The Ballot of Protagitron

Dateline: Ontario. Election Day 2014.

First: Get a shovel.

Yes, I voted. No, I was not enthused with any of the parties. Not to the point of spoiling my ballot to make a statement, but to the point where I kept on letting out long wistful sighs while waiting for the polling station to open. 

Then an older man ahead of me turned around, and said to his wife:

"Look at how long the line is! So many good people out here."

Without any irony at all. 

Yeah, I expect my medal in the mail, good sir. In fact, I was such a "good" citizen that the line I was in WASN'T EVEN FOR MY POLLING STATION. I hadn't bothered to read my registration card closely enough, wandered into the first place I saw on St. Clair with orange arrows, and tried to vote there. The man in charge sent me to the correct place, probably thinking I was another silly person about to vote for the cutest candidate. 

Ha! Wrong. I was actually going to vote for the person with the best-sounding name. 

Well, really, I had forced myself to sit down with my laptop last week and research who the best MPP would be for my riding. But getting back to the voting thing - I do think it's important to vote. But it dominates the discourse of political action (and newsfeeds on social media), when it's only a fraction of what it means to be truly engaged. Compared to the constant, daily work of effecting change, taking a few minutes to mark up a ballot isn't a huge accomplishment. There are many other days of work to do. The next day you have to hold the people with the most ballots accountable, and sometimes you're forced to accomplish what your representatives are too cowardly, too hamstrung, or just too tired to do yourself. 

So let's tone down the self-congratulation. Put the back patting on pause. It's also worth looking at who's not with you in that line, and why. That's a good place to start the rest of your work. And maybe next time, more "good" people might be able to join you.

Ontario Cider Week Recap

 

I used to be a cider drinker. I hadn't quite developed my taste for beer, and I didn't get wine, so cider seemed like a fraught-free thing to order. Then I discovered the Snake Bite/Black Velvet (terminology dependent on bar), a deadly combination of stout and cider.

And I'm so very sorry, beer purists. But it's good.

It was also probably the grease on the slope I slipped down into becoming a craft beer drinker. The Guinness lead to other macrobrews, then to similar styles from local breweries, and eventually to me drinking specialty one-off casks brewed with three different adjuncts and twice as many hops. Along the way, cider was left behind.

But only by me. While I was busy with beer, others in Ontario were doing interesting things with cider. In an echo of the craft beer movement they were perfecting the standard pub cider, while also expanding the boundaries of what a cider could be. The options are no longer limited to Strongbow (except on the shelves of most LCBOs) - West Avenue, Brickworks, Puddicombe, Spirit Tree and more are all doing wonderful things to apples, including mixing them in with raisins, cherries, and ginger, and seeing what settles out.

And what settles out is mostly good. I finally reunited with cider last week, after discovering Ontario Cider Week. At the All-Day All-Ontario Cider event at Bar Volo, in fact, I reunited with exactly seven of ciders. The West Ave Crab and Cherry and their Ginger Rhubarb were my favourites, the Crab deliciously tart, and the ginger pleasantly spicy. This was enough cider to dampen my existential life crisis to a dull roar. On the patio, in the sun, chatting with people I would probably never, ever see again, life seemed okay. And cider? It was better than okay.