Category Archives: Words Words Words

CONCERT CORRECTION

I should not be allowed to copy and paste the text of previous concert announcements unsupervised.

The concert is in fact on the 21st OF NOVEMBER, not the 28th as previously announced. That’s one whole week sooner. As in, this upcoming Saturday.

Many thanks go out to Ceri and MLG for verifying the date with me. Apart from my unsupervised copying and pasting, I try to get the concert announcements out two weeks before the date to give people plenty of time, and it got away from me this time; but I probably defaulted to the usual two-weeks-from-now thing anyway. (When I find out who authorized it to be mid-November I will have sharp words with them, I tell you what.)

The correct details:

The time has come again to make plans to attend the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra fall concert! Every fall we present an introspective and soul-uplifting concert to celebrate the season, and for your entertainment we have prepared a challenging programme that our new conductor and musical director, Stewart Grant, has titled Wien un München (Vienna and Munich).

Circle Saturday the 21st of November on your calendars. At 19h30 in the Valois United Church in Pointe-Claire (70 Belmont Ave., between King and Queen), the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra will present the following works:

    Mozart: Ouverture Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario), K. 486
    Schubert: Rosamunde – incidental & ballet music
    Weber: Concerto pour clarinette no. 2 op. 7 – Allegro (soloist: Eric Braley)
    Mozart: Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) K. 620- In diesen heil’gen Hallen (soloist: John Manning)
    Beethoven: Symphony no. 8 op. 23

Admission is $10 per person; admission is free for those under 18 years of age. The concerts usually last approximately two hours, including the refreshment break. There are driving directions and public transport info on the church website, linked above. I usually encourage people who are vehicle-less to find someone who has a car and share the cost of the driver’s admission to the concert among them. It’s more fun to enjoy the evening in the company of others, after all.

This is the first concert with our official new conductor Stewart Grant. We’re really enjoying the work he’s doing with us, and judging from the reception of the Canada Day concert, audiences are enjoying it, too. Come experience our first proud formal performance with this talented and experienced conductor!

Concert Announcement: Wien und München

Yes, gentle readers, the time has come again to make plans to attend the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra fall concert! Every fall we present an introspective and soul-uplifting concert to celebrate the season, and for your entertainment we have prepared a challenging programme that our new conductor and musical director, Stewart Grant, has titled Wien un München (Vienna and Munich).

Circle Saturday the 28th 21st of November on your calendars. At 19h30 in the Valois United Church in Pointe-Claire (70 Belmont Ave., between King and Queen), the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra will present the following works:

    Mozart: Ouverture Der Schauspieldirektor (The Impresario), K. 486
    Schubert: Rosamunde – incidental & ballet music
    Weber: Concerto pour clarinette no. 2 op. 7 – Allegro (soloist: Eric Braley)
    Mozart: Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute) K. 620- In diesen heil’gen Hallen (soloist: John Manning)
    Beethoven: Symphony no. 8 op. 23

Admission is $10 per person; admission is free for those under 18 years of age. The concerts usually last approximately two hours, including the refreshment break. There are driving directions and public transport info on the church website, linked above. I usually encourage people who are vehicle-less to find someone who has a car and share the cost of the driver’s admission to the concert among them. It’s more fun to enjoy the evening in the company of others, after all.

This is the first concert with our official new conductor Stewart Grant. We’re really enjoying the work he’s doing with us, and judging from the reception of the Canada Day concert, audiences are enjoying it, too. Come experience our first proud formal performance with this talented and experienced conductor!

Quiet Frost

Leaving orchestra last night, I walked across the church grounds in the dark with my hard case on my back, and watched my red shoes crunch into the frost-covered grass. It was the first real frost I’d observed this fall. We’ve had delicate crystals here and there on the rooves of cars and the edges of fallen leaves, but nothing like this. The whole lawn was brushed with greyish white. Each blade of grass was fully painted in sparkle and chill, lit only by the faint streetlamps down the block. Everything was still — there was no breeze, and it’s a quiet neighbourhood — and all I could hear was the crisp, gentle sound of my soles coming down on those blades of grass. It felt different than walking on unfrosted grass does, too; there was a brittle resistance to every footstep. And as I pulled the car away from the curb, the fan drew in wisps of woodsmoke from far off.

