meeting Moira

Moira Allen and I worked together for over five years on Inkspot without meeting each other in person. At first she just wrote the occasional freelance article, then became my Assistant Editor, then Managing Editor. In the last six months of Inkspot, Moira and I exchanged e-mail or phonecalls on nearly a daily basis, mainly to commiserate ("Can you BELIEVE they just did that?!?").

We figured it was finally time to meet in person. :-)



Not surprisingly, we got along just as well in person as we did by e-mail. We talked, we browsed craft shops, talked more, baked Christmas cookies, talked some more. I found out that Moira doesn't just write and edit...she's heavily into crafts of all kinds; her handiwork was all over the house. Whenever I saw something especially cool or interesting, I got into the habit of asking, "Did you make this?" More than half the time, the answer always seemed to be "yes".

As a Christmas gift, she gave me some handmade bookmarks, a copy of her recently published book (which hadn't yet arrived in my local Chapters), and a gorgeous beaded "dream catcher" that she designed and created herself. I drooled over the latter so much that we visited one of her favourite local craft supplies shops the next day to get materials so I could get a quick lesson in how to make them, too. The craft supplies shop was dangerous, packed full of all kinds of tempting things. In addition to getting the materials for another dream catcher, I also did some Christmas shopping.



Moira's also much more of an sf/fantasy fan than I realized, plus she and her husband Patrick are Star Trek fans. One of the many reasons we got along so well, I think. :-)

And they are very much cat people. They have three cats, Nonny (elderly type who sleeps on a heating pad), Fluff (a stray they adopted as a kitten), and Brisco. Nonny basically ignored me, while Fluff openly resented my presence and refused to eat while I was in the house. Brisco was the friendliest, and kept rubbing up against my legs whenever I was around, obviously sensing that I was allergic to him. Very cute cat (and he knew it, too!).

My friend David says that the main difference between cats and dogs is that dogs look at humans like part of the family, while cats view them as staff. :-)



I stayed at a place called ExtendedStay America...have any of you heard of this chain? I was pretty impressed. Super-cheap ($49/night), clean, comfortable, and each room comes with its own kitchen area complete with fridge, stove, and microwave. While picking up a few breakfast-type foods, I had a chance to check out Moira's local grocery store (you -know- how I like grocery stores!); I'll be posting a photo report in a future Blathering.

Lots of writing talk, lots of Inkspot re-hashing. By the time I left on Sunday morning, I realized that I should have booked for a little longer. Even the Canada Customs agent on the way back to Toronto asked me why my trip was so short. (!)



Anyway, a really great weekend, and I'm so glad I finally had a chance to meet Moira in person.

Don't think I'll be flying again for a while, though. I used to like flying (way back in my naive and more inexperienced days). I began to dislike it during my stint in Philadelphia. Dislike it even more now.

There are fewer flights these days, so I was stuck with a connecting flight through Washington instead of being able to fly direct. My flights were all in smaller planes, with the Washington/Norfolk flights being on a noisy prop plane. I suspect the airline is trying to save money by using smaller planes...can't blame them, but it sure makes flying even more uncomfortable. I spent the hour flight to and from Norfolk with one leg propped up on a ledge because there wasn't enough floor space to sit normally. Going through security is much more of a hassle, and I found the Norfolk United Airlines staff at security rude instead of just courteous/serious; I understand the need for diligence, of course, but it just makes air travel that much less appealing. I know of several others who feel similarly for different reasons, and who have already made vows not to fly again until things improve...factors cited include the abysmal Canadian dollar, the fear of another terrorist attack (though to be honest, I think that flying is safer now than it's ever been because of heightened security), declining customer service, decrease in perks (like in-flight meals), frustration of late and cancelled flights, and the general rough shape of the economy.



After I finally got back home last night, I left again to attend a 40th surprise birthday bash for my friend, Tom West. The surprise part was over by the time I arrived, but it was great to see so many old friends again. Photo report in an upcoming Blathering! I also found out that my friend Michelle HAS ALREADY SEEN THE LORD OF THE RINGS MOVIE...*TWICE*!!!!

I'll be taking a three-day Standard First Aid and Basic Rescuer course (9 am-5 pm) with St. John's Ambulance starting tomorrow, so I'm not sure how much Blathering I'll be doing in that time.



