Good advice

These days I am not taking a lot of photos, so pictures for my posts are going to be scarce.

Last night I ushered at the Jeremy Dutcher show. Wow. Powerful music. I'd never heard of him before, but last night was amazing. We ushers were invited to a reception for Dutcher after the show but I had already agreed to meet another usher at a local pub so I didn't go to the reception. Some nights the last thing I want to do is usher but I go anyway and sometimes it is really worth it. Dutcher and the previous show, Between Breaths, were spectacularly worth it.

Dutcher talked about his (and his parents') efforts to preserve their language, Wolastoqey (Maliseet). He said that there are only a hundred native speakers left now. He said that it was not just about the words lost but the unique worldview lost. Every language expresses a worldview, when you speak that language you participate in that worldview. When a language goes extinct, so does that worldview. I think this is true.

* * * * *

The usher that I met at the pub is francophone, from Montreal. At 77 years old she is one of the most beautiful women I have met. I love the sound of her voice and her laugh as well. Mostly I spent the evening just listening. Our server recognized her as someone who had participated in a panel on women aging in her sociology class. The server said she really appreciated my usher friend's advice. After the server took our order I asked my friend what her advice had been.

"I told them to get an education, it would set them free."

She said that living free is the most important thing; and maybe a university education these days doesn't get you as far as it used to, but it is still important enough to help young women be free in their lives. Apparently our server took that to heart.

* * * * *

I gave myself a good scare this week, really silly of me. It started out consulting Doctor Google about some signs (symptoms?) that Hapi was displaying. I came to the conclusion that she had Cushing's Disease. Among other things, one sign of this disease is increased appetite, so one day I let Hapi eat as much as she wanted to see just how far she would go. She used to be very picky about what, how much and when she ate but that seemed to be changing. So that day I just kept refilling her bowl to see how far she would go. She ate twice as much as usual. In my mind that kind of confirmed the Cushing's diagnosis. However the next day she didn't eat a single thing and she seemed to be in pain. All she really wanted to do was hide in the basement. So I made an appointment for Friday with the vet to discuss, by which time Hapi had recovered from her day of overeating.

The vet darn near laughed in my face. She waved the results of Hapi's recent bloodwork at me and said, "She's healthy! Old, but healthy!"

I got myself all worked up for nothing. Hapi might have Cushing's, but it's kind of irrelevant. The tests are expensive, there is no cure, and dogs can live for years with it. I'll try not to overfeed her again.

Old People Out On The Town

Last night was the last show in the Performing Arts Series that I volunteer usher for, it was a great concert of the Nova Scotia Symphony Orchestra. They come here every year. This year they have a new and younger conductor, he was very good (and not hard on the eyes!). I learned some things about classical music from his introductory remarks for each piece.

The first was an Octet composed by Stravinsky, then a Tchaikovsky piece written just for stringed instruments ("Serenade for Strings"). The conductor said that Tchaikovsky was the culmination of a classical trend toward bigger and more emotionally grand symphonies, Stravinsky was a return to smaller and more basic forms. After the intermission they performed an early symphony by Dvorak, before he became famous for his Slavonic Dances. My favourite Dvorak piece is the New World Symphony. It was quite delightful listening to this much earlier symphony and hearing premonitions of both the Slavonic Dances and the New World Symphony in it. The final performance was by a composer I'd never heard of with a name (I mislaid my program and don't remember what it was) that sounded Russian or East European but who was actually Irish-French living in England. He pre-dated the other three composers. I think his piece was called Appalachian Spring and it was quite spritely. The last two pieces included stellar performances on a grand piano, by a woman who I found out later is transgender. Which kind of explained her height and dramatic manner of playing.

I had previously arranged with a couple of the other ushers that we would go out for a drink after this show. We went to the new pub in town, a converted church. This town has a proliferation of alcoholic establishments, more coming every year it seems. When I lived here back in the '70s and '80s there was one tavern and another student place on the university campus. Both venues are still here but the tavern in town has become quite seedy. Most "townies" and students avoid it. But in addition there are now a cidery, a wine bar, four pubs and four licensed restaurants. There's another pub due to open this summer. All this in a town of maybe 2500-3000 people.

The converted church is an older stone building with a wood panelled vaulted ceiling. It feels more like a city kind of pub than a small town pub. One of the other ushers invited a fourth along and we got a high table for four. Later our two "bosses" came in with some young women, they waved to us and sat at the other end of the church. Just as well, they would have dominated the conversation.

As it turned out the fourth usher had a really interesting story to tell about herself. She was the youngest at our table, maybe a couple of years younger than myself. She came to Canada when she was six, her family escaping Hungary in the aftermath of the failed Hungarian Revolution. Her description of the harrowing escape from the perspective of a six-year-old was riveting. At one point she said her mother gave her and her younger brother slugs of brandy to knock them out and keep them quiet. She said her mother always denied that she did that but she firmly believes her mother lied.

The day of the escape her mother woke her up and told her that she didn't have to go to school that day because they were all going to the zoo together. Her six-year-old self was very disappointed that they never did get to the zoo. She remembers two train rides that day. At one point the conductors on one of the trains hustled the family and some other people off the train and into a baggage storage room at a train station, and locked them in. She couldn't understand what that was all about, standing in this small windowless room surrounded by luggage in the dark. But Russian soldiers had boarded the train and the Hungarian conductors were hiding all the people trying to escape. The brandy-drugging episode was at night just before they had to cross a field to get to the border with Austria. They waited at the edge of the field for it to be dark before they could cross.

They arrived at Pier 21 in Halifax after their long journey across Europe, but their father did not want to stay in Nova Scotia. There was a large community of Hungarian refugees in Toronto that he wanted to join, but he couldn't find a job in Toronto. They ended up moving to St Catherines, where our friend the storyteller grew up. I remember that the high school I went to in Toronto was smack in the middle of the part of the city where most East European refugees ended up, I met many Hungarian kids in my classes. If her father had found a job in Toronto, maybe I would have met her then. She found school very hard because she couldn't understand or speak English. But the turning point came for her when she actually understood a book they were reading. It was "The Little Engine That Could". The first song on the radio that she understood the words for was "Lipstick on Your Collar", but she didn't understand what the significance of lipstick on a collar could be.

