moving, Stage 1

Quick note to let you all know that Jeff and I have temporarily moved into his mom's condo while we look for a house. Between moving, househunting, regular work and trying to get what's left in our old apartment ready for the movers to put into storage, it's been pretty stressful and hectic. Not surprisingly, my tendinitis is also a tad worse.

Many thanks to our friends Scott M. and Walter for helping move some stuff to Ginny's condo. Both had interesting conversations with my Talking Edna doll, though Scott's involved more entertaining epithets. Now he wants one of his own. :-)

We still only have dial-up access and only one phone line, so I won't be online as much until our DSL service kicks in (hopefully sooner than later!). Please don't send me photos or other bigger files for now, thanks.

Sort of sad to go back to the old place and see it gradually emptying of the memories and personality it accumulated over the past ten years. Yes, I do realize it will be wonderful to move into our new place when we eventually find it, but right now I'm finding the experience bittersweet.

On a much more positive note, we're now steps away from the St. Lawrence Market and two floors away from a great fitness center (accessible to all residents). Guilty of a holiday season binge, I'm now dutifully keeping track of my eating and fitness habits through FitnessJournal.com, which also shows how far I've run and walked by tracking my virtual progress across a map of the U.S.

AND though you can't see properly in the photo at the top of the page, I have a fantastic view from my new (though temporary) office set-up. We are massively grateful to Ginny for allowing us to borrow her place for a while.

Househunting is much more interesting now that I've been through the experience of the seller. I'm immediately aware, for example, of what an effect clutter has on the first impression, the amount of light, etc. So far we've checked out some houses in the Sunnylea and north Toronto area, and are also hoping to look at houses along the Danforth and Bloor West proper (apparently listings are less frequent because the areas are smaller). Wish us luck.

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GAfilk highlights

Photo courtesy Daniel & Melissa Glasser.

Briefly emerging from packing/househunting to post just a few personal GAfilk highlights (I've also been updating my list of other people's GAfilk highlights, for those interested):

Hearing Paul Estin doing "Fluorine Atom", and getting to know him a bit better when Jodi, Lynn and I had breakfast at the Waffle House.

Managing to finish my parody of Kathleen Sloan's "A Kind Of Magic."

Mary Crowell.

Bill singing the song about GAfilk that he and Gretchen wrote.

Naomi and Josh in relaxacon mode.

Kris's chocolate fondue in the con suite.

Margaret Middleton's rendition of the Kelly Freas song "With His Sketchbook."

Talking Irish sessionstuff with Bill Sutton. Trying out (and lusting after) his Copeland whistles.

Talking with Cat Faber about mandolin and canoestuff.

Plotting with Tanya Huff about Michelle's Special Guest appearance at FKO.

Sampling desserts (that belonged to Tanya, Daniel, Melissa, Kathleen, Spencer and Jan, I believe) at the Steak & Ale. Ended up deciding on Chocolate Silk Pie.

Dave Rood.

Hearing Steve Savitsky's concert. Loved his song about blogs. And he also sang "I Play Magic Now"! (song by my friend Scott Snyder)

Brunch with Andrea at the Waffle House.

Dinner with Daniel Glasser on Friday night.

Myra's amazing storytelling.

Getting a Filkhaven/LJ custom-made button from Dave Alway.

Talking Moleskine notebooks with Terence. Lusting after his.

Tanya Huff in a little black dress.

Terence Chua.

Melissa Glasser's hugs.

Kathleen Sloan's concert. I bawled during her performance of "Road To Roswell" (song by Lloyd Landa and Karen Linsley). Loved her intro to and enthusiastic rendition of "Discipline Queen" (a parody that Paul Kwinn wrote of one of her songs).

Grits at the Waffle House.

Wireless Internet access! Fun seeing laptops everywhere.

Actually getting in two good treadmill runs in the workout room, made me feel less guilty about the decadent desserts I had later on in the weekend. :-)

Melissa and Daniel's concert.

Talking quiltstuff with Margaret Middleton. I'm inspired to create a square for next year's Interfilk quilt. Hey, stop laughing...I have a whole year!

Kathleen and Tanya.

Being presented with a surprise gift of a Talking Edna doll at the Banquet by the Suttons, Terence, and Rob after I had openly lusted after this doll in Blatherings. (see photo at top of page)

Tanya Huff's reading. Then hearing her do her now-infamous "Pervy Hobbit" song.

The "Toast" song performed by Andrew (George Powell's son) in open filk.

Talking tea with Colleen Savitsky. She gave me some bags of a wonderful lavender tea to sample.

