Thanksgiving at the Runte´s'

Edmonton and Cancer Run

So for the last four weekends I've gone up to Edmonton to sort through Doug's stuff and get his condo(s) ready for sale. Counting the six hour trip each direction, I manage to put in three 18 hour days each time, so it is pretty exhausting.

It is also kind of depressing disposing of all his stuff, much of it treasured family memories. But Doug had a lot of stuff, and neither my family nor my remaining brother have need or space for all this material, so in the end, most of it has to go. In keeping with what I am sure would be Doug's wishes, I tried to ensure as much as possible went to good homes. So the Provincial Museum took three boxes of stuff (they told me it is unusual for them to take even a single item from an estate, because they have only limited storage and so have to be pretty picky -- but Douglas had not only saved a lot of the everyday things most people through out, but had kept detailed written records of each purchase, giving them the providence for various suits and household items, which is very rare. "We live for finds like these," the Director told me.); the University of Alberta took 78 boxes of books for the library; the Edmonton Public School Board took 23 boxes of my brother's papers for their archives; the ATA took two boxes for their archives; two boxes for the UofA archives; four boxes for the City of Edmonton Archives; and I have two more for the Edmonton Public School Board of stuff I found after my initial shipment.

After spending about four months sorting, packing and donating everything I could to these various archives, and throwing out stuff no one wanted (e.g., his extensive video collection -- but just stuff off TV, not prerecoreded), these last few weekends have been about taking truckloads to Value Village (an okay place to recycle unwanted furniture, clothes, small appliances, etc.) and getting the guys from 1-800-gotjunk to haul stuff away the big stuff. But it is killing me to watch the couch and chair from my childhood being dragged away to the dump, even though these are not in sufficiently good shape for even Value Village to want.

One of the archivists who came to pick up stuff (my brother's Gestetner duplicating machine among other things) spent about an hour going through helping me identify what was antique and what was just junk...and recommended an antiques dealer I could help me take care of the good stuff. But when I phoned the antiques dealer, turns out that he had essentially retired and was now only interested in those sorts of pieces that you see on the Antiques Road Show. He spent a long time on the phone with me explaining that all the antiques dealers in Edmonton were gone out of business and that there was no one left in Calgary either. The problem is that the value of furniture has fallen so dramatically over the past decade that dining room sets that used to go for $3600 to $4500 were now lucky to sell for $400. And because the value had dropped so preciptiously, the dealers have had to raise their commissions to compensate to make it worth their while to sell pieces -- with the result that it often cost more to truck a piece to auction than the owners recovered at auction. So the market has essentially collapsed.

The problem, of course, is that my brother's generation are all passing or moving into nursing homes, leaving their antique furniture as a glut on the market. For example, the caretaker in my brother's building told me that she has fabulous furniture, because people in the building keep moving into nursing care, and their relatives have to clear out their condos in a weekend or two, and so keep offering her diniing room sets or living room furniture, and she and all her married children now have all they can take. So people literally cannot give this stuff away. (She did take my brother's car -- a 1982 Toyota Tercel -- off my hands for one of her sons, though.)

I'm dreading what to do about emptying my Mom's place (which is up next, since she blind and bedridden so never leaving the nursing home again) because she had the majority of the "good stuff". I'll try phoning around to the relatives to see if anyone wants any thing, but the truth is, most people don't have the room for other people's antiques, and even if they did, shipping costs on the larger items may simply prove prohibitive.... A generation or two from now, these items will again no doubt be in high demand, but who has space to store them in the meantime. It is a dilemma.

Anyway, I was working away diligently this Sunday packing up Doug's place when I kept heard noises that sounded a bit like a group of people talking over the sound of the podcasts I was listening to on my ipod. But I'd check the spyhole and there would be no one out in the hallway, so I'd shrug, and get on with my cleaning. But the noises get getting louder, so eventually I figured out they were coming from outside. And this is what I saw:

Doug's condo is just near that end of Jasper Ave where the Cancer Run turns around and comes back on the other side of the road, so what I was hearing was the first runners to complete the first leg of the circuit turning round and greeting people coming the other way.... By the time I got my camera, there was quite an impressive crowd going by!

