Beckett and Dandelion Wine

Back from Winnipeg and a visit I'll always remember as Beckett's Snow Sanity Weekend. I've posted some pics from the weekend below. You can see the full set in my Flickr Winnipeg photo set.



Photo above: Athena is the Bhigg House cat, and immediately gravitated to Beckett during the weekend. She gave me a couple of attempts, but I'm allergic to cats and had to ignore her.



Me in the kitchen, pretending to help with dinner prep. In reality, I only cut up some garlic...Beckett and Dave did the bulk of work, making Dave's famous homemade chili recipe.



I love this picture of Beckett, wrapped in Dave's parka, a long way from the balmy climate of California. :-)



That's Tom in the rear view mirror. Note the temperature: 4 degrees Fahrenheit (-16 degrees Celsius)! Definitely colder than Toronto.



David Rivers (who also lives at the Bhigg House), Tom, and Beckett. We had Saturday lunch in a revolving restaurant at the top of some tall building in Winnipeg. Sorry, can't recall the name. Great to finally meet David R. in person! I had chatted with him several times before when calling the Bhigg House for Dave.



Al Thomson (another Bhigg House tenant) and I go through some Irish tunes in one of my Sullivan tunebooks. Al performs in Curraugh with Dave and Tom, and also with Marty's Party.



I really enjoyed meeting Al's girlfriend, Nancy, also a talented singer and musician. Al and Nancy might be coming to FilKONtario next year! Al's playing his Northumbrian pipes in this photo.



Al and Nancy.



Dave and Beckett, jamming on Tom's accordions. We hung out at Tom's place on Saturday night, watching a Kate Rusby DVD. Beckett and I also had fun snooping through Tom's stuff. :-)



The drawing above was made by one of Tom's 4-year-old fans during one of Dandelion Wine's performances.



Poster from when Dandelion Wine opened for Great Big Sea in Winnipeg. Tom also had another poster from when they opened for the Irish Descendants! Very cool.



Tom, wearing a leather jacket he bought at a garage sale, trying to look tough. Sorry, Tom...you're too much of a sweetie to look mean. ;-)



Above photo: back of the jacket. Tom asked me to post this for our American filker friends out there.



Above photo: Hanging out at the Bhigg House on Sunday morning.



Dandelion Wine on Sunday morning.



Me, on flute, while Dave and Tom went through songs for Beckett.



Tom let me borrow this Manitoba Hydro coat during the weekend, then let me keep it (!). It's SO cozy warm and very light. Thanks, Tom!



Kylea Fulton, whom I haven't seen in quite a few years, dropped by on Sunday afternoon. Kylea gave me my VERY FIRST PENNY WHISTLE, by the way: a Generation D whistle which I still play. I should probably also mention that for those who own Urban Tapestry's Myths and Legends CD, Kylea played the whistle on The Lady. Dave and Tom were the male voices on Sex and Chocolate, and also did instrumentals on The Lady.

Anyway, Kylea gave me a CD called Sorority Girls Sumber Party MASSACRE: The Musical. Wow, what a great title! Can't wait to listen to this.

Many, many thanks to Paul, Jeff, Dave and Tom for making this special weekend possible on such short notice. But most of all, thanks to Beckett for inspiring it in the first place.

:-)

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Friends

The other day I opened the front door to get the mail. And stopped.

It had snowed during the night and a blanket of white lay over the ground, the front walk, the trees. If I had taken a photo, I'm sure most of you would have thought, "Pretty, but nothing special."

Yet I found myself struck by the incredible beauty of the scene, the stillness of the morning, and the realization that this was OUR front walk covered in snow, our Japanese maple tree branches delicately etched in white, and I was standing the doorway of OUR HOUSE. In the condo, we had to go down 24 floors to get outside and by the time we did, any newly fallen snow had turned grey. :-)

My friend Andy.

Flying to Winnipeg tomorrow morning to visit with Dave Clement, Tom Jeffers and Beckett Gladney; it still baffles me that Beckett is WILLINGLY leaving the comfortable climate of California for Winnipeg's, but then again I understand the lure of Dandelion Wine myself ;-). Many thanks to Jeff for letting me use his frequent flyer points for the trip, the sweetie. He knew how important it was for me.

Thanks to Allison for her healing vibe wishing stars. I thought I might have to opt out of this weekend, but looks like those stars did their job...though I still have a cough, I'm not contagious anymore and I'm well enough to travel.

And Andrea, thanks for the CD. It's the only music I've been listening to since your package arrived. :-)

I'm grateful for the friends I have, and am very much looking forward to spending this weekend with a few I don't get to see all that often.

Some random quotes I came across recently and liked:

"Beware the barrenness of a too busy life." - Socrates

"If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always got." - Anonymous

"Live life today. This is NOT a dress rehearsal." - Anonymous

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Phone vs e-mail

I've never been a phonechatty person. By "phonechatty", I refer to someone who regularly keeps in touch with friends by phone, who calls them up just to say hi. Given a choice between phone and e-mail, I used to take e-mail anyday. On the phone, you can't erase mistakes, can't proofread before you send, and you can't take the time to think about your answers before you reply. I've since come to find this a mixed blessing; you often get more of an honest response from people on the phone.

Phonecalls are often intrusive. It puts the onus on the other person to pick up the phone, to drop what they're doing. I've developed the habit of NOT doing this (esp. during mealtimes or when I'm in the middle of a work task). I count on friends to tell me if they're too busy to chat.

