Category Archives: Diary

Bah

Have had tea and breakfast. Have caught up on news, correspondence, the Hydro questionnaire I was bugged about on Sunday. Slate cleared for work on the newest assignment. (Yet another epic fantasy ms. to review. I may have to take epic fantasy off the list of subjects I’ll accept.)

The unfair: Despite all this virtuous activity, I have a bad headache, am still suffering on and off from a bloody nose for no apparent reason, and the cold than began manifesting yesterday has entrenched.

I’m going back to bed for an hour. If I’m not back by lunch at the latest, send more cats.

LATER: Back and better, thank you.

ETA: Oh, and that Hydro questionnaire? We’re already so damned efficient that the best it could recommend was “You could save $63 annually by installing electric thermostats instead of using the old manual ones!” Gee, thanks, Hydro.

Forty-Seven Months Old!

A mere thirty-two days till he’s four years old. How time flies.

Spelling and reading continue apace. Typeset fonts (think Courier, for example) frustrate him. A typeset lowercase ‘a’ does not look like the lowercase ‘a’ he has been taught to draw by hand, nor does a ‘g’. He is very frustrated by this. Otherwise, words and letters are the most exciting things around these days. He writes his name on paper or the chalkboard all the time, or spells it aloud. He writes words in the air to see if we can identify them. (This is more of a challenge than it may sound. First of all, he’s more enthusiastic than precise, and second of all I’m reading it backwards.) We have discovered together that he very much likes copying words out, so I’ll print words and spell them out as I do, and he copies them onto another paper, spelling them out himself as he does. He’s done a few greeting cards this way. His drawing skills have leapt a couple of levels as well. He drew the first face I’ve seen him draw the other day, and he used the entire chalkboard instead of squeezing it into a corner, spacing the features out remarkably well. And last night he drew two different versions of WALL*E, both extremely recognizable. HRH is, naturally, bursting with pride.

The newest addition to the household is stuffed black rabbit with white paws, whom the boy saw on a post-Easter shelf at the drugstore we stopped at on the way out of Oakville. He instantly fell in love with him, and as it was half-price, I bought it for him. “What are you going to call him?” I asked on the way to the car. “His name is Blackie-Whitie,” Liam said with confidence. And he hasn’t put the darn thing down since that day. He’ll go all shy with people when they talk to him, but he’ll hold out the rabbit and say, “This is my new bunny, his name is Blackie-Whitie.” Sometimes he adds, “His nickname is Blackie,” just so everyone’s clear. Starting in the car on the way home from Easter, he has been saying, “Mama, you can cuddle Bun-Bun” and pushing Bun-Bun at me till I take him in the crook of my arm. We suspect he doesn’t want to hurt Bun-Bun’s feelings, which is very sensitive of him. Otherwise he drags Blackie, Bun-Bun, and the little white rabbit he called Peter until he got another tiny white bunny called Snowball/Blizzard, so the first white one is alternately Peter/Blizzard/Snowball, depending on what the tiny one is called that day) around in his arms at home, and negotiates bringing all three or five along for car rides. (One. He is allowed only one.) Blackie is now somewhat bedraggled. I mourn his silky clean fur.

(Yes, we’re fairly sure his main totem is a rabbit.)

There were two new movies this month. We finally got a copy of 101 Dalmatians on DVD (as well as the new sequel) and he went absolutely bananas over it. The rabbits were all renamed Pongo and Perdita, we played at being Dalmatians, every minivan that parked in the neighbourhood belonged to Horace and Jasper, and every car that went racing down the road and squealed around the corner was Cruella. Then Nightdemons lent us a copy of The Velveteen Rabbit, a very loose remake of the book’s story (which he knows), and he went crazy for that as well. Now we are told on a regular basis that someday, Blackie will be a Real Rabbit. Every morning he checks to see if it’s happened. We keep telling him it takes a long time and a lot of cumulative love.

The other big milestones this past month were the purchase of his first board game, Chutes & Ladders (apparently Snakes & Ladders, the UK version, is no longer available in Canada and thus we ended up with the rather preachy US one, hmph), and the purchase of his first set of gaming dice. He is very enthusiastic about Chutes & Ladders, only he thinks the chutes are preferable because in the playground doesn’t one climb a ladder to get to the more exciting slide part? And he chose a d20 from his new dice to roll for his first game, which made it rather short. (His next pick was a d4, which meant the second game was abandoned after taking forever to get anywhere.) So we are working through the inevitable tears when someone else wins (“But I wanted to win!”), and the concept of luck and random dice rolls, and the idea that it isn’t the end of the world if someone else wins; we just set the board up again and start anew. It’s the fun we have playing that counts.