I paused in my work for about ten minutes to watch and I could not help but be struck by how powerful a sense of community and solidarity presented by such a massive gathering of like-minded people. Of course, the next thing that occured to me is how sad that the only thing Edmontonians would turn out for in such massive numbers is the Cancer Run, rather than, say, political protest. Yeah, everybody, let's protest against Cancer! That's a tough one to rally the troops for! But really, if this many people turned up on the legislative grounds over anything, the next day, the law would be changed....




Monday, the 1-800-Gotjunk guys came and hauled away the last of the stuff from Doug's two condos, and I set off for home. The only two redeeming elements of the weekend was that the six hour trip home I got to listen to my own CDs for a change (no Barney for Kasia, no Canadian Idol winners for Tigana) and to admire the scenary. The Edmonton - Lethbridge corridor is painfully boring to drive -- once you've seen one set of cows, you've pretty much seen 'en all -- but the last two weekends have been glorious fall colors, and surprisingly attractive. The two photos below (snapped with my cellphone out the car window as I was driving, so no chance to even aim, let alone compose decent pictures) give a poor indication of how beautiful and peaceful the drive really is this time of year. Next time I go up, I know it will all be bare grey trees and flat rolling countryside, but at least this time I got to decompress a bit on the way home from these physically and emotionally exhausting weekends before having to throw myself back into teaching.

Podcasts

I did a Harris online survey awhile back that asked about my ipod usage, and it was an excellent example of bad survey design, because after I answered that I had 29 days worth of material on my ipod, the survey asked me to identify what % of that was devoted to which genre of music, and the system crashed when I entered "0" for each category. Because at the moment, I have no music whatsoever on my ipod; it's all podcasting. Stupidly, the survey assumed ipod usage = music, and there was no "podcast" or "talk-radio" or even "other" option available. Good example of bad design: you have to know all the possible options before sending out a survey.

One reason I have 29 days worth of material is that I seldom get a chance to listen: I'm either working my day job or looking after the kids; and even car time tends to be devoted to the kid's radio choices, rather than my own. So the one nice thing about spending all these weekends cleaning Doug's condos was the opportunity to listen to some of my podcast backlog on my ipod as I worked. This last weekend I was able to catch up with the entire run of:

Quirks and Quarks (CBC) best science show around (and thanks to podcasting, I can listen to most of the world's English language science shows, so I know whereof I speak

The Moth True stories told in front of an audience without a script -- moving and/or funny stuff

Big Ideas (TVO) Like CBC's ideas, but better, because it's just the one speaker rather than soundbites gathered by a producer/interviewer on some topic. Lecturers are often huge names in their fields, and often household names. Always engaging, often profoundly informative.

Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me! (NPR) a hilarious news quiz show with the likes of Paula Poundstone...show interviews celebrities about topics they can't possibly know about (segment is called "Not my Job", while panelists try to identify which of three news stories is the true one, or complete limricks based on news items or etc. Very often very very funny.

The Vinyl Cafe (CBC) Stuart McLean Enough said.

Comedy Factory (CBC) Recylced comedy bits from all the CBC newshows etc that use comedy bits (e.g., The Current, DNTO, etc.) Tends to be short show (15 minutes) and ranges from mildly amuzing to hilarious.

I'm also a big fan of:
TedTalks World's top thinkers on infinite range of topics -- e.g., fascinating talk on setting up stock exchange commodities market in Ethiopia to what's wrong with schools to menes to whatever

Spark (CBC) Interesting show on cyberculture, if you're into that
John Cleese Podcast (irregular on again off again show, but hey, it's John Cleese talking about stuff. Some brilliant stuff, some longwinded rambling.

Onion News Network (Video) Best (& most vicious) satire on the web.

Anyone out there have any other suggestions for "must listen"s.

Private Library

This cool article from Wired Magazine brought to my attention by Randy Reichardt:

http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/16-10/ff_walker?currentPage=all

My number 1 question on seeing this library is, "Do they have a writers-in- residence program?

plot synopsis

Following up on last week’s Query Project comes this week’s Plot Synopsis Project. Joshua Palmetier has again enlisted several published writers to post online the synopses they used to sell books. (And it is also a great way to see if any of these writers is doing something you might be interested in -- although not yet household names, several of these are very very good novelists indeed -- Jay Lake is one of my all time favorites, for example. Careful though,since the synopsis will contain spoilers, since they obviously must include the endings -- even if the actual books have changed since first proposed.)

