Category Archives: Cello

The Weekend Roundup

After a tense day of work and an ill HRH at home on Friday, once I’d put Liam to bed I went out to the YUL NaNo launch party. I’m at the point where I can’t relax in my own home again, and while I wasn’t exactly in a social mood I knew that staying home would be worse than going out. So out I went, and found parking right around the corner from Kit‘s house, which I chose to interpret as a good omen. On the stairs I was warned by excited friends who care deeply about my emotional and mental well-being that “Wow, there’s over forty people up there, and you only know about half a dozen of them!”, which helped prepare me for the moment when I reached the top of the staircase and walked into a solid wall of voices and warmth. As Ceri said, you could physically feel the creative vibe from the enthusiasm of forty-odd writers of all ages crammed into Kit’s living room, dining room, and kitchen. Kit made me a blessed cup of jasmine tea, and I made a point of meeting some new participants as well as saying hello to some veterans. (As I am chronically shy, this meeting of new people was a big thing. Except it wasn’t, which is odd in and of itself, and probably indicates to how tired I am: I couldn’t muster the energy to be freaked out.) I stayed for an hour and a half and then went home feeling very glad I’d attended. Of course, I slept horribly, but that’s par for the course this week.

Saturday was band, sans vocalist, which was actually beneficial because we all got to focus on music and hear the fine points of what goes on with the other instruments, which we can’t do when our vocalist sings because we listen to her instead. Afterwards, I went out to the big local hardware emporium with t! for lightbulbs and wooden planks and screwdrivers and such (and I got the wrong lightbulbs, damn it all), which led to an adventure in trying to pack the car with an eight-foot wooden board and a cello too, all in horrible weather. I was still in a decent mood, all up until the last five minutes of my drive home when idiot drivers trying to get onto the bridge blocked the intersection around the corner from my house. Funny how it only takes one thing to break the camel’s back. The day went veering madly downhill from there for no particular reason. I shut down so firmly that I don’t remember eating or doing anything at all on Saturday night. Oh no, wait; I watched Topsy-Turvy then went to bed. (Note that I did not say that I went to sleep. I think I was awake for a good three hours before I dropped off for a bit.)

Liam woke up insanely early Sunday morning and since I’m still sleeping horribly I was very grumpy about it. Once up, though, and breakfast eaten, I worked on the book, and late Sunday afternoon we all went over to Matthieu’s second birthday party! It was Liam’s first attendance at a birthday party not his own, and he was terrific. He got to play with TAZ and Zoe, whom he knows, and he saw Matthieu again, and played with lots of Matthieu’s toys that he just loved. He said “plss” for bread and cheese, and loved his taste of cake, and I could hardly believe he was as grounded and well-behaved and perky as he was, seeing as his schedule had been wonky all day what with the waking early and the time change. HRH’s choice of gift for Matthieu — a Superman hockey jersey — was a great success (as all the other gifts were! ah, the joy of a two-year-old and his new gifts), and it was really a wonderful party. It seemed to be perfectly balanced in regards to number of people, temperament, gifts, and food. I left this party extremely glad that I’d attended as well.

I managed to sleep more than five hours last night, glory be, and not wake up more than once during the night. Today’s been an okay day so far, although that may have a lot to do with the sun that’s actually visible for the first time in days. Liam woke up at a more decent hour, though his internal clock says he’s waking at the regular time and the time change means it’s earlier than it used to be. After getting dressed and playing in his room for a bit he said “door plss” when he wanted out into the rest of the house, as he had accidentally shut the door. Then he asked for “kssp plss!’, banging on the pantry, so he had a heaping bowl of Rice Krispies for breakfast, followed by applesauce. It’s been a good morning.

I’m going to stop for lunch now.

Liam Update

New sentence yesterday: “Cello? See cello?”

It took a while to follow up on the “Mama car?” phrase he said to his caregiver a couple of months ago, one afternoon when he decided it was time to go home and thus I should magically show up in our vehicle to whisk him away, but we now have more proof of linking two ideas in a phrase. Yay Liam!

