Not my usual Tuesday

My mother and father often go to different charity events and, at the last one they attended, mom won quite the prize at a silent auction. Her prize was for lunch for two with MP Guy Lauzon at the Parliamentary Dining Room in the center block. (Ok, so he's a Conservative... and not even from my riding, but still he's quite a nice man.) Anywho, when Mr. Lauzon heard who won the auction (two community theatre stars he's seen perform many times, their MFA graduate daughter and her husband, the new Canadian) he suggested that he take all four of us to lunch. The Parliamentary Dining room is incredibly posh. We didn't see any huge political celebrities, but we were introduced to the leader of the opposition in the elevator on the way to lunch.

After lunch, Mr. Lauzon took us on a quick behind-the-scenes tour our the house. Well, not the house exactly, but the corridors outside the house and the room behind the seats where the majority government sits. Stockwell Day was sitting on a couch, fumbling with his Blackberry, presumably playing solitaire. Then we went up the stairs (the ones that go up to the Prime Minister's office, the ones that the media follows as he arrives for and leaves Question Period) and made our way through security (a second time!) to then take our seats (front row baby!) for Question Period. It was really not as boring as I expected it to be. I was kinda fascinated by the whole thing. The best part was the statements made at the beginning of Question Period, before the actual questions start. It sounded more like tourism advertisements and plugs for potential Hockeyville winners than politics. Then the questions actually came about... without any clear answers given. There were questions about the budget, Toronto's terrorism raid and the media, the military, the environment, MP's spending habits... all of which sounded like: "My party is bigger than your party!" and "My party can clap louder than your party!" I couldn't believe how childish the whole thing was. I thought the MPs actually took this process seriously. And, well, they do... as a circus freak-show.

Afterwards, we ended up running into Pierre Lemieux, the MP for my parent's riding as well as some other gentleman who we first saw sitting in the Speaker's seat (but who wasn't the official Speaker or any of the Deputy Speakers that I know of)... and we found out he was born on the same street my parents live on and his mother still lives a block away too. Weird.

All in all, it was a pretty neat experience. Heck, anything is better than going to school right now. I'm just as busy, working on four shows in some way, shape or form than I was doing my MFA... but somehow I'm sleeping better at night. And laughing more. Life is good.