Owls' Court

If Only

Just a quick note today; I've been up to my freshly-auburned head in stuff to do. Thank goodness the show's over next week! I also learned at orchestra last night that there's no rehearsal next Wednesday, as it's March break and the high school we rehearse in will be closed. As much as I adore orchestra, it's an attractive concept: every night off for one full week. Glorious!

I missed two weeks of orchestra due to one of my trademark migraines the first week and then the Vinyl Cafe show the next, so I haven't touched my cello in three weeks. I'm rather proud of how well I did. I sight-read L'Arlesienne Suite by Bizet (ugh - mostly tenor clef) and Schubert's Forth Symphony, ("The Tragic" - in E flat again, sigh). I dreaded going while I was at work all day, but I enjoyed myself immensely when I got there. I have to keep reminding myself that I joined the chamber orchestra to make sure that I played at least once a week. I feel simultaneously impressed with how I keep up and ashamed of myself: if I can hold my own (barely, but I do) with little to no practice outside rehearsal, how good would I be if I practiced for at least an hour a day like I used to?

If I had my druthers, I'd read a lot, write a lot, and play my cello at least three hours a day. I'd also sit in the park. Now, if I could just get someone to pay me for doing all of that so my moggies could be kept in the style to which they have become accustomed (i.e., in kibble), I'd have it made!

Insanity! Unnatural météo! It’s going up to 10° C today, and we’re over halfway there!

I went out this morning to take a walk to the pharmacy, and it’s warm – windy, but warm. You can smell that Spring smell in the air- the damp earthy odour, the aroma of dead grass… but it’s more than that. There’s a sense in the atmosphere, in the air that you breathe into your lungs, that your alveoli recognise and send the news racing through your cells to inform your whole body that in case it hadn’t noticed, the season has changed: rejoice! The sun now stays in my living room more than forty-five minutes at a time! I can leave the windows open again! I can wear shoes outside instead of boots! Soon I shall be able to wear my little fox-red corduroy jacket again!

Not that these events were far off the recent reality of the situation. (Except the sun staying in the living room.) We actually hit a high of 6° C in the city yesterday. I’m not certain if we’re setting records or not. I do know that it didn’t ever really feel like Winter for more than a week at a time. I have a sneaky suspicion that our average temperatures this month are hitting the standard March averages instead. I tremble to consider what our Summer might be like.

That, however, will be then. This is now, and I’m rather enjoying it! The unnatural weather this winter had me on edge – it was just wrong – but it’s the end of February now, and I’m more than ready for buds and the first signs of green, thank you very much. I suffer from a touch of seasonal affective disorder, but apart from that February usually has me fed up on several other fronts as well. Bring on March, say I!

CURRENT READING:

Fool’s Errand, by Robin Hobb
The first book in a new Farseer trilogy called The Tawny Man. This is pulling me right the way I need at the moment! It’s told in the first person, a departure for Hobb’s work, and it works surprisingly well. I’m possibly enjoying it more than I enjoyed the first Farseer trilogy. I’m much too near the end for comfort. The problem with reading newly released hardcovers is that you have to wait for the rest of the series!

Olympic Recap

The Olympics are done and over, and we’re coming home with a record seventeen medals, coming in fourth overall. That’s quite the haul! Of course, the sweetest medals were our two hockey golds, and the gold awarded belatedly to Sale and Pelletier; but every medal is sweet.

What’s not so sweet is the destruction visited on public and private property in the wake of the men’s hockey victory. As we were driving home last night we passed several cars with Canadian flags waving madly through the windows, bearers thrilled that our car sports a Canadian flag license plate in front. We passed people on foot with painted faces and flags as well. In our own living room window, my husband had already hung our huge Canadian flag in celebration. There’s nothing like citizens deliriously happy that their country has won a major victory on the field of honour.

That was in NDG, however. In downtown Montreal, the fans poured from sports bars and clubs, rioted, hijacked a city bus, stopped traffic in the centre of town, and generally made nuisances of themselves. I have never been able to understand why a significant hockey victory is the siren call of idiocy and destruction. Particularly in this case where every Canadian was proud to have stuck it to the Americans, who we’ve always considered slightly less cultured (come on, deep inside you think it too). A pity that the next act was to display boorishness, lack of respect, and vulgarity.

And what’s with the high of 4 degrees C today? It's still February!

