I am a Canadian

NO, not me… I am so excited to present y’all with a guest post from my friend Kami who IS Canadian! She is one of the first people who started commenting on my blog when I began “branching out” more into the mommy blog world. Her comments, emails and virtual friendship mean a lot to me. I hope that someday we can meet in person. I’m thinkin’ we could meet somewhere in the middle, like in Wyoming perhaps. What do you think, Kami?

Ok, here’s her awesome post.

Hi there! My name is Kami and I post random drivel over at Kami’s Khlopchyk . I come from a long line of Polish and Ukrainian pioneers or Pukes as we are affectionately called. I am the proud mother of two sons and “khlopchyk” is the Polish word for boys.

Elaine is one of my bestest blogging buddies and I was beyond honoured when she asked me to guest post here this week.

Did you notice that extra u in honoured? It’s not misspelled, at least not where I come from. I. AM. CANADIAN. Up here we like to distinguish ourselves from our American friends by throwing an extra u into selected words. We really know how to live it up here in the Canadian wilderness.

Since I am Canadian and Elaine is American, Texan to be specific, I thought I would dispel some common misconceptions about my home and native land. That and I couldn’t for the life of me think of anything else interesting. I post drivel at the best of times on my own site and this guest posting is a first for me, oh the pressure!

Now where was I? Oh yes, I am Canadian. That phrase, by the way, was coined by a beer commercial, the product name being, wait for it…. Molson Canadian . We are nothing if not original up here in Canada, after all our national anthem is Oh Canada, if that’s not original then I don’t know what is.

You also need to know that beer is very important here in Canada. Mexico has tacos, the US of A has hamburgers, and we, up here in the white north, have beer. Yes, it is that important here. Wait. That might just be with my in-laws.

Now, you may have heard stories about us Canadians, like that we live in igloos and are all Eskimos.

Now I’ll be the first to tell you that the place I live should only be inhabited by polar bears from the months of November through March, however, we do actually live in houses, just like yours, constructed of wood and brick. And if we did live in igloos we’d be homeless in the summer. The truth is that our summers are just like yours, quite lovely, if you ignore the extreme heat and mosquitoes anyway. I am pretty sure our ancestors came in the summer because if they had shown up in the winter, this would all still be forest and marshland rather than farmland and I would be basking in the California sun right now. When in doubt, blame it on the ancestors.

Maybe you have also heard that we don’t have indoor plumbing. Trust me, I’ve got two kids, the plumbing works just fine, thankyouverymuch.

And no, I don’t know your cousin in Toronto. That’s about 1,000 miles from where I live and there are about a million people in Toronto. That’s a bit like me asking you if you know my Aunt Minnie who winters at a retirement trailer park near Orlando, FL.

While it is very romantic to think that our policemen are all Mounties riding about on horseback, it is just not practical. Some idiot in a Hummer would run over one of them and then there would go the force. Up here in Canada, we have a points system while driving, old ladies and gophers are 2 pts, bears are 10, Mounties are 20 *… you see where I am going… For everyone’s safety especially the horses, we have men in blue who drive around in Fords.

This leads me to the last quintessentially Canadian thing: hockey. I can understand how you might think that Canadian kids leave the womb in hockey skates but that too is false. Most kids don’t don skates and grab a stick until at least age 3. I kid you not. There is actually a hockey league here for 3 and 4 year olds. I would guess that watching a bunch of 3 year olds trying to not only skate but shoot a puck into the net would be quite humourous (there’s another one of those extra u’s I was taking about!) however, I haven’t had the pleasure. Most Canadian kids play hockey, even girls. My boys though, are marching to the tune of a different drum and have zero interest in the game. I am pretty sure it’s hereditary.

Despite what you might think, hockey is not our national sport. It’s actually lacrosse. Yeah, I don’t really know what that is either, don’t worry about it.

To summarize, the two things you need to know, beer and hockey. Not too difficult eh? If you come to Canada, be sure to bring lots of beer to bribe the locals. I have it on good authority that it works quite well. Oh right, that might just be with my in-laws, but it’s worth a shot. If the beer doesn’t work bring up Canada’s latest gold medal at the World Junior Hockey Championships. You’ll be fine. Really.

* I am totally joshing your there, no points, it is generally frowned upon to hit anyTHING, never mind anyONE while driving. With snowballs though, everyone is fair game…