happy

My friend John Chew took the above photo on June 1st, 1982. From left then clockwise: Reid, Sue Wong (with whom I shared my first apartment), me, Luisa. For more ancient photos, please check the archive that John kindly set up in honour of my birthday. Clicking on any of the smaller photos will take you to a much larger photo. Some are truly embarrassing :-) but all of them (like the one above, my favourite) reminded me of some of the wonderful friendships I had back in my university days and still have today. I'll be using these photos as Blatherpics over the next while. Thank you, John!

Got birthday phone calls from family members as well as my friends Andrew, Andrea, Luisa & Reid & Ronnie & Michael, and Scott (who gave a charming belch at the end of his rendition of Happy Birthday :-)).





Jeff and I went to Saved By Technology yesterday and bought a whole bunch of home recording studio stuff including a copy of eMagic's Logic Gold, a DBX Mini Pre-amp, a Firewire hard drive, a MIDI interface, a USB Audiosport Duo external audio interface, and some small speakers. We've also ordered a Studio Projects C1 microphone.

Jeff hooked everything up when we got home: installed the software, hooked up the hardware, tested things out with my Roland JV-80 (a keyboard I've had for years but haven't used much until now). I pretended to help by reading the giant manual for Logic, but then took a nap (!) for two hours while he worked. I am so bad.

It all looks VERYVERY cool, but it will take me some time to learn how to use everything properly. I can't wait! I'm holding off delving into this too much until after FKO (Andrea Dale's visiting me for a few days before, Dave Clement's visiting me for a few days after) and the short story is finished (the deadline's been extended, so Michelle and I have until the 15th).





In the evening, Scott and Jeff and I went to Ruth's Chris for dinner. Our waitperson at Ruth's Chris presented me with a slice of chocolate cheesecake and a candle after the meal, and also took our photo with a digital camera. They gave us a card with the photo before we left (see last Blatherpic).

Scott gave me a DVD for my birthday, Haiku Tunnel, which we watched after we got back from dinner. Pretty entertaining movie. :-) Scott's only had his guitar for three weeks, by the way, and he's already confident with a whole bunch of chords and some fingerpicking! We jammed a bit on guitar and harp, which was fun.

And today's the last day of my birthday weekend, with a party at Fune this afternoon; Jeff booked the entire place. He's tried to keep some of the preparations secret, but had to let me know some of them in order to keep me from snooping around the apartment too much. After I went to bed last night, for example, he baked my birthday cake. I've never seen Jeff bake ANYTHING before, let alone a cake for a lot of people, so I'm pretty tickled that he'd do this for me (call me weird, but I find this much more romantic than the "flowers and candlelit dinner" sort of thing :-)). This morning I woke up to find something pretty big and covered in foil and a tea towel in the kitchen. I'm going to be good and resist peeking.

Looking forward to the party this afternoon!

As for the Virtual Birthday Party, thanks so much for coming, everyone! People who attended included: David, Kay Shapero, Steve Macdonald, Alida, Brian, Paul Stockton, Bruce Adelsohn, Harold Groot, Amanda Foubister, Chris Conway, Rob Wynne, Jallan, Jim Poltrone, Friendly Gatecrashing Stranger, Ruth, Gary Ehrlich, Luisa, Joey Shoji, Dave Alway, Pontus Hedman (wow, haven't seen Pontus in over 20 years!!!), Julie, Bodo Hardbottle, Mary Ellen, Dave Weingart, Sherman Dorn, Martijn, Randy Hoffman, Ginny, David Brake, Janet, Katy, Helen, Andrea, JeffR, Reid, John O'Halloran, Heather Borean, Amanda Snyder, Andy Beaton, Simon Fairbourn, Kennerly, Susanna, Dave Henry, Gary McGath, Unregistered User, Lyanne Quirt, Bill Sutton, Kimberly Stinson, Rand, Jeff Bohnhoff, Jeff Kesner, Scott Snyder, Lissa Allcock, Parki, Tom Jeffers, Shane Stacks, Amanda Weinstein, Allison, Frank, Brenda Sutton, Doug, Rick Hewett, Mary Crowell, and Jodi. Apologies if I've missed any names; I tried to get them all.

It will take me weeks to clean the virtual chocolate off my virtual rug, but it was well worth it.

:-)

If you're curious, here's what I did for my birthday last year.





