Just a little Space

just one word

2012-01-02T21:39:00.000-08:00

I often find myself inspired by Idelette McVicker (can I be her when I grow up?) especially when it comes to writing. It’s actually her fault that this blog exists at all. Years ago I was having coffee with her and she asked me, “So tell me, what are you writing, other than for work?” No one ever asked me that. I stuttered and stammered and made noises about time and focus and finally confessed, “Nothing.”

She looked right at me and in one of those moments where someone gently but firmly takes you by the shoulders and turns you toward the truth she asked, “What do you call a writer who doesn’t write?”

That was almost eight years ago and in the time since, I’ve kept up this blog, I’ve journaled more, and the last two years I have participated in, and won, National Novel Writing Month with it’s “50 000 words in 30 days” challenge.

The challenge from Idelette this today is much simpler: lay aside those new year’s resolutions and instead pick a single word, just one, that you want to focus on this year. Sounds easy right? It is and also it isn’t. (Remember the words of van Gogh, “How difficult it is to be simple.”) But it's right up my alley.

I had planned to think about think about this, to really chew on it and take my time with it. But no sooner had I read Idelette’s challenge when a single word announced itself loudly in my head. Really? I asked. Are you sure? I remembered something I heard recently, in small group I think, where someone said not to dismiss those thoughts that come out of nowhere, because sometimes that is the voice of God. So I took another look at the word. The more I thought about this word, the more sense it made.

So here goes. My word for 2012 is SAVOUR.

I’ve been thinking about timing a lot lately. Timing in the sense of feeling like the pace of things is wrong and timing in one particular circumstance where the timing is not what I wanted. I am taking an amazing trip this year, but to do so will mean using almost my entire allotment of vacation days just six weeks into the year. I thought I'd made arrangements to make it easier, but it didn't work out. Now I worry that I won’t have time to do the other things I want to do. There won’t be a summer vacation this year and what if family comes to visit? What if the friends I went to Boston with last year decide to meet up again? What if there's an out of town wedding? What if there isn’t enough time?

So my word for this year is savour. I will savor those weeks in Australia and not taint them with worries of enough. I will look for the good that’s right here in my life in the place I’m in right now and not dilute that joy by wishing for something different. When there isn’t a whole day to play I will look for play in the moment. Webster's defines savour as to "taste and enjoy it completely". I want to do that.

I want to take the time to taste the day, to roll the words around on my tongue, to drink in my surroundings. I want to sink deep into the moments of this year until they come up over my shoulders. I want to cuddle in, lean in close and really catch the details of what is going on. I want to make memories and tell stories. I want to be the kid on a swing who leans all the way back so she can stare at the sky.

Savour. What a delicious word. It's scary and also exciting - just what a new year should be.

making room

2011-12-13T22:34:00.000-08:00

At church on Sunday Pastor John talked a little about generosity. He said that he often hears people say that if they had more money they’d be generous and his answer to them is, “No you wouldn’t. Generosity has nothing to do with your money.” He’s right. Generosity has nothing to do with what you can afford; generosity it all about what you make room for.

I remember when I was about 14 or 15 and I reached that age when my parents didn’t make me sit with them in church anymore. All of us “youth” would grab a pew together, usually the second one from the back and there we’d sit reveling in our autonomy. The pews in that church were oldish, solid wood and what I remember most about them is that you could always, almost always, squish one more person in.

There would be times when I’d get to that pew and it would look full – chockablock, hip to hip full – and I’d be crestfallen until someone said those magic words, “I think we can make room.” All the way down at the far end of the pew someone would shift over releasing a tiny little piece of space, half an inch, maybe a little more. The next person would scrunch over, the guy that had his eye on the girl next to him would be extra generous and move all the way over plastering himself to her side in the process. Piece by piece the row would move, each one making a little space until low and behold there was a spot for me. It always felt so good to tuck in beside them, to be included, to know that my being there was worth a little of their comfort.

More often than not, five minutes later another person would come along and somehow the miracle would happen again. There it would be, like the oil and flour in the story, a little more room. I think that’s what generosity looks like.

Generosity is not about the extra, the left over, or surplus. Generosity happens when I say, “I was going to have this, I was planning to spend it on me, but here, I want you to have it instead.” Generosity comes out of our own comfort, our willingness to squish a little to make room. It doesn’t have to be dramatic – most of us are not called to sell our cars and homes and give it all away – but for the person standing on the outside, those tiny inches can really add up.

When I see a Christmas pageant and it gets to the part where Mary and Joseph arrive at the inn it always bothers me that the innkeeper doesn’t even leave to go look properly. “No room in the inn!” he declares from the doorway and I want to say, “Could you check again? It’s cold out here.” I need to remind myself of that. Check again. Look closer. It’s easy to think that what we have isn’t much, not enough to be of value, not enough to go around. But so often God can take our little bit and stretch it out like taffy. He can make it enough.

Generosity doesn’t start in my wallet, although it often ends up there. Generosity starts in my eyes. It’s that moment when I see a need and notice it instead of turning away. It’s in that heartbeat where I ask, “Maybe I could….” It’s in my feet when I make the decision to help, and then it gets into my heart, usually right around the time I’m taking action.

It’s such a simple thing really, making room - a slight adjustment, a butt wiggle and you’re already there. What are you making room for?

What else?

2011-09-14T19:50:00.000-07:00

And suddenly there is was, out in the open as if it had always been there. Unmistakable. I didn't approach it at first, I didn't want to scare it away. So I smiled instead and very quietly said, "hello". It turned to face me and stretched a question out between us, fragile as a spider's web and just as strong. "Would you?" the question asked and without meaning to I found I had taken a step toward it. I think I saw it smile.

"What do you love?" It asked me.

"People," I said. "And words and the ocean and skipping and horses."

"Horses," it repeated. "It's been a long time since you talked about horses."

"A very long time," I agreed.

"But you haven't forgotten?"

"No, never." I shook my head, grinning.

"So, horses then. There could be horses. What else?"

I could see all of the ideas spread out like a candy buffet at a summer wedding and for the first time in a long time, I reached out a hand toward them.

* I wrote this a few weeks ago. It feels like it belongs somewhere, like there is more of the story that I just haven't quite found yet. But at the same time it is so very much all about today because on Saturday I go for my training as a volunteer with the local equestrian therapy center. As of this Saturday there will be horses again. What then, I wonder? What next?

the sharing of stories

2011-08-08T20:44:00.000-07:00

I’ve been reading Elizabeth Gilbert’s new book, Committed (her follow-up to Eat, Pray, Love). It’s both a love story and a history of marriage, a rare departure for me into nonfiction. It’s blowing my mind in all the very best ways but a short section on the idea of trading our stories has haunted me since I read it over tea and toast this morning.

About three quarters of the way into the book she talks about how we share our memories, our stories, with other people. Sometimes it’s a stranger on the bus, sometimes it’s the person in our bed. In the act of telling the story we really do share it. The story still belongs to us, but now it also belongs, in part at least, to the person we told it too. Now they carry the story as well.

When the story we tell is a personal one, our memory goes with it. I could tell you a story about running on the beach when I was a little girl, the sound of the quiet ripples I used to think were waves, the heat of the sun on my shoulders. If I describe it well enough you might remember the story the next day and share it with a friend. In so doing you will have remembered MY memory. Isn’t that the strangest thing?

Gilbert illustrates this with a favorite story from Italo Calvino's Invisible Cities. In the story there are these tradesmen who spend most of year crossing the desert arriving only on the equinoxes to buy and sell their wares. At night, after trading, they sit around a fire and the trading of stories begins. “Tell me a story about your sister,” says one. “Tell me a story about a wolf,” says another. In the days that follow as they make their way back out across the desert they find each one now has two sisters travelling with him – the one he remembers and the one in the story from the fire. The story has done the impossible, sharing itself out without diminishing the original. A very fancy party trick.

When people are in love we speak of giving a piece of ourselves away. I think that happens any time two human beings make enough of a connection to bump up against each other. Not a piece though, just a tiny thread, a blink, a moment of who we are. Sometimes those moments get brushed off our sleeves, other times, for better or worse they get woven inextricably into our own story. Sometimes a single thread can worm its way into your heart like a thorn, but it’s rare to catch one of those in a chance meeting. Thorns usually take time to cultivate.

There is incredible power in the telling of our stories. If someone is suffering in a way that I have suffered, I can share my story and in doing so, walk with them. I can say, “See? Me too,” and she will walk through the next day knowing she is not alone.

There’s a line in the movie Shall We Dance that has always stuck with me. In the scene two characters are trying to decide if their marriage of 25 years is still worth the effort. They are trying to describe the role they play for each other and Susan Sarandon turns to Richard Gere and says, “I will witness your life. You life will not go unnoticed because I will notice it.” I always thought that was incredibly beautiful. It’s easy to notice the hero, the grand gesture, a marriage proposal, the day you bring a child home. It’s harder to notice a thousand tiny moments, and I think that is part of the work of marriage. It’s promising to pay attention.

At the end of this passage on stories Gilbert talks about lying in bed with her beloved on a night when it’s too hot to sleep. “Tell me a story about fish,” she says and he does, spinning a lovely tale. And then she concludes with a profound statement:

This is intimacy: telling our stories in the dark.

There is so much truth in that. To truly share ourselves, to offer up the memories that have formed us, the fears that cage us, the hopes that lift us up, that is the very stuff of intimacy. It’s lying there in the dark finding the courage to say, “This is me. Please love me.”

One of the most profound moments of my life happened late at night over the telling of stories. I was in my apartment, my last year at Trinity, my roommate asleep in the other room. I was sitting on a ratty and beloved couch with a decidedly not ratty but also beloved old friend and somehow he got me to tell him the story that I never tell anyone. I remember feeling so exposed I hid my face behind a pillow and all we were doing was talking. He was sitting at the other end of the couch, not touching at all.

It was, I can see now, an incredibly intimate moment. No wonder I was so shaken afterward. No wonder the letter he slipped under my door 20 minutes later is still tucked into my journal.

Plato said that “He who tells the stories shapes society” and I’ve always thought of that on a grand, national scale. But I see now that she who tells the stories shapes herself. It is in changing ourselves first that we have any hope of changing society. It is in the telling our of stories that our souls come home.

the tools of play

2011-06-01T07:20:00.000-07:00

I came to a curious realization yesterday. I was talking to a friend of mine about something or other, I don’t even remember how it began and he mentioned that he currently owns three volleyballs and I said, “You know, I’m not sure I’ve ever owned a ball, of any description…” The more I thought about it I realized that it wasn’t entirely true, but close.

I took tennis lessons one summer, and there was a tube of three tennis balls that came with that. We had a bocce ball set growing up (although technically I think that belonged to Mark and technically, being British, we called it Petanc.) I have a croquet set, that’s 6 balls right there. But I think that’s it. To my knowledge I have never owned a soccer ball, a baseball, a football or a basketball. I loved those little tiny bouncy balls that bounce higher than your brother and often had a supply of them, but that’s about it.

My brothers had balls to play with – there was a basketball net installed on the side of the driveway. But I don’t remember ever asking for one. I don’t think it ever occurred to me to have one of my own. I suppose it could be a gender thing, but more likely it’s the asking thing. I didn’t show much interest in them and parents, beloved and lovely, knew I’d much rather have a book or craft supplies or, oh hallowed day, a hamster. And they were right.

I’ve been thinking about the idea of “play” recently. In just a few days I’m headed off to Winnipeg where I intend to play thoroughly with my two nieces, and with Dave and Janie for the duration of my stay. I know that there will be board games, and probably bubble blowing and I’m going to try to convince them that we should all go to a pool. It’s easy to play around children, it’s often harder to play as adults but vitality important to do so.

I got me thinking about the tools of play. I’m very good at making sure I have the necessary tools for work. I have work clothes and an iron to keep them spiffy. I take good care of my laptop. I just bought myself a better desk chair to ease the strain my neck endures because I like work that happens at a desk. When it comes to housework I have brooms and cleaning supplies, laundry soap and dishrags. These are important things. But do I make sure that I have the tools I need to play?

For my birthday I did buy myself something to play with. I have a deep and abiding love of pop-up books and at Chapters last Friday I found a pop-up book that teaches you how to make pop-up books! It’s a little meta- if you look too closely, which I won’t, this time. In addition to whole sections that explain the why and the how of pop-ups it has four giant press-out-and-stick-together pages to practice making pop-ups. There’s a dragon and a castle, a jungle and, inexplicably Frankenstein. All I need is some glue and the delicate scissors from the cupboard and I’m all set. Almost makes me wish for a rainy day.

I have a crafting cupboard well stocked with oddments and ribbons and crayons and beads. Well, to be fair, I have two of them. There’s sealing wax and yarn, embroidery thread and very delicate scissors. I still have my flute and a sheaf of sheet music. But I don’t currently own a bouncy ball or a skipping rope or sidewalk chalk. I don’t have a skateboard, or even a trendy west coast long board. Or a trampoline (although admittedly that last one is a bit impractical in a rental). I have a LOT of books, nine bookcases worth between Kendra and I at last count. I wonder what I would pick out if I took myself to Toys R Us. I think I’m going to find out.

roses and Oprah

2011-05-29T12:45:00.000-07:00

There's a rose in my garden that has no business being there. It started out as an errant rose hip carried over by a fateful wind, or one of the neighbourhood dogs. My landlords tried to pull it out when it first appeared but a couple of weeks later the rose was back. I believe that tenacity should be rewarded so I started watering it secretly every time I got the hose out for my herb garden.

This morning I was out there again doing the first big weed out of the season and there's my rose, three times its size, full of promise and tangled around the base of it are several of the strawberries I'm sure I pulled out last summer when they staunchly refused to fruit. I think the pair of them are laughing at me, but it's such a good joke I decided to join in.

As I sat there pulling weeds out from around the base of the rose and its rebellious friend I couldn't help but think how little it takes to encourage or destroy. One twist of the wrist and there would be no rose in my garden, only a scar on the ground. But a little water when I was out there anyway, not even a special trip and there will be glorious roses in a few weeks. (And if I'm very lucky maybe even a few strawberries if the kids upstairs don't get to them first.)

It made me think about the people in my life and how we all have those moments when we are as vulnerable as the first shoots of a rose and a word spoken thoughtlessly is all it takes to snap us. And yet, the opposite holds true as well. Sometimes a little water, when you were already there anyway, is all it takes to let a dream take root.

I think that every gardener is a philosopher. It's hard not to be when gardening lets you play at being God a little. When the bulbs come back in the spring or the tomatoes finally turn red I sometimes think of that line from a movie when Jim Carrey calls out "I have brought forth life!!!" It's only pretend of course, we are not the life-bringers, not really. I have yet to make my very own rose hip, or even a simple bean. But we are life-bringers, we can be when it comes to the people placed around us.

I look at that rose now and it would not be so easy to get rid of these days. Its roots are deep, it has a firm grip on the stairs leading up to the deck. That rose had a champion, a friend just when it needed one. I've been watching some of the last few Oprah shows and in one of them she talks about the importance of telling someone that you see them, that you hear them. She spoke of her fourth grade teacher who was the very first person who showed her that she had value. There was a clip in one of the shows where Oprah had been trying to help someone and this other lady said "I needed you to say that you liked me and you never did."

And Oprah just shook her head and said, "No, I don't accept that. I sat in the audience and gave you the stage I believed in you so much."

The next response was the one that so stayed with me. She said, "I didn't even know what it was Oprah. I couldn't see it, can you hear that? I didn't even recognize it."

I know that there are people in my life and there are people in yours too, who are so used to hearing the bad things, the ugly things that they can't even recognize the good things when they see them. They don't even know what it is. I don't know how to fix a person who's broken like that, but I do think that it can begin with something as simple as water. It can begin with saying "I see you, I hear you." I see things in you that are admirable and good, things to be celebrated and encouraged.

Oprah often talks about people not realizing their own power and I think that's true. We can do more good than we know and more harm than we realize. We are stronger than we know, and wiser (most of the time). We are capable of change and built for forgiveness. And on the days when we are the little rose, unwanted and tugged on by an unfeeling hand, we are each of us, just as worthy of that water.

time enough

2011-05-23T20:09:00.000-07:00

My birthday’s coming in a few days and for some reason it has me extra-thinky. It’s not one of the big birthdays, not one of those ones that peer down at you ominously with zeros at the ends of them, but it’s caught me quit by surprise. For some reason it feels old.

Old, the idea of “old” is something I fight against pretty vigilantly most of the time. I believe that time is a gift, that each birthday, each year afford to us, is like winning the lottery. Time is a wishing star, the one thing that really, truly, can change our lives. Eliot wrote that “only through time, time is conquered” and I believe that. Yes, age comes with a few costs, but those are trades I would gladly make again for its benefits.

It’s true that I will never be 21 again and I can’t go back and be one of those girls who gets married three weeks after graduation. But I also won’t be that girl had no idea who she was. I don’t stand in front of the mirror and wish I was someone else, instead I think, “Ok, I can work with this.” At least most of the time.

There’s a book I found in Chapters a year or two ago that asked people to write their life story in just exactly six words. The title, which was one person’s answer to this challenge is “Not quite what I was expecting” and that so perfectly fits where I find myself in the gloaming before the beginning of my 35th year. I thought it would be different.

If you had asked 18 year old me - well, maybe not her, she was still pretty fragile - if you’d asked 22 year old me where she thought I would be now she would have drawn a picture of someone who looks more like my Mom. She would have known about the move to BC but would have no idea that I’d make my home here permanently. She hadn’t met Kendra yet, she didn’t know that there was a whole west coast family waiting to welcome her. She had no idea that she would love being Auntie Claire so very, very much. She would never have guessed that a man she met once, for a couple of moments, would so profoundly change the way she saw herself. She had not learned yet that you can borrow courage, and that that is so much better than a cup of sugar from a neighbour.

Just the other day I was offered something that would take me away for six months. It would involve travel, which I love, and family, which I also love but it would also involve destroying most of the life I have built for myself here. It is very tempting, the idea of running away, but I can’t shake the knowledge of what there would be, or rather wouldn’t be, to come back to. And the more I think about it the more I realize that I wouldn’t trade this life – even when the offer is, quite literally, right in front of me. That's a pretty enviable realization to come to. It's not a perfection situation but it's one worth fighting for, worth hanging on to. (I wonder if there's a way to do a shorter version that might fit better, I'll need to give that some thought.)

I think the time might be ripe for an adventure, I can feel the wind shifting. Maybe that’s what has me feeling the edges of this birthday so keenly. I can hear a whisper, “it’s time, it’s time” but time for what I do not know yet. All I do know is that I want to be here when it happens.

*** (There should be a transition here, but I can't find it so imagine some instrumental music or the bird call they used for books on tape when we were kids you will know it is time to turn the page...***

When I pray for myself I tend to pray in pairs. I ask God for wisdom and grace – wisdom to know what to do and the grace to do the right thing gently. I also pray that He would help me not to shy away from the good things but also not to take too much. There’s that line in “God Bless the Child” that says “You can help yourself, but don’t take too much” and for some reason I worry about that, that even if it’s being offered I shouldn’t really take all of it. (Maybe that’s simply the ‘last piece of cake’ gene all women seem to have. Why is it that we worry about declaring things finished?)

