Dancing Through Canada Day 2011

On Friday, July 1st, we headed downtown just before noon for the Canada Day celebrations and to get Jessie to Major’s Hill Park for the flash mob that she was involved with doing a choreography to “Like a Waving Flag” by K’naan. (Flash mob = group of people who assemble suddenly in a public place, perfrom an unusual or artistic act for a brief time, then disperse, often for the purposes of entertainment and/or satire see also random acts of culture for some really fun flash mobs). Emphasis on MOB, as we got stuck on the wrong side of Wellington St. when Kate (hold on to your fascinators everyone) and Will were due to pass by on their way from Parliament Hill to the Governor General’s. I have no pictures of that famous couple because we were squashed on the edge of a steep set of stairs along with 30 million (sorry, apparently the official count was hundreds of thousands) other sweating, red-maple-leaf-bedecked tourists and natives (as in native to Ottawa). Also, I wasn’t really interested in photographing them or getting near them and our brush with the royal couple was purely circumstantial—we were trying to get through the Wellington Street madness to join the Majors Hill madness so Jessie could be on time for the flash mob.

I will be kind to us all and not give you a complete blow-by-blow (let's just say some words were said that were not majestic and we had to hoist Jessie over a three-foot metal-pronged fence, going against the crowd) description of our journey. Suffice it to say that we made it, and the video (see below) is the proof!

Then we went home to gather up our strawberries (what is Canada Day without strawberries?) salad, and elderflower water to join the extended family descending on my friend Cathy’s house (Rebecca and Rachel are her daughters and the stars of many previous posts) for dinner. The gaggle of youth that had collected then headed out for a night of swing dancing hosted every Friday night by the Ottawa Swing Dance Society. Accessorized appropriately with large bottles of water. I do bless the Gray’s every day for their unique and delightfully inclusive group of friends, family, and acquaintances.