I'll drink to that

Every now and then, I triumph over adversity. "Adverse" would be an excellent adjective to apply to British Columbia's liquor laws as they pertain to minors.  Minors are not permitted in pubs in BC.  If you enter a pub with children to purchase lunch or even wait for somebody, chances are you'll be asked to leave.  Minors are not permitted in government liquor stores in BC.  If you're in a rush and would like to pick up a bottle of wine for dinner, forget it if you have a kid in tow.

This didn't bother me so much growing up.  My mum simply didn't go to pubs and I would wait outside if she entered a liquor store. However, we've been living in Ontario for the past 14 years and are now used to not having to think twice before entering a pub or purchasing a bottle.  As far as I know (and you're welcome to pelt me with statistics if you feel otherwise), Ontario kids aren't any less responsible about alcohol than BC teenagers - not that either group is famed for its abstemiousness.

The British Columbia government is now discussing relaxing rules about allowing kids into pubs, but until then, we have a new wrinkle, theatres in Victoria are now trying to encourage more patrons by getting liquor licenses.  This means kids aren't welcome at evening performances, only at matinees.  Okay, I prefer matinees myself, so booked afternoon tickets for a performance of "Judy!" (a show about the life of Judy Garland) for my resident JG fan, younger daughter, who recently did a passionate rendition of "The Trolley Song" for her spring recital.

Younger daughter is also a Beatle fan.  Earlier this year, I was delighted to hear  that the Vic Theatre, a cinema in downtown Victoria where I first saw The Princess Bride and Gone with the Wind amongst many other films, had re-opened as an arts film venue.  I was even more delighted to learn they would be screening A Hard Day's Night, a film younger daughter has adored since toddlerhood, but has never seen on a big screen. My delight withered when I noticed that the film, while rated "G", was denoted as "19+" along with a blithe reference to beer and wine being available.  I had already told younger daughter about the film, and heart sinking, emailed the organizer for clarification (named Scarlett in a case of neat symmetry), fully expecting to be told "no dice".

Instead, she told me that while she hadn't been expecting any underage viewers to come, that we were welcome.  The next day, the "19+" had been removed from the web site and a note added advising patrons that liquor would have to be consumed in the lobby "as minors will be in the audience".

I think younger daughter was the only minor in the audience.  I also think most patrons brought their drinks in with them anyway.

Younger daughter turned to me while Paul McCartney was crooning "And I Love Her".

"Ohhhh… I just adore this song," she sighed.

Nothing adverse about that.  And yes, I did thank Scarlett in person.

On my way and damned quickly too

Okay.  Running out of time today.  Time for a placeholder.  It's been actually quite difficult to find this video, which I remember fondly from my pre-children days (and also post-children days because this song appealed to them mightily).  
I believe this song was a bigger hit in Canada than anywhere else, but I'm still searching for confirmation.

And, as has been stated, running out of time.

Farewell to Nova Scotia

It was only when our taxi was tooling along the highway from Stansfield Airport in the direction of Dartmouth that it occurred to me that this was, in all likelihood, our last time in Nova Scotia.

I was in the front seat with the taciturn driver, gazing at the trees, still winter-beaten in mid-May. The last time I'd come this way was on a hot day in early September 2010 with my then-eighteen-year-old elder daughter about to embark on her first time living away from home, studying at the University of King's College. At the time, it seemed like the first of many visits, especially when we returned by train to spend Thanksgiving with her a month later. However, the years slipped by and here I was on only my third trip to Halifax, ready to see her receive her degree.

It wasn't a unreservedly joyous week. Elder daughter was still severely jet-lagged, having only flown in from London two days before, where she had had a month's internship with the London bureau of the CBC.  This left her homesick for London, a city she's always dreamed of calling home, and eager to leave Halifax where she has slogged and stressed over term papers, exams, and the diplomatic struggles of editing the university magazine, with little time for the social life that is associated with post-secondary education.

We learned, while sitting with the other families in the surprisingly intimate All Saints Cathedral leafing through their programmes and waiting for the graduands, that elder daughter was receiving a first class honours degree in journalism, one of three awarded in her category.  The Resident Fan Boy and I wept in quiet pride, although our eyes had plenty of time to dry during the four-hours-plus ceremony. Younger daughter made it through this trial, but melted down when we had to wait for a restaurant table after the long trek back to the university to pick up the frame for elder daughter's diploma.  On top of that, when we were finally seated, the family at the next table belonged to a former dorm mate who used to be a close friend but no longer is.

So, with four days left in our stay, I was almost as eager to leave as elder daughter.  The weekend was saved by my awareness of the finality of it all and my resulting determination to grab opportunities.

