Songs of Mishi

Well, folks, it's that time of the year again. Yes, it's time for you to buy your tickets for another MWOS Christmas concert! Spread the word. We bring you good news and bad news: The bad news is the Blair brothers aren't singing with us this year. But the good news is, we've added four new songs to our repertoire, and the good stuff is still in there. NOW MORE INTERNATIONAL THAN EVER!

Where: Montreal-West United Church, 88 Ballantyne N. (Take the 162 and get off the stop after the Mini-Cout. The church is right there. Go around to the back entrance to buy tickets.)
When: 9th December, 7:30 PM
Cost: 15$, but bring extra money for our bake sale and apple cider at the intermission
Why: Because I'm singing
What: Christmas carols in four-part harmony. Plus, Victorian costumes.

So, yesterday, I went to the hairdresser's to get my hair trim. I've been meaning to change my haircut for a while, but I was kind of too chicken to call, so mum told me to do it and handed me the phone, and I made the appointment, and I went. I was quite pleased with the result when I stepped out of the barber's chair. Unfortunately, I had walked to the salon, and when I left it, it was pouring buckets. I got completely soaked before I could even get home to show off my new 'do to my family. Goodbye straight hair, hello Curly MacCurls. I look good with my natural curls, so it's not a total loss, but still. Mother nature is a real bitch.

Anyway my cousins Lilith and Rhys, and my Uncle Andrew are in town this weekend and Lilith wanted to go to the Jazz Festival, so earlier that morning, my father asked me if I wanted to escort her around. I said yes. When I got home, however, I was in no mood to go ANYWHERE. I was in such a bad mood that I used the F-word in front of my parents, and you all know how I usually avoid swearing. But I was looking forward to seeing my cousin, and it transpired that we were only going to the Jazz Fest at 6 o'clock, and by that time I had calmed down and I felt more optimistic about the evening.

My uncle picked me up at about seven, it turned out, and I lead him and Lilith through the metro system to the Jazz festival, where he left us. Lilith didn't have any activity in particular in mind, so I showed her the giant piano in the kid's section and then we wandered around the festival, stopping at anything we found interesting. There was this group of hula hoop dancers we watched for a bit, and at 9:30 we caught the beginning of King Sunshine's act at the Festival stage, right in front of the Complexe Desjardin. That's when it started to drizzle. I had brought my umbrella, so we stuck around and jammed to the beat under the umbrella, and everyone in the crowd had their umbrellas out too. It felt cozy, like we were part of the crowd and the crowd was together, united in our love of quality music. We listened to a good bit of it before we decided to go do something else. And then it started to pour AGAIN. After about fifteen minutes of huddling under a food tent, we finally just decided 'screw it' and went home.

When we got home, Patrick was there, and we got into a three-way conversation, and Lilith decided she wanted to stay over. Right now I'm at dinner with my family and Lilith and her family at our grandparents' house, all this to say that Lilith is one of my favorite cousins. She's so friendly and easy to get along with and she laughs at pretty much everything I say. I don't know why she thinks I'm so funny, but it's fun to be around someone who thinks your every witticism, your every turn of phrase is brilliant.

So we had our closing show this afternoon. Our audience was surprisingly lively, and we had a great cast party.

That's really all I have to say. Except that at some point today, Rodrigo (our leading man) said "I like whips." I forget the context.

It's that time of year again, flist.

COME SEE MY SHOW! SEE ME BRANDISH A WOODEN AXE. SEE THE BATTLE OF THE SEXES AS DREAMED OF BY TWO VICTORIAN GENTLEMEN. HEAR YANNICK AND RODRIGO SING ANOTHER LOVE DUET. WITNESS PETER HAM IT UP, AND SEE ERIC (THE HOT ONE) PARTICIPATE IN THE VICTORIAN STRIPTEASE SONG!!!

I am selling tickets. I am also using this as an excuse to see you all.

Youths(under 18)/Seniors: 18$
Adults: 25$

We will be performing the 23rd, 24rth, and 25th of April, as well as the 1rst, 2nd, and 3rd of May. All of these performances will take place at 7:30PM, except for the May 3rd performance, at 1:30PM. On the 25th, we are doing a gala performance. This means that there will be food before the show, and the opportunity to talk to the performers, but it also means you'll have to pay more, 30$ for youth and seniors, 40$ for adults. 

The place is the former Wagar High School, at 5785 Parkhaven, Cote-St-Luc.

Tell your friends. We need the cash.

As some of you may know, working as a cashier can get pretty tedious. You're standing on your feet for hours, in the same place, doing things that really don't require much brain power. Can anyone blame you if you find some idle passtime to wile away the minutes in between customers during the slow hours? My passtimes, of course, are to draw on receipt paper and sing under my breath.

