Category Archives: Diary

Back To School

Everyone in the house is back at work and school today, except me. I worked overtime through the holidays, which wasn’t much fun for anyone, let me tell you. It was a nightmarish project, and I handed it in last night, so now I am free for however long it is before the next assignment comes along. This is traditionally a slower time of year.

I owe the journal a Christmas roundup and Owlet’s twenty-nine-months-old post from yesterday. I’d like to do a 2013 in review post, but at the rate things are going it probably won’t happen. Let’s consider it a pleasant bonus if it does.

[NOTE: Those two posts were published on January 13 and now have been backdated.]

Stuff I Did In 2013

Wow. Busy year.

Knitted two and a half pairs of socks. No, actually, if we’re adding up individual socks I knit three full pairs, because I knit three for Sparky’s Gryffindor socks, two for my slipper socks, and one so far for my own pair of regular socks. Ha ha! Six socks! (Too bad that’s not how it actually works. Sigh.)

I knit a complete child’s pullover sweater. How crazy is that. It was also my first test knit for someone.

I knit one and a half cap-sleeve sweaters for myself. The half is because I had a half-done one languishing in my cupboard since something like 2006, I finished it, realized it wouldn’t fit, frogged it all, and reknit it. It’s technically finished, but I need to undo the bindoff and add an inch to the bottom. I should add that I made some original modifications to the neck and sleeves that actually worked. I think I’m getting this knitting thing.

I knit a lot of blanket squares for my friends in my online mums group. And then I seamed two of those blankets together and knit the borders on each from yarn spun especially for them.

I spun twelve ounces of yarn for a friend’s project. I spun a similarly crazy amount for my mother’s stunning cabled wrap, and then dyed it, too. And I wonder why I don’t have a lot to show for my spinning time this year. Most of it belongs to other people!

In other areas of my life, I switched the bread recipe I use, and I’m liking the more artisanal loaf we get from it. I also started making my own yogurt, which is a big thing because I loathe yogurt. HRH and Owlet adore it, though.

I stopped using commercial cleansers and moisturizers on my face, observing how much happier and healthier my hair and scalp were when I quit using sodium lauryl/laureth-laden shampoos and silicone-sibling conditioners, and thinking that my face would probably react in a similarly positive fashion. Turns out my face is much happier not being stripped of everything (good and bad) and then having stuff smoothed back on to rehydrate it. I’m using the oil-cleansing method, and my tricky-to-handle, acne-prone face has never been happier. So happy, in fact, that I only have to do it every two days. So yeah, colour me impressed. (Also appalled at the ruthlessly-strip-then-requires-deep-moisturizing-with-unhappy-stuff-that-needs-to-be-stripped cycle that our consumer society has tricked us into repeating endlessly.)

I cut my hair, a lot. I’m hacking off three-quarters of an inch every four to five weeks. It’s nuts. I thought a couple of times that I’d grow it longer again, but I look so tired when it’s shoulder length that snip, off it comes, and I look so much healthier and brighter with it at about chin length again.

I was pretty healthy overall, the trip to the dermatologist and his concern over one of my moles aside. (That’s being taken off and sent for analysis next June. It’s difficult to reconcile “concern” with an eight-month wait for removal and analysis, but whatever.) The other health scare that had me sent a specialist also ended up fine, so another deep sigh of relief and hurrah for that. (Also, I now have a gynaecologist who is awfully nice.) I went back on my fibro medication this summer, and after a two-month period where it felt like it wasn’t doing anything, things suddenly clicked into place and the pain is manageable and energy levels are more consistent. Sleep is less of an issue, although still a big sensitive spot for me.

I kept up with Downton Abbey and Sherlock, we discovered the My Little Pony reboot, and I dropped Game of Thrones because the level of depicted violence and sex turned me off. I know, I know; I’ve read all the books. But the way HBO is portraying it is different, and it’s not enjoyable to watch for me. And life is too short to make myself read crappy books or watch TV that I don’t enjoy. I’m getting very good at cutting stuff like that out of my life.

In fact, I’ve looked back over the past couple of years, and I’ve done a better job at releasing toxic friendships and limiting contact with people who stress me out. I have a limited amount of energy to keep myself going. I need to protect it. I’m doing a pretty good job at saying no and focusing on the most important things in my life.

