ttc strike

Looks like the TTC (local transit) is going on strike at midnight tonight.
Details here.

stars on ice

My mom-in-law took me to see Stars On Ice in the new Air Canada Centre building. I've always been a fan of the Olympics figure skating competition, but never seen live professional skating before. It was great to see some familiar names perform live (Kurt Browning, Tara Lipinsky, Brian Orser, Isabelle Brasseur and Lloyd Eisler, Lu Chen, Shae-Lynn Bourne & Victor Kraatz, Jenni Meno & Todd Sand, Josee Chouinard, Steven Cousins). The show was recorded for tv, and afterwards, audience members were invited to linger on to watch some of the skaters do flubbed bits again...missed jumps, falls, that sort of thing. Kurt Browning seemed to be a sort of emcee for the evening, and filled time with patter while the skaters did their costume changes at the end. He wore a Wayne Gretsky "99" shirt and asked how many husbands had to miss Gretsky's last game to be at the ice show with their wives. About four hands went up. :-)

I'm not a big hockey fan (I did used to root for the Leafs a long time ago) but even I tuned in to watch part of that last game. And (like the sap I am) did get teary-eyed at the end. (I'm the sort that gets teary-eyed during Cantel commercials...) I had to leave before the end of the game to go meet Ginny, but on the way to her place I passed a cluster of people in front of a sports bar window. They were all watching the end of Gretsky's last game, of course.

(Side note: I find the term 'the Great One' a bit amusing (Gretsky fans will want to rip my throat out for saying that, I'm sure). They kept talking about 'the Great One' all through the game. I wonder how much ribbing he gets from his friends and family about that? :-) "O Great One, could you please pass me the salt?")

But back to Stars On Ice. Wow, were there a few loud screamers in the audience. Most of the younger ones seemed to like screaming for Kurt Browning. If I was a screamer, I would have opted for Steven Cousins, I think. :-)

fune dream

Allison is sick! :-( Please send her get well email.

Had a very odd dream last night. Allison, Jodi, and I were sitting in a restaurant (which looked remarkably like Fune, my favourite Japanese restaurant just down the street) with Scott & Amanda Snyder, passing around a see-through bag of Jelly Bellies (tm). The bag kept slipping out of our hands, and we all thought it hysterically funny for some reason. In fact, I laughed so hard in my dream that I woke up, still laughing. "That was the funniest dream I've had in a long time," I recall thinking to myself in amusement. Then, a few minutes later, "Hmm...that wasn't funny at all, really. Why was I laughing so hard?"

Any guesses from you psych-types out there on what my dream REALLY means? (feel free to let your imagination run wild, but please remember this is a G-rated website! :-)) Post your interpretations in blatherchat. And why is it that other people seem to have dreams so much more incredibly interesting than the ones I have? One friend of ours has entire spy movies scripted out in his dreams, ones that I'd actually like to watch! But who would be at all interested in watching a bunch of people pass around a bag of Jelly Bellies? Sigh.

Looks like we can't get ADSL after all...Sympatico people did a test on our phone line and apparently we're too far from a switch thingy. Double sigh.

Hey, Rice Paper magazine (Asian Canadian literary & media arts publication) is doing a profile of me in an upcoming issue.

Officemusic: Lola (Sphincter and the Juice Police).

mrs. poole

Saw "Master Class" at the Royal Alex with Cathy last night. It was about singing lessons, but it brought back memories of my ARCT piano lessons. My teacher was Mrs. Poole, well-known at the Royal Conservatory of Music at the time. Occasionally I ran into her composer husband, Clifford Poole (I had learned several of his pieces years before).

Mrs. Poole taught lessons in her condo on Charles Street, and I dutifully went every week. She was aggressive, highly-opinionated, and I was terrified of her most of the time. Her hands were too arthritic for her to do much playing herself anymore...even the pencilled notes she frequently scrawled on my music were difficult to decipher. She yelled, she ordered, she beat the top of the piano with the flat of her hand. I hated her at first, but then started to realize that my piano playing was gaining a depth I had never experienced before. For the first time, I would practice for hours and not counting the minutes until my time was up (I was practising about 4 hours a day back then). Mrs. Poole died before I was ready for my ARCT practical exam. When her husband called with the news, I wasn't surprised...she had been having to cancel more and more of my lessons because of health problems. Still, it was a shock to hear she was really gone.

By that time, I had already realized that I did not want to make music my full-time career, and I opted not to resume lessons with another piano teacher. I still pull out my ARCT music from time to time, just to see how much of it I still remember, but when I devote any time to music these days, it's usually to Urban Tapestry repertoire or songwriting.

While I cannot honestly say I ever loved Mrs. Poole, I know that I will never erase any of those pencilled scribbles, nor will I ever forget her.

cottage visit

I'm at the cottage! We arrived yesterday, paddled across the lake in our canoe. Everything's still waking up from winter, and the air is chill but fresh. Don't think I'll be going swimming this visit, though. :-) Saw a beaver swim by a few minutes ago! Cabin is pretty cold; we've got a fire going in the corner, but the heat doesn't seem to be making its way over to the table where I'm typing this. I'm bundled up wearing a t-shirt, sweatshirt, sweater, vest, and fleece pants. :-) Might go for a hike tomorrow, but today we're both planning to just do a lot of reading, napping, and eating. I bought a box of chocolate-caramel-cake thingies that have absolutely no nutritional value, yum! I've posted a list of favourite food movies at Debbie's Food Movie Links.

I'm teaching myself penny whistle, by the way. I made a half-hearted attempt before, but this time I'm going to do it! I'm about 1/3 way through the instruction book that Kylea Fulton sent me, and brought my D whistle to the cottage. Learned how to do a "smear", grace note, turns. Now all I have to do is write a UT song where I can play it. :-)

Augh, I just caught sight of my reflection in the window. REALLY a bad hair day (I've taken to wearing a cap indoors); if I posted a pic of myself right now, I'm sure half of you would die laughing. I'm trying to work up the energy (today has been a very lazy day so far) to heat up some water so I can wash my hair. Unless I feel brave enough to dunk my hair in the lake. The just-thawed lake. Hrm. Naw, I think I'll opt for hot water instead.