It was one of those moments where you’re fully present, absorbing life as it is. It was just lovely.

Fifty-Three Months Old!

What does an inventive kid do when you tell him that no, he may not watch cartoons or a movie? He goes into his room, scribbles on the chalkboard, and says, “This is my TV! And this is my remote!” he adds, waving the eraser. And then he goes and sits on the end of his bed and ‘watches’ the ‘television,’ narrating all sorts of dialogue. It’s much more entertaining than the real thing.

The boy has officially conquered pedals on tricycles, the only obstacle to upgrading to a bike. The other week he asked if he could go for a bike ride before dinner, and HRH agreed. The boy took the trike out to the sidewalk, HRH ambling along behind him, and suddenly the boy took off down the street and HRH had to run to catch up. Wow! Looks like we may be getting him a bike for Christmas, if we can find one (we may go with a camera instead and buy the bike in spring). He was playing with bikes at a store the other day and automatically went for the smallest ones, as he’s been doing… except we discovered that they’re now too small. So he’s up to the next size, the size I got when I was five. He’s having a bit of a problem with the pedaling forward thing, though, because he kept pushing back and braking it. Tricycle pedals are slightly in front on the seat, bicycle pedals are directly beneath.

His arms and legs are just so long. The sleeves of most new size 4 shirts, after a wash, are too short. And he has trouble pulling shirts off because the shoulders are a bit tight. He’s slim, though, so we run into a problem with pants that are long enough for his legs but too loose around the waist. And the feet, ye gods. Did I mention that his new winter boots are size eleven? And that he’s grown out of most of his socks?

We are in a full-blown pirate phase at the moment. Muppet Treasure Island is his soundtrack of choice in the car, he can sings all the songs, and dashes around the house with a pirate hat on over a bandanna, waving a paper sword, and being Long John Silver. We are commanded to sing lustily whenever certain songs come on. Fortunately he is a good-hearted pirate; he lined up all his stuffed animals and gave them all flu shots. I sacrificed bits of spinning fibre to be cotton balls, which we taped over their injection sites, and put stickers on top of the improvised band-aids. No one’s getting sick on his watch.

I took him to get his hair trimmed this past weekend and he chirped, “I love getting my hair cut!” And it isn’t just for the lollipop, either. Or the fact that the bookstore is right next door. Okay, I’m sure they play roles in his love for ‘the haircut store,’ as he calls it, but they really do seem to be afterthoughts. He just really likes the environment and the woman who trims his hair for him.

The day of his flu shot we all went out to see Astro Boy, as planned and promised. The plan was to have an early lunch, then for the boy to nap, then to head out to the theatre, but the plan got derailed at the nap part. He messed about in his bed for a while, then got up an hour later, then fifteen minutes after that. I put him back to bed with a light on and a pile of books so he’d at least have more quiet time. Then he dawdled on the way out so that we were clock-watching all the way there in the car, making it into the theatre just as the previews were ending while HRH made a brief stop to buy popcorn. There were a total of seven people in the theatre, so it felt like a private showing! The boy was enchanted by the film, sitting literally on the edge of his seat for the last half. He also happened to glance back and see the projection booth for the first time, which fascinated him. He asked about it repeatedly, and when the lights came up he ran up the stairs to see it. Very exciting. So was all the decor at Le Colisée, as it was the first time we’d taken him there.

He’s such a bright, perky kid. He displays such enthusiasm for everything. It’s both exhausting and inspiring.

Other posts that feature the boy and his doings this past month:

The flu shot
Choosing a book from the bookstore and raking leaves
Halloween!
The Halloween costume

Lest We Forget

War’s not the answer most of the time; it’s often a trumped-up excuse that veils another agenda. But that’s not going to stop me from honouring the men and women whose job it is, or who volunteer, to go out and risk their lives in confrontations beyond what most of us can envision. It’s their commitment and courage I honour on Remembrance Day. I honour our peacekeepers, too, the people who go to other countries to help rebuild after times of turmoil. And support staff — doctors, drivers, cooks, all those people who are necessary to the machine of war and who rarely get recognition for being in danger as well. And those left at home, who carry the double burden of hope and dread for their loved ones.

