Monthly Archives: December 2009

Self-Defence

I just had to post something else, because looking at the last post was driving me crazy every time I opened my browser. I’m almost done the weekend roundup and the boy’s 54 mos post; I’m pecking at them and I’m kind of tired, and as the days go by I’m less interested in them, you know? This is why I try to journal ASAP.

Work news: Now that we’ve confirmed it, I am all backflippy to announce that I am doing the book design for Emily Wright‘s upcoming A Cellist’s Manual. I am thrilled to be working with Emily on this project, and to be working on a book about one of my main interests and areas of… er… I can’t call it expertise, but fifteen-years-of-familiarity doesn’t roll off the tongue too smoothly. Anywhats, yay for Emily, and yay for book design, and yay for working on a super awesome cool project!

Scarlet fever update: Still alive. Am I not infectious yet? Am I not infectious yet? Am I not infectious yet? How about now? Now? Maybe now?

Technology: Apart from discovering iChat and iDisk (thank you, Emily) I gave Google Chrome a whirl this morning. I am surprisingly impressed with the speed. Unfortunately the Mac version is only in beta and none of the extensions and add-ons function in it yet, so I’ve binned it for now because I cannot, cannot, cannot use the web without an ad blocker. The end.

Knitting: I played hooky yesterday because this project is going sooo slooowly. That’s because the yarn I’m knitting it with is terribly thin (mostly; it bulks up here and there and the unevenness is also preventing me from getting into a rhythm). Yes, that’s right; it’s going slowly so I didn’t work on it much yesterday. And yes, it has a Christmas deadline. I have never claimed to be logical.

Spinning: I spun up 2.5 oz of the packing fibre my bobbins and kate extender arrived in while knitting-avoiding and did my very first three-play yarn, huzzah! I chain-plied a leftover single and when the boy got home I had him help me mix up some purple dye to colour it, and he was very excited about dipping it in and putting it in the microwave and rinsing it afterward. It’s very purple indeed, and the boy loved the whole process.

Weather: Holy cats, it got cold fast. It was about minus thirty C last night. It was plus seven C about ten days ago. That’s kind of sudden. Above-average temperatures to way below-average temperatures; uh-huh. No climate change happening, my foot.

Holiday countdown: Two days till we pick up what few gifts we’re buying this year, groceries, and the first Yule celebration; three days till the local family Christmas celebration; five days till our godfamily Solstice sing-song and celebration; six days till we leave for Toronto; eight days till the other family Christmas. Which means that yes, I am doing a full Christmas dinner on Sunday. I have to keep reminding myself of this, because the rest of my brain is firmly convinced that I don’t need to worry about that sort of thing for a week.

There you are.

Now back to this freelance assignment, which I received last night, started this morning, and want done by the end of the day so it can be approved and I can include it in tomorrow’s invoice. (Why the rush? Because accounting saw fit to change the freelancers’ Dec 28 invoice deadline to a Dec 18 deadline. Grr. Also, I got all the material to start on Emily’s book this morning, and I want to be working on THAT, not THIS.) I need to think of something to make for dinner tonight, too.

Lovely, Or, In Which She Contracts A Fashionably Retro Illness

Throat looks fine, ears fine, tongue fine, glands not swollen, listening to my breathing via stethoscope sounds fine. It’s just the rash, and my doctor is mildly puzzled.

“Well, it’s probably contact allergy to a buildup of fabric softener or something. It could be a scarlet fever rash, although without any of the other symptoms I very much doubt it. But to be thorough, I’m sending you for a strep culture anyway.” She writes the order for the test, then a provisional scrip for penicillin just in case it’s positive, and orders for tests for both HRH and the boy to be done on Friday, also just in case mine is positive.

After waiting a ridiculously long time at the empty lab, they do the swab (which triggers a horrible coughing fit). The lab technician comes out of the test room and says, as if surprised, “It’s positive.”

Strep! Scarlet fever! Yay! (As Erin said, “Very retro sickness to get. Forget new-fangled swine flu!”)

I bet that everyone I was supposed to see this weekend is very glad I cancelled.