Today's pics:

- Moira and Patrick Allen.

- Moira at her desktop computer. She also has a laptop...an Apple iBook just like mine! :-)

- One of their three cats, Brisco.

- Patrick showing me a Star Trek game on his computer.

- Moira showing me the finer points of making cookie dough.

- Sign at the Norfolk Airport, just before going through security. This is the first time I've ever seen the warning about jokes. It would have been more amusing if there hadn't been a few military guys with nasty-looking rifles a few feet down the hallway.

- My view while I was typing most of this entry (en route from Washington to Toronto).

Today's Poll: (Suggest a poll question)

Have you taken a first aid course within the past three years?

wicked

Finished reading Gregory McGuire's Wicked yesterday, the Wizard of Oz story from the Wicked Witch of the West's point of view. Funny, sad, intriguing. I'll never be able to watch the movie the same way again. :-)

I've never read the Oz books. Tried (as both a child and an adult), but could never get into them. Also never read Winnie the Pooh, Wind in the Willows, the Dark Is Rising series until I was an adult. On the other hand, I hoovered down E. Nesbitt, C.S. Lewis, Edward Eager, Madeleine L'Engle. I tended to be drawn to stories about ordinary (or apparently ordinary) children who stumbled across a magic item or closet, or were otherwise pulled into magical adventures almost by surprise.

I loved (and still love) books which could absorb me into the story and characters, sucking me in so completely that I forget about the passage of time and am oblivious to everything going on around me. For me, that's magic. Movies can do the same thing, but it's a much more passive process...everything's handed to you on the plate, your imagination doesn't have to do any conjuring on its own. As much as I enjoyed the Harry Potter movies (four times so far!), they will never be as good as the books.

When I worked as a programmer for Toronto-Dominion Bank, a co-worker once told me he "wasn't into books". I thought he was joking at first. When I found out he wasn't, my opinion of him (especially as a potential friend) drastically altered. It floored me that anyone could NOT enjoy reading; it seemed like such an essential part of life for me, like walking and breathing.



Going to Virginia tomorrow to visit Moira Allen (who was Managing Editor of Inkspot until it was shut down); I'm VERY excited about meeting Moira for the first time!

Looks like I'm going to have a daily column on WritersMarket.com, by the way (F&W Publications). It'll be starting in January; I'll post more details as I know them.

In case I don't get a chance to post tomorrow morning before I leave, have a great weekend, everyone!



Links:

Segway: So what's your opinion of this new product? Do you think it will live up to its hype? Post your opinion here.

(BBC) More developments in e-paper. (More...)



Today's pics:

- Dung beetle cross-stitch designed and executed by Helen. Here's how she did it.

- Amanda invited Jeff and me over for dinner last night along with Sandra, her fianc|AMP|eacute; Brett, and Helen. Helen flies to Paris today to hang out with her fianc|AMP|eacute;.

- Amanda's cat Buster.

- Amanda's collection of Trixie Belden books.

Today's Poll: (Courtesy Lissa Allcock)

OK, so you own a bicycle - have you ridden it in the last 6 months??? (if you don't own a bicycle, please refrain from answering today's poll question, thanks)

food memories

When I was a teenager, my mother showed me how to make norimaki (sushi rolled in seaweed). My main focus was on getting to the end result so I could eat it, but I also remember the comforting sweet/vinegary fragrance of the sushi rice as we chopped and tasted and talked. Mom used to laugh and say that she was teaching me so I could make these foods for her if she ever got sick. And when she got sick with lung cancer years later, I made norimake again, trying not to weep into the rice as I did so. I remember how gratifying it was to see her smile when I brought the food to her in the hospital. Not much made her smile in those days.

There are other childhood foods, though, that I miss. Some I could possibly learn to do myself, others I miss more because of the context rather than the food itself:

-- Sukiyaki: I loved communal family cooking. I remember us gathering around the electric skillet on the table, grabbing cooked beef slices and mushrooms and noodles with our chopsticks. I used to call the vermicelli noodles "worms" and refused to touch them.

