off to Ottawa once again

The last couple of years, J. and I have spent the Canada Day weekend in Ottawa.

If you weren't aware of how momentous this weekend has been in the past, or how excited I've been leading up to it, you can check it out here and here.

I'm looking forward to the fireworks on Parliament Hill, the morning runs along the canal, the early-afternoon roams through the city, the late-afternoon naps, the evening dinners on the town, the midnight drinks on a patio, the daily browse through Byward Market, the never-ending conversation...

I'm not looking forward to the crowds that will be there for Will and Kate.
The wedding was beyond beautiful.
The pandemonium that they cause is nightmarish.

We've already changed our plans to avoid being there today when they touched down, so we're leaving tomorrow and taking Monday off instead of today to still make it a four day weekend. After our morning runs, we will probably hibernate in our hotel in the afternoons to avoid the mass chaos, and emerge at night...which, really, is more than fine by us anyway. We're night owls.

Have a lovely Canada Day holiday, and a fantastic weekend!
I know we will.

recipe for a delicious anniversary

3 extra hours of sleep
2 fresh panini sandwiches
2 iced frappucinos
1 yellow dress
1 potted orchid flower
1 fancy-shmancy restaurant
6 homemade pomegranate martinis

Wake up at 9am. Decide at 9:30am that mornings are for being lazy and cuddling. Climb back into bed and fall asleep until 12:30pm.

Gradually get up, shower, change, and discuss breakfast options. Decide it's too late for breakfast and discuss lunch options. Determine that it's a day to be spoiled and set out for Yorkdale to brunch and browse.

Eat a delicious lunch of 1 portobello pesto panini with mango salad (her) and 1 chicken avocado panini with chick pea salad (him).

Leisurely stroll hand-in-hand through stores. Try on several yellow dresses as requested (her) until the perfect one presents itself. Purchase said dress as gift to wear during upcoming trip to Ottawa (him).

Indulge in book browsing while enjoying 1 iced skinny caramel macchiato (him) and 1 iced skinny white chocolate mocha (her). Sip luxuriously.

Return home to get ready for dinner. Determine that hole-in-the-wall boutique restaurant around the corner deserves the honour. Make reservation for 9:15pm.

Stop for fresh fruit and alcohol in preparation for homemade late-night drinks. Pick out gorgeous new potted orchid flower to mark anniversary.

Enjoy swanky private dinner with complimentary shots, 1 martini (her) and 1 pint of Creemore (him), followed by 1 spicy sausage rigatoni (him) and 1 wild mushroom and spinach gnocchi (her). Skip dessert as a result of being stuffed to the brim.

Head home. Exchange romantic cards, inducing happy tears. Sentimentally reminisce about all the incredible moments that have passed.

Put on movie. Make pomegranate martinis and relax intertwined on couch in candle-lit living room. Drink 3 martinis each and gradually nod off.

Wake up at 3am and finally head off to bed.

Store in memory and savour forever.

Yesterday marked two years of us. It was a delicious day spent simply enjoying each other. I cannot believe now that I ever could have thought there was ever anything or anyone else for me, when this love is just so overwhelmingly perfect.

to my J.

Thank you for every single moment of every single day thus far that you have made my smile wider, my days brighter, my world richer. You are such a huge blessing to me.

I love you, and I cannot wait to spend the rest of my life with you.

sports addict

"Hi, my name is Julia, and I'm a sports addict." "Hi, Julia."

Phew. I was needing to get that off my chest.

It would seem that my evenings, right now, revolve around the NBA and NHL playoffs. While J. and I haven't completely rescheduled our lives in order to become couch potatoes (there are far too many birthdays, anniversaries, and soccer games in our lives for that!), we have certainly taken advantage of our PVR (Personal Video Recorder: a device that pre-records live television programs and saves them for playback later) during this playoff season.

