Breakfast with the Ladies, cocktails on the Hill

Yesterday was a day of complete opposites. Started with the Women's Day Breakfast and ended with a reception on Parliament Hill, thrown by the men-who-rule-the-world: our male parliamentarians. Let's start with the breakfast, hosted by a local wag who is also a member of city council. Not one of my favourite people, although I don't even know her. Must be her unfortunate nasal twang that always irritates the heck out of me when she appears on TV complaining about something (yes, I know it is her job to complain if she wants to get re-elected). I went with my Ottawa Valley pal, so we kind'a skirted around the edges, listening to speeches about how great we were, how far we'd come, but how far we still had to go. Don't some people just love to ask dumb questions!

The speaker was impressive, after the hostess sat down. She was a young woman who had skiied to both the north and south poles and done a bunch of other hideously impossible things -- like survive for eight hours after falling into a crevasse. For a while I thought I'd wandered into a mental health rally by mistake, as she described her ordeals. Why? was the question I kept asking myself. She'd climbed Everest and K-2 and on and on it went. I felt like such a slob, as I siddled up to the buffet and filled my plate while she described living on dried potatoes and cookies. Again the dumb questions followed. "What did you think about when you were skiing?" How about living through it! If you want to read someone who usually has it dead on about women's issues, google Naomi Lakritz of the Calgary Herald.

That evening was the Commonwealth Day reception on the Hill, hosted as I mentioned by the men-who-rule-the world. The receiving line consisted of the speakers of both the House of Commons and the Senate. Adorably, they were sporting white string tied around their index fingers. This, I learned, was for Women's Day, presumably so they wouldn't forget. The reception was first-class, as usual, and filled with various MPs and Senators, the greats and the near-greats. I had one memorable conversation with a female MP who thought the reception was for Women's Day. I had to correct her. Some people rely far too heavily on their own impressions of themselves. She fit this category. What galled me was that as usual there were precious few High Commissioners in attendance. There are 54 countries in the Commonwealth, representing more than two billion people, and I think I counted maybe four High Commissioners milling in the throng. The rest of us were meaningless hangers-on. It really was a disgrace. Wrote a letter to the editor about it today, but I think I was too over-the-top; probably won't get published.

Well, that's it for now. Next I plan a piece about marriage being an act of will.