Less than a thousand words today. I wish I could settle into this. I haven’t found my stride yet and I spend too much time trying to figure out what and how to do something.
But: Mailbox joy in the form of payment for my test evaluation for that ongoing freelance gig, much sooner than expected. Hurrah! I’ll watch the exchange rates this week and see if I can make an extra dollar or two on it. It’s the principle of the thing.
I had my follow-up with the doctor this morning. As a not-quite-aside, I am thankful that today’s weather with rain/snow/60 to 90 kph winds is indeed today’s weather and not yesterday’s, because I can just imagine how impossible it would have been to get the boy home from across town in this. The cold is biting, the additional gusts on top of the steady high-level wind are aggressive and dangerous, and rain on top of flash-frozen ice is No Fun. Anyway, I made it to the doctor’s office in one piece although late, which was fine because she was running late too.
My blood test results (and there were pages and pages to go through) were all lovely and normal. My calcium and magnesium were a touch below what she wanted them to be, but my multivitamin is covering that. The rheumatoid and other arthritis indicators all came back negative, so the diagnosis has settled on fibromyalgia. I have a prescription for a minute dose of medication to take daily, another appointment in three weeks to see how it’s going, and permission to slow down and stop thinking of myself as somehow failing at what I’m trying to keep up with. The optimistic view, which we are taking, is that six months to a year should help the body recover some sort of equilibrium, and then we will re-evaluate and either taper off the meds to see what happens, or keep on with them.
So there you have it. Thanks, everyone, for your good thoughts and wishes that have been coming my way; I truly appreciate them.
Inspiration is wonderful when it happens, but the writer must develop an approach for the rest of the time… The wait is simply too long.
– Leonard Bernstein
Today’s excitement: having my car key snap off in the trunk lock as I prepared to load the car with a shopping trip’s worth of stuff.
Yes! So exciting! Liam and I called friends who used to have an extra copy of our car key, but they were not home. We called HRH to apprise him of the necessity of picking the car up on his way home from work, and then my phone died a messy death (it can’t hold a charge worth beans, but I am not complaining because it was second-hand, inexpensive, and has served me well for almost a whole year). Then we liberated the emergency umbrella stroller that languishes in the back of the car, covered the major purchases with the car blanket, made sure the immediate necessities and little things were in pockets or bags, locked up the car, and took the bus home.
Naturally, the freezing rain began halfway across the parking lot.
Luckily, Liam thought the whole thing a grand adventure, partially fuelled by my animated “Want to do something really cool? Let’s take the bus home!” pitch. And then we stopped in at a gas station on our fifteen-minute trek to a bus stop to buy a granola bar as a treat, and he was thrilled about that too. (It was an excuse to break the five dollar bill in my wallet to have sufficient change for the bus). He had been very well-behaved during our department store experience, walking next to me and holding my hand; I was very impressed. He’s on the verge of being too big for the seats in shopping carts, so learning how to walk while we shop is a good thing. His good mood made things easier to handle. So did the not-crowded bus. I don’t think I’ve ever been on a bus that empty on that route.
There is irony involved in all this, too. We went out to buy a new microwave, as the one we have been using by the grace of Tal for the past two years mysteriously ceased functioning last night. (Don’t worry, Tal, if/when you require a microwave oven again, we will replace it for you.) I was punching in a time when the lights went out and that was that — no crackles or sparks or warnings of slow death. I am mystified. It is currently in the garage while it thinks about the error of its ways (let’s call it a time out for appliances). We don’t use the microwave for anything other than reheating tea, warming up milk or leftovers, or defrosting meat that’s being stubborn, so the one we got is tiny and only 700 watts. And the irony of having gone out to buy the new microwave is that we cannot use it, as it’s sitting covered by the blanket in the back of the locked car of a parking lot at the other end of town. I discovered this when I went to warm up Liam’s pasta and veggies for lunch.
I also need a new car key, and HRH will need to get the snapped-cleanly-level-with-the-lock key out. Issues for tomorrow.
But the day is not a wreck (not that it was in any danger of being one, it wasn’t as huge a disaster as it could have been… I could have accidentally locked the passenger side car doors after buckling Liam in and then snapped the key), because the copy of the Druid Plant Oracle that I ordered from the UK arrived while Liam was eating lunch. It will not be available in North America until August. I win.
Also, when Liam watches the opening credits to the Muppet Show, he sings the final “SHOOOOOOOOW!” along with the cast, hilariously off-key.
That is all.
I have just returned the copy-edits/rewrites for the Pagan Pregnancy book. Go me! Finished in under a day, with a minimum of trauma and angst! Okay, that may have been because I let the suggestions and questions and deletions brew in my subconscious for a week… but whatever and however, it is done and I am awesome.
For the first time in a while I feel like I actually did some work, as if I accomplished something. I’m having so much trouble settling into the hearthcraft book — it doesn’t feel coherent or cohesive yet, and every time I sit down to work at it feels like a struggle — so this was a relief. I never thought I’d see the day where I thought handling copy-edits for a book I’d written were a relief.
The next time I see this should be when the Fed Ex delivery person hands me the box of page proofs.
When luthiers say that the basic design for the violin family of stringed instruments hasn’t changed in four centuries and talk about ways to improve upon it, this isn’t exactly the kind of redesign they mean.
Milbrodt’s team took apart a Ford Focus five-door hatchback that had, literally, just come off the production line. “When we got it to the mechanics shop, it had less than a mile on the clock. We took the doors and fenders off, but we had the body shell intact and we later cut out of that the parts we wanted,†said Bill Milbrodt.
By the time the orchestra had been assembled for the photo shoot at Universal Studios in California, Milbrodt’s team had constructed 31 instruments. Each has a name that instantly identified its origins, such as the Transmission Case Cello-Dulcimer, Clutch Guitar, Rear Suspension Spike Fiddle, Fender Bass, Hatchback Kick Drum, Handheld Gear Tambourine and Door Harp.
No doubt the commercial will be uploaded to YouTube the night it airs, or maybe it will be available on the Ford web site.
I wonder what it’s like to play.
(Did you notice the bow? It’s a windshield wiper.)
Total word count, hearthcraft book: 21,128
New words today: 1,076
Not bad for an actual hour of writing.
And now I must flee to get the boy and be back before my pizza dough has finished its rise.
