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Debbie Ridpath Ohi reads, writes and illustrates for young people.

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Every once in a while, Debbie shares new art, writing and resources; subscribe below. Browse the archives here.

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Thursday
Aug082002

still sick






Cold is worse today, ugh. So much for plunging back into my novel writing. I still haven't finished unpacking from my trip; I unpack a little, lie down and rest, unpack some more, lie down again.

Jodi's worse, too. :-( She's still in L.A., though. At least I get to crash in my own bed. Looks like I left my cellphone in the hotel room. Jodi says she'll give it to me next we see each other.

Glad you're feeling somewhat better, Allison! Good luck with your flight home today.

Today's Blatherpic:

Cora jamming with Scott Snyder and Jeff Bohnhoff at Conchord. Their recent comments in Blatherchat are amusing.

JeffB: "Ash Productions was fantastic indeed. Another highlight was the down-home Blues that Cora laid down Sunday morning."

Scott: "I agree! That chick can wail!"

:-)
Wednesday
Aug072002

home!






Dead tired, didn't sleep much on the flight, which got into Toronto around 6:15 a.m. this morning. Jeff met me at the bus stop to help carry my bags home.

I've caught up in my Blatherings, though...please do check out the entries and photos I've added since Thursday. The new entries start on Friday.

Many heartfelt thanks to the Conchord concom and those who attended the convention for inviting Allison, Jodi and me, and for making us feel so welcome! We had a wonderful time.

I'll post more con highlights and photos over time. Because I was a guest, I didn't take as many photos at the convention as I usually do. If any of you have photos of the Urban Tapestry concert and/or me at Conchord, I'd love to see them. I feel somewhat egotistical asking for photos of me, but as a photographer, I don't tend to be in most of the pictures taken with my camera, and I like to have photos as momentoes of trips I've enjoyed.

Going to bed now to try getting rid of this cold.








Today's Blatherpics:








Sunrise from my plane window a few hours ago.



Zoë Snyder, while I was pushing her around in the shopping cart in a Target outlet last week. She's holding my purchase, a Marilyn Monroe DVD ("Some Like It Hot") that I couldn't resist for $9. I was going to watch it on the plane coming home, but worked on my Blatherings updates instead.

Tuesday
Aug062002

sick






Jodi, Allison and I are all officially sick today. Allison's getting better, while Jodi's and my colds seem to be worse; at least this didn't happen until AFTER the convention. :-)

Quiet day today. Allison went to Fremont with Paul and Beckett and the twins, and Jodi is going out with various Muse's Muse friends for the next few days. I had lunch in the hotel restaurant, then slept for a couple hours.





Today's a sad anniversary for me; my brother Jim and his wife Diane died in a car accident nine years ago today. I've been trying not to think about it until I get back home, but of course I can't help it. Called my Dad, called Ruth.

When I got to the airport, I had a few hours to kill, so I found a small food court with a power outlet, plugged in my laptop and started catching up on my Blatherings. I'm pretty much caught up now. Good thing, too...I'm on the plane now and my computer's almost out of juice. When I get home, I plan to check my Market Watch column, upload all these Blatherings, then am going to sleep for a long time. My flight gets into Toronto at 6:16 a.m., and I'm taking the bus home. Hopefully I won't sleep past my stop.

Am going to try to sleep now, more tomorrow.




Today's Blatherpics:








Cora with some of the cold-coping supplies in our hotel room.



Paul, Allison and Beckett just before they left the hotel.

Monday
Aug052002

disneyland






When Jodi and I woke up on Monday morning, it was clear that we both had caught Allison's cold. The original plan was that we'd all go to Disneyland with Paul, Beckett, Scott, Amanda, and the kids. Jodi had several days' of work-related meetings to attend during the rest of the week, so she opted to stay at the hotel to rest and hopefully get over the cold as soon as possible. Allison was feeling somewhat better, but not well enough to go to Disneyland, so she decided to stay at the hotel as well. I wasn't feeling that great either, but figured that I was well enough to go. Besides, I was flying home the next day and knew I could crash as soon as I got back.





I got a ride with Paul and Beckett, and we hooked up with Scott and Amanda at The Grand Californian hotel in Disneyland. The parents had reserved a room there to use as a "kid central", away from the heat and noise of the park. Turned out that this was a VERY smart idea, since we ended up using the room for naps, lunch, breaks.

Paul put Casey down for a nap in the morning while the rest of us went out adventuring. We went on two rides: Jungle Cruise and Pirates of the Caribbean.





Both rides were similar in that you got in a boat and were taken on a tour of exhibits. In Jungle Cruise, you travelled through a (duh) jungle and saw tigers, elephants, hippos, natives. Zoe and Riley loved this (Paul was putting Casey down for a nap at the hotel). Pirates of Caribbean was a bit scarier for them since it took place in the dark. Zoe buried her face in Amanda's shoulder for a bit, then fell asleep. Riley buried his face in Beckett's shoulder at first, then started enjoying himself.





Thanks to the convenience of an advance line ticketing system, we never had to wait in line that long. Scott and Amanda were seasoned Disneyland users and had park passes; they acted as tour guides.

I can see appeal of these places, especially to families. There are tons of things for kids to look at and do, and Disneyland is especially kid-friendly. I got a kick out of seeing the children enjoy themselves, especially on the Jungle Cruise, and enjoyed chatting with Scott, Amanda, Beckett and Paul as we strolled through the park.





