The Question

It was perfect. :-)

"The Question"
(Old 97s)

She woke from a dream
Her head was on fire
Why was he so nervous?
He took her to the park
She crossed her arms
And lowered her eyelids

Someday, somebody's gonna ask you
A question that you should say yes to
Once in your life
Baby, tonight I've got a question for you

She had no idea
Started to cry
She said in a good way
He took her by the hand
Walked her back home
And they took the long way

Someday, somebody's gonna ask you
The question that you should say "yes" to
Once in your life
Maybe tonight I've got a question for you

I've got a question for you...

Walking Down Memory Lane

I spent all day yesterday cleaning out our living room bookshelf and entertainment center. It took forever--there was so much dusting to be done, and the whole thing needed to be reorganized. Luckily for me (and my easily distractable self), there were plenty of artifacts to keep me entertained along the way.

The first gem I found was a home video tape, containing two videos from my Spanish class, a tribute video two of my best friends and I had made for another of our friends who had moved away, and various other snippets of brilliance. I can't believe how much my friends and I have changed since high school. I used to wear nothing but baggy t-shirts and jeans--which I now see was a complete shame, because I had a cute little bod back then. One of my friends, on the other hand, has since dropped a significant amount of weight, and is now much happier and healthier than before. The other . . . well, I have no idea what has happened to her. I haven't heard from her in ages, despite my attempts at contact.

After that, I found the photo albums. Pictures of my parents when they were younger, and THEIR parents, too. Especially intriguing to me was a collection of comics of my dad's that his mother had collected and compiled--pretty funny stuff. It was all about robots and aliens and computers. I loved my parents' wedding album, too. They were so young, so happy! It touched me to see some of the first moments of their life together.

Life is precious. Savor every moment, or as we say in the BBLD Club: "Make Life Tasty!"

Bittersweet Endings

Well, there are only two days left until I return back to the land of my inheritance. I'm really, really glad that I did this workshop--I think it will help my baroque playing and has definitely helped me keep my chops in good shape over the summer--but I'm also really, really, really glad that it's so close to being over. Very soon, I'll be back on the plane to Texas, and I couldn't be more excited.

Like I said, though, it's been a really good experience for me. I've learned a lot about Baroque playing and about general musicianship, and I definitely have grown from this. They do a really good job here--everything is super-organized and they're definitely aware of what's going on, which is often not the case. Plus, Toronto's just a cool city--I like it here.

As far as my excitement for going home, I guess I was just homesick. I miss my family and friends, the doggy (who just had surgery yesterday, poor thing) and the kitty, and of course The Boy. In fact, that's most of the reason I'm so anxious to be back home. It's been interesting, though, how that's all worked out.

For the first few days I was here, I was just really sad and pouty. I missed The Boy terribly, and I could see that it was going to be a really long two weeks ahead. Very shortly after I arrived in Toronto, my parents sent me an email saying that one of my professors had contacted them asking if I wanted to participate in a six-week chamber music festival out of state--that they were short a cellist and he'd thought of me. I was caught between a rock and a hard place. I knew it would be a great opportunity, but if I was having such a hard time only a few days into my two-week trip, how would I handle that times three?

It took a lot of thought and prayer (along with plenty of tears--and if you know me at all, you know I mean PLENTY), but I finally arrived at the conclusion that I needed to go ahead and take the opportunity I was so blessed to have been given. As soon as I came to that conclusion, the issue of geography seemed to be an insignificant one. This is definitely one of those instances where the Lord has blessed me for taking a step forward in faith; I feel pretty certain that I'd still be miserable if it weren't for that. Of course I still miss him immensely, but instead of looking at the days that stand between us with dread and horror, I can simply look forward to the day I get to see him. It's a small change, but it's made all the difference in my ability to cope with the situation. It's amazing, isn't it?

In Canada . . .

Canadian squirrels are much less cute than American squirrels.

Here's a cute little American grey squirrel:



Awww! Now have a look-see at his Canadian counterpart:



Oh, well. I guess it could be worse. It could be the dreaded Russian squirrel:



Ahh, thank you, Google Image Search.

Well, life's crazy. I don't really want to get into what I mean by that exactly until things are finalized, but I will say that I think it's true what John Lennon said: "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans." I can't even begin to tell you the number of times life has snuck up on me and given me something great (and totally unexpected). I guess it's just a testament of the fact that there is someone up there looking out for me, and that He knows what is best for me.

Thanks.

