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.

shannon

At 8:02 pm today, please note that it will be the impressively symmetrical 20:02, 20/02, 2002. Thanks to Rand for this piece of information.

Wow, thanks for the great response to my plea for Love Songs in Blatherchat! I had to laugh at Chris Conway's Willie Rushton quote: 'If god had meant there to be so many love songs he'd've thought of better rhymes than glove, dove, above, and shove. The French have it easier as lots of things in French rhyme with amour - but anyway - God is English.'"

I've been reading over the lyrics to Shannon. How do we KNOW that this is about a dog, anyway? Has Henry Gross ever explicitly stated this? Sure, there's the reference to Shannon finding a tree in the backyard just like the one at home, but for all we know, Shannon could be tomboy who likes climbing trees (heck, she's obviously into sports since she likes swimming so much), or maybe she's a tree-lover in general.

So where did this dog business come from, anyway?! I must know. Please post your proof in Blatherchat, thanks.

Anyway, here is a summary of people's suggestions so far (mostly for my own reference so I don't have to go searching through Blatherchat archives):

GOOD LOVE SONGS

most of my favourites are break-up songs. I should have wondered when my first boyfriend decided 'our' song was "Didn't We Almost Have It All?" by Whitney Houston. (Jwordsmith)

Personally I like "Ordinary Fool" (wr. Paul Williams) from Bugsy Malone! Very smokey & heartbreaking. (Jwordsmith)

I sang "It Had To Be You" to my brand-new husband, at our wedding. Like being the bride wasn't centre-of-attention enough! I needed a literal spotlight! (Jwordsmith)

I've always said the first dance at my wedding (if I'd had a dance at my wedding, which I didn't) would have been to The Beatles' "In My Life". (Allison)

"Wildfire" Michael Martin Murphy (he was still billing himself as Michael Murphy when he hit the charts with that one) - yeah, is it really a love song? I always kind of wished I was loved enough to have someone chase after me in a blizzard. Plus, it's a cool ghost story, too. (Bill Sutton)

"Daisy a Day" Jud Strunk - corny corny corny corny but it still brings a tear to my eye. I'm just an old romantic, I guess. (Bill Sutton)

"Chevy Van" Sammy Johns - boy, have I taken flack in the past for bringing this one up, but the whole passing in the night thing just struck some kind of chord in me back then. So there. (Bill Sutton)

"Diary" Bread - the ultimate unrequited love song for the bubblegum generation. *sigh* (Bill Sutton)

"High Flying Bird" Elton John - not a chart hit but one of many strong songs on "Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player." (Bill Sutton)

"Today" by Randy Sparks as sung by John Denver. OK, so I can't stand to listen to John Denver anymore, but that's due to overexposure. Back then it was OK, and the fact this one wasn't WRITTEN by John Denver helps a lot. (Bill Sutton)

Kate Rusby's latest CD (Anton Lerchner)

You Made Me So Very Happy - Blood, Sweat & Tears (pmills)

Old Fashioned Love Song - Three Dog Night (Paul Williams?) (pmills)

Pickin' Up The Pieces - Poco (pmills)

"I Would I Were" by James Keelaghan. Introduced to me by one of the all time greatest Canadians ever (Tom Jeffers), and then sung to me repeatedly by my fabulous husband. Featuring lines like "I wish the Northern Lights were out... a fabric apprehended... That from these earthbound human hands, those lights could be suspended" Beautiful lyrics, beautiful tune, fabulous canadian associations. What could be better? (Annie Walker)

"Today" was the very first song I learned to play on the guitar. I learned it through the Girl Guides before John Denver made it popular. I still love it. And I'm rather fond of John Denver, too, because when I was 14 he was my favorite singer in the whole world (except for The Beatles). (Allison)

Miracles - Jefferson Starship (Chris Conway)

Today - Jefferson Airplane (Chris Conway)

Wish On Me - new one off Lisa Stansfield's new CD (Chris Conway)

