Winter song, spring song

March has been a good month of friends. I've had visitors three weekends in a row: Theresa, Lisa, Kaeli, and Trixie.


Additionally, my brother and his wife moved into their snazzy new house. My brother has been working like a...hard working man building it for the past year and a half. They had a very large and very warm housewarming party last weekend to celebrate and got Colleen Brown (our talented cousin) to play a house concert. I took a little video of the show just for fun:

As I mentioned, my friend Trixie is visiting us from Vancouver this weekend and we started the day yesterday with this video: Winter Song but then we went outside and it wasn't really very wintry after all. The next thing we did was enjoy an excellent breakfast at the Mill Creek Cafe with Dave, Jamie, Joel and Trixie. I had a fried egg sandwich and orange juice and found a sweet photo of a man riding a lion in the Edmonton Journal. You can't ask for a better breakfast.


As a first bonus, we ended up walking down Whyte on one of the first days that felt like spring. And as a second bonus we discussed oxford commas and other similar delights as we walked in the sunshine.

The weekend continued with pizza, Balderdash, church at King's, coffee with Scott (and Francis and Geneva), Guinness wings at O'Byrnes, and a movie night.

I freaking love weekends.

itemized

Several people have asked me what I have been up to lately and I keep not delivering a very good answer. I'm not so good on my feet sometimes. So, I'm going to make a little list here for my inquisitive friends.

• I have been on Global, The Sun Online, and on City TV Twice in the past 10 days as a media spokesperson for various work events. I definitely never would have predicted that in my future (especially in light of my claim that I am not that quick on my feet), but here I am.
  
• On that note, I am starting to enjoy my job more and more in a lot of ways. I don't know if would go so far as to say that me and my job are soulmates, but I think we are starting to like each other. Or at least figure out that we both have a lot to offer each other. A symbiotic relationship of sorts. It's a good feeling.
  
• I still don't really have any friends at work. I had one, and then she quit. Sucks. I miss my old work friends a whole lot. They are gems.
  
• My computer has been broken for a couple of weeks. I guess Dell really sucks at power cords. That's the word on the street at least. But the good news is that they were really good about replacing it in a timely manner, so that was nice.
• I cleared out some of my old/ancient crafty supplies the other night. The thing about never moving very far from home is that it's easier to take all your crap with you. I have some seriously vintage craft supplies. Furry monkey stickers, for example.
• Joel has been really busy getting ready for the Synchotron which means I haven't seen him a whole lot lately, but he had some down time this weekend finally where we got to go to the Sugarbowl and sit at the bar and eat copious amounts of excellent Huevos Rancheros. It was exactly what I wanted to be doing.
  
• I went and saw 'The Reader' last week with Kim and Caylie. It was a random little movie-watching group, but a very good movie. I am a Kate Winslet fan, which is sort of a new realization, since I had been holding Titanic against her for quite a while. Not that she was actually terrible in it. Just because it was Titanic.
  
• Luke Doucet and the White Falcon played a concert at the Myer Horowitz that I had tickets for as a Christmas present from Joel. He put on a really great, long show to celebrate his first time headlining in a soft-seat theatre.
• Francis greeted me this week with an enthusiastic "HI. I LOVE YOU!" It is the first time he has ever done that and it was completely awesome. I love him too. Nephews and nieces are good, good things.
• Karen, Bri and I discussed the whats/whys/hows of marriage around my kitchen table. It was interesting. And then we watched "On a Boat" ft. T-Pain and had a good laugh.
  
• I fit a ham sandwich into a plastic lemon. It was a highlight of last week, let me tell you.

That's all for now, folks.

Even years later, I am still swooning over this one

Anyone who has ever asked me for a book recommendation has undoubtedly received my heartfelt endorsement for "The Brothers K". It is my favourite book and has been for about 7 years, ever since I first read it. My previous favourite was by the same author, a book called "The River Why". I may have given you the pitch for this one as well. I can't say it changed my life, but it definitely filled my heart in only the way that perfect storytelling can, and forever changed my expectations for a good novel.

