Author: cultureguru

Exceeding expectations

The concert was billed as “Alan Frew and Friends.” Alan Frew, if you don’t know, was lead singer of eighties band Glass Tiger—a band, I will freely admit, I was never (still aren’t) much of a fan of.

But having seen Mr. Frew perform twice before in the Jeans’n’Classics format of rock band + symphony, I have definitely become a fan of Alan Frew’s. The man is a really a dynamic performer—charismatic, funny, energetic, and talented. Great voice.

So my expectations actually weren’t that low for this concert. Still, they were considerably exceeded.

Alan himself was again very funny, very charming as he recounted some of his latest adventures, which include a new song to raise funds for breast cancer research plus a recent stop to perform for the troops in Afghanistan. He also acted as master of ceremonies in introducing all his friends (joking that their collective ages would almost add up to Gordon Lightfoot’s), who helped raise the show to something special.

First guests up were the two founding members of the Spoons, Sandy Horne and Gord Deppe, who both still looked and sounded really good on “Nova Heart” (though with four guitars on stage at this point, it wasn’t a number that particularly highlighted the symphony). They returned in the second half with “Romantic Traffic,” which reminded me that I liked it so much, I had to buy it!

Lorraine Segato of Parachute Club was another guest. She seemed perhaps a bit subdued on the iconic “Rise Up” in the first half (though expressing her appreciation that people still wanted to hear these old songs), but warmed up in the second. Commenting on Frew’s skills as raconteur, she decided to tell the story of how she came to write “Dancing at the Feet of the Moon.” This was a phrase spoken to her by a man in Mexico. Then, for the first and only time in her life, she dreamt the entire song, both lyrics and music. She awoke and had to scramble to get it all down.

The song itself sounded great with the symphonic accompaniment, and an a Capella part with singers Rique Frank and Katherine Rose joining Segato was particularly awesome. (I tried to buy this song too, but it doesn’t seem to be easily available.)

Amy Sky was another performer. Woman has a serious set of pipes. She brought herself to tears on the touching “I Will Take Care of You.” A planned duet with husband Marc Jordan had to become a solo, as Jordan was fighting off a chest cold and couldn’t hit all the notes. That didn’t stop him from performing a couple numbers on his own, though.

Jordan was the Frew’s only rival as funniest man of the night. Before his first song, he commented on the wonder of playing with a symphony, “all these real musicians. Me, I just got into music to get laid. And I’m not leaving until I do!”

In the second half, before performing Rod Stewart’s “Rhythm of My Heart” (which Jordan wrote), he talked about how it’s nice to be recognized, and to have people ask for his autograph because they like his writing. Until he realized they were mistaking him for Margaret Atwood (think glasses, curly black hair… Anyway). Maybe that’s a “you had to be there” kind of joke. But a lovely song.

The big discovery of the night, though, was one Stephan Moccio. Frew explained how they’d been introduced when Frew was looking for a song co-writer with serious piano chops. Moccio then played a solo piano piece called “October” that blew everyone away.

Frew afterward reported that Moccio’s Exposure album was the best-selling of its genre in Canadian music history.

In the second half, Moccio told the story of his adventures with one Céline Dion. He was a cocky (his words) music student at University of London when Dion came to perform there. Moccio met up with her manager/husband René Angelil and insisted that he had to meet Dion. That did get arranged, and Moccio pledged that he would one day write her a hit song. She was fairly dismissive, but he did manage to get photographic evidence of their meeting.

Flash-forward 10 years or so, and doesn’t Moccio get an opportunity to co-write a song for Céline Dion’s comeback album. And doesn’t it just go to number 1 and sell and sell. (That would be “A New Day Has Come.”) So he met up with the chanteuse again at one of the big award shows, and he tells the story of their first meeting, and pulls out the picture. To which a delighted Dion responded:

“Oh my God! We both look so much better now!”

The big hit was then performed, with Katherine Rose standing in for Dion. And Rose has a great voice, but no, she couldn’t quite match Dion’s power. Whether or not that’s a good thing is a matter of taste.

With all these performance changes (and yes, Frew also performed several of his solo and Glass Tiger numbers) and stories, the show ran long. Too long for an encore. But thing is, it didn’t feel long at all. It was over 2 1/2 hours, but seemed like it went by in a flash. That’s when you know you’re having fun.

All performers were available afterwards to meet fans, sign purchased products, etc. We all decided we wouldn’t mind getting Moccio’s CD. Good thing we didn’t dawdle on that, because we got the last three copies available! (Out of an original 60, apparently!) And, we got there just in time for him to sign them for us. And yes, he’s every bit as cute in person as he looks in photos.