On Self-Effacement

No, I really do hate being the centre of attention. I hate being put on the spot; I’m uncomfortable being lauded and pointed out. I like being honoured and told one-on-one that I’m a wonderful human being with things to be proud of, but throw a surprise party for me or tell a bunch of people in my hearing how terrific I am, and I cringe and want to die. I have this weird thing about birthdays – surprise parties are such a bad idea, but at the same time I’d like to have someone else organise a quiet and casual get-together for me without me knowing. Even better would be a surprise casual get-together for me not around my birthday! (This year Tara and I have agreed to organise parties for each other. That kind of deal I can live with.) I’m quietly upset if no one cares, but if everyone goes all out and makes a huge fuss I’m horribly embarrassed. (Reported back to me last year: Taras: “Hey, it’s her thirtieth birthday! Let’s organise a huge surprise party!” Marc: “Wow, my Bad Idea light just came on.”)

I’m certain that part of this arises from the self-effacing guilt that wells up from the tiny “I’m not worthy” gene buried deep inside me. Intellectually I know that I have a lot to be proud of and that I’m a decent human being with a few really good points. However, my heart can’t understand why so many people like me this much. I’ve been shy ever since I started school, and I’ve always been the sort who prefers books to baseball, and opera to club-hopping. I have problems with large crowds and I’m very sensitive to large, aggressive personalities too. I work on intuition a lot, and if someone walks in whom I instinctively draw away from, I’ll find it very difficult to be around them. Even worse, if I do get to know someone enough to relax, open my heart and be close friends with them, if they do something to abuse that loyalty and trust, I’m scarred for life and I’ll never be able to talk to them again. (Fortunately this has only happened three times in my entire life.) I don’t hold grudges; I just moderate future behaviour in order to avoid being hurt again. I wish those three people well, but they’re no longer a part of my life. It’s not by choice; it’s simply the way I work. Trust me, I wish I weren’t like this; I wish I were gregarious, and not this sensitive. My husband has pointed out to me on several occasions that if I were as I wished to be, I wouldn’t be myself, and people wouldn’t like me as much as they do. It’s an annoying point. I hate it when he’s right like that.

One of the things I thought would be difficult about being married (and I was right) was the drastic challenge to my solitary tendencies. I warned my husband before we married that I require huge amounts of time on my own, and he told me that he didn’t have a problem with that; in fact, he needed a lot of time by himself too. Well, I think he got more than he bargained for: a little while ago he admitted to me that he’d underestimated my extensive need for solitude. Now, before you get all riled up about how marriage is about being a couple, let me explain our concept of marriage. Marriage is two individuals coming together to pull evenly in the traces, and not a complete submersion of your identity in someone else’s personality. We’re two different people with different likes and dislikes, need and wants. A lot of those likes and wants coincide, and we happen to like each other as people a lot. We’ve taught one another lots of new things, introduced one another to new ideas, and exposed one another to experiences we wouldn’t have had on our own. He now likes wine, pumpkin pie and light opera; I now drink Scotch, watch television, and eat turkey stuffing. We each have traits and habits that drive the other up the wall, and preferences and friends that the other will never share, but all in all, we’re good friends who love one another and enjoy life together. However, one of those things that we don’t share is a love of people. He loves crowds and going out, meeting new people and finding out what makes them tick. I’d rather stay home with a book and a cat. A little of that comes from the fear of the unknown, and the overly sensitive streak in me.

The best party I’ve ever had was our wedding; everyone was there to celebrate us, and I enjoyed myself thoroughly with no embarrassment whatsoever. Everyone else enjoyed themselves too; we received several reports that ours was the best wedding many people had attended. At the other end of the spectrum, however, two or three years ago I organised a pub night for my birthday and only three people showed up; I felt resentful and stupid at the same time. I’m so shy that I didn’t tell people it was for my birthday, and no one remembered. I hate being put on the spot so much that I didn’t want to make people feel like they had to go because it was my birthday celebration, and as a result I had a horrible night. I’m fairly certain that when people found out they felt awful too. I just can’t seem to hit that comfortable point between saying “Yay me!” and being self-effacing. It’s why I can’t stand taking off my make-up after a show and going out to meet friends and family who have been there and receive their praise and hugs and kisses, and why I flee the stage as soon as the curtain closes so I don’t have to receive those two-cheek kisses and congratulations from fellow cast members either. I can’t wrap my brain around it, and neither can other people. Including my husband. He just makes sure he has my coat ready and gets me out of there, which I appreciate more than he’ll ever know.

It’s something that’s bothering me more and more, and I’m really wrestling with it (as I’m sure you can tell). Maybe it’s the beginning of my mid-life crisis, along with trying to figure out what to do career-wise with the rest of my life…

On Hockey and Baby Showers

As the morose tone of the last couple of posts has probably indicated, I'm in an anti-social phase. I had a dear friend's baby shower to go to today which I was dreading a bit; I don't fit in very well at all-female events. Anyway, it was just fine; turns out half the people there were hockey fans and we had the TV on watching the Canadians whup them American asses but good in the Olympic men's hockey final while she opened her gifts. We even sang the national anthem and got all choked up when the flags were raised. I got a terrific photo (on someone else's camera, alas) of the expecting mother opening a sweet card, surrounded by cheering women with their arms flung up into the air, half out of their seats.

