Danke Schoen, Mr. Hughes

Writer/director John Hughes died suddenly yesterday at the too young age of 59. I've been having 1980's flashbacks ever since, primarily because John Hughes is the guy who brought us all those iconic teen movies back then, like "The Breakfast Club" (described as a "J.D. Salingeresque rebellion against conformity"), "Sixteen Candles", "Pretty in Pink" and "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (and don't ask me to pick which one of those 4 I liked the best, because I can't decide!)

He also wrote "Home Alone", "National Lampoon's Vacation" and "Planes, Trains and Automobiles", to name just a few more from his extensive list of credits. They are all great movies and ones you can watch over and over and still find them amusing and entertaining, because the stories are so well written but also because of the memorable characters.

I loved Annie Potts as Iona in Pretty in Pink - who can forget those costumes, especially the combinatiof beehive hairdo, pink dress and fuzzy yellow slippers?

I first developed a crush on James Spader in that movie as well, even though his character wasn't very nice. Of course, that crush developed into full on adoration and eternal love after 5 fabulous seasons of "Boston Legal", when he proved that he wasn't just a pretty face 30 years ago, he's also a seriously talented actor.

I also thought the guy who played Jake Ryan in Sixteen Candles was seriously cute and was going to look him up on the Internet, until I read this hilarious blog about why it might not be a good idea to find out whatever happened to so and so?

http://images.google.ca/imgres?imgurl=http://www.marverous.com/upload/jakeryan.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.marverous.com/article/2008/05/i-was-so-disappointed/&usg=__-COLhSgRY24vC_7qut7A2qT5T0o=&h=296&w=281&sz=77&hl=en&start=3&sig2=F1aAq_rBd49tp2K8wGbyEg&um=1&tbnid=2RuZr1uG53v9SM:&tbnh=116&tbnw=110&prev=/images%3Fq%3Djake%2Bryan%2Bsixteen%2Bcandles%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1&ei=jKx8SvDjEM6_lAedpsCCAg

So I'm just going to remember Jake fondly and move on.

Matthew Broderick will always BE Ferris Bueller for me, no matter what he does on Broadway.

This photo is the best, I laughed out loud when I saw it online today - how brilliant was this scene with total geek Anthony Michael Hall asleep in his head gear and drunken pretty girl wondering how a chunk of her hair got cut off? Hilarious!

Danke Schoen, John Hughes - you leave an impressive legacy for an angst-ridden teenage generation who are still learning to embrace their inner geekiness!

A Lion Called Christian

Have you seen the video on YouTube about the lion being reunited with the two men who raised him when he was a cub? Here's the link - ignore the slightly cheesy Areosmith soundtrack:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=btuxO-C2IzE&feature=fvst

If you search YouTube for "lion reunion" or "christian the lion", you can see there are several other variations of this video, part of which is taken from a documentary that was filmed in the early '70s. The video shows a reunion between Christian the lion, all grown up and now living in the wild, with the two humans who raised him for the first few months of his life.

I've just finished reading the book, "A Lion Called Christian" which was written by those two men, Ace Bourke and John Rendall. They have re-released the book after the video clip generated millions of hits on YouTube. It's the story of how they bought the lion cub at Harrods in the 1969 - the good old flower power days when you could buy just about anything at Harrods! - and raised him for several months before returning him to the wild. Once he started to get bigger, they realized they had to find him somewhere more appropriate to live than the basement of the furniture store they worked at and they ended up taking Christian to a conservation area in Kenya run by George Adamson of "Born Free" fame. It's an interesting story and an easy read, I recommend it. Very heartwarming.

This article in Snopes.com gives a bit more of the detail of the story, if you're interested:

http://www.snopes.com/photos/animals/christian.asp

(The really funny thing is that while I was watching this video tonight prior to copying the link, my cat Max, who never pays any attention to what is on my computer screen, starting pawing at the screen when the video was playing. Do you think he recognized Christian as one of his king of the jungle cousins?)

Durfort Dreams Bracelet

When I was in Milwaukee this past June, one of the pieces I made in Susan Lenart Kazmer's class was this bracelet, which I call "Durfort Dreams". I had been collecting the bits and pieces for a while but hadn't gotten around to combining them just yet but figured that Susan's lessons on cold connections and joining found objects would be just right for bringing this piece together, and they were!

