ccra meeting

My contributor's copy of "The Country Connection" came in the mail recently, with my article, "Leave No Trace". I got paid for a cartoon as well as my article!

Selling cartoons could be another source of freelance income for me, hm...





My CCRA meeting yesterday went better than I expected. Two people from the CCRA showed up at my tax lawyer's office: the fellow who had originally contacted me, and his supervisor. The interaction was much more courteous in person than it had been over the phone, much to my relief.

As I figured, questions mostly focussed on the sale of Inkspot and my work in the U.S. I have to dig up some more documents and invoices, but so far (knock wood), everything seems to be going smoothly.

Instead of going to the cottage with Jeff early next week, I'm opting to stay home and do more audit stuff. I'm hoping to get this all over with as soon as possible so I can get back to my writing (which I've had to put on hold for now).

Our friend Helen (who writes as "Anton Lerchner" in Blatherchat :-)) stayed with us last night; she'll be going up to the cottage with Jeff. She brought me a very cute Whistling Clanger to match the one on the t-shirt she bought me for my birthday. When you squeeze his tummy, he gives an eerie little tooting whistle:





I'm finding that running is helping me deal with the frustration of putting aside my writing to do audit stuff. I've started to do it in the mornings; I suspect this time of day will be cooler once summer hits, too. I've set myself a time limit of about an hour, and turn back (no matter where I am) when I reach the halfway point. This morning I ran pretty much the entire way since it was colder outside than I had expected, and running kept me warm. :-) This morning, my halfway point was the beginning of the Martin Goodman Trail on Stadium Road:





Jeff and I are seeing Spiderman this afternoon! I was skeptical when I first heard about the movie, but the trailers look pretty good. Plus I like Tobey Maguire. Have a great weekend, everyone!

joseph

Went to Allison's school production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat last night with Jodi. Allison was one of the music directors; Jodi and I had been hearing about the progress of the musical since September and were aware of all the hard work she and the others had been putting into the show.

The Blathering at the top is of Allison conducting the choir.





We met Allison and her husband John before the show at Swiss Chalet, then headed over about an hour early. Jodi and I wanted to get good seats! (see below)

While the parents rushed for the seats near the front of the stage, Jodi and I grabbed the seats as close to Allison's conductor's stand as possible. We actually ended up moving one row ahead of the photo below:





I could have reached out and poked Allison in the ribs anytime if I wanted!

But I didn't.

Within a short time, the gymnasium was packed (see photo below). Allison said that both evening shows had been sold out, plus the school had added several daytime shows for schools in the area.

The play was great! Great costumes, sets, and of course the choir was fantastic. 'Twas very cool to see Allison directing the choir. As one of her choir members says, she rocks!

Can you see Jodi in the photo below?





I loved seeing Allison in teacher mode, and hearing parents and students call her "Mrs. Durno". Also cool to hear all the parents thanking her after the show, saying it was fantastic, asking if she could do it every year (also fun to watch Allison keep her smile intact at the casual requests for an annual event).

I think I want to start calling Allison "Mrs. Durno", too. :-)





I have my first meeting with the CCRA today; wish me luck.

morning run

So I'm beginning to think I'll never be a "real" runner.

I'm only a beginner, but I love running so far. But I'm finding it hard to take on the fixed goal mentality of genuine runners. I still haven't run a mile without stopping, but it's no longer because I can't do it physically. It's because there are too many interesting things to see along the way. :-)





One of the advantages I'm finding of running over cycling is that it IS so easy to stop and look at interesting stuff; you don't have to worry about locking up your bike or stashing it somewhere where it won't be stolen.

I usually stop only long enough to take in the way the light hits the lake, or some spring blooms in a park, or checking out an interesting sculpture I hadn't noticed before, sometimes to take a picture. But the stop is long enough to "disqualify" my run as continuous, I'm sure.

But hey, it's my run, isn't it? Or walk/run, whatever I wish to make it. :-)

I decided to go running in the morning today instead of at the end of my workday because Jodi and I are going to see the performance of "Joseph and the Technicoloured Dreamcoat" put on by Allison's school tonight, directed by Allison! Really looking forward to seeing it. :-)

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Today's Blatherpics:

I took these photos this morning on my run.

	Scene along the harbourfront.
	Sculpture in a (very) small park as I head through the downtown core toward the harbourfront.
	These stairs beside the Skydome mark the last big "push" in my run before heading home. There are two sets of these in a row.

zoo

Jeff and I took a few hours off yesterday to visit the Toronto Zoo with our niece Brittany on her birthday (she's six). It was Jeff's first time at this particular zoo.

Hefty admission fee ($17 for adults, $9 for children). I think this fee should have been discounted because of all the exhibits that were closed because it was off-season...the girls kept excitedly asking to see certain animals only to be disappointed when we arrived to find they weren't there.





