Hallowe'en 2012

Happy Hallowe’en!!!!!  Nothing freaky has happened here yet, but the ghouls and zombies won’t come out until tonight.  I hope to pacify them with small chocolate bars that I bought a big box of at Canadian Tire.  I’m beginning to wonder what I would do without Canadian Tire and London Dugs.  I think I solved my ‘water feature’-for- eliminating-the-sounds-of-annoying-neighbors problem this week by buying an inexpensive c.d. player that was on sale at London Drugs.  Finding a c.d. of the sounds of water was not as easy as I had anticipated, however.  After visiting stores in Vernon and phoning HMV in Kelowna, with no success, I searched on line and discovered a site called ‘Partners in Rhyme’ that had a c.d. entitled, ‘Soothing Waters’.  It’s in the mail.  I can’t wait to try it.  The c.d. only cost $4.95 because what I actually bought, for $15.95, was a download for an mp3 or whatever, which I don’t have.  It was not possible to buy  the c.d. without the download, but the bonus is that it’s on my laptop now, so I can listen to a babbling brook whenever I want to.  In fact I think I’ll turn it on right now.  Just a minute.  Ahh, that’s lovely.  There’s a soft tinkle of bells behind the sound of water flowing over rocks, how soothing.  I think I remember seeing something about this tape being associated with a meditation group when I was looking at the many nature sound downloads that were available.  I don’t think I have enough patience to even think about meditating, but after living with this babbling brook for a while, who knows where my head will be.  As the cold approaches, the neighbors move indoors, but I’ll be ready for a serene spring.

I saw a really good movie last week, which many of you have probably seen already, ‘The Intouchables’.  My Mac wants to correct the spelling, but it’s a French film, and although they changed the title for distribution in the U.S., they didn’t in Canada, although they did replace the ‘les’ with ‘the’.  I think it was a good idea because this is a bilingual country, so it catches your attention and hints at the fact that these two men finally do get ‘in touch’, very touchingly.  Enough!  It’s the story of a rich French quadriplegic and a black man who becomes his care-giver, in spite of or perhaps because of the fact that at first he categorically refuses to have anything to do with touching intimate parts of his employer.  Speaking of bilingualism, Canada is becoming more and more multilingual.  I heard on the CBC this week that Tagalog, the language of the Philippines is now the most rapidly growing first language in households in Canada.  Continuing with the Vernon cultural scene, I went with Priscilla to see Verdi’s ‘Otello’ at the cinema last Saturday morning.  I was drawn to it by the fact that Renee Fleming was Desdemona.  She was wonderful, perhaps a bit old for the part, but beautiful and her voice is easy and soaring.  The surprise for me was Iago.  I know very little about opera, but the man who sang the role, Falk Struckmann, was the best Iago I’ve ever seen or heard.  He had a wonderful baritone voice and his presence on stage was evil incarnate.  The tenor who played Otello was less impressive in every way but girth.  He was huge, but even at that, he was destroyed in the battle between good and evil that enveloped him in the voices and actions of Desdemona and Iago.  Priscilla and I were so moved by the final act that we didn’t leave our seats for a while, and when we did we were alone in the theatre except for about six people who were about three rows behind us quietly trying to take the pulse of an older woman who was slumped in her seat.  She appeared to be dead.  The manager of the theatre was at the front on his cell phone to 911.  There was nothing for us to do so we left, speaking softly about how there are worse ways to go than sitting comfortably in a theatre listening to Renee Fleming sing Ave Maria just before her murder at the hands of Otello.

On that note of the victory of evil over good, I will wish you all a Happy Hallowe’en.  

Fields and hills as we began the last of the Sunday hikes in Kal Park last Sunday

Hikers holding hands around the biggest pine in Kal Park

Scratch marks left by a bear on the above tree

Jay as Harry Potter on Hallowe'en at his school in Incheon.  He thought it was a pretty feeble effort, but I didn't.

Inspired by the photo Jay sent me, I tried to carve a Harry Potter pumpkin for tonight.  The lightening bolt was beyond me.