Owls' Court

Restless

For the first time in a long time, I am not being drowned in requests for Samhain interviews. This is novel. I'm not going to a Hallowe'en party by choice (and I love each and every one of you who has invited me to one, I really do, but I'm just not in a party mood, and plus the cost of gas is really limiting our outings). I'm not doing the round of Samhain rituals, either, just the one with my own coven. (See above, those who have invited me to one. Love you. Really. But not this year.)

I've spent a stupid amount of time crying this morning. I found one of Gulliver's hairs on a cardigan I just dragged out of storage. And it's sunny outside, damn it. I should be happy. But I'm snappish, tired, and irritable.

I'm juggling the need to be anti-social with a bad restless feeling. I'm lonely, but I don't want to talk to anyone. I'm rethinking my no-NaNo decision simply to get myself writing and doing somethign I usually enjoy, which is a stupid, stupid thing to do because I don't have the time and I'm burnt out from writing three books in fifteen months for publication plus last year's NaNo novel. Doing it in this state is not the way to fun. Besides, Ceri and I have already reinstated the weekly writing jams which will gently offer me writing time at least once every seven days without overwhelming me entirely. I'm back into editing The Moments of Being Pandora, too. Taking notes, even, to make it consistent.

Chocolate cake would be nice. The kind Jeff and Paze brought over for my birthday, in particular.

Gah.

Have I mentioned HRH is already up to 40 hours per week? Full-time again. Very nice. Except because he came back to the project during a pay week, we don't see a paycheque till the end of the third week of work. Slightly frustrating. And there's still no sign of my final green witch cheque, either. It's been six weeks. I'll give them one more week before I do the polite query thing, because it can take the standard 4-6 weeks for the pay request to be processed, cut, and mailed out. And despite the fact that I've been assured that my address has yes, really, truly been changed in the main company computer, I've got that bad feeling that it hasn't, or that it's mysteriously reverted to the old one yet again. And my mail redirection runs out very soon.

I hate that so much of our feeling of security rests on financial stuff. And I hate that I know we have money coming, it's just not here when I could use it. On the bright side, HRH has promised that this year there will be a Christmas present, which is nice. Not anything huge, of course, but something. This will be the first time he's worked at Christmas in about four or five years.

All right. Enough wibbling. I should probably go feed that baby-person yet again.

Gasp

My gods.

Only now have I realised that NO ONE got a picture of my ass-kicking boots in detail at the gig Saturday night.

I am shocked.

Maybe people were too busy appreciating the corset.

Here's the best I can do from one of the group shots of the band from the back. You can sort of see the grommets on the back of the boots where they lace up, and the funky heels that are three inches high. What you can't see is that they go all the way up to my knees.

Impressed

I love excellent customer service call centers. They're rarer than they should be. I like knowing that the person on the other end of the line doesn't automatically assume that I'm doing something wrong to create the problem I'm calling for help about. I enjoy calm, cheerful, knowledgable service agents who sound like they actually want to help me instead of like they're being bothered by the phone.

Of course, it also helps to know that there are thousands of other users across North America having the same problem, and that the company actually took the initiative to redesign the defective piece of equipment in order to improve the product and eliminate the potential for the problem completely. Not only that, they're shipping me that replacement part free of charge.

It's probably a bit sad that I'm impressed by that step. Most companies would, I think, issue a Band-Aid solution to deal with the problem, instead of going to the length of redesigning the part to render the problem obsolete. A company that actually cares about its clients ought not be such a rarity. Has today's society jaded me that much?

Cosy, Just In Time For SADD Season

My office now has a lovely ivory wool rug to keep the chill of the garage below away from my feet. Blade took me to Ikea for a late birthday spree; yes, it took me four months to figure out what I really wanted. As we carried it to the checkout area, I admitted to Blade that every warning concerning buying white carpets my mother had ever given me was flowing through my mind. "It's not white," he replied with a twinkle in his eye. And I'm glad I chose this lovely ivory colour, because it fits the room perfectly.

Maggie-Cat, Roman, and Nixie were all on it within seconds of it being laid on the floor. They rolled with joyous abandon around upon it. I'd forgotten my cats' obsession with wool. And when I walked into my office this morning, there were furrows in the pile where Maggie had sharpened her claws. (And yes, I know it was Maggie.) This is the price to be paid for having warm feet: we have to vacuum one more rug in the house.

The office is cosier now. Sometime this winter I'll get around to taking all the books off the shelves and staining them with the lovely pecan stain I've had for five months. And then, finally, I will arrange my books properly. They're still in the haphazard order they were put onto the shelves as I pulled them out of boxes, because what was the point of arranging them if they were just going to be taken off soon? Soon turned into later, of course, and now it's more a matter of I've lived with them out of order for so long that to fix them now seems pointless, because we're ever closer to staining them. (I am fully aware that this is an expression of wishful thinking. Leave me be.) In fact, I think once HRH has finsihed painting Ceri and Scott's apartment, I'll push for these shelves to be finished.

Farewell Gulliver

The best of cats left us at approximately 10:40 this morning.

We love you, Gulliver. And nothing I can say can even come close to the emotion expressed by HRH here.

Thanks to Roo for her shoulder to cry on, her hugs, and her kind hands to help hold him. And thanks to all our friends who have been strong and loving for us over the past twelve hours.

Taking Care Of Friends

Operation The Corsetting Of Phnee is 1/4 complete.

Muah-hah-hah.

It Must Be Tuesday

I have a cold. First one in months and months. A stupid sinus-achy, sinus-draining and thus sore-throat-causing cold.

*checks calendar*

And it's right on schedule. I'm performing this Saturday.

That Time Of Year

A blessed Tarasmas to all and sundry!

Heard from HRH as I gather things for the evening's celebration: "It must be Tarasmas, she's packing an extra clip."

Thanks Go Out Again

A heartfelt thank you goes out to those who stopped by our place today for an informal get-together to cover such celebrations as housewarming, baby, birthday, books, anniversary, and so forth. It was wonderful to see you all. We wish we could have spent more time with you, but Liam had other ideas. (Note to self: Schedule get-togethers after seven PM, or have smaller GTs.) Thank you for the gifts and the snacks, too.

Oh, and if you're missing a Motorola Timeport 280e cell phone, you left it here.

Minor Catastrophe

There has been an Apple Juice Disaster on my desk this morning, thanks to a flailing baby arm. A full glass of apple juice magically became an empty glass of apple juice.

No matter how many times I wash it, with whatever cleaning product, the floor is sticky. The keyboard is also sticky, despite me having wiped it down and shaken it out. And it's giving me odd letter combos when I hit a single key. some keys don't work at all now. On the ironic side of things, my space bar now seems to be functioning the best it's done in a year.

This makes thing a real headache for finishing up that tech edit today.

More Thank Yous

My mother is thoughtful and generous and did something totally unlooked for, which has also made life less stressful.

Thanks, Mum. Love you.

Today's Thank Yous Go Out To:

My husband for not going out to work today at Ceri's, because I had about forty-five minutes of sleep last night (even more of a gift because I didn't find out till I woke up half an hour ago, miraculously not by a baby crying);

Ceri for understanding;

Everyone who sent us anniversary wishes;

And Hantra for bringing to my attention the fact that some on-line bookstores ahd the wrong author information attached to the Solitary Wicca for Life book. Indigo, Amazon.ca, and Barnes & Noble have all been contacted with corrections. If anyone else finds an error in one of my book listings somewhere else, please let me know.

It's only ten-fifteen, so I'm sure I'll have to thank other people for various things by the end of the day as well.

Small Community = Lots Of Friends

The most incredible thing just happened to us.

Someone from the Pagan community showed up on our doorstep with over two hunded and fifty dollars worth of food and household supplies for our family, collected during a Harvest food drive.

We were completely and totally overwhelmed. Yes, things have been hard lately. Yes, HRH has been laid off yet again. Yes, things went a little haywire this summer with the baby pre-empting our carefully planned budget and schedule, and we've never gotten back on track. Yes, things have been especially challenging in the past two weeks, and life's been wearing us down.

We've never thought of ourselves as in need, though. In fact, when a recent announcement was made on a local Pagan e-list about a new permanent box for food donations in the community centre, I thought to myself, I must root something out to bring in next time I'm downtown. We always think of ourselves as being better off than most people. We have food (even if it hasn't been overly abundant lately), and we have shelter, and while money's been very tight, we usually think of ourselves as okay in that department as well.

This gesture, however, made it clear that those around us care about us, even if we're not as poorly off as many, many other folks. Times are hard, and we're under a lot of stress. These people heard about it, and decided to do something for us. "These things get around," said the lovely and generous lady who spearheaded the effort.

And their gesture has taken a load of stress off our shoulders. We have food for weeks. There's even formula for Liam, should it be necessary. They even bought cat food. Now we don't have to worry about when groceries will get done, and where the money will come from. It's such a relief. We never would have asked for this, but now that it's been done for us, we can see how much it's helped our situation.

(Note to aspiring authors: Writing books does not make you money. Just thought you should know.)

And what can we do in return, except to say thank you?

Actually, there's a lot we can do, and we do it already. We watch out for others. We feed them when they're hungry. We give people lifts. We sit down and listen when people need a friendly ear. We're there for them in crisis situations.

What you do comes back to you. And judging from what's come to us today, we are very caring people in our own right. And when we're on our feet once again, we'll be able to pass the gesture on to someone else in need.

So let this stand as proof that the Montreal Pagan community isn't as apathetic as it seems. There are people within it who when they see a need, quietly act to answer it.

To each and every person who was somehow connected with this, whether you read this journal or not: Whether you provided information, or donated a tin of food or fresh fruit or frozen meat, or added a few children's books and clothes to the pile, we thank you from the bottom of our hearts. May the gods bless you tenfold in return for the thoughtfulness and kindness you have shown us today. You have touched us deeply, and we are profoundly grateful.

Six Years Ago Today

Anxiety Dreams

I had a dream last night where I realised I'd written a whole section on the Harvest sabbat and hadn't researched a single thing to support my claims. So when I got up in the middle of the night to feed Liam, I went into my office and pulled out an encyclopedia of Celtic mythology to look up "Mabon". And yes, exactly as I said in the book: Divine Son. Not a heck of a lot else known.

And blessed equinox to you all, by the way. I don't call it Mabon because, well, see above. Makes little sense. To me, Divine Son always sounds like it should be associated with the Vernal Equinox, not the Autumnal.

This week's been stressful in general because I can't work while HRH is out of the house painting Ceri's walls: Liam is either being fed, being held and comforted, playing, or sleeping in my arms because he won't sleep anywhere else. I know the work is sitting in my office, and I know it's due next Wednesday, and just knowing I can't do anything about it is really revving my stress levels. So HRH came home early today to allow me (a) to get my hair cut for the first time in over six months, and (b) to work on this tech read and response. He's doing the same on Monday because Liam has a doctor's appointment in the early afternoon, and he'll watch Liam the rest of the day while I work again.

My book reviews are being put even lower down on the list or priorities because they're a non-paying gig. Well, I get the books free, but you know what I mean. I begged an extension from the editor. At least the books are read (plenty of time to do that in the middle of the night while breastfeeding) and the reviews exist in note form.

Orchestra last night: loverly. We kick ass. And this with only two rehearsals. Much happiness.

All right, break's over. Back to reading about religious ethics.

Yesterday: A Minor Rant And Some Unconnected Observations

The idiot tenants upstairs have a fishtank. Right over my bookcases in the living room.

I don't have to really finish this thought, do I?

Fortunately, I caught it before it became a disaster. I somehow emptied half the bookcases, pulled them into the middle of the room, called HRH to come home from Ceri's, called the landlord to come unlock the upstairs flat and deal with the tank, and heroically ignored the screaming baby who I'd put in his crib. It threw Liam off for the rest of day, and no wonder: not only did I notice the looming doom ten minutes into his substantial mid-day feeding and terminate his cosy lunch with rapidity, but he's never been left to screech like that for over half an hour. Heck, he's never been left to cry for over five minutes, and then only if we have our hands full of something that can't be put aside: he's only three months old, for heaven's sake.

What really irritates me is that these tenants were told to get rid of the tank after the last time this happened -- because oh yes, it has happened before. And last time the people living here weren't so lucky: part of the ceiling fell in, and had to be patched. We'll need to patch this too, but it's superficial; there shouldn't need to be reconstruction like last time. And you know what? When HRH caught the family coming home from wherever they'd been to tell them what had happened, they just kind of shrugged. They didn't care. I hate that people generally have no thought for those around them; they can't think outside their own immediate sphere. If their tank leaks, they wipe it up on their floor, but the notion that water is a liquid and leaks down cracks and through floorboards didn't occur to them. And if it's happened before and they paid for damages then, you'd think they'd conceive of a way to protect the structure by, oh, I don't know, putting a liner under the tank, or a tray, or replacing the stupid and inefficient filter system they currently have. I hate that people don't care for the things they own, or the space they live in, rented or not. And I hate that they don't have the courtesy to think of those around them. We do; why can't they?

In the non-disaster department, the MS of a book I'm to tech edit arrived yesterday, with a due date of next Wednesday. I can do it, assuming I get one (relatively) uninterrupted day at the computer and little stretches during other days as well. And my current contact at the publisher has taken my issue with the not-officially-renewed contract to other people and they're taking it seriously. I'm glad; I've been working without this particular contract for seven months now. I like the security of a contract, and the money's nice too. They tried to send the the newest cover for the green witch book too, but it kept arriving as gobbledygook so I haven't yet seen it.

I also made cookies before dinner. I needed to do something to get my mind off the oddness and stress of the whole ceiling leak bookcase thing. And dinner itself was homemade macaroni and cheese, made by Ceri, who sent part of her own dinner home with HRH when he left in a hurry to help me deal with the potential disaster. She's such a thoughtful person.

Managed to get one of the books I need to review for Friday finished, and the review exists in note form. Now to finish the second book, the one that I've been trying to read for four months and haven't been in the proper frame of mind to accomplish. I'm still not there, but it absolutely has to be done this time.

Music, Books, Coven

You know, I'm really, really glad I dropped a whole bunch of stuff last spring when I was overhwelmed by writing books, because if I hadn't I'd just have to drop them all now instead. The three things I kept (coven, orchestra, band) I'm truly glad to have, because they all make me feel good. They're work, yes, but not "have-to" work; it's work I want to be doing. And they give me the opportunity to either be out of my home for a couple of hours, or here with friends for a certain number of hours set aside to reconnecting with the things I find spiritually important.

Liam and I are working through some feeding issues that are overshadowing everything else right now (like me remembering to eat, and decent restful sleep for everyone in general), and the rest of life has dropped to a distant second place. It's frustrating, but also kind of nice: if I know I can't take the time to sit down at the computer to work or whatever, then there's less to stress me out, sort of. I'm still waiting to hear back about the new contract that picks up from the one that expired in January, and my tech read of the other imprint book due out next spring should be along in the next couple of weeks. Hopefully this feeding issue will be cleared up by then, because that tiny bit of my life that was Liam-free is important to my sanity. And one cannot ignore the fact that it makes money, as well.

Coven today was absolutely lovely. We chatted about the 'homework' I'd assigned last meeting, talked about meditations and mysteries, and did a wonderfully well-focused Harvest ritual. Thumbs up on that one; in fact, I asked the priestess who did it to type it up and give me a copy for the coven BOS. This is one of those rituals I want to do every year.

Orchestra last Wednesday was equally lovely in a very different way. People asked about Liam and about how we were doing, but not to the extent that I wanted to throw my hands up into the air and snap at theumpteenth person who asked the same questions. We got our music for the next concert, and to my delight we're playing Mozart's overture to Idomeno, Beethoven's Violin Concerto in D, and Haydn's Symphony no. 101 (aka "The Clock", and, of course, the one symphony out of Haydn's last thirty or so that I don't own on CD). We sight-read through 90% of the programme that night, too, and allt he work I've been doing with the band helped me slip right back into orchestra with ease, despite my three-month absence. Rumour has it that our next concert will be on November 20th, at the lovely big church down by the water in Pointe-Claire Village, the same church we play at every July 1. My groupies (yes, I was suprised to realise that I have orchestra groupies: people who come to every concert, people who exclaim with delight when I share the programme) will be/are happy.

Since Liam and I have been spending so much time feeding, I've been reading books that have been on my shelves forever, like Little Dorrit and The Journal of Beatrix Potter.I also just finished Firethorn by Sarah Micklem. Very good; very stylised, which is a hit or miss with me, and in this case a hit. I tried to read The Last Guardian of Everness after reading lots of positive reviews, but it's just all over the place and doesn't allow me to get close to the characters, so I've given up. Giving up on a book I bought new always irritates me; I feel like it was a waste of money, and when a pocketbook costs over ten dollars before tax now, it's not small change. I buy so few books these days due to money constraints that I want the books I do buy to be worth it. I'm still reading The Dream of Scipio, which I began just before we brought Liam home, and I have to finish the two books I'm reviewing for the next issue of WynterGreene before I can, well, write the reviews. I just hate reading books I have to really think about while nursing Liam, because I can't take notes, and I can't really remember the train of thought in an academic book from one feeding to the next.

Next: Work on remembering to eat. This would probably be easier if there was food in the house.

Speaking of HRH

Repeat as necessary:

I love my husband.

I love my husband.

I love my husband.

Seriously, though, I'm glad I find it more amusing than anything else. Two months? It would have been worse if he hadn't been working during that time.

Frustration and Bureaucratic Stupidity All Round

I got a bill from FedEx today.

For what, you may ask? So did I.

For import tax and brokerage fees on my (free) author's copies of the Wicca book. Boo! said I, that I must pay this on free sample-y stuff. But Yay! said I, for the books will be here soon.

Except that when I read the papers closely, they had my old address on them. And they said it had "recently been delivered".

So I called FedEx.

Yes, I was told, the box had been delivered last Friday. And signed for.

Excuse me?

Grr. And the only reason I know about it is because the post office forwarded me the bill.

So this is why I was told the publisher's warehouse sent out two boxes of the spellcraft book, and yet I never received them. They still have my old address in the computer, despite the multiple times I've told them to change it since the beginning of May.

What really frosts my socks is that the people at my old apartment are signing for things not addressed to them. And when I talked to the FedEx customer service agent, she told me that I'd be surprised how often people sign for something without reading the label. And then what? Keep it because they don't know what to do with it? Yes, she told me, and sometimes it's really sensitive stuff.

I'm stunned. And more than a little angry, kind of at everyone. I have a bill for a box of books that someone else has, apparently. Assuming they didn't chuck them or something. And they may have two other boxes of spellcraft books that were shipped to me as well. You'd think they'd learn to read the damned address label after the first one, but no. And why wasn't my address changed four months ago when I gave official notice to the publisher? Grr, grr, grr. And it's not FedEx's fault, because they deliver to an address, where anyone can sign for it.

So I left a message for my old concierge, telling them what's been going on, giving them my new phone number to get in touch with me, and telling them to talk to the new tenants to get the box(es) back (because I know they have it -- it was signed for). And I've emailed the publisher telling them what happened, too, and telling them to change the address in the main computer, already, and they'll stop wasting books and shipping fees.

The good part of this (yes, I had to look for it) is that this means the Wicca book will be out on shelves any moment now. It may even already be available -- not that I'd know, because the local metaphysical shop's order with the distributor got screwed up (I am plagued by error with this book).

And on the brighter side of things, ladyofthe_lake and Kyle came over to play today!

End Of The Week

One chapter left to edit, plus the existing appendix, then the insertion of the second appendix.

Long day of baby, and editing, and baby, and serious magic that made my ears pop in formal ritual, and baby, and editing. And now it's bed-time.

I'd like to say hello to the new readers who are dropping by the Court for the first time. There seem to be a lot of them recently, some of who have sent me messages, others who are lurking (and that's just fine). Hail and welcome, all! Enjoy your stay.

Random

I just cut five pages out of the manuscript.

We have hot water again. This is a good thing, because there are two adults and a baby in this house who all need a good wash. There is a long bath in my future tonight.

And in other completely unconnected news, my space bar is giving me more grief than usual today.

All For Phnee

Since I'm not allowed to post cute mushness-inducing baby pictures that threaten her brain's physical integrity, I present, for Phnee's benefit, Cats In Sinks.

Because I just know her day is going slowly at work. They always do. It doesn't matter what day she sees this post on; it will do what it's supposed to do for her.

Yes, I'm back at the computer. While HRH was out buying fuses, he picked up that gallon of paint for my office. Hurrah! And we'll know in an hour or so if the fuses have solved the water heater problem.

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggedy Jig

We three had a lovely weekend out in Oakville with my parents. Liam travels wonderfully well, so long as we remember that he has to eat every two hours on a car journey (as opposed to his usual two-and-a-half to three hours), which turns a six-hour trip into a nine-hour trip, because of course it takes half an hour (by bottle) to fifty minutes (by breast) to feed him. I have discovered that my pump works in the car. Huzzah.

Glorious weather. Delicious food. Much was the sleeping in. Much also was the cuddling of the son by his grandparents. Saturday morning HRH and I took advantage of this and went out to do a bit of shopping on our own, our very first instance of leaving-child-with-others. HRH had been digging his heels in on this, while I've been fine with the idea of leaving him with capable people for a while. So, big step. Baby survived. So did HRH. All are relieved.

Now we are home to cats who seem tiny (after the three Maine Coons who live with my parents), no real food in the pantry (because why shop when you're going out of town for four days?), and that odd restlessness that always hits after a day in the car (we're tired, but we've been sitting down doing sort of nothing all day so we don't want to sit down some more).

Still no edits.

Yes, Worthless Again In The Eyes Of The Corps

Well, that was a waste of precious gas.

Nothing like being told that the bank can't help you with anything your appointment was about (responsible stuff like credit lines, credit card maintenance, RESPs, RRSPs) because your husband is between jobs, there's no money at the moment, and you have no proof that your job is stable. It's back to the same old "if you had money we would help you" scenario. I'm sick of it.

And having it said to you in that polite civil tone that doesn't disguise the unspoken "you're wasting my time" makes me even angrier.

Better Now

I had a massage today, and wow, what a difference. One never really understands how tense one is, because the muscles get just a wee bit tighter every day. It's not like it all of a sudden happens, all at once: that you'd notice.

Colleen is the only person I know who can massage my feet without making me want to kick.

Thanks, little sister. I needed it.

Not A Good Day

I woke up frustrated and stressed and on the verge of tears.

And for no reason in particular, which irritates me even more.

And it's not going away.

Grr, grr, grr.

Not Dead (Again)

Excellent weekend of the relaxing sort. Friday night I got out to the CMS open house, where I reconnected with lots of students and fellow teachers and friends. Kick-ass band rehearsal Saturday afternoon. Lovely late party-dinner that night out at my in-laws' place for my father-in-law's sixtieth birthday. Sunday saw all three of us enjoying a nice lie-in, then a trip out to pick up a couple of essentials at the pharmacy and ice cream. If Liam keeps attracting this much attention, I will begin to charge admission. Thank goodness HRH is patient with strangers because I'd be driven crazy if I were the only one who could field the same questions and comments over and over.

I got an e-mail from the line editor this morning saying that she was working on my GRW manuscript, which provided a nice relief to my fretting. I still have no idea when it will actually fall in my in-box, or what the turnaround deadline will be, but at least I know it won't come in today and probably not tomorrow, possibly not till next week as I'm leaving for the long weekend very early Friday morning. She says my so-called "sloppy" MS is still in better shape than most work she sees. I cringe anew at the unprofessionalism of authors, then.

I'm still doing that once-over of The Moments of Being Pandora. To my surprise and pleasure, it's still good. And I'm also still turning over the new and very sketchy idea for attaining plot resolution in my brain. I don't hate it yet, which is good. And it appears to all hang together. Now it just needs serious development to make it a viable ending, and then I have to write it. I wonder if I can get it done before November. Or if I'm even doing NaNo this year. If I decide not to, then I may just save it to write it during November anyway. It may not be a 50K project, but it will be fun to write with others anyhow.

Late Saturday night/early Sunday morning while feeding Liam, I picked up my spellcraft book and read the first two chapters. Not bad. There are a couple of places where there are statements which appear without a lot of context, and then I remembered that a lot of my supporting explanations and developments were cut out because I was told the statements stood on their own. I guess I'm just hung up on explaining myself. It's not that I don't think people won't get it, I just don't want them to misunderstand. Apparently I must lick the habit and appear more confident. And maybe trust my readers a bit more. I can do that while writing fiction, but NF, well, I just want everyone on the same page before I go off and introduce stuff based on the basic info.

There. Now you know I'm not dead. Liam is well, and has been back to sleeping regular naps since two days after the not-sleeping post. I think it was the humidity, frankly. And he's officially a rolling menace: he managed to push himself off the couch, and then off the nursing pillow this weekend. No bumps, no bruises, just a new resolve to leave him in his basket if he's not in someone's arms.

Oh, and the annual allergy celebration has finally hit. I have to make sure there's a Kleenex box near every place I sit or work.

Health Update The Second

Gulliver is fine.

Sheesh.

Actually, the vet thinks that because of his age, his kidneys may be weakening and failure may be somewhere in his future. So HRH brought him home, and we will continue to love him, and somewhere down the line if the symptoms the vet warned us about manifest, then we will have to say goodbye and thank you for all the love and purrs, and send him to the Summerland where he can leap and play in tall grass, stalk as many mice and rabbits and birds as his heart desires, and sleep in sunbeams that never move.

But one must do that eventually with any pet, and Gully is fifteen years old, for heaven's sake.

Health Updates

Liam weighs 8 lbs. He's officially gaining a pound every two weeks. He goes in for his vaccinations next Wednesday.

Gulliver is not well.

HRH and I have headaches more often than not. I'm assuming this has to do with broken sleep, forgetting to eat, and the current pressure system that's been sitting here for the past couple of days.

And although it has nothing to do with health, it will in the future: still no sign of my GRW edits.

Because Everyone Needs A Hobby

A former Hollywood stunt man now living in the Netherlands launched his greatest project to date Tuesday: a 45-foot replica Viking ship made of millions of wooden ice cream sticks and more than a ton of glue.

And, thinking ahead:

He said he was confident the ship would float, but organizers had prepared an alternate press statement just in case something went wrong. The biggest fear was that the ship's keel might be too light and it would capsize. But the launch went smoothly, and McDonald plans to apply for a mention in the Guinness Book of Records.

Full article here.

Grrr

The husband and the baby have gone for a walk.

Finally, I can get some real work done.

Can everyone think good thoughts to getting HRH back to work on that suspended project, please?

Got Crackers, Got Rose Petal Tea, Got Music...

I spent most of the night rocking Liam in his little AmbyBed because he was sleeping poorly, and yet I woke up around five and I feel okay. I reserve the right to crash terribly later this afternoon. I just need to get all that time-sensitive stuff done first.

A shower wasn't on the original list of things to do this morning, but Liam wouldn't burp for HRH so I took over. (This is rare -- usually I have to pass the baby to HRH to burp him.) I got a huge air bubble out of his poor little tummy. Of course, it came up with a larger fount of milk than he's brought up before, too: hence the shower. (There's laundry happening as a result, as well.) Anywhats, in the shower I began humming Sunday Morning After, and I think I've worked out a new funky bassline for it. (Yes, there are only ten new songs I ought to be working on for the band, so I'll rework one I haven't even played live the first way yet.) And the shower felt good, too, so that was a nice bonus.

I think I'm going to close up shop for a while after I've met all the assignments and contracts I currently have on the go. I'd like to focus just on coven and editing. I met with Scarlet last week about the two upper levels of CMS, which I'd been looking forward to teaching again because I missed it. At first I was disappointed that both sessions of level 3 would have to happen without me this fall due to scheduling, and that level 4 wouldn't happen till February, but now I'm realising it's a blessing in disguise. The heavy workload and stress of the first half of the year has really drained me. When I start breaking down over a simple 1200 word article, it's time to take even more steps back. I know I've already pared stuff down in my life, but I'll have to pare away even more to give myself the space to recuperate from what I originally had to pare down for. (Pause; check coherence of sentence. Yup. It works. So glad.)

Things I won't give up: Random Colour. Orchestra. Coven.

Things I can't give up: Baby. Series editor. Consultant position.

Everything else is to be considered on a case by case basis. I do a review or two every month or so; that will probably stay, although it depends on what I'm offered to review.

Now I must dig through those files, and assemble travel packages for my coveners for their trip. I must email crucial information to them. I'll gather all the stuff I need to photocopy. I'll select a dozen pictures to print. And then, if I have time, I'll finish that article, because it looks like I have a day or two extra for it. That's all I'll be able to do today, I know.

The I Hate Life Post (Move Along, Nothing To See Here)

This is a maudlin, bitter, self-pitying post that had to be written, because sometimes you just have to say it.

I still have to finish that gods-damned article that is going nowhere fast. I hate my writing; I hate myself. (Move along. move along. That's not a cry for hugs. I know I write well in the overall scheme of things. It's just part of the general bitter mope.)

There are pictures that have to be transferred from the digital camera. There's writing that has to be coded. Everything has to be uploaded.

I'm not even going on our annual spiritual retreat in Pennsylvania this year because of the baby, and I still have to assemble a pile of stuff for others to take. This involves dredging through a bunch of files and folders -- and, I have discovered, trying to find a box which has not yet been opened from the move. It also involves trying to print out about a hundred pages of rituals, and trying to print out pictures (which never goes well on this printer; they turn out stripy). I may just copy them onto a CD and send HRH out tomorrow to get them printed professionally.

Because, of course, HRH is home yet again tomorrow, since the investors still have their heads firmly wedged up their behinds.

And I still have to finish the GRW appendix.

Please don't post pitying or bracing comments; I already know everything you're going to tell me to try to help.

In A Mood

This article is going nowhere and has been going nowhere for hours but still has to be in today, I have to be at my in-laws' for dinner in ten minutes, the baby's not eating properly and fussing because of it, my milk supply is dipping, HRH has been told to stay home tomorrow as well because the investors continue to be jerks, it's humid, and I've had a splitting headache all day.

In a mood? Why do you ask?

Weekend

We had a great weekend. I had rehearsal on Saturday, which is always fun because we are hip and cool and have wonderful ideas about how to play with a song. (Plus we are lovely and creative and talented.) Then on Sunday we went to the Ecomuseum for what's turning out to be an annual August visit with Jeff and Pasley and Devon. It was a beautiful day for it: sunny, not too hot, with none of the deadly humidity the city's been suffering from lately. The animals were all out and active instead of hiding, and there weren't too many people on the trails. It was a perfect visit, with a wonderful picnic afterwards. Devon finally got to meet Liam, and even fed him for a little bit.

That book review was done Friday. Today the article gets expanded and rewritten from the basic sketch I did Friday. The appendix gets finished today as well, or maybe tomorrow. The article has priority, as it's due today.

It still rather feels like the weekend, because HRH is home due to a lack of brain cells in the heads of the investors, which in turn has led to them not paying the piles of money owed to the contracted team. Gnash. No money, no work; no work, no product released to the investors. And yet they wonder why they don't have it. (Yes, it's finished, but it's being held hostage until the team's paid the large debt the investors owe. Take that, you brainless twits.)

Saved

See? What the day needed was a good two-hour nap with baby.

Of course, the down side to a nap at six is that now it's ten o'clock and I'm wide awake, having just finished my dinner (and before that, Liam's). I'm about ten pages away from finishing the appendix (hurrah, although in the course of compiling it I discovered that I left lavender out of the section on herbs -- lavender, of all things!), and I have a couple of paragraphs for the food and spirituality article due Monday, so the day wasn't a complete write-off. (Was that not a clever pun? And completely unintentional. Naps evidently do good things for my sense of humour.) I should do the book review while I'm still awake and focused.

Doom

Bad night although not baby-related. And I woke up (late) feeling utterly wretched, too. I wish I could sleep all day. But I've got a review, an article, and theoretically an August Writing submission to do, although I may just use the article as today's submission. I have to finish the appendix today, because this weekend I refuse to work (and I have stuff scheduled both days) and I want it out of the way for next week when the first part of the GRW edits will come back to me.

And it sounds like Liam's having a clingy day.

It's just a wretched day in general. All I want to do is curl up on the bed with the baby and read until I fall asleep.

The article and review are due Monday, which means I could do one today and one on Monday; that would make things more manageable. Possibly.

Going back to bed sounds like such a good idea. At least, the headache and backache and mild stomachache and listlessness tell me so.

PSA

With the amount of linking going on these days, it seems that it's time to once again gently correct your punctuation.

Dear reader: If you have a link to this journal on a page of your site, or on your own journal, please look at it (no, actually look at it; a glance will not do) and make sure that it reads as follows:

The apostrophe is deliberately after the first word, because it is a possessive plural. This Court belongs to many owls, not just one.

If your link reads as "Owl's Court", you've punctuated it incorrectly.

Thank you for your time and attention.

Love,

Me and the multitude of little owls, who are very sad because they feel that you've left them out.

PS: Don't think this doesn't mean you, o personal friends.

Tuesday

It is a very odd feeling to be in my office while HRH is in the living room with his laptop, typing out two entries to catch up with the august_writing challenge. It's as if someone came along and turned the world upside-down. Usually I'm the one one writing and he's in the next room doing whatever. I feel as if I ought to be writing something too, just to keep the world from imploding, or whatever it intends to surprise me with next.

I had my 8-week post-natal appointment today, and the verdict is, "Did you actually have a baby?" Yay me. Then Liam and I went in to the store to teach Roo how to database books, and I spent two hours with my old workmates. It's wonderful to just hand Liam to someone (or several someones) whom I trust and not worry about him. Not that I do worry; I have well-grounded and capable friends, and I'm remarkably relaxed about my baby. It was just good to be reminded of how the work gang watches each others' backs, and shares in the good stuff, too. As well as playing with his Fairy Godmother Roo and Dimitri again this afternoon, Liam got to meet his Auntie Scarlet today for the first time, so that was nice for him (and Scarlet too!).

Oh, who am I kidding. I'm going to open last year's NaNo novel and write little bits each day to try to finish it off for the august_writing challenge.

To Do

So now that the green witch book is temporarily off my radar, there's a list of things I can address:

- 2004 taxes (hey, there was packing, then a move, then a baby, okay?)
- a pile of thank you cards
- update the photo pages
- write the food article for WynterGreene due next week
- review a book for WynterGreene, also due next week
- read the two books for the next WG issue in preparation for those reviews
- collate the second appendix for the GRW book
- practicing for the gig might be a good idea too

And all I want to do is curl up and read Howards End, and nap. But there's that baby, who's doing odd things with his feeding, making them last forever and still managing to not fill up (I think he's developed a really lazy latch on top of his tendency to fall asleep).

The tentative date to have the first round of line edits done on the GRW book, by the way, is August 24. My line editor's out of town till August 8, however, so that will likely be revised.

The First Day Of The Rest Of My Life

Thank you, everyone, who emailed or called or posted congratulatory comments. I think you're all more excited about the book being finished than I am. Ironically, as I was finishing my quick proofreading of the appendix, I was struck by a much better idea of how to collate and present the information. Unfortunately, it's going to take about three days to do because I have to go through every single page of the 278-page MS and pull out information. So when I submitted the MS file, I told the copy editor what I was planning to do, and that I'd send it in seperately or just add it in the first round of edits. No response as of yet, but I can't see what the problem would be. It would have been easier, of course, if I'd had this brilliant idea three months ago or more, but if I had then I wouldn't be using the word "ironically", now would I.

It was terribly civilized to wake up and realise that I didn't have to trudge to the computer ASAP to work, though. I actually cleaned the house up a bit.Not exactly the lounging in bed/reading the new Harry Potter/cuddling with baby fantasy I'd been entertaining, but baby's asleep (hurrah!), the kitchen counter was a mess of baby stuff, and the bathroom really needed a quick wipedown. Just knowing I didn't have to slog through the MS was relaxing.

Speaking of Harry Potter, I started it late yesterday afternoon while feeding Liam, and I'm about a third of the way through. Certainly a different tone, but not a bad one. Well, bad in that there's dark wizards commiting terrorist acts, but not as in poorly written or not enjoyable.

Silly_imp stopped by just as I was finishing up the book yesterday afternoon to drop of some review materials (including some tiny Pagan magnetic poetry, what fun!) and gave us a jar of her homemade pecan-basil pesto. We had it for dinner over multigrain pasta, and it was delicious. If my basil bush keeps growing the way it's been growing, then perhaps I too will be able to make a decent amount of pesto of my own this summer. We shall see.

I didn't get my ice cream last night... I got something better! The three of us drove out to meet Kyle and to give Chantale her own nursing pillow, since I find mine absolutely wonderful. Kyle is lovely, and so very different from Liam -- different body type, different colouring, and so forth. It's just incredible that two little creatures can be so much alike, and so unlike as well. It was so wonderful to sit and chat with Chantale and Mike, and to talk about our experiences, and the gut-twisting fierce love that immediately set in as soon as the babies were born, and the pain of being apart from them, even if it's just in the next room. We've got lots more to talk about, but the gentlemen of the family were beginning to look at the time and tap their feet in a polite manner.

Later this morning Liam has his first regular doctor's appointment with our family GP. And late this afternoon my parents are arriving in town for a two-day stay, so that they can meet Liam face to face. Between those two events, I plan on reading, perhaps napping, and sharing quality time (at last!) with my son.

New Morning

When I finally called a stop to the insanity last night: the book stood at 63,370 words; I'd added 3,064 over the course of the day; Chapter Seven was a couple of pages away from being finished; Liam had only slept about three hours since eight in the morning; and HRH and I were both on edge.

But Chantale and Mike now have beautiful baby Kyle to hold, and Liam slept hard all night (so hard that we're having trouble waking him up for his second breakfast), and it's a gorgeous day outside. The rehearsal space might actually be bearable in this lack of humidity.

I actually want a real breakfast. Bacon and scrambled eggs it is.

Fidgety

The nurse from the CLSC is due to arrive at ten this morning to continue Liam's follow-up care. (Yes, house calls from the local health clinics... terribly civilised. And everyone gets it, not just preterm infants.) So naturally, HRH has cleaned the house from top to bottom, and even though we're both being casual, I know we're both slightly anxious about what will happen. She's not coming here to judge us on our fitness as parents caring for a child in a proper environment; she's here to make sure Liam's still gaining weight, and that he's feeding well. It's support, not a test.

Gah. Still nervous.

Once she's done her thing and left, we feed the baby again and pack him up, then head out for our First Family Shopping Trip! I have gift cards and gift certificates to use for myself and Liam, and there's gifts to buy for others as well in other shops. Groceries must happen, too.

Redux and Plans

What a lovely weekend -- we unpacked some more, put more things up on walls, did laundry (still a novelty to walk downstairs with a basket of clothes and not have to scrape together coins or tokens), spent some quality time with Liam in hospital, and had a lovely early birthday dinner with my in-laws last night. The only drawback to the weekend was the four hours of being very, very ill I had to endure in the wee sma's of Sunday morning as the result of some bad spaghetti sauce. And that meant I had to lie down and nap while at HRH's parents' house, just before dinner. But the rest was worth it, because wow, as always, dinner was fantabulous. And they gave me gift certificates for my brthday, so that I could spoil myself. Hurrah!

Yesterday Liam weighed in at 2090 grams, and after a mildly challenging beginning to breastfeeding we're doing much better at it. As we go in twice each day, I've been feeding him once in the morning and once at night, with a bottle chaser to see if he needs more milk. Each time the amount of milk he takes from the bottle afterwards decreases, which is remarkably heartening and smugness-inducing. The nursing pillow my mother bought us makes a huge difference to our comfort and positioning, and is positively heavenly.

Today, I'm going to work on the green witch material in my notebook instead of staring at the computer screen, since making notes longhand worked so well last weekend. I tried to sit down at the computer to write yesterday but it just wasn't going to happen. So I'll draft things longhand and transcribe them tomorrow. It's good to not shackle myself to the keyboard, I've discovered, because I think differently when I work longhand, and this Other Mode seems to work well for drafting meditations and such, which is what I need to do now for Chapter Four. It's also gearing up to be another really hot week, so I want to be kind to myself while still finishing chapter by chapter.

Best-Laid Plans

So for once I had actually arranged a small birthday thing, on my birthday, no less, where I'd get together with a small group of friends to celebrate. This is unusual; I usually assume that no one really wants to be with a lame thing like me, and hide my head in the sand until the fateful event has passed and hope that people forget.

Because life likes to laugh when I fall on my face, there have arisen obstacles and I've had to temporarily cancel this birthday thing, pending a rescheduled date and time.

Thump. Voila, the sound of me falling on my face. How ironic, I think to myself, that this has happened on perhaps the second or third time ever that I have not only admitted it was my birthday, but planned something, and have been genuinely looking forward to it. And it's certainly the first time that I openly said I'd welcome gifts, if people wanted to give them to me. (Gifts make me uncomfortable and I usually make a plea to have a gift-free birthday. But I've learned my lesson from the shower.)

Oh, and the faint laughter you hear in the background over that resounding thump? That would be life, sniggering because I've eaten a piece of floor. Possibly a couple of gods snickering too. Certainly cats, who snicker at humans every chance they get.

So what's the first e-mail that comes back to me, ten minutes after my cancellation goes out?

That's it! I've had it! Being your friend is just too unpredictable and unstable :P

It is a sign of how much I have grown, and how good I have become at accepting being teased about my birthday shyness, that I could respond with:

Oh yeah? Well, I just can't work under these conditions; if you want me, I'll be in my trailer!

So pardon me while I go off in a mock huff.

(And yes, I will reschedule, unlike years past when I have said I'd reschedule and then just didn't, hoping that people would forget (see above). It usually worked, too. But not this year; I promise. I want my birthday thing. Gifts, damn it; if I'm finally openly allowing gifts, gifts I will have!)

Innocents Abroad

Can everyone spare a good thought or ten for Jan and t!, who are over in the UK on holiday? According to Jan's itinerary they're in the Reading/Oxford area today, so they're not in London, but terrorism isn't the nicest thing to have happen in the country on your holiday. I have a feeling that travel and such may be difficult for them over the next few days.

So good thoughts, wishes for strength, courage, and continued safety to them, to those who are scheduled to be at the wedding, and for all the others who are in England at the moment, London or otherwise.

Potpourri

1. Liam is, as of last night, 4 lbs 5 oz. He's really making up for the early thing. Still taking 40 ccs of milk per feeding, though, and I'm glad that finally levelled off, because the steep increase in milk intake was insane. (Also, my milk production has levelled off and begun to dip a bit, so I'm glad we're on the same wavelength.)

2. No news yet on the EKG they ran on him yesterday. We ran into the pediatrician for the first time a couple of days ago, and he ordered one because of a tiny little "swish" he was picking up when listening to Liam's heart. He drew a diagram for us while he explained, and as far as I can tell the "swish" likely comes from a sharp turn in a T section in one of the arteries above his heart. It would be perfectly normal for an infant his age, and he'd grow out of it. The pediatrician is just being responsible and making sure that he doesn't have to refer us to a cardiologist. (A sign of how tired I am is that I didn't even bat an eyelash or express anxiety at the idea of Liam needing a cardiologist. Yeah, sure, whatever; more doctors, more hospitals, blah blah blah...).

3. It would appear that I was premature in announcing that our road was paved. In fact, our road has the first layer of asphalt. It requires at least another layer, which means at least another day and likely four because it's supposed to rain today, and this crew has a tendency to vanish for days at a time. And then they have to paint lines and such. Well, at least the car doesn't bash its nose going over the cliff that is the sidewalk any more.

4. I am becoming remarkably despondent over the green witch book. I lack any sort of enthusiasm for the project. I can't get myself to focus on it for any amount of time to produce more than a hundred or so words a day or so each week. I haven't been posting my progress because it upsets me. (Although I'm about 1.2K further than I was last time I posted word count. That's what happens when you don't post updates for a while: it looks impressive when you clump all the little days together, as long as you don't think about the fact that it's four or five days' worth of work over a month.) I'm so tired that all I can do is stare at the screen. I think the past three weeks are finally catching up to me.

5. Pursuant to #4, and to how well Liam's doing, I'm worried that they'll send him home before I'm done the book, and I'll be so busy adjusting to taking care of him 24/7 that I won't be able to finish up the book, and I'll miss the new that's-absolutely-the-latest-we-can-get-it deadline. So the fear of that puts even more pressure to write write write and get it done done done on my shoulders, which freezes me up so it's even harder to write. I'm my own worst enemy. It gets especially bad when I curl up in a ball on the bed and think that I used to be able to whip 3000 words off in two hours, and then I look at my output in the past few weeks and sink further into despair.

This is all happening for a reason. Liam was born early for a reason. I have to try to live without my baby, and finish the last 10K or so of a book while wanting to be with him and fighting fatigue, for a reason. That which does not kill us makes us stronger, etc, but you know, I'd settle for a just little bit of time off without worrying about something or pining for someone, like I was supposed to have in July after the book was finished and before the baby came.

Grr

Not only has Firefox gone wonky on me, losing all the formatting I'd done and eating three-quarters of my bookmarks, but my log-in for Moveable Type crashes repeatedly.

Grrrrrr.

But! Half our street has been paved! Yes! Of course, it's the other side of the street... but I have high hopes for this side to be done as well, even though they haven't done anything since eleven this morning when they finished the first half.

Later: Gasp! Is't possible? They've paved our side of the road! Huzzah!

Ah Yes, The Orthographical Inconsistency of Celtic Mythological Figures

Matociquala (aka Elizabeth Bear) says:

Memo to me, memo to me: Pick *one* spelling of Manannan and stick to it.

I feel her pain.

Yikes

I opened my e-mail this morning and found approximately forty-ish pictures waiting for me, sent by various people.

The CMS gang got very silly this weekend while camping at Awakening Isis and took several pictures of students and teachers reading the spellcraft book. I also got a couple more photos from other people for the spellcraft "caught reading" page that's in the works. And my father sent me about thirty pictures taken at the shower, too. I can see that a good hour or two of my day will be occupied by uploading photos to various web pages!

Not that I'm upset, mind you, particularly since I've just discovered that I can change my address online for provincial government services so I don't have to go out today (whee! this didn't exist last time I moved!). I love all the pictures and I'm looking forward to sharing them with you.

Ahem

The Lady of the Dominion extends warm wishes to His Royal Highness, King of Canada in exile, on this national day of honouring his kingdom from sea to shining sea.

And what do you know, so does the heir. Crown Prince Liam wishes his da a happy Canada Day, too.

As you, my gentle readers, may have guessed, there are Canadian flags up everywhere -- on the front balcony, the back balcony, in Liam's room...

Today:

Today, I WILL write something in the actual green witch document instead of making handwritten notes in the printout. I know I've been working on it, but I feel as if I'm accomplishing nothing because the ultimate word count of the file isn't increasing.

Today, I WILL go for a walk.

Today, I will NOT grumble about the fact that there are no road crews here to finish the bloody road, that still doesn't have all the drains set, is far from being paved, and that still presents a danger to anyone in a regular car and who tries to pull into a driveway. Of course, despite the lack of road crews, the 'no parking between 7.00 and 19.00h' signs are still up.

It's The Little Things

Y'know, despite the big things I have to be thrilled about these days, there are little things that are sending me right round the bend.

Such as the fact that OUR ROAD DIDN'T GET PAVED YESTERDAY.

No. Instead they raked it all up again, and then rolled it flat again. Just like they've been doing for over a week now. Except this time they've lowered it so far as to make getting into the driveways over the sidewalk impossible unless you have an SUV or a pickup.

And then the water truck came and watered it twice. As it's done every second day for a week.

It looks -- LOOKS, mind you -- like they're trying to sink the drains today. I'll believe it when I see it. They began the roadworks around May 15; I know this because we dropped off boxes around the 14th and things were fine, and then the sidewalks were gone the next day. That's over thirty days of inconveniencing our neighbourhood. It's not the noise, or the fact that they're doing the drain and rebuilding the road from the ground up that irritates me; it's the fact that for sixty percent of the time we've lived here, we haven't been able to use our driveway safely. I'm kind of tired of the dust, too. Moving away from a major street was supposed to diminish the dust.

Grr.

Hurrah

Two important things:

1. They are finally paving our road. You know, the road that was somewhat torn up before we moved in, and fully torn up the day I went into the hospital? The paving crew has finally gotten their act together. Good thing, too; everyone was getting a little tired of the no parking signs up for ages for no reason, and ignoring them.

2. Liam is at this very moment being transported to LaSalle Hospital. (Literally -- I just got the call confirming it.) He's so stable and doing so incredibly well that Sainte-Justine no longer needs to care for him; the regular nursery care of a non-specialised unit will be fine.

I am, of course, ecstatic. HRH is pleased but still has reservations, and won't be fully okay until we see Liam tonight in his new home-away-from-home. But that's all right; that's the way he is.

He's up to 30ccs per feeding (that's a total of about 8.5 ounces a day!), and he's gained weight again so he's only a breath away from his birth weight (not surprising, what with 8 oz of milk daily). I made sure to thank the head nurse when I spoke to her earlier today on the phone about the transfer, and to tell her how much we appreciated the care all the nurses in intensive and intermediate care had lavished upon Liam, and how good they'd been with us. (Mostly. It really wasn't the time to bring up the two or three aberrations.)

So after a brief engagement with a friend this afternoon (happy 25th birthday, Colleen!), I'll be calling LaSalle to get the latest info on Liam's whereabouts and status. I have no idea if he'll still be in an isolette or if he'll be swaddled in a regular bassinette, but I do know he'll still be plugged into monitors so they can keep an eye on his heart and respiratory rates.

I'm so proud of him for being so strong, and doing so well. And this is a giant step closer to bringing him home.

Anticipation

Ceri is a quilter, among other things (like professional writer, and saxophonist, and priestess, and editor, and so forth). And she's made a baby quilt for Liam.

I've been so, so good up till now while she's planned it and chosen fabrics and pieced it and quilted it. I really have.

But now the suspense is absolutely killing me, and I'm so giddy that I don't think I can make it to the reveal on Saturday without hurting myself.

However

Not all of yesterday was horrible. Instead of going into work and leaving me a quivering mess because I hadn't been able to spend more than two minutes with the baby yesterday morning, HRH stopped by work and gathered the stuff he'd need to work at home, and we both took lots of breaks. It was nice having him here. I napped. We rented Finding Neverland to watch over lunch, which was excellent (although we both bawled at the end, and HRH says it ought to come with a warning label that says 'Do Not Watch While In A State Of Emotional Distress'). There was a time-out to go have Blizzards at the local Dairy Queen. And after the disaster of a late-afternoon visit to the hospital there was iced cappuccino to soothe upset feelings, and I took him out to buy him two new pairs of jeans. I had a warm bath, and purposely didn't turn on the computer all day. We rented Spiderman 2 to watch before bed (which was also excellent, but in a different way from the first one).

It was, in fact, an excellent day, as long as we don't count either hospital visit.

Today has been a similar kind of day. We didn't spend long this morning with the baby, because he was fussing a bit and we didn't want to overstimulate him. But we had a chance meeting with the nice lady doing that observational study, and had a lovely talk with her. She's promised to send us a copy of the study results when they're done in a couple of years, and said that she was truly glad to have met us, and to have worked with Liam because he was a wonderful subject to study. (Even with the determined removal of those straps and that mask, she said.) While we were there, though, I noticed that his hair is lightening even more, and he's gained a few more grams (but only a handful, probably because it was his first day off the IV).

Our main objective was to unpack a few more boxes and to prettify the new place today. We now have pictures on the walls, which has gone a long way to making the space feel even more lived-in. And there was a nap this afternoon in the sun, which was lovely. Now, I think, I will suggest putting the crib or the dresser together while Ceri's stuffed peppers and Luanna's second meatloaf heat up.

Gifting

My father-in-law just showed up with a patio umbrella, which is the perfect size to shade the back deck.

And firewillow is on her way over, mumbling somewhat incoherently with joy and excitement, because she's taking home that lovely wire-strung harp that's been sitting in the corner for a couple of years. Since t! directed it into my hands, I played it enthusiasically for one summer, then put it aside because I joined orchestra and went full-time cello instead of scattering my musical energies. Now, because firewillow happened to mention harps on her LJ this afternoon, things went click-click-click into place, and t! has once again directed it into loving hands. I'm sending her home with the one harp book I can find, the stand HRH built for it, and the tuner I picked up as well. The other harp books will follow once I find them.

Life's pretty good.

Happy Father's Day...

... to every single dad I know (and wow, that includes a lot of personal friends around my age). A special "yay" goes out to my own dad and my father-in-law, both of whom get to celebrate their very first Father's Day as granddads.

And, of course, to HRH, who is my very own Mr. Incredible. I would not be sane at the moment were it not for him and his superpowers. (Besides, he let me kangaroo with Liam last night even though it was his turn, just so he could cuddle him on Father's Day.)

Did I Mention Tired?

1. Two visits to the hospital daily, plus travel time and doing at-home stuff (or work, in HRH's case) is beginning to take its toll.

2. HRH got to hold Liam last night for almost a whole hour. This was the first time he'd ever held him, period. It did both of them a lot of good. Yes, I got pictures.

3. Evidently Liam absorbed some of HRH's appetite while they cuddled yesterday, because his feedings have increased from 8 ccs yesterday to 11 ccs after our visit last night. Woo-hoo! (Two days ago it was only 6 ccs per feeding. Hungry little chap. That's fine, there's more than enough milk for him.)

4. We went out to dinner last night, and I ordered a glass of white wine. The waiter came back and told me it was warm and he couldn't serve it yet, and would I like something else? I said no, just give me water, and proceeded to fight back a welling up of irritated tears. A glass of wine, for heaven's sake. Did I mention that I was tired? (The flank steak with bordelaise sauce made up for the wine disappointment, although the rice was flabby and the vegetables overcooked. So dinner was basically steak and iced lemon water. Why can't I ever remember that Pizzadelic does good pasta, amazing pizzas, wonderful meat, and lousy everything else?)

5. We had a lovely short visit with Jeff and Paze last night, where they fed us lemon bars and gave us tons of their baby stuff. We haven't had the energy to go through the bag of clothes and toys yet, but HRH has installed the car seat and keeps sneaking looks at it while he drives.

6. I get my hour of holding Liam tonight, and it's what's keeping me going today. I asked HRH to drop me off at home directly after the hospital this morning, instead of me taking him to work and having the car all day. This way I can't say, "Oh, I'll just run this errand, and then this one," and end up with only three hours at home on my own before having to leave to pick him up for the evening visit to the hospital. I can't jam everything I have to do into three hours; I just can't. Eating, working, a nap, and an awful lot of time spent expressing milk doesn't physically fit into three hours.

7. I unpacked four of the five remaining boxes in my office this morning. The last one is in the corner under the shelves, so it's out of the way. The cello is finally out and in its stand, too.

8. When we arrived at the hospital this morning Liam had just had his bath, and he was lying quietly with his eyes wide open, looking at us. Usually he has rather sleepy eyes, but today he was quiet and alert. He kept trying to pull his blanket over to suckle on the edge of it, and if that didn't work he tried his hand, and then his IV plug. It will be interesting to see what he tries to do when I hold him tonight. And when the nurse fed him, she let me reach into the isolette to prop him up and burp him. (Not that there was a lot of air to come up; he's being fed through a tube, after all.) Plenty of hands-on time; I love it. I want more, of course, but overstimulating the little thing is not a good idea. He's officially minus two months old today.

9. Lunch must now happen. (Luanna's meatloaf! Yay!)

In Praise of Lu

When I got to the Random Colour meeting on Tuesday night, Luanna was waiting with a bag of food.

Seriously. There was meatloaf and spaghetti sauce. And I thought, well, that's nice -- unnecessary but nice, because it's not like the baby's at home running us off our feet, after all.

But in the past two days they've come in awfully handy, because HRH either comes home and we have twenty minutes before we head off to the hospital, or I dash out before dinner to pick him up and we do that hospital thing, and we don't get home until long after the dinner hour, already tired. It's nice to just pop something into the oven.

Let me tell you, Luanna makes the most amazing meatloaf we have ever tasted. It's tender and moist and has what must be handfuls of delicious herbs flavouring it. And you can't have a single crumb, because it's all ours.

Social Update

Again, because people have begun to inquire, I'm disseminating the info here:

The Housewarming: is off, folks. Sorry. We'll do an afternoon open house after Liam comes home, how's that? You can see the new place and the new baby at the same time.

The Shower: if you were on the invitation list (and although we'd have loved to have everyone there, we had to keep numbers low), know that yes, it's still on!

The July 1 Concert: is still on, but I will not be playing in it.

Any other social event I was to be involved in over the next month is on a case-by-case basis, depending on when it is and how I'm feeling.

As you were!

Later: Oh, crap; I have a birthday coming up too. This is ridiculous.

On And On

The boxes of books are all gone. Half my books are up on shelves. And I'm on chapter 6 of the Wicca proofs. Go me!

Irony

I'm using my proofs and unpacking as breaks from each other. I edit for a bit; then I unpack for a bit; then I go back and edit for a bit.

We installed the shelves in the bookcases this morning. HRH brought up piles and piles of book boxes, finding my six missing office boxes along the way. There are now maybe a quarter (or a sixth, I can't decide) of my books in the living room. (I found ai731's copy of The Bone People so I can read it! Hurrah!)

I can't do anything with the office boxes. Why? Because we need to hit Ikea first to buy a second six-foot end bit to extend the current Ivar shelf unit that I have, which is what we've decided to do instead of building the two shorter units, stacking them on top of one another, and fastening them with brackets.

::headdesk::

Tomorrow night. Ikea, tomorrow night.

The maple tree is in the midst of dropping its propeller-like seeds, and when today's east wind kicks up it blows them right against the front of the house. The cats lining the patio doors that lead onto the front balcony alternately flee in terror from the attack, or get tremendously excited and try to catch them through the screen door.

Messing About Saturday Morning

The fridge is plugged in, operational, and has been wedged into the fridge space. HRH raised the bottom of the over-fridge cabinet by removing the doors, gently applying a hammer in key places to raise the bottom of the cabinet, and then rehanging the doors. We have food in the fridge, after a remarkably gleeful grocery spree. We are very happy.

The first chapter of the Wicca book is fragmented and feels vaguely incoherent when I read through it. Of course, it's kind of meant to be a quick refresher on basic themes for someone who already knows about this stuff, but the superficiality still makes me uncomfortable. I know I'm deeply critical of my own work. Still, I was quite relieved to hit the second chapter, which actually begins doing what the book professes to do -- namely, pulls apart stuff people do just because they've been told to do it, and looks at the whys and the individual steps associated with each.

Amp shopping with ai731 at noon (yes, it's her turn to mess about with cords and loud stuff, and I will buy mine today if it's in stock, hurrah!), then band practice. And then lovely salmon steaks for dinner with rice, perhaps with some of that peach mead we discovered when we moved. Rumour has it HRH is painting the living room today, too.

Grr

So because they had to turn the fridge on its side and lift it over the back railing of the deck (due to the iron emergency staircase leading down from the second storey), we have to allow the fridge to stand upright for even longer than usual before plugging it in.

And, although the measurements of the body of the fridge itself fit the space in the kitchen, the addition of freaking wheels to the bottom raises it just slightly, thereby creating a couple of millimeters of interference between the top of the fridge and the bottom of the cabinets. Wheels. I'm sure they're useful when you move it, but how often do you move a fridge? Argh! So it's currently in the middle of the kitchen, unplugged and silent.

I think we may have to borrow HRH's dad's sander and, erm, slenderise the bottom shelf of the above-fridge cabinets. Just enough so that the damn unit slips into the space designed for it. If you look closely, you can see that someone else has previously raised that bottom shelf an inch or so, likely due to the same issue. Or maybe we'll do that again.

This is more than enough character-building for one week, thanks.

Voila #2

The fridge is here! The fridge is here! The truck just pulled up!

Am Terribly Pathetic

Every time I hear a largish vehicle slowing down outside, I jump out of my desk chair and peer out the window. It could be the FedEx van! It could be the truck with my fridge in it!

Alas, as our street is still in the midst of repaving chaos, every vehicle slows down as it passes, both large and small.

I'm never going to get any work done at this rate.

I Dream Of Cold Drinks...

Today, our fridge arrives. Tonight, there will be ice cream, and ice cubes, and cold drinks, and food that we can prepare when we feel like it.

When does this fridge arrive? We do not know. Deliveries begin at 8.00 AM and continue until they're done. HRH has decided to stay and work at home until it shows up, for which I am decidedly thankful. The cats were playing with the vertical blinds last night and kept waking me up, and so now I'm trying to not fall back into the crankiness that plagued me late yesterday afternoon. It also means I can escape if I want to. There is little that I hate so much as the feeling that I'm trapped in my own home waiting for someone else to show up at some undefined moment, and I can't even leave for a breath of fresh air or to walk out to explore the local depanneur. Particularly since in recent history, the waiting-at-home-for-tradespeople business usually resulted in them showing up at the very end of the day or even days late.

HRH's meeting was cancelled last night so he took me out for supper, which would have been much more enjoyable if we hadn't had to battle through an hour of traffic to get to the West Island. Still, we had a lovely drive along the canal road and then the river road, and there was iced tea at the other end. With real ice.

I think what's frustrating me more than anything else these days is the fact that I feel pretty useless. I have to wait for HRH to be home to find things, lift things, move things, paint things. I was so proud that I'd gone out and picked up the curtain rod, a new shower head, the stain, and all those sorts of things: I was doing something that needed to be done. And then I couldn't do a damned thing with them once I got them home. I'm very, very bad at relying on other people; I'm a firm believer in the philosophy of "if you want it done (at all, but preferably right), then do it yourself", as well as being abysmal at admitting that I need help for anything. (I am improving in that department, however, much to the chagrin of people whose events and activities I've dropped for the sake of sanity.) So these things which are making me cranky are probably improving my character somehow.

I think we'll descend into the garage today and I'll open boxes down there. That way I can say, "We need this one upstairs" and HRH will carry the right ones up, rather than me discovering up here that they're not the ones I need and then the boxes sitting in the way until HRH can bring them back downstairs.

And hmm, the FedEx delivery ought to show up today as well. (It had better show up today, or I'll have only a couple of days to do the proofs before they have to be back in Boston.)

In Which She Gets Aggressive About Others Using Her Power Tools

After figuring out how to get the professional vertical blinds down, I discovered that I needed my drill to set the screws of the new rod supports, because I don't have the torque or correct angle required to do it by hand with a screwdriver.

Is my drill with my toolbox? No, of course not.

Fine. I can use my awl and my hammer instead.

Is my awl in my toolbox? No, of course not. But the hammer's there.

Is HRH's toolbox (which has apparently swallowed all of my tools) anywhere in sight?

No. Of course not. It must still be downstairs in the sea of boxes piled far over my head in the depths of the garage. You know, the piles I can't get to?

So the vertical blinds are now lying on the living room floor, because there's nowhere else for them to go. The new rod and supports are lying here on the floor of my office, along with the curtains and the new clamp rings, because I can't do anything with them.

It's vaguely tempting to go out again to buy myself another drill, and hide it in my office. That way I'll always have it when I need it. Perhaps I'll restock my toolbox with screwdrivers, levels, and awls and hide that as well, because all of them have also mysteriously gone AWOL, presumably into HRH's toolbox. And maybe I'll mark my name on each and every one of them, just in case my stash is discovered and "borrowed" one by one again.

Fine. So I gritted my teeth and walked away from this particular half-finished project, because there was nothing else I could do. I decided to unpack the boxes HRH brought up this morning instead.

Every single box except one is useless to me. I might as well seal them up again, because they have to go right back into storage until winter.

Even deep breaths don't help. I'm just angry and frustrated in general now.

And I can't even pour a cold drink.

Needless to say, I'm no longer in the mood to work on a happy cheerful book about being in harmony with your surroundings.

Grrrrr.

I Have

1. I have stain for my office bookshelves.

2. I have a new curtain rod and clamp rings for my beautiful pale green office curtains, which just so happen to be family heirlooms hand-woven by my maternal grandfather.

3. I have a new reference book for the green witch project to inspire me. I stopped by the metaphysical book shop to see long-lost friends like Roo, and the store cats. My spellcraft book still hasn't arrived. Nor has my box of author's copies. Roo gave me a lovely, lovely little housewarming gift of magic beans. Terribly apropos.

4. While I was there, I bought myself an Office-Warming Gift. (No, not the original, an 8 x 10" print.)

5. I got myself a new cool blue summer dress, a new t-shirt, and a summer skirt, each and every one of them on sale, plus an extra discount with a coupon I had. Muah-hah-hah. Now I have summer clothes that fit.

Now I intend to hang those curtains, which entails taking down the much-disliked vertical blinds and the mountings with a screwdriver. Then I will hit the green witch book for the first time in two weeks, because I'm in the mood. Huzzah!

New House Sounds And Smells

Falling asleep at eleven at night to the dusky smell of lilacs coming in through the bedroom window. I must cherish this deeply as it's only to last another few days.

Waking up at four in the morning to the sounds of screeching birds and squirrels. Oh, there are gently twittering birdies too, who lull one back to drowse in bed, until the screeching bird lets loose again.

Finding cats in odd places. Everyone seems to be testing various rooms and perches for The Best Spot Ever.

Odd echoes that I'm not yet used to. These will vanish as boxes are further unpacked and stuff goes up on walls. In the meantime, things that happen in one room sound like they're coming from another room entirely.

No love for the plug-in cooler that is currently serving as our fridge substitute, as the AC adaptor makes a really irritating loud buzz that can be heard in every single room. Much love, however, for my 1974 Kenmore stove, which used to be our family stove until my parents replaced it about three years ago. It's still going strong. Boiled a perfectly good kettle of water yesterday, and heated that quiche, too.

Two bowls of fresh strawberries that absolutely must be eaten today. Usually we try to make these last as long as possible, but these were on sale and with no fridge to store them, that means we can -- may, must -- eat our fill of lovely fresh-smelling sweetness for breakfast.

Settling In

We now own a fridge. Well, we own it, but we do not yet possess it. That happens Friday, which is the earliest it can be delivered.

There was tea and there was toast this morning once we'd found the toaster, the tea, and the kettle. The sugar and coffee filters were located as well, but as we had no milk, HRH chose to pass on the coffee. We even have plates, glasses, and cutlery. And cooking utensils, should the whim to scramble those eggs take me.

There are now groceries for a day or so, in the form of a quiche, fresh bread, cold cuts, cheese, juice, and milk. There are also more cleaning supplies. Hard on the heels of buying my very first major appliance (and paying for it in full -- how terribly grown-up I feel) I bought my first box of dishwasher detergent. We plan on doing a load of laundry tonight, and running as much as we can pack into the dishwasher tomorrow to remove the lingering newsprint and dust. The windows all need a good wipe-down, and the floor deserves a mopping as well.

But for now I've plunged myself fully into editorial mode as I review a manuscript. A sandwich awaits while I read.

Home!

Huzzah! I now have an operational computer! Which means, of course, that I can start working once the right moment strikes. The sun is streaming into my office, which pleases me because it means I don't have to turn on a light if I want to work in the morning. It also means that I have access to music again, thanks to all the mp3s on the hard drive. There are currently only six CDs up here to listen to on the stereo, and only because I took them to Oakville with me. The others are all in a stack of boxes somewhere in the garage, rather low on the list of boxes-we-must-bring-up.

I do not, however, have a full night's sleep, nor anything even remotely resembling one. Nor do I have food. Well, I have a bit of food, but no means of preparing it. Dinner last night after rehearsal consisted of baby carrots and bottled water. Incidentally, this is the same thing that I am having for breakfast (or I was until Maggie lay down on the bag). I was so wired once I got home from rehearsal last night that I didn't fall asleep until around one AM, and then I only slept lightly so I woke up a lot to new noises, and to aches and pains from the drive every time I tried to shift my position. I gave up on the trying to sleep thing at four-thirty and came to set up what I could of the office instead. HRH is still dead to the world, and with reason; his stamina over the past week has been nothing short of heroic. I think he's looking forward to going to work today so that he can just sit and draw, and not worry about lifting anything or driving anywhere.

We got home from Toronto with the stove in the back of the car around sixish yesterday afternoon, and it took Tal and HRH no time at all to get it out and up the back stairs into the kitchen. In fact, it took us longer to replace the knobs and racks and lights and elements and turn them all on to make sure everything works. So yes, hurrah: we now have a fully functional stove. And there are eggs in the cooler. Alas for the fact that all the pots and pans are currently AWOL in a box somewhere in the depths of the garage; my stomach is irked. It occurs to me that even if I had a frying pan in which to scramble those lovely eggs, the cutlery too is AWOL, so I'd be eating with my fingers, which then raises the question of what I could have used to scramble them in the first place. I cannot and will not grumble; HRH was good enough to pack the kitchen. I'm not the only one who's suffering, either: the coffeemaker is here, as is the coffee... but the filters are in the uncharted depths of the garage, as are the kettle and all my tea. While I was at rehearsal last night HRH brought up all the office boxes that he could find, for which I am terribly thankful, but he didn't have the time or energy to bring up the kitchen boxes. That's to be done before we leave to buy the fridge this morning. I thought my priority was setting up the office completely, but now that the computer is operational and I can at least open a document to work on the book MS as well as catching up on the first read-through of an editing job, suddenly getting the kitchen at least operational has moved to the top of the list of priorities.

Speaking of priorities, as soon as I got home I went to lie down on the bedroom floor and talk to poor Nixie, who hadn't been out for more than a total of about fifteen minutes to snatch a bite of kibble and a lick of water since the move was completed. It took only three minutes of coaxing before she emerged from her nest in the box spring to sniffed my hand, then purred like mad and rubbed her little cheeks all over my fingers. I then coaxed her up onto the bed for more of a proper pet, surrounded by all the other cats who were mad to see me home again, and then even managed to reassure her enough into following me out into the kitchen. And after that, everything was fine. It was as if she only needed my presence to define the whole "home" concept. This was precisely the sort of thing that gave me mild anxiety about leaving for five days around the move; I knew someone among the feline crew would freak out and I wouldn't be there. Anywhats, all's well now, and the difference between how strained she was when she first emerged from under the bed and when we went to bed last night has been remarkable. She's been following me about, and even chats with me (which is odd for Nix). She's currently curled up on a shelf next to my desk, the picture of contentment.

