I’m old (again)… 35 this weekend. Anne organized a very nice weekend in Niagara-on-the-Lake, which included a wonderful play at the Shaw Festival Three Men on a Horse, a brunch overlooking Niagara Falls (neither of us had been in over a decade), a wedding celebration for Anne’s friend Sandy, and a very nice B&B. All over far too quickly! Back to work again tomorrow…
September??? How the heck can it be September already??
The last couple of months have been pretty great, though the weather’s been a bit iffy. We had a great weekend in the Niagara region, and a couple of weeks later had a lovely trip down to Connecticut for Olga and Rob’s wedding, and stopped in the Finger Lakes on the way back for some nice winery action.
Now it’s fall, and the choirs are back on… Exultate is a flurry of activity for me, as our new Operations Manager got a full time job offer and quit two weeks after starting, so we’re searching for someone else and, in the mean time, I’m doing quite a bit of work on the side to get mailings out, etc. I am fully appreciating for the first time just how much Kelly did for the organization, and how hard it’s going to be to find someone as good to replace her!
The choirs are on, but at Calvin, for only a short time… Stephanie Martin, our beloved conductor (and organist at our wedding!) announced that she has resigned from the organist position at Calvin, and although some choir members are going on the bulk will, I think, disperse quickly to other places. Anne and I haven’t decided where to join next, yet. It’s sad to witness the end of an era, but in this case, experience tells me it’s much better to cut it short quickly.
The NY Times has a very cool “what if” calculator for the US election. Now you too can watch Kerry sweep Bush off the map! NYTimes.com 2004 Election Guide
A weekend of great entertainment!
On Saturday we went up with Molly to the Tennis Masters Canada in the new tennis facility at York University. The new centre court is very nice, with great sightlines from everywhere. We had great seats for an excellent match, and we’re thinking of trying to get tickets for the semifinals or finals next weekend.
Afterwards, we rented and watched the original Manchurian Candidate, and Hitchcock’s North by Northwest, both great movies which I hadn’t seen. The new Manchurian Candidate comes out on Friday and might be worth the time… for some Bush-bashing if nothing else.
Sunday, after a late start and the cryptic crossword, we gardened for a goodly chunk of the day — must go home and see how the grass seed is doing — and then pottered around the house for the remainder before going out for pho (Vietnamese soup). In the evening we watched a West Wing episode and then conked out.
I *love* summer!
Strange, fractious weather in Toronto at the moment — warm, smoggy, with a dull ugly sky, rain overnight and, yesterday, a short thunderstorm during the day. We stayed inside on Sunday in consequence and played the Civilization board game, which is fun though somewhat random when there are only two players. I’m hoping to have friends around next week for a 3- or 4-person game.
Work is busy intermittently — several part-time tasks on the go at the moment, which aren’t quite adding up to fulltime business right now but will probably result in overtime in a week or so. For now, I’m enjoying leaving work on time and meeting Anne three times a week at our club, where we work out together — very companionable, and as hardly anyone else uses the facility it’s very nice indeed. Though today I won’t be joining Anne on the weight machines — instead I’m meeting Sean Morley for a game of squash.
Today I picked up a whole lot of pictures back from the disposable cameras at the wedding reception. There are some quite good ones… I’ll try and post them later this evening.
We bought a new toy on the weekend, and I’ve become a barista overnight. So much fun! Fully-automated espresso and cafe crema production — plus hot steam for heating and frothing milk for cappucinos and lattes. It takes me back to Italia, so it does…
I read the two books — Master and Commander, and The Far Side of the World — while we were on our honeymoon. (I’d taken the first one over with me and couldn’t find books 2-9 in the series in any of the bookstores we checked.) Excellent books, rather too full of rich detail to be condensed in a truly satisfying way into a feature movie. I’ve been catching up on book 2, Post Captain, since I got back. Truly excellent books.
I’ve posted a whole lot of honeymoon pictures, mostly taken by Anne. These came off the digital camera — there’s a couple of rolls of film that needs to be processed, too. Only a couple of wedding pictures available so far, but the photographer thinks the proofs will be ready by the end of the week.
Home!
Our last day of non-travel in Europe was a long, rather packed day in Munich. We spent most of the day in the wonderful Deutsches Museum, a terrific science museum that could have swallowed two whole days without any trouble at all. I particularly enjoyed the boats, trains and planes — and they have a fantastic model train set! — but also got a whole new appreciation for metallurgy and forging, of all things. Anyway, time well spent.
After the Deutsches Museum we walked down the river to the Englisher Garten, a “Central Park”-style mid-town green space laced with bicycle and footpaths as well as horse riding trails. We stopped for a pick-me-up beer & pretzl at the Chinese pagoda and continued on to the small lake in the centre of the park where we had ribs and salad for dinner. (The salad cost way more than the HUGE serving of ribs that we split between us.)
As we were finishing the food and getting started on the beers it very suddenly got darker and colder and we set off towards the road to find a taxi home when I happened to look south across the lake, to see birds exploding off the island in the middle. The reason soon became clear and we started running — a hailstorm caught up with us within feet, and torrential rain followed soon after! Drenched, we took refuge in the fancy restaurant by the lake. Once the rain had died down a bit — about 15 minutes later, maybe — they called us a cab and we went back to the hotel to change, and pack to come home!
The flight was straightforward and we made it home to house and cats. Everything seems fine here, thanks to our friends Meredith & Bernard and Eric who house-sat for us for the last three weeks. About half an hour after we got home, a delivery man brought us flowers from my parents to welcome us back!
It’s almost 6pm EST now, which feels like midnight for us, so I don’t know how much longer we will be able to stay up, though we’ll try and get as much of the jet lag out of the way today. I hope we’ll hear from everyone soon and see everyone as soon as possible. We have a lot of wine left over from the wedding to drink!