Working the dream life for 17+ years.
Let’s get one thing straight: I am not a pinko communist! But you’d have to be blind not to notice the scandalous events of our government over the last few years, and any thinking person has had to ask themself; what is wrong with this picture? Personally, I’m fed up, and sadly, I’m not so sure that anything can change the mess that big money and nepotism has created in the U.S. Thus, my tirade about living in the U.S. . . .
Ren? asked me if I felt any more Candian now. Truth is, I have always felt part Canuck ? though my home team would be the Maple Leafs ? since I learned my mother was from Toronto and I went to the Snow Festival in Quebec as a child. After all, I am supposedly half French Canadian and half Scottish Irish. And one of my closest, dearest friends hails from Winnipeg eh. But I have to admit it felt good being Canadian at least for a day. Especially since that day happened to be September 11th.It was actually nice to not be bombarded by the regular American media suspects forcing us to remember in vivid detail the tragic events of 2001, as they have every year for the past six. The only sign whatsoever that it was in fact 9/11 was a group of peaceful demonstrators in downtown Toronto proposing that the World Trade Center tragedy was an inside job. And personally, I was glad the morning paper didn’t carry a full page image of the burning towers that has been burned into my psyche the very day it happened.
Coverage of events at Ground Zero made it to page eighteen of Canada’s national newspaper. The front page was reserved for a 30th anniversary tribute to the beating death of Steven Biko by South African police. I found the story educational, enlightening, and touching. Perhaps it was buried deep in U.S. papers, I don’t know. But I doubt this important reminder of apartheid in the world made the front pages.
I just had to play Peter Gabriel’s “Biko” from Shaking the Tree
on the iPod as we crossed the border back into the U.S. after being questioned by a stern guy playing the role of a Nazi officer. So do I feel a bit more Canadian? You bet eh. And it feels good.
We haven’t blogged in a few days because we took some time to trace my roots with a brief trip into Toronto. While we accomplished our mission of finding the church where my parents were married and the cemetery where my grandparents are buried, we also discovered that the trip was far too brief to discover everything we wanted to know about living in Ontario, Canada.Although we have budgeted for a few hotel nights each month on this trip, our stay at Melford Cottage Bed and Breakfast in Oakville Ontario was the first time we have left the comfort of our trailer since selling our stick house and putting our bedroom furniture in storage over three months ago. While it did feel a bit weird leaving all our possessions in the trailer at Four Mile Creek NY State Park campground to take a little vacation from our “vacation”, Heather Donaldson’s home served as a great base to search for my Mom’s roots around Toronto and gave us a chance to reconsider what the future holds for us once again.
Even when a fulltimer hits the road, the drudgery of paying bills doesn’t stop. My paperwork got a lot lighter since we sold our business, but I still have to push some around. Especially when we receive a package of mail from Jim’s fabulous sister, who’s handling our PO Box for us.
Readers who have chosen not to register for this blog and receive notification of posts and comments will be happy to know that we have just activated the Subscribe To Comments WordPress plug-in.
Beneath the comments form at the bottom of every blog post, there is now a convenient check box that will enable you to receive follow-up comments via email. This is just one of the various plug-ins we have installed to make the LiveWorkDream blog better.
We’ve recently been in contact with Jackie McCutchen, who together with her husband (I presume) Mike have just launched WeWannaRV.com in preparation for their new life on the road as full-time RVers.
LiveWorkDream readers may notice the their WordPress theme as looking a bit familiar, but that just goes to show you that great minds do indeed think alike.