Author: Allegra

Born when atmospheric carbon was 316 PPM. Settled on MST country since 1997. Parent, grandparent.

Mozart, moods and metal origami

I was a complete frackup this weekend.  I did manage to get some cleaning and laundry done, and I did cook some meals, so I didn’t entirely lay about and do nothing – but mostly I did, while feeling sorry for myself.

Saturday I bought work clothes for our dreaded new overlords have high standards in these things.  I even bought stuff that matched, which is just weird, and it was all solids or stripes, no tie dye. All of it makes me look older than my mother, buy which I mean that it’s all like polyester pantsuits.  Saturday night Jeff and I went to the opera.  It was a masterpiece but the chairs are BRUTAL at the Queen Elizabeth theater and the perfume was a-waftin’.  At half time, despite it being a superlative performance with amazing direction and one tight orchestra, we bailed.  If we could have watched it without being gassed by the fancy lookers in the audience, that would have been grand.  Jeff and I want to go back but we’re thinking a matinee.  The opera was Marriage of Figaro, and honestly, a better introduction to the opera isn’t possible.

Sunday, despite the fact Joy sent me a reminder email that I was supposed to do set up for church, I forgot and came to church late and Jason did all my work for me.  I did a penance afterwards which consisted of drying every last dish that had to be washed out for the annual congregational meeting.  I came home in full bore collapsing mode, I was so upset, and watched Talladega for a while.  Many crashes and a nailbiter finish.  I finally hauled myself up and tidied a bit.  After supper Paul and Keith came over.  I got all weepy and tragic on Paul, who very sensibly responded by hauling out the massage table and working me over until I quit whining, at which point he tucked me into bed (trust a dad to know how to do that right) and went home and then I slept for ten hours.  This is so much more sleep than I normally get that I am thrilled out of my mind.  I haven’t had any beer in the last two days, either.

And just to prove I haven’t stopped taking an interest in cool stuff.  …. metal origami.

Geektingle… geektingle. Yeah

When you meet somebody who gets DRM, you get the geek tingle.

Watched 9 with Jeff and Mike the other night.  Script laughably average, visuals STUNNING.  Definitely worth seeing once.

I got a migraine yesterday, but I walked up to the same coworker who administered oxygen to me previously and he gave me painkillers and I went back to my desk and finished my day.  I felt fine by the time I got home.  It was hormonally triggered. Dear body, I love you, but quit screwing up, please.  I know it is only a matter of weeks, maybe months, before the other side of my back blows out.  I can hardly lift my feet, and that is NOT a good sign.  So sore.  I am in pain every waking minute, and lord how it grinds on me.

Figaro Figaro Figaro.  Yup, going to the Marriage of Figaro tonight.  Very glad my first exposure to opera is Mozart.  Glad as well that the two principals are Canadian, so I’m supporting home grown talent.

I should phone Candace and find out if I have a rehearsal this weekend.

I need to pick out Three Things to Accomplish today and do them.  No big lists, just one small and accomplishable one.

I have disliked the Fraser Institute for a while now.

From their shideous performance in the movie “The Corporation” to their let’s have a free market until we destroy the earth attitude, I really don’t like their research or their path.  So here’s something to actually provide ammo for those who like me have problems with the Fraser Institute.  And something else – Half a Century of Fuzzy Math. Cousin Gerald, who by this forward demonstrates that he’s certainly able to tell what will get my attention, sent it along.

Not even with a beer in my hand and a few comments on social media

A series of large losses can make a small loss feel enormous. I told Rob I wouldn’t cry until I had a beer in my hand, and I lied then too.  I’m crying now, but Jeff is meeting the situation with sympathetic noises and the welcome sound of the coffee grinder.  I was going to say more tender things about him, but he’s off in his room now belching so loud something in my room vibrated in sympathy…. still in keeping with the theme, I spose.

There was a brief flurry of amusement last night at Robof9’s going away party while one party member commented to another, “We’re friends, right?” but in reference to facebook.

I now have more than 150 facebook friends.  I have met and spoken to every single one of them.  Some of them are my dearest friends; some I barely know; some are more other people’s friends than mine.  But they are my facebook tribe and I follow their doings, their triumphs and tragedies, the way folks follow soaps. Not so much on the story arc, but man, the set pieces entirely rock.