 The first of these was the Ghost Walk of Historic Halifax.  A ghost walk is painless and quick (if a wee bit creepy) way to learn a city's history.  I've taken such walks in Victoria, Ottawa, and London (the one in England).  This one was run with appropriate melodrama by an actor whose tour emphasized the events that have shaped and scarred Halifax: its ancient days as a British fort, its part in the 1812 war, the sinking of the Titanic (what bodies were recoverable were brought to Halifax to be claimed or buried), and, of course, the Halifax Explosion of 1917 which somehow isn't nearly as famous as the Great Fires of London or Chicago, or the San Francisco Earthquake, although many more people died in Halifax that day.  The tour ends at Alexander Keith's history brewery under his rather unsettling wooden statue.

Yet somehow walking out in a cool spring evening hearing spooky tales made me fond of Halifax again and sad to leave it.  I made a pilgrimage to the tiny Unitarian Church in the south end of the city. I walked through the Public Gardens in the first furls of spring, having previously seen it in the summer (after Hurricane Earl devastated it) and the autumn. And we made a hasty visit to the unexpectedly charming and thorough Museum of Natural History which was a 15-walk from elder daughter's final apartment in Halifax.  An added bonus:  I was able to manage the long walks and the relentless hills of downtown Halifax - a final sign that my knees have made a recovery.

When the time came to leave Halifax, it was not with a sense of relief, but a feeling of having said goodbye properly.  I can, with a good conscience, breathe a sigh and a wish for her.

Catching butterflies without a net

"They look like they're dancing," commented younger daughter whose autistic struggle for words seems to lessen the further we are from school.  Standing above the ever-changing fountain at the far end of the sunken garden which is the original Butchart Garden (the Rose, Japanese, and Italian Gardens came later), I swung my camera up and caught them.

Sometimes life works.

The house not right in the head

I love this house we're sitting this July.  I'm not sure the feeling is mutual.

This is the fifth time we've taken care of this house, a charming bungalow decorated in Arts and Crafts style by the rather tall woman who lives here.  And therein lies the problem.  Having been here five times, the fourth time being six years ago, I know that I will be covered in bruises whenI leave in a month's time.

House-sitting has taught me that houses have different shapes, not all of which are compatible with my trajectory, for want of a better word.  My tall hostess places things high up - it's her home, after all - and on top of that, things like hooks and closet racks are slightly beyond my reach and there are no stools or stepladders because my hostess doesn't need them.

My shins are an appalling shade of green from my re-learning of how to clamber into her large bathtub with the very high sides.  On my first attempt during this stay, I managed to briefly wedge my lower leg between the tub and the toilet, banging my leg painfully as I struggled to extricate my heel while trying not to topple catastrophically into the unusually deep tub which would have involved a long fall with my body being bent, crumpled and possibly snapped into some wildly unnatural positions.

However, last night, I became convinced that the house was out to get me. It was a hot Canada Day -- for Victoria, barely a summer's day in Ottawa, but the thing is, few homes in Victoria have air conditioning, so by the time younger daughter and I got back from celebrating the holiday with Demeter, the house was uncomfortably warm and I still had to get the garbage and recycling sorted into four receptacles and lined along the pavement to await the various trucks in the morning.  By the time I had tracked down the items and worked out what went where (the rules vary from municipality to municipality and are quite different from those in Ottawa), I was sweating.

The house has large windows which can open to admit a host of insects and arachnids from the surrounding garden and the only screen is a narrow one which must be balanced on the sill and gingerly held in place by the sash.  I managed to pinch my fingers the first try and the screen plummeted to the flower bed below.

Next, it was time to haul the four containers out to the curb.  That's when the garden path attacked me.  For some reason, there were several dried-out bamboo spikes cunningly lurking in the foliage and grasses overgrowing the side of the house.  Two of them got me, one piercing my trousers.  The fact that it really, really hurt was probably an indication of how badly injured I was, i.e. not very.  Later inspection revealed a nasty welt and scratch in my thigh which stung like the dickens in the shower.

It was when I sat down at the computer that I realized my glasses were missing.  I'd go search the foliage, but I'm afraid of another ambush.

Just another day in paradise

I noticed the pomegranate seeds in my salad at the White Spot last night and winced. I like pomegranate seeds, but the implications don't elude me.

Younger daughter and I are back in Victoria for another summer, as Persephone escapes Hades for eight all-too-brief weeks. However, getting away from the Kingdom of Shades doesn't mean avoiding ghosts. I've mentioned this before, but I lived long enough in Victoria that every street has a memory, sometimes layers of memories.

Needing to get younger daughter home quickly as fatigue and autism overwhelmed her, I let Google Maps dictate our route home as I hurried through the warmth of Canada Day Eve, younger daughter trailing me like Euridice. I thought the way would be new, but every turn was familiar: the house where I first kissed the Resident Fan Boy, the take-out catering shop that was the first clue that a friend was dying. (Instead of home-made salads, she brought dishes from this establishment to two potlucks the last summer before she died.) I turned a corner and saw a school where I had done an observation during my education practicum, and caught a glimpse of a park where elder daughter had played softball as a little girl.

