Outdoor movies

I went to the outdoor movies with Terena last night, and saw the 2004 Swedish film about a small town choir - “As it is in Heaven”.  It was a beautiful night, and outdoor movies are one of the wonderful things about summer in Perth.   

Christmas party

I hosted my team's Christmas party at home last night. Most of them are in the photo to the left. It was a lovely night - I decided to just have cold platters (shamelessly ripped off from Jane Brook Winery), so that no one had to be in the kitchen, and there were no issues with timing etc. We had three types of platter, one with smoked salmon, one with scotch eggs, and one with cold meats. Each was accompanied with various cheeses, dips, chutneys, antipasto or salads, fresh and dried fruits, and a couple of different breads. For dessert we had simply delicious Amono gelato and sorbet in waffle cones. Again, very easy, and everyone helped themselves.

It was undoubtedly the easiest party to cater for, and very relaxed. I'm really enjoying entertaining in this City Beach house. I had a great time - they are such a lovely bunch. Everyone pitched in to help put food out and to stack the dishwasher and clear away. Today we've all had leftovers for lunch in the library. I suspect there may still be leftovers on Monday for our Christmas eve morning tea.

Decorations and Santa's schedule

We put our Christmas tree and nativity scene up on December 1^st.  Harrison was a great help ;-)  This year he is very aware of the approaching date (he tells us every day that December 24 is Christmas Eve, and checks which date it is today).  He has a wooden Advent calendar with a drawer for each day of December, containing a tiny wooden decoration that he hangs on a peg above the drawers.  I think this is making him very attuned to what day it is.  He’s already visited Santa and asked for a “big James” for Christmas.  It’s funny how for the past 2 years

• he’s had one main Christmas wish all year (last year it was Wags the dog),
• he really wants Santa to bring that for him (no one else), and
• he only has an expectation of one present from Santa (probably because he only ever gets one present from Santa)!  

He’s also trying to figure out the logistics of how Santa fits the toys in the back of the sleigh, and noticing that some images of Santa have lots of sacks, and some have only one.  He’s questioning, too, why so many pictures of Santa include snow, and asking whether we’ll get snow at Christmas.  Who knows, he may well experience a true white Christmas in Quebec city in the next couple of years.

Into the wild

Simon and I had a rare night out last Friday (thank you Marg!) and saw Into the Wild. The main character (Christopher McCandless played by Emile Hirsch) reminded me so much of Simon at 20 (in fact, in real life he was only 2 years older than us)... Quite by coincidence I had just started re-reading Walden, so I was a bit in the zone. Walden is, for those who don't know, where Thoreau went "into the wild" in the 1840s, what Simon and I discussed on the night we met, where he proposed to me, and one of the inspirations for Chris, the main character in the movie, to abandon society and take off.

All through the movie I was wondering if Simon would suddenly declare a burning desire to cut up his credit card, don a backpack and hit the road. Of course, the whole starving to death in Alaska thing did bring us somewhat back to reality.

Directed by Sean Penn, this is beautifully shot, and though it does make Chris into some sort of Jesus creature at times, it's quite haunting.

The machine is us/ing us

Really like this video by Mike Wesch explaining Web 2.0. It was mentioned at the ALLA conference in September and I hadn't gotten around to looking at it until today.