on keeping up with children's literature. So I've decided to add a little reading project to my two others (the Edgar Best Novel Winners and the A Mystery for Every State project), and read the Newbery Medal Winners and Honor Books, starting with this year and going back to 1922.  I've just finished the first one, Good Masters! Gentle Ladies! Voices from a Medieval Village, by Laura Amy Schlitz, with wonderful illustrations by Robert Byrd.  The author teaches in what sounds like a really neat school, where the kids were studying the Middle Ages. She wrote these dramatic monologues (a few are parallel monologues for two actors) featuring the young inhabitants of a medieval village, so that each child could be the star of a playlet.  The book also includes sidenotes and occasional two-page essays on aspects of medieval life. Schlitz doesn't sugarcoat some of the more repellent features of the Middle Ages, but her characters have a universality that would help young readers and actors see what they and the medieval young people have in common. This was a really good choice for the medal, and different when compared to the usual novel or occasional non-fiction title.  I'll be posting my reviews of the other books on Goodreads as I finish them.  I have the same sobriquet there as here so it shouldn't be hard to find them.

I'd like to know your thoughts on favorite children's books and whether as "grown-ups" you still read some.

Techie Talk: I Like the Chrome, So Far

A few months ago, I started making use of Picasa, the Google photo-filing and -sharing program, to post my trove of family photos and invite relatives to view it.  While discussing with Sisterfilms whether this would necessitate said relatives' signing up with Google, she said, "That's OK. In a few years everything will be Google anyway."  Well, that day is a bit closer now, with the release yesterday of their new web browser, Chrome. I downloaded and installed it this morning, and so far, I like it. 

I've been using Mozilla Firefox as my default browser for a few years now, with occasional forays into Microsoft Internet Explorer for certain websites that don't seem to work with Firefox. By and large I've been happy with it, although I sometimes had trouble with certain video or audio things that didn't work.  I'll need to do some more exploring with Chrome to see if that sort of problem occurs. And, since it's still a beta-testing application, I am not yet making it my default browser.

One thing I like is that it's easy to read and easy to use, without much clutter on the screen. There is one search box into which you can type either a URL or a search term -- that will save me many daily mouse-clicks right there.  My Google Calendar, which had been displaying oddly in Firefox, looks nice and is easily readable in Chrome.  (I should note I've been playing around a bit with my screen resolution settings to make The Master Genealogist work better, and this has played some havoc with other sites and programs.  It would be nice if Microsoft or somebody would come up with a way to attach the best resolution to each program.)

For a listing of pros and cons, go here.  I am reserving judgment on the "Google will know everything about you" issue. For one thing, I think they already do. Yesterday Onkel Hankie Pants was perusing the St. Paul Pioneer Press website for news of the RNC protests in St. Paul, when he was surprised to see a coupon from our local (ME/NH only) supermarket!  Besides, I really have little or nothing to hide.  (Please, Mr. FBI Agent, I can explain why I looked at the YouTube video of the Italian Communist song Bandiera Rossa. It all started back in 1966 when The Boss learned the song from an Italian friend. It stuck in my head, popping up occasionally. Then I was reading one of Donna Leon's Venetian detective novels and someone said "Avanti!" which apparently means "Come in," as well as "Forward!" Well, of course I had to look up the song. Really! I'm a Democrat!)

Anyway, I will report further from time to time if it seems appropriate.

Tuneful Tuesdays: School Days

School starts today here in Uppity College Town, and the college students are back as well. Possibly one of these days even Onkel Hankie Pants will be heading off to school, since he got on the substitute teacher list. Thoughts of songs about school have been running through my head, aided somewhat by YouTube.

I couldn't really find any good elementary school songs. The first one I thought of was "School days, school days, good old Golden Rule days, Readin' and writin' and 'rithmetic, Taught to the tune of a hick'ry stick...." (I must add that in the 5 elementary schools I attended I cannot recall witnessing any corporal punishment, even at the two in Texas.)

The second one that came to mind was John McCutcheon's "Kindergarten Wall," based on the essay by Robert Fulghum, "All I Really Needed to Know I Learned in Kindergarten." The only YouTube presentations were by actual kindergarteners -- cute, but not very good sound.

But as I was looking for pictures of the first two elementary schools I attended, in El Paso, Texas, (see above) I remembered this:

This was the first song I learned in school, in first grade at either Burnet School (on left above) or Coldwell School (on right above). I learned today that it's played at UT Longhorn football games and was also played at the end of Lady Bird Johnson's funeral -- if you look up that version I think you will see at least some of the presiding ministers making the Longhorn "Hook 'em Horns" sign. A bit strange.

So, songs that evoke high school. The classic Chuck Berry song comes to mind first:

Some things never change, unfortunately, or perhaps even for the worse; I think it's still true in most high schools that "You're fortunate if you have time to eat" with 20-minute lunch periods.

