Damian's Ten Rules for Surviving in the Suburbs

1. Drive an expensive car or SUV so that traffic laws won't apply to you.

2. Hide from your neighbours. Wait...do you even have neighbours?

3. Drive, at minimum, twice the posted speed limit through school zones and residential streets. The less time you spend in these pedestrian-filled areas, the less likely you are to hit someone!

4. In the summer, mow your lawn every other day. People with unkempt grass are hippies. Dirty hippies.

5. Turn your basement into an apartment, but don't worry about putting in windows. Rent it to someone who is too poor to live above ground, but earning enough to pay every month. That, or a vampire.

6. Drive your car or SUV to the mailbox. It's too warm and/or cold to be outside.

7. Back in your house, turn on both your air conditioner and furnace at the same time! Let them fight it out! Whichever breaks first wins a complete overhaul.

8. Fill your swimming pool with drinking water every spring, dump chemicals in it for four months, then empty that same water into the street. Even if you don't swim, it would be a waste not to.

9. At Christmas, decorate your house with two-hundred and fifty thousand incandescent light bulbs. The energy costs will be astronomical, but it will keep the squirrels warm...and besides, Jesus would have wanted it this way.

10. At the end of a long day, you're probably exhausted after doing one or many of the aforementioned activities. It's time sit back and soak in some quality television, and drink until you can't feel feelings anymore.

Life Next to the Fast Lane

There are many among us, me included, who think that the way we have designed our cities and our lives around the automobile is despicable. Unfortunately, the way things stand, driving is a big part of many of our lives. Cars (and SUV's and trucks and minivans and crossovers and hybrids and Fords) are bubbles. They separate us from one another in a shiny protective sphere of metal and glass, rubber and plastic. They also segregate us from what remains of the environment beside our driving routes.

But wait...what's that about glass? Ah yes, that wondrous translucent substance that lets us see the people who cut us off, or run that red light as the family with the baby stroller is starting on the crosswalk.

The world outside those windows can be a hostile, disgusting place. But it's not all doom and gloom; there is more there if you look hard enough. With this uncommonly warm winter we're having (a topic for another time) there are a lot of raptors which are taking advantage of the fact that the hours for the fall rodent-buffet have been greatly extended. I have seen many hawks on my short commute to and from work...areas which are far from being "green" but which seem to house enough furry little critters to keep theses birds of prey happy. If you're lucky enough to be anywhere near the edge of the city, you'll find no end of hawks perched on hydro poles and wires or sitting in trees overlooking the many farmer's fields.

Driving sucks, and I definitely don't want to condone it. But every time I see one of these birds, I think of all the people whose blood pressure is through the roof because they're so focused on burning past the old lady in the Hyundai to get home in time for Survivor that they somehow overlook magnificent red-tail with the 120cm wing span catching a vole not twenty metres from their window. Who drives a Hyundai anyway.

Maybe we can give survivor a pass this week. Maybe we can stand to sit behind the old lady in the hyundai and use the time to check out that silhouette on the wire half way down the block. Maybe it's worth a stop at the park on the way home to see if there are any migratory birds hanging around the watering hole. Maybe it's worth taking a side road out of town instead of the 401. It's pretty easy to roll down the window or pull over and experience connection with the environment and its inhabitants from the confines of the car, however fleeting..

My advice? If you have to drive, first and foremost, drive safely. But there's a lot out there to see! Don't fall into that vegetative state of staring a the bumper in front if you, counting down the clock to get home.



*Top, Top Right: Red Tailed Hawk seen off of Highway-7 near Stoufville. Left: Sharp Shinned Hawk off of Highway-48 north of Major Mackenzie. Bottom Right: American Kestrel in the Rouge River Conservation Area