Rehearsal was marvellous, tough but marvellous. The improvement in two hours of playing one song over and over was marked. I have nothing but the utmost admiration for my bandmates. With only two months of rehearsal, with one person picking up an instrument she'd never played before and most playing in an ensemble for the very first time, we've grown into a cohesive group with the ability to work around obstacles together and emerge triumphant on the other side. We think we're phenomenal. (Please note that that's not necessarily a value judgement regarding the quality of our musical ability, but rather a comment on what we've accomplished. But the music's not bad, either.) It would be nice if the audience enjoys our mini-set, but frankly we're the five who have to be pleased, and at the rate we're going we've already got a lot to celebrate.

I think I'll go make a filter from some paper towel, and surprise HRH with a pot of good strong coffee. Or maybe not; I don't think there's milk or sugar.

Sigh. It's going to be a long morning. I foresee a quick stop at a supermarket on the way home from the fridge quest.

Saturday

I am remarkably lethargic this morning.

Into the Woods was, of course, excellent. They included the new song written for the second production, a duet between Rapunzel and the witch, and it was interesting. The production design was all done in black and white with minimalist highlights of red as blood, yellow as corn, and pure as gold (of course), with a fashion theme of late 1920s/early 30s. I can never decide if seeing a new musical is more emotionally overwhelming, or seeing one to which you know all the words. The former hits you with unexpected force because it's all discovery, while the latter draws on your knowledge and familiarity to wring out new emotion at the expression of it all. (Yeah, I cried through the last half of the second act, just as I expected to.) On the way home Mum and I talked about the themes of forming and sticking to your own moral code, responsibility, and consequence, and how no one sends you to parent school. No one sends you to child school either, of course, and life is basically about slogging your way through situations any way you can and acquiring experience. Trying to keep people from hurt and harm, whether it be by well-meant advice or swaddling them in cotton wool, means that you're telling them you don't trust them to make their way through those situations, or to gather their own exerience. Sometimes you just have to allow someone you've trained or raised to go ahead on their own and trust that you raised them in such a fashion that they'll muddle through on their own, using the skills you've taught them. It's not about trusting them so much as trusting yourself and your own past choices.

Lunch was lovely: steamed mussels with saffron and fennel, then a warm smoked salmon en croustade with a beet confit and arugula (rocket to my UK friends). Dinner was chicken pot pie and cider down at the pub. Mmm.

I am told the move was successful both in that it got done, and in that it has pretty much wiped away the lingering horrors of the previous move from HRH's mind. Hail to the hand-picked gang of friends who were sturdy, calm, and followed the plan laid out for them. You're all heroes. I hear you were finished and having lunch at 2.30. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Now if Nixie would just get past the whole "oh my gods you're TEARING APART MY LIFE" issue, I'd be perfectly content. First on my list is setting up my office on Tuesday morning, because I'm now two weeks behind where I wanted to be on the green witch MS. I can paint some other time; right now I need that office.

Today, Mum and I grocery shop while Dad's at work at the museum. And then HRH arrives for dinner!

Betwixt and Between

Yesterday Mum and I did a lot of messing about in various shops looking for curtains and other stuff, and it tired me out a lot. Unfortunately it didn't tire me out enough to actually sleep well: I ended up awake for three hours and reading in the middle of the night.

We did pick up a ton of stuff, though, now that I have a place to store it all. Someone whom we haven't even met yet got thoroughly spoiled, even if the major purchase was secondhand. (Hell, we saved about $150 dollars on that one item alone, which pleases me mightily. It assuaged the shock of spending the equivalent amount we'd saved on the assorted new things.)

Today was a quiet day at home with a book, other than lunch out. Thunderstorm cells passed through here this afternoon, and from watching the weather channel it looks like there will be showers in YUL all tomorrow, which means HRH is probably muttering darkly.

Rufus has taken to sleeping on the bed when I lie down to rest in the afternoons. I feel honoured. But when I woke up last night I missed my Maggie-cat curled up next to my chest dreadfully.

As there's not much to do other than sit and think or sit and read (doing nothing is, after all, the point of me being here), I've finished reading The Forest by Edward Rutherfurd, and The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith, and now I'm back reading Elizabeth Peters because Mum has one of the ones I've missed in the Amelia Peabody series. Tomorrow morning we head out to Stratford for lunch and the matinee performance of Into the Woods. Then it will be Sunday and I will see HRH again, whom I am also missing.

I find that when I think of "going home" I'm thinking of arriving at the new place in Lasalle. This is a very good thing. I'm also looking forward to it, which relieves me somewhat. It wasn't even a defined anxiety, but somehow, recognising that I'm looking forward to the new place soothes me.

Here and There

After months of living with HRH at home and becoming frustrated by having someone else in my living and work space 24/7, he gets a job, and then all I want to do is call him to say hi because he's not there. Likewise, I had forgetten how hard it is to walk away from him at the airport, too. We had an overpriced breakfast together at one of the aiport cafes after I checked in, and then I made up little excuses to delay going through security so that we could be together just a bit longer. Once I walked through security and waved goodbye one last time, I went down the escalator and felt completely wretched for a few minutes, thinking that after work he'll be going home to an apartment full of boxes, last minute packing and disassembly in an environment bereft of character and comfort. I felt guilty for wanting to be elsewhere, and for leaving him to handle the last couple of days alone.

And then once I was here in Oakville after a wonderful flight and I called him to touch base, I heard how calm and cheerful he sounded, and I thought, well, if I'm happy, and he's calmer without worrying about me killing myself while packing, and confident that all the last-minute things will be done with time to spare, then everything's all right. And for the first time in weeks and weeks, I allowed myself to relax.

The weather here is beautiful. I actually sat outside in the sun yesterday afternoon and had to take off the cardigan of the twin set I was wearing, leaving my arms completely bare in the sleeveless camisole. I saw the cherry tree in the backyard in blossom for the first time ever (I usually miss it), and can smell the crabapple and the lilacs bending over the neighbours' fence. The goldfinches have been making daring swoops at the little fountain about six feet away fromt he deck. I saw an oriole, the cardinal, and both the mourning doves and the robins taking a bath. I saw the terribly serious baby robins crammed into their nest in the front climbing hydrangea, and they all looked back at me. Last night one fell out, and Mum and I cheered him on as he flew four feet, hopped a bit, then flew up into the front maple. This morning the grackles found the remaining three in the nest, and tried to get at them so hard that they pulled the vine away from the garage wall. Everyone's gone now; we found two of the babies up in the front maple, but we don't know where the other two have hidden, or if they survived the grackle attack.

The cats are all beautiful and well, and everyone's just a bit silly this morning. Seamus demonstrated how he can leap and twist when I hold the sparkly rod-like cat toy high in the air. Cordelia is her usual standoffish self, content to be admired from a distance and to watch you play with the cat toys (what, play with them herself and muss her fur?). Rufus gave me a nose to nose hello when I walked up to his perch on the six-foot carpeted cat tree, but he still isn't much for pats. I miss my own cats, of course, and while I'm at peace with allowing HRH to handle the move, the only thing that still upsets me is that I won't be there to hold their paws and reassure them on Saturday.

I slept wonderfully last night, and that after a two-hour nap to make up for the lousy sleep I had Tuesday night. I'm so relieved to be here, to be surrounded by green and calm and to have nothing to do but sit and listen to the birds, to look at my parents' garden, to close my eyes and tilt my face up to the sun. There was homemade macaroni and cheese for dinner, and a batch of spice cookies in the tin, and my dad's homemade sauvignon blanc to sip in the sun before we ate. And there was a little care package of bath gels and bath beads waiting for me in my room, along with other little gifts. Ironically, last night was the first night in a long time that I didn't need to take a bath to relax and soothe abused muscles and mind.

One becomes so accustomed to dealing with stress that it becomes normal, and one forgets what relaxing is like. It is so very good to get away.

Signing Off

Well, I've done almost everything I can do here in the time left to me; now I just need to make a couple of copies of important files to carry with me, set all my e-lists to web only to reduce e-mail volume over the next week, and pack my suitcase for the trip to Toronto.

The computer is being disconnected within the hour, so we'll be off e-mail until May 31 or June 1. Thus, if you send us anything via that particular mode of communication we're not going to get it for about a week, so please don't unless you absolutely have to (and if you do you're not going to get an answer for while anyway). HRH will still be available by phone, of course (which is always the best way to reach him). I'll likely post to this journal a couple of times from my parents' place over the weekend, but apart from that, you're on your own.

While I'm gone on my short but much-needed vacation, be good to HRH and to one another, and enjoy life.

Toronto Minus One Day

Okay, I've now recovered from the shock. Now I'm excited and happy and past the state of stun into which seeing the book spotlighted on the main Witchvox page placed me.

Visiting various folks yesterday was lovely, despite the rain. You know, it occurs to me that we've thanked our friends, but we've neglected to thank both sets of parents, who are also being marvellously supportive and caring regarding this move. They feed us, they give us a place to be other than betwixt and between, and while we count them among our friends they deserve a special thank you of their own. My own mother is making the personal sacrifice of taking me to Stratford to see Into the Woods this Saturday to take my mind off the move. You see the lengths to which they will go? Is this not inspiring?

The doctor is, as always, thrilled with how well I'm doing. She even wrote a note ordering the airline to let me fly if they give me problems about my condition when I try to board tomorrow (which they shouldn't, but you never know). She says I'm doing so well I could fly right up to the end of July if I wanted to.

Packing proceeds apace. Both HRH and I are in a better headspace regarding the move. It was that particular two or three days where things were half in boxes and half out that got to us. Now that about eighty percent of things are packed away, it's remarkably easier to be here, probably because it really doesn't look or feel like our place any longer. Tal helped us immensely yesterday by packing the last third of the books for us while I packed my office away (even if he did pack the small set of books I'd put aside to take with me to Toronto! -- s'okay, means I get to buy more). Today, all I have to do is pack the last half of the bathroom, my hanging clothes, and finish the altar and the statuary. The only other must-do thing on my list is to get to the post office. Anything else is gravy for HRH.

Tonight we disassemble the computer, and take it and the cello over to the new place. The paintings went over this morning after the doctor's appointment, as we were in the neighbourhood. HRH has already taken three or four loads of boxes over in the car, which has helped the crush of boxes here quite a bit.

And now... I pack.

Best-Laid Plans...

The kitchen in the new place has now officially been painted. We ran into a bad moment when I applied the first bits of green edging and discovered that it looked awful with the countertops, which quite frankly baffles me because we laid the paint chips on the counters to make sure the colour combination would harmonize before we made our final decision. We'll try to take the paint back and trade it in for something else.

Then I wrenched my hip getting up from where I was sitting to do that edging, and was completely useless for the rest of the afternoon. So I sat and watched HRH paint. Since the kitchen took twice as long to do as we expected, the living room can be done after we move in and before we unpack.

The kitchen looks lovely, though, even all cream-coloured instead of the cream on top, green on the bottom, and the stained chair rail that was supposed to come next.

I slept wonderfully, thank goodness, and the pain in my hip is bearable. I'm anti-social though, which is a bit of a problem because we're scheduled to be with people all day for various things. Knowing who we're going to be with, though, every one of them will understand and let me be quiet while we pack/shop/barbecue/drink various beverages.

Status Report

Boxes of china and crystal: at the new place.

Swords: at the new place.

Original art, other paintings, and framed pictures: to go over Monday between packing and BBQ.

My office equipment and cello: to go over Tuesday night. The cello is to be put in the closet of the second bedroom, mainly because the closet in my new office has a shelf system in it and the cello won't fit.

To pack: the second half of the bathroom; the pantry and most pots; my office; the second half of the living room; the last bits of the altar area; the second half of the bedroom. This morning I woke up and the first thing I remembered was that I'd forgotten to file my change of address with the post office when I submitted the info to the phone and electric companies in early May, so I'm currently beating myself about the head and will have to do it Tuesday after my appointment with the doctor and the buying of the new fridge. Oh, and I have to pack a suitcase for my trip.

Then on Wednesday morning, I leave for Toronto. And I never return to this apartment. Ever.

I so desperately want to be away from here. And at the same time I really don't want to leave HRH alone. No wonder I'm suddenly stressed. Everything was fine up until it became Toronto minus three days.

Insight

Friday night, HRH and I put our collective finger on why we're so cranky.

We like our environment to be ordered. Everything has a place, and works together with all the other stuff to create a certain atmosphere, a precise sort of energy, if you will. Most people remark on it when they come over. "Wow," they say, "your place feels so good." Even if we've decorated in a style they themselves wouldn't have chosen (and face it, not everyone is big on thusands of books, Pre-Raphaelite prints, original art, religious statuary, and really big sharp swords), people are comfortable.

We are very sensitive to energy. Maintaining a calm and well-balanced energy flow through the house is important to us.

And when one packs, one tears apart that careful construct of energy and it goes mega-chaotic. No matter how well-trained we are to handle it, to shield and ground and any number of other methods of dealing with energy both interior and exterior, when you tear apart your life at ground zero, even in an effort to improve it, you mess with your own energy flow as well.

Thus, we are tearing apart our own psyches. This explains why (a) I can't focus on writing at all, (b) why I don't want to eat, and (c) why both our moods improve immensely three minutes after we leave the apartment. It also likely plays a major role in why both our sleep patterns are now officially off-track. And the re-emergence of my anxiety attacks, which I haven't experienced in over two years. (Part of my stress comes from being concerned about HRH during this move. The last one did some major psychological damage to him. And also from stressing about not being able to do more for this move, even though HRH tells me every day that he's stunned to see how much I've packed and that I've already done more than he expected me to accomplish. That's pretty much over now, though, since I really hurt myself yesterday somehow. Damn it.)

And people wonder how we're capable of re-establishing our home in a new location within a week to ten days. It's elementary: we need that safe base from which to operate, that psychological and spiritual base camp. It's not the place that's important, but the spiritual shelter we create within it that is essential to our well-being.

It helps to know this, a bit. A very little bit. It doesn't ease the pain, or the frustration, or the stress at all.

But it does help to have good friends who have offered to help us pack, or who have offered their own homes in which to seek refuge from the chaos for a while. Our thanks to everyone who's offered sympathy, relief, and escape. We have wonderful friends, and we truly appreciate your support.

Never Rains

What with juggling several major things at once, also on schedule is the feeling that everything I used to do well is slowly starting to slip away from me. These past few days, it's writing: I open the document and stare at it, move a few things around, but nothing really engages.

Also, the cello feels alien in my hands, I fumble with the bow, and my intonation has now gone completely out the window. It doesn't help that there's a rattle developing somewhere that only comes out when I play on the G string.

I can't seem to make tea properly any more. It's either tasteless, or much too strong. My stomach tells me that I'm hungry, but I don't feel like eating.

Reading is still mechanical. (ai731, do you mind if I take The Bone People to Toronto with me?)

I think it's a very good thing that I'm going away next week, even if it's only for a few days.

The State of Things

We're half packed, which is right on schedule. Unfortunately, it also means neither HRH nor I are comfortable in our own living space. The only place I can go where I'm not reminded that we're moving is the bedroom, where I lie on the bed to read and thus inevitably fall asleep. This is now playing havoc with my overall sleep patterns.

I finished packing the china and office books yesterday. There is nothing more frustrating than packing a box and then realising that you can't move it. It means you have to put the box where you want it to end up, and carry the stuff over to it. Or pack it and leave it where it is, thereby creating an obstacle course for yourself in the process. Sometime this morning, HRH condensed my scatter of boxes, and moved the existing pile away from the window and into the corner against the empty bookcases. Now I don't feel as if they're going to lunge at me and eat me while I'm working at the computer. And did you know that when there's nothing blocking it, a small amount of light actually comes through the dining room window? Miraculous.

HRH will paint the new kitchen Saturday, and the living room on Sunday. He's also promised to take over fragile stuff like the china, and I'm going to push for taking the pictures over too, since during the last move one smashed. It's not that I don't trust the people moving us, it's just that, well, stuff is irreplaceable, you know? And with my luck, this time what I lose will be the irreplaceable signed limited edition Charles Vess print and the $400 frame, instead of the collectable movie poster and the $35 IKEA glass frame.

To get us both out of Box Hell last night HRH took me out on a walk and some ice cream. Then we took the new paint over to the duplex where we discovered that the city has torn up all the sidewalks in front of our driveway in order to replace the drains. Yay for new drains and city improvement and all, but we're really, really hoping it will be fixed within the week, because right now the only way across the three-foot-deep gorge of gravel and concrete dust is a board about sixteen inches wide and six feet long. The tenants upstairs, who are going on vacation just before we move, have now officially been told that they have to move their SUV out of our driveway while they're gone so that we can actually use the space for the moving truck. (Not that they can move it right now, because of the three-foot-gap between driveway and road. But they have been informed. "Can't they go around it?" our landlord was asked when he told them. No. We can't. It's a moving truck, you idiots.) The reason this is such an issue is because they actually have to arrange another place to store it; they can't just park it on the street because it has no plates. That's right -- it's a completely unregistered vehicle, and it's just been sitting there in our driveway for about three months. I have absolutely no sympathy for them. Our driveway; our move. Get your stuff out of our way. And if they don't... things will be very, very unpleasant for them. Not the way we want to start relations in the new place.

Thank You, Chuck Cadman...

... for heading off an irritating and unnecessary election that would have simply assembled a second minority government and accomplished exactly nothing.

Now, can you all get back to what you're supposed to be doing, namely governing the country? You know, your job? The one for which you draw a paycheque?

The Farewells Begin

I'm a writer, which means I'm also a researcher. I also read insatiably. Ergo, I get a lot of books in the mail, secondhand and new, from a variety of places. I usually see our parcel postman every couple of weeks.

When he showed up today, I took my box and said, "I want to thank you for your past couple of years of service. We're moving next week, so this will be the last time I see you."

"You're moving?" he said. "Oh." And he looked disappointed. He's a really nice guy, and we often chat a bit, or at least smile. I like to cultivate polite and cheerful service people; you never know when you'll need them to do you a favour. "Where are you moving to?"

"Lasalle," I said. "A duplex. Backyard, garage -- all sorts of wonderful things."

"Really? What area? I live in Lasalle," he added. So I gave him an approximate location. "I know the general area," he said, "but I'm further east."

He wished me well, and it was sincere. And I'll miss him.

I hope our regular and parcel postpeople are just as nice in the new neighbourhood.

Moving Thoughts

HRH deposits his very first paycheque today. He was so proud of it that he showed it to me last night. This division of the company is so new that they still don't have pre-printed cheques, and everything was hand-written in. He's picking up paint for the new place tonight on his way home.

All the local crabapple trees are in bloom today, so I will go for a walk in the park when I need a time out to appreciate both the artistry of nature and the delicious smell. I should also take advantage of the new Tim Horton's nearby to have an iced cappuccino on my break, as there is no Tim's within walking distance in my new neighbourhood. There are other things I'll miss about this area other than the park: the secondhand bookshops; the pharmacy; the little restaurants; the quick trip downtown. It's going to take a while to figure out the new area. But instead of the park, there's the fleuve two blocks south, and that lovely long bike path along which to meander, and a handful of deps. No doubt I'll find more shops.

I can finish packing the china and crystal today. HRH has promised to take it over to the new place this weekend so I don't have to stress about thousands of dollars' worth of irreplaceable Doulton china being damaged during the regular move. (They retired the pattern the season after our wedding, so if something gets broken it can't be easily replaced.) And I'll finish packing the office bookshelves so they're done and out of the way.

Packing Proceeds Apace

The first office bookcase is done. The china cabinet is mostly done except for the stuff HRH wedged into the back corner of the top shelf that I can't reach. Or rather, I can reach it with my fingertips, but when I say "wedged" I mean wedged, so I can't even pull the the boxes of wineglasses and the boxed good crystal vases towards me to get them down. He can deal with it when he gets home.

I'm now wiped, but not from the packing part. I pushed boxes around so I could try to get a chair in front of the china cabinet to reach the top shelf (it didn't work, of course). Pushing heavy boxes is just as bad as lifting them, I have discovered. And I'm not supposed to be lifting things over 20 lbs. Ha. That's what, maybe six or eight hardcover books at once? Two cats? Good gods.

So after all the exertion, we are unpleased. We must now lie down, damn it. And do something about lunch. Not in that order, of course. If things don't untense, I may have mucked up working on the green witch book this afternoon, which would be bad, as I took yesterday off to give my brain a break.

Creativity In The Oddest Places

Today's software spam to one of my email addresses was from some wit called "Cordially Exhumed".

And In Other Important News

I figure everyone could do with some good news.

Nunavut officials are working to give baby Chance a second chance – with a new mom in the Yukon.

The two-week-old abandoned baby muskox, found on the tundra near Cambridge Bay last week, could be heading for a surrogate mother at the Yukon Wildlife Preserve on Tuesday.

The $5,000 inter-provincial fee that's charged for the transfer of wildlife is being waived in order for this to happen. The baby muskox has to travel almost 2,000 kilomeres in order to join the tiny Yukon herd.

I never knew baby muskoxen were so adorable-looking. The article does make a point of stating that "Although small and cute today, Chance may grow to weigh 315 kilograms, and stand as high as an adult human's chest" though.

Egad

I don't usually talk politics here -- I hear enough of what's going on in the world thanks to the radio and TV news, and why bother to detail my beliefs that none of the major parties can adequately lead the country? -- but this is unusual enough to make me blink twice:

Conservative Stronach joins Liberals

And it's less than an hour old.

"After difficult reflection, I reached a conclusion," Stronach told reporters in Ottawa. "I cannot exaggerate how hard this was for me, but the political crisis affecting Canada is too risky and dangerous for blind partisanship."

She also said Conservative Leader Stephen Harper is not sensitive to the needs of all parts of the country, and is jeopardizing national unity by allying himself with the Bloc Québécois.

"The country must come first," she said.

Stronach said that someday, the Conservatives will grow and strengthen to become a worthy challenger to the Liberals. In the meantime, she thinks her place is with a party that is more responsive to the needs of cities, women and young people.

And again, I say: Egad.

More Than My Little Heart Could Hope For

At around 11.30 AM, I thought, "Wow, I feel like talking to t!." Alas, I do not have his work number (being that he has no personal phone there), and besides, I know how busy he is; distracting someone simply because I feel like touching base is ungood. There's a reason I usually ignore the phone when it rings during the day: I'm working, I'm in a groove, and to drop everything to grab the phone really ruins the flow. I won't do that to other people unless I absolutely have to. I can call people at night, after all.

I decided to call HRH at noon for a short chat, as I have been told that he can sketch and talk at the same time. (If only this were true of writing.) His phone died.

Fifteen minutes later the phone rang. And most curiously, I picked it up instead of allowing the answering machine to take it.

Lo and behold, it was t! on his lunch break, with whom I spoke for a good long time. And it was good.

And now, after a quick lunch, I am off to do groceries, pick up a little USB hub, and do various other little errands.

The day feels less meh.

Music And Drama

Gosh, but it would be nice to wake up in a good mood instead of a "meh" kind of mood. It's been "meh" for about a week now.

Rehearsal last night was good. There was companionship and tea and really amazing raisin oatmeal cookies (and I'm not a raisin fan). We ran into a problem right away, though, when the intro to a song we've played before just didn't work. I've been driving myself crazy trying to figure out why. It's not timing, it's actual musical lines being played by each instrument suddenly not fitting into each other for some reason. We're fine for the second song of the set (thank goodness -- it's our "let's play this, we do it well and it will cheer us up and remind us that we're actually good" song in rehearsal). Our opening song is going to be fantastic too, and drums and bass began conspiring last night to make it more musically complex during the verses, because at the moment they're rather sparse. If we hand the current bassline to the bass drum, and the lead guitar bit no one's currently playing to the bass... suddenly things get more interesting. I'll have to work it out this week and we'll see what happens this Saturday. But the intro to that closing song is going to gnaw at me. It's worked every other time we've played it. There's no reason why it suddenly shouldn't. It will probably work perfectly well again this Saturday, just to spite us.

Overall, we have to work on openings (we tightened up every single pre-vocal intro last night, and they'll sound much better this way instead of going on for four repetitions) and definitely endings, which also have to be tighter and less draggy. And bridges, damn the things, simply for timing. And to our amusement, without a vocalist for the evening, we discovered that we all rely on verbal cues to alert us to an upcoming shift, which is no big surprise since it's the vocals that hold everything together. I'm glad the evening went as it did, even with the mystery of the suddenly botched intro of the last song in the set. We learned cool stuff about what we each play against the others. Quite productive.

I seem to remember recently saying that I'd had enough of people's dramas about imagined personal slights. Here's another one to add to the list: this morning I heard that someone who is perfectly aware of everything that I'm juggling in life at the moment was harassing another friend of mine, pressing her for my motivations for dropping all my teaching this spring, summer, and fall. Instead of being paranoid, maybe that person should remember that my life is a wall-to-wall schedule what with full-time work on a deadline (then three sets of edits and two galleys from two different books to handle in the next eight weeks), a move, two musical groups, that family thing, and all the other stuff that crops up in day to day living. I simply don't have the time or energy to devote to teaching workshops or regular classes right now. It's all about me, not anyone else. I'm not making a political statement about anyone or anything by not offering workshops. It's a personal necessity. Thanks to overscheduling, I've been walking that burn-out line since mid-March, and I don't need to court further disaster by trying to add stuff I've already cut out back in. If someone thinks I'm making a statement about them by taking care of myself, that's their problem.

So very tired of people trying to drag me into their drama. So very, very tired.

I wonder if people understand that more they push, the more I pull away.

Rewind

Can it be yesterday again, please? I don't like this day at all.

And How Are The Fur Children Taking The Chaos?

Every cat has staked out a favourite spot somewhere among the boxes. For Gulliver, it's lying atop the ends of the large unmade boxes leaning against the back window. Cricket lies on the next level down, along the ends of the shorter unmade boxes between Gully's boxes and the windowsill. Nixie either plays stealth vulture by sitting atop the tallest stack of boxes in the front hallway (which puts her at about eight feet up, and as she's tiny and black you can lose her there for hours at a time), or curls up in the unclosed box of blankets and quilts left open to wrap around things like pictures.

Maggie sits in whatever box is open and empty at the time. She's not fussy: you only have to notice her and give her a quick pet and tell her how cute she is. Maggie is our manager; she watches us pack things to make sure we do it right.

Roman hasn't noticed we're moving yet.

Ever Better

The truck is reserved, signed for, and we have it for the whole day. "That's two rental periods," the guy taking the reservation said dubiously. "You'll pay twice the rate, you know."

Duh.

We have the truck for a full twelve hours on May 28, so there will be absolutely no rush. We also picked up forty-five more boxes -- good solid boxes, too, which will be carefully unmade once unpacked, and stored for the next time we move.

Good thing I double-checked the paint chips in the new place today, because we ended up choosing a slightly different shade for every room except the kitchen. We now have complete vertical and horizontal measurements for all the windows as well, instead of just horizontal. (I love my husband, but he's evidently never had to do window treatments before.)

Apropos of nothing at all, allow me to boast that this new place has seven closety things, not including kitchen cupboards (of which there are several, oh joy, oh bliss -- along with six kitchen drawers!). And that's not counting the huge storage closet under the stairs, or the storage units and cupboards in the garage. Or the tool shed under the deck.

We know what fridge we'll be getting next week, too -- an 18 cubic-foot GE for remarkably decent price, even though taxes will add a full hundred dollars. But delivery's included in the price, which is excellent.

And we had a lovely, leisurely lunch out that took about an hour and a half, during which we talked about everything and nothing. All this plus the sun breaking through the clouds has done much to clear away the cobwebs and shadows left over from yesterday's migraine. Wearing a pretty skirt and sweater out helped too; I keep forgetting how much clothes can affect one's mood. Everyone we met was smiling, cheerful, and in a good headspace. It's been a wonderful day.

And now, more packing.

Meh

I'm less bad than yesterday, but my head feels bruised and my body aches in general. And spring allergies have finally amubushed me; I've been expecting them ever since Firewillow pointed out the local birch pollen index.

Packing proceeds apace. It truly is remarkable to see how much room there is under the kitchen sink when Tupperware and large pots have been packed away. Everything on the top two shelves of the kitchen cupboards (all the stuff I can't get down without a chair and/or climbing up on the counter) has also been packed, as they're things I won't miss over the next two weeks. (Also, it's stuff that we had nowhere else to put. If you include the three over-counter cupboards, this apartment has a grand total of five closety things. I will so not miss that.)

We have a set of back door keys to the new place. Paint chips colours have been approved. Today, we look at more fridges and finalise the truck rental.

Cramp!

It would be awfully nice to not wake up to the blinding agony that is a calf cramp in my left leg, as I have for the past four days.

Of course, this is dependent on various cats (whoever's turn it happens to be on whatever day of the week it is) allowing me to sleep in, instead of vaguely dragging me out of deep sleep with whatever irritating or somewhat endearing act they're engaging in, and me deciding to stretch in bed as I wake up. Not fully awake = bad stretching. Bang. Muscle cramp.

Argh.

Yes, I'm getting enough calcium. The cramp is the direct result of pointing my toes as I stretch. It's a habit I deliberately broke several years ago when I started developing these cramps in the first place. Now I have to re-train myself, because while I'm not pointing my toes as I stretch, I'm not flexing them, either. It seems I now have to deliberately flex them before I stretch my legs to prevent a cramp. Which means, of course, that I have to remember to be more awake before I stretch. What a lovely catch-22.

And it's so not a good way to begin the day.

Friday Potpourri

I could so go for a trip to Friendly's -- just pack the usual Pennsylvania-bound camping gang and head over the border for pretty much anything on the menu, plus at least one ice cream sundae. I'm rather disappointed that I'm not going to get my Friendly's fix this year. You'll all have to share at least one sundae extra at each stop for me. We really need a decent sundae shop here in Montreal. I miss Swensen's.

One finds all sorts of things when one packs for a move. A couple of days ago it was a handful of white turkey feathers in with my altar supplies, rescued from the helmet of HRH's Thor costume a couple of years ago and squirreled away, because you never know what kind of magical use you may have for them. Of course, the fact that I proceeded to put two Tupperware containers full of candles on top of them ensured that they were out of sight and thus out of mind, so they've never been used. When I pulled them out I put them in the garbage bag along with other things like out of date herbs and such, but then I saw little Nixie sitting on top of a pile of boxes, eyeing me wistfully.

So I gave her one.

Now she chases it and tosses it around and in general dances ecstatically with it; it's a bit out of character for her. It's almost as long as she is. One is tempted to dub her Dances With Thor Feathers, but she's a cat, and long would be the coolness and unforgiveness in one's general direction if one did.

Paze and I had a lovely lunch yesterday while we planned a party. It's awkward to put together a guest list for something specific and know that no matter how you do it, some people will be annoyed because they weren't invited. You can't just invite everyone you know. There's a time and a place for parties like that, but if you're planning something particular, there will be people who feel slighted no matter what. At this point, I'm just throwing my hands up in the air and not caring. There are five or six things in the next two months for which I have to develop guest lists. If someone left off any of those lists chooses to take offense at imagined slights, they can go ahead: the drama is obviously what they're looking for, and they can dwell in it if they so choose. I don't have the time or energy for it.

When I opened the green witch manuscript this morning, I was pleasantly surprised to find that I'd left it at 40K. I had forgotten that I'd managed to pass it last session. Today: more fleshing out, and more herbal info. Perhaps a series of attunement rituals. And more packing of breakable objects.

Speaking Of Peripeteia...

Isn't "somnambulation" a wonderful word?

Pack Me! Pack Me!

I would be packing more, except Maggie has appropriated the box into which I was preparing to put pictures and wall things and has declared it hers. So I'm taking a break.

Odd to realise that "taking a break" means "perhaps typing more green witch stuff."

It's a Molson's box, by the way. She is Canadian.

Day Out

Kittens today! Ceri and I get to drive out and pick up her kittens! I must steel myself against the cuteness.

Then I'm going to stop by Italmelodie to look at their acoustic amps. This should wrap up my amp research and leave me to wibble about cost and budget some more.

And then it's a meeting with Paze over a late lunch to work things out for a get-together in early July.

Hurrah for a day of enjoyable errands!

Blood Test #2

Another blood test done. This time I didn't even lie down for it, like I usually have to: the technician said they'd only need three vials this time, so I took a chance based on how good I'd felt last time and sat in the regular chair. She was chipper and deft and just as good as the last technician. After she taped the cotton to my arm, I got up right away and walked out. So this is how people with normal blood pressure handle a pris de sang. I could get used to it.

The glucose preparation was in fact a remarkable approximation of Orange Crush, carbonation and all, and not sickly sweet in the least. I haven't had orange soda in ages, so I rather enjoyed it. Of course, I would have enjoyed it more if I could have had ice in it and sipped it leisurely outdoors on a back deck or something, as opposed to gulping a full 250 ml of it down in twenty seconds and setting my pendant watch to the clock in the clinic in order to be back at exactly 9:12 for the pris de sang itself. Instead of sitting there and twiddling my thumbs, we went grocery shopping. We'd arrived just past 7:30, and waited until 8:10 for the first part of the test; I wasn't about to sit for another hour on top of that when I could be out and about accomplishing things.

They'll call me back if the test has to be redone, or needs to be extended to the three-hour version. I'm not worried at all.

Of course, now after the sugar rush of the past two hours, I'm slowly crashing. The piles of cats draped all over the chesterfield look like they've got a decent idea. Maybe I'll type herbal info into the GRW manuscript until noon, then nap. And oh gods, orchestra tonight; I'll have to look at all of the Tchaikovsky at some point, because it's so not intuitive to play.

Serving Sizes

We all eat, and most of us at least try to maintain some sort of awareness about what it is we're eating. But what exactly constitutes a serving of something, anyhow?

- Make sure you are eating the right amount of food. Follow these guidelines to help you gauge what a proper serving size looks like:

Cooked pasta equals the size of your fist
Muffin equals the size of a standard light bulb
Cheese equals the size of a pink eraser
Potato equals the size of a bar of soap
Red meat or chicken equals the size of a computer mouse
Fish equals the size of an eyeglass case
Frozen yogurt equals the size of a baseball
Mayonnaise equals the size of a quarter
Bagel equals the size of a small can of tuna
Nuts equals the size of 2 egg cups
Chocolate equal the size of a package of dental floss

It's so much easier to envision a pink eraser than however many ounces of cheese constitutes a serving. And I'll bet you're stunned to realise that a whole bagel of average size constitutes two servings of grains.

(From the May 5 2005 press release for "a new product that combines Canada's Food Guide and Canada's Guide to Healthy Active Living into one easy-to-use guide". Except it doesn't; it only combines points of each of them, according to the official web site for the new guide, called Canada's Guide to Healthy Eating and Physical Activity.)

Oblique

When I saw this shot in the Narnia trailer yesterday, all I could think of was my school picture from grade one. If I ever track down a copy of, I'll post it for comparison. Suffice to say I was a bit taken aback at how much seeing Lucy peer around the door into the wardrobe room reminded me of it. My hair was never, ever that smooth, or curled under in a proper bob (in fact, that particular school photo has my hair very definitely sticking out in various directions at the ends), so I think it's the grin and the cheeks that evoked the memory.

Odd, the things that come back to us as a result of seeing a split-second image in motion.

Irony

Over the past half year or so, my natural sweet tooth seems to have gone into remission. I simply haven't been craving sweet stuff.

Tomorrow morning I have a series of blood tests again, plus a test that measures the amount of glucose in my blood after a controlled period of time. Medium to high levels of glucose in the blood are bad, because they'll make me stay in the clinic for three hours while they administer a more complicated glucose test. Low levels are good, because I'll be able to leave after only an hour.

So naturally, today is the day my sweet tooth is making a grand reappearance in spades. For the first time in ages, I'm craving sweet drinks and chocolate. And I know that if I indulge, my sugar levels are going to be higher than usual at seven AM tomorrow, and the tests will be skewed.

Grr. I know that this has everything to do with reverse psychology. As soon as I leave the hospital blood clinic, my craving for sweets will vanish. (Actually, it may vanish once I taste the appallingly sweet cocktail of blick I'll have to drink in order for the test to be given. Gah.)

On the bright side, the GRW manuscript is now over 36K, which means it's officially 60% finished. Let's see how much more we can get done today, while drinking copious amounts of water and not thinking about Aero bars. Passing 37K would be nice.

HRH: Day Two

It's miraculous. HRH is at work again today.

I think I will marvel at this every morning for a week or so.

He gets a computer next week, too, on top of all those wonderful art supplies and reference books they went out and picked up yesterday.

He has a window seat. And the window opens.

He left this morning, with his soft briefcase over his shoulder and his metallic briefcase of art supplies he got for Yule in one hand. I watched him get into the car, and waved as he drove away. I'd forgotten how much I enjoy waving to him as he leaves for work, particularly when he's looking forward to where's he's going.

In Which She Admits That Being Heroic Is Just Plain Stupid Sometimes

Rehearsal last night was a disaster. Of course, if I'd admitted I had a migraine instead of heroically pulling myself together because, you know, we only have nine rehearsals before July first... gah. Such a bad idea. And bad, bad music to subject myself to -- five flats? With no idea of the tune? Oh dear, very bad. My old stand partner is back after a one-concert sabbatical, and maybe I've just become used to sitting with my last quiet and self-composed female stand partner, but it seemed like he was bent on talking at me about the music and interpretation the entire ninety minutes, when all I was trying to do was grit my teeth, contain the pain, and hang on until intermission. When one indicates that one has a bad headache, one usually expects the person one has just informed to understand and shut up. Maybe he was just excited to be back. Whatever. It made my life pure hell, because I couldn't even focus on the music.

I left at break.

After a bath I slept beautifully, thank goodness, and woke up feeling immeasurably better. Went to osteo, then on four hours of errands at bookshops (gifts for others!), clothing stores (sexy black halter top for band!), and grocery stores (warm bread right fromt he oven and fresh squeaky cheese!). When I got home, there was no parking anywhere, so I'm currently parked three streets west and two blocks south. I'll have to remember to leave earlier than I was planning to leave this evening, because it's a fifteen minute walk to the car.

Today: my primary project is rewriting that article on research. Then, if there's time, I'll take a stab at some green witch stuff, and do a final review of the amps I'm interested in trying, before heading out to meet t!.

Have I mentioned HRH is not here? That he is, in fact, at WORK? Isn't that a lovely thing? (I find it amusing that the first day I have to myself, I spend half of it out and about; but being home this afternoon and knowing he's elsewhere, gainfully employed in the field he's trained for, is doing wonderful things for my stress levels.) They had a meeting this morning to go buy art supplies for the studio, and his day is basically going to be setting up his desk and doodling ideas in preparation for another project meeting this evening.

So, on to the article!

Willful Author Comes To Bad End

When I think I should go lie down, I should really just go instead of trying to be virtuous and work some more, because then it just all ends in headaches.

This time, for real.

Work!

HRH starts work tomorrow! The money finally came through, and the project is an official go. His boss called him in for a meeting today about supplies and such he'll be needing to do his job.

And now, I think I'll go back to bed. I didn't think I'd feel this exhausted once it all resolved. Or maybe it has something to do with the lack of sleep I got last night, and the brain-numbing staring at the green witch document with little to no input occuring this morning.

Didn't We Just Leave This Party?

Yet again I'm looking at the pile of stuff I have to do for work, for the move, and for others, and I'm wondering how I managed to get right back into the "too much to do at once" boat. I thought I'd bailed this out to manageable proportions. Evidently not.

Shopping Grumbles

While we were out yesterday, I looked in HMV for a cheap recording of Tchaikovsky's second symphony, since I don't own it.

Not only did they not have an inexpensive recording, they had no recordings of it at all. Unless, of course, I wanted to buy a 65$ set of all his symphonies, which I don't, seeing as how I own them all except the second and third.

I know Naxos publishes a second/fourth symphony combo CD conducted by Adrian Leaper, which is still available. I'll check at Archambault when t! and I hit it on Thursday, but I'm not holding much hope. If it's not there, I can always order it in-store, but that takes time, usually way too much time. Even online, I'd pay for shipping, and sure, that means a total of ten or eleven dollars for CD and service, and it would get here sooner... but still. Grr.

I hate playing something that complex when I have no idea how it goes. I'd make a lousy member of a symphony orchestra who debuts any new piece of music a composer produces.

Today, I accidentally bought an XS black tank top instead of a S. The inner lining is way too tight around the ribcage, so I'll have to drive back out to the West Island and exchange it -- assuming they have an S in stock. If not, maybe the M will fit. (No, I didn't take the time to try it on; there was a line-up, and I know the small size from that manufacturer fits properly.)

I did get a pair of black leather loafers today, so I have slip-on shoes that I can wear when it rains, as opposed to my lovely brown suede pair. The ones I came home with weren't the ones I really wanted, though; the ones I liked were a half-size too small, and they didn't have the next size up. These will do just fine, though, once they're properly broken in.

Sunday Afternoon

The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: They managed to make a very British, campy B-movie without making it look too slick effects-wise (thanks the gods for the Creature Shop), or too B-movie. Don't know if I'll ever see it again, though: as with the books, I can't see why someone would see/read it over and over. Stephen Fry as the book/narrator was a joy to the ears, though.

We picked up a slew of paint chips today as well, to take over to the new place in a week or so and make final decisions.

And the packing has begun. Woe to dust bunnies everywhere! And dismay to the kittens, whom, we have discovered, had created an entire network of secret nesty lair-like things under the bed, in among all the boxes of out-of-season clothes and bedding.

(I should really stop calling them kittens; they're two and a half. And hey! Maggie-Cat and Roman turn 14 next week!)

Saturday

So after all the excitement about my new pick-up, I ended up forgetting to throw it into my gig bag because I was in a bad mood and had my brain full of reminding HRH about all the stuff he had to remember to bring when he picked me up from rehearsal (he's been forgetting a lot of stuff lately, okay?). Irritating, but not a huge problem. I got to hear what ai731's new electrified acoustic sounds like when amped, though, and ooh, what a lovely sound. Makes me all the more excited about my Thursday night date to go amp shopping with t!. t! is my secret weapon: his presence will hopefully stave off the condescension of narrow-minded and uneducated sales idiots who see (a) a pretty girl and (b) a cello, thus concluding that I'm empty-headed and uncool, in the wrong section, not worth their time, and refuse to take me seriously. t! is there to keep them in line and actually ensure I'm treated as my needs and intelligence require. Plus, y'know, he's a bassist, and he's bought amps before. And he's fun to be with.

Rehearsal with Random Colour was fabulous; we're really coming together and everyone's enjoying it. We also came to a consensus about commitment and it was nice to know everyone feels the same way about reliability and communication. It solved an uncomfortable issue that was kind of hanging over us.

Then we had a simultaneously stimulating and relaxing evening with the Zouaks, including the darling little Teela, who decided to stay up with everyone and be a sparkling social butterfly. Having spent a few hours with Matthieu the day before, it was so interesting to see a completely different baby of approximately the same age -- different personality, body structure, methods of communicating, and so forth. And I came home with more clothes again, this time for me, courtesy of Jen (thank you, thank you, thank you!).

All in all, after the bad beginning to the day and the upset stomach, things made a marked change for the better right about halfway through, which was awfully nice.

It's Beltaine today, and, incidentally also our six-year engagement anniversary. (Technically that's May 2, because I got ill the evening HRH planned to hand me the ring, but we default to May 1 for the romance of the original plan of proposing on Beltaine.) I'd like to get HRH out of the house to do something special, and get his mind off waiting for news of the project as well as the gearing up for three weeks of packing, but I really have no idea what or where. It might be as simple as taking him to see The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Urg

Or maybe I'm just, you know, not well. Because I certainly don't feel well. Maybe it was the pizza.

HRH is making me toast, which will cure me or kill me.

Later: Aha. Too much vinegar in that salad dressing was the culprit.

Friday

Friday was a day jammed with stuff. Did some banking, had a massage appointment (and may I just say "ow"? My upper trapezoids are more than a little sore this morning); spent some time with ladyofthe_lake, then we went out to lunch with Karine and Matthieu, then back to Karine's place for chatting, the divvying up of outgrown clothes, and tea and brownies; took Chantale back home, picked up HRH, and finally popped over for an evening of movies and friends to celebrate some birthdays. I keeled over at around ten PM, which, now that I think about it, is no wonder -- I'd been up and on the go for twelve hours straight with only a salad, a couple of brownies and a cup of tea, and a slice of pizza to keep me going, on top of some not so great sleep over the past few nights. Their apartment was a bit warm, too, and I felt a bit woozy; my head cleared up somewhat once we got outside in the fresh air, thank goodness. It was a pity that I had to leave, because I hadn't seen a couple of those friends in ages and didn't really get a chance to talk to them, and for once I actually hadn't seen the movies, either. I'd been looking forward to the evening for a couple of weeks. HRH got me home, tucked me into bed, and I slept like a rock. Woke up in a not so good mood, though, which is too bad, particularly since it was reinforced by the subsequent discovery of other peoples' actions.

Band practice today, which means I get to try out my new pick-up with one of the amps Invisible has left in our practice space. And if I swing by the abode of the inestimable t!, I might be able to borrow his new little practice amp, so that everyone who needs one can actually have one attached to their instrument and we can hear what it sounds like.

I wish it was sunny. My mood would improve immensely.

Morning Growl

You now, I am really, really tired of dealing with other people's insecurities and dramas about perceived slights.

Sigh

Forty-five minutes spent searching for the accurate sizing of canning jars on the Internet, so that I use the correct terminology in Chapter 6.

And three thorough cleanings of the CPU with compressed air has still not solved the odd whirr that developed around seven weeks ago.

It's days like this where I think I should just go lie down, because nothing's getting accomplished anyway, no matter what I seem to do.

Later: Although when I wasn't looking, another thousandish words sort of appeared. So maybe I am getting stuff done, despite the feeling of going nowhere.

Handy

Because we Canadians live with one foot in the metric system and the other in Imperial, measuring distance in kilometers, lengths in inches, weight in pounds, and temperature in Celsius, I give you:

CureZone.com's Conversions & Equivalent Measures

It calculates conversions for you, as well as listing lots and lots of tables of equivalent measures. Sure, I know the basic multipliers with which I can convert stuff, but this saves time and sanity.

You're welcome.

For He's a Jolly Good Fellow, Etc

Happy birthday, Dad!

Uh-Oh

And again, a headache drags me away from the monitor. At least I know this one's because of the pressure shifting outside. I will never understand why my head has been chosen to serve as a barometer.

So, a break, and then we'll see how I feel in an hour after Tylenol and a cuddle with a cat.

At the rate I'm going, I'll be lucky to clock in at a bare thousand words today. I wanted to hit 30K. Oh, well.

Another HRH Update For Those Waiting Breathlessly

1. He has a job.

2. Said job cannot start until funding has officially arrived in the company's bank account to pay the team.

3. The three-month contract for the playtest of this project will not officially begin until said money is in the bank account. This is good because it means that the team will have a full 90 days to accomplish the project no matter when it begins.

4. If this three-month contract goes well, the project will be extended for a year and a half.

Vancouver 2010

Colour me surprised, but this is actually kind of cool:

The 2010 Winter Olympics will feature a unique design of an inukshuk, a traditional stone sculpture used by Canada's Inuit people, as its official logo.

The winning logo, called Ilanaaq (el la nawk), was unveiled Saturday in Vancouver and was designed by local graphic designers Elena Rivera MacGregor and Gonzalo Alatorre.

[...] The logo boasts five stone-like formations in green, two in blue, and one in red and yellow. Two pillars serve as the legs in support of the body, a horizontal shape acts as the arm and an eagle is where the head would normally be.

[...]The different colours represent different regions of the country: the green and blues symbolize coastal forests, mountain ranges and islands. The red represents Canada's Maple Leaf and the yellow depicts the brilliant sunrises.

Even without the analysis and meaning behind it all, which I didn't have last night when I caught this on the news, it's a simple and elegant logo.

(Via CBC.)

Up Too Early On A Rainy Saturday

I was laid low by a migraine yesterday and robbed of my musical shopping experience. Went to bed at around noon and didn't get up until six; read, napped, stared at the wall wishing the Tylenol could do more than take an edge off the sharpness.

So naturally, I woke up at the stupid hour of 5.30 this morning because I'd had catnaps all yesterday afternoon. I've been making practice CDs for the band and listening to every one in order to make sure they work correctly. I'd much rather be drowsing in bed with HRH and all those cats, who, last I looked, are piled on that body pillow even with me not next to it. I can hear it now: "Gee, Mum, you're nice and warm and you're all cosy when you're under the covers, but this pillow's pretty soft all on its own..."

Meh. I've had my breakfast; maybe I'll make hot chocolate with real cocoa, real sugar, real... damn, there's no milk; never mind. I'll make a cup of tea (sigh) and find yet another book to read, because I finished the one I started yesterday morning.

Good Thing It's A Queen-Size Bed

Four words: New body pillow. Cats.

'Nuff said.

Redeemed

I no longer suck.

Total word count, green witch book: 26,912
Total words today: 1,779

Amazing what you can find to say about resins when talking about making your own herbal incense. I would have liked to have written another 200 words or so, just to have written 2K today, but dinner is ready.

The cheerful wordmeter says:

26,912 / 60,000 (44.0%)

A Passive Kind Of Day

I am fretful today. I just can't seem to settle down. I have no attention span, and almost no energy. It's odd. And vaguely irritating, because I wanted to be that much closer to 30K. Just -- no brain. Or rather, brain accepting input, but not producing output. Not even basic output like how to cut out and sew together a sachet.

Which means, of course, that I've added a grand total of about ten words to the book, although the file's been open all afternoon. I hang my head in shame.

To fill up those passive hours, however, I've been researching acoustic bass amps and such. Now that my brain is full of terminology, brands, prices, and features, I want to go look at them seriously. However, to do this requires a pick-up on one's instrument, and my pick-up will not be here until late next weekish, perhaps. Gnash.

Further HRH Updates

Things are "still going favourably."

But we're not counting chicks until the contract is signed on Saturday, after the developmental meeting at which his presence has now been officially requested. Salary negotations start tomorrow.

No chicks being slid along the abacus. Not yet. Not until the contact's in hand. But definitely, favourable development.

Delightful Morning

Really must remember to go out at some point and pick up a little can of compressed air to clean the fan in the computer. I'm becoming too accustomed to the louder whirr, which means I'll ignore it, and someday, poof -- no more fan. Which is, you know, rather detrimental to the operation of the computer I require in order to do my job.

Osteo early this morning, on the Cadillac bed that raises and lowers on its own via a foot pedal, in the morning sunlight. Delightful. Particularly since the doctor is pleased with the minimal misalignment that's occured over the past two weeks. Of course, had I gone to see her on Monday after sitting on hard wooden chairs that were two inches too high to play cello all day, it would have been a different story. I intend to look into adjustable and foldable (read: easily portable) drum stools on my next trip out to the music shops in order to avoid the lower back stress associated with awful cello seating. (No, a cushion doesn't help, because it just raises me further; it's not the hard that's the problem, it's the two inches too high.)

In her progress notes for yesterday, Elizabeth says:

New Words: 1010. I'll most likely kill them all in the morning.

I know the feeling. Although, a cautious look at yesterday's work assures me that the drastic rearranging and new writing wasn't as bad an idea as I was afraid it might have been when I woke up and thought about it at 1.30 AM in the dark. I must stop trying to come up with things I think should be in each chapter, and just go ahead and expand the point form outline for each paragraph or subject now. Otherwise, I'll run into the same over-limit problem that I ran into on the Wicca book -- about which, may I add, I stressed at 1.45 AM regarding potentially derivative content and ideas, right after I worried about yesterday's new writing. I am nothing if not an equal-opportunity stresser about my books. Must treat all the progeny fairly, after all.

HRH is drawing in the living room. It's been so, so long since he picked up a sketchbook and a pencil that I find I don't even mind that he has a movie on for inspiration while he drafts sample backgrounds. Yes, he's already prepping for this potential job, getting into the right headspace for the style (as vague as they're being about it), and I'm so very okay with that. Whether he gets it or not, he's drawing again.

And on the way home for osteo, I picked up lime water, and popcorn, and fresh tomatoes, and granola bars, so I'm all set for nibbling my way through the day while I work.

More Woo-Hoo!

HRH's EI snarl has been officially untangled!

Er --

HRH thanks everyone for their kind thoughts and support, but would like to point out that it was simply a good interview for a project in formation, not a solid job offer with confirmed salary and signed contract. He's currently in a holding pattern, which is driving him slightly mad, but at least he's excited and not depressed about his job situation as he's been for the past couple of weeks.

Update on the HRH Front

Okay:

The extended interview period was yes, a Good Thing.

HRH says to tell you all that it "went favourably." Which is, in my opinion, an understatement when the interviewer has said, "Well, unless someone even more god-like drops from the sky in the next day, I'm calling you tomorrow to be present at the development meeting this Friday." As of which time he'd be also be paid. Which is, you know, nice.

So. Many, many thanks, everyone, for your support! Further updates as events warrant.

Yay!

HRH has an interview this afternoon at 1.30!

Please to be thinking good thoughts and happiness and immediate contract offers. Working at whatever you do with crossed fingers would be helpful as well. (And amusing for you and your co-workers -- admit it.)

Enough

Errands have been run. Computer stuff has been done. A couple of hours of notes and research for the green witch book has been done. Some editing stuff has been done. Brain now officially off-line.

Beautiful, beautiful day outside. It was worth the longer time to run the errands.

First-Line Defence

Woman beats off burglar with gnome

Friday, April 15, 2005 Posted on CNN.com: 1100 GMT

LONDON, England (AP) -- A grandmother stopped an intruder from entering her home by lobbing a heavy garden gnome at him, police said Friday.

Jean Collop was woken early on Tuesday morning by the sound of an intruder on the roof of her home in Wadebridge, southwest England.

"I grabbed the first thing that came to hand -- one of my garden gnomes -- and hurled it at him, and hit him," she recalled.

"He lay there and I began to scream. I went back into the kitchen and found a rolling pin in case he came down. I didn't want to break another gnome."

I love that it's important to mention that her second choice was the rolling pin, because she didn't want to damage another gnome. That's really what makes this bit of journalism perfect.

Via BoingBoing.

Reality

It occurs to me that a grocery run must be made, or we're not eating tonight. Or the next night. Or the one after that, really.

Break!

Tal!

I received a phone call from Tal out in California yesterday afternoon, which made my day! I'd actually had a draft of an email for him open most of the afternoon, adding a few words now and again while I edited, so when he called it was wonderful to just tell him everything I'd been writing down in the first place. It was so good to just chat with him. When he's in town, I don't see him frequently (really, do I see anyone frequently?), but now that he's on the other side of the continent I miss him terribly. I'm like a cat who desperately wants to be on the other side of the door, just because it's closed. Truly pathetic. However, unlike a cat, I will not ignore him when he gets back.

Still working on the copy edits. Sigh.

Computer Joy

Hurrah! Blade will be here in only half an hour to rip out the SCSI and optical drives from the guts of my computer, and install my lovely new 80 gb hard drive and CD drive.

Why? Well, the SCSI is only recognised sometimes, which is remarkably heart-stopping (although I finally transferred all my document files off it and onto the other hard drive to preserve my sanity). The main hard drive, which is a mere 10 or 12 gb, is almost full, though. Blade and I figure that an 80 gb drive should last me for another three years or so. The current CD drive runs off the SCSI protocol, so it too is being replaced. What fun!

Plus we promised to feed him. HRH's very yummy fajitas are on the menu -- mmmm.

It occurs to me that I ought to make a backup CD of those precious document files.

Moments of Calm

A small bowl of fresh strawberries, ripe cantaloupe, and just a sprinkling of sugar.

Two boxes (two!) full of fun books and research books just arrived.

And HRH just left to go pick up groceries, so I can actually have a half-hour of cello practice. Thank the gods.

Warning

I think I'm on the verge of going anti-social again. There's simply too much to schedule in the next eight weeks and it's stressing me out.

Since I didn't really get a chance to implement the anti-social lockdown at the end of March because of the revenant book, I suspect it's remarkably close on the horizon.

First Words

HRH: Oh, you're up. How are you today?

I: Things still suck. But today I have more of a sense of humour about it.

Good Morning!

Slept bee-you-ti-fully. Hung out with cool people last night who made me laugh and laugh. Cuddled a five-month-old with the most killing look of wisdom on his face. Got gifties (thank you, Karine and Adam!). Picked up a new 80 GB hard drive and a CD optical drive to further update my computer. Did I mention that I slept well?

Green witch work today, because yesterday's progress was so minimal that I didn't even post it.

And it's lovely out, which means a walk later on. Possibly to the secondhand bookstore, although in bed I started reading a Laurie King mystery that had been on my shelf for two years; now I'm out of the Amelia Peabody groove and into a Mary Russell headspace, which has temporarily staunched the need for more Egyptian archaeological mystery. It's all set just after the turn of the twentieth century, anyway.

Circles

I can't seem to settle down.

I made a few green witch notes. I did a bit of half-hearted research. I organised my weekend schedule and have precise directions on how to get wherever I'm going. I have a precise list of the computer parts I need to buy. I've handled email and caught up on news.

Moved money around in accounts. Decided to sit down to read for an hour, only to discover that I finished my last archaeology mystery last night, and that's still what I'm in the mood to read (on a roll, after all, having read three in a row). Decided to go to the secondhand bookstore around the corner to check for the next one. Discovered I haven't enough money in my wallet. Thought about going to the bank counter to withdraw money to afford said book, and perhaps a soda. Decided against it, because it would take too much time out of my day right now, which should be focused on writing.

So I made a few more notes.

Honestly, this has been my day so far: a bunch of little things, with not much concrete progress on anything. Circles. I'm a bit restless. I've eaten; I've snacked. Maybe I should lie down for a bit, or just walk around the block (although I tend to come back from those thinking it was a waste of time because nothing has changed). Perhaps I shall play live Metallica loudly. Or the Random Colour test playlist.

The lie-down has merits. Half an hour of that, then the playlist and some just-sit-down-and-write-out-thoughts-no-matter-how-poorly-they're-phrased kind of writing in the green witch MS.

Feeling Better Now

Thank you, lady, for settling my stomach and soothing my out-of-proportion anxiety.

Coffee. Soon. On me.

Crisis of personal integrity possibly being tarnished over. The day can resume. Or begin, really.

In Which Thursday Is Recapped, And She Reveals Her Obsession Regarding Personal Integrity

I woke up at a stupid hour again this morning. Of course, Maggie-Cat was crumpling some paper on the dresser, but I woke up-woke up; not "just sort of kind of" woke up, but all the way, bang, at once, the kind of waking up that is not followed by back-to-sleepage. I have no idea how much longer I'd've slept if Maggie hadn't decided to undertake her dresser-top tidying job, but judging by how awake I am, probably not much longer.

We began watching our new Firefly DVDs last night. Thank you again, Vedhalwyn!

I discovered this morning that an item of certain information I possessed concerning a situation did not, in fact, come from the person I thought it had come from, and has been clarified for me as being false. This freaks me out, because I handed this info to someone else in concern for an individual involved. I hate spreading rumours, and now I'm trying to figure out exactly who originally gave me the info so that I can track it back to figure out what the hell happened, and/or set the record straight back that way as well. This type of thing really upsets me because I know how dangerous the game of broken telephone can be. The good thing is I'm relieved to know the information is false, so I'm not as worried any more. Except it doesn't make up for the feeling of having given one person false information and possibly upsetting the other person involved; that's worrying me now instead. I'm going to obsess about this all day now, I can tell. Argh. And I can't figure out if that's what's making my stomach upset or if it's the lack of breakfast, which I really don't feel like eating. Not even tea. (And this isn't even a major life-threatening sort of snip of information, or a secret, or anything like that. Seriously; can you imagine what I'd be like if this was huge? Gods, life would be so much easier if I had no personal integrity. And no, this has nothing to do with that prior situation where I muttered darkly about the lack of personal integrity on the part of others, although that instance also illustrates how highly I value personal integrity.)

I saw the osteopath yesterday, and left in more pain than I'd arrived with. Spent most of the afternoon in bed reading or napping, because I slept really badly the night before as well. The afternoon of lying down really helped the lower back recover, though, and by last night things were better than they had been pre-osteo. Better than they would have been had I sat at the computer all day, anyway, which would have exacerbated the problem.

We signed for that duplex last night, and we'll be moving in on the last weekend of May. Hurrah! Now I just have to schedule the green witch book in such a way that I'm not in a major crunch around then. It's due June 1, and I usually visit my parents during a move; so I'd like it to be well and truly done before I leave, bring my laptop and a copy of the MS on disk along with me to double-check and triple-proof it before I get home again, set up the desktop, and submit it.

Today: more green witchiness. Assuming I can move past the obsessing.

Gnash

The accountant who did our taxes last year has given up on them this year. Mine, he says, he cannot do (I have no idea why; he said he had to get special forms and couldn't understand what to do with them, which confuses me because he did both our taxes last year which both included freelance work and had no problems). HRH's have resulted in a different oddity: he says that the provincial government didn't take taxes off his EI payments so he owes them over $500 (equally confusing, because EI is a federal thing and the province has nothing to do with it). He is humble, and apologises, and isn't charging us for the time he took to try to do them and figure out that he couldn't pull it off.

Good thing.

So he's giving us the number of a government office who hands out the appropriate tax forms for my taxes, and I suppose we'll take them to H&R Block or some such place, because this makes the second accountant in a row to mess up our taxes, and if they can't do it, there's no way we'll be able to ourselves.

Annoying.

Sequence? What Is Sequence? We Do Not Understand This Concept

This morning, I woke up and thought it was Saturday.

Enough, already.

Schedules

It's Tuesday.

Not Wednesday.

I had this problem yesterday as well. Except then, I thought it was Tuesday. Which is most likely why I think today is Wednesday.

We have three people stopping by today at different times. I must remember that. Perhaps I ought to scribble it on a sticky note and slap it on my monitor. Otherwise, I will keep being surprised when they show up, and probably increasingly irritated, too. (I could always put another sticky note that reads "TUESDAY", but I honestly don't know if that would help.)

Can I just say how much I love Elastica's "Stutter"? This is going to be a riot.

More enjoyable green witch work today. And I've been informed that the copy edits of the Wicca book are due back to me on April 14, which means I'll have had two blessed weeks without it.

First Day, Take Two

Best intentions, etc, etc.

Yesterday was hijacked by reformatting HRH's portfolio into the correct format for submission to various online applications, which took much longer than I wanted it to. We had to pare the portfolio down to a quarter of its original size, as well, which was a real challenge that took about two hours alone. By the end of the day I saw that I had accomplished absolutely nothing that I'd wanted to do, and yet I'd been working all day. (Okay, I got a serious shoulder massage out of it, HRH's undying gratitude, and he made dinner as well, so it's not like my work was unappreciated; it was just frustrating. It had to be done, though, and it took me a quarter of the time it would have taken HRH on his own. Now it's done, and we won't have to worry.)

So yesterday's plans have been moved to today, as HRH is out doing construction-type stuff. I've already reviewed my proposal, and yes, my wording was vague enough that I thought one thing and the publisher another, most likely. Now I understand why they were looking for a "better" subtitle than the one I had originally furnished: we'd interpreted the proposal in two different ways. All's well that ends well, though, as my own perception of the book has mellowed over the past quarter-year that it's lain maturing in my mind.

With the proposal reviewed, I made a new list of things I want to put in each chapter, which still fit the original proposed themes, and it's going to be blessedly less difficult than I had originally set up. I've also already made pages of notes about the new things I want to say. And curiously enough, the only thing I'm really taking out of the whole exercise is the deep philosophy part that I was obsessing over how to accomplish last fall. It really is the state of mind that determines how you see a subject. Last fall I was in a very different headspace. This spring is much better suited to what I need to do.

I want to have fun with this book. That would be nice. Apart from creating a solid product of which I'm proud, that's my goal: to have fun throughout the writing process. A good goal, I think. And again, with only 40-ish K to write over the next two months, I'm already more relaxed than I was at the beginning of the Wicca book.

I'm going to brainstorm a while longer, fill up even more pages in my notebook devoted to this project, and then around mid-afternoon I'll open up the file with those 15,000 words of the book that already exist and reread them. I have a feeling I'll be pleasantly surprised.

And, on a completely different subject, we're hoping to take a look at a main-floor duplex in Lasalle late this afternoon which has all the things we were looking for in a townhouse, including a double garage (hello, studio space), backyard, a washer and dryer hook-up (and a year-old washer and dryer set for a stunningly low price), a dishwasher, and three bedrooms (hello, my very own office!); in a quiet area without a lot of through traffic, on two major bus routes, and close enough to shops and support. It's being renovated after the last tenants fled in the middle of the night leaving the place a wreck. The owner is a friend of a friend, and someone we've met a few times socially for the past five or so years, and he's willing to make a deal, as we are; and it would be nice to have someone whom we could trust as a landlord. (He's equally happy with the idea of tenants he can trust.) So. It's not the townhouse we were hoping to buy, but it's a definite step up and away from an apartment, and perhaps somewhere where we could stay for more than two years (imagine!). We'll take a look, and we'll think about it, just as we're still thinking about all the other options as well.

Weekend

Fresh strawberries and a chocolatine for breakfast.

Life's pretty okay.

Sun!

It was so nice to wake up and not be stressed by the book. I do have a pressing deadline for those two reviews today, but it's a different kind of pressing: I have to finish reading the books and taking notes. The reviews themselves I can do in an hour or so.

Orchestra last night was terrific. The concert on April 17 is going to be fabulous.

I noticed that I haven't been very hungry the past few days, which might be a direct result of indulging so much at my parents' house over the weekend. I did, however, treat HRH and myself to ice cream on that walk yesterday afternoon. We walked to the Dairy Queen about twenty minutes away for the first ice cream of the season. Mmm.

It was a nice treat, and good to get out. It was good to get HRH out as well, because he's had a bad cold and he too now understands the concept of computer aversion: he's been working on his portfolio pretty much twelve hours a day, burning himself out and developing a remarkable dislike of staring at his monitor.

I passed on Scott's words of wisdom regarding not accepting the very first offer he gets, as he's likely to get several. HRH sighed and said, "I understand what he's trying to say, but he's been working with his company for what, five years now? That's how long I've been out of the animation industry. It's going to be very difficult not accept any offer made to me."

Anyway, he's just been sent off to meet with a bunch of other students who did the intensive program with him, where they'll network over coffee and lunch. Over the past day or so I've been updating his online portfolio, for anyone who cares to check it out again.

Manners?

Can I just say that calling someone three days before a bill is due and informing them that their share of the payment has just doubled is rude? Where the hell is the money supposed to come from?

Later: Ah. This person got the bill notification a month late, because someone else didn't pass it along on time. [Insert eye-roll here, now because of the not-thinkingness of the original person.] I wish I could say I was surprised, but now that I know more and who is involved, things have fallen into place.

Weekend Bits

In taking a break from the edits (the intro and chapter one are done, hurrah!), I'll share the things that I have not yet mentioned regarding my weekend away:

The car rides didn't mess up my back the way I was afraid they would!

Lots of Easter chocolate. Many Lindt bunnies. Plus Lindt carrots, which are perfectly darling. And a belated Christmas gift which was accidentally overlooked in December: a lovely, lovely little square glass inkwell with an attached lid for my inkwell collection.

Lots of chocolate from the British food import shop. Stocked up on Galaxy bars, a couple of Walnut Whips, and two tablets of Fry's chocolate. Also picked up a couple of something called Liason, which are essentially Galaxy bars with praline filling instead of caramel. Haven't tried them yet. Saving for special occasion (such as, oh, finishing these bloody line edits?).

New summer dress and blouse from La Cache. Gods bless April Cornell for designing flowly, pretty clothes in lovely green. And gods bless mothers who like to see their daughters in the aforementioned pretty clothes.

Acquired a "new" Pyrex 13x9 pan from Mum's basement shelves (to replace the one that snapped in half mysteriously one day last fall), and "new" French White casserole dish with lid from Gran (also welcome, because we have no large casserole dishes since the large Corningware dish cracked five year ago).

Took HRH to the Canadian Warcraft Heritage Museum where Dad works. I did this two years ago, but this was HRH's first time. He was quite impressed by it all, and by Dad's tour.

When we pulled into my parents' driveway at around 1.30 PM Friday, there was more snow on the ground there than there was up here in YUL when we left. It had pretty much melted by the time we left, though. Lovely weather, although gloomy on Monday for the drive home.

The menu (because some readers are intimately familair with my mother's culinary accomplishments and want to know): homemade macaroni and cheese (the recipe for which I abolutely must acquire) made with whole-grain pasta and super-delicious fancy cheeses, served with salad and a tangy poppy-seed cream dressing; then roast beef rubbed with a heavenly mixture of seasonsings which escapes my memory, a potato/roasted red pepper/cream/fancy cheese gratin (which was heavenly), and Yorkshire pudding (because even with another starch on the plate, you have to have Yorkies with roast beef), and lemon meringue pie for dessert (whole eggs in the filling makes it even better than yolks-only); then racks of lamb rubbed with Dijon and fines herbes de Provence, with a heaping platter of roasted root vegetables and asparagus. And for lunch on Monday before we hit the road, homemade quesadillas with chicken and roasted peppers and sharp cheese. There was a jar of Spice Cookies Which Emphatically Fail To Suck, which was gone by Monday morning too.

I like my parents' cats a lot, especially Seamus, but I really, really missed my own felines. We woke up this morning covered in content cats.

Home

Home; alive. The drive home is always an hour and a half longer than the drive there, which means that paranoia, obsession, boredom, and short patience kick in right past Kingston. The presence of Prospero's Daughter in our back seat helps keep us sane.

