When You Work From Home...

... you don't fall asleep thinking of snow days.

All I Want For Christmas Is Rawr, Rawr, Rawr

Maybe I really want this t-shirt

Bored? Have Children? In London On Friday?

If you answered yes to any of these three things then do I have an idea for you!

Friday night is a cozy winter night in London. If you are familiar with Victoria Park you'll also be familiar with its acres of trees and beauty. It is a great piece of green space in the heart of the city. Every year the city lights the park up in a really magnificent way. The official first lighting of the park happens to be Friday. I'm told thousands of people come out for this. I suggest you be one of them - 6:15pm.

Once the lights are on, you wander around and gaze at all the different displays, you grab a hot chocolate somewhere. Don't go too far though. 'Cause at 7:30 at Centennial Hall the Christmas Celebration is starting!

This is a very family friendly concert - so family friendly in fact that the children of the audience get to come up on stage at one point (in 2 different age groups) and sing for everyone. The concert features works with Chorus London (that's the one I'm in), St. Mary Choir School (some of whom sang with us in Carmina and Voices - they are also joining with us on a couple pieces), the Forest City Violins (which from the descriptions I've heard, sound reminiscent of the Blazing Fiddles), and a percussion trio.

The evening at Centennial Hall is hosted by Peter Garland - and I asked if that was his real name or if it was a character like umm, Frank Nomatcheskids from the fire department presentation squad. I was told that Peter Garland is a real person. There is a reception after that is sponsored by McDonalds - I'm anticipating hot chocolate, orange drink and pickles. But I could be wrong.

So it sounds like a pretty nice evening - with or without kids I think you could have a good time. If Peter Garland and our music extravaganza isn't really for you, I do know that A Christmas Carol is opening at the Grand theatre that night too.

Pretty much if you are in London this Friday night and you stay home all night, you're a chump.

Back

The phone is back. I feel normal again. And only 15 text message and 1 voice mail waiting for me.

Some Gaps In The Truth

There is a lovely jazz song called "All God's Children Got Rhythm" (Kaper/Jurman/Kahn). It contains the title line and also a line that says "all God's children got swing".

I just want to say that the authors of this catchy tune obviously never met the Dutch or white Baptists.

A Tale Of One Cell Phone

This weekend some lovely people from Hamilton came to visit some of us London dwellers and have some epic fun. During the ending of this fun tonight I got in the car of said Hamiltonians. My cell phone liked it so much in their car that it decided to stay there.

Little cellular did not inform me of this jump, so off he rode to Hamilton, where he will stay until he can get very quickly shipped back to me.

This would be one of those times where I wished my portable calling machine was sophisticated enough to be able to sync with my computer - because that would mean that 90% of my phone numbers would not be sitting in Hamilton right now.

Swift travels my chirpy, cat coated friend - I need you.

Loads Of Truth

I use iGoogle and one of my gadgets there is the quote of the day. There are three of them in a little box all together.

The other day these three were together and I loved them all:

I base my fashion taste on what doesn't itch.
- Gilda Radner

The purpose of life is to fight maturity.
- Dick Werthimer

A committee is a cul-de-sac down which ideas are lured and then quietly strangled.
- Sir Barnett Cocks

...Lookin' Out My Back Door (And My Front Door)

Not Quite

Today would have been Grandma Stewart's 89th birthday.

I miss you Grandma, I miss you a lot.

Why I Think Winter Is A Crock O' Nasty

I know its only November and it hasn't even got really snowy or really cold yet. But as the white begins to pile up here in London I am already reminded of why I think winter is dumb. Do I think there are some profoundly beautiful and awe inspiring parts of winter - yes. Do I think there are some fun things you can do in winter that you can't do at other times - yes. Those things are not the point of this ranting, griping, crank.

My main complaint with winter (aside from sub zero temperatures) is this: everything takes longer (I have composed many songs about this in my head). You could accuse me of western rushing attitudes and tell me that winter is God's way of making me slow down. You could do that, but you'd be wrong.

Let's compose a little list of things that take longer because of winter and all its accoutrement.

1. showers - no longer can I dash out apres shower, now everything must be moisterized lest it dry up and fall off or crack, itch and burn
2. getting dressed - just throw on a dress? heeeeck no! long johns, pants or tights ('cause dem hose just ain't gonna cut it), shirt, long sleeved shirt, sweater - layers, layers, layers - a person could die of skin suffication.
   
