olympic hockey win

First of all, happy birthday to my niece Annie, who turns five today! Jeff and I are going to my sister's tonight for the party. We bought her a Chrissy bath set and play set.

If you watched any Olympics coverage last night, you probably know that Canada won the gold medal in the men's hockey game late yesterday afternoon.

Jeff watched the last half hour of the game. I confess I only watched the last five minutes or so, when Jeff called me into the living room. As soon as it was clear that the Canadians had won, we heard the celebration start outside our window...there are several sports bars in our area, including the Wayne Gretsky restaurant, Nicholas Nicholby's, and the Peel Pub. There were Canadian flags a-wavin' on the streets within a few seconds of the final score being announced.

Here's what the crowd looked like within a few minutes:





I wanted to get some Blatherpics (hey, it was all happening within view of our apartment window...how could I resist?), so went down to check things out. The noise was unbelievable...everyone screaming and laughing and hugging each other, waving Canadian flags, honking horns. Can't blame everyone for getting so excited, really; it's been 50 years since the Canadians have won the gold in men's hockey. So what if I only watched the last five minutes. I was happy, too. :-)

There was a fire engine in the middle of the street; the firemen inside were grinning and obviously honking the horn in celebration rather than frustration (unlike the cars lined up behind them), so I suspect they purposely drove along King Street to join, at least temporarily, in the festivities. Ecstatic fans had climbed up on top of the fire engine's roof and were waving flags around, dancing. I think the fireguys realized that things were getting out of hand, though, and sent someone up on the roof to get everyone off.

Undeterred, fans climbed on top of cars and a TTC streetcar (Toronto Transit) that was trapped in the crowd. There were sparks sizzling each time the wire from the streetcar hit the overhead wire as a few overly-happy fans jumped up and down on the roof of the vehicle. I'm amazed none of them electrocuted themselves before the police got them down.

According to news reports last night, most of the celebration took place at Yonge and Dundas (a few blocks from our place). We could hear the yelling and cars honking for hours after the game actually ended.

I watched the Olympics Closing Ceremonies last night. So what was with that weird Wayne Gretzky announcement with no appearance from The Great One himself? Also, am I the one who thought the Donny and Marie comedy dinosaurs were a stupid idea?





If you missed it in yesterday's Blathering, don't forget to answer the poll question about e-mail habits!

Links/Updates:

I've added a link to my Market Watch column in my lefthand navigation bar and changed the format of my master archive list so that all the Blathering topic headers are listed beneath each month name. Thanks to Shel of The Girlie Matters for letting me base my format on her archive page.

Blogging's on the rise...in a sagging dot-com world, will bloggers help redefine public perception of the Internet?

A futuristic shiny white pod called the ULTra (Urban Light Transport) is being tested as a potential "smart taxi". Bladerunner gets closer all the time...

Peter Jackson is promising fresh characters and plot twists for the second Lord of the Rings movie and says that the second instalment feels very different from the first. Interesting to see the competition heat up in speculation about which will dominate the Oscars, LOTR or A Beautiful Mind. Speaking of the Oscars, don't forget to place your Oscar votes in Blatherchat!

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Fans on a car on King Street, jubilant after the Team Canada Olympic win.
	View of the crowd from our apartment window.
	Fans celebrate on a fire engine. The firemen seemed pretty tolerant (they may even have purposely driven along King Street to help with the celebration).
	Eventually the firemen had to get the crowd off the vehicle, however. This shot was of a fireman having problems dissuading one particularly enthusiastic fan.

POLL: e-mail habits

Worked a lot on my novel yesterday, yay! Felt good.

Scott came over last night with some DVDs. We got Swiss Chalet take-out (I also got coconut cream pie because writing yesterday's Blathering made me crave some) and watching "The Insider", which Jeff and I hadn't seen before. Really great movie! Loved Al Pacino and Russell Crowe.

He also loaned us Blade, One Night At McCool's, L.A. Confidential, and Magnolia.

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In general, I spend far less time in e-mail than I did in my Inkspot days, both personal and business. I've been gradually moving over my older Blatherings archives into Movable Type format, and it's been enlightening for me to read through some of the older entries. I was horrified, for example, to see a casual mention that I had received over 1000 e-mails one day, and that I came home from a canoe trip to find nearly 5000 e-mails waiting. I'm sure that helped contribute to my general stress puppy nature back then.