For once, we didn't come back with tons of stuff. We acquired a smallish thing or two, but left them with my parents because why bring more stuff into the apartment when we have no room and we'll just be moving it in two months anyhow?

Ceri and Scott did that cats-sitting thing while we were out of province and they did such a good job that we barely got an "Oh, it's you" when we walked in.

Picked up three books on Saturday night. Read Tithe by Holly Black Saturday night (debut YA novel, rather decent, pacing a bit odd), then started the Selected Journals of L.M. Montgomery Volume 5 (my surprise find while browsing the biographies, and a welcome one as it's been eight years since the last volume came out) and finished it in the car on the way home.

Now: unkinking from the car ride, baking lasagne, and HRH is out dropping off our taxes with the accountant (who managed to forget about the appintment we had last Thursday night -- good thing HRH called in advance to confirm). Tomorrow: checking my inbox to see if those edits arrived. Can't even think of looking tonight.

Easter Odyssey

Off to Toronto!

For some reason I want to launch the road trip with the Magellan mix t! did in honor of an OST game lo these many years ago. I hope it's in the grab bag o'cassettes in the car, because I can't find it here.

Enjoy your weekend, everyone!

Osteo Update

The osteopath has pretty much declared me back to normal, and I have to say that her diagnosis matches how I've been feeling over the past week. I'm stunned at how much pain came from the very same lower back issue that I experienced three years ago. Mind you, I've been replicating similar circumstances which surrounded that particular situation, mainly working at a computer for eight to ten hours a day and being very stressed by work and responsibilities, just as I was back then. Over the past few weeks as the lower back has unlocked and my computer time has dropped drastically, which means that the lower spine isn't being aggravated, the pain has really cleared up. I'm moving so much more freely.

I have an appointment set for two weeks from now, just in case things seize up again, and a general maintenance appointment scheduled for a month from now. I'm feeling pretty good about the whole thing.

Smug!

Nice to know that I'm doing the right things financially, particularly after such a wibbly morning.

I just typed up the spreadsheet detailing my income vs expenditures in preparation for handing our taxes to our accountant. I made a decent living off this writing thing in 2004, something which I always knew was possible but somewhere deep inside never thought I'd actually accomplish. Once HRH is gainfully employed in his field again, and making real money (as opposed to barely liveable money by landscaping) things will be much more comfortable around here. He's already reinitalised his EI claim, so if nothing happens within the next two weeks (which is the plan, of course: graduate, get hired ASAP!) at least there will be extra money coming in again, which hasn't happened since the beginning of January, and I won't feel so stressed about handling all the bills any more. It's odd: for the first six weeks I was all proud about being able to do this, about supporting the two of us plus paying for half of HRH's tuition in order to enable his retraining. Now, though, I've had to cover a couple of unexpected bills, and it's been hard watching that book advance which was earmarked for the house down payment slowly trickle away to pay for things like groceries, car payments, and gas. The worst bit about the way I'm paid is that I know there's a final payment to come my way for the Wicca book (due mid to late April after it makes its way through the system), plus a final payment for the green witch book once it's submitted (due July for the same reasons): there's money coming, but not now when it's needed for that down payment and for the associated costs.

Anywhats. Feeling a bit more relaxed about the whole situation, particularly since I could take one of those payments in entirety and whack it into that credit line to annihilate more than half of it. Food for serious thought.

Wibblage

I'm chewing my fingers. The full MS should arrive in my inbox at some point today, and I truly have no idea how to lose 5K of word count, if it really does stand at 85K. And how it got that way when I submitted it at 83K and we cut out chunks of text already is quite beyond me. And I'm so burnt out on the subject of this book that I'm being anxious about the second round of line edits before I've seen them simply as a pre-emptive strike, because I have no idea how I'll handle them. Gods know what I'll do when the tech reader's edit lands in my lap somewhere in the next month or so.

And I'm worrying about the down payment for a house, which is dwindling as HRH didn't get EI while in school retraining to be a more productive member of society (and let's not go there, the idiots) so my book money has been the only thing keeping us going. And I'm worrying about taxes, which will further eat away at what little remains of my savings. And I'm worrying about moving, which will happen the same week the green witch book is due. And I'm stressing about other understandably stressable stuff, and about my state of mind concerning that other stressable stuff, and about getting my hair trimmed, of all things.

Please don't tell me to take a day off. You have no idea what that does to me, because you aren't actually in my head and can't fully understand that a day off just means time to worry more. And don't tell me to go out and do something, because that's so incredibly not helpful. I'm not asking for advice, or sympathy. I'm just wibbling, as ai731 says. That's part of what a journal is for.

Privacy

I'm in an odd mood. I slept strangely last night, woke up from a bad-ish dream, and was late for my doctor's appointment because the clock on HRH's computer is fifteen minutes behind real time, and he wanted to sit and watch the final few frames of his animatic render to make sure everything went OK. I could understand the anxiety, but I thought he was waiting in order to slap it on a CD and bring it with him so he could drop me off and go straight to school. When he didn't bring his bag, I was a bit miffed. Then he discovered when we got in the car that we had five minutes to make a fifteen minute trip, and understood why I'd been making a fuss about leaving. I wish the apology had made me feel better, but it didn't.

Got home, still felt blah. Had lunch around eleven, then napped. Was awoken at one by the phone ringing. Regular readers know that I don't answer the phone often, particularly when I'm busy working or half-asleep. No one left a message, so I went back to drowsing. Then someone knocked on my apartment door. I'm fanatical about apartment security, so no, I didn't open it; if I didn't buzz you in, then I'm not opening my door to you because I have no clue who you are. Next thing I know, someone's unlocking my front door.

I've never moved so fast from being half-asleep under the afghan in the living room to grabbing the locks on my front door.

It was the concierge from downstairs. She wanted to show the apartment.

Now, I usually have no problem with this. Just let me know ahead of time. Yes, in the last three months they have the right to show the apartment, but please just have the courtesy to let me know as far ahead of time as possible. I was not happy, and she knew it. The poor girl who had come to see the apartment was so uncomfortable, and I did feel bad about that; I showed her around I reassured her that it wasn't her fault. I also took the time to point out all the bad stuff about the apartment, like the fact that it only has one bedroom, next to no storage, and it's loud in the summertime when you open the windows. Of course, I also pointed out the good features, like the high ceilings and the big bathroom and the new windows and stuff. But I had to be fair, didn't I.

I'm going to go down and knock on the conceierge's door later to tell her that I don't mind showing the apartment, but that if she's calling to bring someone up immediately to leave a message when she phones because I screen my calls. Yes, I know the general rule is you have to have 24 hours notice, but the building manager told her to show the apartment anyway, and he's the boss. And I'm really not interested in making a major complaint right now because we're two and a half months away from being gone, and there's no point in making what's left of our time here even more stressful.

So now I'm cranky. Great.

This Sunny Day Has Cleared Out My Cobwebs

I've had a fabulous day. It was warm and sunny, which meant no winter boots or coat, and freedom! After finishing the edits (yay me!) I got to spend the afternoon doing some driving with good friends. Imagine; an entire couple of hours on a Monday, in daylight -- and then an hour spent in a coffee bar, too! I'd forgotten what that was like after the past two months of being housebound by writing on such a tight deadline, winter, and back problems. After picking up our goddaughter, we then got to share in the experience of introducing her to her new big-girl bed, which was a riot.

Now, of course, I'm exhausted. Happy, yes, but wow, will I ever sleep well tonight. And I'll need that sleep, because the full MS is headed back my way tomorrow for a final check before it goes to the tech reader. Somehow, despite the amount of edits we did along the way, the final word count ended up around 85K, instead of the 83K I submitted. I am remarkably puzzled as to how this has occurred, because we sliced out tons and tons of stuff and added nothing. So when I get it back, I'll have to be ruthless and cut even more.

We checked in with Tal this afternoon as well. It was odd to hear him speaking from the other side of the continent. I know, I know, phones theoretically make people sound the same distance away no matter where they are located; but I knew he was in California, and that made it different. I started missing him before he left, even though we hadn't seen a lot of each other in the past year or so. (Damn this growing up thing; it puts a severe cramp in our social lives.) Now I miss him more, because I know I won't see him at casual gatherings for a few months. Despite my joy at his good fortune to be in CA for an extended period of time, the missing-him-ness sucks. I should console myself with the knowledge that it probably improve my character, or something along those lines.

More Spring

Another glorious day! It's going up to four above zero today. I will have the windows open as I finish the final line edits. It's a nice change to begin the work week in such a good mood.

We woke up early today and went out to breakfast, which was a nice treat, particularly since Chez Cora was practically empty. While we were out, we saw the most beautiful baby boy. He had the hiccups, which was unfortunate but also amusing. Despite the hiccups, he seemed rather smug about life in general.

HRH started rendering his final project last night. Ten hours later, it's reached frame 406 of 1500. This is defintely going to take a while. When it's done, we may just be able to make it available for download from his portfolio site. Some of you have seen the non-rendered animatic, but the rendered version is going to blow us all away.

Spring

I have slept over fourteen hours in the past twenty-four. Yesterday started off so well, with glorious sun and a good mood and the baking of four batches of orange scones dipped in orange glaze. We went out to the South Shore for a lovely visit with my husband's parents. And then -- boom. Around two-thirty, a migraine began. So long, rest of the plans for the day. The only way to get rid of it was to go through the whole dark room, no noise, couple of Tylenol, sleep it off sequence. I woke up again around five-thirty, made a casserole for dinner, ate, and fell asleep again during the bonus material of The Incredibles, and dragged myself to bed because if I was going to sleep, I might as well do it in comfort.

So naturally, I woke up at four AM today because my body had had enough of that sleep thing. I saw the loveliest spring equinox sunrise, though. And I read all five of the Spiderwick Chronicles, which are really one story separated into five books. And hey, there were scones for breakfast.

I have some finished shots from HRH's final project that he handed in on Friday to post. Although formal classes are over, his next week is going to be spent in the computer lab while he takes certain elements from both projects and develops them further into spectacular portfolio pieces to send to people already asking to see them. We're hoping to see him hired somewhere within two weeks.

The Wonders of Modern Alternative Medicine

7:00 AM, osteotherapy: Look! I'm no longer limping!

9:45 AM, massage therapy: Look! I'm no longer tense! My upper arms no longer hurt!

The bonus of the associated uplift to the mental state is remarkable. (Imagine; less physical pain, less mental stress. So simple.) And it's such a gorgeous day; I loved driving in the sun, even when I was squinting.

Okay, the lack of stress may also have something to do with the fact that my fifth and final catch of edits won't be here until late this afternoon, which means I can actually finish preparing for tonight's class. I am thankful for this, as the last couple I've taught (when they weren't cancelled because I was swamped with work or paralysed with pain) were very unstructured and I wasn't happy with them at all. This also may just be the last Friday night class I'll be teaching, which is a blissful thought. Not that I don't enjoy the people or the subjects; I just don't have the time or energy to devote to it properly. And it will be one less stress off my plate.

This time next week, I'll be rolling into my parents' driveway on Oakville for a four-day weekend. More bliss.

Must... Nap...

Despite going to bed early last night (HRH demonstrated immense self-control by not watching either Making Of documentary included on the second Incredibles disc), sleep wasn't of the best quality. I woke up a lot, had cats dancing on my head at 4 AM (are you sure you don't want another cat, Mousme? He's free to a good home!), then got up early to be at the blood lab as soon as it opened (and I was still twentieth in line!). Can't nap later, as I must finish up those edits, as well as it being the weekly writing jam day and I must play hostess (bad form to just wander into another room to sleep while others write, you see).

Ergo, must nap now.

There will be cats. There always are, the lazy creatures, sprawled all over the bed once we have arisen and fed them and begun our day. Perhaps I will dance on their heads first, see how they like it.

Kitten Love

Nixie, our littlest kitten (who is almost two and a half, but she will forever be the littlest kitten), likes to show she cares by nibbling fingertips. This is spine-crushingly adorable, particularly since Nix is a standoffish little thing who thinks people are to be avoided at almost any cost and prefers to be in another room if they're about, or at the very least at the far end of the one you're in. Being near people is a sign of Nixie in a very good mood. Finger-nibblage is like unto being beatified or sainted by her or something.

Anyway, for the past couple of weeks she's taken to occasionally joining me while I work, sitting to the left of the mousepad. Sometimes she watches the screen; sometimes she draws herself up into a loaf of cat and half-closes her eyes, just content to be there.

This morning, she hung over the edge of the desk above my keyboard drawer and tried to nibble my fingers as I typed.

It must be love.

Blood Test Redux

Five vials of blood. Five. I mean, I know that I haven't had a test done in over four years, and each of my doctors wants something slightly different tested, and everyone wants to be thorough -- but five? The most anyone has ever taken from me before is two!

Anyway: home, alive, did not pass out despite the amount of life they sucked from my body. The technician was terrific; she chatted to me the entire time, didn't jar the needle as she switched vials (over and over and over), and all round it was the best blood-giving in whch I've ever been involved. And I was in and out in half an hour.

The next four business days are rather busy as doctors cram in follow-ups. Osteo therapy again early Friday morning; massage therapy later Friday morning; a specialist appointment Monday; another specialist appointment Tuesday. You'd think I was deathly ill instead of due for regular tests, tired, cranky, and fed up with winter.

My various health specialists seem determined to get as much up-to-date info concerning my systems as they can. No stone unturned, as they say. And after all, it's been three to four years since I had a complete profile and health evaluation done, so I'm due. When I found out from my GP that it had been about five years since I'd had a blood test, I cringed a bit. I see a doctor when something goes wrong, and I have a check-up about every eighteen months. I just haven't been sent for any tests over the past handful of years, and now everyone seems to want to catch up in the same two months. And of course, the hip problem manifesting at the same time was unpredictable, and it's the only major issue at the moment. It all just happens to be occurring when I'm in a crunch period for work, too.

So no one panic when I say that I'm going to yet another doctor's appointment; I'm not dying. I'm discovering that I'm actually rather healthy as test results slowly start to roll in to each specialist. This is all good. Remind me to ask them to spread the tests and appointments out a bit more next time we go through this, though. The whole "I work at home, so any time is good" is beginning to not be such a bonus.

Pause For Thoughts

I'm in a remarkably good mood. Less pain, slow and sane edits, open windows, breaks to chat with various folks via phone and email... all round, a much better day than yesterday was.

I'm still looking at my schedule and putting my finger on things that have to drop. I look at each and evaluate the balance between commitment and sanity, compare the things I'm good at and do simply because I'm good at them to the things I enjoy and get more out of on a personal level. I have a feeling there will be some people who are going to be very disappointed with how this works out. The revision may be temporary, or it may be permanent. Who knows?

Pot, Meet Kettle

May I just say that it is very amusing to receive health advice from people who run themselves into the ground with no regard for their own wellbeing?

New Day

I just returned from my second osteo appointment, and my therapist is very impressed with how things are progressing. She was also happy with the total bed rest thing I did for a day and a half, and recommend more of the same when things get painful again. The problem has now relocated to the lumbar discs, which are being compressed; the stress on the hip area has pretty much been aligned away, hurrah! The pain isn't as agonising, and she's given me two new stretches to include in my hourly breaks. I also spoke with my original osteopath, who was pleased that things were going so well with the new therapist. My last appointment in this sequence is on Friday, but after that I think I'll schedule one every three or four weeks, just for maintenance. I also have a masseotherapist threatening me if I don't avail myself of her services, so I bow down to her knowledge of the human body and have resigned myself to a series of appointments with her as well, times yet to be determined.

In this morning's email messages were a pile of amusing and thoughtful missives from friends, and one particular message that bowled me over: Vedhalwyn down in Houston TX, (yes, you get mentioned by name, my lady!) sent me an extremely generous gift certificate from Amazon.ca so that I could spoil myself with the Firefly DVD set during sessions of being confined to the couch. I'm speechless and incredibly touched.

The next hurdle: our taxes. Sigh.

Small Comforts

By the way, I now have a real heating pad. The cats like it, too.

Blood Test Woes

Things still hurt. Yesterday, though, I was determined to get out into the warmth and spring-like weather to see Tal and the gang for a evena bit at his official Farewell Tal gathering. So I dosed myself up on Tylenol and out we went. (Hey, after cancelling three other events to lie on the chesterfield or in bed seething resentfully, I would have liked to see someone try to stop me.) The walk back to the car wasn't much fun, and neither was getting up this morning, but the benefit to my mental health was worth it. Someone complimented me on how glowy I looked; I put it down to being out of the house, wearing new clothes, and makeup for the first time in over a week.

This morning, on the other hand, was an exercise in futility and deep frustration. We got up and left just after six-thirty AM to get to the hospital for my blood test, which I've been meaning to do for over three weeks (hey, it's been about four years since I've had one; it's more than due, and it has to get done before my doctor's appointment next week). Things like my deadline and HRH's school schedule have been kind of more important though. As the blood lab isn't marked at all, we wandered around for ten minutes, my hip complaining more and more, until I got frustrated and went to the admissions desk. They gave us directions and we went downstairs, opened the door and stood staring at over forty people in the waiting room. Right away I could feel HRH stiffen and tense up. "Want to come back tomorrow?" I said. "Yes," he said immediately, so we turned around and left.

The uselessness of it all really got to me: we had taken an hour out of our day only to get nothing done. HRH had been having a slow morning after a frustrating weekend, and every step I took around the damn hospital hurt me more. And I hate having blood taken. Most people think that after years and years of allergy shots I should be okay with needles, but it's not the needle so much as the fact that I have low blood pressure and taking even a bit really throws me out of whack for a while. Hence the reason HRH has to take me; I can't drive afterwards. Then I realised that we can't go back tomorrow, because I have an osteo appointment that I really need to attend; it will have to be Wednesday.

I guess I kind of snapped for a bit once I got back to the car. I've been so angry about this hip pain, and the fact that I haven't had a break from this damn book, and how cooped up I feel after winter, and that I'd psyched myself up for the blood test and had to come back later that I started crying in frustration. When HRH joined me he was a bit puzzled, I think; he knows I hate blood tests. He patted me on the back and said, "Don't cry; we'll come back another day."

But that's just it. I don't want to come back another day. I want to drop pretty much everything I'm doing and just focus on me for a while. I wasn't crying about the blood test; I was releasing tension about bills and househunting and working and being in pain and all the stuff that makes demands on my energy, even the stuff that's supposed to relax me or help heal me. I'm reading books to make other things go away, and when I'm done I don't remember what I've read. I want to be able to enjoy what's going on in my life. I'm tired of making everything fit and having a diminished experience all around. I'm growing out of a couple of parts of my life, too, and it's difficult to shed certain associated responsibilities.

Gods, I so need spring to help me through this. I keep telling myself that in another ten days or so, the book edits will be done (please, Goddess, let this estimate be accurate), and somewhat warmer weather seems to be finally making a slow entrance, and I get to see my parents for a couple of days on Easter weekend (a flying visit which is better than nothing, but still not a vacation). HRH is looking at a job market where people with his new skill set combined with his old set are scarce and being sought out, so if he can just get a landslide of work done in the next week he can send demo reels and CVs out and possibly get hired ASAP. There's good stuff on the way, but it isn't here yet, and I'm tired of looking into the future for it.

Not Dead

But certainly immobile.

Just raised myself from the bed to let you all know that yeah, things hurt a lot, and I'm majorly restricting activity this weekend. You'll all be contacted privately regarding my attendance at whatever event in which we're supposed to be participating together.

After I got offline yesterday I spent eight hours on the couch, and then went to bed. Things are a bit better, but I'm not going to stress the hip joint any further than I absolutely have to because I want this over and done with. I'm taking what painkillers I can take, using heat and ice, pillows to take stress off the joint, and I have two osteo appointments lined up for next week plus I'm on the cancellation list; there's not much more I can do except not move. I'm sure you understand. Living life from the couch irritates me to no end.

And it can stop snowing and be spring any time now.

Worse To Invalid

The osteo warned me the pain might get worse before it began to improve, but I doubt the debilitating, shooting, tears-causing, leg-crumpling-underneath-me pain is what she meant.

All I've done is sit at the computer, and get up for the very basic back stretch she showed me, with gentle walking around the apartment to keep things loose. What went wrong?

This is stupid. I can't sit, and I can't stand without pain. I've taken my Tylenol. If I have to cancel class because I can't move, I will be mightily pissed off.

I have to go lie down. I'm offline and not on the phone as of now, people.

Gnash

Someone keeps calling every ten minutes or so and hanging up before I can get to the phone.

If it's you, let the damn thing ring four times, all right? And if I don't answer (because I'm getting really tired of standing up and limping to the phone), leave a bloody message.

New and Not Improved

It turns out that the agonising hip pain that I've been experiencing is directly related to the back problems I've had for over three years. As my old osteopath is booked two months in advance, I worked with a new therapist today, who was great. She diagnosed the same problems my osteo had diagnosed way back when, and used a lot of the same stretches to loosen things up. I'm not pain-free, but I'm certainly more mobile than I was last night, for example, when I couldn't even shift my weight in bed with tensing up and hissing. She says that with the lumbar region looser in general, there won't be as much tension around the nerves and ligaments, and the hip will be less stressed. I'm seeing her next Tuesday and next Friday to follow up, and she thinks that should encompass pretty much the entire healing process. (Until I do something stupid to knock out my hip alignment once more.)

I've decided to use my ergonomic keeling chair again; I stopped in December because it was hurting my knees. I padded it with the sheepskin I've been using on the regular office chair, and so far so good; it certianly keeps me more aligned and doesn't stress my back as badly.

I got a short section of the book back for edits; just forty pages. I'll turn that around, then get to preparing for tonight's class. This subject rather crept up on me; I thought it was two weeks from now, so I unfortunately can't use my original plan of bringing in a guest speaker; it has to be all me. Which means that I have to develop something brilliant. If I think about it properly I might be able to use in in the green witch book. (Remember that one? Yeah. It's starting to swim out of the recesses of my brain again.)

Official Ow

I got home from orchestra last night in severe pain. My lower back's been complaining a lot recently as a result of all the computer work I've been doing, and around the end of last year it started affecting my left hip as well. It feels like I've pinched a nerve: hot shooting pain that immobilises me. You really don't understand how integral a hip is until you can't use it. Sometimes it's really bad, sometimes it's almost nothing. It comes and goes. Usually I get HRH to massage out any knots, and a night of rest makes things somewhat better. And, you know, there's always Extra-Strength Tylenol.

Not this time.

I woke up in as much pain as I'd been in the night before. So I finally bit the bullet and did what I probably should have done two months ago: I called my osteopath. Who, naturally, is booked for a month. So I took an appointment with an osteo-in-training who's working under the supervision of another osteo.

The good news: it's tomorrow at seven AM! Less than 24 hours of agony to go!

The bad news: I was supposed to stop in at the hospital for a blood test at seven AM tomorrow. Hmm. Well, looks like that's being bumped to Monday. It's waited three weeks, it can wait one more business day.

It's not like I enjoy being in pain; it has more to do with the idea of paying someone $75 for an hour of realigning my body. I feel as if I should be able to do it on my own, for some reason. It's my body, after all.

In The Correct Mood For Journalism

While snarling to Ceri this morning over e-mail about various things:

Ceri: "Aah. Good. It's a stomp the stupid people day. I'll bring the bullets. You bring the guns."

Me: "Guns? I was going to use my nails and teeth."

Thoughtful

So I've been writing lately about how my headaches are bothering me, and how I'm looking forward to being completely alone. Ironically enough, I'm going to a concert on Saturday night, a debut concert for a band with a few members who are my personal friends. (All is a few, right?) The concert promises to be rather loud. It is a punk-based band, after all.

The bass player called me yesterday and said, "I've been thinking. If you're still intending to come on Saturday night --"

"Of course I'm coming!" I said. "It's the band's debut concert. I'm not going to miss that."

"Yeah. Well," he said, "I was thinking about your current people thing, and your headaches, and I just wanted to let you know that you might want to bring earplugs and sit really, really far away."

He was so kind about it. I never would have thought to bring earplugs. Sitting far away, yes. Taking Tylenol before the band takes the stage, yes. But not the earplugs. My friends take care of me.

There's just something terribly touching about a member of the band itself calling to make sure I'm as far away from them as possible, blocking out half the sound they make. It's like an exchange: he knows I'm sacrificing precious writing time and deliberately walking into a situation which will likley trigger pain, so he extends to me the option of halving the experience. It's rather sweet.

Early-Morning Musings

Anyone who thinks writing professionally is easy should be shot as a kindness to society.

So should strangers who randomly buzz apartments at 2:37 AM to ask to get in because they (a) forgot their keys, or (b) can't read the numbers or names listed on the directory.

Cause and Effect

Yes, it's official:

I sit down at the computer, a headache blossoms.

Secrets

I'm a rather private person. Friends and regular readers know this. I keep my inner self to myself; my deeper secrets are my own. I rarely download to anyone. (Yes, a prime potential source of stress, I agree, but it's how I am.)

I discovered this week that an individual with whom I shared sensitive personal information in confidence has been telling others and swearing them to secrecy so that it doesn't get back to me.

You have no idea how furious this has made me. This is my private life, thank you very much. This betrayal (yes, harsh word, but I'm using it with purpose) cuts even deeper since this person gave me a very sensitive secret in return to seal our bargain of not-telling. It's a good thing I have integrity, because as far as I'm concerned this frees me from keeping their secret entrusted to me... but I'm not going to let it out. I'm a better person than that. Life is difficult for this individual right now, and their judgement is clouded, and the amount of alcohol poisoning their body chemistry isn't helping, but still -- someone's personal secret is someone's personal secret. No matter how bad your life is, you don't break a promise.

You don't do that to me. You don't betray a confidence. Not about something deeply personal.

I cannot possibly be expected to trust this individual in any type of situation from this moment forward. As of yesterday I've quietly cut ties to this person as best I can. From now on, we are polite acquaintances, no more.

They've lost a friend.

The Light, It Burns...

Slowly emerging from complete shutdown mode after a meltdown thanks to a migraine of killer proportions.

Have I mentioned how glad I will be when this is all done? And also how I will vanish from the face of the earth as I nurse my scarred psyche back to some semblance of sanity?

Ironically enough, despite this anti-social vow, yet a third couple has booked us for dinner sometime this month. And I'm not counting going home for Easter weekend.

Dazed

I am currently rhapsodizing about how delicious Welch's Fruit Snacks are. They seem to be fueling my discussion of how to close a ritual properly, so I'm not arguing. All too easy to pop into the mouth. Now racking memory for friends who hold Costco cards so I can trade a lift for the use of the card in order to stock up on them.

I just want to hit 75K today. I have to teach someone else's class tonight, so writing must wrap up earlier than I like to, but surely I can hit 75K.

Monday

I went for a walk around lunch. While I was out I picked up acceptable antihistamines and an air-freshener so that I am not continually offended by the smell of that neighbour who insists on boiling cabbage and spinach every day. (Maybe it's a personal Lent thing. Who knows.) On the way back I also acquired bagels, fresh cold meat, cheese, and a lime soda. The lime soda is waiting in the fridge for when things get really dire.

And now I am experiencing yet another low-grade headache despite the gallons of water I'm drinking, plus the more than adequate breakfast and lunch I had. Writing is boring, and what I've got on the page already is not engaging me in any way to refine, expand, or rewrite in any way. I went to bed irritated, slept badly last night, and woke up irritated too, which has not helped the headache or the mindset or the working-at-a-computer thing.

In a way, I'm glad this will be over in seven days. In another, I'm just wilting at the thought of how much work has to be done in those seven days to make the manuscript of acceptable quality, two of which are taken up by teaching.

HRH just got home, and he already got back his first mark from the 3DS Max course.

He got a 98.

This has done wonders to improve my day.

Ill

I came across a white supremacy BB while checking the sequence of a European chant for healing.

I feel sick. These people honestly believe that race, religion, culture, and skin colour determines worth and value.

No, you're not getting the link. I'm not sending them traffic.

Ars Longa, Everything Else On My Schedule Brevis

It's noon.

When did it get to be noon?

This most likely occured while I was reading the news and ranting this morning.

HRH Update

So HRH just got home.

"I have homework this weekend," he says.

Uh-oh. New program. New program which he doesn't have yet. How will he do homework?

"I have to draw a storyboard for my final project [what, already? yikes!], and design my character," he says, all smug. "On paper. With a pencil. I love this teacher."

Yes, this teacher says that drawing on paper is an essential foundation for using 3D Studio Max. HRH is getting along with him just fine.

Non-Sequitur

I have just been called a little editorial witch.

I take this as a compliment.

I need to take this moment to publicly thank Ceri and Paze for propping me up in two very different areas of my life right now. I would be even more of a mess without them.

Scattershot

I am tired of being tired.

There are only two weeks left before deadline. Ack. (See previous paragraph.)

Naturally, being out at the store yesterday, I missed the FedEx guy. He came back today, and was terribly nice and cheerful.

In the mail today I got a book on literary terms that I'd ordered secondhand a week or two back. It looks nice, but now I can't remember why I needed it.

Blade and I are now An Army of Some. Fear us.

Happy birthday to HRH! You lived to see it!

And a hearty congratulations to both HRH and Jeff for surviving the three-week Maya intensive course alive, and with brains and sanity relatively intact! Today not only marks the day their final project is handed in (complete, thank you very much), but also marks the first day of the 3D Studio Max course. Incidentally, it was confirmed; this is the program they were supposed to start with to ease them into this whole computer animation thing, because it's less complex and less of a challenge to learn. A teacher scheduling conflict meant the two programs had to be switched in the queue. Cheers, gentlemen! Isn't it nice to know that it gets easier from here onward?

Remarkable Monday (So Far)

I have pants that fit. Two pairs, in fact. Plus a new top. And everything I got was on sale for 25% off regular price, with one pair of pants being 75% off as they were last season's model. Thank you, gods! (And thank you, Mum, for the heads-up regarding said sale!)

I have a new cushion for my office chair, too. Also a great relief.

I did, however, miss the postperson when s/he arrived with the mail and a parcel for HRH. Ah well; it can always be picked up tomorrow.

FedEx doesn't appear to have been by, though, so at least I didn't miss the shipment of catalogues and such from my publisher.

To work!

Yet Another Reason We're Moving

I will NOT miss the smell of other people's cooking all manner of food at odd hours of the day.

Particularly those families who have an obsession with cabbage and spinach.

Come to me, jasmine incense!

And The Heavens Said, CHECK THY HEALTH, And Lo, It Was Well And Truly Checked

Three doctor's appointments in three different places within four business hours. Okay, so there was a night in there too, but I spent most of it awake, so it doesn't count as time off.

I have another hospital card to add to my collection. This one is green. So far I have a white, a blue, a grey, a red, and now a green, too. The green will enable me to get blood tests done in the near future, because I'll be damned if I'm going back to another clinic, hospital, or medical office for the next week. (How is it possible that I have not had a blood test in five years? Have I just not done it whenever the doctor handed me a referral sheet and hoped she wouldn't check on me, which she evidently hasn't done?)

And I'm wiped, so I'm doing office work from home this afternoon. Yeah, I know; it kind of defeats the purpose of Wednesday office work being a reason to get out of the house, but I am so out of it that I don't particularly trust myself to take a bus straight downtown, let alone drive. Besides, I have spent a total of six or seven hours elsewhere recently. There is a nap in my immediate future. And perhaps one of the GIANT strawberries I picked up this morning. I've already gorged myself on a bowl of the red grapes.

My eyes are crossing. Nap time.

The Wind Is In The East

By the way, it's Charles Dickens' birthday today.

One of the Many Things That Has Been Irritating Me

After a month of screw-ups and redirection and being bounced around like a ping-pong ball, I think that I have finally resolved my domain transfer issue.

Long-time readers may vaguely remember that a year ago, I had major communication issues with my previous host: in short, someone else had purchased the domain and the hosting space for me, and I was trying to get both services transferred over to my own account and payment info so that the services wouldn't expire, as his credit card had changed in the meantime. My original host's emails were arriving with no message body, no matter how many emails I sent to them detailing the problem (and the email issue), so in the end everything went bottom-up. The domain went missing for about ten days, during which I screamed at my original host and outlined the problem in living colour for them. They surrendered the domain to me without making me pay for getting it out of suspension, and gave me a free year of registration, which was really, really nice. I still transferred my hosting service elsewhere, though.

Well, in early January I realised that my domain renewal was coming up, and with Blade's help we ascertained where my domain was currently registered. I was listed as admin, registrant, and the tech of the domain, which meant that I should have been able to authorise a transfer to a new registration service. Or so all the transfer request emails coming to me indicated. Right?

Wrong.

I initiated the transfer a month ago. In that time, to try to get the authorisation codes, I've had to talk to my current host (through whom I'm trying to register the domain), the original registation service, and my old host twice a week at least for the past three weeks. Everyone kept sending me to someone else for the codes to authorise the transfer.

The final frustration was a request from a company that I didn't recognise, trying to assume registration of my domain. Since my original host (who has now been identified as "the reseller") removed a cap called a TransferGuard as a result of one of my emails, I assumed this was a move by an opportunistic company to snap up the domain for resale or expensive post-expiration release to me. I blocked it, naturally. Only after the second attempt by this company to assume registration did I contact my hostng service to verify under what name their registration service operated. Sure enough, it was this mystery company. Would have been nice to have been informed when I paid for the transfer and two years of registration for the domain.

But once it resolves, it will all be done and clearly laid out this time, I will know where all the services are coming from and under what name they all operate, and it will all be (gods willing) normal. I paid for two years of service up front, plus initialized my hosting and domain registration for automatic renewal. I refuse to deal with this for a third year in a row. The transfer should resolve sometime this week, which is good, because the domain expires on Friday.

So yes; a very good thing that I began the process a month ago, otherwise I'd be livid and even more stressed than I am right now.

Destress

Only conquering Undead Elbow Macaroni of Unusual Size with my enchanted saucepan could make me laugh this much on a day like this one.

I love you, Ann.

Pardon the Sarcasm

Oh, yes -- the day just keeps getting better and better.

Cranky

I just couldn't fall asleep last night, and every time I managed it, I bounced awake again. I slept badly all night, and woke up like a shot when HRH's alarm went off, already in a bad mood (or possibly still in a bad mood from not successfully sleeping). He did not wake up, which further grated on the bad mood. I poked him. He got up and turned off the alarm, but it was much too late.

Tried rolling over to go back to sleep. No such luck. The living room light bouncing off a narrow wall reflected directly through the crack in the door to shine into the bedroom and into my eyes. The smell of his coffee drove me up the wall. And damn it, I itch all over; I'm so tired of winter and electric heat.

And it never helps when you tell your partner that you're cranky, and he says, "I can tell." No matter what you truly feel, friends, saying this only serves to make your significant other even crankier. Honestly, a simple "mm-hmm?" will do if you can't think of something more supportive to say such as, "Would you like some tea?" or some such phrase. The worst response you can get from a question like that is, "No, I don't want any tea," which means that you have made the tea the object of your significant other's current irritation, and not yourself. Saying something like "I can tell" leaves you wide open to be selected as a target. I'm just sayin'.

You're welcome.

I'm going to do one last quick review of that manuscript, send it back to the line editor, and then I am so out of here. I'm going to aimlessly roam shops. Okay, well, not aimlessly; there are a couple of places I want to scout out. Chantale mentioned cocoa butter cream yesterday and now it's obsessing me; I love the smell of cocoa butter, and although I have a cocoa butter stick from the Body Shop, at the moment it pulls on my skin because the stick is so cold (curse you, winter, and you as well, electric heaters which are too small to warm the apartment appropriately!), so cocoa butter lotion or cream is on my list to find. Going out early will mean that there will be a minimum of stupid people in my way, which is a good thing, because otherwise, there would less stupid people to worry about. (Hmm; wait. No, the consequences would irritate me even more, and then we'd have something akin to an apocalypse on our hands as I finally and completely lose it.)

Gnash, gnash. (No, gentle readers, not a delicious cake filling made of chocolate and cream; 'tis the sound of teeth sharpening.)

All's Right With My World (For Now)

I'm sitting at my desk, working on the book. I'm writing about the importance of language in ritual, specifically bringing attention to rhyme, rhythm, and meter, because I'll be damned if I allow the masses who will read this book to go on writing stilted rituals and painful doggerel to be used as invocations.

HRH is sitting over at his desk, animating a walk cycle on a figure in his Maya program. He showed me each different axis he has to animate for eack key point in the figure, all of which have to be programmed into the cycle in order to get the figure moving smoothly and correctly. The amount of stuff going on simultaneously in this simple walk cycle makes my head hurt.

We're both engaged in what we're best at, our specialties. And we're listening to musicals like Chicago and Guys & Dolls a haute volume to keep us both awake and chipper. It makes me feel good.

(Allow me to boast for a moment: not only did he get a 93% in his first course, but he got a 84% in his Intro to Maya course. Not bad for a guy who barely knew how to turn a computer on in early January!)

From Afar

I should write an entry on how well orchestra went last night (except for the moments where I wanted to strangle Mozart, which, come to think of it, is rather odd, because usually it's Rossini I want to punish, but the Tancredi overture was really quite uneventful). However, I'm feeling a bit raw emotionally this morning because of something gut-wrenchingly meaningful I read earlier which made me cry for fifteen minutes straight. I didn't just tear up, but engaged in full heaving sobs which simply wouldn't stop. 'Tis the season of working things out, and if this is one of the ways I have to purify, then so be it.

So anyway, I'm going to be anti-social for a while. I still love you, gentle readers. I just love you from afar today.

Ha-HA! HRH's birthday present just arrived in the mail!

Ups and Downs

Another incredibly productive day has passed. While my word count hasn't budged (it's Wednsday, store/office day) I got a pile of office stuff done, and I'm feeling terribly pleased with myself. The enthusiam of my colleagues helps a lot. I enjoy being there (when it's not an icebox, of course) because it stimulates my brain, and gets me thinking along the occult/New Age publishing lines in a different way. And really, I love the store; it was the working with the public part that broke me down. Now that I'm a member of the office crew, so to speak, and consult privately, things are much, much better.

Tonight is orchestra, and I wish I could gear myself up for it properly. I've attended a grand total of two rehearsals in the past two months, and haven't practiced at home at all. I'm just not as excited about it as I should be. I reread my post about the first rehearsal of the year and I remember how good it was, but I just can't stir myself. I think my body's establishing some sort of energy/no-energy routine that entails me shutting body and brain down from six to nine PM, which is, unfortunately, when I have to pack up and head out to the West Island to play. I know it's a vicious circle: I don't play, I dread going to rehearsal because I'll sound horrible, I miss rehearsal, I don't play, I dread rehearsal... There's a momentum there, on both counts. If I was at rehearsal, I'd be excited about going back again, because that's just the way it works. I've simply been so tired that I can't bring myself to care. It used to be fun; now somehow my mind has decided that it's work.

Granted, three of the rehearsals I've missed over the past two months have been for legitimate reasons: a Christmas function, for example, and the severe cold two weeks ago, and last week it was sciatica so bad I couldn't get out of bed let alone imagine sitting on those torturous metal chairs that slant backwards (awful for anyone's posture, but for a cellist who sits on the edge of the seat and leans forward, absolute agony on a good day). Still, I wish I was looking forward to it instead of thinking of it as one more thing I have to do.

That's Not Puppet, It's A Bird!

To amuse my fellow Morrighan's Marauders:

Cat and Girl: What Would Senor Wences Do?

The One-th of February

I woke up at 4.30 this morning, and got about two hours of work done on store/office book-ordering type of stuff, which is actually a blessing because I have no idea when else I'd be able to do it. Because I'd woken up so early, I was awake and real-world ready at around nine. So I took the car and picked up a small order of groceries. I shouldn't feel this pleased with myself for accomplishing something so minor, but I do. Astounding: when one shops during regular business hours, there are people at the deli counter who will slice your cold meats fresh! What a concept! And there aren't as many annoying people around and about!

After having had little appetite for over a day, I have just eaten three thick ham sandwiches. I picked up a small loaf of fresh bread this morning; it's now two-thirds gone. Perhaps I should have picked up the regular sized loaf. And I'm still hungry, which means the lovely little box of grape tomatoes is next on my list of threatened foods. Hello, appetite; welcome back.

I forgot to pick up more fizzy water, though. Alas. I did, however, remember the cat food.

Maybe this all means I'll go to sleep earlier, and wake up ridiculously early again tomorrow, so I can finish the store/office work and bring it in with me. It also occurs to me that I'll have to drive into town tomorrow, because I have two boxes of catalogues to bring back. (I am secretly happy about this, even though it means I have to remember to put gas in the car and scrounge up dollars and quarters for the parking meter.)

And now to editing that manuscript which is due back on Friday. I will go back to my own book when Ceri arrives for the writing jam in an hour or so. I figure if I can edit at least three chapters each morning, I'll be done on time.

I'm really feeling remarkably more alert and optimistic than I have been in recent days. The nice weather has helped my mood immensely as well. Happy February, gentle readers. I remembered to say "white rabbits" this morning; did you?

Potpourri

Evil, evil headache. It has come and gone several times over the past thirty-six hours. Now it has come again. Perhaps if I hit my desk with my forehead enough it will ease the pain. (Hey, I'm hurting. Thinking straight is difficult.)

The weekend:

Excellent workshop on ancestors, with good company (although we're noticing when we gather certain people together, things can quickly devolve from intellectual and spiritual conversation to much more material subjects). Tips included Why To Not Serve Your Ancestors Whippets.

Fabulous graduation ritual led by a talented lady, and I am so very proud of all our students. Saw some I hadn't seen in ages. Classes begin again this week. (Break? What break?)

In a return to the Real Star Wars universe, Shawn Taylspinner finally escaped the torture of the Lusankya prison where he'd been incarcerated for two years, coincidental with the arrival of his original two Jedi companions Saiyedra Dubh and Angus Corsairr to rescue him. This synchronicity is perfectly in keeping with the dumb luck these three have always had. The escape/rescue was made much easier by the fact that Thrawn finally moved to smack Isard and take away her toys, distracting everyone. (Well, the concept of "easier" is on a sliding scale, really. Saiyedra and Angus dropped out of hyperspace in the middle of an Imperial civil war-type of scenario. Not overly conducive to sneaking about, or to preservation of life and limb.) It was good to revist these characters, and to finally allow them closure for this particular issue. And it was good to role-play with this group again, too.

Today: the goal is to hit 40K of the Wicca book, but with this pain in my brain I'll really be pathetically pleased with passing 35K.

Note to self: don't read books on buying houses just before bed. It's too depressing.

Attention, Gentle Readers

People, when I am trying to avoid work, you are all supposed to be posting like mad on your journals or uploading artwork or reviews or articles to your web sites or whatever I'm checking, so that I have adequate material to distract me.

You are being very little help at all. (Well, okay, except for the massive morals/values/ethics discussion that happened this morning over at Tal's LJ. That was decently distracting, not to mention thought-provoking.)

Gads, I hate Fridays. All I want to do is lounge and read something escapist and totally unrelated to what I'm writing. On Fridays, I truly hate my computer, my subject matter, and thinking coherently in general.

On the plus side, I have dragged 1,100 words out of the depths of my cobwebby mind so far today, which is more than I thought I'd done, but nowhere near as much as I wish I'd written.

Back to the grind, since there's nothing new out there to distract me. Hmph.

Not Helping

It began with Nixie talking to me in sweet little "miah?" type sounds. So I pushed the keyboard tray back under the desk, and she jumped up on my lap.

Surprise number one. Anyone who has met (or, more correctly, glimped) Nix knows that she's anti-social.

Then she started purring as I stroked her, and climbed up on my desk. She explored a bit, frequently returning to rub against my shoulders or chin as I leaned on the desk, reading. She butted her head against my cheek with her little "prfft" sound. (This is how Nixie purrs: "prfft, prfft, prfft," in short little bursts of air.)

Surprise number two.

Then she leaned against a stack of reference books and purred at them, chewing lovingly on the corner of Witches' Craft while I browsed more Internet articles.

She went off and sat on the side table for a bit, then came back and "prfft"ed at me a while. Then she saw I had a box of Wheat Thin crackers open next to me, and proceeded to start climbing inside the box.

She seemed surprised that I stopped her, and evidently concluded that it must have been a mistake, because she tried again.

Nixie is a tiny cat, and can make herself even smaller. Small enough to get her front half inside a cracker box, the opening to which is two and a half inches high and five inches across, I have discovered.

I pulled the box away from her and gave her a half cracker to satisfy her. I know she likes licking crackers. What the hell. It would keep her out of the box.

She licked it once, tried to pick it up in her paw, got bored, and I closed the box before she could try again.

Undaunted, she stuck her head and then her entire paw into my cup of cold tea.

Seriously. Who is this cat? Where is the pod?

Now she's sitting on top of one of the stacks of books on my desk, looking around. She's being unnaturally perky today. It's wonderful, but it's odd to have to keep an eye on her. I'm used to keeping half an eye on Cricket Mouse and Roman, not Nix.

Ooh, Pretty

I want to learn how to do this. Or at least have access to a talented and inexpensive hair stylist who can do it for me regularly.

Foiled!

I'm currently craving a lime Italian soda, and I'm fairly certain it's Elizabeth's fault for mentioning that she was drinking Lime Passion tea while writing yesterday.

I'd settle for a bottle of Stewart's Lime soda, but the shop around the corner that used to sell it closed around Christmas and never reopened. Alas.

Stuff

Things I forgot to mention over the past couple of days:

Roman jumped into the bathtub while it was full of water Wednesday night. (I was not in it at the time, being otherwise occupied in the bedroom preparing for said bath.) He was completely soaked. HRH was all for letting him walk around wet because it was the cat's fault in the first place for failing his Perception roll, but I pointed out the cat would probably end up trying to sleep on the bed and create a huge cold damp area which would make sleeping rather a cranky experience. He responded by patting the cat's back with a towel. I talked him through how to make a kitty burrito-like wrap and rub hard. Stupid cat.

I streaked my hair the other day, and while it was a lovely contrast of caramel and chocolate right afterwards, it's now sort of a general warm brown colour. Sleeping, of course, messes up my curls, which I dampen and comb through every morning, thus creating different curls that now blend the caramel and chocolate. Except, of course, right at the roots. So now I have defined caramel streaks at the roots, which then fade into a general warm brown about half an inch along. Whatever. At least I like the colour.

The acquisitions editor contacted me yesterday with an idea for a solo spellbook, and I expanded on the idea to propose a series written by different authors. The pub board loved it, and they think I'm amazing, and if it's implemented I get my first finder's fee ever. Um. It wasn't all my idea, but I won't argue with people thinking I'm wonderful. Particularly if they want to give me money.

I'm having my first cup of caffeinated tea this morning (La Mer Hemingway: ceylon flavoured with lemon and lime, mmm!), and it's hitting me a bit hard. I've been off caffeine for two months now, despite the occasional sip of Coke here and there, and I didn't expect a cup of tea to make my heart pound like this.

And it's author David Lodge's birthday today! Why is this important? It's important because analysis of his Booker Prize-nominated novel Nice Work constituted one-third of my master's thesis. Reading all his other academic-based literature kept me amused and relaxed enough to actually finish said thesis and graduate brilliantly, too. Anyone involved in college or university-level arts department, student or teacher, will get a kick out of his stuff.

As you were.

Musings

I had a lovely lunch with a new friend yesterday, and I got wonderful advice from Rue about how to deal with the sciatic issues that have recently been rearing their nasty little heads (I'll share with you soon, Chantale, I promise!). I also commiserated with Roo (who is not the same person as Rue) about her heroic push to get a huge chunk done on her thesis in prep for a meeting with her advisor. "Well, sure you understand," she said, "you wrote a thesis." "No, actually, I'm thinking about the remaining 50,000 words I have to write before the seventh of March," I said. "But you're doing so well!" she exclaimed.

Yeah. Well. Given an overall eight-week window, and with a due count of 80,000 words, that works out to 10K per week. And although I will hit 30K in a couple of hours from now, that still means I'll only be a couple of thousand past my three-week quota. I have to put out ten thousand every single week from now on, or I'll miss the deadline.

I figured that out on the bus on the way into town yesterday. I was stunned, because yes, really, I had been doing so well. I was ahead for the first two weeks, and I haven't really slowed down on my output. So where did I go wrong?

Or, perhaps I should reword that sentence to read, "When did I revert to being a mere mortal?" A mere mortal who is now having a minor fit about handling what is admittedly an insanely challenging deadline?

I can't do anything other than just keep writing. And because I lose Wednesdays (which is now becoming a problem in my writing output) I have to write a minimum of 2.5K every other day of the week, including Fridays, which I was trying to avoid since I'm so tired by the end of the week.

I signed and sent my contracts for this project back yesterday. I can expect my advance in about six weeks, which is... well, what do you know, about a week before I hand the manuscript in. And I've been assured that my consulting contract will be renewed as well, most likely under similar terms as my series editorship contract, i.e. per book as opposed to a flat yearly fee, which is just fine by me. Now I have to get over my Canadian diffidence and actually submit a payment request when I've finished my part of each project, instead of waiting for the company to remember. They're busy, and I'm the independent contractor; it's really my responsibility.

Argh. And fnyeah.

And, of course...

Happy birthday, Mum!

Sweet Irony

So HRH comes home yesterday, and even before he has taken off his winter coat, his scarf, and his fedora, comes into my office and says, "I love school."

These words make me feel all warm inside. But there's more.

"Know what our final project is?" he says with a grin, his wind-reddened cheeks dimpling as he unwinds the scarf.

"What?" I ask, because I know he wants me to.

"We have to design a spaceship, three characters, and an environment for it," he says triumphantly. "I love my life."

Yes, dear readers; after successfully modelling a 747 in day two and three of this course, he's already rendering his original design of the Raven's Gold into 3D. And there are at least half a dozen people out there who know exactly which three characters he's designing to go with it: Angus, Saiyedra, and Shawn.

I rather like his life, too.

I'm thrilled that this is so much fun for him, as opposed to the murky lots-of-work I-don't-know-anything environment he was fearing. His depth of animation experience and art training mean that he knows how objects are put together, how they move, how they're attached, how gravity acts on them, and how perspective affects them. Knowing all that means he's three-quarters of the way there; now he just needs to continue familiarising himself with this "new pencil," which continues to be as inuitive as it was on the first day. And he needs to keep having fun; that's rather important. I wish more people thought of school as fun, and looked forward to it as he does.

Gratuitous Candy Review

Cadbury Dairy Milk Galaxy bars (UK only, Gentle Readers) beat Caramilk bars hands down.

Muses

I love that my husband looks forward to going to school every day. I love that on the first day of his Maya class, he merged with the intuitive interface of his "new pencil," as he calls it, and proceeded to build a fantastic environment just by messing around.

And, for our very own Tough Love Muse:

Sinfest: 12 January, 2005

Health Bulletin

Just so everyone knows -- I'm not ignoring you. I've been in bed sick for the past two and a half days. Things started to go downhill Friday afternoon and bottomed out by suppertime. Today's the first day I'm officially out of bed and dressed and attempting to be normal again. No idea how successful I'll be, but that's the general plan, anyway.

Ahem

HRH is currently carrying a 97% average. Woo-hoo!

Cross your fingers and have confidence in his stupendous performance on this afternoon's upcoming exam, worth 40% of this class's final mark.

I Slept Ten Hours, Honest I Did

After having so much energy for the past few weeks, I'm wiped out again. It's rather frustrating, because I'm on a tight deadline, and my productivity has been cut by about half. And yet all I want to do is doze on the sofa with a cat or three. I don't even want to read.

This can stop any time, thanks. I don't care how normal it is.

That's Me In the Corner, Losing my Divinity

"I learned a whole bunch of HTML today in class, and made a basic web page," HRH told me last night.

"Hey, that's great!" I said.

"Yeah, but all this new knowledge makes you look a lot less godlike."

Rescheduled

Going in to work at the store with Roo later this afternoon due to colleague health failure. I knew I should have started writing earlier.

Alas, this also means I can't go to the movie premiere I was to go to tonight, as I'll be working till nine. Oh well.

Friends Like This

Ceri just called from the metro station, on her way over for the writing jam this afternoon.

"I'm going to stop by the deli to pick up lunch," she said. "Do you want anything?"

Bless her. I already had two bowls of soup, but that was an hour and a half ago, and I'm hungry again. A smoked meat sandwich, fries, and coleslaw will be here in mere minutes.

It's good to have friends like this.

(And for some reason, Cricket Mouse keeps sticking her furry head into my empty glass to lick the sides clean of the vegetable juice residue. Good for amusement, but vaguely disquieting. Odd little cat.)

Past, Meet Future

There's something so cool about a mouse-controlled Etch-a-Sketch. It's a bit of a simultaneous step forwards (anything's better than the knobs) and backwards (we now have tablet PCs), and it's absolutely fascinating.

Boing Boing has also published the link to the build notes so that you too can hack your childhood toy.

So Much For Clearing Headspace

Not a single gods-damned CD-RW in this house is being recognised by the CD burner.

The computer has crashed six times today, on top of the repeated meltdowns it had last night while we scanned the rest of HRH's artwork to create a portfolio CD to get to that headhunter, which was supposed to happen today, but obviously did not, nor will it happen tomorrow, either. My D drive vanished periodically for no apparent reason (and no, it's not a loose connection; it's the second half of a partitioned drive) causing minor heart failure, as it's the drive with all my document files on it. It got backed up today, in two different places. That's the only thing that got accomplished.

It has not been a good day. Very not. Please do not tender sympathy; I am simmering and likely to take off your head.

The second book could have been launched on a better day, it really could have.

The Magical Art of Recipe-Bending

We're going over to a friend's place for dinner tomorrow, and I volunteered to bring dessert. Anne recently directed my attention to a series of recipes for Bundt cakes, and a recipe for a lemon-poppyseed cake caught my eye. So I searched out my tube pan. There was a moment of panic where I wondered if it had finally been tossed during the last move, since I hadn't used it in, well, five or six years, but huzzah, we found it!

I don't have poppyseeds at the moment, so I'm not going to put those in; besides, I don't know if there's a nut/seed allergy among the diners, therefore it's better to be safe. And although I'm sure the included recipe for the tart lemon glaze would be good, I want to put a chocolate glaze with only a touch of lemon on it, because chocolate and lemon is such a subtle and delicious combination.

So it would seem that I'm not making a lemon-poppyseed cake at all, but a lemon cake with chocolate glaze.

Writing progresses at a snail's pace. I'm currently expanding the first chapter from the original list of point form notes. It's not expanding as much as I'd like.

Green Witch Update

Total word count: 13,383
Total words today: 2,383

And now I'm making dinner, a lovely pot roast with thyme and oregano. Mmm.

HRH's interview went very well, thank you -- he's being recommended for the position. What position is that, exactly? Well, specifics couldn't be given to him, of course, but it's for a gaming company here in Montreal, and it involves supervising the pre-production design team and developing the locations for the game, which will then be handed to the computer artists to render.

"Oh, heck," said HRH, "I can do that."

"This is extremely evident from your portfolio," said the cooled-out interviewer at the headhunter agency.

Apparently HRH surprised and impressed them by walking in with a physical portfolio. "But I saw your stuff online," said the interviewer. "Not half of it," said HRH, and proceeded to prove how very talented he is.

Keep those fingers crossed.

Hurrah!

Back at the end of November HRH was contacted by a headhunting agency, referred to them by the friend of a friend. Nothing came of it.

Today, though, another member of the headhunting agency called and asked for his CV and portfolio again. Thanks to the magic of the Internet, he now has an interview on Thursday. Hurrah! And apparently even being at school from January to March won't be an issue! Double hurrah!

Everyone think good thoughts.

Comfort

Things always seem a little less dire after a bowl of chicken noodle soup.

Did I mention I passed 11K yesterday? Okay, so it was only 400 words; but I'd only sat down to type out a few notes after being in bed for quite some time, and ta-da, 11K came and went like magic, which pleased me immensely. Passing 11K sounds much more exciting than writing 400 words.

la la la

I just finished one of my two book reviews for the next issue of Wyntergreene (due today, of course). I do reviews the same way I write books: make notes by hand and go back later to type them out and expand them. Having done so magnificently for the first book (Irish Witchcraft From An Irish Witch for those who are interested, and yes, once the print issue is out in mid-January I'll upload the review to Owldaughter as well), I took a break to have one of Lu's two-layer Rice Krispie bar things -- one layer was chocolate, and I think the other was peanut butter, or maybe maple, or maybe it was maple-flavoured peanut butter from being next to something maple in the tin for too long, who knows? -- and I am now blissfully distracted by the surge of sugar and la la la I can't focus on the next review to save my life.

The Little Things

I found decaf Lady Grey tea at the supermarket yesterday.

I shouldn't be on the verge of tears simply because I have a cup of decaf tea in front of me instead of bouillon or a tisane. I have so missed tea.

Life is good.

And yes, the headaches are now officially gone; I think they were indeed a result of going no-caffeine (except for the occasional chocolate - it's Christmas, and I'm not a saint). And now that the holiday madness is over, I'm not as exhausted. Huzzah! Normality! (Or what passes for it in my life, anyhow.)

Hot and Cranky

As I have grown older, I have noticed that my patience and innate desire to not let people down has worn thinner. Yesterday, after Ceri and I had walked from Atwater to Peel through crowds of stupid people on sidewalks which had only a small strip in the middle free of wet ice, and I had endured the ear-splitting hell of HMV's music choice for all of ten minutes, I said, "I'm hot, I'm cranky, and we're splitting up now."

"I was about to suggest the same thing," said Ceri.

Even five years ago, I would have withheld my crankiness and travelled further along the shopping route with her for moral support during the stupidest day of the year. We'd met for lunch and art, and I needed to pick up a gift for one final parent since we hadn't found it elsewhere. She needed to pick up three final gifts before her departure for Halifax. We know that the 23rd and the 24th are insane shopping days. We knew exactly what we wanted, and where to get it. We would be each other's anchor of sanity. It was to be a focused, surgical operation.

And it was, until the HMV part of the trip. There weren't even that many people. Well, there were a lot of customers milling about, but not much more than a busy Saturday crowd, really. It was, as it always is, the music that killed me. And the winter coat and heavy sweater, on a day of rain and warm wind and above-zero temperatures. Plus the CD I needed was (yes!) out of stock, so I had to find something else the parent might like.

Hot and cranky. Oh, yes.

Ceri had only one more gift to get at the bookstore, so I didn't feel like a complete traitor for abandoning her. Once I was home I took a nap, and then HRH treated us by ordering in crispy sesame beef and General Tao chicken from our favourite Szechwuan restaurant, and we watched the entire second DVD of appendices in The Return of the King extended edition.

Today, I wrap. And as I wrap, I will continue to be concerned about my parents, who were driving the 401 in that horrible storm to overnight in Kingston yesterday. I couldn't get hold of them last night. They're due here around 5 pm, so I'll know then, I suppose, unless they call me before that.

Nesting

The urge to cocoon doesn't normally hit me at this strength in December; it's usually around mid-January. But here I am in mid-December sleeping soundly, not going outside unless I have to, and reading a lot. I've turned to drinking herbal tea instead of caffeinated, and I'm napping in late afternoon, too. It's unreal.

Also unusual for the season are the series of middling-to-bad headaches I've been having, which partially account for my preference to stay in. These headaches are much more a spring or fall thing. They're so pervasive that I've made an appointment with my doctor to talk about them next week.

The green witch book has been put on hold for the past couple of days as I've done the second tech read on the good book I'm editing, and a review of the three chapters we pulled out of the bad book and sent back to the author for a rewrite. They're still not good enough, so today my job is to write a page-long memo explaining why we can't publish it. The author may know a lot about the topic, but the manuscript just doesn't read like that's the case, and the salvage job would be too widespread and huge. Just because you know about something doesn't necessarily mean you have the ability to write a book about it. (Of course, I'm fairly certain that he doesn't know a lot about the topic at all, which is why I waved the red flag right away in mid-November.)

I do have to go out today, for a variety of reasons: gift shopping, a trip to the studio to critique HRH's latest oil painting in progress, a Yule tea with friends, groceries, and to teach a class tonight. I'll make sure to bring my bottle of Tylenol with me.

Ah

When I got home from Tal's place last night and looked in the mirror, I finally understood why five different people had asked me if I was feeling all right. I had that tired red rim thing happening, which was odd because I'd slept well. My eyes have been really sensitive to dryness and random stuff floating in the air lately, though, so that might have contributed to the not-looking-so-good-ness. Other than that, we had a lovely evening with friends; we missed a handful we'd expected to be there, but we saw others we hadn't seen in a while.

Today we helped decorate the tree at my in-laws' house. We've missed out on this event for the past couple of years due to scheduling conflicts, so I wanted to make sure we did it this year. Their six and a half foot monument to the season is decorated in crystal ornaments and small white lights, and it's a beautiful experience to watch it grow from a plain green shape to a shimmering, glowing fairyland. Lots of finger food (scampi this year... mmm) and our beverage of choice accompany this yearly event, as well as assorted holiday music. It was good to do it again. Again, my eyes were really sensitive to all the stuff in the air, though. Very odd. And I'm still bouncing back and forth between being too dry and too sniffly. Maybe tomorrow I'll try taking half an antihistamine and see if that addresses the problem in a more balanced fashion.

Decisions, Decisions...

Noon-thirty. HRH just left to do the second coat of paint on his parents' living room (we did the first coat yesterday). The class I co-teach starts at four today, but I'll likely be there for three.

I'm alone in the house.

Do I do some work on the green witch book...

or do I play Xbox?

Hmm. No one's here to see me die over and over while I learn the play system of X-Men Legends.

Xbox it is. Blade will be proud of me. He tells me that training's what I need to get past the table-top RPG issues with a character dying. So this either counts as therapy, or desensitisation; I'm not quite sure which.

I'll probably get frustrated soon enough and haul out my book notes. Those I can defeat.

Hands-On Computing

Last night, Blade and I went out geeking. We did a local tour to look at LCD monitors. Because, damn it, if I'm going to spend approximately six hours a day with it, it might as well be a really decent product that doesn't hurt my eyes as much as a CRT monitor.

In the first place we stopped at, I tapped one of the housings with my fingernail and it made a really hollow sound. "Is it supposed to sound like this?" I said. Blade thwacked it with his hand. "Nope," he said.

So we started thwacking each one we looked at. Hey, I don't want something that's going to fall apart if a cat rubs against it, okay?

Blade details our evening here. And yes, it was damned frustrating to discover that the model we liked is technically an archived model; retailers are behind the times. And of course no one has the more current model.

Grr.

The Day So Far:

Wake up at 9:12: Overslept. Eyes itchy and swollen, nose sniffly, sinuses throbbing; joy, allergies.

Sneezing ensues. Stubbornly resist antihistamine because being too dry is just as bad.

Break down and take antihistamine at 10:06.

Health check at 11:26: Still sneezing. Now the head feels like it's stuffed with hot dry cotton wool. At least eyes no longer itchy.

Health check at 13:08: Head dry, nose dry, throat dry. Copious amounts of water and hot apple cider doing absolutely no good.

Ah, winter: cats piling on top of the bed, stale air trapped by well-sealed windows, and dry electric heat. Argh.

Listen

Outside: freezing rain. (No, folks, it's not an ice storm until it gets serious. Last night was not serious. It was plain old freezing rain which made sidewalks treacherous and trees pretty.)

Inside: Good coffee, good company, excellent stories being told by talented local storytellers! Organized and hosted by Word of Mouth Productions, this evening featured a range of tales from wintry chillers to summer laughs. It was a terrific way to spend the evening. Despite the unhospitable weather, about fifteen people showed up, and the area at the back of the Shaika Cafe was an excellent venue. It's right around the corner from me, and I'd never been inside; I'll certainly return when I need to escape the four walls of my living/dining room.

It was a wonderful evening out, and I got to hear one of my favourite stories, Ti-Fleur and the Magic Fiddler, as well as learning new ones.

Lunch Date

Very enjoyable. Infectious energy.

I had forgotten how tall he is.

Gift Suggestions

For those who have been asking what to get us as gifts this holiday season, we realised that last night that we really, really need two good frying pans, one large, one medium. The coating on our current pans is all coming up, and it's not so delicious or sanitary.

And my personal Wish List is always open for business.

That is all I have to say.

Tis the Season Part Two

Icing sugar: 1 1/2 cup
White sugar: 1 cup
Cocoa powder: 1 3/4 cup
Flour: 4 1/4 cups
Butter: 3 cups plus some tablespoonfuls
Oil: 1 cup
Eggs: 2
Vanilla: 4 tsp
Water: 1 cup (plus two kettlefuls for tea to keep me going)
Cups of tea consumed: 1/4 (and stone cold, too)
Pans used: 8
Bowls used: 4
Number of times the beaters have been washed: 3

The frosting, which will use lots of icing sugar, cream, vanilla, and butter, isn't being made until tonight.

And for some reason, I'm now fighting the desire to make herb bread. I'm teaching this afternoon; I don't have the time to make bread! Sheesh.

Tis the Season

So far this morning:

Icing sugar: 1 cup
Cocoa powder: 1 cup
Flour: 2 cups
Butter: 2 cups (ye gods)
Eggs: 0 (but that's about to change)
Vanilla: 2 tsp
Pans used: 6 (two pans used three times each)
Bowls used: 2

I love holiday baking, yes, I do. So does HRH, who taste-tests every batter both before and after baking to ensure your ultimate enjoyment of the results. Such devotion to duty.

A Definite Lack of Solutions

Odd day. Odd week, actually. Somewhat frustrating, to be truthful.

It began on Monday as I surveyed the office portion of the dining room. That stack of boxes artfully draped with a tablecloth finally had to go, and had to go right now. Never mind that I have coped with it for two years; that coping period ends today! So I found the perfect furniture solution in the 2005 Ikea catalogue.

(Yes, I know that you know where this is going. Anyone who has ever shopped at Ikea knows where this is headed. Stay with me, okay?)

Tuesday, HRH came home and we headed out to Ikea, the doors of which we have not darkened since before last Christmas. I know this for a fact, because my parents gave us an Ikea gift card and we still hadn't used it. So because it was a calm and quiet Tuesday night, we meandered through the whole place. Due to insane crowds we usually just nip into the self-serve stacks and skip the carefully landscaped mini rooms that never reflect reality: no cat hair, no Cheerios, no Fisher-Price bits and pieces, no Lego, no newspaper scattered all over the place, no stacks of books... just not real. Anywhats, along our meanderings we saw the item I had selected (an IVAR cabinet, if you're really curious) and then we meandered some more, and eventually down through the marketplace we went to pick it up.

Yes. Now the story catches up with you. Ikea, of course, because it handles stock so very well, is out of the unit I wanted, nay, needed this very night. My happiness had zeroed in on taking this thing home, building it, and, hallelujah, getting rid of the boxes. (Most of which, I must add, contain empty wine bottles. But I digress.)

Stupid Ikea.

So the anger began to coalesce in my stomach, and it simmered as we stood in line. We paid for the candles and handful of other stuff we'd picked up, and out we went into the cold night.

"Screw this," I said. "Let us eat sushi."

So we did. And they were happy to see us, and the wonderful hostess is pregnant again, and she gave us free glasses of some Jacob's Creek white, and they made me feel much better.

Then today, I took my cheques for deposit at the bank. No, no; it wasn't the disaster you think it was. They still know that they're supposed to accept these US cheques. This time, the aggravation came from the attitude of the guy who served me. First he called up my profile and said, "Oh, you don't have a US account." Yes, that's correct, Genius. "Then you'll want to hold on to these cheques." No, Genius, I don't; this money is what keeps my household going. And in order to do that, it really has to be in this account.

He gave me one of those 'well-if-you-insit-on-making-this-mistake-it's-your-financial-funeral' sort of looks. And my naturally polite demeanour began to once again simmer. If you're going to point out what I'm doing wrong in your opinion, offer me a solution. That's what you're paid for. And then:

"I hope you're not planning on leaving all that money there," he said as he handed me the print-out of my deposit. Now, my bank account has never been this impressive. I could buy a two- to four-year-old second-hand car without taking a loan, and still have money left over.

"What? It's my bank account," I said. Bank accounts are designed to hold money.

"Yeah, but it's not like it's doing you any good," he said dismissively.

Now, look. We're talking about my money. If you're going to make judgements about what I'm doing with it, then do something helpful, like tell me about GICs or open bonds or something. Don't just imply that 'You'll be sorry!' if I keep on my current path.

And then, I went to a specialty shop.

Here is where my day really implodes.

I asked for an item; it was out of stock. The owner said he could special order it and have it here in half a week. I received a scrap of paper with the SKU and the price, and was told to take it to the cash where the order would be entered into the computerised system, and my pre-payment would be taken. And it was just my luck that (a) the woman on the cash was a complete ditz who could not follow simple instructions as they appeared on the computer screen, and (b) that the electronic payment machine went on the fritz. The owner had to come out three times to fix the computer, and each time he was a little more irritated. Normally I'd give a cashier the benefit of the doubt; I've worked a cash for years and I know the problems that can arise. But I was watching the screen, and she repeatedly misinterpeted the simple instructions that even I could understand immediately at first glance, even though I have never seen or used this system. The final time the owner was summoned to the cash desk, a paper receipt book was produced so the ditz could write out a receipt for my partial payment, which consisted of all the money I had in my wallet since the electronic payment system was refusing all debit and credit cards. I'm fairly certain that the scrap of paper upon which my special order was noted down has been lost, and when I call to see if it has arrived there will be no record of it anywhere.

If this cashier was new, I could perhaps understand. However, she's been working there for years; I know, because I remember her from stopping by this shop at various intervals when the need arose. The computer system, too, is not new. It took forty-five minutes to get through a simple transaction which should have taken five.

Then there was bad traffic for no reason, and as a result of all this irritating stuff I had only a brief fifty-minute stopover at home before I had to leave again to pick up HRH. The only way I saved my sanity was by settling down with a Pratchett book and a box of After Eights, which I have craving for months. And wonder of wonders, it was during those forty-five minutes that the postman rang the bell to deliver a parcel of books to me, so I didn't miss it.