I’ve done some editing work that I’m very proud of, both private and through the publisher I work with. I’ve had the privilege of reading some great stuff before its release and helping to make it even better. I love my work, even when it drives me to excessive chocolate consumption like the most recent ones did. (Oh dear gods. You will never know, because the resulting books have correct facts and dates and are stronger in general. That’s what I do, and I’m fine being anonymous.)

I didn’t have a lot of time for cello, but I seem to be doing okay in that area. Just getting out once a week and carrying through on the orchestral commitment was a priority. We played some great stuff in orchestra, and I’m proud of my Suzuki work, too.

I read much less than I usually do (hmm, I should start including the books I edit; those totally count, why do I not do that already?). Although “usually” has taken a hit these past threeish years, so maybe this new lower finished frequency is the new normal. Standouts for me were the second in Elizabeth Bear’s Steles of the Sky trilogy and Kerstin Gier’s entire Ruby Red trilogy. I finally got around to reading Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, which was lovely. And courtesy of Tamu, I got to attend Neil Gaiman’s only Montreal book signing/reading tour stop ever (it’s hard to believe, but his previous stops here have been con-related, and he retired from touring after The Ocean at the End of the Lane one ended).

Music-wise I discovered The Doubleclicks, who should adopt me, because wow, it’s like they know everything inside my head. Also, cello.

Christmas 2013

Christmas was busy, and it was snow, and it was family. And it was tiny new additions to the family. More on that later.

We decorated the tree the same day we had the photos with Santa done. The only drawback was that the tree we’d chosen (all tied upon the lot, of course) was lovely and full and bushy. So full, in fact, that it took up a quarter of our tiny living room. My spinning wheel needed to be moved into the hallway for the holidays, and the furniture had to be Tetris-ed in. But as ginormous as the tree is, it smelled and looked fabulous! And there was plenty of room for all our lovely ornaments.

On the night before the winter solstice we told the kids they’d each get a Yule present to open the next day, and we talked about welcoming back the sun. We talked about how it was the longest night, and how once upon a time people must have despaired that the sun would ever come back as the nights got longer and longer. We said that we lit candles to shine like little suns to help the sun find its way through the dark on that longest night and return to us the next dawn. Then we lit our candles before they went to bed and said a prayer for the sun to be strong and brave, and Owlet was terribly excited. I’d forgotten how much Sparky loved doing candles for things when he was her age. (She was so excited that she asked to do it for her nap the next day, and the next two nights at bedtime, as well.)

The next morning, we all got up, blew out the candles and said “Yay, sun! You did it! Thank you, sun!” and Owlet wandered around while we made breakfast, randomly shouting, “Yay, sun!” and “Thank you, sun!”

After breakfast Sparky asked if they could open their presents. They each had a wrapped book under the tree. Owlet got a Sandra Boynton Christmas book (with Pookie in it! Well, it isn’t identified as Pookie, but it’s totally Pookie). Sparky got a handbook for taking care of rabbits. He was very pleased, saying that now he could be ready when he got his rabbit once he turned ten, which was the going deal.

But I asked him if he thought he could read it in five minutes instead, to be ready. He looked at me, not understanding. So we told him he was going to visit one of HRH’s students to choose a rabbit of his very own, and he couldn’t quite believe it. We all piled in the car and drove over, and we all sat on the floor with a litter of ten eight-week-old dwarf Netherland bunnies hopping around and over us, grey and cinnamon and black and tan, and it was the best fun. They were so very well socialized that they hopped right into our laps and cuddled, and didn’t freak out a bit when Owlet picked them up and carried them around the way toddlers all pick up four-legged beasties, around the chest and tummy. After much deliberation and interacting with each one to see whose temperament was best suited to him, Sparky came home with this one, who was the smallest of them all.

Meet Solstice, everyone. His back is dark like the night, and his tummy is light like the sun. He is calm and loving, and I don’t think Sparky put him down all day after we got home. Which is fine by Solstice, apparently, who is happy to snuggle.

