Category: Music

butterflies

I’m going to go perform in public so of course I have butterflies…  Peggy has decided to come as well (separate conveyances) and so I asked my folks if she could crash there rather than at Pondside and my folks said yes.  (Lots of room at Pondside, but I volunteered to crawl out of bed early to get her to the bus.)  Pondside, in case you need to know, is where Dr Filk and his madly filking&recording landpeers live.

Last night I went to Superstore and did a small shop.  Forgot bread and cheese.  Duh.  Jeff picked me up and then I cooked salmon steaks, corn and bok choi, with strawberries, bananas and cream for dessert.  Yeah, I got my cooking mojo back after a slack couple of days.  Jeff has acquired a barbeque (Paul has kindly agreed to help him fetch it as the MR2 is a tad parsimonious of cartage room) and we are now looking forward to seared meat on the back deck in the hottest days of the year when you don’t want to be cooking indoors anyway – and believe me Vancouver gets smoking hot in the summertime.

I have just finished the first bake and slice of the biscotti I have been requested to bring to Victoria.  The ones on the top rack are almost but not burnt – the bottom rack biscuits are pretty close to perfect. I guess I am still not one hundred percent with this stove.

Neglected to mention that Jeff and Mike were much amused, last Friday, that they both liked the MR2 and were making tentative plans for a car swap and drive up to Pemberton or some such place…. hope I can come for the ride!  It’s such beautiful country up there.

I was supposed to go with Katie and Suzanne to a comedy show last night in New West, but I was bagged from an emotionally draining day at work (good emotions are draining, too) and knew I had to do a shop and some cooking.  Alas that I canna be in three places at once – I wouldn’t have minded seeing Glenn, either.

Watched a good chunk of Movies 101 last night which is essentially a very long and extremely sympathetic interview with Martin Scorcese.  Jeff and I kept looking at each other and saying, “Scorcese directed that??” or mentioning the Scorcese movies we’d seen that the other hadn’t.  I LOVED the Last Temptation of Christ and Raging Bull.  Jeff hasn’t seen either of them, but he has seen New York New York and Gangs of New York.  I haven’t seen Taxi Driver.  Okay, I guess I have a lot of those movies in my future.  Boxcar Bertha is inbound from zip…..   Barbara Hershey and David Carradine???  mmmm’kay.

Then some Deadwood.  We got up to the part where Woolcott does his nasty deed and Cy bails him out.

Time to get biscotti out of the oven…

the house smells heavenly.

Time to pack…. and feed some butterflies.

Chores

Practicing for the gig on Friday went very well; one of the cats, presumably Eddie, had an accident requiring additional laundry but you can ALWAYS wash your bathroom rugs anyway so what the heck; I learned how to play back prerecorded video from Shaw thanks to Jeff’s fabulous instructions (he wrote a BROCHURE); the weather was six kinds of gorgeous; church was great thanks to a really great service and I really didn’t mind doing chairs; my back doesn’t hurt for the first time in about three weeks; all my laundry is done and hung up (remarkable) except one load which I intend to go deal with right now; saw Keith briefly yesterday and he brought a Useful Object into the house, namely something to catch his immense nest of hair in the shower; cleaned various kitchen and household objects; I renewed the server account for this site and paid some other bills; more yelling downstairs but much more subdued than Friday night; ran into Heather at the Nanaimo skytrain and things don’t sound too good in her world right now.  Dunno. I guess I’m happy to be me.
The Luddite took a day off work to play with trains which involved him and a bunch of other guys moving track onto a new setup…. we’re talking about something the size of a basement.  He also mentioned something about strawberries in pots for me; I look forward to this with interest and yumminess.  Container gardening is about all we’ll be able to do here.

party

was success….. music, v. little alcohol, and the pleasure of the company of Tom Peggy Barry Keith Dr Filk Rob Mike Heather Patricia & Nicholas.  So all in all a nice blend of friends family and coworkers.
I must say, the biscotti were a success, and I’m glad I deked over to the cheese aisle for some brie….  This morning picked my way round the sleepers to load the dishwasher, then made coffee, then retired to the second volume of Quentin Bell’s bio of his aunty Virginia Woolf, then passed out again until about 10:30 am. Keith’s off home to do a laundry (today is not one of our days) and I just trimmed Dr. Filk’s scalp, something I haven’t done for a year.  He was describing, in amusing terms, his current job situation, which is reasonably secure but quite unhindered by management.
The Willie P Memorial concert is two Fridays hence.  I will try to get over there to sing and play but that means dreadful things like picking tunes and practicing.  Which reminds me, I have to get Dr. Filk’s arrangement of Step Away …. that’s one I’ll do for sure.  Oh god, it sounds like I’m committing myself.

more later….

I’m home,

but I’m not where my bed is.  I pulled out the guit and the mando tonight and HOLY CRAP is my bedroom LIVE when it doesn’t have any furniture in it.  It’s a little tiled cell in which the sound of my breathing echoes like there’s a Balrog stuck in the corner.  All I practiced was Spinal Clinic and one of the new ones (These Things Happen).  This after watching Robert Downey Jr (can he do a bad acting job? the man is incredible) in this movie.
I am a woman of noisy enthusiasms.  Jeff keeps scowling at me; if I laugh at something with my usual vigour  (read volume) whichever of the cats is cuddling with him messes off the couch with a disgusted air.   And hey, two new-to-me Robot Chicken episodes and the season finale of Atlantis (it being the first Stargate Atlantis I’ve ever seen).  I’ve heard his fame well sung, that Rodney guy from Stargate Atlantis…. Now’s the time to queue up some Lady Miss B.
Patricia let me cry on her today. Thank you Patricia.  I’m not very aesthetic at the best of times; snivelling over onion rings is an incorrect form.  It was a summer storm, I’m not upset anymore.  She wants to meet the Luddite.  Like Ambrose Bierce, I have my doubts that all my friends should be introduced to each other even if they all rock.

Lady Miss B’s instrument was plucked from its case whilst being inspected by TSA goons, who played it laughing and broke a string.  May they receive the blessings of heaven and it not enough to spare them the lashings of hell.

Bad singing lesson

Kopper and I are still recovering from another singing lesson involving the most dirge like arrangement of “Down by the Riverside” you could possibly imagine. If this goes on I’m gonna bail on the rest of the lessons. I love the teacher and she’s awesome, but her music picks are not “what the people can hum” all the time. On the plus side we did some improvisational group singing last night.

After, I went over to the new place ostensibly to help Jeff move televisions but he declared himself too bagged; at least Kopper got to meet him even if he was far from being in his best shape. After all he’s been moving and driving large trucks around for four straight days, so exhaustion was not untoward.

My packing has slowed to a crawl, but I have set the moving day for the 19th of this month. Hopefully I will be able to get ‘er done by then.