There has to be a better way. But even when someone figures it out, I’ll keep on saying thank you to all those individuals who gave lives, limbs, time, and innocence to the wars. I honour and respect their personal decisions, even if I disagree with the governmental decisions that created the need for them.

This year also marks the first anniversary of the death of a friend who I admire immensely: Emru Townsend. He fought a different kind of war, but a war nonetheless. In December 2007, when diagnosed with leukemia and a condition called monosomy 7, which meant that he had an increased risk of the leukemia coming back no matter how successful chemotherapy was, he and his sister Tamu created the outreach and public education event they called Heal Emru. It wasn’t about finding a stem cell donor who matched Emru (although that eventually happened); the program was built around their discovery that most ethnic groups were severely underrepresented in the bone marrow registries of North America and in other parts of the world. Heal Emru seeks to educate the public about this under-representation and to bring the plight of people from those ethnic groups seeking compatible donors to public awareness.

Emru blogged his illness and his treatments, and it makes for sober and thought-provoking reading. (The blog is now maintained by Tamu.) He found a compatible donor and had his transplant in September of 2008, nine months after his diagnosis. Unfortunately, although the stem cell transplant was successful, his cancer did not go into remission, and by the end of October it was clear that he wouldn’t make it. Emru may have passed on, but his war continues, fought by every one of us who simply walks up to someone and says, “Hey, have you heard about the bone marrow registry?”

The Heal Emru FAQs answer some of the common questions people have about bone marrow donation.
The Heal Emru site lists contact information for registries around the world.

Are you a match? Find out how you can help save Emru’s life: http://www.healemru.com

Got Twitter? Follow @healemru
Got Facebook? Please join the Heal Emru group, and if you learn something new, invite your friends.
Got Livejournal, WordPress or Blogger? Blog it!
Got Youtube? Subscribe to www.youtube.com/healemru
Just find someone you care about and tell them.

Contact info:

Hema Quebec http://www.hema-quebec.qc.ca
Canada Blood Services (Canada, except Quebec) http://onematch.ca/registry
National Marrow Donor Program (US) http://www.marrow.org

And find many more groups in these countries and internationally on the Registries page of HealEmru.com

The campaign may be called Heal Emru, but Emru’s name stands for every single individual who is struggling with an illness and needs a donor for stem cells, bone marrow, or peripheral cell transplant. The war to save lives continues.

Playing Hooky

Long draw: ye gods. I understand the theory and what should be happening, but I need better fibre to practice with, because the mill ends and seconds I’ve got are making a yarn that’s, well, tweedy, to say the least. I’m not expecting to make a perfect woollen yarn right off the bat, but the fibre’s jamming against the neps in it, no matter how I try to card them out. And a cat got into the lovely basket of rolags I carded while I was out last night; I came home to a shredded, tangled mess of fibre on the carpet. I don’t know who’s to blame, Nixie or Gryffindor, as they’re both fibre fiends, but the two of them are on my Naughty List at the moment.

One week ago we talked to the boy about the flu shot, what it was and why it was important to be vaccinated. He got upset ( “I don’t want a needle to take out my blood!” he cried, because the last time he saw needles being used was when HRH and I had our prises de sang done), but he agreed to go with us on the 10th because at that time children under five years plus their families were scheduled to be vaccinated as of Nov 9. The plan as we all worked it out was: HRH would book the day off and the boy would stay home from school. HRH would get his shot first so that the boy could watch, then the boy, then the boy could hold my hand so I wouldn’t be afraid. After our shots, we said that as a treat we could all go see Astro Boy in the theatre. And then, the very next day, Montreal changed the damn schedule again, and families of kids five and under were no longer eligible to be vaccinated at the same time. This meant that we effectively lied to him about doing it all together, which really didn’t sit well with us.

