Can You Hear Me Now?

Okay, I have finally decided to finish off my Montreal entry so I can get back to posting about my oh-so-exciting day-to-day existence. I have been deathly ill for the past few days, I don’t know where it came from or how, but I imagine my lack of taking my usual supplements and stress from work overload has something to do with it. Of course now I am several days behind in work because my deathly illness has made it impossible to do more than lift my arm to click the remote, but now that I feel a bit of strength coming back I’d still rather do this than look at numbers. Work will… get done soon.

So, Emma and I crash in our hotel room Friday night after a very long and exciting day, only to wake up around 9:00 so we can get up, shower/dress/eat/pack etc. and be ready to check out of the hotel in time. We ate our wholesome croissant (I think I actually had two that day, gotta get my money’s worth) and juice and I managed to pack all my shopping from the day before into my suitcase. It was about 11:00 and we didn’t have to check out until noon, but we decided to anyway because the Hyatt was just a more exciting place to be than the Econo-Lodge. We now knew we could leave our bags behind that curtain upstairs and that even though the first performer (Luke Doucet) didn’t start until 1:50 p.m., we’d probably see some people. Their lobby was pretty hoppin’.

So we took a cab to the Hyatt, dropped our bags behind the curtain on the 11th floor, and went back down to the lobby. I remember seeing Jeremy Fisher hanging about and approaching him to tell him how much I enjoyed seeing him the night before (which I am quite certain made his day). I think it was around this time, maybe taking the elevator from the front doors to the main lobby, that we were sharing it with a couple members of The Bills (that we had seen on Thursday night). We were telling them how much we enjoyed them and I made a comment about Marc Atkinson being some kind of a God, not realizing he was also on that elevator. Heh. That cracks me up. He smiled and acknowleged my comment as I said “oh, hello” and the bass player noted “that’s a good thing to say right now!”

We sat in the lobby and made ourselves comfortable while we waited for magic to happen. Hee! It wasn’t long before Arlene Bishop and her husband/my old friend Blair Packham arrived; when Blair saw me he said “WHAT are you doing here?!?!” (He had no clue I was going to be there, even though I knew in advance I was coming to see Arlene I figured I’d surprise them). We hugged and chatted a bit. Arlene gave Emma and I a copy of her French Phrase booklet she had created especially for this occasion:

She’s a clever lady, that one!

I was telling Blair how I didn’t know this conference was happening when I first booked my flight, and how it just seems that when I plan a trip somewhere, my favourite musicians end up having a show there. Arlene quipped “will you travel somewhere warm?” Ha ha I mentioned how excited I was to see Danny Michel the night before. “Danny was here?” Blair asked (they’re good friends and play together a lot). I explained how we were dead tired and didn’t stay after he finished his last song, and that I really wanted to meet him and talk to him but we were just too tired to stay. “Oh, he’s disappointing”, Arlene said. “He’s great on stage; but off… and she shook her head shamefully and disapprovingly . Ha ha ha ha ha now I know I really want to meet him!

The four of us headed up to the Beaver Suite to see if there was any action there yet. There wasn’t. The doors were still closed and no sound coming from behind them. Along came Ben Sures, another artist from the conference and friend of Blair and Arlene’s. We all chatted a bit and Blair, seeing my glasses, asked me if I had one of those cloth wipey thingys to clean glasses. I reached in my purse and pulled out my yellow cloth, all neatly folded in its plastic compartment and handed it to him. Blair was impressed by the clean state of my cloth, and when Ben commented Blair said “yes, Donna is my official cloth glasses cleaner handler, I bring her on tour with me…

As it appeared nothing was going to be happening in the Beaver Suite for awhile, we decided to head back downstairs, but not before we took a few pictures:

L-R: Blair Packham, Me, Arlene Bishop, Ben Sures

Me, Blair and Emma

Me, Arlene and Emma

The cute and happy couple

Once in the lobby again, Arlene mentioned being thirsty and I told her I had seen what I thought was a sort of refreshments area somewhere past the reception desk. So we started walking that way, and who do we see standing at the reception desk, but Lindy! He was handing out flyers promoting Six String Nation (very cool). I was so happy to see him since we never actually got to say a proper “goodbye” the night before! I gave him a kiss and I guess got some lipstick on his cheek. Blair, not seeing the kiss, asked him if he’d been punched or kissed? Ha ha

I’m not sure how it happened, but we ended up losing Arlene and Blair and were suddenly on an elevator headed for the Food Court on the 2nd floor with Lindy and Sally (The Hyatt is adjacent to a shopping centre). I can’t remember if Melissa was with us at that point or if we met up with her in the food court. There was also Luke Doucet, who was performing first that day and is Melissa’s boyfriend (if you’ve seen her video for “Jaded”, he’s the cute guy in that!) and Jeremy Fisher. Emma and I got a snack and a drink and we all sat at a table for a bit and chatted. Emma’s friend Anne called Emma’s cell phone during that time, and I suggested that Emma give her phone to Lindy and ask him to say hi to her. Anne had been at his concert the week before so she certainly knew who he was and loved him. So Emma walked over to Lindy and handed him her phone, asking him to say hi to her friend Anne and surprise her. I can only imagine the “Oh My God!! Oh My God!!’s” coming from Anne’s mouth as Lindy first spoke in a funny voice to her saying “hello, this is Lindy!” and he sang a part of “Beautifully Undone” to prove it was him, and chatted about how they were going to Quebec City later that day, etc. After he handed the phone back to Emma he looked at me and laughed and said “that was fun! So cute” and apparently Anne was just freaking out on the other end. Heh.

