Stormy Sandy

TO Hydro Crews in our area

Hurricane Sandy hit land about 8pm ET in New Jersey.
Toronto is about 800 km away. That's 500 mi for you americans who have a mental block with base10 measurements.  And yet the storm managed to affect T.O.  With high winds and rain.  Mostly winds.

I was up watching some PVR'd pre-season basketball trying to wind down after my swim class by doing mine and Kieran's chlorinated swim stuff. At about 11:59pm, done with the swim gear, I was just about to put a load of jeans in, and poof. I was in pitch black.

Killer sign

Kieran finally agreed to wear his Speedo Jammers.  It'll knock at least 3 seconds off of his 60 sec / 25m front crawl.  I've never timed it.  Or I did and then forgot to click stop on my watch.
Plus it's easier to get his pants over them before heading to Splash.
He tried it and he liked how they felt.  So I think he's a believer.
He's still wearing his swim shirt though, but it's okay for practice, but for races he said he leave it off.

Staples sign kills TO woman

One of the kids at school told another mother that told me that some lady was killed by the Stockyards Staples/Business Depot sign last night that was blown off by the strong winds last night. So it must be true.  And sure enough.  I drove by the area and saw the police had taped off the area for investigation.

Also noticed TO Hydro crews in our area working to restore power.  Our power went back on about 9:40am.  NICE. The area south of us on Runnymede was unaffected.  I called the school and they had power. So we hurried and Kieran still managed to get to school on time, surprisingly.

It's getting to look a lot like Halloween

 We went to the annual halloween pumpkin carving at Kieran's school.  There's usually a movie later on too, but Kieran wasn't interested in watching the flicks, but really wanted to carve up pumpkins.
The school does it as a fund raiser, and it's great for the kids to be with their friends and carve up pumpkins.  We brought in rice crispies that went in minutes and made a small donation.
I helped Kieran a bit with the middle one.  I asked him what he wanted to do and he described it to me and we got a pen and kinda drew it out.  But it was entirely his own design.  Yahvi and Samat had arrived by the time we were done, so we helped them with theirs.  Good thing I was prepared and brought our own carving tools, cuz it was a zoo. So Kieran asked if we could do another. Since Yahvi was just starting. I wasn't sure, but he got another pumpkin to carve from the bin.
That's the one in front, which he did pretty much entirely on his own.  I just cut the lid and cleaned the guts out.   They had stencils, but the kids in school are encouraged to come up with their own ideas.  They can use stencils but they must come up with their own interpretation of the instructions. I think the stencils were more to help the parents that were doing most of the carving.  But doing your own design is way faster.  And can be pretty creative and totally original.

The third one that's at the end, today he asked if we could get another pumpkin to carve. So after supper today, we headed to No-Frills, and found no pumpkins left.  But we did get more halloween treats.  We had filled some loot bags to bring to his Slovenska Sola.  So I had to get a refill.  Then off we scooted to Loblaws and managed to pick up some olive oil.  It was sold out too!
We then headed to Fresh Co.  They had some, thank God!  I was running out of grocery stores in our area.  Kieran was doing his best to look over the big cardboard box on the skid to pick out the pumpkin he wanted.

I picked out two and was retrieving a 3rd one that he asked for and then Kieran, just trying to help me, did a bombs away with the one he didn't want to put it back in the pile and it sorta mushed a pumpkin in the box.  Ah...it was rotting anyways.
In any case, I hurried up to the cash to pay for the one he wanted before anyone noticed. And it was $1.50.   What a deal!  I was thinking we could pick up another, but then our green bin would be overflowing.  And I wasn't interested in giving the racoons a buffet that would end up on our sidewalk like a few weeks ago.  Dang critters.  If they're not digging up our lawn for grubs, they're busting open our green bin for a midnight snack.

We lined them up by the hall and put in these battery operated tea lights to see how they looked.
The lights from behind are these slits that are supposed to be scars that Kieran cut into his pumpkins.  The effect turned out pretty cool.

Impromptu Concert

We were at our neighbour's for a semi-annual dinner.  Dinner is always amazingly good and Sonal always makes us play games.  She's really into it.  And the kids are now able to participate as well.  No video games or electronic devices here.  These get togethers are a throwback to a day when families did these sort of things.  To become closer...well, families.

And we don't just sit around eating and talking gossip or crap like that, and drinking and more eating, more talking that sounds more like complaining, and getting stuffed and bloated to the point where you are going to explode.  The games get everyone involved and enjoying the company of close friends and family.  It's a blast.

I think I gotta start thinking of stuff like this at our family gatherings.  There's certainly enough of us to participate.  The last time we played monopoly with all the kids.  I was the banker and it was awesome.  No texting...well limited texting.  Hard to break these kids today of these habits.  Being connected all the time is not a healthy thing.

I'll have to bring the Bingo set next time.  I know I can find some junk around our house that we could pass off as prizes.  I've done it before.  But these teens, now heading into university weren't even 10 yrs old.  Back then I got these ignorant kids to fight over my old karate belts and foil blankets from my races, thinking they were great stuff.  Hey someone else's junk is another kid's parents treasure.  It's outta my house!  The word is 'purge'.

Back to the dinner.  I'm not sure how we got on the topic of music lessons, but I must have asked Samatva if he learned any songs on his violin yet.  And I mentioned that Kieran could show him.  And he did.  And then Kieran asked if I could get his violin from our house.  It was a long walk from this semi to our semi.  But I got it, plus the cameras.

It must have been Yahvi's east indian dance show that motivated Kieran's desire to show how far he's come along with his violin.  And also he's supposed to do a string concert with two of his classmates.  Emma has a violin and Adrian plays the cello.  Both have been practicing longer than Kieran, but it's good for him to play with more advanced kids.  He'll learn and catch up.  And he gets pretty excited about it.  His violin is something he seems pretty proud of and keen on.  And his teacher is awesome.  Pretty happy about that.

The suzuki method involves the parent.  So I am actually learning to play the violin as well.  Although it sounds more like a cat in heat, or in pain.  Sounds like it's more in pain.  But Kieran has taught me twinkle little star.  And his mentoring me on how to play the violin, reinforces his learning.  As well as it makes it fun for both of us.

 Click for photos


It was a big milestone for Kieran and Samat to step up and put on an impromptu violin duet in front of all of us.