Turns out HRH had a bad day too, so, figuring that we both needed some fun, on the way home I took him to EB Games. I picked up a used copy of X-Men Legends for him and Fable for me, because it had been such a lousy week. Fortunately, the EB Games staff demonstrated excellent customer service, but that might have been because I possess two X chromosomes and I was in a games store. Whatever the reason, they're always great to me, and they suggested a 10% off card which cost $5 and saved me $11 on the purchase. Imagine! A helpful solution! They didn't just tell me that I wasn't buying the games right!

And then my inlaws fed me steak last night, and I have clean laundry which smells wonderful, and we spent the evening with one of HRH's cousins, so the day ended on a decent note indeed. Good thing. I was ready to obliterate the next unfortunate being who crossed my path.

Nix is curled up in the heart-shaped wire bread basket on the table, and it's so damned cute it hurts. And the battery in my camera is officially dead. Curses!

Greatest Canadian Outcome

Well, Canadians have voted Tommy Douglas the Greatest Canadian, a fascinating statement about what we consider great, and what we consider Canadian.

The final ranking was as follows:

1 Tommy Douglas
2 Terry Fox
3 Pierre Elliott Trudeau
4 Sir Frederick Banting
5 David Suzuki
6 Lester B. Pearson
7 Don Cherry
8 Sir John A. Macdonald
9 Wayne Gretzky
10 Alexander Graham Bell

Trudeau really rose in the standings after Saturday night's final debate, as did Banting and Suzuki. I think Suzuki was really crippled by Melissa Auf de Maur's really lacklustre advocacy, though.

All in all, looking at those top five, I'm pleased at how things turned out. I voted for all of them at different times, for different reasons, but I'm more pleased at how Canada voted overall. These five truly deserve to be there, and I'll bet once the final tally is released we won't see much of a difference in numbers between Fox and Douglas at all.

A Truth

No matter where I am, there the Kleenex box is not.

So Help Me Gods --

If one more person on the live Greatest Canadian debate calls hockey our national sport, I will not be responsible for my actions.

HRH on the no-holds-barred debate: "This is the best North American debate I've seen in about fifteen years."

Oh Dear

The project I'm editing bears no resemblance to what had originally been contracted. I'm at my wits' end. My solution? I'm proposing a title change. The contents of the book will be accurately reflected, and we'll avoid the months of serious rewrites.

The back of my throat feels a bit rough. My fall cold is quite late this year.

And my back is beginning to hurt. Ah,yes; the joys of working ten hour days at a keyboard are beginning to resurface.

Me = Goddess

After tinkering and installing and uninstalling and searching for drivers online, going in and out of safe mode, restarting, restarting, restarting, and, ultimately, juryrigging two programs together...

Behold: Space Ranger Tal and Princess Raven Starheart: Danger At Hand!

I rock. I so completely rock.

I really have to turn to editing again now that I've wasted three hours on this scanner issue, but I promise that early next week I'll scan them all and load them up on a page for you to enjoy. (And hey, I want to show off that awesome corset. Just wait till you see the shot of my back without the jacket, with all the lacing. Mmm.)

Later: Oh, the joys of Photoshop! Want to see what Tal did with this pic?

Pictures

We picked up the Halloween photos last night, and, damn, we looked good. Yes, Ceri, the pic of Princess Raven Starheart and Space Ranger Tal looking up and off-screen is there, and is perfect. I wish I had a functioning scanner.

The rolls we developed also included pictures from our Pennsylvania camping trip in August, and the very first Yule-type pictures, too. This is one of the reasons why a digital camera is beginning to sound like a better and better idea.

Brief

If you called, e-mailed, or have been checking this online journal for proof of my continued existence, be reassured. I'm not dead; I worked 23 hours over the weekend at Con*Cept, Montreal's F/SF convention, and finally saw The Incredibles too on Saturday night. It made for an even blearier Sunday morning, but it was worth it.

Because I got nothing else done over the weekend, I have a pile-up of things I absolutely have to work on today, so I'm using the morning to catch up. I'll do web and e-mail stuff later today, as per my new schedule of What To Work On When. There's a new book which arrived last Friday that I have to edit by Thursday; teaching stuff and advising appointments to prepare; more research for the green witch book; word count for NaNo to produce (I haven't even looked at the new totals in Montreal yet, and I'm afraid to see where SavageKnight stands); and of course that never-ending e-mail to sort through, which I don't dare look at because it will suck up at least three hours.

My weekend was fun, but very draining. I assisted five or seven new cool authors (Kelley Armstrong! Harry Turtledove! Keith deCandido! Steve Erikson!) plus one I already knew from last year (I love Karl Schroeder to bits; can I keep him?), and caught up with people whom I never see except at Con*Cept now that Nebula, Montreal's F/SF bookshop, has been dead and gone these four and a half years.

So off I go. Musings on the events of the weekend to follow at a later time, possibly even tomorrow, but more likely whenever I need a break.

Greatest Canadian Update

The current standings for the Greatest Canadian poll are:

Wow. Tommy Douglas. Then again, we are Canada, and we're all about the little guy looking out for his people.

Outraged at the current standings? Go vote!

There's an interesting breakdown of male vs female voters on the Standings web page.

The final unveiling of the Greatest Canadian will be held in a two-part show broadcast on November 28 and 29. Check out the ongoing schedule here and watch a few episodes between now and then, and learn more about the Canadians who make a difference to our citizens.

Can I just say that I want the hat that Adrienne Clarkson is currently wearing at the Remembrance Day ceremonies? It's a lovely black felt with a black and red poppy on the front side. Pictures when I find them.

Missing the Point

So I did a quick search on carpal tunnel exercises this morning, and there, in the sidebar, was the typical advert for related merchandise.

Except it said:

Yeah, just what everyone's looking for on eBay -- discount carpal tunnel syndrome.

We Didn't Even Drink That Much

We had a fabulous dinner out last night; twelve of us in a friend's off-island home, wonderful food (too much food! Well, too much dinner-type food, but certainly not enough dessert), and terrific company.

We all needed it. So many thanks to our gracious host who brought us all together so the we could make fun of each other, toss banter back and forth, laugh until we hurt, and in general enjoy each others' presence, as we so rarely get to do.

Warning: High Cuteness

I just had to put this up for a certain Cougar:

The Hello Kitty Online World!

Hello Kitty and friends welcome you to the exciting and fantastic Hello Kitty World! This is the first-ever online game platform featuring the all-time-favorite Hello Kitty characters from Sanrio!

Hello Kitty World will allow thousands of players to live and participate in Hello Kitty's magical and cute online world. You will be able to roam the streets of Kitty Kingdom, XO Federation, and Melody-land. Enjoy the beautiful landscape and architecture of Puroland or Badtzcity and participate in numerous puzzles, story lines, or adventures lead by the worldwide community of Hello Kitty World subscribers. You can even have a successful career, open different shops, earn and spend Sanrio Dollars in your bank, buy a house, and trade with other players around the vast game world.

Other than hundreds of choices for you to build your dream house and lovely player characters, Hello Kitty World players will also be able to raise pets and teach them special tricks and skills. Players will be able to cooperate and interact with other players to overcome a joint quest or challenge other friends to a friendly duel.

You will be able to make new friends through special in-game telepathy as well as interact with other gamers through a variety of community channels and forums. Share the exciting world of Hello Kitty World and spread the message of love with both your old friends and the new ones you have just met in the Hello Kitty World.

So, what are you waiting for? Hello Kitty and friends will see you all in Hello Kitty World!

You know you want to...

(via BoingBoing)

Desperately craving cheese curds. I must have squeaky cheese.

No! No! It is a ploy to remove me from my desk! I must resist!

Tales to Astonish! The 2004 Halloween Party

Okay, so yes: our costumes were a complete and total success. HRH was wholly and absolutely impressive in his buckled longcoat and fedora (mmm, fedoras), and apparently people liked looking at me too, because I won Best Theme Prize. Had there been a digital camera present, you'd have pictures, but as there were only old-fashioned 35 mm jobbies, you'll have to wait until they're developed and scanned.

What did we do?

Gentle readers, I told you back in May.

I impressed even myself. Damn, we looked good. Not bad for two weeks' worth of work. It's all about the details, as t!, Tal, and I were discussing around 12.30 AM; it's all in the studs, and the hardware on the thigh-high boot covers I made, and buckles (oh, those gods-damned tabs on his coat -- I hated making them, but they look awesome). My one regret is that I didn't have the time to embroider or even draw the red Eastern European designs on my blouse. And I forgot to dig out my black leather gloves. We ended up going weaponless; HRH had the crossbow all worked out, but time and money were an obstacle, alas.

Have I mentioned how much I loved my costume? Maybe once or twice? I'm a big fan of comfortable costumes, and I find corsets extremely comfy. This is definitely a strong contender for the most comfortable costume I've ever worn.

Early in the day, though, it didn't look promising. I woke up yesterday with a bad headache that wandered over into migraine territory after a few hours, so after a handful of Advil throughout the day, a warm shower, and some tea, I managed to make it through to dinnertime. Eating at dinner, however, was the wrong thing to do, and I wondered if I'd make it to the party after all. Fortunately, things settled after a while, so we dressed and off we went. And I'm really, really glad we did, because I spent time with people whose company I enjoy, and as always I saw some cool costumes, including MLG's replay of his Star Wars pilot costume -- always a favourite of mine; Lone Wolf and Cub, who came with Princess Raven Starheart (like, OMG!!1! Talk about When Worlds Collide!); and another excellent example of Tal's costume ingenuity. The decor was also fabulous, thanks to Miseri, Ceri, Marc, and Scott: each room had a different pulp theme, such as the Pirate Room, the Control Room (complete with map table), the voodoo altar to Baron Samedi in the bathroom, and the Chamber of the Eternal Sacrifice (also known as the bedroom).

I love to create cosplay costumes, especially challenges like these ones, since believe it or not there was little clear visual reference for them. Next year, though, no cosplay; as much as I love creating costumes based on various media, we'll be doing something different. And next year, I'll begin costume work in August again as I did in 2002, because it's going to require a lot more work. (Don't even try; you know I never tell before we show up at the party.)

I'm trying to think up places to wear parts of this costume again. I love the jacket, even though I spilled glue on it here and there. The corset can pretty much be worn to anyone's birthday, just for thrills.

Hair Today, Gone Tomorrow

People who cut hair have the worst ability to measure by sight. How else do the words "one inch" turn into two-inch lengths of hair on the floor of the salon?

But it looks pretty good anyway.

So When's The Rest Arriving?

Well, I sort of have windows, and sort of have a new back door.

Sort of.

Much is the bare insulation, and the lack of doorknobs, and much is the draft. Much is the debris of brick, wood, old paint, and glass on my kitchen and dining room floors.

And many are the very annoyed cats locked in the bedroom. Good thing they are, too, because this place has had no window and no door since ten-thirty. I am so glad I'm home.

They might not be finished today. The trim and final touches might be done tomorrow. Grrr.

Later: Yes, of course they're not finished. So I have to be here tomorrow as well. Not only that, but Gaz Met is coming by on Thursday sometime to read the gas meter. We have an electric stove. But apparently, when the previous tenant moved out (three months before we moved in, I might add) no one told Gaz Met, so they think someone's still using it. I am surrounded by inept persons.

Good thing I have at-home work to keep me occupied while I wait for people to do their jobs.

The Greatest Canadian?

HAVE THE LAST WORD ON THE GREATEST

CBC Television has just announced your Top Ten nominees for the Greatest Canadian. Now the countrywide debate is about to get heated, and it's up to you to decide which of the ten final candidates will be named the Greatest Canadian of them all.

CBC launched this project in the spring, and it was a fascinating exercise. Who would you choose to be named the greatest Canadian, and what would your criteria be? Mine included meaning something to people cross-country, and being an ambassador to the rest of the world in some way, although I never actually got down to sending in nominations. If I had, people like Terry Fox, Glenn Gould, Timothy Findley, Nellie McClung, Pierre Trudeau, and Karen Kain would have been on my list.

Well, the results were tabulated, and Sunday night CBC presented a two-hour look at the top fifty people who received nomiations. There were too many hockey players, and really, people, Avril Lavigne? What were you thinking?

The top ten Canadians who garnered the largest amount of votes, however, are the subject of ten documentaries/pep rally-like shows where ten different hosts outline the contributions and values of the Canadian in question, in order to solicit votes. I am by turns delighted and disgusted by these ten people.

The Top Ten nominees for the title of Greatest Canadian (in alphabetical order):

* Frederick Banting
* Alexander Graham Bell
* Don Cherry
* Tommy Douglas
* Terry Fox
* Wayne Gretzky
* Sir John A. Macdonald
* Lester B. Pearson
* David Suzuki
* Pierre Elliott Trudeau

Don Cherry? There is no gods-damned way I will allow the Canadian people to select this man as the Greatest Canadian above people like Terry Fox and Frederick Banting. And Wayne Gretzky? What the hell were people thinking?

Don't recognise some of the names? Well, Banting co-developed insulin and won Canada's first Nobel Prize for medicine in 1923, then refused to patent the discovery so that it would remain affordable; he also invented the first G-suit for aeronauts. Bell made several advances in the field of teaching deaf and mute people to communicate, and also invented a little doohickey called the telephone. Tommy Douglas not only brought Saskatchewan into the twentieth century with paved roads, sewage systems, and electricity all province-wide instead of only in city centres; he created state-level Medicare, which eventually was implemented on the federal level; and he led the country's first Socialist government at the head of a party called the Co-operative Commonwealth Party, which in turn made possible the third major federal politcal party in the country today, the NDP. Pearson was the Prime Minister who oversaw the creation of the Canada Pension Plan, national Medicare, labour codes, federal student loans, the Commission on bilingualism and biculturalism, the Maple Leaf Canadian flag, and was the force behind the creation of the UN Peacekeepers, for which he won the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize. Suzuki, Tudeau, and Terry Fox are practically household names in Canada, and are recent enough that they need less explanation.

As we watched the top fifty, we quite frequently slapped our foreheads and said, "Why didn't I think of him/her?" The Unknown Soldier was a particularly intersting choice. And yes, there were screams muffled by the chesterfield cushions when names like Avril Lavigne came up, and yet more hockey players. Canada has so much talent, so many pioneers, so many scientists and inventors who have improved our lives in a variety of ways. It was educational, and patriotic in a very quiet sort of way. We may not blow our horns, but damn, it's good to live in this country.

Go here for a list of the top one hundred names (and try not to cringe at Bryan Admas and Pamela Anderson being the first two you see; it's alphabetical). You can also download a PDF list of them in order. It turns out everyone I would have nominated is on the top one hundred except for Karen Kain.

Windows, Eggs, and fps

The past couple of days have been irritating. I was ill Sunday night, thanks to my perpetual blind spot concerning eggs and how my stomach reacts to them, which meant that not only could I not enjoy the dinner my in-laws had prepared but I wasn't good company either. Yesterday was a day of being very careful; I had crackers and water, until HRH came home, and I had a couple of bites of chicken.

On top of that, this window-replacement issue has become a source of stupid anxiety for me, because I feel trapped at home. I have no certain date on which they'll do my apartment; all I know is that they'll be doing it sometime between yesterday and next Friday. Now, I don't have to be here; the concierge has a key. But I have furniture, and cats, and there's no way I want people whom I don't know bashing around in my apartment without me here. I'm the security-obsessed chick who won't even buzz the mailman into the building; I go down and meet him at the door. The security in this building has been comprimised so many times that my healthy caution has blossomed into full-blown paranoia. So, people removing parts of the wall for extended periods of time? Not without me, thanks.

On the up side, I snagged an Escaflowne box set for coming up with the winning name for the fps blog. Woo-hoo!

On This Most August Day

(which is actually in October, but the family is confused about the precise month anyhow)

Happy Tarasmas, t!. And to everyone else who is privileged to know him.

I Shall See Clearly Once These Panes Are Gone

Mrm.

I just got a call from the concierge. Apparently they'll be replacing the windows over the next two weeks. I assume this means the back windows, as they are utterly disgusting, and the front ones are only a couple of years old.

Call me crazy, but in my world, this sort of thing should be done in the summer. You know, before the temperature drops?

I'm thinking of skipping the personal CD player and going right to an MP3 player. I add a few more CDs to my electronic playlist every day anyway.

Hmm.

Nah. When I want to listen to a symphony, I want to listen to the whole symphony.

Same to You: A Rant on Customer Service in Electronics Shops

No one wants to sell me a portable personal CD player, otherwise known as a Discman but we can't call it that unless it's a Sony product. And the gods know, I Will Never Buy Sony Again, Ever.

Last Saturday I spent twenty minutes in Future Shop, otherwise known as the Den of Evil, hanging around the Discman-clones, trying to twist around and peer under the packages because I couldn't take one off the rack and look at it - heavens, no, because they're all locked onto the pegs so kids don't scam them. I was ignored by every single salesperson who walked by. When I finally flagged one down and got the Discman-clone I thought I wanted taken off the rack with the very special magnetic key, I wasn't allowed to hold it. Security reasons; fine. I looked at something else for a couple of minutes, and when I turned back again the salesperson had vanished. I waited for over another ten minutes at his station; he didn't return.

I walked out. Screw you, Future Shop, o ye den of evil with lousy sales service. I'm sorry I wasn't buying a plasma-screen TV to make your sales commission for you. I'm sorry I was just a regular client looking for an inexpensive, boring music unit. I'm sorry you had to go out of your way to help me the first time, but I'm not at all sorry that you had to go out of your way to put it back because you lost the sale due to your crappy inter-personal communication skills.

On the way home today I thought I'd stop off at the local Radio Shack and look at what they had. I actually got to handle one, press the buttons, and at my pointed request the manual was even dug out for me. The clerk, however, mumbled, wouldn't meet my eyes, and told me via body language that he really didn't care, that he didn't want to be there, and that I was unimportant. I handed them my credit card, and their verification system was down. The older clerk who was there ("You're lucky; when I was your age we didn't have compuuters to look inventory up on") called three different people to get the correct phone numbers, merchant numbers, and procedures for authorizing the sale by phone. After fifteen minutes of increasing disbelief and irritation, I told them that I was a bit pressed for time, and so I'd like my card back, please, and I might stop by some other day.

Am I the only person who thinks that customer service is important, particularly in an area which requires consulting on specs and features? If I'd displayed this kind of behaviour at any the bookstores I've worked in, I'd have been fired. Even on a personal level, I always make sure to explain what's going on to customers if the transaction or information-search isn't simple, smooth, or straightforward. When you pass them on the floor, you ask them if they need help. If you've been serving them and you have to leave them for any reason, you let them know that either you're handing them to another employee, or that you'll be right back, or that if they need further help to ask anyone for it. You smile at them. Sure, we all have off days; but this is the regular lousy service I've come to expect from electronics shops. It's sad.

It really shouldn't be this difficult to buy a small personal appliance.

Priceless

The trick, knew Dek’tal, was to first sew chaos among the lesser races. Make them squabble among themselves like women, make them fight each other like dogs, and when they have picked each other apart, come in for the kill.

Yep. That's what it's all about. Sewing chaos.

(I found this in a fanfic while looking for tips to pass on about sewing a simple tau robe. I love Google. You never know what you're going to get when you type in three simple words such as "tau," "sew" and "robe".)

Season of Misseds

I woke up this morning, ran over the list of Things To Do Today (there's a pattern I have to buy, I'm meeting Ceri for a late-season vegetable strike mission at the Jean Talon Market, having coffee with a friend late afternoon, teaching a class on religious counselling tonight), and realised that wait a minute, hold on, today is the first day of October.

I'm sorry; when did that happen?

Because this means that Thanksgiving is next weekend and I have yet another Friday class to prep for, if I want to give the students a week of heads-up. And as we're doing the first class of making ritual garb next Friday, yes, I want them to have a week of think-time. It also means that we're visiting my parents in Southern Ontario next weekend, which is quite nice. The drive down the dead-boring 401 isn't as tedious in the fall because the leaves make for more interesting scenery (highly preferable to the horrible accidents, and the road crews and their big trucks). Because of that Friday night class, we'll be driving down on Saturday morning, which is also preferable to the midnight journeys we usually take. All in all, next weekend promises to be relaxing and mellow. Before I get there, though, I have to get through the next three days of wall-to-wall scheduling.

The first of October means that the season of Tarastide is officially upon us. Hail, t!, and many happy returns of this glorious month to you.

It also means I forgot to do the whole "white rabbits" thing, as HRH woke me up to say goodbye when he left and I mumbled something at him about possibly not being home when he got back.

This morning, too, hard on the heels of the October issue, I noted that I appear to be in the beginning stages of a cold. I now have pot of elderflower tea nestling in my tea cosy, I've chewed my vitamin C, taken my echinacea drops, and my fingers are crossed. Having a cold is not in my schedule.

Teaching and Such

I was originally supposed to teach the first of a two-part class tonight. There was one person registered; we have a three person minimum. The student checked in on his own yesterday, saw he was the only one with his name down, and understood the class to be cancelled. Just now, another student called the store to express her enthusiasm for taking the course. So we're shifting the first class to next week instead, and the second class to the 14th

This means I have an evening at home, which is simply lovely because it's been a busy week so far. I foresee a warm bath.

I have also aquired an unexpected second distance student for the level 1 course, which is fun; now we can hold chats and such. I thought if I was doing it for one student, I might as well do it with two, as I'll have all the questions and directions and exercises going on anyhow. They actually might live near one another, as well, which would be an added bonus, as they cold do coffee or some such thing. Once I have all the info I'll know one way or another.

Hmm. Since I'm not going out, a glass of red wine sounds remarkably attractive right now.

La Day

I went into the bookstore a couple of hours early today in order to stand in for the owner in a meeting with a sales rep, and I really enoyed it. I miss this part of the book business. I unpacked some books, entered a whack of data, and the day went rather quickly. Except for the fact that the keyboard in the office has a sticky E key, so that when I reread work there I discover words missing the most frequently used letter in the English language, whereas when I work at home I discover entire sentences made up of a single multi-compound word, thanks to my sticky space bar.

Came home, finally checked my email (the plea for substitution came rather early and rearranged my day a bit), made a good thick spaghetti sauce with two kinds of mushrooms, and discovered that the ritual HRH had been planning on attending began a whole hour earlier than he'd thought. This doesn't affect me, as it's a men's ritual, but it does affect the mood in the house. HRH had anticipated, nay, requires at least that extra hour at home to shower, eat, and detach from the work day before he heads out to engage in extra-curricular activity. When he got home and discovered the rit was an hour earlier, he struggled between wanting to race to get there (thereby ensuring that he'd be in no mood for a rit), or taking the time he needed. In the end he called the ritual leader and told him what was up, assured him he'd show up anyway even if it was late, although he wouldn't disrupt the rit if it was still in progress.

While he's in circle(or not), I get to be at Hurley's celebrating the continued existence of Darth Marc. Woo-hoo!

A Thank You to Everyone

Here's how I described that day five years ago in a comment left to thank our best man for his anniversary wishes:

Once upon a time, there were two friends and lovers who knew they wanted to celebrate how wonderful their relationship was. So they decided to have a Big Party where everyone would dress up. They chose to have the Big Party begin in an early-Canadian era chapel which had no electricity, because history, architecture and a simple life were both important to them. Then they chose to have the middle of the party at a museum housing famous Canadian works of art, because culture and visual art was also an essential element of their relationship. Then the party ended at a home, because love and family were the heart of both their lives.

And to walk at their sides during the day they chose two old friends who had seen them through good times and bad times. To guard them they had another friend, stalwart and true; and to seal the union with words of a Bard they had yet another friend of heart and soul. And to witness it all they had blood family and chosen family, every one dear to their hearts.

Your presence was a gift and a blessing. We love you all.

September 25, 1999

The Lady of the Dominion wishes to extend to HRH the appreciation for five years of wedded happiness, and the desire for the same in the future.

I love you. You're my tree, my rock, my support. You also occasionally drive me around the bend, but that's to be expected. You're my partner in life, love, and magic, and have enriched my life in ways I hadn't known were possible.

Here's to many more.

On Teaching

Last night's level four class was an Introduction to Teaching. I've never had formal training to teach; it's one of those instinctive things that I can pull off. Over the three and half hours, I listened to my co-teacher explain the basics to the students, and I learned how I do the things I do.

A lot of it is common sense, blended with awareness, sympathy, empathy, and organisation. There's a healthy dose of being flexible, and the absolute requirement of being knowledgeable about your subject. And, of course, confidence, or a reasonable facsimile thereof presented as a veneer (thank you, theatre experience).

It was fascinating to be able to literally tick off the aspects and abilities that I demonstrate every time I stand up in front of a class. I never could have taught this class, as I didn't know the mechanics. Now I do, and I'm feeling a lot better about my teaching as a result. Not that I was worried about it to begin with; I just feel even better now because I understand what it is that I do.

Tea

My current tea obsessions, which get me through the day and/or evening, depending on what I'm doing:

Tenue de soirée, from Un amour des thés in Montreal, QC (Ceylon tea with oils of dark chocolate and mint; for some reason the Tenue de Gala, the chocolate-only version, is the only one available for mail order);

and

Genmaicha Popcorn, from Tea at the White House in Waterdown, ON (green tea with toasted rice);

and

Bourbon Street Vanilla Rooibos, also from Tea at the White House (rooibos flavoured with vanilla essence and nuts, but sadly not available for mail order).

The Wheel Turns

So.

Good to see you again, little sister.

Strike Two?

I tried the ballet class again last night. The schedulers called at the end of last week to apologise for the error, and to inform me that the intermediate class had been recast as a beginner's course. So back I went to try it out.

Beginner's class. Yeah, right. That just means she's doing all the hard stuff at a slightly slower pace.

At least this time I stuck through it all. We began at the barre, worked there for forty-five minutes, then had a free stretch for about ten minutes, then did forty-five minutes of combinations in the centre of the floor. There are still about thirty people, but the two adult beginners with whom I'd spoken when we left last week crept out during the free stretch; they were completely in over their heads. Hell, I have six years of dance in my past and I was barely treading water.

I really don't know if this is for me or not. I was looking for something even more basic, from the ground up for adult beginners who have never danced before type of thing. I remember ballet being a lot calmer, and that calm is one of the things I'm looking for. On the bus on the way home I saw women with rolled-up yoga mats walking home and thought about how peaceful they looked. I talked to Ceri about yoga yesterday; maybe I'll call and see if there are places left in that class, and transfer over.

I don't know. I have to think about it. I could stick this out and be miserable, and eventually see some sort of improvement around December, or I could try to find something else which suits my level and benefits my mental and emotional state now, as well as improving. I know it's a challenge, but I wasn't looking for a challenge of this calibre when I decided to take up dance again. And with all my other commitments, I'd really prefer some sort of exercise that relaxes me, not stresses me.

Sigh. What to do, what to do...

Good News, Bad News: The Irony

The bad news:

It was my worst fears come true. I was a miserable failure in my first ballet class. I barely kept up with the first ten-minute set of barre work. In the second set, I limped, I wobbled, I was two moves behind the others, I skipped sections and marked time. It was way, way beyond my ability and skill level. I left halfway through.

The good news:

There was a problem with registration, and this was in fact an intermediate ballet class. And I stuck it out for half an hour of challenging workout that had even the real intermediate dancers exclaiming in surprise.

Fifteen other people left as well; ten of them before I did, during the teacher's demonstration of the first combination set, as a matter of fact. And they left making snarky comments about how it ought to have been easier because they were beginners. We five left when half an hour in, the teacher called a short pause to talk to those of us who were concerned (and with justification, she acknowledged). I wanted to smack the ones who walked out without giving it a chance. Hey; it wasn't not the teacher's fault. It's the fault of the schedulers, the advertisers, and the registration crew. And it was doubly rude in a ballet class: a large part of ballet is based on reverence for the oral tradition passed to you by the teacher, whether you like them personally or not, whether they've made you happy, sad, or angry. In ballet, you still bow, curtsey, or applaud your teacher at the end of class to symbolise your appreciation for that tradition; it's called a reverence.

Okay; these were snippy nineteen-year-olds. And it was an open house class for some of them. But still. Manners!

So as the teacher had told us to do, I and those four other women left our names at the front desk, indicating that we were interested in a beginner's ballet class -- you know, this is how you point your toe, here's how you hold the barre, these are the five positions, this is the port de bras and so forth. There will be others, others who were determined to stay to the end of the class no matter what, but who also indicated to the teacher during the pause that they would be happier in a beginner's course.

It's ironic that I'd worked myself up over it, and then when I found myself plunged into an intermediate class that presupposed I had been dancing for a couple of years, I forgot those fears and did the best I could. It's amusing that I psyched myself up to deal with the stress, and the class turned out to simply be the wrong class.

Oh, and the leotard/workout pants I wore? Just fine. Go me.

Anniversary Mission: Accomplished

I have been instructed by HRH the King to inform you all that I am cool. Very cool.

I handed him an anniversary card right outside our door last night as I was unlocking it. He opened it, smiled, gave me a kiss, and set it up on the hallway chest of drawers next to one of our wedding pictures.

"Why don't you put it on the mantelpiece?" I said.

"Because we have pictures of us here, and it's kind of a little shrine to the two of us, see?" he said.

"The mantelpiece is a kind of shrine too," I pointed out.

"Well, yeah, I guess it is," said he, and into the living room HRH went. He set it up on the mantelpiece, and only then noticed the brightly wrapped box on the floor in front of the television.

"What's that?" he inquired. I sat down in the easy chair and shrugged, blinking innocently at him.

"No idea. You'd better open it and find out."

"Maybe you should open it," HRH said.

"No," I said, "really, go ahead."

So HRH bent over to pick it up, and wasn't expecting the weight. "Good gods," he said, nearly dropping it. He managed to swing it over the coffee table so that it didn't crash to the floor. "What's in this thing?"

As it slipped his hands caught on one of the flaps of wrapping paper, and it tore away to reveal a green, black, and white box.

"Hunh?" he said, tore it some more, and peered over the edge to get a full view of the image. HRH then made some sort of indescribable noise, jerked his hands away from it, turned around and walked away into the dining room, one hand over his mouth. He did a complete circuit of the dining room, and then came back, looking at me, his eyes bright.

"No way," said HRH. "No way."

"Keep opening it," I said. I couldn't stop smiling. So he tore the rest of the paper away from his refurbished Xbox, and then came over to give me a very gentle hug and an equally gentle kiss, as if he thought he'd break me if he hugged me as hard as he wanted to. He was practically trembling.

"I never. Really. No idea," he said. Go me, I thought; I reduced him to incoherency. "This isn't real."

"Then open the box to prove it," I said. So he did, and practically exploded when he saw Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic also waiting for him under the lid.

"I also got you Jedi Knight: Jedi Academy, which is multi-player capable so that we can play together," I said, producing another controller pad from where I'd hidden it (I'd run out of wrapping paper).

"You," said HRH, "are the absolute coolest wife. You got a game and a second controller so that I could have you play with me. That is so perfect for an anniversary present."

"That's pretty much what the guy at EB Games in Angignon Mall told me, too," I said.

So: my evaluation of the anniversary misson? An absolute success. We've never done anything major for our anniversaries in the past; in fact, we usually don't get gifts for one another at all. This is partly because we usually don't have extra cash, but also because we celebrate the two of us together in little ways throughout the year. This year marks our fifth anniversary (and no, you haven't missed it, it's almost two weeks away), and I wanted to do something different. I also wanted to give HRH something to help him relax, as for the past couple of years he's been wound tighter than the spring on the front door of our apartment building, and it's lately been getting much worse. I have issues with watching TV to relax, as it's completely passive, but game-playing engages the active intellectual and intuitive faculties as well. HRH loves playing games with Scott, and getting himself an Xbox was one of those castles in the air he'd constructed to help motivate him through projects. If I spend a total of x hours on artwork this year, he'd say, I'll get myself an Xbox. Except that I knew he'd never actually get one for himself; there was no way that he would never be able to justify it. I first conceived this idea of getting him a game system as a surprise about half a year ago, when I first realised that EB Games sells refurbished systems. I didn't know if it would ever come to fruition, let alone for our anniversary, but the timing was perfect. (Oh, and Scott: don't worry about never seeing him again. As he set it up, he said, "Wow, now I can have Scott come over here to play!")

Before anyone chokes, I bought everything secondhand, purchased an extended warranty, and yes, I could afford it. I did, after all, deposit the second payment for my book in the bank yesterday morning.

Besides, the absolute pleasure of giving him something that he never expected, not in a million years, was a gift to me.

School Again

I had a tense and stressful week; I won't lie. I spent most of it hanging, waiting for other people to do things so that I could carry on. Little things kept happening that frustrated me, and the effect was cumulative.

Last night was the first CMS class of the season. It was a Level 4 course, which means I'd never taught it before (this is the first time L4 is being offered), but it was with a small group of established students. They made the class deep, inspiring, and fascinating, and it completely turned my mood around. It was a wonderful way to begin another year of teaching.

Thanks, ladies.

And then a Cougar and a Wolf fed me with yummy Pineapple Thai Rice (delicious and so welcome after a day of not eating), and then took me home, where I discovered that Witch Hunter Robin is on YTV Friday nights at 9.30 (alas, by catching the end credits, but now I know for next week!). We've seent he first ten episodes; now we're waiting for the plot to kick in (or so Scott assures us).

Today is the first CMS Level 1 class (new people, new material after a redesign), and then immediately afterwards is the Level 2 class. I'm going to be pretty wiped by the end of the day, me thinks. But there's a birthday party tonight which I will attend come hell or high water, especially since I missed one last night.

Night Owling

I had another wretched night last night; I didn't get to sleep till three, and woke up at four, then five, then seven... I have a total of four hours sleep in me and I'm feeling a bit queasy.

The good news is that while I was wide awake between ten and three, I got lots of prep work done for this new green witch proposal. Although that's being sidelined today, as there are more emergency edits awaiting my check-over, and although they're due Wednesday night I can't work on them tomorrow, as I'm doing my weekly stint as book person downtown at the store.

If any of you read Publisher's Weekly, Adams Media and Provenance Press have a lovely little sidebar in the article on New Age presses in the latest issue, wherein I am mentioned by name! Whee!

Welcome Back

We're home! Our fridge is now stocked with meat and fresh vegetables courtesy of the markets and supermarkets of Southern Ontario (why, you ask? Simply because it's cheaper than the meat and fresh veggies here in YUL), our cats love us because my parents sent home a wonderful new bag of kibble for them, and it's about six degrees cooler in Montreal than it was in the GTA.

Whew. The six hour drive gets longer and longer every time, even with the enjoyable presence of Prospero's Daughter in the car with us.

After setting the fire alarm off for over fifteen minutes (and no fire engines arriving to check out the call, I feel so safe, thank you very much), the plumbers got the new boiler installed. As of around four this afternoon, water now comes out of the hot water tap.

However, it is not hot. In fact, it is the exact opposite of hot. Yes, indeed, more ice water! How kind of them. We really didn't have enough before.

I know, I know; it's electric, it needs to work up a full tank of hot water before the tap issues liquid of a warmish nature.

Come on; let's just leave for Oakville, damn it. At the moment there is absolutely nothing to keep me here but warm purring cats. And at the other end there await Jumble cookies, hot water, and delicious food.

Still no hot water.

I washed my hair in ice-cold water yesterday morning. I had an ice-cold sponge bath this morning. It is not bracing. It is irritating. Poor HRH is itching for a hot shower, because cold sponge baths don't do it for him after a long day of landscaping, either. Three days of no hot water is not only irresponsible on the part of the landlord, it's barbaric. We are thankful that we're staying with my parents in Oakville this weekend, where I will defintely soak in a long warm bath at some point, and HRH will likely have a shower twice daily to make up for the lack of really feeling clean recently.

The power has also gone off at odd times without warning over the past three days. I'd love to chalk it up to the hot water boiler being replaced, but as we still have no hot water, I rather doubt it. It's been frustrating, though, because I've either been working on the computer, or we've been in bed asleep. Normally this wouldn't be a problem (except for the lack of wake-up alarm the next morning) except for the fact that our fire alarm is electric, and beeps loudly and violently when the power surges. Yes, that's right: if there's an electrical fire, we won't know about it because our fire alarm won't be working. How stupid is that?

I spent the morning arguing with Bell and Sympatico webs ites, trying to upgrade to DSL basic service; the web sites are contradictory, crash frequently no matter what browser I use, and don't tell you certain key bits of information that you require as you go. I finally gave up and called a Real Person, a huge concession on my part because I hate talking to people on the telephone. It was such a success that I changed my long-distance plan, and finally got rid of the lingering being-charged-for-an-unlisted-number-when-the-phone-books-clearly-list-it issue that's been the bane of my Bell customer service relationship for the past two years. Gods, it's so good to actually get a customer service agent who knows what to do to fix a problem. He even gave me a confirmation number, something which the last two idiots didn't do.

I'm still blue, restless but anti-social, and now I'm cranky about it as well.

I'm doing preliminary research for a book proposal on green witchcraft; anyone have a good title recommendation for a book on plant devas? (And serious books, please; no fluffy, elves-of-the-flowers stuff. I'm serious.) Eliot Cowan's Plant Spirit Medicine is already on reserve for me at the store. Anything else?

And here's something I found along my researchy travels this morning: Breatharianism. A bunny told me about this a couple of years ago, and I chalked it up to those wacky New Agers taking God's love a wee bit too far, figuring the'd eventually die out and that would be the end of it. Turns out it's an actual philosophical movement, and still very active.

It would never work for me; I love chocolate too much. And wine. And fresh bread, biscuits, and scones. And a lovely, rare, thick steak. And grilled mushrooms. And sushi.

Hmm... perhaps this not-interested-in-food phase I've been going through is letting up?

My dreams last night were full of bakeries, trying to remember what my high school grad date’s last name was, and Hellboy stuff.

More stressful than all the action/mission elements, however, was wanting more Canterbury Jumbles than the bakery had, andhaving to settle for fewer. Actually, I settled for fewer of everything I ordered. I'm not sure why it was so pressing to order large amounts of all the different kinds of pastries and sweets, but there must have been a reason. Cricket showed up and played with the three women who ran the bakery, which didn't seem odd at all.

Go figure. I'm fine in the midst of dreams featuring danger and action, but confront me with a slight hitch at the bakery and I get all twisted up inside.

They did accept my Visa, however, which was a relief.

Friends In Deed

We've been forbidden to thank him further, so I'm just going to share how much better the evening got because:

- t! said that of course we'd be welcome to have tonight's meeting over at his place instead of ours, because then

- HRH could shower the grunge of the day's hedge trimming off over there, as it seems that our building's boiler is dead and we won't have hot water for at least another day, plus

- t! graciously offered to buy us dinner.

And in addition to all this, we got to share some really cool talk about spirituality and how great knowing what your path is.

Good friends are good to have. They feed you when you're down, and let you use their showers.

Am Me Blue...

It was a pretty blue day today, what with gritting my teeth through MT conversion, fixing endless bits of wrong, and then staring at a blank screen during the writing jam. Ceri tapped away at her serial, and I sat like a lump staring at the ten pages of the latest chapter of the GCN. This chapter is not great art. Most of it is slopped down just to get it out of the way so that the interesting stuff can happen, which means that a lot of it will have to be cut later. I want to know what's happening to the characters, which is usually enough for the little films to run in my mind, but it's just not coming today. So Ceri suggested I do some stream of consciousness writing based on a postcard idea from last summer, and all of a sudden I remembered that in one of my old notebooks I had a complete (!) rough story called "Once and Future Queen," based on a clash between two history and Eng lit grad students. I dug out the notebook and began transcribing.

This thing dates back from late 1996, and was written in bits and pieces through the end of 1997. I transcribed 5,141 words this afternoon. And sure, when I transcribe notes and such into an ongoing work project, it's like the elves came in the middle of the night and left me word count. Transcribing a complete short story, though, felt like I had nothing to show for my day's labour. (Well, all right, I'm actually about three pages short of a complete transcription -- I just couldn't take it any more.) Kind of like all the backstage tweaking of MT this morning: no one sees tangible results, because they aren't the major sort of changes. It's all stuff that has to be done, but it lacks a sense of accomplishment

We have another meeting tonight, and there's dinner to do, but the only thing in the freezer is spaghetti sauce, and we have no pasta. I'd breeze out and pick some up, but every cent I currently have has to go to rent tomorrow to make up what's missing (which leaves me hoping there will be a surprise cheque in the mail sooner rather than later). I'm getting a little paycheque from the store in a day or so for the two days I worked last week, but that doesn't help me now.

So I'm kind of mopy, and restless, yet lazy. And we have no hot water, for some reason, which does not help matters at all.

It's just that kind of day.

Sands of Time

I was perturbed to discover on Sunday, as I was bringing my calendars up to speed, that I was already thinking of October as "next month." This is a direct result of knowing that I begin teaching again on September 11, and as I'm preparing for those first classes, I was already in the mid-September headspace.

I'm still trying to figure out what happened to 2003. It will be 2005 before I reason it out and begin on 2004.

Another New Obsession

Pasley and I escaped to have cool sangria and nibbles yesterday afternoon when both of us were about to pop, and we also stopped in at a new tea shop I'd seen a few weeks ago as I drove past.

Un Amour des Thes is a smaller, more welcoming, better-staffed tea merchant than the tea emporium in Westmount ever was. I love it. I am currently drinking Petales de Rose, a blend of Ceylon tea, rose petals, and rose essence, and I fully intend to return for a sample of other kinds (such as the Ceylon cocoa essence mint, and Ceylon caramel, plus all the lovely expensive teas in tall tins behind the wooden counter), plus a tea press when I get my next cheque from the publisher. They're all blended on-site, and I'm so delighted. The energy there is wonderful. And they do tea-tastings, and workshops too.

I know. Little things.

(Ed. note: Oh, look; Blogger finally put through the edits and spelling corrections I did yesterday. How kind of it.)

Alive (But Not Kicking)

Not dead. Busy.

I had an emergency edit dumped in my lap, and in my off-hours I've been creating HRH's on-line CV and portfolio.

It's humid again, people are stupid, my allergies are acting up, and I'm cranky because I haven't been allowed to wake up by my own internal clock for a week. Chocolate does not help. Caffeine does not help. Dad's pinot noir does not help. Salt does not help. Nor does tea of any kind.

And I have to be perky tonight for the open house.

Good Things

Hmm, says I while answering loads of e-mail. Hmm, there are rumblings in my tummy.

So I got up and made parmesan-chive biscuits. And now the house smells absolutely delicious. They taste even better, though. Oh gods, they are completely divine, and very grown-up (although any fears of adulthood will be banished once you realise that you've gobbled down six in a sitting). Parmesan-chive biscuits are definitely Good Things.

Aren't I just the regular Martha Stewart. Except not a criminal. Which is also A Good Thing.

Later: To assuage Ceri's cravings and to save my door from being kicked in, here the recipe. It was originally the basic biscuit recipe from the Joy of Cooking.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

- approx 2 cups sifted flour (that means about two tablespoons less if you're not going to sift it, which is fine, because you'll need those 2 tbsp to sprinkle your kneading area, so scoop out the spoonfuls and throw them on your clean counter)
- pinch of salt
- 1 1/2 tbsp sugar
- 3 tsp baking powder
- approx 1/3 cup shortening or butter (or half of one, half of the other)
- 1/4 to 1/3 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese (use a coarse grater)
- 2 tbsp dried chives or green onions (freshis okay too, but I used dried because it's what I had on hand)
- 3/4 cup milk

Preheat oven to 450 degrees.

Sift flour, salt, sugar, and baking powder together. If you're going to cheat and not sift it, make sure you remove the two tablespoons of flour before you add the other dry ingredients. Blend well. Stir in the Parmesan cheese.

Add the slice of shortening and/or butter. Use a pastry cutter to cut it in, or two forks, or two knives, or hey, your fingers. (You've already thrown flour on your clean countertop, and your hands will get sticky later when you knead it, so why not?) Cut it in until it resembles little pea shapes of butter and flour.

Make a well in the center and pour in all the milk at once. Stir carefully till you won't throw flour and milk allover the kitchen, then stir vigorously till incorporated. The key to good biscuits is to NOT OVERSTIR.

Turn the dough out onto the counter and gather it into a ball. Then flatten it, turn it, fold it, turn it again, etc. Do this only about nine times. Folding it and then flattening it is what gives the biscuits the flakiness. Roll or pat out to between 3/4 to 1 inch thick.

Use a round cookie cutter to cut out rounds of 1 1/2 to 2 inches in diameter. Don't twist the cutter. Place on ungreased cookie sheet. Gather scraps, reroll, cut again.

Bake for about nine minutes, or until lightly browned. The cheese and chives sometimes give a bit of a burning smell if they're directly touching the metal as they bake; it's not the biscuits themsleves, don't worry. Check anyway. Overbaking these is a crime.

Remove from oven. You can cool them on a wire rack, but mine cool on the sheet just fine. Store in an airtight container, unless you're going to eat them all, which is entirely possible. Serve with butter. (I was thinking of making sage butter, because then I would be in absolute heaven.)

Enjoy!

Taking a Break

After the thunderstorms and torrential downpour yesterday, when I was afraid to turn on the computer, I'm tying up the revision of the second half of the manuscript today. I'm being good to myself. Usually I plough onwards, eyes glazed, saying, "I'll just finish this chapter, I'll just finish this chapter." Today, I'm taking a break when I catch myself saying it. I seem to be in much better humour for it.

Last night HRH and I joined Elim, our tradition's healing nexus, for a healing ritual, and damn, but it was good to play with experienced people. I love each and every one of my students, but it's refreshing to do something without being an example or keeping an eye on others while we do it. I'd rather not have had to do the ritual at all, of course, but the clan was asked to do healing work for a young lad of six who has an inoperable brain tumour. I'll gladly act as a channel for something like that.

The gussets didn't work as well as I'd hoped. I dyed another dress instead, which worked better than I was told it would. So there.

In Which the Prodigal Returns, to Mixed Reception

We arrived home through six hours of storms and mind-numbing boredom at around seven last night. While I was gone, HRH stained the kitchen cabinets, moved some smaller pieces of furniture around, and raised the bed by about a foot to create box storage beneath it. No major crises occured in my absence, which is always a relief. Maggie punished my eleven-day absence by ignoring me until bedtime. Nixie wouldn't leave me alone, and even talked to me with chirps and tiny meows. Cricket lay on the dining room table and sulked at the window, through which she wriggled to the Great Outdoors sometime over the week, so now having tasted freedom she is no longer satisfied with the small world known as Home, let alone the presence of her mother figure.

My day is scheduled already: I've caught up on e-mails, sent out a couple of queries, and now I'll sit down with a pile of books and select new readings for the first level of students at CMS, as so much has gone out of print recently. Apparently reading selections from other teachers have been thin to non-existant, so I have a lot of work ahead of me. It was a lovely vacation, with lots of sleep and books and food, but now I'm back in the sweltering humidity and the dust kittens of home. Back to... whatever it is that I do when I'm not writing a book. Goodness. I just may have forgotten what that is.

Catch-Up

Okay -- yesterday it was the killer migraine that hit me minutes after we arrived at my parents' friends' place for dinner (Dad drove me home, bless him), the day before was a day trip to Stratford, and today was here and there. Otherwise I'd've been posting the long reflective entries I've been composing in my head for the past seventy-two hours. Honest.
 
I was at the Royal Botanical Gardens for an hour on Tuesday morning, amusing myself in the greenhouse whilst my parents attended a meeting in Conference Room Two (which really ought to have been called TROT-2, but no one would understand the reference except a handful of people back home, so I withheld it). I took reams of notes to turn into a substantial post on herbs and the joys of being alone in huge glass buildings with over two hundred invisible anoles, which I still might do eventually, but I'm just too tired at the moment. (And don't believe the website write-up; it was humid, not cool and dry.) Besides, I want to get back to Fool's Fate, which is stunningly fabulous. I finished I, Elizabeth the night I had my migraine, after I'd taken two extra-strength Advil and slept for two hours (oops - there's a max of three per day, so no wonder it knocked me out). Damned good. Pre-dates the film Elizabeth (you know, that Cate Blanchett one), and really foreshadows the film well in tone, speech, and scene. It was nice to finally hit a book which took more than two hours to read from start to finish.
 
Mum and I saw Guys and Dolls at Stratford, which came as a bit of a culture shock, since I'd been reading I, Elizabeth, and after having experienced so much Elizabethan theatre in the town over the years I always associate Shakespeare plays with a Stratford trip. (And that's Stratford, ON for my American readers. I can't quite envision Stratford-Upon-Avon, UK doing Frank Loesser musicals. And t!, the Noretta Motel finally as a new sign.) The show was enjoyable, in spite of Cynthia Dale doing a monotone performance of Sarah Brown. Sarah Brown should be earnest and perky. Cynthia Dale was lukewarm and lifeless. (Which she has apparently been in the past five years she's been appearing at Stratford. Why do they keep casting her?)  Sheila McCarthy as Adelaide more than made up for the time Dale was onstage, though, and every other lead was phenomenal, paticularly Geordie Johnson as Nathan Detroit. (BTW, Tal, my mother and I have decided that sometime in your life, you have to play Nicely-Nicely Johnson. Just thought you'd like to know.) The choreography to the Gamblers' Ballet was as impressive as the dancing itself. It's rare to find a show where the men's chorus has the knock-out dance numbers; in fact, it's rare to find a show with practically no female chorus. This ballet had been choreographed so that while there were a dozen guys onstage, there were five different moves going on simultaneously -- by two or three men in completely different places. It made for a dynamic overall presentation of the number, seeing that three men were dancing the same steps, but they were each dancing next to someone whose steps were totally different, and next to that second man there was yet someone else dancing something again different. For those of you who know the Festival Theatre, you know that the thrust stage is almost square, but still not huge; group numbers have to be really carefully sequenced. The choreography throughout the entire show was a triumph over space.
 
But every time I think of Cynthia Dale in the show, I think of a cold fish dressed as a Salvation Army sergeant. She would just stand and sing -- no emotion, nothing. And in a larger-than-life show like Guys and Dolls, particularly when your co-star is very expressive, that just doesn't cut it. I rather meanly evaluated her performance and almost said to my mother than I could have done better (and no lie, her singing is about my level of skill, and the gods know I can act better than she does), but I didn't. If I believed in Purgatory, I'm sure I'd have shaved a few years off.
 
Time to go curl up and read again.

Buried in Books

I've just finished my fifth book since arriving here. I feel like I'm catching up on reading fun stuff. I enjoy research, of course, but it's truly relaxing to read a book for pure pleasure, without a pencil in my hand and a notebook by my side.

I read a third of Undead and Unwed by MaryJanice Davidson on the plane, then finished it here Thursday night. Not as solid as I'd hoped it would be; I guess the reviews denoting it as a summer beach book were more accurate than the ones touting the comedic value. It felt like a giant set-up, as it ends on an obvious tune-in-next-time note.

Once here, I had access to my mother's mystery library, so I read the third Indigo Tea Shop mystery by Laura Childs, Shades of Earl Grey. I like the author's characters, and the setting of Charleston, so I still read them, despite the author's heavy-handed habit of obviously teaching the reader about something new every book. Educational tea references embedded in the text are fine, as that's what the series revolves around. But the fourth book, The English Breakfast Murders, opens with volunteers baysitting a turtle hatching on the beach, and the author Educates You About Turtles. Apart from this habit which makes me roll my eyes, the copy-editing drives me mad. Two books in a row had a character taking a "peak" at something, one of the spelling errors that drives me mad. (The other really bad one is ladies wearing "broaches." You broach a wall or a subject. Ladies wear brooches. A successful computer spellcheck does not mean that you're using the correct spelling for the context of the word.)

Last night in bed I read Joanne Dobson's The Maltese Manuscript from cover to cover. This is the latest in a literature-themed series based in a fictional New England college, around an English professor. It's been about two years since the last book in this series, and I'd forgotten how truly above-average Dobson's work is. I almost wish I'd never read her before so that I'd have the pleasure of reading all five now.

And half an hour ago I finsihed Victoria Thompson's latest in the Gaslight series, Murder on Mulberry Bend. Set in Victorian New York, this series foucuses on a midwife and a police officer as they uncover murder in both the lower and upper classes. They're nothing to write home about, but I'd read one recently, and I needed something new to read, so I pulled it out of the bookcase.

Next is a fictional story of Elizabeth I, another of my mum's favourite topics. But now, it's dinner, which I think is grilled German sausages. And I think I'll have a cider.

From the Wilds of Southern Ontario

So here I am in lovely Oakville, enjoying moderate temperatures which force me inside at about five-thirty PM because it's too chilly. I also have to put socks on inside because the tile floor is too cold.

I ain't complaining. Love it.

Those who are familiar with my mum's culinary abilities will sigh when I tell you that I've already had mussels, grilled salmon marinated in maple syrup and orange juice, baby spinach and mushroom salad with a wonderful cream dressing, almond pound cake, those fabulous Spice Cookies Which Emphatically Fail to Suck, and last night's delicate bolognese sauce on pasta. Plus my dad's homemade Sauvignon Blanc.

It's good to be fed by the parental units. Oh, yes. And I've only been here a day and a half.

I've also already read two books, a pile of magazines, visited old family friends, and dropped two rings off to be sized. Today, all three of us are going to see Shrek 2, because taking your thirty-three year old child to an animated feature still counts.

Even More Joy

Last night was my early birthday thing at Hurley's, our favourite pub for this sort of thing. There were so many people that we had to move from our regular fireside spot into the big room on the other side. And that was before everyone had arrived.

They gave me a sewing machine. It has a cover. I love it. I wonder if Debra knew about this before she agreed to lend me hers. If so, she must have been snickering up her sleeve. (Debra, your machine will be dropped off at the store by HRH sometime this coming week, seeing as how I really don't need two here, particularly when I'm not present to use either of them.) I'm looking forward to making ritual dresses, robes, a banner, doll clothes, and a handfasting dress with it. And those are only the currently scheduled projects. Who knows what else I'll come up with? I love you all for enabling my sewing addiction.

We had a blast, as we always do. I made a mushy speech about how everyone has supported me over the past six months and toasted them, but thanks must be given again: Thank you, thank you, thank you, everyone, for making it such a wonderful evening! (Even Tal, who made snarky comments about HRH and I walking in ten minutes after I said I'd be there. (HRH had a long day at the office.) I pointed out that I wasn't late, I was five days early for my actual birthday. He yielded.)

This afternoon I'm flying out to spend a week and a half with my parents, so updates will be less frequent. Apparently Scott and HRH are already planning while-the-cat's-away activities, since Ceri will be gone too. Whatever happens, it will probably involve bottles of Keith's and an Xbox.

More JOy -- And From the Bank, Of All Places!

I love Francois Mercier.

I heaved a deep sigh when I brought my cheque into my bank at 10.06 this morning only to find out that my financial rep is on vacation. Regular readers will remember that she told me to bring my next cheque in to her before depositso that she and the manager could see it and officially flag these cheques as "ok in the past, speed up processing." When I heard she was on holiday I thought that I was out of luck. But the receptionist assured me that they could at least get it going so that all she'd have to do when she returned was approve it.

They sent me to Frank, who listened with a slightly furrowed brow as I explained the whole situation yet again. I stressed the fact that my account had been noted as having this sort of thing happen the last time I had to deposit the American cheque. He said, "Do you have the new cheque with you?" I handed it to him. He said, "Let me bring this to my manager." He vanished for a couple of minutes, I practiced Meditation Under Irritating Circumstances, and he came back. "Are all these cheques going to be from the same company, drawn from the same bank?" he asked. "Yes," I said. "Same amount?" "Well," I said, "this one's nice and big, because it's the advance fee for a book, but most will be about a third of that, coming in every three months or so." "Okay," said Frank, and he sat down, typed stuff in, and asked me what account I wanted the money to go to. I gave him all the info, and he worked out the conversion, named me a delightfully high number of Canadian dollars in exchange for the American ones indicated on the cheque, and handed me the deposit slip. "So when will this be available, then?" I asked, sliding my purse strap up my arm as I prepared to stand up. He blinked. "It's there now," he said.

I stared at him.

Oh, gods. I want to kiss a stranger.

"It's there now?" I repeated.

"Yeah. And hey, I see you've been with our bank for twenty years. Your release amount should be over twice what it is. You know, when you deposit a cheque in the ATM, you can only access a couple hundred dollars rigt away? It really ought to be higher. If you like, I'll prepare everything and make sure Kelley gets it when she returns; if she needs you she'll call, but I'm fairly certain that she can do it and she'll send you an update in the mail."

Frank, you are a beautiful, beautiful man.

I left in a daze, transferred money to two other accounts, and paid down a lot of Visa.

All it takes is patience after initiating the correct process. That and telling the right people the right things.

Jam on Hiatus

I slept really well last night, and woke up to discover that it was 6.58 AM, and HRH's alarm hadn't gone off. It actually hadn't not gone off, it was set for the proper time, but when our power went out yesterday morning and I reset the clocks, I remember making sure that I set it to the AM time. Although now I have a nibbling suspicion that when I went back to check it, I reset it again to the opposite of what it was, assuming that I had forgotten to do so in the first place.

All's well, though; HRH woke up just fine, got ready and left in twenty minutes, plenty of time to pick up his passenger at 7.30. I made tea and brought the Sense & Sensibility Screenplay to bed with me, read it from start to finish, and then Emma Thompson's simply killing film diaries which follow it. The only film I ever worked on was lots of waiting about and not knowing what was happening next, cutting lines left right and centre, and bagels (don't ask), with no fun or chumminess at all. When I'd done reading I felt like popping in the Pride & Prejudice DVDs, although that would cut severely into the writing jam this afternoon.

It's the last writing jam for a while, as most of us are here and there over the summer, and one will be working a six-month contract as of any day now. We ought to come up with goals or schedules and check up on one another anyway. E-mail each other work, and such.

Difficult to remember that I'm flying out to Hamilton on Thursday afternoon. I ought to put neon asterisks around the note on the calendar.

Happy Canada Day!

The Lady of the Dominion extends felicitations to the King of Canada in exile, HRH ForestWalker Rex, on this his annual holiday. Let's hope the rain doesn't dampen the spirits of your loyal subjects. Or the fireworks.

I have exercised my civil right and performed my duty as a citizen, and I have voted. Was anyone else surprised to find names they'd never seen before on their ballot? There were nine parties listed on mine, four of which I'd never even known existed in my riding.

It's such a small thing - unfolding a piece of paper, picking up a small unassuming pencil, making an X in a white circle, and refolding it. So calm, as opposed to the emotional responses that watching political speechs evokes.

Speaking of emotional -- if I have to deal with one more crisis arising from people assuming things, I will slice my wrists open or something equally inane.

Must Sew

Tonight I pick up the sewing machine that Debra is lending me, so I've been going through my bookmarks and notes on all the things I have to sew this upcoming summer. I have at least two robes that I know of, a handfasting dress, severe alteration to do on another robe (HRH has lost over 60 lbs, after all), various doll dresses, and of course I'm dreaming about Hallowe'en as well. With this book out of the way, I now have a life once again, and I've been wistfully wishing I had the opportunity to get crafty recently. (No pun intended, I swear.)

I've also been meaning to make proper curtains for the front window. And Ceri's been threatening to get me to make a quilt, which has always been a mild interest of mine, just not a pressing one.

I'm quite happy about all of this. I go on sewing sprees where I sew madly for about ten months, then can't stand the sight of a sewing machine or fabric for a while. Since my machine started giving me grief two years ago while I made the Arwen riding dress for Hallowe'en, I haven't really had a good sewing spree. I'm looking forward to it.

New Day

I took yesterday off -- I didn't crack open the laptop or a reference book all day. I severely needed the time away from the manuscript; I think I broke myself on Tuesday. I couldn't string enough words together to make a coherent sentence yesterday, and it was a bit of an Eeyore day as well.

So I read all of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix instead, and yet again, for the third time, I read it too fast and didn't allow the story to breathe properly.

Orchestra was okay, not spectacular but okay, and I slept well (although I dreamed of washing one of my Wicca books in Debra's washing machine, because the pages had begun to go a bit yellow with age). I awoke to HRH sitting on the edge of the bed to say goodbye (yes, he's putting in a half-day today). We talked politics for about fifteen minutes, then he got up to go to work. "Oh, sure," I said, "talk sweet politics to me and then just leave." "Wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?" he smirked, and off he went.

I so love the fact that my husband can now make literary jokes.

In other news, I sat down to finally reserve my plane ticket to Hamilton, and found to my utter disgust that with taxes and fees etc., the cost of the ticket has doubled. So I'm in the process of checking out the cost of train tickets; I can switch to the GO train in Toronto and meet my parents in Oakville, and it will probably be cheaper. (Update: Yup. Cheaper. Plus I'd get there earlier in the day, and it's a ten-minute round trip to pick me up instead of an hour.)

I'm bright-eyed and busy-tailed, and I'm determined to write at least two thousand nine hundred and ninety-seven words today.

Urg

Woke up at six-thirty this morning, and half an hour later I had an upset stomach. And I still do.

I hate stupid little things like upset stomachs. They're minor, and yet they sap all your energy. I almost wish that I hadn't done so well yesterday, because now there's a little voice in the back of my head suggesting that I curl up under an afghan with a cat as a living hot water bottle, and not write, because I'm ahead of schedule. That voice is currently engaged in a knock-down fight with my work-ethic voice and my panicked I'll-Never-Get-It-Done-In-Time voice, who are both attempting to repress it.

While that's being decided, I'm going to curl up with tea and perhaps read.

The Joys of Language

I've just been doing a bit of impromptu teaching on the importance of rhythm and scansion in ritual, and I thought I'd bring it up here.

Rhythm in any kind of oral communication is important. The human ear likes to listen to rhythmic speech because we don't have to fight against it. Scansion is also incredibly important in ritual. Lots of ritualists focus on what they want to say, and they get the guts of the idea out, which is terrific. In order to further facilitate the absorption of the idea, however, the form of the delivery of the idea is also important. Rhythm guides energy, and as such, a good ritualist understands that the rhythm of what they speak is a ritual tool. Generally you need words arranged in such a way that they roll off the tongue, flow liquidly and roll onwards, carrying the energy of the ritual along with them. Sometimes, yes, you want to create a ragged rhythm on purpose, in which case something smooth gets energy moving first, then guides it deliberately into a new motion that gradually turns ragged. Either way the ritualist must be aware of how rhythm is and how it is used.

I found two good basic web pages which address scansion and rhythm clearly. The Scansion page from St Edward's University is a good introduction (and if you track backwards through the main menu etc, they have other good basic pages on language stuff). A writing teacher from Portland's Riverdale Grade School has created a Rhythm, Meter, and Scansion Made Easy page which is also excellent introduction to the subject.

There is a lovely bat poem used as an exercise on the second web page. I wanted to post it because my parents have at least one bat as a houseguest each summer. Bat season is now upon us, and so I thought of them:

Oh my gods...

I finally figured out where I recognise David Thewlis from.

It's Dragonheart. He played Einon.

*choke*

Argh!

I'm always so awake after orchestra. It really gets the adrenaline flowing, not to mention the blood.

We kicked, by the way. Absolutely.

(d) none of the above

All hail t!, who through asking me about the programme for the upcoming Canada Day concert led me to discover that the right sidebar wasn't rendering the middle third at all in Internet Explorer.

It's been fixed. The culprit? A tildy in a decorative position. I kid you not.

If you use IE, please, please get yourself something more reliable, and less asinine. I recommend Mozilla's Firefox - quick to download, small program takes up less space, and it's free. If you've never used tabs, be prepared to experience a world of wonder.

Click on the pretty icon and read up on it. Give it a go.

Drat...

At 6 AM I woke up with an excellent way to work "Mabel Figworthy" into a random novel scene, fell back asleep, and now I no longer have any clue what my brilliant idea was.

(Mabel Figworthy, BTW, is one of the proposals for the 2004 Montreal NaNo in-joke to be included in the November masterpieces of participating Montreal NaNo writers. Last year it was a psychic ferret, thanks to Miseri mishearing something I'd said in a crowded cafe.)

It's Thursday

Yesterday was an Eeyore kind of day. Nothing seemed very exciting, things were a bit gloomy, and the progress I made on the manuscript was much less than I'd hoped it to be. Part of that was my own stupidity; I opened the file with the complete text to look at something and a single chapter file as well, and forgot which one I was working on, so I ended up writing new material in both. I then took an hour comparing the two screen by screen to standardise them. I now have a twofold new strategy: (a) only open one file at a time (duh), and (b) all new typing will be done in a red font. That way new stuff shows up very clearly, no matter where it is.

Ceri started a new novel yesterday in my presence. She also brought coffee and chocolate croissants with her, which was terribly generous for someone who intended to take the new-novel-plunge. She wrote over 1300 words, which beats some of her NaNo 2003 days hands-down. (It also beat my word count yesterday, but she consoled me by pointing out that I was doing research and editing too. Editing that could have been avoided, of course, if I hadn't lost track of where I was working. I just can't believe my stupidity. Anywhats.)

I went out to one of the local pubs with a friend late yesterday afternoon, where we talked about religion, compared the Anglican and Catholic churches, mused about the basic beauty of the Christian faith and mourned the bureaucracy that has crushed the original teachings, and talked about the sex of God vs the gender of Christ (very, very interesting). We were marginally hit upon by the two gentlemen sitting two tables over, which made us both raise our eyebrows and smirk a bit at one another - she's been married almost four years, I've been married almost five. It's good for the ego. We had two rounds plus some nachos to nibble, and when we finally left I thought it was eight-thirty. Turns out it was nine-thirty (eep!), which meant that HRH was trying manfully to rein in his raging instinct to call out the troops to search for my broken and bleeding body in a ditch somewhere, and her husband had been waiting at his place of employment to be picked up for an hour. Oops. See, God is just so fascinating; this is what happens when I talk about religion and drink cider at the same time.

I wanted to go downtown today and wander through secondhand bookstores, but I feel so guilty about not accomplishing very much yesterday that I'm staying home.

Did I mention I'm over halfway done this book? I'm trying to be impressed, but all I can see is the half not done and due on July 1.

Give and Take

I love my husband -- I truly do. He's a cornerstone in my life. I can snarl at him when I'm grumpy and trying to concentrate on writing, and he takes it. I make him tea with lemon and honey when he's sick and sorry for himself, and he drinks it.

This morning, however, I woke up with his cold. The same cold we've been passing back and forth for almost two months now.

A tip for cold-sufferers: a tea made of eucalyptus and thyme is refreshing, and quite pleasant. It has a faintly clove-like taste, slightly menthol. I'm taking a cup every few hours. Let's see if it works.

Now I'm off to buy him ROTK on DVD, because I still love him, even though he gave me the cold again. He deserves it; he's been miserable for a week now. Besides, I need more vitamin C tablets.

Good Intentions

I woke up with every intention of having a wonderful day, and bit by bit it trickled away from me. My cold got worse, I had to deal with a frustrating phone call which involved an elderly gentleman assuming I had taken over a project I'd never been asked to handle, and I only got 1K done on the book when I thought I'd done at least 2K. That last was really the kicker. There are times when I think that what I know wouldn't fill up even 30K of this book, which is inversely proportional to how I feel when I'm teaching this subject in a live workshop.

I also missed last night's improv workshop t! whipped up for actor friends because my voice kept cutting out and I couldn't stop coughing, which annoyed me because I don't get the chance to do theatre any more. HRH persuaded me to go out for a nice long walk after dinner and took me to the Dairy Queen for ice cream, which was just fine by me. We bought more cold medication on the way home too.

Last night's dreams were an odd blend of orchestra rehearsing in church basements (courtesy of theatre-associated thoughts, most likely); large sedate toy/department stores which sold beautiful aquariums near large displays of Harry Potter books; Virginia Woolf memorabilia which transported me to being VW as a child when I held it or put it on; fish chained in the aquariums so they couldn't get out; grocery shopping during the break at orchestra, and not being able to get back in time because I was driving in the sun on the West Island and the car clock was wrong. My dreams have been quite vivid lately. What they mean is anyone's guess. What on earth do second violins trying to sit with the cellos have to do with VW, or me showing my dad the chained fish crawling out of the aquariums?

Well, well; the radio news is reporting that according to StatsCan, if you make it to your fifth year of marriage, you're more likely to stick it out in the long run. I take it that the statistics indicate most contemporary marriages dissolve in the first four years. Evidently HRH and I have about four months to save ourselves from a lifetime of loving companionship and intelligent conversation.

Now that our bills are paid and we have groceries, I intend to pick up the new Diana Krall album on my way into the store today. I am determined to be in a good mood, or at least in a better mood than yesterday. I think I'll pick up the VW biography I put down a few months ago too.

Happy Birthday Cake

We had a wonderful birthday party for my goddaughter. She played with everyone, appreciated her presents ("Look! Look!"), handed round cake with style ("Happy Birthday cake!"), and we all got to spend time with people we don't see as often as we should. By the end of it, we all were ready for a nap; it seems that no one slept well on Friday night. HRH and I arrived home mid-afternoon, and next on my agenda was to pop by the MPRC Beltaine Fair downtown. I was so sleepy that I lay down and closed my eyes, figuring I'd have a quick catnap to get out of my zombie-like state, then bus into town... and when I woke up, it was six in the evening, and the phone was ringing.

Evidently my body decided to get back at least some of the hours of sleep it missed out on the previous night. Fine, except couldn't it have taken just one hour, then saved the rest for later? I would have gone to bed early. I really, really wanted to see what was on sale at the fair, and see how the workshops went.

Drat. And of course, because my body had stolen sleep during the day, I wasn't tired enough to sleep again until midnight. Grr.

On the good side, HRH and I sat down last night for an in-depth joint Tarot reading looking at the next twelve months, posing questions and reading for different time-frames (electional Tarot! - well, if you're an astrologer you'll get the joke), and our projected plans seem to have quite favorable outcomes. It did a lot to settle doubts and nerves.

I have a new baby sister!

Her name is Cordelia, and I get to meet her this weekend.