Another memory she had was of going to the baths with her mother before they left Hungary. Budapest sits on top of extinct volcanoes and is full of hot springs. Over the centuries many public baths were built there. The one our friend went to with her mother was a Turkish bath, built by Turks when they occupied Hungary hundreds of years ago. She remembers the amazing blue tiles of the place, but especially she remembers that it was the first time she saw her mother naked. Hungary has a long history of occupation by various peoples, and a certain resulting resentment. Our friend noted this on her last visit there. She is disappointed with Victor Orban and doesn't know what will become of her country of origin.

It was a most interesting evening!

Basement Saga continued

Backyard visitor

Mid-February, no snow on the ground, no snow in the forecast. Every time it snows there's rain right afterward and the snow is washed away. Weird winter.

The guys are putting my basement back together again. It has been a long haul, they've been here for so long I feel like I should be charging them rent. Everything that could go wrong did.

Now I have a cold, I'm hoping it won't last too long. The guys figure they have one more day of work down there and then I can start putting things back where I want them, but with this cold I have no energy for it.

Hapi is quite discombobulated by the change in sleeping quarters. Usually she sleeps in the basement but she can't now so every night she has to decide whether to stay indoors upstairs or go outside. Usually she chooses to go outside. I don't mind, but it seems that all our rain is happening in the night and I know she doesn't like being in her doghouse in the rain because of the noise of the rain on the roof. And if I'm asleep I can't let her inside, so she goes out into the rain and finds the muddiest spot available to lie down in. By morning she is soaked and covered in mud, then she wants to come inside. All her white fur is brown now.

The last few days they've been cutting laminate flooring to fit back together again; the dust from that goes everywhere. There's no point cleaning it up until they're done, which I'm hoping is tomorrow. Then they're going to come upstairs and do some work on my bathroom. They think it will only take a couple of days, but I remember a month ago Bob thinking the basement job would just take a few days. You just never know what kind of disaster you're going to uncover when you start taking things apart.

I went to an amazing house concert over the weekend, a woman who sings Edith Piaf. She's very talented, plays multiple instruments and has a gorgeous voice. Her partner plays guitar and he is amazing as well. It was enthralling. The concert was at her mother's place. The couple now live in Montreal and they came back home for three Valentine's Day performances. I really hope their talents are rewarded.

Last night I went to a talk and slide show about the railway children of India. The mother of the singer went to India over Christmas to visit Father Abhi who works with the railway children of Varanasi. They have a centre there where they house some of them and arrange for them to go to school, also they help find adoptive families or reunite children with their lost families. Most of them are girls, their futures are not good. Father Abhi heads up an organization (DARE) that does this work and also he travels India and the world to drum up support.

There is a small network of groups in Nova Scotia, Belgium and one other place that I forget. When he needs money for his projects in India he tells the network. Usually it is something very specific, say a small bus or some piece of necessary equipment. Then the network raises the money and sends it to him. Sometimes it can take a couple of years to raise the money. It is complicated, there are rules governing how money can be sent overseas and also how money can be received by organizations in India. By being very specific they handle the complications. So my little town is part of that international network, to help the railway children. Of course it is just a drop in the bucket, but I guess every little drop helps.

The slides we watched were very colourful, the presenter was quite fascinated by the brightly painted trucks in India and also by all the dancing. The children are taught amazing dances and they love it. Father Abhi has all these paintings and statues of an Indian Jesus, he looks like a Hindu guru or a buddha. The Christmas celebrations were extremely colourful and full of dancing and coloured lights and flowers. It was beautiful and strange at the same time, Christmas celebrated in a Hindu way.

Going on vacation

Halifax Public Gardens (I visited after the hospital which is nearby)

This will be my last post for a while, I am going away and not taking the computer with me so I will probably not be posting anything until some time after I get back. I'd like to say "as soon as I get back" but invariably I have to hit the ground running when I return home with various things left undone while I was away, not to mention putting away travel things and such.

Hapi will stay here, I have a young friend who will house- and dog-sit for the duration. He says he is grateful for a whole house for a whole month all to himself (and Hapi). Not something he is used to.

I've been very busy getting ready to go. One last visit with my friend in the hospital yesterday. She is much better than she was the last time I saw her, not loopy at all but quite lucid and present. Since the last time I saw her she had all of her family visiting which was quite a treat for her. She's in isolation because of the antibiotic-resistant infection, so she can only see her grandchildren via FaceTime on her iPad. Adults can visit provided they gown up and wear gloves.

I called my friend before going into the city to see her. She asked for a sandwich wrap and a pound of butter. I picked up those things before going to the hospital; I also brought a container to store the butter in. She has no appetite for hospital food, the sandwich wrap came in two parts, one she ate while I was there and the other she saved for supper. Not sure what she wanted the butter for, maybe because the hospital gives her margarine with bread.

We yakked about the great visit she had with her family and about grandchildren. Then we FaceTimed her sister in Toronto, who was in the midst of cleaning behind her frigerator on a very hot humid day; she was in her underwear. She said she was doing this because a friend told her that she (the friend) did it every two weeks, and since she (the sister) had never done it she was feeling guilty and thought she ought to be doing this. On a hot humid day. I've never cleaned behind my fridge either and I'm not going to start now, it's probably totally disgusting back there.

So my friend in the hospital may or may not be there when I get back. She may or may not get out of the hospital and into the nursing home bed reserved for her when the infection is deemed cured.

My trip involves five flights, stopping in two places in British Columbia, one in Alberta and one in Ontario. I will be seeing my new grandchild, three sons, multiple old friends and one or two brothers, depending on whether one of the brothers can find the time. I was able to schedule myself for the family and friends out west but closer to me (Ontario) not so much. The theory being that the ones in Ontario could always try to visit me here. The trip is complicated enough, it would be impossible to do it to everyone else's schedule.

Since last I posted I went on a little road trip with a friend to a rock concert and someone's cottage in Pictou County. We camped out the night of the concert. The concert was great, the headliners that night were Matt Andersen and Alan Doyle.

Matt Andersen (there was a screen as well as the stage)

Alan whipped up the audience something fierce. The concert was outdoors and most people were standing (my friend and I had bleacher seats). Most all of them knew all the words from when Alan was with Great Big Sea, so there was a lot of singing along and waving of arms and cell phone flash lights. According to Alan, Great Big Sea got their first exposure to mainland Canada in Pictou County so for him it was like a second home.

