And then sometimes…

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I was pretty put off of cabs after a run of unpleasant experiences. (Cabs are a good thing to be ‘off’ of it turns out, as it helps with being thrifty — “Just 8 miles? Nah, I’ll walk.”) But today I was ti-red and was carrying both my bass and a whack of heavy groceries. The heck with it I thought, I’m getting a cab.

Carrying a bass leads to a lot of interesting conversations. Which is both good and bad. Because if you’re feeling antisocial (ah, as I do, much of the time), you’re not too keen to be carrying around a honking big conversation starter. But on the plus side, the conversations it starts tend to be uplifting ones. People who are inspired to take up an instrument [cuz I’m doing it, and I’m ever so old 😉 ], people who fondly remember playing, people who just went to a great show… etc.

But today, in the cab, I got my best conversation so far. As soon as I got in, the driver asked if I was a musician (I was especially unkempt today, in a way that may have been perceived as “rock-like”). The driver who had a very strong Buena Vista Social Club vibe. Who plays guitar and bass. Who was recording in the studio just the other day. So we chatted all the way home. About 4 vs 5 vs 6 string (apparently I am missing the boat with my little 4-string, as it’s all about the 5 these days). About the role of bass in a band. About ‘catching’. About humming a bassline to get the “genuine” one. And so on. And occassionally, when he was imparting something really important, he would turn all the way around (at red lights) and make sure I was onside. “You have to hum it to really feel the good bassline, not just play the obvious notes, you know what I mean?”

Even though I am a total music noob, at some point I made a comment about the difference between a guitar player who plays bass, and a true bassist. I was rewarded with a deep, knowing nod and a solemn “yeah man, yeah”.

Yeah.

Posted in: life stuff, music, ponderings

Me and the 4-month olds.

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My good friend the SeaBird had a baby a few months back. Roughly four months back.  So now she and Mr. SeaBird are proud parents of their own mini-human.

And I am an occasional babysitter. It is so much fun to be around a little one that you have known from before its start. I met SeaBird Jr when he was just an idea. So now that he’s filled out into a real little person, he’s just that much more interesting.

Especially if I’m babysitting in the morning.  Lately I’ve been taking the early afternoon shift.  Otherwise known as my “Napping with My Eyes Open Time”.  I don’t usually actually sleep during this time, but I do usually arrange to do not-much-of-anything brain dependent from about 2-4pm.  Household chores, grocery shopping, errands.  Things that don’t require alertness.

So if I’m babysitting during this time slot, it usually means I’m inclined to go “ooooh lookit how cute you are.  Now go to sleep.”  Which is fine, because it’s his nap time too.  But he’s not /happy/ about it like I would be.  And unfortunately all the tactics you use to lull a baby into dopeyness seem to still work marvelously on me.  So he’s still awake, and I just want to crawl under his fluffy blankie and watch the mobile go around and around and around and… *yawn*

But yesterday I was on the morning shift.  Turns out I am waaaay better with babies first thing in the morning and just off a coffee.  Especially since he’s a morning baby too.  So instead of arguing with each other about who is going to nap when, we were like “hey it’s you!”.  We played all morning.  We played SpaceBaby and VibratingBaby, and WorkoutBaby, and ReversePeekABooBaby.  And then I fed him and he fell asleep mid-suckle, and was just going down for a nap when mom came home.  Perfection.  Snap.  Babysitter stripe for me.

Posted in: life stuff, ponderings

The Shangri-La that isn’t.

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I am easily distracted by fine print.

In amongst our junk mail (do “No Junk Mail Please” signs work at all anymore?), was a flyer for “Living Shangri-La Toronto”.

The back of the flyer looked like a promotion for a ROM exhibit, which caught my eye, and led me to pull it out from the stack of cheap newsprint advertising $0.99 produce.

A quick look showed that it is advertising yet another one of the ‘luxury residences on the floors above a luxury hotel’ buildings that are popping up all over Toronto.

But instead of being captivated by the majestic shiny lifestyle the material is depicting, I can’t stop reading the fine print.

Like, for instance, the disclaimer beneath the floorplans:

“Renderings photos and sketches are representational and are not accurate.”

Are not accurate. Well that’s not exactly helpful then is it? “Honey! You know how we’re in the market for a luxury condo? Well you absolutely must come look at these inaccurate model suites!”*

For a $2.3 million “Private Estate”, as Living Shangri-La Toronto describes them, I’m looking for accuracy.

I was also distracted by the fine print on the “ROM Exhibit rip-off” back page. Which explains in some detail that “Living Shangri-La Toronto” is in no way affiliated with the “Shangri-La Hotels and Resorts”. Which is very interesting. Because Shangri-La hotels are ubiquitous, and with excellent reputation, as *the* luxury hotel chain throughout Asia-Pacific. So anyone who has been to Asia-Pacific, such as, for instance, international moneyed businesspeople in the market for a high-end luxury condo, are sure to associate this Shangri-La building, with all those other Shangri-La buildings. And those people would be mistaken. Shangri-La? More like… um… Fauxgri-La? (<-lame)

🙂

*people who buy “Private Estates” always use “must” as their modal verb.

Posted in: language, ponderings

Closing conversations

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Or opening, depending on your perspective.

We could try and have more stuff on the go at the moment, but we’d be pretty hardpressed. Most free moments are spoken for, and as a result, my dreams have become asininely boring.

