Happy Canadian Thanksgiving 2016!

Happy Thanksgiving to my Canadian readers and friends north of the border!   I know you're taking the time to step away from Timmy's and chow down on some turkey and other holiday favorites as you count your blessings in this year.

And one of those blessings is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.   The Conservatives don't think so, but the rest of the planet thinks your current PM is a vast improvement over The Sweater Vest.

For my trans family in the Great White North, you are watching the progress of C-16 through your national legislature, and witnessed another province in British Columbia protect the human rights of its transgender citizens.

Happy Thanksgiving Day!   May the food you sit down to eat with friends and family be tasty, your travels to and from your holiday destinations be drama free and safe in both directions, and you continue to have a blessings filled rest of the year.

Timmy's Turns 50

I have many Canadian readers of this blog, and could let this anniversary pass without mentioning it.

If you have traveled to Canada, you have seen, passed by or even stopped by a Canadian institution older than the maple leaf flag and beloved by Canadians everywhere.

It's Timmy's, AKA Tim Horton's, the quick service institution that expat Canadians in the States wax poetic about.    Tim Horton's is such a iconic part of Canadian life that a few years ago a Timmy's truck was sent to Afghanistan to serve its legendary coffee to Canadian Armed Forces personnel stationed there. 

No federal Canadian election cycle is complete unless you see the leaders of the major parties in the Great White North working the crowd at a Tim Horton's location of their choosing in various parts of the country or working behind the counter. 

And the love of a Canadian and Timmy's starts at birth. I still laugh about a 2011 conversation I had with Renee's son Mayhem in which he innocently asked me how do I survive in this world without Timmy's. 

I have a Tim Horton's coffee mug courtesy of Rafael McDonnell, who got it for me after his last Canadian vacation complete with tea and hot chocolate I have long since destroyed.  

Tim Horton's was founded on May 17, 1964 in Hamilton, ON by its namesake, former Toronto Maple Leafs hockey player Tim Horton and former police Ron Joyce as a quick service donut and coffee shop.   The concept took off to the point in which Joyce was made a full partner in 1967 and they were setting up franchises in southern Ontario.   Horton was killed in a car accident in 1974, but Tim Horton's grew to be a food service juggernaut that clocks $3 billion a year in sales and has 4304 worldwide restaurant locations as of June 30, 2013. 

3468 of those Timmy's locations are in Canada, 807 in the United States, and 29 locations are in the Gulf Cooperation Council states.  There are plans to open an additional 300 new U.S. locations by 2018 in various American cities including St. Louis, Youngstown, OH, Fort Wayne, IN and more in North Dakota.

To celebrate their 50th anniversary, Tim Horton's set up a replica of the original store in Yonge and Dundas Square and sent it back to the 60's, the decade of its birth.   There were people dressed in 60's clothing, cars from that era and a replica of the first store passing out Timmy's products and several of Horton's teammates on that Maple Leaf squad.

And yep, looking forward to the day I can buy my own Tim Horton's hot chocolate to take back to Baja Alberta.  FYI, if you're wondering where is Baja Alberta, it's what Renee calls Texas.   She still calls Alberta 'that wretched province'.

Happy anniversary Timmy's!   May you continue to grow, prosper and put some locations in Texas someday..

Happy 145th Birthday, Canada!

Today is Canada Day and I wanted to take a moment to wish all my TransGriot readers north of the 49th parallel a happy one.

Canada Day celebrates our northern neighbors birthday.   Specifically it commemorates the uniting of three colonies, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and the Province of Canada (which split into the provinces of Ontario and Quebec) and creating a four province federation under the British North America Act in 1867.

The July 1 date is considered Canada's birthday, and that means it's a holiday weekend in the Great White North. I presume my homegirl in Niagara Falls will be marking the auspicious occasion of her nation's birth by indulging in a few Timmy's Ice Capp's or maybe some adult beverages.  

And yeah Renee, I'm waiting to see what Canada Day smack you write this year because you know the retaliatory post will be coming three days from now.

And don't overdo it on the ketchup flavored potato chips.

I suspect when the fireworks and parades happen to celebrate their nation's 145th birthday, trans Canadians, especially in Alberta, Manitoba and Ontario will be singing 'O Canada' a little louder and be standing a little taller this year because of the positive direction that trans human rights have taken in their home and  native land. 

Happy Birthday, Canada!

You Don't Have "Timmy's"?

Saturday afternoon I was in an extended phone conversation with the brilliant editrix of Womanist Musings when at one point I heard Mayhem begging his mom to let him talk to Auntie Monica.

Renee handed him the phone and I spent the next ten to fifteen minutes talking to a very chatty Mayhem.

After getting an opportunity to congratulate Mayhem for getting promoted to Grade 1, him asking me what was I doing deep in the heart of Texas, and then him telling me how his day was going, the conversation turned to his favorite subject, Tim Horton's.

Mayhem asked me if I had one in Houston.  I explained that even though Tim Horton's has been steadily expanding south of the border and has over 500 locations in the States, they are clustered in the Midwest and northeast US.

I told him the closest location to me right now is near Fort Knox, KY and he innocently asked me how do I survive without 'Timmy's" before he handed the phone back to his mother.

Easy, Mayhem.  It's called Shipley's Donuts and Blue Bell ice cream.   We had Krispy Kracks opening up here when I left but Shipley's and a dispute with the local franchisee sent them packing by 2006.


As I mentioned, Tim Horton's is a national institution in the Great White North, and as evidenced by Mayhem and my Ice Capp loving best friend, it seems a Cannuck's bond with their beloved 'Timmy's starts early in life.  In addition Tim Horton's is probably the most recognizable slice of Canadiana next to the maple leaf and the Mounties .

And if you think I'm kidding about that, a few years ago an 18 wheeler was shipped to Afghanistan on a US C-17 transport stocked with Timmy's coffee for Canadian Armed Forces troops stationed there.

During the recent Canadian election campaign I saw the various party leaders photographed either working behind the counter of a Tim Horton's (Harper), working in the Timmy's drive through window (Layton) or buying coffee and talking to voters in them (May, Ignatieff, Harper and Layton) .


The Bloc Quebecois's Gilles Duceppe was the only party leader not photographed by the Canadian media during that just concluded campaign in a Timmy's.  That may have been another factor in why he and his party lost 45 seats and he's no longer the BQ leader, much less sitting in Parliament.

There's also the increasingly iconic photo of two Toronto police officers getting coffee at a Tim Horton's drive through while on horseback.

Timmy's is on every Canadian's brain to the point it has recently become an issue in the upcoming October 6 Ontario provincial election in the form of a political gaffe.

Tory MPP Garfield Dunlop made the mistake of saying in the Ontario Legislature that “a Tim Horton PC government will protect our communities by making sex offenders wear GPS bracelets that track their whereabouts.” instead of a Tim Hudak government.

The Liberals have pounced on that by referring to Hudak promises as 'Timbits', and making doughnut references to describe the just released Hudak campaign platform budget.

So no, Mayhem I don't have Timmy's here.   The only way that is going to change is if we get someone who purchases the franchise rights for the Houston area and starts building a few Timmy's locations as a result.

The only way I'll get to have a double double, a breakfast sandwich, drink an Ice Capp or scarf down Timbits any time in the near future is if I'm blessed enough to visit y'all.