City taxes

Last night, the City of Toronto voted to implement a new land transfer tax and vehicle ownership tax.  There had been a fairly large outcry against a land transfer tax.  But for all the concern, it didn’t seem to livenup the interest in the condo N has for sale. You’d think that the fear of the new tax would have had people scrambling to make their purchase decision before the new tax could be implementated.

I don’t mind paying more taxes to live in Toronto.  I think our property taxes are too low anyway, especially compared to neighbouring municipalities.  Typical politicians had been freezing property taxes year after year to be seen as heroes.  But when the reserves got depleted and neither the Province nor the Feds come in to bail the City out, it has to get it’s money from somewhere.  And that somewhere is an increase in taxes.

Although I don’t mind paying more taxes, I do mind paying more to collect the tax.  The City already has a perfectly good property tax collection regime.  Increasing the rate would result in every additional dollar I pay going into the City coffers to help pay for public services.  But these new taxes will require new collection regimes.  Even if they piggy-back off of existing Provincial LTT and vehicle licensing schemes, neither the Province nor the for-profit corporations the City will have to bargain with will collect City taxes for free.  So – every additional dollar I pay will first go to systems changes and additional collections costs, with only the remainder trickling into the coffers. 

Why is this a good thing?

Haha Foo!

My sister asked me if I had been putting a lot of music onto my iPod and if I listen to it a lot.  At that point I had 1 GB on there (out of a possible eight) and I wasn’t really happy with the content.  The rest of our conversation went something like:

“My music sucks.” 

“You’re just realizing that now?!”

“Well, it’s not that it sucks.  It’s that I understand why other people think it sucks.  A lot of it has to be really listened to to be appreciated.  It’s not good for just background listening.”

A few minutes later, Lil Sis came back with a CD she burned of music that doesn’t suck and that she thinks I’ll like.  Amy Winehouse, The Von Bondies, Wolf Parade, The Walkmen, The Sonics, The Detroit Cobras, The Damned, The Cramps, Art Brut and Rancid.  All new to me.  Well, except Rancid.

Normally she wouldn’t have included the Rancid track, but when she and I were cleaning out the apartment during her and Mom’s eviction, she had been playing Rattlesnake, and I sang along with it doing my impersonation of a cheery smiling church lady:  “you are a rattlesnake, and you are full of shit.  And I don’t like you much.  You are a rattlesnake.”  She decided I must secretly like it.  And you know, I do. 

Good times.

Resistance is Futile

Ok – so I’ve been wanting a Macbook for a while.  And no, I haven’t bought one, but I did buy an iPod.   And when I walk along the street with my white earbuds and see everyone else with their white earbuds I wonder: what the hell is wrong with us all?

I bought it at Costco, feeling very secure because of their return policy.  If I wanted to, I could just take it for a test drive for a few months, then return it.  I won’t do that, though, because I’m not an asshole.  But it’s nice to know I could if I wanted to. 

For some reason I splurged and got the 8BG version (only 45 dollars more!).  And I bought it in silver even though I full expected to buy it in black.  But the black one looked like it should be owned by an ultra-hip person with a shitload of music divided into all sorts of playlists.  I figured the silver version suited my middle-aged jazz standards and 70s pop sensibilities a bit better.  Still, I have the occasional twang of “but I want to look cool, too!”. 

Downloading iTunes was effortless (unless you’re Romy who doesn’t have internet access so ended up taking her shuffle back because it was unuseable for her). Copying CD’s to it and synching it with the iPod is equally effortless.  I’m avoiding buying random tracks from iTunes because I expect it too will be effortless, and effortless spending/consumption is not a good thing (at least when the bills come in).

I want to expand my music experience.  My problem is the music I like to listen to – and I mean really LISTEN to (not just background noise) annoys other people or just doesn’t work well to have playing in the house when company is over.  Patricia Barber’s music, for example.  So I’m looking for more “user friendly” selections.   The trick is finding it.  Sure, I listen to music on the radio now and again, but I tend to select stations playing music that I’m already familiar with.  Most of the interesting new stuff I hear is on television commercials.  Zellers used to have some interesting selections (Be Good Tanyas), and Joe Fresh Style has some pleasing upbeat stuff.  Which, I guess, is exactly the stuff they’d choose for a commercial.

