Please join phillip2637 and I when we host the circle and potluck on December 5th!

Music from 2-10 ish. We are expecting at least one newcomer who hasn't heard any of your songs yet! There could be as many as three. Bring munchies as well a a dinner item please.

While you are here, please sign the Christmas card for the Cabbagetown Arts Centre, the adopted charity of the Filk Society. I can enclose donation forms/cheques if you wish.

Contact me at jane at garthsonleadership dot ca for directions if needed.

I thought I was going to miss seeing my niece during her visit from Victoria BC as she has been feeling quite ill and staying in bed. But she felt better late this morning, so I scrambled to get hold of my brother (her dad) somewhere in downtown Toronto, and nephew, so we could drive to Brampton for a late lunch. My nephew couldn't make it; he'll go tomorrow. My brother and I had a nice Thai lunch, gave her birthday presents, talked for hours then drove her back to her Mom's place. Brought my brother back to my place for dinner before his train home in the opposite direction. He'd come to Toronto to spend several days with her and thought he wasn't going to see her at all. I feel much better now having seen her, and helped them spend time together. Today, cell phones ruled!

My current fave is Galeriea Chocolat Cannelle (cinnamon). Dark, Fair Trade, Belgian, wonderful. So rich I can't eat the whole thing (95 gm) at once! Available at Ambrosia in Thornhill; don't know where else.

Easy flight but late takeoff on Saturday, so Anne and I kept a very nice person waiting at an airport. Denise took us to a terrific new little restaurant, The Fainting Goat (sort of middle eastern, all very freshly prepared) and we didn't rush - after all, the drive to Lumsden is short. And there's no traffic jams in Regina. So why were we in one so bad she couldn't get out of her parking spot? The delay and our conversation had taken us until just after the Riders game got out. Slow drive to Lumsden; too dark to see much.

At St. Michael's Retreat, almost everyone had gone to bed before 10, and those left up were speaking in whispers. Spartan accommodation but they had tried for comfort. I couldn't sleep. Went out as the sun came up and hiked part of the Qu'Appelle Valley with my camera; better area for walking than photographing that morning. Should have taken a graduated filter (why did my fingers just type filker?). No time before breakfast to walk the Labryinth. Good breakfast (and lunch; the friars know food).

Great people at my workshop and I really hope there are other opportunities to work with them. I think they were all quite pleased with the workshop though the energy level wasn't great; maybe I wasn't high energy enough. I believe the ideas will lead to some good dialogue over the next few months at their board meetings, and some enhancements that will help them make progress towards their mission.

Lovely visit and dinner with John (my first cousin) and Rita, at a good roadhouse style place. The conversations were what mattered. Very comfortable new hotel. Early to bed and I feel MUCH more energized for today's workshop in Vancouver. Got to get ready for my flight now!

Success in 'space elevator' competition - http://tinyurl.com/y9by47j

You have to see today's comic at : http://www.twolumps.net/

Since Phil has posted the song he wrote for Jodi's birthday, I guess I should have mine up too. Many thanks to Tom Jeffers for his wonderful guitar backing on the recording.

You’re Our Muse
Jane Garthson TTTO I’m Your Moon
For Jodi Krangle, October 1, 2009

Fen invented a music
That’s why you sing
You don’t think you’re special
Because you don’t play a 12-string
We keep telling you we don’t care
A yummy voice like yours will always please

CHORUS
You’re our muse
We’re amused
Please sing on and on
We’re your fans and you help to make U T sound so great
Promise us
You will always delight us with a song

Time again for a request
Sing Amanda once again
We’ll think of Auntie Moira
And of chocolate since we’re fen
You can only be who you be are
The Lady who sings filk - you are our friend!

CHORUS
You created a business
Just a piece of cake
Play with Moxie and gamers
Lovely harmonies you make
Filk is better when you’re around
We will always be right here next to you

CHORUS



Note: Anyone in filk not familiar with The Muse's Muse, Piece of Cake (Jodi's business web site) or Play It with Moxie has some googling to do.

Virtual participants welcome; give us the name of a song you would sing or request.

All those depressed by the cold nights, rain and whatever bad is going on in their lives are welcome to come and be made happier by the company of filkers and the sound of music.

Home of Elizabeth and Steve Wrigley in Scarboro. Contact me if you need details for in-person attendance. Chaos potluck, 2-10. And sign up at https://ufo.filkontario.ca/listinfo/ufo so you don't miss future Southern Ontario filk notices!

I just discovered that the following post, which I wrote on Monday I think, did not post when I pressed post. No wonder no one answered. So here's a slightly outdated note about my life.

( For those who want to catch up on my life )

Yesterday was lovely in the forest, and Nijomi was lazy. Today was cold with a brisk wind, and she was much livelier! Her back alignment was much better after some uphill canters.

Came home to find a frost warning had been issued for Toronto. Phil and I brought in some unripe tomatoes and peppers, beets for tomorrow, herbs to dry (basil, thyme, sage, catnip, marjoram) and all the remaining salad greens. I moved the purple basil and rosemary to an indoor pot. We are hoping the warning was wrong, and the remaining tomato and pepper plants will still be alive tomorrow.

