In two days, I’ve attended two services – a Catholic funeral yesterday, and a Protestant memorial today. Some marked differences between the two in terms of ceremony, stained glass (Hey, is that a peacock?), and air conditioned comfort. More bells and rituals on the Catholic side. More violin solos and sweltering heat on the Protestant side. Oh, and ruck up one epiphany for your truly. As this afternoon’s ceremony drew to a close I was struck by a sudden, soul-shattering revelation: Josh Groban’s You Raise Me Up and Bette Midler’s Your Are The Wind Beneath My Wings are the same damn song!
Today’s affair was a little less staid, a little more laid back. Following a novella-length personal reminiscence, the pace picked up with a couple of brief speeches, readings, said violin solo, and a short sermon. No confusion as to when to sit and stand (the minister’s prompts were clear enough) but much confusion when it came time to the hymns as those gathered were incapable of following simple instructions in terms of what stanza to sing and when. They all chose to do their own thing but it all worked out in the end so that, in less than two hours, we were all outside enjoying the sudden driving downpour. As I was attempting to corral my mother toward my double-parked sister, one very distant relative approached and remarked how much I resembled my father. “More and more, you’re beginning to look like him,”she said which was pretty much the same thing as her telling me: “You’re looking older and older!” Thanks. Thanks a lot.
My last night in Montreal as I prepare for tomorrow’s return flight to Vancouver. Although I may have been conflicted at the beginning of my stay, it’s taken me all of three days to realize that the west coast is where I want to be. The houses may be more expensive, the back yards smaller, and the cyclists infinitely more annoying, but there’s no denying it’s home now. Nine full days here was great but, any longer, and I’d have gone stir crazy AND run out of books and thus been forced to raid mom’s library. In one panicked instant, I was seriously weighing The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency versus Maeve Binchy’s Firefly Summer.
Thanks for tagging along on my trip. Once I’m settled back in familiar territory, you can look forward to all those Universe-related designs, on-set pics, and behind-the-scenes photos and videos I’ve been holding onto.
Speaking of Stargate and, specifically, the new official site, I inquired about the accessibility issues faced by those of you overseas. Words is it’s a regional and rights issue but they’re working on a long-term resolution and hope to have it sorted out soon.
Looking forward to a dependable internet connection.
@DAS
Don’t know if you’re at SHORELEAVE – if not, I was talking with TheTODD… mentioned *your* name… He says Hi! — Had “that” smile on his face…
;-D
Safe trip back, enjoyed the week!
Don’t worry Joe, we’ll still all download the first few episodes anyway – you know, to give the show a fighting chance… LOL
I assume you knew these two deceased people, I query, because you do seem to go to strange places when away from home.
Of course, you also need to worry about what Ashleigh has install (or should I say laid) for you when you return. She’s probably polishing the pine right now – of the new over coat she bought especially for you lol.
Well. I for one am looking forward to seeing Stargate streaming in Esperanto once those lawyers have been boiled and served with a nice side salad.
Mr M. Your trip back to Montreal is full of interesting revelations. Hope you get a full meal tonight. Airline food is so-so, if they offer it at all.
Considering that the Hulu web streaming service jointly own by NBC & Fox is still mostly restricted to the US. I won’t hold out much hope of people outside of US & Canada be able to access the MGM site legally anytime soon.
Got to finish this posting before something else happen with the electricity. Loss power for about two hours this afternoon. Hydro re-connected the neighborhood before supper time. Now all I have to do is setting back up my windows & tabs before I was rudely interrupted.
One final word. You didn’t pick up additional reading material locally when your stash dwindled to nothing? Ladies Detective Agency beckons. LOL
Doesn’t surprise me at all that you voted for Vancouver. As I said the other day, you always get moody when you go back home (at least that’s how it comes across on the blog). Obviously, you belong on the west coast. Maybe going back home makes you feel too nostalgic, reminding you too much of the life – and the person you once were – that you’ve long left behind, whereas Vancouver makes you feel like you’re growing and moving on. Besides, it’s closer to Tokyo. 🙂
It’s like with me – having always lived in one place, still seeing my parents nearly every day – I feel as if I just haven’t ‘grown up’, despite being married and having a home of my own. Every now and then I feel like jumping in the car and running away to find myself, since I’ve never felt any sort of real ‘independence’ of my own. I’ve always been ‘the kid’, always had to answer to my folks for everything.
