Category Archives: Cello

In Sparky News

The blog’s been pretty Owlet-centric lately, so the boy should get a post of his own.

The most important news first: a newly lost tooth, as of this morning!

There was much angst about wanting it out properly but being afraid of pulling the last thread by which it hung yesterday. I was hoping it would fall out by itself overnight, as the last one did, but it was still gamely hanging on this morning. The boy twisted and pulled, and HRH finally gave it the last gentle tug required to free it from its shackles. Tonight, the tooth fairy visits!

We got his first report card mid-November. He’s brilliant in English language arts (I don’t think even I got a 98 this early on), excellent at art and music, quite competent in math, and at the class average for French. Problem is, the class average for French isn’t great, and that’s not surprising when you think that they only get an hour a day, or 20% of their class time.

We made a mistake back when we registered him for kindergarten, and erred on the side of caution: I wanted to make sure he had secure foundation in English and math concepts before turning to French immersion. I had no idea his capabilities would explode so completely forward in both areas during kindergarten. In hindsight, if I’d known then what I know now, I’d have put him in French kindergarten and carried on our regular reading and counting in English at home, because it wasn’t going to be an issue.

My problem with all of this is that he’s not being challenged. He’s conscientious about his work, his teacher tells me, which is great, but it’s still too easy for him. He’s not learning coping strategies; he’s not learning how to break problems down and conquer them step by step. And that’s going to come back to bite him badly at some point, like it did me and lots of other people I know, be it in high school CEGEP, or university. So… HRH and I went to the open house information night for the local International School, into which we are seriously considering transferring the boy. The International Baccalaureate programme is a certified standard that focuses on lots of good stuff, and we discovered, to our delight, that there’s lots of arts in this school, as well as sports. The only drawback is that it’s total French immersion, literally the opposite of what he’s doing now: everything is in French except English class. (Interestingly enough, in grade 3 the programme switches to 50/50 French and English… except they do it all French for half a year and all English for the next half.)

The current principal of the International School was transferred there a month ago from the school Sparky is currently at, so she recognized us at the info night (HRH was on the governing board with her). She did the initial presentation to a gym full of parents hoping to test their kids into grade one (the school doesn’t offer a kindergarten programme) and was accordingly mobbed by people afterwards, so we went off to fill in a form with our contact information and leave it with the secretary. Well, two days later the phone rang and it was the principal, apologizing for not being able to spend more time with us, and suggesting a private meeting so we could discuss the curriculum and the potential transfer, since it wasn’t a regular testing into grade one procedure. It’s nice to know people. The meeting went really well, and we got a tour of the school in which we passed not one but three music classes in progress.

So working on the French at home is important for us. At our parent-teacher interview I put in a request for material to work on his French at home, since he doesn’t get French homework and he zips through his reading and math homework in less than fifteen minutes. I downloaded a couple of free French apps for my iPhone, which he began playing with of his own accord this weekend, and already his accent is improving as he works on reading and spelling numbers, and identifying animals (not even I knew what a pieuvre was!). I’m going to get him a Tintin book from the library next time I’m there, and we’ll read that together before we see the film this Christmas holiday.

Cello is going pretty much as expected. It’s symptomatic of the easy ride he’s having at school that he gets frustrated and upset when practicing because it doesn’t come easily to him. It’s a bit overwhelming for him, and so we have to work on breaking a larger task down into smaller elements. Essentially, a lot of homework and learning comes down to self-discipline, which is one of the reasons I initiated music lessons. Working on good practice habits and attention in lessons will, I hope, carry forward and inform other areas in his life.

Fall Concert Announcement

It’s November, which means that yes, the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra’s fall concert is nigh!

Circle Saturday the 26th of November on your calendars. At 19h30 in the Valois United Church in Pointe-Claire (70 Belmont Ave., between King and Queen), the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra will present the following works:

Beethoven: The Creatures of Prometheus overture
Sibelius: Valse Triste
Holst: St Paul’s Suite
Brahms: Serenade no. 1

Admission is $10 per person; admission is free for those under 18 years of age. The concerts usually last approximately an hour and a half to two hours, including the refreshment break. There are driving directions and public transport info on the church website. I usually encourage people who are vehicle-less to find someone who has a car and share the cost of the driver’s admission to the concert among them. It’s more fun to enjoy the evening in the company of others, after all. And it bears repeating that children of all ages are very welcome indeed.

