Happy Birthday Daniel!

by admin on April 2, 2010 at 12:34 pm
Posted In: Ben news

We try to have a tradition in our family where whoever has a birthday gets served breakfast in bed. However it was particularly challenging to honor that this morning as I am leaving in a few hours for Toronto with our two older sons for a karate tournament and I am scrambling to get all the loose odds and ends done. I’d meant to buy Daniel some muffins and a coffee to go at Tim Horton’s but it looks like that will have to wait another day. Sorry babe!

It’s my first time in Toronto (or as the natives there call it, TO). i wish it were more of a sight-seeing trip but we’re really just there for the tournament. I don’t mind because my favorite part about visiting a big city like New York, Paris or Washington DC has always just been walking down the main boulevards and immersing myself in the feel and smell and sound of the place. So I will take Nicholas and Michael and explore Yonge street. The weather is going to be a record high so I think we’ll have a good time.

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Open

by Rina Mapa on March 16, 2010 at 11:37 am
Posted In: Rina's blog

I’ve just finished Andre Agassi’s biography “Open” which is quite frankly brilliant. It helps that it was ghostwritten by a Pulitzer prize-winning novelist (J.R. Moehringer) because the prose is taut and the structure and pace are perfect. But it is Andre’s voice you hear telling you a story. I had just listened to him giving a lengthy interview to Simon Mayo on the BBC and was intrigued enough to pick up “Open” at the library, so his voice was actually still in my head, and reading it felt like I was sitting with him at a bar and over the sound of beer bottles clinking and billiard balls clicking in the background, he told me his story.

Apart from the beautiful narrative, its brutal honesty and self-reflection are so rare in biographies. He relates not just events but exactly what he was thinking and feeling at the time with no holds barred. He trashes other players and speakes bitterly about the people who hurt him, yet he himself is so full of self-loathing that it’s clear at those moments he seems to hate himself more. He doesn’t try to tread lightly around his ex-wife Brooke Shields, he talks about her and how he felt she was shallow and uninterested in his career, yet he also says he was unreasonably self-centered and they were just a bad fit. He pays tribute to Pete Sampras and their epic battles but also manages to get in sly digs at his rival’s dullness and cheapness (probably the one anecdote I felt was unnecessary in the whole book was the one of Sampras tipping a valet). His whole life seems to be full of contradictions, and yet isn’t that how we all are?

Like another great biography I’d read a few years ago, Anthony Bourdain’s “Kitchen Confidential”, Andre’s writing is filled with hyperbole meant to entertain but also to reveal the truth, just like the best sports writing. What I admired most was his willingness to be honest, with others and more importantly with himself, no matter whose feelings he might hurt along the way. The title, “Open”, obviously a dual reference to tennis titles and his decision to be completely candid, is inspired, and his biography more than earned the right to use such a clever title.

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Bladder control

by Rina Mapa on March 10, 2010 at 11:52 am
Posted In: Rina's blog

The other day I was in my car, making my exit off the highway when I saw another vehicle had pulled over to the shoulder and its driver was standing beside it, doing his business, that is, answering the call of nature, relieving himself, etc. I guess he just couldn’t wait.

The thing is, he wasn’t trying to be modest about it. No hiding furtively behind the car or going off into the bushes or even turning discreetly away to get the job done. No, this guy was standing proudly out in the open like one of those Roman fountains tinkling merrily away for tourists. I almost felt like tossing some coins at him and making a wish.

I think it’s because it is so easy for guys to go wherever with no mess that they don’t have the same need to hold it in that women face. Guys will just be walking along, it could be anywhere, golf course, back alley, parking lot, and all of a sudden they have to take a leak and hey! off they go, unzip… zip, and continue with their stroll.

Daniel has a limited-sized bladder. One cup of coffee and he’ll have to make several trips to the bathroom. Whereas me, I can go without using the bathroom like a camel can go without water. Once in the airport on a connecting flight, we had disembarked and were rushing from one terminal to another, when the coffee Daniel had had prior to landing reached its destination. So here we were, fully loaded with carry-ons, coats and handbags, and I just wanted to get to the other terminal because we were hurrying to catch the next flight and I always like to reach the boarding gate first, settle on one of those seats in the waiting area and be in the vicinity before I can relax and do any kind of bathroom break or magazine buying. Since I also had a great need to use the bathroom I said, please, let’s just get there first, put all our bags down and then we can go on by one, but Daniel couldn’t hold it even for those few minutes so despite protests from me he made a beeline to the nearest restroom.