Playing "Saxophone In Spring" with Andrea on Sunday in open filk.

Andrea Dale.

The GAFilk House Band! Jodi Krangle, Mary Crowell, Dave Rood, George Powell, Teresa Gibson Powell, and Brian Richardson were amaaaazing.

Dancing at the Banquet. I know I'm not the world's best dancer but holy toledo, did I have fun. :-) Many thanks to my partners, who included Andrea, Juanita, Brenda, Bill S., Bill R., John, Josh, Matt, Sherman and Rob.

Terence in formal attire.

Seeing Sherman and Kathleen on the dance floor.

Andrea and I fighting over Sherman on the dance floor. :-D

Having the Teri the Toastmaster try to strangle me after breakfast on Monday morning.

Brenda & Kathleen shedding happytears in the dealer's room at the end of the convention.

Lunch with Crystal Paul, Steve Brinich, Kathleen Sloan and John Hall at the Atlanta airport on Sunday just before our flights home.

Steve and Colleen Savitsky.

Roaming the airport after lunch with John Hall. Cool Zimbabwe art exhibit! Lots of walking, including a stroll through all the concourses up to D (opting not to take the train or moving sidewalk); according to my pedometer: a 3 km walk.

Talking mikes and pick-ups with Gerry Tyra, and his flute sound experiments.

NOT being in the "My Filk" game show on Friday night. ;-)

Gigglefest with Dave & Jodi on Sunday afternoon.

Finally getting to meet Mary Crowell's husband.

Brenda and Bill Sutton.

Mary's wonderful red dog slippers.

And speaking of dogs...the Dead Dog Filk!

Talking books and houses and tea and cookbooks with Steve and Colleen Savitsky.

Closing ceremonies. Seeing Kathleen fighting tears as she thanked the concom and everyone at the convention (which made me teary-eyed as well, of course).

Accompanying Sherman Dorn on his Auld Lang Syne chocolate song with Teri and Jodi. (see photo at the bottom of page)

And finally, finding out the guests for GAfilk next year:

Dandelion Wine, GoH

Dave Rood, Toastmaster

Carolyn Brown, Interfilk Guest (woohoo! A Torontonian!)

I definitely plan to attend. Hope to see some of you there, too!

And thanks again so much to the GAfilk concom! You guys sure know how to throw a party.

:-)

My GAfilk pics here (slide show here).

Photo courtesy Daniel & Melissa Glasser.

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moving

We'll be losing broadband access within the next few days while our services switches to our new/temporary living space, so my online contact is going to be a bit flakey while I rely on dial-up access. Please hold off sending me big files until next week, thanks. Also, please note that our regular home phone number and address will no longer be valid after this weekend.

If you need to call, please use our cellphone numbers but be aware that since I only get 150 minutes/month on my phone and need to be more frugal with these minutes while we're living in limbo, I will likely not be able to chat long. If you need to mail me something during the next few months, please ask for my temporary snailmail address. Obviously I'm only going to be giving this info out to people I know. If you DON'T have an urgent need to snailmail, please do be patient and I will send you a change-of-address notice once Jeff and I settle in a permanent living residence.

I am SO glad that I went to GAfilk this past weekend; I feel much more mentally prepared for the coming chaos in the next couple of months. Even this morning as I was feeling semi-panicked at the amount of Stuff to Do in the next few days, I took a few minutes to browse through my GAfilk pics...and going through the memories of that wonderful weekend was like the fragrance of a soothing cup of herbal tea; I could feel the smile all through me, relaxing me.



Speaking of which...Today's photos are from GAfilk. As I mentioned in yesterday's entry, I've uploaded a selection of weekend photos to my Flickr GAfilk 2005 photo page. If you'd like to see a slideshow of my GAfilk 2005 photos, click here (your browser needs to support Java).

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GAfilk!

Steve Savitsky, Interfilk Guest.

Managed to catch an earlier flight home from Atlanta last night. Dead tired and now in the midst of packing, moving prep AND househunting so it might be a bit before I can post a proper con report. My beloved Talking Edna Doll (a surprise gift from the Suttons, Rob Wynne, Terence Chua!) sits beside my monitor, occasionally making pithy comments.

For now, I'll just say this: THANK YOU to the GAfilk concom for the most relaxing con weekend I've ever had: full of wonderful conversations, listening to music (I actually did pull out my flute and whistle near the very end of the weekend), and dancing. You guys sure know how to throw a party. The guests were all fantastic -- Kathleen Sloan (Guest of Honor), Teri Wachowiak (Toastmaster), Steve Savitsky (Interfilk Guest) and Tanya Huff (Super Secret Guest).

