Monthly Archives: June 2010

What I Read in June 2010

Charlie Bone and the Red Knight by Jenny Nimmo
Burning Bright by Tracy Chevalier
Lady’s Maid by Margaret Forster
Size 12 is Not Fat by Meg Cabot
Tales of the Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong
Duty to the Dead by Charles Todd
River in the Sky by Elizabeth Peters
Romancing Miss Bronte by Juliet Gael

I tried to read Susan Vreeland’s Luncheon of the Boating Party, something I’d been looking forward to for some time, but I couldn’t get past the sixth chapter. I just couldn’t get into the characters.

Wednesday Activity Log

So, um. A lot of today was “lie on the chesterfield under an afghan and read”, because that’s all I had the energy to do.

I did practice for half an hour, and, as I expected, my hands are wrecks. See, one of the hallmarks of fibro is a loss of power in limbs and extremities. Mine manifests mostly in the hands, which means I can no longer amaze people by opening jammed pickle jars and the like as I used to. Now, twisting a bottlecap off a beer can be a challenge. (I know, I know; that sounds like such a first-world problem.) With weak hands, I have to watch my cello playing rather closely. By addressing some of my bow hand issues over the past eighteen months my teacher and I have been able to maximise the use of my right hand. My left hand, well, it’s mostly fine, except when I’m really tired and my focus isn’t the greatest, and then my fingers actually trip one another up because they don’t get out of the way quickly enough in a shift/string crossing combo. (I am certain that made no sense to anyone but a cellist, and even then you’re probably wondering why it happens because the hand is a unit. If one of my fingers has just played a note it tends to tangle up in the rest of the hand as it moves in a shift if there’s a string crossing involved because my hand jumps the gun while my finger lags. This is absolutely a result of trying to cross strings and shift at the same time, which is a no-no and a habit I have yet to train out of myself with complete success.)

Today, I:

– plied the 4 oz of fibre I spun yesterday
– wet-finished and skeined said yarn
– rested an awful lot
– practised for half an hour
– finished Lady’s Maid by Margaret Forster, a semi-fictional story about Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s maid and companion
– went to pick up the boy
– house research

Dress rehearsal tonight.

Tuesday Activity Log

I am freaking exhausted. I know I have fibro, I know travel knocks me out, I knew being outside knocks me out even before the fibro diagnosis. Two twelve-hour car rides in four days, plus all the time between those trips being outside? Recipe for dragging myself around for the week following. I’m really struggling.

In other random news, in the past twenty-four hours I have spent more time on Facebook talking to people I reconnected with this weekend than I usually spend in a week. Which wasn’t much to begin with (I am a Twitter girl more than a Facebook girl), but whoa. It’s good to be with them, even virtually.

In my ongoing project of recording what I do each day so I don’t feel like I wasted it, I can report that today I:

– baked bread
– baked a pan of shortbread
– coloured my hair
– finished weaving the baby blanket (that link takes you to the blanket’s Ravelry project page, which I set to be accessible via this link only if you’re a non-Rav user)
– did all the finishing on the baby blanket (hemstitching the ends, cutting it off the loom, doing the fringe)
– did research on a couple of things
– reactivated my freelance status with my employer
– viewed a house
– spun two ounces of mohair/merino blend (longdraw, ultimately trying for a worsted weight chain-plied yarn)

Notice that “practising the cello” is not on that list. Why yes, I do have a concert in two days.

I passed out in the car on the way home after struggling not to nap this afternoon. I’m trying hard to not beat myself up for being useless after the trip.

Canada Day Concert 2010 Announcement/Reminder Thingy

Hail, faithful orchestra groupies! July 1 is coming up, which means that the annual Canada Day concert presented by the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra is also nigh!

On Thursday July 1 the Lakeshore Chamber Orchestra will be giving a free (yes, free!) concert as part of the overall Canada Day celebrations in conjunction with Pointe-Claire Village. We do this every year, and it’s always terrific fun. Our conductor is the justly famed Stewart Grant, who is phenomenal.

This year’s stirring programme features:

Rosamunde Ouverture – Schubert
Gentle River, Prairie Sky – Grant
Symphony n. 5, “Reformation” – Mendelssohn
Pomp & Circumstance, March no. 4 – Elgar

See the composer of that second piece on the programme? Why yes, he does share the same name as our conductor. And if you made the leap to thinking our conductor composed it, you’d be right. We’re thrilled to be playing this piece. And on a personal level, Mendelssohn’s Reformation symphony is my favourite symphony of all symphonies, and playing it is an incredible experience.

