triple tongue

So yesterday, Jeff and I attended a music concert at Sara's school. Sara's grade sang one song, and I was bursting with auntly pride as I saw her standing up there with the other students.

I couldn't help think of those early days when I rocked her to sleep in my arms, when I was so nervous about taking her out in the stroller that I clutched the stroller handle with a white-knuckled grip of paranoia, certain that a gust of wind would wrench my niece away from me. Geez, has it really been eight years already?

And then I looked around at the OAC-level girls in the school (just before university age) and tried to imagine Sara among them. Sometimes I can't help but wonder: Will she still see me as a cool aunt when she's that age, or as just another grown-up who doesn't really understand her?

I figure that all I can do is love her the best that I can, and have faith that in the end, this is all that really matters.

Links/News:

Congrats to Daniel and Melissa Glasser, who have been invited to be Interfilk guests at Conchord next year!

NaNoWriMo update: 35,091 words written, 14,909 to go.

Wired has an interesting article about Solaris, a remake of an obscure Russian sf film. The remake stars George Clooney.

Universal Music has announced it plans to make more than 43,000 song tracks available for download at retail outlets and Web sites. Cost: US$0.99 per track, $9.99 per album.
Reuters

One year ago, Mark Osier sent me an amusing diagram comparing how women and men think.

Four years ago, I made a gingerbread house with Sara and Annie.

Five years ago, I made a list of the things I learned during my trip to Germany.

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Today's Blatherpics:

Annie doing her "triple tongue thing" that none of us have been able to learn, no matter how patiently she tries teaching us.

things i've learned

So Jeff, Andy, Reid and I went to my mom-in-law's place in the country to catch a glimpse of the Leonid meteor shower last night. Unfortunately it was cloudy, so we didn't see much. The others saw more than I did, however, because I ended up falling asleep on Ginny's couch in front of the fire.

Looking forward to visiting with Mark Osier and Kathy Cogswell this weekend. I found out that getting an extra laptop battery is too expensive, so I am going to have to rely on (*gasp) writing with paper and a pen once my laptop batteries die during the train ride to Syracuse, or (more likely) my Palm and portable keyboard, using DocumentsToGo so I can still work with a Word document.

NaNoWriMo update: 33,064 words written, 16,936 to go. Ten more days left! I'm pretty happy that I've generally been able to meet my 2,000 words/day goal plus been able to keep with other writing commitments. Wrote and sent in my article about my NaNoWriMo experience yesterday.

I've also learned a heckuva lot about procrastination and productivity while writing. Things I've learned:

- My writing output is higher if I'm offline (duh).

- "Offline" means physically disconnected from the Internet. Usually I achieve this by working outside of the apartment.

- I work best in silence. If that's not possible (e.g. in a coffee shop), then my preferred writing music is Celtic harp music or Italian progressive rock. I blame Parki for the latter.

- To ignore the phone while I'm working. If it's important, they'll leave a message.

- To NOT HAVE MINI CHOCOLATE BARS in a bowl on the dining room table, espcially Coffee Crisp.

- Getting off my butt and working out at the gym (or running outside, if weather permits) on a regular basis is a good thing.

And now I'm going to take my own advice and go work offline for a while.

Links/News:

One year ago, we were at the Santa Claus parade.

Buy a Segway on Amazon!

Will spam kill e-mail?

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Today's Blatherpics:

Christine and her sister Jen at the Santa Claus parade.

santa claus parade

Went to the Santa Claus parade yesterday. I am still baffled by why the Santa Claus parade takes place only a couple weeks after Hallowe'en. Or perhaps I should be grateful that at least they wait until after. We went with Ruth, Kaarel, Sara, Annie, Andy, Christine, Jen and Elspeth. As usual, we had lunch in the cafeteria on the 8th floor of the Bay, then went down for the long wait.

As Jen pointed out, it's a Canadian tradition for parents (and friends/relatives of the children) to be bored and cold as they wait for the Santa Claus parade, stamping their feet to keep warm and anxiously peering down the street, wondering when the Santa float is going to show up. The reason we all do it, of course, is because of the enthusiasm of the kids, which helps cancel out the jaded cynicism of the adults.

This year, Ruth was just getting over a very bad chest cold so ended up going inside. As a loyal sister, I of course went inside to keep her company. >:-) Jeff and I had brought our portable Shakespeare chairs which we had bought for waiting in line for Lord of the Rings last year, so we gave them to Sara and Annie. Ruth & Kaarel had extra styrofoam pads, so Elspeth used one of those.

As a result of Harry Potter and the parade, I didn't get much writing done over the weekend. Much catching up to do this week, plus I have several writing deadlines.

NaNoWriMo report: 30,933 words written, 19,067 to go. Michelle Southern has added some more of my cartoons to my NaNoGram page.

Hope you all had a great weekend!





Links/News:

One year ago, I waited in line for Harry Potter.