When the boy is about to sing something (which is often these days; he is all about the singing), he lifts his fist to his mouth and clears his throat with a tiny soft sound. I have to try not to laugh every time. In the past week he has become obsessed with “Yellow Submarine,” which is both fortunate and not. It’s an easy song, so we know it and he learned it really quickly, but it’s not exactly deep. On the other hand, when I put our Beatles “1” CD on in the car the other day, he sighed contentedly and said, “This is my favourite music.” Not bad for a kid who’d only heard it once about a year ago.

He met t! and Jan’s year-old husky/shepherd/collie dog Carter over the weekend, and was throughly thrilled. Carter has experienced a streak of bad luck and has gone from a splint to a cast to another splint on his right foreleg, and is currently wearing a Victrola-style collar so the splint doesn’t get chewed. None of this fazed Liam. He giggled and crooned and patted and ruffled the dog’s fur all day. At once point the dog leaned against him with a deep sigh, pushing the boy into the wall, but after a look at HRH to make sure everything was still okay Liam set to scritching the blissful dog with great enthusiasm. At home after a long day, he was eating his grilled cheese sandwich when he said, “What was your favourite part of the day?” I told him what I’d enjoyed, and he said thoughtfully, “My favourite part of the day was meeting and playing with Carter.” And in fact, he has named the small stuffed dog he’s had for two years (previously known by the imaginative name of “Puppy”) Carter. Also while there, he spent a couple of hours jumping around the muddy side field as it was being prepared for the orchard, splashing in puddles, testing various bits of bark and grass and dead leaves to see what floated and what didn’t, and inspecting the family of baby field mice that was found as one of the holes was dug. When he came in for lunch, thoroughly soaked and happy, there were three inches of muddy water in each rainboot. If you can’t be a kid in a place like that, where can you be one?

Trees, People, Cello

Or, What My Weekend Was Like, By Me.

Saturday we trekked out to the wilds of North Stormont/Maxville to help t! and Jan dig and plant their orchard. A dozen heritage apples and other fruit trees were planted, each assigned to a different pagan friend. Everyone was invited to bless the tree they planted in whatever way they felt drawn to do so. Some blessings were elaborate; some were quiet; all were blessed with sweat and laughter. Despite assurances otherwise (and here absolutely NO ONE looks at HRH, no) it, well, it poured rain. (Except when HRH planted his tree. Ahem.) I’m a fan of rain, and it wasn’t even cold, but having trekked around after a wiggly four year old for a couple of hours and trying to keep him focused during the cumulatively long first half of the orchard, eventually agreeing to hold him on my hip while he snuggled his very wet head into my neck, took its toll on me. My blessing ended up being rushed because the boy decided he needed to use the bathroom again and we got back right when it was my turn. In the end I did nothing like what I’d prepared and pretty much just shoved the tree in the ground and told those with spades to fill the hole in. I had prepared a charged pebble that I tossed into the hole, though, and I’d brought a bottle of water blended from some Chalice Well water a friend had brought back from Glastonbury for me and a small vial of water blessed and charged at the last BFC Clan Camping I’d attended in 2004, which I poured on the ground once it was planted.

The boy’s tree was next, and he tossed his pebble into the hole. We reminded him that there was something he wanted to sing, so he announced that he had a special song to sing for his tree. “It’s a song we sing at school, and it is my favourite, and it’s about something that is under the water, and yellow,” he informed those gathered. HRH and I tried hard not to laugh as people realized what he meant, and I reminded him that no, he hadn’t planned to sing ‘Yellow Submarine,’ there was another song he’d been singing at home. So we chanted “Up and down, and sky and ground” together while those with spades filled the hole and covered the roots. It was pretty special. Then he stood looking at the base of the tree for a while as everyone collected themselves to move on to the next hole. I’m not sure if he was a bit sad that he hadn’t been able to sing ‘Yellow Submarine’ to his tree, or if he was thinking about how he’d just planted a real tree. He didn’t seem upset, just thoughtful.

As Janice planted her rowan, the first in the orchard, she named the tree Rowan Tree Farm, which feels entirely appropriate.

That night, while the boy ate a late dinner of a grilled cheese sandwich, he said, “Mama, what was your favourite part of the day?” I thought about it and said, “After we had planted all the trees and went back inside, and we’d all changed into our dry clothes, and we all had drinks and pie, and looked around and enjoyed being with our dear friends after sharing something special.” He then asked his father the same question. When I asked him what his favourite part of the day was, he said thoughtfully, “I loved meeting the dog named Carter and petting him and not hurting his leg.” (Carter, the resident year-old collie/husky/shepherd mix, has had a bad run of luck with his right foreleg, and it is splinted.) Carter’s a big dog, loves people, and is currently sporting the latest in Elizabethan collars so he doesn’t gnaw at the leg, but none of this bothered Liam; he was completely in love with the dog and very careful not to knock the splint. As I was useless with the digging part of the day (thanks, fibro) I spent some time with Carter on a leash along the edge of the field so t! could get some work done, and the dog is definitely personable. I quite enjoyed his company.

