Week #24 (and a half) Roundup

So much has happened this past week. I've been putting off the recap because we haven't received the pictures of the event from the photographer, and all of the money hasn't been donated online yet. Altogether, we raised around $1200 from our fundraiser! While the day of was ridiculously stressful for all those involved in the planning, I think everyone ended up having a good day, and we raised a lot of money in the process! I will post pics when they become available.

We also received $440 in donations as a birthday present to dad. I would have much rather had dad with us on his birthday, but I'm so touched that people honoured him in this way. We also had a lovely dinner with some of his friends and family. I think somewhere in our little party room, dad was poking around the prime rib and going back for seconds. And guess what, dad? I did drink a coke for you! For those not in on the joke, dad loved coke. His parents used to stock pop around the house so he wouldn't get into drinking, which worked out very well. Dad was never a drinker, but he did love to have a coke now and then. Now each time I think of him and his pop-drinking habits, I am reminded of the Frank O'Hara poem, "Having a Coke with You."

That morning, I had my McMaster interview. It was a lot more of a pleasant experience than I was expecting, and I definitely felt that everything our family went through helped me address some of the scenarios in the interview. Now all I can do is wait.

Now, just because:

Having a Coke with You

is even more fun than going to San Sebastian, Irún, Hendaye, Biarritz, Bayonne
or being sick to my stomach on the Travesera de Gracia in Barcelona
partly because in your orange shirt you look like a better happier St. Sebastian
partly because of my love for you, partly because of your love for yoghurt
partly because of the fluorescent orange tulips around the birches
partly because of the secrecy our smiles take on before people and statuary
it is hard to believe when I’m with you that there can be anything as still
as solemn as unpleasantly definitive as statuary when right in front of it
in the warm New York 4 o’clock light we are drifting back and forth
between each other like a tree breathing through its spectacles

and the portrait show seems to have no faces in it at all, just paint
you suddenly wonder why in the world anyone ever did them
I look
at you and I would rather look at you than all the portraits in the world
except possibly for the Polish Rider occasionally and anyway it’s in the Frick
which thank heavens you haven’t gone to yet so we can go together the first time
and the fact that you move so beautifully more or less takes care of Futurism
just as at home I never think of the Nude Descending a Staircase or
at a rehearsal a single drawing of Leonardo or Michelangelo that used to wow me
and what good does all the research of the Impressionists do them
when they never got the right person to stand near the tree when the sun sank
or for that matter Marino Marini when he didn’t pick the rider as carefully as the horse
it seems they were all cheated of some marvellous experience
which is not going to go wasted on me which is why I’m telling you about it

-Frank O'Hara