Give Him An Uintjie*and He'll Take a Miel

*It's pronounced AYN-chee, peeps.

Tick-tock, tick-tock, ticktockticktock... it's 50 minutes before the 2nd Annual Literacy London Adult Spelling Bee and I am feeling like I've lost my spelling mojo.  Clearly I need a drink.

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Here is Oh Beehave at last year's Spelling Bee, abuzz with our second place finish:

Click on the mispeled word in this sentence to read more about the 2013 event.

Here we are, looking good, as Bee-lated Victory this year:

Vito's hair hasn't changed much.  

Other comical team names included, but were not limited to, The Awkwords, The Punk-tuators, The Beelievers, The Pedantics, Illiterate Beeple and The Doobees (who smoked blunts the entire evening).

I had high hopes for this year until I read this morning's Freeps:  What?????  There's a ringer?  And he's flying in from California just to attend the event?  

Here's the ringer - Dave Riddle - posing with my friend Tamara (an awesome speller in her own right) and her son, Davyn:

Sidenote:  Tamara raised the most money of all the attendees.  YEAH, TAMARA!  She will have to pipe in with the dollar amount, but I want to say that it was around $1000.

Back to Riddle.  Oho!  Another funny sidenote which has just occurred to me.  Tamara's maiden name is Riddle!  So maybe she and Dave are related and Davyn is their progeny?  Wait a minute, if they were related that would make Davyn the product of incest... whoa.  Stopping this line of thought NOW.  And laughing.  Anyhoo, back to the Riddler. 

I made the mistake of googling said ringer and found out all sorts of fascinating and discouraging tidbits.  Consider this statement of Riddle's: “spelling is kind of a hobby of mine." (he has studied up to twenty hours a week to prepare for a bee).  And then I read this:

"(it's) a “hobby,” apparently, in the same way Sidney Crosby dabbles at hockey — during a national championship in New York four years ago, Riddle won by spelling uintjie, an edible plant. 

Riddle found the London event online and flew in specifically for it: a diversion, he said, after a tough year of training for a speed-climb to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro. (He and a guide reached the summit in 16 hours)."

Seriously?  I hate this dude.  :-)

I stalked him at the event, snapping a photo of him (the one above) and picking his brain.  He divulged that he was concerned about the variances in spellings between Canada and the U.S.  Grinning, I said, "you mean like wood and would?"  That gave him pause.  He didn't even crack a smile.  Then I said, "like color and colour?".  Again, no smile.  Dude was tough.

Riddle told me that he had spent the afternoon at a local bookstore reading the dictionary.  I asked him which dictionary he read (interesting topic to me).  He said, "Oxford".  A discussion about Oxford online and dictionaries in general ensued.  I had to leave in the middle of it for more wine.  :-)

While I kept my imbibing to a minimum so as to avoid stupid spelling errors, I did manage to slug back two glasses of wine and a beer.  Perhaps because of this, I found this year's words to be fairly easy to spell.  Keep in mind that what you read here are the spellings that my team submitted.  The asterisks in the first picture were added by me to note that I thought that we had misspelled these words.  I was right.  "Inoculate" has only one N, and the last word (pronounced "lad-oh-shun") is still a mystery to me.  I can't even find it in the dictionary or online.  If anyone knows this enigmatic word, please send me a message.

"Daquiri" is also spelled incorrectly.  The correct spelling is "daiquiri", which still looks completely wrong to me.  We scored 12 out of 15 and tied with three other teams for third place.  The second place team got 13 out of 15 words and the first place spelled 14 correctly (the Riddler's team, natch).

While the words this year were easier to spell, the organizers had some new (hard) games to test our wits.  I was sad to learn that the Boggle game was canceled, as was the homonym challenge (ate, eight; vein, vane; slew, slough etc).  And what did they have in store for us?  TRIVIA.  Yikes.  I am not a trivia aficionado (see how I snuck that spelling word in there? :-)  Some of the questions stumped us (2 and 3 for sure.  And a bunch of other questions that I didn't bother writing down, one of which had to do with the beer on the Simpsons, and the film Dead Poet's Society):

1. How many colours are in the Google logo?
2. What is the periodic symbol for Mercury?
3. What is the correct word for a group of ravens?  (i.e. murder of crows)
4. What group of vegetables does broccoli belong to?
5. How many points does the Maple Leaf have?

Bee-lated Victory did not fare well in the trivia component.  I will post the answers below.