Jeff and I met Rachel, Brittany's friend from school, for the first time. Really cute little kid. Super-enthusiastic, too...she yelled "Yippee!" a lot. She also seemed to attach herself to JBR, holding his hand, dragging him around, asking him questions, calling him "Grampy" just like Brittany did. I asked JBR how long he had known Rachel, and he told me it was the first time he had met her. :-)





I'm somewhat stressed out these days, so the zoo trip was a good distraction. Last week, the CCRA (the Canadian equivalent of the IRS) called me and said that my file had been "randomly selected" for review.

I've never been audited before, and can't say that this one of those life experiences I've been hoping to embrace. I've heard so many audit horror stories, mainly about the attitude and treatment involved. Sad to say, so far I haven't come across anything to contradict these stories.

It bugs me that I'm being made to feel like a criminal even though I haven't done anything wrong and have in fact invested a lot of energy and money trying to do the right thing. I'm sure the Inkspot sale was what triggered the "random selection" of my file.

It's frustrating that this is happening just when I feel like my life has finally started to settle down after the whole Inkspot/Xlibris debacle, when I'm finally able to start focussing on my own writing again.

It's frustrating that bad Inkspot/Xlibris karma continues to follow me despite the fact that Xlibris shut down the site and laid off all Inkspot employees over a year ago.





But let me try to look on the bright side of the situation:

-- At least I'm home for all this, not in Philadelphia.

-- I was bound to be audited sooner or later, because of the sale of Inkspot. At least this way I get it over sooner than later.

-- I haven't done anything wrong. Whatever hassles or attitude I endure over the next while, I'll just keep telling myself that and trust (I can hear the more cynical among you hysterically laughing :-)) that in the end, the CCRA will come to realize that.

Wish me luck. :-)

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Today's Blatherpics:

	At the beginning of the zoo trip, Larkin writes her cellphone number on Brittany's arm, just in case Brittany gets separated from us. She does the same for Rachel.
	Watching the camels. Sadly, the camel rides were not running that day.
	We ran into Andrew and Katy (and Andrew's mom) at the zoo. I met Andrew and Pat Williams at local filks. In fact, Allison and I had our first Real Conversation (i.e. conversation longer than the 2 or 3 minute snatches we got at conventions) at one of Pat's housefilks. Pat also gave me a sampler tape with Dave Clement singing years before I actually met Dave.
	JBR and Rachel and Brittany.
	A cute animal whose name totally escapes me. Looks like a Gund stuffed animal, doesn't he? I bet he'd rip your hand off if you reached down to pet him. No, I didn't say this to Brittany and Rachel. (Thanks to Amanda Snyder for pointing out that this animal is a red panda!)

terence poll results

So last week I posted a survey about Terence Chua, a filker (and a judge!) living in Singapore. Terence has a wonderfully twisted sense of humour and is also a very sweet guy. I first came in contact with Terence when I posted incorrect spellings of his first AND last name on the OVFF Web site when he was a guest at the convention in recent years. I was mortified, of course. Instead of being angry, Terence took it all with good humour.

I've been trying to spread the rumour that he might be moving to Toronto in the feeble hope that he might actually start believing the rumour himself and then do it. Okay, so maybe that should read "VERY feeble" but hey, I figure it's at least worth a shot. :-)

Anyway, 26 people responded to the survey, of which 68% have actually met Terence. In response to my question, "Where do you think Terence Chua should move to?", 24% of respondents chose Toronto, 12% chose Vancouver, 16% chose Atlanta. Here are the comments that were posted by the 52% who chose "Other":

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San Jose, CA

I'd say New York, except that it's probably too much like Singapore. So, failing that, Washington, DC, would be a good place. LOTS of fodder for humor, if his blood pressure can take it ;-)

Gravesend, England. We used to be doing so well building up our filker community but now that we've lost some people we need to build it back up again. If Terence moves here then surely lots of other filkers will move here too because he's so much fun.

Southern California

Terence is actually going to settle in Needles, California.

Where ever he feels happiest.

Anywhere in North America will do

Denver

Galapagos Islands

Peterborough

Singapore

Wherever he wants to.

Cincinnati


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In response to "Anything else you'd like to add?", the responses included:

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I hear Terence has been in incriminating photos of young female filkers involving air ducts.

Secretly Terence is going to move to Gravesend, he just didn't want to burst your bubble after mentioning Toronto as one of his possible destinations. Terence is being bribed to make this sensible decision by offers of fresh cooked brownies.

5q+5q

He still owes us dinner!

I hear ABBA is coming to Singapore this fall and giving an all-Chthulu concert!

I'd vote for Terence moving to the DC area, but Harold Feld and Ed Sobansky have already cornered the market on legal bards. (Though he could be an illegal bard, I suppose.) I'm happy to let Toronto have him 8-)

Rumour has it the best school in the world to study American History is the University of Toronto. It's true. I heard it from the friend of a friend.

We had an interesting conversation about the edition of Genesis that I was reading for school.

Well, I DID see Terence in MilPhil.


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Today's Blatherpic, of course, is of Terence when he was a baby.