So all in all, that was a great evening. Next up is Woodstock—Who, Hendrix, Joplin, Santana, The Band, Jefferson… So my expectations are fairly high. We’ll see if they can be exceeded.

Most people probably don’t drink enough coffee

Hey, it’s not me saying it. It’s Gary Arendash, University of South Florida in Tampa, in the highly respected Nutrition Action Healthletter.

Those who drank three to five cups of coffee a day in middle age had a lower risk of Alzheimer’s or other dementia 21 years later than those who drank less.

“Caffeine is anti-inflammatory, and Alzheimer’s is a disease of inflammation in the brain.”

People who drink regular coffee also have a lower risk of Parkinson’s, and regular or decaf may help prevent diabetes. [Also, I’ve read in certain other articles, seems to help reduce the incidence of certain cancers.]

“Caffeine is the most prevalent psychoactive drug taken in by humans. It’s safe and inexpensive. It’s as effective as anything that pharmaceutical companies have devised.”

“Unless you are pregnant, I would absolutely recommend caffeine.”

“For the vast majority, it’s entirely safe and it’s a no-brainer [interesting choice of adjective] to protect against diseases of aging like diabetes, Parkinson’s, and Alzheimer’s.”

Dark chocolate, nuts, now coffee… all health foods.

Now if they could just stop pointing out the link between wine and breast cancer, nearly all my nutritional vices will have become virtues.

Jon goes viral—again

I’m behind in watching The Daily Show.

Things pile up on the PVR when I go on vacation. Plenty of couch-potato time has reduced the stockpile, but I still have a good five episodes of The Daily Show sitting there. Thing is, the news is depressing these days. Even the fake news. So when faced with so many options, I’d sooner just watch Erica redo her life on Being Erica (possibly my favourite show right now), or explore Battlestar Galactica‘s final days, or see when (or if) Dollhouse will get really good, or root for this year’s un-obnoxious teams on the invigorated Amazing Race, or even revel in the clash of egos on the surprisingly addictive and compelling Project Runway: Canada.

But even without watching much Daily Show, there’s been no escaping Jon Stewart this week. He’s been everywhere—on blogs, in Salon.com, in the newspaper, on Letterman… It’s just interesting how he does the thing he does every week, yet every six months or so, something pops and everyone again reacts with some surprise that a comedian can seriously and intelligently address a real issue.

So though I haven’t watched any of this yet, this is what I know happened.

In response to CNBC’s Rick Santelli’s complaint about bailing out “loser mortgages”, The Daily Show ran one of their montages illustrating months of stupid advice from the supposedly intelligent financial commentators at CNBC.

Included in the montage was one Jim Cramer. Later, on another show (that was his mistake) Cramer complained his clip was taken out of context: That he wasn’t telling people to buy Bear Stern stock, only that they didn’t have to take their money out of the bank. YouTube link

The Daily Show responded by allowing that was true, then running clips of Jim Cramer, taken only weeks earlier, advising the purchse of Bear Stern stock.

The whole culminated at the end of this week with Jim Cramer appearing on The Daily Show. The interview was so long, it didn’t fit in the 22 minutes of the episode, so the network has made the uncut version available online in three parts.

This full interview, I have watched on the computer. Not all that funny, it is Jon in “this is a serious issue” mode. And Cramer is not very combative in return. (And according to Salon, has in no way changed his approach because of all this.)

And just a sampling of the posts that alerted me to all this:

As someone who doesn’t watch financial TV anyway, it’s harder for me to get the moral outrage up compared with previous dead aims at things like the Bush government and the Crossfire approach to news coverage. But that’s how the world is today. It’s all about the economy, stupid.

18 random things about our trip to Provence

This post also lives at https://culturearchive.ca/18-random-things-about-our-trip-to-provence/

Thought I’d post this in advance of the big website extravaganza…

1. Provence has more and better Roman artifacts than Rome

This was a surprise. It shouldn’t have been, as our tour itinerary said we’d be seeing all these Roman artifacts, but we were still surprised. Huge, intact coliseums and theatres. Enormous aqueducts. Huge cenotaphs. Sculptures. Romanesque churches. Enormous Pope’s Palace (yes, the pope lived in Provence rather than Rome for a time). We almost got to be blasé about it; oh, another day, another coliseum!

