Happy Birthday ...

Mom and I went to the Centennial Kick-off Thingy by ourselves today. It was grey and cold and pissing rain this morning, so Chelsea decided she didn't want to drag Bernie out in it and Barbara decided Anailise probably just wouldn't enjoy it either. We'd figured out the timing with toddlers in mind, so we got there early, climbed way up to row 72 and watched the flurry of last-minute-it's-freaking-raining-buckets set-up. Then we listened to Colin McLean and someone whose name we didn't catch give a brief history of the province and explain what was going to happen in what order during the royal visit, while folx squeegee'd small lakes off the stage and tried to keep a tarp over the birthday cake. We couldn't understand a word of it with the horrific echoes in the sound system, unless we lip-read, but our fingers got too wet and cold holding binoculars for that.

Then we watched all the official folx come in and get set up where they were to do greeting things ... politicians, ambassadors, kids ... then the honour guard and their brass band and the RCMP pipe band and the massed pipe band ... lots of marching and playing and standing perfectly still in the pouring rain ... then the horses! ... we're pretty sure they were Lord Strathcona's Horse Mounted Troop, but we couldn't make it out without lip-reading and we were busy looking at the horses ... in fact, we were so busy looking at the horses and admiring the pairings that we didn't notice until they'd driven through the Avenue of Cultures thingy and onto the grass that Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II and His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh had arrived ... good thing we'd already put on our hats when the bands came in (I don't care if it isn't mandatory anymore, or if it's pissing rain, or if we're 72 rows up in the sky, we wore hats ... dresses, too! ... and long johns and wooly socks and rain ponchos and a tie-dyed scarf that ended up looking like a great splodge of kelp on my poncho ... and and and ... ) ... troops were inspected, the cake was cut, folx were greeted, flowers were accepted, all the while looking very chic ... then they finally got her under the canopy and out of the rain for the concert. Michael Carey sang the song that won the contest to become the official song for the centennial, backed by the Black Pioneer Heritage Singers choir ... Jens Lindemann, Tommy Banks and the choir did a piece ... the White Buffalo Dancers and Drummers Society performed ... Ian Tyson did one song from his new album, then they told us that, because of the rain, the rest of the performances would be cancelled and they closed with all of them on the stage doing Four Strong Winds with Ian Tyson. "What's a girl gotta do to see Corby live?" says Mom. We were both very pleased that both Ian Tyson and Corb Lund wore jeans an' they weren't new ... Corby shaved and Tyson took his hat off to bow to Their Majesties ... I figure that's pretty cool. In spite of it being bloody cold and windy and pissing rain and Barbara and Chelsea deciding not to go and the sound system sucking and the concert getting cut short and not getting to see Corby play, we decided we're glad we went and it was still fun.

I'm still waiting to hear back from a few hippies, but I've been too busy this week to panic. Next up in the learning-to-like-cooked-cereal experiment is Scottish Oats ... so far, Sunny Boy's the best of the bunch ... I've about settled on equal parts dry cereal and raisins as the right proportions. I finished watching Episodes IV, V and VI and Brandon lent me his copies of I and II and came over to watch them, too. Tharloch fixed my Tiger/mouse woes, bless his heart. I spent Sunday in a stifling classroom in a nasty hard school desk being lectured by a guy in an incredibly bad comb-over ... it was really hard to stay awake ... Brandon came over to watch a movie Friday night and we were up way late. I'd switched the music lesson to Friday so I could spend the day with Patty, Barbara and Anailise, and Chelsea and Bernie out at Chelsea and Darwin's on Saturday ... we had a great time, but not a lot of sleep. I grabbed a short nap in the eveing, then Brandon came over for a wee dram ... I figured I'd fall down early after that, but I was up late-ish yackin' online 'cuz I was too wound up to sleep.

Sirs (gendernonspecific) Bunrab have been about lots this week:

Stuff and Nonsense ...

Daylight:

Length of day: 16:17
Hours of dark: 6:10ish
Sunrise: 5:23 am
Sunset: 9:40pm
Start of twilight: 4:36 am
End of twilight: 10:27 pm

Current weather: Overcast. 8°C (46°F), humidity 87%, wind WNW 22.4 km/h (14 mph.), barometer 29.9 in. Hg.

Forecast:

Tonight.. Periods of rain. Wind NE 20 km/h (12.4 mph). Low 5°C (41°F).
Tuesday.. Cloudy. 60% chance of showers. Wind NW 20 km/h (12.4 mph). High 14°C (57°F).
Wednesday.. A mix of sun and cloud. Low 5°C (41°F). High 16°C (61°F).
Thursday.. Sunny. Low 3°C (37°F). High 19°C (66°F).
Friday.. Sunny. Low 7°C (45°F). High 21°C (70°F).
Normals for the period.. Low 5°C (41°F). High 19°C (66°F).