It really doesn’t help that I’m a loner. Yeah – maybe that’s hard to believe, but even though I don’t mind being around people (and talking!), I do not like to get close to people. I consider myself a social loner. I like chatting with people – especially strangers (explains why I’m on the net) – but when I’m done, I just want to be left alone! I could never get my head around those people who are always visiting and vacationing with friends…that’s just too much familiarity for me. I mean – after a while, what on earth do you talk about? When I spend too much time with people, especially in groups, I tend to get very depressed and self-critical afterwards, and it’ll take me weeks before I can bring myself to socialize like that again. I think it’s because – for the most part – I have nothing intelligent to bring to the conversation. No one wants to talk about Wraith, or sexy sword-wielding albinos, or Wolverine, or spiders, or Native American culture, or Feudal Japan, or 18th-century sea travel…or any of the things I know how to talk about. Those things are so easy to talk about on-line, but in face-to-face conversations?? No. You have to talk about real-life stuff, and I’ve never been able to do that.
If I could (as in, if I had the financial means), I’d just roam the country, meeting people as I go, but never staying in any one place long enough to make friends and have those meaningful conversations. I guess that’s why I like the Eastwood ‘man with no name’ characters and Mad Max and moodyass Elric…I live vicariously through these make-believe guys who never stay in one place for very long, and who always end up alone.
It doesn’t help right now that I’ve re-immersed myself in Neil Young. I’ve loved his music since the 70s but just started to really listen to him once more, and I’ve totally fallen in love with Neil all over again. (Why do the best things always come from Canada??) His music – and specifically his voice – resonates with my deeper emotions – those feelings that I work hard at supressing because I don’t like to ‘feel’ that much. But I can’t resist letting ol’ Neil bring them out in me. It’s a bit about freedom, about love, about loss, about regrets, about never being able to go back. God, I love his stuff…
Gonna shut my bloggy mouth up now.
JOE! I thought of you today, or – more specifically – your puppies. Saw a fawn and a black pug today at a summer festival, and immediately your little furry children came to mind. Cutest things! Not as chubby as yours, though…
😉
At said festival I bought three kitchen knives, and decided to actually cook dinner tonight because of it. Just BBQ chicken, corn on the cob (with butter and fresh lime juice and Valentina chili powder – http://condimentstation.com/post/62877261/24-valentina-chili-powder ), and Caprese salad, made with fresh basil, fresh mozzarella, and Jersey tomatoes, right off the vine! Mmmm-mmmm-MMMM! (Hubby says my Caprese salad’s the best he’s ever had…sweet boy that he is. 🙂 )
Had a bit of wine, too…and crispy, sweet bing cherries and dark chocolate for ‘dessert’. I’m happy. 😀 (No, really I’m rather melancholy and moody, but compared to lately, that’s pretty happy for me. 🙂 )
Have a safe journey home,
old manJoe!!😉
das
Hey Joe.
I have lived away from home for over 20 years now but my family still asks me every now and then if I would ever consider moving back. I used to get into these bout of nostalgia about living there again. But then visiting for a few days I realize, like you, that the city I live in now is home for me.
The longest I have ever visit my family is five days and that is pushing it. I love and want to see them but PEI is not the most exciting place especially in the middle of winter. 😉
Looking forward to all the news about SGU. I am really glad that for the first time in STARGATE history it might actually air in CANADA at the same time (and not on pay extra for channel either) it does in the US. I can’t believe how excited I got to see the first ad appearing on SPACE.
No 1 Ladies Detective Agency wins hands down. It’s an amusing read — you should give it a try.
I haven’t heard either of those songs but I’m guessing its like trying to hum the theme for star wars without getting confused and ending up humming the superman theme.
I hate going to funerals – though, strangely, not because someone has died – mostly because I always laugh inappropriately. I think its just nerves but its really embarassing and the harder I try not to laugh the worse it gets. I don’t know what religion my gran was but when I to her funeral they would read a prayer from a book at the end of every sentence. ‘She was a great woman. Let us pray (read prayer from book) She got her shopping on a wednesday. Let us pray…….I got so fixated on the words ‘let us pray’ that I started laughing hysterically every time he said it. Luckily people thought I was crying hysterically but I still felt really bad. The last funeral I went to was a catholic funeral. I was sat next to my friend – the only practicing catholic in our group – when her phone went off in the middle of the service. ‘I don’t feel like dancing’ by the scissor sisters. I had to leave the church.
Glad you’ve made your decision about home. Have a safe flight.
Can’t forget incense at Catholic funerals. Always clear out my sinuses!!
Can’t wait for the new Goodies from Universe Joe.
Safe trip home tomorrow!!!
Joe, thanks for letting us come along on your vacation. It was fun and exceptionally entertaining – at least for us!! (where are we go’in next?) I am sure you are looking forward to getting home to wife, doggies, friends and I bet even work. See you on the other side.
Hey Joe – Your Mom will eventually love the TV set and tell her friends “what a good boy” you are. Hope your flight back to Vancouver is uneventful. Thanks for sharing your family with us!
