guest blathering: Graham

"Graham, here. Debbie asked me very nicely to write a guest blather, here, so I'll do what I can as I untwist my arm. Debbie's been working out! I must first express my gratitude to Debbie for her gracious hospitality, wonderful cookies and limitless capacity for good humour. Also to wish her a happy belated fortieth birthday. I have about four months of seniority on Debbie. I guess that puts me at the front of the toboggan we now ride screaming into old age. I suppose when you think about it, turning forty isn't so bad, especially considering the alternative. Some of us achieve great goals by that time, others of us look back on a trail of unfulfilled dreams. I just watch myself become more and more like my father. All those strange quirky things he'd do and I used to shake my head about suddenly start to make sense. I understand why I have to keep the refrigerator door shut. I know why I shouldn't leave my jacket hanging on a door handle. If you're reading this Dad, understand this... Now I get it.

I suppose as I see myself strolling blissfully through my middle years, I am supposed to come to terms with my aging. But, I don't think about it as being forty. I am twice twenty. Debbie's playing her harp in behind me as I write this. She is really getting good with that thing. Not at all bad for forty."

---

Debbie again...

The photo below is of a piece of music that John had in his archives called "The Poslfit Blues" that I apparently wrote 20 years ago. You can click on the picture to get a bigger image.

Very short Blather today, sorry. Graham Leathers just called; he's in town, woohoo! We're going to have lunch, which means I should probably get some work done before he gets here. Andrea arrives between noon and 2 pm. Maybe I can get both Graham and Andrea to do Guest Blatherings while they're here.

Thanks for all those who sent good thoughts to Bryan's mom yesterday. Bryan reports that she came out of surgery fine, and that things are looking good so far (yay!).

Possible Virus Warning:
Andrea reports getting an e-mail from "Ohi@inkspot.com" with an attachment. She wisely has not opened the attachment, and I advise anyone else receiving e-mail from this address not to open it, either. I no longer have any e-mail addresses at inkspot.com. For more info, please see Andrea's message in Blatherchat.

highlights

Bryan's mom is undergoing open heart surgery today. As most of you already know, Bryan was largely responsible for the survival of Inkspot and Inklings in the early days, and currently hosts this site as well as all the Electric Penguin message boards.

To all: Please do take a moment and think good thoughts in the direction of Bryan's mom today.





Looks like I'm going to be doing some work for Moira Allen at Writing-World.com. This makes me very happy, since Moira used to be the Managing Editor of Inkspot, so it's only fitting that I be working for her now. :-) I'll be helping out with some site administration as well as writing a regular column.





Today's Blatherphotos were all taken at my birthday party on Sunday. Some personal highlights from the party:

- Hearing Jonathan (Peter & Laura's son) sing "Happy Birthday" to me. :-) Incredibly sweet voice. Here's a photo that Reid took of Jonathan, Peter, and Laura.

- Going through the old icbooks from the poslarchives.

- Jennifer Kesner's grin.

- The helium balloon choir.

- The cake (I still can't believe Jeff baked and decorated this by himself!)





- Seeing Justin again.

- Being greeted by Charlotte (Harald and Micki's young daughter) with a "Happy Birthday, Debbie!" and a hug.

- Looking towards the back of the restaurant at one point and seeing all the younger kids seated at the table by themselves (they weren't put there; they just naturally congregated), talking about secret things.

- Having Jonathan eagerly thrust a picture book into my hand and ask me to read it (I did, of course). I'm a major sucker for kids who love books that much, especially Jonathan.





- Salmon and hamachi sashimi! Spider rolls!

- Blowing the candles out on the cake with all the kids.

- All the red balloons.

- Holding Megan (Jeff & Gail's baby). Then taking her over to Jeff and saying brightly, "Hey, look what someone gave me as a birthday present!" and watching his expression.





Ah, who am I kidding. The whole party was a highlight for me. :-)

FilKONtario in three days!

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Today's Blatherpics:

These were all taken at my birthday party on Sunday.

	Bryan and Elizabeth.
	Kristen and John.
	The cake that Jeff baked and decorated for my party. The text and picture on the front are from my Blatherings page. :-)
	Me blowing out the candles on my cake with the assistance of the children at the party.
	Scott (in Elspeth's hat) and Bronwyn.
	Doug and Jennifer.
	Justin and me, outside of Fune after the party.

birthday party

(Update: Reid has some birthday party photos online)

I had a lot of fun at my birthday party yesterday...thanks so much to all who were able to attend (Scott, Mark, Reid, Luisa, Michael, Ronnie, Parki, Alison, JeffL, Gail, JeffK, Jennifer, Megan, AmandaF, Micki, Harald, Gareth, Charlotte, Andy, Christine, Bronwyn, Elspeth, Tom, Daniel, Ross, Justin, John, Kristen, Craig, Peter, Laura, Jonathan, Peter, Lesley, Ginny, JBR, Bryan, Elizabeth, Doug, Jennifer, Ruth, Kaarel, Sara and Annie) and thanks most of all to Jeff, who planned the whole thing. :-) I found out later that my friend Justin flew in from Montreal just for my party (!).





I know there were a lot of digital cameras at the party and am hoping that people send me a few pics so I can post some on Blatherings. Today's photos are of some of the birthday party group, my friend Scott as well as of an incredible birthday card created by Laura Suzuki and Peter Cook of Doodletronics.