Four years ago, I had a phone conversation with Annie, who was one and a half.

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Today's Blatherpics:

These were taken yesterday while waiting for the Santa Claus parade on Queen Street.

	Sara, bundled up.
	Ruth, Jen, Christine, Andy, Jeff, Kaarel, Sara, Annie & Elspeth.

harry potter

Hey, Allison, Jodi and I have finally decided on a name for our upcoming album: Sushi and High Tea. Our tracks are now in the UK in the hands of Chris Conway, who is doing the mastering. Photos today are from the recording sessions of our last album, Myths and Urban Legends.

NaNoWriMo report: 29,762 words written, 20,238 to go. Got less written yesterday because Parki, Jeff and I went to see Harry Potter: Chamber Of Secrets. Doodles updated.

Fun movie; I enjoyed it even more than the first one, probably because I knew what to expect. Allison says that they may have to find different actors to play the child leads in a few movies because the actors will be growing too fast, which will be a shame.

While waiting for the movie to begin, we sat in front of two families who obviously knew each other, one with an 8-year-old boy and the other with a 9-year-old girl. Really cute kids, especially the girl. Jeff started the conversation by asking the girl if she was excited about the movie.

"Yes," she said. "Are you?!"





Jeff admitted that he was excited, but not nearly as excited as his wife, and the conversation continued from there. The girl's favourite character was Hermione, which is why she had combed out her hair to look as much like Hermione as possible. She knew about Richard Harris having died, and that the Ian McKellen (Gandalf) and Christopher Lee (Saruman) were being considered to take over the role of Dumbledore.

Both kids were crazy about Lord of the Rings, too. The boy told me that one of his favourite scenes in the movie was the one with Sam and Frodo in the boat, near the end, and that it sometimes made him cry because it made him think of him and his best friend. I told the girl that I thought Boromir was cute, but she thought (not surprisingly) that Frodo was cuter. Her mom agreed with me, though. :-)





Links/News:

Jeff and Andy and I are hoping to check out the meteor shower tomorrow night.

City Creator: A fun way to procrastinate. I found this on the NaNoWriMo forums.

Three years ago, I was still unpacking stuff after moving into the new Inkspot office.

Four years ago, I had dinner with David Goulden and thought (briefly) about starting Christmas shopping.





Today's Blatherpics:

These photos were taken at various recording sessions for Urban Tapestry's last album, Myths and Urban Legends.

	Dave Clement and Tom Jeffers, from Dandelion Wine, doing their vocal parts for "Sex and Chocolate".
	Scott Snyder, who helped with some of the engineering.
	Adam English and Luis Garcia, from Ookla The Mok, rehearsing before recording their parts for "Teenybopper Love".
	Kathleen Sloan and Paul Kwinn during a musical interlude while recording "Web Surfin'".
	Rand (also as part of Ookla) laying down his bass track for "Leftovers". David Goulden is in the background doing engineeringstuff.

scott & karin

Jeff and I went to Fune with Scott and Karin last night. It was Karin's first time trying sushi! She bravely tried everything and liked most of what she tried. The photo at the top was taken at Fune; the bottom photo is Karin trying out my harp.

NaNoWriMo report: 28,499 wds written, 21,501 to go. Doodle journal updated.

Poll: Do you like sushi?

Do you enjoy eating at Japanese restaurants? If so, what do you order most often? Have you ever eaten sushi? Did you like it? What are your favourite types of sushi?

Answer here

Some people ask me if I ate Japanese food a lot when I was a kid. Depends on how strict a definition you put on it. We mostly ate Western food since it was more convenient while I was growing up, but I remember a lot of Japanese-type rice served with meals.

We'd have sukiyaki every so often, which I loved...Mom would set up an electric cooking pan in the middle of the table, heat up some homemade sukiyaki sauce, then add vegetables, noodles, thinly sliced beef, cook it at the table. The food seemed to taste so much yummier when you saw it being cooked right in front of you. The only thing I wouldn't eat were the vermicelli noodles, which I called "worm noodles" because that's what they looked like.

Mom did make nori-make ever so often, and would use boiled spinach, dashi, pink fish powder, gourd strips, shiitake mushrooms, broiled eel, and cooked egg for the filling. I still remember the fragrance of the sushi rice as she stirred it after adding the rice vinegar. We kids had the job of fanning the rice while she stirred it (I think it keeps the rice from sticking together too much? or helps spread the rice vinegar?).

I wrote more about this memory and other favourite childhood Japanese foods last December ("Food Memories").





Links/News:

One year ago, Scott (yes, the same Scott in the photo today!) stood me up for our Harry Potter movie date, so I ended up seeing it alone. Allison saw Harry Potter twice in one day last year. I didn't go see it yesterday because Jeff said he'd see it with me this weekend.

Four years ago, I learned how to use the rowing machine.