Goodbye, Second Chair — For Now

Last night at orchestra I sat in the back of the cello section instead of as second chair.

I’ve been second chair since, oh, about four years ago, I think? Possibly more. It’s a somewhat terrifying position, because I’m right in front of the conductor, but it’s also a very educational position, because I’m next to our principal (who also happens to be my teacher) and I learn so much from absorbing her technique that way.

But it’s been increasingly less beneficial and more self-detrimental. Like last time I had a baby, I had no intention of dropping orchestra: cello is my one activity that gets me out of the house, my one thing that’s just for me. But unlike last time, this baby doesn’t nap placidly in a basket the way Sparky did in his first few months; she will not sleep unless she’s curled up on or with someone. If Owlet doesn’t sleep, then (a) I can’t work and make money, like I’d planned to be doing by now, and (b) I don’t get practice time. As a result, I’ve been showing up unprepared, and sitting where the conductor can clearly hear your unpreparedness is not relaxing, or even challenging; it’s just awful. Add to that the fact that I’m expected to lead the section if the principal cannot be there, which has happened once or twice so far this season, and it’s a recipe for disaster. I’m not doing the amount of work that’s required for this commitment, and that’s been increasingly stressing me out over the past couple of months. And while I can’t afford the time to prep for orchestra, I also can’t practice for my cello lesson. Heck, I haven’t been practicing at all. Which kind of makes a weekly cello lesson pointless, and made me feel like I was wasting my teacher’s time.

Then I took into account our general financial position at the moment, as I’m not working because Owlet doesn’t nap on her own, and the fact that it’s a forty-five minute drive both ways and a quarter tank of gas for the round trip… and all that added to the lack of practice meant that it was time to be Responsible. I am fully aware that playing the cello is a luxury. It is not a necessity, like food and mortgage and utilities are. Not working, and not qualifying for maternity benefits because I missed the minimum income required last year (never mind that I made more than enough the four years before that, grr), has really put a strain on our finances. Paying for the boy’s weekly lessons is one thing. Paying for my own on top of them makes for a monthly bill I can no longer cover. And finally, while our yearly orchestra dues aren’t high, it’s still a chunk of money I don’t have at the moment, and I’ve been feeling guilty about not having paid them yet.

So last week at my cello lesson, I told my teacher reluctantly that I had to drop to doing a lesson every two weeks instead of weekly, and that I might have to drop orchestra altogether, and explained why. I said I knew this probably meant I wouldn’t get to perform my solo for the Christmas recital, since we’d only have a couple of lessons before the dress rehearsal. I didn’t suggest dropping out entirely, because I’m in a lot of group pieces and my line would need to be covered somehow, and we only have a couple of group rehearsals left. Dropping out entirely and forcing everyone to rebalance would have been the less responsible thing to do.

My teacher, star that she is, proceeded to work out alternate arrangements for everything. My solo, she said, was in excellent shape already, and she felt it would be fine, although we could re-evaluate a week or two before the recital. As I’d still be bringing Sparky to his cello lessons weekly (he is much too young to drop to a regular biweekly schedule), she said I could play through my solo piece for ten minutes after his lesson on the days that I didn’t have lesson, just to keep an eye on how things were evolving to catch problems before they became bigger. She even considered letting me play her own cello on those days, so I wouldn’t need to bring my instrument for ten minutes of play, but they’re different sizes and the shift distances would be different. And then she suggested doing something similar for orchestra: since I had the music for the current concert and we’d done the work already, why not drop to every two weeks for that as well, and switch places with another player in the section until I was back on my feet and could return full-time.

I was so grateful. I’m very lucky to have a teacher and section leader who understands, and who is willing to work with me to allow me to still engage in an activity that I enjoy. And last night I discussed my fee payment with the person in charge of collecting our dues (who also happens to be the person with whom I switched places in the section, and a fellow student of my teacher’s with whom I’ve played duets and who has come up to sit with me when our principal has been absent) and we agreed that I’d just bring in ten or twenty dollars every rehearsal until my fee had been paid in full.

Sitting in the back of the section removed so much of my physical, mental, and emotional stress. I no longer felt like the conductor was hovering over me with a ruler, ready to smack my wrists if I made a mistake (which he wasn’t at all; that’s completely and totally my guilty conscience projecting my sense of failure onto the situation). I probably played better last night than I had for the last six weeks.

This was a tough decision, don’t get me wrong. I don’t like admitting that I can’t handle what’s asked of me. And I hate feeling like I’m letting people down. I’m so relieved that a solution has been found, one that’s even better than the only solution I could see.