My husband did the Trading Spaces test; he's Genevieve. This surprises me not at all. Go run barefoot in a field, darling.

Being a fan of Trading Spaces, I took the Trading Spaces quiz that Ceri found. I was so afraid I'd be Hilda. I would have just died. Turns out I'm not.

Thoughts Onstage

The shows have just become better and better, and the first week of the run is over. It bothers me how relieved I am.

See, in the seventeen years I’ve been doing theatre, I’ve lived this odd contradiction. I love working on a show, all the preparation, the evolution of the sense of identity that the company develops, the actual staging of the thing where there’s an excitement in the air as you give something to the audience, they transform the energy you’ve raised and give it back to you, and it snowballs into an all-around magnificent performance.

However, I don’t like working with people very much, and I hate being the centre of attention.

This confuses just about everyone I know. “You’re on stage singing alone in front of five hundred people!” they say. “How can you claim to not like being the centre of attention?”

Easy. I’m in character. I’m someone else.

The wonderful lie about stage work is that you are simultaneously someone completely different living the story for the very first time, and plain old you, focusing very closely on where you are onstage, how the audience sees you, how the audience sees the stage and performers as a whole picture, what’s coming up next, and how you’re sounding tonight. It’s like multi-tasking with personalities. I love doing it, and I do it well.

This year, however, I’m just not into it. We have a terrific cast, a chorus that ranges from passable to outstanding, two phenomenal directors, and a fantastic show. I’m not enjoying it, and I don’t know why. Not knowing why irritates me, and when I get irritated with no apparent source I get angry, and when I get angry I get very cold and don’t like to be around people even less that I do on a good day. During a show, everyone gets all jittery and excited and they do all the stupid theatre stuff that I tolerate on those good days but which is sending me right up the wall this year – such as the two-cheek kisses and the “break a leg” wishes, all from forty people whom I work with but don’t necessarily like. I usually go into what my dear friend Rob calls “show mode”, where I don’t chatter with everyone else backstage and try to be by myself so I can keep focused on the show and my character. The two mind-sets don’t mesh very well, and as a result I just know that people think I’m stuck up and don’t like them this year. In our current disastrous financial situation we can’t afford to go out with everyone after a show either, to the spontaneous parties or to the official planned ones, and that’s probably not helping the anti-social beliefs that are developing.

So, in other words, I’m frustrated. There are a few people who don’t rub me the wrong way this year, and I love them dearly – particularly Richard, Rob, Andee, Annika, and Tara - and they’re my saviours backstage along with Sarah, Kay, Helen, and Christina. It’s nothing personal against everyone else; it's just that these people somehow know how to cut through the crap going on and touch me gently, to make me calm. I’ve been doing theatre with Annika since we began, seventeen years ago; we’ve lost count of how many shows we’ve done together. Rob is my chosen brother, older, younger and twin, and I’d be without an anchor in a show (and life in general) if he weren’t around. Richard is like a younger brother who I care very deeply about. All three of them understand how I can’t seem to connect with this year’s show, and have the same professional approach to theatre that I do, and they make this run okay somehow. They also understand that I’m not a people person, and they never make me feel guilty about creeping out of the theatre right after the curtain closes, or pressure me to go out partying.

Hence I’m relieved that we’re halfway done. I don’t know why I’m not enjoying myself, and that upsets me beyond belief. I should be having fun. Well, I am having fun, to a degree; but it’s nowhere near what I usually get out of it. If we weren’t doing Yeomen of the Guard in 2003 I’d quit the society based on how I feel this year, but it’s such an awesome opera that I have to try for it. With luck, everyone will remember how blown away the cast and audience were by Rob and I in Ruddigore and we’ll be able to play opposite one another again. If luck’s not with us, well… I guess I’ll be sitting on the other side of the curtain.

CURRENT READING:

The Big U, by Neal Stephenson
Brr. Was university really that bad for this guy? Some really philosophical concepts, and some truly terrifying pranks. Stephenson wins the award for Obsession With Pipe Organs In An Author’s Books. Lots of themes that are further explored in later works. Interesting.

Survived

Well, we did it, and we’re not dead, the theatre is still standing, and no one asked for their money back, so I guess it was all right!

