Immersive Van Gogh

 

Chowed down at El Venezolano off the Danforth (818 Danforth Ave) on arepa's (mine was an Arepas Llanera) just before going to see the Immersive Van Gogh exhibition at 1 Yonge St with Jordan last night.

 

 

 

 

 

A super surreal experience! We both concluded the feeling in the exhibit would be equivalent to being ‘high’...although this is only our hypothesis...

 

Afterwards, people could create their own ‘Van Gogh’ if they wished.

 

Overall, a highly recommended exhibit to experience!

De Sapio & Armato

Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic - WMPA’S 30th Annual Chamber Music Series presents:

Michael De Sapio, violin

John Armato, lute & guitar

Sonata, LaLaura rilucente - Marco Uccellini (1603-1680) & Suite in A major - Silvius Weiss/J.S. Bach (1687-1750)/(1685-1750)

  

Sonata for lute and violin in G major - Friedrich Wilhelm Rust (1739-1796)

Colonial American dance tunes - Traditional/How Luckless the Fortune/Give me the Girl That’s Ride for Joy/March to Boston/Wood Cutters

Grand duo in A major - Mauro Giuliani (1781-1829) and Entr’acte - Jacques Ibert (1890-1962)

 

Virtual Game of Life Part I

Started a virtual Game of Life with Karen, Patrick and Louie last night.

 

As none of us had ever played the game before, we started out well enough where I was the blue player, Karen was the green player, Patrick the red player and Louie on the white player.

 

After playing for the evening, the current tally includes:

Blue went to college for $40000, graduated with $100000 plus $250000 and a nobel peace price.  Became a police officer +$190000 and created a toy invention.

Green went to college, made $250000, got married, earned $40000, bought a tudor(house-$180000)

Red went to college for $50000, made $300000 designing a new computer

White went to college for $80000, ran a world record mile for $80000, won $50000, made $80000, purchased a mobile home for $60000 as well as home insurance for $75000

To be continued...

Hump day entertainment!

Hadn't realized how much I enjoy Wednesday's including:

• day off (🥳)
• longer walks in the morning as the sun's coming up (sadly, later every day...)
• catching the beat of the music (to bop along to!) from an outdoor exercise class wafting in the air as I'm walking in the park 🤩🥳♥️ (I miss listening to music during my workouts but it’s something to give up in order to concentrate on the sounds in the neighborhood. C’est la vie!)
• Also participated in the Boss Family Workout at 1pm on Instagram, yaaaassss! 👌

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, AMES!!!

After text messaging her birthday greetings this morning:

'Hey 👋,

Happy birthday 🥳 !’

I was smart enough to leave it at that as I left all the 'planning' to mom and off to work I went...when I was picked up afterwards by the rents, heading down to her place where mom dropped in (surprising her as she was in a mid-work phone call) to steal her away for dinner at The Keg!

 

  Ceaser salad and calamari appetizer; calamari and Ames'  Prime Rib

I ordered the Garden Burger with fries while Mom and Dad split a New York Striploin

Ames enjoying her meal and afterwards, an ice cream cake (on the house!!!)

Weekend activities included:

Breakfast yesterday at Eggspectation off the Esplanade...

Then off to the  Toronto Premium Outlets in Halton Hills!

My fave taro milk bbtea with tapioca

I’ve been spending the day going through my tv recordings. Finally finished:

• the last three episodes of the masked singer since May 6, 2020.  
• One World: Together at Home celebration of frontline healthcare workers from April 18, 2020 that was hosted by Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon
• Let's Go Crazy: The Grammy Salute to Prince from April 21, 2020 that paid tribute to Prince's influence on music:

H.E.R & Gary Clark Jr. - Let's Go Crazy
John Legend - Nothing Compares 2 U
St. Vincent - Controversy
Juanes - 1999
H.E.R Feat. Misty Copeland - The Beautiful Ones
Usher - Little Red Corvette
Usher Feat. FKA Twigs - KISS
Susanna Hoffs & Chris Martin - Manic Monday
Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis
Morris Day & The Time - Jungle Love;Cool;The Bird
Foo Fighters (Dave Grohl)- Darling Nikki
Maya Rudolph
Earth, Wind & Fire - Adore
Common Feat. Sheila E. - Sign O'The Times
Beck - Raspberry Beret
Gary Clark Jr. Feat. Sheila E. - The Cross
Fred Armisen
Sheila E. - America
Larry King Live! - December 1999
Baby I'm a Star - Musicology Tour, March 2004
Let's Go Crazy Feat. Beyonce - 46th Grammy Awards 2004
While My Guitar Gently Weeps - 2004 Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony
Let's Go Crazy - 2007 Super Bowl Halftime Show
57th Grammy Awards 2015 - presenting Album of the Year
Minneapolis, MN 2014
April 21, 2016 - Passing
Princess & The Revolution - Delirious
Mavis Staples & The Revolution - Purple Rain
Everyone- Baby I'm a Star

Currently watching a live online piano performance by Sasha Beresovsky with the Washington Metropolitan Philharmonic (thanks to the site link Patty had sent me two weeks ago!). What’s odd is that the music (Beethoven’s piano sonata in C major, Op. 53 ‘Waldstein’) is not matching the video screen...it’s pretty distracting so instead of watching the performance,
I’m simply listening...thus leading me to
multitask. Lol!

