soeurs du jour

love thursday the daughter post

Last week I took a little road trip to Prince Edward Island with a couple of good friends visiting from Ontario. It was a Thursday when we found this Love note scrawled in the sand:

I couldn't help but think of my favourite Soeurs of course!

Btw, PEI is gorgeous - a great summer destination -- pastoral landscapes, fantastic beaches, sand dunes, red soil, and rugged shore lines. With all that goodness it's hard to believe PEI is famous for potatoes and Anne of Green Gables?! We did the North Cape Coastal Drive -- you can spend the night at the West Point Lighthouse Inn and stay in a room that's part of the original 1875 lighthouse structure, and if climate change has got you down (Andy!) check out Canada's National Wind Energy Laboratory on the north cape where you'll also find seals galore sunbathing on the longest natural rock reef in North America.

But a highlight for me was the bottle houses. Three structures (house, chapel, and tavern -- just the essentials!) built from over 25,000 recycled colored glass bottles. And two bottle trees to boot! Once again, the Soeurs came to mind -- do you remember their plans to build a bottle tree? Never happened. Get busy ladies -- now that you're both about to be homeless you could use a couple of bottle houses of your own!

Love to my Mom and my Kath!

xo Sarah

and a big xo to sarah, she is having her wisdom teeth out.

today.  oy, my poor baby.

xoxo mommy and auntie kath

A little sisterly advice

Margie and I needed some distraction yesterday, trying to sell our houses is a bit more than either of us expected. We've both done it before, but hey, we're older and we forgot what it was like.  So when we need a distraction we play,  I emailed a link to something I fell in love with and want ... go look and come back because, oh yah baby, you'll want it too .   She informed me that when she's nervous about something she doesn't eat, so I called her a name, and not a very nice one, but I did say I still love you so it didn't count.

We went to Toronto again on Monday night, third week in a row. We've been to the film festival, a fancy reunion party and last night a fundraising concert.   Sondheim in September was amazing, there's another concert next Monday, if you're in Toronto, you should go.  Tomorrow night we're going to Stratford to see Cyrano de Bergerac.   For a couple who didn't do much all summer, we're having a busy fall.  

Margie and I like to give each other advice, we're big advice givers, we don't always take the advice but we always tell the advisor that she's right.  Like this, "I know, I know, you're right, but ...."   

She has great advice about shoes, if shoes don't feel comfortable in the store, they're never going to get comfortable, don't buy them.  But, you should buy fancy shoes a half size bigger because your feet are going to be a tich puffy come evening.

I decided to give her some advice yesterday based on my recent experience of having a busy social life:

If you must wear pantyhose – buy the expensive tummy tucker, ass lifting, thigh squishing, massaging pantyhose on sale 50% off at sears.  You will feel fabulous.

If you are going to be driving into the City all the time to attend functions and getting home late – bring your eyemakeup remover,  face washing wipes and moisturizer in the car with you – you can take your makeup off on the way home … then simply brush your teeth and fall into bed.

 If you can manage, don’t carry a purse, but do carry the Listerine spray in your pocket, because you will have to air kiss people after the show.
 
If your spouse doesn’t introduce you in the first 2.5 seconds step forward and give your name, he has no idea who has just greeted him so warmly, either that or he doesn't remember yours ;-)
 
xo

And on that note, kids, it's late Tuesday night and I'm falling into bed, I'm beat!!  Oh and to Mrs. e:  thank you, thank you, thank you, kiss, kiss, kiss - I decided to take your advice and took some allergy pills because you diagnosed my headache as allergies - you were right!  I'm going to start calling you Dr. e!

Got any advice for us??

xoxo

Kath

happy healthy

yesterday was the jewish day of atonement, yom kippur.  at this time of year we greet each other with shana tovah.  "a good year". good wishes are extended for a happy, healthy year. such precious commodities.  happiness and health. 

what a wonderful reminder. when we look for happiness it is likely that we will spread happiness where ever we go.  kath reminded me just last week that we must take extremely good care of ourselves by paying attention to our health and adopting a healthy lifestyle.  the last thing any of us want is to wish we had done things differently.  like a leap of faith, we need to take a leap of choice. happy and healthy.

xo margie

Welch's Macro Monday

These seedless concordes taste just like 

Welch's Grape Jelly.

I might dip them in peanut butter.

yummy!

xo

More Macros over at Lisa's

Kath

Status:      Headache - Yes, still here.   Offers on house - none.  Related?  Likely not, but both are bugging me nonetheless.

book em

lately my days have been booky and certainly yesterday was a very booky day. or should i say bookish?  wednesday night was my first book club meeting, ever. although i am a voracious reader i have never belonged to a book club.

andy is installing a new floor in our den, for sale sign here we come, and in the process of moving all my books, i found this one.  

there is a story behind this book. i was in jamaica several years ago and had my tarot cards read by an interesting woman.  she insisted that i buy this book. kath happened to be with me the day i was ordering the book and insisted that she also wanted a copy. 

several weeks later i picked up the two books.  oh my.  what a disaster of a book. so bad that i insisted kath give me the money before i gave her the book. i was sure that if she saw how ridiculous and whacked the book was she would never pay me!!  

meanwhile i am keeping the book, 

i am afraid to get rid of it. 

what if this is the book that i throw at the head of a robber, 

what if this is the book that i put the fire out with, 

what if this is the book that .... will save me when the aliens come?

kath, do you still have your copy?

xo margie

Glad for today

I am so glad it is Saturday. 

I want to go for a walk.

Monday was the last time I was outdoors for more than a few minutes.

I need fresh air.

In margie's post yesterday she reminded us to journal every day.  