There’s a beautiful song by Joshua Radin called “Today” that speaks to me. He sings, “You saw right through me, there was no one else. I sat beside you and became myself.” I sigh, audibly, every time I hear that line. It’s so very beautiful “I sat beside you and became myself” I love that it’s an act of becoming, not a gift. The person in the song doesn’t confer “myself-ness” on the other, they simply sit there, stay with them, and in the safety of that moment, in the push against the chrysalis, the person steps into themselves, as if they were stepping out of their own shadow.

I don’t know what lies on the other side of this birthday. I know that there is a new niece or nephew on the way. I know that not long after my birthday I will finally, finally, get to meet Annika. I know that there will be books and the first book club I have ever been a part of (good gracious, how did THAT take me almost 35 years??) I believe that there will be joy and I accept that there will be tears. There may be blood. And woven through it all will be the wishing star, if God permits. The time to enjoy, to choose, to love, to weep.

I read a quote the other day that refuses to leave me alone:

Every day of our lives we are on the verge of making those slight changes that would make all the difference. Mignon McLaughlin

If there are things that need to change, and for most of us there are, we have the chance to do that every day. There is so much hope in that. Which ultimately means that there is hope in this soon to be birthday. Because it means that there’s still time. Time to do what? I don’t know yet. Time enough to figure it all out.

gavel not included

2011-04-28T21:42:00.000-07:00

I don't know if there's something in the air, but over the past few days I've been shocked by the hurtful judgements I've seen levied against other bloggers by people who are "just being honest." MckMama was taken to task for not caring enough about her cat, while a single Dad received death threats because the new dog wasn't getting along well with his son so he took the dog back to the pound. Meanwhile Brad Bell, better knows as Cheeks, gets a stern letter for recommending too many things in his own tweets. Do people honestly have nothing better to do?

It seems that as humans we find casting judgement just about as easy as breathing, and far more entertaining if the sheer volume of it is any indication. I used to think that this sort of thing was a phase you grew out of, but the older I get the more I realized that we don't stop judging, we just change the topics that we care about enough to mention.

As a single adult, I get why aren't you married/ don't you want a husband/ are you gay/ have you tried xyz dating service/ you should pray more/ just wait for Jesus more/ stop thinking about getting married and God will surprise you with a spouse when you least expect it. I've been given unsolicited and unwanted dating advice in all sorts of places, most notably at the funeral home during my grandfather's funeral. (I wish I was kidding.) But of course if I do get married one day, it won't stop there.

Friends of mine who have faced infertility have had unspeakable things said to them. One family who was blessed with quadruplets gets "wow, isn't that a lot of children?" while yet another friend, a mother of twins, has perfect strangers asking about her medical history. If you have one child people want to know when you're having the next one but for goodness sake don't get pregnant too quickly, or wait too long. What is it about us that makes us think we have any right to ask, let alone any claim on the answers?

I was talking to Dallas today and he said, "in the old testament we used stones, after the curtain ripped Jesus allowed us to exchange Rocks for words". He was joking around when he said it but it struck me how much truth is in those words. We so easily throw judgements around but they are not little harmless pebbles, they are rocks. Jesus said that whoever was blameless was allowed to throw the first rock and I think it would be good to keep that in mind when it comes to judgements too. If I am faultless then I am qualified to judge, but until then I can only hope to become well versed in the language of mercy.

Shakespeare spoke of mercy dropping like the gentle rain of heaven. Mercy is often associated with weaker words but there is an incredible depth of strength in it. To be merciful I have to be secure enough in myself that I don't need to take anything of yours. Mercy comes out of our excess. It is a generosity of spirit, of choosing not to take the cheap shot and the cheap thrill that comes with it. Mercy says, "I don't need to point out your faults, or prove to you how smart I am". Mercy is the one who is there to help clean up the mess without commenting on how the mess got there in the first place.

I still remember, four or five years ago now a good friend of mine showing up to church heavily pregnant and unmarried. As she stepped into the sanctuary someone made a horrible comment to her as if she did not know which choices lead her to where she stood. It was hurtful and so very unnecessary and the one and only time I have ever really wanted to punch someone in a sanctuary. She was like the poor man with only one lamb in the story Nathan used to rebuke David in 2 Samuel 12. She was feeling pretty alone but she came to church hoping for a little support and received harsh words instead. It would have taken so little for this person to simply say "Good morning, I'm glad you're here." Where else should she be on a Sunday morning?

It's always a tricky business talking about judgement because it's pretty much impossible to be anything other than judgemental while doing so. So let me say it here, "mea culpa". I totally do this too. Why do we do it? Well tell ourselves that we're just trying to help but that's not true. If we wanted to help, really and truly, we would do a lot more listening and a lot less talking. We would make a meal for that new mother instead of berating her for not breastfeeding. We would offer a little comfort instead of kicking the person who is obviously down. We would remember that only God can cast the first stone, and then we'd go back and read that story again and remember that He choose not to throw a stone at all. Instead he said, "neither do I condemn you." Now there's words to live by.

the sound of music in the dark

2011-04-17T20:02:00.000-07:00

If you ever get the chance to attend a Sing-a-Long Sound of Music, say yes. Say yes quickly. And prepare to be delighted.

I first heard about the show a few years ago from a friend of mine. I always thought it sounded like a riot. Imagine my glee when I found out that the show was coming to Vancouver. I was slightly less gleeful when I realized that the one and only show was the night before the Sun Run, a 10km trek I had already committed to but someone pointed out that it would probably be worth it. He was right. It seems that my year of proving that "sometimes it is absolutely necessary to do the thing that makes no sense" continues.

So Saturday night found me back at the RiverRock casino, full of memories of the last time I was there to see Adam Lambert and missing my Boston girls something crazy. It wouldn't take long for this night to kick up such a party of its own that there was no time left for reminiscing.

The show started with a costume competition, a hilarious hodge podge of Marias, nuns, goat herders and a very memorable group of ladies draped in a green cloth who turned out to be the hills, alive with the sound of music. We received our instructions: hiss when the Baroness is on screen, bark for Rolf, salute the captain, say Awww for Gretal. They showed us how to use the cards for "How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria?" and told us what the little piece of cloth was for. Then they dimmed the lights and from the very first note the entire room broke out into song.

There is something truly magical about a group of strangers singing together. You can see it in the way people respond to flash mobs, and it is stunningly illustrated in California composer Eric Whitacre's magnificent Virtual Choir. There is a freedom in singing with strangers, a joy that is uncommon. You can see it in karaoke bars the world over and it was fully on display at Sing-a-Long Sound of Music.

This is, above all, a participatory show. You can't just show up, you sing. You agree to be silly, you wave your cards in the air, literally and figuratively, and there in dark you admit that you are definitely NOT too cool to sing out loud. I hope that we are all able to remember that come Monday morning.

Lou Holtz said, "A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song." At Sing-a-Long Sound of Music we all had a song and we sang it, with vigor. The day after my throat is sore from laughing so much and singing so loudly. Proof of a very good evening in my book. We speak of play as the serious work of childhood, so why do we so often forget the importance of playing as grown-ups?

I was reading something the other day where one character asks the other, "What do you want from me?" and the reply comes, "I want your song. I want you to sing for me." The idea is a request for knowledge, I want to know the real you, I want to know what comes out when you can't stop it. I wonder sometimes how well I know the words to my own song and how willing I am to sing it. It can be so tempting to be quiet, or to sing someone else's song or sing what we think the moment needs. I think that honesty is serious work of adults, figuring out who we are in the dark and what, in this whole wide world we plan to do with it. I think if we could figure that out, the hills really would be alive with the sound of our music.

How to Vote in 10 Minutes or Less

2011-04-12T21:30:00.000-07:00

Every time an election is called I hear people talking about not voting and I get a little rant-y. This year I'm going on the offensive and saying it early: YOU HAVE TO VOTE. Don't let yourself play the "it's too complicated" or "I don't really understand the issues" or "politics is hard" card. You live in a democracy. If you like hospitals and roads and not getting shot at, then you need to vote. It's pretty simple.

Refuse to be disillusioned. There are no perfect politicians just like there are no perfect dentists or project managers or cupcake bakers. Politicians are people and just like you and me they are flawed. Refusing to vote because "everyone is corrupt" or "all politicians lie" is basically saying that you're waiting until you can vote for the Easter bunny. You're a grown-up now. Vote.

So now that you've decided to vote, choosing WHO to vote for doesn't have to be that complicated. In a perfect world we'd all be totally informed and up to date on all the issues at all times. But for everyone who isn't a political junkie trying to figure out an entire governmental system in the weeks - ok let's be honest, the days - before an election is a daunting task. Instead of getting overwhelmed and "forgetting" to vote, here are four easy ways to choose a candidate in 10 minutes or less. The internet-savvy among us can probably do it in five.

How to vote in 10 minutes or less:

1. Join the party. Take a quick online assessment to find out which political party best lines up with your own political beliefs. Vote for the candidate in that party. I like this one. (fixed the link)

2. If you can't think big, think small. Research your local reps and vote for the person who's in charge of your own back yard.

(2. Alternate) Think even smaller. Choose the one issue you care the most about and do a quick Google search to see where the local candidates stand on that issue. Vote accordingly.

3. Borrow someone else's vote. Go to someone who's opinion you trust and ask them who they are voting for and why. Add your voice and your vote to theirs.

4. Close your eyes and point. If all else fails, show up on election day and randomly select a candidate. Voting for the wrong person is still better than not voting at all. At least you showed up. You participated. Next time, try options 1 through 3.

Above all, remember that in a democracy not voting is not an option. It's like being the roommate who never ever ever does their dishes, the parent who refuses to change a diaper, the freeloading friend who never grabs the check. You don't want to be that guy. If you truly cannot with good conscience vote for any of the candidates then spoiling your vote is a valid option, but only if you show up at the voting booth and do it officially.

We're Canadians, we show up when things are hard, we pitch in where there's a mess. Voting is a privilege that was hard won on the backs of someone else's loved ones. Voting is how we begin to say thank you for that. Don't let the chance pass you by. See you at the booth! (We can go for Tim's after.)

world without end

2011-03-20T13:52:00.000-07:00

I went to a service at St. Matthew's this morning and much to my great surprise, I think I might be Anglican.

In retrospect, it makes perfect sense, as things often do. I have always loved the sound and flavour of words. I have always appreciated the immediacy of symbols and their ability to give us something to hold on to in the face of untouchable things. Makes sense that a style of worship that places a high value on both of these things would be right up my alley.

The first hints that I might have found what I was looking for happened while I was reading St. Matthew's website which is, hands down, one of the best church websites I have ever seen. As someone outside of their community I found everything I needed to know right there, easy to find, easy to read. By the time I got to the church this morning I felt I had the information I needed to be able to participate in the service. For someone raised in a string of "contemporary" churches a full traditional liturgy can be a very unfamiliar thing. St. Matthew's site gave me a road map. I wish all churches did that.

The word liturgy means "the work of the people". I love that idea that church is not a place we go, rather church is something we physically do together. The service was incredibly participatory and that really spoke to me. You don't just come in and sit and listen, you speak, you pray out loud, you respond. There were two readings, one from the old testament and one from the new and for the New Testament reading every stands, a visual picture that the news of what Christ has done for us is so wonderful you can't stay in your seat as you hear it. The reading finished and the congregation as whole gave thanks to God right there in the moment as if hearing it for the first time. Did you know that the liturgy is set up so that the congregation hears the entire Bible read aloud every three years?

I wondered if an Anglican church would be formal to the point of coldness but I couldn't have been more wrong. I was warmly greeted, and the nice lady next to me helped me keep up when I got lost switching between the hymnal and the prayer book. It has been years since I went to a church that sang hymns, and I've started to notice lately that I miss them. Verses of hymns I sang a child have been running through my head - isn't it amazing that they're still in there? One of the great things about hymns is that they have such classic chord progressions that even if you don't know the tune you can pick it up by the end of the first first.

Also, it comes back to the words again.

The words in hymns make sense. Not only are they deeply scriptural but the verb tenses are always correct and the point of view doesn't jump around. I know for most people that's not a deal breaker but for me, it pulls me right out of a worshipful mood when the song is simply wrong. There's one chorus about a river where Jesus is the river in one line and then we're standing in the river in the next and then Jesus is calling us to the river. . .and I just can't sing it because I get so distracted trying to figure out which verbs go with which river and why anyone would try to stand IN Jesus in the first place. Hymns hold no such mysteries.

I think my favourite part was the prayers from the Book of Common Prayer. I love a word well spoken and the idea of speaking to God in words carefully crafted, patiently selected, thoroughly rooted in scripture, was very beautiful. We use poetry when we want to speak of love, we quote great minds when we want to say just the right thing but lack the words, how lovely to speak to God in the same way. Not that it is the only way to speak to God, but it is a treat to get to bring such pretty words to him. In several of the prayers the phrase "world without end" is mentioned speaking over and over of the timelessness of God, the duration of his love and mercy. It was a great reminder.

It can be hard to hear God amid the noise of life and the busyness of lists. Some days it's even hard to hear him in church. But this morning in the quiet reverence of a service that has been conducted just this way for years on end, I could hear him clearly. Maybe I was wrong about the words, I think that THAT was my favourite part.

accidental diamonds

2011-01-05T16:57:00.001-08:00

You might wonder how a person can accidentally buy diamonds, well for starters, it helps to be in LA.

It happened on the way home from a lovely Arizona Christmas. I had a layover at LAX and decided to do a little browsing through the shops. I found a store full of watches and one of them really caught my eye. It was classic and elegant and when I picked it up I noticed that it really caught the light well. It sparkled.

I had been thinking about getting a new watch. I have one that I love but no one can get the back off of it to put a new battery in. It has given me a good few years of service but I thought it might be time for a new one. The sparkly watch was $95 so I put it back and kept looking.

I walked around some more but the idea of the watch wouldn’t leave me alone. I started thinking about this past year and how the idea of sparkling was a thread that ran through it. Early in the year I read a quote that said “On the bad days you need to sparkle harder” and then months later a friend told me “in general, people greatly underestimate their need for sparkle.” As the year progressed I had, and took, the opportunity to sparkle both literally and figuratively.

I am a sucker for a good metaphor and I kept thinking what a great reminder that watch would be - a way to actually make the hours sparkle as a reminder to myself to always be on the lookout for the good amid the usual. With fifteen minutes left before I needed to board the plan I went back and got the watch. It still sparkled and the mother of pearl face cast little shimmery rainbows if you held it just right. I decided it would be my Christmas present to myself.

Imagine my surprise when I took the watch out the next day and saw the words “diamond dial” on the watch face. I took out the instructions and to my great surprise discovered that what I thought were cubic zirconia in the bezel and on the face are actually real diamonds. No wonder it caught the light so well! In truth, they are very tiny diamonds, which is why the price wasn’t higher, but they are real diamonds all the same. The first diamonds I have ever owned.

Now I have not only a perfect reminder to make the hours sparkle, I also have a reminder that sometimes God surprises us with even more than we know, more than we hoped for. Sometimes he gives us the things we hadn’t even thought to dream of. I wonder what other delightful surprises are lurking in 2011? I can’t wait to find out.

indeed.

2010-12-04T12:15:00.000-08:00

down the rabbit hole

2010-10-29T20:52:00.000-07:00

When the espresso machine I've been hunting for more than a year showed up on my doorstep the very day I was considering joining NaNoWriMo I realized it might be a sign.

NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month is a challenge to write a novel -- 50,000 words!!! -- in 30 days. It is crazy? Of course it's crazy. (And I'm told it requires a lot of coffee, if you're wondering where the espresso machine comes in to this.) Who has time to write a book in a month? But isn't that just exactly the point? Who has time to write? We make time, we take time, we find time, we redeem the days.

There are some things worth having that come as a result of careful and considered thinking and planning - university degrees and mortgages among them. But there are other things, crazy things, that are never going to happen if you wait for a time when it makes sense.

So yes, I admit here, before it all begins that this is crazy. It's entirely possible, likely even, that I am embarking on a fool's errand. But no wiseman can tell the fool what she might see in her travels, and even the king himself cannot tell the fool's stories. They are hers alone - her gift, her treasure. Her reward for being willing to wander where she does not know the way.

Time to jump down the rabbit hole.

fit for a queen

2010-06-13T18:41:00.001-07:00

Last year when Mom & Dad were out here looking at houses Mom suggested that we go to the Empress for high tea for my birthday. Well who says no to that? So this year, when the end of May rolled around I took the day off work and off we went. Let me say this up front - if anyone ever says "Wanna go for high tea at the Empress?" the answer is YES. Always yes.

As you can see, the morning of my birthday I was pretty excited about the prospect of a mini break holiday with my Mom. Boats, water, tea, conversation - I knew it was going to be a great day.

Imagine my surprise when Mom arrived and in addition to the birthday treat I knew about she had a HUGE bouquet of flowers in her hands! I am such a sucker for flowers and these were gorgeous. I got them in some water and we were ready to head off for the day.

After a great ride over on the ferry, and a short ride on the coach we arrived in Victoria. The coach dropped us off just a block or two from the Empress. Just a short walk and we were there.
The signs says it all, tea this way! Ok let's go!

The tearoom itself is gorgeous! I could see right away why Dad opted to stay home. It is a very feminine room. The walls are pink. There's an incredible view of the harbor, columns and comfy chairs. It is a room that invites you in. I was so glad we had lots of time to stay.

The host settled Mom and I into a pair of cozy wingback chairs in a corner of our own. The room itself is huge but it's full of little nooks to snuggle into with conversations just waiting to happen. Our waiter Joseph came by with the menus and asked if we'd like a glass of champagne to go with the berry course. Mom and I looked at each and giggled and said "why not?" So we started our tea in style with a toast.

Not long after out strawberries and champagne the tea arrived and WOW. Everything you've heard about tea at the Empress is true. I can see why the Queen comes here when she's in town.

On the bottom level were sandwiches - mushroom pate, carrot & cream cheese, curried chicken, smoked salmon pinwheels & egg salad. Delish. On the next level up were scones, a classic, with Devon cream and little individual pots of Empress strawberry jam. Sooo good. On the top layer were the desserts. Goodness, a person could do some serious damage. Shortbread, chocolate cherry tulips, key lime cheesecake, strawberry tarts and to wash it all down the Empress' house blend black tea. There was two of absolutely everything so we could try it all. And we did.

Everything was so delicious we spent almost two hours enjoying it. We talked about life and love and dreams and boats and things we want to do more of and things we want to do less. It was a delicious afternoon in every possible sense of the word. After a wonderful tea we took a stroll around the harbor, stopping to take a picture of the beautiful facade of the hotel.

While we were walking we found a great idea for Dad's next birthday. You can rent this little beauty to drive around. I took a photo of the contact info for next time.

At the end of a wonderful day, we took the ferry home. I kept thinking of the end of the children's song Teddy Bear's Picnic "At 6 o'clock their Mommies and Daddies will take them home to bed extremely tired but contented bears." I know just how they feel :) Thanks Mom & Dad for a magnificent birthday! It's a day I will never forget.

