Category Archives: Cello

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.

In Which She Cuts Herself Some Slack

In self-defense (mental, emotional, physical) yesterday became a Tylenol-and-reading-on-the-couch day around one or two o’clock. I did manage to bake bread, and a pan of caramel pecan squares, which required brown sugar, but we didn’t have any, so I used a mix of white sugar and molasses, which changed the taste and now I’m all “meh” about them because they’re not what I was craving. HRH likes them, though. The day improved around five o’clock when the boys came home. I had a guerrilla cello lesson, snatched from the sea of heavily scheduled summer, which I was very excited about, because I knew I was doing things wrong, I just couldn’t figure out what. My teacher pinpointed them in no time at all, which was a relief. So was moving on from one of the things I’d started on my own after we’d tweaked a couple of things. “We don’t need to keep that one,” she said, and that was a nice little ego-boost. Part of what teachers do for you is isolate the point of an etude or exercise so you know what to concentrate on, and she pointed out that the two pieces I’d been working on were, in fact, designed to make me think of placing my third finger on the fourth-finger spot. Thinking of the ringing tones as the targets was one of the goals of those pieces. So aha, I wasn’t going about it all backwards, as I’d suddenly suspected. All in all, it was a very productive hour and a bit. I knew I was doing things wrong (couldn’t figure out what on my own, of course — yay, job security for teachers) but there were only three major issues: shifting while extending (bad bad bad — close the hand!), bowing too close to the fingerboard when playing in higher positions, and needing smoother bow changes. We’ve decided that smooth and flowing bow motion is going to be our focus for the next little while.

It was very nice indeed to be told that I’d been making progress over the summer. It may have been standard teacher encouragement, but it matters to me. I’m much too hard on myself as a matter of course, both in cello and everything else. I’m learning to let go gracefully, as a friend put it recently. I can’t do everything well. I have to allow myself to do things acceptably, so long as I enjoy them. Stressing doesn’t help the situation. Taking the afternoon off to lie down and read because I couldn’t face work with the headache I had is something I couldn’t have done a few years ago; I would have beaten myself up about losing work time. Having a child and being diagnosed with fibro taught me a very important lesson, namely that the standards I set for myself are too damn high and end up being destructive instead of supportive. Any day that you walk away from (figuratively, that is) is a good one.

Then I stopped by Ceri and Scott’s house to coo over Ceri’s current knitting projects, eat zucchini brownies that you’d never suspect were vegetable-ridden, and have tea. I was very good and only stayed forty-five minutes. When I got home I discovered that there had been unfortunate excitement, as HRH put it. The boy had gone to bed at the usual time and had thrown up an hour later. HRH had cleaned boy and bed up, but today I had to scrub the bathroom to get rid of the smell, and wash some toys that were unfortunate bystanders. It was touch and go this morning as to whether he’d actually go to the caregiver, as he hadn’t much appetite, and while twelve hours had gone by with no repeat performance or a fever, you can never be sure. He eventually decided that he felt well enough to go after waffling about it (he kept giving me woebegone looks; I think he was gunning for an extra day home with me) so off we went, an hour later than usual. We suspect it was simply something he ate yesterday, plus the heat and running around. His caregiver e-mailed me to say he’d had a great morning, ate lunch, and fell asleep almost immediately, so things appear to be all right again.

In flipping around the iTunes store I just saw that one of the top twenty classical albums is “Ultimate Chopin.” This makes Chopin sound like some sort of hard-assed extreme composer. Yo! Put on the ULTIMATE CHOPIN! We got some serious butt-kicking to do! I mean, really.

I can hear gentle rain on the leaves of the tree outside my office window. It smells wonderful. This is nice. I hope it stays like this for a while.

Now to switch the laundry, and maybe write that final [missing bit here] of Orchestrated. I wish I hadn’t lost my writing playlists in transferring to the Mac. I miss them.

Wednesdays

While for other people it’s the middle of the week, it’s just another day for me. There’s bread rising, I need to go out and collect the tomatoes that are falling off the vines, and I should eat something. There’s a cello lesson tonight, too.

I discovered this morning that the Rock Band USB mic is actually recognized by the Mac, and records the cello. Unfortunately, it’s a mono mic and the sound is awful. But what I did discover by listening to the playback is that my sound is too timid most of the time. If I want it to sound better, I have to go all out; no holding back, giving notes their full value, especially before a rest, and so forth. Vibrato! Positions to avoid open strings! The whole nine yards.

In unrelated Apple news, I would like my Touch to actually connect to the internet when it says it’s connected.

It was cool enough this morning that I turned off the A/C and opened all the windows to let air move through the house. So much cooler, right away. The A/C and strategically-placed fans can only do so much for so long.

Twenty pages got edited yesterday. I found one last [write this bit] that I’d forgotten about, and that’s the last one in the book. Then I go back to trying to find a good hook to open with. I wrote a new prologue and a new opening page for the first chapter last week; let’s see if they’re still any good when we get to that point again.