World of Dance!!!!

The Season 4 finale showing occurred on Wednesday and it was fantastic!!!

The four competitors: Oxygen, MDC 3, Jefferson y Adrianita and Géometrié Variable danced with such amazing talent (they were all such different performances with all sorts of techniques but it definitely brought back flashbacks to my performing days - such as when I was a ballerina, at piano recitals; even back to days of 'Blood Brothers' & 'Chess')!

Even though they are all such fabulous performers, MY personal favorites are Géometrié Variable, the group made up of three members that specializes in a unique style called 'tutting', which consists of a combination of popping and animation to created spectacular moving shapes. These guys made the biggest impression on me (& as J. Lo says, 'I don't know...how did they just make this sexy?'). #géométrievariable

Géométrie Variable: Semi-Finals - World of Dance 2020

Always love watching this show because it includes dancing, the spectacle of the judges (Ne-yo, Derek Hough & J.Lo) interaction and comments as well special guests (Twitch!!!)!

Looking forward to season 5!

Great Cycle Challenge Canada - Riding to Fight Kids’ Cancer

=> Mich's Journey <=

‘You GO, MICH!!! My FULL virtual support, friend!!! xoxo, kris!!!

Total shameless promotion for donations to Mich’s cycling journey, yaaasss!!!: https://greatcyclechallenge.ca/Donate/Rider/274769

RyU zoom catch-up & binge watching...

Had a great and very much needed zoom catch-up with my Ry U gf's yesterday
(it's been around 3 years since we'd last met up).  Got a glimpse of Ravi and Evan as they'd gone out for a walk (my goodness, it was the first time to meet Ana's little boy!) to leave mom some peace for our 2 hour sess. 

These are the best kind of friends...the ones where it's like we've known each other forever (well, kind of as I'd met them through a randomly picked up PR class that I had decided to pursue AFTER finishing my undergrad at UT and figuring out my next step).  We had been grouped together for a project by Professor David Turnbull (who persuaded me to pursue my communications studies as Seneca college!) and we all clicked and stayed in touch!

Margaret's since gotten married but still works at CAMH so occasionally goes in to the hospital (at this time during the pandemic). Erin still works with HotDocs and together with my update, it looks like we're all going pretty well during the pandemic.  

Nearing the end of our second zoom portion (before getting kicked off, lol), with our ever PR backed thinking, we've planned another zoom session for the end of September, fingers-crossed!!!

Later on, watched this amazing performance of Patty's friend, Hai Jin, that she had so kindly sent me the link for last week.

Regarding television movie binge watching, during the week I had caught Stand By Me- with Wil Wheaton, River Phoenix, Corey Feldman, Jerry O'Connell, Kiefer Sutherland, John Cusack directed by Rob Reiner, 1986.  Men in Black 3 - with Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones, 2012 and The Great Gatsby - with Leonardo DiCaprio, Tobey Maguire, Carey Mulligan directed by Baz Luhrmann, 2013

Had an incredible catch up conversation with my forever bestie, Shelley. It was a very much needed discussion...by the end of our two hour convo, my phone battery had gone down to 36% (we had started at over 90%)! 

Our chat touched upon the sad reality of our times, of the fact that we'd most likely never be able to take part in aspects of our lives that we had gone through together such as st. mike's partying days (aka the clubbing aspects-not that we really need to go back to that...), hangouts with groups of friends and going out for food with no care in the world (THAT, we do!). 

On the bright side, it had also definitely brought back memories of much of the good times (Not Just Noodles-eggplant dish we loved to split, yogurt smoothies we loved to get at the organic juice store-that's now gone due to condo developments, in between all our studies at her apartment off of Grenville Street, we used to tv binge on Gilmore Girls & One Tree Hill) we had from back during our uni days!!!

BESTIES!!! *heart heart!!!*

Civic holiday weekend

After visiting Ames and Mr. Trudeau earlier in the day, came home and watched 'A Few Good Men' as it was the tv movie that was playing Saturday night.
Considering I had not seen the 1992 movie previously (even though I knew Tom Cruise is in it), I was surprised at how many celebrity names were ALSO in the movie (other than Cruise, there was also Demi Moore, Kiefer Sutherland, Jack Nicholson, Kevin Bacon, Kevin Pollak and James Marshall) that I recognized.
Then the four of us spent yesterday shopping at Outlet Collection at Niagara amidst the rain clouds.

While Ames went hunting for steals and deals with mom,
dad and I hung out at the Aroma where I had the mocha!
During this great time (that I had to kill), Fayewood happened to give me a shout to chat about a Podcast/Instagram proposal that she's looking to start as a fun side project aimed to give high school/college/university students/new/mid-career/retirees direction in exploring career paths. We had a really nice discussion and we've got ideas on how to make this work!

As today is Monday, I was able to go for my morning walk as well as join in the Boss Family Workout that still occurs Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays on Instagram in the early afternoon (Maddox joined a bit too!).