Category Archives: Art, Theatre, & Film

Playing Hooky

Long draw: ye gods. I understand the theory and what should be happening, but I need better fibre to practice with, because the mill ends and seconds I’ve got are making a yarn that’s, well, tweedy, to say the least. I’m not expecting to make a perfect woollen yarn right off the bat, but the fibre’s jamming against the neps in it, no matter how I try to card them out. And a cat got into the lovely basket of rolags I carded while I was out last night; I came home to a shredded, tangled mess of fibre on the carpet. I don’t know who’s to blame, Nixie or Gryffindor, as they’re both fibre fiends, but the two of them are on my Naughty List at the moment.

One week ago we talked to the boy about the flu shot, what it was and why it was important to be vaccinated. He got upset ( “I don’t want a needle to take out my blood!” he cried, because the last time he saw needles being used was when HRH and I had our prises de sang done), but he agreed to go with us on the 10th because at that time children under five years plus their families were scheduled to be vaccinated as of Nov 9. The plan as we all worked it out was: HRH would book the day off and the boy would stay home from school. HRH would get his shot first so that the boy could watch, then the boy, then the boy could hold my hand so I wouldn’t be afraid. After our shots, we said that as a treat we could all go see Astro Boy in the theatre. And then, the very next day, Montreal changed the damn schedule again, and families of kids five and under were no longer eligible to be vaccinated at the same time. This meant that we effectively lied to him about doing it all together, which really didn’t sit well with us.

The revised schedule said that people with chronic conditions like asthma were eligible as of Nov 23, and everyone else as of Dec 7. So we told Liam that he could choose what to do: Either he could have his shot on Tuesday while we held his hand, then we’d go see Astro Boy and have popcorn like we were going to; or he could wait until the 23rd when I could get it at the same time. At first he said the 23rd, but then he asked again what exactly the flu was. We explained that it was a bad sickness that made little kids very very ill, sicker than adults, and the doctors and nurses decided that they would give all the kids their shots first to make sure they’d be okay, and then the mummies and daddies could have what was left over. He thought about it some more and said that he would go on Nov 10 after all, as long we held his hand, and then we could go see the movie together as we’d already agreed. We were so proud of him. The crying and protesting when we originally told him about the shot were dramatic, but I guess he’d worked all the scared stuff out then, and so the thinking about when to get his shot when we gave him the choice was more level-headed.

And then at the end of last week, Montreal changed the schedule yet again and said that kids under five and adults with chronic conditions (hello, asthma!) were eligible to get the shot a few days earlier than their respective revised dates. So the plan changed a third time to the boy and I getting the shot together on Nov 10. And so today we went out at eight o’clock and waited about half an hour in line to get into the clinic, at which point an incredibly streamlined process had us register, move to sit with a nurse to fill out the health questionnaire, then go right to be vaccinated. And we were so proud of the boy who only cried a bit, and who is very proud of his Band-Aid with a Lightning McQueen sticker on it. I have nothing but the highest praise for the volunteers and medical staff who are manning the Angrignon clinic. They’re cheerful, supportive, efficient, responsive, and good with adults but especially good with the children I saw being vaccinated. (The nurse who gave me my shot even offered me a Disney princesses sticker when he saw me watching the boy choose his own Cars sticker, but I declined.)

While the amazing ever-changing flu vaccination schedules in Montreal have annoyed the heck out of me, there’s one thing that has stayed constant, and I’m thankful for it: kids under five have been moved up, but never delayed as some other groups have been. But the quickly-changing information was making it a real pain to try to schedule anything. I understand that the schedule is being constantly revised according to the availability of the vaccine and the need to get the higher-risk groups inoculated as soon as possible. I wasn’t panicking about getting the shot – I’m not worried about getting the flu and the health complications from it, or there being a vaccine shortage; I’m more concerned about slowing the transmission of it through the population – but I was getting increasingly irritated at the inconstant schedule and contradictory information on official municipal versus provincial websites.