Love's Theme - Love Unlimited Orchestra - Ok i know its an instrumental but it makes me soppy (Chris Conway)

Please Let Me Wonder - Beach Boys (Chris Conway)

It's Getting Better - Mama Cass Elliot (Chris Conway)

You Didn't Have to Be So Nice - Lovin Spoonful (Chris Conway)

Darlin Be Home Soon - Lovin Spoonful (Chris Conway)

Matchbox 20, "3 a.m." (Heather Munn)

"Head, Hands, and Heart" by Bill & Brenda Sutton (Jim Poltrone)

"Velveteen" by Kathy Mar (Jim Poltrone)

"Close To You" and "We've Only Just Begun" by the Carpenters (Jim Poltrone)

"Longer" by Dan Fogelberg (Jim Poltrone)

"Biggest Part Of Me" by Ambrosia (Jim Poltrone)

"As" by Stevie Wonder (Songs In The Key Of Life is just loaded with love songs!) (Jim Poltrone)

"When He Shines" by Sheena Easton (before Prince turned her into a nymphet) (Jim Poltrone)

"Chakra 4" by Mannheim Steamroller (an instrumental piece, but it's about the heart chakra) (Jim Poltrone)

"A New Life" by Annie Haslam's Renaissance (Jim Poltrone)

"In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel (who can forget the scene in Say Anything when John Cusack stands next to his car and holds up the boom box playing that song?) (Jim Poltrone)

"The Best Years Of Our Lives" by Patrick Moraz (off the "i" album) (Jim Poltrone)

"Valentine" by Jim Brickman (Jim Poltrone)

"You're My Home" by Billy Joel (okay, it was written as a valentine for his first wife) (Jim Poltrone)

"In My Life" by the Beatles (Jim Poltrone)

"Colour My World" by Chicago (Jim Poltrone)

"The Shelter Of Your Arms" by Neil Diamond (this was "our song" with the girl I dated in the summer of '80) (Jim Poltrone)

"Lady" by the Little River Band (Jim Poltrone)

BAD LOVE SONGS

"Butterfly Kisses" by Robert Carlisle makes me want to hurl.....unless there was a way I can strip out the vocal track. There's a very nice arrangement behind the vocals, but the words are so....sappy!.... (Jim Poltrone)

"To All The Girls I Loved Before" (Allison)

"Lady In Red" (Allison)

Whitney Houston's version of "I Will Always Love You" (as opposed to the Dolly Parton original, which I've always liked). (Allison)

"Stand By Your Man" (pmills)

'Lady in Red' by Chris DeBurgh (Anton Lerchner)

"Hero" by Whatsisface Iglesias ("The words are doggerel, the sentiment smooshy and chauvanistic and the singing is just dire. It actively makes me turn the tv or radio off if it comes on. And then I feel depressed. Ick!") (Annie Walker)

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Quiet evening yesterday. I worked on a couple songs (one's a love song :-)) in the living room while Jeff played a computer game he picked up recently.

poll: best/worst love songs?

I've switched my Waiting For Frodo comic over to Movable Type (from Greymatter), as well as posting a new comic. Click on the comic above to go to the current strip.

I experimented with the Javascript messages feature, but some users were reporting getting Javascript errors when they tried viewing the page. So I'm opting to leave out that feature and stick with the regular UBB message board instead.

Jeff Bohnhoff is coming to visit next week, yay!

New poll: LOVE SONGS

What are your favourite (or least favourite) love songs? Sappy or happy, old or current? I wanna know.

One of my favourite love songs back in my teenybopper days was "Shannon" (I've mentioned this song in my Blatherings before). I didn't pay much attention to the lyrics at first, and it was only after a discussion with a friend that I realized (duh) that the song was about a dog's death. It's still one of my favourite love songs. :-)

Please answer in Blatherchat, thanks.

cottage report

We didn't see any wolves, but no one fell through the ice...so all in all, it was a good weekend at the cottage.