Seriously. If anyone wonders why we're tired, it's because we're coming home from our evening activities and then starting to watch the games we've recorded...often beginning to watch at 10pm or even later. Okay, okay, a three-hour broadcast is at least an hour of commercials, halftimes, or intermissions, but poor J. is going to his morning meetings bleary-eyed with exhilarated exhaustion. I'm okay on a meagre five hours, but J.? Not so much. At least the games are on alternating nights (doubtlessly co-ordinated that way by the head honchos of the leagues to ensure the viewership of addicts like us).

This morning, having been up watching the NBA finals last night until nearly 1am, we woke up, rolled over, looked at each other sleepily, and exclaimed almost simultaneously, "Dallas won!"

Not "Good morning, sleepyhead."
Not "Hello, lover."
Nope. "Dallas won!"

And wait a second. If my memory serves me correctly, I believe I woke up yesterday morning, opened my eyes, and uttered the words, "8-1. Seriously? 8-1." as my good morning hello. (For those not in the know or who don't really care but are very confused, 8-1 was the ridiculous score of Game #3 of the Stanley Cup hockey finals. A terrible showing by the Canucks.)

It's official, people.
Sports addiction is running rampant in our household.

At least it's both of us. I can't imagine being with a guy who didn't love sports, and the fact that J. and I are both active, fitness-oriented people as well as avid sports fans (not just token sports fans, and yes, there's a difference) is one of the things that has bonded us from the beginning.

I mean, we met playing beach volleyball, after all.
I guess it was meant to be.

it's been a week?

I suppose I should start by saying thanks to all those of you who made it out to the Beautiful Illusions CD release party...wait, was it already a week ago?

Ummm...yeah. Crazy. That's about how I feel when I think about the fact that a week has passed. It was an incredible and terrifying night, and I learned a few things about myself that were extremely insightful. Would you like me to share?

1. So, singing and playing piano simultaneously in front of a room full of people is very different than singing and playing piano in my parents' empty living room. A few times during the first set especially, I looked down at my hands and thought, "uh, what the heck am I playing?!" as I blundered through a few bars at a time. Thankfully, though, I got a little bit more sure of myself as the night continued. On the plus side, I had absolutely no nervousness or anxiety regarding my voice. Not that I've ever been worried about that.

2. I was absolutely terrified, at one time, to sing my songs for strangers, or even for acquaintances. I mean, the songs I write are fiercely, intensely, sometimes painfully personal. How does one go about pulling out the skeletons from the closet in public while still maintaining some dignity and self-respect? Moreover, how does one maintain composure while singing songs that were written in gut-wrenching, hiccup-sobbing agony? It actually wasn't as hard as I might have imagined. I was able to transition pretty easily by distancing myself, a little bit, then by speaking candidly. In truth, the lyrics speak for themselves.

3. There have been few people who listen to this record who have not said to me, "you know, Julia, I totally understood [one song or another] because it spoke to me of a situation in my own life." That makes me so much braver. It's empowering, as a songwriter who loathes the idea of just writing cheesy lyrics for the sake of writing lyrics, to know that what I say touches people at a very personal level. It also completely freed me to be able to give a tiny little bit of history before the songs started (without going into extravagant detail) about how each song was born.

4. The introvert in me is not someone who wants to perform live, night in and night out, over and over again. If I had it my way, I think I would live in the studio, writing music, and perform in galas only once in a while. It's freaking exhausting to be so social, and I slept way more than usual in the days following. This would certainly be one of many good reasons to apply for a Canadian Arts Council grant and immediately start making a second record, wouldn't one think?

I spent most of Thursday and Friday feeling very down. It was as though Wednesday night was Christmas morning, fraught with much anticipation and angst, and then Thursday was like the day after Christmas: our apartment filled to bursting with flowers, similar to post-Christmas-gift-inundation. I was left with the awful, empty feeling of "now what?" and the sense of mourning one feels after a momentous occasion is over.