Alan Doyle and the Beautiful Gypsies, stirring up the crowd

The friend's cottage was an amazing place, but so infested with (really aggressive vicious) mosquitoes that you could not step outdoors. We could look at the waterfront but not actually go to it. So we sat inside and had a great supper and lots of gin and tonics. Would have been nicer without the mosquitoes.

My friend's dog loves me because he knows I own Hapi, his favourite female dog. He followed me everywhere. When I went outside to back the car closer to the cottage he came too and I had to pick him up and put him in the car so I wouldn't back over him; he's not a bright dog.

Public Gardens commemorative bed

Road tripping music

(the old truck, 1991 Chevy S10)

I sold my old truck almost two years ago, after buying a new-to-me minivan. I liked that the new-to-me minivan had such luxuries as a CD player and air conditioning, but wasn't sure about the power windows. Then found out that the air conditioning didn't actually work, that would cost an extra $1,000. I bit the bullet and paid for it to be fixed, although the mechanic grumbled, "You know, people don't usually do this." And it turns out I like the power windows. Kind of necessary in a minivan when you have a dog in the back seat.

However I soon realized that all my road trip music was on tape cassettes because that's all the truck had, a tape player. So for the last couple of years those tapes have sat in a drawer unused and every time I go somewhere in the minivan I miss them. About a month ago I wondered if there was a way to transfer the music from the tapes to some digital format and I finally Googled it. It turns out there is a way and the software to do it is free! But I did need to buy a cable to connect my tape deck to my computer, available at The Source for $20. I downloaded the software and bought the cable, and then waited for a rainy day to attempt the deed. Yesterday was it.

It took several hours to finally get the first digital file of a road trip music album (Saguarina, something one of my kids bought on the street from a South American busking band). I had to manoeuvre all of the hardware out where I could get at the back of it all to connect the cable, put it all back in place, figure out why the tape deck wouldn't rewind a cassette (don't know, but it has two cassette slots and the rewind still works in the other slot), mess around with the software to figure out how it worked, test the volume level adjustments, figure out how to save the recording as an MP3 file (needed another plug-in for copyright reasons I guess, but still free), and then finally to make and save the recording. Meanwhile I went through all the cassettes in that drawer to prioritize what I was actually going to digitize, resulting in various stacks of cassettes all over the place. But after that first recording it was a snap, I could digitize a cassette in about the same amount of time it takes to play it, a minute or two more for saving the MP3 file. Have a meal, digitize a tape. Read a magazine, digitize a tape.

How amazing it took this long to get around to doing it!

In case you're wondering, the software is called Audacity and the cable is a Y-Adapter. The plug-in is called Lame (!).

Next step is to put the MP3s on something I can play in the new-to-me minivan. I was going to put it on my phone but a neighbour suggested a memory stick. So far I have recordings of Dvorak, Fleetwood Mac, The Outlaws, Genesis and that South American street band. Eclectic, but it's the stuff that works for road tripping. Think I'll do my bagpipe tape next, I've really missed that one.

Bread and Musicals

I volunteer as an usher at the Festival Theatre and occasionally at Acadia Convocation Hall. I mostly volunteer for theatre and musical events, in particular the Acadia Performing Arts Series. This past weekend I ushered for the Stage Prophets performance of the musical "Anne and Gilbert", a kind of sequel to the "Anne of Green Gables" musical (which they performed a few years ago). I especially appreciated the two solos performed by a friend of mine as Mirella. It was both comedic and serious, as much of the Stage Prophets' material is. Great show, and some fabulous musical and dance talent.

In other news I baked my last loaf of bread for the season. I've run out of both freezer space and large freezer bags; I take that as a sign that I have done enough. No bread baking over the hot summer months! The sourdough starter is resting in the freezer now, atop all the loaves it produced this year. Good work, starter!

Things I don't know

Don't know why but am feeling paralyzed. I have lots I could be doing but I'm not. Don't feel like going out or socializing, don't feel like doing anything. Except sit in front of the fire and read or scroll through Facebook, looking for interesting links. Feels like an addiction I can't break.

Saw "Paterson" yesterday, a film about a bus driver who writes poetry. His name is Paterson and he lives in Paterson, NJ. Strange movie. Kept waiting for something to happen, and the background music was kind of ominous so I kept expecting something bad to happen. All the way through the bus driver writes poetry in a little notebook he carries around with him. His poetry seemed so ordinary that after the film was over I was thinking, Damn, I could write that stuff! I'm not a poet, I've never thought I could write poetry, ever. Until last night. That's more about how ordinary his poems were than my ability to write poetry, which as far as I know is just as nonexistent as it ever was.

Saturday night I volunteer ushered at a performance of the Vienna Boys Choir. They break the choir up into small touring groups, so we only saw twenty-four (or five, not sure) boys. Their voices are like female soprano voices, but different. Can't say what was different, just was. I'm not musically literate. Mostly Austrian boys but also some from other countries around the world: Japan, Mexico, Germany, USA, and so forth. It was very enjoyable and the house was packed. We ushers were very busy.

After the performance three of us went out for drinks at a local pub (Joe's). One of the women is someone I don't really know that well but at one point I asked her a question, I think I asked her something about her childhood, or where she grew up or something like that, and she began to tell us about her life. She is francophone and has a lovely musical voice, but very quiet and we were in a noisy pub (full of students) so it was hard to hear. Anyway it was an interesting story and it made us all think about Life.

She told me that she was glad I had asked her out for a drink after the show because she liked me and wanted to know me better. I was enthralled with her story. It made me think about my own life in a different way. I think I am still digesting it. There's an art show going on in a nearby town and she has some paintings in it, I would like to go see them.

...and the snow geese are flying

I saw snow geese the other day, another sign of spring. They say spring here is 2-3 weeks early. They've started sugaring off already. And all the snow around my place melted yesterday, I see bulbs sprouting. Somehow they got dug up last year and are sitting on the ground surface, not sure what they are yet but they're too big for crocuses or snowdrops.

