The Continuing Saga...

Imagine my surprise, if you will, when I turned on the tv last night while taking a break from catching up on my french course, and there on the screen was Rick Mercer, accompanied by Shawn Graham, premier of New Brunswick, learning to make chicken bones at the Ganong factory! I nearly died from laughing. If I wasn't already a believer in the phenomenon of synchronicity, I definitely would be now. You can check it out for yourself here.

Becoming a Floater...

It's official - today I (sort of) started a new position in the company that I work for as the new Office Services Floater. It's not a promotion, but it is a change that I hope will provide me with more to do each day. I say that I 'sort of' started because I am currently training the person who will be working at reception in my place. So I will gradually be doing less at reception and more in the servery, the mailroom and the fileroom, floating between the different areas as needed.

Another ideal day...

I love Saturdays! It's the only day of the week where the only thing I have to do is what I want to do - for the most part :)

Today that meant making some more soap, this time a batch each of lemon chamomile (on the right) and clove (on the left).

Then I made some Christmas cookies, a very yummy lemon sugar cookie with lemon glaze. Here's the recipe:

1/2 cup butter, softened

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

2/3 cup sweetened condensed milk

2 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp lemon zest

1 tsp vanilla

2-1/4 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

Glaze: 3/4 cups icing sugar, 1-1/2 tsp lemon juice, 2 tsp water

Mix butter and sugar together well. Beat in egg. Add milk, lemon juice, lemon zest and vanilla. Stir in flour, baking powder and salt. Roll out on a lightly floured surface and cut into Christmasy shapes. Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes, or until edges are slightly browned. Let cool slightly and then glaze.

I even planted my amarylis! I'll try to remember to post updates on its progress. Now if I could just get work done on my French course, I'd be all set!

It's beginning to look a lot like...

...Christmas!!

I love the fact that even though I haven't lived at home for years and years, my mom still sends me care packages! I just received one in the mail today filled with all kinds of Christmas goodies, including, but not limited to...

...these adorable Christmas tree ornaments...

...these Christmas decorations (isn't the reindeer cute?)...

...chicken bones, a chocolate-filled cinnamony East Coast Christmas tradition...

...a Christmas amaryllis...

...and finally this beautiful china cup! Mum is a tea drinker like me (or I'm a tea drinker like her?), so she knows how much I love china cups.

Thanks, Mum!

Winter wonderland...

Today was the first snowy day of the season, and everything is beginning to feel (and look) Christmasy! Yay!

A night of Tagore

What a wonderful evening! Last night we attended a concert put on by the Talisker Players called the Harp of Fire. It was amazing! The concert was a set of songs inspired by the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore, a late nineteenth, early twentieth century Indian poet and philosopher, pictured below. It was held in a church on Bloor Street, shown on the right. The music was phenomenal - I really can't say enough about it.

One song was particularly moving, called 'Baajay koruno shurey...' or 'The plaintive tune'. The music was performed by a string quartet and a flute, with the lyrics sung by mezzo soprano Krisztina Szabo. It's sung in another language (I don't know which one), so I had no idea what the words were, but as I was listening I was filled with this sense of longing and grief. The music and the singing worked together so well that the entire audience was spellbound, even after the song was finished. Then I read the translation of the Tagore poem provided in the program and everything came together:

The plaintive tune, heard from afar,

Is the music of the path kissed by your feet,

This, my wandering mind, is unquiet,

I know not why.

As the fragrance of jasmine flowers

Spreads restlessly in the fretful air,

So my mind, in slow sorrow

Grieves in the extreme dark of our separation.

No respect...

It's funny - I'm having a hard time creating this post, not because I don't have anything to say but because I have too much! It's been a busy, eventful weekend, though I don't have any pictures to show for it...

I'm so glad that I've gotten involved in the Friday night gym program. It has given me a little bit of insight into what life it like for these kids. This past Friday we had to cancel because of an incident that took place at the school basketball tournament prior to our program. I don't know the particulars, but it caused the tournament to run a little late. As we were standing there waiting to find out when the game would end, three kids ran in to ask the principal if he could give them a ride to the nearest subway station. They had had something to do with the incident at the tournament, and were afraid of what would happen to them if they had to wait at the bus stop. It turns out that they were right to be afraid. The principal wouldn't give them a ride, and as our kids started arriving they reported that there was a very one-sided fight going on down the street near the bus stop. Since our program is a drop-in, open to anyone, it was decided it would be best to cancel so that it couldn't carry over and affect us. What really got to me was the way the kids just accepted the beating the others were getting as a normal part of life. You step over the line without the ability to back it up and you get 'rubbed'. That's just how it is. No wonder it's so difficult to reach these kids with a message that promotes peace and forgiveness as the best way to handle things - it's a totally foreign concept in their 'respect' dominated world.