Jeff and Scott decorated the inside of Fune with 40 red balloons (see the last half of this Blathering for an explanation of my red balloon obsession), coloured streamers, and a "HAPPY BIRTHDAY" banner.

Because the whole place was booked, the children could wander around without worrying about disturbing other patrons. Kinda cool (and scary! :-D) seeing most of the kids congregate at a larger table at the far end of the restaurant; I wonder what they were plotting?

The youngest child at the party was wee Kye, Alison's and Jeff's 2-month-old son. He slept through most of the festivities. :-)

The food was wonderful, of course. Jeff and Norman (the owner) had arranged to have a spread of all my favourite Fune offerings, including salmon and hamachi sashimi. One of the highlights of the afternoon for me was the presentation of the cake, when a bunch of the guys inhaled helium from balloons and sang an enthusiastic Chipmunk rendition of "Happy Birthday". :-D

Jeff's cake turned out splendiferously (photo coming soon, I hope), a large chocolate cake with white icing, decorated by a Jeff drawing of me as portrayed in my Blatherings cartoon. I enlisted the help of all the kids at the party to help me blow out the candles.





John had brought a box full of old posl-archives, notes and paper messages back from our university days. We kept one main paper message board in a carrel in the basement of Robarts Library; people would fill in their "posl-id" initials (mine was "dmo" for Debbie Marion Ohi), the recipient's id, and then the message itself. He even had one dating back from my very first birthday party ever, in 1983 at the Old Spaghetti Factory (I was still dating Reid back then). Here's a photo from that party that John took. So cool that some of the people at that party were also at this party (like Reid, Luisa, John, Andy, Justin) or at the virtual party (like Pontus).





I'll rave more about the party in future Blatherings, I'm sure, when I hopefully get some birthday pics. Meanwhile, I'd like to share the lyrics that came with a very special birthday present from Reid, Luisa, Ronnie and Michael. In addition to some earrings chosen by Michael (I put on the happy face earrings right away) and a dragon painted by Ronnie, they put together a CD recording of them singing a Barenaked Ladies parody. The CD is wonderful, and includes outtakes as well as a whole bunch of extra stuff. Anyway, though I have been forbidden to put their actual recording online ;-), they gave me permission to post the lyrics. There are a ton of inside jokes, of course, but I'm sure you'll appreciate the gist.

Thanks to all of you (including anyone who attended my virtual party!) for making my 40th birthday the best ever. :-)

40 Years

Lyrics by Reid Ellis and Luisa Perrella
Music: "One Week" by Barenaked Ladies
Performed by Bournville (Reid, Luisa, Michael, Ronnie)

It's been 20 years since we've known you,
Sometimes confused with your sister/twin/clone Roo

10 years since you got hitched
Dimpled those cheeks and Jeff became bewitched.

8 years that you've surfed the web
Done a dot-com - now people search for you, Deb.

Yesterday, on your birthday page
Hundreds of hugs, too much chocolate, don't (you) act your age

You're such a coy and groovy filk chick
We love your music
And buy your book - it's on Amazon.

You play the penny whistle and piano
Flute, percussion and the harp-o
You play Gwyneth with pyjamas on.

Built a cottage on Canoe Lake
Need some Shake and Bake
Spending summers in Algonquin

Sara, Annie make you giggle
So you tickle
Take a picture, flash an evil grin

Karate dojo
Watching TV Mojo Jojo
Sam and Rosie wait for Frodo
See the movie for the hundredth time.

Bramalea to U of T
TAFC members you and me
Urban Tapestry
Singing, writing, words that rhyme

Chuckie face, turn away 'cause it makes you mad
Trying hard not to laugh, but it's too bad

Walking home telling Jeff that you're hungry
Guaranteed in an hour you will be sleepy

Write your life on the web call it Blathering
You want to eat some chocolate.

It's been 40 years since you graced the Earth
We've seen pictures - you looked like the girl smurf

20 years in the Posl crew
Hangin' in the carrels 'cause it's fun to do.

6 years since the spot of Ink
Now it's gone and we blame the rat fink

Yesterday we wrote this song for you
And it'll still be two months of you saying "Kill You"

.. It'll still be two months of you saying "Kill You" ..

.. we still remember that Trudi was a rat, too ..

---

Today's Blatherpics:

	Jeff took this group photo.
	Scott threatening my balloons after the party.
	Front of a card from Peter, Laura & Jonathan. "Based on a true correspondence: Dearest Ruth, my family and I have been invited to a lovely birthday party for a friend and we simply have no clue what to get her. Absolutely no idea! We so need some of your wonderful advice! Signed, Stumped In Riverdale".
	Inside flap of the card reads: "Dear Stumped In Riverdale - Debbie loves chocolate, reading, LOTR, filking, tech, Jeff and my daughters. You may not give her my daughters. You may, however, wrap Jeff in a bow. Ever helpful, Ruth."
	The inside of the card, including the spectacular pop-up illustration by Laura Suzuki and Peter Cook of Doodletronics. It's signed from Laura, Peter and Jonathan.
	Close-up of Jeff wrapped up in a bow.

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. :-)

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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.