Barenaked Ladies, Messier Objects and sunrises

(Just found out that any e-mail delivered to my mailbox between 1 am and 9:20 am EST on Monday morning has been lost because of a mailbox server problem. If you sent something to me around this time, I'd very much appreciate if you could re-send, thanks. Apologies for the inconvenience!)

I took the photo yesterday morning at the cottage. Not a bad way to start the day, really. Couldn't upload the high-res version to Flickr, sorry; we only have dial-up at the cottage.

Hope you all had a good weekend! Did anyone out there actually attend the Live8 concert? Not having cable tv, I only became vaguely aware of it at the end of last week. When we were heading up to the cottage on Saturday, Jeff and I visited a rest stop on the 401 just north of Canada's Wonderland.

While Jeff refilled the car with gas, I visited the restrooms; on the way out, I nearly walked into Ed Robertson and Steven Page of the Barenaked Ladies, then Jim Creeggan about thirty seconds later. No one else seemed to recognize them (!). Figures I had left all my stuff in the car, else I might have asked for a quick photo or autograph. Turns out they were performing in Barrie that day as part of the Canadian Live8 concert event.

Spent yesterday evening rereading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix in preparation for the arrival of the newest book in a couple of weeks. From time to time, Jeff would call me outside to look at a Messier Object or something else interesting in the sky. We saw the International Space Station pass over twice; so strange and wonderful to think of two people being up there.

To you Americans out there: Happy July 4th! And happy birthday to Paul Kwinn!

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Toronto heatwave

Congrats to Lissa and Phil on the birth of their baby daughter, Amy! Hopefully it's cooler in Gravesend than it is in Toronto right now.

I am not a hot weather person.

I don't like lying on the beach, baking and sweating. I like sunshine, but not when it's beating down on my head and shoulders like a hundred smothering steaming pounds of boiled cotton. The heatwave-hating part of me feels like lying down in the middle of the sidewalk with my arms outstretched, gasping for air like a hooked fish, blinking sweat out of my eyes.

There's a heat wave in Toronto right now. Another reason I don't like heat waves in the city is because they inevitably come with a smog alert. The horizon is hazy and sometimes tinged with yellow, and I imagine my lungs recoiling in horror.

Postcard from Reb for my collection. She took this photo herself.

I still go for my walks outside, but they are longer and a slower pace. I don't run in this heat; I'd end up in hooked fish mode (see above) for sure.

A SURVEY:
Are you a hot weather person?
Also: do you have air conditioning?

Our new place has air conditioning, but the contractors have advised us not to turn it on yet because it will get filled with drywall dust.

Postcard from Lyanne for my collection.

My new home office is now laid with DriCore subflooring over the concrete, and new carpet. I bought some acrylic paints from Curry's Art Store on Queen to add a bit of colour to the off-white paint (christened "Invisible Rose In Winter", though Judith H. has pointed out: "Your office paint is exactly the colour of the Cranesbill that's just losing it's blossoms. White with the tiniest hint of pink. So, you could also call it 'wild geranium blossom.'")

I've discovered I have to repaint my office door; the paint is already peeling off! Turns out the old paint is oil-based, which means I should have sanded and primed it first before painting an acrylic base over it. Ah well.

I've decided that when renovations are complete, I want to paint a tree in one corner of my office, beside or behind my reading chair (yes, I want a reading corner). Should be interesting considering I've never painted a tree before and never painted with acrylics before. But I figure HEY, if I hate it, I can always paint over it! I also figure I can work on it gradually, and maybe put interesting things in its branches. Suggestions about what kinds of interesting things welcome. :-)

Speaking of renovations...Because of renovation stuff, cottage time, packing (again! must move out of my mom-in-law's condo), moving, and unpacking PLUS trying to get some writing in as well, my Blatherings posts are likely to be sporadic over the next month. I'll likely keep posting some pics to my Flickr page fairly regularly, though, including more Wacom pad doodles.

Thanks to Lyanne and Reb for sending me postcards for my collection, by the way! If you're inclined to send me one, I'd love to add it to the set. Please send to: Debbie Ridpath Ohi, 34 Eglinton Ave. W., P.O. Box 189, Toronto, ON Canada M4R 2H6. Thanks.

And finally, some more garden pics...