At least I know what’s wrong with me. And in two days I will no longer be infectious, the boys can get their tests done to make sure they’re not infected, and all will be well for Christmas. I had scarlet fever when I was about ten, so I’m not worried. Thing is, we have no idea where I could have picked this up. I’m home all the time, for goodness’ sake. And apart from the rash (which looks a bit odd but doesn’t hurt) and the dry throat (which is annoying but not awful) I feel fine. So now I get to take penicillin. I don’t even remember the last time I took penicillin; probably about eighteen years ago.

In other news, the assignment I handed in yesterday was approved and, I am told, was very well-handled.

Late

Yes, the boy’s 54 mos. post is late, and I haven’t done the weekend roundup. I was swamped with work yesterday, and today I’m exhausted. I now also have an interesting rash to go with the dry hacking cough that’s been keeping me awake at nights, so to the doctor today I go.

The Christmas recital was fine. I preferred the dress rehearsal version, but the different venue may have influenced that. I had a weird disconnect happen about fifteen bars into the duet where my left hand went to the completely wrong place on the fingerboard (wrong position, wrong notes, wrong everything) in a place where I have never had a problem ever, but overall it was all right. The unison bits were lovely, and I stuck the landing. Our last piece was pretty good, too, so hopefully we left them all with a good impression.

I have Yule gifts to work on till HRH gets home to take me to the doctor.

Weekend Roundup: Sunday, Holiday Recital Edition (backdated)

After Friday and Saturday came Sunday!

Sunday morning we had a great pancake breakfast, and then I sent the boys out to do the weekly grocery shopping. I still wasn’t feeling all that great, and I wasn’t risking going out when I really needed to be in the best shape possible for the concert. They came home (HRH had picked up a small turkey for our chest freezer!), we had lunch, packed everything up, and headed out.

I went right into the seniors’ residence where we do our concerts, and the boys went right around back to the yard, because we’d promised the boy he could play in the snow until it was time for the concert. Apparently they found rabbit tracks, which kept the boy busy for quite some time. While they were out there it started to snow, too, which wasn’t a surprise; light flurries had been predicted. In fact, they had so much fun they actually missed the beginning of the concert, but they got in and settled down to enjoy most of it.

As I mentioned elsewhere, I preferred the dress rehearsal version, but the different venue may have influenced that. I had a weird disconnect happen about fifteen bars into the duet where my left hand went to the completely wrong place on the fingerboard (wrong position, wrong notes, wrong everything) in a place where I have never had a problem ever, but overall it was all right. The unison bits were lovely, and I stuck the landing. I felt off in every group piece except the opening one, though (and in the Ave Verum Corpus, in which I was playing a line I’d been switched to a week ago and played it very well, but the piece didn’t feel tight overall). Our last piece was pretty good, too, and it was a challenging all-cello version of the William Tell theme, complete with a guest flute playing the opening theme. Hopefully we left them all with a good impression. I was so proud of the littlest girls; they’ve improved audibly and visibly in the year since I’ve met them. And it’s so interesting to hear other students play pieces I’ve played before; everyone does them differently.

When we left we walked out into a snowstorm, something decidedly more dramatic than the so-called ‘light flurries’ that had been forecast. HRH had promised the boy a trip to Tim Hortons if he was good all day, and he had been, so we got to have warm drinks and a doughnut each on the way home. We also needed to stop and get the boy new mittens, as his old ones were wearing through (and soaking through!), and as luck would have it we ended up buying the wrong size (2-3X may fit well on a relaxed hand, but as soon as he starts playing they’re too tight and leave a gap between his hand and the sleeve of his coat).

Then it was home, dinner, a snuggle in bed, and a chapter of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe read aloud, and then bed. A full weekend, even though I cancelled half my scheduled events.

Weekend Roundup: Saturday With A Side Of Friday (backdated)

Most of Friday is detailed here.

When the boys got home I pulled myself together and we headed over to the mall for the boy’s Santa visit. We timed it well; there was only one person in line ahead of us, and several piled up behind us while we waited. The boy chattered about what he was going to ask for, and instead of the train he’d been talking about for weeks or the airport he’d recently begun considering, he suddenly decided he wanted a racetrack. He uncharacteristically went shy when it was his turn, and we all had to coax him along to even begin talking to Santa; he wouldn’t sit on his lap but eventually climbed on the stool once he’d started talking non-stop. As always, the Santa and elf on duty were fantastic with the kids, and the photographer was great as well. In this miraculous digital age he took three snaps and allowed us to choose which one to keep.