The various charms all have significance, mostly to remind me of my time in Durfort but also to remind me of Susan's class:

- a bezel charm has a picture of a fleur-de-lis that was on the lid of a copper pan sold in a shop in Durfort;

- another resined charm holds a picture of a sunflower overlaid with french handwriting;

- a peace sign, to remind me of the peaceful feeling of every day village life;

- the coloured ribbon strung through the chain itself reminds me of the lights over the stalls at the night market in Avignonet;

- I found the flattened "Pacifico" bottle cap one sultry summer afternoon in the town square in Soreze;

- the metal cross represents my trip to the cemetery;

- there is a bead with a pink sequin and a cubic zurconia, which were given to me by my friends Colleen and Heather, who took Susan's class with me and also went to Mexico for Kate's workshop there;

- I made the PMC charm with a black and white picture of a woman that I got from Kate's collection of images and Kate's name stamp as a reminder of Kate (although this piece definitely looks a little too shiny and silver compared to the rest of the antiqued brass bracelet, I shall have to get myself some liver of sulphate and add a patina to it);

- coincidentally, the resined charm next to this one on the bracelet is one I made in Milwaukee using a combination of the same B&W photo (showing more of the glamourous woman elegantly smoking from a cigarette holder and wearing nothing but a string of pearls), the copper fleur-de-lis and a postmark that says Paris;

-one charm is a mix of ribbons and beads which was my experiment with a certain technique of Susan's for twisting ribbon, it didn't really work the way it was supposed to but I kept it anyway;

- a little circle charm that is a two copper discs enclosing a stack of papers with a French postage stamp and a piece from a French dictionary and a picture of an owl that can be fanned open to show the contents - again, this was one of the techniques/designs Susan taught us;
- the letter charms are an "F" for my last name and a "K" for Susan's (because she also teaches workshops at La Cascade, she was quite excited to see my piece and we swapped stories of our times there);

- the painted copper piece was made by one of the women in the workshop, Sydney a.k.a. The Copper Woman, who very generously shared pieces of her art with all of us;

- the owl bead reminds me of the little owl that crossed our path on the last night, and was made by Karen Elmquist, who was in my class in Milwaukee (I love how that one circles around to join the two experiences!)

- there is a French blue bead and an old key;

- one of the charms is the picture of the group of us at the night market that I am so fond of; and

- there are two coins joined together as one charm, an French franc and a Euro, representing the old and new currencies of France.

I had fun putting this bracelet together and it brings me a lot of joy to look at the charms and recall the various people and places that it represents.

An Update

This photo is for Sharon, who was asking how big the little house that Wendy made actually is. Sharon, it's just a little bit smaller than a toadstool, does that help? :)

Today marks the last day of my 21 day commitment to work out for 5 days out of every 7. I am pleased to report that I did a total of 16 workouts in that time, which is one extra that I agreed to do, and I still haven't decided if I'll head down to the pool tonight. I'm thinking it would be cool to do 7 days in a row but at the same time, it's not a bad thing to give my body a wee rest. Especially after yesterday's Zumba session! Although I'm not really too sore today and I thought I would be.

Have you tried Zumba? It's pretty cool. It seems to be a combination of aerobics and dancing, done to Latin and "international" music. The Globe and Mail had an article about it a few weeks ago. http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/health/shimmy-up-to-zumba/article1186095/

I laughed out loud at the part that says, "What are the classes like?" and the answer is "A party at an all-inclusive resort", because it was kind of like that.

I felt rather dorky at first, because I was having trouble following the moves (it's like the first time you did a step class and you were stepping up while everyone else was stepping down or going left when they went right, until you do it once or twice and get the hang of the routines) but after a while, you kind of forget that you're standing in the front row and everyone behind you is probably thinking you're a klutz and you just have fun with it.

The question is, what am I going to do next? A man named Jim Rohn said, "Motivation is what gets you started. Habit is what keeps you going." Hopefully, the habit is now in place, although I can see how it might get out of whack. On weekdays, I've been doing my activities right after work, but if I have to run errands or go grocery shopping or be somewhere on a certain evening, I lose that time so I think you do need to accept that you can't commit to doing it every day. Plus it's easier in the summer to say you'll go for a half hour walk than it will be once the colder weather comes back. I'll just have to cross that bridge when I come to it. In the meantime, I might drop the commitment to 4 times a week but I definitely still want to keep active.

Au Revoir, Durfort mais je me reviens!

On this holiday Monday one year ago, I was heading home from France. Jennifer and I woke up just before 6 a.m. that morning, showered and packed up the car to drive to Toulouse. We had said goodbye to our remaining housemates Gwen, Carin and Sydney the night before, so they didn't have to wake up to see us off.

We returned the rental car with no problems and hung about in the airport for a little while until it was time for me to get on my plane. One thing that amazed me when I had arrived in Toulouse the week before was the pictures they had decorating the wall surrounding an area outside the airport which was under construction, which featured different sorts of police officers from around the world in their distinctive uniforms, like the London bobbie and of course, our beloved Canadian mountie. It was nice to see a little reminder of home, both when I arrived and as I was leaving.