Good old copyright laws…LOL…but then the only thing I can’t get are the episodes but have all of them on DVD so not a problem…the rest of the site is amazing….got all of the bloopers now and on DVD so can watch them in good sound and big screen…spent 4 days saving 368 pics of Michael Shanks…phew!
So I think I can say thank you MGM for a great site!
Last night found the memorial vid for Don that was shown at Comic Con no wonder there were tears….
Kriss 🙂
Ah, good man. I’ve never been to Montreal, but I can’t imagine living anywhere else in North America other than Vancouver. The weather is mild, and the scenery is breathtaking. It’s like San Francisco without the devastating Earthquakes.
Speaking of other cities, I’ll be going on a road trip the next 8 days, and I won’t have access to the Internet. I look forward to catching up on all the hilarity and Stargate info!
Thanks for tagging along on my trip.
And thanks very much to you for letting us share parts of that trip. It was in turns thought-provoking and incredibly entertaining — re. the latter, at least for those who didn’t have to put up with bad restaurant meals, uncomfortable mattresses, and screaming-banshee alarms. In any case, your write-ups made for some mighty fine reading.
Catch ya on the flip side.
😆 Joe! It’s a fact of life that we all get older, but at least you’re doing it with style 😉
I’m sure the restaurants on the West Coast will be very relieved to hear you’re staying!
*hugs*
Your gonna love it even more when you get back here, it’s been mid to high 20s since you left and not a cloud in the forseable future!!
ganymede wrote:
@DAS
Don’t know if you’re at SHORELEAVE – if not, I was talking with TheTODD… mentioned *your* name… He says Hi! — Had “that” smile on his face…
No. Not there. And now I’m even more depressed. 😥
🙁
das
Ooo, “sweltering heat on the Protestant side”…yeah, I know about that, too. Because while I was Catholic for a short time, I grew up in a Baptist family. I remember many scorchingly hot Sundays sitting in all-day services praying the minister would have mercy on us and end the sermon. The thing I remember most about the services? The rolling wave of paper fans in motion from aisle to aisle as people tried to conjure up a breeze.
Some friends of ours recently got back from a vacation in Vancouver and they raved so much about it that it’s now on our short list of vacation spots for next summer. If we go, we may even check out Fuel!
Have a safe trip home Joe
@Das, next time I visit the “home turf”, I might have to knock on your door. I like to talk about all of that. 🙂
DD
PS re Funerals. Specifically, burials. My mom had made me swear that I wouldn’t do that, but once she passed my dad insisted on it so what could I do? Say no? After you’re dead you can’t complain about your wishes not being honored. Ended up doing the whole 10 yards, my mom had wanted a mail back cremation, but got a production with real estate. The cost was appalling and almost criminal to charge a grieving family that much. The lesson to be learned, make sure you have sufficient life insurance to pay for what your family might want.
Word out of Shoreleave [Luttrell told] the SGA movie is a no-go. Jason was supposedly told by you it’s on.
Can the SGA fans please have official word from the supposed hallowed tptb that might resemble some form of truth?
@Joe: I thought of you and your mom yesterday and the new TV. I was at my mom’s new townhome (well, sort of new, she actually moved several months ago but is still getting settled – it takes a while when you are 78 years old). She has a very nice home theater set up which we bought from the previous owner. The place has a built in speaker system – very nice, rather high tech and totally beyond my mother’s ability to figure out. Things were going fine until my cousin and her daughter came to visit and messed with the setup in a vain attempt to watch a DVD. I have no idea what they did, but I was unable to get the TV to talk to the receiver. It persists in telling me it has “no signal.” Anyway, as I said before, I hope you made sure your sister understands the new TV before you left so she can help your mom with the inevitable problems that will come up because she pressed the wrong button when she was trying to change channels!
@das: You’re not alone with your feelings about family. Not all of us are blessed with relatives that we can socialize with easily. But although you may not have a set of local friends with whom you can chat about the things you love, you have your extended online family! Now turn off the Neil Young and stop moping and get out into that garden of yours. There are weeds that have grown a foot overnight that need to be pulled!
Yesterday I stood on top of the front range of the Wasatch Front, the high Uintahs on the horizon to my left, the Great Salt Lake to my right. A visitor was in from South Dakota, so we’d driven up the unpaved switchbacks in Farmington Canyon to the top of the ridge, SkyLine Drive it is called. SkyLine Jolt is more accurate. I may be a Californian at heart and a nomad by up-bringing, but suddenly, seeing Utah through the eyes of a visitor, I am very, very glad I live here. Deer flies and all.
I have a place to stay in Vancouver, I should go check it out some day.
das … you should go somewhere by yourself. Still, I’d listen to talk of feudal Japan and the Wraith all day. If you’re ever at Burning Man, you are welcome in my camp. I love tales of strangers and fleeting connections which can turn into amazing encounters.
