so she dies in the end

Tonight we went to the opera. Our first one. I've dragged Carie to enough concerts in Toronto but we never saw any operas there. So tonight we saw Verdi's La traviata at the National Arts Centre.

So we're sitting there shortly into the first act. We forgot to read the synopsis in the handout and now it's too dark. The fancy people in their fancy costumes on the fancy stage are bellowing fancy words in Italian. We get to read surtitles in English or French but at the cost of taking our eyes off the action.

But one gets used to such conditions. (And now my Italian is that much better... but not my French.) The show lasted 3 hours, including two intermissions. I try to convince myself that the stage crew needs those intermissions for setting up; I would rather just not stop; as soon as the lights go on again everybody stirs and wiggles. I'd rather not stir because as soon as I do I'm reminded that my legs would like to unfold please, something I don't have to notice if I'm distracted. Whatever we're paying for, it's not the comfort factor...

Anyway. It was nice; we sat in the front row on the second balcony, and since all the balconies are right above each other, it's no worse view than from the first balcony but certainly cheaper. Third balcony is the nosebleed section, but that's a real bird's-eye view and probably not ideal. I'm always scoping out the best spots to sit, and this time I wasn't at all unhappy with our location.

Hmm... how to summarize? Some girl who parties way too much decides to give love a chance; she gives up her lifestyle for her newly beloved Alfredo, and things go well for a time until Alfredo's father comes and asks her to leave her man since her not-so-stellar reputation is tarnishing the name of Alfredo's family and thus also his sister's chances of marrying well. In a noble twist, she agrees but just leaves Alfredo rather than explain her actions. Alfredo thinks it's because she's cheating and he gets mad at her, a reaction for which others get mad at him. Some time later... she's dying of TB or something and they all reunite and make up and... kerplonk! she's dead. Curtains!

On our way home, we realized that the people out on the town tonight were roughly divided into two groups: well-dressed elderly folks out enjoying an opera, and young rowdy noise-makers wearing green and bar-hopping. Happy St. Patrick's Day I guess.

odds & ends

I went to look for some decent snow pictures yesterday. Not owning a house, having a yard, or having to shovel one's walk or driveway has its advantages, but the downside is no cool pictures of mounds of snow.

These photos convey the general awesomeness of significant snow cover. Trucks are dwarfed, entire front yards are just big blocks of snow, and the bottom six feet of roadside trees are generally not visible.




We bought a used leather sofa set last week, and getting it in the house was less than pleasant. Back in October we moved our furniture in by throwing it up on the balcony; unfortunately that doesn't work so well when (a) the deck now has high sides, (b) I have no ladders or other things to stand on to reach that high, and (c) there's too much snow on the deck to want to think about that option. So we removed any doors that might get in the way and forced the couches through narrow hallways, around tight corners, and up some stairs. There's not much else to say. Walls are scuffed, paint missing, drywall mud dented and missing, and the sofas are in worse shape than when we bought them. But there wasn't much we could have done better. Am I ever glad we hadn't bought new furniture. Anyway, we have a few repairs to do to a few items, but that's not so big a deal.

Okay, I guess there was enough to say about that after all.


I bought a new camera yesterday. I was getting tired of never having a camera handy at interesting times, since carrying our behemoth Kodak around is inconvenient at best. This little guy is just barely bigger than my cell phone.

Record, please

Well, this weekend's storm brought a fair amount of snow. 52cm according to an Environment Canada statement. Sounds like a fair bit metrically, but imperially speaking it's well shy of two feet. Maybe it's just me, but 'under two feet' sounds like a lot less. What doesn't sound so trivial however is the total snowfall for the season: 410cm (13.5 feet). (March has barely begun and we've had 3 feet this month.) The seasonal record was made back in 1970/71 at 444cm, so we really don't have far to go. And as I always say (okay maybe not but I occasionally think it), if it's going be extreme it might as well break a record. So everyone please pay your taxes and don't cheat this time; our city really blew its snow removal budget this time and we want your money (cuz um, we wouldn't want it otherwise... yeah). Go Ottawa!

We considered snowboarding yesterday but it just didn't happen. Too bad, because conditions like these don't come around often, not even every year.

Church was cancelled this morning because too many people were snowed in. By afternoon some people's streets still weren't plowed, but we had church anyway. Attendance of 32 or so... we won't see it that low again for a long time I imagine. As usual I didn't cart my behemoth camera along so no pictures of 12-foot snow banks. That may change shortly--I have my eye on a nice little camera I can lose easily fit discreetly into a pocket.

warmal globing

Well, if this is global warming I'm loving it! We're in the middle (time-wise) of a winter storm right now and everything is just gorgeous. Some snow was forecast for this afternoon/evening (phase one), with boatloads of snow and high winds tomorrow (phase 2). This winter has been a rough one for me: there are constantly forecasts of big fat storms and then all we get is a piddly 5-inch snow dump or something. This looks like it might deliver, so here's hoping!

I went snowboarding tonight with some friends. It starting snowing when we left for the hill, and the way back was considerably slower and whiter. Tomorrow we hope to go again, for the simple fact that we rarely get to go right after a nice big snowfall; more often than not, we end up going either right before a big dump or a few days after. For once we want fresh snow to frolick in (I have serious issues with those ski run grooming machines that basically ruin conditions for me)! Oh, and hopefully other people will be wussy and not dare to drive in this weather, which will mean we have the hill to ourselves. On any ordinary Saturday it's not worth going to the skihill to fight the masses all day.

Last week we actually made it out to the canal and skated the length of it and back; nice timing since the canal is now closed to skating for the season.

Here's some snow pics just because I feel like posting some photos and you can't stop me...

Shots through a window in the dark don't work so well:


Only slightly better with a flash:


How about hanging out the open window:


Or open window with flash:


Finally, some decent quality. One more purdy one...


So yesterday I was sedately doing some work when I started hearing loud annoying thumps. After a while I was getting a little impatient with whichever neighbour it was who was constantly picking up and dropping a piano. Turns out it wasn't a crazy piano-dropping neighbour at all. City crews were out on the river blasting the ice into smaller pieces. Something about saving bridges, although it seems a little early to be doing that quite yet. Thanks to the camera's burst feature, I managed a few shots of debris shooting skyward. Here's one.

sad or what...

Some art just isn't going stand the test of time. A recent earthquake in the UK rendered an Etch-A-Sketch Museum less of a museum and more of a place that stores a bunch of blank Etch-A-Sketch toys.

A before/after pic (click to enlarge slightly):



Sort of pity the artists...

Perhaps next time they'll store their displays in Jello.