3. leaving the house - throw on flip flops, grab keys and go - oh, no. put on socks, put on boots, put on and zip up 20lbs coat, find hat, find mitts, begin sweating
4. using a car - fight polar bear on way to car, use mitts to dig way into car, start car, I said saaa-aaaart the car, turn up anything that makes heat and defrosts things, dig out scraper/brush, scraaaape scraaaaape scraaaaape, brush brush brush brush brush <-- repeat brush and scrape routine for 20 minutes, brush snow and ice off self, wring out now sopping wet mittens, get in car. oh, not so fast - silly, you forgot that you have to shovel the driveway in order to even get this freshly cleared car out. i hope it's not snowing heavily while you're shovelling 'cause all your hard brushing work is about to get undone
5. driving anywhere - main roads are plowed and salted? sweet! what's that? you don't live on the 401? oh, your house is on a purely residential street, oh and that won't get plowed until 4pm the day after it snowed like mad. ok, so it takes you 20 minutes to ram your way out to a main route (this is added to the 20 or so it took you to get your car ready to leave the driveway - and add to that the half an hour it took you to shovel) . now you're on that main route but traffic is moving at an astounding 36 km/h which should have you at work only 3 hours late (you have second thoughts about having won in the fight against the polar bear and wonder if just having let him eat you would have solved a lot more problems).

So by my count something (exiting the house and getting to a main route in a city) that would have taken you 5 minutes in June has now taken around an hour and a quarter. And there my friends is my just some of the fuel for my fire of thinking winter is dumb.

Because I Didn't Do The Dishes

For two entire school years, every supper (except both Aprils) before Church in the Box I ate supper with the same chore group of women. Now I can't just say that I ate with them, I need to say that I ate food that was generously supplied and prepared by them. It was a really good deal.

Here's how it would go:

• Laura comes in for CITB and is a big stress bag because there were always insane things going wrong
• Laura quickly loses years off her life
• around 5 or 5:30 things would calm down enough that Laura could escape
• Laura escapes to the dorm of said lovely women and

1. freaks out
2. tries to sleep
3. takes something for her headache
4. remembers that she doesn't have any pre-service music to play
5. gets her pre-service 'staff' devotion together
6. makes lots of terrible jokes
7. makes Natalie laugh until she is pretty much hyperventilating
   
8. eats
9. realizes the time, freaks out and leaves in a very big hurry for the school

So basically that's how things went. It was a pretty involved process. Now the reason I am writing this post is to give shout out to Steph. Steph is the unofficial mother among this women, not because she's older or has actual children of her own, but because she is responsible and has some great maternal instincts. She was the one that ensured food would be ready and usually that it was food that I love.

Last night we had a little reunion of these ladies at the dorm that Steph is now a Residence Advisor for (aka she is one step closer to being a real Mom) and once again her matronly field general skills delivered a great time of eating and socializing.

Go Steph.

It Takes Good Judgement

nataliedee.com

Continuing With The Obscure But Important Canadian Icons

You may recall this one.

And now I give you:

Ruth Watson Henderson - composer, performer, icon.

I'm Quite Sure Jesus Is Coming Very Soon

I chose soprano.

Chance?

I was speaking with my choir director on the weekend and it came up that I have only sung the Messiah as an alto. So Gerry said that if I wanted, I could sing it as an alto.

We have to sing it on December 13 and have one more other concert before that, that we are learning music for too. I think we have 6 or 7 rehearsals before Messiah but only 2 or 3 of those will be 100% dedicated to the Messiah. So that is a lot of music to learn as a different part in a short time. But it is also a great chance to learn an important work in another part.

I have to decide by tonight - what do you think I should do?

What part should I sing in Handel's "Messiah"?
	Alto
	Soprano
Free polls from Pollhost.com

In The Quiet Misty Morning

I think Brantford was abducted by aliens as I was driving through it last night.

What Path Are You On?

The Continuation of Good Things

Oct 30 - discipleship class
Oct 31 - Caesar & Cleopatra @ Stratford
Nov 1 - sung in choral concert concert
Nov 3 - choir rehearsal
Nov 5 - Cardus launch/Zylstra lectures
Nov 6 - discipleship class
Nov 7 - Romeo & Juliet @ Stratford
Nov 8 - singing in choral concert
Nov 9 - Emilia Galotti @ Stratford
Nov 10 - choir rehearsal

It's A Good Way To Be

This was the state of my bulletin board earlier in the week. I'm very ok with that.