weekends.
Has Thursday now been engulfed into the weekend? It sure seemed that way last weekend. Thursday night I went to choir practice (I joined the gospel choir at River’s Edge, my church here) and afterward went out with Michelle, Sarah and Cemba (is that how you spell it? Let me know). We went to “The Irish Embassy,” an Irish pub on rue Bishop, and met up with Michelle’s friend Ian and had a blast. Sarah and I found out that we’re both Dutch. Pretty awesome. She’s from Calgary. I haven’t asked her about whether she knows the Jagers yet. I’ll do that tomorrow. After the pub, we went for poutine at this awesome little hole in the ground. Michelle drove us around, so I don’t really know where this place was, but it was great. A real mom&pop kind of place. Added bonus: they were playing the Stephan Colbert Report on the TV. I didn’t pay much attention to it because we were too busy laughing about I don’t remember what, but it was good to see. It was a good time. We will repeat after practice tomorrow.
Friday night was equally as exciting and with completely different people. Dave, a new friend from church, was playing the drums for his friend’s band at this fundraiser, so Julia, her man Michael and I went to go see. They were raising money to raise awareness about (primarily native) women who had gone missing in the city. The whole thing was in this loft in the middle of an industrial area. Exactly what you picture when you think ‘artsy loft concert.’ Open room, used furniture, white walls with odd art displayed, paint peeling of the ceiling, make-shift bar in the back by the barred windows; you get the picture. The first girl who performed was actually really good. She played some sweet folk tunes of her own. I think she picked up a new instrument for every song. Pretty great. After her, it got a little weird. Dave had warned me that the band he was drumming for was really dark and strange. They weren’t the only ones. At one point, a women was birthed from a sheet/womb wrapped in red ribbon. Some native women drummed and sang some traditional songs, that was pretty cool. A girl played the keyboard and sang her songs. She kind of reminded me of Rachel Boldt, but not half as good. Then Dave’s band played.
They were all wearing “wigs.” If Mozart’s wig was thrown together in five minutes, it would look like some of these. Someone had written a story about animal creatures rebellion against man or something like that, and it was displayed on a slide or two. The instruments included electro-noise, improvised guitar, Dave banging away, and four girls sing/yelling at the top of their lungs. Dave and the girls sounded surprisingly good. The others could have used some melody. I suggested a bari-sax. Something to fill out the sound a little more. Oh, and then there were the dancers. We had one guy with a cardboard deer strapped to his back and two people with paper mache heads on top of their heads. Pretty creepy. At one point, the deer guy was under a net, and the extra head people were killing it or something. I’m not sure.
Saturday night was Michael’s last night here before heading back to Germany, so Julia, he and I went to the Casa del Popolo to see what was going on there. Nothing was going on there. Well, they had a dj who mixed Steve Miller Band in with his electronica. I sang along. Other than that, we just sat and talked a little. I like that place. I feel pretty comfortable there.
I showed up to church at 12:11 on Sunday. The service starts at 11:11. You get the picture. Pastor Lorenzo was away, so they had filmed him preaching and were showing it up on their screens. Couldn’t they have just gotten a visiting preacher or something? I couldn’t concentrate. Too busy deciding which screen to watch. Afterward I went with Dominique, another church friend, and some other people to a greek restaurant. The conversation never went past other restaurants, the terrible service at the one we were at, and where everyone was from. I spent the last 20 minutes planning my escape.
That pretty much covers everything. This week we have Marc from GBU (the French version of Intervarcity) teaching us about apologetics. It gets better as the week passes. Kind of a hard things to talk about when everyone in the room believes in God, but it’s not too bad.
Oh, I almost forgot. Crappy deal. You remember Jenna, the one that almost died in that bus accident. Well she’s going through the “now or never” part of recovery and wanted me to come visit in Ontario this weekend. She was even willing to fork over the cash for the bus ride and everything. I was really stoked to go, and then I realized the choir was singing this Sunday. Emailed the choir director and explained the situation (friend almost died and wants me to come visit, could I skip out on Sunday), and she said no. Lame. Super lame. I’m going next weekend instead. But this weekend worked out so well otherwise. It sucks. I’ll live. We’ll live Jennalane. See you next weekend. I’ll still talk to Carol, try to convince her. Not making any promises though.