Category Archives: Diary

Gah! Done!

It took way, way, way too long to finish up today. I started working at 7:40 AM and spent most of the morning on the iBook in the living room. Once I moved in here to handle polishing the review things fell apart. I don’t like this not-able-to-work-in-my-office trend. It’s bad. I suspect if I’d stayed in the living room I’d have focused better.

Anyway, it’s four, and I’m exhausted so I’m not even going to contemplate working on Orchestrated. I need to fall over with a book. Nixie has been at me to be elsewhere too, placing herself like a little black statue on my desk between my keyboard tray and the monitor, purring at me; every once in a while she’s reached out a tiny black paw with the claws ever so slightly extended, patting my hands or my sweater sleeves, coaxing me to stroke her.

Mailboy joy today included two of the Scrabble tile pendants I bought last week (super fast shipping!), which are even lovelier in person (I will buy brown velvet ribbon on which to string them when I am racing all over creation tomorrow), and the new issue of Strings. Let’s hope this one is better than the last one. I will read that, and finish Justine Larbalestier’s How to Ditch Your Fairy.

Orchestra tonight. And I have no idea what to do for dinner.

Parent-Teacher Interview Review

According to his preschool educator, our son is very grounded, confident, and sensitive to what’s going on around him. His language skills are incredibly advanced, and he’s showing excellent problem-solving and pre-math skills. He just needs to focus on slowing down a bit, because his mind is racing ahead and his body can’t keep up, so he’s (a) clumsy and (b) so eager that he forgets to enjoy what he’s currently doing, and quite often forgets to finish.

The other children love him, the younger ones especially. He often ends up with a small crowd of them following along, and he can give them things to do or suggest ways that they can play.

HRH, once everyone was buckled into the car, discreetly made a fist and pumped it once, saying: “My son has minions!”

And because today is their Halloween party, here is what has been obsessing Liam and providing HRH with a creative outlet this past week:

Halloween 2008

Orchestrated Update

Yes, gentle readers, not only have I baked two loaves of bread, made pizza dough, and a batch of new incense, but I have added to Orchestrated!

New words today: 2,493
Total word count, Orchestrated: 28,739

Makes me want to go add seven words just so I can type ‘2,500.’

And just because I am feeling smug:

Total word count, Nine Noble Virtues workshop: 3,092

Over 5,000 words today. Very nice. Plus the incense and the bread and the other stuff. The one thing I haven’t done today is practise, but I forgive myself. Also, my fingers are all non-fine-motor-skills today for some reason, and I had trouble standing up properly this morning, so.

Time to wrap things up before HRH picks me up o nhis way home so we can do the purchasing of Pizza Toppings Autumn Forgot Yesterday as well as milk and coffee and other things I didn’t know we needed, and then collect the small boy from Grandma’s house.

Today So Far…

… is running precisely in schedule. (Now that I’ve said that, of course, life as we know it will collapse.)

I spent the morning outlining and expanding my workshop for tomorrow’s All-Day-Double-CovenPalooza, and finished polishing it pretty much on the stroke of noon, which is when I wanted it done. There is bread rising. When that’s done and in the oven, there will be pizza dough made. (Note to self: You forgot to pick up peppers and mushrooms yesterday, scatterbrain. Not that they were on the shopping list.) (Not that being on the list would have made any difference. Or maybe it might have, because I actually did get everything on the grocery list, just not the to-do list.) I had breakfast, and lunch, too. I even managed a shower. The postman brought HRH’s copy of Fable II, and my copy of The Red Violin, so I have a new movie to watch tonight while we pack for CovenPalooza.

My last evaluation/review of the book that brought me so much pain was accepted, no edits required. You have no idea how thankful I am.

In the realm of music, I have just discovered Thea Gilmore and am thoroughly enjoying listening to Avalanche. Also still enjoying Alice Cooper’s latest, Along Came a Spider, and I recently pulled Christine Fellow’s The Last One Standing into rotation again.

I’m going to walk away from the desktop and the siren call of the Internet now and curl up with the iBook to reacquaint myself with Orchestrated. It’s very frustrating to do this in fits and starts, but one does what one can.

Life Is Good

Today is a beautiful, sunny, crisp fall day, and I had my first private cello lesson in ten years.

