Strung out on decaf coffee

The weekend was good but busy; Shannon & I spent Saturday in Ottawa helping her brother and his partner move from a small apartment in Westboro to a townhouse on the edge of Kanata. Afterwards we talked about how, like many people, we tend to complain about suburbs as a blight on society but having watched these people we know buy the only house they can reasonably afford we were forced to see it in a more positive light. It was an interesting experience, but I still don’t want to live in Kanata.

We then visited our former roommates,^[1] Julian and Sarah, who were in Ottawa for the weekend, then had brunch with them, my former roommate Aylwin, and two other friends before leaving early in the afternoon. It felt very brief but was nice nevertheless. Aylwin has been sinking his free time lately into planning a ‘reception’ for George W. Bush, who also visits Ottawa tomorrow. He’s been making posters, and gave me a copy of a particularly stunning one his roommates designed.

After all of that I wished I could attend, but tomorrow evening is the performance of Gabriel Fauré’s requiem by the choir I’ve been with for the month. The dress rehearsal last night went very well; the concert is to be in a suitably ancient Presbyterian church downtown. It’s the sort of building that has pictures of the Queen in attendence at a service there on display in the vestibule. More importantly, it features a great big pipe organ, wonderful stained glass, and the sort of acoustics low-end sythesizer manufacturers fantasize of as they design their ‘large hall’ reverb settings. The group was assembled for this one benefit performance, so I’ll be in the market for a new choir soon, but there are many in this city to choose from.

Oh! I almost forgot the most magical moment of the trip – it poured rain all of Sunday, but on our way home we saw a glorious rainbow, brilliantly illuminated by the sunset. Everyone on the bus was staring out the window, and several took photos. You could clearly see both ends, and could point out the exact place the pot of gold would be. Life can’t be all bad if it contains moments like that.

^[1] To be clear, we lived with them at separate times. We have yet to cohabit.