Here's a copy of the evening's program:

Let's talk food for a minute.  Remember last year, how I went on and on about the delicious dinner?  How tasty it was, how plentiful, how the packaging was so cute?  Here are a couple of pictures of this year's food:

No cute package.  A tiny paper plate.  Serve yourself.  Cheese, crudités, mini croissants and fruit (not pictured).  It was healthy, but I was dreaming of fried chicken.  

Here are some more pictures of the evening's highlights:

Bee-lateds poster children

The Esteemed Judges:  Murray Faulkner (former police chief), Becky Howse (Principal of Adult, Alternative and Continuing Education at the TVDSB), and Brad Duncan (Chief of Police - laughing at motto:  Deeds not Words).  

Getting my glamour on with the lovely Rita DeBook:

The Bee Game.  Last year, my word was Sasquatch:  

I went with "larvae" this year, because who doesn't love them some larvae?

Kevin Moore, one of my ex-colleagues at the London Public Library, was the evening's emcee.  Here's Queen Christine and worker bee, Kevin:

I can't wait for next year's event.  I wonder if the Riddler will show.  I wonder if I should start reading the dictionary ;-)  I think I'll just stick to Scrabble.

And so, I won't drone on, beelieve me, no one likes that.  Hah!  I'm full of beeswax.  

Pollen your leg, I can't stop.  Eeeeeyuwwww. That's a stinger.  

Leaving you with the trivia answers and a bee-yootiful tune:  Just Like Honey by the Jesus and Mary Chain.

1. 4
2. Hg
3. an unkindness (I love that!)
4. crucifers
5. 11

ONOMATO-WHAT?I

I went to avenge my 7th grade loss to Cheryl Miller.  Cheryl was a doughy brunette who wore too much makeup and she had perfect feathered hair.  Not jealous.  I can't remember the word that did me in; however, I do remember Cheryl's smug smile when I was eliminated.  Evil Admission forthcoming:  Whap! I wanted to slap that smile off her face.

Cheryl, I apologize.  You deserved to win.

Last night, I attended the 1st Annual Literacy London Adult Spelling Bee. The event was a fundraiser for Literacy London's programs and services.  I'm a writer and a librarian; I am a staunch supporter of anything that improves literacy.  To be literate is to live.  I was thrilled to support the cause in such a FUN way.

Here's Oh Bee-have - my team of competitive wordsmiths

Can I just say right now that last night was pretty much my dream night?  Let me tell you the reasons why:


SHOPPING!

Who doesn't love to shop and drink wine at the same time?  And support a great cause?

I bought this giant vintage skate by London artist, Andrew Gillet, because it is awesome.   It also reminds me of my own vintage, six dollar ice skates that I purchased many years ago from (my favourite store) The Goodwill:

This is how I feel when I wear these skates:

image from vintagewinter.com

When I brought my skates into the hockey shop to get them sharpened for the first time (they looked like they had never been worn), all the jocks in the shop had to congregate and ooh and ahh and handle them.  I'm not kidding.  The sportsdudes were in awe of my pristine, leather Playmakers.  It almost seemed like a shame to sharpen them.  They are not nearly as pretty as they were when I bought them twenty years ago, but then again, neither am I. :-) 

I also purchased six London Lightning tickets in the Silent Auction.  The game is on the fifteenth, which just happens to be my birthday.  HB to me!  

Last year, I arranged for the Lightning to visit my children's school.  The two fellows that represented the team were magnificent ambassadors and the students LOVED them.  They talked the talk, walked the walk and they could SLAMDUNK like nobody!  My kids play basketball twice a week and so I am super happy to be able to take them to see a game.  

Last shopping anecdote, I promise.  I even squeezed in a shop at The Goodwill before going to the spelling bee.  The bee was held on the 3rd floor of the Goodwill Centre building at 255 Horton Street.  Hours before, the kids, my husband and I had been shopping for indoor soccer shoes.  As I am far too cheap / parsimonious / stingy thrifty to spend upwards of fifty dollars on a pair of athletic shoes that the children will outgrow in a week, I stomped out of the sports store after purchasing nothing. 

But Mummmmmm, I like the pink ones! I want the pink ones!  

Me:  The pink ones are $69!

I want the pink ones!  

Me:  You're not getting the pink ones.

You're mean! You never buy me anything. blah blah blah blah blah 

Me (thinking, not saying, people):  I'll show you mean, you little bee-yotch...