The Church of Gaga

2010-06-03T19:47:00.000-07:00

Lady Gaga is everywhere these days. Her current tour, The Monster’s Ball is so completely sold out that I recently saw a listing on Ticketmaster for tickets for a show in 2011. No joke.

Lady Gaga is known for being avant guarde, out spoken, artistic and opinionated so when she recently sat down for an interview with Larry King, I was surprised to see the discussion turn to matters of religion. King asked her about being raised Catholic and what she believes and this was her reply:

“I believe in Jesus. I believe in God. I’m very spiritual. I pray very much, but at the same time there is no one religion that doesn’t hate or speak against or be prejudiced against another racial group or religious group, or sexual group and for that I think religion is also bogus.

So I suppose you could say I’m a quite religious woman who is also very confused about religion.”

I knew she had her finger on the pulse of our times. A recent article for CNN spoke of the rising group of people, especially those 18-25 who identify as ‘spiritual but not religious’. You’ll often see the notation SBNR on Facebook. There is a longing to belong to something bigger than ourselves, but also a need to step away from some of the negative aspects of traditional religions. Which leads to some interesting questions for all of us.

Does God need the church? Do I need the church to know God?

It’s a not as easy question, but it’s an important one. In the Bible Jesus speaks of building his church, but then as he suffers on the cross, the man next to him calls out for forgiveness and Jesus doesn’t tell him he’s out of luck because he can’t get to a service. Instead he says, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” (Luke 23:43)

In CNN’s article they quote BJ Gallagher, a blogger for the Huffington Post who shares a parable that says:

“God and the devil were walking down a path one day when God spotted something sparkling by the side of the path. He picked it up and held it in the palm of his hand.

“Ah, Truth,” he said.

“Here, give it to me,” the devil said. “I’ll organize it.”

Does God need the church to be God? I don’t think he does, but I think I might need it. Those who identify as ‘spiritual but not religious’ often take aspects of different traditions together to combine into a custom faith, a personal spirituality. I don’t know if that’s enough or not. I know for myself there are times when I need a community of believers around me and yet there are also times when I wish they’d go away.

The other day I was reading an Op Ed piece on CNN about the military possibly repealing their policy of “don’t ask, don’t tell”. It was an opinion piece and the writer, who technically shares a somewhat similar religious view to me, was certainly opinionated. He spoke of the downfall of the military and even national security being put at risk. But that wasn’t the part that broke my heart.

In the comments there are a few people who blast the writer, and that’s how it goes with Op Ed pieces, they’re supposed to draw lines. But then the church folks showed up, the people who are supposed to be my people, and the things they said took my breath away. There was not a drop of kindness, or love, or mercy. No attempt to understand, or time taken to listen. There might have been truth in what they were saying, but who could hear it under the roar of their rhetoric?

So where does that leave us? CNN’s article goes on to say:

Jennifer Walters, dean of religious life at Smith College in Massachusetts, says there’s a lot of good in old-time religion.

Religious communities excel at caring for members in difficult times, encouraging members to serve others and teaching religious practices that have been tested and wrestled with for centuries, Walters says.

“Hymn-singing, forms of prayer and worship, teachings about social justice and forgiveness — all these things are valuable elements of religious wisdom,” Walters says. “Piecing it together by yourself can be done, but with great difficulty.”

I can understand where the ‘spiritual but not religious’ thinking comes from. I also think it’s a lot to carry on your own shoulders if you’re going to go it alone. For me, I find comfort in tradition, in ritual, but I also need a faith that is hands on. If it only affects what happens after my life, and not what happens during it – I don’t have a lot of use for that. I need God to show up today, not 60 years from now. There’s a verse in Philippians that says, in part, “continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling”. Maybe it’s not supposed to be easy?

Notes:

1. Image of Lady Gaga is original fan art by Ellen Violet. You can see more of her work here.

2. I originally wrote this for work, but Facebook is so silly about allowing links in statuses that reposting it here was easier.

look who's here!!!

2010-04-17T08:50:00.001-07:00

I have a brand new nephew! Jackson Rhys Colvin made his appearance Thursday, April 15th at 3:12pm and the world was never quite the same again. Rhys is a Welsh name that means "enthusiasm", a daring, but perfect choice for a little boy. (He'll be able to say that energy really IS his middle name.) Jackson, I don't know what you're going to be enthusiastic about yet, but I can't wait to find out.

Kai meets his brother for the first time. They commemorate the event by participating in a time honored male bonding ritual. (Kai punches his brother. Parents deal. The world continues to spin.) I remember hearing stories of Mark asking our parents when I was going back to the hospital. I wonder how Kai will respond to The Interloper.
I love this pic of Rachel and Jackson. They look so peaceful.

And then there were four. Just think, you are now the perfect size to win one of those all expense paid trips to Disneyland :) I really, really need to get to Australia. Clearly I am missing out.

Welcome to the world Jackson Rhys. I can't wait to meet you in person.

Warning: Fangirling Ahead

2010-04-11T20:16:00.000-07:00

I went to both Adam Lambert concerts this weekend. Adam Adam. Twice in one weekend. Well, that was fun :D

It’s early Sunday afternoon as I write this and I am still basking in the afterglow of one of the best weekends I’ve had in a very long time. This weekend was full of things I don’t usually do and here in the sobriety of Sunday afternoon, I think I need to do them more often.

  I went to the airport to meet the online friends I was splitting a hotel room with. Erin tweeted me that their flight was in and before too long she came striding over. I met Andrea and Cherry and in just minutes I couldn’t remember why I had been nervous. Confession: I left my Macbook at home because of the voice in my head that kept screaming YOU DON’T REALLY KNOW THESE PEOPLE THEY COULD BE KLEPTOs. I had nothing to worry about. Next time, the Macbook comes with :D

We grabbed lunch, made our way to the hotel and then headed off to Holt Renfrew for some fantastic false eyelashes. This is another thing I never do. I will be doing it again. False eyelashes are better than losing 10lbs on the spot. You look instantly more glamorous. After that it was time to head off to the MAC cosmetics store. This would become a recurring theme.

At MAC we bought fantabulous colors and Erin bought some teal glitter. Well stocked we headed back the hotel to get glammed up. Yoshi met us at the hotel and was quickly folded into our retinue. At this point, I should apologize to the hotel staff. With five of us getting ready in one room there was glitter everywhere. I couldn’t help but smile. I think Adam would have approved.

All prettied up we headed over to the Red Robinson Show Theatre. We grabbed dinner, got in trouble with security for taking photos (not allowed on the casino floor) and walked in under the huge sign announcing Adam Lambert was playing tonight.

For Thursday’s show at the Red Robinson Show Theatre we had seats farther back but dead center. It’s a tiny theatre, only a thousand seats so we had a great view. There was a mosh pit and lots of black and glitter. When the opening act started to play I thought the sound mix was a bit off. There was a very long intermission and at 9 o’clock the lights went down, the air left the room and a certain tall, raven haired ringmaster took the stage. Finally, finally it was time.

The roar of the crowd was deafening. It did that rushing wind thing that I remember hearing at the Idols live tour even though this was a much smaller crowd. They opened with FYE, but halfway through Adam stopped. They were having technical issues and he had them reset a few things and start again.

Adam is truly magical on stage. He moves like water, casts a spell over the crowd and holds you there, but you don’t mind. I know there’s been whinning about him mentoring on Idol but there’s no one better to teach those kids how to put on a show. Adam knows what to do with a stage and how to work a crowd. He was fantastic. There were sound issues throughout the night, but you almost didn’t notice. He was fully ON and we were right there with him.

After “For Your Entertainment” he played “If I Had You” a song I like more each time I hear it live. Whatdaya Want From Me was next. I have no idea how he manages to sing that song a little differently every time, but he does. I love that he’s kept the higher twist on “it’s me” – I like it even better than the original recording.

I don’t go to a lot of concerts, but I think that Adam is one of the few, the very few who actually sounds better live than he does recorded. The CD is really, really good but Adam live is a completely different treat, one that I wish every Adam fan had the chance to experience.
During Strut it was like he was tossing little pieces of his own confidence out into the crowd like glitter. I felt beautiful and confident. If someone had asked me right then to strut across the stage, I probably would have done it.

In another universe Adam would be AMAZING host for that British show “How to Look Good Naked”. He makes you believe that you can strut, with whatever you are working with. He is so confident it’s like sunshine that you turn toward before you even realize you’re doing it. He believes in you so strongly that you cannot help but believe it yourself. I can completely understand how the stories behind “Broken Open” happened. Adam feels incredibly safe and that safety is an amazing place to step out into whatever you’ve been holding back.

Sure Fire Winners came next. If I’m being honest, Adam had trouble with the lyrics on this one. He lost his words a few times that night but SFW just seemed to take him for a ride. It didn’t matter though, it was still a great performance.

He ditched the jacket for Soaked, moving us into the acoustic portion of the evening. Next up came A Loaded Smile – a song he has never performed live before. It was ethereal and haunting and lovely. He sang Mad World. I could listen to that song all day. Same with Broken Open which came next. After that was Sleepwalker and Music Again which was a bit of a blur.

He closed the show with Fever. This song is so obviously the hit single and but radio program directors won’t play it. They did Down The Rabbit Hole for the encore. Adam had such a huge grin on his face when he came back out. I loved knowing that I had a small part in putting it there. Yes there were technical issues, but all in all it was a great concert and I had a wonderful time.

We headed over to the River Rock after to meet some friends and to our great surprise Tommy and Monte walked out into the lobby. While my brain screamed "that's Tommy, standing right over there!!!" my innate Inner Awkward Turtle kicked into overdrive and I literally could not make my legs walk over. I admired him from afar.

Yoshi went over to join the crowd talking to them. She said that they were kinda down at first saying that the mix was bad and it made it almost impossible for them to hear each other. She told them that she had a great time and said that they cheered up a bit hearing that. They took pics and I just stood there, on the other side of the lobby feeling awkward. Little did I know that later that night, fate would bring Tommy to me.

We headed into the bar and grabbed a table. We managed to order a round in spite of the Worst Bar Service of All Time (of ALL TIME!!) Tommy and Monte came in to the bar and there was a crowd around them the entire time. But I ended up getting to meet Tommy. Here’s how it happened:

We were sitting at a table at the back of the bar and Tommy was over on the other side of the bar completely surrounded by people. Yoshi went over to talk to Tommy along with Fiona. Fiona was going to ask a question but got a little overwhelmed and came back to our table. Yoshi didn't notice right away and said to Tommy "My friend wants to ask you something" and then turned around and notice Fi was gone. Apparently Tommy said "Where'd she go" and when Yoshi pointed to our table Tommy said something like "Let's go ask her."  

So, back to me, sitting, chatting away to Andrea and Fiona when I look up and Tommy is walking right towards me. I think I must have startled or something but Tommy looks up at me and puts his finger to his lips in a shh-ing gesture so I school my face into a mask of nonchalance. (I guess those acting classes did pay off) He sits right down next to Fiona and says "Hey, how come you're too shy to talk to me?" and Fiona turns, registers who it is and screams.  

Quite understandable.  

Tommy, who just might be the nicest man on the planet completely ENVELOPES her in a hug, introduces himself and asks her what her question is. Fiona at this point is having a little trouble making words so Tommy gives her a minute to collect herself and starts meeting the rest of us.  He reaches out across the table to shake my hand and says "Hi, I'm Tommy" and by the grace of all that is holy I manage to NOT say "YOU"RE TOMMY!" right back to him. After intros we start talking music. He tells us that the first time Adam mentioned playing “Whole Lotta” Love acoustic the whole band wasn't sure how it would work. Adam had to convince them to try it, which they did and once they heard it, they were convinced. I wanted to ask him if that happened a lot - if Adam often had crazy ideas and managed to convince them to try but the conversation moved.

The next day, Friday we all got up and had pretty much the same thought “we get to see Adam AGAIN tonight!!!” We grabbed crepes – the breakfast of champions! We headed back to the MAC store for more sparkly things. I headed over the glitter section. The night before Erin and Andrea put teal glitter in their hair – I didn’t even know you could do that. They both have dark hair, so the teal looked incredible. I am blonde and worried that the teal would look like sprinkles so I declined. My mission at the MAC store: find a goldish glitter that would work better in my hair.

The same assistant as the day before came over and was a little incredulous when she saw me finger the glitter. “Yesterday you wanted a subtle shimmery look and today you’re buying glitter?” she asked. I thought about trying to explain the Adam Lambert Effect but decided instead to simply say “it’s been a very interesting weekend”.

She recommended one of their white glitters instead and I have to say A+ choice MAC lady. You can wear it on your eyes, as body glitter, in your hair – or if you’re going to an Adam show all three. I have never worn glitter AT ALL before but I have to say, it’s a lot of fun. When we got into the show the girl behind me tapped me on the shoulder and asked “How did you make your hair sparkle like that, it’s gorgeous!” and I beamed. If you’re interested, the one I got is Glitter Reflects in Reflects Gold

Almost right away you could tell that something was different Friday night and different in a really good way. By the end of the show I actually felt a little bad for anyone who saw Thursday’s show and not Friday’s. Thursday was great but Friday….Friday was something very special. I think it will be a long time before I experience something like that again. The crowed was pumped, dancing along to the music that played while we were waiting.

After the first song they turned on a set of lights that lit up the audience and Adam could see us dancing and cheering and happy. It was as if they lit us and then we lit Adam. He looked out at us dancing, smiling, everyone on their feet and he just BEAMED. I swear his smile was visible from space. He glowed and then he sang. He put on an incredible show.

Adam said “you're all so sparkly!" and that's exactly how I felt. There is something about Adam that is incredibly freeing. It’s as if he walks around with a giant pair of glittery scissors cutting all the ties that hold us down, thst hold us back. Insecure about your looks? Snip, you’re beautiful. Afraid of looking silly and being rejected for it? Snip snip, just dance. He moves so quickly you barely notice he’s doing it but suddenly, inexplicable you’re free, you can fly if you want to. He won’t push, but he’ll lead you up to the edge of the cliff and show you the view.

I can't dance, but when Adam sings my body finds a rhythm. You cannot stand still, his voice calls out to you. I just went with it. It all felt right and there in the crowd, under his spell I never felt awkward or self-conscious. I danced for the sheer joy of it, for the music and the way that it made me feel. It was beautiful and it made us beautiful too.

After Strut they played Down the Rabbit Hole – another song that just keeps getting better. During the “Who are you’s” at the end of the song Adam skipped over to each band member in turn and sang to them. Then he sang "Who are you? Ask yourself that, who are you?" and I heard a voice in my head say "I am a girl who puts glitter in her hair". I like the sound of that.

At the beginning of the show the Host said “I have a feeling that years from now thousands of people will claim that they were at the River Rock for this show tonight. You’re the lucky ones who really were. Enjoy it.” Not hard to do.

Mad World was, hands down my favorite Mad World ever. It was beautiful. About three minutes in he just started riffing this gorgeous, bluesy set of runs. Really lovely.

Fever starts, and the crowd goes wild even though somewhere in the back of our heads we know that the show is winding down. The song ended and Adam beamed again. He started stomping his feet and declared “Disco is back!” He said “Disco! Disco!” and turned to face LP and in the next moment LP is giving him a beat. Monte joins in on guitar then Tommy and Cam and it’s so smooth it takes almost a full minute for me to realize that this isn’t the start of the next song, it’s just a few very talented musicians messing around on stage. Seriously, seriously talented musicians. They play, Adam dances then he throws his hand in the air and as quickly as it started it’s over. They end in perfect unison. This band is tight.

The morning after the show as I was walking around the city on my way to Starbucks the sun was shinning the sky was blue and I couldn't stop smiling. A couple of years ago when I still lived close to the ocean I got up really early one day to watch the sun rise over the water. A couple of lines that I wrote in my journal that morning came back to me to today "And now the world is fully awake. And now, so am I.”

the day we roared

2010-03-08T19:21:00.001-08:00

They say a picture is worth a thousand words, and this one speaks volumes. I've never really understood sports or sports fans or the national obsession with hockey. (I hope they won't revoke my citizenship for saying that.) But I was in the crowd down in Robson Square when we won and I get it now. I remember the energy and the noise as the final moments of the game played out. When the Americans scored with 22 seconds left to play I felt that puck land in my gut. Then I held my breath with the rest of the crowd. Sudden Death Overtime was every monster from ever movie ever made and it was coming for us. All we had were sticks and skates. It had to be enough.

I know nothing about hockey so I didn't know how long this was going to take. I didn't know if I should dare to hope or not. The flag in my hand stayed still, silent and respectful. We waited. There was movement up and down the ice but it had no meaning, it was all noise. And then it was a roar. I think I heard the crowd respond before I realized the game was ours, like an echo that travels faster than the source. In a moment I was caught up in it. WE WON! WE WON! We shouted and danced like characters in a children's story. We yelled. We gave high fives to strangers. Car horns honked everywhere but no one was upset. In Chinatown the store owners ran out to the street old men and young children banging pots with wooden spoons.

It looked just like this photo - a sea of red and white - did it stretch from sea to sea? Everything was laughter and joy, noise and movement. We were together. We were victorious. And in that moment I was, for the very first time, a hockey fan.

flights of fancy

2010-01-24T13:22:00.001-08:00

No one told my crocuses that it's only January. Against reason, against the times they live in they have decided to begin. I join them in their green-shooted delusion. I know it's not really spring yet, but you have to admit they make a compelling argument. Who am I to judge their flights of fancy? The world is mostly grey this time of year but they have selected a different shade entirely.

I am inspired by their rebellious green, their frank indifference to society and convention and the way things are supposed to be done. They are not saving their best dresses to wear on Sunday. In a few more days their finery will great me as I head off to work in the ever-lightening morning. I am as thrilled as they are that the dark days of deep winter are behind us. If spring wants to come a little early, it gets my vote.

Lead on, impetuous ones.
Teach us a new season.
Reset the clocks of the ordinary
and strike up a new song.

We have slept too long.
The morning comes.
Herald the dawn in purple and yellow.
Refuse to be silenced
and I will try to learn your song
of freedom and chance
of timing and
destiny
of things that never were
and were always meant to be.
No flower is ever
truly out of season.

(The indoor tulips on the other hand...well as you can see they're just showing off :)

impulsive

2009-12-30T15:06:00.001-08:00

I am many things, impulsive is not one of them. I think, I consider, I wait, I delay. I am very good at thinking myself out of doing things or finding reasons why trying something new is a bad idea. I like familiar things, things I am good at, things I understand. So today, during family Christmas when my niece Amanda came up to me and said "I'm getting my ear pierced, wanna come?" it was complete surprise to hear myself say "yes" after very little consideration.

Off we went to Claire's in the mall (how appropriate) and got matching third holes together. The last time I got my ears pierced I was 11. I now have a little diamond in my right ear. It's CZ for now, but I just might replace it with a real one eventually.

As I step into 2010 I hope it will remind me that little extra sparkle never hurt anyone. I hope it will be a sign that trying new things can be a good thing, and that doing new things is not nearly so scary if you have someone to hold your hand. I hope I will see it in the mirror and remember that there is a whole world of pretty little ideas waiting to be tried out. I hope it sets the tone for 2010 and the years that follow.