Methinks I’ll have a few long nights at the laptop getting the iPod loaded up.  Where do people find the time?

Wheel of Fortune

It’s October 11, and there’s another Provincial Election over. 

When it began, and the parties came out with their platforms, I was fairly sure the PCs would win a minority government.  They had one of those platforms that didn’t really say anything under critical analysis, but where the reader might fill in the blanks with whatever hopes and dreams they wanted.  This approach worked for Mike Harris – twice – so I couldn’t see how it wouldn’t work for John Tory too.  That was until he mentioned he’d want to fund “faith-based” schools.  That appears to have been what done him in.  The Liberals won a majority.  No big changes here at work.

Lil Sis’ didn’t vote.  She said she was going to, but she didn’t have time because she was completing something for school at the last minute.  At least she truly seems to have meant to. 

When I was younger, I didn’t vote.  I was a student, I didn’t feel remotely in touch with what the politicians were promising or arguing over.  Watching something like Question Period in the House disgusted me (as it continues to do, today).  But I began to feel guilty.  There I was, a woman, sitting on my ass — not exercising the hard faught right to vote.  I turned 18 and became eligible to vote in 1983 at which time women had only been voting for 66 years. Versus men, who had been eligible to vote since democracy began.

Of course, it all makes sense when you understand that women weren’t legally considered “persons” until 1929 in Canada (to clarify, this was with respect to eligibility for appoinment to the Senate.  But still…)

So I began to vote, and now consider it not just my right, but my duty.  Unfortunately, only 52% of those eligible actually voted in this election.   Millions of people stayed home and watched Wheel of Fortune instead.   

Thanksgiving

As I was grinding coffee beans for this morning’s coffee, I heard a rag-tag gathering of Canada geese flying above my house.  It was a nice treat, listening to them sounding in Thanksgiving with their autumnal honking.

Yesterday, S, Lil Sis and I went to Orillia to visit mom.  On the way, I gave her a call — wanting to make sure she didn’t eat before we got there.  When we arrived, she had dressed up in her new pants, nice navy blue shirt and light blue chenille jacket.  She even had a handbag someone must have given her.  The oversized metal zipper-pulls tinkled as she walked, like a delicate wind chime.

Mary, who co-runs the home where mom lives, usually greets me with tales of my mother’s misbehaviour.  This time she offered “want to hear some good news?”.  You bet I do!  Turns out, for the first time, Mary and the staff had been having no problems with mom.  She still eats cigarette buts, but that’s about it (on the plus side, she hasn’t smoked in over a month).  Who knows how long it will last, but for the moment, I’m grateful.  I’m also grateful that I have S and Lil Sis to come with me when I visit mom, so it’s not my burden alone.

On Saturday, we received a delivery of lovely cut flowers in a vase.  I am thankful for them, or more importantly, for the sentiment behind them.

I am thankful to be here, in my house, two cats lounging nearby ,and family exercising the luxury of sleeping in.

I am thankful that I have people I love in my life, and people who love me.  I am especially grateful for S’s unexpected support — although  don’t know why I don’t expect it from people, especially S.

I am grateful that I live in this city, where being gay is not an issue.  Where 20 women can attend a Dykes Planning Tykes course at the local Y and walk to their various homes in safety.

I am grateful to have found myself in a job where I am well respected by colleagues and higher-ups, and that pays me enough so that I can live in this expensive city.

I am grateful for my health, although I am becoming more and more aware that the reward of good health may soon have to be earned.

My life is going well, and I’m sometimes dumbfounded by how this has all come to pass.  It seems I have just let life happen to me, and it somehow turned out well all on its own.  When I examine it more closely, though, I realize that much of my life is made up of my choices.  And it seems I’ve chosen well. 