And then today, Miss Owlet came upstairs with me and sat quite happily playing with dangly things in a bouncy chair while I practiced for twenty minutes. So there is hope for fitting semi-regular practice into my day again. I’m hoping we’ll be in a better financial position in the new year, and that I’ll be able to work for a couple of hours every day by then, and have enough money to cover weekly lessons and gas to them and orchestra.

Cello!

Last Wednesday evening was the first orchestra rehearsal of the season, and it was fabulous. Despite our principal being absent; despite sight-reading challenging music I’d never heard before; despite being up past when I usually pass out.

The first concert of the season will take place on Saturday November 26th at 7 30 pm, at Valois United church, and this is the programme:

    Beethoven – Prometheus Overture
    Holst – St. Paul’s Suite
    Sibelius – Valse Triste
    Brahms – Serenade No 1

I’ve previously played the Beethoven and Sibelus. I thought I didn’t know the Holst till I played through it, and of course I know it; it’s an old CBC standard, nice and stompy folksongy stuff. It was the Brahms that tripped me up. I don’t know it, and it’s what we began with. It was not easy: it was a bit demoralizing as a starter to the first rehearsal of the year, and it’s going to take a lot of work.

This weekend the boy and I started our cello lessons again. It’s been about two months since I played seriously, so we took it nice and easy and played the Minuet I’d done for last winter’s recital, which went surprisingly well, then poked at the Dvorak Humoresque that I’d been working on in the spring, and finally did a bit of etude work. Then we started La Cinquantaine, which has a lovely elegant kind of controlled flick up to the A harmonic on the A string that I love to do.

The big news in private lessons, though, is that the boy is starting to use his big bow part-time, and has officially begun the first Suzuki book. We are going to work on French Folk Song, something he recognises because it’s my default test piece on any new cello I try, and Twinkle. So he has officially left pre-Twinkling behind! (And if I don’t get a move on, he’ll pass me in Suzuki, too. I know I play tonnes of other stuff and only dip occasionally into the Suzuki books, but if he passes me it will feel very odd indeed. But I’m only two pieces away from book four, so it’s very doable!) He has a new reply for his teacher when she asks him if he thinks he can do something she sets for him: “I don’t know if I can do that… but I’ll try!”

We had our first group lesson yesterday afternoon as well, and there are seventeen students with my teacher’s home studio this year, which is going to make for interesting floor plan dynamics come dress rehearsal time. I love the first group lesson of the season, because we sight-read the proposed group pieces for the recital, and anything goes bowing- and fingering-wise. There were some nice pieces — Monteverdi bits, an extract from Schütz’s Christmas Oratorio, a cello quartet arrangement of Beethoven’s Ode to Joy (which will please the Owlet no end, as she has decided Beethoven’s ninth is the perfect piece of music to relax ad pass out to), and a couple of other things that escape me at the moment. Nothing too finger-trippy if I’m on first cello, and some very pleasant harmonies indeed. The boy did well in following his teacher’s directions on the fly in his group lesson, too, in particular managing to pull off a full descending one-octave D major scale without ever having done it before. Mind you, then he decided he’d had enough and asked to go sit with me, and as he’d followed directions on three or four other fun things that were new to him his teacher was fine with that.

I have really, really missed my cello. Slipping back into it and seeing that I can pick up just about where I left off with only a few rough spots is a huge relief to me. I love making music with other people, and even with the challenges of a difficult commute, not much time to practice, leaving Owlet behind with HRH, and having to make sure we have enough bottles of expressed milk on hand, the good that it does me outweighs the stress.

While Waiting

Life goes on, of course, and I’m trying to keep busy, which is a challenge when you’re exhausted. We’ve started watching the Read or Die TV series with Marc after rewatching the OVA, which is fun. In the attic, HRH and his dad have finished everything but the drywalling and laying the laminate floor, although we are still waiting on an electrician. The boy and I went up into the attic during the terrific thunderstorm we had Monday afternoon and delighted in hearing the rain pound the roof about three feet above our heads.

