Airport Chaplains!

I don't know how many of you have access to AOL -- can anyone access it these days? -- but check out this story about airport chaplains.

How totally cool! I can think of some trips when I could have used them. I'll have to remember that they're there the next time I fly!

All Saints

Happy November! We observed All Saints' Day in church today, with a table set up for photos and mementos of loved ones. I'd brought two photos of Dad in a plastic sleeve, and one of our priests prayed with me before the service. After the service, I went around showing the pictures to various friends, since only one person there had actually met Dad while he was alive.

They all listened very patiently to my stories about Dad. They asked questions and told me how handsome he was and said I look like him, and one person said I should write a book about him. I've been told that before, most memorably by the head of a search committee who was far more interested in learning about Dad than in hearing about my fiction, which this professor would have been hiring me to write if I'd gotten the job. For that and other reasons, the suggestion rankles a bit, but I may still do it sometime.

Someone else said kindly, after I'd been rattling on for a while, "How lucky you've been to have a parent who created such good memories."

Earlier in my life -- during the decades when Dad's drinking caused no end of worry and drama -- I felt distant from him, and very resentful. For that and many other reasons, I'm glad he lived long enough for us to develop a close and loving relationship, even if he drove me crazy sometimes. He drove everybody crazy sometimes, but then, so do I.

Another church friend asked this morning, "What of him do you see in yourself?"

"I'm stubborn and argumentative," I said immediately, "and I drive people nuts."

"I thought you were just thorough," said my friend, deadpan.

I laughed. "That's a kind way of putting it!"

(Someone else I know from church informed me several years ago that he could no longer have a close friendship with me because I remind him too much of his mother, who's stubborn and argumentative. I've often wished that his mother could have met my father!)

I'm grateful that Dad passed his sense of wonder on to me, along with his depressive tendencies. And we're both bright -- actually, Dad was brilliant in many ways, and my intelligence is a dim echo of his -- but I get that from my mother, too. I wish I'd inherited a greater percentage of both of their looks, but if I had to choose between that and brains, I'd definitely stick with what I have.

Anyway, my friends at church were very tolerant this morning, since many of them have heard these stories before. I felt a pressing urge to tell them, almost as if it were Dad's funeral. At this point, I don't know when we'll be scattering his ashes. I'd thought that my sister and I would go down to the Gulf this summer, but the other day she pointed out that she can't take any vacations while my mother's living with her. So unless Mom winds up in a nursing home again -- which no one wants -- it feels like we won't have physical closure on Dad until Mom dies. Kinda morbid, but that's the situation.

In the meantime, Dad's hanging out in his little white box on his red bookshelf, all quiet and peaceful-like. Quite a change from when he was alive!

Happy Halloween!

I hope everyone enjoyed the holiday. Gary and I, as is our Halloween custom, had dinner out -- Thai appetizers for dinner -- and then had decadent desserts and drinks at a chocolate bar in town. Then we came home and watched Scrubs, with blinds drawn and outside lights off. Yes: we are terrible people who try to avoid trick-or-treaters.

Speaking of which, this afternoon we saw a fairly grisly, but fascinating, trick-or-treater enjoying a treat in our backyard. Some kind of raptor (hawk, I think, but Gary wondered if it was a falcon) had caught and killed a smaller bird and sat in our yard methodically devouring it before flying away with the rest of the carcass. The raptor was gorgeous. Gary and Bali and I were all glued to the window, watching it. It wasn't a good day for the little bird, though.

This morning was my first hospital shift since early September. It felt good to be back, but it was a strange shift. We had some heavy-duty cases, but I barely got to talk to anyone associated with them. I spent some time trying to track down the relative of an intubated patient who'd been admitted to the ICU, but that person had evidently left the building. We had a very sick child who was being transferred to the ICU of another hospital, but that bed was so surrounded by medical folks that I never even got into the room. At the very end of my shift, the victim of a violent crime came in. The case manager asked if I'd talked to the patient, and another volunteer asked if I'd talked to the patient, and I wanted to talk to the patient, but every time I went to the room, something else was happening and it wasn't the right time.

At the end of my shift, I said to the case manager, "The police are in there interviewing right now. Do you think I should stay until that's over?"

We decided that I shouldn't; the police and other medical staff were providing support, and family would be arriving soon. So I went upstairs to sign out. But on my way out, I started feeling guilty and went back. I knocked on the door and waited for a pause in the police interview to introduce myself (the officer was very nice; we'd spoken previously in the hallway). The patient didn't want to talk, but thanked me for coming by, as did the police officer. So I left feeling a little less like I'd run out on someone in dire need.

It would have been easier if I'd known that another volunter chaplain would be there later in the day, but from the schedule, it looked like that wasn't the case. Ordinarily, I try to be pretty firm about my own boundaries -- if I let myself get into "just one more patient" mode, I'd never get out of the hospital -- but this was an unusual situation. I have to admit that I was a little relieved, though, when the patient didn't want to talk.

Thank goodness for police. I don't know how they do their jobs, but I'm glad they do.

Matters Medical and Musical

I had my sleep test last night; two hours in, the tech woke me up so he could put a CPAP on me, which means I need the CPAP, which means -- we hope -- that insurance will pay for it. The Ambien didn't knock me out as much as I expected, although it was a very small dose; it probably had some effect, though, because I certainly slept much more deeply than I did during my first sleep test six years ago.

I still haven't figured out what to do about Harley. He's the big fluffy black-and-white cat, for those of you who were wondering. Claire commented that she elected not to have an expensive biopsy on a cat because the vet couldn't describe any treatment options that would result from it. We once made the same decision, for another cat, for the same reason. But this vet seemed to be saying that there may be things we can do to prolong Harley's life and comfort, and that the test will tell us a) if that's true and b) what the correct treatment would be if it is, since the correct treatment for one of the possible conditions would quickly kill him if it were another of the possible conditions.

We won't be opting for kidney transplant or dialysis, both of which are now available for cats. That's entirely too much suffering and expense for everyone involved. But if a course of steroids or antibiotics would help him, I'll happily go there. And while I might not put a much older cat through a biopsy, Harley's still fairly young, and I'd like to keep him around as long as possible. I love all our cats, but Harley's special.

Anyway, I've asked to meet with our regular vet (she's at the same hospital but wasn't there the day Harley had his dental and bloodwork) for a second opinion. For one thing, I want to talk to somebody who values cats more than curtains, or at least understands that we do. I'm sure the vet we talked to the other day didn't mean that the way it came out, but the comment bothered me. And since Gary and I came away with very different impressions of what she told us, I hope he'll come to this meeting too, so we'll at least be working with the same basic understanding of the situation.

In much happier news, my fiddle tone's getting better. I thought it was, but then Gary said it was, which made me really happy. I'm diligently practicing Egan's Polka and Angeline the Baker, although my versions are simpler and much, much slower than these YouTube examples. Charlene has me practicing a technique called "polka bowing;" she was impressed at how quickly I picked it up during this week's lesson, but I can't seem to do what she wants me to do with it at home. Gahhhh! She says that next week, I'll receive official permission to use the D string, but I suspect that depends on how well I do with the other stuff.

Anyway, fiddling makes me happy. Happy is good.

Oh: and tomorrow, I'm back to volunteering at the hospital. Yay!

Oh, Heck

Yes, I know: I used to post once a day, but in through here I seem to be posting once a week. I've been busy. I have tons of grading to do, as always, and we're getting flooded with applications for our new poetry position. This is great, but reading them is time-consuming.

I've been thinking a lot about the new book and think I have some things figured out now, although I haven't actually gotten any writing done. But I believe I have more of a handle on the theme and plot than I have before. We'll see if I'm right about that!

I came home early from convention to try to get grading done. It sort of worked, but last weekend was still incredibly hectic.

I'm still practicing the fiddle every day, and feel as if I'm getting worse instead of better, but Charlene assures me that's normal. She's sick today, so we've rescheduled this week's lesson until Thursday. Thursday's also my sleep test.

