Monday By Numbers

• Countdown to Chris' final exams: 6 weeks
  
  
• Distance from ideal weight: 16 pounds
  
  
• Distance from realistic ideal weight: 6 pounds
  
  
• Number of times my car turned over this morning: .5
  
  
• Parking money saved by not driving in to school today: $6.50
  
  
• Money spent on taxi: $23.
  
  
• Our concert: 4.5.

So yeah, our Black History Month concert.

It rocked. We rocked. Our guests rocked. The earth literally moved.

That last bit wasn't caused by us, though. There was a small earthquake, 4.5 on the Richter scale with the epicentre in Thurso, Quebec (incidentally, where Guy's family lives) and since we were in Orleans, Ontario, we all heard about three or four rumbling sounds and a bit of vibration, like a few very large cement trucks had just lumbered by. Only found out it was an earthquake during the intermission.

Which is SO cool because I've always wanted to feel an earthquake, and now I have. I'm from Chile, land of many major quakes, but I left when I was very small and so I missed all the big ones. And I've been in about 5 or 6 small earthquakes (a few in Ottawa, and one during a visit to Chile) but never felt a thing. So, neato. Now I know what one feels like.

On to the concert. First, the not-so-good.

Our director had words with us during the rehearsal. Rather sharp words. Rather loud words. Words that utterly offended much of the soprano section (since we were the targets of the biggest and loudest set of words) both because of their content and because they occurred in front of the other two choirs and a few early members of the audience. A few sopranos contemplated just walking out. One of the sopranos had a bit of an anxiety attack. They were not nice words.

In a way, though, I kind of understand. We really, really need to know our music better than we do. The final rehearsal before a concert is supposed to be used for perfecting dynamics and practicing how to get on and off-stage. Not for going over some of the notes.

Still. The severe tongue-lashing in public was not a nice thing to hear.

Next, the good.

Our guests were the Crosstown Youth Choir and the World Voices choir from Brookfield High School. And good lord, they were good. Much, much better than we were. Their African songs sounded so... African. The songs we did with them were totally inspiring. Nkosi Sikelele (African anthem) was gorgeous, even though - or perhaps because - we were actually singing from different arrangements. Which was kind of neat, as the two choirs were intermixed on stage, so we could hear people around us in our same section singing totally different notes.

Our soloist, Cassandra, who has a very nice soprano range but a gorgeous voice in her alto register, totally ruined one of our songs. The song was going very nicely, people were swaying, looking happy, and then she opened her mouth and belted out her first solo bit, and even before she was done, the World Voices choir was bursting into thunderous applause and cheers, and was soon joined by the rest of the audience. Cassandra looked quite startled, as were we, and the applause drowned out our chorus, but it had to be one of the nicest song-ruining moments I've ever experienced. Got a standing ovation after the song was done, too :) :) :)

And the boys were there too. They don't normally come to choir concerts, because it's just really not their thing, but I figured a concert with lots of upbeat music and variety and three different choirs and drums and all that funky stuff might be something they'd like, and Chris reported that they did indeed. Even though Justin fell asleep near the end. 10:00PM is a little late for a six-year old to sit and listen to music, even music accompanied by clapping and drumming and weird little shooting-at-birds movements.

So yeah. Good concert. The kind that make you glad you're in a choir. Minus the scolding at the beginning.

Guy

OK, well, that was a phone call I didn't want, but I've been expecting it for a while now.

Guy is dying. He was diagnosed with cancer a long time ago, got treatment, seemed to be doing well. We visited him every so often and he mentioned a bit of digestive problems, but nothing too horrible. Then he mentioned things weren't going so well, but he's an elderly Franco-Ontarian who worked his entire life in a pulp mill, so "stiff upper lip" kind of takes on a whole new meaning with him. So I worried, and tried to ask discreetly how he was doing, and tried to offer help if he needed it, and got a pat on the head and a smile.

A few weeks ago, I was going to drop by with the kids, gave him a call to ask if that was OK, and he told me he didn't think it would be a good idea. Feeling too tired and too sick. Which, knowing Guy, was pretty much as clear an indication as he could possibly give, that he was going downhill. His daughter Guylaine had moved in with him, too, which, again...

Anyway, so I called him a few times, told him to give me a call if he needed anything, and then tried not to bug him. He'd mentioned that there were home care people in and out all the time, and that was kind of wearing him out, and he said he knew he could count on us if he needed us and would let us know when would be a good time to stop by.

Well, tonight I got a call from Shirley, one of my mom's closest friends (and the person who got Guy and my mom together in the first place). Said he'd given her a couple of packages for the kids, for their birthdays, and he wanted her to bring them by. And he'd also told her that he wanted me to stop by, because there were some things he needed to let me know, and he wanted me and Guylaine to sort some stuff out. Figure out which things were my mother's, that kind of thing. She said he's pretty much the same as my mom was near the end; not walking any more, lost a lot of weight, very weak.

So. I think I'll leave it at that. There were some other things I wanted to write, but it's getting a little tough to do that right now. This isn't like when I lost my mother - Guy's not my parent, not even my step-parent - but he's a wonderful man who gave my mother the best years of her life, and he's been everything a grandfather should be to my kids, who aren't even related to him. And I don't know how the hell I'm going to explain this to them, or how I'm going to deal with seeing him suffering when I go see him. He's just... he's such a strong person. I hate to think of him deteriorating the way my mom did.

Right. I think I'll go read some very fluffy fic or something.