I am aware that my recent experience in the corporate world soured me on e-mail in general. I remember months of dreading opening my e-mail rather than anticipating it because inevitably there would be something nasty waiting. Like many others around me at work, I began using e-mail as a defense and pre-emptive strike rather than just for simple communication; I kept copies of everything to prove what had been said and what hadn't and became an expert in the psychology of cc:ing and bcc:ing. As a result of all this, however, e-mail became a negative rather than a positive experience.

As time passes and I get fewer Xlibris/corporate-related e-mails, I don't dread my e-mail as much anymore. But I still don't spend nearly as much time e-mailing as I used to, even for personal stuff. I've had to drop a number of personal correspondences as a result (and cut down on the rest), which is a sad thing. On the other hand, I spend more time working on my own writing (both nonfiction and fiction) than I ever did before, and also see more of my friends face-to-face than I did before, which is a good thing.

I make a conscious effort to stay offline in the evenings....as a result, I'm spending more time with Jeff, reading, my songwriting. According to my current Eudora statistics, I now receive an average of 31 e-mails/day (including mailing lists and spam), send an average of 13/day, spending less than an hour on e-mail a day.

I still enjoy the idea of e-mail, especially since it enables me to keep in contact with people I normally only see a few times a year. But the whole corporate experience as well as the emotional hardships I've gone through in the past couple years have helped me better appreciate the value of offline communication and interactions as well.

I'd be interested in hearing stats from any other Eudora Pro users out there. In fact, why not turn this into a poll...

Today's Poll:
What are your e-mail habits?

How many times do you check e-mail a day? Do you tend to get more work-related e-mail, more personal e-mail, or about even? Have your e-mail habits changed over the years? Are most your of your personal friendships kept up through e-mail? Do you tend to like or dislike e-mail in general? Please answer in Blatherchat.

Today's Blatherpic

- Jeff buying a snazzy new mouse in a computer store for computer gaming.

wendy & lindsay

Our friends Lindsay and Wendy invited Parki, Jeff and me for dinner and a movie last night. We met Lindsay and Wendy through Parki and have Sunday brunch with them every so often. Jeff got to know them better while I was living in Philly. I recently added their names to my Cast of Characters list. By the way, I'd be grateful if anyone could tell me why that capital "S" is being displayed just below the intro on that page...I haven't been able to track it down in HTML and it's driving me nuts. (Later note: Thanks to Jim Poltrone for solving this mystery! I had an extra "s" between two of the table rows)





Dinner was Indian in theme, based on recipes from one of the Naked Chef cookbooks. It was unbelievably yummy! I'm serious...much better than the fare you usually get in restaurants. It makes my mouth water just to look at the photos I took last night again. Are any of you out there familiar with the Naked Chef? I've heard of him, but that's about it. I browsed through some of the Naked Chef cookbooks that Wendy and Lindsay had on their shelf, but there didn't seem to be any shots of the chef actually being naked (er...not that I was hoping to find a naked chef shot, of course...I really do like reading through cookbooks! honest! I'd better shut up now).

I finally asked Lindsay and Wendy, who told me that the Naked Chef name came from the fact that Jamie Oliver liked simplicity in his recipes, and that he preferred to work with fresh ingredients. Ah ok. I can't help but think that the name is also a brilliant marketing tool...it certainly immediately helps set the guy apart from the reams of other television chef personalities out there.



Lots of chopping in dinner preparations. From my (very) limited experience with Indian cooking, this seems to be standard. The results are usually well worth it, but it's time-consuming. I volunteered to help and was given the task of chopping tomatoes for the chicken curry dish. I also chopped curry leaves. I had never seen fresh curry leaves before! Lindsay and Wendy also prepared a special rice dish and a yogurt sauce.

Meanwhile, their 8-month-old cat was zooming all over the place, making sure we were kept entertained as we waited for dinner. Do cats teethe like babies do? Dexter certainly seemed to be, or at least he was pretty anxious to chew on anything he could possibly get his fangs into (plants, wine bottles, fingers, feet). He also grew very fond of Parki during the evening.