Thanks Amanda, I'll hold your hand anytime. This was a very good idea. Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-25T14:08:00.001-08:00

This year for the first time since before I came west for university I was able to have Christmas with my parents without getting on an airplane. I could definitely get used to this. We had a lovely Christmas morning together, opening gifts and eating like kings. And, of course, we made time for a little silliness too and lots of smiles. I woke up this morning to the sound of my parents laughing, which is a pretty great way to start Christmas :)

On Monday I went over to Gord & Shannon's with Kendra to decorate Christmas cookies. Here are the ones I did:
My favorite one this year is this little guy - a snowman in a Santa suit! He's going to be delicious.

I like fiddily crafts and doing things the slow way sometimes. These were a LOT of fun to make. We've done several rounds of cookies this year and I'm sure 2010 will have more cookies too. Hmm, Olympic ring cookies maybe? Or Quaatchi for a real challenge?

As soon as Dave & Janie get home we're hopping on to Skype to video chat and I'm sure we'll do the same with Mark & Rach before the day is out. The sun is shinning so brightly that I'm fairly sure there's a river walk on the menu for this afternoon too.

Merry Christmas friends. May all your days be merry and bright!

all things shine at Christmas

2009-12-06T11:54:00.001-08:00

If you've been reading my blog since last year, you know we have an unusual Christmas tradition at our house - fancy nails. I took my acrylics off over the summer and was lamenting the loss of sparkly nails. I should not have worried. Thanks to the internet and my ever increasing skills in the art of google-fu I not only found an alternative, I found a salon that does it in my neighborhood. Check it out:

If you're wondering how a polish can be so shiny, it can't. It's a process called Minx - basically it's a thick sticker that is heat applied to the nail and peels off after a week or two. It does no damage to the nail below. Now *that's* sparkly Christmas nails. If you're local, I got mine done at Socialite Nails a beautiful little spa in Crescent Beach. (Ok so technically my OLD neighborhood. Details, details.) Any excuse to head for the water is fine by me. How are your Christmas plans coming? Do you sparkle yet?

return like the tide

2009-11-13T12:50:00.000-08:00

I am re-reading one of my all time favorite books, Pat Conroy's The Prince of Tides. It is an incredibly sad story, but it is so beautifully written that I willingly hand over my heart to be broken. It starts with "My wound is geography." Such a perfect opening line.

It is the story of Savannah, now grown up, a tortured poet. The book begins with her latest suicide attempt and her brother Tom is summonded to New York to help. The psychartist tells Tom "I can't help your sister until I know her story but she cannot tell it". And Tom replies simply, ominously, "we don't talk about what happened". Tom soon realizes that the only way to save the sister he so dearly loves is find a way to tell the story that has no words. He has to walk into the den of his own demons to try and save Savannah from hers.

This is one of the books that made me fall in love with the coast of South Carolina, sight unseen. I will make my pilgrimage one day and send flowers into the sea for Savannah and all her secrets. It has been several years since I last read this book, but I can still recite the closing lines by heart. "Each day as I take the bridge that leads me home to my family I say two words. I say them as prayer, as regret and as praise. I say Lowenstein, Lowenstein." The Prince of Tides is, ultimately, a love story. It is a story of letting go and of holding on so tight that no storm can rip you apart. It speaks of the love of siblings and the love that transcends blood. It is heart-breakingly beautiful and always calls me back like the tide. Once again, I willingly throw myself against the rocks.

beauty in descent

2009-10-21T18:52:00.000-07:00

Fall is a stepping-down time of year. I always picture it as a spiral staircase, twisting, matching the flight of leaves twirling down and down. I never think of just moving from summer through fall in to winter, it's always a descent for me. Out of daylight into the darkness of winter evenings, from the warmth of the sun to the places where warmth comes in layers. Each year I willingly walk the path, and even while I am letting go of summer, stepping down into this chilly dark, I am in awe of the beauty of the descent.

The other day I looked out my office window and the sky was a pale shade of gray. But there, just in front of it were the most beautiful crimson leaves. Red leaves on a pale gray sky -- it could have been a painting. It probably should have been. My grandfather could have done it justice, but I did not inherit his skill.

Transitions are tricky things. Rosamunde Pilcher wrote that the trouble with transitions is that you can feel the edges of two worlds bumping up against each other. I think she's right. In either world, the world feels infinite, but in the transition you feel where things end and where they begin and that cane be scary. A friend of mine compares is to stepping into a boat. Even when you know the vessel is sea-worthy, stepping into causes movement and that little sway ripples doubt through an otherwise steady spirit.

To celebrate Fall and the beauty of this season I baked cookies with Shannon & Kendra and the girls. The hard shell cookie class we took last year is still coming in handy. One little technique, easily mastered and suddenly so many options exist. There's a lesson in that. But for now, here are the cookies:
It was particularly satisfying to have an idea work out just exactly the way I hoped it would. I thought the leaves might work out and they did. The candy corn were Kendra's idea -- a brilliant one -- and we didn't let a lack of cookie cutter get in the way. Why did it never occur to me that you can just cut shapes out by hand? New and interesting cookies may be on the horizon.

It is time to go back to the water, I can feel it. It's been a couple of weeks which is far too long. I need to finish the mediocre book I'm languishing in (or give up on it entirely), find something truly delicious to take its place and head for open water to commune. All I need is a hot coffee and warm blanket. I won't miss the sun.

cali-cali-fornia! (part 1)

2009-10-01T20:50:00.000-07:00

More than a year ago Amanda decided that when it was time for her grad trip she wanted to go back to Disneyland. And, being the wise young woman she is -- she's graduated now you know, she gets to make her own choices -- she invited us Aunties along. Never say no to southern California and Disneyland, especially when the company is as fine as this. Gord, Shannon, Amanda, Nicole, Tracy, Chrisaleen, Kendra and I headed south for some fun in the sun and boy did we ever.

To me, So Cal will always be blue skies and palm trees. I don't know why I love the palm trees so much, but every time I come to California, they make me smile. The weather was just over a hundred degrees the whole time we were there and the skies were so clear and blue it was like God filled them in with a Crayola crayon. I am convinced that the sunshine is sunnier in California. You cannot convince me otherwise.

The first day we headed straight to the Magic Kingdom. Just inside the gates there is a Mickey made of flowers and if you read the fine print on your ticket you'll see that you and your party are contractually obligated to pose in front of it. (It must be on the tickets, EVERYONE does it.) So here we are (well all of us except for Gord who was playing photographer as usual.)
This was taken several days later, but as you can see, the sky is still that beautiful, cerulean blue. And yes, see we really were in Disneyland. This time around the Sleeping Beauty rooms in the castle itself were open. Kendra was thrilled to learn that she was not crazy as last time we were here she was sure she had seen them before but the castle was locked up tight. Yeah for sanity :)

Disneyland, as you know, is the happiest place on earth. I wonder if they put magical herbs in the air because people really do seem to be in a good mood. (Except for the occasional screaming child star-fished on the pavement, but we won't speak of that.) Even grown-up feel the need to put on silly mouse ears and pose for pictures. Kendra ended up buying the sparkly ones I'm wearing and I might, possibly have borrowed them while she was off riding California Screaming ie the scariest looking coaster of ALL TIME.

In addition to ears there is a general cuteness pretty much everywhere you look. As evidence, I give you People's Exhibit A. COME ON, it's a candy apple shaped like Micky Mouse?! You can't make this stuff up. It was delicious - layers of caramel and chocolate and crazy red sugar-sprinkles that got absolutely everywhere. Fortunately, I wasn't planning to impress anyone on this trip anyway. The mess was so completely worth it.

We laughed, pretty much non-stop the entire time. In my books that's the hallmark of an excellent trip. I have more pics and more details but they will have to wait until another day. I will say this -- while everyone else was waving trying to get people's attention we threw up ostriches and lamas. And yes, I have pictures :)

this is not a recommendation

2009-09-07T21:16:00.000-07:00

I just finished reading Stieg Larsson's acclaimed The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. I wish I could recommend it. Larsson's book, the first of a trilogy, is currently enjoying a ride on the New York Times' bestsellers list. I love me a NYT book, but this one really should have come with a warning.

The book starts well. It's a Swedish novel, and I haven't read a lot of Swedish fiction. I was stoked to try something new. (I'm quite sure I butchered the street names in my head.) Also it's a brick of a book -- a good few inches that promised to sit and stay for a while. The story centers around a few main characters -- a financial journalist, a gifted hacker and the missing daughter of the esteemed Vanger empire. It could have been a fantastic story, it should have been a great story. But about a third of the way through the book the story takes a deeply disturbing turn.

For me, I was already invested enough into the book that I read through to the end. Perhaps I can save you from the same fate. There is nothing on the back cover that suggests what is lurking inside this book. It is dark and violent and I disagree with the author that it was necessary. I think he could have told the story without it and I so wish that he had. There are two more books in the series which I will, sadly, have to leave on the shelf at Chapters. If you're looking a great book to take you into the cooler days of Fall, I recommend that you keep looking. Sadly, the good in this book is far outweighed by the ewww.

I’m with the band

2009-08-31T20:45:00.000-07:00

Something magical has happened and I got to witness it firsthand. Last week, 234 perfect strangers raised $14 778 to buy 42 band instruments for students they had never met. They did it gladly. They did it in just six days. And I got to be one of them. This is the story of how it happened.

Anyone who has been on my blog recently knows I am an Adam Lambert fan. I'll own that proudly. I think his voice and his talent are otherworldly and I will be among the hoards clamoring for his album when it drops in November. A few weeks ago Adam asked his fans to stop buying him presents. He asked instead that any gifts be sent to DonorsChoose.org particularly for projects dealing with the arts. In the first week $12 000 was raised. Shortly after, realizing that fans were actually paying attention, he started a contest challenging the various fan groups to compete to see who could raise the most money in 30 days. It has been about a week and half so far and $73 876 has come in on top of the original $12K.

As part of the contest, for probably the first time ever, all the fan groups decided to focus on one, huge request. (This never happens. As a rule, fan groups, while united in their love of a given artist, hate each other. Don't ask me why.) A teacher in Washington state wanted to offer band to her students, but they had no instruments at all. Back in March she put in a request for $14 778 to buy flutes, clarinets, trumpets, trombones and the xylophones you use in marching bands. Up until a couple of weeks ago, less than $1 000 had been raised in 5 months. The project had a deadline of September 1st. We beat it by three days. All of us together did something that none of us could have dreamed of alone. We created a music program.

There comes a moment, a tipping point where the impossible becomes possible. There's a moment where the truth of what is going to happen is irresistible and it moves, like an oyster slips from the shell -- unstoppable, fluid and smooth, like destiny. A few weeks ago this wasn’t going to happen. It was too big, too much. When I came to donate I remember looking at the band request and hesitating. There was more than $10 000 left to raise and less than two weeks to do it in. “What’s the point?” I wondered. "It’s not going to complete and there are other projects that will." But I took a step of faith. I choose to believe that maybe, all of us together could do something magical. And now here were are. There is band where before there was only an empty closet.

One donor wrote, "In life, it's that one extra degree of effort that separates the good from the great. At 99 degrees, water is hot. At 100 degrees, it boils. And with boiling water comes steam. And steam can power a locomotive. The one extra degree makes all the difference." There is a lot of truth in those words. I wish I could be there to see the looks on the student's faces when their teacher tells them that they can take band this year. I hope she posts pictures.

I remember my own experience with band. I remember we had a whole wall of instruments, with cubies stacked so high you needed a ladder to get to some of them. I remember taking a flute home that first day, and clumsy fingers on slippery silver keys. I remember pressing down, breathing deep, concentrating and...... E flat. A beginning. The first step on a long musical journey. High school was not a welcoming place for me, but in band, I had a place. I practiced and I was pretty good. My fingers did what I asked them to, my breath was sure. In band I could add my note to the chorus and not be rejected for it.

Music is only the very first benefit of music education. There's discipline and celebration, a sense of belonging and a chance to be on a team, to be part of something even if you can't run very fast. Music teaches patience and an appreciation of beauty and the ability to wait for a reward delayed. Music calls forth dreams. I am so proud to know that these kids will get to experience some of what I experienced and that I could make what was a common experience for me, a common experience for them.

I am very happy to be able to say, I'm with the band.

There are a lot of other kids who can use your help. If you haven't heard of DonorsChoose.org before now, go and check them out. They are a charity out of the US they have a brilliantly simple strategy. Teachers post specific requests for what they need -- anything from band instruments to pencils (yes, right now there are teachers requesting pencils) and donors donate to a specific project. DonorsChoose collects the funds, orders and delivers the supplies and the teachers post their thank you notes online where all the donors can see them, often with photos of thank you signs from the kids. So far, Adam Lambert fans have fully funded 70 projects. We've bought books, theater lights, costumes, a Jazz curriculum, instruments and yes pencils. There's plenty more to do if you want . to get in on this. Trust me, it feels pretty fantastic.

my soul as a chosen landscape

2009-08-23T14:32:00.000-07:00

I've always known that I'm named for a piece of music. Charles Debussy's Clair de Lune is my mother's favorite and that's where my name comes from. I've listened to that piece my whole life. (You can listen to it here.) I own four or five different recordings of it. I think it's haunting and beautiful and have always been pleased she like that song, and not, say something from the Backstreet Boys. But this weekend I found out there's a lot more to it.

For some reason, I never realized that Clair de Lune, which means "moonlight", is the third movement of a larger work. In 33 years, I had never heard of Debussy's Suite Bergamasque. There are three more courses of this piece of music I have always loved so much. It's a little like discovering that your favorite book has a prequel you didn't know about. What a treat.

And amazingly, there is even more, dessert if you will. Debussy based the third movement of his Suite, the famous Clair de Lune, on a poem by French poet Paul Verlaine. He even borrowed Paul's title. The poem, not surprisingly, is in French (you can hear it read aloud, as poetry should be here) and has been translated as this:

Claire de Lune
by Paul Verlaine (1844 – 1896)

Your soul is a chosen landscape
Where charming masked and costumed figures go
Playing the lute and dancing and almost
Sad beneath their fantastic disguises.

All sing in a minor key
Of all-conquering love and careless fortune
They do not seem to believe in their happiness
And their song mingles with the moonlight.

The still moonlight, sad and beautiful,
Which gives the birds to dream in the trees
And makes the fountain sprays sob in ecstasy,
The tall, slender fountain sprays among the marble statues.

I find it rather beautiful. I love that the characters in the poem do let even their sadness stop their dancing.

For the first time in a long time, I found a poem running through my own head and scurried to write it down before it ran away. Art brings forth life, which in turn, if we're lucky, gives us more art -- whole new world of undiscovered countries and chosen landscapes.

The sad song is a realist
Who dances, even while doubting the happiness
Who dances in the sad light
And wears a mask so fantastic that all sorrows are forgotten.

The sad song dances because it has known happiness
So indescribable that even the memory of it alone
Is enough to stir the body
And feet refuse to stand still
But give in to the loveliness of what is now.

The dance is a choice
A gift
A painting
Too beautiful to be cast aside by a little sorrow.
The dancer moves, light and sorrow
Beauty and memory and
Finds happiness again
In the ethereal sad light.
~cc

a joy forever

2009-08-08T19:06:00.000-07:00

As Keats told us, "a thing of beauty is a joy forever". At this rate, it looks like I'm going to be happy for a long, long time.

Beauty is. . .
a stunning orchid for my room. I have decided that all bedrooms should contain fresh orchids. They are impossibly beautiful, laws of gravity-defying flowers. Who wouldn't want to wake up to that?

Beauty is. . . phone calls that include the phrase "we're barbecuing at the lake tonight, you coming?"

. . .and the phrase "I'm making rolkuchen."
. . . and finding a way to hug your wet, fresh out of the lake niece and still stay dry.
Beauty is. . . .road-tripping up to Gardom Lake to see Amanda. And learning a new un-winnable card game. And then winning said game on the third try. (Funny, no one else was as excited about this as I was.)

Beauty is. . .loving someone enough to do their camp laundry and having great people to share the experience with.
Beauty is . . . a cold lake on a hot day and time to go swimming. This lake had an inflatable iceburg for climbing and even a pirate ship (sadly just out of the range of this photo.)

Beauty is. . . making it to the top of the iceburg and finding that even way up here, there's love too.(I don't know why I have so few pics of Amanda from our Gardom Lake Odyssey. We'll have to fix that when Amanda gets home in a few weeks.) All in all, it's been a pretty stellar summer so far. Dave & Janie & Corrina land in Abby tomorrow so amazingly enough, the summer is about to get even better. A thing of beauty, these joys mine, forever.

american idols live! tour 2009

2009-07-09T20:49:00.000-07:00

Guess who got tickets to the American Idols Live! 2009 tour? After much last minute scrambling I got the good word from Kimu, "we're going to Idols!" GM Place was pretty packed when we got there. The upper bowl was sparsely populated but the rest of the room looked pretty close to capacity. We were in section 106, row one which put us practically on the floor with a handy shelf in the back of the hockey boards to hold our burgers and Cokes. We had a clear view of the stage sitting or standing, and perhaps best of all, we paid waaay less than the $92 price tag.
The Vancouver stop on this year’s American Idols Live! tour was my first time at an Idol concert. I’ve heard that the production values were much improved this year, and from what I saw I’d agree. I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Truthfully, I was just there to see Adam but I have to say that all of the idols did a great job and put on a very entertaining show.

Just before the opening the faces of the top 10 quickly flashed up on screen and when Adam’s pic was met with a deafening roar I had a pretty good idea what we were in for. (Adam, by far my fave, gets his own blog post here.)

The show opened, 15 minutes late, with Michael Sarver. At first I felt kind bad for him being in the opening slot (dangerously close to “opening act”) but he really surprised me. He exploded on to the stage with a smile the size of Texas, clearly thrilled to be there. He got the show of to a great start, got people on their feet and set the tone for the evening. Well done Michael.

Next up was Megan wearing what has to be the tightest dress I have ever seen. She looked some kind of superhero Barbie, but you have to hand it to the girl – she pulled it off and she looked stunning. I thought she picked perfect songs and she sounded much better in person than she did on the show. (And the “caw caw” as the lights when down was hilarious.)

Next up was Scott. He has scruff now and I caught myself spending more time wondering how he maintains it than actually listening. He sounded pretty much the same as on the show but was clearly having a great time. Surely there is an AM AC radio station in his future. (I thought the high collar shirt he came out in later was a great choice.)

Following Scott was Lil. Lil should find whoever picked her set and send them the best roses on the planet. I always felt that Lil just wilted during the competition but in person last night I saw what I had hoped to see on the show. Her confidence came back and it showed. Her shinning moment was a rousing sing-a-long version of “Single Ladies”. Whoever chose that song, in this format, is a genius. With the words on the screen behind her karaoke-style she was the first to really get the crowd on their feet. Everyone was singing and dancing.