Also at dinner, Liam said, “I like Amanda.” (Amanda, whom I have known since I was about eleven, had been a passenger in our car there and back.) And then, completely out of the blue, he said something I’d never heard him say before: “When I’m bigger, I’m going to marry her.” We suspect that her admiration of Blackie and her willingness to get down on the floor and play trucks with him led him to this momentous decision.

Sunday morning I was in a lot of pain, as I’d expected; one doesn’t walk around in an uneven field holding a drenched preschooler and expect to escape unscathed. By the time my in-laws arrived for the Mother’s Day brunch we hosted I was at least functional, though. Savoury quiche, waffles, sausages, piles of fruit, salad, and mimosas. Mmm. The boy began crashing just before noon, so both he and I had a lie-down. He slept for two and a half hours (not surprising given the expected lack of nap the day before) but a rude interruption by an arrogant Hydro rep at our door ruined my chance for rest. I then went off to our monthly group cello lesson after picking a dozen of the tulips from along the side of the house for my cello teacher. Great lesson prepping for the recital in two weeks, but alas, it seems as if we will be cutting my beloved “Ave Verum Corpus,” a hesitant announcement that made all three of us doing the top melody very sad. It’s being bumped to the Christmas recital, and I fully understand why; it needs more work so that all four voices move confidently at the same time, and as the lower voices don’t feel the melody the way we do they’re not as sure about where to move, or even how they’re supposed to sound like against the other parts. But I am sad indeed.

And then last night I finished reading Dan Simmons’ very excellent Drood.

That was my weekend. The end.

Five On A Friday

So far:

1. We are apparently the only family on the street who wasn’t told that the electricity was being cut for maintenance. Obviously, it’s back now.

2. Haircut! Ironic that after years of having very long hair, anything coming within an inch of my shoulders is officially Too Long. This was brushing my shoulders. I am very relieved to have chin-length hair again. The boy was very well-behaved and cute while we were there, but was very upset that I didn’t get a lollipop when I was done. I took him out to lunch later instead.

3. Groceries: check. And because the boy was with me, we ended up getting twice as much as I’d intended. I’m not going to say no when the child asks for apples and corn and yogurt. (I did, however, say no to the pancake mix and the chocolate. Pancake mix? When I make awesome pancakes on my own, thank you very much?)

4. The delivery cheque for the anthology arrived! Huzzah! Of course I was out by my bank this morning, and I didn’t get the cheque till we got home at noon, so we’ll be going back out when the boy’s nap is over. (Thanks so much, post-guy, for not delivering my mail at eight in the morning like you’ve been doing the past week, on the one day I really could have used it.) Still, it’s worth having, and worth more in the bank than as a piece of paper sitting on my desk. Alas that it did not arrive last week, when the exchange rate was even more favourable than it currently is.

5. And now… I bake. We need bread for home, and two batches of scones and a pecan pie to take out to the Coalition Stronghold tomorrow.

Mysteries

Why is my copy of The Mystery of Edwin Drood not shelved with my other Dickens novels?

And why are there still no potato chips in this house?

LATER: The day has gone from “Why are no potato chips?” to “Why is there no red wine in the house?” Yes, it’s that kind of working day.

Mid-Week

Well, the day home with the boy yesterday was mostly terrific. The morning was lovely; he watched TV while I slept, because three hours of sleep = Very Bad. The boys had a talk about how Mama needed some more sleep before she could get up and have a good day. The boy was mostly on board with this but decided to Take Care Of Me once HRH had left for work, which entailed bringing me various stuffed animals to cuddle while I slept, and informing me every time the TV show changed, which was at fifteen-minute intervals. Still, it was something. We went out to the big bookstore to noodle about and play with the trains, and wow, it’s nice and quiet on Tuesdays. We usually go once a month on a Friday, his regular at-home day, and it’s always packed. I finally picked up Dan Simmons’ Drood, which I am enjoying immensely, and the boy got a new Henry & Mudge book. He didn’t even fuss about not buying a train beyond pointing out the milk cars to me. Then I suggested wandering through the pet store, to which he readily agreed, and he didn’t kick and scream about leaving when we had to. We stopped by the Bramble House in its new location, which has more space but now feels like it carries fewer products as a result. It’s lost a bit of its charm. The boy got some Dairy Milk Buttons, and we bought a bottle of water at the corner store to share. (Very exciting if you are the boy.)

