pregnant women

A lot of my friends have been announcing pregnancies recently, and I've been asking some of them for photos of themselves when they're "really huge". Contrary to what they may think, I don't make this request because I want to make fun of them, or post the photos anywhere public. I actually think that pregnancy is very cool.

The media may sometimes gently mock pregnant women, portraying them as ungainly creatures who whine about their backs and waddle around looking for pickles. The deep truth, however, is that we all secretly look at pregnant women with a sort of awe. They become a different species from the rest of us for nine months; their skin glows, they look wiser, they exude contentment (when they're not throwing up, that is).

It's why so many of us have an overwhelming urge to touch their stomachs; part of us wants to share a little bit of that "otherworldliness" (and no, this doesn't mean that -I- want to be pregnant :-)).

When my sister was pregnant, I loved to watch her stomach. Jeff did, too...sometimes (when Ruth was feeling particularly patient) my sister would get comfortable on the couch and let Jeff and I gawk at her bulging tummy. The first time I saw something ripple beneath the surface of her skin, I was horrified; it was like a scene from a alien monster movie. When the horror wore off, I was fascinated. Even delighted. If I watched closely enough, I could see the shape of an elbow, a head, a foot. That was my niece/nephew in there!



My friend Michelle is having a "Welcome Back" party for me at her place tomorrow, which should be fun. :-) Today, Jeff and I are hanging out with Bryan Fullerton and his friend Kelly; we're seeing "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon". Looking forward to going to my sister's place for dinner and seeing Sara and Annie!

Gwyneth Paltrow (my harp) is doing well, having made it safely back home! To avoid boring the non-harp people here, I've started up a separate Harp Journal (part of my harpresource.com site).

Today's Blatherpic: Sara, when she was a baby.

philly retrospective

I've been home almost a week now. There are still boxes to unpack and papers to sort through, but I'm starting to settle into home office life again. And as I sit here on a chair from the living room (Jeff stole my office chair while I was gone; I haven't had the heart to steal it back yet because he's been so sweet lately, helping me move and so on), I do find myself missing certain things about my stay in Philadelphia. So here, for your interest, is my list of:

Things I'll Miss About Philadelphia

• The wide range of frozen convenience foods.
• Joking around with people in my office area.
• Real Philly cheesesteak.
• Being able to eat whatever and whenever I want.
• Full ownership of the remote control.
• The Reading Terminal.
• My harp teacher, Kimberly Rowe.

Things I Won't Miss About Philadelphia

• Cubicles.
• Corporate politics.
• Having my office furniture stolen.
• Delayed and cancelled flights when I commuted to and from Toronto.
• Being away from Jeff.

They auctioned off my apartment furniture at the office yesterday.

Jodi, Allison and I got together last night for my first UT practice since coming back, woohoo! :-) We had dinner at The Pickle Barrel (surprise surprise), browsed the sidewalk sale at Centerpoint Mall, then hung out at Allison's after. Discussed our concert playlists for Ad Astra (Toronto) and Consonance (California), where we're Filk Guests of Honour. Intense practices start next week.

Jodi filled us on Gafilk stuff (sounds like the convention was a great success) and also gave us gifts from Lissa and Phil. I got a bar of Green & Black Organic White Chocolate (my fave, I had some for breakfast this morning, yum) and a gorgeous harp pin. Thank you, Lissa and Phil!

Today's Blatherpic: Snowman sign outside my mom-in-law's new house. I took this photo on Christmas day.

computer games

My question about computer games on Jan. 16 certainly seems to have generated some discussion on blatherchat! Some people mentioned games that I had completely forgotten about. So I've done more thinking about my list of "all-time fave computer games", and here it is, in very rough chronological order:

Colossal Cave

The beginning of interactive fiction games. Remember "You are in a twisty maze of passageways, all alike"? I discovered this game on a Computer Day at the University of Waterloo when I was in high school. Back then, they let us play games all day. I was astounded and delighted by Colossal Cave as well as Eliza, and this game was largely responsible for my choice to major in Computer Science in university. Up to then, I had figured computers were only good for crunching numbers; I hadn't realized how interesting the results could be. Later, I got hooked on the various Infocom games as well. I've always preferred well-written text adventures to ones with fancy graphics...more is left to the imagination, and there's more of a feeling of participating in a "book".

Rogue

Despite the fact that the graphics were simply a handful of ascii characters, I spent waaaay too much time playing this game while in university. I blame my friends Michelle and John.

Civilization

A "god" game, where you basically oversee the growth of a civilization. I tended to like focussing on building cities and improving living conditions rather than on warfare and conquering and pillaging. Reminds me of an incident where Jeff introduced me to a game called Warcraft. I really got into the part of the game where you could build towns, raise sheep, interact with the peasants. I was upset when Jeff sent his army over the hill to stomp all over my nice little village. He gently pointed out that the game was called "Warcraft", not "Nurturecraft".