-- Rice with egg: This might gross some people out, but it a special treat for me as a kid. Mom would give me a bowl of freshly cooked white rice, break a raw egg into it, stir it up with some shoyu (soy sauce). Yummmmmmmmmm. I used to make it for myself as an adult until I found out that we weren't supposed to eat raw chicken's eggs anymore. :-(

-- Fresh cherry juice: I remember when we lived with my grandparents in East York, Grandpa would pick fruit from the cherry tree that grew beside the driveway and make cherry juice for us. Delicious! I loved that cherry tree, at least until it dropped one of its branches onto our Volkswagon and crushed in the roof (fortunately no one was in the car at the time). I remember Grandma used to show us how to use cooked rice grains instead of glue in our crafts at home (Japanese rice is much stickier than Western rice).

-- Sweet Red bean thingy: Don't remember much about this, except that my mother made it for special occasions and put it in a special red laquerware container. It was served cold, and was pretty sweet.

-- Rice balls: I've always thought rice balls were such a great idea: very compact, portable, and you could vary the filling (if you used filling, that is). Mom usually used pickled plum as a filling. The outside was coated with sesame seeds, or covered with nori (dried seaweed).

Mmmm...I'm hungry. Better go eat breakfast before I start gnawing on my keyboard...

Today's pics:

- I had the urge to do the equivalent of finger-painting yesterday evening...something silly, fun, completely unrelated to my day-to-day work. So I played around with Painter, experimenting with paper textures.

Today's Poll: (Courtesy Sherman Dorn)

Do you own a bicycle?

LOTR/new car

Yay, we have a car big enough to hold my harp!

Ok, so maybe that's not the most relevant point about the car, but it was the most exciting point for me. Jeff seems to have been researching a potential new vehicle for years, and finally made the plunge recently. Our old car was about nine years old and things were starting to go. Jeff insists this was normal for a nine-year-old car, but it did make me nervous when we were on highways and something in the car started making a funny noise and Jeff would get a worried look on his face and mutter something about the brakes needed replacing. I don't know much about cars, but I knew that brakes are supposed to be Important.

I'm not a driver, so confess I wasn't too involved in the intense research Jeff did before deciding on what kind of car to get, at least beyond the two most important factors:

-- Any colour is fine except lime green.

-- Will it hold my harp?

Even though I'm not a car person, I did feel a momentary twinge of regret as we left the old Jetta in the parking lot of the car dealership. It looked lonely and abandoned, sitting there with its rust stains and dents and scratches. And I remembered all the adventures it had taken us through, the different times in our lives together. Not quite as old as our marriage, but almost. The poor thing looked pretty dingy sitting there beside Jeff's shiny new Mazda Tribute. The latter looked almost smug to me, overshadowing our old car, looking big enough to tromp all over it with its fancy new treads if it wanted to.

But then I smartened up and realized, "Get real, girl, these are CARS."

And besides, the new car can hold my harp. :-)



Today's pics:

- Self-portrait comic.

- Jeff's old car (on the left, being traded in) for the new car (on the right, a Mazda Tribute).

Today's Poll: (Courtesy Sherman Dorn)

Do you think zebras are black animals with white stripes (click yes) or
white animals with black stripes (click no)?

Paramount LOTR Line Party

When I joined TheOneRing.net's Paramount LOTR Line Party, I did it more for fun and out of curiosity than a real expectation that anything would come of it.

This afternoon, however, our virtual line party had an actual face-to-face meeting this afternoon at Chapters, in the Starbucks coffeeshop.

And you know what? It was actually pretty fun!

Probably fueled by our mutual admiration of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings as well as well as anticipation of the movie, our group seemed to bond immediately, with none of the usual first-meeting preliminary awkwardness. It was also very cool for me to see my friends Allison and Luisa meet each other for the first time...unsurprisingly, they hit it off right away. :-)

But Allison says it all in her report of the event (see later on this page).

Hey, I GOT A SNAILMAIL LETTER ON FRIDAY! Handwritten and everything...thank you, Lyanne! I've pinned it up on my bulletin board (I love the bright red envelope, the coloured ink, the stickers) and am looking forward to answering it later this week. :-) :-)

Links

Spam poetry contest: SatireWire is hosting its second annual contest in which contestants see who can compose the best poetry from phrases lifted from spam e-mail.