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.

It’s A Cello Thing

If I start thinking of second position as being 1 on 2 instead of 3 on 4, my targeting and intonation might improve.

(Yeah. Stupidly obvious. I know. Trust me, I’m cradling my head in my hands wondering how I got so off-course.)

The Home Update

When we got home we discovered that the garden had gone rioting while we were away, so HRH took it in hand. The first thing we did before we even got into the house was pull out one of the carrots with the boy, who had been asking about them for a month, and lo and behold, it was carrot-sized, and very sweet! He’s had one a day since we got home.

We should have harvested all the peas before we left; they’re a bit sour now, but cooking them in sugar water will help that, Ceri tells me. We have a staggering number of green tomatoes, and three or four are even ripening and will be ready in a day or so! Yes! Real tomatoes this year! If they all ripen I will be able to make staggering amounts of preserved tomatoes. It’s probably mostly due to HRH thinning out the tomato plant foliage before we left to allow sunlight through to the fruit. And when he weeded everything out and pulled out the last of the lettuce, HRH found that a cucumber seed had actually taken and had stealthily been growing under the lettuce and potato greens. There are a couple of flowers on it, so we’ll see what happens there.

It’s the eleventh and so time for the boy’s monthly post, but that can wait as it took me three days to do the post-trip roundup.

I pulled the cello out last night once the boy was in bed and HRH was downstairs. Just before I left for NS I’d done a bunch of water-related work: washing several loads of dishes, bathing the boy, scrubbing the bathroom, washing my hair, that sort of thing. Just a lot of it in a very short period of time. And my callouses started lifting right off! While I was gone the last bits flaked off entirely, so I sat down with very smooth fingers last night. Well, the callouses are starting already, which is good. I played for about an hour, reviewing things, trying a new piece in the Positions book by Mooney, then messed around with all the harmonic positions on the C string. My teacher contacted a few of us yesterday and asked if anyone wanted a lesson next week, as she’d be in town and free, so I waved my hand madly. I know I’m doing things wrong, I just can’t figure out what.

HRH tells me the hallway and the fourth wall of the living room will be painted this week! We’re off to secure paint chips today.

Last-Minute Thoughts

Hmm. I wonder if I can sneak the cello into the car to take on the trip to Nova Scotia. Playing on the deck overlooking the islands of Indian Point, at dawn or sunset, with the sound of the waves rippling on the stony beach and the birds flying overhead? Yes, please.

Somebody would probably notice the lack of room in the trunk for things like duffel bags of clothes, though.

Good things that happened today: I got lovely positive feedback from the client about the PhD thesis proposal that I edited, and his thanks for a great job. I charged him my lowest rate, because I know what it’s like to be a student. I hope he contacts me when it’s time to edit his thesis.

Less than good things: Today was yet another exercise in frustration as regards the library. I left to go downtown, and remembered only after I’d gotten on the bus that I needed two pieces of ID and couldn’t remember if both needed my address on them or not. Rather than risk getting there and having to come back home empty-handed, I got off the bus a few blocks along and walked home to get a utility bill. (Walking; brilliant plan. Wasn’t that what killed me on Wednesday?) And on the way, I tripped (in flats, on a level surface, I give up) and wrenched my left ankle. So by the time I got home I was frustrated and exhausted and in pain, and gave up. The fibro wins this week; I don’t care. I could have gone out and done it all over again, but it would have taken even more out of me and I was already running on low reserves thanks to what I’d done earlier in the week. If I’d done it I would have ruined the next few days, which are set to be challenging already (long car trips and the fibro do not agree with one another). So I asked HRH if he’d take me downtown when he got home, which turned out to be a much better plan. I am duly impressed with the size and selection at the Bibliotheque nationale. I was also impressed at the twenty-minute lineup to get a card, and the ten-minute lineup to borrow books. Over 10,000 people use the library daily, the documentation says, which gives me renewed hope in the future of humanity. Also, I have my spinning books, although the book on Baroque cello revival that I wanted wasn’t on the shelf, although the catalogue insisted that it was available. I’ll have to ask at the desk next time.

The irony? My driver’s license was accepted as both proof of identity and proof of residency. Two in one.

Today is, I think, the first time I really, truly hated the fibro. Before I’ve always been understanding or chagrined that I didn’t manage my resources well enough. But today, I hated it with savage resentment. Why was this week different? Not that fibro needs a reason to act up; I know that. This week it seemed deeply unfair, however, and all the more so because we’re about to have a real vacation the likes of which we haven’t had for about seven years.

All that aside, things look good for the drive. The boy is very excited about seeing the ocean for the first time, and I confess that I am longing to see it again myself. You can move the girl out of the Maritimes, but a little bit of her will always be there.

I really, really wish I could take my cello.

Be well, gentle readers.