History - Say it with flowers...

Spring in Ottawa means flowers, especially tulips. During WWII, Dutch royal family took refuge in Canada and Princess Margriet was born in Ottawa. Well sort of. The maternity ward of the hospital was temporarily declared to be extraterritorial by the Canadian government, thereby allowing her royal citizenship to be solely Dutch as required by the constitution. Beyond this, the First Canadian Army was very active in the liberation of the Netherlands from Nazi occupation. In appreciation, the Dutch people sent bucket loads of tulips (aka the Dutch national flower) to Ottawa and then the royal family sent over still more. This became an annual tradition, and has evolved into the Canadian Tulip Festival. Every year there are fireworks, loads of live music and, of course, tons of tulips, all over a long weekend. Nice!

Dad, Pam, Teri & Grandpa – this is one reason May next year would be a great time to visit.

What Dreams May Come

I had the coolest dream last night. My recall starts when I went through a secret passage at an R&B club to reach a large inner courtyard where an international martial arts expo was to be held. However, before the expo could start there was an opening act. It was an Ed Sullivan era Beatles tribute band, comprised entirely of chimpanzees even wearing the correct suits. And they were terrible, really terrible. They kept forgetting tunes/lyrics and couldn’t play their instruments very well. It turns out the reason they were so bad is that they were impostors. I learned this in my dream when the real Ed Sullivan era Beatles tribute band, comprised entirely of chimpanzees (also wearing the same suits, but in a different colour), turned up for their gig. Sadly, I awoke before there was a musical monkey-fight at the martial arts expo.

And I know many of you just come here for pics of the kids. So having suffered through reading my most awesome dream, here is something for you as well.

Flower Power

Summer is well upon us. It’s warm, green and just bloody beautiful. So much so that today Jane scarpered out of the office a little early so we could all go down to the Governor General’s park where, among other things, the dandelions are in full bloom. Dandelions are a weed that is nearly impossible to remove from lawns and which produce a sea of yellow flowers well known to all children and the mothers that receive them by the small grubby handful every spring.

I was sitting on the shaded edge of the lawn when Tom brought over a handful of the dry white fluffy seed heads that follow the yellow flower. I took them and blew upon them, sending a great cloud of fluff into the air. Tom’s eyes went wide as he danced through the fluffy cloud.

“Yayyy! That was AMAZING!”

...And then he ran off to gather another handful for the first of several repeat performances.

There will come a time when nothing I say will be right, and nothing I do will be cool, but today I stand shoulder to shoulder with Ancient Gods. Just as they breathed life into the world, I use my breath to bring the undiluted wonder of childhood - in the form of dandelion fluff - to my son’s life. I have certainly had worse afternoons.