We addressed lots of things, which didn’t feel overwhelming at the time but as I’m processing it I’m thinking that wow, yes, it was a lot. Ringing tones, intonation and tonalization, bow grip, leading with the elbow (which is completely at odds with how I was originally taught, which was to lead from the wrist, but I can see how leading with the elbow opens the body up and can produce a more beautiful and precise sound, and she says she was first taught the wrist way as well so at least I’m in good company), exercises for the bow grip and how it’s supposed to pivot around the thumb as the bow moves from frog to tip and back, shifting exercises from first to second position… yes, it’s a lot. But these things all came up as we worked through a Schumann chorale piece, playing slow, long notes to really hear what was happening. I spent a lot of the lesson with my eyes closed or staring off at nothing while I tried to listen to the sound I was making and feel the way my hands and arms had begin repositioned so that I could do it again on my own. I felt muscles in my right arm that I didn’t know were used while bowing. I just hope I can remember how it feels.

She asked about what books and exercises I had, what I’d played before, and what I was interested in playing. I didn’t think at first to list the things I wanted to work on, but I didn’t need to because most of them came up in the course of the lesson! Ultimately what I’m looking for is how to better create a beautiful sound, something large and rich and, well, beautiful. So we’re going to go back to some of my first pieces and work on those, focusing on intonation and lovely sound, and start looking at the Rick Mooney books I bought this summer to help shifting and position work.

I am so happy to be doing something about this. And it’s affordable, and enjoyable, and good for me.

I realized at the end of the lesson that I’d spent an awful lot of the last fourteen years trying not to make a big sound, thanks to the scarring experience of having seniors banging on my floors and ceilings when I tried to practise at the very beginning. The Resident Fan Club will be happy to know that from now on I am not allowed to use a practise mute, nor pull the power I’m trying to channel through the bow. My teacher’s main room is tiled with lovely earth-toned ceramic tile and has a grand piano in it, so the sound echoes beautifully and it’s really easy to hear sympathetic strings vibrating when you play a ringing tone.

In other cello-related news, I have a lead on a semi-soft cello case that is exactly the one I loved so much that came with the Eastman 7/8 I tried this summer! The person selling it on Kijiji is being slow about returning my e-mails though, and I don’t want to lose this the way I’ve lost the last six tries to buy a secondhand iBook. I’m now waiting to hear when she can meet me so I can see/buy it. And last night’s orchestra rehearsal was very good too; we’re sounding a lot more precise and there are actual dynamics happening. We spend the first ten minutes doing exercises with a scale related to a piece we’re working on, using different bow techniques and strokes and so forth. The guest conductor is tailoring these exercises to something we’ll encounter in the music we’re working on that night. Very clever; keeps it all fresh in the mind. And as for the music, the Wagner’s off the programme and a Vivaldi concerto grosso is on.

Of course the postperson came while I was gone, so I missed a package. But there were cheques for work done waiting for me when I got home! I also did some banking, stopped by the library to pick up a reserve and found two other new acquisitions that I wanted to read as well, I put gas in the car, and did a small grocery pickup. My cello lessons are right by Fairview, and as I pulled away from my teacher’s house I thought, Is there anything I need at Fairview? Nah, and kept going… only to realize on the highway halfway home that yes, I had indeed needed to pick up something very specific at Fairview, and that I was an idiot because I even had it written on a list of things to do… that was safely inside my pocket where I couldn’t see it. Argh. Looks like I’m going to need an agenda again, something more portable than my lovely but big Daytimer binder I used to use when I was working outside the home. Maybe I’ll treat myself to a trip to the office supply shop on the way to collect the boy, to see what they have.

In the meantime, I am brining chicken. I am tempted to get some Brie and mushrooms so I can make those delicious chicken pastry things again, but HRH is leaving early tonight so I don’t think we’ll have time for that. The chicken will be just as lovely on its own.

Weekend Roundup

As much as I would love this to be detailed, point form is the only way I’m going to be able to record it and still have time for, you know, breathing.

FRIDAY:

Morning: Running errands. The boy dawdles and doesn’t listen to repeated instructions, and develops a very annoying pattern of taking six steps then falling to his knees, hanging off my hand. Despite this, he is in a good mood. I carry him bodily out of Sears and give him a sound talking-to back at the car. We do not find the birthday gift we planned to pick up. Also, somewhere during the very first stop I lose the list detailing All The Other Things We’re Supposed To Pick Up. Ergo, I forget them. We do, however, acquire a ball for the boy to bring out to the country with us (see ‘Saturday,’ below).

