Year-End Reflections

While I wouldn't say this was a great year, it was definitely better than 2021.  The only travel I did in 2021 was within Canada, and indeed I think I stuck to Ontario.  I went to Ottawa and Kingston, partly for the art but mostly for my son to get a sense of the campuses (at the time they still weren't operating full tours for prospective students, but we were at least able to go on campus and get a feel for what life there might be like -- and he decided fairly quickly that Kingston wasn't for him...).  We made a trip out to Hamilton and saw McMaster for the same reasons.  In contrast, in 2022, I went to DC (on a somewhat aborted mission), Boston and Chicago.  Also, in Spring 2022, we were able to get a proper tour of Carleton.  (I think 2022 was the first time any Canadian universities were doing in-person campus tours.) 

I suppose my son applied for universities at the end of 2021 but found out that he had been accepted in the spring of 2022, so in that sense the campus tour was nice but perhaps not the determining factor that it could/should have been, though I suppose if he came across any red flags on the tour there still would have been time to change his mind.  As I have alluded to in a couple of posts, he decided to leave for Ottawa!  (We had certainly been hoping he would go to university in Toronto or Hamilton.)  In fact, he caught COVID from some friends about 10 days before we had to move him up there!  It was extremely tight, but he tested negative right before we left.  That was a long, somewhat stressful drive, and certainly not one that I do very often.  I was glad I had paid extra to leave the rental car in Ottawa, and we took the train back.

The biggest theatre event in 2021 was seeing The Rez Sisters in Stratford (and having to rent a car since the Stratford bus was cancelled), and I saw the thoroughly misleading and disappointing As You Like It (as mangled by Cliff Cardinal).  Almost everything else I saw in 2021 was virtual, though I did see an interesting musical take on Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita in 2021.  Theatre came back to life in 2022, though everything that was playing in Jan.-May still felt pretty tentative and a bit risky.  It wasn't until June or July that theatre going became a lot more normal, at least for me.  I actually did see quite a few shows by year end.  (Perhaps that's an understatement...)

Concerts were pretty much the same.  I saw almost nothing in person in 2021, though I did see The Lowest of the Low at Lee's Palace in Dec. 2021 doing all the songs off Shakespeare My Butt, which was pretty epic.  I think almost everything else that I had planned to see in 2021 got cancelled or postponed into 2022, and I have a fairly long list of things to record in the 2022 concerts post.

Museums came back kind of early, and in some ways the Toronto exhibits I saw in 2021, especially the one on Picasso's blue period, were a bit better than those in 2022, though, in 2022, I did travel to see some incredible exhibits, including Guston in Boston and Cezanne in Chicago.  I did get out and did Nuit Blanche this year; actually this was the same day I got a booster shot.  I didn't think the art was particularly amazing, but it was just great seeing people out and about.  (There may have been a reduced Nuit Blanche last year, but I skipped it.)

Suzie Larke, Light, 2019

As I mentioned, I made some deck improvements right around Halloween.  Halloween was pretty much back to normal for the children, though we did have relatively light turn out this year (and I had to take a fair bit of candy to the office).

I know I feel a bit better about myself (and I suppose the state of the world) when I volunteer or donate to charity.  I'm not doing a lot of volunteering, though I do serve as a mentor to two UToronto students through Hart House's mentoring program.  I probably could and should do more than that, but it's a start.  I was fairly generous during Giving Tuesday and that last week in November.  I kind of spread my donations to the big dogs (United Way and Red Cross) and then mostly to theatre companies that I feel need my support and/or that have the best matching campaigns.  I gave quite a bit to Coal Mine this year, since they are trying to recover from a terrible fire that damaged their space.  (Fortunately no one was injured!)  I also donate to the food bank at Eastview, which is in my neighbourhood.  And then I typically donate to the Toronto Star's Santa Claus Fund and Fresh Air Fund.  I could always do more and give more.  I'll think more seriously about volunteering at Eastview next year.

At the very tail end of 2021, I heard from IRCC that it was time for me to take the citizenship test.  I spent a week studying up and passed it handily.  Then it was months before I heard from IRCC again (and they wanted another set of fingerprints!), but I was finally invited to a citizenship ceremony just a couple of weeks ago.  I could have held out longer to do the ceremony in person, but it was actually easier to do it all on Zoom, despite some major technical challenges, because my son was still in Ottawa and we were in Toronto.  I did feel a bit of a pang when we had to cut up the PR cards, since it was such a process getting them and then renewing them, though this is the next step up.  

I was expecting it to take weeks to get the certificates, but they showed up within a few days, and now I in the midst of applying for Canadian passports.  Ideally, we will apply first thing in 2023, and the demand will have died down a bit.  I'm not in any huge rush to travel, but I just want to get this crossed off my list of tasks for the new year.  Now I just need to decide if I am going to follow through on getting a tattoo to mark the occasion.  I have said it is sort of a silly late mid-life crisis, but better this than a lot of other things...

Depending on how things go at work, I might buy a small print that I saw over a Yumart, and I probably will renew my subscription to Brick Books and their Canadian poetry series.  I have one or two other low-end splurge purchases I might make, but at this point I can hold off a bit longer (at least until mid Jan.!).  One area where I did treat myself (though I didn't benefit quite as much yet as I would have liked) is to buy a stereo amplifier/receiver.  I've had a record player for a long time (2010 or before), but I only use it for transferring LPs to the computer.  I decided I really ought to get a system that would allow me to play LPs and perhaps CDs as well.  So when I was having my LP player refurbished a bit at Ring Audio, I asked about a set-up for a small basement rec. room.  They found a unit that actually had an FM tuner and then some mid-sized speakers (only one shown).  I later added a slightly quirky CD player (not in the photo).

Unfortunately, there was some weird buzzing in the speakers.  The internet gurus said it was either the speaker wire or the cable to the CD player.  The folks at Ring Audio thought it was more likely to be a diode or resistor in the main unit.  However, they weren't able to isolate the problem when I brought it back.  At any rate, I changed out the speaker wire and cable, and so far the problem seems to have gone away.  (Knock wood.)  And then by the time I got the unit back, it wasn't that long before my son came back on winter break and claimed the basement, since he gave up his room to his sister when he moved away.  But I'll have more time for listening to music in the new year.

And with that, I'll wrap up this post.  Best wishes for the tail end of the holidays!  Here's hoping that 2023 is better still than 2022!