That was just setting the scene for the rest of this post. I was thinking the other day about nice things people have done for me, and recalled a postcard I received in 2005, while I was in Switzerland.

So, in lieu of a sappy valentines post, I thought I would post the least sappy, most amazingly thoughtful thing that perhaps anyone has ever done for me.

When I was in Switzerland, the coming of the mail was an exciting event. Email access there was a bit limited and slow, and letters from home were always more thrilling anyways. I got lots of nice letters and postcards from Joel. He often sends me postcards because his parents are in the postcard business and as a result he has a bit of an endless supply of Edmonton and Jasper themed items.

One particular day the mail came just before lunch. I grabbed my mail for the day and headed down to the Chalet where I would be eating. It was a formal lunch, which meant that we were having a group discussion, but I spent most of the meal puzzling over a postcard I had received. It appeared to be a Kelly family special featuring Edmonton's river valley, but the stamps on it were decidedly American and the message centered around fishing and "a note from one Joel Kelly, asking me to drop you a line". I couldn't make out the signature.

It took me until the end of the meal to realize that I was holding a personal note from my absolute favourite author.

Knowing of my love for David James Duncan's works, Joel decided to write him a letter sincerely (and knowing Joel, probably very earnestly and politely) requesting that he fill out the already-stamped and addressed (to me in Switzerland) postcard with a personal message for me. So he did it. Joel had no idea when he sent it to him whether he would do it or not, so he was almost as surprised as I was when I called to let him know what I got in the mail that day.



Swoon.

Something to look forward to

"Taco in a bag" is fast becoming a favourite dinner party choice for me and a certain bunch of friends. We had our second T.I.A.B. night at the end of the holidays and it was, once again, a hit.

Also added this time was a couple of incredible rounds of Pit. I'm not kidding about it being incredible. We used to play Pit when I was little because my parents had the deluxe edition with the orange bell, but over time we ended up using the bell to play school instead of actually playing pit. So the game was more of a distant memory for me when we started playing. I can still picture the styrofoam card-and-bell holder that we had colored on with Mr. Sketch markers in an attempt to make it prettier. This beautification attempt was a failure, just in case you were wondering.

Steven took a video of a round near the end, after too many snacks and beers, without any of us knowing it. Steven is behind the camera and counter clockwise around the table are Joel, Reba, Kevin, and me.


As you can see, it was one of those nights that we never could have planned.

In other news, I am now completely wisdom toothless. It feels so good to know that I will never have to get them out again. I realize that I am not safe from other dental calamities, but this is one thing that I have been dreading pretty much since I was 10 years old. It feels good to get it off my list of things to not look forward to.

I swear they began talking about you

Tonight I had a crafting date with Caylie and Natasha. I spent the entire time transcribing some of my favourite poems into a book where I keep my favourite poems. It was a good time.

They hassled me about not blogging, so I thought I would toss them a bone and share this link: Click here to see the wooden laptop case of your dreams. Seriously.

A favourite poem:

Carry
By Billy Collins

I want to carry you
and for you to carry me
the way voices are said to carry over water.

Just this morning on the shore,
I could hear two people talking quietly
in a rowboat on the far side of the lake.

They were talking about fishing,
then one changed the subject,
and, I swear, they began talking about you.

visit from a friend

My friend Kenton, who I met in Switzerland, came to visit me last week. What I remember most about him at L'Abri is that we always had good laughs together and that he taught me that it is better not to wet your toothbrush before you brush your teeth because it is more effective in cleaning them when you don't. We still have good laughs together, and I still think of him sometimes when I am brushing my teeth. It was fun to see him in his Australian goodness after all this time.

In other news, my Christmas break is drawing to a close. It was filled with family dinners, a baby baptism, a sister being in town, some movie watching, good friends from out of town, and a bit of skating.


But it's not over yet. Taco in a bag party happens tonight.

I ran 5K today