I went to the Harbour because it was such a gorgeous day, sunny and warm. Ruth is off work for a week after surgery (good news surgery) and Nancy had the day off too (she does shiftwork). We sat on Nancy's deck, Val came by and we walked the dogs. Val's dog Phoebe narrowly missed getting a snout full of quills when she discovered a porcupine under a tree. The porcupine slowly climbed up the tree and I desperately started calling Hapi because she was off in the woods somewhere and I did not want her discovering that porcupine when it was right about her nose-height up that tree. We avoided disaster.

Last year when the time changed it felt way too early, still winter. But the clocks change this weekend and I don't think it will be too early.

Rainy and windy today but tomorrow will be sunny again and wHapi and I are going back to the Harbour for a walk on the beach with beachcomber. Also, the Women's Day Cafe is tonight, local musical women performing, a bunch of us are going to that.

Storm a week

Yet another storm. I heard someone refer to it as The Storm A Week, it certainly seems like they're coming that regularly. This one has it all: snow, ice pellets, freezing rain, rain, more snow, high winds. I still have power but who knows how long it will last. Yesterday I did a big shopping, including bags of sand for the ice and weight in the back of the truck, and last night I charged up all batteries and made sure I had enough firewood in. Bird feeders are full, I am good to go.

Last night's Community Chorus practice was great, I am really enjoying this. At one point our director made a funny but disparaging remark about bagpipes, eliciting many hisses and disappointed Ohhhhs. In Nova Scotia? Definitely the wrong crowd for that particular joke. Afterward, a few Altos discussed bringing a piper in to the next practice to surprise her.

I've been invited to the next Alto practice, half an hour before the Chorus practice. The Altos in my church choir are not a strong group but in this choir they are. I am kind of a borderline Soprano-Alto, but I think the social life of an Alto is better, so I'll stick with that. LOL.

Some of the Altos secretly sing along with the Baritones because they are borderline Alto-Baritones, and because our Baritones are not strong. They need all the support they can get. Baritones are usually all men, and men don't come out much for this kind of thing, so the few that do need lots of encouragement to stay. These guys lap it up I think, maybe they fluff their notes deliberately.

I'm one to talk though, staying in tune is not my forte either. I'm hoping practice helps, that's why I am in two choirs.

The director of the Community Chorus is a serious singer and singing teacher, so every practice is also a lesson. I learn a lot and it's fun. She explains how we are supposed to pronounce things differently when singing than when speaking normally ("diction"), what the various cryptic notations in the music sheets mean, how to make timing work to embellish the music, and how to breathe. I think the fact that the choir director is focussed on performing well in music competitions makes her more motivated to get us to do it right. She knows how choirs are scored in competitions, so she knows what things are important to develop. It reflects on her ability to teach and direct when her chorus does well.

The church choirmaster is good too, but she doesn't explain things quite as much so I have to rely on the people around me more. They have been there a long time and understand the music and her direction much better than I. We do the same warm-up exercises, but I wasn't doing them right because I didn't understand them until the director of the other choir explained their purpose and how to do them correctly. In the church choir we are not focussed on competition, so I think having us all understand the techniques of choir singing are not quite as important. Plus, the church choir has the advantage of four university music students with excellent voices who can carry the choir through the tough bits.

They're saying we may have 30 cm of snow today and then rain on top of that so I am debating the best strategic time to go out and shovel the stuff. The rain makes the snow heavy, plus it freezes into an icy crust making things even more difficult. The trick is to shovel before that happens but after the bulk of the snow has fallen. I just don't know when that is.

Happy finds

I just got email from my brother in Ontario pointing me to a website in California where someone has a copy of Folk Songs for Little Sailors available for download. What a treat!

This album was released in 1966 by Riverside Records, it is a compilation of sea chanteys apparently intended for children, but in fact for anyone who likes that kind of music. Back in the '60s my parents gave this record album to my sister for Christmas, but it quickly became a family classic.

Somehow it was lost. I remember borrowing the album from my parents as an adult, but I was pretty sure I had returned it. However it hasn't been seen since and I don't have it. What can I say.

Anyway. This morning I downloaded it from the website, firing off a Thank you note to the website owner (and she wrote back "May you and your family enjoy a rousing chorus of Twinkie-doodle-um, twinkie-doodle-um, sang the bold fisherman."). Now I am listening to it as I write this. It is scratchy, as one would expect from forty-year-old well-played vinyl, but still a treat.

Sail Away, Sail Away – Bob Gibson
The Walloping Windowblind – Oscar Brand
The Bold Fisherman – Oscar Brand
High Barbary – Billy Faier
The Sailor's Hornpipe – Billy Faier
The Fishes Song – Peggy Seeger & Ewan MacColl
The Golden Vanitee – Peggy Seeger & Ewan MacColl
Two Little Boats I Spy – Louise DeCormier
The Mermaid – John Runge
The Flying Dutchman – Dean Gitter
Belfast Hornpipe – Margaret Barry
Sir Patrick Spens – Ed McCurdy
Bunch Of Roses – Oscar Brand
Midnight On The Ocean – Oscar Brand
Sailing Along And Singing – The Renaissance Chorus

"Sir Patrick Spens" was one of Dad's favourites, "The Flying Dutchman" one of mine. But they're all good.

Another delightful find:

Last year I went to the spring One Of A Kind craft show in Toronto and bought--among other things--a wooden fountain pen. Again, I managed to lose it. Don't know how or where, but it is gone. And of course I didn't remember who I bought it from and there were no clues on the OneOfAKind website. I just remembered that the fellow who made it was francophone, I thought maybe from Montreal. I did a search on that information, but nothing that tweaked my memory showed up.

So yesterday, I was browsing old blog entries, and it turns out I had one about that visit to the OneOfAKind. Not only that, but I had (very thoughtfully I think ;-) put weblinks to the sites of the artisans that I purchased items from. And there he was, Richard Boucher at Stylos Boucher. I emailed him and he told me which model he thought I had purchased. He said it was out of stock, but if I told him what kind of wood I wanted he'd make another one for me. It'll cost me more than I paid for the first one but I suppose that's what you get for losing something valuable.

I chose spalted maple, which is maple wood with black lines running along the grain from some kind of fungus. Quite pretty I think. I am looking forward to its arrival.

