rich and alisa

Wow, am I ever sore today, from biking and tennis on the weekend.
Still, I went biking with David this morning. I complained the whole
way about being sore, of course; he was VERY patient with me. :-) We didn't
bike as far as we normally did, and he gave me part of his Multi Berry
Nutrigrain bar (probably so I would quit talking so much!).

Last night, went to Two Pianos, Four Hands at the Royal Alex with my
friend Cathy. Enjoyed it much more than I expected! It was part of our
theatre subscription package, and I had always viewed it as one of those
shows that are tacked on just as filler. But it was great! The set
consisted entirely of two guys on two grand pianos, and the semi-autobiographical
story followed their musical careers from childhood to adult. There were
a lot of insider jokes that could only be truly appreciated by piano teachers
(I taught piano for about 15 years) and anyone who has taken piano lessons,
though Cathy said she enjoyed the production as well even tho she hasn't done
either.

One of the parts I loved was a series of scenes in which the boys were
giving the usual excuses for not practising...WOW, was that accurate. I
remember getting excuses from "It sounded better at home!" to "My little
sister ate my homework page" to "I hurt my finger earlier this week, but
it got better just before my lesson." I remember using some of these
excuses when I was a student, too. :-)

I also remember the hours of practising (I was up to four hours a day
when I worked on my ARCT (teacher's degree)), the endless scales and
arpeggios and formula patterns, the nervewracking experience of the
Kiwanis Festival (I remember coming home and crying after my first
experience at the Festival...I had very bad stage fright), Conservatory
exams, getting so involved in your music that you forget about
everything else. I've always found piano very good for that...when I
am angry or upset about something, I find it immensely satisfying to
pound through a good, violent Rachmaninoff or an intensely complicated
Bach fugue.

Seeing the show last night made me want to get back to playing piano
again, of course. I just wish there was more time in the day!
(or stop sleeping)

Congratulations to Alisa and Rich, who got engaged yesterday!!!

visitor

Our friend Scott D. (to be distinguished from Scott Snyder :-) ) arrived today
and will be staying with us until Sunday. Scott's a very good friend of ours...he was best man at our wedding seven years ago, in fact! We don't get to see much of him these days because he lives in Ireland, where he teaches history at the University of Belfast. His thesis was published by Cambridge Press.

Got Inklings out this morning.

Last last night, we visited Craig's Festival of Festival party (Craig is the one complained about me posting a link to his
homepage a while back). Each year,
Craig is kind enough to organize tickets for a bunch of us to go to the
Toronto Festival of Festivals (movies). The party is necessary so we can
browse the catalog and pick which movies we'd like to see with our allotted
tickets. Craig takes time off work to attend this event, seeing an average of
40 movies in 10 days (!!). His movie reviews are highly entertaining, and
I am going to bug him to put them on his webpage. He's emailed with Ebert
(of Siskel and Ebert fame), who also enjoys his film reports.

catch-up

Sorry for the lack of blatherings during Scott's visit. He left for Ireland today, don't know when we'll see him again. :(

Massively busy lately, but did get to spend time with Scott and the entire Ridpath clan (the last time we all got together was at Christmas) this past weekend. Brittany still calls me "Dobbie". Olivia just drools and looks confused. :-)

Thanks to Diana Huey for her surprise Jelly Belly package! She sent me a box of Jelly Belly's (to Jodi & Allison: I'll bring them to the recording session this week), a Jelly Belly propeller hat, and a stuffed Mr. Jelly Belly!

Hope you all had a good long weekend! It was a regular weekend for me (i.e. worked today)...being self-employed tends to blur holidays into regular workdays fairly often, I'm sad to say.

palm pilot iii

I have a Palm Pilot III! Sold my old Pilot. Jeff and I made Scott D. ill last week by beaming appointments and memos to each other.

Dinner at my sister's last night. I find meals so entertaining there. Last time, Sara was pretending to be a wolf while Annie rubbed chicken bits in her hair. After, we all headed over to Starbucks on Queen Street for a coffee. Today's blathering pic is a drawing Sara gave me yesterday. She knows how to write her name ("Sara T."), only backwards. Sara starts junior kindergarten this Friday...she's very excited.

Worked most of yesterday, though some friends came over in the evening. We watched The English Patient (which I quite liked), tried Volcanic Mud Foot Treatment, made popcorn. The Mud was fascinating...smelled like cloves, and seemed to heat up after being slathered on our feet. After we washed the mud off in our tub (we had to walk there with our feet in plastic bags), our feet nicely exfoliated and tingly. :-) We also experimented with temporary tattoos and different colours of nail polish (I generally never wear either, so it was a rather interesting experience for me :)). The polish on my fingernails was too distracting, tho (it's all I could look at while I was typing, and you all know how I feel about anything that distracts me from communing with the Internet...) so I took it off last night. Annie was fascinated with my toes, though, and kept squatting and staring intently at them.

The other day, Sara asked me if I knew any Spice Girls songs. I said no. (She's only 4 years old...how the heck did she find out about the Spice Girls???)

Officemusic: Eagles - HELL FREEZES OVER.

stunt

Went to see The Mark of Zorro on Tuesday night and quite enjoyed it...campy, fun. Quite liked the male lead, too. ;-)

Allison, Jodi and I are going to Taxi Stand Studios tonight to do recording for Puzzlebox.

David and I went cycling yesterday. I was dead tired (I had insomnia problems the night before), but David took it easy on me! I'll miss him while he's away on a kayak trip. I may vow I'll still go cycling by myself, but I know myself well enough by now to know I won't. :\

Hey, Lyanne Quirt sent me a newspaper clipping from the Ottawa Citizen from the WHEELS section, showing a picture of her with a bunch of other Bell High School students crammed into the new Volkswagen Beetle. :-) They fit 21 (!!) students into the New Beetle!!! She also sent me a....*gasp...SNAILMAIL LETTER. Wow. Actually handwritten on nice stationery and everything. :)

I used to be an avid snailmail correspondent. I would spend hours on handwritten letters, adding cartoons and stickers and so on. Since I got online, however, I've been sadly neglecting my snailmail-only correspondents. Most of my friends are online, after all, and snailmail seems so laborious now. To think that I actually used to go to the trouble of HANDWRITING a letter, sticking it in an ENVELOPE, scrummaging around for POSTAGE STAMPS, and then (and this is the real whammy) actually GOING OUTSIDE (yes, into the fresh air and sunlight) to find a mailbox.

(Pause while Debbie recovers...)

Seriously, though. When Lyanne and I first started corresponding (when she was about nine, I think...is that right, Lyanne?), I started to find that I was actually ENJOYING the novelty of a snailmail correspondence again. Email can't quite replace the pleasure of finding a handwritten paper letter waiting in one's mailbox. Especially these days, when I tend to get so much junk email and most of my email is work-related. Getting surprise packages like the one Diana sent last week is also a joy. :-) It's also nice to be able to keep paper letters and reread them years later, something you can only do with email if you archive all your correspondence religiously (like a certain friend I know :-)).

Anyway, I predict snailmail will never die completely! In fact, I invite you all to send postcards (SNAILMAIL postcards, please)...I'll post them on my Blatherings over time. Send to:

Debbie Ridpath Ohi

55 McCaul St. Box 123

Toronto, ON

Canada M5T 2W7

Officemusice: Barenaked Ladies - STUNT.