Category Archives: Ephemera

Fun and Games

Yesterday we cleaned out the fridge. We do this out of self-defence periodically; not because we’ve run out of room, but because we don’t know what might be back there. We liberated a few Tupperware containers from bondage and discovered not one, but four bottles of wine that were open. This comes about as a result of people bringing wine over for parties and such, not finishing the bottles, and saying, “Hey, that wine in the fridge, it’s all yours,” as they leave. I forget it’s there until a time such as this.

“How many bottles of wine are in here?” my husband asked, peering into the depths.

“We should pour them all together in a pitcher,” I said. I was joking. But then, all of a sudden, I wasn’t. “We could mix them and blend them with 7-Up and have kind of a sangria,” I said. My husband looked at me oddly, but gave me the bottles of wine. I tasted each first to make sure it hadn’t soured; nope, the three whites were fine. The single red, however, was definitely past its prime. I wouldn’t even be able to cook with it. Down the sink it went while the husband went to buy 7-Up. I found a bottle of lime cordial in the fridge that had only an inch or so of cordial left; I poured that in as well, being minus the lemons and limes I like to put in mixes like this. And the whole thing tasted divine.

We made dinner, poured glasses of the mystery mix, and decided to play Junior Trivial Pursuit. Ordinarily this means it’s a quicker game than the adult edition. However, the edition of Junior Trivial Pursuit I own is the original version, dating back from 1984. (Go ahead. Count on your fingers. Yes, it’s perilously close to twenty.) This means it asks many questions based on contemporary pop culture like information about hockey leagues and now-defunct sports teams, and the question that stumped us both: what is the Sugar Crisp bear holding on the Sugar Crisp box? The box has since been redesigned, so it was more of a challenge that we’d anticipated. This is definitely a game we’ll have to pull out at a party, just to watch people rummage around their two-decade old store of history. It was terrific; a mix of a walk down memory lane, a high school reunion, and a realisation of how much the world has changed.

Ephemera

Time to lighten up a bit. I can’t be an angst-ridden intellectual 24/7, after all.

I promised myself I would stop wasting space on these, but I found this and I just had to share it in light of how amusing my life can be:

Disney Princesses
Which of the Disney Princesses are you?

Apparently, You are a true bookworm and dream of a life better than the simple, quiet one you lead now. Your good looks can attract the town jerks, but you manage to ignore them most of the time. Sometimes you feel like you’re surrounded by idiots. So what are you waiting for? You don’t need your father to be kidnapped to get out and see the world. Although you can be stubborn, you’re also very compassionate and see beyond people’s fa�ades.

And I thought this would lighten things up? “Sometimes you feel like you’re surrounded by idiots” is just a colloquial way of paraphrasing my last two days’ worth of blogging on the devaluing of the intellectual in today’s society. My life, I tell you, is a comedy.

Also amusing: in flipping through the other princess descriptions, I found this in Esmeralda’s paragraph: Luckily you don’t die at the end of the Disney movie, although in the book you’re hanged.

Blogger Insider

Kate sent me her Blogger Insider questions, and I actually answered them the day I got them. All but the last one, that is, which I’ve been mulling over. In true Autumn fashion, I’ve not directly answered it, but sort of answered beside it. Here you are:

1. What’s the most bizarre instrument you can play (e.g. musical saw, noseflute, etc.)?

Caveat Number One: I’m boring. Caveat Number Two: I rarely have the urge to try something unconventional. Hence, I think the most exotic instrument I play is the harp. And I certainly don’t play it often or well. It’s big, heavy, and hurts my back.

I bought a tambourine recently; that’s a bit odd. Isn’t it?

2. What’s your favorite spot in Canada?

Sigh. Prince Edward Island. It’s so tiny I thought I might be able to get away with saying the whole province, but if I have to be more specific, Cavendish Beach. But it has to be deserted. Just me, sun, red sand, waves, and a good book. Sigh once more.

3. What’s your favorite comic book and why?

Argh. Tell me to pick a favourite child, why don’t you. Currently: Promethea. Overall? Dunno. Depends on my mood.

4. Who’s your favorite fiction author and comic book author?

Why are you making me do this? Fiction. Hmm. Who do I buy instantly in hardcover? Connie Willis, Neil Gaiman, Timothy Findley. Dead people who don’t have anything new coming out but I’d buy in hardcover if they were still publishing: Robertson Davies, Charlotte Bronte.

Comic books? A tie between Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore. (According to my shelf of graphic novels.)

