Category Archives: Art, Theatre, & Film

Anniversary Joy

The boy will wake up from his (blessedly long) nap any moment, but I absolutely had to take a second to tell you what HRH got for me as an anniversary present:

A big red metal toolbox, with a full set of new tools, all for my very own.

Squee!

See, my toolbox has been one of those marital points of contention. I had a fully stocked kit when we got married. And I used it regularly. (This is just one of the many things that makes me so darn cool. Did you know that until he went out and bought himself a cordless DeWalt for this job, I owned the only drill in the house?) Over the past seven years, my toolkit has been slowly eroding as HRH “borrows” this and “uses” that and it gets left somewhere… And having been raised by my father, who insisted that every tool I used was placed back exactly where it came from promptly after use — well, I get snarly when I have something I need my tools to do, and I go to my toolkit, and what I need isn’t there, and in fact cannot be found anywhere.

So HRH said he was sorry in a magnificent way by giving me this kit (it has three sets of screwdrivers! each a different size! and he won’t borrow any of it because he has his full kit downstairs!).

Plus I got roses, too. I love the juxtaposition of roses and tools. It says so much about me.

“I don’t know who is cooler,” said Ceri to him when she found out, “you or your wife.”

I got him the three original theatrical Star Wars films on DVD, so he definitely wins the Coolest Gift award this year. (Not that we try to top one another; in fact, most years we don’t buy each other anything at all, or even do anything to celebrate at that.) But HRH claims that no anniversary gift from either of us will ever top the X-box I gave him two years ago, with an extra controller so that we could game together. He’s probably right.

And thank you for you good wishes yesterday, everyone, posted here and emailed privately!

ESTC Update

Total word count, ESTC: 32,131
Total words yesterday and today: 1,444

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
32,131 / 50,000
(64.3%)

The week is not getting better. With Liam’s regular homecare person away on vacation, I’ve been recruiting friends to come play with him for a couple of hours while I try to work. Apart from the average daily quota on Wednesday, yesterday was pretty much a failure thanks to Liam being cranky and clingy and spending most of his time hanging over the child gate in my office doorframe crying for me. This morning I discovered that my mother in law wasn’t expecting to watch Liam today, as he’s also going over there tomorrow, and I had a moment of sheer panic wondering if I would get any work done at all this week other than those two hours Wednesday afternoon. She rallied, however, and has taken him for a few hours so that I can get something done. Stricken from the list of things to do today as an unfortunate result were a nap (Liam’s been waking up two to four times throughout the nights recently, and HRH sleeps right through it), and the purchasing of a new ink cartridge for the printer and a pair of jeans that fit. The shower is going to happen, though, come what may.

On top of it all, Liam appears to be showing every classic sign of beginning to teethe again: rashes, excessive drool and the accompanying cough, incessant chewing, the night wakings…. Can we just have some time out, please?

In general, things have been working up to a point where I would like to scream. Perhaps cry, or some sort of similar expression of frustration. My so-called vacation is a mountain of work, and the next weekend trip might not even happen thanks to bad scheduling. I have a wild urge to throw everything I agreed to organise and do back at the people for whom I’m doing it, and telling them all to deal with it themselves.

I did have a nice evening out last night: Pasley and I went to see The Illusionist, which was a beautifully made film. I enjoyed it a lot.

I’ve done a few hundred words today and that’s going to have to be enough, because I have other stuff piling up that’s due this weekend and next week for various commitments, and I have no other time in which to do them. And I have to go pick the boy up early.

Back In The Swing of Orchestra

It was nice to end the day on such a good note. No pun intended.

It felt great to walk into the auditorium and set up, to say hi to people, to catch up a bit. I’m sitting second chair this season (whee!), trading off with another woman concert by concert. For the first performance, we’re playing Beethoven’s Eighth, some Rubenstein, more Brahms Hungarian Dances, the Skaters’ Waltz (I get to play the bass line for this one), and a Schubert overture. As usual, we sight read it all; not quite as usual, I managed to hang on through it all, except during the stupidly easy long runs where I always lose it because I look ahead (the way one does while sight reading) and then lose my place because all the notes look the same. (I’m going to enlarge most of my music this time.That will probably help.)

I noticed that band has really helped me be more confident about where my fingers are on the fingerboard when I change positions. I can’t get away with lazy basic fingering at band the way I can at orchestra because I’m totally exposed, so in order to get the best sound possible I have to use alternate fingering. Last night I found myself automatically using alternate fingering while sight reading. I’m much more confident about jumping into higher positions too (which are technically lower in relation to the floor, but produce a higher sound because they shorten the string). I also discovered that using the heaviest bow I have is great for band, but kills me at orchestra. I’m going to have to remember to switch the bows every time I go to a different rehearsal. Actually, I may just leave my heavy bow at the studio, because I can use my lighter bow at home when working on band stuff as I’m working on technique, not volume.

