Even Stephen

It's the lead story here that the Canadian dollar is coming close to parity with the American dollar. As Canadians, we are nothing if not predictable [on Q this morning some guest referred to Canada as "vanilla custard" and I quite agree] as we always, always get excited when we come close to our southerly neighbours in anything [even while we think that we are somehow better?]. Though apparently this new economic development could really screw us, from a recovery point of view [I still don't believe that Ontario is recovering - they keep saying that unemployment is going down and things are picking up, but I don't see any anecdotal evidence of this]. As Canadians our economy seems to function better when our dollar is in the pooper, so to speak [I took an economics course or two and I can assure you that "in the pooper" is proper economics speak]. We get more tourism dollars and trade is better, so the manufacturing sector gets a boost. If the dollar continues to climb, the experts are predicting that Ontario will return to its previous levels of recession.

While I agree that this sounds pretty dire, I'm not particularly worried - in fact, I'm a little excited about the high dollar as...I'm planning a mini-holiday! That's right America - I'm coming for you! And yes, not a lot of lengthily unemployed folks plan holidays, but I'm not really like most lengthily unemployed folk. Being unemployed rather sucks and you're under a lot of stress - it's ironic that this is the time when you most need a break and you really shouldn't. I mean, I know I shouldn't. But - it's my champagne birthday coming up and Joseph and I haven't been anywhere in a year [the less said about xmas, the better - I deserved a holiday after that experience]...so off we go. It's our first trip to the United States together [barring our fun times in Philadelphia and the glory that is the Newark airport], so I'm quite jazzed about that as Joseph + Americans = fun [okay, mostly Joseph's accent + Americans = fun]. I'm not planning on shopping or anything [I haven't really been shopping in over two years, barring xmas], but the dollar parity means I can get an even better deal on Hotwire hotels and flights. Wait - where are we going? Well, we haven't quite nailed that down yet...

And while I've used hole in the wall bank machines in the US before and I know they work with my card I will be getting some American money out from the bank. Mostly so that I can practice not looking like a total tool with it...I'm very used to coloured money - with it being all one colour, you really have to look [when I was little I used $20s and multiples thereof to pay for everything in the US - so I wouldn't look fumbly - and by the end of the holiday I would have dozens of $1 bills]. I am stressing this because it would seem that many American tourists I encounter do not go to their friendly local banks and get Canadian money. Most expect that any and every place will be delighted to accept their foreign money [and mostly they are terribly friendly about this, too]. Hold up Yankees - you don't quite own us yet. This really, really bugs me - while @ the same time, I respect that it takes tremendous balls to do this [I truly believe that no other country would try to pull this]. I'm seriously considering trying to pay for something in America in Canadian dollars. I will let you know how that goes [I may have tried this in Philadelphia, but I was pretty cracked out @ the time so I can't remember if this really happened or not].