I’ve been trying to keep myself busy and distracted this week. Mostly thinking about JL regardless. I miss him very much, but I’ve had a lot of friends checking in and making sure I’m okay, and this has been very much appreciated. Hardest part right now is coming through the front door and he’s not there. I think I’ve actually called out “Bumba?” once or twice before realizing why he wasn’t blocking my way into the house and meowing.
Monday morning though, the Woz was in town and Communitech hosted a breakfast at which he was the keynote speaker. It was as one would expect: some rambly, sometimes funny anecdotes and then a blast of passion about why the interface and design are so important in whatever you are engineering–even if that’s the number of holes in a motherboard that not many will notice and even fewer will appreciate. It was quite amusing to realize that most of the brain power in K-W were in one area, as Melle pointed out.
Tuesday was birthday day, but definitely low key. It was as much a missed anniversary as a celebration. But birthdays must be had, so Melle and Melissa and I went out for some curry on Tuesday night–I had some crazy shrimp dish (“Sambal”, I think, related to peppers or spices) with tomotoes and it was very good. Melissa gave me some very awesome scotch glasses that have astronauts whose lifelines are shaped in a heart. I mean, science + scotch is really the bomb if you ask me. And they were wrapped in purple bubble wrap! Bubble wrap is a wonderful thing, but purple bubble wrap is twice as nice.
Melle and Andrew commissioned a good-sized canvas by a local artist and it will go above a bench that I have in an alcove area of my living room. It’s pretty fab. I guess Melle had to give an idea of what themes might work, so she came up with “random old doors, literature, scotch, moorish architecture, conspiracy theories, earthy colours with a lot of dirt in them, Tom Robbins, and nature”. And that’s what I got. Colours are perfect, and there’s a lot of interesting detail. I promise I’ll take a picture once it’s hung to show you.
On Wednesday, Melle and I met up with Andrew (who was already in Toronto for a filmfest) and two other friends to see the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibit at the ROM, followed by some pretty awesome Thai food and then a Jays game. The Dead Sea Scrolls were dead. And very tiny. They had a series of exhibits set up before you actually got to see the scrolls. I discovered a fraud – well, really they had two coins in the wrong spots when you looked at the detailed drawings compared to the coins themselves. They were so tiny it was difficult to spot the difference, so I think this is evidence that I have the same level of competence as a trained archeologist. They should take me on a dig or something.
The people-watching was pretty good. There were what appeared to be church groups, at least one Chassidim family, then more average folks. I pretty sure we were the only ones making jokes about the resemblance of oil burners to hash pipes and enjoying the pictures of the original restorers in a room with full sunlight, using scotch tape to piece together pieces of scroll with a cigarette in hand. That’s conservation, people!
After that, we wondered around the dinosaurs once we found them. Melissa was thrilled that Melle sent her a pic of dessicated poo. And I’m pretty sure we saw an ROUS skeleton in the supersized mammals section.
Then we wandered down the street and picked a random Thai place for dinner. Since we were eating at old people time (i.e. before 5pm), we got this awesome dinner combo that included a really good soup, a spring roll, a bit of salad and a main course. I had curried chicken and green beans. All the dishes were fabulous and the bill was probably less than what we paid for parking.
Then it was off to the Jays game. Melle got us really great tickets right at the rail in the 200 deck of right field. The Jays lost (which made about 60% of the audience in attendance very happy), but the most important thing is that Andrew obtained for me… a cup of rye! Sure, I could have had beerz with the rest of them, but as you well know, I’m a hard liquor kind of girl. Apparently he went into the bar and asked if takeout was allowed. The bartender said yes, so then he asked for a double-shot of rye in a cup. She said, “and?”. He said, “and that’s it”. I highly recommend it for any sporting event.