I was doing just that when a pair of customers arrived. They spotted my drawing of Duck, complimented me on it, and gave me their business card and told me to call them in two weeks if I wanted a part-time job arting for them!! Holy shit, right? I was ecstatic, which was a fortuitous mood to be in, since for the rest of the day I got nothing but grief from my customers.

What Kind of Serial Killer Would You Be? Your Result: Disorganized and Mission-Oriented   You'd be an impulsive killer. You'll murder when the oppourtunity arises, then leave the body where you killed it. You'll evade capture not through intelligence, but through constant movement. You'll have a specific reason to kill. You'll target a specific group, like prostitutes or members of a minority, and you'll believe their deaths are justified on the grounds that you're "cleansing" the earth of that particular kind of people. You'll think you're helping society.
Organized and Mission-Oriented
Disorganized Visionary
Disorganized and Hedonistic
Organized and Hedonistic
Organized Visionary
Disorganized and Gain-Oriented
Organized and Goal-Oriented
What Kind of Serial Killer Would You Be? Quiz Created on GoToQuiz

No, no, no, no, no! I'm a crazy, I tell you, a CRAZY! I have an actual mental disorder! Two, even. I'm far more likely to snap then go around killing people just because they're scientologists! (e

So, on Tuesday we took the cat to the SPCA clinic to be fixed. Poor thing had to get her belly shaved. We brought her back home yesterday and she was totally un-traumatized, if a little unhappy because I couldn't feed her. She was walking around, allowing herself to be petted, as if nothing had happened.

Today I went to the vet down the street to get her an Elizabethan collar. Verily and forsooth did she begin to shuffle around, trying to rub herself against things in order to get rid of the collar. She's walking in this 'close to the ground' gait. So this is what you call 'pussyfooting around'. XD Am I a bad person if I find her really amusing right now?

Hail Poetry, thou heav'n born maid,

In truth I'm just angling for a good grade,

My strength is in fiction and prose if I must,

My poesy muscles are nothing but rust.

One day in grade seven, my teacher approached us,

And announced that my poems were truly atrocious,

My rhymes were too hackneyed, my themes were too lame,

My meter too shaky, my language too plain,

In fact Mrs. Letters (for that was her name),

Wondered if I'd commit suicide in shame,

But I have survived as you might recognize,

Though I resolved that sticking to prose would be wise.

You know what? I'm not gonna spend a post dwelling on how 2008 was a shitty year.

This new year is awesome. Let me count the ways:

1- I got a cat
2- I got a job
3- Because I have a job, my availability with Mum is going down
4- C&C, please always be as awesome as you are now.
5- I'm reading new books again (Silence of the Lambs: WIN)
6- I'm writing again

So I was too late to sign up for that editing class, and that bellydancing class. Life is good. It's full of kitties and money and snow.

Now we're looking for a name for the damn cat. I could stare at the bratty little creature all day. We're trying to get her to use her scratching post by playing with her and getting her to stick her claws in it but it's not working. She scratches on the carpet instead. She'll play with the bird-on-a-stick toy we got her, but she always stops just short of the scratching post. I think we're cursed to have kitties who don't like scratching posts.

CHARACTER MIRROR MEME

So guess what, guys? I has a kitty. She is black and pretty and curious and well-adjusted and she's adorable. I loves her. The people at the SPCA had been calling her Mamagirl, but she needs a new name.

We had so much family dramu in choosing her, but I'm glad now. I have a cat who likes liking my fingers.

As a Christmas present to myself and my brother, we went to the SPCA to get a cat. I'd been badgering my mother about getting a cat for years, and with the recent gloominess in which our household has been plunged, thanks to my parents and me, I'd been bugging her worse than ever with folk sayings such as "people with pets are happier overall than people without pets", and "please, pretty please? I'll feed it and change its kitty litter and everything!" So, finally, on New Year's Eve, we went to the SPCA, and began one of our epic disagreements.

My family can debate for hours which movie to rent at blockbuster. This was more serious, and furthermore, I felt like the cat was a present especially for me. So we argued for hours and finally, we settled on the one cat my entire family liked that I did NOT like. They weren't going to get it unless I agreed, but we had to choose, so I sacrificed myself, and I made a decision so final it was no longer possible for me to change my mind.

Then Mum started having second thoughts. But I thought, okay, so we have a fat cat. It's not the end of the world. Mum will stop being sensitive eventually. I'm NOT changing my mind. Then, today, Dad starting having second thoughts as well. And they brought up good arguments for NOT adopting this cat, in favor of the other cat we wanted.

I hate those fickle bastards. They forced me into a decision I didn't want to make, and now THEY'RE going back on it.

