food for the soul
With all that's been going on in Haiti, I can only be grateful that I live in Canada and have the opportunity to help where I can. I had already donated to the Red Cross last week, but the radio station was running a contest for tickets to see Jann Arden. She was performing at Massey Hall for 4 days. On Thursday morning, they said that the first 100 people to email into the station would get a pair of tickets for Friday's show. I missed the email address and by that time they said they had already reached number 60. I also figured that since I was meeting a friend for dinner after class that it wouldn't really work so I left it.
They ran the same contest on Friday morning. They said that they were going to announce it close to 9am, which would have been too late for me since I would have had to head to work. So I shut down the computer and was ready to put on my shoes when they announced the contest. Same deal. So I quickly flicked on the computer and waited for it to do the whole rebooting thing while I watched the minutes tick by. Fortunately, I also knew that people had to be available to pick up the tickets the same day because they weren't open on Saturday (day of show). I sent the email in and headed to work, crossing my fingers for the best.
I got in... so I headed over to the radio station during lunch to make my cash donation (for Haiti - that was the requirement) and picked up the tickets. I will confess that I have never been more excited in my life. The last concert I'd been to was well over 2 years ago, and I LOVE Jann Arden so I was psyched. I was going to Winterlicious with a friend and invited her along to the concert. It was fantastic...such soul-stirring music, and she threw in all these comedic parts. A true performer, and a genuinely nice person. Set list included below for posterity's sake, including songs from her latest album! A wonderful relaxing weekend compared to the past weekend where I'd been daytripping to Niagara for the ice wine festival, and the previous weekend to Don Mills. It was refreshing for my spirit... I need more weekends like this! :)
Free
Looking For It (Finding Heaven)
Where No One Knows Me
Could I Be Your Girl
The Devil Won
Sleepless
At Seventeen
Insensitive
I Would Die For You
Leave Me Now
Yeah You
Wishing That
A Million Miles Away
Everything's Broken
I Want to Take You Higher
Unloved
Daughter Down
Good Mother
Encore:
In the Fire
Total Eclipse of the Heart
To Sir With Love
You Shook Me All Night Long
All the Day
new year, new me
Good news: My class got picked up. Yay me.
Bad news: I have to leave my apt. by 6:15am to get to the studio on time. Boo me.
Yup. My whole life has changed so now I wake up at 6 and get to bed by 10. For those odd days when I feel I can push it and stay up just a little bit later, I end up paying for it by falling asleep at work the next day. Not good. Sleeping in means 7am.
I have to say that this has not been doing much for my social life, that's for sure. I've been falling into the routine of work, studio, home or studio, work, home. In any case, I think I need to slow down...
solid ground
I went to a friend's 40th bday party last night. To be honest, I didn't feel like going as I was tired from adjusting to my new schedule (waking up at 6am but still not necessarily sleeping early enough to compensate.) Apparently I missed the memo that read that girls were supposed to wear 3 inch heels and short, short skirts. I had to leave after an hour. Maybe I'm getting old, or really, I just feel it isn't my scene. In any case, I'm not complaining but my morning class got picked up and now I definitely have to keep to this schedule or I just won't make it.
I keep thinking of the people in Haiti and how lucky I am to live where I live - with good infrastructure, and a relatively well-run government. I have been through some quakes in BC and California, but cannot imagine what 7.0 would feel like. In my class on Friday, I had asked for the students to send their thoughts to Haiti with this prayer that I had found by Holly Lebowski Rossi. Perhaps when you've got a moment, you'll send your thoughts to Haiti also?
My prayer is for solid ground.
May the earth that crumbled beneath feet and homes and schools once again become solid ground for walking and loving and learning.
May worried families and friends discover their loved ones safely spared waiting for them on solid ground.
May those who are trapped amid the rubble feel the solid power of love and healing that the world is sending their way.
May we who are so far away from the devastation find a way to share some of the solid ground of our full lives with those who have lost so much.
May the solid ground of this simple prayer become a foundation on which Haiti can rebuild.
new year, (almost) new decade
The papers have been saying that we've finished another decade but technically we haven't. We don't start counting from zero. If a child is born, they aren't said to be 1 year old until they have completed 12 months. So the same theory applies here.
Anyway. I haven't set any resolutions per se, but I do have some goals - I plan to study ayurveda this year. And I'd like to do a bit more cooking, and further decluttering of my space. Also on the list would be to spend less time online! I found while I was visiting home that I seemed to get a lot more things done as I wasn't in front of the computer all the time. Having said that, a happy new year to all and may 2010 be the best year yet!
christmas holiday recap
Greetings dear readers - it was a wonderful holiday, thanks for inquiring. Had a chance to catch up with a few friends, get my health taken care of (3 trips to the physio, 3 for dental...), visiting with the relatives and grandparents. It was really a whirlwind trip this time around and almost feels like it was a dream. Did it really happen?
My dad had warned me about heading to the airport early; I was working and then flying out the evening of the 24th - it would be a crazy rush he said. Well, I got there a couple of hours early. There
were people, but I waited until the last minute to cross over security. I do this because the terminal on the other side usually doesn't have as many good shops/restaurants as on the "sanitized" side. There were a whopping 5 people in the security line.
Apart from having to wait an hour to be de-iced (it was now snowing), and the fact that my Discovery Channel was just not being picked up by satellite tv, the flight was packed and long. The arrival was even longer as my sister was flying in the same night and my mom had forewarned me that my dad was not making two trips out to pick us up. Guess who got to hang around and wait? I crashed when I got home, having been up for 20 hours.
The weather was gorgeous on Christmas morning and the days that followed: clear blue skies and light dustings of frost on the ground made it the picture-perfect Christmas. Bonus that the air was so clean and moist, compared to all the dryness in Toronto. The weather went downhill about halfway through the trip but by then, I was still blissed out that it wasn't -17 that all was well in my world!
I ate so much food (i.e. meat) in the first two days than I normally do in two months, but how could I resist? My dad cooked for me: scallops, lobsters, shrimp, beef tongue. My uncle made: ox tail braised in red wine, really tasty pork, turkey, chicken. My aunt made her famous turkey pie... I was seriously in food heaven. Several days into the trip, I had to force myself to do a little bit of yoga as I was feeling really quite guilty by this point.
All in all, I'd say a pretty lovely trip but I was glad to come back (short trip - came back to -14 on the 2nd) and have my own space all to myself!