 I recall the lesson my mother taught me when I was little.  She set me up at a table to draw still life.  A red delicious apple, a glass of water.  I was a poor drawer.  The apple was totally round and totally red, and the glass was shaped like a very tall letter “U”.  Mom picked up the apple and showed it to me, showed me how the apple tapered toward the bottom where it ended in raised bumps, showed me the complexity of the colour, with russet stripes and small dots.  The glass, she pointed out, was flat on the bottom.  She showed me how to convey the cylindrical nature of the vessel in pencil and paper.  In recent years, I would tell people that she taught me how to see the beauty in things – even though she cannot.  But I realize now that she was only teaching me to look more closely, to SEE things. It’s my choice to see beauty. 

And I’m thankful for that.

Weather Limbo

It’s October 5.  Sunny and 26 degrees out, with a smog advisory that probably has something to do with the freakish amount of fog we’ve been having.  Something about the air reminds me of being in a seaside town, but without the saltiness.

I think usually at this time of the year the daytime high is in the low teens.  Time to wear sweaters or jackets, at least for parts of the day, and to think about the end of the season, end of a year.  But this year, we’re in eternal late-summer.  I suspect if this keeps up, it’ll be well into December before I realize I should have been preparing for xmas. 

Will we get snow for xmas?

Lois Maxwell

Lois Maxwell died recently at the age of 80.  Newspaper obituaries talk about her career, centering on the Bond films and her role as Miss Moneypenney.  You’d be hard pressed, however, to find a paper, even a Canadian paper, that mentions her role in Adventures in Rainbow Country.  Maybe the people who write the obits are in their 20s or 30s and don’t think it’s worth mentioning.  It was only a cheesy Canadian television series after all  ( if you’re interedted, the obituary in the Toronto Star goes into the greatest deatil about her, including an Adventures in Rainbow Country reference).

I watched Adventures in Rainbow Country on tv when I was a kid.  That and Forest Rangers.  They were pretty good kids shows, really.  And they were Canadian kids shows – kids paddling along rivers, hiking through the woods, on snowmobiles etc.   I didn’t grow up in an urban area.  Instead, I grew up relatively close to where the show was filmed – so it definitely resonated with me. 

It was also on tv in the late 60’s – a time when Canadian patriotism was at the highest I can remember.  Maybe it was because I was just a kid, and learning about Canada in school.  Singing the national anthem, colouring the provinces different colours on the map, learning about the maple leaf on the flag and how it had one point for each province.  

Shows like Adventures in Rainbow Country were on the air - and, unlike today, most of the programming I saw on the 2 english language channels we got was Canadian.  Plus, this was the time of Expo ‘67 and all the rah -rah associated with it, like the Ca-na-da song and the Ontari-ari-ario song.  We were still living high off our reputation as liberators of Holland in world war II  and respected Peacekeepers the world over.  And we had a bright future – plenty of resources and cheap electricity.

When I was a kid, nature and Canada were indistinguishable.  The sandy soil, sweet fern, blueberry bushes, rivers, rock (all that black black Sudbury rock), poplar trees, crows.  Even the sparrows would sing “Oh Ca-na-da”.  All of it was Canada and all of it was around me. 

My kid will have pavement and sidewalks, towering glass and cement building, trees trying to survive in concrete. Cars and planes and helicopters and sirens filling the air with sound.  Electronic billboards flashing images in synch with whatever ADHD world we’re creating.  Nature is racoons scattering your recycling through the backyard.  And where is Canada in all that?  When we’re trying to be so much like someplace else.  Toronto is on one of the largest lakes in the world, but I can rarely see it because of the condos standing like sentinels along the shore — ensuring that the only view you can get of the lake is through glass from your 30th floor home or office. 

Don’t get me wrong, I like living in Toronto.  I think in many ways (pollution and pavement aside) it will be healthier for my kids (should I have them) to live in such a magnificently multicultural city than living in a small rural town.  But it’s a far cry from the Canada of my youth.  The Canada that included Lois Maxwell and Adventures in Rainbow Country.

Thank you Ms Maxwell for your contribution to my Canada.  You will be recalled with fondness.