Oh — and of course I took the cello out so he could see it. He’d clearly asked for it, after all.

Now if he could just get the meals/eating anything/napping/wakeup time settled back to normal after the gastro upset it all, things would be ducky.

More new words: “banana”, “Pooh”, and I keep forgetting to share the coolness of having Liam totally in love with owls. He calls them “AH-whuls!” (complete with strong emphasis on first syllable, and exclamation mark). He was particularly in love with my stuffed snowy owl known as Fflewddur Fflam, calling to get it down from the top shelf where it sits, but the pleather on the feet began to flake off so I hid it, and now he plays with my classic Pooh stuffed Owl instead. His use of “Plss” and “Ta” are also now more correct, thank goodness.

More Thanksgiving Goodness

Liam learned a new word today: corn. Some words he picks up so quickly, and applies them with such immediacy that it makes my head spin.

He was a big fan of it, both raw and cooked. It made for a nice, positive part of an otherwise very unhappy day for him, poor kid. Everything seemed to go wrong for him. Even when we couldn’t tell how it had gone wrong, he made sure to let us know he was unhappy about whatever it was. He didn’t want to eat, or drink, or lie down, or snuggle, or play, or read, or anything we suggested. And inevitably, when he decided on something to do, we had to stop him because it was going to either hurt him (and the number of really bad bruises on the left side of his face already point to what a klutz he’s been these past two days) or something else (like the cello, for example, because one does not pull up on the bridge, or hit the instrument with the bow, or attempt to pull the points of the f-holes out with bare hands).

Corn on the cob makes everything happy, though, even if it’s just for a little while. And although I put him down wide awake, he seems to have been content to quietly read his books to Bun-Bun (the toy formerly known as Presto, AKA the Magic Rabbit; Liam calls him Bun-Bun and that’s good enough for us) and fall asleep on his own.

Brief Liam Update

We have been pretty miserable here for the past few days. Liam’s been waking up every two to three hours at night in full howling end-of-world mode. Sometimes we can get him back to sleep, sometimes not. This morning began at 4.30, and the three of us walked through the day like zombies. The appetite is more miss than hit. So he’s a crank because his food and sleep are off, and we’re cranky because he’s not eating or sleeping normally, which means we’re not sleeping properly. Plus the fact that he’s a crank wears us down too.

He’s still a good kid. He’s just going through something, whether it’s teething or working out a new schedule for himself with only one nap, or working through night terrors. We’re just very, very tired, and out of energy to deal with pretty much anything.

However:

New words this week: “peekaboo”, “socks”, and the sound of a rooster crowing.

New food: leeks. (The verdict? Pretty decent.)

New actions: waving bye-bye when people are actually saying bye-bye, fitting two single MegaBloks together, opening the crank-powered windows in his room, setting bath ducks on a shelf. There are more, I’m just so wiped I can’t think of them.

And a new photo for you all, because it’s been a while:

(Scarlet had brought down some Harry Potter stickers that day, and Liam had one on his forehead for a few hours. In some way it feels like we’ve come full circle from this photo!)

Today he played my cello (remarkably well; I moved my fingers to make different notes, and he bowed), and played HRH’s bodhran for the first time too.

I was in bed at six last night. Tonight I may make it all the way till eight.

ESTC Update

Ugh. Have been having a Bad Week, and a Particularly Bad Day.

Nonetheless:

Total word count, ESTC: 30,687
Total words today: 1,684

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
30,687 / 50,000
(61.4%)

This is completely and totally due to Ceri taking Liam duty for three hours this afternoon. Well, that and the research I did at 4.30 this morning. (The Particularly Bad Day began then, and I had to do something other than lie awake and stare at the ceiling, wishing I was asleep.) I have absolutely no idea how over sixteen hundred words appeared in my manuscript — it occured to me that I may have copied three pages into another chapter instead of cutting and pasting, but I can’t seem to find it — but I’m not going to turn them away. I’m at that point in the book where I’m adding little things all over because the bulk of each chapter is done, and that never feels like I’m writing a large amount.

Orchestra tonight. I’m so tired that I can’t even remember what we’re playing.

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.