Afternoon: Arthur comes to visit!!! (And we get to briefly see Curtana too.) For the rest of the day we have two giggly boys who bound through the house, build fantastic train layouts, and make loud but enthusiastic music. Dinner, bath, jammies, then a special treat of curling up on the chesterfield under a throw with bowls of popcorn and a brand new Thomas hour-long film to watch, which means Liam gets to stay up and hour and a bit past his bedtime. (Thank you, Pierce Brosnan, for making the narration not completely irritating to listen to.) Arthur is collected at a quarter to nine. Liam is sad but the fun they had during the day wins out mood-wise. The boy falls dead asleep at nine on the dot. Wow.

SATURDAY:

Morning: HRH heads out to get the oil changed and to pick up the housewarming gift I forgot on Friday. He comes back to collect us, we put a wee bit of gas in the car, and grab breakfast for the trip out to the Coalition Stronghold. I figure out that the reason I’m squinting is because I forgot to put my glasses on before we left, and naturally I don’t carry my extra pair any more. Back home; pick up glasses; hit highway. Liam pulls out his blanket and BunBun, arranges himself, and falls asleep at 10:45. Argh! HRH and I enjoy the drive to Maxville, appreciating the autumn trees and the golden sun. The boy wakes up when we turn onto a gravel road. Well, at least he got about seventy minutes of sleep. Too bad it was two hours early.

Afternoon: We relax at the Coalition Stronghold, the new abode of t! and Jan. We have the place and out hosts to ourselves for a while before the next car shows up. In the meantime the boy’s track is set up and the trains run, and HRH and I are handed bottles of beer that we cannot find in Quebec. Yay, colonial loyalty! More friends show up; there are hugs and news exchanged. HRH, the boy, and I go for a walk into the back forty behind the Coalition Stronghold through mowed and unmowed fields to see the pond. There are no ducks on said pond, which disappoints the boy mightily. When back, I try to get the boy to lie down for a nap. It might have succeeded if someone hadn’t opened the closed door while exploring the house, causing Liam to jump up and greet them enthusiastically. Ah well. There is food that mysteriously aggregates on the dining room table, and an impromptu Scrabble game that Lu wins. More friends show up, just as we leave to be home in time for a proper wind-down, dinner, bath, and bed. We bring our winter order of organic beef home with us; the size of the roasts and hamburger packages are perfect. Our chest freezer is full. We will have to shift things or pack them in canny fashion in order to fit the 15ish pounds of pork we have coming in soonish as well. We also gas up in Ontario. Gas for under a dollar a litre! Whee!

Evening: Coven meeting, at which the ritual we’re leading at next weekend’s all-day retreat is approved by all, and some final questions noted down to pass along to the other participants.

SUNDAY:

Morning of cleaning and housework and errands. I roll three balls of yarn, two necessary because Gryffindor weaselled them out of hiding and neutralised the dangerous woolly threats by turning them into hopeless messes. I hem that new pair of pants I got last week. After lunch I head out for a baby shower, which is lovely, but which I have to leave early because I have my first cello lesson to attend. I wear my funky red shoes for confidence at the lesson, and those new pants. I mistime the travel and realize I’ll be half an hour early if I go straight there, so I stop at the needlework shop to buy the needles I need for my next knitting project. (Note: ‘Next’ implies I’ve ever finished one. I have failed miserably at every knitting project I’ve ever tried. But I have begun a new one [armwarmers for me] and have decided to heroically attempt a hat for the newly hairless Mousme.) I go from the needlework shop to my lesson and am ten minutes early anyway. Sigh. I make a critical decision and unpick the new hems on my pants with my Swiss army knife. When someone else shows up for the group lesson I unload the cello and walk into my teacher’s house behind her. I enjoy myself, after the initial ‘oh hell I’m the only one who doesn’t know anyone here’ discomfort. Once the group lesson itself begins, to my surprise I do not suck. (See ‘Expanded Cello Stuff,’ below.) Home for dinner made by HRH, a really awesome steak done on the barbecue. Put boy to bed, then sit down for an hour and hammer out the phrasing for ‘Itsumo Nando Demo’. Go to bed, read, fall asleep.

All in all, a Very Good Weekend.