Anoop followed and I found my mind wandering a little during his set. For his second song he put on this HUGE pair of glasses and I can only hope that there is some subtle nerd/ southern BBQ inside joke that I’m missing and the real Anoop fans understood what was going on. As others have said “My Perogative” should probably be locked back in the vault, but he did it justice and he was having so much fun you just got swept up in it.

In the First Act pimp spot was the lovely Matt Giraud. He really surprised me. I had heard that he was doing “Georgia” and was looking forward to it. I had no idea just how good it was going to be. Matt took his time with it and it felt like a perfect date with someone you’re really comfortable with – smooth and soft and sexy. For the very first (and probably last) time in my life, I found myself wishing I’d been hangin around hotel lobbies in Kalamazoo a year ago. I could have listened to him play for a long, long time. There were two other songs in his set but I kind of missed them. I still had “Georgia” on my mind.

Just before intermission were two group numbers featuring the top 6 which I skipped in favor of beating the intermission line at the ladies’. There was no way I was going to miss Adam and sacrifices had to be made. After listening to the same two videos all through intermission (Carrie Underwood does have more than ONE song, right?) it was back on with the show.

Allison Iraheta kinda came out of nowhere. One minute it was intermission, then the lights went down for a split second and suddenly there she was on stage. She got the loudest cheers of the night up to that point. She sang the heck out of Pink’s “So What” and got the crowd back up on their feet. She looked so comfortable up on stage. Her hair is wavy now, and longer and in addition to the red there’s pink and blue. I don’t know if Adam’s hairstylist was behind this makeover too but it totally worked for her. Allison looked like she had been doing stadium shows her whole life. Her set was over far too quickly but I took heart knowing she’d been coming back for “Slow Ride”.

After Allison came Danny Gokey, at which point my brain kindof shorted out thinking “four songs, just four songs til Adam”. I am not a Gokey fan, at all, so it’s really hard for me to comment on his set. He did get huge cheers from the crowd and a lot of people started dancing again during “P.Y.T.” He took his jacket off part way through “Maria, Maria”. I’m really not sure why. Between “What Hurts the Most” – a song that is impossible to listen to without thinking of his wife – and “My Wish” he launched into some banter that skated pretty close to Saturday-night-church-retreat preaching territory. I had to look around to see if there was a cross or a dove I missed on the way in. But before too long, he was done and it was time for Adam. Church was over.

As the light’s faded on Danny Gokey you could almost hear the room take a collective breath as we all thought the same thing, “Adam’s coming”. The screaming for Adam started even before the screens lit up and it just got louder and louder. It far surpassed anything else we’d hear that night.

And then, there he was, leather tails swinging on his custom-studded jacket. The roars found a new decibel level but he wasn’t done us yet. Adam reached out a hand to the audience, waggled his fingers and mouthed the word “more”. At this point the screaming was so loud it started to sound like rushing wind in my ears. Adam hooked a finger behind his ear, an open request that surely he could have a just little more. We gave him all we had and with the satisfied smile of a man who just got exactly what he wanted, Adam opened his mouth and started to sing.

I have to agree with Anastacia, the man really is a human slinky. The videos do not do it justice. He moves in ways I’m not sure I’m supposed to know about. Whichever way he was sliding, he took the room with him. The entire crowd was in its feet and stayed there for the whole set. No one got a response like Adam.

He brought Allison out for “Slow Ride” – “here’s Allison Iraheta in a wardrobe change!” and clearly, they are still having fun singing that song together. When the pink bra landed on stage, Adam took it in stride. Mid-song he reached down for it, displayed it to the audience on one finger, whipped it around a couple of times and launched it into the crowd. He never broke stride, never missed a beat, just kept right on singing. It was just all part of the show. Shortly after another item of intimate apparel landed on stage, Adam sang the lyric “slow down” and seemed to pointedly aim his “slow down” gesture at a certain section of the front row. I have to hope the underwear thing doesn’t take off. Who would have expected us nice, polite Canadians to throw the first bra? The rest of his set was magnificent. To borrow a word from Mia Michaels, it was “gourgeois”.

After Adam left us all breathless, Kris came on stage and it must be said people cheered really loudly for him too. They dropped a curtain in behind him to shrink the stage a bit and he did a fantastic job on “Heartless”, the much maligned “No Boundaries” and the rest of his set. I almost felt bad for Kris closing out the show. I think Kris is incredibly talented but no matter how good you are, Adam is the definition of a tough act to follow. But you have to give Kris credit. His set was completely different and totally him. It was as if he got up there and said, “Yeah, Adam does his thing really well. But I do this.” The crowd loved him.

Far too soon the Idols were joining Kris on stage for the na-na-nas and rounding out the evening with “Don’t Stop Believing” (and world peace!) waving to the crowd as Scott and Matt dueled on pianos. (Sidenote, oh please. Matt could (and did) play circles around Scott.)

It was an awesome show and I am so glad that I went. Definitely worth the price of admission. (And even worth the price of this admission – that the people I work with now know what a fan I am. Let your freak flag fly.) I can’t wait for the albums to start coming out this Fall.

the Adam Lambert show

2009-07-09T12:28:00.001-07:00

Today I am tired, my head is sore, my ears are still ringing and it was totally and completely worth it. Last night I went to the Vancouver show of American Idols Live! tour. The idols put on a great show. I think each one of them had a moment but the show was clearly Adam’s right from the get-go.

At the very beginning a the faces of the 10 quickly flashed up on screen and when Adam’s pic was met with a deafening roar I turned to Kim and said “prepare yourself”. They guy wasn’t even on stage yet and the crowd was with him.

Throughout the show there were times when the crowd got to their feet. There were the first few rows that never sat down, but when Adam took the stage, the world changed. As the light’s faded on Danny Gokey you could almost hear the room take a collective breath and we all thought the same thing, “he’s coming”. The screaming started even before the screens lit up and it just got louder and louder.

And then, there he was, leather tails swinging on his custom studded jacket. The roars found a new decibel but he wasn’t done us yet. Adam reached out to the audience, waggled his fingers and mouthed the word “more”. At this point the screaming was so loud it started to sound like rushing wind in my ears. Adam hooked a finger behind his ear, an open request that surely he could have a just little more. We gave him all we had and with the satisfied smile of a man who just got exactly what he wanted, Adam opened his mouth and started to sing.

First up was “Wanna Whole Lotta Love” (which I just realized today is not, in fact titled “What a whole lotta love”). I have to agree with Anastacia, the man really is a human slinky. The videos do not do it justice. He moves in ways I’m not sure I’m supposed to know about. Whichever way he was sliding, he took the room with him. The entire crowd was in its feet and stayed there.

“Starlight” followed and I put my camera away. Other people have much better pictures, I just wanted to revel in seeing him in person and not through a screen. It comes as no surprise, but he can really sing, and he can move and he knows his way around both a stage and a crowd. He had us all in the palm of his hand and he so knew it. And it was a thing of beauty to behold.

He brought Allison out for “Slow Ride” – “here’s Allison Iraheta in a wardrobe change!” and clearly, they are still having fun singing that song together. When the pink bra landed on stage, Adam didn’t even break stride. Mid-song he reached down for it, displayed it to the audience on one finger, whipped it around a couple of times and launched it into the crowd, and he never broke stride, never missed a beat, just kept right on singing. It was just all part of the show. Shortly after another item of intimate apparel landed on stage, Adam sang the lyric “slow down” and seemed to pointedly aim his “slow down” gesture at a certain section of the front row. I have to hope the underwear thing doesn’t take off. Who would have expected us nice, polite Canadians to throw the first bra?

The Bowie medley was insane and really, what more can be said about it that has not been said already? I almost felt bad for Kris closing out the show. I think Kris is incredibly talented but no matter how good you are, Adam is the definition of a tough act to follow. For me, I was just thrilled to be in the same room as him for a couple of hours. Totally worth the price of admission. I have a feeling that years from now I’ll remember this, the first time I saw him live.

perfect golden summer

2009-07-03T21:08:00.001-07:00

Tonight was a perfect summer night. The air was cool and the setting sun gilded the edges of everything. Clearly, it was a night to head to the water.

Arriving home from work there was a brief discussion about where to go for supper when, in rather close succession we were both struck with a need to go back to Del Rios, our favorite neighborhood spot in White Rock. It was early, and the drive isn't that long. We figured we could be at a table a little after six. I gassed up the Sentra and we hit the open road.

Del Rios is always, always a good idea. I have never had a bad meal there, never been disappointed. It's a family run restaurant on the corner of 16th & 128th, in Ocean Park. If you decide to go, get the baby back ribs with baked tortellini in marinara. Or the souvlaki. Either way you're in for a treat.

After satisfying ourselves with a truly finger-licking good meal, we headed for the ocean. No excuse is good enough to stay indoors on a night like tonight. We found a parking spot and hit the boardwalk. I stared out at the ocean, took my customary deep breath and smiled. Hello to you old friend. It's good to see you too.

It was stunning down by the water By then it was closer to 8 and the sun was in full decline. Everything sparkled. The water and the rocks, the boats at sea and the boats tugging at their lines, the edges of everything, even the people looked like they had been dipped in gold. We walked, much farther than I meant to. Who could deny a view like that?
The sun called the artists out. Down by the pier there was a guy stacking rocks into sculpture. I have no idea how that works. At the base of the pier two classical guitarists sat serenading strangers. It was an evening to pause, to notice and to drink in. There is something truly beautiful about public art. I have always felt that the ocean is its own symphony, dance and painting. Having art created in view of this natural art was delicious.

Tired, full and happy we made our way back to the car. It feels like summer has truly arrived, a perfect, golden summer.

Gandalf returns

2009-06-12T22:00:00.001-07:00

Gandalf returns. It sounds like a fourth book for The Lord of the Rings, but it's not. Gandalf returns is simply the happy truth I find myself in today. After nearly two years gone and more than a year and a half since we last laid eyes on each other, tonight we were reunited. This picture may seem rather ordinary, but that's Gandalf sitting in my lap. And for me, after all this time, that makes it extraordinary.

Technically, Gandalf arrived yesterday but she was so traumatized by the long flight and two car rides that I didn't stay long. She was very apprehensive and flighty. I gave her some space to settle in. Tonight I went over to visit. (Gandalf is staying with my good friends Doris & Dave until Mom and Dad arrive to move into their new place.) When I arrived, I headed down into the basement and called out to her. Gandalf instantly appeared.

I wondered if she would remember me but as soon as I picked her up she started rubbing our faces together and I soon realized I had not been forgotten.

We stood there for a while, reacquainting ourselves. I tried to get some pics but have you ever tried to work a camera with an enthusiastic cat in the other hand? I quickly gave up on that and focused on the feline love frenzy instead. I think it's safe to say she was pleased to see me.

I sat down with a book and within moments she was back in my lap as if no time had passed at all. Her fur is still warm silk beneath my fingers and before long I could hear the gentle thunder of her purring. I may have purred a little myself. We sat and I read. Gandalf was never out of my sight, never strayed more than a few inches away. Even when she moved to the arm of the chair, she left a paw resting on my leg. Just in case I got any ideas about leaving.
Eventually I did need to go home and under much protest made my escape. Don't worry little one, I'll be back. In the meantime you're being well taken care of and before you know it the moving truck will have come and gone and we can get you settled back in with Mom and Dad. Welcome home my little Fleeg. I missed you too.

best cities to be single

2009-06-11T10:50:00.001-07:00

The US Census has created a list that reveals the best cities in the US for singles of either sex. I'm thinking road trip?I like the comment one other blogger made, "San Francisco: 65,000 more single men that women. It’s possible there’s a little more going on than the census reveals in that stat."

I wonder if there's a Canadian version of this somwhere?

custodial

2009-06-09T20:00:00.000-07:00

After almost two years, I get Gandalf back on Thursday. I went into Petsmart today to kit her out and realized all of the things I have carefully closeted away in her absence. I have not, not once, stepped foot in a pet store and the scent of it as soon as I walked in the door was both wonderfully and horribly familiar. As I walked the aisles, it hit me: I get to go back. I get to be one of them again. Smiling, I rolled words around my mouth that I have not uttered, even in a whisper, since she left. Her name, and her pet names. Silly things that used to make me smile. I lifted them carefully from the places where I had stored them. I peeled back the tissue paper of dusty memories and held them in my hands. I said, "hello".

Gandalf won't be living with me -- I still have a landlord who is violently, deathly, allergic to cats. She will continue to live with my parents, but they are moving to Chilliwack next week. And in their benevolence, they have decided to bring her with them. As I was driving home tonight with a trunk full of cat paraphernalia and my first ever guilt purchase -- a fur-lined cat bed -- sitting on the seat beside me I had a moment of insight. What on earth must it be like to be a non-custodial parent?

I remember the day I realized that Gandalf could not come with me. In a fit of melodrama I lay face down on my bed and cried my eyes out. And she is only a cat. True she's my cat, and I do love her, but she is only a cat. She's not a person. Dear God in heaven, what must it be like to put your child on a plane and send them to the other parent? Do they have places they cannot go because it hurts too much? Do they have a whole vocabulary that gets stored away until the blessed day when they are custodial once again? Sending a cat away is only the barest shadow of what it must feel like to live without a child. I said a prayer tonight for all the parents, thousands of them, who have to live in half a world, with half a heart while the beating half of it lives away from them. I wish that no one ever had to know what that feels like.

Custodial is such a wonderful word. And come Thursday I can say two more delicious words, "welcome home".

congratulations Amanda!

2009-06-07T15:19:00.000-07:00

This weekend Amanda became a high school graduate. I was so honored to get to be in the room at watch it happen. I was one proud Auntie (and not one of the Moms as the man beside me asked...). There were some great speeches (unusual for a grad) and then a lot of walking across the stage and collecting of diplomas. All in all it was a great celebration. Congratulations Amanda and rest of the class of '09.

It is impossible to speak of graduation without including a quote or two, so here you go:

“The first step towards getting somewhere is to decide that you are not going to stay where you are.” J. Pierpont Morgan

and these lines, from one of my all time favorite poems, Autumn Journal:

Sleep to the sound of running water tomorrow will be cross, however deep.
Tonight we sleep on the banks of the Rubicon.
There will be time to audit the accounts later.
There will be sunshine later
And the equation will come out at last. ~ Louis MacNiece

belated birthday blog

2009-05-31T17:57:00.000-07:00

This post is a few days late, but I arrived on the scene almost three weeks late way back when (sorry Mom!) so maybe my lack of timeliness is appropriate. (Maybe it's just habit now?) I had a great birthday. It always catches me a little off guard to learn that I'm a year older. You'd think I would have gotten used to that by now. But I don't mind getting older. I wouldn't trade what I know now to go back to being younger. Ignorance is too high a price to pay for youth.

Because the 27th was a Wednesday I got to work from home on my birthday. It's not quite as good as having the foresight to take the day off, but I make great coffee when I'm at home, and a truly great cup of the good stuff sands off a lot of edges. Right around lunch time I got a very unexpected gift. There is a book I've been looking for, for almost half my life and on May 27th, 2009 I found it. Back in high school, grade 10 or 11, my friend Freya gave me a copy of The Shell Seekers, which is still my all time favorite story. Laced throughout the novel are extended quotes from Louis MacNiece's epic poem, Autumn Journal. I absolutely fell in love with it. There have been times in my life when lines from that poem held me together. (And I know that will make no sense at all for the non-poetry-lovers among you, but trust me. Sometimes when your heart is breaking or the world threatens to tip off its axis the perfect line of poetry becomes the only air you can breathe.)

I have looked for Autumn Journal in every bookstore I have ever stepped foot in. I have hunted it at every garage sale, in every used book store. I have scoured eBay for it, I have run rampant all over the web and I've never been able to find it. Until May 27th. While searching online for another book altogether I came across an online book seller I had not seen before. As always, I did a search for Autumn Journal with no expectations whatsoever. Imagine my surprise when my search turned up one result. There, in a little bookstore in Illinois, was a single copy of Autumn Journal. Needless to say I proceeded directly to PayPal and one day in the next two weeks I will finally hold in my hands the book that has had a hold on me for so many years. When it arrives, I will be taking it to the beach to read. It just seems fitting to take it to the place I go to commune. I'll make the coffee.

After work I headed over to Gord & Shannon's where a feast awaited. There was steak on the grill and twice baked potatoes in the oven, grilled veggies and fresh, cheesy garlic bread. Shannon is an amazing cook and I was very happy birthday girl!

After the feast, there was cake. Cause, really, what's a birthday without cake? Also, I like cake. So that worked out well. Kendra is gifted in the making of cakes and this year's did not disappoint. Vanilla cake, layered with pudding and strawberries and topped with whipped cream and chocolate dipped strawberries? Happy birthday to me.
Fortunately, there were several of us to eat all that yumminess. Coli was happy to get in on the cake action.

Tucked in my birthday present from Amanda was a ribbon that read "Kiss me it's my birthday!"

As you can see, it worked.

I got a chance to talk to my parents (who will be here in person for next year's celebration, I can hardly believe it. Mom -- you and me are going to the Empress for tea!) Later in the day I talked to Dave & Janie. Dave made my day by telling me that all day Corrina had been asking, "When are we going to Auntie Claire's house for her birthday?" (That drip drip driping sound you hear is my heart melting.) Dave told me that Corrina had made me a card and the next day it showed up in the mail. You know it's going to be a spectacular card when it comes with a warning label:

Corrina got some help form her Dad cutting out the pieces but pasted it all together herself. I think it's fantastic and can't wait to Skype her and say so in person. Or close to it.
Inside she drew me a picture which I'm told is a Mommy lion and a baby lion. Her Dad did the interpretation and he would know about these things. He's quite the artist himself. The glitter, as promised, was plentiful. I think I sparkled all night.

And Corrina, this is photo is to show you that the bracelet you made me fit perfectly, thank you! It is ridiculously hard to photograph something on your own wrist, but hopefully this does it justice. I just might have to wear it to work one day this week :)
I think going to Disneyland for my 30th birthday three years back was a truly stellar idea. So far this whole thirties thing has been going well. I wonder what will happen this year?

Oh, and Mom, you asked me to take a birthday picture, so here you go. See you in THREE WEEKS!!!!!!!!

twilight and long stories

2009-05-24T20:02:00.000-07:00

UPDATED: For the perfect musical accompaniment for this post, load up "Where the Road Meets the Sun" [link will open in a new window] on YouTube, also available for purchase on iTunes. And yes, this is the song featured in the Grey's Anatomy season finale. Such perfect lyrics "I don't know whether we'll end up together, but I always know that our love is true." As you were...

Shel Silverstein wrote many poems, one of which, aptly named "Invitation" has long been favorite of mine. He writes:

If you are a dreamer, come in,
If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar,
A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer ...
If you're a pretender, come sit by my fire
For we have some flax-golden tales to spin.
Come in!
Come in!

Doesn't it sound like something magical is just about to happen? Whenever I think of this poem and of stories and campfires in general, I can't help but hope that the tales he is spinning will be long ones.

I love long stories.

I love to read long stories and I have a habit of telling long stories (I'm working on that). There is something truly delicious about stumbling upon a new world that's wrapped up a tale that lets you hang out there for a while. Reading a good book is like dreaming with your eyes open and like a truly great dream, it's wonderful when you don't have to wake up right away. I love an author who lets me linger.

