Weekend Update

Busy weekend. Massive shopping expedition and D&D on Saturday, The Nutcracker and dress rehearsal with the Ottawa Chamber Orchestra on Sunday, and the regular everyday poop.

Highlights:

• Daniel seemed to enjoy The Nutcracker. So did Justin, but he was getting antsy about an hour into it and I don't know whether overall it was a positive experience for him or not.
  
  
• We're all done The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe and have started into The Horse and His Boy. It's not the most gripping of the Narnia books though - I don't know if Justin will be able to maintain his interest through the whole thing.
  
  
• Sarah called about the Mrs. I. issue, even though she had 800 cookies left to bake before the weekend was over. Damn, I've got good friends :)
  
  Incidentally, "I only have 800 cookies left to bake" is probably one of the stranger sentences I've heard recently. Here's what 700 cookies looks like.
  
  Oh, and it looks like our families use the exact same flour, mixing bowl, laundry basket, microwave, and measuring spoons. Reminds me of when my brothers came to visit me in London, and were highly amused that we had identical houses (i.e., "little boxes made of ticky-tacky"). According to them, in Athens no two houses are alike, but we had much greater variety of furniture, kitchen tools, etc. Comes from them living in a country that's only recently begun serious free trade with resulting access to greater variety of goods, but a city that's been around forever and thus has architecture that spans centuries. "You guys don't have that," said my brother Nicholas. "You have the same front door, hallway, windows... oh, and the same cat," he commented as their black-and-white cat, identical to ours, trotted past.
  
  
• I've gone down a cup size, and bought my first pair of non-nursing bras since 1996. And I shaved my legs for The Nutcracker. I know everybody wanted to know that.
  
  
• I'm trying to get into the Ministry of Education to look at the Ontario Elementary Curriculum goals and expectations for Grade 2 English. Hopefully I can take a look at see what there is that Daniel still needs to learn this year, and maybe make up a study guide for him to do during English. That's assuming I can get Mrs. I. to agree to let him do the work I give him while the other kids are matching "cat" to "bat" and "so" to "no". I'm not terribly optimistic about it, but whatever. It's a possible short-term solution, while we try to work on long-term ones.
  
  
• Our choir nearly gave the Orchestra conductor a heart attack for the first little while last night. We were utterly unable to come in on our cues or keep up with the orchestra (or with each other). We were also utterly unable to hear them or each other. Moved ourselves around during the break, started off after the break with Hallelujah, came in perfectly, sang it right through with no mistakes, and got looks of startled disbelief and extreme gratitude from him and from the orchestra. We finished, there was a moment of shocked silence, and then somebody exclaimed, "HalleLUjah!!!"
  
  Things looked up after that :)
  
  
• Working on my papers now. And oh what splendiferous joy that is.

Hm.

I did not know this. I knew that December 6 was an official day (National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence Against Women), and noted the half-mast flags downtown, but did not know there was actually a government website dedicated to today. Interesting.

For us observing the day this year took the form of me telling the boys what happened December 6, and why we remember it. Not the most cheerful bedtime story ever, but it's not the most cheerful topic in the world either.

For those who have no idea what I'm talking about, here's a link to a news release. Basically fifteen years ago a nutjob gunned down 14 women at l'École Polytechnique in Montreal, because they were usurping men's places in society by studying to be engineers. L&O fans who find this oddly familiar, yes, that's the real headline that the season 10 premiere Gunshow ripped from, except that in that case the women were in medicine.

Missed my mom a lot today. December 6 always reminds me of her, because she so vividly told of her fear for ninja_kat's safety that night. My mom was working in the airport, and the only news she got was that 14 female science students at a Montreal university had been killed. And she had no way of getting away and calling ninja_kat, who was in science at a different school in Montreal, to see if she was OK.

It also makes me think of the women who died that day, and the mothers and fathers who worried about them and never got the comforting news that it wasn't their school, their branch of science, their daughter or their daughter's friend.

***
Victims of the Montreal Massacre at l'École Polytechnique on December 6, 1989

Geneviève Bergeron

Hélène Colgan

Nathalie Croteau

Barbara Daigneault

Anne-Marie Edward

Maud Haviernick

Barbara Klucznik Widajewicz

Maryse Laganière

Maryse Leclair

Anne-Marie Lemay

Sonia Pelletier

Michèle Richard

Annie St-Arneault

Annie Turcotte