So sorry to hear about the loses you’ve experienced. It’s never easy, is it?
But The Wind Beneath My Wings and You Raise Me UP the same song? My suggestion is that you listen again!
Das: so sorry you are down. Food sounds great, though. Hope you feel better soon. You know what helps me when I’m feeling blue? Karate class. Something about punching that bag and imagining my brother’s face on it. It’s so cathartic! I realize that may not help everyone but have you thought about yoga, tai-chi or some other kind of class?
I just watched the movie “Knowing”. Great disaster scenes, the special effects are entertaining.
Mr. M, have a safe trip back home. Enjoy a good night’s rest!
Tam
OMG, isn’t this just wrong wrong wrong? Pigs crossed with spinach, no joke.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/1780541.stm
Although I guess if you could have fish crossed with lemon & pepper it might save some time.
PG15 wrote:
Actually the Vancouver-Victoria-Seattle-Tacoma-Portland area is part of a fault zone that have major earthquakes every few centuries. By major, more severe than any recent earthquakes in the Bay area. There would be major modification of low lying coastlines.
ok time for an old school throwback, i know your jet lagged and tired. but do you have any info on the wraith language? with all the talk about the hidden ancient language on the Destiny, did anyone ever decode the Wraith language?? I know it didn’t make as much of an appearance on the show, but it’s still interesting.
Thanks so much for helping, or at least trying to help out the overseas fans! Hope your Mother wasn’t too much hassle, after a week, I am sick of my grandparents!!! Hope you finally have time to heal after the bed debacle!
Hope this ‘long-term resolution’ doesn’t take too, long, i am dying to see the Destiny and the ‘steam punk’ Gate as you once called it!!!
How are the final two episodes going for Season One? Couldn’t help but ask, being spoiler free is the hardest thing in the world when it’s only a click away!!!
Hope you are well!
Josh 😀
Joe,
have a safe flight home!
I was paging yesterday with my mom through some catalogue of travel agency and they offer trips to Montreal. And I told mum : “No way, their restaurants suck!” lol Not that google maps is the only travelling I can afford now, but I hope you got my point 😉 Thanks for sharing!
Oh and double horay for MGM Stargate web *finally* available in Czech !! Look wonderful! I can’t wait for SGU, its such a tease 🙂
“In one panicked instant, I was seriously weighing The No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency versus Maeve Binchy’s Firefly Summer.” — This gave me a pause. Moment of ‘What the heck? Summer Glau, Firefly?’ Im such a nerd xD
best,
xoxo
It’s like wonderingbrit says, we’ll download it – because we have absolutely no other choice.
On the other hand I could see it on satellite next month, who knows?
Here’s an idea. Why not put the episodes up (after they have been aired in the States) and charge overseas visitors say, $2?
$2 x a couple of hundred thousand visitors is good money and far better than us getting it illegally.
I personally hate being forced into piracy. If I can pay for something I will pay.
[…] the west coast is where I want to be.
😀
Hi Joe,
Sorry I haven’t posted on your blog lately… I have however been reading the entries… usually the last thing I do before I go to bed, i’m to lazy to post at night and to buys/lazy to post in the day. Been working out a ton lately.. im losing weight… it’s a great feeling. Wish I could be like you who stays perfectly skinny and eats all he wants… lol
Oh and glad you bought your mother a new TV… Did you buy her a 4:3.. cause there is no way you can hate a 16:9 screen… lol
Anyways good to be back here.
Oh and according to Mark.. the final VFX is out for the pilot.. so please tell us what you think when you see the shiny finished VFX..
Thanks so much,
Major D. Davis
@ drldeboer, Sparrow_hawk, maggiemayday and Tammy…
Thanks much. Look…don’t mind me. I’m so used to feeling this way that when I talk about it, I forget that other people are not used to it, and then they feel bad for me. Don’t feel bad for me – I’ve dealt with depression/anxiety/ADD/OCD all my life and I choose not to medicate for it (besides the occasional glass of wine, that is 😉 ). It’s who I am…it’s my identity…and I’m not ashamed of it. On the outside people think I’m friendly and fun and outgoing – it’s how I appear to be…kinda how I come across on the net at times. But inside? Inside is a much different story of self-loathing, and I won’t bore you with the details. I can’t blame it on other people – it’s my mind doing it to myself (see, I don’t even need a shrink ’cause I already know all the answers!). So…my problem…one, undoubtedly, I’ve chosen not to fix, and therefore I deserve whatever torture my own mind puts me through.
As far as coping – well, services helped me today, as did a little social work afterwards. a LOT of chocolate and a big nap helped even more! 😀
Yeah, I’m good. For now (and no, Sparrow, I won’t stop listening to Neil! So there! Pfft! )
das