Volunteering: Part Deux

If yesterday was a three-car pile-up, today was a wrecking yard. I'm out of town, in Sechelt today and tomorrow, but one of the projects I'm co-ordinating suffered a bit of a setback today due to a mix-up on my part... I managed a correction, however, and all was well again, but there was a bit of a panicky moment, there.

Memoirs of a Geisha

I finally finished the dang thing. I don't think I have EVER dragged out the reading of a book this long before. Eliza gave me a bunch of novels over Christmas, and I'd finished the Bridget Jones books in due course. I even wrote a rambling blog about them.

Memoirs of a Geisha, however, took some time. Rightly so, though, since there is a level of detail in the book -- Japanese culture in a particular time period -- that warrants a slower pace. Plus, I'd already started my coursework and work was taking more of my time. But I have to say: I was a bit disappointed. The book is a favourite of so many, yet I found myself somewhat let down with... I'm not sure what exactly. Some passages were quite moving, her emotions powerful, but overall I didn't feel the book's expected impact. Could've been the long period of time I took to read it. Maybe if I'd read it in a few sittings it would've had a different impression, although that's purely hypothetical. I can't exactly unread it to find out.

Now I'm onto the last of the books Eliza lent to me: Frank McCourt's 'Tis, a follow-up to his more famous work, Angela's Ashes, which I read when it was released way back when. I can't recall the story details, but I do recall enjoying the book immensely. We'll see how Frank McCourt does this time. I must say, though, I do have a fondness for the Irish lilt and have a tendency to "read aloud" the accent in my head as the words jump off the page. My own simultaneous translation, if you will.

Volunteering: Part One

It somewhat resembled a three-car pile-up today, but we all survived. No injuries. Things got done. No worries.

We Visit the Great Big Ball of Science

Michael watching electricity come alive

It won't take much for the regular readers to figure out that the "Ball of Science" I'm referring to is actually...Science World. "Ball of Science" is what Melissa called it, much to the amusement of those who heard her pontificate on the Skytrain. If you're dubious as to whether or not a 4-year old can pontificate, I assure you: this one does.

It's Sunday, my usual day with the kids. Kids on good behaviour is the condition (and variable). So today that excluded 2-year old Madeleine. Apparently she takes the "terrible twos" terribly seriously or just... well, terribly. Or to heart. She was screaming blue murder when I arrived at my brother's house, and I asked how long that had been going on.

"Oh, nearly an hour," Cheryl informed me. "I don't recommend you take her." Oh, really? That bad, huh? I figured the older two could handle going out on their own, so I decided to make our lives easier and take the Sktytrain, since the "Ball of Science" was chock-a-block full due to raining-cats-and-dogs kind of weather. I drove by it on the way to the freeway, and I could see people were having a tough time parking. Thought it might be best to avoid all that.

the Ms on the Skytrain

This is only Melissa's second outing with me since her return from Maine, so I thought we'd hit all the shows. Some of them were very dazzling, like the "Cold Show" which featured dry ice and even liquid nitrogen. I could tell the kids were really wowed by the demonstrations with shattering banana peels, rubber tubing, and Fluffy the balloon dog. I saw their eyes widen as Fluffy was stuffed into the clear cylinder that contained the liquid nitrogen, promptly deflated, then "resuscitated" by a little volunteer who breathed on it and causing it to inflate again. Michael has an amazing memory, so I'm going to have to keep my eye on him the next time I get him balloon dog -- he might try and stuff it into somebody's glass of water, hoping it would deflate.

Between the "Locomotion" show and the last show of the day called "Science Surprises" I ran around to get the kids to try new exhibits. Seems like Michael and Melissa are getting bolder, especially Michael, who on occasion was a bit shy but has now become pretty brazen. I have a feeling it's a competitive thing. Melissa may be older than Michael by one year, but he's the same size as she is, so competes with her physically and in other ways. She's very verbose for her age and can still talk rings around him (he's catching up, though), but I think attending daycare with a bunch of rowdy boys for the past few months has made him louder. Michael is SO VERY LOUD, it can be embarrassing. On the Skytrain a man sat down in front of us who was bald, and guess who piped up, "HEY, HE HAS NO HAIR!" at the top of his lungs? Pointing his finger, no less, at the man's head as he eagerly made his report...