On the recommendation of a fellow book lover, I recently dove into the Twilight saga. Yes, I know it's a vampire love story written for teenagers, I never claimed it was high art. But it is a well written and delicious diversion. And it is a looong story. Like eating a warm brownie when you know should eat broccoli, this isn't stuff you can live on, but it makes for a great weekend. Today I finished book four, and after 2379 pages it's time to say goodbye to Bella and Edward, Carlisle and Esme, Emmet, Rosalie, Jasper and Alice. I feel a little bereft.

There are rumors of a possible book five. Stephanie Meyer was working on a concept piece when it was leaked online and in protest she lay down her pen. The partial manuscript is on her site and I'm still debating if I'll read it or not. It seems unlikely to get picked up again, so if the rough draft is all there is I probably wont be able to resist. I can help wishing that there was more.

I'm not sure what it is about these books that has so captured people's imagination. (They were insanely popular long before Robert Pattinson embodied Edward in the movie version and set a generation of teen girls on fire.) At its core it is Romeo and Juliet -- the classic lovers who cannot be together. But while I get annoyed with Romeo (every time I see that play live I want to scream at him "she's not dead!!" even as I am also secretly hoping that this time it will all work out) Edward and Bella do a pretty decent job of figuring out just what this love will cost them and whether or not that is a price either can afford to allow the other to pay. They are surprising adult in their rationality (I supposed it helps to be over a 100 years old) and at the same time, surprising chaste in their love. Meyer puts some lovely devices in place and does and admirable job of sticking to her own rules even when they inconvenience the plot.

So here I am at the end of another satisfyingly long story. I loved what Meyer did with the story. I suppose if I get really lonely for the raining world of Forks, Washington I can always go back to the beginning and read it again. Committing to a long story is a bit like falling in love, you know going in that there's a decent chance you'll get your heart broken. The trick is in discerning when it's going to be worth it.

G.K. Chesterton wrote, "Fairy tales don't tell kids that dragons exist, they already know that. Fairy tales tell kids that dragons can be killed." Sometimes grown-ups need to be reminded of that too.

magic hanging baskets

2009-05-18T13:53:00.000-07:00

It's May long week-end, which on this coast of the country means that gardening season has officially begun. If you headed out to your favorite greenhouse to pick up a hanging basket too, try this easy trick to instantly make your basket appear bigger, fuller and yes, even more beautiful. This process involves no harsh chemicals or dubious horticultural practices. It cost just 98¢ at my local greenhouse.

All you need to do is adjust the height of your basket. Most of us use the same hook year after year and pay little attention to where the plant ends up. But unless you either a) use a very long hook or b) have a very low deck the result is a basket that's hung too high. Instead of gazing at your beautiful fuchsias, your eyes are stuck staring at the plastic bucket they were planted in.

It's exactly the same principle as hanging art in your house. All too often art is hung too high for the eyes to easily see. Remember the rule galleries use the world over: gallery height puts the center of the painting 57" up from the floor which is the average human eye level. This makes it easy for your eyes to go right to the most important part first, in this case, the flowers.

Take a look at the pictures below. It's exactly the same basket in both shots, taken from the same perspective on my patio. In the photo on the left, the basket hangs from just the hook in the deck and appears small, almost swallowed up by the cedar basket. In the photo on the right I've added a 1 foot s-hook, my 98¢ purchase from the greenhouse. Now you can see much more of the plants. The fuchsias appear larger and fuller and once the blossoms open, they're going to be spectacular.

Obviously, if your baskets are in a high traffic area then safety concerns will limit how low your basket can go, however it's rare to find a basket people actually walk under. Take a look at your own hanging baskets. You might find that a simple s-hook can make a world of difference.

blankets & books

2009-05-10T17:48:00.001-07:00

Earlier this week I was thrilled to see photos of Kai on the quilt that I made for him. It certainly takes a looong time for packages to get to Australia.

I picked out the fabrics for this quilt shortly after I heard that Kai was on the way. I figured the greens, blues & browns would work for a boy or a girl. Seeing Kai on the blanket now, it seems appropriately boy-ish. I absolutely love this pattern because it is SOO easy to sew. It's called Yellow Brick Road and if you've ever wanted a beginner's pattern to try, I definitely recommend this one. I made it once before, in pink:

As long as you can cut straight and sew a straight line, you can't go too far wrong with Yellow Brick Road. The last time I made the pattern I did it square, this time around I made it as a rectangle which made it a little harder to cram into my little sewing machine.

Being an old pro at this now, I decided to make this quilt one of the thinner style and quilt down each individual square. There is a name for this type or style of quilt. I have no idea what it is. The result is a blanket that can stand up to all kinds of wear and tear and with the slightly larger size, I have visions of a four or five year old Kai cuddling under it while watching Saturday morning cartoons.

One extra piece of equipment that I bought this time around which turned out to be indispensable was a 1/4" quilt foot. Most quilt patterns call for 1/4" seem allowances, smaller than the 5/8" that is used for dressmaking and so clearly marked on most machines. This little $15 foot made it so much easier to sew a straight 1/4" that I will never attempt quilting without it again. As Thomas would say, it is "a very useful engine".

And now, on to the book. If any of you follow MckMama's blog then you're familiar with the story of her youngest son, Stellan. Stellan has a heart condition and his parents were told during pregnancy that he would not survive. God had other plans.

As thousands of people around the world started praying that Stellan would live his Mom asked people to take a photograph with his name in it. At the time she wondered if these images of his name would be the only photos they had of his life. The pictures poured in. Recently Stellan was hospitalized for five weeks while doctors got his heart back under control -- he is doing fantastically well at home now. During that time, one of the blog readers made a book out of many of the photos from Stellan's name gallery. [ a warning to those with slow Internet, this link contains a LOT of photos and may cause your browser to crash ]

As I was looking through the few pages of the book that have been posted online, I saw that the photo I sent it made it into the book. That's my cake on the left. The verse below it reads, "How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth! Psalm 119:103" How cool is that? Stellan's birthday happened to fall on the day after my cake decorating class so I added his name in sugar to the final project we were working on. Who knew it would find its way into a book? Sweet deal :) It has been a good week for all things hand made.

it's beginning to look

2009-05-05T20:54:00.000-07:00

I've been thinking that I need a new Christmas stocking. I still have the one I've had since I was six, but it's in a sorry state. The red fur is beyond "well loved" and deeply into Velveteen Rabbit territory. The little gold letters have curled up and dispersed, reducing my already short name to merely a-i-r. It was time.

I did some research (obviously) and, of course, the design I liked best is discontinued. Fortunately, through the magic of the internet, this small detail did not stand in my way. Here's the kit for the stocking I'm making and given that there are well over 100 pieces, it's a good job I'm starting in May.

Here's what I have so far -- just the snowflakes and my name. It took a little work to get my name straight and centered but it turned out well. The name was done in a stitch I've never seen before.If you look at it close up you can see that it's all loops chained together with each link securing the one before. It was a little tricky to get into the rhythm of it. But once I found my grove it came together in an hour or two.

I'm excited to see how it will all turn out. For now it's only beginning to look like much of anything.

muse-ing

2009-04-22T16:32:00.000-07:00

During my last year of university a good friend of mine wrote a song for me. It was, and remains, a very cool experience. Today I found out that the daughter of another friend of mine has achieved this same feat at the tender age of 5.

In some ways, it's not that surprising. Julia is a child who sparks wonder and delight in those around her. You could make a calendar out of the things she says. (My personal favorite is still the time she wished she could "gather up all the gravity so she could fly".) It was Julia's birthday just the other day and David Cavan Fraser, friend of the family penned a song for her. It reminds me of early John Mayer, especially towards the end. Take a listen:

Julia

I love the lyrics:

Say your prayers and I will say mine too
that only my good
will get passed on to you.

If ever there was a perfect prayer for parents.

There's a line in the song that says "try not to grow up if you can". I hope that as Julia gets older and ever wiser that she holds on to the joy she greets the world with now. I hope that at 15 she is still as willing to run and greet an old friend, or cross a room to make a new one. And if she figures out a way to fly, I hope she'll take me with her.

fly the road

2009-04-19T22:18:00.000-07:00

I've never been into concept cars but I saw something today that just might change my mind. I found this link through Nathan Fillion's tweet (is everyone on Twitter now?) and had to smile when I realized the video was from Top Gear. I first saw Top Gear when we were in England for Mark's graduation. If you haven't had the pleasure, head directly to YouTube now. I'll wait.

The episode that was featured on flytheroad.com deals with the Carver by Persu, a three wheeled electric car that looks like the mechanical lovechild of a motorcycle and an x-wing.

You've got to admit, it's one sexy ride. Whether you're into cars or not, this looks like fun.

UPDATED - Mom & Dad bought a house!

2009-04-05T19:41:00.001-07:00

UPDATE: Now there are more pictures of the new place. Mom said I can be her official decorator (twist my rubber arm). I *knew* all those hours watching home decorating shows were going to come in handy!

After years of planning Mom and Dad really are moving out west. This past week-end they bought a beautiful house in their dream neighborhood just minutes from the Vedder River. The house has a great flowering tree out front. Doesn't it look inviting?
The house is 3 bed/ 3 bath was lots of places for hanging out. There are fantastic windows throughout giving the house great light and mountain views. When you come in the front door, this living room is on the left.

You can't quite see it in this picture, but there are two skylights in this room too. The staircase is straight ahead with a powder room and laundry room off to the right. If you follow through to the back of the house you get to the family room.

Looking from the family room over to the left, the breakfast room and kitchen run all along the back of the house.

The kitchen has new counters and there are new hardwood floors and carpet throughout. There's also a formal dining room on the left side of the house between the living room and the kitchen. Upstairs there's a big landing, three bedrooms and a games room. There's also a great view down into the living room. And literally, a 3 minute walk from their new front door, there's the Vedder River:
I think there are a lot of really great memories just waiting to happen in this house. Upstairs there are three bedrooms plus a games room. Dad is going to take over one of the bedrooms for a permanent train installation. The great thing about retiring is that you finally get to play professionally :)

Mom & Dad have been saying that they wanted to get a couple of La-Z-Boys to go in the new house. We took a trip into Langley to the La-Z-Boy gallery and they found a sectional instead.
Theirs is the same style as this one, same color but instead of the long lounging part it has three -- yes THREE -- recliners in it. Dad loves that two of the recliners are on the same side so he & Mom can recline side by side. Clearly Mom & Dad will be hosting movie night. I am thrilled to bits that they are going to be about a half hour drive away. We've waited a long time for this and now it's just a few weeks away.

Welcome to BC Mom & Dad. To quote the great Broadway musicals "I think you're gonna like it here!"

how sweet it is

2009-03-26T17:39:00.001-07:00

A while back we tried to order a cake at work to celebrate the completion of two major projects, thelife.com and The Mentor Center. The original idea was to have the logos from each project on the cake. Easy, right? As Sarah blogged previously, it didn't turn out quite as expected. I decided to take a shot at it and see if I could get the logos to come out in sugar. (I had a day off on Tuesday and wanted to play. This was fun :)

Here's what the logos look like, officially (props to Kim, Creative Director extraordinaire):
And here they are as cupcakes:

The tops are free-handed, made from Color Flow icing -- one of the coolest techniques I learned in the Wilton cake decorating classes I took last year. Color Flow powder is a slightly modified version of meringue powder. Here's the recipe for Color Flow icing from the Wilton site. You only use 2 Tbsp of powder per recipe so a tub will last a good while. Using the icing is really easy. All you do is:

Find a pattern and tape it to a hard, smooth surface. A cutting board works well.
Cover the pattern with a piece of wax paper a little bigger than the design. Tape to secure, but not too much. You want to be able to remove it later.
Make Color Flow icing and pipe all the edges of the design and any place where two colours will meet. Let Dry.
Thin Color Flow icing to the right consistency (see recipe above for instructions) and fill in each color separately. If you're making batches like I did, do all of one colour at a time then do all of the second color etc. Fill the larger areas first as they help support the smaller details.
Let dry at least overnight before handling, longer for larger &/ or thicker pieces.

Patterns that are fairly solid hold up best. If your design has spindly bits, they're going to be much more likely to break in transfer. Make extras. Trust me.

Once the Color Flow pieces have dried, just place on top of freshly iced cupcakes. (And take to work if you want to be really popular!) This technique also works fantastically on cookies.
Enjoy!

Kai's first album cover

2009-03-07T20:00:00.001-08:00

OK, I know they're starting them younger and younger these days but I have to say, I'm impressed that at the tender age of just four months, my nephew Kai has already shot his first album cover.Clearly he decided to go for a soulful, guy with guitar alternative sound, all introspective and just moody enough that the girls will want to take him for coffee to let him let it all out. It's a delicate balance -- enough of a sad air that you just might be a genius, but not so much that people think you might have real problems. You need them to think that the world weighs heavy on you because you just.care.so.much but you don't want chicks thinking you're a downer. Barely four months old and the kid nailed it. Remember us when you're huge Kai.

From the same photo shoot we have the "who? me?" innocent shot:And this one where Kai is just hanging and waiting for the ladies.
How is it that at four months my nephew is already cooler than I am? I think it's the hair. Some people think it's not long enough to fall over yet, but I think Sheldon got it right when he said "Kai's in Australia, he's upside down. No wonder his hair stands up."

Rock on, little dude, rock on.

that's a lot of zeros

2009-03-01T18:39:00.000-08:00

Have you ever tried to spend 3 trillion dollars? They say that's the cost of the war in Iraq and whether your for it or against it, I realized today that I no idea just how much money we're talking about. (To say nothing of the loss of life and the incomparable sacrifice of those who have put themselves in harms' way for my sake.) It turns out that three trillion anything is a lot of zeros.
It's not every day you get a chance to spend that kind of money (unless you're the ruling body of a large and wealthy country). For the rest of us there's a site, 3trillion.org that offers the chance to divvy up the money and see what you would buy. First, a caveat, if you go to the site be warned that the anti-war message there is strong and I cannot vouch for their research. That said, it turns out that it takes an amazing amount of time and effort to get through that amount of money.

I had to look up a trillion to see just how many zeros we're talking about. A trillion looks like this 1 000 000 000 000. At first it might not seem that big, but once you get into that last set of zeros, you're talking billions and those are harder to spend.

After half an hour on the site I'd cured world hunger, taught the world to read, and provided clean water to all. I'd given everyone in Africa a malaria net, given full health care to all uninsured Americans (it's a US site, so there was no option to help people here at home), reinstated arts & music education in all American schools and canceled third world debt. I paid off a bunch of people's mortgages, bought a tropical island and a private jet, cured a major disease, cleaned-up all pollution worldwide, bought clothes and school supplies for 10 million kids and decided to treat myself to an iPhone. I thought I was doing pretty well.

I still had close to 2 trillion dollars left.

Even after buying a home for myself and maybe a hybrid, that's a lot of leftovers. As I think about all that money and the enormity of what it can do and what it has been spent on, I'm reminded again that I really, really, don't ever want to be the leader of a large and wealthy country. Can you imagine the responsibility of actually being the person who signs that cheque? I have my hands full just keep track of my own finances, and believe me, that involves far fewer zeros :)

If someone gave me just a little bit of that $3 trillion and let me take a stab at fixing something I wonder what I'd actually go for? It would definitely be either health or education related. Or possibly something that made it easier for qualified families to adopt kids -- the expenses that process can rack up are astounding. I think I'd probably go for something basic like clean water or basic health care. I'd want to work with people like Save the Children who can save a life for so very little. It still seems unbelievably wrong that I can walk to store and buy a pill that cures an illness people elsewhere die from.

How would you spend $3 trillion?

the good life

2009-02-08T11:44:00.000-08:00

Have you ever considered that you might be living someone's dream?

This past week as I was reading through a bunch of blogs I caught myself thinking, "she's living my dream". And, confession, I allowed myself a few moments of if-only-thinking. I wondered what it would be like to wake up to that -- to be the person on a year long trip around the world, or the mother of darling children or the author who's first novel is just about to hit the shelves. It sounds like a pretty good life. But then the other side of that thought hit me, and it's the reverse side that I'm still thinking about days later.

It's entirely likely that someone, somewhere would look at my life and whisper the same words I did. I have a good life, a great life. I have people who love me and a job I'm good at. I get to live in my favorite part of Canada and even though it's crazy expensive out here I have a place that is within my means and which I love coming home to. I have something to look forward to and memories that make me smile. I have space and freedom and time. I have as Anne Shirley would put it "scope for the imagination".

And here's the thing, whatever your situation is at the moment, the same thinking applies. It is entirely likely that someone, somewhere thinks you are living the dream. Even if right now your dream is screaming her head off and testing the technical limits of the diaper industry, or your world trip has stranded you in a scary train station late at night or your dream job has you at the office late, again. It's a good life. If you're reading this odds are really good that you had supper last night, and breakfast this morning. You, like me, got to sleep in a comfy bed in a dark and quiet room. There are clothes in our closets and dreams in our hearts.

I don't think think there's anything wrong with wishing things were different, or looking forward to what might be coming as long as it's kept within reasonable limits. There's a song by Trace Adkins that sums it up perfectly:

Baby, just slow down
You're gonna miss this

You're gonna want this back

You're gonna wish these days hadn't gone by so fast

These are some good times

So take a good look around

You may not know it now

But you're gonna miss this

Here's to the good life.

winter beach - first of the year

2009-01-24T15:42:00.000-08:00

I love the beach in winter time. It's so quiet you can hear yourself think. I swear I can feel my blood pressure drop and my heart beat slow down each time I come to this water. The first glimpse of it as you come through town still takes my breath away -- every time -- after all these years. It is so familiar to me now, but familiarity has not diminished its beauty. Knowing it so well only lets me love it better.

It was too snowy to come on New Year's Day this year, so today, January 24th, was my first beach visit of the year. A little late perhaps, but I did get there. I grabbed a coffee and an indulgent cinnamon bun and headed for the shore to commune.The tide was all the way in so this little river formed right across the beach all the way down to the water. It's not hard to get over, but with a full coffee in one hand and precious, cinnamon-y cargo in the other I decided settle on this side of it. Some local driftwood obliged and offered me a seat. With the tide so far in a little waterfall formed not five feet from where I sat. As I munched and sipped I had the sound of the waves coming home in one ear and the tinkling bells of the fall in the other. Could any garden seat be sweeter?
It was a perfect day for picking up interesting rocks.
And breathing deeply. And letting the wind dance in your hair.
It was a rather cold wind chasing away visitors. I didn't stay too long past the end of my coffee and walked back to my car shivering and smiling. Beach season has officially begun.

watching history

2009-01-20T12:32:00.000-08:00

Did you watch today? Here on the west coast the inauguration happened early in the workday. We were given permission to stop work and watch so with 6 co-workers gathered around my computer we watched history unfold in Washington. What incredible thing to see. There must be so many who felt this day would never come. And now here we are, a day, perhaps a new country. Who knows what dreams may come?

stargate: atlantis wrap party

2009-01-18T21:17:00.001-08:00

Much to the disappointment of fans everywhere, Stargate: Atlantis was canceled earlier this year making the fifth season the final installment. The fifth season hasn't even aired on cable in Canada yet but thanks to the wonders of a friend with Movie Central that hasn't got in our way. The final episode aired recently and we decided to have a little wrap party and watch it together. Monica came over with the tape and we had blue jello and lemon chicken to celebrate (Rodney would have been proud).