I travelled back the way I had come, through Frankfurt, but this time with an extra stop in Ottawa, where I discovered that my luggage was missing. It arrived back in Toronto a couple of days later and luckily, all my flea market purchases and PMC creations were undamaged.

It occurs to me now that although we all shared that one week together in the same place, we each had very different experiences. We all made very different pieces of jewellery, no two were the same (except for the ones I copied from Kate, of course!) which is to be expected. But as I've been writing these blog entries, I've been realizing how much I was out and about in the area around Durfort, whereas some people spent most of their week inside La Cascade without seeing as much of the neighbouring area. Not that there is anything wrong with that, it is just something I am thinking about now, a year later as I look at my many photos and read through my travel journal.

To me, it was a very special week in a beautiful part of the world, filled with new experiences to delight all of my senses and wonderful people with whom to share the adventure. I am already looking forward to my next trip to Durfort in the summer of 2010. Kate has booked La Cascade for two weeks in August and is looking for people to share the house with her - check out her website if you think you might be interested. Adding to the excitement is a week in Paris first, and a week in Barcelona after our time in Durfort. Who can resist? Not me, I'm already half packed and counting down the days!!

Durfort 2008 - Day 7

Before we knew it, Sunday had rolled around again in Durfort and it was time for another vide grenier. Several people were leaving today, some going home, some travelling on to their next destination but first, we were going to the flea market! I can't tell you the name of the village, as for some reason, my travel journal is a bit sparse about this day, but I do have photos. Wherever it was, there was this very interesting turreted building. There was also this collection of owls, which for some reason, is a very popular item at flea markets in France but we never did find anyone who could explain exactly why this was true.

After the flea market, I drove to Toulouse with Kate in my car and Carin followed in her car with Sydney, Wendy and Adrianne. We dropped Kate, Wendy and Adrianne at the train station where they were going to catch a train to Barcelona. The rest of us were going to stop somewhere for lunch but we got separated in the traffic leaving the train station, so I headed back to Durfort on my own.

On the way, I stopped several times to take photos of more sunflower fields, but at one point as I was driving, I could see a bell tower in the distance so I turned down the road and ended up in a very quaint little village whose name I swore I wouldn't forget but didn't write down and now can't remember! However, I do have several lovely photos of the church with the bell tower! There was another building there with very unusual architectural features - metal crosses on old stone walls and triangle shaped bits at ground level which might have been installed to keep the walls from falling down or for some sort of defensive purpose, I really couldn't say. The whole village seemed completely abandoned except for myself and two motorcyclists who were having a bite to eat in the shade of an ancient tree.

When I got back to La Cascade, all was quiet. It seemed strange with most of our group gone. That night, Carin, Jennifer, Shevawn and I had dinner at a restaurant in Soreze called Gigi's. Kate had eaten there in the week before we arrived and raved about the cassoulet, so we had to try it. It was delicious! Here's a picture of Carin and I with the two desserts that the 4 of us shared, which were also quite yummy. It was a lovely evening and quite different to be just 4 of us after a week of being a dozen or more all the time.

The most amazing thing was that on the (very short) drive back to Durfort, something hopped across the road in front of our car and it turned out to be a very small owl!! Carin very smartly suggested that we shouldn't stay too long with our headlights pointed at it, in case some other animal decided it would make a tasty snack so off we went. I looked up the habits of owls on the Internet once I got back home and learned that baby owls often hop before they learn to fly, so it must have been quite young. But it was a very special way to end our last night in Durfort, to have such a sighting!

Durfort Workshop 2008 - Day 6

Saturday is market day in France so in the morning, we headed off to Revel to check out the local market. It's what you would call a farmer's market, with stalls full of food of every type imaginable, fresh vegetables, meat, bread, flowers, etc. but also a whole area that is more like a flea market, with clothing and jewellery and bits and pieces of general household stuff. I bought a couple of colourful tablecloths, some tubes of seed beads (natch) and some of the lavender soap that Gwen uses at La Cascade. I have to tell you, it is the most wonderful soap. Not only does it smell nice but here I am a year later, and I am not yet finished the third (and last) bar that I bought!

We worked in the studio for the afternoon, frantically trying to finish everything we had started, as this was our last day. Everyone was very sad to think we would be parting company in the morning.

Nese served our last supper out on the terrace - chicken and vegetables in a yummy sauce, with bowtie pasta and rice combined (who would have thought to mix the two but it was delicious!) Her daughter helped to serve the meal and I asked her to take a picture of all of us together, which turned out really well - I'm so glad to have it.

After dinner, we went back to the studio. I finally went to bed at 1 a.m. but was one of the few to go to bed "early"!

Wendy had worked all week on a French house and when she finished, announced that she was going to sell it when she got home. I immediately offered to buy it, Kate set the price for us and the deal was done. It's a beautiful piece and I love having it as a reminder of both our time in France and my talented new friend.