Elsewhere in medical news, yesterday I talked to my freshmen a little bit about medical ethics and all the complicated factors that go into life-and-death decisions in hospitals: whether to continue with treatment, whether to unplug the machines. Driving home, I remembered agonizing over whether it was time for Dad to go into hospice, and was very relieved to be out of that territory.

And then, this afternoon, the vet called to tell us that Harley has kidney disease.

He's had borderline kidney values for years now, but they've remained pretty stable. We thought they might even be normal for him. This morning we brought him in for dental work and were afraid he might have to have teeth extracted. Turns out his teeth were fine, but his creatinine level's shot way up since March, when he last had bloodwork.

This isn't good news. The vet said that by the time damage shows up in the bloodwork, the animal's already lost 75% of kidney function. Harley's been acting normal -- although a little more clingy than usual, now that I think of it -- but he hasn't stopped eating or started gulping water, and he still uses the litterbox properly, so we really didn't have any signs.

The question is what to do now. There are four different conditions that could be causing these lab values. None are curable. Three can be treated, though, which could extend length and comfort of life. The issue is that the treatment for one of the four conditions is deadly for another, and to find out which one Harley has, he needs at least $1,000 of further testing, including a kidney biopsy.

The vet couldn't give us any kinds of figures about life expectancy, because some cats can continue happily for years and some die much more quickly. Harley's only ten, which is young for his kidneys to be doing this badly, but we had another cat once with even worse numbers who defeated the odds and lived for a long time. Harley doesn't seem at all unhappy right now; in fact, he's been playing and chasing the other cats around the house.

Gary's gut instinct is to do nothing and let nature take its course. My gut instinct -- partly because I'm an INFJ and always feel better having as much information as possible -- is to go ahead and do the tests, so at least we'll know what we're looking at. I'd feel really guilty if Harley died and I didn't know if I could have given him a longer life.

I said to the vet, "What would you do if he were your cat?"

She said promptly, "I wouldn't pay that much money, because I need new curtains for my house. I just spent $1,800 on my dog, though."

Well, okay. For her, curtains are more important than a cat. But for me, Harley's more important than a lot of things that would cost that much or more: Hawai'i over spring break; a $1,000 fiddle camp someone told me about today, an event that sounds like a blast and that I'd love to attend; WisCon (which I probably wouldn't have attended this year anyway). So I'm still inclined to go for it. He'll hate the tests, of course, but if he has something treatable and we can buy him even an extra six months . . . that's worth $1,000 to me. Would it be worth the discomfort to him?

He can't tell us. That's what makes this situation so difficult.

The vet advised us to wait a few weeks anyway, to let him recover from the indignities of dental work. (I'm also supposed to start brushing his teeth every day. Oh, joy.)

In the meantime, he's been very talkative and affectionate since he got home from the vet's, and keeps jumping into my lap. Why, here he is now.

Time to go pat the kitty.

Up in Tahoe

So today, after a very late start (partly because of the book offer), I drove up to South Lake Tahoe for our diocesan convention. The convention really starts tomorrow morning, but I wanted to get here tonight, since I'm not a morning person and business begins at 9 a.m.

The hotel offers "mountainview" rooms or "lakeview" rooms; the second are more expensive. So I booked the first, but was delighted to find that I can see a sliver of the lake anyway.

In other respects, though, the room's bizarre. I'm used to accomodations for business travelers, which this clearly isn't. Not only isn't there a coffee maker in the room -- a startling depature from the norm, although room coffee is always too weak for me anyway -- but there are only two outlets in the main room. They're across the room from the bed and almost the entire length of the room from a very small table, too heavy to move, which offers the only working surface.

The most immediate problem this poses is how to plug in the CPAP. I called housekeeping and they brought me an extension cord, which will work. I'd hoped they'd point out outlets I'd missed, but no such luck. So at night I'll recharge my computer from a bathroom outlet and use the two outlets in the room to run the CPAP and recharge my BlackBerry. Oy!

Also, the lighting's pretty lousy, and the chairs are uncomfortable. Yeah, I know. Hotel management doesn't want me in my room. They want me downstairs, giving all my money to the casino. Sorry, guys. I'm already shelling out enough of my money for internet access, at an exorbitant $12/day. For the sake of efficiency -- since I have stacks of grading to do when I'm not at the convention -- I decided to have a continental breakfast delivered to my room each morning, so I can have my coffee in the room while getting work done and won't have to shower and dress to run downstairs for java. That's $11/day, too, although the good news is that there's a Starbucks on-premises and room service will deliver from there, so I'll get real coffee, stuff strong enough to deserve the name.

This is all terribly decadent, but I have to have internet to keep on top of applications for the search committee I'm on, and I have to have coffee to feel like a human being, and it's nice to feel like a human being without having to leave the room. And hey, we may still have some zombiebucks available, plus I just sold a novel, although I won't see any of that advance for quite a while (payment used to be half on signing and half on delivery, but now it's half on delivery and half on publication).

The good news is that, since casinos never want you to leave their walls, there are always lots of places to eat, ranging from the expensive to the reasonably reasonable. I had dinner -- a tasty sandwich and fresh salad -- at the Hard Rock Cafe downstairs. Hotel restaurants usually take forever, but the service was very speedy, and my waitress was great. She seemed genuinely touched when I told her I'd tip in cash instead of on my credit card, so she wouldn't be taxed on the tip. "That's above and beyond the call of duty," she told me. But being a casino waitress has to one of the tougher jobs around, and I never understand how service workers in Tahoe can afford the rents, so if I can save her a buck or two in taxes, great.

And so to bed. I hope that Starbucks comes on time!

TSWP Unveiled!

Back in June, when I was in New York, my agent told me that Tor had requested a mainstream -- i.e., not fantasy or SF -- novel from me. She told me to prepare a proposal post-haste, which I did. And then we waited.

This morning, Tor made an offer. They'll be publishing my fourth novel, currently entitled Mending the Moon. It's about four elderly women who are close friends (and Episcopalians!); when one of them is killed, the other three have to make sense of what's happened and find ways to go forward with their own lives, while also helping their friend's adopted son. Right now the first draft is about half written, although a lot will have to change; the manuscript's due September 1, 2010, although I hope to have it done before then.

Above is an image of the talisman I bought in Northhampton this summer. I'd been looking for a moon image, and the art-glass sculpture was perfect!

Wish me luck, please. I'll post periodically about my progress.

Bad Morning, Good Afternoon

I woke up this morning at 9:15 -- with fifteen minutes to get to church -- and didn't even try to make it. I rolled back over and closed my eyes. At 11:30, Gary wandered into the bedroom and said, "It looks like one of us is still in bed?"

At that point, I dragged myself upright (after he'd kindly brought me coffee!), although I felt like every limb was fifty pounds heavier. I wasn't sick; it was either depression or a grief reaction or, most likely, some combination of the two.

In any event, things quickly improved. I ate breakfast and felt a little more human, and then discovered that some folks on Ravelry had very kindly left comments telling me how to solve the double-knitting problem that's been plaguing me. Finally figuring out a new technique, and getting it to work when I picked up my project, made me feel much better.

It was now about 1:15, and Gary had left for a hike. I showered, dressed, packed up my lunch and some ice water, and got into the car to drive to Pyramid Lake, a place Dad loved and never got to see again during the five months he actually lived here. I'd written on my calendar months ago that I'd drive out there today in his memory, so I decided keep that promise to him and to myself.

The drive was very pleasant. I listened to fiddle tunes, ate my lunch, and admired the landscape. As you can see from the above photo, we had cloudy weather today, which meant that the water was steel-gray, rather than the striking turquoise it displays on sunny days. This picture can't do justice to the lake, but hardly any photo can. It's a place people have to see for themselves, and they generally either respond in terror because it's so stark and dramatic, or love it because, well, it's so stark and dramatic. Dad loved it; so does my mother, and so do I.