We’d been sitting on this secret for over a month, buying a huge secondhand cage and the supplies required bit by bit, so we’re pretty thrilled at how it went over. Sparky was warned that because this big present was so big, he wasn’t to expect any of the big things on his Christmas list, and he was so happy it didn’t even make him pause. Sparky and Solstice were pretty much inseparable for the entire Christmas break. If the rabbit wasn’t in his arms or lap, it was next to him in a laundry basket with some toys and hay while Sparky played video games. The rabbit met everyone at the door as soon as they walked in, held out by an excited Sparky who was eager to share his new buddy. He’s a bright and cheerful little thing, who loves to do that neat jump/kick thing happy bunnies do, and to scamper from one end of the bed to the other as fast as he can. He’s fine with the cats, although Minerva is a bit overeager with him, wanting to tussle roughly like she would with a kitten, and Gryff is kind of a bit scared, to be honest. He has visibly grown in just a couple of weeks, and now has a little cinnamon patch between his shoulder blades at the back of his neck, like a little sun. It’s adorable. And Solstice loves just hanging out.

He is very patient, too.

Christmas Day was great. We had both sets of grandparents with us, and it was a genuinely lovely day. I forgot to brine the turkey, but it was acceptably tender despite that. There were new clothes, and books, and video games (including the new Skylanders Swap Force set that Sparky had wanted but had figured wasn’t going to happen since he’d gotten Solstice instead, and which he’d already finished by the end of the holidays, yikes). And Her Owletship’s big gift was a lovely soft cloth doll from Pottery Barn Kids, and a doll bed HRH built for her, with bedding that I sewed for it:

It’s a miniature of her own bed, see?

I was spoiled with cookbooks and new knitting needles and a lovely sweater, a miraculous thermal tumbler that keeps tea hot for hours, and gift certificates for more books and tea. It was hard to focus on things and keep up with the unwrapping, since I spent most of my time facilitating the kids’ experiences, and I ended up with a small pile of gifts to open on my own at the end. One that wasn’t under the tree was the Apple TV that HRH and I bought ourselves on crazy sale halfway through December. We are very impressed with the home network streaming, the cleaner interface with Netflix, and the ability to rent movies from iTunes. It works very well for our needs.

The weather was clear, sunny, and cold, so there were no walks through the neighbourhood, but the company was wonderful, the food supplied by everyone was delicious, the day rolled along smoothly, and we feel very fortunate to be able to spend time with both sides of the family like this. And then we had a few friends over on the Saturday, which was lovely, too, and on the Sunday we gathered with the Preston-LeBlancs in their new house for our annual Yule singalong, and all our wonderful holiday traditions were complete. We feel very, very blessed.

Early December

We have just lost all our snow to a warm spell and some rain. The children are not happy at all. Neither am I, really; I need snow to get into the spirit of the season. HRH hung up our Christmas lights two weeks ago on a beautifully warm 15 C day, and we plugged them in on the first day of December. After this moderately insane weekend of dress rehearsal, rescheduled piano rehearsal, and cello recital, we will bring in the boxes of Christmas stuff and start decorating. That will help.

We are pretty much set, gift-wise. The kids are covered, or we are in the process of collecting the very last little things we need (there is a surprise coming for Sparky, oh, yes there is, one that is just about equivalent to the HO scale train set he got a couple of years ago). One of our goddaughters is done; the other two will be done in a week or so. My parents are covered; HRH is in charge of figuring out what’s happening for his parents.

As for one another… I paid for half his new leather jacket at Thanksgiving as my early Yule gift to him, and he bought me a set of knitting needles that I have been tracking from the sender for over a week now. And today the Canada Post website told me that my needles are in the city! The people who thought up parcel tracking via website were either geniuses or evil individuals who liked to torture others. The parcel is so close, but it’s Friday and it’s not marked as out for delivery, so now I have to wait all weekend for them to arrive, which will probably happen next Monday. And if the seller wrapped them in Christmas paper, liked she joked she would, it will be even worse, because then they will be in the house but I will feel badly about opening a wrapped Christmas gift before Christmas itself. Because yes, of course I will want to look at them, and even use them.

Owlet’s monthly post is a couple of days late and will go up this weekend, because I wanted to include the very exciting Move To a Big Girl Bed that is happening tomorrow. I’m washing her new sheets and coverlet right now.

Fall Concert Announcement!