Swamp Rock and river rock

On the weekend I went to the South Mountain Swamp Rock Opera with the Hupman and Dungaree Brothers, and tubing on the Gaspereau. A great good time. In between was a late night campfire and G&Ts at a friend's place.

Last time I went tubing on the Gaspereau was in the 70's, a good three decades ago. As I recall I was not all that sober at the time. However this time we went on a Sunday morning and aside from the rum in the fruit compote at breakfast, I think we were all quite sober.

The Gaspereau is a shallow rocky river that runs into the sea, named for its fish (in other parts of the world they are called shad or alewives, here they are gaspereaux). There's quite a little fishing industry on that river, using these great counterbalanced nets that are lowered into the river from streamside. The river runs through hardwood forest and pastureland for dairy cows, at one point you pass a ford in the river where the cows are driven from a pasture on one side to the barn on the other. There's a precarious suspended walkway over the river by the ford, the cows walk through the river and their human drivers walk over it.

The river is dammed by Nova Scotia Light and Power for hydro-electricity, and for tubing you put into the river just below the dam. The Hydro controls the water level in the river, and generally it's a good idea to go tubing before July when they leave the water fairly high. After mid-July it is lowered quite a bit.

You rent your tube from one of several homes near the put-in and take-out points. We rented ours from The King of the River (KOTR). Some folks who had already been down the river called out to us that it was good tubing today, the river was high. And it was.

My memory of that first trip down the river back in the '70s involved a lot of bum-scraping. This time I hardly touched bottom at all. The high water also made it faster flowing, and sections of rapids were kind of exciting. We'd see some fast water and rocks ahead and try to remember which side was the better side to be on. Some times we guessed right, some times we didn't.

Sometimes we floated down alone, sometimes we rafted together, four of us. It was delightful.

Peter told us about one of his sons who put together a Pirate Tube. He had a styrofoam cooler full of beer duct-taped to his tube, and a waterproof plastic container on the other side for storing cigarettes for the ladies he encountered. And of course a pirate flag on a broomstick. Once someone paid him $50 to rent his Pirate Tube for a trip down the Gaspereau.

The take-out point is at the bridge in the town of Gaspereau. People park their cars here and also at the put-in point, it's a long way to walk between. So we had one car in each place and when we got out at the end we piled our tubes on the top of the car there and tied them down for the drive back to the other car at the dam. It was so hot that we were pretty much dry by the time we got back.

The Swamp Rock Opera was good too. Let's just say that it was a very South Mountain affair, raucous, rock-y and bantering.No swamps no opera, but a lot of rock.

Blues 'n' booze at Hugh's

Went to see Matt Andersen and Mike Stevens play at Hugh's Room last night, dropped a hundred bucks and had a marvelous time. Total blast. Am paying the price this morning though for the bottle of wine Grace and I shared. But I have a new Andersen CD on the stereo so that's OK. I feel like a teenager, I actually got his autograph on my CD! Hoo-wee!

I had wanted to see Matt in Lunenburg before I left Nova Scotia, but it just didn't work out. I checked his website and sure enough he was playing Toronto, but last night was the one and only night, and after that no hope of crossing paths with him for many months. So I hooked up with Grace, one of the Dog Ladies, and we booked a table at Hugh's Room for dinner and the show. It's a great venue, seats around 200 people mostly at tables, and every table is a good table---good views and good sound. Grace looked around the room and noted the wide mix of ages, opined that that was a good sign. Gotta be good to attract that kind of audience.

I'd never heard Mike before, he's a harmonica player with many years behind him of The Grand Ol' Opry (Nashville) and touring Innu and Innuit communities of Canada's north. It shows in his music, a unique mix of many styles. He talked about his experiences on tour and some of the work he is doing bringing music to northern communities as an alternative to drug use among youth.

I have never heard a harmonica "speak" before, but Mike makes his harmonicas speak. You can hear the words coming out of the harmonica! His harmonica said: "Grew up in Sarnia/From Sarnia still/If the air don't get ya/Then the fries will", or words to that effect. Mike's from Sarnia.

Matt is Matt, fabulous voice and virtuoso guitar playing, and an engaging personal style on stage. He bantered with Mike and with the audience, and used his long curly hair like another instrument. He'd swing his head so his hair whipped around like a halo. When Matt sings the blues it pierces your soul. He doesn't just sing the words, he IS the blues. He did one song about returning troops that hit hard. And of course his signature rendition of She Takes The Sunshine. I first heard him sing that two years ago at Deep Roots in Wolfville, and it literally choked me up and brought tears to my eyes. This time he has polished his rendition some, and in the process lost some of the emotional rawness, but it was still a great performance.

Grace and I arrived early to eat dinner before the performance. The format at Hugh's Room is they want you to come early if you want dinner so they can get you fed and the dishes cleared in time for the show. So you have lots of time to eat and chat before the music. Grace and I don't really know each other that well, we met a few times last winter at Dog Lady get-togethers, so this was a chance to get to know each other. We ordered Concert Specials from the menu, and a bottle of a good red wine.

Grace's background is Japanese Canadian, her ancestors settled in the Steveston area of British Columbia. During World War II her parents' family was split up because some of them had been sent back to Japan for school, so they had to stay in Japan while the rest of the family was interned---like most Japanese in Canada at the time---in camps in the interior of BC. They would have lost everything during that time, and most of them did not return to Steveston after the war because their old community was gone.

After the war Grace's parents came to Toronto, where she was born and grew up. We shared experiences of growing up in Toronto, of travelling to other parts of the world and coming back here, realizing what a great place it was right here. We remembered going to the 'Ex' as kids, the Royal Winter Fair, the AGO and the Grange Park behind, the Superdog show (well of course! We're Dog Ladies!).

We both get a big kick out of travelling on the streetcar, on Queen, Dundas or College, and being surrounded by the sights and sounds of people from all over the globe riding the same streetcar. It's a magical experience, it makes you feel like a real Citizen of the World, being surrounded by all those ordinary people from everywhere, settled and jostling up against each other in this very international city. I don't want to call it "cosmopolitan", that somehow implies something sophisticated and this is not. Toronto certainly can do sophisticated, but it also has a real down-on-the-ground regular-folks international feel as well.

That bottle of wine disappeared pretty darn quick.