I wanted to crawl under the seat and disappear, but the man just ignored us, and I shushed the kids up.

The daycare lady, Natalia, says she finds Michael hilarious. When other children say "snake!", Michael will say "Burmese python" When they say "ostrich!", Michael will shake his head and say "emu"! I took Michael and Melissa to the nature section of Science World, which houses some live creatures such as a hive of bees and snakes. They had the opportunity to pet the resident corn snake, and when I asked Michael what it felt like, he said very matter-of-factly,"it feels like a Burmese python!" The man next to me burst out laughing, while I admonished, "Michael, how do you know what a Burmese python feels like?" Really, I should've saved my breath.

Melissa's first stint as a volunteer

Melissa even got onstage. Before, whenever a volunteer was called up onstage during a show (practically every five minutes), the kids wouldn't even raise their hands. This time it was different. They started raising their hands tentatively during the first show, waving their arms in the air during the second show, and by the time the third show came around both of them were right up in the front row just about jumping up and down. I knew it was just a matter of time before one of them got called up. This time it was Melissa.

She did quite well for her debut. No stage fright. She did push buttons even when the "scientist" told her not to, but nothing blew up, so that was fine. I think Michael was jealous that she went up and he didn't, so I'll see if I can get him in a red shirt or something bright like that for next time. Or a Canucks (hockey) jersey, that seemed to be one sure-fire way of getting onstage. Either that, or I'll have to do it the old-fashioned way and grease a palm. (Apparently, that works best at the government level.)

My Extra-Curricular Activities

Last week was a busy week, not just because of work and SFU stuff, but because I've got some sideline projects going on. One of them is Project Empty Bowl, for A Loving Spoonful.

Project Empty Bowl

History of Project Empty Bowl

In 10 years Empty Bowl has fed thousands. It began when John Harton, a teacher in Bloomfield, MT, asked his high school ceramic students to make enough bowls to give a luncheon for the school staff. For $5 each, the guests received a simple meal of soup and bread, served in one of the handmade bowls. Guests were asked to accept their now empty bowls as a gift and to keep them as a reminder of all the empty bowls that still need filling. The money raised was donated to the local food bank.

The energy of those young potters, their teacher and their guests breathed life into what has become the Empty Bowls Project. Since then, groups of potters have raised and donated over $1,750,000 to organizations like A Loving Spoonful that fight hunger.

The premise of Empty Bowls is profoundly simple and has been repeated thousands of times by small groups and large. A few people get together to create bowls. They invite guests, as many as they have bowls, to share a simple meal and to donate a small sum, which provides food to those in need. In return, guests take home their empty bowl as a reminder of the continuing hunger within their own community.

In 1997, Rachelle Chinnery of Mudslingers Clay Studios brought the concept of Empty Bowls to A Loving Spoonful. They had the blessing and enthusiastic participation of the Potters Guild of British Columbia and the Canadian Craft & Design Museum. Together, they created Project Empty Bowl as a benefit for A Loving Spoonful.

In March 2004 we will produce the 4th bi-annual Project Empty Bowl. Prominent members of the clay, glass, metal and wood artisan communities have been asked to create significant bowls specifically for this event. These creations have traditionally been part of a static display in one location and then are auctioned at a Gala evening of beautiful donated food, drink and song. In 2004, we will be displaying the pieces at select retailers such as Holt Renfrew and in public spaces to increase visibility for the artists, the event and the sponsors. A silent auction features many items, including bowls designed and executed by local celebrities such as Arthur Erickson, Bill Richardson, the fabulous Tracy Bell and our wonderful founder Easter Armas-Mikulik.

