Erin's Journals

Welcome to Friday and, for many of us, it’s an exciting weekend because the Oscars telecast is this Sunday. Over the past year, we’ve come to love Jimmy Kimmel and look forward to him returning as host. This year we’ve really leaned into the Best Picture race, having seen all but one of the nominees. Nine out of ten! (The one standout, Call Me By Your Name, had come and gone from Victoria by the time we got around to seeing it. So we’ll catch it at home on demand.)
 
My Best Picture winner would be The Shape of Water because it’s so unusual and like nothing we’d ever experienced: a film where almost every character is looking for a heart-to-heart connection. Was it for everyone? Oh, heck, no…but neither is my #2 pick, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. My favourites are the films that I haven’t stopped thinking about since seeing them. Which puts Get Out right up there, too. 
 
We saw another contender, the Daniel Day-Lewis movie Phantom Thread,this week. It, too, had already left the city, but a local theatre in tiny Sidney was showing it, so we got one last chance before Sunday’s awards. 
 
I don’t know when I’ve been to a film where so very little happened over the course of 2 hours and 10 minutes. I mean, Phantom Thread – about a high-strung dressmaker in the 1950s – got a most respectable 91% on Rotten Tomatoes and I didn’t go in expecting a laugh or a car chase or an explosion (the latter two don’t make movies for me, but the first never hurts) but oh, my…it was ponderous.
 
It doesn’t help that none of the characters is particularly relatable or likeable. Yes, there are some great acting performances (it’s Daniel Day-Lewis – what do you expect?) but I just can’t say I loved or even particularly liked this film. Shows what I know, right? Audience reviews were 70% positive, but I have to say I relate to this review from Matthew Lickona of the San Diego Reader: 

Phantom Thread is an unforgiving dress. It presents an ideal and even inspires wonder, but it does make breathing difficult, and heaven help you if all you want is to have a good time.

I’ll close today with a note I got from a journal visitor a few weeks back when I wrote about The Shape of Water. And I wanted to share it with you so that if you don’t give a fig about any of the films going into this weekend, Sharon’s note might just give you the nudge you’re looking for!

Thank you so much for recommending the Oscar nominated Shape of Water in Today’s journal. I, too, would not have ventured out to see this film, as it is not my usual “cup of tea” movie. However, I work here at Deluxe Postproduction Toronto, where Guillermo Del Toro spent hours and hours, as our Colourist and OUR own Oscar nominated Deluxe Toronto Sound Mixers worked endlessly on this emotional and beautiful movie. We are SO proud of our guys, and to tell you they are just “gob-smacked” to be recognized in this way (as they also were while attending the Oscar Nominee Photo Shoot & Luncheon, in LA) is an understatement. I just wish the Canadian Media would give them all the kudos due, instead of continually focusing on the A-list Actor nominees.
 
Thank you again and, as you watch the Oscars on March 4th, please pay particular attention to the Sound Mixer category & root for Christian Cooke and Brad Zoern, and the Sound Design category for Nelson Ferreira and Nathan Robitaille. We will certainly be cheering loud & strong here in TO!!!! Have a wonderful weekend Erin 🙂

Thanks, Sharon – and you can bet a brow full of botox that we’ll be waving the maple leaf and crossing our fingers for The Shape of Water to make Canada proud once again! Have a terrific weekend and we’ll be back with you here on Monday.
 

Welcome (and hello March). I forgot to tell you something Monday which you may have seen if you pop by our Facebook page: just as the radio show here in Victoria was ending, I awoke on Friday morning to news from Rob that I’d gotten a voice job. Like so many others, I audition for hundreds and get maybe five or six a month. Nothing I could live on, that’s for sure! But this one is as the voice of a crow in a video game(!) and we did it by Skype on Monday with a producer in Denmark. What a world! Always a new adventure awaits!
 
Today I wanted to share with you someone else’s labour of love, for a change. I mean, you’ve been here through so many of the steps and turns that this kid has taken in the past 15 years that this blog has been going – yes, we mark a decade-and-a-half this month – that I thought I’d share with you a brand new website that I’ve just had time to immerse myself in.
 