I didn't stay there long, but I stopped into a store that sells Piaute crafts (Pyramid Lake's on a rez). I found birthday gifts for my sister and a friend and a Christmas gift for Gary. My father would have especially liked the gift I found for Liz, so that made me happy.

When I got home, I practiced the fiddle. I'm happy to report that Felicity's been just fine (fit as a fiddle!) since I got her fixed again on Friday. Yesterday I even managed to straighten the listing bridge without breaking anything. What a relief! I can't say that I've been sounding much better this week, but I don't think I'm sounding worse, either.

So that was my day. On the way to the lake, I thought about writing a poem when I got there, but I was feeling singularly uninspired. At least the drive got me out of the house, though, which was exactly what I needed today.

Next weekend I'll be up at Lake Tahoe for our annual diocesan convention, where I'll get more than enough church to make up for having missed it today.

Cat in Luggage

Stations of the Cross

Tomorrow's the anniversary of when Dad moved out of his Philadelphia apartment and collasped in my sister's house. The day after that's the anniversary of when he left the hospital AMA to catch his flight west: the last time Liz saw him alive, the last evening I saw him without oxygen. The day after that is the anniversary of when he collapsed in our garage.

This is all weighing on me. I have five months of Lent coming up until the anniversary of his death, and it just occurred to me that maybe I should turn this into a creative project and try to generate my own stations of the cross . . . probably in the form of poems, since I lack the artistic skill to make visual icons. (Repeat ad infinitum: "It's all material.")

I have a friend who isn't sensitive to anniversaries at all. Her mom died a few years ago, and I asked her if that anniversary or her mother's birthday is difficult for her, and she looked at me like I was insane and said, "No. I don't even notice them." But the literature says this is normal, which reassures me.

If I post any parts of this project, will everyone stop reading the blog because it's too gloomy? And have any of you done projects like this yourself?

Sigh

Yesterday I took Felicity into the shop, where the luthier fixed her up and also told me that it's important to tune with the pegs every day.

So this morning I tried that, and broke a string. Aaaaargh!

Back to the shop we go. I'm finding tuning more difficult than playing, even with my nifty electronic tuner. Is that normal?

Superalertkitty

Sleepycat

Pop Goes Felicity

This morning I took Felicity out of her case to squeeze in half an hour of practice before work. At my lesson yesterday, Charlene taught me the beginning of a polka and told me to keep practicing Mary/Lamb with the metronome, and also worked with me on better hand position. I was eager to practice all that.

Felicity had been in fine tune yesterday, and normally I only have to make slight adjustments each time I take her out of the case. This morning, the D, A, and E strings were fine, but the G string was a mess, so loose it was flopping against the fingerboard. Perplexed, I tried to tighten the pegs.

Big mistake. There was a loud crack, and the bridge went flying across the room.

Panicked, I called Charlene, who assured me with some amusement that I hadn't broken my violin, that this happens all the time and is easy for luthiers to fix. She said temperature changes can affect strings like that, although I don't know why the G string would be the only one affected. So I'll be taking Felicity into the shop tomorrow, since I didn't have time today.

This is the first day since starting lessons that I haven't practiced. But at least I had a really good excuse.

Da Boids! Da Boids!

Honest Critic

Today my sister Skyped me, and I had a nice chat with her and my mother. My sister showed me some masks she'd made in an art workshop. I played bits o' fiddle tunes for her and my mother.

I'd practiced a lot today -- two hours -- and was tired; that, and nervousness at being in front of an audience, even a virtual one, probably accounted for the fact that my never-too-polished technique was shakier than usual. I wobbled through Mary and her little lamb, and then said, "I'm sure I'll be better by the time I see you guys in December."

"Yes," my mother said politely, "that will be lucky for all of us."

Heh! Doesn't pull any punches, that one! She actually recognized my equally shaky rendition of "Good King Wenceslas," though, so there's hope.

I should add in my own defense that my sister had asked -- nay, demanded -- that I get out the violin. So it was a command performance. Bet they don't do that again. Bwah hah hah! (And pity the poor neighbors, since I haven't been using my practice mute lately.)

Future Knitting Project

Last year, after I posted about walking the labyrinth in San Francisco, a friend sent me a pewter finger labyrinth. (Thanks again, Danielle!) Tonight I was tracing it when I suddenly realized that a labyrinth would make a very cool double-knitting pattern. For ease of charting, I found the square labyrinth above, which will be easier to transfer to graph paper than some of the other versions.

I won't be getting to this anytime soon, but it would be a terrific -- if time-consuming and ambitious -- pattern for a prayer shawl or lap blanket. If I'd thought of it sooner, I'd have attempted to make a couple of these for Christmas gifts, but that won't be happening now. The project queue has just gotten longer, though.

Reno in 2011!

Reno is hosting the World Science Fiction Convention in 2011, and this weekend the bid committee flew in to look at the facilities and generally get a feel for the place. My friend Arthur Chenin invited me to a planning meeting this afternoon and a party this evening.

I felt a little out of place at the planning meeting, since I don't generally attend cons with large gaming, costuming and media elements. This WorldCon will also have an academic track, though, and that should be interesting, not to mention the fact that Gary and I look forward to catching up with many out-of-town friends. (Inez and Claire, we're holding spaces for you at Chez Palwick-Meyer. We're so glad neither of you is allergic to cats!) A lot of my students will be interested in the gaming and media events; unfortunately, WorldCon registration is expensive, and I don't know yet what the day rates will be. Someone tossed out the figure of $50, which is still a lot on a student budget. But I think maybe volunteers get discounts? At some cons they do, anyway. I need to ask about that.

I also just have to say that the Atlantis, one of the two main convention hotels -- and the one where we met today -- is already one of the most surreal spots on earth, even without costumed SF fans wandering around. I find all casinos jarring, with their chaotic color schemes and constant noise and blinking lights. Add an underwater/vaguely Caribbean theme and things get even stranger: a sushi bar plunked down in the middle of a bunch of slot machines; fake thatched huts which, from one floor up, look like segments of a sandworm, or possibly giant hairballs; a bunch of potted plants with a lifesized plastic lion lolling underneath them. I never knew lions were aquatic. Maybe the lion's responsible for the hairballs? Upstairs, in the suite where the party was held, I was very puzzled by strange, vaguely phallic projections on the arms of the chairs, until I viewed them from another angle and realized they were dolphins. (And I wasn't even drinking!)

The party was a lot of fun, with good company and nice snacks, including an excellent batch of cookies Gary baked this afternoon. I was especially moved by learning that someone on the committee reads my blog regularly and used to live near Hopewell Junction; she said she'd been hoping to meet Dad so they could talk about HJ, and told me how sorry she was that he'd died.

Me too.

Also, at the planning meeting I sat in front of a dapper fellow named Ben who wore a bow tie and looked awfully familiar. I kept thinking, "Is that Ben Yalow? It can't be. I remember Ben Yalow from my first Star Trek Convention in New York City in 1973."

He introduced himself at the party. He remembered me from when I lived in New York, although probably from my post-college days in the 80s. It was indeed Ben Yalow.

Wow. This is what's amazing about the science-fiction community: you can go to a party across the continent from where you grew up and run into someone you first encountered when you were twelve, and furthermore, you have a bunch of other people in common. Someone else at the party, a woman I met years ago -- in 1992 or thereabouts -- recently stayed with some old SF friends of mine, and gave me an update on them and their kids.

So I'm now a fully registered member of the convention, and hope to get to be on some programming. I'm sure I'll be reporting here periodically. Hard to believe that it's almost two years away!

In fiddle news, I've now sounded out credible versions of "Good King Wenceslas" and "All Creatures of Our God and King," although I have a lot of practicing to do to make them sound decent.

Playing Catch-Up

Yeah, I know. I'm really behind.

Wednesday was a gala day. I learned that I'll be getting a big fat royalty check from my story in The Living Dead, an anthology of tales about zombies. The book reprints my story "Beautiful Stuff," which you can also find in my collection The Fate of Mice. (Read my zombie story, along with ten other great stories that have nothing to do with zombies! Makes a great gift idea! Christmas is coming!)

