I'm dreaming of a white Christmas...

Which is all I'm gonna be doing, because there's never been a white Christmas in Savannah, as far as I know. They've had snow here, just not at Christmas.

The bad thing about being a northerner living in the south is that sometimes I pine for snow. Usually, though, it's in August when the temp is in the 90's (that's Fahrenheit, y'all) with the heat index up into the 100's.

I know some of my northern friends (and family!) laugh at me when I talk about missing snow, but there's something about a fresh snowfall that makes me happy. Especially when I get to look at it from inside a warm and cozy house, made even cozier by a fire in the fireplace. In Savannah, you don't really need a fireplace. The coldest lows are generally just below freezing, and the coldest highs are usually in the upper 40's. Not cold at all by Michigan standards. Without snow, Christmas lights tend to look a little cheesy, to say nothing of those giant inflatable snow men sitting in yards that almost never see snow. And yet, everyone here dutifully puts up their lights, and sings Jingle Bells and Let it Snow! It's a mite...incongruous.

To that end, I am posting a video that my best friend, Jillian, sent me. She felt bad that a couple of days ago I was on my back patio grilling steak while it was 70 degrees out, and thought I might appreciate the fact that in the Greater Toronto Area, they'd gotten about a foot of fresh snow. With her permission, here is her video. And thanks Jill for making me a bit homesick.

Friday Five

My, my, how the weeks just seem to fly by. Time for another edition of the Friday Five. Y'all may not hear a whole lot out of me for the next few days. Starting Saturday, I'm on the schedule for sixteen days straight with no break, so my posting my be a touch spotty. I know I have more awards I need to get out, plus I need to write about my..erm, run-in with an overzealous hair dresser. I told y'all yesterday I was going to get highlights. I may need to go find someone to do some low lights. That, or pray that my hair grows fast so I can cut out some of this blond.

Anyhoo....

Five Things I Love About Where I Live

(picture above, fountain in Forsyth Park, Savannah, GA)

1. Humidity.

This sounds stupid, I know. Everyone always complains about the humidity: it messes up their hair, makes them feel sweaty, whatever. All I know is, it's nice to not have to run a humidifier so my husband can breathe. I also like the way the air feels first thing in the morning when I open the door. It's kind of damp, almost caresses my face, like it's just trying to let me know it's there.

2. All the young men call me ma'am, all the old men call me dear, and all the women call me honey.

There are women in this world who find it demeaning when an elderly gentleman calls them "dear", but I find it endearing, as long as it's not in a lecherous way, and it almost never is. And while some people feel old when someone calls them "ma'am", I think it's a lovely mark of respect that we just don't see much of anymore. As for the women, well, I also call everyone "hon", especially if I can't remember their names! I think, perhaps, I was born to be southern.

3. The Food.

No question about it, I love southern food: fried chicken, grits, greens with ham hock, pecan pie, fried pork chop sandwich, barbecue. About the only thing I can't handle is okra. I had a bad okra experience in my teens.

4. Rainstorms

Now, I don't like severe weather (does anyone???), but I love the summer thundershowers we get here, usually late in the afternoon. It's a product of the humidity. It's almost as if the sky just gets so full of moisture, it just can't handle it anymore and it explodes. And it really does help the heat a little bit. Just as soon as I think I can't handle the oppressive heat outside anymore, one of those lovely cleansing storms opens up and drops the temperature about ten degrees, and I can open the windows for a while. The best part is, we rarely get tornadoes here, so I can at least not panic too much if they declare a severe thunderstorm warning.

5. The Beach

I've always been a water person, ask any of my family. I grew up around the Great Lakes, and now I live less than an hour from the Atlantic ocean. The sound of waves and the smell of the sea calms me down, and I love watching The Four Year Old run in and out of the water. She's happy, the husband is happy, and I am happy. While I wouldn't mind living in a beach cottage year round, the great thing about living this far inland is if we get something less than a Cat 2 Hurricane, I probably won't have to evacuate.

Okay, that's my five. I get to play radio DJ star for the next two weeks filing in while other people take vacation, so don't expect me to post every day. I'll try though, if only because you have to see this ridiculous hair.

Have a good weekend!

Clowns to the Left of Me, Jokers to the Right...

Here I am, stuck in the middle with...y'all.



Thank you Stealers Wheel for the lyric.

Yesterday was Canada Day(hooray!). Wednesday is the Fourth of July (also hooray!). And I am feeling...hollow.

As the blog title suggests, I am a Canadian living in the United States. I was born in Canada, but I've lived half my life here in the U.S., and these two holidays so close to each other always bring up those conflicted feelings I have about whether I am Canadian or American.