The sun is still setting in the northwest one week after the solstice. Victoria is almost exactly one degree north of Ottawa's latitude. The sun set at 8:54 last night in Ottawa, but not until twenty minutes after nine here in paradise. It was still golden bright as we scuttled past the church where elder daughter attended preschool.

We hurried into the house we're sitting for July and locked out the evening shadows.  There are fresh British Columbia raspberries in the fridge.  I don't suppose those will affect the length of my stay.

Another manic moon-day

Oh, I can't bear letting a month go by without at least one post. I'd like to do two posts a week, but somehow that doesn't happen. I've got excuses, but I won't bore you with them. Instead, try this. Yeah, it was viral, and yeah, perhaps not work-friendly (depending on your workplace) or kid-friendly (definitely dependent on the kind of kids you know), but I think it's hysterical -- check the etymology of hysteria and you'll appreciate what I just did. Or not.

Oh, fantasy free me

Six years ago, I wrote a post extolling the praises of fan-vid creator bigbluemeany. I don't think she does fan-vids anymore -- if she does, she's not putting them on YouTube -- but among her collection was a half-finished gem setting scenes of Doctor Who to "The Time Warp" from The Rocky Horror Show. (The Rocky Horror Picture Show for those only familiar with the film.)

Many other fan-vid-makers have attempted to blend Doctor Who and "The Time Warp", a marriage made in heaven, surely. However, aside from thebigbluemeany's unfinished masterpiece, no one seemed to hurdle the bar. Until now. I know that, according to the magazine Wired, I am demonstrating my lack of cool by posting a video with more than half a million hits.

Well, no one has ever accused me of being cool.

This video hit the internet earlier this week and instantly became viral. You will see why: High production values, two all-singing, all-dancing, all-filming sisters with an eye for detail, a company with a talent for costumes, scenery, dancing and Daleks, plus a fella who can recreate David Tennant's Tenth Doctor voice so well that fans who don't bother to read the credits think it's DT himself. While you're watching, links will appear to a "Making of" video and a video diary filmed to resemble those that David Tennant did for DVD extras during his tenure. I can recommend the former.

In the meantime, enjoy! And don't even attempt not to dance along.

The last hour of the last day of April

I'm suffering from another bad stretch of deer-in-the-headlights, with a list of things to do which should be, on the whole, quite pleasurable. One of them was writing a post for April. Sigh. This is pretty neat; it's a series of surreal animated clips based on the question: "What if animals were round?" They're the work of animators Kyra Buschor and Constantin Paeplow: who created them at the Filmakademie Baden-Wuerttemberg in 2012. There are four of them in this clip; be sure to not be put off by the credits at the end of each:

Things I learned during March Break

The corridors leading to the exhibits at the National
Gallery. It's a slow incline and is rarely this deserted.

March Break is usually pretty grim in Hades, but younger daughter gets two weeks off from her independent school.  We generally spend the first week catching up on movies, because the museums are crammed with kids from the regular school system -- usually in March Break day camps, so they're there under duress and often with not quite enough supervision. It can be a bit of a zoo.

In the second week, we hit the museums because Hades, being The National Capital, is rife with them. We found them well-attended (lots of university and school groups doing special tours and scavenger hunts), but less zoological.

Younger daughter has been snappish and short-tempered.  For the past five years, the catch-phrase in our household has been:  "Is it autism or adolescence?"  This year an exacerbating factor has been The Winter That Won't Leave.  The whole city has been in the doldrums for over a month.  We've actually had longer winters and colder winters, but this one has had a depressing persistent sameness that has worn everyone down.

Younger daughter seems to be in perpetual fear of another White Easter, like the one we had in 2008. Elder daughter flew off with her class to Europe between blizzards and enthusiastically described the turquoise waters off Cassis as I held the phone in my slackening hand and gazed out at the three-foot drifts on the deck.  Mind you, Easter was early that year and is not until late April this year, so we should be safe.  That's what I keep telling younger daughter.

Anyway, we must grasp what grace and beauty we can, even in the midst of this off-white (and downright dirty) limbo in which we find ourselves.  Keats tells me that all I need to know is that beauty and truth are one and the same, so here are things I've learned during March Break:

1.  John Ruskin, whom I knew superficially as a writer and critic, was one hell of a sketcher and watercolourist.  There's a visiting exhibit about him at the National Gallery of Canada this "spring".  Here's an overview of the exhibition, which focuses mainly on his architectural preservation work. The video excludes, alas, his amazing nature drawings and paintings.  I've dabbled in watercolour and know that the crispness and detail here ain't easy in that medium. The fellows here do natter on a bit; I'd just focus on the paintings and ignore the first couple of minutes. Ruskin was a photographer too -- did you know that?  In short, I went to the gallery feeling vaguely interested and came away stunned.  If you're in Ottawa before May 11th, do go see it!