The writers taking part:

Alma Alexander (Will post on the 20th instead.)
Sam Butler
Diana Pharaoh Francis
Daryl Gregory
Simon Haynes
Jay Lake’s comments and his synopses
Kelly McCullough
Jeri Smith-Ready
Jennifer Stevenson
Edward Willett

(Again, thanks to Edward Willet for bringing this exercise to my attention!)

Developmental Benchmark of the Day

How I spent my summer vacation (2008)

I intend to blog about our time in Edmonton (nearly six weeks), our road trip to Vancouver and back, and most especially our cruise to Alaska. However, having been absent from Lethbridge so long, I have had to throw myself back into my work and household responsibilities and suspect it is unlikely I will be able to blog the trip(s) in a timely fashion. (I couldn't blog as we went because I was busy living it, but also because we don't have Internet access where we were staying in Edmonton because our usual on-the-road option of using Telus dial-up service did not seem to be working – their Help Desk told us the recent switch to 10 digit local numbers had crashed the software, though that seems a bit hard to credit. Access during the Alaskan cruise was theoretically possible, but prohibitively expensive.)

Consequently, rather than have the trip entries sprawl across the next few months, I thought it best to back date them to August where they would all be in correct chronological placement, even through written after the fact. I recognize that this somewhat goes against blogging etiquette/tradition, but seems appropriate in this one instance. Therefore, this is just kind of a place holder to direct you to check out "August" from time to time, to see if there have been additional trip posts.

The Query Project

Another clever idea by Joshua Palmatier, the Query Project had a baker dozen authors post query letters they used to sell books or solicit an agent . I heard about this first by reading Canadian SF author and radio columnist Edward Willett's blog. For anyone interested in writing, this glimpse behind the scenes is extremely enlightening. There are a few "how to" books around that talk about guiding principles, but it's a bit different seeing the real thing and seeing a dozen different takes on what's important etc. My hat off to all the participants.

http://www.paulcrilley.com - Paul Crilley
http://chrisdolley.livejournal.com -ChrisDolley
http://difrancis.livejournal.com -Diana Pharaoh Francis
http://frostokovich.livejournal.com -Gregory Frost
http://halspacejock.blogspot.com -Simon Haynes
http://www.jackiekessler.com/blog Jackie Kessler
http://glendalarke.blogspot.com -Glenda Larke
http://johnlevitt.livejournal.com -John Levitt
http://jpsorrow.livejournal.com -Joshua Palmatier
http://janni.livejournal.com -Janni Lee Simner
http://smokingpigeon.livejournal.com -Jennifer Stevenson
http://edwardwillett.blogspot.com -Edward Willett
http://www.autumnrain2110.com -David J. Williams

(Of course, payment for exposing the private side of their business this way is to bring people to their blogs who might not otherwise have encountered them. I know that I found a few names below I hadn't known about before, but seeing their book covers and/or other blog entries certainly peaked my interest in pursuing looking up their books.)

Theo Tams, Tigana, and Canadian Idol

My 10 year old daughter follows Canadian Idol closely, hoping to go for it herself when she is old enough; so when UofL student Theo Tam made the final two, Mary sent me to line up for tickets for the hometown viewing of the final show. The university lent its new gym for the purpose, and we showed up early enough to be among the first through the door. Tigana ran ahead to get good seats for Mary, Kasia and I even though it was 90 minutes before the show and the gym was not yet crowded. I was pleased with Tigana’s choice of the front seats in the second section, a good spot to see and be seen, and about the best we could have gotten without being the very first in line. But after about 20 minutes the producer came over to us and asked if we would move to the section signed as reserved for Tam friends and family. We were pleasantly, though not very, surprised: yet again, the ‘cuteness factor’ had worked in our favor, as the producers selected Kasia and Tigana to be front and center for the broadcast. Kasia, is well, Kasia, and Tigana had made the sign seen here. So, who could resist?