2. Provence may be the best place in the world in which to eat

Oh my, the food. Every meal was good, everything properly prepared. Duck, salmon, quail, osso bucco, shrimp, lamb—all creatures cooked just to the right point and nicely seasoned. Creative starters—stuffed ravioli, softened goat cheese with sesame, foie gras (and more foie gras, and it didn’t cost any more than anything else), pumpkin soup. Cheese courses with soft and semi-firm choices. And desserts—chocolate caramel mousse, molten chocolate cake, gelato ice cream, tarte tatin. And, for Europe, all at pretty reasonable prices. The consistently good quality was really amazing.

Continue reading “18 random things about our trip to Provence” →

Two days of eye candy

Tuesday, I went to see So You Think You Can Dance Canada—live, at Copps Coliseum in Hamilton. The friends and I were expecting that it would be us (the cougars?) and thousands of screaming teenage girls, but it was  remarkably diverse audience. Lots of little kids, older people—all ages, really. And though it definitely skewed female, it wasn’t really so hard to “spot the dude”.

The show itself was a lot of fun. They redid many of the favourite dances from the season, broken up with some video montages from the show, some introductions by the dancers themselves (there was no MC). Now, some numbers didn’t come off quite as well as they did on TV; you could see the strain more, somehow. But other performances looked even better, even more impressive, in person. My faves Vincent and Lisa were particularly awe-inspiring, but I was also newly impressed with Danny in his solo, Izaak and Caitlan acquitted themselves very well in their “Breaking dishes” number, and the second half was packed with favourites—the mirror number (Lisa and Miles), the angel number (Nico and Arassay), Nico and Natalli’s quick step.

And these are pretty people! We had good seats—not right in the floor area, where views may have been blocked, but close enough to see well. Still, I did bring the binoculars, and did whip them out at times, maybe particularly when “Canada’s favorite dancer” was in the spotlight. (Lady beside me also had binoculars, and I became amused at our nearly synchronized moves to raise them at each “Nico time”.) Very nice. Very fit—everyone very fit. (I should really get off the computer and work out.)

Nico Archambault

Next evening, I headed out to the Galaxy cinema for a showing of The Who Live at the Isle of Wight. Given my recent obsession (somewhat abated, but not exactly gone), I felt I couldn’t miss this one, presented in honour of the film’s release on DVD Blu-Ray.

Unlike the packed Copps Coliseum, very small crowd for this one… Not that it really mattered.

I have excerpts from this concert on some of my DVDs, but I’d never seen the whole thing. It’s from a 1970 show, and features a similar line-up to the Live at Leeds album: Starts off with “Heaven and Hell” (which I somehow hadn’t realized featured John on lead vocals); includes “Can’t Explain”, “My Generation,” “Magic Bus”; and includes ones of those awesome “remixed live” things that they did then, this one built off the little-known song “Water” [or “Wa-da”, as they say in Philadelphia, as Daltrey deadpanned].

And, as on Leeds, a run-through of Tommy, though not in its entirety.

I felt very Who fan-ish through the first song and a bit, as I couldn’t stop thinking, “It’s just not loud enough. We’re losing all the harmonics!” Then, indeed, the sounds became much louder and fuller—clearly, the thing had started on the wrong sound setting. From that point on, it did sound very good.

It looked… Well, the camera-work was weird. All these little close-ups. Pete’s head. Moon’s back. Entwistle’s fingers. You’re left kind of craving an overview, a panorama. I was thinking maybe that was the limitations of 1970’s film techology, but I read a review at the time that suggested it was just bad camerawork. And was correcting in saying that we did see too much of the audience. Though it was somewhat amusing how they cut to drinkin’, tokin’ audience members during the “Hey you getting drunk / Hey you smokin’ mother nature” parts of “We’re Not Gonna Take It”.

Overall, very worth seeing on the big screen, especially since I don’t have a Blu-Ray, nor even a big-screen TV.

The Who at the Isle of Wight festival.

Finally, some fashion notes.

Continue reading “Two days of eye candy” →

A rock’n’roll odyssey

The Record will be publishing another Letter to the Editor from me sometime next week. Not about politics, but in response to a book  review they published.

The book reviewed was X-Ray by Ray Davies of The Kinks. The review wasn’t terribly positive, but that wasn’t really my issue. It’s that the whole thing was littered with factual errors—names, who played what instrument, musical genres of particular songs. And that the book was finally dismissed as just another “sex and drugs” rock’n’roll memoir.