SimCity

Another nurturecraft-type god game. Since I played SimCity, I've started seeing all cities and neighbourhoods in terms of the game, scarily enough. Love the little ant-hill farm aspect of the game. Speaking of ants, I did buy SimAnt but didn't like it nearly as much as SimCity (the company sent me a SimAnt poster when I reported some bugs (no pun intended)).

Myst

How can anyone not like Myst? I loved the graphics, loved the sound effects, loved the mystery and exploration aspect, and the fact that it was completely engrossing without monsters leaping out at you from nowhere or civilizations to conquer. I never did finish it...I think exams came up before I did, and I got distracted. Now, of course, I'd have to play through the entire thing to remember what was going on. I'd still like to do that someday, when I have a large chunk of spare time. Jeff and I have Riven, but I haven't really played it at all yet.

Deadlock

Paul Kwinn (of Puzzlebox fame), helped design the first version of this game! And you can even hear him sing on the CD. Taunya Shiffer did some of the voices in the game.

The most bizarre computer game interface I ever used was when I played some Star Trek game at the University of Toronto on DEC-10s. No screens; we read printouts of ascii star maps.

Today's Blatherpic: my friend Luisa, on the last day of the Real Millennium party, while packing up.

sara's adventures at the ballet

My sister Ruth and her 6-year-old daughter Sara went to the ballet to attend a performance of Don Quixote. During the performance, Sara would whisper the occasional question to Ruth; Ruth would whisper back. At intermission, an elderly man (henceforward referred to as GOM, or Grumpy Old Man) seated in front of Sara turned around and shouted at her, telling her she shouldn't be in the theatre, saying she was badly behaved, threatening to report her to the ushers.

Shocked, Sara retreated into silence and tears, turning to Ruth and asking if they could go home. Ruth was furious, of course, but didn't want to upset Sara further. Several adults from nearby seats offered to trade seats with Ruth and Sara so they wouldn't have to sit behind GOM, but Sara was too upset. On the way out, an usher caught up to them and said that several people had told her about the incident and had expressed concern for Sara. The usher encouraged Ruth to write to the National Ballet of Canada explaining what had happened, and to ask for a replacement ticket for a future performance.

Not having much hope, Ruth did. To her surprise, a package arrived for Sara in the mail very soon after. Inside the package was a letter to Sara, autographed ballet shoes, The Nutcracker CD, and a poster of The Nutcracker, autographed by all the dancers in the company. Some had scribbled personal messages to Sara: "Dear Sara, hope to see you at the ballet soon!" etc.

Sara was delighted, of course. So was Ruth, who also found out that adults who witnessed the incident had complained to the ballet company. The grumpy old man was officially chastized (apparently he was on some board associated with the National Ballet of Canada). They also got front row tickets to an upcoming performance of The Nutcracker.

Many cheers to the National Ballet of Canada!

Today's Blatherpic: autographed ballet shoes sent to Sara from the National Ballet of Canada.

new year's party!

Jeff and my friend Luisa arranged a New Year's Party over the holidays, a celebration of the "Real Millennium". They booked function space at a hotel in Hockley Valley and made it a weekend event. There were three main function rooms: computer room (people brought their computers, networked them together, played games), social room (couches, munchies, music), movie room (DVD player with a big screen, people brought DVD movies). The hotel also had a swimming pool, pool room, and ping pong room, plus lots of snowy hills outside for tobogganning. There was definitely no shortage of things to do. :-) It was basically a convention, with approximately 35 adults and children attending.



I had a ton of fun, and am grateful to Luisa and Jeff for doing all the planning. I just showed up. I did a lot of catching up with friends I hadn't seen in a long while, played "Alice" and "The Sims" (did I mention before that my Sim couple actually adopted a child, but it was taken away by Social Services because they didn't take care of it properly?), watched "Fight Club" for the first time. A bit too violent for my tastes (I admit it, I'm a wimp), but I can see why some people really like this movie.

Although a few opted to stay just for a day, most booked hotel rooms. Having a hotel room was great...I could nap during the day, and also have a sanctuary when I needed some space away from the party crowd. Most of the computer gaming focussed on Quake, a game I can't play because I suffer from motion sickness. I had more fun with Alice, which is a new game by a fellow named American McGee, a sort of dark and twisted version of Alice in Wonderland. Creepy music and atmosphere, excellent graphics.

Computer gaming question: What are/were your all-time fave computer games? The type you spent way too many hours playing during high school or college? And what was your FIRST fave game, not counting Pong?

Today's Blatherpic: Elspeth and Jennifer, at the Real Millennium Party.