Anyway, it’s done, and we’re at home. The boy is watching cartoons, a huge treat on a weekday. We’ll do an early lunch, then a nap, and then we’re all off to the Colisee to see Astro Boy together.

ETA: Astroboy was lots of fun, and a decent little story without the usual tangents and dumb vaudeville stuff they put in kids’ films (there was a teeny bit, but it wasn’t toxic). The boy was literally on the edge of his seat for the last half. As for the flu vaccination, I have become increasingly achy and exhausted throughout the day, which is pretty much what I expected.

Weekend Roundup, End Of Summer Edition

I’ve got the second round of canned tomatoes happening. I think I’ll get one more round from the garden. Some of the weather has been so bad this past month that we’ve lost lots of green tomatoes, and a couple of entire tomato plants. Still, I’ll have about a dozen jars, which is more than nothing. I may buy a bushel of tomatoes from the market and do a whole bunch more preserving this season. It feels very much like canning weather, what with the sudden dip in temperature to high teens or very low twenties.

This was a packed weekend, made more difficult than it should have been by my increasing fibro flare-up, now with exciting bonus back pain, seized lumbar region, and spasms. Friday night HRH mowed the lawn and vacuumed, because we were going to be out pretty much all weekend. Saturday morning we visited the Preston-LeBlancs for a lovely tea party, where we all settled down and relaxed and knitted or chatted or drew, and feasted on cinnamon rolls (I tried a new recipe, yum!), zucchini brownies, berry cake, and zucchini bread. Back home there was a quick lunch then a nap, for both the boy and I because I wasn’t feeling well. After nap HRH and the boy went grocery shopping, because I just couldn’t drag myself out of bed to do it, and then we all went upstairs to have Chinese fondue with Blade and Scarlet, which was a lot of fun.

Sunday morning was the monthly Pagan playgroup meeting, which the boy adores. It was a belated Lughnassadh-themed circle, so I baked my Lughnassadh herb bread to share afterwards, and that was a hit. While the boy napped I made cookies, and when he woke from his afternoon nap we packed them, the corn pot, and the cello up for the beginning-of-season BBQ at my cello teacher’s house. The boy wore his Superman t-shirt and the little red cape ADZO had made for a birthday party, and ran around the beautifully landscaped backyard through pergolas and archways and lovely shady areas. There was fabulous corn on the cob, hot dogs, delicious artisan sausages, salads, and the usual fun BBQ fare, and it was nice to talk to people we don’t often speak with. After dessert we set up and did some playing, which was fun too, although it highlighted how lax we’d all been with practice over the summer. Then it was home for a quick to-bed, Blade came down to be the Designated Responsible Adult On Site, and HRH and I headed back out for our monthly RPG night. During which, I must say, I laughed harder than I’d laughed in ages, and appreciated how all the clues finally fell together.

The boy discovered the Justice League yesterday. He’s known about them, but he finally saw a couple of episodes, and now we are all referred to as superheroes. I am, of course, Wonder Woman, and HRH is usually cast as Green Lantern. I think this month’s treat will be a season of JL on DVD.

I went back on active duty with the ongoing freelance gig this morning. Orchestrated‘s pretty much done, the bank account’s looking low, and I need discipline. Also, I suspect that by working on someone else’s deadline again, the spinning wheel I’ve awaited for the past six weeks should arrive at the shop within about three days in response to my drastically reduced free time. Because life is like that.

Weekend Roundup, In Which There Is A Visit To The Godforsaken Howling Wilderness

Wonderful, wonderful weekend.

