Finster Finds

The other day I had my first "green guilt". I was explaining the wonderfulness of the key less entry on one of our vehicles to another Mom at soccer (she had just received a call from her husband who had locked the keys in their van and she was going to have to rescue him as soon as soccer was done). She asked what kind of vehicle it was and I found I was embarrassed (?) to tell her it was a Ford Expedition. I have never felt that way before. We have perfectly legitimate reasons for owning it, primarily due to Mark's height, but I had this moment of "ohmigod, what if she's against SUVs?" and I was reluctant to admit it. Very strange. Hmmm.... I also felt guilty at the Walterdale Board meeting tonight because I didn't make the clean up this week. I had to keep reminding myself that it wasn't my fault that I couldn't make it and that one more thing would have killed me this week, but I still felt the guilt. I actively refrained from apologizi...

Thursday night I was fortunate enough to be able to go out with my two best pals. W was up from Calgary and AM came in from Stony and I didn't need to be at rehearsal so we met for a marathon dinner at the Blue Plate Diner (6:00 - 10:00 p.m.). The waiter left before us (ha ha). I have been friends with these 2 for a long time. We met through..... Keyano, of course, but mutual interests, babies, and the freedom to be who we really are with each has strengthened the friendship. I love this friendship, because it is definitely a 3 friend thing, with no one being left out, and yet and I still friends with each of them individually. As Martha would say, "It's a good thing." (yes, girls, those "quotes" are for you). I am also glad because we are all working on keeping the connection despite the fact that all three of us have moved to new places in the last 2 years. Distance and time are hard to overcome, but I thank Facebook and email and the phone and the...

Went to see Two Gentlemen of Verona tonight. I enjoyed it, although I was very forgiving due to the fact that there were challenges with the whole thing. The sound was an issue. It was better in Act 2, but never perfect. Basically the balance was totally wrong whenever it was a female solo or an ensemble number. The band was TOO LOUD! Other than that the only other major issue I had was that you could tell the "ensemble" was not usually in musicals. They worked hard, but the sopranos were weak (too much alto) and there was just a gap between their skill in the musical form compared to the leads. The songs were fun and we (my friends Vero, Richie and I) debated the balance between Shakespeare and Musical. We felt there should have been more "Musical" less "Shakespeare" to really make it work. Some outstanding work by Chris Bullough, Kevin Corey, Natasha N., and Sheldon Elter. The other female lead had the skills, but not the subtlety to be as go...

Finding it very hard to count points this week and last. Was up this past weigh in and the heat has produced this incredible emotional inertia. I know I need to write it down, but I am tired of it. I need some renewal. I need some reward. It is so exhausting to do the work some days.

I am in a Fringe Show. It is called El Muchacho and it will be playing in the Westbury theatre in the Arts Barns (that's the BIG one - yay!). We have been rehearsing since the beginning of June and it is rolling along. It is fun to be in a show and this is agood time of year for me. I am enjoying the challenge of the music and have been tickled to receive compliments from the cast on what I have done. I do recognize I have a ways to go in the interpretation of the music, but I am on my way. I am excited though, to be in a Fringe show for a number of reasons: 1. I have never done one before. I have volunteered and participated as an audience member at the Fringe and I have always liked the atmosphere there. I have also done Interplay in Fort McMurray and although it is not the long haul of the Fringe, you could easily do 5 shows in 3 days (we will be doing 6 shows in 10 days). In any case, this is something new. I look forward to my "performer" name badge and a...

Been going to the playground with the kids for the last little while. Oliver has been in City Playground Camps (Soccer, Super Tots and Short Sports) so Gibson and I have mostly hung out at the nearby playgrounds or investigated air-conditioned malls when necessary. One of the boys from Oliver's Kindergarten class is in his soccer camp so they have been having a great time while I visited with the other mom. Tonight we tired a movie but interruptions including a call for help from my brother regarding baby-sitting, an "accident" a la Gibson and Oliver being "scared" of the movie have precipitated an early retreat. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted?

Today I had a great weigh in. I hit two milestones simultaneously. I got my 25 lb token and my 10% key chain. I lost 5.2 lbs this week - thanks tonsillitis! Now if only we had a good facilitator! I am sick of this leader who obviously has never been "fat" in her life (her lifetime loss was 12 lbs so maybe she wore a size 6 once). She says things that suggest that "fat" people are somehow not as good as "slim" people. I always feel like she is one of those people who judges people based on how they look. She was going on about how in some families everyone is fat and how people blamed genetics but that studies have shown that genetics have nothing to do with it and anyone could be slim if they just worked at it - suggesting that fat people don't do as much work in their life as slim people. It's a lot harder to lose it than it is to gain it and although I do believe that everyone can lose weight if they do certain things, it is also way harde...

You gotta hate germs. I do. I know they are a fact of life and all that, but when they crawl into your system for a weekend they can really mess you up. I started feeling a little out of it on Friday night. I thought it might have just been a bit of vocal strain from working on my stuff for El Muchacho, but when I woke up on Saturday I knew I was SICK. Sore throat, headache, achy body, and a general feeling of being "out of it". The worst is not having the opportunity to really get better. WHY? Because it was the long weekend and we were heading off Saturday afternoon to a family reunion for Mark's side of the family. He offered to let me stay home and he would take the boys alone, but I said I would dope myself up and cope. I didn't think it fair to have him set off alone. Anyhow, I endured a regimen of Tylenol and Ibuprofen and I napped when i could and it was all survivable. I felt guilty because I couldn't really mingle much because I wasn't completely pr...