The concert begins at 20h00. As always, this Canada Day concert is being presented at St-Joachim church in Pointe-Claire Village, located right on the waterfront at 2 Ste-Anne Street, a block and a half south of Lakeshore Road. The 211 bus from Lionel-Groulx metro drops you right at the corner of Sainte-Anne and Lakeshore. Here’s a map to give you a general idea. I usually encourage those facing public transport to get together and coax a vehicle-enabled friend along by offering to buy them an ice cream or something. It works nicely, and it’s fun to go with a group. And hey, you can’t beat the price. Be aware that if you’re driving, parking will be at a premium because of the whole Canada Day festivities thing going on. Give yourself extra time to find a parking place and walk to the church, which will be packed with people.

As it’s a holiday, the village will be full of various celebrations, booths, food stalls, and the like. You might want to come early and enjoy what’s going on.

Free classical music! Soul-enriching culture! And as an enticing bonus, the fireworks are scheduled for ten PM, right after we finish, and the church steps are a glorious spot from which to watch them.

Write it on your calendar, tell all your friends and family members! The more the merrier!

Weekend Update, Concert Reminder, Etc

Back home safe and sound from our clan gathering in PA. There was a five year hiatus between the last gathering and this one, and we missed that thanks to a little man who was overly insistent on getting involved in the world, so it’s been six years for us. We saw much-loved faces, made new friends, and are revitalised. I’d like to try to do a point form roundup so as not to forget some of what happened, but that will probably have to be tomorrow. I’ve spent today so far unpacking and handling the pile of correspondence and house chores that accumulated over the past five days, including the e-mails from one work department that got more and more frantic when I didn’t respond. (I promise, I did notify the appropriate people; apparently no one else checked to see if I was on vacation.)

We picked the boy up this morning and I got lots of hugs. Not clingy hugs, but very-glad-you’re-here hugs. Like us, he had a great time, but it’s always nice to be back with one’s family in one’s home. We promised that he gets to come with us in four years’ time for the next gathering.

And now: Concert! (Did I remember to post this here? I know I did in a couple of other places.

Canada Day! Thursday! 20h00! St-Joachim in Pointe-Claire Village! Free admission! Freaking awesome music!

I should leave it like that. Heh. But here’s the more dignified version. No, wait, I’ll make it its own post.

Wednesday Activity Log

Today, I:

– packed the boy’s stuff for a four-day stay with his grandparents
– packed my clothes, ritual wear, and equipment for the trip
– got my hair cut
– picked up the last-minute stuff from the pharmacy
– packed all the necessary papers and folders
– searched for and did not find part of my ritual wear (granted, I haven’t worn my deerskin capelet in six years, but it was supposed to be in a bag on a hanger in my closet; well, I’ll find it when we move)
– finished the interview and sent it in
– went to pick up the boy from preschool
– dropped HRH off downtown to get the van
– went to the yarn store to get my spinning magazine
– picked up cat food and litter
– went to the post office to mail a parcel
– took the boy to his grandparents’ house

We had an earthquake just before quarter to one this afternoon, which was kind of neat. Everyone who works with a Twitter window open all typed “Earthquake?”, and when the display refreshed I could see when it hit Ottawa, Montreal, and then Toronto just by looking at the order of the posts, which suggested that the epicentre was closer to Ottawa (which, upon research afterwards, was exactly right: it was north of Ottawa). Lots of fun. It also eliminates the self-doubt when something like this happens and you wonder if it was just a really big truck going by or something; a bunch of people lifted their heads and said, “I felt it, too!”

And we got yet more bad news from our real estate agent, who is crushed for us because she assures us we are doing everything right with our offers, and weird stuff is happening beyond our control. I will not lie; this is getting harder and harder. Especially since we’ve thoroughly exhausted the market after a solid month of work, and summer is an off time for real estate and the market slows down.

A few days off will be good. I just wish the days off weren’t so stressful in their planning and execution.

More Astonishment

Another eighteen hundred words written longhand last night.

Yesterday’s total word count: approximately 2,800

At the rate things are going, I’m going to need a proper icon for this story instead of defaulting to the plot bunny ambushed-by-writing icon.