As many as 80% of deaths from AIDS are immediately precipitated by malnutrition rather than by the disease itself. Project Empty Bowl has raised $50,000 for A Loving Spoonful, a registered charity that delivers free, nutritious meals to men, women and children fighting HIV/AIDS who have multiple barriers to accessing proper nutrition. Next year, we hope to raise $50,000 to provide nutritional services to our clients.

Dining Out For Life

The A Loving Spoonful website is featuring Dining Out For Life right now, which is happening next Thursday, March 11. I'm also involved with that, in a lesser capacity. Vancouver readers - don't forget to dine out at a restaurant that has the Dining Out For Life poster in the window. There are 150 participating restaurants, you can find a list of them here.

My main job in Project Empty Bowl is to co-ordinate the window displays, which will feature some of the bowls being auctioned at Heritage Hall on March 31. The three retail locations are Holt Renfrew, Granville Optical, and Virgin Megastore. Much of the co-ordination has been on the phone, contacting people, explaining what needs to be done, getting things, etc., but yesterday I actually put up a display in the first window, at Granville Optical. I shouldn't say I put up the display, since really it was Oz who created the display and I just followed his orders. I got in touch with Oz through Alexandra, who is co-chairing the project along with Kenn. I was trying to get some materials together for the displays, and Alexandra said when it comes to windows, Oz was the man to call. So, call him I did, and arranged to meet him on Saturday morning.

Saturday, 9ish, much too early for my liking...

Oz

windowdressing

Granville Optical

After dropping off Ross and Kevin at the airport so I could borrow Ross's truck, I tried to wake up a bit before picking Oz up in Kits and heading off to Alexandra's house to pick up the display stands to be used at Virgin Megastore. I was only half-awake, after a coma-like sleep on Friday night and relatively early Saturday morning. But Oz was even worse off, having gone to bed at 6am. We were a dozy pair, that's for sure. In fact, if you'd been walking on Granville Street at the southwestern corner, you would've seen us in the window draping fabric and taping lights on the security bars in a bit of a stupor.

As you can see, one of the main challenges to dressing this window is the security bars. Lloyd, the owner (manager?) told us that last summer some thieves had actually broken the glass, reached through the bars, and with a coathanger or something nabbed all the sunglasses from the display cases. So, even though there's a motion sensor alarm, this all happens too quickly to be able to intervene. These thieves must work pretty fast, since there's a community police station right on Granville Street, around the corner. We were a little disappointed that we couldn't put the displays closer to the glass, but to compensate, we taped the poster information on the glass so people could at least read it, even if the bowls were a bit far away. We fiddled around a bit with the track lighting, too, for better illumination. While I was standing in the window, I noticed more people looking in, so I know the display is a lot more eye-grabbing than before. Actually, I don't know how the display could be any less eye-grabbing than before, because it was basically just two lacklustre stands with some glasses on it. Nothing else. Oz put in purple mini-lights in the shape of two eyes, so that should help attract attention at night. He added a third eye in the background, in white lights.

Holt Renfrew display

Holt Renfrew platform

Holt Renfrew generously gave us a platform in the menswear department to showcase larger bowls, as well as an accessory display case upstairs. When I went to Holt Renfrew last week to check out the space, I was surprised to find Kevin remembered me right away, since it's been nearly two years since the one and only time he'd seen me, when we decorated the Loving Spoonful float for the Pride Parade. (This float won the prize for 2002. Loved the bubble machine. Sue dressed up in costume and was the centrepiece of the float.)

I checked out the Virgin Megastore window the previous week, which was an interesting view of the pedestrians along the corner of Robson and Burrard Streets. William took me through the doors into the space between the walls and the glass, and I was very much distracted by the people walking past. It's not every day you stand inside a glass enclosure that you walk by often and peer out at the window shoppers instead of being the one looking in. It's an interesting perspective. On a side note, you wanna know how they fasten those giant posters on those Virgin Megastore walls? Velcro.

