With Apologies to Canada

John and I have been sitting in the office all day, trying to figure out how to write a Sunday Sweets post honoring Canada that won't offend Canadians.

Not that Canadians as a whole are easily offended. It's just that over the course of several blog posts on CW my good-natured teasing managed to irritate a few. The worst instance was a misunderstanding: I posted some "improvised" lyrics to the Canada song that plays at Epcot ("Canadaaa! CanadAAAA! Oh, Caaanada!" you know, that one) and a few people thought I was making fun of the Canadian national anthem. Not many, but enough to warrant an apology and make us lay off most of the Canada humor since. (And place it on Texas, instead. Which also got us in trouble. But that's another post.)
Anyway, since July 1st is Canada Day, we thought we might switch things up a bit and feature that instead of July 4th Sweets on this weekend's Sunday Sweets. You know, a kind of peace offering.

The only problem is that Canada isn't all that different from the U.S., so finding uniquely Canadian things to spotlight via fabulous cakes isn't as easy as you might think.

We started with a list:

Moose
Black bears
Beavers
Beer
Royal Mounties
Hockey
Maple Leaves

John was worried. "It's all so...stereotypical. We can't let anyone think we're making fun of Canada."

So he did some research, and then wrote a painfully polite intro extolling Canada's great and various virtues, which he asked me to look over.

"Um...well, I think you're going so far the other way that people might think you're being sarcastic."

"Really?"

"You're talking about Justin Bieber and the guy who invented the microscope."

"Darn. What should I do?"

"Just...you know, write it like you're NOT trying to run for Canadian public office."

---a few hours later---

John: "I got 'nuthin. Besides, the cutest thing in here is the beaver cake."

Me: "Maybe we should just do all beaver cakes. You know, 'Here's a beaver, here's another beaver, here's a mountain cake that probably has beavers in it... Oh! and here's Justin Bieber...

"Jen..."

"...and here's some more beavers..."

"JEN."

"Now look at this dam cake. Beavers built it. Booya."

"You're. Not. Helping."

John was also completely unreasonable when I suggested Dudley Do-Right ("He's a Mountie!") and Rocky & Bullwinkle ("He's a moose!") so I gave up and wrote this post instead.

So, whatever goes up on Sunday, let me apologize, Canada. We tried.