my aunt :-(

Apologies for the lack of Blatherings...I've been in a sort of limbo lately, dealing with life.

I had to fly to Seattle for a business meeting on Thursday afternoon. Shortly before boarding my flight, Jeff called my cellphone to tell me that my Aunt Agnes had died. :-( I've mentioned my aunt before...she's been battling cancer for years, and we all thought she had beaten it. Jeff said he had agonized about whether to tell me or not until after I got back, but I'm glad he told me when he did. After a few hasty phonecalls to my dad and sister, I realized there was nothing I could do until after the weekend. Started bawling in the airport lobby, but I had a magazine carefully positioned so that hopefully people couldn't tell.

I had visited my aunt a few days before. She was at home, hooked up to an IV and a morphine pump, drifting in and out of consciousness. My dad held her hand and talked to her, about their childhood, about their visits to Algonquin Park. Ruth and I talked to her a bit, too, and I played a Japanese flute. A few times, my aunt seemed to come up out of the haze and recognized us, exchanged a few words, smiled at our jokes. Whenever she smiled, we felt wonderful...each was like gold to us; we would have done or said anything to make her smile. When it was time to go, we kissed her and told her we loved her, and said good-bye. She smiled at us, clear-eyed at that moment, and said good-bye.

I decided to go to FilKONtario on Saturday more out of a need for a comfort than a need for distraction. Didn't feel much like making music myself, but got tremendous comfort from just sitting and listening, being with close friends, having the occasional good shoulder-cry (thanks, Beckett!). I kept in constant touch with my father and sister via frequent phonecalls on the weekend.

Got quite the surprise on Saturday morning. :-) I took a cab straight from the airport to the hotel (took a red-eye from Seattle and only got about 1/2 hr sleep on the flight). Gabbed with Allison and Jodi in the hotel room, then we all went to Dave Clement's room to meet Dave, Liz, Dave's grand-kids and Tom for breakfast.

The first person I glimpsed inside the room was Lissa Allcock (her first name is pronounced "Lisa", by the way), except my befuddled brain couldn't absorb this. I clearly remember going through something like the following:

That's Lissa.

No, of course that's not Lissa, she's in England. But wow, that woman looks a lot like Lissa.

(pause)

HOLY TOLEDO, THAT'S **LISSA**!!!!

Then I saw Phil, Tim, and Annie. For those of you who don't know, these four talented musicians (members of the group Phoenix) are from across the pond, and we had much fun hanging out with them during our Didgeri-Douze trip in early February. I was missing them terribly, and didn't expect to see any of them for ages. Apparently they had arrived on Thursday! Dave and Tom had managed to correspond with all of us e-mail about plans for FilKONtario without letting on (and Annie never let on in her Witterings either, the sneak! :-)). Allison and Jodi got their surprise on Thursday night (I was in Seattle until Saturday).

I was stunned, delighted, incoherent, and went through the next six hours spontaneously hugging the Brits while saying intelligent things like, "I can't believe you're actually HERE!" :-) They had a surprise mini birthday party for me on Saturday morning in Dave's room...I got lots of tea and chocolate and a personalized mug and other cool stuff.

More on FilKONtario in future Blatherings, plus Allison will be writing a report. I left the con earlier than usual so I could spend time with my family on Sunday. I look forward to reading other FKO reports so I can find out what I missed...please let me know so I can mention them here.

A FKO Highlight We were honoured to be asked to perform " Home To FilKONtario" as the last song in the closing ceremonies. I remember looking up during the last chorus and seeing the entire room singing along ("Bring me home to FilKONtario / Stay...sing with me / We'll be all right, sing all night / with our friends at FilKONtario."). It was a mistake to look up, of course; I immediately got choked up and could barely finish the song. :-) But I was again reminded of the uniqueness of the filking community, and how glad I am to be a part of it.

garrison ridpath

Woohoo, I just found out I'm even more of an aunt than before!!!