No, seriously, though, as always in theatre, we had absolutely everything go wrong that could go wrong. Lines were dropped – okay, that happens here and there. Someone’s cell phone went off loudly in Act 2, despite the several “turn off your damn phones you inconsiderate jerks” in the program; besides, it’s just common courtesy. But the icing on the cake was the P.A. announcement ten minutes before the intermission. Both our stage managers ended up in the school night supervisor’s office yelling at her. Last but not least, yours truly caught her swishy red and white circle skirt on a huge wooden plant cutout and nearly swept it over as she fled offstage in Act 2. We’d all been so careful about the pointy, sharp, evil-looking thing up until last night, and of course, the near-disaster had to happen to me in front of an audience.

There’s a theatre tradition that you leave notes and little gifts and flowers for people throughout the run of a show, and my night to do it is always opening night. Well, I got to the theatre later than I usually do last night, rushed, and I stopped dead when I saw carnations, chocolates and cards sitting at my make-up table. I felt horrible. I have never, in the seventeen years I have been doing stage work, ever, forgotten opening night. Not that I forgot it was opening night – that’s a little too engraved in brain tissue. What I forgot was that on opening night I gift people.

Now, I can do it on some other night; that’s not the problem. The fact that I forgot for that particular night really upsets me.

It threw my whole mood off. My parents and in-laws were in the audience, though, and my mood improved slightly when I saw the huge bouquet of deep red lilies my mother picked up for me. They're breathtakingly exquisite. Then we got home and polished off a bottle of Soave (Italian, of course, in keeping with the Gondolieri feel) and that was terrific too. I see my parents so rarely that I cherish all the time I get with them, especially here; I usually travel to Toronto to see them. Now I've seen them here twice in two months; they came down for my smashing chamber orchestra debut as well.

Off to cog to make money for kibble!

Vinyl Cafe, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and the Gondoliers

The Vinyl Cafe show last night was terrific - not as good, in my opinion, as the one taped in NDG two years ago, but hey, it's Stuart McLean - he's always good. Listen two Saturdays from now (that would be, um, March 2nd) to hear the fabulous Montreal show broadcast on CBC Radio 2 at 10 am, and Sunday March 3rd at noon on CBC Radio 1. Stuart grew up in Montreal; why doesn't he come back more often? This is only the second show he's done here, in all the eight years he's been hosting the Vinyl Cafe. He went to school with my dentist, I discovered a few years ago. The things you hear in a dentist's chair! (Ah, it's such a small island, after all...)

The news is in, and it ain't good. The movie adaptation of League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Alan Moore's phenomenal graphic novel, is going ahead... and they're ruining it. Check out The Last Comic Site's rant on the topic and mourn with me, my friends.

The Canadian women's Olympic curling team lost last night in the semi-final round to Great Britain. Now they'll play for the bronze. Seems a pity when they've demonstrated that they're obviously the strongest team in attendance. And how about the Canadian men's hockey team? Way to pull up your socks, gents!

The Gondoliers is opening tonight - wish I was enjoying myself just a teensy bit more. I'm getting rather frustrated with the chorus' apparent lack of dedication to the project. Ah well; the magic of theatre means the audience will never know. It's a truly terrific show, and light years beyond what the society has pulled off before. Our new stage director, Corey Castle, is gods-sent, and I adore him. I just hope we haven't frightened him off...

Plays Cello, Drives a VW Beetle

Dwelling on the visual images Highly Amusing Fact #2 conjured up, I was reminded of my cousin who also plays the cello. In the past few years he has moved from Vancouver back home to Nova Scotia, west again to Vancouver, then to balmy Sioux Lookout in Northern Ontario, and thence to Toronto proper. Not only does he play the cello, he also drives a nice shiny deep cherry red Volkswagon Beetle – not one of the new ones, an original. He also owns a canoe.

You see where this is going, don’t you.

He drove across Canada. Now, a Beetle doesn’t have a lot of room to begin with, but when you’ve crammed it with all your personal possessions there is considerably less room. As most people do, he lashed that canoe to the top of the Beetle. (Yes, go ahead; pause and appreciate the humourous mental picture that sentence conjures up.) The only thing left was the cello. My cousin, being of innovative stock that thinks outside the box, picked it up, tucked it inside the canoe, and drove East.

Spring Means New Cars

Okay. It’s getting to be Spring. (Not that we’ve actually had a Winter here in Montreal, but still.) The new cars are coming out, and I’m becoming itchy.

Spring’s a car kind of season, the way Fall’s the time of year when we look at babies and dogs. We were watching TV the other day and a wonderful ad for the PT Cruiser came on – the one that talks nostalgically about Hot Wheels and how cool they were, and how nifty the loop-de-loop flexible track was. My husband said, “I had that exact set,” then sighed, shook his head, and said, “They’re aiming this commercial right at me, and every guy my age.” For the past year or so I’ve been drooling over the Chrysler PT Cruisers myself; they’re just so classy. My eye was also caught by the new Chrysler Crossfire they unveiled at the recent Auto Show. (Since they merged with Daimler, Chrysler’s vehicle designs have really improved!). Now, however – ah, now. My fealty belongs to another. I passed a billboard the other day – a quiet, elegant, silver-grey tone billboard with a vaguely familiar silhouette on it.

