Musings of Nobody Important

Thanksgiving is celebrated earlier in Canada than in the United States. So I cooked a turkey with all the trimmings in October. But this year we were also with my daughter and her family for American Thanksgiving.

She is married to an Italian and he is the family chef and although he has lived in the USA for nineteen years certain dishes have not yet become traditional for him. So the Thanksgiving dinner we ate last Thursday was a little different.

The first course was a mushroom risotto with quail.

PhotoHunt

METAL

Entitled Mignon, this exquisite bronze represents a twenty-five year old Rose Beuret, Rodin’s lifelong companion for more than fifty years, despite his many other lovers. Mother of his son, his model, and finally his wife at the age of 72, she died two weeks after the marriage.

For me this was not a first as I have hosted and dined with many of my online friends, some in Vancouver and some in other parts of the world. Many have been from my dunnetworks group, an online group devoted to the discussion of the works of the Scottish author Dorothy Dunnett, and some I met through blogging like fellow Blogpower members Lady Mac and Liz who came to Vancouver.

But for L this was a first and while she wanted to meet she did have some reservations. We are both temporarily in the same general area and it was easy enough for me to borrow a car to drive the forty minutes to meet in a pleasant place, convenient for us both. While we usually communicate only in SL, we moved into email contact, both still using anonymous addresses, but I had no problem giving her my name and a contact telephone number and a recent photo, in order to reassure her. We had used voice in SL so she did know that I actually am female.

Don’t laugh. There are people in SL who do crossgender roleplay. In fact I think most people have an avatar of the opposite gender and trot them out on occasion and I think some people are not above pretending with strangers so one does have to be wary. Of course the use of voice in Second Life brought to light many of these situations, or the reluctance of some to actually use voice for this very reason.

So L remains just that to me. Just as I know nothing of Moggs in real life, other than what she reveals here sometimes, I know only a little about the real life of L, not even her surname or where she lives.

But I am sure she won’t mind me telling you that she has found a role in SL as a photographic artist. She has discovered techniques using the tools of SL and having both the “eye” and these techniques she produces art photographs which are truly wonderful. On occasion she has shows in SL and at the moment is very busy preparing a photographic series for a show in January. Currently her photographs are displayed in four different galleries in SL.

This one did not reproduce as well as I would have liked, since it is my photo of her photo, but it is one she took recently of me and it hangs in the dining area of my Canadian log cabin in Second Life. I think it is very beautiful and I am proud to display her work in my house. Click to see it a little better.

We partook of a most enjoyable lunch and chatted for quite a few hours and I am sure that we could quite happily have continued but since I had to drive back and wanted to avoid driving in the dark if possible we bid each other farewell with, “See you soon in SL.”

Unfortunately, the forty minute easy commute to lunch turned into the two hour commute from hell on the return journey. The highway seemed to be almost gridlocked and until I turned off onto one of the Parkways, I was not above 10miles/hr for an hour and a half. My daughter kept phoning me on my cell phone to see where I was, but it is illegal to use a hand-held cell phone in New York State so I had to ignore her. I just clicked it on and off again so she knew I was alive and well.

I guess everyone was on the road because of Thanksgiving which is tomorrow. Many people I have spoken with recently tell me that they love Thanksgiving so much because it is a gathering together of families without the pressure of gifts. That had never occurred to me before but it does make sense.

So may I wish all the Americans, who a celebrating the big day tomorrow, a very Happy Thanksgiving to you and your families.

Of course they all happened in SL (Second Life). The first “peril” I may have touched on before, but is worth repeating. It happened simply ages ago now, when both JMB and I lived at our old places, well the one before last in my case…

I had been out shopping with JMB, we went back to her apartment after to chat. I logged out from there.

Later I logged back in and went home. Later on at home and undressed when I got a warning the region was shutting down. I didn’t think much about it and just stayed on until the region closed down on me and I was kicked out.

Later still I logged back in again. Did I rezz (materialise) at home, as expected? Nooo, *shakes head* because the region had shut down I rezzed where I last properly logged out from, JMB’s place… but in the state of undress I had been in at home. JMB was out/offline at the time and I just teleported (tp’d) directly home when I realised I wasn’t where I expected.

