unrelated stuv

OK, silly things first. I may have ruptured something giggling at these:

Highlights of Troy and
Troy in Fifteen Minutes.

***
Chris pointed out when we were downtown for Canada Day that these days it's far more common to overhear people talking in Spanish. Which is true. When I was a kid, I turned around every time I heard Spanish in the street, since it was so unusual. These days, I don't even register it most of the time.

And yesterday I got another example of how the Hispanic presence has grown in Ottawa. My phone rang and I picked it up.

Me: Hello?
Voice: Puedo hablar con Sylvia?
Me: Eh... no, creo que esta equivocado. (incidentally, I don't know the correct term for 'wrong number' in Spanish.)
Voice: Ah, disculpe. Muchas gracias, adios.
Me: Adios.

First Spanish wrong number I've ever had. Bizarre.

***
And on a more sober note, this is the article I mentioned the other day.
The real anti-American
( Dan Brown, Ottawa Citizen, July 3, 2004 )

(no subject)

So glad Sarah and Rainer and their kids are here... so sad that this has to happen during such a crappy time in our lives.

Spent the morning with my mother and cousin and Guy, found out Dory is actually here, in Ottawa, right now, and wanted to see me to talk to me at 5pm today, did some grocery shopping, drove back to our house where Sarah and Rainer and Sandra and Matthias had just arrived, spent about 45 minutes with them and then back to my mom's to see Aunt Dory, then back to my house to help Chris with dinner for everybody, lovely dinner and post-dinner walk, and now Sarah is putting her kids to bed while Chris puts our kids to bed and I try to decompress a bit.

I thought Dory would want to talk to me to get more info about my mom's medical condition, to convince herself that my mother is going to be OK after all. I was way off-base. She wanted to talk to me because she's realized my mom won't be OK at all. I think I liked the first option better.

This is like an angsty novel, I think every so often. The kind that I lap up with a spoon when I read it, because of the heartbreaking beautiful anguish of hopeless whatever. Or the kind that I've tried to write every so often, reaching for said heartbreaking yadda yadda. But unlike the novel, I can't put it down, and it's not enjoyable in any way. It just plain sucks.

Enough of that.

High points today include just about anything kid-related after Sandra & Matthias showed up. Driving back home and seeing four little figures running full tilt yelling and laughing and wearing various parts of a knight, witch, and devil costume, made my heart light right up. This is what childhood should be all about. Not so much with the sitting and watching TV/playing video games until heart and brain and body atrophy.

More of that tomorrow, and less of the angsty stuff. At least while Sarah & co are here.