I sat down yesterday to gather all the info I needed for the QPIP application for maternity benefits for self-employed workers, and discovered that I hadn’t made the minimum income last year required to qualify for the program. This was really, really annoying. The programme didn’t exist for self-employed workers the last time I had a baby, so this was going to be a nice bonus, but now I can’t take advantage of it. Equally annoying in a different way is the fact that HRH can’t take paternity leave. Or rather, he could, but there are a couple of major obstacles. First, it would require him taking the weeks immediately before plus the first week of school off again, which did not go over well last year when we moved the week before school started; and it would also mean training someone else to do his job while he’s gone because the technician is essential personnel at this time of year. This is more trouble than it’s worth and very risky to do besides, because then they may not take him back but put him somewhere else instead (his permanency guarantees him *a* job, not necessarily the job he’s got at the moment if he goes on leave of whatever kind). And second, taking paternity leave means bringing home only 75% of his salary, which we cannot survive on if I’m not working, which I can’t because hello, I’ll be taking care of a baby. If he chose to take it he’d only get 3 weeks at 75% pay, or he could do 5 weeks at 70% but that would be even more financially suicidal for us.

It just sucks on so many levels. If it were any other time of year he could take, say, a week apart from his five days of compassionate leave (that’s at full pay, whew), and we might get by. If we’d had the baby last year, there wouldn’t be an issue because I made twice as much in 2009, which puts me well over the minimum. I’m cranky about it because the money would have been nice, as I can’t really take on freelance work again for at least two or three months when things have settled down to a point where I can start shoehorning a productive hour at the computer in here and there, which means the cheques won’t start arriving till the end of the year.

The good thing that came of this annoyance is that I was angry enough to pull out my cello for the first time in a month, physical awkwardness be damned, and I played the Prelude to the Bach G major solo cello suite the best I’d ever played it. Owlet was all “Whoa whoa whoa, what is this, no no, LOUD” so I had to stop after playing it twice and then noodling experimentally through more of the first two suites. But it made me feel fantastic. I haven’t played it in well over a year, so to just sit down and pull it off made me really appreciate all the hard work I’ve been putting in at lessons and orchestra. Also, it served to remind me that callouses fade when you don’t use them. Ow, my poor left hand fingers.

I’ve been slowly getting through A Dance With Dragons and I’m still not sure where I stand on it. There’s so much going on in the grand scheme of things that nothing feels like it’s moving, although that can often happen in a middle book of a series. People keep leaving Westeros so more and more of the action is taking place elsewhere, and the reader has to keep learning about new cultures. It’s all moving the story in a way, but it’s doing it slowly enough that it doesn’t feel as rewarding as it used to. I bought my first eBook, too, which is actually a Laurie R. King novella only available in electronic format, and I am saving that to read in hospital. No, I lie; that’s my second purchased eBook. I bought, read, and enjoyed Cate Polacek’s Tempus House in May (aha, I knew I missed something in my May booklist! eBooks are going to be harder to keep track of, I suspect, because I can’t pile them on my desk as I finish them).

I pulled out a braid of Louet Karaoke fibre (half wool, half soysilk) in the Parrotfish colourway on Saturday (more pale greens and purples, with touches of gold and blue) and finished spinning it today. I’m chain-plying it to preserve the colour changes and suspect I may use it to knit an Oriental Lily dress for Owlet, should she ever decide to make an appearance. The soysilk was finicky to draft, though, and made for an overall weird chunky , sticky drafting experience. Curiously, I had similar issues when drafting silk pencil roving from Ozark, so I had an idea of how to deal with it (hold it just less than a staple length apart and snap it between the hands); it just made drafting the blend tricky, because the soysilk would slide past the wool, muddling the colour changes a bit. I’d have preferred sharper colour changes, so if I ever use this fibre again I’ll split it by colour and spin from the fold or something.

I’ve knit three more inches of the back of the lace cardigan. It looks just like it did in the last post, only longer. Knitting lace to length is somewhat annoying, because you really have to pin it out to measure where it’s at in order to have a proper idea of what its actual length is since lace looks like a ramen noodle disaster while in progress on the needles. And I picked up a skein of brownish orange embroidery floss to embroider beaks on our mobile owls, I ordered a yard and a half of owl motif fabric for the coverlet the boy wanted me to make for the baby, and a stamp to use to make thank you cards. I’d almost decided on some Cluny lace to finish the short ends of the woven blanket, but I re-examined the edges and I might be able to live with them as they are after all. In fact, all they may need is a row or two of single crochet to secure them a bit more. Which means I have to look up how to do that, because I have forgotten how after my one use of the technique to finish something eighteen months ago. Something to do tomorrow while waiting for the Owlet…

Weekend Roundup: Canada Day Edition

The concert was just lovely this year. And I am still pregnant, so I have broken the Die Fledermaus overture curse (I didn’t get to play it last time we prepared it because the boy arrived early!). A slightly higher chair meant that suddenly my endpin-at-full-extension no longer held the cello at the proper angle to skim the bump, so I had to switch to playing sidesaddle, which I hadn’t prepared… but it all worked, even though I looked like a poster child for How To Not Play The Cello:

And now I get to put the cello away for a month or so, unless I feel like taking it out and noodling with it for a bit. My teacher suggested using a block for my endpin, which would lift it up a bit more.

