Okay, who allowed this June thing? And why is it still going down to something like five degrees at night? Hello, late spring: We would just like to remind you that summer is twenty-one days away, and if you want to get any love you’d better start warming up to us.

As previously noted, on Friday afternoon after his nap we took the boy to see his first movie in a theatre. We really managed to arrange the best combination of circumstances: the perfect time of day, the perfect film, the perfect age. Go us! We sat in the very back row in case we needed to make a quick exit; he sat on a booster seat and we shared a little kid’s combo of popcorn and the tiny bag of Twizzlers that came with it. He didn’t talk a lot, only made the occasional comment, but he laughed and gasped and said, “That’s silly!” and such things at the appropriate moments. He got slightly upset at something at one point and started to whimper a bit, so I told him that it was all right, that it was just a movie and part of the story, and held his hand. Afterwords he whispered, “Thank you for holding my hand, Mama.” The majority of comments were heartfelt bursts of, “I love you, Mama!” which is shorthand for “I’m having an awesome time!”Up will never be my favourite Pixar film (I honestly can’t say what is at the moment) but they stayed true to their story and their characters, and the execution was as beautiful as it always is. Also, I cried about five or six times; it was very well-told.

Friday night I had my first post-recital cello lesson, where my teacher told me how impressed she’d been with my bow control and intonation. We looked at the current Suzuki 2 piece I’m reviewing, and I get the feeling she thinks I’m going to be done my book 2 review by the end of the month, which just so happens to be the end of her teaching year. We talked about setting up a review plan for the summer and basic prep work for book 3 in the fall. She also reminded me that I take good notes, and to review them regularly to remind myself about pronating hands and dropping shoulders and elbow angles. I feel a bit less panicked about two months without structure now. We finished by looking at some of the tricky passages in the orchestra music, and I’d done very acceptable fingerings for most of it, only really changing one. Was rather proud of that. I must be learning or something.

On Saturday Ceri took me to a spinning workshop as an early birthday present. We sat in the sun on comfy couches and chairs at Ariadne, and learnt about fibre and how to draft and how to use a drop spindle. The instructor looked at us all and said, “Hmm, well, I guess I’ll demonstrate how to use a wheel once we’ve covered plying, because you’ve all caught onto this really quickly and we’ll have the time.” My major problems are connecting a new draft to the draft that’s being spun (my joins come out lumpy); drafting evenly enough so that my resulting yarn is even; and keeping the spindle going with just a single twist of the fingers. I know there’s a technique where one taps the whorl that keeps it going, but we were parking it while we fed the twist up the draft. It was exciting in a relaxing sort of way, if that makes any sense. I demonstrated when we got home, and the boys were duly impressed. Wrapping the single for plying was just as annoying as it had been in the workshop, though. HRH: “Could you… knit with that?” Me: “I could go get needles and do it RIGHT NOW.”

But I didn’t.

Ultimately I’d like to spin enough to string my loom (note to self: using the loom will work better if you have a shuttle and a heddle hook) and make something. As I was falling asleep that night I thought it would be really nice if I could make something for my mother using yarn I’d spun myself and woven on the loom. Evidently there’s still an eager first-grader inside me, sticking macaroni to a tin can and spray-painting it gold to give to her on Mother’s Day. Why do I have such expensive hobbies? I think I’m a relatively simple creature, but I end up playing the cello and spinning. I need to sell another book just to supply myself with accessories and raw material.

Sunday was the multi-family outing to the Canadian Museum of Nature in Ottawa. The Zouak family had to bow out, as poor ADZO is still recovering from an appendectomy, but everyone else was still on board. Google lied through its virtual teeth when it said it would take just under three hours to get there. It took us two hours, and we ended up knocking about the museum lobby and lunchroom for forty-five minutes waiting for the others. The drive there was wonderful, one of those early summer mornings where all the colours are extra-vivid. The boy was very patient (as patient as someone on the threshold of four years old can be) and was overjoyed when the rest of the party arrived. The museum is half closed, as they’re undergoing extensive renovation, but the holdings that were on display were terrific. Lots of dinosaur bones from Canada, and great life-sized models. The other floors were mammals and birds, all very interesting. There’s some great interactive stuff presented on touch screens, which thrilled the boy because buttons and dials and such are always Very Cool. He’s still at the “what’s around the next corner” stage, which is hard to control when the rest of your party is taking the time to really look at the exhibits, but once we got to the higher floors he started focusing better. It’s a quite remarkable museum, and it was all brilliant enough that we decided we’d be going back next spring once the renovation was complete. We enjoyed our packed lunches in the lunchroom, and we left just after one o’clock for the trip home, knowing the boy, although apparently fine, would very soon reach saturation level. The drive home was not as nice, with dramatic pressure changes back and forth, storm fronts all around, and really dreadful wind.

Overall it was a wonderful weekend. Now, back to work. The anthology galleys are due back tomorrow, and I want to finish a second pass on them. I have a new freelance assignment that’s due on Friday, too (blessedly short). And I came up with two story ideas on the trip to the museum yesterday that I want to noodle about with. One is courtesy of something Liam said while reading a book in the back seat, so I think I will write it for him. It’s going to end up being a short chapter book, possibly for the eight to ten age range. We shall see. It’s quite nebulous at this point.