My friend Seanan wrote a birthday sonnet for me. She gave permission for me to reprint it, so I'll end today's Blather with her poem:

Birthday Sonnet
By Seanan McGuire

A thousand miles away and more she stands,
The distant daughter of a foreign shore,
And in her voice is peace, and in her hands
A thousand dreams bring forth a thousand more.
I'd sing to her of angels, but my voice
Has not the strength to span the miles between:
Yet sometimes still I hear her, and rejoice,
For all the days to come, and not yet seen.
So here's the question: where does friendship thrive?
Is it in closeness, walking hand in hand?
Does distance mean affection won't survive?
I hear her call...and then I understand.

I know what friendship is and where it's found:
And in the end, she always comes around.

---

Today's Blatherpics:

	John Chew took this photo on June 1st, 1982. From left then clockwise: Reid, Sue Wong, me, Luisa.
	I took this in St. Andrew's subway station. Jeff looks rather hunky in this photo, I think. :-)
	Jeff paying for our purchases at Saved By Technology.
	Manual for Logic. Jeff Bohnhoff's name is in the credits!
	Scott, me and Jeff at Ruth's Chris.

two towers trailer

I'm a whole day into my 40s and still no major life epiphanies. Fine with me; too many things going on in my life already without having to worry about epiphanies. :-)

One of the major disadvantages of having a birthday on a Good Friday, we found yesterday, is that everything is closed. Our original plan was to have brunch at Mildred Pierce, do some book-browsing at Chapters, then at Saved By Technology. All three places were closed yesterday. :-(

Still ended up to be a fun day...I found out from Allison and Ruth that the trailer for The Two Towers (the second Lord of the Rings movie) was debuting with the first LOTR movie yesterday. Jeff and I had already decided to see a movie in the afternoon since the Paramount was still open, so this worked out well. Ruth came to see the movie with us.



Have to say, I still really love the LOTR movie even though I'd seen it six times before. In fact, I enjoyed it more this time than any other time I've seen it except for the premiere. Bawled in all the same scenes. The IMAX theatre was packed. I was pretty surprised, since the movie's been out for ages. Perhaps a lot of them were intrigued by all the Oscar nominations the movie had received, or maybe a lot of them were there for the same reason that we were...to see the new trailer.

Someone's baby kept crying near the front of the theatre. It was far enough away that it didn't really bother me, but I have to say that I was ticked off for the sake of the people seated in that area, and for the baby's sake. What was that mother thinking, bringing a baby to LOTR? I can't blame the poor thing for wailing; it probably kept getting woken up by all the loud noises. I'd scream, too.

The trailer was shown after the movie, just before the credits. Thanks to Allison for warning us about this! Else I would have expected the trailer to be shown beforehand, and been majorly ticked off when I didn't see it. I found the trailer to be more of a mishmash of scenes rather than a carefully-themed piece like previous trailers, but I didn't care. Lots of interesting new characters, lots of intriguing glimpses of new scenes. It was a much longer trailer than I expected, too, yay! But...

HOW ON EARTH AM I SUPPOSED TO WAIT UNTIL DECEMBER???

Ah well, I'll just have to work out my impatience through Waiting For Frodo (which I just updated yesterday, by the way).



Celebrated my birthday at my sister's place with my family. Sara and Annie had made me a very nice birthday cake (I had the last piece for breakfast this morning, yum). My family pitched in for tickets for Sara and me to see Mamma Mia in June, as well as some very cool-looking Lord of the Rings posters.

Hey, I forgot to mention what Jeff got me for my birthday! One of the reasons we're going shopping at Saved by Technology today is because we're going to buy stuff for a mini-home recording studio! It's something I've wanted for a very long time.

We've been talking with Jeff Bohnhoff about software and equipment I need. I'll be using my laptop for the main piece of hardware, but will also be getting software (Logic), an external audio interface (since my iBook has no built-in sound input), a mixer, a good condenser microphone (I already have one mic, hope to accumulate others in the future), an external drive for audio file storage, and some self-powered studio monitors.

And yes, this would be something that Urban Tapestry could use for future recording projects, as well as for possibly recording guest musicians at various conventions (using a professional recording studio would be fun, of course, but not financially feasible for us). I'm also looking forward to doing some experimenting with some personal composition projects of my own as well, using my harp, flute, Roland JV-80 keyboard, other instruments.