Livejournal is for filk buddies and church buddies.  When I realized that – that was the point I realized that filk is the religion-friendly portion of SF fandom.  Because all the most religious people I know who are also fans are also filkers.  Things that make you say hmm.  And when I say religion, I mean Judaism, paganism, UUism, and Mormonism.  We all get together in a room and sing our faces off, and we make sure that people’s dietary requirements, both allergy and religious, are met, and we don’t even talk about it because that would all be beside the point anyway, we’re here to sing and love each other.  Livejournal merely supports the meatspace- we are meant to be together, and LJ helps us do that.

Twitter is for people who like the kinds of things I like.  Twitter is mostly people I don’t know, will never meet.  The most recent person to start following me had two midwife attended births, co-slept, baby carried, tandem nursed and looky looky, she’s a vegetarian. All those things in common, and then, clunk.  Uh, no thanks. Personally I fucking hate it when people say they are vegetarian and eat eggs and milk.  You’re still robbing babies and eating them, so how does that bring you to fluffy bunnyhood?  Either be vegan or be sparing in your meat consumption or be like me, the meat on meat inside meat, with meat on the side, kind of person.

I will be a vegetarian when I have to, and not one second sooner.  My brain doesn’t work properly without meat protein and it sure doesn’t work properly without animal fat.  Wish it were otherwise.

Now I have to go outside and plant the saplings work gave me for Earth Day.  I have a funny story about that but I can’t publish because the inertnets are temporarily forever.  I hope Margot joins me.  There’s something very comforting about her watching me work.

The people’s republic of Berkeley does it again

So many reasons to visit.  Here’s another.

Mohsin gave me a ride to Production Station.  I bought those yummy Grape Seed Oil Seaweed treats for me and ice cream for Jeff and STILL caught the train, the bus and then the other bus in such rapid succession that I was home at quarter to six.  Yeah yeah yeah!

Keith and Paul came over and we watched some tube, including the new Castle which has wooottttt Michael Trucco as what looks to be an ongoing guest star.  Also Esposito introduces Castle as ‘his other partner’ last night which was the most swoonderful piece of bromance I have ever seen yet on tv.

Very angry at my investment dude today, or I should say his company.  Irked, irked, irked.  Now I must make decisions and that is, uh, irksome.

Okay, time to go to work.

Bye to Robof9

The farewell lunch was today.  Rob has been a good work friend to me for 5 years, and I’ll miss him.  His last day worked is later this week, but I thought I would mention it.

I didn’t take Margot to church – and I am mighty glad I didn’t as there were tons of dogs – and I dug some more in the garden, and did some more laundry, and in general had a not very anxious Sunday.  Also watched January Man.  It had some brilliant lines, but didn’t really gel as a movie, imho.

Tom and Peggy and singin’

Tom and Peggy put together a housefilk last night, complete with little kids, blackberries and Brooke PLUS special guests from Washington state.  I really like Jeff C and Jeri-Lynn and Jeri-Lynn’s cello adds that touch of class to any musical gathering.  Was amused (and mentioned it to Paul) that Diane Loomer had done the choral arrangement for her sheet music for “Frobisher Bay” which is about getting on a whaler and not getting off it cause it gets stuck in Arctic ice.  Diane Loomer is the genius what directs the Chor Leoni, of which I have spoken many times here on the blog.  So it is all cunningly intertwingled, as it were.

Creede played Crossroads (how I love that man’s whiskers!  His whiskers should have their own TV show!) and when he didn’t play the last verse (the one which mentions the banjo) there was a simultaneous sad face across the entire room, followed by a couple of people saying, Hey, what about the last verse, at the completion of which Paul burst out laughing because he’d never heard it before.

Brooke played Orion Swings, which is such an ominous tune, but so pretty.  And there was a little bit of everything else, like all filks.  Oh, and I debuted “Forty Million Light Years” minus the last five verses, which I still have to write.

I forgot how to tune a mandolin.  It was like having an outbreak of Alzheimer’s in my head, or I could say something about how long it’s been since I cradled Mistress Aria in my arms.  Yes, indeed, Tom finished the repairs just in time for the filk, and I don’t think I ever thanked him. Well, that’s just how I roll, diving into things and then figuring out the social niceties afterwards.  Fortunately Tom knows me well enough not to take it personal.

There was a brief moment of WTF as I woke up this morning without being in my own bed (yes, I was at Planet Bachelor, where Keith woke me up with the blessed scent of coffee,  moving right along now) and now it’s the mad scramble for church and hopefully deking home to fetch Margot and give Brother Jeff the instructions for getting her home.