The revised schedule said that people with chronic conditions like asthma were eligible as of Nov 23, and everyone else as of Dec 7. So we told Liam that he could choose what to do: Either he could have his shot on Tuesday while we held his hand, then we’d go see Astro Boy and have popcorn like we were going to; or he could wait until the 23rd when I could get it at the same time. At first he said the 23rd, but then he asked again what exactly the flu was. We explained that it was a bad sickness that made little kids very very ill, sicker than adults, and the doctors and nurses decided that they would give all the kids their shots first to make sure they’d be okay, and then the mummies and daddies could have what was left over. He thought about it some more and said that he would go on Nov 10 after all, as long we held his hand, and then we could go see the movie together as we’d already agreed. We were so proud of him. The crying and protesting when we originally told him about the shot were dramatic, but I guess he’d worked all the scared stuff out then, and so the thinking about when to get his shot when we gave him the choice was more level-headed.

And then at the end of last week, Montreal changed the schedule yet again and said that kids under five and adults with chronic conditions (hello, asthma!) were eligible to get the shot a few days earlier than their respective revised dates. So the plan changed a third time to the boy and I getting the shot together on Nov 10. And so today we went out at eight o’clock and waited about half an hour in line to get into the clinic, at which point an incredibly streamlined process had us register, move to sit with a nurse to fill out the health questionnaire, then go right to be vaccinated. And we were so proud of the boy who only cried a bit, and who is very proud of his Band-Aid with a Lightning McQueen sticker on it. I have nothing but the highest praise for the volunteers and medical staff who are manning the Angrignon clinic. They’re cheerful, supportive, efficient, responsive, and good with adults but especially good with the children I saw being vaccinated. (The nurse who gave me my shot even offered me a Disney princesses sticker when he saw me watching the boy choose his own Cars sticker, but I declined.)

While the amazing ever-changing flu vaccination schedules in Montreal have annoyed the heck out of me, there’s one thing that has stayed constant, and I’m thankful for it: kids under five have been moved up, but never delayed as some other groups have been. But the quickly-changing information was making it a real pain to try to schedule anything. I understand that the schedule is being constantly revised according to the availability of the vaccine and the need to get the higher-risk groups inoculated as soon as possible. I wasn’t panicking about getting the shot – I’m not worried about getting the flu and the health complications from it, or there being a vaccine shortage; I’m more concerned about slowing the transmission of it through the population – but I was getting increasingly irritated at the inconstant schedule and contradictory information on official municipal versus provincial websites.

Anyway, it’s done, and we’re at home. The boy is watching cartoons, a huge treat on a weekday. We’ll do an early lunch, then a nap, and then we’re all off to the Colisee to see Astro Boy together.

ETA: Astroboy was lots of fun, and a decent little story without the usual tangents and dumb vaudeville stuff they put in kids’ films (there was a teeny bit, but it wasn’t toxic). The boy was literally on the edge of his seat for the last half. As for the flu vaccination, I have become increasingly achy and exhausted throughout the day, which is pretty much what I expected.

Yarn, Glorious Yarn

I just had to ply the singles on my bobbins, because I needed those bobbins in order to practice long-draw. Right?

Right.

It’s 83 yards of two-ply yarn spun on a Louet S15, from a Louet Northern Lights roving (colourway: Fire Moss, the sample of dyed fibre I got after the spindling class Ceri and I took this past spring). I love how these colours have blended; they’re all my favourites (deep reds, mossy greens, bronze). I call this Autumn Sumac because it has all the colours of a sumac tree in fall. I want to roll in this colour. I think I’ll spin the other ounce I have and maybe knit a neckwarmer. I may buy a whole half-pound of the stuff and do the Wrist Warmer Cocoon Shrug pattern with it. I thought about keeping these singles aside and trying to find a silk thread in a bronze colour to ply with them, but I needed those bobbins. Ahem. (One could have wound the singles off onto cardboard tubes, but that takes time, and one is not patient.)

Time to close all the windows. The problem with the jump away from EDT is that the sun suddenly goes down earlier, ergo it cools off rather abruptly. I should probably also think about something to do for dinner. Tacos? Tacos.