Tuesday 15 July 2008
A discovery at work
Lots of funny little coincidences today.
I’ve been working at Evergreen for a few months now. Not long after joining, I stumbled across my father’s name on one of our pages, listed as a contact for the Field Botanists of Ontario. And today, in the big list of projects we’ve helped fund over the years, I found my mother’s name, in an image credit for a hand drawn map of Willow Park Ecology Centre in Norval, near where I grew up. (There’s a better, non-coloured version on the WPEC site.)
That also means both of us have done maps on our site (I did a bus route map a few weeks ago, partly as a change of pace from staring at HTML all day). A neat reminder of where I got a good deal of grounding in visual communication, not to mention my appreciation for the natural world. Thanks, Mum and Dad.
Happy birthday to me.
Tuesday 5 August 2003
We have moved in.
Thursday we got up at 7ish (J and M having slept over) and Sean went out to fetch the truck from the ass end of Etobicoke while the rest of us packed up a few last things. M and our friend Pete ran back and forth with a car ferrying cats and computers and musical instruments. I stayed on in the loft while the rest took off for J’s place.
Lots of poignant moments of letting-go… of belongings, and finally of the whole apartment - orange as ever, but now empty and echoing, containing only a few stray scraps of wood, the requisite stacks of surplus coat hangers, leftover paint for our successors, and lonely tumbleweeds of cat fur and dust. Thank you, 545.
J’s place was easier, but for the first time we began to worry that a 24-foot truck wouldn’t be enough. It looked like a complete yard sale and art show taking place on the lawn in front of the apartment building… We arrived at M’s place as night fell - and the looming clouds chose that moment to break, as we frantically tried to rearrange the truck to fit as much junk in it as possible. In the end, M had to leave a few things behind. Kind of sad that all our belongings take up more than 1200 cubic feet of space.
We got to the house at around 10:45, backed the truck up the back alley (much to the delight of our neighbours, I presume) and spent the next three or four hours unloading. By that time our other helpers had gone home - and I wouldn’t have wanted to inflict the unloading on anyone else. I could have kissed the back of the truck when we finally reached it.
The past weekend has been a total blur. I only know it’s been four mornings because I can remember four distinct breakfasts - oatmeal, tofu scramble, blueberry pancakes and raisin toast. We actually have most of our rooms in reasonable order - i.e. there are boxes everywhere, but you can get around without deadending at a huge barricade of them.
The cats are actually being quite civil to one another. I am incredibly grateful.
Now off to make soup.
Tuesday 4 February 2003
Puttering about with a digital camera lately… There’s a neat little program out there called Panorama Factory, which I used to put together this panorama of our place.
See if you can spot Tarquin.
Wednesday 12 June 2002
Sean arrived home from India on Monday afternoon. Plenty of stories. First order of business (after the obvious) was grocery shopping, as I’d been scraping the bottom of the barrel. I don’t think I’ll ever eat barbecue sauce again.
Sean kept watching all the busy, harried li’l North Americans rush about, and whispering, “go! go! gotta make my meeting!” and “deadlines!” and “just a few more years! my life can wait!” with a mischievous grin.
Back at home: “I had the weirdest shit.” In paroxysms of gasping-for-breath laughter.
Curtains are coming! We’re having ‘em sewn at one of the two dozen little fabric shops around the corner on Queen. This neighbourhood does rock.
Julian and I played at a cabaret fundraiser last night (for an Environmental Studies student who’s canoeing to Tuktoyaktuk[!] as part of her Master’s). We actually went on ahead of schedule, proof that the gig was organized by non-musicicans. Good show! Did “Lullaby For Alice” which we haven’t done in ages.
I’ve been starting to work on my own songs again, too, and as usual the stuff I have in mind is inspired in large part by the artists I’m currently obsessing over. This time that means Rufus Wainwright and Sarah Slean, who both mix modern pop with a big dose of cabaret show-tuney sensibility. I’d love to write some stuff that’s as much fun to sing while flouncing around the apartment or on stage… something that merits a video like “Sweet Ones”. *suppresses surge of costume envy*