I give thanks today for my wonderful spouse, great friends, a beautiful day and anticipation for tonight's Bruce Coburn tribute concert. My brother just promised to bring a box of organic garden produce next week, and it looks as if the weather will allow garden clean-up to happen. And we are still picking raspberries each day!

A meme from lemmozine.

The only thing that is entirely within our grasp and power that has a chance of solving any of the world's problems is to simply be kind to one another.

Your mission, within the next 24 hours, is to go out of your way to be kind to a stranger, write about it in your blog, and see how many others you can get to do the same thing. Your continuing mission is to make a habit of being kind to strangers (even if it is only something small like smiling at them or giving them directions) at every opportunity, but at least once a day, from now until the end of forever.

Today I profusely thanked the woman at Ambrosia who gave me some health advice. Not much, but I worked at home yesterday and didn't happen to deal with any strangers online or by phone. That, itself, is strange because I've been meeting new people a lot lately.

Phil and I have been together for 23 years, and married 21 of those as of today! Luckily, the honeymoon hasn't ended yet. I am still madly in love.

The flowers are lovely and I am looking forward to playing with our new Canon EF 70-200 f/4L IS USM lens! It's our practice to buy one largist wish list item we both want rather than exchanging presents.

We sort of had an anniversary dinner on Saturday night in Montreal, at an expensive French restaurant. And we'll have another on Saturday, at the Bruce Coburn tribute concert at Hugh's Room. Tonight, I go see my horse! I haven't had my usual riding since I was getting ready for and at ConCept on my last two scheduled days.

Filkers who met Barbara at Anticipation or ConCept may wish to know she is now on LJ as barbesilver.

We've done really good work hooking her - she's buying a guitar and writing a song!

Has some interesting reading. LIve Long: From Fiction to Science (complete with picture of Spock giving a Vulcan salute) talks about new research into a single drug that might prevent or reduce DNA mutation, and therefore combat every degenerative disease. I don't want to live forever, but I would like to be healthy as long as possible. Go team!

From that potential triumph of the human mind, we move to Religious Knowledge is Fading. And in what may be the most religious developed country, a recent survey showed half of US high school students thought Sodom and Gomorrah were a married couple.

I am an atheist who left the Presbyterian Church at the age of 12, but I find it very sad that stories that shaped our civilization are becoming unknown. A McGill professor says a reference to "the patience of Job" just produces blank stares. We cannot understand much of our history without knowing the involvement of religion.

I should pack up now!

A nice friendly con, where you get to actually meet the people from other parts of fandom and some of them come to hear filk. Hope to come back some day soon.

I am VERY pleased with myself for getting through three songs on stage without any obvious screw-up (though I have yet to see the videos!).

Home tomorrow with Tom and Sue - to the kitties and my own bed!

Safe trip of course, with sexybass driving. Seems very friendly and I'm looking forward to the weekend. We've met some friends we made at Anticipation already. Folk circle starts at 8! We have a lovely large suite, and expect to be relaxed and comfortable.

mvt brought fancy ground peppers from The Spice Trader yesterday. Tried out the Grains of Paradise one on roasted cauliflower tonight - yum!

Toss cauliflower florets lightly in oil; roast 15 minutes at 400 on cookies sheet. Heat mustard and cumin seeds in oil for a minute and add cauliflower, lemon juice and pepper just long enough to mix. Went very well with brown basmati pilaf and baked tandoori chicken breasts.

Our local filkers rock! They performed last night in a tight, high quality concert for about 100 astronomy fans. Judith and Howard did a wonderful job on the narration and slides; Howard makes a great narrator; Ken arranged sound for a building new to him and had everything working great. We started on time to the second, and finished one minute early.

Your lead performers, in order of first appearance: Peggi Warner-Lalonde, Howard Scrimgeour, Karen Linsley (with TWO NEW SONGS!!!), Sue Jeffers, Judith Hayman, Tom Jeffers. Instrumental back-up by Judith, Howard, Tom, and Phil Mills. Vocal back-up from Sally Headford, Dave Hayman, Phil Mills and me! Everyone performed wonderfully; this was a night for personal bests.

Our songs (after many tough choices; we only had 50 minutes):
Discovery
Phoenix
Everyman
Hope Eyrie
Shepherd Moon
Witness' Waltz
Fire in the Sky
Window on Time (The Hubble Song)
Sea of Stars
Face on Mars
Pioneers of Mars
Pluto Baby
Starsoul

We did the filk community proud. We'll find out if we've attracted any new filkers. Some in the audience were singing along (the slides had the words to the choruses). Except for what looked like brief nature breaks, we held the audience.

And the guest lecturer we were opening for, Dr. David Charbonneau (heavily involved in the search for habitable planets) attended most of the concert! Quite a few more people arrived just in time for his lecture, but that might also be because the event started earlier, and in a different location, than most of the astronomy events at U of Toronto.

Due to rain, few people went to the observation session that followed, and the main telescopes were not being used. We had promised some music there, so Judith, Phil and I played sang for Dave and each other long enough to fulfill our commitment.

Since most of my friends are also linked to phillip2636, I won't repeat his comments.

But he failed to mention that Marie-Lynn Hammond is nuts about horses, rides not far from where I do, has three horse songs on her CD, Pegasus - and yes, the last one would fit well into filk. She's also written a song about therapeutic riding that she has offered to send me. I'm going to try to get her into filking!