All in all I was very pleased with how I did after two months off. After all, I’ve been playing Metallica and The Tragically Hip all summer. I think I played some Bach twice.

I called HRH at break to see how the finale of Supernova was going. He told me it was already over and that Lukas had won, which stunned me; I hadn’t expected that at all. But hurrah! They’ll have to add more Canadian tour dates now.

I was very pleased to get a sheet outlining the rehearsal schedule along with my pile of new music. We already have not one but two confirmed concerts this fall. The first one is in mid-November (the date may have to be altered, so it’ll be either the 18th or the 19th of November.). The second is on Saturday December 16, and as I found out at the end of the rehearsal — this is where the night officially made up for the stress of the day — we’re doing The Messiah, with choir.

Eeeeeee!

So when I got home I pulled out my full Messiah score and really looked at the bass parts. The copy I have has the three higher string lines and figured bass for keyboard (organ, ideally) but I can see what should be played by which bass instrument. They’re kind of eep, so this is going to take a lot of work for me. But hey — The Messiah! You’re all coming, right? Of course you are.

I’ve missed orchestra; I started missing it around the beginning of August. It’s good to be back.

So Not Less The Drama

Liam, of course, had a wonderful afternoon yesterday with his godparents and came home all smiles. Ate like a small horse. Slept for an hour and a half. Bit no one. (Or so I assume, because I didn’t hear about it.) And then he ate a huge bowl of pasta and veggies in homemade cheese sauce for supper, had a fun bath during which he gave us very wet and tender hugs, and went to bed cheerfully. With those damn molars, it’s like Jeckyll and Hyde around here sometimes.

Filling the gas tank to the literal brim gave me an indecent amount of pleasure. Our gas tank hasn’t been full since sometime in late May. I just keep putting five or ten dollars in when gas prices dip down closer to a dollar, or when we need it. Pumping gas doesn’t rank as one of my favorite tasks — I don’t hate it, I’m just neutral about it — but I enjoyed every moment this time. It was extraordinarily satisfying.

HRH and I had a good dinner of leftover ribs and new potatoes drowned in butter with freshly ground sea salt and pepper. Simple, and utterly delicious. We watched a very good PBS program on the making of the Mars Pathfinders, followed by the second-ever RockStar: Supernova episode that I’ve seen, which I somehow feel that I enjoyed much more than I should have. It’s just become appointment television. (Gentle Readers, I am in a band, you know. We do play The Ramones and Metallica. And I’m fascinated by the art of arrangement.)

I received a deeply appreciated message from one of my oldest friends this morning, pointing out some positive truths that helped reinforce today’s saner perspective for me. I don’t have to always be perky and cheerful and resilient. Stress happens. Nerves understandably fray. And the stress gets worse because I care so much.

Today, I have a stack of Haydn string quartet CDs to rip to my computer as I work, because one can never have enough string quartets in one’s playlists. Then I may move on to ripping my Beethoven quartets. Then Schubert. Who knows? I lead such a wild and crazy life.

What We Did On The First Sunday Of August

Ever since I can remember, the first Sunday in August has been the Highland Games.

I’ve remembered it too late to schedule it in over recent years, or we’ve been busy, but this year we made it. We packed up both godfamiles, and off we all went for an afternoon out in the gorgeous sun. There wasn’t a spot of humidity anywhere, and there was a decent breeze, thank goodness.

HRH wore his kilt — of course — and Liam wore the tiny kilt that my grandfather got for me from Edinburgh when I was a wee little thing. They stopped a lot of traffic.

Liam loved the massed bands; he loved the drums and the pipes (not a surprise at all, considering his heritage and the cousins who play both); he loved all the dogs he saw; he smiled at and charmed just about everyone he met. He reached for a total stranger to cuddle with her, but it was fine, because it turned out that she was the wife of one of the members of Salty Dog, a local Celtic band that HRH used to hang out with lo these many years ago. And she was more than happy to cuddle him a bit before heading off to the beer tent where the band was striking up. He absolutely was not interested in napping, or eating that much; too much to see! to do! to hear! The one thing he wasn’t happy about was the cannon that was part of the opening ceremonies. He’d been fine through the display of musketfire, but when they fired the cannon he was looking the other way. The sudden sharp sound surprised him more than anything else, so there was a bit of angry crying. But after he’d cuddled with each of us and had a bit more milk, he was fine and interested in the bands marching onto the field.

I came home with badly sunburned shoulders, despite the amount of sunscreen I slathered on before departure. But apart from that, it was a wonderful wonderful day, one of the best I’ve had in a while. The massed bands at the opening ceremonies were, as always, worth the $10 admission fee alone. And it felt really special to bring my son to his first games, as I’d been brought to too many to count while growing up.