It passed, though. I then had a lovely long weekend relaxing with J., including luxuriously large, healthy, homemade breakfasts; hanging out with great friends; going to a Jays game; taking long walks through our gorgeous neighbourhood; and watching lots of playoff sports. Oh yes, and getting totally drenched in the sudden torrential downpour that interrupted our Monday night outdoor soccer game that has left me sick, feverish and headachey the last couple of days.

Thank goodness for my sweet J. who has kindly looked after my sick, grumpy self. That man's patience and gentle love are as healing as they come, and I am so blessed to have them bestowed on me via constantly replenished glasses of water, cold compresses, headache medicine, and delicious dinners.

And on that note, I'm off to enjoy another delightfully lazy evening.

happy birthday, J.

Yesterday was J.'s birthday.
Happy belated blog birthday, baby. I love you.
(And wasn't that great alliteration?)

This meant that on Saturday, we had 25 people in and out of our new place over the course of the afternoon and evening. What a mish-mash of people it was: my parents, his parents; my brother and sister-in-law, his sister and brother-in-law; his friends from soccer, from high school, from university, from work; my friends from violin, from church, from music.

I feel incredibly lucky to be part of such a tight-knit and yet diverse circle of people. J. and I have very similar relationships with our families and friends. We're blessed to have both sets of parents still happily together, each married for more than 30 years. We both count our siblings among our very best friends. We're also the same in that rather than having one giant group of friends, we've each retained at least one or two close friends from almost every social situation in our lives. This makes it a fun adventure every time we've planned a social event, and it always turns out to be a success.

So it was on Saturday. In the kitchen, my mom and J.'s dad were discussing my sisters' west coast adventure; in the dining room, J.'s mom chatted up my beloved "M" friend's dark, handsome husband; J.'s university roommate and my dad intensely talked intense baseball while sitting on the couch watching the Jays game; my brother and my amazing producer and friend got into a deep conversation on music; in the fireplace sitting area, J.'s childhood soccer friend and his current co-worker faced off in a game of subjective "Guess Who" (brilliant, just ask J. for clarification); one of my besties and I hid out in the still-cluttered office discussing slightly secret news and deciding which black cocktail dress I should wear on Wednesday night.

Then we went out dancing (thanks, S. & G. for living so close to a perfectly lovely place with such easy access!) and I could only marvel at how investing time and energy in friendships over time makes introducing people from all sorts of different worlds so much fun. Only when you truly feel secure and comfortable in every single relationship in a room can you turn off your need as a hostess for utter perfection and relax into the enjoyment of a great night with great friends.

And how amazing is it that our 1250 sq. ft. apartment could easily have held about 40 people? I don't think that my beloved little bachelorette pad could have held 15, let alone 25! I love our house.

So, to each and every one of you who were there, thank you for joining us in a wonderful day. To those who wished they could be there but couldn't make it out; don't worry, we will have an official housewarming party when the afore-mentioned clutter in the office is finally clean.

The kitchen only took three hours to clean yesterday morning(!), and J. and I spent the rest of yesterday exhausted but happy, eating greasy take-out and Coldstone Creamery ice cream and watching sports. First the Jays vs. Twins (baseball), then the Heat vs. Bulls (basketball), then the Canucks vs. Sharks (hockey). Oh, how we love sports on the big screen.

Two days...two freaking days...
Have I mentioned that there has been a beautiful, glossy white baby grand Kawai piano rented for me for the night? Oh, the glam gloriousness of it all. Thanks muchly to Ben and Shiraz for the hook up.

And yes, I'm still undecided on which dress.

moodiness and migraines

It's been a rough start to this month, if I'm being honest.

I've been looking after my beloved elderly grandmother, who is suffering from Alzheimer's disease. Spunky, feisty and opinionated, she was once the sweetest, most caring, most considerate woman one could have encountered. These days, that spunk and feistiness have become of the irritable, touchy, quarrelsome kind; she's now like a rebellious teenager who believes she knows better than everyone around her, and heaven forbid one try to correct her or gently convince her otherwise when she thinks she's right.