To tell you the truth, I don't get the current zombie craze. As I've remarked to my fiction workshop, they're pretty boring monsters. But TLD has been selling like hotcakes, and as a result, my share of the royalties is not only more than I've made in royalties on my last three books -- not difficult, since they haven't earned royalties -- but is in fact more than my advance for The Fate of Mice. Oh, man. Of course, it doesn't hurt to be in a book with Clive Barker and Stephen King. But still.

So, yeah, we'll be getting a nice bunch o' zombie bucks. Also, Wednesday I learned that I'll be teaching my Tolkien course again in Spring 2011, this time as a semi-lecture course with a cap of fifty students (rather than the usual thirty-three), because the department's desperate to increase enrollments. Hey, just doing my bit to get us through the budget crisis . . . we'll see if this works, but whatever happens, I'll enjoy teaching Tolkien.

Yesterday I received my box o' sock-knitting goodies from Inez, who sent me a bunch of lovely KnitPicks DPNs, some nifty cardboard tubes for holding DPNs and the projects attached to them, four skeins of colorful sock yarn, and a handy little canvas project bag which you can hang from your wrist or from the arm of a chair. This is an extremely useful accessory in places like airplanes, where you want to make sure that your yarn doesn't fall onto the floor and unroll down the aisle, tripping flight attendants and wreaking havoc.

Yesterday I went to see my psychiatrist, who giggled a lot when I told her about fiddle lessons, but thinks they're probably good for me. Then I zipped over to Franklin's Crafts and spent some zombie bucks on fun boucle yarn to make Christmas stockings for three kids, all children of friends. Then I went to another doctor's appointment, this time at the sleep center, since my insurance company is saying they'll no longer pay for my CPAP if I don't have a repeat sleep test (I haven't had one since the first one six years ago). After asking me if I wouldn't like some surgery to remove excess tissue in my throat -- said surgery would leave me with a sore throat and difficulty swallowing for three weeks, and wouldn't even necessarily work, so I declined -- the good doc scheduled me for a sleep test in a few weeks. He also gave me a script for three Ambien so I'll be able to sleep that night, since last time that was a problem. (Hey, you try sleeping in a strange bed while you're wired with more gadgets than the space shuttle, especially when the other people in the sleep lab are snoring like chainsaws, since that's what gets folks into these places. Sleep labs need much better soundproofing than this one has.)

I said, "Ambien? Isn't that the stuff where you get up in your sleep, drive across the country, and eat a supermarket?"

"There can be some retrograde amnesia," the doctor said brightly, "but you won't do anything you wouldn't do ordinarily."

"Oh. Okay. You'd better hide the chocolate, then."

He laughed. "We will. We'll hide the chocolate."

Last night I went to Katharine's to knit and fiddle around with the fiddle. Katharine and Pamela were properly complimentary about my version of "Mary Had A Little Lamb," and even started teaching me "Simple Gifts," but Katharine's attempt to get me to play rhythm flopped. I got completely lost in all the competing notes. Hey, gimme a break: I've only been taking lessons for three weeks! So we knit and ate cookies instead.

Today, Gary and I headed up to scenic Truckee, California for lunch and shopping. He got some odds and ends at their kitchen store. I spent some more zombie bucks on a new skirt and pair of slacks -- both on significant sale -- and then we went to a new (to me) yarn store up there. I liked it a lot, and spent even more zombie bucks on yet another pair of DPNs (ebony, this time, and 7" long rather than the 6" ones from Inez) and yet more sock yarn for Gary. One of these days I'll knit a pair of socks that doesn't slide down around his ankles. I will! I will! I swear it! If it's the last thing I do, I'll never be hungry again!

Oh, wait. Wrong story.

I had a lot of fun practicing the fiddle this evening, largely because I decided not to use the practice mute. After warming up with TTLS and FJ (Frere Jacques), I launched into many successive versions of MHaLL, starting at 70 bpm and working up to, I think, 90. Charlene wants me to get to 100 with good tone. That probably won't happen this week, but I'm heading in the right direction. When I got too bored with Mary and her little lamb, I practiced "Simple Gifts" and "A Mighty Fortress is our God." They're much rougher than Mary or Jacques, let alone the dreaded TTLS, but Gary recognized "Simple Gifts," so I must be doing something right.

I'm going to try to learn some Christmas carols so I can play them for the Philly family when I'm there. I talked to my mother today and asked her if she had any requests. She said, "Not that I can think of, but maybe I will when you're here."

"When I'm there," I said, "your request will probably be for me to stop playing."

Next weekend is the one-year anniversary of Dad's arrival in Reno. Last night I cried some at Katharine's house. Today I got a little sad when Gary and I ate lunch in Truckee, because the restaurant we always to go there was one of Dad's favorites from previous visits, and he never got there after he moved to Reno.

Ah, well. I swam for fifty minutes before dinner. That should help my mood.

More Socks & Fiddle

Gary's second pair of hiking socks fit better than the first, although he's still concerned that the tops may be too loose. We won't know for sure until he takes them out on the trail, though.

Meanwhile, I had my third fiddle lesson today and actually learned a tune: "Mary Had a Little Lamb." The fingering would be easy, if getting my fingers where Charlene wants them didn't make me feel like my arm's being twisted out of its socket. If my left hand's doing what it should, my bow hold inevitably disintegrates, and when the bow hold's okay, the left hand's out of position, or I'm moving my shoulders too much, or my bow isn't straight. Plus my tone's cruddy, although I trust that will improve with practice.

I've ordered a metronome, which should arrive from Amazon on Thursday. Charlene wanted me to get one, because she says I'm trying to play faster than my brain can think. My homework's to start playing with the metronome at 70 bpm, and gradually get faster until I reach 100 bpm, maintaining good tone along the way. This may take a while!

Does anybody have any tips on how I can get my left hand into position without feeling like I'm trying to become Gumby?

Socks & Fiddle

Tiny updates:

First, the orange socks fit Marin perfectly. Yay!

Secondly, when Gary was hiking yesterday, I practiced the fiddle without the practice mute. The cats didn't sleep through this. Figaro came and rubbed frantically against my legs, and Harley yowled -- nay, yodelled -- downstairs.

From now on, I'll use the practice mute.

Toddlers!

After the animal blessing yesterday, I got together at a coffee house with my talented and delightful former writing students Jody and Christian Lindke, who are visiting from L.A. with their eighteen-month old twins, Nora and Cleo. We took over a corner of the coffee house, which quickly became festooned with toys, sippy cups and dropped food. Jody told me that at home, the family eats on the floor, so the girls were enchanted by dropping their food and watching it fall. Gravity! So much fun!

They also enjoyed the "buzzy bee" game, which I remember my father playing with me when I was small. It's the one where you make a buzzing noise while spiraling your index finger towards the baby's nose or stomach, which you then tickle. Both girls liked this a lot, and would lean towards my finger as it approached. At one point I played with both of them at once, and they both leaned their noses into my fingers. Cute!

They also like giving and getting kisses. And did I mention throwing things? When the throwing event was starting to reach Olympic proportions, we took them outside for a walk. Jody and Christian have baby harnesses and leashes; Jody said, "I was ambivalent about these before the girls were born, but they're absolutely essential now." We walked the babies to a nearby school athletic field, where they had great fun with some kickballs we found lying around. One of the twins also discovered a wet, muddy nerf football, which she carried by the simple expedient of biting it and holding it in her mouth, so she could also carry the kickball and her toys. Said Jody, with a sigh, "It's a really good thing we believe in strengthening their immune systems."

All in all, a thoroughly fun get-together. I hope they come back to Reno soon!

Blessing the Beasties

Yesterday we had our annual Blessing of the Animals at church, in honor of the Feast of St. Francis. There was a smaller numerical turnout than usual, but we got bigger animals, including a miniature donkey -- shown above with the goddaughter of some parishioners -- a mule and a horse.