Our daylilies are blooming:


Identified by my pals on YouGrowGirl.com as Spiraea, maybe S. japonica:


One of three Saskatoon berry bushes:


Found out from the YouGrowGirl.com community that our new garden has another rose plant! This one is apparently "Cecile Brunner" aka the Sweetheart Rose:

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star wars concert

As soon as I walked into the lobby of Roy Thomson Hall last night for the Star Wars concert, I knew I should have brought my camera. Princess Leia and a young Obi-Wan Kenobi (with a working light saber) were walking around in costume, for example...and those were just a couple of the concert attendees! Concert goers were also greeted by Storm Troopers, Darth Vader and a furry Wookie, and we could also gawk at an amazing full-size R2D2 and Darth Vader constructed completely of Lego.

Debuting in this city last night with a repeat performance tonight, the Star Wars concert is being performed by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and The Mississauga Choral Society, conducted by Erich Kunzel, a long-time friend of Star Wars composer John Williams. Anthony Daniels, the actor behind the android C-3PO in the movie, narrated the concert.

I attended the concert with Luisa, Walter, Hrach, Vartan and Julie. We opted for cheaper seats ($30 incl tax) which overlooked the stage. I've never seen an orchestral concert from this perspective before, and really enjoyed the view of the conductor and performers, especially the percussionists. The only downside was that we couldn't see a few of the brass players, but I found it didn't detract that much from my enjoyment of the experience.



Anthony Daniels was a brilliant narrator, and highly entertaining. Whenever a mention of C3PO came up in the narrative, for example, Daniels would take great pleasure in adding an embellishment. Once he rambled on so long about how important and wonderful the android was in the story that Eric Kunzel, who was waiting to cue the orchestra, turned around and mock-glared at him.

:-D

Hearing the musical highlights from the six movies was a wonderful experience, particularly those from A New Hope, Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Not only did the music remind me of my various favourite scenes from the films, but also evoked a strong sense of nostalgia from my childhood. I remembered Ruth and I going to see Star Wars for the first time at Shopper's World in Brampton. I remembered how my brother had a small figurine of the evil emperor which he used as a Christmas ornament; I have it now. I can still quote part of the final climactic scene between the evil emperor and Luke Skywalker:

EVIL EMPEROR: "Young fool...only now, at the end, do you understand. Your feeble skills are no match for the power of the Dark Side..."

Yes, I'm a Star Wars geek. :-)

One of my favourite musical bits, though, was from the newer movies...the music while Darth Maul and Qui-Gon are duelling. VERY cool to have such a great view of the percussionists, and the excitement generated by the frantic beat of the music and choir singing made me feel as if I was watching that scene for the first time again.

I think the performers were a bit taken aback by the strong positive response of the audience at the end, more like a rock concert than for a symphony orchestra performance. Lots of clapping, screaming, about 4 or 5 standing ovations (I lost count). To the immense delight of the audience, one of the encore pieces was the music from the Cantina scene in A New Hope, where the aliens are performing in that seedy bar. It was the first time I'd ever seen a symphony conductor actively encouraging the audience to clap along with the music.

After tonight's performance, the Star Wars concert is off to Chicago, Seattle, Cleveland, Denver and Cincinnati.

Thanks so much to Walter for organizing this outing!

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neighbours, office painting

Hey, look! Our one (1) rose plant is blooming! With one (1) rose!

So Jeff and I went to our (new) neighbourhood's annual street bbq yesterday afternoon. Our cul de sac was transformed into a picnic area with barbecues and folding tables covered with salads, corn on the cob, potatoes, hamburgers, hot dogs, desserts. Everyone brought something; we brought paper plates, serviettes, fruit salad, chocolate and carrot cakes. I borrowed an electric mixer from my sister and bought plastic storage containers from the local grocery store for the fruit salad since most of our kitchen stuff is still in storage.

Ray painting my office.

We had already met most of our neighbours, but this was a chance to get to know them a bit better. And of course they were curious about us. :-) Jeff and I both had a wonderful time, and I feel even more excited about moving into the house next month. We lingered until the party broke up; it was SO hard leaving the house and driving back downtown.

The whole neighbourhood community thing is a new experience for us; in our condo, everyone stayed mostly to themselves, exchanging the occasional greetings in elevators but that was about it. There were notices about social gatherings from time to time, but we generally didn't attend these.

Part of me regrets this now, but I found the atmosphere different in an apartment complex...when you're in very close proximity to your neighbours on almost all sides, you don't necessarily want to get to know them really well. Part of it is a defense mechanism, I'm sure; if conflicts develop or if you find you don't get along for some other reason, it could become awkward...you'll inevitably run into them in the hallway and elevators.

Jeff and Mark.