Jeff's brother Case and his wife Debbie had a baby boy a few minutes ago...John Garrison Ridpath, He weighed 5 lb, 15 oz, and was 19 inches long. I now have one nephew and four nieces. :-) :-)

I've always been fascinated by the weight thing re: babies. Perhaps you parents can explain...WHY is the weight so important, exactly? I'm curious. It's always struck me as a bit weird, like weighing in a piece of produce at the supermarket. On the other hand, we aren't really able to discern a lot of other useful info about the baby at that point, so I guess there's not a lot else to talk about (Debbie ducks as all parents within range, including her own sister, start hurling things at her). Once he/she starts developing a personality and other non-produce-like qualities, we start talking about them instead. When Tiffany graduates from university, for example, we don't say, "Wow, did you hear about Tiffany's graduation? She weighed in at ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY THREE POUNDS!!!!"

(Later note: HA! I called Ruth to let her know the good news about my new nephew, and one of her first questions was 'So what did he weigh?' HA! HA!)

Anyway, I'm super-happy about my new nephew, and can't wait to start corrupting his wee mind with Hockey Monkey Songs and obnoxiously loud percussion instruments and chocolate. :-) Congrats, Debbie and Case!

Other family news...

Jeff and I saw his mom (Virginia Ridpath) being inducted into the Ontario Aquatic Hall of Fame on Saturday, and I found out stuff I didn't know before, like the fact that she was the first female swimmer ever to score points for Canada in an Olympic individual swimming event. She still swims at Masters swimming events, and has broken a bunch of records. Cool mom-in-law!

Because I was at the induction ceremony, I was unable to attend a local housefilk in Toronto, which was honoured by the presence of UK filker Paul Bristow. Jodi and Allison report that it was a great filk, lots of fun. :-) Hopefully one of them will post a report soon.

Yesterday, we went to our niece Brittany's 4th birthday party. She's very much into Barbie these days. Barbie balloons, Barbie tablecloth, Barbie serviettes, Barbie cups. No, we didn't get her a Barbie. :-( But we did get her tattoos and a water gun. :-)

MY FIRST EBAY PURCHASE

Hey, I made my first EBAY PURCHASE!!! A copy of The Borrowers for $3. Does anyone remember this children's book?

still more marmite

Jeff came home last night and I could barely recognize him, he was so grizzled and unwashed. All right, I'm lying. He looked exactly the same, except his hair was longer. He says he is going to get a "#2 cut" soon, whatever that means. I think has something to do with the level the barber guy (or whatever the person who cuts guys' hair is called) sets his razor to.

Many congrats to Graham Leathers, whose band recently completed recording their CD! I asked him for a "press blurb" thingy, and he obliged quite kindly. "The Porch Climbers are lively and energetic Folk band out of Winnipeg with a unique sound all their own. Although the instrumentation betrays the heavy Celtic roots, the influences of Blues, Bluegrass and Cajun make for a mixed sound that is distinctly Canadian Prairie. The new CD 'Sqeeze me, Beat me, Love me' will be coming out in Mid may, and the official release will be accompanied by a smokin' party at the West End Cultural Centre, Thursday, June 29. For more info, you can visit our website (www.crosswinds.net/~porchclimbers) or drop some email to Graham Leathers." Except when I went to check the website, Gray, there's no ordering info yet! HOW MUCH DO I SEND AND WHERE DO I SEND IT?

Still More On Marmite

An enlightening comment from Zander Nyrond on the subject (or rather, a clever tangent into another topic):

"Marmite is a strange beastie. There's nothing about the taste that I actually dislike, but I never ever have the slightest desire to eat it. It resembles strawberries in that respect (though in almost no other). Butter is quite another matter. I have experimented (I was young and foolish) and I can tell you that nothing, but nothing, will taste right on bread unless the intermediary substrate is properly constructed of Butter. As for the hardness problem, well, good heavens, you didn't think it was supposed to be *easy* did you?? There is, of course, a solution. Simply bung your butter, in its dish, into the microwave (if you have one) at .4 power for thirty seconds, and your troubles will be over. Unless your butter dish is not microwave proof...it was, wasn't it? Some of the cutesier kitchen shops in Britain sell butter dishes whose lid is a hemispherical container with a hole at the top into which you can pour boiling water. Besides softening the butter a treat, its shape provides hours of harmless fun for a certain type of male mind. Yours for the four basic food groups (cholesterol, sugar, fat and salt), Zander"

And now a Songwriting Process Poll

When you write a song, do you tend to sit down and give yourself and assignment? Do you wait for the muse to hit, or do you start with an idea? And if the latter, is it a musical idea or a lyric idea? Or both?