I took this first picture (thanks to Gary for cropping it for me); the rest are all courtesy of Serwind Netzler, the husband of one of our priests, Sherryl. Our new part-time rector, Joe Duggan, co-blessed the animals with Sherryl.

Here's Sherryl with another of the great big critters. We've never had farm animals before, and they were a real treat. I especially appreciated the dark cross on the back of the donkey, who may be returning on Palm Sunday.

On the other hand, this year we had no birds, fish, lizards or snakes, who are usually all well represented. We missed them!

We did, however, get to pray over intrepid explorer Myrtle the Turtle, who lives with our friends Ned and Janet -- as well as a number of other turtles, both indoor and outdoor, fish and cats -- and who's a regular at the ceremony. Myrtle's surely the most blessed turtle in Northern Nevada, or possibly in the entire state. Look at her go! You can tell she's a turtle with a mission.

While nothing fazes Myrtle, Ned and Janet's cat Oscar looked considerably more uncomfortable. He was a trouper, though, and behaved admirably.

I don't bring our cats, because they'd panic and yowl, and would generally react as if they were being cursed, not blessed. Other years, I've brought photos of them to be blessed, but yesterday morning I was running late and didn't get a chance to print any out before I left the house.

Here are two adorable puppies. They were for sale, and I'd have loved to bring one of them home, but a) puppies are too much work and b) Gary intensely dislikes dogs. It was nice to have a chance to pat them, though. One was very friendly; the other was shy. I was told it was their first time outside.

It was a lovely event. I just hope we get more participants next year!

Happy October!

October's always been one of my favorite months, and when I offered to knit my friend Marin a pair of socks, she chose a color called October. I finished them today, fittingly enough. Gary took this photo; it's at a bit of an odd angle and makes the foot of the sock look longer than the leg, but actually, they're about equal in length. Also, to get good lighting he took these photos on our smooth-top stove, over which he'd laid a blanket, which is why you can see the bizarre chicken photo off to the right.

In case you can't make it out, the photo shows two clenched chicken feet sticking straight out of a cooking pot. My sister brought the picture back from college in the late sixties or early seventies, and my mother had it in her kitchen for years, and now we have it in ours. So it's a family heirloom. We're a bit weird, but you always knew that. And yes, the poor chicken obviously needs socks!

In other news, I went over to Katharine's to knit tonight, and she brought out the green fiddle, and she and Pamela -- who play violin and cello, respectively -- gave me some pointers. They decided that next week I should bring Felicity, as well as my knitting, and we'll all play together. What I can play with two notes (maybe three by then?) I don't know, but they said I can be the rhythm section. Anyway, we had great fun coming up with band names (Strange Strings? Seismic Strings?), and we named the green violin Verity. I told them that by next week, I expect the other instruments to have names, too.

Silly Strings? The Stringalongs?

Anyway, I was touched that they didn't wince too visibly when I played my two notes. Obviously women of great self-restraint! But they both are or have been music teachers, a field in which stoicism is a professional necessity.

Oh, Katharine confirmed Charlene's report that adults don't practice. Many of her adult voice students don't practice, either. She said, "They expect to get it all during their lessons."

Huh. Not me. I don't expect to get more than a quarter of it even with daily practice.

Fiddle Lesson #2

Today I learned how to use my nifty electronic tuner. I expect it will make my life much easier!

Today I was also officially allowed to touch bow to strings. Right now, we're concentrating on the A and E strings (and when we begin official TTLS practice, probably next week, it will be in A; I'd been playing it in G). My homework is to play a simple rhythm repeatedly on those strings, aiming for the best tone and form I can muster.

Charlene seems pleased with my progress. She says I'm a good student because I actually practice: evidently most adults don't! I was shocked. I thought not-practicing would be far more of a problem with kids than with grown-ups. She says, though, that while many older people are enthusiastic about learning to play, they simply don't put in the time. I told her I was practicing 30-60 minutes a day, and she said that's enough, that she wouldn't recommend more than that at this stage.

I mean, geez. Why spend the money on rental and lessons, and the time on lessons, if you aren't going to do the work?

Today I also made my plane reservations to fly back to Philly for Christmas. Gary, who's allergic both to travel and to family gatherings, will stay here to mind the cats and attend an annual chamber-music series we both enjoy, and that I'll be sorry to miss. He and I will have our own Christmas before we leave. I'll miss him, but my Mom's really looking forward to seeing me, and anyway I have to go for work, since I'm on a search committee that will be interviewing at the MLA.

Holiday catalogs are arriving already. I don't have time to knit for everyone this year, so I'm not sure what I'm going to do. Get people small fun stuff, probably.

Sigh. Remember when the madness used to start after Thanksgiving, not over a month before Halloween?

New Column Up

My latest Hope and Healing column, Going to Work, is up.

Happy reading!

Pretty Mellow, I'd Say

In a comment on my previous post, Inez asked how the cats are responding to the violin.

When the case came into the house, they all had to sniff it thoroughly. They've shown no inclination to climb inside it when it's open, although I don't plan to push my luck on that!

Bali went through a very brief period of thinking that the bow was a cat toy (because everything's a cat toy), but was easily dissauded. Good thing, that.

As for my playing -- if we can even grace it with that word -- the cats seem to be taking the noise in stride. Gary was at a movie this afternoon, so I took the opportunity to take Felicity downstairs and practice for an hour. I had the practice mute on so I wouldn't horrify the neighbors any more than necessary, but Harley was napping three feet away from me, in the pose shown above, and didn't twitch a whisker the entire time.

Of course, maybe he was just stunned into paralysis.

I'm becoming more confident with TTLS, and have now started sounding out A Mighty Fortress is Our God. It's great fun (for me, anyway!).

Buddha Kitty

I love it when they tuck their paws like that!

Katharine's Green Violin

Here's a picture our friend Stephanie took of me with Katharine's green violin, on the Saturday morning when the current madness began. (I'm typing this blog entry holding Felicity under my chin: practice practice practice!) Of course, I'm holding everything incorrectly; the photo's notable mainly because my shirt matches the instrument so nicely. But Gary likes the picture and scanned it for me, so I decided to post it.

Ecce Felis!

And yes, I know my Latin's probably wrong. You get the idea, though!

One of the reasons we fell in love with our house when we were house-shopping was the kitty mailbox out front, a yellow-and-brown striped tabby. (The former owner was nicknamed "Cat" but owned three dogs. Go figure.) The mailbox was perfect for us, and also served as a great landmark for guests trying to find our house. Over the years, though, the old mailbox faded and splintered. Recently, its tail broke off. So we decided to see if we could get another one.

An internet search turned up a company that will hand-paint a mailbox to look like your cat if you send them photos. So we sent them photos of the elegant Figaro, above.

And here's the mailbox, which arrived today. Naturally, it's a lot fatter than Figgy, because mailboxes aren't that long and skinny. But we're delighted with it, and especially with the metal whiskers. I couldn't stop smiling when I pulled into the driveway and saw it for the first time.

Rest in peace, old mailbox. Welcome, new mailbox!

Strange Day

I had a lot of strange dreams last night. I don't remember most of them, but the last one I had before I woke up stuck with me. In the dream, Dad's phone number was still programmed into my cellphone, and I dialed it by accident, and he answered. I was surprised, because he was dead, but we had a friendly chat. But he was vague and out of it -- pretty much the way he was the last few days of his life -- and couldn't really tell me where he was or how he was.

We didn't have much to talk about, since I couldn't get a coherent answer out of him. So I told him I had to go, and he said, sounding annoyed and plaintive, "Stay on the phone! Just talk to me for ten minutes!"

And then I woke up, feeling sad and guilty. While he was alive, he kept wanting to see more of me, to spend more quality time with me, but I was always running around coordinating medical care, trying to juggle his life on top of mine. We very rarely got the chance simply to visit. Now I regret that, although I'm not sure what else I could have done. But the dream left me feeling like I'd let him down, abandoned him, refused to honor his wishes.