2.  The 40 Part Motet art installation by artist Janet Cardiff has been to the National Gallery before, because  a)  it is amazing; and b)  the gallery has an actual historical chapel restored and reconstructed off the indoor garden which is the ideal space to set up forty individual speakers so you can wander around or sit in the centre of a flood of Thomas Tallis.  This video is in a less ideal space, but the roaming camera gives you an idea of how you can get close to the separate voices: 

However, that is not what I learned.

I've had a sore knee since before Christmas and am beginning to despair that it will ever entirely go away, so I had to sit down and rest while the Resident Fan Boy and younger daughter zoomed off to the Modern galleries. The motet is on repeat, of course and I gradually became aware that the babble in the Rideau Chapel was rather louder than it should be for the half a dozen people visiting at the time. I realized that the installation includes the conversation of the singers as they wait to begin. I got up and limped around the circle of speakers, hearing someone warming up, two baritones joking and shooting the breeze, etc. Then the singing began again, in small groups taking turns before all forty voices filled the chapel with tsunamis of sound.

Gosh.

3. The renaming of the Museum of Civilization which, as I've mentioned in a previous post, has annoyed elder daughter, has changed it not one whit.  We made it in to see a rather unimpressive exhibit called "Snow"(which is about snow), and I discovered I'd actually seen the IMAX film on Kenya before.  However, they have a wonderful new bistro, an extra balm to the spirit since the food in the downstairs cafeteria has been dropping precipitously in quality over the past few years.

4.  The Museum of Nature, a favourite of younger daughter's due to its beautifully renovated exhibits on wildlife, marine life, and dinosaurs (also its close proximity to the Elgin Street Diner), has actually quite a beautiful basement, featuring what they call a Stone Wall Gallery and a 3D theatre. In our past visits we've always used the upper floor washrooms, so this was a pleasant surprise.  We'll have to take in a film sometime.

5. I already knew from past experience, that sometimes one of the most interesting (and indeed devastating) exhibits can be hiding down the little corridor just behind the grim but clean washrooms beyond the Hall of Honour at the Canadian War Museum (another rather inexplicable favourite of younger daughter).  This time we were lucky to catch a tiny display devoted to Ansel Adams and Leonard Frank and their work recording the plight of Japanese-Americans (Adams) and Japanese-Canadians (Frank) -  when citizens of the USA and Canada were rounded up, dispossessed, and placed in internment camps because they or their ancestors happened to be Japanese.  I had long been familiar with the photography of Ansel Adams; I even attempted to replicate his famous photo of the church in Bodega, California when I was staying there the summer before the advent of elder daughter, but I was unfamiliar with this aspect of his work and knew nothing, I'm afraid, of Leonard Frank.  This was the last week of the display; I'm glad we saw it.  (And am even more hopping mad about the subject.)

6. Being close to the Bytowne Cinema, we have seen the collection of Oscar-nominated animated shorts in past year and enjoyed it again this year.  However, I've never seen the nominated short live-action films, and after seeing this batch, I'd like to do it again next year, though I really wish we could see these compilations before the awards ceremony.

Three of the films are about half an hour each, one is about fifteen minutes and one is about eight minutes. As with the feature films, it's difficult to say which one is "best", because it's very much an apple and oranges situation.

Helium, the Danish winner of the Oscar, is a gentle film about a children's hospice which I sat through dry-eyed until the very last image which hit me in the solar plexus and left me struggling for control while waiting for the next film.   The Voorman Problem (England) is one of the shorter films; it feels very much like something from The Twilight Zone and stars Martin Freeman as a psychologist confronting a prisoner who claims to be a deity.  Do I Have to Do Everything? is also very short, very funny and features a Finnish family struggling through disasters to get to a wedding.  The Spanish production That Wasn't Me was the hardest to stomach, being about child soldiers and serving up a graphic rape scene which I wasn't expecting, sitting there with my seventeen-year-old special needs daughter.

The film that continues to live with me is Just Before Losing Everything which takes a seemingly ordinary day in small-town France and gradually heightens the tension as a woman's break for safety from her abusive husband leads to and through her workplace.  The understated performances and the ambiguous ending are haunting, as is the knowledge that this is happening around the corner, every day.

So, while truth and beauty cannot removed the sting of a relentless winter, nor the heartbreak of a young girl who clearly didn't want to go back to school, I can only imagine how bleak March would have been without some helpings of food for the soul.

Perhaps it's better not to imagine it.