Finished!
Intro complete, bios in, story order rocks, spreadsheet final. Except now there’s the editorial memo/cover letter, which always takes longer to write than it ought.
Two hours later: Done, done, done, and handed in! (Okay, there was an hour-long break to do some divination work for a different cause in there, so it didn’t actually take two hours.)
Oh, hell. I haven’t thought about what to make for supper. *headdesk*
Fabulous weekend!
I freely and cheerfully admit that I was completely and utterly wrong about the quality of performance at this concert. It was a most excellent evening — it blew us all away, musicians and audience alike. This conductor really knew her stuff; she trusted us more than we trusted ourselves. And what astounds me is that she didn’t know us, beyond observing a rehearsal or two previous to her turn at bat. We pulled it off, thanks to her, to her faith and her leadership and her solid preparation. In the end, this was not in fact the concert to miss if you had to miss one, as most of my regular concertgoers ended up having to do thanks to other responsibilities.
There were over a hundred people in the audience, which was wonderful too. I’m glad so many people got to experience it. My deepest thanks go out to MLG, HRH, and the boy, who were my own personal cheering section in the back corner. I saw the boy standing on his seat to applaud wildly after the first half of the programme, which made me grin so hard I thought I’d strain a muscle. And on the way home he was singing to himself in the back seat. We asked him what he was singing and he said, “I don’t know.” We listened closely and realised that he was singing the bell theme from the Carillon at the end of the L’Arlesienne suite. My heart just about burst. I was extremely proud of him and of how he behaved.
The only mishap on the part of the celli (and the biggest musical mishap concert-wide, I think) was that we completely and utterly missed our cue for the celli treble clef solo in the middle part of the Carillon. We were counting, and then we heard the oboe playing, and I thought, Hmm, I don’t remember the oboe playing here. And then the principal and I suddenly looked at one another out of the corner of our eyes, because we realised that we’d missed our entrance. It would have sounded awful if we’d jumped in, so we all let the oboe have a lovely solo. Who knew they played the same line we did? The conductor laughed about it once we were done, as did all of the celli. No harm done, but terribly amusing after weeks and weeks of work on that line and hitting the entrance every time. I think this version was nicer anyway; much gentler and more nostalgic.
Sunday morning was the monthly meeting of the Pagan playgroup, where they coloured eggs and painted masks. The boy’s egg is blue, although he kept handling it and most of the colour has come off on his hands. His mask is also impressive, with carefully blended colour and sparkles on the nose, feathers over the eyes, and one sparkly jewel just below the right ear with another on the left side of the chin. Oh, and with a riot of blue tinsel hair.
I had a group cello lesson Sunday afternoon, at which some of us incredulously dissected the previous night’s successful concert before settling into the group pieces. It’s nice to have all the heavy orchestral stuff behind me so that I can focus on lesson and recital work now. We got the final lineup for the recital and the official assignment of who’s playing what part in the trios and quartets, and my duo partner and I are making plans to meet to rehearse our piece. I love our group lessons, although I suspect we tax our teacher’s patience when we all get together and there’s variously missing music and giggling and rhythm issues.
Also, Saturday featured the most amazing warm, sunny weather. HRH got the last of the snow out of the shady corner of the yard, the boy got thoroughly muddy, and we went for a walk sprint around the neighbourhood with frequent pauses to examine cracks and leaves. It rained yesterday, but the ground needed a good soaking, and it was a novelty to drive through rain instead of snow on the highway.
Today is anthology d-day. I have already crossed two of the four things on the anthology to-do list off, which means I’m halfway done, right? Never mind the fact that one of the remaining things is ‘read the ms. from beginning to end’ and the other is reorganizing a fiddly Excel spreadsheet that must be legible to my editor. Once that’s gone… well, I don’t know what I’ll do, actually. Probably hibernate for three or four days after having a long bubble bath.
My signing cheque arrived in the mail on Friday, too late for me to actually take it to my bank, so I must sit on it till Thursday. But hurrah for having money again! Of course most of it will go to paying bills, some to renting the cello for another couple of months, and some to the Mac mini (I hope). And there’s definitely a dinner out this month for us in the cards, too.
(I see that I have used this title before. I don’t know whether to be amused or concerned.)
I think that the order I now have is final. I need to walk away for a while, then come back and go through it with a fresh eye to make sure it flows. Or to at least ensure that the shifts aren’t too jarring. Because you just know that I’ve deliberately put some jarring sequences in there to shake things/perceptions/cherished beliefs up. Homogeneity is boring! Carefully scripted juxtapositions are exciting!
If it works, then Monday I’ll do a final pass on the introduction, and then the anthology is my editor’s problem! (Sorry, Andrea. But I am doing my best to make sure it’s in the best possible shape before it lands on your desk, to give you as small a problem as I can. *g*)
Suspicious because I shouldn’t be this happy and/or laid back this close to a deadline. I should be more focused on what I’m doing. But it’s sunny outside and there is no more snow (well, other than the edges of the backyard), and I got my third lovely surprise yesterday: a small bouquet of tulips from my boys.