In the end, Tigana could be seen briefly waving her sign; and both local papers took shots of both kids:


This CTV video (click on photo above) shows clear shots of Tigana and Kasia with their signs at about 36 seconds in (Mary and I are also visible on the far right). Tigana also appeared near the end of the actual Idol show during one of the cuts to Lethbridge.

Tigana in Calgary Herald (and click on "next" for another shot of Tigana)
Front page of the Lethbridge Herald Kasia can be glimpsed in the upper right of photo.



For myself, I was fascinated to watch how the cameramen, stage manager, and local talent handled the production -- they seemed relaxed (in spite of the show being live), professional, and pleasant -- and particularly how they organized the crowd to appear larger than it was, to scream on cue, and so on. Quite interesting.

The Alaskan Cruise

We boarded the ship at Vancouver's Cruise Terminal, an attractive building and an efficient, polite operation. The longshoreman were exceptionally helpful and waved away tips -- just part of the job, sir! I was impressed.

Mary had booked us a great cabin, smack in the middle of the bow, directly under the observation deck and one deck above the bridge. We had,therefore, the same view as the Captain and the ship's webcam. Pretty cool!


Above: Looking down from the observation deck,
you can just see Mary and the girls out on our balcony.
Below: Mary and Kasia on our balcony, as seen from the dock
(you have to squint to see them, but they're there!)



We were talking the Norwegian Sun on this cruise, partly because of availability, pricing, and so on, but the NCL is often our first choice because of their excellent children's program. Unlike some lines that don't even have dedicated space for their kids club (they just use whatever conference space happens to be free that morning), the NCL have great kid spaces, and often really great supervisors.






A highlight for the kids each night is returning to the room to find the steward has left a towel animal. Here's the towel dog from our first night, leading the pack of my kids' stuffies.

Vancouver Aquarium

I took Kasia to the Vancouver Aquarium to see the new baby beluga whale. Well, actually I was hoping to show her the whole aquarium, as we had with Tigana at this age, but somebody must have prepped her that the big thing at the aquarium was the new baby whale, so that's what she wanted to see, and she dragged me through the other exhibits at breakneck speed to get to the baby beluga. We had to stand in line for about 25 minutes, which wasn't too bad from my point of view though pretty much at Kasia's limit. When we finally got in, we received an orientation that I found interesting, and at which Kasia put up her hand and asked "What's the baby's name?" (They hadn't named her yet.) The orientation warned us that the baby was spending a lot of her time in an adjacent pool because the mother and grandmother whales were trying to teach the baby that the neighbouring pool was safe, even though there was only one entrance. So we went through to the viewing room, and sure enough, the whales were barely visible swimming in and out of the neighbouring pool. But with 30 seconds on our turn to go, they finally swam directly in front of our window, and to my surprise, this was sufficient to satisfy Kasia. Who immediately bought mommy and baby beluga whale stuffies, which the aquarium staff had conveniently set up in a large display near the whale exhibit exit. Kasia then headed straight out the door -- apparently, having seen the whales, we were done!

I did manage to see and snap a couple of shots of a dolphin rehearsal on our way out.

And an okay picture of a jellyfish.

Vancouver

We spent a couple of days in Vancouver to visit family, and enjoy the sights. We drove out to Horseshoe Bay to pick up nephew from Ferry, and the kids found a whale in the playground/park next to the dock.

The whale spouts when you trigger a button.

And we spent a pleasant afternoon in Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver; I'm pleased with this photo of Lillies I took with my little digital camera:

Kasia putting one foot on the grass...next to the don't walk on the grass sign


And we spent some time in Steveston.


I bought some Chinese DVDs in Night Market, along with tons of food from various stalls. Entertaining way to spend an evening, but we left before the crowds got too scary.

Road Trip to Vancouver

Desperately needing a break after a long and stressful period dealing with estate matters, we packed up the (new to us) van and drove out to Vancouver, via overnight stops in Jasper and the Sun Peaks Resort near Valemont. Jasper was pleasant, the dining at Sun Peaks even better, though Mary's on-going tooth ache somewhat detracted from the experience for her. We took the driving in easy stages, stopping for a couple of hours at the lake in Hope (photos above and below) and a couple of other scenic views to make the trip seem more like part of our holidays rather than just a way of getting to Vancouver.