They’re making Minis again.

I adore Minis. It has something to do with the ridiculous smallness of them. I’m fond of small things – I’m a small thing myself. My family had an ancient dull red Mini as a second car when I was a kid, and it was terrific – had a woodgrain dashboard with all of three dials on it. You could reach into the trunk from the front, through the back seat. And it was missing part of the floor; my father had to put a board over it. It was a clunker, and I loved it. It was enough to get us around when the other car was unavailable. Okay, so the brakes failed a few times; so there was more rust than body. It was cool!

It dropped in the traces one day, a front wheel coming off as my dad drove down the highway. That was the beginning of the end. I think my parents sold it to a scrap dealer for a whole fifty dollars.

Now – now... I, too, could have a Mini.

Highly Amusing Fact #1: My husband is built like a rugby player.

Highly Amusing Fact #2: I play the cello.

Highly Amusing Fact #3: They’re quoting top speed of the regular Mini Cooper at 200 KPH. With an acceleration from 0-100 KPH of 9.2 seconds on four cylinders.

So, if you’re looking for the perfect birthday present for me – and you’ve got a handful of months to save up for it – you can buy me a Mini Cooper in British Racing Green.

More Curling

Well, it had to happen eventually - the Canadian women's curling team finally lost a game in the Olympic round-robin. Their final draw was won by Switzerland 7-6, and it was an essential win for them, saving them from being knocked out of the semi-finals. Canada retains possession of first place after the round-robin play, however.

Can't wait for the semi-finals!

Farewell Bailey

Sad day… Bailey, our loony ring-necked dove, has flown on to brighter skies.

Bailey was a fifteen-year-old dove whom we inherited from a co-worker of mine a few years ago when her mother moved into a smaller home and couldn’t keep all her birds. His two handles were his missing right eye, and his trademark drunken “woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!” call that sounded more like a sports cheer than the typical cooing dove noise. When we got him he didn’t really have a name, so we spent a few days staring at this one-eyed dove darting his head around, looking at his new surroundings with his good eye. We came close to calling him Odin, but finally settled on Bailey, as he was the precise brownish-cream colour of a nice glass of Irish Cream. Besides, however he lost that eye, it certainly wasn’t as a sacrifice for knowledge; he was pretty, but was rather lacking in the intelligence department.

We couldn’t let him out of his cage to fly, which was a real pity as he was used to having a whole room with branches in it to knock about in. Every time we let him out, he’d take off and fly… leaning ever to the left because that was where he could see. So his straight lines would deteriorate into lazy circles that took him into lamps, mirrors, shelves, and piles of paper. Eventually we clipped his wings and would take him out to sit on our shoulders, which he liked just fine, because he could play in our long hair. He loved to groom my husband’s beard, too. Due to the fact that he was missing an eye, his sense of depth perception was skewed, so he’d sit on his branch and eye the floor of his cage where he’d scattered all his food, screw up his courage, then leap from the perch with that “woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!” as he hurtled to what could be three feet or three inches below him. When he’d hit the cage floor sooner than he expected, the whole contraption would shake, and he’d make a chuckling sound in appreciation for his apparent luck in surviving the treacherous drop.

Lately, however, his drunken cheers had become quieter and less frequent. His enthusiastic daily exercises (consisting of gripping his branch tightly with both feet and flapping his wings as hard as he could, raising clouds of seed dust, fallen feather, and dander) had also grown few and far between. We checked on him daily, and took him out of his cage last week for a long cuddle and a cage-cleaning, and there was nothing wrong with him; it was just finally his time to go. After fifteen years, hey, he was long overdue.

He had a good life, a terrific sense of humour, and brought a smile to many faces. Cheers to Bailey!

Woo-hoo! Norway just took a

Woo-hoo! Norway just took a point, and they're calling it a game; final score is 9-4 for Canada! The Canadian men's team now stands at seven wins, one loss!

Oooh! Oooh! Canada just took another point! 9-3 with three ends remaining!

Okay. I'm going back to trying to figure out how to put the code for this comment function in so the Grand Poobah can rest easy. I managed to do it for my web counter, which now works; I'm stunned. Let's see if we can make it two for two...