I thought after that it was just as well I hadn’t logged off from the Mall that time, or I would have found myself materialising in the middle of a busy mall in a state of undress! Absolutely the stuff of bad dreams. Get that picture out of your heads Guys *wags finger sternly*

It was at a castle complex by the sea. Within the walls there is a little inlet between two towers with a quay, for access from the sea. A dance floor and seating had been laid over the little harbour.

There were tables and chairs to the sides. There was a good DJ/music and lovely fireworks had been laid on. It was beautiful and a lovely time was had by all including your intrepid correspondent

Came the time I had to go, and without thinking left SL from where I had been chatting with someone, near the edge of the dance floor.

Now you normally reappear at the spot you logged out from when you log back into SL. The following day I logged back in and guess what? Everything had been tidied away and the dance floor removed.

I rezzed above the harbour, where I had been standing, and fell directly into the sea. Like a roadrunner cartoon, when he finally realises he has walked off a cliff? Now flying is physically prohibited at the castle, so I could either teleport somewhere, or swim round the castle to the shore. I swam as it was quicker.

A day or so after that I thought I would go visit a Mall, in a space habitat that I remembered had some really neat outfits. I had not been there for ages, but I had kept a landmark for the place and fished it out of my inventory to go visit the place. I teleported… only to find myself somewhere very high up, surrounded by lots of absolutely nothing, just distance.

As soon as I realised I did the road runner thing again, and plummeted. I figure now they must have moved or closed. I was so very high up I was able to teleport home long before I ever saw the clouds, let alone the ground. Just as well there seems to be no conservation of momentum between teleports ^_^

Boeing 777

Flying is not much fun these days, that’s for sure. The first flight I ever took was from London to Dublin, in 1960 and I’m sure I thought it was one of the most exciting things I had ever done. Now it is simply a means to get from one place to another and the time spent in airports, after you have checked out the bookstore, is a complete waste. Let’s not talk about having to get half undressed, including your shoes, taking your laptop out of its case and everything going through Xray security. On the other side you scrabble to put on your shoes, find your jacket and hat and hand luggage and put your computer away while everyone behind you piles through on top of you.

Cathay Pacific seems to have purchased some new Boeing 777s for this route and thank heaven they did, since the old planes were basically falling apart, in the cabin at least. Last time we flew to New York, my seat belt didn’t work properly nor did the individual TV. They had two planes flying non-stop between Hong Kong and New York with a stop in Vancouver and thus no time to fix these things. Sadly I thought the B777 a most uncomfortable plane. Instead of the seatback reclining the seat slides forward and your knees hit the seat in front of you. There is no pocket in the back of the seat in front of you so nowhere to stow your book. Instead there is a pocket for the inflight magazine underneath your seat and not in the most convenient place.

The entertainment options were quite good after I finally figured out how to work the little TV with its very sophisticated remote control. There was a choice of several movies or TV programs and a wide selection of music programs. I read for a while and watched Mamma Mia which was entertaining enough.

We always fly Cathay Pacific to New York for they have one of the only two direct flights from Vancouver. Unfortunately they have changed their schedule so that it leaves at 10 pm and arrives the next day at 6 am! Isn’t that fun? My poor son-in-law had to give up his early morning fishing trip to pick us up and we got to go for almost 36 hours without sleep!

In addition it was bitterly cold, being minus 5 degrees Celsius when we arrived and quite a shock to the system but no rain so far.

One of the first things I had to do was to go with my granddaughter to the Build-a-Bear Workshop, which I will tell you more about next time. It is necessary to have one of these bears to join the virtual town Bearville, at Buildabear.com, a world with some similarities to Second Life, but for very young children in the five to ten year old range. My granddaughter already has an avatar there, Sofia Astronaut and today Joanna Astronaut (me) joined her in Sofia’s back garden. Yes, I have red hair in Bearville too. If you click on the image below to enlarge it, you will see Joanna and Sofia along with their furry friends Cleo and Cody.