EXPANDED CELLO STUFF:

It was odd: I was both nervous and not about this lesson. My first lesson was supposed to be a private one last Thursday, but last week was a disaster of sick people and forcing four days of work into two, so it didn’t happen. Instead, the once-a-month group lesson ended up being my first. I am, as I repeatedly point out and people seem to disbelieve because I do an impressive job pretending otherwise, extremely shy, so walking into an established social group of ten people was daunting. What’s the etiquette? Where do I put my stuff? Did I take someone’s parking spot? Am I sitting in someone’s customary seat? At the same time, I knew my teacher and one other student, having played with them in the orchestra for seven and three years respectively, so I had something of a lifeline. The little coffee break between the youngest cellists’ lesson and the group lesson was the most awkward, so awkward for me that I took a cup of coffee to have something to do with my hands (and it was really, really good coffee too, which was nice). Eventually we settled and our teacher put us in various places around the room, we tuned, and started playing.

This is the point where I actually relaxed. I know, I know; normally I’d be tense about playing in a small group with people I don’t know. But somewhere a couple of minutes in, I realised that I didn’t suck. I am used to expecting to be/actually being of a lower technical proficiency than others. Here I was at par with, or even more confident than, others in the group. The beginning was rocky because I was having trouble hearing my intonation, but then something clicked and then it was all okay. There was the disaster of misplacing my hand badly when I had to go really high up while sight-reading an arrangement of Satie’s ‘Gymnopedie’, but hey, sight-reading for fun; no harm, no foul. (Lovely, lovely pieces in that Cellobrations collection for cello quartet, I hope we play lots of them in the future.) I enjoyed it all so much that I played one of the new pieces I was given at the lesson when I got home while the boy was in the bath ( “Is Mama playing her cello for me? While I’m in the bath?” followed by appreciative applause when I’d done), and after I’d put him to bed I sat down for another hour and really worked on bowings and phrasing for the song Sandman7 and I are working on. It took me the whole hour to play bits with different bowings, make a decision one way or the other, and put slurs and bowings in for the entire piece to get it to where I was happy with the phrasing. Next comes recording it while I play it in this version and listening to it to see if it actually works from an audience POV.

Also, my teacher showed us the most adorable Twinkle bow, a fully functional miniature bow used to teach children how to hold it properly and to use the proper wrist and elbow motions. Because it’s so tiny you can’t help but hold it properly in order to get the maximum yield from the hair. We squealed when we saw it.

I think that’s a decent summary of the weekend. We loved having Arthur over. I had a terrific beginning to my first lessons in ten years. I saw people I only get to see once in a while both at the housewarming and at the baby shower (including the mother-to-be!). We really, really enjoyed being out in the country on Saturday. We want to try to visit the Coalition Stronghold at least once a month, but realistically it will likely end up being every six weeks or so.

It was wonderful to have such a positive weekend.

I think that’s about it. The end.

Headaches

Yesterday, not long after I wrote my journal entry about practising, my Internet connection went kablooey and I spent the next couple of hours unsuccessfully trying to fix it. I ended up turning the damn thing off and going to work in the living room. It gave me writing time, but I had tons of Internet-associated research to handle and correspondence to catch up on, and it made me very cranky. Also, I lost an expanded ETA form of that last post in which I rhapsodized about a particular shift that I love doing in one of my lesson pieces. And the post didn’t actually post thanks to the kablooeyness, I discovered this morning. Gnarr.

However, I managed to play cello for a while longer, and accomplished this as well:

Orchestrated:
New words yesterday: 2,508
Total word count, Orchestrated: 26,246

Uh-oh. The protagonist’s mother came home early and found her with a boy in the house. Alone. Playing music, but still. Also, a date? With someone else? What is this turning into? Where the hell did that come from?

Orchestra last night was good. I don’t know if someone mentioned something about our situation to the guest conductor but he’s really focusing on interpretation and phrasing. Quite nice. And the principal showed me a terrific fingering for the opening phrase of the Wagner clarinet piece we’re accompanying (five flats! dear gods!).

Today I have an awful, awful headache that extra-strength Tylenol is doing nothing to assuage. Thanks to this headache I fell asleep again while the boy was playing this morning and didn’t get him to the caregiver’s till just before ten o’clock, so the day started somewhat later than usual. I did get the Internet connection up and running once more, thanks to an installation CD lent to me by the upstairs neighbours (bless them) so that headache has been taken care of although it took an hour to do. We have groceries for dinner. I have mostly caught up on correspondence and stuff. I have even eaten lunch. There are more errands to run tomorrow morning.

Now I get to do a draft of a ritual, and write some more. My head hurts an awful lot, though. Time to drag out the white flower balm, and hit what I suspect is a baby migraine with some extra-strength Excedrin.