The orchestra got together to give me a card with best wishes and a little cup, bowl, and bib set for the baby, which was terribly sweet, and they’ve asked for pictures and news as soon as we have it. I was told I was so darn cute that night by three different musicians. ‘Cute’ is not a word I’d use to describe a pregnant cellist, but hey, whatever works for them. I was also informed that I was a trouper. I take my commitments seriously, so bowing out mid-season just wasn’t an option for me; on one hand, I was in it for the season… and on the other hand, I’m just selfish, and I loved the music and didn’t want to give orchestra up, as it was the one thing that got me out of the house. The concert itself wasn’t a problem so much as the occasional rehearsal evening where I looked at the time and my energy levels and my physical state and grumbled all the way through my forty-five minute drive to our rehearsal location. But actually rehearsing always made it worth it. Some people were surprised that I intend to be back in September as well, but others weren’t; they understand that getting out one night a week when you have a new baby is good for the sanity.

And our good deed of the night was finding someone’s iPhone after the fireworks, and they came to pick it up the next morning (though we offered to drive it back on our errands today; it’s a 45-minute drive, after all) and they brought chocolates as a thank you!

It seems to be a sudden FAQ, so no, I have no birthday plans this year due to a certain young lady who could arrive any time. We knew I’d be either exhausted and in the last days of pregnancy, or exhausted because I had a newborn, so deliberately haven’t planned anything. (On the other hand, a great way to ensure she’d be born around that time would be to plan something that we’d then have to cancel dramatically at the last moment…) Also, three separate important people have pointed out that they are out of town in mid-July when the Owlet could very well make her debut, which either means that yes, she’ll be born when no one is around, or that she’ll stubbornly hang on till the beginning of August. We shall see.

I have had a sudden influx of handmade gifts! Ceri knitted a lovely newborn hat out of Manos silk blend in my favourite Wildflower colourway, and a pair of Canadian flag baby socks that I’d seen ages ago and loved. And Jan gave me a hat-cardi-shoelet set in a lovely cool pale green yarn that she’d not only kitted, but entered in the Maxville Fair and won second prize for a 2- or 3-piece baby set! (Her Chausson Mignons are much more mignon than mine. Wait, you haven’t seen mine yet, because I still haven’t written a knitting/spinning roundup. Sigh. Take my word for it.) I should assemble everything and photograph it so you can be jealous, and add it to the as-yet-mythical knitting/spinning summary.

Today and tomorrow are devoted to proofing the galleys of the bird book (FULL COLOUR, people! It’s gorgeous!). Wednesday is a doctor’s appointment for me, and one for the boy, and then next Monday I proof the companion bird journal, and then I am Officially Off. I turned down a copyediting gig that was due July 17, because I couldn’t guarantee that I could do it and get it back on time what with the exhaustion that hits during final couple of weeks (or the baby that might land).

The Boy’s New Cello

This past Monday we took a day trip to Ottawa to visit the Canadian Museum of Nature (or “the dinosaur museum,” as the boy calls it, but he also calls the ROM the same thing so it’s city-dependent) and we’re very impressed with the renovations. The new Queen’s Lantern in the front is surprisingly beautiful for a modernist structure of metal and glass, housing what they call a butterfly staircase (which is essentially a divided staircase that goes up two different ways from floating mini landings) and the whole thing is actually suspended, not built on the lower part of the tower so as to avoid placing weight on it (the reason that the plans for the original tower had to be abandoned). It was a beautiful day for a drive, too.

The other reason we were in Ottawa was to see the 1/8 cello I’d seen listed on Kijiji a month ago. I told the gentleman who listed it that if he sold it in the meantime I would completely understand, but he kept it for me against several other inquiries. He was so kind that I’m very grateful the cello was in great condition and we could buy it. It’s thirty years old; he bought it long ago for his daughter who played it for a year before switching to piano, and he’s kept it all this time, hoping that he’d eventually have grandkids who would play it. He and his wife are selling their house (which was a lovely older semi-detached cottage-style house dating from the 1940s, I think, and if we were in the Ottawa area it’s just the kind of place we’d love to move into) and it was finally time for them to let the cello go.