Olympic Curling

I came home after a twelve-hour rehearsal on Saturday to catch the last three ends of the women's Olympic curling - once again, Kelley Law's rink took out the competition (a little bit of curling humour there) and now goes right to the medal round! The Canadian women are undefeated, having played twice on Saturday and winning both draws. They get a well-deserved day off today before playing Switzerland, the fourth-place team from the round robin, tomorrow. Way to go, Kelley! I saw the end of the draw and considered dragging myself into the office to post the breaking news to the blog, but thought the better of my ability to express myself with anything close to eloquence after Hell Day, and dragged myself off to bed instead. We even remembered to turn the alarm off this time.

The men's Olympic curling team is also in first place with six wins and only one loss. They're currently playing Norway at this very moment. The score stands at 8-3 for Canada; Norway just did a nice gentle take-out with their final stone to lie two in the sixth end.

So, as always happens a few days before the show opens, I start feeling fed up with the music and start looking ahead to next year's production. In this case, I can't stop humming The Gondoliers, so in a desperate attempt to save myself from madness we listened to a recording of The Yeomen of the Guard this morning. I'm so hooked. Every year around this time I become a dual G&S/curling junkie. My life narrows down to the Brier, the Tournament of Hearts, and Lakeshore Light Opera. This year's Olympics are an extra bonus. I love my life.

Curse You, Tom Allen

Tom Allen of CBC Radio 2’s Music and Company is insidious. He remarked that the show-stopping tenor aria La donna è mobile sounded tricky to sing because you could so easily slip into It’s Howdy Doody Time.

AAAGH!

Now, I dislike Verdi's La donna è mobile to begin with. Apart from being derogatory towards over half the planet's population, it ranks up there with the opening movement to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony, Mozart’s Eine kleine Nachtmusik, and Mendelssohn’s Wedding March from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. They’re all overplayed, and as a result I can’t stand them. I can appreciate their genius, the mastery over the medium and all that, but the fact that people never get past them to discover other wonderful examples of symphonic or chamber triumph bothers me. What also rots my socks is that it’s a closed loop – people like them so the music gets played a lot, and because it gets played a lot people assume it’s good and like it.

Sigh.

So now, whenever I hear La donna è mobile, on top of gritting my teeth, I’ll have to think of Howdy Doody. Brr.

Post-Birthday, and more Curling

A huge hug all around to everyone who came out to honour the birthday boys last night - I know they both appreciated it. Now that the husband's gone off to work, I get to dig through his presents to see what everyone gave him. I assume you all got the usual, "You didn't have to get me anything - the only gift I ever ask for is your presence" speech when you passed him his loot? As for the brief preview of The Gondoliers in the form of "After Sailing To This Island" as performed by the Sisters in Misfortune, (a.k.a. myself and Tara): the missing line no one could remember is "Is the populace exacting?". You're welcome. I know you were tossing and turning, sleepless all night with the suspense.

Seems that dreadful Valentine's Day interview might not have aired yesterday. I might have been bumped in favour of some knowledgeable Olympic persons. No great loss. In fact, I'd be thrilled beyond belief if they've axed it. Next time, they get told that if one topic is prepped and another replaces it in the interview, they get corrected - on the air.

Now, because I am certain that you're all squiggly with excitement, the latest curling news! The Canadian team lost to Sweden 6-5, spoiling their perfect undefeated record in the round-robin. Apparently the ice was tricky, and the Swedes picked it up before the Canadians did. It happens. Despite that, it was a really good, tight game. The Canadian women's team is still 4-0 going into their next game with England.

Seems this blog is getting attention! The Grand Poohbah is scrounging around for a comment function so he can, well, comment, because apparently he's bursting at the seams. In the interests of his health, I hope he finds one soon.

Interviews

So after Buffy last night, I flipped through channels looking for my weekly The West Wing fix. What did I get instead? The Mists of Avalon. Part One. Sigh. The severity of mental gear-shifting was almost painful.

I finished Cryptonomicon yesterday. Neal Stephenson really has a problem ending his books, doesn't he. I mean, don't get me wrong; I'm all for the "life goes on" feeling in a novel, but sometimes I wish there was a bit more... well... finality.

Just recorded a telephone interview with CJAD, our local talk radio station. Being one of the local Pagan Poster Girls, I get a lot of calls around Friday the 13th and Hallowe'en. And now, evidently, Valentine's Day. I love the producer; he's terrific. We talked about the historical and ethical issues surrounding Valentine's Day and spellcraft, which is terrific, because I hate shallow gag interviews about love potions. There's a new host that they paired me with though, who asked me my areas of specialty (academia, historical practices) before we started, then proceeded to completely ignore all the pre-production work to ask me, in the interview, how to do a love spell to make Meg Ryan fall in love with him.

You know, it's people like this who laugh at the concept of magic who really tick me off.

