Author Archives: Autumn

Baby Hurricane!

We had a lovely time with Arthur and Curtana yesterday. Liam was a little reserved at first when Arthur arrived and dove straight into the toys, but by lunchtime they were passing food back and forth.

Together they managed to go through the house like a miniature tag-team hurricane, pulling every single toy out and most of the books down from the shelves. I’ve never seen every toy on the floor before. It’s rather frightening. Liam doesn’t have a lot of toys, but the toys he does have are sets of things — two sets of blocks, two sets of balls, stacking cups, two Fisher Price vehicles with their attending Little People — so when they’re all out of their storage they spread out. Plus there were the stuffed animals that we keep trying to stop people from giving to us. (Actually, people have generally listened to our plea for no stuffies, but Liam keeps adding some of my stuffed animals to his, like my fox and my Eeyore and my puffin, so his collection is expanding and mine is shrinking.)

In general, Liam only has three or four things out at a time. But all in all, two small baskets and two shelves in the living room made a scary tempest of toys. Time to go through those two little baskets and condense them into one, I think, and get rid of the toys he played with when he was younger and doesn’t really play with any more.

At some point I’d like to actually talk to Curtana in a grown-up fashion — about the things she’s studied, what she’s worked on, gaming and reading and so forth — but I was absolutely dead by the time they arrived yesterday, thanks to washing the kitchen floor three times in a row (once because it was kind of sticky, once because Liam had managed to snag the tea cosy and pull it down… along with the teapot full of cold tea inside it, and once because he managed to knock a kitchen chair into the cats’ water and food dishes and spilled them everywhere), and I was fascinated by how the two boys played in different ways, and interacted. The teaming up to trap the cat in the bedroom, beaming at her from either side of the bed, was particularly amusing.

I’ve got a lot of work to do today to cover what didn’t get done on Wednesday. I’m at an odd point with this MS: I’ve got about sixty percent down in each chapter (yes, yes, except for Chapter Two, that gets done last; and the chapter about dealing with grief, which I don’t particularly want to deal with myself so I keep skipping over the two pages of it that exist), and now I have to try to see what isn’t there yet and ought to be. Unlike the spellcraft book, when I wake up in the morning I don’t already have an idea of what topic I want to work on that day, so when I sit down to work I scan through the file to see what catches my interest. There have been an awful lot of days recently where nothing does. Not because it’s uninteresting, simply because I don’t actively feel like working on the topics in this book just now. (I secretly want to be writing a Regency comedy of manners. No plot, no clearly defined characters, and certainly no time. It’s simply what I want to be writing for some reason.)

I may just roll a d10 and work on the chapter whose number randomly comes up.

Back In The Swing of Orchestra

It was nice to end the day on such a good note. No pun intended.

It felt great to walk into the auditorium and set up, to say hi to people, to catch up a bit. I’m sitting second chair this season (whee!), trading off with another woman concert by concert. For the first performance, we’re playing Beethoven’s Eighth, some Rubenstein, more Brahms Hungarian Dances, the Skaters’ Waltz (I get to play the bass line for this one), and a Schubert overture. As usual, we sight read it all; not quite as usual, I managed to hang on through it all, except during the stupidly easy long runs where I always lose it because I look ahead (the way one does while sight reading) and then lose my place because all the notes look the same. (I’m going to enlarge most of my music this time.That will probably help.)

I noticed that band has really helped me be more confident about where my fingers are on the fingerboard when I change positions. I can’t get away with lazy basic fingering at band the way I can at orchestra because I’m totally exposed, so in order to get the best sound possible I have to use alternate fingering. Last night I found myself automatically using alternate fingering while sight reading. I’m much more confident about jumping into higher positions too (which are technically lower in relation to the floor, but produce a higher sound because they shorten the string). I also discovered that using the heaviest bow I have is great for band, but kills me at orchestra. I’m going to have to remember to switch the bows every time I go to a different rehearsal. Actually, I may just leave my heavy bow at the studio, because I can use my lighter bow at home when working on band stuff as I’m working on technique, not volume.

All in all I was very pleased with how I did after two months off. After all, I’ve been playing Metallica and The Tragically Hip all summer. I think I played some Bach twice.

I called HRH at break to see how the finale of Supernova was going. He told me it was already over and that Lukas had won, which stunned me; I hadn’t expected that at all. But hurrah! They’ll have to add more Canadian tour dates now.

I was very pleased to get a sheet outlining the rehearsal schedule along with my pile of new music. We already have not one but two confirmed concerts this fall. The first one is in mid-November (the date may have to be altered, so it’ll be either the 18th or the 19th of November.). The second is on Saturday December 16, and as I found out at the end of the rehearsal — this is where the night officially made up for the stress of the day — we’re doing The Messiah, with choir.

Eeeeeee!

So when I got home I pulled out my full Messiah score and really looked at the bass parts. The copy I have has the three higher string lines and figured bass for keyboard (organ, ideally) but I can see what should be played by which bass instrument. They’re kind of eep, so this is going to take a lot of work for me. But hey — The Messiah! You’re all coming, right? Of course you are.

I’ve missed orchestra; I started missing it around the beginning of August. It’s good to be back.

ESTC Grr

You know what’s frustrating? Everything could go into Chapter One of this darn book.

While working on expanding things in Chapter One, I keep mentioning things or exercises that connect to exercises and rituals in later chapters, and I just know that at some point someone’s going to suggest moving the connected material into the first chapter to make things more linear. It’s occured to me, but if we do, it’s going to be the Longest Chapter Ever.

Fifteen more minutes before I have to leave. Let’s see how many words we can throw at this MS that will stick.

Later: 387 words; better than nothing. Which brings us to 25,560.

So Much For Working

Shots Fired At Dawson College.

I’ve been pacing since I heard at one o’clock. Someone very special to me has to have been evacuated from that area, and I’m praying as hard as I can for her and for everyone else. It’s the not knowing that has me in knots, and the sympathy I feel for every parent who’s trying to locate their child right now.

I’m not going to get any writing done today now. I might as well go make myself a cup of cocoa and curl up under the afghan, maybe try to do some book-based research instead.

Later: She’s fine. And one gunman’s been neutralised. Let’s hope that’s all there is.

Move Along

There is no soda in the house.

Naturally, I’m craving soda.

If I take the time out to walk down to the dep and get some, I’ll lose about forty-five minutes. And I have to knock off early today because I have to pick the boy up right at five instead of five-thirty. (It’s the first orchestra rehearsal of the season tonight, you know.)

But if I go to the dep, there could also be chocolate.

This is my subconscious trying to avoid work, I know it is.

I’ll have cranberry juice instead. And cheese and crackers.

It won’t be the same.

New Toys — er, Work Supplies

I have a new mouse (a tiny little one which is great but takes getting used to), a new flash drive for work backups (because the other one vanished — this one is bright red, to make it harder to lose), a pretty new mousepad (unnecessary because the mouse is optical, but I don’t like the feel of a mouse skittering over varnished wood) and new ink cartridges for the fountain pen I found in my travel pencil case.

Maybe I should have bought a new keyboard as well, because this one appears to be freaking out, dropping chunks of words and repeating other letters, inserting spaces where letters should be and behaving in general as if it has been possessed. To paraphrase Blade, hardware that does not behave gets “resolved”. I’m going to go grab the cord keyboard from HRH’s desk downstairs again. And I might as well toss a load of laundry in while I’m down there.