It’s in very good condition for something that’s been stored for thirty years. There are a couple of cosmetic scratches, but other than that it’s very sound. The strings are dead, dead, dead, but I tuned them as best I could and the boy had a go at it to see how it felt, and the tone wasn’t bad. It will need new strings and bow, as I expected, and the tuning pegs may need to be reshaped (although I got them to stop slipping with a couple of dabs of peg dope — yay, I finally got to use the stick of it that Emily sent me!). I don’t doubt my luthier will want to reshape the bridge, too, because it seems very thick and heavy. The endpin is clunky and dates back from before the fashion was to be as light as possible, so it may be replaced at some point too. It desperately needs a new case, as the bag it’s got is vinyl backed with some sort of mohair-like man-made material that shreds onto the bridge and doesn’t open very well. But the instrument itself is in great shape, and all these other little things can be done one by one, starting with the strings and case, since we’re still using our teacher’s tiny Twinkle bow. And seriously, when one was renting at $170 for two months at a time, this will still come out cheaper only four months down the line. (I’m not kidding: this cello cost $150; updating the accessories will cost about $300. The only local 1/8 listed is $850. New, we’d be paying $1400.)

Most importantly, I asked him if he liked it, and he thought about it seriously before saying that he did, and that it felt comfortable. Did he want to buy it, I asked? Yes, he said firmly, he rather thought he did, which charmed the seller and his wife. So his decision was final, and we paid the gentleman, and the boy now owns his own cello.

(Oh, the forehead in the photo? He walked up to me this morning and said, “Mama, I want you to draw a maple leaf with a lightning bolt on it on my forehead.” “We have no face paint,” I told him. “We can use marker,” he replied cheerfully. Oh, no, we can’t, I thought darkly, because his so-called washable markers have proved decidedly non-washable lately. “Let me Google facepaint recipes,” I sad, and found one that I kitbashed (cornstarch, flour, honey instead of corn syrup, hot water, food colouring), outlined a maple leaf in eyeliner, and painted it in. In related news, we were awoken early this morning by the boy burrowing into our bed, where he proceeded to sing the national anthem to us.)

More recent good news:

– My largest freelance cheque arrived the day after the mail started moving after the government’s heavy-handed back-to-work legislation, so we have money again. For a limited time, of course, because now I get to throw money at utility bills that have been piling up, car insurance and registration, and reno materials, and cloth diapers, and obviously 1/8 size cello accessories that cost the same as full-size ones, a fact that I find extremely unfair… but this is what it was earmarked for, so I’m just thankful I’ve got it. (Which reminds me; I need to call QPIP and struggle through the red tape of initializing maternity benefits for a self-employed entrepreneur. Pray for me.)

– HRH and his dad finished laying the floor in the attic yesterday. This is huge, because it means all the other steps can happen.

– Tonight is the annual Canada Day concert given by the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra, and although I’m still not feeling fully prepared (the inability to remember if I’m supposed to be playing A flats or sharps is one issue that comes to mind, and no, looking at a key signature doesn’t help much on the fly). Also, we suddenly have a full brass section, part of the magic of hey-it’s-the-week-before-the-concert. I’m looking forward to it. It’s a gorgeous day for Canada Day festivities, too.

– I hit 35 weeks yesterday, and am still very proud of the Owlet for hanging in there. One more week and my hospital will deliver her without stopping labour or transferring me to Ste-Justine for imprisonment. (Just kidding, Ste-Justine; you are a remarkable hospital, and I love you and your staff and everything you have done for us in the past, but I really, really want to work with my own hospital of choice for this delivery.) She is getting really cramped for space and I am near the okay-enough-of-this point, so any time as of 7 July is a go. We are not committing to a date, but we suspect the third week of July.

– My cousin and his family stopped by for the afternoon on Tuesday on their way to Nova Scotia and we had a wonderful time with them. I hope they stop by on their way back in two weeks, but I think they plan to drive straight through.

Right; time to give my music one last once-over in the hopes that anything that hasn’t yet stuck manages to make its way into my brain, then pack a sandwich and snacks and stuff to eat after warmup and before the concert, otherwise I will fall over dead around eight-forty-five.