Now he probably didn’t have to take anything off or put anything down, he could leave his coat on and his carry-on hanging around his shoulder, just unzip…zip and hey, he’s done. I on the other hand had to go through that long ritual – wait in line, try to fit myself and all my bags in one of those cubicles, hang up my coat and scarf, spread toilet paper on the seat, …, wipe, flush, put coat and scarf back on, gather bags, wash and dry hands, and then I’m done. When I stepped outside the washrooms Daniel was standing there and in surprise said, “What took you so long? I was done a long time ago. Hurry, we have to catch our flight!” I just gave him a dirty look, It was the only comeback I could manage.Bladder contro

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Oscar Thoughts

by Rina Mapa on March 8, 2010 at 10:33 am
Posted In: Rina's blog

Every year I subject myself to watching over 3 hours of celebrities falling all over themselves congratulating each other like they’ve all just discovered the cure for cancer. Why do I do this? On the odd times that I didn’t, I always listen to the newspaper and radio journalists the next day talking about it and I guess I just don’t like feeling out of the loop. Here are some thoughts:

Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin – loved them, particularly Steve Martin who can say just about anything and it would crack me up. His deadpan delivery that managed to poke fun at the room around him as well as himself for being there was perfect for the night. It’s too bad his recent films have been so terrible but please watch “Bowfinger” and be prepared to laugh your head of at the absurdity.

Awkward moment – When the director of the Best Short Documentary started making his speech and gushing how he never dreamed he’d end up there and his producer just rudely interrupted him and spoke over him and in the end he never got to give his real speech of thanks. They both came off looking pretty ungracious.

John Hughes Tribute – just seeing that montage clip, never mind hearing the actors’ memories, was pure nostalgia. I was the perfect age of 14 when “Sixteen Candles” came out, and of course I saw everything from “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” to “Breakfast Club”.

Sandra Bullock – A lot of people are saying she only won because “it’s her time” but I have to say her speech was excellent. She was gracious, she shared her award with her fellow nominees without being phony or annoying about it, and she had the self-awareness and sense of humour to acknowledge she was being awarded because “I just wore you all out”.

Katherine Bigelow and the Hurt Locker – I liked how stunned she and writer Mark Boals were about their success, they seemed truly overwhelmed and humbled. These kinds of reactions made up for the worst part of the evening which was…

The Best Actors and Actresses awards being done in that new format where you have other actors walk onstage and stand there waiting to be applauded like they have all won lifetime achievement awards. This started last year, I didn’t like it then and I like it even less now. Basically you have these actors take turns heaping praise on the nominees, basically just gushing and acting as though the person nominated was God’s gift to humanity or Mother Teresa or something. The worst ones were Michelle Pfeiffer talking reverently about Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore oohing and aahing over Colin Firth and using superlatives like “magnificent human being” etc. And no one had even won yet! I mean, they acted in a movie and they were good. The male presenters were a lot less cringe-inducing and less reverent in their tones. Surprisingly Oprah talking about Gabory Siddibe was fine and matter-of-fact, respectful and concentrating on the role instead of old Michelle going on and on about Jeff being married for fifty years and loving his daughters – what does all that have to do with his nomination? Anyway, that kind of thing just really ruins it, in my opinion. Thank goodness for Steve Martin.

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Camping virgins

by Rina Mapa on February 19, 2010 at 11:55 am
Posted In: Rina's blog

Up until this past summer, we were camping virgins, Daniel being worse than I since at least I have slept in a tent a couple of times going to Scout camps with the boys (although never in charge of setting up or cooking). We decided to try it for one night, at a camp site by a lake. We drove an hour and a half away and pitched 2 tents, one for the boys and one for Daniel, Mia and me. We each had a sleeping bag and the grownups pumped air mattresses for our increasingly sensitive backs (when I was a kid I could sleep on a rock all night and not feel it, things sure have changed). Then the kids swam and played on the shores and Daniel took each one out on a kayak. For supper we built a campfire and I put a grill on and we cooked some steaks, sausages and roasted potatoes in olive oil, and some red onions, peppers and mushrooms. Of course the ubiquitous marshmallow for dessert. We had to wash the dishes in some big containers and then use these public bathroom facilities. I have to say that is the part about camping I am just really not crazy about. Since it was just one night I didn’t have to shower but anything longer and…maybe I won’t even try it. After that we slept under the stars and it was actually really nice, how we were plugged off from everything.

The next morning we had blueberry pancakes and croissants and then we packed up and drove to this place called Upper Canada Village. It is pretty cool, it is an entire village of buildings as they were in the 1860′s, with people dressed up and speaking to you all straight-faced as though they actually lived during that time. And it is so charming and very unDisneyish, a breathe of fresh air. The kids got to milk a cow and we took one of those boat rides like a barge being pulled by a horse. We saw a printing press and a lumber mill – very Laura Ingalls.

Not too sure we would do camping again, maybe we’ll work up to something more extensive next time…

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