Yes, my parents now have three Maine Coone cats. My husband joked about the value of their purebred cats almost paying off his remaining student loan. I responded with the observation that it would be difficult to fit three cats in an envelope addressed to the bank.

Well, it would.

Exercising Patience

Yesterday started off so well, and gradually went further and further downhill as I overextended myself, thinking that this second spring cold was beaten. It didn't help that we had a very high-energy hands-on class on making oils and incenses on Sunday afternoon, which resulted in trying to rein in eight excited adults, and ended with someone saying, "Well, this was a great class, except...". I'm really tired of back-handed compliments. What's wrong with saying, "I had a lot of fun. Thanks! By the way, next time could you give us a bit more warning? I really had to scramble to assemble the supplies for this." I uncharacteristically physically turned around and walked away from the back-handed compliment because (a) it wasn't my fault, and (b) I'd spent the past two hours repeating myself because not everyone was listening when I imparted the original information. I lost my patience. Passive-aggressive feedback does absolutely no good at all, and I wish more people understood that. It's patronising and manipulative, and I see right through it. Coming from a student, no matter how they might think their five more years of age gives them an edge over their teacher, it's even more insulting, both to me and to the student. Unfortunately, they don't seem to realise that it damages them.

I missed a game last night because the afternoon's class wore me out. I took an over-the-counter sleeping pill, stuck my earplugs in to counter the thumping bass from upstairs, and woke up eleven hours later. I have even less of a voice than I did when I went to bed, which is making me grumpy. I also discovered that the two hour TV program t! asked me to tape for him taped the wrong channel. I am not in a particularly great mood.

This weekend did have good bits, though: for example, we had a terrific dinner with Tal on Saturday night, where we made Ceri's fabulous and eeeeeevil pudding. The second half of the Saturday class was fun to watch, after my whispered lecture on the very basic highlights of Mesoamerican, Mesopotamian, and Egyptian religion. (Note to self: your customary dynamism is completely sabotaged when you are forced to whisper, rendering the class lifeless and dull.) And I must say that the eleven hours of sleep last night were high up on the List of Good Things, considering my recent sleep scores, even if those eleven hours were drug-induced.

I have a Reiki workshop to attend tonight, which I'm very much looking forward to. And I think I'll spend the day researching and making notes for this Brid project, which seems to be evolving into a dialogue between contemporary views of the Neo-Pagan goddess and the attributions found in achaeological and literary work.

At least, that was the plan until the manuscript for the second book in this ongoing series just fell into my inbox with the request to write a foreword attached. I work tomorrow, and they want it by Wednesday, so it looks like I'm working for the publisher again today, as I did every single day last week. (I know I swore that I was taking Friday off - I lied. I worked on checking the first half of that manuscript that was sent back to me by the author.)

I just keep telling myself that this book is atypical, we're being overprotective because it's the firstborn of the series, and by the end of this week when I've checked his second half of the rewrites and sent it back to the publisher, it will all be over until I do a final galley read-through somewhere down the line.

All I want to do is curl up with a cat under an afghan, have someone bring me soup for lunch, and read books with my sticky tabs, a notebook, and a highlighter by my side. That's all.

Howl

I left my printer paper and brand-new sticky tabs at work last night.

I think I'll go back to bed. Or make a cup of hazelnut hot chocolate and curl up with an Anne Rice novel or something. You know, the complete antithesis of academic application.

The cold proceeds apace, oh

The cold proceeds apace, oh joy; I'm at the hacking cough stage now. I mademyself take a walk in the sun yesterday and stopped in at the Co-op Vert to pick up organic ginger tea and a hazelnut bread, which is so incredibly delicious that it doesn't need butter. It has whole hazelnuts in it, and it's made with fine whole-wheat flour and molasses. Mmm.

Rehearsal last night was absolutely disastrous. It was the diametrical opposite of the previous practice: stumbling, wincing, and amateur. On top of it all, that guy who never shuts up kept talking behind me. I thought I would strangle him. The only thing that got me through the night was knowing that when I got home, I would have chocolate ice cream and watch Angel. Except when I got home, there were two episodes of Smallville back to back, and no Angel in sight.

I went to bed and sulked.

Tonight I teach the second half of my spellcasting class. It's certainly different this time around: I'm teaching two good Catholic girls who are interested in learning how to use magic within a Christian context. It's quite a relief to speak in the terms of one religion while doing this class instead of saying "however you perceive the Divine" all the time. It's also so nice to hear people say that they believe this power comes from God, and they seek to use it in a positive context. I always enjoy this class, and to be able to teach it without fielding odd questions is a lovely bonus.

I hate being sick.

Woke up this morning with

Woke up this morning with a chest cold, most likely courtesy of my original coven-sister, with whom I teach and hang out as well. Sigh. There's just no limit to her generosity.

Met with our new group yesterday, and initiated a round of feedback on the healing ritual that had been done last meeting. "We made our high priestess cry!" was the first triumphant comment. And yes, they did. They were good tears that welled up and flowed right at the beginning of the rit, as they pulled off a good solid circle and excellent quarter invocations. It was just so strange to hear it done by other voices. It was like a gift. And speaking of gifts, HRH was presented with a pack of variously-coloured stars to affix to lessons and assignments, as one of his common sayings as he teaches is, "Very good - you get another gold star!" It was a riot.

Happy 25th to Elim a month late; we hope you enjoyed your "quarter"-century ritual last night!

More witchy stuff:

Witches' Weekly question February 29, 2004: Incense

What incense flavor do you use the most?

You are making me to choose? La!

Honestly, it's probably a tie between my home-made kyphi resin mix, amber cones, and the Shoyeido Diamond sticks.

What incense type do you use the most? (cone, resin, stick, etc)

Stick, for convenience. I only use cones in the bedroom because the censer is tidier (and less likely to be scattered by cats). I use powder and resin on my altar, and sticks everywhere else. If the questions was which form I prefer, it's resin, hands down. It's a much purer scent, and the energy is spectacular. The only downside is the charcoal, even though I snap my tablets in half.

What do you use incense for the most?

To release a certain energy into my space. It also relaxes me, which is a nice bonus. There's often incense going on my altar while I work and research at home, which serves the double duty of honouring deity and energising the space.

Yet another ritual tonight, a very special one. (Okay, they're all special, but this one is special today, all right?)

I'm off to rub eucalytus oil on my chest and drink yet more juice. I foresee an afternoon of bed rest, wrapped in a blanket.

Explain to me how it

Explain to me how it is possible that my stapler is mysteriously broken and all of my paper clips have vanished. The entire bag is gone. Poof.

Someone somewhere doesn't want me to work today.

Oh, dear. Oh very, very

Oh, dear. Oh very, very dear.

Mad, Mad House

When the proposal for this show came up last year I'd hoped it would die a quick death. Alas, it is not to be; the first episode airs this Thursday in both the US and Canada.

Kerr Cuhulain of the Officers of Avalon has issued a press release with his position which you can read here.

I tend to agree. People already give me sideways looks when they learn I’m Pagan, let alone Wiccan. A show that emphasises the freak aspect will do not much for the seriousness with which I present my spiritual path. It’s my business, yes. But I’m really tired of the media pushing the weirdness aspect. It’s nature-based, and encompasses reverence and tolerance for pretty much everything. It emphasises self-improvement and healing.

I am rendered speechless at the publicity stunt that author and witch Fiona Horne is pulling with her appearance in this show. But then – selling stuff is what publicity is about, isn’t it. It rarely has to do with truth. Granted, I haven't seen it (and I still haven't decided if I'll watch the first episode or not: do I evaluate the damage, or do I boycott?), but the material I've read on it over the past year has done nothing to calm my dread and suspicion.

I just lost a decent

I just lost a decent post and I'm in no mood to recreate it. So, the salient points:

We're playing a bunch of neat stuff. One symphony, many shorter pieces. Most actual chamber pieces, some with vocal accompaniment from a Hudson music group. Good rehearsal, everyone bright and bushy-tailed.

There. It hardly conveys how terrific an evening it was.

Spring

We have a hyacinth that has grown from a little green sprout into a huge, glorious, forget-me-not-blue flower. I got up this morning, and the entire apartment smelled like spring.

That coupled with the nice hot rosemary tea I have on my desk makes for quite an enjoyable morning.

Thanks!

Did we forget to send a huge thanks out to everyone who showed up to toast HRH on Wednesday night? I think we did.

Damn, but it was good to see everyone again. Over the course of the evening we must have watched about thirty people come through the pub to say hi or sit down for a bite. Eventually we all gave up on sitting down and stood around with our drinks, and it was a lot more comfortable. Ceri reports hearing a couple of strangers making their way through our crowd muttering uncomplimentarily about how it felt like a house party. And what's wrong with that, I'd like to know? Hurley's is the traditional spot for gang birthday evenings, so of course by now it feels like we own the place when we get two dozen people in on a quiet night. The waitress knows us, and enjoys us; she's also grateful for our patience. Most of us have worked in the service industry, and we know what it's like to be the only person on the floor. She even gave HRH a drink on the house, complete with hailing him as the King.

Everyone got to catch up on who was doing what, which was grand. HRH was thrilled with his group gift of the Dremel (which is good, because now we all want to (a) borrow it, or (b) get him to make stuff for us), and even more touched by the amount of folks who stopped by. So thanks, everyone; you did wonders for his flagging spirits.

More Power Issues

This has been a frustrating day.

It began when the power went out around midnight last night. Well, it didn't go off, exactly; it fluctuated in various stages of brownout, setting all the sensitive electric sensors for emergency lights and alarms in the building off at irregular intervals.

By this morning, neither HRH or I had had really decent sleep, and the apartment was stone-cold once again. At various times through the night we had each arisen to unplug power bars and sensitive electronic devices in an effort to protect ourselves from frying expensive stuff. Of course the digital alarm clock wasn't functioning, due to the lack of continuous power, so we sort of awoke later than we normally do. HRH had begun developing a nasty cold last night, and he was in no shape to squire our goddaugher off to daycare this morning, so I went instead. Of course, the single battery-powered clock we had in the house was half an hour fast, so I discovered on the way to pick her up that I had thirty minutes to kill. I did, with a doughnut and hot chocolate.

After dropping her and her dad off at various places, and having checked the prices on small filing cabinets, I returned home and discovered that the power had still not come back up to any level of useful application. Trusting my intuition, I booted up my laptop on battery power and found an urgent edit sitting in my inbox. This, paired with the book reviews due today, meant that I had to cancel my lunch date with MLG.

The edit's done, and the book reviews are almost there too; I've done longhand work and now that the power is finally back on, I've been transferring them to the desktop computer. I took a break earlier to go pick up that parcel which I missed on Friday, only to discover that it hadn't reached the post office yet.

Yes, it's been frustrating.

On top of it all, my Owldaughter domain seems to have fallen between the cracks in accounting with my old web host. Skippy came over Friday night and we set up a new hosting space, but my domain still seems to be in limbo - technically still held by my old host, but not paid for (long story, which involves hosting as a gift from someone else whose payment info expired, requiring the substitution of my own info to renew service). I've been having problems extracting any sort of useful information from the support team for the last three months, in an attempt to avoid a snarl-up somewhat like this. My efforts have been in vain. (And yes, the lack of return communication was the key reason I chose to take my business elsewhere.) So this has resulted in more frustration.

Now, however, the sun has reached an angle to shine in through the back window, which means that spring is nearly here. I managed to finally get through to my doctor's office, and as a result I not only have a renewal of my medication, but I also have an appointment to discuss these headaches and worrisome sensitivity to light with her next week.

Perhaps Monday has seemed worse than it actually is simply because it came right after a fantastic Sunday. The class I taught on Norse and Druidic methods of magic was great; the healing ritual I participated in was phenomenal; and on top of it all, I got to game last night too.

Today is just such a... Monday. You know?

Fnyeah. Perhaps Ginger's right; we should just declare all of February a holiday.

Karma in Action

It hasn't been an easy week. Today's "I-can't-believe-this-author" moments included the discovery that he's left out about fifteen pages of text and rituals here and there - he just never wrote them. Guess who picks up the slack?

The good news is that they extended my deadline to Tuesday (because Monday is President's Day!), and thank goodness, because I had no idea I'd have to get this creative. Someone's evidently looking out for me on this project, because I have all Monday to do it now. All the impressive work I've been pulling off has garnered me a nice break. (Look - karma in action!)

Anyways, HRH just came home and handed me a Kim Possible valentine and a box of hand-made chocolates with a big grin. "You didn't have to do that," I said, melting completely. (Firstover the Kim Possible Valentine - you have no idea how much of a kick I got out of it - and then the chocolate.) "I know," said HRH. "But you've had a hard week." He knows how disgusted I feel about artificial celebrations like Valentine's Day, which are pushed by commercial operators and socialise people to think that being part of a relationship is the Right Thing and expected of everyone. Spending money doesn't make you any more special to someone. Sure, it's nice to be spoiled sometimes, but I'd prefer to be spoiled on an occasion of HRH's choosing. Although the laugh's on me this year - apparently it's fun to give me stuff when I don't expect it, and since I don't expect anything on Valentine's Day, well...

In fact, I got two Valentines today. The first was from my goddaughter, which was simply adorable. I have both of them pinned up on my bulletin board.

Dress rehearsal for the Beethoven tonight. Let's hope all goes well.

Photo Disaster

We just picked up the photos.

One entire roll didn't take; something went wrong with the camera. The other roll doesn't have a single usable picture on it; they're either too bright (resulting in blinding white skin, red eyes and fuschia lips), or underexposed.

My emotions can't decide whether to let me be angry, or just cry.

I'll make an appointment with a professional studio this week. I was trying to avoid this because I hate sitting for portraits. I was more comfortable with someone I know doing the shots. Professional pictures always turn out with me looking like I'm wooden, with a hideous plastic smile. The really horrible part about this is that the poses and shots on the film that came back were good; just over or underexposed.

I think the anger is definitely turning into a desire to just cry.

The Migraine Is Back

It was lurking.

Just sent off those chapters, and I'm taking a good long break before looking at the next ones. I currently have an aromatherapy jar with lavender oil going right in front of my keyboard, both for the headache and to counteract the smell of burnt eggs that's been hanging around since a neighbour got off to a bad start this morning.

My cello strings still haven't arrived, so I'll have to play this weekend's concert with my old ones. Not great, but not the end of the world; it's the Beethoven next weekend I'm more worried about.

On the Evil of Migraines

After a migraine which removed me from the end of our weekly afternoon writing jam, and prevented me from the much-anticipated Changeling game last evening, I feel bruised all over this morning. Migraines creep up on me; they masquerade as regular headaches until about four hours later I realise that the multiples of Advil I've taken have done absolutely no good, sound is bothering me, and light is hurting my eyes. At that point there's nothing to do but curl up in a dark, dark, quiet room and sleep it off.

Ceri, your pizza was fabulous, and just what I needed when I woke up from a nightmare of being attacked and unable to breathe or swallow. It seems that I fell asleep on my stomach and turned my face into the pillow at some point.

I had a warm bath with lavendar oil after I ate, and that helped a bit too. (That and drinking over a liter of water; but I digress.) Cricket ended up walking around the edge of the tub when I got out. She made one careful tour, and I complimented her on her elegance and dexterity and told her to get down. Naturally, being a cat, she ignored me, and started round again. Three-quarters of the way through, she slipped and fell into the four inches of water left in the draining tub. Being quick of mind, I slammed the bathroom door shut and grabbed her with a towel. I started to dry her, but she was a squirmit and insisted on being let down. I set her on the bathmat where she calmly licked all the wet parts I hadn't dried off. She wasn't freaked out, which makes sense; Cricket's the one who flips the drinking dish to play in the water on the kitchen floor. She was probably more annoyed at breaking her tub-walking record than anything else.

So I'm fragile but functional this morning, which is a good thing because I only got thirty pages into the set of chapters I have to have edited by this afternoon, and there's still ninety-six pages to go. I don't know what it is with this author - it almost seems as if he's using an old draft, because I know we've fixed some of this stuff before...

Film and I Have Issues

I truly dislike photo shoots. The one that I have just suffered through was, in fact, relatively painless. Probably because my husband was the photographer.

Why did I force myself through this dreadful process? Because, dear readers, it's in my contract that the Publisher has the right to use my name and likeness to promote the new series. Hence the need for a likeness to send down.

We used two alternating cameras, just as extra insurance. Different hairstyles, different clothes, different poses. Glasses off, glasses on.

Now we have three rolls of film to develop (yes, there was one in our camera already, and no, I have no earthly idea what's on it - oh, wait, Elim (muah-hah-hah), and various Yule celebrations, including the now-traditional shot of myself and Roo. Right.)

I'll get them same-day processed, then HRH and I will pore over the various shots to choose the three best, and I'll have them enlarged to 8 x 10 formats. Then I'll Purolate them down to Boston, accompanied by the signed contracts that arrived in today's mail.

If nothing else, I'll have piles of photos to send to my grandmother and my parents and such.

Goblet of Fire and Owls at NASA

In a new interview in Empire magazine, director Mike Newell lays to rest the speculation that GOF would be split into two movies. "As far as I'm concerned it's absolutely possible to do it in one. I think it would be slightly embarassing to do it in two," says the director in the March issue of the magazine, available on newstands now.

"Slightly embarrassing." Interesting phrasing, that.

And -

Mother Owl Stops Work at NASA: A great horned owl has decided Pad 39A of the Kennedy Space Center in Florida is the perfect place to hatch her eggs. NASA has stopped work at the site until the babies are born. Just look at that expression - you'd stop work, too.

Apparently there's another owl nesting where Atlantis is to be launched in the fall too. Coincidence? Maybe Great Horned Owls are monitoring our space program.

(Both tidbits found at The Leaky Cauldron.)

From Charming to a Pain

Is it too much to ask that the electricity we pay for stay on for at least three days in a row?

Yes, we lost power again last night. Four hours of no heat during the coldest part of the night means that we lost all the warmth stored up in the apartment once more.

I no longer care what the reason may be - whether it's the major NDG power transfer system finally dying due to old age, or the lousy wiring job in our apartment possibly shorting out the entire block - I just don't care. I'm tired of resetting clocks, alarms, and volume levels. I'm tired of having to blast all our ineffective heaters just to get things to a comfortable temperature so I can function like a relatively normal human being again.

At first it was charming - we'd light candles, sit and chat quietly, watch the snow fall. Then it became slightly irritating, as the power would cut out when I needed to reach a deadline, make dinner, was expecting a call, was in the process of finishing something valuable on the computer, or some such thing. Now it's just an instant anger-inducing inconvenience that makes me growly no matter what I'm doing, even if it's as benign as reading on the sofa with a pile of cats.

Forty-seven days until spring. As the days count down, the temperature will rise, and people will consume less electricity, reducing the stress on the outdated power grid. Perhaps then we'll experience fewer interruptions in our electrical supply.

I'm trying to be optimistic about it.

The Operative Word is "Tried"

The high-speed package arrived. Yay! said I.

There were a couple of issues. Namely, the fact that all the manuals were in French, and that even though the salesguy had been told that we already had Sympatico service and wished to keep our e-mail address, we were assigned a new address, and a new user ID. I know how bureaucracy works. We're likely to lose our current e-mail for a time, if not forever, while they sort things out.

Despite all this, I tried to install it this morning.

The operative word being "tried", of course.

I wasn't home when the salesperson originally came to our door. My husband therefore handled the transaction, with the best of intentions. The salesguy took a look at the back of our computer and checked off certain things on the contract, like the fact that we have a USB port.

"We don't have a USB port," I said when my husband told me this.

"Sure we do!" HRH said. "The salesguy checked!"

Yeah, well, guess what. The installation software ran a diagnostic on the computer and told me that I couldn't install my new high speed kit because of two reasons: my hard drive wasn't big enough, and I had no USB port.

The software doesn't allow you to choose what hard drive to direct it to. My C drive was partitioned when Skippy constructed my machine, so of course it says it's smaller than it actually is. I use my new second hard drive for programs now.

So: Sympatico gets called tomorrow. The high speed thing gets cancelled, and I'll return this useless kit. When I'm ready, I'll call and upgrade my service myself. I have been promised a new computer by the end of February (thank you, Ceri and Scott!); I'll try again then.

My technical frustration has been assuaged by the production of an entire short story (which means I can take one of my story assignment postcards off my bulletin board), and eleven hundred words of a second new story. And a new version of the anthology proposal. And a glass of champagne celebrating t!'s 100,000th word of Baker's 12.

Plus t! said that the whole idea of being a gutsy author was nonsensical, since he had solid support from fellow writing-type friends which filled him with confidence.

Still, I'm vaguely frustrated, for some reason. There's a warm bath in my future.

B12

I love Baker's 12. I really, really do.

Case in point:

meanwhile...
"I told you so."
"Shut up."

meanwhile...

It takes a talented and gutsy author to attempt a section of narrative like that. It takes an even rarer author to make it work. (Did I say gutsy? Maybe I mean arrogant. Gutsy just doesn't describe t! very well. Neither does daring. If I use the word arrogant, I mean it with all respect, of course. And he has every right to be arrogant. He's good.)

t! is one of those authors who pushes boundaries, limits, and envelopes. I'm using this particular example of his work because Ceri and I were in the room when he created it, and I loved it. (I'd link him here, but I know his site address is about to change, so why increase my update work? Look for the Teddybear Sawdust Show in the links bar to the right.)

How to describe Baker's 12?

Well, the first thing I'd tell a potential reader is that it's an exciting, challenging, experimental narrative. It involves the concepts of time travel, and situational ethics, two of my favourites. It's character-driven as well as plot-driven, and it assumes that you have intelligence. That means it doesn't cater to the lowest common denominator; I used the word challenging on purpose. It employs elements such as humour, gritty action, historical settings, assumptions, group politics, and red herrings, handling them all with aplomb.

What keeps me reading it? The fact that I can see a pattern emerging. Why did I keep plugging away at it, even though it wasn't a linear story? The storytelling style, and the characters. I love that I can tell what character is in a particular situation just by the style of dialogue. The older I get, the more impatient I become with description-laden narrative. B12 takes the opposite tack, allowing you, the reader, to co-create the world with the author.

As I hate reading large amounts of text on-line, I recently printed all of B12 out and put it in a binder. I sat up until two in the morning in bed reading by candlelight while my husband slept, because I couldn't put the damned thing down. What I discovered is that as much fun as reading the weekly installment is, the true patterns don't emerge until you can read the whole thing in one shot. That's another part of the author's genius: accomplishing small entertaining bite-size bits, while simultaneously creating something larger.

So yes. Baker's 12. Read it. Challenge your preconceived expectations of linear narrative, and discover that you're actually smarter than you thought you were. And enjoy some darned fine fiction while you're at it.

Update January 27 2004: t! has now officially moved his site. Click through to read the Teddybear Sawdust Show! and Baker's 12. What are you waiting for?

Paint, Music, Characters

At this time of year, my husband and I get restless because we're housebound so much due to the extreme cold. So naturally, we begin to think of ways to make the house more pleasant.

I went out for three hours on Saturday to do administrative teacher-type stuff, and came back to a cheery yellow kitchen. The transformation was literally that simple; I was present for practically none of the emptying of the room, the preparation for painting, the actual application of colour, and the replacement of the removed items. I left one boring kitchen, and came home to a different, bright one.

Yesterday, the bathroom was painted sage green and white. It looks fabulous. HRH even went so far as to paint the outside of the claw-foot bathtub sage green, which looks very cool. I was here for half of this particular endeavour, but I was away at the Beethoven rehearsal for the latter half.

It was, in fact, a very busy day. I had a three-hour rehearsal for the Beethoven, then came home to study group already in progress (in which time flew, making us late for...), then a Changeling game (which also went late thanks to our belated arrival, plus various things like dinner and bookkeeping and the first combat session of the story!).

The Beethoven: It never ceases to amaze me that I can sight-read brilliantly, but fall apart at simple passages that are played really fast. The symphony already sounds phenomenal; I can't wait to hear the choir with it. I'm incredibly fortunate to be able to play with this ensemble.

The study group: Ah, the joys of discussing deity concepts, and the balance of male and female energies. Always fun. The nice thing about this group is that it's made up of experienced people, so the discussion is very different from the discussions I usually have with students, for example.

The game: It's been so long since I've made a character for a new game that I'd almost forgotten how much I hate it. Unless I have a very clear concept that pops into my head, I have to slowly try out bits and pieces that either work or don't. This is the third session of world-building and intro games, and I'm still not settled on who this character actually is. It's been frustrating because I've really missed gaming, and to struggle with a new character when I so desperately want to dive right in has been so maddening. Last night was as close as I've been able to come to feeling comfortable with her; dropping her age from eighteen to eleven has really helped nail it down and free me up to enjoy the game and explore her personality. I know that part of my problem is derived from my habit of firming up a character's personality through gaming; it's hard to know what a character is like until you've put him/her through some paces in context. I'm lucky to have an understanding group who chose to play a couple of experimental sessions to introduce the system and the world, which gave me a chance to stretch my muscles a bit and discover the character's actual personality.

On today's agenda: fleshing out the anthology series proposal for my publisher; working out a couple of brick-wall type passages in the Beethoven; and refilling my black ink cartridge with the ink that just arrived in the mail. Of course it leaked, so I have to email the company and ask for a new instruction sheet. Not much ink was lost, but as anyone who has ever had a leaky fountain pen knows, even a small amount of ink creates a disaster of epic proportions! And tonight, my CD-ROM drive gets replaced by the burner drive! Hurrah!

The Bad, the Good

The Bad:

Last week I got the sad news that my sweet little sewing machine is going to cost about a hundred dollars to fix. It was exactly what the man who took it in suspected: the timing has gone on it. A lightweight machine like this one isn’t designed to sew anything heavy, and that’s pretty much all I’ve sewn with it. The repair shop was impressed that it had lasted eight years, but the man warned me that to fix it would likely not be worth the money it would cost. His phone call last week confirmed it. He told me that even if he fixed it, I’d likely run into the same problem within a year or so if I used it for the same projects.

Now that I have a functioning printer of quality, my original plans to buy a new one no longer apply. I think that when the cheque for the first project I finish at the US publisher comes through, I’ll use a bit of it to treat myself to a new sewing machine instead. One with a bit more oomph, a little more weight, the design to handle heavyweight material and projects, and maybe a range of speeds that embraces more than bunny/turtle.

The Good:

I had an hour-long chat with my editorial contact at the US publisher - the imprint specialist is a go, with the contract being tweaked before it's sent down to me. The series proposal is being fleshed out as I go. This is becoming more and more of a full-time thing, a real career. I'll be going down to Boston somewhere around the end of February to pitch the proposal and meet everyone, and possibly one of my authors as well. There are the fall bookfairs to think about too, where publicity for the new imprint might require me to be on hand for talks and info session with buyers.

Yes, I'm still stunned.

I'll need new clothes. Jeans and t-shirts (beloved uniform of home-based freelancers everywhere), however fetching I look in them, are just not going to cut it in a conference room or a marketing sales floor.

Mail!

I just got a parcel from my parents in the mail. In it was the manual that goes with my printer.

Now that I know what all the buttons mean, I can photocopy. Thank you, gods!

And thank you, Mum, for the January treat!

Update: Aha. If I don't click on the black & white button, the copier assumes it's in colour - even if the original is b&w. And I end up with green music to practice with. Well, it's, um... different.

Minor Rant

As if substandard heaters aren't enough, the electrical upgrade the landlord did around the time we moved in wasn't sufficient to handle all the new electrical heaters going at once. Our power blew yesterday, and our heaters were offline for about twelve hours.

More excitingness included a half dozen emergency vehicles blocking off our street yesterday and brown-outs. I know Hydro-Quebec's system is stressed when the temperature drops like this, but these problems aren't general, they're limited to our building, or ours plus the building on each side. The tenants have all decided to make a list of Things To Be Addressed and send it in a registered letter to the landlord. I know the heat is a big issue, but for me, the most annoying day-to-day problem is the front door. It's a split door -- the doorway is wide, and has two doors hung in it. Problem is, they're each narrower than your average door, and the left one is always locked. When I leave with my cello over my shoulder, I have to struggle to pull the door open, hold it open because the spring closing is aggressively set, wriggle through and immediately run down the five steps while the door slams shut because there's no landing on the other side. The door isn't even wide enough to get a laundry basket through without turning sideways.

Sure, fine, you might say; it's not so bad. Right. Except that locked left-hand door is highly illegal, because any emergency crew trying to get in won't be able to fit. They're lovely doors. I'd hate to see them get hacked down. Worse, if there's a fire inside, it's not a legally safe exit. We've got about fifty people in this building; the thought of all of them trying to jam through that narrow door is just ugly. (Fire escapes? What fire escapes? We discovered last summer that they lead right back into the basement of the building.)

Wow, I didn't mean to go on a minor rant like that. I like this apartment a lot, I really do. One always discovers good things and bad things throughout a stay somewhere, though.

Good things yesterday involved the beginning of a new game (with lots of sugar! Yay meringues!), and getting long-awaited info to appreciative parties including friends, students, a newsletter co-ordinator, and the US acquisitions editor.

And today... home-baked cookies!

I got my hair cut a couple of days ago. Not that you'd notice. Just an inch or so. Now it's a shapely mass of hair, instead of just being a mass of hair.

HRH has put his foot down, and it's squarely on the brake pedal of our car. He's not driving anywhere this evening. Apparently, the lunatics are already out on the roads, so it's ye olde Metro for us, which is just fine. We're heading out to Ceri's tonight to be with a few friends. Not that New Year's means much to us; it's Happy New Calendar Day in our household. It's always nice to spend an evening with intellgent friends, however, and heaven knows we don't want to be anywhere near the downtown core tonight of all nights...

Christmas!

Okay, everyone else has done it: highlights of the holiday swag!

The very best were the digital cello tuner I asked for, and the Pride & Prejudice DVD set (possibly the only things I did directly ask for). Classic sweater sets; much chocolate; a new set of winter accessories (hat, scarf, mitts); a sweet little fox picture; and many gift certificates (as Roo says, "the gift of getting what I want"!). Oddly enough, no books. Well, okay, one; every year my mother finds me some sort of antique volume, and this year was a red leather-bound edition of RLS' A Child's Garden of Verses. (Last year it was Tennyson!) Although Indigo has a Boxing Week sale on that gives 30% off all hardcover books, and the new Ronald Hutton Witches, Druids, and King Arthur is out; at $45 it's a bit steep, but with 30% off it becomes very affordable. Especially with a gift certificate. And with a gift certificate, it sort of becomes a holiday gift, right?

And from the "completely unconnected to holiday swag" pile of nifty stuff: for skaldic fans who are also LOTR geeks, take a look at Eowulf, an epic retelling of Dernhelm's heroic actions in the battle of Pelennor Fields. Not bad.

On Going Home

There’s something odd about coming home for the holiday season as an adult. Sure, my parents now live in a differet province, in a house that features in absolutely zero of my childhood memories, but there's more to it. My parents seem to look forward to having us here, but sometimes I wonder why. I arrive with laundry to do, change their radio stations, have classical music on all the time, and light candles. I either sleep at odd times, or hide in a corner with a book, or go out to roam Oakville (they have a remarkable invention here called parking lots, making shopping a much less harrowing experience).

I look forward to coming here too. There’s something terribly comforting about having familiar meals served to you by your mother. Sometimes they’re new meals, which I look forward to discovering just as much because my mother is a fabulous cook. Last night we had slow-cooked lamb shanks with polenta, which was divine. Some things are best left to discovering as an adult. Had my mother served me polenta as a child, I would have pushed it around my plate until it got stone cold and even less appealing, tasted a speck and decided it was too much like oatmeal, which I hated. (I’m still not fond of oatmeal; it’s something about the texture. Thin or thick, I just really have to be in the mood, and it needs plenty of salt.)

For the second year in a row, my parents haven’t put up the Christmas tree; they put white fairy lights on their six-foot-tall silk fig in the corner and gather gifts underneath it instead. I don’t have any seasonal decorations up at home, either, which might have contributed to my lack of holiday cheer. Christmas seems to have arrived awfully quickly, something like all that snow at home.

The drive down was a breeze. The three feet of snow that the Montreal city crews are ignoring gradually vanished as we drove west, disappearing completely by a half-hour past Cornwall. I’ve been going about in my cardigan over a t-shirt outside here. Last night I woke up to the sound of rain hitting the roof and the window. I’ve forgotten how much I love that sound.

Tonight after dinner we have a date with popcorn and The Return of the King; tomorrow we pick up our borrowed printer and do the official seasonal dinner and the ritual opening of gifts. For the rest of this afternoon, though, I think it's going to be dozing with a book and perhaps a Maine Coone cat.

Sigh

So sleepy. I have no idea why I'm so tired when I spent most of my weekend just sitting waiting for things to happen. I got to work half an hour early for teaching yesterday, and my first class ended up being cancelled; I sat reading in the office for four hours until my second class rolled around. Then I got to work today (an hour and five minutes before I had to be) to unlock the doors, only to discover that the store was already open, and had been for two hours. No one had told me we were opening at ten AM instead of the usual 12 noon. Slightly frustrating; all the more so because if I had been asked, I would definitely had said that I wouldn't be able to open at ten AM seeing as how I didn't have to be there until my students gathered for their Solstice events at one PM this afternoon. Usually my class starts at noon, and I arrive a few minutes ahead of time in order to unlock the store for the girls who are working on the floor, which is fine. Today was just crossed wires, which is frustrating enough on its own.

Ah well. It just means I had a really unhurried two days of doing nothing. Which, I suppose, was slightly frustrating in and of itself, since I've been anti-social all weekend, desiring nothing more than to hide under the covers of my very warm bed.

We're now on our way to Toronto for four days of seasonal quality family time. Yay us!

A Merry Solstice to you. May you all see the light at the end of the longest, darkest night of all.

Touched

I have a public who requests updates. I am touched.

A big thank-you to all who came out to support my husband's studio launch on the weekend. All five members of Studio Elements were touched (and decidedly overwhelmed) by the response and enthusiasm displayed by the attendees. I think everyone sold a piece of artwork, too, which was unexpected; it was a party, not a show, after all. You just can't hold back popular demand, however, or deny good art.

We also had the Montreal NaNo wrap party, where we discovered that many of us had story elements in common (apart from the psychic ferrets, I mean). We also played t!'s annual game of NaNo Questions, where queries such as "If your novel were a food, what food would it be?" and "Describe your novel in ten words or less!" were posed. It was a riot to hear the answers from such a varied group of people. The room was humming with creative responses from creative-types. So, overall, it was a remarkably artistic weekend.

The art theme continues this week as I make a Yule gift for a friend, which cannot be detailed here as she is quite likely to have the surprise ruined for her. You'll all be kept up to date with appropriate vague references.

The Changeling game that Roo (dubbed "the very cute pagan gamer geek girl" by admiring friends who met her on Saturday night) and I have been discussing for the past little while is becoming more and more likely to actually happen, which makes me jump with joy inside, being as gaming-starved as I have been for months. It's really making me think about when children lose their completely enchanted viw of life. Playing with my god-daughter this weekend (whom, by the way, delivers the very best spontaneous hugs, complete with back-patting and sticky kisses) raised the same question. When do we lose that completely open, joyful celebration of absolutely everything we see? When do we begin to trap things inside, to deny our individual interpretation of life, to conform to consensual reality simply in order to make things easier? And, the ultimate question: why? Playing Changeling will allow me to further explore these questions. Plus it's just going to be downright fun, 'cos it's with cool people and will no doubt involve large amounts of candy and giggling. Think the ultimate sleepover or the best day off from school and you might hit on the general feeling.

On a completely different note, my dreams have been remarkably vivid these past few days. I don't know about how others dream, but my dreams tend to involve pop culture figures, most recently the Lord of the Rings film characters. The cast from Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel pop up frequently, too. (There was a run last spring where my dreams featured the Buffy cast performing a different Gilbert & Sullivan operetta weekly.) My latest dreams involve lots of swords being passed from person to person as symbols of their identity. Entertaining, but one does have to wonder what it's all about. (No, this is not an invitation to psychoanalyse me; it's a rhetorical question.)

Or maybe it's just all about the gorgeous costumes that my subconscious mind dreams up.

Hmm. Almost makes me want to drag out my toy sewing machine and get back into the construction of absolutely beautiful outfits with little to no practical purpose.

Unbirthday Gifts

There's nothing like receiving a present on someone else's birthday!

We went out to Fondumentale last night (highly recommended!) to celebrate Roo's first quarter-century, and Maia-at-Twilight gave her a tin of tea from Betjeman & Barton, the Westmount tea shop on Sherbrooke. I bounced around because I love that shop, and seeing the red bag meant that good things were inside. Then Maia-at-Twilight handed me a little packet of tea, a present for no particular reason - the very best kind. "I had to," she said. "Look at the name."

Sonate d'Automne. Well, of course she had to.

It's an eau de fruits, similar to a tisane, and it's delicious. It has almonds, and a mellow smoky fruit flavour. Perfect for an overcast fall day. I think it's about to become a NaNo tea. Last year's NaNo tea was, of course, Twining's Lady Grey. The drink of choice for the Great Canadian Novel (when I'm working on it, that is; once I realised that I had accidentally finished writing it, I decided to leave it until 2004 and then edit it, since it's essentially finished and requires only the current chapters rejigged, and possibly a chapter added) is Vanilla Coke. Odd how I associate certain beverages with certain projects.

I scurried about tying up loose ends of work and such yesterday. As of eleven-ish, my contracts still hadn't arrived in Massachussets, so I'm rolling up my sleeves to give the US postal service a kick to help them along. The Canada Post tracking service informs me that the packet left Canada on the 22nd, so the delay is on the US side. XpressPost guarantees three to five day delivery, so it ought to have been there last week. That sound you hear is my foot tapping.

INFJ

Because I am highly amused by this:

Maybe I just hang out with author-types, but it's same answer that Ceri scored on the test.

What I found interesting were these scores:

Doing a bit of research I discovered that INFJs (Introverted iNtuitive Feeling Judging types) typically displat traits such as, or similar to, the following:

Intuitively understand people and situations
Idealistic
Highly principled
Complex and deep
Natural leaders
Sensitive and compassionate towards people
Service-oriented
Future-oriented
Value deep, authentic relationships
Reserved about expressing their true selves
Dislike dealing with details unless they enhance or promote their vision
Constantly seeking meaning and purpose in everything
Creative and visionary
Intense and tightly-wound
Can work logically and rationally - use their intuition to understand the goal and work backwards towards it

Apparently, [t]hey need to feel as if everything they do in their lives is in sync with their strong value systems - with what they believe to be right. Accordingly, the INFJ should choose a career in which they're able to live their daily lives in accordance with their deeply-held principles, and which supports them in their life quest to be doing something meaningful. Hey, that sounds kind of familiar...

And what's right at the top of the career list for INFJ-types? Clergy / Religious Work, directly followed by Teachers. A couple lower we find Alternative Health Care Practitioners, Counselors and Social Workers, and Musicians and Artists.

So nice to know I'm pursuing paths generally considered rewarding for my personality type. And yet... not so nice to be this predictable. (That's probably an INFJ thing too, I'll bet.)

INFJ is apparently the rarest personality type, coming in at a whopping 2% of the population. Read all about 'em here, and here too. And here, if you want more.

Catching Up

Ah, the first cold I've had in months. I so have not missed being sick. The general ache, the out-of-it feeling due to the sinus pressure, the boxes and boxes of tissue....

Thursday night I had a dynamic pair of students in a workshop, which was an enjoyable switch from the usual silent note-taking type. Friday night I got to make a flying visit to the first Montreal NaNo coffee gathering and met some terrific new people while re-acquainting myself with terrific people I'd met last year. And, as a result of a highly amusing misunderstanding, I have resolved that my story will have a psychic ferret involved in it somewhere (you just had to be there). (And I called Tal insane. Ah, well. There's a reason we're related by choice.)

It was a lovely Thanksgiving weekend (apart from the cold, of course, which ensured that I couldn't taste my in-laws' wonderful harvest feast to the degree it deserved), with a nice gift at the end: Salem, my favourite local cat-who-is-not-mine, ate about 30 ccs of food after refusing to eat for a period of days. Sure, it took three of us to hold her (including one and a half animal techs), but she ate; she even ate willingly after being force-fed a bit of it. Then I got to cuddle a corn snake while I watched the new trailers for Matrix Revolutions and The Return of the King.

This afternoon is a legal presence at the Palais de Justice (no worries, it's all good), and then an intimate get-together at Hurley's to celebrate a few different milestones achieved over the past three months.

(Palais de Justice, for our non-Quebec-resident readership, is the fancy French term for the city courthouse. It does not, in fact, have anything to do with a superhero team. More's the pity.)

Slowly but surely, I'm getting my mind back into the writing mode. I managed to get my printer working again (using the popular kick-it-hard method combined with replacing an ink cartridge) and printed out the existing copy of two half-finished stories, then took them to the Second Cup with me Friday afternoon to edit and add to them. Re-reading work that I haven't touched in months is a remarkably good carrot to use when I'm stuck; it's often better than I remember it being. Must stop drinking lattes and mochas while doing it, though. Herbal tea all the way!

New

I awoke with the glimmerings of a NaNo novel idea.

And I have a costume idea for the end of the month.

Now in both cases I simply have to flesh them out and figure out how to accomplish them. Easier said than done, of course...

Bye

Just a quick note to say that I'm going to vanish for a bit. We're doing a huge esoteric expo this weekend, and as of today my life belongs to it. Simultaneously, I'm doing another "need by tomorrow" project for the US publisher (who will be mailing a contract to me this week, I hear), as well as publicising an author visit scheduled for next Wednesday. You might hear from me on Monday, but I devoutly hope that I will be asleep.

Enjoy the first weekend of October. Did you remember to say, "White rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits"?

Scattershot

Six thumbs up for Ceri's apple pie. Not too tart; not too sweet; not too gooey. Perfect pastry. Her Nanny would be proud.

My husband enjoyed another piece for breakfast and says it was just as delicious the morning after.

Over tea last night the topic of ancestors came up, and I was thinking about it this morning. It's always such a pity that by the time we're old enough to appreciate the stories and the knowledge that our grandparents possess, they're gone. It's some sort of comfort that my spiritual path involves honouring my geneological ancestors, and my spiritual ancestors as well. I have a connection to the past that extends past the living face-to-face exchanges, and I value it greatly.

I also have an adorable black kitten who actually jumped up on my lap for a cuddle when I got home this afternoon. And I was initiated into the mysteries of making perfume waters at work today. I even labelled them, and they look just like the ones on the shelf. I am terribly proud of myself. I picked up my beautiful, pristine, luminescent copy of Neil Gaiman's Endless Nights this afternoon as well. So, all in all, quite the red-letter day.

Now, if I could only get news of how the submission of my contract to the publishing board of the US publisher went today, my happiness would be complete.

Lost: One Brain

I'm waiting for my chicken cacciatore to thicken so that I can bring it over to the Harvest potluck we're attending tonight. Let's hope it goes better than the rest of the weekend has, because wow, have I been out of it.

Let's see: While talking, I've been trailing off into silence, losing my train of thought. Not what you want to have happen when you teach four classes in three days. (Mercury in retrograde? Ah. Check.) I also have the attention span of an adolescent gnat. I've been battling headaches as well, which I'm certain is connected to the pressure yo-yoing up and down. At least I slept soundly last night. My incapability to sustain a coherent thought likely explains my horrendous no-no in the supermarket this afternoon, where I saw my goddaughter and reached for her without announcing my presence first, probably scaring her poor mother to death. I would never, never do something like that while thinking straight.

I did, however, manage to remember everything I needed to pick up in the store. Wonders will never cease.

We're tidying and vacuuming while the stew thickens, too, because we have a couple of friends coming over for tea tomorrow night. The cats are nowhere to be seen, of course. While we're out tonight they will undoubtedly shed fur with joyous abandon, rendering the whole exercise completely futile. Ah, well. At least we made the effort.

I'll go check on that cacciatore. So far, this recipe is a definite keeper. (It's from the October issue of Martha Stewart Living, which I picked up solely because it had pumpkin owls on the cover. Turns out it has terrific cookie recipes as well as this cacciatore recipe.)

I'm going, I'm going...

It's My Sandbox

I know I haven't been terribly communicative, but it's my sandbox, and I'll play when I want to. Expect me to be very absent over the weekends, because I simply have no time or inclination to fire up BiFrost, Computer of the Gods after three solid days of teaching.

It's been a pretty exhausting weekend. Apart from the teaching of four three-hour classes, there was a birthday gathering, and three seperate stressful situations that I was involved in or peripheral to. The highly ironic aspect of the weekend was courtesy of the stress-management lecture I gave, and the subsequent lecture I taught on how to function as an effective counsellor.

(See, Tal? Those ten-plus years of offering you tea after a break-up gave me training! Thanks!)

I will not go into details, because all of it's confidential. As a priestess and a teacher I function as a counsellor, and I stick to a counsellor's rules of engagement. I can, however, offer you my basic conclusions:

A) People in general have to smarten up and become aware that there are other individuals in the world around them who matter too. Grow out of the six-year-old I'm-the-centre-of-the-universe identity thing, and join the adult perception of cause and effect. Please.

B) Common sense is all too uncommon. I think it's connected to (A) somehow.

C) Taking advantage of others just sucks, okay?

D) While it's acceptable to feel tear-limb-from-limb anger, acting on it is a no-no.

Today is dreary and I have candles lit to help cheer things up while I read an excellent book for review. If anyone wants to take a look at how and why a Wiccan ritual is set up the way it is, read Deborah Lipp's Elements of Ritual.

I'm also reading Sarah Water's Fingersmith, a stunningly well-plotted and -written work about a Victorian underworld scheme to liberate an heiress from her fortune. I'm taking Jacqueline Carey's Kushiel's Avatar in small mouthfuls to savour it, unlike my consumption of the previous two books in the series when they were released. And I'm still going at Hermione Lee's Virginia Woolf and Lucasta Miller's The Bronte Myth. The latter isn't so much a biography as an examination of the whole marketing/legend that has grown about the Bronte family. Fascinating stuff, if you're a literature addict or a Victorian pop culture nut (score two for me!).

I think I'll go for a walk. Fresh air, some rain, exercise, maybe the used book store.

Caution: Rant on the Subject of Glasses

I realise that I haven't ranted about my latest "it's not fair" experience. Prepare for Rant Mode.

Now that I've started wearing my glasses 95% of the time, I've discovered that one pair is not enough. Why? Because if I take them off at night they get left on the bedside table when I toddle off to work the next morning, or by the computer, or -- once -- beside the computer at work.

So! Responsible Autumn locates her last set of frames and resolves to have up-to-date lenses made for them. She shops around.

My prescription isn't that high, and I don't need progressive lenses or bifocals or anything fancy. All I need is basic lenses with anti-glare so my computer screen doesn't slay my vision.

I'm still going to have to pay between $160 and $210 for a new set of lenses.

Slowly it penetrated into my stunned brain and I remembered why I usually buy new frames as well. It's not that much more expensive.

I ranted at my husband for a while, and then decided that I'd look into contact lenses. If I have to be wearing the things most of the time anyway, I might as well. I'll need an optometrist appointment, but they might end up being cheaper. And I certainly won't leave them in odd places. Then my current glasses become my back-up vision enhancers.

It's worth a try. It might be hopeless, but at least I'll know.

I think the most frustrating aspect of the situation is that I'm trying to be responsible by having a second pair with me. It's akin to replacing socks with holes, or buying new underwear: it shouldn't be this expensive.

So when I found this quiz on Roo's blog this morning I took it, and now I feel much better, because it's really me.

My inner child is ten years old!

The adult world is pretty irrelevant to me. Whether
I'm off on my bicycle (or pony) exploring, lost
in a good book, or giggling with my best
friend, I live in a world apart, one full of
adventure and wonder and other stuff adults
don't understand.


How Old is Your Inner Child?
brought to you by Quizilla

Autumn PotPourri

Over the past three days my back has developed that nasty kink in it that had me lying on the floor eighteen months ago. I'm trying to avoid movements that trigger the intense pain, but I forget sometimes and yelp embarassingly. This isn't so bad at home, where there are only cats to look at you condescendingly, but when you're freelancing in an office, people turn around.

My press packet and the NDA haven't reached the US publisher. I'm a smidge anxious. It should have been there by Wednesday.

There are five books at my local secondhand bookstore that I covet. Problem is, they're all ten dollars or so. They're trade paperbacks, so I ought to look at the encouraging fact that fifty dollars is significantly less than the hundred dollars or more that I'd pay for them new, and all of them are in mint condition. I do have a paycheque that needs to be deposited, and a morning free today. Hmm...

I woke up at 4 AM so I got up and began sorting through all my teaching stuff. Yes, CMS level 1 sessions begin again tonight! I love beginning classes again; I meet new people, discover new points of view, and refresh my own knowledge as we go. Then I get to do it again tomorrow morning with another level 1 group. Saturday afternoon, though, I get to start a new level 2 group, which will include several of my past level 1 graduates (Joy!), and on Sunday I have a level 3 group of equally marvellous ex-level-2 students. (Yes, if you think all of that through, I'm teaching from Friday night straight through to Sunday afternoon.) The first session of all of these ends in early February, so I'm looking forward to five months of study and watching people make new connections and acquire new skills and knowledge.

This is always a stressful time of year, though, what with people scurrying about and re-integrating their schedules and what-not. Orchestra begins again for me next Wednesday, for example. I'm glad the weather has become sane again, at least. Everyone can be thankful for that. If you can't get outside for half an hour, at least look out a window often!

SoOnt Update

Here I am, in Toronto. My parents were in mock miff that there was no new blog post this morning, so here. Never let it be said that I don't fulfil my parents' expectations.

A nice, uneventful trip from Mtl to T.O. last night; for once, it wasn't raining. The OPP were out in force, though, as it's a holiday weekend and the end of the month, so it took us a bit longer to get here than usual. A spectacular sunset and a fingernail's curve of a glowing moon made up for it, though.

I had a cafe mocha for the first time on the way. Nice, but I'll save it for days when I want coffee instead of cappucchino. It's not quite as sweet.

Apparently my mother made deliberate mention of my "alternative religious choice" when my grandmother was down last week. She noticed a book on reincarnation my mother was reading and it turns out that she's a firm believer in the phenomenon. It seemed like the appropriate time to bring up the deep dark family secret, so Mum began to explain the whole living with awareness thing until finally she just used the W-word. My grandmother seemed quite interested in the whole concept and agreed with several of the principles. Apparently "the Sight" has cropped up in the family line before. Go figure. That's something I never would have known about if that particular book of my mother's hadn't been on the coffee table. So there -- the deep dark family secret is out, and its turns out not to be such a dark subject after all.

Lovely weather down here - sunny with cloudy periods, a nice twenty-ish degrees... and absolutely no schedule to stick to. Lovley, I tell you.

Not Dead

Since my mother addressed an e-mail to her Darling Lost Daughter this morning, methinks 'tis time for another Update.

Status: Warm. I think I have pulse, too. That's good, right?

Detailed Status: I lost my sense of humour somewhere along the way a couple of days ago. If found, please return it; it's lonely. Also, I am moving into An Anti-Social Phase (TM). It's not that I don't love you, it's just that after two weeks of a wonderful high, I'm cocooning.

Good Things: My hair is behaving. The humidity has broken.

Bad Things: My cats are insane and pains in the neck. Especially the one who thinks the waterbowl is her personal playground.

Synchronicitous Events: I had a wonderful history of the qabala class on Saturday afternoon led by one of my strudents. While I know the basics of the qabala, I knew nothing about the history of the thing. A day later, I was reading a book which took a side trip and addressed qabala history, both mystical and factual. It was nice to (a) refresh the info I learned on Saturday, and (b) feel smug because I already knew it.

Irritating Events: You may remember the day over a month ago when my radiators were finally torn from their moorings after an earlier false start. Guess what? The electric heaters were scheduled to go in a couple of weeks ago; the electrician never showed up. Today, he was scheduled to show up first thing in the morning. If you check the time stamp, it's just past eleven. I'm staying home today instead of going in to work just so that the electrician can do his thing. If he does not show up again, I Will Have Blood For This.

Something You Ought To Have Guessed: I picked up The Two Towers DVD yesterday. I know, I know; we'll own the extended edition too. But not for another three months or so, and we only saw this one twice in the theatres.

More Something You Ought To Have Guessed: I will so be in attendance for the nine-hour LOTR extended marathon in theatres this December. Join me?

Overheard on the Radio News: Mars is "just 56 million miles away." It's all relative, you know?

I'm immersed in writing stories and reviews for the next three days. Then I'm in Toronto for Labour Day weekend, visiting my parents. Combined with my Anti-Social Phase (TM), this means you won't hear a lot from me. Unless, of course, something happens for which I must rant or rejoice.

The Studio

My husband has finally moved into his studio space, and while I'm grateful, I'm sure he's even more relieved. We got to unpack a couple of his boxes that hadn't been opened since our move six months ago, and lo and behold, in one of them I found a tiny box of my things too. It held copies of press releases I'd written, articles, things like that. In amongst them, though, I found an old file box of business cards left over from my F/SF bookselling days, and I opened them and sorted through them, just for kicks. I found some odd stuff.

Like William Gibson's fax number scribbled on a slip of paper.

And Cory Doctorow's Charles Atlas-style business card.

And Forrest J Ackerman's full-color photocard.

All in all, it was an interesting trip down memory lane. Besides, it was a terrific lesson on how-not-to-design-a-business-card. The majority of them were disastrous from a marketing point of view - no charisma whatsoever.

I'm thrilled, thrilled, thrilled that my husband is now officially Set Up in his artist space. I'm equally overjoyed that he's decided to spend at least an hour every other day working there to relax. I love being there too, so this might be an answer to those restless evenings were we can't settle down but have no real idea of what we want to do. I'll grab my laptop, he'll grab his sketchbook, and off we'll go.

Make no mistake - we know exactly how lucky we are.

Status: Alive

A couple of individuals have written inquiring as to my dead-or-alive status. Wow - I take a couple of days off and my public misses me. I feel all warm inside.

Status: Alive.

Detailed status: I burned my left thumb in the steam from a boiling kettle this morning. I'm such an idiot. Then I thought my tea would be too hot to drink and forgot about it. Nice to see that some things just don't change, isn't it.

Events of the past two days: Work, work, work.

Career update: Talked to that US publisher yesterday. They want me to write an editorial letter on two book proposals with my opinion on changes and improvements, and submit it tomorrow morning as a sort of test run. They also want (gulp) a press packet: a folder with a pretty CV, some writing samples, a one-page detailing my expertise (think an in-depth bio), and a photograph.

Freelance update: Work, work, work. My original source that went on hiatus at the beginning of the summer has revived, hurrah!

The Great Canadian Novel update: Touched up the penultimate chapter, and rewrote the last chapter to keep my protagonist where she was instead of sending her to Europe. Europe is definitely the end of the novel. Now that barrier has been removed, I feel much more optimistic. Next step: coming up with an outline for the three chapters between now and Europe. Writing without an outline to this point has been fun, discovering what was happening in my protagonist's life and all, but now I have to think about what's gone before and handle all my plot threads deftly. I think I've done a good job doing so on the fly (hmm - now that I think about it, my attitude concerning the unfolding of this novel has been very serial-like: no retreat, no revision, no regret!) but at the end I have to be cautious as well as inventive, or the whole thing will fall flat.

Story exercises I have been given which I have completed: Two.

Story exercises that I have been given which are incomplete: Three. (None exist in any sort of typed form. They're all in pencil notes in a notebook.)

Story exercises that I have been given which I haven't touched at all: One.

Plans for the next two days: Work, work, work.

So you've been warned: I'm likely to not be terribly communicative for the rest of the week. It's nothing personal. It has to do with making money to feed my cats and myself (oh, fine, yes, and buying books and new music which I haven't done in oh so long), and securing a glorious tailored-for-me-and-no-one-else career. I'm sure you understand.

They Still Want Me!

Hurrah! I'm coming at you from three inches lower than usual!

No, our apartment building didn't sink. My husband finally took three inches off the legs of my desk. This will, I hope, reduce shoulder strain, wrist strain, and back problems.

I freely admit that most people will find this work surface too low. I, however, am not most people. With a short torso, I usually find my shoulders hunched up in an effort to get my arms into a manageable position to work on the desk surface. Sure, I could raise the chair, but then my knees bump into the keyboard shelf, and my feet dangle, creating - yes - more back strain. For a few years I've been struggling to balance between the two issues, raising or lowering the chair just to get some short-term relief from the previous position.

I love my new desk.

And there was a message on my machine Friday from that US publishing company saying that they had a ton of news and updates for me, and they were hoping I'd like them and still feel like coming aboard the project.

Are they kidding? I spent the rest of the day chanting, "They still want me, they still want me!"

Fashion Police

To the woman who walked past me on her way to the specialty grocery store:

You may not ever wear a floral pattern with stripes. Not even if they're both small prints. Not even if they're both the same black-and-white scheme.

You may not. Verboten.

The end.

Domestic Upheaval

Well... I believe that the domestic upheaval has finally come to an end: the dust has settled, and all the scratches on the floor have been touched up with orange oil.

The original plans I had for today got tossed out the back door when the plumber showed up this morning to remove the radiators from our 1940s-era building. It was a two-step process: the plumber and our concierge had to move furniture with me so that the radiators were accessible, in order to cut the old pipes and unscrew them from the floors. Then I had to wait two hours for the scrap guys to come in with their dolly to remove the cast iron behemoths from where they lay scattered over my nice clean floors, one by one.

When it was all over, I surveyed the damage. Gaping holes in the walls where heat and time have eaten away the plaster and tar paper. Huge holes in the floor. Scratches along our lovely hardwood from stones in the dolly wheels and where they dragged the radiators to the dolly. Filthy footprints everywhere, and handprints to match.

Things have finally been set back to rights. I've swept up the dirt of countless past tenants from where it had been wedged behind the radiators (including rocks, balls, and a dog toy), washed the floors, wiped the walls, rearranged what furniture I could on my own. I found the cats in their creative hiding spots. (Did you know that the kittens have found a way to get into our box spring?) Then I had a shower to clean the grime off my hands and bare feet. Unfortunately, that's not the end of it: somewhere between now and October, electric baseboard heaters have to be installed.

The good news is that while I was caught at home, I wrote a short story. At least I used my time well.

Out of It

After only an hour of sleep last night, I've been a bit stunned all day - just not quite with it.

So I did what I used to do when I needed a boost - I moved furniture around.

No, not everything; just my desk. I turned it 90 degrees (that's a square for those with new natal chart knowledge) to the wall. It doesn't stick out into the dining room as far as I thought it would, and I'm quite pleased. Besides, with it exposed like this, I'll be less likely to let stuff pile up on it.

Oh, that's not the only thing I did today; I took a couple of hours and sorted through about ninety-eight pages of notes on the trad-vs-eclectic Craft book I've been working on. In the end, after it sorting it into about seven different files of related topics, I realised that I'm going to just sit down and start writing it one day.

Birthday Stuff

A couple of years ago, Skippy told me to be like the cork: sure, you get drowned by breaker waves, but you can just pop right back up again.

Fine. But you know, being a bloody cork means drown, gasp, drown, gasp...

Kind of like how I defined reincarnation during a recent study session before our priesthood exam: Lather, rinse, repeat.

Birthday summary: tea in bed. Phone call from my parents. Open gifts from parents. Watch cartoons. Go window shopping - window shopping because not one of our medieval stores had anything spectacular. I did get a Japanese bamboo roll pillow, though, and I am now an official Lush fan. That was my present from my husband: carte blanche in the Lush store. Mmm. Bath bombs, bubble bars, massage bars, soap, powder, face scrubs... my bathroom now smells like Lush, which is pretty darned all right in my book. Then sushi for dinner, where the staff gave me a piece of cheesecake for dessert. Anyone who knows me knows that cheesecake isn't my thing. They're always so kind, though, so I looked at my husband and said, "I'm going to eat some of this." It turned out not to be such a sacrifice: it was the lightest, non-cheesey cheesecake I've ever tasted, more creamy than anything else. Then we went home and had a bottle of my dad's amazing red pinot noir.

This morning, I woke up way too early, and wrote a short story before nine AM. I know; I think I must be sick, too. (Yes, Ceri, it's on its way...)

Hurrah! My husband is home! Damp, but home! No more weeding in the rain!

Raw Fish, Holly Cole...

Rain! Cool temperatures!

My husband asked me what I'd like to do on my birthday weekend, and I was rather depressed to discover that I couldn't think of a single thing other than eating copious amounts of raw fish. If only Holly Cole had been in town this weekend instead of last weekend...

Thank You

Oh, honestly, people - I'm frustrated, not on my deathbed.

But thanks go out to everyone who left comments, e-mailed, or called as soon as they got off-line and tied up my phone for two and a half hours. Heartfelt thanks. Ceri even called long-distance from her writing retreat in Lower Prospect.

I'd be even happier if it would rain, damn it - really rain, indicating a low pressure front coming through, to break this dreadful humidity. Maybe I'll head over to the secondhand bookstore around the corner this afternoon to look for the Dorothy Sayers books Ginger recommended for me - that ought to incite the heavens to hurl water at me, especially if I wear a white shirt.

Keeping things in perspective, I recently began to read Frida: A Biography of Frida Kahlo. And I thought I had problems with my back, and with mild chronic pain! Now I just occasionally feel guilty while I read it, knowing that in comparison, my health is far superior to what hers was.

I spent seven hours yesterday writing a 36 page take-home final exam (those who know will know), and to my stunned and utter incomprehension, I am still not done. It's maybe only 80% complete, but after yesterday, I need a day away from it.

Reset

Well, hasn’t this just been the worst twenty-four hours.

Migraines; vertigo as bad as I had it two summers ago; bad dreams where I cried so hard in anger and frustration that I woke up this morning with tears on my face; my right wrist swollen so badly that I can’t move it to write with a pen; the discovery that an e-mail of immense importance bounced back to me yesterday; and my computer has crashed not once, but twice this morning so far. I’m just waiting to see how the day gets even worse.

We won’t be going on the camping trip we’d been looking forward to, due to my current state of health as well as a variety of other reasons. On one hand, it’s probably a good thing; I can’t imagine the utter terror I’d feel if besieged by a migraine and severe vertigo in an unfamiliar environment. On the other hand, it was guilt-inducing because we’d promised lifts to a couple of people. Now that I’ve discovered that the e-mail of immense importance notifying people of this change in plans didn’t reach anyone yesterday, I am not only feeling incredibly angry (with no one or nothing to at which to direct my anger) but incredibly stressed because there’s nothing to do but get people down there, at least, although we can’t get them back.

I was looking forward to this, damn it. I was looking forward to seeing good friends there too.

I’ve been experiencing feelings of inadequacy in my work, as well. I can’t seem to do anything right, or anything write. I’ve re-read work and been turned off by most of it, especially the Great Canadian Novel. Ideas all seem like limp dead mice or tasteless dried-up apples. Nothing works.

I’m tired of pretending. I'm tired of convincing myself that I'm better, that I'm happy, that I can make something useful of myself. Now I'm just angry.

If I could only turn that into something else. Words. Thoughts. Something productive. But I'm sick of trying to change things into other things that they aren't.

How can I be burning out again? What can I be burning out from? Or did I never pull myself out of the original crash-and-burn, just pretending to myself that I was better?

Good Deed

When we got back from Angrignon Park last night (mosquito-bitten but content) we discovered a note on our door. The couple who owned the kitten got her back safe and sound. She had spent most of the day curled up on a pair of my husband's jeans, napping and purring. The man who came to pick her up said that there was something pretty special about her, and I have to agree.

So: a good deed. And I got to cuddle a tiny kitten again.

I finished HPOTP last night. Harry's not a kid any more; no sir. If/when they make this film, it will be phenomenal to watch. I'll have to read it again, but not for a week or so. To give myself a complete change of pace, I read Mort by Terry Pratchett. Next? Not sure; likely more academic stuff on Norse history and society.

Solstice and Kittens

I spent the day outside yesterday, from sunrise to welcome the Summer Solstice, to teaching my class outside, to a farewell picnic with good friends. It was glorious. I also received an early birthday present from Ceri, who's heading off to Halifax for two months: a lovely lap desk with a tilting top, pencil trays, and a basket for books and such on each side. It's the absolutely perfect height to rest my laptop on. I was so touched.

I woke up this morning around four AM, thinking I heard a cat in heat outside. I drowsed on and off for a couple of hours, hearing the cat, then fell asleep until a knock on our door just past eight woke me up. My husband answered it, and found our concierge with a tiny beige and grey mackerel kitten in his hands.

"This yours?" he asked. "It's been out in the hall for hours, crying."

When we told him no, he knocked on other doors to try to find where it belonged, but no one answered. He came back to ask for a bit of kitten food; he was going to put it in an empty room downstairs and lock it until he came back tonight, but I said, "Well, it's so young; why don't we keep it in the bedroom if you're not going to be home? We have an extra litter box, and bowls, and I'll be home all day so if someone sees your sign they can come knock right then. I'm sure they're frantic."

Well, after a stern warning that under no circumstances was I to fall in love with this kitten, my husband allowed her in. It's now been five hours, and no one's come to claim her. She's adorable. She must have slipped out when someone came home late, or left really early. She's fearless, and not upset at all. Mind you, if I'd been alone in a hallway for hours, crying, I'd be in love with whoever gave me water and pats too.

And I'm just over halfway through Order of the Phoenix. I can't help reading it; it's so smoothly written, and things lead from one to another... but I so want to make it last.

Bits and Pieces

Yesterday was good and bad for many reasons which I will not go into. I will summarise it all by mentioning the following highlights:

~ I work with the best gang of people any woman could work with. Anyone who gives me loonies to put into a parking meter so that I can keep hanging around on my day off, simply because I slept horribly and felt cranky but didn't want to be alone, is automatically nominated to demi-deity status in my world. Brenda, Tamu: you rock. And Dimitri, thanks for the tissues.

~ My husband finally got paid for the freelance work he did at Easter, which came right after I learned that my own little source of freelance income has indefinitely been put on hold, right on the verge of a nice new project to which I was looking forward to devoting ten to twenty hours a week. The gods taketh away, and the gods giveth.

~ I had chocolate mousse cake for dessert last night. Mmm.

~ And finally, at orchestra, I pulled off the Haydn with some sort of semi-capable style, and then proceeded to sight-read the Mozart with panache and 98% accuracy. Go me. For someone who hates Eine Kleine Nachtmusik and refuses to listen to it, I knew it pretty well. Then again, Mozart is so annoyingly perfect that I could have closed my eyes and played the cello line by prediction alone and still hit it dead on.

Looking at the writing I've been posting over at Owldaughter - Read, I've realised that I haven't written short fiction in about eight years. As I'll have more free time on my hands, I've decided to challenge myself to write one short story per week. I need to work on my ability to tell a story in 1,200 to 1,800 words alone. Besides, when I've finished a short story, it can be mailed off in submission somewhere, and maybe someday someone will even accept one.

At Tamu's direction, I'll also be working up a proposal for both my non-fiction work on alternative spirituality, as well as And By Many Other Names. I received a lecture on the necessity of selling oneself, a topic about which I've expressed my dismal and ineffectual flounderings before. She made it sound easier. Baby steps.

I see that I forgot to mention that I'm convinced the designs for the seagulls in Finding Nemo were lifted straight from Nick Park's brain. Consider it done.

Phrase of the day about which to chortle: The obligation to tell long stories is more terrible than you might imagine. Even Scheherazade might stumble. And she was a far better word whore than I. From Caitlin R. Kiernan, of course.

Summer Birthdays

When I was a child, I was thankful to have a summer birthday. I was shy, and didn’t have very many friends; the thought of being chased and given birthday bumps, or having a parent come in with cake and juice, the way others did, terrified me.

Now that I’m an adult (and I think I can safely use that word, since I’m past thirty), I have about a dozen close friends, and having a summer birthday is a pain. Why? Because my friends, being adults with jobs and families, now go on vacation on and around my birthday. My big thirtieth birthday picnic was cancelled because of this; last year fell apart and ended up being a smattering of people at the pub; and now, this year, the same problem is cropping up. Even though I deliberately decided to plan for an earlier date to avoid the problem, it doesn’t matter; over half the people I wanted to ask will be unavailable or elsewhere.

I give up.

We made Skippy choose another birthday, because his fell too close to a major holiday and was inevitably swallowed up or forgotten. I’m beginning to think I ought to do the same thing.

Bitter? No. I’m honestly pleased that I have so many close friends who mean this much to me. Frustrated? You’re damned right. I finally get to the point where I want to host a party for myself, and I’m thwarted.

I give up.

It's All About the Treats

My husband wrenched his back somehow, so his plans for the day fell apart. To cheer him up, I told him he could take me out to the West Island to dig through second-hand bookstores. He countered with getting home-made ice cream. It was a deal.

I didn't find any of the out-of-print books that I'm looking for - I'd rather find them around here than buy them second-hand over the Internet - but I did find three mysteries I've been reluctant to buy new that are on my to-read list. That plus the peanut butter-chocolate ice cream made it all worthwhile.

Jealous? Who, Me?

My parents are back from their trip to Italy, and when my mother called last night she sounded like she'd been roaming the pages of Janson's History of Art, pages 278 to 473 inclusive (in the third edition; YMMV depending on the edition you consult, of course). I'm extremely happy for them; it sounds like they enjoyed themselves immensely, but I am just a teensy bit jealous. It comes from being so well educated, I think. If I'd never learned anything about art or history or Western Culture, then I'd have no reason to be envious, would I?

I'll be interested to see the success rate of this dreaming true thing I've been experiencing on and off. Some events I'd like to see happen, such as the wedding of two friends at a particular time of year, or last night's dream of a film starring Tom Cruise and Carrie-Anne Moss. Then there are others which I'd rather not see happen, like being told by a book rep during the winter that Terry Pratchett has just died. I think I'd like to be completely wrong on that last one, thanks.