Friday the boy and I had our special day out together. We visited the Melange Magique for incense, and the boy played with the resident cat Tequila and chattered away to Sam and Debra when she arrived. From there we went to Ariadne Knits to visit with Mary Louise and her ten-month old son Henry, and to inquire about the status of my wheel order. She tracked down my order for me and discovered that the model of wheel had been backordered at the CDN warehouse for a month. The order was closed on Friday morning, so it’s either on a truck or will be on one as of Monday, so I figure a week to two weeks at most for my wheel. I picked up a lovely skein of Koigu Painter’s Palette Premium Merino fingering weight in soft variegated greens with which to knit a lace scarf. I will lick my hatred of fingering weight and lace in one simple yet elegant scarf for my fall jacket! We somehow spent an hour there, the boys interacting with one another and the store spinning wheel (the boy spent a lot of time turning it via the footman, and told a client who came in that he was spinning yarn for her to buy). Then it was home for lunch and rest, and then to the local movie theatre to see the new Miyazaki film Ponyo. It was very sweet, and the feel struck me as being a cross between My Neighbour Totoro with the magic of Spirited Away, and a dash of the humans-and-Nature-in-balance thing from Princess Mononoke. Excellent voice acting, truly stunning art (a lot of it takes place underwater or involves sea creatures), and a lovely score. The boy got very excited when he saw the Studio Ghibli logo on the big screen, as it’s a sketch of Totoro. Also: Astro Boy trailer! Woo! And Toy Story and Toy Story 2 coming out as a 3D double bill this fall!

Saturday morning the boy woke up at five. I sent him back to bed where he stayed very obediently till about six-twenty, but he didn’t go back to sleep. Then an hour or so later he experienced digestive upset, which was no fun at all for the poor kid. HRH was gloomy and predicted canceling our long-planned trip out to the Fearsranch to spend the day with Fearsclave and his lovely wife Carolyn, but I was stubborn. We’d already reduced the trip from an overnight to a day trip, and I wasn’t losing the single day. I bargained for leaving an hour later, and all was fine by then. We arrived in Alexandria at eleven-thirty on the dot and the fun began. The boy romped with Jack the dog and crawled after cats, then pulled books on trains off the shelf and brought them out to the swing on the back deck to share with Carolyn while the gentlemen hacked away at the threateningly overgrown tomato patch. There was a late lunch of corn on the cob, Greek salad, and homemade whole-wheat bread. We even had dessert first, a delicious lemon-blueberry-vanilla cake with vanilla glaze and strawberries on top. After lunch we wandered next door to the abode of Fearsclave’s parental units to coo over Bonnie’s new-to-her 30″ white ash Saxony Schacht-Reeves spinning wheel, and they left me there, spinning piles of BFL fibre that Bonnie just kept cheerfully handing to me. The slowest ratio on the Schacht-Reeves is 14:1; the fastest on my forthcoming wheel is 10.5:1! She also showed off her bouquet of spindles, which were lovely, and her fibre stash.

Dinner was a wild turkey, slow-roasted at a low temperature with lots of liquid to counter the leanness, potatoes and beans form the garden, and a Caesar salad. I whipped up some sage and onion gravy for the turkey and baked a pecan pie for dessert, and everything was delicious. Unsurprisingly, the wild turkey had a different texture and taste from the supermarket kind. The only oops was that we whipped the cream for the pie into butter. Heh. Around five o’clock the boy was a bit punchy so we asked if we could put a movie on for him, and wonder of wonders they had Kiki’s Delivery Service on DVD, which we haven’t seen in ages because our VHS player finally died. We paused it so we could all gather for dinner around seven, through which he was slightly drunk on sun and exercise and a missed nap, putting his arms around people and leaning his cheek against theirs, professing his love, and saying, “I like these people. These are nice people, Mama.” He went back inside to finish watching his film while the rest of us had tea and dessert, and we left with great reluctance around eight-thirty. The boy was fast asleep before we got to the end of the road. (Apparently we just missed t! and Jan on their way home from Tal’s housewarming party, which was a shame.) I was thoroughly pleased by the boy’s behaviour: he was polite, thoughtful, exuberant, and a very good boy in general. There were a couple of hiccoughs, such as his inability to remember that we told him (over and over) not to pick George the very old cat up, but George didn’t seem to mind, thank goodness; and when we were leaving Carolyn gave him her copy of The Jungle Book on DVD, and he was so tired that he held it and said, “But I don’t need this.” We had a whispered discussion about how when someone offered a gift we accepted it gracefully with thanks, and there was eventually a mumbled thank you. (All was well the next day when he saw it on the table and bounced up to it, saying, “I need to watch this today! It’s my new movie!”) He was very taken with all the adults who wandered in and out through the day. All in all, we had a wonderful time, and we didn’t want it to end. As we brought him out to the car the boy said, “I don’t want to go home. Can’t we stay here?” As his resistance to the idea of an overnight had been one of the deciding factors in making it a day trip instead, the whole-hearted about-face was satisfying. (The other reason was Monday was the first day of school for both the boy and HRH, so a full day at home before it seemed like a good plan. And it was.)

