tomleslie.ca

It’s Saturday, the best-est day of the week. Slept in, did the crossword (tricky one this week, but we cracked it in the end), and had a very high scoring game of Scrabble with Anne. (She won 353 to 337.)

Last night we went to see the new James Bond movie, Die Another Day. It was basically good — I particularly liked the bad guy — but had a couple of truly atrocious special effect scenes. Now, c’mon guys. This is the 21st century. Special effects are not supposed to look fake any more, even when they are! Anyway, Halle Berry did a nice job, the plot was middling, and basically it didn’t suck as much as it might of. I guess that’s an endorsement.

Other than that, Anne and I are gearing up for our trip to England. We leave on Thursday and will be doing the family thing for about a week. Merry Christmas to everyone!

A very exciting weekend! Congratulations to Kelly and Paul on the new, safe and healthy arrival of James Edward Asten Golding at 8am on Saturday, about 7 hours after the post-concert party wrapped up at their house following the Exultate Christmas concert on Friday. I went to see Jimbo in the hospital yesterday and he’s looking small, red, wrinkled and very tired… but otherwise fine. Kelly and Paul are due to return home today.

Other events of the weekend: the Christmas concert, the Accenture holiday party at the Dow’s in Scarborough, singing the second part of Bach’s Christmas Oratorio in church on Sunday, attending the Pax Christi concert Sunday afternoon (Poulenc Gloria!) and Madeline Lasby Kalda’s first birthday party (complete with very cute party dress and cake liberally smeared everywhere). And a fine time was had by all.

Hoover’s picture is now up… Send me your pet photos and I’ll immortalize them here!

A fun, but tiring weekend… Warning: probably not terribly interesting for the layperson, unless you care about the minutia of my life.

Friday night I went with Molly and Anne to see Poochwater, a fun little play about a guy with acute amnesia, in the tiny Theatre Passe Muraille Backspace. We had a great dinner at the Left Bank first, which left my bank balance a lot lower but my blood sugar level high.

Saturday morning my parents came around. My dad brought me a lovely set of Staunton chess pieces to go with my antique chess table. After a quick game of Hostage Chess (my dad’s the inventor of this wonderful chess variant game, follow the link for the rules (and he won)) he went off to his conference at the university, mum went off Christmas shopping, and Anne and I drove up to her place so she could finish her raking and I could try and undo the damage my router seems to have caused to her email.

Saturday evening we got back together with my mum and had a pizza before mum went off to see Poochwater and I fired up the laptop to do some work.

On Sunday mum and I met Anne at church. Mum finds Calvin’s services refreshingly brief, since the Presbyterians don’t usually celebrate communion. (And here was me bemoaning the lack of opportunities to sing masses. I guess we have different priorities…) We had lunch at the usual sushi place around the corner from the church (Sushi Garden) and then went home, from where mum and dad set off back to Guelph and Anne and I cleaned up for guests. Susan, Craig, Erika and Brian came round to watch the Lord of the Rings and feast on ring-shaped snacks.

Sunday evening we went round to Molly’s for the usual suspects dinner. She cooked a wonderful rice/chicken Persian dish, and a chocolate pistachio tarte for dessert. Yum…

Ok, there are times when one’s audience speaks, and one has to listen. From the search engine records for my site: “why don t you mention any cats”. Well… I have no idea, but clearly it’s time to correct that. I’ve got a picture, but for some reason I’m having trouble uploading it today.

My cat’s name is Hoover. She’s 11 years old, white with black markings, and has lovely soft magnetic fur with strong adhesive and weaving properties that floats gently through the air and then embeds itself in any form of cloth it encounters. She used to be really neurotic but has settled down quite a bit in her later years, and is generally now quite willing to come out and investigate any new people, particularly if they’re the kind of people who know how to scratch a cat under the chin. She hates being picked up, but loves sitting on the newspaper (preferably on the bed) and being quietly companionable. She’s pretty self-sufficient, but does get lonesome for human contact when I have to travel.

Other fine cats: Scottie, Anne’s cat. Gabriel, Joyce’s cat. Oliver, Robyn and Dave’s cat. Molly’s cat Runty. Paul and Kelly don’t have a cat yet but will probably be getting on in the new year.

Not in the cat category, but my cousin Olga wanted her cat-sized dogs listed as well: Bagels and Bashti Boodle. Comments on Olga’s pets names should be forwarded directly to her. Anyone else want their pet’s picture posted? Send it to me!