A Blessing of Friends

As keen as we are to go #thataway for the next year, we know that we will miss our friends and neighbours while we frappez la rue. So it seemed fitting  that we throw a party ere we depart. 

Trish and I have been married now for something like 19 years, which I suppose is long enough to call some of our odder habits "traditions".

One of these traditions is to open up our house for big parties. This started back when we were grad students with the De-Alienation From Your Labour Day Salsa Making Collective Party, and it continued with Monster Potlucks of 70+ people when we lived at The Blob, a two-year experience of living in intentional community.

More recently, our fetes have included the Biannual Waffle Extravaganza on New-Year's Day, and a super-secret-surprise party for Trish's 40th party in which we demonstrated our great love for her through skullduggery, deception and covert acts of catering.

Through these exxperiments and double-blind, randomized control trials, we've discovered that the formula for a great party is really quite simple:  good lighting, a great playlist, an electic mix of amazing friends of all ages, some simple but yummy food, a wee bit of something to drink, and a Grandiose Title -- preferably with a #hashtag :-) 

This time for our #thataway bash, we invited singer-songwriter, Craig Cardiff to play. Craig tours all across Canada, peforming at bars, concert halls, churches and festivals, but in between he loves to play smaller private functions like this. I first heard him play at our neighbour's house concert and his songs have been on high-repeat on my shower-serenading set-list ever since. 

Craig's poignant songs, solid guitar work, sing-along-choruses and father-daughter dance smack down competitions, together with technical, logistical and moral support from some friends, turned our back yard into a Mid-Summer-Night's Dream. It was lovely to see so many folks together and to say goodbye; we will miss you.

Ahh, yes, to misquoteth the Bard, Partying is such sweet sorrow. 

Here are a few pictures from the bash. 

Tourists in Our Own Town

 

We are lucky to live in Ottawa. It is a both a nice place to visit and you really want to live here!  

As the capital of Canada, it boasts the usual buildings-of-national-significance like the Parliament,  and the Supreme Court, many tasteful national monuments to dead white guys -- and one to dead white women -- and an array of world-class museums. In fact, when we hit the road in 24 days -- zoiks!!!!! -- it may come as a shock to our kids that not every city has a "Museum of..."

• Agriculture & Food at the Central Experimental Farm
• Science & Technology
• Aviation & Space
• Canadian History -- formerly the "Museum of Civilization", before the Conservatives made "Civilization" "History"
• Nature (something else that I fear they are trying to make "history")
• War (something that we all hope will stay in history....)
• a National Gallery featuring paintings, sculpture, photographs and some inexplicable, but artfully-arranged modern artifacts from someone's basement; &
• the National Arts Centre that showcases live music, dance and drama performances. 

(BTW, in lieu of summer camps for July and to kick-start our "road-scholars" project for the kids, I picked up a Canada's Capital Museum Passport that let's us visit up to 8 of the above museums in 7 days. It's a great deal, even if you don't manage to see them all).

Connecting all of these sites is either the Rideau Canal -- a UNESCO World Heritage Site that we can  skate on during the winter -- or a network of green-space and bike paths run by the National Capital Commission. It is a great city to experience on a bike. 

Ottawa is also home to a staggering number of festivals for just about any topic that you can think of: music of all types, animation, films, buskers, poutine, children, winter, tulips!  Although perhaps not as edgy as Toronto or as hip as Montréal, Ottawa is far from being the "city that fun forgot", and there is a burgeoning independent, hipster scene. 

So even though our year-off adventures don't officially start until August, we don't have to go far to be tourists in our own town. Come on up and visit Ottawa soon. Here are a few recents snaps to hold you over until then....

tulip festival

tulipfest

tulipfest

#pieproud

Canada Day Fireworks

A trip back -- waaaay back -- in time