What it means to be a Canadian

If you haven't read the book - How To Be a Canadian - you really should. Absolutely hilarious, and so true. I can see so many aspects of it in medicine, and in my life in a small town.

For example - we apologize for everything. Even when it is not even remotely our fault. I say I am sorry at least a million times a day for cold hands, cold stethoscope, and the fact that the examining room is cold...when really I could never hope to actually be in control of the temperature of the world. And don't even get me started on the apologies that go on when I have to do a rectal. (As an aside, I think that I may never be able to be a gynecologist....it has come to my attention that vaginas are really gross too)

Then there is our continual fascination with the weather - how about that weather? Cold enough for ya? Snowy enough for ya? I hear you have no snow in southern ontario, what kind of winter is that?? I told everyone I saw about how I skied with no coat and no hat this week and how that was SO unseasonably warm. There has got to be something more exciting in life to talk about than the weather.

But speaking of weather...that leads me to my truly Canadian moment for today. After spending the whole afternoon at the clinic trying to work on an essay (4 hours of reading papers and policy makes me a little cross-eyed) I decided I need a break. So I headed off to the grocery store to buy something yummy for dinner....but sadly it was after 6pm which apparently is too late on a saturday to buy groceries in Marathon. Next best bet - A&W. No point parking and going in because its right across from my building. Makes much more sense to drive through. However, when I pulled up to the drivethru speaker box thingy I discovered that my window was frozen shut. I absolutely could not budge it. I could hear the poor A&W girl say - Welcome to A&W can I take your order?.....hello?.....Can I take your order please??? - as I bashed my window and cursed it for not moving. So I had to back out of the drivethru, park, go in, get my food, and then start the car to drive just across the road to home......grrrrrrr.

Besides that my weekend has been quite good. I spent an awesome evening with a couple of the docs here, and their parents (who are also docs). I love evenings where you spend the whole night around the dinner table chatting. Everything from everyone's best story of the patients with things stuck up their bums, to politics, to religion, back to medicine and how to live a balanced life, and then funny stories about the kids and how they always manage to say things about penises in really loud voices in public. Hahaha

Lots of love
Pamela

p.s. In case you were keeping track, that was two direct references to anuses, and two to genitalia all in one post - hi mom!