Hours later, as the family dropped me off at the event, RB said:  "make sure you look for indoor soccer shoes for the kids."  Still stinging from the shopping expedition, I said:  "The Goodwill will not have a pair of men's size seven-and-a-half indoor soccer shoes there!"  But because I am a dutiful wife, I checked out the shoes and wouldn't you know, the ONLY PAIR of indoor soccer shoes on the rack...  I don't even have to say it, people.  You KNOW!  I was sooooo happy.  They look brand new and cost only $10!  SWEET!!!!!  And they're by AllDayIDreamAboutSex (Adidas for those of you who are too young to remember that acronym, or were out of it in the mid-seventies).  

So I still have to get a pair for G, but N is done.

Okay, focus Christine, back to the Spelling Bee!

EATING AND DRINKING!

The dinner, by Local Food Skills (a London program that gives people the opportunity to "gain real skills and work with real food in a state of the art commercial kitchen") was designed to look like a kid's lunchbox, but the food inside was definitely for a mature palate:

I am a total foodie and this dinner was FABULOUS.

The spicy fried chicken was the best I've ever had, and the pumpkin soup was also the best that I've ever had (mainly because of the addition of the crunchy roasted pumpkin seeds which were the most delicious contrast to the rich, creamy soup).  The purple slaw was also the best slaw that I have ever had and I am a coleslaw snob.  Don't even get me started on coleslaw.  I could write an entire blog entry about it.  The potato salad was NOT the best that I have ever had; however, it was delicious.  I liked the green bits (celery and dill? and it was not loaded in fatty sour cream and/or dreaded Miracle Whip dressing).  Our dessert was a chocolate pudding. I do not eat pudding but I made an exception because there was whipped cream and chocolate shaved on top.  It was divine.  

Kudos also to the food people for using a recyclable lunchbox and containers (all paper) and bamboo cutlery.  The bamboo gave me a bit of a nails on chalkboard reaction initially, but I got over it.  

It was SOOOOOOOOOO GOOD

SPELLING and WORD GAMES; WINNING PRIZES!

I'm not going to lie.  The spelling was HARD!  Really hard!  There were 12 -15 five person teams with funny names:  Antidisestablishmentarianism, Oh Beehave, The Queen Bees, The Bee Gees, The Bookworms et cetera.  We all competed at the same time.  The moderator, Kevin - a fellow librarian - would say the word, provide a definition and then use it in a sentence.   Here's Kevin, posing with Austin:

We all had a minute to write down how we thought the word should be spelled and then as a team, we had to decide on the correct spelling based on everyone's answers.  The captain wrote down the final spelling and a runner took it up to the panel of judges:  Murray Faulkner (ex-chief of police), Gary Ennett with CBC Radio, and Becky Howse from Adult, Alternative and Continuing Education at TVDSB. 

The first word of the evening was a trick, as it has three correct spellings: maneuver.  I am not going to give you all three; google it up if you're curious.

Here is the list of all the other words we had to spell (I'm pretty sure that I spelled them properly here):  dieffenbachia, peccadillo, isosceles, connoisseur, sarsaparilla, deliquesce, kohlrabi, ceilidh, schottische, carrageenan, alstroemeria, onomatopoeia and quinzhee.  Because I am obnoxious, let me tell you that peccadillo, isosceles, kohlrabi, carrageenan and onomatopoeia were dead-easy pour moi.  I know, you hate me.  

Our team came in second place!!!!!!!!  We were very happy getting 8 of the 15 words; the winners got 9 correct.  We lost to the Bookworms, whose captain, an old colleague of mine - Beth - is a retired librarian.  Earlier in the evening, she told the room that she was the world spelling bee champion in Grade 3!  Come on!!!!!

We played another game in which we had to come up with the longest list of homonyms (fair / fare, here /hear).  Our team came in first and we each won twenty downtown bucks!

The last game we played was Boggle.  We thought we won again with 21 words in a minute, but we are convinced that the judges gave it to another team, who also got 21, because we won the first game.  we weren't competitive at all...

The final event of the evening was the Canadianisms elimination draw.  Thirty words, 10 bucks each, last one standing won a weekend in NOTL.

I purchased Sasquatch and was one of five people remaining, when I was eliminated.  I roared like a Sasquatch when they pulled my "name" out of the bag.  

GOOFY ATTIRE!

In short, the evening was SUPERLATIVE; I was spellbound.  I will be studying the dictionary so that we can win next year's event.  Look out, Beth.



Soundtrack:  L-O-V-E by Nat King Cole!

Here are some links to organizations that I mentioned above:


Literacy London

Local Food Skills

Happy Easter!

