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Canada Day: Blackflies and Tim Horton Sugar Highs




Happy Canada weekend!
I was born on Canada Day, back in 1956.
It was actually July 2nd, but because I decided to exit my mother on a Monday, the nation threw a party for me.
My mother Vera was less than pleased. She had just popped a roast into the oven when the bun she already had in there decided to rise leaving her in a puddle in the middle of the kitchen. It was the first, but not the last time, my mother was pissed at me.
My father was nowhere to be found, I'm sure, so it was up to Gramps to take her to the hospital where I was proclaimed Rosalie, after a Scottish aunt, and Donna, after my Uncle Donnie paid my dad to put his name on the birth certificate.
Since then I've always celebrated my birthday on Canada Day. It has been pretty much out of necessity because everybody takes off to their cottages or on holidays after waving flags around here, so I've had to become strategic.
I will spend the day out in the backyard greeting guests in shifts, as some of them will be arriving early on their way to better parties.
We will eat sausages from Adam's Sausage Outlet, a place just down the road from the Ottawa Food Bank. Adam's makes the best meat vessels: brats, hot Italian, chorizo. Man, we loves us some sausages.
There will be burgers and dips and brownies, and salads and gluten free chips for the vegetarians and intestinally challenged. Yes, and strawberries bought from the Ottawa Farmers' Market.
It will be the Feast of Rosalita and I simply cannot wait.
Strangely, I'm looking forward to 58, filled with gratitude that I made it this far with only a testy gallbladder and mildly fatty liver -- not bad for a girl who once made Joe Walsh seem like an amateur.
This year, I have decided to refrain from making resolutions. Instead, I'll-do-the-best-I-can.
You know, love the skin I'm in, which by the middle of the month will be filled with botulism, just in time for my daughter's wedding.
Some old habits are hard to change.
Pass the tequila, Sheila, lay down and love me again.
Wishing you Happy Canada Day, peace and good government.
Remember, we live in the greatest country in the world if you like blackflies and Tim Horton sugar highs.
Party on, Canucks!
Remember: Don't drink and drive.
And kiss a beaver, if you can find one.


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