It was highly amusing watching Parki's love-hate relationship with the cat; I had never suspected Parki was secretly a cat person at heart (a fact I'm sure he would vehemently deny, even now). Dexter singled him out for feline love early on, rubbing against him, jumping up in his lap, begging for attention. Parki obliged. When Dexter grew too enthusiastic and started gnawing on on his hand, however, Parki kicked the cat off his lap, declared that Dexter had outworn his welcome and would get no more attention.

A few minutes later, Dexter went into "LOVE ME PLEEEEASE" cat-mode again. It was fun to watch Parki's resolve crumble so easily, haha! I think I'll leave an orphaned kitten in a basket on his doorstep and see what happens.





Lindsay made lemon meringue pie for dessert. I'm not generally a huge pie fan, but have always had a weakness for lemon meringue pie. And coconut cream. And homemade apple, if the crust is homemade. Lindsay's pie was delicious, and I helped myself to a second piece just before we left.

I envy people that can make good pie crust. I did try once, a long time ago, but it was a miserable failure. I clearly remember serving my first homemade pie to my sister-in-law, one of the first times I had met her. I warned her the crust might be tough. "Oh no, I'm sure it's fine," said Larkin, trying valiantly to cut a piece with her fork without making it obvious that she had to make an effort. Then her fork bent. "Well...maybe it's a -little- tough..."

She couldn't keep up the straight face, though, and then we both started laughing. Larkin and I got along fine after that. :-)

But I digress.





Dinner, as I mentioned earlier, was splendiferous.

We watched "The French Connection" after dessert, but by then it was pretty late. Well, maybe it wasn't THAT late, but I'm saying it was pretty late as an excuse for the fact that I dozed off about ten minutes into the movie. Jeff tried taking a picture of me with my camera (I'm sure my mouth was hanging open or I was drooling), but fortunately the whirring sound of the camera focussing woke me up.

Many thanks to Wendy and Lindsay for a wonderful dinner and fun evening!

I'm excited about today. After uploading this Blathering, I am going to spend the entire day working on my novel (which I have been sadly neglecting lately). I'm in antisocial/mole mode today...not answering the phone, not doing errands, not seeing friends. Jeff will be doing work at his office.

Hope you all have a good weekend, everyone!

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Wendy cooks.
	Dexter lounging in what is obviously one of his favourite positions.
	The curry dish (I'll have to ask Wendy and Lindsay for the actual recipe title, which I'm sure is much more impressive-sounding than "the curry dish"). VERY yummy. Notice the expertly-chopped tomatoes.
	While Wendy adds the finishing touches to the curry, Lindsay works on dessert...homemade lemon meringue pie, yum.
	Reaping the rewards. From left to right: Jeff, Lindsay, Parki, Wendy.
	Fridge poetry by Parki: incubate these moments / crush a diamond with your skin / drive through the white moon / ask for time for love & bitter recalling / as yet my next delirious whisper is pleasing
	Fridge poetry by Jeff: I must club my gorgeous puppy / into a bloody mist. We were pretty amused by the contrast between this and Parki's poem. :-)

singalong

Many thanks for the good wishes and thoughts in Blatherchat and by e-mail about my dad; they're much appreciated. Dad spent most of yesterday in the hospital being poked and prodded and measured and stabbed with needles. They still don't know what's wrong, and he's coming back for three sets of visits (internal medicine dept, cardiorespirator department, and ultrasound) to the hospital in March for still more tests. Keep your fingers crossed for us, thanks.

The photo at the top of the page is of young Casey Kwinn. I'm a non-parent by choice, but I do confess a secret fascination with babies. I love their smooth skin, their miniature digits, their milky comfort-smell (after they've been changed, that is). There's nothing like holding a sleeping baby to make you forget about all your other worries, at least temporarily. And they're so completely trusting. I love this photo of Casey...thanks to Beckett for permission to post it.

Almost makes me want to have one of my own.


I'm going to the Singalong Sound of Music next month with Craig, Doug, and some other friends. I'm super-excited! For those that aren't familiar with this quality musical extravaganza, it's basically a showing of Roger & Hammerstein's Sound of Music, except that people sing along on the musical bits (apparently there are subtitles for those who don't know all the words). Some people get dressed up in costume. I believe there are other props involved, but I might be wrong.

