our Canadian home

Don’t tell the kids, but we bought a new house

So, the children’s mother and I bought a house.

“Let’s not tell the children,” she said.

“Okay,” I replied.

So we didn’t.

Now before I share why, let me say that we all have a relationship with our houses, and in my family I’m the one with a sort of longsuffering in this union.

This is the story.

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Wrong seat. Wrong country. No phone. No mouse.

So, I just filled out Canada’s most recent census, barely beating the May 31 deadline and thus staying out of jail and fulfilling this duty of those of us living in this great country. Before letting me go, the questionnaire asked if I or anyone in the family would mind if all the sordid details

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You know you’re home when …

The one thing that always helps us as a family re-acclimatize to life back in Canada is Save the Mothers’ annual Steps for Change walk. It unfolded in 15 municipalities across North America on Saturday. The kids’ roller blades and bikes and whatever else is needed, after being in Canadian storage for eight months, have

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Crossing through Brussels. Staring down the principal.

So, it’s Day 5 of our official return to our own home, Day 4 of the kids’ return to school, that is their Canadian school, this, their annual routine here in Hamilton for the next couple of months. Of course, this is long enough to get new clothes (thank God for mothers willing to do

Crossing through Brussels. Staring down the principal. Read More »

These warm summer days

It was a summer party. “Hey,” I said to the man who had just walked in the doorway. “You almost look like someone I used to know.” He laughed. “And look!” I said. “There he is, on the wall!” He looked up at an old video clip of a wedding, with him in it, and laughed

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Doing less and liking it more

Before the news of the week, the sad news, let me say that my new life motto is “Doing less and liking it more.” This is why the doc says I’ll live to be 100 and why I’m at my second summer camp in two weeks, this time on a lake of undisclosed location with

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O Canada, Hannah stands on guard for thee

In time to celebrate for Canada Day, the country has a new citizen with a brand new Canadian passport in hand. Her name is Hannah. She has a story. Faithful Reader knows some of, it, how gruelling an experience this has all been for some years as expressed in this New Vision piece. But after,

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