I was as polite as possible while telling him that he was an idiot and it's a serious topic, but it really burned me up. On top of it all, this happened only a couple of hours after I turned CFCF (a local TV station) down for a TV spot. We're short-staffed today, and a TV interview takes up a chunk of time and manpower that we simply didn't have. I told them courteously that we'd be delighted to do an interview at any time, with two days notice so that we could get in an extra staff member to meet their needs. Who wakes up on Valentine's Day expecting to go on TV and talk about love potions (ugh)?

Well, obviously I should.

Now I hear you all wondering, "Magic? A serious topic?" Heck, yes. That, however, is a topic for another day.

CURRENT READING:
Player of Games, Iain M Banks. Excellent. Nice, smooth read. An author who is obviously right at home with making you feel like you're wherever his protagonist is.

Or Maybe Not

Came home last night with a blinding migraine. Music would have been bad. Instead, I chose the intelligent alternative of having a warm vanilla-y bath. Mmm.

Today is Pick On Single (Or Partnered and Unhappy) People and Make Them Feel Guilty Day. I've always disliked Valentine's Day. It either makes you feel you should be with someone (which is far from a necessity to be happy or normal), or if you do make up part of a couple, it makes you feel like you should heap piles of chocolate and flowers on them. What's wrong with chocolate and flowers the other 364 days of the year? Or, why not (as I did) wash the dishes for your love instead? Or pick them up from work rather than making them take the bus alone? There's so many better ways to tell them you care.

Speaking of beloveds, it's my husband's birthday this weekend (photo courtesy of the Grand Poohbah), and as we will be entangled in twelve solid hours of rehearsal for next week's show, we're going out tonight to celebrate. As always, the only present he's asked for is to see a bunch of people having fun, so a whole whack o'persons will be gathering at the pub for cider and baked Brie. Good fun. A few of us pooled cash and got him the three-DVD set of Toy Story, Toy Story 2, and the extra DVD with all the developmental material on it. He's an animator by career, so he drools over stuff like this. It's cute. Personally, I'm taking him to see Stuart McLean & the Vinyl Cafe tour when it hits Theatre Outremont next week; we love Stuart and consider him the nearest thing to a modern bard Canada's got. (Although Gordon Lightfoot runs a close second.)

Must be off! Must dare the elements and public transport to cog, so that we can buy kitty kibble for the moggies. (Isn't that the most important reason?)

Wednesday, After Tuesday

Oh, you've been spoiled. Yesterday was Tuesday, which means my work-at-home day. This was instituted so I could actually get important database maintenance, orders, and bulletin board moderating done without interference from customers. It's terrific; I get it done in less time with less irritation, with more accuracy and more bright ideas. It also means that I'm at my own computer where I can post whenever a thought wanders into my mind that burns to be expressed. Yesterday in particular I was on the computer from around 10.00 AM until 6.00 PM, so you got a lot of posts. This frequency will certainly not be a regular daily occurance, but watch for Tuesdays being a particularly effusive day.

Today is Wednesday, which means that I go straight from work to orchestra and I won't be back until eleven-ish tonight. Normally what I'd do is sit down with a cup of herbal tea and watch whatever re-run episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer the VCR recorded earlier in the evening, but as my husband has just begun a new job that involves getting up much earlier than he used to, I have a sneaky suspicion that going to bed earlier will also be in order. And it's just no fun watching Buffy without him. Maybe I'll blog instead; I'm sure you're all dying to know what we rehearse tonight.

The Beauty of Curling

What do you mean, you think curling is boring? Golf is boring! Baseball is boring! Curling, now; curling is like chess on ice, requiring a mind able to think several moves ahead, a flexible team able to adapt to quickly changing ice conditions, and physical stamina.

I have only one last thing to say: forty-two pounds of Scottish granite.

Woo-hoo! The Canadian women’s Olympic

Woo-hoo! The Canadian women’s Olympic curling team is now at 2-0! Go Kelly!

Did I mention that curling is the only sport that I ever clicked with? Yes indeed; I even curled competitively, ending up at the junior provincial championship in 1989. That’s how I ruined my knees. Painful, but fun. If I curl nowadays, I must wear a large, unattractive, very electric blue brace on my left leg (with red accents to make it go faster). Teammates have been known to insinuate that it’s a secret weapon. I'm still uncertain as to whether it's a scare tactic, or whether they're just trying to make me feel better...

More exciting curling news!

Speaking of the CBC… Lord

Speaking of the CBC… Lord of the Rings: Fellowship of the Ring (henceforth LOTR1) has thirteen Oscar nominations. Thirteen. I am of the opinion that Home Run should call Bill and me back for another Siskel & Ebert session on the merits of these nominations. Heck, they should just give us our own show.