Today I’ve been researching Mac Minis. I had to walk away from my desktop yesterday because it was (a) loud and (b) connected to the Internet. I tried to use my Dell laptop and it was even louder than the desktop. I defaulted to the Macbook I have on extended loan, and it operated in blessed silence. All my experiences with the Macbook so far have convinced me that I want to go Apple next. HRH has told me that any time I want to go downtown to the Apple Store to do some hands-on research, he’s good to go. He gets an educational discount, too, which knocks a bit of the price down. Of course I’ll just feed that right back into a three-year warranty, but hey. It will be very exciting to have a brand-new computer with a warranty. And I’m looking at the Mini because I have all my peripherals and don’t need the all-in-one package an iMac offers. Also, much cheaper. And portable. And tiny.
I had two cupcakes for breakfast. So there.
Yesterday I managed to finish my first draft of the introduction for the anthology; I’ll polish it on Friday. I’m still poking at the order, trying new things in different places. It feels like I’m spinning my wheels, because rearranging fifty stories doesn’t net me any tangible progress except a different sequence of titles in the table of contents. It’s harder than it sounds, because it takes a lot of brain power to remember what each story is about and what themes or tones it demonstrates. It’s like making a mix tape, trying to get the right flow between the moods and styles, except it’s 277 pages of stuff instead of two thirty-minute chunks. It’s taking up more mental RAM.
Fearsclave and I are geeking out about recurve bows at the moment, and I’ve pulled my two volumes of The Bowyer’s Bible out to lend him next time we see one another. In a rather apt illustration of my personality, they were shelved between books called Music and Literature: A Comparison of the Arts and The Technical Manual And Dictionary Of Classical Ballet.
And now, I must go and poke at the anthology with a sharp stick again.
The box of Hedge Witch just arrived!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! [extra exclamation points just because!!!]
Photos to follow!
~
Here you are:
I was not expecting this at all; I thought it would arrive in about two weeks’ time.
My book! It is alive!
This calls for… cupcakes.
Anthology anthology e-mail anthology ooh cello anthology anthology anthology food? anthology anthology [LJ Bloglines Facebook Twitter] anthology anthology anthology…
Not dead. I wish I was (or rather, I have wished I was for a variety of reasons over the past five days but not at this precise moment), but no, I am not actually dead. I’m in a lot of pain, which is annoying and has been wearing down my patience and ability to deal with basic everyday things; I haven’t been sleeping; and the boy and I have had gastro. But today is a new day and we sent him off to preschool, and our fingers are crossed that everything goes well. Yesterday was an excellent day in which there were no bodily upsets and he ate and slept well, but you never know. And I only found out this morning when I called to let the director know he was on his way that there’s a kid waiting for surgery who can’t come into contact with any possible illness or the surgery has to be rescheduled. That would have been a good thing to know before we sent him in; I might have kept him home an extra day just to be positive. Except not knowing this plus my climbing the walls and increasing pile of backed-up work meant I really needed him to go in today.
Bah.
Today is St Patrick’s Day, and the boy is dressed in a new green t-shirt we picked up for him on Saturday and he looks great. They will be talking about Ireland at school today, and the boy has been reminded that he can tell them about the goddess Brigid, whom he learned all about at the little witchling circle (as one of the leaders calls it), as they probably don’t know about her. He was reviewing what he knew while he got ready to go: “She lives in water ( “And fire,” I interjected) and we throw pennies to her (they’d been told throwing pennies into water and making a wish was a form of communicating with the goddess, so now he tosses pennies into the mall fountains and shouts, “Thank you Brigid!”), and she has white skin and red hair, and she takes care of us when we’re sick and helps us get better.” I can only imagine how garbled that will come out at the other end, and how politely confused the teachers will be.
What lovely sun out there.
Evidently even when I am ill I can still make a kick-ass onion soup and chicken pot pie. The secret? Christmas dinner, and the absolutely fabulous turkey soup it made. I used a small container of the frozen turkey-heavy soup as the base for the cream sauce over the chopped chicken, and wow, it was spectacular. I’m still very confused as to why I wanted to make them when the idea of food had been turning my stomach all day, but they were delicious even in the tiny quantity I ate.
You know, the front staircase is like the bathroom: It doesn’t matter how often I sweep it, it’s dirty again immediately afterwards. On the bright side, the snow’s almost all gone in the front yard, and there’s only a thin layer left in the back. No snow and less mud can only make things better.
I read the entire stack of library books I brought home last Thursday by Sunday night. I resorted to rereading Anne of Avonlea yesterday while the boy napped.
Today: Yoga, then reviewing the final submissions for the anthology (yay!), reviewing edits/rewrites of the first round of essays, sending contracts for the ones that are done, and then I get to start playing with a new order of the fifty stories. And work some more on a scintillating, insightful, poignant introduction. I would love to hand this in early.