stories about stories

Health! The greatest blessing. Thank you, universe. I'm SPUNKY!

Yesterday, beloved friend Ken came over and we walked to Daniel's Spectrum on Dundas East. He'd heard an interview on CBC that morning about a Regent Park storytelling event on immigrant life in Canada; it said on-line it would start at 5, so we got there at 4.55. I'm all for storytelling of all kinds. There was a nice warm room in that fabulous building full of chairs and empty cups for tea, but nothing happening. Oh, said someone, the stories won't actually start till 5.45.

Ken and I went home and had tea (him) and wine (guess who) and congratulated ourselves on not waiting around for 45 minutes. I'm furious at people who assume audiences have all the time in the world. If the website says an event starts at 5, then start by 5.10 or have a pretty good excuse, or I'm outta there. It won't surprise you that I did tell someone that before we left. She agreed and said she would pass it on.

Ken and I told our own stories. He told me about quitting his job as a teacher and going to L'Arche in France in 1970, and I told him about my own experience at L'Arche in 1979. In fact, our talk changed profoundly the way I see the memoir I'm writing, which involves L'Arche. So - a very valuable walk out.

The other night I invited Wayson over to watch a film I'd taken out of the library, Woody's "To Rome with Love." It hasn't had rave reviews, but how can you go wrong with Colin Firth and Rome?! But I couldn't get my DVD player to work, infuriating, enraging, my technological incompetence. Luckily, between Bruce in Vancouver, who told me to try switching the TV to channel 3, and my son Sam, who reminded me the DVD remote was on the bookshelf - the DVD remote I'd completely forgotten existed - it works perfectly. So now I'm going to make popcorn and Carol and I are going to watch.

Happy chilly Friday night, everyone.

TWO HOURS LATER: Well, as Theresa pointed out below, I had the wrong film! It's "Magic in the Moonlight" that's got Colin Firth and is set not in Rome but in the south of France. That said, Carol and I did enjoy it - some hilarious stuff and beautiful Rome - except that nearly the entire film is in Italian with subtitles, which were below the frame of my TV screen. So we were struggling to translate and figure out the plot. But otherwise ... well, it was Rome.

And I'm healthy. So no complaints about NUTHIN.