This display at the tourist info center in Valemount (below) suggests to me that beavers can be terribly indecisive....

Shakespeare and Edmonton School of Ballet

Having to spend much of the summer in Edmonton to take care of my mother and to attend to my brother’s estate, we tried to make the best of it by registering the girls in appropriate summer camps.

The first was Tigana's participation in the Free Will Players "Shakespeare in the Park" week-long, half-day camp. It was well done and we appreciated the attempt to introduce Shakespeare to youngsters. The theme of this year's camp was "Shakespeare's Clowns", with the children doing bits from "As You Like It" (probably a good choice, since the other play they were doing was Richard III.) We all enjoyed attending the matinee performance of As You Like It, which was very well done; I was disappointed by the low turn out for this excellent production, but am told matinees are often sparsely attended but that night time audiences were quite satisfactory.

The second was the Edmonton School of Ballet's intensive summer camps. These ran for two weeks, culminating in a performance at the Meyer Horowitz Theater. This camp was entirely remarkable, a fabulous experience for both Tigana and Kasia.

I was first struck by the amazing facilities of the Edmonton School of Ballet. Here was an entire wing of a public school given over to studio after studio specially built for dance! You know, the kind of thing you usually only see in movies with the mirrored walls and floor mounted bars the dancers hold onto and the glass wall so you can watch the class from outside. It's like something I might expect to find in cities like New York or Toronto. I had no idea that such a facility existed in Edmonton.

Second, I was struck by the very high quality of instructors. Sitting around in the parent's area awaiting Tigana or Kasia to complete their lessons, I had many hours to observe the other classes in operation -- especially those in the classroom with the glass wall. As an Education prof, I have some idea of good and bad teaching when I see it, and I was astounded by the procession of remarkable teachers I was able to observe. They all had completely different styles, but they all appeared to be incredibly passionate about dance, about helping each student reach their fullest potential, and about providing a very positive learning enviornment, while holding students to a very high standard. I was extremely impressed, and wished I could have bottled it to show my student teachers.

Third, I was astounded by the very rapid pace at which students improved. I literally watched one instructor take a class of girls in the intermediate/advanced class from crashing into each other the first day to a fully professional performance at the conclusion of the two weeks. It was like watching rehearsal for a CBC production rather than watching a ballet class. I'm unclear whether the remarkable pace of development is a result of superior recruits, superior instruction, or simply the structure of the intensive two week experience that allowed for these students to achieve such heights in such a brief period, but it was very exciting to watch!

Fourth, and this has to be said, there was absolutely no comparison between the final performances at the Meyer Horowitz theater, and the parallel performance by the dance school to which we had sent Tigana in Lethbridge a couple of months earlier. We had been satisfied with Tigana's class in Lethbridge, but the performance by other classes --especially the ballet classes -- had struck us as the wrong sort of advertising -- they were so weak, we were left wondering if Tigana shouldn't take swimming next year instead. But the performance by the Edmonton School of Ballet was fantastic -- many of the classes put on productions I would not have hesitated to air on CBC.

Three things struck me about this performance:

First, the choice of music and the choreography were inspired. Instead of the usual "Rite of Spring" sort of rubbish, where one doesn't really know what the dancers are supposed to represent, these were magnificent numbers with humor or social commentary or beauty and grace. Instead of drumming my figures impatiently waiting for my kids' turn on stage, I was spellbound the entire show. This was inventive and expressive and what dance is all about!