If any of you know of any good online resources where I could learn more about the basics of digital recording, please do let me know, thanks. I've had very limited experience with Jeff's ancient 4-track recorder.

Having dinner with Scott and Jeff tonight at Ruth's Chris steakhouse.

Tomorrow's the last day of my Virtual Online Birthday Party! My very last 40th birthday party ever, so please do drop by. :-)

---

Today's Blatherpics:

	Lord of the Rings posters up in my home office so far. The small one is the one Heather Borean gave me at Ad Astra. The larger two are ones given to me by my family last night. Pretty cool, eh? I still have other LOTR posters (Black Rider & hobbits, Gandalf, larger poster with two statues and the Fellowship in boats) to put up somewhere.
	One of the chocolate Easter bunnies that Allison gave me.
	One of the chocolate Easter bunnies that Allison gave me after I bit its little head off (insert evil cackling here).
	Sara showing us how she can pick up Annie. Annie cheerfully obliging.

brief bdy blather

I'm 40, woohoo! No sudden burst of inspired wisdom, but I'm still pretty happy.

Saw Lord of the Rings this afternoon for the seventh time! Allison's and Ruth's fault...both told me about the Two Towers trailer being released with the movie today. Ruth came with us, too.

More birthday Blatherings tomorrow. Today's photos were taken a couple hours ago at my sister's, where I celebrated my birthday with my family. :-)

last day as a 30-something

Jeff has asked me if he can do a Guest Blathering tomorrow (it's my birthday, eh? Katy's, too!)...don't know if I should be scared or delighted. :-) Jeff and I are both taking tomorrow off and spending the day together.

I'm getting such a kick out of my virtual birthday party. Many thanks to those who have visited. I know it's only a virtual party, but I can't tell you how cool (and touching) it is to see friends from different areas of my life all dropping by. Sometimes I'll pop over to see what's happening at the party, and get all teary-eyed when I see the people who have visited (I'm such a sap). Or something someone posts will make me laugh out loud (like when Luisa said she was shy). :-) Thanks so much, everyone.



Had fun at Allison's with Allison and Jodi last night in Richmond Hill. Aftering ordering in from an Italian place, we had chocolate cake (see picture at top; I'm holding the cake with lit "40" candles) and Allison and Jodi gave me cards and presents. Allison's card made me laugh out loud (see left and below). She only got away with it, of course, because she's already past the 40-year mark. :-) Jodi gave me some wonderful-smelling Body Shop stuff and a veryvery cool wooden recorder with carvings and polished stones all over it (photo in a future Blathering). Allison gave me some purple stone earrings, a shimmery purple short-sleeved top, a purple Party Glowstick (which I plan to use to keep Allison and Jodi up at night in our hotel room at FKO, woohoo!), a photo bookmark, and some chocolate bunnies.

After some appropriately decadent chocolate cake, we did practising for FilKONtario, and recorded some more songs for Interfilk donation tape. So far, it looks like the following songs are going to be on the tape:

Our Secret Song: song by me (title to be revealed at FKO when we debut it in open filk)

Lullaby For Gustavo: song by me, written for Diana Huey's son.



All The King's Men: our cover of the Tom Cochrane song

I Would I Were: our cover of the James Keelaghan song

Life Is A Bowl Of Oreo Cookies: song by me, written for Lissa Allcock.

May It Be: our cover of the Enya song from Lord of the Rings.

The Road Home: song by me, a love song. Counterpoint by Allison.

Hockey Monkey Song: our cover of the James Kochalka song. Vastly different from Ookla the Mok's version! :-)

Waiting For Frodo: song by me, chorus counterpoint by Allison. Inspired by Waiting For Frodo.

Obsession: song by me. Inspired by Harry Potter books.

Unforgotten: our cover of a Lawrence Dean song.

All songs will come with lyrics and chords. I'm probably going to add some harpstuff, maybe be brave enough to record a harp piece I wrote. If you're at FKO, please do bid at the Interfilk auction (if not for our package, for something else). Interfilk's a great organization; Urban Tapestry was sent to California years back as Interfilk guests at Conchord. So cool to be going back to Conchord again this August! (and this time as the Guests of Honour!) We've heard many wonderful musicians and made new friends as a result of Interfilk.