Then it was time to head back up to the Beaver Suite, as Luke was on soon. As we were about to get on the elevator, Dana from Live Tour Artists (see Thursday) was getting off of it and we had a quick little encounter/introduction session with him (I have raved to him about Lindy in the past. I have raved to everybody about Lindy in the past!). Arlene and Blair were back upstairs now too, and we all took our seats to watch Luke’s set. He was great! He is Sarah McLachlan’s guitarist as well as a solo artist, and he joked about how his next album was going to be called something like “Shut up and stop whining about your ex-girlfriend you jerk, because your new girlfriend is WAY hotter”. Ain’t that the truth!! She joined him during his last song:

Luke Doucet and his way hot girlfriend Melissa McClelland

After Luke finished, Lindy, Sally and Melissa all had to hurry off to drive to Quebec City for a show that night. So we said our goodbyes and got our hugs and kisses before settling in again to watch Arlene’s set. I never got a picture during Arlene’s set, because I SO SUCK, or maybe it was the fact that I was seated RIGHT in front of her, practically face to face, (moreso that with the others) and didn’t feel right about setting a flash off. I don’t know, but I am kicking myself now. Anyway, Arlene’s set was wonderful and she played my favourites like “Cut a Man’s Heart Out”, “NV” and “98 Points”. She is always fun to see live because she is very witty, her crowd participation had us all laughing.

We moved over to the adjoining suite and hung out for a bit. Arlene had another show that night (in fact, Luke Doucet, Andy Stochansky and Arlene were performing one after the other starting at 7:00 that evening, so ask me how badly I wanted to cry about missing that!) so her and Blair wanted to leave for awhile, get some food and stuff. Since we’d be gone by the time they got back, we said our goodbyes then.

Emma and I sat around for about an hour listening to the music before we had to be down in the lobby for 4:00 p.m. Her brother Matt and his wife Trish were picking us up to take us back to Emma’s house, back to real life!! Awwwwwww!!!!!

The ride back to Emma’s was full of stories about our adventures in the days before and Emma showed her pictures to Trish in the back seat. I was just glad to have the opportunity to meet Emma’s oldest brother, her protector; he was a little worried before I came to Montreal about who exactly I was, and if I was some psycho from the internet with who-knows-what intentions for his little sister. Heh. Well, what I did was give her a couple days I doubt she will ever forget, something most 15 year olds don’t get to experience, and I hope she wasn’t corrupted… it may be too early to tell. Hee! She made a lot of great impressions on people and a lot of new friends, and I can’t take credit for that, she is just that kind of person. She rocks a whole hellovalotta socks!!

Back at Emma’s, her mom made us pasta and we had a lovely dinner that carried on until Matt and Trish had to leave around 7:30. I got one quick shot before they left ~

L-R: Trish, Matt, Lynn and Emma

Emma went downstairs to call her friends while I stayed at the dining room table and yakked with Lynn (who is totally my kind of person to just talk and talk and talk and talk with!), who also read my Tarot. (Things look good!) Then we went downstairs to check emails and watch TV and try to keep awake, which proved a very difficult task! The lack of sleep from the past couple days combined with coming down from our Folk Alliance high caught up with us and sent Emma and I crashing into bed very early. Zzzzzzzz

The next morning Emma knocked on my bedroom door with a coffee for me in her hand. Ohhh, if only I could have that every day, huh? Sigh. There wasn’t a lot of time to talk, eat breakfast, shower, finalize packing and all that before we were off to the airport. After hugs and kisses goodbye, I was on a now-defunct (no surprise!) Jetsgo plane headed for Toronto. I’m always one of the first people on, so I get to sit and wait and watch while everyone else boards. Imagine my surprise when Arlene and Blair got on! Their mouths dropped open when they saw me too. Blair said “I thought you left yesterday!” but I explained what I meant was I was leaving downtown in the afternoon yesterday and couldn’t stay for the evening performances, but I wasn’t actually leaving Montreal until today. Unfortunately, I was in row 2 and they were in 20 so we didn’t get to sit together or anything. It’s only an hour to Toronto so when we landed (I’m first on, last off, them’s the rules) I waited for everyone else to de-plane and got my final hugs and kisses from Blair and Arlene as they exited and then I was whisked over to my Calgary flight via a Jetsgo golf cart kinda thing. Cool, they’re fun, we don’t have those in Calgary!

When my flight arrived in Calgary (late, of course) my brother, mom and step dad were all there to meet me. We decided to go for a big family dinner at Moxie’s where I talked about my Montreal adventures over Bellinis and foccacia cheese toast. It was one hell of a weekend, one I’ll never forget!! Big hugs and thanks to Emma XOXOXOXO and her mom for the hospitality and to Dana, the Polyjesters, Richard Flohil, Lindy, Sally, Melissa, Blair, Arlene, the cute bartender and every person that helped make this trip unforgettable!! You all RAWK!!