Sunday was our at-home/errand day. HRH picked up new shoes, and we went to the hardware store to pick up stain for the forthcoming wheel, new work gloves for the boy and I, and a belt pouch for HRH’s work essentials. The boys washed the car while I chatted with my mother, and that afternoon we did garden work, liberating a good two dozen full-sized potatoes and about six dozen tomatoes. I dashed out to pick up new jars for canning (because if one is canning, one needs jars, something I’d completely forgotten about) and to have a cup of tea with Ceri, then came back to start the process. In the past I’ve had horrible luck peeling tomatoes, even with the boiling water/ice water dip, but yesterday it worked like a charm. I suspect I’ve just not boiled them long enough is the past. I was quite disappointed that so many fresh tomatoes only yielded me four 500ml and one 250 ml jars of canned, but that’s what you get when you cut up things with lots of juice and seeds, I suppose. (Note to self for the future: Don’t start boiling the water for sealing the jars till you’re almost done ladling the stuff into the jars. Also, try making crushed tomatoes instead of doing a cold pack.) We were going to have steak with garden potatoes and carrots, but the steaks I’d bought had gone bad, so we defaulted to soft tacos.

Okay, there. That was the weekend. Lovely and relaxing. And really nice weather during the days, too, with rain at night.

Yawn

Yeah, I know. The Court’s a bit boring these days. If I’m here, I’m tired and uninspired. If I’m away, well, I’m away.

I made homemade bruschetta with pearl onions and tomatoes right out of the back garden last week. Piled it on freshly baked focaccia and couldn’t stop eating it. That ended up being dinner for me. I used Lu’s recipe, roughly, but used lime juice in place of the red wine vinegar. I don’t think I put any herbs in at all. Just tomatoes and onions that tasted like sun, plus sea salt, the olive oil, and freshly ground pepper.

The editing/second draft work on Orchestrated continues apace. I’m at the Oh Noes Accident And Hospital part of the story, which means I think I’ve bridged all the [write this bit here] gaps that I needed to bridge. I’ll find out as I continue on, but I seem to remember everything being pretty straightforward from this point to the end. This could, of course, be an entirely falsified memory cleverly crafted by my subconscious in order to maintain sanity.

With the air conditioner installed as of last Saturday morning, we are blessedly free of the high heat and humidity warnings that are piling up. And as an added bonus, I no longer hear the landscaping crews and power tools working outside. We were trying to make it through the summer without installing it, and really, we did very well. The summer has been cooler than usual, but apparently the weather’s making up for that with a vengeance. Yesterday around six o’clock the thermometer in full sun on the back porch read 42 C/106 F, and that was before factoring in the humidity. (Putting in the A/C unit two weeks before September. What is this world coming to?)

Camping last weekend was lovely. There was plenty of tree cover to shade us from the sun and a very good fire pit on our site, which ended up being the central gathering area for everyone. Lovely new people; and so the (co!)coven grows. The only bad part of the experience was arriving to find the fire pit still smoldering, which means the people who used it before us weren’t responsible. The not sleeping well and waking up in lots of pain wasn’t great either. But everything else was enjoyable. There were many marshmallows roasted.