Here's the story: Amber's this beautiful sandy-colored cat with amber eyes. She's overweight and she'd been severely neglected by her previous owners. She was so nervous they could not get her out of the cage to meet with us. What with the difficulties my family has been in recently, my parents don't really want a cat who will need extra care and may never recover from her trauma. But, despite the fact that I didn't like her at first, I chose her in the end, and I don't want to change my mind.

The other cat, nicknamed Mamagirl, is a five-year-old, very affectionate black cat who seems well-adjusted compared to Amber, and our entire family more or less likes her. I'm leaning away from this cat, not because I don't like her, but because I've stubbornly already made my decision. My parents weren't fair to me by forcing me to pick the other cat, and now, perversely, I don't want Mamagirl anymore.

So which do you think I should choose? Should I listen to reason and let my parents get Mamagirl? Or should I stick to my guns and get Amber?

-Awesome watch-thing, probably from Dad
-the Light Fantastic, from Ribs. THANK YOU RIBS.
-Moulin Rouge
-Howl's Moving Castle, PJs, Diana Wynne Jones book, and random scifi book from Grandmaman
-The Wrath of Khan
-Box set of West Side Story, thanks, Aunt Suzy, but why did it have to be West Side Story?
-Asterix et Obelix aux Olympiques, from gift exchange
-random sci-fi book from Dad
-fairy calendar

So, on Xmas day I went to my grandparents for supper, and we had delicious turkey. On Boxing day I puttered around. On the 27th we packed up the car and went to Tremblant.

I woke up on the 28th for a very informal breakfast and spent most of the morning watching cartoons with my cousins and my Oncle Luc. We watched Superfriends and The New Adventures of Batman and Robin. Apparently, we were watching Teletoon Retro, and the selection of shows it played were the real dregs of children's cartoons, and IN FRENCH, to boot. Each show had annoying, non-DC little sidekicks that you just want to strangle, to complete their catalogs of narrative sins. It was very amusing.

The next day, we went to ski. Well, my mum and I went to ski. See, the original plan was to go ski, but my Tante Suzanne didn't want to go because she's a helicopter parent and she's afraid her big girls are going to get booboos if they ski on a mountain that's not completely dinky and boring. I never understood what this had to do with MY family, but mum was going to call the whole thing off. Now, to go to Tremblant without skiing is absolute blasphemy, so I raised a fuss until my mother decided to go skiing after all. So we got in the car and drove to the mountain, and then Dad realized that he didn't have his keys to unlock the ski rack. So we got out and got our tickets while waiting for him to come back with the keys. Then we went up the mountain, and put on our skis. And the bindings on one of my skis broke clean off. So we had to go back down and rent a pair of skis. Then we went back up and got in one measly little run before we met my cousins for lunch. After lunch we skied down an expert trail with my cousin Elyse. It was icy and miserable. It was already getting late by the time we got to the top, but we resolved to soldier on until the chairlifts closed. Which turned out to be after our third run.

Lamest ski trip I ever went on. And then we vegged at Tante Suzanne's cottage until it was time to go home.

Today I went skiing on the golf course with Mum and Dad. Remember how I said I've been bummed because my parents are upset I lied to them again? Well, today's a different kind of bummed. My parents talked me into going skiing with them. It was a beautiful, fluffy, snowy, cloudy day, and the 'rents say I didn't have a choice but to go if I care about my health, which is another way of saying I have a choice. But if I bum med around inside I'd regret it at the end of the season, and I do care about my health, and would stop my parents worrying for a few hours. So eventually, I agreed.

It wasn't a mistake, but getting ready to go was unpleasant. I would ask my mother a simple question and she'd reply to me, in a thorough chagrined tone of voice, that she didn't know where everything was, which is a filthy lie. My snowpants turned out to be exactly where she said they were, so there. Then we took off, and at the first stop mum confessed that she couldn't enjoy this wonderful skiing because she was still thinking about school and how she should approach the principal with her complaints without shooting herself in the foot. And Dad said he was thinking about work. I'm getting tired of the pity party. I was tired of it Friday night, I was tired of it yesterday, and I'm tired of it now. I'm not too worried about Dad, since his contract ends in March, but JESUS, MOM, GET SOME HELP! It's just so hard to be cheerful when I'm around her these days.

Also, Patrick, for fuck's sake, would it kill you to DO something around the house? I shovel, I cook, I clean up, I help mum at work, I help Dad with the grocery shopping, I'm the one they turn to whenever they need help with anything! And even when I try to refuse, I end up doing what they want anyway, usually OF MY OWN ACCORD! Get off your selfish ass and help me out, here. Just because we're family doesn't mean you can pretend we're not worthy of your time and consideration.

Well, the chillens are all gone, and we're closing up shop 'till the new year. Friday was really amazing. Some of Mum's students actually thought to give ME gifts, not just to their teachers. Then they went to see Santa, and that was adorable too. And I got hugs, and they decorated cookies, and they were bouncing off the walls, but in a good way, up until the end, when Mum had the devil of a time trying to figure out how to work the VCR so she could show them The Snowman and I tried to lead them in a singalong as a distraction and FAILED.