Where are the bells and confetti?

Welcome, everyone, to my 100th post, entitled:

"O, Canada."

I've decided that Canada is what happens when America and Great Britain have a baby. Stuff is mostly the same here, but different. For instance, today I bought some gum:



Not so unusual, but vaguely reminiscent of something I recall from back home:



I also was shocked to realize that here, to end transactions, they don't always thank you. The first time I went to the grocery store here, I lingered at the counter for a good ten seconds after my transaction had ended, thinking I'd missed signing the receipt or something, because the cashier didn't thank me and wish me a good day. I left feeling cheated.

There's also matters of semantics, like calling them "washrooms" instead of "bathrooms." This is all good and well, but when your "washroom" looks something like the one in my dorm, you begin to wonder how much good it's doing you to wash there.

And then there's the luxurious room in which I'm privileged to stay. At least it has a bed, and a desk. The chairs are nothing to sing about . . .



The other thing about my dorm is that its layout is really confusing, at least to me and my already weak sense of direction. The other day, I tried exiting the building through a stairwell I thought I'd successfully used earlier that day. It turns out that it was actually an emergency exit, which somehow means that you actually CAN'T exit through it--at least not without setting off an alarm. I walked all the way up and down the stairs several times, and all of the doors to every floor were locked. I wasn't too encouraged when I saw someone else had been there before me:



Thankfully, after a relatively brief period of banging on the door, some girls working on the fourth floor came to my rescue (though they were looking at me strangely). All in all, it's been an adventure so far. Onward ho!

Is it just me . . . ?

You know how people are sending mass invites to wedding groups on facebook these days? Groups like, "Ferdinand and KoKo need your address!!!!!" or "JimBo and Cruella are getting married and want you there!!!"

Am I the only one who gets these and wonders every time if it's a mistake? Maybe it's a testament to my low self-esteem, but every time I get one of those group invites, I think to myself, "Oh, they probably clicked my name by accident." I think, "We were never really that close," or "I haven't talked to her in so long," or "Why would he want me there?" I almost always assume that it was an error in clicking--that they meant to click on some OTHER Rachel in their list, and just happened to click my name instead. Sigh.

So then it puts you in an awkward position. You really WANT the mass facebook invite to be something more, to be a symbol of the fact that they want you to be there on their special day, and you wish more than anything else that it's a genuine, heartfelt invitation intended just for you . . .

but what if it's not? What if you reply, as requested, with your address, and the sender of the invitation realizes that you weren't on The List, and they messed up. Now they know that you think you're better friends than they think you are! And there's no way to recover from something like that. On the other hand, what if they DID intend it for you personally, and you DON'T reply? Then THEY feel sad, like it's not an important invitation to you, and you've just disregarded their desire to include you in their special day. It's a lose-lose situation.

I guess this is rooted in my personal paranoia that I always like people more than they like me--a terror that has been with me ever since I was very young.

The Truth About Cats and Dogs

Our beagle, Zoë, is coming up on ten years (70 in dog years).



She's a sweet dog (as you can see), but she has gotten quite used to ruling the roost around here. It must have come as quite a shock when we introduced a new family member to her a little more than a week ago. Enter Yuki (Japanese for "snow"), a siamese-tabby mix of about 9 weeks now:



She's pretty adorable, but has thrown off Zoë's groove. Initially, our 25-lb. beagle was absolutely TERRIFIED of the tiny house kitten. She wouldn't go near the little furball. After that wore off, no one knew what to think. Being a beagle, Zoë was immediately overcome with an intense desire to sniff the kitten, which in turn made the kitten nervous, which in turn led to her running away, and a chase inevitably ensued.

Really, though, the problem was simply that neither party knew what to think of the other. They were afraid of each other because they didn't understand one another. It was a difference of culture: the two didn't have any commonalities in language (neither uttered or acted), in appearance, in tendencies, or in anything else that might help them to make sense of one another.

Neither kitty nor doggy trusted the other. They would approach one another in curiosity, but it would always happen that one or the other would get too nervous and lunge at the other, resulting in some altercation.

Isn't this just the same as the human predicament? We are afraid of what we don't understand. When it tries to approach us, we bare our teeth or draw our claws just in case it so happens that it's out to get us. Trust is difficult; it's much easier to mistrust and exercise the "fight or flight" instinct.

Sometimes, though, all it takes is for the two parties in question to exist in one another's presence for a little while . . .



They're still not best friends, but at least there's hope.