When I was a kid, my Nana had a Queen Anne china cabinet in her dining room that was jam-packed with off-limit goodies.  I wanted access to all of it.  My filthy, ten-year-old fingers wanted to pry open the tins of sour balls and orange lozenges; work problems on the multiple calculators (Nana, why do you have 26 calculators? Because you never know when you'll need one.  Now get out of there); pens and pencils; decks of cards for Canasta; notepads; jars of coins; and chocolate bars past their prime.  That cabinet was a treasure chest!

Near the back of the top shelf sat a beautiful Ukrainian egg, shiny black with fine lines and crosshatching.  I'm not sure who decorated the egg - I know it wasn't my Nana - but I do know that I wasn't allowed to handle it.  I coveted that egg.  It was exotic, one-of-a-kind, and absolutely captivating.

Every Easter, I decorated eggs with my mother and brother but it was impossible to replicate the egg.  I couldn't draw delicate lines with my stubby, broken crayons and the dyes in my Paas kit were dull and watery.  In fact, they were so weak, you could probably drink them.  I knew that the ancient relative who made that egg must have had access to specialized instruments and chemical dyes, shit that wasn't available to me in Welland, Ontario in 1979.

In 1999, I was living in Ottawa, on a co-op at the National Library.  I read an advertisement in the lobby of the building for a Pysanky workshop at the Ukrainian Orthodox Cathedral.  I practically sprinted to the church to sign up.

Here's my first attempt at a pysanka:

I am surprised that the egg has lasted.  Maybe it's because I rarely let people handle it.  Invariably, people want to give the egg a shake.  I suppose they're curious about whether the egg's innards have dried up (they have, it's light as a feather).

I store this treasure in a tiny bird's nest that my Mom found on her property.  The egg fits inside the nest perfectly, which makes me think that the nest's original inhabitant must have been quite petite.

Last weekend, I hosted an egg decorating party for some friends and their children.  Some of the people that attended were new to egg decoration.  I love watching people react as they start to remove the wax from their egg. It's like watching a baby being born:




The entire process is illustrated here, and I describe it in more detail below:

Here's my set-up.  I use a paper towel as my base, layer a Kleenex over it, and put my candle and saucer of beeswax to my upper right for easy access:




Step 1
After letting your egg rest in a vinegar rinse for a few minutes (2 tbsp of vinegar to a cup of water), beeswax is applied to a raw white or brown egg using a kistka - a plastic or wood-handled stylus with a copper funnel:

I use the blue one most frequently

The kistka is heated in a candle flame so it can easily scoop up the beeswax.  The wax instantly liquifies and lines, dots and other designs can be applied to the egg.

Step 2
The wax designs that you apply in this step will appear white on the finished egg.

Step 3
The egg rests in yellow dye for 5-10 minutes, depending on the intensity of colour that you desire.

Step 4
Remove the egg from the yellow dye, dab it with a Kleenex to dry it off a bit, and apply more wax (lines will be yellow on the finished egg).

Step 5
Use a Q-tip to apply a small amount of green dye to the sections of your egg that you wish to be green.  Apply beeswax (designs will be green on the finished egg).  Important:  the egg doesn't go directly into the green dye because all that green will muddy the orange dye.

Steps 6 and 7
Put the entire egg into the orange dye to neutralize the green, and once it is saturated in colour, remove the egg, dry it off, and apply beeswax (lines will appear orange on the finished egg).

Steps 8 and 9
Dip the orange egg into the jar of red dye.  Remove it after a few minutes, blot it off, and apply more wax (designs will be red on the finished egg).

Step 10
Put the egg into the black dye - the final colour - and let it sit until it is as dark as you'd like.  Remove it and blot.
This is what the egg looks like once it has been completely covered in wax:

Step 11
The magical moment has arrived!  Remove the beeswax from the egg by holding the egg adjacent to the flame.  Important:  do not hold the egg over the flame because it will turn black from carbon.
When the wax begins to liquify, wipe the egg on a paper towel.  Do not wipe the towel on the egg.  Repeat this process until all of the wax has been removed from the egg.

In the picture below, you can also see many kistky.  The traditional ones are made of wood and copper and newer versions are plastic.  The red kistka produces a heavy line, the blue a medium line, and the white, a fine line. There is also a saucer full of beeswax (black from the heat).

Here is a picture of the finished egg.  All the wax has been removed.   Tada!

Happy Easter, everyone!

