I just agreed to do the Hamilton Pagan Pride thing. September 13, 2008 in Gage Park, Hamilton, Ontario.
Check out the official website; looking at the previous years it seems to be a great event. It sees over four hundred people every year. Coming from apathetic Montreal, those kind of numbers stun me.
Now I really, really need to lie down.
I worked all weekend. Saturday morning we went out and about for a bit, but I worked in the afternoon, chasing the end of an idea for the new YA novel and setting things up for the MS review. Yesterday was eight hours of freelance MS review, and I’ll be finished it by the end of today. Then I can turn to changing the hearthcraft book as per orders.
It’s Victoria Day and a holiday here in Canada, so HRH is home. I’m thankful because it gives me a day to work and I don’t have to pay a caregiver. The weather is rainy and cold, which is unfortunate. HRH and the boy went off to the EcoMuseum this morning but I’ve just had a call telling me that it’s pouring out there so they’re heading to an indoor playground instead. I made pretzels this morning and have already finished my second one. I need to have quick and easy food available to me in the mornings, and the granola bars I make to see me through the week disappear in a day or so, eaten as snacks. There’s a new loaf of bread rising too. Over the weekend HRH reset the vegetable bed, tilled our compost into it, and planted peas, corn, carrots, and onions. I forgot about getting seed potatoes, so maybe next year. There’s corn and sunflowers strewn along the side of the house too. We’ll see what happens. All my herbs are coming back, and we’re going to get peppers and lettuce and maybe some cucumbers. We always end up with one or two leftover tomato plants from other people, and I’m the only one who eats them in the house so there’s no point in planting our own.
One year ago today was the live dual-band gig. The year off has been good. I do miss playing, but I only miss the parts where it was going well. I don’t think anyone misses the time eaten up by rehearsals and travelling to rehearsals and home practice. Even if we’d been in the headspace to keep going, various health issues, work commitments, and plain old timetable incompatibility on everyone’s part would have forced us to go on hiatus anyhow. All those things logically preclude a reunion at this time. I am very much looking forward to being at Invisible’s upcoming show and not having to worry about conserving my voice or energy for our own performance.
Unless something miraculous happens (like an anonymous money order for fifteen hundred dollars arriving in my mailbox) I’m not going to have the new 7/8 cello in time for the Canada Day concert. I’m disappointed, but I’ll live. I suspect it will have been sold by the time I can buy it this summer, so I may not have one at all until this fall. I wonder if a home trial of this one is even worth it. I’m glum about it, because it was pretty much the one thing keeping me upbeat about things this past month.
Right. To work.
Michelle West writes an excellent parallel between writing books and mothering here.
A belated Mother’s Day to all the moms out there. My day began very early, waking up with a jump at the crash made by a small boy dropping a play tea set on the floor next to the bed ( “Oh hi, Mama, I making you tea!”), moved through brunch with the Preston-LeBlanc clan (complete with smoked salmon, mimosas, a heaping bowl of fresh strawberries, and waffles), and ended with an afternoon with HRH’s parents and excellent steak.
Thank you, life, for a lovely relaxed day with no stress. Played lots of cello, finished another book, picked up a few groceries, lay on my stomach with the boy to watch the ants in the backyard, ate strawberries together in the sun, took the wagon to meet HRH at the bus stop, had barbecued burgers for dinner, curled up with the boy and cuddled him until he fell asleep holding my hand.
I am so very thankful for a good day. Another bad one would have been… well, cumulatively Very Bad.
And now, I am going to go run a hot bath with either honeysuckle bubbles or lavender honey milk powder, and read the new issue of Strings magazine that arrived today.
Life is remarkably miserable these days, so I’m trying to look for good things to share instead of the crap. Here’s a selection.
1. I read two books yesterday, Hale’s Austenland and Clark’s Because She Can. I’m so glad the boy is at an age where I don’t have to actively play with him all the time. Once in a while we can be in the same room or out in the backyard together, each doing our own thing with periodic interaction. This doesn’t work all the time: the boy has to be in a secure enough headspace to allow it. But yesterday was one of those days. There were other trade-offs, however, and other things were not as successful, which was very frustrating.
2. Last Tuesday I wrote twelve pages of Swan Sister longhand. I know I said the Vivaldi novel had ambushed my brain, but evidently I was wrong.
