I found the secret ingredient for Chili!

Soya Sauce!

Yup! Soya Sauce is the secret ingredient for making shitty, weird -tasting Chili.

An online conversation I actually had today:

Online Friend: “So, did you vote yesterday?”

Me: ‘”No, I’m Canadian.”

Online Friend: “That’s no excuse!”

Really? I thought being legally ineligible to vote in a country I don’t live in was a pretty good excuse, actually. But I guess that’s just my opinion…

Since Colin and Emily moved to Orie-gone they are enjoying a west coast time zone, and are consequently three hours behind us. We always tease them that we are calling from the future, and how is it there in the past, anyways? Of course the joke gets old, but that doesn’t mean we stop saying it.

Adam and Colin have both just signed into i-Chat on their Macs to watch the end of the world series together (virtually) and talk about the game just as if they were in the same room, like we do for a lot of things since they have moved. But Adam is watching on Fox, Colin on TBS and fox is about 20 seconds behind. The i-Chat has no delay, but this means that Colin’s TV is essentially 20 seconds in the future. So now they’re trying to figure out how Colin is watching 20 seconds into the future, from three hours in the past.

Of course, Adam has had a few Steamwhistles and I am sure Colin is lubricating his World Series Experience in a similar fashion, so it makes the whole thing a lot harder for them to figure out too. They’re both quite befuddled about it now.

Adam is drinking from a glass that is bigger than his head.

Sorry.

Yesterday I threatened to throw a snowball at someone in an Etsy forum thread and someone else commented that I could since I live in Canada and I replied that I was in Toronto and yeah, it gets cold enough for snowballs here, but in January, not october and then ten minutes later it started to snow. In October.  In Toronto.

Currently the blog is displaying a little funny in ie and safari but okay in firefox. I will be working out the formatting kinks tonight and hopefully it will all be lined up right for tomorrow…

Emily found this in a community newspaper in Eugene, Oregon. At least it’s honest….

Almost any man I know will tell you baseball is a metaphor for life, but I have never found that “three strikes, you’re out” applies to many aspects of my life. Good thing too, because if it did I would be cutting it close and running out of pitches.

Our second miscarriage this past month was a bit easier on us mentally, because we hadn’t let ourselves fully accept that we were pregnant in case we were let down again. Sounds pessimistic, but it was a defense mechanism. That isn’t to say it was easy, but it wasn’t as much of a shock. It was a lot harder physically because it was a natural miscarriage, whereas my last was a “missed miscarriage” (meaning that my body didn’t know it had miscaried and  surgery was needed, which was actually painless and easy to recover from). Everyone says that a natural miscarriage is better for your body, but I dare them to tell that to me when I am lying in bed groaning with contractions or throwing up from a mix of pain and pain-killers. I may rip out a heart or two. Natural-smatural, I’d like my anethesia now, please.

Aparently, two miscarriages for different reasons and with different mechanisms is not uncommon, and even my doctor had three before her beautiuful child was born. I am just assuming her child is beautiful, to her anyways. I don’t stalk her or anything. So the tests are on hold until we see how my body handles a third pregnancy.  If we hit three strikes we go for tests but we won’t be out at the plate yet, thankfully. Even three miscarriages before happy babies is more common than you would think and if the tests do highlight a problem our modern medicines can cure a multitude of pregnancy issues once they know what is wrong. 

But, baby or not, I still have Adam , and we are still a family even if it is just us two for eternity. But we’re not giving up yet, and we’re gonna go down swinging.

I walked into St. Andrew’s church, by the front doors, this time. Years of finding my way to the sanctuary by the side door had led me to forget there even was a public entrance, and it was odd to see the double doors thrown wide, light spilling onto Central Ave. The plush teal-blue carpet had the same slightly musty smell, my footfalls puffing up little invisible clouds of long-stale incense and candle smoke. There were more lights then there were on my Tuesday evenings spent there - large stage lights that gave off a heady heat. I imagined the feel of them on my face as I looked over the packed pews and was a little thankful that I would be sitting down, behind the glare tonight. It was the only thing I was thankful for.

I was to be a Christmas celebration. Not a mass, a concert. Secular and sacred, modern and traditional, the few hundred gathered had come to hear them sing. Some for the first time, some for the hundredth. Some, like me, for the first time on this side of the pews.

The first of the girls entered by the back door behind the altar. I pictured the line running down from the little staircase and the girls quickly checking that the folders were on their audience side. The light flashed mutedly off the silk of their cream gowns as they walked to their places in a double synchronized line. Smile to the audience. Don’t move a muscle.

He entered first, she following, heading to the conductor’s stand to bow. She sat down as the Pianist entered and bowed. The first song must be one of his. I hadn’t taken a program. I don’t know why, but the glimpses I caught of the familiar titles as I walked past other listeners seemed to pain me. I would listen, and try to be ignorant.

I missed it. My Tuesdays were empty now, my Saturdays filled with a new crop of activities. I had to leave it behind eventually, but deciding that then was the time was a hard decision. It had been part of my life for 10 years. Trips to Europe, Winning the CBC choral competition every year we entered, singing in Carnegie hall and representing Canada in international competitions. Things that made me proud. And the girls, best friends all with funny traveling stories and concert mishaps. Pranks, skits, little sisters and the new generation. I was 11 when I passed my audition to join the choral elite, but it was a hell of a lot more than a choir to us. You can’t sing as National Champions at that level without putting your whole heart into it, and we all did. And some of us left our hearts behind when we left.

Many Alumni are still involved with the choir heavily. Not me. More than geography, it is my heart that keeps me away. You can never go back home, they say, and Amabile was home. I learned after that first concert how hard it is to sit and watch, even now, almost 9 years since I have left the choir myself. I enjoy singing with the old group for “Amabile weddings” or other group reunions, but I can’t sit in the pews and watch while trying to stop the notes from spilling out of me with every ounce of restraint I have. It will always be this way, but that’s okay. Amabile was a huge factor in who I am today, who my friends are and what I believe is important, and that’s not bad for 10 years of work on John and Brenda’s part. The choir has done what it can for me, more than I can imagine, and now I need to do the rest myself.

Our recent side-trip to Oregon gave me another chance to observe the odd American obsession with our Canadian money. Comments about the colour, denominations and nicknames for the cash (okay, I admit that “toonie” is a lame moniker) are ever-present when our Canadian currency is displayed and I have a couple of points for anyone with an unusual fascination with our moola:

1. I am really not sure that the Clown commuminty as a whole has one accepted form of currency, so please stop calling it “clown money.”

2. The colours help us tell them apart at a glance and reduce the risk of slipping a $50 bill to our cab driver instead of a $20 when we have been having a few too many at the bar. Good idea, no?

3. Stop trying to pull the middle out of the toonie. It’s way too hard, and besides, I think it is a federal offense.

4. Okay, so we don’t have a bill for anything under $5 anymore - just the one-dollar and two-dollar coins. But you can have a whole wad of cash in your pocket and still only have $7, whereas we can have $35 dollars worth of “just change” in our pockets and not even know it until we count it. I like good surprises.

5. Loonies may look like Pirate gold to you, but I can use it to get a coffee from Timmies while you are still trying to get the chocolate out of it.

Thank you. Carry on…