Rough night

My Dad, on Father's Day this past weekend.

My dad had a stroke yesterday (either a small stroke or a series of mini-strokes, according to the specialist at the hospital this morning). He arrived at the Emergency ward of the hospital at 7 pm yesterday and spent the next 20+ hours in various waiting rooms in Emerg. I was with him for 14 of those hours, and then Ruth took over, drove back and forth to get Dad's stuff from his house that he needs for his stay, talked with specialists, etc.

Dead tired, so will have to post more details later but the sum: Dad's been admitted to the hospital and will be going through more tests over the next few days, including an angiogram and MRI. Things look good (considering) and we were lucky that it was just a small stroke.

Thanks to those who have been posting support in my Facebook page as well as e-mailing; I had no online access but could sometimes text message with my cellphone to Facebook, which is how some people found out.

More later. I had a couple hours' sleep after I got home, but now Jeff (who has been hugely supportive throughout) and I are going to eat something, binge out a bit on B5, then crash.



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Birthdays, monsters, and Firefly

Happy birthday to Scott Snyder today! I'm looking forward to getting together with the Snyders when I'm in Texas for BoardGameGeek.CON this November. Here's a Guest Blather that Scott did when he visited us in 1997.



Inkygirl update: I've posted an interview with Rob Hummel-Hudson, whose book, Schuyler's Monster: A Father's Journey With His Wordless Daughter, was just published by St. Martin's Press.



Photo courtesy Rob Rummel-Hudson.

Rob commissioned me to do some artwork for his book site; I was pretty happy with how it turned out. I hope to meet Rob in person someday.

Thanks so much to Parki and Kim for the fine dinner last night. Jeff and I have been watching Firefly with P & K recently; Kim's never seen the series. I am SO enjoying re-watching this series. I loved the movie (Serenity) but have heard rumours that it didn't do well enough to warrant a sequel. :-(

I've been enjoying reading the posted comments to my first Waiting For Bilbo strip. One of my favourites: "Oooh Yeah! Rock on with your bad self! Bring on the hobbits! :D"

Heh.

Some of you have asked if Rosie and the old gang are going to show up in the new comic. My answer: You'll have to wait and see. :-)





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Waiting For Bilbo launched!

Click image below to see a bigger version.


Waiting For Bilbo is officially launched. I sent word to TheOneRing.net; I'm impressed by the quick turnaround of info at that site...they ended up posting the news before I got around to posting it in my own blog! :-)

My posting schedule of the new comic is likely to be highly sporadic until the first Hobbit movie is actually in production, so if you want to get e-mail when a new strip is posted, please sign up to be notified or subscribe to the RSS feed.

To find out more about the history of Waiting For Frodo and Waiting For Bilbo, please see my newly updated (with photos and comics, even!) ABOUT PAGE.

If you'd like to help spread the word about the comic, feel free to scoop the code below to post in your blog or site:

<a href="http://www.waitingforbilbo.com"><img src="http://www.waitingforbilbo.com/pics/promo/wfb-100x80-lightblue.jpg" width=100 height=80 alt="Waiting For Bilbo" border=0></a>

You'll end up with cool-looking button like this:



And to read people's comments and see the new site, please visit:

WaitingForBilbo.com



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Happy Father's Day!

I'm very much enjoying reading about your favourite teachers, and plan to summarize your comments in an upcoming Blathering; it's entirely possibly the post might be found by one of your old teachers doing a search on their own name. Feel free to add your own comment if you haven't already.



Happy Father's Day to all you dads out there! Especially my own Dad. :-) The photo above was taken when we lived on O'Connor Street out in East York. My mom's holding Jim, and Ruth is in the dark coat and hat; I'm wearing the lighter coat. I think that's our car to the left.



Looks like it's going to be a wet week. Makes for soggy walking but happy plants. Speaking of the garden, check out my lettuce seedlings:



They're actually starting to look like LETTUCE!

The squirrels dug up my marjoram and one of my Morning Glory seedlings (maybe it's heard the rumours), grr. All the recent rain has been washing away my carefully applied cayenne pepper.

(pause)

The squirrels had better leave my baby lettuce alone or else.



Thanks so much to Walter for helping Jeff dig holes for the new fence posts and our new tree yesterday. Every time I came out yesterday, Jeff and Walter looked dirtier. And frankly, cuter. :-) There's something hugely appealing about technonerdboys who revel in dirty outdoor work; give me rough and weathered hands over perfect nail beds any day (this applies to women as well as men, as far as I'm concerned). Thanks to Trish for lending us her husband (and son, who also helped!) for part of yesterday afternoon.



Went to a garage sale in the neighbourhood yesterday, and in contrast to my usual pattern I went to the clothes rack instead of the books, to look for anything I could practice altering. Happily, all the clothes were in good condition AND it looked as if someone in the household was around my size.

I picked up this vest for $1:



Slightly too big plus it's missing its buttons, but I figure it'll be good sewing practice.



The black jacket above will be somewhat more of a challenge to alter but I figure for $2, it won't matter if I screw up. I plan to take out the shoulder pads, shorten it, make the fit smaller. I might turn it into a vest if I mess up the shoulder alteration.

If the alterations work, THEN I'm going to paint something on the outside, and maybe even add some beading.



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Voiceovers, Geodesic Domes and Teachers

As I've mentioned before, I feel very lucky in that the other two women in my music group, Urban Tapestry, are my friends as well as my music partners. This year marks our FIFTEENTH YEAR together as a group; we've had the same group members throughout.



Jodi (pictured above, on the left) launched her own voice overs and vocals service, and has just uploaded some new great demos. Please do go over and check them out.

Jodi is actively seeking new gigs right now, so if you know anyone who may be looking for voice talent (commercials, singing, narration, voice over, book trailers, cartoons, radio, etc.), please do tell them about Jodi.

You can find out more at Voiceoversandvocals.com.

But back to the original inspiration for this Blatherpost, which was inspired by this LJ post by Allison.



I envy Allison's students; she is the coolest teacher in the world. I'm constantly impressed by the creativity and effort she puts into her classroom activities. Just recently, she decided to have her students build a Geodesic Dome!



She puts an enormous amount of effort into her lessons, constantly looking for new ways and revamping old ways of helping her students learn as well as enjoy their lessons. Here are just a few examples:

Studying Ancient Greece: salt and flour maps
Canadian Elections: in-class elections
Canadian Parliament: mini-governments
Human Brain: sculpted clay brains
Christmas activities

These are only a few, selected at random from Allison's Livejournal, and doesn't include all the musicals and choir events she's organized.



Some people don't realize how much money the average teacher puts into their classroom activities each year. I was floored when I realized that most of the crafts and other activities that Allison plans are funded out of her own pocket. She gets a small amount of money from the school, but pays for most of it herself.

And while most 9-to-5 types can leave the office behind when they come home, Allison does marking and grading, report cards, and other prep. I've heard some people envy teachers for their summers off but you know, I strongly suspect that if teachers DIDN'T have that downtime, you'd see a lot more teachers quitting from burnout...and a growing shortage of teachers because fewer people would be willing to enter the profession.



But one common thread I've noticed running through all of Allison's teaching posts is her passion for teaching; this isn't just a job for her. She genuinely cares about her students and their learning experience. I'm sure this comes through in the classroom and has an impact on the kids she teaches.

So here's a question for all of you:

If you had to name ONE TEACHER from your school days who had the greatest positive impact on your life, who would it be?



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