Sad. Guilty.

Anyway, I spent the morning working at home, and then dashed to the gym for a quick swim before my first class. I had plenty of time, and ordinarily would have gotten to campus at least half an hour before the class started.

Instead, as I was leaving the gym, I managed to lock my keys and my cellphone inside my car. Aaaaargh! I raced back to the health club, used their phone to call AAA, raced back to the garage to wait for AAA, raced back to the gym, ten minutes after AAA should have arrived, to call work and have someone tell my class to start without me (it's a workshop class, so that's possible), and then raced back to the garage again and found AAA waiting for me.

I managed to get to class only about fifteen minutes late, and we got everything done I'd wanted to do, but it was still a discombobulating start to the workday.

And then, in my second class, only twelve of twenty students showed up. I know that several people were sick -- including someone who came to class and whom I sent home, with strict orders not to come back until he'd been fever-free for twenty-four hours -- but it was still an awfully low census. And that kind of situation raises difficult teaching issues: do you cover material all the students will need, even if almost half are missing, or do you veer from your lesson plan into "extra" stuff, or what? I wound up more or less doing the first, but I really wish more of them had been there.

Oh well.

On a happier note, I've now found a reasonably comfortable fiddle position -- although I think I'm still going to buy a gel chinrest -- and managed to keep Felicity anchored, with only minor hand adjustments, for sixteen minutes. Not bad! I just hope I was using the correct position; Gary wasn't sure. Felicity was parallel to the floor, but not along the same line as my back, if that makes sense. She was at an angle to my back.

I've been concentrating on the fiddle and really need to catch up with the bow. In the meantime, though, I've been disobeying instructions and touching bow to strings. Last night I figured out basic scales (my technique and tone both suck, but I'm getting some sense of how the instrument works), and even managed to scratch one out with my eyes closed, not looking at the tape markers on the fingerboard. And tonight I topped that by sounding out a very wobbly, scratchy version of the first bar or so of that infamous melody . . . the bane of violin students and their loved ones everywhere . . . the tune that sets neighborhood dogs howling and drives apartment dwellers mad . . . (drumroll, please), the dreaded "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star."

I've always hated "TTLS." I even threw a hissy fit when Charlene mentioned it last week, and made her promise that I'd get to start with something else instead. But having produced a scratchy, wobbly version of the first few notes, I now find I'm much fonder of it.

Funny how that works!

On a somber note again, I realized tonight, with a start, that the wood-and-varnish smell of the body of the fiddle reminds me a lot of how Dad's boat always smelled. The scroll, though, smells sweet and spicy, a bit like cinnamon. It reminds me of Christmas.

Felicity Fiddle

Today I met Charlene at the local music store. She liked the first violin we looked at, a brand-new Strobel I've now named Felicity Fiddle. While she and the luthier were chatting, I picked up Felicity and the bow to see if I could get a noise.

I did. It wasn't too awful, even. Charlene noted approvingly that I was very careful; Tim, the luthier, noted approvingly that I was playing with the edge of the hairs, which is evidently the correct technique.

My first lesson was also today, at Charlene's apartment. She showed me how to hold the fiddle and the bow, and gave me a CD of fiddle tunes played at various speeds. My homework this week is: a) to listen to the CD every available moment, b) to practice clamping the fiddle between my chin and left shoulder with no support from my left hand (Charlene deftly rigged up a sponge shoulder rest for me, holding it in place with a rubber band -- "rubber bands are a violinist's best friends!" -- and also gave me a flannel cleaning cloth to help cushion the chin rest), and c) to practice holding the bow the proper way, resting on the thumb and pivoting up and down with pressure applied from the index finger and pinkie. My bow is equipped with another rubber band to help me find the best place for my thumb, and with a Dr. Scholl's style corn cushion to remind me where exactly to put the tip of my pinkie.

Evidently I have a very strong pinkie, probably from typing. This is a good thing.

So I've been listening and practicing between grading. The hardest part is holding the fiddle; Charlene indicated that I should aim to hold it for ten minutes, but the best I've managed so far -- I know because I downloaded a stopwatch application for my Blackberry -- is three minutes and thirty seconds, and that was distinctly painful. The angle feels unnatural, and the chin rest is really hard even with cushioning: my jaw and teeth start aching after a few minutes. I'll probably invest in a gel chinrest, which should help a bit. I've already ordered a digital tuner, due to arrive tomorrow.

I'm told that if I practice diligently this week, I may get to touch bow to strings next. (I have to admit that I've been cheating a little.)

After I first dropped Felicity back home, I dashed off to a meeting. When I came back, Gary said he'd gotten a big sound out of the fiddle. He was quite thrilled.

My other problem is that, as someone with virtually no musical training (and what little I had was decades ago), I felt like Charlene was speaking a foreign language. Interval? Fifth? Huh? Over dinner tonight, Gary -- who took seven or eight years of piano and has also had music-theory courses -- patiently explained the basics to me. I didn't even know what an octave was! He recommended that I either take a beginning music-theory course or invest in some variety of "Music Theory for Dummies" book. (I've now ordered that very item from Amazon.)

So this is going to be a lot of work. But I knew that!

Six Months

This weekend, I reminded my sister that today was the six-month anniversary of Dad's death. This morning, as I was frantically doing class prep I hadn't gotten done over the weekend -- probably an unconscious maneuver to keep busy today -- my phone rang, and it was my sister.

I told her I couldn't talk and she said, "But it's the six-month anniversary of Dad's death! And you're the one who reminded me!"

I'd honestly forgotten.

So of course then I said I could talk, and we got wistful for a few minutes and cried a little, and then I went back to frantic prep.

The rest of the day went fine, because I was too busy to be sad. I'm basically okay now, too. But it's weird to think that a year ago today, I was blogging about cell phones for Dad and Fran and planning for their arrival.

None of that went anything like we expected. I just wish Dad had gotten to have more fun here.

On a brighter note, I'm meeting Charlene at the music store tomorrow morning. We hope to find a rental fiddle that meets her specifications. Dad loved music, so I think he'd be pleased by this development (although he might grouse about its interfering with my writing). My mother's very intrigued by it, too. Anything that perks my mother's interest automatically makes me feel better!

Knitting Update

I'm currently in the middle of three pairs of socks, which is a little ridiculous. I'm working on a second pair of hiking socks for Gary, and I'm still only midway through my friend Marin's second sock, and last night I finished my first Puffy Purple Sock, shown above, for myself. As you can see, this is a very silly high-concept sock, but it actually fits well and is comfortable. It's not exactly practical -- it won't fit into most of my shoes -- but it will be great to wear with slippers in the winter.

On this sock, I tried Russian Bind-Off for the first time, since it reputedly produces a very stretchy edge. And so it does, but I got part of it backwards, which is why the top looks a bit messy. It fits like a charm, though! I need to frog the bind-off on Marin's first sock and replace it with Russian, but I'm having trouble seeing how to frog my previous bind-off, and will need expert assistance.

I'm knitting her socks on #2 DPNs. I'd been using bamboo needles, whih were as sharp as barbecue skewers and hurt my hands when I knit with them. Yesterday I spent part of my LYS gift certificate (the one from my sister) on Brittany DPNs, which have a blunter tip. What a difference! I think Marin's socks will progress more quickly now that I have more comfortable needles.

Oh, yesterday I think I also solved a technical probem I'd been having with double knitting. I hope I solved it, anyway. I feel confident enough, though, to start an actual beginner project. But only after I finish the socks!

Mood Update

I've been a gloomy camper this weekend, thanks largely to the fact that I haven't exercised. This afternoon I swam for an hour and I'm already feeling better, so I hope the upward trend continues!

Tomorrow's the six-month anniversary of Dad's death, and I'm sure that's a factor. My sister was having a hard time earlier this weekend, but she's doing better now. I can't believe that a year ago, Dad wasn't even here yet, and I was running around feverishly preparing for his arrival.

