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For the first time in months, birds were at our bird feeders over the week-end. I was unbelievably happy to see them. It means spring can’t be all that far off!
Warm weather will come a bit earlier for us though…we’re heading south next week. The Last Minute Club will determine our final destination, but I hope it’s somewhere hot and sunny.
What a marathon of a week-end it’s been! There are so many things going on in town, Sourdough Rendezvous and the Available Light Film Festival being just two of them.
Friday was a holiday here in the Yukon…Heritage Day. Joe and I started the day with Ce qu’il faut pour vivre (Necessities of Life). It was good but we both thought it needed to be edited down. Then it was off to our favourite sushi spot for lunch. We had hoped Jamie would join us but he was helping a friend move. On Friday night, we watched Patti Smith Dream of Life. This to me was a real disappointment…too self-indulgent.
Saturday: after teaching piano it was off to see Mothers & Daughters. Lucca, you would have enjoyed this one…I think parts of it at least were filmed on and around the Drive.
Today: After a Rendezvous breakfast and a visit to Gramma Sophie’s, I went to Slepe Lasky (Blind Loves). It was a sweet film, made in Slovakia, that looks at the everyday lives of several blind people. We’re going to have an early dinner so I can see the final two movies of the festival: Deepa Mehta’s Heaven on Earth (same person who directed Fire, Earth, and Water) and The English Surgeon.
Last night I saw the documentary Passage, directed by Nova Scotian John Walker. It’s a stunning piece of work on a lot of levels. For me personally it had added appeal for two reasons:
One, there was a fair bit of footage from the Orkneys and Stromness in particular. My ancestors may have come from further south in Scotland but it is the Orkneys that call to me, and it is there that I felt one part of me reconnect with another part of me.
Two, the Inuit stateman Tagak Curley was featured in the film. I know him from my time in Nunavut and to see him here was both wonderful and heartbreaking.
I say heartbreaking because in this film, he asks the great-great grandson of Charles Dickens for an apology for some horrendous things the senior Dickens wrote about the Inuit. His request wasn’t taken seriously and while the younger Dickens did eventually apologize, it was half-hearted and it was clear he didn’t have a true understanding of the damage that had been caused by his ancestor’s writing.
Curley, ever the gentleman, accepted the apology nonetheless and invited Dickens to his home.
The film is definitely an eye-opener when it comes to the distortion of history. See it if you can!
Today I recorded a radio commercial for work. I would post it here but WordPress doesn’t want to accept mp3 files and I don’t know how to convert them to another format. In any event, sitting behind that mic again was like taking a trip home. It felt so familiar and comfortable.
It’s been about eight years since I worked in radio and I can’t say that I’ve ever regretted my decision to leave. But today’s recording session did make me remember how much I enjoyed that chapter of my life.
But then I’m enjoying this chapter too, so it’s all good.
Post I’m enjoying today: Stone (Noodle) Soup
Event I’m getting set to partake in (I have free passes!):
Available Light Film Festival
My bargain of the week:
$1.50 at the Sally Ann: soft leather and a great partner for my red shoes!
Look what I’m going to be doing in May…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wgodSXZwdN8
These two are coming from Buenos Aires to Whitehorse to teach several days of classes. What I like about this video is that it’s not showing the ‘razzle dazzle’ moves that take years to master – but rather the basic steps that they’ll be teaching us when they come.
I’m very excited!
I’m certainly going to get my fair share of Latin dancing this spring…just after Tango classes finish there’s a woman coming to do an intensive flamenco workshop.
By the way, there’s still room in the classes if any Yukoners reading this want to sign up. Drop me a note and I can give you the details.
Boy do I have a lot to learn about wine! Tonight’s choice was a shiraz from the south of France, from the Tortoise Creek winery. I’ve been testing myself…trying on my own to identify the ‘nose’ and taste; then checking the web site and my Opimian tasting notes to find out what I should be smelling/tasting that I’m not.
OK, so I did smell fruit jam and after several attempts I detected smoke. I also smelled bread dough (neither of the tasting notes mention dough). But truffles? I don’t even know what truffles smell like. And bramble? What’s that supposed to smell like?
Then it was on to taste. I could taste fruit, coffee, chocolate, soft tannins and pepper. But I also tasted a number of things I had no words to describe.
So here’s the question for all you wine experts out there…how am I supposed to learn to put into words what I’m smelling and tasting? Apart from chowing down on bits of oak, bramble, grass, dirt, etc. how am I supposed to learn to identify these flavours in a glass of wine?
I’m pretty much starting from ground zero here, so bring on the advice. Meanwhile, I’ll just have another glass of Tortoise Creek shiraz, which I’m quite enjoying, despite my inability to unlock all its secrets.
Any of you who read this blog regularly know that my daughter has been away at school for the last two years. Nonetheless, I have been visiting her three times a week. And I only have to drive five minutes to see her.
If you go to the Northern Lights School of Dance, you will notice a wall of photos of some of the dancers who have taken classes at the school over the years. Iris is in many of these shots. Since I take classes there myself three nights a week, I get to see her regularly. The odd time someone has even walked in and caught me touching one of the photos or talking to it. No, I’m not totally batty, although God knows after raising three teenagers I should be. It just feels good to be able to whisper a word or two of encouragement to Iris via her photo, or just to say, “I love you sweetie”. And it’s comforting to know that even though she may be hundreds of miles away, a part of her is still just down the street.
Photo credit: Vesey's Seeds
It’s around this time of year that I typically decide winter can go away now. However recognizing that there is no chance of that happening any time soon, I have resorted to my usual February coping mechanism…I ordered my vegetable seeds yesterday.
I’ve made some changes this year: for instance I have added more heritage varieties (hard to pass up with names like Drunken Woman, Chicken Claw, Sweet Cholocate, and Yukoslavian Finger Fruit). I’ve ordered some purple carrots for the first time, and I’m experimenting with some different types of potatoes too (has anyone ever grown Irish Cobblers?). I’ve also decided to try growing corn. Typically corn doesn’t do well here, but I’m going to plant a couple of short rows on the south side of my greenhouse, in hopes that the reflecting sun will create a bit of a micro-climate. Some people have tried growing corn inside their greenhouses, with not much success. That’s because corn needs wind to pollinate. For that same reason, you need more than just one row of corn. Anyway, we’ll give the Binger method a shot and see what happens.