Lord of the Special Effects: article about Weta Digital.



Toronto LOTR Line Party Gathering
Sunday, December 2, 2001
By Allison Durno


Location: A back room in Starbucks in a Chapters bookstore in downtown Toronto

Attendees: Luisa, Allison, Vlad ("Phoebus"), Lorelei, Anna ("Goldenar"), Guillermo ("Guille"), Steve ("Water Hot"), Leigh ("Mouth of Sauron"), Khamla, David, Michael, Debbie.

I should start by saying that I tend to be a shy person. Usually, I'd rather eat nails than spend an afternoon trying to make small talk with people that I've just met. Despite that, I was motivated to attend the first gathering of the Toronto LOTR Line Party because of my love of "Lord of the Rings" and my growing excitement over the first movie and because of a chance to talk to people who would understand how I feel. But I was nervous at the thought. The only person I knew from the group coming to the gathering was Debbie.


I arrived at Starbucks early and found myself walking around rather aimlessly, unsure how I was going to hook up with the rest of the group. Luckily, Deb and Luisa were among the first to arrive, so we stood around and admired our almost identical shirts- "Waiting For Frodo" comic strip shirts with graphics designed by Debbie. Shortly after that, some others from the group started arriving and we headed into the back room provided for us by Starbucks to get acquainted. With lattes and coffee and cider in hand, we sat down and began to talk.

And the moment was electric, the synergy between the group was instant, I didn't have to fear at all a distance between us or awkward pauses. As each new person arrived they were immediately drawn into the enthusiasm of the conversation as we discussed everything from casting to the FOX TV special to comparisons (both pro and con) of LOTR with Star Wars and Harry Potter to making firmer arrangements between various people for meeting to see the movie on Dec. 19th. There was just an exhilaration in talking to a group of people as excited about LOTR as I am. We were all on the same wave-length, we understood each other's in-jokes and obscure Tolkien references, we had an instant connection.

I was very happy to finally get a chance to meet Luisa as we've been talking on and off in e-mail about our enthusiasm for Tolkien for several months. Her son, Michael, is partway through ROTK now and he had fun playing with the Saruman and cave troll Burger King figures lying around on the table (David has fun playing with them, too ;)). Anna's enthusiasm for LOTR was contagious and we all admired the gorgeous self-made hand-painted Beatle shirt she was wearing. Guille, who has only been in Toronto five months, told us stories of his home country of Peru. David kept us amused with his mixed-up twisted LOTR/SW/HP stories. We all had stories to tell and opinions to give and it seemed the afternoon flew by. By the end of the gathering I was no longer thinking "Will I be OK for an afternoon with people I don't know?", it was "How soon can we do this again?". Beyond December 19th we're discussing the possibility of getting together to see the movie together again (since many of us can't join a single line on Dec. 19th), but it would be great fun to do the coffee thing again, too, so we can hash out the movie together. Hopefully, that will happen.

We need to give a few thank yous. Thank you to Steve and Luisa who organized our line and co-ordinated this first event. Thank you to Starbucks for providing us with a room and giving us pitchers of ice water and a free plate of cookies late in the afternoon. Thank you to Debbie for taking photos of our first gathering. And lastly, thank you to theonering.net Line Party site, who gave us the opportunity to discover each other and have the fun that we had today.

Let's do it again soon.



A few links of interest mentioned during the gathering today:

Debbie's Waiting For Frodo comic strip

The Silmarillion: A Community Reading (moderated by Allison)

and

Lord of the Rings: Movie Discussion (moderated by Allison)

Paramount LOTR line-up discussion (moderated by Luisa)

(All links above hosted on Debbie's electricpenguin.com message boards. Please add any links I've forgotten to the line party discussion!)

Aside: Anyone outside Toronto reading this report, please report any LOTR gatherings you're involved in on this thread, too! Anyone in Toronto reading this and interested in further events, please sign up here.

-- Allison

Today's pics:

From the Paramount Line Party gathering today, and dinner at Swiss Chalet (dinner with Luisa, Allison, Michael, Jeff, David, Guille).

Today's Poll: (Courtesy Andrea)

Do you prefer tea with or without caffeine? YES for caffeine, NO for no caffeine.