The waiting room blues

It's getting colder all the time now, Sheila says the long range forecast is for snow flurries next Friday. I'd pack up and leave now, but...

It seems like every time I plan to leave, whether from Toronto to Nova Scotia, vice versa or anywhere else for that matter, all hell breaks loose. All of a sudden I have emergencies that must be taken care of right now and even involve postponing departure dates. Right now I have both medical and vehicular urgent matters---or so it seems---to take care of and I can't leave until I do.

As far as the vehicle goes, apparently I have a gas leak, but it is most likely not the gas tank but the hose from the gas lid to the tank. However they no longer make that hose, but the local gas tank repair guy has obtained one from the "after-market" (now, would that be the junk yard?) and can install it Wednesday. I also am taking the truck in to another garage on Tuesday to get the front end and brakes inspected. I think they're fine but don't want surprises on the road. Both garages are in small towns so there's not a lot to do while waiting, and usually they want a few hours at least, so it's a bit of a pain but what can you do.

The medical matter is more of a mystery, I suspect it is nothing but the doctor---a young guy---has taken the ball and run off with it, ordering up all kinds of tests and X-rays and CT scans and whatnot. He's at a walk-in clinic so I can't make an appointment, I have to show up and wait for at least an hour before I get to see him. I'm getting the immersion course in waiting room life (that would be a whole other blog posting!).

So far he has proposed several theories, each one necessitating yet another test, and I am on my second course of antibiotics even though there is very little evidence of any kind of infection. A kind of ruling-things-out-by-treatment: if the antibiotic doesn't fix it then it must not be an infection. And apparently each antibiotic is only good for certain things, so if the first one doesn't work then maybe it's another kind of infection.

I just looked up from my laptop to see a blue jay sitting on my windowsill, a few feet away. Cool!

The X-ray was supposed to be definitive, but it only raised yet more questions and more theories, so now he wants a CT scan. That is sure to be definitive! I went home Friday night quite discouraged, I am "sick and tired" of all this fuss over a relatively minor complaint that as near as I can tell does not indicate anything serious. So I went on the internet yesterday to look up CT scans, and while there are lots of benefits there are also some risks, it involves considerably more radiation than just an X-ray. The descriptions all say that the benefits far outweigh the risks, because the CT scan allows early diagnosis and prompt treatment.

My problem with that is that we're not talking cancer or any other life-threatening issues here, and the doctor's current theories either have no treatment or a "wait and see" treatment. So why run the risk for such little benefit? He says it could take as long as 3 weeks to get the CT scan, or I could get in as early as one week from making the appointment. And since I only saw him on Friday night after the clinic staff had left for the long weekend, that appointment won't get made until Tuesday, so we are talking at least a week and a half. Hence the discouragement.

So, I am thinking that I will get the truck taken care of and then see how I feel about taking a miss on the CT scan. I am pretty sure it will be even harder to get the CT scan in Toronto, and my current plan does not involve staying in Toronto for very long. I just bought myself a round-trip Westjet ticket to Vancouver for Christmas, leaving Toronto the end of November and returning early January. December has got to be one of the worst months weather-wise to be in Vancouver, and of course the same can be said for January to March in Toronto. I'm just a glutton for punishment!

I dislike flying in big airplanes to and from big airports, but Westjet is one of the better ones so I am kind of looking forward to that. Haven't flown with them in a while so they may not be as good as they used to be---we shall see---but I have good memories of them. If ever an airline believed in customer service, it would be Westjet.

One of my favourite memories is of an ill-fated flight during the winter from Toronto to Vancouver, with a stopover in Calgary. Departures were delayed by several hours, in both Toronto and Calgary, due to weather. Connections were missed. When we finally boarded the plane in Calgary it was clear that we would be arriving in Vancouver after closing time and we would be damn lucky to find taxis or buses there. But, when we were all seated and belted in, the pilot came on the intercom singing, "Six days on the road and we're gonna get you home tonight!" They've got the nicest people working on their airplanes!

They have no first class seating, it's all one class. They didn't used to serve meals so there were no food carts in the aisles and as soon as the seatbelt sign went off they encouraged you to get up and wander around. The flight attendants told jokes and played games. One game they used to play involved throwing rolls of toilet paper down the aisles! People brought their own food and shared with their neighbours, I had some really great meals on some of those flights. We used to compare flight jokes, to see who had the funniest flight. Unfortunately the airline now serves food so they do have the food carts in the aisles, and they have TV screens in the seatbacks so the flight attendants don't tell jokes or play games anymore. Too bad, it used to be a lot of fun.

One thing I discovered with Westjet though is that flights with stopovers are actually better than non-stop flights, they give you a chance to get out and stretch your legs and breathe real air. Westjet used to stop at some out-of-the-way places, so you ended up in tiny airports in parts of the country you never expected to see. Small airports are way better than the big ones.

Oh, one more thing. I got email from Lisa, the Festival Committee Chair of Deep Roots Music. She found my blog post on this year's festival and liked it, she was writing to ask permission to link to it from the Deep Roots website. I feel honoured!

And that's my rant for the day.

Deep deep roots

(Sultans of String)

Got home last night from the weekend Deep Roots Music Festival in Wolfville, riding a high that will probably ebb tonight. The house was colder inside than outside, and even in the morning it still was, with heavy condensation on the outside of all the windows. To make up for all that sitting around listening to music this weekend I chopped firewood, hauled water and bailed the well, twice (it's dirty. and stinky. it needed it. no I don't drink from this well, just use it for washing up).

It's such a great festival, I love it. My second time at Deep Roots. Got to connect with old friends and listen to a lotta lotta lotta music, do a little dancing (late night dance party), do a little singing (early morning harmony workshop), and spend a lotta money. Highlights? Let me see... For sure Steve Poltz singing his kids' song The Sewing Machine Man. And I saw him perform that one twice, a real treat! Then all the banjo: traditional frailing by Old Man Leudecke and some interesting African by Jayme Stone accompanying Mansa Sissoko on his kora. Mansa dancing!