We also had chocolate covered strawberries -- no irony or hidden Atlantis reference there, they just taste good.I thought they did a good job with the final episodes, they brought their game up a little. I think the story lines have suffered this season. I was pleased to see them pick up a few threads from episodes past and was particularly touched with Carter's lines about renaming the Phoenix the General Hammond. There were "ahhs" all across the living room for that one. A fitting tribute I thought. [ For those who don't watch the show, shame on you, Don S. Davis who played General Hammond for many years on Stargate SG-1 passed away suddenly last year. Now you're in the know, go watch the show. ]

When we got to the part when Ronon is shot [I mean stabbed, thanks Coli :) ] I was almost out of my chair. Theses guys face certain death all the time on the show, but you know they're always going to get back up again. Here in the final episode I thought maybe they weren't kidding. By the end of the show, they had told a good story, so I was happy. You could tell that the writers have been taking full advantage of the end of show, all bets are off atmosphere. A few episodes back they cut off Sheppard's hand and I totally bought it. I figured they could green screen his hand for the final three shows. Any other point in the series I would have known that something was up, but this close to the end, it's all on the table.

There's going to be an Atlantis movie, or so they tell us, as they try to both keep us on board and pitch the new spin-off who's name I will not mention here. Yes, I'm sulking, I know, but I liked Atlantis and I wish they could have kept it around a little longer. They film right here in Vancouver and I never got a chance to causally swing by. (Although as any Vancouverite will tell you, you can follow the neon road signs as long as you like, you're never going to get past the corner where they park the first security guy. It's still fun to dream.)

I'm sure we'll gather to watch the movie when it comes out and cheer on John and Ronan, Rodney and Teyla and the others. And until then, there's always the bonus features on the DVDs.

ps. Mom, here's what the new haircut looks like (at least the curly version, it's fun straight too.)

happy birthday Corrina!

2009-01-18T00:01:00.000-08:00

I can hardly believe that Corrina is turning 3 already, but it's true. Wasn't it just yesterday I was posting about her arrival? Dave put up a message on Facebook asking for little videos for Corrina so here's mine. It's the first take I did. The one I posted to Facebook is the second take where I tried to talk slower (cameras kinda freak me out). So this version has the speedy talking but the singing turned out better.

Happy birthday little niece! I love you more than you know.

the physics of snow

2009-01-05T12:34:00.000-08:00

As you may have heard, we've had a little snow around here. And the natives, myself in particular, are none too pleased about it. For those who think we whine about snow of no significance, I offer the following physics problem. How do you get a car that does not bend in and out of this?
As you can see, my designated parking spot is on the gravel beside the driveway, normally a lovely place to park. Until the neighbour piles the snow from his driveway up one side of your car and the landlord piles the snow from the their driveway up the other turning your parking spot into a parking alley with verrry tight proportions:The alley stretches right out the road so now to get in, or out, you have to make a 90 degree turn from the road into the parking alley. For reference, the bank on the left is about 2.5 feet high, passable in truck or decent 4x4 (too bad I drive a Sentra). But the bank on the other side is getting to be a little over 4 feet -- that's a full size snow shovel standing up right on in it's blade beside the pile.I've gotten in and out twice using both the driveway across the street, the landlord's and a shaky three-ish point turn technique. The first time it was a success, this morning after another 4-5 inches of really wet, really slushy snow I beached the car right across the road trying to get back in. Thank goodness for kind neighbours who needed to use the road and pushed me out. (I'd say "you're awesome dude in the van!" but he was driving a truck -- that one was for you Wall family :) As for passengers, I can only take really really skinny people, unless you want to wait in the street til I get out.After my valiant if unsuccessful attempt to drive to work today I must say I've felt a little vindicated to see three other cars get stuck on this street and even a truck having a hard time getting down it. I wonder if it's too late to learn a rain dance?

2009

2009-01-01T16:47:00.001-08:00

Happy New Year! This time of year I'm always reminded of Anne Shirley's comment, "Tomorrow is a new day, with no mistakes in it." Here we stand at the opening of 2009, an entire year of flawless tomorrows all lined up and waiting for us. I don't know what 2009 will hold. I know of a few events that are expected but beyond that, only God knows. From down here it is a blank canvas as white and shadowless as the snow outside my window.

There's always talk of resolutions on this day, but I tend to shy away from that word. It's so steeped in disappointment and expectation that it seems doomed to fail. It's a shame really, because in addition to the idea of being resolved to do something, it also carries the idea of a solution, a problem resolved. I wonder if things would be different if we looked at it that way -- these are my solutions for 2009?

For me, rather than these weighty resolutions, I like to dream this time of year. What are my dreams for 2009, for myself, for my life, for the ones I love? There's far more scope in dreaming. One dream has already happened just last week -- Corrina sang. There was no guarantee of music in her life -- as far as I know the doctors don't know why some CO kids can hear it and others can't -- but she sang. And I thought of the jingle bells I bought her for her first Christmas, just weeks before we found out she was deaf. I remember crying when I realized that the bells would bring her no joy at all. There were just something shiny on a stick. But now. . . not only can she hear the bells, she can sing about them.

Another dream for 2009 is to start enjoying the SLR I bought myself last year. I am a little overwhelmed by it and a year of just staring at it hasn't helped much. There's a great quote from a knitting book I found a while back that says "Thing's I've learning from knitting: Projects get completed faster when you actually work on them, which is why the scarf I've been working on for two years has gotten no bigger, no matter how long I leave it in the basket." To this end I've signed up for a class run by one of the photography studios here in town. Whatever happens in 2009, perhaps I'll at least have better photos of it :)

Happy New Year! Welcome to 2009. What are your dreams for the year?

the Christmas post

2008-12-30T17:40:00.000-08:00

I have been remiss in posting my Christmas Day photos, so here goes. The first one is actually from Christmas Eve, because really, is there a better day to read the Grinch? When you can get to the part about "Christmas is tomorrow, it's practically here" it really is! Growing up it was always my job to tire Dave out so he would sleep through the night. He never did. We'd often read stories together as part of the attempt and I thought of you little brother as I pulled this out that night. (And to this day, thanks to all the times we watched Muppets' Family Christmas every time I hear "Sleigh Ride" my brain still hears "there's a party at the house of Fozzie Bear. . . ") I never sleep that well the night before Christmas either. Too excited. I can't decide if I want to grow out of that someday or not.
Christmas morning I found this note on my doorstep:

It's an easy walk to Gord & Shannon's but it's a fair distance if you're shoveling. I was so touched that the three of them would do this for us. What a great gift to start the day with. It did snow ALL night so it was a little hard to see where the shoveling had happened, but as I walked through the snow my heart was light with the thought of what they had done and that definitely made the snow far less of an impediment.
This is my street Christmas morning. I don't know if I've ever been out walking on Christmas morning before but it was a beautiful way to start the day. It was quiet and peaceful and white and blanketed, as though all the trouble of the world had been muted for the morning. I know it was an illusion, but what a pretty deception. To give you an idea of how fast the snow was coming down. This picture was taken just outside my front door as I headed out.
And this is just a few minutes later outside Gord & Shannon's place (which is just 7 doors down and around the corner from ours.)

This is Gord & Shannon's where the main events took place. It looked beautiful walking up the drive that morning, fresh snow failing and the lights on the house and the lights from the tree shining through the window. The photo does it no justice at all, but I can still see it in my head, and trust me, it was lovely.
There were great gifts, and great people. We opened stockings early -- always a great tradition. I still have the red stocking I've had since I was a little kid. I noticed this year that the gold letters are barely hanging on by a thread. I think it might be time make myself a new one. I know we got these stockings when we came to Canada. I don't remember if we had stockings in England and they just didn't make the voyage. (Mom, when you read this can you let me know if we had them then? I'm not sure if stockings are a Canadian thing.)
I was trying to also get my shiny new snowflake pendant in this shot. It didn't work at all, but it's a great shot of me & Coli. Coli got Lululemon pants for Christmas and they're great pants, but I think she needs to stop wearing them for at least at couple of years. She looks far too grown up in them. Surely she's not *really* turning 13 in a couple of days. That must be someone else.
This is Sammy, Tracy & Hugo's youngest. And I know it's out of focus, but look at that face! Tell me you could let a little focus get in the way of sharing a smile like that. At this point in the day Sammy and Kendra were roaring at each other like lions using the stair railing in place of cages at the zoo. Hilarious. Tracy & Hugo braved the snow to come with Chrisaleen & Sammy and share Christmas. Yay for more faces! I remember when this little guy was born, seems like just yesterday.

It was a lovely Christmas. Lots of cousins & nieces to talk to and play with. (I may have lost Scum but I did win Carcasonne). There was delicious food and always a conversation happening somewhere. The snow came down all day. The kids spent hours playing in it and the grown-ups spent hours not playing in it. It truly was a celebration. And best of all is knowing that there will always be a place for me at the table.

the moon on the crest of the new fallen snow

2008-12-24T20:30:00.000-08:00

Around here, that moon-on-the-snow looked something like this. Clearly we will be having a white Christmas this year. Maybe even the whit-est Christmas of all. Amanda and I were both quite shocked by the accumulation.

The stockings were hung. . . but we had to take them down to fill them.
There will be 17 of us for Christmas tomorrow, so in addition to being the white-est Christmas ever I think it will also be the biggest. Good times lie ahead. I got to video chat with Mark, Rachel, Kai, Mom & Dad in Australia this afternoon where it is already Christmas. Still trippy. I chatted with Janie, Dave & Corrina yesterday and Corrina sang "Jingle Bells" to me. What a great Christmas present.Merry Christmas to you and yours. May the spirit of Christmas find you wherever you are tonight. And if this Christmas is not quite what you were expecting, then consider these words from poet Ann Weems:

The Christmas Spirit
Is that hope
Which tenaciously clings
To the hearts of the faithful
And announces
In the face
Of any Herod the world can produce
And all the inn doors slammed in our faces
And all the dark nights of our souls
That with God

All things are possible,
That even now
Unto us
A child is born!
~ Ann Weems

Merry Christmas! May God bless us, every one.

boxes, little boxes

2008-12-22T14:00:00.001-08:00

If you have little gifts that you don't want to get lost under the tree, try making these little boxes. They're very easy to make and just the right size to keep your treasures safe.
The template is available on Esty.com from A Little Hut. Five dollars gets you all four designs and the PDF is emailed to you the same day so you can get started right away. Because the PDF is saved to your computer, there's no limit to how many boxes you can make.
All you do is print the template directly on to your paper (I used regular construction paper) then follow the guidelines to fold and stick. I added a little glitter to mine because it's Christmas and everything that could sparkle should. If you haven't gone exploring on esty.com yet, I highly recommend it. It's billed as ebay for all things handmade and there are some beautiful, beautiful things on that site. Happy boxing!

best card ever + office party

2008-12-18T20:15:00.000-08:00

This was the card that Dave & Janie sent out in 2006. I couldn't blog it back then because not all of the cards had arrived yet and I didn't want to ruin anyone's surprise. I kept mine and have it on the desk by my laptop where I can enjoy it at eye level. It has stood the test of time and is still genius. On the front is lovely tree paper (it says 'Celebrate together' if you're having trouble reading that). And then when you open it up..
It's a custom pop-up card! How cool is that? There's Janie & Dave decorating the tree and as the card opens the garland stretches into place. I have a long and abiding love of pop-ups to begin with, but pop-ups that look like people you know? Very cool. I think Dave's hand with the star is brilliant, so Seuss-ian. I'm pretty sure he said that the plaid on his shirt was hand drawn line by line. But that's very Dave, when it's his art, he lives in the details.
These are the guts of the card, all those working pieces. I wonder if I can video tape it so you get the full effect? A project for another evening.

Also in this post -- the office party --
I feel like I've already blog these photos, but that's because I put them on Facebook and Mom & Dad, I know you can't see them there so these are for you. After several years of politely declining I decided to go to the our corporate party this year. And I have to say, I was pleasantly surprised. I decided to go an get my hair done -- a brilliant idea when the alternative is 8 girls all trying to get ready in the only ladies' room in the building with decent lighting. They decided to have the party in town this year, cutting down on almost everyone's drive time so while there wasn't time to go home to change, it was really nice when the night came to an end. (And thank the Lord himself, the snow stayed away until the next day. Thank you!!!)
This is me with Angie & Kim, who sometimes go by their alter egos "Boo's parents". Boo, also known as their daughter Matia, is a bit of a legend. Kim suspects she has mad drumming skillz and while it's still a little early to tell, he's probably right.
This is Nicole, Sarah, Lynnette and myself all spiffed up and party-ready.
And here's Sarah and her husband John (who is also famous in our office -- he makes the BEST chocolate chip cookies. Sarah makes amazing butter tarts. We eat well around here.)
This is the group shot of our table. As I mentioned on Facebook, Kim said I could sit at the Asian table, being honorary Asian and all. Xie xie! [she-shay, which means 'thank you' for the uninitiated.] I just realized I could have worked one of my other Chinese phrases into the evening and missed my chance. A whole meal and I never once oh so causally mentioned "mung mung"? Maybe it's less cool if it's Taiwanese baby talk rather than Canto anyway.

looking very Christmas-y

2008-12-14T16:19:00.000-08:00

It's looking very Christmas-y around here (and not just when I'm playing with the lights). Last weekend we headed off to a local tree farm to find a tree. Space in our place is limited so we carefully measured what little room we have and headed off with tape measure and specs in hand.

I learned quickly that I am terrible at judging sizes. We had agreed that a 3 foot tree was probably as big as we could go, but when we got to the farm the 3 foot trees were just so little. There were all little round balls with spindles on top. Barely trees at all. We trudged on in the rain, measuring a tree every row or two. I could feel my Christmas shrinking a little. And then, off to one side, I saw our tree. There he stood, a majestic 5 footer standing out in a crowd of rounded ankle-biters. If trees had to go to junior high, you know this is the one that would have been picked on. I thought he was beautiful. Kendra thought there was no way he was going to fit.
We got out the tape measure and sure enough our shapely tree was only 2.5 feet across, on the high end of our specs to be sure, but slender enough to squeeze in. I looked longing over at it with the gaze 5 year olds reserve for new puppies and knew that Christmas would be safe after all. The tree farm man cut him down, we loaded him in the truck and brought him home. Sure he's a little taller than we agreed to, but I think he's perfect. (And no, I have no idea either how this tree acquired a gender, he just did.) With the tree in place, Christmas could truly begin.

On Thursday night we headed back to Michael's for a cookie decorating class and learned a new technique that has been put to vigorous use this weekend, but that's another post.

I really liked the way the colors came out on these. Working with Royal icing gives you a lot of wiggle room to move the icing around so all sorts of intricate patterns are possible. A good time was had by all.

With the cookies decorated, it was time to head to Creative Nails to decorate myself a little. I stick to a classic French manicure most of the year, but Christmas calls for a little sparkle. Besides, around here, fancy nails are a Christmas tradition.
The tree is tucked in the corner this year and in the evening it throws these perfect shadows up against the wall. I have no idea how to photograph it properly, but you'll have to take my word for it, it's very pretty.
On Friday I took the day off to do Christmas-y things and in the morning Shannon came over to make snowmen and snowflakes (of the indoor variety). I finally got them all finished and strung up and I think they look rather festive. For some reason, they also make me think of IKEA although I'm really not sure why. They are very sparkly. I may do some more if I can find more of the little mirrors. The snowmen are still a work in progress.

It's crazy to think when we wake up tomorrow Christmas will be just 10 days away. What a lovely time of year.

have yourself a nerdy little christmas

2008-12-02T21:12:00.001-08:00

It was time to get Christmas-y at the office and I decided to make a tree worthy of our team. Thus the nerd tree was born. I know, I know we prefer the term "Geek" but this just seems like a Nerd Tree to me. It is a badge I wear proudly. The tree has ornaments featuring some of our favorite apps.

There's the WordPress logo (and yes, I know I'm typing this in Blogger but we use WordPress exclusively at work):

And RSS....This was the only one that had to stay square. It just looked wrong in a circle. It was Kendra's idea to add the glitter on the edges of the ornaments. There are ornaments with the Java logo on them too but apparently I forgot to photograph them. Whoops.

I really liked the way the Basecamp logo turned out. I never noticed how much it looks like a snow globe. If you're not familiar with Basecamp they are the brains behind Project Path, a task management system so brilliantly simple and intuitive that our artsy team of writers and editors has embraced it. I have to admit getting into any task system was a hard sell for me, but now that I've seen what it can do I can honestly say that this product keeps our team sane.
In addition to the apps there are ornaments that celebrate two things that make everything we do possible. Apple (of course) and Starbucks.

For the garland I made a paper chain cut from pieces of an old Wired magazine. Wired is the best nerd magazine out there, and they also use really nice inks in their printing process. I knew I'd be able to find some great colours on their pages.

I think it turned out well. It was a hit at the office today. Have yourself a nerdy little Christmas! I know we will.

Christmas is creeping

2008-11-30T17:34:00.001-08:00

Christmas is creeping into the corners of my house. There's a tiny live cedar tree decked out in the window by the door.A shiny snowflake has found its way in the corner over by the kitchen. (I think I'll let it stay as long as it doesn't summons its brethren outdoors.)
Over by the livingroom a pair of tiny reindeer are catching up on all the gossip of the season.
And not far from them is a pot of red berries -- a Christmas-y sight if ever I saw one.
In the window over by the TV it's officially been spelled out for me:
Christmas is creeping into the corners of my house and with the first Sunday of Advent upon us and December itself knocking on the door, I think I'll open up and let it in.

wilton class 3: not-so-lazy daisy

2008-11-27T20:19:00.001-08:00

Tuesday was the final day for Wilton Class 3. After four weeks of working with fondant, learning how to stack cakes and and how to pipe Easter lilies and poinsettias, it came down to this:
I am quite pleased with the way it turned out. When I took it into work today, they were all quite pleased with it too :) So how did we get here? Well, first it started with a sketch.

Even before that I was researching. I wanted to do a fondant cake because you can do some spectacular things with fondant but I was torn. Commercially made fondant tastes like garbage. Most adults peel it off to eat the cake. The occasional 10 year old will gobble the stuff up. Making a cake that was pretty but didn't taste good goes against my basic philosophy of life so I hit the 'nets looking for a solution. On the Cake Journal blog I found a recipe for Marshmallow Fondant. Much mixing, stickiness and one truly unholy mess in the kitchen later, I had delicious fondant. Now the fun could begin.