Today, I sit down with my NaNo novel and edit, edit, edit. This will be Edit No. 4, and, I think, the final edit before I write query letters and choose sample chapters to submit to an as-of-yet undetermined list of publishers. One of my cats has graciously consented to be in my presence this morning, so maybe today I'm not as cranky as I have been. Or perhaps she's just acting out of pity, and it's pure charity. Whatever her motivation, today will feature Maggie, laptop, peppermint tea, and lotus incense. And Mozart, whose music appears throughout the novel. (Yeah, I know; a CD tray full of Mozart should drive me crackers by about noon. I'll strike back with Tori Amos when I can't stand it any more.)

Amused

Dinner's being made, so I'm still noodling about on the Wondrous Wide World of Web.

In seeking an author web site I found a welcome page for a hosting service which included the following:

Disclaimer:

Almost all of these sites assume you, Gentle Reader, don't have a problem with one, more, or all of the following, and moreover that you are of a legal age, height, weight, state of mind, state of reason, or state of confusion to view this content in your community, city, town, village, borough, township, county, region, ZIP or Postal Code, state, province, area or city code, time zone, country, continent, hemisphere, planet, solar system, galaxy, or parallel dimension to view the content therein. Not all views expressed are those of Mike and Lorrie, and I'm quite certain that views expressed by some of the sites' administrators are not shared by others. Viva free speech!

Non-Christian religions:

Neither Lorrie nor Mike follow an Abrahamic faith. Few of their friends do either. If that bothers you, browse somewhere else. This means that sites hosted here are cheerfully pagan, and almost all are of a Teutonocentric bent. That means Germanic. That does emphatically not mean "racist prat." Just so we're clear.

Unusual spiritual practices:

Not only do we worship strange gods, but we wholly advocate doing odd things with them once you have Their attention. Magic, poring over quaint, dusty volumes of forgotten lore, several other things. Mind you, people who didn't bail after the first one probably aren't going to leave us here, but I thought you should know.

I like people who display healthy senses of humour. It's good for the soul.

Apparently NASA had a sense of humour at one point too, but the proof's been removed:

Told for the truth, guys. NASA actually has a document on what to do in case of a Viking Raid. Here at last is proof that NASA and the government does have a sense of humor after all! (Has now been moved from the original NASA site...updated as of 11/17/99) (Found on this list of barbarian literature, of all places. I'm looking for Diana Paxson links, okay?)

Withdrawing

We just got back from buying groceries, and for kicks my husband tossed a box of Sugar Crisp into the basket. We opened it when we got home for a quick nibble while we put the groceries away, and dear gods, it’s just the taste I remember from the isolated encounters I’ve had here and there in the past. How on earth to kids get away with eating this candy for breakfast? I’d ration it out as a treat, or dessert.

Although I had a wonderful class on Saturday discussing films, I’m still in that odd anti-social mood, complete with persistent headache. I’m not fit company for man or beast, as my cats have plainly shown me. The light hurt my eyes all weekend too, which was absolutely no help when it came to trying to read or sit down at the computer. This may or may not have something to do with removing and washing the front windows. The amount of filth that came off them was absolutely disgusting. I’m betting they haven’t been washed in well over two years. The light quality has certainly changed in the living room.

And in an effort to help strengthen my bad wrist, I picked up a 2 lb weight at Canadian Tire yesterday. I’ve been doing over and underhand curls with it while I read, and it feels great. My husband had to remind me to work the other wrist too, just to balance things out. We’ll see how things develop.

Yup. Doing some serious withdrawing, in case you hadn’t noticed. These are the highlights of my life.

Did I mention I woke up at 3.30 AM and decided to research Norse deities, since sleep was denied me? And that I received my new Medicare card in the mail?

Makes a Difference

Never underestimate the power a single lightbulb can have. No, that's not a pun; I'm serious. Yesterday I picked up two of those new-ish GE Reveal lightbulbs, the ones with a faint blue-violet tint to the glass. I put one in the light that hangs over my computer, and there's a world of difference. It's much more like natural light.

My next trip to the hardware store will involve the purchase of a club-pack of these things to put in every single socket in the apartment. I'm not kidding.

My husband made an official date with me to see Matrix Reloaded tomorrow after I teach. I anticipate much gleeful geeking out with colleagues next week, just as much geeking as X2 got. Well, maybe not; Matrix Reloaded doesn't have Hugh Jackman, after all. Keanu's just not in the same league, you know?

I've had a busy couple of days: renewing my health insurance card and my driver's license, doctor's appointments, grocery shopping, lunches and barbeques, and a full-blown Beltaine ritual that was a bit late but wonderful nonetheless. (Kudos to my husband for solo-leading a ritual for over twenty people for the very first time, and for giving me shivers when he read the Charge of the God.)

In various waiting rooms, I began and finished Marion Zimmer Bradley's The Forest House, which I hadn't read since it came out. I remember being disappointed with it at the time, and I can't understand why, now. Perhaps because I read it directly after I finished The Mists of Avalon, which is altogether a very different book.

We've finally constructed and arranged the various bits and pieces of furniture we picked up at Ikea this weekend (hot tip: if you have to go to Ikea, do it at 9 AM on a Saturday morning. There is no one there. No one. It's spooky.). We now have a pantry, and a cabinet under the bathroom sink, and a cupboard to store our towels. The best of all: we have a hanging iron rack for our pots and pans. I've always wanted one of these.

I still feel restless, and I can't sit at the computer for more than about fifteen minutes at a time, which rather limits the amount of work I can get done. If it were sunny out, I wonder if I would feel more focused, or just as unsettled.

Mothers' Day All Round

Today is my black and white cats' birthday! Yes, Roman and Maggie are twelve years old today. And if you think I didn't sing Happy Birthday to them, you're mistaken.

This was a weekend of feasting, and I still feel stuffed. We had sushi on Saturday night, and last night we went over to the South Shore and my father-in-law made his famous barbequed ribs for Mother's Day. There were suspiciously few bones among the ribs; there just seemed to be plenty of tender, juicy meat heaped on the platter. Not that I'm complaining.

My own mother, on the other hand, spent Mother's Day in Rome. My parents have finally taken a two-week trip over to Italy, as they've been wanting to do for a while now. The last e-mail my dad sent me before they left included an attachment of a photo he'd taken, of my mother reading my blog. So of course, I just had to post it:

Bits and Pieces

I woke up last night and my head was brimming with ideas for stories and novels. I marvelled and cheerfully went back to sleep, anticipating waking up the next morning to The First Day Of The Rest Of My Life Never Having To Dig For A Story Idea Again.

Of course, when I awoke, I remembered the part about my head brimming with ideas, but not the ideas themselves. I could have kicked something.

On Tara's website, she mentions developing a Life Mission Statement for herself. That idea (okay, that and all the delightfully funky little owlies) reached deep inside me and ripped something awake in a rather painful fashion. For the past year, I've been struggling to figure out why I've been unhappy, and what I want out of life that can/will bring contentment. Perhaps a mission statement is what I need. Nothing so structured as a five-year plan; goodness, no. Instead, I want a personal manifesto that inspires me.

So far, I know it will include the exististence of cats in my life, sharing company with my lovely god-daughter who brings tears to my eyes, music (both listening and making), feeling the sun on my face regularly, encouraging freckles, laughter, art (appreciation and perception), believing that I have something to share with the world at large, love on every single level I can think of, and a perpetually renewed joy in the sequencing of language in various ways.

Needs work, I know. And specifics. I have to fit warm bubble baths in there somewhere, too.

Wrist Problems

My right wrist has been inflamed for a couple of days, and it hurts when I type or use my mouse. I just finished editing a thirty-page document that was time-sensitive and a pleasure to edit, but I'm now pretty useless for most of the things I usually do, like typing, writing, and playing the cello.

Yesterday, I heard that a friend got a light tablet and stylus to use in place of a mouse, and it's an attractive thought. So's an ergonomic keyboard at this point. I'm using a rolled-up towel to rest my wrist on, but the mouse keeps bumping into it. After I post this I think I'll take a walk, which requires no wrist work at all.

I've been seized with the extremely odd desire to write verse lately. Not that I'm being inspired with poetry, I just want to be writing it. This is extremely frustrating.

I slept for ten hours last night. I think I'm officially back on track.

Restless

The past couple of days have been odd. I've been restless, moody, terribly social, terribly anti-social... I'm not quite sure what's going on, but I'd like it to settle down. I slept a grand total of two and a half hours last night, then had a staff meeting this morning, managed to completely forget my god-daughter's birthday family gathering this afternoon, arrived at said gathering with the hatchings of a migraine, left quietly two hours later, came home and hid under the covers for two hours of solid, blissful sleep. It got rid of the headache, but now I'm awake and my sleep schedule is even further off-kilter.

I'm now reading Virginia Woolf's diaries, and I'm incredibly gratified to learn that if she wrote between fifty and two hundred fifty words per day, she considered herself successful (well, as successful as someone that self-critical can feel; perhaps 'on-schedule' would be a better term to use). If I pull off a minimum of two thousand per day, then, I'm doing just fine. Mind you, I entertain absolutely no notions that I'm any sort of a Virginia Woolf. None whatsoever. So no one needs to get nervous when I'm around water.

Oakville Update

We had glorious weather all weekend in Oakville until a wonderful thunderstorm during Sunday dinner (mmm, rack of lamb). I saw my grandmother from the west coast, old family friends, and all in all enjoyed a lovely trip. I wish we could have spent another day or so with my parents, but both my husband and I have to work today.

I managed to get a thousand words or so written on Saturday afternoon, too. I'd been dithering about a chapter in the Great Canadian Novel, unsure about how to handle the next step (or, rather, to choose what the next step should be from a pool of four different events). I plunged in and finished the chapter, and even started the next one.

And then, I crashed. Why, you ask? I picked up a secondhand hardcover copy of Michale Cunningham's The Hours. When I read work like this, I wonder why I even bother. (Yes, yes, I know: different styles, all kinds to make a world, different tastes in readership, blah blah blah. I'm sharing. Be quiet.) I despair of ever becoming capable of painting word and thought, of arranging language to convey a depth of emotion with only a few words.

I've read scraps of Virginia Woolf's journals, and she too uses sparse language, and yet conveys something so much larger than what the words say. Is that what genius is? Everything I read of mine seems mawkish and heavy-handed (though not as heavy-handed as some of the published stuff I've read, thank all the gods), no longer as airy and bright as it seemed when I set it down. I've ordered a copy of Woolf's journal so I can read the whole thing, not to further depress myself, but to try to understand how it is that she manages to succeed at what she does, even in her own private notes.

When I moved I found a humour coloumn that I'd clipped from the English department newsletter during my BA. It's an "Ask Your Author Agony Column".

There are several witty samples of what various authors might have responded ("Get your archetypes straightened out," recommends Robertson Davies), but here's Virginia Woolf's imagined response:

Life's just a series of brief miracles. This comment was meant to be fun, but it says something important. Juxtaposing the words "just", "brief" and "miracle" creates a tension that Woolf's work displays as well. How can something be "just" a miracle? Is it a miracle because it's brief? Shouldn't miracles, by definition, be life-changing? Or is it our observation of the miracle and how we choose to be changed by it that defines it as brief or enduring? If they're brief, is it the knowledge that life is made up of miracles that keeps us going?

More people should see the miracles around them, however brief. And more people should remember that life is a series of miracles; we just have to find them.

College Lecture

My first ever seminar taught at CEGEP went terrifically well. I was blessed with forty attentive Champlain College students who made eye contact, smiled, and asked questions, some of whom even thanked me personally afterwards. I always forget how young CEGEP students are; they’re almost half my age (let’s not dwell on that for too long, shall we?).

The problem, of course, is trying to narrow down one’s sphere of knowledge to an hour and ten minutes of lecture. What do you leave in? What do you abandon? What concepts are important? How can you explain them simply enough that they will understand, but in enough detail that the depth of the concept isn’t lost? Do you have to present X other concepts first in order to make the final concept understandable?

I know I gave them a lot of information, but they all kept up with me. I mixed my personal experiences and choices in with technical stuff so that they’d have a balance of the two. All in all, I think I managed to prove to them that yes, there are still people out there who live their lives inspired by the same beliefs and principles held by the ancient Celts, which was the point of my guest lecture.

I’d love to do it again. Heck, I’d love to teach a full-semester course on alternative spirituality. I hope they enjoyed it as much as I did.

Spring Fever

The four-legs are tearing around like mad things this morning. Major spring/cabin fever, apparently. They're not quite making the turns in the kitchen and they're bashing into each other, which is rather amusing.

I'm out of it and dizzy today. So out of it, in fact, that I tried to reheat three slices of pizza in the oven for lunch, and baked them to a crisp. Convinced that I evidently shouldn't try to assemble anything to eat that required heat or sharp objects somewhere in the process of preparation, I scanned my fridge and my pantry without success. Then I saw the bowl of apples and decided to have one. The first bite convinced me that I had wanted an apple all along and the lack of culinary focus was in fact a godsend.

Go figure.

Yesterday Night Was: - The

- The first thunder/lightning storm of the year. Cool. Very, very cool. (Except when the power cut out for a second or two while my husband was watching the ongoing election coverage. Bad moment.)

- A turning point in Quebec politics as the Liberal party was voted in by a severe majority. Let's see: my in-laws' house just increased in value by $20,000; industry will begin to revive; investors will return. My one regret: we don't own property ourselves. Ah well.

- The last meeting of the Monday night class that I co-teach. There will be plenty of student meetings throughout the summer, and activities planned, but this was really the end of a serious commitment for everyone. Now I devote myself to my Saturday morning class, and the scattered lectures and workshops I will be teaching in the near future, such as the guest lecture I'm giving on modern Celtic Pagan worship at Champlain College this Thursday. I've spoken with the teacher, who sounds like a great guy, and I'm looking forward to it. I was a bit at sea about what exactly to focus on -- he teaches a humanities class of mythology -- but we worked out a basic hour of personal experience talk regarding how I worship, what I do, what I believe in, and so forth. It's a great opportunity, and promises to be quite the experience.

Exercise Your Civil Rights -- If You Can

I’ve been hearing terrible reports of people with no idea where they’re to vote today, stemming from an incomplete distribution of reminder cards with the address of their pertinent polling station. The only reason I know where to go is because I caught sight of a pile of plastic-covered cards tucked into the stack of flyers by the front door of our building. I always wonder if mix-ups like this, or the incredibly long time it took my husband and I to change our address on the voters’ list (and they still weren’t certain it would work) are deliberate. And I always wonder what percentage of the citizenship will actually make the effort to go vote. My personal opinion is that it’s a right and a responsibility – I mean, I live here, so I ought to at least pretend I have a say in how the place is run – and if you ignore it, then you really shouldn’t be allowed to complain when the people who end up in power start doing stupid things. Because, you know, they will.

New Clothes

For years I have purchased clothing based on an extremely outdated pragmatism. Buy them a bit big, then you can grow into them.

This was fine when I was a kid, when I was a teenager. As a teen and in my early twenties I was also much more comfortable wearing clothes that disguised my body slightly - call it a confidence thing if you like. Now that I'm pushing thirty-two, though, buying clothes that don't fit just doesn't work as well for me. (MLG's constant voluntary assurance that I'm a babe helps a lot, too.) I have long legs and a short torso, as well, so shopping for clothes means that 98% of the time, they won't fit me properly anyway. And since I (unintentionally) lost weight recently, all the clothes that were loose on me are now ridiculously baggy.

When I was looking for something to wear earlier this week, I snapped and saw red. Not a single pair of jeans fits me properly around the waist, which means they sag everywhere else, too. Damn it, it's spring, and I want to look good. I want to feel like I look good, and jeans that are several sizes too big just don't cut it.

So after work yesterday I took the metro up to Namur to check out the Le Chateau outlet, where they usually have decent clothing at decent prices.

Well, apart from the truly horrendous music, all their pants were thirty dollars or more. The music eventually chased me out with a headache, so I decided to walk along Jean-Talon to the Village des Valeurs instead. Who knows - maybe there will be something not-so-bad there, I thought, or maybe I'll pull off an amazing find.

Door number two it was. The prize?

I came out with two very sexy pairs of Levis jeans in perfect condition. And they cost me less than twenty dollars total. If I told you what size they are, you'd lynch me, so suffice it to say that they're about three sizes smaller than the jeans I've been wearing for the past four or five years.

Damn, I look good. And I'm thrifty, to boot.

Insurance Frustration

It had to happen. I should have known.

Today is the day that my husband's health benefits plan kicks in. Three months of employment (and paying into the plan of course) and congratulations, you now only have to pay a 20% deductible for prescription drugs and other fun stuff.

I've been holding on to a recent prescription slip for a week or so, waiting for this day. So after three hours of work at the computer this morning (aren't I good?) I put on my coat and off I went to the pharmacy, to fill my first month of prescription, hurrah!

I handed in the slip, along with my shiny new benefits card, and hung around waiting for my name to be called. Now, if the truth must be told, I was a bit nervous. I've had problems with benefit cards before. What if they didn't flip the switch or unflag the account or whatever it is that they do at the health insurance office? What if there's some kind of problem? No, no, I said to myself; stop creating things to worry about. You checked online yesterday, and everything was fine. Plus your husband verified with Human Resources at work to make sure everything would be operational as of April 8.

Well, the pharmacist called me over and said, "You claim has been refused."

Heart plummets into stomach. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it.

"Why?"

"They say you're not listed under this policy."

Sigh.

"We checked this yesterday. I'm on the plan."

She must have seen me gritting my teeth, because she said, "Well, we'll try again." She called the insurance people and talked to them for about five minutes before they discovered together that I'm the second person listed on the plan (duh - my husband is the first), so they had to type in a 02 somewhere instead of a 01. (I'd like to take this moment to point out that the 02 is plainly printed on my card. I know, because I looked when she gave it back to me.)

At this point I stopped listening as relief washed over me. Everything was going to be fine. I'd get my prescription and go home.

Except it wasn't fine. The pharmacist came back to me and said, "The insurance people tried to run the claim through while I was on the phone, but the network went down, so we can't do it right now. Can you come back later?"

Heck, why not. I'm having so much fun here that I can't wait to come back for more.

"I'll call you when their system is back up and we've completed the claim," she said. "I'll let you know the moment it's ready."

"Why not," I said, "I'm in the neighbourhood tonight anyway."

Then I took the bus to another pharmacy to pick up a parcel, and got flak from a supercilious postal worker because my slip said I could pick up my parcel after one o'clock, and it was twelve forty-five. (How was I supposed to know what time it was? I don't wear a watch, and there wasn't a clock anywhere around. All I knew was that I had left home a long time ago and spent much too long in a pharmacy in west NDG before trekking into Westmount for this damned parcel.)

He'd look much more attractive as a rock. Or a hatstand. He had that kind of personality.

It seems to be that kind of day. I can take great comfort in the three hours of work I did this morning, though. Yep. Something to be proud of.

And Why, Exactly, Should I do This For You?

There was a knock on my door yesterday morning at about eleven-thirty. I opened it to find a young woman with a dog standing in the hall.

"Hi," she said with a smile. "I used to live in this apartment. I don't suppose you have any mail for me?"

Now, we moved in thirty-eight days ago. The apartment was empty for a month before that for renovations.

"Er, no," I said. "We've been writing `Return to Sender - Moved- No Forwarding Address' on them all."

"Did you get any mail today?"

"Well, I'll put some shoes on and I'll check," I said. We went downstairs, and sure enough, there was a GST cheque for her in my mailbox.

"Oh, great!" she said. "Listen, if you get any more of may mail, can you just give it to Dale in apartment one? I'll stop by for it every once in a while. I'll be changing my address soon, I promise."

Thirty-eight days, plus a month. Now, I don't know about you, but when I move, I use that handy-dandy mail forwarding service which the Post Office provides for a nominal fee. The previous tenant's mail that we have rejected included several government forms, parcel pick-up slips, school documentation marked `Time-Sensitive', and personal letters.

I so do not understand people like this. Call me crazy, but I see it as my responsibility to ensure that I still receive my mail, to let the various organisations and offices know that I've moved. My husband says that some people don't want their mail to follow them, that it's an easy way out of responsibility for them. Granted, there have been times I've changed my phone number and deliberately not given certain people my new number, but that's a slightly different matter.

I just don't get it.

Emerging from the Anti-Social Chrysalis

I've been going through an avoid-the-phone phase, but today all three times when the phone rang, I picked it up. I managed to have an hour-long chat with Elim, and another hour-long chat with t! later on, and in between I spoke to my husband for a total of seven minutes. And then, tonight, my oldest friend came over for tea and a chat about art, which sort of evolved into a general talk about life and love and dreams. It's been a good day.

The only vaguely bad thing so far has been my discovery that I cannot burn ten-inch tapers on the lower shelf of our new mantel. At least, not until they've been reduced to seven-inch tapers by being burned somewhere else first. I've covered the smell of barely-scorched paint by burning frankincense resin. Otherwise, the candles look lovely in front of the huge mirror (which I had to polish again today - how do so many fingerprints end up on it?), which reflects the candleflames beautifully, creating a lovely glow in the living room.

I spent today unpacking the fragile things I own, like my irreplaceable signed Royal Doulton Coalport figures, our masks, and the tiny also-irreplaceable collectibles passed on to me throughout my life. We now have things hanging on the walls of the bedroom, so it doesn't feel so sterile any more, which is a relief. We're almost there; it's almost home.

PotPourri

Apparently my delight at the rapid vanishment of snow and the onset of spring was premature. We're supposed to get tons of snow this weekend.

(I have two degrees. If I say 'vanishment' is a word, it's a word. Okay?)

I've had a couple of queries regarding my recent decrease in posting. Apart from Blogger publishing then munching that post on the debate and the challenge my husband and I faced in attempting to correct our info on the electoral list, Blogger apparently didn't publish my April 1 posts. How... amusing. Ahem.

Otherwise, I've been writing all week on my laptop, which means I'm not working on my desk computer, which is the one that's connected to the Wide World of Web. And yes, the writing's going just fine, thanks for asking. I've now finished the second (and final) bonus chapter of my NaNo novel, which needed a couple of plot points tied up. All in all, I've pulled off 4, 758 words this week so far, in that bonus chapter and the new chapter of the Great Canadian Novel.

Now, if the sun would just come out, things would seem even cheerier. I'm surrounded by that dull brown light that means precipitation is on the way, and I've heard reports varying from fifteen to twenty centimeters of That White Stuff headed our way.

I just want it to be over. Please?

On the Joy of List-Making

I love making to-do lists just for the fun of crossing things off:

- correct student exams
- correct homework assignments
- make dinner
- write reference letter to university for student
- complete a freelance project
- write 2,000 words

Yes, indeed. Satisying goal-attainment at its best. What I've done today more than makes up for my naps and reading mystery novels all week.

More Moving Madness

More updates for people who believe that we're dead:

Yes, we now have a phone, but our electricity keeps popping on and off because they're rewiring the building. I really don't feel confident about turning the computer on when I can't predict when the power will next vanish. So, infrequent blogging, even less frequent e-mail.

I went to the doctor yesterday, and I have been officially diagnosed with an infection of the respiratory tract following a nasty bout of the flu. I'm on antibiotics. So, everyone who kept nagging me to go see the doctor can now stop. (It's okay, I know that you were doing it because you love me.) I even made a follow-up appointment for next Friday. Aren't I good? (And now poorer as well. Forty-three dollars for a five-day run of antibiotics? This is one of the reasons why I don't go to the doctor that frequently - I can't afford it.)

Today I tackle the office area, where the last hold-out of boxes looms. I'm afraid I'm going to have to throw out a lot of sewing stuff - large scraps, old material, etc - and just keep the storage Tupperware of necessities. I hate throwing scraps out. Granted, I haven't used most of them in three years, but still... it's the loss of potential that I feel most keenly when I have to do something like this.

Autumnal Update

Update:

1. I'm out of bed at last. Yes, I spent the last three or four days sick under the covers, using up Kleenex and copious amounts of cough drops, and still not being able to sleep or even breathe with any degree of success. Off and on fever, eternal blinding headache. This is the frst time in years that I've been able to listen to my body and stay in bed during one of these episodes. Much easier to deal with than dragging oneself around a job environment, infecting others, and generally suffering longer as a result.

2. Packing proceeds apace. There have even been a couple of carloads of boxes taken over to the new place already. Today, I have trusty friends Tal and Tass coming over to help. I still haven't decided if this was a good idea (i.e. we'll get lots done), or a bad idea (i.e. we'll have way too much fun and by the end of the day it will be, Boxes? What boxes?).

3. Just so we're straight on this, I do not in the least resent the fact that my mother is taking a well-deserved vacation with her sister in the Dominican Republic. It's just that I'm here, packing, with tons of snow outside, and she's reading on a beach. I wish I was with her. Impractical, of course; I mean, I was actually delighted that Montreal got a Real Snowfall in 2003, and with my lack of appetite the scrumptious vacation food would be wasted on me, and flying would have been excrutiating. It's the irony of it.

4. While I was stuck in bed yesterday and lucid enough to connect thoughts, I wrote 1,888 words of the Great Canadian Novel. I didn't hit my 2K daily goal, but it was the first time I'd written in about four days, and I was pleased. Any words are better than no words, I always say.

Prepare for irregular postings and updates, as I shift into SuperPacking mode and place the remaining 75% of my home into boxes over the next three days. Then there's that move thing, and the set-up of it all at the other end...

The final game of the Scott Tournament of Hearts went into an extra end yesterday afternoon. Team Canada won for the third year in a row. You didn't get exciting updates end-by-end this year because it was a Sunday, and I've ruled that I will not sit down at the computer over the weekend, not even to check my e-mail, because I work on it all week. I think it's a good rule. It helps me feel more relaxed, which is rapidly becoming perhaps the most important goal in my life at the moment.

I've also been drop-dead sick, which doesn't help at all. It started Thursday afternoon - the fever, the golf-ball feeling in the throat, the blinding headache that just won't go away no matter how many headache candies you throw at it. I had to cancel a dinner with Ceri, which we'd both been looking forward to. Friday and Saturday weren't much better. Fortunately, my students were remarkably understanding regarding my lack of energy and focus.

What frustrates the hell out of me is that we're moving this Saturday, so the original plan was for me to be in a packing frenzy all this week. The problem? I can't stand up for too long without falling over, let alone do the reaching-up-and-placing-in-box motion of packing. I tried last night while my husband was chipping away the net of snow and ice trapping our car out in the winter wonderland called Montreal. It was a mistake.

I hate feeling so damned helpless. I hate it at the best of times, but at a time like this, it's even worse. So I'm cranky as well, which doesn't improve matter at all.

The final twist of the screw: My mother is is the Dominican Republic, soaking up sand and sun. Grrr.

Semi-Random Neural Firings

1. We're moving March 1. Yay us! Big, bright, mock fireplace, built-in china cabinet in the dining room with leaded glass doors, and a claw-foot bathtub. I'm in heaven. And after only a couple of hiccoughs, it's ours. We sign the lease tonight. Woo!

2. It sucks to be stuck in the middle of a family power struggle. Especially when it's somebody elses' family, no relation to you whatsoever, and when you're (a) a pawn, and (b) a casualty.

3. I appear to be officially hibernating. I'm so tired of winter. All I can manage to do these days is curl up under the afghan with a pile of cats, and space out.

4. Sleep? What is sleep? We do not understand the concept of sleep.

5. Food is hard to think about, let alone swallow. Tums are my new best friend. Yay, minty Tums! Rich in calcium, too. I seem to remember reading something recently about Tums being bad for you in large quantities, but one a day is not going to kill me. Anything that settles my eternally nauseous stomach must have possess some intrinsic good.

6. Thirty-one days till spring!

Why I Teach

Every once in a while, I'm reminded of why I choose to teach.

Last night, for example, was the first of a two-part workshop. In complete contrast to the last time I led it, this group was dynamic, positive, and communicative, as opposed to the last bunch. All in all, it was a terrific evening - and we get to do it again next Thursday. Woo-hoo!

More proof that teaching can be rewarding: the students in my Monday night class secretly all got together and bought us the huge 6'x4' whiteboard that we had been planning to invest in to replace the tiny 3'x2' board we've been using in class. Now, that's special.

These Dreams

I dreamed this morning that I pulled out the sleeping bags we took on our camping trip to Pennsylvania last summer, and inside I saw something moving that looked like a little stuffed animal. I unrolled the sleeping bag and found three cats: a full-grown cat, a kitten approximately Nix's age, and a tiny, tiny kitten about the size of a mouse, with black paws and gingery fur.

"More cats!" I said. "And a tiny foxy cat!"

Evidently my mind was either (a) remembering our return from Pennsylvania to discover Scarlet's temporary feline boarder giving birth to kittens, or (b) afraid that I haven't cleaned out my camping gear correctly. Or both.

I haven't been sleeping well. Maybe that's all it is.

Neener, Neener

I neglected to mention that my awesome-cool husband bought me a Ravenclaw house mug yesterday.

Mine! Mine! Muah-hah-hah-hah!

(The husband, and the mug. Neener, neener!)

Clothes Swapping

Here I am, back in the land of the living after sleeping a total of sixteen hours yesterday and struggling through a low-grade fever. I'm still not in top form, but it's nice to be able to get out of bed and perambulate, y'know?

In fact, I got dressed at noon and wandered into the kitchen to heat up some soup.

"Nice pants," said my husband. "I haven't seen those before."

"I got them from Ceri," I said. "They don't fit her any more."

He looked slightly startled. I'm not sure why; maybe it was a new-ish concept to him. It's a girl thing, I guess, to swap clothes if you don't use them any more. Whatever. I like these pants. They're comfy. And being the height that I am, low-slung hip-riding pants designed for an "average person" (as if there is any such thing) means that the waistband actually sits at waist height on me, so I'm doubly happy. (By extension, of course, it means an "average" regular fit chafes my rib-cage. I'm sort of glad the low-slung trend is still around so I can proceed to take advantage of it.)

Who decides what "average" is, anyway? Taking two extremes and making a pair of pants to fit a mythical person in-between the two simply means that the clothes fit no one.

Evidently I'm still too out of it to function in the real world. I think I'll go back to bed.

Back on Track

Ahem.

I would like to announce that my husband has just been contacted to start his old job in animation, as of eight o'clock tomorrow morning, at approximately the same pay he was receiving when he was laid off eighteen months ago.

We'd like to thank everyone who was supportive and understanding and helped us along, and we know that all of you will be as crazy with glee as we are right now. So I just wanted to let you all know before we stepped out for a celebratory luncheon.

Christmas With the Parents

Well, we woke up on Christmas morning to over ten centimeters of snow, so I feel right at home. The drive from Montreal to Toronto was surprisingly good, which should have alerted us right off the bat that a bad storm was looming. (The drive was made infinitely more exciting by four or five unmarked mix tapes donated by Tass, including a seasonal compilation marked only “Here I am… Rock Me Like A Candy Cane”, which featured the inimitable juxtaposition of the thrash metal rendition of Silent Night with the innocent Christmas Scat from The Muppet Christmas Carol.) After a dull brown December, though, seeing drifts of white everywhere on Christmas morning is rather aesthetically pleasing. The Weather Channel assures us that the 8°C on Monday and Tuesday will take care of things, much to the grim pleasure of the Torontonians.

I love Christmas with my family; there’s always what amounts to a library under the tree, hidden by pretty paper and sparkly ribbon. The tree this year is a surprisingly effective six foot tall fig tree, wrapped with a single strand of white fairy lights, since their seven-month-old Maine Coon Cat is still at the shiny-things stage. (Despite this clever attempt to protect all things Christmas-y, he tried to climb the fig on Christmas morning, because he could see his new foam rubber ball nestled in the leaves.) As for what kind of library was under said tree, my parents each received three or four books, and this year my husband tore the wrapping off The Art of The Fellowship of the Ring, the hardcover volume of developmental art that he discovered in a bookshop not long ago, which kept him busy for well over an hour. I received both books written on the fiftieth anniversary of the Stratford Festival that I had wanted, as well as the recently released Glenn Gould: A Life in Pictures and the new Anne Rice in hardcover, to offset all of that high-brow Canadian culture. Plenty of chocolate and a new polar fleece dressing gown rounded out my major gains. I’m set for the rest of the winter, now.

The snow was still flying out there when we went to bed, and weatherpersons were predicting a final day’s total accumulation of around twenty-five centimeters. I’m glad; there’s something just odd about a Christmas with no snow. Oh, sure, I’ve had my share of snowstorms in Montreal this fall, throughout November and the early part of December, but I don’t think I could ever live somewhere where it doesn’t actually snow at Christmas. I know, I know, there will be plenty of the stuff throughout January and February. I will be thoroughly sick of it by the time March rolls around. Just think, though, about the quality of light that snow creates. One of the reasons November is usually so dull is because it’s overcast and the bright green of the leaves and grass has faded through rusts to browns. The overall effect is rather depressing. As soon as it snows, though, the light is brighter, refracting through millions of individual snowflakes, bouncing around and creating a warmer, clearer glow.

We still have to brush it off cars, and wade through it to get to the bus stop, and jam hats down over our hair to protect our ears from blowing ice and wind. I know. Overall, though, it’s not so bad. It’s the dampness that creeps into your bones and makes you miserable. There’s a difference, after all. If it would just snow for a week leading up to Christmas, then stop, I’d be happy...

Alcohol, The Ultimate Cure

Woo!

Just back from the office Yule party. If I'd known that red wine would make me feel this good, I'd have started drinking it at eleven o'clock this morning when I started feeling really ill.

Seriously, though - my short Christmas Special Return to Retail - For A Limited Time Only! - was made a lot easier by my stellar boss and coworkers. (Okay, the easy-going clients were a significant factor as well. No one was freaking out this Christmas, which was good to see. I was worried; after all, part of the reason I burned out after eleven years of retail had to do with the needy clients, who were in remarkable scarcity this past week, thank goodness.) Tonight's party, spent in the company of my colleagues, was incredibly enjoyable, even taking my rebellious stomach into account. My only regret is that I didn't dare eat anything for fear it wouldn't stay down; the buffet looked amazing, especially the desserts. Denied the solid food, I started off by drinking 7-Up, and flung caution to the wind after my second glass. If I was going to be sick anyway, I might as well choose to be sick in style. Oddly enough, the wine seems to have settled my stomach. It has also, however, gone right to my head, since I've had nothing to eat today.

Oh, well. Might as well enjoy it while it lasts.

Why, It's the Colour of magic, Of Course

I am wearing octarine nail polish.

Octarine, for those unacquainted with Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series of novels, is the colour of magic. It’s kind of a greenish shade of purple, and this particular example has touches of metallic silver, and every once in a while a flash of a pale brown. A bunny-like co-worker had received a bottle as a fun gift, and she shared it with me last night on break.

So, my nails are the colour of magic. How cool is that?

The coolness is matched only by Ceri’s Yule gift: a pair of Harry Potter non-slip socks in blue and gold, the Ravenclaw house colours. Toe socks, even. My first pair. Very awkward, and takes some getting used to. But fun.

Life should be this magical all the time. It is, I know, but I think what I mean has more to do with the playful aspect of magical. I need to work on the play part of “plays well with others”. I work well, I interact well, but the play part, however… I think the last couple of years have really fused the play setting in my brain, rendering it an unrecognisable lump of unmoving mechanism.

Project 2003: Learning how to have fun again.

These Dreams

Ugh. Osteo at 6.30 this morning. Working backwards, this means I got up at 5.30, after a night of not-so-good sleeping.

In between being awake last night, I had the strangest dream.

It began with a small gathering to play word games, with my husband making up a challenge involving a word scramble of over forty words. (This is odd right from the start.) For some reason, this game had to be played at dawn. Ceri and I didn’t manage to work it out; Rob did. With no problems at all; just tossed the answer off. He was distracted and bitter, though, and something was terribly wrong.

I think I woke up a bit at this point, because I remember thinking that my husband (dear soul) is an unlikely sort to develop a word puzzle as extensive as the one he produced in the dream. The second part of the dream is disjointed enough that it feels inspired by the first, but not necessarily a continuation.

Rob asked Ceri to do a Tarot reading for him, and they went off somewhere. A bunch of us decided to go out for breakfast, and we saw Rob and Ceri at another table, so we asked our server to arrange for a larger table.

Here’s where it starts to get even more strange. Somehow I was still in puzzle/problem solving mode, so like an amateur detective I tracked down a tiny hidey-hole, and opened an inch-by-inch square in a wall, and dug with a single finger through hardened insulating foam to find a tiny key, which I withdrew and went right to an old white wood filing cabinet/night table thing (how do you know these things in dreams?), dug through more foam to find a tiny padlock, and unlocked it. Inside the drawers, under old shredded paper, were many thin envelopes of money – used envelopes, as in the kind of institutional envelopes in which you receive your monthly statements. The money was in large denomination bills, all used… none of this Hollywood stacks-o-new-cash thing. It looked like it was someone’s life savings, tucked away. In the lowest drawer there were floppy binders with more word games that I knew would lead to more money.

And it was all meant for Rob. I knew that, somehow.

I had someone call him over, and I gave it to him – envelopes, binders with more word games, everything. He was stunned to the core.

And you know, even with all the horrendous financial difficulty I’ve been in lately, I was happy to hand it to him. It was his. It never even crossed my mind that we could use it.

So, what does this mean? Probably something saccharine like I care about my friends’ welfare even when I’m in a bad position. Or maybe that I’m hoping someone would do the same for me – just hand me envelopes and envelopes of money.

Or maybe it’s all about the word games, although I can’t think why; I lose patience with puzzles very quickly.

Eh. Whatever.

Salon des Metiers d'Art

Annika, Ceri and I went to the Salon des metiers d'art last night. Row upon row upon row of stuff: glass work, woolens, leatherwork, woodwork, candles, soaps, jewelry, sculpture, wall art, pottery. Nice vendors. Aggressive vendors. Shy vendors. It reminded me of the trade shows I've gone to, only more expensive.

It's just too big. Annika and I burned out three-quarters of the way through and had to stop, fried and brain-dead. Ceri was still rarin' to go.

I think it's an age thing. Five and half years ago, I could game till four in the morning, and then get up and go to work for ten, and after work go downtown for a graduate class at night and not get home until quarter to midnight. Now, I'm regularly in bed at ten-thirty at night.

Poor Ceri. Out at the biggest, fanciest craft show in town, with two thirty-one year olds, artistically inclined and appreciative of the show in general, but betrayed by their decrepit bodies and need for sleep...

A Thrill A Minute

I have such an exciting life.

We went grocery shopping this morning at the new Loblaws in the neighbourhood. We took a tour through it before, a couple of weeks ago when it opened, but it was extremely crowded and we didn't get a sense of much other than it was huge and had lots of food on the shelves. This morning (who goes grocery shopping at nine AM on a Friday? - except us, apparently) it was nice and empty, and we got a much better look at it. Apparently I have no life, because it was much too enjoyable. Exploring a new grocery store shouldn’t be this thrilling.

Finding a bag of half a dozen chicken legs for under two dollars shouldn’t be that exciting either. Sigh.

Neither should putting up a shelf in the kitchen so that I can move my teapot and basket of tea off the counter.

The second half of the two-part workshop I gave went rather well last night, to my relief. The last week of teaching has been horrible all around; let’s hope this signals a change for the better. I know everyone’s been tense, and as the holiday season approaches tension will only increase, but perhaps with a little more awareness of everyone’s limits, we can all get along, and survive until the end of December.

My back is better, thanks to an emergency trip to an athletic therapist while my osteopath is on vacation… just in time for the pain in my right wrist to flare up. Honestly, it feels like a conspiracy. This wrist pain was triggered by nothing I can think of, since it began to ache at Ceri’s birthday celebration on Wednesday night, and has proceeded to get more and more painful until I’m at the point where I can’t carry things in my hand, or open doors with it. My husband keeps telling me to stretch it, which hurts, so I resist doing it. When I do stretch, though, at least I gain mobility, and lessen the overall ache. I can type, oddly enough, if I make sure I don’t throw my hand too severely to the right to hit number keys or make too abrupt a mouse movement. Being able to type is a good thing since I have a half-complete newsletter to finish today. I wanted to get a new article done, too.

Stuart McLean tonight! Hurrah!

Happy Ceri-day!

Happy birthday, Ceri, only one day late! (Although I think I can be excused for the lateness of the blog entry, seeing how I was with her in person for most of the day, yesterday...)

Stellar proof of Ceri's generosity: she gave my husband and I tickets to go see Stuart McLean tomorrow night. On her own birthday, she gave these plums to us.

She rocks.

And she now has ass-kicking boots. Like a combination of something space-age, and something out of The Matrix. Fear her.

I have new glasses!

I can see!

It is truly amazing how a small change in prescription can make such a huge difference. I put them on, and when I stood up I wobbled a bit. I have to get used to a whole new depth-perception thing now. And my computer screen is so clear!

I ended up with amber wire frames from the children’s section. It was a toss-up between these ones and a slightly larger, darker pair of frames. I love these ones, but I’ve been so fixed on black for the past year or so that I was truly torn. I spent about twenty minutes putting these ones on, taking them off, putting the black pair on… they were really tied for first place. I would have chosen by price, except there was a difference of only twenty dollars, so that really didn’t help much. I ended up choosing these ones because they were a bit less harsh. But they’re the perfect shape, they’re nice and light, and they feel fantastic! Plus I got a nifty new hard glasses case with them.

So, now I just have to remember to put them on when I get up, and take them off when I go to bed (which, yes, is often a problem because over the day I get used to wearing them and I forget that I have them on; go ahead, laugh at me).

PotPourri

So the bedroom’s now a pale cream colour, and the furniture has been rearranged to create a nicer feel. We like it.

There’s also about a foot of snow out there, which means that my husband is home today, and, coincidentally, snow tires must be put on the car. I just love it when a plan comes together like this. I think Ikea is in our future, too. We need a new stick-and-board shelf to put next to the fireplace for videos and DVDs so we can use the existing stick-and-board shelves for, er, books.

And… this morning when I downloaded my e-mail, I was offered a section editor position on the staff of a new entertainment magazine slated to debut next spring. Paid.

Blink, blink.

And it isn’t even eight-thirty yet.

Good News, Good News, and Bad News

Good news, good news, and bad news.

Good news: I am no longer near-sighted in my left eye! Woo-hoo!

Good news: I have a new prescription that will ease the fatigue I get working with paper, print, and computer screens! Woo-hoo!

Bad news: I need new glasses.

Yes, I could just replace the lenses in my current frames, and I intend to do it. However, I want another pair as well, since I’ve developed a bad habit of taking off my glasses and leaving them next to the computer, which does me no good at all if I’m out watching a movie or something. Today, I discovered that I had evidently blocked the horror that was shopping for new frames two and a half years ago out of my memory. I have a vision: thin black wire-rim frames in a narrow rectangular shape. Does anyone make something even remotely close to this vision? Yes. Sort of. But never, it seems, in a size that fits me. I’m small, okay? I wear small sizes. I know damn well the rest of the world is big, so something labelled “average” actually translates as “too big” in my world. I hate, hate, hate shopping for frames. It’s as bad as shopping for new bras. I went to four different shops in two different malls, and nowhere did I see frames that leaped out at me and said, “I’m perfect!”. Or even, “I’d be bearable if I wasn’t a size 10.”

Frames are so expensive! Dear gods! A hundred dollars for the lenses, at least one-fifty for the frames – ouch! I refused to even try on any frame that was priced at over $170. That’s sheer insanity. Even so, I have to wait for my next EI cheque to arrive, and then hope that when I go back to the first Lenscrafters I went to, they still have the frames I hated least of all, in a size that can be adjusted down to fit me. (And yes, I even tried the children’s section. Poor kids all have to choose from round and round-ish frames. Round looks horrible on me.)

I need to wear these for “any precision work that will be undertaken for any period of time”, the optometrist says. Which for me means pretty much everything except making tea or eating. Writing, working, reading, TV or movie watching, sewing… I just need to get into the habit of putting them on in the morning, and remembering to take them off again at night (which, yes, I’ve been forgetting to do, growing so accustomed to wearing them for computer work as I have been, which results in putting my cheek on the pillow and jamming the frames into the side of my nose). Both eyes, I was informed, are astigmatic, so glasses are just an easier solution than contacts, especially since I technically don’t need to have some sort of vision correction on full-time. Yeah, right; live my life for two days and then tell me that my everyday activities aren’t “precision activities”.

Every One of Us

Scott and MLG bring you The AlphaGeeks, an essential part of this well-balanced lifestyle.

Because deep inside, we are all geeks. Every one of us.

Evil Afoot

Yesterday, quite simply, sucked.

Oh, the day was horrid. Evil was afoot in my life. Things went from bad to worse.

I did not blog, I did not write; I did not practice. I did, however, buy funky new shoes.

I shall not depress you all, however, with gloomy details. Instead, rejoice, for today was a wondrous day!

Highlights include an hour and a half of brilliant cello, where I spiked that irritating Handel quite nicely, thank you very much; a terrific wrap sandwich made with thick slices of ham roast and Monterey Jack cheese, toasted under the broiler; leaps and bounds of progress on freelance work; and a satisfying few thousand words added to my novel count.

A rest is as good as a change. Voila. I am renewed.

And I have new funky shoes. Go me!

Remembrance Day

Ceri and I took in the Remembrance Day ceremonies this morning at Place du Canada, and I saw a schoolgirl pass out in front of us. I am quite ashamed to say that the first thing that ran through my head was, "Would my NaNo protagonist pass out at a Remembrance Day ceremony?" The second thing, of course, was, "Is she okay?" Looked like her teacher had it all under control, and I know the last thing I would have wanted if I were fourteen was to have a bunch of strangers crowding around me. It was well-handled.

I was stunned by the reports of anti-war graffiti on the cenotaph, though. It had been cleaned off by the time we arrived, but I saw some on the park benches nearby. Defacing public property on the day the country commemorates the senseless deaths of our citizens in unwanted battle - great way make a point, whoever you were, and to encourage us to admire your skulking ways and your whiny protest. No, war isn't the solution. I agree with you there. But attacking the spirits of hundreds of veterans who risked ther lives in confrontations beyond what most of us can envision - that's low. Your ways do not justify your means.

Sorry. Rant over. Stuff like this just sets my teeth on edge. You honour your forebears for the courage to stick to their beliefs, whether you agree with them or not.

PotPourri

Calloo, callay! I have a new monitor! Yes, hard on the heels of discussing the eventuality of my father purchasing a new computer, I visited a friend last night, mentioned the need to have a new eye exam and how monitors were bothering my vision, and walked away with a new monitor. (He had two. And he says he was planning to buy another one this week anyway.)

Ceri thinks that I've drafted my cats to write my novel while I sleep (little does she know that sleep is a rare luxury in my life these days). MLG posted this URL in a comment, and I just had to share it with you:

PawSense, the software utility that catproofs your computer.

From the web page:

When cats walk or climb on your keyboard, they can enter random commands and data, damage your files, and even crash your computer. This can happen whether you are near the computer or have suddenly been called away from it.

PawSense is a software utility that helps protect your computer from cats. It quickly detects and blocks cat typing, and also helps train your cat to stay off the computer keyboard.

Every time your computer boots up, PawSense will automatically start up in the background to watch over your computer system. Even while you use your other software, PawSense constantly monitors keyboard activity. PawSense analyzes keypress timings and combinations to distinguish cat typing from human typing. PawSense normally recognizes a cat on the keyboard within one or two pawsteps.

In my experience, one or two pawsteps have already done damage that will take at least one to three minutes to undo.

The most priceless bit was the warning screen they've developed, which announces CAT-LIKE TYPING DETECTED, locks down the system, and requires authorization to un-lock it so you can keep typing.

Yep. Good thing these people developed this software instead of, oh, I don't know, using a keyboard shelf under their desk or something. Yes, indeedy. Where would we be without them? Overrun by illegible cat novels, that's where.

Kitten Antics

Oh, dear gods.

She drinks tea, too.

I have a brand-new wide-mouthed mug with herbs all over it. It fits kitten heads quite nicely, apparently. Kitten heads attached to bodies which evidently like the taste of lukewarm Twinings Lady Grey.

Enough, you cat. Shoo with you. You are distracting me (a) from my freelance work that pays for your kibble, and (b) from my novel.

Go play with your Auntie Maggie, or chase Roman's tail, or something.

Kitten Sabotages NaNo Work, Author Dies of Cuteness - Film at Eleven

I'm having a bit of difficulty typing this morning, because there's a kitten sitting in front of my monitor.

Yes, she has discovered the computer. At first, she just wanted to sit on my lap and purr adoringly. Being with her human was enough. Then, she wanted to see what all the clicks were about. Keyboard; okay. Then, ah then, she happened to look up as I moved my mouse across the screen, and it was love at first sight. Now she climbs from my lap over the keyboard (adding Xs and Ks and the odd Q, deleting other stuff, pulling up a couple of screens I've never seen before in my browser) and sits right in front of the monitor, watch my pointer as I navigate, or my whirling propellor "working" icon.

Okay, she's moved to the stack of NaNo reference book I have piled next to the monitor. Gads, she's cute. This is teeth-rotting cuteness. You're lucky I don't have a digital camera, or it would be, "here's my kitten being cute", and "here's my kitten being painfully adorable". (Please don't knock the books over, darling, or you will plummet from cute to gaspingly laughable, and I'm drinking tea, here. That dictionary balanced on the very top may look solid, but it has two mass-market paperbacks underneath it.) She's managed to lie down so that she can look down and crane her head around the edge of the monitor and watch the words appear on the screen.

Gah. Who needs honey in their tea when they have a kitten?

I'm still working on the seasonal gift list my parents asked me for a couple of weeks ago. I'm terrible at brainstorming a list of stuff I want. Evidently I shall have to take an afternoon and wander through a large bookstore and make notes of what strikes my fancy, and then do the same at a music store. Ikea gift cetificates are always good too, I suppose; inevitably I end up needing at least one more bookshelf per year.

I'm having dinner with Ceri, Marc, and Annika tonight (anyone dares to make a Marc's Angels joke and they're toast)... maybe I'll go downtown a little early and do some browsing. All in the name of finishing these gift lists, of course.

Rescued

I would like to take this opportunity to state that I am fully aware that I am surrounded by men who flock to my rescue each time I am in any sort of need, and that I appreciate it from the bottom of my heart.

MLG, you're a hero for coming up with that adapter so quickly. My eternal thanks. If it hadn't suddenly become winter overnight, there would be a short skirt in the near future for you. Let's put it on credit to be cashed in next spring, shall we?

TV Countdown and Feeling Nesty

Well! Time alone and then a salmon filet with a huge bowl of mussels while watching the last third of Shakespeare in Love can do wonders for the soul.

Today is the live performance of The True Story of Dracula at a Kingston TV studio. The thought of a three-hour drive there, a five-hour work day, then another three-hour drive back makes me want to wince in pain and weariness right now. It will be fun while we're actually doing the show, between eight and nine o'clock, but everything else will be waiting, waiting, waiting, quick production meeting, waiting, a camera test, waiting, a run-through that will take fifteen minutes, waiting, waiting, waiting....

We were up early this morning, so we went out to pick up the paint for the kitchen. We've been talking about painting the lower half of the walls ever since we moved in, and now we finally have the paint: Tree Garden, a lovely sage green-ish colour. Knowing my husband, he'll want to do a wall or two before we go. He claims painting is relaxing.

We also picked up a rag roller and chose a couple of paint chips in warm creamy colours (Starlet and Country Cream - they're so darned close that we're still trying to make a final-final choice) for the bedroom, which has been sterile and cold landlord-white for the past eighteen months. I'm fascinated by different finishes, and the ragging finish intrigues me with its subtle marbled effect. We'll buy the paint in another two weeks or so.

See? Fall hits and we go all nesty. Since we can't move any more furniture around, or acquire more kittens or baby creatures of any kind, we end up painting the walls.

PotPourri

Seeing the end of October creep up on me, and knowing that the last time I sat down to work on the Great Canadian Novel was about two and a half weeks ago, I threw some Tori Amos in the CD changer yesterday and sat down on the living room floor with my laptop. I wrote three pages and felt really good about myself. I'd stopped being as curious as I had been about my GCN world, and deliberately immersing myself in it again was good - it felt comfortable. I also felt a bit worried, what with NaNoWriMo looming. Having two novels on the go is a bit like having a new child and having to soothe the elder sibling: no, I still love you, I haven't forgotten you, this new baby just needs so much attention...

Then I amazed myself by getting up and making a wonderful dinner that included baked chicken, and brussels sprouts done in cheese, onions, and lemon butter. ("What are these?" asks my husband. "Baby cabbages," I answer, unconcerned, as I begin to eat. "Oh," he says, munches on one, and begins to rave about it. "I didn't expect you to like brussels sprouts so much," I remark calmly, reaching for my water glass. He faltered for only an instant, brave man.) After dinner, he asked what he'd done to deserve a big dinner, and I told him that as of Friday, I wouldn't be able to do things like this, so I thought I'd get one in before I sacrificed my life to NaNoWriMo.

Yesterday was pretty good. Then this morning...

Argh.

I spent two hours setting up Eudora as my mail program, importing my Outlook Express stuff, and generally fumbling around until I can at least use the ruddy thing. I have experience with Eudora; we used it at work once or twice a week to mail out newsletters and such, so it's not like I've never seen it before. Still, I get as frustrated as the next busy human when I can't grasp things immediately. I also went through a bunch of old e-mail to delete it from OE before I exported stuff to Eudora, simply to save room, and it always takes longer than I expect - click, scan, click to delete; rinse, repeat. Boring. Like housework. Tidy, polish, sweep, dust.

Gods, it's all so exciting, I think I'll have to take a break and go lie down.

Hallowe'en Party Post-Mortem

Well, that was…

I’ve talked about how parties aren’t my thing before, and how sometimes I’m in an anti-social mood but feel obliged to attend a party because I’ve put so much work into a costume. Last night was not one of those nights. Instead, I got there, and… well… the energy at the party was… odd. A bit… stagnant, actually.

I think everyone was slightly off. It certainly won’t stand out in my memory as one of the greatest parties I was ever at. Ceri looked fantastic, and our husbands looked fantastic, and there were a couple of really, really amazing costumes there (pictures forthcoming). Our hosts were in a terrific mood. It just didn’t feel very social; there was no real pull to circulate. My costume was comfortable, and received one or two compliments, but all in all, I don’t think I’ve chalked up enough enjoyment to pay off the hours put into it just yet. Thank goodness there’s another party next week. Yes, yes, I know I’ve stated that the reward of the time and energy invested is in the satisfaction of the final creation… I’d just like to enjoy the time spent wearing that creation to the best of my ability, as well.

Interesting fact: I received more compliments on a Star Trek TOS uniform I made and wore about seven years ago at last night's party than compliments for the costume I was actually wearing. These retroactive compliments were inspired by a whole contingent of Trek-uniformed persons walking in (including my ex-finacé’s current fiancée, in the exact same costume I had made lo these many years ago... and I can say with all confidence that I looked much, much better.) It was highly ironic. (Yes, yes, I have on my list of things to do the creation of a costume gallery page; we actually found the scanner last night.)

There was some stimulating conversation at last night’s party, though:

Ceri: I married Destiny.

Autumn: That’s a horrible concept, to be married to Fate itself!

Ceri: Okay, I married my Destiny.

Autumn: Well, that’s all right then.

Ceri: You, on the other hand, married an ARCHETYPE!

Guilty as charged. My husband is Santa Claus, Destruction (of Neil Gaiman’s the Endless), Herne, and a bunch of other abstract-like entities. All in one.

I met a couple of other NaNoWriMo participants, and it has been generally decided that we should meet regularly down at the pub to discuss our progress throughout November, which makes us Drinkers With a Writing Problem. I woke up this morning and realised that in five days, my life belongs to November and a novel. Maybe it was chatting with Dez last night about plot and divine inspiration, but when I opened my eyes this morning all of a sudden I knew that a road trip was part of my story, It certainly wasn’t beforehand. My plot has now undergone mutation twice, both unintentional, and no matter how hard I try to force it back to the original nice safe tame storyline, it doesn’t work. (Warning: when going toe to toe with a Muse, the Muse will usually be triumphant, and you a bloody pulp on the floor.) I have no idea how I’m supposed to work a road trip into the general outline; it does not fit. At all. But there has to be one.

Pseudoephedrine, You Are My Nemesis

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.

grr grr grr

I promised myself I would work for two hours this morning. Ideally, four would have been nice, but I told myself after the first quarter-hour that two would be the limit. You see...

My back is hurting again. A lot of this has to do with computer work, and two seven-hour drives in the past weekend; I haven't been back to my osteopath in two months due to this not-working thing (and besides, I felt so much better... so like any other human being I stopped the (admittedly expensive) treatment.) My eyes hurt, and my back hurts, and I have the attention span of a flea. I know I have to get a couple of hours of cello work in this afternoon as well, since we're doing sectional rehearsals tonight and I'm going to be horribly embarrassed, as I always am, since there are some quite nasty passages that come out of nowhere in the Mendelssohn, and the Handel is a nightmare. I'm seriously considering skipping it, except that we only have seven rehearsals before our December memorial concert. Deliberately missing a rehearsal would be, well, irresponsible. Even though my eyes and my back hurt, and rehearsal will only make them worse.

Ten more minutes to go. Just ten more minutes. Then I'll stop.

I just feel all grumbly. I want to curl up with a book and a cat, and some Bach. I want to have a heating pad on my back, and a teapot beside me. I want the world to go away.

Oakville Update

Note to self: coffee after a luscious Italian meal in the evening is bad. It's past two in the morning and I'm still awake. I'll be dragging myself around the house tomorrow when I finally get up. (I wonder if I'll be up by the time my father reads my blog?)

General holiday weekend updates:

The husband and I are miffed. Someone somewhere switched the weather that we had specifically requested, and that the weatherpersons had even confirmed. We were supposed to have sun with cloudy periods here this weekend. Instead, we're getting cloud, and rain tomorrow (today? oh, drat). Not that weatherpersons have any sort of reliable record to their credit.

I had my hair cut on Friday after we got here, and as usual, my hair feels lighter and cleaner and it's certainly bouncier than it ever gets at home. It's the water; Oakville water is soft, as opposed to the hard stuff we get out of our taps in Montreal. Makes me want to fill jugs and jugs with it and bring it home, just to wash my hair.

Seamus O'Malley has finally decided we're pretty darned okay after checking us out carefully without committing himself to actual interaction for twenty-four hours. Even though I helped give him a bath this afternoon, he ended up on my lap before dinner allowing my husband to scratch his head. He's very intelligent, and absolutely beautiful and silky. He's smaller than I expected; my parents were describing him as a full-grown cat size, so I was envisioning the bulk of an adult cat as well as the length. Seamus is actually more like a year-old cat in build (that long and lanky sort of look), although I can only imagine his ultimate size, since he's a mere four months old! He appears quite mature in behaviour as well, and he's quiet; I've only heard him meow once since we arrived. Apparently this is typical of Maine Coons.

Ye gods, it's actually approaching three.

I did the embroidery on my costume this afternoon, and I'm simultaenously pleased and disappointed. The effect is great. Anyone who has ever embroidered is going to look at my work and turn up his/her nose. It's not my best, that's for sure. It was a tough call: do I go for the look with the least amount of effort?, or do I do it right every step of the way and invest even more time in this outfit? I'm getting near the "taking this too seriously" label when I look at the hours I've racked up, so I went for the look rather than the perfect needlework. I'm starting to get nervous about this costume now for a completely different reason. After all this work and planning and energy, am I going to enjoy it, or will I have invested too much in it for the return? I must finish it quickly and put it away so I can work myself back into a state of being plain ol' excited about dressing up.

Arts and Letters Daily has had to pack up its toys and go home, alas, alas. I am deeply saddened. I loved A&LD; I could wander around it for hours and hours, waste lovely bushels of time, and still feel virtuous.

I am amazed at how awake I am. This is not good at all...

Cuisine

I was tremendously disappointed in the roast beef we had last night. I removed it after the calculated time, my husband decided it was too rare (there is no such state, in my world) and put it back in the oven. Beef roasts have a tendency to keep on self-cooking after you remove them from the oven, and that fact combined with the extra ten minutes under the heat turned the tiny little roast well-done, a meat state I detest because I have to chew, chew, chew it and it loses most of its flavour. The excellent gravy and the bread right out of the oven almost made up for it, though.

In two more days, I will be able to enjoy my mother's fine cuisine instead, however, and the well-done roast beef will be a thing of faint memory. I will meet the ever-increasingly charming Seamus O'Malley, the new Maine Coon kitten in residence at my parents' house. In general, I will feel serene and trouble-free. For me, there's something about being in the abode of your progenitors that instills a sense of "Everything's okay again," no matter how old I'll get, I think. I wonder if other people feel the same way.

Thought-Provoking

Thought-provoking stuff I've seen around but didn't blog till today:

A sticker seen on a jeans ad that doesn't look like it's selling jeans at all. You know the kind of ad I mean: supermodel leaning forward, lots of skin, pouty shiny lips, the half-closed come-hither eyes... jeans? What jeans?

I was impressed. Some sort of sticker-wielding vigilante had slapped this, bold unadorned black text on a white background, right across the image. It was gone the next day. I hope enough people saw it; I hope the vigilante hits many other ads. Even more, I hope people get the message.

This is the sub-header on a blog I tripped across (sorry, no, I didn't take down the URL, duh):

It made me think about how we self-censor as we blog, how we (some consciously, some unconsciously) take the time to choose the exact words we want used to describe our lives, our beliefs, our thoughts. It's all about how you paint an image. It's all about audience, and our sense of self. It's about communication.

Life Is Good

I had a fantastic day yesterday. That's about it. Four hours of playing in the store, dinner with Ceri, a smash-bang-wow workshop, a request for a private workshop for a group on the South Shore, then drinks with friends.

On the way to the pub we stopped in at Renaud Bray and I picked up those inks, because I was paid for my full-time work last week and for last night's workshop (private instruction is so much more lucrative than retail!) and I thought that I deserved a little treat for surviving the past two lean weeks. I now have those darling little oval pots of cuivre, marron, and spring green. Yay! We got home last night and the first thing I did was get out my dip pen, sit on the floor and make lines all over a sheet of blank parchment paper to see what it looked like. I'll be paying Hydro off in full later today with a chunk of my earnings, but before that, the inks were a lovely little gift to myself. (Note to self: ink (both black and colour) for the printer would probably help too.)

Over dinner last night Ceri gave me her latest pages of creative effort, and for the first time since we began doing this exchange of writing in July, I had nothing to give her. I felt guilty when I left the flat yesterday morning, but then I told myself that I really didn't have to feel that way since I had given her seventy-eight (!) pages of the Great Canadian Novel over the past three months. I did try to write earlier this week, honestly I did; but I opened the laptop, made a couple of corrections as I re-read the eleven pages of the latest section, and then stared at the screen for about twenty minutes. I'm stuck. Normally when I'm stuck, I jump to the next scene and then go back and fill in the necessary space with an event of some sort, but the next scene I had planned was Christmas shopping, and the characters were still only in mid-November with no way to get to early December. So when I shared that frustration with Ceri yesterday, she said, without missing a beat, "Make it snow," which was absolutely brilliant and I don't know why I hadn't thought of it. Another of Ceri's super-powers, by the way, is being a Muse for people. She gives them great ideas. She occasionally laments that alas, she doesn't inspire herself in the same fashion, so I can only hope that our writing arrangement covers at least the deadline sort of inspiration that writers need. I did give her a nifty idea for her husband's Hallowe'en costume, but I doubt it even comes close to repaying the Muse-debt that society has incurred to her.

I'm terribly looking forward to driving up to see my parents next weekend; I haven't seen them since July, and we haven't made the drive to Oakville in this new car yet. After its spectacular performance through New York and Pennsylvania, this five-hour spin should be a dream! Seven days to go!

Bourbon Cremes

As I was cleaning up today, I found, in the bottom of one of my armoires, a box of Bourbon Cremes.

Finding cookies in a wardrobe is an odd occurrence, I grant you, but it's directly related to my act of hoarding them away from the light fingers of my ever-munchy husband. My mother gave me this box, and I was determined that every single one of these biscuits was to be mine, mine, mine.

Three-quarters of them were indeed blissfully mine. Then I forgot about them.

It was like finding buried treasure. I broght them out, opened the box, nibbled one. A slight staleness, but when they're glorious Bourbon Cremes, what's a breath of stale? The cream filling was still soft and light, and hadn't hardened in the least.

There's four left. I'm going to ration them out this afternoon when I eventually flop down on a chesterfield to read, once I'm done with my sewing.

Evidently, I'll have to pick up another box or so while I'm down visiting my parents at Thanksgiving. This time, I'll put them in a tin when I hide them, so they don't grow stale.

Mouse Replacement

Joy, joy, joy!

I've been increasingly frustrated with my mouse lately - it catches, horizontal movement is jerky, vertical motion is sketchy at best, and so forth. I've taken it apart, I've cleaned it, I've tried different rolling surfaces... nothing works. It's also very flat, which causes me to hold my wrist is a rather "broken" fashion.

Today, while surfing, I nearly smashed the ruddy thing - is it too much to ask that a mouse, I don't know, mouse correctly?

Then I remembered that in my laptop case o'goodies that MLG gave me a few months ago, there was a mouse. A useful addition when you get fed up with the little button that the laptop has for mouse movement, or if your hands are the size of my husband's, for example, as opposed to my own tiny fingers. I tend to use keyboard commands while working with the laptop, so the little button isn't a problem.

I dug it out. I plugged it in.

Glory! Will you look at that! Smooth pointer movement; a nice arch to the hand-rest; and a gentle click (so quiet, in fact, that I can barely tell I've selected something). No more mouse-abuse on my desk!

Marc, I so owe you. Are you keeping track?

Baths

Ever have one of those days? One of those weeks? The kind where everything gets your back up, and you feel like you're the only sane person in the world, and why can't eveyone just understand what you're getting at? You feel like every step you take is against a hurricane-force wind, uphill, through a crowd of people standing with their eyes closed and their fingers in their ears as you try, through gritted teeth and bright smile, to communicate?

Oh, yeah. Often.

Kate, babe, I'm with you. You have my sympathy.

If we could only direct our lives from the bathtub. With a stack of good books, a cup of tea or a glass of wine (depending on the hour of the day), good music nearby. As an extra treat, a nice box of chocolates close by, but not too close so the warmth of the stress-bleeding bath melts them, or so that you don't eat them too fast. (Can you tell I've managed to get this down to a science?)

Baths, however, in my world, no longer give me the relaxation I need. It's odd, but somewhere over the past ten years or so I've been on my own, a bath has lost its charm. It used to be that when I was upset, I'd go into the bathroom, run a bath, add bubbles, oils, the whole nine yards. Book. Candles. Music. Cat. (No, not in the bath, next to the bath, and I didn't put her there. She just likes to curl up next to the warm bathtub. Okay, and swish her tail around in the warm water. And play with bubbles.)

I'd sink in, and sigh. And just like that, I'd melt, and everything would be bearable.

Now, though, I'm just as tense in the tub as I am out of the tub. It's really frustrating. You start the routine, get in, close your eyes, expect the warmth and the gentle aromas to start working, and you end up staring at the ceiling after half an hour, wondering why you're not all soft and floaty.

It's a relatively recent development, within the last four or five years, I'd say. Eight baths out of ten, I get next to no soft floaty relaxation.

I don't think the quality of bath has decreased, which means it must be me. Am I too stressed for a bath to relax me? Is it living with someone? Do I need new towels?

Baths shouldn't be work. Baths should be mindless comfort. Baths should not stress me because they are not relaxing me.

I think I'll go play my cello. (Yeah, right. Like that will relax me.)

Fall

I heard the geese flying overhead last night and this morning as I lay awake in bed. It's fall.

I also know it's fall because my overwhelming desire to move furniture around is still running high. We switched a couple of pictures around last night in an attempt to assuage it. The pictures look great, but I still want to rearrange sofas and tables and beds and desks for some reason. I think it's connected to the Ikea urge, somehow; you know, that cocooning concept that revolves around the subconscious knowledge that you'll be stuck inside most of winter so you might as well create the ideal nest to be trapped in.

I picked up that CD I had ordered four months ago from HMV, and it's wonderful. I still find it a little odd that I, the woman who claims she doesn't enjoy Mozart all that much, special-ordered a Mozart CD. Looking back over my orchestra-related blog entries, I can see that I enjoy playing Mozart as well. Perhaps I should upgrade my Mozartean value judgement from "indifferent" to "reluctant enjoyment of certain pieces"?

On Teaching

It's over. My acclaimed return to the stage of retail (a limited-run engagement) is finished. I'm back in retirement.

Body count: zero. I'm still alive; customers are still alive; no co-workers were harmed during the course of this encore performance.

I learned a lot from this past week. The primary thing, of course, is that I was absolutely right to leave retail. There were other things, too, though, that put a few worries to rest. For example, it confirmed that the reason I left sales after eleven years is completely due to the customers, and not the actual work of running a bookstore. It also confirmed that I enjoy teaching more than working retail (not a surprise, but nice to know). And this week also proved to me that no one resents my departure from the store, and everyone really enjoyed having me back. Okay, so I'm insecure: I was worried about what management and staff really thought of me. You know how you have those sort of acquaintances where you don't see them for a while and you run into them, and they're distant and you wonder if you were ever truly friends? I was tremendously afraid people would be distant, proving to me once and for all that I was nobody special. Everyone was thrilled to see me, however, sharing news and making lunch dates, and I frequently heard comments to the tune of, "It's so good to have you back."

After work I taught a two-hour introductory survey of divination methods last night, and it went just swimmingly. I knew I was teaching it, of course, and I had all my handwritten notes in a notebook (written on a GO train in July, if I remember correctly), but it didn't sink in until the end of the day on Wednesday thanks to the chance comment of a client. I realised that I hadn't truly prepared the class, and as this would be the first time I was teaching it, I needed something a little more substantial than three 5 x 7" pages of notes. So home I went, weary from a day of work, and spent my anniversary evening in front of the computer while my husband watched TV. My usual practice is to think about the new class for a few days, then sit down the day I am to teach it and type out the scribbled notes that have accumulated over those days of thought. Well, I completely forgot that I was working the day I'd be teaching this new workshop, and that I'd have to do it some other way, which unfortunately ended up with the two of us in separate rooms for two hours, and then falling into bed from exhaustion.

