Primary activity for this International Women’s Day is cleaning bathrooms and doing laundry. I wish I were kidding, but thankfully it is in service of an upcoming vacation so must be done regardless of how my feminist self feels about optics. I can laugh at the optical irony of today because I spend every work day of my life leading an engineering firm and mentoring women in a male dominated field.
As a Canadian I’m thankful our family trips for this year were all planned for in country so no need to make last minute itinerary changes like so many our fellow Canucks cancelling trips to Florida while the US president threatens to economically destroy us and then annex our country… it wasn’t funny the first time he made that ‘joke’ and has only gotten less hilarious as the weeks go on.
And so I’m doing the things I can to support Canada in this ‘economic wartime’. Grocery and shopping choices are Canada first (have always aimed for this one, but now I’m paying more attention), followed by ‘anything but US made’. US made used to be my #2 choice, but things change and clearly I’m not alone in this approach because many grocery stores have started clearly marking Canadian goods and offering more produce from Mexico and other parts of the world. I even found sunflower oil that was clearly marked as 100% Ukraine produced.
Our household has also cancelled our Netflix and Disney streaming. The teen reports commiserating with other friends similarly cut off from their entertainment supplies. I’ve also stepped away from all Facebook and Instagram activity, which has been as much about improving my overall mental health during this time of insanity as it is about not supporting the Meta corporation.