A Night On Robson Street

It was Claire's last free night in Vancouver before she flies home to France, so she and I hit Robson Street for dinner, gelato, and coffee with a view.

We started off at Thai House between Thurlow and Bute, for which I had a 2-for-1 voucher. Oh my word. We ordered so much food I thought, "There's no way we're gonna finish this!" We did, eventually, but I can't remember the last time I'd eaten so much. It was all good, though, especially the seafood house special in green curry... yum, yum.

Then we headed west towards the Landmark Hotel, but I was hypnotically drawn into Mondo Gelato -- certainly not by hunger, but some other primordial instinct to consume. I told Claire that even chickens, as daft a species as they are, know to stop eating when they're full. Humans, on the other hand, will eat until we pass out. So much for being at the top of the food chain.

After MUCH deliberation -- and anyone who's been to Mondo Gelato will know how difficult it is to make a decision on flavours -- we picked out Maple Caramel, Biscottino, and Tiramasu. Then Claire actually went for two more scoops -- this time, of White Chocolate and Ferrero Rocher. You'd never have suspected we'd just eaten vulgar amounts of Thai food only steps away, moments before.

Once we got our gelato fill, we headed over to the Landmark, where I took this photo of Robson Street facing east. We barely made last call, and chatted there in the revolving restaurant until we got kicked out. We made arrangements to meet in two months, in Paris, where we will again order two very expensive coffees and chat away until closing. I almost choked when I saw that our two coffees at the Landmark come to $10. We'll probably end up paying the same in Paris, for less -- but stronger -- coffee.

The Ultimate One-Way Mirror

Talk about killing two birds with one stone!

If you're a people-watcher, like me, you might find this interesting (Allan sent this to me last week). It's an art exhibit at the Tate Britain (London), except it's also a functioning toilet situated on the street next to the museum. It would be strange actually using it, even though you know perfectly well people can't see in. I mean, imagine: doing your business, watching people walk by totally unaware that a) you're watching them, and b) you've got your trousers down.

Here's the full article.

I saw a German short film a couple of years ago that took place in Berliner Platz, about a sculpture artist who won a design contest to put an art piece in the middle of the plaza -- the busiest shopping district in probably all of Germany (somebody please correct me if I'm wrong). She then designed a one-way mirror cube as a stunt... a place where she and her boyfriend could fool around while people walked by, because they liked to be naughty in public places. Ah, you can always count on the Germans to take things one step further... the artist of the exhibit toilet, however, is Italian.

More Orkut Amusement

Over the weekend, I stumbled onto the motherlode of Orkut communities: All Things Filipino.

Now, most of you out there wouldn't think twice about this community, but to those of us transplanted to the West, or who have only known the West, we full well know how things could've been because we were raised by these crazy people called Filipinos... well, to find such a community is a boon to people like me, who experience nothing Filipino on a day-to-day basis, even though we look like we're FOB: fresh off the boat.

You might think I'm being harsh, calling my own kind crazy, but if you saw some of the posts from those of us second+-generation Filipinos who grew up in immigrant households, you'd have to agree. There are long threads about weird Filipino behaviours, such as:

* naming the entire family with one letter, such as what my brother did with the letter M for his kids: Melissa, Michael, Madeleine, Megan, Maribeth (there must be some kind of latent Filipino thing going on with him, since obviously we grew up in the same household, and I would never do this, neither would our brother Alvin... or did our DNA thumb its deoxyribonucleanic acid at the genetic programming??)

[by the way, if you think that's not crazy, remember that this is mostly a Catholic nation with big families... some families go alphabetically, and one girl in California mentioned that everyone in her family has a name that starts with the letter A and ends with N: Alvin, Aileen, Allan, Arleen, Allain, Arman... see?]

jeepney

* taking a van and converting it into the "van of vans" that they have back in the Philippines, replete with horns... and musical horns!

man in a barrel

* making tacky imports, like this man in a barrel that has a spring for a willy (don't even ask... Filipino humour is so twisted, but what's even more twisted is that tourists actually buy this stuff)

... oh my, I could go on and on, but I wouldn't be doing the homeland any favours by trashing it. Rather, I should mention the good stuff, like the food. It goes without saying there are whole threads in the Filipino community related to food. Sad to say, I don't know how to cook any Filipino food, but I'm good at eating it!

