Toronto!!!!!! I loved this city!!! I had a wonderful time and as you can see, it was grueling grueling grueling work. Writing is a tough job, but someone’s gotta do it!!!
Impressions of Toronto: clean, beautiful, eclectic….. I loved it! Very much like being in the U.S., but different enough that it was interesting to me. Signs in French and English. Colorful money. Lots of underground connections and walkways and shops. Flat. (Okay, that’s cuz I live in West Virginia!) Very ethnically diverse. They call restrooms washrooms. Weird double tax (that GST thing). I had a great time with the people from Toronto Romance Writers–wonderful group. They put me up in a lovely hotel and wined and dined me till I dropped. Or I might have dropped because I got up at 4 am to catch my plane…. 😆
Winner from this weekend’s Free Book Friday: Maggie! Click on the Contact button in the menu above and send me your address and your pick from my contemporary backlist!
Now, for the secrets!!!!!
1) Callie is PREGNANT again! What is up with that? She had to have gotten preggers before the kittens were even three months old. She’s gonna pop any time now. Or else she’s having 500 kittens cuz she’s really getting big…. Maybe next time we should take her straight from the delivery room to the vet…… We didn’t think she’d get preggo this quick! :fryingpan:
2) Hahahaha. I’ll tell you tomorrow. Maybe. Stay tuned…. It’s something really good….. 
Michelle says:
Congrats to Callie for being a mommy again! LOL. Or should we call her the slut kitty?
Glad you had fun in Toronto!
On July 11, 2006 at 9:42 am
Minna says:
Congrats Maggie! And Congrats to Callie! Cats can sure be fast!
Sounds like you had a great time! I was there few years ago to see my cousins and besides museums and other atractions we went to this Finnsih shop so that I could buy some gifts for my other cousins.
On July 11, 2006 at 10:07 am
Melissa says:
:thumbsup: Congrats Maggie!
Glad you had a good time, Suz. Hope you drank lots of FF’s. 😀
Please get Callie fixed. If a cat gets pregnant too soon and too much it will KILL her. 😯
On July 11, 2006 at 10:39 am
Margery says:
Glad you had a good time in the frozen tundra 🙂 Come back soon!!
On July 11, 2006 at 10:50 am
Marcy says:
You tease! I wanna’ know #2! :hissyfit:
On July 11, 2006 at 12:14 pm
Amie says:
Melissa is right about it killing the cat!
COngrats Maggie!
My fave daycare worker at my son’s daycare just got back from Toronto and announced she’s moving there for a couple of years :hissyfit:
On July 11, 2006 at 3:09 pm
catslady says:
congrats Maggie.
sounds like a great trip.
I also agree about the cat. I found out the hard way that if they are well fed, cats can have litters 3 months apart. I only had it happen once to one of my outside ferals before catching the females and having them all fixed.
On July 11, 2006 at 3:24 pm
Angie says:
Or maybe curiosity will just kill Callie.
Now I am dying to know secret #2!!
Oooooo, you are an ebil, ebil, woman! 😈
On July 11, 2006 at 5:13 pm
ruby55 says:
Suzanne, glad you liked your outing to T.O., as more and more people here are calling it T. for Toronto and O. for Ontario. Did you get to Chinatown? I guess it depends on where they put you up. Chinatown is just north of the City Hall, and after Vancouver it’s the second-largest in Canada. Ethnically T.O. is very diverse with a lot of Jamaicans and others from the Caribbean that aren’t speakers of some kind of French. Haitians usually gravitate to the province of Québec since they grew up speaking French. Actually, did you know that our present Governor-General aka the Queen’s official representative, is a Haitian immigrant woman. She’s the third woman G.G. we’ve had in the last 15 years or so.
(mutter,mutter,mutter ignorant Americans, mutter,mutter) The first time my parents went to visit friends in Minneapolis, MN which is all of 500 miles from where we used to live in Winnipeg, Manitoba, the friends invited a group of fellow university professors and their wives to meet them. I still cringe when I remember the questions my parents were asked: “Manitoba, which state is that in?” “Canada, what’s it like living in an igloo?” “What do you do when you have to go to…uh…do your business in the winter. Do you have outhouses or something like that? Must be terrible. How come you don’t freeze?”
So please, Suzanne, clear up what some Americans don’t seem to know, pretty please?
Did you know that a lot of your most famous movies were shot in Canada including in T.O. doubling for NYC. Even Smallville was shot in the Vancouver area. Now that’s a place very much like Seattle where the SFX were added. It’s foggy and rainy at times and gets almost no snow. And believe me we do get heat waves.