A woman I know and truly love has partnered in a brand new website called cultivating-kindness.com. Its content is helpful, interesting and inspiring; from the benefits of having a sister to mental health tips (the two are sometimes not unrelated!) like rewiring your brain to be healthy. It’s just lovely and, best of all, the spirit behind it is one that is meant to be shared, spread and even taught. Here’s some background on the site’s creators:

Anita Reynolds MacArthur is MBSR certified and recently completed The Chopra Center’s Mindfulness for Kids program. She is the author of two award-winning children’s picture books. MacCheeky Book #1 focuses on getting along and Book #2 focuses on sharing. Anita presents in schools on the importance of literacy. In each story, the main character learns how being mindful of others and self leads to happier experiences for everyone. As a mom to three teenagers, she chaired Parent Council for a decade and is a Huffington Post blogger. Anita was introduced to meditation 10 years ago and has been practising ever since.

Meantime, here’s what you need to know about Anita’s partner in this new venture:

For the past 10 years, Stephanie Gomez has lent her Marketing expertise to pre-schools and meditation organizations. She leads workshops and provides consultation on all aspects of Marketing including web design, social media best practices, and online advertising. Steph has been practising meditation for more than 10 years.

Between the two of them, they have more than 25 years’ experience in educational publishing, from kindergarten through grade 12. And they’re even offering you a chance to submit articles for their consideration. If that’s something you might be interested in doing, I’d urge you to send a note; I haven’t met Stephanie but I can tell you that Anita is one of the kindest, sweetest and most deeply connected souls I have ever met.
 
If you recognize her married name, it’s because her husband is our longtime producer and lifelong friend, Ian MacArthur. This site is, as I say, a labour of love for two very busy women who just want to make the world a better place. I think you’re going to like it a lot. Make a note to please visit cultivating-kindness.com (or via Instagram and Twitter – all on the site). It’s like a warm cup of chamomile for your soul. And who doesn’t need that?

Tomorrow, tying up some movie threads as we get set for this weekend’s big awards night – and why we need to cheer on Toronto!

Well, here it is – last day of February. Spring is next month, spring training is already almost a week old and we have all turned a collective corner towards longer days, warmer temperatures and (hopefully) sunnier skies.
 
Now, not to go all “Debbie Downer” on you, but it’s also the time when we start hunkering down and thinking about doing our taxes. It’s not as big a deal in our house as it used to be (like when I had an income!), when I’d watch Rob hunched over piles of receipts, working late into the night trying to make everything work out just right and hopefully, HOPEFULLY get us a bit of our money back from the federal government. Now, of course, we do everything online and since we have a company, things are filed quarterly. And there are computer programs. It’s much less of a hassle – which, of course, is easy for me to say. 
 
But I got something the other day that made me think, Uh-oh…I sure hope this doesn’t catch anyone. It was a scam email (all you have to do is hover your cursor over the return address and look in the bottom left corner of your screen to see from whom this email is actually coming). It was some guy with a New Zealand suffix in his address – Alan Miles or some bogus name – and it was just official enough to look legit if someone you know tends to be instantly alarmed or excited by emails that look as if they’re coming from the government. 
 

 
As CRA tells us again and again, they will not send email with a link and ask you to divulge personal or financial information. They won’t ask for personal information of ANY kind by email or text message and they don’t ask for payments by prepaid credit cards. And they remind us never to provide personal information through the internet or via email. Here’s a link to the CRA page about scams.
 
I know you’re savvy enough not to get taken in by these crooks, but if there’s someone in your life who might not be as sharp as you are and who has access to the internet (I’m thinking especially of elderly parents, or friends who repeatedly post or send you the bogus warnings that say “send this to everyone you know”) then please make them aware that these CRA wannabes are at it again. Actually, it never ends. But with the tax season just about upon us, it never hurts to remind those you love to save them a lot of heartache later on.
 
Take care. Tomorrow, we’re starting March on an uplifting note with a beautiful new website you’re going to want to check out.
 

Now that I’m done my nine-month stay with Ocean 98.5 here in Victoria, I am so happy to say that an experience Rob and I shared has turned into something that Ocean has been able to use as something special for listeners. Let me explain.
 
A few months ago, we were out having dinner at a restaurant that is right next to the Victoria Airport called the Spitfire Grill. As we sat quietly and enjoyed our meal, I couldn’t help noticing a mom with her three little children seated near a window that looked out on a runway. One little boy had his face (and fingers, of course) stuck to the window as he watched planes taxi by. Meantime, Mom was busy feeding a little one in a high chair and a slightly older child in a booster. No one was making a disturbance or anything; they were just out having dinner and the mother was juggling three children while trying to have a few bites of her own meal.
 
I wasn’t going to tell you this part (or share it with anyone, actually) but it leads into the Ocean story. Before the little family packed up to go, I went to the cashier/server and told her I’d like to pick up their meal. So I paid and returned to our table to finish our dinner. 
 
