Monthly Archives: April 2002

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May soon. The fifth month. Where the heck is this year going?

May means:

– The Mediaeval Baebes concert
– Spiderman
– Star Wars Episode Two (the soundtrack to which I heard bits of last night… damn. Must buy.)
– Beltaine (let’s not forget that one, shall we?)
– Victoria Day weekend – which means seeing my parents
– Sandals (after Victoria Day, that is)
– Iced cappuccino instead of hot cappuccino
– Crabapple trees in blossom
– More sun, more green, more allergies

Today, in the last gasps of April, I get to see the director’s cut of Amadeus on the big screen, spend time with friends, and generally enjoy life. What a novelty to be doing this two days in a row. (Last night was NSW, and yes, Shawn and Saiyedra are back as a team! Too bad we couldn’t prevent (a) losing the artefact we were trying to keep out of the hands of the Bad Guys, (b) being humiliated in battle, and (c) being captured. Tune in two weeks from now….)

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Stuart McLean is playing They Might Be Giants on The Vinyl Cafe:

I’m your only friend
I’m not your only friend
But I’m a little glowing friend
But really I’m not actually your friend
But I am

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I’m the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul

I have a secret to tell
From my electrical well
It’s a simple message and I’m leaving out the whistles and bells
So the room must listen to me
Filibuster vigilantly
My name is blue canary one note spelled l-i-t-e
My story’s infinite
Like the Longines Symphonette it doesn’t rest

There’s a picture opposite me
Of my primitive ancestry
Which stood on rocky shores and kept the beaches shipwreck free
Though I respect that a lot
I’d be fired if that were my job
After killing Jason off and countless screaming Argonauts
Bluebird of friendliness
Like guardian angels its always near

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you
Make a little birdhouse in your soul
Not to put too fine a point on it
Say I’m the only bee in your bonnet
Make a little birdhouse in your soul

(and while you’re at it
Keep the nightlight on inside the
Birdhouse in your soul)

And Maggie-cat is facing me, sitting in front of the monitor, trying to shoot her paw into the bowl of freshly popped popcorn on my lap when I dip my own hand into it. It’s a game for her; the popcorn rattles and she can sort of see a shadow moving through the plastic bowl. (Yes, popcorn; I’ve been up for hours. Again. Besides, corn is a cereal; it’s morning. What’s wrong with that?)

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Ye gods! We’re at 990 visitors, after only two and a half months of what Kat calls mindspillage.

I wasn’t expecting to be celebrating one thousand visitors so soon. I recently changed my counter because I was getting suspicious at how many visits were being clocked in. I kept both counters on the site for a while, and sure enough, they were disagreeing; the original counter must have been counting page views as well as visits. So I dropped it and felt virtuous.

And yet… here we are. When I log on tomorrow we just might have passed the thousand mark.

Hmm. People must be reading this or something.

(Ha! I know the truth. People were just hitting the site over and over in the last three days, desperately seeking news about The Peanut…)

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My husband makes me feel about two inches high sometimes.

Minutes after I snapped at him about reading over my shoulder (something I cannot stand), complained about being sick, and pointedly did not ask about his day, he returned from a quick trip to the grocery store with the makings of dinner and…

…a pony.

The significance of this goes way back to the first day we met. He arrived at a game one evening, was introduced, chatted a bit, then said that he was off to the dep for some Coke – did anyone want anything? People called out their orders, and he turned to me, bowed, and said, “Is there anything my lady desires?”

“A pony,” I said. It was my standard answer at the time. (Now I ask for world peace, or a million dollars.)

He bowed again and said that he’d see what he could do. He left, I went back to whatever I was doing, and when he returned, he passed out the chips and soft drinks everyone had ordered, then handed me a yellow inflatable pony with a flourish. There had been a vendor with a cart of kid’s toys on the corner.

Well, I was stunned. I had asked the impossible, and he’d succeeded in the quest. Okay, so it was a lot smaller than I had envisioned, and less fuzzy, and not exactly rideable, but it was a pony. That was about six years ago. The pony got lost in a move, but that’s not the point.