Even leaving aside that there isn’t that much sex and drugs, really (Ray was never a drug addict and isn’t that open about his sex life), the style of this bio is really unusual. To quote the Amazon description:

In this unique “unauthorized autobiography,” Kinks singer and songwriter Davies casts himself as an eccentric old man some 20 years hence who is asked to tell his life story to a young interviewer working for a world-ruling conglomerate called “The Corporation.” Eventually, the Orwellian subplot is overshadowed by Davies’s very personal account of his band’s many rises and falls.

So I really thought, man, this reviewer didn’t even bother to read the book.

So then I wrote a really mean letter about that, and sent it to both the letters page and the Book Page editor.

I heard back from the latter, saying that, you know, I’d like to print this, but you can’t go around accusing reviewers of not reading the books. And also, the letter is too long. (My letters to the editor are always too long.)

So I rewrote it, now stating that the book had not been read very carefully—but still pointing out some of the factual errors (in what was a really, really short book review), and my view that whatever flaws the book has, lack of originality isn’t one of them.

Whereupon it was accepted for publication. Of course, these things get published under one’s real name. And I started thinking, huh, this is kind of a small town, and boy, would it be awkward if I ever ran into the book reviewer at a party, or something.

Then the Book Page editor contacted me again, with a message from the book reviewer, who really wants to talk to me! So we can “discuss rock’n’roll”. Oh, boy.

Of course, I’m not really up for that. But I am in the phone book… Perhaps it’s time to invest in Call Display. 🙂

All I want is Who

And then the other reason I can’t put much energy into political thinking is that I’m too busy thinking about The Who.

The Who? They doing something? New album? Good-bye tour number 10? Another one of them die?

No, nothing like that. They’re not doing anything in particular at the moment, that I’m aware of. But, I did get The Amazing Journey DVD for Christmas, and now I’m slightly obsessed.

OK, so that was that the trigger, but why? Earlier this year I got the Kids Are Alright DVD, and that didn’t spawn any sort of obsession.

I went to the Jeans’n’Classic concert recently featuring music by the Rolling Stones and The Who, and it was really good, but again, didn’t make the band enter my thoughts any more often than before.

But now, you know, I’m digging out the old albums, other DVDs, the videotapes (!), the books… finding new websites… (And it’s irritating me like heck that I can’t remember anything significant about the one time I saw them live—on goodbye tour number 2.) It’s not like I ever stopped liking The Who, you know, but normally they’re just one among many.

It’s sure not to last, but for now, I’m just going to go with it. The beauty is, I don’t even have all their albums yet, so I have stuff to discover.

I can’t believe I just, just bought “Love Reign O’er Me”. I mean, how great is that song?

And Live at Leeds. Have you heard Live at Leeds? How can any band who jumps around as much as they all do sound so fantastic, so cohesive, so huge, live? There is no band of the 60s who was better onstage. And this is a case where waiting pays off; far from the mere six songs on the original Live at Leeds, the “expanded and remixed” version now available has the entire concert.

I just don’t know how I’ve lived without all these years. 🙂

I leave you now with Woodstock. See me, feel me. Indeed.

Today I agreed with Stockwell Day

So CTV News today was presenting a story about a protectionist “Buy American” bill that the US Congress has suddenly passed. And some MP (not sure the party) suggested that Canada should pass its own “Buy Canada”, to which I found myself replying, “Protectionism doesn’t really help stimulate the economy” only to find Stockwell Day, on TV, saying virtually the same thing, at the same time.

Dah!

Anyway. I can’t seem to bring myself into a lather over this budget and the projected deficit. It does seem a rather large deficit, but then again, there is an awful lot of opinion out there that stimulus is needed and deficits must be tolerated. Those opinions could be wrong, but I sure don’t have the knowledge to dispute it.

But greatly amused this morning when maverick CBC economics reporter Michael Helinka (not in favor of deficit spending, by the way) expressed pure amazement that host Matt Galloway actually believed that Conservative governments try to avoid deficits. “That is simply not true. Republicans, Conservatives—they do not balance budgets. Liberals and Democrats do. Conservative governments have that reputation, but it’s simply not borne out by the facts.”

Yes, I know, I’ve said it before, but it’s hard to let go of: Stimulus package or no, we would have been in deficit anyway, because the Conservatives frittered away the surplus with stupidly timed tax cuts and silly one-time expenditures. That’s what Conservatives do.

So I don’t know what it means that I agreed with Stockwell Day.