Like wearing a wool hat, leather gloves and a heavy sweater underneath her jacket on the warmest day of the year thus far, refusing to believe that she'd be warm. (She was.) Like scrubbing, on her hands and knees, the old cement porch, in hopes that it would be as white as the freshly poured concrete sidewalk down the street, refusing to believe that she couldn't get it clean. (She couldn't.) It's heartbreaking.

I've learned enough about Alzheimer's, over the years, to know that it's devastating to be that child, that grandchild, that spouse, that sibling, etc. whose loved one no longer knows them. We're there, with my grandmother. She greets me as a stranger at the door every morning, aware, from the daily note left by my aunt, that someone named Julia will be coming over. By mid-morning, she's suspicious if I use the downstairs washroom at my aunt's house. By lunchtime, she's conspiratorially whispering to my aunt (who's making her usual noon phone call) that she's afraid to leave me alone in the living room. Does my aunt know that there's a very nice girl playing piano in her house? Does she know that this girl is making her own tea in the kitchen?

My sister, blessed with a degree of patience and compassion given to few, has been looking after her three times a week since last summer. I'm relieving her for the month while my adventuresome sisters are off travelling to the west coast, including cross-country train trips, an Alaskan cruise, kayaking in the Pacific ocean, hiking through the Rockies. I'm so excited for them and, despite having left only yesterday, I'm missing them already.

In the meantime, the three-times-a-week has fallen to me. I'm not my angelic aunt, with whom my grandmother has been living for almost two years and who deals with her mood swings, her ever-unpredictable behaviour day-in and day-out with grace and poise; nor am I my saintly sister, who handles both terrible two-year-olds and temperamental eighty-two-year-0lds with her afore-mentioned patience and compassion. And me? I'm prone to volatility and moodiness myself, so...

I'm dealing daily. Trying not to get frustrated with hearing the same story over and over again; with trying to convince my grandmother of truths that she is not willing to believe (like refuting the fact that my grandfather died soon after they got married and she never had any children, said with tears in her eyes; or that her siblings who have passed away have forgotten about her and just don't write or visit any more); with the lack of censorship she possesses these days, as many of her comments are downright rude.

Plus, what's up with the migraines I've had almost every day the last three weeks? Either my back is way more messed up than it used to be, or I'm doing something wrong. My hyper-mobile neck has slipped out of joint of late more times than I can count, and I'm rendered effectively slit-eyed useless until my fantastic physio mother can make it all okay. Not as simple as it sounds, when it involves co-ordinating my busy schedule, her currently-even-busier schedule, and my desire to ride the subway nauseous over to my parents' place, whereupon I manage to crawl down the stairs to the basement and collapse onto her treatment table until she fixes me yet again. Thanks a million, Mom. I know I'm high-maintenance.

Sheesh. This post has turned into a rant.

On a positive side, I'm enjoying baseball season again, and had the privilege of going with my dad to one of the most exciting games of the season last night (which is why today I kind of sound like a frog, I'm not going to lie). I always immensely enjoy Blue Jays games with my daddy, especially when the Jays manage to win in extra innings. Bonus.

Tonight, it's J. and I who are taking advantage of the Toronto Star passes my dad is willing to surrender (every once in a while!) and going for a date night. I love date night at the ballpark. J. loves that I love date night at the ballpark, or the basketball court, or the soccer stadium, etc. It's a win-win situation for us both.

Have a happy hump day, people. This week is half over.

P.S. The CD release party is one week away!

beautiful illusions

Beautiful Illusions is here.

Yes, the CD (x1,000 copies!) is in my hot little hands. Finally.
I am crazy excited and crazy overwhelmed by its physical presence.

Please come support at the CD release party on Wednesday May 18th in the Lounge at The Drake Hotel. I'll be playing two sets with a variety of fabulous musicians, and the party will be from 6pm to midnight!

Looking forward to seeing you, and to performing this stuff live. Finally.