I have to say an enormous thank you to the Ottawa and Montreal Blues Societies for throwing the IBC’s First Great Canadian Polar Bear Blues Showcase and the Kooky Canuck for hosting it, as this ensured that I got to see all the Canadian acts I’d been promising to watch and didn’t need to worry about competing times in the program to catch them all.  And wouldn’t you believe it, one of the acts I fell in love with was just a stones throw away from where I live, on Vancouver Island, Jesse Roper with The Roper Show.

Filmed more great Blues from Canada that day, so this is just the beginning of what we’ll be sharing here and on Roamancing.

Thanks to the International Blues Challenge and Memphis, Tennessee, for showcasing all the great Blues artists, and to all the sponsors, including Canada.  And congratulations to this year’s IBC winners, Canadian born Ray Bonneville in the Solo / Duet Category and The WIRED! Band in the Band Category.  I was lucky enough to see Ray perform and would have to agree that he was brilliant.

Polar Bear Kisses,

Emme xoxo

My heart goes out to his family and I thank you for sharing him with the rest of us for so many years.  He gave us a sense of hope and pride at a time where there was none coming from the Prime Minister’s Office.  He was a man we could all be immensley proud of and scream from the roof tops proclaiming “I am a part of Jack Layton’s Canada.”

Jack Layton, Canada's Great Leader (Photographed by Matt Jiggins)

I never had the great pleasure of meeting Jack.  My brother did and he has proudly showed off his picture of him and Jack to all whom have entered the house since. Neither of us are NDPs, but we were both proud to call him our leader and to boast that he is a part of our country.

Canadians let us not let Jack’s legacy die.  It is our turn to make Jack proud.  It is time to stop the fighting between the NDP, the Liberals, the Bloc, and the Greens. It is time to unify and work together to create a better Canada, a Canada that Jack can be proud of.

Thank you Jack for all that you’ve done for Canada, for giving us a leader to be proud of, for giving us hope for the future, and just being an all round great guy!  We love you Jack!

Happy Canada Day!

Sloppy French Canadian Smooches,

Emme xoxo

Curious to see if she can pull it off, as even if Santa and the elves pitch in, there is still a week ahead of us in which the masses (including myself in the past) hit the malls in search of over-packaged and under-needed presents, get into wrapping frenzies (or competitions, in some cases), and chopped down living oxygen expellers for temporary greenery in their homes.  Personally not a fan of seeing kids cry and I rather like this one, so am chilling out with an artsy tree made of metal (it’s actually pretty cool) and am skipping the presents, in favour of quality time with those I love.  Who’s joining me?  Stephen Harper?  Thinking you are probably overdue for a green do gooder deed to worm your way back on to Santa’s good list and earn a bit of respect back for Canada, especially after this Christmas light show.  Who’s footing the energy bill for that anyhow? Oh, that’s right ….. Merry Christmas Canada.

As I watched the crowd chant “Oh Canada” with huge smiles on their faces I felt a sense of false nationalism that has seemed to invade everyone here for the winter games. People dressed in black, yellow and red holding Germany’s flag were trying to follow the words, and everyone hugged each other as Ricker’s face zoomed in unto the screen. I have decided that every time Canada wins gold I’m going up to Robson Square and simply enjoy the happiness these people are having, as it is as real as it can get. An elderly woman came up to me as she saw I was taking a lot of photos and videos, and thinking I was still recording looked straight into my camera and yelled: “I love Canada!!”. I should have asked her to do it again but she just left yelling woos and yeahs towards the immense crowd. In total there were many chants for Canada and I participated in most of them, because even though I am not Canadian and know absolutely nothing about the rules of any winter sport (in particular Biathlon, I get lost every time I see it on the TV), I actually cheered on for Canada because I was proud to be on Canadian soil and surrounded by such great people. So from the bottom of my heart: Thank you for hosting the Olympics, they are amazing fun.