The workshop was a success, however, and I can add it to my roster of classes to offer again. I think perhaps another reason the knowledge that I had to prepare it slipped my mind can be attributed to the fact that my past three or four classes have been cancelled due to lack of registration. It makes sense; September is back-to-school month, and eighty percent of my class attendees are university students, who at this point are still settling in. The last thing on their minds is registering for extracurricular workshops! Looking at the registration book last night, though, I observed that October is already looking better, much to my pleasure.

I find teaching to be an odd experience. So much of it takes place out of the classroom, before the students even get there. When I develop a new workshop, I'm working in a vacuum; other than having a topic that has been generated due to observation of client interest in the store, there's nothing to indicate the outline at all. I decide the direction, what information to give, what information to discard, the format, the books and web sites to recommend for further research, the exercises, and so forth. Alone at home, out of context, I always create a workshop that seems flat and about half an hour long. In action, though, it always springs to life and ends up pushing the two-hour time frame. The sweetest part, however, is the unsolicited thanks I get from excited students at the end of a class. When I then ask if this is what they were looking for, if it was what they expected when they signed up, inevitably I get an enthusiastic confirmation, and I can breathe a sigh of relief. I always ask if they have any suggestions of information they think I should add, areas we didn't cover, which I think is an essential part of the teacher-student dynamic. It's a dialogue, after all; as one of my Liberal Arts professors used to say, pounding his fist on the long table about which twenty of us were sitting, "This is a seminar, not a lecture!" A teacher who doesn't listen to his/her students is a teacher who will quickly become unpopular and out of touch with the demographic to which s/he is contracted to communicate.

Enough about work. I intended to sleep in this morning, but after a week of getting up early here I am, awake and thinking. At least I'm in bed with my laptop. My plans for the day involve reading books, listening to music while doing nothing much, a bit of sewing, and maybe catching a bus downtown to stop by HMV to pick up a CD that I ordered in June which has finally arrived, and possibly that new shirt that I saw a week or two ago as well. Tonight, the company of good friends at a party; tomorrow, teaching in the morning and the memorial service for Andrès in the afternoon. And on Sunday, my husband and I will finally be able to appreciate one another's company and celebrate our wedding anniversary.

Goodbye

Sometime on Tuesday night, while I was raising cider in honour of MLG, my conductor passed away "peacefully", I am told, in the hospital.

Life can be very cruel, sometimes.

On Responsibility

Oh dear. Cat trouble all around, it seems.

Pursuant to the loss of the elderly Sir Grey, my mother has decided to reserve another Maine Coon kitten. Her reasoning, which I fully agree with, is that no animal as social as a Maine Coon should be solitary, and they had reserved him months ago expecting the little guy to have a dog and a cat to romp with. An empty house is unfair. So, Mum has decided to go ahead and reserve a silver Maine Coon from the same breeder, despite my father’s waffling (and if he finds out via my blog, I do apologise, but you had at least two days to tell him, Mum). This one’s ETA is December, so Seamus will only have three months on his own. (Yes, three months; when did it get to be three months to the end of the year?)

On top of that, Scarlet has e-mailed to inform me that the feral cat who produced the litter of kittens we’ve been nursing tested positive for feline immunodeficiency virus, which means that it might have been passed to the kittens in utero or via the mother’s milk. There’s no way to tell until they’re tested after four months old, since they can still possess a sort of trace phantom FIV from contact with the mother until that age. The main problem is that an FIV positive cat can’t be in contact with an FIV negative cat, or the virus can be passed along.

This is a problem, of course, since Scarlet was hoping to have all these cats gone to good homes as soon as possible, so she could have her office back to normal. If we can’t mix these cats with her other non-FIV household cats… well, you see the problem. It also means that she has to keep the kittens till they’re four months old and tested to ascertain their FIV status, because it would be irresponsible to pass a potentially FIV-positive cat along to a household with non-FIV cats.

There are irresponsible people out there, of course. We are not members of that particular demographic. So these cats will stay at home for two extra months, and once we’ve found out whether they’re FIV positive or negative, we’ll be able to place them properly.

Oh dear, indeed.

Cello and Riots

Married three years and I still feel a flush of excitement when I call a gentleman to firm up a coffee date. Sheesh. Some habits never die.

Last night was the first orchestra meeting of the year. I brought along my oldest friend who plays as many instruments as she has fingers (okay, perhaps I exaggerate; as many instruments as she has fingers on one hand, then). It was terrific. I knew I'd missed it, but when we picked up our first piece of sheet music and played the first phrase, I felt like I'd slipped back into a set of well-broken-in shoes and a comfy but still attractive sweater.

I replaced that A string with the Eudoxa A, and boys and girls, I'm in love. I'm off to pick up the rest of the set today after coffee. I mean, wow. Talk about a sultry and mellow voice! It does blend well with the three Aricores I still have on the cello (which do need to be replaced), but I can just imagine the deep, rich, dark sound that all of them together will produce... mmmm.

Okay, I've snapped out of that lovely little reverie. Ceri was over when I unstrung the old A and put the new one on the other day; "Oooh," she said, "I'm listening to you play the cello!" as I plucked the string in order to tune it. It made me laugh. What wasn't as amusing was the amount of stretching this string needed before it became playable. If I had to estimate, I'd say it has stretched a full two inches so far, and while it's slowed down, I know I'll have to tune it up again late this afternoon. Gut is very sensitive. It also doesn't last as long, but seeing as how my Aricores lasted two or three years, and a yearly replacement is recommended for strings, I've done very well so far.

There's something else I have to mention: the local riot revolving around protesting the scheduled appearance of former PM of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu at my alma mater Concordia University.

Flying in the face of the basic respect for open discourse that a true university is supposed to represent, the violent crowd prevented Israel's former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu from speaking on campus. If not powerfully and clearly addressed over time, this act will register the breakdown of academic freedom at a major Canadian institution of higher learning. .

Go me. Two degrees at an academic institution rapidly becoming known as a joke.

There are degrees of expression, people. Yes, you have the freedom to protest. The man also has the freedom to speak. Why is it that every protest at Concordia has to turn into a violent uprising costing hundreds of thousands of dollars to clean up after? And why is it that stopping a statesman from speaking is considered a victory for oppressed people across the globe? How does violent protest make a persuasive case? Fear and pain and destruction are threats to keep people in line, not intelligent arguments calculated to make a case for your beliefs. Force a man to do something, and he resents it. Let his work it out by thinking about it and making his own decision,and he's yours. And you look like less of an idiot.

What's the point of echoing the mindless violence in the Middle East? It's not working over there; it's certaonly not going to work here in North America. We're in Canada, for the gods' sakes.

It's shameful. That we in North America cannot conduct a civil lecture and allow both sides of a story to be told is nothing less than shameful.

Frederick Krantz, an historian and a teacher at Concordia for thirty-three years (and a teacher at the Liberal Arts College while I studied Western Civilization there) has written a very insightful and thought-provoking article about the narrow-mindedness which resulted in the riot on Monday which is a good read.

In the meantime, I am shocked and disappointed that any Canadian student body cannot conduct itself with honour and civility. As soon as you resort to violence, you've ensured a loss of respect for your beliefs. I'm embarrassed; I am ashamed that the student body of the educational instituation that I spent ten years a part of repeatedly illustrates that they are nothing more than bullies attempting to make everyone believe the same thing they do by committing violent acts. Unfortunately, I'm not the one who should be feeling this way. And I highly doubt that the mindless protesters are feeling anything but injured and righteous about their acts on Monday afternoon.

Snapshot

I've said it before, but it bears repeating: I love hearing music I've played in concert on the radio. Particularly the fourth movement to Beethoven's second symphony. I get all excited. Small things amuse, I know.

I also became strangely excited when I realised that it was so darned cold in the office this morning that I had to go put socks on. After a summer of bare feet, it Meant Something.

The computer finally defragged, on the fourth go-round. I can't see that it's any quicker, but it sure moved stuff around. This morning I installed a pop-up ad blocker, which works beautifully - so well, in fact, that I couldn't get the YACCS comments boxes to come up on a blog this morning. Oh, right - they're pop-up windows. Duh. Must hold Ctrl down while clicking on link. Small price to pay, though.

I was looking out the window this morning, waiting for my tea to steep, and I saw a man walk casually into the depanneur across from us. He had a ball cap on and a messenger-style bag over his shoulder, and wore a denim button-down shirt. It was around seven-fifteen, and all of a sudden I got hit by a wave of back-to-schoolness. For a moment, I, too, wished I had somewhere to be, to dress up and pack my bag and leave the house for, walking down the street early in the morning, when the light is still clear and cool, and on your way to the bus stop, you can swing by the dep for an orange juice and maybe a granola bar.

Only for a moment, though. Then I came back into the office with my tea, sat down, and looked at my list of work things I had drafted for today, with CBC Radio Two on behind me, with cats chasing one another around the apartment, and torn jeans and a summer sweater on.

Farewell, Birdie

Birdie gone home. The bird staff at Nature checked their files for the leg band number, found who had bought it, and called him; he called us around seven-forty-five, desperately glad someone had found her. She had flown out the door on Sunday, and had caught him by surprise since her wings had been clipped not long ago. When we dropped her off tonight, he couldn't stop thanking us. I'm a little puzzled; if someone had found one of my lost pets, I'd want her back as soon as possible. We were just doing what we hope someone else would do for us.

Anyway, happy ending to an adventure. Man and little girl thrilled their bird came home; husband feeling tired and good about himself, but a little disappointed too, methinks. He was growing rather attached to the creature.

Did Someone Order a Sun Conure?

Yep. We are currently in possession of a Sun Conure , a tropical bird about three times the size of a budgie and multi-coloured in the yellow/red/orange/green spectrum. She's just over a year old, not full-grown, and had a terrible fright - she's evidently escaped from someone's home and was all muddy and shaking when she burst out of a hedge my husband was trimming in the West Island. He took her to a clinic or two, who all said they couldn't help him either by taking the bird or by locating an owner, since they don't treat birds, then to the Nature pet store up by Fairview to ask for what kind of food to give her. They identified the breed for him, noted that it had a breeder's band, and he brought her home with a phone number or two of bird shelters to report her. He drove home with her on his shoulder; she's evidently a shoulder bird, and cuddles close to the neck, talking to herself. She's a bit afraid of hands at the moment, and who can blame her - something that's lived inside all its life, lost in the big wide world for who knows how long? I'm surpised she's not more freaked out. My husband says she's a lot calmer than she was this afternoon, though.

Now, the craziest thing is, when we go to pet stores and look at the birds, this is the bird that we call "the Buchanan bird" because it is, I kid thee not, the exact same colours as those in my husband's kilt. For him to find one of these things loose and scared, and to have it cling to him so completely, is just, well, odd - out of all the tropical birds he could have run into outside, it was this one. She tried to fly after him when he went downstairs to get the birdcage. While she sat on my shoulder, waiting for him to come back, she was nodding off; she could barely keep her eyes open. We fed her and gave her water, and I think she's asleep now.

Turns out my husband broke Cardinal Rule #1 today as well. He calls her Cail. (Or Kael, for those who know the RSW spelling.)

Call Me Florence: Day One of Kitten Nursing

Why is it that disk defragmentation always freezes up the computer?

My first day as a kitten nurse, and I am proud of my little furry charges, particularly the tiny black one that had us worried. She’s been scheduled an extra feeding, around dinner-time, and I am pleased to report that she’s getting this lapping thing down quite well, and polished off just as much formula as she did at lunch-time. At the moment I’m calling her Nix, as in “nix on any more cats”, because it’s just too hard to nurse something and only call it “kitten”. (I know, I’ve broken Cardinal Rule #1: never name an animal.) Despite her size, she’s the first to wiggle out of the cage when I sit down with the bowl of formula, and the also one who has the best control of her back legs at the moment – I’d forgotten how floppy three-week old fuzzy things are. My mother used to breed Cairn Terriers, and I remember when she used to let me help feed them in the transitional period between milk and puppy-chow. She’d soak a bit of kibble in the milk formula, put it in an old pie tin, and cover your lap with an old towel. Then you’d grab a puppy and introduce its nose to the mess by gently bouncing its head into it. Sneeze, sputter, and so forth; it took some of them a surprisingly long time to get it. When you’re ten years old, it’s great fun.

It’s still fun. Feeding the kittens is very like that, only different somehow. I think it has to do with how the kittens are even more delicate than the puppies were, and also with the Fall baby-cravings my husband and I get annually. If a baby is an impossibility right now, then caring for kittens will do just fine. So if I end up with another cat, I consider it partially the fault of Fiona, Debra, Paze and Val (along with their equally guilty significant others), who have all had babies within the past nine months.

When I’d walked home from the second round of kitten-feeding, there was a message on the machine from my husband about what an odd afternoon he’d had, and that he’d be coming home with a colourful friend who seems to have gone astray. I have an odd feeling we’ve acquired another bird, however temporary…

Foiled! and Florence Nightingale

Well, drat.

I was all psyched for this literacy tutor thing, and I couldn't go to the info session with Ceri because I was unable to be out of bed for more than half an hour at a time. She thoughtfully brought back the information package for me. However, it turns out the training sessions are on the two nights per week when I'm teaching and when I'm at orchestra.

Double drat.

They repeat the training sessions in later months, but again, they're on nights when I'm teaching. It seems that I am not meant to be a tutor at this time.

I am, however, to serve as a feline Florence Nightingale. A Florence Nightingale to felines, I mean. Now that the feral cat's kittens that Scarlet discovered when we came home from Pennsylvania are starting to be weaned, someone needs to feed them three or four times a day, and Scarlet's back at school full-time and working part-time. So to me will fall the early afternoon feedings, and an extra dinner-time feeding for the tiny black female who's skin and bones. I'm rather partial to that one, so I'll do my best to make sure she gets that extra meal and grows nice and plump with a shiny coat.

Still popping vitamin C, and drinking lots. I've given up on herbal teas; just can't take them anymore. I'm on water today. And I'm craving chocolate sooo badly...

RPGing

Found more old e-mail as I was cleaning up my hard drive. For a while about two or three years ago, I signed off with "The Jovial Warrior Sorceress", and my sig was "Leather will do just fine". It's a bit out of character, yes, but that was half the fun. It came from the wonderful, time-wasting Lee's (Useless) Superhero Generator, which served as a source of amusement for my circle of friends for a week or two.

The next time I have to create a D&D character, none of this patiently developing a character and a background for me. Nope, it's going to be The Jovial Warrior Sorceress, levelling enemies with a quip, a rapier, a fireball and a heroic laugh. "Hold, miscreant! Have at thee! What, my hearty allies? Wearied already? A round of song, then! Ninety-nine dumb orcs charging the Wall, ninety-nine orcs at the Wall; strike one down, spread him around, ninety-eight dumb orcs charging the Wall!"

I really think I should go back to bed.

Now With Bonus Material

It's official! The cold has developed a fever, making this the Cold Package with Extra Bonus Material.

When I have a cold, I know what makes me worse: soda, dairy, and so forth. Sugar and milk just feed my sore throat with bad stuff and it gets worse. So of course I'm craving cola and such. Instead, I'm drinking herbal tea and bouillon. It's odd how you can fall into a routine without realising it; when I open my laptop to write, I gather my loose change and I walk to the depanneur to pick up a can of Vanilla Coke, then come back and sit down and whip off however many pages my mind decides to create and/or my fingers can keep up with (whichever comes first). I want to write today, but Vanilla Coke is right out. I suppose I could buy a ginseng drink or something, but it's just not the same.

On the much more exciting news front, my husband came home from working on someone's balcony yesterday, and after chatting with his a-bit-out-of-it wife, he wandered into the office and didn't come out. Now, he's discovering the Internet (has his own e-mail address and everything! Well, it's big news in our world, anyway), so I figured he was on-line. When I emerged from under the afghan and left my nest in the living room to refill my teacup, I stopped in the office doorway, amazed. He wasn't at my desk, where the computer is; he was at his own desk, where the new oil paints I bought for him on Saturday were. In fact, he had a palette out, and two brushes going, and a landscape taking form rather rapidly.

Oil paint fascinates me. I'm a watercolour person myself, so to see how oil blends so well is truly astounding. Even more astounding, however, was watching him blend two or three different paints on the palette, take the new colour, and blend it into a tree trunk, for example, on the painting. He doesn't seem to use long strokes very often; he dabs a lot. His foliage in particular uses this technique, and catches my attention.

The whole apartment smells different too, and it took me a while to get a fix on where I recognised it from. I shared an apartment with Annika while she was doing her BFA; her room and the bedroom hallway always smelled like this. It's the smell of creativity, and of colour, and of boldness and a moment in time.

The only problem with this fever is I'm at one remove; I feel as if I'm working under a pane of glass that separates me from the rest of the world, or a puddle that slightly distorts the sensory info that reaches me. No doubt when I re-read all this in a couple of days I'll wonder how anyone made any sense out of it.

On Schedule

I am officially sick. Right on time, too; I have an audition in four days. Nasty headache, sore throat, coughs and sneezes, the whole cold package. I've been feeling increasingly off all weekend, last night I slept horribly, and I'm cranky. So I'm in bed with my laptop, and when I'm done here I'll curl up with A.S. Byatt's Possession, the rest of my pot of peppermint tea, and furry hot water bottles that purr.

Well, well, well - Chretien is going to take Kyoto to Parliament. About bloody time. His Majesty will be pleased - that was going to be his next rant. Along with building a big air-proof dome over the Kyoto-scorning US, he was saying something about short-term sacrifice on the part of companies to ensure a long-term benefit of saving the planet.

I printed out the sixty-five pages of the story that I've been working on, and I read it all at one go last night. It's rather gratifying to see that things flow. I even found some lovely unintentional foreshadowing and dramatic irony that was unplanned but which works quite nicely. For things like that to happen I have to be in the right headspace, and evidently I'm occupying it on a regular basis. There are snags, and I need to smooth things out here and there, substitute other words, but all in all, I like it.

I mentioned that I'm reading Possession again. In only three chapters an innumerable amount of references to thesis-related concepts that I didn't find while I was doing it have leapt out at me. I must have been so focused on the particular angle I was after that I filtered out these other ideas, which is good for what I was doing at the time, of course. Now, though, it makes me want to write another paper. Hmm. Maybe the use of research and the character of History in Byatt's work. Angels & Insects would be perfect for that, both the title novella and its focus on natural history, and its sibling novella about mediums and reaching into the spirit world for news of past family and lovers. So would Virgin in the Garden, which is all about staging a Renaissance-related drama.

Uh-oh. Do I sense another project coming on?

I have been taken with the whim of attempting to publish something; perhaps I'll focus on an academic periodical and see what happens.

Legal Papers Secured

Got my new birth certificate in the mail! My husband handed me an envelope from the Prince Edward Island Department of Vital Statistics, and I bent it back and forth; hmm, no hard laminated certificate. Maybe they've rejected my application for a certificate; maybe I don't exist?

I tore it open. They've changed the format. (After thirty-one years - keeping up with the times, you know.) Now it's a slip of bank-note paper with all the pertinent info on it, in a plastic sleeve. On the back it says "Void if altered or laminated."

I liked my laminated birth certificate. It was sturdy. Oh, well.

Now the missing one can show up any time.

Here, birth certificate; I've got a friend for you to play with. Here, certificate, certificate, certificate....

Earl Grey Chocolate

Oh - gods -

Ceri gave me a tablet of real chocolate as a thank-you for feeding her cat whilst she and her consort were away on their mini-break. Dolfin's Chocolat noir au thé Earl Grey. Mmm, I said, two of my favourite things.

Egad. This stuff is like chocolate-covered coffee beans for coffee-addicted persons. I broke a corner off this morning while I was working, and crunch - yes, it's actual loose tea blended in with the fine chocolate.

I'm putting this stuff far, far away from me.

Unphotogenic

For years now, my friend Annika and I have had photos taken of the two of us - light and dark, day and night. And in every single one, someone's eyes are closed. That's about fifteen years' worth of snaps.

This presented a problem when she was my maid of honour at my wedding three (ye gods, three) years ago. The wedding proofs are a riot.

Anyway, at a party last Saturday night, Hobbes was waving around a digital camera. At last! we thought. Let's get a photo with our eyes open! If it doesn't work, we'll just keep erasing the ruddy things until we get one that's right!

So we did. If we look glassy-eyed, it's because we're making sure our peepers are bright and wide.

Then we decided that we could look serious and have our eyes open too. MLG tried to take that one. He decided that two such stunning examples of feminine beauty should by all rights be smiling instead, and stood there waiting for us to give up. We were all set to outwait one another when a little sprite with blonde braids ran between us on her way to a parental unit. We cracked up. He took the picture.

At least our eyes are open!

Scoring Below the Learning Curve

You'd think I'd learn. Well, maybe I have, since I haven't actually acted upon this insane urge to visit Ikea.

(A) I really need nothing in the way of Ikea products. (Well, more bookshelves; I always need more bookshelves, but I also need more space for the bookshelves, which Ikea for some reason does not sell. Apparently it's related to batteries-not-included or something.)

(B) I really, truly do not need the aggravation which is parking/strolling/standing in line at Ikea. Especially now, the week before school begins.

For some arcane reason, for the past couple of years, my husband and I have decided to go to Ikea on the day after Canada Day (a.k.a. the day after Moving Day here in Montreal), the two weeks that bracket Labour Day, and usually a day around New Year's as well. We don't plan it, honestly; it's just coincidence. I personally believe it has something to do with the amount of "Must-go-to-Ikea" thoughts that are in so many people's minds around those paticular shopping days; I become infected by the sheer volume of Ikea-connected mental noise. Last week, we picked up a catalogue at a friend's apartment; today we got a card in the mail saying "Come get your new English catalogue and get X$ off before October somethingth!"; and Ikea's just generally been on my mind.

Maybe it's the change of weather. Nice cool nights, days which have finally shed that wet-blanket humidity... yep, it's back-to-school season all right. We moved the funiture around in our bedroom last night, too, something that I do around this time of year for no particular reason other than I'm seized by the urge to reorganise. Ah, that stretch of the year between high summer and fall; September appears to have arrived early. I'd love it if more of the year were like September.

Leftovers

Yesterday we cleaned out the fridge. We do this out of self-defence periodically; not because we've run out of room, but because we don't know what might be back there. We liberated a few Tupperware containers from bondage and discovered not one, but four bottles of wine that were open. This comes about as a result of people bringing wine over for parties and such, not finishing the bottles, and saying, "Hey, that wine in the fridge, it's all yours," as they leave. I forget it's there until a time such as this.

"How many bottles of wine are in here?" my husband asked, peering into the depths.

"We should pour them all together in a pitcher," I said. I was joking. But then, all of a sudden, I wasn't. "We could mix them and blend them with 7-Up and have kind of a sangria," I said. My husband looked at me oddly, but gave me the bottles of wine. I tasted each first to make sure it hadn't soured; nope, the three whites were fine. The single red, however, was definitely past its prime. I wouldn't even be able to cook with it. Down the sink it went while the husband went to buy 7-Up. I found a bottle of lime cordial in the fridge that had only an inch or so of cordial left; I poured that in as well, being minus the lemons and limes I like to put in mixes like this. And the whole thing tasted divine.

We made dinner, poured glasses of the mystery mix, and decided to play Junior Trivial Pursuit. Ordinarily this means it's a quicker game than the adult edition. However, the edition of Junior Trivial Pursuit I own is the original version, dating back from 1984. (Go ahead. Count on your fingers. Yes, it's perilously close to twenty.) This means it asks many questions based on contemporary pop culture like information about hockey leagues and now-defunct sports teams, and the question that stumped us both: what is the Sugar Crisp bear holding on the Sugar Crisp box? The box has since been redesigned, so it was more of a challenge that we'd anticipated. This is definitely a game we'll have to pull out at a party, just to watch people rummage around their two-decade old store of history. It was terrific; a mix of a walk down memory lane, a high school reunion, and a realisation of how much the world has changed.

Me and Social Events

I know I'm definitely coming out of a bad patch when I start enjoying parties again.

I've always been a poor fan of large groups of people; I prefer intimate gatherings. Lately, though, I've not been bothered by being in public places, which usually include crowds and noise. And last night, I was at a party which I absolutely loved. As a rule, I also dislike arriving late, because it means that a whole ton of people turn around and fall on me at once with hellos and hugs. Last night, what with the husband arriving home at 6.30, picking up groceries, stopping by the SAQ, and then going across town to pick up a spare key from a friend, we arrived not only fashionably late, but so late that it was hard to see people in the backyard as we tried to barbecue chicken over rapidly failing coals. But I loved it anyway.

It might have had something to do with the fact that I saw about ten people I hadn't seen in a year or more, and one or two that I hadn't seen in a few months. It also might have had something to do with the fact that I saw people I see frequently (whose company I enjoy, hence the frequency). The grilled chicken salad we created was pretty darned amazing. My Smirnoff Ice was unchilled but I didn't care.

Darn it all, I was just in a really good mood. And I was enjoying the good mood; part of me saw what was going on and rather than saying, "You know, this probably isn't a good idea for the following reasons", it said, "Aw, heck, you just have fun. Stop censoring; stop worrying what people think." (Sage advice from someone I respect. It worked perfectly last night.) As a result, I think I was probably more positive and more open to laughing and being relaxed than I have been in a very long time. I'm usually so serious; last night, I most definitely was not.

Not only that, but I was actually disappointed when my husband walked up to me and said, "I have to go home; I'm working tomorrow." If I don't want to leave, that's a certain sign of having a very good time.

The only iffy spot was, once again, being pegged as an experienced Pagan and being approached by a couple of eager novices for advice in a sticky situation. To protect me from similar future situations where I'm too polite to walk away, I have been given a code word (which I am not sharing here!) so that a handful of people will know to rescue me by removing me bodily from the conversation. Even that discussion, though, had a good side: it proved to me that I can speak excellent French even while drinking my second terribly yummy Smirnoff Ice. Go me!

Mice

My husband just came home and said, "I brought you mice."

Yes, I did a double take as well. He handed me a package of, yes, white mice. Little ones, about the size of a peanut. They're candy.

"I got them free with my Sloche today," he said. "And I know you love trying to figure out the Sloche ads, so here."

'Dead in your hand, Alive in your mouth' the slogan proclaims on the back. I opened the package; we tried them. They're raspberry-flavoured gummy mice. I love them. He hates them.

Woo-hoo! More mice for me!

Last One, Promise

Okay, last post for a while, I promise. I'm moving to the laptop where I will write.

For a while now I have been sneaking tastes of Going Bridal, a truly well-written blog that details a bride-to-be's insanity of planning her wedding. Having gone through this personal hell not once but twice, I enjoy her site immensely. (Just to be clear, I only actually got married once.) Anyone who has been through Wedding Hell should check it out.

I don't know if I could have been that erudite whilst in Wedding Hell. I recently found a whole file of e-mails to people during the six months, however, and I appear to have had some sort of sense of humour. (Except when it came to the co-ordinator at the McMichael Gallery, where we had our reception, who tracked me down at 8:30 am the day of my wedding at the hairdresser's to tell me that everything was under control and not to panic. Not to panic? Well, thanks; now you've got me worried, passing your worry-germs on to nice, calm me, who was actually having fun with my maid of honour and the hair stylist until you called.)

Example: On September 10, 1999 (that's fifteen days before the wedding) I found this in an e-mail I had written to our musician, a lovely flautist:

"Well, the wedding hell that everyone warned me about with such glee is beginning. The odd thing is, it seems to be everyone else who's obsessing about it, not Ron and I, nor our parents!"

And warn us with glee they did. We planned everything down to the last minute and the co-ordinator at the McMichael still managed to mess things up, forgetting we had asked for a full bar service (fixed seven days before the wedding, thank goodness), forgetting we had asked that the gallery be open to our guests (fixed two days before the day), and conveniently forgetting our entire schedule so that the reception room wasn't ready for the guests when they arrived. (With grim and great joy my husband sent Taras and MLG after her. Muah-hah-hah-hah-hah.)

Also found this gem from the same day:

"Ah, yes, that game called "Real Life" where if you miss your perception check you either end up owing a lot of money or with a healthy chunk of foot in your mouth. In the words of the Immortal ROb, "Real Life? I hate that game".

You forget, Marc, this is the guy who said he had until Aug 25 to tell us if he was coming or not. [...] Or maybe he's just trying to be funny. Please note that the very stressed bride-to-be isn't laughing.

Rain "rescue me from wedding hell" Murphy"

That "guy who said he had until Aug 25 to tell us if he was coming or not" was in fact the best man. He eventually sent us his reply card so he could actually be counted among the final number in order to be fed.

A day later, September 11, 1999, the subsequent message sent out to the same people:

"Apology graciously accepted. Things aren't funny these days, just very irritating. If one more person asks if I'm nervous I'll eat their liver. No, I'm not nervous; it's everyone else's stupid questions I have to put up with. And that includes the wedding co-ordinator at the McMichael and the attitude-problem minister in charge of the Doctor's House. I'm fine; Ron's fine; the parents are fine (even though Ron's great-aunt is positive his mother collapsed of stressing out over the wedding (ha!)). We're not stressing out over details like people seem to keep gleefully hoping. We're stressing out because we're trying to keep up with normal lives while making final lists for travel, outfits, scheduling, putting up with stupidity and people not thinking things through on their own. [...] You know how much I hate organizing things and making sure everyone is set. Well, some people are conveniently forgetting that. All this to say that tempers are short and please be careful.

"Gods this was depressing. My deepest apologies back at both of you. I - we - are going to need a lot of support and understanding in the next thirteen days. Yes, thirteen days. And I *still* have to buy stockings. Sigh."

I think I ended up buying stockings less than a week before the day. Yes, I bought two pairs - just in case. One is still in the package. The other pair which I wore doesn't even have a run.

That's as bad as I got, though. Didn't lose my temper with my husband-to-be, or with any parental unit. I remember being surprised that we were as relaxed as we were. (I sincerely hope we disappointed the McMichael co-ordinator, and all of the elderly relatives who were being doomsayers.)

No, I certainly don't miss organising a wedding. But I am enjoying being a voyeur over at Sara's Going Bridal. Especially since she's making a corset to wear under her dress. Ooooh. Maybe instead of a nice blue patterned satin I'll do one in sage green.

Home and Away

Yesterday was another odd day.

I met with Ceri to exchange our creative efforts for the two previous weeks, and I was late; I had been involved in my writing, finally looked at the clock, and proceeded to dash about trying to print things out, change, and catch a bus. I hate being rushed. I also dislike waking up and being slightly out of sorts, which I was yesterday; not in a bad mood, just slightly out of step with everything else. Ceri offered me tea and made me a grilled cheese sandwich, like any good Maritimer would if you collapsed in their kitchen and said, "I feel wrong." It helped. So did the Advil.

I had dinner with MLG which was as enjoyable as always, and yet uncomfortable on other levels. We'd made the date previous to my implosion on Sunday, so rather than having an evening getting away from it all, we ended up troubleshooting and problem-solving, which isn't a bad thing, just not what I had originally intended. Although I am an excellent listener, I am admittedly reluctant to ask people for help, and these days I'm incredibly blessed to have people who see that I need it and give it to me whether I've asked or not. I think that reluctance partially stems from the belief that my feelings and problems are private, and partially from the desire to not burden others (who have their own problems) with mine as well. To a certain extent, it's also learned behaviour: throughout high school and CEGEP, my friends would pour their problems out to me, but when I tried to share my own, they were uninterested. The idea that people are determined to get me to talk and open up is rather new. I am, however, looking forward to a day when I can have a conversation with other adults that doesn't revolve around my problems. I get twitchy when a conversation rests on me for too long and start looking for a place to hide, and when you're in a corner at a pub with a single rather sharp individual, hiding is rather difficult. I suppose this is good for me - doesn't it build character or something?

Apart from dinner being terribly delicious (nothing like colcannon when you need comfort food!) and being introduced to Boddingtons, I acquired a battery for my laptop, hurrah! I got home and spent an embarrassing amount of time looking for the slot to install it before realising that the only logical place for it to go was the CD-ROM drive slot, so I took out the disc drive and lo and behold, the battery slid right in. The unit didn't self-destruct when I turned it on this morning, so I must have done something right - it has even produced a battery indicator on the display. I feel more freedom already. The Loyola campus library is three minutes away from me, and I have many fond memories of hours spent there before and after class during my BA years; there's also a perfectly lovely park across the way which I will have to test out soon as a writing location as well.

I have an odd contradiction of feeling about my home these days. I want to cocoon, to stay home, read, and write; on the other hand, I'm feeling a little house-bound by the recent weather and want to be Out Doing Things. The latter is a very new experience for me, so I'm indulging it at the right times. In fact, Ceri and I are headed for more fabric stores today, questing for the perfect trim for sewing projects. Little expeditions like this are just perfect; they get me out, I can read on the metro, I share a couple of hours with another intelligent life form other than a cat, and then I'm home again. I have discovered by not working for an employer during the week, I no longer feel like I Have To Have Fun on my days off; as a result, when the sun goes down I no longer feel as if I've wasted a day somehow. This is a definite improvement.

They say it will rain this weekend. They said that last weekend too. I'll believe it when I see it.

Food

I've been eating spaghetti. Yes, I know it's something like 34 degrees outside; I felt like making spaghetti. I've had two big bowls now, which is stunning in and of itself - when it's hot, I don't eat. (You all wanted to know the secret of my elfin physique - ta-da!)

And, I have just caught myself picking the mushrooms out of my nice chunky homemade sauce.

This is how I know I'm done. I begin picking the mushrooms out of their hidey-holes - under waves of pasta, coyly cowering behind meat, peeking out from under an onion. When the mushrooms are all gone, then there's just no point in continuing.

Yes, I made sauce, and had spaghetti, and I caught myself enjoying the whole process. I just don't get it: if I have to cook for my significant other, I feel as if I have been forced to. If I'm home alone, pretending that once again I am mistress of my own flat, I adore preparing food.

Living alone means the dishes in the sink are yours, the towels on the floor are yours, the cat hair on the carpet is sort of yours by extension. When you live with someone else, these things become issues. You try to keep up your end of the bargain, and feel resentful if you think the other partner doesn't take them as seriously as you do.

I like being on my own. I enjoy pretending the apartment is all mine. Mind you, significant others are useful for those times where you feel limp and lifeless and someone needs to do the dishes or bring you a cup of tea or help paint a room. Still haven't managed to train my cats to do things like that yet.

I will now draw a nice cool bath. I received some very nice bath salts as a gift this weekend, and I intend to take advantage of them!

Old Friends

Just when you think you're on top of things, the sky falls. Sheesh.

I really, really, hate money. I also hate the fact that even though we try our best, sacrifice a lot, and break our backs to be responsible and upstanding citizens, life still jacknifes around and slaps us. I hate the fact that even though we care and we try, other people who don't care and don't try live lives of ease, and have the good luck that seems to avoid us like the plague.

Grr.

On the other hand, a friend came over today to sketch me. We've known one another since our first year of high school, and she's definitely my oldest friend. We even roomed together for a year. We have a tendency to weave in and out of one another's life; a couple of years of being close, a year or so of doing our own thing, a slow amalgamation of lives again...

I sat for two hours while she took different angles, used different media and light, and we talked about everything under the sun: what was new in our lives, what was going wrong, the lessons we've learned. The nice thing about friends like this is you can pick up right where you left off - no awkward re-integration, just jumping right into the deep personal stuff that you used to talk about sprawled across each other's beds years ago, with a glass of wine, late at night.

We tend to forget how similarly we react to life, and how good we are for one another. We really should get together more often. And yet, I wonder - if we did, would things be the same? Would they be as easy? Or would there be all the little things that trip you up, the familiarity-breeding-contempt issue?

So she got work done, I got to sit and do nothing (what a novelty!), and we both downloaded and got to relax. We encouraged one another regarding our artistic pursuits. We shared secrets that even our significant others don't know. And apart from re-discovering how much we enjoy one another's company, we also agreed to do another girls' night like we used to do. We're currently trying to figure out where we can go to cause as much trouble as possible.

Lament of the Transplanted Maritimers

So I was reading Ceri's wail about summers in Montreal, and I got all homesick too. Then I had the brilliant idea of the two of us being homesick together.

So Ceri's coming over! Yay! We will lounge in front of fans, moan about the seashore being too far away, eat cool salad and runny Brie and, in general, be transplanted Maritimers. This is good, because after the intense weekend, and the news about the Megan-dog, and the heat, I'd be useless today anyway. Writing? Ha. Reading? I can't get into anything for some reason. Going for a walk? Are you insane? It was 28 degrees at 9:45 AM.

I forgot to mention that when I came home from Pennsylvania, my cats had apparently been on a Virginia Woolf reading binge, because I found my entire Woolf collection on the floor, along with a Tad Williams book and Patricia C Wrede's Enchanted Forest Chronicles.

On the Road Again

So long! Away we go, on the road again…

Well, actually we’re on the way to bed, so we can rest up to be on the road again at three AM.

The weather for our camping weekend in Pennsylvania looks glorious – sunny to partly cloudy, with temperatures in the high twenties and night-time temperatures of mid- to low-teens. Perfect.

Alas, my lap-top has no battery, so I cannot blog whilst away. You will all just have to do without me till Monday afternoon. Which reminds me – I’d better pack a notebook and some pens so that I can work on the Great Canadian Novel, should the whim seize me.

Ciao!

Battered

Not only am I bruised, I am now burned.

I made a pot of ginseng green tea. I am notorious for not noticing the passage of time and leaving a cup of tea next to me for hours, so I drink tepid or cool tea a lot. Just now I picked up my mug, assuming it was cool (as it is, nine times out of ten) and took a rather large sip.

Ow.

They probably won't let me over the border. They'll look at me and turn me back rather than risk my sudden klutziness spreading.

Connections

So I spent yesterday with Ceri, and all day something was lurking in the back of my mind, and it had something to do with Ceri herself (indirectly), and Saturday night when I went to a ritual.

It nibbled, and nibbled, and every time I tried to look at it it would vanish into the shadowy depths of my subconscious again. All Sunday it lurked and gnawed. Something like this is like having a mosquito in the room with you: you can hear it, and you know it's there, but you'll never see it, and it just gets more and more irritating.

When I go to ritual I usually wear a hand-made anklet of amber and onyx. I rarely wear it for any other reason, and if I do, I have to be feeling really special. As I did up the clasp on Saturday night I thought about wearing it more often, but I'm always afraid it will break. This casual observation must have been what started that lurky thought that hung around for a day or so. Ceri and I looked at a lot of fabric and trims yesterday, and Ceri mentioned making her wedding dress. The niggling feeling that I was forgetting something floated closer to the surface, but still didn't make it all the way to conscious thought. It wasn't until I was in a bath last night that I finally, triumphantly, dragged that thought out into the light, kicking and screaming.

I bought another anklet in Halifax last September the day of Ceri's wedding, so I could wear an anklet all the time.

There.

When I emerged from the bath I hunted through my jewelry box until I found it, underneath some stone necklaces. Out of sight, out of mind. Figures.

I shouldn't feel this smug and content about remembering a delicate silver anklet. Really.

White Rabbits

Ever since I was little, my mother and I have been practicing the same little charm at the beginning of the month. See, my mother told me that if you said “white rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits” out loud as soon as you woke up on the first day of the month, before you talk to anyone else, you’d receive a present sometime during that month.

When you’re little, this is a very exciting thing. It’s almost like magic. You say secret words, and something wonderful happens within the next thirty or so days.

Needless to say, I tried very hard, and I’d remember eight times out of ten. Now that I’m grown up (or so they say), I still do it. I feel a bit foolish, whispering it in bed next to my oblivious husband in the wee small hours, but I still do it.

So, as a public service announcement, I wish to remind you all that it is the first of August tomorrow, and if you too wish to say “white rabbits, white rabbits, white rabbits”, be my guest. We can all use more presents.

My Name is Autumn, and I'm A Tea Snob

I have a confession to make.

I am a tea snob.

I love opening a tin of good, loose tea. I love lifting it up and breathing in the symphony of odours of every ingredient. I love scooping it up in a tea ball, hooking the tea ball onto my teapot, pouring the boiling water into the pot (but not over the ball - mustn't "scare the tea"). I even love watching the stream of golden brown liquid splash into my cup, steam rising. And then, of course, there's that first heavenly sip, where those airborne flavours marry on your tongue and produce something hinted at previously and yet oh-so-different.

I am also, alas, lazy.

So, teabags are my friends in the mornings, and usually during the day, too, when I'm working on the computer. I'm a Twinings fan, and Earl Grey used to be my standby until they introduced a new flavour a couple of years ago: Lady Grey, a similar tea but flavoured with orange and lemon as well as bergamot. I was so excited about it I gave it to countless people, who were probably just humouring me. I've been using Lady Grey teabags ever since, which I have to pick up downtown since my local grocery emporium doesn't stock it.

Until last weekend, when my mother and I walked into a specialty grocery store to pick up various dinner items. I saw rows upon rows of Twinings tins - a whole world of loose teas! - and nestled in the midst of them all was a blue one that I had never seen anywhere else.

Twinings makes loose Lady Grey tea.

I picked it up; I cradled it to my chest; I crooned to it. It came back to Montreal with me. This morning, I said to myself that I would make a proper cup of tea for the first time in months, and opened the tin.

The first thing that struck me was the look of it. Tea is, well, brown, little crinkly brown dry things. Lady Grey has blue flowers in it, and whiteish chopped up peel.

It was beautiful. Now, I know I went to bed late last night, and got up too early this morning, but it was, well, pretty. The blue was a nice Wedgewood or Spode-type of blue, and the flowers sort of look like lavender flowers. The tea was a warmer brown than I remember from my tins of Earl Grey, too.

Then the smell reached me.

I never realise how old my tins of tea are until I buy a new one. Old tea has a bit of a musty, flat smell to it when you open the tin, but it still smells like tea. A new tin smells alive.

And the flavour is... complex. A pot of tea made with loose tea is like freshly ground coffee beans to instant coffee. Sure, it's coffee, but to what degree?

Excellent tea such as this should be enjoyed in the very best cup you have. My mother gave me a single bone china cup and saucer a few years ago with pansies on them which I am petrified of breaking, so as much as I'd like to use it, I usually leave it on the shelf and admire it instead. When I'm finished this mug, though, methinks I shall fetch it down, wash it out, and go sit at my laptop to work on the Great Canadian Novel.

PotPourri

If I were a mage, there are two things I'd invent immediately.

One: Self-cleaning dishes. Coming home after a week's vacation to a sink of dirty dishes is bad. I don't not enjoy washing dishes, I dislike having to wash them.

Two: Self-cleaning clothes. Doing laundry is expensive and time-consuming. Worse, though, is the Eternal Laundry Basket Curse all my clothes seem to be laden with: Where's my brown shirt? Where are my jeans? Wait, I know - the laundry basket, because when I finally washed them, I didn't have the energy to put them away in drawers where they're supposed to go. At least they're folded.

I found a copy of Bridget Jones's Diary in a second-hand bookshop yesterday, started reading it on the way home, and finished it yesterday mid-afternoon. Brilliant. Now I have to see the movie, because in the book Bridget suggests doing a TV journalism piece on the off-screen romance between Colin Firth and Jennifer Ehle, the stars of the BBC Pride & Predjudice, and of course, Colin Firth is in the movie version of BJD, playing another Mr. Darcy. Look! Inter-media reference! I love it!

And for those who have not heard the news, we have the new car; the albatross is no longer in our possession!

Reconstruction and Preservation: The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum

My father took me to the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum in Hamilton this afternoon. He volunteers there now that he’s not flying, and he makes a terrific tour guide: he paced everything well and gave me a wonderful range of information on each craft. There are over forty planes in the collection, housed in a wonderful new delta-shaped hangar, and every single one of them flies (except for the two wired up, and the fiberglass reconstructed craft that was destroyed in the fire that burned down the original hangar).

There are several bright yellow trainers (my favourites!) spanning several years: Finches, Moths, Harvards; there are bombers, recon craft and others. Every once in a while Dad would connect the craft to something I would recognise from his own history: “This is the one I flew in Portage-La-Prairie; this is the one I would fly up from Summerside to see your mother in Montreal.” I had no idea he had trained on so many warplanes.

The trip was fascinating, but unfortunately what I’ll remember the most is the Lancaster. The Lancaster is one of the Heritage Museum’s pride and joys; fully restored, it flies for display several times each year, and for a modest fee of $1000 (gulp!) will take passengers for a half-hour ride. It’s a beautiful aircraft. It was on the tarmac today along with four or five trainers doing passenger tours, as well as an F-5, a DC-3 and a couple of others odds and ends. We paused by the open hangar door to watch it taxi in, guided by the ground crew, and everything seemed just fine right up until a surreal moment where everyone watched without comprehending what was truly happening. Rather than completing the slow and graceful arc into the open area to taxi to a stop, the Lancaster came too close to the parked DC-3, and inexorably, like a bad dream, the right-most prop hacked into the left wing of the DC-3.

We stood in the hangar door and stared. Planes don’t do that. The surreal moment hung there as two gigantic aircraft attempted to occupy the same place. Then the props cut out on the Lancaster and it stopped dead, ground crews were running out, and the noise that I hadn’t truly heard over the sound of the engines ceased. There was debris on the runway, and a sense of numb horror in the air.

My father had spent the last hour or so detailing the expense and effort that goes into restoring these aircraft, and I had taken it all to heart. I admire any sort of dedicated restoration, and to keep an outdated piece of machinery in flying trim is a particularly impressive work. Many of the craft in the museum hangar have been salvaged from barns or fields, rusted and broken; some have been pieced together from three, five, six other craft. Apart from three paid mechanics and a cleaning staff, everyone involved in the Museum work is a volunteer, which means the pilots, the interpreters, and the restoration crews do it out of love for the aircraft and the history.

The horror I felt watching the Lancaster’s prop destroy the wing of the DC-3 was partially based on the knowledge of the expense incurred and the historic memorabilia damaged, partially on the despair of the men and women who had invested so many hours of maintenance and pride into the two craft, and partially on my empathy for the pilots, fighting a huge craft weighing several tons as it just didn’t make the turn, taking the responsibility for the result on their shoulders. The latter was heightened later on when while my father and I were having lunch, the co-pilot of the Lancaster came in with an accident report to fill in, and that disconnected air that someone dealing with shock displays. He was an old piloting friend of my father’s who sat with us as he filled in his report (although he said that it was impossible to reconstruct what had gone wrong), and we watched as the Lancaster was finally pushed back away from the DC-3 and examined. The damage to the Lancaster appears to be minimal; the DC-3, on the other hand, might lose the wing panel, which is removable thanks to a couple of hundred bolts. Depending on the extent of the damage, it will be either restored, or replaced if a panel can be found elsewhere.

The Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum is one of those places I truly admire, making an attempt to preserve history for future generations. The memorabilia they house (crafts and gear, medals, uniforms, communications) is evidence of another time that wasn’t so long ago. In the past century, our rate of development has shot through the roof; more progress has been made in the last hundred years than in two to three centuries previous. We go so fast that we lose track of how we got here. When I tour places like this, I am simultaneously amazed at how much I know, and always dejected at how much I still have to learn. Which is why I admire people like my father, donating time to teach people about where they came from, sharing their knowledge.

The entire staff of the Museum deserve a tip of the hat for their work, past, present and future. I’ll be back again; and I know that after many long, expensive hours of reconstruction, maintenance, and finishing, I’ll see the DC-3 and the Lancaster fly again. Because that’s what they do; they bring the past back to life. And every one of them should be honoured for it.

A Most Palpable Hit!

I have had the most marvellous birthday weekend.

My birthdays tend to be hit or miss. This year, I’ve discovered a solution: plan things all through the weekend so everyone gets a chance to see me at least once, and I get to do all sorts of stuff I find enjoyable. Why haven’t I thought of this before?

Friday night was spent dining on gazpacho and home-made oatmeal whole wheat bread with good friends. Saturday we had a handful of people over to read A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which, to my delight, was such a success that as soon as we ended, someone asked, “Can we do another one?”. Saturday I also saw three films I’d never seen before: Zeffirelli’s Romeo and Juliet (and Olivia was indeed divine!); Moulin Rouge (which was absolutely spectacular, but then I love the theatre, and this was a synthesis of theatrical spectacle and cutting-edge film); and The Matrix (yes, I worked at a science-fiction bookstore when it came out, and became so turned off by every customer coming in and raving about it that I didn’t see it in theatres, and was never really in the mood to watch it when we got it on DVD). Sunday I shopped, and with some birthday money acquired an elegantly stunning linen and brocade dress in black and purple for practically nothing, and a pair of leather arm bracers to serve as arm guards with my husband’s birthday present, a 35 # bow. And then, Monday night we did the cider and baked Brie thing at Hurley’s, where people gave me a group present: the music stand that was the subject of much comment here over a month ago: a fold-out music stand that can hold (as I discovered when I got home) five sheets of music. I’ll never have to turn pages again! Coming home, I found one last present had been left for me: a hardbound double volume set of the complete Sherlock Holmes stories, which I’d been seeking without much luck.

I haven’t had so much fun in ages! I should have a birthday every month!

Actually, I think I’m just relaxing enough to enjoy life again. It’s awfully nice not to be wound up, and to be able to sit back and appreciate friends, art, and literature again. I’m rediscovering how much I love art and culture, how hungrily I reach for intellectual exercise now that I have the room to do so. I’m rediscovering my analytical skills as well (I am shocked to see how much they have truly devalued, so I’m exercising them and bringing them back up to scratch!), mainly through rants on the state of culture here (you lucky readers, you), and, um, well, that book of alternative religion that MLG told me to write last summer over lunch one day. I deliberately didn’t sit down at the computer all weekend; I just wanted to live, instead of writing or thinking about living.

I’m also preparing to visit my parents for a week, taking the train up to Toronto tomorrow for a week of quiet and my mother’s home-cooked meals, so if I appear unreachable, that’s the reason why. Genteel teas; a visit to the ROM; lots of napping and reading and writing, with less distractions – bliss!

Sometimes you feel like you're surrounded by idiots

Time to lighten up a bit. I can't be an angst-ridden intellectual 24/7, after all.

I promised myself I would stop wasting space on these, but I found this and I just had to share it in light of how amusing my life can be:

Which of the Disney Princesses are you?

Apparently, You are a true bookworm and dream of a life better than the simple, quiet one you lead now. Your good looks can attract the town jerks, but you manage to ignore them most of the time. Sometimes you feel like you're surrounded by idiots. So what are you waiting for? You don't need your father to be kidnapped to get out and see the world. Although you can be stubborn, you're also very compassionate and see beyond people's façades.

And I thought this would lighten things up? "Sometimes you feel like you're surrounded by idiots" is just a colloquial way of paraphrasing my last two days' worth of blogging on the devaluing of the intellectual in today's society. My life, I tell you, is a comedy.

Also amusing: in flipping through the other princess descriptions, I found this in Esmeralda's paragraph: Luckily you don't die at the end of the Disney movie, although in the book you're hanged.

More on Capitalism

Gods, I love random blog links - through the Pepys project I just discovered a site called Wealth Bondage that touches on what I was trying to work out yesterday about art and capitalism, the role of the artist and philosopher in today's increasingly inhospitable anti-intellectual society:

I think sometimes that we define altruism or philanthropy or charity too narrowly.We think that first you make money and then, if you are charitable, you give it away for a good cause. But, we all know that many people live lives of service, in which they voluntarily forego making much money: Saints, poets, teachers, artists, priests, activists, soldiers, firemen, stay at home Moms: All of these people are doing something other than profit-maximizing. Some have what used to be called a vocation or a calling, as opposed to a trade. They give of themselves, rather than accumulating what A. Bartlett Giamatti used to call "mucky pelf."

The most generous and philanthropic guys are not Gates, but some poor schnooks who have devoted their lives to other people, accepting low pay and hard and often dangerous work on behalf of something larger and more important than themselves.

All of us have to make a living, but in setting up a business, or making career choices, or making choices outside of work, we can contribute to the social fabric, re-weaving as best we can what profit maximizing sometimes inadvertently and unintentionally tears asunder -- the environment, economic justice, and the quality of our media and our culture.

You can profit maximize profit and give away some money, or you can simply devote your life[...] to something more important than money, or you can strike some kind of a balance.

We live in the world of economics, but [...] we dwell in civil society. - from Nichomachean Ethics for Dummies

Whoa. Yeah, that. What he said.

I Expected It To Be More Dickensian

Well. That was anti-climactic.

I just came back from the EI office. Having heard horror stories, I was expecting a dark, crowded, dour office with hard wooden chairs and evil civil servants looking down their noses at me because I was no longer one of society's beneficial contributors. Evidently, I read too much Dickens (or Lemony Snicket). Instead, I walked into a bright, open office, waited in a line of four people to get to the front desk, told the nice gentleman who served me in the language of my choice that I had applied on-line but was here to drop off my Record of Employment, where did I need to go? He smiled at me and said I didn't need to go anywhere or see anyone, because he could take it. Seeing by the print-outs in my hand that I had obtained a confirmation number from the on-line application (I'm so prepared), he told me that I'd be receiving further instructions in the mail. I blinked, and said, "That's all?" "Yes, he said, smiling again and holding out his hand for my ROE. "Can I just make a copy of this, then?" I said, still stunned. He even directed me to a (free) photocopier, then gestured me out of line again when I returned to take the ROE with another friendly smile.

And I walked out five minutes after I'd walked in. It would have been sooner if I'd thought ahead and had already made the copy of my ROE. My husband couldn't stop shaking his head with a grin; he claims that the ease of the whole exercise further underscores the fact that this was the right decision.

Apology Not Accepted

Oh, isn't that nice. The head of WorldCom has apologised.

Honestly, do they think that will make it all okay? A kiss for the scrape, a Band-Aid, and off they run to play with the other kids on the block again?

In other news: Ray Brown has died. It's not just me; twentieth century icons are dropping like flies.

And, the sixteen year old Jehovah's Witness known as "Mia" in Alberta has won her case to refuse transfusions for her leukemia. Her religion forbids it; until now, the state has forced them on her. This isn't about religion, although it seems like it on the surface. It's about setting a precedent for the freedom to choose and establishing fundamental human rights. The worst thing about this situation? Her father is fighting to reverse the ruling, so that Mia's choice to refuse treatment and die in peace will be taken away for her. He wants to force her to live.

Can you believe that? Granted, she's technically still a legal minor. Family court, however, has ruled that she's obviously mature enough to make her own decisions. The case is due to move on to the Supreme Court where they'll examine if a sixteen-year-old is in fact old enough to make choices about her own life, but that's in the future. It's a tricky situation; if she'd murdered someone, they'd have the choice to try her as an adult or a juvenile. I don't see why that can't apply to a situation like this as well.

It really makes me seethe. A young woman has made a courageous and difficult decision about her own life, and her father is trying to take it away from her. That's selfish. I realise that a parent, having brought a child into the world and raised her for however many years, will forever function in parental protective mode: one of the deepest tragedies in anyone's life is losing a child, no matter what the age. And through much of childhood, a parent must make heavy decisions concerning a child's health and welfare, and, as a general rule, will fight tooth and nail to preserve their progeny. However, by sixteen, if faith and serious thought dictate a youth's decisions, particularly concerning a terminal illness, you can't stomp all over their rights just because you think you know best. There comes a point where you have to allow them the individuality and maturity that you've supposedly cultivated in them.

Maybe I've been spoiled by parents who have let me make my own choices, who have stood back and watched me struggle and fall on my face at times, but who have also watched me grow into a pretty strong human being. Maybe I'm in the minority. This young woman, however, has only a ten percent chance of survival if she undergoes treatment she has described as "invasive", and will probably have to suffer various treatments for the rest of her days is she does survive. While my parents were down we talked about death of pets and making the choice to end someone else's life, and my mother used the phrase "quality of life". If the rest of your life is going to be tubes and wires and a sterile hospital room, whether you're sixteen or a septagenarian, why shouldn't you have the right to decide to end it? It saves the state money, it saves pain and emotional anguish, and conserves human dignity. A cat cannot look at you and say, "You know, I've had a good life, but I'm in severe pain. I love you, but it's time." (Actually, they can, and most cat owners know when they do, but so many people ignore what's best for the cat and keep it alive beyond what it would have lived naturally because they're afraid of facing loss and grief. Terrific. So instead you put the cat through hell, even though its quality of life has diminished?) A human being, however, can say, "I can't do this any more. I choose to stop." Apart from that whole sticky Hippocratic Oath thing, which is one of the stumbling blocks when it comes to situations like this, who has the right to deny someone the basic right to live or die?

The truth is, there is no easy answer. We can't draft a law that covers situations like this, because every one is unique and must be addressed individually. I should be pleased that the family court has made the ground-breaking ruling that allows Mia the choice to direct her own medical treatment, which in her case means having the right to deny transfusions. Instead, I'm frustrated.

On Bilingualism and the National Anthem

I'm certain that others of my generation have the same problem I do. You know, the one where you start singing our national anthem in one language and slip into another somewehere? And you don't realise you're doing it until you get stuck on one line?

Maybe it's just here in Quebec. Or maybe it's from sea to shining sea, since all of us used to watch Hockey Night in Canada and the anthems are always sung bilingually.

Isn't that a lovely phrase? "From sea to shining sea" is my favourite way to describe our nation. We start at the East (because it's where the sun rises, silly) and travel through red soil, farmland, fishing villages, farmland, mountains, farmland, prairie, mountains, fishing villages, and the sea once more as the sun sets in the West. Thousands and thousands of kilometers of a grab bag of geography. Going from South to North, we travel through, what is it, three climates? More? (I mean, do we seperate tundra from sub-tundra or whatever it is?) And Montreal encapsulates all of them, from sub-tropic to sub-arctic. Go us!

Looking at the stupidity going on in the rest of the world, I can confidently say that I'd choose to live in Canada every time. Our commitment to education, research and development, peace-keeping, religious and racial tolerance, farming and umpteen other disciplines makes us one of the leaders in the cultural and scientific world. I don't know whether to be annoyed that the rest of the world hasn't figured out how terrific we are (wake up!) or relieved (we're still safe!).

Overall, we're a terrific country. We're lucky to live here. And we have kick-ass Olympic hockey teams. So hoist that Maple Leaf high; wear your red and white proudly; sing our anthem at the top of your voice when you're at whatever celebration you're at today. In whatever language. Heck, switch back and forth. The rest of us will be doing it too.

Pet Peeves

If Kate asked me again what my three biggest pet peeves were, I'd have to rewrite my answer. Among those three peeves would be being taken for granted.

I detest being taken for granted. It's rude, it's not taking someone else's feelings into account, and it's using someone else.

I was put into a position this weekend where someone asked me to do something at the last minute. It wasn't a big thing, and I know perfectly well I was expected to say yes; I don't think it even crossed the questioner's mind that I'd refuse. I also know perfectly well that we always have a choice, etcetera etcetera; one can always say no. However, I was asked in front of other people, and to say no would have looked petty.

I hate being in a position like that. To me, that's taking someone for granted.

Every once in a while I work on radio dramas, and I love it. One of my contacts has a habit of calling me and asking if I'm available a couple of days before a potential performance. Same thing: simple courtesy goes a long way. Asking me to rearrange my schedule so I can fit rehearsals and a performance into it without a couple of days' notice is not only presumptuous, it's downright discourteous. The kicker here is that I love to do radio dramas, especially with this contact, and it puts my whole week off if I have to turn him down due to other scheduled events that can't be shifted or cancelled. He's always disappointed too. There's a simple solution: call me earlier. Let me know ahead of time. Assuming I'm free does both of us a disservice.

To me, being taken for granted means I'm not being considered as a real person. One of the things that frustrates me about society today is that no one seems aware that other individuals exist outside their own personal sphere. People who cut you off on the road, who stop suddenly on a crowded sidewalk, who blast their music in cars, who smoke in bus shelters - not a single one of them understands that their actions affect others around them. They're unable to understand that everyone is an individual, that we all work together. One of my husband's frequent comments while driving is, "Wow, it must be nice to be so important" when another driver drifts into our lane, or cuts across three lanes of traffic to get to an exit, or pulls out of a parking space without looking to see if anyone's coming down the lane. That saying encapsulates exactly how I feel about being taken for granted.

The Grand Poobah posted an entry a couple of weeks ago about something very similar to what I'm frustrated about. I put a lot of effort into being certain that I'm not inconveniencing anyone, to be polite, to think of others, which is probably why I snap every once in a while when I feel I haven't been offered the same consideration. Sure, I'm only human, which means that I mess up every once in a while, trip over myself, crash and burn in a particular situation; I'm not perfect. So often, though, I get fed up. Why do I bother? So few others do.

I know why I do, though. It's the same reason that Hobbes does. Because we're decent people. Because we have that queer ability to place ourselves in someone else's shoes and see how our actions will be interpreted. It's a disability at times, but overall, however, I think it gives us a really good look at the human condition. I treat others - strangers and friends - the way I would like to be treated. So when people don't extend me the same courtesy, well, after enough of being walked over, I snap. Unfortunately, sometimes I snap in the presence of someone who has no clue why, because the irritation and unfairness of it all tends to pile up until that proverbial straw on the camel's spine enters the picture.

Yes, I do often wish I weren't so damned principled. It would make life a lot easier if I were one of those people who didn't care.

From now on, I say no when I feel like it.

My Early Retirement Party

Traditionally, I dislike parties. I especially dislike parties at my place because I can't get away from them. Only once did I actually leave: I walked out of my birthday party a few years ago. I called off holding parties for that very reason: you're stuck there. You can always leave other people's parties.

Last year I decided to give it a try again, and we had a successful housewarming. Might have been a fluke, I thought. We had a couple of small gatherings throughout the year, getting me up to speed again. Nothing huge. It's not like I've suddenly decided that I'm throwing myself a big birthday party or anything. Let's not go to extremes.

MLG suggested I have people over to mark my last day of work before my sabbatical. I anticipated a quiet evening with much conversation. Sure, why not, I said.

Well, this morning, I walked into my kitchen and looked at the number of empty bottles on the counter and the table. I have no idea how few people could drink so much. I'm afraid to do the math. The glorious thing is, though, that it wasn't an alcohol-fest (I just don't do those); it was simply a terrific evening. I think everyone needed to relax. And for once, I was happy to be the excuse everyone used to kick back.

Note to self: drink O'Casey's with cream again sometime. Mmm.

So people had fun. Yes, we had that good conversation thing; there was also much laughter, good music (in my CD changer at the beginning of the evening: Buffy - the Musical, Ella Fitzgerald, the LOTR soundtrack, Great Big Seas's Turn, and Classic Yo-Yo Ma... I am nothing if not eclectic), good food (I made baked Camembert with sage and then forgot I'd made it, although everyone else tells me it was terrific), and of course, good company. I know good people. And it's good when we all get together.

My first day of my non-retail life was lovely. I went for a walk at 9 AM, grinning like an idiot. I practiced. I read. I napped a bit. I tidied up all those bottles and cans (still unable to comprehend how much alcohol was consumed). I nibbled bread and cheese. All in all, a wonderfully relaxed day. My parents should be en route to Montreal from Oakville; I'm really looking forward to seeing them soon too.

Life is pretty darn okay.

On the Ever-Evolving Nature of Snack Food

Once again I venture boldly into the snack foods that challenge The Way It's Always Been.

I scoffed at the idea of Chocolate Creme Oreos. I said, "That's just a Fudgee-O."

I sit corrected.

I'd forgotten, of course, that the cookie part of the Oreo sandwich is not the same as the cookie part of a Fudgee-O sandwich. It's that delicious crumbly dark chocolate wafer type of cookie, as opposed to the, well, fudgey cookies in a Fudgee-O.

Chocolate Creme Oreos are yummy. And just think how impressed Martha will be at your next dinner when you present a cleverly arranged contrating pattern of Chocolate and Classic Oreos as a dessert platter!

I should try one with a Vanilla Coke.

Summer Preview

I'm having a lovely taste of what this summer might be like. I have today off, since I took a co-worker's shift on Monday. It's sunny; I have all the windows open. I read a whole book. (Witch Boy, by Russell Moon. Odd.) I doodled about on my laptop. I played my cello for two hours straight. (Much black stuff came off onto my fingertips. Ew. But wow, what a workout. I'm looking forward to keeping this up.) I walked to the pharmacy and did some postal stuff I'd been meaning to do.

I feel fantastic. And I still have a couple of hours before orchestra.

I also moved the coffee table out of the middle of the living room. It just seemed like the thing to do. It's almost as if with more room in here, I'm in a better mood. No, it doesn't make sense. Without the table, though, I feel more relaxed, less stressed, less shut in, I suppose. And there's room for me to lie down on the floor with the laptop, or to set up my cello without moving a bunch of stuff around. When I was a teenager I used to move my room around when I felt like it; it gave me a sense of control over my environment and the freedom to move physical furniture around to reflect my mental furniture. It's amazing how different life can seem just because you've switched the positioning of things around you.

Hair Colour and Teaching

So I'm brushing my hair last night, and I looked in the mirror, and - hey, when did my hair get so long? It was only a month or so ago that I was moaning about how I wanted Pre-Raphaelite locks cascading down my back, and I was all mopy about how it would never happen. Looking over my shoulder into the mirror, I can see I'm mostly there all of a sudden.

My hair is acting in a peculiar fashion. I decided a while ago to put an end to the never-ending cycle of chromatic experiments that I'd been doing for the past couple of years, and to put a seal on it I resolved to henna my hair, which is the kiss of death if you ever want to use chemical colour again. Natural herbal colour and chemical colour don't mix well at all. (Think of that scene in Anne of Green Gables where her hair turns green, and you've pretty much got it.) So I did my research, ordered some brown henna, and did the deed last weekend. Now my hair is more like I remember it: thicker, wavy, even. And, apparently, longer. I cringe when I think about the chemical damage I must have done. Henna is a natural conditioner that's great for your hair and scalp, and heaven knows I needed help. Maybe my hair is rewarding me.

It's a beautiful day today - more like what we expect from late June in Montreal. Sunny, a bit humid. I never cease to be amazed at how much of an effect the weather has on my mood.

I taught another class last night. At the end of a workshop I always ask if there was something the students would have liked to seen more of, less of, explained differently. Last night when I asked, all they did was thank me for being clear, concise, unbiased, and dynamic. I even got a round of applause. Not only that, they all decided to come back for my next workshop in two weeks as well. I think I must have hit on something, here. I'm always surprised when people enjoy my workshops - not because I think they're bad (I work too hard on them for them to be anything but good!), but because I think those attending will be left rather neutral towards me and the material. All I'm doing is giving them information, after all, or guiding them though an exploration process where they discover their own answers. I keep forgetting that while I've known this material for a while, they're all new to it, so it's two solid hours of discovery and communion with others of like mind, where as individuals they often think they're alone in their interests. The newness of it all, plus the bonus of meeting others, has to be exciting. I must be facilitating this excitement and discovery is some sort of constructive fashion. As much as I think I'm not a people person, a friend pointed out to me the other day that I care about others, which automatically makes me a people person whether I like it or not. If I didn't care, I wouldn't be as approachable. Which makes sense, in an irritating sort of way. The reason people like being with me and seek me out is because I'm a decent human being, even if I'd prefer to be alone a lot of the time. Seems contradictory, but it isn't. Alas.

Vanilla Coke and Brain Research

I have tasted Vanilla Coke, and it is the nectar of the gods.

I was walking down the street with a friend on the way to work when I saw a huge display of it in a shop window. I dragged him in, bought a box, brought it to work and passed them around. The general response is that it's okay; some people prefer Cherry Coke, others adore the Vanilla. I am one of the latter.

It tastes exactly like my Vanilla Schnaaps/Coke blend, but without that sharp alcoholic feeling on the back of your tongue. I so desperately do not want to become used to this taste. I want to make sure it's a treat every time I drink it. I'm also afraid they'll just yank it from the market without warning, so I'm considering stocking up on it against that very nightmarish occurance.

In other news, Ceri thoughfully sent me a link about some research they're doing on the brains of musicians. Evidently they're discovering that:

Musicians have bigger and more sensitive brains than people who do not play instruments, scientists revealed yesterday.

The auditory cortex, which is the part of the brain concerned with hearing, contains 130 per cent more "grey matter" in professional musicians than in non-musicians.

In amateur players, the volume of the auditory cortex is between the two, a team of researchers from Heidelberg University in Germany has found. They used scans and imaging techniques to compare the size and activity of the auditory cortex in 37 people.

The professionals, who all performed regularly, showed 102 per cent more activity in their auditory cortex than non-musicians. Activity in the brains of amateur musicians was on average 37 per cent higher than in those who did not play an instrument, the researchers said in a report in Nature Neuroscience. The auditory cortex consists mainly of "grey matter" or nerve cells called neurons, which are interconnected by long filament-like axons, or "white matter".

All the math and stuff can be found here in the news report.

Ceri suggests that I wear a helmet to protect my apparently valuable auditory cortex. How fortuitous that I will be looking into Blue Cross today.

Well, It's Bright

Well. Our bathroom is yellow.

See, we went to Home Depot yesterday to look at paint chips for the kitchen, and we ended up buying the paint we'd decided on for the bathroom. Being temporarily useless at anything requiring a reaching movement, I was shut out of the exercise while my husband painted.

It's, um, yellow. Lemony yellow. The colour of whipped egg yolks with a bit of sugar in them. It's not as dark as we'd expected; we were hoping for more of an deeper tone to it as it dried. It's not awful; it's just, well, different.

It's going to take a bit of getting used to, I think. It's definitely better than the stark white was.

On other fronts, NSW was (as usual) a terrific session, very character-driven as opposed to action-oriented. We got our new mission parameters: go into occupied worlds and incite rebellion. Sounds good, and very Star Wars-y; it presents a vast variety of potential situations. No one seemed to mind that I spent the session standing, leaning against the wall, or flat on my back on the living room floor. Chairs appear to aggravate my back.

