On Monday, I went to another monthly meeting of the Toronto branch of the Ontario Genealogical Society. It was only my second meeting, but was another excellent talk on using military records and memorabilia to trace your ancestors. The presenter gave four case studies from his own research, and he was very entertaining as well as informative.
The Toronto branch is hosting the annual province-wide meeting of the OGS, and requests went out for volunteers. I signed up to help with registration and/or introducing/thanking speakers. I also registered for a course called Introduction to Family History Writing to be held in April.
On Tuesday, Wilson went to the groomers in the morning and got a really short cut (a shave really). Now this 5 year old terrier mix looks like a golden retriever puppy! But it's a great cut for him and keeps his light hair off the furniture (on those rare occasions he's allowed up.) I also saw my optomestrist and ordered contact lenses and new lenses for my glasses. The new ones will be a slightly different shape (I have a Silhouette rimless style) and have the transitions coating to provide sun protection. This will (hopefully) mean that I dont' have to be constantly swapping specs when I'm outside.
Tuesday night, Z, Michael and I headed down to U of T's OISE Auditorium to hear The Great Time Debate, a discussion moderated by Dan Falk with speakers Richard Bond (U of T - Cosmologist), James Robert Brown (U of T Philosophy), and Lee Smolin (Perimeter Institute - Physicist). The place was packed, and they had to turn away a couple of hundred people. Very interesting concepts, and in particular, Smolin talked about the laws of nature as being a result of evolution: that there is some kind cosmological natural selection where black holes give ruse to new universes ("births"). Kind of mind-blowing.
I had a hair appointment on Thursday and discussed the possibility of gradually growing out my grey using a combination of high lights and lowlights, rather than doing my usual all-over colour. I'm pretty grey at the front and sides, and less so at the back, so we did partial highlights and I'm pretty happy about it. It makes the demarcation line along my part much less noticeable, and I"ll be able to go for longer between appointments which is great.
Over Christmas when my mother-in-law was in town, Z took her to the Syrian Catholic Church for mass one Sunday. It's pretty far west from us and everything is in Arabic/Syriac so we don't go there as a family. But while they were there, my MIL told the priest that he should have visited us and blessed our house. So we invited him for dinner Friday night. When he arrived, I was surprised to see a man in a bishops cassock, red trim on black with a big cross and ring. He had been elevated since the invite went out, and so we had our house blessed by a bishop! The short liturgy was mostly in Syriac and Arabic, but we prayed the Our Father in English, and he blessed the food in English as well. He also came with one of Z's cousins and a priest visiting from Lebanon. We had a nice meal together with lots of conversation and laughter, and then they headed off.
Yesterday was a birthday party for my brother. I brought over a squash and goat cheese lasagne and they had salad and bread and a birthday cake. My aunts were there as well, and we had a nice visit. The children were great to hang with and my five month old niece changes every time I see her!
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