By law, I am a Canadian citizen. My mother is a Canadian citizen, my father is an American citizen, and I was born in Canada. But I don't really feel Canadian anymore. I don't sound particularly Canadian, unless you get me talking to my family or friends up there on the phone and then I carry those pronunciations around with me for a few hours. I care about what happens up there politically, and I certainly would fit in there in many ways in my philosophies on life, gun control, socialized medicine, drug laws. And yet...

I really believe in the U.S. Constitution, and it's wonderful vagaries. I respect and believe in the system of checks and balances (even when it's corrupted), even if I'm not legally allowed to vote in elections here. I listen to American music, my taste is towards American food (with a few exceptions), and I've forgotten most of the metric system.

I've been thinking a lot lately about getting my U.S. citizenship. It crosses my mind every now and again, but it's been knocking on my brain pretty steadily since we moved to Georgia a couple of months ago. The problem is, it's expensive, it's time consuming, and generally it's a pain in the ass. Come to think of it, coming here legally with a Green Card was also time consuming, expensive and a pain in the ass, and my Dad was already a U.S. citizen! To come here legally, you have to be on a waiting list, you get to take a bunch of really embarrassing medical tests, and shell out a lot of cash, and be fingerprinted when you enter the country. We got through in about a year, partly because my Dad is a U.S. citizen, and I think we may have had some political help on the inside. But it was still tough.

To gain your citizenship, you need to have lived and worked in the U.S. for five years as a Permanent Resident Alien (which is my status). Then you need to fill out lots of forms (which they sometimes lose) at an Immigration Office that handles citizenship cases. The nearest one to me is in Atlanta. The cost right now is approximately five hundred dollars, not including travel expenses of course. You also need to take a history/civics test, which I have a feeling most U.S. citizens born and raised here couldn't pass. It's the hoops I have to jump through that have been the main reason I haven't gone through with it.

But it's also the fact that there's a little tiny voice inside of me that keeps saying I'll be losing something important if I give up my Canadian citizenship. It sounds stupid, but it's something that makes me unique, even if I don't mention it in casual conversation with everyone.

When I go up to visit my family, I'm overwhelmed by feelings of home, and I never want to leave. I miss buying butter tarts at Loblaws, I miss buying my milk in four litre plastic bags, I miss seeing TTC trolleys and buses. I miss standing on the shore of either Lake Huron (where my gran lives) or Lake Ontario (where I used to live) and feeling the breeze and watching the sea gulls. I miss the quiet that only comes with a really good snowfall. At the same time, though, when I am here, standing on my front porch watching the sunset, or standing on the beach at Tybee Island watching the shrimp trawlers come in or the dolphins playing in the surf, I can't imagine being anywhere else. I can't imagine not eating shrimp and grits, listening to people say "How y'all doin' today?", and feeling that warm, moist, chewy air caressing my face every morning.

And so I stand here, not really Canadian anymore, but not really American, either. Just somewhere, stuck in the middle.

Indeed it is.

Oooo, first post.

It's not exactly a snowball's chance in hell. After all, Savannah isn't even close to hell, it's one of the most lovely places on Earth, but it is extremely hot, especially if you're born a northerner like me. I've lived in various parts of the south for ten years now, and this is the farthest south I've ever hung my hat. It's also the most rural experience I've ever had.

I just finished a move to South Effingham County, Georgia. For those who have no idea where this is, it's just north and west of Savannah, GA, home to Paula Deen, and where the book "Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil" takes place.

Right now we have wildfires burning to our south-west, in Ware County. We're not in danger from the fires up here, but the wind shifted, and our little slice of heaven is now covered with smoke. Every time I went outside, I kept coming in smelling like barbecue.

The house is nice, the people are nice, and I'm working on my southern accent. It's surprisingly easy to fall into it, especially since my new subdivision is in such a rural area. So rural in fact, that on Monday, I had a buzzard land in my front yard, and on Tuesday evening, a couple of folks were riding horses through the less developed parts of our subdivision.

But I do love this area. I love watching shrimp boats come back in the evenings, I love the breeze stir palmetto trees, and I love the food. She Crab Soup rocks, and if you've never had it, you don't know what you're missing. the other great thing about Savannah is SCAD, the Savannah College of Art and Design. There are so many talented young people here in this town, it just makes my heart sing. There is always something going on here.

We're going to the Arts Festival down on River Street this weekend. The temptation to buy things will be great. I may have to just settle for some post cards. And some She Crab soup.