We did it! This was us 12 years ago today shortly after we had officially tied the knot. We got married at the United Church in Bridgewater, Nova Scotia. Our photographer took many photos of us – some of which he used a soft focus filter on his film camera OR he just rubbed some Vaseline on the edges of his lens. After the last few weeks of my film photo practice, I’m even more grateful for our wedding photos. The photographer got so many! And all in focus! And we’re in the frame and everything! Clearly he knew what he was doing.
We celebrated our anniversary with a hearty steak and lobster meal at the Keg last night, and by watching more episodes of Underbelly today. Very laid back – and I’m glad for that. Besides, next week we’re off to Toronto for all sorts of excitement, so we’re just taking it easy until then.
Here’s a “before the wedding” photo for your enjoyment/amusement:
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What an exciting day I had today! Over at the fancy new cbc building, a trapeze act put on a free show at lunch time. I had both my cameras with me. Sadly, I didn’t bring my long lens, so I wasn’t able to get my favourite close up shots, but I did my best with the stock lens and tried to get photos of the acrobats between the complicated pyramid bar system they had set up. This circus troupe is called Air Born and they do shows for people in old folks homes. I couldn’t find out too much about them, but they are some how affiliated with the Health Arts Society. I got there part way through the show, but saw 2 or 3 different trapeze artists. Here’s another shot of them in action:
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When Feng Shui Master, Lillian Too, sends out her weekly email a day early with a heads up for Hungry Ghost month, I listen. Yesterday was the first day of a solemn month-long occasion observed by many Asian cultures. It seems to be different in different Asian cultures (The Japanese version is by far the grimmest) but my understanding from my Taiwanese co-worker, Mike, is that this is the time the deceased ancestors come back from “the other side” to visit the earth. However, this is not a light hearted event at all. These ghosts are thought to play mean tricks on the humans and sometimes hurt them or even (gulp) cause their deaths. When I heard this, I thought, “What? What kind of scary after life belief is this? We are doomed to accidents and unpleasant happenings for a whole month? Oh great.”
Thankfully, there are ways to keep these ghosts appeased. Unfortunately offerings of food and water do no good. They cannot eat or drink. But apparently they can be satisfied by smoke, so the tradition is to burn incense and other paper items for them. The paper items are often in shapes of items they can use in the afterlife. I went to Chinatown today to find some of these paper items to burn and found a store full of stuff – they had tons of paper money, paper clothes, paper mahjong tiles, paper cigarettes, paper credit cards and even paper cell phones – all for burning to keep the Hungry Ghosts at bay.
While shopping for my paper offerings, a friendly Chinese man stopped and asked me if I knew what all the paper products were for. I told him it was for the Hungry Ghosts. He then told me that he doesn’t believe in the ghosts, BUT just to be sure, he’s extra careful during this time. He told me to look both ways before crossing the street and to slow down and be careful. I thanked him and I told him I would for sure.
There are lots of versions of this observance and I think I’ll see what else I can find out about it. This is the second most observed ritual in China – second only to the Chinese New Year. It’s like Day of the Dead in Mexico, but without the making of fun of the dead part. And also the Egyptian afterlife. But these ghosts have no sense of humour, unfortunately.
Dairy Queen was giving away free mini Blizzards today and Maëlle Ricker was there signing autographs WITH her gold medal. Remember her kicking all that a$$ at the Olympics? Here’s the video of her winning the Snowboard Cross race in February. I got to the event around 11:20 (I took an early lunch – I promise. The event was only 2 blocks away from my office.) and there was just the right amount of people there. That steadily increased as it grew closer to the noon mark.
There were plenty of treats for everyone who arrived – little cups of ice cream and some cookies. And a gold medal.
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