While the photo developed at the one-hour place the boy and I took HRH to the flu clinic in the mall and left him there while we mailed a little package and went to Renaud-Bray to pick up a couple of small gifts. We were on our way to the car when we remembered the photo, and went to collect it.

Once home we baked some chicken nuggets for the boy and started decorating the tree. I was supposed to attend a cookie exchange party, but officially bailed due to dizziness and light fever (and in retrospect wasn’t that a good idea?). HRH put the lights on while the boy and I unwrapped all the ornaments and laid them out in like groups. The boy hung a handful of special ones (among them his Lightning McQueen ornament and the X-wing ornament MLG got me years ago) and then it was bedtime. Speaking of MLG, he agreed to stop by and take the yarn I’d spun for Janice and the Rice Krispie squares I’d been able to salvage from the Cricket-catastrophe along with him to the cookie exchange party, for which I was fervently thankful.

HRH ordered our traditional tree-decorating sushi dinner, we ate, and by that point I was so exhausted that I could only sit on the chesterfield and watch him hang the majority of the remaining ornaments. This is a big thing, because I’m the chief ornament hanger, and direct the show. Not this year. I was so tired I couldn’t even bring myself to worry about where things were going. We left the tiny ornaments that go on the ends of the branches and the wonderful icicles Jan made for the boy to finish hanging the next morning.

Saturday morning I got myself to the dress rehearsal for our annual holiday cello concert, which was excellent. Our duet got an appropriate impressed response from the other students (yay us!), and the group pieces were really nicely blended. Our teacher had made macaroni and cheese as a light lunch after the rehearsal was over (this was inspired by the fact that every time her two youngest students did an exercise perfectly she’d put five pieces of macaroni in a jar; the goal was to collect as much macaroni as possible before the concert!). I left feeling really confident about the concert.

When I got home I told HRH I wasn’t going to ADZO’s surprise party, scheduled for late that afternoon, and eventually he agreed to take the boy alone. I was cranky about missing yet another social gathering, but I would have been crankier if went, because I was tired and achy and had a nagging headache. (Again, in retrospect, an excellent decision, what?)

On to Sunday!

Scylla And Charybdis

I’ve had an occasional dry cough over the past week. It got rather annoying last night, and today has developed into one of those when-you-cough-your-head-feels-like-it’s-about-to-explode kind of things. Then about an hour ago I developed chills, which led me to take my temperature, and hey, fever. Joy. And I have somewhere to be tonight, an event I swore up and down that I’d be attend come what may.

Rock and hard place: Go to the event, drain what energy I have, possibly pass this cold along to others right when the holiday season is about to get busy; or stay home, rest and focus on getting better, and conserve what energy is left for the recital this weekend?

So my plans for the evening are officially cancelled, which makes me extremely irritated because of the aforementioned promise to attend. Plus I feel, you know, sick. I will go to the mall with the family to be there for the boy’s Santa visit, but then it’s home and bed for me after sitting on the chesterfield watching HRH and the boy do the first round of decorating the tree. The most important thing this weekend is the recital. It’s not like my solo can just be skipped if I can’t attend; I’m duetting, so if I can’t be there, my partner loses out on her show piece as well. I am hereby declaring all my other non-essential social stuff this weekend cancelled as well.

I should have known the day was a write-off when I made two pans of Rice Krispie squares for the party tonight and came into the kitchen to find Cricket standing in one pan, licking the squares in the other. What a waste of food.

In other news, for those keeping score at home, the package originally delivered by UPS that they demanded $58 is processing fees for, which was then returned to sender, sat in a warehouse for a while, finally released to her after she called to find out where it was (total time: five weeks) and re-sent to me via USPS? Got here yesterday afternoon. Seven days, cheaper shipping fee, no delay or bureaucratic mess or extra costs. Take that, UPS. The lazy kate extender and two extra bobbins all work beautifully and I’m thrilled. The sender wrapped it all in ten ounces of three different kinds of roving to protect it; that’s almost a pound of spinnable fibre. I am absolute floored at the effort and energy she put into this at every step.

