We packed up some lunch and went for a hike in the rain on Cypress Mountain, following the showshoe trails we trekked across in the early spring. We had a blast looking at how high up the trail markers seemed to be when we weren’t walking on five meters of snow pack.

It was wonderful. The drizzle coming down through the trees meant there was practically no one else on the whole mountain. We walked until we hit a small lake, and then stopped to eat our lunches in the rain. We saw some wild low-bush blueberries next to practically every trail we took (and since they weren’t quite ripe yet, this is the reason we’re going back next weekend!); the runoff was making rivulets everywhere and the growing things were that almost-glowing green that I associate with the Scottish Highlands.

One of our many food-centred family traditions is that we get hot chocolate after playing in the rain. I was worried that my marshmallows wouldn’t combine too well with Bailey’s, but it turned out to have been needless. Delicious!

So I put them back…odd.

This was a geekend because L often teases me about my geeky impulse to do something fairly basic from start to finish, when something very similar can be purchased for probably less money, and definitely less time. For example, the beer: there are stores here that sell beer already bottled, and are quite happy to simply let you walk in and buy some. But what’s the fun in that?

The u-brew place was fantastic; none of those dinky room-temperature, corner-of-the-mud-room kits in evidence here. Steam-heated, copper-jacketed kettles in which you make your wort from the individual malts, boil it, add hops, boil it, add hops, let it cool and then come back in two weeks to put it in containers. I chose cans for my first trip because I didn’t know how things would turn out, and wouldn’t know what to do with the plastic bottles after everything was done. So I came back at lunch on Saturday with 138 cans of rather excellent beer. I considered it a total win once L said she couldn’t tell it was not storebought. Now for a real test, I should buy some Newcastle and do a blind tasting!

The u-pick (I wonder how many of one’s weekend activities need to begin with “u-” before it’s officially a geekend. Perhaps just one.) had strawberries and raspberries available today, with currants and gooseberries on the horizon. I don’t remember the last time I ate a strawberry that was just picked, still a bit sandy and hot from the sun. Some of the berries were so deep red as to be almost mahogany. I rationalized eating those on the spot by deciding they were so ripe that they simply wouldn’t take to transport.

So in the not-too-distant future, I have blueberries, currants, gooseberries, blackberries, peaches and apples to pick, as well as ciders and ales to brew and enjoy. There may be a lot of things which earn my griping about living in Vancouver, but freshly picked berries and a cold drink are not one of them.

This marks my third Canada Day as a permanent resident of Canada, and the end of the second year of my three-year period before applying for citizenship. Two years of living here haven’t changed my perceptions of Canada too much. I still prefer the way Canada does business (politically) in the world, I still prefer living in a country where everyone pays for everyone’s health care, and I still don’t think paying what amounts to US$5.75/gallon for gas is too much.

I’m not exactly sure how living in Vancouver compares to living in Canada, since it’s quite different from my previous experience here, and seems quite different from most other places in Canada according to the other transplants to whom I’ve spoken. I’ve actually started to wonder if this is Canada’s “cultural mosaic” writ small: Canada doesn’t exist as a country, but as a collection of municipalities which share some similarities and have many striking differences. Spider Robinson (another transplanted American now living in the Vancouver area) once described Canada as an amazing place, that was seemingly held together despite language differences and mutually exclusive regional interests by nothing more than extreme politeness and a hatred of its national airline’s coffee (although I’ve had it pointed out to me that most Canadians wouldn’t narrow it down to the coffee). The longer I live here, the more accurate that seems to me.

It’s not all roses living here, but again, I don’t know how much of that is Canada, and how much is living in Canada’s La-La Land. There is a certain amount of gullible credulousness in Vancouver that really rubs me the wrong way. Most of these I attribute directly to a lack of critical thought (what our friends Kayla and Alan described as “the other national deficit”):

• Yes, I want to help pay for my neighbour’s medical care, but no, alternative medicine (whatever that means) should not qualify as “medical care”.
• No, a 650 square foot condo sold for $385,000 cannot “appreciate forever”, not even if the Olympics are coming and yes, I can back that up.

However, at least this kind of disagreement doesn’t get someone tarred as un-Canadian. Too bad the same can’t be said south of here.

Happy Canada Day to everyone, everywhere. I wish you were all here.

D: Great, what do you got?

M: Two light sabres, soccer game, scoobydo puzzle….

D: How ’bout some clothes?

M: Nah, Gramma will have all that for me.

Tucking him in a few minutes ago (we’re all very very tired) I told him I thought I was the luckiest mum in the world for having such a great boy as my son. He agreed. Then I added, “Well…maybe Gramma is the luckiest, because she has two great boys….”.

His unhesitating reply was, “Yeah, Dad AND Me.”.

At bedtime tonight, he wanted to show me how easily he could run and jump into his bed. I pointed out to him that this was a measure of how much he’s grown; when we’d gotten him that bed after our move to Canada, he was too short to hop into it. To illustrate, we went to his growth chart.

I pointed out the line closest to our move to BC, and he used his hand to approximate his current height. His hand was angling down from his head to his measurement three months ago, so I put my hand on his head to try to do a better job of marking his current height.

He playfully whacked my hand off his hair, and with perfect Eddie Izzard inflection (caution: audio rated R) said, “I can measure my own head, thank you.”

This is Cheerio.