Wonderful ad from Monster.com about living up to your potential.
Chelsea Weekend
We really missed being able to go to Chelsea last year, and the weather had been trying to keep us away this year. A blizzard two weeks ago held us back, and little did we know that the weather gods weren’t done with us. Add to that, Jon got sick the night before we left, but we decided to risk breaking gravity anyway.
The main excuse to head up every year (aside from being Paul’s tech support 😛 ) is the amazing backyard luge run. We’ve blogged about it many times in the past, but let’s just say, this year’s was one of the best, and had far improved accessibility this year, to accommodate the fact that getting Jon uphill is getting harder.
Jon’s luge time got cut short by both the weather and being under it, but he still wildly enjoyed about 8 runs down, with two good solid wipeouts. (I had forgotten just how much Jon cherishes wipeouts). This being her first year in action, Photon immediately took her position as Emergency Response team leader, following us down the run and ensuring everyone survived.
EMR Team response to Wipeout Emergency.
EMR Team response to clean run.
This pretty much describes Photon’s weekend. Keski is the Masons’ 5-and-a-half month old golden doodle, and he’s a sweetie. He wanted to be with Photon always. Less “what are you doing?”, more “What are we doing?” He loves to wrestle but he didn’t always clue in to when enough was enough. When it got to that point, sometimes Photon would engage him under the kitchen table or near a doorway, where she had room to manoeuver and his puppy not-quite-dexterity led him to bump his head hard, and often.
Accompanying us snowshoeing, Photon chases sticks off-trail (in a rare un-pursued moment).
We got to meet up with old friends, like Catherine and Bob. Catherine is not only an M.D. Family Practitioner, but also an Expert Canine Dietician. To quote (after the fifteenth time of feeding Photon human dinner scraps under the table, culminating in lemon custard pie): “You can’t have chicken without dessert!”. 😕
And here’s Kevin and Heawon, pictured here outside their new house, just as we left after a lovely three hour visit…and immediately returned for another 5-hour visit (thanks so much guys!), since freezing rain had just turned the road to the highway into a hill of sheer ice, with cars in the ditch. Paul eventually came to our rescue with his studded tires and led us to the now gravelled road. (Thanks Paul!)
Regrets: Circumstances didn’t allow me to lace up the ol’ skates and teach Paul how to play hockey on his huge backyard rink this year. But it’s almost as fun to shovel and scrape.
Thanks Paul and Judy!
Laura snowshoeing with Photon.
Chelsea
Feb. 19/08
I stopped by Ann and David’s house in Ottawa. We were there to eat dinner. We stayed with Paul and Judy and Jamie and Willa and their dog Keski. We went lugeing.
They don’t have the weather Network at Paul and Judy’s place.
We went to Kevin and Alice’s house to watch Meteo Media.
Jon
(Jon was home sick today, but I still made him write a journal entry about his weekend (Mean Mommy! At least that’s what Jon seemed to think). Météo Média is the French weather channel, which Jon loves to watch whenever we visit anyone who gets that channel. We’ve told him previously that it would cost too much to get Météo Média; when we got home he firmly announced that we have to pay the extra money to get that channel. Fat chance, my boy! —L)
SpongeBob Movie Classics
So for some entertainment at the Annie Awards (the big awards of the animation industry), the cast of SpongeBob Squarepants did some voice replacement for some movie classics…more or less faithfully to the scripts.
To watch this, it might help to be either familiar with SpongeBob or be a fan of classic movies. And a lover of both would be best.
Watch for the cameo of Gary, SpongeBob’s pet snail.
Up the Yangtze
On Wednesday, thanks to friend Virginia, I had an opportunity to see a special showing of the fascinating documentary Up the Yangtze by Canadian director Yung Chang.
The movie is beautiful to look at, with gorgeous cinematography and scenery. But more importantly, it tells of the impact the new China is having on the old China, both good and bad. It outlines the catastrophic effect that the Three Gorges Dam is having on the people that live along the Yangtze River. By the time “the gates are closed”, as everyone repeats in the movie, entire towns will be submerged and about two million people will have been displaced from their homes. As his framing device Chang did most of his filming aboard a luxury cruise ship that takes Western tourists along the Yangtze for a last look-see of the river that was.
The film focuses on two young people who start work aboard the ship, most notably 16-year-old farmer’s daughter Yu Shui, who dreams of a high-school education but who is forced by her poverty-stricken, illiterate parents to become a kitchen drudge. The Upstairs, Downstairs nature of the ship is presented, with the young people slaving away below decks while the tourists listen to a lounge act singing “It’s so easy/to speak Chinesee”.
Chang makes detours to doomed towns along the riverside, stopping to turn his camera on various people. An antiques dealer, about to lose his shop, at first prattles on about how sacrifices by a few must be made for the good of society. A small riot breaks out outside the shop between some townspeople and minor officials; suddenly the dealer bursts out weeping how corrupt the local officials are and how China is “very difficult” for ordinary people to live. It’s a heartbreaking moment.
Yu Shui’s parents, displaced twice by the rising river, end up carrying their meager possessions to a tiny apartment with no access to farmable land, unable to earn any money. In a riveting scene (perhaps set up by the filmmaker?) they visit the site of the dam and stare at the huge structure in utter incomprehension. They may as well have been 17th century Flemish peasants staring at a space shuttle for all they understood.
In the Q & A session that followed the showing, director Chang gave a hopeful coda: Yu Shui quit the ship and—thanks to a fund set up by the filmmakers—is now attending high school.
Anime dog?
On walking the dog this morning we met up with a couple of teenage girls who started doing the usual “oooh he’s so cute!” coos to Photon. Then one of them came up with a comparison that I hadn’t heard before: “He looks like Pokémon!”
Left: The Pokémon character Pikachu; Right: Photon. Any similarities?
Here’s something you can’t do…
Dolphins playing with bubble rings.