And, I suppose it doesn’t speak well of me that I also agree with faux Michael Ignatieff in this clip from 22 Minutes. But why don’t Canadians spend some time educating themselves about how the Parliamentary system in this country works? (Not to mention which parties are best at managing economies.) That way Conservatives could stop so easily manipulating their ignorance.

New year, new gourmet dinner

Some years ago, DH and I started cooking a gourmet dinner on New Year’s Eve—yes, just for the two of us. (Everyone seems to find that odd, but believe me, when your friends all start having babies… You start doing a lot of things just the two of you!)

Last year, that dinner didn’t quite land on New Year’s Eve itself, and this year it was even later. DH had call duty over New Year’s weekend, so we picked the weekend after for our dinner. That way, there could be wine.

First course: Mushroom and cappuccino velouté

Source: The ever-cheery sounding Cooking with Foods That Fight Cancer

Wine: Stoneleigh 2006 Pinot Noir (New Zealand)

Green mug with foamy white stuff and a bit mushroom soup poking through; bottle of Stoneleigh Pinot.

Certainly the healthiest item of the meal, the soup was also very easy to make: Sauté mushrooms, garlic, and shallots in olive oil, add good-quality chicken stock and let simmer, add fresh basil and blend, season with sesame, then froth milk and put on top. We don’t have a proper “milk frother”, though, so that wasn’t as foamy as it might have been.

But since shitake mushrooms are delicious, the soup was delicious. The wine was also very nice, living up to its reputation as a really good Pinot Noir for less than $20 a bottle. Fruity but subtle, complementing the earthiness of the mushrooms nicely.

Second course: Squash Ravioli with Sage Butter Sauce

Source: LCBO—Squash ravioli, Sage butter sauce

Wine: Chateau des Charmes St. David’s Bench Chardonnay (Ontario)

Ravioli on a white plate; Chateau des Charmes bottle.

I’d been wanting to try making ravioli for a while, and had these two LCBO recipes on hand. What we made was a bit of a combination of both.

I had my doubts when the roasted squash ended up a bit overcooked, with burnt edges; was the whole thing going to end up tasting charcoal-y? Plus, one squash didn’t seem to provide quite enough material, so we supplemented with can pumpkin.

Actually stuffing the things, which I had been dreading, was actually much easier than expected. And amazingly (to me), almost none came apart in cooking, and the won ton wrappers, which seemed so doughy when raw, turned very light after cooking.

The butter sauce was also cause for some concern enroute. (And can I say, that was a shocking amount of butter! Not how I usually cook!) It was supposed to get light brown; it kind of went beyond that, to a darker colour. Was it going to taste all charcoal-y?

But everything was delicious. No charcoal accents at all. And the detail of crisping the sage leaves in olive oil added a really cool texture to the whole thing.

The wine, recommended by LCBO, did match the food very nicely. It took on a completely different, fuller character, compared with drinking it alone.

Main course: Macademia-Crusted Lamb with Celery Root-Fennel Mash and Coconut Mango Chutney

Source: LCBO again, their Holiday 2004 issue.

Wine: Clos des Brusquières 2003 Chateauneuf du Pape (France)

Lamb chops with mashed root and chutney on another white plate; Chateauneuf du Pape bottle.

This recipe was a last-minute substitution when we weren’t able to get our hands on sushi-grade tuna. The idea was accompanying honey-encrusted French-cut lamb chops with a fairly subtle-flavored mash and a very strongly flavored chutney.

None of this was hard to make, but it did take a while. DH handled the mash, which involved a couple of vegetables we don’t cook with very often: the ugly celery root and a fennel bulb (with some other flavorings, like garlic and sea salt). The result was very pleasant-tasting.

The chutney was all strong flavors: sugar, vinegar, chili, ginger, mango, cinnamon, coconut, mint, raisins, lime. It seemed like such a hodge-podge, and the color ended up so odd (brownish), that I was actually surprised how good it tasted!

The main event lamb, by comparison, was a master of simplicity. And it all worked together with the wine, which was very nice, as those tend to be. (And yes, we were feeling a little tipsy at this point, though by no means getting close to finishing any of the bottles!)

Dessert: Pumpkin-Wild Blueberry Pie

Source: Michael Stadtlander’s The Heaven on Earth Project

Wine: Cave Spring’s 2006 Late Harvest Riesling (Ontario)

Blueberry and pumpkin pie with whipped cream; Cave Spring bottle.

Michael Stadtlander is considered one of the best chefs in the world. He runs a restaurant out of his own home. It’s extremely difficult to get reservations there now, but many years, we were able to. (We just had to book four months in advance. Seriously.) And it was, indeed, a sublime experience.