I stared at the word journal

and then I looked at our banner, 

soeurs du jour

I had a little aha moment:

jour

 jour, journal, journey

day, record, explore

a reminder to do the necessary day work 

joyfully

xo

Kath

just think about it

i have been reading a book about creating moments of joy, courage and kindness.

the book encourages pursuing happiness and fulfillment

through the choices you can make right now.

the past is for your memories, the future is but illusory hopes.

focus on the present, for that is where your life is.

it is important to see and hear what you can see and hear right now.

it is important to choose to speak and act with joy right now.

to choose to speak and act with courage right now.

to choose to be sincere and loving right now.

look forward to the highlights of each day.

keep a journal and write each day about a joyful moment.

remember the power of enough is enough.

choose wisely and with courage to pursue joy and love.

xo margie

note: 

in response to the many requests for the name of this book, i had deliberately omitted the title since it is a text from my torah study class, written by one rabbi zelig pliskin, called life is now. it is written from an jewish orthodox perspective so it may not appeal to everyone.

droop

I am not the one standing tall

I am one of the droopy ones.  Unable to hold my head up.

I have a headache that won't go away.

xo

Kath

post mortem

we met with our real estate agent tonight.  did the walk through of the house, the sit down and hash out the details, planned for a small face lift that we knew had to be done, and then we ran to our neighbourhood bar.  andy and i needed to do the post mortem on our house.

remembering dinners made.

dinners enjoyed.

babies visiting

more dinners.

charley loved.

we have such wonderful memories of this house.

parties, birthday, holidays, dinners.

but home is where your family is.

home is not your house.

xo margie

Phantom of the Opera

We left home late Sunday night, Barry had a show to do here and we were going to arrive late to a party, but we couldn't miss this one .... 

Tonight's private party marks the 20th anniversary of a show that changed Toronto. And yes, Garth will be there

September 20, 2009

RICHARD OUZOUNIAN THEATRE CRITIC

TORONTO–It was 20 years ago tonight – Sept. 20, 1989 – that Toronto threw what remains the most glamorous, glitzy and gorgeous party of its life. And this evening, about 300 people are going to gather in a midtown nightspot to try and bring back some of that magic.

The occasion for both events was The Phantom of the Opera, which opened on a sultry pre-autumnal evening two decades ago and proceeded to run for 10 years, one month and 11 days, closing on Halloween 1999.

Phantom was truly the show on steroids. The largest advance sale in legitimate theatre history (close to $24 million). The longest run in Toronto theatre annals (if you forget the semi-professional Toronto Truck Theatre of The Mousetrap). The biggest opening-night party anywhere (five separate events, not a limousine or tuxedo to be had in town and a traffic jam that isolated Casa Loma until dawn).

It didn't just change the face of theatre in this city, it changed the lives of everyone connected with it. Some of them went to Hollywood, some of them went to London, some of them went to the great beyond and some of them are going to jail.

(Some of them went into journalism as well, since I was director Hal Prince's assistant in that long-ago time.)

All of these things dawned on Rebecca Caine about a year ago. The internationally successful opera singer, who originated the role of Christine Daae in the Toronto production, sat in the garden of her Hammersmith home and realized that "this 20th anniversary might be the last time we could get a lot of us together.

"People had such pride that event," she sighs over the phone from London. "We should own what we did and we accomplished with that experience."

And so, with the help of an original cast member, Gretchen Helbig, a member of the stage management team, Barry Burns, and technical director Peter Lamb, she set out to gather the tribe from all around the world where they had dispersed.

"All I can say is, darling, that we should thank God for that geek at Harvard who invented Facebook," trills Caine in her flutiest Mary Poppins voice.

But after a year of work, close to 300 Phantom veterans from across the years, plus guests, will be filling a venue more accustomed to hosting DJs and techno-pop bands.

The location is being kept secret because, as Caine reminds us, "It's a private party. Not a public event."

The public has enjoyed the lingering effects of Phantom, though, long after the show's closure. Its success and long run meant a generation of theatre people stayed here in Toronto instead of moving to the U.S., and local musical-theatre productions are still deriving benefits from that.

Although the eyes of the party-goers will largely be on the original cast's stars, there are two people who have said they're coming whose presence will provide an added "zing" to the proceedings.

One of them is Garth Drabinsky, the show's producer, its angel or devil, depending on which day you caught him. Everything about Phantom, from the glorious restoration of the Pantages, to the stellar level of the cast he attracted, was all due to Drabinsky's zeal for perfection.

That drive would later get him into trouble and he's now awaiting an appeal on his recent conviction for fraud and forgery, but he promises to show up on Sun day. (Whether Phantom's star Colm Wilkinson will attend is less clear.)

The other attention getter is bound to be the woman who began as the youngest member of that first Phantom cast, a shy 15-year-old whose ears everyone covered when the backstage talk got a little blue.

Her name is Neve Campbell and she went on to a huge career as the star of TV shows like Party of Five, movies like the Scream series and London stage appearances at the Old Vic in Resurrection Blues.

She's flying back from England for the event. Her major memory of that magic evening 20 years ago? "Driving with the cast in my first limo ride to Casa Loma where only four years before I'd been serving catered food as a student of the National Ballet school for a fundraiser."

It promises to be quite a night. One can almost hear one of the ghostly voices from Hal Prince's earlier show, Follies, describing it:

"Welcome to our first and last reunion. A final chance before the curtain comes down to stumble through a song or two and lie about ourselves a little."

That is my Barry Burns mentioned in the article ... so even though we arrived more than fashionably late, we had to go.   We headed off to our hotel room and awoke late this morning to this ....

Room Service!

I had never had room service before, can you imagine?

xo

Kath