I think I might go in costume. What the heck...I figure I might as well go all the way. Though Kate Parkinson already went in the best costume ("a brown paper parcel tied up in string").

Have you been to a Singalong Sound of Music? If so, please do post your comments in Blatherchat. How did you like it? Do you have any advice for someone going for the first time?

Jeff, of course, would rather be locked in a closet and forced to listen to The Best Of ABBA for 48 hours straight than go to something like this.

I think I'm going to start singing "Edelweiss" into his ear every night before he falls asleep.

And I was just kidding about wanting to have a child of my own. That was just for a chortle as I imagined Jeff going into paroxyms of horror when he reads my Blatherings at work.

hospital

I was supposed to meet with my friend Michelle at 6 pm last night, to talk about a possible short story writing collaboration. About thirty seconds after I step in the door, however, my cellphone rings. It's Ruth, saying that Dad's in the emergency ward at the hospital. Apparently his doctor sent him there after Dad went to him, not feeling well. His doctor had done some tests, and one indicated possible early signs of kidney failure.

According to Ruth, Dad is supposed to have a five-hour wait. While this is somewhat reassuring (if it was urgent, they'd have seen him right away). We both hate the idea of him sitting there alone, feeling very ill, and not knowing what's going on. I apologize to Michelle, and Ruth picks me up.

After navigating some nasty rush-hour traffic, we arrive at Peel Memorial Hospital. It's weird being there again. I had gotten to know the building really well when my Mom was there dying from cancer; my family had taken shifts around the clock to be with her.

My father is no longer waiting; apparently they were freaked out by his blood pressure and bumped him up ahead of everyone else. This scares me.





The hospital staff run all kinds of tests on Dad, and then we sit back to wait. "Sit" isn't exactly accurate; there are no chairs in the tiny partitioned-off area that is currently my father's space in the hospital. Ruth and I stand most of the time. Occasionally one of us will get too tired and try sitting on the floor, but the thought of what might have been on the floor soon grosses us out and we end up standing again.

On the other side of the curtain, an older Italian woman is cursing the hospital staff. "Get me a glass of water!" she yells at a nurse who is trying to insert an IV. "I'm sorry, but you can't have any water right now," the nurse says. "SH*T!" the woman yells. "I want water!" There is sound of abrupt movement.

"Stop that," we hear the nurse say. "That's unacceptable behaviour here. Do you want me to call Security?"

"You do what you want!" the woman yells. "You try to kill me!" She curses some more, partly in English, partly in Italian. "I want my son. Get my son!"

Ruth and I try to distract my father, who is lying wide-eyed on his cot listening. He is supposed to be trying to get his blood pressure down, and this probably isn't helping.

The woman lets out a bloodcurdling scream of frustration, and then starts crying noisily, blubbery sobs that turn into quiet whimpers. Despite her treatment of the staff, I feel sorry for her. She's clearly frightened, and not able to communicate well in English. From the snatches of conversation, we learn that she was brought in shortly after my father with severe stomach pains and high blood pressure.

"The people never stop," we hear her whimper to herself on the other side of the curtain. "They just come and go around and around and around and around."





A doctor finally comes and tells us that the tests all came back clean; my dad's kidneys are fine. They're still concerned about his blood pressure, so give something called a "beta blocker" to lower his blood pressure. He can go home, they say, but should come back the following day to see a specialist to find out what's causing the sudden escalation in his blood pressure.

Jeff arrives with food (yay! I'm starving...I had no dinner and the hospital cafeteria was closed) which I hoover while we wait for a nurse to return with a prescription form for my dad. We drive my Dad to a 24-hour pharmacy to get his pills, then back to his house in Bramalea. I'm dead tired and want to go home, but Jeff insists on staying until we know my Dad's gone to bed okay (and then I feel guilty, of course :-)); he's still feeling nauseous.

I'm still worried about Dad's blood pressure, but am relieved that it wasn't worse last night. I still wonder about what happened to that frightened elderly Italian woman, who was still there when we finally left.

The people never stop...they just come and go around and around and around.

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Today's Blatherpic:

	Medical equipment at the head of my dad's bed in the emergency ward.
	Ruth as we wait for my Dad to get an x-ray.
	A sign in my dad's curtained-off partition which said that only one visitor was allowed per patient. Ruth and I ignored this.