I truly, truly hated pep rallies in high school. One reason was that I was much more self-conscious then than now. But this is still a great song:


College songs, ah, college songs. Here's Tom Lehrer's generic and satirical college "alma mater:"

(Lehrer, of course, is a Harvard man, thus his slighting reference to the Whiffenpoof Song.)

A Host at Last University, being only my own age, may perhaps have an alma mater; it may even have a fight song, but when I was there it did not have a football team. Onkel Hankie Pants used to sing the kids to sleep with one of the two songs he remembers easily, the Carleton Fight Song (to the tune of Give My Regards to Broadway). However, no recordings available. So for the football fans among you, here's the song from the University that the most members of the Pants family have attended one way or another, the University of Minnesota. Two versions, one "real," and one that's even more truly Minnesotan.



And to close, the international student song, sung by some nice Norwegians; the first syllable is truncated but it is, of course, Gaudeamus Igitur. This was my favorite of all the many renditions.

Five years ago this week, I got to sing along to this at the opening exercises when Cordeliaknits began her studies at Smith College. Good times!

At last, the birthday boat ride

Yes, today everything came together perfectly and we took my birthday boat ride. This was our last chance for this year, as the Casco Bay Lines ends this particular run on Labor Day. A few of the things we saw:
The boat has just come under the Cribstone Bridge. This is the only bridge of its kind in the world, made of granite blocks with no mortar and spaces to let the tide flow through -- plus the larger space for small boats and ice floes.
Here comes the ferry, the Island Romance. Passengers from Portland mostly get off here on Bailey Island for lunch, and we get on.
This is the really special one. It was such a clear day that you could see all the way to New Hampshire -- Mt. Washington, 90 miles away. You have to look closely at the righthand third of the photo, and you may have to click to make it bigger. But it's there! Really!
And last but not least (I took 40 photos but I'm sparing you), here is the marker/lighthouse on Little Mark Island. The story is that if a vessel was in trouble, and could make it to Little Mark Island, there would always be supplies there enough to keep a crew of 15-20 men for up to a month until they could be rescued. The black stripes on the marker, which you may see if you enlarge the photo, are to keep seabirds from flying into the marker on foggy days.
So, is my birthday finally over? I don't think so. For one thing, Sisterfilms has promised me a package in a week or so. Certain other offspring may profit from her example. Still, I feel very fortunate that today turned out to be such a beautiful day. Looking at this, it's hard to believe that some of my blogging friends in the Gulf Coast area are battening down the hatches for Gustav. Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers.

Food Meme: Yummy or yukky?

Found at Terrapin Station via Cathy's Grace Notes:
This is fun, and everybody's doing it. Andrew put together a list of 100 foods he thinks any good omnivore should have tried at least once. Andrew is British, so his list doesn't include some things this Yank might believe to be must-tries.

How the Omnivore's 100 works:
1) Copy this list into your blog or journal, including these instructions.

2) Bold all the items you’ve eaten.

3) Cross out any items that you would never consider eating. (I'm going to put these in double brackets[[]] because I don't think Blogger supports strikethroughs).

4) Optional: Post a comment at Very Good Taste, linking to your results.

MY OMNIVORE'S 100

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea (No, but just give me time, The Herbalist recommends it highly)
3. Huevos rancheros
4. [[Steak tartare]]
5. Crocodile
6. [[Black pudding]]
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PBJ sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans (I even know how to make them!)
25. [[Brawn or head cheese]]
26. [[Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper]]
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl (I've eaten gallons of clam chowder, but never in a sourdough bowl.)
33. Salted lassi (nope, just mango)
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac [[with a fat cigar]]
37. Clotted Cream Tea
38. Vodka Jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail (assuming oxtail soup counts)
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects (covered in chocolate, my father brought home once)
43. Phaal
44. Goat's milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth $120 or more
46. [[Fugu]]
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV (probably, in Germany)
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips (surely, foisted upon unwitting children by superhealthy 80s moms in my neighborhood)
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads (making sure readers know this is not BREAD)
63. kaolin - (as in Kaopectate)
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. [[Frogs’ legs]]
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. [[Chitterlings or andouillette]] Smelled them cooking, that was enough!
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail (I'm a little dubious about this but I hear they come with lots of garlic butter)
79. Lapsang Souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom Yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. 3 Michelin Star Tasting Menu
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. [[Horse]] My grandfather would rollover in his grave if I did.
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox (We used to get this for Sunday brunch once a month in college)
97. Lobster Thermidor (I generally take my lobster steamed, stewed or in a lobster roll. I've had lobster ravioli and was underwhelmed.)
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

What about you?
Comment: I see two common denominators of the things I haven't tried -- too expensive to imagine getting the opportunity, or the "ick" factor. Then there are the things I don't know at all -- what the heck is pocky? I'll have to look that up.