I'll be gradually uploading photos to my Flickr GAfilk 2005 photo page. You can see a thumbnail of the last photo I've uploaded by checking the Flickr photo badge in my navigation bar to the left. If you'd like to see a slideshow of my GAfilk 2005 photos, click here (your browser needs to support Java).

If you have a photo or con report page, please let me know and I'll post it below. Here are the ones I've found so far:

billroper
zencuppa
sdorn (a song!!)
figmo | day 1 | day 2
nrivkis
weirdsister
tigertoy | Part 2
quadrivium
weirdsister
kitanzi
tnatj
jalapenoman
poltr1
catsittingstill
Glassers photos
msnimir
Tanya
Steve Savitsky
Rob's GAfilk posting index

I'll add more as I find them.

And congrats to GAfilk's guests NEXT year:

Dandelion Wine, GoH
Dave Rood, Toastmaster
Carolyn Brown, Interfilk Guest (woohoo! A Torontonian!)

I'm already making plans to attend. :-)

Other conventions on my roster for this year:

Boskone (Boston, Feb.18-20): Urban Tapestry - Featured Filkers. We'll be be doing a regular concert as well as a children's concert.

FilKONtario (Toronto, Apr.1-3)

FilkContinental (Germany, Sep 20-Oct.2): Urban Tapestry - Guest of Honour! Allison, Jodi and I are also going to be doing some visiting and sightseeing before and after the convention.

Tentative: OVFF (Columbus, Oct.21-23) - Not sure if I'll be going this year, depends on state of my finances after Germany. Allison and Jodi likely won't be attending, either. :-(

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doodle from Mary, friends who inspire

Got this wonderful cartoon in the mail from Mary Bertke yesterday! With permission from Mary, I've posted it above: I'm in the center, holding my RotK box and tin whistle. Others in the picture: Jeff ("easily IDable because of the mug"), Ruth ("not at all identifiable"), Allison ("I gave her a guitar to help with ID") and Rand, with Rosie sitting cross-legged in front, with a cookie in one hand. Her message: "Gather around you the blessings of the year. Merry Christmas! Thanks for the several ways you've inspired me this year. Mary."

I loved this doodle, not only because I was touched by its message, but also by the time/effort involved in its creation.

Mary, by the way, was largely responsible for inspiring me to start getting into Irish session music. So thank YOU, Mary. :-)

Speaking of inspiration, here are several friends/family who especially inspired me last year:

Luisa, who goes ahead and does things instead of just saying she's going to do them. She's organized (though she'll claim she's not :-)), focussed, incredibly responsible. If she doesn't know how to fix something, she usually tries to figure it out on her own.

Parki, who has the courage to try to change things he isn't happy about (instead of just complaining about them, as many people would do). He's willing to take chances even when he knows he might fail, opts for the risky but ultimately more satisfying route than sticking with the safe and familiar.

My sister Ruth, who somehow manages to find time to do an incredible amount of her own work in the midst of juggling kid/family and household activities, while keeping her family a priority. And she even manages to find time and energy to work out! I feel like a lazy slug in comparison.

My brother-in-law Kaarel. Much of the above applies to him as well. And after a very long day's work, Kaarel will come home and still have the energy/motivation to play with his daughters, help with household stuff, and spend time with Ruth...whereas most people would rather come home and collapse in front of the tv or take a nap, whether or not they have children.

I'm not sure about the rest of you, but I've always found myself drawn to people who inspire me to be a better person. They're active rather than passive, full of their own energy and ideas rather than always relying on others, choosing rather than coasting, looking for the best in every situation, focusing on good futurestuff rather than obsessing on regret and badstuff.

It hasn't been a conscious decision, but as an adult I've found that my closest friends are individuals whom I admire and wish to emulate in some way; I feel lucky to be their friend.

Jeff and I watched some more special features from the extended Return of the King DVD. Holy toledo, are these ever good. We're rationing ourselves to a few at a time. I bawled during the ones we saw last night (especially the one about the last 24 hours of filming).

I still have trouble believing that there are no more LOTR movies to look forward to. I want to do it all over again.

Leaving for Atlanta tomorrow!

Two years ago: I confessed my passion for cookbooks.

Three years ago: I watched Fred Astaire on a Battlestar Galactica episode.

Six years ago: I made chicken stew for my friend Helen and she didn't die from it.

Seven years ago: Urban Tapestry was working on learning an Indigo Girls song and I fed my niece a Barney doll.

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