Mid-morning we took a break, and Amanda bought us mint juleps (VERY yummy) and Toll House chocolate chip cookies. We rested in the shade and sipped our juleps while a ragtime band played nearby and watched the Mark Twain paddle boat sail by. After our break, we headed back to the hotel to see how Paul and Casey were doing. Amanda had bought sandwich fixings as well as fruit, so we had lunch while the kids were changed, fed, rested.





Amanda put Zoe down for a nap in the afternoon while the rest of us continued wandering. The afternoon was much hotter, however, and Casey was feeling the effects of the heat much more quickly than the rest of us. After we picked up some Mickey Mouse ears for Allison and Jodi (embroidered with their names, of course), we decided to opt out of further rides, had a brief break in the refreshment area, and headed back to the hotel.

Paul and Amanda went out to do more rides; Scott stayed back at the hotel to help Beckett with the three kids. I wasn't much use at that point; Allison's cold had finally caught up with me, and I was completely wiped. I lay down beside a still-snoozing Zoe and fell asleep.





My two objectives for the Disneyland visit had been to get my picture taken with Mickey Mouse and to buy a t-shirt. I didn't find Mickey, but Scott snapped a picture of me with Tweedledum (or Tweedledee, I couldn't tell). Paul bought me a Disneyland t-shirt while he was out with Amanda in the evening.

Thanks to Paul & Beckett and Scott & Amanda for the Disneyland visit!








Today's Blatherpics:













Me with Walt Disney food! Amanda bought us mint juleps and Toll House cookies.



Riley, Beckett and Casey, on the way to Disneyland.



Beckett and Amanda.



Beckett with Riley, Amanda with Zoë, and Scott. Paul is back
at the hotel making sure Casey gets a nap.



Paul with Riley.



Riley found the day to be pretty exciting.



So did Zoë.



Cora does Disneyland.

Sunday
Aug042002

conchord sunday






After pushing herself so hard yesterday for the concert, Allison crashed pretty hard today, and stayed in bed most of the time.

Jodi and I went for breakfast at the Clipper Cafe (hotel restaurant) and were soon joined by Joey Shoji, Tony Fabris, Jeff Bohnhoff, and Kathleen Sloan. Dessert: Krispy Kremes, courtesy Seanan (thanks, Seanan!) and Joey Shoji (who had asked Seanan to buy a dozen plain glazed KKs). They were still warm from the oven and were VERY yummy, better than the microwaved sample I had a while back in Port Elgin.

Jodi and I dropped by one of the open filks, where Jeff and Scott had traded guitars and were jamming, then sat in on the Windbourne filk circle. I had the opportunity to chat briefly with Karen Rodgers and Rilla Heslin, both very friendly as well as extremely talented. Wish we all lived closer; it would fun to jam with them sometime. Their version of Stan Rogers' "45 Years" made me teary-eyed, mainly because Lee and Barry Gold were singing along, obviously to each other.

I really enjoyed getting to know Lee and Barry a bit better - very cool people! Wish we had more of a chance to chat. They've been married 33 years!! I asked them what their one piece of advice is for staying happily married that long. Their answer: "Don't give up." :-)





Jodi and Callie Hills performed a really beautiful song in the second set of one-shots. After the one-shots was a performance by Jordan Mann and the Hodgetts Clan, which was actually three mini-concerts. Jordan was accompanied by Blake Hodgetts, who then performed his own set, and then accompanied Ash Productions (Angelica & Athrylis Sather Hodgetts).

Hearing Ash Productions for the first time was definitely a con highlight for me. These two are incredibly talented young women, the eldest of whom is fourteen. They're both good singers, they harmonize. They write their own lyrics, and their lyrics are good. All their songs appeared to be humourous parodies, and showed a much more sophisticated level of humour than you'd expect from youngsters that age.

There were several other extremely talented young filkers at this convention. If this is any indication of what we can expect to see from the next generation of filkers, I'm mightily encouraged.

After the concerts were the Kazoo Awards. Each kazoo award was a unique creation designed by David Okamura. Here's the award given to Urban Tapestry:





Comment from David: "I was wondering how to incorporate a tapestry-like decoration for your kazoo, and it wasn't until fairly late when I decided to have it
hang on a T-post. I took a photo from the Official Toronto website and
printed it on linen stationery paper for the right texture."

Several filkers had invited us out to dinner (thank you!) but Allison was pretty sick, so Jodi and I opted to have dinner at the hotel. Thanks to the Snyders and Kwinn/Gladney clan for keeping us company. We ordered in pizza; Allison slept through most of it, but came out somewhat groggily near the end of the evening to have a frozen fruit bar I had picked up in the hotel shop.

The end-of-con filk took place in the con suite. Jodi was starting to come down with Allison's cold symptoms so opted to go to bed early. I hung around for a while longer, mostly listened but did some flute-playing. Thanks to Bob ("Blars") Blarson for requesting something from me in the bardic circle; it gave me an opportunity to ask Callie to do some flute playing with me! She played on her bass flute; I played on regular. Earlier in the evening, I also had the opportunity to play with Callie, Blake on keyboard, and another flautist whose name I didn't know who played a wooden flute.

Fun to hear Leslie Fish perform a chocolate song she had written during the evening. Lots of great music, but I had to crash around 10 pm or so; I was dead tired after the weekend, plus my scratchy throat told me that I might be coming down with Allison's cold.




Today's Blatherpics:








Callie and Jodi do a one-shot.



Ash Productions.



Urban Tapestry Kazoo award.