I couldn't stop laughing at the Filipino Expressions thread... I don't know if any of you folk will get it, though, unless you know Filipinos. It was game over for me when someone mentioned the "pointing with the mouth" thing... I laughed so hard... IT'S SO TRUE!! This was my post in that thread:

f's and v's
...when they pronounce words such as "five" like "pibe"... There's some linguistic twistedness in imperialist Spain giving a colony a name that its own people can't even pronounce!!!

Orkut Amusement

I've joined some pretty funny Orkut communities. One of them is Oversleepers Anonymous, where people discuss topics such as:

* least effective alarms
* The most comfortable bed?
* How long have you slept today?
* the irony of it all
* Tips for getting up/being woken up
* When was the last time you overslept?
* snooze button: best ever invention?
* The snooze record
* Ten more minutes

Some of these are absolutely hilarious! I thought I was pretty bad for sleeping in, until I read some of the oversleeping exploits of this bunch. You want to know what some of the sleeping records are? Quite a few are over 24 hours. See, it's not just me. And I am not the only person who uses my mobile phone as an alarm clock, in addition to the screeching alarm clock, and the portable one I got at MOMA in NYC that is now residing in the bathroom to remind me what time it is.

I think my favourite thread is Tips for getting up/being woken up. There's this German guy from Hamburg who got his hands on this huge factory bell from the 1950s made of cast iron, used to signal lunchtime for the workers. He hooked up a digital clock-controlled relay that switches the bell on after his two other alarm clocks. He says it helps him get out of bed, because he's scared the the big bell will start ringing:

"I can't use it often, because the whole house wakes up and sometimes i keep sleeping for more then 2 hours while its ringing, then even the neighbours will start complaining."

This one guy in Belgium wrote a script to start playing some song at volume 0 and progressively increase it to 100 over a period of six minutes. It worked for three days, he said. Hmmm... I'd really get in trouble for that one. Christa used to come in and turn off my alarm clock herself because it would wake her up and not me, even though it was beside my head and she was way over in the far end of the living room. I can't imagine what Volume 100 would evoke, probably a contract on my head.

Here's a thread from Least Effective Alarms:

Mobile Alarm clock -- from the UK
Did anyone here the story/joke about the alarm clock which was part toy car, part alarm clock. The way I heard it was that when it went off it started moving and started making a siren like noise. Think I remember someone telling me about chasing one around. Then again I may have been drinking when I heard the story so I may have imagined that part.

motorized ball! -- from Norway
That's a brilliant idea! My brother has a dust collecting robot, that is really nothing but a motorized ball driving a cloth. Remove the cloth and have a siren in it... you'd have to chase it. Or maybe you'd just become a skilled marksman, throwing stuff at it.

-- from an American, in Canada
For a while I tried setting my alarm to my favorite radio station with the volume set pretty loud, but that usually didn't work. However, one morning I woke up all freaked out because a stranger was in my room, yelling [at] me. I'd accidentally moved the tuner to a talk radio station and the host was ranting and raging about something at the moment when my alarm went off. It was effective, for a while.

False Creek Frolicking

It was a nice day in Lotusland, for the last day in February – warm and sunny.

Melissa is back from Maine, so the 3 older Ms are reunited and as frisky as ever. Allan brought his mother-in-law, Jean, who is here for a month from Maine, helping Cheryl out while she's recovering from months of bedrest and all-day visits to the twins in the hospital. I thought it would be nice to show Jean around my stomping ground of False Creek. After all, she's seen simply LOADS of photos of the kids around the area, so now she can see why the kids like it here so much.

Wow, this ball is heavy!

ice cream!