We bought his book a few months ago and—guess what?—a lot of the recipes are really hard to make. But this pie was approachable, and this seemed a good time to try it.

I didn’t compromise on it too much. I used can pumpkin instead of cooking my own, and the blueberry glaze seemed to require the sacrifice of too many delicious wild blueberries for too little input on the pie. But I did follow pastry recipe, and was pleased how easy it was to mix. Rolling got a bit sticky (the crust had sugar and vanilla in it), but adding flour made that work. No amounts were given for the various spices in the pumpkin pie, so I just threw in what seemed like a reasonable amount of each.

So if not entire Statlander-esque in the end, it still turned out very good. Pumpkin and wild blueberry (frozen after we bought them up North this summer) is a good combination. And the Riesling had about the right amount of sweetness to match.

Pie was even better the next day when it had had a chance to chill longer.

The Christmas part of Christmas (or Christmas in parts)

With dispersed families, Christmas celebrations get dispersed over various events, not all of which occur on December 25.

DH and I traditionally hold “our” Christmas on the weekend before we go north. We exchange whatever gifts we’ve bought for each other, and have a Christmas dinner.

This year was no exception. For the dinner, I decided to follow an entire menu provided in the Nutrition Action Newsletter. The biggest challenge, apart from it just being a lot of dishes (turkey breast, stuffing, wild rice salad, green beans, sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce, pumpkin dip, cranberry apple pear crisp), was that a lot of the recipes were for 8-10 people—way too much for two. So not only was I making a lot of different dishes, but I was having to do arithmetic (divide in two) on all the ingredients as well.

But everything turned out. Although all “healthy”, nothing was lacking in flavor. The cranberry sauce was nicely punched up with ginger, the sweet potato topped with walnuts and coconut. And I liked that the stuffing was much less greasy and salty than stuffing usually is.

For gifts, we went small, since we’re looking at yet another trip soon. With the help of very specific hinting, I got very cute pyjamas on a musical theme (“Here comes treble!”), but was also surprised with some new kitchen gizmos. The gift I was most excited for DH to open was a bottle of Stratus White that I’d spotted at an LCBO, despite its being completely sold out at the winery itself. Tasting notes:

The 05 Stratus White invites the awesome comment. Cliché but true. Feels like Chardonnay Musqué on steroids—delightfully excessive. A wine to propose with, or serve with foie gras, perhaps to mark an anniversary celebration.

The next event was up north, on the eve of the 24th, which is when French Canadians celebrate Christmas with a Réveillon. Food features prominently here, with little appetizer thingies like bacon-wrapped water chestnuts, sweet and sour meatballs, devilled eggs, smoked salmon canapes, shrimp, sucre à crème, and so on.

The gift exchange is more on the jokey side. Everyone gets a $10 gift on a theme, this year’s being “Cowboy”. Then we sit and play a “left / right” passing game until you end up with whatever gift in the end. I threw a Cowboy Junkies CD into the pot.

On the third day of Christmas, it was finally December 25. But Christmas morning was pretty quiet, just DH, me, and my parents, as one sister was staying in Toronto, another not due up until Boxing Day, and the brother’s family only stopping by later that day. So we did a leisurely breakfast, then each of us opened our stocking things, and DH and Dad exchanged gifts, since they had each other’s names.

DH and I split up for Christmas dinner, each joining our respective parents’ for the traditional turkey feast. I did get to see my brother’s family at this point, which is always fun, along with some aunts and uncles.

So Boxing Day was another event, as finally all the kids (my brother’s and my sister’s) could get together. The reunion occurred later than originally expected, due to a stomach bug that struck my brother and his wife (though not the kids). It was crazy-ness when they were finally all together, tearing through their remaining presents.

I also opened my gifts from my brother-in-law, who had my name. Got a very nice-looking exercise top (that I probably won’t limit to workout wear—it’s pretty cute), the Who’s Amazing Story DVD that I’ve been thoroughly enjoying the past couple days, a nice pair of earrings and necklace from the One of a Kind show (and thinking my sister may have helped with the shopping here), and a Paul Anka Rock Swings CD.

Yes, Rock Swings—Paul Anka doing songs like Jump, Smells Like Teen Spirit, and Black Hole Sun in his style. This was purchased in all seriousness, since I’ve been known to enjoy oddities such as dance-mix and orchestral versions of Queen songs. But this CD is something else. We played it one night and, well, you almost have to hear it to believe it. It was quite the conversation piece for us.