5. What’s your favorite song in “Once More With Feeling,” the “Buffy” musical episode?

“R.I.P” stuck in my head the first time I saw it, but upon listening to it over and over, I find Xander and Anya’s song “I’ll Never Tell” is really quite well-written and performed, and is the one that keeps popping up in my brain when I’m distracted.

6. What’s your favorite opera?

Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Followed by a three-way-tie between Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment, Rossini’s La Cenerentola, and Il Barbiere di Siviglia. (The latter for its delicious mezzo-soprano role, and for the act one finale, if nothing else!)

7. If you could move anywhere in the world, where would it be?

The Borderlands, Scotland.

8. Who’s the one character you can’t stand to see when watching a “Star Wars” movie?

Old series or new series?

New series: Threepio is rapidly rising up the list in the new series. Jar-Jar, of course.
Old series: Boba Fett. Honestly. He’s so overrated. Ep2 sort of redeemed him for me, though. His dad was at least cool. (His action figure is certainly the best one. Is it just me or are the SW:Ep2 figures below standard?)

9. What are your top three totally irrational pet peeves?

Firstly, someone who shall remain nameless putting a margarine container, with the barest sheen of margarine along the bottom of it, back into the fridge. (“I didn’t finish it!”) Actually, that nameless someone putting anything back in the fridge or cupboard with only crumbs or drops left in it.

Secondly, not writing something down on the shopping list if you’ve finished it (or, all right, almost finished it). I don’t eat often, but when I do, I like to have all the fixings there. This will drive me directly to Axe-Murderer status, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

Thirdly, people standing behind me. In a related vein, people reading over my shoulder. Or, people standing in front of me and conversing with sunglasses on. I hate not being able to see people, and if I can see them, I have to be able to see their eyes.

I have more, if you’d like them. Such as bad editing in a published book. Stupid spelling mistakes. (Especially in my own work, when I’ve proof-read and run a spell-check.) People adopting American short-cut spelling such as lite and donut, and believing that it’s the right way to spell something. Shall I go on?

10. If you could perform any piece of music to a large audience by yourself, what piece would it be?

Ha! Assuming I could perform it with any sort of technical capability and emotional interpretation, pretty much anything by Bach. I remind you all of Caveat Number One (I’m boring), and add the following footnote: as much as I adore performing, I prefer chamber work with a few others. Solo is so… alone. You have nothing to interact with. So actually, my dream would be playing cello in a string quartet program of Beethoven’s String Quartet opus 132 in A minor, followed by Ravel’s String Quartet in F. Rather than performing solo, I enjoy hearing how my line intertwines with a few others. I also enjoy singing quartets or trios more than I enjoy singing alone.

There you have it.

Jean, darling that she is, brought me a whole new bottle of my Secret Weapon from her trip to Plattsburg last weekend. Now I have a bottle for home, and a bottle with a few left to keep at work. No Vanilla Coke, though. She says she’ll try again next trip. Curses! Foiled!

Quizzes and Memes

Here’s another no-prize…



find your element
at mutedfaith.com.

…as anyone who was around for Raven knows. Pippa Scott lives! (Somewhere, a scattered crew of a now-destroyed UFP starship cringes, for reason unknown to those around them. Especially Angus.)

Actually, I possess an odd talent for seeing multiple outcomes of a situation simultaneously, in vivid detail. I get overloaded easily, and this discomforting little ability pops up at the worst times, like in bad weather when I have to hit the brakes in a car. I can see all the positive, neutral and negative possibilities right then and there, all at once. It’s no wonder I get headaches, and have deja-vu so often it no longer feels like deja-vu. I also have a habit of remembering things that didn’t actually happen in great detail. This Time Mage thing explains it all!

Are You Not Over That Yet?

Ah. It all becomes clear.

The reason that the US is bombing our soldiers, raising import duties on our softwood, and dishonouring our flag by not only letting it touch the ground but spreading it out on the floor of hockey dressing rooms, is all because they’re still smarting from that little manoeuver we did in 1814. You know, the one where we managed to penetrate all the way to Washington and burn down the White House.

Yeah, that would rankle. Thanks to the Grand Poohbah for clarifying.

Testing The Waters

Five for five in the Roll Up The Rim to Lose! Woo-hoo!

I’m teaching my first real live workshop tonight: Designing Rituals. I was supposed to do a different one last week, but with no students, it kind of falls flat. I got a dry run when a friend offered to let me adapt that class to fit into her Saturday night program, and it was interesting, but any discussion of ethics succeeds better when there are several people to debate instead of two students who agree all the time. The student teacher ratio of one to one might have been a little imposing, too.

Wish me luck!