It’s late November! Before we know it, it will be December. Have you been wondering when the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra’s fall concert announcement would appear? Did you worry that you’d missed it?

Well, wonder no more! We’re presenting it a couple of weeks later than usual this year. In fact, it’s happening as late in November as it possibly can be.

Airs de jeunesse will be presented this Saturday, 30 November 2013, at 19h30. As the concert’s title suggests, the theme is early works from some well-known composers, but early doesn’t mean weaker than their more mature works; in fact, they’re anything but! They’re bursting with energy and vitality. Here’s the programme:

    Overture for A Midsummer Night’s Dream — Mendelssohn
    A Simple Symphony — Britten
    Violin Concerto (first movement), with soloist Ember Reed — Kabalevsky
    Symphony no. 1– Beethoven

The concert is taking place at Valois United, our orchestra’s home, which is at 70 Belmont Ave (corner King) in Pointe-Claire. Admission is $10, free for children 18 and under. The concerts usually last just about two hours, including the refreshment break. The address and map are on the church website. Children of all ages are very welcome.

I hope we’ll see you there!

More Sparky, With Cello

I haven’t even mentioned here that Sparky got a new cello.

It was about a month ago. When school began this year and lessons started up again, Sparky’s teacher mentioned that he’d grown over the summer. (This was not news to us; all the pants he’d had to roll up at the beginning of the calendar year were now just barely long enough for his legs.) Come the new year, she said, we’d have to look for a new cello, the next size up.

Let’s take a quick stroll down memory lane.

This was Sparky with the 1/4 size rental cello:

This was Sparky with a 1/8 size rental cello, the proper proportion for his size at the time (he was 5 1/2):

This was Sparky with his very own brand-new-to-him 1/8 size cello, the purchase of which was documented here). (It looks bigger than the other 1/8, but that’s just the angle of the photograph.):

Well, this was Sparky this past September, with that same 1/8 cello:

Yeah, we knew he was growing. We’d have been blind not to notice.

Because it’s not every day the right size cello pops up in the classifieds, I started watching local ads for a used one at an affordable price. There were 1/4 cellos out there for more than I could afford, of course. I needed to keep an eye on things and jump on the right one as soon as it was listed.

As fortune would have it, that cello showed up the second day I checked, priced at five hundred dollars. And it was five minutes away, to boot. So we made an appointment and went to check it out. It was perfect — nice sound, no cracks or open seams, a well-repaired neck — so I made another appointment to go back with the payment and to pick it up. The sound is quite nice; the simple fact that the body of the instrument is bigger means there’s more room for the sound to resonate and for the vibrations to amplify, so that’s a big help.

Sparky now had a new cello! Which meant we needed to sell his old one to recoup the money. I listed it at the same price, taking into account the three hundred dollars of work we’d had done to it to bring it up to playable state, the new bow we’d bought, and the new case. Two weeks ago I had a query on it, from a couple in Quebec City, who were looking for an instrument for their four-year-old son to start lessons with. (Aww!) It’s rare to find a 1/8 cello listed for resale, so I understand why they queried me; heck, we bought this one in Ottawa, remember? They obviously couldn’t come see it, but we had long chats on the phone and via e-mail about it, I answered a lot of questions for them, and we made a date for their son’s teacher to come see it the next time he visited Montreal. (He travels here to visit the same luthier we use! That was a good omen.) He came by this morning and gave it a good workout, then asked me if I was really asking only five hundred for it, because it was a really good little cello, and outfits usually go for much more. Yes, I explained, I only listed it at that price because we got a really good deal on it and I only added the amounts we’d paid for the bow and the case and the upgrades; I wanted it to go to another child who would love it and enable a family who might not otherwise be able to afford it to buy it. He said that he’d recommend it at that price without hesitation; heck, he’d recommend it at a higher price. So he called the couple who were interested, and they agreed, and we compromised on $475. Sparky’s first cello has gone to a very good home. And the teacher voluntarily promised to make sure it went to another good home when the current wee cellist outgrew it. And he took the wee cello away with him.

So, as HRH pointed out on the phone, through the magic of creative financing, we kind only paid $25 for Sparky’s new cello, which tickles me. I didn’t haggle with the woman selling the 1/4 because, as she said, it’s kind of a complicit thing: it’s like a closed community and we’re all supporting one another. It’s like passing good karma along, and encouraging our kids.

