Tag: succinct

Apple Pie meets Maple Syrup

On a visit to Detroit with my brothers last weekend, I was surprised to discover just how close the city streets are to the edge of the United States. Walk out of Detroit’s downtown Renaissance Center through the south doors (yes, I did just say “south”), cross Atwater Street, and you’ll find yourself standing on the edge of the Detroit River staring at Canada on the other shore.  Almost has you thinking in metric, “eh?”

Canada is south of the U.S. – who knew?

Here’s something I probably learned in middle school and promptly forgot: the border between Canada and the U.S. runs right through the middle of Lake Erie (and the Detroit River). It’s as if Americans and Canucks had a long drawn-out discussion about who deserved the lake more, and then clinked glasses of Budweiser and Molson with, “Okay, you get half and we get half”.  The same thing happened with three of the other four Great Lakes (America somehow got all of Lake Michigan) and that’s why – at least in Detroit – Canada lies to the south.

The view of Canada from Detroit

Not that you’d know it’s Canada, mind you.  Aside from the giant red and white flag billowing on the far shore, the streets, buildings, cars; everything looks exactly the same as America.  You might as well be looking at Saint Paul from Minneapolis.  And Windsor (the Canadian town you see) is so close you might as well swim for it.  The Detroit River is only a mile wide at this juncture.  I kind of wondered what would happen if I did swim for it.  Would a flurry of border patrol boats appear out of nowhere to haul me in?

Instead, my brothers and I kept it legal and drove across the Ambassador Bridge (there’s the Detroit-Windsor tunnel if you prefer).  It felt a little strange to hand over passports just to go to dinner.  And once we sat down at our Windsor table we were greeted with a hearty “Happy Thanksgiving!”  Thanksgiving?  Had we gone through some sort of time warp?  Oh, right – Canada celebrates Thanksgiving in October.

The view of Detroit from Canada

Naturally we asked our server how Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving.  She thought about it for a moment and said, in her wonderful Inland North accent, “Oh, y’know, we gather with our families and have the meal.”  That’s it?  Not even an embarrassingly-large, dozens-of-dishes, eat-’til-you-burst meal?  Just food with family?  But in fact, Canadian Thanksgiving is pretty much the same as “down south”.  Explorers crossed the ocean, landed safely in the New World, established a settlement, held a feast of thanks, blah-blah-blah.

Pumpkins make sense for Canadian Thanksgiving

Despite our server’s succinct description, the Canadian Thanksgiving meal includes most of the dishes we enjoy on this side of the Detroit River (including turkey).  Canucks also celebrate with parades, Oktoberfests, and other festivals.  There’s even a “Thanksgiving Classic” courtesy of the Canadian Football League.  Makes me wonder if the Detroit Lions somehow found a way to play that football game along with every (U.S.) Thanksgiving Day game since 1934.

Ambassador Bridge

As we crossed back over the bridge after dinner, two thoughts entered my mind.  One, the waterfront houses on the Canadian side of the Detroit River have a view of the United States all day long instead of seeing their own country.  That seems a little odd.  And two, I wondered whether goods and services in Windsor (or beyond) would be worth leaving the U.S. for, instead of just purchasing the same in Detroit.  You’d have to pay the bridge/tunnel toll both ways for a little Canadian Bacon (or backbacon), which might compromise the benefit.  You’d most certainly run out of pages for the stamps on your passport.

Earlier I said something about “almost” thinking in metric.  No, you really do have to think in metric in Canada.  As soon as we crossed over the Detroit River, our car’s GPS changed directions into kilometers (clicks) and meters.  Suddenly the next turn was “100 meters” away instead of “300 feet”.  Believe me, it’s a little disorienting watching the meters count down (slower) than the feet you expect.  After several bottles of wine at dinner (liters?), at least we could still navigate back to the bridge.  Otherwise this post might be coming to you from “up north”.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.

Cute Tips

I find it interesting a horse has its eyes on the sides of the head, not on the front like us humans.  If a horse wants to “look you in the eye” he or she needs to turn its head ninety degrees one way or the other.  On the other hand (or hoof) a horse has a clear advantage here in that it can see in two directions at once.  If you think about it (er, “listen about it”) it’s the same setup as human ears.

Last week, my sister-in-law came home from an acupuncture appointment to discover a few needles still stuck in her ear.  Can’t blame her for not being aware, since those tiny needles are painless once they’re in.  But removing them must’ve been tricky, either by pure feel or with the help of a mirror.  You can’t see your ears.  It’s kind of like a backscratcher for those places you can’t reach.

So it is with ears.  Just because they can’t be seen doesn’t mean they don’t need occasional attention.  The phrase has been lost on younger generations but parents used to double-check their kids’ hygiene by saying, “Did you wash behind your ears?”  I did, and I still do.  I also wash in my ears.  With cotton swabs.

We’re all built differently, which means some of us need cotton swabs for the ears and others can get by without them.  For me, it’s two a day, every day (that’s over 700 a year for you counters).  I’m an earwax factory and if I don’t attend to my canals regularly, I’ll be heading to the doctor for a rather awkward “irrigation” treatment.  So I swab.  Not like a sailor swabs the decks but you know what I mean.

I’m also built to collect water in my ears (the dreaded “swimmer’s ear”).  It’s not too bad after a shower but I can count on it after a dip in the pool or the ocean.  Sometimes swabs don’t do the trick and I have to resort to alcohol drops to dry things out.  It’s messy business, this cleaning of the ears.

Cotton swabs (or “buds” for you Brits) have a succinct history.  They were invented a century ago by a man who simply attached cotton to toothpicks as a way to clean his infant’s ears.  He gave his product the name “Q-tip” (the “Q” for “quality) and eventually sold the patent to Unilever.  About that time a woman came forward to say she invented the very same thing.  Unilever settled the claim with her, and a hundred years later they’re selling $200 million in cotton swabs every year.  That’s a lot of “cute tips”.

Cleaning ears with Q-tips, by and large, is discouraged by the medical community.  Most of what you’ll read suggests you’re putting your hearing at risk by inserting anything into the ear canal.  Common sense, yes, but there was a time Q-tips were marketed specifically for this reason.  Today the advertising is for anything but, like dabbing makeup or sanitizing computer keyboards.  The last thing a company wants is to promote a product that can potentially damage the body.  Like the person who forgot they had a Q-tip in their ear and then whacked the side of their head.  Ouch.  That’s a trip to the ER if I ever heard of one.

Q-tipping also feels good (to which those ER doctors say, “don’t try this at home!”)  It’s like a tiny massage inside the ear and it’s addicting.  You’re stimulating nerves that are hypersensitive because they don’t get much attention.  For some, it generates an itch-scratch cycle that is difficult to stop.

But enough about cotton swabs.  Enough about ears.  You can re-forget you have a pair on your head.  Except if you’re me and they itch a lot.  Or you live in the South, where gnats are attracted to them (a serious annoyance).  Just remember to wash behind them.  Use cotton swabs very carefully.  And be thankful you’re not an elephant.

Some content sourced from Wikipedia, “the free encyclopedia”.