The mother gathered up her children, put on coats and made sure they’d all gotten the things they’d come with, and headed for the door and cash register, both of which were out of the sightlines of our table by a wall. A few moments later, she came around the corner, her eyes wide and just a little teary and said, “Uh…thank you?”
 
Her hands were outstretched as if to say “what the heck…?” and we said, “You’re welcome. We just saw you out with your family and thought how nice that was…that’s all.” (Of course, we were thinking of another little family in Ottawa.) She explained that her husband was at home doing a deep clean as they prepared to list it for sale and she had to get the children out of the house. She thanked us again, and we felt so good, I almost cried when she was out of sight.
 
That’s when Rob said, “Imagine if you could have said, ‘That’s a gift to you from Ocean 98.5’ and how she’d tell everyone what the radio station had done for her!” All just good will and happy feelings. 
 
I agreed and we thought on it. I shared the idea with Program Director Susan Knight: what if a server at a restaurant could choose a random table and tell them that Ocean 98.5 had taken care of their bill? She mulled it over; you have to know that a station in a city the size of Victoria doesn’t have the budget or connections to give away a trip a day or make dreams come true like, say, CHFI. But Susan aims high; she embraced the idea and made it happen!
 
Thanks to an existing relationship with a lovely restaurant Rob and I were already very familiar with, the idea of the Secret Server became a reality. So now, every week, some family or couple dining at the Beach House restaurant in Cordova Bay is surprised with $100 towards their dinner. The first winners were a couple out celebrating Lunar New Year, whose daughter was dressed head to foot in traditional garb. The next winners were a mother and dad and two teens who were celebrating the birthday of “hardest working dad, ever.” They were delighted as well.
 
Isn’t this neat? How a little idea like “pay it forward” can be turned into something so special and so touching? We’re grateful, Rob and I, that if there’s just a tiny legacy we’ve left behind, it’s the Secret Server (thanks again, Susan!) and we hope it’s going to spread to other restaurants and affect other families for months and years to come! I love radio….
 
Tomorrow: uh-oh, there’s another scam in your inbox.
 

 
Welcome into a new week – how nice you’ve come to share a few minutes and perhaps even listen to the audio version of this blog, which we put together lovingly every week day. I have a few treats for you today: a few days ago I went to the world famous Butchart Gardens – not a place you’d consider visiting in the last third of February, except that they’ve put together an amazing indoor display.
 
Now, I know it’s not as if you’re going to hop on a plane and come to see it before it closes March 15, when the focus returns to the outdoor magic of this sprawling estate just about fifteen minutes’ drive from our home, but I thought, why not? I’ll share some pictures of the transformation of a cafeteria into an indoor paradise. 
 
Interestingly, this is also the only time of year that The Butchart Gardens welcomes wedding ceremonies; they take place in this space late in the day when guests of the bride and groom can gather and celebrate their dear ones’ nuptials, rather than have the visiting public milling about. As perfect as the grounds of the Gardens are during the spring and summer months, it would be simply impossible to have weddings without hundreds of strangers crashing your photos – inadvertently or otherwise, right?
 
By the way, before we get to the photos, I have some important news on the river cruises Mike and I are hosting with AMA and New Wave Travel which I mentioned here two weeks ago. Having gauged interest through phone calls and emails, our friend Gerry Koolhof and the folks with whom he coordinates these group trips have decided to concentrate on one cruise: the Tulip Time journey in April 0f 2019.
 
The other cruise was, from what people  were telling Gerry, just a little too close to Christmas and the busy times that come with it here at home, plus folks who’d never been to Europe said they’d rather experience it in the spring. We all get that, so, together at Tulip Time it is!
 
This cruise, carefully picked by Gerry and his partners at the luxurious AMA Waterways, takes place aboard the one-year-old AmaKristina and celebrates the joy of spring on a special charter through Amsterdam, Bruges, Middelburg and Ghent. Chocolate, Belgian waffles, history and…tulips! Of course, Mike and I will guarantee you have a good time while we’re together, too, and we’re excited that a number of couples have already booked! Make sure you’re not left behind. Details are below:
 

 
A reminder that there are special offers if you book by this Wednesday, February 28th. This trip is an exclusive offer through New Wave and you can contact Gerry at the number or email above.
 
And now, because you shouldn’t have to wait to see blossoms, here are a few highlights from The Butchart Gardens, a must-see destination for all visitors to Vancouver Island (and residents like us, too). Even when there’s been an unusual snowfall, the place looks magical. Enjoy the pictures. Tomorrow: a random act of kindness that turned into so much more.