We got the tree yesterday. We paid more for it than I wanted to, but it’s truly a lovely tree and in very good condition. We’ll decorate it in stages over the weekend.

Finished spinning Jan’s yarn, plied it, and set the twist this morning. 188 yards of home-dyed heavy fingering weight mohair/merino with which she will knit a lightweight scarf:

I was supposed to give it to her tonight at the party; I’ll have to find some other way of getting it to her.

Otherwise today I ate, napped, practiced, and tried to read; this cold is killing my focus.

Fifty-Four Months Old!

According to the doctor’s measurements this week, he is 39 pounds and one meter and 106 centimeters tall. That’s two pounds heavier and just about two inches taller than he was six months ago. He got to stay the afternoon with his old caregiver after the appointment and loved it.

The biggest news this month, bar none, is the reading. With no prompting, of his own initiative, he spelled out “trains”, “steam”, and “boxcar” from one of his train collector books, and then sounded them out himself. I’m ecstatic.

It’s been a big month for movies! He saw the second half of The Empire Strikes Back and The Return of the Jedi, The Castle in the Sky, and the latest The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. But the biggest hit has been The Nightmare Before Christmas. He went to bed singing “Something’s up with Jack, something’s up with Jack” over and over. Also, I was patiently asked “Mama, would you please not sing?” so many times during the film that I lost count. I made a copy of the soundtrack to play in the car and I think HRH is sick of it already. But he sings bits of the songs all the time, including ‘Kidnap the Sandy Claws,’ which would make both t!’s and Tal’s hearts burst if they heard him. We had no worries about bad dreams if he watched it. He’s very imaginative and sensitive, but not the kind of sensitive that leaves him vulnerable to being scared at night. We can show him pretty much anything and he takes the fun away from it instead of the fear. I’m thankful for that, because he’s a voracious film watcher.

They’re going to officially begin eliminating the nap at preschool in the new year. This makes me sad, sadder than the reminders of how much he’s growing in the form of too-short pants and sleeves on shirts, shoes outgrown before they’re worn out, increasing dexterity with pencils and markers and other growing-up indicators. At school he’s down to a half hour at the most, although at home he’ll still sleep a solid hour and a half, and when he wakes up they move him to the library room where he sits for another hour quietly on his own, looking at books. “He just loves books,” his educators say, and we kind of smile and shrug a bit. When you’re surrounded by them, how can you not love them? Books have been an integral part of his life since the moment he was born. He’s never not known books, something for which I am deeply grateful. My parents gave me plaque that says, ‘Richer than I you can never be, I had a mother who read to me’ and it’s a truth. We are currently reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe one chapter before bed each night, and he’s staying quiet for it even though there are no pictures other than the chapter heading in the hardcover copy I’m reading from. I am so thrilled that we’ve reached this point.

He used to sleep on his side, but recently he’s begun sleeping like I do, on his back with his arms above his head. (I have no idea how I get that way; I fall asleep curled up on my side.) But sometimes an arm gets trapped underneath him, and twice now he’s woken up crying in the morning because he can’t feel an arm or hand, because they’ve fallen asleep. And then he cried because the pins and needles sting as the blood gets back into the affected area. A couple of weeks ago we were in the basement one evening and we heard a fitful cry over the baby monitor, a cry unlike anything we’d heard from him since he was a very tiny baby. Now, he never wakes up crying; no nightmares, nothing. So we hurried upstairs and he was still half-asleep, unable to move either of his hands and forearms because he’s somehow gotten them both trapped underneath him. I rubbed them till the pins and needles went away, and cuddled him back to sleep.

Apart from the Santa visit, the big thing this month has, of course, been SNOW! Again this year his educators are shaking their heads and saying they’ve never seen a child so in love with the snow. He rolls in it as soon as it starts falling, which of course leads to much washing of a muddy snowsuit. In the middle of the big storm we had this week he turned to his teacher and said, “Now? Now is it winter?” and she gave up on explaining the whole solstice thing and just said, “Yes, now it’s winter.” “Yay!” he said. “I love winter!” And when HRH got him out of bed the other day, he asked excitedly, “Dada, is it snowing again today?” HRH answered in the affirmative. “The snow likes me!” the boy sad happily. “No,” HRH said, somewhat wearily, “The snow loves you.”