The only drawback is that the buyers wanted the small 1/10 bow we bought for Sparky when the 1/8 bow proved just a bit too long for him to balance properly. That’s understandable; the new wee cellist is four and a half, and he’s going to need a smaller bow, too. That means Sparky just started using the 1/4 bow we got with the newer cello, and you can tell he’s not quite comfortable with it yet. Although, our teacher told him he was doing all the right things to get used to it and that his hold was still pretty good for working with a new bow. And the case for the new cello doesn’t have backpack straps, which we miss a lot, but we’ll manage.

I don’t yet have a photo of him with it; he has refused each time I’ve asked. But we have a recital coming up in two weeks, so I’ll try to get one then. Or rather, I’ll have to ask someone else, because I’m accompanying him again!

I am a wee bit nostalgic, because Sparky got that 1/8 cello not long before Owlet was born, so we’ve had it as long as she’s been around.

A Night Out With Sparky

Last night Sparky and I did something special together, just we two cellists. We went to a concert held by the West Island Youth Symphony Orchestra, in the church where I usually do my Canada Day concerts.

It would have been little more special if half an hour before we got there, Sparky hadn’t done a 180 degree shift from his excitement prior to the actual concert and decided he didn’t want to be there, because we’d get home much too late to read a chapter before bedtime. He was cranky and a bit whiny through the first half. He sat there with a Lego book open on his lap, poking me and whispering stuff now and again. It was chilly in the church and he was wearing only a cotton button-down shirt, so that didn’t help; he burrowed into his down-filled jacket and pulled his scarf and hat on. But as every new piece began he asked for the programme and looked up its name. I like to talk to him about music, and sometimes give him snippets of trivia about the piece and the composer. He’s often receptive, but he wasn’t in the mood this time, so I let him be.

They opened with a Shostakovich overture that was nice and crashy with lots of brass, moved to Respighi’s Fountains of Rome (I need to break out my double disc set of Respighi music, because I do not listen to it enough), did a pleasant arrangement of Williams’ theme for Schindler’s List, and finished the first half with a soloist performing Chaminade’s Concertino for Flute and Orchestra. I was especially interested in this one, because our orchestra played it with a phenomenal young flutist a couple of years ago, but I’d never heard it live.

The orchestra was incredible. They were smooth, tight, confident, and leapt from pianissimo to fortissimo without dragging along the way. (My orchestra must make our conductor despair sometimes, because dynamics are one of our issues; he likes a lot of contrast, and we are usually very slow to get there.) We sat in the perfect place to see the celli work, and I was kind of excited about that. I think the last time I saw an orchestra play was about three years ago, and it was the WIYSO again, in their free concert for the Beaconsfield centennial year. (Again with Sparky! That’s one of the reasons I thought this would be a nice treat; we’d very much enjoyed that one.) It’s quite a treat to be able to sit and enjoy another orchestra.

The second half was what it’d really be looking forward to. They played Dvorak’s eighth symphony, and while the ninth is yes, very good, I prefer the eighth, hands down. The last time I saw the eighth done in concert, it was in the second half of an all-Dvorak programme presented by the TSO fifteen years ago; the first half was the Dvorak cello concerto with Yo-Yo Ma as the soloist, and Ma crept out in the second half to sit with the cellist at the last desk and play through the eighth symphony with them in the cello section for fun. The WIYSO did a brilliant job. The symphony is very cello-heavy; they have a lot of the themes and carry a lot of the textural richness along with the brass section, and they did a terrific job. It turned out that a lot of his grousing during the break was because he was tired, because Sparky slept through the second half, his head pillowed on my lap. I marvel at how he manages to sleep through the loudest, crashiest pieces of music. He’d whined through the break, wanting to go home, but I told him pleasantly yet firmly that we weren’t leaving because I wanted it hear the symphony, and so he could be miserable or try it make the best of it. I opened a tiny packet of Smarties during the second movement for him, and he went back to sleep for the rest of the symphony.

He said the next day at our group lesson that he’d really liked it, even though he slept through most of the second half. I know that even though there are hiccoughs along the way, he’ll remember these special nights. And yes, I read half a chapter to him after we got home, as I’d promised.