In a residential community, however, I can see some of the advantages of getting to know your neighbours. You can look out for each other, help each other out on occasion, share useful information. If your kids play together, then it makes even more sense to get to know the other family.

A survey:
1. Do you know the names of your immediate neighbours? (yes/no)
2. How often do you interact with them?
3. Do you participate in your neighbourhood community?

My new office is painted! Many thanks to Ray and Mark for helping out. I decided to go with an off-white colour after my paint colour failure earlier (the pale yellow that looked so harmless on the paint chip but that mutated into an alien exploded brain hue on the wall). I actually wanted to opt for a pure white to be safe, but Jeff and others convinced me to go for a slight tinge of colour. I'm now paranoid about yellow so opted for a bit of red. And I mean a BIT.

Watching the paint being mixed at Home Depot was interesting: the paint technician basically took a big can of white paint, stuck it under a machine, pressed some buttons, and a miniscule squirt of red came out. Jeff claims that the paint is still just white, but I'm insisting that it's actually an off-white. The paint chip had a boring colour name (numbers and letters) so I've come up with a more imaginative one: "Invisible Rose In Winter." Yep, that's the colour of my office wall.

Anyway, I decided to paint my office door off-white, inside and out, because I want to use it as a blank canvas. For what, exactly, I'm not sure yet. But it's sure to be interesting. I also bought a small can of glow-in-the-dark paint because I want stars on my ceiling. :-)

My carpet goes in on Wednesday!



Thanks to David Barker for letting me know that Ruth and her books were mentioned on CityTV's Breakfast Television last week. I was also amused by his last comment: "Hey, not only do I know two people who are famous, but I know their sisters as well. How lucky am I?"

:-D

Hey, speaking of Ruth...her newest book, Bottled Sunshine, will soon be available! Author: Andrea Spalding, illustrated by Ruth.



And a last Saskatoon berry bush comment: I've decided to let the birds have the Saskatoon berries this year. Too much going on to try harvesting enough for baking. I went out and counted the bushes: we have THREE Saskatoon berry bushes! I might try covering two of them with netting next year to let the berries ripen enough for my own use, and let the birds have one.

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Saskatoon berry pie

Dandelion at Niagara-on-the-Lake

Some of your postings yesterday have definitely inspired me to try baking a Saskatoon berry pie or tartlets (Kristen suggested with whipped cream, yum), if I can harvest the berries before the birds. Might be tricky this year, though, since the berries are likely going to fully ripen before Jeff and I move in (Graham says I should wait until the berries turn blue or purple), which means the birds will probably be feasting before then.

Don't know if I'd attempt the pastry crust from scratch, though. The last time I tried making pie pastry was a disaster. I served the pie to Jeff's sister shortly after we had met for the first time, wasn't my sister-in-law yet.

ME (nervous): "I think the crust might be a bit tough."

LARKIN: "Oh no, I'm sure it's fine, Debbie."

(Larkin struggles to cut her piece with a fork. Struggles very hard. The fork BENDS, unable to pierce the teflon-like material that is my pie crust.)

LARKIN: "Um, well, maybe it's a LITTLE tough..."

Sara fishing off the cottage dock last year.

This weekend, Jeff and Ray and I are going to paint my office. Then next week, my office gets a carpet! VERY hyped about this. Our storage locker isn't being unloaded into the house until the middle of next month when renovations are complete so I still won't be able to really use my office yet, but at least I can sit on the floor with my laptop and think happythoughts. :-)

Sent out a query about an article about the Northern Lights yesterday, got a go-ahead from the editor by the end of the day. I also think I may have sold my first gardening cartoon!

Got my Stokes, Richters and Veseys catalogs recently, woohoo! I've already started drooling over the Jiffy pots and grow lights and jaw-dropping number of interesting herbs and vegetables and flowers that could be growing in my garden next year. If I had a garden the size of the Northwest Territories, that is.

This year, I'm exerting enormous restraint and only planting a few herbs while I acquaint myself with our new garden. You can see pictures of all the plants I've managed to identify with the help of some of you, the previous owner, and the wonderful community at YouGrowGirl.com in this Flickr photo set.

Doing gardenstuff today, in fact. Ruth's sharing some of her groundcover plants and we're also visiting a nearby garden nursery so I can browse and get some fertilizer.

Had a nice evening yesterday. Jeff came home at an unprecedented hour (6 pm!) and we strolled along the lakefront, had dinner at a restaurant with outdoor patio, then visited GameTrek at the Royal York.

Sunrise at the cottage

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