Monthly Archives: October 2002

Kittens!

So Wednesday night at orchestra, we were working through the second movement of Mendelssohn’s first symphony, and the entire orchestra was having trouble (in different places ) with the sixteenth note legato passages. These things are evil, particularly for cellos (and clarinets, apparently, although for different reasons). Your fingers have to stretch in really bizarre patterns, and no matter how we try to work out alternate fingerings, the pattern remains bizarre (in different permutations, but bizarre nonetheless). Bizarre fingerings while attempting to sound light and smooth and soft and sort of like gentle wind on a sunny day is nigh-impossible. The third or fourth go-round of this passage left our stand-in conductor attempting to reach for encouraging words while still sounding disappointed. From the very back of the cello section came the very dry comment, barely audible, of, “Mendelssohn played the piano.”

It’s true. He was a pianist. And he was evidently thinking pianistically when he wrote these long sixteenth note passages and scattered them liberally through the Andante of his first symphony.

Wretched pianists. Check out the physics of four strings sometime, and understand why we can’t play stuff that’s a cinch on the piano, with its nice shiny black and white keys all in a line with only an inch shift forward or back to hit an accidental, in nasty key signatures with three flats.

Bitter. I know. But!

Today, it doesn’t matter any more. I take comfort knowing that this morning, our family grows.

Oh, come on. You didn’t honestly believe that after nursing kittens, especially the tiniest one who wasn’t gaining weight and worried us all for a while and required extra-special love and attention, I’d manage to get away kittenless?

I hardened my heart. I did. We argued for and against. My husband was no help at all. My parents’ acquisition of their new kitten didn’t help, either.

Nix on any more cats, indeed. You all saw this coming.

On Creating

So there�s gloating going on over at Ceridwen�s Cauldron, too. I really need to break this down, for my own sanity.

You have a vision. You design your vision on paper. You struggle with dropping far-fetched elements, or elements that would just be too difficult (as cool as they would be!). You research methods and materials, then purchase materials. You begin the process of bringing your vision into the tangible world. There are obstacles, challenges, mis-read directions, the discovery that the process you theorised would work in fact would defy physics. Methods are re-evaluated. Shortcuts are taken. Certain steps are lingered over. When a step is completed successfully, there is joy, pride, excitement. When the entire project is done, those emotions are directly proportional to the amount of time spent from conception to delivery, anguish felt during the process, challenges triumphantly defied. There�s a physical proof of your talent in bringing vision to reality.

Hallowe�en costumes aren�t about impressing people (okay, I grant that there�s a bit of thrill when people behold your work), they�re about having fun during the creation process; and since both Ceri and I are costume addicts, creating a new costume calls for more time and energy than the average person usually thinks is sane. Ceri and I aren�t building things up by gloating; we�re simply celebrating a couple of months of work, of fun, and now we�re anticipating even more fun when we get to share all that work with others and generally have fun at a party with friends.

Kind of like planning a wedding, now that I think about it. Except without the irritations of caterers and finalising food.

Champagne � okay, sparkling cider � should definitely be involved at this party, I think. It’s a celebration, after all.

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From the husband:

“So Jeff was asking about your costume.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I told him it was looking fantastic. He said, What, even better than the Promethea costume? And I said, As amazing as the Promethea costume was, she’s outdone herself.”

I feel all warm and squirrely inside.

Ed. note: The husband is biased. Terribly supportive and encouraging, but biased.

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Done!

Actually, I was done mid-afternoon yesterday, but I told myself that I was not going to sit down at the computer because I’d look up again and it would be time to leave for orchestra.

Besides, I’m reading a Christopher Priest book (you may remember my impressed-ness with The Prestige) called The Extremes. It’s taken me a little while to get into it, because it seems to be about the FBI and VR and people-going-postal massacres, but damn, it’s well-written. I got my husband’s vest done as well, and forty-five minutes of practicing that, to my astonishment, sounded fantastic. Ah, the things I can accomplish when not chained by e-mail, blogs, and the lure of the wilds of the World Wide Web!

I’m off to work today. Fnyeh. I’m very fnyeh about things at the moment. (You know, Ceri, this word is so fitting at times…)

In my fnyehness, however, I can look at that terrific costume hanging on my bedroom wall, and say, “I did that, wow!”, and “Two sleeps ’til the party!”.

I’m such a kid. And this costume thing is even worse now that I’m an adult, because now I personally know every hour that went into the creation of the costume, as opposed to watching a parental unit do it for me and getting excited about it second-hand.

Miles To Go Before I Sleep

Note to self: if you decide to have two layers in a costume, you have to hem two layers.

Sigh.

Three days ’til the party. I’m 98% done. Just have that wretched second hem to do. Thank the gods that Ceri came over yesterday and helped by pinning the first hem in place for me. I have to practice that Handel today (yes, I know, I had all week to do it, and predictably, I did not), and I’d like to get the basic four-seams-and-I’m-done completed on my husband’s vest, too.

I went back to the sinus medication this morning. The light on-pseudoephedrine feeling is preferable to the heavy, I-can’t-even-think-let-alone-function feeling of having my sinus cavities clogged up.

Onward, ever onward…

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Aha! A photo from the recording! (Thanks, JD!)

That’s Anthony on the left as Vlad himself, me in the middle as the damsel in distress, and Taras as Bram Stoker in the background scowling at his script…

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Hmm.

That sinus medication has been my best friend since Thursday night. Now, I have a rather slight build, and I don’t have a lot of body mass, and I know darned well that medication hits me like a ton of bricks. So upon opening the bottle that MLG left for me, I wisely said, “I’m going to take the lowest, lowest dose they recommend, and I’ll take it half as frequently as they tell me to.” I’ve learned my lesson in the past with sinus meds. Oh, yes.

So all weekend I’ve been able to breathe easily, I’ve had no headache, and I’ve been pretty relaxed and on the ball. Clear-headed. Centred, and a bit remote, but clear. Terrific!

Yesterday in Kingston, though, I kept thinking about Bill for some reason. Okay, I was doing theatre-associated work; maybe that was it. It kept nagging in the back of my mind, though, and I finally dragged out the bottle of Tylenol Sinus and read the back with intent. What was up? Why Bill? Why sinus medication?

Then it sank in. 325 mg of acetaminophen, 30 mg pseudoephedrine hydrochloride. Pseudoephedrine. Didn’t Bill blog about this?

Yep.

Aha. In Kingston, I took one near the beginning of the day, then another after lunch just to be sure. I also had a Vanilla Coke, two green teas, and a cup of coffee (which my husband should really just physically stop me from doing, no matter how much I hiss and spit at him). Thirty milligrams of pseudoephedrine is really not a lot, but along with a steady intake of caffeine and sugar, all mixed up in my tiny little body, well…

Let’s just say that I’m going to take a day or two off and see what happens.