Forgot to mention in yesterday's Oscar score tabulation: I noticed that several people voted more than once in some categories. In those cases, I counted only the first vote.

virtual birthday party!

Hey, check out the wonderful birthday cartoon that my friend Kate created for me. And be sure to browse the rest of Kate's site to see her other very cool cartoons. Kate is Parki's sister...what an talented family, geez.

You're all invited to my Virtual Birthday Party on the Electric Penguin boards. Please do post something so I know you came by. :-) The party will run until this Sunday (my birthday's on Friday). No pets, please.

The Oscar Poll results are listed at the bottom of today's Blatherings, for those interested.





Today's photos were all taken on the weekend during our brunch with Parki, Alison, JeffL and Kye.

I asked JeffL (who turned 40 a few years ago) if he encountered any sudden burst of wisdom upon turning 40. He laughed at me, of course, but then said that one thing he did start thinking about around that time was life goal limitations. Of acknowledging things that he would never be able to do.

That's so depressing, I told him, meanwhile thinking 'What the hell kind of thing is that to say to me just before I turn 40, geez???'





But as we kept talking, I realized that what he said made sense, and that he was talking about a Good thing, not a Depressing thing.

When you're much younger, you have the whole world ahead of you. You know you can be pretty much anything you want. You have a zillion choices ahead of you, and each path will lead you to an entirely different life. That's exhilarating and wonderful and as it should be.

As you get older, however, your choices narrow. They have to; it's unrealistic and unhealthy to want to keep ALL choices open ALL the time. Yet there are people who are pretty obvious in their desperation to cling to the "I want to keep all my options open" philosophy far too long.





I know now that I will never be a concert hall pianist, though I did harbour secret dreams of being one (among many other childhood dreams) when I was little. Or an astronaut. Or a professional candy maker. (Ok, so maybe I never wanted to be a professional candy maker, but wouldn't that be a cool profession? You know, the person who gets to invent all the different types of chocolate bars and interesting types of candy or maybe I'll just shut up about that now)

But as JeffL pointed out me, this is actually a good thing. Having those avenues closed to me frees me up to focus on what I can pursue, takes some of the pressure off. I know myself far better than I did ten or twenty years ago. I have a much better grasp of what I want and don't want out of my life, and how I want to spend my time.

And the happy choices I have made still keep me pretty busy. :-)

If you're 40 or over and would be willing to share a life wisdom or two, feel free to post in Blatherchat or e-mail me.

Oscar Poll Results

Feel free to correct me, but here are my totals for the Oscar Poll. Number of correct predictions:

Sherman: 11
Alisa: 12
Shai: 9
JohnO: 9
Dave Henry: 10
Paul Stockton: 12
Scott Snyder: 11
Amanda: 12
Allison: 13
Chris: 0 :-)

FIRST PLACE: Allison
SECOND PLACE: Alisa, Paul, Amanda
THIRD PLACE: Sherman, Scott

Woohoo, lots of winners! I'll be sending Inkspot pens out to all of you (to Paul & Sherman: could you please send me your snailmail addresses?) I'll also be posting silly poems for all of you on Blatherings over the next while (will also send by e-mail).

If I've miscounted anywhere and you feel you've been ripped off, please do let me know.

Congratulations, everyone!

Here's the poem for Allison:

A SILLY POEM FOR ALLISON
By Debbie Ridpath Ohi
Mar. 27, 2002

Of the filk group Urban Tapestry
she's troublemaker of us three
She hates to have her picture taken
or at least by me.

THE END

Is that art, or what?

And no, I never did harbour aspirations of being a world-famous poet when I was a kid. :-)

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Today's Blatherpics:

	This is a vinyl record that Alison had with her. She was wondering whether any of us had an easy way to transfer vinyl records onto CD. Sadly, none of us own turntables anymore.
	The back of the Kiddie A-Gogo album cover.
	Allison, Parki, JeffL, and Jeff in front of Curiosity restaurant this past weekend.
	Young Kye, who slept throughout our entire brunch. He is wearing a cap and sweater knit for him by Ginny (Jeff's mom).
	My birthday present from Alison & Jeff. Note the cool Japanese-theme wrapping paper! I'm especially intrigued by the "prune gummies"; I might have to do a special Blathering just on that when I work up the nerve to try them. :-)