Bank errands, then an interview on Pagan weddings, then work this afternoon. Then we'll see what state we are in at the end of it all, and if ye old spine can stand (pun unintentional, I assure you; there's not much humour in me when it comes to this any more) a public ritual tonight or not.

Back: 1, Autumn: 0

I'm sitting perched on my ergonomic kneely-chair, which is certainly not serving me ergonomically at the moment: my feet are up on the knee part and Maggie in on my lap. I keep bending down to kiss her between her ears, which is lovely and soft and she smells good, but the motion is not serving my back well at all!

I'm feeling rather foolish and guilty this morning. I came home from work early yesterday on the edge because I couldn't stop my back from hurting - my Secret Weapon was useless. Trying to explain it to someone, I used the feeling of being hit with a baseball or a bat as a comparative image - you know, that sudden breathless feeling? Another good one would be if you've ever fallen flat on your back while on ice skates: you feet are in the air, then you land square on your back. If I had to register the pain on a Pain-O-Metre, I think it would end up being surprisingly low. It's just the eternal-ness of it. It hurts to breathe. (Not to mislead you about the pain, though; the Pain-O-Metre would indeed register spikes, when I try to move a way my spine decides I shouldn't, and I get spasms. Lovely.)

Anyway, what ended up happening is that when I got home, I fell onto my bed and realised that I couldn't get up. I shed a few angry tears, then dozed a bit until the husband came home. He had to call someone we were supposed to pick up to take to an evening gathering to tell her he'd be late. She ended up calling back to tell him the gathering was cancelled.

Now, sure, other factors were likely involved, but, as usual, I feel responsible. I know they really wanted me there, but I couldn't face an hour in the car, let alone wandering around a forest. Ergo, common sense says I had to stay home. Not being able to get out of bed is usually a good indication of this. However, it doesn't change the fact that I feel dreadful. I feel like I'm lying to everyone somehow: I'm leaving work early, I'm cancelling outings... I know I'm making people angry, and it just upsets me more.

My husband made me take two muscle relaxants, which knocked me out as usual, since the brilliant medical world can't seem to develop a muscle relaxant that isn't also a sedative. While I was out, he picked up the fixings for dinner and made mushroom rice and some lovely pork tenderloin, which was yummy and very welcome when I woke up again a couple of hours later. I took two more muscle relaxants this morning, did the requisite dozing-whilst-knocked-out, and experimented with getting up. Now I'm trying to psyche myself up for work again. It's raining, and I've been told that if it's quiet, I can go home. We shall see.

Yes, I called the osteopath and put myself on their cancellation list. If someone cancels their appointment, they are to call me at home and at work, no matter when.

Maybe I'll just lie still for two months and not move. And I keep coming back to the "what did I do to deserve this?" train of thought, no matter how I try to stay away from it.

Enough With the Stress and Anxiety Already

Woke up this morning with my mouth dry and metallic, nauseous, heart racing, no feeling in my fingers or toes, absolutely certain that as soon as I got out of bed something horrible would happen. And naturally, this was one of the few days my husband decided to not wake me up to say goodbye, so I was alone.

Ah yes. I remember these. Panic attacks. Where your body tricks you into thinking you're dying. Where something short-circuits for whatever undiscernable reason and you get flung into fight-or-flight without so much as a by-your-leave. I haven't had one of these for a while.

I forced myself out of bed and decided to take a relaxing lavender bath with some Bach playing. Normally this would be a one-two combination that would have me calm again in no time. Instead, I got back pain in the tub.

What? What does my body (or my mind?) want from me? Does it want to be kept busy and tired all the time? Does it want room to relax and take a look around? No matter what I do I seem to run up against a wall. I don't know whether my subconscious is panicking because it sees two months of not-working looming ever closer, or if it's breaking down because it knows the end is in sight.

My husband broke my cat's bowl last night, her beautiful perfect blue bowl that I threw myself on a pottery wheel over twelve years ago. It was the best piece I produced. When I saw it I just looked at it, feeling dull. Normally I'd feel more upset. I know, it's just the cat's bowl, but it was a piece of my artwork. He glued it back together, but it won't leave my brain for some reason. It bothers me.

More Back Pain

This back thing is just strange.

I don't normally complain about physical pain. It's a thing I have. People don't need to know about what's going on with my body; they can't do a thing about it, so why bother them? I actually don't complain about much, I think, in comparison with most people I've met. I swallow it and bear it. I don't go home from work or call in sick unless I can't stand up. Heck, I don't even take aspirin for a headache.

This back thing, though...

I honestly don't know what to make of it. It's not something obvious, like pulling it lifting heavy stuff, or being in a car accident, or something I can point at and say, "Ah! This was the cause! Must fix!" Instead, it's invisible. It just hurts.

Okay, if you're a medical professional, and you look at my spine, you can see the double curve that self-correcting scoliosis creates. (Such a pleasantly misleading term, that; self-correcting makes it sound like it's fixed, no longer a problem, have fun!) Everyday people, though, can't. So I feel a bit awkward on a bus when people are standing and I'm sitting; normally I'd get up and offer my seat to someone. Nowadays, I know darn well that if I stand on the bus with one hand clinging to a pole, I'll be in severe pain by the time I hit the metro. So there I sit, looking like a perfectly normal woman, taking up a space that someone older or heavily laden could be sitting in.

Perfectly normal, except... I can't stand for too long. I can't sit for too long. I can't use the pillows I used to use. I can't sit through a movie without discomfort. Driving has me in tears after half an hour.

Every once in a while, I wonder what I did wrong. You know - did I slouch while reading in bed too often, was it my curling style, did the posture I developed in six years of ballet training actually force my spine into an unnatural position? Both my GP and my osteopath tell me that it wasn't anything I did or didn't do; they say I was born with the mild spinal curve, then naturally grew the opposite curve further down the spine to compensate for it. Still, though, I wonder... usually around the time I have to pop a couple of Secret Weapons.

The fact that I'm taking pain-killers at all is a huge tip-off that I'm admitting something's wrong. Every once in a while at work I look at a colleague (who experiences periodic back pain) and say, "My back hurts." He looks at me helplessly and says, "I know." The fact that I'm actually saying it out loud is a huge admission on my part. The knowledge that he can't do anything about it should stop me; it's not his responsibility, he can't help me, and both of us know it, so I really should not do it. It's just... it feels so good to be able to say it out loud to someone. It helps, a little. Don't ask me why.

I keep coming back to the "what did I do?" concept. I suppose it's normal for most of Western society, seeing that we operate within a reward/punishment social system all our lives. If you do good things, you get good stuff. If you do something bad, you get back pain that tortures you while you look perfectly normal to others.

My time limit on ergonomic kneely chair has been reached. Now I have to go lie flat on the living room floor and stare at the ceiling until it's time to go teach.

But I'm not bitter.

Dinner Out

Enough. I practiced for two hours, my fingers hurt. So I'm playing around with the colours on my template now. "View Source" is my best friend when I find a site I like; I discover terrific colours that way, like the sage green I'm trying out here. After loading it to check it out, I have dubbed this colour scheme "Chocolate Mint", which amuses me no end. Feedback is welcome. We'll see how long it lasts. This page is always a work in progress.

Dinner was lovely, and so welcome - I was more than ready to escape the workplace. MLG and I spent a lot of time people-watching through our window at Hurley's, as it's Grand Prix weekend and there are many, many Beautiful People wandering about our fair city. (Beautiful People are those persons who sail down the street inviting you to look at them. They know that they're on display, and they've dressed to make A Statement. Some of the statements were laughable, such as the woman we passed wearing a pink sequined butterfly tied onto on her torso, with a pair of jeans. I giggled for half a block.) We talked of cabbages, kings, invasionary forces, having babies, and politics. Dinner with MLG exercises the mind and relaxes me at the same time.

In the pub I ran into an old customer from the F/SF shop who I still keep in touch with, and we mourned the loss of the shop again. Two years. It's been two years (minus three weeks) short of two years since the doors closed due to poor sales, a direct result of the big box stores opening up five minutes down the road. The concept of time becomes so surreal as you get older. When you're a kid, summer lasts forever. When you're an adult, it's more like, "Summer? When? What - wait, was that it? I must have blinked, because it's October all of a sudden." It seems like only yesterday that we put the new calendar up at work. (Actually, it seems like only yesterday that we turned the calendar page to February 2001. That's how wonky time has become.)

I read another book when you weren't looking: The Beekeeper's Apprentice by Laurie R. King. Delicious. A Holmes story after his retirement, when he meets a young lady whose mind is as sharp as his, and he informally apprentices her. Good enough to keep an eye out for the rest of the series. Wonderful summer reading.

I Have a Bad Feeling About This

I have a bad feeling that this is going to be a less than fun day. The past three have been unfairly long and slow. Someone inserted more minutes into each hour, I'm certain of it, and neglected to warn me. It's also been grumpy - everyone's been growly and lethargic and generally vaguely unhappy. I worked in the store on Tuesday, which I usually work at home, so by last night I'd used up my working-with-customers patience, and I still have another whole day to get through. The good thing is I will be dining with MLG afterwards, which will cheer me up to no end. It will also officially launch my weekend. I'm covering for someone else on Monday, however, so it will be the shortest weekend I've had in a while. I'm being generous in the covering for others department, though, becaue hey, as of the beginning of July, I won't be worrying about that for a while, will I?

Ceri, evil woman that she is, sent me links to new costume patterns, and voila, a whole new Hallowe'en concept unrolled itself in my mind. I called my husband in to share and showed him all the pictures and detailed the idea with some excitement. He put his hands on my shoulders and said, "It's a wonderful idea, and yes, you'd look perfectly stunning, but you made me promise to remind you of something: You hate costume parties."

Damn. I did, too. I do hate them. I'm a perfectionist, and obssessive, and I dislike large gatherings of people. My record for the past four years: an hour at the party; half an hour; skipped; hid far away in the hotel.

This would be so good though! I have plenty of time, too - all summer, in fact. I have excellent photo references! I have a pattern to base it on (although I'm already modifying it and adding things mentally, oh dear)! I just need to find material... I sense a trip to St Hubert street in my future.

Ceri asks, "Are you going to get a new sewing machine?" I answer, "No, just a new needle. Plus extras." I intend this costume to be as light as possible (enough with the gold lycra and the heavy tapestry!), so a sturdier machine won't be necessary (you hear that, Easy-Bake Oven of Sewing Machines? Don't let me down!). Besides... my birthday treat is to be a beautiful wooden recurve bow, and I want to buy the extras like the armguard and fingertab and arrows are sort of important too. This summer is going to be lean, and a new sewing machine is not in my long-term budget.

Curse you, Ceri! In the nicest way possible, of course.

Bicycles and Back Pain

Back. Back hurts. Secret weapon not kicking in.

I spent yesterday afternoon cleaning up that 25$ rusty thing that if you squinted and were feeling kind, you could call a bicycle. Three hours. Three hours of applying chrome cleaner with a toothbrush, and scrubbing as hard as I could with a scrubby sponge. Being there as a task is slowly accomplished doesn’t have the same power as seeing it “before” and “after”, as my husband did when he walked in at the end of the day. “Hey!” he said. “That’s terrific! I didn’t think you’d get it that clean!”

Get it that clean? There’s still rust all over it! Okay, so the chain doesn’t flake any more when you touch it, you can see the rims again, and the fenders only have a few dull spots, but it’s still a mess. Just not as much of a mess as before. I wouldn’t be embarrassed to be seen with it in public, now.

I will, however, be embarrassed after coming to a sudden stop if I don’t get the back brake calibrated correctly. Front brake – fine. Back brake – not fine. It's still stiff, although I've tried everything I can remember about brakes. A sudden stop on my head would be bad. Even though I still have a helmet (around somewhere). I’ll walk it over to the gas station down the road this afternoon and fill the tyres to see if they actually hold air. Maybe I’ll try to ride it back. Slowly.

Ooh, Look, Shiny Thing

My new Blogger Insider partner, Kate: I love her already.

As usual, today at work was spent spacing out.

Well, no, that's not true. I did get a lot of work done. And I'm getting work done now. But spacing out pretty much covers it because, well, I space out when I work. I'm like "la la la la la where is my brain -- hey, look! Shiny thing!"

Still getting adjusted to my new desk and my new space, but a healthy dose of Star Wars cereal and a cup of chai tea in the morning makes everything all right.

Whee!

When the Universe Gangs Up on You

Today’s horoscope:

Today you don't have to keep up with the frenetic pace of the world, dear Cancer. You might feel like thinking about how you take care of yourself; what you eat, and your day to day lifestyle. Are you a healthy eater? Do you get any exercise? Are you concerned about the quality of your daily life? It's better to be safe than sorry. By the way, when was the last time you had a check-up?

When the universe gangs up on you...

This is highly ironic considering that I will be taking time off this summer due to health concerns. See, I haven't really had a break in, well, eleven years, I guess, since I started working and doing that university thing. I've been working in bookstores since that first day back in May 1991 when I was hired at my very first official job (I've only held three different jobs in the field since then) , and I did two degrees back to back at university, finishing two years ago and not really ever stopping to look at where I was or what I needed to do next. The longest period I've had off is two weeks, to get married and go to Scotland, which ended up being more stressful than working (although more fun).

So yes, I promised my employer and my mother that I'd see a doctor. My back is pretty bad. I've been having anxiety attacks again, which I thought I'd licked over eight years ago. This dizziness comes and goes, as do the migraines. Time off to de-stress is something I've always dismissed as being really selfish - after all, there are scads of people world-wide whose lives are much worse than mine who don't get a vacation option. In the end, though, I've concluded after a couple of really bad weeks that if I run myself into the ground I'm just stupid, not heroic or strong, and if I break myself I'll be a lot harder to fix than if I take myself off-line for maintenance.

My employer calls it burnout, and thinks no less of me for taking time off. In fact, I think she's proud of me for accepting the option she offered me. Things still need to be finalised, but it looks like with less work, no orchestra as of the concert on July 1, and no plays... I might just have the time and space to decompress for the first time since I became an adult.

Which is scary in and of itself. Who will I be on the other side?

On the Spelling and Punctuation in the Name of This Blog

Sigh.

Maybe it's the editor in me, but I'm very careful with punctuation. I consider it just as important as the words; more so most of the time, since it influences how the words are perceived. At least, it's supposed to. Most people don't know how to punctuate properly, let alone read it correctly. (Everyone remember the Shakespeare lesson I gave?)

The title of this web log is

Not Owl's Court, as in the court belonging to the Owl, singular. Owls' Court, as in a court of or for Owls. Plural. Many owls.

This is a common mistake made from the very first day people linked to this blog. Here, today, I call for a stop to the insanity and the perpetuation of incorrect punctuation!

Flopsy

Ha! I go away for the weekend, I blog.

Aren't you lucky.

I am feeling rather flopsy. Flopsy, other than being the brains of the Rabbit Sisters operation, is the word I use to describe that state where your mind is sharp, but your body is oddly, well, floppy. It's listless, it's got no power, you can't hold a pencil and make any sort of marks that resemble adult writing.

I think it's because I'm not hungry. Not hungry means not eating much. Some fish here. A salad there. No snacking. (This last is very odd, since my mother made those spice cookies which emphatically fail to suck, as well as having a stash of my favourite Peek Freans Bourbon Cremes. I have no idea where she managed to find them.) What I have been craving, however, is hot beverages. Hot beverages usually mean tea and cappuccino.

I see a correlation. Or a cause-effect relationship here. Caffeine. Not enough solid food to balance it. Enough sleep to be coherent, though.

Hmm. Flopsy.

New Releases

Vanilla Coke was launched yesterday! The world is a better place!

Star Wars: Episode Two will be released tonight! (I highly doubt it will make the world a better place, but I'll get two hours of entertainment out of it at least.)

And...

I got a fifty-cent piece from the post office this morning. As change.

Why wasn't I informed that the mint was reissuing fifty-cent coins? For circulation, not collecting? Apparently they were released this morning, and the post office, being a crown corp, got rolls to start using right away. It's about the size of a looney, thin like a quarter, and I think it's in honour of the Queen's Jubilee since it says 1952-2002 on it and has our national coat of arms on the back with that lovely Latin motto "From sea to shining sea". Don't get me wrong; I like the half-dollar idea, always have. I still have a couple from when they dropped them from circulation (about twenty-five years ago now, I think?). A half-dollar makes more sense as a denomination than a nickel, for example. It's just... well, don't we have enough coins? We could always drop the nickel, I guess. (Just stand back when the rabid beavers mount a counter-attack...)

Applying for Teaching Posts

I submitted my applications for the fall semester at Dawson on Tuesday.

Now I’m all churned up again about “Will they like me?” and “What will I do if I’m called for an interview?” and “What will I do if I don’t get called for an interview?”. I checked the contract dates for the summer job postings again; they start in mid to late June, so I might still get a call. The fall semester begins the third week of August, with the deadline for submitting applications being tomorrow, so who can say when those interviews will be conducted?

I want this job. A lot. I need a severe change. I require mental stimulation again. I can feel my spirit straining to return to the academic world once more.

Then I read Ceri’s post on her union being broken.

Teachers are unionized. I’ve never been a part of a union before. I’m one of those people who believes that teachers and nurses don’t get paid enough. Would I stand up for that belief? I’ve never had to test myself like that before.

For those of you keeping track: MLG fixed my laptop’s modem. What would I do without him? (Other than lack for a serious SW dealer and someone to look at me somewhat sternly yet invitingly and say, "You know that if you ever need to talk...")

The Uses of BlogSnob

I love BlogSnob. It's that box to the left where there's a different link and catch-phrase each time you pull up my page. Basically it's a database of hundreds of blogs, and you put the random link script on your own page in return for the boon of being part of the mass of random blogs which can appear on someone else's page in a similar link box. Increases exposure, traffic, and incites cool networking.

Anyway, I've discovered a couple of really fantastic blogs this way, but the last one tops 'em all. Check out Shakespeare Spun, a blog maintained by Clara, a.k.a. Poppy (bonus points to the theatrical types who know where the nickname is from!), a Bard-inclined sixteen-year-old who reminds me way, way too much of myself. Except I didn't direct at sixteen. Heck, still haven't; it's just not one of my Things To Do Before I Die. Anyway, Clara's one of those people I'd love to sit down with in a small coffee shop with a pile of books and our laptops, chat for a while, read a bit, write a bit, get a fresh cappuccino, chat...

The Internet holds so much crap, so much superficial trivia, very little in-depth information, and the souls of bloggers bared like diamonds in the rough for people to stumble across. Clara revives my hopes for the future.

Let It Rain

It's dark and dreary. I want it to rain. No, I mean really rain. If it rains then the husband comes home from the terraforming he does, and we get to go on a recon mission for the top-secret costume bits we need instead. (New phrase: "My husband is a terraforming engineer." We like it and intend to use it until a better one comes along.) I will invoke rain by playing Vivaldi's Four Seasons.

Note in my in-box this morning: "Oh, and happy mother's day, cat-mama!" Very kind. My own little furry bratlings woke us up at an insane hour of the a.m. and didn't care a smidgen about it. The flowers I got were from my in-laws' garden.

On the menu today: Write. Correct homework and half-complete exams. Review Greco-Roman culture and religion for my lecture tonight. I just discovered two books on my shelves that I didn't know I had: one on Greek art, and one on Roman art and architecture. Well, all right, I'm sure I knew at one point, but after several moves I had forgotten I owned them.

CURRENTLY READING:
Well, it's another currently read-past-tense, actually. I just finished the new David Lodge book Thinks... and once again I'm all fired up about writing. Lodge tends to write what he knows - authors and professors - and I associate him with my thesis, so I'm excited about sitting down and producing text once more. Eventually readable, even. Possibly even publishable.

I go through stages where I know I'm good, then long stages where I look at the book industry I work in and think that it's all futile anyway. Then I remember the thrill of idly flipping through the electronic card catalogue at the university and finding my thesis in not one, but three places. It's real. It exists. It's, well, good.

I also go through waves of fiction versus academic analysis. When I wrote for the local Pagan journal I reviewed books with a magical element to them, looked at the systems, the effects, the moral issues and so forth. It was a baby exercise, but it kept me sort of in form. Now I'm seriously considering doing something a little more serious and sending it out with a query to journals. You never know.

Irony

Call from Concordia Sports Medicine last night:

"Hi! It's about your appointment next Thursday."

"The seven-thirty?"

"Yes. We're really sorry - we have to cancel it. Your osetopath just had surgery on her elbows."

What the heck are you supposed to say to that?

"Argh!"

"Has it been long since your last appointment?"

"Well, about five weeks."

"Ouch! Any problems?"

"My back is going "crunch" in the middle."

"That sounds bad. Would you like to see another osteopath?"

"Well... I lived like this for months before I saw someone, so I'm not dying or anything. Tell my doctor to not worry and that she needs to heal just like everyone else. If my back gets really bad I'll call you."

"Don't worry, we'll shoehorn you in somewhere as soon as you call. Thanks!"

Little do they know that I now have a secret weapon: Excedrin Extra-Strength, with acetaminophen, aspirin and caffeine. Somebody who loves me has family that goes to the US. It was a lovely surprise. That plus finding a nice flat spot in the park so I can simultaneously lie in the sun and realign my spine sounds like a terrific idea.

Speaking of border-crossing, Vanilla Coke makes its new debut of the millennium on Wednesday. You know, I've never been to Plattsburgh...

Cravings

I woke up this morning with an overwhelming craving for oatmeal cookies. Not just any oatmeal cookies, but the warm, soft-but-crunchy-on-the-rim, size-of-bread-and-butter-plates oatmeal cookies I used to get before homeroom down in my high school cafeteria.

I have no idea where it came from. It was so strong, though, that I detoured and went to the grocery store across from work, looking vainly for something similar. They had bakery oatmeal cookies, but they were too small and looked too hard. So I bought bakery chocolate chunk cookies instead. Fabulous - you can actually taste the sugar and butter - but I'm still a bit wistful.

I'm also dying for sushi, but I bought a lasagna for lunch instead.

Let's see if I can get through my eleven-hour shift from hell today without a Coke. I had a salad for lunch yesteray and felt virtuous, but then realised at the close fo the day that I'd had two Cokes somehow as well. I go for days without one, then I have two in one day? Eh. No man can plumb the depths of my food cravings (and by man I mean the all-inclusive species thing, not just the gender). I certainly can't.

Laptops, Bows, and Friends

Well, well, well.

I remember this feeling. I think it's called "having fun in life".

MLG not only (a) handed me a laptop with the words "Happy Birthday" on Saturday, he also (b) reminded me that I have a finished novel tucked away somewhere, and (c) by complete dumb luck managed to link some dreams I've been having recently with some short stories and scenes I'd scribbled down a few years ago. I spent most of yesterday loading the chapters of my book onto the new laptop, re-reading some old short fiction, and generally being impressed with myself. It takes a lot to impress me with my own work; I'm a really tough critic.

So I have all this creative writing, some ideas ready to be worked on, and a laptop. Hmm. One plus one plus one equals...

He also pointed out to me that sitting down to practice the cello is just a matter of self-discipline. Now, I've already been working on the self-discipline thing, doing meditation and devotions in the mornings which take up about forty minutes. That plus washing up, dressing, and breakfast (yes, I know, what a novel concept) pretty much cover my two hours of being up before I leave, but maybe I can squeeze in half an hour of practice on one particular bit of music, like the irritating staccato runs in the opening movement of Beethoven's first symphony.

Friends like this are good to have. They prove to you that you've accomplished some pretty terrific stuff in your lifetime, that you're not as much of a loser as you thought you were, and that life is pretty good.

In addition, I've made a pact with a friend: when our tax returns come in, we'll buy inexpensive bows to begin some archery exercise with. Once or twice a week, nice and early in the morning, we'll meet down at the football field and work on shooting straight. Maybe by the end of the summer we can think about using targets.

Fun stuff. Not just work. Work was pretty much taking up all the important time I had. Now, what with this application for the teaching positions (no, nothing yet), I'm starting to shift focus to other things. Things that make me happy, as opposed to taking up my time because they have to. And I refuse to obsess about scheduling. Scheduling fun time defeats the purpose.

Speechless

I'm speechless.

Macleans.ca: 'We're almost the same country' : Americans think aggrieved Canadians are being a little over-sensitive

(Thanks to the Grand Poobah for bringing this to my attention.)

Time Flies

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....)

Ponies

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?

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...

I Could Do That

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!

Congratulations!

Okay, all of you who keep e-mailing, stopping by, and calling: Paze and Jeff are the proud parents of a baby girl called Devon Julia Preston LeBlanc! She was born on Tuesday night (sneaky, aren't they?), mother and baby (and father too!) are doing just fine; they’re staying in hospital for a couple of days just to be sure everything’s okay, since Paze's last few months were so closely monitored. They're planning an official meet-Devon day instead of having dribs and drabs of people streaming through their place, which I think is a marvellous idea.

Congratulations to all three!

Eating, Sleeping, Christening

Anyone else ever forget to eat? Or sleep? Sometimes I think so much I forget that I need to fuel the body. I know that thinking uses calories, of course, but not as many as, say, raking lawns or prepping beds for planting.

I just wondered, because yesterday was The Christening of The Elspeth Morrigan (yeah, yeah, tell me about it) and I forgot to eat (a) before we went, and (b) after we got home. I had little nibblies at the reception afterwards, but nothing approaching a meal.

I do this all the time. People make nasty little remarks like, "Oh, so that's why you're as tiny as you are." Well, no, because that has everything to do with my metabolism, not my diet. My diet ranges from prim and proper to grossly indecent: for a week I will crave salads and sandwiches, then the next week I'll snack on nothing but mini chocolate bars (and that's all my boss' fault, for bringing in a five-pound bag of snack-size Oh Henry bars and Caramilk squares and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups) with the occasional lasagna. This has nothing to do with bingeing; I don't pay enough attention to what I eat to binge. Working without a set lunch hour makes eating normally difficult as well. I refuse to eat if I'm not hungry, so when I have the opportunity to eat (i.e., it's quiet on the floor) I don't, preferring to get as much work done as possible before the hordes descend, which is usually when my stomach starts growling. By the time things quiet down, I'm not hungry any more. (Lose weight - work retail!)

So I don't eat regularly, and I don't eat a lot, and what I do eat is on average something that resembles balanced, I suppose, taken over the week.

The Christening: in a beautiful Catholic church (I was last there singing The Messiah with CAMMAC several years ago), with a wacky priest (who was fine for one afternoon but who would drive me nuts if I had to listen to him weekly), and holy water that didn't melt or burn any of the Pagan contingent who were there to witness the daughter of an occult store owner be baptized. We giggled a lot, particularly when The Morrigan yowled as the priest exorcised her with chrism on her chest. His comment? "Well, she's got the makings of a fine preacher!" We enthusiastically replied that we would support her in her growing faith thorough all her trials when we were asked in the ceremony, and rolled our eyes at the tacky little sorority t-shirt all the babies got that said "I'm a Christian!" on them (I kid thee not). I always enjoy looking through prayer books to see how a particular sect worships, so I made sure I took a look at the books ranged in the pews. Know what? The first service in it was Christian Initiation. I wonder how many people actually realise that much of the Christian faith is based on universal rituals found cross-culturally in many religions both living and dead. It just got better P.R. along the way. There is such universality to the concepts expressed in various religions that I truly cannot understand why people try to insist that theirs is the Right Way. Religion is about how you view your relationship to the Divine. What gives anyone the right to impose their Way on someone else?

Anyway, it was a wonderful afternoon, and a terrific experience of one of the Catholic Sacraments. I've grown so used to universal, non-denominational services that this was a pleasant change.

It All Becomes Clear

Ah.

The reason that the US is bombing our soldiers, raising import duties on our softwood, and dishonouring our flag by not only letting it touch the ground but spreading it out on the floor of hockey dressing rooms, is all because they're still smarting from that little manoeuver we did in 1814. You know, the one where we managed to penetrate all the way to Washington and burn down the White House.

Yeah, that would rankle. Thanks to the Grand Poohbah for clarifying.

Friendly Fire

I was stunned when I tripped across a newswire report on-line last night announcing the deaths of the four Canadian soliders in Afghanistan.

We haven't lost people in action in over fifty years, and four of our people are killed by a stray bomb? A stray US bomb, at that, in an area where there shouldn't have been one, and the pilot was told not to drop it, only to mark the spot.

Gee, with friends like that, who needs enemies?

Apparently the pilot thought he was under attack and taking fire, having seen live fire on the ground where the Canadians were doing field exercises. Last I understood, "taking fire" meant taking fire. I'm fairly certain nothing was flying in the sky around the plane that was dangerous.

The pilot will have to live with this for a long time, I hope. A very, very long time. I hope he feels soul-twisting anguish daily for his leapt-to conclusion resulting in the deaths of Sgt. Marc Leger, Cpl. Ainsworth Dyer, Pte. Richard Green, and Pte. Nathan Smith, who will never again see their sweethearts, hand their mothers bouquets of flowers on Mothers' Day, flip burgers with their dads at family barbecues, catch a football, or sing our national anthem.

War sucks. People leave knowing they might not come back. We watch our friends and loved ones go, knowing that it might be the last time we see them, that enemy action might mean they'll be lost to us. To lose someone in a stupid, stupid accident - to an ally, no less - is a shocking, cold-water sort of ending to our struggle to cope with the awareness that any day we might hear that our loved one is dead. Such an ending mocks their willingness to lay their lives on the line, as well as our strength and courage to support them in that decision.

Live with that, US pilot. Live with the shame, and the guilt, and the embarrassment.

CEGEP Post Applications

Well, I did it - my applications for English and Humanities teaching positions for the Dawson Cont. Ed. summer session have been handed in. The girl who took my envelopes even said "good luck". I have a good feeling about this. If you could all cross your fingers (or your toes or your eyes or whatever you do) to help me along in this, I'd appreciate it. (At this point, the scene near the end of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone where Ron bellows, "ARE YOU A WITCH OR NOT?" at Hermione comes to mind, for some strange reason...)

Heck, I'm just impressed that I went ahead and did it. I'm quite good at rationalising the status quo in my life. I like being safe. So this action of actually going out and asking for reference letters, doing the C.V. and taking it in to Human Resources (in person too!) is a huge step for me. I think it's because I'm looking at this as being an investment in making a better kind of safe status quo. If I have to be in retail, the shop where I work is the best place to be, but there's a whole other world of career out there.

Plus, I took the 104 bus into town, so I got to see what the route looked like in reverse. I even said to myself, "Self, this is the bus you'll be taking into work once you get the job and have, say, a ten o'clock class." (Accentuate the positive!)

Whew!

Now, I wait...

CEGEP Posts

You may have noticed that I’ve been rather silent these past few days.

Darn right! I told myself I wasn’t going to sit at my computer all weekend, since it was so beautiful, and since I sit at a computer all week. I'm very proud of myself: apart from a short trip here to check email on Sunday morning, I didn’t touch it.

Then yesterday, after my hiatus from surfing and typing, I checked the on-line job postings for summer teaching positions at the local CEGEPs like I’m supposed to do every day. Eep! They’re up! They’ve been up for four days and I hadn’t been checking!

Well, my stomach sank and I panicked. Job postings only go up for a week; you have to have your application in by the end or you’ve missed it. The deadline is this Friday. After telling myself that it’s an essential step towards submitting applications for fall teaching positions, and taking a walk to clear my head, I was ready. By the end of the day I’d retooled my C.V. (again), written a short cover letter, and asked for a reference letter from someone with whom I’m currently freelance teaching. I’ll expand the cover letter to point out how suitable I am and how appropriate this freelance teaching is, then drop it off on Thursday on my lunch break. Then they’ll fall in love with my C.V., call me for an interview, and offer me a job.

I’ve been psyching myself up for this for a couple of months now. I don’t think I ever expected it to actually happen, for some reason.

Why does change have to be so difficult?

Public Transport

I just got in! I did something very exciting today: I took a new bus home.

I love taking new buses. I like seeing where they go, how they get to the end of their journey. I enjoy finding new ways to get from there to here. So today, I left work at 5 on the dot to walk to Atwater and catch the 104, which MLG informed me stops two blocks away from my apartment building.

It does. It did. I’m home, without having had to descend into the depths of the subway, switch cars, and stand on the packed 105 on a day as beautiful as this one.

One simple bus. I’m thrilled.

On the other hand, I still have to bus-metro-metro in the mornings because the 104 passes here at either 8.40 or 9.31 AM. Twenty or twenty-five minutes in to the city, and wow, look I’m either really, really early or just a bit late.

The quick and easy trip home on a Friday after a long week is quite the gift, though. Hurrah! Let the weekend begin!

Argh. Just reread my post on that editing job, did the math, and realised that I have been in retail for eleven years.

It's a wonder I'm not institutionalised.

(That is, "placed in an institution", not "made established".)

Someone save me.

Excellent Weekend

I have had a fantastic weekend!

Leaving out the fever last night with the really bad aches, pains, and chills, that is. So if we cut the weekend off at around three o’clock Sunday afternoon, I have had the best weekend in months.

Friday night I had a three and a half hour dinner with MLG at Hurley’s. Not only was it not crowded, they actually had cider this time! We had a window seat so we could watch the funny people outside, the sun go down and the stars come out. We talked and talked and talked about all sorts of stuff - I haven’t felt that comfortable and carefree in quite some time. I laughed a lot too.

Three hours into the evening I confessed that I had thought this dinner meeting had been to plot in further detail the return of my original RSW character in the next day’s NSW game. (MLG is, of course, the brilliant architect and GM of NSW.) Struck by the coolness of this idea, he paid the bill (for which I thank him yet again) and we went back to his place to game for almost two hours. Bliss!

This being married thing is okay – it has its pros and cons – but one of those dual pros/cons is that constantly have someone to do stuff with. Hence you don’t necessarily go hang out with someone else for six hours on a Friday night very often. (Particularly the ending up at his place bit – I know that a lot of people would have gone ballistic over that part. Even though there was a net-fest going on in the next room.) I have, however, decided that I will indeed do this more often. It felt glorious to know that I didn’t have to be somewhere else.

The secondary bonus of having Friday night out with MLG is that it made the return of Ambassador-Jedi Saiyedra Dubh a complete surprise in Saturday’s game. Okay, it was a desire expressed by three of the five players at different times, but no one technically knew it was actually going to happen other than myself and the GM (who had asked me privately to bring the character back). As wonderful as it is, I’m a bit miffed and amused that the game took a sudden shift earlier in the session and I actually began to enjoy the pilot character I had been having difficulty playing. An added and unexpected bonus! All in all, a wonderful session.

Saturday night we went from the game to my in-laws’ place for dinner: barbecued ribs, red wine or Alexander Keith’s (depending on your preference), and East Coast music. Divine! I fell asleep on the couch an hour or so after dinner, and we went home.

Sunday morning I had that guest speaker spot at a local group’s brunch meeting. Designing Rituals went as well the second time as it did the first! Lots of very interesting discussion, a wonderful cat, good bacon (I’m really picky about my bacon), mini quiches and apple muffins. The time change played a bit of havoc with the starting time, but everyone was nice and relaxed. A wonderful experience, and a terrific group of people.

We then came home and curled up with good music and books. I started to get stiff and a bit cold, so I decided to go lie down for a while. When my husband woke me up two and a half hours later to get ready to go to the ritual scheduled for last night I couldn’t move without severe pain, couldn’t stop shivering if I wriggled out from under the pile of covers I had on top of me, and couldn’t string three coherent words together. So he called our host and sent our regrets, which really annoyed me because I’d been looking forward to this meeting. Instead, he made me chicken noodle soup with crackers, and he even got me ice cream later. At 9 pm I felt better enough to get out of bed and curl up under a blanket to try to watch Star Trek: The Motion Picture when it came on, but not well enough to watch it past the point where they entered the cloud. The commercial breaks every four minutes were driving me insane.

So I slept good and hard, woke up this morning, changed more clocks (how many clocks do I have, anyway?), made a pot of peppermint tea. My day’s schedule includes correcting exams and assignments for tonight’s class, and most definitely a nap.

I have a lot of people to thank for such a fun-filled weekend.

Unloading the Albatross

That Mercedes Lackey book was, as I expected, pretty vanilla with the occasional caramel swirl. Which was exactly what I wanted, of course. After fifteen years, you get to know an author.

So we're looking at selling our SUV. Granted, it's now worth more than we owe on it, and we talked about this last year and decided to stick with it as an investment - in another two years when it's all paid off, we'll have a seventeen thousand dollar asset, as well as a relatively new, solid vehicle that could see us through another decade. Recently, though, we've been looking at rising gas prices, and the now very bare savings accounts, and thinking that a secondhand station wagon could replace it just fine, thank you. So we're teetering on the edge of a pretty big decision, and doing research on the going rates of a private sale versus trading in and such things. We both adore Saturns - my mother drives one - and so we're looking in that direction.

This is unfortunate. The SUV is a happy thing. My husband loves it. It's reliable, especially in Montreal winters (no, no, the usual Montreal winters, not the wussy thing we just came though!), on long drives (like Pennsylvania, Halifax and Toronto), it carries big stuff like piles of lumber and beds and couches. People, too. Now, I know a station wagon would carry mostly the same stuff, is perfectly capable of long-distance drives, will cost less in gas and insurance, and (big bonus here) I'll be more comfortable driving it. It will also be easier to get future little car seats in and out of. It's just... it sort of feels like we're letting someone or something down. As enthusiastic as my husband is about making this wise and beneficial decision, I can't help but wonder if he feels like he's losing out somehow. If he's forfeiting one of his toys, so to speak. He's a big guy; he likes big vehicles. They fit him better. (He fits in them better too.)

This was his idea, though, and his painfully new-found desire to save as much as possible in case he's ever out of work again appears to be off-setting any sense of loss he might be feeling. I'm very aware of the sacrifice he's making, even if he's not.

By the way: If you saw The Gondoliers, and you remember that pretty lead soprano and killer dancer who played Gianetta, send good thoughts in her direction - she's performing a semi-final vocal recital at McGill. Go Christina - knock 'em dead!

Mood Swings

Funny how I can swing from, “Why do we let ourselves become burdened, stressed, concerned with what's wrong in our lives? What does it - any of it - matter in the end? What it all comes down to is you, your friends, your family; your level of peace, the love you feel: what's right on your life” to “I feel so wrung out that I don’t think I can do it any more. I hate feeling like this, because I feel like I’m letting people down [...] I keep telling myself that being miserable builds character. You know what? It's not a heck of a lot of fun while you're at it. I'd rather have fun again.”

I think my problem is I’ve forgotten how to have fun. Or I haven’t learned how to have new fun, since the old stuff doesn’t do it for me any more.

I’m really getting tired.

Star Wars on Saturday, though! New Star Wars (NSW), the sequel to Real Star Wars (RSW), which was so named to distinguish it from the Ep1 hype that became unavoidable halfway through the campaign.

My Protection seminar went quite well on Tuesday night; in two weeks I teach a Basic Spellcasting (in which I clear up a lot of misconceptions) and there are eight (!) people signed up for it. Eep!

On top of that, my Designing Rituals seminar was such a success that I have been asked to teach it privately to a local group. I’m stunned.

Teaching is fun. Work, but fun. And orchestra last night was fun – except that I had actually practised the dreadful Bizet and all the hard bits from the Schubert, and when I got there we were given three new pieces of music: Mozart’s 26th, Beethoven’s 1st, and Rossini’s Semiramis overture. Any Beethoven is incredibly satisfying to play, and the Mozart was fun too. Rossini is a blast to listen to, but a pain to perform, I discovered last night. With concentration and work (ick!) I can tell that it will be satisfying too. (I just wish they could have chosen something like the overture to La Cenerentola, or La scala di seta, or La gazza ladra.) I am, however, much happier overall if we’ll be sticking to these.

So maybe I just haven’t figured out what qualifies as “fun” in my ever-evolving microcosm. Other than NSW, that is. And Buffy.

Oakville Review

I’m back! I love visiting my parents; good food, good wine, and always an interesting selection of guests. As I murmured in the middle of the dinner party on Friday night, “Dinner with my parents – a spectator sport”. You have to be on the ball, have sharpened your wit before arriving at table, and be ready to laugh.

As for the good food, highlights of this weekend’s gastronomical journey include seafood and chicken paella, velvet fennel and potato soup, a killer triple rack of lamb, rosemary and walnut polenta, a semi-fredo with caramel sauce, and white chocolate-strawberry tarts, along with a splendid merlot that they apparently serve at Parliament as well.

The weather was great – highs between 10 º and 15º C, sunny patches – real sunny patches – followed by rain – warm rain! – followed by sun again. My winter coat was too warm, so I went out and found a jaunty little dark red raincoat that I adore – on sale! (Took me ages to decide on it - I kept saying, “But I should buy black!”) I spent time in the newly refinished den, where my parents have taken down the dark panelling and painted it in two tones of pale yellow, put up white baseboards and chair rails, and generally made it seem as if you could walk through the triple window at one end of the room across a gently sloping lawn to the ocean. (We could probably pull that off – we’d have to flatten the back neighbour’s house, but Mum’s been looking for an excuse to do that for ages now.) We mourned the Queen Mum. We watched Trudeau on CBC. We watched the Canadian Junior Men's team take it down to last rock to win the World Juniors. I read three books.

Then we came home, and I felt like I’d been slammed back into a two-dimensional world. For the past nine or so months, life’s been getting harder and harder, and tempers shorter and shorter, and patience running pretty close to worn out. As soon as I walked in the door, it all settled back onto my shoulders like some dreadful mantle. Life will be much, much better when I don’t feel like I have to keep reminding my husband of all the things he has to do (which can always be “done later” since he has no fixed schedule), and when I don’t feel like I have to make excuses when people ask me how far he’s progressed on a promised project, or how the job hunt is going.

For everyone’s info, he’s joined a landscaping firm and will be out of the house in two weeks. I mean, he will be gainfully employed in two weeks. Um, how about outside and getting exercise in the fresh air in two weeks?

For some reason, having a formal schedule with a lump of time already taken up makes everyone plan things out better, and renders them more capable of hitting deadlines. When you’ve got oceans of time and floating deadlines, it’s harder to discipline yourself. I know this. I sympathise with this. However, there comes a time when I’m not sympathetic any more. My sympathy gets all used up. I take my commitments pretty seriously, so if I suspect (irrationally or with reason) that someone’s not taking their commitments as seriously as I am, I get irritated. I know these past months have been hard for my husband as well, dealing with his sense of self-worth and his value and all that. I’ve been supportive. I know that as my temper gets shorter, he has more to deal with as well. I’ve given leeway.

Now, though, I feel so wrung out that I don’t think I can do it any more. I hate feeling like this, because I feel like I’m letting people down – my husband, co-workers, friends, orchestra, students… me included. I know, I know, I’m only human, we can’t be perfect all the time, etcetera. It feels dreadful, though. All I want to do as a result is go away and be alone somewhere until I’m ready to come out and be a productive member of society again.

I keep telling myself that being miserable builds character. You know what? It's not a heck of a lot of fun while you're at it. I'd rather have fun again.

New Furniture, Cats, and the Academy Awards

About a month ago we inherited a never-used sofa bed and matching recliner chair. Nice, neutral in style and colour, comfy, and miles more attractive and less uncomfortable than the tiny 30 year old sofa bed we'd picked up at a garage sale a few years ago. That sofa bed was being used as a scratching post by our three fluffy hellions, so we've been keeping an eye on them when they're in the living room with the new set. If we're in the apartment and hear that tell-tale "skrr skrr skrr pop" we yell, clap our hands sharply, or smack the offending puss on the rear (depends how persistent they're being). Well, you can't watch them all day, so when we noticed a thread or two hanging off the arm rest of the sofa we decided to cut further damage off at the pass.

We brought home a board wrapped in heavy jute rope and screwed it to one of our doorframes.

All three cats ignored it.

I rubbed some catnip on it. They rolled around on the floor in front of it on the bits that fell off.

One by one, I picked each of them up and carried them over to the scratching board, put them down, picked up their front paws and made little scratchy movements against the rope. They pulled their paws out of my hands and gave me injured looks.

I gave up. Another terrific idea, down the drain.

A couple of days ago, I was in the bedroom and heard the "skrr skrr skrr pop" sound. I yelled; the sound didn't stop. I walked into the living room ready to dish out hell, and there was Maggie, on her back legs, back curved, her front claws locked in the rope, looking at me like I was an idiot human who was contradicting myself again.

Ahem.

She's the only one who uses it, though. The other two haven't figured it out yet. Either that, or they've tried and she's defended it, having decided it's her personal scratchy spot. My money's on Maggie telling the other two that it's really better for them if they use the sofa to sharpen their claws, and she's no longer using it to give them more opportunities.

Oscar Review:

I haven't watched the Oscars in years, namely because I've been so disinterested in what the world of film has had to offer. Last night we watched the back-to-back Enterprise episodes, then tuned in to the Academy Awards in time to watch Sidney Poitier receive his honorary Oscar. I missed all the LoTR awards, but by checking out the web site I'm very pleased to see that Howard Shore got a statue for his incredible score which rarely leaves slot no. 3 in our CD tray. I did have the fortune to see Randy Newman win for Best Song, however, which was long overdue.

Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised to see films like Gosford Park and A Beautiful Mind be honoured. These are films which I was excited about when I heard they were being released, then got swamped by the general raving hullabaloo once they came out and lost any desire to see them. Guess I'll be fixing the oversight soon. Maybe I'll rent Moulin Rouge so I can finally see that as well. Oh, and why not see LoTR again while I'm at it.

Movies I'm looking forward to this year: Possession (scheduled for July 2002, based on the novel by A.S. Byatt, which is one of my Desert Island books and one of the three focal points of my M.A. thesis - although apparently this film ruins the whole turning point of the novel by making the scholars American!), The Importance Of Being Earnest (Oscar Wilde rides again!), Star Wars: Episode Two (I refuse to call it by the lame, lame title - we'll all call it Ep2 anyway), Spider-Man, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (a title which can't be changed for American audiences, thanks the gods), and of course, The Two Towers. Most of which are likely to be ignored this time next year.

The Dangers of Too Much Pop Culture

I walked into the living room last night where my husband was watching the late news, and he said, "The Alliance has a new leader."

"What?" I said. I'm a Star Wars fan. I'm currently in the beginning of a kick-ass Star Wars RPG campaign that's the sequel to another kick-ass three-year campaign. I was trying to figure out, in my sluggish, I-worked-all-day-then-fought-with-Bizet-and-treble-clef brain, what political coup someone could have pulled off to have seized control of the New Republic, and why my husband was telling me in the middle of a news broadcast. Was it being reported on local TV?

I need more sleep. I also apparently need to stop thinking about this campaign so much.

Vanilla Schnapps

I have found Nirvana, and its name is Vanilla Schnaaps.

I’m not a drinker. I have a beer now and then, a cider if we go to a pub; some wine if I feel like it and someone’s already opened a bottle. Otherwise, nice cold water or Coke or something’s more than fine with me.

We went to a SAQ Select last weekend, though, to pick up some Scotch and some Irish Cream for our Ostara celebration. (Our spin on Irish coffee – mmm.) At the sleepover I’d tasted O’Casey’s, a lighter and smoother Irish Cream than the ubiquitous Bailey’s, so I was searching the store for a bottle of that when I came across the liqueurs section.

Now, I detest peach flavour. The fresh fruit’s okay, but peach cream or peach chocolates or even tinned peaches are just yucky. So when all my high school friends went crazy for Fuzzy Navels and peach schnaaps in general, I was unimpressed. (Apart from the fact that I couldn’t get past that sharp taste of alcohol.) That general distasteful impression of schnaaps stuck with me until Sunday afternoon when I found myself staring at Dr McGillicuddy’s Vanilla Schnaaps. Suddenly, all I could think of were Vanilla Cokes.

I brought it home.

This stuff is way too easy to drink. A splash in some Coke, a splash in some root beer – divine. You aren’t really drinking, you’re flavouring with alcohol. Evil. Insidious.

I can’t wait to experiment further. Hot chocolate. Ice cream floats with this stuff poured over top. A splash in lime soda.

Mmmm.

I’m so dead.

Relief

I am returned victorious, with my shield, not on it!

Still flushed with triumph, I am home after teaching my very first public class. I was calm, I was balanced, I was well-prepared (having put in a few hours of work over the past couple of weeks planning it out, and having drawn up a detailed lesson plan today), and it went like clockwork. Two of my registrants didn't show, but I put that down to freezing rain and the fact that they had to drive in from out of town. The three people who did attend were dynamic, interested, had excellent senses of humour, and very supportive, knowing that this was my first official class. I have rarely felt so assured of being successful - usually I find some reason to defer the certainty of having done a job well and to the best of my ability. I feel proud and pleased that everyone enjoyed themselves - I gave good solid information, in a clear fashion, and answered questions intelligently. I hit my two-hour mark with a fifteen minute break and didn't have to rush or cut anything out, or stretch my material in a vain effort to fill time. Positive responses and feedback all around. I feel... like a teacher. Like I communicated something of value and everyone (including me) came away with something new, or a different way of thinking about something. Like I've finally given something back to all those people who have ever taught me something.

I'm feeling pretty darned good.

(The claddagh ring is still on my finger, though.)

First Workshop

Five for five in the Roll Up The Rim to Lose! Woo-hoo!

I'm teaching my first real live workshop tonight: Designing Rituals. I was supposed to do a different one last week, but with no students, it kind of falls flat. I got a dry run when a friend offered to let me adapt that class to fit into her Saturday night program, and it was interesting, but any discussion of ethics succeeds better when there are several people to debate instead of two students who agree all the time. The student teacher ratio of one to one might have been a little imposing, too.

Wish me luck!

Secret Messages

We now have a new refrigerator. "New" in this case means "new to us"; it's actually about eight to ten years old, possibly older. It's huge! Being used to a five-foot high fridge with a single door that opens up to reveal a freezer unit inside, I was highly unprepared for the reality of a grown-up fridge. It has room to stand pop bottles and wine upright! And it has two freezer doors on the left - the upper one has six ice trays and boxes, the lower one has room for lots of ground beef and chicken and frozen juice. Best of all, though, is the fact that it has seperate temperature controls - I can turn the freezer temperature up high enough to keep ice cream solid while not freezing lettuce and celery in the crisper. Woo-hoo! We hosted our book club last night, and it even fit the drinks and food that guests brought over without having to take out things like salad dressings and jams (foods that don't spoil during a single evening without refrigeration). It's glorious!

So with this new expanse of fridge door, I've just spent half an hour moving around my magnetic poetry and discovering all sorts of potential hidden messages within the seemingly random mess. I adore magnetic poetry, but I think I miss the point most of the time: I see a couple of words and a whole line of poetry leaps to mind, so I search for the other words to make up the phrase and I don't have them. I think other people use the words which are there to create unique sentences - sort of like a Choose Your Own Adventure with the English language. I have two poetry sets - the original set I got for my birthday last year, and an out-of-print Hallowe'en set that I found on eBay last fall. It glows in the dark. That's a lot of words already, but I want one more - the Shakespearean set. Maybe the Cat set too, because it has words like "purr" and "whiskers". Just think - I could have poems like "believe and summon arms / of sweet spring / call forsooth thy knavish gods / and purr o calico creature / in worship of raw steel". Or something equally outlandish.

Spring? What Spring?

Spring. Ha. Saturday night turned into a hurricane-type rain and wind storm, followed by baby blizzards on and off all through Sunday and a temperature high of Damned Cold. Only in Canada. More specifically, only in Montreal. I expect my mother to call any moment to tell me that the forsythia is blooming in Oakville.

I had a fantastic time on Saturday night at the slumber party. Most of the time I hang around with guys, so the last time I was at an all-female sleepover was in elementary school. It was terrific to just sit around, chatting, munching non-nutritious foods (although we used very high-quality European chocolate for the fondue which means more cocoa and less sugar, and there was a lot of fruit involved), sharing daiquiris and watching movies. We even made a montage video for the one person who was unable to attend due to pregancy complications and total bed-rest orders. We all surprised ourselves by actually staying up until five (everyone was secretly certain we'd call it a night around one), and we slept until eleven when we got up to make pancakes and bacon and tea. All in all, a wonderful experience. It's an odd feeling to realise that I have a group of girl-friends I can hang out with as well as guy-friends. It's not that I choose to hang out with guys over girls; it's just that I see people as people, and spend time with interesting ones, no matter what their sex.

In other news, I have been dubbed a Forest Breeze in the Natural Wonder allotment of titles:

Not only that, in a Major Arcana multiple-choice, I came out as the High Priestess:

Which tarot card are you?

The High Priestess is the third card in the Major Arcana sequence and focuses on mystical knowledge, intuition, wisdom, the unconscious mind, hidden knowledge, silence, dreams, ebb and flow of movement, female mystery, and so forth.This is a card that comes up a lot for me, and it's usually trying to tell me that I should trust myself. Ironic that this card should be the one that best describes me in an on-line test. Coincidence? Or is it conspiracy? I think the universe is laughing at me.

Posted by Autumn at 12:14 PM | Comments (0)

February 25, 2002

Olympic Recap

The Olympics are done and over, and we’re coming home with a record seventeen medals, coming in fourth overall. That’s quite the haul! Of course, the sweetest medals were our two hockey golds, and the gold awarded belatedly to Sale and Pelletier; but every medal is sweet.

What’s not so sweet is the destruction visited on public and private property in the wake of the men’s hockey victory. As we were driving home last night we passed several cars with Canadian flags waving madly through the windows, bearers thrilled that our car sports a Canadian flag license plate in front. We passed people on foot with painted faces and flags as well. In our own living room window, my husband had already hung our huge Canadian flag in celebration. There’s nothing like citizens deliriously happy that their country has won a major victory on the field of honour.

That was in NDG, however. In downtown Montreal, the fans poured from sports bars and clubs, rioted, hijacked a city bus, stopped traffic in the centre of town, and generally made nuisances of themselves. I have never been able to understand why a significant hockey victory is the siren call of idiocy and destruction. Particularly in this case where every Canadian was proud to have stuck it to the Americans, who we’ve always considered slightly less cultured (come on, deep inside you think it too). A pity that the next act was to display boorishness, lack of respect, and vulgarity.

And what’s with the high of 4 degrees C today? It's still February!

Posted by Autumn at 12:33 PM | Comments (0)

February 24, 2002

On Hockey and Baby Showers

As the morose tone of the last couple of posts has probably indicated, I'm in an anti-social phase. I had a dear friend's baby shower to go to today which I was dreading a bit; I don't fit in very well at all-female events. Anyway, it was just fine; turns out half the people there were hockey fans and we had the TV on watching the Canadians whup them American asses but good in the Olympic men's hockey final while she opened her gifts. We even sang the national anthem and got all choked up when the flags were raised. I got a terrific photo (on someone else's camera, alas) of the expecting mother opening a sweet card, surrounded by cheering women with their arms flung up into the air, half out of their seats.

My husband did the Trading Spaces test; he's Genevieve. This surprises me not at all. Go run barefoot in a field, darling.

Posted by Autumn at 10:47 PM | Comments (0)

February 19, 2002

Plays Cello, Drives a VW Beetle

Dwelling on the visual images Highly Amusing Fact #2 conjured up, I was reminded of my cousin who also plays the cello. In the past few years he has moved from Vancouver back home to Nova Scotia, west again to Vancouver, then to balmy Sioux Lookout in Northern Ontario, and thence to Toronto proper. Not only does he play the cello, he also drives a nice shiny deep cherry red Volkswagon Beetle – not one of the new ones, an original. He also owns a canoe.

You see where this is going, don’t you.

He drove across Canada. Now, a Beetle doesn’t have a lot of room to begin with, but when you’ve crammed it with all your personal possessions there is considerably less room. As most people do, he lashed that canoe to the top of the Beetle. (Yes, go ahead; pause and appreciate the humourous mental picture that sentence conjures up.) The only thing left was the cello. My cousin, being of innovative stock that thinks outside the box, picked it up, tucked it inside the canoe, and drove East.

Posted by Autumn at 09:26 AM | Comments (0)

February 18, 2002

Spring Means New Cars

Okay. It’s getting to be Spring. (Not that we’ve actually had a Winter here in Montreal, but still.) The new cars are coming out, and I’m becoming itchy.

Spring’s a car kind of season, the way Fall’s the time of year when we look at babies and dogs. We were watching TV the other day and a wonderful ad for the PT Cruiser came on – the one that talks nostalgically about Hot Wheels and how cool they were, and how nifty the loop-de-loop flexible track was. My husband said, “I had that exact set,” then sighed, shook his head, and said, “They’re aiming this commercial right at me, and every guy my age.” For the past year or so I’ve been drooling over the Chrysler PT Cruisers myself; they’re just so classy. My eye was also caught by the new Chrysler Crossfire they unveiled at the recent Auto Show. (Since they merged with Daimler, Chrysler’s vehicle designs have really improved!). Now, however – ah, now. My fealty belongs to another. I passed a billboard the other day – a quiet, elegant, silver-grey tone billboard with a vaguely familiar silhouette on it.

They’re making Minis again.

I adore Minis. It has something to do with the ridiculous smallness of them. I’m fond of small things – I’m a small thing myself. My family had an ancient dull red Mini as a second car when I was a kid, and it was terrific – had a woodgrain dashboard with all of three dials on it. You could reach into the trunk from the front, through the back seat. And it was missing part of the floor; my father had to put a board over it. It was a clunker, and I loved it. It was enough to get us around when the other car was unavailable. Okay, so the brakes failed a few times; so there was more rust than body. It was cool!

It dropped in the traces one day, a front wheel coming off as my dad drove down the highway. That was the beginning of the end. I think my parents sold it to a scrap dealer for a whole fifty dollars.

Now – now... I, too, could have a Mini.

Highly Amusing Fact #1: My husband is built like a rugby player.

Highly Amusing Fact #2: I play the cello.

Highly Amusing Fact #3: They’re quoting top speed of the regular Mini Cooper at 200 KPH. With an acceleration from 0-100 KPH of 9.2 seconds on four cylinders.

So, if you’re looking for the perfect birthday present for me – and you’ve got a handful of months to save up for it – you can buy me a Mini Cooper in British Racing Green.

Posted by Autumn at 04:07 PM | Comments (0)

More Curling

Well, it had to happen eventually - the Canadian women's curling team finally lost a game in the Olympic round-robin. Their final draw was won by Switzerland 7-6, and it was an essential win for them, saving them from being knocked out of the semi-finals. Canada retains possession of first place after the round-robin play, however.

Can't wait for the semi-finals!

Posted by Autumn at 03:07 PM | Comments (0)

Farewell Bailey

Sad day… Bailey, our loony ring-necked dove, has flown on to brighter skies.

Bailey was a fifteen-year-old dove whom we inherited from a co-worker of mine a few years ago when her mother moved into a smaller home and couldn’t keep all her birds. His two handles were his missing right eye, and his trademark drunken “woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!” call that sounded more like a sports cheer than the typical cooing dove noise. When we got him he didn’t really have a name, so we spent a few days staring at this one-eyed dove darting his head around, looking at his new surroundings with his good eye. We came close to calling him Odin, but finally settled on Bailey, as he was the precise brownish-cream colour of a nice glass of Irish Cream. Besides, however he lost that eye, it certainly wasn’t as a sacrifice for knowledge; he was pretty, but was rather lacking in the intelligence department.

We couldn’t let him out of his cage to fly, which was a real pity as he was used to having a whole room with branches in it to knock about in. Every time we let him out, he’d take off and fly… leaning ever to the left because that was where he could see. So his straight lines would deteriorate into lazy circles that took him into lamps, mirrors, shelves, and piles of paper. Eventually we clipped his wings and would take him out to sit on our shoulders, which he liked just fine, because he could play in our long hair. He loved to groom my husband’s beard, too. Due to the fact that he was missing an eye, his sense of depth perception was skewed, so he’d sit on his branch and eye the floor of his cage where he’d scattered all his food, screw up his courage, then leap from the perch with that “woo-hoo-hoo-hoo!” as he hurtled to what could be three feet or three inches below him. When he’d hit the cage floor sooner than he expected, the whole contraption would shake, and he’d make a chuckling sound in appreciation for his apparent luck in surviving the treacherous drop.

Lately, however, his drunken cheers had become quieter and less frequent. His enthusiastic daily exercises (consisting of gripping his branch tightly with both feet and flapping his wings as hard as he could, raising clouds of seed dust, fallen feather, and dander) had also grown few and far between. We checked on him daily, and took him out of his cage last week for a long cuddle and a cage-cleaning, and there was nothing wrong with him; it was just finally his time to go. After fifteen years, hey, he was long overdue.

He had a good life, a terrific sense of humour, and brought a smile to many faces. Cheers to Bailey!

Posted by Autumn at 09:28 AM | Comments (0)

February 17, 2002

Olympic Curling

I came home after a twelve-hour rehearsal on Saturday to catch the last three ends of the women's Olympic curling - once again, Kelley Law's rink took out the competition (a little bit of curling humour there) and now goes right to the medal round! The Canadian women are undefeated, having played twice on Saturday and winning both draws. They get a well-deserved day off today before playing Switzerland, the fourth-place team from the round robin, tomorrow. Way to go, Kelley! I saw the end of the draw and considered dragging myself into the office to post the breaking news to the blog, but thought the better of my ability to express myself with anything close to eloquence after Hell Day, and dragged myself off to bed instead. We even remembered to turn the alarm off this time.

The men's Olympic curling team is also in first place with six wins and only one loss. They're currently playing Norway at this very moment. The score stands at 8-3 for Canada; Norway just did a nice gentle take-out with their final stone to lie two in the sixth end.

So, as always happens a few days before the show opens, I start feeling fed up with the music and start looking ahead to next year's production. In this case, I can't stop humming The Gondoliers, so in a desperate attempt to save myself from madness we listened to a recording of The Yeomen of the Guard this morning. I'm so hooked. Every year around this time I become a dual G&S/curling junkie. My life narrows down to the Brier, the Tournament of Hearts, and Lakeshore Light Opera. This year's Olympics are an extra bonus. I love my life.

Posted by Autumn at 12:38 PM | Comments (0)

February 15, 2002

Post-Birthday, and more Curling

A huge hug all around to everyone who came out to honour the birthday boys last night - I know they both appreciated it. Now that the husband's gone off to work, I get to dig through his presents to see what everyone gave him. I assume you all got the usual, "You didn't have to get me anything - the only gift I ever ask for is your presence" speech when you passed him his loot? As for the brief preview of The Gondoliers in the form of "After Sailing To This Island" as performed by the Sisters in Misfortune, (a.k.a. myself and Tara): the missing line no one could remember is "Is the populace exacting?". You're welcome. I know you were tossing and turning, sleepless all night with the suspense.

Seems that dreadful Valentine's Day interview might not have aired yesterday. I might have been bumped in favour of some knowledgeable Olympic persons. No great loss. In fact, I'd be thrilled beyond belief if they've axed it. Next time, they get told that if one topic is prepped and another replaces it in the interview, they get corrected - on the air.

Now, because I am certain that you're all squiggly with excitement, the latest curling news! The Canadian team lost to Sweden 6-5, spoiling their perfect undefeated record in the round-robin. Apparently the ice was tricky, and the Swedes picked it up before the Canadians did. It happens. Despite that, it was a really good, tight game. The Canadian women's team is still 4-0 going into their next game with England.

Seems this blog is getting attention! The Grand Poohbah is scrounging around for a comment function so he can, well, comment, because apparently he's bursting at the seams. In the interests of his health, I hope he finds one soon.

Posted by Autumn at 08:45 AM | Comments (0)

February 14, 2002

Interviews

So after Buffy last night, I flipped through channels looking for my weekly The West Wing fix. What did I get instead? The Mists of Avalon. Part One. Sigh. The severity of mental gear-shifting was almost painful.

I finished Cryptonomicon yesterday. Neal Stephenson really has a problem ending his books, doesn't he. I mean, don't get me wrong; I'm all for the "life goes on" feeling in a novel, but sometimes I wish there was a bit more... well... finality.

Just recorded a telephone interview with CJAD, our local talk radio station. Being one of the local Pagan Poster Girls, I get a lot of calls around Friday the 13th and Hallowe'en. And now, evidently, Valentine's Day. I love the producer; he's terrific. We talked about the historical and ethical issues surrounding Valentine's Day and spellcraft, which is terrific, because I hate shallow gag interviews about love potions. There's a new host that they paired me with though, who asked me my areas of specialty (academia, historical practices) before we started, then proceeded to completely ignore all the pre-production work to ask me, in the interview, how to do a love spell to make Meg Ryan fall in love with him.

You know, it's people like this who laugh at the concept of magic who really tick me off.

I was as polite as possible while telling him that he was an idiot and it's a serious topic, but it really burned me up. On top of it all, this happened only a couple of hours after I turned CFCF (a local TV station) down for a TV spot. We're short-staffed today, and a TV interview takes up a chunk of time and manpower that we simply didn't have. I told them courteously that we'd be delighted to do an interview at any time, with two days notice so that we could get in an extra staff member to meet their needs. Who wakes up on Valentine's Day expecting to go on TV and talk about love potions (ugh)?

Well, obviously I should.

Now I hear you all wondering, "Magic? A serious topic?" Heck, yes. That, however, is a topic for another day.

CURRENT READING:
Player of Games, Iain M Banks. Excellent. Nice, smooth read. An author who is obviously right at home with making you feel like you're wherever his protagonist is.

Posted by Autumn at 05:25 PM | Comments (0)

Or Maybe Not

Came home last night with a blinding migraine. Music would have been bad. Instead, I chose the intelligent alternative of having a warm vanilla-y bath. Mmm.

Today is Pick On Single (Or Partnered and Unhappy) People and Make Them Feel Guilty Day. I've always disliked Valentine's Day. It either makes you feel you should be with someone (which is far from a necessity to be happy or normal), or if you do make up part of a couple, it makes you feel like you should heap piles of chocolate and flowers on them. What's wrong with chocolate and flowers the other 364 days of the year? Or, why not (as I did) wash the dishes for your love instead? Or pick them up from work rather than making them take the bus alone? There's so many better ways to tell them you care.

Speaking of beloveds, it's my husband's birthday this weekend (photo courtesy of the Grand Poohbah), and as we will be entangled in twelve solid hours of rehearsal for next week's show, we're going out tonight to celebrate. As always, the only present he's asked for is to see a bunch of people having fun, so a whole whack o'persons will be gathering at the pub for cider and baked Brie. Good fun. A few of us pooled cash and got him the three-DVD set of Toy Story, Toy Story 2, and the extra DVD with all the developmental material on it. He's an animator by career, so he drools over stuff like this. It's cute. Personally, I'm taking him to see Stuart McLean & the Vinyl Cafe tour when it hits Theatre Outremont next week; we love Stuart and consider him the nearest thing to a modern bard Canada's got. (Although Gordon Lightfoot runs a close second.)

Must be off! Must dare the elements and public transport to cog, so that we can buy kitty kibble for the moggies. (Isn't that the most important reason?)

Posted by Autumn at 08:48 AM | Comments (0)

February 13, 2002

Wednesday, After Tuesday

Oh, you've been spoiled. Yesterday was Tuesday, which means my work-at-home day. This was instituted so I could actually get important database maintenance, orders, and bulletin board moderating done without interference from customers. It's terrific; I get it done in less time with less irritation, with more accuracy and more bright ideas. It also means that I'm at my own computer where I can post whenever a thought wanders into my mind that burns to be expressed. Yesterday in particular I was on the computer from around 10.00 AM until 6.00 PM, so you got a lot of posts. This frequency will certainly not be a regular daily occurance, but watch for Tuesdays being a particularly effusive day.

Today is Wednesday, which means that I go straight from work to orchestra and I won't be back until eleven-ish tonight. Normally what I'd do is sit down with a cup of herbal tea and watch whatever re-run episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer the VCR recorded earlier in the evening, but as my husband has just begun a new job that involves getting up much earlier than he used to, I have a sneaky suspicion that going to bed earlier will also be in order. And it's just no fun watching Buffy without him. Maybe I'll blog instead; I'm sure you're all dying to know what we rehearse tonight.

Posted by Autumn at 08:32 AM | Comments (0)

February 12, 2002

The Beauty of Curling

What do you mean, you think curling is boring? Golf is boring! Baseball is boring! Curling, now; curling is like chess on ice, requiring a mind able to think several moves ahead, a flexible team able to adapt to quickly changing ice conditions, and physical stamina.

I have only one last thing to say: forty-two pounds of Scottish granite.

Posted by Autumn at 06:14 PM | Comments (0)

Query #2

Query #2: Whose fault is it, anyway?

Three. The perpetrators are three in number. Their names, so that you may alternatively praise them or curse them, are, in order of suggesting that I record my musings:

Eric

The Grand Poohbah, JDH

Ceri

There. My work is here done. For the nonce

Posted by Autumn at 12:21 PM | Comments (0)

The Origin of the Name

So, why Owls’ Court, I hear the masses query.

It was a thing I had when I was discovering the glorious permutations of language, lo, these many years ago. You know those collective nouns - descriptions like a school of fish, a gaggle of geese, an exaltation of larks? They get more arcane: a murder of crows, a parliament of rooks, an unkindness of ravens, a plate of clams… but I always wondered what a collection of owls would be. They’re pretty solitary.

So I made it up. A court of owls.

Then recently, I discovered that a collection of owls is actually called a parliament. I don’t know what that does to the rooks; maybe they’re a house of rooks now.

Anywhats. There you have it. A term that, sadly, I can no longer use, because someone else got there first. That is, until now. Creating a blog was worth it, simply for that.

There will, however, be more. Much, much more.

Posted by Autumn at 12:06 PM | Comments (0)

Welcome

It's happened. It's here.

The single most mind-influencing, future-shattering event the world can possibly experience has arrived. Me. My blog. My thoughts to your screen.

And thence to your mind, challenging the way you think, the way you perceive the world around you. And maybe, just maybe, to inspire you.

Posted by Autumn at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)