The Sultans of String performing their song Luna, in honour of the killer whale of that name, and Pinball Wizard from the rock opera Tommy. Coco Love Alcorn doing almost anything---I didn't think I'd like her, not my type, but she was fabulous---Ari Hest doing Cohen's Halleluja better'n the man himself or even KD Lang. Shivers up the spine time. Rose Cousins telling us in the Saturday morning harmony workshop that she grumbled all the way from Halifax to Wolfville about the godawful time for a singing workshop after the night before, but twenty minutes into the workshop throwing her hands in the air and calling out, I am healed Lord I am healed! Annabelle Chvostek singing I Left My Brains By the Side of the Road (I don't need them anymore, time to let them go). The line, Don't let them take/the joy that you make/on your own, in Old Man Leudecke's song I Quit My Job.

(Coco Love Alcorn, Annabelle Chvostek, Ian Sherwood)

And so much more.

I ate out way too much, mostly hamburgers and fish 'n' chips, and stood in line at the loo (what else does a woman do?) over and over. Well that was because I caught Ruth's little cold virus and was treating it with my Vitamin C and Water Cure, with the unfortunate side effect of standing in line at the loo every hour or so. But you meet so many interesting ladies that way! And I did beat that little virus into the ground. Yay Water Cure.

I took a miss on the Late Night Blues Party, because I was wasted tired and it was way too loud. Don't know why rocking out has to mean busting eardrums, some musicians manage the trick without the damage. I did go to the Late Night World Music Party, but had to leave halfway through for the same reason. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted. But I would have liked to have seen the blues bands, Garrett Mason, Caleb Miles and Monkey Junk there. I did see them the next afternoon, but had to resort to earplugs. Which is too bad. Garrett Mason is the son of Dutchy, but he has his own style and doesn't look like his Dad at all. Tall and skinny. AJ Croce, son of Jim also was there and also wasn't like his Dad at all. Very amazing keyboard player. And all the girls, young and old, swooned over Ari Hest. Coco Love got to do it on stage. She was so cool!

(Garrett Mason, Monkey Junk, Harry Manx)

Looked around the audience and there were all ages, rocking in their seats, from 8 year olds to 80 year olds. That's the great thing about this festival, all kinds of music and all kinds of people. There was jazz, C&W (I'm not a fan but Ryan Cook was great), folk, world music, blues and classic rock, something for everybody. There were workshops for everyone, from craft stuff and kid music for kids to singing, fiddling & picking, and contra dancing for adults. A big puppet parade down Main Street. And late night jamming at Paddy's Pub. Standing ovations at the drop of a hat, but notably for Lisa Hammett-Vaughan and Francois Cote, for their very hard work making this whole thing happen.

(AJ Croce, Ari Hest, Coco Love Alcorn, Annabelle Chvostek, Ian Sherwood)

I think the musicians had a great time too, they clearly were enjoying themselves, jamming with each other and with all the local musicians. Deep Roots is slowly growing and expanding, so they get to invite musicians from further afield now. Harry Manx from the west coast, several Toronto (Sultans, Stone) and Montreal (Chvostek) musicians, and also from New York (Hest, Ekke) and California (Poltz, Croce). And Africa (Sissoko). All the musicians were billeted in Wolfville homes, so they got to meet the locals.

(Ken Shorley, Tony D, Jayme Stone, Mansa Sissoko, Paul Matthew, Nick Fraser, Harry Manx)

I took a lot of photos, but my camera is not great for distant stages in the dark, so the pics are fuzzy. Some musicians I couldn't get decent photos of at all because they were constantly in motion and that just registered as a blur on my camera. Samantha Robichaud danced and fiddled up a storm, so she was one of the blurs. But I noticed that while she could dance and fiddle simultaneously, she couldn't sing and fiddle at the same time. Glad to know she had her limits! And Coco Love wore the most amazing stiletto heels for her sexy Italian racing bicycle song.

(Samantha Robichaud dancing)

I saw a 6-string banjo (Harry Manx), a 6-string violin (Sultans of String), a 6-string bass guitar (bass player for Stone and Sissoko) and a 4-string acoustic guitar (Joel Plaskett). 6 strings are in I guess.

(Steve Poltz, Old Man Leudecke, Rose Cousins, Joel Plaskett)

If you get a chance to see Steve Poltz, do it! Especially Sewing Machine Man! Almost no point buying his CD (sorry Steve), seeing him is half the show, maybe the whole show. Maybe he has DVDs, maybe you could watch him on DVD. Or maybe he's on YouTube, he must be on YouTube! That might work...

PS - Google Poltz sewing machine, you'll find it!

Best-laid plans

Since it was so sunny and warm on Saturday, I thought I'd call Carolyn and see if she wanted to go for a bike ride along the Cornwallis River. But she said she was going to the Paul McCartney concert in Halifax.

So then I talked to Nancy to see if she wanted to go biking along the brow of the mountain, but she was going to see Paul McCartney too, and wanted to know if I would babysit her dog overnight.

Went over to Mike and Ruth's and they were just packing up to go to Lake George for a paddle. Invited myself along. Loaded up my kayak on the truck and drove over to Lake George, about an hour's drive because it is on the South Mountain. Ruth and I had a lovely paddle on the lake, we saw a loon family of two parents and two chicks. The loons started calling loudly when they saw us approaching in the kayaks, but were not in a rush to get away so we got a good long look at them.

Later I went for a swim in the lake. It was quite windy so the water was rough but otherwise warm. My first swim of the year. In the evening after supper I drove home to keep Nancy's dog company, she's OK alone during the day but does not like to be alone at night.

I hear it was a great concert and everyone really enjoyed it. I saw McCartney and Wings in Toronto many years ago, it was a great show but I did not feel the need to spend hundreds of dollars to see him in concert this weekend.

It says something about the music scene here that this concert did not sell out. There were still tickets available at the gate when they opened. There is so much else going on in Nova Scotia music-wise, that even though this is the only concert McCartney will do in Canada on this tour, he was definitely not the only game in town. But I hear he delivered a great performance, as per usual.

More music, and stories

I went to yet another musical event, a fundraiser for the Deep Roots Festival that happens in the fall. It was upstairs at the Paddy's Pub in Kentville (there's two Paddys, one in Wolfville and one in Kentville). Carolyn would be performing at 4pm as part of Women of Wolfville, and Mike at 5pm with Rise Up Shannon. We thought we would go for those two performances---the whole fundraiser started at 2pm and went to closing time---and supper. So Rise Up Shannon and a small part of Women of Wolfville and hangers-on (me, Ruth, Midge,...) crowded around a table in the corner for supper. I had the fish cakes, which were really good, and a Paddy's Gaspereau Pilsener. Their pilsener is not exactly what they are famous for, but I like it a lot.

