It’s Canada Day today and the weather has been awful of late. The last few weeks we’ve been getting weather of 25-30 degrees only for the last four days to produce non-stop rain. Today, it didn’t really rain but it was overcast enough to threaten rain that I postponed our trip to Ontario Place water park for the morning, afternoon and evening. It was meant to be a day on water slide followed by a big firework display in the evening but instead we’ll go on Saturday, but without the firework display, when the sun is expected to be back out.

Not to worry about missing the fireworks, that didn’t happen. When you live on the 18th floor and have an unobstructed view over Mississauga, the airport and most of North/West Toronto then you are always going to see fireworks. In fact at 10 p.m. this evening we turned out the lights, stood by the window and watched about 50 different fireworks at local homes as well as two professional displays from two different directions. Quality stuff indeed and a nice way to recognize Canada day considering for the rest of it I sat on my ass and watched the first day of NHL free agency to see who signed where.

The day did get me thinking about previous times I celebrated Canada Day but mainly the first time I celebrated Canada day in Canada. I say in Canada because I was working in the States in ‘02 when Canada day came along, and while nobody there gave it a second thought I wore a Canada Day t-shirt I had bought a few weeks before while passing through Canada. I wore the same t-shirt twelve months later when I was spending my first Canada day in Canada and thanks to some white tape I was able to adjust the 2 to make it look like a 3 so it read ‘Canada Day 2003′. That year I was working in Canada at the Severn Lodge Resort about two hours north of Toronto. The day wasn’t just memorable because I was in Canada but because I was drinking with a bunch of fine Canadian people in a wooden hut in the middle of the woods set above the resort we were working in. It was were the staff stayed when not working and not your typical location for spending a Canada Day. We drank a lot that night and somewhere around midnight decided it would be a wise move to go swimming in the lake in front of the resort. A bunch of us jumped in and swam out into the lake while those that remained on the dock looking after our drinks got into the hell of a lot of trouble with resort management for making excess noise and waking the guests. We stayed out there quietly until things calmed down before swimming back in, drying off and heading back to the woods and our communal wooden hut to resume the drinking. Great times.

Back to work and reality tomorrow but only two days to the weekend.

— Ricky 1/7/09

On the subject: Canada Day, Fireworks, Work Canada | ALL SUBJECTS |

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