I searched through Flickr for ideas and found this cake which served as my jumping off point. (Don't all artists work from reference material?) Once I had the concept and the cakes ready (thank you Shannon & Co.!) the next step was covering them in fondant.
Right around this time I realized I had accidentally created an almost perfect Smurf blue. But plans were already underway so the Smurfs will have to wait for another day. Once the blue fondant was smooth, the next step was adding the stripes.
Once they were (mostly) evenly spaced around the cake it was time to firm up the foundation. Four wooden dowels went into the cake to support the top layer which was also on a cake board of its own for stability. Then I used a cutter and doubled up the cut outs to get enough petals on my daisies.
At this point you might be wondering how much equipment it takes to put these things together. Oh, about this much:
All the table space in the Wilton classroom really helped. Plus we've had 12 weeks at this point to gather our wares and made liberal use of all available 50% coupons Michael's would give us. That and a little concentration took care of most of it.
Well, that and time. Start to finish, not including bake time (or cleaning) I think I spent around six hours on this cake. Good thing I enjoyed the process. It really helps it you do something like this with other crazy people who make you laugh. (Which is kinda impressive because really, there are no good fondant jokes and you quickly resort to simply making fun of the guy from Food Network who insists on calling it fon-DAHNT.)
This is a view from the top with the cake all boxed for transport. And here's a close-up. It's a little hard to see in this photo but I painted the white balls with iridescent pearl dust. They came out all shiny and sparkly.
Ta-Da! So there you have it. And the very best part? It tasted FANTASTIC!Not to be outdone, Kendra did this snowman cake for Coli. I thought the nose was my favorite part. Then I saw the buttons. Maybe the poinsettia is my favourite because I made that bit. I think pretty much the whole thing is my favorite part. (That's Suzanne, our excellent instructor in the background.)
Shannon got really fancy and brought the pillars out to play for her cake for Amanda. All of the lilies on this cake are handmade out of royal icing. If you look at the large version of the photo you can see the stamens that are placed individually with tweezers. Shannon went through more than a pack of them.
If you've ever thought about delving into the world of edible art (or just like playing with your food) I highly recommend the Wilton classes. We had a really, really good time learning all about the wonderful world of cakes. I'm a little sad it's over even though I am ready to take break from making three batches of icing after work. Then again, we are going to a one week cookie class next Thursday . . .

this might be my million dollar baby

2008-11-20T20:18:00.000-08:00

We were watching Ugly Betty tonight and muting the INCREDIBLY loud commercials when I had a brilliant idea.

Wouldn't it be cool if someone invented a remote that instead of just mute had buttons that made the people on TV speak in all kinds of funny voices?

Think of the possibilities. . . .

Photo courtesy of bods, used under Creative Commons license.

treats!

2008-11-08T14:54:00.001-08:00

Lots of treats today! First of all, there's a new picture of the newly expanded Colvin family. Here's Kai just hanging with the 'rents. Seeing him in almost-profile like this, I can see Mark in him. There's a painting in my parents' house that my Grandpa did of Mark, aged two, fast asleep and the image of it flashed in my mind as soon as saw this. I love that the three of them look so calm and peaceful. Their lives just changed for always - a cause for celebration indeed.

Speaking of celebrations, I am a fan of fresh flowers in the house on regular days so when there's a celebration going on flowers definitely need to be a part of it. I really liked these pink roses but they weren't very manly so I found a teddy bear and be-ribboned him appropriately. I may not be able to make it there in person just yet, but to my Australian family, know that we are celebrating Kai in this household too. Shoebox season is just around the corner so in a week or two I'll send this little fella off to a little girl somewhere who will take good care of him.
And as if flowers and photos of fresh nephews weren't treats enough, there's chocolate. Kendra's brother-in-law Gord piloted a rare flight to London last week and graciously picked up a few supplies for me:It's everything an ex-pat could hope for -- lots of shiny Cadbury's purple wrapped around Buttons, Twirls, Cury Wurly & Fudge. Well, they're wrapped right now. No telling how long that will last. Did I mention there were Buttons? I don't know why they taste so good, but they do.

he's here!

2008-11-05T12:14:00.000-08:00

He's here and he's spectacular!!! On Monday I became an Auntie again and the second time around was every bit as wonderful as the first. Introducing. . . .

Kai Maddox Colvin

1:08pm November 4th, 2008
Ballarat, Australia

If you're thinking, "wasn't Monday the 3rd?" you'd be right, and also wrong. It was Monday when I got the news here in BC, but it was already Tuesday for Kai and the rest of the gold coast. Clearly this kid is starting out ahead of the game :) I'm still waiting for further details from Mark & Rachel (I guess they have a lot to think about right now...) but so far I know that his first name, Kai, comes from the Hawaiian word for "ocean". I've heard that Maddox is a literary name.

My favorite baby quote has to be the one the says, "Each baby comes as proof that God still dreams of Eden" but I also found this one a while back and I'd imagine it's pretty close to the truth:

“In the house of a newborn, there are no walls. No doors, no clocks, no meals, no chores, no day, no night, none of the familiar coordinates we use to navigate our lives. We bring our babies home, and then the floor gives way and the roof collapses. Adrift in disorientation, I begin to sing."
-Karen Maezen Miller

Mark & Rachel, I wish I could be there for the singing. Know that I am thinking of you, praying for you, and madly in love with the new man in your lives.

holding a life in my hands

2008-11-02T19:59:00.001-08:00

It may be a little hard to see in this photo, but I'm holding a life in my hands. I can imagine what you're thinking, "looks like a hat to me" and you'd be right, partially. But in many countries around the world this little hat is the difference between life and death. According to the WHO, over 4 million babies die each year from completely preventable causes. One the easiest ways to save them is simply to keep them warm and that's where the hat comes in.

Of course this little hat needs a little help, and that's where Save the Children comes in. Each year their Knit One, Save One campaign organizes volunteers around the world to knit or crochet little hats. These hats are then included in kits put together by STC and taken over seas where they save lives (and look pretty cute doing it).

If you know how to knit or crochet and have a little time, you can hold life in your hands too. All of the information is in the action kit. All you have to do is make a hat and mail it to STC in Brooklyn by December 31. If you're looking for a simple pattern, here's the one I used courtesy of Beverly Qualheim. It only uses two stitches so even if your skills are a little rusty, you should be fine.

The problems of poverty and disease and needless suffering often seem overwhelming, but at least this one time the answers are very easy.

wilton class 2: cake final

2008-10-29T12:34:00.000-07:00

All month Kendra, Shannon and I have been making sugar flowers as part of our cake decorating class. Last night we got to put it all together. Here's my finished cake:
My basket weave needs a little work. For some reason there are 7 layers of it in the front of the cake and only 6 in the back. I realized that to match it up at the ends I needed to get back to 7. So there I was, basket weaving BACKWARDS from the middle in a left handed direction to try and line up it to hide the earlier mistake. [ and "I am not left handed" <-- read that in your best Wesley/ Man in Black voice.] Clearly, it will be easier next time to just not drop a line in the first place. Still, I was very happy with the way it turned out and really, with so many flowers, no one will notice the weaving. The daffodils are my favorites. I gave up on Chrysanthemums -- mine all looked like sandcastles or spiky crabs. Who needs that when daisies are so very easy to do?

Here is Shannon's cake. Shannon has these huge, amazing roses and I love the ones that are multicolored.And here is Kendra's cake. She definitely wins the prize for beautifully even basket weave. She asked Nicole what she wanted on the cake and she said "Bob & Larry" so there they are. Complete with cobblestone garden walkway, of course.
We had a great time. Next week we start course three -- fondant and tired cakes. That's going to be a lot of cake. Any volunteers?

the one with all the photos - updated

2008-10-19T18:15:00.001-07:00

UPDATE: This post now contains more words, as promised.

At some point I will add the words to go along with these photos from my recent trip to Winnipeg. But I figured this is what people (well, my parents anyway) were really interested in :) As you can see, it was a great time away.

I love this photo of Corrina, partially because you can see how grown-up she's looking and partially because it so clearly shows her cochlear implant equipment and I am a BIG fan of that stuff. The last time I saw Corrina I don't even think she was saying "Hi". Now that's she's had her implants for over a year she's not only speaking all the time, she's starting to string together phrases. Anytime we were upstairs she would open her parent's bedroom door and point out "Mommy Addy's bed". If I asked her where her bed was, she'd run over and show me that too. One morning we talked about the stripes on my pajamas, another morning she went around the kitchen "Mommy [p]ocket, Addy ocket, Orrina no ocket" (hard consonants at the beginning of words are still very hard for her to say, but she'll get there.)

I know that some people look at the equipment she uses and think "oh no what's wrong?" but I look at it and see something wonderfully right. Corrina was completely deaf at birth and without this technology her world would have remained silent. With it, she is learning to hear and learning to speak. She may be able to hear music. It is nothing short of a miracle and if God chose to use magnets and wires do it it is no less miraculous. Just a few years ago it would have been impossible, so I love those things even if they do move barrettes in her hair and grab my ear rings when we cuddle.

This one is from our Thansgiving table and it should be down below with the others but it will take far too long to try and leap frog it down there. Same with the pie. It was great pie though. For the first time ever we started with a big ole' sugar pumpkin and roasted it the day before instead of opening a can. That was a really, really good pie. And Dave, you may not be able to make traditional whipped cream but your version which closely resembled vanilla ice cream in flavor and consistency is alright by me.

This pic great simply because she looks so happy and because she has this grin on her face so much of the time.
Another big change on this trip from the last time I saw Corrina is that she's in a stage now where she wants to be a part of everything the grown-ups are doing and wants to help. This was taken Sunday after church as Janie & I wer getting perogies ready for lunch. Corrina wanted to help so Janie got out Corrina's little cutting board and found something for her to chop. Technically perogies don't call for tomatoes, but as we know, that's hardly the point. I love the concentration in this photo.

More random Thanksgiving shots, apparently there are throughout. I really enjoyed getting to spend a major holiday with family members I don't usually get to spend them with (woah, nice grammar there editor girl, good thing you're off duty). Janie and Dave made me feel so welcome. To add to the list of first attempts, I also tried to recreate my Mom's famous roastie tatos that are actually deep fried. You'll have to trust me on this, they are devine. (As most deep fried things are.) They aren't quite up to Mom's level yet but they'll get there. Delish.

As usually happens on vacations, right towards the end we realized we didn't have any photos of all of us together. This was taken in the evening of Thanksgiving Monday. Corrina had felt rough all day but was perking up by this time. All in the photo is her beloved Pooh Bear. She's had him since day one and while I don't quite get why she loves to smell him, he does bring her much comfort.
These next few shots are Corrina helping Mommy get the pumpkin ready to roast for pie. We ended up with enough pumpkin that there were leftovers. Janie made some of it into pumpkin pancakes the next day (SOOO good) and put some in the freezer for soup later. That's going to be great soup.

Here is Janie & Corrina on the street where they live. It is an amazing street with hundred year old houses in all states of repair. There are beautiful old trees lining the street that meet in the middle like a benediction over the residents. It was October, but it was Winnipeg, so we bundled.
Action! This is me and Corrina and Kristiana, a student of English who is living with Dave & Janie. Corrina LOOOOVES Kristiana and Kristiana's English is coming along very well. Like children the world over, Corrina adores the 1-2-3 swiiiiiiiiiiiiing game. I'm not sure who invented that game or why all children know it, but I'm pretty sure a kid came up with it in the first place. [ok sci-fi geek reference here. . . .but in SG1 they have this idea of genetic memory and while in the show it's an alien thing, and not a human thing, I think a similar thing might apply here with the swinging.]

What can I say? This kid makes my heart happy. And just think, in a few more weeks Mark & Rachel's little guy will make an appearance and I'll get to be an Aunt again! Thanks to Corrina I'm all caught up on Elmo's World so I should be all set. (Did I mention that she's learning her ABCs now? You can hear her going through the house singing "... H I J K Elmo P"

the dark knight

2008-10-12T20:13:00.001-07:00

Tonight I discovered that I really need to watch more movies in Imax. I have been meaning to see The Dark Knight. I was concerned that I'd missed the theatre release on the west coast. While I am by no means a theatre snob when it comes to movies (only the live version) I do understand that some movies need to been seen on the big screen. I feared that this was one of them and I had missed my chance. Lucky for me, it's still playing here in Winnipeg. I got to see Dark Knight tonight and it was awesome.

I can't remember the last film I saw in Imax -- I think it might have been BodyWorlds at the Science Center. So Dark Knight was sort of a first for me. It won't be the last. And what a film to see on the big screen. The really, really big one. I wondered if the film would live up to the hype and for me it surpassed it. I wasn't a huge fan of the first two Batman movies -- you can keep your Michael Keatons and your George Clooneys (Clooney as a hero, really?). I much preferred Christian Bale's broodier, conflicted Bruce Wayne. And yes, I know, it's an archetype. It works in Pride & Prejudice and Jane Eyre too. But with the Dark Knight you get cool car chases. And explosions.

Imax reminded me a little of the Grand Canyon -- of standing there thinking, "Wow, it's really big." (I know, I am writer, you can tell, right?) The screen almost filled my field of vision which makes for a very cool viewing experience. The truly all around you surround sound didn't hurt either. But for me, the most compelling aspect of Dark Knight was not how great the story looked (although it did look great), it was how well the story was told.

**Spoilers ahead! If you are one of the last people left who has not seen this movie, skip the next bit***

From the very first time the Joker pulled out a knife and started telling someone how he got his scars I was convinced we were in for a very bloody scene. But they never did it. How rare is it these days to find anything in Hollywood done with subtlety? This story didn't need the help. You didn't need a lot of blood to make the Joker scary. Heath Ledger did that all by himself. He deserves all the hype he got, or at least the hype that will live on after him. I don't know if they'll give him the Oscar, but if they let the rest of vote he'd have mine.

The Dark Knight is interesting because they've managed somehow to inject some subjectivity into the usually black and white world of comic books. Often in hero movies there's the good guy and the bad guy and a little back lighting to make them look cool. In Dark Knight it's more complicated than there and so so much more interesting. It did bother me a little that the story in not canonical. One character dies much earlier than he should for the story's timeline. But Dave assures me that none of the movies follow canon so I can let it go.

The Dark Knight was great entertainment even if it is impossible to watch Heath Ledger without thinking about Heath Ledger. His acting and the character he creates out of a little makeup and slightly Jack Nicholson-southern accent is truly remarkable. Watching him you can hear the "if onlys" echoing through the theatre. Reminds me of a quote I came across recently, "We all die. The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.” - Chuck Palahnuik

Winnipeg - Day 2

2008-10-09T18:41:00.000-07:00

Day two has brought some great opportunities to take photos, I'm just still having trouble uploading them. Maybe it just takes a really long time for the internet to get to Winnipeg (tee hee). In an attempt to upload photos faster, I put a few of them on Flickr. As I write, the Flickr upload is 34% complete. This may take awhile.

Winnipeg, Day 1

2008-10-09T12:09:00.000-07:00

I am officially on vacation and loving it. I had a wonderfully uneventful flight to Winnipeg and arrived safe and sound yesterday. I tried to get some family shots yesterday but they didn't really turn out. I did get this one of Corrina though. Hopefully, it's the first of many from this trip (and hopefully hopefully, I will some day soon find a class to take so I can learn how to use my new camera and not always have to borrow Kendra's. Thanks Roomie!)

Dave met me at the airport and then we went to pick up Janie from school and Corrina from daycare. I am amazed at how well Corrina is speaking. We'll have to figure out what she's going to call me. Auntie Claire has a lot of hard consonants in it. The last time I saw Corrina she was barely saying hi and this morning she was sharing her fascination with pockets and helmets and stripped pajamas. Progress indeed.

Last night after a delicious supper Dave & I hit the grocery store. As we stepped out into the parking lot we were met by a true prairie wind. It came up close, entirely too familiar, slipping inside my coat and whispering rumours of winter. I shuddered. I turned to Dave and said "Now that's a prairie wind!" and Dave, battle hardened and much tougher than his thin blooded west coast sister casually asked "is there a wind? I hadn't noticed." You could have had a champion kite flying contest in that wind. It was wind sailors dream of and it bounced right off my younger brother in his wool sweater. Just wait til it rains, I'll have him beat then :)

Today Janie is a school, Dave is at work, Corrina is at daycare and I have the house to myself. I am quietly slipping into vacation mode. I finished watching Dan In Real Life which we started last night. I was completely prepared to be underwhelmed by a Steve Carell movie but willing to risk it on Dave & Janie's high praise. I have to say, I was very pleasantly surprised. Maybe I really do need to watch The Office. (And points, big points for either Pierce Garnder or Peter Hedges, whichever of them is responsible for the perfect line of teenage angst "You are a murderer of love!!!!) I passed the rest of the morning sipping tea and reading and now as I'm finishing up this post I have pretzel dough rising on the stove.

It is good to be here, among family. Corrina has warmed up to me much quicker than I expected and already I'm chasing her down the hallway on her trike, watching Elmo and spinning her round and round the living room. There are good days ahead, I can feel it in the wind.

*(And if I can just wrangle a few things to work together better -- I'm talking to you Blogger! -- I'll have more picture soon.)

not shiny, but still pretty

2008-09-27T16:28:00.001-07:00

After months of research, I finally choose a case for my beloved Macbook. So here it is, not shiny (although definitely shiny) but still pretty.
In the end I decided to go with the Small Alley by STM (an Australian company it turns out). I like it's slim profile and the fact that it has pockets perfectly suited to Mac accouterments. I had a little trouble finding a North American distributor until I realized that it's available through the Apple store. Of course it is.Why many months of research you may be asking? Honestly, I have no idea. For some reason choosing the right bag became a bit of an obsession. There were so many options. Did I want something industrial looking? Something that looked like a laptop case? Something ironic? Should I get a neoprene skin for it and just toss it in a large and stylish handbag? For some reason the bag became very important. And it turns out there are a LOT of bags to choose from.

There were beautiful messenger bags from Manhatten Portage -- a company I was tempted to buy from simply because I love their name -- handmade bags from Oregon, versatile bags from Timbuck2. So many options. Was is just that the Mac is the closest I've ever come to cool and like a nervous ninth grader I didn't want to screw it up with the wrong outfit? I still don't know, but I'm happy with my choice and I'm sure my roommate is happy not to have to hear about it anymore :) Once I got the bag home, it was ready for the pin that Kendra picked up for me at DisneyWorld back in August. It reads "I'm not perfect, but I'm close" kind of ironic given all the running around that went in to the selection.The other day at work Sheldon told me that now that I've switched to Mac, the next step is to buy funky plastic framed glasses and a Volvo. There was a third thing I've forgotten. I think it involved a chocolate lab. I think I'll still with the bag for now.

As for the rest of the week, I caught the cold that has been making the rounds out here. The best way I can describe it is simply to say that the following box of lotion-y Kleenex was purchased Thursday evening and no one has used it but me. A sad statement indeed.
In happier news, now that we've reached the tailend of September almost all of my favorite shows have premiered. The best line out of all of them has to go to Shemar Moore as Special Agent Derek Morgan in the season opener of Criminal Minds. Towards the end of the show there's a scene where Derek is driving an ambulance that is about to explode. He's on the phone with Garcia, and facing apparent certain death, decides to tell her what she means to him. He says to her "You are my God-given solace." Now that's a compliment. Props to Simon Mirren for writing a great episode. (And yes, he's related. She's his Aunt.)