skating

Busy day yesterday.

My dad's feeling much better so asked if he could be driven home (thanks for the good thoughts, everyone!). He has more tests this week; we're keeping our fingers crossed. After driving him back out to Bramalea, Jeff and I drove back to Toronto to visit with Alison and JeffL, or rather to meet their one month old son, Kye. Kye's a sweetie, and let me hold him without screaming. In fact, JeffL taught me how to stick my little finger into Kye's mouth (after I had washed my hands, of course) to soothe him when he got cranky.

At first it was really bizarre, this tiny baby sucking on my little finger as if his life depended on it (and as JeffL predicted, Kye stopped whimpering immediately). And wow, powerful sucking reflexes for such a wee guy! And then it went from bizarre to cute, though I did feel sorry for Kye...he wasn't going to get any satisfaction out of my finger no matter how hard he sucked, after all. But it seemed to do the trick, and he dozed off in my arms. Awwww....

Next we dropped by Andy's and Christine's place briefly to drop off some cables that Andy needed. Christine has been going through a very rough time recently, undergoing chemotherapy and radiation cancer treatments. The follow-up appointment she had on Tuesday seems hopeful (i.e. it looks like the tumour is gone), but we're waiting for the MRI test results.





We went skating with Annie, Sara and Kaarel after that, in a Forest Hill indoor arena. The original plan had been to go skiing, but the weather forecast had been gloomy, so we opted for skating instead. The rink was smoother and therefore more slippery than the one at Deerhurst, so I spent the first bit clinging to the sides of the rink, just as I had when I was a little kid.

Encouraged by Sara, however (and the fact that she kept pushing me from behind, see photo below), I started loosening up and started to have some fun skating around. Sara and Annie both love skating. Sara's starting to experiment with more difficult moves, while Annie's still content with shuffling across the ice without falling down. I was surprised by how well Jeff skated; I'd forgotten he used to play hockey a lot...like our skiing experience, he tended to spend most of his time moving backwards so he could coach Sara. :-)

After skating, Jeff and I went to Fune for Bryan Fullerton's birthday dinner. I had what's become my "usual"...edamame, shiitake mushrooms, steamed rice, salmon sashimi, tobiko with quail's egg. Yum. The others went to play pool afterwards, but by this time I was so burned out I needed to go home and crash.

Today is a much-needed "veg at home" day. I plan to do a lot of highly productive napping, reading, snoozing, with possible interludes of harp-playing and songwriting. And a really long bath with lots of bubbles. <happy sigh>





Hey, I turn 40 this month! My birthday's on March 29th (so is Katy Dröge's, as I recall).

My brother-in-law Kaarel had a funny age anecdote recently. Apparently he was with Annie and Sara, and Annie kept saying something over and over again. He told Annie that she sounded like a broken record, and Sara asked, "What's a record?"

:-)

Other news and updates:

The next version of Movable Type will be released very soon, yay!

My second Muse's Muse column is up now ("Songwriting Music Theory 101"). Topic: The Musical Staff.

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Today's Blatherpics:

	Sara and Annie at the skating rink.
	Alison and Kye.
	Sara pushing me from behind on the skating rink.
	At Bryan Fullerton's birthday dinner.