It was 5-year-old Brittany's first time visiting the cottage in winter, and she was great. Super-enthusiastic, unafraid, willing to try anything. We had great ice conditions for crossing the lake on Saturday, with a top layer of snow that was firm but not icy; it only took us 30 minutes to get across.

I opted to use snowshoes, which I've started to prefer over cross-country skis. I like the solid footing, the fact that you can feel more of the frozen lake beneath your feet with each stride.




Ginny had to carry Jamie (her small terrier) part of the way across because his legs were too short; he kept sinking into the snow and getting frustrated. Poor little guy.

Once we got to the cottage, the others shovelled snow and opened up the sleeping cabins while I played with Brittany (who had been very patient during the sled ride across but was obviously anxious to start PLAYING :-)). She and I explored the forest, built snow forts, made snow angels, investigated interesting animal tracks. It's amazing how much more you notice about your surroundings when you're with a young child.



Dinner that night was meatballs with gravy, mashed potatoes, vegetables. We decided to just soak everything and leave the cleaning up until the morning, after breakfast. One of the challenges of winter cottaging is the cleaning up...there's no hot water easily available; lake water (or snow, if you don't have access to any water) has to be heated up over a stove.

If we got to the cottage and found that we had no power (sometimes a bad storm will kill the power lines), we would have had to make the decision whether or not to stay. Most of the cabins are insulated, and Jeff's dad's cabin has a particularly good wood stove. With a young child around, however, we'd probably have opted to go back.

I crashed first on Saturday night, around 8:30 pm (!). Ginny, Jeff -and- Brittany opted to take a sauna and then jump in the snow, the brave souls. :-) I was fast asleep by the time Jeff finally came to bed.




After breakfast and packing up yesterday morning, we finally set off. Brittany was obviously highly reluctant to leave; she was having too much fun.

It had snowed during the night, and small drifts had piled up on the frozen lake, making walking somewhat more difficult. I led the way back to break the trail on snowshoes, hopefully make it easier for the others.

I love the lake in winter. There's a certain wild beauty that isn't there during the warmer months, and it's definitely more quiet (most of the sane cottagers and campers stay home :-)).




When we set off yesterday, the sky was a brilliant blue, the sun reflecting off the snow and ice in dazzling whites; I was grateful for my sunglasses. The snow had drifted in small wave-like ripples across the lake. It was almost as if the winter had caught the lake during a breezy day, freezing it in time.

I could feel the snow crunching beneath my snowshoes with every step, my breath going in and out in small warm puffs, back and leg muscles pleasantly sore from outdoor antics with Brittany and shovelling snow the day before. But most of all, I was looking around me, soaking in the desolate beauty of the frozen lake, the sunlight glittering off the ice and snow.

And suddenly I found myself starting to cry. Great, I told myself. Your cheeks are going to freeze now. But I left the frozen tears on my face, happy-stupid tears, and trekked the rest of the way back to the Portage Store parking lot with the others.

I think I've left a tiny part of myself behind in all that snow and ice. But that's okay...I know I'll be back again eventually to collect it. :-)




Links/Updates:

According to this spam study, it takes about eight hours between posting an e-mail address online to when that address starts receiving spam.

Wired has article about weblogs after National Public Radio (NPR) ran a 3-minute piece on blogging.

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Today's Blatherpic:

	Brittany waits patiently in the sled as the adults get ready for the trek across the lake. The marks on her face are from a facepainting session at the supermarket in Huntsville where we bought supplies.
	Brittany tries pulling Jeff's sled instead of riding on it. Note Jamie (my mom-in-law's terrier) sitting alertly at the front of the sled, urging her on.
	Me, after peeling off some of my zillion layers, about to get into the car for the trip back home.
	Brittany helps get water from the hole Jeff chopped in the ice. All drinking, cooking, and cleaning water will be taken from this hole.
	Jeff reads a picture book to Brittany by the fireplace in his father's cabin after she changes into her flannel pajamas.
	My snowshoes.