I know you were just kidding, Margery. But it seems that unless they’ve been here or know someone here a lot of Americans, including highly educated ones, don’t have a clue about Canada. If you want to have some knowledge, the best sites are the tourism sites of the different provinces. Of course, the ones with mountains will feature a lot of skiing sites and that may give a false impression. “Brokeback Mountain, e.g., was filmed in Alberta. There is a whole driving tour that you can do to explore the places where it was filmed. I’d compare central Alberta to what I know about Texas: lots of ranches: both horses and cattle; oilwells, natural gas, and other things like that. Usually, it’s just not quite as hot as TX. But our temperatures do hit the 100s from time to time, especially on the prairies. The prairies have the extremes with temps below -40 to 100+. The latter are unusual but they do happen.
Ontario has the Muskoka region much beloved by various movie stars until too many tourists and reporters came buzzing around. And as far as I remember, they were mostly from the U.S. Scenically, there are some spectacular spots here. Nothing like the Grand Canyon, of course, but wonderful sights nonethless. There’s even a train that you can take to Moosonee on James Bay, the southernmost part of Hudson’s Bay which has only a very short shipping season. But right now, it’s definitely open.
Do some armchair travelling via your computer. I’m sure you’ll enjoy it. And I’m going to find out more about West Virginia. I’ve been in Virginia (farthest south so far in the East and San Diego in the West), I’ve seen the Grand Canyon, been to Colorado twice, same as Yellowstone and Grand Teton Parks, once to Yosemite. I lived with a friend in Beverley Hills for about a month. I love travelling and do a lot of it by TV and Internet. There’s so much beauty in the world, but there’s also a lot of misery about which we hear every day. Let’s try to find out a little more about all the things and people in the world. I admit there’s a lot I don’t know about Canada or the U.S. but I love finding out things like that.
:oops:Sorry, didn’t want to make this a soapbox.:oops: Forgive me, please, Suzanne? Yep, there are some differences in language which you also might find in some of my spelling. We do tend to spell more like the British though many have adopted U.S. spelling norms. I sort of try to accommodate myself to whom I’m addresssing but I know “alternates” will creep in.
BTW, our present temperature is about 80F at 1900 EDT.
On July 11, 2006 at 6:07 pm
ruby55 says:
BTW, the GST will be refunded to any foreign visitor and I’d advise that you do that if you spend any large amount. It’s not worth the hassle for a few $. But you have to keep your receipts.
On July 11, 2006 at 6:11 pm
Minna says:
Gee, Ruby, “what’s it like living in an igloo?” Some months ago someone asked in Lonely Planet’s Scandinavia branch if there is a company in Finland or Sweden that builds igloos! Geeze… (See also Odd questions on Like a Sore Thumb branch).
On July 12, 2006 at 5:20 am
Suzanne says:
Ruby, you’re a font of info! You can clear up misconceptions about Canada better than me. All I can say is that Toronto was WONDERFUL!! I loved it!
On July 12, 2006 at 6:59 am
Angie says:
Geez, Ruby. Wonder where the term Ugly American comes from???
Seriously, not all Americans are like that. And you would be surprised at the number of us who are ignorant of our OWN country! Living in the South does not make me a Redneck. I do not own a hound dog, drive a pickup with a gun-rack, have a brother named Bubba (although I do have a friend by that name, he owns a cellular phone company and lives in a frickin’ mansion!), say ya’ll when addressing one person (ya’ll is plural, not singular), drink moonshine or say ‘yee-haw’. You would be surprised at how many people think I have a Southern accent even though I was raised by parents of Italian immigrants who were raised in Pennsylvania! and living below the Mason-Dixon line does not auto-magically lower my IQ by 100 bonus points! And I don’t eat possum or chitlins. Although grits are mighty tasty.
On July 12, 2006 at 8:27 am
Jennifer Y. says:
Amen Angie!! Being a southern girl myself I have to agree with you!
On July 12, 2006 at 10:15 am
Madeline says:
Toronto sounds delightful! Visiting a totally new environment is so refreshing for the soul isn’t it?? And a few margaritas in addition, well, HEAVEN!
Callie! Shame on you–can’t you keep your legs closed, dear??
Kitty birth-control for you!
Obviously cats don’t get the “just say no” philosophy. (Not too many humans either!)
HA HA! Well, you live on a farm, always room for 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 more, right???
On July 12, 2006 at 10:52 am
Cynthia says:
It’s been a long while since I’ve had the chance to visit ‘ya Suzanne, and now I do only to find out that you’re harboring a juicy secret! No fair! Can’t wait until you let us in on it. 🙂
On July 12, 2006 at 9:21 pm
Amy K. says:
Sounds like a great trip, all but the 4am!
Congrats to Callie! :hyper:
On July 12, 2006 at 11:26 pm
Joely says:
Okay, okay, so what’s secret #2???
On July 13, 2006 at 9:21 pm
Madeline says:
okay okay where is the second secret????
On July 14, 2006 at 2:26 pm
Suzanne says:
okay, okay, I’m slow, LOL!
On July 14, 2006 at 2:59 pm