Canada. It's pretty alright.
What are you grateful for?
It's not Thanksgiving, but why should that day have a chokehold on expressing what we are grateful for?
I feel like for most of us the low-hanging fruit is family, but let's not stop at the easy grabs.
What else are you grateful for?
I am grateful for the healthcare in this country. Could it be better, sure. But we have it, and no one here goes broke after a trip to the emergency room. Nor do we have to do research to see what ER takes our insurance. Bigger picture. Our hospitals are safe places. No bombing, no emergency evacuations.
I am grateful for our government. Before you get all hyped up, I don't mean the specific people that are in power. I mean our type of government. We get to vote, no one meets us at the polling station to tell us we already voted, and no one in the polling station has a gun to ensure you vote the way you are supposed to. The vote doesn't always go the way you wanted, and you know what? You get to complain about that as well. You get to pretend you know what would have happened if the people you voted for were the victors. You and your family won't disappear or be carted off to a work camp for disagreeing with the government in public or private.
I am grateful for our military. Not that we need to have a military, but that there are still people that see this country as something they are proud to defend. Did you know that our military has consistently produced some of the top snipers in the world? And that other countries send their forces to us to be trained? We are big deals. Well, they are. But I'll still take the win.
There are so many things to dwell negatively on. There are so many stumbling blocks right now. The easy thing is to roll up your good thoughts and sink into the swamp of sadness. Since when have we done things the easy way though?
We are fighters, we are survivors. We make things better. We give people the opportunity to feel safer. People here are allowed to live as they are without worrying that someone will kill them over it (mostly, but this is a positive post, so we will deal with the other stuff later).
Look around and see what you can do to make the world around you a better place, you might be surprised how far a little effort will go.
Music Corner
There are so many great Canadian artists I could talk about right now. The Tragically Hip being my favourite. But that would be easy. I've talked about Gordon Lightfoot, Leonard Cohen, and the McGarrigle Sisters. Let's cut a little deeper. Have you heard of Big Sugar? Now you have. They have a rather large catalog. So, let's start with one of their better-known songs. All Hell For A Basement.
The title and idea for the song come from Rudyard Kipling of all places. While on a tour through Canada he noted that the area around Medicine Hat had "all hell for a basement" due to the wealth of natural gas reserves just under the surface.
The singer of Big Sugar (Gordie Johnson) heard the quote and then was inspired to write the song as someone moving to Alberta from Newfoundland to work pulling the gas from the earth.
Shopping Corner
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