Daily Archives: October 25, 2002

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Ah. Nothing like correcting code given to you by an official organization to make it work correctly.

What stuns me is ten months ago, I wouldn’t have known what was wrong or how to fix it.

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I have now pulled the power cord out of my laptop three times. Not once, but thrice. Thrice have I lost the work I was doing on information sheets for the divination table at tomorrow�s MPRC Samhain Fair.

Grr. And this was supposed to be a relaxing break from the other freelance work I’m doing today.

Amusing here this afternoon (apart from the frustrating loss of data), what with cat upheaval. For example, kitten in office; resident cats outside office. Office door made of panes of glass set in wooden frame. Instant Cat TV for kitten; Kitten TV for cats.

Cat: [stands up like meerkat on other side to see into office]

Kitten: [puts paws up on frame, peeks through glass]

Cat: [taken by surprise] HISS!!

Kitten: eeek! [falls backwards]

Slapstick at its best, I tell you.

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.