The weather was gorgeous today -- it's finally starting to feel like maybe fall's actually coming -- and Dad would have loved it. He never got to enjoy weather like this here. It makes me sad.

Fiddle Update

Yeah, I know, I've been a slug and haven't been posting. Mea culpa!

On Thursday night, Gary and Katharine and I went to hear Charlene and a friend of hers play at a local pub. She's an amazing fiddler, and her friend's pretty amazing on guitar, too. Unfortunately, the sound system was absolutely dismal, so we couldn't hear anything, even though we were directly in front of the stage. And most people at the pub had come to drink beer and talk -- or scream, given the noise level -- so that didn't help our ability to appreciate the music. But we all enjoyed meeting Charlene's husband Josh, who's charming, and two of their friends also joined us, and we were all blown away by the bit of Charlene's playing we could actually hear. We left early, though, because the bar din was really getting to us. We're all too old for that!

Charlene and I'd originally planned to meet up at the music store today so I could rent an instrument (if we can find one she's happy with), but it turns out they're closed today, so we're going to try for sometime else this week, as soon as she figures out her work schedule.

As soon as anything happens, I'll let you know.

MY Chair

Chasing Light

The cats love chasing the reflection from my father's watch.

Another New Project!

Woo-hoo! Charlene Adzima responded to my e-mail and is willing to take me on as a student (if we can find a workable time, since she usually teaches on Wednesday afternoons, when I'm teaching my own classes). I'm quite thrilled. I downloaded her album yesterday and love it, and she works at the University and lives and teaches not far from our house, so it all seems quite providential. And I've discovered that I can rent a student violin for a reasonable rate from our local music store.

This remains an insane undertaking on several levels, of course, and various friends and family seem alarmed, or at least very badly puzzled. I can't blame them. But I figure the worst that can happen is that I'll make a fool of myself, and hey, that's not so new!

Gary said, "You do realize you'll have to spend less time on knitting?" Yes, dear. I'm also concerned about when I'll practice; my best time would ordinarily, probably, be first thing in the morning, but I don't want to wake Gary up. If he's already up, he can wear headphones and listen to his own music.

He said, "Hey, I'll sleep on the deck."

I said, "Sweetie, if I'm as bad as I think I'll be, you'll need to sleep in another state."

There are gizmos called "practice muters" that allow you to play really quietly, to protect the ears and sanity of loved ones and neighbors. I may need to invest in one of those.

The upside of this is that music training late in life, especially on a mondo-difficult instrument like the violin, supposedly helps prevent dementia. So I'm not embarking on an ill-advised, impractical new hobby; I'm safeguarding my health!

Yet Another New Project?

This balloon touched down in the gully behind Katharine's house this morning, and Gary got this great shot. Otherwise, it was a so-so balloon year: most of them were moving away from us, and they were backlit by the sun, so we couldn't get great photos. Nertz! But we were with a bunch of good friends and there were four adorable kids in attendance -- who especially enjoyed the fact that one balloon came close, of course -- and the food was great, so we had a thoroughly good time anyway.

A strange thing happened to me, though. I love music, but I've never been very musical myself. Gary thinks I have a better ear than I think I do, but my three years of flute in junior high didn't do much for me (nor was I very good at it), and I've never particularly wanted to play any other instrument, except maybe guitar, but even that not seriously.

A lot of our friends are musicians, though. Katharine's a fabulous soprano and runs the Vocal Studies Program at UNR; Jim's a world-class pianist; and our friend Stephanie's a brilliant violinist who runs the Orchestral Studies Program at UNR. Katharine also plays violin, and Jim also plays cello, and Pamela plays a stringed instrument too, although I can't remember which at the moment (viola, maybe?), and Stephanie picked up viola when she started the UNR job two years ago and, of course, immediately played it beautifully. And Stephanie and her husband (also named Gary) have made sure that their two daughters have musical training: one studies violin and the other flute, at the ages of ten and eight. Meanwhile, my Gary's listened to thousands of hours of classical music and can discuss it in language I don't even begin to understand.

I feel very intimidated in this company. I'm delighted to serve as an outside member on music masters' committees, and I can tell a spot-on performance from a shaky one, but I don't pretend to any expertise.

Okay, so. Katharine and Jim recently returned from the Telluride Festival, where Katharine purchased a painted violin covered with pretty green leaves. She knew her granddaughter Pippa (who's five or six now? I lose track) would love it, but she made sure it would play, too. So this morning she held Pippa's hand and helped her move the bow across the strings and play "Twinkle, Twinkle."

When they were done, I asked Katharine if I could see the violin. Then I asked if I could hold the bow. Then I tried to produce a note, although I didn't even attempt to hold the instrument correctly. Jim laughed at me and said, "Now you know why I play the cello; it's a much more natural playing position!"

As far as I know, I've never even held a violin before. Violin's not even my favorite instrument; cello is. But I got a note, or several notes, from the strings. It's hard to describe the sensation. I felt as if the violin was alive, an animal I was stroking with the bow to coax it into speaking. I was very conscious of having to be gentle. And when I got a satisfying noise, a thrill ran through me.

Katharine laughed and took the violin back so she and Pippa could play with it some more. The rest of us wandered out into the backyard to look at the distant balloons. My skin was still thrumming from the violin. I said casually to Stephanie, "So are there, like, cheap beginner violins? Plastic ones, maybe?"

"You want wood," Jim told me, and Stephanie said that I could get a decent novice violin for $100, a figure that made me blanch even though I've spent it on yarn plenty of times, and will do so again. Yarn makes useful things for people, though.

"I'm forty-nine," I told her. "I mean, it's not like I'm really going to learn to play the violin!" I just wanted to coax the animal into speaking again.

When we got home, I did internet research. You can indeed get a beginner violin for about $100, but every source I've read recommends renting instead. We have a good music store in town, and I'm sure they rent instruments. But I have absolutely no interest in learning classical violin. What I love the most is Celtic fiddle music and bluegrass: folk styles, not classical.

A few Google searches later, I discovered a Celtic fiddler who lives in Reno and who, supposedly, gives lessons. I've e-mailed her to see if I might be able to take some. This is a crazy, crazy idea, right? Right? I don't have enough to do? What am I thinking? And although adult learners aren't that uncommon, violin's a notoriously difficult instrument.

But I'm not sure I've ever felt the way that violin made me feel. (Yep, the first one's free.) At some point this morning, Stephanie commented that I must have some kind of aptitude even to get a note from the violin the first time I touched it, since not everyone can do that. I have very low goals, though. I don't expect, or even want, to get good enough to perform. If I spend five years practicing scales and then give up, I'll have had fun along the way, and if I manage to pick out a fiddle tune or two, that will be even better.

And maybe this lady won't even get back to me, or won't want to take on a menopausal novice. Rationally, I know that might be best of all. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, I got the car smogged, renewed my registration, and am making some grading progress. So the day wasn't entirely wasted in bizarre midlife artistic fantasies.

9/11

We woke up early this morning to watch the balloon races, but none of the hot-air balloons floated over our house. Darn! Not much wind this morning, so they more or less stayed where they were.

We did hear roaring engine noises, though, and looked out a window to see small planes flying in formation overhead. I'm not sure if this weekend is also the Air Races in Stead, or if those are next weekend (and I'm too tired and lazy right now to look it up!) but this was clearly connected somehow to that event.

As I told Gary, "Hearing very loud airplane engine noises that sound like they're heading straight for your house just isn't an experience you want on 9/11." Or any other day, really. But today especially.

Tomorrow morning we'll wake up early again -- not a natural situation for either of us! -- to go to Katharine's annual Balloon Party.

Meanwhile, my to-do list is getting longer, even though I've been able to cross off several items. My car registration expires in a week, and although we have very convenient online registration here, I do have to have the car smogged, and I just haven't been able to get that done. And yesterday my insurance company sent us a letter saying that they won't pay for my CPAP unless I have another sleep study, since my last one was six years ago. Groan.