Second, unlike our frequent experience in Southern Alberta, there was no attempt to sexualize the costumes. (THE COSTUMES! Did I mention the costumes! Holly mackerel The production values were better than the CBC -- well, these days anyway -- and they managed to put it all together in just two weeks! Astounding!) I am so tired of seeing 8 year olds dressed up in miniskirts and top hats like some mini Vagus show girls and paraded around as apprentice sex objects. Give me a break! But there was none of that here. The dancers were costumed, choreographed and directed in what I viewed as age appropriate but empowering ways -- I was struck particularly by a couple of numbers where there was a range of ages, how the 'senior' young women were able to produce smoldering performances right next to younger "peers" identically costumed, dancing the same steps, but somehow staying chastely unaware of any suggestive overtones. One could not help but feel that the dancers were expressing exactly as much of themselves as they were comfortable with, and thereby taking control over their bodies and lives in a way that was very different then when six year olds are turned into chorus girls.

Third, the standards achieved in choreography, both at the level of individual expression and group synchronization, were astounding. Indeed, one of the very impressive features of the choreography was how the same class was able to demonstrate both advanced and intermediate levels -- the advanced dancers taking a few extra steps to reach that little bit higher without ever upstaging the intermediate students. Indeed the mixture of levels in the same class allowed for much greater flexibility in the overall choreography as everyone was pushed to their limits and yet given equally meaningful parts to perform. At no time did I feel that any one dancer was upstaging the others, or that anyone was being held back.

And there were some stunning performances. As Mary put it, we'll see one of the male dancers on "So you think you can dance" in two years when he is old enough to qualify because that young man has definitely got a career in dancing! And there were similarly two or three of the women who are as good as any I've ever seen.

The best performance I've seen since last December's performance of Harry Potter by the Alberta Dance Theater.


Tigana and Kasia following their performances at Edmonton School of Ballet.

Anyway, we registered Kasia in beginning ballet class for 3 and 4 year olds and Tigana in both Ballet and Jazz. Ballet does not come naturally to our Kasia (she is, in a word, terrible) and we have no particular commitment to her learning to dance, but she loves it beyond reason, so what the hey. As we had hoped, she had a blast in class, and performed well enough on stage (in front of a very large and no doubt intimidating audience), but I don't see a career in ballet any time soon.

[Sept Postscript: On the other hand, watching (as apparently all little girls do) "So You Think You Can Dance" on CTV, Kasia has since demonstrated an unsuspected natural talent for jazz and hiphop dancing. Who would have thunk it? But no one offers Jazz dance for four year olds, so she may have to wait a bit.]

Tigana, on the other hand, made excellent progress in both her classes. She was at least as good as any of the other kids her age, and in my admittedly biased view, was better even than many of the older kids in her class. What Tigana lacks in technical skill -- having lacked some of the pre-requisite classes in Lethbridge -- made up for it with more expression and spontaneity in her performance, undoubtedly strengths acquired through her involvement with theater.

So, whatever else happened this summer, I cannot emphasize enough how impressed I was with the success of these intensive two week camps.

The root problem

The original plan had been for me to spend ten or twelve days in Edmonton on my own, clearing out Doug's place, etc., but Mary's tooth suddenly went south, and she had to bring the kids up a couple of days early and have me look after them while she went to the dentist. Five times, as it turned out.

After her initial consultation with an emergency dental clinic (something Lethbridge is not large enough to have) in Edmonton, Mary was told she needed a root canal. Although in theory Edmonton's larger population meant a better chance of getting in to see a specialist, in point of fact endontists were all booking months into the future -- which is fairly pointless if you need a root canal, since It's not the sort or level of pain one can easily ignore. Mary held out as long as she could, but ended up in the UofA Hospital's emergency clinic; and then our Lethbridge dentist recommended a colleague in Edmonton who worked Mary in.

We were very impressed by this new dentist immediately, and greatly relieved that he was indeed an endontist when we had all but given up seeing a specialist. He did the root canal, loaded Mary up with heavy-duty drugs to stop the swelling and pain, and we waited for her to get better. Only the dentist phoned back the next day to say that he'd found an extra root on the x-rays, and would have to open her up again. So, it was back to the dentist again. And then, a fifth time, later in the week.

The root problem (sorry about the pun) is that Mary is a mutant: one to two extra roots per tooth. So rather than routine root canals -- no fun at the best of times -- Mary's are always much more complicated and therefore painful affairs. It was only after her third visit to the specialist (and again, I emphasize that he struck us as extremely competent, thorough, and caring) that she finally had any resolution, though the tooth remained tender for days after even then.