Mommy has a good excuse for being away all day: I was pleased as punch to be interviewing the fantabuloriffic Samantha Bee, Daily Show Correspondent and Canadienne extraordinaire (French in her multi-lingual honour, as the spelling of "honour"). She's an absolute doll, hilarious and lovely and charming and sweet, and you will all be excited to learn more about her when I listen to my tape and find out if it actually picked anything up. But just to whet your appetites for fabulous and funny Canadian women (ahem), here are some deets on La Queen Bee:

• First of all, she's 8 months pregnant! And glowing, as we've mentioned. But still working hard and bringing you the in-depth investigative reporting you've come to expect from The Daily Show.
  
• She reads Fishbowl! She was just reading us this morning, actually, enjoying the pic of herself resplendent in her maternity-space gear. Which is apparently the new black.
  
• She loves brunch. The subject of brunch-love came up a few times. Also: she misses Canadian bacon.
  
• We both grew up in Toronto! Sistah! Funnily enough, we don't know anyone in common except for Phil Bump, who lives in San Jose.
  
• Speaking of, Sam said she's never been stopped on the street so much as in San Jose. The tenth-largest city in America really loves their Daily Show. "San Jose" is to "Daily Show" as "Samantha Bee" is to "brunch."
  
• She doesn't get mocked for her pronunciation of "out and about" but sometimes she'll let slip with an "eh." That's our girl!
  
• She didn't say I could call her Sam, but I just sorta want to.
  
• She and her husband, Daily Show correspondent Jason Jones, go home to Toronto a lot (his family's from Hamilton -- yo, The Hammer!) and when she comes back she brings cans of tuna, because, trust us, Canadian canned tuna is much, much better.
  
• Does she ever forget herself and feel like a real honest-to-goodness journalist zeroing on a story, her face flushed with the excitement of the scoop? Not even once.
  
• But -- she loved working on Indecision 2004, learned a lot, and still can't believe the access they got. Psst! No, really, they're not journalists.
  
• Upshot: She loves her job, she gets to work with her husband, she's pregnant with an adorable little Baby Bee, and she can have brunch every day if she wants it, even if she has to wait a while for tuna. Fishbowl is proud to report that Samantha Bee is doing great.

As reported below, Martha has been cleared to visit Canada for Pumkin Fest '05 -- hooray! Be sure to have a butter tart, they are a Canadian specialty. To welcome her appropriately, The Globe & Mail is running a poll asking Canadians the question posed above (it's actually a standard Canadian welcome). We were tipped off by G&M NY-based arts reporter Simon Houpt, who waws "pleased to report that Canadians are a welcoming lot: so far, with more than 7,000 votes counted, it's 69% in favour." (it's actually at 7800-plus now - Canadians are apparently not an especially busy lot). Check the poll here; impersonate a Canadian and vote yourself here.