And do you ever basically write a song in one sitting, or is it a gradual process?

I tend to give myself "assignments". I very rarely (okay, NEVER) sit down and have a whole song flow out of me without having a particular song topic in mind to begin with. And even if I DO have a particular song topic in mind, it very rarely is completed in one sitting (unless it's a very short and silly song). Sometimes I get all the lyrics at one sitting. Like "Sex and Chocolate", and then I passed them to Jodi. She and I had never worked on a song before, so I was a bit nervous about how it would go. I even gave her some direction..."I sort of imagined it as a kind of waltz" (I kid you not). I am incredibly grateful that she ignored this feeble advice and struck out in her own musical direction....I LOVE the melody she came up with, and the fact that it is a capella (that's something I never would have thought of, either). The only 'serious' song I've written at one sitting is Homecoming.

Anyway, I'd love to hear any thoughts on your songwriting process. Please post in Blatherchat.

Today's BlatherPhoto is courtesy of Beckett Gladney (she scanned her Sock Monkey) :-)

marmite

Jeff comes home from the cottage today. Time to do a mad rush around the apartment, closing cupboard doors and drawers all the way, putting away my guitar (I've been practising barre chords again), cleaning the marmite off the kitchen counter.

Speaking of marmite. Dear Teddy convinced me to try the marmite again, but this time spread Very Thinly on a freshly-baked slice of bread slathered with butter. I'm too lazy to get out my breadmaker (I can picture you bread-making purists toppling over in shock as I type), so had to content myself with a slice of frozen Dempster's 100% whole wheat. Too impatient to wait for it to thaw from the freezer, so I toasted an icy slice instead. No butter (we're a margarine family here, mainly because I'm too impatient to wait for butter to soften after taking it from the fridge, and there's nothing worse than trying to spread cold butter on a slice of bread...you either get unappetizing chunks of the stuff scattered over the surface, or you end up with the bread falling to pieces in your hands. Wow, this is certainly a long parenthetical statement) so I used margarine instead.

I can report now that I definitely Do Not Like Marmite.

AN ODE TO MARMITE by Deborah Marion Kazumi Ridpath Ohi I Dedicated lovingly to Teddy, who introduced me to the stuff Oh sludgy brown foul-smelling paste, It's been three hours yet I taste your gustatorial poison still, it lingers on my tongue and kills my tastebuds (likely brain cells, too!) Oh Marmite, I do not like you. The End. Copyright © 2000 Debbie Ridpath Ohi.

Andrea pointed out another ode to marmite online (thanks Andrea!).

(Today's blatherphoto: another picture taken by Jeff on our digital camera, up near our cottage in Algonquin Park.)

Blather follow-up:
My friend Andy just wrote: "If you keep your butter in a covered butter dish instead of the fridge, it will stay soft and tasty, and you won't need to taste that grey rendered fat dyed with industrial level chemicals. (the margarine, not the marmite)."

revenue canada typo

I hate taxes.

I also hate bookkeeping, which is why I am so abysmal at it. I hired an accountant this year to help me. He is a very cool accountant. He wears a ponytail and is a talented guitarist. He is also very patient with my boxes of crumpled receipts.

I lined up at Revenue Canada to get as many of my tax returns as I could (assessment summaries, really) and discovered that someone had made a typo while entering my gross business income five years ago. The typo added a decimal place, resulting in an extra $80,000 being added to my income. The final total wasn't affected, but I was still pretty appalled that this sort of thing could happen.

I called Revenue Canada. The woman on the other end was highly skeptical until she called up my records on her computer, and then she was silent for several long seconds. She then told me I had to line up at the Revenue Canada offices to report the error. I told her that no, I had just finished lining up at the Revenue Canada office and didn't want to do so again and besides, it was their error and not mine. Several more seconds of silence, and then she told me to send a letter to Revenue Canada explaining the problem.

"Does this sort of thing happen a lot at Revenue Canada?" I asked. "Typos like this, I mean."

"Oh no, not very often," she replied reassuringly.

Hm.