Randoms

Forget groundhogs, forget snow on March 1, forget the time change. I know we're in for an early spring because the cat goes in and out of the house a hundred times a day...and every morning at 4:30. What's springing forward going to do to our night-time sleep and prowl patterns??

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We were in Halifax Tuesday night for The Tenors concert.
Had supper at The Wooden Monkey, the Grafton Street restaurant made famous by actor Ellen Page. Worth the hype and doesn't need the celebrity endorsement! We have another favourite restaurant.
The cozy, noisy restaurant boasts a menu as locally sourced as possible and I'm glad to see so many familiar names in the descriptions of the meals and my favourite Jost wine as a house wine (L'Acadie Pinot Grigio). I had the chowder and it was tomato-based which, and my apologies to Maritime chowder purists, was a nice change from cream and butter. Because I'm always craving salad and never turn down the change to eat a salad with goat cheese and walnuts in it, I had a small apple salad. Delish.
Which reminds of another place where we had one of the best meals: at the airport! The Maritime Ale House is outside the domestic security entrance, next to a bookstore, and back in December, we had lunch there when our US flight was delayed. My husband had fish and chips, and I don't recall what I had but the salad had walnuts and avocados in it and I remember it being the best salad I'd had in awhile.
Good books and good food: a great reason to hang out at Canada's nicest airport.

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Good music is essential too.
Jimmy Rankin was on the same bill as The Tenors, which surprised me because he can headline on his own. He did three songs from his new album and since I didn't know about that, I was glad to hear them -- and get hooked.
But I realized the reason he was there after The Tenors' intermission: as they began singing "Song of the Mira", Jimmy joined them on stage, an appearance which elicited huge applause from the audience. They went on to sing "Fare Thee Well, Love" with Jimmy next.  Awesome, awesome, awesome.
One of the younger tenors said after that he can now tick 'Sing with Jimmy Rankin' off his list. JR is be in town for this week's East Coast Music Awards so it was the perfect appearance for the local crowd.

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And about the audience: That's the thing about sitting cheek-by-jowl with Maritimers -- you're never alone in a crowd. It's impossible for a Maritimer to not speak to the person sitting in the chair next to them! It certainly makes you feel fully engaged in the program. I felt like I was sharing the amazing Tenor experience with the people around me. Thanks for the laughs!

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This was my mother's first non-church-based concert. In 71 years!  She had a great time and only complained twice about how loud it was. About her concert experience, she would like to tell people who hold their phones up every ten minutes to take a photo to shove their stupid, distracting phone up their arses. Otherwise, she had such a good time, we had to listen to her Tenors' CDs all the way home.