You can’t take snapshots in Bearville the way you can in Second Life but I managed to capture this with Printscreen and trim it a little. It’s actually quite a hoot and entertains my five year old granddaughter no end. More later.

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REFLECTION

Recently it seems that my social life consists of going out for lunch. It is that time of the year, when we, who have lunch together every Thursday anyway, seem to take it in turn to host the group at our houses and go all out.

Of course we are gearing up to bidding farewell to our visiting ScotAussie or AussieScot whom we will certainly miss as part of our group. So this week ten of us gathered in the home of one of our German members, J, who is a very fine chef. Unfortunately it was her maid’s day off so we had to help with serving. Just kidding, she doesn’t have a maid but she always says this with a big laugh.

I took lots of photos of the attendees but you don’t get to see those. However you do get to see the food. Well OK, you get to see the lovely smiling face of our ScotAussie since she has appeared here before.

The first course was a perfectly delicious squash and apple soup, the recipe for which our hostess said she had obtained on a cruise she took.

Seafood crepes are perfect for lunch, not too heavy, although this was a French recipe and it was rather rich. Garlic bread and salad were the accompaniments.

Did I say that J is a very good cook? Well how about this dessert for the pièce de résistance? Pavlova, almost everyone’s favourite dessert. Well if not favourite it is certainly near the top of the list and deservedly so. Our ScotAussie contributed the fact that Pavlova is said to have been originally served by a hostess in Kalgoorlie, although as she said what on earth a world famous ballerina was doing in a outback mining town known for gold and prostitutes she had no idea. Of course there is great controversy between Australia and New Zealand as to the creator of the dessert. While it did appear firstly in a New Zealand cookbook, we Aussies are not having any of that and continue to lay claim to Pavlova. I must admit that is the first time I had heard the Kalgoorlie story.

The birthday candles were there since we have three Scorpios in our group. Myself and my twin and the third, an intrepid 86 year old, could not be with us today as she was feeling unwell.

All in all it was a very enjoyable occasion: good food, good wine (so I’m told) and good friends, with lots of laughter.

Now tomorrow I’m taking off for New York, well just outside the city, to spend Thanksgiving with my daughter and family. Yes I am celebrating Canadian and American Thanksgiving this year so I get to cook two turkeys. Lucky me. Naturally I am taking my laptop with me and plan to continue blogging here but blog visiting will probably be lighter than usual, so I hope you will forgive me. I’ll be looking for new blog fodder but of course I get to be grandmother for a couple of weeks and I’m looking forward to that. I can’t believe she is now in school.

So take care and behave yourselves while I am gone.

I guess every one likes to be seen to address the burning questions of the day. I figure I am no different.

There are two that currently consume the British public like nothing else. No nothing so inconsequential as how PM Gordon Brown is spinning things, or the state of the economy, or the stability of the markets.

No important stuff…

I am talking of course about John Sergeant’s continuing survival on the BBC program “Strictly Come Dancing” and the equally important concerns over who the New Dr Who might be, again a BBC program.

Who says we don’t at least get something for our TV tax. ^_^

US readers will know “Strictly” as “Dancing With The Stars” and may not get the references to “Strictly Ballroom” or “Come Dancing”. (Strictly Ballroom was a pretty good Australian movie and Come Dancing was a longstanding UK TV series about ballroom dancing.)

OK so I figure this will probably mean absolutely nothing, nada,zilch, to the vast majority of the world…

First there is John Sergeant, a BBC political correspondent. I guess he is cute in his own Dadsy way, intelligent and witty.

His professional dance partner is the attractive athletic, platinum blond Kristina Rihanoff who has a hint of the Marilyn Monroe about her.

Now John, for all his good qualities is actually pretty dire when it comes to dancing. He is easily the least able and talented of any of the celebrity performers left when it comes to dancing, and has been for some weeks, but he keeps avoiding the dance off, as better dancers fall by the wayside.

To be honest, I think this is a little unfair, as the program is billed as a dance competition. Clearly the public are voting for him because the judges have been increasingly frustrated and a little harsh in their comments about his dancing, Harsh, but fair.