I am dreaming about the most perfunctory real life activities. The only difference between my waking and dreaming life right now is that I can’t take the tasks I’m doing in my dreams off my to-do list.

Just now for instance. I doze off for what should be a nice warm Sunday afternoon nap. And where did my subconscious take me? To a store to discuss wedding registry logistics.

Worse still, I keep waking myself up with the sound of my voice. As the last few conversations I have in my dream I actually have out loud. I’m waking myself up because I hear myself thanking someone for their help in finding the steak knives. Complimenting them on their online store. Asking to confirm their contact information.

“That’s great, thank you very much.” <<blink>>

Though since I’m only sleeping lightly, it’s hard for me to shake myself out of it into full awakeness (maybe complicated by the only semantic difference between the activities of the two states). Which often ends with me calling out to the EF when I register him walking past the door, and asking him to help me wake up.

He’s helpful, and always brings me back from the registry counter/information line/bank/meeting, and makes sure that I don’t inadvertently kick the cat (who is snoozing against my leg) as I awake. But it would be better if he didn’t think it was all riotously funny… 😛

Posted in: life stuff, the EF

Too much mortality for a 4:30 post?

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Raised vaguely Catholic, and exposed to all the “biggie” religions, I am now definitely a believer in non-belief.

I think this is it. I think you get this life, however long it lasts, and then it is over. Breathe in, breathe out, until you don’t anymore, because you’re wormfood. Which is good, because then the worms feed the birds and the birds feed other larger, more talon-y birds, and those birds get eaten by pumas and hippos and…

Yes, yes, too many nature documentaries recently (more on that at some point).

But being a devout non-believer doesn’t mean that I lack space for the magical and mysterious and the Bigger Than Us. Quite the opposite. I am chock full of wide-eyed wonder. It just means that instead of being awed and distracted by the Sky Bully, I am floored by the stars, and the volcanoes, and the cicadas that live for 24 crazy hours after 13 years underground.

I don’t put stock in the idea that any part of us persists after we’re gone. It would be nice, of course, to go to an ethereal cottage in the sky with my love and spend a comfy eternity curled up, sipping hot chocolate with mini-marshmallows, and shooting the breeze. But I don’t believe that is what happens. And for all the protests to the contrary, I believe that believing in an afterlife gives us tacit permission to doze through the time we have here — because we get a cloud and harp do-over when we’re gone.

So I appreciate people who can articulate what it means and how it feels when we come to an end, without cushioning it with a “better place” chaser. Such as the concise, beautiful and poignant sentence I recently read, which prompted this whole spiel (yes, ladies and gentlemen, we have finally arrived at The Point):

“The lights went out in his eyes for absolutely the very last time ever.”

~from So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish (snagged from Neil Gaiman’s “Don’t Panic” biography on Douglas Adams)

Posted in: books, life stuff

I’m marrying Doctor Who!

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No, not really.

But my everloving fiance (the EF) just shaved off the beard he has worn steadily for the past 7.5 years.  7.5 years.  Slightly longer than we have been together.  So that in all our time together I had /never/ seen him without a beard.

Until now.  Until yesterday evening.  When he revealed that for all of these years, I have actually been cohabitating with a red-haired David Tennant.

And, might I add:

w00-00t!

😀

Posted in: life stuff, the EF

Factoid time!

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“The necktie, once called a cravat, evolved from a simple scarf which kept the collar closed and the neck warm. The word comes from the French cravate, which has an interesting derivation. The French king Louis XIII hired some Croatian cavalrymen as mercenaries during the Thirty Years’ War and was impressed by the debonair and complicated way in which they knotted their scarves. This elaborate knot became the fashion in the king’s court, and was a Hrvat, which is “Croat” in Croation. Hrvat became corrupted to cravate in French. So what you are really wearing with your suit is not a tie but a Croatian.”

~from Russell Smith’s Men’s Style

“Factoid can refer to a spurious (unverified, incorrect, or invented) “fact” intended to create or prolong public exposure or to manipulate public opinion…
Factoid is now sometimes also used to mean a small piece of true but valueless or insignificant information, in contrast to the original definition.”

~ from Wikipedia

I am using the word in the latter sense (I hope), but minus the disparaging qualifiers.

Posted in: language

“God?”

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I’m walking down the street, and a minivan pulls up beside me. A young mum pops her head out the driver’s window and, looking harassed, asks if I can tell her where Dufferin is. Sure, no problem. I give her directions that will take her down to Dufferin, and as she’s repeating them back to me we are suddenly interrupted by a condescending voice from above.

“The easiest way to get to Dufferin is just to go up to Dundas and across!”

Um, what the? Ruling out deities, I realize that this is a man on a balcony who is: a) listening to our conversation, and b) /correcting/ me.

Now I ain’t too proud to have my directions corrected. I often appreciate it if a second stranger standing nearby pipes in and takes over navigation so I can be on my merry. Often, because I get asked for directions several times a week. But to be sternly corrected, by someone who is listening to us from their balcony two houses over and three floors up? That’s just weird.

Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to reply “Not if she’s heading south”. Which is true. And which shut him up. Since, according to his directions, she would suddenly run out of Dufferin at Queen (and given where she was going, that would have been a significant problem). Stick that in your nosy exasperated pipe and smork it.

Posted in: life stuff, rantish peeve