Back to the Olympics

Anyone else think that the little fanfare CBC Radio Two is using for the Olympic updates before the hourly news sounds like the Back to the Future theme? They're probably using it on CBC Radio One as well. You have to time it right to catch it... aim for around 5 minutes before the hour.

No, seriously.

Oscar Nominations

Woo-hoo! The Oscar nominations are up! Normally I couldn't give a damn, but this will be an interesting year, what with all the animated movies and films-based-on-fantasy-books-that-were-fine-on-their-own-merit that were released. I have conflicting emotions concerning movie adaptations. On one hand, they completely destroy the book (oh, come on, you know it's true); even if the adaptation is "faithful" you can never go back to the book and read it the way you read it before a director, set of actors, and set designers interpreted it and sold it to squintillions of viewers. On the other hand, however, sales of the original book go skyrocketing, which can only do people good. The world should read more. (We will not, I repeat, WILL NOT discuss movie covers on books. Hold me back.)

Anywhats. Check it out.
74th Annual Academy Awards

Query #3: Who are you?

Query #3: Who are you?

Goodness, you’re all just so thirsty for knowledge, aren’t you. Ten points to you all.

“Who” is just so subjective, don’t you think? Who I am changes daily, what with cells replacing themselves, ideas evolving, new skills acquired, old skills falling by the wayside…

So instead, I’ll toss out a semi-random spray of info; little packets that you can assemble into whatever order you like and construct your own mental version of Autumn ™.

I’m a Savoyard, and a mezzo-soprano; at the moment I sing with Lakeshore Light Opera. I love foxes, and barn owls. My home is decorated with blades and Pre-Raphaelite prints. I’ve played the cello since 1994, and I currently play with the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra. I sell books. I possess a Magisteriate in English Literature. I love fountain pens, and dip pens are my newest experiment. I dislike being rushed, and being told I should or shouldn’t do something is the most direct route to making sure I will not/will do it (or at least consider doing it). I like being outside, but bugs diminish the enjoyment. Rowan trees are nifty. So is mythology, and spirituality, and metaphysics. Rain is fun. Floods are not. Good friends are invaluable, and I have a bunch of them, some who are new, some who have been around for over a decade. Ravenclaw, not Gryffindor. Sometimes I can be in a crowded room and be quite alone. Then again, sometimes I can be in an empty room and be overcome by companionship. Star Wars, not Star Trek (but Trek’s okay too). Not enough people are taught Shakespeare properly. Jane Austen rules. The Bard is the most under-appreciated character in any AD&D campaign.

Oh, and be ye warned – books will show up a lot as a topic. We’ll focus on them some other time, or else my work of the day will lie untouched and management will gently ask why the heck they’re paying me. But for now…

CURRENT READING:
Cryptonomicon by Neal Stephenson. Run, don’t walk. Gems range from:
“Commemorating the Holocaust is not, not not not not not, the same thing as fighting to prevent future holocausts. Most of the commemorators are just whiners. They think that if everyone feels bad about past holocausts, human nature will magically transform, and no one will want to commit genocide in the future.” (pp.401)
... to...
“But now, Shaftoe, you are in the Army, and in the Army we actually have certain wonderful innovations, such as strategy and tactics, which certain admirals would be well-advised to acquaint themselves with.” (pp.619)

Query #2

Query #2: Whose fault is it, anyway?

Three. The perpetrators are three in number. Their names, so that you may alternatively praise them or curse them, are, in order of suggesting that I record my musings:

Eric

The Grand Poohbah, JDH

Ceri

There. My work is here done. For the nonce

The Origin of the Name

So, why Owls’ Court, I hear the masses query.

It was a thing I had when I was discovering the glorious permutations of language, lo, these many years ago. You know those collective nouns - descriptions like a school of fish, a gaggle of geese, an exaltation of larks? They get more arcane: a murder of crows, a parliament of rooks, an unkindness of ravens, a plate of clams… but I always wondered what a collection of owls would be. They’re pretty solitary.

So I made it up. A court of owls.

Then recently, I discovered that a collection of owls is actually called a parliament. I don’t know what that does to the rooks; maybe they’re a house of rooks now.

Anywhats. There you have it. A term that, sadly, I can no longer use, because someone else got there first. That is, until now. Creating a blog was worth it, simply for that.

There will, however, be more. Much, much more.

Damn. I just burned my

Damn. I just burned my grilled-cheese sandwich. See what you made me do?

Welcome

It's happened. It's here.

The single most mind-influencing, future-shattering event the world can possibly experience has arrived. Me. My blog. My thoughts to your screen.

And thence to your mind, challenging the way you think, the way you perceive the world around you. And maybe, just maybe, to inspire you.