My spinning wheel still has not arrived. I am antsy and cranky about it, as we are rapidly coming up on a month since I ordered it. I was hoping to have it by Saturday, as that’s when we’re heading out to the Fearsranch in Alexandria for an overnight, and both Fearsclave and his Wicked Old Step-Mother want to see it. Of course, the WOSM has just gone out and bought her own gorgeous double-drive double-treadle Schacht-Reeves Saxony wheel, so we may end up geeking out together over hers instead of mine, as was the first plan, or comparing the wheels, which was the second plan.

I have a cello lesson tomorrow night. I need to play for a while today.

This is the boy’s final week of part-time preschool. As of next Monday he is full-time, which means this Thursday is his last day with the caregiver, and Friday is his last weekday at home. We’re going to go see Ponyo together to mark the occasion.

So yeah. Not very exciting, here. Mostly tired, with a side of exhausted.

Accomplished

Two chapters edited of the proposal, no time wasted on research about roving or wheels, practically no checking of LJ and RSS feeds.

Of, course, this is because I finally got around to watching The Guild today. But it worked. And it felt more active than frequent breaks to check news and stuff.

I’ve really been enjoying this editing job. I realised today that I am a total editing geek, because I like taking someone’s writing and focusing and refining it to be clear and tight. Cut those excess words! Put the important words where they get more attention in the sentence! Sharpen that point!

Yeah. I’m lame.

I did some basic planning for the NS trip this morning too. Bless Ceri, who said, “Why don’t you just hit a visitor’s information bureau when you get to the end of your rope and they can help you find inexpensive accommodation for the night? That’s what we did when we moved.” This takes piles of pressure off me to find three or more potential places to stop and stay throughout New Brunswick, depending on when we absolutely cannot be in the car any longer. Chances are very good they’ll be able to find a motel cheaper than the ones I’ve been able to find (because gack, too expensive, thanks). So instead I collated all the visitors centres along the route. Heh. It occurs to me that this what we did when we honeymooned in Scotland, and if we can do it in a foreign country we can do it in our own. I also checked to see if there was a yarn store where we’re staying, and what do you know, there is. Also heh. Their web page didn’t say they sold roving, but they deal with a bunch of local sheep farms, so they might have a few.

Yesterday I experienced a fibro/migraine teamup that knocked me flat halfway through the day. Urg. Fortunately today I am much better. Tomorrow I need to make a list of local places to visit while on vacation, and start a list of what to pack. I’m having lunch out with MLG and Paze, and then making my grand trek to the Bibliotheque nationale to get my subscriber card and borrow all fifteen (which is my max) books on spinning.

In weather-related news, summer has finally arrived: It’s finally hot enough to make chocolate kind of squishy if not stored in the fridge. Now if the dozens upon dozens of green tomatoes in the garden would just ripen, I would be thrilled.

Dinner!

Fuzzy

Oh, fibro-fog, I have not missed you.

Actually, I think this is a combination of poor sleep and being up and moving too early in the morning, plus forgetting my glasses on the bedside table.

HRH and I went out for our annual blood test this morning at stupid o’clock. It occurs to me that now that we have health insurance, we could to this via private clinic and be reimbursed instead of sitting in the hospital for an hour and a half. Next time. Anyway, we took the boy with us because we figured it would be good for him to see it before he needs it done at some point, and also to kind of save time, as we could take him directly to Grandma’s house afterward. He was pretty good, too. We sat in the hallway of the blood lab along with fifty other people and read a book, played some games, and I let him play with the Touch, too. He came into the lab itself when we were called, and he sat with HRH while I had my prise de sang done, and then I took him to the bathroom while HRH had his done. I’d warned him ahead of time that when we were in the actual lab that he’d have to sit very quietly and not wiggle around, because there were lots of breakable things and people having sensitive tests done, and if anything went wrong they’d have to start all over again and there would be much crankiness. After we were done we left and he said, “That was fun!” (Okay, kid, whatever.) Then he threw his arms out to the sides and said with great excitement, “And I didn’t break anything!” A couple of the people waiting giggled a bit behind their hands, as did a few when we’d been waiting earlier and he’d asked me what a prise de sang entailed, then put an anxious hand on my arm and said, on the verge of tears, “But I don’t want them to take your blood out of your body.”