3. And perhaps Swan Sister‘s not the winner after all, because I sat down on Monday afternoon and drafted a two-paragraph summary and then a two-page synopsis for a new YA novel that had occurred to me. Because, you know, I don’t have enough unfinished YA novels lying around. At least this one has a full outline, up to a point at the end. I know that the protagonist’s obstacle gets worked through and she achieves her goal, and even how it happens, but there’s a secondary story in there about another character that affects her and that goal and I’m not sure how that resolves yet. Or even if it needs to be resolved, really; the protagonist may just go on being the only one to know this character’s secret. I’ve never written a full synopsis for a novel before it’s been written, and it was a very interesting exercise. I may even try to write the novel now. (I mean, of course I’ll write it at some point, and I didn’t expect to want to write it immediately. But it’s all there, so to speak.)
4. I’m sleeping okay, which I am trying to see as a tolerable trade-off for the increased pain I’m experiencing these days.
5. Sun is nice and good. Cats all returned to a level of sanity is also good. Life is less stressful when they’re all normal. (As normal as my cats, or any cats really, get.)
It has been a thoroughly awful six days or so. There’s a lot of stuff flying around that I’m trying to handle, and I’ve lost it a couple of times in the past few days. I don’t like doing that. It makes me even angrier and more discouraged about things in general.
The weekend was a mass of engagements and scheduled events that didn’t give me the time or space I needed to really recompose myself. The cold rainy weather didn’t help at all, especially when there is a three year old screaming to play in the back garden. I did carve three or so hours out of the weekend to spend with t!, something we haven’t done in so long that neither of us can remember the last time we did it. There were copious amounts of tea, theorizing, analysing, and then there was port. Plus there was the very enjoyable bonus of seeing Jan, who came home from her weekend away earlier than expected, so she had a glass of port too and we all talked. I shared a music-related idea with t! that excited him and also interested Jan when I shared it with her later at his request. Knowing that other people think it’s a good idea heartened me immensely. I think it has a lot of potential. I need to chew on it for a while, and t! told me to bring it up with him again early next month. I’ll need to by then, because new associated ideas keep blooming in my head. It will all have to be managed carefully.
I had to replay the third level of the stupid DS game for kids I’m working through right now three times last night. I wasn’t going to go to bed till I’d beaten it. Dumb game. It’s easy, too; I’m just having the same problem I always have, sacrificing speed for precision.
The computer is still dead, and I’ve fed all my peripherals into the laptop and loaded requisite software. I may move the laptop to the writing desk and connect the monitor as well, because I strained my neck and back looking down at the laptop screen last Friday. I did hand in the first assignment for the new project I’m doing with the big unnamed game company though, and now I’m awaiting edits and feedback. The computer situation is a big part of what’s really pushing me to the edge these days. I really, really dislike transitional periods, and I’m stuck in limbo for two weeks. Three, really, because realistically I won’t be able to do anything about it until we come home from visiting my parents over Victoria Day weekend. Blade came down Saturday morning to try slipping the hard drive into an old computer HRH still hasn’t returned to ADZO (someday, someday!) and as I suspected it’s not the drive, which means it must be the motherboard or processor or something else that’s hanging up. I just don’t want to have to copy over all my profiles to a temporary system and then do it again. The laptop is fine for now.
That’s the state of me for the moment. If you’ve tried to email me or have been expecting an answer about something important that I haven’t yet given, try me again. The pre-yesterday email is all stuck on the other computer. And forgive any extended silences and lack of enthusiasm about things in general.
For Beltane Bake Day 2008, I chose to bake challah.
It felt slightly heretical making whole wheat challah, but making bread with only white flour feels wrong now.
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
1 egg yolk
3 tablespoons butter
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 cup white flour
1/4 cup honey
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 egg white
1 tablespoon milk
I put the first set of ingredients in the bread machine on the dough cycle (the mixing, kneading, and first rise) then removed it when the cycle was over. I divided it into three, rolled each section into a rope, and braided it. I put it on the baking sheet, covered it, let it rise for half an hour, brushed it with the egg white/milk mixture, and baked it for 30 minutes at 350 degrees F. When it came out I brushed it with butter too. (Obviously you could do this traditionally as well, proofing the yeast and mixing everything by hand.) I might use a bit more yeast next time.
This was dinner for me. Two huge slabs of it, dripping with butter. It was also breakfast, and will probably be lunch. A thick slice heats up nicely in the microwave at nineish seconds.
I’ve really been enjoying everyone’s pictures and posts about their baking! Haven’t baked yet? You have till Saturday at midnight. No idea what I’m talking about? Check out the original post!