The Never Ending Birthday
Really. His hand is large and very dry, and he gave me a stiff little nod and half-smile.
Then I had dinner with him-oh, and about 150 other people, and he was sitting about 20 metres away surrounded by big-wigs. But the occasion was still memorable.
Some of you may know Gore’s been touring the world for some time now, giving well-honed and extremely effective lectures about global warming, on which the documentary An Inconvenient Truth is based. He was invited to the University of British Columbia, and I just happened to be in town (okay, my husband was invited and we planned my brief visit weeks beforehand). I was pleasantly surprised that Gore’s lecture style proved to be the opposite of his stiff handshake and brief smile-fiery, passionate, well informed, and exploding with facts and images. Can that man use PowerPoint or what?
And lest I sound too trivial, he really did teach me some things about global warming I didn’t know.
Then three nights ago, my husband flew out to my prairie fastness to visit and, I thought, help me pack for my upcoming westward move. Instead, he suggested I pack … a suitcase for two nights. To make a long story short, he surprised me with a “late birthday” visit to Toronto and a wonderful reunion with my sister, whom I hadn’t seen since Christmas. Fantastic birthday surprise … can you imagine?!
My sister’s currently living in Toronto and performing in a musical. So we saw her show on Thursday night … and it was just great, and you have to understand that twenty-four hours earlier, I had no idea about any of this, or about how connivingly sneakily evil my husband and sister, who cooked this up between them, really were.
Until the next night in downtown Toronto, when-instead of going out to dinner and seeing a movie-I found out only an hour beforehand that instead, my sister and her partner had given us tickets to see Lord of the Rings.
Oi were gobsmacked. I have truly never been so surprised. I had no idea.
So yes, holy freakin’ god, I have seen the musical version of LOTR. Some of you in that fandom who are following may have heard-erm-mixed reviews about it. Apparently they made a number of changes after the opening. While the production’s not without flaws, it’s an amazing feat of stagecraft. Unbelievable. Kind of a cross between a great big fat musical and Circe du Soleil. The actors do manage to come across well and not to get swamped by the special effects. The actor playing Gollum, Michael Therriault, is quite superb (the same actor did an amazing job portraying Tommy Douglas, the founder of Canada’s medicare system, in a 2005 TV movie, so he really has chops). I have to add that some of the music is truly gorgeous, especially Galadriel’s moments.
And I have a genuine LOTR fleece as well. I wish I could show it off at Lumos, but that’s not a great plan when the temperature’s going to be over 100 F!
So that, folks, was my fiftieth … spread out over almost two weeks and stage-managed with loving kindness by my wonderful family.
Just wanted to share this with you.