Now, a contestant I admired, Cherie Lunghi, who was really pretty good has been kicked off the program, just so John Sergeant can be embarrassing to watch for yet another week. You have got to wonder What is the point of the good contestants making the effort? I am not sure how far Cheri could have gone in the contest as standards are much higher than in previous series, but I figure in previous series she could easily have been a finalist.

So, an appeal to the members of the public who like to cock a snook at the judges but don’t care about dancing, could you maybe offer you support to someone who is actually good, and not be unfair to the other contestants or spoil it for the rest of us.

Shame they don’t let you vote against contestants, maybe they are missing a bet there…

Now on to Dr Who. Since David tenant announced he would be stepping down from the role speculation has been feverish as to who would replace him. Even within Blogpower itself, Sandy Toksvig has been suggested at Finding Life Hard.

Now the charity fundraiser “Children in need”, a bit like a PBS funds drive has dropped a teaser of the Christmas Special episode. It has, along with Tennant, a Dr Who type character played by David Morrissey, complete with assistant and sonic screwdriver, in Dickensian England, some are speculating that he will be the new Dr Who.

I figure not. Yes he would probably make a good Dr, but my bet would be the writers have something else up their sleeves, something more twisty. Maybe Morrissey will be a Dr from an alternate reality, like the Cyber men were. Maybe something else. My bet this is not an intro to the new Dr though. What are the bets the writers can resist a nod to a Christmas Carol?

Often with the Thursday Walking group, I do the walk along the southern foreshore of the harbour starting at Spanish Banks. The view towards the North Shore Mountains is spectacular so it is a splendid walk on a fine day.

There was a heavy wind during the night and when we met last Thursday we were not surprised to find it still quite windy there. So it was a brilliant clear day and there were lots of white caps.

The high wind had tempted all these kite surfers out of the woodwork to enjoy being pulled along in the water. To be honest I had never seen them doing this here before in Vancouver. I thought it was amazing and I even saw a couple of them actually flying but unfortunately I was unable to capture it.

A closer look. I imagine one has to be quite strong to enjoy this activity. Certainly this fellow below was quite a husky chap.

There was quite a group of them and they had set up their equipment on the beach. Do you think they all called in sick when they saw what a great day it was and how ideal the conditions were for this sport?

Above, looking towards the downtown skyline.

A quiet eddy, near the yacht club. I did not see any sail boats out that day

Yes Amarone Classico della Valpolicella, 16% alcohol,
2003, a good year I guess. Goes
well with fava beans I hear.

Yes, we are both Scorpios but so completely different. Not that I pay any mind to astrology.

When you get to our age you have most everything you really want and if you don’t, you buy it at any time, since you are wasting time without it while you wait for your birthday. Plus we believe in asking each other since we are not too big on surprises.

JMB: What do you want for your birthday. New CD’s? Tell me.

OS: No, I already have over 400 CD’s.

So off we went to the liquor store to survey the choices. Usually he shops in the $20 range but this time he chose one at $29.99! Wow, he’s going all out. Now in the meantime, I had been poking around and came up with this one above. Normally $115 but on special for $80.50. Now that is more like a bottle of wine worthy of a birthday present. And on sale, such a bargain!

Suspiciously I asked the clerk stocking the shelves, Why is that on sale? No space ,she said, we sell more liquor at Christmas and have to make room. We are clearing out our back room of some of the more expensive wines, but it is regular price at the other branches.

So I told him, not that one, this one. He hesitated, but only for a moment. I asked him are you saving it or drinking it right away? I’m drinking it on my birthday, he replied. I was absolutely petrified we would drop it on the way home.

So he and my son will partake of this gem. I will not know how the most expensive bottle of wine I have ever bought (original price more than the champagne for our daughter’s wedding) tastes since I am teetotal.

I also bought him some of his favourite marmalade which I normally do not since it is ridiculously expensive here.

Robertson’s finest. I don’t eat marmalade either.

Finally I thought this card rather appropriate don’t you?

So happy birthday to my dear Old Scientist and I wish you many more healthy years.