In Praise of Paris and the Graphic Novel

While working on the 3rd floor at Central on Sunday, I noticed that some wise librarian had done a display on Graphic Novels.  Huzzah!  Back in early 2000, I was working as a children's librarian at a branch in Byron.  Graphic novels had just started trickling into the library collection, but I largely ignored them.  A cursory glance at the cover (manga - blechhh!) and then a shove onto the new book shelf.  My anti-gn self was convinced that they were like comic books - meant for angst-ridden teen boys and men suffering from Peter Pan syndrome.  I'm not sure what I had against the form; I think I was being narrow-minded like a woman I know in her late 60's, who still refuses to read or watch Harry Potter (she who shall remain nameless ;-).  Yes, nameless one, you are right and the people across the globe who have purchased the 325 million copies in the series are wrong). 

Over a sandwich at Organic Works Bakery (on Wellington), my uber-talented friend, Brenda, introduced me to French Milk - a nonfiction graphic novel set in France.  Written by a twenty-something young lady who travels to Paris with her mother for six weeks, to celebrate Mom's fiftieth, the novel lauds all the things that I love about France - food, drink, fashion, art and shopping.  I inhaled this book like it was a wheel of brie with sweet red pepper jelly - once I started, there was no stopping.  

 My apologies for poor res.   

I am not going to review this book.  I adored it and obviously, I am recommending it (you can put it on hold at LPL) but my point here is that, post- Milk, I definitely wanted to read more of the genre.  I couldn't believe how much I like FM and wondered whether there were other similar gn's out there.  Maybe it's that I started with nonfiction.  In my eyes, the nonfiction aspect lent the genre more cred and therefore I was willing to give it a shot.  Hey, I'm learning something! Must be good for me!

Brenda also recommended Carnet de Voyage by cartoonist Craig Thompson (he also wrote the fictitious Blankets, a gn on the tantalizing subject of first love).  Voyage is a travelogue that Thompson wrote while he traveled to France, Barcelona and Morocco.  Lots of similarities with French Milk and I really enjoyed his sense of humour and self-deprecating wit.

I began a graphic novel odyssey.  I work at the Central Library on Sundays and the reference desk is adjacent to the Graphic Novel shelf.  I selected a title each week and found myself hooked.  A lot of the books that I've read thus far are health-related (yes, I did consider becoming a physician at one point in my life and sometimes I still do.  I was listening to the CBC last week and they were featuring a piece on a 79 year old BC lady who is about to take the LSAT. What a lady! Maybe there's hope for me yet).  But back to gn's - I like that the authors take a difficult subject (cancer, Alzheimer's, alcoholism, surgery, post-traumatic stress etc.) and employ an unexpected form (the graphic novel) to educate others and express themselves.  I think that the gn is very accessible and is excellent for people who could use an education on a painful or disturbing subject (albeit a quick, humorous one).   Who doesn't like that? To use the marvelous Sir Philip Sidney's words, I believe that the gn both "teaches and delights".

Here is a list of some other titles that I devoured, all of which are available at the library:

Tangles by Sarah Leavitt.  Chronicles the author's mother's Alzheimer's.  Whoa.  Too many apostrophes in that sentence.  This book was poignant, funny and riveting.  Leavitt takes difficult subject matter and turns it on its head.

Mom's Cancer by Brian Fies.  What a horrible title for a book! If you can get beyond this, it's worth it, honest.  What all these novelists do well, besides draw, is employ humour.  Cancer is funny!; well, it is in this book.  Here's an excerpt:  "WHAT LUCK! Mom's so chock-full of malignancy, they can tap her like a Vermont Maple and collect buckets of oozing cancer syrup from almost anywhere!" (accompanied by pic of Mom with arms raised like branches and tapped like a Maple tree). Ha!

The Amazing "True" Story of a Teenage Single Mom by Katherine Arnoldi.  My heart ached for this poor girl initially, but I soon found myself awash in admiration for such a strong spirit.  Raising her daughter singlehandedly with little support, she returns to school, improves her circumstances and begins to really live a meaningful life.

Tina's Mouth: An Existential Comic Diary by Keshni Kashyap and illustrated by Mari Araki.  Can a fifteen year old girl's honours English assignment be her path to enlightenment?  Why, yes it can.

I should mention that there are many more titles in the library collection.  I am about to reread Persepolis (critics have compared Tina's Mouth to it) and another book by the same author, Marjane Satrapi (Chicken with Plums).  One of my neighbours stopped by the reference desk yesterday and I was telling her about this blog and she recommended Plums to me.  So I have placed it on hold.  I am also going to read Stitches.  Imagine a fourteen-year old boy awakening from "routine" vocal cord surgery to find that one of his cords was riddled with cancer, subsequently removed and that he has been basically rendered mute.  I thumbed through this yesterday and it appealed to the doctor in me.

If anyone has a recommendation for a gn that they enjoyed, please comment and let me know.

Thanks for reading.