I'm in the doghouse, though, because I lied to my mom about when and where I was meeting my friends. The where wasn't my fault, since Siony sent me the email on the day we were supposed to meet, and I can't check hotmail on the school computers (although I can browse deviantart to my heart's content, and read about Akio's sexual habits on Empty Movement: WTF, content filters?) The when was, though, for a number of reasons. Mum's feelings were really hurt, and I'm really sorry to have worried her and really sorry to have hurt her. I may have hurt her more when I explained to her why I couldn't tell her the truth, but I felt it needed to be said. My parents (especially mom) keep me on such a short leash, and although I love helping mum with the chillens, I'm not as thrilled about the hours we tend to spend in the classroom after they leave, cleaning up and organizing and sorting. I can't drive, and I don't know the neighborhood of Greenfield park, so I'm stuck on the South Shore until Mum drives me home for obedience training.

Despite the confusion about where and when I was supposed to meet the rest of MMMARS, the party went off pretty seamlessly. I spent way too much money on snack food this weekend, but still, funfun. Heh, until we did the spiral ritual. I've been really moody lately, and I just figured out that it could be because I'm on the rag, but feminine hormones and all, I felt what I felt. We were supposed to reflect on the past year and figure out what we wanted to take with us and what we wanted to leave behind, and leave our candle in a place that called to us. Symbolically, I felt like I should have been the first one to walk the spiral path - I felt that much in the dark. Emotionally, I wanted to be the last. I felt like I was putting off the moment of truth - lighting my candle - as much as possible. I walked out of that maze more bewildered and apprehensive than I ever was before. And geez, I dunno if the girls were trying, but when they shared their experiences afterward, it seemed like they were hitting all my weak spots: Siony with her symbolic talk of light (even though it was as impersonal as anything I ever heard in a christian mass), Ribs with 'leaving her childhood behind', Siony again with "I know some of us haven't had a very good year". And i just couldn't keep it in anymore. I felt lost, confused, and helpless. It means a lot to me that Siony said I was such a great friend with such a big heart.

I changed my mind. This place is turning me into a copy of my mother. She tells me about her class night and day and she's so pessimistic and so I start being pessimistic too.

Those cute little bastards are leading me to a hempen grave.

It all started this Monday when I missed caroling with MWOS. I'd been looking forward to that a lot, but I somehow sabotaged myself into not going. And when my parents came home, they asked me why. I told them I didn't want to talk about it, but then I exploded. There's some deep sadness in me and I'm not sure where it's coming from exactly, because it seems to be coming from so many different directions. So anyway, yesterday, I decided I wasn't going to talk to my parents if they were just going to repeat themselves. I clammed up. I wanted to cry, I didn't know why, and there was no use telling anyone because I had nothing worth saying. So I said nothing until my parents forgot about me and my brother came in talking about basketball.

This worked very well with Dad. I came down, did the dishes, and spent the first hour communicating in shrugs, nods, and shakes of the head, and then things cheered up. But I did have things to say to my mother so I couldn't do that. I told her I wasn't going to help her out on Friday and went to bed. I'm spending too much time with my parents and in the house. I'm stagnating and suffocating. And Mum's in a really bad place right now and I feel like she's sucking the life out of me. For all these reasons I didn't want to go in with her on Friday.

Unfortunately, during the ride to the school in the morning, Mum has a captive audience, and I can't stay mute when it's plain I'm not going to get my way unless I come up with something really good. And by the end of it, I was saying "Don't worry, I'll go." Damn, she's good. Razmfrazm kids with their razmfrazm cuteness. They come up to you and they say "J'AI FINI ARCHITEK!" and brandish the ugly green dragon plushie and they sparkleshine at you, and you're lost. Should be illegal.

The Montreal-West Operatic Society is proud to present this year's Christmas Concert.

Where: Montreal-West United Church, 88 Ballantyne N. (take the 162 and get at the stop after the Mini-Cout. The church is right there. Go around to the back entrance to buy tickets.
When: 10th December, 7:30 PM
Cost: 10$, but bring extra money for our bake sale and apple cider at the intermission
Why: Because I'm singing
What: Christmas carols in four-part harmony. Plus, Victorian costumes.

Long entry is long. I'm talking about Portal, first-person shooters, and there's a slice of my childhood in there too.

( Picture a 9-year-old Mishi )

( In EB Games. Blasphemy! How dare you deny me my pocket monsters?! Wait, is that Portal I see? )

( The cake is a lie, it's actually a slice of Siony's apple pie. With ice-cream. In heaven. During an orgasm. Or something. )