While we ate Caleb Miles and a pick-up band played. I had heard Caleb at the Port Bistro a couple of weeks ago, he played classic and country rock on an acoustic guitar there and was quite good, but tonight he played and sang blues on an electric guitar and he was fabulous.

At one point he mentioned that he lived on the South Mountain, which he called "Bug Mountain". Everyone laughed at that. Bug Mountain is exactly right. We over on the North Mountain avoid the South Mountain as best we can for that reason alone. They've got many great little lakes and rivers, something that unfortunately the North Mountain lacks, but those lakes and rivers come at a huge price, your sanity.

Anyway, Caleb and friends only played for an hour, and we were pretty much finished our dinner by that time and left soon after. Apparently he plays a lot around here so I hope to hear more of him.

One of the Women of Wolfville is a transplanted Newfie, she got up and told a story about curing warts. She said it was a true story, with a little artistic licence. She told the story in Newfie and there were parts of it that you could hardly understand but it was hilarious. At the end she offered to cure anyone there of warts for free if they approached her privately after the show. She was such an excellent storyteller, I loved it.

John's legacy

John Kavanagh died a few days before I arrived in Nova Scotia. I did not know him well, he arrived here after I left in the '80s, but I was aware of his presence here. He worked part time in the bookstore and was very active in the local music scene. He died as a result of an unfortunate accident, snorkelling with his wife. They were avid snorkellers, which you'd have to be if you regularly snorkel in the North Atlantic.

John was a musician's musician, a teacher, a sidesman, a master of many instruments, a composer, the inspirer of many musical talents. As one star musician said, He made me love music even more. His passion was the ukelele, he also played guitar, viola, cello, bass, just about anything with strings. His repertoire included all forms of music from classical to jazz, folk, roots and pop.

On Saturday a memorial concert for John was held at Ross Creek Centre for the Arts. An absolutely lovely setting for such an event, and after three days of drizzle and heavy rain, blue skies reappeared spectacularly as a stunning backdrop. You couldn't ask for a more perfect day.

I went to the memorial with Ruth, our intention was to stay only a couple of hours but we stayed for the entire event, only leaving at sunset. The music was uniformly great, it is hard to pick out highlights.

There was a standing ovation for a pair who made a special appearance, they were en route from performances in Toronto to Oregon but made a side trip here especially for John. They played ukelele and cello, and I have gained a whole new respect for the ukelele listening to them. Of course, John was a master of both instruments.


Another ukelele player came up from Halifax, resplendent in white shirt and red bow tie, the perfect outfit for playing uke!













John's wife Mary and his son Alex played with many of the musicians, and there was a performance by two of John's nephews.






























Heather Kelday and friends delivered a great performance of a song about tubing on the Gaspereau that had the whole audience singing along; tubing the Gaspereau is a fundamental initiation rite of living in the Valley.




The finale had just about every musician present up on stage singing and playing a great song about wide open heart.









There was potluck dinner during a brief break. Mike showed Ruth and I his latest project at the Centre, the conversion of an old boat into a stage for an upcoming play.

I'm afraid I hit a blood sugar low just before dinner time, one person attempted to engage me in conversation while I was in the dinner line-up and I rather curtly interrupted him to get some food onto my plate. I feel bad about that, but at the time I felt like I had no choice, I really really had to eat!

I spoke briefly to one of John's best friends Jack in the dinner line-up. By this time I had had a couple of mouthfuls of food so was a little less rude. Jack greeted me and said how nice it was to see me again, then said that it was a good thing that he knew me from back in the '80s because if he had met me in the last five years he would never be able to remember my name. But since I was an old friend, he remembered me! And my name! We commiserated on the failings of memory.

I was touched by the story John's wife Mary told about Jack, how in the hospital when John was in the final coma, Jack came to play mandolin at his bedside for over an hour.

I haven't done this, but I am told that if you Google "Kavanagh ukelele" you can find out much more about John.

Harbour supper and concert

Saturday is the Chili And Fish Chowder Community Supper and Concert in the Harbour. I made a mixed greens salad for the supper, Ruth made chili, Nancy made a rhubarb meringue cake, and various other people made chilis, fish chowder, salad, pie, and apple crumble. There was also apple cider and coffee and tea to drink. Personally, I stuffed myself. I had to try everything!


The community hall is small and packed, I'm sure there were at least 50 people in a couple of shifts having dinner there. As folks finished there meals they moved out onto the deck to enjoy the warm spring evening.


Mike was responsible for organizing the music for the concert, which commenced after dinner in the church across the road.


The church is quite lovely inside, very simple but great acoustics. A few of the pews had cushions, there was a bit of a rush to get a seat with a cushion.

I think there were eight musicians altogether, they were roughly organized into several bands, with lots of overlap in membership. Peter consented to MC the evening (and did a fine job of it!)...


The music was a mix of Celtic, Old Time, Jazz and Rock, including Leonard Cohen and the Eurythmics.

Paddy's Pub Session Band is made up of two Mikes, Aaron, Ariana, and Denise...


Rise Up Shannon is Mike, Aaron and Denise...


Trip A Lady (triple-A, D) is Aaron, Ariana, Andy and Denise...


Mike Milne played by himself and with friends (Andy and Aaron)...



Andy is quite the clown...


T@b is Ariana and Andy...


I remember Ariana as a little girl in the same Grade Two class as my son Sam...


And finally there was Dennis and Friends, Jennifer and Mike...


Dennis and Jennifer fiddling together is an amazing sight! Dennis is good friends with Jennifer's parents, he has known Jennifer since she was born and has had not a little to do with her musical education. They play together very well!


Earlier in the evening I got to listen briefly to them practicing at Mike and Ruth's place...


It was a wonderful concert, everyone had a great time I am sure. I got to meet a few people I hadn't seen in a while. At the end, as we were chatting on the lawn out front before leaving to our separate homes, we could see the full moon rising in the east, an impressive sight. Only minutes before the sun had set over the Bay of Fundy. This is such a beautiful place.