Coffee with mom

 William and I had coffee with my mom. She wanted to ask about William's Japan trip but he doesn't know enough to really talk about it yet. He'll start hitting the books now though. Coming up soon. 

Cara's Gallery - new art

 Attended an opening of a new gallery above Bushwakkers called Cara's Gallery. Very mixed exhibition of paintings, photographs, and most notably a number of hand made guitars by Alex Crease. 

Cost of film festivals

 Entering a film festival. First off, there are numerous good arguments for film festivals not having fees, but if they do have fees, those fees should simply cover necessities like returning materials. Big fee festivals, ie over $10, should be avoided. However, I wanted to enter this local festival (RIFF) so accepted that it has a whopping $40 fee. On top of that, there is some sort of $2 service fee. Gack. BUT THEN, the entire fee is in US Dollars!!!! WTF!!! I am in Regina entering a Regina festival and paying in US$ Ridiculous. 

Hardware shopping

 Trying to figure out what to outfit the garage with. This workbench with wheels and locking drawers seemed pretty solid. 

Cube painting

 Painted this camera a second time, this time with the flash cube. Camera still has batteries which will trigger and auto rotate the flash. I used the last of the four sides testing it with Deb. 

Esperanza Sanchez Espitia defense

 Esperanza defended her MFA successfully today. She spoke very emotionally and powerfully about her work and process. Trevor Grant was the external examiner. 

Visiting dad and Lori

 Visited dad for a while. Watched some tv. Left just in time for Lori to arrive later. She dropped in to house afterwards and lent me her tax software. 

Antique market

 Wandered the annual antique market this evening. Bought an Iron Butterfly lp and a stereoscopic card with four mirrors in the image. One of the best I've ever seen. 

Fourth year film student screening

 Screening went well. William and I went. The room filled about 30 minutes in, but by the end wasn't full any more. Much of the work was very earnest. Well done. 

Vaccine

 

Vaccine shot #6. Some pfizer version this time. No appointment or waiting. 

Snow!!!

April is the cruelest month. 
 

the survey

This event I answered the phone, the land line, even though I didn't recognize the number. It was a survey and I agreed to answer it (of course). After a dozen questions I had basically told them that I was white and over 50. I'm pretty sure the survey was to determine who answers their land lines (hint, it is white people over the age of 50). 

Dad after lunch

 Saw dad after lunch. This were messy so I called for some help. Dad was tired. I told him an old story he used to tell us about his father, the story that ends with "That'll be the day". He laughed but didn't seem to remember the story himself. 

Saturday without cartoons

 Got up and wanted to watch some Saturday morning cartoons, but the only company I had was the cat so I watched The Recruit instead. 

New art

The craft gallery that used to be at the airport now is close to the Southland Mall. Terry is featured this month with her potery. 

After some time at Rumour, we went to Judy Anderson's opening of her solo exhibition at the Dunlop. Great crowd and lots of nice people. 

 

New coffee maker

 We make a lot of coffee. A lot. Really really really. We buy this fairly high end drip maker with insulated carafe and we have purchased three of them now (or is it 4?) because we use them to death. Margaret does regular cleanings of them but they still cannot handle how many pots she makes per day. This replaces the identical one we bought two years ago.

Painting class

 I've not been able to do my painting class in a year due to work schedule but it looks like Wednesday mornings are free again. I did a rush job on this because I had an appointment booked with a new doctor so had to leave early. Good to be back with people again though. 

Melting snow

 Snow melting. As with previous years, we end up with water standing in the yard, but with the new garage being higher than the previous driveway, it looks like it will be worse. 

Egg painting

 William dove deep into egg painting this weekend. 

water in yard

 Put out the pump today to drain water to the alley from the yard. This will be a floody year for us as thee yard is messed up from the construction and there is a lot of snow that will be melting all at the same time, very soon. 

All old is new again

 Margaret and I went to the new Italian Star today. All the old stuff is there, just more space. I expect they will eventually fill the space with new products. On the way home we stopped at the vintage store where the old Slate was and I bought an Osmands lp for a dollar and painted to it. 

Good Friday

Plan had been to bake a turkey and lounge in front of the tv all day, waiting for the weather to improve. I did make turkey. Had mom over. Spent the day helping to clean the house. William had homework that took until 10pm. Watched a bit of tv (which I kept dozing off during) after that.  Dessart Sweets closed at 5 due to it being a holiday, so didn't get out for ice cream. 

Busy art day

 We jumped back and forth between the Slate 10th anniversary opening and the open house/ BFA opening at the University. I missed most of the open house (not a priority except that William was giving away a collection of his comics that we'd had a stressful afternoon getting copied) but I did see Mahtab's studio and her work in progress that she was talking about last night. In the end, I saw half of my grad class this evening. 

End of term begins

 My Wednesday grad class on methodologies came to a close this evening. It was the class I had the most trepidation about teaching but in the end was quite a delight. The group were friendly and smart and it all went well. For some reason the Lazy Owl is not open in the evening (where are students expected to drink?) so we headed across the street to Trifons Pizza for appetizers and a round. 

BFA exhibition

 William's friend Victoria Beahm was among three students in the BFA exhibition opening today at the Fifth Parallel. Opening reception is in a couple days, but it was nice to talk with her about her art and family history (which is the subject of her art). . 

Alternator

 Crazy morning. I had a meeting first thing that I needed to be at the office for but Margaret needed the car  to drive her dad so I took WIlliam's car. Got just out of the alley and it stalled. I needed to call in to work to say I was late, then push the car to the side of the road and take my car anyway. Car was just being towed away when I got back at lunch. It was the alternator. 

Lego boat

 William is building Sealand in Lego for his sculpture class. Hope there are enough pieces. 

Visiting dad and his buddies

 

While they did not seem to be socializing, dad was sitting with a couple of other fellows today when I visited him. Dad didn't want to go for a walk and said he was happy (not sure if that is "happy where he is" or an overall "happy").