Now, of course my night didn’t end at 8. Afterwards we walked through Granville where we saw a man with an actual eagle head, a ton of jugglers although this one in particular impressed me with her skills, and my friends dragged me to Doolin’s “irish” bar where the tequila shots are cheaper than the Guinness and everyone was having a miserable time. Yet although my night was nothing short of fun (I ended up in Numero Uno Pizza being asked by a 70 year old woman what language Peru spoke and my whole life story leading up to UBC) my core memory of last night was of the following woman:

We were cheering Canada in the middle of the street when this woman dressed in something Bjork would wear came up chanting for Canada in a very thick accent. She looks younger in the picture above, but I thought she was 60. I asked her where she was from and she said Norway. When I asked her why she was cheering for Canada she said: “because I love Canada, and I am here, right?”. She took a picture and kept on walking, but I still remember her, not because of her weird clothing style, but because she was having fun by herself, minding no one’s business. She chanted on along with the drunk college boys, and was obviously having more fun than anyone on that block because she was doing it for her own sake. If you ever see her roaming the streets of this lovely city please tell her she has my respects. And she should have yours too.

Photo by Timothy K Hamilton

Hey – obviously, I’m talking about nocturnal birds of prey and diurnal songbirds here, you immature moron! Well, now that the mood is broken, I might as well admit that the misty moor is nothing but Stanley Park in Vancouver. The description of the fragrance is pretty much accurate, but the shiny armour consists of blue jeans and a raincoat. The dagger is a cellphone. But the knight is for real! That would be me! Allow me to introduce myself with a flourish and a bow: Sir von Ritter, at your service!

Photo by Trey Ratcliffe

I have come over from ye olde Europe on a special quest. As you can imagine, it’s quite difficult to be a knight in our modern-day world. Not the least of my worries is the search for a worthy female companion. Where have all the fair maidens gone? In Europe, they are few and far between. So, now I have turned my gaze to the new continent (thus also escaping competition with other knights, since there are far fewer castles in Canada than, say, in Southern France). If you’re going through all the trouble of entering the dragon’s lair and risking life and limb to kill the beast, then you want to be pretty certain that she does not just give you a thanks-very-much kiss-goodbye on the cheek (in the face! Not that other cheek, you silly twat!) and then runs off with some George Clooney-type, or whatever strikes her fancy.

Another issue that makes courtship difficult for us knights, is that when you behave gallantly towards a woman, it is rarely taken as a compliment among equals (as a knight intends). When e.g. you hold the door open for her, spread your cape across a puddle before she steps in, or scale the deadly cliffs of Akravnar just to pick one of the incomparable Lashtavar roses for her – then the usual reactions are something like:

1) She thinks you’re gay (and by that I do mean the homosexual kind of gay, not the medieval cheerful happy kind of gay).

2) She thinks you’re being a chauvinist pig and want to belittle her, not accepting that she is very capable of scaling the deadly cliffs of Akravnar ALL BY HERSELF, thank you very much!

3) She likes the attention and starts to behave like a diva, snapping her fingers and growing ever more demanding of her knight, until he realizes that she is really just one lazy, exploitive bitch.

I want to emphasize that I have no time for the fragile little princesses whose main concern in life is the colour of the ribbons in their hair and who faint at the sight (or smell) of horse manure. The fair maiden I’m talking about knows how to defend the castle, is an expert at picking the chastity belt-locks of her unfortunate princess-type neighbours and tells her knight outright that he looks terrible in red tights.

Photo by Myrmi

****PLEASE STAY TUNED – WE INTERRUPT THIS POST AS SIR VON RITTER IS TEMPORARILY LEFT INCAPABLE OF WRITING AFTER BEING ATTACKED BY AN ONSLAUGHT OF VANCOUVER WOMEN WIELDING – MAN PURSES FOR HIM AND TELLING HIM HE LOOKS ‘JUST DARLING’, TRENDY MAIN STREET ORIGINAL HAND BAGS AND ACCUSING HIM OF BEING A ‘CHAUVINISTIC EUROPEAN BASTARD’ IN BETWEEN SMACKS, AND DESIGNER PURSES WORN ON THE SHOULDERS OF PERFECTLY COIFFED YALE TOWN DIVAS DEMANDING THAT HE TAKE THEM SHOPPING ON ROBSON – MORE TO COME ONCE WE ENTANGLE OUR DASHING KNIGHT FROM THEIR GRASP*******