Happy Canada Day!

We spent the day at the Canada Day Festivities put on by the University of Waterloo and the UW Federation of Students. They do this every year and it's usually a fun time. There are lots of activities for kids as well as musical entertainment all day, food, vendors, and fireworks after dark. In previous years, Ian has juggled all day long but he didn't do that this year. It's too much for him if he juggles all day in the hot sun, and he would often wind up not feeling well afterward. Fortunately, he should be fine for the rest of the week :)

So here's what I liked about the event:

• The fireworks were awesome. There were new shapes - like hearts - that I really liked. I took some pictures and Ian took some video, but we haven't looked at these yet. If they're any good, I'll let you know :)
• The day was pretty nice; it wasn't too hot and the clouds cleared up completely in time for the fireworks.
• There was lots for the kids to do - face painting, bouncy castle, a petting zoo, and more.
• They had an arts and crafts area with about 12 or 15 vendors.
• The food was pretty cheap and ok.
• There were 30 portalets and wash stations. When they ran out of water in the wash stations, they added more.
• They had a recycling bin next to every garbage bin.
  

.... Nothing's perfect, though. Here's what I didn't like:

• The garbage cans were overflowing by 8pm to the point that every garbage can was surrounded by a ring of garbage.
• The portalets were never cleaned out. There were huge lineups around 9pm - around 15 lineups with 20ish people in each one - and the portalets were in a state of disrepair.
• The arts and crafts area. The online application says, "Vendors will be chosen based on suitability of merchandise. Merchandise must be a quality product and must be either hand crafted, have Canadian theme or be of interest to children." I'd actually sort of thought of participating in this show next year, but it looks like it would be a waste of time. There was one vendor selling cheap, tacky sunglasses. Another vendor was selling crocs (those shoes) with cheap charms, and a third was reselling string figures. I can only guess that the arts and crafts people thought that these three vendors had products that interested children, because they sold shoddy, cheap work. I talked to some of the jewelry sellers and they hadn't sold much - they were very disappointed. This would not be the right place for my jewelry.
  
• There was a food vendor advertising "Fresh squeezed lemonade" but when I asked whether they had unsweetened lemonade, they said that their lemonade came in crystal form and that it was pre-sweetened. Huh? How is that fresh?
• As they were leaving the fireworks area people left their garbage and recycling behind. It was a complete mess. I don't understand how people can just leave their garbage behind - it seems to me that they're little better than animals.
• People trying to leave one parking lot kept honking their horns. Traffic was completely blocked because of the flood of pedestrians and people in their cars just didn't get that they couldn't move. I don't understand how they all thought that honking their horns would help. Grrr.
• There was a car parked in such a way that it would have blocked traffic leaving our parking lot. This idiot thought that parking rules didn't apply to them and so parked in a bad location. The traffic issues mentioned above had a cascading effect so that people in our parking lot were getting slowed down, too. The sight of that car filled me with a kind of rage - I seriously thought about keying the car. I also thought about taking the flyer on our car and writing something very mean on it and leaving it for them to find. I didn't do either of these things, of course. It annoys me when people think that the rules don't apply to them - hello, the rules apply to EVERYONE. When you don't follow the rules, you make things difficult in one way or another for other people. That's hugely inconsiderate. Aargh.

So except for those bad things, we had a great time. We made the right parking decisions and were able to get home within about 15 minutes - considering it takes us 10 minutes to get home on a usual day, that's not bad :)

Oh yeah - there was someone reading tarot cards there, and I had my cards read quickly. I shuffled the deck and cut it into three piles while I thought of a question. The question I thought of was "what's going on with my cancer?". The cards that came up were 7 of Wands, Death, and the Fool reversed. She unreversed the Fool - I don't know why. The reading she gave was that I am at a crossroads or a very big change and that I must be very careful to pay attention to even the smallest details. She said that over and over, that I had to be careful and really think about what I was doing. Interesting, huh? I came away feeling a bit disturbed, actually.

I did a bit of research afterwards, and the cards from left to right mean the past, the present, and the future. So my past is represented by the 7 of wands (someone who is aggressive and defiant, among other things). The present is represented by Death, which is usually associated with sudden, unexpected change, great turmoil, and a fundamental change in life - so much so that the old self must "die" to become the new self. The future is represented by the Fool (reversed?), which involves a choice, new phase, or journey. The reversed meaning is that the choice will not be well-made.