So when he walked in tonight and handed me a floppy stuffed pony, I felt warm, loved, lowly, and vermin-like at the same time. It’s a fluffy pony – it’s so soft to the touch, like baby blankets or towels. I am naming her E-Pony. You know – like Epona the Celtic horse goddess, only little and fluffy instead.

How can I feel so terrific and crawly at the same time?

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Found a new test on a random website – what goddess are you?

Big surprise here – I’m Hestia.

What Goddess Archetype are you?
You are Hestia, the goddess of the hearth. You are a patient and steady woman who finds comfort in solitude and exudes a sense of intactness and wholeness.

Yeah, I know – my home is my nest, I like a cosy environment, I worship a hearth goddess, blah blah blah.

So tell me something I don’t know.

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I am feeling wretched.

Just what you all needed to hear, I know. Fortunately it was a nice quiet day at work; got tons done, not too much stress, and I escaped fairly quickly. Fairly quickly apart from carrying Tequila back up the stairs when he followed me down. And after I had to walk back to the shop and pick up the Lady Grey tea I’d bought earlier, since I’d run out at home.

Must have warm bath, watch Buffy, go to bed and sleep well tonight! We have another NSW game tomorrow night, and everyone’s keen; I want to be on my game and roll as many sixes on my Force die as possible. We don’t usually game at night any more, so this will be novel. Hopefully it will be warmer than today. They were predicting five centimeters of snow this morning – well, we didn’t get it, but damn, if precipitation fell from the sky, it would be white all right. It’s Beltaine next week, but it feels like November.

I don’t want to be sick again, damn it…

Babies

I heard a fantastic rendition of a Beethoven cello sonata on the way home last night, and I said to myself, “I could do that” – the operative word being could, of course, not can. It simultaneously thrills me and depresses me to know that if I practiced, I could be really, really good. If I get this teaching job it will free up a lot of time, which I intend to partially fill with regular practice sessions.

I’m still awed about Devon. What will she look like when she’s six? Thirteen? Twenty-one? What will her first word be? What will be her favourite colour? What will her laugh sound like?

Debra called me the other day and said, “Are you having baby pangs?” Heck, yes. Every time I see her four-month old daughter Elspeth, as a matter of fact. I’m fairly certain it will be the same way with Devon. I even dreamed last night that my oldest friend Annika was pregnant, and she looked fantastic. We used to joke that the three of us (Paze, Annika and myself) would all be pregnant at the same time. I think my subconcious is dredging that up and throwing it at me now that Paze is non-pregnant.

Babies – wondrous creatures who require much care and feeding. I know darned well that we can’t afford one right now, time-wise or financially. I’m trying to change careers, and my husband Ron has just started work again, after all. People keep telling me that it’s never a “good” time to have a baby with a preachy, syrupy tone, and it irritates the hell out of me. If you can’t approach a life-changing decision like introducing another member into your family unit who will be completely dependent upon you for several years with responsibility (financial or otherwise), then what business do you have doing it? It drives me up the wall that dogs require licenses, but they’ll let anyone have a baby. Anyway, we don’t touch on the subject very often, because it’s a bit sensitive all around. Our own families both have their opinions on the whole idea, and I think we’re both a bit afraid of what it will do to our own relationship (which has taken a beating over the past year anyway what with all the financial trouble and job-less-ness). We’ve made a tentative date to talk about it again at the end of this year. A lot can happen in a year.

Ever seen a pregnant woman play the cello? Probably not. Go ahead, laugh. Most of the people on the cello chat board I frequent who are mothers have said they had to play “side-saddle” for the last few months of their pregancies. Women at the turn of the century used to play like this. Instead of holding the cello between your legs (so unladylike!) you sit sideways in your chair, knees together and to the left, turning your torso to the right while leaning the instrument against your left shoulder as usual. If that sounds uncomfortable it’s because it is, and it plays havoc with the physics of cello-playing as well. If it’s your only solution, though, heck, I’d take it too!