I also hate playing phone tag. Well, except with Amanda Snyder, but that's because her phone messages are so entertaining. :-D

Having said that, I very occasionally go into a phone frenzy mania. Usually because I'm dying for some conversation after being too long in writer-hermitmode and if my tendinitis is acting up a bit and therefore making e-mail more of a challenge.



Last night was such a night. :-)

I called a bunch of friends with whom I haven't spoken in a while: Mark Osier, Beckett Gladney, Graham Leathers, Dave Clement, Tom Jeffers, Dave Weingart, Lissa Allcock (unfortunately I miscalculated the time in the UK, fortunately Lissa was still awake and was very patient with me :-)). And I left several obnoxious messages on Scott's and Amanda's answering machine. I use Goldline.net, a long-distance calling service which has cut down hugely on our phone bill.

And y'know, as much as I appreciate and rely on e-mail, sometimes no amount of e-mail can replace the comfort of hearing a friend's voice, even for just a few minutes.

-----------------

Some interesting links:

Thanks to Reid and Jeff for pointing me to

ThisToThat: A simple but wonderful tool to help you glue different things together. Styrofoam to leather? Fabric to wood? No problem...

and

I want to: Very cool idea. I'm still exploring this page.

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randvisit

(Above photo: Rand and Allison, out in the garden.)

Updated with new pics, 5 pmish.

Can't believe it's August already. Ordinarily I'd be wondering how the time managed to slip away so quickly, but right now I'm just SO looking forward to cooler weather. Thanks so much for the Japanese Beetle advice, everyone! Since posting that last entry, I haven't been able to actually spot any beetles to pick off, though our poor Cookscrew Hazel has been getting progressively more ragged-looking. Grrr.

Had a good weekend with Rand. As I've mentioned before, we don't tend to hang out as much these days, so it was good to catch up. He brought some fun housewarming gifts that he and Erin picked out: a monkey to hang from my office tree, The Gardener and Food Lovers' magnetic poetry sets for my magnetic wall, some Bath & Bodyworks products (I'm a big fan of B&B, which isn't in Canada), and a case of Fast Break chocolate bars for Jeff. Thanks, Erin and Rand!

We explored the neighbourhood, checking out stores and restaurants I've wanted to visit but haven't yet had time. 'Twas fun shopping at one of these shops for dinner ingredients, then making dinner together on Friday night.



I'm not the greatest at socializing while cooking; when I'm distracted, I tend to make Horrifying Culinary Mistakes like when I used salt instead of sugar in a baking recipe because I was talking with my sister at the time. However, Friday's dinner turned out pretty well! We used two recipes from my Turkish Sofra cookbook: a spinach salad with pear, walnuts and feta cheese, and yogurt chicken with coriander and lime.

Allison came over on Saturday to visit and check out the new house; you can see her pics and blog entry on the event in her Livejournal. For dinner, I set out a make-your-own sushi dinner which I learned about from my father and a Japanese student living with him. It's a convenient and low-hassle way of satisfying a sushi urge; apparently Rand already does this regularly at home (wish I had known this ahead of time; I would have chosen something else, ah well).

I do know how to make norimaki from scratch, but it's a time-consuming process I figure would be best attempted after we're fully unpacked and settled at the house. :-) Allison brought plum wine to go with dinner, and also gave me some craft materials to make door signs and a suncatcher magnet for my office, and a gift certificate so I could get more stuff at Lewiscraft (a wonderful craft store in Toronto).

Jeff was home from his astronomy convention by Sunday, and we visited Hollywood Gelato again (yum...I still want to try their Valrohna Chocolate flavour), had dinner at Queen Mother's Cafe, watched a Henry Rollins DVD that Rand had brought. LOVE Rollins's recollections of recording with William Shatner for Shatner's "Has Been" album. :-D

Anyway, it was a weekend of good conversation, friendship, and music: very relaxing, and I feel much more prepared for another week of unpacking and housestuff!

Here are a few photos from the visit...

Rand browsing books at Second Time Around:



Jeff and Rand talking about chocolate bars at Queen Mother's Cafe:



Rand in my office, participating in Erica's Virtual Worldcon party:



Monkey to hang from my office tree, from Rand and Erin:



Playing some music on Sunday morning:



Allison and Rand chatting before dinner, in our living room:



As you can tell, we haven't yet unpacked our pictures to hang on the walls. SO great to see friends just hanging out in the living room, though...made it feel even more like home.

Back to unpacking...

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Doug and Jen get married

Back from the cottage. Packed up quickly in the morning, dropped off our nieces at their house, dropped by our new house for five minutes (WHICH LOOKED AMAZING! MORE ON THIS SOON!), drove back downtown to my mom-in-law's condo, dumped our two weeks' worth of cottage gear, quickly showered and changed, headed off to the wedding of our friends, Doug and Jen.



My Harry Potter book did NOT arrive yesterday from Amazon.ca despite the fact that other residents in the building received their copies on time. Serves me right for trusting in Amazon's and Canada Post's claim that all books would be delivered yesterday. Canada Post's delivery service doesn't even recognize the package tracking number in Amazon.ca's automatic e-mail notification, so I have no idea whether my book WILL be delivered or not.

Grmbl. I'm going to wait to see if the book is delivered on Monday, but also plan to contact Amazon's and Canada Post's customer service departments. I'll let you know what happens.

Meanwhile, here are some pics from the wedding yesterday (you can see other pics here). Congrats, Jen and Doug! Everything went smoothly despite the minister not showing up on time (!); fortunately a minister friend of Doug's was able to perform the ceremony.

Six days until we spend our first night in our new house.

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