Then we all trooped over to the nearest Tim Hortons so there could be food and coffee, because we’d been fasting for the tests, and he was allowed to choose a whole doughnut for himself. He chose a chocolate glazed, and told me that I wasn’t allowed to cut it in half (which is what I usually do, half for each of us). He pretty much had three bites and then licked all the icing off, then washed it down with some chocolate milk.

I’ve had a couple of queries about how the spinning wheel recon went. Basically, I sat down and spun my fibre for two hours on a single-treadle Louet S-17, and as I suspected, I am completely and totally hooked. Never even tried the Victoria. A single treadle slow machine will be fine for me for a while, which is good to know because there are lots and lots of secondhand ones on eBay (although I’d love to buy one new, and support the LYS that’s been helping me with the research). Molly Ann wound the single I’d spun into a centre-pull ball with the ball winder (so easy!) so I could ply at home with my spindle (again, so much easier!) and I made honest to goodness real yarn last night after the boy was in bed. I have photos, but I can’t figure out how to get them out of iPhoto. Thank goodness for my library reference books, which I will make use of later. (Note to self: You need an FTP program before you start working the freelance gig again, oh hell. Although I can upload things for the blog from a web interface, thank goodness.) My biggest problem with the wheel is over-spinning the wool and putting too much twist into it, just like I do with the spindle. I need to treadle slower; I tend to speed up. But it’s so much easier, and so much smoother, and I can make a lovely fine single instead of something chunky because drafting is easier.

We’re off to see the new Harry Potter film this afternoon! And leaving, er, now.

ETA @ 8:25 PM: Peektures!

Here’s the first bit of plied yarn on the spindle, halfway through the process. I admit that I paused here to photograph it because of how perfect the yarn about to be wound onto the spindle shaft is. So even! So… worsted weight-ish!

And here is my first-ever baby skein of yarn plied from a single spun on a wheel. The length of the finished skein is about eight inches.

It is somewhat lumpy and not even (well, more even than my spindle stuff ever was), but I love it with much, much love.

Also, the Harry Potter film was very good indeed. Better than the last, which was probably my least favourite of the lot so far. Well-paced, nicely balanced, very nice camera work.

Catching Up

I managed to revise thirty-nine pages of Orchestrated today. Go me! Also spent some of the day backing up files and such, because tonight is the night that I go to view and probably buy the Mac mini! Oh, new computer, you have only been, what, three years in the planning? No more scrounging something together from old computers downstairs! You will be under warranty! The idea is positively intoxicating.

Yesterday in the mail I got a gift certificate to my local yarn shop, purchased for me by my lovely and thoughtful editor! And today I made my appointment to go test drive the two Louet wheels they have (well, one is the shop’s, the other belongs to one of the owners). So on Thursday, that is what I will be doing. Very exciting.

Today’s bad thing was my lovely owl plaque developing a hole int he middle of it. It was a museum plaster cast of an Egyptian bas relief of two owls, and it’s hung by a scooped-out bit in the back and a bar across the resulting hollow. I moved the nail it hangs on, and was hooking the plaque over it… and the nail went through the plaque at the thinnest part. I had a horrible moment of kneejerk despair, and then I breathed again and put it down gently. Perhaps HRH can fill it in, or at least help me find a paint that matches the sort of buff-colour finish of the plaster, so we can drybrush over the white plaster that’s showing around the hole where it all crumbled; maybe the hole will be less noticeable then. It’s right in the middle of one of the owls, though.

Boy needs to go to bed!