It's a buffet!

The city has been largely deserted all week. It's G8/G20 protest time and we are in lockdown. My organization, in complete paranoia, allowed us all to work from home this week. Personally I hate working from home so apart from Thursday when I did work from home, I went into the office I normally work from on Tuesdays only. Its a bit more removed from security and protest sites so there was no problem there. I think the organization acted prudently, but it makes me laugh how paranoid Canadians are (because some people were genuinely frightened about coming into the office, as opposed to some who have decent office set-ups at home and were glad for the excuse to avoid the commute). One of the other people who was in the office was originally from Colombia. Meanwhile, my parents lived through WWII as children. Not that either of us want to see that level of violence in Canada, but good god, people were terrified of protests before they even started.

Don't get me wrong - there is a reason to avoid G8/G20 protests. Usually about 1% show up just to cause mayhem and even if you are peacefully protesting you can get caught up in a lot of violence. The protests are starting to get more intense - we'll see how it all unfolds. Earlier in the week the protests were cute and quintessentially Canadian. One of the head activists, a guy from a town outside of Toronto, lead the first protest of the week. You can tell from interviews with him that this is his moment in the sun. He wants to be seen as King Activist. Anyhow, he lead a group and wanted to occupy a building downtown. As the group was turned back by police, they then occupied a gas station briefly. Kudos to the protesters - they did not steal anything and were calm - but really, taking over a gas station convenience store? They weren't intimidating ESSO, they were no doubt harassing whatever immigrant/woman/marginalized person was staffing the cash. But again, I have to love the fact that it was a small march that was peaceful.

Back to the title of the post... a lot of people are upset about the intense security leading up to the G8/G20, but sweet Mary, mother of Christ, I'm in heaven. My walk home from work brought me near the security zone and there were so many motorcycle and bicycle cops. The hot ones have been imported for extra security. I also have a complete weakness for cops in riot gear. I don't like the larger picture of peaceful protesters being hurt, but as a pure fantasy, the big boots and guns just do it for me (I also have a special perv-on for photos of women with guns).

Then I get to watch hot fit men running around for FIFA. Sweaty, hot men. Oh, and can we even mention the amount of rain that some of the games have had? Yum.

And finally, I'm still a newlywed so coming home to my guy makes me thrilled too. So all in all, I'm enjoying a visual feast this week.