I was looking forward to his nap so I could nap too, but things went somewhat awry. He went to sleep willingly enough, but woke up after only forty-five minutes when I’d been counting on at least half an hour longer than that. Unfortunately for me, I’d only dozed for fifteen minutes myself before he pattered in, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I told him he could either play in his room or the living room, or cuddle with me, but I wasn’t getting up till three. He chose to stay, but whispered and squirmed a lot trying to pet Gryff, so I didn’t actually get back to sleep. At least I got to lie down with my eyes closed.

We did a small grocery run, and he was pretty good there too, apart from continually stepping on my feet because he wasn’t paying attention to where his own were. If I’d had enough sleep I’d have been more patient, but the little things like this were starting to make me grit my teeth. Once back home he settled down to watch the last half of a movie and play with his cars while I practised. I explained that I needed to, and that I’d close my office door so I wouldn’t disturb him, and he was fine with that. He came to the door about ten minutes in to watch me, then grinned and dashed away. Later, while I took a brief break, he brought his box of trains into my office to play, but when I picked the cello up again he burst into tears and wailed. He didn’t want me to play with him, he just didn’t want me to practise while he was in the room. And that’s where my short-on-sleep really caught up with me; my mood flipped from relaxed to tight and annoyed. When my temper was even enough again I talked to him about it being (a) my office, in which I am allowed to do whatever I like, and (b) he’d been informed that I was practising, so he had no reason to get upset. We went over the “How do you think Mama feels when you cry and tell her she can’t play the cello?” thing, and he mumbled, “You feel sad.” I could see that he was upset because he’d upset me, but he still didn’t want me to play.

HRH eventually got home, which helped diffuse the tension, and we had dinner. The boy was chipper and cheerful and played with him, and they had an awesome time in the bath and doing story and bed while I got ready for my cello lesson. And a wonderful cello lesson it was: my duet partner and I had a shared lesson wherein we worked our duet for the upcoming recital. It’s sounding really, really good. All we’re doing at this point is tweaking little things like gentling the ends of phrases and doing more subtle shaping along the way. Of course, I blew some simple stuff in the ensemble pieces we played first to warm up. I need to work out a weekly practise schedule where I can assign specific times to work on lesson stuff, solo pieces, ensemble music, and orchestra pieces. Otherwise I just end up trying to read through everything or what I remember going wrong, and other things get lost along the way. That’s a lot of music, after all, no matter how many notes I take about changes and obstacles in lessons and at rehearsal.

I’m worried about what’s going to happen in the summer when lessons stop.

Other good things that happened yesterday: I got my new freelance assignment (naturally, while we are given a week to turn them around, it lands at such a time when I only have two work days before the due date); receiving the exquisite score to The Painted Veil by Alexandre Desplat; and hearing back from the accountant about having a nice chunk of money being returned to us by the government. Yay for tax refunds! Yay, slashing at Visa/credit line/dumping money into RRSPs! Yay, no longer stressing about not having quite enough money from the anthology delivery cheque to buy the new computer and the 7/8 cello (for which I have begun thinking about names, which means yes, it’s going to be mine pending the full physical exam I want the luthier to give it)! I am content. I may even be able to buy a new bow, as mine is on its last legs frog-wise and has a nasty hook at the tip.

So other than the mild annoyance about not being able to sleep whenever I tried to, and the kerfuffle about not being allowed to play my cello in my own office, it was a very good day indeed.

Wiktory!

The copyedited anthology ms. has been handed in to the publisher! Next time I see it should be in proofs. Technically it’s due tomorrow, but the boy will be home with me because preschool is closed for the day, and so I guarantee that no work will get done.

I’ve also re-activated my freelance ms. evaluation gig, so I should get a new assignment from them soon. Meanwhile, today I think I’ll mess about with superficial edits in Orchestrated (things like inserting words or changing specific words, as I scribbled in the printout during my read-through of the first draft).

The weekend was really quiet and calm, so there isn’t much of a weekend roundup to report. We had dinner with my in-laws Saturday night, and there was delicious turkey (sort of a belated Easter thing). I got to bring the carcass home along with a few pounds of meat, and I made turkey soup yesterday. The whole house smelled fabulous.

We had a lovely Beltane rit on Saturday night, in which we made garden tokens in the form of painted river stones to hide in the yard to bless both the earth and the plants growing and/or to be planted in it. Sunday night we had another excellent session of the once-a-month steampunk horror game we’re in, and I rolled either dreadfully (read: 1) or brilliantly (read: 20), thereby establishing that if my character intuits/observes something cool she passes out. Also, huzzah, the whole party has finally been brought together!

Hmm. It’s getting lunchy. Think I’ll make a warm turkey sandwich.