These are very minor problems, I know, and I'm grateful. (For one thing, I have insurance, even though it's paying for less and less.) But there are so many minor problems! Twenty items on the to-do list, to be exact, and that doesn't include teaching or grading or committee work, all of which are constant presences. I feel like I'm surrounded by a swarm of stinging gnats.

One of the twenty items is mandatory training for hospital volunteers. We used to fill out short questionnaires every year to show that we knew what to do in case of fire, understood basic stuff about patient privacy and preventing falls, and so forth. The quizzes were annoying, but painless. But a few days ago, I got a letter informing me that all volunteers are required to undergo sixteen-plus hours of on-site training -- during weekday work times, mind you! -- by September 30. Since we volunteer four hours a week, that meant they were asking for more than a month's time commitment on less than a month's notice. I went to talk to the volunteer coordinator and found several people in her office venting about the same thing. It wasn't her fault, poor woman: this was handed down from On High, and she didn't have much more notice than we did.

The upshot was that I got permission to do the training online. Yay! The hospital sent me website instructions. Yay! I got onto the website without any problem. Yay! None of the twenty-four training modules I need to take are there. Boo!

I've e-mailed the education person at the hospital (hello? y'know those mandatory courses? um, where are they?), but haven't heard back yet. I'm pretty sure I can complete the supposed sixteen hours of training-and-quizzes in substantially less than sixteen hours. Even if I can't, at least I'll be in the comfort of my own home. But this particular bit of bureaucracy is still an unwelcome addition to the to-do list, particularly at a time when I'm trying to take a break from the hospital.

Oh well.

Kvetch, kvetch, kvetch.

Repeat after me: It will all get done somehow. It always does.

Puss 'N' Boots

Art Critic

By the way, that's another Walter Anderson print he's looking at.

Work in Progress

Right now I'm working on two pairs of socks: some orange cotton lace ones for my friend Marin, and a pair of funny purple puffy woolen ones for me. I'd hoped to post pictures tonight, but none came out properly.

I also lost a great chance to get a hilarious video of Bali attacking my knitting. Instead of filming, I got the yarn away from him so he wouldn't bite through it, as he's done before. When I find weak places in the yarn, it's usually because he's been gnawing on it, although I've seen no sign yet that he's actually eaten any of the stuff, which could be very dangerous.

The new novel, formerly known as TSWP, progresses apace, although it hasn't yet been offered a home. Ah, well. If anything ever happens on that front, I'll post more details. Right now, I'm just trying to write a page or two a day so I don't lose heart. It's not genre -- or not very genre, anyway, although there are hints of magical realism -- and I really hope somebody buys it.

In local news, there was a massive power outage at UNR this evening, in the middle of one of my classes, but I believe it's been fixed now (the website's back up, anyway).

And tomorrow I have acres of work to do. Good night!

Taking a Break

So I saw my psychiatrist today, as advertised. She's upping my meds dosage, unless a) my insurance won't pay for it (the pharmacy's checking on that) or b) I have side effects, in which case she'll bump the current med back down and augment it with something else.

In the meantime, I'm taking another sabbatical from the hospital. She advised me to take a month to regain my energy, but I'm extending that to Halloween, since I have a lot going on in October.

To tell you the truth, I'm a little relieved (although I also feel like a wimp). I love volunteering at the hospital, but it's also exhausting -- especially on Saturday mornings, when I'd rather be sleeping in -- and I'm sufficently drained at the moment that I don't feel very useful anyway. Time to recharge the batteries.

I showed the good doc my to-do list; she shook her head and said, "I'm tired just looking at that."

Indeed.

Forty-Niner

I'm forty-nine today. It hasn't been the most riotous birthday; I've been feeling really down for a couple of weeks now, so much so that I'm seeing my shrink tomorrow, almost a month early, to see if I can get my meds bumped up. I've never done that before, and I hate to do it now, but I need to function, and I'm falling farther and farther behind. The to-do list is really scary, in through here. It would also be nice to stop feeling completely inadequate in every aspect of my life. Intellectually, I know I'm not -- although my memory's been so bad that I've been spacing appointments and meetings -- but my neurotransmitters need some convincing.

Despite my lethargy, there were certainly some lovely birthday moments. I video-skyped with my sister and mother, who held up a candle and sang "Happy Birthday," and Gary gave me great presents: two knitting books I wanted (one on double knitting and one on mosaic knitting, although the projects they describe are currently beyond me), a PBS video following seven doctors through training and practice, and a large, hand-colored print of two elephants from a Walter Anderson design. Anderson's the artist from Ocean Springs whose work my father loved; Dad lived two blocks from the Walter Anderson Museum, and Liz and I both gave him Anderson posters to decorate his apartment down there. I have both of those now, but Gary decided we needed more Anderson artwork, so he ordered the elephants. One of Anderson's descendents printed the silksceen; they're an Ocean Springs dynasty.

A little while ago, I suddenly sat bolt upright, said, "Oh, my God!" and raced into Gary's study. "You gave me the elephants because of Dad, right?"

He looked at me like I'd grown two heads. "I gave them to you because I know your father liked Anderson, but I picked the elephants just because I liked the design. Why are elephants important?"

"Remember when I went down to Ocean Springs after Dad's quadruple bypass in 2001? I asked him what he wanted for Christmas and he said, 'A baby elephant,' so I got him all sorts of elephant stuff, remember?"

"Oh, yeah! The elephant bells hanging downstairs."

"And the elephant keychain. And the stuffed elephant in my study. And the elephant mug I sent Liz." Somewhere in the garage, there's also a watercolor of a grown elephant with a baby elephant.

"Huh," Gary said. "Well, I knew about the Anderson connection, but the elephants were just a lucky accident."

Accident or providence, the elephants comfort me. They feel like a Happy Birthday message from Dad, as well as from Gary.

All Hail to the Birthday Cat!

Figaro is five years old today. The time goes so quickly!

Happy Birthday, Figgle-wiggle!

Stretch

September

Today feels like the end of summer, even though that doesn't really happen until September 21.

Last night Gary was talking about the U.S. Tennis Open, and I suddenly teared up because I remembered that when I was sixteen or so, during a very brief interest in tennis, my father got us tickets to the Open as my birthday present.

He always called me on my birthday (9/7), but last year, he didn't, so I called him instead. I could tell that he didn't remember that it was my birthday, so I reminded him, gently. He was horrified that he'd forgotten. A few days later, I got a card that said, in his shaky writing, "I love you even when I don't remember how old you are." I still have it around here somewhere, the lsat birthday card I'll ever get from my father.

Okay. Now I'm getting maudlin.

But still, it seems to me that the first birthday without a parent is a very strange occasion, since our parents are the people who make our birthdays possible. It's going to be a bittersweet day. I know he'd be happy I'm having another birthday, and would want me to have many, many more of them -- as I hope I do, too! -- but I still wish he could share it with me. (And I'm crying as I write this . . . told you I was maudlin!)

On a happier note, today's mail brought my birthday gift from my sister: a generous gift certificate to my favorite local yarn store, Deluxe Yarn Etc., an independent shop run by a retired nurse. A few days ago, Liz asked me for a list of the yarn stores here, and I didn't think anything of it. Evidently she e-mailed DYE and explained that she lived across the country and wanted to get her sister a gift certificate. She didn't mention my name, and her name's hyphenated with her husband's, but the owner, Florrie Kersey, must have recognized the "Palwick" part. She e-mailed right back and said, "I know your sister well! Call me!"

When I told Gary this story, he laughed and said, "Are you kidding? You're part of her Platinum Club!"

I said, "Oh, no. Lots of people spend much more money there than I do, believe me!"

My mother's sending a check, because she can't get out to shop anymore. I'll do my best to pick out something she'd want me to have, probably a piece of jewelry (not that I don't already have more than enough!).

I'm sure it will be a lovely birthday, especially since it's a teaching holiday. But I miss my Dad.