So the G8 and G20 summits are rolling into town…one up in Huntsville, Ontari-a-rio, and the other bigger one — right in my backyard.

You’ve read and heard the news…million-dollar fake lakes, the mounties and illegitimate imported security services, sonic sound-blasting anti-rioter machines, an armada of special services staff and media people to cover this über-expensive world get-together.

I just never imagined it could come SO uncomfortably close to home.  My backyard is the shared courtyard of the Rogers Centre Skydome, where on a good Blue Jays Game day, or rock concert evening, I can see streams of sports fans or concertgoers mingle outside of the big dome.  These days, there are platoons of OPP officers on horseback practicing their drills, or handfuls of event coordinators starting to put up metal fence posts around the perimeter of Bremner Avenue, all the way around to the south entrance of the Metro Convention Centre near Rees St. (where the bulk of the G20 summit activities will take place).  On Front Street West at the corner of Blue Jays Way, there are already cement barricades in place, I imagine to keep out the crowds a few feet away from the actual Metro Convention Centre front of building.

It’s surreal, and yes it’s history in the making, but what a spectacle!  Tomorrow I’m going to an information session for residents of this G20 summit zone, where hopefully some of our questions are going to be answered. As in, will we be able to survive this ordeal? And, what can we do, short of leaving town altogether, to live normally (as much as possible). Part of me wants to do just that: take a flight to a remote island off of Java (like the mysterious island in LOST). But another part of me refuses to be ousted out of my own home, just because the politicians decided they would use our taxpayers’ money and lavish it on our out of town guests, just to prove that we Canadians have a beautiful country.

I think I’ll stay and witness the silliness, and (hopefully) live to tell about it.